SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[bvanevery]

Details but who cares

but who cares

A brief game to MY 2186.  Tried to make this empire "like Rome", in anticipation of free Naval Yards coming soon enough.  Used my 2 initial sea bases as spawners for the land bases.  Didn't see any point of spreading at sea, since there are no minerals there.  Never built armored ECM defenders in my original 2 bases, so got PWNed by a trivial Caretaker ship.  Lesson learned.

Thing is, a navy's only good at taking over sea bases.  What's the point?  Sea bases are pretty worthless.  Coastal base invasion needs either Speeders or Marines.  The Pirates don't have any particular advantage with land units.

[bvanevery]

Played again as the Pirates, not bothering with the "Rome" coastal sea base idea.  Instead, took "clusters of minerals at sea" instead of setting right on top of minerals.  Typical is 4 resource specials arranged in a diamond, 1 or 2 of which are minerals.  I established 8 sea bases this way and then started intruding inland by the Monsoon Jungle.  This pattern pretty much requires a Rec Commons.  It seemed to go ok, but 2:30 AM rolled around and I was tired.  So I quit about the time I was starting to bother other factions' sea bases.  I don't think my growth was noteworthy compared to other games, but I made a helluva lot of money popping pods at sea.  Which I kinda hoarded and didn't aggressively utilize.  Just as well because my earlier minerals focus didn't get me any income from cities.

I might have the right idea with this, but I also am pretty burned out with any kind of playtesting, having filed plenty of Issues already.  I think all I'm going to say about the Pirates for now, is my jury's out about them.  "Clusters of sea minerals" definitely does boost minerals output in a few sea bases though.  There aren't going to be that many clusters available though, within a radius that gives reasonable EFFIC.

[MercantileInterest]

This line in thinker.ini:

; Faction placement can also add two nutrient bonuses for each land-based faction.
; 0 = disable for all, 1 = enable for AIs only, 2 = enable for all.
nutrient_bonus=2

No longer seems to work on premade maps like the map of planet. Still works fine on randomly generated maps. A deliberate change?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

This line in thinker.ini:

; Faction placement can also add two nutrient bonuses for each land-based faction.
; 0 = disable for all, 1 = enable for AIs only, 2 = enable for all.
nutrient_bonus=2

No longer seems to work on premade maps like the map of planet. Still works fine on randomly generated maps. A deliberate change?

This is Thinker property and, honestly, I don't even understand what is it about. I would suggest to test it in pure Thinker installation first.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Folks,

Since bvanevery started testing he found a lot of not synced entries in Data Links. Anybody is interested in co-authoring the mod and cleanup all text files? I really don't have a lot of time now due to work.

😃

[bvanevery]

In fairness, the number of document cleanup issues I put in the GitHub Issue Tracker, is fairly small.  It's a minor gig.  I don't currently want commit rights on WTP.  At this time, I think it's important that I keep a clean separation of being "only a playtester", since I have my own mod to highlight.  I'm a little "fork and pull request" challenged too.  The document changes are so small that they really shouldn't need that.  It's more like, exercise some judgment, make 1 or 2 sentence changes, then cut and paste them in.  I did a lot of playtesting work to even discover these various things; feel I "did my part" in that regard.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

You did, man.

[bvanevery]

 

Well that's what Issue Trackers are for.  To let things sit around a long time until someone finally wishes to deal with them.  When they're not burning down the house.

[bvanevery]

Terminating my game with version 252.  AFAIAC I am winning.

Details absurd stockpile

absurd stockpile

It seems I've finally cracked the productivity code.  One must have a city with a good supply of starting minerals, and then a Recycling Tank, and then a Genejack Factory.  The trick is being able to keep people happy enough to have this, and also being able to afford the maintenance cost of this.  As I had very good minerals deposits right at the beginning of the game, I built 3 GFs later on.  Then I had severe maintenance cost problems for awhile, causing me to go through a phase of Stockpiling Energy.  If I had only built 1 and used it as something of a supercenter, such as for building SPs, I would have probably been more efficient.

