Hell no! Micromanaging with swiss clockwork precision.

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TOTAL FUNGUS DEATH
TOTAL FUNGUS DEATH
LOBOTOMIZE PLANET
DEATH TO THE NEURAL NETWORK
SMOOTH THE PLANET'S WRINKLES DOWN

>>1819437
isnt optimal play to just plant forest everywhere, i would love somebody modded tech tree browser like in modern civ games, i do not own a massive paper poster that game came with

>>1819437
whats wrong with automated formers ??? i focus on waging war and producing units

>>1819715
pretty sure you have that ability, hidden among a million menus

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>>1819725
i dont think theres possibility to see scroll able tree its just small snippet

>>1819728
I'm more bothered by the lack of click-to-move desu
it could really, REALLY use a remaster

>>1819437
When AI progress to monopolizing entire continents are they generally smart enough to invade each other's continents across water

>>1819749
yes, somewhat
in the current game (OP) yang morgan and miriam are in a FFA that's been raging for decades now, and they take turns taking each others naval bases and coastal cities only to lose them in a counterattack
however morgan only got so far because I hit yang in the back and miriam is busy mopping up deirdre

>>1819738
You can click to move though, hold down left mouse button for half a second

>>1819724
The AI is never going to run your economy better than you can.

>>1819989
more like drag to move

>>1819437
>found out there's a short story about what happened on the ship
It's pretty kino

Also, what mods should I install for my next run? What mods even exist?

>>1820289
I only use pracx, it's a vanilla friendly ui mod
some of the AI mods are bretty good too, if r*ddit is to be believed

>>1819437
>get gravship chassis
>disband army
>disband formers
gravship is love, gravship is life

>>1820289
thinker mod
https://github.com/induktio/thinker

>Vastly improved production/movement AI
>Visual changes on map rendering and random map generation
>More config options for many previously fixed settings in the game engine
>Additional options for resolution settings and other user interface features
>Some automation features are also available for player factions
>Mod also includes Scient's patches

>>1819688
THAT'S IT, OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE YANG GANG HAS BEGUN
this post was sponsored by Gaia's Stepdaughters

>>1819715
>isnt optimal play to just plant forest everywhere
More or less. The guidance is as follow:
>Below 2000 m
>Flat
>Arid
>Early game with Nutrient bonus
>Early game with Mineral bonus, but Flat/Rolling
If you have any other situation than those, it's becoming a matter of micro. Boreholes also change shit around

>>1819724
>I never, not even once, playd this game
Thanks for sharing, anon

>>1819715
>>1819725
>>1819738
>>1820161
Also
>Zoomers going full zoomer

>>1820289
Pretty much what the other anons said. Pracx in its modern incarnation is effectively vanilla+, and it fixes so many issues with minor tweaks it's just amazing the game wasn't simply patched by the time SMAX hit stores.
Thinker is also good way to increase replayability (which is already crazy good) thanks to much better and more interesting random map generator.

>>1819437
as soon as I'm done working on the home base I set them to automate roads and tubes
with a former you can go anywhere

>>1824303
>Zoomers going full zoomer
more like millenials growing old and impatient
>>1824367
fair enough, I also set one former on auto roads once it gets tedious

>>1824378
I go through the options and severely restrict what the former is allowed to do on autopilot.

>>1824378
>growing old and impatient
not really i just appreciate quality of life of modern games over old jank, smac doesnt have ways to move entire unit stack at once the group move doesnt work properly its bugged, 1st civilization game i can truly call modern is civ4 with BUG UI mod and i dont care about outdated graphic with ugly yet utilitarian UI.

