Post by: bvanevery on February 05, 2022, 06:58:20 AM
Also I had a pointy argument with a newish fellow, about the design of AQUATIC factions and their minerals bonus. I intend to prove that bonus sea minerals are quite good, as in overpowered! So I will play the Pirates. That will also keep the Pirates out of my own hair. They can be so annoying.
My memory about Thinker strategy from quite some time ago, is to deny any of the AI factions the Weather Paradigm. It will let 1 faction get too much of a jump start on their Condenser, Borehole, and Supply Crawler schtick. Otherwise, the AI factions will get around to those things, but you can trash a lot of them before they really have a chance to do much of anything with them. That's how I remember it from a long time ago, at any rate.
I also remember eco-damage and global warming stuff being a cakewalk, that it's not something to fear. In other mods I'm usually very scared of polluting and I'll try to adjust. The Pirates are good fit for me in that regard, because you don't put boreholes in the oceans anyways.
starting the show |
Huge map, because that's what mod for, and the only thing I play on nowadays. It gives me a basis of comparison between mods. Average settings, Transcend difficulty. Random opponents.
no I don't think so |
At first I start with 30%..50% ocean, as that would be the appropriate setting in my mod or WTP to get big continents and big oceans. Here I get something like the original game, with a lot of squiggly land masses, judging by the long distance radar. This start is not acceptable. I may be amphibious, but I'm not an amphibian!
almost an ocean |
I try again with 50%..70% ocean, and the results are more Pirate appropriate.
Post by: bvanevery on February 05, 2022, 07:54:31 AM
I terraform best |
MY 2148. This is a pretty standard "completion scumming" driven opening for me. It gets expensive Sea Colony Pods done pretty quickly, as well as other needful things like Transports to fish Artifacts out of the water. Some of my exploration ships got killed but my 2 Scouts are still waltzing around. I'm surprised that I haven't run into anybody on foot, but I'm also remembering that Thinker implemented an equidistant faction placement algorithm. This is quite disadvantageous if your intent is to attack immediately, but just wonderful if you're going to sit back in your moat and build up a bit.
no one at the races |
I've already completed the Weather Paradigm. The problem with the original game and by extension, Thinker's unmodded rules, is Secret Projects are awfully cheap and awfully easy to get started. In my mod, they start later and are much more expensive, so I'm quite experienced at using Artifacts to goose them along. The Will To Power is even more brutal about the expense, and yet I can still trample the AI in SP production, because I know what to do.
So the milestone achieved is, no AI faction is going to get any kind of jump on me, producing their Condenser Borehole Supply Crawler spew. I probably won't bother with any of it myself, first because it's not my style, second because I'm the Pirates. So the question is, can any of the AIs get their Thinker terrain production thing on, before I kill them with amphibious assaults? Expect the survivors to be far away.
In classic SMAC, Cruisers and Chaos Marines is winning the game. Just sayin'.
That said, my current research focus is Build. Force of habit. Pirates in my mod are passive and pursue Wealth. This makes them absolutely terrifying later in the game. At some point I will start beelining for Doctrine: Initiative though. It's been awhile since I played with original rules. I'm not sure what other factions are going to trade me, when I meet them. I just think, if there's no enemy anywhere near me, then let's build.
Post by: bvanevery on February 05, 2022, 08:27:27 AM
discontinuity |
MY 2158. Recently I allied with Roze, and suddenly this year, I know everybody. I traded lots of techs with everybody. Domai is the one pill and made war upon me. Roze came through with maps for everybody. Very consistent and orderly in that regard. So I can see that Domai's colonization spread, has actually been terrible. Only 6 cities. Even I have 7, and I have to build expensive Sea Colony Pods. Some of the other factions have just littered the ground with their colonies: the Morganites, the Peacekeepers, and the Hive. The Cyborgs are surprisingly and strangely sad with only 4 cities. Roze has a modest 11 cities.
So, Thinker's colonization results are rather mixed. And everyone's reasonably far away from me, by ocean, which suits my purposes just fine for now. I'll build what I want, then kill who I want. Looks like it'll be the Drones.
Post by: bvanevery on February 05, 2022, 05:35:17 PM
colonization by overpopulation |
MY 2191. I have transitioned to building sea colony pods in size 5 cities only. Pretty much all of my bases have been built with at least a Recreation Commons and a Children's Creche. Many are working on Energy Banks. I have plenty of Sea Formers and even some land Formers for the coastal resource specials. I've got a Command Center at my biggest minerals deposit but I've not made any troops. I'm not at war with anyone, although my Truce with Domai recently expired.
studying charts |
I have 3 allies. None of them were selected for any particular reason, other than their willingness to ally with me. The Morganites turn out to be the well heeled allies that selling or bestowing most of the techs on me. This year they sold me the tech for Knowledge and I made that transition. I can live with -2 PROBE as the only probe team I've seen in the sea is Morganic. They're my ally and benefactor, so I'm certainly not worried about them stealing tech from me. The Hive might eventually go to war with me, but by then hopefully I'll be wiping out their coast.
inefficiency consequences |
I definitely need more EFFIC as I've got 2 size 4 bases with unhappy people in them due to Bureaucracy. Getting to EFFIC 0 is helpful to my overall cause, but not enough to solve this problem.
picking up some pods |
I have the money to pay for techs because I'm still exploring, using up old Scout units that lack Trance ability. When that's over I may transition to Free Market, as it can suit my interest and will keep Morgan happy with me.
The exploit of using an ally to get all your tech is rampant in The Will To Power mod, and not entirely absent here. There's really no point in researching a lot of tech if your empire is actually production limited. I do have plenty of Sea Formers and my spreading is fine. I shifted my capitol to Frigate Base and will gradually make a "perfect circle" around it.
secret equality |
I've not done better or worse than any other faction for SPs. Nor have any proved to be powerhouses. Once I built the Weather Paradigm I mostly concentrated on making sure I had enough Sea Formers for every city. The Merchant Exchange was incidental, based on when I happened to be bringing back Artifacts and had some money. I didn't have the tech for anything "better" either. Frigate Base was my most promising city due to a resource "square" and an early kelp explosion.
Post by: bvanevery on February 05, 2022, 09:56:53 PM
war has come |
MY 2202. This isn't the war I imagined myself wanting, but it can work out ok. Lal is incapable of doing me any harm at all. There's a huge land mass in the way, as well as all of the Free Drones and the Hive. Lal was already Seething at me, for reasons of his Lal-ness I can't even begin to fathom. There's no basic sense in it, as I've made no Politics declaration whatsoever.
So this is just bowing to the inevitable and keeping Morgan happy. It's good politics. I wonder if either Yang or Domai will end up as an ally? Yang should be happy that I'm trashing Lal. I think Domai is unhappy that I'm not trashing Yang.
I do have my Marine Detachments now, although there's nobody to inflict them on, except my ally Morgan. I'm really isolated by ocean. At this rate I'm not sure the Maritime Control Center is all that important to me. I'll get my free Naval Yards anyways, and I don't really see myself pushing a lot of ships around in the vast and mazelike ocean. Straight up amphibious assaults on the nearby coasts are what's going to happen. But whose coast?
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 03:57:20 AM
I tried |
MY 2220. Having learned Advanced Military Algorithms, I thought I'd try to legalize chemical warfare! I didn't think Lal would go for it. He seldom does, but sometimes in the stock binary, I've been surprised. I think there's no chance of deposing him as Governor as long as his empire is intact, as he built the Empath Guild.
I've been a chicken about making any other social engineering choices. Practical exploration is almost over, so I may go Free Market soon. Problem with that is, it will interfere with any war effort against Lal. Not sure how I feel about that. I'm still somewhat getting along with Yang.
Good grief, Morgan just gave me Orbital Spaceflight. All kinds of options now.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 04:36:38 AM
free ride home |
MY 2224. Roze suddenly wanted me to go to war with my long term ally and benefactor, the Morganites. Of course I refused. Then she begged me for a lot of money, and again I refused. So she broke our Pact. I contacted Morgan and all I could get him to do, was call off the war. Then he cut me off before giving me any tech. The thanks I get!
Roze ditching me, had the unexpected benefit of bringing a just captured Artifact immediately home. It brought my Scout with it, so the far north is no longer being explored. My Scout in the southern ocean has almost arrived home, so very soon I'll be free to do Free Market. Politically, I think I really need Morgan on my side, regardless of the POLICE interference it's going to cause.
Yang is supposedly Seething at me, but the last time I met him in person, he was Noncommittal. That wasn't that long ago. Everyone hates Lal. Lal started the Maritime Control Center recently, so it might behoove me to try to steal from him. It's a long way to get there though. I'm more interested in learning Advanced Ecological Engineering so that I can mine Ocean squares, than I am in Doctrine: Initiative. So I have kept my original Build only focus since the beginning of the game.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 04:53:14 AM
capitalist sea pig |
MY 2226. All my Scouts are home, so I've finally gone Free Market. This increases my income by roughly 50%. I wasn't poor before, because I did get the Planetary Energy Grid done. With -5 POLICE, I suppose I now have a bunch of useless Scout Police in my bases. Well it's a 2nd line of defense in case raging Isles get through my untrained Trance Scouts. Now, how do I actually make a war? Maybe I don't. First things first, I need to infiltrate.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 05:13:30 AM
new state of the sea |
MY 2228. Morgan has declared war on the Hive. I suspected that would eventually happen, as even in the unmodded game, the Hive tends to choose Planned to take advantage of its IMMUNITY to EFFIC penalties. True to form, they're Police State Planned Wealth. They were supposedly already Seething at me anyways, so it's only a matter of time before we're at war.
I choose Democratic, no longer worried about keeping the peace with them. I'm making a probe team and probably when it arrives, Yang will declare war and then I'll steal. In the meantime I will try to finish up all my infrastructure projects before going to Power.
I suppose with my Free Market limitation, I'm going to have to pursue what was known in Civ II as "Democratic Adjacency" warfare. Nobody gets upset if you take a base in 1 turn. Compare: Domino Theory.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 06:22:49 AM
Yang draws first blood |
MY 2232. Morgan calls in his mark, and I dutifully go to war. He gave me Fusion Power to assist in the effort!
The Free Drones immediately declare war on me. I didn't even know they were allied with the Hive. Wasn't that long ago they were fighting. Yang clobbers my pathetic Trance Scout defense in my front line cities during the inter-turn, before I can do anything. The AI made a mistake though: it should have sunk the Transport approaching with a probe team. The Hive must not have a lot of troops to devote to this front. At least, not yet.
SOB |
Probe team defenders in both cities! That's going to make my life hard. So much for the "mistake". I didn't infiltrate earlier in the game because I've been conditioned by The Will To Power's "impermanent probe teams". Once you infiltrate, after awhile they discover your infiltration devices and you don't have infiltration anymore. So there's just no point unless you really need to know what's going on. Which would be like now.
moral victory |
At least I took out his foil probe team. Not very likely that it survives any further though. Wouldn't put money on the Transport either, although maybe Yang's planes will be busy.
potential catastrophic loss |
Just realized I've got 4 Artifacts vulnerable to air assault. Not good. They were supposed to be a SP, because I keep forgetting that Thinker allows supply crawlers early and often. I could try to turn them into techs, but that seems really pointless with Morgan as my benefactor, and enemies available to steal from.
air fodder |
I send my Sea Formers into harm's way, hoping they will distract any new planes from attacking Frigate Base. Maybe I'll also get lucky and sneak my Transport and 2nd probe team through too. I'm prototyping a Fusion AAA Gatling Silksteel Foil. Wish I had my free Naval Yards but oh well.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 06:42:06 AM
increase the war machine |
MY 2234. I succeed at one of my major objectives: activating my faction's ability to terraform Ocean squares. This will make mining platforms majorly more useful. I haven't bothered with Subsea Trunklines but now I'd say they're worth it. This is a major point at which one would argue about what the Pirates are good for, and whether their +1 sea minerals is overpowered. Hopefully I can capitalize on this and demonstrate some real power.
evil Yang |
I'm at a favorable start this turn. Yang didn't fly any air missions against me at all. Nor did he bring any ships. I think he's busy with other things. Did he just completely backstab the Free Drones? A whole lotta their cities just turned blue. Their alliance must have broken down almost the minute Domai declared war on me. Either that or the game is bugged. I don't have the infiltration to know one way or the other. Domai is at war with Morgan though, so I won't pester him about it.
SOB2 |
This jerk actually reinforced the city where I killed the foil probe team. Worse, it's a Veteran team and I bet I don't do so well against it. I'm already committed though, I have to attack on account of the likelihood of planes sinking my Transport. The team in the other city is Elite. I guess I've lost the info wars here. WTP is pretty slack about probe teams lately, doesn't even produce them. That's a big difference from Thinker, which obviously knows what it's doing for probe team defense.
Hmm, my team is Commando, so I might do better than I thought. Yeah, I actually killed his team and took 30% wounds. I expect the Elite team in that other city will finish me off though. The probe war may not be over yet though.
get me cruisers |
I look up the research weights for Doctrine: Initiative in alphax.txt, since I can't remember them in the original game off the top of my head. They're power=2, growth=4, others=0. I set my research to Explore, Conquer to get this as quickly as I can. I don't think I have a rat's chance in hell of getting a probe team over to the Peackeepers any time soon.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 07:33:50 AM
first capture |
MY 2237. The Hive started making these annoying Chaos Foils with no armor. The 1st one last year, I just blew up. This one I've captured, so I should be able to reverse engineer cool stuff from it. Hmm, except it's not listed as something I can build. Darn.
clogging them up |
MY 2238. I've transitioned to units only production. Every sea base has an Aquafarm. My capitol even has a Hybrid Forest. I let the Longevity Vaccine slip past me because it's late and I had to deal with my dog. I get over-anxious when there's some big combat and a lot of moves to make. Hard to stay focused.
make them tough |
Now it's finally time for Power. I'm not sure how well these untrained AAA Silksteel ships are going to hold up against Chaos Needlejets, but they should be somewhat of a deterrent. Definitely easier to stomp on the Free Drones, but I don't think the Hive will be at that much longer. They're surprisingly ferocious. When I do finally get infiltration, I wonder what I'll see? The cities near me have only been defended with probe teams and scouts, although I did see a silksteel unit move in at one point.
party tiiiime |
Since I'm just waiting for units to get done, I don't need anywhere near as much money. Let's crank up the happiness! Maybe some of these cities full of food will grow faster.
It's 2:30 AM and I'm too tired to think straight about the game anymore. Calling it a night.
Post by: Induktio on February 06, 2022, 02:16:38 PM
Tech trading is still basically vanilla only behaviour. What kind of exploit are you referring to? And which dialogue choices did you use to trade for those techs? It should be quite easy now to rewrite parts of that logic.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 03:50:01 PM
> The exploit of using an ally to get all your tech is rampant in The Will To Power mod, and not entirely absent here.Ok, I should be more thorough in describing The Will To Power's issue, and what Thinker is like by comparison.
Tech trading is still basically vanilla only behaviour. What kind of exploit are you referring to?
WTP offers an early Fundamentalist choice that's massively beneficial, with a +INDUSTRY bonus, +2 MORALE, +2 PROBE, and a mere -2 RESEARCH to pay for all of that. It's a slam dunk because if you make a "decent research" ally, they're gonna race way way ahead on tech. They're gonna just give or sell you the tech, without restraint, and almost without regard for whether an uncompleted Secret Project is available. They will give you so much tech so rapidly, that you'd be a complete chump to invest any of your empire resources into research at all. You can totally outsource this, and they will rubberband you all the way to Transcendence if you really want it.
The problem is so bad that I've filed stop tech leakage (https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/issues/92) as a "must fix" issue in WTP's Issue Tracker. IMO, at any rate, as I don't have any authority over what gets worked on or not. But I will not playtest WTP again, until at least 1 of the 3 issues is addressed. I've "been there done that" enough times to know it's completely pointless to play the game anymore, absent 1 of the 3 major problems changing. The other 2 major problems are AI spams way too many defenseless cities (https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/issues/104) and AI should evaluate neighbor threat and build defensive units and structures accordingly (https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/issues/11).
When I playtest something, the testing resource I provide for giving feedback is considerable. So the loss of me as a playtester does mean something. I output about 100x more information than any other playtester does. I love it when people volunteer their playtesting results, it's very valuable to get random perspectives out of the wild. A random playtester gives insights that I simply can't get on my own. But I am a heavy lifting, commercial grade, see myself as the Quality Assurance dept. level of playtester. I've actually briefly done it for money, which was a horrible job and kind of a joke, 'nuther story.
Anyways... Thinker by comparison, is good at stuffing the player about unfinished Secret Projects. It retains the stock game behavior in that regard, as does my mod. So it doesn't have that problem.
But Morgan is still very far ahead on research, and fairly willing to bestow a lot of that to me. He'll get cagey if he's working on some SP, but if some other tech comes along, he may sell or give it. Thinker is no different than vanilla in that regard. You can pester an advanced benefactor and for the most part, they will rubberband you. The game doesn't really make a consideration of whether you can or should be carrying your own weight. So the exploit is available. It's just not as egregiously bad as in WTP.
The problem that Thinker has created for itself, is these super-empires that are going gangbusters on research energy input, apparently. The original game didn't have quite that level of aggressive physical empire growth, so not quite as much raw input into tech advancement. And it has the rubberbanding behavior built in. So now in Thinker, I can benefit lots from the rubberbanding behavior. Any of these large empires can become a super sugar daddy if you stay on good terms with them. It's so compelling that I'd really be a chump to do something other than what Morgan wants, for quite some time at least. Talk to me again when I've cut a hole through the Hive's heart, on the way to the Peacekeeper's repository of SPs.
You would do well in your modding work, if you located the vanilla rubberbanding code, and somehow seriously toned down the scope of what a benefactor will give. What's the point of your AI making rich empires, if that just becomes the human player's rich research station by proxy?
Also, you really don't have to sell techs for 100 credits. It's such a joke.
Quote
And which dialogue choices did you use to trade for those techs? It should be quite easy now to rewrite parts of that logic.
"I desire access to your research data." "Some of my valuable research data?" That's my standard cue for gimme something free, or sell me cheap. And the big sugar daddy will usually do it. They just don't value their techs, and they quite inappropriately look at my empire and think I'm some complete peon. They really don't evaluate empire strength very well. I hardly think that's Thinker's fault, the vanilla game just isn't smart that way. Just because I only have 15 cities doesn't mean I can't kick ass.
When a sugar daddy doesn't want to bestow tech, they will politely refuse to communicate with you. You just keep polling this every few turns until they do. Then, they usually if not always yield the goods. Very much an exploit. One way to control it, is to make the no communication interval longer. But this interferes with other things you need to do with an ally, so not the best solution.
If the sugar daddy is working on a SP, the "Some of my valuable research data?" dialogue choice won't work. They'll tell you to check back later when they're done with their project. You can try again with "Would a modest sum of energy credits be helpful?" and sometimes they'll sell you an unrelated tech. Other times they won't. But it works often enough to be worth trying. Clearly, the code paths have slightly different logic and are differently exploitable.
Post by: Induktio on February 06, 2022, 06:40:17 PM
Certainly this normal AI tech trading behaviour can be exploited quite easily. Also it should be a lot more difficult to just become a tech broker by trading same techs to multiple AIs. The good news is that I've already reversed a lot of stuff related to diplomacy dialogue, so there shouldn't be any real technical obstacles for patching tech_trade function. Mostly a question of how much time to spend to figure out a new valuation function for tech trades, and writing more strict conditions before the trades are proposed. Also the AI could generally demand higher level techs in exchange for their own, e.g. give them some B5 tech and they could trade B4 tech back.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 07:25:56 PM
It seems AI is putting up some resistence there. Won't be just a walk in the park.
I can't tell yet. I haven't even successfully infiltrated. Clearly infiltration is not a walk in the park. But 1 city I tried to infiltrate, only had a Scout and a Foil Probe Team. The other only had a Probe Team. I saw some reinforcement, and if the AI actually reinforces with real troops, I'll give you props. WTP currently can't / won't do that, at all. But it's too early to say what the Hive is doing on my front.
The Hive clearly doesn't consider me a real threat or priority. If it did, it would have sent more planes and ships to hammer me, when it had the chance. Instead it hammered the Free Drones. I suspect the AI is better suited to fighting on land and doesn't quite know how to go after a sea power as effectively. I think my response of stacking my bases with cannon fodder, has confused the AI to some extent.
It did send out those unarmored Chaos Foils, but that's not a credible response. That's target practice for me. AI moves wrong, I kill the unarmored ships. It didn't even make good on attacking my sea bases and killing a unit in them. It went out into my open waters, and then died for nothing at all.
Perhaps the behavior is based on the idea that it's going to sink incidental targets at sea, like exposed Sea Formers. Of course, I turtled up all my Sea Formers into my bases, because it's all I had in the region! This seems to have confused the AI on what it should be doing. It will probably buy me the time to complete the "intermediate" AAA Silksteel ships. Which is going to make it harder for the AI to pull any funny business, or prevent me from probing in force. Like once I've got AAA, I can start shelling those probe teams in those cities. Then the AI will need artillery. If it doesn't provide it...
Anyways, we'll see. It's not going to be resistance-less, I agree, but I'm not sold it's going to be effective resistance.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 09:03:42 PM
sinking in my favor |
MY 2239. I'm really rather surprised to see this. Historically, Thinker had nerfed global warming dynamics pretty severely. So severely, that I thought any attempt by the Pirates to put everyone else underwater, would be a complete waste of time. Now I find that the Data Angels, of all people, are doing it for me? I'm really shocked. Well, I guess it remains to be seen how big the waves get.
Myself, I have not even "made good" on the promise of AQUATIC faction minerals yet. What can I say, the war came when it came. I shoved as much stuff in there before the war began as I could, taking advantage of my money before I had to start suffering the -2 INDUSTRY penalty. I can still bang out some needful things, when I choose to. I'll need at least 1 Aerospace Complex, but I'm not sure yet where I want to put it. I'll want some Subsea Trunklines, but heretofore my development has been Tidal Harness heavy. Which got me to where I am now, and is a valid use of the sea minerals bonus, so not to be dismissed. I will be needing Super Sea Formers to make more Mining Platforms, and some AAA or Interceptor safety to keep them all alive.
What I really really need, more than anything, is my free Naval Yards. I suppose I could rescind policy and put slightly more into RESEARCH, 40% rather than 30%. But I'm already due for a new tech every 3 turns, even as is. I'm not quite that stewed about it yet. I mean, to the extent that the Hive is giving me breathing room, I just don't feel enough of a crisis about it. The AAA fleet is coming and probably will slow the Hive down, quite a bit.
the western front |
Once again the AI trashes cities on land, and makes no move against me at all. Did it have very few planes, and did those get shot down? The AI is giving me very dangerous breathing room. Maybe that's fine as a human player experience, but it's not a good idea if one wants to win. I am doubting that the AI has some great plan about beating everyone on land, then turning around and "having the time" to deal with me too. I think it is short-sighted, and just taking what it sees as easy gains on land.
Like what if Rommel was never called in to prepare the Atlantic Wall? This is almost the same situation, just reversed in direction.
manual scouting |
Lacking opposition, I move a non-AAA ship 2 squares to see what's in 1 of the 2 bases I could probe. I'm not sending my Foil Probe Team out "blind" like my previous units, as it'll just get chewed up, even if it kills an enemy probe. The base that previously only had 1 probe team in it, is now better defended. Well I have to admit, that looks more like a real army. It wouldn't stand up to amphibious assault, or air assault, but it would hold off Speeders a bit. Of course the AI may jolly well know that I don't have all my ducks in a row yet. Can't tell yet whether it has infiltrated, and the vanilla AI would probably cheat in any event, just looking into bases regardless of infiltration.
somewhat weaker |
I move 1 more square to observe the other city in Foil Probe Team range. It's not quite as well defended, but it does have anti-probe. That's an Elite probe unit. I forgot to make note of the strength of the other probe before moving forwards, a bit of a problem when playing and typing up stuff at the same time. But I wasn't really considering moving against that city anyways.
Since this is not WTP and Sensor Arrays are not gloriously indestructible, I shell it. Sadly, I missed. Can't remember if a SA affects probe team combat, but it seems like good prep. It's also good provocation, to see if it draws any kind of reaction from the AI. Am I going to be left alone in my waters, or is a plane going to show up to sink me? My real plan will be to bring up AAA ships to do the shelling, and use them as cover for probe team assaults.
under cover |
My 1st real garrison ship arrives at my front line. I send a Sea Former out to work a square a bit back from the front, and try to scurry my Transport to more distant safety. I leave 2 Sea Formers in port as additional cannon fodder to confuse the AI, and in case planes show up that make mincemeat of this defender. I want that Foil Probe Team protected until I'm ready to use it. Many AAA garrison ships are in the water now. They're just slow and need to make their way to the front.
I decide my other Transport at the front, in a different base, should make a break for it at the same time. 3 sacrificial targets in the water if anything shows up. Doubt they'll get us all. If the Transports live, they will be used to bring trained AAA Infantry into my bases, from my 1 Command Center city at the eastern end of my small empire. I've got 1 produced so far and it is Veteran. The Hive is still Police State Planned Wealth, so my MORALE advantage matters.
see Drones die |
I'm not going to have the AAA ship strength to support my probing ambitions against these 3 defended cities just yet. If I'm going to retask my Foil Probe Team, now is a good time to make a run for it, while there's other stuff in the water. It is possible that the Free Drones could be under assault on the peninsula. When/if the Hive takes one of those bases, I might be able to slip in and infiltrate before they've had a chance to put a probe team defense in there. And if the Hive doesn't attack, infiltrating the Free Drones is still useful, even if it costs me the unit. If nothing else, it can let me see the kinds of forces the Hive is sending at the Free Drones, to estimate what I'm dealing with and what's left over to fight me.
Morgan stiffs Yang |
Realized I should apply that logic to my ally the Morganites. Looks like they've got Yang held at bay for the moment, unless their air force is a lot more powerful than I suppose. Maybe that's what happened to Yang's planes. Maybe he ran them against either Morgan or Lal, and they got shot down.
Morgan facing Lal |
Morgan looks like he's in a bit more trouble from Lal's R-Laser Needlejets. Not bad trouble, but possibly could crack, if Lal has more to throw at it. I shouldn't be so harsh on the AI, as to my front. This is actually a 3-way war. Morgan, Lal, and Yang all hate each other. Morgan is Democratic Green Knowledge. Lal is Democratic Green Wealth. So, Morgan has the military advantage of the 3, and I'm better with Power than all of them.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 09:40:39 PM
covered probing |
MY 2240. The Hive AI did actually react to my interloping non-AAA ship shelling its shore. It sunk the ship with a Needlejet. That's going to get a lot harder for it to do as AAA ships arrive in force. I've got such a ship covering my Foil Probe Team to infiltrate the Free Drones next year.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 10:09:33 PM
you were distracted |
MY 2241. The Hive finally does make a run at my cannon fodder Sea Formers in one of my front line cities, but that's the last unopposed chance they're going to get at it. Even that left it 70% wounded, so unless it was already hurt before the battle began, that bodes well for the ability of a Disciplined AAA Silksteel ship to defend. I suppose there might be the problem of the "ship in port" penalty, which never made any sense for sea factions and is something I removed from my own mod.
I was right about the Hive attacking the Drone city on the peninsula. I'm a bit surprised that it's gone now. Maybe it was just small and it's natural depopulation, not an atrocity. I'll check the previous screenshot in a minute. Since the Free Drones have been so thoroughly kicked, maybe I can get them to surrender to me. I'm not sure what good an extra patsy vote does me, but historically in the vanilla game, I remember it having its uses.
Domai's not talking unless I actually smack him down though, so I'll need to send some of these AAA ships his way. Should be pretty easy, as I'm only seeing a Scout and a Sea Former. I lose my Foil Probe Team infiltrating. It wasn't exactly well trained. I'm starting to reconsider my "window of insight" idea, as I wasn't paying attention to just how many cities Domai has lost. Well, what's done is done. At least I'll have a good view of his feebleness.
incautious at sea |
Remarkably, I capture a stack of stuff next to one of my front line bases, including another Foil Probe Team, if everything survives the turn. I tend to forget about this aspect of my faction's fighting abilities. I haven't done a lot of Pirate naval battles lately. Having been so reminded, I'll be sure to make more effort to chase down vulnerable Hive Transports, that Yang is too cavalier about sending in my direction.
the wall is up |
My leading 6 cities all have 2 AAA Gatling Silksteel Foil defenders in them. I send the Sea Formers back father in my line, hoping they get away with making stuff without being picked off. If they do, well I need new Super Sea Formers anyways. My rearmost cities, garrisoned with a single AAA ship because they're out of reach, start working on more Foil Probe Teams. My Command Center city is gradually distributing the tougher AAA Infantry units.
war dithering |
The 1 ship that's attacking the Free Drones, is causing some consternation. It's not a big deal, but for blowing 50% of my money on PSYCH, it doesn't seem like people are very happy. That particular city even has a Tree Farm in it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 10:41:27 PM
what's the relation |
MY 2242. Does the AI ever surrender to another AI ? Do they ever swear a pact to serve, or is that something only a human player can make an AI faction do? For that matter, what happens in multiplayer? I've never really thought about that.
so silly |
To combine a force, you must have a force.
floating minerals |
My mid-line Sea Formers were not attacked. Must not be that high of a priority compared to other things. Maybe my AAA defense looks scary. I set them to making Mining Platforms. My rear cities start making Fusion Plasma Super Sea Formers, since the armor doesn't cost anything extra. It will take a few turns and it's not a direct war effort, but I want those minerals and subsea trunklines I talked about, at the beginning of this After Action Report. Time to show what they can do.
Central Air Command |
I decide my capitol will be the airbase. Unlike the forward cities, it has a lot of undeveloped kelp. Sea Formers will probably not be struck at while they're working. Not a big deal if they do, as I will soon have enough AAA ships to cover them. From this point, I can attack all of the immediate Hive coast, and defend most of my small empire.
what was I waiting for |
I'm surprised an Aerospace Complex is this cheap for me. I'm used to paying Will To Power prices, which are exorbitant! Even in my own mod, I think they're more expensive than vanilla. This kind of pricing is nothing to me, even with only 20% of my budget devoted to ECONOMY. I bet I could get Subsea Trunklines done quick too, but I think I'd like to have 3 Mining Platforms in any given city, before bothering to pay for that.
ceremonial war |
I haven't bugged Morgan for tech for awhile, partly because I've been living real life, and getting distracted from all the details of the game. He wants me to join the war against Roze. Fine, whatever. Last I checked, she was Seething at me. And last I checked before that, they were allies! What's with this backstabbing AI stuff?
some of my valuable research data perhaps |
Well he didn't give it away for free, but it's awfully cheap. I got all excited that I was about to have hovertanks, when I remembered this isn't my mod. It's an even bigger gun though.
you can sell me more |
One thing about sales instead of a gift, is the sales can go on awhile.
right over the water |
I probably won't ever build one, but I've got lots of cash.
and finally he gets cagey |
"What a pleasant chat we've had!" He cuts me off. Well since I don't have anywhere else to get techs from right now, it might be saving me some trouble with the Hive. It's certainly faster, given that I have the cash. I still have 1195 credits left. Sea energy is good. As is sea food, which lets you get so much sea energy. And the sea minerals, which let you sustain the whole thing. It's really, really, all quite beneficial. No thermal boreholes at all.
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 11:16:03 PM
yesssss |
MY 2243. All faction abilities completed!
it is the power of a pirate |
What is the strict reading of a Naval Yard? Haven't read the Datalinks in a long time. The short description in alphax.txt says "Sea Def +100%". Why am I wondering whether that's really true? I have a vague memory of some bug about that. Well Thinker has Scient's Patch built in, so I'm supposing it works as advertized. If so, no navy is ever going to be able to realistically threaten me. It doesn't directly change the problem of air assault. Indirectly though, my AAA defense ships will now be even tougher.
bigpox |
What will I research next? I don't think I need Explore techs anymore. And I think I've already got enough Conquer techs, to trash the Hive. Given that my entire strategy is vertical, I'm probably going to want to go even more vertical. I mean, I do have enough food to already be approaching the size 14 limit. Plus if I had orbital insertion, that would be pretty sweet for messing up these faraway factions. They make one wrong move leaving a city empty, and BOOM it's mine.
Hmm, looking at the Matter Compression side of the tech tree though, I'm really far off on those techs. Lots of holes. I have Hab Domes fairly early in my mod, so I'm not used to this being a long term late game proposition. I'll need to settle on something more practical.
sweeping the land |
Hovertanks and Robotic Assembly Plants sound good.
happy happy workers |
Let's get back to pure Build!
Post by: bvanevery on February 06, 2022, 11:37:31 PM
friends don't let friends ride Transports |
This unarmored, unescorted Transport stuff needs to stop. Yang, this is not your backyard. It's my backyard. You can tell that by the borders around it, which say that it's all mine. And the fact that you keep getting your ass kicked here. Come in force or don't come at all. Where the heck are you sailing these clowns to anyways??
Probably a vanilla AI problem, but this is a big waste of units. They just sank, I didn't get to capture them.
like I was saying, MY waters |
Ok does Domai have any survival sense? It's not like I've gotten the chance to go Cybernetic or Thought Control. If he had half a brain, he'd surrender to me now. But he is the brainless Foreman Domai, so who knows.
there ought to be clowns |
A couple dialog beats on, he didn't surrender. Why is the AI so determined to go down to the last 2 cities? Very tedious that way. Ok, sending in more ships, to trivially take stuff. And suddenly they come out Veteran, so I'll be sending all the Disciplined ships as a training exercise. I'll even send that unarmored Chaos Foil I captured. I'm feeling pretty jaded and safe now.
infiltration mission |
I bet Rho Beta Sector, a captured Morganic sea base to the west, has no probe defender. And that I can reach it, without an air strike, or even a ship coming at me. If not there, that whole bay probably has something vulnerable. Those waters will also soon be under my control, one way or another.
If you can't hit them head on, flank. Bet the AI won't have a clue. Especially if I keep distracting them at the front.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 02:27:31 AM
discipline stands up |
MY 2244. A Disciplined AAA Silksteel ship will survive a Chaos Gun assault, at least in base. I was wise to stack my bases with 2 such units, as 1 is clearly not enough to have a safety margin. So Yang, what else you've got? Better have more or you've got a problem. The Fusion Interceptor is coming online this year too.
