Post by: MysticWind on February 26, 2021, 02:53:27 AM
Consider also that the five existing factions are similar to the original ones, both in terms of concept, lore, and focuses:
Cult - Gaian planet + Believer fanaticism
Cyborg - University
Drones - Hive
Data Angels - Morganite split-off + University research + Peacekeeper democracy
Pirates - Spartans of the sea
So what combinations or variants of the original 7 are missing? What gameplay styles?
Post by: bvanevery on February 26, 2021, 04:26:01 AM
I always thought of the expansion factions as a later expanding of Planet's cultures. You pointed out several of these transitions, although I think it's more difficult to read it that way in the order you presented. So I list it as:
Gaians --> Cult of Planet
University --> Cybernetic Consciousness
Hive --> Free Drones
It actually makes no sense at all that they start as single colonies. It's a game mechanical contrivance. A real history, would have Planet more fully developed and occupied when the Aliens land. Tech level would be higher too. But... that's not the game.
So the question is roughly, IMO, what do the original factions become? We have answers for 3 of them already.
I don't think the Pirates are a transition from another faction. They were given the game mechanical role of the Spartans, but they are not Spartans. They are an acknowledgement that a very large portion of Planet's surface, was initially ignored. My own Pirates are money grubbers, not fighters. I never thought swarms of pestering ships was good play mechanic. It's rather boring to a human player.
I suppose you could argue:
Peacekeepers --> Data Angels
if you believed that trying to keep planetary unity was basically a disaster. Any form of planetwide centralized government collapses, leaving only democratic anarchistic rebels to carry the sentiment into the future. Everyone else has pretty much gone "proper totalitarian".
I guess in the original lore, the Spartans got wiped out by the Gaians. In the SMACX timeframe, you'd expect the Spartans to have conquered all of Planet by now. Since they didn't, they must be dead.
The "conquer everyone" play mechanic is clearly taken by Conqueror Marr. I even had him pursuing Power for a long time, because I saw no basic reason he should be pursuing the same thing the Caretakers do. However since they only wrote hardwired alien dialogue for Planned economy, recently I reneged and went back to both Alien factions being Planned.
With the Aliens out, someone needs to take the "conquer everyone else" play style. I have trouble seeing this ideologically though. Wouldn't most factions want "advanced tanks" at the time of SMACX ?
The Morganites, being the weaklings of the original lineup, are also not represented in SMACX. Nobody's doing the money grubbing Economic Victory play style.
Game mechanically the Believers were a "crapload of units and spreading", without any research brains. The Free Drones mostly took over that role, of "dumb spam". Any PROBE shenanigans got pushed off to the Data Angels. Since the Angels don't really have the money to buy anyone out, I don't really see the point.
The Peacekeepers aren't represented in SMACX either. There's no Diplomatic Victory faction.
So in the expansion, we're really down to Transcend Victory and Conquest Victory. And absent the Usurpers, we don't have any explicit champion of the latter approach.
Seems like competing megacorps would be logical in the SMACX future. Morganites don't manage to retain control. You'd have a duopoloy or more. These corporate governments would probably be anti-democratic and close to totalitarian. I tried to model this somewhat with my Cybernetic SE choice.
If we still have a Planetary Council with voting members, then it's weird to think the U.N. Peacekeepers didn't survive and aren't around. Does it become more like a feudal barony system, dividing up the spoils of the world? Until such a time as someone makes a power grab to rearrange everything. Dune-esque. Maybe the Council should be reskinned and different voting options would be available. Like whether stapled drones are gonna get health care. Or limits on how big a nuke can be used, before it's considered a problem.
Does Planet get more atheist, or more spooky with more religion? If any part of the Believers survived with any relevance, then we'd have multiple religious sects. I'm not counting the Cult, as they're clearly a Gaian offshoot.
Well, if we've really only got room for 1 religion and 1 corporation, ...could make that into some kind of Church Of The Almighty Dollar, although that's rather insincere. It would continue the anti-Christian hit job themes of the original game though. If religion is 1 of the corporations, then we have room for another one.
My name for them would be simple enough: The Evangelicals. Morgan TV, eat your heart out!
Believers --> Evangelicals.
No they are not in it for their sincerity of belief in God. They're in it for the money.
Post by: bvanevery on February 26, 2021, 03:58:53 PM
Believers --> Evangelicals.
No they are not in it for their sincerity of belief in God. They're in it for the money.
But having given this a night's sleep, I don't actually like the name. It's too "on the nose" and more about Earth than the future of Planet. I do think I have the right idea that Christianity needs to turn into something a bit weirder in the future, that is not mindworm worship though. Some kind of cult of human racial purity, in contrast to the kumbaya with Planet stuff? And no cyborgs either. Miriam hated all that.