>>1824378
>>1824395
>Zoomers trying to larp as old people by pretending to be millenials
The reality is that you are bunch of fags with zero attention span and any interface that isn't like on a touch screen of your phone is scary - even one that's far fucking better organised, efficient and faster to access. But it's not smartphone-friendly, and that means it automatically bad, no attempt to learn anything made.
If you struggle with SMAC interface, find it unintuitive or complex: it's pretty much a neon sign of being a zoomer bitching about being filtered on first step, no ifs or buts

>>1824514
Anon, I like the game, and don't have much problem with the UI, but you can't say with a straight face the simple ability to move units as groups instead of individually would be a QoL addition that would make things just generally more pleasant. Especially wars when you're moving shit across continents

https://web.archive.org/web/20230721020413/https://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Main_Page

Just in case anyone needs any detailed info on the game mechanics.

>>1822827
>>Visual changes on map rendering and random map generation
>>More config options for many previously fixed settings in the game engine
Like what?

>>1824514
what >>1824531 said
I don't see nearly as well, and I have carpal tunnel so quality of life features are literal pain relief
DESPITE that I keep playing this game because I haven't seen a better 4x in the 22 years since I first played it
as for your zoomer strawmen, go to the nearest field and have sex with it since you love it so much

>>1822814
this guy fucks

Please don't go

What drones need me, asshole, i never nerve stapled anyone

>>1825011
yea, that's why they need you

>>1819715
Go into alpha.txt, change forest yield to 1,1,1. There, forests are now balanced.

Thanks assholes, I lost a whole two days to SMAC.

Thinker mod is awesome, strong recc.

Yang OP; the -1 eco is really painful to start with but becomes irrelevant by mid game. Morgan underpowered garbage, his bonuses are way less impactful than his debuffs.

I am a strong proponent of micromanaging everything, but it can get fatiguing.

Forests are indeed OP, 4 turns to plant, the planet likes them, and they spread themselves. That being said, you have to analyze what tiles you're placing them on. rainy/rolling/2000m can pay out fat if you have the techs to actually collect the max yields.

>>1825509
>Morgan underpowered garbage, his bonuses are way less impactful than his debuffs
t. Lal
+1 from every square off Wealth is a huge advantage.

>>1819738
Shut up demake faggot

>>1825536
You make an excellent point, I will try it. I still feel having to build hab complexes that early + losing out on support for formers and such still makes him look weak in comparison. Look at Yang getting police and planned economy with no drawbacks or Miriam circumventing her own disadvantage with probes.

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>>1825576
>I still feel having to build hab complexes that early
No other faction starts with 100 in cash which buys you a recycling tank or two for extra early growth. Plus, you should prioritize habs anyway because the same tech gives you wealth which is basically a free free market for Morgan (pun intended).

The tech path is quite short and have no useless techs:
1. Biogenetics (recycling tanks)
2. Info networks (research nodes to capitalize on extra energy/to prepare for Virtual world)
3. Planetary networks (Virtual world has excellent synergy with research nodes basically providing you with 2 police units in every base at no mineral cost circumventing Morgan's support penalty; I'd actually even spend artifacts on it to make sure I get it)
4. Industrial economics
5. Industrial automation (habs+wealth)

I tend to play with blind research on, and even with simple build or build\discover priorities it's a fast tech path.

The crux is until you get to habs there is no much point to invest into infrastructure except for tanks and maybe nodes. You should grow wide in the beginning since you benefit from +1 energy from base tiles, and you don't need a former for every and single one base: there is no more than 4 tiles each base can work anyway, you can optimize the workload by sharing a former between adjacent bases.

>>1825576
Morgan is an ICS faction, even more so than is usual in Alpha Centauri. If you're building hab complexes you're definitely playing him wrong. Another thing is that like some other factions, it's better to use his bonuses to offset the debuffs from policy choices rather than doubling down on his bonuses. The latter isn't a super big deal, after all it's more fun to play is and is still viable, but going tall instead of wide with Morgan is definitely a problem.

All right so my primary concern was less hab complexes more -1 support. I am not convinced 1 free unit per base is adequate. BUT what if I ran Police State, Green economics, and Wealth. Police fixes my problem with support limit, Green gets me out of negative efficiency, and wealth hits that critical +2 economy that is Morgan's selling point. The morale hit isn't ideal but I can make up for it with tech and probes.

