Alpha Centauri 2 Forum Community Succession Game

[Mart]

I guess, this rule stays in official 3.4 for that exact reason - there are multiplayer games started.
The drawback is, that people who are used to some "old" to them strategies of dealing with drones, may have difficulties with it.
I thought of talking Yitzi for releasing an update with "vanila" values, but he thinks of making the change in 3.5

[Vishniac]

Ok! So I won't change anything in my files.
But can you explain in plain text what happens? I already noticed in SP that sometimes the HGP doesn't calm drones anymore (superdrones/phantom drones/WTF drones...)

[Mart]

This seem to me exactly this rule 8 issue. As I cited in "code" tags, there is some effect given: "(Thus, there is no way to stop drone riots other than psych, drone control facilities, and
    police.)"
So assigning specialists, other than doctors or other non-psych ones that is, no longer solves the problem, or at least in that extent.
HGP gives that 1 talent, but possibly those additional drones make it less meaningful.
The vanila SMACX, as I remember, also has that additional drones, but they are not that harsh in standard rule (value 0).
As given in the rule 8, one can make overall strategy assumptions (that is how I understand it):
- the situation is worse with drone problems, making a librarian or technician no longer helps you as well as before
- the strategy of "all-specialists" bases, like you crawl nutrients to it and under free market home your needlejets there, may not work. Base would riot.
- but when you achieve high psych/talent, you can "golden age" a base, which in "rule 0" would not have a golden age. Here it is beneficial.
- In other take on it, the rule 8 encourages you to assign more percentage to psych

For me, this is quite a game changer. I would solve the MP games problem a bit differently, but this is my take on this.

[Mart]

And I should change this rule for playing in my game 3.4 folder, to its original "out of zip file" state... sorry for that.

[binTravkin]

I think for MP games these parameters get embedded in save, right?
So it's only a problem because this is essentially a SP game with save sharing.

[Mart]

No, they are not embedded into save. The problem is in MP games. This is in general, not only to that one particular case.
Sadly, in this respect, SMACX did not do a good job. E.g. a player could manipulate his/her alphax.txt and play MP turn doing things you would never notice, cause they leave no trace of it.
Only parts of alphax.txt get embedded, e.g. additional predefined units, and I am not sure now what more. But not much.
In civ4 there is an option during game start: "lock modified assets" that is making that "embedding." They learned some lessons from SMACX and Civ3.

When you play singleplayer games, there is no other human faction and whatever you have currently, all AI get that too (unless you specifically change the alphax.txt only for your turns and not for AI, and would replace the file twice in a turn). But yes, it was easier to control drones with this rule 0.

This is something to discuss rather in a thread about the patch.
The rule 8 also is less predictable, like you have certain experience and can tell what is going to happen next turn: will there be a drone riot or not. With it you do certain things "on the edge" of a drone riot. Now, with rule 8, you would need to learn this new game behaviour, and it is more difficult. On the button of psych in a base you have a value in parenthesis, that tells you:
1, capacity to have one more drone (I think "regular" drone)
0, border value, no capacity for a new drone
-1, there is already more drones than talents
etc.
But I had cases, when I mistakenly predicted wrong what would happen next turn. Just used to old mechanics.

[Vishniac]

I let my turn to the next player, maybe for good.
Catching up on 21 bases after 25 turns seems too big a hassle; I prefer keeping my motivation for MP.
Good luck, I still follow the thread. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I definitely am still following, and I want to add that I linked this thread three places on Facebook and it's drawn a lot of interest, more than my usual modding files content.  Good for promoting this venue and growing the community, and a lot of entertainment for me personally.

[Geo]

Well, Kirov (next player) should have plenty of experience handling 25 bases...

[Kirov]

Oh I'm sorry, I read the topic but I didn't realize I'm the next one. Will follow up soon, been busy with work recently.

