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V. Illych L. posted:you have to make space on your hand and then you click the little message saying "claim reward" Also ty for this btw, what tripped me up is that you have to click the message but not the little mail icon for extremely stupid reasons I'm nearing actually finishing the Victory in the West campaign, and I think I've finally figured out how to use set pieces after digging into the manual talking about how fortifications work. One thing that also didn't quite click for me is that they can be extremely useful for rolling the dice on retreats without risking any KIA
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Oct 29, 2023 18:53
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StashAugustine posted:Also ty for this btw, what tripped me up is that you have to click the message but not the little mail icon for extremely stupid reasons Yeah, I did the same thing in my Victory in the West run; UOC2 really benefits from RTDM. Right now I'm working through Blitzkrieg, which isn't too bad though I'm gonna have to restart my Polish Plain scenario because I'm just not gonna hit the objectives on time. Edit: Playing on normal or whatever is between classic and easy. BadOptics has issued a correction as of 19:45 on Oct 29, 2023 |
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Oct 29, 2023 19:42
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I've been playing Alpha Centauri again. I'm working on modding the original factions a bit, giving each of them a little bit more diversity and personality and a little more oomph as well. I'm testing them out as I go. Would anyone be interested in my words/pictures as I contemplate the game mechanics, consider the personality of a faction, and ruminate on the game, its mechanics and their connection to the US ideology of 1999. I'm playtesting my changes to Yang and I'll probably do Pravin Lal next, I think I've got some good ideas for both.
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Oct 30, 2023 02:01
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Hell yes let's see some Alpha Centauri "uh, let me be clear. If you like your wife, you can clone her" - Pravin Lal
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Oct 30, 2023 05:38
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We'll begin with how to start playing Alpha Centauri in the year of Our Lord 2023. The process was almost painless. We'll be adding a bugfix patch and a UI patch. You too can be playing Alpha Centauri in about 10 minutes or so. 1. Buy Alpha Centauri from gog.com. It is $6 at full price. https://www.gog.com/en/game/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri 3. Download and install the game 2. WAIT! before you install it make sure you copy the install directory you use to notepad in case the patches don't automatically find it. 4. The official patches are already installed, you don't need to do anything there. 5. Install Scient's patch. There are other bugfix patches but I picked this one because a youtuber (Mandelore Gaming) recommended it to me. There are other patches but this seems to fix the most bugs without touching the actual gameplay. Just download and run the executable from this stranger on the internet. Make sure it goes to the correct directory (from step 3). https://github.com/DrazharLn/scient-unofficial-smacx-patch/releases 6. Install the PRACX patch. This is a UI patch that adds things like zooming in and out. It brings the UI to at least semi-modern standards. I wouldn't reccomend playing Alpha Centauri without it. Once again just download the executable from the same stranger from the internet and execute it. And once again double check that the install directory is correct. https://github.com/DrazharLn/pracx/releases 7. Go into your Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri folder and double click terranx.exe file to start it. You may want to make a shortcut somewhere. That should just about do it! Here's the video of the intro to the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=035cpHEowS4 And here's the intro updated for 2020, remember 2020? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY9uZeAjl9I gradenko_2000 posted:Hell yes let's see some Alpha Centauri Pravin Lal is probably the one I gave the biggest buff too, I may have overdone it but I was truly inspired by modern liberalism. I've also buffed Yang and Deidre and made a small change to the rest. Basically everybody no longer takes the penalties from their favored Social Engineering choice as it often seems to be already integrated into the faction. I've now got two questions. Who should I play as? And should any of the original 7 Factions be subbed out for somebody from the expansion, Alien Crossfire. I could play as one my buffed factions to see how they play or play as somebody else to see how they perform as AI. BearsBearsBears has issued a correction as of 07:32 on Oct 30, 2023 |
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Oct 30, 2023 07:26
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Yang does not need gameplay buffs, he's by far the strongest faction from my experience.