Can I get a run down on what happens to all the faction leaders?

>>1827044
If you go by the official story books:
Everybody dies when Miriam unleashes a super bomb and angers Planet. The surviving leaders decide to live in virtual reality in a hidden base that can only last for 200 years.

If you go by tech quotes:
Deidre does a science win, gets to be the "dominant personality" in Planet's neural network. All the other leaders are powerless nobodies in this new virtual reality, but eventually get to join in on the recolonization of Earth.

If you go by diplomatic victory:
Planet? Who cares? We have space travel.

I want to play this game but I don't like sci fi

>>1819437
I tried to play more than once, but always get thrown off by the old UI and graphics, heard about open alpha centauri project and it seemed to have some recente contributions, don't know if it will go anywhere

>>1819437
I'll keep doing it

>Go full Morgan
>Go full Wealth
>Your troops are Green, unmotivated lackeys
>Full Wealth Morgan will invariably draw random fungus explosions and wildlife attacks
>They will easily melt the brains of aforementioned untrained, unmotivated lackeys
>Just buy some more with pocket change

truly emergent gameplay

>>1827887
Danke

>>1828389
TO THE PUNISHMENT SPHERE WITH YOU, DRONE
>>1828144
no shit
I keep coming back despite it, literally no other game scratches that 4X itch as well as SMAC does

Morgan's strength is in stacking commerce bonuses with Free Market and Wealth. You gotta make early contacts, sign early treaties and make long term allies if you want the big bucks. If you go with Green instead you really are just playing a gimped faction with some extra income.

Does anyone else has the problem with keyboard not working on unmodded SMAC on Win10? If I hit any key, the game stops responding to mouse clicks, and the only way to close it is through the task manager.

The only thing that worked is PRACX patch. Weirdly enough I have never had this problem on my previous laptop running Win10 even without PRACX.

>>1832705
Thinker + PRACX

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>be at war with Spartans, Peacekeepers, and Believers simultaneously for ages while actively losing bases to the latter
>decide to attack your trade partner
Truly a strategic mastermind.
Good thing I wanted to absorb him anyway in the wake of the looming Believers' threat who would just get a massive foothold on my continent if they had captured the Hive first.

>>1819688
Fuck this faggot, he's always the one that beats me

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>>1833169
So basic gestalt is as follows.
Tech level - fusion laser (10; all major factions only start transitioning to it, so mostly 5-6 for now), plasma steel (3), fusion reactor (*2).

Miriam is massively bigger and stronger than everyone else. She got a very isolated start without neighboring competition, so she managed to peacefully settle the eastern hemisphere. Discounting Lal, the only conflict left is Miriam vs Santiago which has strangely run for a while despite the fact that they both run the exact same policies (fundie/planned/power). Both Miriam and Santiago are seething at me, and it would make very much sense for them to peace out and instead gang up on me instead (I run only green wealth).

Deirdre is kinda there, has a bit more pop than Santiago (56; 84 is due to Empath Guild) but naturally builds much less military.

Right now I'm considering my options. On the one hand, I contemplate preemptively taking out Believers' HQ which is 1 tile off the coast on the continent nearest to me, and taking out all her marine bases in one fell swoop (eliminating a good portion of her aviation in the process), while coaching Deirdre into breaking her part and declaring on Miriam, turning it into an all-out war vs Miriam.

But I'm not sure if 1. I will succeed at making Deirdre and Miriam break up; 2. Santiago won't eventually peace out and join Miriam 3. Miriam simply won't consume poorly armed Deirdre. I actually think of switching to Fundamentalism myself to get into Miriam's good graces, repair my rep with her, and make her into my trade partner while stopping her war vs Santiago to prevent her from growing ever larger.

>>1833220
Wouldn't the latter lead to more buildup?

>>1833230
Yeah, that's a problem too. The latter approach relays too much initiative to Miriam. If Santiago collapses before the appeasement strategy works out, I'll find myself in a much worse position.

