Post by: bvanevery on March 01, 2019, 08:06:05 PM
After taking over, I identified the worst offending city. I certainly didn't see anything doing 25 eco-damage before.
Then I switched it back. Eco-damage drops by a factor of 3X!
The game cheats like a mad dog. For eco-damage, it gives special dispensation to the AI factions. Now in the stock game, not such a big deal, since the AI isn't that good at terraforming. But Thinker mod is built to exploit terraforming to the hilt. I will say unwittingly, it has leveraged a huge exploit in the AI's favor.
So now I'm going to test, just how bad is it? I will try to ape the AI play style of Thinker mod. I'm going to get eco-damage, mindworms, and flooding that the AI won't. Can I survive it? Can I thrive? Just how bad is a 3X eco-damage difference anyways? And if I do survive, are my choices so severely constrained that it's not basically a fun game to play anymore?
I will be using my SMACX AI Growth mod for this test. I'm going to stack the deck in my favor by picking a PLANET friendly faction, to minimize my inherent eco-damage. That's either the Gaians or the Cult of Planet. Narratively, the Cult of Planet is the completely cynical and righteous way to do this! Cha Dawn could easily be a big fat liar and totally willing to build as many boreholes as will make him rich. Sounds like a recipe for my total ultimate success. Mindworms away!
I will put the Pirates in the game, because they are clearly the benchmark for economic runaway in my mod. Unlike the stock game, they are Passive and pursue Wealth. Well, sitting back and availing yourself of all those free sea minerals, that nobody else gets, is a super strategy. It's so super, that I've made the least mods to the Pirate abilities of any faction. Sea minerals are that good!
And, if the world floods, the Pirates will be there to benefit greatly. Double reason to have them.
Otherwise, factions are selected at random. Huge map, 30%..50% land mass, average settings, Transcend difficulty. My world generator has much more continental land masses, no tiny islands, and always plenty of ocean for Pirates to expand into. Thinker mod also improves faction initial placement so that they don't immediately step on each other's toes.
The Hive, Gaians, Caretakers, Usurpers, and Data Angels show up in the game. I know the Angels are particularly dangerous when multiple factions are going gangbusters, such as will happen in Thinker mod. In my mod, they get any techs known to 3 factions, without needing to infiltrate them. It was never fair to make the AI factions infiltrate because they could never do it in the real world, so I made it easier for them.
The Hive is dangerous because in my mod, they start with +1 POLICE. Once they learn Police State they can do +3 POLICE and get 2x effective police units. They can make really big cities that way, no need for expensive infrastructure. Justice penalties (Efficiency by any other name) are painful, but they've got the police to suppress everything.
I don't know how well the Gaians will do. They're not weak, they get free Biology Labs in my mod, but they haven't been especially impressive in 2 previous plays of Thinker mod. That falls to the Pirates. So in this scenario, I expect the Pirates and the Angels to be the dominant factions, possibly the Hive but unsure.
Unless of course I am way cool! All your mindworm are belong to us.
Post by: bvanevery on March 01, 2019, 08:16:41 PM
my precious borehole |
I have started next to the Borehole Complex. I will endeavor to exploit them ruthlessly. I have shamelessly blown off the default faction research priorities in favor of Build. I've also decided I'll be none too picky about colony spread, apeing more of the Thinker mod Infinite City Sprawl style of city placement. I observed that at least on rainy land, cities could get pretty big without having a perfect spread radius. And Condensers can make any land into rainy land.
Post by: bvanevery on March 01, 2019, 08:48:23 PM
MY 2129. I encounter the Data Angels' probe team to the west. We sign a Treaty and they offer the commlink of the Hive. We trade techs and sign a Pact. We're all on a large "dogleg" land mass. The Data Angels have possession of the Garland Crater. The Hive is south of them. I am far to the northeast of both.
MY 2131. I have met the Usurpers to the east, but we can't talk yet. I sign a Pact with the Data Angels and buy Doctrine: Flexibility from them.
MY 2133. Popping a pod, I manage to compete a Rover Former prototype. I had this weird city that wanted to work a Borehole and didn't have any food for growth. So I just set the prototype up, hoping it would complete at some point.
MY 2136. Roze obtains a map of Usurper territory. They're on a big land sprawl east of me. No one else sighted. The Usurpers are the dominant power on the graph and I am in last place.