Yangish grit and determination |
Yang did actually commit more air forces to pound my 2 defending ships to oblivion. In the course of doing so, he lost 2 planes, which makes it at least attrition. And I haven't taken my turn yet. I'm not sure the Fusion Interceptor can reach these planes from as far back as I produced it, but it might happen, due to diagonal orientation. If I have the right of reprisal, then Yang will start losing worse than 1:1. My prediction is he will not be able to keep it up, and I will win the air war. My AAA ships are pretty cost effective to produce.
sneaking south |
Nope, the new Fusion Interceptor did not reach. But I did get it to my capitol. I replenished my garrisons with 2 more Disciplined AAA ships. I was right that my foil probe team and captured unarmored ship headed for Domai, did not get attacked. Outside of the Hive's area of concern or obvious air capability. Frankly, they blew their wad.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 02:45:06 AM
how did I miss that |
MY 2245. The Maritime Control Center isn't built?? I thought Lal finished that eons ago! Maybe he changed it to something else, after issuing a "major breakthrough" warning.
went after my interceptor |
Well that was certainly... bloodthirsty. I would have thought it rather ill advised, since I have an Aerospace Complex and am defending with Air Superiority. Does he have more to throw at me? I'm going to be rather disappointed if I inadvertently just got my Artifacts killed, as I was about to use them to rush the MCC.
begin sea control |
Nope, that's all Yang had to offer. It was a stupid move. Really stupid, throwing 1 plane away on a mission you can't hope to win. Not sure what to make of that. I thought the vanilla AI tended to limit itself to going after Formers and other such weak targets, and was pretty ineffective about main air battle. If Thinker has pumped up the propensity for main air battle, well it needs to do so with greater competence.
I will have it now |
I only cash 1 Artifact for this SP. For the rest, I just spend a big wad of money. I do this in my own mod all the time. Much harder to do in WTP, because most SPs are egregiously expensive, and there's a horrible 6:1 exchange rate for credits. Playing with the original 4:1 exchange rate is pretty tame for me by comparison. Mind you, I don't like 6:1, and I don't do that in my mod. I have 4:1 as well. Anyways, this is gonna be mine.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 03:33:51 AM
is it a fast ship |
MY 2246. It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. She's fast enough for you old man. This will help with not only eventual long distance logistics, but with short term Free Market warfare. Can stay in friendly waters and attack where I need to, a lot easier this way.
killin' me with the transports |
Where do you think you're going?
nowhere |
Seriously, someone teach these guys respect for the enemy. That's Mr. Pirate to you.
feeling bold |
I guard the captured Independent units because they're a worthy prize, but I'm feeling pretty confident about sailing through Domai's waters. He's got nothing. Yang's got a nearly dead plane in there, that's about it. I put 2 units in position to take Chainlink Break next year. Maybe Domai will finally see sense and surrender.
here come minerals |
I'm garrisoned. It's time to make those pirate minerals I've been talking about.
look what I turned up |
I was just shifting some garrisons around, getting ready to add insult to injury by shelling that Thermal Borehole on Yang's coast. My Deep Radar happened to pick up this thing! Sucker's armored.
should I |
I can take it out via attrition if I'm so inclined. I'm starting to see a purpose in that captured Chaos Foil, but in fairness, its movement was only 4 when I sent it after Domai. With higher movement, it would be much more useful on the home front now.
bigger gun isn't better |
Unfortunately Air Superiority isn't the thing for attacking ships.
attrition it is then |
The odds calculator lied. My Veteran Gatling ship blew up that probe team easily. I proceed with the insulting plan of shelling the Thermal Borehole. A supply crawler gets in the way of me destroying it. Now we'll see how many planes Yang loses to this Disciplined AAA ship in open water.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 04:06:46 AM
the parley |
The Hive managed to outright kill one of my Disciplined AAA foils in port, although it'll be my turn to send up my Interceptor next. It also killed the Disciplined AAA foil shelling their coast, using a Chaos Megafoil. I guess I have to respect them a bit too. They still did the stupid blunder of putting yet another Transport right next to my base. But just as I was about to open fire, Yang decides he wants to talk. I will hear him out.
it can help me |
I think I could do just fine finishing all my Subsea Trunklines, improving my garrisons, readying a marine invasion force, getting you to go after Lal, and maneuvering around your flank. I don't think you'll do a darned thing better to me in the meantime. If you make peace with Morgan immediately, my objective is achieved. If you don't make peace with Morgan immediately, then of course my ally will ask me to resume war at a moment's notice, and nothing will have changed. My ships are still overrunning Domai regardless of what you do, and I will have you infiltrated soon enough.
I'd be ok with putting troops into Morganic territory to attack Lal. That was my original plan before Morgan declared war on you.
you could hear a pin drop |
I don't care about the Cyborgs and am surprised you'd bother to mention them. They've very far away, unimportant, and feeble. Morgan though, what's your answer?
he bends |
We are agreed. We will all go destroy Lal. I hope I get some of his sweet SPs out of the deal.
a surprising response |
Just for fun, I offer him a Treaty, fully expecting him to refuse. I'm surprised that he's willing to accept a tech bribe to make good on it. Doesn't seem like vanilla AI behavior, and I don't actually remember being in this position before. I'm equally surprised that I have something he wants. Yeah, sure, I haven't seen any Fusion weapons, so I shouldn't be completely shocked. But I wonder, how much more do I have, that he doesn't? And why has he done a poor job of stealing it from the Morganites? Are the Morganic probe defenses that good? Did they complete the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm and I forgot about it?
This is so unusual, that I'm just gonna try it. My rationale is he's gotta be able to acquire Fusion Lasers pretty soon anyways. It's a chance for him to ruin his reputation a bit, if he does a 'surprise' attack after signing a Treaty.
oh you slimebag |
And now you've played me for a chump. Or at least, the game's UI has. It shouldn't be able to just keep shaggy dogging things, handing stuff over like I just give give give and the other party gets to refuse. The proposals should be on the table. Well, I won't get fooled by this kind of unusual dialogue tree in the future.
but he did sign |
This is an oddly passive aggressive AI. Caveat emptor!
knock off the stupid stuff |
He's still talking, and I don't want any trades with him, absent me infiltrating first. And some track record that he isn't about to just surprise attack me. It's not like I'll be standing down from my war footing, at all. So, I will try to resolve a pointless squabble that can harm our communication in the future. I don't need him yabbering at me about the totally unimportant Cyborgs. Go kill the sanctimonious Lal already! Lal, that guy has never liked me.
comply! |
Remarkable. If only we had any potential for ideological compatibility. But absent a Future Society, I need EFFIC and GROWTH. I'm going to stay Democratic. I sign off.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 04:16:58 AM
let's get the Drone |
Will a sail-in trigger a surrender? Nope. But I wanted that base gone anyways. I don't need smallpox crowding.
bow to the inevitable |
Will taking a real base trigger a surrender?
if I only had a brain |
Ok! I've got a Planetary Council vote in my pocket. I get him to stop fighting with the Morganites. He's actually allied with the Hive, which will be a bit weird for a bit. Might make for some cool bugs, who knows.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 04:36:17 AM
can never be too careful |
I infiltrate my ally the Morganites because well, I haven't. Who knows how the winds of war could suddenly change? My team lives and is promoted to Veteran, so that went well. Onwards to the Hive. Think I'll be sending the other 2 teams somewhere else though. They're Commando.
flooding, what flooding |
My capitol suddenly completes all its Mining Platforms, and even without a Subsea Trunkline, is doing 72 eco-damage. I'm not sure what exactly that means in Thinker's terms. In vanilla, that would be catastrophic! Now is this a problem, or is this a weapon? Should I focus on making all of my cities as polluting as possible? And this mind you, is on top of a Hybrid Forest. I'm not entirely sure a HF works as advertized though. Thought I remember something about WTP fixing that problem.
Yeah, I think I'm gonna do nothing and just watch the fireworks. Complete my Subsea Trunkline and see if there are any consequences.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 04:53:33 AM
oh |
The Hive took over the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm from the Peacekeepers. Whatever I thought I was going to do with foil probe teams, ain't gonna happen. I will need that Nano Whatever stuff and Algorithmic Enhancement. I will complete my last 2 ships and then transition to Knowledge. That gives me 1 turn of insurance against the Hive immediately 'surprise' attacking me as well.
shifting the money |
I do increase my LABS budget now though. This requires me to increase my ECONOMY to avoid an efficiency penalty. My PSYCH will not be quite so over the top. I doubt that matters, or that I was benefiting much from it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 05:20:16 AM
transition |
MY 2248. I make the transition to Knowledge. Yang didn't attack. However he did try to interlope another armored foil probe team. I sent it home, but it made me rethink sailing my own foil probe teams off anywhere. I think I'd rather have them as a mild amount of home defense. Yang seems to have been clumsy on the movement, stopping his teams right next to my bases, but that doesn't have to always happen.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 05:43:24 AM
disappearing Transport passenger |
That's weird. I know I loaded a Scout Rover from Storm's Lee onto that Cruiser Transport. It was something I captured from Yang, and it was close enough to Storm's Lee at the time, or just messed up in the case logic, that it became supported by that base. I wanted to alleviate the SUPPORT there, so I was going to ferry it to somewhere else. I didn't have a good plan for that, but there were some Independent units I wanted to go pick up. I know I didn't rehome it to a new city.
And now, it's just gone. I wonder if it had to do with the fungal pop that happened next to it? I'm getting tired and I didn't bother to type that incident up, but I got a Locust and 3 Isles on 1 square, and 1 Isle on another square. I shelled all of the Isles mercilessly and they all died. The Locust I took out with a Conventional Missile I had just prototyped. Nasty thing was making my citizens unhappy.
Another theory could be some weird slip of the keystroke, but I don't remember getting any "Are you sure you want to disband?" message or anything like that.
Yang actually attacked my base with the probe team in it. He died, but I might not be able to take another hit like that.
I'm so tired I forgot to save a game about this. I need to quit soon. This will just have to be an anecdote for now.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 06:01:11 AM
anti Locust |
MY 2250. I'm getting more fungal pops. I lose 2 ships trying to take out a Locust before it attacks. My memory of dealing with large stacks of Locusts, in apocalyptic deluge scenarios, is you need a really big Air Superiority Artillery piece. You can fry 'em all out of the sky. You won't get rich that way, but you will be alive. This gun is a bit downscale by my standards, but maybe it's good enough. We'll see.
I'm also getting confused as to what turn it is. Alright, that's enough. Time for bed!
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 02:27:34 PM
slimebag |
MY 2253. That's some serious cheek. It's not even a good base. Morgan goes to war for me.
what up fool |
Why does Yang want to talk? I'm having a hard time imagining why I'd want to hear what he has to say. I will go through the motions anyways.
your sales technique is lacking |
thanks for sharing |
Were we not at war when he mind controlled my base? Well, he triggered Morgan to go to war on my behalf, which would drag me into war. So it's not like I had much choice leeway. Won't be doing any Treaties with the Hive again. I'm slightly annoyed that he found the loophole for avoiding the diplomatic repercussions for breaking a Treaty. Except that, he then went on and jawed at me, breaking the Treaty anyways! Either way he lost political face, for what that's worth.
[Limit reached]
I'm lucky he only had the one Chaos Megafoil cruising around. He sunk a Super Sea Former in the northeast of my small empire. Dealing with abundant Isles, I took many of my ships out of their garrison positions to shell the Isles more effectively. It left my bases more vulnerable, but that will end now.
[Limit reached]
I keep forgetting that I shouldn't worry about naval interlopers. My empire is not basically vulnerable in that way. I think I'm going to forget about the Power stuff for now. Continue with Knowledge, turtle up, build the Fusion Labs, get the Algorithmic Enhancement. Maybe cash these Artifacts to speed it along.
[Limit reached]
At least I'm not getting any more oceanic mindworm pops. I did get one on land, but that probably won't matter. I captured another milling Transport and sunk yet another. The capturing will trigger a drone riot next year because I wasn't expecting to have to use local ships to fight right away.
[Limit reached]
I just noticed that Ocean minerals don't yield as much as Ocean Shelf minerals. I've probably never had a game where I really had the concern. The important implication is that if the world sinks, it actually harms the Pirates' minerals somewhat. I already had other reasons to fear sinking, as Pirates don't have any special ability to terraform Deep Ocean. So if you hadn't worked those squares already, you wouldn't be able to. Or you'd have to spend a lot of time lifting them out of the ocean, which is a real pain. Or you could shoot off some Tectonic Missiles if you have them.
I'm not sure if Thinker is capable of such severe ocean problems. The evidence so far is that it isn't. With the pops I've had, I would have expected at least 266 meters of flooding by now. In vanilla or my mod, and maybe WTP too.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 02:34:44 PM
Belatedly I remember to cash an Artifact. I haven't had my coffee yet. I suppose I can make use of this. The other 2 Artifacts have to wait until I can bring them to another base via Transport.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 02:54:47 PM
Yang has conquered UN Enforcement Base, home of the Empath Guild. I don't think we're going to like the next election. Then again, if he's in charge, maybe we can get atrocities legalized?
[Limit reached]
I cash another Artifact. The Xenoempathy Dome isn't exactly what I'd call the most useful thing for me personally, but hey it's an available SP.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 03:21:43 PM
MY 2255. I liked the idea, and Morgan's heart is in the right place (i.e. he has none), but Lal is a pill about it. I thought about proposing this myself a long time ago, but I didn't want Lal to benefit at the time. Now it's a non-issue.
[Limit reached]
Morgan isn't even capitalist! The nerve!
[Limit reached]
Algorithmic Enhancement capability. And I did it! No help from Morgan. Well, except of course to get me to a higher level of tech to begin with. No recent help from Morgan. He's been tooling with the Cyborg Factory for quite awhile, getting nowhere because he's intensely at war.
[Limit reached]
I cash another Artifact. I'm feeling better about my prospects. I'm doubting anyone else has this capability yet, because I haven't seen any messages about anyone starting the Nano Factory.
[Limit reached]
Now I need more money to complete this stuff. I tweak my budget to 40-30-30. My monetary policy is to keep my credit reserve to 1000 or below, to avoid the Energy Market Crash. It's really nasty in vanilla, Thinker, and my mod. WTP toned it down a bit.
[Limit reached]
I will continue with my pure Build focus for now, as I'm close to getting better armor. I could use that, against Yang's occasional air interlopers. He's been busy stomping Lal lately though. Also now that I've got A.E., I need to see what I can steal from Yang.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 03:31:45 PM
MY 2256. That was a lot slower than vanilla, but finally, the seas start to rise. I wonder how much I've been responsible for it? Judging by my ongoing fungal pops, I would expect / hope quite a bit!
[Limit reached]
I lost a unit going after this armored probe team, but then in the 2nd battle, I captured it. So that's almost a fair exchange.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 03:41:42 PM
Ok, I know I had a captured Independent 3-Res or Plasma type garrison. I think it had ECM. It was standing on this bit of rock next to the probe team. I had deliberately separated them in case of an air strike, and was waiting for my captured Transport to heal up. Now, it's gone. The rock didn't sink in the flooding, so why is my unit gone? I strongly suspect there is a bug with captured units and old unit designs. It was the only unit of its kind that I had, and it started life as a Hive unit.
[Limit reached]
Similarly, I had the vaunted unarmored Chaos Foil out to sea, shelling Isles around my capitol. It's gone too, this turn. I don't see any Ocean Shelf that turned into Ocean, and I would hope that wouldn't wipe out a ship anyways. Once again it started life as a Hive unit, a long time ago. It's the only design of its type that I had.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 04:52:26 PM
Inter-turn, MY 2257 to 2258. I could not get a screenshot of Yang nukeing UN Commerce Committee, a base that Morgan captured at some point. Sometimes the CTRL-ALT-TAB task switching functionality on Windows 10 becomes locked up, only with Thinker. I suspect it happens after a Secret Project movie has been shown, as I recently completed the Xenoempathy Dome. I don't usually play with SP movies but this time, setting up a new installation for Thinker, I decided to do so. My usual work around is to save the game and restart it. Of course I cannot do that on the inter-turn.
Not happy about Yang's use of nukes, especially since I'm still blind about what's in his empire and what he's producing. Probe team and infiltration shenanigans, would be a quite unexpected downfall to my gameplan for trashing Thinker. There is of course a ready antidote: be sure to infiltrate early, before anyone builds the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm. Especially neighbors! I'm just not used to bothering because WTP doesn't make that exercise worthwhile.
While discussing bugs, it should be noted that I generally cannot start Thinker with the 1st click of its shortcut on my desktop. It takes at least 2 times and often more. It's indeterminate how many times it takes, although it will eventually succeed, probably no more than 5 clicks at the most. I do have to Run As Administrator. In contrast, I don't have to perform any special rituals to run WTP. So they have apparently diverged as far as how they handle startup.
I'm going to make a guess that Thinker incorporates PRACX, which is actually buggy, and WTP does not.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 05:09:17 PM
MY 2258. I have a clever little team of captured Independent units that's been gradually making their way northwards. They've shown up at a city next to the Manifold Nexus, and guess what, it's defended by only 1 photon probe team!
[Limit reached]
I didn't end up actually having the territory influence over the Nexus. It's of little consequence as it's about to sink anyways. Once it does, it's gone, unless Thinker did something about that. In the stock binary, it would be gone.
[Limit reached]
I'm beginning to feel pangs of attrition, like my fleet of AAA Silksteel ships is not adequate. I capture stuff but it takes awhile for things to heal up.
[Limit reached]
I'm doing well on my SPs and getting facilities completed. I believe I'll be going through a cycle of Power real soon now.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 05:49:19 PM
MY 2259. So much for Independent troops having any long distance value. I didn't know how long I'd hold that city, but that's pathetic.
[Limit reached]
Yang's got Shard weapons, which I think means he's got Advanced Spaceflight, if memory serves. It's an Interceptor and lost 2 of my own Interceptors trying to kill this thing. Granted, he's Veteran and mine were untrained Fusion and Tachyon prototypes. I actually had to bring up the anti-Locust gun to finish this thing off.
I'm starting to get really annoyed at how long it's taking to get my production maxed. I'm not sure if the AI is smart at fighting, but it's got overwhelming resources and it certainly harasses well enough. It actually demonstrates competence at probe warfare, which is a force multiplier for it. Its main weakness, if you can even call it that, is it still doesn't regard me as a serious threat compared to taking over land stuff. Now maybe in the end, that will turn out to have worked for it just fine. Much depends on whether the Morganites do ok, and whether they balance each other out.
[Limit reached]
Yang has finally embraced Power, explaining some of his recent victories. I'll need to follow suit soon. Morgan is still doing Wealth, putting him at a disadvantage. So's Lal. That's really dumb in his case.
[Limit reached]
Morgan just completed the Cyborg Factory, so he's finally in a tech bestowing mood again.
[Limit reached]
After 2 techs, he stuffs me regarding the Living Refinery.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 06:08:57 PM
Through a convoluted series of convoys, I manage to bring 2 Algorithmically Enhanced Hovertanks to Storm's Lee. I have the Xenoempathy Dome so I actually have quite a lot of cities I could inflict them on. Which one? I'm going to try presuming the necessity of "inland", that the AI will have fortified a front line, but not necessarily have thought about inland penetration. Of course the AI could have instead put a probe team in every single last city. I'll just have to get in there and see what I can do. That's the basic problem with being blind.
[Limit reached]
I will take the easiest one, if you're inclined to let me have it. I hope these teams can perform.
[Limit reached]
No way I'm talking to you again, unless it's to hear you grovel.
[Limit reached]
My noble probe team dies in the assault. But finally, after 160 years, I can see what's going on. I'm surprised that Advanced Spaceflight is his only tech advantage over me. Morgan is a good benefactor indeed!
[Limit reached]
That team lived. I did a little bit of poking around before making my probe, to look at all the nice thermal boreholes around these bases. In any other mod, the world would be 4000 meters underwater with all this stuff.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 06:29:26 PM
The Hive has got various 'troops', mostly, not really in excess for an empire that's so large. The only real standout is the huge number of supply crawlers. Perhaps that's a strategic vulnerability, if only I didn't have to worry about my units being bribed. The good news is, I don't see any Planet Busters in production. I think the Hive engineered the most beneficial result for me, which is not hitting me, and making everyone hate him!
[Limit reached]
The Hive's energy reserves are unremarkable.
[Limit reached]
In fact, he's supposedly losing money every year. His faction disadvantages and choice of Power are definitely costing him. If I tried to harass and pillage his lands, and destroy his supply crawlers and formers, I don't think I have to make my units invulnerable to probe team capture. I think I just have to make them expensive to capture. If he gains them, he'll just wear his money out. The ideal harassment unit would have strong armor and a weak armament. So that they can kill the crawlers and formers, but when/if they're turned on me, they can't do me any real damage.
I don't think cloaking technology is available to me yet. In the original game I remember that being from Frictionless Surfaces, and I don't think I've seen / heard that dialogue. The tech is usually a big nothing against the AI, because the AI simply cheats, looking at your units whenever it likes. In my mod, for a long time I was giving it away to the Aliens at the beginning of the game, I thought so little of it. More recently I toned down slightly and made it available early midgame. Just not that important an ability. Bypassing zones of control is very useful for pillaging and supply crawler hunting though.
[Limit reached]
This is a little more expensive than I'd like, but the 50 mineral version would only have a Gun on it. That's not good enough. This seems to be the best bang for the buck in armored hovertank technology. I will order one up!
[Limit reached]
I know I will need to ditch the -2 PROBE of Knowledge to make my plan work. But I'm also realizing, this isn't going to work very well with a Free Market. A wide ranging, harassing invasion force, needs a fair number of units. At least, to get the job done swiftly. And I do think speed is important, given the Hive's rate of growth. Need to kneecap him. So I think I'm going to have to make Morgan a bit displeased with me for awhile.
The irony being, he should be displeased with himself, first and foremost. Only in Thinker mod, can a faction leader gaslight everyone about how they should do their social engineering. Do as I say, not as I do.
Maybe I'll even go Fundamentalist. It would really hurt Yang's attempts to probe me. Seems like a good antidote to the harassment I've been suffering. So it's looking like Fundamentalist Green Power. GROWTH will suck, but my cities are pretty big. I won't need GROWTH again until I've got Hab Dome capability.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 06:54:54 PM
MY 2260. This will help me determine what I need to destroy.
[Limit reached]
Not quite as many boreholes as I thought he'd have, and an incomplete rail system. Lot more forest than I expected. Looks like a hovertank can bypass ZOC on a lot of this, using fungus and the Xenoempathy Dome.
[Limit reached]
I've got the money to complete the Nano Factory. I think that's my cue to cut down my money supply. I'm not sure whether I'll push on to get the Living Refinery. I don't think it's worth holding up the invasion over. Morgan's working on it.
[Limit reached]
I think he's going to get this done, if I'm not willing to struggle for it.
[Limit reached]
I break with the Free Market, cutting my income in half, and knocking my credit reserves down to 26! But ground intervention is required to affect Yang.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 07:06:34 PM
MY 2261. Decent decision on my part last year. Morgan jumped from 7 turns to completion, to I guess 2. Don't know if he dumped cash or supply crawlers on it; really don't care. I was right not to try to bite off more SPs than I could chew. Got a bigger fish to fry.
[Limit reached]
People, who needs people? Actually I've got a lot of people. My various size 14 bases could spawn off some people in a hurry, and bring the others up to max. If only I didn't have better things to do.
[Limit reached]
The poles are gone, as well as a lot of ribbon land hanging off of them. The Nano Factory is incomplete! Lost a lot of Hybrid Forest trees in the flooding. Well if I wanted the world to be more ocean-like, I got a bit of it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 07:30:17 PM
MY 2262. I guess I don't need to pillage coastal thermal boreholes. The sea is going to do it for me. Also if I just had some more armored ships, I could shell them. The problem is, my Robotic Assembly Plants really aren't done yet. I'm not ready to go to Power, as I need all that existing infrastructure completed. I figure it's enough that it's not a cakewalk to possess my units.
[Limit reached]
I use various Transports to bring my tank back to Storm's Lee. Another hindrance is my Command Center and Skunkworks is on the east side of my small empire. It has not had its production upgraded to Robotic Assembly Plant, and I keep needing to make prototypes of stuff. The reality is I'm not a land power. I'm not even an amphibious power. I was supposed to be, by now, but the realities of competing with this huge Hive productivity, have gotten in the way.
[Limit reached]
I notice Yang has a lot of cities that are Stockpiling Energy, including ones closest to me. He has brought down his bleed rate considerably, but it's clear that financially, he's hurting.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 10:14:17 PM
MY 2263. Normally I dread this sort of thing, but today I am the Pirates! I've already created plenty of Mining Platforms, which is the key to surviving an apocalyptic deluge. And this isn't even that, yet. Everyone else can sink. All I have to do is tidy up some Ocean Shelf as the land disappears.
[Limit reached]
A Marine would actually be the more appropriate way to do this, at least on the coast, but this is the weapons platform I designed. This borehole won't be sinking soon, so I intended to pillage it.
[Limit reached]
I forgot the advantage of high movement, as well as disengagement. Both of which might enable me to tear up a lot of stuff, and not take anywhere near as much damage sitting next to bases. Of course, disengagement requires an avenue of retreat, and I often won't have that on a coast. Ok Yang, what are you going to do about this new threat? I haven't cranked up the PROBE bonus yet, so you can still try to buy it if you're bold.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 10:31:50 PM
The Hive didn't make any move against my hovertank, which was pretty much the idea. I killed a Former but it got dinged up doing that. I brought it back to base, completely forgetting to run a probe team mission while using my Transport. The Hive just started on the Cloning Vats, so there's tech to steal. I'm foggy headed, had a beer, and it's nearly time for dinner. It's kinda hard to concentrate on all the details of this game when you're dealing with real life.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 10:38:09 PM
MY 2265. "Why am I not using this extremely convenient foil probe team instead of the tedious hovertank routine?" Because it will DIE you dimwit! I can't remember everything about the game when I keep getting interrupted by sessions. This has a lot to do with why I usually prefer to play the game almost entirely in 1 sitting. Not practical when doing an After Action Report though. Everything takes twice as long because of the typing, and the typing is its own distraction from the flow of the game as well.
[Limit reached]
And because of that fiasco, I almost forgot to run the hovertank probe team mission I was perfectly capable of running. And I did forget that I already went after this base, the very nearest base. I need FOOD. Well I got back in my boat and went to a different sea base.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 10:58:34 PM
MY 2266. My 1 hovertank probe team died. I've been making lots of Command Centers, so ground units are coming. However the nature of the game is now changing. I really didn't think about "drown 'em" as an explicit strategy, but it's starting to look that way. Hang on until all that nice Thinker infrastructure, simply gets wiped out? This is some pretty major flooding. There used to be a continent joining the halves of Yang's empire. Now the possibility of taking him apart piece by piece is emerging.
[Limit reached]
Morgan just seized the Empath Guild, possibly putting him in position to become the Governor instead of Lal. Checking the votes. Lal's down to 58, heh! Morgan's suddenly got 778. Yang's only got 673. Let's do this. I don't know how long Morgan will be able to hold the base.
[Limit reached]
That wasn't hard, at the moment. Well that's 20 years of advantage for our side. Assuming he even stays on my side. I just remembered I shouldn't talk to him. Even though we're both Green, he's gonna be in a snit about it.
[Limit reached]
I thought I'd try anyways. Totally forgot that I've got Domai in my pocket. Doesn't matter as Morgan would veto. I'm not paying him to make that move. And he can jolly well propose a Global Trade Pact himself. At least Lal won't be able to veto that anymore.
[Limit reached]
UN Information Agency, home of the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, has sunk. It's feasible to take it by naval force. It's a long way to get there, and I'd need "real ships" to do it, but it's possible.
[Limit reached]
The Manifold Nexus is gone. Industry did what I could not. I'm not even sure it was my industry. I'm Green at the moment.
Post by: bvanevery on February 07, 2022, 11:14:27 PM
Yang has a cluster of 3 Fusion Planet Busters that will take 2, 3, and 5 turns to complete. I sure hope he's planning on lobbing them at someone else. They're way too far away for me to do anything about them.
[Limit reached]
I design a new kind of long range assault ship that I hope is good for taking the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm. It's expensive. I'm going to need a bunch of them, as there's a lot of territory between here and there.
[Limit reached]
While contemplating what to build in my capitol, I remember that I've got an Aerospace Complex there. And that I'm no longer limited to "weak" planes, or barely keeping 1 unit in the field per city. Soporific Gas Pods were a really bad addition to the game, that in my own modding work, are "soft retired" until very late game. The idea being, by the time you get them, you'll have already won the game by other means. So in the real world, you'll never use them unless you're sandboxing.
Well in Thinker, since it's almost policy not to interfere with the mechanics of the original game, I'm happy to demonstrate why Soporific Gas Pods shouldn't be in the game. Yang is still into Power, and this is gonna knock that silly.
I'm getting that food now.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 12:32:05 AM
MY 2267. Aki suddenly speaks and wants to trade. I haven't played with a vanilla tech tree in so long, that I forgot where Genejack Factories were. In my modding, they're part of the Build tech tree. I can't remember what part of WTP they're in, but they come early and are easy to obtain. I think I'm good with all my citizens being happier though. Ask me again if this was a mistake, as the world floods and I try to send out those expensive ships.
[Limit reached]
Also, uh, I'm getting hammered by Isles and Locusts as is. Aside from wiping out some ships at my base and leaving my peon backup garrisons barely alive, there's another pop invisible in that fungus to the southwest. I guess it's only global warming / flooding that is nerfed in Thinker. Fungal pops seem to be coming just as fast as I generally remember in other games / mods. The pattern in vanilla and my mod is 6 pops = 1 more level of ocean rising. Wonder when this stuff will calm down? I mean, I'm Green.
[Limit reached]
An Air Superiority Shard Rotor can knock off formers and supply crawlers, and has the advantage of returning to base, but it doesn't have much range.
[Limit reached]
There's a budding fungal tower near one of my bases that I need gone. Maybe I'll find some other use for it. Maybe it'll just sail around on a boat, blasting fungal towers and making money.
[Limit reached]
I'm Green... I built the Xenoempathy Dome... I've got Biology Labs in every base... maybe I should see if Isles can do me good. I'd prefer Sealurks, but I don't know how to do those. Also, I don't know if Thinker fixes the 'bug' where Sealurks get stuck on fungus. Well, that wouldn't matter because I have the Xenoempathy Dome. Other thing is, I made Sealurks faster, and I don't think vanilla rules do. The one thing Sealurks can do better, is attack the coast.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 01:41:38 AM
MY 2268. Sunspots are the traditional time to commit atrocities. However I don't think it's wise to make a Planet Buster armed opponent want to commit reprisals. In fact I'm really hoping those nukes go off somewhere else in short order. The duration of sunspots also tends to be about 20 years, which is not enough time to start building X weapons and launch a vigorous campaign against such a large enemy. That said... genetic warfare offers other possibilities. I must think about this.
One thing is certain: I can't do anything until either the nukes are expended or eliminated.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 02:51:49 AM
So that's why Thinker is sitting around with only probe teams in the cities. It's aware of the probe team armor exploit. Jack up your team to Elite somehow, don't really have to do anything with MORALE bonuses. They'll defend just fine, long as only probe teams are available for defense. Guess I'll have to find something else to shoot at. Pretty sure the Interceptor in the area is too wounded to go out, knock on wood. I divert to a crawler and blow it up.
[Limit reached]
I think it's time to start trashing Yang's coast. I hope it doesn't draw attention before the nukes are launched.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 03:17:16 AM
MY 2269. If that's my capitol, I'm resigning this game. Even if it isn't, there's 2 more nukes to go.
[Limit reached]
Well that's depressing. An awful lot of hand crafted game time, to be nuked by a tyrant who clearly doesn't care.
I honestly never really thought about Planet Busters as the way this could end. I thought mainly in terms of ongoing conventional warfare. Which, frankly, I didn't expect the AI to be all that good at. And I still don't think it actually is, based on the few clashes we actually had. But if you've got a super budget for nukes, and plenty of stuff to give you defense in depth while you build them, then what does it matter? All the tactics in the world, won't stand up to a lot of nukes.
I guess despite sea minerals being "good", it took me too long to build up my stuff, and gave the AI too much time to stomp everything.
I just did a postmortem survey of everyone's governments. Nobody's Free Market, so I think I was the faction driving the eco-damage. In that sense, I did a really good job! I mean I'm Green and I'm still getting fungal pops. The world's sinking. Probably I cut Yang's empire in half. Good situation for Pirates, even if it wasn't planned. Maybe I should have stepped on it with the sea minerals and factories a lot sooner. Instead of the "Tidal Harnesses and buy stuff" approach.
Hm. Well I can either try again, or forget about it. Not sure how I feel about it.
I definitely don't like hand-crafted empires getting nuked. I don't like them getting flooded out either. That's why in other mods, I'm so squeamish about eco-damage. They undo all my careful work. Even if the seas don't rise very much, the shifting river systems trash all my careful rails work. I hate that. I might try to rebuild for a bit, but after awhile, that gets old. If I haven't won by then, then I don't want to play anymore. Because to some extent it's a builder game, and those floods turn the building into a complete waste of time. Unless of course you gained something amazing for all that careful rails work, but usually you don't.
I'm also totally unwilling to play this game "like I'm the AI". Unlike the AI, I get bored. Not just gonna push colonies and make new cities endlessly. I already went through that kind of "personal values check" with WTP. It ain't gonna happen. This game, I built the size of empire that I'm willing to build. It's plenty of mouseclicks just to do that. It takes plenty of real world wall clock time; granted, even longer doing a writeup of it.
Well if I've learned one thing from Thinker, it's that I must have a "nuke intervention plan". Without that, you're dead.
Another thing I found disturbing about the Pirates in Thinker, is I found it just about impossible to project force. I'm not clear to what degree this was my choices and my presumption of time (which I didn't actually have), or the Huge map being just ridiculous to get through, when there's Thinker level empire spawning going on.
Like, let's say Yang hadn't been my next door neighbor, but had been as far away as the Cyborgs. How the hell would I have ever have even got to him, before he starts spewing nukes? Now, maybe being far away, he would have hit someone else with them. But that sounds like a really bad situation. How would one ever hope to intervene, in the Thinker powered empire that's diagonally farthest away on the map? That's usually the strongest opposition to the human player, because they have the least logistical ability to affect it, for a very long time.
Gosh it's sounding like if you're gonna be Pirates, you've gotta sink the world a helluva lot faster. 'Cuz you ain't building a mag tube to your enemy.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 06:10:22 AM
Having contemplated all of this, I decided to try again. This time with more deliberation about various "things". The random opponents were shockingly similar to the previous game, with only the Spartans replacing the Peacekeepers. And much to my dismay, I got Yang as my neighbor again.
This time, however, I am determined to kill him in his crib. Not just because of the monstrous amount of growth he's capable of, and my soreness at having been nuked last time. But because we're ideologically incompatible. My faction penalties obligate me towards EFFIC and GROWTH. The only thing that really provides that early on, is Democratic. I intend to embrace it sooner rather than later. I'm already capable now, but I will finish settling my bases.
