SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

re: native life

There are configuration parameters for this too.
; Native life number of tries to create it at random location: tries = constant + multiplier * <native life level>.
; Higher number of tries increases the chance of native appearing. The dependency is not linear and chance is obviously capped at 100%. So there is no point in making these values too high.
; constant parameter; allowed values: 0-255 (vanilla = 2)
native_life_generator_constant=4
; multiplier parameter; allowed values: 2,3,5 (vanilla = 2)
native_life_generator_multiplier=3

I agree that frequency of native life is not something important in this game. It is not needed too much with enhanced AI. I'll probably disable this modification in future releases by default.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

For this logic one should avoid improving anything at all including farms and collectors.

Mines have always done more eco-damage than farms or collectors, unless you changed something.

All disassemblers before me saying all basis land improvements contribute same exactly value to eco-damage. I didn't check if myself but I can reverify it as well if you show how did you come to this conclusion.

[bvanevery]

All disassemblers before me saying all basis land improvements contribute same exactly value to eco-damage. I didn't check if myself but I can reverify it as well if you show how did you come to this conclusion.

Even if working a tile contributes the same eco-damage, having more minerals does more eco-damage.  Furthermore, forests reduce eco-damage.  So clearly, from an "I don't want to get flooded out" standpoint, forest-and-forget is way better than mines.  Generally I don't make Mines until I've got Hybrid Forests underway.  I need food to work the mines conveniently anyways, and the HF gets rid of a lot of the eco-damage.  Definitely doesn't get rid of all it like the docs might lead you to believe though.

[Tayta Malikai]

I don't mean to discount your experience, bvanevery, but are you sure you're playing as optimally as you could be? In the screenshots you provide, your bases seem to be spaced rather far apart, when most of those tiles are going to remain unworked for a large portion of the game.

I do not believe in Smallpoxing.  Smallpoxing players can all go to hell.  Everything become so godawful tedious that way.  SMAC's game design does indeed have the major weakness, even a fundamental flaw, that it allows Smallpoxing.  Some game mechanics like EFFIC and Bureaucracy try to mitigate it, but they fail to do so.  The kind of AI spam where the map just gets covered in little bases, is not considered a feature by a substantial number of us 4X TBS players.

why not build rocky mines?

Historically, eco-damage.  Usually it's deadly.  If WTP nerfed the eco-damage, I wouldn't consider it a feature.

I am somewhat curious how you managed to end up with 700 credits in your game as the Peacekeepers next to the Morganites, though. o_O

I have absolutely no idea how to properly spend money in WTP.  A big reason I quit is because I'd had all my cash sitting around uselessly for such a long time.  I'm over my fear of Recycling Tanks as a kind of factory though.  They don't seem to do eco-damage.

But then, we reverted a lot of the changes to early psi combat (units start at Green, psi attackers on land get 3:2 advantage, and killing worms gives money), and that likely makes a big difference to how we approach native life.

Um, well duh.  You're not even playing Tim's WTP then.  I am!  And railing at it.  To condition him to change it to make it playable.  It was definitely way worse off a few months ago.  I do survive enough combats now.  It's this "pinning my foot to the floor" in conjunction with other stuff, something's gotta change.  No I haven't read through Tim's responses yet, I'm processing all of this in order.

I would point out that the tools to deal with the consequences of eco-damage (i.e. Empath Song units to kill worms and formers to avert global warming) become more affordable if you have more minerals to build them with.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but eco-damage only takes place once you go over a certain number of minerals, yes? And that number is 16 in vanilla and 24 in WtP, unless "clean minerals" means something different than actual minerals? If so, then a couple of rocky mines at key bases shouldn't be breaking the bank.

And yeah, I'm not overly enamoured with the mod as it is, that's why I don't play it that way. :V

Just as you don't like smallpoxxing, I dislike the meta of "huddle your scout in the base and hope to take the hit" to deal with native life.

