SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Version 57 with specialists change.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-57

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Specialists are a fine choice for factions that have problems with Energy/Research from tiles (like Yang). They need to be decently strong to remain an option.

That's why I didn't dance on them too much. Just moved to later in 57. I guess this is a lesser evil.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Attached is the WTP tech tree.
Observations:
- I like a lot of the early tech progression from a gameplay perspective.
- Tech progression is consistently illogical from a flavour perspective, the late game in particular is a hot mess. 
- The alien technologies serve no purpose, make techprogression illogical (ie. Field Modulation grants Aqua Farms for some reason, it also makes no sense as an early tech) and worsen the problem that advances are spread out a bit too thin. (That's an issue with Smax not the mod.)

OMG. How did you generate it? Nice work. Thank you. I probably may include it with the distribution. However, it is ever changing target. Would be difficult to support.

Yes, if you look at tech names and not features they uncover then it is completely illogical. Building completely concise and perfectly linked list of technologies is a hard work by itself even without regard to their features.

Vanilla is not better. It is just nobody criticized it taking it for granted as holy scripture that cannot be wrong.
How Progenitor Psych granting Aquafarm is at all different in making sense? I just moved it from one alien tech to another. These water facilities seem to be tied to alien tech in SMAX for some reason.

- A lot of overpowered advances seem to have been nerfed out of existence by placing them two seconds before Transcendence.

Yeah. That is how it was planned. Actually big part of it is user requests which makes sense.

[Hagen0]

Yeah, that was my point. I'm not criticizing the mod here. Aqua Farms should be granted by some Former or Centauri tech. The were put with Progenitor Psych because Progenitor Psych needed something not because it made any sense. Progenitor Psych is a completely superfluous doubling of Social Psych and the game would be better without it. Almost all of the alien technologies are like that.

I wonder if some of the overpowered mechanics can be salvaged.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Yeah, that was my point. I'm not criticizing the mod here. Aqua Farms should be granted by some Former or Centauri tech. The were put with Progenitor Psych because Progenitor Psych needed something not because it made any sense. Progenitor Psych is a completely superfluous doubling of Social Psych and the game would be better without it. Almost all of the alien technologies are like that.

Somebody may make an excellent argument that all these water facilities came in SMAX. Ergo they were brought by aliens. Therefore, sitting in alien tech makes perfect sense. See. One can absolutely build irrefutable chain of conclusions and explain anything! 😜

I wonder if some of the overpowered mechanics can be salvaged.

Huh?

[bvanevery]

I have now posted a .zip of my mod 1.43 beta for those interested in my tech tree, or other aspects of my mod.

Attached is the WTP tech tree.

I guess you have an automated way of generating that.  Does the tool have a public repository?

Do you have a way of making it fit more readably on a conceptual sheet of paper?  When I look at it in a web browser, I have to jack it to 200% to make it legible.  That by itself is not so troublesome, but I also have to scroll to see the whole thing.  I believe I would be scrolling less if it was more fitted to the dimensions of a monitor screen.

(ie. Field Modulation grants Aqua Farms for some reason, it also makes no sense as an early tech)

Aquafarm originally came with Progenitor Psych.  Also an alien tech, and also doesn't make any sense.  The reason it doesn't make any sense and the "Aliens brought it" argument is bogus, is there's nothing exotic sounding about an Aquafarm at all.  Sounds like something we do on Earth.   Furthermore Svensgaard gets the completion lines about it, not the Aliens.  There's no Alien lore to go with its inclusion in an Alien tech.  It's pretty much just lame expansion pack stuff, obviously there because they wanted to shove it in somehow, and didn't want to disrupt existing techs.

Also turned out to be overpowered and not something one should just give away as a Tier 1 tech.  I recently moved it to Tier 5, same as Soil Enrichers.  Only recently have I started to learn how to exploit an Aquafarm, because I wasn't getting my Tree Farms in the timeframe I was used to.  I got so much food, that I started questioning why anyone would build Tree Farms, at least in a coastal city.  I re-homed Aquafarm to B5 Advanced Ecological Engineering, where I also give Soil Enricher, Hybrid Forest, and Super Formers.