My starting strategy was much more "loose", and that was partly driven by the map I was given. My 2nd sea colony pod, I sort of wandered off with. I knew from other Pirate games that splitting up the founding colonies isn't a good strategy, but the compulsions of exploration caused me to somewhat do it anyways. A patch of Monsoon-like jungle was in the other direction, as well as Yang. So I resolved pretty quickly that that would be my new center of empire. I was really irritated when he out-colonized part of it, forcing me to do heroic measures leveling some Rocky terrain.
I didn't pursue any particular research strategy. Tech largesse in the last game, taught me that worrying about filling out my faction abilities was probably misguided. Time enough to change to Build if I really feel the need later. I stuck with the faction's default of Explore Conquer. Maybe I can get my Cruisers sooner rather than later.
The main consequence of my research choice, is it took a long time to learn Social Psych. Eventually I got it out of a supply pod. I've spawned what I've spawned only because I couldn't make anyone happier sooner. I had piles and piles of supply pod money to do it, and no happiness facilities I could buy. Now I'm finally correcting all of that.
The world community is turning out very similar to last time as well. Morgan just allied with me. The Data Angels allied, rather much like last game early on. I've loaned money to both of them. I'm probably going to go Democratic Free Market fairly quickly, because I can definitely do "adjacency war" with Yang, and the +1 energy per square can let me concentrate on building only minerals at sea. At least initially.
I don't intend to do much reportage on this game, having been pretty exhaustive in the last one. The point is to get the game to diverge from what happened last time. Like, the next field report is hopefully "Yang's dead". And then I'll be asking the insightful question, how did other factions do meanwhile? Do I have a nuke intervention plan for them?
Santiago is already at war with me, but at a bit of distance from me, and not well developed yet. I can probably trash Yang and then deal with their situation. Santiago is violent and I've seen her toss nukes indiscriminately at people in various games. So, I'm reasonably willing to end her life too.
It's really not going to be the "sit back and develop" Pirates this time. I'm not getting nuked so easily again.
Post by: Induktio on February 08, 2022, 04:02:17 PM
While discussing bugs, it should be noted that I generally cannot start Thinker with the 1st click of its shortcut on my desktop. It takes at least 2 times and often more. It's indeterminate how many times it takes, although it will eventually succeed, probably no more than 5 clicks at the most. I do have to Run As Administrator. In contrast, I don't have to perform any special rituals to run WTP. So they have apparently diverged as far as how they handle startup.
I'm going to make a guess that Thinker incorporates PRACX, which is actually buggy, and WTP does not.
So what is your exact Windows version? I think one other player reported something similar, but it has not been possible to replicate that issue on my Windows version. It would be more likely if the launcher either worked or failed, it just doesn't make much sense that it would operate "randomly" in that fashion.
Did you check the task manager if there's additional terranx.exe processes opened in the background? Maybe that might affect the startup if there's redundant processes present in the background. Also by default PRACX features are disabled in Thinker because that additional smooth_scrolling code affects performance a little too much. And it's not that necessary anyway.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 05:43:50 PM
Hmm, it seems Yang is at least playing to the character. :D
Yeah no kidding. Makes it easier to swallow, as compared to getting nuked by Lal or Morgan.
Quote
It's actually only vanilla AI that is using those missiles, so that worked out quite well.
In various stock binary games I've seen, Miriam and Santiago are the ones I know for sure, will fire first. Less of a track record with Yang, which might just be the incidentals of how rarely it has come up. But I'm hardly surprised if he's in the "set" of murderers.
Quote
I was even thinking of implementing a special AI strategy for using conventional missiles, it would be useful to overcome Aerospace Complex+AAA or similar high defenses in some bases, but implementing it would require quite a bit more code.
I wouldn't make it a huge priority for you, because the Spore Launcher is the absolute supreme defender against such attacks. If you spend a lot of time focusing Thinker on hammering with CMs, a knowledgeable human player is going to respond with many SLs. And then they'll just game your AI into wasting its resources.
The stock binary is actually a relentless pesterer with CMs. It is especially fond of lobbing them at bases where you have few units and an Artifact. I hate it when it does that, to the point of save scumming games. And with my own attempts to return CM favors, this is how I know all about SL defenders. It's really pretty ridiculous.
Given Yang's level of production, I was actually quite surprised that nobody was throwing CMs around. They had the capability for a long time. I kinda breathed a sigh of relief that it didn't happen, because it's rather tedious to play against. It's not really a problem in my mod because I made the missile chassis far more expensive. Although, they can also hit the entire globe. They're true ICBMs.
Quote
So what is your exact Windows version?
Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H2, OS Build 19044.1415. 14 year old laptop with Intel integrated graphics.
Quote
It would be more likely if the launcher either worked or failed, it just doesn't make much sense that it would operate "randomly" in that fashion.
Seemingly semi-random, as it will finally work within 5 tries at the most. Although, the 1st failure is not random at all. It always fails. The random part, is whether it takes usually 2 or 3 tries to get going.
Quote
Did you check the task manager if there's additional terranx.exe processes opened in the background?
I didn't happen to check. Currently as I play today, there's only terranx.exe. I will wait until the next time I kill the game and try to remember to notice. I think the behavior, is almost like it's required to have a stray copy, to get working.
Also it is weird to need to run it as admin, as I don't recall ever making any kind of setting to have that happen with WTP. If I don't run as admin, it won't work at all. I get an error dialog box about it not being able to start up.
Quote
Also by default PRACX features are disabled in Thinker because that additional smooth_scrolling code affects performance a little too much. And it's not that necessary anyway.
Can its mere presence as part of the game's code be an issue? Like it's disabled, sure, but its code path is pestered and thereby has some side effect?
I wonder if Windows or an anti-virus is enforcing some kind of binary hack security. I'm just using Windows Defender.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 06:03:19 PM
MY 2164. I settle my last base for awhile and go Democratic. I've coastally ringed the southern extent of his empire. The intent of course, is to make it mine. And I won't be shy about bringing Morgan into the war, if he doesn't bring me in first. I've got a Particle Impactor prototype completed, but I don't actually have any troops yet and haven't finished my Command Center. I've got Rec Commons and an untrained Trance Scout in pretty much every base. I've got a lot of ordinary Scouts that I need to do something with, and I'll be moving them around before going Free Market.
[Limit reached]
I've also got 3 ships at sea, still popping pods. The oceans I have ready access to, are almost exhausted. There's a big chunk near my allies the Data Angels and my enemies the Spartans that I haven't explored.
[Limit reached]
Having put it like that, I realize I should check in with my ally to see if any of it has been explored. Roze wanted war with Aki, which I don't want and have no interest in. I get Roze to beg off. Then I ask Roze to go kill Santiago, and Roze agrees.
Map-wise though, Roze knows nothing about this void. I can even see a supply pod exposed. If Roze can run some land interference on Santiago, then perhaps I can get some ships in there and clear it out. I've got a fair amount of foil probe teams under construction, so playing footsie with the area has another purpose as well.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 07:03:12 PM
Could it be some kind of memory allocation or resource allocation weirdness? Like what if it's graphics related. Maybe the driver barfs, but in the course of barfing, shuffles some things around. So that it succeeds a 2nd or 3rd time. Or, any other weird subsystem barfs and resets. I am suspicious of Microsoft that way.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 09:17:20 PM
MY 2187. Yang's been milling around at sea, establishing puny bases near my waters. Now suddenly he gives me a piece of his mind. Of course I'm not going to knuckle under to him, having been preparing for this for quite some time.
[Limit reached]
This is the same year that I completed the Planetary Datalinks. My exploration has been cash rich but Artifact poor. I blew the 1 Artifact I had on it, as well as all the plain Scouts that I had brought into my capitol. I decided they didn't have enough military value to keep on paying SUPPORT for them, and this SP was more worthwhile. It's possible that the sudden reduction in my nominal forces, increased Yang's confidence in bullying me. Or it could be coincidence, and this was going to come anyways.
[Limit reached]
It doesn't matter as I've been dumping all my money into my capitol. It is fully developed and that's the only reason I even worked on a SP. I had the cash to burn. I've got Plasma and 3-Res armor available, as well as Particle Impactors. Looks like the Hive must have recently acquired Plasma armor as I see a couple of such units here and there, but mostly he's defending with Scouts. I've got the decided weapons advantage for now. He's spammy, but I've got an even spammier friend next door to call on.
[Limit reached]
Yang is still only Police State and hasn't gone Planned. But don't worry about it Morgan. He would have gotten around to it! Morgan is Democratic Free Market Wealth, so I'm not really sure what he's going to do.
My 3 well heeled allies all collectively have the techs I need, except perhaps Adaptive Doctrine. Hopefully I get my stuff soon enough.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 09:40:03 PM
I don't like having to spend so much money to buy off a unit. But only my capitol was really ready for this fight. The rest of my empire is a lot of bases with Trance Scouts and Perimeter Defenses, just trying to hold on and get Hologram Theaters together to keep people happy. The Hive is incredibly spammy and they've already caught up with the Impact weapons somehow. When they get to have all this production and I don't, it's a problem.
So far, no evidence that the Hive can even touch me on land though. It's the sea, where I'm starting to think my "up the coast" spread was actually a bad idea. But, maybe I've got enough money, enough allies, enough tech, and enough flanking from Morgan, that I'll be laughing about this later. If I've made a mistake so far, it's that building a defense is overwhelmingly slow, when you don't have spam production behind you.
Oh, and Santiago is in the water with unarmored Impact Foils too. Fortunately, in waters fairly far away from me as yet. It adds to the danger and necessity of home fortification. I really could use Doctrine: Initiative, which the Cyborgs have, but they want to build the Maritime Control Center themselves of course.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 09:52:47 PM
This is very uncool. That mere Laser Foil somehow bypassed my awareness, probably because the Hive can spam new sea bases indiscriminately around me. It emptied my base, and it's only because of my other bases and finishing my production, that I now have a defense. I thought this was my version of a "fast" empire, but clearly it isn't. The speed of the Hive spam is overwhelming. Going up the coast was wrong. Splitting my colonists at the beginning was wrong; I'm effectively fighting with half an empire. The Deadman Tavern capitol on the jungle was right, and that's the sort of thing I should do in future games.
I think I'm probably going to have enough to fend Yang off, barring further serious incidents. Like a bunch of Impact Foils showing up from some new angle. If I lose a bunch of bases I'll just quit this game. Guess I have to call these jerks Mr. Spammer.
Another lesson here is that the Pirates actually have no special defense on the ocean, until they get their Doctrine: Initiative bonus. I have done everything correctly as far as pursuing the techs. There's no way I would have ever had time to produce Network Nodes etc. Either my allies give it to me, or I get it from the Planetary Datalinks, or after a long time I finally research it myself.
Well, I suppose technically I could turn an ally into an enemy and go steal it. But I don't think that's even slightly wise. And I haven't been fortunate enough to have an enemy, that's a research powerhouse, that I could simply steal the tech from. Actually the tech spam of some of these factions is overwhelming as well. The Cyborgs are pretty ridiculous. Morgan's no slouch either. They've sold me plenty; that's where some of my exploration money went.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 10:13:07 PM
MY 2193. My ally was the most remote faction. Now I have infiltration with everybody. Which is good, because another ally the Cyborgs have begun working on the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm. At least I will not be flying "blind" this game like last time. I also seriously overproduced Foil Probe Teams, fearing this. Since Santiago had nothing to steal, they're mostly wandering the waters, doing the job that cheaper ships should be doing.
That will make it easier to transition to Free Market at some point, but given that I'm still exploring elsewhere, I don't know when that point will be. I would say that, however great it may be for Morgan, Free Market simply isn't a good early game choice for an ordinary human player's level of productivity. It's something to go for, after you're sure you don't need those supply pods anymore.
Post by: bvanevery on February 08, 2022, 11:01:49 PM
MY 2197. I mean they really, really can do all kinds of stuff, that I'd never be able to do, as an ordinary human player. There is another version of farming your allies or conquests in the vanilla game. Conquer another faction very early. Then let it spread like crazy. Not that you really need to do anything, it'll just do it. It'll give you all kinds of troops and stuff. If you're really determined to win the stock binary in 200 years, that's how you do it. A beeline to the nearest AI faction, that's going to "feed" you. Then on to the next one. Not so doable on a Huge map, but certainly works on a Standard map.
[Limit reached]
I've already been on an enormous shopping spree this turn, simply because the Empath Guild got completed. It freed up all sorts of tech to be traded. That's another problem: it's a bit much, for 3 high powered research factions, to be my friend. Well, the Data Angels aren't actually as high powered, because unlike my mod and WTP, their infiltration of other factions isn't automatic. The stock binary AI never gets around to doing it, which is why we made that change. Looks like whatever Thinker's probe team prowess, it hasn't got the Angels in everybody's networks either. So they're not a powerhouse, but they did have Centauri Empathy to give up. I just blew off waiting to get it through the Planetary Datalinks, as I figured a flurry of tech trading would be way faster. I was very, very right.
[Limit reached]
I've already begun seriously harming Yang at sea. It's less about me bringing a force, and more that Yang let the guards down in some places. There was at least 1 defender in one of those southwest sea bases at some point, but for some reason they just emptied out. I think Yang's had some trouble keeping people happy down there. This would say that, the "long reach" spamming strategy of the AI is somewhat wrong. It only works if other factions leave you alone. If they don't, then you're just giving away bases to them. And it should have been pretty clear from my posture, that I wasn't going to leave the Hive alone.
My defensiveness has basically worked. I've made my gains mainly with Trance Plasma Laser Foils, and that 1 expensively bought Impact ship. It hasn't even shot at anything seriously important yet. It just sailed right in. I've been limited mainly by the time it's taken to spew out these simple defensive ships.
I did finally get to use my home Foil Probe Teams to steal Gatling tech from Yang. I completely forgot that I already had Missile tech that I hadn't prototyped. For some reason I had "design units automatically" turned off, so I didn't remember it, in between real life interruptions. I also didn't need it. I've still only been garrisoning my nearby sea basses with Trance Plasma Infantry. I had the 1 Impact gun that sailed up from down south, but Yang finally killed it, before I could bring it to bear against his land bases. Points for that... but points for me, for unleashing Morgan on his flank. It must be keeping him a little bit busy.
[Limit reached]
These things are way too cheap in the original game. A 3-Pulse Trance Impact Foil costs 40. I'd be a chump not to take advantage of the exploit, given that Thinker's AI, is all about maxxing the exploits. What's Yang gonna do? He doesn't have AAA capability yet. Soporific Gas Pods are even available already.
Pretty silly that I'm gonna be an air power before I'm a sea power.
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 02:32:05 AM
MY 2203. 100 years of progress on the rematch, and boy is it going well. I've made piles of Trance Impact 3-Pulse Foils to secure my waters, even without Doctrine: Initiative yet. That would already be enough to clear out the last few of Yang's sea bases. I've got Missile Artillery in my capitol, which eventually will result in a serious land push. If that wasn't enough, Fission Missile Penetrators are fairly cheap in the mostly unmodded rules that Thinker uses. I'm starting to make a bunch of them, because I really don't need any more ships.
[Limit reached]
And if that wasn't enough, Aki gives me this.
[Limit reached]
And if that wasn't enough, I cranked up the design workshop. I discovered that Fusion R-Laser Needlejets don't cost any more than Fusion Missile Needlejets. So if anyone's got any mindworms out there, goodbye. Fugetaboutit!
The technical term you're looking for here, is...
CAKEWALK
So, here's the provisional answer to the aggressive nukes problem. Use Thinker against itself. Make allies that are really good at research, which is exceedingly trivial to do. Let them bestow tech magic upon you. I could never cough this stuff up myself. And just go to town! Did you know I was the first faction to make a plane? I couldn't get a screenshot of it at the time, because of how dodgy Windows' Snip & Sketch screen capturing tool is. Let's see if I can get a screenshot from my monument:
[Limit reached]
I say 'provisional' because I don't know what the world is going to be like, once the "nuke tossing" factions are reduced to servitude or eradicated. But none of my allies are bad apples that way. Can't speak for Domai.
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 04:50:31 AM
MY 2212. Yang's AI thinks it can garrison bases with various unarmored speeders, but that clearly doesn't work when the enemy has planes. I just avoid attacking anything armored, going from base to base blowing up my victims. This also trains up my untrained planes. My navy shells the coasts, getting rid of any Sensor Arrays within reach, and then starts softening up the cities proper. There's nothing Yang can do about it. I have Trance Scouts slowly advancing forwards to take over cities that have been devastated by my air power.
If I had either Marines or Drop troops, this would be even simpler. As is, I'm not very interested in investing in more ground troops than I already have. I'd rather just keep making more advanced facilities in my capitol. So, I currently regard it as a war of attrition, and I'm the one doing the attriting. The higher Yang's body count gets, the worse off he is.
[Limit reached]
I have overwhelming numbers of planes, destroying things at will, so I've stopped making them. I'm making Energy Banks in cities that haven't reached size 7, and Hab Complexes in those that have. I'm not even bothering to pester my allies for new techs. I have plenty to destroy Yang with, and they're not going to hand over what I really want, which is Doctrine: Initiative. Rather than spend any money going on shopping sprees, I'll just wait for the Planetary Datalinks to give me whatever.
[Limit reached]
Recently I started spending money on PSYCH. I'm surprised at how happy only a Hologram Theater level of civilization has kept most people. This turn I went to a 40-30-30 budget, as with my allies and existing tech, I don't really need RESEARCH. This game, I did a sea minerals first build policy. Now I'm building Tidal Harnesses, as clearly I've got my minerals sufficiently situated. I have my eye more on what it's going to be like to compete with my allies, than on my current enemies. Santiago is no longer doing well against Roze, and will probably be summarily crushed when I finally intervene.
[Limit reached]
I think Morgan declared war on Aki recently, although I can't imagine why as she's Free Market. This is another good reason not to talk to my allies right now. When they finally pester me, I'll try to settle them down. And see if they want to play catch-up on giving me free stuff. I don't feel like paying for anything anymore.
There can definitely be some competition once the "nuke lobbers" are vanquished.
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 07:09:03 AM
[Limit reached]
And then, catching up on the begging like I promised... she gave me nukes. I'm a little disturbed that they're in play so early. I'm doing the right thing, smashing up an aggressor faction before it can start lobbing them. But it makes the whole game feel unsafe and really volatile. If it came down to the point of being random, like 100-ish years go by, nukes are suddenly everywhere, and there isn't a darned thing you can do about it, well I'm not sure I'd consider that playable. In the present instance, I seem to have it under control. But it does beg the question, what if Yang had been on the other side of the map, where I couldn't easily intervene?
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 07:38:59 AM
MY 2227. If I made a bunch of Planet Busters, and I gave them to Yang, would he toss them willy nilly at various people? It's moot point because I don't have the production for it. At least not now. The world is a bit scary with these superpowers, and I'm only a power. Maybe this is what it's like to be England after WW II.
So, if the rematch was against Yang, I've prevailed. If the rematch is against Thinker, well the show's not over yet. The Spartans are going to go down pretty soon though.
The logical outcome as I see the game right now, is someone Transcends, and there's nothing I can do about it. Or I spend the whole rest of the game struggling to prevent an eventual Transcendence. The rate of faction tech progress is silly fast. At this rate there's not going to be much of a game to play.
[Limit reached]
I finally choose Knowledge, for the EFFIC rather than the RESEARCH, and because it won't harm either my war effort or my facilities building. I'm no longer worried about the PROBE penalty. I think my air umbrella is so strong, that the risk of a probe team trying to take one of my cities is pretty minimal. I just keep hitting enemy cities before they can produce a probe team.
I'm way behind my 2 main allies in tech. Nobody else seems to be finding out their techs either, so the Planetary Datalinks aren't doing me much good. I'm not using my own probe teams for anything because only my allies have good tech. If I really wanted their tech, I'd pester them. But I'm a bit tired of that exploit. If I have to beat Thinker just by polling allies over and over again, well I just don't want to play that game anymore. It was fine for getting to the point of beating up Yang, although I'll be perfectly happy if that loophole of Thinker's thinking is closed in some future release. It pretty much makes it a baby game.
Maybe I could save up enough Singularity Planet Busters to nuke everybody in 1 turn. The odds of doing that before someone Transcends aren't that good though.
Maybe I need to get this planet flooded. I am the Pirates.
[Limit reached]
Cities are getting beyond the radius at which I want to deal with incorporating them into my empire. I wanted to know if I'm going to have to bother. I suppose I could just bleed the Spartans and let the Data Angels actually take the land cities. Roze is not powerful enough for me to be concerned about that. Morgan, on the other hand, I somewhat regret cooperating so well with him. It made Yang collapse fast, but it also blimped Morgan up.
Maybe I wait for sunspots and dastardly wipe one of my allies out. Like with plagues.
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 04:01:13 PM
MY 2230. I'm simply not ready with some big plan against my allies. I could upgrade all of my planes to X weapons though. Really wipe out the Spartans.
[Limit reached]
I thought about how if I get them to surrender, I'd have another vote in my pocket on the Planetary Council. But I'm just not motivated to wait until the end of sunspots for that. Call it a failing! The game is easier when you don't have to tend to stuff.
[Limit reached]
I didn't have the money to upgrade my planes to the new Fusion Laser and X weapons at the same time. That design costs 50. The X R-Laser design costs 40. I'm sure it'll do just fine, as I've rarely lost a plane. I've got 18 of these things! The great thing about the total design upgrade exploit is you can immediately use your units, instead of having to wait a turn. It makes a pile of cash a huge weapon, instantly turning peon troops into dangerous troops. Pity that pile of cash has taken me a long time to accumulate. Well, Free Market can come after I get rid of Santiago.
[Limit reached]
I completely wiped out 3 cities this year. More to come.
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 05:10:07 PM
MY 2233. I've got fungal pops, which I keep ignoring in my joy at slaughtering Spartans. I'm surprised that I could be a majority contributor to global warming, since I haven't even chosen an economic model. But I can't deny the reality of my fungal pops for much longer.
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 08:37:59 PM
MY 2237. The one time I actually manage to gain a tech that one of these superpowers doesn't have, they just up and steal it from me? That's gratitude for ya. I was probably wrong to get Aki to stop her war on Morgan a number of years ago. It would be completely rational to gut the Cyborgs, since they are most likely to transcend first. And after that, to take over Morgan, since they are closest. Well I hope I can get them into war with each other now. It may not take much, in fact I may not need to do anything at all, since they've gone at it before.
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 09:41:39 PM
MY 2240. Sunspots are still in effect. I have succeeded at taking advantage of the window of opportunity, and this is the last Spartan city. I fully expect Roze to wipe it out next year. If she doesn't, I will. All of my planes are flying home, where they will be upgraded to Fusion Interceptors. Then I'll go Free Market, and not have to worry about the planes making people unhappy.
[Limit reached]
I tried not to leave many Spartan cities for the AIs to take over. I don't think I need to be feeding those beasts. I captured some sea bases at roughly the flight distance of a Penetrator, so that I could advance my air umbrella without relying on allies. In the future, allies could turn on me, and I might need to wipe out more stuff up here.
[Limit reached]
MY 2241. If I ironically free them at some point in the future, will they still hate me?
Post by: bvanevery on February 09, 2022, 10:16:23 PM
MY 2243. Even though I can, I really don't feel like talking to anyone! Maybe I should see if we can vote Aki out of office though.
[Limit reached]
I am the kingmaker. Welcome to the postwar era. How long is it going to last?
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 04:30:20 AM
MY 2245. I'm allied with everyone but the Cyborgs. Roze recently went to war with them. I could jump in on that any time I want to. Having trouble getting motivated for it. The big war effort against the "nuke lobbers" put me way behind on infrastructure, and I'd rather try to catch up. I'll go along with a war once it's forced on me, but I don't feel like being an instigator. For all I know, it could get me some really nasty immediate attacks.
I wouldn't mind seeing Planet sink some either. I still haven't gone Free Market. I've still got planes trying to get home. Some of them, I tried shooting at mindworms. They didn't do so well.
Morgan and Aki are in a Truce. Eventually, that will expire. Then I'd expect them to come to blows. Also if I asked Morgan to join a war, he'd probably do it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 05:02:11 AM
Ok I'll be honest. I hate this game. The Morganic empire just grosses me out. It's unwieldy, it's sloppy, it's all-powerful, and it would take forever to clean up. Now maybe there are ways. But I just can't see putting myself through the motions. I quit.
More than anything, I really really hate the level of tech leakage in the game. It deprives me of agency; none of my own research matters. I still don't have Doctrine: Initiative, despite maintaining an appropriate Explore Conquer focus the whole game. I'm the freakin' Pirates! Probably all that tech largesse from others, warped my tech costs. So that I never reach what I intended.
I could go try to buy it from Aki, as she completed the Maritime Control Center recently. Surprisingly, Morgan doesn't have it. So tech in this game, is not entirely determined, in the AI factions. But I don't really have a role in it. Not unless I beg beg beg, with the sole exploiting objective of reaching parity and then getting ahead. I really don't feel like it. It's boring.
I didn't expect tech leakage to be the big issue I'd have with Thinker. But it really is ruining a lot of the game. There's no point to anything if I know I can rubberband at any time. Like why is Yang my puppet? Simple: I begged for techs to defeat him. My powerful friends had such techs in abundance, so the game reduces to exactly one thing: make powerful friends. That's boring.
Yang didn't die because I used clever combat tactics against the AI. Yang died because I exploited tech trading. No other reason.
I'm not sure what kind of "house rule" or "strategy" I'd come up with, that would avoid the temptation of the sugar daddies, and still prove something. I could insist on being Amish?
Hmm. What happens if I put Thinker under illegal chemical weapons apocalyptic stress? Will there be a deluge? Or will I just get creamed with mindworms and no deluge? Will it harm the mega factions more than it harms me? In the stock binary, the global warming apocalypse tends to degrade and slow down AI empires, but it doesn't destroy them. A rather disappointing phenomenon in that regard.
If I'm anti-social, never make peace, and run around destroying everyone's thermal boreholes and supply crawlers, will I live to tell about it? With nukes coming so early, boy that sounds risky. This game I took the safe bet, which was completely eliminating 2 factions likely to toss nukes. And it took so long. And it empowered Morgan and Aki.
Hmm. I suppose I could start stealing from any ally more powerful than myself. Rather than ask, just steal. Then they'd stop being my ally. Then if they're my neighbor, I could keep stealing from them. Then they'd go to war. Then I'd chop them down. It might prove something. Might get me a nuke in the face too though.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 02:06:56 PM
[Limit reached]
Opening the game without making 2 serious mistakes, would be a good thing to explore. I should not have split my early colonization. I should not have "stretched up" the coast to Yang, as it just made me more vulnerable. What I did do right, is establish a power center / anchor on land that had excellent resources, to face off against Yang's growing empire. That was situational. Here I'm checking the situation, to make sure what direction I really should be spreading.
It looks like I should go south, into this sort of V pocket.
[Limit reached]
For random opponents, this cast and crew has stayed awfully consistent. The Morganites, the Hive, and the Cyborgs have been in all 3 games. The Peacekeepers and Spartans have been in 2 games. I think the Gaians are the only new face. Makes me wonder how "random" opponent selection actually works.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 02:17:40 PM
MY 2102. I've used 2 turns trying to get a better position in this "V" for my capitol. I am thinking in terms of a "perfect circle" that fills up the V. I did not want a capitol at the top of the V. There's probably only open ocean up there, and no substantial resources or Ocean Shelf bearing minerals. It also wouldn't be close to enemies, for purposes of harassing them. And it would be bad for my EFFIC once I start conquering nearby enemy bases. Power is better held a bit more towards the center. Provided you have the strength to actually exert power. Which is my intent: I'm not trying to hide away in a corner and just build.
The Gun Foil did the scouting. 1 of my sea colonies has followed it exactly, to maximize the speed at which it moves south. The other colony has slightly explored the right flank, but has kept close enough to produce a unified empire. This energy special that my Gun Foil and sea colonist are sitting on, may be where I want my capitol. It will depend on what's revealed to the south next turn. The 2nd colonist, I've kept close enough so that if I want to use it to build my capitol here, I can. Leaving the 1st free to penetrate slightly farther south.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 02:24:18 PM
MY 2103. Taking too long to settle one's empire is one of the serious mistakes. One that I'm determined to avoid in this game. That said, I don't think I really had a choice about moving south at the beginning. I was dropped in not very good water. This is an ok position from a centrality standpoint, if not ideal. If I don't find anything better, I will settle my 2nd base in range of that patch of nutrients. It won't be greatly helpful immediately, but I can plant trees on it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 02:30:45 PM
MY 2104. 2 games ago, I thought I did better with the Build focus, rather than the faction default of Explore Conquer. For instance, I actually got to Advanced Ecological Engineering, so that I could mine my Oceans. Never happened last game. I also had a great deal of difficulty getting Rec Commons last game. On the other hand, this game I'm determined not to avail myself of sugar daddy tech exploits. Some kind of "house rule", not quite decided yet, to simulate a version of Thinker that has somewhat closed these abundant tech trading loopholes. I really can't stand the idea of my success being only that of a sycophant. That's just the AI factions playing the game, not me.
[Limit reached]
This natural harbor is awfully cute, so I'm going in. I accept the 1 turn delay for the superior position. I will be doing land exploration here. If there are good resources somewhere, then I'll put a land anchoring base on it, to keep anyone from interloping. On the other hand if there's no one for miles and miles and miles, I won't worry about it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 02:45:56 PM
MY 2111. The monolith indicates someone else's exploration. Looks like I did the right thing as far as settling the center of this "bowl". The Command Center production is a completion scumming setup. It will most likely be changed to something else at the last minute, before it goes to 10+ minerals. Unless of course it completes.
I've got a fair amount of money already. An arguable mistake I made last game, is not spending my cash as aggressively as possible when I acquired it. I think I thought I was holding out for a Secret Project. This time my expenditure is fine so far. The other Gun Foil and the Transport both got rushed. I am SUPPORT limited though, so I don't necessarily want to rush anything else right now.
It's best to complete sea colony pods with completion scumming if at all possible, when the base goes to size 2. Generally I don't start on sea colony pods until the base is size 2, to take advantage of that. You won't get a completion event on a colony pod or sea colony pod if the base is size 1.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 02:59:30 PM
MY 2117. It's all in the timing. This is how you get Pirates set up fast.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 03:24:51 PM
MY 2119. So it's a very near neighbor. I need to remember that the Spartans are not likely to become the most technologically advanced faction in the game, and not overreact. Morgan and Aki are the real ones to worry about. The Hive, well it's hard to say. In my 1st game they proved very capable of munging a lot of territory. I don't think they're inherently a research powerhouse. I think they just got gigantic, without me intervening.
Balance. Balance.
[Limit reached]
I block up their sea access. It could backfire in that they might go for some kind of naval invasion, but if I diligently make this a strong point, it should work. I'm also thinking that isthmus would be the right place to put a land colony, to get access to whatever ocean is on the other side of that ribbon of land. It might just be a lake, or it might be the southern hemisphere. Again, it would require me to hold it. I also have to get it settled before Santiago contacts me and exerts her claim to the area. Ergo, I rush the colony pod, which I was thinking of doing anyways.
Maybe my house rule will be "don't ally with strong tech builder factions, and don't trade with them". I could conceivably ally with the Spartans.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 03:44:20 PM
MY 2122. I'm about to settle my isthmus when this jerk shows up in the way. I hope he's just wandering and hasn't settled here.
[Limit reached]
That is precisely the person I want nothing to do with right now. And I'm not happy that you're here either.
[Limit reached]
It's too early in the game to be standing on some kind of Amish principle. Morgan can't have amassed much in the way of technology yet, if I actually have low level stuff he wants. Maybe "tech for tech" would be an acceptable way to do things, and I don't have to ever ally with him. That would stop him from bestowing techs on me. He could still offer silly cheap prices on a lot of techs at some point, but we're not at that point. Later on, I could resolve to just steal from any faction giving the farm away like that. But for the present, there's the practical matter that I can't steal from anybody yet.
He insisted on getting Doctrine: Flexibility out of me. Then he begged off.
[Limit reached]
I'm surprised the AI has already gone Free Market. I wouldn't expect that to be a successful strategy at the beginning of the game. It certainly wouldn't be for me, as any human player. The AI has all those buffs on Transcend though.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 03:50:00 PM
MY 2123. Now I just need Santiago not to overrun it. I decide I'll crawl the shore southwards to avoid speaking to her for as long as I can. I consider changing my research focus to something more aggressive, but then I remember that in the stock tech tree, B1 Industrial Base is how you get Synth armor. So my Build focus is already the right thing for maintaining a defensive stance.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 03:55:47 PM
MY 2124. Setting up a more expensive prototype of something to be completed, and working on that until you are about to go to 10+ minerals, is a good tactic.
[Limit reached]
Sadly, it's just a little lake. It doesn't even have a supply pod in it. All I've done is succeed in putting myself between the Spartans and the Morganites, which hardly sounds like an objective. Well, that could work out if I actually ally with the Spartans, but that's very much up to them.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 04:03:34 PM
MY 2127. I don't think I like actually meeting all these people in my backyard. It's a little claustrophobic for a Huge map. Well at least I'll be able to interfere with some factions later on. I wonder if Yang becomes the monster at the opposite end of the map though? Then we might get an answer to the question, who gets a nuke in the face, if you're at a great distance.
[Limit reached]
He was like that my 1st game too! Fine, execute me. See if I care.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 04:15:59 PM
MY 2129. It's also good to keep a "lead" city while you're popping pods out at sea. If I had colonized in the oceanic direction, then my spawning capitol would have been blocked off. I wouldn't get completions there. I might get completions at a more forward base, but this is working, so I kept the arrangement. I do have Rec Commons available now, but clearly, I need to do a lot more settlement.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 08:07:43 PM
MY 2145. I run into Santiago on the other side of the continent. Suddenly there was just a city next to me. Nothing I could do about it.
[Limit reached]
Great. I'm in the way of Santiago's invasion route.
[Limit reached]
Hope my greed for the isthmus wasn't a fatal flaw. Better see what Morgan has to say about it. I've got Lal badgering me from afar as well, and I've noticed he's got Recon Rovers.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 08:24:11 PM
[Limit reached]
Fair trade so far. And he doesn't have anything else, so we're at parity.
[Limit reached]
Even if he turns out to be militarily worthless, he can at least distract and confuse the AI as to its targets. In other words, better you than me! I hardly feel guilty since Santago's gonna come gunning at me to get to you, real soon now.
[Limit reached]
I spread better initially than Morgan does. Pity that doesn't stay true the whole game.