Probably a combined approach of switching to Fundamentalism (for extra morale and better chance to make up with Miriam), and quickly striking at her HQ and marine bases will be better.

>>1833220
>preemptively taking out Believers' HQ
do it, if their army is busy fighting the spartans even better
if I were you I'd build a proxy base even closer and stage the invasion from there
>Deirdre
they should agree, if you are stronger and have decent enough relations
>Santiago
what you said might in fact happen, them joining up and ganging on you
but if you're quick enough you might take out the believers before that happens
just don't leave a front against the spartans open and you should be fine

>>1819437
Always.

>Automated formers
>Most bases set to Build
>Switch some or all to Conquer if threatened

Most macro way to play. Micro is for spergs.

>>1819724
This. Exactly what I do.

>>1822814
>>1824979
aren't you supposed to have won the game by the time you get gravships?

>>1833316
I kneel

>>1833316
b-based
>>1833350
sometimes I try to get a ceasefire with enemy factions instead of destroying them, and let them rebuild instead

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>>1833350
>he doesn't turn off most win conditions in order to fully subjugate every faction to a single building where their culture is preserved like a zoo for my amusement while I cover the planet in efficient orderly cities while researching post singularity tech XVIII
I won the moment I started playing, everything else is just tidying up.

>>1833498
Lol based.

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Thread inspired me to do a thinker+pracx run. Just wanted to chill so after a few bad starts on random factions I got a nice pocketed Zakharov spawn on Thinker difficulty.
it's been a long time since I'd played, honestly I was very impressed with the modded AI. Yang and Deidre were ahead of me most of the game, and I had to give a lot of tech away to avoid taking a bad war until I was ready. Eventually I hit the exponential powerspike and ran away with it, of course.
After grinding away at Yang's wall of bases, taking a few of Morgan's while propping up the Peacekeepers and Spartans against Deidre in the mid game, they all asked for peace so I just happily researched. I was about ready to transcend when the Spartans vendettated out of the blue, so I planet busted everyone (to avoid the long AI turns and micro, if nothing else). Planet didn't seem to like it much, pic rel.

Fun game. Again, the thinker mod is very impressive.
It's a shame the replay at the end doesn't show how the landmass changes.

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>>1835920
>the fucking craters

>>1828081
Play Civ2.

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>>1835937
just remembered that I have autosaves

>>1836049
>if I don't get to play on a continent, noone will.

>>1836055
I wish the sea-expansion stage was longer, and the whole game less colony-spammy. That Firaxis understood that city-spamming was a problem and nerfed it in Civ3 and then gave the Hive a free pass to the feedback-loop mechanic intended to prevent it (efficiency) is amusing to me. I guess it was too hard to have competitive AI without city-spamming.
But yes, archipelagos are great. It's fun that thinker makes the AI actually make boreholes, so global warming and sea level rises trigger relatively early.

I don't think I've ever had a proper air war with an AI before. Yang got needlejets way before me, perhaps from a unity pod or something. So I had to spam anti-air units, which suck, for awhile until I got the tech. I was building tall so once I got them it was fine, but still an interesting point to push through.

Pawing through the ingame manual I noticed that the Transcendence victory gives 800 more points than the others. I don't care about the points too much, but I do wonder if that reflects it being an "intended" ending? The xpac aliens get the same for their "call reinforcements" victory condition.

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>Turn Complete

>>1839847
>h tsh h tsh h tsh h tsh BOOM
>h tsh tsh BOOM
>h tsh h tsh h tsh h tsh BOOM
>h tsh h tsh h tsh BOOM

>>1839847
>please don't go

>>1843281
TFD, TMD, TGD

>>1843281
Should switch the text in the first and second panels

>>1819437
forget the formers, do you automate your air defense?

I just bought this game on GoG, I have never played it before. I did not play Civ 2 but my first Civ game was Civ 3 back in the day.

