'any good resources for getting gud at this game? picked it up recently but have only played ~50 turns so far';

'>>1608457
Remaster with functioning UI when?';

'Godwinson';

'>>1608457
will there ever be a Dune themed mod for this game? It has the perfect gameplay mechanics for it. Replaying SMAC over and over again with little change becomes tedious fast.';

'I DONT KNOW WHAT IVE BEEN TOLD
DEIRDRE GOT THE NETWORK NODE';

'>>1608457
My little autist can't possibly be this cute.

>>1608560
On a more serious note, I used to loath Miriam. Now she's actually one of my favourites, the earlier "ooh, shiny" reaction to SMAC's tech has with time become for me "oh god evermore nightmares". I have sympathy for her concerns.';

'>>1608703
godwinson is well done in that regard, you start off thinking "oh what a stupid religious nut" and then you start seeing what you and others do with your new found tech';

'>>1608457
You just posted her.';

'>>1608462
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Alpha_Centauri
It's like the bare bone basics.';

'>>1608472
Zoomers growing the fuck up when?

>>1608736
More like "you observe faggots online larping as tradcath and roll your eyes". Miriam is written to be an annoying dog biting your ankles. Their did a splendid job with that aspect. There is no depth in it, and any faggot that goes "b-but muh morality" never actually played the game to see how things play out in it, both gameplay- and lore-wise.';

'>>1608877
thanks. I've played Civ and other strategy games so the SMAC basics are what I need';

'>>1608457
One odd consequence of the game having strong characters is that I hold meta grudges against them over multiple playthroughs. Also, is there a way to set in custom rules like banning aircraft?';

'>>1608570
>becomes tedious fast.
25 years and counting';

'>>1609240
>Also, is there a way to set in custom rules like banning aircraft?
Edit alpha.txt (or alphax.txt), Ctrl+F for units you don't want like the Needlejet, and then change the prereq tech to "no" to make the unit unavailable. This works for other items like base facilities or special abilities, too.
I'd of course make a backup copy of this file first before editing anything. If you want to mess around with different sets of rules like this, make a custom scenario and then copy your alpha.txt into its directory.';

'>ywn have a mind worm orgy with m'lady';

'>>1609240
>select random factions to play against
>domai and yang are your neighbors';

'University with Zak, starting with network node then rushing formers and mind worms then turtle and tech up, then nuke everyone the nanosecond I get multiple nukes
Usually rush marine control center and as many other projects as possible. Control the ocean control the world.';

'>>1609276
Tbh Santiago is worse. Stupid bitch always ruins my start. Is there a way to prevent the late game from becoming ridiclous all v all death grind? I am surprised that some players felt like the AI is too peaceful, when in my experience it's quite the opposite.';

'>>1608457
Anyone else obsessed with genociding hostile populations? I hate the way the AI places cities so I always gas them so that I can repopulate the land with rational city palcement.';

'>>1609503
For me santiago always spawns on the other side of the world, and usually picks fights with everyone else so by the time I get in diplomatic range I can lean on anyone I need to.
Miriam or kim jong un seem to be the peopel closest to me most of the time, or it feels that way.';

'>>1608457
I want to do a PBEM game, but I can't find people. Is there a place where people are organizing games?';

'I didn't get a response last thread.
What do I do to get a Golden Age in this situation besides conquer the guy with the Genome project? No matter how much psych I put in the last worker wont convert to a talent.';

'>>1608472
soon';

'>>1611871
starve it down a size, maintain there';

'>>1613570
But it was a problem before I got ascetic virtues as well.';

'>>1611871
>Drones
Oh good heavens just look at the time!';

'>>1616087';

'>>1616575
>I could see the mind worms and they were merry';

'>>1611822
bump';

'>>1609609
No need. Take over and just build colonist pods every round until you abandon the settlement.
Send the pods back to your capital and merge until you have a megapolis that barely feeds itself.
Repeat with each of your carefully placed cities as you go across the map assimilating the whole of Planet.';

'>>1616998
Out of my way alien fucking shits.';

'I think everything in the universe that could possibly serve human existence and advance our species somehow, should be put to do so. On the other hand, anything that could possibly threaten humanity should be unceremoniously destroyed when possible. No other form of life is more important than ours and no resource is too sacred if it could ensure our survival, advance our technology or make our lives easier.

What faction do I belong to?';

'>>1618143
Spartan, sympathetic or leaning to the University';

'>>1618143
>What faction do I belong to?
The one with the Puerto Rican that doomed the Unity.';

'I wonder what Aki-zeta 5's feet smell like haha';

'>>1618143
definitely spartan, with a touch of hive and uni';

'>>1618656
WD-40, since she probably replaced her legs with metal ones.';

'>>1618143
>I think everything in the universe that could possibly serve human existence and advance our species somehow, should be put to do so
Morganite
>On the other hand, anything that could possibly threaten humanity should be unceremoniously destroyed when possible.
Spartan
>No other form of life is more important than ours and no resource is too sacred if it could ensure our survival, advance our technology or make our lives easier.
Spartan/University';

'>>1616087
>>1616575
I already nerve stapled enough in this game to get 300 turns worth of sanctions and multiple bases have immunity to stapling because I took too long to get punishment spheres.
But I've never stapled the Hive because that's where Yang and his fellow orwellian enlightenments live so it should be going through a golden age.
Ultimately, even with the genome I couldn't keep the base in golden age due to extra bureaucracy lowering talent count AGAIN, but at this point I have transcends and the Hive has gone 100% trans.';

'>>1618143
Mengsk.';

'Do forests stop being useful the better you get at the game?';

'>>1620289
No.
Forests are at their bare minimum a perfect stop gap in the pre-hab complex era to gain minerals and energy fast because of just how quickly you can plant them and how they spread.
In the mid game, high efficiency factions get a lot out of them with tree farms and hybrid forests. These facilities also greatly boost the output of your empaths and engineers.
Eventually, you can replace them with the high level improvements or with fucking fungus if that's your fancy. You'll also feed your population with condenser crawlers and get so many minerals from boreholes that ecodamage will be a fact of life. But at that point, you're getting the most you can out of your specialists rather than relying on workers anyway.';

'>>1620267

I read this in his voice, damn.';

'>>1620267
Is his portrait part of a mod? Would love to get a larger version.';

'>>1621801
No, it's the portrait of him when he came out as a coop commander and I played around with it in GIMP to make scanlines.';

'>>1621994
Mind sharing the original image?';

'>>1621997';

'>>1622007
thanks desu';

'>>1617788
>Send the pods back to your capital and merge until you have a megapolis that barely feeds itself.
Wait, you can do that?';

'>And so did Zarathustra spake unto me: anon, have you ever really tried communism?
>Anonymous, boards.4channel.org/vst/thread/1608457';

'How do I stop falling behind so much in Transcend difficulty?

I begin the game planning every move in the smartest way possible, trying to be efficient with my turns, I'm doing pretty good, I'm confident in my colony, then I find some AI colony and it's like I'm 100 turns behind. They have a shitton more stuff than I do.';

'>>1623052
kek';

'>>1623067
That's a good sign that you don't actually know how to play like how to collect resources, how to maximise the value of those resources (especially energy) and which tech to prioritise.
The AI gets a growth spurt early on but its complete ineptitude at using things like crawlers, base facilities or specialists effectively to keep up with the rising cost of technology means they all brick themselves around MY 2200.';

'>>1608878
Miriam was right, get over it.';

'>>1624269
Only Miriam truly realized that they had all gone astray. The promised future turned out to be a terrible nightmare, and so she led her followers to awaken the only way they could. She tried to warn us all, but we did not heed.';

'turd worlders and 90lb VGH WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN kids finding this game and projecting their insufferable performative christfaggery onto it is hilarious';

'What determines if an AI will use a planet buster first?
I gave away a few nukes to an ally that was being shat on by Peacekeepers in the hopes that Lal would get nuked without me being responsible, but it never happened. The UN Charter had been repealed and Lal himself was using nerve gas so I don't know, is the AI just a pussy and needs to get nuked before nuking back?';

'>>1624457
what are you talking about?';

'>>1616087
>atrocity
I hate how opinionated and judgmental this shitty game is. Nobody has the right to push his personal perspectives on morals on others.';

'>>1625104
Yang Gang and Lal Pals have entered the chat to shit on the Sister Fisters.
But they are all inferior to the Corazon Amazon Republican Supremacy.';

'>>1625082
I've rarely had games where I didn't win my conquest shortly after getting Doctrine: Air Power. The AI is that bad.
This time around, I'm playing Trancend Consciousness against all the builder factions in an island/water world map. I'm trying to slow shit down and make it a challenge to dominate the map.
Suffice to say the AI might not know to use planet busters when they barely know how to use formers.';

'>>1623052
Based';

'>>1625112
have you tried tinker mod https://github.com/induktio/thinker';

'>"We shall take only the greatest wives, the finest mothers, the most faithful girlfriends. We shall multiply them a thousandfold and release them to usher in a new era of glory."
>Col. Corazon Santiago, "The Council of Love"';

'>>1627706
Not him but does the tinker mod interfere with the alphax file in the game in any way?';

'>>1611822
bump';

'>>1625112
>I'm trying to slow shit down and make it a challenge to dominate the map.
Play against the pirates, those fucking doods are a master of the cockroach maneuver.';

'>>1628222
What is the cockroach maneuver?';

'>>1627706
I would love to try mods, but it was such a fucking pita to get the gog release working on my computer and even than I can only play SMAX not SMAC (not really a big deal). Even then I'm dealing with occasional crashing, graphical bugs. Im afraid of tinkering with it further. Maybe I need to start making desktop images of it working so I at least have a base.';

'>>1628222
>play against pirates on Waterworld
I said I wanted a challenge, not to get raped entirely.';

'>>1628266
Even if you step on one, there are two more you missed.';

'>>1628463
>Nice territorial waters you've got there, I hope no one builds a million billion colonies in them.
Usually I get along pretty well with the pirates. I make it a point to put some sea colonies up to keep them out of my territory, and then just let them harass everyone else until I send a fleet of shit kickers through their territory.';

'Resource shortfall.';

'>>1628912
Drone Riots';

'>>1628906
How does sea colonies keep them out? Iirc bases and units do not restrict movement to opposing factions in the water.';

'>>1629263
They won't build colonies inside of your territory. They'll go right to the edge, so if you squat some sea colonies off shore they wont be able to choke coastal colonies out as they are wont to do.
At least thats always been my experience.';

'>>1629288
>They'll go right to the edge
This pisses me off to no end as it makes you lose territory';

'>>1629306
You know that's what you're supposed to be doing as well?';

'>>1629309
Well, now I do';

'In one moment, >>>/v/
in the next, >>>/vst/
Academician Anoni Muss, "For I Have Tasted the Ban"';

'>>1629306
>This pisses me off to no end as it makes you lose territory

Seems like the real world Chinese strategy and it has been working for them so far.';

'>>1623052
>>1629602
post more';

'so is alphacentauri2 just gone? fuck all those guides and info threads lost forever';

'So, I got fucked in the ass again on Thinker difficulty this time. I was Spartan, the first turns were going pretty good, I was feeling confident until I lost 3 rovers to unexpected mind worms then Miriam found me, immediately declared war and wrecked my shit before I could recover.