I can sort of understand the experience you're looking for: a more narratively-informed campaign that retains significant decision-making while avoiding mechanical tedium. Nothing wrong with that, I used to play for that too before I converted to MP. It's just that WtP seems to have been developed to deal with players like me, who suck all the fun out of the game in the eternal hunt for turn advantage.

Even in your own mod, you seem to rage-quit way more games than you finish. Not that there's anything wrong with dropping a game that becomes unfun, of course.

Even if working a tile contributes the same eco-damage, having more minerals does more eco-damage.  Furthermore, forests reduce eco-damage.  So clearly, from an "I don't want to get flooded out" standpoint, forest-and-forget is way better than mines.  Generally I don't make Mines until I've got Hybrid Forests underway.  I need food to work the mines conveniently anyways, and the HF gets rid of a lot of the eco-damage.  Definitely doesn't get rid of all it like the docs might lead you to believe though.

Isn't this exactly the sort of "forests are the OP terraforming choice" thing that everyone tries so hard to prevent?

[bvanevery]

I am testing 154 since that was the latest release when I went looking in the releases.  I successfully overwrote an older WTP directory without issue.

I was gifted the Manifold Nexus immediately.  I'm surprised that my mindworm larvae have only about a 50/50 chance against other larvae, so it doesn't look like some massive captured army of mindworms is gonna happen.  I catch one, I lose one.

I did a rather quick 2 cities next to each other settlement, because my capitol was landlocked and it was a way to get ocean access.  When I learned how to make Formers, I was again surprised at being able to make Sea Formers without knowing how to make other kinds of ships.  But my oceanic exploration has been minimalist so far.  I made friends with the Spartans and have had enough room to expand into.

I'm surprised to find out that Sea Colony Pods cost the same as regular Colony Pods.  I suppose a Pressure Dome does not include the functionality of a Recycling Tank?  In general I would not favor sea settlement as the stock AI is merciless about subverting sea bases.  It's a major liability.  However my particular oceans have some mineral deposits in them, and it will form a nice perfect circle around my capitol.  So I'll be making a hybrid land / sea empire.

Details save scum certainty

save scum certainty

Overall the mindworms have been rather quiet compared to previous playtests.  Something had to have been tweaked.  However it is still possible to get in a situation that's only going to end in save scumming.  I actually did manage to build some forests with some Sensor Arrays on top of them in the vicinity of my capitol.  But of course I have many things I need to accomplish, and making perfect mindworm screens against any contingency can't be one of them.  There simply aren't enough resources to accomplish that, they have way too much freedom of movement.

This mindworm, it suddenly appears next to my base.  I've got a Scout and 3 Artifacts in it.  The Artifacts could leave via the extensive roads I've made, but I'm simply not going to hand over a hit on the base to this mindworm.  Now maybe mindworms don't hit as hard as I'm used to.  I do have walls and a Sensor Array, so maybe I'll be ok.  But if I'm not, I'm not putting up with it.

Turns out there was less to worry about than I thought.  I took 0 wounds, which is hard to do in most combats.  So, standard drill will probably be to link the roads, plant the obligatory patch of forest upon a flat arid / moist square, put a Sensor Array on top of that, and then move on to other terraforming duties.  It's what I was doing at all my bases anyways, just to get the trees going, and now I know it's useful for defense.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

And yeah, I'm not overly enamoured with the mod as it is, that's why I don't play it that way. :V

Marketing alert: not overly enamored customer! 😮
Let me see if that can be changed. 🤔

Are you talking from SM or MP point of view?

Are these main changes you dislike or there are others?
units start at Green, psi attackers on land get 3:2 advantage, and killing worms gives money

All these changes are not that important for game play except maybe psi odds but even this can be though about. I can make them not modified by default (still optionally can be turned on).

I think most of minor tweaks here and there are no longer required with AI expanding very good.

Just as you don't like smallpoxxing, I dislike the meta of "huddle your scout in the base and hope to take the hit" to deal with native life.

Do you mean to not keep units at bases at all? I guess whether attack them or let them attack - some units at base still needed.