Field Modulation has given 3-Res armor, but I think WTP doesn't give that armor at all, and I don't give it to the Aliens gratis for free at the start of the game.  I nerfed them.  They still have to get Field Modulation and Progenitor Psych to be aliens, that can't be avoided, short of not giving the techs at all.  I've decided to give them the Cloaking Field (slightly renamed) and Hypnotic Trance, respectively.  Cloaks are useless in practice.  The AI just ignores them.  They can allow one to avoid zones of control and that's not a completely useless ability, but it's not particularly worth paying extra for in most cases.  Hypnotic Trance, well it's just my flavor that the Aliens figured this out, not the humans.  I think both choices are lore fits.

I have Field Modulation as a Conquer 2 tech.  I have Progenitor Psych as Explore 3.  I'm making it a bit more difficult to get Trance in my mod, if you're not an Alien.  This is to increase the early challenge value of dealing with mindworms.  Trance is not a free ability in my mod, it costs 1, so even Aliens don't typically build Trance units at the beginning of the game.

Making PrPsych a Tier 3 tech, has the interesting play mechanical consequence that Aliens decide to talk to you, and not vice versa.  Unless of course you're playing an Alien, in which case you decide how long you want to delay Rec Commons to avoid talking to the pesky humans.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I have now posted a .zip of my mod 1.43 beta for those interested in my tech tree, or other aspects of my mod.

Thank you, man. Just reviewed it.

I don't want to offend you with criticism. However, since you claimed to polished your tech tree and tied all the ends with lore, I'll allow myself few cautious notes.

First of all, do you have your lore explained somewhere or you just feel it is right? If latter, then I would refrain from arguing about it as, obviously, everybody has their own feeling what is right. Especially, in the field of futuristic science fiction where everything is theoretically possible.

One example of that could be the very second tech in your list.
Industrial Base,            Indust,  0, 0, 4, 3, Ecology, DocFlex, 000000000
I cannot yet absorb how anything industrial may stem from ecology. That is by definition a force opposing any industrialization. Flexibility, in its turn, is a military doctrine. There is kinda far leap from military operations to industrialization. I mean, anybody can build a conclusion chain between them saying something like: "ecology forced industry to be clean and thus improving on quality" or "military operations require advance in industry". Which may sound well for some and not well for some others.

Let me reiterate that I don't tell that your tree design is bad or good. I just illustrate how any design can be seen from either side. There is no definitive say whether some connection is good or bad.

[Nexii]

I'd have to give more thought to a tech tree rework. Specialisations that don't cross over enough can lead to strange illogical results. It'd be like as said, having Flight in Civ2 before discovering The Wheel. Which I think might have actually been possible as I recall. Or in SMAC equivalent perhaps something like having Fusion Power before Laser weapons. As most early fusion reactors we're working on now are laser triggered.

The progression from say Centauri Ecology > Centauri Empathy > Centauri Meditation > Centauri Genetics > Centauri PSI > Secrets of Alpha Centauri is kind of obvious. But the secondary techs that each one should require is less obvious. There probably does need to be interweaving between the 'tech groups', for balance reasons and lore. Though maybe not as much as in the stock tech trees. I'd have to think about it.

I could see weapons and armor interweaving
research a bit with everything
native life, genetics, & nutrient terraforming
economics, industry, & mineral/energy terraforming
SE techs are harder to place. They probably should be scattered according to their benefits

[bvanevery]

First of all, do you have your lore explained somewhere or you just feel it is right? If latter, then I would refrain from arguing about it as, obviously, everybody has their own feeling what is right.

Well obviously I'm right and you're not.     More seriously, I will argue such things, and have a firm basis for everything.

I cannot yet absorb how anything industrial may stem from ecology.

I have assumed that my mod will be played by people who have already played SMAC.  This might not be strictly true, there might be a few people who skip straight to my mod without bothering with SMAC much.   I generally advise people to play SMAC first, to understand the original.  Among other things, that's the only way they're going to know that I actually improved anything.  Now a very experienced 4X TBS player, however, might want to just get on with "a better challenge and play experience" more quickly.  So I've advised them to start with SMAC, but move on quickly.  They might move on before they've mastered the tech tree, and that is the only corner case where I can see your point of view having any merit at all.

