SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Nevill]

With that ICS becomes non issue as it is completely fine to spam colonies at any point in the game and at any base size with about same impact to population growth. No need to specifically use extremely small undeveloped bases for that purpose only.

The math model equalizes bases without bonuses.

In practice, this means the Colony Pods will still keep getting spammed from low-pop bases near a nutrient bonus, because +6 surplus food can let the base grow in 3-4 turns from pop 1 to pop 2, or never lose that 2nd  pop in the first place. It's the fastest possible growth rate.

But at least building one on a developed base wouldn't be as devastating to its growth, true.

Gating it through minerals like Mercantile Interest does sounds like a necessary step to have the desired effect.

Somebody reported that Locust is a most effective combat unit at later game. It moves freely due to gravship chassis, quite combat effective with extra PLANET, and relatively cheap with Brood Pits. Apparently it shadows other ways of waging war. Probably need to do something about it.

It's only Locusts. And yes, it is a powerful unit, mostly due to the good range that lets you send a good concentration of forces anywhere on the map, while defenders are limited in what they can fortify.

The thing is, it's barely usable without Brood Pits, and requires a large investment in Lifecycle facilities. It's towards the end of the game that it gets powerful, and by that time a couple extra mineral rows is nothing.

(it is also vilnerable to missile barrage; and those are cheaper)

This is a delaying measure ensuring you can't use a unit until late in the game.


I have a couple things to ask. First, can the attack & defend bonuses in one's own territory be decoupled from each other? I feel like while giving defend bonuses is fine to boost the defender, attack bonuses have an undesireable effect. I'd like to be able to test that theory.

Second regards a certain AI/rules exploit.

About 10 years ago I created the ultimate challenge scenario of fighting against 5 AIs, pacted, their starting locations covered with Monsoon Jungle, all assisted by satellites pre-placed in orbit, against a team of a human and an AI. The idea was that AI bases in jungle would grow explosively, triggering bonuses from satellites, and causing them to develop several times faster. They had Fusion tech by 2160s, and all of the Secret Projects were theirs.

I did win the scenario (it wasn't my goal to make it unwinnable), but I had to use a certain exploit to do that. The gist of it is that ZoC rules that add tactical depth to the game, but they have a clause that a unit can move freely to a tile with another unit. Probe teams, cloaked and Air units have another clause that lets them ignore ZoC rules. But even if they are exempt from certain rules, they still contribute to others. This often leads to sending a probe team ahead (moving freely) and then moving your army to the same tile, then moving them further ahead by one tile and repeating, letting your units bypass enemy units they wouldn't normally be able to.

Another exploit is that the rule about only air superiority units being able to attack Needlejets somehow means that no unit in a tile with a Needlejet can be attacked by units without air superiority.

Which I used to my advantage by avoiding fighting and covering my units with Needlejets to send a strike force towards enemy bases, and then gradually killing them one by one. Even if they outnumbered me 10-to-1, they couldn't do anything about the invasion as I bypassed their armies.

This leads me to the following two questions.
a) Can ZoC rules check for units in a tile that are NOT a probe, a cloaked, or an air unit when deciding if a tile is eligible for movement?
b) A Needlejet over a stack of units prevents any of the units in the stack from being attacked unless the attacker has air superiority. Is it possible to attack other eligible units in the stack (not Needlejets) when this happens?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

The math model equalizes bases without bonuses.

But at least building one on a developed base wouldn't be as devastating to its growth, true.

That is correct. It is just a first approximation. No need to dive deeper. This is just to illustrate that this model treats base sizes fairer regarding colony building than vanilla. Actually, any model that produces some excess nutrient per worker would. Growth rate still slows down with size due to working less and less productive tiles - bonus or no bonus. Base with single rainy tile and rest of moist would still be more effective producing colonies at size 1. The proposed modification makes this effect less pronounced for bigger base sizes.
I played it a little and it feels pretty smooth. No stagnated bases and others are growing at about the same pace as in vanilla.

Somebody reported that Locust is a most effective combat unit at later game. It moves freely due to gravship chassis, quite combat effective with extra PLANET, and relatively cheap with Brood Pits. Apparently it shadows other ways of waging war. Probably need to do something about it.

