/v/ - Video Games

Organic superlube?

>>14220711

All it's fun and all until Yang starts being a shitty neighbor, regardless if you're playing pacifist, DELETE HIS ASS

>>14220711

>christ-chan 2214

>>14221101

I could never bring myself to build that many cities. Or play Miriam for that matter.

>>14221118

Main thing of importance is to use the save/load template feature, which takes care of being bothered for new buildings constantly. You need to do terraforming yourself but once you get a consistent setup that fills the workable tiles all extra citizens become specialists just like you want so you don't need to micro them.

>>14221101

Is that really the optimal layout? I always put everything in a + type grid layout

>>14221155

>Did you go checkerboard ICS from the get-go or did you go wider and backfilled later?

I went semi-ICS from the star, prioritizing lots of scouting to plant forward bases around nutrient resources (get to pop 5 for specialists which get me researching decently) and minerals (pump out formers and/or special projects), with most of the rest of the bases sitting with recycling tanks and pumping out colonies or (slow) growing and pumping out formers.

Do note that I'm not full ICS, only 50% city saturation. Each city works 7 tiles rather than max ICS which works 3 tiles.

>And why is there no garrison in most cities, aren't you scared of drop pods or something?

Cloudbase Academy prevents drop pod abuse, and I'm not sure the AI is smart enough to do that anyway. In any case I've pretty well decimated every AI that's vendetta-d me. Only the Hive sits at the south edge of the map with my forward bases annihilating their shit whenever they come. Also a 2 base Santiago that I ran out of my island next to the Hive. Lal and Morgan make up most of my borders and are good friends.

>When did you get probe tech, and how heavily did you use them?

Not too early and very little actually. Since the only one in my area was Santiago and her +morale sucks to probe, I only stole like 3 techs. Most of my tech acquisition outside of my own research was trade with Morgan and Lal.

>>14221170

You'd have to show me your layout so I know what you are talking about, but the nice thing about the layout I did is that you only have to build one road between diagonal bases. Minimal roading and overall wasted former turns helps. Even moreso for other factions that can't support 3+ formers per base.

>>14221273

Full saturation ICS is possible but doesn't make sense unless you're extremely choked for land. Half saturation otherwise just does everything that full saturation does but keeps making sense beyond the early game, so when I think about ICS I just automatically think about half saturation.

>>14221403

Overlap is good in most civ-like games. You really don't want to have squares sitting there doing nothing for 3/4ths of the game. This goes double for SMAC where you can crawl resources and specialists are so powerful.

As soon as you hit 5-pop and can use specialists a 4-food tile effectively gives you 6 energy-equivalent invested in your choice of labs or income at 100% efficiency and no drone problems. Then when you unlock Engineers you're getting 10 energy-equivalent and by the end game a 6-food tile is effectively generating 12 econ, 24 labs from pops and a further 6 minerals and 6 energy from satellites.

>>14221725

no, but also the game isnt good for single player because the AI sucks, so it just goes into irrelevance when its brought up

>>14221712

>modern resolutions

>what is PRACX

>>14221777 (checked)

It does though. It works well enough, but it rubberbands like crazy, though. Shoots straight into mid-late game faster than should be possible, and stays there limping forward at a snail's pace.

>>14220711

Yeah but your haircut is stupid.

Are we allowed to post lewds anymore?

>>14221777

nice

>>14221948

Become Miriam, become unstoppable.

>>14221952

>be Miriam

>people bully you even though you could kill them

AI on harder difficulties is permanently on "pay me to not attack you" mode. At least unless you pact them and match their SE choices.

>>14221691

I was just reminded a couple days ago that Beyond Earth exists. It was so mediocre that there is like a collective amnesia around it. It was completely forgotten like 3 months after it came out.

A lot of the issues between factions in Alpha Centauri would be solved with good dickings.

>>14222064

and spankings.

>>14221378

I have told you that punching in "Heaven" produces out-of-bounds invalid destination coordinates for a Psi Gate. Haven't I, you numbnut?!

>>14222004

>By midgame, every time you're contacted by another faction, you think to yourself: "I could kill you right now if I wanted."

That's the power of the Believers.

>>14220894

>Skye is the designated hero back when the game first came out

>Miriam was the hero all along

>>14225545

>designated hero

>only faction to commit a genocide

Half the beauty of the faction design is that nobody's entirely agreeable or disagreeable, and different people have different favorites.