[Limit reached]
I actually got my Synth armor already. I just haven't prototyped it. The other things I need, are in different parts of the tech tree. Build will have to wait.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 08:30:42 PM
MY 2147. Well, now I have the basic tools to fight. Just have to use them.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 08:34:34 PM
MY 2148. The Spartans and Peacekeepers attack simultaneously. Fortunately these attackers aren't well armed, so even a synth "ship in port" with penalties should be able to defend against them.
I'm realizing that geography has made me the unwitting shield of Morgan, and not the other way around.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 08:46:55 PM
MY 2150. Wow. My Synth Laser Foil didn't even stand up to a Scout. That "ship in port" penalty is really bad. I ditched it in my mod a long time ago, so I'm not used to ships being this awful. It was never fair to the Pirates, who of course are going to be defending sea bases with ships. Coastal bases, that's debatable, but I always thought the "ships are helpless" game mechanic is stupid.
The Spartan scout was probably Hardened and has now increased to Veteran. It's got a Recon Rover coming right after it. Most likely, this city is toast. I wonder if I'll just restart the game. It was obviously a mistake to settle here. The land version of overextending myself, like I did the previous game going up Yang's coast.
[Limit reached]
Alright that's it, I'm done. If my Scout can't even kill a 70% wounded Scout, then I had no business enacting this strategy. I didn't have to get up onto the land, and now I'm seeing what a huge, huge mistake it was. Bagging this game.
Can I get a game that doesn't have mostly the same factions in it? Nice seeing how everyone performs by comparison, but I'm tired of hearing about Morgan.
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2022, 11:13:15 PM
New game. I take the energy special right next to where I landed on Planet. I see the Garland Crater and will put my 2nd base next to it. I won't be able to benefit from it unless I crawl onto the land. I can stop others from having a good time with it though, whether now or later. I will do more scouting before making land commitments this time.
[Limit reached]
This game doesn't have much in the way of military aggressor factions. Domai might be the only one who sorta counts, and he hasn't impressed me in previous games. Lal has been a real jerk, but Yang stomped him in a previous game. Even when Lal was pretty big, and Morgan was on Lal's flank. It was a 3-way war. Yang pretty much ate Lal alive, while Morgan managed to fend Yang off ok. Then I got nuked.
Anyways, I think this game is going to be less about militancy, and more about coming up with a way to interfere with the piles of supply crawlers, condensers, and thermal boreholes that Thinker likes to put out. I again wonder about which faction will be diagonally opposite me on the map, and therefore strongest / unassailable.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 12:15:31 AM
I think Build is a reasonably good opening policy, because the Pirates need Rec Commons pretty quickly. Also Sea Formers are not something one wants to get lost in the shuffle. So I will pursue Build again. After initial development, Discover Conquer seems to be the better focus, assuming one has neighbors. It's necessary to steal from them and kill them, at least under my "house rule" about not exploiting sugar daddies.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 12:17:23 AM
MY 2111. I've discovered the Manifold Nexus, so I think I'll be sticking my nose onto the land after all.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 12:57:52 AM
MY 2116. They're in the way of my stuff. I'm also sick to death of Morgan. What's he doing in this game?? We sign a Treaty.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 01:06:20 AM
MY 2119. I got my colony settled by the Nexus, but I haven't actually revealed the center of its location yet, so I am not collecting +1 PLANET. I got Deirdre's frequency from a pod at sea. I seriously doubt she can exert a closer influence on the Nexus than myself at this point, so it's ok to sign a Treaty with her. If such she'll have. I sell her Morgan's comm, figuring they'll get into a war sooner or later. She agrees to a Treaty. She has less tech than I do. I ask her about comms but she doesn't have any for the ones I ask about, and she signs off.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 01:13:25 AM
MY 2121. If I make another city down the coast, that may prevent anyone from encroaching on the Nexus. Worst case I may need a 3rd city inland.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 01:22:23 AM
MY 2123. I seem to have gotten the scripted event where the 1st mindworm, spore launcher, and Isle are automatically captured. I've been confused about why in some games, in whatever mod, it doesn't happen. Maybe it happens when you control the Nexus, but doesn't happen if you just go +1 or +2 PLANET because you went Green. Seems like Green can take a lot of "warm up" time before you start capturing things.
So here I am, a pseudo-Gaian. But who will I stomp, in the great ECONOMICS wars? Morgan? Deirdre? Both?
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 01:51:57 AM
MY 2128. This my territory. What you do here. Signs Treaty. Doesn't trade tech. Doesn't know comms.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 01:57:26 AM
MY 2132. In this formation, I don't believe anyone can encroach. I settled inland because a nutrient special was available. It also saves me having to make a 3rd colony in an indefensible inland position.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 02:34:18 AM
MY 2133. The Isles definitely didn't follow the script of "first one's free". I've run away from a number of them before now. I have my Odds Calculator on all the time, because it's such a good exploit to have that when capturing mindworms. If the capture works, you just capture. If the capture doesn't work, then you get to compare odds and back off from the fight. I console my cheating by saying that it forces me to more rigorously understand and remember how the odds work. If they're even correct, as the stock binary does have some well known bugs for psi combat. I think Will To Power fixed some of them, and I don't know about Thinker.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 02:51:29 AM
[Limit reached]
I can afford some tech shopping. But I don't want to get into this allies thing again. I'm trying to remember that Morgan is someone to knock down, not someone to befriend. At least, he can easily turn out to be someone I need to knock down. That's been proven in a couple of games already.
Well it turns out to be a moot point with him. He's not selling, on account of the Human Genome Project. Probably going to be the same story with the others, but I'll go through the motions.
[Limit reached]
Surprisingly, in the opening dialogue, Deirdre coughs up Biogenetics in exchange for Doctrine: Flexibility. Maybe it has to do with how factions value Explore vs. Build techs. Morgan wouldn't think it's worth it, being a pure Build researcher, at least how the stock binary handles it. Deidre, in contrast, is the pure Explore researcher. I still would have expected greater caginess about an incomplete SP though.
Deidre doesn't have any more tech, and doesn't know any comms. I got through all 3 unknown factions.
I try bugging Morgan again, but now he's stonewalling me about the Merchant Exchange. That's understandable. I'm still researching Build because I want my synth armor.
Lal won't talk to me. So, I don't have to worry about being Amish this year.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 02:56:36 AM
MY 2136. Got my synth armor. I don't think other Build stuff is important right now.
[Limit reached]
Need some probe teams so I can become anti-social.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 03:53:46 AM
MY 2147. This guy's got a lot of nerve. Especially while standing next to my mindworm!
[Limit reached]
Aside from that really tempting offer you made me before, I'm seriously trying to cut down on the sugar daddy thing. I'm really trying to remember to kick your ass, m'kay?
[Limit reached]
He coughs up the Drones.
Domai signs a Treaty. He's got Ethical Calculus but won't trade it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 04:06:15 AM
MY 2149. I knew there was something basically wrong with my empire development, but I wasn't sure what. I've made too many facilities, without the usual slew of Sea Formers to back it up with money. Not noticeable when you've got tons of cash from exploration. But I managed to spend it all on various things recently, and now I'm paying the price. Something will have to be stockpiled, and I may have to sell something.
[Limit reached]
I make some changes. The income readout doesn't seem to automatically adjust from this, so I'll just have to wait until next turn and see if I messed up.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 05:13:21 AM
MY 2152. Got a neighbor to the southwest. She signs a Treaty. I sell her comm to other factions. I trade some techs with Deirdre in the process. Nothing I'd call sugar daddy, but now I can go Democratic. Hmm, my SUPPORT situation is not good right now, and I still need to settle more bases. So I'll refrain for the moment.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 05:22:18 AM
MY 2168. Now I know everybody. I make some money selling comm frequencies. Amusingly, Lal won't talk to me. He's the one who actually needs to know everybody! I doubt anyone else is going to call an election.
I have 4 near-neighbors: the Data Angels, the Peacekeepers, the Morganites, and the University. That's 4 factions I can readily interfere with. Somehow, if I can decide how. Unlike the previous game, I have a well established military presence on the mainland. 2 Command Centers, and now with plenty of minerals to back them up. As I fear encroachment, I find myself expanding more on coastal land. The sea, probably I have more time to settle that.
[Limit reached]
I have my off-center capitol, Safe Haven, working on the sea colony pods. At some point I need to move my capital to wherever I think my middle is. Could be Point Blood.
My neck is hurting a bit, so I'm calling it a night. Need to get away from the laptop screen.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 05:17:07 PM
MY 2179. Morgan pestered me for war with Lal, but I declined. I'm buying a tech while he's at it. I'm low on cash and have almost no income, so this is hardly a shopping spree.
[Limit reached]
I am pushing the limit of settlement on -1 EFFIC. Many cities are getting hostile if they go above 3 pop. I had intended to settle 1 more city farther down the coast, but Roze's encroachment makes it more logical to just let her have the spot. I'd have to crowd inland for it, and I don't like that.
[Limit reached]
Instead I will put my last land city in the middle, trying to secure the minerals deposits. I want to leave enough of a corridor for Lal and Morgan to go to war with each other, without forcing them to tromp over my territory.
[Limit reached]
I've been careful to settle my sea bases so that there are no gaps in my territorial claims. I don't want some cheeky AI deciding to settle in the middle of my empire. This big gap, I want filled in before I go Democratic. Might take 3 cities.
[Limit reached]
After that, I don't really have a plan for how to interfere with Thinker's supply crawler condenser borehole thing. The Gaians have already completed the Weather Paradigm and so presumably have that jump started. I've done ok at collecting money, but poorly at collecting Artifacts. I did capture an Isle at one point, but it didn't survive a fight with another Isle. This was not going to be a game where I'd bang out the Weather Paradigm. Not unless I made it an absolute priority like I did my 1st game, and I question whether that's even important. Although it could slow down 1 AI factions from going quite so crazy quite so early, everyone gets around to boreholes in the timeframe it takes me to establish an empire.
Much of the world is unexplored, by me at least. My refusal to make allies has given me less visibility than usual. Since I have not physically seen Gaian cities, I suspect they are very, very far away from me, and beyond my interference. I don't even know what I'll do with my 4 neighbors. Fight all of them? Doesn't that just let the Gaians get gigantic?
I don't feel like I've done anything very specifically wrong this game, but my empire development seems rather slow.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 06:18:24 PM
MY 2188. Someone recently completed the Virtual World. I researched Polymorphic Software myself, which is annoyingly on the way to Adaptive Doctrine. So after this trade, I should not need Discover focus anymore. Only recently did I realize the annoyance of needing to research Industrial Automation, a Build tech, to get to Doctrine: Initiative. I'm used to my own modding work, where the research foci are stringently separated as to effects, rather than being a bunch of sprinkled and changing barriers.
[Limit reached]
I don't think this counts as sugar daddying. I do know more about the world than other factions, and it is typical for factions to trade techs for maps in the early game.
[Limit reached]
Either the Planetary Transit System will be completed and I'll just buy Industrial Automation, or I'll steal it. I won't research it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 06:51:10 PM
MY 2191. Now, who will do it?
[Limit reached]
In the course of settling my bases, I needed Rec Commons immediately, so that I could better deploy my already made garrisons later. I already have mild SUPPORT problems and they're gonna get worse when I go Democratic. It's not time to make new units. This left me without enough cash to explicitly buy Industrial Automation, and possibly is the basis for a few factions refusing me. I haven't tried to trade with everyone yet though.
My last sea base for awhile will go in this hole. I'm not happy about there being no resources here, but it's what's needed to complete the "small circle" of my empire.
[Limit reached]
This isn't what I want, but it does get me closer to Advanced Military Algorithms. I wonder if I'll ever get chemical warfare legalized. I've consistently failed to do it in previous games. It's not like the stock binary where factions are sometimes just randomly into it.
Lal won't talk to me. Roze wouldn't trade anything. Deirdre is the last port of call.
[Limit reached]
I thought I'd have to figure this out myself, but if you want to make it easy for me, I'm all over that! Is it sugar daddying if a distant faction is too easy with the trades? Well, Deidre probably doesn't consider this tech very important, and it's not like there's a SP attached to it. It's way more important to me than anyone else. Something the AI probably doesn't consider.
She actually does insist on me giving her Optical Computers. So far, I'm not sugar daddying so much as traditional "trade to everybody" research acceleration. Given the rate at which Thinker AI factions grow, I'm not too worried about that. Gotta stay in the game somehow.
[Limit reached]
I suppose she is the long distance world hegemon. I do need to get to Advanced Ecological Engineering somehow. Actually, she didn't go for my generous offer and insisted on the more equitable trade. Then she cut me off.
A flurry of a turn! Didn't get what I wanted. But hey, 1 faction research goal completed. I went back to Morgan and Domai just to see if any of my trades had value to them, but they didn't.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 07:11:01 PM
MY 2193. I finally have the "small perfect circle" around my capitol. I put a garrison in it immediately so I wouldn't have to rush a Rec Commons like last time.
[Limit reached]
Now I go Democratic. In this game, it doesn't tick anyone off. In fact it pleases 2 factions. My cash flow is a bit steadier now, so I can afford to try to buy Industrial Automation from someone.
[Limit reached]
Morgan's got something else in the way of my trading. And I forgot that paying for Democratic, would put me under 100 credits.
[Limit reached]
I figure I might as well check on what Domai's selling. He's willing to part with Environmental Economics, but I have to cough up the dough. I thought this is what bestowed the Ascetic Virtues, but that's Planetary Economics.
[Limit reached]
So, how much of a benefit is going from -1 EFFIC to +1 EFFIC ?
[Limit reached]
A reasonable benefit. 3 of my size 4 bases became happier. The one in the Garland Crater, maybe they'd be happy if I completed a solar collector on the 4th mineral. On the other hand,
What will I do about anybody? Especially Deidre, the world hegemon. Free Market is not exactly a policy of intervention. I'm also remembering she's Governor. With the Weather Paradigm, she could really be building up into quite a monster!
Post by: Induktio on February 11, 2022, 08:26:32 PM
QuoteSo what is your exact Windows version?
Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H2, OS Build 19044.1415. 14 year old laptop with Intel integrated graphics.QuoteIt would be more likely if the launcher either worked or failed, it just doesn't make much sense that it would operate "randomly" in that fashion.
Seemingly semi-random, as it will finally work within 5 tries at the most. Although, the 1st failure is not random at all. It always fails. The random part, is whether it takes usually 2 or 3 tries to get going.QuoteDid you check the task manager if there's additional terranx.exe processes opened in the background?
I didn't happen to check. Currently as I play today, there's only terranx.exe. I will wait until the next time I kill the game and try to remember to notice. I think the behavior, is almost like it's required to have a stray copy, to get working.
Also it is weird to need to run it as admin, as I don't recall ever making any kind of setting to have that happen with WTP. If I don't run as admin, it won't work at all. I get an error dialog box about it not being able to start up.
Which error message do you get when trying to start it as non-admin? Again, it should not fail without admin privileges because the launcher is explicitly set to not require any UAC elevation at startup. It should not perform any function that requires admin privileges, at least on my Windows version. It does patch the terranx.exe binary in memory before starting it, but it seems unlikely this would cause the issue. Usually Windows APIs are supposed to be consistent across versions, but it seems it's clearly not the case here. Unless somebody can share some insight into Windows internals here, it might be necessary to install that Windows version to try to replicate the issue. The newest mod version did not change anything regarding the launcher, so it's still an open issue.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 08:35:13 PM
Does the game have some kind of debug output when it runs into a well-controlled circumstance like this?
Post by: Induktio on February 11, 2022, 08:47:41 PM
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 08:54:02 PM
I could try installing both, fresh, on a completely different machine. Not necessarily a different Windows version though.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 09:05:05 PM
[Limit reached]
My system is reported as Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H2, OS build 19044.1466. The OS build number has increased.
Running more times, this dialog box does not always come up.
My laptop has 4 GB RAM. How much RAM does your computer have? Do you allocate a lot of RAM for something?
Post by: Induktio on February 11, 2022, 09:18:51 PM
That is a very strange error and it's displayed by vanilla game engine, not any Thinker related code. It's caused by some code in Win::update_back_to_window function. It's probably not related to memory allocation per se, rather accessing some invalid memory pointer causing a segmentation fault. I don't remember anyone ever reporting a similar error before. Thinker's memory footprint is extremely small for modern computers, maybe ~20 MB.
Many other people already reported the launcher working for them, including when using Wine. Otherwise I wouldn't have made it the default. IMO it's better because all build artifacts are reproducible from the same source plus then there's the copyright reasons. So far it's still possible to use old terranx_mod.exe to also launch new Thinker versions but this may not necessarily be true for future versions.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 09:21:43 PM
MY 2195. I went shopping with Roze. After paying her 100 credits for Environmental Economics, she offered me the tech I really wanted. It's a pity that she's not infiltrating other factions competently. She shouldn't actually have to bow and scrape to get this stuff. This is why in my mod and WTP, we changed the faction so that it automatically receives techs known by 3 others. Infiltration not required.
[Limit reached]
This should get me to Doctrine: Initiative faster.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 09:33:44 PM
MY 2196. Nobody's at war with me. I don't think anybody's at war with anyone at all. Nobody's going to get mad if I choose Wealth. With my odds calculator cheat, I don't really need to worry about fighting Isles when I pop pods at sea. I can just pop them and hope I capture them. If I don't, then I can try to get out of the way.
It's not like picking an ECONOMICS model, where right now, none of the choices are good for me.
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2022, 09:43:22 PM
[Limit reached]
I don't want any part of it. I'd like to see you 2 kill each other effectively, so I don't have to. I did leave a bit of a corridor for you to do it.
[Limit reached]
I misspoke when I said no one would mind my Wealth. However as I have no land interface with the University, I'm the least worried about them pestering me.
While shopping, I find out that Deirdre already has Doctrine: Initiative. That would definitely be cause to steal, per policy outlined before the game began. But I'm nowhere near her.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 02:35:13 AM
MY 2204. I was only going to infiltrate him, but he starts mouthing off at me as I approach. He declares war. So much for Wealth!
[Limit reached]
He's got a probe team on defense in this trivial forward city that I expected to be nearly empty. And an Impact Speeder to kill my probe team if I back off. I guess he was just in a war with Morgan, and of course they just made peace. I keep underestimating Lal, despite that he's been a complete jerk in every game I've seen him in. Does he especially have it in for the Pirates for some reason, or is he always this way to everyone? Why isn't being Democratic making him happy?
I've definitely seen him be Erratic in the stock binary, but this Lal has never been in a good mood. Well, ok. Technically I've got a screenshot of him being Magnanimous as he tries to extort me. It makes me wonder if there's something new about the diplomatic AI behavior in Thinker.
Alternate possibility: diplomatic AI was always programmed to prey on perceived weakness. Unfortunately, on land, this might turn out to be actual weakness. If he's got a lot more troops I couldn't see and didn't expect, that summarily overrun me, then I'll be quitting this game. I mean it wasn't even that long ago that I got probe team capability, and I don't think I should have to beeline probe teams, to play the game.
It would be an indication that it's simply not possible to play with the Pirates on coastal land, no matter how much you think you want to do it. Well, unless one is going to adopt the sycophantic "pay them off" play style. Never gonna happen.
I mean, I'm really pretty freaked out how much everyone has lulled me into a false sense of security. I've been building up what I thought was a happy little peaceful empire, and I've got basically nothing. Holding onto the Nexus, and all that coastal support to do it, has gotten me what? A few mindworms, a few more pods popped. I haven't even really profited from it yet.
[Limit reached]
At least I have a better probe team. I attack, because going forwards is my only option. I win, and of course I'll die next year.
[Limit reached]
I capture an Isle, somewhat near my home waters. Maybe I can mount a Gaian-style defense.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 02:41:58 AM
[Limit reached]
Morgan on the hand, has been trying to get me to be an ally for a long time.
[Limit reached]
And he's perfectly eager to take a crack at Lal again. Hmm, I also see he's in a Pact with Roze.
[Limit reached]
I start wringing my hands about whether I'm going to fall back into the sugar daddy trap. I'm really far down and need something to get back in the game. But he's not obliging anyways.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 02:56:44 AM
Morgan knew quite a bit more about the layout of the world than I did. I notice that Domai, Lal, and Deidre have borders. I could try to get Domai as an ally, as he's been interested before. Question is, what's Deidre gonna do? Domai can't go Green, so he may ultimately be destined for war with her.
[Limit reached]
Lal went Planned. Deidre isn't gonna like that. How soon until she goes to war over it? Do I even need any relationship with Deirdre, or will she just do it on her own? And what about Morgan and Deirdre ultimately getting into it?
I think I need more infiltration. I'm concerned that Deirdre could complete the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm before I even get a chance. She hasn't started it, but the rate at which she's been banging out SPs, is scary.
[Limit reached]
This is all I've got to oppose Lal with right now. I need to get all my current land facilities finished and start building units, before ditching Wealth. If I don't have the time to actually turn it around like that and Lal does some kind of crazy blitzkrieg on me, then I'll resign.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 03:30:12 AM
MY 2205. I ditch Wealth. 2 forward cities, I'll put Command Centers in them. The rearward land cities, Biology Labs and they'll hopefully spit out some mindworms.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 04:05:38 AM
MY 2207. Morgan, that's not what war means! Can't believe I'm going to have to drag this jerk back into it.
[Limit reached]
When am I even going to find the time to produce a probe team to steal from anybody? We do some more trades. Then he gets weird with me, in a way that makes me wonder if it's Thinker's doing. Either that or I've never been this weak in most games.
[Limit reached]
This is like what Lal pulled a lot earlier.
[Limit reached]
There's something wrong with the diplomatic AI. It's incoherent. You don't bully someone, then offer to be their friend. Which will realistically lead to giving techs, not getting them. Presently, I need all the friends I can get though. So I take up this ally of convenience. I really don't need a pain in the rear.
[Limit reached]
But it looks like it's not to be.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 04:16:30 AM
[Limit reached]
He's also got a Green Trance Plasma Garrison in the stack, I think. Actually if that's the case, I'm not sure why he's defending with the Trance Scout. I have a Recon Rover to follow up with. Maybe I should draw him onto open ground though. I back off and sit on some fungus. I tend to forget whether it's I need to attack from fungus, or they need to be sitting on fungus, to have a hard time.
[Limit reached]
I wonder if these trades are getting me farther and farther away from Doctrine: Initiative. I tend to forget how that works. The various techs seem needed though. Like better armor is actually useful.
[Limit reached]
Trance Scouts are an annoying defense against mindworms, especially when backed by Sensor Arrays. I back off.
It occurs to me that I have no seaward way to infiltrate Lal. I have to go over land. Which means I have to win all this land battle stuff.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 04:23:09 AM
He sent a probe team and a scout speeder down my road last time. Then he turned around and left! I hope this isn't going to become some kind of passive aggressive AI polling "hey, get in there" thing. I haven't seen this kind of foot dragging in a game before.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 04:31:44 AM
MY 2209. I put my Scout into the rocky fungal patch to prevent the Impact Rover from being able to attack my city this year. If it did, it would probably kill the Synth defender instead of the Scout. I'm surprised the Impact Rover hasn't attacked the Scout. That leaves it vulnerable to being killed by my Recon Rover. Now, maybe Lal doesn't have infiltration, but the stock binary has always cheated like a mad dog about what it sees anyways. I wonder who made the decision on what to do with the Impact Rover, but it doesn't look like good fighting.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 04:37:30 AM
I kill stuff, screen with the scout, and reposition some Recon Rovers for next year. I'm fielding them fairly quickly. If he doesn't start throwing something tougher at me, I'll be able to handle it. I've also got some captured mindworms about to come home.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 04:44:42 AM
MY 2210. I got rich at sea this year, and am suddenly able to finish various facilities. I don't think Lal is going to blitz me. With my forward forces starting to look ok, I start working on 2 probe teams.
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2022, 04:56:54 AM
MY 2212. I find myself wondering what Morgan is doing for me. He says he won the war already! I don't see a lot of U.N. cities with "Morganic" on them, Morgan. He doesn't trade or give me any tech either. Says he's busy working on the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 03:27:12 AM
MY 2214. One thing I learned when this happened last game, is all the AI factions start nerve stapling their citizens. Brutal! I'm usually pretty nice about that myself. Probably will only do it if it's in character, like I'm Yang.
The question of whether to build X weapons and wipe out Peacekeeper bases, really can't be answered until I've at least infiltrated them. Which means I have to break their line somewhere. They came at me with quite a powerful line last turn. Surprisingly, I gave them several blows with mindworms, and caused them to mostly turn back. I thought I was going to be in much worse shape. Anyways the point is moot about attacking bases to fry them, until I can at least see what's in the bases. And I bet they're well enough defended, that I'll need a real X weapon, and not just a beefed up Laser.
[Limit reached]
Lal is fielding 3-Pulse Impact Infantry. My mindworms can destroy them, but I only have so many, and they're brittle. I'm seriously lacking decent guns myself. Of course the sunspots will prevent me from trading for them.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 04:05:29 AM
MY 2215. I don't think I have a defensive gun problem anymore! I remember unarmored infantry weapons being a pretty big exploit in the unmodded rules. In my mod I made no free lunch on this. You want a big gun, you're gonna pay. But I bet this will only cost me 30 when prototyped.
[Limit reached]
It will turn the tide of the war.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 04:17:52 AM
MY 2216. Or not. Maybe someone gave him the plane. If he built it himself, then it implies he's also got missile launchers. And just hasn't built troops that use them yet. Well, we'll see if I survive. But if I just get whipped, by an air force I can't do anything about, I'll quit. Watching AI factions get every advantage, and basically being unable to do anything about it except beg / sugar daddy, is not much of a game.
And it's not like this guy has ever been interested in making friends with me. No matter the game, even though I've typically been Democratic.
[Limit reached]
Some of my sea bases have gotten large enough that I'm having trouble keeping people happy. I wouldn't mind having my mindworms pack a bit more of a punch.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 04:43:20 AM
MY 2217. I send a Scout to see if the river is clear for infiltration. A Former is in the way, so I have to send up a Recon Rover to kill it. This will probably get it killed next year, but speed is of the essence. And then I realize, I must be tired. The Former wasn't actually in the way. Oh well! Anyways I'm infiltrating now.
Yeah he's got Doctrine: Air Power. It's not some gift. He doesn't have any allies. He's got 4 planes in the region that I can see in bases.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 05:45:41 AM
MY 2220. I just did that mission. You really expect me to fight these behemoths 'blind', most of the game? Lal is Democratic Planned Knowledge for pete's sake, with -2 PROBE. This is a total ripoff. At least in WTP there's this protocol for implanting listening devices, and they last a certain period of time depending on how diligent the faction is about PROBE. Which sure as heck shouldn't be Lal.
Yeah I've had enough of this game. That was the last straw. The game is viable, but godawful tedious. I've got better things to do with my free time than pull teeth.
Air force finally got around to killing one of my advancing probe teams. I was hoping it might notice me on the flank, but no such luck. All this adds up to, it's not basically possible to stand in a land battle line against a gargantuan Thinker AI enemy, when you don't have the techs for basic advancement safety. I'm prototyping my Silksteel armor but it's a drag, and there's nothing stopping Lal from just making Missile Needlejets anyways. The rate he can produce stuff is absurd. 2 turns in little cities.
In the future, if there is much of a future, I'll have to regard the perimeters of these AI empires as toxic waste zones. I might have done ok in the water, far away from them, and just sneaking a probe in here and there. Although, if I have to do that sort of thing too much, it's godawful tedious too. I'm also still not seeing what an intervention plan is supposed to be.
Mainly, I'm being reminded of a lot of holes in the original rules, that caused me to mod for 3.5+ years.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 06:14:10 AM
Code: [Select]
; Set the amount of priority AI factions have for the preferred social model.
; Allowed values: 0 (no priority) - 1000. By default the priority is moderate.
social_ai_bias=10Totally cranking that to 1000. Enough of this Morganic Green and Deirdre Planned AI rubbish.
Here's the one that got me started looking:
Code: [Select]
; Probe team infiltration on other factions can expire randomly when this option is set.
; Chance for discovery is rolled each turn and depends on the comparative PROBE ratings of the
; attacking and defending faction. If discovered, a dialog box will be displayed for both.
counter_espionage=1That's a zero!
This one actually looks like an improvement over previous versions of Thinker:
Code: [Select]
; In vanilla game mechanics, eco damage on AI bases is notably reduced from player levels.
; This patch increases AI eco damage to the same level than what the player bases have.
; In addition, constructing Tree Farms and similar facilities always increases the clean
; minerals limit even before the first fungal pop.
eco_damage_fix=1Well this next one explains why exploration has not been quite as profitable in either WTP or Thinker. I'm ok with it, but I definitely did notice, compared to my own mod.
Code: [Select]
; Significantly reduce the frequency of supply pods on random maps and
; place nutrient/mineral/energy bonus resources on the same tiles instead.
rare_supply_pods=1I totally don't understand the purpose of excluding these 3 factions from a slate of random opponents. It might explain why my opponents have been awfully consistent from run to run.
Code: [Select]
; Select whether to exclude some factions from random selection in the game setup.
; Factions can be selected individually but at least 7 factions must always remain enabled.
; 1 = Gaians
; 2 = Hive
; 3 = Univ
; 4 = Morgan
; 5 = Spartans
; 6 = Believe
; 7 = Peace
; 8 = Cyborg
; 9 = Pirates
; 10 = Drone
; 11 = Angels
; 12 = Fungboy
; 13 = Caretaker
; 14 = Usurper
; 15 = First custom faction slot if available etc.
skip_faction=12
skip_faction=13
skip_faction=14So, erasing those entries.
And last but certainly not least, in alphax.txt:
Code: [Select]
1, 2 ; Numerator/Denominator for frequency of global warming (1,2 would be "half" normal warming).Gotta get back to the real game, and have the AI factions suffer the consequences for all their condensers and boreholes. Oceans do seem to rise more than I remember in Thinker a long time ago, but it's not enough. It shouldn't be easy to do piles of eco-damage willy nilly. Setting to 1,1. I wonder how this will combine with eco_damage_fix=1.
Ok, that looks like it could actually be an appropriate game for Pirates. I will remember not to create any broad coastal front on land, i.e. I am not actually the Roman Empire. It just doesn't work like that. I wonder what kind of game system would be needed, to have it work like that.
I probably lucked into the right idea in the 1st game. A flanked "monsoon jungle" peninsula. The error was overextending the flanks.
Post by: Induktio on February 13, 2022, 12:55:27 PM
[Limit reached]
He's got a probe team on defense in this trivial forward city that I expected to be nearly empty. And an Impact Speeder to kill my probe team if I back off. I guess he was just in a war with Morgan, and of course they just made peace. I keep underestimating Lal, despite that he's been a complete jerk in every game I've seen him in. Does he especially have it in for the Pirates for some reason, or is he always this way to everyone? Why isn't being Democratic making him happy?
What's really interesting here is that the AI doesn't have explicit priorities of keeping "one probe, one defensive unit, some offensive units" in one city, but these were emergent results with the way the front garrisoning algorithm works. Now it also seems to be quite robust in the way it handles multi front wars while not getting confused.
> I've definitely seen him be Erratic in the stock binary, but this Lal has never been in a good mood.
> Alternate possibility: diplomatic AI was always programmed to prey on perceived weakness.
The AI will definitely act more intransigent if it ranks higher than the player faction. Sometimes they will not even accept commlink attempts. There's only a couple of places where Thinker directly patches diplomacy dialogue, so the behaviour seen here should mostly be vanilla AI. That one example of AI attempting to blackmail and then asking for a pact is weird, but it should be only vanilla AI logic.
> Totally cranking that to 1000. Enough of this Morganic Green and Deirdre Planned AI rubbish.
It is the way it is, because vanilla game mechanics place very high penalties on being in Free Market while airpower is available or not having the ability to pop boom. And restricting the AI choices this way would make either or both of those true for most factions, thus making the game much easier for humans. This is not necessarily true if the SE choices are modded, however.
> At least in WTP there's this protocol for implanting listening devices, and they last a certain period of time depending on how diligent the faction is about PROBE.
There's some point to say the infiltration should always be guaranteed to last a certain amount of time, but sometimes espionage missions fail outright. About WTP's version I'm not sure what purpose the introduction of specific infiltration devices actually serves.
It would possible to remake the mechanic such that upon infiltration, you're getting a guaranteed X turns of infiltration and then some random/probe rating specific factor modify the addition. Infiltrating again when you have, say 5 turns of 10 turns left, could renew the counter back to 10 turns. This value would have to be displayed somewhere in the GUI though. One option would be to add a new screen on ALT+T menu to display the infiltration status for all factions. This way it's also not required to introduce any listening device abstraction in the game.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 04:33:01 PM
Sometimes they will not even accept commlink attempts.Lal did that to me a lot this game.
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That one example of AI attempting to blackmail and then asking for a pact is weird, but it should be only vanilla AI logic.
2 attempts. Lal and Zak both did it.
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QuoteTotally cranking that to 1000. Enough of this Morganic Green and Deirdre Planned AI rubbish.
It is the way it is, because vanilla game mechanics place very high penalties on being in Free Market while airpower is available or not having the ability to pop boom. And restricting the AI choices this way would make either or both of those true for most factions, thus making the game much easier for humans. This is not necessarily true if the SE choices are modded, however.
Of course, in my modding I changed the whole SE table. My Capitalist (Free Market) doesn't have that problem, or that level of benefit. It's quite onerous going back to old school Free Market.
Nevertheless, it's Morgan's thing. He's the only one who has to do it. I don't have any problem with Morgan being the runt weakling faction he always was. You may not want to write a "works better in Free Market" AI for him, but someone might. And if no one ever does, I won't miss it.
I was frankly quite surprised when Morgan started one of my games doing Free Market. It looked decidedly suboptimal. I can't remember which of these games that was. He didn't like die or anything. Your "protection radii" probably prevents summary execution by Recon Rover, same as my recommendation of Huge maps usually does. And somehow the mindworms didn't get him. Anyways if he can survive to midgame with Free Market, I don't see why he should be getting a gift of going Green. He's not a human player. He is not empowered with the agency of a human playing the game. He is a capitalist pig ideologue.
Aside from being out of character, it ruins diplomatic mechanics. Deirdre goes to war because you're not Green, when she's running Planned.
BTW you can pop boom in Free Market. You have to spend enough money to make a Golden Age. +2 for that, +2 for Children's Creche, +2 for Democratic.
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There's some point to say the infiltration should always be guaranteed to last a certain amount of time, but sometimes espionage missions fail outright.
3 years isn't acceptable. There's no play balance here. I'm not in a multiplayer deathmatch where I want razor's edge difficulties in making basic maneuvers. I'm not complaining about infiltration being "overpowered". I'm dealing with AIs who cheat and look at my stuff anyways. I'm not going to pay the mouseclicks to produce and then move these units over and over again, every few turns.
