SMACX Thinker Mod

[Induktio]

> Will the diplomacy improvements cover the AI being smarter about Supreme Leader elections?

Probably not, since I haven't looked into this specifically. Rather I think the most flawed part of current diplomacy AI is that they tend to be a little too aggressive and declare vendettas recklessly. This would need some kind of adjustment if I can figure out a good way to do it.

How much did the sea level rises affect the size of the continents, e.g. how much of them got submerged and on which timeframe? Did you notice any other significant changes in AI behaviour?

[Tayta Malikai]

Will the diplomacy improvements cover the AI being smarter about Supreme Leader elections? I think Lal called one election as soon as he could and he was only a few votes off from winning outright, like single digits short. I was his pact sister. Maybe he thought I'd vote for him? He then waited much longer than 10 years to try again.

Being the Governor only means you can call the Council every 10 years on different proposals. You still have to wait the full 20 years to bring up a specific proposal again.

I think of these votes as being kind of like warning shots: the AI has this big of a population, if you don't do something about it they're going to win the game outright. Of course, as was so aptly demonstrated in my last game, that something is usually to invade the offending AI to steal their votes...

[EmpathCrawler]

How much did the sea level rises affect the size of the continents, e.g. how much of them got submerged and on which timeframe? Did you notice any other significant changes in AI behaviour?

Lal won a diplomatic victory in 2294 and by then I estimate there was nearly a kilometer of sea rise. The Manifold Nexus and The Ruins were placed on coasts and they were underwater by the end. Not sure if they start at a default height. Some of my coastal bases slid into the sea. One of mine was hit by a tidal wave. It was a strange game. Lal had a power graph like an experienced player playing Citizen difficulty.

I started a new game at 2/5 global warming and will let you know how things go in more systematic detail. I believe Yang has his own continent and he sniped the Weather Paradigm from me so I'm expecting him to be the big polluter. Standard planet, abundant worms, thinker difficulty. I disabled the Monsoon Jungle this time around.

Being the Governor only means you can call the Council every 10 years on different proposals. You still have to wait the full 20 years to bring up a specific proposal again.

I think of these votes as being kind of like warning shots: the AI has this big of a population, if you don't do something about it they're going to win the game outright. Of course, as was so aptly demonstrated in my last game, that something is usually to invade the offending AI to steal their votes...

I see, though it still seemed longer than 20 years. Could be wrong. I'll check next time it happens. There was no stopping Lal in this one. He got The Ascetic Virtues and covered the Monsoon Jungle in size 18 bases!

[EmpathCrawler]

Update: So far I've had three sea rise events on 2/5 settings and abundant life:


2249: 66m
2263: 266m
2278: 266m


This is entirely AI-driven. I'm playing the Gaians and have almost no eco-damage and no advanced terraforming improvements. Lal and Zak have both chosen Green economics but I'm not sure if they need the efficiency (their empires are not very large). Morgan is on Simple for some reason. Yang, who sticks to Planned, did indeed start on his own continent. I saved the game at the start so it will be easier to compare initial coastlines with final. I know at least Zakharov has Advanced Spaceflight but he has not proposed a solar shade. It's not because of sunspots.


Lal seems to be getting his eco damage under control thanks to inducing vicious fungal pops and by building The Pholus Mutagen (damn him!). I am seeing trance units everywhere (which are really annoying for my worm-based army!).


By the way, AAA foils/cruisers are effective against me because I typically defend myself from sea invasions with needlejets. Is that your doing?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Update: So far I've had three sea rise events on 2/5 settings and abundant life:


2249: 66m
2263: 266m
2278: 266m


This is entirely AI-driven. I'm playing the Gaians and have almost no eco-damage and no advanced terraforming improvements. Lal and Zak have both chosen Green economics but I'm not sure if they need the efficiency (their empires are not very large). Morgan is on Simple for some reason. Yang, who sticks to Planned, did indeed start on his own continent. I saved the game at the start so it will be easier to compare initial coastlines with final. I know at least Zakharov has Advanced Spaceflight but he has not proposed a solar shade. It's not because of sunspots.


Lal seems to be getting his eco damage under control thanks to inducing vicious fungal pops and by building The Pholus Mutagen (damn him!). I am seeing trance units everywhere (which are really annoying for my worm-based army!).


By the way, AAA foils/cruisers are effective against me because I typically defend myself from sea invasions with needlejets. Is that your doing?

I don't remember if ecodamage sea raise is limited to some height or is it never stops when started. Does abundant life affect ecodamage? Don't remember this either.

All AI tweaking is Induktio's doing from Thinker mod that is included in this one.

[Nexii]

I always found the amount of sea level rise a bit ridiculous so I turned it off in my own mod. All ice on earth melting is only about 80m of sea level rise.

I'd argue that extreme pollution might actually lower sea levels as the oceans start to boil over, more water vapor in the air. Also would make the planet drier. But supposedly that takes a huge amount of pollution, 10x or so of all Earth's fossil fuels. And Chiron doesn't have any natural fossil fuels at all. Although all those synthetic ones could be theoretically worse somehow.