This is SMAC.  Players know what Centauri Ecology is and that it gives Formers.  Moreover, I made it a Yellow Build tech.  It's obvious as rocks that Industrial Base is the next Yellow Build tech.  You really should refrain from reading only text files, and instead crank up the game in a new installation like I suggested.  So you are experiencing what a player sees.  Not what you personally have come to internalize as a game designer and modder.  You've got biases and blind spots.

That is by definition a force opposing any industrialization.

Complain to Brian Reynolds.  He gaveth usth teh Former, which ravageth The Land.
 


Look seriously, it's not my agenda to completely redesign the experience of SMAC.  Far from it.  I preserve the experience where I can.  You're supposed to know what a Former does already.  It's not an organic permaculture tool.  I'm not going to rename Centauri Ecology, there's no valid reason to do that.  And who says I'm going to study its ecology to harmonize and sing kumbaya with it?  I might want to rape the minerals out of it and strip the land.  In fact, that's exactly what I had in mind, so I changed it to Yellow Build.

Flexibility, in its turn, is a military doctrine.

It's actually a Green Explore tech in the original game.  I've had it as a Red Conquer tech a lot of the time in my mod.  Eventually I needed a Tier 1 Explore tech, so I changed it back.  It is cross-listed as Conquer, moreso than the original game actually.

There is kinda far leap from military operations to industrialization.

We've already established that you're wrong about DocFlex and you need to drop your personal preconception of it.  It is Explore first, Conquer second.  Always has been, except when modders did something to it.  And we were wrong.   

Experienced players know that Industrial Base gives the Recycling Tank.  I didn't change that.  My change to Industrial Base, was putting Synthmetal Armor somewhere else, in its own distinct Conquer tech.  "Explore" in my mod is always about colonization, growth, exploration, mindworms, and making people happy.  Only the last aspect is different in my mod, from the original game.  The Recycling Tank gives food, minerals, and energy, and that's all Industrial Base does for you now.  So an Explore + Build tech --> a Build tech that's also giving you a little food.  There's no problem here.  You don't have to figure this out instantly, but my use of "what research categories are for" is consistent throughout my tree.  I challenge you to find any instance where it isn't.  You're going to be looking rather hard for awhile.  There may not be any warts nowadays.

When / if you take tech tree transition design seriously, you are going to find that you have to satisfy a lot of constraints and you can't always meet them.  You will run out of techs, for places you might like to have them in the tree.  I'm currently working in a system with 6 Tier 1 techs.  This has structural consequences.  I've had more at Tier 1, and I've had less.  The lowest was 5, and that was pretty cramped and dodgy.

Ha ha, the crossed out bit above, it seems I did change that.  I just did it so long ago, that I forgot.  In stock it comes with D1 Biogenetics.  Not wrong in terms of narrative, sure you might come up with better ways to recycle that way.  But it's wrong in terms of research focus.  A Recyling Tank doesn't give you more research or LABS effectiveness.  It does give you more food, minerals, and money, that's why I have it as a Build tech.

My D1 Biogenetics gives a Biology Lab.  Which does give you more LABS effectiveness.  See, I fixed what they did wrong.

Second strike-through.  For got my B2 Industrial Base gives Capitalist economic model.  How could I forget that??   

There is no definitive say whether some connection is good or bad.

What the original game did, adds some weight to the decisionmaking.  Except of course where they completely screwed it up.

Also, I differ from the original game on 2 basic policies.  We've already covered where Happiness goes, I've made a different choice that I think is logical.  The other is where do weapons and armors go.  Unlike the original game, I do not sprinkle or toss any faction a bone.  You want weapons or armor?  You study Conquer.  Period.  The End.

[Nexii]

It depends where you start, my initial thought was to just look at the tech names in isolation. What priorities (explore, discover, build, conquer) come to mind looking at the tech without consideration of what benefits it traditionally gave. As I went through the list it was about 1/4 of each split, a few were hard to place in a single priority. Example: Environmental Economics, is 50% explore 50% build. Of course an even split may not be practical in purpose due to the wide range of weapons, armors, unit chassis, and abilities in game. So either some non-conquer techs need to give military benefits OR we accept conquer having the most techs.

