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That's a terrifying thought! An entirely new form of almost-godlike sentience emerges, child-like, newly-formed and impressionable, and the first thing it sees is a smiling, red-haired woman who proffers a Bible. "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior?"
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Jun 22, 2014 00:26
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ducttape posted:For Miriam, transcendence probably has planet converting to Christianity. Hahaha, I have no idea why I have never considered this outcome/interpretation. 
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Jun 22, 2014 00:34
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I've done transcendence as Miriam.  Puts the whole "people call the planet Eden" remark in the epilogue in a whole new light.
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Jun 22, 2014 00:39
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What do you do when you beat someone into submission and sign a pact but then they get uppity? Curbstomping them is the obvious answer (and what I did) but I was wondering if there was a better way?
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Jun 22, 2014 03:14
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Shbobdb posted:What do you do when you beat someone into submission and sign a pact but then they get uppity? Curbstomping them is the obvious answer (and what I did) but I was wondering if there was a better way? Curb-stomping them via planet busters, nerve gas, and genetic warfare so that this time they don't get back up.
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Jun 22, 2014 03:22
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DrSunshine posted:Hmm, actually, considering that Domai's chosen government is Eudaimonic, I'd guess that the Free Drones aren't communist or socialist in ideology, but actually aim to build some kind of Star Trek post-scarcity society. That's literally the stated end goal of communism, though. I mean, obviously, there's a huge argument to be had on how committed real-life communists have been to actually carrying out that goal, but the endgame of a communist revolution over the long term is supposed to be a stateless and classless society.As for the Drones themselves, to me they come off like anarcho-syndicalists. The blue-collar culture and industrial society fit pretty well, as does the faction being made up of malcontents and rebels and preferring a free and decentralized society with a planned socialist economy and a Eudaimonic future society. It's a cool thing to see in a game, anarcho-syndicalism isn't an ideology you see discussed much anymore ever since it collapsed as an organized force in the late 1930s. 
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Jun 22, 2014 04:08
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DrSunshine posted:Hmm, actually, considering that Domai's chosen government is Eudaimonic, I'd guess that the Free Drones aren't communist or socialist in ideology, but actually aim to build some kind of Star Trek post-scarcity society. Old post, but the Federation in Star Trek is an extremely Socialistic society. Medical care, education, housing. All basic needs are free and provided by the state.
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Jun 22, 2014 06:22
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Say, does anyone know if the interludes in the game differ in any significant way based on who you picked? I always wondered what the Transcendence victory looked like as Miriam. (That reminds me, I ought to see what the interludes for the Usurper's Transcendence looks like sometime)
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Jun 22, 2014 19:02
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Tomn posted:Say, does anyone know if the interludes in the game differ in any significant way based on who you picked? I always wondered what the Transcendence victory looked like as Miriam. I found the interludes for SMAC, but not for the expansion. As far as I know, the interludes are common across all the factions, but I'm sure they do something different for the aliens. I haven't played in a long time though. http://alphacentauri2.info/articles/?sa=view;article=5
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Jun 22, 2014 19:21
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Tomn posted:Say, does anyone know if the interludes in the game differ in any significant way based on who you picked? I always wondered what the Transcendence victory looked like as Miriam. They're exactly the same, except a bunch of names get swapped around. For example, the name of the promising scientist who links with the first human-bred mind worm will change depending on the faction, but the rest of the text won't.
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Jun 22, 2014 22:48
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So a year ago or so I started working on a set of seven custom factions for SMACX during my free time. It turned out to be harder than you'd think to create seven factions balanced against each other and the original 14 without overly repeating themes and ideologies, but the product can be downloaded here. It's still being tweaked and I'm still looking for criticism and suggestions but overall it works pretty well. If anyone wants to give them a try I'd love the feedback.
