To Alpha Centauri at Sufficient Velocity! Community SMAC Game

[Tayta Malikai]

More than twenty years after its original release, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri continues to capture imaginations far and wide.

In light of all the present quarantines leaving people stuck at home, I thought it might be nice to run a play-by-email multiplayer game with other members of the SV community who share my enthusiasm for this venerable game.

For those who are unfamiliar, play-by-email is exactly as it sounds: each player takes their turn, saves the game, and passes it on to the next player. It's surprisingly simple to run, and while it may take a long time for the game to play out in such a fashion, the upside is that players need only make the time for as long as it takes to play their turn.
(It doesn't have to be by email, either; any method of passing on save files is a perfectly valid alternative.)

Taking advantage of modders' efforts over the past twenty years, I propose the game be played using Induktio's Thinker Mod. Aside from including much-needed bugfixes, its claim to fame is transforming the AI from a hapless pushover into a troublesome opponent. This should keep things interesting in the event we don't have enough players to fill all seven slots.

Additionally, I propose that the game be played with a balancing mod developed by our very own @Nevill. While the vanilla game is certainly enjoyable to play, it does contain a number of imbalances that I feel make it less suitable for multiplayer. This mod makes an accumulation of small tweaks that smooth out the uneven progression and widen the scope of available options.
The mod is still in development, but the current version can be downloaded here.

Spoiler: Summary of Mod Changes

• Technology tree reworked to balance out tech progression. Most techs should offer something valuable now.
• Armour techs made more appealing to encourage defense.
• Clean Reactors available from game start, made free for defensive units.
• Terraformers available from game start.
• Supply Crawlers removed from the game. All resources must be harvested by workers now, and secret projects can no longer be instantly rushed.
• Children's Crèches removed from the game, making population booms harder to achieve.
• Condensers available earlier; boreholes nerfed to provide 2 minerals, 6 energy.
• Genetic warfare available in early game; fewer techs provide protection. More atrocities for everyone!
• Fewer techs provide free upgrades for Probe Teams.
• Copters and Drop Pods nerfed to prevent chop-and-drop tactics.
• Social Engineering table adjusted to make more combinations viable.
• Minor balance adjustments to factions.

Spoiler: Rebalanced Social Engineering Table

Politics	Bonus	Penalty
Police State	+2 SUPPORT +2 POLICE	-2 TALENT
Democratic	+2 EFFICIENCY +2 GROWTH	-2 SUPPORT
Fundamentalist	+1 MORALE +2 PROBE +1 INDUSTRY	-2 RESEARCH
Economics	Bonus	Penalty
Free Market	+2 ECONOMY	-4 POLICE -2 PLANET -1 INDUSTRY
Planned	+2 GROWTH +1 INDUSTRY	-2 ECONOMY
Green	+2 EFFICIENCY +2 PLANET +1 TALENT	-2 GROWTH
Values	Bonus	Penalty
Power	+2 SUPPORT +2 MORALE +2 TALENT	-1 INDUSTRY
Knowledge	+1 EFFICIENCY +2 RESEARCH	-1 POLICE -2 PROBE
Wealth	+1 ECONOMY +1 INDUSTRY	-2 MORALE -1 PLANET
Future Society	Bonus	Penalty
Cybernetic	+2 EFFICIENCY +1 PLANET +2 RESEARCH	-3 POLICE -2 TALENT
Eudaimonic	+2 ECONOMY +2 GROWTH +1 SUPPORT	-3 MORALE
Thought Control	+2 MORALE +2 POLICE +1 INDUSTRY +2 TALENT	-3 SUPPORT

Note: TALENT is a hidden social modifier that directly affects the number of talents or drones at each of a faction's bases. It is not displayed on the SE screen in-game, but will take effect nonetheless.

Of course, if people would prefer to game using the vanilla setup, that's totally fine too!

The game will naturally be played with the original seven factions, for it is through their competing visions that the world of Alpha Centauri was first expressed.

Spoiler: Original Faction Details

If you are interested in joining the game, please make a reply to this thread that includes your timezone, preferred factions (if any), and any preferences regarding gameplay you have. Players will be accepted on a first-come first-serve basis.

And, of course, feel free to ask me questions about the game or participate in the thread as an observer. This is meant to be a community game, after all!

