SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Nexii]

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

Yea it was more the idea. I hadn't put the actual formula. It would basically replace B-drones but work on a similar concept. Each base beyond your EFFIC cap would get inefficiency applied at an increasing rate.

The B-drone formula is BASE LIMIT = (8 - DIFFICULTY) * (4 + EFFIC) * MAPROOT / 2
As an example this is 6 bases on transcend (5) at 0 EFFIC on a normal map (1)

The idea was that each base beyond the cap would suffer inefficiency. In this case the 7th furthest base from the HQ would be the first affected. It would go down quite quickly for each base beyond that. Something like 5% per base on large maps, 10% on normal maps, 20% on small maps. So a base beyond the 16th on a normal map would produce no energy. Tying it to MAPROOT would make the most sense.

[lolada]

This is really ugly system - reminds me of civ 3 corruption, nobody wants useless bases. Yeah player can use specialists and AI has no clue about that and that then makes the game even worse. The game is much more enjoyable if AI is good - so efficiency system that does not punish faction so harsh would be way better for AI.

I know how the formula works so I have no issue with it - just avoid getting -2 or worse.. -1 is somewhat tankable, but obviously bad. One could chart those functions formula is not complicated. I was experimenting a bit at some points in my AAR game to see how it affects game practically: at -1 EFF loss was about 12% of energy thats ok-ish, -2 around 45%+ lel, didn't try -3... and we know -4 is total loss.

Btw @tnevolin Pirates are really awful with production - you should give them back that +1 mineral on sea at some point earlier. It takes ages for them to get that tech for +1 mineral platforms, they still don't have it.  They have strong start, but midgame and later they are terrible. I'll submit the save if you want to take a look. This is first save where I have Zakharov playing good ^^.

ps. Zakharov is using Green.. Power was also used thats going good. Lal is using fundamentalist and thought control ^^.

[Nexii]

Yea that's another aside. Econ and labs from specialists shouldn't avoid EFFIC penalties. Psych I suppose has to avoid it or bases could riot forever.

Perhaps going to 0% energy is a little much. Creches could get you back to some given %. And those far bases would still produce minerals. IMO it's the only way to curb ICS.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Btw @tnevolin Pirates are really awful with production - you should give them back that +1 mineral on sea at some point earlier. It takes ages for them to get that tech for +1 mineral platforms, they still don't have it.  They have strong start, but midgame and later they are terrible. I'll submit the save if you want to take a look.

It is either that or they are unstoppable with + 1 mineral. When I play with them as AI they *always* were about twice as strong as others. Now they are comparable. It makes them much worse OP than absence of it makes them weaker. Currently, without this bonus, it is difficult to compare their development path with land factions. It is completely different world. Water world. 😂

Seriously, though. I believe early game sea bases are just above the medium level. Terraforming is exceptionally easy and fast. In 10 turns you convert **any** tile into 3-0-3. Tough to buy units initially but if you hurry facilities (2 energy -> 1 mineral) this yield is about equivalent to 3-1-1. Which is comparable to terraformed rainy rolling land tile. You can run out of rainy rolling tiles on land but not on sea. So with smart management you get fast growing rich infrastructure bases. Plus you start getting mineral production just because of sheer population - directing some of them to platforms. The fact that AI is not tuned well to play aquatic is another story.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Yea that's another aside. Econ and labs from specialists shouldn't avoid EFFIC penalties. Psych I suppose has to avoid it or bases could riot forever.

Perhaps going to 0% energy is a little much. Creches could get you back to some given %. And those far bases would still produce minerals. IMO it's the only way to curb ICS.

Econ and labs from specialists does not avoid EFFIC penalties. It is just these penalties are not for eco/psy/lab. It is for raw energy intake. So the game is correct in its calculations.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

This is really ugly system - reminds me of civ 3 corruption, nobody wants useless bases.

The corruption was specifically introduced to hurt big empires and penalize city spamming and conquest. It seems it did the trick. Again the fact that human would exploit spamming and conquest much better than AI is a different story. If we teach it - people would stop complaining that corruption makes their life harder. They would turn opposite and start complaining to make corruption worse to stop AI in its unlimited spamming and conquest.