It's only Locusts. And yes, it is a powerful unit, mostly due to the good range that lets you send a good concentration of forces anywhere on the map, while defenders are limited in what they can fortify.

The thing is, it's barely usable without Brood Pits, and requires a large investment in Lifecycle facilities. It's towards the end of the game that it gets powerful, and by that time a couple extra mineral rows is nothing.

If you feel like couple of extra mineral rows is nothing than you have already won the game and nothing means anything including the size of your army. Before that, though, any extra cost may be a matter of life and death. I don't understand why you want to completely discard this. Even if twice as small army will still be able to take bases one by one it will still do it at halved speed or one can afford less enemies at the same time, etc. That is the matter of the right cost. If you think the cost grow progression is too flat it can be more steep. That was just an example of idea proposal.

This is a delaying measure ensuring you can't use a unit until late in the game.

I beg to differ. This is intentionally quite opposite. To encourage native unit usage throughout the hole game, not only at the end. With this formula they are exceptionally cheap at the beginning.

First, can the attack & defend bonuses in one's own territory be decoupled from each other? I feel like while giving defend bonuses is fine to boost the defender, attack bonuses have an undesireable effect. I'd like to be able to test that theory.

You mean different configuration parameter for each? I guess so.

I am not sure it is fair to drop attack bonus altogether, though. One side invading other territory. Another side protects it. Both parties are constantly exchanging strikes participating in both attack and defense combats. It is a mistake to assume that assailant only attacks while victim only sits in bases and gets beaten. The protector is not a victim they are retaliator!
That is why territory bonus affect both sides. Essentially it translates into "defender is 50% more combat effective on own territory" regardless of particular micro combat moves nature. That is actually very noticeable in artillery duel. Its outcome should be irrespective of who initiated the duel. Now if you drop the territory attack bonus then defender's artillery should just passively wait assailant's artillery attack to cash their territory bonus. Pretty lame mechanics encouraging defender to sit in bases and allow invader to cut deep in their territory destroying communications and land improvements.

Bonus value can be reduced if you believe it is too much.

a) Can ZoC rules check for units in a tile that are NOT a probe, a cloaked, or an air unit when deciding if a tile is eligible for movement?
b) A Needlejet over a stack of units prevents any of the units in the stack from being attacked unless the attacker has air superiority. Is it possible to attack other eligible units in the stack (not Needlejets) when this happens?

I believe so. Didn't touch this mechanics yet, though. Let me look at it.

[Nevill]

It is a mistake to assume that assailant only attacks while victim only sits in bases and gets beaten.

But terrain bonuses only ever help one side. Forested tiles help on defense, not on attack. It is not without precedent.

That is why territory bonus affect both sides. Essentially it translates into "defender is 50% more combat effective on own territory" regardless of particular micro combat moves nature. That is actually very noticeable in artillery duel. Its outcome should be irrespective of who initiated the duel.

I only thought about conventional attacks when I wrote that.

Essentially, can this be made to work like Alien Defense/Offense do? For conventional attacks that use armor only. Caretakers' defense does not proc in arty duels.

Conventional vs. conventional uses weapon vs armor. Apply +50% def to defender.
Arty vs. conventional uses weapon vs armor. Apply +50% def to defender.
Arty vs. arty uses weapon vs weapon. No bonuses apply.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

It is a mistake to assume that assailant only attacks while victim only sits in bases and gets beaten.

But terrain bonuses only ever help one side. Forested tiles help on defense, not on attack. It is not without precedent.

That is why territory bonus affect both sides. Essentially it translates into "defender is 50% more combat effective on own territory" regardless of particular micro combat moves nature. That is actually very noticeable in artillery duel. Its outcome should be irrespective of who initiated the duel.

I only thought about conventional attacks when I wrote that.

Essentially, can this be made to work like Alien Defense/Offense do? For conventional attacks that use armor only. Caretakers' defense does not proc in arty duels.

Conventional vs. conventional uses weapon vs armor. Apply +50% def to defender.
Arty vs. conventional uses weapon vs armor. Apply +50% def to defender.
Arty vs. arty uses weapon vs weapon. No bonuses apply.

Yeah. You got a point. So far since Civ1 defender didn't get any attack bonuses. I think I'll either remove this bonus on attack or make it separately configurable.

