Question: What does the research rate curve look like in your games?

[Yitzi]

as I too would like to see more games go into higher tech before being decided (without the game ending abruptly after completing half the tech tree).

Actually, I think a better fix for that is:
-Move hab complex to silksteel (probably increase the population cap slightly to compensate); this will give more incentive to get the defensive techs.
-Doctrine: Air Power requires Advanced Military Algorithms, SAM is available with Synthetic Fossil Fuels, and copters' bonus speed from reactor is reduced to 0.  This should weaken air power.
-Swap the positions of sky hydroponics farms and orbital defense pods, and adjust the costs of satellites so orbital defense pods are the cheapest.  This should help keep satellites from imbalancing things too much, and nerf air power further in the process.
-Move the tachyon field to advanced relativity, and have advanced relativity also double the effects of ECM and AAA.  This should make it somewhat easier to defend bases or defend against high-mobility units as weapons start to get stronger in comparison to armor.

[Dio]

This should make it somewhat easier to defend bases or defend against high-mobility units as weapons start to get stronger in comparison to armor.

You could also simply set a value in the rule for mobile versus rough in the alphax file. This makes units get a defense bonus against mobile units while in base, forest, rocky, or fungus squares.

[Nexii]

I found that increasing ECM/AAA wasn't really the best.  There's a big window (Impact to Missile + Rovers) before these defensives come into play, and in the late-game Wave breaks ECM/AAA.  The more I play, the more I'm favoring keeping the 2:1 A/D ratio.  The attacker needs to win battles - defense should not really be in excess unless multiple modifiers going on (i.e. not an AAA unit by itself in the open).  Air chassis should cost more than infantry to begin with, and there's the risk of AS air countering your jet.  In other words, air needs to be good otherwise you'll see all infantry armies.  For example I tried triple cost on air and it was rarely worth it.  No air is about as bad as only air.  Instead I gave all armors beyond unarmored a cost of +1 row, times chassis multiplier.  I also put ECM and Trance to a cost of 1 each, so that armored attack infantry could carry the modifiers.  Key point in most battles is being able to get infantry up near a base.  Rovers can take bases too but less reliably.  But that's all just military tweaking, I don't think it would do all that much for the L cost curve.  If you don't war in these tech periods then mostly the military techs are delayed.

As I practice MP, I am feeling that the AI's style (and my own) is much too war-hungry.  You roughly double in power approximately every 25 turns throughout the whole game.  Call it Nexii's adaptation of Moore's Law for SMAC.  Meaning, if you don't swallow up your opponent in that period of time, you're now behind everyone else.  Now if you do, that's one less enemy - and you get their SPs.  But there's also the issue of drone control, the army you lost, and facilities destroyed on base capture.  Not to mention the mineral investment on top of going into war SE choices.  Generally in every game I played, the faction that got ahead or won was the one that never had to fight anyone.  Usually because they had their own continent.  Granted there comes a point where everyone gets tempted to jump on the #1 or unpact them, if they get too far ahead.  The AI does judge this well - it just wars too readily before this point.  Mostly it can war hard early just because of the initial growth and industry bonuses.  I suppose it should be no surprise that SMAC is like all its predecessors - a game of diplomacy above all else.  Perhaps we should be focusing more on that aspect than the strategic.

[Yitzi]

This should make it somewhat easier to defend bases or defend against high-mobility units as weapons start to get stronger in comparison to armor.

You could also simply set a value in the rule for mobile versus rough in the alphax file. This makes units get a defense bonus against mobile units while in base, forest, rocky, or fungus squares.

But not in open areas; it should be possible (with dedicated units) to handle mobile at about even (assuming the mobile unit attacks first) even in open areas.

I found that increasing ECM/AAA wasn't really the best.  There's a big window (Impact to Missile + Rovers) before these defensives come into play

If you also move the hab complex, ECM will be fairly early, and if you make doctrine: air power require advanced military algorithms, so will AAA.  Increasing them alone isn't the most important, but once they're made more useful by the tech tree changes the increase will help them stay viable.

and in the late-game Wave breaks ECM/AAA.

Which is why I feel wave should be disabled on air units.  On fast units it does break ECM, but it comes with its own cost increase, so that compensates.

The more I play, the more I'm favoring keeping the 2:1 A/D ratio.

Except it's not really a constant 2:1; early on it's more like 3:2, then becoming 2:1 in the midgame.

The attacker needs to win battles - defense should not really be in excess unless multiple modifiers going on (i.e. not an AAA unit by itself in the open).