No game has yet managed to surpass the thought put into SMAC. Beyond Earf tried and failed miserably, just like Firaxis tried and failed to copy Civilization miserably twice in a row now.

>>14226049

This.

>>14221725

These games arent even remotely comparable, although i like the factions in es2.

>>14221948

Miriam is the biggest bitch in the whole game, she's always the most satisfying leader to capture.

>>14226206

>she's always the most satisfying leader to capture.

>>14221725

It's a good game but not similar enough to AC

>>14221725

The game is fine.

>>14226464

The devs put a modicum of thought into their design.

>>14226464

>>14226499

Designer also took philosophy in university before the social sciences became a circlejerk.

>>14226241

Mods have recently been purging anything remotely lewd even when it's been on topic.

>>14226406

What would you do if you captured her anons? :^)

>>14226508

The guy who invented the Glorantha setting (i.e. the one used in King of Dragon Pass) is an anthropologist I believe. There is a use for social sciences when you aren't a total cucklord.

>>14230753

of course there is, but they wouldnt have to be pozzed to hell and back in the first place

>>14230507

>Paul Feig

Heh, I hope he never forgets Ghostbusters 2016.

>>14229794

>What would you do if you captured her anons? :^)

ENDLESS HEAD PATS

>>14242532

He got blacklisted by Sony for the fuckup that was Cisbusters.

Has anyone got the screencap from last year regarding all the issues that have happened thanks to ghostbusters?

>>14242546

Endless torture.

>>14226206

>Miriam is the biggest bitch in the whole game

Spartans are worse overall, by far according to the short story in the manual. Everything is their fault.

Whatever happened to Beyond Earth?

>>14256600

see >>14222011

>>14242496

There are special tiles on planet that gives lots of commerce, right? That plus lucky random tech allotment, I guess.

>>14222011

>mediocre

That's very generous. I think it's just a bad game. The developers were clearly talent-less hacks. They had an opportunity to create something truly great, a worthy successor to one of the best games in the genre, a game that is still beloved to this day, and such a great game to draw inspiration from. They probably had a massive budget as well. SMAC's creators could only dream of the opportunity that these guys got. And what do they create? One of the most empty, bland, lazy, soul-less, derivative games I've ever seen. Truly, fuck those incompetent bastards.

>>14257224

The more surprising part is that no one else got it before 2149.

>>14221101

Believers are strong builders in general thanks to their support rating. Not just in tech stagnation/blind research games. If you get good at terraforming, the Believers' ability to have an army of terraformers without incurring support costs will do amazing things for boosting productivity.

Also, Yang can still pop boom through GAs and Cloning Vats, although his econ is kinda shit to invest into psych for GAs. Lategame when it's harder to GA, you can just go Planned/Eudaimonia for pop booms, but when you have Eudaimonia that is probably the only time you may want to go Free Market over a Planned economy as Yang.

>>14221203

Solar flares are a perfect time to use nerve gas pods imo. If you nerve staple your drones during solar flares, your psych probably needs help. Maybe you play Zak a lot, I dunno.

>>14221712

Install PRACX. Won't improve the video quality any, but will fix color, screen resolution, and modern windows compatibility issues.

>>14222043

Miriam is the biggest bully in the game, tbh. She's the most blatant warmonger in the game and will frequently demand shit from you. Santiago and Yang are downright reasonable compared to her.

>>14226206

Miriam is also the best friend you can have. If you take Fundamentalist politics and avoid the Knowledge value she will be rather friendly. Going Dem/Market/Wealth as Zak and pouring your econ into research while gifting Miriam techs and shit all the time is also a great way to win the game since she'll love you and be your pact sister as she happily starts wars with everyone else and destroys them with the superior tech you're gifting her.

>>14221101

Yang can pop boom just fine. The trick is to get Human Genome Project and use doctor specialists to golden age your bases into pop booms.

>>14260103

The problem with all wonder-based strats (if you are playing against other humans) is that they might deliberately deny a critical wonder to you.

Would you allow Zakharov to have the Virtual World?

Would you allow Morgan to have the Ascetic Virtues?

Would you allow Yang to have the Human Genome Project?

Yang's special sauce to deal with domestic problems seem to be specialists. He is going to have huge support and industry and that can be turned into a horde of supply crawlers which in turn can feed bases running pure librarians and similar setups.

>>14221725

The game's pretty good but the AI has fucking brain damage and I have nobody to play it with Also,

>/v/ is one person

Anyone ever

>>14260900

want to try SMAC multiplayer? GameRanger supports it.