So with that approach Centauri Ecology felt "explore" to me knowing nothing else about what it does. However you're right, formers aren't "explore" in their function. They're definitely build foremost. So perhaps Centauri Ecology shouldn't be the tech to get formers. Maybe then it should be the most simple sounding "build" tech. Which would be Industrial Base. So something as simple as the very first techs can be debated

[bvanevery]

So either some non-conquer techs need to give military benefits OR we accept conquer having the most techs.

I took the latter as "the high road" of game design.  The biggest one that bugged me in the original game, was E6 Synthetic Fossil Fuels.  WTF is Deidre getting a Missile Launcher for?  What did she ever do to earn such a thing?  Nothing.  In terms of lore or rational progress it's a joke, a travesty.  And Deirdre doesn't even get the lines for the quote.  Morgan does!  So I was like, this is totally stupid, and this has gotta go.  No "sprinkling" weapons and armors, just because we feel sorry for somebody.

My choice has had long term consequences.  You might argue that my regime in 1.43, is the final resolution and logical conclusion to the problem.  Now every faction has a unique combo of 1, 2, or 3 research foci.  This is because a pure Conquer focus doesn't basically work, in my mod.  I think the Spartans can pull it off sometimes, if they have good enough land to start with.  And the Usurpers did ok with it, probably because of Directed Research.  But nobody else has done well with it.  So now there's a new Sheriff in town, and its name is Combo Research.

So with that approach Centauri Ecology felt "explore" to me knowing nothing else about what it does. However you're right, formers aren't "explore" in their function. They're definitely build foremost. So perhaps Centauri Ecology shouldn't be the tech to get formers.

Yes making it all "Deirdre Green" was off in the original.  But the name has recognizability for veteran players.  There also aren't enough techs to just get new techs for everything, when you pursue all "warts" to their logical conclusions.  You have to assign things, and as a default, it's better to stick to things players are a bit familiar with.  My compromise was to change it from Explore to Build, based on function, not name.  And that has been my consistent policy.  I can only satisfy so many constraints at once.

I don't think I'd write a brand new game like this.  It takes a lot of upheaval to move things around in the tech tree.

Maybe then it should be the most simple sounding "build" tech. Which would be Industrial Base.

I've done that before.  It's gone back and forth between Build 1 and Build 2.  I've also left Centauri Ecology at Tier 1.  The difficulty you run into, is needing to have prereqs for Tier 2 techs, and then Tier 3, etc.  It's a lot of Tetris-like puzzle fitting.  The result at Tier 1 may not be so much what's "ideally best" for techs at Tier 1, but because there are constraints being "felt" all the way up in Tier 3.  You only have so many techs to work with.  And they've all got hardwired quotes and voice acting, that you might ideally like to respect as well.

One of my constraints is I don't allow any SPs until Tier 3.  So I have B3 Industrial Economics, giving the Energy Bank and the Merchant Exchange.  I gotta have Build techs that lead in tiers up to that.  This is pretty much why my Industrial Base is Tier 2.

I will think about whether you have proposed enough logic, that I could actually free up and repurpose Centauri Ecology for something else.  Whether that would be beneficial.  Freeing up a tech this "late" in my tech tree maturity, is always an interesting discovery.  Logic pushes it to be "higher up the Explore tree" though, and I'm not sure I really need any techs there.  Plus it still has to be fairly early, in terms of name transitions.  Ecology before Empathy, certainly.

Hmm, playing "mental Tetris" in my own mod, I'm not seeing a basis for improvement that way.  I have my B2 Industrial Base giving Capitalist, and that's a good government fit.  I give out Politics and Economics on Tier 2.  If Industrial Base went to Tier 1, Industrial Economics would have to slide down to Tier 2 and give Capitalist.  I'd now need a B3 tech that gives the Merchant Exchange, and I don't have one.  In the original game, Adaptive Economics might have filled that hole, but it's in use for my Socialist.  That's the best narrative fit there is, the Aliens are clearly talking about Socialism.  I have important Build stuff on Tier 4 and they're not moving anywhere.

So although I could comment on tech transition desires in WTP, I can't actually make use of such a suggestion myself.  I have some constraints.

Ok this has caused me to stare at my early tech tree pretty hard.  I'm not really happy with my E3 Cyberethics.  Functionally it's fine, but as a tech name, it's a wart.  More Tetris...