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Oct 30, 2023 09:18
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Amazing, thanks for the Alpha Centauri primer. gonna grab it and play, since I’m on a retro strategy game kick. Currently discovering the Stronghold series that I completely missed out on first time around, just in time for Stronghold HD in a few days.
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Oct 30, 2023 20:12
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Domai and the Free Drones from the expansion have always been my preferred faction for obvious reasons, but the problem with the expansion factions is that the original faction list is so good that removing any of them feels like a huge omission
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Oct 30, 2023 20:18
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Mister Bates posted:Domai and the Free Drones from the expansion have always been my preferred faction for obvious reasons, but the problem with the expansion factions is that the original faction list is so good that removing any of them feels like a huge omission the expansion factions in particular the free drones are wildly unbalanced -20% mineral cost to EVERYTHING is just way too good BearsBearsBears posted:Pravin Lal is probably the one I gave the biggest buff too, I may have overdone it but I was truly inspired by modern liberalism. I've also buffed Yang and Deidre and made a small change to the rest. Basically everybody no longer takes the penalties from their favored Social Engineering choice as it often seems to be already integrated into the faction.
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Oct 30, 2023 21:02
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Oct 30, 2023 21:03
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Domai is crazy strong, yeah. What? Malus to science output due to focus on practical results? I can't hear you over the sound of all the labs I'm rapidly constructing. Hive is better at ICS tho. Go planned police state and never look back.  e: looking up a post I made a decade ago: quote:I know. I've only ever played a game like that once. Setting up a governor in every city to handle tile assignments (and nothing else) helps cut down the micromanagement, and so does setting up a full build queue in every city and only updating it in emergencies, or when it empties. You can even cut down on former micro if you automate them and set the options for them to only build roads, sensors and forests. The sad thing about AC is that it has amazing tools to help you cut down on the tedium on focus on the fun parts of the game, but never tells you how to use them. my dad has issued a correction as of 21:13 on Oct 30, 2023 |
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Oct 30, 2023 21:08
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my dad posted:Yang does not need gameplay buffs, he's by far the strongest faction from my experience. I would disagree, Yang is one of the weaker factions in the game, however his AI is one of the better ones. I suppose this is as good a time as any to introduce Yang, my musings on him, and my modifications.  Yang also has a secret unlisted bonus where his Efficiency cannot go below zero. To me the inspiration for Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang and his Human Hive faction seem very obvious. It is very heavily inspired by the Eastasia from the novel 1984 by beloved author George Orwell, a man who accused Charlie Chaplin of being a Stalinist. Eastasia itself was inspired by the lurid propaganda coming out about Red China and that Orwell had drunk eagerly and deeply from. Let's see what our boy George wrote Eastasia. 1984 posted:None of the three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces. Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and industriousness of its inhabitants. 1984 posted:In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps better rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all. Eastasia's advantages are the fecundity and industriousness of its inhabitants, which are perfectly matched by the +1 GROWTH and +1 INDUSTRY of the Yang's Human Hive. The political philosophy of Eastasia is called the Obliteration of the Self, which also matches Yang's philosophy of the total subsumption of the individual into the group. Finally, Yang's advantages in running a Planned Economy and a Police State also match on to what we know about the politics of Eastasia, which is said to be very similar to how Oceania is run in the novel. BearsBearsBears has issued a correction as of 21:49 on Oct 30, 2023 |
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Oct 30, 2023 21:41
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Mister Bates posted:Domai and the Free Drones from the expansion have always been my preferred faction for obvious reasons, but the problem with the expansion factions is that the original faction list is so good that removing any of them feels like a huge omission Typo posted:Morgans have the most interesting play style imo 
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Oct 30, 2023 21:45
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Mokotow posted:just in time for Stronghold HD in a few days. For anyone else (like me) that got excited about this, it's "Stronghold Definitive Edition" and it's releasing in a week. Redone graphics, two new campaigns by the original devs, and Steam multi-player.
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Oct 30, 2023 23:16
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woah
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Oct 30, 2023 23:21
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Having flashbacks to being forced to setup a lather production line just to build crossbows to kill attacking knights again.
