SMACX AI Growth mod

[ChaDawnFanatic]

Looking forward to 1.32, even if it is the last update you make... You should release it no matter what the circumstances!!

Extremely satisfied so far... 

[bvanevery]

But what would go in 1.32 ?  So far I have nothing.  Much as I might like to adjust the Spartans somehow, what that adjustment should be, still eludes me.  It should not be free Command Centers.  I don't really want to change the JUSTICE tradeoffs, as I think they are working.  I've had to learn how to play my own mod, how to deal with those tradeoffs, but I do think they're actually valid hoops and hurdles to put the player through.  The only one I really question is Capitalist, because it does seem weak now, but that's not a Spartan problem.

Although I could give them +1 PROBE just because they "don't have enough stuff", that doesn't actually change their real problem, which is early game productivity on Huge maps.  The problem is compounded by weapons taking a long time to acquire.  I just don't think it's very smart to try to rush anyone immediately, at least on the Huge maps I've been playing on.  You'd have to literally start right on top of someone, and that's rare if not impossible.

I did start another Spartan game, mulling over this.  The Believers are in the game again, to make sure the AI performance is up to snuff.  This time I started on a large land mass at the bottom of the map.   The Gaians are to the west, the Believers to the north, and the Hive to the east.  There were supply pods all over the place, and I grabbed as many as I could, but I found the AI surprisingly good at grabbing them for themselves.  I made peace with all 3 factions.  I managed to ally with the Gaians and the Hive, and I have gone Police State Green for now.

The Believers got in a war with the Gaians briefly.  I've been trying to cover and develop the large amount of land I've claimed, which is equivalent in size to the other 3 empires.  I did not feel ready to stop this project and fight the Believers.  Although I did have Lasers and probably could do just fine, I felt it was a distraction from my real ambition, which is fully claiming all my territory and making good roads between everything.  So I got the Believers to call it off.  Their attitude towards me though is poor, and I do expect war in the near future.  I just think I'll be more ready for it when it does finally come.  For one thing, I'll actually have an armored Probe defense screen up.

Anyways, I don't have the problem of being 8-balled in this game.  In fact, I've got every opportunity to expand my empire to as good a size as anyone could reasonably want, before getting down to the task of slaughtering somebody.  I believe what will probably happen, is I'll completely my own empire, the Believers will declare war on me, I'll crush them, and then my empire will double in size.

After that I don't know what will happen.  The Peacekeepers and the Cyborgs are both going nuts fairly far away from me.  They're building Secret Projects that I can't really do anything about.  I don't have the productivity, and the big supply of land based supply pods dried up pretty quickly.  I did not get many Artifacts from my poppings, so I can't chuck out even one SP easily.  I do have one coastal base with access to probably a world-encompassing ocean, but I've been way too busy jockeying for position on land to do much Artifact fishing.  I've been gradually clearing the sea immediately around the base.  There's a somewhat long passage to the east that probably turns north and goes around this supercontinent.  I do have 1 Transport out making the rounds, but it can only get so far and I haven't managed much yet.

So probably the Peacekeepers and Cyborgs will grab all the Secret Projects between them.  Actually the Gaians are making some too, because they're fast at tech and get lots of things started before others can.  I have benefited from that actually.  I did get a lot of money popping pods, and I bought a lot of tech from the Gaians.  In fact I might even be tech dominant, so I can't claim I didn't get anything from popping all the pods.  Just not SP raw materials.

I could backstab the Gaians, but at this time would prefer not to.  Seems to me it's better to knock off an enemy that's determined to make war with you, than one that isn't.

I took away the Believers' compulsion for Fundamentalist in my mod.  These Christians don't have to choose anything, and they could do anything.  I did, however, reinstate their Aggressive personality.  So a flip side of their non-aligned social choices, is there's no way to butter them up by choosing what they choose!  They don't care.  I find that the Believers are still dangerous because they're still Aggressive and often do decide to go to war with you eventually.  What I'm not sure of, is how well they hold up in combat.  At least in this game, we'll be on an equal land resource footing because I wasn't 8-balled behind anyone.  We all got an equal share of the land, far as I can tell.

