Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 03:08:49 am
Ideas I developed in http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21046.0 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21046.0) crystallized into a full fledged mod. Thank to bvanevery who tested first versions extensively and helped out with suggestions to make it relatively playable.
The complete idea is described in readme. Here is the short summary.
I believe SMAC/X is a greatest game of all times. It outdid Civ I and Civ 2 - also greatest games ever until SMAC/X. What's stunning, it keeps outdoing all the follower Civ versions hands down. It is amazing how many innovations they ingested in it. Looks like game designer also did a hard work of making sense for each one of them and balancing them out. Unfortunately, the sheer number of features poses a real challenge making them work together. That's why only few of them present viable strategies. Others just either completely unusable or not viable at all. Being playing this game for decade I have learnt all features, exploits, and sole best strategy that is the fastest way to victory. After applying it over and over again I got bored and don't play vanilla version any more. I feel sad that there are so many aspects of the game I never used just because they happen to be accidentally under-powered below any sense. This mod is an attempt to bring previously underdog features to light. Let them be not only interesting and unique featurs but also be valuable to the player as a good strategies at some point.
The motto of this mod is all features should be valuable for winning at some point. They may be circumstantial and not applied in every single game but they should be applied quite often. In other words, there should not be any extremely over or under powered features/strategies those used more than 90% or less than 5% of the time. Player should have a good mix of tools on their hand and should be able to apply one of the other in light of the changing game state.
Let me do a quick disclaimer here. Balancing strategies means that some of them becomes less attractive in general. That is a definite drawback for those who got used to a certain play style. The nature of the well balanced game is that it does not have a style defined before game starts. You need to be flexible and assess you current state, strengths and weaknesses in order to chose a best approach at a time. That also certainly means it becomes more challenging as you need to think on your feet more often. That's the beauty of it for me and I apologize to those not sharing my passion.
Here are a summary of main things I did to the game.
- Balanced weapon and armor strength so that you start with slightly stronger armor. Weapon catches up with armor closer to the middle of the game and then growths somewhat faster to the 3:2 ratio toward the end. That eliminates the indestructible army exploit which was the main reason I've started this mod.
- Mercilessly deleted all unused, unusable, and unbalanceable things as well as those directly contradicting game paradigm.
- Unused or barely used technologies
- Unusable abilities
- Combined weapon and armor
- Higher reactors
- Modified cost and/or effect of over and under powered features to make their value suit their purpose better and be strategically comparable to other choices.
- Weapon and armor rating
- Facilities cost and maintenance
- SPs cost
- SE models composition
- Abilities strength and cost
- Completely rearranged tech tree and feature appearance in tech tree to put their discovery time closer to the point when they actually start to be needed. Thus reducing the clutter of unneeded items in build list or workshop. This may make tech tree quite not what it is in box game but I don't think technology naming and connection is too much of importance. After all they always can be renamed and re-linked as needed.
After all this let me reiterate once more that I do not plan to achieve some phantom perfect balance as I believe it doesn't exist. I am satisfied when I see no unused features and every feature in the game has unquestionable value at some game at some point. In this regard the specific shape of the txt configuration is optional and I welcome everybody to be co-authors on it. Feel free to shoot you suggestion on feature timing, value, technology names, tech tree structure, etc. I believe together we can make this great game infinitely playable again!
:)
One more disclaimer to make. This is txt mod and, theoretically, it should go easily with any pure exe mod. However, I have built and tested it on top of Thinker mod. That's why I didn't address problems already addressed there.
Enjoy and thank you in advance for your feedback and suggestions.
Post by: bvanevery on December 25, 2018, 05:33:52 am
Blink Displacers are pointless. Instead of the cost of equipping every offensive unit with that, you can just send an Algorithmically Enhanced probe team to destroy any Tachyon Field in your way. It's easy to make those teams Elite by this point in the game, just with a Covert Ops Center and a Command Center etc. They can specifically target a facility with an 88% success rate. 75% if there's been a lot of previous probe team action against the city. Losing 1 team is definitely an acceptable expense as probe teams don't cost all that much to make.
Now in the stock game, units are cheapened in cost by bigger reactors. So, one "might as well" put a Blink Displacer on a unit, because the costs aren't so bad. In your mod, adding a Cost 2 Ability to a unit makes it very expensive. So there's just not a reason to do it, it's a waste of time. If nothing else changes, then in accord with your "removing clutter" philosophy, you might as well get rid of this one as it's pointless.
I always thought it sounded too much like Dungeons & Dragons anyways. I think I'm fighting a 4-tentacled panther.
With weapons vs. armor in the endgame, a strength 28 String Disruptor can always smash through a Perimeter Defense and strength 16 Stasis armor. Assuming an infantry attack on the city, equally trained units, etc. Do you want weapons to have this advantage at the end? In my mod, both weapons and armor go to strength 30.
Post by: bvanevery on December 25, 2018, 01:49:38 pm
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 25, 2018, 02:29:44 pm
I have some solid opinions on endgame combat now.
Blink Displacers are pointless. Instead of the cost of equipping every offensive unit with that, you can just send an Algorithmically Enhanced probe team to destroy any Tachyon Field in your way. It's easy to make those teams Elite by this point in the game, just with a Covert Ops Center and a Command Center etc. They can specifically target a facility with an 88% success rate. 75% if there's been a lot of previous probe team action against the city. Losing 1 team is definitely an acceptable expense as probe teams don't cost all that much to make.
Now in the stock game, units are cheapened in cost by bigger reactors. So, one "might as well" put a Blink Displacer on a unit, because the costs aren't so bad. In your mod, adding a Cost 2 Ability to a unit makes it very expensive. So there's just not a reason to do it, it's a waste of time. If nothing else changes, then in accord with your "removing clutter" philosophy, you might as well get rid of this one as it's pointless.
I always thought it sounded too much like Dungeons & Dragons anyways. I think I'm fighting a 4-tentacled panther.
With weapons vs. armor in the endgame, a strength 28 String Disruptor can always smash through a Perimeter Defense and strength 16 Stasis armor. Assuming an infantry attack on the city, equally trained units, etc. Do you want weapons to have this advantage at the end? In my mod, both weapons and armor go to strength 30.
I completely agree. There are so many features discovered at the end game that it is impossible to balance them in principle. I always consider end game as a spectacular show where you can try out some interesting stuff and see how it works.
:)
You have a point that 2 for end game abilities is too much. I'll review them.
I believe the problem with Algorithmically Enhanced probe teams (as with any quite sophisticated tactics) is that computer won't use them en masse. So if I raise armor it will not be able to penetrate human of fellow AI defense and turns the game into WWI tranches those you don't like so much. Only human will be able to advance by applying above mentioned sophisticated tactics. Fixing this would be pretty complex work on AI priorities. Make them flood their cities with probes so you cannot penetrate them from afar and then wipe out your stopped probes?
Besides, even with only perimeter and sensor best weapon is still slightly weaker than best armor. You got a point, though. 2:1 is too much even for end game anyway. I should make it something 3:2 probably.
Another consideration is that at the end game we don't need to maintain a perfect war balance anymore. As you said yourself, at some point you/somebody should be able just to win the game already. So when there is nothing to research anymore the conquest should become relatively quick.
Speaking about reactors I considered two options. One is removing them altogether. Another is let them be but spread across the tree so that on average the item strength-cost progression is still more or less smooth. Still at breakthrough points one would get an enormous advantage easily tilting the equilibrium if even for short period of time. The only counter for that is to keep armor even stronger at least up to Fusion reactor discovery time. This in turn makes discovering Fusion reactor a must have prerequisite for early conquest. We can surely give it away for free at the beginning so everybody starts with Fusion. This makes reactor problem more bearable. I don't want to dive into this for now. It is a huge work and I have other things to look at now.
Post by: bvanevery on December 25, 2018, 02:54:19 pm
I believe the problem with Algorithmically Enhanced probe teams (as with any quite sophisticated tactics) is that computer won't use them en mass.
I'm not sure I want any probe teams to be used by the computer en masse. Historically, the AI has done exactly that when I've invaded. The problem is so bad, the last ditch effort of the AI to cough up tons of probe teams and buy back conquered cities, that I've often had to wait until I've gotten the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm to make an invasion. I have rage quit the game more times than I can recall over overpowered probe teams. I find it a complete drag that in addition to the number of ordinary military units I have to bring to invade, I also have to make quite a complement of probe teams, to avoid the AI's obnoxiousness in that regard. I am quite thankful that for whatever reasons, the AI is calmer about this in my mod. I'm still not sure whether it's due to giving Foil Probe Teams to the AI, or because I nerfed PROBE in the SE table.
I don't think it would be controversial to add Algorithmically Enhanced predefined units when that ability becomes available. I think I'll do this in my own mod.
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Speaking about reactors I considered two options. One is removing them altogether.
When literally performed, it leaves an unattractive black hole in the unit artwork. The units will still have the same strength anyways. Maybe they're even still called Fission units, I can't remember. Anyways there is no advantage to this.
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We can surely give it away for free at the beginning so everybody starts with Fusion.
This has consequences for the range of ships, planes, and missiles. It also increases the blast radius of missiles. It may also mess up predefined units, as the AI frequently doesn't know to make a Fusion version of a unit.
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This makes reactor problem more bearable. I don't want to dive into this for now. It is a huge work and I have other things to look at now.
Yes the big work you'd have to do, is rebalancing every cost in terms of Fusion reactors. And then you might still have trouble with Quantum and Singularity going up after that.
I don't actually have a problem with basic cost of troops in the endgame. With fully populated cities, one can do a lot even with only a Robotic Assembly Plant, no other factories, and no supply crawling. Fungus can provide lots of minerals in the endgame. I plant fungus instead of forests on flat terrain, because it takes half as long to plant, and has much higher minerals and energy yield. Only food is better with forests, if you've got Hybrid Forests.
The main "problem" with your costs, is that some kinds of units are completely pointless to buy, because they are way too expensive for what they offer. For instance, high caliber battleships. A single cheap Sealurk will destroy them, so Sealurks rule the waves. I have reverted to rail and infantry invasion tactics because those are clearly more cost effective than any other method.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 25, 2018, 02:58:49 pm
I have realized that the lack of Fusion or higher reactors in the game, has consequences for the benefits of the Nethack Terminus. It provides Algorithmic Enhancement for probe teams with Fusion reactors or higher. Since there are none, it doesn't happen. I have also noticed that the AI does not seem to be smart enough to make an Algorithmically Enhanced probe team. Thus, the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm actually has value in practice late in the game.
I can create predefined Algorithmic Enhancement probes for AI as usual. Maybe it will start building them.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 25, 2018, 03:01:39 pm
QuoteSpeaking about reactors I considered two options. One is removing them altogether.
When literally performed, it leaves an unattractive black hole in the unit artwork. The units will still have the same strength anyways. Maybe they're even still called Fission units, I can't remember. Anyways there is no advantage to this.
What hole? Unused higher reactors?
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 25, 2018, 03:28:04 pm
The main "problem" with your costs, is that some kinds of units are completely pointless to buy, because they are way too expensive for what they offer. For instance, high caliber battleships. A single cheap Sealurk will destroy them, so Sealurks rule the waves. I have reverted to rail and infantry invasion tactics because those are clearly more cost effective than any other method.
This is not a problem with unit cost per se. It is the problem with normal unit cost vs. native unit cost. The former need to grow to account for stronger unit. Whereas native unit cost is fixed. Maybe having higher reactors justifies this but it creates other problems. Like everybody stamps tons of cheap units at the end of the game increasing mouseclicks tremendously, etc.
Again, theoretically speaking, this is the nature of proper countermeasures. You see enemy flooding waters with sealurks - you build cheapest empath-trance 1-1 ships to take them out.
Maybe I also need to raise sealurk cost as well. It is indeed too cheap comparing to normal ships.