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Jun 26, 2014 17:54
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I'm having a major problem with the game. By mid-game I get more and more frequent crashes, mostly when selecting units on hold in bases. For instance I'll have 7 or so jets parked in a base waiting for the next war. That war comes so I go to click on them all to wake them up. One, two, thrrrrrreeee CRASH. drat! I'll reload the save. Oh, this time I was able to select them all! Next turn I go into a different base, my mouse hovers over a unit and the game crashes. The farther along the game, the more frequently it happens to the point that I have to save before clicking on any unit in a base and finally to a point where every unit I click on has about a 50% chance of crashing the game. Sometimes just the base screen its self will lock up without me doing anything then crash. But 90% of the crashes are from selecting sleeping needlejets. I've got the GoG version with the smax fan patch. No help or replies on the GoG site, hoping some of you guys might help. When the game crashes it almost turns black and white and inverted first and hangs for a few seconds. PS New factions sound fun. Without downloading and installing them though can you post their art and descriptions? Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 18:46
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Sure can! The Technocrat Foundation quote:The common work of all science is bringing under order the blind The Colonial Authority quote:If we are to survive on this world, then it will The Advent Pilgrimage quote:We found a new world under new stars, and carried our demons with us. Yet this world House Satori quote:One would be led to believe that life on another world requires Apollo Industries quote:We were born into a world where those with the ability The Leviathan Body quote:The proctor is neither a leader nor a commander. He is a speaker for The Chrysalis Collective quote:Every human being spends thirty minutes as a single celled organism,
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Jun 26, 2014 19:19
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inthesto posted:They're exactly the same, except a bunch of names get swapped around. For example, the name of the promising scientist who links with the first human-bred mind worm will change depending on the faction, but the rest of the text won't. And funnily enough, though they say in the intro that the factions are divided not by nationality but by ideology, every faction's minor characters all have names that match the nationality of their faction leader.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:23
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Nepotism.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:25
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...  Strange Matter, is that an Ayn Rand character with the jawline of Aaron Eckhart? Planet is doomed.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:32
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Strange Matter posted:Every human being spends thirty minutes as a single celled organism, I totally love this quote, did you write it yourself? It's very clever.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:33
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HaitianDivorce posted:... Kaal posted:I totally love this quote, did you write it yourself? It's very clever.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:37
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Unironically loving Howard, I mean Henry Roark.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:41
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Strange Matter posted:Yes that is correct. It's an even better fit if you've seen Thank You for Smoking. Cool beans. Seems pretty reasonable to me, every human starts as a single-celled zygote, and a zygote takes about 30 minutes to split in ideal conditions.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:43
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Did you design those buildings yourself? They're pretty good.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:45
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Riso posted:Did you design those buildings yourself? They're pretty good. The buildings for the Technocrats and Pilgrims came off of files posted on Alpha Centauri 2. I think they both came from Galactic Civilization 2 or something. I modified them both. I'd like to go back and redo the Technocrat bases since they look very flat and oversized in the actual game. The buildings for the Authority, Apollo Industries and Chrysalis Collective are from Anno 2070, heavily cropped and modified. The buildings for the Leviathan Body are from a model of Kowloon Walled City. I'd also like to redo that one at some point, since it doesn't fit inside game squares very cleanly. The only base set that I didn't create or edit myself is Satori, which was created by Jarlwolf on the AC2 forums. It's from some RTS.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:52
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I believe in Harvey Roark! The Collective bases remind me of Australia in Space for some reason...
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Jun 26, 2014 20:31
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I really wish the faction limit wasn't hardcoded, so I could gen up a ridiculously massive world and run it with all the vanilla civs, all the SMACX civs, and all those modded civs playing together at once. e: Incidentally, this game's AI is capable of some dick moves sometimes. I was doing a Free Drone campaign, and I'm used to Zakharov being my bro, merrily researching away in his quiet little corner while I trade him my massive energy reserves from my hilariously strong industrial base for his super-technology. That's what he's done in most of my other Free Drone games. This time around, though, he wouldn't sign a pact with me and kept refusing to trade technology. Eventually he started demanding tribute. I told him to gently caress off. The third time I told him to gently caress off, he declared war on me. Suddenly there were needlejets loving everywhere, with weapons and armor a good three tech levels past mine, shredding my hordes of poorly-equipped infantry with disturbing ease. After three turns of slaughtering everything, he parked a couple of infantry units outside of a now-undefended base and demanded tribute again. I accepted. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 22:30
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At a glance, Pilgramge and Industries look like they're a cut better than the rest, and House looks like it starts with one foot in the grave.
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Jun 26, 2014 22:39
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Strange Matter posted:The Chrysalis Collective Ouch! *wince* That -2 Growth is really gonna hurt them. I'm not sure if the morale and free facility bonuses balance out the penalties. I'd think about reworking the Collective, because you've got two things working against each other here: the free talents for additional population with the severe growth penalty. I really like House Satori, though, it's an interesting take on a Morganite/Data Angels wealth faction without any specific +Econ modifiers. That +2% interest will really help them to corner the planetary market, but they're gonna get shafted on Transcend. The AI doesn't seem to spend a lot of time saving up credits, while on Transcend they will be at war with pretty much everyone most of the time, so they won't really reap the benefits of the commerce bonus. Seems like it'd be more fun to play as them than against.
