SMACX Thinker Mod

[Induktio]

> I'll say: in some actual realities like we actually live in you have excellent info about each other forces

Not really. In reality, you won't have constant awereness about opposing forces without spending a lot of effort on intelligence gathering. At least before the satellites arrive, and even then it's possible to disguise forces from surveillance (within limits). Before that, let's say WW2 era, recon was reliant on aerial surveillance flights and similar methods. Real life intelligence gathering is as much about weeding out the incorrect reports as much as it is about gathering new sources. You're going to have to deal with purposefully planted misinformation and faulty data. So the intel is always going to have some limits on the coverage. To me it seems you are clinging on this 100% infiltration mechanic because your strategy seems to be relying on it, and without it the players would have to spend a lot more resources to guard against sneak attacks.

> that it was done by design ? to make game actually more peaceful

I think the most likely explanation here is that they just chose to implement the simplest possible infiltration mechanic without considering how realistic or balanced it would be, e.g. 100% information about base production/unit counts without any chance of losing coverage.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

you lost me here  maybe cause I have some foundations in science methodology from years ago, which I barely remember, but which lead me to completely different conclusions; and also experience as player so i have very clear views on faction ranking (eg morgan wins vs yang ~90% of times)

you seem not to understand the need of constructing this kind of isolated experiments where randomness is controlled (minimized/eliminated)

I try not to use this language as not many people understand it. However, if you like I will gladly do so as I have learned scientific statistical methods in nuclear electronics to process Hugabytes of data from supercollider detectors.

Let's take your statement (morgan wins yang ~90% of times) as an example.
First of all we need to clarify conditions. Do you mean AI vs AI or two humans? Are they only factions in the game or all 7 present? What do you consider win? Is it complete extermination of other or their relative power compared at some point in time? In both cases do you consider draw if they did not kill each other or if they relative power is not too different?
Keep in mind that these two comparison methods are drastically different. Extermination may favor believers but total power may favor morgan, for example. I don't know - just speculating here.

If you are interested in my statement then here it is.
7 AI factions with randomized personalities play multiple times. Their relative power score measured at the end of the game (some faction wins or by end of game). If faction is eliminated its score is zero. Then this score is arithmetically averaged across multiple tries. I claim that each faction average score will be within -50% to +50% range of the total average score (1/7).
Another way of estimating that is to count number of wins each faction gets. This would require more tries to achieve statistical relevance as the win/loss is more discrete value than power score. But even in this case I claim each faction will not deviate more than 50% of 1/7 total wins average.

another point - minor difference translates to major win/lose difference ; same as in sports - if one runner for 1000m distance is better just 2%, he will have seconds/miliseconds better times, but he will win 95% of time

That is absolutely true for cases without randomness. I am exactly saying that it is not the case for 4X games and minor differences will not translate to major differences in win/loss.

the more you isolate randomness the less games you need to play to say which faction is really better

I don't understand why and how you want to isolate randomness while the whole game it just built on it??? The single world generation randomness is a humongous impact on a game. What is the point in isolating it? Let's say you compare faction in absence of any randomness whatsoever. Would that result be then relevant to actual game?
Imagine another random based game like poker, for example. If you play many games in one group you get a feeling player A is better in this game than player B. Now eliminate all randomness: deal everybody same cards. Would player A still be better? Most likely not as this will be a different game.

saying that factions differences are minor is quite bold statement, I will say mildly it's the strongest thing u said that alters my perception of your views on SMAC

There are two things people often mix up. Faction features (bonuses/penalties) and leaders personality. Former equally applies to AI and human play. But latter got mixed into AI play as well skewing the perception and test results.
I am talking about faction features only. And I can make this statement because people keep balancing faction features all the time on multitude of forum threads. And reading through these threads I got an impression that there is no clear method to understand which faction is clearly better. And in the years of balancing original factions they are still unchanged or very very close to vanilla which means they were pretty much balancer from the beginning.

mirrored map is when you have same, equal starting positions, completely symmetrical map, like for example in starcraft pro games

I would love to get a hold of one of these if you have it.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

1) Simplified ideal theoretical  scenario one:
Everything is connected with magtubes, the armies consist of equal number of units with att/def 2:1
In preparation for an assault aggressor neglecting development adds 20% to his units count, all cheap armorless assault units.

You are missing the key point of his statement same way as he is missing yours. You are talking about different things!

His key point is that 1) defender has full knowledge when enemy forces attack and 2) defender matches their forces exactly to be able to fend off aggressor without giving up a single base. I don't know how it is done. Maybe by preventive strike on approaching forces. Maybe by increasing number of defenders. Maybe both. The point is that he does not offer any practical example on how it is done just postulates that defender somehow has enough resources to build up counter-army capable to 100% defend the territory. On top of that they have extra time to evolve their economy while enemy forces approach.