Spoiler: Interested Players

@Tayta Malikai
Timezone: UTC+10.
Factions: Any of the original 7.
Preferences: Transcend difficulty, Directed Research, No Unity Scattering.

@Nevill
Timezone: UTC+3.
Factions: Any of the original 7. Preferences: Believers, Morganites.
Preferences: Transcend difficulty, No Unity Scattering.

@Jiven
Timezone: UTC+02:00
Factions: Gaia's Stepdaughters, UN Peacekeeping Forces, University of Planet
Preferences: Not sure for now

 

[Nevill]

Reporting for duty.

@Nevill
Timezone: UTC+3.
Factions: Any of the original 7. Preferences: Believers, Morganites.
Preferences: Transcend difficulty, No Unity Scattering.

 

[Jiven]

I am very interested. I never played with those mods, so i might boot up a single player game of my own to test them.

@Jiven
Timezone: UTC+02:00
Factions: Gaia's Stepdaughters, UN Peacekeeping Forces, University of Planet
Preferences: Not sure for now

 

[Tayta Malikai]

Well, since we don't seem to be attracting too many players (to be expected really, I'd be surprised if there were many people on SV still actively playing the game), I'm going to close registrations at Apr 23, 2020 at 8:00 PM .

In the meantime, we should probably finalize the details of the game so we can get started soonest.

The game will be played on Transcend difficulty, using a Large randomized map. I have no real preferences when it comes to the terrain.

While I'm sure that we're all honourable folks, it never hurts to be clear about things beforehand. To that end, I propose the following house rules be followed:

1. Players should avoid excessively reloading game saves. (Misclicks and bugs do happen, after all.)
2. Players may not conduct diplomacy prior to meeting in-game.
3. Players should not knowingly use the game in ways unintended by the mechanics (e.g. abusing build queues to build facilities out of order, using the "retire" function to remove units from the map, adding colony pods to a base over capacity, terraforming with a former that has already ended its turn, etc.).
4. Players should not knowingly abuse diplomacy AI. Trading bases with AI is forbidden.
5. Players who get caught using Probe Teams against other players must select the harshest response, unless otherwise permitted. (PBEM games are bugged in that the perpetrator, rather than the victim, gets to choose the response.)
6. Information of planetary significance (Council votes, global warming, etc.) must be shared with all players.
7. Reverse-engineering of captured enemy units (using Probe Teams) is permitted. Reverse-engineering of preset units (unlocked by tech) is forbidden.
8. Psi Gates may not be used to teleport units to a base that reads "Gate Used". (Bases are not allowed to receive more than 1 unit a turn.)

For in-game rules, I propose the following:


@Nevill @Jiven Are these acceptable to you?

 

[Nevill]

1. Psi Gates may not be used to teleport units to a base that reads "Gate Used". (Bases are not allowed to receive more than 1 unit a turn.)

Click to shrink...

I would add "1-turn invasions are forbidden" as a set of rules.
What that means - no transport chains (units that board the transport can not be moved to a different transport on the same turn)
No magtube invasions. How to implement that is up to us. I am thinking "magtubes can only be built inside one's core territories", taking it to mean "territories that belonged to a faction for ten years" or something. Not very well-defined, but it is meant to rule out 200+ formers building a road and taking over the enemy territory overnight. That's how our first game with Tayta ended.
No Psi Gate invasions. May be taken to mean what the quote says, or amended to only using Psi Gates in core territories. That's how our second game with Tayta ended.

If we fight, let's duke it out like it's propa WAAAGH rather than sneaky-breeky cowardly invasions with no chance of retaliation!

I dunno about Psi Gates... my mod makes them available right after magtubes (since I grouped techs by themes, and they felt under logistics), which makes them kinda redundant. They could be used to transport units to very remote bases where terraformers don't reach, but those most definitely won't be "core territories". Maybe I just need to move them to a different tech and make them an alternative to magtubes.

Is it okay with everyone that I might be updating mod files as we go? The changes will likely touch on the later part of the game so no one would be affected at the start.

 

[Tayta Malikai]

I would add "1-turn invasions are forbidden" as a set of rules.
What that means - no transport chains (units that board the transport can not be moved to a different transport on the same turn)
No magtube invasions. How to implement that is up to us. I am thinking "magtubes can only built inside one's core territories", taking it to mean "territories that belonged to a faction for ten years" or something. Not very well-defined, but it is meant to rule out 200+ formers building a road and taking over the enemy territory overnight. That's how our first game with Tayta ended.
No Psi Gate invasions. May be taken to mean what the quote says, or amended to only using Psi Gates in core territories. That's how our second game with Tayta ended.

