SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Nexii]

I actually tried to create one but couldn't  Overpowered?

They're buildable if you enable in alphax.txt but they don't work unfortunately

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

# Version 60

* AAA Tracking cost is 2.

Changing effect requires code patch. So being lazy I've changed the cost instead. I believe it pretty much does the same.

Neddlejet 6-1-? vs. armored infantry 6-6-1 in open = 1:1 both in combat odds and economical losses
Neddlejet 6-1-? vs. armored AAA infantry 6-6-1 in open = 1:2 in combat odds and 1.5:2 in economical losses
Neddlejet 6-1-? vs. armored foil 6-6-4 = 1:1 in combat odds and 1.5:1 in economical losses
Neddlejet 6-1-? vs. armored foil 6-6-4 = 1:2 in combat odds and 2.25:2 in economical losses

So AAA still makes units slightly more effectively protected against air attacks. However, not that significantly that one should slap it on each and every of them. There is a high chance such unit will fight in non air combat and then this ability will be just a waste of minerals. So it is beneficial to use it but only under heavy air pressure.
At the same time using air superiority is still a best way to deal with enemy air fleet.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

# Version 61

* Fixed adavanced movement cost again. This time everything that is treated as road movement is corrected to have road movement cost.

I think I'm done with fixing this. 🙄
Apparently, there are many other movements treated as roads. For example, natives in fungus, etc. This time I just let game calculate movement cost and if it believes unit is moving along road (cost = 1) I change it to correct road movement cost except when it moves along tubes. That should fix all available road like movements!

Please take this update if you already have # Version 55 of above.

[lolada]

Some feedback! Movement seems to work fine now. Power is nice and usable - Support is really nice bonus and -1 industry is tankable - much more pleasant to play with it, AI is likely better as well. I presume Green will be the same.

Some observations - this is Pirates at -2 efficiency ruining lots of their lead ^^. Did you maybe consider modding a bit efficiency formula so its not that evil on negative side?



Here is much closer city to HQ.. quite inefficient, but we know that i guess. Here Pirates are ruining themselves with - Support. I looked at other bases as well - their production is really crap. AI with good support is much better, like Miriam - guys in SE choices are discussing this. Going light with support minuses would improve AI a lot (Thought Control is -3, Democracy -2).



I also posted this screenshot due to AI using 1-0-0 tiles or 0-1-0, 1-1-0, this would be nice to improve if possible. Its maybe for Induktio? AI could use specialist - Engineers are quite nice and available now for example and they are using these crap tiles.

Gonna see to try to finish this game to see lategame changes.

Some terraforming - looks cool. Seems that condenser nerf is real nice thing - its not worth to spam them mindlessly as before - i went on and place more echelon mirrors because the land was already green. Forests are useful as well and quite nice with +2 Economy.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Some observations - this is Pirates at -2 efficiency ruining lots of their lead ^^. Did you maybe consider modding a bit efficiency formula so its not that evil on negative side?

Definitely, I am up to it. However, first we need to understand what is going on here. Why they are 100% corruption with only -2 EFFICIENCY???
Do they have HQ? How far is this base from it? Please send me a save.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Here is much closer city to HQ.. quite inefficient, but we know that i guess. Here Pirates are ruining themselves with - Support. I looked at other bases as well - their production is really crap. AI with good support is much better, like Miriam - guys in SE choices are discussing this. Going light with support minuses would improve AI a lot (Thought Control is -3, Democracy -2).

That is true too. However, keep in mind that SUPPORT is strong but its increments are just +1 unit support at a time. So it doesn't matter if faction has +1 SUPPORT bonus. It does help very little comparing to good terrafoming, for exampe, that can easily give you +4 minerals or something like that.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I also posted this screenshot due to AI using 1-0-0 tiles or 0-1-0, 1-1-0, this would be nice to improve if possible. Its maybe for Induktio? AI could use specialist - Engineers are quite nice and available now for example and they are using these crap tiles.