>>14260774

Zak is the only one with a serious must-have Secret Project. If he doesn't get the Virtual World (or the Human Genome Project), he will be crippled under his drone problems, which can make all the difference in preventing his usual crazy tech sprees. Zak also really loves getting the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm to cover his awful probe rating. Morgan usually needs Planetary Transit System more than Ascetic Virtues, since base spamming is generally Morgan's key to making up for his low pop bases. Yang benefits from the human genome project but he can Golden Age fine without it too, especially if he's doing his trademark borehole ICS.

>>14260911

You'll enter war anyway when you try to corner the global energy market. It takes a few turns during which everyone is supposed to try to kill you or otherwise stop you from succeeding anyway.

>>14257224

Nothing special in energy output as far as I recall and Believers aren't good at making something from that anyway. Main reason was that I accidentially left research on full Explore for way too long, I think? Still absurd Deirdre or Zakharov didn't snipe the tech themselves.

>>14257224

Primarily the Uranium Flats, Pholus Ridge, and Geothermal Shallows, yes. There's also Mount Planet which is more awkward to develop and The Ruins which early on just gives you 8 adjacent monoliths to pump for energy.

>>14242496

An Alien Artifact found early and used for research?

>>14243719

The question is, who had the colony mothership sabotaged and its captain assassinated?

>>14221378

If only I could go back to when I was an edgy kid spamming zak and make myself understand.

So many wasted years.

>>14267942

A planetary governorship followed by uniting Alpha Centauri behind me as the supreme leader, of course.

Just started plaing this game as Yang. What would you guys say is the recommended difficulty? Currently on specialist while I learn the ropes.

>>14269526

>Yang

kill gommies

>recommended difficulty

Librarian is the "fair" difficulty. Specialist is fine for a first game, but assuming you understand in general what to do you'll want to move up quickly

http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Difficulty

>My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?

>Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Mind and Matter"

If this didn't raise the hair on the back of your neck the first time you heard it, you have no soul.

>>14270440

this yangism is the one that first got me

>It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks, and become one with all the people.

SOYLENT GREEN

>>14269526

Quick FYI: Almost no one plays with Blind Research on. We usually disable Blind Research in the custom rules. Also, you should consider installing Kyrub's AI patch for classic (I hope you're playing Classic first, the expansion pack really drags down the writing and their factions have terrible balance, and yes, the writing in classic Alpha Centauri is legit fucking good and worth your time to experience in its proper glory) and yitzi's patch for Alien Crossfire. You'll probably also want to install the PRACX resolution patch just to fix any annoying incompatibility/resolution/color issues on top of those patches.

It's fine to play without kyrub's AI patch the first time around, as the AI would be a lot cleverer and thus more likely to kick your ass with the patch installed, but I would just play with the patch on since you're on a low difficulty anyway and it includes all the bugfixes from scient's patch.

>>14266470

Might help to read the background info then:

http://alphacentauri2.info/official/Sid%20Meier's%20Alpha%20Centauri.htm

http://alphacentauri2.info/official/journey.txt

>>14269826

Yang isn't really commie. He's more of a Chinese collectivist legalist leader than a commie. Alien Crossfire's Free Drones faction though is straight up "Worker's revolution: the faction." It's also the one SMAX faction I thought would do well with the original 7, aside from the balance issues.

>>14270440

Personally I preferred the Self-Aware Colony. I assumed it was one of those philosophical models of future social self-governance. NOPE. I also liked this conversation:

>>14271015

Forgot to include the conversation I liked:

You are the children of a dead planet, earthdeirdre, and

this death we do not comprehend. We shall take you in, but

may we ask this question–will we too catch the planetdeath

disease?

– Lady Deirdre Skye,

"Conversations with Planet"

>>14267117

Zak spamming is one of the most popular choices. That science boost lets you leapfrog over the competition with ease. Other factions like Morganites and Gaians can also crank out extreme research, but the University's the easiest for it, as long as you get Virtual World, which is not hard.

>>14273389

Morganites feel like one of the worst factions, and I have a creeping suspicion I only like playing Believers because there's you can only tolerate playing a -support faction with tiny bases and no popbooms for so long.

>>14271015

>collectivist

>communist

Both are the same thing, giving up free will and individuality to be dictated by the hivemind. The Free Drones are simply still in the transitional revolutionary stage. Yang is in the theoretical "what if communism actually worked" stage.