Post by: bvanevery on March 01, 2019, 09:04:01 PM
a nexus of conflict |
MY 2143. I have found the Manifold Nexus. Something to fight over. My colony spreading has been slow due to lack of food. That will change soon as I did pop some nutrients.
I feel my settlement pattern has been dictated by the Borehole Complex and nearby resources, rather than any a priori notion of ICS. Covering nutrients and minerals with 1 city is the priority. Otherwise one just ends up with a borehole or big mine that can't be worked for lack of food.
Post by: bvanevery on March 01, 2019, 09:20:03 PM
cheating or something else |
Ok, I'm in a bit of wonderment at the Usurper colony spread pattern. I know they start with 3 colony pods, but 13 cities? I've got 4. Roze has 6. Yang has 10. I do have 1 city that hasn't produced any food at all.
Post by: bvanevery on March 01, 2019, 10:23:48 PM
MY 2160. I sign a Pact with the Pirates.
not the game I wanted to test |
MY 2163. This is boring. I didn't want to test whether I could make war with an overpowered neighbor. How the hell is he managing 19 cities in such a short period of time? I need to get clarity on those nutrient modifiers. This is a reality of Thinker mod quite apart from eco-damage. The Usurpers are simply going nuts and I need to know why.
Roze has 10 cities. Yang has 14. Pirates have 9. I only have 7 but they are well placed for resources. Well they would be, if Marr wasn't about to wipe one of them. Hope mindworm intervention is sufficient. I can't make them yet, they're just some field units I sent home.
I'm clearly not going to get to sit around and build anything. Switching to Explore, to get mindworm tech.
Actually, no, I'm just quitting. I think there is something "wrong" with the Usurpers having this much of an early spread advantage. I'm not sure what. Last time around, I figured out that the game is cheating about eco-damage. Maybe something else is going on here.
Post by: bvanevery on March 01, 2019, 11:50:45 PM
Usurpers are Fundamentalist Simple Survival. In my mod they get +1 GROWTH for Simple economy. If they hadn't chosen some Politics, they would have gotten -1 GROWTH from Frontier to balance that out, but they've chosen Fundamentalist. Usurpers have a pure Conquer focus. They do directed research, but will presumably pick Conquery stuff more than anything else. Their tech doesn't look aberrant at all from other games I've played, they seem to be researching Conquer stuff like expected.
The Caretakers also have 19 cities. The Caretakers and Usurpers are on the same large North-South land mass. The Usurpers are way in the north, the Caretakers are way in the south, and the Monsoon Jungle is midway between them. Possibly, they might come into direct land conflict eventually. The Pirates might encroach into the middle and gain the Monsoon Jungle, seeing as how they're more land oriented in Thinker mod than the stock binary.
The Gaians have a long east-west island to themselves, south of the Hive. They have 12 cities.
The simplest explanation is that having the Aliens start with 3 colony pods, is overpowered in Thinker mod. In the stock game, it is not a problem because the AI is not that competent about early spread. Add competence, and now the Aliens have 50% better starting empires than anyone else. Starting a few turns later clearly doesn't offset this.
The AI continues to multiply the advantage and just clobbers people. Bear in mind, in my mod I seriously defanged the Aliens as well. They are no more powerful than any other faction. Yet now, the simple fact of starting with 3 colony pods, turns them back into monsters.
A workaround is not to play the game with Aliens in it. That is unsatisfying.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 12:13:12 AM
Caretaker AI nutrients with Thinker mod |
The Caretaker capitol is size 2. The nutrient requirements are 3 rows, 7 nutrients per row. That's in synch with Induktio saying the "cost factor" on Transcend is 7.
my nutrients with Thinker mod |
My own capitol's nutrients are 3 rows, 10 nutrients per row. That's consistent with my "cost factor" being 10. That's 100%, "normal" cost. Caretakers only pay 70% cost because I'm playing on Transcend.
I save the game, quit, and open it again using the stock binary and my SMACX AI Growth mod. The screenshots for nutrients are identical. Just to be doubly sure, I inspect size 2 cities in some other saved games that used the stock binary, just in case anything could be put in the .sav file to mess with stuff. My cities vs. AI cities is exactly the same. So, Induktio is correct, he's implemented the same behavior and proportions as the stock binary.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 12:31:53 AM
If I played on Librarian difficulty, the cost factor would be back to 100%. However it also makes drones way easier to manage, and I don't want that. I want the same rules I've been playing with on Transcend all these years, just no resource buffs. Best course of action is to change the cost_factor entry from 7 to 10 in thinker.ini.