I can probably rely on the Gaians and the Hive not making war on me as long as I'm choosing their politics.  Police State Green is actually a pretty reasonable combo at the start of the game.  My productivity has definitely increased from the +2 SUPPORT and not having to do much to keep the citizens in line.  The net -1 JUSTICE is not that big of a deal.  I may not have the highest possible MORALE, but I already start with +2 MORALE, and building up the empire I think is more important on a Huge map.  The Spartans aren't really in a position to go nuts until they get Advanced Military Algorithms and can choose Power.  Then they've got Elite units coming out of the factory, and those movement 2 infantry can be pretty terrifying with a good weapon on them.

One thing I will do differently this game, is switch to Conquer only once I've gotten enough Explore techs.  I really like getting the Ascetic Virtues, as it enables one to play like the Hive with Police State and 2X police effectiveness.  However Deirdre is working on it so I may not get it.  I also really need Monopole Magnets to make a good land invasion.  Doctrine: Initiative might be useful for Artifact fishing but it remains to be seen whether it's essential.

[bvanevery]

Now I'm thinking ROBUST would be useful for the Spartans after all.  As I expanded, I got to the point where I needed Energy Banks, but I didn't want to stop my invasion.  I had been trying to finish a Secret Project for a very long time, and it had become the Planetary Energy Grid, but I just couldn't manage it.  My income started to go negative and all the pods were gone, as the ocean was easily accessible to everyone.  I tried to switch to different governments but they all gave me riots, as Police State was the only thing holding me together.  I think ROBUST would help with these midgame transitional difficulties, when imperial overstretch is becoming a problem due to conquest.

I could also throw +1 PROBE on the BBQ and call it balanced.  I wanted something more directly thematic for them, but 2 minor abilities can make up for the lack of a defensive combat adjustment.

I don't think the Believers need anything.  They were the dominant faction of the game for awhile.  Even now they are equal with myself and the Peackeepers.  The Believers and I are nominally at war, but mostly I've been finishing off the Hive.  My alliance with the Gaians fell through when they stole from me.  I had to shift a bunch of probe teams towards the Hive to do my invasion, and the Gaians took advantage.  That's another reason to give the +1 PROBE.

Had a bleary eyed hiccup where I didn't save and load properly to look at the right values.  ROBUST does work as advertized.

[bvanevery]

Details worry free Fundamentalism

worry free Fundamentalism

I decided to ditch the +1 PROBE.  When ROBUST to JUSTICE, Fundamentalist doesn't have any JUSTICE penalty.  That means at the beginning of the game, it's a very attractive choice for the Spartans.  -2 RESEARCH, that's it, otherwise it's all bonuses.  It puts them at +3 MORALE, and they already get +1 PROBE from it.  I don't want the Spartans turning into some overpowered Probe Team faction.  They're supposed to be fighting, not sneaking.

Details safety with guns

safety with guns

I'll review my posts since 1.31, but ROBUST is the only change I can think of for 1.32, off the top of my head.  If correct, I'll have it out shortly.  It's nearly the end of the month and that's the time to kick things out the door.

I suppose I could try to solve the "Locusts are vulnerable to ground attacks" problem.  Or I could ignore it.  I could put them back on the Gravship chassis and accept that they'll move at the same rate.  They would need to be appropriately expensive.

I could reintroduce the Copter as a late game doomsday weapon, even worse than a Gravship.  I could ignore that the unit artwork is completely goofy for a late game tech.  I really don't want to deal with switching unit artworks around.  I can see things going wrong with a user's game installation, and Firaxis' permission to change stuff, only talked about modding the text files.  Those might seem like fig leaves, but bear in mind, I don't do binary patches either.  I want to keep the "clean legality" of what I'm doing, unless there's a very compelling reason not to.

Maybe I could make the Copter into a suicide missile.

[ChaDawnFanatic]

Take your time! It's not urgent...

It's been a privilege. 

[bvanevery]

Guess what?  Locusts can be attacked on the ground in the original game.  I verified this with an unmodded game installation.  I'm surprised.  I guess this means Gravships can be attacked as well.  I'll have to check on that.  Yep, they're vulnerable too.

I still think reducing Gravship movement to 10, and then making Locusts a Slow version of a Gravship, is a reasonable idea.  Gravships won't be as zippy as I've had them be recently, but they still have the endurance to go all the way across the map.  It's also possible to add fuel nanocells and antigrav struts if you really want them to be quick.

