 |
| |
|
|
Zeiter
|
|
Reading Velociryx's thread on striking out a new path for SMAC gameplay has inspired me! I too feel sometimes that all of this micromanagement and optimization may be undermining the creative aspect of playing the game. Therefore, I present a new challenge...(drumroll)...The Automation Challenge!
Here are the rules:
1. From the first turn of the game, until the last turn of the game, you must let the governor decide what to build in all of your cities, except in your HQ, where you are allowed full control. (Oh, the horror!  ) - this will not only be challenging, but also more realistic. There's no way one person would be able to direct every single aspect of production across an entire empire. Even the Soviet Union had to have committees and such - and hence you have your governors. You can still set the priorities to explore, disc, etc.
2. Blind research is on, although you may set priorities.
3. You may control all formers whose home base is the HQ. All other formers must be automated in some way (such as automated roads, sensors, etc. You may rehome as many formers as you want to your HQ.
4. Difficulty must be set at transcend, with all map conditions randomly generated with all standard or average conditions.
5. All victory conditions are enabled, with coop victory on.
6. No unity survey is on (world map is not visible).
7. All other things are normal.
I think this will do several things. It will make the game faster (less micromanaging), more creatively driven, more diplomacy driven (hopefully the AI will give you a run for your money this way, maybe), and overall, I think this could be a fun alternative for when you are tired of all of the micromanaging and optimization and such.
I know you will all have a blast pulling your hair out as you stare hopelessly at your governors' incredibly idiotic decisions, probably uttering some sort of primordial "ARRRRRRRGH!" in the process.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Santiago_Claus
|
|
LOL, this challenge will probably be better at being what MoO 3 wanted to be than MoO 3 was.
MoO 3 was pure horror, incidentally ... not to cast aspersions upon your challenge.
Your challenge is ... an OCC with benefits.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
smacksim
|
 |
Deputy Chairman of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Feb 2004
time: 00:36
|
|
Hey, Maniac's ideas are quite good. Flesh it out.
Who would guess that a bunch of micromanagemnt-o-philes would have a good laugh at NOT micromanaging?
More ideas:
Option one: your governors must all be on the same priority at any given time (ouch). This doesn't mean they'll all build the same things, but they'll have to flip-flop like the AI. This represents 'Um, the Dictator just issued a memo: "To WAR!"', etc...
Option two: governors can vary in their settings, but changes only every X years, or after an SP is finished, or after the local build is finished. What do you think? If we can change the governors priority anytime, it's too much control IMO.
Automate Probe Teams, but not military. This is really amusing and infuriating! Only exception is to put a probe, just built, onto a ship, or to garrison. Otherwise they are flying solo, in search of.........anything!
Formers: After Clean reactors, it's too easy to just re-home all the formers to the HQ, so I suggest HQ may only have 3x the number of formers as the national average (use the F7 key to figure this out).
-Smack
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Zeiter
|
|
Heheh, I went back to one of my old games as Yang, and automated all of my units. I'm so proud! Three of my automated drop shard squads teamed up together to empty and capture a Spartan base! 
But those poor automated probes were a mess! They kept on trying to subvert Believing units, but couldn't because the units were immune, so they just stopped right there, and then got slaughtered the next turn. Although I did get one to successfully link into a Gaian base. I don't think I'd automate probes anyway, because covert operations seem like something that the leader would have to authorize and oversee. Can you imagine probe teams running around, trying to frame a bunch of factions, getting your faction into a 1 vs. 6 world war!? "Oops! Sorry, commander. We just wanted to have a little fun. We didn't mean to start WW3! Honest!"
We've got a lot of good ideas here!
Maybe with research, if you had <0 research SE setting, then you couldn't use research priorities. With 0, you could select 1 research priority. With >1, you could select as many research priorities as you wanted.
I think there should be some sort of limit as far as how often you can change the governor settings. The purpose of automating the base is so that the base runs itself, and you don't have to check what's going on each turn. Maybe every 10 years you should be able to change build priorities. It could sort of like a big committee meeting at the HQ each decade to report to the dictator how things are running, and ask for instructions for the next "10 year plan", so to speak.
The former limit for the HQ is definitely an option, although even without the limit it is still going to take time to direct your formers from the outlying provinces to your HQ to be rehomed, and then back again. Besides, if you've made it to clean reactors, perhaps you need a little reward for putting up with those incompetent governors for all those years.
Maniac's SE options sound like they would be fun to use.
Also, some things occured to me while playing:
1. Forests aren't going to be as useful if you can't get your governors to build tree farms, so maybe you shouldn't sweat it when you see your automated formers building a bunch of farm-solar-roads and such.