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Jun 26, 2014 23:34
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Sorry to bump my problem but it seems to have gotten buried in factionchat but does anyone have any clues or anywhere i could even start trouble-shooting my unit-selection crash problem?
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Jun 26, 2014 23:36
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Baronjutter posted:Sorry to bump my problem but it seems to have gotten buried in factionchat but does anyone have any clues or anywhere i could even start trouble-shooting my unit-selection crash problem? Sounds like an installation problem, since it's trying to fetch a file and crashing when it can't. Try reinstalling.
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Jun 26, 2014 23:38
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It does it so randomly though, increasing as the game goes on. So early on I can build 10 needle jets. Fly them around, put them to sleep, wake them up later, totally fine. Then suddenly I'll activate one and the game will crash. I'll re-load, play and things will seem fine. Then it will crash again as I select a plane. I'd just selected 5 other planes, why this one? Who knows, but I've crashed. As the game length goes on, the % chance that the game will crash when I select a unit goes up, yet re-loading that turn and selecting the exact same unit doesn't always crash the game again. I'll try re-installing. It's a tough problem to trouble-shoot since I usually have to put a few hours into a game before the crashes start to show up, but eventually the game becomes unplayable.
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Jun 26, 2014 23:45
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On those modded factions, nice work on the portraits and bases. -Chrysalis is the coolest I think, a eugenics-style ideology was missing from the originals and it seems like it would fit the setting. -Satori is an interesting Morgan/Angels blend though I don't think the bases are really 'futerey' enough. Could use more cyberpunk flavor. -Technocracy seems a lot like University with the serial numbers filed off, maybe it's their similarly Slavic leader. You ought to give them something other than network nodes - free prototypes maybe to emphasize their technological acumen? Maybe the University is the scientists and Technocracy is the engineers... -Apollo seems like a (even) more Randian flavored Morgan; love the idea of starting with a supply crawler -Is the Colonial Authority supposed to be the 'fascist' ideology faction? They kinda give off the vibe but not completely. Also their nerfs seem stronger then their bonuses. -Pilgrimage seems like an uncrappified version of Planet Cult. -Leviathan Body: I'm kinda confused what their ideology is supposed to be, living really densely apparently? Like a nice-guy version of Yang almost? Not sure what kind of playstyle their stats would encourage; the +1 growth and pop limit bonuses say 'huge megabases' but the -2 police makes me think Drone problems Vlonald Prump fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 07:32
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Hobelhouse posted:-Is the Colonial Authority supposed to be the 'fascist' ideology faction? They kinda give off the vibe but not completely. Also their nerfs seem stronger then their bonuses. As far as I can tell, the Colonial Authority is basically "What if Lal had been a soldier and not a doctor?" It looks like the leader is the highest-ranking of the Unity officers, and has gone a bit twisted trying to keep the Unity from fracturing, devolving into an authoritarian demand for unity as the only means of survival. Also re: Leviathan Body, I'm not entirely certain either, but it looks like they're some kind of utopian anarchist/communist faction? No leaders, no central authority, just everyone getting along with everyone else to cooperate against the other assholes on Planet.
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Jun 27, 2014 08:06
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What I was aiming for with the factions is to imitate what Firaxis did with the original seven, which was to base them off of prevailing political and cultural ideologies from the period in which the game was made. If you look at the original seven, they strongly reflect the zeitgeist of the 90s, which is why Miriam is a Bible thumping moral fanatic-- because she was designed as a response to the hatred that Jerry Falwell and other religious types poured towards the video game industry in the 90s. If SMACX were remade now, I'd think that the factions designed would akin to what I put together. For instance the Leviathan Body is based around the populist political movements that have been appearing all over the world-- i.e., what would happen if Occupy Wallstreet became an actual political party. That's why they get penalized for choosing Free Market. The idea is that every other faction is based around the ideology of one individual, which inherently leads to demagoguery, whereas the Leviathan Body represents a rejection of that top down structure. Their name comes from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, where the state is a massive sea monster with the Monarch at its head. Here, the citizens identify with the Body, and their faction logo is a fist crushing the head of an Octopus, while the body continues to live. Tomn is spot on with the Colonial Authority. They want to preserve the unity of the colonists at all costs (their home base is even called Colony One), but where Lal chose democracy as his tool, the Authority prefers force. You'll note too that they have no anti-ideology, so they can choose any political, economic or values model, as Basque views the mission as more important than personal ideologies. The Technocrats probably make more sense if you've read Hannu Rajaneimi's The Quantum Thief. They are basically the nerds who believe that one day the Singularity is going to come and sweep us all away, and they want to be ready for it. EDIT: As far as gameplay is concerned, the Chrysalis Collective was by far the most powerful, believe it or not. What I've posted here is the product of like 2 rounds of nerfs because they'd just run away with every game. Strange Matter fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 13:20
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+25% offense, no research penalty, and no-downsides fundamentalism? Holy crap. How on
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Jun 27, 2014 14:52
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Mzbundifund posted:+25% offense, no research penalty, and no-downsides fundamentalism? Holy crap. How on This is still a work in progress and I'm still tweaking Faction abilities; right now I'm considering if I accidentally nerfed the Chrysalites too much. They used to get free Recycling Tanks and started with +2 Morale instead of +1.
