SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[bvanevery]

Hmm. You are saying this mod choices are worse than vanilla's? Like, for example, Fundamentalist became less appealing in WTP?

Fundamentalist looks like the only Politics or Economics choice that could be worth making.  But with a -3 RESEARCH penalty, it is definitely not worth making at the start of the game.  I have not made it far enough into midgame to feel comfortable with "I don't need any more research, I'm just gonna clobber nearby enemies with what I've got."

Green could be a choice when one doesn't care about growing anymore.  But when is that going to come?  And +PLANET ratings are not valuable now, from a "forming a mindworm army" point of view.  You cannot steamroller to gain many mindworms.  Anything you capture, you will just as quickly lose trying to fight other mindworms.  So the basic advantage of Green, just doesn't exist.

Can you share some of your saves along the way so I can see how many tech you have by turns?

Will do, at some point when the state of the game is "snapshot worthy". 

Colony spam determines the game. This was there before and this is nothing we invented.

You've exacerbated it, turning the beginning of the game into compulsory action.

However, people frown upon my attempt to slow it down by conventional measures like Colony cost increase.

In version 154, colonists are noticeably more expensive than the stock game.  I compensated as best I could and achieved the spread that I could.  The disparity is 25% to 100% more cities for the AI factions, depending on what land mass they start on, and who their neighbors are.  So IMO, increasing colony cost hasn't solved anything.

They said it slows down the game/expansion and makes in uninteresting especially in MP.

In MP they are surely correct.  Seriously misfeatured.

I already split SP and MP configurations. Maybe now I can keep Colony cost higher in SP. I bet this will keep expansion speed proportionally slower.

I think the AI factions don't care and are immune to such tweaking.  It only penalizes the human player.

The AI factions need to gain a resource improvement other than colony spam.  Your mod has made me think about how I de facto achieved that in my mod, by sheer trial and error.  Turns out I gave everyone more land by making Huge maps my default recommended playing surface.  I gave everyone more SUPPORT by making Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game.  You have to decide whether you want units faster but lose SUPPORT, or slower but retain SUPPORT.  It's a tradeoff, and at the beginning it's not clear whether one or the other is inherently better.  The few factions that start the game with higher SUPPORT do have an advantage at the beginning.  The advantage wears off as the game progresses.  Probably doesn't matter by midgame when Genejack Factories are starting to come online.

What slows my expansion down, is unhappiness.  I don't think the AI currently has that problem.  Perhaps it needs to be more of a problem for the AI.  So that it will stop smallpoxing and produce real cities.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Working on OpenXcom mod now. Could be not responsive here.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,8661.0.html

[bvanevery]

NP.  TBH I haven't had a "clean mind" "away from" SMAC for such a long time, that I'm somewhat enjoying the break.  I almost cranked up WTP this evening, but a new Reddit group (for me) called r/simpleliving beat it out.  Women actually exist there, woo hoo!  Not that it's leading to anything, but good grief, I always end up in the forums filled with guys.  Most of my interests manage to be bent that way, for whatever reason.  Yeah so like, when I've suddenly got a house and a garden and a tea cake and am otherwise living completely like the bourgeoisie, I guess I'll sit down and conquer Planet or something.  Discovered some anti-capitalist groups too, but the energy there is, uh, negative and probably gonna be all guys again.  I don't think women put up with negative negative negative, as a species on the internet.  Either that or they do it completely differently and I don't know what I'm talking about.  I'll shut up now.

[Tayta Malikai]

Working on OpenXcom mod now. Could be not responsive here.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,8661.0.html

You're working on TFTD, huh? Hats off to you.

Been too busy with work and playing multiplayer to comment much here. One of those games is with Nevill's modded WtP and another is with MercantileInterest's modded WtP, so at least the mod is being put to good use!

You can follow the latter game here on the Codex. Though the game just started, so there's not much to follow yet.