2. The beeline to AI isn't going to be quite as overpowering because it is likely that you'll mostly be able to build crawlers in the just the HQ base anways.
Automated colony pods? Yikes!
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
Does the text actually make him build the crawlers, or does he just claim to be building crawlers?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
furrykef
|
|
It could be that "Governor may build supply crawlers" was a pre-defined option that the game recognizes (by string comparison) but was for some reason disabled. Although it would be strange to do it that way. I mean, really you could wonder why that sort of thing would be in a config file at all, if it specifies what can show up but not how it behaves.
- Kef
|
|
| |
|
|
|
smacksim
|
|
Deputy Chairman of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Feb 2004
time: 00:36
|
|
The game parses strings quite well. Maybe not Perl well, but pretty well. You must follow the naming conventions exactly, and of course, it must BE a legitimate option, something we have no way of knowing without trying it. However, because supply crawlers are a standard unit (like unity foils, scouts, etc.), it's more than likely that this tweak is parsed.
Another possibility, without parsing, is that the AI chooses what to build by it's position in a list of standard units. IE, build-by-number. This effect is noticible with some alpha.txt options, so it might be worth scrapping one governor option and replacing with crawlers. Also, adding a few crawlers to the standard unit list in alpha.txt will encourage a few to be built.
-Smack
|
|
| |
|
|
|
smacksim
|
|
Deputy Chairman of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Feb 2004
time: 00:36
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by binTravkin
How does the game understand that "supply crawlers" string corresponds to supply unit id/value in its internal array of variables?
Does it make a string comparison operation or somesuch?
And if it does -> what happens when you rename the crawler to say "ROCK EATING OGRE" ? |
As far as I know, there are really three types of units. Ones that appear in alpha.txt as standard units (unity foil, scout, etc.). These are quite editable, even their prerequisite techs. The second type doesn't appear in any text list, but comprises the standard Workshop units that the AI always builds, representing some pretty silly engineers (empath gatling noodle?). The third type of unit is the type that the Workshop will never come up with on it's own, IE 'Clean Formers'.
When it comes to parsing, the Standard Unit list is rock solid. If it's there in text, and the numbers have meaning, it gets used. All the '.txt' files are parsed the same way, though I've not played with 'scripts.txt' in this way. The only thing to know is that the parser, while able to read anything, even 'Rock Eating Ogre', needs to compare strings. If you don't find a string in the Standard Unit list, or put it there yourself, your only chance is to spell it exactly as it's used. The Workshop units are un-editable as far as I know.
-Smack
|
|
| |
|
|
|
TheProvost
|
|
I’ve been trying this out as Morgan on the Ultimate Builder’s Map and it has been quite fun so far. I’m not getting as much tech or as many SPs as I’d like, but the turns are flying by at a good pace, and I feel like I’m somewhat challenged by the AI. I have a question though. I notice that Governors can be authorized to Hurry production. This seems like a great option for the late game (+1000 Credits a turn and all that), but I’m wondering if the Governors are any good at it. Do they rush after the first 10 minerals? Do they avoid rushing prototypes? Do they avoid spending above/below a certain amount of energy? Are they careful to leave you with at least a few credits in your account? Basically, has anyone ever used this option extensively, and if so, what were the results?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Santiago_Claus
|
|
A management cyborg named Ace,
threw credits all over the place,
but once leaders glanced at
his spendthrift enchantment,
he vanished with nary a trace.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Zeiter
|
|
Whoa, I just finished player a SUPER-automated game as Santiago, where the only things I controlled were diplomacy and social engineering. I played it on talent so that all factions would have equal base growth, research, production, etc. Whew, it was one heck of a game! My faction, or rather, the one I was overseeing, transcended in year 2532, after only 6 hours of playing! Over 500 turns in 6 hours! That's gotta be a record or something!
It was a real blast of a game. It's worth mentioning that I got Lal to pact with me all the way to transcendence. That rarely happens, as you know.
And btw, AI-controlled colony pods are INSANE! My first pod wandered right into a nest of mind worms. Thus, I didn't even get a second base founded until 2132!
Some other things I noticed: The AI actually does quite a nice job hurrying production, usually using credits to finish up the last few rows of minerals or so. Also, the bases don't suffer retooling penalties when they are being controlled by a governor. That could almost be a sort of exploit...
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:36.
Apolyton Time is 00:36. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
09-06-2004 02:35
this idea kicks....added dash of realism (who HASN'T complained of the stupidity of local and regional politicians and their decisions?)....awesome!
to Z for taking the idea and running with it, and to all who are going out on a limb and trying something a bit...different...
Attachment: 
|