What are the >protips for this game? I think I want to try Morgan first based on the limited vibes I know of the characters.

>>1844773
install pracx + thinker mods

>>1844773
seconding pracx, it helps a bit with the UI
as for the game itself, if you know how to play civ3 you'll have no issue
don't forget to tinker with the workshop, it's one of the main things SMAC has over the newer 4x games

>>1844790
>as for the game itself, if you know how to play civ3 you'll have no issue
lol, lmao

>>1825492
>Implying forests are unbalanced in any way
That tile requires two different techs and two different buildings to make it work. It's perfectly balanced as it is.

>>1845466
Forest minerals are absolutely unbalanced in that they invalidate all other terraforming choices except boreholes and condenser farms. Dropping their mineral yield by one makes mines and farms more relevant, and makes crawling forests in the early-game less viable as a massive leapfrog over the AIs.
Everything else about forests is fine IMO, although hybrid forests are super expensive and not usually worth building for most cities.

>>1819437
I think I am one of the few people out there who enjoys playing Lal on the highest difficulty. It's pretty fun trying to keep the spirit of democracy alive and making sure the planet doesn't collapse onto itself, or go full "PAJEET LAND SUPERPOWER BY 2026" and nuke everything till the sea levels rise.

>>1847170
I never liked lal myself because UN BAD LMAO but after a couple of games I really started to appreciate just how "balanced" it is
I always thought it's going to be utterly mediocre but I found it easier to play than say university

>>1845466
>That tile requires two different techs and two different buildings to make it work
what techs? i played only 1 game of smac but could seed forest with my first former 2-2-1 was nice for early game but nothing to write home about

>>1847175
You don't realize that until you play him for a bit. I play Morgan all the time and get addicted to having all the extra credits and polluting the planet. Lal is great in multiplayer games as he can pretty much overpower anyone, at least in a few of those I played.

>>1819437
If you could play could play Alpha Centauri multi-player, with bug fixes provided, how much would you pay a month for the service?

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>>1828537
>save game
>move into fungus
>reload save until zerg pops
>save game and reload until you win and get promoted
>do this ad nauseum
Congrats you're now the richest mfer with the hardest niggas.

>>1847211
forests are way better than any alternatives for most of the squares
take into account terraforming time

you motherfuckers are gonna make me reinstall it

>>1849753
Do it, drone, or you're going straight into the recycling tanks.

>>1849753
you should, and it's only 700mb
it's been sitting on my drive for almost a decade now

So I just build hovercopters and comb the whole map with them, ez win?

>>1825674
Wow a fellow blind! Do you play with Thinker AI. It's frustrating when a faction on the other side of the planet grows exponentially when every other one (including me) have to fight for 2nd position. I sometimes wonder if the AI is also on blind research

>>1827887
Lal was the only leader in that book that didn’t go into the virtual reality. He rode off into the sunset with his cloned wife to rebuild civilization.

>>1849753
Its one of the first things I put on any new computer I get.

>>1844773
Hey so I tried a couple games, can I ask for some help from the bros here?

I am still trying Morgan. Here are my questions
>1. If the name of the game just spamming cities? Like, a LOT of cities? It seems like this is optimal at least for Morgan because he is pop capp'ed at 4 citizens until he gets Habs, so there's really no downside? Why wouldn't I just literally put a city every couple of tiles, because even when I do start getting habs that's still probably plenty of tiles to work
>2. Can someone explain to me simply the best way to use Formers? At first I was just spamming forests, but then was trying to basically improve the obvious tiles near my cities (e.g. where nutrient, build farm + (whatever)). But then I ran out of ideas, and kind of just told them to automate. Is that right? Or do I spam Farm+X+Road on every single tile?
>3. What is a good few first productions for a city? I was doing like Defense Unit > Former > recycling tanks > colony pod (or whenever at pop 4 ill do a colony pod). I also seem to have a lot of money after the first couple turns, should I just be buying shit all the time? (Instant build units, buildings, etc.)
>4. Military - the diplomacy in this game is aggressive which i didnt expect. Miriam and Yang both declared war on me seemingly out of nowhere because i wouldnt give them free techs lol. When should I start focusing on army? Kind of right away?
and finally
>5. I do feel a little aimless, like im just throwing up cities and spamming buildings but im not sure if i am making any of the right choices; any tips of what I should be focusing on?