[Nexii]

When using the stock tech tree, I found I had more the opposite feeling. That there were more techs than useful things to give them. Especially in the back half of the game. I guess I can see how pushing SPs later might reverse that.

Also, I liked to pair every free facility SP with its facility. The ones that didn't felt odd to me. It was the feeling of your new tech being negated by the possibility of a future SP that you couldn't even start yet. Which didn't even make sense, if you can build it individually in each base, why is more tech required to build a superproject for all bases? The only place this strictly can't be done is Virtual World. But as long as VW's tech allows holo theatres, and NN comes before, I have less issue with it

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

So with that approach Centauri Ecology felt "explore" to me knowing nothing else about what it does. However you're right, formers aren't "explore" in their function. They're definitely build foremost. So perhaps Centauri Ecology shouldn't be the tech to get formers. Maybe then it should be the most simple sounding "build" tech. Which would be Industrial Base. So something as simple as the very first techs can be debated

A lot of it can be fixed with renaming. Say if we want the tech to unlock formers and we perceive terraforming as this tech major feature then why don't we just call it something like Basic Terraforming or Terraforming Base for simplicity sake?

I guess one group of designers came up with a set of cool names and then others just shove features in them as they see fit. Or it could be the same person on different days. 😅

[bvanevery]

Also, I liked to pair every free facility SP with its facility.

I've often done that, but it hasn't always been a good idea for the stock AI.  Although Thinker Mod code might have more brains, I would assume stock behavior until proven otherwise.

For instance, if you give Hologram Theaters and the Virtual World in the same tech, the AI will uselessly build HTs when it doesn't need to, before the VW is completed.  That's how I ended up with my E3 Cyberethics wart.  It gives the HT on a parallel path, so that if you're Discover focused you build the VW, but if you're Explore focused you build HTs.  The fallout of that kludge is Cyberethics is not a very good name for much.  It does give the Human Genome Project and I'm hand waving that editing human genetics might be a sketchy idea.  I actually wanted it to be paired with Research Hospital, but I decided that needed to be moved to Tier 4.

And this is the sort of thing you get into, over 2 years of modding.

Another example would be, I think Command Centers need to come a lot earlier than Tier 3 in my mod.  I've got the Command Nexus at Tier 3.  Even a Tier 2 tech can take a long time to get in my mod, because there are a bunch of them.  Sure they are freely traded, but who says you ran into a willing trading partner?

why is more tech required to build a superproject for all bases?

In the case of the Planetary Energy Grid, because it is too damn powerful to let it go that cheaply.  And players may very well need an Energy Bank before it's appropriate to let them have an Energy Bank everywhere.  I've fretted back and forth about the issue you raised though.  I didn't like that I was not building Energy Banks, just in case I might finish the Grid.  I often found myself building Tree Farms before Energy Banks, because there's no "Tree Farms everywhere" SP.  My current compromise is that the Grid "lags" the Energy Banks.  Tier 4 vs. Tier 3.  And it's not so easy to climb up one of my tiers.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

When using the stock tech tree, I found I had more the opposite feeling. That there were more techs than useful things to give them. Especially in the back half of the game. I guess I can see how pushing SPs later might reverse that.

Also, I liked to pair every free facility SP with its facility. The ones that didn't felt odd to me. It was the feeling of your new tech being negated by the possibility of a future SP that you couldn't even start yet. Which didn't even make sense, if you can build it individually in each base, why is more tech required to build a superproject for all bases? The only place this strictly can't be done is Virtual World. But as long as VW's tech allows holo theatres, and NN comes before, I have less issue with it

First of all, facility giving SPs is a lack of designers imagination. Indeed, there is not point in negating buildings. Besides, replacing the facility it is not unique. Others may just build them. Maybe for bigger cost/maintenance but still. Such SPs give just pure economical advantage. And there are like 10 of them. So you get more and more same exactly economical advantage. Boring.
So there is no point in perfecting them. We sure can place it together with facility. It won't change much. One can as well build it and then sell already built facility - again for economical advantage. Nothing changes much.

Second, well it is more tech required to build a superproject for all bases. At least this sentence sounds like that. It is nice to see you using a clearly opposing argument to you benefit. 🤣