Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Topic started by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:13:23 PM

Title: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:13:23 PM

So I ran a test of my complete faction set that went on for about 200 turns. Here are the specs:

Librarian Difficulty
Average Planet Size
Average Rainfall
Average Erosion
30-50% Water
Average Native Life

I played as the Technocrats, but it wasn't until after that I realized that I messed up and used an earlier draft of their faction profile which had their -2 Population penalty backwards, which allowed them to exceed Hab Complex limits by 2. That probably gave me an excessively unfair advantage. Oopsie.

I'll be posting screenshots from Scenario Mode. This is sort of a A-AAR, an After After Action Report since I'm not planning on resuming the game. Instead I want to analyze how each faction faired up until this point in the game.

I'll probably use this thread for all such analyses as I continue to test and adjust these factions.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:15:05 PM

Behold my empire. This is my starting location, very near the top of the map. One of the things I realized is that the Technocrat bases are way too big. The maximum size base basically spills completely out of its square and obscures anything behind it.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:18:46 PM

The game started me off right next to the Sons of the Advent. I was able to stave off Joaquin for the first fifty or so turns by giving him a little bit of Tech. He declared Vendetta against me when I refused to turn over some of my meager energy stores, but he sued for peace after I took one base.

I researched up to Impact Rovers, then Apollo Industries contacted me and offered me a pact to go to war against Joaquin. I couldn't resist that offer and took it. The war went fairly well, though the Technocrats' severe Morale penalty meant my losses were fairly heavy at the start.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:22:46 PM

The turning point was when I snagged Planetary Networks and switched to Police State/Planned. With the Technocrats' native +1 Efficiency and Robust Efficiency bonus, I was able to run this with only -2 Efficiency. The industry and support bonuses let me steamroll Joaquin, though the actual battles were fairly even.

Until I picked up Superstring Theory, that is. I bypassed Gatling Lasers and Missiles and went for Chaos Guns, and that was that. Once I researched Cyberethics and was able to run Knowledge, it was even sweeter. My income isn't great, but it's good enough.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:25:29 PM

It looks like the Advent was able to capture Apollo Industries's HQ within the first ten turns of the game. I have no idea how they pulled that off, since they aren't even on the same continent, but they did it before Roark could build any additional bases on that landmass. I landed some Chaos Rovers there and took it out, thinking that it was the last Advent stronghold.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:31:37 PM

Once I captured Olympus Heights from the Advent I assumed that they were done for, but I was mistaken. I spent the next fifteen year hunting down the remnants of Joaquin's faction, which I eventually found in a large cluster of sea bases waaaay far away from the Advent's homeland. I'm actually kind of impressed that Joaquin was able to establish such a foothold down there; more important they were sitting right off the coast of the Monsoon Jungle. If Joaquin was able to get some land bases there he could have re-established his empire handily. However, a flotilla of chaos foils put an end to that.

If you look at the minimap, the yellow arrow shows where the seabases are in relation to the Advent's homeland.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 27, 2013, 02:32:55 PM

Hate to do this to you, but those neat tower bases don't look quite right in-game.  I think it's perspective being a little off - if you stretched them taller by about 10-15%, I think it would fix it.  I am aware that it would probably require reducing the stage four base to do that and make it fit.  Sorry.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:34:22 PM

Quote from: BUncle on August 27, 2013, 02:32:55 PM

Hate to do this to you, but those neat tower bases don't look quite right in-game.  I think it's perspective being a little off - if you stretched them taller by about ten%, I think it would fix it.  I am aware that it would probably require reducing the stage four base to do that and make it fit.  Sorry.

Fully aware of that. Before I run the next test I'm going to revise the Technocrat bases, in addition to redoing Federov's leaderhead, because the scanlines look like crap.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:36:12 PM

Down near the southpole, the Genome Syndicate created the second strongest faction, next to mine. For the longest time they were actually in the lead, in fact. They really lucked out-- they got a real big landmass all to themselves, and some nice landmarks too.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 27, 2013, 02:36:37 PM

I believe there's a much larger version in the empty space of the Bases file to work with and get more consistency in resizing...

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:40:33 PM

I'll be sure to try that out.

The rest of the Genarch empire. Landing next to Garland Crater is another helpful little start-up boost. On the far left you can see Colony One, the HQ of the Colonial Authority. Like the Apollonians, the Authority got escape podded within the first twenty turns or so. If they were able to get a foothold on the crater I'm sure they would have been able to take advantage of their Support bonus to create a sizable army, but the Genarchs beat them to it.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 02:44:47 PM

Social Engineering choices for the Genarchs. No wonder they were able to out-tech me, though not by much. You can see in the previous post that we both had air power and chaos guns, so if I kept the game going it could have turned into a real bloodbath.

