SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[dino]

"Our... our" is parallel.  "Our... their" is not.

Our forces, it's a plural noun with a possessive pronoun.
A proper pronoun for a plural noun is 'their', while 'our' is a pronoun for 'we' and 'our' would also be in direct conflict with the last line "Shall I order them to proceed?"

Using 'our chances' when refering to 'our forces' would be a common figure of speach coveying the meaning of our forces and us being the one.
No politician in our times would dare to skip this figure of speach in a public statement, but skipping it fits the dystopian theme of people being resources, pawns in the game.

The main reason it may be confusing is because you skip reading the first sentence, go stright for the numbers and loose the context the first sentence sets.
So I propose this iteration:

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Our forces are ready to begin the assault, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
Odds are 10 to 1 (vanilla estimate)
Odds are 20 to 1 (exact simulation)

Winning chance is 70 %.
Shall I order them to proceed?

It tells the reader who skipped reading flavour introductory line and went stright for the data lines what the numbers represent, without redundant odds and chance mentions and just looks cleaner.
I think that singular chance is more common form when refering to a percentage probability and it also stylistically separates this info from odds.
I agree that both are useful btw: odds are good at hinting how much damage winning unit may suffer, while chance provides an exact probability of surviving.

If you'd want to keep reactor line, I'd add a hint of reactor power being a configurable mod feature.
For me this line could be best skipped, but on the other hand you risk some new mod users being unaware of the feature if it's enabled by default.

I'd either go for full disclosure:

Code: [Select]

Our forces are ready to begin the assault, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
Odds are 10 to 1 (vanilla estimate).
Odds are 20 to 1 (exact simulation).

Winning chance is 70 %.
Shall I order them to proceed?

- Reactor power is set to be [ignored] in combat. Both units have {10} max HP.

Or minimalistic display skipping any unnecessary mentions of modded features:

Code: [Select]

Our forces are ready to begin the assault, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
Odds are 10 to 1.
Winning chance is 70 %.

Shall I order them to proceed?

I'd say just go for the minimalistic one, or make it a config option with the former being a default to inform new users.

[dino]

I have a question, how exactly are single combat round odds calculated ? Since wording on the wiki/manual is ambiguous for me. Is it:

1) attacker strenght / defender strenght
2) attacker strenght * power / defender strenght * power ( power aka hit points is constant, taken from the beginning of the battle )
3) attacker strenght * power / defender strenght * power ( power aka hit points is adjusted each round )

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

1) attacker strenght / defender strenght

This one. In WTP it is also variable based on who won previous round to make round victory stick and spread battle outcome a little bit wider.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I'd either go for full disclosure:

Code: [Select]

Our forces are ready to begin the assault, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
Odds are 10 to 1 (vanilla estimate).
Odds are 20 to 1 (exact simulation).

Winning chance is 70 %.
Shall I order them to proceed?

- Reactor power is set to be [ignored] in combat. Both units have {10} max HP.

Or minimalistic display skipping any unnecessary mentions of modded features:

Code: [Select]

Our forces are ready to begin the assault, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
Odds are 10 to 1.
Winning chance is 70 %.

Shall I order them to proceed?

I'd say just go for the minimalistic one, or make it a config option with the former being a default to inform new users.

I don't want to remove first sentence. It is needed for those surprised by slightly differently looking dialog and reading whole thing to connect with their vanilla experience. Same story is with vanilla odds. I agree minimalistic version is less cluttered but people will be constantly asking what are these odds and why they don't match vanilla. We have our legacy.
😢

Also if we are going to split number section in two it is good to keep spacing between numbers and outer text as well. Otherwise, it seems like a ripped in half by most unwanted place.

Code: [Select]

Our forces are ready to begin the assault, $TITLE0 $NAME1.


Odds are 10 to 1 (vanilla estimate).
Odds are 20 to 1 (exact simulation).

Winning chance is 70 %.


Shall I order them to proceed?

* Reactor power is set to be [ignored] in combat. Both units have {10} max HP.


Seems a little bit spread but who cares? All information is there and after first time people will look at numbers only.

Another option is to hide vanilla odds somewhere in the parenthesis behind the exact ones to reduce clutter. This way we still have reference to vanilla but it is not upfront and is confuse with actual numbers.

