SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[bvanevery]

send Santa home

Merry Christmas!

Details sent home

sent home

Verified fixed.  Those 2 active units just got sent home by the Usurpers breaking their Pact with me.

[bvanevery]

Happy New Year!

Since when can bases be founded right next to each other?

Details double pirate bases

double pirate bases

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

That is weird. Again I don't remember doing anything in this regard but let me check.

[bvanevery]

It is MY 2186 and the Gaians have generously decided to grace me with an alliance.  They started the game at war with me, lol.  They were too far away for it to be an issue, and so I'm now on a relentless campaign of crushing the Pirates, who are right next to me.  In this time, the Gaians have built one Trance Former beyond the 2 Formers given to them at start.  And they started the game sitting next to the Monsoon Jungle with no competition, giving them no developmental excuse.  Their developmental trajectory is pathetic for the land resources they were given.

Details Gaian roadless empire

Gaian roadless empire

Details formers not being produced

formers not being produced

Conjectures:

• Too much emphasis on colonization?
• Some part of the AI gives Trance Former a preference over just Former?  But then some other part of the AI decides they're too expensive and doesn't build them.

If they were closer to me, at this point in the game I think they'd be summarily overrun.

Much as I'm doing to the Pirates now.  The Pirates are producing Sea Formers and using them to some extent.  But I haven't seen a single military ship, and they stock their bases with mere Scouts.  Likely culprit is again, too much emphasis on colonization.  They have a lot of sea bases scattered all over the place.

[bvanevery]

It turns out the Pirates do have better weapons, armor, and chassis available.  They're just not using them.  I've taken 4 bases near my territory, and this is the 1st resistance I've encountered.  It could be that these better units, are too expensive for their defense.

Details pirate gatling cruiser

pirate gatling cruiser

[bvanevery]

Well, they've sent enough gatling cruiser spam against me to potentially retake one of their bases.  But they didn't.  After killing what's in the base, they just left it alone.  That's an odd strategy.

Meanwhile I've acquired the armor by other means, and finally probe team capability.  It will take me some time to steal from them, as I do have to get past their screen of cruiser spam.  But they do not seem to be very thorough about this.  I actually haven't been pumping out ships to the exclusion of all else.  I've been developing my infrastructure, with ship pumping resuming as I've gotten done with things.

Details retaking blase

retaking blase

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Happy New Year!

Since when can bases be founded right next to each other?

Details double pirate bases

double pirate bases

I checked the code and didn't find direct indication why this happened. I can make a speculation about WTP colony code searching for suitable base location. It checks suitable spot to be not too close to existing bases (based on configuration parameter base_spacing). It happens once per turn before all units move. However, it does not check suitable spots to be not close to each other. So it may happen that two bases are sent to adjacent locations and built bases on the same turn bypassing this check.

I have added another check at the time the base is actually built to not build it next to other. Instead second colony would skip the turn and reevaluate build spot next turn this time not near just appeared base.

The change is minor and it should work. 😀
I haven't test it, though. Try it out.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-279

[bvanevery]

Once again the Pirates are not liberating their own bases when they can.  2 years ago I got a walk-in, er, sail-in.  It was only a Gun Cruiser that I'd made to get a prototype done, so it had no defense to speak of.  It got creamed by a proper cruiser, although that cruiser did take a lot of wounds.  Subsequently, although it could have taken the base and healed, it did not do so.  It just veered off.

Details pirates won't liberate their bases

pirates won't liberate their bases

That was in MY 2225.  Finally after I end my turn in MY 2232, the Pirates get serious and retake the base.

Details pirates finally liberate

pirates finally liberate

[bvanevery]

I had an elite foil probe team and 2 other ships in my captured sea base.  A Pirate ship attacked and somehow the foil probe team was selected as the defender.  Considering that it was unarmored, that's rather strange.  I have trouble believing it was the best defender available.  If indeed it was the best defender, just by virtue of being elite, then something is rather weird and counterintuitive about the WTP combat system.  This smells like a bug.

Details elite foil probe team attacked by normal ship

elite foil probe team attacked by normal ship

Couldn't get a screenshot of the event as it happened, it went by too fast.  These are the 2 ships remaining.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I had an elite foil probe team and 2 other ships in my captured sea base.  A Pirate ship attacked and somehow the foil probe team was selected as the defender.  Considering that it was unarmored, that's rather strange.  I have trouble believing it was the best defender available.  If indeed it was the best defender, just by virtue of being elite, then something is rather weird and counterintuitive about the WTP combat system.  This smells like a bug.

Details elite foil probe team attacked by normal ship

elite foil probe team attacked by normal ship

Couldn't get a screenshot of the event as it happened, it went by too fast.  These are the 2 ships remaining.

Ugh. Another of my bug. At least I found and fixed my bug that may caused this.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-280

Forgot to use float point computation when weighing damaged unit strength getting obviously zero and ignoring them altogether. This way if you have probe stacked with damaged units probe will be erroneously selected. Fixed in 280.

Thank you for discovering this by paying attention to details!