I don't know if RESEARCH speed is affected by this setting.
At the time of this writing, the AI will still be unfairly blessed with a 3X eco-damage reduction. So, playing against it could still suck. But at least it won't double suck, with buffs piled upon buffs.
Alien spread could still suck, due to 3 starting colony pods. We'll see. If it does, then I'll play without Aliens, until it is addressed somehow.
After changing thinker.ini, I load a saved game to verify that the new setting actually takes effect. It does. AI rows for nutrients are now 10 by default. I notice that adding a Children's Creche reduces a row's length by 2. In other words, equivalent to +2 GROWTH. GROWTH modifiers also shorten the rows by whatever the social engineering settings are. Everything looks ok to retry my debacle.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 01:15:29 AM
MY 2108. I'm only settling my capitol now. Had some pods to pop. Got an artifact and a monolith. 2nd colonist is heading for the nearby Garland Crater.
MY 2113. I settle on the outer rim of the Crater. I couldn't remember if settling the exact center of the Crater was minerals efficient or not. That's what you do with Mt. Planet, as you can't otherwise modify the mouth of a volcano. So, my colony cranking is not great at this point, but my area spread is good.
MY 2115. Usurper Scout. Joy. Well I'm not repeating what happened last time.
MY 2119. Near the Usurper Scout, I walk into some fungus and stir up a mindworm larva. I have odds verification on all the time, so I use the exploit of trying to capture it. If capture fails, you get the odds verification, and a chance to call off the assault. I back off, hoping the larva will go after the Usurper Scout on an adjacent fungal patch instead of me.
MY 2120. The larva doesn't go after either of us. It just mills. I will ignore it and get away. Maybe it will yet attack the Usurpers.
MY 2121. Looks like there was a fight. I see 2 Cloaked Usurper Scouts now. In my mod, you get cloaks from Field Modulation. Aliens start the game with this capability. I think it fits the lore. I also think cloaks are pretty useless, at least in the hands of the stock AI. I did add a Cloaked Laser Rover predefined unit to my mod, and the AI does make somewhat annoying use of that unit throughout the game. They can show up and randomly kill Formers and such. Cloaked Scouts are far less dangerous, but a quirk is, you can't stop them from advancing towards you. Not without a whole lot of covering units.
It's probably in my best interest to get Synthmetal Armor ready immediately. In my mod, prototypes are very expensive, 3X usual cost. Getting prototypes done is a real problem, especially at the beginning of the game like this. I could pop an Artifact, that's a reliable way to do it. Another way is to start production on a prototype and hope that popping a pod completes it.
I'm going to try that. I dutifully design the armored Scout Skirmisher, which doesn't actually cost any more than a Scout Rover and would get both armor and the Speeder chassis done. I hope my choice doesn't turn out to be foolish, with only 2 cities so far and a 3rd about to be settled. But there are a lot of pods in the area, and I'll only have a "front line" of pods with any particular city for so long.
MY 2124. It worked!
MY 2125. In fact, it worked a 2nd time. I forgot to change production before popping another pod. I can actually use 2 of these things, I'm not complaining.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 01:33:18 AM
you are most unwelcome |
MY 2132. Marr shows up with a Battle Ogre in my home territory. I'm not at all happy about that. It might pass through, but I can't take the chance of letting it get next to my cities. At least Ogres are wimpier in my mod than in the stock game. Resonance Lasers are only strength 3 in my mod. Ogres have pretty good armor and anti-mindworm buffs, but even just 2 wild mindworms will generally take an Ogre apart. If I can get it to wander on, it'll die in the wild somewhere.
Thinking about it, cities do function as strong points in my mod. I already have an untrained Synthmetal Scout in 1 city, and I can put one in the other city now too. Probably best to see if he'll walk right between my cities. If he does attack a city, he'll probably take a lot of damage, about the best I could expect. Getting a Sensor Array done will help as well, if he doesn't attack immediately.
