A civ vet explores Alpha Centauri (SMAC)

[T-hawk]

I understand that people play other ways.  Realms Beyond itself was founded on variantism in Diablo and I've done plenty of that too.  Also the Final Fantasy stuff.

What I'm against is (channeling Yang again) pretending or deluding oneself that arbitrary self-imposed restrictions are anything other than arbitrary self-imposed restrictions.  What is the argument to ban supply crawlers but not everything else that the AI doesn't do?  I don't think it's anything other than "Fluffball finds that thing fun and not the other thing."  Calling something "broken" doesn't make it some kind of objective or coherent or noble standard, it's a label you slap on which has the effect of short-circuiting critical thinking.  That's why I keep carrying on this discussion so long (apologies to Haphazard for the noisy hijacking, although I think you may be enjoying it anyway ), to demand critical thinking and evaluation rather than rehashing popular but flawed arguments. I'm against unnecessary exaggeration and hyperbolizing: terms like "broken", "ruin the game", "brain dead trivial" seek to end debate, not foster it.

Variantism is fun in looking beyond the powerful options to try out other things.  I'm all for that.  But there really isn't anything being overshadowed by supply crawlers.  I can see an argument that "let the AIs get some SPs" falls under that, but address the SP concern specifically rather than throwing out an overly broad swath of the game.  Thought experiment: what if the rush-SP and crawl-minerals functions belonged to entirely different units?  Nobody would even associate them together, much less ban one for the sins of the other.  It'd be like banning Great Engineers because production trade routes exist.

[Fluffball]

terms like "broken", "ruin the game", "brain dead trivial" seek to end debate, not foster it.

Yes, exactly! There is no need for us to debate supply crawlers for TWENTY YEARS. 

Take that up with the other hundreds of thousands of players that feel they're broken and self-restrict them, or the designers that have gradually weeded out the game-breaking mechanics of SMAC in later civs. As I've said about thirty times, I'm fine with you using crawlers. 

[haphazard1]

The discussion is interesting, and it keeps the thread moving between updates. Not hijacking at all, in my view.

For supply crawlers, I will have to see what happens once I can actually build some. Other techs have taken priority over Industrial Automation, which is probably a sign of how little I understand the game just yet.

Since I am nowhere near optimal play, the AIs are getting some special projects. Yang built the Weather Paradigm; as I see just how much terraforming work there is to do in this game I can see what that one is so valuable. 24 former turns per borehole? That is going to take some time, or quite a lot of formers.

Still so much to explore. I have not built a probe team yet; need to do that. I am wondering if the AIs will just object to me trespassing on their territory as soon as I move one towards their bases, though. Combat other than against native life -- have not had any of that yet. Social Engineering -- so far none of my available options has seemed worth the negatives, but that probably means I have not figured out how to properly stack the positives and get more out of them than I would give up with the associated negatives. More advanced terraforming like raising and lowering terrain. And much more. I have barely scratched the surface yet on SMAC.

[Fluffball]

I think probe teams are "allowed" to walk through AI territory without them objecting, but I could very well be mistaken.

I'm going to blow T-Hawk's mind and suggest that you do build some crawlers and experiment with different ways to use them (as I'm sure you would anyway.)

So you understand the standard crawler play that I object to and what we've been "arguing" about, they make a super-capital which allows you to bypass the inefficiency mechanic. You basically do a OOC and have dozens of other bases that do nothing but crank out colony pods, and crawlers to support the capital and build no infrastructure themselves.

The capital crawls resources so it winds up being size 80+, can 1-turn anything you want to build, and has zero efficiency losses for the copious mirrors and boreholes you crawl. Run that through a single set of multipliers like energy banks and special projects instead of hundreds of them in each base. Your capital winds up being more powerful than the empires of the AI, you can 1-turn techs from your capital, and you have tons of other bases to do your grunt work like supporting military or terraformers. It's very, very efficient.

SMAC is ultimately a sandbox game, and it's definitely up to the player to figure out how much you want to break it. For a first game, I obviously recommend not tearing the game to pieces though.

