Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Topic started by: Yitzi on November 07, 2012, 06:50:16 pm

Title: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Yitzi on November 07, 2012, 06:50:16 pm

As things stand, the aliens have a Planet-friendly faction seeking to prevent Transcendence, and a Planet-hostile faction seeking to attain it.  But it occurred to me...couldn't you get the other way too?  These are two alien factions.
I'm just including the basic idea and the mechanics.  The text stuff and art is a project someone else can take on if they want, it's not really my specialty.  So, here they are:
1. Planetary Shepherds.  The basic concept here is inspired by the following quote:
"The fungus has been Planet's dominant lifeform since about the time of the Lower Paleozoic on Earth. But when, once every hundred million years or so, the neural net at last achieves the critical mass necessary to become sentient, the final metamorphosis kills off most of the other life on the planet. It is possible that we humans can help to break this tragic cycle."
Well, these aliens want to do the same thing: Break the cycle and help Planet achieve sentience, not to enslave it like the Usurpers, but to develop its own identity.

Now for mechanics:
-They're aliens, of course, with all that implies.
-Favored goals are Discover and Explore; they tend not to resort to aggression.
-Favored ideology is Green, anti-ideology is Free Market.  They try to maximize PLANET score.
-They start with techs: Centauri Ecology, Biogenetics, and the bonus alien techs (Progenitor psych and field modulation).
-They get free recycling tanks, same as the original alien factions
-They get a free Centauri Preserve upon discovering Centauri Meditation
-They have +2 PLANET and -1 ECONOMY (because they're aiming at Transcendence, so don't have as much interest in material possessions).
-They get +2 nutrients and +1 energy from fungus.
-They get a 25% bonus to all psi combat

2. Planetary Destroyers.  Like the Caretakers, they were horrified at Tau Ceti and want to make sure that sort of thing never happens again.  Unlike the Caretakers, they don't feel quarantine is enough; they want to end the experiment (i.e. destroy all Native life).

Mechanics:
-They're aliens.
-Favored goals are Conquer and Explore; they sometimes resort to aggression.
-Favored ideology is Planned, anti-ideology is Green, they seek to maximize GROWTH.  (Yes, they'll be pop booming with the AI.)
-They start with techs: The bonus alien techs (Progenitor psych and field modulation), and Centauri Ecology.
-They do NOT get free recycling tanks, but do get a free perimeter defense in every base (no prerequisite necessary).
-Due to feeling constantly under threat, they get +1 support and +2 morale and +2 police, and on top of that every unit gets 3 morale upgrades on creation.  But they have -3 PLANET.
-Every unit gets both Fungicidal tanks (if eligible) and empath song (if eligible), once the necessary techs are researched.
-They can surpass hab complex limits by 2 (again, they're feeling threatened and willing to give up creature comforts.)
-They hurry at 80% normal cost.
-Due to the sheer terror they have at native life forms, native life forms do double police duty.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on November 07, 2012, 06:56:48 pm

Hmm.  The later sounds sorta like a Prog version of the terraforming factions that everybody and his brother was making 12 years ago - but these guys have a better motivation/hook.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Yitzi on November 07, 2012, 07:14:50 pm

The Destroyers aren't really just about terraforming, though.  Their bonus fungicidal ability helps there, of course, but they're also quite good at war (build a command center and bioenhancement center and run freshly produced units through a monolith, and you've got elites straight from the sort.  And of course they're as good defensively as the Hive.)  They can easily use Police for great drone control, and can get larger bases than everyone else, and of course cheaper hurrying is nice.  Their main disadvantage is that with the right balance mods, they'll have their work cut out for them avoiding worm rape without crippling their industry (on the flip side, they do have a whole slew of bonuses designed to help them kill worms.)

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on November 07, 2012, 07:20:37 pm

Well my point was that some of those terraformer factions were specifically about killing off all that dangerous fungus, and there was even talk about a 'kill Planet' victory condition.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Kilkakon on November 12, 2012, 12:19:52 pm

Not bad ideas. :) I might say that they are almost a little too geared towards their favoured strategy--e.g. the green faction you described could easily mount a quick kill with +2 Planet and +25% PSI.