Even if working a tile contributes the same eco-damage, having more minerals does more eco-damage.  Furthermore, forests reduce eco-damage.  So clearly, from an "I don't want to get flooded out" standpoint, forest-and-forget is way better than mines.  Generally I don't make Mines until I've got Hybrid Forests underway.  I need food to work the mines conveniently anyways, and the HF gets rid of a lot of the eco-damage.  Definitely doesn't get rid of all it like the docs might lead you to believe though.

Isn't this exactly the sort of "forests are the OP terraforming choice" thing that everyone tries so hard to prevent?

Forest is very versatile and very good from so many angles. That's why people keep talking about it being OP. Just doubling its terraforming time is a very minor penalty that does not make it less powerful due to its spreading ability. Still if people like plant forest more than they like to play a game they can create custom alphax.txt. Forest is completely configurable there.

It's just that WtP seems to have been developed to deal with players like me, who suck all the fun out of the game in the eternal hunt for turn advantage.

That is probably true. I am myself is like that. That is why I am not even trying to create new experience mod. Just making game more strategical looking and feeling.

With that in mind, I have tough time linking your aspire for turn advantage to specific things preferences like psi combat odds, money from natives, etc. The latter is purely fun related.

[bvanevery]

I would point out that the tools to deal with the consequences of eco-damage (i.e. Empath Song units to kill worms and formers to avert global warming) become more affordable if you have more minerals to build them with.

Um, no, you can't avert Global Warming by running any number of Formers around.  And my mod starts with Clean Reactors available, so I think I know how infinite numbers of Formers work.  Global warming comes from how many minerals you decide to pump out, how many eco-mitigating facilities you build (which you can't start the game with), how many egregious damagers like Thermal Boreholes you avoid building, what you make for your SE choices, and how many atrocities you refrain from.  That's it.  There's no amount of trees that you can plant to stop a flood.  I play forest-and-forget all the time, it is the only thing I play.  I still know when I can tip it over into a flood, even doing that.

If so, then a couple of rocky mines at key bases shouldn't be breaking the bank.

Probably won't.  Who says I'm going to do that?  When I build mines, I build all of the mines.  All of the Rocky squares that I've been blowing off, until after I've got Hybrid Forests underway.  Before then, that's what Minerals Specials are for.  I have my giant mines in the early game where they're supposed to be, bang for the buck.  Not just everywhere, increasing my global flooding chances.

Just as you don't like smallpoxxing, I dislike the meta of "huddle your scout in the base and hope to take the hit" to deal with native life.

That's how I remember it used to be.  I'm scouting aggressively now.  They're cheap, and they're supposed to die sometimes.  I'm winning often enough to feel that my scouting is worth it.  Even before Tim tweaked the settings somehow in the version 154 I'm playing.

It's coming after my Formers, when I've only got 2 and don't know how to make Formers yet, that I can't abide!  You cripple me on those, you put me way behind other factions.

And per my previous post, I can't abide getting a sudden attack at a base that I had no way to prepare for and can't do anything about.  Fortunately, I seem to have a remedy.  It may not work as well if I'm not starting as the Hive though.  We'll see how well Sensor Arrays do with some other faction.

With the other factions spamming colonists as aggressively as they are, there is definitely not time / productivity to double up base defenses with more Scouts.  Everyone's gotta go do a job out in the field.  Supply pods have to be cleared, lest they turn out to contain awful crap that destroys the inbound colonist, or a base you just settled.

I can sort of understand the experience you're looking for: a more narratively-informed

Map aesthetics and narrative are not the same thing.  Map aesthetics do have an intersection with map productivity.  I am biased towards large, late game cities.  You've got a mini-screen with 20 worker assignable tiles on it for a reason.  It's supposed to be what you fill your cities out to.  You (I? most players?) spend an awful lot of time per city adding gewgaws to it.  I don't want to do that forever, 2 or 3 times as many cities as I do with the "bigpox" playing style.  I know my cities aren't optimal in all dimensions in the early game.  But I do claim territory better than smallpoxers, for one thing.

campaign

That's almost a swear word in 4X TBS, by some people's reckoning.  Many would contend that if you're not playing on a randomly generated map, all in one go and not episodic / chapter driven, you're not playing 4X. 