About the artillery, though. Are you sure they should not use territory bonus? In this case anyone with more units will easily get artillery superiority even on other territory and then they'll just bombard bases left and right halving defenders' health. Not much use for territory bonus after that.

I agree that giving defenders attack bonus is unseen of in the world of Civ-SMACX but aren't we trying to fix/balance the broken SMACX defense and make it more active rather than relaying on passive defense sitting on territory feature multipliers (forest/bunker/base)?
Beside artillery there is also probe combat. So adding flat territory bonus allows us to not break our heads about tactics intricacies - when does it apply and when not. This is also helps AI greatly - no need to teach it combat type distinctions. It just gets flat bonus for any type of combat regardless of who initiated it.

Sorry for being stubborn. 😁
I agree having two parameters instead of one had its merits. However, this code splitting adds extra work and am not entirely convinced that these two parameters will actually be very actively used by people. So hesitant to start working on it yet without feeling that it actually improves game play. Feel free to keep pounding on me, though.

[Nevill]

AI work off battle odds, no? If the probability to win is high, attack; if not, do not. They don't care about types of combat as it is.

About the artillery, though. Are you sure they should not use territory bonus? In this case anyone with more units will easily get artillery superiority even on other territory and then they'll just bombard bases left and right halving defenders' health. Not much use for territory bonus after that.

Hmm. Not sure. Since they are a separate case, perhaps a separate toggle? Nah, too much work.
I would expect logistics to take care of this, at least in multiplayer. The defender has the benefit of consolidating their forces more easily provided they aren't taken out in the first few turns.

I have a different idea about artillery. I have long complained about a bug with artillery duels between sea and land units only lasting for 1 round/shot. The answer I got from the community was that it wasn't a bug, but a feature. Special rules of engagement and all that.

Personally, I didn't think so. But should we assume this true, and that it is a possible game mechanic... can it be applied to all artillery duels?

I think allowing for arti duels to be extended over many turns could be interesting. I am not certain how it would play out, but one thing I estimate is that accompanying conventional forces with arty to prevent bombardment will become a necessity, without the batteries being so fragile as to fall apart in their first battle. It would also allow the defender to make use of shorter supply lines if their artys aren't destroyed in a single turn - that, and there are repairs for every turn they aren't fighting.

It works pretty decently for ships, not allowing them to bombard shorelines with impunity, but not destroying them outright with retaliatory strikes either, instead turning into a prolonged positioning war.

I didn't ask about this since in my opinion it's taking a bug and making a mechanic out of it, but it bothers me that we currently have different rules for land vs. sea only. Plus, the fact that the ships could be attacked directly (vs armor) and via bombardment (vs attack) never sat well with me either.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

a) Can ZoC rules check for units in a tile that are NOT a probe, a cloaked, or an air unit when deciding if a tile is eligible for movement?

If we go this path it is better to make it simple and do not make ZOC calculation dependent on some other unit type/ability in target tile. Besides from more complex development it is also more cumbersome for rule perception and application for human. One should check what are units in target tile, are there units of certain type or with certain ability among them, etc. Meh.
Indeed, logically speaking, why would ZOC rule for unit depend on how unit in target tile managed to get there? Was it able to ignore ZOC or was it just caught there by enemy units, etc.? Imagine you have an uninterrupted line of probes leading your army in the depth of enemy territory. Now you are saying this aint right to send combat units down this path. What if these probes are actually other combat units just perfectly caught up in the ZOC. Same logic should prevent the rest of your army come down this path as well.

[Nevill]

ZoC influence the movement of land units only.

I am against air units contributing to ZoC rules as they should have no bearing on the situation below.

Also, I would be fine with a line of probes giving a line to follow, but I am not with a single probe letting all your units bypass enemy ZoC. A line of probes is not something that happens; a single probe is what happens all the time. Since probes ignore ZoC rules, I believe they also should have no effect on them.

I included cloaked units for the consistency's sake, because this is where the agrument breaks down. But you disable cloaked units anyway.

If it is hard to differentiate between units in a tile, I understand.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

AI work off battle odds, no? If the probability to win is high, attack; if not, do not. They don't care about types of combat as it is.