It is good to see some aliens being made though, humans get all the attention normally...

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Yitzi on November 12, 2012, 03:43:45 pm

Quote from: Kilkakon on November 12, 2012, 12:19:52 pm

Not bad ideas. :) I might say that they are almost a little too geared towards their favoured strategy--e.g. the green faction you described could easily mount a quick kill with +2 Planet and +25% PSI.

Not really; remember, if you've got one alien faction there then there's at least one more, and aliens start with access to 3-res units.  And if someone manages to get trance, then that makes quick kill far harder.  Their quick kill would essentially play similarly to Cha Dawn, but with the added disadvantage of being unable to make nice with the aliens (the most difficult opponents for such a strategy by far) until they're ready.  When looking at quick kill, I think it's fair to say that the Shepherds are to Cha Dawn as the Usurpers are to Miriam.

Also, remember, they don't start with Centauri Empathy, so the only way for them to get worms at the beginning is to recruit them, and that has its limits (as you get more worms, the recruitment chance goes down.)

The Shepherds could do a green conquest, at least in SP (in MP you could end up with an alliance formed to stop them, particularly if you house rule that aliens can't take part in cooperative victory), but I think the more promising style for them would be to take advantage of their fungus production to allow bases to thrive nearly anywhere (once they get gene splicing and centauri empathy, fungus is worth 5 FOP, and it just keeps on increasing) while using worms for a strong defense.

They're definitely a powerful faction; all aliens are, and are supposed to be.  But I don't think they're any worse than the other aliens.

The Destroyers are actually fairly versatile, as long as you're willing to accept that you're not going to use native life.  They're fairly warlike, of course, but they're even better at defense than offense, so a builder strategy would work well for them too.
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Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on November 12, 2012, 04:27:04 pm

Somebody's going to have to do up some faction graphics for these.  Could you talk about any ideas at all you might have in that direction?  Green or Pink leaders?  How might the bases be different? Anything at all about logos?  -Stuff like that.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Yitzi on November 12, 2012, 04:46:12 pm

About graphics, I have absolutely no clue.  Whoever does the graphics could decide that.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on November 12, 2012, 04:48:49 pm

Okay, but if a volunteer appears, that morally obligates you not to be too picky...

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Kilkakon on November 13, 2012, 06:09:44 am

I would say a +45% mind worm attack is formidable though. ;nuke; Still, sounds like you have done some thinking about it.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: ete on December 01, 2012, 05:11:12 pm

I'm happy to have a go at the text files for this, if someone wants to do/steal graphics? I like the idea of both.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 21, 2013, 11:08:24 pm

I'm game.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: ete on August 25, 2013, 10:40:02 pm

Made the basic text files, including most flavor text.

Still need to basenames and diplomacy text.

Still looking for graphics here. I'll be happy so long as both are progentors and somehow different from the existing two. Maybe make the Shepards have a native background and Destroyers have a hard metallic background?

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 25, 2013, 10:46:09 pm

Post some images?

And if Jarl wants to volunteer in my place, that's okay by me...

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: JarlWolf on August 25, 2013, 11:02:16 pm

I'll have to see on that one BUncle. I don't mind helping out, and I've got experience with a few progenitor factions already, so I may be able to do this one... but I'll need to think about possible structures. Still got to finish up my Wanderers of Chiron and post more for Varshavianka.

Though I am thinking for the Shepards, they should have sort of more naturalistic looking structures: Or ones that look more like native life temples, some fungus mixed in with a Progenitor style settlement perhaps?

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: ete on August 25, 2013, 11:05:21 pm

Cool. Naturalish shelters for Shepards is good, some fungus around the base to show it's integrated in, not much high tech looking stuff? Destroyers probably want something which looks military and hard?

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: JarlWolf on August 25, 2013, 11:15:05 pm

I am thinking though with the shepards is that you don't want them to look like Gaians or total integrated fungus dwellers, just more so they have some fungus growth with some progenitor style buildings. Almost like how in comparison, you'd have a modern sky scraper perhaps or a modern building with vines and other growth sprouting on it/near it.