I used to play for that too before I converted to MP. It's just that WtP seems to have been developed to deal with players like me, who suck all the fun out of the game in the eternal hunt for turn advantage.

I don't know if you've tried my mod, but I've dealt with it as well.  You simply don't get to have all those boreholes, supply crawlers, and condensers you love to have as a MP exploiter, until much later in the game.  There's a good chance someone could kill you with a different, and IMO real strategy, before then.  I like to imagine someone's hovertanks whooshing in, just as you've finished your 1st borehole.

But I haven't really heard of any MPs testing my mod.  It's not a secret around here that a few years ago, I didn't get along with others in the MP sub.  I did find out that they knew of exploits that I didn't.  But what I couldn't abide, was the "calculator head" mentality of how they think a game is supposed to be played, like it's all a spreadsheet and there are only mathematically correct answers.

I give away cloaks and deep pressure hulls, rather early.  This is one of the ways I'd know if MPs ever did anything with my mod, because they'd probably say something about it.  Those things are useless against the AI because it just cheats.

Even in your own mod, you seem to rage-quit way more games than you finish.

There's rage-quit and then there's sleep-quit.  You'd have to refresh my memory on what I've done lately.  I remember mostly sleep-quits.  3 AM brings out some real honesty about how much a game is worth, vs. all the other games you've played in your life over and over again.  If it's the same old [poop], I'm going to bed.

I seem to remember recently doing some AARs with "high concepts" for various odd tactics, that didn't work.  That's not even rage-quit or sleep-quit.  That's this-sucks quit.  I think I've recently played a lot of sleep-quit games that you've never heard anything about, because I didn't write them up.

Isn't this exactly the sort of "forests are the OP terraforming choice" thing that everyone tries so hard to prevent?

Tim does, I don't.  I guess that's one of the ways mods can be different.  I am not in favor of games ending in global floods.  I hand terraform every square and that's work for me.  I don't want a game that's just gonna ruin my work.  Factories tend to do that.  Forests don't.  So I'm not penalizing the forests.  Forests also look good, in proportion, on the pink and red map.  I am strongly "Earth biased" and will not simply pink over my civilization just because it becomes the most profitable thing to do at some point.  Old trees, they stay.  I might not plant new ones, in the outlying territories.  In real life I have spent plenty of time in National Forests and National Parks.  I have some of the Greener in me.

Boreholes are for [jerk, sphincter]s!   

Of course, so are Recycling Tanks, and you can see my quip on the left sidebar.  Truth be told though, the Chairman is not as near and dear to my heart as he used to be.

[bvanevery]

Just doubling its terraforming time is a very minor penalty that does not make it less powerful due to its spreading ability.

So far I'm inclined to agree.  Doubling the time at first seems like, "Ok Tim, whatever"  but it doesn't change the fact that 1 forest + 1 farm is the optimum for making new colonists at the beginning of the game.  So I'm still going to plant my damn forests, in the same flat arid / moist otherwise useless spots that I was going to plant them.  It's just that now, I may only plant one patch of forest, and rely more on it spreading over the long term, than the sort of forest, forest, forest drill I might be more used to.  Paying more careful attention to the optimum resource availability for my bases, since the forest resource is more expensive.  A few forests is optimal.  Lots of forests, will never be utilized until Tree Farms come about.  And I've got other things to do, like laying roads.

 

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

# Version 155

* Reverting few things to vanilla defaults. They still can be changed in thinker.ini. People seem to like vanilla preferences.
  * 3,2,     ; Psi combat offense-to-defense ratio (LAND unit defending)
  * disable_planetpearls=0
  * default_morale_very_green=0
  * Forest terraforming rate = 4

[bvanevery]

I continue the game with version 154.  Some surprises: Fungicidal Tanks cost 0, Gun Foils count as police units.