The Spartans could give rise to some kind of nomadic land based faction. A sort of scruffy survivalist horde? The problem with that sort of thing, is much like the Data Angels, it shouldn't exist as a faction with the same techs and build mechanics. In Dune, the Fremen certainly aren't organized like all the great Houses are.
Post by: MysticWind on February 26, 2021, 09:54:45 PM
if you believed that trying to keep planetary unity was basically a disaster. Any form of planetwide centralized government collapses, leaving only democratic anarchistic rebels to carry the sentiment into the future. Everyone else has pretty much gone "proper totalitarian".
Yeah, they both also respect the free flow of information, as does the University. Though funnily enough the Probe ratings means the Data Angels are very good at keeping their info secure while the University are not- ah, game mechanics. Also the Lal being knowledge-minded is a holdover from his pre-release characterization as "the Philosopher."
I guess in the original lore, the Spartans got wiped out by the Gaians. In the SMACX timeframe, you'd expect the Spartans to have conquered all of Planet by now. Since they didn't, they must be dead.
Oh right, guess the Spartans were never able to get the hang of mindworms and that's how Deidre did it.
Wouldn't most factions want "advanced tanks" at the time of SMACX ?
Advanced tanks?
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Seems like competing megacorps would be logical in the SMACX future. Morganites don't manage to retain control. You'd have a duopoloy or more. These corporate governments would probably be anti-democratic and close to totalitarian. I tried to model this somewhat with my Cybernetic SE choice.
Yeah I like how the SMAC Fac Pack (https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=172) has a corporate monopoly faction that is anti-Free Market. Because any other than Planned would threaten its actual existence.
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Maybe the Council should be reskinned and different voting options would be available. Like whether stapled drones are gonna get health care. Or limits on how big a nuke can be used, before it's considered a problem.
It's definitely problematic that the council gets reduced to five instead of seven, and the majority of the SMAX human factions feel like they just want to be left alone. The Cult would want to run everything, and maybe you can characterize the Consciousness as the Borg but that's not how Aki Zeta-5's really presented in the lore. The Drones want to overthrow everyone rather than actually rule them. So it does make Diplo victory feel more remote or hollow.
Some kind of cult of human racial purity, in contrast to the kumbaya with Planet stuff? And no cyborgs either. Miriam hated all that.
Yeah, I think "realistically" there'd be far more religions on Planet than just the two. But they could easily exist within the other factions. Prosperity Gospel believers with the Morganites, dharmic pantheists and Wiccan pagans with the Gaians, Taoists and meditative faiths with Yang, basically any religious adherent can find a home with the Peacekeepers. But thinking of another religion-based faction is hard without drawing too much from the present day, because it gets too easily dated and feels limiting.
Human purity works, I've seen it in fan works. I had one in mind as well, though it's more of an openly antagonistic anti-Planet one.
The Spartans could give rise to some kind of nomadic land based faction. A sort of scruffy survivalist horde? The problem with that sort of thing, is much like the Data Angels, it shouldn't exist as a faction with the same techs and build mechanics. In Dune, the Fremen certainly aren't organized like all the great Houses are.
Hah, I have a conceptual faction set I'm working on that has a faction just like that, basically Pirates of the land. Though that's more of a lore-focused project and probably wouldn't play that great if actually modded. I'll make a thread on it someday.
Post by: bvanevery on February 27, 2021, 04:10:13 AM
Advanced tanks?
Even the freakin' Gaians smashed up the Spartans with quantum tanks, so I don't see why any faction would turn its nose up at military tech on principle. I would expect the future to be an arms race, and not the province of some "conquering" faction.
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Human purity works, I've seen it in fan works. I had one in mind as well, though it's more of an openly antagonistic anti-Planet one.
I forgot about the explicitly anti-Planet angle. I've thought that killing Planet should be an endgame pursuit, especially for a faction like the University, as Zhakarov sure as hell hated mindworms. Why does anyone have to Transcend? Why not drill some boreholes and drop enough Planet Busters down them to obliterate the planet mind? I don't personally see the Transcend victory as being in any way good, as it's pretty much the death of humanity as an individualist oriented species. I think that sucks! I won't win a game by Transcend on principle, except perhaps if I was roleplaying the Cultists. Meaning basically, lemmings off the cliff until the bitter end.
Post by: Protok St on March 16, 2021, 12:35:16 PM
1. 8 of the leaders are Senior Officers of the Unity Ship. Their subordinates followed them.
;deidre; ;yang; ;zak; ;morgan; ;santi; ;miriam; ;lal; ;sven
So that way, if explain convincingly a new Senior Officer of the Unity and his subordinate crew then new faction could arrive.