As for the Manifold Destroyers, (Which are a little bit like the Extermanitus to be quite honest) I am not sure... I don't think I'll do that one out of respect for the comparative. Not saying they shouldn't be made, but I have already made a faction like them and it wouldn't feel right for me to do it.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: ete on August 26, 2013, 01:43:53 am

@shepards, yep, all sounds sensible.

@destroyers: Understandable, though I think the difference is notable enough that it's not too much overlap. Exterminatus (as I understand it) wants to wipe out everything kind of just because they can, kind of because they are superior and think nothing else deserves to live. The Destroyers want specifically to destroy manifold seven in order to prevent another Tau Ceti flowering from wreaking their race, which, given the level of destruction unleashed last time, seems like a fairly sane position to hold (unlike the blatantly evil Exterminatus). The humans are just in the way, and get killed as a side effect of destroying Planet.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: JarlWolf on August 26, 2013, 03:16:05 am

Well the Exterminatus believe that they must safeguard their evolution, and keep it pure: And terrified (Holy crap there is so many flies around me right now... yeah f I come off irritated its because of NONE of you folks. Just keep that in mind.. going to murder these damned flies  :mad:)


Right.. the Exterminatus were abhorred by the Tau Ceti flowering of yesteryear, and they see the current experiment as a freak of nature, something that is undesirable, dangerous and needs to be exterminated. They believe in advancing their race and its evolution and me and Green based the idea off of both  ;marr; and  ;caretake;'s text blurbs, where the Exterminatus wish to advance their race into more pure beings and take over Alpha Centauri, but they want to wipe the slate clean entirely and create the world anew in their vision. As opposed to Marr who wants to become an unstable energy being god and become one with Planet, the Exterminatus see that as highly unstable and too dangerous for the future of their race. And the Caretakers are seen as traitors who wish to stifle progress and protect the very thing that killed their people, the horrid experiment that claimed so many lives in the previous Tau Ceti Flowering.

So yes, while the Exterminatus are abhorrid murderers and relatively psychotic fundamentalists, they do have merit to their ideals and reason. One that is not too different from the destroyers.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Green1 on August 26, 2013, 03:49:08 am

More alien factions? That is awesome, Yitzi.

BU, you say everyone in the day was building aliens? How come I never bumped into many? In my search, all I saw was vague references.

This site and it's wiki is going to have more and better quality toys than even Network Node. The better quality is key.

I am also glad to see great interest in the Alien Crossfire play style. For a while there I thought I was alone in my preferred style. The original 7/ non-alien gameplay is nice and classic. But I like having monsters around.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 26, 2013, 03:58:55 am

I may have exaggerated, 1.  There were several, anyway.


Wait - I think what I said was that in 2000-2001 or so, everybody kept making colonist/terraformer factions.  There's only a handful or so of aliens in my collection.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: JarlWolf on August 26, 2013, 04:02:44 am

I honestly wasn't aware of the preference with the whole SMAC SMAX conflict before I joined this site, and mind I played SMAC first and then SMAX... I just saw it as more features added.

But that's just me I suppose...

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: ete on August 26, 2013, 04:11:20 am

hm, okay. Perhaps I'll create the Destroyers as simply a toned down version of the Exterminatus, with the same name and graphics.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 26, 2013, 04:13:58 am

I'm not inspired yet, but keep talking about the story end of the faction, and I may be.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: JarlWolf on August 26, 2013, 04:14:30 am

Or... you vary their ideal a little bit more... And make something entirely new.

We have yet to see a more moderate panned Progenitor faction, every one thus far is some extremist monster or similar extremist...

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Yitzi on August 26, 2013, 05:55:14 am

Quote from: JarlWolf on August 26, 2013, 04:14:30 am

Or... you vary their ideal a little bit more... And make something entirely new.

We have yet to see a more moderate panned Progenitor faction, every one thus far is some extremist monster or similar extremist...

Well, they're essentially arguing about the question of whether godhood is worth the risk of a multi-solar-system disaster.  That doesn't leave so much room for moderation.

Title: Re: Two new custom alien factions
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 26, 2013, 05:58:33 am

Which side do I ban?