A civ vet explores Alpha Centauri (SMAC)

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the explanation on bases and land/sea control, T-hawk. I had not made the connection about my land bases not actually controlling their water tiles. I have put a fair bit of development effort into some of my coastal regions, particularly the Geothermal Shallows; I will need to be careful about AIs attempting to poach.

The Believers planting a base where they did seems odd -- they have potential sites closer to them, both on land and in water. Puzzling. Just sending out random colony pods to grab whatever they can find? The other AIs seem to have fairly contiguous territory, from what my explorers have found. Not sure why the Believers are acting differently.

Miriam has bad relations with the University and the Hive; maybe I should cooperate with Zakhrov and Yang on this issue....

[Fluffball]

I've always suspected the AI has some sort of parameter built in for building offensive bases. That's just my semi-uneducated guess, but a lot of them do seem to wind up on your doorstep. Miriam and the Believers also use a lot of probes, and get bonuses to their probe rating, so don't be shocked if one or two pop out of that base. It likely only has a single mineral though.

Miriam's AI is flat out insane. She's not going to be friends with anyone, and her arch rival is Zak (she hates the knowledge civic and he hates the fundamentalist civic.) You can almost certainly get a pact with the University if you wanted to fight her, although that would largely be for your own entertainment and commerce. From the power graph you posted she seems to be floundering. Her faction is designed around conquering, so if she starts close to someone she can quickly become a runaway, and if she doesn't her massive research penalties make her largely irrelevant by midgame.

[haphazard1]

Miriam and Zakharov certainly dislike one another; both have tried to get me to join in an attack on the other. Miriam has also tried to recruit me to attack Yang.

I will have to see about the probe teams. I am building a couple now so I can experiement with them a bit and see how they work.

I am curious to see what happens as my ecological damage factor increases. Until recently it has been nearly non-existent, but with boreholes beginning to be built/drilled/mined that will change. From what the manual describes it is essentially a percentage chance per turn?

Also still trying to figure out where Morgan is, or what happened to him. There are a few unrevealed areas left to explore, but for none of the factions to admit knowing him really makes me wonder. Maybe he was eaten by mind worms early on? Or is sitting on a tiny island somewhere with no mineral output and never expanded?

[Fluffball]

From what the manual describes it is essentially a percentage chance per turn?

I believe that's right, but (IIRC) it a) get's more tolerant after each attack and b) get's more violent after each attack. So if you stop damaging the planet, your current eco-damage won't cause any more harm, but if you make it worse, Planet makes it worse for you. If you really want to go all out on the eco-damage you're in for quite a ride and everyone is going to die, but there are eco buildings that help out, like granaries and aqueducts in the Civ games. You probably will have minor but totally manageable eco-problems if you're playing as a typical human builder.

[Dark Savant]

I am curious to see what happens as my ecological damage factor increases. Until recently it has been nearly non-existent, but with boreholes beginning to be built/drilled/mined that will change. From what the manual describes it is essentially a percentage chance per turn?

You know how there's a story pop-up that happens the first time you cause ecological damage?

You actually want that to happen.  This is not clear at all, but building a Tree Farm or Centauri Preserve (or their "upgrades" -- a Hybrid Forest or Temple of Planet) increase the threshold for ecological damage, for your entire faction, for each one you build.  This undocumented effect is on top of their documented environmental benefits.  I think it's simply +1 mineral for each one you complete.

However, this undocumented effect only happens after that pop-up.  It's therefore to your (and Planet's) benefit to deliberately trigger a first incident of environmental damage so you get that pop-up.

If you are playing standard SMAC/X, you can sell the base facility and re-build it to increase the threshold again.  The unofficial fan patch blocks those shenanigans.

[T-hawk]

Each base has an eco-damage value shown on the left side of the base screen. Yes, that is a percentage chance per turn that that base will spark an eco-damage incident, which causes fungus to grow onto one of its tiles, and mind worms to spawn (except for the first two times your faction triggers it.) Eco-damage tends to poke above 0 when a base is producing roughly 16 minerals; the exact formula is on the alphacentauri2.info wiki among many other places.

If you're prepared with units to counterattack the worms and know what you're doing, eco-damage is good, as dead worms yield lots of energy credits. Fluffball is overexaggerating again with "everyone will die"; besides the worms, the other consequence is rising sea levels, which you get warned in plenty of time to deal with (raise terrain or build a pressure dome in imperiled bases.)

(Bacchus and Hydra, I'll get back to the consciousness/materialism stuff tomorrow)

[Fluffball]

Fluffball is overexaggerating again with "everyone will die"; besides the worms, the other consequence is rising sea levels, which you get warned in plenty of time to deal with (raise terrain or build a pressure dome in imperiled bases.)

Everything I post you're trying to start something over, just calm your tits. I said if you if you want to go all out. In a normal game -- and again, as I stated -- you're going to have minor and totally controllable eco-damage. 

If you take it to an extreme, you'll start spawning hundreds of demon-boil locusts as well as flooding the world repeatedly. Most of the AI cities will cease to exist, and your cities may or may not have any land/terraforming.

[haphazard1]

Eco-damage tends to poke above 0 when a base is producing roughly 16 minerals; the exact formula is on the alphacentauri2.info wiki among many other places.

Explains why I have not seen this yet; prior to bore holes none of my bases was producing that many minerals/turn. Even UN Headquarters was only managing about 10-12 per turn.

[Fluffball]

Explains why I have not seen this yet; prior to bore holes none of my bases was producing that many minerals/turn. Even UN Headquarters was only managing about 10-12 per turn.

Advanced terraforming -- especially boreholes -- also causes eco-damage on its own. It sounds like you've mostly been using forests, which offset terraforming damage. Edit: Oh after freshening myself of the formula, I guess farms and the like do add some minor eco-damage.

[haphazard1]

I have been using a lot of forests, since so much of my territory is arid. Now that I can build condensers I can do something too change that, but with so many forests planted and spreading on their own, it is tempting to build tree farms for more nutrients from forests and increase food that way. I do have some farms, and a couple of mines at UN Headquarters (but those rocky tiles will likely become bore holes soon).

From the discussion on social engineering, I could probably haave grown my pop a lot faster than I have. But it would have cost in terms of production, which I am already short of with unit support eating up production. Finding the right balance on growth, production, and energy is something I am still working on.