If we fight, let's duke it out like it's propa WAAAGH rather than sneaky-breaky cowardly invasions with no chance of retaliation!

Click to shrink...

I definitely agree with the spirit of this. It is pretty lame to have the game suddenly end after a century of building, because another player blitzed you without being able to do anything about it.

Core territories is a rather vague concept to implement in SMAC, especially if you can't see inside someone else's territory to enforce it. Then again, I don't expect we're really going to rules-lawyer this.
I suppose the benefit of the 10-year rule is that one can easily open up a previous save to check where the borders are.
We could add to this "magtubes can't built within the control radius of a conquered base", which is defined as a base that still has the original owner's graphic and has the drones from "Captured Base" displayed in the base menu. That would definitely prevent the situation of 1-turn-conquering a faction with 200 formers.

Psi Gate invasions strike me as logistically difficult under normal circumstances. One first has to research the tech, then build the colony pods, then get them near the enemy to build bases, then rush-build the gates (to minimize exposure, requiring a big stack of cash on hand), and then finally dribble in units at a rate of 1 per gate per turn. That's a lot of build-up the other player could see coming.
The reason it worked so well when I did it was because I could skip most of those steps (since I got gates for free in every base) and got to flood my whole army through a single gate. Since they would have to be built the hard way and limited here, I think it would not be nearly as OP.
Most importantly, you'd still have to wait a turn to build the gate before you could send units through. That meets the criteria of not being a 1-turn invasion.

As for updating mod files, that should be fine if we all okay the changes before implementing them.

 

[Tayta Malikai]

It has been two decades since humans first set foot upon Planet. The heady excitement of colonization was soon tempered by the discovery of how utterly barren and devoid of resources humanity's new home was. Aside from a few notable deposits, nutrients were scarce and minerals scarcer. Only by harnessing the hydropower of a nearby river could a functioning scientific base be established.

But the Human Blanket survives! Unlike the old decadent nations of Earth that engaged in destructive spirals of hedonistic consumerism, the citizens of the Blanket are humble and conscientious, content to live with the simple pleasures of life. A simple morning snuggle provides enough confidence and willpower for the whole working day!

We may yet take further comfort from the knowledge that we are not alone on Planet. Already contact has been made with Uncle Zak's Research Emporium and Brother Lal's House of Peace, who both agreed to sign everlasting Pacts of Brotherhood after seeing firsthand the social benefits of our cosy way of life. As all who study Chairman Tayta's teachings know: hugs between friends are good, but cuddles between siblings are better!

Rumours that negligence on the part of local security forces resulted in the devouring of the city of Fluffy Paradise, and its 10,000 colonists, by native fauna are completely false and unfounded. There has never been a city by the name of Fluffy Paradise. The Human Blanket has only ever consisted of the three cities Tayta's Lair, Cuddling of the People, and Tayta's Boring. Any citizens circulating these rumours must report to Tayta's Lair to receive disciplinary cuddling.

To ensure operational security, no images are included at this time.

Spoiler

I didn't really feel like spending the whole game denouncing democracy and capitalism (if you want to read that, just go to N&P ), so I decided on this instead. Time will tell if it gets old too.

As you can see, I elected to play as the Human Hive. @Nevill chose the Morganites and @Jiven the Gaians. This game will be an ideological contest over economics!

It's turn 22 now. Not much has happened yet. This is the early expansion phase, and the top priority is to spam out colony pods and settle them as fast as possible at all costs.

The discovery that I'd started next to not one but two AIs was an unpleasant surprise. Both Zakharov and Lal have social engineering priorities that clash with mine; Zak will object to me running Wealth later, and Lal's stridently pro-Democratic stance sows the seeds of an early war with my pro-Police State faction.

With that in mind, I decided to trade tech for peace. The Hive's dismal energy and the AI's bonuses mean any tech lead I get won't last long. Having pacts with both factions keeps them off my back, and lets me focus on building infrastructure rather than troops. The AI is notoriously recalcitrant with diplomacy on Transcend difficulty, so the early game is the best time to make alliances.

And when they do decide to backstab me, I'll be able to see them coming.