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pqow
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In a recent game, the citizens at my bases all started developing an immunity to nerve stapling. I've never run into this before in any previous games -- I'm playing at transcend level, but I've been doing that for a while.
Before I was pretty much able to nerve staple the bejezus out of them for as long as I wanted. Now they stay immune & the base essentially becomes useless to me.
I don't think I've set any preferences/customization differently. Does anyone know why this is happening seemingly all of a sudden? The only thing I can possibly think of that I've done differently from the past is that I founded more bases than normal this time around.
Thx for the help.
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pqow
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Don't know about the -1 Police. I can check that.
The thing about progressively less efficient nerve stapling makes sense, but I just don't know why I haven't run into it before. Like I say, up until now the games allowed me to do it ad nauseum. Don't know why immunity kicked in now.
Mystery.
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Mongoose
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Harrisburg,PA USA
Apr 1999
time: 00:20
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I think they (Firaxis) adjusted the nerve stapling effectiveness in one of the patches. Perhaps your prior experience was with an earlier version?
Edit. This from the readme, comes from the SMAC V2.0 patch.
* Atrocities have been rebalanced to avoid abuse:
(a) 12+ atrocities (depends on difficulty level) will cause all factions to declare vendetta
(b) Nerve stapling becomes increasingly ineffective at particular bases the
more you use it.
Last edited by Mongoose on 18-06-2002 at 00:21
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pqow
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Damn, sir. You are correct. I only just patched it. Should've thought of that....
Do I gain 10 rounds of immunity from reprisals for asking silly questions?
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MariOne
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Erewhon in Neverland
May 1999
time: 06:20
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Beware:
Nerve Stapling is one of the atrocities counting towards EcoDamage.
I was only an occasional user of NS.
In a recent H2H (2 humans, Head 2 Head, WITH the other 5 AI factions) SMACv4 game against buster, I was at Vendetta with all the AIs (and with the only humna enemy of course), and I didn't want to bother slowly growing having to wait the the police units and the drone-checking facilities were in place. The game was also in a phase where most of my bases had 3 or 4 citizens, Thinkers or Empaths were not available yet. I was beginning to suffer ICS problems, despite I was the Hive and I was of course running Police, too many of my bases begun to require too much drone attention.
I said to myself: "Hey, I'm not gonna lose any commerce anyway this time (contrary to what I usually experience in my pbems).
Well, after the 1st round of extensive stapling, some bases had only TWO clean minerals.
I said Hey, the pops will help me raise that bar up again.
After the second round of stapling the sealevel begun to rise.
When I attepmted to NS a base for the 3rd time, I got a refusal.
I had to switch to green to be able to reduce the ED effect and easier kill the worms. Then came Locusts when not even SFF had been yet discovered on Planet (thus no D:AP neither...).
I had just conquered the Jungle form Gaian AI, only to see it comnpletely submerged...
I kept the lead in the game anyway, but I think my development has suffered more than it benefited in the end, and I had to resolve to build those RecCommons anyway.
And finally when I decided to temporarily Accept Spartan submission, I realised I had still over 1350 years sanction to endure before I could gain any commerce from them! 
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big_canuk
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Leamington, ON, Canada
Jul 2000
time: 00:20
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I have had a different experience than MariO.
I have stapled quite a lot over a period of about 30 years in 2 different games, and have not seen my clean minerals reduced. I am now at the point of having to use rec comms and specialists because the stapling in no longer effective. But mins are not or hardly effective.
In one game I have maybe 15 bases, in the other maybe 30. game 1 is dem(only recently) planned, wealth, game 2 is same and has been for a while. The reason I mention it, is maybe SE settings, or police level has an effect.
I have seen MariO's warning previously, so have been watching these games closely to see if/when the reduction in clean minerals, and the sea level raises take effect.
SMAniaC: I have never seen gassing aliens reduce clean minerals, or produce ED
bc
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MariOne
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Erewhon in Neverland
May 1999
time: 06:20
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Yeah, the default pattern is that the first stapled base deals you 10 years sanctions, the second base 20 *more* years, the 3rd 30 *more* years...
So after you stapled the 2nd base, you'll have *30* overall years (10+20), and not just 20, after the 3rd, yo'd have 60, after the 4th you'd have 100, after the 5th you'd have 150.
Thus, Blake's statement that if you staple 5 bases in 2130 you'll be back into commerce in 2180 should not be correct.
It should not be 10yrs * 5 bases = 50yrs.
It should be 10yrs + 20yrs + 30yrs + 40 yrs + 50 yrs = 150yrs.
I admit that I too got the impression that the years sanctions added do NOT strictly follow that pattern.
In that game I now have 1350ish years sacntions.
According to that pattern, the 16th stapling would have brought the overall total to 1360.
I think tho that my last stapling occurred earlier than 10 years before. Besides, while I recall being inflicted 120-130 years sancrtions, I don't recall the 160 warning...
Anyway, it must be because I didin't keep an exact record of my observations, I could easily be wrong or just not recall the details.
The general pattern should be the one I described, tho.
Of course the years increase counter is cumulative with all the other kind of atrocities you commit.
ANY atrocity will make your next extra sanction period bigger by 10 years.
___
b_c, I'll recheck in the earlier turns of that game, but definitely, after many staplings, I had EcoDamage in all my bases, and to bring it down to zero I had to take out workers from minerals till my production was down to 2-3 minerals.
In theory (offhand), each Atrocity shold count as 5 minerals produced in any base.
Pre-EDpops, your Clean Minerals Threshold shold be 16.
This means that after the 3rd Atrocity you should be "virtually" already producing 15 minerals in every base, with respect to ED, and thus you'd have left only 1 clean Mineral in any base...
Too bad I didn't keep track of EDpops in that game.
If that's the effect tho, it should be easy to reproduce starting a normal game, getting quick to 4 bases and begin stapling them all.
If it's not confirmed, the ED formula Atrocity Factor should be revised.
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big_canuk
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Leamington, ON, Canada
Jul 2000
time: 00:20
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For the ecodamage formula, the way I understand it is that a Planet Buster is 5 clean mins.
X-gassing is 1 clean min each time. I am not sure it is *every* time, but it is close.
MariO, thinks that Nerve Stapling is equivelent to x-gas, not PBs, I think.
Here is where my experience differs. In both those games, I have stapled many times, and my clean mins seems not to be affected (yet).
Maybe it has to do with >pops
Maybe some factions are immune??
Maybe certain games, ie scenarios, are immune(that would be a bug)??
I might as well spill the beans. My two games are manifold 6, a game with 5 human aliens, and no computer factions, and the May-June CGN challenge, a scenario, where 2 blocks of 3 ais each, both consider me an atrocity committer anyway.
How could those games be different?
bc
Last edited by big_canuk on 20-06-2002 at 03:34
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17-06-2002 23:03
)
I can't gas the aliens any longer!
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