>>14273497

Domai's favorite engineering value is Eudaimonia. His ultimate goal isn't collectivism, it's a society where every worker can be happy.

>>14273480

Ironically Morganites are best suited for forest spam since their easy +1 energy per tile makes it ideal to work lots of multi-resource squares with your own pops rather than crawl specialized squares. Also the tree farm strurctures give a huge economy bonus. This also makes the -support far more bearable since forests are easy to plant. Downsize is that working energy rather than getting energy from specialists means huge drone and efficiency losses with larger bases and higher difficulties, so they don't scale well.

>>14273521

The real life goal of communism is a society where every worker can be happy. That hasn't stopped communism from being implemented and doing the exact opposite.

>>14273551

Very true, but Alpha Centauri is a game about utopies (and dystopies) where the traditional communist vision fits very well and could even work out.

>>14273542

That's about the idea I believe. Space out bases for ~11-13 tiles, don't go over double your bureaucracy cap for most of the game, slap tree farms and hologram theaters everywhere and lock your psych slider at 10~20%.

>>14273480

>Morganites feel like one of the worst factions

Morgan is hit or miss. Sometimes he feels weak, and sometimes he feels stupidly overpowered. You have no idea how fucking powerful money is in Alpha Centauri where your income also determines your research. Morgan also has the crazy ability to reach +2 econ with just Wealth, netting you that precious +1 energy/square.

>and I have a creeping suspicion I only like playing Believers because there's you can only tolerate playing a -support faction

Support is good, yes, but past a certain point you discover Clean Reactors and can field an army of maintenance-free units. Living Refinery also gives you +2 support later on. You can also rehome units to a single base (and cripple it with unit support) to keep your other bases at 100%.

>with tiny bases and no popbooms for so long.

You could get Ascetic Virtues to fix the tiny bases, and you can also pop boom with golden ages. Unlike poorfag Yang, Morgan can pop boom off of psych allocation pretty easily. As a matter of fact with golden ages his bases reach +2 econ without any social engineering at all.

>>14274208

That's kind of the point of a boom-focused faction, weak early but becomes strong as he gets the techs to work around his limitations. Sometimes I just don't feel like being forced into booming as much as Morgan is, since he's more or less forced into rushing Industrial Automation and a bunch of crawlers before he can really start making choices.

>>14274208

Pop booming through golden ages does really suck though. You end up needing to devote 20% or more of your whole energy income, even if only a small portion of your cities need to boom at any one point of time. At that point you're basically becoming Miriam in terms of research by nuking your income, except Miriam beats those penalties through being bigger while you just sort of… suffer. It's fine if you can get all of your cities timed to grow together for a few turns but otherwise is just awful.

Also, even once you get Clean Reactors support is beneficial in terms of being able to build units with other special abilities. You really do *need* special abilities to do any kind of effective fighting with an equal-tech opponent. Clean Reactor only really helps IMO if you want a huge amount of formers as a non-Miriam/Yang faction.

>>14274649

>Pop booming through golden ages does really suck though. You end up needing to devote 20% or more of your whole energy income, even if only a small portion of your cities need to boom at any one point of time. At that point you're basically becoming Miriam in terms of research by nuking your income

No, because 80% of Morgan's income is typically more than 100% of the next highest faction's and any base under a golden age gets +1 econ, which means it makes more money. For a normal faction, going from 0 econ to 1 might not be meaningful, but Morgan's bases will be going from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 econ (you get the picture) and that +1 econ will seriously boost your energy output when you've got a large bunch of bases in golden age.

>Also, even once you get Clean Reactors support is beneficial in terms of being able to build units with other special abilities. You really do *need* special abilities to do any kind of effective fighting with an equal-tech opponent.

You can always mix in a few non-clean units if you want, and you can use probes to steal enemy units from under their noses. That all said, Morgan should be out-teching his enemies if he does his job right. He just has too much money to pour into research. When Morgan is on top of his money game, he out-techs Zak because 20% more research is less science than 30%+ more energy.

>>14277212

>No, because 80% of Morgan's income is typically more than 100% of the next highest faction's and any base under a golden age gets +1 econ, which means it makes more money. For a normal faction, going from 0 econ to 1 might not be meaningful, but Morgan's bases will be going from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 econ (you get the picture) and that +1 econ will seriously boost your energy output when you've got a large bunch of bases in golden age.