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Oct 30, 2023 23:25
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Don't forget about Yang's Efficiency not being able to go below zero. Let's move on to Yang in gameplay, starting with his advantages, roughly from least important to most. He has free perimeter defense in every base, which gives a defensive bonus when being attacked. He has +1 Growth which makes new citizens cost 10% less Nutrients. He has +1 Industry which makes building things cost 10% less Minerals. Finally his Efficiency cannot go below zero. Efficiency is a Society Effect (like Growth and Industry) that determines how efficiently you can run a large empire. Low Efficiency reduces the amount of Energy (Money) you get from your distant bases and increases the amount of Drones (Unhappy workers) you get from having a lot of bases while high Efficiency does the opposite. Yang's Efficiency not being able to go below zero is the key to his faction. It lets him run two Social Engineering choices that normally have Efficiency penalties without suffering from them. He can (and should) run a Planned Economy and a Police State. Planned Economy gives him a bit of extra Growth and Industry which adds to the inherent bonuses the Human Hive already has. Police State gives you extra Police and Support. High Support lets your bases "support" more units without you having to pay extra minerals every turn, the extra Support from Police State lets Yang support a whopping 4 upkeep-free units per base. High Police lets units stationed in your bases turn one Drone (Unhappy worker) into one normal worker. The higher your Police rating, the more units you can use as police in each base. By itself, Police state lets you use 3 units as police neutralizing up to 3 drones. The strategy seem obvious, use your high support and high police to neutralize your drones for free, sparing your crappy economy from the upkeep of anti-drone buildings. You can also use your Industry and Support to build up a large army and conquer your neighbor. If you commit to an aggressive strategy you need to execute it fast, your crappy Economy means you have crappy research and even if you do get a new military research mid-war you have a difficult time scrounging up the Energy to upgrade your units. However, I favor a different strategy with Yang. I have one or two units guarding each base and then I build a 2-3 Formers (terraformers) per base and have them go nuts on terraforming my territory. My high Support means the Formers aren't a drag on my economy and they can do their business on making my cities incredibly productive. Don't worry about Eco-Damage because more Mindworms means you can harvest more pearls from them. The pearls give you Energy, which you desperately need in the early game. I call this strategy "Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature". If you can get the Weather Paradigm then you can add Thermal Boreholes to really juice your economy up. The Weather Paradigm secret project is great for Yang and also probably every single other faction in the game. Historical Note: The People's Republic of China didn't get its UN seat until 1971, This would have been 28 years ago in 1999. The lead designer of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Brian Reynolds, would have been 4 years old at the time. Some ideological notes. Yang has the same inherent bonuses as Planned Economy yet his Preference is Police State. He usually runs both of course. His penalty to Economy doesn't come from any of the existing Social Engineering choices but is similar enough to the default Efficiency penalties of Planned Economy and Police State. I think Yang and his Human Hive is 'coded' as being Red China. I would need to look at more US propaganda about China from before 1999 to make a more accurate assessment but this feels right to me. So Yang + Planned + Police State lets him have good Growth, Industry, Police, and Support but poor Economy. In Earth terms this would translate to a massive population, large amounts of industry, a large army, and an impressive level of internal control of their own population but held back by a poor economy. I think this maps very well onto perceptions of China in 1999. Of course, around mid-game my Energy worries usually go away as I've terraformed enough forests/solar collectors/thermal boreholes to solve that problem.  Here's a screenshot of my economy from when I played Yang this weekend. If you look at mid-game you can see when I finally solved my economy problems. I had a bunch of unexpected wars early game that really delayed me being able to set everything up properly. Coming up next. Yang's disadvantages, especially his secret disadvantage of having the worst growth in the game.
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Oct 30, 2023 23:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:For anyone else (like me) that got excited about this, it's "Stronghold Definitive Edition" and it's releasing in a week. Redone graphics, two new campaigns by the original devs, and Steam multi-player. They’ve been trying to make good stronghold happen again since like 2003.