[Kirov]

2116:

Guys, it seems like we got caught in a trap of our own success with pop boom. Running 40% PSYCH and using Librarians makes little sense to me. We need to take care of drone infrastructure.

Having said that, I swapped some workers at HQ so that we have lower minerals but one more Librarian.

Found 300 EC in pods! Rushed some tanks, upgraded some police units, but overall being thrift.

CC at Lucky Autumn experiencing a major surge, bumping us to 8 pop (and inciting riots). Does it mean it can grow to 14 with the Hab Complex? Worth checking, so I’m starting to build the Holo Theatre and then we can continue the boom there.

Miriam destroyed our probe foil in the east. She must pay for this.

2117:

Killed 3 worms, spent some more money.

Guys, are army is too spread after our conflicts and more often than not wasted as police. My goal now is to build police units and group our army in two bases – Chiron Preserve and UN Commerce Committee. We’ll then decide who’s going to die next.

2118:

What Morgan got was Gene Splicing, not IA… Nevertheless, I was happy to trade it for Intellectual Integrity. I don’t agree that the CDF is any good or any dangerous in the hands of AI. It will become obsolete in the air power era and we won’t get to Morgan before that.

Our tech switched to blue Discovery, which means we were doing the GS, too.

Spent some energy to rush, upgraded to police almost everywhere.

Managed to go down to 0% Psych.

Money/Labs – 30%/70% = 21 ec/11 turns

2119:

Darn, overlooked riots at ChironP. Oh well.

Found an AA in a sea supply pod.

Found a Morgan base on the Unity Wreckage, on the same island where the Hive is.

Sending two combat units to the eastern island.

Captured a mind worm in the North Pole.

2120:

More condensers on the way, the AA is heading home, the island in the east contains the Sunny Mesa.


Next fella:

Please remember to pop the supply pod at 101,13

The Uni signed a Treaty with the Spartans.

I put Stockpile energy at Resplendent Oak to remind you that the foil probe has completed there and you can do something else.

Overall, not bad: we run our economy at 19EC/10 turns now, we’ve got 343 EC at hand and 89 pop. Next tech is Discovery, in 5 years. Our units roam the fungus in the east and soon we’re ready to mount some kind of offensive. I’d rather stay on good terms with Morgan, however, he may still finish that IA before us.

Also, I recommend not to build any more bases, more people will just get bored with this and I fully understand them. In fact, I think it would be funny to switch sides to some pisspoor faction and take it from there. You know the 'switch sides', guys? I've always thought it's quite entertaining.

[binTravkin]

Guys, it seems like we got caught in a trap of our own success with pop boom. Running 40% PSYCH and using Librarians makes little sense to me. We need to take care of drone infrastructure.

It was our mistake, not the popboom.
We should've done what you did here at the very first turn we got II:

Spent some energy to rush, upgraded to police almost everywhere.

Managed to go down to 0% Psych.

And then build holotheatres in places where still more drone control is needed.
That's one of the good things about popboom - those extra citizens give enough minerals to quickly finish missing infrastructure.

In fact, I think it would be funny to switch sides to some pisspoor faction and take it from there. You know the 'switch sides', guys? I've always

I've played this when I got bored.
Once I ran through three factions like this.
But the 2nd one I left became so powerful that it was just steamrolling everyone with amphibious invasions.

[Kirov]

I'd rather not build Holo-Ts except for Lucky Autumn (the one with 8 pop). Morgan should complete IA within 15 turns, then we'll be able to crawl nuts. I'd start with ResHospitals instead, they're pricey but very useful.

Switching sides is essentially playing against yourself in a manner you can't really win (there's always a switch to be made). I believe four factions is my personal record. I still remember AI using my own planes, it was very funny. If we switched now, Gaia would be a nightmare.

[Mart]

Switching to Hive now would be fun
But, hey! We could free Lal from Deirdre's oppression. He would be in lifetime debt to our new us.
Let's think about it...

[Buster's Uncle]

One City Challenge.  We might consider doing one or two...