The rule of thumb is certain native type should cost about 2-3 time cheaper than highest end normal unit of same type but about 2-3 times more expensive than best equipped cheapest counter native (empath-trance) unit. For ground units. In my mod the cheapest one counter native infantry is 2, the expensive pure attacker hovertank is 26 and Mind Worms is 5. So they seem to be a little bit on a cheap side. I should probable bump all native prices.
Post by: bvanevery on December 25, 2018, 03:40:25 pm
Now, one could still take the Blink Displacer out of the game, on the premise that if someone has gained
EDIT: Geosynchronous Survey Pods are targetable by probe teams after all. I don't know where the Sensor Array was that was giving Domai a defensive advantage. I couldn't see any.
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2018, 11:53:30 am
A curious endgame phenomenon is I think once the Voice of Planet is activated, mindworm stacks don't accompany fungal pops. I also think global flooding ceases. I know that under ordinary circumstances, without the Voice, the planet would be completely destroyed for the kind of eco-damage I was seeing. The result of bases doing 150 eco-damage is not pretty!
I found Soporific Gas Pods to be pretty much unaffordable and not worth having in the endgame. Blink Displacers are what I needed to crack open the unsabotageable Citizens' Defense Force. I really couldn't afford that + Gas, and Gas alone doesn't do didly squat against walled bases. Gas might be useful in the open, but I was facing an enemy that was raging with mindworms and spore launchers. It has no effect on those.
I never bothered with Dissociative Wave. I was usually attacking bases with infantry, so none of the special ability buffs were applicable against my attacking units. Similarly, mindworms don't have special abilities, and that's the main enemy I was facing in the open. DW could be useful for Penetrators, but aircraft in general are prohibitively expensive in this mod and not much used by anyone.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 26, 2018, 02:48:14 pm
I have found that the cost=4 Empath Song is nevertheless worth using, if the enemy's mindworms are too tough. A unit equipped with this is going to cost on the order of 40..60 minerals, but in the endgame that's ok as lots of cities will produce even more than that.
I've switched back to original unit cost model. Now Scout Patrol is 1 and Scout Rover is 2. So you can have anti-native units even cheaper.
I found Soporific Gas Pods to be pretty much unaffordable and not worth having in the endgame. Blink Displacers are what I needed to crack open the unsabotageable Citizens' Defense Force. I really couldn't afford that + Gas, and Gas alone doesn't do didly squat against walled bases. Gas might be useful in the open, but I was facing an enemy that was raging with mindworms and spore launchers. It has no effect on those.
I never bothered with Dissociative Wave. I was usually attacking bases with infantry, so none of the special ability buffs were applicable against my attacking units. Similarly, mindworms don't have special abilities, and that's the main enemy I was facing in the open. DW could be useful for Penetrators, but aircraft in general are prohibitively expensive in this mod and not much used by anyone.
There is not such thing as absolutely "unaffordable". Things could be relatively unaffordable comparing to some other way of achieving the goal. For example, you lose so many assault tanks capturing enemy base protected with all defenses in the end game. At the same time you lose about 2-4 times less units equipped with Blink Displacer. This is how valuable Blink Displacer is. Of course, you don't need it when enemy cities are not protected with defense but when they are you do. This ability is worth its price. Fighting heavily protected enemy bases is the most common scenario in the end game so this ability will come handy quite often. From my point of view it seems both valuable and usable. I think even 3 is too low cost for it.
Soporific Gas Pods is 1 in original game. It gives +25% odds increase so it may cost just that. From the other hand, High Morale ability is even less useful but it costs 1 too. Maybe I should remove High Morale from the game. It is quite unusable. There are plenty of other ways to raise unit morale.
Dissociative Wave counters enemy abilities and is situational. You may equip your aircrafts with it to counter AAA tracking, for example. However, since it just cuts enemy ability in half I don't think it should be priced 2. Just 1 should be enough.
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2018, 03:46:21 pm
There is not such thing as absolutely "unaffordable".
Sure there is, when you would lose the game if you bought those units. No question that aircraft were unaffordable in that test game I played. I think a String Disruptor in the air was 3x the cost of the same thing as infantry on the ground. For awhile I had enough trouble producing the ground units. And if your answer to that is "build more factories" well I spent the entire pre-Ascendance part of the game dealing with floods. If I had done factories, I would have gotten hordes of mindworms to go along with it, which probably would have killed me.
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This is how valuable Blink Displacer is. Of course, you don't need it when enemy cities are not protected with defense but when they are you do.
Actually the value of Blink Displacer isn't anti-defense, it's anti- Citizens' Defense Force. Ordinary defenses are far cheaper to destroy with probe teams. Although I don't know what the odds of targeted sabotage are against the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, sort of the inverse problem. Also the AI defends itself poorly from probes, at least in your mod in the endgame. I've seen it do a little better in my mod earlier in the game, because I have some predefined armored probe team units. It doesn't do a great job with those though, it's just an occasional barrier.
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Maybe I should remove High Morale from the game. It is quite unusable. There are plenty of other ways to raise unit morale.
I wouldn't object. It's rare for me to make such units. I've had some fear that you just pay for what you'd get from a Monolith anyways, but I'm not sure if that's true.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 26, 2018, 04:38:16 pm
There is not such thing as absolutely "unaffordable".
Sure there is, when you would lose the game if you bought those units.
I don't get you. Do you mean adding this ability to units makes things worse and makes you lose the game?
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2018, 06:50:23 pm
That was with highest PLANET rating I could muster at any time, to minimize damage. In 1.4 you also added -3 INDUSTRY penalty to Green, which I suffered through in the endgame. I took the tradeoff because I needed the +60% Psi offense to counteract the enemy's Neural Amplifier. The higher EFFIC also helped me make more money, although in practice, I didn't end up having anything to do with that money. Bases were far too expensive to subvert, and Cornering the Energy Market would have taken a million, not tens of thousands of credits.
With these strictures, I found that I could stomach units costing up to 150 minerals. I could get a 150 minerals unit done in 3 turns. I could use tactics, hold off Domai's offense, slowly make progress against his cities, and slowly gain a route to sabotaging his Ascent to Transcendence. 150 minerals per unit was realistically all I could afford, and I added some cheaper units into the mix, to do various jobs that didn't need as much production. For instance, suicidal scout hovertanks to destroy enemy Sensor Arrays.
Any units more expensive than 150, would have been suicide. I was fighting with only 9 bases and they didn't all have stellar high minerals production. Battleships and Needlejets were, generally speaking, suicidally expensive. 400 minerals for a String Distruptor Tactical, no thanks! You take such a thing out once, you kill 1 unit, it immediately gets killed by something cheaper. Now you are seriously losing the big battle of Attrition. You can't fight that way when you're not the industrial megapower of the game, it will lose you the game.
Fortunately these egregious costs gave the enemy pause as well. I don't remember ever seeing a well armed Cruiser in this game. They usually had pop cannons, which made it really easy to put a cheap Artillery piece on land and drive them off. I think I got attacked by a Needlejet maybe twice. Partly the enemy didn't have cities in range of my homeland, but partly they were too expensive to bother with compared to other things. The oceans were ruled by Sealurks, and the skies were not contested at all by anyone. You priced air combat mostly out of existence.
Why did I only have 9 bases? Because you made SPs cost so much that fighting those races crippled any other kind of empire growth. Domai got half of the SPs as is. And I had no idea that the Neural Amplifier would turn out to be the most strategically important race, that I lost. In fact, that I even conceded not realizing what the consequences would be.
If you say "just don't build something", well I say, how do I know this isn't going to seriously bite me in the ass for not having done it? So, I did as many as I could. Like, he got the Citizens Defense Force, probably way earlier than I could have done anything about. How was I supposed to know, that the unsabotageability of that, would have such a serious effect on the endgame?
Anyways the unit endgame came down to:
- String Disruptor Infantry: affordable, but will not penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Gas String Infantry: expensive, and won't penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Blink String Infantry: expensive, but will penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Gas Blink String Infantry: prohibitive. I only made 1 of these before thinking better of it.
and all of these don't do a good job against mindworms. There were almost always a few mindworms in the bases, which could cost me a few units. I found String Artillery to be effective against mindworms, it would seriously wound them in bases and almost kill them out in the open. But that's also an expensive unit, so I had a limited supply of them.
This combat made it clear to me why the concept of a Resonance weapon is actually useful. Defenders switch around to whatever is best for them, whether armor or Psi. Only a combination weapon that is adequate in both areas, and costs ok, provides a viable offense in that case. I noticed this when designing Empath units that merely had handguns. Instead of fighting the mindworm in the stack, I'm fighting the Recon Rover in the stack that only has 2 armor. So I made some variants that had a tougher main gun, although I honestly couldn't have killed much more than a Recon Rover with such guns. Too expensive to have Cost=4 Empath and a serious weapon.
I think the Resonance weapons in the stock game, are designed for circumstances that don't actually come up very much.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 26, 2018, 08:04:18 pm
Concrete example: in my test game of your mod, I had to limit my factory output to prevent global catastrophe. The world already flooded with my limits on industry in place, due to other factions going nuts with relatively early factories. If I had added fuel to the fire, I would have gotten even more flooding, plus big mindworm stacks to fight off. It's not pretty when things get that bad, you can lose games that way, so my limitations on minerals output were there for a reason. There's only so many minerals my bases can output in the real world and not lose the game due to flooding and mindworms.
That was with highest PLANET rating I could muster at any time, to minimize damage. In 1.4 you also added -3 INDUSTRY penalty to Green, which I suffered through in the endgame. I took the tradeoff because I needed the +60% Psi offense to counteract the enemy's Neural Amplifier. The higher EFFIC also helped me make more money, although in practice, I didn't end up having anything to do with that money. Bases were far too expensive to subvert, and Cornering the Energy Market would have taken a million, not tens of thousands of credits.
With these strictures, I found that I could stomach units costing up to 150 minerals. I could get a 150 minerals unit done in 3 turns. I could use tactics, hold off Domai's offense, slowly make progress against his cities, and slowly gain a route to sabotaging his Ascent to Transcendence. 150 minerals per unit was realistically all I could afford, and I added some cheaper units into the mix, to do various jobs that didn't need as much production. For instance, suicidal scout hovertanks to destroy enemy Sensor Arrays.
Any units more expensive than 150, would have been suicide. I was fighting with only 9 bases and they didn't all have stellar high minerals production. Battleships and Needlejets were, generally speaking, suicidally expensive. 400 minerals for a String Distruptor Tactical, no thanks! You take such a thing out once, you kill 1 unit, it immediately gets killed by something cheaper. Now you are seriously losing the big battle of Attrition. You can't fight that way when you're not the industrial megapower of the game, it will lose you the game.
Fortunately these egregious costs gave the enemy pause as well. I don't remember ever seeing a well armed Cruiser in this game. They usually had pop cannons, which made it really easy to put a cheap Artillery piece on land and drive them off. I think I got attacked by a Needlejet maybe twice. Partly the enemy didn't have cities in range of my homeland, but partly they were too expensive to bother with compared to other things. The oceans were ruled by Sealurks, and the skies were not contested at all by anyone. You priced air combat mostly out of existence.
Why did I only have 9 bases? Because you made SPs cost so much that fighting those races crippled any other kind of empire growth. Domai got half of the SPs as is. And I had no idea that the Neural Amplifier would turn out to be the most strategically important race, that I lost. In fact, that I even conceded not realizing what the consequences would be.
If you say "just don't build something", well I say, how do I know this isn't going to seriously bite me in the ass for not having done it? So, I did as many as I could. Like, he got the Citizens Defense Force, probably way earlier than I could have done anything about. How was I supposed to know, that the unsabotageability of that, would have such a serious effect on the endgame?
Anyways the unit endgame came down to:
- String Disruptor Infantry: affordable, but will not penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Gas String Infantry: expensive, and won't penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Blink String Infantry: expensive, but will penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Gas Blink String Infantry: prohibitive. I only made 1 of these before thinking better of it.
and all of these don't do a good job against mindworms. There were almost always a few mindworms in the bases, which could cost me a few units. I found String Artillery to be effective against mindworms, it would seriously wound them in bases and almost kill them out in the open. But that's also an expensive unit, so I had a limited supply of them.