Code: [Select]

Our forces are ready to begin the assault, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
Odds are 20 to 1 (vanilla displays 10 to 1).
Winning chance is 70 %.

Shall I order them to proceed?

* Reactor power is set to be [ignored] in combat. Both units have {10} max HP.


[dino]

The last one is the best, if you insist on both odds numbers.

The exact odds is exactly the same info as a chance to win, just presented in a different less intuitive form, though.

Vanilla odds are: attacker strenght * HP / defender strenght * HP, which is actually a very useful inormation with a bit misleading label.
Because it's proportional to a statististically expected damages if I'm not mistaken, for example with 3 to 2 vanilla odds you are expected to win and suffer 67% damage. Am I right ?
I don't know how to calculate expected damages for our little skewing algorithm if you wanted to display it in place of vanilla odds, should be close to vanilla anyway, or you may try to solve it.

So I'd present vanilla odds as the main ones: Odds are 10 to 1 ( exact simulation is 20 to 1)
Or just drop redundant exact odds info completely.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Vanilla odds are: attacker strenght * HP / defender strenght * HP, which is actually a very useful inormation with a bit misleading label.
Because it's proportional to a statististically expected damages if I'm not mistaken, for example with 3 to 2 vanilla odds you are expected to win and suffer 67% damage. Am I right ?

I believe so. Never found use for that, though. Nor any other player ever thought about their meaning either besides us math geeks, of course.
😃

It would really matter in absence of healing when player would cherish every unrecoverable HP. With healing - nobody cares. Only winning odds/chance matter.

I don't know how to calculate expected damages for our little skewing algorithm if you wanted to display it in place of vanilla odds, should be close to vanilla, or you may try to solve it.

That is what simulated numbers are. I do exact simulation taking all factors into accounts including our probability modifying algorithm.

So I'd present vanilla odds as the main ones: Odds are 10 to 1 ( exact simulation is 20 to 1), or just drop redundant exact odds info completely.

Yes. The main confusion there is what are these odds are? I should just clearly state that they are winning odds. Same as probability. In this case I'll leave people to guess what vanilla odds are. They are probably odds of resulting injury as you properly guessed but I am not going to decipher it.


RE: chance vs. chances

I am not a native speaker but I speak it for quite a long time already and when I hear "chance" I understand it as an occurrence/realization/attempt of something happened. In other words, it describes an event by itself without tying it to any probability or computation or any other way of weighing one's options.
https://www.google.com/search?q=chance&oq=chance&aqs=chrome..69i57j46i20i263i275i433j35i39l2j46i67i433j69i60l3.1855j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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lucky chance = something rarely good happened
it's your only chance = it's your only option
no chance = no way it is going to happen = this is not happening
All the above examples can be used strictly with singular form.

Whereas when I hear "chances" it means an estimate/guess to me. Not the event per se but it's likelihood.
https://www.google.com/search?q=chance&oq=chance&aqs=chrome..69i57j46i20i263i275i433j35i39l2j46i67i433j69i60l3.1855j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#dobs=chances

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chances are my dad with let me drive his car = I anticipate this to be a high probability
I bet my chances are high to land this job = I anticipate this to be a high probability
Let's weigh our chances in that = estimate our probability / chance of success even if we are considering a single action


Or I could just put it plainly as "winning probability is" to end this linguistic discussion.
😉

[dino]

Ok "Chances are" indeed seems to be correct.

"Chance is" is how you say it in my native tongue, my english is quiet poor actually, so I don't know why I've decided to lecture on it

> It would really matter in absence of healing when player would cherish every unrecoverable HP. With healing - nobody cares. Only winning odds/chance matter.

With increased defence values in your mod, expected damage is useful for determining how many units you need to take over a base, instead of just suffering bigger losses than defender with no payof.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

With increased defence values in your mod, expected damage is useful for determining how many units you need to take over a base, instead of just suffering bigger losses than defender with no payof.