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Jun 27, 2014 15:06
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Mzbundifund posted:+25% offense, no research penalty, and no-downsides fundamentalism? Holy crap. How on Well, once you have something like 1000 credits in the bank, that means the next turn you'll be making +20 extra credits. At 5000 credits, you'll make +100 credits next turn. That's a very significant boost! Consider that in order to make a comparable boost, factions have to twist the econ slider to max, switch to Democratic-Free Market-Wealth, and so on. The House of Satori gets basically free money!
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Jun 27, 2014 15:11
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Strange Matter posted:What I was aiming for with the factions is to imitate what Firaxis did with the original seven, which was to base them off of prevailing political and cultural ideologies from the period in which the game was made. If you look at the original seven, they strongly reflect the zeitgeist of the 90s, which is why Miriam is a Bible thumping moral fanatic-- because she was designed as a response to the hatred that Jerry Falwell and other religious types poured towards the video game industry in the 90s. Out of curiosity, where have you come across this? SMAC is one of my favourites, and I'd be interested in learning more about its background.
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Jun 27, 2014 15:58
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DrSunshine posted:Well, once you have something like 1000 credits in the bank, that means the next turn you'll be making +20 extra credits. At 5000 credits, you'll make +100 credits next turn. That's a very significant boost! Consider that in order to make a comparable boost, factions have to twist the econ slider to max, switch to Democratic-Free Market-Wealth, and so on. The House of Satori gets basically free money! On the flip side, they can't actually use that principal sum if they want to accrue interest. Usually an efficient player wants to use their energy reserves quickly, not build them up. Similarly, I can't imagine any human player wanting to establish a trade route with a Satori player when they knew that it would benefit Satori more, unless they were absolute allies. Still, it's an interesting way to switch up gameplay.
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Jun 27, 2014 16:07
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On that note, I just won my first game using Strange Matter's custom factions on Transcend difficulty as House Satori, in the mid 2200s. It was ridiculously easy. For some odd reason, the tech rate of advancement was pretty slow, I'm guessing due to the lack of any +2 Research factions. Cornering the global energy market took a mere 1000 credits, which I easily obtained by then. In fact, that was probably my easiest and fastest transcend victory ever!
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Jun 27, 2014 16:11
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DrSunshine posted:On that note, I just won my first game using Strange Matter's custom factions on Transcend difficulty as House Satori, in the mid 2200s. It was ridiculously easy. For some odd reason, the tech rate of advancement was pretty slow, I'm guessing due to the lack of any +2 Research factions. Cornering the global energy market took a mere 1000 credits, which I easily obtained by then. This looks like a bug. The Economic Victory cost is coincidentally the energy needed to mind control every single base on the map, so you can decrease its cost if everyone is using Knowledge. Were all the CPUs in full drone riots that turn?
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Jun 27, 2014 16:16
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DrSunshine posted:On that note, I just won my first game using Strange Matter's custom factions on Transcend difficulty as House Satori, in the mid 2200s. It was ridiculously easy. For some odd reason, the tech rate of advancement was pretty slow, I'm guessing due to the lack of any +2 Research factions. Cornering the global energy market took a mere 1000 credits, which I easily obtained by then.  It would appear that further revisions are required...Although the response from players on the AC2 forum seem to corroborate that, i.e. that Satori is a lot more powerful in play than they appear on paper. One suggestion I got was to sharpen their Offense penalty and maybe add in a Defense penalty as well to make them juicier targets, and to force them to rely more on probes for defense (potentially including giving them a +Probe bonus, since none of the factions here have that bonus).
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Jun 27, 2014 16:19
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