>>1850315
I might not play the most optimally, but I can reliably beat most 'middle' difficulties so here goes some humble advice
>>1. Is the name of the game just spamming cities
that's one way to do it, but you don't need to cram them into every single square to win
just make sure you exploit resources that you have and you should be good
>formers
mix and match, make sure your cities are well fed AND have enough minerals/energy
In the beginning I try to place individual forests away from one another so they can spread and cover more ground by themselves
you CAN automate even if it's a sin but you will usually get better results on your own
>>3. What is a good few first productions for a city?
whatever you need at that moment, or depending on what your long term plans for that city are
does it need a garrison asap? do you have 'idle' formers? do you need to get production going asap? you can set a new home base for your units so they change where they draw upkeep from, and build your garrisons elsewhere if you want to
>4. Military - the diplomacy in this game is aggressive which i didnt expect. Miriam and Yang both declared war on me seemingly out of nowhere because i wouldnt give them free techs lol. When should I start focusing on army? Kind of right away?
yes
defenseless targets get rekt, or pay up
>im not sure if i am making any of the right choices; any tips of what I should be focusing on?
It's like that in the beginning
I'm sure there are people who can answer with an entire treatise on doctrine here, but I'm nowhere near good/autistic so I just try to focus on my faction strengths
as a general rule I just want to spread as much as possible because this isn't civ5/6, snowballing is real and it WILL win you wars... like in real life
just play and you will get used to how things work, and figure out what and how do you want to play in the process :)

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>>1850315
1. Yes, ICS is necessary though you should also be founding cities in optimal locations for resources or at choke points. With Morgan you need to rush habs eventually or you will fall behind. At some point you need to start focusing on your military.

2. This is okay though others will surely recommend supply crawler spam.

3. Fine. Morgan's strength is money and you must exploit your strengths to win. Stockpile credits for wonders or dump them into research/happiness as needed.

4. You are too weak and they know it. Build units and keep them in defensive locations. Miriam and Yang are vicious warmongers as is Santiago. You can sometimes buy them off with credits, but keep critical techs away from them as much as possible. Keep in mind that offensive wars (units outside borders) can cause riots for Morgan and your units often have subpar morale. Play like a turtle. Try to get to air power first.

5. You have to play to your leader's strengths. Morgan is a niche leader that requires more skill. You should be using the social engineering screen to match your ideology (run free market). Sometimes you might have to switch off them or to the neutral ones to keep allies/enemies happy. More importantly, for Morgan you need to rush probe teams. When you get declared on you can mind control (bribe) enemy units that invade, steal techs, and even take over entire cities. Plus your credits are useful to buy techs or to bribe neutral civs to war your enemy. As you start to get more powerful though, other civs will become jealous and hate you for no other reason.

man i thought i was doing really good for a bit but then i checked the faction power screen and i was dead last lmao

are there any mods to reduce/remove ICS yet? God I cannot stand ICS.

>>1850971
play civ5+

>>1850984
too far in the other direction. I want to play wide, but i don't want disgusting city spam every 2 tiles that make micromanagers like me want to kill themselves.

>>1850346
>as is Santiago
Santiago has neutral aggression.

>>1851015
no, they are erratic and hate wealth

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This thread made me play, picked Librarian and my favorite faction after a refresher game. Last time I tried was a few years ago, I kept getting crashes but I didn't install any unofficial patches, here I did and it's been nice. Feel like I'm doing OK, though the aliens scare me. Not prepared for war at all but I give people what they want and it's fine for now, I will be working on it shortly.