Yes. I replied there. The thing is that AI may not be taught to prefer engineer (+3 eco) to 1 mineral as it didn't hurry production in vanilla. Also hurrying in vanilla is not always flat. So all in all 1 min could be better or equal to 3 eco. In WtP it is somewhat relaxed so 3 eco could be slightly better all the time.

[lolada]

Here saves.. posted two if you want to have some fun trying to win war vs Miriam ^^ she's  brutal, but its quite fun. In later save i have  pact with pirates so you can peak into their bases.

Basically its just that -2 efficiency is strong - you could come up with some formula/function that scales linearly in negative values, current one is very punishing. Aliens do the same they like to pick Planned and they tend to lag a lot in tech by late midgame. You SE choices are fine, imo, you have at two places -1 efficiency its nothing.

Same with Support - its great stat to have - the thing is that dumb AI does not know when to stop producing useless units. Go through Pirate bases their production is sad - three bases next to my continent have 9/10/11 pop and total of 4 usable minerals eghm.. its hard to balance them - pirates are leading the game from beginning. Looks like they could use some +support..

[Hagen0]

Specialists are great if you have drone or efficency issues. Otherwise working tiles is better. It would be preferable to fix AI working bad tiles by improving its terraforming.

Same thing with support. The core issue with the Pirate base in the picture is not support cost but that the resource input is low.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Basically its just that -2 efficiency is strong - you could come up with some formula/function that scales linearly in negative values, current one is very punishing. Aliens do the same they like to pick Planned and they tend to lag a lot in tech by late midgame. You SE choices are fine, imo, you have at two places -1 efficiency its nothing.

It may be feasible to implement but first we need to decide how exactly to change it. It is quite convoluted currently and affects *many* things. Any change to it is unpredictable.

Same with Support - its great stat to have - the thing is that dumb AI does not know when to stop producing useless units. Go through Pirate bases their production is sad - three bases next to my continent have 9/10/11 pop and total of 4 usable minerals eghm.. its hard to balance them - pirates are leading the game from beginning. Looks like they could use some +support..

That is a different story - to make AI not producing useless units. I don't know how to do it.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Specialists are great if you have drone or efficency issues. Otherwise working tiles is better. It would be preferable to fix AI working bad tiles by improving its terraforming.

Same thing with support. The core issue with the Pirate base in the picture is not support cost but that the resource input is low.

Golden words, man. Terraforming beats everything. It worth to improve it first then thing about everything else.

[Nexii]

Negative EFFIC has always been that way. It's why I got rid of it as a SE penalty. If you played Civ2 the equivalents are roughly
-1 EFFIC -> Anarchy
0 EFFIC -> Despotism
1 EFFIC -> Monarchy
2 EFFIC -> Fundamentalism
3 EFFIC -> Republic
Infinite EFFIC -> Democracy, Communism

So as you can see -4, -3, -2 are completely off the scale. Unmodded Police State and Planned were not good for anyone but Yang. I suppose other factions could do Demo+Planned just to boom, but Planned on its own wasn't very good.

I had a better EFFIC formula in mind in the Thinker thread. There's other issues. EFFIC was meant to prevent ICS through B-drones but that mechanic wasn't sufficient.

[Hagen0]

That's not true. You could do Police State with most factions early on as long as your faction is very compact.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I had a better EFFIC formula in mind in the Thinker thread.

Can you share a link? I am lazy to read it all over again.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Here saves.. posted two if you want to have some fun trying to win war vs Miriam ^^ she's  brutal, but its quite fun. In later save i have  pact with pirates so you can peak into their bases.

Basically its just that -2 efficiency is strong - you could come up with some formula/function that scales linearly in negative values, current one is very punishing. Aliens do the same they like to pick Planned and they tend to lag a lot in tech by late midgame. You SE choices are fine, imo, you have at two places -1 efficiency its nothing.

Answer on your first question is: the calculation is correct. Look up inefficiency formula in advanced concepts. It is often quite possible to lose all energy to an inefficiency when you are far from HQ.

Another thing is that this formula is quite stupid and doesn't account for map size. But this is a different topic.