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A civ vet explores Alpha Centauri (SMAC)

If you're not running Free Market, then the empath special isn't necessary; regular rovers work fine against mindworms with the natural 3:2 psi attacker advantage.  As Fluffball said, counterattacking is better than trance, which is unreliable, trance only works on defense and the 50% only gets the defender to break-even against the 3:2 attacker.

The long-term solution to inefficiency is Green economics.  Although that kills population growth unless you get the Cloning Vats.  Shorter term, what helps are the Democratic and Knowledge civics and the Children's Creche base facility.

Lee, what you describe isn't the factions, it's the social engineering choices.  Mindworms aren't more dangerous to Morgan, they're more dangerous to anyone running Free Market for the -3 Planet.  And I think worms don't behave any differently (nicer or not) depending on either the faction or the SE; they indiscriminately attack whatever's in range, and the Planet SE rating merely modifies the results.
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(May 21st, 2018, 12:44)T-hawk Wrote: And I think worms don't behave any differently (nicer or not) depending on either the faction or the SE; they indiscriminately attack whatever's in range, and the Planet SE rating merely modifies the results.

The native life has the same indiscriminate AI, but you can attract more of them via being mean to Planet. You can get stacks of several dozen demon-boil locusts to spawn in your territory if you really don't care (if you were roleplaying Morgan or something, which is admittedly a hell of a lot of fun.) 

I remember back in the 90s having a size 40-something base burned down by demon boils.

@Ichabod, it sort of doesn't matter if anyone has free will or not, humans are incapable of being healthy and definitely not happy in a society like Yang's. There is a reason he has to resort to a police state and later, thought control and genetically engineering slaves. No one is going to voluntarily become a slave in order to progress humanity.
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(May 21st, 2018, 03:59)haphazard1 Wrote:
(May 21st, 2018, 00:12)T-hawk Wrote: Mines are useful in one case: farm+mine on a rainy-rolling tile is the only way to get a 2-food 2-mineral tile early (besides monoliths and bonus tiles.)

Another case is when placing a mine on a mineral bonus planetary feature that does not ordinarily allow a farm -- the "farm + mine + road" command lets you put a farm there anyway.

You also occasionally want to put a mine on a rocky mineral bonus, since that gets you a 7-mineral tile without using a "borehole slot" (but usually you want your minerals from boreholes and tons of forest).

(May 21st, 2018, 03:59)haphazard1 Wrote: If only I actually had some rainy tiles. frown

You can always make rainy tiles.

If you don't know where to start, plant a condenser on any nutrient tile bonuses you have.  A drill-to-aquifer on any significant slope lacking a river also helps.

Also, when raising land, prefer the east to the west.  (Apparently, all of Planet is at the same latitude as North America and Europe.  crazyeye)

(May 21st, 2018, 10:02)T-hawk Wrote: I was thinking in bed last night about a followup post on Yang, and this hits the nail on the head.  Yang starts from his stated first principles: "life is chemical processes and nothing more", "life's only purpose is life itself".  Everything else follows from that: "does the genetic code brook no improvement?" and up to the Genejacks.  Personally, I've come to believe he's right in those principles: we are all merely aggregates of atoms, behaving deterministically by physical laws, free will is an illusion.  That's not a popular opinion societally and it's actually refreshing to see Yang openly advocating it.

Even if it's not true, free will is very much a practical fiction.  (Same thing for natural law.)

(May 21st, 2018, 10:02)T-hawk Wrote: Lal seems genuinely concerned for the welfare of humans, and Miriam I don't believe is a psychopath despite her AI. The actual Miriam has some humanizing quotes.

Miriam is also vaguely implied to be running an actually sustainable society -- all of the later-game Secret Project quotes are from one of Miriam, Zakharov, or Deirdre.
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Dark Savant Wrote:If you don't know where to start, plant a condenser on any nutrient tile bonuses you have.  A drill-to-aquifer on any significant slope lacking a river also helps.


This is good advice in general - from memory, I think a nutrient bonus + condensor + farm is 7 nutrients to be worked or crawled.
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(May 21st, 2018, 10:02)T-hawk Wrote: Personally, I've come to believe he's right in those principles: we are all merely aggregates of atoms, behaving deterministically by physical laws, free will is an illusion.  That's not a popular opinion societally and it's actually refreshing to see Yang openly advocating it.

I agree, but I don't see how you can derive all the rest of Yang's worldview from that. I'd assume that Zhakarov also believes that, and he's not running a crazy police state. And how does Yang go from materialism to babbling about achieving enlightenment and embracing the self of group? Sorry, but to me he looks like an over-the-top villain who justifies himself with the philosophical equivalent of technobabble.

(May 21st, 2018, 10:02)T-hawk Wrote: Hacking isn't an ideology.

"Information wants to be free", "The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it", and all that. Though those bases are already covered by the University and UN, so they definitely are redundant.



Also, I started playing it again, as University, and got stomped by the Spartans early in the game. Maybe I could have focused on units more, but my start didn't have much minerals. I got a declaration of friendship with Miriam, but the Spartans declared Vendetta immediately. Are you sure she's one of the more reasonable AIs?
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Yang never really talks about authoritarianism.  He never says anything about forcibly controlling or suppressing his workers.  By enlightenment, he means for all to realize and accept his first principles of materialism.  He expects his citizens to know that there is no such thing as individuality, that life's only purpose is to propagate life, that the only role of society is to build for the advancement of society.  Enlightenment is to follow and work for Yang's ideals with no need for coercion.  And the Genejacks are a practical shortcut to that.