Whereas I feel that the attacker should have an advantage if it's infantry, but it should be about even for ECM vs. mobile (to compensate for the fact that mobile can attack first), and a defender's advantage for a base with all the available defense facilities or for AAA vs. air (since air is so good at attacking).

Air chassis should cost more than infantry to begin with

In fact, it costs about the same as rovers...and is far better.

and there's the risk of AS air countering your jet.  In other words, air needs to be good otherwise you'll see all infantry armies.

No, because infantry can't easily attack the worst-defended base, can't easily be guaranteed of being the attacker at all, etc.

This way, air will be the best for attacking AAA-light armies (or formers/colony pods), for attacking bases with perimeter defense but no aerospace complex, and for exploiting weak spots, but for a sustained assault you'll use infantry.  (Rovers will be sort of in between.)

Keep in mind that air is primarily offensive, so if it's too good you get a bias toward offense even when the defender is defending bases, which leads to the over-too-soon game we're trying to fix.

For example I tried triple cost on air and it was rarely worth it.

Yeah; air shouldn't be ridiculously expensive, just fairly easy to counter.

But that's all just military tweaking, I don't think it would do all that much for the L cost curve.

I feel that the game being over before reaching the endgame techs isn't due to the L cost curve, but rather the military factor.

I suppose it should be no surprise that SMAC is like all its predecessors - a game of diplomacy above all else.  Perhaps we should be focusing more on that aspect than the strategic.

I think they're both relevant.  The diplomacy aspect doesn't really require much .exe modding, though.  (The only part where I think it might come in useful is making the option to disable cooperative victory for aliens; that would allow even games with cooperative victory to have diplomacy make the aliens no longer overpowered.)

[Nexii]

Yea.  Well if you keep air & rover chassis cheap, that would require stronger AAA/ECM to balance which is fine.  Keep in mind I do make rover cost more than air, and air cost more than rover.

The game mostly gets over soon because the AI doesn't keep up in growth rate.  Early on, its powerful cheating bonuses allow it to far surpass a human player's growth rate.  But by early-mid game, it overspends on military that it doesn't use all that well.  Compounding this the AI doesn't terraform that well in SMAX causing its growth rate to fall behind around the same time. Meaning a human player will play defensively, outgrow, and then crush the AI by sheer force.  It was a bit more apparent with air since the AI typically under built air which was too cost effective vs other chassis.  It's not so much a function of the military units themselves though.  Against a good player, war is rarely a good option.  Only when they're close, and are playing greedy, and you manage to quickly churn out some military without them knowing can it be worth it.  With infiltrate, this is often difficult to pull off.

As far as diplomacy I'm not sure what I'd add.  I would really have to think on that.  The diplomacy options in game are quite good right now I agree. 

A few things I can think of for now..

- asking AI for their map (can do this in MP but not vs AI)
- asking players for EC/turn agreement (AI can do this to you but not in SP or MP)
- demanding tech (for MP)
- declare vendetta via diplomacy.  This is probably more important than the others, since you can use the declare withdrawal to keep enemies from declaring vendetta in MP.  There is renounce pact but not renounce treaty in other words.  Later game you can force war by air or sea, but it's an exploit just the same.

[Yitzi]

The game mostly gets over soon because the AI doesn't keep up in growth rate.  Early on, its powerful cheating bonuses allow it to far surpass a human player's growth rate.  But by early-mid game, it overspends on military that it doesn't use all that well.  Compounding this the AI doesn't terraform that well in SMAX causing its growth rate to fall behind around the same time.

Ah, AI isn't my concern.  I was thinking more of MP games being over fast.  (In single-player, you can simply not kill the AI if you so choose.)

As far as diplomacy I'm not sure what I'd add.  I would really have to think on that.  The diplomacy options in game are quite good right now I agree. 

A few things I can think of for now..

- asking AI for their map (can do this in MP but not vs AI)

A single-player game isn't that diplomacy-based, in comparison to MP.

- asking players for EC/turn agreement (AI can do this to you but not in SP or MP)

Yeah, that would be nice.

- demanding tech (for MP)

Isn't tech trading possible in MP?  So if it's a trade in exchange for nothing, that's a demand.

declare vendetta via diplomacy.  This is probably more important than the others, since you can use the declare withdrawal to keep enemies from declaring vendetta in MP.  There is renounce pact but not renounce treaty in other words.  Later game you can force war by air or sea, but it's an exploit just the same.

Yeah, that's an important one.  (Though in an all-human game it's not as important, as you can just declare vendetta and then sneak attack with no actual diplomatic ramifications since everyone knows it's not a real sneak attack.)