[bvanevery]

Details the tiny pirate kingdom

the tiny pirate kingdom

Mission Year 2278.  This is the point in the game at which I finally conquered the Pirates.  1st time I recall playing WTP long enough, to completely conquer a faction.  Bear in mind that I only play on Huge maps, so that I have a basis of comparison to my own modding work, which is Huge map centric.  We were in sunspots for awhile, and they finally just cleared.  After conquering 1 more isolated city far afield, I accepted Svensgaard's surrender for this little cluster.  That's all there's left of them.

Details the Free Drone onslaught

the Free Drone onslaught

Note that this conquest was achieved by the vertical development of a small number of cities.  6 inland, 6 coastal.  That's it.  I think it's proof that at least on water, the AI's strategy is rather bad.  I've been attacking the Pirates fairly relentlessly since early in the game.  They started it, and since they were right next to me, I desired to finish it.  They actually did put up some resistance for awhile, but they simply didn't have the defensive sensibility, nor the industry, to be competent.  Like every other faction, they spend way too much time spamming the water with colonies and not enough time defending them.

Details flower children

flower children

The Gaians started at war with me as well, but they were so far away by land, that it wasn't worth fighting them.  We made peace and eventually became allies.  I played a Fundamentalist only empire for a long time, and was traded or given a lot of techs by them.  The Free Drones already start at -2 RESEARCH and my Fundamentalist choice made it -4.  It simply doesn't matter.  Research doesn't have any value in WTP, because allied factions will give or sell you techs, and it's easy to steal from your enemies.  I've not seen a single enemy probe team ship the whole game.  I am suspicious that requiring them to have SUPPORT, means the AI won't build them anymore.

Details Drone high society

Drone high society

At some point I acquired Power, which was a great enabler of my conquest.  With the MORALE boost it pretty much doubled the punch I could give the enemy.  My ships would become Elite fairly quickly.  I did manage to get the Maritime Control Center done.  Later on I got Cybernetic.  The EFFIC boost was really useful for the rather large empire I had acquired by then.

Only this year, I finally went Democratic, after taking Svensgaard's surrender.  That's to get yet more EFFIC boost.  I'm "Pirate huge" now, most of my bases very far from my capitol.  As I was Fundamentalist for so long, I've been at war with both the Peacekeepers and the Hive for a long time.  I tried making peace with Lal but he's not having it.  We never actually strike blows because we're on opposite sides of the world.  I have occasionally managed to get my probe cruisers all the way across the map to steal from him.  I still haven't infiltrated him.  The Hive, I just wander around taking his empty size 1 sea bases.  Yang hasn't gotten tired of this yet, still won't sign a Truce.

It would be logistically rational now, to turn on the Gaians and overrun them.  However there's no value in it, as they haven't made even a single Secret Project.  The Usurpers, in contrast, have 4 sweet Secret Projects including the Empath Guild.  I could use chemical weapons on them, and unless rules got changed in WTP, nobody would care.  I did try to legalize chemical weapons when I first got Advanced Military Algorithms, but Lal vetoed it.  I would need the Empath Guild and some growth in all these sea bases, to oust him from the Governorship.  Wiping out the Usurpers could eventually be the basis for a Diplomatic Victory.

I've got Doctrine: Air Power now.  Don't know if anyone else does.  Haven't seen any planes.

Details slim margin

slim margin

I didn't bother to count that accurately before trying, but I thought, maybe with my allies I have enough to win the Governorship right now!  Indeed, I came within spitting distance.  Unfortunately there's no moving Yang, right now.  He'll probably always Abstain, since I'm not going to go Police State.  Empire's too big for that.  It wouldn't take that much sea base growth for me to overcome Lal's slight advantage, even without the Empath Guild.  If I got him out, then I wouldn't have to worry about his veto.  Then I could get atrocities legalized!  Then I wouldn't have to take any more human faction bases.  I could just wipe 'em out.  I could definitely see the Hive, gone.

[bvanevery]

A Clean Reactor costs nothing once you know the tech?  I'm really surprised at that decision.  I get that you don't obtain it until say the early late game, but you do still obtain it, and there's a lot of the game left to go.

In the above, I've gone non-expansionist for the moment.  Got a Treaty with the Hive, and a Truce with the Peacekeepers, after taking 2 of their sea bases close to their home territory.  The Gaians have been using them for staging air raids.  Lal just broke the Truce and attacked one of those bases, that may have had a Gaian plane in it at the time, but my ship got clobbered.

So now it's like, what next, maybe some orbital drop warfare?  Just puzzled about this whole 0 cost Clean Reactor thing.  SUPPORT rendered moot?

Ok, now I'm seeing it's about the Attack/Defense ratio, but that's still going to be a lot of garrison units that cost nothing.  Might as well armor up the transports and formers too, to get the Clean Reactor for nothing.