Details difficult Hive research

difficult Hive research

MY 2169.  I have been unable research the tech for Police State.  This is surprising as I've retained the faction's default Build, Conquer research focus, and Doctrine: Loyalty is a C2 tech.  I haven't previously been able to trade it from anyone else either, despite 2 allies and 2 treaties.  It warrants analysis about its research weights in alphax.txt, but right now I'm busy playing.  I have not had access to Police State this whole time, so every city is currently building a Rec Commons, and my expansion has pretty much stopped.  I've previously gotten all kinds of techs from trading, but not that one.

In the stock game, it bugs me to no end that Santiago has better POLICE potential than Yang.  It just ain't right!  I fixed that in my factions.  It also mitigates this problem of Yang not learning Police State for awhile, should it happen for some reason.  I do have all of my Politics and Economics choices on Tier 2 of my tech tree, and in the research categories that various factions need to get to them.  Sometimes however, because my tech tree is fairly broad at the beginning, they do not manage to get to what they need for awhile anyways.  This is part of why I usually playtest from the AI's perspective, not ever changing their default research strategy.  I need to see what kind of pain the AI Yang is going through.

I've got Fusion reactors, but I recreated the Fission Scout unit, because Fusion reactors are just double the cost and no benefit vs. a mindworm.  I'm still in the "garrison with Scouts" stage of the game, despite all the fancier armor and weapons available.  There's no way I'd have the minerals to make any of the more advanced stuff.  I think it is a mistake for the Unit Designer to retire the Fission Scout so quickly.  On the other hand, perhaps the AI factions can afford to be wasteful in ways that I cannot.

[bvanevery]

Details foil probe hell

foil probe hell

MY 2172.  My ally and next door neighbor the Spartans recently went to war with the Cultists.  I don't know where they are.  I agreed to the war because having the Spartans as a reliable ally should be useful.  Well I didn't think about losing my sea bases that way.  In my mod, I might be kissing my base goodbye now, although I'm uncertain how the relative closeness to my capitol will affect things.  In this mod, I was enticed by the equivalence between land and sea colonist prices.  But if this turns out to be the same kind of pure liability, I'll be quitting this game.

There's no way I would have ever had the ability to defend any sea base from probe team attacks, this early in the game.  I haven't even gotten a Rec Commons completed in there yet, and all kinds of people throughout my 13 city empire are getting unhappy.  I've only got 2 Gun Foils, 1 of them a clone of the 1 I sent out.  I think 1 may have been killed by an Isle after popping a pod.  In other  words I couldn't possibly have more than a rinky dink navy at this point.  Well, unless Gun Foils are also police units in this mod.   I'm not used to that.  I could lash out at a Foil Probe Team if I actually saw it before it struck, as in the case this time.  There's no reason I have to see it first though.  Also if I have to leave a base to do that, it's exposed.

Well let's see...

Details game over

game over

Like in my mod, putting out sea bases early is a complete waste of time and resources.  One could "bait" another faction with a throwaway base if one was trying to infiltrate and steal a tech.  The AI will cross the entire map to mind control bases, even an Enormous map, which in my mod is even bigger than a Huge map.  I did DOUBLE the cost of all probe team actions to try to curb this problem.  That's partially successful, it's definitely not as bad a problem as it used to be.  Near my capitol in my mod, I may not actually be taken over.  Or it may take a really big wad of cash to do it, which might be a fair trade.

The basic problem is that probe team mind control costs are totally broken in the stock binary.  They're way overpowered, and have been the subject of probably 50% of my rage quits in the past, before I started modding.  Single biggest flaw in the game, most in need of fixing.  I mean, look at the screenshot, my capitol is 7 squares away.  WTF.

It's been a long time since I've played with a Yang with severe ECON penalties.  I'm not sure how that works into the takeover formula.  But I would note that the original game didn't enable foil probe teams.  They may have noticed this problem during production and didn't have a nice answer for it.  So just dusted it under the rug?