This would make the Copter chassis totally unused for anything.  So I can decide to make it into a goofy doomsday weapon, or just leave it out of the game entirely.

TBH I don't feel like doing any game testing for Copter balance right now.  I think it is inherently not balanced, and it is probably right to leave it out of the game.  It's the loss of the unit artwork that saddens me.  Reconsidering the fate of the Copter can be saved for a 1.33 release if at all.  It's the end of the month and time to kick stuff out the door.

[bvanevery]

CHANGELOG
Changed from version 1.31 to 1.32:

- Spartans: made them ROBUST to JUSTICE penalties.  The Spartans need something to keep pace with other factions.   They have a huge problem on a Huge map, because they may not start next to anyone they can invade.  A faction that is isolated by itself, needs to build their own empire from scratch, and they've got no advantages in this regard.  They do poorly compared to other factions at chucking out techs and Secret Projects.  They are awesome once they gain Power, as all their units become Elite, but it takes a long time to research Advanced Military Algorithms.  It won't happen before midgame, and they need something much earlier to help them develop.  They have problems with JUSTICE Penalties, as they tend to choose Fundamentalist or Police State, as well as Power.  In the beginning they can now choose Fundamentalist with no JUSTICE penalty.  In midgame, taking at most a -2 JUSTICE penalty will help them conquer more cities before serious economic consequences ensue.

Giving them free Command Centers would be overpowered.  The game lore says they're supposed to be able to stand up to tons of poorly trained enemy troops, but I've never found that to be true in the real world.  I would have preferred a defensive bonus, to make it true!  However, there is no mechanism to implement that.

- Locusts of Chiron: put them back on the Gravship chassis.  Made them Slow.  This results in a net speed of 10, which is a +2 increase.  This frees up the Copter chassis to be used for something else.  Needlejets move 12 and I want Locusts to be slower than them.  10 is good enough.  Using up the Copter chassis just to get the speed down to 8, isn't worth it.  I've also found speed 8 to be a bit of a drag to push around on Huge maps.

The attachment limit per post is 5, and I eventually ran out of room at the top of the thread.  Consequently, this becomes the new home of version 1.32.  It was downloaded 110 times before I moved it here.

[Rocky]

I've recently been playing your mod again (JH24 from civfanatics) and I'm really enjoying it. I can notice the differences from earlier versions. Everything just feels right and makes sense. Like for example researching a new tech: The units, the buildings, the lore/flavor behind a technology; it really works well.

Love the clearly defined areas of research between Explore, Discover, etc. It makes you think not only about which path you want to invest in, but it makes obtaining a new tech feel much more rewarding.

I like the additional cost to prototyping. It feels realistic and it's like a mini-Secret Project. The choice to build a new non-prototyped unit has much more impact now.

I hope you don't mind I merged your awesome mod with the Thinker AI. I'm 100% sure it's my version of Alien Crossfire (GOG edition I believe), but the vanilla AI always seems to build so many defensive units that it has no minerals left and then stops doing anything. 


Thank you so much for all your hard work. I'm really enjoying playing the game again with your mod, especially how the choices you make feel much more important.

[bvanevery]

Thanks for the feedback!  Yeah, I've noticed that whether you're doing Explore or Build makes a huge difference in what your tech development looks like.  So many factions do Explore, Conquer when the AI is playing them.  I have usually left those settings alone when playing myself, to see what it would be like.  You definitely don't get much in the way of minerals if you don't choose Build and get Genejack Factories at some point.  You can't rely on stealing that tech from others either.  First off, if you're playing at all well, other factions are likely to not even be able to keep up with you and won't simply research it for you.  So you're not gonna just be stealing it.  Second off, other factions might not have Build as their focus at all!  In which case if you don't research it, nobody will.

You can of course do what you want with my mod, subject to the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license.  It'll be a long time before I try Induktio's Thinker Mod work again, as I don't agree with fundamental directions he's been going in, at least as of 2 months ago.  I did what I could to curtail his AI's abuse of various "golden paths" in the original game.  It takes a lot longer in my mod to get rolling with Supply Crawlers, Condensers, and Thermal Boreholes.  So much longer, that you have other alternatives for how to win the game.