[bvanevery]

Details production reset by loss of ally

production reset by loss of ally

This base keeps resetting the production to stuff I don't want, typically a low grade military unit.  This is one of the 2 bases I took from Lal.  Deirdre's been using it to conduct air raids.  My theory is, Deirdre's sitting in my base, and Lal attacks her.  My own defenders have already been wiped out.  When Deirdre dies, somehow the base reacts like it's an AI controlled base, not my base.  And switches production to the low grade military unit.  I kept checking to see whether the Governor had accidentally got switched on, but nope.

My intention is to keep the base slooooooowly working on a Hab Complex.  I've noticed the AI doesn't seem to want to actually take over empty bases.  So, that's my version of putting it in "park", until I can actually bring up some AAA Cruisers to defend it.  That will take awhile, as these bases are clear on the other side of the map.  They might also get fried by the Locusts that Lal likes to use.  But I want my free Clean Reactor.

[bvanevery]

Details wipe the slate clean

wipe the slate clean

Well, this is the farthest I've ever gotten in WTP, but I'm bagging the game.  Even though it's pretty clear I can win this, it's got that SimCity feeling where everything you did wrong makes you itch, and you just want it gone.

I was deadly afraid of flooding for the longest time.  I didn't build minerals anything.  No Genejack Factories, no Robotic Assembly Plants, no Subsea Trunklines.  I just kept reinvesting my capital into other facilities, no matter how expensive they got.  Finally, in recent years, I started to relent and prepare for some kind of ultimate showdown.  The fact that cranking out modern defensive ships was so sloooooooow was just getting to me.  The world had already started to sink a bit due to the foibles of other factions.  So I thought, if it sinks now, what's the loss?  I could always make Singularity Planet Busters and just end everything.  If I had the minerals to survive in the sea.

I could definitely win by Transcend victory, as the tech tree is almost over with.  But, I'm morally opposed to doing so, unless I'm playing a faction where that would be in character.  I see Transcend victory as tantamount to joining the Comet Hale Bopp cult.  It's a really bad idea.  If I had carte blanche to rewrite a lot of content for this game, and could make money doing so, I'd have the option to kill Planet.  Dig the thermal boreholes and drop the Planet Busters down in, until the damn thing's dead.

The AI can't mount an offense.  Those 2 very distant bases I sailed into, in Lal's home waters, he finally retook 1 of them.  After ages of waiting around.  I learned the hard way, there was no value sailing all the way over there to begin with.  Shouldn't have bothered.  It wasted some of my real world time, pushing ships that far.  It would make far more sense to push ships only in an ever expanding "perfect circle" from one's empire, given the lack of AI aggression.

I went high EFFIC because of all the bases I took over.  Well if I hadn't insisted on conquering a Pirate sprawl, I would never have needed all that EFFIC.  And I probably would have had a better empire, built in a "perfect circle".  The main question is how hard could I have pushed my minerals.  I was really, really squeamish about it, because I got into a fair amount of trouble the previous game.

One of the final straws, was that Marr finally declared war on me after eons of just Seething.  And then I sloooowly mobilized in his direction.  Got modern defensive AAA ships into all my sea bases, "in case of his planes".  Which I never saw.  I lost infiltration for a long time, and it seems he mostly filled up his empire with tough defensive probe units.  So the AI does make those things on land, even if it does nothing at all at sea.  Then after I made my 1st nuke, Marr begged off and signed a Treaty with me.  Like what's the point of me even trying to shift gears, if it's that difficult to mobilize and get things going?  Why bother to make any war at all?

I never made war with Deirdre because I correctly surmised there was no value in it.  She helped me eventually win the Governorship, and she had no Secret Projects to take over.  Again from a "perfect circle" point of view, there's nothing to be had from her.  Especially not after I took so much from the Pirates.  The price I paid for Gaian pace, was I never used Free Market or Planned.  Didn't want Free Market because I didn't need Planet getting mad at me.  Didn't want Planned because it would harm the happiness of my huge sprawling empire.  Can't do Green because I was the Free Drones.  Really, bad options all around.

Marr actually had 4 Secret Projects worth taking, but they were deep in his territory.  I would have had to wipe out the whole continent to get to them.  I think I did finally make it to the orbital insertion era, via Graviton Theory, not the Space Elevator.  That thing was taking forever and I actually begged off, in favor of the overpriced Universal Translator.

I got a lot of SPs, even with my non-factory approach to the game.  Got decent minerals out put from good terraforming.  Better than the AI at least, won plenty of SP foot races without really trying after awhile.  Clearly could have done much more in that regard.  All that time spent conquering the Pirates, could have been several more SPs.

So, wiping this one and starting over.  I think this is basically close to a builder sandbox, because the AI isn't really going to do anything to you.  It needs to stop colonizing and start fighting.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

A Clean Reactor costs nothing once you know the tech?  I'm really surprised at that decision.  I get that you don't obtain it until say the early late game, but you do still obtain it, and there's a lot of the game left to go.

That is some weird thing. I don't remember doing that. Let me check configuration.


Update

Indeed it was set to -1 (attack/defense ratio). Don't remember why. Maybe someone asked me to do that or I tested this and it slipped to production release. Anyway. Reverted it back to 32 what it was.