Mining Officer
Repair and Maintenance Officer
Communications Officer
Cultural Experience Database Storage Officer
First Contact Officer
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/801900992987791411/821360557722173470/DividerLine_06_AC1.png)
2. Split the existed faction. When a second strong leader appears inside with new direction of ambitions.
;zak; --> ;aki; Aki comes from University with a new agenda: Cyborgs is a separate species, not servants and need own place in a world.
;morgan; --> ;roze; Roze comes from M. Industries with understanding that information should serve not monopoly but society.
So that way, if explain convincingly a reason of opposite idea inside strong existing one society, and why it could be splitted.
;deidre; --> Main Idea is Ecology. Gaians way is to assimilate with new conditions, accept them. The opposite way could be to restore especially Earth-like Ecology with relative animals/plants because it's best for humanity as a specie.
;miriam; --> Main Idea is Religion. Believers way is an Abrahamic style religion. The opposite way could be the deification of an ancient race whose monoliths are found on the planet: old religion was wrong, god is a different, to believe is a different.
;lal; --> Declared Idea is a Peace way to achieve any goals. The opposite way could be a Declared Idea of achieve any goals by Fire and Sword aka Laser and HoverTank. The split may be caused because of difference between shadowed war of Peacekeepers and Clearly declared Agressive war ambitions.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/801900992987791411/821360557722173470/DividerLine_06_AC1.png)
3. Uniting a pieces from other factions by an overall objective. Conditions of social-economic relations are the most powerful force in society.
[...] --> ;domai; Free Drones raise the issue of equality and justice, the inadmissibility of exploiting the lives of the working class for the prosperity of the bourgeois class. In all over the human history this questions is appears, and will appears because of fundamental processes of social-economic relations. In conditions of Alpha Centauri story the objective to construct socially just society is strong enough to gather people from all other factions into separate one.
So that way, if explain convincingly an Idea and why people should unite around new major goal.
[...] --> The idea of all known factions is to build a new home on that planet. The main opposite Idea could be that "we were wrong; this place is not good for us, it's bad; we need to search further on a new ship". Direction of human with this idea is not to construct for care here, but construct for leaving this dark unfriendly place to search another one. In such unwelcoming conditions as Planet gives, this "exodus" Idea could be strong enough to collect people from other factions.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/801900992987791411/821360557722173470/DividerLine_06_AC1.png)
4. Transformation under influence of outer uncontrolled factors. This can transform a part of society with new characteristics so it's no longer as others.
;cha; --> The Planet Cult society has a two outer factors which made them different. The genes mutation made them level more receptive to the PSY interactions between each other, Planet, planet species. Close communication and subsequent influence of Kri'lan "The Betrayer".
So that way, if explain convincingly a transformation conditions which can provoke a new ideology and style.
[...] --> Till that time a Human - who is try to control Planet. Now, Planet will try to take control under human consciousness. A new faction is appeared when one of the colonies become a Formicary with humans driven by a Planet Mind.
[...] --> The sudden appearance of a faction from the future. Entire colony base appears because of any kind of malfunction in a future experiments of time-traveling.
[...] --> Another mutation appears because of long time space radiation while flying on Unity. Now people could not feel normal in a planetary gravity conditions. Only underwater pressure make them feel OK.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/801900992987791411/821360557722173470/DividerLine_06_AC1.png)
Faction leader Unity crew ranks in canon (https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21613.msg129952#msg129952)
Post by: bvanevery on March 16, 2021, 06:47:45 PM
I think ;roze; origin from the Morganites is just a convenience of backstory. The Data Angels don't really belong to any faction in particular, and shouldn't be a faction per se. We can reasonably assume that hacktivists would exist in most of the factions.
;lal; <--> ;santi; is a known opposition, in the anti-Federalist, Sovereign State, anti New World Order, right wing militia sense. A modern manifestation is belief in QAnon, but this stuff was going on in the 1990s too. The original game doesn't do that much to play up U.N. vs. militia hostility, so it can be missed. Also, the ;lal; <--> ;yang; opposition is given lots of development, so overshadows it.
Post by: MysticWind on March 16, 2021, 08:05:54 PM
The Data Angels are pretty weak as a faction concept- there's probably better ways to imagine a Probe faction- though I think the Morganite thing might be thought of as '90s hackers vs. Microsoft. The incomparable "Joe (https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/alpha-centauri/ac-stories/14156-joe)" by Alinestra Covelia does a good job in doing the writers' work by creating a lot of material and characterization that fleshes them out.