I haven't played a lot of singleplayer as a result, but it continues to progress, if slowly. I built the Living Refinery, which helped my SUPPORT rating somewhat, and then took a break from projects to work on facilities and gear up for the invasion of the Edenists. With police being unattractive as of v160 (updated from v121 mid-game, nothing seems to have broken), I find my bases to be capped at size 6: 2 RecCommons + 2 HoloTheatre + 1 police + 1 Human Genome Project. I'm teching to Research Hospitals now, but it looks like this is the point where I need to start putting more budget into Psych (ideally boosted by Tree Farms) if I want to grow any higher. Going Green might also be a good choice to gain +2 TALENT. Free Market is obviously not a good choice right now, since I'm in the middle of invading someone.

So far I built a single Genejack Factory, which let me achieve 30 minerals in my HQ. It would be higher, but the extra drone meant I had to turn one worker into an Engineer. I do like how buffed those became, dunno if it's balanced, but I like it!

Wealth was already a strong SE choice in vanilla, probably the strongest, and it only got even stronger here. I'm not sure buffing it to +2 INDUSTRY is really necessary. Neither of the penalties, -2 MORALE and -1 POLICE, hurt very much in comparison.



As for the actual invasion itself... as of 2209, I have taken my first base through force of arms. (Probe teams don't count.)
The attack force consists of 4 8-1-1 infantry, 3 (8-1-1) artillery pieces, 3 armoured personnel carriers (land transports), and 3 speeder probe teams.
Artillery stays on my side of the border and shells the base. APCs drive up to the base, and the infantry attack at full strength. Most of the enemy garrisons are only 2-defense units and fall easily to my 8-attack units. They have ECM, but that's why I use infantry.
This was actually insufficient to take the base in a single turn, but since the enemy lacked units to counterattack with, I just attacked again next turn and this time took the base. Probes then move up so that the enemy doesn't subvert it back.



Minimal losses taken so far.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Been too busy with work and playing multiplayer to comment much here. One of those games is with Nevill's modded WtP and another is with MercantileInterest's modded WtP, so at least the mod is being put to good use!

Do you mind sending their configuration to me? I'll just include them as MP versions.

You can follow the latter game here on the Codex. Though the game just started, so there's not much to follow yet.

Did I understood it right that you are playing all 7 humans? That should be too much of excitement. 😊
I always wanted to gang up with nerds. But don't invite me. I don't have much time to spare on this and will ruin your experience.

If this is the case, though, the "enemy" you are describing in this post - is it other human player?

With police being unattractive as of v160 (updated from v121 mid-game, nothing seems to have broken)

Are you talking about policing in general or Police State? I didn't see PS even changed since v121.

So far I built a single Genejack Factory, which let me achieve 30 minerals in my HQ. It would be higher, but the extra drone meant I had to turn one worker into an Engineer. I do like how buffed those became, dunno if it's balanced, but I like it!

What specifically was buffed? Genejack Factory, Engineer, psych facilities?

Wealth was already a strong SE choice in vanilla, probably the strongest, and it only got even stronger here. I'm not sure buffing it to +2 INDUSTRY is really necessary. Neither of the penalties, -2 MORALE and -1 POLICE, hurt very much in comparison.

So, err, is too much or too little in your perception? I think people tend to overstate INDUSTRY and other clearly visual effects because they are transparent to user. Like +1 INDUSTRY is roughly 10% production increase. However, as it was already proven many times, some effects much surpass mere 10% bonus. Like +2 ECONOMY or early SUPPPORT, maybe even POLICE in need time, etc.

I have added extra INDUSTRY to make it more lore abiding. This was originally product of Industrial Automation, after all. Before I felt it quite undistinguishable.

Do you want to change it somehow? How is replacing -1 POLICE with -2/3 PLANET? Forces player to strengthen anti native defense and constantly replenish base defenders.