This combat made it clear to me why the concept of a Resonance weapon is actually useful. Defenders switch around to whatever is best for them, whether armor or Psi. Only a combination weapon that is adequate in both areas, and costs ok, provides a viable offense in that case. I noticed this when designing Empath units that merely had handguns. Instead of fighting the mindworm in the stack, I'm fighting the Recon Rover in the stack that only has 2 armor. So I made some variants that had a tougher main gun, although I honestly couldn't have killed much more than a Recon Rover with such guns. Too expensive to have Cost=4 Empath and a serious weapon.
I think the Resonance weapons in the stock game, are designed for circumstances that don't actually come up very much.
I understand you compare Blink Displacer effect with destroying defense with probes. In this case, yes, it should be relatively cheap to be comparable to building more probes. However, I consider sending hordes of probes an exploit based on low probe team cost. It would be better to fix probe team cost then equalize everything else to it. However, if it is unfixable then setting Blink Displacer cost low is a good choice. I'll think about it.
Meanwhile, let's see how much minerals you need to destroy both perimeter and tachyon. With Algorithmic Enhancement versus highest security you need 4 teams for each = 8 teams total = 24 mineral rows. My 1.5 strongest unarmored hovertank is 26 (don't remember about 1.4). So even with probe exploit double priced Blink Displacer hovertank makes sense! Actually it is even better as Blink Displacer gives you certainty while probes not. You can go even further and put Blink Displacer on speeder (20) or even strong unarmored infantry (7). Unarmored infantry can be accompanied by defender or not if you have MagTubes and you probably have at this point. This makes things even cheaper comparing to probe team hordes. I don't understand why you complain.
:)
My bad. Forgot that Algorithmic Enhancement costs too! So with its 4 cost it doubles the cost of your probe hordes against HSA. Yay. So by all means Blink Displacer is worth its price.
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2018, 11:22:37 pm
However, I consider sending hordes of probes an exploit based on low probe team cost.
I've never thought the problem was what a probe team costs. I think the low price of taking over a base is the problem. In case you want to cry crocodile tears for poor little Domai in that test game, he could replace any facility I destroyed in one turn. At that point in the game it was this deformed whack-a-mole thing, where you have to put down a city in 1 turn so that it can't make anything anymore. It's not all that relevant to the normal costs of the game. At least not on his part, as he could build anything. But he's a dumb AI, you probably couldn't influence his choices. He did build a few probe teams to throw at me, but they were useless because of my HSA, and possibly also my large bank account, and habit of doubling units up "just in case".
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Meanwhile, let's see how much minerals you need to destroy both perimeter and tachyon. With Algorithmic Enhancement versus highest security you need 4 teams for each = 8 teams total = 24 mineral rows.
Um, no, where are you getting that? The odds for targeted assault on a facility are 75% success, even with previous probe team actions. Assuming Algorithmic Enhancement and an Elite team, which is easy to come up with, even when a faction has a -4 PROBE rating. At least in your mod; I eliminated raisings of base probe team morale in mine, and haven't don't have a way to get -4 PROBE. Anyways, I usually didn't lose a team at all. If I did lose the 1st team, I never lost the 2nd. I say, probably 4 teams will destroy 3 facilities. Tachyon Field, Perimeter Defense, and Geosynchronous Survey Pod at the end of the game. So whatever 4 teams cost, not 8.
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My 1.5 strongest unarmored hovertank is 26 (don't remember about 1.4). So even with probe exploit double priced Blink Displacer hovertank makes sense!
Umm I'm not following you. Attacking a walled base with a hovertank isn't optimal. Even if you bypass the base defense, the enemy may have ECM units. You use infantry to avoid ECM and to get the +25% vs. base attack bonus. You use instantly built rails to get the infantry next to the base immediately. An alternate exploit is to build a Land Transport unit to drop the infantry out of a 'truck' and attack right away.
Old school, non-exploit approaches are to advance with armored infantry onto Rocky, Forest, or River terrain adjacent to a city that has a defense bonus. Of course that makes the units much more expensive. A way around that, is to accompany weapons only units with armor only units. The weapon units can be shelled with artillery though, rendering them close to useless. Or you can rush with human wave tactics, surrounding the defender with as many infantry units in different squares as possible, so that they can't shoot back at all 5..8 squares. Or make sure these infantry are Elite and can move 2 squares instead of 1. That's standard drill for the Spartans.
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Actually it is even better as Blink Displacer gives you certainty while probes not.
Blink Displacers don't bypass Sensor Arrays or Geosynchronous Survey Pods. The latter often still need to be destroyed by a probe team.
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This makes things even cheaper comparing to probe team hordes. I don't understand why you complain.
:)
Probably because your math is completely wrong. I just tested all of this, I know what things actually cost, and how effective they are or aren't. Probe teams that survive also don't get wounded, they can attack again next turn.
Also consider -3 INDUSTRY penalty. It might be skewing the costs in nonlinear ways.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 26, 2018, 11:28:32 pm
QuoteMeanwhile, let's see how much minerals you need to destroy both perimeter and tachyon. With Algorithmic Enhancement versus highest security you need 4 teams for each = 8 teams total = 24 mineral rows.
Um, no, where are you getting that? The odds for targeted assault on a facility are 75% success, even with previous probe team actions. Assuming Algorithmic Enhancement and an Elite team
Err, are you sure about this? Destroying perimeter is 75% for Elite AE against +3 PROBE?
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2018, 11:51:45 pm
Err, are you sure about this? Destroying perimeter is 75% for Elite AE
I ran at least a hundred missions, so yes I am absolutely sure of this. Any targeted facility, 75% success rate, even with previous probe team activity and the advanced security lock at the base. In short it is easy to destroy a specific facility with Elite AE. The teams also survive such missions pretty well, you're likely to get to attack again next turn.
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against +3 PROBE?
It doesn't matter what the defender's PROBE rating is. It has no effect on the success rate of the mission, only your own probe team's abilities do. These are governed by your team's MORALE and whether you've got Algorithmic Enhancement, those are the only factors. I haven't tested whether the HSA changes things because I had the HSA, not the enemy.
Enemy PROBE rating would change the cost of subverting a unit or a base, but I'm not doing that. I'm doing targeted sabotage of a facility.
I will now be careful about what I assert about my testing. My enemy Domai had "not that high" of a PROBE rating. However, notice that the Probe wiki entry (http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Probe) only talks about increasing success for negative enemy PROBE ratings. It doesn't talk about decreasing success for positive enemy PROBE ratings, only increasing cost. Now, maybe there's more to it than that, but 75% is what I got against Domai. Looking it up...
Domai had a +1 PROBE rating in my game. This corroborates my claim that positive PROBE ratings on the part of the enemy, do not affect your success rate.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 27, 2018, 12:57:07 pm
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 27, 2018, 02:38:51 pm
With such high success rate for destroying defensive facilities Blink Displacer indeed doesn't make sense and it should be deleted. The problem here is that both of these methods are not circumstantial. They do not depend on any external parameters or enemy SE or own SE. One method would always be better than other. The breaking point is defined by probe team cost vs. extra Blink Displacer equipped unit cost. If not to touch probes then I'll delete Blink Displacer.
Another option would be to try and lower success rate for destroying defensive facilities. I am just thinking outloud now. Not everything could be implementable.
- Disallow destroying defensive facilities at all including from targeting random facility. Pretty direct measure.
- Specifically reduce success rate for destroying defensive facilities. Say making it 25% for Elite with no survival chance.
- Make success rate dependent on own and enemy PROBE rating. Currently it doesn't depend at all only subversion price does.
- Increase probe build cost. This impacts production same way as decreasing success chance does. The problem here is that fixed cost strongly impacts early game but not later one.
Post by: bvanevery on December 27, 2018, 04:17:57 pm
One would worry about the cost of the Nethack Terminus as well, since it grants AE to all Fusion reactor or higher probe teams. Not an issue in your mod because no such units exist.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 27, 2018, 04:25:09 pm
First 2 options are not good ideas. Might as well just remove probe teams from the game. 3rd idea isn't good with your draconian PROBE penalties, and commits you to a binary patch at any rate. 4th idea is within your power but be careful with game balance. 5th idea is to increase the cost of Algorithmic Enhancement, since it's obviously cake.
One would worry about the cost of the Nethack Terminus as well, since it grants AE to all Fusion reactor or higher probe teams. Not an issue in your mod because no such units exist.
Draconian PROBE penalties do not effect beyond game design caps -2 to +3 anyway.
Increasing Algorithmic Enhancement cost is valid but doesn't save it completely. Even without it Elite probe has 50% success rate destroying it. So the AE just improves these changes by 50%. Anything more expensive than 2 for AE would render it as burden.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 27, 2018, 06:08:43 pm
Post by: bvanevery on December 27, 2018, 07:13:59 pm
And I don't agree that defensive structures should have special immunity to probe teams. That's just you saying you don't like probe teams. Take them out of the game entirely if you don't like them, see if others agree with your decision and play your mod anyways. I think the only thing I like about probe teams is tech stealing.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 27, 2018, 07:21:17 pm
Modding with a stock binary in mind is not an exercise in idealism.
And I don't agree that defensive structures should have special immunity to probe teams. That's just you saying you don't like probe teams. Take them out of the game entirely if you don't like them, see if others agree with your decision and play your mod anyways. I think the only thing I like about probe teams is tech stealing.
Well maybe 0% is too low. Maybe 20% or something for normal then it will be 60% for AE. Tripling success rate is something.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 27, 2018, 07:30:44 pm
Probes are fixed price and fixed success chance so it is a fixed price of coping with defensive structures throughout the game. From the other hand, BD cost is proportional to contemporary unit cost and growth. So it looks like BD should be more much more efficient earlier in the game and lose to probes later. What do you think?
Say pricing BD at 4 is still a good deal even against perimeters. Couple of factors here. First, combat calculations are skewed toward stronger unit. When you attack same armor strength unit behind the perimeter with 1:2 odds you are losing not exactly 2 attackers on 1 defender but 3. So the producing double priced BD units is still more cheaper/effective than stamping regular ones. Second consideration is that it doesn't destroy defensive structures. You immediately have them for yourself after capturing a base.
Post by: bvanevery on December 27, 2018, 08:09:37 pm
So it looks like BD should be more much more efficient earlier in the game and lose to probes later. What do you think?
I think that bypassing a base's walls, is a game mechanic from Civ II. It was embodied in the Howitzer unit. Making a pile of rails and blasting the heck out of enemy cities attached by rail network, was standard drill in that game. However unlike SMAC, I don't think you could instantly complete rails on the same turn. I think you had to start working on the rail this year, then it would complete next year, if you put enough Engineers on the job. Typically you would cover those workers with a strong defensive unit, such as a Mechanized Infantry.
Bypassing defenses is a strictly late game mechanic and under no circumstances should be put earlier in the game. Otherwise you get into this ridiculous pointless game of buffs and debuffs, your walls don't matter neener neener neener! You just have to decide when the "late" game begins in your mod. I find myself pushing "late" game earlier and earlier. For instance, I am experimenting with putting orbital insertion warfare much earlier, but still "late" game.
Also bear in mind that when you grant capabilities that a human knows how to use, and the AI doesn't, you're just making the game easier for a human. That's not something SMAC needs.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 27, 2018, 08:14:42 pm
So it looks like BD should be more much more efficient earlier in the game and lose to probes later. What do you think?
I think that bypassing a base's walls, is a game mechanic from Civ II. It was embodied in the Howitzer unit. Making a pile of rails and blasting the heck out of enemy cities attached by rail network, was standard drill in that game. However unlike SMAC, I don't think you could instantly complete rails on the same turn. I think you had to start working on the rail this year, then it would complete next year, if you put enough Engineers on the job. Typically you would cover those workers with a strong defensive unit, such as a Mechanized Infantry.