The Spartans are interesting to me is that while they are clearly militaristic, I think it depends on interpretation on how aggressive they are. Already in-game they're established as erratic, not high aggression. Most fiction, including the first Michael Ely book and his novella of Planetfall, depicts them as fairly aggressive. But I think it's also possible to see them as the pre-Ruby Ridge/Waco militiamen who really claimed to just want to be left alone, to retreat into their compounds to pursue their own shadowy agendas. In the Spartans' case, their agenda is to practice Social Darwinism and role-play as ancient Spartans. They would certainly pick a fight for the sake of it, and to conquer wealth or tech that they cannot pursue. But I don't think their ideology is to inherently conquer the world. That's more like something they might end up trying to do.
So that way, if explain convincingly a new Senior Officer of the Unity and his subordinate crew then new faction could arrive.
Mining Officer
Repair and Maintenance Officer
Communications Officer
Cultural Experience Database Storage Officer
First Contact Officer
Seems sensible. There are a lot of spaceship crew roles in sci-fi that can be adapted. Domai is already a mining specialist so that works. I'm not sure what you meant by "Cultural Experience Database Storage", but funnily enough for my Second Ship (https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21633) project I have a Librarian faction led by a Unity data archivist. I haven't posted it yet.
Not sure if a First Contact Officer works because pre-SMAX there wasn't any sign of sentient alien life, but in retrospect that could be a cool idea. Maybe it's like some sort of anthropologist/speculative exobiologist geek who was trained to handle hypothetical alien contact. And when there weren't aliens beyond the mindworms, they doubled-down on prepping humanity to meet them in the future. Maybe it could even go into your idea of "deification of an ancient race whose monoliths are found on the planet: old religion was wrong, god is a different, to believe is a different."
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;deidre; --> Main Idea is Ecology. Gaians way is to assimilate with new conditions, accept them. The opposite way could be to restore especially Earth-like Ecology with relative animals/plants because it's best for humanity as a specie.
Ahhh, I made an terraforming faction (Planetary Settlers), but they're eco-friendly and weren't anti-Planet. Maybe I should've gone that direction. I do think having a central game conflict be between Planetformers (Ascent to Transcendence) and Terraformers (make Planet into Earth) would make for a really cool victory condition (https://www.reddit.com/r/alphacentauri/comments/lxx5hw/more_victory_types_sequel_thought_experiment/).
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[...] --> ;domai; Free Drones raise the issue of equality and justice, the inadmissibility of exploiting the lives of the working class for the prosperity of the bourgeois class. In all over the human history this questions is appears, and will appears because of fundamental processes of social-economic relations. In conditions of Alpha Centauri story the objective to construct socially just society is strong enough to gather people from all other factions into separate one.
I've worked on a faction that's more focused on social oppression than class oppression, that I'm still trying to tweak. But I'm intentionally trying to make my fan factions reflect the '90s sci-fi that AC was, and the classical older works of sci-fi that preceded it, than current day anxieties. I find modern politics and culture wars exhausting, farcical, and tacky.
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The idea of all known factions is to build a new home on that planet. The main opposite Idea could be that "we were wrong; this place is not good for us, it's bad; we need to search further on a new ship". Direction of human with this idea is not to construct for care here, but construct for leaving this dark unfriendly place to search another one. In such unwelcoming conditions as Planet gives, this "exodus" Idea could be strong enough to collect people from other factions.
Yeah a space program-focused faction that's based on escape, or returning to Earth, would be cool. Game mechanics-wise I'm not too certain how to make it though. Space techs are so late-game.
But that's okay, these ideas can just be purely hypothetical for now, to be implemented in a hypothetical AC 2 or spiritual successor that actually provides robust Social Engineering mechanics and enough modifiers to accommodate some of these concepts. And I do think that winning the Space Race, as in the link above, would be a cool victory condition. Nice callback to Civ.
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Now, Planet will try to take control under human consciousness. A new faction is appeared when one of the colonies become a Formicary with humans driven by a Planet Mind.
Transcendence from the other direction, interesting.
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The sudden appearance of a faction from the future. Entire colony base appears because of any kind of malfunction in a future experiments of time-traveling.
Sort of high-concept, but that's fine. SMAC already has a lot of sci-fi ideas that go beyond Ascent of Transcendence. I think an AC 2 should accommodate some of these as potential paths. Maybe one of them is to build an actual time machine, or more like a way to enter a different universe at an earlier time (say before Earth was ruined). And so a faction that is related to time travel would be cool. Really no idea how to make them balanced in gameplay, though. Maybe they have high tech but really low growth/morale.
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Another mutation appears because of long time space radiation while flying on Unity. Now people could not feel normal in a planetary gravity conditions. Only underwater pressure make them feel OK.
Cool idea, that does help justify more water factions. Seems a bit unfair to give the entire ocean to Ulrik.