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Oct 31, 2023 00:05
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Yang is every yankee racist fear about East Asia in the 90s combined into one faction. Running a milion terraformers is how I usually played Yang. It feeds into the ICS, too. Grabbing Weather Paradigm is something you desperately want, too. I'll note that I tended to play on arid maps, which make formers a lot more valuable (and it played into my habit of just making GBS threads out forests everywhere when I had nothing better to do). As a sidenote, the interaction between the pollution mechanic, ICS, and the tree farm buiding chain is hilarious.
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Oct 31, 2023 00:15
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Ok so when I play SMAC, I always end up way behind the AI in everything but especially military even on easy and usually just build tall on some godforsaken island. What is a good guideline for what I should be doing in the early game? Should I be spamming bases everywhere, if so, how far away from each other?
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Oct 31, 2023 00:19
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ICS is "Infinite City Spam" and it was the objectively correct way to play that era of Civ, and carries over pretty well into SMAC too
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Oct 31, 2023 00:34
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skooma512 posted:Ok so when I play SMAC, I always end up way behind the AI in everything but especially military even on easy and usually just build tall on some godforsaken island. I haven't played the game in a very long time, so I'm probably misremembering some stuff, but I routinely beat the game on Transcendent difficulty. I prefer somewhat closer colonies, it's OK to overlap radius. When choosing where to settle, it's much better to have a few good tiles than a bunch of mediocre ones. No matter how lovely a tile is, you can always turn it into a 1-2-1 forest. Lots of formers + colonies + lovely 1-1-1 guys running around scouting generaly handles the early game pretty well. I cannot emphasize enough how huge of a deal formers are. Specialized units > generalists. lovely 1-1-1 guys can be upgraded to what you need when you need at a reasonable cost in an emergency. Midgame, you really want to grab the techs that let you get >2 yields from a tile. Supply crawlers also break the game in half, but are kind of a pain in the rear end to set up and defend correctly. Don't feel the need to buid every buiding in every colony. Focus on what actually matters to you right now, and what your colony can make better use of. The tree farm building chain can completely eliminate pollution from all your colonies if you're playing wide enough. Speleothing posted:ICS is "Infinite City Spam" and it was the objectively correct way to play that era of Civ, and carries over pretty well into SMAC too Yeah. It's unfortunate, but that's how the game works.
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Oct 31, 2023 00:39
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skooma512 posted:Ok so when I play SMAC, I always end up way behind the AI in everything but especially military even on easy and usually just build tall on some godforsaken island. Who are you playing as and what Social Engineering choices do you usually run? my dad posted:I prefer somewhat closer colonies, it's OK to overlap radius. When choosing where to settle, it's much better to have a few good tiles than a bunch of mediocre ones. No matter how lovely a tile is, you can always turn it into a 1-2-1 forest. These are all good pieces of advice. I prefer minimum (or none) overlap on colonies but close colonies work very well. I personally don't like the look and feel of ICS or even semi-ICS, the computer usually avoids doing it so I feel safe doing so as well. One thing you can also do is make colonies the good distance from each other (enough so there's minimum overlap) until you are hemmed in by the other factions and then fill in your territory with more cities if you need to. What I usually do is build a bunch of scout guys early on and then build a colony pod every time I see a fancy bonus resource I want to grab until I run out of space. Only then do I start upgrading my cities. A lot of your scouts will die but they'll pay for themselves in bonuses from the unity pods and the Mindworms. Fighting against the Mindworms uses Psi-Combat, weapons and armor are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is your Morale (Green, Veteran, Elite, Etc...) and who is attacking, the attacking party gets a massive +25% bonus to the combat. Later on you'll get abilities, weapons, and armor that affect Psi-Combat as well but early game just build the scout patrols. my dad posted:Specialized units > generalists. lovely 1-1-1 guys can be upgraded to what you need when you need at a reasonable cost in an emergency. This needs to be emphasized more. Building a 2-2-1 (attack-defense-movement) unit costs you as much Minerals as building both a 2-1-1 and a 1-2-1. More complicated units are a lot more expensive than you would think since the cost increase isn't linear. One thing you may have missed, when you attack only your units' attack rating matters and when you defend only your units' defense rating matters.. The units defense rating doesn't matter if you're not defending. If you're defending a city with one unit then it should be a 1-Max-1 unit with whatever the highest defense rating you can get is. I also like to put Hypnotic Trance on that unit to defend again Mindworms. If you need to add a second unit, it should be a high attack unit instead of another high defense unit. When an enemy unit gets near your base, hit it with your attack unit and then retreat inside your own base. I like to have my attack unit have high mobility as well so I can rove out a bit. Sensors are a terraforming improvement that can really help with this strategy. I'll be writing about Pop Booming soon. The short version is if you can get +6 Growth (Children's Creche + Planned Economy + Democratic) then you can get one population every single turn for as long as you have 2 surplus nutrients. This is a lot better than waiting 7+ turns for your cities to grow naturally. BearsBearsBears has issued a correction as of 01:40 on Oct 31, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 01:34
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here's a question: I've often heard that Supply Crawlers are OP in SMAC, and that it becomes easy to beat the AI because the human knows how to use it, and the AI does not well... I don't know how to use it. How does it work and why is it so powerful?