Eventually my productivity became so legion, that I sat around building Conventional Missiles, for lack of anything better to do.  This tech was obtained from my ally Zhakarov.  Shortly after that, he stopped giving me any techs.  I still had plenty of armaments to stomp anything that could possibly get near me.  And frankly, by MY 2280 things weren't still quite getting near me.

I deliberately expanded towards the coast early in the game, figuring that I would need naval bases later on, to wipe out encroaching sea bases.  Clearing enemies out of the oceans has been completely trivial.  They have no defense against a Fusion Laser, and even if they did, I've got 37 CMs.  It's pretty silly really.  I have far more productivity than I know what to do with.

I've been attacking enemies, taking 1 city, gaining a Treaty, and telling them to knock off their wars with everyone.  Then I talk to Zhakarov, who always still seems to manage to be at war with someone.  Then I say, "Sure I'll help you!" and I wonder why I'm bothering, because he doesn't give me anything anymore.  It doesn't make any sense to try to out-compete him on tech.  I've done Police State Planned forever, avoided Cybernetic because of the POLICE penalty and useless EFFIC, and even avoided Knowledge when that finally came available.

To actually win this game, the logical thing to do, would be to devour my ally Zhakarov.  I just see that as incredibly inefficient, as I could have done plenty of things way earlier in the game.  Might as well bag this and move on to version 255.

It is worth noting that I've suffered no significant consequences for so many big minerals cities.  Planet never floods.  I did get recurring popups of 8 mindworms, but with Trance garrisons and cheap Empath attackers, they are easily vanquished.

[bvanevery]

I played a game as the Caretakers until MY 2282.  Using directed research I was able to beeline to Recycling Tanks, and soon after to Genejack Factories.  I built a super-capitol and eventually built up more highly vertical, high minerals cities.  The Spartans were weak and spammy next to me, but it was a stalemate because I wanted to build SPs.

I also took over the Monsoon Jungle on a different continent just to the north.  The Believers were unbelievably spammy up there, and that's the main reason I quit at 2:15 AM.  I built most of the SPs available, but after many hours it's just too tedious putting up with the computer's spam.  I don't know where the Believers are getting all the colony pods from, to just sacrifice them like cannon fodder and keep my front line of mindworms busy.  But it gets dull.  Those aren't the only things they sent my way, they were making an effort to fight me, but there is so much unit pushing.

I had planes but didn't make much use of them.  When you have to invest so heavily just to have a viable Command Center, it doesn't make sense to build Aerospace Complexes in those cities.  I had some ACs coming online fairly soon.

Moving on to a more recent release.

[bvanevery]

Details evidence of productivity

evidence of productivity

Version 256.  I played until MY 2278, at which time I decided my stomping of Planet was a foregone conclusion.  I've all but wiped out the Cyborgs, who were actually my allies until someone framed me.

I've been Fundamentalist almost the entire game.  It was a good fit to the Data Angels' lack of research.  And, as I've been saying in the Issue Tracker and Reddit, research is unnecessary.  The only faction with a lot more tech than me was the University, and they were getting picked on by some neighbors.  They were maybe 6 techs ahead and it's obviously not important.  Everybody else, they might have 1 tech that I don't.

Only after recently completing the Xenoempathy Dome did I bother with Green.  Also my amount of conquest was getting silly and I needed the happiness boost.

The winning strategy of the game is establishing massive early productivity.  The AIs don't have anything remotely like my level of output.  I just grabbed all the good minerals immediately, and used my supply pod money to put Recycling Tanks on top of all the ones that had Minerals specials.  I never built a single Genejack Factory this game.  For quite awhile, I was worried about being able to afford them.  Then eventually it turned out I didn't need them.

The AI spams too much and doesn't focus on productivity.  Getting a big early minerals lead makes it very easy to win the SP races.  When I let the Command Nexus go, I was doing just fine spitting garrison units out of 1 city.  When I let the Maritime Control Center go, I was all but landlocked.  I didn't put a single military ship to sea the whole game.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I've been Fundamentalist almost the entire game.  It was a good fit to the Data Angels' lack of research.  And, as I've been saying in the Issue Tracker and Reddit, research is unnecessary.