Bypassing defenses is a strictly late game mechanic and under no circumstances should be put earlier in the game. Otherwise you get into this ridiculous pointless game of buffs and debuffs, your walls don't matter neener neener neener! You just have to decide when the "late" game begins in your mod. I find myself pushing "late" game earlier and earlier. For instance, I am experimenting with putting orbital insertion warfare much earlier, but still "late" game.
Also bear in mind that when you grant capabilities that a human knows how to use, and the AI doesn't, you're just making the game easier for a human. That's not something SMAC needs.
I agree in general. However, when you can destroy them with probes from the very beginning of the game - how does it make things worse?
Post by: bvanevery on December 27, 2018, 08:30:10 pm
I say, don't give in to vectorization by just piling on more buff and debuff wars earlier in the game. It's actually more logical to remove probe teams from the game.
If you keep probe teams, realize that the defender can make defensive probe teams. At least, in principle. In practice, the AI doesn't keep them around as such, it starts moving them to attack. I'm not sure if I've tried specifying probe teams with an AI plan of "Defensive," as opposed to the probe team plan. Looking over my CHANGELOG, I definitely never shipped anything with that in it. Guess I can try it and see if something happens, but I'm not expecting much.
SMAC in general has far more mechanics in it than it needs to be a 4X game of interest. I'd say it's got roughly twice as much junk as it needs. Could throw half the game away and nobody would miss it. Cutting things down to what actually matters, is what I'm thinking about for designing a new 4X title. I was encouraged when reading /r/4Xgaming today by a discussion about "newbie friendly" 4X games. Well, the overwhelming amount of cruft in 4X games, is often a barrier to new players learning them.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 27, 2018, 11:29:08 pm
I think I made up my mind. Due to skewed combat rolls attacking the same strength behind the perimeter takes 3 times more casualties and behind the perimeter + tachyon - 5 times. This seems to be overkill especially because attacker already cost more than pure defenders. Taking probe ability to destroy such defense it makes completely stupid not to use them. So introducing BD somewhere near middle of the game shouldn't break this situation. Instead it should cap attacker investment at whatever BD price multiplier is. Makes sense to me.
Here is what I am going to change.
Make probes cost higher. Somewhere 6 probably.
Make AE cost 4. It raises Disciplined probe defense destroying chance from 0 to 50. Either that or promote them to Elite yourself.
Make BD cost 4 or 6. It is still more effective even against perimeter and incredibly effective against perimeter + tachyon. Of course, not counting probe team abilities.
Let BD appear somewhere around tachyon or a little bit earlier. It'll be somewhere last third of the game.
I understand this is not perfect but it is not perfection I seek. When I see some outlier feature I try to fix it. Somehow. With means possible. If this doesn't work either - I discard it.
Post by: bvanevery on December 30, 2018, 09:43:47 pm
There is no point in having a progression of weapons and armor, going all the way up to strength 30, being blown by bypassing base defenses. It's like children playing the game of insulting each other. "Whatever you say bounces right off of me and sticks back to you!" That's a direct quote from my childhood, 6 year olds literally say that kind of thing to each other.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 30, 2018, 10:25:56 pm
After extensive endgame combat experience, I've decided the Blink Displacer is going into the "baby game" section of the tree, Threshold of Transcendence. It keeps company with The Telepathic Matrix and the Transcendii. These should never, ever be in a real game. Rather than completely remove them from the game, I leave them as toys for people to contemplate in the endgame, when they've already won.
There is no point in having a progression of weapons and armor, going all the way up to strength 30, being blown by bypassing base defenses. It's like children playing the game of insulting each other. "Whatever you say bounces right off of me and sticks back to you!" That's a direct quote from my childhood, 6 year olds literally say that kind of thing to each other.
You are right to be raged.
:)
However, it is impossible to make this game absolutely perfect even less perfectly balanced. There will always be something that blows off something else. If not BD then destroying defensive structures as you yourself went back and forth on it. If not that than certainly something else like reactors, terraforming, see combat, native combat or whatever else. Practically any thing breaks some other thing.
My strong yet humble opinion is that this is not a pure strategic game. This is a discovery game. There are 85 technologies in research tree and about 400 different features. This is much more than in other pure strategical games like Starcraft, X-COM, ... have. Due to that enormous number of technologies and stuff they allow it is impossible to pre-plan and direct your research toward specific improvement/feature. You just fund research and see what cool thing falls out for you and then try out this cool thing and see how cool it is! So, no, it won't be a pure strategical game ever. The only difference between all these cool features is that some of them stay just a cool features but others may change strategical balance but giving you better something (weapon, armor, way of action, ability, etc.). You may definitely say that when you acquire such better thing it breaks previous strategy that existed before it to some extent. Breaking previously existing strategy/feature is not that bad by itself. It is an evolution. You said yourself you want to discover something that gives you an advantage and win the game. Worse when it breaks future strategy/feature. Meaning that whatever you will discover in future won't give you an additional advantage. You already have a best strategy/feature so far. Then this future thing is just a cool toy as you named it. This is what I am trying to change by rearranging feature time of appearance and their cost/benefit. I.e. build a gradually increasing progression of betterness so that each next feature gives you more and more advantage so you are always interested in further research.
Now returning back to our destroying defense probe ability vs. BD. Probe ability cost and success chance stays about the same throughout the game. Whereas BD unit cost is proportional to the contemporary attacker and defender cost. Due to that fact it is much much easier to price it right. You just need to see how much proportion you want to keep for them. What's important that proportion stays regardless of contemporary unit costs.
I feel like out of these two strategies probe team breaks things more than BD.
Post by: bvanevery on December 31, 2018, 12:05:24 am
Practically any thing breaks some other thing.
A game is in the writing. The game provides time windows when various actions matter, then they cease to matter. In the limit, all actions cease to matter when you win the game. You are Done. An abstract objection that "things break anyways" isn't valid. A game is about controlling when these things break. Or it is not a game, it is a childhood facsimile of a game with no consequence.
Probe teams breaking down walls is acceptable because defensive probe teams can also be put into place. The problem is the AI doesn't do this as much as it should. The rules, the play mechanic itself, and the tech tree are not the problem. Soon I'll be testing whether the AI can be reasoned with, if it will believe me when I tell them an armored infantry probe team is a "Defensive" unit instead of a probe unit. If not, well, I suppose there's either binary patching, writing a new game, playing against humans, or completely removing probe teams from the game.
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Due to that enormous number of technologies and stuff they allow it is impossible to pre-plan and direct your research toward specific improvement/feature.
That's false. Play an Alien faction, you can direct your goals just fine. Blind Research is a deliberate play mechanic for everyone else. Personally I think it is a better idea than a worse one, and I've learned how to push my research towards one thing or the other over the years.
When modding, it is possible to separate the research categories to be much more inherently meaningful. I did this in my mod. It has been a huge effort, and it is still ongoing. The original designers just doled out toys to the various research foci every so often. I don't do that. I require factions to play to their strengths and trade or steal what they don't have.
I've realized that Secret Projects are the fundamental barrier to trade, the basic impediment. If I want something traded, I have to remove Secret Projects. I think I made a fairly substantial mistake in my 1.26 this way, and I'm reversing course for 1.27. Factions will have easy access to Politics and Economics choices again.
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Breaking previously existing strategy/feature is not that bad by itself. It is an evolution.
The backbone of design stability in the game is the relationship between weapons and armor. I am very rigid about that. An ironclad discipline is maintained all the way to the end of the tech tree. Frankly that's how the tech tree ends, because weapons and armors are boring. There are way more of them than needed in the game.
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You already have a best strategy/feature so far.
So I win in the era of Marines. I'm ok with that. I already learned more than a decade ago that the game can be won with Marines. To push the point, I've made Marines available as a Tier 2 tech. If all you need are Marines and some productivity, fine, have at it! See you on the other side of contemplation of productivity. I took the easy Supply Crawler economy away. And the easy factories. You'll have to actually earn your minerals.
Some people think Air Power is the big game breaker. I think it's boring because they don't have enough logistical range to get anything done. Too tedious pushing them around. The supreme logistical weapon, is the mag tube. So again, I give them at Tier 2. If all you need are mag tubes and productivity, have at it!
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You just need to see how much proportion you want to keep for them.
I'd end up pricing it so high that nobody in their right mind would use it. Might as well just put it at the end of the tree, to declare that this thing is kept in the game in name only. I don't have a difficult Ascent sequence like you do. If someone gets there, the game is going to end in a few turns.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 31, 2018, 04:27:40 am
QuoteYou already have a best strategy/feature so far.
So I win in the era of Marines. I'm ok with that.
I meant something different. Say you didn't win with Marines early but found them so effective that you build build only them throughout the rest of the game ignoring other unit types available for you later. That is what is broken. You discover new things but they are unusable because there is already better thing discovered earlier.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 31, 2018, 04:32:29 am
Practically any thing breaks some other thing.
A game is in the writing. The game provides time windows when various actions matter, then they cease to matter. In the limit, all actions cease to matter when you win the game. You are Done. An abstract objection that "things break anyways" isn't valid. A game is about controlling when these things break. Or it is not a game, it is a childhood facsimile of a game with no consequence.
Well, I meant it in exactly this way: saying that something breaks something is not valid. The better wording would be that some feature gives you an advantage which may result in switching to more advanced strategy. Now how big advantage you get - whether measly one or game ending one - is another story.
Post by: bvanevery on December 31, 2018, 09:23:49 am
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 31, 2018, 03:05:43 pm
I think I was pretty clear that all the Blink Displacer accomplishes, is ruining the backbone of weapon vs. armor ratio throughout the game, grossly favoring offense. Let's say BD comes at the the same time as a strength 16 gun. Now you don't even need the strength 20, 24, and 30 guns. Might as well forget that final part of the tech tree. I prefer to forget BD and put it at the end of the tech tree.
I'm sorry man, I don't follow your logic. BD gives proportional strength increase. So with or without it going from 16 to 24 or from 16+BD to 24+BD gives you exactly same proportional strength increase. Researching new weapon still brings same exactly value.
BD doesn't negate weapon or armor. It counters defensive structure and not for free. Depending on its cost it may render capturing bases with such defense cheaper or it may not.
Here is the simple math.
BD against Perimeter defense decreases defender multiplier from 2.00 to 1.25. You spend 2.00 times less faster units or 2.22 times less infantry units.
BD against Tachyon field decreases defender multiplier from 3.00 to 1.25. You spend 3.25 times less faster units or 3.76 times less infantry units.
These are example numbers, not exactly what you get in the game but they give you some feeling.
a) If BD multiplies unit cost by less than 2 times, it makes perimeter somewhat less effective but somewhat effective nevertheless! It renders tachyon useless.
b) If BD multiplies unit cost by between 2 times and 3.25 times, it keeps perimeter as effective as it was and it makes tachyon less effective but somewhat effective nevertheless!
c) If BD multiplies unit cost by more than 3.25, it keeps all defensive structure same effective and BD itself becomes useless.
Another consideration about perimeter and tachyon. Say you attack base with max attack bonuses (infantry, Sophoric gas pods) against same strength armor with max defense bonuses (sensor).
No defense: 1 losses
Perimeter: 2.2 losses
Tachyon: 3.8 losses
You see that perimeter doubles attacker losses while perimeter+tachyon quadruples them, not just triple as one would expect. Me and other player who tested that feel this is too much. Apparently, this is the reason AI cannot penetrate same strength defenders behind tachyon at the end of the game. While perimeter allows weaker faction withstanding stronger neighbor tachyon completely seals the border which is not the desired result. You said it yourself you don't like impenetrable trenches.
I was trying to cope with this by slowing down armor progression at the end of the game but looks like BD gives much more elegant alternative to adjust it to whatever number you like to decrease tachyon effectiveness to. I chose to price BD unit 2.5 times higher. That keeps tachyon effective but not as incredibly effective. Actually, I have a strong suspicion designers introduced BD for the same exact reason: just to cope with too powerful tachyon!
:)
Post by: bvanevery on December 31, 2018, 09:12:37 pm
I'm sorry man, I don't follow your logic. BD gives proportional strength increase. So with or without it going from 16 to 24 or from 16+BD to 24+BD gives you exactly same proportional strength increase. Researching new weapon still brings same exactly value.