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Oct 31, 2023 01:47
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gradenko_2000 posted:here's a question: I've often heard that Supply Crawlers are OP in SMAC, and that it becomes easy to beat the AI because the human knows how to use it, and the AI does not Supply Crawlers are great. They're upkeep free and give the base they're built at free resources when doing their supply crawling. Citizens give you all 3 resources but they also cost 2 nutrients in upkeep per turn, plus buildings or police to keep them from turning into drones, and they're limited in how many you can have per city and where they can work. I like to use them on tiles that my base can't work. If you use them on high mineral tiles they can pay for themselves in a relatively short number of turns. On the other hand if you use them for Nutrients then you can turn more people in their home base into specialists. 2 Nutrients --> 3 labs or econ in the early game. These labs or econ you get are immune to inefficiency penalties and get multiplied by the various base buildings you have. And specialists only get better as the game goes on and they can't be turned into Drones. In general, if your base is at the max population it can support then you should have as little food surplus as possible, just turn all those guys into specialists. I don't really use Crawlers for energy and I'm not sure it would be much good, I'm usually swimming in energy by the time it makes sense to use them. Crawlers can also be converted back into minerals at any base, this is very useful for rushing Secret Projects that one of the other factions unfairly started before you could. The tricky part is they need to be kept safe so you need to clear the area of xenofungus first. I don't think I've ever tried putting Hypnotic Trance on them, maybe it would work. I would definitely prioritize them behind Formers.
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Oct 31, 2023 02:14
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I like how Unity of Command 2 has bridge demolition as a completely useless option for your HQs and then in the Disaster in Greece scenario where it'd actually be useful your HQ doesn't have it
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Oct 31, 2023 02:24
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Speleothing posted:ICS is "Infinite City Spam" and it was the objectively correct way to play that era of Civ, and carries over pretty well into SMAC too my dad posted:Yeah. It's unfortunate, but that's how the game works. ICS (Infinite City/Colony Spam/Sprawl) is the strategy that revolves around putting down as many cities as possible without regard for the quality of the terrain they're one. A new city gives you 1 free worked tile, allows you to support more units without upkeep, and gives you a free citizen to work a single tile or become a specialist. There aren't a lot of Facilities (buildings) you can build in your base early on that can compete with that. There are the Recycling Tanks which give you +1/+1/+1 (Nutrients/Minerals/Energy) but those are even better when you ICS. To be clear to the new players, ICSing is good but isn't necessary to win, especially on normal (Librarian) and lower difficulties. It can be tedious to micromanage so I personally avoid it. my dad posted:Yang is every yankee racist fear about East Asia in the 90s combined into one faction. Oddly enough I usually play on rainy maps and I still wind up mostly putting forests everywhere. They're just so fast to put down and they scale all the way up to the endgame. I build a few farms+solar panels until I get enough food to grow that base to seven and then I put down forests on all the other squares. I often play with the extra rocky map setting to break this up a bit. I feel like Yang is one of factions that can afford to miss the Weather Paradigm (Double Terraforming speed) secret project, just because he can have so many terraformers. You still want it though because it's one of the best project in the early game. Why should the AI get it when they're not even that good at terraforming?