I feel threatened, so instead of continuing with colony pods, I start a Command Center in my capitol, and a Transport on my coastal base. That leaves me with only 1 city at the Garland Crater producing a colony. It'll have to carry the empire. This is the stress reality of having a dangerous neighbor right on top of me. And knowing there's a 2nd nearby. It's not really what I expect on a Huge map, but it can happen.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 01:57:31 AM
MY 2135. The Ogre appears to be heading south.
oh it's tempting |
MY 2137. I have the opportunity to walk in on the Usurper capitol. Should I? Part of me wants to know if the Usurpers are "all that" when they have to pay the same minerals and nutrients that I do. I'm going to leave them alone. The graph says we're nearly equal in power, and I'd make a better offense connecting all my cities together.
MY 2139. For a time, I forgot that Santiago could be a tech trading partner. But now she's Seething so I guess not!
quit yer scoutin |
MY 2141. A Cloaked Scout is still in my backyard. Well I've got a Scout in his backyard too. I guess it's fair. Better than an Ogre. I've got a solid defense against Scouts now.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 02:13:05 AM
Planet 1 Usurpers 0 |
MY 2144. I think the Ogre killed itself on a fungal tower. I thought about having a followup to kill it myself, but I've been too busy either exploring or defending. Some other time.
MY 2145. Santiago and I trade techs and sign a Pact. I've got the Usurpers completely behind the 8 ball, so they could get hostile. I'd like to have a safe rear when wiping them out.
MY 2146. I mistake a Spartan probe team for the Data Angels. My bad. Guess there gonna get some intel on the Usurpers. Not a bad idea, but I've been too busy with other stuff.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 02:58:37 AM
MY 2162. I finally learn Progenitor Psych. Let's see what my neighbors have to say for themselves! Hmm, ignoring my transmissions. Mkaaaay...
I've all but emptied this continent of supply pods. I have a fair amount of money. I don't particularly have anything worth spending it on, so I'm just hoarding. Except for the chunk of change I loaned to Santiago. I'm starting to build Recreation Commons to boost my workers and productivity. I think I've got enough cities to keep the Usurpers at bay. I haven't brought most of my mindworms back, so I only have a limited number of worm police. Many are now trying to explore the poles.
and here it is |
MY 2163. That was pathetic. They couldn't even scratch my Scout. The AI may not understand that the Sensor Array bonus is 50% in my mod. However, it should understand that standing on a forest gives me extra defense. Once my mindworms get back, these guys are gonna be so dead. Well, probably not offensively dead, but anything they send against me is gonna be suicide for them.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 03:38:11 AM
MY 2166. Note to the smart ones of the class. Do not attack a Synthmetal Scout with your Scout. You will lose.
Huh, Cloaked Scouts almost got my Former. I had a new Synthmetal Scout produced, so started moving and got blocked by his invisible scouts.
MY 2167. Wow, that AI sure is dumb about attacking cities with Synthmetal using Scouts. Although in fairness, it did damage me 30%. I've seen an offensive of many Scouts take out Synthmetal before.
MY 2168. I attack an enemy Scout in a city, and am quite surprised when my mindworm dies. I guess base defense goes both ways. I'll have to feed my mindworms some victims so they get bigger. I also need to get some probe team defense going.
MY 2172. I meet the Caretakers. They have a sea base just off the Usurper coast. I wonder if that's been stressing the Usurpers out? Well, maybe it's just more difficult to make those jazzy bases when you have to pay full price for everything. I buy E3 Centauri Genetics for 275 credits, but it's what gives mindworms, so worth it to me. I'm sure the Caretakers have more but they signed off. No Treaty, but they're not hostile right now. Maybe they'll attack the Usurpers usefully?
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 04:05:39 AM
I have circumnavigated the South Pole. There don't seem to be any major land masses to connect to, so now it's a tedious job of bringing all these units home.
MY 2179. I infiltrate the Usurpers. Among other things they have Applied Physics, so it's definitely time to steal techs and get the war on. They have 12 cities to my 8, although I'd like to think mine are better positioned and have better resources. I've got half a rail network completed. I start building 3 more Command Centers.
My 2nd probe team goes to steal a tech, but they claim a high security lock is on the city. I guess the Spartans must have stolen from there a long time ago? I didn't have many moves remaining, so I stole energy to try to get home safely. Didn't. 2 credits for the trouble!
MY 2180. I lose all 3 mindworms attacking a single Scout in a base, thinking it should be an easy mark, but it isn't. There's another Sensor somewhere that I didn't disable. I save scum my turn.