Err, obviously, research is unnecessary. For Angels. Especially with their ability to get it without even establishing data link.
😁

[bvanevery]

Research hasn't been necessary for any faction I've played.  Allies will give you sufficient tech or sell it very cheap.  This is all in that Issue I filed, that I think you closed without taking any action on it.

I've now filed an Issue about reverting the Recycling Tank to original game behavior.  It is a huge mistake to give away a cheap 50% mineral multiplier early in the game.  It has risen to the level of exploit because the AI doesn't know how to use it anywhere near as well as I do.  It would take a lot of AI programming to correct this... or you could just admit that in light of the needs of writing AIs, some rules changes are a bad idea and shouldn't be done.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Research hasn't been necessary for any faction I've played.  Allies will give you sufficient tech or sell it very cheap.  This is all in that Issue I filed, that I think you closed without taking any action on it.

In my perception I research about 50-60% of tech, trade/buy 20% and steal 20%. I don't feel like trading and stealing can provide a sustainable flow of contemporary techs. They are good means to catch up with others as long as I already have some lump number of them researched by me already. Besides, there is nothing to trade.

Even now I don't feel AI willing to trade all the time. One need to maintain pretty good relationships to keep it flowing. Stealing is also not an infinite solution: worsening relationships, less and less chance of stealing, border bases are exhausted, deep penetration into enemy territory is almost impossible. So one will either trade with other faction when in peace or steal from it when at war but both approaches are limited.

I never tried to not research at all (not being Angels and without The Planetary Datalinks) and see how I will keep up. If this proves to be absolutely viable then sure - we can conclude this is not needed.

I've now filed an Issue about reverting the Recycling Tank to original game behavior.  It is a huge mistake to give away a cheap 50% mineral multiplier early in the game.  It has risen to the level of exploit because the AI doesn't know how to use it anywhere near as well as I do.  It would take a lot of AI programming to correct this... or you could just admit that in light of the needs of writing AIs, some rules changes are a bad idea and shouldn't be done.

I am correcting programming to emphasize mineral multiplying facilities and testing now. Hopefully, they will do better on that. Thank you for pointing this out.

At the same time I have balanced mineral and energy multiplying facilities even further. Mineral facilities cost a little more now. That should be a solution for "cheap" part.
Keep in mind, though, that any multiplication is "cheap" in some way because they will pay for themselves in certain number of turn (more or less) and then provide free surplus.

[bvanevery]

The Free Drones are an obvious fit to "no research" play style.  I'm currently testing them, still with version 256 as that's what I started with.  They're off to a good start, as their supply of "better minerals" turned out to be the Monsoon Jungle near their starting position.  Lotta fungus in the way, so it wasn't a complete giveaway as to how I got there, but basically my first 2 bases are functioning only as colony pod spewers.  I already long since got Recycling Tanks capability as I set my research to Discover, Build at the beginning.  After I got Biogenetics, I went to Build only.  Then allies sold me Social Psych and I switched to Conquer, hoping to begin the Command Nexus at some point.

Biogenetics is only a D2 tech, it's not hard to get at all.  The only reason I wasn't getting it in many of my previous games, is I have usually tested from the AI's perspective, only sticking with their default research foci.  That's not valid for testing a human's ability to exploit the game, so I'm just researching what I need.  Allies as usual have given me a sufficient amount of techs, and no, this doesn't require any "maintenance" or "work" to get the gravy.

I've been pestered by some mindworms, and a little bit by the Usurpers.  With the Drones' absurd +2 INDUSTRY bonus, it certainly hasn't been anything resembling a problem.  My plan is to finish grabbing all of the Monsoon Jungle, then build the Recycling Tanks.  I think the Usurpers will then be summarily overrun.  The Hive is nearby over the water, and jerky to me.  I'll post again about it when these stompings are completed.

Early linear scaling bonuses to minerals is a very bad idea.  Recycling Tanks in the original game are ok because they're a constant bonus, not linear.  Helps out a lot with early bases when a constant bonus is proportionately more.  Doesn't matter as much as bases get bigger.  Same with a Biology Lab.