Combat in the real world is not weapon vs. armor. Combat is all factors combined. Base defenses are necessary to hold off assailants, armor alone won't do it. Thinking of things orthogonally and in a vacuum, is not a game design virtue. This game is about taking over cities. There are already abilities that debuff weapons vs. armor: Soporific Gas Pods, Dissociative Wave, Psi combat. Ground units escorted by a Needlejet escort are impossible to counterattack, unless you shoot down the plane. Offense doesn't need yet another thing seriously favoring it.
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You said it yourself you don't like impenetrable trenches.
Solved by targeted probe team sabotage. Not planning on getting rid of probe teams in my mod.
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Actually, I have a strong suspicion designers introduced BD for the same exact reason: just to cope with too powerful tachyon! :)
Nope. It's this game's version of Civ II howitzers, which bypassed city walls. There wasn't any 2nd layer of walls in Civ II. Whenever you are wondering where a game mechanic came from, most of them came from Civ II. Howitzers came late game, exactly the same as Blink Displacers.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 31, 2018, 10:18:15 pm
QuoteActually, I have a strong suspicion designers introduced BD for the same exact reason: just to cope with too powerful tachyon! :)
Nope. It's this game's version of Civ II howitzers, which bypassed city walls. There wasn't any 2nd layer of walls in Civ II. Whenever you are wondering where a game mechanic came from, most of them came from Civ II. Howitzers came late game, exactly the same as Blink Displacers.
It's like we are talking different languages. That is right there is only one layer of walls in Civ II. Which triple the defense. SMAC just split this combined effect in two layers not changing the combined value.
Post by: bvanevery on January 01, 2019, 04:17:04 am
Debuffing a city wall wasn't invented in SMAC. It wasn't implemented because of overpowered Tachyon Fields. It exists because debuffing walls was an endgame mechanic in Civ II.
Post by: bvanevery on January 01, 2019, 05:55:54 am
MY 2304. Domai is the dominant military power of the game. He is beginning to destroy Lal's cities next to him. Domai's empire is centralized on the biggest land mass of the game. Lal's empire forms an arc around Domai's empire, as though Lal spread out during a Treaty to grab what land he could. Lack of mag tubes until very late in the game, possibly make Lal's empire completely indefensible. Domai and Lal had similar strength earlier but Lal's geographic position is totally untenable.
Domai is Fundamentalist Planned Power. I believe at this point in the game, the ruleset in use was still giving +1 PLANET for Fundamentalist. Domai definitely didn't have a negative PLANET rating. He has built 5 Genejack Factories and is working on a 6th. He has 6 cities doing 2..6 eco-damage, at least according to 1.4 rules. He has built 9 Tree Farms and can be regarded as a fairly responsible AI from a pollution standpoint. Possibly according to earlier rules, he may have had +1 PLANET and may not have been doing any eco-damage at all.
Morgan Industries has not learned Genejack Factories yet. They are Democratic Free Market Power with a -3 PLANET rating. 1 city is doing 4 eco-damage.
The Data Angels are doing 7 eco-damage on Mt. Planet. No factories. They are Democratic Free Market with a -3 PLANET rating.
The Peackeepers are Democratic Planned Power. They have 3 Genejack Factories and 3 Centauri Preserves.
My own University faction has built 8 Tree Farms. I am Democratic Planned Knowledge. I have 4 Robotic Assembly Plants in progress and no Genejack Factories. I am doing 0 eco-damage.
MY 2359. That's the next saved game that I have. I've suffered substantial eco-damage and spend time every turn repairing land or raising it up again. The Ruins is underwater. The Manifold Nexus is at 18 meters and endangered. Not that long from now it sinks completely, destroying it. I'm doing 4 eco-damage in 1 city, otherwise 0. I am Police State Green Knowledge Thought Control with +2 PLANET.
The Data Angels have a Genejack Factory, Robotic Assembly Plant, and a Quantum Converter on Mt. Planet. They are doing a whopping 56 eco-damage, greater than any other city in the game. They are Democratic Free Market Thought Control, thus -3 PLANET. I myself have Quantum Converter technology as well, but I chose not to build any, due to risk of even more flooding that I was already getting. The Data Angels only have this 1 awful city, they are otherwise a sparse empire.
The Morganites have 3 Genejack Factories and 6 Robotic Assembly Plants. They are Democratic Free Market Power Cybernetic, seeming to result in only -1 PLANET. They drilled 2 boreholes. Don't know if any others sunk, but I bet that's all they did. They have a city doing 22 eco-damage, and a city doing 12.
The Pirates have 1 city doing 18 eco-damage merely from sea minerals, no factories. Otherwise a city doing 4, and a city doing 2. The are Fundamentalist Free Market Power Cybernetic, probably -1 PLANET.
The Spartans have cities doing 13, 13, and 8 eco-damage. No factories. Fundamentalist Free Market Power Thought Control, probably -3 PLANET.
The Peacekeepers have been majorly killed by the Free Drones. They are doing no eco-damage. They have 2 Genejack Factories and a Robotic Assembly Plant. They are Power Thought Control, so +0 PLANET.
The Free Drones are Fundamentalist Planned Power and the dominant military force of the game. They will go on to threaten Transcendence. Only the very very long time to build the Ascent to Transcendence enables me to compete against them in the endgame. I eventually quit the game when it became clear that I would in time beat them, at the cost of many further hours of play.
They have 13 Genejack Factories, 17 Robotic Assembly Plants, 10 Quantum Converters, 11 Tree Farms, 5 Hybrid Forests, and 9 Centauri Preserves. They have cities doing 12, 16, 12, 32, 40, 16, and 16 eco-damage. They are the big offenders of the game.
Conclusion: factories are available too soon.
Secondary factor: inability of Peacekeepers to defend their empire, when they were once on roughly equal footing with the Free Drones. Possibly due to lack of mag tubes. Possibly due to offense outstripping defense.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 01, 2019, 03:52:14 pm
I didn't know Civ II walls were that strong, but we're not speaking different languages. I said debuffing city walls comes from Civ II. The unit that could do that was called the Howitzer. All that SMAC did is make that an ability you could throw at various units in the Workshop. Lots of things in SMAC can be a 'Howitzer'.
Debuffing a city wall wasn't invented in SMAC. It wasn't implemented because of overpowered Tachyon Fields. It exists because debuffing walls was an endgame mechanic in Civ II.
Yeah. Somewhere lost in words. Yep, I remember about howitzer and that this is version of it in SMAC.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 02, 2019, 03:08:52 am
Combat in the real world is not weapon vs. armor. Combat is all factors combined. Base defenses are necessary to hold off assailants, armor alone won't do it. Thinking of things orthogonally and in a vacuum, is not a game design virtue. This game is about taking over cities. There are already abilities that debuff weapons vs. armor: Soporific Gas Pods, Dissociative Wave, Psi combat. Ground units escorted by a Needlejet escort are impossible to counterattack, unless you shoot down the plane. Offense doesn't need yet another thing seriously favoring it.
You are right about multiple factors. However, I am not writing a math esse to get the exact statistical distribution. I am trying to get the very very rough and first level estimate of the effect.
So here for completeness sake I tried to estimate how valuable PD and TF for defender depending on different original attack to defense strength ratio.
d/a no PD PD+TF PD imp PD+TF imp
1.25 2.00 3.00
0.60 0.60 1.40 2.60 2.33 4.33
0.80 1.00 2.20 3.80 2.20 3.80
1.00 1.50 3.00 5.00 2.00 3.33
1.20 2.00 3.80 6.20 1.90 3.10
1.40 2.50 4.60 7.40 1.84 2.96
2.05 3.51
Obviously, the weaker the defender the more defense structures benefit it. Saying the same with different words, the stronger the attacker comparing to defender the more BD benefits is. To the edge case when attacker with BD becomes much stronger than defender and may potentially turn into indestructible attacker phenomena. I haven't think about this yet but, I guess, with quite high BD price this won't make much difference anyway. Stronger faction can as well build 3 times more regular attackers and wipe out neighbor perimeter or no perimeter.
Post by: bvanevery on January 02, 2019, 03:54:01 am
In my own mod, armor and weapons both max at 30. I don't really know what happens with a BD in the endgame in my own mod. I've always stomped the AIs. They do better but I am still ultimately a human being that plays better than they do. They've never had gratuitous flooding to protect them, nor excessive Secret Project costs to sap any other kind of development I might engage in.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 02, 2019, 02:15:43 pm
Something to note about your 1.4 is you had the strongest armor at strength 16, and the strongest weapon at strength 28. Yet I still needed either SA+PD+TF gone, or SA gone + BD, to kill defenders in a base. This is even with the +25% infantry attack bonus.
In my own mod, armor and weapons both max at 30. I don't really know what happens with a BD in the endgame in my own mod. I've always stomped the AIs. They do better but I am still ultimately a human being that plays better than they do. They've never had gratuitous flooding to protect them, nor excessive Secret Project costs to sap any other kind of development I might engage in.
I believe I changed SA back to +25%. So you are saying even 16+25%(SA) is stronger than 28?
Post by: bvanevery on January 02, 2019, 02:41:21 pm
I believe I changed SA back to +25%.
Checking, I see that at least as of 1.4, indeed you did.
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So you are saying even 16+25%(SA) is stronger than 28?
Yep. In a base.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 02, 2019, 02:49:20 pm
QuoteSo you are saying even 16+25%(SA) is stronger than 28?
Yep. In a base.
Ah, you mean non-infantry attacker? Hmm, even then 16*1.25*1.25 = 25. Still less than 28.
Post by: bvanevery on January 02, 2019, 03:58:18 pm
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 02, 2019, 04:07:13 pm
No, it was an infantry attack against the base. 28 to 25 isn't enough to ensure victory, you're going to lose units. Real world experience is you're going to need 2:1 odds to be sure of victory. Close to 1:1 often results in your death.
Ah, you mean to kill for sure. Understood.
Well the whole point of my and your mod in this regard is to disable sure defender kill at a base.
Post by: bvanevery on January 02, 2019, 04:20:14 pm
Anyways I'm starting to find it very confusing to try to recount details of combats finished days ago. I wrote down whatever I did at the time, it's in the other thread. There may be some combat data in some screenshots, there may not be, as I don't remember taking any combat snaps. It is best if you just crank up the game and try it out for whatever you're wondering about. I just set prereqs to "None" when I want to test something like that quickly.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 02, 2019, 06:11:34 pm
Post by: bvanevery on January 02, 2019, 08:00:37 pm
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25, ; Combat % -> intrinsic base defense
25, ; Combat % -> Infantry vs. BaseSoporific Gas Pods, again if you don't like it, take it out of the game. I have all but taken Blink Displacers out of the game.Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 02, 2019, 08:30:59 pm
Why do you need infantry vs. base to be negated? You can take those out of the game if you don't like the mechanic.Code: [Select]25, ; Combat % -> intrinsic base defenseSoporific Gas Pods, again if you don't like it, take it out of the game. I have all but taken Blink Displacers out of the game.
25, ; Combat % -> Infantry vs. Base
I never said I want them to be negated. Just made an observation that defensive bonuses can be negated by some tactical operations whereas attacking can not. I am not sure if I want to remove something from the game yet. So far just speculating about transferring part of wall defensive bonuses to the base armor value thus making defenders less susceptible to tactical operations.
Again, I don't want to bother myself with super-puper fine tuning. It's not really needed. I guess I'll leave it more or less as is for now and see how it plays.
Post by: bvanevery on January 03, 2019, 01:18:12 am
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 03, 2019, 02:07:06 pm
I used to make Gas Whatever units all the time. Lately I don't. I feel like it's just another gewgaw and I'm bored with it. I'd probably start using them if I was having trouble killing some enemy, but my games are often getting decided by more strategic factors anyways. As a default I feel like it's more "breadding", superfluous design, the disease of the game trying to convince me there's something important that has more play value, when it doesn't. It's very easy for me to diss Blink Displacers because it's exactly the same thing. Plus I got to see some late game consequences for how it affects things, which usually doesn't happen in my own test games.