On the replay, I steal Doctrine: Loyalty and gain Fundamentalist. I switch to it. In my mod, the Cult of Planet's RESEARCH can never fall below 0. That's because they're always doing a certain amount of real science dissecting mindworms. I suffer a -1 JUSTICE penalty from Fundamentalist, but otherwise it's just benefits.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 05:15:51 AM
MY 2189. I relent on my cheapness and buy some techs from the Caretakers. I go Green. Now I've got +4 PLANET but -1 GROWTH.
MY 2190. Whelp, Marr finally got his Laser Rover finished. One of my Scouts in his territory bites the dust. Time to pull back and let him come to me. I've got lots of Laser Speeders in production, I'm plenty ready for the war.
Roze to the northeast |
MY 2195. I found the Data Angels. We trade a tech and sign a Treaty. They give the commlink for the Pirates and sign off.
The Pirates won't trade and aren't interested in a Treaty, but they do give the commlink for the Believers.
The Believers sign a Treaty and sell me Biogenetics. In my mod that gives Police State and Children's Creche.
The Spartans figured out Adaptive Doctrine somehow. We trade. They've been a pretty runty civilization, but at least they don't seem to be stuck anymore. They have 6 cities now, and nobody remotely near them except myself.
The Caretakers don't trade me anything. They are doing way better than anyone else on the graph. In an ordinary game, I'd say they were sitting on the Monsoon Jungle. In this game, it's still possible that starting with 3 colony pods is a huge advantage under the right conditions. The wrong conditions are, being stuck behind my own empire, har har har!
I don't think I'm selling any comm frequencies or getting any map info out of anyone. I don't have the votes to with the Governorship so I'll just ignore everyone for a bit.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 06:13:59 AM
MY 2201. The Caretakers get uppity and declare war on me.
MY 2205. I gain a Gun Needlejet from a sea pod. I could use it to give me invincible air cover, which might make a big difference in the war against the Usurpers. It's an exploit, but I'm getting tired of our stalemate. I have forces, but I don't feel like I have enough production to overrun Marr's whole empire. I waited for him to come to me, and for the most part he hasn't.
Tired, going to bed.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 08:24:26 AM
MY 2209. My 1st use of the Gun Needlejet is to escort a Foil Probe Team to target. I stole the tech for the Command Nexus. That's valuable enough that I rushed it, using 2 Artifacts, cash, and selling off my Command Centers.
I capture my 1st Isle of the Deep. It was carrying 2 mindworms.
MY 2210. My 2nd use of the Gun Needlejet is pillaging enemy Sensor Arrays from the air. As I only have 1 plane this takes time, but there's nothing the enemy can do about it right now. Although... I got a Pillaging dialogue, but my action actually did nothing to the map? Maybe this is a bug. I did this in another game, but maybe I didn't notice that it didn't work?
I capture my 2nd Isle of the Deep. It was also carrying 2 mindworms.
MY 2211. I sign a Pact with the Data Angels. I gain a fair amount of map info from this.
MY 2212. A Caretaker sea colony pod is fleeing from the Usurpers. It founds a city. I have an armored cloaked foil probe team in the area, so I steal its tech. Now I can make the Xenoempathy Dome. That's pretty important to me, and the Caretakers have been at it for awhile, so I rush it with 5 Artifacts.
Post by: Induktio on March 02, 2019, 11:03:22 AM
MY 2148. The Angels are really being mindless dicks! They subverted one of my Scout Rovers. I've declared war. I ask Yang to join me in the war, and he won't! Dicks all around. What good is he if he won't do my fighting for me?
Ok, I'm in a bit of wonderment at the Usurper colony spread pattern. I know they start with 3 colony pods, but 13 cities? I've got 4. Roze has 6. Yang has 10. I do have 1 city that hasn't produced any food at all.
That image shows Thinker's city placement algorithm in an interesting way. I suspect the world exploration data is out of date, so you don't see most of the improvements, and you didn't post a save game either. That city count given the time frame is certainly on the higher end of the AIs expansion speed, although it's not unheard of. They may have gotten some really favourable results from the pods since you seem to be playing with pod scattering on.
It's important to note those 2 nutrient bonuses near their capital. Early on I figured nutrient bonuses were the key to early growth, so Thinker AIs will place extra high importance on improving nutrient bonuses first, then other bonuses, and then normal tiles. That might explain some of the fast growth. Also one of the tricks they do is place boreholes on mineral/energy bonuses, so that way the resource restriction can be lifted much earlier.