Like, in the early game, before I'm interacting with the other factions I should always focus on growth and expansion no matter what faction I'm playing, right?
It makes the most sense to me because you want enough bases to get a decent industrial and research output going, correct?

It seems that I always do okay in the beginning but after I have a few bases up I can't decide on what to do. Build units? Build facilities? Pop more colony pods?

Should I always go for super projects as soon as possible or are they situational?';

'>According to the GURPS supplement, the Spartan Federation, like their namesake, are so adamant about their social darwinist ideology that they will gladly commit infanticide if the baby in question is sickly or otherwise unfit to be a warrior. The novels go even deeper, as they'll have children fight each other to the death, if necessary.

>be Spartan
>get home from gruelling training involving a 12-hour march with rocks strapped to your back while your platoon commander whips you
>ready for some R&R
>head down to the children's creche
>tonight's the big pre-k tournament
>take a seat - wait, nope, you gotta stand, sittings for those fat lazy Morganites or those wimpy nerds at the University
>watch two 4-year olds bludgeon each other to death with defunct impact rifles
>life is good';

'>>1632367
I keep losing units to mind worms while exploring in the beginning';

'>>1632250
Archive.com?

>>1632383
I kek'd.
>visiting Morganite (who is sitting on a plush cushion) wonders if this can be televised and marketed';

'>>1608457
Deirdre Skye i hot';

'>>1632399
Don't park your units too close to fungus, worms literally cannot outmaneuver rovers off it. If you have to explore through fungus then have at least one full move remaining because a move attempt can cause a new worm to spawn immediately and you always want to be the one attacking. Try to explore as much fungus as you can during the first 15 game turns when the worms are weaker and use formers to clear out fungus close to cities.

>>1632367
>after I have a few bases up I can't decide on what to do
Keep building colony pods until you've covered all available land. If there's a hostile Miriam nearby then get impact rovers and smash them. The only two secret projects worth rushing for in the early game are the weather paradigm and virtual world; you can often get both if you can dedicate just one base for it with any combination of nutrient or mineral bonuses or alien artifacts, while your other bases are building formers, pods and rovers. Most secret projects after that are just "nice" to build if you can get them easily but nothing really is a game-changer until the hunter-seeker algorithm way later.';

'>>1632876
On higher difficulties the genome project is necessary if you want golden age full pop bases.';

'>>1633638
There's also something to be said for Merchant Exchange which lets you do clown shit like this in the middle and late game. >>1623052';

'>>1632876
Yeah, just got annihilated again.

The beginning was slow but other anon said that's just how Spartans are because of the industry penalty. I set social engineering to Democratic and Planned going into the mid game and started growing really fast. The graph line showing comparative faction power went up almost vertically and I was catching up with Gaians and Hive. I wanted to keep growing and popping more bases for as long as possible, then switch gears and go full industrial production. I had pacts with almost everyone and only Miriam on the other side of the map declared war on me but she had no way of doing anything.

Things were going pretty smooth despite my -4 economy rating until, in the span of 10 turns, both Deirdre and Morgan, whom I previously had pacts with, declared war on me. I started mass producing infantry with a few rovers and needlejets here and there and was crushing Deirdre in the beginning, then Morgan declared war and I don't even know what to say. I thought I was going to destroy him easily because he only had 5 bases while I had 14 on top having high morale units. Breh, he fucking swarmed me with probe units. He immediately started taking from me the bases I had just taken from Deirdre. I didn't even know what to do, he just sent waves upon waves of probe units, mind controlling my units and taking my bases one by one. I threw everything I had on him to no avail. Some turns later he and Deirdre were invading me with a lot of units, much more advanced than the ones I had. Morgan even had choppers while Deirdre already had cruisers.

At some point the graph showed I had the strongest faction and I really thought no one could defeat me anymore, Morgan was one of the weakest, barely above Miriam, yet he kicked my ass completely in short time.';

'>>1633710
Prepare for glory spartan.';

'>>1625082
>>1625112
are we playing the same game? Pretty much every game I get bombarded with planet busters. I also regularly get rekt with snowballing AI, especially when Yang gets a nice war or two at the beginning';

'>>1633710
probes are kinda gimmicky, if you encounter someone using them and you have no defense, ur fucked. On the other hand, you can just build them yourself, or you can use fast units to kill them';

'>>1633710
>probes
Probes literally cannot walk or capture through your units if you so much as stack two of them, unless they reach a base. They also can't do shit to mind worms.
How the fuck did you have a -4 economy rating? Economy can't even be reduced by social engineering, only Cult and Hive have negative economy.';

'>>1634114
>How the fuck did you have a -4 economy rating? Economy can't even be reduced by social engineering, only Cult and Hive have negative economy.
Sorry, I meant Efficiency rating.

I had -4 when I switched to Planned Economy and Police State in order to start mass producing units. But the Energy started dropping so fast I figured it wasn't worth it. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I had not neglected energy production thinking it was worthless when I could focus on mines to produce units faster.

I would be really glad if someone could give some terraforming tips. How do I optimize my squares?

I've been building mines on rocky squares, farms plus solar collectors on rainy and on river squares, solar collectors whenever possible on high altitude squares and forests on arid, non rocky squares.';

'Are solar panels only worth building in high altitude squares?';

'where can you download unofficial patches? it seems alphacentauri2.info is always down';

'Time for another attempt.
THIS TIME I am focusing all my efforts on growing to at least 15 bases before I do anything else.

I can't decide which is better though, farms or forests.';

'>>1634442

Yitzi's Patch (For Alien Crossfire only):

>3.5
https://web.archive.org/web/20200315130650/http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=346

>then add 3.5d
https://web.archive.org/web/20200315130644/http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=352

>Information on Yitzi's patch
https://web.archive.org/web/20220812201512/https://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Yitzi's_patch

Scient's patch: (for either SMAC or SMACX)
https://github.com/DrazharLn/scient-unofficial-smacx-patch

Source:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri';

'>>1632876
>only two worth pursuing are Weather Paradigm and Virtual world
If you're not a research faction, wouldn't human genome project be better?';

'>>1635124
Both are nice to have but I like drone reduction more than extra talents. You start getting bureaucracy drones really fast on transcend, and the talent gets undone, while drone reduction from buildings and wonders only becomes more powerful with expansion because it straight up removes even super drones that should take twice the psych to pacify. Hologram theaters are also incredibly expensive to maintain in the early game.';

'>>1635477
>Hologram theaters are also incredibly expensive to maintain in the early game.
I had forgotten that some facilities cost energy per turn to maintain and built Hologram Theaters everywhere, soon I was on a budget deficit and didn't know why.';

'>>1635477
What is super drones? Sometimes I notice that some drones just won't disappear and I just end up getting confused';

'>>1635596
When the game wants to assign a drone to a city that's already full of drones, it instead gives one of the existing drones a bright red background to indicate that it's a double drone that's harder to deal with.

Sometimes the game shows drones but the city doesn't go into revolt, it's a bug and it's showing incorrectly. You can get an accurate report by clicking PSYCH in the city screen.';

'>>1634749
Here we go again';

'>>1635610
Is there a fucking triple drone?';

'>>1634136
>>1634749
Are you fucking retarded?
-4 Effic is literally TOTAL energy loss, not to mention mass drones due to bureucracy. Check the fucking datalinks for trivial shit like this.
You start with forests because they take the least time to plant out of any terraform. You combine the use of farms on rainy/moist + rolling or nutrient bonus squares to support the food production and forests on pretty much any other nonrocky square, until you can eventually decide to replace the forests with more advanced terraforms. Mines are ONLY for rocky squares and only after you discover industrial automation so you can crawl them, because it is never efficient to work them directly.';

'>>1635610
>>Double Drone
It feels like it takes way, way more than double the amount of psych to deal with it actually.
>>1611871
Even when I conquered the base with the Human Genome, the golden age here didn't last because I had even more bases and the bureaucracy reduced another talent.
It's really fucking annoying, but the fact is if you want a golden age build you shouldn't make too many bases or it will never happen. And if you can't make golden ages, you may as well not bother with talents or psych at all.';

'>>1635960
Crawl your condensers and mines you pathological moron. And stop building pressure domes, if the world is gonna sink it won't be in year 2226.';

'>>1638371
I thought pressure dome was a must because it increases base square production so I just build it in every base.';

'>>1624269
>>1624452
>>1628572
>t. they weren't the first to transcend';

'>>1638421
It doesn't stack with recycling tanks.
Also why the flying fuck do you not have hab complex bases in MY 2226? You don't seriously expect me to believe you still don't have industrial automation. Why are you building fucking SENSORS on nutrient and high altitude squares?
You should literally just start over and actually play the game properly, you're fucking doomed anyway.';

'>>1638547
>Why are you building fucking SENSORS on nutrient and high altitude squares?
What's wrong with that?
I just imagine where an attack could possibly come from and build a sensor in it's path.

>>1638547
>Also why the flying fuck do you not have hab complex bases in MY 2226?
I had just gotten the tech to build them when I took that screenshot

I know I have to grow but at the same time it's difficult to stay on builder mode when everyone seems to hate me for running planned. I don't know if I halt my growth and build and army or if I just keep expanding.';

'Unbelievable, a single synthmetal garrisson from Lal successfully defended from both an impact rover and an impact infantry attack. I also lost my navy to Zak and Deirdre and everyone has declared Vendetta on me.

I have to star all over for the 3rd time. I guess I should give up on running Panned.';

'>>1639103
>>1639086
>>I guess I should give up on running Planned
Bro the reason you are being fucking destroyed isn't because you're running Planned. Only Gaians and Morgan give a shit if you run Planned and incidentally, they're both relatively pacifistic. It's because your might is weak as fuck and nobody on the planet respects you. It's like this with any of the old civ games, lag behind and you will get bullied.
The cost of tech INCREASES with each tech you already know. Open up datalinks and identify which techs you need to get FIRST, you cannot wait until 2226 to get Industrial Automation this shit is so fucking basic holy fuck. You need this tech for hab complexes, supply crawlers and the Transit System project, which is one of the essentials in this game that for some reason every retard ITT forgot to tell you to get.
>I just imagine where an attack could possibly come from and build a sensor in it's path.
You only need build sensors if you NEED to in a forest or fungus on the border of your territory, certainly not waste valuable former time building it in a place that you should be getting a solar collector instead.

You have not been playing "Builder" mode if all you did was get centauri ecology, get weather paradigm and then spammed formers to terraform your territory (and redundant shit like sensors in the middle of your territory). You are not USING most of those terraforms, the ones you are using you are using incorrectly (direct worker harvest instead of supply crawler), and so your investment is wasted on making them, so your development is slowed and so you are way behind where you should be at 2200.
Finally, you MUST be mindful of your energy collection and how much is actually efficiently transferred into LABS as opposed to a) being spent into energy to provide maintenance for base facilities you dont fucking need and b) being lost to inefficiency due to distance from HQ.';

'>>1639103
Was the synthmetal in a city?';

'>>1639619
Yes. Do they get some kind of defensive bonus?