>>1850971
Pretty sure there's an option to configure city min tile placement somewhere.
But in terms of deterring ICS, pop booming is accessible for most factions and is a massive incentive to grow "tall" with fewer cities.

why can't my spore launchers attack from the sea but aliens can??

This is about where I find it hard to keep playing. My overall victory is eventually assured after another few dozen turns of clunky war meatgrinding, and a lot of cool stuff is getting unlocked but it becomes a meaningless economics simulator. Then if I play on a higher difficulty I'll probably just get bullied by the AI because I didn't make the right research choices.

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>>1851759
Forgot pic.

>>1851762
seems like some of those factions died off quickly and the aliens are in the lead? you've only seen like 25% of the map. abnormal imo.

personally, i cant stand playing with the expansion factions. it ruins the game and the rock-paper-scissors diplomacy.

>Then if I play on a higher difficulty I'll probably just get bullied by the AI because I didn't make the right research choices.
yeah up the difficulty, you're supposed to sweat and make tough choices. turn on tech stagnation in the options for longer game play. if nothing else, role playing can be fun. survival in alpha centauri should not feel easy. the game forces you to be underhanded. to bribe. to use probe teams. to start nerve stapling drones when the solar flares hit as Lal, or worse.

>>1851176
Erratic is neutral. Every faction hates something.

Is it at all possible to play this game multiplayer? And if it is, may I set up a full house multiplayer match for us to enjoy? I really love this game but have only player solo!

>>1851935
Yeah, I'll try going up in difficulty and playing without at least the aliens. I don't think I ever played without them and I do agree they dominate every game and make it pretty uninteresting once you've beaten them.

>>1850315
1. Yeah, building lots of cities is the best decision 9 times out of 10. Morgan has even more of an incentive because of the low hab limits like you mentioned and his +1 economy gives more base square energy when combined with free market and wealth social engineering choices.
2. Forests are too good in this game. It's really hard to beat their yields with farm+mine/solar and forests take so much less time to terraform. Automated formers like to farm +mine/solar a lot so I usually just do the formers myself. Mostly forests, thermal boreholes every other square for maximum density, then a few farms+condensers to fill in nutrient needs. Food is a little tight early on with mostly forests but your cities will be low pop anyway as they'll be building colony pods and it can be hard to keep cities from revolting early on when on higher difficulties so lower population can be better.
3. That looks about right but I would delay recycling tanks until later and build more colony pods instead. Recycling tanks only gives you 1/1/1 yield but a new base gives you a freely worked city square for a 2/1/1 yield plus free support and whatever economy bonus energy and will grow from there. And a colony pod is 10 minerals cheaper. Use your energy credits to rush buildings or more formers and colony pods. Upgrading units and supply crawlers is also a good use of credits.
4. The AI is super aggressive and angry in this game. Miriam, Yang are the most aggressive, Zakh Santiago and Lal are 2nd tier and then Morgan and Deidre are the "pacifist" factions. If you give in to the AI every demand, they usually won't declare war on you. So if you really don't want a war right now, just give in. If you're next to an AI, you really should be producing military from the get go.
5. Focus on getting the techs that unlock 3+ resource yields and thermal borehole terraforming. Once you get tree farms and thermal boreholes online, your cities' growth will explode.

There's inefficiency, which is meant to bound ICS (except for Yang), but it doesn't really. I find it much more important to establish borders than just spamming cities. Initially you want to explore along rivers (which act as roads) until you run into a neighbour, then claim a good nearby spot. These border towns will tend to want some sensors around them. Then you can be a bit more picky with where you put your interior cities.

Mine + road is a no-brainer on mineral tiles, or secondarily rocky ones early game. Swapping out for boreholes when you get the tech. While forests are the best all-rounders mid-late game, early game I'd rather have hyper specialised production tiles when I only have a few citizens to work with.

Speaking of, once you have habs and a few psych buildings you should try to keep as many cities in a constant golden age as possible, that's a huge powerspike.