This can be said about any feature in the game. They are all toys to some extend. Even the whole game is a toy. Each feature targets certain subset. Like Gas is for non-natives, there are features for natives, fast units, air units, sea units, etc. By features I mean not only abilities but facilities, terraforming, etc. Certainly, some of them are more focused than others. Like with Gas ability its non-native focus is a widest one among them as non-native units are majority. This is not the reason to disable it, though. Even if it is a most toyish toy of them all. Let it be. Some players may like it.
Post by: bvanevery on January 03, 2019, 04:50:08 pm
This can be said about any feature in the game.
I disagree. The game has some basic backbone structure, where you wouldn't have a game if you didn't have some things in there. Then there are toys on top of it. For instance, "Drill to Aquifer". That's a toy. Terraforming in general matters, but there are definitely advanced terraforming commands that are simply gewgawism. How much conscientious use of Echelon Mirrors have you engaged in, for instance?
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Like with Gas ability its non-native focus is a widest one among them as non-native units are majority. This is not the reason to disable it, though. Even if it is a most toyish toy of them all. Let it be. Some players may like it.
It's one of the Alien techs, it comes with Bioadaptive Resonance. You threw out other kinds of Alien tech "just 'cuz", so you personally can't make that argument. You may say R-Lasers and 3-Res armor are 'clutter' in the weapons and armor, and therefore deserve to be streamlined, but Soporifics are no different. The net effect in most cases is to give you a more powerful weapon than you've got. It's pretty unusual to fight enemy units that have no training at all, that didn't come out of a Command Center at least. I easily make the argument that rather than have Gas available to you, go research a stronger weapon.
I've left things like this in the game, if I haven't been shown how they're breaking the game. Blink Displacers, I've seen how they break the game, so they're all but out. It's easy to handle those because they're late game anyways, I can move them all the way to the end of the tree and not actually get rid of them. Soporifics are mid-game, so I'd have to outright remove them. If I someday see evidence though, I will.
I don't even get why people come up with this junk. I want to say it's simply Expansion Pack gewgawism. That's why they're actually in the game in this case, so it's hard to see that summation as wrong. They add yet another minor flavor to weapons getting better. In so doing, they make the AI that much more complicated to write. Pointless.
Was there some great narrative reason to have the Aliens use sleeping gas on people? None that I can see, as there is no other lore about it. I've never seen an AI faction make Gas units either. Maybe it's a narrative or game mechanical road they started down, but didn't finish. So they shipped what they had, justifying it as mostly harmless. Or maybe they think everybody loves multiplayer so much, that an ability that is only used by human players in practice, is ok.
Post by: bvanevery on January 06, 2019, 09:11:54 am
I'm not able to do any eco-damage with merely a Genejack Factory. Granted, I systematically built Tree Farms before building the factories. Even with the Morganites and -2 PLANET (because I had the Manifold Nexus) I did 0 eco-damage. If I built Hybrid Forests and Centauri Preserves before building Robotic Assembly Plants, I bet I wouldn't do any eco-damage then either. Of course the AI doesn't have to be as disciplined about building the eco-saving stuff.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 06, 2019, 05:02:06 pm
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 06, 2019, 07:38:37 pm
At this point I feel like it is what I wanted it to be. These are my biased feelings.
It feels dynamic. Usually I have a feature I need when I need it and it is easy to get to it if I don't have it yet. At the same time I don't get feature I won't need in foreseeable future.
Armor feels adequate. Of course, as always one could rush weapon, chassis, military abilities, buildings, and tactical combat to make their conquest more effective (=less casualties per captured base). That is a well deserved reward. However, I almost never see zero casualties any more. Which is desired result.
SP appearance time and building time feel right too. They start appearing at level 2 when factions can invest in them. They are also not get built almost instantly anymore. They are hanging in my build choices for some time letting to compete for them even for those a little bit late to the party.
Base spreading is more controllable now. I original game even when I build two scout patrols before first colony pod I quite often sent this pod to the dark - not knowing the good spot to place it. Now I, at least, can explore nearby territory before I come up with the pod. Same thing applies to AI factions. The competition for territory is now more timely and planned and strategical. Not like in original game when I rush-rush-rush my first colonies to grab territory adjacent to neighbor but they still take everything even before I get there. Now it is possible to claim territory in the middle but it is quite expensive. Usually I build Former - Recycling tanks - Colony since former and RT are cheaper but give a resource boost. So it is more beneficial long term. However, sometimes I can rush colony for 160 credits just to get to some cool landmark. Strategical choices in action.
Terraforming and development feels more dynamic too due to removed restrictions. In original game it took like 50-100 turns drag to get to the steady growth state.
Things to think about.
- Colony Pod is now 6. Thinking of making it 5, at least for land ones. May speed up spreading a little.
- My technology tree structure is that each technology depends on one of previous level and one of two levels below. This feels pretty adequate for research paths variability. However, it makes reaching higher levels easier. That sometimes leads to some quite advanced weapon fighting against not so advanced armor. Maybe I need to change it so that each technology depends on exactly two of previous level - making reaching higher level more difficult.
Post by: bvanevery on January 10, 2019, 08:20:12 pm
Code: [Select]
2, +1 Morale (+2 on defense)That would be me, defending my base. I got killed anyways! I didn't get a screenshot of my actual combat odds. It happened too fast and I was flabbergasted that this pathetic interloping unit could actually take out my capitol. I said this sucks rocks and vowed it would never happen in any game ever again! In my mod, bases deliberately favor defenders, and you have to do a lot to earn weapons to overcome the defense advantage. The Infantry vs. Base bonus is messing up the program and has to go.
I am also upping the Intrinsic Base Defense bonus to 50%. I think if you went to all the trouble to get a colony established somewhere, it should mean something.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 10, 2019, 09:04:09 pm
As for infantry vs base bonus. I guess it was give to infantry to encourage its use. Otherwise, it would make no difference sending infantry or speeders against bases. However, even without the bonus the economical difference is still there. Pure attacker infantry is more than twice cheaper than speeder. Here is your advantage. Moreover, you can armor infantry for comparatively low cost. Whereas armoring speeders is a money waste.
Post by: bvanevery on January 10, 2019, 09:19:55 pm
Yes, I thought about the same. Not both things combined, though. It would effectively add 50% to defender in undefended base. Seems pretty harsh for me but still may be worth trying.
I'm not sympathetic. I'm playing with a stock binary, where AIs stomp other AIs for various reasons. Favoring defense is a way of slowing all of that down. More WW I for the AIs. More of the game being about building up cities than invading cities.
It is contingent upon testing, I'm not going to just release it "cold". But the last time around, when I cranked Sensor Arrays from +25% to +50%, IMO the game got better. It could happen again.
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Otherwise, it would make no difference sending infantry or speeders against bases.
There is still a difference. There's no such thing as an anti-infantry debuff. Infantry + rails is still a good strategy for knocking someone's block off. However, making infantry not special for city assault, may cause players to think about more mobile strategies with Speeders or Hovertanks.
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Pure attacker infantry is more than twice cheaper than speeder.
Yep. Yet more reason why infantry rulez.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 10, 2019, 09:24:14 pm
Now need to think whether I want to strengthen base or sensor or both. Base seems to be indestructible one. However, this sort of diminish perimeter value. Whereas sensor is all purpose area defense everywhere on your territory even if destructible.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 11, 2019, 12:17:06 am
1.
Infantry vs base is off
Base defense 50%
Sensor 25%
Native attack 3:2 to match intrinsic base defense.
May need to return Hypnotic trance and Empath song back to 50% each. They are now 25%.
2.
Infantry vs base is off
Base defense 25%
Sensor 50%
Both have their merits.
First one gives bonus defense for free but for base only and it doesn't stack with defense structures. Native attack also need to be strengthened to match base defense. Otherwise, they won't have much chance disturbing units there.
Second one invests in something you need to build even if paying with terraforming time. It also covers whole territory and even slightly beyond borders. Destructible, though. Also I don't like how much it increases tachyon defense: 3*1.5=4.5 - that is insane multiplier.
Haven't decide yet.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 11, 2019, 12:42:39 am
Cannot have more than 5 attachments in post. Need to put them somewhere to download section.
Post by: bvanevery on January 11, 2019, 01:48:34 am
I never nerfed Trance or ECM in my mod. They do however cost 1, they're not free. I think mindworms probably still have the upper hand in my mod, so I wouldn't want to weaken Trance. Recently I've created Trance 3-Res and ECM 3-Pulse predefined units. I also upgraded my Trance Colony Pod to Trance 3-Res Colony pod. It takes twice as long to make, and it comes midgame so doesn't really help with earlier spread, but it's pretty bulletproof against marauding mindworms or locusts. It also can fend off casual attacks, i.e. Scouts and Scout Rovers. The AI will build these things, but it doesn't happen until midgame.
I'm also making several abilities have cost 2 or 4, things that I don't want the player to have like Dissociative Waves. Or in the case of drop pods, orbital insertion warfare is coming much earlier, so they need to be pricey to reflect that. Cost 4 is 100% cost increase, although I haven't paid good attention to whether the cost models work out that way or not. I used to have every ability only cost 1, but I'm realizing that some abilities really are unbalancing and should be penalized. Mainly the offensive debuff abilities. I'm not really worried about units moving faster, in fact I never remember to build those kinds of units because I do everything with rails.
Post by: bvanevery on January 11, 2019, 07:10:36 pm
stronger base defense |
Here is a practical consequence of upping the inherent base defense to +50%. I'm playing as the Gaians and have been wandering this mindworm around for some time. The Usurpers can actually hold me off with a mere Scout. Granted, the Usurpers get +1 MORALE. With an ordinary faction, or an untrained unit, I might be able to wipe the base.
wimps vs worms |
Later on I encounter a Scout defender who is only Disciplined. Even this is enough to make it unlikely that I'll win. The net effect of increasing base defense is to make them safe from single mindworm attacks, whether factional or wild. I might be ok with that. You can still get killed by a mindworm wandering about in the bush, and a stack of mindworms during a global flooding can probably mess you up.
Post by: bvanevery on January 11, 2019, 10:26:16 pm
a modest invasion |
An advantage to the increased defense bonus, is I don't have to drop what I'm doing to deal with early threats. The Usurpers are sitting on the Monsoon Jungle with some separation between our empires. They can walk to me, and even bring some force, but logistically they aren't able to field vast numbers of units against me quickly. Still, 4..5 units at a time can be annoying. Many of them shoot at my Synthmetal defenders and die. Some of them kill my defenders. I've built very few offensive units and mainly just concentrate on building up my infrastructure. I haven't built any Perimeter Defenses at all. I like that this is just "jerks on my border" rather than the game dictating what I'm going to do right now. It has more of a Builder game feel to it than an earnest combat feel.
I should be starting a mindworm offensive relatively soon, as I just acquired the ability to make them myself. I'll go Green to get to +3 PLANET. Then we'll see if that's enough offense to punch through their defenses. Nobody's got Hypnotic Trance yet, as I moved it back to Secrets of the Human Brain and blocked with Information Networks, which is a pure Discover tech. Depending on who's in the game, it can keep anyone from learning Discover techs for a long time. I could change my research focus to Discover, but I'm sticking with a pure Explore focus for now, since that's the AI default and I want to see what problems the AI would encounter.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 11, 2019, 10:42:14 pm
With my 5:4 it's only 25% overhead, so 25% base defense is enough to get equal chances.
Post by: bvanevery on January 12, 2019, 01:42:14 am
I am unable to go on the offensive! Marr keeps spamming me with 3-3-1 units. They can't really harm me, but I feel I have to kill them, lest they tear up my terrain improvements. Also if I'm ever to bring the fight to him, I have to clear those units out of the way. Due to a perceived need to build Secret Projects, to compete with everyone else in the game, it's just not working. The war part of the game is like WW I, although I take few losses. The AI doesn't get bored of this though, and I do.