As you and I showed already. This theoretical construct has little to do with real game. So do not try to counter it with real game example.

[dino]

You can't flood through magtube into a territory that holds only slightly less forces than you and deal an unrecoverably crippling blow in a single turn in real games ?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

> 1) Edit armor values in alphax.txt to change att/def ratio from 2:1, to around 3:2.

I think this one specifically is too arbitrary. There are 12 weapons and 8 armors. We need to tune complete list with their time of appearance to make a judgement.

Something like here: https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21359.msg122437#msg122437

Excessive amount of playtesting is also needed to close up on right values.

Maybe? Also another consideration: probe stacks have implicit 100% collateral damage. It might be a good idea to provide a new config parameter for that.

Nobody yet complained on that. This feature specifically counter probe stacking to prevent multiprobe attacks.

> Let me reiterate it. The game is designed to last somewhere 300-400 turns.

But if you play using anywhere close to the optimal strategy, you should be transcending by 200 turns. So beyond that is not very relevant given the current game mechanics.

Err. That was exactly my point. Beyond that it is not very relevant. In vanilla. That's why some modders try to make it relevant.

> I don't understand why people rank factions. Their differences are exceptionally minor comparing to other random factors.

Have to disagree here. Let's assume large map size and believers/morgan for example. There's no way believers could keep up on the early tech race if these factions start far away from each other. Maybe AI doesn't push all the advantages to the maximum but even then the differences are clearly seen.

Why assume anything? They are, of course, different and suitable for certain conditions. That is how they are designed. Like if Morgan is separated from Miriam for the first half of the game he can gain economical power and then jump over ocean with all modern weaponry. Whereas if they are NOT separated Miriam steamroll him with the swarm of believers.

The question is, based on your assumption, do we need to make Miriam stronger to balance her faction? And the answer from multiple people on multiple forums is NO! Most people think she is strong enough already. Why is that I wonder?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

although I think WtP went a bit too far with homeland security bonus

This is removed in latest versions and replaced with more unit building and (hopefully) better defensive AI.

[Induktio]

Why assume anything? They are, of course, different and suitable for certain conditions. That is how they are designed. Like if Morgan is separated from Miriam for the first half of the game he can gain economical power and then jump over ocean with all modern weaponry. Whereas if they are NOT separated Miriam steamroll him with the swarm of believers.

Let's take your statement (morgan wins yang ~90% of times) as an example.
First of all we need to clarify conditions. Do you mean AI vs AI or two humans? Are they only factions in the game or all 7 present? What do you consider win? Is it complete extermination of other or their relative power compared at some point in time? In both cases do you consider draw if they did not kill each other or if they relative power is not too different?
Keep in mind that these two comparison methods are drastically different. Extermination may favor believers but total power may favor morgan, for example. I don't know - just speculating here.

Uhh... So which one it is? Try to decide.

The question is, based on your assumption, do we need to make Miriam stronger to balance her faction? And the answer from multiple people on multiple forums is NO! Most people think she is strong enough already. Why is that I wonder?

Thinker *does* provide one boost for Believers (and any faction with negative intrinsic research value). The 10 turn delay before they start accumulating labs has been removed. It removes some of that pretty serious start disadvantage vs. research factions. And I think Believers are really situational with the start conditions, e.g. 7-player SP game plays very differently compared to 1-vs-1 MP game.

[JoGr223]

in this post i describe hive vs morgan and a bit about univ and faction ranking:

note I speak about vanilla smac/x and/or Thinker AI boost

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Why assume anything? They are, of course, different and suitable for certain conditions. That is how they are designed. Like if Morgan is separated from Miriam for the first half of the game he can gain economical power and then jump over ocean with all modern weaponry. Whereas if they are NOT separated Miriam steamroll him with the swarm of believers.

Let's take your statement (morgan wins yang ~90% of times) as an example.
First of all we need to clarify conditions. Do you mean AI vs AI or two humans? Are they only factions in the game or all 7 present? What do you consider win? Is it complete extermination of other or their relative power compared at some point in time? In both cases do you consider draw if they did not kill each other or if they relative power is not too different?
Keep in mind that these two comparison methods are drastically different. Extermination may favor believers but total power may favor morgan, for example. I don't know - just speculating here.

Uhh... So which one it is? Try to decide.

These are from completely different context. I don't even understand why you want to compare them.

First is from faction bonuses discussion when author mention that Morgan is stronger than Miriam on large map when they are separated. I confirmed that this could be true but this does not equate in "Morgan > Miriam" for rest of the conditions. That is why I don't see a point in considering isolated conditions.