[Rocky]

Yeah, that's my experience as well in your mod, and I'm really enjoying it. I also enjoy the original game but every technology path has something mixed in from other areas. (Like Shard weapons in Discover or Aircrafts in Explore) While I understand why the developers did this it also lowers the importance of your decisions because you're bound to get something from other paths eventually. In your mod you really have to think what kind of playstyle you want to go for and take in account the research paths of other factions as well.

In my current game Yang, who likes to complain about my Democracy every chance he gets, still wanted to trade all his Explore techs for my Build Techs, while Miriam wanted to trade her Conquer techs for my Build techs as well. The AI's in your mod are much better in specializing in certain paths, which gives them much more of an identity.

I'm sorry to hear there was a disagreement between you and Induktio. I have to say though, as far as I can tell Thinker AI feels at home with your mod. The access to Boreholes/Supply Crawlers is slower (and I like it - like you said this opens up more options), but it's going for wider empires to make up for it.

[bvanevery]

If I had unfettered ability to redefine the tech tree, I'd create a 5th category for indigenous life forms.  The game lumps them in with Explore, which means "colonization and growth" as far as how the AI actually uses it.  Lots of factions end up gaining mindworm techs, when what they really want are Cruisers and Needlejets.

My memory of serious disagreements with Induktio are:

• Completely ignoring AI political requirements.  This causes things like Yang yelling at you to be a Police State when he himself is Fundamentalist!  Not only is it narratively jarring, but it breaks the diplomatic play mechanics.
• Exploiting Supply Crawlers, Condensers, and Boreholes to the hilt.  This I've mitigated, but I can do no more, without sacrificing the playability of the game for people who aren't using Thinker Mod.
• The AI gets a totally free ride on global warming, when doing the above exploits.  Any human player producing the level of Boreholes that the AI does, would put Planet completely underwater.  The AI and the human player aren't even playing the same game.  Induktio decided to make nerfing global warming possible, and I think that's now the default in his alphax.txt.  This basically does away with global warming as a consequential play mechanic.

He refused to make the AI suffer the consequences of global warming, same as a human player would.  He claims it's technically difficult, which I doubt because it's changing 1 number somewhere.  He'd also have to add some "Borehole restraint" code.  I've seen the AI in other Civ-style games totally trash the planet, by building lotsa factories and not enough environmental mitigation facilities.  Might have been Civ II: Test of Time or Call To Power II.  You couldn't let the AI manage your cities for fear of it giving you "teh stoopid" and melting down your whole empire.

Why does it matter?  I think his approach to AI and game design is basically abusive to players.  However, some players actually want that.  "The biggest challenge" is the only thing that matters to them, not narrative or gameplay balance.  I try to make games that are fair, that can be won if you understand how the system works and have done various things more-or-less correctly.  I also think the player should have meaningful choices as to how they go about it.  I don't like or believe in "Monster" challenges.  Especially when they force a One True Style of gameplay because there's no other way to keep up.

In principle, I could fork his code and fix it to my satisfaction.  In practice, I'd rather put the effort into a commercial title that could make me money.  I've been working on my own mod for over 6 full time person months, and over a year on the calendar.  I don't need more $0 stuff to chase after.  I've done pretty well with what I did, and it's going to take awhile for people to try out, adopt, and understand what I've already done.

And who knows, maybe several years from now, Thinker Mod will be different?  I can hurry up and wait.

[bvanevery]

Details Free Drone steamroller

Free Drone steamroller

MY 2277.  I have dominated this entire game as the Spartans, due to a good early land spread policy.  However my initial empire was big and unwieldy enough, that it didn't seem wise to expand beyond my own borders.  The Believers have hassled me to the south, and to a lesser extent the Usurpers.  I started with 3 cities on a southern shore, with the rest of my empire on a northern continental mass.  I eventually used the Weather Paradigm to connect the land masses and build rails everywhere, but that took a long time.  I've mostly behaved as a defensive Builder empire.  I got a lot of Secret Projects but not all.  Notably I did not have the production to prevent the Free Drones from completing the Planetary Energy Grid. 