Post by: Protok St on March 16, 2021, 09:18:47 PM
Yes, the situation when datacenter carry a whole of humanity culture in digital form suggests a special Senior Officer. This idea is on the surface, and we both catched it. :look:So that way, if explain convincingly a new Senior Officer of the Unity and his subordinate crew then new faction could arrive.
Mining Officer
Repair and Maintenance Officer
Communications Officer
Cultural Experience Database Storage Officer
First Contact Officer
Seems sensible. There are a lot of spaceship crew roles in sci-fi that can be adapted. Domai is already a mining specialist so that works. I'm not sure what you meant by "Cultural Experience Database Storage", but funnily enough for my Second Ship (https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21633) project I have a Librarian faction led by a Unity data archivist. I haven't posted it yet.
Not sure if a First Contact Officer works because pre-SMAX there wasn't any sign of sentient alien life, but in retrospect that could be a cool idea. Maybe it's like some sort of anthropologist/speculative exobiologist geek who was trained to handle hypothetical alien contact.To send a first ship into interstellar space without a First Contact Officer? No way. This is just a necessity if we are developing the idea of additional positions for Senior Officers. This is just the norm of any sci-fi.
I've worked on a faction that's more focused on social oppression than class oppression, that I'm still trying to tweak. But I'm intentionally trying to make my fan factions reflect the '90s sci-fi that AC was, and the classical older works of sci-fi that preceded it, than current day anxieties. I find modern politics and culture wars exhausting, farcical, and tacky.Cool! More factions for better future.
And "class oppression" - is a permanent condition of all known human history. It is a cycled process.
Post by: MysticWind on March 18, 2021, 05:53:31 PM
Air-focused factions would seem to be too OP. Maybe you can give a faction bonuses when they get to Air Power, though it would definitely have to be less OP than the Pirates' water bonuses, and they would need some characterization before they get to there.
Post by: bvanevery on March 19, 2021, 05:39:28 PM
Trying to make an air powered faction is sheer folly. Either forget that you mentioned it, or find a way to start the whole game mid tech tree, with all factions rebalanced for that circumstance. Could be a Scenario, for instance. Everyone would have to have a baseline of production where planes and AAA units can be chucked out easily. That's a lot of modding.
Also, any faction capability that only pays off in mid to late game, is close to useless in the real world. Games are winnable long before then. There's no point in some "powerful late game capability", because all late game capabilities are powerful.
The stylization of "late game units / capabilities" may have been popularized by Civ III, with for instance the Germans getting Panzers as a special unit late game, and the Americans getting the F-16. But their tech tree also doesn't have any diversity, everyone learns exactly the same techs. The order in which they are learned varies only ever so slightly, and there are almost no interesting consequences to moving up one side of the tech tree quicker than another. There's basically no variety of play in Civ, everyone does the same things.
Post by: MysticWind on March 20, 2021, 12:06:43 AM
SMACX didn't add the idea of a PROBE focused faction. The Believers were already a PROBE focused faction, as they had +1 PROBE and would go Fundamentalist, resulting in +3 PROBE. What the Data Angels did, was provide a Democratic counterweight to the Believer hacking.
Believers could also fight, though, at least in the early game. Whereas the Angels are a PROBE-exclusive faction that can't do much else. I guess in their case their gimmick is -exclusive, while the Drones' and the Pirates' gimmicks are new and thus merely -focused.
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Also, any faction capability that only pays off in mid to late game, is close to useless in the real world. Games are winnable long before then. There's no point in some "powerful late game capability", because all late game capabilities are powerful.
The stylization of "late game units / capabilities" may have been popularized by Civ III, with for instance the Germans getting Panzers as a special unit late game, and the Americans getting the F-16. But their tech tree also doesn't have any diversity, everyone learns exactly the same techs. The order in which they are learned varies only ever so slightly, and there are almost no interesting consequences to moving up one side of the tech tree quicker than another. There's basically no variety of play in Civ, everyone does the same things.
That's very interesting to know. I like these high-level game design observations.
Post by: bvanevery on March 20, 2021, 03:11:54 AM
I did give them automatic acquisition of any techs known by 3 other factions, rather than making them infiltrate factions to get that benefit. In the real world, the AI can't infiltrate factions all the way across the board. Not unless they build sea bases that are reachable by sea from the Data Angels. In that case, the AI is pretty compulsive about sending out Foil Probe Teams and probably would at least get the teams to their sea targets. However, I'm not sure they'd use that possibly very long journey to infiltrate. They might forget, and instead prioritize other disruptions. I said to hell with that and made it easier on them.
They tend to be pretty strong in the early game because they're benefiting from an entire planet worth of low level research. As strong research factions start to specialize and pull ahead though, they don't have much advantage anymore.