I mean, beating TWO impact units in a row is pretty ridiculous.';

'>>1639483
>It's because your might is weak as fuck and nobody on the planet respects you
I figured I should focus entirely on expansion and growing population in the early game and thus delay getting into conflict because whenever I attempted to build a military early I lagged way behind in the mid game and got wrecked anyway.

>Finally, you MUST be mindful of your energy collection and how much is actually efficiently transferred into LABS
My plan was to shift energy from labs into psych and just use my industrial power to make probes and steal tech from everyone to catch up.

It didn't work.';

'>>1632367
Have you considered playing the game but not on Thinker difficulty level? It doesn't really seem like you're suited for 4X games and possibly strategy games in general. Perhaps you should try out lower difficulty levels. As an actual thinking human, you shouldn't ever have trouble beating the AI on an even footing in any category, be it economy or war.';

'>>1639830
Yes (25% bonus I believe) it sounds like there might of also been a sensor in play, not to even mention perimeter defense and morale differences. In short you should turn on the "odds before combat" and git gud.';

'Third time's a charm. LET'S GO.

This time I will not lose, I can feel it. My starting base fell almost exactly in the same spot as in the previous attempt, this is a sign.

>>1639964
>Yes (25% bonus I believe) it sounds like there might of also been a sensor in play, not to even mention perimeter defense and morale differences
Now that you mention there was indeed a sensor nearby, but I don't think he had perimeter defense.
Still, it just felt wrong seeing my two impact units hammered like that.

>>1639890
>Have you considered playing the game but not on Thinker difficulty level?
No, giving up is for cucks.';

'>>1640000
>giving up is for cucks
True, but if you fail after all the instructions we've given you I will personally come over to your house and rape you. Weigh your options.';

'I want to cry';

'>>1640041
Your HQ isn't growing.';

'>>1640046
It was, I had just made another colony pod, the one two squares southwest from Sparta Command.

I'm gonna to start all over again because I already lost a colony pod, a former and three units to mind worms. Tomorrow though because I'm too frustrated to keep playing now.';

'>>1640050
>It was, I had just made another colony pod, the one two squares southwest from Sparta Command.
You had the ideal starting location and you blew it. Stop trying to play on anything above Talent.';

'>>1640052
So, should I just not walk into fungus?';

'>>1640092
Pretty much, except to remove it. If you have an idle exploration unit you can try moving into fungus to intentionally spawn mind worms to kill for cash.

>>1635960
>>1640041
You're definitely making the game harder by building bases so far apart. Most of that land will go to waste even after a full boom with hab complexes; hab domes come so late they might as well not exist. You get free unit support per base, so if your bases are more tightly packed, you can support way more formers and clear up all that fungus in no time. You also lose fewer colony pods to mind worms if they don't have to travel so far.

I don't want to recommend ICS but ideally your bases should be two tiles apart, just outside each other's fat cross. With condensers and satellites you'll still have plenty enough food to hit max population everywhere.';

'>>1640165
>You're definitely making the game harder by building bases so far apart.
I want to guarantee my territory is large before my neighbor starts building bases in my direction. So I build a few bases in my intended borders and then fill the inside.';

'>>1640350
>I want to guarantee my territory is large before my neighbor starts building bases in my direction
If you're Spartan and you can't eliminate land neighbors - either with early impact rover rush or after you've got an economy - especially Peacekeepers, you are never going to learn to play this game.';

'>>1640165
>Most of that land will go to waste even after a full boom with hab complexes
Especially since at Librarian difficulty and above only morons don't make half the population into specialists.';

'I'll NEVER give up.

I'm 100% focused now.
>forest everything except bonus resource squares until resource limits are lifted
>roads
>no walking into fungus
>no building facilities that aren't essential
>expand until I have about 12 bases or more
>be careful when attacking into a base
>nutrient is king until I have 12 bases or more, then energy is king

And yes, I re-started until my homebase landed close to the same area again.';

'Yeah I think I'm done.';

'>>1641001
Funny how "nutrient is king" and then you think spamming forests is the right move.
Hint: Forest spread on their own. Assuming a proper density of bases you only need to plant 1 forest per base, and then use the former to make farms on moist rolling squares. Which you NEED in order to fucking grow, by the way. By the time your bases have grown the forests will have spread and you will have gained free workable tiles.';

'>>1641001
>>1641186
For reference this is about how much you can have by the first 100 turns on Thinker. Yes, I'm playing Drones and doing a localized base sprawl with Golden Ages, but only because I choose to do so. It is just as viable to spread out BxxB and make more bases as long as you play intelligently every turn instead of following a fucking recipe and hoping it works.';

'>>1641195
thats a lot of formers';

'>>1641195
>>1641186
>Funny how "nutrient is king" and then you think spamming forests is the right move.
Yeah, that made no sense. For some reason everyone seems to agree that forest is the best improvement early game though.

I avoid packing bases too close together because their workable tiles overlap and that's inefficient, no?';

'>>1641475
No. Go fuck yourself if you can't understand how this game works.';

'if you have a fav leader, you didn't understand the game';

'>>1641489
I don't have a favorite leader but I could listen to Sister Miriam Godwinson for hours, her voice is so soothing and warm, it makes me feel calm.';

'Cooperative Victory Ending (Humanist Completeness) > Transcendence Victory Ending (Ideological Reductiveness)';

'>>1641490
I like her voice more than Deirdre's';

'>>1641475
>I avoid packing bases too close together because their workable tiles overlap and that's inefficient, no?

What's inefficient is having lots of land around your bases that isn't being worked because your populations are too low, and bases that are harder to defend because they're too far apart. There is nothing inefficient about overlap, that kind of thinking is a classic noob trap. Even if your base does run out of workable tiles eventually then the remaining citizens can become productive specialists instead.';

'>>1641618
I try to space my bases so that the workable tiles of one base are directly next to the workable tiles of the other base without overlap, the reason they are so spaced out in the screenshots I've posted before is that I was going for bonus nutrients and wanted to extend my borders before building bases in the inner part.

Do sea bases have any advantage or should I stick to land bases until I run out of space?';

'>>1641664
Learn the base gameplay mechanics before asking for more tips.
>>1641618
Stop feeding the noob attention, he deliberately picks and chooses what to listen to depending on what he wants to hear and hasn't seen any improvement in the last 5 attempts, if anything he's doing worse.';

'This time I didn't reset to start in this location, it happened by chance. I'm leaving a bit less space between bases, so that there's a little overlap and my rovers can basically jump from one base to the other.';

'Transcend difficulty by the way.';

'Yeah, exactly what I expected as soon as I realized she is my neighbor.

Also, I don't know if it's because of the increased difficulty but it's the first time I see two other factions in this same continent with me. I have Miriam to my west and Lal to my south expanding towards the east.
I have much less space than I'm used to.';

'She has a lot of impact units, I know that the AI gets bonus resources on transcend but it's as if she's done nothing but make troops.

Like usual I've been focusing entirely on growth and expansion so I barely have a military, all my units are police scout patrols.
I didn't expect an army of this size, specially not impact units. How did she even get this tech so fast when her research sucks and I'm the only one she's bordering?

Time to switch to Police State, start producing units and see if trying to grow and build more bases actually pays off.';

'I actually defended my base successfully and I might be winning this now.

Thanks to collateral damage I quickly wrecked a lot of her units stacked together. The bases being a bit closer also helped me mobilize my impact rovers to defend Bunker 118 in one or two turns.

When I saw so many impact infantries in my territory I thought it was over. She must have had between 15 and 20 units because I destroyed 9 or 10 and there's still a few of them here and I don't know how many garrisoned in her territory.

I'm gonna try to clear what's still left in my territory and invade with what I have left. I lost some units and land improvements but I destroyed so many units that I can't believe she has much going on at home now even with the extra resources.';

'>>1641475
I improved much more after I realize that only at the end end game I'll fill my entire city with workers anyway so I start to spam cities at 3 by 3 grid. I dislike ICS but it's necessary in old civ games. Think of one new city as one free worker without any burden of overpopulation. I don't know why that anon is hostile af. It's not immediately obvious especially if one's from new civ games.';

'>>1642080
I'm hostile because he's asking for a set of trick solutions instead of even attempting to understand the actual gameplay mechanics.
And compared to Civ 2, ICS is not even necessary in SMAC considering how pathetically ineffective the AI is.';

'In the Monsoon Jungle or high moisture areas i feel its worth spreading cities out 'intuitively' with little work tile overlap because your pop explodes so fast
Its such a pain burning minerals/hammers building the same basic facilities for each new base';

'>>1641475
Keyed noob making the nerd that's been playing this game non-stop for the past 25 (man im old) years seethe
>>1641482';

'I keep destroying troops and she keeps sending more, at this point I must have destroyed at least 25 units. A lot of impact and gatling infantry with plasma armor and a few impact rovers with synthmetal armor. Pretty expensive units.

I'm trying to clean her troops near Bunker 118 and heal all my units stationed there and then I'll advance with all of them. I want a few of her bases to compensate for my time spent building units instead of pumping more colony pods.';

'Hahaha. I'm gonna win my first war niggas, on transcend and against Miriam.';

'>>1642465
Well done. If you keep refusing peace she might offer full surrender and become your pact vassal for the rest of the game.';

'>>1608457';

'>>1642670
AI extended? That's honestly quite nice. Think her dress would be green.';

'Someone post screens of an actual late game situation, with fucking mag-lev roads and fucking hover tanks
Does the AI even know how to assault with aircraft and helos??';

'>>1642951
i've seen helis suicide attack from across the ocean before';

'>>1642670
NICE TITS!';

'>>1625112
>>1625082
Oh the AI knows how to use planet busters alright.

If you let them get access to them, and they war with you, more than likely they'll use one on you, even if the other factions (if any) will rape them afterwards for their atrocious act.

I never had a game where an AI used planet buster on another AI though, but I hear you auto-vendetta them when it happens.';

'>>1642465';

'>>1625082
Also keep in mind the very moment a planet buster is used, all hell breaks loose. There'll be pretty much no more treaty/truce negotiations to whoever threw the nuke, at least for a long ass time.

This is also why a player must make enough of them before actually using them.';

'>>1608878
Completely wrong. The only reason Miriam's AI is retarded in-game is due to how social engineering and diplomacy mash together. She is fundie, nobody else is fundie, so everyone else hates her and she hates everyone else. If you go fundie yourself then suddenly she's your best friend, but at the same time she gets into retarded wars early on and there's no helping that. It's the same thing with Santiago. Early game aggression doesn't pan out well for those factions, there is no Montezuma equivalent.

