SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[bvanevery]

New game with version 198.
aliens_fight_half_strength_unit_turn=30
alternative_combat_mechanics_loss_divider=1.0
combat_bonus_territory=10
10,      ; Combat % -> intrinsic base defense
25,      ; Combat % -> Fanatic attack bonus
Trance Scout Patrol, Trance Formers, Trance Sea Formers, and Infantry Probe Team removed from predefined units.
Caretakers: DEFENSE, 110
Usurpers: OFFENSE, 110

Huge map, 30%..50% land, average settings.  Random opponents.  I drew the Caretakers.  I expect early mindworms will be no challenge at all.

I started on an island, but an earthquake joined me to a larger island to the west.  So far no neighbors.

Details new defense regime

new defense regime

MY 2127.  Somehow I've had no mindworm interactions before now.  None of them popped up on river fungus squares, and I haven't been crossing fungus much at all.  Just been focused on popping pods.  In WTP I'm not that excited about capturing mindworms, as somehow I don't seem to get as many, nor do they last as long.  Maybe healing in field takes longer too.  It just doesn't add up to the classic mindworm steamroller, whatever's going on.

I survived the 2 mindworm hits and then captured the spore launcher, per the standard scripted automatic success for a PLANET friendly faction.  Meanwhile a Transport at sea has survived 2 Isle hits with only 20% damage.

MY 2186.  6:30 AM.  I quit because I wasn't happy with my colonizing.  Whenever I start building Rec Commons everywhere, I tend to just stop.  The delays for getting anything built are rather long.  I hadn't finished filling out my original territory.  A 2nd earthquake attached me to the mainland.  I accumulated enough Artifacts to complete the Merchant Exchange.  It makes me think I could afford another early Secret Project and I'm underutilizing my capabilities.

The Gaians have 24 cities, 15 of which are sea bases.  They have built 56 Scouts.  This seems excessive, especially since they've only lost 7.  They build 2 or even 3 Scouts per base, running out of SUPPORT.  They're Democratic so -2 SUPPORT is a problem for them.

[bvanevery]

New game with version 198.
aliens_fight_half_strength_unit_turn=30
alternative_combat_mechanics_loss_divider=1.0
combat_bonus_territory=10
10,      ; Combat % -> intrinsic base defense
25,      ; Combat % -> Fanatic attack bonus
Trance Scout Patrol, Trance Formers, Trance Sea Formers, and Infantry Probe Team removed from predefined units.
Caretakers: DEFENSE, 110
Usurpers: OFFENSE, 110

Huge map, 30%..50% land, average settings.  Random opponents.  I drew the University.

Details unexciting game

unexciting game

I quit in MY 2164.  3 PM and I'm really dragging from lack of sleep last night.  I think I won't be doing any more testing for awhile.

Had a mediocre start with not really any good land where I landed.  I walked east and west, founding University Base and Zvedny Gorodok.  I used pod popping to do Completions, and I studiously avoided making any Rec Commons unless I'd amassed something important, like a Command Center.  I had quite a bit of fungus in my way, I was on pinched land, and the Cultists exerted pressure on me from the north.  Pretty much every faction I met, hated me and declared war on me.

The final straw was Planetary Archives getting trashed by wild mindworms, that surely someone else stirred up.  I even had 3 ECM Scouts to fight them off, and a Sensor Array, and a Battle Ogre waiting outside the city to help with problems.  Well they went through me like I'm butter anyways, and my Ogre was blindsided by an unseen pre-boil mindworm.  I had to sell off a Biology Lab.  I lost all the production on my nearly completed Recycling Tank, as changing it to a military unit, didn't allow it to complete before the barely alive remaining mindworm trashed my base.  The only thing I can say is I held onto the base.  It was otherwise a wipeout, a totally one sided engagement.

This game demonstrates that despite factions being positioned far apart, PLANET positive factions can be an enormous threat to non-PLANET factions that are restricted by fungal mazes.  It was a viable game, but irritating all around.  Getting trashed and not being able to do much, isn't fun.

I'm also not convinced that the University has any advantages compared to its disadvantages.  Totally vulnerable to probe, and a drone every 4 citizens with no possibility of the Virtual World alleviating it, hardly seems worth it to get a modest boost in RESEARCH.  The AI on Transcend seems to do quite well on its RESEARCH anyways, it's not like the University actually gains an advantage.  Usually feels more like under parity.