Mind control is rather overpowered in the stock game. Factions on their last legs with almost no units or money at all, would magically pull probe team liberations of captured cities. This was so gratuitous that it strongly smelled like a form of AI cheating. An enemy who is pretty much almost dead should die already. Not be rubber banded back into life for the umpteenth time. It's not an interesting game mechanic, in fact it's the most damn annoying thing I ever encountered in SMAC. Responsible for more rage quits and game uninstalls, than anything I care to remember.
So in my mod, I nerfed mind control. It costs everyone twice as much as the original game. This seems to put the brakes on the gratuitous capture shenanigans. If a sea base is close to your capitol, it probably will be too expensive to take. Not definitely, but probably. I've seriously cut down the odds of a takeover close to home. If you start spreading sea bases far out though, as one would likely be inclined to do in a big ocean, well you're just giving bases away to other factions. So I don't do that, even in my modded game.
Heck, I probably won't make any sea bases at all. They're usually just a liability. I could bait the computer into sending a probe team all the way across the map, to take over a sea base I don't actually care about. So that I can infiltrate the base and steal a tech! Which would take me forever if I had to push units all the way across a Huge map to get to a distant enemy. I have refrained from this dirty trick in most cases though.
If you're not mind controlling stuff, then probe teams with high PROBE are pretty pointless. Even Elite teams are gonna die from being used, soon enough. If you're just trying to steal techs, you might as well just send poorly trained and totally disposable probe teams from any old place. Any faction can do that, they don't need a good PROBE rating to accomplish it.
I did cut out the PROBE penalties in my SE table. That was part of the campaign against the overpowered mind control of the original game. The downside is that leaves the Data Angels with pretty much no advantage. They're not naturally going to come up with all the money needed, to take over bases and units willy nilly. And it's too destabilizing to give that kind of advantage.
Basically, I don't consider mind control to be a good combat system or game mechanic. I guess I kinda soft banished it, by making it not that useful in practice. Not unless you're ridiculously wealthy. In which case, you could probably win the game by other means anyways.
So I'm not quite sure what to do with my Data Angels. They're kind of a one trick pony whose trick has been taken away.
For a long time my Data Angels had a 'dark' interpretation, where they were the poster child for Thought Control. Recently though, I decided it's game mechanically pointless. They don't need to wait until late midgame to jack their PROBE way beyond anything they rationally need to accomplish any task. All they really need to do to get +3 PROBE is go Police State early in the game. That's plenty. So, the AI won't insist on any SE choice anymore. It'll be my totally free will faction. Conquerer Marr steps in as the poster child for Thought Control. The human dialogue is regrettable, but at least the sentiments are in character for him.
Post by: Nexii on March 23, 2021, 06:24:25 PM
Post by: bvanevery on March 24, 2021, 02:48:54 AM
Of course the problem is that to mind control, you need a lot of money. It's a pretty pointless capability otherwise.
Well I could drastically lower their mind control costs, compared to other factions. I just hate that whole game mechanic though. If only there was something else to do with them...
Post by: Nexii on March 24, 2021, 01:46:31 PM
Maybe I'll come up with something better. But +1 ECONOMY is the best I can think of thematically for now. WallStreetBets and stock/crypto investing, that crowd is very Data Angel-ish.
Post by: bvanevery on March 26, 2021, 02:40:50 AM
Post by: MilesBeyond on March 26, 2021, 01:38:37 PM
Post by: bvanevery on March 26, 2021, 03:20:49 PM
My Theocratic gives +2 GROWTH, so with sufficient additional investments, you could do a pop boom early game. Of course the "sufficient additional investments" are onerous enough, that most factions wouldn't be able to pull it off in practice. That's deliberate on my part. I do wonder if Theocratic Morganites could do it though. I haven't played them enough times to know what they're capable of. Early game with the Morganites, I tend to go Democratic Green, to get all the supply pod money.
Post by: MilesBeyond on March 27, 2021, 02:23:18 PM
As an aside, I feel a little bad for the SMAX team. I can just imagine EA saying to them "Okay guys, we need seven new factions to sell this expansion." So not only do you get new factions that don't make a lot of sense based on the game lore, but the original seven covered most of the game's bases enough that aside from Sven the new human factions end up intruding on the niches occupied by other factions.
Post by: bvanevery on March 27, 2021, 04:38:26 PM
"Suck like a Data Angel." I'm gonna meditate on this phrase for awhile. I could be kicking another version of my mod out the door, if it weren't for this conundrum.
Maybe I need to partly bring back crappy mind control game mechanics, on a limited faction basis. Data Angels could have the abilities of normal factions in the original game. Hive and Cyborgs could have 1.5x mind control cost. All other factions have 2x cost, that's my new baseline of sanity.