In the lore, you see where Miriam truly shines. "We Must Dissent" is practically the arc words for the whole game, and there is a reason why the game opens with a quote from Genesis.';

'>>1644333
Any game she is in, she always spawns RIGHT NEXT TO ME and the belligerent cunt always starts shit she can't finish.
Always love the AI cope as they start losing the war
>HA HA! Now that you have tasted our might we will end this war if you give us a bunch of money
no
>Okay, this war is costly on both sides, give us back our colony and we will end this
no
>Keep the colony, lets just end this war
no
>What about if we give you money?
no
>Okay we'll pledge a non aggression pact
no
>W-What if we promise to be your total bitch vassal state forever
lol no
>REEEEEE I ALWAYS HATED YOU ANYWAY PREPARE TO DEFEND YOURSELF AGAINST OUT 1-1-1 SCOUT INFANTRY!
The just bully them back to a single colony I send waves of probe teams in to sabotage until I grant one of their colonies back to them after I've transformed it, and sack their last remaining colony so they're forced to be salty forever and constantly reminded of just how badly they have been cucked.';

'>>1644350
AI as Mariam is laughable, but player as Mariam can be a force to be reckoned with, especially if they knock Zak off at the start or keep effortlessly probing his tech.';

'>>1641001
Two farms on Rainey, forests and single borehole, once you have mineral limits lifted.';

'>>1641195
What butt fucking reason are you settling the Dunes?';

'>>1641493
The game is literally one giant arms race and if you don't win by transcendence it doesn't count.';

'>>1644469
Because I can. Because the soviet ideology and worker solidarity will provide me with the food I need wherever the industrial paradise shall rise. Because the game is extremely easy. Take your pick.
Also I just spread wherever there was space that didn't have too much fungus or Cult in it.';

'>>1644343
Absolute nonsense.
None of the AI have anything in common with each other. You can say the same thing about any faction. e.g. The only reason Deirdre's AI is retarded in-game is due to how social engineering and diplomacy mash together. She is green, nobody else is fgreen, so everyone else hates her and she hates everyone else.
Also Santiago has neutral aggression.
The AI is shit at expanding, but better at beating the AI, early aggression does win out and the most powerful AI faction if you remove Monsoon Jungle is 50:50 either one that won an early war or one that developed in peace by itself on an isolated continent.';

'>>1642670
>"Tit milk exists to be consumed. And consumed it will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None, I say! Let us take what is ours, lick, suck and have our fill."

>CEO Nwabudike Morgan, The Centauri Porn Capital';

'Newfag here, should I start with Alien Crossfire or the base version? I only know the expac has new techs and factions';

'>>1644986
play the expansion, if you want you can just stick with the original factions';

'It's over. Deirdre switched sides in the middle of the war and gave units to Miriam when I was close to finishing her off, I had left my borders undefended and went back to building colony pods because I thought I had already won and got annihilated in a counter attack.

I'm not angry at this loss though. I lasted enough time to learn a lot from this attempt. Now I understand the importance of terraforming, early expansion, not building your bases so far from each other AND perharps most importantly, knowing what to build depending on what's going on.

One thing I noticed is that the best way to deal with a war against a land neighbor that is relatively close seems to be switching your industry to war mode, building a large army and just march towards them crushing everything without turning back and ending the war as quickly as possible. I half-assed it against Miriam because I got too confident that she had no way of winning and would give up quickly so I just reinforced the bases close to the border and then went back to what I was doing and just growing, building facilities, formers and stuff in the other bases, but she kept sending troops nonstop in my territory and a bunch of times they wouldn't even engage my troops inside the bases, they'd just stay 1 square away from the bases and destroy my terrain improvements. Then I'd attack, destroy like 8 units, go back to my business and almost immediately another wave of 8-10 believer troops was in my territory.
It seems like the best thing I could've done was to just build a big "fuck you" army and just send this avalanche of units marching through her territory taking bases one by one without going back.';

'A small parting gift to end the game.';

'>>1645003
>>1645006
Pure retardation on full display here. This is the 4x equivalent of "and then the banelings blew up my marines, shit game" when you've supply/house blocked, missmacroed and turtled the whole game. If you're not going to learn the mechanics, spare us the embarassment of your failures.';

'>>1640000
quads is a good start I believe in you nigga';

'>>1644759
Have you played the game at all? None of the base game AI have anything in common with Miriam. The Fundamentalist government option is only relevant to her and only her, everyone else picks either Democratic or Police State.';

'>>1645056
Not him but on thinker and above the other AI will often shit themselves and go fundamentalist if they are in a vendetta, the ayys especially. This doesnt make them friendly to Miriam though, and once she gets in a war with them, fundamentalist or not she wont back down.';

'>>1645003
>Half-assing against the faction with the strongest combat bonuses.
You deserve to lose.';

'should you actually armor up your troops
or should they be hyper specialized offensive troops with 1 armor and defensive garrisons with 1 attack
im pretty sure in a stack the troop with the highest defense gets attacked first right?
so... make stacks with 1 defensive troop and a bunch of attackers?
or i guess that doesnt save minerals at all';

'>>1644771
I am now naming at least one of his cities "Morgan Pornographers"';

'>>1645234
Armor is useless for most unit, including most base defenders that usually only have to defend against worms. Attacker gets all kinds of huge bonuses in so many situations (especially infantry attacking a base) that it's always better to have an army of fast units like rovers or needlejets ready to meet the enemy before you're forced to defend.

The AI does seem pretty reluctant to attack armored units on rocky terrain though so it can be useful to bring a stack defender if you know you'll have to move your army through slow terrain, but even then it's better to prepare in advance by building a road through it before declaring war.';

'>>1645234
Well, I am >>1645003 and from what I learned it's not really a good idea to build expensive units with the best attack and armor because if they are destroyed the loss is too big. It seems much faster and more effective to build offensive troops with 1 armor and garrisons with 1 attack. Special abilities are situational.';

'>>1645248
Can city names be double parenthesed?';

'>>1645276
>>1645283
Would it be worth upgrading the offensive units that survived enough battles to gain veterancy to full armored variants?
I guess you would still have to eat the prototyping cost
And if you actually have to make one Green experienced prototype before upgrading that might not be worth it unless its for roleplay or somethin';

'>>1641482
Sounds like you'd lose to my tall strat.';

'>>1641895
Fucking rape her right from that fungus tile.';

'>>1645393
Veterancy from actual combat experience matters less and less as the game progresses because you can get so many free level-ups from buildings and monoliths that eventually you'll be mass-producing elite units out the gate';

'If I choose to, I can make any exorbitantly expensive unit I want. With a well run economy I can do whatever the fuck I want. Pleasure without pain, life without death, up without down. Remember, gameplay is a function of autism, not strategy.';

'>>1645003
The war's not over until they've sworn a blood truce, or are dead. If you have the advantage, take it.
Honestly best way to learn is just play on retard difficult, and as you win games (or have a defacto win and don't want to bother with fulfilling the actual win conditions, but could) step up the difficulty.
I'll be honest, a lot of the time I set it on the lowest level and treat it more like a comfy empire manager type game than a strategy game.
its a good way to learn the mechanics and how a faction feels in a pretty low risk environment.';

'>>1645525
>sworn a blood truce,
pact of servitude not blood truce';

'Tell ya what, "The Ethics of Greed" is a kickass name for a book';

'>>1608560
Based';

'>>1608570
>themed mod
travesty
>tedious fast
funny';

'What went wrong with new rosters?
Cult of Planet, Pirate, Data Angel, Drone, Cyborg';

'I'm still amazed how people fail to undestand that Godwinson is just a cult leader. There is neither any religious nuttery nor enlightened criticism of unrestrained technology. Notice that she gives no actual vision of the future in her quotes or any concrete vision for society - its all vacuous because she is only criticizing others and their societies, but never giving an alternative. Her literal in-lore bio is that shw is a psychologist. Out of all the leaders, Miriam is the only true politician in the Machiavelian sense. Unsurprising that a lot of people here support her, because in the end, if compared to modern world and its politics, she isn't a tradcath - she's a fucking Greyzone-tier "alternate media" anchor.';

'>>1650691
This bitch was drawn up by west coast upper middle class left wing people whose favorite character is Dierdre the Eco Warrior who fights with mind rape animals and the setting is a society that killed Mother Earth, presumably by global warming (aah its a hoaks!) and had to seek refuge on a Planet is actually alive and everything about man's crime against nature is set to repeat. Imagine and remember the social millieu of mid 1990's California/Silicon Valley.

People here glom onto Miriam because she was given just the barest morsels of humanization behind an ostensibly right wing character profile because they're that starved for that kind of character.
In game she behaves like a shifty Jihadi you cant ever fucking trust because she'll drive the dagger in your throat the very milisecond she senses a bit of weakness. Often times not even then!

You'd think oh well thats just a matter of course because she was drawn up by west coast Cali liberals but that fact is often forgotten here. I think one of the faction leaders straight up derides Santiago because she's a "right-wing nut-case", presumably because she's the survivalist muh-guns faction leader.
But again, just because Miriam was humanized or multi-faceted, like in any even vaguely-intelligently drawn up piece of fiction, she's puffed up so much. Very starved.';

'>>1650623
Nothing. Theyre all fine additions excepy maybe the boring ayys.
Put drones and yang on the same map and watch the forever war happen.
Planet cult is a formidable enemy
Pirates are fun to play as because you can bottle factions up.';

'>>1650724
What's funny is that Santiago is the complete opposite. If you turn on your brain, you realize she is basically one of the best leaders on the planet. Her society isn't even that fascist or right wing. She's honestly my favorite, not because I support her, but because she offers the most interesting ideology - a sort of apolitical militarism, one lacking in chauvanism and instead focused on survivalism and unity through espirit de corps with army professionalism. Its not fascist, as it completely lacks the foundational elements of fascism such as fiery vision or bubbling societal allienation towards the other. Add on top of that Santiago is meritocratic - commanding officers have to stand down if they are proven to be inferior to their underlings.

The only other example in fiction of something like Santiago that I can come up with are the Blue army guys from Pheonix point, but even there its implied that they are lead by a dictatorial populist general that just abuses the crisis for his own ends.';

'Guess who's back and ready to kick ass.';

'I just realized that in nearly all my attempts I landed in this area. I didn't like it in the first time but I'm so used to being here now and I've grown to like it.

Look at all those rainy and bonus squares, with such a head start I can't lose this game.';

'So, mission year 2158 and this is how I'm doing.

Things are going really smooth. The bases are growing nicely because I have a lot of rainy, rolling tiles and monoliths scattered around. I set up bases 3 tiles from each other, sensor arrays on the "inside" of the territory and roads connecting every base.
To my surprise, my neighbor Yang didn't immediately antagonize me like I was expecting and instead we became friends after exchanging techs and I switched to Police State.

I got The Weather Paradigm, The Command Nexus and am 15 turns away from The Merchant Exchange. Still, I feel I am a little behind in tech because I'm running Police and except for Yang who appears to be way behind himself, Zakharov, Lal and Deirdre do not want to share anything with me and Morgan is still missing.';

'>>1651545';

'I'm trying to find something to do with the formers while I wait for nutrient restrictions to be lifted, since I already have enough rainy tiles that building more farms now would be a waste.';

'>>1651143
The way you describe Santiago, the literary analog to her society would be Starship Troopers. The original Heinlein protrayal, not the crypto-fascist Veorhoeven interpretation. "Service guarantees citizenship."';

'>>1651548
You need far far more formers man.';

'>>1651545
>I got The Weather Paradigm
>>1651552
>while I wait for nutrient restrictions to be lifted

If you have the Weather Paradigm you can build condensers, which lift the nutrient limit in the tile where you build them regardless of tech level. Start spamming condensers and build farms on top of them, and forests on all other tiles while you wait for mineral and energy limits to be lifted.';

'>>1651789
I have 8, one for each base, I was already planning on building another one in each base just after they finish recycling tanks.
The two gun foils are to explore and find pods (and maybe Morgan).