[Nexii]

It's that you can't get the sneak attack off - whether in truce or treaty.  You can just hit the 'demand withdrawal' every turn on every human opponent to push their troops away, no downside to this.  I suppose other options would be to remove that 'demand withdrawal' or put the response to it on the opponent's turn.  Similarly the council works different in MP - the AI votes immediately but in MP the votes come in turn-by-turn (and you can see others votes, meaning last vote has more sway).  I wonder if in MP, all the votes should be secret until revealed.  Thing is there's also hybrid games - MP with AI also.

MP games tend to be over fast?  I'm not so sure that's true.  You mean because of the tech rate late?  There's quite a few catchup mechanisms - governor, war, tech steal.  Should usually be a close game amongst equal skilled players. 

Yea I suppose an empty tech window could signify a demand for tech.  I think the whole tech-trading diplomacy could be improved in MP but I'd have to give it some thought.  I think it's that there isn't a quick way in the diplomacy screens to know if an opponent has a tech that you do not.  This goes for both AI and Human trading.  For MP trading it's pretty good the other way, you can see techs you have that the other doesn't.  But still it would be nice to be able to ask/demand for specific techs somehow, I feel.

[Yitzi]

It's that you can't get the sneak attack off - whether in truce or treaty.  You can just hit the 'demand withdrawal' every turn on every human opponent to push their troops away, no downside to this.

Oh, the human opponent can't refuse to withdraw?  I suppose it's intended that you'd only do that if they agree out-of-game to withdraw; that actually makes it not such a high priority.

Similarly the council works different in MP - the AI votes immediately but in MP the votes come in turn-by-turn (and you can see others votes, meaning last vote has more sway).  I wonder if in MP, all the votes should be secret until revealed.

I think that would be good.

Thing is there's also hybrid games - MP with AI also.

True.

MP games tend to be over fast?  I'm not so sure that's true.  You mean because of the tech rate late?  There's quite a few catchup mechanisms - governor, war, tech steal.  Should usually be a close game amongst equal skilled players. 

No, I mean that from what I hear, MP games never make it to the top of the tech tree even for the player in the lead in tech.  Maybe I've been misinformed.

But still it would be nice to be able to ask/demand for specific techs somehow, I feel.

Probably would.

[Nexii]

MP team games or MP FFA?  The former I could see ending sooner.  The latter I see as less likely.

Yea, the human can't refuse to withdraw.  You can use it whether they agree out-of-game or not to withdraw.  Meaning you can get stuck in a truce/treaty with no way to force a vendetta.  Keep in mind at the start of the game you are in truce status by default.  So essentially you can just force withdraw, even if the opponent wants to kill you for building no military early. 

I think instead it should prompt on the following turn if they wish to withdraw or to declare vendetta.  That or if easier just be able to renounce truce/treaty. There's already renounce pact in game, it would be similar.

[Yitzi]

MP team games or MP FFA?  The former I could see ending sooner.  The latter I see as less likely.

I just know what I've heard.

Yea, the human can't refuse to withdraw.  You can use it whether they agree out-of-game or not to withdraw.

That's fairly easy to house rule, though.

I think instead it should prompt on the following turn if they wish to withdraw or to declare vendetta.

The problem then is that the withdrawal should really happen that turn.

That or if easier just be able to renounce truce/treaty. There's already renounce pact in game, it would be similar.

Though that still precludes a refusal to withdraw when your sneak attack is found.  I think part of it might just have to be to house rule that you can't use the in-game demand withdrawal unless you've done an out-of-game demand withdrawal and the guy agreed.

[Nexii]

Yea it'll have to be house ruled for now.  It's fine really I'm mostly testing other MP things vs myself.

[Nexii]

Back on topic, I recently (finally) got to play a game through to completion.  I ended with 14k labs a turn, with 9 bases as Gaia.  Made a point of taking a few turns to complete all the endgame projects and since I didn't rush to Hab Domes like I should have.  My bases had boomed up for a bit before I could Transcend - to around size 33-36, as there was some overlap to save space early game.  Normally you would have to fight early game for space and I chose not to.  I was using about 8% of the map, tops.  So if the other factions had done the same and with pacts/global trade pact, I could see getting to the range of 25-50k labs/turn in a scenario where the map is not conquered.  Granted this is 100% labs allocation - very late when Transcendi take care of the ECON and PSYCH.