[Geo]

Edited

[Induktio]

Here is a picture of some important features that are ready to be included in the build. Road building algorithm has been completely rewritten and Thinker will now build magtubes when it has the technology. In the image you can see how the new method would hypothetically plan the routes between the bases. Notice how it can now span very long uninhabitated gaps between the bases.

In practise it will look slightly different because Thinker will build the bases closer to each other if possible. The other mod may not be immediately obvious but it is a helpful visual aid to locate certain places.

> There was no stopping Lal in this one. He got The Ascetic Virtues and covered the Monsoon Jungle in size 18 bases!

In times like that it may feel like the game is trolling you. "Well sure thing, try outvoting this!"

It might be useful to set the global warming modifier to 1/3 or something. It's probably not excessive given how quickly these thresholds are being met.

[Nexii]

This should work no matter how I mod alphax.txt on scients patch correct? Might give it a try once I get all the kinks out of my tech tree rebuild

[EmpathCrawler]

I don't remember if ecodamage sea raise is limited to some height or is it never stops when started. Does abundant life affect ecodamage? Don't remember this either.

All AI tweaking is Induktio's doing from Thinker mod that is included in this one.

The native life setting a multiplier according to the wiki, yeah. This one?

I always found the amount of sea level rise a bit ridiculous so I turned it off in my own mod. All ice on earth melting is only about 80m of sea level rise.

I'd argue that extreme pollution might actually lower sea levels as the oceans start to boil over, more water vapor in the air. Also would make the planet drier. But supposedly that takes a huge amount of pollution, 10x or so of all Earth's fossil fuels. And Chiron doesn't have any natural fossil fuels at all. Although all those synthetic ones could be theoretically worse somehow.

It is pretty crazy that there's a Biblical amount of water, but I'm willing to gloss over all that because it's an alien planet blah blah blah.

It might be useful to set the global warming modifier to 1/3 or something. It's probably not excessive given how quickly these thresholds are being met.

That's my next step. I've also been playing with the world builder settings for other reasons (trying to get fewer noodle continents) and noticed the sea level rise setting there. I'll try nerfing that, too. I actually don't mind the idea of there being a period of widespread eco-chaos before the technology catches up, so long as it's plausibly reversible.

Those magtubes are so tidy! Much harder for me to grief the AI with them. Did you mark the headquarters base??

[Induktio]

A new develop build 20200526 is now available from downloads. Here are the changes:

* Road building algorithm has been completely rewritten to build more natural looking road networks.
* AI will now build magtubes after the tech is acquired.
* Draw visual marker around the population label of HQ bases to identify them more easily.
* New option: auto_relocate_hq will automatically move lost HQs to another suitable base.
* Fix revised_tech_cost formula to calculate SE research effect similarly to vanilla game.
* Reduce overall sea level rise frequency to 1/3.
* Add Trance Scout Patrol and Police Garrison predefined units.

....

> This should work no matter how I mod alphax.txt on scients patch correct? Might give it a try once I get all the kinks out of my tech tree rebuild

What do you actually mean here? Nothing here should be incompatible with alphax.txt editing.

[lolada]

Sweet changes  like both magtubes and trance/police units.

[Nexii]

A new develop build 20200526 is now available from downloads. Here are the changes:

* Road building algorithm has been completely rewritten to build more natural looking road networks.
* AI will now build magtubes after the tech is acquired.
* Draw visual marker around the population label of HQ bases to identify them more easily.
* New option: auto_relocate_hq will automatically move lost HQs to another suitable base.
* Fix revised_tech_cost formula to calculate SE research effect similarly to vanilla game.
* Reduce overall sea level rise frequency to 1/3.
* Add Trance Scout Patrol and Police Garrison predefined units.

....

> This should work no matter how I mod alphax.txt on scients patch correct? Might give it a try once I get all the kinks out of my tech tree rebuild

What do you actually mean here? Nothing here should be incompatible with alphax.txt editing.

Yea all I have is modified so far is alphax.txt and faction files. I found the answer more or less on the first page. I'd have to run a lot of sim games to reach conclusions. Does the terraforming algorithm take into account how good options are? Like if borehole is 0/0/0 will the AI still make them? Does it consider fungus and farm/solar/echelon?

[Induktio]

> Does the terraforming algorithm take into account how good options are?

In general, no. It doesn't do on the fly cost-benefit calculations for most terraforming actions. The only real exception to this is forest vs. fungus tiles. Thinker calculates which one of these will yield more and prefer to plant them unless some other advanced terraforming can be built on the square. So modders should be very careful if they change the relative value of terraforming improvements. Usually it's much better to disable something outright (like boreholes) instead of nerfing them into oblivion.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

* Road building algorithm has been completely rewritten to build more natural looking road networks.

Does it mean not every improved tile will have a road?