About the artillery, though. Are you sure they should not use territory bonus? In this case anyone with more units will easily get artillery superiority even on other territory and then they'll just bombard bases left and right halving defenders' health. Not much use for territory bonus after that.

Hmm. Not sure. Since they are a separate case, perhaps a separate toggle? Nah, too much work.
I would expect logistics to take care of this, at least in multiplayer. The defender has the benefit of consolidating their forces more easily provided they aren't taken out in the first few turns.

I have a different idea about artillery. I have long complained about a bug with artillery duels between sea and land units only lasting for 1 round/shot. The answer I got from the community was that it wasn't a bug, but a feature. Special rules of engagement and all that.

Personally, I didn't think so. But should we assume this true, and that it is a possible game mechanic... can it be applied to all artillery duels?

I think allowing for arti duels to be extended over many turns could be interesting. I am not certain how it would play out, but one thing I estimate is that accompanying conventional forces with arty to prevent bombardment will become a necessity, without the batteries being so fragile as to fall apart in their first battle. It would also allow the defender to make use of shorter supply lines if their artys aren't destroyed in a single turn - that, and there are repairs for every turn they aren't fighting.

It works pretty decently for ships, not allowing them to bombard shorelines with impunity, but not destroying them outright with retaliatory strikes either, instead turning into a prolonged positioning war.

I didn't ask about this since in my opinion it's taking a bug and making a mechanic out of it, but it bothers me that we currently have different rules for land vs. sea only. Plus, the fact that the ships could be attacked directly (vs armor) and via bombardment (vs attack) never sat well with me either.

I say you are overthinking this man. Everybody tends from time to time. This is a game. Don't make their rules more complex than it needs to be. Repeat this mantra when you head is spinning of endless design opportunities: "Simplify". 🙏
Seriously, though. Look at this mod. 90% of changes it just a flattening some over-engineered vanilla formulas. And people say it feels good.

Does this territory bonus works the purpose - making invader to spend more to break the defense line? Yes.
Do player actually really really care that the underlying mechanics does not mimic vanilla exactly? Nope, as long as such mechanics is transparent and easy to grasp.
It is simple and works. Everything else could tuned by bonus value.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I am against air units contributing to ZoC rules as they should have no bearing on the situation below.

Do you mean this for needlejets only or for copters and gravships too? Two latter ones can be attacked by ground units without air superiority as I remember.


Checked the code. Map tile has a special attribute: whose unit is in it. It is pretty sloppy programming as there could be multiple allied units in there. Then it is not clear who owns the tile. Whatever. This attribute is used in ZoC functions. I don't want to alter this attribute - it is hardcoded and used everywhere.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Take #1. Try it out and let me know if there is a need to distinguish probes/no-ZoC from other units in target tile.

# Version 124

* Unit cannot ignore ZoC moving to the tile occupied by friendly unit. Configuration option: zoc_move_to_friendly_unit_tile_disabled.


Also this.

# Version 125

* Returned Cloaking device into game: cost = 2, enabled by Quantum Computers.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Played a little more with nutrient intake = 1. Growth rate is absolutely fine - not much difference from vanilla for bases those were actually growing before. Although, excess of nutrients makes more possibility for mineral terraforming. Too much minerals. They hit eco-damage too early. So I've analyzed different possibilities and here is it below: the dependency on max average minerals per worker assuming all worker tile extra nutrients are going into mineral harvesting support,  namely rocky mines. More assuming there are no bonus resources and no nutrient yield in rocky mines. I have experimented with citizen nutrient intake = 1 or 2 and farm nutrient bonus = 1 or 2. Vanilla combo is intake=2,farm=1. The reason I picked the intake=1,farm=1 option initially is that it uniformly applies to all land and ocean bases - less problems with their relative balancing. Apparently, the intake=2,farm=2 option produces less minerals. I plan to give it a try in next version even though it requires to increase both land and ocean farm output.

Reiterating the goal: this is to make currently stagnating bases a chance to have some nutrient surplus for growing and supporting mineral yield. Maybe not that much as fertile ones but some. Growth I have already analyzed and both intake=1,farm=1 and intake=2,farm=2 options are equal in this regards. Meaning fertile bases will grow at the same rate but less fertile one will get their chance too. Mineral production support I have not analyzed before - doing this now and it seems that intake=2,farm=2 option produces less excessive mineral output. Namely, mediocre base mineral output goes up significantly and becomes like the vanilla fertile one, fertile one become goes up 35%, and very fertile goes up 15%.