I've been mostly waiting around to discover Advanced Military Algorithms so I can finally get Power and push out.  It still hasn't happened and I persist in a Democratic Free Market with modestly trained troops.  I started life as Fundamentalist, then Fundamentalist Green.  Eventually the need for money seemed more rational than the need for military oomph.  Without the extra boost I've lost a lot of 4-1-1 Impact troops attacking my enemies.  As Veterans or Commandos they just don't always do the job.  I haven't bothered to make a lot of those, preferring infrastructure such as Tree Farms.

The Cult of Planet used to be my northern neighbor.  That was part of why I was Fundamentalist for a long time, to please them.  North of them was the Free Drones.  We were allied for awhile but then they blew me off.  Subsequently the Free Drones utterly crushed the Cult.  Their army came down to my border, and I foolishly chose to move a Rover Former up to fix a square the Cult had pillaged before they died.  Domai gave me a talking-to and said he was going to kick my ass!  I said fine whatever.

I didn't really take him all that seriously.  I was quite surprised last turn when I almost lost a city to him.  I think he had a lot more Impact Speeders than I realized.  He's got a horde sitting next to my city, and I happen to be fresh out of 4-1-1 units.  He caught me flat footed.  So I've brought up almost every reserve Plasma garrison I've got, thinking he can't possibly get through a wall of them.  Bases still have Plasma Probe Infantry guarding them, so they're not walk-ins, and I really don't have credible aggression from anyone else right now.  The Believers haven't done so well recently, and I've taken up a better position on a rocky river square between us.  The Usurpers are quite weak on the graph, although they always manage to hassle me with a few units.

I hope he doesn't think to shell my Boreholes.  That would annoy me.

MY 2278.  I finally get Advanced Military Algorithms.  I switch to Power, deploy some newly manufactured units, and the crisis abates.  I wonder how much spam Domai's got?

[bvanevery]

Tactical note: a Cloaked Plasma Defensive is extremely effective at destroying enemy Sensor Arrays.  I never really bothered to custom build a unit for this purpose before.  More typically I make 1-2-2 Scout Defensives at the beginning of the game as my garrison troops, because they only cost 20, same as a Scout Rover or Synthmetal Sentinel.  However in this game I never had a Synthmetal stage.  I garrisoned with Scouts only and was sufficiently isolated to get away with that.  Then I went straight to Plasma.  So my usual supply of expendable cannon fodder wasn't there.  Usually I'd just walk the Scout Defensive to wherever it needed to be using a Probe Team or a Gun Jet.  But I didn't have any of those either, as all of my production went into defensive Plasma Infantry Probe Teams, and I didn't happen to pop a jet.  Even in MY 2282, I haven't discovered Doctrine: Air Power yet.

I'd make this a predefined unit for the AI's use, except I don't think the AI will have the brains to use it properly.  It already uses a Cloaked Laser Speeder, which it uses somewhat properly and can definitely annoy.  They tend to destroy backline Formers you weren't expecting them to, and they might also pillage.

Artillery is the AI's preferred way of destroying Sensor Arrays.  This makes me wonder, what would the AI do with stealth artillery?  Is it even a valid concept?  It seems to work just fine when it's a Spore Launcher doing it.

[bvanevery]

Details the killing fields

the killing fields

MY 2300.  The Free Drones are pretty spammy.  They still march really large stacks of units south to my border, where I summarily kill them with not very many units.  Shelling the crap out of them as they enter open ground is one of the secrets to my "success".  I took 1 city from the Free Drones but did not ever manage to push up to the 2nd.  I gained the ability to make Hybrid Forests and Soil Enrichers and preferred to spend my time on that, rather than spewing out units for conquest.

I still haven't finished the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, which I consider modestly important for an invasion, if not critical.  The Data Angels are also in the game and I'd like to end their ability to bother me from afar.  I changed my focus to Discover because nobody had built the Human Genome Project and I figured I should.  I completed that and now I want the Virtual World.

I've got Doctrine: Air Power but I've only made 1 Impact Needlejet.  Planes are expensive in my mod, and I've found that Impact weapons are not terribly effective against much of anybody, even when Elite.  A plane can let me choose a vulnerable target, shelter my troops, and block up the enemy's advance, but it's not actually a lot of deadly force to do anything with.  If I had a harsher attitude, switching to chemical weapons would be tempting, but the status quo favors my Builder sensibility.