I could get nasty and use chemical weapons. I wonder why I'm refraining.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 12, 2019, 03:38:31 am
Post by: bvanevery on January 15, 2019, 04:48:15 pm
I've decided in my mod, Soporific Gas Pods are out.
I have relented. Rather than getting rid of them entirely, I'm going to try making them more expensive. This is a more conservative approach than outright getting rid of game content. I feel 100% comfortable getting rid of Choppers, but I do not feel that way about various other things.
The driving problem is, I don't have time to test all the changes I've made. For instance despite pushing orbital insertion warfare earlier, I just can't stand to play my own mod long enough to get to that part of the game! My testing hasn't been valueless, I've prevaricated and changed a number of earlier game features, I think for the better. But getting to late game still takes a long time, and I think the ultimate effect of my tech tree compression is I've made orbital insertion earlier, not early. Players might not even notice that I did it all that much.
My 1.27 release is getting stalled trying to nail down "every last detail" like this. It's easier to kick something out the door that isn't going to be an awful change in someone's mind.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 15, 2019, 05:22:51 pm
What's up with choppers, man? With your weapon and armor equaled they don't present such a threat.
:)
I was testing no infantry vs. base bonus, 50% intrinsic base defense, 50% sensor. Here is my opinion. I don't think small changes matters much. Player ability to knock out an opponent are enormous. Defense bonuses are just a multipliers to faction military power, which depends on military technology progress and percentage of economy dedicated to war. When one faction put all their efforts into conquest and their neighbor put 0% to defense - no amount of defensive bonuses saves them. I observed it quite often.
In short, very high defense bonuses slow down the pace of conquest from blitzkrieg to one base per 5-10 turn something rate. This allows victim to mobilize and consolidate on second line of defense, call in for allies help, and better confront aggressor or make peace with them by inciting war weariness in their empire. However, no amount of defense bonuses going to stop a conquest completely for dedicated enough faction. At hardest level they all have inherent +3 INDUSTRY and this allows them to build massive military at will. I observed bases with contemporary defenders, walls, and sensors falling to same strength attackers consistently just because there was uninterrupted attacker supply and not too many defenders. Same with me fighting against defended opponent - it is not impenetrable at all. This is just a matter of economy price for victory.
So I decided to keep these defense bonuses high as in 1.8. It feels like a good game and a base conquering price feels fair.
Post by: bvanevery on January 15, 2019, 06:01:06 pm
Now we need to distinguish human vs. AI and AI vs. human and AI vs. AI combinations.
I have noticed. The biggest policy impact for me, has been realizing that Predefined Units are not for the human player's benefit. They are for training the AI to build stuff. The ability to train the AI in this manner is limited. It will seem to like some unit designs and not others. It may build something and then completely not use it as intended, for instance Needlejet Colony Pods, Drop Colony Pods, or defensive armored probe teams. If the AI won't use predefined units intelligently in the real world, I get rid of the designs. My predefined unit design list for 1.27 is smaller than it used to be.
My defensive policies are also partly an AI vs. AI concern. It slows down their ability to trash each other, encouraging empire growth and solidity.
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What's up with choppers, man? With your weapon and armor equaled they don't present such a threat.
:)
I don't yet trust the tech in this tree. I think human players will find some way to design a unit that overcomes any defensive strictures I've put in place. I need to see playtesting evidence. If people howl about choppers being gone, then I'll have to think about what to do. But over the years I've mostly heard howling about how they're overpowered.
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I don't think small changes matters much. Player ability to knock out an opponent are enormous.
Hasn't seemed enormous to me lately. Some combo of my mod and my personal play style.
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When one faction put all their efforts into conquest and their neighbor put 0% to defense - no amount of defensive bonuses saves them. I observed it quite often.
I'm playing on Huge maps where factions don't necessarily even get into military contact for a long time. Such a setup implicitly prioritizes defense. It's defense in depth, like trying to conquer Russia.
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At hardest level they all have inherent +3 INDUSTRY and this allows them to build massive military at will.
But in the stock binary, they misuse all that material. They don't concentrate force, they just have it all wandering in the wilderness as some kind of scouting trip line. Human player zings up to a base, wipes it out, throws a ton of units out of SUPPORT. Eventually as more cities collapse this way, units just die for lack of SUPPORT.
What Thinker Mod does could be very different, but is not my concern.
In my test of your mod, it was the early factories other factions got, the eco-damage, and global flooding that waylaid me. Not the armies.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 15, 2019, 08:07:32 pm
QuoteWhat's up with choppers, man? With your weapon and armor equaled they don't present such a threat.
:)
I don't yet trust the tech in this tree. I think human players will find some way to design a unit that overcomes any defensive strictures I've put in place. I need to see playtesting evidence. If people howl about choppers being gone, then I'll have to think about what to do. But over the years I've mostly heard howling about how they're overpowered.
The chopper power is in multiple attacks. However, this power manifests itself only when you can deliver sure multiple kills. With weapon-armor equalizing I cannot even imagine how much attack advantage you need to achieve that on top of Airspace Complex and AAA tracking which already quadruples defense. It is not a question of your technological advantage but the question of enemy technological disadvantage. They should be in a stone age to be able not to defend against your choppers well. If this is the case one does not need choppers to win.
QuoteI don't think small changes matters much. Player ability to knock out an opponent are enormous.
Hasn't seemed enormous to me lately. Some combo of my mod and my personal play style.
I meant potentially deep resources. When one faction is very determined to throw everything at enemy they overcome the defense anyway.
I'm playing on Huge maps where factions don't necessarily even get into military contact for a long time. Such a setup implicitly prioritizes defense. It's defense in depth, like trying to conquer Russia.
:)
QuoteAt hardest level they all have inherent +3 INDUSTRY and this allows them to build massive military at will.
But in the stock binary, they misuse all that material. They don't concentrate force, they just have it all wandering in the wilderness as some kind of scouting trip line. Human player zings up to a base, wipes it out, throws a ton of units out of SUPPORT. Eventually as more cities collapse this way, units just die for lack of SUPPORT.
Yep. I mean the extra production compensates for lack of tactics. With this production they can still achieve the result.
Post by: bvanevery on January 16, 2019, 02:45:38 am
With weapon-armor equalizing I cannot even imagine how much attack advantage you need to achieve that on top of Airspace Complex and AAA tracking which already quadruples defense.
AIs in the stock binary do not achieve that with regularity everywhere. Many cities have no AC. You will see AAA units but not necessarily piles up on piles of them. When a city is stacked full of units, it's usually not full of AAA units but something else.
I'm not sure if it's possible to get very far ahead of the AIs with a weapons advantage in my mod. I've made changes, but I've only played so many games in the past few months having made those changes. When I write something up, you may at times hear me say, "I don't even know how to play my own mod." I really don't. I'm not sure what's optimal or not. I don't quite know what I can exploit or not. Like the last test game I quit, before kicking 1.27 out the door today, both Morgan and the University were doing really well. They were distant and I wasn't managing to get anywhere near them. I had started to wander a rail out across a large land mass, trying to feel a way to the enemy, but I didn't even have a route completely scouted.
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I meant potentially deep resources. When one faction is very determined to throw everything at enemy they overcome the defense anyway.
When an AI tries to do that to a human, it often doesn't work. They will move in a big stack, and the human knows how to exploit that, wiping out vast quantities of AI units in 1 stroke. I've had some truly horrific waves of enemies thrown at me in the past, that I just weathered and shot a lot of 4-1-1 and 5-1-1 units at, until the AI wore itself out. Then finally moved up the road for the kill, after many years of waiting.
The only kind of wave I haven't been able to stand up to yet, is waves and waves of mindworms in a flood. It's beyond AI production, it doesn't obey any obvious production rules, it's just complete abuse.
Can the AI stand up to another AI onslaught? At some point, no it can't. I'm not sure what point that is in my mod anymore though.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 16, 2019, 02:37:18 pm
With weapon-armor equalizing I cannot even imagine how much attack advantage you need to achieve that on top of Airspace Complex and AAA tracking which already quadruples defense.
AIs in the stock binary do not achieve that with regularity everywhere. Many cities have no AC. You will see AAA units but not necessarily piles up on piles of them. When a city is stacked full of units, it's usually not full of AAA units but something else.
That is what I said elsewhere. Extreme combat effectiveness depends on opponent unprepared defense, not on your technical advantage. If their defense is weak then you don't need choppers to win. They just may do it a little bit faster.
QuoteI meant potentially deep resources. When one faction is very determined to throw everything at enemy they overcome the defense anyway.
When an AI tries to do that to a human, it often doesn't work. They will move in a big stack, and the human knows how to exploit that, wiping out vast quantities of AI units in 1 stroke. I've had some truly horrific waves of enemies thrown at me in the past, that I just weathered and shot a lot of 4-1-1 and 5-1-1 units at, until the AI wore itself out. Then finally moved up the road for the kill, after many years of waiting.
That's right. Human defend actively. That alone like triples the defense effectiveness. With fully stacked bases (artillery, counterattackers, ECM, AAA) you don't even need walls sometimes. I was comparing passive defensive bonuses with row attack potential. Sort of AI vs. AI. Human tactics is a different story.
Post by: bvanevery on January 16, 2019, 07:53:57 pm
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 30, 2019, 03:17:46 pm
Here how complete picture should look like in my vision:
Different era SPs should take roughly same build time in their corresponding era.
Same era SPs should differentiate slightly by their usefulness. This will also result in cheaper projects to be built first.
Post by: bvanevery on October 30, 2019, 07:57:58 pm
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 30, 2019, 08:03:36 pm
I did all that / tuned all that. Happy with the results. In my regime of expensive SPs, you really have to choose which of the big ones you're going to go for. At least by midgame, the AIs are going to get the others. If you survive and prosper in the late game you'll surely be the winner IMO, so everything becomes more of an honorarium / sandbox. However I am biased by being too good at the game, and not representative of all players who will try my mod. So maybe they'll still have difficulties late game for all I know. I haven't had enough playtesters verbalize their experiences to know for sure, but one recently did seem to be getting challenged for a longer period of time, when I would have summarily won the game by then.Thanks for reply. Nice to know. I'll examine your SP costs and see if I can use them as insight. Do you have any rationales about SP appearance time as well? Would like to synchronize on this too. Maybe in you readme or version changes description?
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 30, 2019, 09:00:54 pm
expensive SPs
I looked at SP prices in your 1.36 version.
Wow. When you said your SP are expensive I thought beef them up a little but found the opposite. Actually most of my projects are more expensive than yours sometimes by far. This is actually one thing I'd like to review and make sure they are not insanely expensive. However, in the mid and late game the combination of base row production powers and crawlers makes it piece of cake regardless of the price.
I'll review them in light of following philosophy.
SPs were designed to be lucrative and race for them is one of the essential elements of the game. I don't think their price need to outweigh their benefit exactly. It would be senseless effort anyway. Rather it may reflect their relative usefulness within the era to rank them up from easy to get and less beneficial to hard to get and more beneficial. Whereas between eras their base average cost should grow to reflect increasing producing power to keep their build time roughly unchanged. As I pointed out earlier, it should be somewhere in range 20-40 turns to represent both relative toughness of the SP comparing to regular facilities and closed enough time period. With more than 40 turn building time it slides to next era essentially delaying its benefits.
In this philosophy fast research and early acquiring SP technology is still crucial for SP dominance as in original game. I guess this is nice to keep it like that to maintain certain value for both raw production power and research speed. Faction with fast research got to chose which project to go for. Whereas faction with production power can collect rest of project in larger quantities or even overtake earlier starter with higher production speed if they have a chance to.
Post by: bvanevery on October 31, 2019, 04:02:03 pm
All of my SPs are occurring at the point in the game I want them to. I'm very satisfied with that and have done many iterations on it. I also use SPs to obstruct the AI from trading key techs with the human player. It usually works, although every once in awhile the AI gets a hole in its head about the value of some SP tech and trades it away. That may be happening early game and may be based on a mistaken belief about what the AI thinks it can get built.