[bvanevery]

Details first dck move

first dck move

Version 161.  MY 2147.  An Isle materializes from nowhere and kills my Sea Colonist.  These are my territorial waters.  All of the connecting waterways have been extensively searched.  There isn't so much ocean for anyone to sail across.  I have my doubts that any other factions stirred up this Isle, as I popped all the sea supply pods earliest.  So this must be a materialization right next to me, out of nowhere, to bother me.  That's just "Tomato Surprise" game design and it's not fun.  I spend a long time making stuff at the beginning of the game, but my player agency is just randomly removed.  There's nothing that could have been done about that, at all.

I am supposing that mindworm sea spawning is still cranked up pretty high in this version.

Generally in Civ games, Barbarians aren't allowed to just spawn next to your cities.  There's a reason for that.  The player should be able to see things coming and have some chance to react.

I don't remember this sort of thing happening in my own mod.  I do play that on Huge maps, and this is a Standard map.  If something else tiresome happens in this game, I will abandon it as "sufficiently tested", and try playing on Huge maps.  Maybe it will make a difference.

I can't possibly manufacture the units from all the techs I've got.  I'm barely into terraforming my earliest cities, and still scouting my immediate environment.  Save attached.  Tech goes way too fast.  Or else, units awarded by tech go way too fast, take your pick.

[bvanevery]

Details second dck move

second dck move

MY 2152.  A Sealurk kills one of my Independent Sea Formers from the beginning of the game.  This is not surprising at this point, as I've seen some of these things prowling around here and there.  The AI factions are stirring the pot and settling in the water.  Yang put a Gun Foil out near me too.  I won't call it a tragedy yet as I've begun making other Sea Formers.  However if that Sealurk trashes my nearby base, I'm quitting.  That unit is Disciplined, the product of earlier hits on it.  I don't have the production to just have multiple defensive units.  Taking away the +1 minerals is probably a more correct direction than not, but now I do tend to have piles and piles of useless food and no productivity.  I've smallpoxed the minerals bonuses so that's a start, but it's still not a lot of minerals and I can't just have defense / stuff.

[bvanevery]

Details third dck move

third dck move

MY 2167.  It looks like the Gaians are about to do something to me with a Foil Probe Team.  If it takes over my city, I'm done.  I don't even know how to make a probe team.  Tech feels pretty stagnant now.  I need a Skunkworks to make the super expensive prototypes, and I don't have that capability yet.  The AIs have all been really hostile to me, except the Free Drones, who allied with me.  I just talked to them, hoping for free tech.  They didn't give us po boys anything, and they want war with the Usurpers.  I declined as I have no manufacturing strength.  I'm trying to just make Tidal Harnesses to go with the flow of what's easiest for the Pirates.  Maybe there's something I can do with a lot of food and money.

MY 2168.  Surprisingly, the probe team sailed right past me.  I must be a non-entity.  All of my cities are now producing Sea Colony Pods, because I have no productivity and SUPPORT left really.  I've got a few Gun Foils which can keep other Gun Foils away.  I'm garrisoned with mostly untrained Scouts.  The graph says I'm half as good as all the other empires and they're not basically wrong.  With such low productivity, I don't see how it could be otherwise, as there are not enough supply pods in the ocean to profit much from early Completions.

[bvanevery]

Details that's enough of that

that's enough of that

MY 2182.  I'm quitting.  The spam rate of sea colonists is way too high for this to be tenable.  The usual advantage of the Pirates is they can do something that other factions can't.  I have no such advantage in this mod, with the spawn rate being so high.  The Usurpers, in particular, have a size 9 sea base.  Everybody's basically better pirates than the Pirates.

I managed to get some Completions from unpopped sea supply pods in the northeast corner of the map.  The topology was such that I had to round a lot of twisty land masses to get there.  While I was sweeping out half of them, Yang started sweeping the other half.  This is not enough to compensate for the overwhelming spam advantage.

Everyone is in a Truce, except for Domai's Pact.  Which would have lasted about another 5 seconds, because I wouldn't do the war he wants.

Wall clock time was 11:15 PM start, 1:45 AM quit.  2.5 hours to pffft.