Time to file some "definitely needs fixing" issues and beg off for awhile.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I have just rediscovered and downloaded and tried to replay Civilization 3. I once played it a year in 2002 then never returned. It has genuinely appalling interface. I cannot even believe commercial game of a most popular series could be that ugly. So maybe I won't even be able to replay for that specific reason. However, it has some pretty well thought concepts those SMAC can borrow. Not all of them, of course. It still has its quirks but few of them I really liked. Like luxury and strategical resources, road network, irrigation/mine/road - each providing a bonus, slow increasing size of nutrient grown box, watch towers providing 4 sight range when placed on mountains, colonies to claim outside resources, city borders expanding with culture, etc. I am not advocating anything but it is fun to experience it again and maybe have a different look at things.

[bvanevery]

The worst thing about Civ 3, which caused me to snap my disk in half, was the revolt rules.  You'd end up having to conquer every city twice.  Or raze them, to prevent that from happening.  Or put an absurd number of troops in, which means you'd take forever making the troops, and forever pushing them around.

[MercantileInterest]

Civ III culture mechanic was fun but makes much less sense in the Alpha Centauri setting, given that territory would be controlled by formal agreement instead of masses of peasant farmers. SMAC factions have more sophisticated methods of inculcating their values than historical civs. Much less likely drones in the Human Hive will buy into Peacekeeping agitation and join Lal's free society.

On that note, have you fixed the probe bug? The AI always detects probe incursions. Nerve stapling is bugged too. Sometimes, you get a message saying the drones have become immune but if you mash the button a few times, you can successfully staple the drones.

Resource mechanic would be tricky. Would have to tie specific resources with specific components in the design workshop and/or with specific facilities. The resources would all/or mostly have to be actual minerals like aluminum or silicon, since this isn't light sci-fi (PSI aside).

Would very much enjoy actual mountains but that would require a graphic update, differing depending on whether the mountain range was confined to one tile or expanded over several.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

On that note, have you fixed the probe bug? The AI always detects probe incursions.

What's that?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Regarding general bug fixing I would advise to send them to Scient and/or Induktio as they are my upstream sources and it would make much more sense to distribute bug fix across as much mods as possible. Fixing them in WTP would be a mosquito bite.

[Tayta Malikai]

Hello. I hope the new year is treating you well.

A group of us are currently playing a multiplayer PBEM game using MercantileInterest's modification of Will to Power v160. I in particular have benefited from a very curious bug. On two occasions, I have researched techs well in advance of the expected date: first in 2157, and again in 2163. Both were level 4 techs and had 10 turns to go.

I am very certain that I did not use the wrong .exe or make any changes to the game files.

We were hoping you might be able to inspect the save files for us and let us know what seems to be amiss.

Save files are attached here. The relevant mod files can be found in this thread.

(click to show/hide)

Password is "pancake".

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Sure thing. I'll have a look.

However, I'd like to understand what am I looking for first. What are these techs?
What do you mean by "well in advance" bug? Did it become available without necessary prerequisites? Was it researched too fast comparing to other level 4 techs?

[Tayta Malikai]

What I mean by "well in advance" is that the game told me I still had 10 turns to go to research the tech, but then I suddenly unlocked the tech next turn.

The first was Static Energy Storage (D4). In 2155, I had 482/989 labs and 11 turns to go. In 2156, I had 532/989 labs and 10 turns to go. In 2157, I suddenly had the tech.

Likewise for Colonial Aviation (C4). In 2162 I had 330/989 with 10 years to go. In 2163 the tech was in my hands.

[Fibonacci]

You didn't get the positive network node random event perchance?

http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Random_Events_(Basic)

[Tayta Malikai]

I didn't see any notification of it either time. But notifications can be a bit weird in PBEM sometimes.

I feel like it'd be very unlikely, though technically not impossible, to get the event twice in a row under similar circumstances.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

It's a bug in tech cost computation. Need to debug it to understand the exact cause.


Found it.
Somehow in your next game (2157.SAV) Thinker header was missing in save. That triggered total reinitialization of all Thinker variables including tech cost which is set to default vanilla tech cost. It was not corrected by updated tech cost computation since it happened in the middle of research and not at the research pick stage. Vanilla cost also happened to be about twice lower than Thinker. Therefore it immediately completed current research.

I am not sure if this header is supposed to stay all the time in save from the very first save or Induktio accounted for it to disappear sometimes and be recreated.

What I can do is modify initialization routine and make sure it sets properly computed value if tech is already selected.


Add to that the storing Thinker variables in save is uncharted territory and could be very fragile especially in multiplayer game where save bear a special "end of turn" meaning and could use some extra logic that is difficult to test in local development environment. Be on a lookout about potential bugs.

[Tayta Malikai]

Great, thanks for that, very helpful.

We've since uncovered that one of the players was using the default terranx.exe to play the game, which was causing bugs in his research. I'd guess that this is what caused the Thinker header to be dropped from the save. We'll keep playing and let you know if it comes up again.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Using wrong executable will most certainly disrupt the game not even multiplayer one!