A big flaw of the stock AI is it doesn't know how to rush SPs with money, even when the AI is fabulously wealthy. The AI only seems to know how to do it with supply crawlers.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 31, 2019, 04:05:33 pm
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 01, 2019, 09:00:05 pm
I am thinking about modifying the in game unit cost calculation to make it more reasonable and give text modders more flexible options. To that end I am collecting feedback from interested parties.
Usable combat unit types I consider balancing
- Scouts: infantry, mobile, sea.
- Infantry base defender.
- Infantry field unit protector. Same as above but probably extremely beefed up against air and mobile attacks in a field.
- Infantry pure attacker with minimal defense.
- Infantry protected attacker. A hybrid of two types above.
- Infantry artillery with minimal defense.
- Mobile versions of all the above except base defenders.
- Sea versions of all the above including base defenders.
- Needlejet pure attacker. Needlejet defense is mostly useless: Air-to-air combat is resolved by comparing attack factors—the armor value is ignored.
- Chopper pure attacker.
- Chopper protected attacker. It does make sense for chopper as it is vulnerable to ground unit attacks.
- Same for gravships.
I consider all field infantry unit to be available in mobile version for the simple reasoning: if they are all useful then one may want to give them mobility to move them faster provided cost increase is reasonable.
Here are my thoughts so far about unit cost and attack/defense ratio (in incoherent fashion)
The ultimate goal is to give economical advantage to defender. Conquering same technologically developed opponent bases should cost triple to invader in economical loss. At the same time there blitzkrieg should not be possible by the sheer outnumbering. Both sides should lose units and build/supply reinforcement to the front line to sustain invasion or resistance. That guarantees no player can crush others in short term without actual incurring proportional loss. That ensures victim has time to react and consolidate the defense as well as get help from international society.
All the above does not preclude anyone who is stronger than all other factions combined to wipe out others. However, you need to get to such level of economical dominance using political maneuvering first. Until that any adventurous war can significantly slow down your future economical development.
Same level weapon and armor rating should be about the same. That gives slight advantage for defender in both field and unprotected base.
Unprotected base defense bonus should be at least comparable to terrain one (50%).
Sensor bonus should be high enough to make attacker think about destroying sensors as a preparation for attack but not extremely high to completely prevent base from conquering even by 6:1 unit number advantage. It seems that 50% is a sweet spot. Unfortunately, it does not work on sea. So sea battles should be balanced somehow differently. Other option is to change it back to 25% so land and sea battles does not differ that much. Or even to 0%? I'll take your advice.
Two level more advanced weapon should be no more than twice stronger than armor resulting in lowering loss ration down to 1:1 something. Further weapon advancement may completely eliminate attacker losses. I feel like that is in line with the game idea. Indeed, if you are 4 levels ahead you should be able to beat the crap out of anybody.
Ideally, all war breaking attacking technologies should be preceded by corresponding counters in tech tree.
AAA tracking should appears before any air unit.
Anti-native counters should appear before natives production.
Comm Jammer is fine to come somewhat later than mobile units. As Mobility appears quite early but requires some weapon advancement to become a threat.
Mobile units have two advantages: 1) quicker to deploy to distant location, 2) more likely to be in attacking position and, therefore, are designed as primary attacker. Former gives you strategical advantage in reacting to threats in far apart locations as well as saving you some on paying for units in transit to front line. Latter allows to save on armor making them cheaper comparing to fully armored unit. All together this calls to make mobile unit proportionally more expensive as speed is just a multiplier for other abilities. I'd say somewhere 50-100% more expensive.
Same is true for hovertanks or other movement modification. Higher speed should come with about proportional cost.
I don't see much difference in sea units progression. They work same way on water as land units on land. They should have about same cost model too. Their sheer speed calls for comparing them to land mobile units rather than infantry, though. My rule of thumb is to synchronize fully armored foil to pure attacker speeder and same for cruiser <-> hovertank. I always consider fully armored sea units as a baseline for comparison just because they play as both attacker and defender. Whereas, on land these roles are primarily delegated to infantry for defense and mobile for offense. Of course, one is able to construct cheaper pure sea attacker or defender as needed.
I am unsure about needlejet cost. Their probably should be prices about the same as same strength pure armored infantry with AAA as they are twice as weaker against them. So regular 2:1 attacker to defender ratio. Share your thoughts.
Same thinking about choppers. They are slightly stronger due to multiple attacks but this advantage is nothing when attacking fully protected units and bases. So they are only more advantageous in cleaning out weakly armored units in a field. At the same time they are vulnerable to ground counterattacks. All in all should be no pricier than needlejet.
Gravship should be somewhat pricier than needlejet due to its infinite range, etc. However, at this game stage extra movement is largely irrelevant.
Proposition for formula
Chassis price is a multiplier
Factoring in the weapon and armor values are a little bit trickier. The idea here is that unit uses either one of them at combat encounter, not both together. Therefore, it makes sense to price the unit largely based on their primary (strongest) statistics. Indeed, attacker uses their attack and defender uses their defense abilities most of the time. Their secondary statistics adds about half of its value to unit as it grows. Therefore, fully packed unit should cost about 50% more than its pure versions. Indeed, it seems that mixed unit is more valuable than pure attacker/defender as it can be used as both thus adding tactical advantage. At the same time one mixed unit is clearly weaker than two complimentary stacked ones. attacker counterattacks with full strength after defensive battle regardless of outcome. Whereas, mixed unit loses its attacking potential with health while deflecting the attack. So 1.5 multiplier for mixed unit seems right. Another important consideration to not make this coefficient bigger is to increase AI field units survival rate while they are moving toward the target under air attacks.
Therefore, I came up with the following rule: primary statistics + 0.5 of secondary statistics above minimal.
That is pretty much it for all units. No need for weird rules like halving sea unit armor cost or dividing air unit cost by 4. Chassis type multiplier does it all and exposes this flexibility to text modders.
I am not sure yet how to price abilities. Some of them work effectively proportionally to unit statistics like comm jammer or blink displacer. It makes sense to price such abilities proportionally. Whereas others are completely unrelated to unit base cost like anti-native enhancements those usually placed on weakest units to save on cost while having same effectiveness. Another example are things like algorithmic enhancement which price model is quite unclear at all.
Post by: bvanevery on November 02, 2019, 03:51:35 pm
I think that premise needs nuance. It seems to assume that an empire is comprised of equally valuable cities, all at an equal level of development, all equally well defended, sitting on equally valuable resources.
I recently watched a video about Hitler's decision to invade the USSR. He made the claim that it was to get the oil. That they were desperate for oil, that they were absolutely compelled to get oil, that their army was going to stop running if they didn't get the oil. And that a lot of Hitler's generals didn't understand this, they had operational level ideas of going after Moscow or something... which would not have stopped the USSR from fighting. Hitler didn't live through the war, his generals did, so they chose to blame the dead guy as "the madman". Thereby hiding their own culpability for lack of understanding of economic objectives, and picking bad strategic targets. So claimed this video.
We would like an AI that responds with rational economic interest. That allocates its forces where they're going to hurt the enemy most, and knows how to cut its losses where it is weak. This is probably not SMAC's AI. :-) So any game designs aimed at what we'd like to be true, need to be filtered through what is true about the AI behavior.
Or else one needs to write a new AI. And for that level of work, I personally will write a commercial title I can make money from.
Now, if you're formulating designs based on human players vs. human players, all bets are off. I wouldn't even have anything to say. It's a damn long game and I've never actually slogged it out with a human who's my military equal. I had a neighbor who was grossly inferior at everything, we played on a LAN a little bit back in the day. I really couldn't tell you whether "triple economic damage" is a good way to design a human vs. human game or not. It does sound arbitrary to me, potentially running the risk of an unsatisfying WW I type slog.
Back to the historical Hitler example. His generals wanted to fight a war of maneuver, against the USSR. The problem is, they didn't have the fuel to do the maneuvering...
> It seems that 50% is a sweet spot.
I like it just fine at that setting. Failing to get rid of Sensors does hurt. It is part of my conquest drill to deal with them. At times they can seriously aid the enemy. Only when I've reached the "I'm stomping you now" phase, does it stop mattering so much. Even then it might still be advisable, for economy of blitz.
> Indeed, if you are 4 levels ahead you should be able to beat the crap out of anybody.
You have to actually manufacture this stuff. You may not be 4 levels ahead in minerals or factories. Advanced units are expensive units.
> I am unsure about needlejet cost.
I'm not sure either. I went through a period them being helluh expensive. This was not tenable. Recently I've reduced costs. I'm not sure if I need to reduce costs again. I feel it needs playtesting and feedback from players other than myself. I'm way too good at rail based invasions, to even care about air force. The AI currently builds some planes, not many. There are no clouds of planes like in the stock game.
> Same thinking about choppers.
Game mechanically, a unit that can fire every move, and has a high number of moves, does not belong in the game. It is overpowered. Many modders have said so, and have taken action to nerf it. I tried reducing moves for awhile. I eventually decided this made the unit unpleasant / unrewarding to consider building. So then I removed it from the game entirely. Game mechanically, I do not regret this. Artistically, I regret the loss of the unit artwork. I haven't come up for any answer to that, because I'm not interested with messing with art assets or other file hacks. I seem to have a legal right to mod the *.txt files I actually did, and expanding that might nullify my rights. For the amount of work I've put into my mod, I'm a bit conscious of those rights. Feels like I should protect them, "just in case", unless there's something major to be gained by fiddling with more stuff.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 03, 2019, 08:54:01 pm
> Conquering same technologically developed opponent bases should cost triple to invader in economical loss.
I think that premise needs nuance. It seems to assume that an empire is comprised of equally valuable cities, all at an equal level of development, all equally well defended, sitting on equally valuable resources.
That's right. I meant "all other factors being equal" = about same economical power too. Besides, by the mid game faction technological development roughly corresponds its economical one. Specific details are irrelevant. I just want to avoid vanilla game cases when irregardless of economical advantage one could amass tons of needlejects and wipe out opponent in 5-10 turns without incurring any significant losses! Then, after conquering one faction, turn their indestructible army to next one producing more and more units meanwhile so indestructible army keeps growing like snowball.
> Indeed, if you are 4 levels ahead you should be able to beat the crap out of anybody.
You have to actually manufacture this stuff. You may not be 4 levels ahead in minerals or factories. Advanced units are expensive units.
That's true. What I meant is within the scope of my modding I am not going to restrict 4 levels more advanced faction from having indestructible army. They should deserve it at this point. As you said before: at some point your advantage should allow you to win the game already.
> Same thinking about choppers.
Game mechanically, a unit that can fire every move, and has a high number of moves, does not belong in the game. It is overpowered. Many modders have said so, and have taken action to nerf it. I tried reducing moves for awhile. I eventually decided this made the unit unpleasant / unrewarding to consider building. So then I removed it from the game entirely. Game mechanically, I do not regret this. Artistically, I regret the loss of the unit artwork. I haven't come up for any answer to that, because I'm not interested with messing with art assets or other file hacks. I seem to have a legal right to mod the *.txt files I actually did, and expanding that might nullify my rights. For the amount of work I've put into my mod, I'm a bit conscious of those rights. Feels like I should protect them, "just in case", unless there's something major to be gained by fiddling with more stuff.
Multiple attacks sounds scary but in practice they are good against weakly armored units caught unprotected in a field. They are about equally pathetic against fully defended base with AAA units and AC. You'll lose somewhere 2-4 attackers per one defender. Your multiple attack ability won't do any good there. Sure if you already have weapon advantage that allows you to kill few defenders and survive, then copter just does job faster than needlejet that's all. Add to that its vulnerability to ground counterattack. If you don't get it back to base every turn it is most likely 100% dead. For me they are about as strong as planes just give you slightly different tactical usage.
Post by: bvanevery on November 04, 2019, 01:39:23 pm
I've seen way too many Chaos weapons mounted on Choppers to accept that they aren't doomsday weapons.