Morgan is usually assumed to already be at +2 econ, which gives +1 energy per tile. Past that there isn't as much benefit in 2->3 or 3->4 econ like there is 1->2 econ. So it's actually everyone else who benefits way more if they have golden ages. Morgan's main advantage in SE is being at +2 econ without running Free Market (RIP fighting psi or anything offensive), not getting to +3 econ. This isn't an economic bonus, this is a flexibility bonus.

>You can always mix in a few non-clean units if you want, and you can use probes to steal enemy units from under their noses. That all said, Morgan should be out-teching his enemies if he does his job right. He just has too much money to pour into research. When Morgan is on top of his money game, he out-techs Zak because 20% more research is less science than 30%+ more energy.

This depends a lot on the comparison. Morgan loses a lot to inefficiency if he's working tiles, won't have as many bases due to worse starting conditions (support), won't be running Knowledge, and so on.

>>14278416

Its on the vola

>>14278416

Didn't you post this story on this board before? Or was that someone else, or some other board? I remember reading this before.

>>14278416

If he has cloning vats to regrow, it's a legitimate strategy. He probably got 20k energy from killing all those.

>>14278734

No energy from killing Mindworms on defense and he surely lost a shitton of buildings from them too. Another reason why offense is the best defense against fungal blooms, just drive a bunch of empath units in there and enjoy the collateral damage.

>>14221470

Oh fug, I never thought of that. Opportunity cost of tiles not being worked until a certain pop reached.

Really gets the networks noded.

>>14278567

pottery. nicely done anon.

>>14278432

thanks, will check it out.

>>14278497

maybe? i've posted this story in SMAC threads back before the halfchan exodus in '14 but i don't recall posting it here on hatechan.

>>14278267

>Morgan is usually assumed to already be at +2 econ, which gives +1 energy per tile. Past that there isn't as much benefit in 2->3 or 3->4 econ like there is 1->2 econ. So it's actually everyone else who benefits way more if they have golden ages. Morgan's main advantage in SE is being at +2 econ without running Free Market (RIP fighting psi or anything offensive), not getting to +3 econ. This isn't an economic bonus, this is a flexibility bonus.

I think you completely overlooked the commerce bonus you get for each point of econ past 2. Maybe you end up in lots of wars or you get sanctioned a lot and perhaps you're also bad at finding pact buddies, but commerce does some crazy shit as an income multiplier.

>This depends a lot on the comparison. Morgan loses a lot to inefficiency if he's working tiles, won't have as many bases due to worse starting conditions (support), won't be running Knowledge, and so on.

If you don't build lots of bases as Morgan, you're just bad. Base spamming is a key part of the Morganite playstyle because that's how you make up for low pop and it's another way to cash in on high econ (if you have market+wealth each base is getting +4 energy on the base tile alone, so spamming is very profitable). And Morgan can run Knowledge just fine, fyi.

>>14278734

Gaians really don't need vats. They can just go Dem/Planned and stay there. Intentionally triggering fungal blooms to harvest worms for cash is an actual strategy, btw.

>>14278754

Offense is the best defense because the offensive unit has a 50% advantage in land-based psi-combat (no such bonus for water/air combat) and you get money from killing them. Plus he was playing Gaians and likely had Green economics, meaning he would've gotten another +30% bonus to psi attack from his planet rating alone, and the collateral damage means you wipe out a lot of mindworms in one go.

>>14257265

Y'know, chances are some of the devs were good and had a pretty solid idea of what they were aiming for, but you can't be pure to your ideals in a corporate setting like that. Tons of fuckers who don't know shit about good games but do know shit about what's marketing well at the moment, etc are dictating what you do in the game since your boss cares more about what the marketer has to say than what the people actually making the game have to say.

>>14273542

Forests also spread on their own, so they are a very turn-efficient means of terraforming.

>>14292192

Better yet, they spread into and get rid of fungus.

>>14295290

They also lower your ecodamage score. Planting forests everywhere is probably the laziest and easiest way to terraform your SMAC game and it is damn effective to boot, until you can borehole anyway. Morgan planting forests is probably the best way for him to handle his earlygame terraforming needs.

Ironically it's Gaians who are best suited to borehole/stripmine/etc. the planet, because they have a higher ecodamage thresholds, they can handle mindworms and fungus better, they can't run Free Market for +2 econ, and they tend to get The Weather Paradigm early making their terraformers sickeningly powerful.