The Genarchs actually declared war on me about 70 turns in, but were so far away that I didn't start seeing units landing in my territory until very late in the game, and only sporadically. Navarro is a lot more aggressive than I would have expected her to be; not that it's a bad thing though.

I'll post some more screenshots later.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: ete on August 27, 2013, 05:26:40 PM

hm, where is an all in one download for the current version of all your factions?

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 06:11:00 PM

I'll upload one later today. There are some final tweaks I want to put through.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 27, 2013, 07:09:01 PM

I have to approve files, so mention when you're done for much quicker action.

Do try to go to a little trouble to make an appealing presentation in the description - give stats and img link your album shots of the graphics...

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 27, 2013, 07:11:15 PM

I'll consider it a beta, not the finished product, since I'm sure that I'll need to tweak the stats for most of the factions before it's done 100%.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 27, 2013, 07:28:14 PM

You can edit and replace when you consider yourself done, then - probably ought to explicitly label this a beta release up front in the meanwhile...

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: ete on August 27, 2013, 08:45:37 PM

Linking to the wiki pages for full stats (and images once sisko fixed the upload folder permissions) perhaps?

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 27, 2013, 09:22:38 PM

Mmmaybe, but he's already got the pics in an album, and I'm only talking about a sales presentation so more people will download his stuff.  More people is good for him and good for everyone...

Links to the relevant wiki pages in addition are a very good idea, but some of it needs to be right there on the description page for maximum presentational value.  This is an area I fancy I'm very good at, having sold, for instance, this forum to so many.  There was almost nothing to see here (and sell) at the beginning of 2012...

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: ete on August 27, 2013, 09:33:13 PM

Having a few pics too (definitely links to them) is a good idea, but maybe a brief overview of each+link to details is going to be a better sell than a wall of detailed info?

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 27, 2013, 09:55:33 PM

I didn't say a wall.  A stats list takes little space compared to the pics, even if they're all cropped to leaderhead, base, logo and DL and posted together in a row instead of a big shot of the whole .pcx (the former being preferable if you want to do the extra work.)

I've messed with posting a few custom factions to Downloads in my time, if not near so many here as I should have.

So yes, definitely brief as feasible, but tell 'em what they're getting.  Show enough that they'll want to read at the Wiki link.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 01:42:18 AM

I've uploaded a beta of the faction pack here. (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=3819.msg30402#msg30402)

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 11:30:44 AM

House Satori's territory and social choices. No big surprises here, except that I expected their income to be higher. They did have about 1200 energy stored away when I stopped the test, so their Interest rate probably has something to do with that.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 11:33:52 AM

Satori snagged some secret projects from me. I wasn't too broken up about the Merchant Exchange, but losing the Hunter Seeker Algorithm hurt. They built that before I even researched its pre-requisite tech. So now they have cheap probes AND probe immunity. Grrr!

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 11:37:44 AM

Poor Marshall Basque. The Genarchs took her HQ early in the game, and she got restarted on this hopelessly small island. She had but that single base for almost the entire game, until she was finally able to construct a sea base a few turns before I ended the test.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 11:46:56 AM

Apollo Industries fared a bit better than the Authority from their restart. If only they'd wound up on the landmass to the south with the uranium flats. They were more or less out of the game as a consequence, but they gave me an excuse to go to war again with Joaquin, so that worked out okay.

I find their social engineering choices highly questionable though.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 11:51:04 AM

Leviathan Body territory. Strangely enough, although they are set to aggressive and I was running their political aversion, they seemed alright with having a treaty. Quite a lot of territory, though I would expect their bases to be bigger with their growth rate.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 11:52:36 AM

Aaaand of course they picked Free Market even though they get double penalties from it. Nice job guys!

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: ete on August 28, 2013, 12:37:30 PM

-12 Police, ouch. Still, it may be worth it for them once the Planned effic penalty gets too annoying, Police does not get worse after a certain point.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 01:18:13 PM

Yeah, the thing about Penalty: Free Market is that Free Market already hits you with the maximum penalties for its respective social benefits, so doubling that just makes those negatives impossible to mitigate, rather than actually making them worse. Plus for the Leviathan in particular it's a little bit toothless, as they already have negative police and no way of getting police except for Thought Control and the Ascetic Virtues, since they are averse to Police State politics.

In addition, the massive planet penalty is also kind of pointless because -3 is already the maximum, and since the only way to get positive planet until Cybernetic is with Green economics it's basically an either/or proposition.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: ete on August 28, 2013, 01:34:43 PM

For Police that's right, but -3 is not the maximum value for Planet afaik. I think Planet affects Psi combat up and down to arbitrarily high values, so their main penalty from FM would be a -60% Psi combat modifier, which is pretty crippling if you're fighting worms and can't be got around with tricks like having a punishment sphere base.

Title: Re: Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem
Post by: Sigma on August 28, 2013, 06:07:06 PM

The bug discussion for this set has been moved to here. (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=4223.msg30528#new)