Hm, my Hive and Cyborgs are already set at 1.5x cost, as are the Data Angels. They hardly ever take over anything and aren't what I'd call a credible mind control threat. Guess I might have to try some playtesting with Sid Meier's game design advice: double it!
Post by: bvanevery on March 28, 2021, 06:02:42 AM
PROBECOST 50 is silly |
That's my capitol just to the west. I don't think the Data Angels have more than just this 1 armored probe team they get at the beginning of the game. Since it's Mission Year 2167 and I've seen it wandering around for a long time near me, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten killed. It took 2 Scouts from me. The 2nd time, a Truce had developed and I was authorized to go to war, so I did so.
Well I wanted to know how irritating PROBECOST 50 would be in the real world, and the answer is, pretty darned irritating! The Data Angels can actually take over a city next to my capitol for no justifiable reason, when my developing offensive against my neighbors was otherwise just fine. I was fully armored with Synth Police, had finished a Recon Rover prototype, and was about to unleash a horde of them on the Gaians.
Guess I'll try PROBECOST 75, the same setting as the original game. Not gonna be shocked if that sucks too.
Post by: The_Reckoning on April 17, 2021, 05:07:59 PM
bvanevery is on the right track pointing out Morgan is the only one themed around energy.
I'd argue that mechanical bonuses/penalties come first, then create the lore/politics to fit after.
e.g. (there's more than listed, but these are the first which come to mind)
;miriam; - Probe, Rush/Low Tech
;deidre;, - Planet
;yang; - Police, Low Energy
;morgan; - High Energy, Low Pop, -Planet
;lal; - High Pop
;santi; - High Morale, Low Ind (fewer units)
;zak; - Research, High Drones
;cha; - ++Planet, Low Econ/Ind
;aki; - Research, Low Growth
;roze; - Probe
;domai; - High Ind, Low Research
;sven; - Naval Conquest
So I'd create new factions based on combinations of these mechanical traits not already used. And then make sure they fit with the other 5 if they're in the xpac.
I'll propose this one for now:
+Morale, +Energy, -Growth, -Efficiency - A military-industrial complex corporate dictatorship themed faction.
Strong, business-friendly laws but bureaucratic. Cannot be democratic - no planet penalty as while they're corporate, they're highly regulated.
This pits them in league with ;morgan; but also opposed since they'd view him as a liability, in the same way ;santi; would. In league with ;yang; on personal liberties but opposed on materialism. Opposes nicely to both ;domai; and ;roze; for expansion theme. For tying into the origin stories, Morgan was funding the ship but who built it? It probably went to the lowest bidder, knowing how government contracts generally go.
E: Thought of another combination
++Growth, +Ind, -Morale, -Police, -Planet - While there's already Deidre for the 'eco hippies', there's nobody representing the non-ecowarrior pacifist type. I know the Peacekeepers are in name but they don't really reflect it, since they're still a major bureaucracy. So I'd propose a somewhat decentralised, terraforming focused faction but who aren't friendly to planet, while also being pacifistic. The hobbits of Alpha Centauri, I suppose. Limited from using Police State. Opposes ;cha; directly, and most of the other factions for not being so 'warlike'. Even Domai and Roze are fairly antagonistic.
Post by: bvanevery on April 17, 2021, 11:09:34 PM
I'll propose this one for now:Did 3 out of 4 in my mod. Note Power social engineering choice:
+Morale, +Energy, -Growth, -Efficiency - A military-industrial complex corporate dictatorship themed faction.
social engineering in SMACX AI Growth mod version 1.49 |
Granted, I recast Efficiency as Justice. This returns to the earlier Civ II concept of the mechanic, where you eliminate Corruption and Waste by building a Courthouse. Dictatorships are unjust. And wars get people killed.
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E: Thought of another combination
++Growth, +Ind, -Morale, -Police, -Planet - While there's already Deidre for the 'eco hippies', there's nobody representing the non-ecowarrior pacifist type.
Um, never heard of it? What's that? Sit around making big peaceful factories? Doesn't make any sense.
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So I'd propose a somewhat decentralised, terraforming focused faction but who aren't friendly to planet, while also being pacifistic. The hobbits of Alpha Centauri, I suppose.
Um, hobbits are as eco-friendly as they come. They don't terraform. Sam loves Elves. Merry and Pippin get along well with Ents. "Sharky" industrializes the Shire in the alternate future.
Post by: The_Reckoning on April 18, 2021, 12:37:11 PM
New suggestion:
Keeping the same combination, ++Growth, +Ind, -Morale, -Police, -Planet - A 'humanity first' faction, as others have suggested. Explicitly trying to turn planet into Earth 2.0. Give some bonuses related to terraforming, can't take 'Green'. Don't like war because it means killing other humans, and that's the opposite of what they're trying to do. Commonality with ;yang; in being fruitful and multiplying but contrasts in valuing human dignity. Directly opposed to ;cha;. Contrasts heavily with ;aki;, with the growth gap and mechanical war affinity/aversion.