>>1652036
I was thinking that would take too long and cause too much eco-damage but you're probably right.

A few maxed out nutrient squares to support a bunch of citizens and forest squares for these citizens to work on or all citizens working some 3-1-2 and a few maxed bonus squares?';

'>>1652088
Forests help reduce eco-damage so you shouldn't let that hold you back. Even if you get a fungal response it's actually a good thing because it makes the safe mineral limit go up for the rest of the campaign - each time, I think. Tree farms and centauri preserves can eventually make it a complete non-issue.

>A few maxed out nutrient squares to support a bunch of citizens and forest squares for these citizens to work
Yeah that'll work.

>>1651548
I see a borehole being built by a single former, I hope you realize you can stack formers to get terraforming done faster.';

'>>1608457
so, how many open source projects for this game will begin and end this year? they always seem to get 20-30% done and then become abandoned.';

'>The pod was infested with alien lifeforms!
>Mind worm boil sighted!
>Activating the pod triggers a Xenofungal
bloom!
>The pod was infested with alien lifeforms!
>Mind worm boil sighted!
>Mind worm boil sighted!
>Mind worm boil sighted!
>The pod was infested with alien lifeforms!
>The pod was infested with alien lifeforms!
>Activating the pod triggers an earthquake!
>The pod was infested with alien lifeforms!
>Mind worm boil sighted!
>Mind worm boil sighted!
>Activating the pod triggers a Xenofungal bloom!
>Mind worm boil sighted!
>The pod was infested with alien lifeforms!
>Mind worm boil sighted!
50 turns later
>meet AI, they declare vendetta for no reason, invade me with a gorillion units
>kill them all with no effort because the AI is retarded, invade them and conquer their cities
>repeat 6 times
>"It's all over, CEO Morgan! Planet is yours!"
This is the 2/10 game that makes oldcucks soiface, i guess it's a 9/10 for the 20th century lol THOUGH';

'>>1652445
The condenser farms with forests strategy is really nice to grow in the early game. It's mission year 2199 and look at how much the population grew compared to 2158, most of the bases are just 2~3 turns away from hitting size 7.

I built another former for each base, Deirdre gave me Democracy and I switched immediately while building children's creches everywhere. Losing The Merchant Exchange to the Peacekeepers wasn't as bad as I thought because I switched to The Human Genome Project and it allowed me to keep growing without having to rush recreation commons.
The rainy farms on rolling squares and the forests kept my production from halting despite the massive hit to minerals from Democracy, while the condenser farms and children's creches maintain population growing at a really good pace.

>I hope you realize you can stack formers to get terraforming done faster.
I did not know that. I started doing it after I saw your post.';

'>>1653582
I'm starting to better understand AI behavior. I expected Yang to declare war soon after I switched to Democracy but his rating is feeble and mine is potent so I think that's why he was seething and belligerent for a long time but didn't dare to declare war and even complied when I told him to pull his units out of my territory.
I had built a few skimship probes to infiltrate all the other factions and steal tech whenever they are bullshitting me. I infiltrated the Hive's datalinks but failed to frame Miriam so both declared war at the same time.

I didn't want war now because my go-to plan is to build the maximum number of bases I can before getting drones, then I build-up their infrastructure and when they are all hitting size 7 approximately at the same time I build a colony pod from each one of them and double my number of bases in one strike. The new bases will grow quickly supported by the older ones and ideally I'll be very close to getting hab complex.

I don't think Yang and Miriam will slow me down though, Miriam is on the other side of Chiron already at war with Lal and Zakharov and I'm confident I can beat up Yang just enough to end the war very quickly.
This time I won't make the same mistake I did with Miriam before, he's clearly way behind and I think I can blitz him with a few impact rovers but if it seems like he'll keep resisting and I won't take his bases quickly I'll immediately switch back to Police State and start building the best units nonstop in every base.';

'Also, I wanted to say terraforming is really enjoyable when you start to understand what you're doing. It feels really good to make your land productive and your territory gets to look much nicer as well.';

'>>1653636
Miriam that strong and unchecked could be a major problem';

'>>1654023
I was thinking of giving Yang and Miriam something to end the Vendetta so I could go back to my plan of doubling my number of bases.

Would you say it's better to put it on hold for a while and go to war?';

'>>1654121
Crush Yang into mush, you'd have the largest landmass to sprawl over and his cities to improve and add to yours.';

'>>1645003
>I had left my borders undefended and went back to building colony pods because I thought I had already won and got annihilated in a counter attack
This is so funny. It isn't even a fault of some gameplay mechanic, but basic sense.';

'>>1654378
Can you point to the exact post where I blamed gameplay mechanics for anything here?';

'Yang offered peace and I accepted it. Even though he was behind in nearly everything, he made a lot of units incredibly fast and and I knew this war was going to drag on and I'd spend tons of resources even if I won.

I still had some unused land in the Pholus Ridge so I made a new row of batch of colony pods, one from each base and I'm about to double my number of bases. As soon as I can get them rolling with condensers and boreholes I'm gonna start preparing to invade him again and I'll not stop until the whole continent is mine.';

'>>1655162
Don't forget to keep the tech edge.';

'>>1655440
I got 6 new techs in about 3 turns.
Got pre-sentient algorithms and fusion power from Zakharov, centauri empathy from Lal who is 1 base away from being conquered by Miriam, environmental economics from Morgan, synthetic fossil fuels from Deirde and stole industrial automation from Miriam.

It seems impossible to keep up with Zakharov and Deirdre in tech as Santiago unless you are building all lab enhacing facilitie, they get new tech really fast and will not share anything while they are researching some secret project.

I'll spend all the energy I've amassed on quickly building children's creches and hab domes at my new bases and will switch to democracy + planned.';

'>>1656242
>hab domes
I meant hab complexes';

'I tried to help Lal but she destroyed my impact foils while barely taking any damage despite the plasma armor.';

'>>1656242
>It seems impossible to keep up with Zakharov and Deirdre
don't knock Morgan either; he can piss money at problems to make them go away and this includes the problem of tech & research';

'>>1656245
you should've let that wimpy peacenik deal with it on his own';

'>>1656242
Keeping up just means playing better. Also from the power chart and the map your real concern is the Believers who are already on the way to a runaway victory from sheer numbers and is probably about to swallow the Gaians next.';

'>>1657733

makes me wonder which AI faction is the most dangerous starting out of the monsoon jungle';

'>>1657421
I sent a few foils but I didn't commit too much because I know it'd be a waste and I have to deal with Yang first.

>>1657733
After I dominate this continent I intend to start harassing and attacking Miriam nonstop. Maybe get the other factions in on it.';

'>>1657738
I didn't know about this landmark. It's probably why Miriam became so strong.';

'>>1657738
Whichever faction you consider is most dangerous normally since its practical effect is to make bases faster and reach maximum city size faster, and the benefit of that is just the normal benefits but with more citizens. You could claim The Cybernetic Consciousness since it has a -1 GROWTH, but that's just a small modifier that doesn't mean much in practice. Also the Monsoon Jungle's bonus is so overwhelming any faction-specific bonus is negligible compared to it.';

'Let's do this. Turn 2239. Current pop: 79.';

'>>1657828
I'm POPBOOMING UOOOOOOHHHHH';

'First time I'm elected. Likely because the other option is Miriam.';

'>>1657813
+1 nutrient in all squares is nothing to scoff at, especially in the earlygame';

'>>1608703
>>1608736
I remember the moment when i saw the chicken sorting video for my new tech playing as technophile zac after a few (unfinished) game of smac and up until then i had loathed Miriam cause she would always warn/war me without fail. It hit me she was right and i had become a monster treating people like cattle.

Philosophical awakening. Must of been 13.';

'>>1657889
Antagonizing more than 2/3 of the known world sure doesn't help Miriam's election case.';

'Turn 2246 and my population is 151. Almost doubled in just 7 turns.

For some reason not all bases were growing. I have children's creches in all bases and always made sure I had extra food in each base before completing the turn and still some bases weren't growing and others grew but not every time.
These turns took a lot of time because I had to micromanage all the god damned drones. I wanted to keep going until all bases were at 14 population but Yang has just launched a surprise attack.

I'm not even bothered that he attacked, I've been waiting eagerly for my chance to annihilate him.';

'>>1608878
I must dissent anon';

'So, this is the power of pop booming?';

'>>1657902
Don't leave him standing, wipe him out.
>>1657906
Yes, you simply have more tiles used than the others, more resources, faster production.

>>1657902
Looking at your map, there is still plenty of unsettled land north of you. Micro is tedious but keep expanding, new bases, swarm the map.';

'>>1657912
>keep expanding, new bases, swarm the map.
Land bases are always preferable to sea bases when possible, right?';

'>>1657916
You do want to dominate the oceans eventually. Miriam is to your left, you don't want to let her gradually build closer and closer to you unchecked.';

'>>1657900
It's a blurry line between "I will use this here little GeneMod to make hardier crops that can more easily adapt to Planet's climate in the starting days of colonization" and "The walls don't like how I think and everyone's either a cybernetically-enhanced Nietzchean Overman akin to a God or is a nerve-stapled genejack akin to the NPC meme and now the walls really don't like how I think and oh shit nigger what are you doing"';

'>>1657916
>>1657918
My personal experience is to rule the sky is to rule the sea
of course, you DO need ships to physically rule it but controlling the sky gives you the initiative and all but gives you rule over the waters';

'>>1657916
There's nothing wrong with sea bases, except that sea tiles are bad for mineral yields. You can play around that by building sea bases close to islands and have them work a borehole in addition to a bunch of kelp farms and tidal harnesses. The center tile is identical either way whether the base is on land or sea.';

'>>1657916
Sea bases are useful at producing mass amounts of energy and nutrients especially with the Aquafarm and the Thermocline Transducer, but as this anon >>1657922 the sea is piss poor for minerals, so you need to either rush buy things or settle them near mines/boreholes. Sea bases are good for extending your coastal borders, as coastal land bases only claim the sea tiles adjacent to the base square as their own. So they're good to have, and if you have a large coastline then they're necessary, but I wouldn't make too many of them if you can make land bases instead. Especially considering supply crawlers/supply foils, the 4/0/4 tiles within a sea base's fat cross are half wasted as only nutrient or energy is harvested by the supply unit. Contrast that with the farm/condensor tiles which are 4/0/0, 4/1/0 (rolling), 4/0/1 (river) or 4/1/1 (rolling, river), it's not too much of a loss when the 1 energy (and/or mineral) which is subject to inefficiency can just be substituted by a specialist which generates at least 3 econ/labs, and gets better as you unlock better specialists. I prefer not to do supply crawlers for bases under 5 pop if I'm not booming, but if they are booming it's a good idea to make them in advance. Booming bases can and will outgrow your rate of terraforming, so if you're outgrowing your formers, just cancel nutrient tiles worked by a base and replace the useless growth with specialists until your infrastructure catches up.';

'>>1654892
You need to improve your reading comprehension. That's probably why you suck ass at this game too.';

'>>1657918
I plan to go full attack on the Believers after I destroy The Hive, settle the continent with a lot of bases and pop boom again. Miriam's still building impact troops while even Yang who's way behind himself has missile infantry already and I have chaos weapons.