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About WTP's version I'm not sure what purpose the introduction of specific infiltration devices actually serves.
Instead of shocking you with summary loss of capability, it's giving you a countdown warning of when you're going to lose the capability. This way you don't have to spend the whole game stressing about whether your infiltration is going to suddenly vanish and leave you caught short. You don't have to keep running infiltration missions "just in case". It's clearly a quality of life improvement.
Quote
It would possible to remake the mechanic such that upon infiltration, you're getting a guaranteed X turns of infiltration and then some random/probe rating specific factor modify the addition. Infiltrating again when you have, say 5 turns of 10 turns left, could renew the counter back to 10 turns. This value would have to be displayed somewhere in the GUI though. One option would be to add a new screen on ALT+T menu to display the infiltration status for all factions. This way it's also not required to introduce any listening device abstraction in the game.
I'm sure you could do all kinds of things. You could also just lift WTPs code, as it has already implemented a solution that works well. You can see how many devices you have left, when you try to perform another probe mission. That's adequate feedback on how long you have to go, "checking" on your status. Rather than being able to ALT+T that info at any time.
If you're going to make infiltration "not forever", then you've already crossed the bridge of purity compared to the original game. Might as well take a solution that works just fine.
The play mechanical impact of disappearing infiltration, is I tend not to infiltrate until it's actually needed. Because pushing a unit all the way across a Huge map, is very tedious. If the infiltration is then discovered and exposed 20 turns later, there's just no point. I won't have even gotten any units over there.
It makes the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm a bit more powerful, because it's always going to shut off infiltration eventually. That said, tech is currently so rapid in Thinker that the time window when HSA is dominant, may not be as problematic. Then again, shortly after I remember achieving an Algorithmically Enhanced infiltration that 1st game, I got nuked. So, whatever.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 07:10:59 PM
Alright, what is this, the 5th game now? I'm determined this time not to make "landward" mistakes. No broad land fronts. No overly exposed sea fronts either, like the time I flanked prematurely. Try to stick to the concept of the "perfect circle" in the water. Try to avoid being the butt of overly aggressive AI diplomacy and troop movement. This is also the 1st game I'm playing with "better" Thinker.ini settings.
[Limit reached]
One implication of that, is we get to see what Alien factions are capable of. The good news about battling an Alien is you can gas them with impunity. No need to wait for a boring permission from the Planetary Council. I've done this plenty of times in The Will To Power mod. However, doing so can create a power vacuum that other factions exploit, so I need to keep in mind a principle of geopolitical balance. It will be 'interesting' to see what Thinker does with their directed research capability. Do they just grab planes immediately and stomp everybody, including me?
I'm realizing I'm unlikely to ever go Planned, so I'm likely to be at war with the Aliens. Since I'm forcing them to obey their Planned imperative, the political dynamics will be more like the original game. That is to say, unless you're Yang, it's really hard to get along with these guys!
Oh and uh, I kinda forgot, that Thinker hasn't rebalanced their factions. With their free armor and so forth, they could stomp all over the rest of us. Glad I'm somewhat safer in the water, knock on (drift) wood.
Otherwise, I get to play with the obnoxious Peacekeepers again, who have never liked me in any game. The Data Angels again, who have been unimpressive every game. The Spartans again, whom I have trashed, with sugar daddy technology input. The Believers, I think are new. They are well known nuke lobbers, although at least they don't research well. They're certainly on the short list of factions capable of becoming huge though. Which Yang has proven, leads to nukes.
I get a merciful respite from Morgan's unwanted presence. So tired of him. That said, I was mildly interested to see what constraining him to Free Market would do. Not enough to want to suffer him another time though.
[Limit reached]
Looks like a straightforward "settle right about here" kind of start, with no obviously better option. Deep oceans aren't the place to build the cradle of your seafaring civilization. Sitting on that mineral special looks like about as good a place for a capitol as any.
Post by: Induktio on February 13, 2022, 08:04:41 PM
What do you mean by this?
> That said, tech is currently so rapid in Thinker that the time window when HSA is dominant, may not be as problematic.
Tech cost is currently tuned so that it's nearly as fast as vanilla except in the late game phases. But if the tech stagnation option is enabled, that should really slow things down, because it's +100% cost instead of +50% like in vanilla.
Anyway, most design stuff involves tradeoffs. If you're restricting social engineering or any choices strictly on some narrative limitations, then it can't be prioritizing best AI because for the human players these alternative choices are always available when allowed by the game mechanics. So that's an issue where one has to strike some balance and it's done in this case with the social_ai config variables. It may not be the best for diplomacy dialog, but at least the social AI plays by the same rules than humans.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 09:12:52 PM
> Your "protection radii" probably prevents summary execution by Recon Rover, same as my recommendation of Huge maps usually does.
What do you mean by this?
Code: [Select]
; Balance faction starting locations more evenly on random maps and
; maintain a minimum distance to any nearest neighbors.
faction_placement=1This is probably more beneficial to the AI factions than to the human player. It does not allow me to immediately eliminate a nearby faction with a Recon Rover rush.
Like, murder Yang in his crib, for instance. In that "peninsula flank" game, I started out close enough to Yang for him to become a problem for me, but not close enough to immediately mount an assault that could summarily eliminate him. I had to fight him, after Thinker had already given him an enormous resource buildup. It's only because I sugar daddied my techs, that I stomped him. Tactically, in a fair fight, it would have looked a lot more like that Lal game that I just quit, as too tedious to manage. My sea bases were pretty threatened for an interim period while I got caught up, having overextended those flanks to try to surround Yang. Actually I did have some close calls with him settling sea bases around my own flanks, sneaking very spammy Synth Laser Foils around me, and nearly taking 1 of my cities. Then I sugar daddied and that was that.
In my own mod, I have anti-rush protocols, but they're different. Huge map is recommended, so distances are likely to be larger between factions, such that a rush is not logistically practical. However I still have the stock game's faction placement algorithm, so you can end up right next to someone. Which when you're used to playing on a Huge map, is very uncomfortable.
It does force players, and by inclusion AIs, to be less complacent. Sure you usually have a lot of land to yourself, but you can't count on it. You have to scout and make sure you have the means to survive, before you settle down to just growing growing growing. Thinker on the other hand pretty much guarantees an AI is safe to grow grow grow, and doesn't have to do anything special to defend itself for some time. Barring a sugar daddy, a Thinker AI faction will have grown plenty large enough to defend itself, by the time a human player or even another AI has shown up.
My other anti-rush protocol is that Synth armor is given almost immediately on Tier 1, without a need to prototype it. Laser tech comes on Tier 2, and you do have to prototype it. A Conquer AI can still learn that stuff fast enough to whip your ass if it starts close to you though. Like Santiago or Yang, they can stomp you. You might not have to fear a lot of factions that way, but the militant ones, you'd better not "press your luck" about how much defense you need.
Also in my mod, everyone starts with Clean Reactors available. It's a bletcherous hack to solve the AI running out of SUPPORT problem, since I don't have access to the AI code. It benefits the AI more than it benefits you the human player, which is how I justify it. Once AIs trivially gain the Synth tech, they immediately start making Clean Synth Garrisons. They stack their early bases with the things. If you show up with a few Recon Rovers and think you're gonna trash one of my AI factions, you're going to be in for a rude surprise. You can do it with a lot of Recon Rovers, if you've coughed up a lot of production in a hurry, but you're not gonna do it with a few. That and and somewhat stronger defensive emplacements, means you're gonna bounce off the cities. You could still pillage and create some trouble, but you're not gonna succeed at overrunning anybody.
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Tech cost is currently tuned so that it's nearly as fast as vanilla except in the late game phases. But if the tech stagnation option is enabled, that should really slow things down, because it's +100% cost instead of +50% like in vanilla.
I'll try it if current Thinker settings adjustments prove unsatisfactory. WTP settings were most unsatisfactory at some point in testing. Even with some improvements in research pace, tech leakage is still a big problem in that mod.
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Anyway, most design stuff involves tradeoffs. If you're restricting social engineering or any choices strictly on some narrative limitations, then it can't be prioritizing best AI because for the human players these alternative choices are always available when allowed by the game mechanics.
As you know from past interactions, I consider prioritizing AI performance at any cost, to be a huge design mistake in this game. This is not Civ. You are not a generic nationality, with a few different special military units for 'flavor'. You are a faction with an ideology, in a diplomatic system where the clash of ideologies is core to gameplay. Deirdre usually goes after Morgan and vice versa. That's the gameplay.
Your approach is having your cake and eating it too, breaking the rules that are set out in the faction.txt files. The game isn't "everyone chooses what they want". The game is that human players choose what they want, AIs don't. They are asymmetric that way. The original design of the game is superior and should be respected in that way. There's a reason the original 7 factions all had slightly shifted choices from one another. It was to create a set of natural allies and natural enemies. That all goes out the window when factions can do whatever they want, regardless of their design.
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but at least the social AI plays by the same rules than humans.
This is not, and should never have been, a design goal. Making Deirdre able to go
- human rights vs. atrocities - Lal vs. Yang
- environmentalism vs. capitalism - Deirdre vs. Morgan
- religion vs. atheism - Miriam vs. Zhakarov
That's the core gameplay. It's not a skin. It's not the "win at all costs no matter what" game.
I'm glad to see at least nowadays, there are options to turn these most objectionable social changes off. I will be verifying whether the game works 'right' when so doing.
The other big tiff we've had, is that all these condenser boreholes are supposed to have consequences. You're not supposed to be able to cough these things out left, right, and center, and get off scott free. If you researched all the techs necessary to make your Centauri Preserves and Temples of Planet, if you built all of that, if you actually had to stop expanding because you needed more Trance garrisons, if you actually had to restrain yourself making boreholes and factories because it was getting to be too much, well then the AIs and the humans would actually be playing the same game. In the past, they weren't, at all. I don't know how it is now. I'm about to find out.
I've got AARs of real global flooding scenarios I've lived through. I've even beaten it, here and there. With a ton of premediation. Couldn't have done it, if I hadn't beelined for certain techs, and prepared with certain approaches. This stuff is a pain, but it's there to provide a constraint upon what you're allowed to do in the game. You have to earn all that production, not just have it right there for the easy taking.
After all these changes are made though, there's still the question of whether Infinite City Sprawl is, strictly speaking, the only valid strategy for the game rules as written. My jury's out on that. I will never, ever, be an ICS player. It's deeply disgusting to me. The game is supposed to be partly a builder game, and I want the builder approach to the game, to actually work. I don't want the tedious "colonization over and over again" game, like the AI does. It's boring as hell.
I might actually opine, that the people who really get into ICS, are usually avid multiplayers. I don't have a bunch of survey evidence for that, but it's a hunch. They could be getting their rocks off beating up other humans, at any cost, whatever mouseclicks are required to vanquish a human. This is a very different gaming experience and motive than playing single player against AIs. When you are beating other AIs, you either pat yourself on the back that your tedious exploit is somehow brilliant, or you look at the map and see it as an ugly waste of your time. I'm in the latter camp. There's no quality of life in settling piles and piles of little bitty cities.
Single vs. multiplayer design is a core tension in game development. I think you are leaning towards the multiplayer end of the spectrum, but you can paint yourself as you see fit. I don't see you as developing the single player builder narrative game mechanical experience, which is what made the game famous. I see you as developing "opponents to beat, ways to beat opponents". And that gets rather dry.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 09:55:25 PM
Settling my capitol is a trivial decision, but it begs the question where the 2nd base should go? I mull it briefly, and decide that I must not get in the habit of depending on the land for anything. It draws me into needing to defend the land. So the sailing of the 2nd colonist, was a bit of a dead end and will require some backtracking. Hopefully my Gun Foil will find somewhere better for it to be, shortly. I think I will proceed southeast rather than west, attempting to have more centrality of impact on the map. It won't be going far though.
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2022, 10:05:00 PM
I think getting Rec Commons has proven to be a pretty important early decision, so I will continue in this vein, as with previous games. I'm doubting that mounting a war without bigger bases is a good idea. Who knows if I even have anyone nearby to trash? Logistically, I'm not supposed to expect a nearby enemy in Thinker.
[Limit reached]
I pick up Lal's comm frequency immediately. Let's see if he's in the mood to give stuff away, so early. Nope. Doesn't want a Pact of convenience so I can see his starting location either. I sign off, not bothering to find out if he already knows of other factions.
[Limit reached]
A sonar pod reveals that I'm probably next to the Sargasso Sea. That could be good eventually, depending on what happens to pods when I pop them. Right now it'll suck though. Definitely an incentive to get some Transports into the middle of it though. Meanwhile, should I plow through the fungus to get to a viable southeasterly settlement faster? I'm inclined to say "yes" because I can retreat from any Isle that shows up, and an Isle hit won't kill me yet in any event. At least, I don't think it can in open water. Wouldn't stay put on fungus.
I sail slowly through the fungus without incident.
Post by: Induktio on February 13, 2022, 10:14:24 PM
Your approach is having your cake and eating it too, breaking the rules that are set out in the faction.txt files. The game isn't "everyone chooses what they want". The game is that human players choose what they want, AIs don't. They are asymmetric that way. The original design of the game is superior and should be respected in that way. There's a reason the original 7 factions all had slightly shifted choices from one another. It was to create a set of natural allies and natural enemies. That all goes out the window when factions can do whatever they want, regardless of their design.
Well, I think you know what you wrote there isn't clearly true since the anti-ideologies (social models) specified in the faction.txt files are always parsed and even Thinker's social AI never chooses them and has never done so. That is clearly specified by the game rules. Have not seen anyone report bugs on that. The other part is more ambigious and related to how much narrative-driven you want a game to be. That's why there are many settings for the mod, because in this game there won't be some one-size-fits-all solution how the game should be played. Since this mod has been about AI improvement, there definitely should be an option to play against stronger AIs. Not that it's definitely required in any way, but if you constrain AI actions in significant ways, it's going to have its own consequences.
***
Related to my earlier comment "That one example of AI attempting to blackmail and then asking for a pact is weird, but it should be only vanilla AI logic." Now I can't seem to find the original message in which you noticed this AI diplomacy behaviour. Do you have a savegame of it just before you open the diplomacy or from the turn before it? That would be necessary for reproducing the issue.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 02:51:08 AM
Well, I think you know what you wrote there isn't clearly true since the anti-ideologies (social models) specified in the faction.txt files are always parsed and even Thinker's social AI never chooses them and has never done so.
I made a mistake about Deirdre going Free Market. I don't think I've ever seen that, in any version of Thinker that I played in the past, although I wouldn't swear to it. Nor do I think I've seen it in WTP. I went back and edited my post, crossing out that part. You may not have seen the edit. She most certainly goes Planned though, and on that basis, my point stands. Planned Deirdre lecturing you about going Green and then breaking Treaties over it, is downright obnoxious, and game mechanically broken.
What I have seen, is Domai going both Cybernetic and Thought Control, in the same game. When of course he's supposed to be gunning for Eudaimonic. It is a strange development sensibility, that it's ok to restrict what a faction is against, what you call an anti-ideology. But not to similarly restrict what a faction is for, which is their ideology. That mostly defines their anti-ideology, if such they have. It gets a little fuzzy because of the 3-way SE system that sometimes provides false choices, like what the difference between Police State and Fundamentalist ever really would be. That bugged me for a long time.
Your rationale is "players and AIs should be able to make equivalent choices" and I do not accept that rationale. In addition to all the things I've previously noted, we give the player more choices because if we don't, they will complain. We have to mollycoddle their sense of agency. A computer opponent does not complain, so we make it fulfill a role. The game has enduring value because the original devs created these ideologically competing roles. It's not narrative skin. It's a fully thought out diplomatic system that most other 4X games do not have.
Anyways, I'm aware that Domai doesn't have an anti-ideology among the future societies. That just opens him to a double opportunity to be jarring. Although even more jarring, is that the game made him Eudaimonic instead of Socialist. I have corrected that in my mod. He is so obviously meant to be the socialist archetype, the worker doing workerism, and uses plenty of diplomatic language to that effect vis a vis capitalists. I figure, the original devs shoved the Aliens in as Planned and didn't have room for Domai as yet another proponent of Planned. So they made him Eudaimonic. The expansion was not as well done as the original game, and this is an area where they dropped the ball.
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there definitely should be an option to play against stronger AIs
When stronger is simply a form of cheating, by breaking the game's established rules and norms, I'm opposed to it. You of course are taking the position that "AIs should play like cutthroat humans who don't care" and I'm never going to accept that point. Nor would I accept a game about WW II where Stalin can do what he jolly well pleases vis a vis the Allies. That might be a game about world war, but it is not about WW II.
You're breaking the simulation of the game's ideological politics, deliberately, according to what you think will be the best game mechanical strategy for advantage. Why not just let Zhakarov go Fundamentalist because it would be the most effective for him, since he can pay for the loss to his tech? The answer is, because he's Zhakarov and his ideological role is actually important to the game mechanics.
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Not that it's definitely required in any way, but if you constrain AI actions in significant ways, it's going to have its own consequences.
Game design is consequences. Of course, when one mods a game design, it gets fuzzy. I've extensively modded a lot of stuff. I have my doubts that you've ever played my work. I'm wondering if you object to anything I did, as strongly as I've objected to 2 things you did.
There was a 3rd thing, at the beginning, but I think that was more about your understanding of alphax.txt and tech research weights at the time. I'm going to hazard a guess that if you've been modding the game this long, your understanding of those weights has evolved a great deal. For instance, you're probably aware of the stock binary's "beelines to Hunter-Seeker Algorithm" encodings, according to various research choices.
Separating topics, BRB after research.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 03:11:53 AM
Related to my earlier comment "That one example of AI attempting to blackmail and then asking for a pact is weird, but it should be only vanilla AI logic." Now I can't seem to find the original message in which you noticed this AI diplomacy behaviour. Do you have a savegame of it just before you open the diplomacy or from the turn before it? That would be necessary for reproducing the issue.
[Limit reached]
This is like what Lal pulled a lot earlier.
[Limit reached]
There's something wrong with the diplomatic AI. It's incoherent. You don't bully someone, then offer to be their friend. Which will realistically lead to giving techs, not getting them. Presently, I need all the friends I can get though. So I take up this ally of convenience. I really don't need a pain in the rear.
Unfortunately, didn't happen to save a game with that post, in MY 2207. I do have an earlier save from MY 2204. You might be able to get the same diplomatic result talking to Zak then. I also found a save from MY 2209.
[Limit reached]That one, unfortunately, was from the game where I was trying to be more abbreviated about my reportage. Don't have a save from that year. I have one from MY 2136 and MY 2149.
MY 2147. This guy's got a lot of nerve. Especially while standing next to my mindworm!
[Limit reached]
Aside from that really tempting offer you made me before, I'm seriously trying to cut down on the sugar daddy thing. I'm really trying to remember to kick your ass, m'kay?
If I see this "Magnanimous threats" phenomenon again, I'll try, in whatever sleep deprived state I'm in, to remember to save a game right after it happens. And also the auto-save from the year before it happens. But, I may fail.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 03:56:42 AM
MY 2103. I got cloned. I'm also running into the problem of taking too long to settle my 2nd base. I don't like the land based resources I've been offered. Maybe I'm a bit of a dummy moving along the coast, if I want to see resources at sea. Maybe my Gun Foil should have been scouting for me, but the next supply pod was in the opposite direction. By grabbing it, I happened to double my navy. I was hoping for a completion event for my Transport. I made a 2nd Scout so I can do some cheap exploration of the land in front of me, then head into the Sargasso Sea with the Transport alone.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 04:04:04 AM
MY 2104. I backtracked a bit, trying to correct my "mistake" about surveying the water. My instinct that there might not be much near the big body of the Sargasso, seemed to be correct. I think I'm going to head back to that energy special and just call it done. I hope the Sargasso explodes into a riot of kelp. Eventually that would make it a good area.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 04:13:23 AM
MY 2108. Maybe we can get this show on the road now. I avoid popping a 2nd pod that I think will just have the same city as nearest.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 04:48:54 AM
MY 2212. It's not the famous kelp event in the center of the Sargasso, but it could still turn it all into kelp over time.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 05:01:56 AM
I completion scum a Synth Sea Pod. Now if only anything that wanted to attack my armor, was out there! Since it's an exploit I generally just use the things, instead of cashing them for all the minerals they're worth. It accomplishes the goal of getting a Synth armor prototype completed.
[Limit reached]
At my other, lesser producing base, I ditch 2 minerals as I don't need a Synth prototype anymore. Nor do I need another exploration ship. More Scouts if anything. I'm doing a stiff business working the Sargasso though. So far I've claimed 1 Artifact, and having a 2nd Transport is making it easier to get it out.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 05:06:54 AM
I suppose I can base an empire on this kelp.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 05:22:41 AM
MY 2120. Getting distracted from the game by real life, I totally forgot that I was in contact with Lal. Now I've fished up the comm of Roze. She says... she doesn't want me getting my grubby little hands on the Virtual World. That's that! She was Quarrelsome.
Maybe there was a reason for me to forget about Lal after all. I bet he isn't any better. I will go through the motions anyways.
[Limit reached]
I sell him Roze's comm for a pittance. Maybe that's a mistake, although it is a way of buttering up factions. I think it's more likely they end up in a war with each other, somehow. Maybe I should try to control who Lal has access to, but I just don't care that much. Anyways, he's Magnanimous and wants ocean access bad enough to trade Biogenetics for it. I guess if I get enough Artifacts in a hurry, I could build the Human Genome Project. Well that hasn't happened yet. Plenty of kelp, but not a pile of Artifacts so far.
[Limit reached]
It's novelty. It's the 1st game he's ever liked me, and we're diplomatically compatible. Maybe we can go kill Aliens together.
[Limit reached]
Hasn't spread more than his first 2 cities. I wonder why not.
[Limit reached]
He's making colonists, but he doesn't seem to have used his time or money very well. If only my advantage in early colonization spread, actually lasted.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 05:26:31 AM
I fished up a 2nd Rover. My 1st Rover triggered an earthquake. I'm not sure if I linked anything important. Doesn't look like it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 05:39:05 AM
That's why I had more than 1 working the Sargasso. It was likely to happen.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 05:47:53 AM
MY 2130. The original game thinks I'm supposed to be a clone of her, and by rights, we should be kissing cousins. Land and sea. But I've rarely found it to go that way in practice, as I don't actually believe the Pirates are best suited to Power. In my own mod, I have them go after Wealth, because no one else was doing it. Get all that sea energy and stuff. Anyways, what's she on about?
[Limit reached]
It's not like she's offering a tech with a Secret Project attached, the way it was with Lal. And I don't care about making her feel better about me. She's too far away to have any immediate impact. In fact, she's inconveniently going to trigger me popping all those pods before I actually wanted to.
[Limit reached]
For bonus points, say it in Spanish. "Esta mercado a la playa..."
She didn't have anything else. And she didn't hang around long enough to discuss a Treaty. Typical.
[Limit reached]
This is why we like the cheap units.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 06:27:12 AM
MY 2136. There's some profit in this.
[Limit reached]
Because it's late, I'm tired, and I get distracted by real life, I lost a few minerals at this base. The drill is you're supposed to switch before 10 minerals.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 06:43:12 AM
MY 2142. More completion scumming.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 08:35:10 AM
MY 2148. I thought about doing this, but when I was thinking about it, I didn't quite have enough cash to complete. Subsequently, I did probably have enough from popping pods. But I also prioritized rushing Sea Formers for every base. I don't think that's exactly wrong, but I do wonder about earliest game priorities in that way.
[Limit reached]
Lal got a map of Sparta. They were gifted the Manifold Nexus, right next to their capitol. It's on somewhat high ground, but it's also in a river system that looks like a depression. I wonder if such a spot can have a way of turning into 10 meters quickly. Matters if there's a deluge.
Post by: Induktio on February 14, 2022, 06:10:07 PM
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 08:34:47 PM
So they will not get automatically deleted after a couple of turns of gameplay like normally.I have been playing rapidly, filling up this thread, and those were old games. Part of why you couldn't find those needles in the haystack! But yes, when I see the circumstance again, it should be easier to get the saves around it.
[Limit reached]
MY 2158. Surprisingly, I researched this myself. Turns out it's a wealth=3 tech, so my pure Build focus does have a chance of picking it up.
[Limit reached]
Getting past Lal's "Secret Project block", allows me to buy stuff from him. He'd also sell me Polymorphic Software if I had the money. Probably will soon. My cash flow from popping sea pods is pretty good. I've got Rec Commons built in most places and am starting on Children's Creches. I have 2 more colonies to settle and then I'll go Democratic.
Political situation is pretty boring right now. Roze and Santiago won't talk to me, and last I knew, they were at war. Haven't met anyone else. Everyone's pretty far away from me. I'm fine with that. Previous games were a bit too dramatic with stuff breathing down my neck. If I don't end up being able to intervene in anyone's affairs from such a long distance, that's fine, but I'm happy to be playing through this kind of development scenario.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 08:42:23 PM
MY 2160. They go about the sea in an orderly manner. They have children. Heavens... they're middle aged!
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 08:57:35 PM
MY 2168. I bet they suck.
[Limit reached]
Well at least I know where my Skimship Probe Teams are going!
Lal didn't want to buy their comm frequency. I can't blame him. Roze and Santiago still won't speak to me.
[Limit reached]
All of my surviving exploration units are actually Independent. I also just run away from mindworms whenever I encounter them. Let's see if I can get an earlier jump on Free Market! My only intervention plan at present is Skimship Probe Teams, as I'm rather far away from everybody.
Oops, I had 1 Gun Foil out that's not Independent. Since that's annoying, and it'll probably die sometime, I revert to my saved game.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 09:29:40 PM
MY 2170 to 2171 interturn. Now we're one big happy human family!
Here's the story, of a man named Lally. Who was bringing up 3 very lovely girls. All of them had different hair, like their mothers. The youngest one in curls.
Here's the story, of a man named Svensgaard. Who was doin' it in a Children's Creche of his own...
'TILL THE ONE DAY WHEN THIS MIRIAM BLEW HIS HEAD OFF!!!
;danc ;nuke; ;nuke; ;nuke; ;liftoff ;miriam;
And we knew that it was much more than a hunch!
That this group, would kill a bunch of Aliens.
That's the way we all became the Lally Bunch
THE LAL-LY BUNCH
THE LALLY BUNCH
That's the way... we be-came the Lal-ly Bunch!
;banjo ;rotflmao ;heartbreak ;bored ;eek
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 10:02:29 PM
MY 2171. After a very long odyssey to the far corner of the map, at 20% wounds the whole time, the SUPPORTED gun ship finally succumbed to an Isle emerging from a fungally ridden supply pod. It was nice knowin' ya.
[Limit reached]
I go through the motions of speaking to
[Limit reached]
I'm surprised as a good little Democrat that we actually have something we can agree upon. Lal is already at war with the Usurpers and simply hasn't pestered me about it yet. This is a no brainer.
[Limit reached]
I mean, you might start liking me better.
[Limit reached]
Hmm, that's probably enough armament to chemically wipe the Aliens out. If they were anywhere near me, particularly if I saw some sea bases and ships in the water, I'd probably do it. But right now, logistically there's no profit in it at all. How will I fight such a long range war against 2 Aliens?
[Limit reached]
They'll be at war eventually. But, it's nowhere near me. Big chunk of land in the way to the northeast of their border.
[Limit reached]
I'm not likely to ever have any meaningful impact on the Usurpers at all. It will probably be Miriam's gig, and she will probably wipe them out.
[Limit reached]
The Caretakers are probably occupying a lot of this black region, and it's between both ends of my empire. I could probably wipe them out. Would take a lot of shipping.
[Limit reached]
The Spartans and the Data Angels will probably keep each other in check for awhile, if they are still at war and remain so. The Spartans will eventually get tired of my neutrality and make war on me. But, by then I don't think they'll have anything effective they can do to me. Bet I have naval and air power by then. Even if I don't, they have a lot of surface area I can steal from, and can't hit me with planes. I've learned from previous games that once I've got Adaptive Doctrine, I don't have to fear anyone's interloping ships. I'll just board them, even if I lose a Sea Former or two.
[Limit reached]
Although Lal could conceivably get into it with the Caretakers, I bet he doesn't. They just don't have a land interface. He will expand into this wide open continent, with only Miriam to hold him back. The question is, when they start fighting, will she be able to do so? And I don't want her tromping Lal too much, because then she'd just become the game's nukeing monster. Definitely a balancing act to perform here. At least if Lal, Miriam, and Marr start tossing nukes, they probably won't hit me.
Yeah. All things considered, totally wiping out the Caretakers sounds like a reasonable preliminary plan.
[Limit reached]
But for now, I think Free Market is best. Need to build up my military capabilities. Adjusting my budget to 40-20-40 keeps people happy.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 10:45:10 PM
MY 2173. I thought I had the oceans to myself. I have a nation of untrained Scouts. My few Gun Foils, they're off exploring. I have no answer for this. I hope it doesn't do something disastrous.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 11:04:10 PM
MY 2174. If this keeps up in force, I will quit, and not bother with any further Pirate testing. It's totally obnoxious to have one's cities ruined like this. Worse with an Alien involved is that they'll depopulate.
I often get the feeling that it doesn't cost the AI that much money to do this to me either. In various games, including my own mod, I've spent a lot of time checking on that. If I thought it was prohibitively expensive for the AI to do it, and that this was just an extremely irritating harassment that they can't keep up, well then I might not mind it so much. But having to build lots of probe teams when you thought you were geographically isolated, is an exceedingly, exceedingly tedious game.
I'm well aware of even the stock binary's obsessions with taking over sea bases, if you enable foil probe teams. My mod does so. I used to play on what I've defined as Enormous maps, which are larger than Huge. 'Enormous' is the largest map with a correct aspect ratio, that one can guarantee the stock binary's faction placement algorithm won't be buggy. Like won't leave you or another faction on a size 1 island. Even on a map that big, the AI would obsess about sending a foil probe all the way across the map to take your city over. You could exploit that to gain infiltration and a tech, before liberating your city. But it's still annoying, and you'll never do it yourself as a human, because it's so tedious to push a ship that far.
Sea base mind control obsessions are bad enough, that I wouldn't have considered a Pirate empire of this size, viable under my mod. That said, I've also toned down this sort of thing quite a bit. Mind control costs double in my mod. That means in practice, there's a certain radius from your capitol where they really can't get away with this, and it's seriously expensive if they do try to take something. So it's not likely to be anyone's habit. The AI might blow their life savings on a deeply irritating move, but you won't be dealing with it much overall.
In Thinker though, if I don't have a reasonably large physical space to command, I know I'm going to be dead later. I seriously dislike the need to "get things off the ground, up and running", when the AI seems to have such tremendous advantages over me in this regard. The odd thing is my earliest colonization spread actually seemed to be better than that of the AIs I could see. That said, Miriam is clearly "Thinker monstrous" and I just don't happen to be near her.
If Infinite City Sprawl means AI opponents can just radiate probe teams non-stop, then I'm done. Won't necessarily conclude that Thinker is broken, but that the original game is broken and Thinker exploits it. I've modded for 3.5+ years to not have to deal with this kind of garbage.
I think there's a very minimal set of binary improvements I'd really like to have, and pretty much top of that list, is overhauling probe team rules. Back in the day, it was responsible for 50% of my rage quits against the game. Ultimately leading me to destroy 2 paid copies of SMAC, in more ancient times. A love hate relationship, and an awful lot of it was about probe teams. And they weren't even foil probe teams!
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 11:16:59 PM
MY 2175. Meanwhile, Miriam loses another city in the vicinity of the Garland Crater. Don't call me that sad! Maybe her getting trashed out of the game, will be a good thing. The Usurpers would become scary, but they'll probably nuke Lal first. Everyone can agree to use chemical weapons on Aliens so cleaning up that mess might not be so bad. Great theory. Let me know if it has any relevance at all in the end. :'(
[Limit reached]
She's had nothing to say for all this time. Why is she suddenly bugging me on the inter-turn?
[Limit reached]
More carping about Sparta. I don't care, and I've got my own problems. If you wanted more concern, you could have kept your comm open previously. Won't trade a tech, won't sign a Treaty. She buggers off.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 11:24:54 PM
MY 2176. Surprisingly, she has very little. Field Modulation and Gene Splicing. I guess Directed Research ain't so much, at least not for the Caretakers. I've noticed in other games that the Usurpers seem to do a lot better than the Caretakers. I think it's because they're more aggressive and munge all kinds of territory. Still, Aliens are known for their intermediate tech stagnation. I don't even force mine to be Planned. I do have my Caretakers as Socialist, but my Socialist is +2 JUSTICE, not -2 EFFIC. They do get -1 ECONOMY though.
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2022, 11:43:19 PM
MY 2177. I thought I only saw 2 techs I didn't have. Maybe I was sloppy. Well, slightly more to steal then.
[Limit reached]
I'm making Synth Laser Skimships but I wouldn't exactly call it an invasion force. Kinda need more intel.
[Limit reached]
I guess they're not Fundamentalist. Hm, Democratic Planned.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 01:38:45 AM
MY 2178. I don't think settling a base with your Sea Escape Pod is much of an idea. It just gives me an easy way to steal another tech, before killing the base. Granted, I don't actually have a ship that can attack it immediately this turn, and the AI may know that from cheating. But it still seems pretty dumb. If I were in their shoes, I would run like hell to try to lead units away. I'd just accept that my death was inevitable and that's all I could do with the unit, is distract the enemy ever so briefly. Better than handing over another tech, or my map.
[Limit reached]
Actually because the AI is Democratic and has -2 SUPPORT, this is going to be a sail-in next year. There was no point to this maneuver at all. It gave me Field Modulation.
[Limit reached]
I forgot that putting my ship right next to their newly founded base, is in their waters, not mine. So now I've got unhappy people for a turn. I'll try to be more cognizant next time.
[Limit reached]
Making everyone a Medic was all I could do. With this sort of thing, I definitely don't feel like a great and powerful empire yet.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 02:04:34 AM
MY 2179. I correctly anticipated that the AI would come around the land and through the fungus at the same place again, and try the same shenanigans. I put the one skimship probe team available at the correct place. And I have the Laser Foil to blow the enemy probe team out of the water.
[Limit reached]
In the other direction, there's the problem of a ship with a bigger gun coming through. It's no problem once my Synth Laser Foils are in striking range, but I have to make sure that these ships don't get first strike on my bases. That's a bit of a problem when you can't put your navy out to sea, in territory you don't control. I think Call To Power 2 had sea buoys that would extend your territorial influence?