I have found a bona fide reason to prefer Impact Speeders to Impact Infantry.  Infantry are cheaper, but Speeders get a bonus when attacking units on open ground.  This bonus is actually needed to be successful, even when Elite.

I think if I had Gatling weapons, it would tip the balance in my favor and make it pretty easy to wipe stuff out.  But it simply hasn't happened yet.  That's partially my fault for deciding I wanted to pick up the cheap Discover oriented Secret Projects.  On the other hand, I researched Conquer only a long time before changing my focus, and I still didn't get Gatling guns.  I haven't gained ECM or Pulse armor either.  It's kind of a weird, low tech game this way.  Maybe I spent a lot more time on Fundamentalist than I realized.

I also mistakenly kept using a 30-40-30 budget for a long time, not realizing I had long since made people happier.  Nowadays I'm at 40-30-30, an acknowledgement that new tech is not that important.  I'm Democratic Capitalist Power, with the Ascetic Virtues so I can use 1 police unit.  Nobody's sending mindworms at me and I long since cleared out all threatening fungus, so no issues.  My few Scouts from the beginning of the game have been shipped off to far-flung continents to pop pods.  I have the Xenoempathy Dome and spend an amusing amount of time scaring up mindworms that I can't capture and must run away from.

The oceans on the other hand, I've all but cleared out with the Maritime Control Center.  I rarely get Artifacts now, but if I do, I cash them for a tech.  Earlier in the game, my Artifacts all went to winning Secret Project races.  Nobody can touch me on Secret Projects anymore, as I'm too advanced for anyone to get anything started, and I make too much money for anyone to catch up on building them.  I've debated whether Capitalist is weak or powerful, but this game is definitely proving that at a certain stage of the game, the ability to get +2 ECONOMY and thus +1 energy per square, is extremely powerful for belting out Secret Projects.

Once I finally discover how to make the Virtual World, I will switch to Build.  More production would definitely enable me to wipe out the Free Drones.  I'm already building Hybrid Forests as is, and my citizens are abundantly happy, so I can handle Genejack Factories.  I'm also slowly working on the Pholus Mutagen, although I expect it'll get turned into the Virtual World and I'll have to start from scratch yet again.  I did that already to rapidly complete the Human Genome Project.

In principle, the Cyborgs could have provided the world with a lot of Discover techs.  In practice, they were left with 1 city a long time ago.  Recently I allied with them, figuring it could be a vote for me in some governmental matter.  I've been the Governor almost the whole game, because my initial spread was that good.

[bvanevery]

Details crushing it

crushing it

Once I got Gatling Lasers, it was pretty much all over.  They weren't quite enough to punch through cities with no losses, but they were enough of an advantage that the Free Drones melted away pretty quickly.  Shortly thereafter I got Missiles and that only added insult to injury.  They could destroy the defenders as long as they didn't have Sensors, and I'd done a pretty good job of getting rid of Sensors.  I also soon got Hovertanks, Genejack Factories, Robotic Assembly Plants, and Fusion Power.  As of MY 2236 I've had Fusion capability for a turn or two and I don't even need it.  My existing Fission units pretty much have the Free Drones in a rout.

The game is pretty academic and uninteresting at this point, so I'm quitting.  It's a lot of work cleaning up all these cities on a map this big, and I've certainly done it enough times before.  I switched to a Conquer only focus and could reasonably expect to have Chaos weapons before too long.  Pretty soon it'll just be running around playing tag.

The main lesson is that Impact weapons aren't quite enough to sweep the world.  Maybe I could have done it with those if I hadn't bothered with all the Secret Projects I so much love better.  But how dull!

If I had legalized chemical weapons, and kept up with the violence, this would probably have been easy peasy even with Impact weapons.  Heck maybe plain Lasers would work, judging by by how effective Missile units were later.  I might have to try that sometime.  The problem is that legalizing chemical weapons early in the game is kinda random.  Sometimes the AIs are into it, and other times they are not.  I haven't seen any pattern to it.  If they expect you to bribe them to do it, it's generally too expensive to bother with.  And illegal chemical weapons early in the game, result in your certain death at the hands of Planet.