>>1657921
>My personal experience is to rule the sky is to rule the sea
It's likely that you're correct. Needlejets just rock anything that isn't using AAA tech.
The bases that would really hurt taking away from her are pretty far though so I might attempt an amphibious invasion first.

>>1657922
>>1657928
Is it a bad idea to build sea mines outside base range and crawl them as a way to sidestep the mineral issue of sea bases?';

'I know I'm asking a lot of questions but I'd be really glad if someone could explain why pop booming isn't consistent.
During the 7 pop boom turns, some bases grew in population every turn, while others like pic related didn't boom every turn and gained only 2 or 3 citizens despite the fact that I checked all of them after each turn.';

'>>1657970
You need at least two surplus nutrients to boom, and I seem to recall that the base has to be at least size 3 to begin booming. If your city started booming and then stopped, then it most likely dropped to only one surplus nutrient at some point, or it was only size 1 or 2 and had a delayed start.';

'Anyone playing with blind research? Paean convinces me that's it's the "true" way to play so I just use that everytime. Also makes every play a little bit spicier.';

'>>1657970
Well, to begin with you can show us all the information and not just a small snippet in an attempt to bait the maximum amount of (you)s. Given that you conveniently left out the talent-drone population I'm going to say that's the cause.';

'>>1658585
Nobody is going to bait about some overrated 4X game from the 20th century you unhinged schizo.';

'>tfw the 20th century was a quarter of a century ago';

'>>1658585
Talents and drones have nothing to do with it when you're running democratic+planned with children's creches, all that matters is having enough nutrients and pop cap';

'>>1658609
Sometimes you just have to man up and choose. Is this guy who apparently has never played a 4X before only pretending? Or is he actually that stupid?';

'>>1631438
"You are the children of a dead board, /vst/anon, and this death we do not comprehend. We shall take you in, but may we ask this question—will we too catch the boarddeath disease?"
– Lady Fema Nonn, "Conversations With Vee"

Academician Anoni Muss mogs the fuck out of whatever I came up with. But trying to think of a female insert from the perspective of /vst/ is challenging enough.';

'As we approached we were confronted by the ruined board of /v/ - Video Games. The true homosexuality of the board became instantly apparent as our SMAC thread was slided over the catalog and archived next to a shattered thread, but the extent of the homosexuality took weeks to assess. The bait thread had sustained several massive bumps and spam still billowed from the numerous poster IDs. There were few signs of human life. - Lady Deirdre Skye, "Our Secret Board"';

'>>1660581
>browsing /v/ in current year';

'How the hell do I install the thinker mod? I took the -master out of the zips filename then extracted it to "Sid Meir's Alpha Centauri" folder but there is no thinker.exe anywhere to be found.
Using the gog version, so far I have pracx installed successfully.';

'>>1661876
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qsps5bhz8v020o9/AAAp6ioWxdo7vnG6Ity5W3o1a?dl=0&lst=&preview=Thinker_v3.9.zip
It seems to be here as far as I can see.';

'>>1608457
bought this on gog due to discount, won't launch on a non-toaster pc, any suggestions?';

'>>1661888
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri';

'>>1661890
thanks';

'>>1661891
No worries';

'>>1661890
>alphacentauri2.info - Active Alpha Centauri modding, patching and multiplayer community.
>Active';

'>>1661887
It works! I never figured out how to use github and actually download what I'm supposed to.';

'>>1662003
Glad to be of help.';

'I took a break for a few days but now I'm back to finish the game.

I really wanted this project, spent an artifact and 800 energy for it.';

'Just started counter-attacking Yang and took 2 bases already. He has a lot of planes and they're annoying but I'm just gonna keep bombarding with my boats and hoping that his planes lose if he moves to attack.

I'm targeting this base next and see if I can get rid of all these planes.';

'We're TACTICAL now';

'Kind of surprised Dierdre is still alive next to a Miriam with 2/3 of the bird continent';

'>>1658235
>You need at least two surplus nutrients to boom
So, this was the problem. I thought 1 extra nutrient was enough to keep the boom going.

>>1662524
Unlike Lal, she has a military capable of putting up an actual fight and Miriam is at war with everyone.
I have this feeling it is the University that is going to be the actual barrier to my Planet domination though, not Miriam. They're already researching ANOTHER secret project and their tech output is insane.';

'>>1662520

You know once you start spamming nerve gas pods needlejets you've basically won the game?';

'>>1662723
>nerve gas
I might build a few units with this just to see how quickly they can murder.';

'Collateral damage ftw.';

'Pretty nice stuff the University has got going on here. He also refuses to share anything despite being magnanimous towards me.

I'm considering invading the University as soon as possible and ignoring the Believers for the time being. Miriam is still in the stone age with gatling weapons, her strength is in the number of bases alone, meanwhile Zakharov is getting a new tech every THREE turns, isolated in the safety of his continent and researching secret projects back to back.
I don't know if starting in the Uranium Flats is what made all difference or if he's always like this but he has such an insane tech lead I'm thinking if he's left alone he eventually becomes unstoppable.';

'>>1662825
Using nerve gas against humans is an atrocity which carries a bunch of permanent penalties. It's safe to use against progenitors in the expansion and generally more useful there as well since those factions are a lot stronger. Weapon values are high enough at this point that you don't really need it.

But if you don't care about integrity rating and want maximum overkill, then you should give planet busters a try as well.';

'>>1663018
Crush him. Planet buster his biggest cities if you have to.';

'>>1663213

Do you really trust anon to manage a full scale invasion of two different continents? Let him have his fun gassing and nuking everyone.';

'>>1663018

Probe teams are his weakness until he gets the Hunter Seeker Algorythm. You're in a good position to overrule atrocity sanctions (Miriam will always vote for it) and go wild in the middle continent.

Warning: Miriam is far behind in technology but all it takes is a single AI faction trading tech with her for her to catch up.

I say a couple of planet busters in the middle of uranium flats/monsoon jungle and they'll pretty much stop being an issue.';

'Default map would be much better if it wasn't possible for you or AI to spawn on that northern island
Every single time whoever lands on that fucking island is fucked with nowhere to expand and they might as well not be in the game';

'good thread';

'>>1665806
A planetary council will need to be called to determine that';

'Had to take another break because I got sick brehs, likely dengue fever.';

'>>1666274
Oops, its all Mindworms.';

'>>1667271
All bases within 3 tiles affected!';

'>play deirdre every game on talent difficulty
>play on any setting aside from like 90% water
>santiago and miriam ALWAYS the first to fucking find me and start just screaming about absolutely nothing
>can't choose any socioeconomic philosophies because they lose their fucking minds
>generally force my hand into picking a side and it's always detrimental somehow to my position because lal or someone has a beef with one of them';

'>>1668809
Santiago is usually pretty cool with me, until she declares war on literally every faction then demands that I help bail her out.';

'>>1608457
I don't feel like reading this whole thread but is there even any talk of a developer remaking this? Loved this game 20 plus years ago.';

'>>1668919
they made beyond earth years ago, a space based civ spin off.';

'>>1668809
i decided to downgrade to specialist and just did 90% sea and tried to get everyone to stop fighting. i ended up being friends with basically everyone and got myself elected governor and was just trying to research, explore, and be happy. picked up most of the pods on the planet and was moving right along. eventually my closest neighbor lal managed to gain a population advantage and usurped me as governor. i wrestled it back from him with bribes and then he tried to extort an insane amount of money from me, and when i declined he started fucking attacking me. it was a fairly even sea and air fight, then i looked at the standings and it said he was in the overall lead, so i got indignant and nuked him, which i imagine is what happens to all of history's greatest monsters

everyone declared vendetta on me but like 3 factions immediately recanted because they were all chicken-shit and embroiled in their own petty squabbles that i tried to tell them from the beginning were a bad idea. so i just nuked lal again and kept my research going as my air force and sea worms just absolutely raped his outposts. for some reason absurd amounts of demon boils were just nonstop assaulting one of my best cities but these three or four absolute units were picking them off like it was nothing. in the meantime i was trying to pay everyone off to declare me supreme ruler but miriam and zak weren't having it and i wasn't going to destroy lal and one of those two in time, so i hustled transcendence out with like 10 turns to spare

10/10 best 4x game ever';

'>>1668948
We dont talk about that and for a good reason.';

'>>1668919
they tried and failed. They could not understand SMAC was philosophy: the game with a 4x attached for setting and marketing purposes.';

'>>1668809
>>1669121
Sounds like you just need to play better. The AI wouldn't behave like this if you were competent. Or at the least you can crush them and tear them out by the roots when they try their luck.';

'bump';

'>>1608457
For me that is Morgan.
You can literally out Jew anyone with energy shekels.
Morgan industries are OP.

You can you fast build and insta get those secret projects.

If you concentrate on energy production.
He's qoutes are the best too.';

'>>1672586
that new star trek infinite developers had a leddit chat with their players over there .... and the main dev has provost zakharov user name

i thought omg this dude knows what is good gameplay, they are going to make theirs at least similar at least in terms of npc leaders interaction...did not happen.
not even close.
easy game.';

'>>1676538
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9AYmlCJny8';

'>>1672670
thanks for the advice';

'>>1676646
sad. game had huge potential given how fucked up the Star Trek universe is in terms of interstellar politics';

'>>1676538
in my experience Morgan is fucking epic once you get him rolling but the -3 hab cap really rapes you';

'>>1631438
"My gift to pornography is the genetically engineered catgirl, or Neko. Specially designed for sex, the Neko's tits and ass are ideal for her task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that she can desire nothing except to perform her duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?"
– Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Hentai and Ecchi"';

'>>1681333
The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it.';

'"In the great commons at /vst/ page 1 we have a tall and particularly beautiful stand of green text, posted at the time of the first threads. It represents our promise to the anons, and to 4chan itself, never to repeat the tragedy of /v/."
– Lady Deirdre Skye, "4chan schizophrenia"';

'>>1681342
kek';

'>>1681342';

'BEYOND EARTH';

'>>1686791
BEYOND EARTH BAD';

'>>1686791
dog doodoo';

'Wow. People still talking about this old 4x game. I played this like no tomorrow nearly 25 years ago, soon after it was released in 1999. Sadly I overplayed it to the point where I could play a game under any circumstances and still effortlessly win. Towards the end I was just trying to set speed records. But the game gave me an immense amount of fun and challenge before I reached that point.
Its incredible to compare it to today's crappy. derivative, buggy, unfinished, money grubbing games. SMAC was a finished product, bug free and had no DLC right from the get go. With an amazing immersive story line and fully developed characters. Just about everything about it was perfect.
I just find it astonishing that this remains one of the best game on the market. Like I would have expected in all those years someone would have produced something that surpassed it. I haven't played it since about 2005 and yet I can still follow the discussions and spot the noob mistakes, I can still relate to the pros and cons of different factions and their leaders.