I don't have any intellectual commitment to the settings of 154, so I will install 155 now.  However I would worry that restoration of the 3:2 mindworms might make them back into the One True Weapons Platform again.  I will suspend judgment on that for now, but it's a problem I've noticed in my own mod.  Did all this nice conventional weapons, armor, and chassis rebalancing work, only to have it ruined by this gaping hole in the combat system.

[bvanevery]

Now that my game is over, I turn to the problem of why the Hive doesn't research Police State.  Well, I think the answer is clear enough in alphax.txt.  It seems that Tim is using a regime where a "really important" tech in some category, has weight 6.  So there are various Conquer techs, that I think I learned, with this weight.  The problem is that Doctrine: Loyalty is not regarded as very important as a Conquer tech.  It is:

Doctrine: Loyalty,             DocLoy,   3, 2, 2, 2, Mobile,  Psych,   000000000

It's basically not going to get researched.  It's not regarded as being worth all that much.  Now the first problem is, it's rather important to the Hive.  So if it's not regarded as particularly Conquery, it nevertheless needs to find a way to be more important the Hive, or just be easier to get period.

The 2nd thing is, it gives the Command Nexus, so the Conquer rating is simply straight up wrong.  Having a free Command Center in every base is a pretty good capability.  Now one might argue that great increases in Secret Project costs, make some of these SPs not as valuable.  But it still has value for conquest, so I just can't see a proper universe where the weight is that low.

Heh, now the funny thing is after all that analysis, I notice that Police State has a -1 INDUSTRY penalty that the Hive is affected by.  That's a pretty crummy deal really.  I'm not going to call it unrealistic, but it's an unbalanced crummy deal.  Why would I want to be a Police State and take that kind of hit to my productivity?  POLICE ratings don't actually become a good deal until they're +3 and all units get double effectiveness.  And I'm assuming the Hive's getting its EFFIC never lower than 0 bonus.  If you take -2 EFFIC, forget it, you'd have to be a moron to pick Police State.

[dino]

Small request, I'd like removing 50% combat penalty for non combatant units to be optional, I find formers doubling as perfectly functional defenders boring and abstract.

It makes it too easy to defend bases in early game, while saving resources on defender units. Defending formers from threats, or hunting enemy ones is also fun in itself.

[Tayta Malikai]

Okay, is there a better way of chopping up quotes to respond to points individually?
I'm just going to refer to them in general because it's too tedious to keep track of all the quote brackets.

RE: not enamoured:
Code Red! A customer left a review of less than 10 out of 10!

So far I've played three games of WtP out-of-the-box: the v66 MP game with Nevill (that I still have to write the conclusion for) that ended in mass atrocities and global flooding; the v121 or something MP game with Nevill that ended in him nerve-gassing me to death; and a v141 SP game with my custom factions that I should get back to at some point, if only so I can brag and complain about it some more.

After that we decided to switch back to playing his mod with WtP features. It's actually been going pretty well, despite our appearances in the thread to grumble about this and that.


RE: not liking scout huddle meta:
That's not what I mean. I usually have police units there to keep order at the beginning of the game in any case.

I just find it dissatisfying that if a worm appears next to a base, it's actually worse to try and proactively get rid of the problem, because you won't benefit from either base defense bonus or sensor defense bonus. Of course, one could argue that taking steps like boosting morale, building Trance units, and building sensors is proactively dealing with the problem. Let's just call it a playstyle difference.

In that light, I'd say the best and least obtrusive change to this is restoring the 3:2 psi attack ratio. Not only does it encourage striking first, it also means sitting back and doing nothing comes with a risk.

I wouldn't restore the planetpearls, though. I like having them enabled to give one something to do with scouts in their spare time, but I don't think they suit WtP. Getting stacks of cash from farming wildlife is a little bit silly, after all.


RE: early game mechanics changes:
I'm not complaining about you changing them back (mostly), but I think it's worth talking about the reasons for them in the first place.