Post by: bvanevery on April 18, 2021, 05:38:47 PM
Much to my chagrin, my Green doesn't give a growth penalty. This was necessary to get the stock AI to actually use Green at an appropriate time, particularly with the Gaians. There's what amounts to a bug in the original game, where Deirdre will not go Green until she's learned how to make Locusts! That's a long damn time for the poster child of Green, to not go green.
My broader point is if you're going to mod, you're not beholden to precise interpretations of original factions. You can shift factors around that weren't core to their personas.
For instance, I took away Yang's INDUSTRY bonus as well. I don't really see a lore justification for it, and INDUSTRY is overpowered. Only Domai gets that bonus. You can't get it from my SE table. I also don't have any INDUSTRY penalties, because I think futzing that back and forth just to build your Secret Projects optimally, is a PITA. I'm much, much happier with a game where the costs are all the same. Even with Domai, he's not switching costs to pay for stuff, he's only got 1 cost regime.
Explicitly trying to turn planet into Earth 2.0.
I was going to say that most factions are trying to recreate Earth, just their ideological vision of Earth. But it may be more correct to say they're trying to impose a sweeping agenda. A winner-take-all version of Earth. Like where the God fearing types run everything and aren't constrained by democracy and multiculturalism, for instance.
The problem with being destructive of Planet's ecosystem, and constructive with an Earth's replacement, is it's hard to see how anyone's gonna maintain ideological purity about whether destruction or construction is the tool to be used. Seems to me if they framed their discourse in those terms, they'd inevitably become a Morganite bulldozer crowd.
Analogously, it's like shooting your way to freedom. What's one peasant village in the way of the greater good? You actually already had that mentality with Lenin, if you go read the Soviet Archive entries that became available after the fall of the USSR. Stalin is a logical conclusion of that mentality.
I think a more coherent agenda, that could actually work and be maintained over the long haul, is the doctrine of destroying Planet threats. Mindworms obviously have to all be destroyed. Their support structure, the fungus, probably has to be destroyed or rendered "sterile" somehow. In any event, made harmless. And once this faction discovers Planet is sentient, clearly that sentience has to be destroyed. I've wondered how many Thermal Boreholes it would take to cook Planet's brain? Like if you drop enough bombs down them.
Post by: The_Reckoning on April 18, 2021, 09:58:58 PM
Post by: bvanevery on April 19, 2021, 08:16:01 AM
;brainhurts ;hippy ;brainhurts
Post by: Geo on April 19, 2021, 12:44:47 PM
Haha - that would be a cool feature in a remake/sequel. Send enough planet busters down boreholes and Planet's knocked consciousness, blocking any ascent victories for some time until it regrows after 50 years.
I thought, lorewise, that the Planetmind resides in the fungal network. At least that's implied in the XenoEmpathyDome movie.
Post by: bvanevery on April 19, 2021, 04:20:07 PM
Hence why I think killing Planet's brain would need to be a bit more of an operation than that. I mean, even detonating a lot of Planet Busters doesn't kill the Planet mind, it just irritates it.
Fungal roots go deep?
Perhaps remove Tectonic Missiles from the game. Require a Thermal Borehole to be dug, at great expense (like in my mod). Then hit it with a Planet Buster. Instead of a crater, you get an upwelling of land. And the fungus on that land, withers and dies shortly thereafter.
Poses a bit of a problem at sea.
Post by: Geo on April 19, 2021, 08:55:33 PM
Hence why I think killing Planet's brain would need to be a bit more of an operation than that. I mean, even detonating a lot of Planet Busters doesn't kill the Planet mind, it just irritates it.
Fungal roots go deep?
You have something there.
There's an alien interlude popup (discovery of the fungal towers by Progenitors) that discusses the matter. It describes tendrils with a reach of several hundred yards. No reason to think there aren't roots or even a core tuber deep in the ground which act as a nerve node as well.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 19, 2021, 11:12:19 PM
Narrative possibilities in a root node brain, deep, deep in the Cave World among the Lost Tribe of Progenitor Progenitors. A Tarzan on Alpha Centauri adventure.
Post by: bvanevery on April 20, 2021, 05:46:09 AM
I love you
You know it's true
Mr. Potato Head, I love you
I don't think children should be allowed to sing to Planet. Unless they're Gaian children. Or they could be Cultist children, shortly before they're put to death.
"Planet needs new eyes, sweetie. You want Planet to be able to see, don't you?"
Post by: Geo on April 20, 2021, 10:08:05 AM
Post by: bvanevery on April 20, 2021, 04:01:23 PM