[Nexii]

I suppose it's a subjective thing. I don't really feel that effic/b-drones really slow down ICS all that much. Between minerals and specialists being exempt. Plus most bases don't suffer that much inefficiency since it's by distance. As long as you don't run low EFFIC

[lolada]

I suppose it's a subjective thing. I don't really feel that effic/b-drones really slow down ICS all that much. Between minerals and specialists being exempt. Plus most bases don't suffer that much inefficiency since it's by distance. As long as you don't run low EFFIC

Yes I agree it does not really slow down ICS that much / it nerfs it ofcourse, after a while even pop 1 cities start with a drone. It kind of forces player to keep EFF in positives. Thinker AI for example spams bases similar to player - but is not as smart to keep away from -2, -3 EFF. In that sense changing negative EFF effects to be not too punishing is a good idea.
I kind of like Alpha Centauri EFF system and drones - its not too restricting - its way better then what some Civilization games did. This talk is just about helping AI, player can do perfectly fine.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Proposal for corruption modification. I don't plan to immediate implementation but since people complained about it being too harsh on lower levels.

I change terms and instead of corruption use usage. Meaning the effective energy usage produces more of it. Energy intake is split in three chunks.

1. Everybody gets 50% of energy regardless of EFFICIENCY rating. This is just to pay maintenance. Otherwise big negative values cause economical loss which is completely devastating to AI.
2. EFFICIENCY rating adds up to 25% from -4 to +4 linearly. I.e. one level gives 1/4/8 = 1/32 of total.
3. HQ adds up to 25% based on the distance from it. 25% in HQ, 0% at distance of 30 from it. This is about half way each side from the center of the normal map. Adjusted by mapsquare for different map sizes.

That achieves the following.
The worst rating still let you pay maintenance maybe just barely.
Large empires equally benefit from each EFFICIENCY level.
Compact empires are protected from bad ratings. HQ has 75% at -4 and 100% at 0 as well as all nearby bases.

Chunk split is subject for discussion.

[lolada]

Interesting idea, +1. I'll gladly test that. It would be also easy to tweak a bit if we want to make efficiency more powerful.

[Hagen0]

I reallly dislike the added randomness in the combat system. The armor/weapon equality in early game had the effect I anticipated. I had Roze's heavily armored units sitting next to my forest/sensor for 10+ turns. Neither side could attack so we were just staring at each other.

[lolada]

Brr lol ^^ Ok this is a bit crap haha..

So The Ascent to Trascendance cost 3000 minerals and Pirates are building it in base with 11 mineral per turn.. And rush it 106 turns to completion.. for approx. 4000 gold.
I had it way more completed and it costed 14000 to rush..

Looks like it would be a good idea to somehow limit AI rushing ^^. Would it be possible to limit SP rushing only when project is 50% complete with minerals..? So one cant rush like this. AI transcend has big discounts - that could be changed as well if first suggestion doesnt work?



AI rushing SP works quite well for other projects its cool they can get them. But this one eghmmmm.

[Nexii]

Hmm, 3% energy per effic isn't too bad. It might need a little more than that. Not much though any more than 5% would be overkill

It would fix the EFFIC scale. Right now my SE set doesn't allow for lower than 0 for that reason.

Though I think it doesn't do much to slow down ICS. 75% efficiency at any distance from the HQ at +4 EFFIC is a lot. I do think Thinker AI and various speedruns demonstrate how strong ICS is. That horizontal development (base count) is more to blame for the energy/research explosion than vertical (facilities, SPs).

Rather than hammer far bases with terrible energy or mineral production, I do wonder if dynamic colony pod costs would work. That is the cost of a pod goes up by some amount of minerals for every base & colony pod you have...to match how citizen costs go up in nutrients

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I reallly dislike the added randomness in the combat system. The armor/weapon equality in early game had the effect I anticipated. I had Roze's heavily armored units sitting next to my forest/sensor for 10+ turns. Neither side could attack so we were just staring at each other.

Sorry, man. Cannot understand how randomness relates to heavy armored unit not attacking you. 😕

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

So The Ascent to Trascendance cost 3000 minerals and Pirates are building it in base with 11 mineral per turn.. And rush it 106 turns to completion.. for approx. 4000 gold.
I had it way more completed and it costed 14000 to rush.

Looks like it would be a good idea to somehow limit AI rushing ^^. Would it be possible to limit SP rushing only when project is 50% complete with minerals..? So one cant rush like this. AI transcend has big discounts - that could be changed as well if first suggestion doesnt work?

Amazing. Looks like we found a last ingredient for challenging AI. Thank you for idea and congratulation on solving this. 😄
We probably just need to remove whatever AI restriction left to let human win and this should do the trick.

Based on numbers above it seems that they rushed it way past 50% completion. Did they?

I don't understand why you want to limit this again after you just proposed it. This is the last project. You should be able to overtake AI by far by this point as you did in previous games.