I see that you are theorizing about usefulness of this value. Sure. People would love to know that. However, this involves a lot of knowledge about a lot of units and a lot of computation on top of it. A single 1-1 combat dialog won't help you and it never helped me of any other user. It is too high math and most people just estimate it in their own way. I would say not presenting a player an exact number is a challenge they seek. They want to reconnaissance enemy base, see what units they have, how to wage attack better, etc.

With randomization anyway there is no hard number. One can loose even bringing twice more units than needed. So people just tend to triplicate the defending forces to be sure. Besides, it is hardly your last attack wave if you waging full scale war.

I think it is too far fetched topic. Current dialog already have triple information vanilla had.

[bvanevery]

Seems a little bit spread but who cares?

I'd advise against taking risks with excessive screen real estate.  You don't know what devices are being displayed on.  Someone may be doing screenshots for an After Action Report.  Someone may have a weird reason to push the dialog out of the way to see what's going on elsewhere.  When I can't do that, I typically scroll the global insert map in the lower right corner, to get something into view that I need to see.  It's just generally not a good idea to block up more of the display screen when you don't actually need to.  Consuming blank lines of whitespace not considered good.

There are probably ways to provide color contrast in text, if you want a different means of differentiating sentences.  The faction.txt entries use various kinds of markup, maybe those work in dialogs just fine as well.

And it is probably all overthinking it, that big blank lines are needed by anyone.

The main confusion there is what are these odds are?

I think that anyone who doesn't automatically understand what "simulated" odds are, or who doesn't at least pick up on it by osmosis over time, is either too stupid to play 4X, or is very young and inexperienced.  I would address neither concern.  It's like worrying about whether cardboard hex wargamers know how to roll dice and stack counters.  This is an odds calculator.  If they don't understand the concept of odds calculation (and I hope in some cases that's merely not yet, like they're 7 years old?  I memorized AD&D manuals at age 8.) then they don't have to understand anything about the damn dialog box.  Heck maybe the word "simulated" is too big for them.

The right way to handle this kind of problem, "What does simulated mean here?" is to nicely explain it in a forum, where the question actually gets asked.  For instance, someone the other day asked me what "unit pushing" meant and I wasn't a dick about it.

Don't dumb down the 4X.

Corner case: my aspersions on someone's ability to understand the import of the word "simulated", have assumed a native English speaker.  If English isn't someone's 1st language, I don't know how obvious things are.  Hopefully in many languages, plenty obvious.  Especially to the extent that non-native English speakers are still geeks and have encountered "simulation" in other contexts.  But I thought I'd make note that I don't have it in for non-native speakers.  I just wasn't thinking of them.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I have redone it to be more compact but still contain all vital information.

Code: [Select]

Our forces are ready to begin the assault, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
^Winning odds are {$NUM0 to $NUM1} (vanilla odds are $NUM2 to $NUM3).
^Winning chances are {$NUM4} %.
^
^Shall I order them to proceed?
^
^* Reactor power is set to be [ignored] in combat. Both units have {10} max HP.


[Alpha Centauri Bear]

https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-218

[bvanevery]

I don't presently have much opinion on orbital facilities because they usually fall outside of my personal testing window.  Even though every new version of my own mod requires a period of adjustment, where I don't exactly know how to play my own mod, I nevertheless do tend to acclimatize and then beat it.  Generally way back at the beginning of the game, long before any AI factions are building orbital facilities that can challenge me.  I'm quite aware that the stock AI will build lotsa orbital facilities if it gets far enough ahead, and I've been through that kind of scenario enough times in my own mod.  But frankly, I'm too good at beating my mod, to get to that point anymore.  One way or another, I'm gonna make 'em toast long before then.

It's only when other people test my mod, and then give me feedback, that I realize they're experiencing dire battles with this sort of late game stuff as a background.  And I don't get enough feedback on this late game stuff, to have had any impetus towards changing things.

I do Sky Hydroponics Labs first as the 'root' orbital facility, because doing it any other way in stock, will give you a UI error where you don't get an orbital display.  Then I have ODPs, NMSs, and OPTs on parallel techs from that.  Works fine for my tree.

Hab Domes don't require spacefaring in my mod.  I figure they're glorified "tough metals" and it shouldn't take space anything to build a big dome.

The best answer for enemy orbital facilities problems is ground intervention.