Colony spam needs to be dialed down.

Not sure what Pirates should be given to make them a worthy sea power again.

[Nevill]

I've made this request in the Issues section on GitHub, but I'll repost it here as well.

Can the hurry message display both full hurry costs and the partial hurry costs for "Total Minerals Left - Current Production" so that people would know exactly how much payment is needed to finish the production next turn based on the current production rate? This is something extensively used in multiplayer where turn advantage is very significant. It would be a massive QoL improvement as currently people are playing with calculators in hand.

Edit:
I've not posted this anywhere else, but I'd like to discuss if any of these would be easy to modify.
a) Can the price of hurrying facilities/units be made customizable? Currently it's 2/4 under a new formula for a neutral INDUSTRY setting, but it'd be nice to experiment with other values.
b) Can the hurrying threshold for the first X minerals get reinstated on a universal basis? Basically, hurrying up to retool penalty threshold should cost the same regardless of what you are hurrying, else we get what is currently going on in our multiplayer game where people start building RecTanks, hurry the first 10 minerals for cheap, and then switch production to a unit, saving quite a bit of money.
(this is why I am considering making the hurry values equal)
c) Can the retool penalty threshold / free minerals scale with INDUSTRY? It's a set number currently, but we are moving towards counting everything in rows. So settling a new base would provide you with a free mineral row rather than flat 10 minerals.

[dino]

> Colony spam needs to be dialed down.

You need to play on lower difficulty, or at least with higher ai cost_factor on transcend.

> Not sure what Pirates should be given to make them a worthy sea power again.

I've proposed giving aquatic factions extra mineral on mining platform, that normally requires tech prerequisite for free from the start.
Weaker than their vanilla buff and would give them advantage only during early game.


I'd suggest to start a separate thread for lets plays, since other discussions can get drowned in them, especially now that Tim will be less active.
Tim seems to be very interested in any feedback, so I'm sure he would be following our adventures in a separate thread too.

[bvanevery]

> Colony spam needs to be dialed down.

You need to play on lower difficulty, or at least with higher ai cost_factor on transcend.

Nah.  It's insane.  "Harder than usual Transcend" is fine, one would kinda expect that.  But on a Standard sized map, this isn't even a basically good play experience.  Opinions will vary.  I will try Huge and see if it's equally bad.

I've proposed giving aquatic factions extra mineral on mining platform, that normally requires tech prerequisite for free from the start.

Compared to stock, this could be thought of as removing Pirate minerals from Tidal Harness squares.  And requiring a Mine before any minerals are gained.

I'd suggest to start a separate thread for lets plays, since other discussions can get drowned in them,

Nope.  I'm not doing this to have funzies with Let's Plays.  I'm doing this to report the major problems I see in the design, with exact examples.

I can't really follow other people's exceedingly detailed discussion of other issues and I don't even try.  One never knows how much feedback one is going to get from everybody, or when they're gonna get it.  Sometimes it pours.  And if Tim's been bombarded with a gazillion things, I often stop commenting, reading, or giving any input until it dies down.  This time around, this is when I had the time and patience to do the Quality Assurance.  It just happened to come when others were talking about a lot of other things.

My own mod thread is super quiet.  I'm either doing something right or wrong.   

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

MY 2182.  I'm quitting.  The spam rate of sea colonists is way too high for this to be tenable.  The usual advantage of the Pirates is they can do something that other factions can't.  I have no such advantage in this mod, with the spawn rate being so high.  The Usurpers, in particular, have a size 9 sea base.  Everybody's basically better pirates than the Pirates.

The native life generator parameters are turned back to vanilla values in 161. It does not produce more of them.

The only modifications are that it generates more of sea natives comparing to land ones. It was 1:5 in vanilla. Now is about 1:2.
Another modification is that natives do not die often so they can live long enough to reach someone bases.
These two parameters may slightly increase number of native attacks comparing to vanilla but I don't think by much. If this is still perceived to be too high, I can revert them too.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I've made this request in the Issues section on GitHub, but I'll repost it here as well.