"Information wants to be free" is an ideology, yes.  Hacking is not an ideology, it's a means.

All the faction behaviors can come out pretty random game to game.  Any of them can declare vendetta at the drop of a hat, even without any ideological provocation, or conversely maintain peace despite ideological conflict.  They deliberately attack you more if you're high in the faction-might ranking.  The in-game behavior doesn't really match up to the personalities.  Which is good for the game, to keep you off guard; the converse is Civ 4's too-peaceful AIs.
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(May 15th, 2018, 14:33)T-hawk Wrote:  Lal and Miriam are the two leaders who want to enforce their ideology on the other factions.  Lal is determined to stop what he sees as the evil of the Hive and University and Sparta, and Miriam wants everyone to stop deconstructing reality lest they anger God.  The other leaders don't do that. The others simply want to run their own faction, not dominate the rest.
I disagree, at least about the Gaians.  What's the line between 'dominate the rest' and 'force the others to live according to your principles'?  And what's the line between 'stop abusing Planet' and 'live according to my principles' for Skye?  It seems to me that making her happy is essentially isomorphic to becoming a Gaian, even if you don't take orders from her directly.

Quote:Yang, Morgan, and Zakharov each think their rivals are weak for unnecessarily imposing restrictions on themselves, but they don't need to forcibly dominate them, they'll just ignore and outperform them... Lal is the one who actually wants to take other factions off the map, which is quite a tension against his dreams of peace.
...right up until the other factions get in their way, of course.  Zakharov doesn't want to eliminate Morgan, but I'm sure he'd be willing to fight to acquire alien artifacts for experimentation rather than just using them for creature comforts.  And then to fight for energy to use to probe the cosmos...and then for genejacks to feed more scientists...and pretty soon this looks like forcible domination.  Just as a secondary effect rather than the primary goal.

Quote:The weakest of the seven ideologically is Sparta.  It's never quite clear if she wants to conquer the other factions, or merely to get everyone trained to survive against the mind worms.  "Winning battles" isn't an ideology, everyone wants to do that, so Sparta is arguing not for principle but merely the methods.
I view Santiago as promoting the martial virtues as an end, not as a means.  She doesn't want to conquer, she wants to be the leader of a band of brothers.  It's true that the warrior needs to test herself against a foe, but the value is in the warrior, or possibly in the battle, rather than in the victory.  That's why she chose Sparta, not Rome, as the eponym for her faction. There are tons of societies that were better at conquest than Sparta, but it's hard to name any as devoted to the ideal of being warriors.

Honestly, I think of the ideologies as a reaction to the challenge "What is good in life?"  Only Lal might not have an answer on the tip of his tongue; the rest of them take that and run with it.
EitB 25 - Perpentach
Occasional mapmaker

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I see I am not the only one Santiago instantly declared vendetta on. lol

Somewhat to my surprise I was able to complete the Human Genome Project before the AIs, despite a couple of them starting it earlier. smile With the free talent plus my Peacekeeper "intellectual elite" talents, several of my bases are now in a golden age. dance Big party at the UN. toast

I finished the tech to lift the mineral cap, and am working on the one to lift the energy cap. (Ecological Engineering? Ecological Economics? I think those were the techs.) Hmmmm, to put boreholes everywhere or not to put boreholes everywhere.... Some condensors would also be very useful -- other than nutrient bonus tiles my cities have very little in the way of positive food tiles. frown

I think I need to push colonization efforts harder. I have been slacking on getting more colony pods out, and that has probably been a mistake. duh I need to build a transport or two and start grabbing islands. I am also sending a pair of colony pods (with escorts) to settle the ring of monoliths area, although that will take a lot of fungus clearing to become useful.

Still no signs of the Morganites or the Believers. Possible locations for them are shrinking as my naval units keep exploring; they can not have all that much territory.
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(May 21st, 2018, 16:30)RFS-81 Wrote: Also, I started playing it again, as University, and got stomped by the Spartans early in the game. Maybe I could have focused on units more, but my start didn't have much minerals. I got a declaration of friendship with Miriam, but the Spartans declared Vendetta immediately. Are you sure she's one of the more reasonable AIs?

If they have a huge early-game military advantage, the AIs in any of Civ 1, Civ 2, or SMAC will attack you.

Friendliness rating or SMAC ideology do tilt the odds against that, but those games just don't give you an early-game invulnerability halo like Civ 3+.

It's far more likely in SMAC than either Civ 1 or Civ 2, and in turn far more likely in SMAX than in base SMAC.  In SMAX, sometimes the AI will pop a quick Ogre from a Unity pod, and judge -- correctly -- it can wipe you off the face of Planet.  (The human player can respawn in SMAC/SMAX, though.  crazyeye)
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Speaking of various crazy AIs, I started up a new game on the 2nd highest difficulty to be less reminiscent about things. I haven't met Sparta yet but I am war with her, and my pact-brother Lal showed me her stack taking one of his forward bases with so many Gatling-laser troops I lost track multiple times trying to count them. It was actually pretty impressive. The SMAC AIs certainly do have personality!

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