# Version 126

* Experimental nutrient balance version #2.
  * Citizen nutrient intake = 2. Reverted to vanilla.
  * Farm nutrient bonus = 2 (both land and ocean).
  * Nutrient cost multiplier = 15.
  * Base Square produces 1 nutrient.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

a) Can ZoC rules check for units in a tile that are NOT a probe, a cloaked, or an air unit when deciding if a tile is eligible for movement?

A further thought to this. Should land unit be able to board a land/air transport even if both source and destination are ZoC? What if this is a cloaked transport?


Actually, never mind. Here is it.

# Version 126

* Further refinement to ZoC rule. Unit ignores ZoC only if target tile is occupied by own/pact unit that does not ignore ZoC by itself: probe, cloaked, air.


I didn't account for land and air transport because I never used them and don't even know how to load units there. Anybody knows? How to load land units to land/air transport? How to load sea units to land/sea/air transport? How to load air unit into land/sea/air transport?

[Nevill]

I didn't look at the code, but...

To board a transport you need to be in the same tile as the transport, and press "L". Air transports can only be loaded at airbases, I believe. Even though choppers are considered "crash landed" at the end of the turn, they can't pick up units, and neither can gravships (I'd say it's an oversight, but it is what it is). Sea transports can be loaded anywhere; you either load them at a base (the only place land and sea units can occupy simultaneously), or move units from a shore to the transport.

Sea units can not be loaded anywhere. Air units can be loaded on land/sea units with a carrier deck. An air unit can not be loaded on an air unit.

Movement itself is subject to ZoC rules, i.e. under unmodified rules you can always move to a tile with a land transport from an adjacent one, since an occupied tile is eligible for movement. That does not change with the new rule, except for cloaked transports, which are... quirky, to say the least.

Cloak/deep hull are buggy, and I don't mean it in the sense that AI can see through them. Cloaked units project ZoC, which negates cloak as a enemy trying to move in their vicinity reveals them. Cloaked units can't stack, even with other cloaked units, without becoming visible. This means that, for example, a submarine transport carrying missiles is always visible, and loaded cloaked transports are no longer cloaked.

Cloak would need to ignore all ZoC rules to be viable, but there are limited uses for such units even in their buggy state. They can't be scouted from air, for example, unless you bump right into them. I'd make the ability cheap and available early because it's hard to make proper use of them.

In the current game with Tayta (WtP v122 with a few changes) I made it available at Applied Relativity. We'll see if anyone would use them.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Cloak/deep hull are buggy, and I don't mean it in the sense that AI can see through them. Cloaked units project ZoC, which negates cloak as a enemy trying to move in their vicinity reveals them. Cloaked units can't stack, even with other cloaked units, without becoming visible. This means that, for example, a submarine transport carrying missiles is always visible, and loaded cloaked transports are no longer cloaked.

Cloak would need to ignore all ZoC rules to be viable, but there are limited uses for such units even in their buggy state. They can't be scouted from air, for example, unless you bump right into them. I'd make the ability cheap and available early because it's hard to make proper use of them.

If you mean only multiplayer usage then losing cloaking by stacking could as well be a feature explainable from both development simplicity and some lore. Cloaked unit is supposed to be stealthy, moving along hiding out of roads, etc. Stacking units makes them a concentrated army so you lose the cloaking. Also prevents concentration of cloaked units in enemy territory. I think this is fair.

As for cloaked unit exerting ZoC then I agree this is unneeded. Design oversight. But ZoC in general is extremely bugged and sloppy feature.

[Nevill]

If you mean only multiplayer usage then losing cloaking by stacking could as well be a feature explainable from both development simplicity and some lore. Cloaked unit is supposed to be stealthy, moving along hiding out of roads, etc. Stacking units makes them a concentrated army so you lose the cloaking. Also prevents concentration of cloaked units in enemy territory. I think this is fair.

I don't think there is a justification for cloaked transports not retaining their cloaked properties after picking up troops.

I am mostly mad that I can't have my ballistic nuclear submarines.