Can the hurry message display both full hurry costs and the partial hurry costs for "Total Minerals Left - Current Production" so that people would know exactly how much payment is needed to finish the production next turn based on the current production rate? This is something extensively used in multiplayer where turn advantage is very significant. It would be a massive QoL improvement as currently people are playing with calculators in hand.

Saw it. Thank you. Very nice and neat way to report it. Now it is on my TODO list.
😁

a) Can the price of hurrying facilities/units be made customizable? Currently it's 2/4 under a new formula for a neutral INDUSTRY setting, but it'd be nice to experiment with other values.

Cannot tell from the top of my head. These multipliers were hard-coded in ASM and only values are 2 and 4. However, I solved other tough problems in the past so may this one as well.

b) Can the hurrying threshold for the first X minerals get reinstated on a universal basis? Basically, hurrying up to retool penalty threshold should cost the same regardless of what you are hurrying, else we get what is currently going on in our multiplayer game where people start building RecTanks, hurry the first 10 minerals for cheap, and then switch production to a unit, saving quite a bit of money.
(this is why I am considering making the hurry values equal)

Yep. Long going problem with it. Theoretically possible but it'll introduce serious complications in formulas where we would need to count first minerals separately, etc. And they are somewhat interlaced in different places (human hurry, AI hurry, partial hurry cost, etc.).
Still doable with due diligence and someone helping to cover all test cases.

Yes, uniform hurry cost multiplier for everything would make this problem go away. That is fine between facilities and units but project will still need to cost more. So no easy solution.

c) Can the retool penalty threshold / free minerals scale with INDUSTRY? It's a set number currently, but we are moving towards counting everything in rows. So settling a new base would provide you with a free mineral row rather than flat 10 minerals.

Nice idea in general. I'll look into it.


I think it is time to open a dedicated thread on these industry-hurry-retooling can of worms. Too many small things connected to each other. Need some universal and straightforward solution.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

> Colony spam needs to be dialed down.

You need to play on lower difficulty, or at least with higher ai cost_factor on transcend.

Nah.  It's insane.  "Harder than usual Transcend" is fine, one would kinda expect that.  But on a Standard sized map, this isn't even a basically good play experience.  Opinions will vary.  I will try Huge and see if it's equally bad.

Which colony spam are you talking about - yours or AI's? If yours, then raise Colony cost. If AI's then either again raise Colony cost or switch to lower difficulty where their production power is not that high. All the configuration options are there.
The "Transcend should be beatable" argument is a complete contradiction to Thinker-WTP purpose.

I've proposed giving aquatic factions extra mineral on mining platform, that normally requires tech prerequisite for free from the start.

Compared to stock, this could be thought of as removing Pirate minerals from Tidal Harness squares.  And requiring a Mine before any minerals are gained.

Aquatic factions are very-very-very special beasts. It does require serious play testing to even pin point their problems or OPs. I don't think we are at this point yet. Even without extra mineral they develop quite well in my games. I also can develop well when playing them. Not without difficulties but they do not suck completely. Don't see a need in buffing them yet.

I'd suggest to start a separate thread for lets plays, since other discussions can get drowned in them,

Nope.  I'm not doing this to have funzies with Let's Plays.  I'm doing this to report the major problems I see in the design, with exact examples.

I can't really follow other people's exceedingly detailed discussion of other issues and I don't even try.  One never knows how much feedback one is going to get from everybody, or when they're gonna get it.  Sometimes it pours.  And if Tim's been bombarded with a gazillion things, I often stop commenting, reading, or giving any input until it dies down.  This time around, this is when I had the time and patience to do the Quality Assurance.  It just happened to come when others were talking about a lot of other things.

My own mod thread is super quiet.  I'm either doing something right or wrong.   

Thank you, man. I appreciate any feedback and even more play testing.