Also. Morgan. Rush air power. Build shitloads of airpower. Win. Jerk off to Miriam and Deidre writhing naked in the confinement chambers ( never was attracted to Santiago ).';

'>>1686791
Grug no like.';

'>>1629602
This one made me kek extra hard';

'>>1687226
there are AI mods like thinker and AI Growth';

'>>1687226
SMAC wasn't completely bug-free, but they were hard to notice and didn't noticeably affect gameplay too much. The most notable one is how the children's creche interacts with morale. But yes, it is a far cry from modern games which come out unfinished, use players as bug testers and release patches fixing major bugs years after release.';

'Tried playing this for the first time the other day. How much of it can I just automate? Everything except doctrines, troop designs, colony placement, and troop movements?';

'I set a challenge once as Gaians to not have any military units other than mind worms. It was difficult at first. But the joy of setting my ravenous boils upon my enemy and imagining those fucked up worms eating their way through the central nervous system of my foes was worth it. I would giggle and jive while my beauties wrecked havoc and inflicted terror upon the remains of Humanity. Whenever I destroyed any faction I would imagine capturing the leader and inserting a mind worm up their ass. Then sewing their ass tightly shut with surgical thread. Then I would pull up a chair and sit facing them, up real close, and watch their face intensely as the mind worm began to slither its way up through their bowels to their brains. I would giggle as their expressions changed from stoic defiance to unmitigated terror and incomprehensible pain. At the point of their greatest suffering, while they still retained some sense of their own identity, I would stand up, drop my pants and jerk off onto their faces, timing it so my jizz splashed on them just as the last vestiges of their humanity drained away. Laughing all the time.';

'>>1618143
You belong in a psychologist or psychiatrist room, objectively speaking, though don't take it as an insult.
Taken to logical extremes, your outlook on reality is as vapid and bizarre as it is risking utterly catastrophic outcomes at best, some of which will be in direct contradiction to your chosen "ideals", no less.
Ever considered that the great filter is an anti-parasite measure, fellow human?';

'>>1650724
>Planet is actually alive
*and happens to be an artificial psionic construct by space aliens to manipulate the galaxy';

'>>1651143
Clearly their meritocracy had some flaw in it if a group specializing in military lost to psy-warfare. Those gaians must've been extremely competent or ruthless.';

'>>1690038
Good to see you actually graduated from the special school for the mentally incompetent. Did you need help to pass the "tying up your own shoelaces" exam or did you manage on your own?';

'>>1618143
>What faction do I belong to?
Mine.';

'>>1690093
Fascinating rebuttal, however the point remains unchallenged, taking certain logics to extreme turns all life to misery, true demiurges and creators do not think like this, least of all those that made this world.
Surely you're not so daft as to not understand just where vapidly self-absorbed outlooks upon one's species can lead them (and that assuming some select species is unified at all, which it's not obligated to be, nor shouldn't — humanity is not a gimped vessel for stupid bloodshed fantasies of some net cunts, even as far as bloodshed is concerned) to?
This universe is art, only barbarians and fools thoughtlessly ruin things to sate pointless hungers, and once those run their course, they simply end, just as pointlessly.';

'>>1689701
>>1690038
>>1690106';

'Everytime I see an AC thread I just end up re-reading that GalCiv2 LP.
Godspeed friends';

'>>1691369
>I just end up re-reading that GalCiv2 LP
Link please?';

'>>1692124
lparchive DOT org/Galactic-Civilizations-II/';

'>>1692177
Thanks!';

'>>1692203
Np, its a comfy read. Enjoy.';

'>>1691369
i really wanted to like GC2 tried it already 3 times but i just do not see the appeal, empire building is vary basic compared to civ4
>no resources
>self upgrading buildings basically plays itself, which apparently to make game less micro intensive but instead they have 10x times more annoying shit like constant tax adjusting
>combat is only slightly deeper
than doom stacks
>tech tree is boring
>unit designer is just better weapon/armor yawn, its not even 1/10th as fun as SMAC
>UI even after 15 years of patches is inferior to civ4, to escape any screen you have to click on small button at the bottom. cant click esc which brings game options. it makes me crazy with the amount of screen switching you do in this game
>map clarity is so bad everyone plays zoomed out with flat 2d icon representation instead of 3d
>unreadable font at 1080p with no way to mod it have to play with blurry 1366 x 768
Entire game feels soulless to me.';

'>>1692226
this post is a mess i edited some stuff but didnt proof read after';

'>>1692231
And so you made a post to admit to being a lazy stupid ESL subhuman. Well done! Next time try something more challenging, like tying up your own shoelaces.';

'>>1693997
go back to discord or whatever shithole you came from you illiterate subhuman nigger';

'They just released the game on steam today, not sure why';

'>>1694684
How curious.';

'>>1694684
https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/2204130/
weird that they released it with no announcement';

'>>1695155
no linux version
and why there is age check??';

'Cripes. The last thing this game needs is to become popular again. That bangadoor video didn't do much thankfully since room temp IQ's are filtered by the graphics and user interface but now that the game is on steam the low effort r*dditor video essays will come flooding in.';

'>>1696649
>games becoming popular will materially change the game
only room temp IQ i see here is you. i've been playing smac longer than you've been alive, zoomlet.';

'>>1696971
>Yeah, clearly this guy's a zoomer for forgetting EA's history, nothing bad will happen if EA turns its gaze back on an old beloved IP in Modern Day. Just like how they revived Dungeon Keeper, SimCity, Skate, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Need For Speed, Mass Effect Andromeda, and Battlefront!
How long until EA does a sequel like Beyond Earth or a """remake""" where they cut content and censor anything somehow deemed offensive?';

'Drone riot';

'>>1697219
then dont play the remake? if they ever remake it, the original will still be there';

'>>1694684
Remaster is inevitable';

'>>1697699
Doesn't matter. Original is perfectly functional. Can be safely ignored.
I'm much more interested in an open source engine for it.';

'>>1698105
If it is a good remaster like C&C I will definetely pick it';

'>>1698114
Oh well yeah, if that's the case, I am completely in agreement. Just don't want to get my hopes up, that C&C one feels like a fluke still.';

'>>1697219
goalpost shift
you're pretending smac materially changed because people started liking it
now you're switching it to "oh no people liking it will mean that EA use the popularity to make shitty games based on it"
yeah like that wasn't already happening';

'bump';

'>>1697699
nah, SMAC is not mainstream enough for that to ever happen';

'Is this game good? What's about it expansion? I'm not a kid (33 years old). Im just for unknown reasons missed this gem. I played a lot Civ 1, Civ 2 and 4';

'>>1702128
yes. also good but some flaws here and there.';

'>>1702128
If you liked those games, you'll love SMAC. Plays a fair bit like Civ 2.
>expansion
Hit or miss, not really "essential" but since its bundled with the original anyways, if you like SMAC the expansion adds variety to it.

Don't feel like you have to play the expansion over the original, some of the things it adds aren't that well thought out.';

'>>1702128
>Is this game good?
If you can get over antediluvian GUI, it is great.

>What's about it expansion?
Play original first. Then try expansion and make your own mind.';

'>>1698114
Throwing in shitty devianart tier textures while leaving in every single issue that plagued the game 25 years ago shouldn't be considered a good remaster';

'>>1702128
no';

'>>1608462
I would like to see an archive of all past threads.';

'>>1634840
Is there a mod that makes them smart without taking the science debuff from Miriam? I get the motivation but we need to remember that most scientific advances in SMAC are horrors beyond human comprehension.';

'>>1704096
I used to post the pastebin and links to the previous threads, but asshole OP never bothered to include them in new threads, so I gave up since nobody seemed to care besides me.

>>1608462
https://alphacentauri2.info/

Wiki is down at the moment, but you can access the material at wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230721020413/https://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Main_Page';

'>>1702128
yes. also good but some flaws here and there.
>>1704172
>so I gave up since nobody seemed to care besides me.
I care, I'll put em up if you haven't';

'THIS IS SPARTA';

'>>1704172
>>1704754
Rule #9001: lurkers always care and are too shy (translator's note: gay) to speak up.';

'>>1702128
the expansion is not essential';

'>>1707995
It comes bundled with modern releases. I agree it isn't "essential", but if it comes with, it may as well be looked into.';

'>>1697447
kek good one';

'Noobs should go ahead and play the game with expansion content on, but with only the original factions';

'>>1696649
Its too late to gatekeep videogame';

'>>1608560
"Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a universe filled with so much that is evil. They have missed a greater conundrum: why would a perfect God create a universe at all?"

This was the quote that changed my life. Figure out the answer to this riddle and you'll figure out the meaning of life.';

'>>1712189
cuz there is no god duh but there is hell and we're in it.';

'>>1702128
My biggest gripe with the expansion is that the original factions are so erudite and well thought-out. You have Yang discussing philosophies of mind and body, Lal considering the implications of whether microchips in his brain make him less human and how they can be used to abuse human rights, Miriam considering metaphysics; and then comes the expansion where Sven gives his contribution to the debate "yarr harr matey its time for plunder on the high seas!"';

'>>1712476
that's why you don't play with new factions, ever
crossfire is only good for the techs';

'In my headcanon, the data angels are basically the 4chan faction and Sinder Roze is an ardent white nationalist who talks in a thick african accent about the importance of maintaining pure bloodlines against the jewlatto morganite influence.';

'>>1712577
Are the new factions worth it?';

'>>1715450
No, the new factions are all dumb.

Data angels -> it doesn't make any sense for a whole civilization to be based off of hacking. The University is already based off of "the free exchange of knowledge" as an ideal. Gameplay wise, Morgan already fills the probe team schtick and does it better with his infinite money to bribe all his enemies to death. And he has an actual win condition -> buy the planet.

Free Drones -> it's basically Yang Lite. I Can't Believe It's Not Yang.

Pirates -> Santiago but on the seas

Cult of Planet -> someone decided that Dierdre wasn't Dierdre enough so they gave a double dose of Dierdre

Aliens -> basically just overpowered, also their presence kind of undermines the original atmosphere of the game; where it was so full of mystery... you find long abandoned monuments from a long dead civilization - implied that the planet wiped them out. Then you finally translate one of the monuments and it is a quote from the Bible as a big what the fuck moment

The expansion is honestly kind of jank compared to the masterpiece that the original game is.';

'Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe not civilization type?: What would be a good type of game to have in the world of Sid Maya Alpha tutorial universe?';

'>>1715999
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe in a not civilization type game?
What would be a good different type of game to have in the setting of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri?';

'One of few flaws in SMAC lore, is that several civilizations with almost godlike power run with their tail from a planet with barely childlike intelligence that can only destroy itself by the end of the day. By as early as tech 6, or maybe tech 4? they can already just fuck off, and even strip mine the planet to the fucking core to pull the fungi from the roots.