Second one is discussing specific conditions for statistical experiment. They are needed so we can actually have this experiment in foreseeable future and agree on outcome. This probably won't help deciding whether one faction is generally stronger but it may support further conversation on specific details.

The question is, based on your assumption, do we need to make Miriam stronger to balance her faction? And the answer from multiple people on multiple forums is NO! Most people think she is strong enough already. Why is that I wonder?

Thinker *does* provide one boost for Believers (and any faction with negative intrinsic research value). The 10 turn delay before they start accumulating labs has been removed. It removes some of that pretty serious start disadvantage vs. research factions. And I think Believers are really situational with the start conditions, e.g. 7-player SP game plays very differently compared to 1-vs-1 MP game.

Yes. People keep modifying faction bonuses based on author perception of their fairness. You do this, I do this, and every other modder. The fact that I drawing everybody's attention to is that these modifications are not uniform across the community. There is not even common agreement which faction need to be boosted/nerfed least about specific value of their bonuses. For example, many people think that 10 turn of no research for Believers is not that impactful and that they are perfectly capable of catching up pretty soon. They have very good reasoning behind that confirming it with their previous games, etc. Obviously, neither side can prove this to other as majority of arguments are subjective. However, the mere fact that there is no common community agreement shows that SMAC factions are more or less balanced. Whereas most community agree, for example, that Cyborgs and aliens SMAX factions are overpowered to the extent they are banned from multiplayer and that tells me something.

Yes. AI playing faction and human playing faction are quite different things. All factions are situational. Morgan is situational in NOT having Miriam next to him.

[JoGr223]

To me it seems you are clinging on this 100% infiltration mechanic because your strategy seems to be relying on it

and to me the way you implemented it is just as lazy of a nerf as the original "infiltration is permanent" 

as you are aware im not a fan of randomness; and u don't even provide info how this feature exactly works, so i can't calculate my odds; just as i always play game setting "bellcurve:random event off" and "no supply pods" i turn off also this random event feature
this is actually a good idea ! make it that it's tied to bellcurve - if random events are on, then u have random expiration, if no random events, no random expiration of infiltration
and/or: setting up infiltration can work like other probe actions and have chance of failure
and/or: infiltration is set to some specific timing, that can be based on some critiria eg if it was setup in big/small city
eg: city lvl1-5 "we estimate our agents can safely operate for the next 30 years"
lvl =>6 "we estimate our agents will have to be evacuated in 15 years as city's counterintelligence forces are strong here"

i don't agree its imbalanced with permanent, where is ur argumentation ? imbalanced against what ?
it's also more fun to see what others are doing; imagine playing 20h game in multi with no infiltration, its so much less interesting; then it turns out one side is totally winning and other player reacts "omg so i just wasted last 5h because i didnt know i have no chance and should have resigned already back then"

generally also if ur then attacked by "sudden strike" its less interesting cause it can lead to "sudden death" and a lot of frustration
turn based "long" games are generally better imo with full information

because your strategy

do you actually think there is anyone's strategy or "any strategy" that is not relying on infiltration ?
if everyone plays no infiltration game, then it's just boring, you dont know whats happening around the world; its like you had no news and journalists, games feel much more "lonely"

also: if someone attacks let's say with 30 4-1-2 without infiltration ? pointless and he may be up to some real frustration when he realize enemy already has needlers

[Induktio]

These are from completely different context. I don't even understand why you want to compare them.

First is from faction bonuses discussion when author mention that Morgan is stronger than Miriam on large map when they are separated. I confirmed that this could be true but this does not equate in "Morgan > Miriam" for rest of the conditions. That is why I don't see a point in considering isolated conditions.

Second one is discussing specific conditions for statistical experiment. They are needed so we can actually have this experiment in foreseeable future and agree on outcome. This probably won't help deciding whether one faction is generally stronger but it may support further conversation on specific details.

This was a direct response to your comment below. It provided a counter example to your point to illustrate how the faction properties are in some circumstances very essential in determining the likely winner for some game. Not just who happens to get the jungle or something similar.

I don't understand why people rank factions. Their differences are exceptionally minor comparing to other random factors. The one who lands on jungle wins. They are not only minor they are sanely balanced. You can play pretty much any tactics with any faction barred some exception like Yang should use PS and Miriam should mostly attack. Other than that it is pretty minor factor.

Yes. People keep modifying faction bonuses based on author perception of their fairness. You do this, I do this, and every other modder. The fact that I drawing everybody's attention to is that these modifications are not uniform across the community. There is not even common agreement which faction need to be boosted/nerfed least about specific value of their bonuses. For example, many people think that 10 turn of no research for Believers is not that impactful and that they are perfectly capable of catching up pretty soon. They have very good reasoning behind that confirming it with their previous games, etc. Obviously, neither side can prove this to other as majority of arguments are subjective. However, the mere fact that there is no common community agreement shows that SMAC factions are more or less balanced. Whereas most community agree, for example, that Cyborgs and aliens SMAX factions are overpowered to the extent they are banned from multiplayer and that tells me something.