[haphazard1]

That does sound a bit extreme, Fluffball. I can see how it would work, though. Hmmm, for some reason I am thinking of FFH and the Kuriotates, with one mega city and a bunch of satellite settlements.

Founded a couple more bases, and am now building some military. The Believers showed up with a colony pod (sea version) and planted off my coast -- rather annoying. I think that I will have to do something about Sister Miriam soon...but first I need some units to do that something with. And to guard my bases. I have a lot more bases, pop, and tech but have not had much in the way of non-mind worm duty units. Working on changing that, then we will see what happens.

[T-hawk]

And if you've got the time and resources to do all that (growing 80 sizes takes 80 turns, so does building the formers and crawlers and doing the terraforming; yes there's pod-merging but then the source base isn't building crawlers), you've got the time and resources to do anything you want and win however you want.  Yes, it's a sandbox for whatever once you pull decisively ahead of the AI, which at the latest occurs with genejack factories or fusion copters.  I just say embrace the sandbox rather than pretending it's anything otherwise.  The explosively multiplicative productivity is a feature not a bug, to bring a decided game to a win condition.  Everyone envisions those extreme end conditions and yells broken, but without realizing that the game just ends instead.

That all said, I can see a desire to engage in a close race to transcendence or a seriously threatening military conflict.  If you really want that, a better way is to modify the AI's factions with extra bonuses, rather than cripple yourself out of everything interesting that makes the game distinct from Civ.

[T-hawk]

Back to the game - you're really still in the starting SE?  The usual builder combination is Democratic + Planned, which compensate for each other; the efficiency modifiers directly cancel and the +Industry makes up for the -Support, leaving you with +4 Growth.  Free Market might be even better; you're in a good position to use that with Lal's talents and the HGP making up for the lack of police; using 20% or 30% on the psych slider on top of that is common.  You do have to be careful about exploring units causing drones, particularly sea units; one tip there is to use transport foils and probe ships which don't count as military units.  (If you don't have the techs for Planned or Free Market, trade for them; they both lead to Industrial Automation.)

I think the trespassing prohibition of a Treaty only applies to military units, not probes, as Fluffball says.  It also only matters with a Treaty specifically; a Truce includes no promise against trespassing, and a Pact explicitly allows it.

[Fluffball]

And if you've got the time and resources to do all that (growing 80 sizes takes 80 turns, so does building the formers and crawlers and doing the terraforming; yes there's pod-merging but then the source base isn't building crawlers), you've got the time and resources to do anything you want and win however you want.

From the second you get crawlers and decide on this strategy, it makes you immune to inefficiency (only the capital matters and it has none.) Drones, a major mechanic that most players will struggle to deal with all game are likewise made irrelevant (only the capital grows past size 4 or so). Because no bases on than the capital need infrastructure past perhaps recycling tanks, maintenance goes away and you can run whatever science you want all game. Because you have dozens of irrelevant bases, social support rating is meaningless. Because you don't care about growing your bases, the growth rating is meaningless.

I can't immediately think of any part of the game crawlers don't trivialize to uselessness. I enjoy the pluses and minuses of civic choices, and I enjoy developing bases. These type of empire building games are fun to me when there are consequences to your choices.

Do you use armored probes to have support-free military units? Surely there must be some sort of equivalent where even T-Hawk says "Wait that seems cheesey and like I'm gaming the system; I'd rather play with some sort of personal code of conduct so the game isn't tediously boring."

I think you just want to drag me into a debate, and I don't want to debate this since I don't care what your personal rule set is.

[shallow_thought]

I can't immediately think of any part of the game crawlers don't trivialize to uselessness. I enjoy the pluses and minuses of civic choices, and I enjoy developing bases. These type of empire building games are fun to me when there are consequences to your choices.

Well, in my experience this game is great fun even if you don't ever get to grips with the mechanics, never build a supply crawler and only boom population by accident . The atmosphere, story and range of choices makes it a personal favourite, even although the RB threads that have mentioned it make it clear that - to a first approximation - I know nothing about playing it well.

[Fluffball]

One other random thought, sea bases can be taken with ships. You don't need a transport to take out Miriam's base. One of your new Santiago sentries can map your map pretty again.