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Oct 31, 2023 03:25
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skooma512 posted:Ok so when I play SMAC, I always end up way behind the AI in everything but especially military even on easy and usually just build tall on some godforsaken island. without doing obvsly broken poo poo like ICS or crawler spam just build cities around 3-4 tiles from each other: you want to stay near river systems or in coastal areas goal of the game is to max out your population asap tech towards formers (centauri ecology) asap, then "social studies" or whichever tech it is that gives you recreation commons for the +2 happiness. If you are University or Gaia try to get secrets of human brain first for the free tech farms+forests are very easy to implement infraustructure for your cities to be productive: you can spam tree farms in the midgame for social engineering go democratic+planned to max out growth early game. Free market is really good midgame if you aren't fighting wars and done expanding. weather paragdim is the best wonder in the whole game and kinda broken: get it in early game if you can if the A.I demands tech from you early game always give, there's no real disadvantage to giving it away and you avoid game-ending wars before you are ready University/Peacekeeper/Hive are beginner friendly factions imo Typo has issued a correction as of 04:45 on Oct 31, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 04:31
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gradenko_2000 posted:here's a question: I've often heard that Supply Crawlers are OP in SMAC, and that it becomes easy to beat the AI because the human knows how to use it, and the AI does not most important resource in any civ game is population, but that is constrained by things like food upkeep and happiness requirement. In general getting population is a pretty long and painstaking process. supply crawlers are basically population free from those constraints, they fundamentally break a core game mechanic
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Oct 31, 2023 04:52
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gradenko_2000 posted:here's a question: I've often heard that Supply Crawlers are OP in SMAC, and that it becomes easy to beat the AI because the human knows how to use it, and the AI does not most important resource in any civ game is population, but that is constrained by things like food upkeep and happiness requirement. In general getting population is a pretty long and painstaking process. supply crawlers are basically population but free from those constraints, they fundamentally break a core game mechanic
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Oct 31, 2023 04:52
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Gaia is a very beginner friendly civ I think. Especially if you like unleashing man-made horrors beyond comprehension on your neighbors.
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Oct 31, 2023 05:00
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sullat posted:Gaia is a very beginner friendly civ I think. Especially if you like unleashing man-made horrors beyond comprehension on your neighbors. gaia's a rush civ. its beginner friendly in that its not that hard but not at all beginner friendly because you interact with very few of the systems you need to learn to succeed with every other civ
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Oct 31, 2023 05:03
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You can just play the game on Talent difficulty and have a good time. I just randomly picked up the game and had a nice casual session from start to finish on it without the computer civs giving me any trouble.