I don't know what the rationale was behind having units start at Very Green, but I assume it was to curb the appearance of instant Elites that becomes commonplace in mid-game. In vanilla this required Command Centre + Bioenhancement Centre + [monolith, High Morale ability, or +MORALE effects]. WtP requires you to arrange more of these to achieve the same effect, and Bioenhancement Centres come much later. It's a laudable approach to the issue.

However, this also leads to -MORALE effects becoming much less impactful, because it's not as if you can go any lower, right? One might as well just stay in Wealth and Eudaimonic all the time and use the productivity to build bigger and better weapons. Though I'll admit that I don't know if this is as effective now that armours got megabuffed. We'll see.

I also heavily disagree with reverting forest times. Forests at 1-2-1 with 4 turns to complete are OP. At 8 turns they are quite well balanced with mines: forests provide a little food and energy on top of the minerals to help support workers, and spread themselves, but mines can be combo'd with farms and can produce more minerals.

Discussions of eco-damage don't really concern me, as I've never found the consequences to be extraordinarily threatening. Yeah you lose a couple of tiles here and there, so what, most of my bases are inland and I can just raise the land again. Lots of worms spawning? That can be painful, but by that time you can easily turn your mineral output to churning out the needed Trance and Empath units to fend them off. And then the clean minerals limit is raised and they stop spawning so much.


RE: AI Growth mod and multiplayer balance:
I downloaded it to look at it, but I don't really like the aesthetic, so I never played it. To my knowledge, the MP community I follow wasn't overly impressed when someone suggested using it for a game.

Supply Crawlers are unbalanced and should be banned. Boreholes are not so unbalanced once the yield is nerfed down to 0-2-6 or similar. I'm not really sure what the problem with condensers is. If you build it on a regular tile with a farm you get 4 nutrients, which is nice, but hardly breaks the game.


RE: Police State:
-EFFIC effects are a lot milder than they were in vanilla, so even -4 EFFIC from running Police State+Planned is not so bad at the beginning at the game. I agree having the -INDUSTRY from PS cancel out the +INDUSTRY from Planned feels pretty bad though. Likewise for -SUPPORT from Planned offsetting ++SUPPORT from Police State. Yes, it's a potent early game combo, but one generally migrates to other options once energy provides more bang for your buck.

But hey, I shouldn't knock it until I try it, and so far in my WtP-as-is SP game it feels okay. I will reserve my complaints until after I have conquered at least one AI.


RE: removing non-combatant penalty from units:
This is controlled by this line in alphax.txt:

Code: [Select]

0,       ; Combat penalty % -> Non-combat unit defending vs. combat unit
I feel that this isn't super impactful to the game though, since it is much cheaper to put armour on these units now.

[bvanevery]

One might as well just stay in Wealth and Eudaimonic all the time and use the productivity to build bigger and better weapons.

In a stock binary game, getting somewhat ahead on weapons tech compared to the enemy's armor, and using low morale units, works just fine.  And in any event, the 3:2 mindworm is the One True Weapons Platform.  In addition to kicking the snot out of nearly everything, it bypasses Perimeter Defenses.  Green and Wealth is a pretty frequent SE choice for me.

Yeah you lose a couple of tiles here and there, so what, most of my bases are inland and I can just raise the land again.

You haven't been through the whole Planet diving underwater then.  The play mechanic, or bug, of rivers turning into permanent valleys of death, is also very annoying.

RE: AI Growth mod and multiplayer balance:
I downloaded it to look at it, but I don't really like the aesthetic, so I never played it.

That's a pretty generalized objection.  What specifically about my sales pitch on my development home page turned you away?  Please tell me you at least skimmed it, to come up with your distaste.

To my knowledge, the MP community I follow wasn't overly impressed when someone suggested using it for a game.

Some of the key community members hate me, so I see little reason they'd give it a chance.  Also, I took the primary abuse toys away, so some probably don't want their usual game plan ruined.

I'm not really sure what the problem with condensers is.

They are combined with Boreholes and Mines.  Hasn't Thinker mod taught you this?