[Limit reached]
It would actually be cost effective to buy this enemy ship. But then it would probably be Homed to one of my nearby bases, and would make my citizens unhappy. Not worth it. I will retreat and take this ship out when it gets into my own territory. I suppose there could be a problem of distance transition, where I will still make people unhappy with my own ship just barely outside my waters. It's a problem. This is why I built a Copter in one of my games, because it could return to base the same turn after striking.
[Limit reached]
If the AI is straightforward "beeline dumb", it will arrive in my waters before it can attack my bases. So it will be summarily killed. I've positioned my probe teams to see where it goes. If I don't see it, then I'll assume it tried to be tricky going into the fungal patch, or started acting weird and didn't beeline. In those cases, I'll retreat further.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 02:16:38 AM
MY 2180. It dies next year.
[Limit reached]
This is how you "profit" in most 4X games. AIs tend to do very predictable things when pathfinding over terrain. You identify their recurrent route of movement, or pattern, such as "going 2 squares forward" and having to start or stop on Rocky terrain or something. Soon enough you find the area of weakness, the "kill zone", that the AI is going to walk through over and over again. You camp your defense on the edge of such a zone, and you kill stacks as they come.
An AI that slightly randomized their movement, even at the expense of strict speed to target, would be more effective. On the other hand, it's fun for the human player to kill the AI because its movement is stupid. So I'm not sure how high a priority such an AI improvement is.
[Limit reached]
I might be getting a free ship next year!
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 04:05:13 AM
MY 2181. More stuff to blast the enemy. Does this mean I've successfully prototyped my Impact weapons?
[Limit reached]
Nope. Guess I cough something up somewhere. I'm kinda busy trying to make this growing population happy.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 04:33:17 AM
MY 2182. Free probe team next year? My 2183. No, it died.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 04:37:42 AM
MY 2190. One Democrat fighting another. Joy. Against Miriam, I could understand. You are allowing yourself to get pointlessly distracted. He says both Roze and Miriam are at fault for their wars.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 05:05:53 AM
Roze bothers me again. I say, hey gal. Like, knock off. Aliens and stuff. She don' say groovy. She say, So Be It!
[Limit reached]
Surprisingly, with this boost, I can finish the Planetary Energy Grid!
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 06:16:42 AM
She bugged me. I'm not sure what I really wanted to say to her, but I fumbled and asked for a Treaty. That went nowhere.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 06:21:33 AM
MY 2205. I'm up against a hard limit of not having any Hab Complexes. The Usurpers know the tech, but I'll never get a probe team that far away. Or if I did, I'd like to think that my pure Build focus would get me to Industrial Automation before then anyways. I'm not used to having the Hab Complex being such a hard limit. In my mod, it's available earlier and pretty easy to get. In The Will To Power, a Hab Complex isn't a hard limit on growth. You do worse and worse at growth if you don't have one, and better if you do have one.
I've been stealing all kinds of stuff. Just when I think I've got it all, the Caretakers research more. Their expansion is so spammy that there's no way they'd ever have any probe defense against my thefts. Not at this fairly close range, while they're still determined to expand expand expand. But what I need is Industrial Automation and they haven't coughed that up.
1:20 AM and I've had enough for tonight!
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 02:26:52 PM
MY 2206. At least for now, I've got all their tech.
[Limit reached]
They sure have spawned. Moreso than neighboring human factions. Lal did get into war with them, and they have been doing damage to him.
[Limit reached]
I don't know how much of the black chunk is Usurper, but it could be all of it. Hmm, given the amount they've hassled the Spartans, infiltrating the Usurpers might be viable. I just have to get down that channel.
[Limit reached]
I don't know if I've got the production for Power yet, but at least I've got the option.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 02:44:54 PM
MY 2210. The jerk selectively shot my Elite probe team. I was only trying to infiltrate my buddy Lal. I guess I will come by land, someday. I'm down to 1 probe team. I have nothing on defense anymore, but I think the AI is too distracted to be bothering with those little missions now. Also, I don't know if it's calculating the cost of taking over cities, but those cities are all size 7 now. I've got a rash of little cities I've just sprouted, waiting to get my Hab Complexes. Hope they aren't attractants.
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 02:47:09 PM
MY 2211. Industrial Automation isn't commonly known. Even if I could manage to build the Planetary Datalinks, I don't see it helping in that regard.
[Limit reached]
I've made Biology Labs in all my older cities, and they're now all working on Network Nodes. I need to break this population impasse. My empire is always hungry for EFFIC too. Most of those new colonies start unhappy. I feel I have to take the risk that I'm juicier for mind control.
[Limit reached]
I forgot that Free Market folk don't like bombers. It was the cheapest prototype though and I still don't have a Skunkworks. I will disband it somewhere.
Post by: Rocky on February 15, 2022, 03:08:26 PM
Thank you for sharing your playthroughs and save files with us. It's fun to see you play and to read your perspective, as well as the AI doing things and the dialogue. (Like Miriam renouncing her pact)
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2022, 11:17:20 PM
[Limit reached]
MY 2213. How the heck did the Caretakers get this unit that deep into my territory without me previously seeing it? Yeah Thinker doesn't have Sensors on water, but still. Actually I'm not even sure whether Sensors on water actually work. They're enabled in my own mod but I can't remember if they've been helpful. I don't tend to build them.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 16, 2022, 12:28:49 AM
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 02:12:46 AM
[Limit reached]
MY 2214. Even though I need Industrial Automation, I just cannot accept the idea that I won't soon research it on my own. Meanwhile, keeping this guy stalemated with Miriam sounds like a good idea. And Miriam stalemating Lal. I only have 1 probe team inbound. It will infiltrate.
[Limit reached]
Well I do have the right enemy. I've just rarely seen a game where Marr is overly cognizant of that fact. His love for me doesn't extend to selling a tech though. Nor can he keep his mouth shut about Planned economy.
[Limit reached]
My point of view turned out to be reasonably founded. In the sense of, I didn't need to get this from Marr. I'm still surprised and irked that I didn't get it myself. Well, onwards to Doctrine: Initiative!
Lal blamed others for wars, so he continues to squabble.
[Limit reached]
Although I need Doctrine: Initiative for safety and making war, I need Environmental Economics to release the energy cap and pay off this money grubbing Free Market empire I've been making. Income is going to fall quite a bit when I go Green. I checked alphax.txt and EnvEcon is a wealth=4 growth=3 tech. So this choice should be the best I can do. And of course, Doctrine: Initiative is an Explore tech. growth=4 power=2 actually.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 02:26:12 AM
MY 2215. Assuming bases actually have visibility of ships on the water, then this time around, it must have snuck in across that "arm" of squares that aren't seen by any base. Through the fungus, then into the arm. The odd thing is, I swear the ship then turned back 1 square diagonally to the northeast, to arrive in its current orientation. That would make its trajectory not exactly well considered. It happens to have come out where it's clearly gonna die. Both Parrot Landing and Crow's Nest have 4-1-1 foils in them.
When spreading around in this backwater, I made very sure not to make any territorial holes. I have a contiguous claim on everything, so nobody at Peace or Truce can muscle in. But I was not so scrupulous, about visibility holes. It hasn't particularly hurt me yet, but it's a problematic aspect of planning I hadn't considered.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 02:42:49 AM
MY 2216. I hate it when one of the research runts of the game one-ups me. In fairness, her focus is Explore Conquer. Exactly what you need to get that tech. Not necessarily all the techs that precede it though, i.e. no reason she should have gotten Industrial Automation before me. Perhaps she stole it from Marr. Or from Lal... I guess they've been at war for awhile, and it's not reasonable to think that Lal traded for it.
Funny thing is, if I had built the Planetary Datalinks, I guess it would have yielded this tech by now. It seemed like a Usurper exclusive for quite some time. Well I didn't have the cash to build a SP anyways. Really in most respects, I'm still just trying to get this empire off the ground. It's doing ok but it's not "fighting ready" and couldn't currently withstand a real invasion. Hopefully I have correctly estimated that the Caretakers are busy.
I think I really am about as isolated in this game as one could reasonably hope for. Miriam, for instance, is the decidedly most distant player. There's a huge "turning back" of land between us. Sailing to her takes forever.
[Limit reached]
My first instinct was to blow him off and let our alliance crumble. But I guess I can agree, and just pay lip service to doing a darned thing against Miriam. Ideologically she's a natural enemy that's going to make war on me soon enough anyways. I'm not obligated to go Democratic, but there sure isn't any good Politics option for the Pirates otherwise. It solves both of my penalty problems. It would take a Future Society to have another arrangement be ok, and we're not near those yet.
"Plan A" of infiltrating the Usurpers with my 1 probe team is still a go though. I am unlikely to reach Believer waters. It would be way easier to ferry a land team to Lal's territory and then go after the Believers. Yeah I guess I'll get right on that. Not. I've got so much infrastructure outstanding. Hab Complexes held up by all the Network Nodes I've been making, trying to get the techs I need.
[Limit reached]
Glad they're coming one at a time, like a kung fu movie. If they came all at once, I'd be dead.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 02:55:12 AM
MY 2217. Don't you realize I just popped 8 native life forms near your base? You had your own unit sitting next to the explosion, so I know in principle, you saw it. Your kind, generous gift of transportation, dooms your unit to slaughter, and probably your new base along with it. Of course I'll withdraw without question or condition. I know you're nowhere near my territory anyways. Even if you were, the pods all dried up long ago.
[Limit reached]
I really wanted to blow Lal off again, but once again, where's the harm in placating him? My probe team was already going to go at the Usurpers when we were at war. I already thought that was totally doable. Maybe when it arrives, Marr will have a powwow. Maybe I'll get him to agree to back off of attacking Lal, which would suit my counterbalancing agenda better. And who knows, maybe Marr was always destined to get into it with me anyways. Planned isn't my thing, it's very bad for EFFIC. I already start with bad EFFIC, I have to crawl out of that hole.
[Limit reached]
I'm obligated to go through Spartan waters now. I wanted to check if they had a ship to send me back home with. Doesn't look like it, but I see the Usurpers are fighting them. I gotta watch out for that ship.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 03:19:28 AM
MY 2218. There seem to be 2 units in the channel blocking it up. I think they're both hers. It triggered a talking event. That's slightly annoying as passing next to her city, didn't. Well this might turn out to be the mission I expected. She's got Gatling guns and I don't recall getting Superconductor, so I know what I'll do if she gets uppity.
[Limit reached]
I know the way this diplomatic AI works. Its the last ditch attempt to get as much as possible out of me before declaring war. A form of backstabbing. Ain't gonna happen!
[Limit reached]
I may actually get time to ask her to knock off a war. Problem is, Roze cannot choose Power. That makes her Santiago's natural enemy.
[Limit reached]
I was trying type this up, think about what I'm doing, and eat a slice of pie at the same time. It was my undoing! I was supposed to pick "Please call off your vendetta against my friend..." and instead I picked "I have a proposal to make". Thinking I was going to propose that she call off her vendetta. That's not how the UI works! There are way too many buttons for what you're supposed to do, and you can't backtrack. If I had said "Never mind" she would have just signed off. So I'm going to try to get her to go after Miriam, although it'll amount to nothing, because I'm probably not willing to pay her to do so. Plus, don't payments create obligations that AI factions simply won't renege on? "I've accepted payment for their demise and I must fulfill my contract."
[Limit reached]
I know. It was foolishness. Just not for the reasons you think. How many wars have been started over User Interface issues? "Oh shoot, that was the RED one..."
:hunter: ;nuke; ;nuke; ;nuke; ;liftoff ;sven
[Limit reached]
Wow that's a real problem. Unless I can buy that ship, or run a mission on the Spartans, I'm about to die.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 03:34:22 AM
There are TWO ships. I can't buy a stack of 2 ships, under the original rules. Retreat means death under any scenario.
[Limit reached]
This situation... what are the lessons? Don't be tired? Don't eat? Don't type? Don't sail towards a choke point, when diplomatic distance is on the line?
[Limit reached]
I'm a regular James Bond. Hmm, wrong nationality. Sven Bonsvensmand?
;awesome ;fool
Intone the Swedish Chef.
y borg-gde-borg de bish ke
borg-gde-borg de bish ke
y borg-gde-borg de bish ke
borg-gde-borg de bish ke
dew dew!
dew dew dew...
[Limit reached]
I mean I am the embodiment of Scandinavian knowledge.
And that is how I didn't die today, boys and girls.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 03:54:24 AM
MY 2220. Long years of boring research infrastructure have paid off. I'm rich!
[Limit reached]
The game immediately asks me what my research desires are, and I make them known!
[Limit reached]
It's a funny strategy. Why not just attack Dry Dock directly? It's only got a scout in it. Thought I had more but maybe they killed it. Maybe it never had more. Anyways, the AI's tactical prevarication will once again cost it its life. Crow's Nest has a real ship in it. I can just sit in port and shell it, I don't have to...
[Limit reached]
Uuuh, reloading my turn. I forgot how artillery duels work. It's gun against gun, not gun against armor. I don't win against an R-Laser. Look it's 10:45 PM and I'm tired as #. You can't get this writeup some other way, don't judge me. I think I should try eating popcorn and juggling while I'm at it.
[Limit reached]
I think my income jumped 3x. Gonna get some stuff done!
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 04:01:47 AM
MY 2221. I need my free Naval Yards. This is getting to be a bit much.
[Limit reached]
Generally the incoming ships have just been getting fried.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 04:12:43 AM
MY 2222. Going too fast, I almost missed this. I learned from last time around that I can't just have a gun duel to extend my range. It may require a bit of sacrifice to get rid of this thing.
[Limit reached]
I scrape up what I've got, but I've still got a skeleton country. This one-by-one stuff is starting to become an attrition problem.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 04:28:02 AM
MY 2223. I'm still mainly fighting the Caretakers, so I don't think this changes anything. Never did make any X weapons. Haven't made any weapons in a long time actually. Just trying to get these dang bases past size 7. As Hab Complexes come on line, I'm starting to make cheap untrained Trance 3-Pulse Skimships. I hope they can take hits better.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 05:40:10 AM
MY 2225. Not sure how I'm going to blow up this thing. Hope it wears itself out. Even the Caretakers have Doctrine: Initiative now. Maybe the Planetary Datalinks is a better idea than I thought.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 05:48:36 AM
MY 2226. I don't understand why my 50% wounded unarmored R-Laser foil was chosen as the defender. I did have it set "L" to be notified when it's healed up. If that doubles for "designated defender", that sucks.
[Limit reached]
We're just not getting anything done. Lal's pretty much getting his butt whipped. Santiago I think is in a stalemate.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 06:36:54 AM
MY 2227. Why did my scout get selected to be killed? Surely, it can't be the strongest defender? I hope I'm not in for some rude awakening that these 3-Pulse ships are completely worthless.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 06:47:32 AM
MY 2229. That's a size 9 city fairly close to my capitol, while I have an EFFIC of +2, and everybody's happy. I don't care if I was pursuing Knowledge and had -2 PROBE. The original game rules are broken and I'm not going to put up with them. Way too much work just to try to get my empire off the ground, to have one of the game's hegemons summarily show up and do this to me. I don't care if it cost them 1000 credits, and I suspect it didn't. I'm no longer interested in whether Thinker plays the original game "well", because it's a junk game with serious flaws.
[Limit reached]
To add insult to injury, it used my own captured ships to execute the sea escape pods, that I didn't even want to found new cities with anyways. I already worked on all my spam. Lots of teeny weeny cities waiting for me to do the same boring stuff to them all over again.
[Limit reached]
15 squares away from my capitol. I was not capable of producing a sea empire any better than I did. It's as good as it gets in a real stretch of ocean.
[Limit reached]
This empire isn't "everywhere on the map" like stock binary Pirate AI does. This is pretty close knit, while still attempting to keep up with Thinker base spam, and still refusing to engage in the monstrosity of Infinite City Sprawl. I've worked an awful lot of terrain. By hand. Every single one of those Tidal Harnesses. A lot of the kelp was free.
[Limit reached]
I'm especially finding it rather difficult, to obtain the Pirates' free Naval Yards, in a relevant timeframe. I came close this time, but it danced out of reach. I probably would have stolen it from the Caretakers in 3 more turns, but I consider 2 other factions having it first, to be a bit of a survival problem.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 07:30:40 AM
Gotta turn off the things that weren't improvements. Looking in thinker.ini, I notice:Code: [Select]; Set the amount of priority AI factions have for the preferred social model.
; Allowed values: 0 (no priority) - 1000. By default the priority is moderate.
social_ai_bias=10
Totally cranking that to 1000. Enough of this Morganic Green and Deirdre Planned AI rubbish.
Here's the one that got me started looking:Code: [Select]; Probe team infiltration on other factions can expire randomly when this option is set.
; Chance for discovery is rolled each turn and depends on the comparative PROBE ratings of the
; attacking and defending faction. If discovered, a dialog box will be displayed for both.
counter_espionage=1
That's a zero!
I totally don't understand the purpose of excluding these 3 factions from a slate of random opponents. It might explain why my opponents have been awfully consistent from run to run.Code: [Select]; Select whether to exclude some factions from random selection in the game setup.
; Factions can be selected individually but at least 7 factions must always remain enabled.
; 1 = Gaians
; 2 = Hive
; 3 = Univ
; 4 = Morgan
; 5 = Spartans
; 6 = Believe
; 7 = Peace
; 8 = Cyborg
; 9 = Pirates
; 10 = Drone
; 11 = Angels
; 12 = Fungboy
; 13 = Caretaker
; 14 = Usurper
; 15 = First custom faction slot if available etc.
skip_faction=12
skip_faction=13
skip_faction=14
So, erasing those entries.
And now, I'm dumping my SMACX AI Growth mod on top of Thinker. That means global warming frequency is set like the stock binary. Of course I've made numerous changes to the rules. The condenser / borehole / supply crawler thing isn't going to happen for most factions until late game.
It could happen earlier for 1 AI faction if it gets the Weather Paradigm done. However, early Secret Projects are a bit more expensive, 300 rather than 200, and are not immediately available in the game. I don't know if Thinker's Infinite City Sprawl will manage to crank those out or not. It depends on how reliant it usually is on supply crawlers, how vertical it's willing to make its early cities, if it knows to cash Artifacts to speed things along, and if it knows how to spend cash to do it.
It's probably not going to get the cash by popping a lot of early supply pods. I actually think Thinker's paucity of supply pods on the map is an improvement, over the gluttonous ways of my usual play. So, I'm retaining that Thinker.ini setting. I wasn't particularly impressed by Thinker's collection of pods. It might be expected that I got the most at sea, but it left noticeable scraps on land as well. In some cases, like with Lal, it really never finished exploring.
The main question I want to try to answer is:
Is Infinite City Sprawl the only way to win the game?
In the original game rules, the answer might be yes. However, that question is superseded by the overpowered probe teams. It's such a dominant strategy that it really doesn't matter. Big empire might equal a lot of cash, then summary buyout. But going -2 PROBE might be your death sentence, irrespective.
In my rules, I plugged up a lot of Thinker's and expert players' exploits eons ago. There might still be some. And it may not matter in the end, if ICS reigns supreme. But I've designed rules that are the best balance I could hope to come up with, for humans playing the game, who don't want to be super tedious with everything. Like I could make various terrain improvements even more tedious to get done, or take them out of the game entirely. But I didn't do that. It's all there... it's just not obviously your immediate beeline to victory.
It will be mildly amusing if Thinker makes surprisingly effective use of Cloaks. At least in a single player game with dumb stock AIs, I consider it a completely useless technology. It becomes available fairly early. For many releases, I made it a starting ability of the Alien factions! I toned that down eventually, because I thought it was so useless, it wasn't even worth bothering to give away at the beginning of the game.
Oh, and if Thinker can go nuts with Clean Reactors being available from the start of the game. That was a bletcherous hack for the stock AI's benefit. I don't think Thinker needs that kind of aid. ;wince
It should be noted that I might have broken Economic Victory. I definitely nerfed it, because some of my versions of Morgan were buying the entire world for 1000 credits. It's godawful expensive now. Might have something to do with my probe team fixes, not sure. Currently I don't see any scenario where a human player would choose Economic Victory over some other approach, including conquering every last city on the map. But an AI, who doesn't care about tedium? HMMM.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 03:36:56 PM
[Limit reached]
Factions in my mod do not have penalties. Empirically, this allows the stock AI to play better. The dynamic range of penalties in the original game is too severe, it's rather onerous and crippling. So, nobody experiences them. Human players don't like having crippled things either, like your bases being trivially taken over when you've got -2 PROBE. So nobody suffers any of that.
Factions don't get starter techs. It's pointless. All it does is accelerate the early tech trading economy. Techs in my tree are meticulously balanced, for when they tend to arrive in the game, according to their [power tech wealth growth] weights in alphax.txt. The Tier 1 game is "Verified Fair [TM]" and a notable consideration is, everybody starts with ships. Nobody's struggling to get off an island or away from a peninsula they're choked up on. If they want to go pop sea supply pods immediately, they can. It'll be interesting to see if Thinker takes ready advantage of the exploration and expansion opportunity available to it.
In addition to all those considerations, my Pirates get IMPUNITY to Wealth. When played by the AI, they are not aargh arrgh Santiago of the sea. They're Passive. They sit back and rake in money. They have this huge food energy minerals rich moat to do it in. Why should they ever bother to conquer anyone at all? They tend to win the Governorship.
There have been times in my modding work, where my Pirates have been truly terrifying, even with the stock binary. Like Orbital Defense Pod terrifying. But there have been some bugs in the stock binary that sometimes crippled them, that I've had to work around. I think I've got it under control lately and they're effective once again. I don't remember being terrified by them lately, but I might just be that much better at my own mod, and I might not have played enough recent test games.
[Limit reached]
Worth making clear what "impunity to Wealth" means, as well as the other stark differences in my SE table. Capitalist (Free Market) is broken up. You're not stuck with the "military restriction game" with -5 POLICE. I mean look at the USA, it's capitalist as # and you don't see them even slightly averse to being the world policeman.
There are no PROBE penalties in the table. That's because negative PROBE is way too obnoxious in the original game. There are no INDUSTRY bonuses, because it's overpowered. Domai gets an INDUSTRY bonus for his faction and that's it. No other way to get it.
GROWTH and JUSTICE (EFFIC) are on strict diets. Pop booming takes real work. Generally speaking, "strict diet / game of inches" is the theme. You're expected to get Future Societies a lot earlier and have 4 SE choices for a lot of the game. It's somewhat of a mix 'n' match system. Moreso in earlier versions of my mod, less so now.
I wonder if Thinker will exploit the Green giveaway? It was necessary to work around a bug in the stock binary. It has no penalties because if there are any, Deirdre won't go Green for hundreds of years. Since it's a giveaway, recently I made Centauri Empathy take longer to get. Shifting techs in time, is one of the ways they can be partly rebalanced.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 04:54:09 PM
[Limit reached]
This is a weird start. Why am I being given a Transport? That never happens in my mod. Maybe Thinker is doing its own world generation and is not using alphax.txt terrain generation parameters. I'll roll with it for now, but if it's too crazy, I'll look for the knobs to make the game do it my way. I'm also realizing I took Thinker's "equidistant" faction placement algorithm and not the stock binary's. That could change some things.
[Limit reached]
So many games, land factions have been locked up by water. Not too often does a water faction get locked up by land! It can happen if you deliberately choose an "old school" 30%..50% land generation with the stock binary and alphax.txt. Not much in the way of real oceans on those. But I changed my land generation eons ago, even before I started on SMACX AI Growth mod. You might call it "preflight" modding, coming up with that world generation solution. If this sucks hard for Pirates, then I'm bailing, and calling this a false start. There's nothing interesting about being put waaaay behind other faction's ability to spread. Not the least of which is because, popping ocean pods is how I keep up with AI advantages. No oceans, no pods.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 04:58:33 PM
Well that was cute. We're not doing this.
This kind of thing never happens on my mod. I've got "continentally" land masses, always with big Earth-style oceans to go with them. Never crater hole lakes or Mars type stuff. Never archipelagos. Never 1x1 islands or even smaller islands.
Thinker's settings have gotta go. Where are the knobs. Perusing Thinker.ini.
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 05:55:10 PM
Maybe I should actually read Details.md but I'm not going to right now.
EDIT: Ok ok, I RTFM. Not interested in this. I balanced my whole tree based on vanilla behavior. I'm not trying to re-cost a vanilla tree. I know my tree works fine. Gold standard of tech trees AFAIAC really.
Code: [Select]
; Improved tech cost mechanic to increase late game research costs (see Details.md)
; Tech costs scale relative to the level of current research item, instead of the
; old version where costs increased according to the amount of techs a faction had.
revised_tech_cost=1
; When revised_tech_cost is enabled, this factor is applied on AI research costs.
; Example: 100 = 100% of human cost, 76 = 76% of human cost. Minimum value: 1.
tech_cost_factor=116,108,100,92,84,76That's a zero.
This knob I'm already clear on, without even trying it. No. Just, no. I designed my early tech tree for a reason. It's not an excuse to blitz through the game to get to "better stuff". I realize Thinker is targeted at the original game, and seeks its own way to address the original game's limitations. But I spent 3.5+ years of work doing it a different way. Even if I were to utilize revised_tech_cost for some reason, I would never turn this on.
Code: [Select]
; Special option for revised_tech_cost. Apply a temporary, decreasing discount for
; the first 16 techs that are discovered. Any starting techs will count against the limit.
cheap_early_tech=1That's a zero.
Found the knob I was looking for.
Code: [Select]
; Enable Thinker's modified map generator. This replaces the old WorldBuilder.
new_world_builder=1That's a zero.
Since I turned off the new world builder, I don't think the Monsoon Jungle mod matters. But I thought I would comment: this is most likely to be a giveaway for the AIs. Sure, it increases the chance that a human player will start within settlement range of one of these. But there are 6 AIs taking their chances with that. We know from vanilla that even 1 Monsoon Jungle in the game is very powerful for most factions, and likely to make them into the dominant early power of the game. So now you get maybe 2 AIs getting that kind of boost, instead of just 1. And you the human, maybe you get it, maybe you don't. You're either at parity, or below 2 factions. I think it's probably better to be below 0 or 1 factions, with just 1 Monsoon Jungle on the map. Or remove the M.J. from the game entirely as overpowered.
But I'll leave the setting alone because I still haven't experienced much of its consequences. In other games, I learned a long time ago not to fixate on the Monsoon Jungle. It's way cool if you start close to it. If you have to take some huge hike to colonize it, the loss of JUSTICE / EFFIC and time, is more trouble than it's worth. Pointedly, you can get bought out by probe teams, unless you relocate your capitol there. So what's your original settlement location gonna be, just starter resources? It's a lot of delays. You're usually better off "popping pods judiciously" around you, utilizing those resource specials effectively, and getting a good empire going right where you are.
Code: [Select]
; This replaces the default Monsoon Jungle landmark with multiple dispersed jungles on the map.
modified_landmarks=1Leaving this alone.
I sit on the fence about equidistant faction placement. I think it makes the AIs very hard to intervene in. But if under my rules, I find a way to intervene anyways, then maybe it's not such an issue.
Code: [Select]
; Balance faction starting locations more evenly on random maps and
; maintain a minimum distance to any nearest neighbors.
faction_placement=1Leaving this alone.
You know? A long time ago, I remember actually approving of this tweak. In one of the rare early instances where I provided feedback on Thinker's choices. But that was then and this is now. I see no evidence that the Thinker AI factions need any kind of starting boost at all. Frankly, it reminds me of corporate welfare. This goes. If it results in games with clearly runted crippled starting factions, I will reconsider.
Code: [Select]
; Faction placement can also add two nutrient bonuses for each land-based faction.
; 0 = disable for all, 1 = enable for AIs only, 2 = enable for all.
nutrient_bonus=1That's a zero.
Well that looks like it's it. More changes than I anticipated. But, I really didn't pay thorough attention before. No sense continuing to get a little bit into games and then just quitting.
Post by: Induktio on February 16, 2022, 10:24:07 PM
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2022, 10:48:29 PM
I'm not sure what's the rationale of just playing version 3.0 when 3.1 is also available.
3.1 is available? As development in progress, or a stable release? I'll go check your repo.
Ah, I see what has happened. I started this thread on Feb 5th and 3.0 was your stable release at that time. You released 3.1 on Feb 11th and I was not aware. I will install 3.1 and review what changes it made over 3.0. Then decide whether to proceed with the Frankensteining.
Quote
Maybe to post about only one version in one thread?
Even bumping the version, I would still do 1 thread. This thread competes with every other AAR I ever made. ;lol No hard feelings but I want to showcase my mod more than yours. Still, you've earned the right to have some attention. To the extent that anyone reads AARs, and some people actually do. This is not my usual "full production values" AAR but it's not that far off either. And it has the odd quality of being about a particular topic, run into the ground, until its most gory conclusion. There's some specific value in that. Wanna know how sea empires really work? Hey well, here it is...
Quote
With revised_tech_cost first level techs are very expensive for a starter empire, so the cheap_early_tech option is not much different from vanilla behaviour in the early stages of the game.
Hm. Well, that might not suck. But I don't want to take the time to test it. I already know that my modded treatment of the tech tree, does not suck. Apples to apples. Fewer moving parts.
The goal is to see if your AI can play without the exploit of the condensers, supply crawlers, and boreholes just handed to it. Without getting to ignore global flooding. And if even given all that, does Infinite City Sprawl strictly dominate the game? If one has the patience / motivation / non-disgust to do it. That'll never be me. Fine for an AI, but I would never waste my free time pushing so many units. It's one the ways that 4X TBS gets seriously old. Its form of grinding.
Trajectory of game design in Civ IV was anti-ICS. I think it only continued, but I'm not sure, because I got off the Firaxis boat after IV. And I don't really know if anyone proved that ICS dominates in IV anyways.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 02:07:57 AM
social_ai_bias=1000
revised_tech_cost=0
cheap_early_tech=0
counter_espionage=0
new_world_builder=0
nutrient_bonus=0
removed all 3 skip_faction lines
Huge map. 30%..50% oceans since we're using my world generator. Average settings. Transcend difficulty. Random opponents.
[Limit reached]
Definitely looks like my kind of world generation. If there's any fault in my options, it's that supercontinents that cut Planet in half, are common. You can't necessarily get from the northern to the southern hemisphere. Well, Earth had real obstructions too, so I'm in good company!
[Limit reached]
So, nobody should be directing their research. They should be following the research priorities I've given them. Every faction in my mod has a slightly different set of priorities. There are exactly 14 combos if you don't count choosing everything and choosing nothing. The tech tree weights have been adjusted so that every faction's Agendas, Aversions, and technical foci actually work. When I realize the tech tree is keeping a faction from being able to do its play style, I either change the tech tree or the play style. That's like knitting a sweater and it's a lot of work. I've been at it 3.5+ years so I'm pretty confident in my results. I have done numerous random faction games to verify that things proceed as I expect, as well as AI vs. AI games to see who does / doesn't get clobbered.
So I'm likely to notice, if something's off.
- Gaians - Explore, Discover
- Pirates - Build
- Spartans - Conquer
- Cyborgs - Discover, Build
- Free Drones - Explore, Build, Conquer
- Believers - Build, Conquer
- University - Discover
It should be noted / reminded that the research foci are mostly "hard" divisions in my mod. If you want military anything, you research Conquer. If you don't, you don't get anything. There aren't any weapons or armors sprinkled around elsewhere. Some chasses are cross-listed with Explore, to the extent they actually help you explore Planet at that stage of the game. Colonization, growth, and citizen happiness are primarily Explore techs. Growth and happiness are secondarily listed in Build, about half as much emphasis, because more and happy workers does equal more minerals and energy. Build is primarily about minerals and energy. Discover is about making your research go faster.
Explore is also the "mindworm tech" stuff. Regrettable that it's overloaded like that, but I can only work with the original game binary and its categories. Usual policy on weighting such techs, is to set them growth=4 so probably have to do Explore, but also power=1 if it's a weapon, like a mindworm. That way, factions interested in Conquer have a chance to discover a really deadly Planet weapon system. But they are not expected to be climbing up that tree of capability rapidly, compared to an Explore focused faction.
These fairly "hard" divisions, are how I'm more likely to know, that someone is cheating. If you're an AI, you have to play with your statically set research priorities. That's how AI factions retain their balance, stay in character, and keep from becoming generic "national" opponents. I'm not interested in games where 7 generic factions all build thermal boreholes and the luck of the map determines the winner. Different factions have slightly different ways of doing things, and they are meant to fill different ecological niches. Some factions may do well up close to you. Others may do well very far away from you.
Human players are the ones who can choose their research priorities dynamically. And they're still beholden to their turn-by-turn choices. They cannot turn their research around on a dime. That would be cheating. You wanted the Planetary Energy Grid instead of defensive armor? Fine, your choice. Better hope Santiago or Yang don't overrun you meanwhile, 'cuz they're learning how to fight.
[Limit reached]
In the middle of this "bay" looks like about as good a capitol location as I'm going to get. I don't even know if pushing it to the northwest is worth much. Could all be open ocean in that direction, as far as making "perfect circles" around the capitol are concerned. This game is not likely to be diplomatically isolated. I'm probably going to be right smack in the middle of a bunch of land factions interacting. I won't make the mistake I did the other game, of establishing a broad and indefensible coastal empire. I'm not Rome. Not yet.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 05:03:03 PM
It's as I feared. To the northwest is deep ocean, which is not immediately useful to the Pirates in any way. Even when they finally do gain Advanced Ecological Engineering and can work the Ocean squares, only Ocean Shelf yields the bonus +1 mineral. If you get into a catastrophic global flooding scenario, it does actually impact the Pirates. Ocean Shelf turns into Ocean and then Deep Ocean. You're losing minerals, and I'm pretty sure they can't work Deep Ocean, they have to raise it.
So from a "make a perfect circle" standpoint, this is not a great starting location. My radius of expansion is limited. I don't know about Thinker's world generation, but The Will To Power takes the "out" of making a lot more shallow water available. I didn't. You usually get the mix of shallow and deep like a real ocean, which means that all ocean is definitely not created equal.
[Limit reached]
Foils move 5 in my mod, and Cruisers move 8, so I can knock off 1 more black square before taking what's been handed to me. I don't see the potential to do any better. I might also have to accept "smallpox" in a tight area with few resource specials, if I want to retain perfect circle-ism and not be dragged into dependence on the coast. Do I need to focus on getting violent with the coast? In my last game, I found myself pretty much utterly unable to focus on violence at all. Just getting the empire going was this massive struggle, and I had all the shallow ocean I could ask for to do it. Of course this time we're using my tech tree, not stock, so it might be easier. I don't exactly give away Doctrine: Initiative though.