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Oct 31, 2023 05:12
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Lostconfused posted:You can just play the game on Talent difficulty and have a good time. that's true, last time i actually played was pbem
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Oct 31, 2023 05:19
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On to Yang's gameplay disadvantages. He has two big disadvantages, his economy and his population growth. Earlier I treated his population growth as being very good because he can effortlessly get +3 Growth but actually he has a big problem with growing. However, let's look at his Economy first. Yang has -2 Economy. This gives a relatively mild penalty of -1 energy per base (min 0). It makes your early game difficult but you can eventually get enough Energy from other sources to overcome it. However, this penalty also prevents him from using the Free Market policy to get his Economy rating up to +2, Yang + Free Market only takes his Economy rating to 0. +2 Economy is the magical breakpoint for when Economy gives you +1 Energy per square worked, this is basically the entire reason why people run Free Market. If you need energy, you run Free Market and you need Energy a lot in Alpha Centauri. It is used to maintain the Facilities in your bases and used to rush construction of those selfsame Facilities (or military units, or non-military units, or Secret Projects (Wonders)). You can also use Energy to upgrade your units, for bribing other factions, and for bribes/mind control when doing spy stuff. Energy is also used for researching things, this is called "Labs" in the game because you're using the energy to power your Labs (and because the term Research is used for something else). The Energy that goes to your Labs is your primary method of getting new technologies in the early game and you need energy to maintain the Facilities that multiply that Labs income, this is all competing with all the other things you want to use Energy for. There's one more thing you can use energy for and that's making your Citizens happy. You make your citizens happy to prevent them from Rioting and to cause Golden Ages. More on Golden Ages later. Yang gets +1 Growth and can easily get +2 more from running Planned Economy. +3 Growth reduces the number of Nutrients you need to get a new Citizen by 30%, +4 reduces it by 40%,, +5/50%, and finally +6 gives you a Population Boom. A Population Boom gives you one population a turn until you don't have two Nutrients to spare or you hit the Habitation limits (7 early game for most Factions). It takes something like 7-10+ turns to normally grow a single population for a low population base, this can go up even higher for high population bases. So there is a massive difference between +5 and +6 Growth. So how do you get +6 Growth? It's not actually that hard, you need a Children's Creche which is a Facility (building) that gives you +2 growth in that City, then you get +2 from a Planned Economy, and you get +2 more from running a Democracy. Here's where we get Yang's problem, he can't run a Democracy.  Here are all the Social Engineering choices in the game. You get to unlock the Political and Economic choices in the early game, the Values are unlocked roughly mid-game, and your Faction's vision for a Future Society is only unlocked late-game. All the choices except the base ones come with both bonuses and penalties; although there are Secret Projects that remove the downsides of certain Social Engineering choices. That's why some of my choices have no red icons. You'll notice there's no Democratic choice at the top, that's because I'm playing as Yang. Alright, so you can't do a normal Pop Boom strategy if you can't run either Democracy or Planned Economy. This affects Yang and Morgan (Capitalists) and a few of the expansion Factions that we won't talk about. There is another method of get a +2 to Growth and that's Golden Ages. You get a Golden Age in a city when you have at least as many Talents (happy citizens) as normal workers/specialists and you don't have any Drones (unhappy citizens). The easiest way to get Talents is to divert some of your energy to making your Citizens happy; Morgan has an easy time of this while Yang really struggles with getting Energy income early game. It's the same problem as with diverting energy to research, you need Energy both to divert it to making your citizens happy and to maintain the facilities that multiply that Psych (Energy used for making your Citizens happy). Morgan meanwhile is swimming in energy and doesn't need to grow a lot because his early game bases max out at 4 population. Yang could switch some of his Citizens to Doctors and use police to suppress any drones so it's not impossible for have a Golden Age, but it is harder than for him than for the other Factions. it might be harder for the -1 Growth Factions from the Expansion but they're supposed to have a hard time growing, Yang on the other hand is supposed to have Growth as an advantage. So there is the problem as I see it. Yang is supposed to be a Growth Faction but is one of the worst at Growth. The solution seemed obvious to me, give Yang +2 Growth instead of +1. This takes him from being one of the worst at Growth to being unarguably the best. You just need Planned + Children's Creche to Pop Boom. It's a very powerful ability, but one that limits itself due to Hab limits. He's not doing anything other factions can't, he just gets to do it a lot easier. The one problem I can see is that Yang is one of the Factions that the AI is actually pretty decent at and by making Pop Booming so easy that AI will actually do it. I've played as him and had fun and now we'll see how the AI does with him.  