Post by: bvanevery on March 02, 2019, 06:20:19 PM
They may have gotten some really favourable results from the pods since you seem to be playing with pod scattering on.
Both Aliens had the 18 or 19 city count in that game. Other factions had roughly 12-ish cities. Either the Aliens both got "lucky", or it's pretty much proportional to the number of starting colonists. And, the start delay in no way makes up for the difference.
In my current game, the Caretakers are the dominant power of the game. I can only see a few of their cities on the edge of Pirate territory, so I don't know what their starting conditions were like. I've revealed 70% of the map and still don't see the Monsoon Jungle anywhere, so they could be sitting on it.
Usurper growth was unimpressive for a long time. They got 8-balled behind my starting position, on a small peninsula with unexceptional food. If I had taken the walk-in on their capitol when I could have, it may have been all over for them. As it stands, I let it go, to see how they'd grow.
Currently they're still a credible threat, although I do think I can take them out if I can just bring all those damn Sensor Arrays down. They have such a large number of cities in a relatively small area, that I'm leery of just taking 1 or 2 cities for fear of counterattack. I want to wipe them out in a broad swath, and I haven't achieved the production for that. I also didn't have any kind of straight up rail access to them, it took long enough just to build my own network. I think I will kill them soon, but I want to do it right. I've got the Xenoempathy Dome which gives my mindworms extra punch, and I've got Biology Labs in all cities nearing completion. Once I've got mindworm spam, I think it's over for them.
Quote
Also one of the tricks they do is place boreholes on mineral/energy bonuses, so that way the resource restriction can be lifted much earlier.
I never knew about the borehole on minerals or energy trick. Do you end up with a borehole that produces 12 minerals or whatever?
Post by: bvanevery on March 03, 2019, 12:38:34 AM
rows of 7 when they should be 10 |
MY 2219. When preparing for my invasion, I suddenly realize that Marr is getting minerals and nutrient bonuses as though the cost factor is 7, not 10 like I started the game with. His government is Fundamentalist Simple Survival, which does not give any industry bonus at all. His faction doesn't get any industry bonus either. In my mod he should be getting +1 GROWTH for Simple economy, so having rows of 7 for nutrients is surprising. I'd expect them to be 6.
Without ruining my game, looking at factions I have infiltrated, I see the Caretakers have rows of 6 nutrients without a Children's Creche, and 5 with one. They have rows of 7 minerals for unit production. They are Fundamentalist Socialist Survival, which gives +2 GROWTH. Socialist does not give any INDUSTRY bonus in my mod, Capitalist and Wealth do that. So again, it's playing as though the cost factor is 7, at least for production. I'm confused about the nutrients, as again, they don't add up.
Spartans also have rows of 7. Frontier Simple Survival, which has a net of +0 GROWTH and no INDUSTRY bonus.
Data Angels also have rows of 7. What's weird about that, is they're Fundamentalist Capitalist Survival. They get +1 INDUSTRY from Capitalist, yet this is not reflected in unit production. Maybe INDUSTRY bonuses are capped? But I could swear I've seen historical games with the stock binary that had rows of 5.
There's nothing wrong with thinker.ini. I am playing on Transcend. There's not even a 7 in the file to have.
Code: [Select]
; Set AI cost factors for mineral/nutrient production for each difficulty level respectively.
; All other difficulty level modifiers remain unaffected by this setting.
cost_factor=13,12,11,10,8,10
; Changed Transcend from 7 to 10. AI is too competent at colonizing and resource management.
I've attached a save of MY 2219. Now I load up an older save, from MY 2206. Same thing. That's the oldest manually saved game I have. Finally I try the oldest autosave I've got, from MY 2190. Same thing.
I sure thought I started this game with the correct numbers. Did they change during the course of the game? Or was I wrong at the beginning? Does the game somehow ignore settings once they're committed to a .sav file? That might explain why I'm noticing it today and not yesterday. I can't know for sure though. Only thing I see to do, is scrap this game and start a fresh one.
Post by: Induktio on March 03, 2019, 09:22:34 PM
If Thinker is loaded correctly, it should be always visible in the game version menu. So I have not been able to replicate any of that discrepancy between cost_factor in config file and in game. As far as I know, cost factor information is not ever preserved in a save file, instead it's always loaded from the config file if it's defined there, otherwise it defaults to stock game values.
Post by: bvanevery on March 03, 2019, 10:20:59 PM