I think you're conflating some concepts about how game theory works here. We're dealing with a finite, (in MP contexts usually) zero-sum, two-player game, for which there are certain strategies that will beat weaker strategies. There's nothing subjective about which strategy is better in competitive scenarios if we can compute these strategies to a sufficient detail. Or we could attempt to devise some strategy emulating Nash equilibrium such that no player could gain an advantage by deviating from said strategy. But certainly subjective is not a word I would use to describe the strength of gameplay strategies.

Most people probably agree expansion factions are more imbalanced than vanilla factions, but it does not follow vanilla factions are really balanced for MP gameplay. I think JoGr223 has already provided many arguments why University could beat other factions most of the time, so it's not that simple that expansion factions >> vanilla factions.

do you actually think there is anyone's strategy or "any strategy" that is not relying on infiltration ?
if everyone plays no infiltration game, then it's just boring, you dont know whats happening around the world; its like you had no news and journalists, games feel much more "lonely"

Having accurate real-time information makes it much easier to make decisions, unlike some situation where you have to deal with limited information, e.g. fog of war. I'm not advocating removing all infiltration information, just limiting its usefulness, because of the reasons I outlined in the earlier posts.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Sorry. I probably was not clear on faction stuff. Or was not right.
Let me rephrase it this way. I agree that if we let 7 AI play game many times then we can statistically prove some faction wins more often on average. I would even agree that some faction ratings may differ by 2-3 times easily. So let's call it moderate factor, not minor.
My point is that the initial placement is huge factor that overwhelms faction bonuses and even "weakest" faction may win being placed right. That includes both geography and faction locations.
My second point is that faction bonuses do not always dictate single optimal strategy. Quite often reacting to current situation disregarding "normal" faction play style could be more optimal. Which again shows that faction features are not the most important game variable. I'd say they provide 20% input to player decision with 80% from the rest of the game.

About subjectivity. That is right that there won't be any more subjectivity if one can compute each and every aspect of the game but we are not there yet, are we? Until then all these statements cannot be mathematically proven and rely on people subjective opinion.

[Induktio]

My main point would be that even if we don't know exactly what the optimal strategy is in this game, theoretically it is still there, e.g. there's at least some Nash equilibrium optimal strategy. As an analogue, we can look into how other finite, zero-sum, two-player, imperfect information games like poker have been solved.

For example, there's a talk by Tuomas Sandholm New Results for Solving Imperfect-Information Games which describes this process. Or maybe this article which explains how they extended the previous system to more than 2-player poker games.

On another note, I have to also mention this talk by Sid Meier where he explains how they designed the combat system in Civilization to adapt to player expectations. It's quite hilarious to listen to since he explains how players tend to perceive "big strength number vs. small number" battles as something where they're always supposed to win. It seems obvious some similar kind of reasoning was also used in the design of Alpha Centauri combat system.

[JoGr223]

even if we don't know exactly what the optimal strategy is in this game, theoretically it is still there

you might not know it but I know it v.well its basically play FM faction and go FM->wealth->crawlers->PTS->ICS->race for top early eco SPs (HGP,WP,PEG,AV)->restrictions->boreholes->air->kill all with air
this is vs AI which is weak opponent

vs humans u wouldn't go "kill all" as u always lose by starting war vs equal opponents (Reasons i elaborated on in prev. post); so then if u play vs experts its more gradual boreholes->CV->CBA->satellites->pick ur victory choice (by this point its likely very uneven if one human has all these SPs it will likely reflect in 4x dominance in minerals and at least tech parity vs another top human)

so this is reflected in what I consider OP:
Simple 4 liner rebalance mod:
PTS cost 2x
crawlers cost +10%
Needlers chassis cost 4x
Copters chassis cost 6x

late game:
cloudbase academy cost 2x
cloning vats cost 2x, no pop boom, instead +3growth
   or move other benefits to SE choices elsewhere
space elevator 2x
cybor factory 1,5x

note this is not optimal proposition of rebalance, but quickest one for myself to implement; just things that need to be nerfed
more optimal especially in the air aspect is like:
move needler tech 3 levels up and copter 4-5lvls on tech tree, while hovertanks 3 levels down so they appear before air + move air superiority ability to earlier tech than air tech + then needler/copter chassis cost only ~1,5-2x

[JoGr223]

" New Results for Solving Imperfect-Information Games" doesn't work: is this video on vimeo only for logged in ?