[Limit reached]
I'm thinking that staying away from the coast is unrealistic in this location. I just don't have the room. Resource specials are going to be where they are.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 05:29:00 PM
MY 2102. Most games playing my mod, I would just stick with the faction's default research priorities forever. That's part of how I test whether their usual path through the tech tree, actually works. But this game I'm not trying to test my own work. I'm trying to beat Thinker. Is this research path optimal for beating up an AI, that is way more aggressive about colonization and terraforming, than the stock binary?
[Limit reached]
Adaptive Doctrine is a pure Conquer tech in my mod. Doctrine: Initiative is primarily Conquer but cross-listed with Explore. In terms of more immediate needs, Social Psych is primarily Explore and secondarily Build. I don't have to worry about Democratic quite so much, because my Pirates don't have -1 EFFIC or -1 GROWTH. Nobody gets to grow like crazy either for the most part, as only Fundamentalist gives an early GROWTH bonus. Non-Lethal Methods is also available earlier in my mod, so even if I freakishly never got Rec Commons for awhile, there's a way to survive it.
Maybe I'll end up missing something here, or regretting it, because this is not the usual way I do things. But I'm not going through a repeat of Lal stomping a bunch of my coastal settlements. Probe teams in my mod are Conquer techs too.
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In my mod, Clean Reactors are available from the start of the game. This is the best kind of free unit to get immediately, so that I can find some Artifacts in the water. And also, to get a few Scouts onto land.
Immediate Clean Reactors are a great thing with the stock binary. It solves all kinds of problems with early AI performance. In the hands of Thinker though, it could utterly kill me. We'll see! Notice that in my SE table, you can't get SUPPORT bonuses, except for Socialist. That's the only way. 2 factions have a SUPPORT bonus, the Believers and the Morganites. That's it. Somewhere down the line, you could build The Living Refinery. You'll already be in space by then. I couldn't abide putting it earlier, because the video for it shows asteroid colonization. So, it occurs at a fairly useless point in the game. Nobody cares about SUPPORT when you've got big belching minerals factories.
I have to design this unit because in the stock binary, if I were to predefine it, the AI would totally obsess all over it. It would very much ruin early Pirate productivity, when the AI is playing it. A bit later on, when Plasma and 3-Pulse armor become available, I do predefine Clean versions of those armored transports. That way when the Pirate AI obsesses, at least its obsession has clean reactors that have some defensive armor value. It can thus be a nuisance to get through the Pirates early on, which in turn can allow them to survive longer and become a real threat later.
By contrast, I don't know what Thinker is going to do with such capabilities, or if it even has such problems. Stock binary factions will settle the water, when handed the ships to do so, such as in my mod. The Alien factions moreso than the humans, but the humans will do it. Stock binary sea bases are typically not very good though.
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It should be noted that all Unity units are gifted with Deep Radar. This makes them more worthwhile to obtain from pod popping. There are no Slow Transports either, they move at full speed. Even Battle Ogres have Deep Radar, so that they can actually be useful for scouting when tromping around. They do not have a good main gun though. My R-Lasers are nerfed to strength 3. That's still useful for early killing of formers, speeders, mindworms, and transports though. Frankly, I think Battle Ogres are more useful as an early free Non-Lethal Methods unit. I tend to keep them home.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 06:16:19 PM
MY 2104. I didn't manage to get a completion event for a Clean Transport. But I did fish up plenty of money, whereby I can rush a regular Transport. It's time to change production, before the 10+ minerals deadline. I keep forgetting whether Thinker has a penalty for unit completion with less than 10 minerals.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 06:21:44 PM
MY 2107. It should be noted that basic Colony Pods and Sea Colony Pods have free Clean Reactors on them. They do not cost SUPPORT. Again, this is to help the stock AI. Hope Thinker doesn't kill me for it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 06:25:40 PM
MY 2108. I fish up the Gaians. ;hippy
[Limit reached]
We trade techs, maps, and sign a Treaty. Although Solicitous, she does not want my Pact of convenience. The AI clearly hasn't pulled off any miracles by this early stage.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 06:36:13 PM
MY 2110. I'm rich, and could spend the money to complete 1 of these, but I just don't want to. I want completion scumming to pay off.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 06:45:26 PM
MY 2112. This is the classic technique for getting a coastal supply pod without having to deal with fungus or rocks. It will allow you to evade mindworms easily if they pop. The downside is the stock binary knows about this trick and sometimes punishes you with an earthquake, destroying your Transport. For this reason, I will pop non-fungal non-rocky pods without using this trick. Just drop the unit off, move the Transport away, wait until next turn to pop. I will also do the more cautious approach if the Transport is far out to sea and not easily replaced. Here I am in home waters and it's the beginning of the game though. I do not want the extra SUPPORT for even 1 Scout, so I use what I've got, with the tricks I can do.
[Limit reached]
This is my 2nd Artifact. It occurs to me... if I'm not using Thinker's map generation, does that mean I've got stock binary levels of supply pods to pop? Or does Thinker do that pass after a map is generated?
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I always guard my Artifacts after I get them, lest some interloping faction I don't know about, steal them from me. The stock AI does not guard its Artifacts and it's kind of pathetic taking them away. The impact on my own play, is that it can take a very long time to march an exploration unit back with the Artifact. So I lose exploring opportunity. But, Artifacts are fairly precious and worth protecting IMO. It's a non-issue this time as I'll be inconvenienced for all of 1 turn.
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Tech trades are no big deal at the beginning in my mod, because Tier 1 and Tier 2 don't contain any Secret Projects. Tiering of techs is very strict and regimented in my mod. Every tech except for the very very end of the tech tree has 2 prerequisites, and each tech in a tier tries to be balanced as far as feeding an equal number of subsequent techs.
Deirdre in my mod is a research powerhouse and likely to continue to have techs to trade. She gets free Biology Labs in every base. So you see, I'm not the only faction with more bonuses compared to vanilla.
[Limit reached]
In my mod, I'm not starting with a GROWTH penalty, and there are no penalties for going Green. So the odds of me going Green and being diplomatically compatible with Deirdre, are reasonably good. However, she's also near enough as a neighbor, that she could end up encroaching on the coast. Particularly with Thinker's spammy pushiness in this regard, I don't feel comfortable assuming she's going to be a friend. These loans are often just not a good deal, when taking a risk over 100 years of the faction screwing you out of payments.
And it's not like I'm going to need the money. Even in a Thinker generated world, I fished lots of money out of the oceans just fine, without any real challenge from the AI for the oceanic proceeds. Granted, I was quite isolated by water that previous game, and it doesn't have to be true this time.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 07:15:47 PM
MY 2115. Yes it was the Sargasso. No you don't have to survive that. At least it'll be easy to make new Transports from my home bases.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 07:21:59 PM
MY 2118. Haven't really been nailing the completion events like usual. My Unity Gun Foil has run out of places to search up north and must head farther out to sea. Similarly for my Transport down south. Although I could push through some southern fungus, it might not go anywhere, and getting the pods out of the Sargasso is a higher priority. Only my Unity Rover is offering good completion prospects. Meanwhile I'm not utilizing 1 of my SUPPORT slots.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 08:00:39 PM
MY 2120. I wonder if that's a Scottish cab driver thing. I'm not all that clear on good options for settlement. The Sargasso will probably be good soon, but it's not now.
[Limit reached]
Next year I'll be popping a pod to the distant northwest. It could result in a completion event here. 48 credits is not an amount of money to get excited about, so I rush it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 08:09:53 PM
MY . The relevant base went back down to size 1, so I can't complete a Clean Sea Colony Pod here anymore. Need something else to complete. "A" is for armored. In principle, I could cash such a unit in for more minerals. In practice, I never do so. I know it's an exploit and I'm not that big on pushing such exploits to the hilt. I nevertheless will tend to design the most expensive units possible to completion scum. I'm not bothering with Armored Sea Colony Pods because I know I'll just settle them anyways and not cash them in, so what's the point. Worth mentioning though.
[Limit reached]
I wait until other units have been moved, and any completion events have happened, before settling new bases. A new base is going to get a free Scout already completed. There is no sense in getting a completion event on top of that. A new base blocks the completions of old bases, because they're not the nearest base anymore. So I always give old bases their "last shot" to get a completion in a certain direction.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 08:17:40 PM
The new tech diplomacy pricing code is broken in this configuration. Never ever have I seen a tech be sold for 75 credits in the stock binary. Or Thinker 3.0, or WTP. Should be verified whether this occurs in straight Thinker 3.1 with default Thinker.ini settings. I'm not going to do that right now, as I'm in the middle of a game.
My dialog path was "Some of my valuable research data, perhaps?" I didn't explicitly ask to pay credits.
Since I don't yet know what I'm in for, as far as the Thinker AI giving me some kind of firestorm in another area, I'm going to take advantage of this.
Got saves from before and after the interaction.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 10:18:39 PM
MY 2123. I fish Santiago.
[Limit reached]
First you have to get near me.
Deirdre did not want Santiago's comm frequency, nor did she want a Pact. I was hoping to use her to scum Santiago's map. It's probably not that important though. Especially in Thinker's faction placement settings, you don't have to worry about anyone being so close as to be breathing down your neck initially. Except again, does the use of my own map generator, imply my own faction placement algorithm? Hope those are different stages of the pipeline.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 10:26:03 PM
MY 2124. I actually have to design my own "Sea Former without a Clean Reactor" unit. It's because of a problem in the stock binary. It's supposed to design a Sea Former dynamically, but sometimes with the Pirate AI, it doesn't. I have provided Clean Sea Formers as a backup unit design, in the event that it doesn't design a plain Sea Formers. It's also better for the AI's SUPPORT anyways. If I provided Sea Formers as a predefined unit, it would just lead to redundancies in most people's unit selections. It also uses up a slot in predefined units table, and the game gets into problems if there are too many of them.
[Limit reached]
Various picky things to do like this with the stock binary, that wouldn't apply to Thinker. This is why I'll leave any "integration" work to someone else who really wants to carve out a name for themselves, as "The Great Integrator". I'm going to stick with the stock binary and all its quirks.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 10:35:08 PM
MY 2125. Applied Physics is a Tier 2 tech in my mod. If you're not focused on Conquer, you don't get it so fast. This is to prevent factions from Recon Rover rushing each other. The other defense is Synth armor, and even Plasma armor, are given without any need for prototyping. Weapons, you still have to do so. Early defense is very much favored in my mod. Still if you are not careful, if you press your luck and start out somewhat near Santiago, she will kill you. Recon Rover rush may not work against AIs in my mod, but it definitely still works when an AI does it to a human player, who is not being careful.
I've now got the minimum necessary to wipe out bases, aside from simple Obliteration of course. I believe in allowing chemicals early and often. After all, the price you pay when Planet sweeps in to take vengeance on your illegal activities, is horrific! Like you won't survive unless you premeditatedly prepared for the debacle horrific. I've got plenty of After Action Reports on that sort of thing. Have survived a few of them.
Legalization requires E2 Ethical Calculus, knowing all the other factions, majority consent, and no veto. We're not there yet. We may never be. In previous Thinker games, never once did they go for it. Whereas with stock binary, it's pretty random. Sometimes they're into it, other times they're not.
[Limit reached]
It's a rare game where the Sargasso doesn't soon turn to kelp, but I suppose it's been known to happen.
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2022, 11:25:57 PM
MY 2126. I meet the game's actual, real Red. None of this Eudaimonic junk / soft pedaling. This is a Worker, a Worker's man, and he's straight up Socialist.
"Socialist" in my mod is not Stalinism or Maoism, like the original game seemed determined to represent it as. "Planned" was just code for Socialism or Communism, and had the right wing or at least neoliberal bias of representing it as inherently inefficient. Chile was actually working on cybernetic solutions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn) to those problems in 1971, before the USA stomped all over it and installed General Pinochet. Atrocities and "disappearances" ensued.
[Limit reached]By Rama (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rama)
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 fr (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/fr/deed.en)
"Socialist" is more like what you might see in Nordic countries, Belgium or the Netherlands, or some Central and South American countries where the government changes hands between various political parties. It's not actually such a good choice early game though. +2 JUSTICE, well I don't have a big empire yet. +1 SUPPORT, well we've all got Clean Reactors so that's more like a minor help, or narrative device. -1 ECON, who the heck wants that?? Yes, making more people happy costs money. I'm a Democratic Socialist in real life (pointedly, not a Marxist) and redistributing the wealth is a pretty basic concept to any form of Socialism. In game mechanical terms though, this means Domai is very unlikely to be my friend. At least right now.
Socialist can be appropriate later, when you get big. Or if you're pairing it with Police State, or Power. Domai won't ever do a Police State though. In my mod, he's not allowed to. They freed themselves, I presume from either Chairman Yang or CEO Morgan, and they're never goin' back. He can be Green all he wants, if a human is playing him. Since this is an AI, I can presume that he and Deirdre are eventually going to war. And even in my mod, he's very capable of winning such a war. Deirdre's no slouch though. None of that anti-POLICE anti-war nonsense, and she's got the tech advantage. Domai isn't asked to be a moron about tech though. His RESEARCH is normal.
[Limit reached]
Well it's not as bad a start as with Santiago, but it's not great.
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I'm not usually cagey about comm frequencies. I like other factions to get into wars with each other. I also like getting ahold of everyone else's maps.
[Limit reached]
This one made me think. My tech is better, but I'm expecting regional enemies Real Soon Now. Particularly with Thinker's propensity to breathe down one's neck. It's also been awhile since I climbed the Conquer part of my own tech tree, but I think this is also needed to eventually get to C3 Adaptive Doctrine and the Command Nexus. Finally, I'm not going to prevent him from obtaining this tech on his own, as he has a partial Conquer focus. I'm fine with him getting in a war with Deirdre. He's not as likely to hit me in the ocean, best I can guess.
[Limit reached]
Right; it's a relatively recent change, so not always fresh on my mind. But C2 Doctrine: Flexibility isn't "you get ships". It's you get boring stuff for ships that you don't need. It's basically a speed bump on the way to what you really want, which is Marines. Not just Marine Detachment, but actual Marines that attack coastal bases. This isn't the 19th century. We're not inventing Marines, or railroads.
He signs the peace. He doesn't have anything else he's willing to trade, so I sign off.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 12:39:54 AM
I'd dearly like this prototype to be completed for me. What's war without Teh Lzers!
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 12:56:46 AM
MY 2137. Just a bit of fungal slime to the east. Hardly worth settling, except to prevent someone else from sneaking a settlement in on me.
[Limit reached]
This is the city that really spits out the population too fast. I'm currently rich, so this time I get ahead of it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 01:47:18 AM
MY 2140. Not sure I'm really motivated to get a land colony up here. I mean, previously I put myself in a very bad way, trying to defend stuff like this. And it was for what in practice, a few mindworms? I'm not sure the Pirates should be trying to be Green anyways. Maybe they should be trying to sink everybody.
Hmm, actually I wasn't paying good attention, because one of my units got dimensional gated. This is in my backyard! I'll do more scouting, but it might be feasible to settle on the land here.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 02:43:10 AM
MY 2145. Mag tubes are available fairly early in my mod, and take 2x as long to lay down. That does make you somewhat think about where you will put them. I'm unlikely to build them for quite a long time, if ever, as it's definitely a landwards commitment. They're on the way to C4 Doctrine: Initiative though. At one time during my modding I had it parallel with C5 Doctrine: Air Power but decided that was a little much. Cruisers aren't that good.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 02:50:44 AM
MY 2147. I think I've reached a limit where cranking out more Sea Colony Pods is not going to help. The rest of the Sargasso Sea is not really ready to be settled yet, and pretty much represents the natural extent of where my "perfect circle" empire should be. The northwest is annoying deep ocean, a wedge in the circle. I keep trying to make a Clean Synth Laser Foil completion and not managing it. I just don't have enough explorers out and about. I start making Laser Foils, expecting I'm going to get some drone riots as I fail to build Rec Commons and people become unhappy.
I've been doing fairly well on the military agenda of beelining for both C3 Adaptive Doctrine and C4 Doctrine: Initiative. It's worth noting that when the AI plays the Pirates, it doesn't do that. Instead it's going to get that Rec Commons without problem, avoid violence, and get to Advanced Ecological Engineering faster. The military special abilities are "fill ins", as likely to be obtained from trade as anything else. The Pirates simply don't need to do what the original game expected them to do, and in my mod, they're not really going to do it.
They don't really need to build the Maritime Control Center either. They're gonna get free Naval Yards everywhere anyways, even if their ships don't move as fast as possible. Similarly, once they finally do learn Adaptive Doctrine, the Marine Detachments are instantly added on. It's not something they have to develop and make sure they get.
Since Adaptive Doctrine gives the Command Nexus, it's far more likely to be discovered first by one of the militant powers. In this game that would be me. Until it's proven to my satisfaction that I don't need to do it. I've had enough of everyone else getting Doctrine: Initiative but me.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 03:16:10 AM
MY 2148. I fish Miriam and a loaf of bread out of the water.
[Limit reached]
She wants to learn about Christian Socialism. Recently in real life, I learned that's actually a thing. I monitor a Reddit group about it, trying to wrap my head around whatever they're on about. It's odder to me than EcoSocialism, which has its own divergences and problems. Usually, not thinking about workers and businesses enough. There's a reason in this game, Socialist and Green shouldn't be the same thing. However, pitting them as violent opposition makes no sense, and is just a weakness of the game's ideological modeling.
Christian Socialism was actually occurring in my mod often, before I learned about it in real life! I can't remember in what revision of Theocratic it became such a thing, or if it's still a thing now. But Domai sure has found God more often than not.
[Limit reached]
The most controversial thing I seem to have done in my mod, in a few people's opinions, is jettison the anti-Christian stuff of the original game. There are no derogatory comments about this lady being a "religious freak". She is not called the Fundamentalist in the faction selection menu. She's called the Christian. She has no RESEARCH penalty and can research Knowledge just fine. She cannot under any circumstances choose Cybernetic, per the quotes and videos where she loudly declares her objections to such several times over. Anti-Planet penalty is gone, as it was a throwaway in her faction configuration that has no other narrative support anywhere in the game.
I really think that Firaxis came up with a cartoon character "Church Chat Lady", from Saturday Night Live, at the outset. This is true of a lot of the factions' diplomatic dialogue, this one dimensional over the top ham-fistedness. Later on, perhaps either as a matter of hiring a writer, or just how long it took in the production process, most of the original 7 characters got nuance and depth. This is a lady who talks to you about High Energy Chemistry. She doesn't actually have a single anti-science line at all. Whether it was out of place to give her the High Energy Chemistry line or not, and just a case of spreading dialogue around, nevertheless they did it.
For quite awhile, I had her as the faction with no social engineering Agenda at all. She could go Democratic, Police State, Fundamentalist, whatever. The message being, religion is not inherent, it's how you use it. It had the advantage that you didn't have to worry about becoming Fundamentalist / Extremist / Theocratic. It had the disadvantage that there was no way to butter up to her. She was still Aggressive and if she decided she didn't like you, there was flat little you could do about it.
Eventually though, I ran out of game mechanics, and was stuck with the original diplomatic dialogue about God. I had to make Theocratic have a certain role, and for her to take that role. It's the "be fruitful and multiply" option. She's supposed to be getting followers, followers, followers. Theocratic does have a slight -1 RESEARCH penalty, toning it down from the original game. My justification is, plenty of Christians did scientific research just fine, most notably Isaac Newton. That's not just for narrative though. It's because -2 RESEARCH is really really bad for AI faction performance in the stock binary.
So don't feel sorry for her. She's a stomper, and she can cough up Teh Lzers just fine on her own!
I didn't bother to ask for a Treaty, sensing she wouldn't give it. She doesn't know Zhakarov's comm. She signs off.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 06:41:17 AM
MY 2153. Will they make a Socialist out of me yet? -1 ECONOMY is not that bad. In the past in my mod, one would simply go Green. But recently, I made it take longer to get. I suppose there's Democratic and Deirdre probably already knows it. But somehow... I just don't want to talk to anyone. I want my Conquer stuff.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 06:47:50 AM
MY 2154. Boy that took a long time, and a lot of setups. Didn't think it was gonna to happen. A Skunkworks isn't that hard to get in my mod, but hey, I don't have one.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 07:03:04 AM
MY 2156. Ok, I've got cash. And my sea colony pods are all paid for. It wouldn't hurt me to talk to Deirdre and try to buy a tech off her. I think this is the Thinker distribution of supply pods, but once again, at least in the oceans I'm cleaning them up unopposed. On land, maybe somebody's been through various places.
[Limit reached]
I want to see if she'll offer me foolish prices again, so I don't explicitly ask for a cash transaction. She tells me to shove off on the equal trade, so...
[Limit reached]
Neural Grafting is a prereq for Adaptive Doctrine, so it is useful to me. I just don't have the dough. 2 abilities comes rather early in my mod. Makes sense when you think of the number of Clean Reactor units I might want to empower the stock AI with.
She signs off.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 07:10:18 AM
Might as well try other factions on things. Already tried Santiago. She's still into meaningless threats. I'd pay Domai some cash for a Tier 1 tech, but he's Seething. He doesn't do it, so I sign off.
[Limit reached]
Cut your same hair together? Go to Bible Study together? Seether.
Gosh that was so productive. Maybe I'll do anti-social stealing. Like a pirate! But the ones I seriously dislike, I don't even know where they are yet.
[Limit reached]
Frontier Socialist. "Howdy Pard'ner. Check out this hammer and sickle!" I guess the AI is combining with her faction's SUPPORT bonus for +2.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 09:05:20 AM
MY 2158. I don't like this, but the truth is, I still need it. At least I'm doing well with the pod popping and can afford it.
[Limit reached]
Forgot that I recently changed the narrative about how Hypnotic Trance works. Used to be, I had the Aliens teach it to the humans. It was given by Progenitor Psych and the Aliens started the game with it. Then in my last release, I decided the mindworm is the ultimate weapon platform of the game, and needs to be seriously nerfed. I put Trance here with Neural Grafting so that it's easy to add Trance to units. It's also following the original game mechanic of costing 0 if your unit is primarily defensive.
It's not completely out of lore, as Neural Grafting gives the Neural Amplifier in the original game. That's way too powerful to be handing out early. Instead I have it way late and somewhere way up the Explore tech tree.
I am imagining that if you start sticking a fork into your brain, you figure out Hypnotic Trance.
Hmm, increases COMMERCE income. That seems like a bit of a relic of some other revision of my mod. Must make a note about that.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 09:23:35 AM
MY 2160. Nice to see a friendly face. Everybody else hates me... how 'bout you?
[Limit reached]
Quarrelsome are we.
[Limit reached]
As bad as Santiago. Where is Santiago? Where is Carmen Sandiego?
[Limit reached]
Gonna beat my citizens into shape. Beat them. Beat them!
[Limit reached]
I go that way.
[Limit reached]
He tried to extort me too. The AI must really think I suck. Probably some metric where Thinker spamming empires are rated really highly, and I'm not. Well I've got an awful lot of foil probe teams coming.
Post by: bvanevery on February 18, 2022, 09:52:53 AM
When both of them hate you, who do you slug at? Or do you just flee? I don't have the moves to flee. They can tag me if they really want to. Well, at least the University can. I can actually get away from the Cyborg ship, which does have a higher PROBE rating, and reduced mind control costs. Not reduced compared to the stock binary, everything is 2x more expensive. Reduced compared to that new threshold of cost. The Cyborgs, Hive, and Data Angels are the probe enhanced factions of my mod.
[Limit reached]
I run like hell north, and hope that the University is more interested in its previous trajectory. Or that they fight each other.
[Limit reached]
I have to design my own clean police unit. C2 Neural Grafting and C2 Planetary Networks don't converge until C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory, which gives Plasma units. Actually it looks like I didn't predefine such a unit even then, for reasons of cost. Stock AI probably didn't make the unit when I did design it.
I can't start with an unarmored Scout unit to make this cheaper. I tweaked my mod so that such "cost 10" cheap tricks are not available. The only cost 10 Scout is a plain old Scout. A Clean Scout costs 20, which is a special dispensation. Otherwise, you pay full ticket and it won't be any less than it is with Synth armor.
[Limit reached]
Hmm. I am making an awful lot of probe teams. I usually think of Police State Socialist as more of an Alien play strategy. Particularly if they don't want to learn Social Psych and just mess with the humans as long as possible. But I'm also usually not striving for militancy with the Pirates. I just assumed that Thinker would give me a rough neighborhood, and so far I'm not exactly proven wrong.
[Limit reached]
Here is irony. Income actually goes up, because I was losing enough to corruption and waste. I haven't really checked the price tag on Socialist very often. Maybe it's a good early game deal, more often than I'd expect.
I tried to talk to other factions just to see if I could buy something. Most wouldn't give me the time of day. Domai likes my Socialist choice, but he's still Seething and wouldn't do anything with me.
It's almost 5 AM. I'm calling it a night!
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 03:03:01 PM
MY 2161. Having skipped a day of playing, I lost mental continuity on what I was doing. I successfully evaded the 2 probe teams, then completely forgot that was my objective and moved back into range of them. ;lol I decided to destroy the University probe team based on their trajectories. I'm hoping the Cyborg team veers west and doesn't come after me.
[Limit reached]
I don't know how much more this makes mind control cost. I'm doing it for other reasons: lots of foil probe teams soon to complete, and I need to keep my population under control without Rec Commons.
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 03:15:40 PM
MY 2162. I suppose those enemy foil probe teams were never going to go after each other.
[Limit reached]
Looks like my westernmost base is gone. My untrained Scouts took a lot of Isle hits earlier in the game, more at the core of my empire. That's now a thing of the past. The Command Nexus would actually be a good thing to get, because it saves on the tedium of moving garrison units around. There is no cheap "cost=10" Trance Scout unit in my mod. You'll pay 20 for a Trance Synth Garrison. I've only recently had Trance capability, and I don't believe in leaving bases open when they're first plopped down anyways. This base was very recently put down, so it's a pity it didn't have time to toughen up. I guess I did make at least 1 sea colonist too many.
The only possibility for saving it, is if Thinker for some reason has a different turn order for when a rushed unit completes. In the stock game, if I rush a unit now, I will just lose money.
[Limit reached]
I didn't expect to sail 3 squares west and find the enemy. I thought they'd move in a straight line and I wouldn't be able to catch them. They must have zigzagged for some reason. Well, die!
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 03:21:38 PM
MY 2163. It would be just my luck to get killed trying to win this. Rocky Terrain + Elite = annoyingly persistent on defense.
[Limit reached]
The doomed Cyborg probe team probably did an about face from an Isle last year. Allowing me to kill it. Now I need to get away from that ship.
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 03:24:40 PM
MY 2164. How does a sealurk even get that deep in my home waters? It must have been spawned there. It would not have swam in, as there were lots of other targets.
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 03:31:32 PM
MY 2166. I started laying down the awesome Lzer firepower, but it didn't scratch. I wonder if it'll cause the enemy to move off the rock though. I could pick up my own unit with the Transport but I'd rather get these supply pods.
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 03:35:47 PM
MY 2167. Socialism. I hear everyone's doin' it. How 'bout you?
[Limit reached]
First you need a navy.
I need some land units. I sure am isolated by sea.
[Limit reached]
Just look at that priest-like face.
[Limit reached]
Now I'm realizing Miriam's gonna hate me as well, as the game's lore is "police states are atheist". Makes no real world sense, but ok whatever. A religious axis of selection would make more sense, at the expense of more religions, philosophies, and complications. Wouldn't have fit in the original game. Could fit into a brand new from scratch title.
I'm surprised Miriam didn't pipe up when I put the foil probe team next to her. However I recently perused Thinker's Changelog.md and see that at some point, the occurrence of a diplomatic interaction was randomized. At least, if the faction wasn't ready to surrender to you. This keeps them from pestering you every single time you take over one of their bases and they want to have a totally useless chin wag about it. For that circumstance, it's a feature. But if it also affects the "talk to avoid getting probed" play mechanic, whether it's feature or liability is more ambiguous.
Since Miriam might jolly well follow in the footsteps of her peers, with extortion threats, for now I'll call it a feature!
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 04:02:04 PM
MY 2168. Am I really that weak? Is the game's evaluation of strength or weakness really all that fair, or comprehensive? Do any of these folks actually have a strategic interest in getting into it with me? Am I an enemy of convenience, uniting the conversations of very distant factions? I don't have enough of a map to know. But I keep pushing out on the water and not finding much. Yes, they're nearly adjacent by land and I can see some borders. I don't think they know that they can't easily get to me without coastal cities. Unless they get Doctrine: Air Power a lot faster than I'd expect them to be able to do. No reason to believe they'll get Adaptive Doctrine and Marines before I do, as they would have started building the Command Nexus, probably. I'm the beeliner on that.
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 04:53:45 PM
MY 2173. The 1st Clean Synth Police unit gets done this year. I've got many more to come and I'm not a minerals powerhouse. I learned C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory this year, which provides Plasma armor. I need to redesign my police to be tougher.
[Limit reached]
Unfortunately I completed 2 of the things this year, and the upgrades are 50 credits each. Considering that in my mod, synth and plasma armor cost the same amount, that's annoying. But I've got so many of these things in production, the hit is worth it to ensure everyone has better armor. They're all untrained and I'm going to need as much help as I can get. I don't know how long enemy ships will take to reach me, but I have seen Cyborg Laser Foils in the water.
[Limit reached]
Gotta defend the inventory.
[Limit reached]
The earliest Secret Projects all cost 300 minerals. I could almost complete the Citizens' Defense Force now if I want, but I'd rather have the Command Nexus. And I think I'd rather have that than the Human Genome Project. That's a tough call, but I'm trying to be militant, and police units go a long ways. Plus if I pull off the Ascetic Virtues later, I can get 2x police benefit.
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 05:01:26 PM
MY 2174. So it's not going to be the AIs piling up on the human player after all. Doesn't mean Deirdre's gonna like me though.
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2022, 05:24:12 PM
MY 2175. +1 PROBE doesn't buy me a whole lot of advantage.
[Limit reached]
Actually he's doing the Police State thing better than I am. But he hasn't started the Command Nexus, which would seem to indicate he's mostly obeying his pure Discover research priority.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 01:32:54 AM
MY 2177. Gotta move Zak out of the way so you can see the context. I'm about to nail him with all kinds of foil probe teams and now, he wants to have his chin wag. He's not going to stop me from robbing him blind. I'm curious what he'll say though.
[Limit reached]
It's not like you're bearing down on me with more and better than what I've got. Even if you were, I'd just quit the game and not play anymore. You're not, which is why you're here, talking to me. This game sure makes bullying into a thing. It's pretty rare that I've ever been willing to buy my way out of someone's extortion. And I can't remember any time in recent years. I just don't see it as something to enjoy in these games. I've also not seen scenarios where I had the money, thought I should hand it over, and thought I was doing well in the game.
Do you really want to play a game about being jacked up against a wall, by a mugger? Are you going to make a habit of that? A game where someone tries to jack you, and you cleverly slit their throat in return, I could see that. "I'm the aggressor and you're the victim" just doesn't seem like a game dynamic that's all that profitable to get players to invest in.
[Limit reached]
Bring more probes next time, Zak. I brought 3.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 01:48:45 AM
MY 2179. Now why wouldn't I be given a tech for my trouble? I've already infiltrated. Well there might be a lot to see actually.
[Limit reached]
Sailing my probe team around, Deirdre's ship gets in the way and she opens her mouth. That's a form of bothering me.
[Limit reached]
"Um, sure, whatever Planet says." Nature loony.
;hippy
I hope it lasts long enough to do something destructive to factions I don't like.
Since I'm stealing stuff, I refrain from even thinking about opening a sugar mommy conversation with her. I cut her off and intend to talk again so I can sell her the last comm frequency. But she won't talk again. Fine, your loss.
I don't mind the idea of going Green. I just don't know how.
[Limit reached]
That had to have been what she meant, because she clearly hasn't broken his back. Why do the AI factions put on airs like that? Is this weird pointless vanilla behavior that I just haven't had the pleasure of seeing before really? Or is this some kind of bug? What's the basis of proudly reporting you "broke someone's back" when there are all these cities lying about?
Maybe it just means "I'm stronger than Domai." Which looks like it's true. Looks like he got pinched between Deirdre and Aki-Zeta5.
On the power graph, the Gaians are actually reported to be much stronger than everyone else. I'm not sure how factual that is. It reminds me that I should do an inventory of what kinds of units everyone is producing. I find that boring right now though. So far on the water, I've seen nothing I should be worrying about. Pretty much peons, and I'm a long ways away from everybody by water. It's a big crinkly ocean.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 01:53:41 AM
MY 2180. "Broken back" Domai popped my foil probe team with a laser foil. And Aki-Zeta5 seemed to sink another one with an artillery barrage near one of her cities. Hadn't even seen the city yet. Well, still got some teams to go. And plenty of exposed University cities. I won't bother with that very long distance ocean hiking again. Way too tedious.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 02:01:16 AM
MY 2181. Here I will start building what will become the Command Nexus. My 3 Artifacts are stored elsewhere. I've built a Clean Transport to bring them to where they need to be.
[Limit reached]
Not that exciting. I could choose Knowledge, but that would be -2 POLICE. I'm going for full crowd control.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 02:06:14 AM
MY 2182. Inviting me to a war?
[Limit reached]
No, just carping about my Unity Rover wandering around. I forgot we were in a Truce. It's still holding.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 02:13:40 AM
MY 2183. This is the other fork in the road, the more typical way I'd do the Pirates. Democratic is worth money in my mod. That's not exciting to me anymore, as I still need my Command Nexus and still have lots of factions that want to fight me. But what is interesting, is I can propose chemical weapons now! Yes, people can agree to slaughter each other early and often in my mod. Doesn't mean they will agree, just means I can try. I mean, why should planetary governance be some deep overthought human development centuries later? There's no point, it's very silly. It doesn't make much sense from a game pacing standpoint either. Now's just as time as any for everyone to start slaughtering each other.
The stock AI does not make good use of legal chemical weapons if they become available. I wonder if Thinker is any more ruthless in that regard?
[Limit reached]
This one's sorta boring. I'm not interested in becoming a Theocratic yahoo. Oh, but the Children's Creche is not boring. Forgot about that one. Yes, you gain loyalty by breeding children close to their parents. Santiago said so!
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 02:34:44 AM
Voting for atrocities before a Governor has been elected is a good idea, because nobody can veto.
[Limit reached]
If I could flip Deirdre, I'd have it. Bet she'll ask too much though. Everyone else is at war with me and won't respond to my pleas.
[Limit reached]
Sure Dierdre. I know I look rich. It's the parrot tacked to the end of my nose.
[Limit reached]
Maybe if I'm rich someday. Of course I'll spend the money on something better.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 02:52:37 AM
MY 2185. See the world, from afar!
[Limit reached]
Nothing else useful happens between us. She signs off. Happy to hear that my global powwow is making new enemies though. I love spreading the love.