For terraforming I used raised farm/solar throughout with reduced former times on farm and solar as a test.  I had all my land at 3k altitude and the border of my land ringed in echelon mirrors (something I never considered doing before in my calculations).  With making raised solar cost less FT, there are a lot of terraforming layouts I never considered before.  One is to put bases in a line early, and raise a ridge between them all.  This worked quite well although I feel the early game would have went faster if I'd constructed some boreholes on the backside of the bases.  Even at 2:1 rush costs, it's rather expensive to rush things.  Moreso for SPs - I feel like a base or two intended for SPs with extra native defenses would have worked well.

Increasing the endgame tech required by 5-10x wouldn't be a stretch really.  Tech cost for the last few techs was 4k as consistent with the formula and my tests earlier.  I could see getting more labs if I had constructed more bases, at least to the B-cap of 12.  As Gaians in my set, would be getting EFFIC of 5 with Demo/Green/Knowledge (6 late with Cyber), so could see going to 12-15 bases for about 50% more labs.  Of course the endgame labs needed could be more generous on lower difficulties, not everyone might raise land or terraform well.  Even myself, I find I'm discovering things.  I think a raised solar late with some boreholes earlier game might be best.  Depending on how you mod ecodamage, high M production can be either desired or avoided.

I think that it's satellites in combination with Hab Domes and Transcend which really skyrocket the labs.  I'm not as convinced satellites really need a nerf if quadratic tech cost scaling is put in.  For example, Satellites only accounted for about 1/3 the bases total production and that was post-boomed to maximum size.  Keep in mind satellites do have a very real cost - most very fast speedruns on tiny maps just build a few N satellites and that's all.  And there's always the option to just mod their construction cost.  Same with Ascent, one good thing I noted is that you can put SP construction cost much higher than unit cost.  Even 2000 rows seems to work.

[Yitzi]

Increasing the endgame tech required by 5-10x wouldn't be a stretch really.

Ah...what I had in mind would only increase it by a factor of around 3-4.  On Transcend at turn 200, the 86th tech would cost 16,168 (on citizen, by comparison, it would be only 5504), so 25-50k labs/turn would still make it go pretty quickly.  However, more expensive production satellites, and easier warfare satellites, seems likely to reduce that somewhat.

However, if you had 9 bases of size 33-36 each (and, by the way, Gaians can get quite a lot more than that per base in the lategame, especially if they manage to grab the Manifold Harmonics and have satellites up), that's roughly 300 population, so you were getting roughly 50 labs per person.  I'd want to see that savegame, as I don't see any feasible way to do that unless you used crawlers like crazy (another thing that I think could use some limiting.)

I think that it's satellites in combination with Hab Domes and Transcend which really skyrocket the labs.  I'm not as convinced satellites really need a nerf if quadratic tech cost scaling is put in.  For example, Satellites only accounted for about 1/3 the bases total production and that was post-boomed to maximum size.

Did you remember to also take into account the contribution they gave to feeding all your transcendi?  I'm guessing that will increase it from 1/3 to over 1/2.

Keep in mind satellites do have a very real cost - most very fast speedruns on tiny maps just build a few N satellites and that's all.  And there's always the option to just mod their construction cost.

Modding their construction cost and prerequisites (and those of orbital defense pods) is all I had in mind.

And speedruns aren't really my concern.

[Nexii]

Here's the save, I didn't use any crawlers at all.  May have to go Knowledge/Cyber and set labs to 100%.  Might be some small differences since I mod SEs, and +1E/base, but overall it should be close.

Yea, the 1/4 or so is pre-Hab domes.  After Hab Domes it's probably more...though only some of that extra population is from N-sats. 

I think 16k near the end might be ok, with a few late-game facility/satelllite cost increases.  Ascent to 5-10x the cost, though the late SPs probably don't need much increase.  There's such a narrow window between when they're made and Ascent.  Early game facilities dropped in cost perhaps, this did take me around 250 turns in a very peaceful (but isolated, no pacts) game.  Unless the AI plays differently it's possible to bog down in very long wars.

Manifold is interesting and something I should play around with.  Unfortunately it seems to come very late...as with the Future SEs.  Right now all these things are gotten about 5-20 turns before the game's over, which isn't much time to re-terraform. Fungus is pretty quick though, which I like.  I'd say certainly viable very late if the tech curve was slower.

[Yitzi]

Ah, I wasn't counting on going max RESEARCH for +40%; even so, I'm just looking at 12k and change, not 14k.

I also wasn't counting on your supercity at Greenhouse Gate; that contributes around a third of your total research, and (a) would not apply in an MP game (and in SP you can always delay Transcendence for a few hundred turns while you rack up the score via Transcendent Thought), and (b) won't be multiplied by having more bases.