Here's my new and improved Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang. You'll notice that I also slightly modified the highlighting and also hosed up the indentation a bit, I fixed after this screenshot. I also made another modification after playtesting. I removed his ability that prevents his Efficiency from going below zero and replaced it with being immune to the negative consequences of Police State and Planned Economy. Those of you who've played Alpha Centauri may be confused right now because this change doesn't seem to actually do anything. It actually does do something, previously his ability prevented his Efficiency from going below zero but penalties still applied before adding up all your bonuses. This allows you to better mix and match Police State and Planned with Social Engineering choices that increase efficiency. This makes the following combinations more viable. Police State + Green Economy = Climate Stalin Police State + Planned + Knowledge = Sharashka Police State + Planned + Cybernetics = Project Cybersyn (or Project OGAS) I've also completed my modifications to the rest of the original 7 Factions. The most changed is Pravin Lal, the least changed is Zhakorov. As a modder I am unilaterally declaring my modded version of Yang balanced, his Faction's power level is roughly where I want all the factions to be. This will be the first game I'm playing with the full changes I've made for all the Factions, my last game was just with Yang with +1 Growth. I'll probably be playing as Morgan. I plan to play a normal sized map with that's Rocky, Rainy, and overrun with Xenofungus. I'll be playing at Librarian difficulty, this is the difficulty where neither you nor the AI get any advantages. I usually play with tech trading off, should I have it on for this game? Morgan can buy a lot of technology. BearsBearsBears has issued a correction as of 08:01 on Oct 31, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 06:57
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 Here are all human Factions in the game. The top six and Deidre are the ones from the original game. The other five are from the expansion, there are also two Factions of the same alien race that aren't in this image. The expansion factions are usually considered to be less well-written than the original seven. That being said, most people do usually like one or two of the new Factions with the Free Drones often being considered a stand-out. BearsBearsBears has issued a correction as of 07:16 on Oct 31, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 07:02
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if it's not too much trouble, can I ask you about the various UI enhancements that are introduced by the fan-made patches/mods? You mentioned that it's important and I'd like to gain some perspective because finding out what a UI is designed to convey is usually a good insight into how a game should be played "properly"BearsBearsBears posted:I usually play with tech trading off, should I have it on for this game? Morgan can buy a lot of technology. I would vote to keep it off
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Oct 31, 2023 07:07
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I see some Alpha Centauri and of course I have to do a bit of shameless plugging. From the best games ever megathreaddead gay comedy forums posted:thread gives me an excuse to practice writing, and I am taking it kinda funny (and actually very good) to consider the evolution in my reading/writing from two years to now, especially in another language. my tremendous shitposting remains spectacular as ever though
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Oct 31, 2023 07:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:if it's not too much trouble, can I ask you about the various UI enhancements that are introduced by the fan-made patches/mods? You mentioned that it's important and I'd like to gain some perspective because finding out what a UI is designed to convey is usually a good insight into how a game should be played "properly" Go here and scroll down a bit, I can't paste it here without losing the formatting. https://github.com/DrazharLn/pracx You can see that it adds advanced UI improvements like being able to zoom in and out, scrolling in menus, turning on resource and terrain overlays, being able to see terrain under fungus/forests. It also adds the ability to run the game in windowed mode. This mod really brings the Alpha Centauri UI into 2006. The original game has excellent hotkey support and has a surprising amount of configurable automation. gradenko_2000 posted:I would vote to keep it off Then it will stay off unless we somehow get outvoted. I wish Alpha Centauri had a "No Tech Brokering" rule where you can only give people techs you researched yourself or a "Blueprints" rule where buying a tech only means you get a significant research bonus for it. Alpha Centauri is over two decades old and we've had 20 more years of development of the 4X genre since then.
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Oct 31, 2023 07:33
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dead gay comedy forums posted:Here’s the kicker of my critique, though. Some of what I mentioned has been already treaded quite enough, many times. What I really want to point out is that, at a certain point in the game, humanity is back again at the intro, perhaps far worse due to the much advanced technological conditions. With all that technological advancement and progress in another planet, how in the gently caress we are dealing with the same old poo poo again? I'm a bit too dumb to properly give this the treatment it deserves, but this is a theme that carries through as well in Fallout 2 (released just a year before SMAC) as well as Fallout New Vegas. Civilization has managed to re-establish itself, but the loving NCR is just Clintonites again. BearsBearsBears posted:Go here and scroll down a bit, I can't paste it here without losing the formatting. https://github.com/DrazharLn/pracx hah, sold! Let's see if we can do "reinstall SMAC and upgrade it" as an afternoon project
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Oct 31, 2023 07:44
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