The second best answer is to sacrifice relatively cheap Conventional Missiles, so that the enemy uses up their ODPs shooting them down.  This is way better than trying to attack ODPs directly with your own ODPs, because the loss ratio seems to be 3:1 in favor of the defender.

[bvanevery]

Something makes the game take a relatively long time to start up.  At least 30 seconds after I set all factions to random and then hit ok.  Maybe as long as 1 minute.  There's just a blank screen waiting that whole time, an uncomfortable pause that makes me think something is broken.  I noticed this behavior in both versions 218 and 215.

Could the world generation or faction placement algorithm be iterating over and over again without success, until finally something succeeds?

In comparison, stock binary has very little delay from time hitting ok to the time telling me what faction I got.

[bvanevery]

Why are the Usurpers able to settle bases on fungus?

Details incredible colonial tech

incredible colonial tech

Even if you thought Aliens should be able to do this for some reason, it makes no lore sense at all for the Usurpers.  This smells like a bug.  Heck it doesn't even make game mechanical sense, as your version of the Usurpers has the unaltered -1 PLANET.

[bvanevery]

It has taken me until MY 2203 to steal Social Psych from the bleedin' Usurpers.  In all that time they've established numerous bases... and can't fight for a damn.  Because of my exceedingly limited productivity, I've got one X Missile Speeder that's been tromping around with a Plasma unit.  It executes stuff, although I'm surprised when a mere Colonist puts up some kind of stupidly heroic defense standing on a Rocky prominence.  Then I have to limp home and heal up.

The Usurpers are spammy and they keep pushing out new colonies.  I've got Missile Plasma Foils heading around the continent, Recycling Tanks everywhere, a huge reserve of cash from mostly seaborne pod poppings that the other factions didn't pick up, and 4 additional landlocked Command Centers on the way, to match the 2 already active since the beginning.

Eventually this feels like it should be a complete rout, as the Usurpers started too close to me, even on a Huge map.  Actually it wouldn't have been so bad for them, if they weren't such compulsive expansionist jerks.  Like they insisted on breathing down my neck, with no force whatsoever to back it up.  I don't think they're going to out-tech out-spam me.  Probably their algorithmic behavior is going to turn out to have been, pathologically stupid.

It's been kind of a drag seeing them waste the time.  I mean if I'm going to have a hapless victim in front of me, I'd rather have it be executed sooner and not make me spend so many mouseclicks for it.

I've really put very little effort into optimizing my empire, like spending the excess of credits for instance.  For a long time, I wandered my probe teams around their territory at will, because we had no diplomatic relationship and I can do that.  Then one day they declared war, just as I was getting ready to steal Social Psych.  Well that was like 20 years of delay, getting back to where I could steal from them again.  I could have bought the tech from various other factions at any time, but I was rather stubborn about getting my "free" tech from the Usurpers.

I don't know what the other factions are doing.  Yang crabs at me about Svensgaard every so often.  The real question is whether all this "land delay" with the Usurpers, is going to cost me any kind of growth problem with the other factions.  We'll see.  They've completed some SPs.

Since I have +1 POLICE I could have doubled my guard on all my cities.  Didn't bother.  Really don't want to garrison with untrained units.  Now I finally get to start building Rec Commons.

Details absurdist theater of war

absurdist theater of war

MY 2206.  Usurper tech advancement is spammy as well.  Their tech leakage is absurdly complete, because they keep trying to push new bases at me, without any ability to defend them.  I just walk up to them with my Plasma unit as cover, bring up a probe team, and steal whatever.  This year I finally get Secrets of the Human Brain out of them, which opens up the total cakewalk gift giveaway Fundamentalist choice for me.  Like why would I even want to do any RESEARCH at this point?  Dumb factions are racing ahead and everything else about the choice is a slam dunk for close quarters conquest.  As the Spartans I've got an abusive +4 MORALE now and these aliens are so gonna die.

There's a reason I took early MORALE bonuses out of my mod.  It's the damn Spartans.

Oh, Cha Dawn declared war on me, but I have no reason to care.  They're on the other side of Planet, with strip lands and other factions in the way.  They haven't even taken out my Gun Foil.  They were whining about the Hive.