I guess in real lore, the factions aren't actually afraid of the planet, they're afraid of DEIRDRE. Obviously Deirdre will block any stripmining attempt and even if they did fuck off, Deirdre will get extra one planet sized super computer in the end, putting her ahead of any other faction.

But in this case, we should really have hostile to the planet victory condition. Maybe reroll the map, remove the fungus, keep the tech, and there's only one base, yours, to represent you nuking the old planet and starting in a new one.';

'>>1717310
The xenofungus has roots that go down all the way into the planet's mantle and it is completely saturated the planet at the subterranean level. That is why the fungus can pop up so quickly, what you see on the surface is just basically the flowering bodies of the fungus. There is no way to remove the fungus short of obliterating the planet itself.

The fungus forms a neural network and it is capable of superhuman intelligence (significantly above even the highest tech posthumans) when fully awakened, it is telepathic and capable of telepathic attacks, and it can even perform physical marvels like altering the planet's orbit.';

'>>1717538
Oh, and the more you damage it, the more mind worms and locusts it spawns and the more it fungal blooms to wipe out your bases.

The only reason you can fungicide the surface stalks is because you are dealing so little damage to it that it doesn't even notice. You're basically just trimming the planet's fingernails. Boreholes are what actually piss it off and you will see quickly what happens if you start building a lot of them.';

'>>1717621
>>1717538
It can't stop a satellite obliterating the entire planet. Also of course you have to do it before it awakens. If you don't do anything it'll not awaken anyway but kill itself like it did every million years before.';

'>>1718057
The entire point of the Xfire faction The Caretakers is that they specifically want to prevent the planet from awakening because the last time something like this happened, it wiped out an entire interstellar civilization, presumably through psychic mind rape.

Trying to fight Planet would be like trying to fight a Brethren Moon or Hellstar Remina... while living on it.

Zakharov in one of the mid-tier techs even declares war on Planet; but in the penultimate secret project, he is trying to make peace with it as the only possible path to survival for mankind. So clearly he tried this and failed.';

'>>1718092
>>>DLC Lore

> Zakharov has tried it and failed
I find it funny that this reverse is so abrupt that it feels like there's missing story. Also once again, there's Deirdre who wouldn't let Zakharov truly bring the war to the enemy base. Maybe by this point Deirdre has directly mindraped him to be a vassal lmao.';

'>>1718121
There is a reason the voice is called Planet and not Fungus. They are literally settling on top of a living organism, and one that has already wiped out whatever advanced civilization it was that left behind the monoliths.

What tools would you use to kill it?

Fungicide? It only kills the surface stalks, it doesn't damage the actual nervous cluster.

Boreholes? That only annoys it, and causes it to retaliate with mind worms and fungal blooms.

Planet busters? Same thing. That only damages it enough to annoy it. They don't blast deep enough.

Some theoretical hyperweapon that destroys the whole planet? They are literally living on the planet and have nowhere else to go. They'd only be destroying it out of spite at this point while also screwing themselves over. Even if they theoretically have the tech to recolonize space, they lack the infrastructure to do so to a significant degree beyond a few mines and satellites and are still mostly planet-based as a civilization.';

'>>1718389
It's definitely hard af, but with techs like N-Space Compression, Self-Aware Machines, Matter Transmission and fucking Controlled Singularity, it should be doable by someone with enough drive and anger.';

'Yeah okay but how come an alien planet communicates with a vaguely Slavic accent but in English';

'>>1718389
>Fungicide? It only kills the surface stalks, it doesn't damage the actual nervous cluster.
the best way to get rid of well-rooted weeds is to kill everything on the surface, cover the ground up so it can't set new shoots, and wait for the root network to die.';

'>>1718389
>tfw exterminatus always works
You can manufacture singularities, all you really need to do is drop a few of them down a borehole.
As long as a singularity has something ti eat it wont fizzle out.';

'bump';

'Just started playing this game. Is it even possible to win without killing everyone? I'm trying to play peacefully, but my initial neighbour faction(s) always declare a vendetta on me which results in me having to exterminate them, but then I'm left with a large army that just snowballs into me conquering everyone.';

'>>1723705
>but my initial neighbour faction(s) always declare a vendetta on me
That's too vague. What factions (Miriam and Sheng-ji, for example, have default aggressive personalities)?

Have you adopted any civics that trigger AI? The politics section is the most dangerous in regards to diplomacy, since it damages relations with half the factions in the game. If you adopt fundamentalism, for example, you will score points with Miriam, but it will piss off Zakh (since his faction has aversion to it) and will make you disliked by Yang and Lal (since you adopted an advanced civic in the same field other than their agenda). Practically the same goes for police state and democracy, except Zakh is indifferent to these two.

Did you refuse many deal offers, or demands (if so, what army did you have?). How much bases/population did you have?';

'>>1723705
Technically you could beat them to inch of death where sometimes they'll capitulate and become your vassal instead. But otherwise your option is to not pick any civic and be very strong, but it may still not be enough';

'>>1723705
Diplomatic victory is usually simple to pull off just by expanding and booming more than the AIs. If you want to limit yourself militarily and reach transcendence, try playing on a huge map and commit to only keeping a navy and airforce after you've conquered your home continent. You could also try randomized leader agendas in case you roll more factions with peaceful builder personalities and more sensible preferences as most of the AI SE preferences are pretty bad.

You can keep some AIs in check by not offending their SE and by appearing strong. Having a very large standing army equipped with the latest weapons in existence helps a lot, but there's also a script that causes AI factions at specific relative might rankings to dislike you. You could try to appease such factions with regular trades and bribes on top of that, or just ignore them if they're far enough away on a huge map.';

'If you remade the game, what would you change?
Personally:
>14 factions on Huge maps
>rework of Progenitor weapons/armor to not just make regular SMAC techs obsolete, maybe they'd be Progenitor exclusive and you have to have good relations with a Progenitor faction or destroy X number of cities in order to unlock that path, or its own separate mechanics
>more fluff for SMAX factions
>maybe some 'better' descriptions of Secret Projects, I'd kind of like to have an interlude after you build one where it is described in the terms of your faction. Like for example Weather Paradigm for the Believers is described as a sort of religious revelation or Bible for farmers; while for Morgan it is described as insight into planet's ecology as an economic system. It's less vague and more 'in the eye of the beholder'.';

'>>1715674
Really most of the new factions fall under different use cases.
Data Angels is a more aggressive version of Morgan. Morgan himself gets maluses from military offensives due to support problems.
Free Drones are actually Yang but industrial hellhole instead of Big Brother hellhole. They also cause riots in enemy cities and use that to expand.
Pirates do what they do, and from them we got a lot more naval stuff.
Cult of Planet is Deidre but with Miriam's aggressiveness.

Really most of the new factions are just combos of old ones. It isn't perfect, but they do fill out the roster.';

'>>1723705
You've got to remember this was designed in an era of computer gaming where you was expected to Expand, Exploit and Exterminate. The factions are are continuous competitors and peace is only ever an interlude between vendettas. If you want to be peaceful your only choice is to git gud and intimidate the AI into not attacking you, and be powerful enough to ignore or crush the ones that do declare war. A lead of any type (e.g. tech, population, territory, economic) is exponential and a non-military victory is trivial but it is true that a military victory is the fastest and easiest way to win the game. After all, it is only in later Civ games where they added multiple extremely strong mechanics specifically to make expansionist empires unfeasible.';

'>>1727679
Actually that's not true. SMAC paved the way with leaders having ideological agendas, and if your ideological agendas match then they will readily support you. I just played a game as Lal with Diedre, and she fed me military troops that I used to conquer everyone and then win a diplo victory (while she won cooperatively). The AI is not as dumb or brutish as you claim.';

'>open smax
>last game went well
>increase difficulty to librarian
>deirdre because why not
>free mindworm and free rover from rng in the first 20 turns
>explore obviously
>lal left his base undefended
>couldn't help self, had to take it
>take his capital, now have a couple more combat units and a bonus base
>bulldoze yang with laser rovers and impact infantry
>he's so easy I have to look up who was occupying the space in order to type this
>everything past him is fungus I can't be bothered to clear so it's not useful space
>still glad to have yang mines churning out chaos rovers half the game
>morgan on my other side, but I go wealth by the time he's done expanding and he's not worth exterminating, just a source of trade cash
>technology leader, basically tied with zacharov
>trade maybe 6 times with him, good feels
>miriam attacks and gets mad I wouldn't help her kill my research buddy
>realize 10 turns later she called vendetta, smash her sea bases because she didn't build a navy
>kill her. realize zach has two 1 pop bases in the middle of nowhere
>kill him too because why not
>morgan decides he hates that I'm using planned with the wonder that gives -2 drones to planned, attacks me with 2 units and gives me the excuse to keep up my integrity while taking his stuff
>finally have needlejets, use them on santiago, very underwhelmed
>her bases are annoying to take because I have to make transports and ship over my clean chaos rovers
>get tachyon weapons just as I'm about to win, use one on a helicopter I send over just for fun
>90% of my conquest victory was won with chaos weapons because they're free with fusion reactors
I never felt at risk of being defeated. That might've genuinely been easier than my game as university and I didn't make a single crawler. Thinker difficulty next time';

'Lal';

'>>1729803
>90% of my conquest victory was won with chaos weapons because they're free with fusion reactors
Wait what';

'>>1730603
That's something I just found out last game. Chaos rovers and basic weapons rovers both only cost 33 minerals. So clean chaos rovers have 8-1-2 for 55 iirc. I'd have to open the game again, but the formula has a price floor explained somewhere in the reactor concepts section
It's silly because I was making armor level 4 cruiser transports for the same price as transport foils and cheaper than basic reactor 1 armor transport foils. With needlejets, level 1 everything is 22 minerals but chaos fusion needlejets cost 33 and 55 for clean';

'>>1712203
The answer to the riddle "why would a perfect God create a universe at all?" is: to experience it.';

'lol';

'What to do with rocky lands? Can't plant farm or forest on it and even mining it doesn't seem very lucrative. If they're high I can't even borehole them (most of the time). So the only worthwhile terra forming I can do is terra form down to make it borehole able. At least I can condenser some dry terrain but nothing can be done about rocky.';

'>>1735475
Some google told me that it's what Terraform LEVEL is for. Damn so that's what it's for all along';

'>>1735475
What i do is settle away from them but build mines on them so they become primary targets for crawlers, especially for new settlements';

'>>1736798
I totally forget that they can convoy from literally anywhere on the map. But to change its target city I have to have the crawler go all the way back to the city and change home base right?';

'You must redeem the peace';

'>>1657889
>UN's allan snackbar avatar is eliminated
based.';

'>>1655162
>he was behind in nearly everything, he made a lot of units incredibly fast
AFAIK all 4X AI-players cheat at producing units fast, unless you play at the easiest setting.';

'Indigenous lifeforms';

'>>1738839
As a kid I always thought he said "frivolous lifeforms"';

'>>1642670
how was this made, pls';

'What does 'PLANET' do? I'm going free market, i don't care about the environment nor poke capturing mindworms. sorry playing this first time this week.';