[Limit reached]
This one's a little hard to predict. Deirdre has by far the most votes, but there's a broad coalition of factions against us.
[Limit reached]
Miriam had a pretty good chunk of votes, enough to be worth challenging Deirdre. But Miriam must not be that likeable. Why should Zhakarov ever trust her, for instance?
[Limit reached]
A target for theft! Need to decide whether to go for the University or this one Cyborg city first. I've got strange invasion options later if it comes to that. Better do something before they get an air force though.
[Limit reached]
Pretty boring low level techs.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 03:03:13 AM
MY 2186. Tech-wise, this is a weird game. I still don't have E1 Social Psych. I can't get the C3 Adaptive Doctrine I want. There isn't going to be any Command Nexus any time soon, and I've got cash I'd better spend. I don't even need Artifacts. I can buy something outright with cash.
[Limit reached]
The Planetary Transit System is my least favorite Secret Project ever. Get 3 people, watch 1 die. Usually comes at a time when I'm already done expanding, like now. The Universal Translator is useless as long as I've got stuff to steal. That's why it's so early in my mod. Having free perimeter defenses is not the best thing since sliced bread, but it's not useless, so that's what I'm doing.
[Limit reached]
Ok, a little harder to get to me.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 04:29:16 AM
I'm doing fine robbing Zhakarov.
[Limit reached]
I'm very lazy. She also just quit warring with Deirdre.
[Limit reached]
At least the anti-giveaway code is working. My dialog path was, "...a modest amount of energy credits..."
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 04:32:06 AM
MY 2191. Needed to check on whether that Laser Foil was about to pop out at me. Now I see the base is blocked up with probe defenders. Guess I'm going somewhere else. No more University coastal bases to take on.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 04:41:15 AM
MY 2192. Santiago voted for Miriam in the election. Usually that's love!
[Limit reached]
The Cyborgs found someone better to stomp on. I'm no longer a distraction for them. I wonder if Domai would like to stop having his ass whipped?
[Limit reached]
The only real use I've found for Heavy Transport is to make Drop Transports bigger in late game orbital insertion warfare.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 05:02:21 AM
MY 2194. Yeah, I've stolen. But pretty much all I got were low level techs. Now maybe the calculus of the game is different now. Usually one picks those up for 100 credits, but I strongly recommended Thinker implement anti-giveaway code for trading. And it did so. And it might not be so easy to pick up techs anymore. I'm still avoiding the temptation to sugar daddy / mommy, but I'm not even sure I can anyways. Anyways, the real reason to sign a Truce or Treaty, is to try to stop him from stealing from me.
[Limit reached]
Like why did you have such a burning need to stomp me in the 1st place? Wasn't something I asked you to do. You just up and did it.
[Limit reached]
In my tree it's not a useless tech. It gives the Skunkworks. It also gives the Planetary Datalinks, but that got finished recently.
Well, his probe team left. Mission accomplished? Surprised he didn't at least infiltrate me.
Tried talking to Domai. He's a pill.
You know I still don't know Social Psych?
[Limit reached]
I don't really have anyone to steal from now. Domai's awfully far away and my 1st mission will be to infiltrate. I don't have any other probe teams. They all got made when I had nothing else to do and no other option really. Right now I'm Children's Creching it up.
[Limit reached]
Lately in my mod, it doesn't do a darned thing. It's a speed bump on the way to other stuff, and it lets you talk to Aliens.
[Limit reached]
Now I can make Deirdre happy with me. Maybe even catch a mindworm.
[Limit reached]
This whole time, I completely forgot that Socialist gives +1 SUPPORT. I've been playing as though I had 0 SUPPORT, just 2 free units per base. I think at some point I thought I was going to be in a big naval war by now. It's been a few days since then and continuity gets lost. I don't play early Socialist very often, in fact I'd say just about never, so I'm not used to it. The good news is, this means I'm not going to suddenly have any minerals penalties in my cities.
That's what I can get out of her. Seemed reasonably balanced considering she's an ally. Not like she gave me anything free, or anything terribly good.
[Limit reached]
See if I can ride on this peace train some more. Yes, the truth is you're at war with Miriam now. You're better off not bothering with me, considering how remote I am from you. That's really the theme with everyone this game. Svensgaard the Remote.
Well we managed a Truce. It's a start.
I still don't know Social Psych.
I still want the Command Nexus.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 05:15:26 AM
MY 2198. I'm friends with the world hegemon! Maybe she can gift me with numerous tanks.
[Limit reached]
Wow, in my most recent mod release I finally succeeded in having the Alien starter techs be a complete waste of time. They merely give them a leg up on getting to other stuff. I'm not itching to obtain E4 Bioadaptive Resonance. Not really my game plan.
You'd think I could have popped E1 Social Psych out of a pod by now.
Soon I will write a book. "100 years without Happiness".
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 05:40:14 AM
MY 2199. I was actually thinking about going Fundamentalist, or at least that my current approach, isn't entirely working. Then I thought, the other governments really don't work unless I've got a Rec Commons and a Hologram Theater. Well I bet I can steal Social Psych from her! Unless it ends up being the last thing I ever steal...
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 05:45:24 AM
MY 2200. So they can sit around and just get there? Is it because they're the AI and have advantages? Is it because I stole techs and made my own beeline research more expensive?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 05:48:30 AM
MY 2203. I am learned. I researched this on my very, very own. Right after I wrote the book.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 06:04:42 AM
So... I can't keep up.
The AIs are playing a very accelerated game I find I don't enjoy much. I'm struggling just to get a basic empire established. I'll see where this all leads in the midgame, whether I end up making some kind of headway or angle on it. But if not, I'll just tap out.
Post by: Geo on February 20, 2022, 09:11:13 AM
[Limit reached]
Voting for atrocities before a Governor has been elected is a good idea, because nobody can veto.
Well, learned something new now. ;b;
But that's mostly because I rarely went the atrocity route. ;lol
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2022, 07:40:18 PM
I did not have a sense of how the pace of tech would unfold. I don't find all the other factions beating me to my own core techs, acceptable. Especially when I was trying to focus on getting there first. The game may still be plenty viable, but it's tedious, and there's no question I'm behind.
The problem is that those military Pirate techs "look like" they're not very far away in the tech tree, but actually, they're quite quite far away. Trying to get there without building Biology Labs and possibly also Network Nodes was not very smart.
I spent way too much time building a bunch of foil probe teams, to not much ultimate profit. They didn't yield all that much good tech. The opportunities for theft were more limited than at first appeared.
Clean Synth/Plasma Police took a long time and show that my minerals development was weak. I'm not sure what the right point of balance is between Tidal Harness and Mining Platform, but all Tidal Harness doesn't make you combat ready. And although Police State Socialist sorta worked, it seems unprofitable compared to just learning Social Psych like a normal person and slapping down a Rec Commons.
I'll try again with my mod's more usual Explore Build approach to the Pirates. There was never any actual fight to justify all that focus on Conquer. Lots of threats but no real fighting. I turned out to be so remote by sea, that most factions eventually got tired of warring with me and got busy warring with closer neighbors.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 01:23:30 AM
Haven't changed any settings.
[Limit reached]
Capitol on those minerals looks about right. Don't see any potential for a "perfect circle" elsewhere.
[Limit reached]
Once again no Aliens to bother us. Cult of Planet makes its debut. To be irritated further by Spartans, Cyborgs, Free Drones, Believers, and the University. Rather similar to last game. Cult instead of Gaians, that's the only change.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 01:31:24 AM
MY 2105. It occurs to me that I didn't have any base with this many minerals last game.
[Limit reached]
I already dragged B1 Industrial Base out of the water, so I'm already making a Sea Formers, which I had to design. This time I will concentrate on minerals first.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 01:37:19 AM
MY 2107. Clean Scouts have a special dispensation in my mod. They only cost 20 minerals. They're a good early game garrison to avoid SUPPORT penalties. I sort of forgot about them last game. I also didn't have a pile of early minerals cranking things out quite so fast. In this case, they make more sense.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 02:28:05 AM
MY 2113. Ta da!
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 02:38:12 AM
MY 2115. I'm counting. On it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 02:44:05 AM
MY 2117. Do you ever just want to wrap your dextrous fingers around someone's throat?
[Limit reached]
But instead I sign a Treaty. I won't be buying anything from him anytime soon.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 02:52:09 AM
MY 2119. The Unity Lifter is my mod's version of the Unity Chopper. Typically found at the USS Unity crash site, but also attainable occasionally from supply pods. This is the only Chopper unit in the game. It is an exceptionally long range air transport that can hold 2 units. You can well ask, technologically, why there can't be dozens of such things in the game. And the answers are simple. The stock binary doesn't know how to use them, and if I offered any producible variant, players could reverse engineer all Chopper units! I haven't changed my opinion that with its attack every move, the Chopper is overpowered. I've tried Choppers with less movement and I find them terribly boring. So, they're out. This is the only remnant.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 03:01:26 AM
MY 2121. Mirror, Mirror, on the ocean...
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 03:28:39 AM
MY 2122. The jerk declares war.
[Limit reached]
I guess I'm fighting him? I guess if we're using my world generator, we're not using Thinker's faction placement algorithm. This is like in my mod, where someone could start fairly near you, even if it doesn't usually happen. Zhakarov isn't exactly far away either.
[Limit reached]
I switched over production to a bunch of Gun Foils, because that's all I've got. Then I figured, if I'm about to pop pods, better keep it clean!
[Limit reached]
I'll try to get square with the realities of fighting. At least this time I know I'm really in a shooting war.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 03:47:06 AM
MY 2123. Fished it out of the sea. Now we have parity.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 02:25:06 PM
MY 2127. I can't argue with a Rec Commons.
[Limit reached]
Biology Labs is a Tier 1 tech in my mod. It makes far more sense for early factions to build it, because it's a small constant bonus rather than a multiplicative bonus. The former is proportionately much greater for small cities. Biology Labs are easy to get. D2 Information Networks and Network Nodes actually take a more deliberate focus on Discover to obtain. It's possible for factions to go a long time without learning them, i.e. my last game.
[Limit reached]
On the power graph, right now they're showing as extremely bad. Like worse than me bad. I wonder if that's going to stay true? In my mod, they're far more usually a powerhouse. Reducing the number of available supply pods, if that actually happened, would tend to cut down on their early game advantage somewhat.
[Limit reached]
He comes through with a map of my enemy. I'm not going to ask him to fight Domai though. He's probably not within range to do any good.
[Limit reached]
Let's see if he can pull a map from Zhakarov.
[Limit reached]
Yep. Now I have full intelligence.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 02:39:20 PM
I know they start late, but this looks like some serious underperformance.
[Limit reached]
The Thinker AI is using the special predefined Clean Colony Pod units available to everyone in my mod, so it's not making any basic productive mistake. It's got the expected complement of captured native units, and has clearly been popping pods, because it has a Unity Rover and an Artifact. If cities aren't being built, the fault lies elsewhere.
[Limit reached]
What does Jesus have to say this year?
[Limit reached]
My countryman says Jesus is a mindworm.
[Limit reached]
Hey, wanna go beat up Domai?
[Limit reached]
Well, a Treaty is a start. You'll probably hate me later, for your usual reasons.
[Limit reached]
Cha Dawn picks up the map for me.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 02:50:13 PM
The Believers have done ok with their spreading. They do have better land than the Cult started with. I'm remembering that I disabled Thinker's option to give only the AI some bonus nutrients at their landing site. If Thinker relies on that boost for earliest game performance, well it would explain why I'm seriously outperforming some of these factions with my completion scumming.
[Limit reached]
The Free Drones haven't done much better than the Cult. They have naturally occurring nutrients around them though, so they don't have nutrient deprivation as an excuse. They've correctly built forests on 2 nutrients that were on Flat terrain, so at least that part of Thinker's terraforming protocol, is correct. Forests do cost a bit more than stock, 6 instead of 4, but that shouldn't matter. They're still totally worth planting.
It looks like this isn't going to be some huge early fight after all. This might be more a case of picking them off at my leisure. I will press on to C2 Applied Physics though. Then get back to the Explore Build focus.
[Limit reached]
The University does a little better, but not as good as I'm doing.
Pity my advantage doesn't last!
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 02:59:43 PM
Over the last 2 turns, the supply pods in the Sargasso Sea have been disappearing. Maybe that Free Drone ship is still in there and somehow survived. I'm going in after it. Whoever popped all of this, managed to do it without triggering a kelp explosion. I'd like to believe that meant they set off some Isles instead, so it's hard to believe a ship could survive in there unwounded. Maybe the last pop will have finally killed it, and I may find nothing.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 03:11:59 PM
MY 2130. Seems the Thinker AI knows how to perform artillery duels. In this case that was clearly suicide, so it doesn't know how to perform them well. But I'll take it. Saves me the PITA of going over all these fungal squares. Only question remaining is whether there's more than 1 ship. I doubt it though. I only ever saw the 1 ship, and I've been up and down their channel bringing an Artifact home. That was pretty risky behavior at the time, but I just had an instinct that they really didn't have that much to throw into the ocean.
[Limit reached]
My mod is biased towards defense though. Unless the Thinker AI has very different priorities than the stock binary, those Free Drone bases are likely to be stacked with piles of Clean Synth Garrisons. In fact, maybe that's Thinker's "problem". It may have transitioned from the usual colonization spread to the stockpiling of clean garrisons, thinking that's a "wonderful deal". Well it kinda is, but it's something to balance. Thinker may not have any sense of balance in this regard, and may be forgetting to do its usual spreading routine.
This could be a result of my mod not giving Thinker that other "crutch", of always being distant from other factions to start with. So Thinker doesn't get to just sit back, relax, and do its usual spread like crazy routine. The Believers are doing it, because they don't look like they have any neighbors. The University, well I'm not sure of the story there, but they are close to me. The Cult, there's not really much excuse from what I can see.
I still need probe teams, so I don't change my Explore Conquer research focus.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 03:20:06 PM
MY 2131. I've underestimated their persistence.
[Limit reached]
I sail into defensive fungus, guard my Artifact with my unwounded ship, and wait for them to commit suicide again.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 03:25:06 PM
MY 2132. Rather predictable.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 03:32:37 PM
I could swear I had 2 sea formers working the big mineral special to completion, just 2 years ago. Now I only see 1 sea former. I know I didn't move the 2nd one elsewhere. It seems to have vanished, and there haven't been any Isles or other attacks or probe teams about. I think I've anecdotally encountered this "mysterious disappearing unit" problem before.
I've been saving my games so it shouldn't be hard to track down. No 2nd unit at the end of MY 2131. Nor MY 2130. Nor MY 2129.
[Limit reached]
Sailed it northwest in MY 2128 and forgot I did so. This time, the bug was in my brain!
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 04:29:43 PM
MY 2133. Yes you can talk to Miriam, Zak.
[Limit reached]
Probe teams are a Tier 1 tech in my mod. They also have a pure Conquer focus, so if you don't study Conquer or trade for it, you're not going to learn it. Hmm, how did Zhakarov learn it then, with a pure Discover research focus? Well it's Tier 1. He could have popped it from a pod, but it does raise an eyebrow. I don't think he can instantaneously trade with Miriam between the moments of our diplomatic dialogue. Maybe he's in contact with Santiago.
[Limit reached]
The stock binary doesn't have the guile to lie about comm frequencies. I'm guessing Thinker didn't change anything in that regard. Doesn't know about the Cyborgs either.
I'm going to try to remember to look at this circumstance after I'm done with this game.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 09:34:10 PM
MY Whatever. Got interrupted by real life. I have her talk to my secretary, Cha Dawn. We sign a Treaty.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 09:47:37 PM
MY 2144. Finally infiltrated. He certainly doesn't have any tech.
[Limit reached]
The Thinker AI does not defend as well as the stock AI using the predefined Clean Synth Garrison units I taught it to make. I've only seen 1 Clean Synth Garrison in its cities. If it doesn't adjust its course quickly, it will be summarily overrun. I have made a Command Center at my nearest sea coastal base and it has a good minerals supply. These Scouts are not a defense against Recon Rovers. Now maybe Thinker will prove clever about the timing, and suddenly conjure the armor that it needs to defend itself, as I approach. But if it isn't sophisticated like that, it's about to get wiped. Again, this is what happens when you assume you have a large perimeter where nobody can start near you, and that the only thing you have to face are mindworms. The stock binary doesn't make those assumptions.
[Limit reached]
I switch from a defensive to an offensive unit, as I didn't expect to have an offensive opportunity. I also forgot that the Speeder chassis is not automatically given out in my mod. You'll often obtain it in practice as the tiers of techs advance, but right now, it's still early days. If I had realized this, I would have prototyped a Recon Rover instead of a Synth Laser Foil.
[Limit reached]
I'm in a hurry, as I don't know if Thinker will reconsider its weakness. So I will pay to get a prototype done. However, my Transport just ferried 2 Scouts to some nearby land, in order for them to explore and pop pods. It won't be back for 2 turns, so I don't need to rush the prototype this turn.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 10:11:43 PM
MY 2145. Ok, whose bug is this? They don't have 3-Res technology.
[Limit reached]
In my mod I don't give out the tech until E4 Bioadaptive Resonance.
[Limit reached]
Sanity checked here. Only one more place to look, alphax.txt.
Code: [Select]
Clean 3-Res Transport, Foil, Transport, 3-Res, 7,0,0, Bioadap, -1, 10000000000000010000000000000000Thinker has illegally given the Free Drones the ability to make this predefined unit. Are the fake leading ability flags confusing it somehow?
They don't know how to make probe teams. They don't have any allies. It is highly unlikely that someone with a Treaty or Truce, gave them an example of this unit. Or that anyone has this tech, this early in the game.
[Limit reached]
The Free Drones have already acquired a Clean 3-Res Transport, somehow. How?
This unit is entry #4 in my predefined unit table. (First unit counted as #1.) If Thinker was using its own alphax.txt, what would that unit be?
Code: [Select]
Transport Foil, Foil, Transport, Scout, 7, 0, 0, DocFlex, -1, 00000000000000000000000000Maybe it's confused about what it gets to build.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 10:30:46 PM
MY 2146. The invasion force is coming. I got a completion event when popping a pod, so I've got another Recon Rover coming immediately. I could have made it clean and armored if I had been thinking more carefully about setting it up, but I'm hungry and dinner is almost upon us.
Aside from the Clean 3-Res Transport, I'm not seeing any reaction from the Free Drones. Some cities are trying to make Scout Rovers. Also, strictly speaking, tailoring anything to my force mix at this point is cheating. They don't have infiltration. Probably the stock binary cheats too though.
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2022, 10:37:16 PM
MY 2147. This time I prepare better for possible completion. "ASP" is my abbreviation for armored speeder. I didn't get a completion, so I change production back to Recon Rover.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 12:12:15 AM
MY 2149. My Recon Rover rush is soon to be interrupted by growth and unhappy citizens. I don't know how to make a Hologram Theater yet.
[Limit reached]
He's soon to complete that stupid cheating / bugged unit. I put a Unity Rover right up next to his city to try to stimulate the rush. Invasion off a transport would be better, as would naval artillery. But there's a big pile of Sargasso Sea in the way and I have not had time to bring up such forces. They will come eventually, but for now, I'm trying to rush in the front door. It's quite possible I won't be able to break it down right now, but I have to try.
If he actually completes a Clean 3-Res Transport that becomes a defender for a city, then I'm going to open the Scenario Editor and find some way to edit it out of existence.
Of course he wants a Truce when I'm about to stomp him. I tell him to go jump in a lake.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 12:20:57 AM
MY 2150. Sure, talk to more people. See if I care.
[Limit reached]
Wasn't I supposed to get back to Explore Build? Too many real life interruptions.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 12:29:56 AM
Well at least no matter what she says, I'm pretty well garrisoned at home. Clean Synth Laser Foils in nearly every port.
[Limit reached]
What part of Unsurpassed don't you understand?
[Limit reached]
I didn't want this war freak to have it. I don't know if that will cost her or me.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 12:39:27 AM
I was just thinking about how I needed a piece of armor up front. The Free Drones' reaction to my forces wasn't bad. They attacked. I'm not going to be just overrunning that base. I wonder if the AI knew that, or if it was luck on their part.
[Limit reached]
They weakened their armored defender by attacking my Unity Rover. It disengaged and survived. They wiped out one of my approaching Recon Rovers, and I counterattacked.
[Limit reached]
I am wondering... does Thinker have some code somewhere that gives a free "Transport" for some reason? Not specifically a Unity Transport. In other words, something that gives away a free UNIT #4. That would explain the 1st Clean 3-Res Transport that appeared at some point in the game. Maybe it came quite early. Now it's just building something it has a working prototype for.
The big question is whether this thing stays in port. Unlike the stock game, my mod doesn't penalize ships for staying in port. The good news is that means fighting as Pirates is sane. The bad news is it means everyone else can use ships as sort of perfect coastal port defenders. They seem to be much tougher than other units to get rid of. So, this thing can't just sit in port and be a defender. If it doesn't move, I have to work around the bug.
[Limit reached]
It's an official position.
[Limit reached]
In my mod, Democratic is almost free money. It merely has political consequences. Some factions can't choose it, like the Cult. Their Agenda though is Eudaimonic. Which in my mod, is singing kumbaya with the mindworms. The dialogue about being your best biological self, almost works when Cha Dawn utters it.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 12:51:44 AM
I'm going to try to Repeal the U.N. Charter. Before I do, I'm going to sell every comm I can. Cha Dawn unfortunately expressed no interest in Santiago's comm, so I don't think I'll get a free map just yet. Maybe after I call the vote though.
[Limit reached]
Every bit helps.
[Limit reached]
Money money money!
[Limit reached]
Cut her off and on yet again. Not the usual way I get my navigational charts, but I'll take it.
That's it. She's just begging for free tech now. Domai and Santiago are at war with me and won't talk.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 12:57:35 AM
Some factions just got pretty dead. Soon I'll have to decide if Domai will be among them. Having a vote in your back pocket isn't so bad. He's also nearby and conquerable by conventional means. Currently. Unless Thinker has a better garrisioning plan than it looks like. If I win, it's a straightforward case of, I actually spread faster than Thinker did. AI didn't get the bonus nutrient buff. Still had nutrients in the home territory, that wasn't an excuse. I've really got the sea colony pod completion scumming thing down pat.
I don't have the votes to win the Governorship, although I'm not any smaller than any 2nd tier faction, really. Most have low 20s of population. Miriam has high 20s.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 04:27:58 AM
MY 2151. I don't really want Santiago to get the Governorship, but I'm not going to spend much to have my way. You'd think that my ally Cha Dawn would have figured out my lack of desire for this person? Ah wait, double checking my math, I have a most logical result:
[Limit reached]
Too bad there isn't something else dastardly for me to vote for!
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 04:59:45 AM
I contemplated upgrading my Recon Rovers to X Recon Rovers, for instant exploit. But I like the idea of wrapping Domai around my finger. For that to happen, he can't have a cheating defensive unit.
[Limit reached]
I don't remember ever using the Scenario Editor otherwise. I've wished for an app or hack where I could disable this slander.
[Limit reached]
I didn't need the Scenario Editor to find the 1st one. I just happened to find it here now. Can't remember if I seriously looked before. Thought I did, but what if I was sloppy? The unit doesn't have any orders, so I don't think it was moving around.
[Limit reached]
[Limit reached]
The Free Drones don't have a design for a Clean 3-Res Transport. I can't nuke a design that doesn't exist?
[Limit reached]
My experience is you can't really delete individual units in a city for some reason. You end up having to wipe out every unit in a city. So, I assigned his 2 units to me! I hope that doesn't crash stuff. If it works, I'll disband them. Hmm, maybe I can do that before exiting the Scenario Editor. I'm also remembering that working from the SUPPORT screen sometimes gives better results for various things.
[Limit reached]
I used the Scenario Editor to edit the units' data. I assigned them a new Home, Skeleton Key. That's the city I'm sending all the Recon Rovers from.
[Limit reached]
Maybe the step of assigning the units to me wasn't necessary. I didn't remember about using the SUPPORT menu until after I'd done it.
[Limit reached]
[Limit reached]
[Limit reached]
[Limit reached]
The penalty for cheating is you get to be more vulnerable than you would have been.
[Limit reached]
Scenario Editor deactivated.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 05:05:31 AM
[Limit reached]
Where did he get the production to do all of that? It's not a completion from popping a pod. It would just line up with the end of blocks in that case. All white.
Well, this is going to turn out awfully similar to "what if he'd just built legal units". I won't feel bad for him.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 05:16:31 AM
MY 2152. How did he go right back to building it? Can I retire this design and thereby wipe out his build?
I just looked at my unit workshop. I have no actual design for this unit.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 05:17:35 AM
MY 2154. I don't need sunspots for anything.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 06:09:44 AM
MY 2164. My armored speeder survived a hit from a weakened X Recon Rover. Now I get full shooting at weak stuff in this base.
[Limit reached]
But first I have to get rid of the erroneous Clean 3-Res Transport. I couldn't just right click on Domai's SUPPORT menus. First I had to make the unit my own. Then I could right click on it, and I had the option to disband it.
Now I know where he got the production from last time. Disbanding it in his city, boosts his production! I'm trying to decide whether that's fair or not. It's his minerals, but suddenly he gets a huge boost in something he wants. Ambiguous.
[Limit reached]
I figured out that I can change the number of moves it has remaining. Now I can sail it out of base before disbanding.
[Limit reached]
This is punishment for making me do this more.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 06:29:41 AM
MY 2165. Ok, the garrisoning algorithm was good enough that I couldn't trivially rush through a land bottleneck. There was enough sea and fungus in the way that I wasn't just going to come up with a combined amphibious assault quickly. I started to make an armored transport now, to bring into the theater. That might not have been strictly necessary, given that I have naval control, and Domai doesn't seem interested in a fleet. But I'm tired of having to intervene when a Clean 3-Res unit is built.
I conclude that Thinker isn't actually good at the earliest base settlement. Rather, it relies on a nutrient bonus at the landing site to accelerate AI growth, and the safety of starting roughly equidistant from other factions. The real strength of Thinker is ongoing settlement. There's probably some threshold of cities it passes, where it starts to become a dominating strategy. Probably also starts wearing out poor humans like me! The AI will push the pods, but I won't.
I conclude that Thinker isn't especially programmed to avoid Repealing the U.N. Charter. And it makes better immediate use of chemical weapons than the stock AI. The latter is rather reactive about it.
With the Pirates, the threshold of "when to stop making minerals?" isn't what I thought. It seems to be "when you have sufficient war materials" and the decision is not per tile of a base, but per city of an empire. I had cities that were "complete" for military output, that I just kept cranking. And since I was getting enough Clean Whatever out of them, other bases started building Biology Labs and getting Tidal Harnesses instead of Mining Platforms.
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2022, 05:36:25 PM
The more interesting result, to me at least, is what happens when I combine my mod with Thinker, as well as with Thinker.ini settings I consider more appropriate. I might do another AAR on that subject, a full blown production values AAR, not with Pirates because I'm sick of them. But first I think I should play at least 1 game where I beat or nearly beat it. Make sure there isn't some horrible midgame calamity that I haven't experienced or some such.
I hope also that Clean 3-Res Transport bug was a fluke, as I'm not going to do a "full blown" AAR having to open up the Scenario Editor to deal with it. If it isn't a fluke, I'd be looking for something that gives away "unit #4" in the code, that assumes it's a plain Transport. It would be better to give "unit #14", the Unity Transport. That unit is unlikely to be modded because it's hardwired into the stock binary to be something you receive from popping pods. Or if it is modded, the modding is probably intentional that you're supposed to receive that, whenever you would have received a Unity Transport in the original game. For instance, my UTs aren't slow and have Deep Radar on them.
Post by: Vidsek on February 22, 2022, 07:03:07 PM
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2022, 03:24:44 PM
MY 2166 in a new game where I'm the Caretakers, not the Pirates. Probably the Usurpers haven't actually researched E4 Bioadaptive Resonance yet. Especially since their research foci are Discover, Build, Conquer.
Yeah, I don't want to keep playing / testing this Frankenstein combo while this bug is outstanding. Time to make a modest effort to track it down. Activating the Scenario Editor.
[Limit reached]
They've only acquired the one.
[Limit reached]
As predicted, they don't remotely have the tech.
[Limit reached]
My prereqs for E4 Bioadaptive Resonance are E3 Field Modulation and C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory. The latter gives Plasma armor. It's just way too early for anyone to have figured that out.
I'll need to check whether this problem occurs in the stock binary. Having Clean 3-Res Transport in the slot where Transport usually is, is new in my most recent mod release version 1.52. I haven't seen this problem in my games, but I've been playing either WTP or Thinker way more than I've been playing my own mod. From my own Changelog in my readme_mod.txt:
Quote
TRANSPORT OBSESSION
- Transport: removed. The AI obsesses about building Transports, particularly the Pirate AI. I was trying to stop it by removing this unit. However, basic naval units have no tech requirements, so the game just designs a Transport for the player anyways. At least this saves a predefined unit slot.
- Clean Transport: removed. The AI obsesses about producing this.
- *Sea Formers: removed. It's a disabled unit design. Recycling this slot makes the unit table shorter. Hopefully this does not trigger any bugs. I've been paranoid about that possibility, but I've never seen any evidence of it.
- Clean Plasma Transport: new predefined unit available with C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory. Takes the slot in the unit table that was occupied by *Sea Formers. The AI is determined to obsess about Transports, and some kind of unit will need to be provided sometime. Clean Synth Transport is an obvious design, but it is not offered. It causes the AI to start obsessing about Transports way too early. Starting with C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory is a compromise.
- Clean 3-Res Transport: new predefined unit available with C4 Bioadaptive Resonance. Takes the slot in the unit table that was occupied by Transport. The AI is determined to obsess about stacking sea bases full of transports, so it is best to offer a unit with the maximum defensive benefit.
I ran 2 AI vs. AI test games. 1st was under my usual map generation conditions with random factions. 2nd was an ocean world with Caretakers, Usurpers, and Pirates explicitly included in the game. Watched the games for 100 turns, checking at turn 60 and turn 100. Neither game produced any Clean 3-Res Transport unit. Although code paths could be different and weird, I provisionally conclude this is not a stock binary bug.
Since Thinker always produces this unit, it suggests that something in the Thinker unit design code is bugged. Or the predefined unit reading code. I'm still looking at the sources, my 1st time doing so. Nothing has lept out so far.
Finally found it. terranx_enums.h is "wrong". Nobody ever guaranteed that these units would be unmodded. Any time BSC_TRANSPORT_FOIL is used in Thinker, it's just going to use "unit #4" in the predefined units table, whatever that is. The stock binary doesn't make the assumption that "unit #4" is an immutable, allowable transport unit.
Code: [Select]
enum VehBasicUnit {
BSC_COLONY_POD = 0,
BSC_FORMERS = 1,
BSC_SCOUT_PATROL = 2,
BSC_TRANSPORT_FOIL = 3,
BSC_SEA_FORMERS = 4,
BSC_SUPPLY_CRAWLER = 5,
BSC_PROBE_TEAM = 6,
BSC_ALIEN_ARTIFACT = 7,
BSC_MIND_WORMS = 8,
BSC_ISLE_OF_THE_DEEP = 9,
BSC_LOCUSTS_OF_CHIRON = 10,
BSC_UNITY_ROVER = 11,
BSC_UNITY_SCOUT_CHOPPER = 12,
BSC_UNITY_FOIL = 13,
BSC_SEALURK = 14,
BSC_SPORE_LAUNCHER = 15,
BSC_BATTLE_OGRE_MK1 = 16,
BSC_BATTLE_OGRE_MK2 = 17,
BSC_BATTLE_OGRE_MK3 = 18,
BSC_FUNGAL_TOWER = 19,
BSC_UNITY_MINING_LASER = 20,
BSC_SEA_ESCAPE_POD = 21,
BSC_UNITY_GUNSHIP = 22,
};
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2022, 09:18:42 PM
Probe teams are a Tier 1 tech in my mod. They also have a pure Conquer focus, so if you don't study Conquer or trade for it, you're not going to learn it. Hmm, how did Zhakarov learn it then, with a pure Discover research focus? Well it's Tier 1. He could have popped it from a pod, but it does raise an eyebrow. I don't think he can instantaneously trade with Miriam between the moments of our diplomatic dialogue. Maybe he's in contact with Santiago.Things he had:
[..]
I'm going to try to remember to look at this circumstance after I'm done with this game.
[Limit reached]Things his only other contact, Cha Dawn had:
[Limit reached]
In my mod:
Code: [Select]
Biogenetics, Biogen, 0, 4, 0, 3, None, None, 000100000
Industrial Base, Indust, 1, 0, 4, 3, None, None, 000000100
Centauri Ecology, Ecology, 0, 0, 3, 4, None, None, 000000100
Doctrine: Mobility, Mobile, 4, 0, 0, 3, None, None, 000000000
Polymorphic Software, Poly, 4, 0, 0, 0, None, None, 000000000
High Energy Chemistry, Chemist, 4, 0, 0, 0, None, None, 000000000
Adaptive Economics, AdapEco, 3, 0, 2, 4, Ecology, Indust, 000000000D1 Biogenetics is the only one that has any Discover component at all. Now, he could have been lucky at popping some pods to get the various Tier 1 techs. He could have traded with Cha Dawn to fill out some of the early stuff. But this definitely raises an eyebrow and doesn't look like he's following his pure Discover research imperative. Industrial Base is how I give Formers. Centauri Ecology is how I give Recycling Tanks. Adaptive Economics is how I give Hab Complexes.
Every single one of Cha Dawn's techs, in contrast, is something that someone studying pure Explore would obtain. And in my mod, he's the pure Explore faction. Also he'll be out capturing mindworms and popping pods, so picking up more Tier 1 techs from pods, is to be expected.
Let's see if I have a save before Cha Dawn is contacted.
There is possibly a non-Thinker explanation for the spread though:
[Limit reached]
D1 Biogenetics is trivial for the University to obtain and expected. However, E1 Social Psych has no Discover component:
Code: [Select]
Social Psych, Psych, 0, 0, 2, 4, None, None, 000000000So the University could be learning completely random techs, until E1 Social Psych is finally obtained. Perhaps I should "bread crumb" Social Psych as a partial Discover tech, so that the University is not unreasonably delayed.[Limit reached]
In MY 2121, the University already knew 4 techs before meeting Cha Dawn, including C1 Polymorphic Software. But oddly, the one tech he didn't know, is the one tech he should have known: D1 Biogenetics.
It seems I myself put the Cult in contact with Zhakarov in MY 2127, in order to try to get Zhakarov's map. That means MY 2123 is going to be the last save before they start talking.
[Limit reached]
HMMM in MY 2123 he'd already learned E2 Adaptive Economics. That's weird.