>>1819437
>You haven't been automating your formers, have you anon?
No, because there is NO SETTING FOR AUTOMATED FOREST PLANTING - why? I just want my formers to plant forests everywhere. And once I get pholus mutagen, plant fungus everywhere. But don't overwrite kelp + farms. It's so tiresome. 90% of my playtime is
>plant forest
>plant forest
>plant forest
>plant kelp+solar

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Would be nice if there was a High Score button so I don't have to quickly lose a game to see my high scores. What's your highest score? I thought 1109% would be unbeatable, considering how much effort it took compared to my previous 500-600% runs, but there are people who get regularly 1000%+ apparently, and 1100 is nowhere near the top.

And why did PRACX randomly change some names? I played a game with it for the first time ever in September 2024, and I noticed that there were a lot of new base names, and that the leader name got also changed. I don't even know why I'm using it, I just installed the mod because I hoped it would let me play Alpha Centauri in high resolution while also playing videos without switching to 480p on a different screen and messing up my desktop, etc. It didn't actually. So might as well go back to using DxWnd. Also combat is taking way longer, even with fast animations turned on. Is that a PRACX thing too?

>>1851759
It’s not the deepest game. You have to roleplay with yourself because ultimately; the AI is from the 90s.

>>1819437
I just learned that this game has 3 novels, a visual novel and a free short story about the fate of the ship and how they all ended up split. Amazing.

>>1853623
>a visual novel
Can I date Deidre

>>1853623
https://pastebin.com/Mi4dJeJn

Alpha Centauri is NOT a good game, it WAS a good game

>>1853647
Many thanks anon, I was actually looking for them. Never encountered hard to obtain books before.

How do I fix freezing when I fight worms? Usually when worms attack my units too many times, there's a freeze and then combat is all resolved after.

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>start next to miriam
>she demands I give her nonlinear mathmatics

>>1851188
>no farms
Your bases especially as cybernetic will be stuck at 2 population until mid game.
Make farms on rolling moist tiles early game to get that essential 2 nutrients per tile until you can make tree farms.

>>1853964
She likes mathematics

>>1853829
Guess literally nobody else has ever had this problem, can't find anything on google.

I love listening to the quotes in the game. Such soul god damn we'll never get a game like this again

>>1854238
While I agree, I've been playing SMAC for so long that I almost remember every single [first few words/opening line] of a quote.
I will always remember, that something is going on "In the borehole pressure mines, 100km beneath Planetsurface" - but what exactly, not as much.

>>1854238
>I love listening to the quotes
aow planetfall tried to imitate this, and somewhat succeeded
it was closer to a spiritual successor than BE could ever be, even if it was kinda meh

>>1854660
The quotes in Planetfall are horrendous. They're obviously inspired by SMAC, but the funny writing and delivery is mediocre at best, and too often just painful. First time I ever turned voice volume all the way down in a game without listening to all of it at least once.

The game turned out to be really awesome after that. Wish more games copied that kind of sector system for cities and an Empire mode for replay value.

>>1854790
>The quotes in Planetfall are horrendous.
Heh, I instinctively knew this just after reading >>1854660

I would sacrifice 666,666 Believers for Automated Forest Planting and Automated... Worm Fighting.

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>1 ; If non-zero, obliterating a base counts as an atrocity
I changed this to 0.

>>1825492
How do I change farms? I don't get that 1, *, *, 0 bonus.

>>1855040
The first 1 is how many nutrients you gain from adding a farm. You can make farms grant 2 food or 3 or 1 or whatever you want, right from the beginning of the game. The * represent mineral and energy yields from combined Farm+Mine or Farm+Solar. You can't edit them using this text file. About the only thing you can do is remove the nutrient penalty from mines. I suggest you do this as it makes mines+farm much better and since the AI does this a lot, it makes them better.

>>1855259
Where's the penalty? Same section?

>>1853829
>>1854168
Maybe it was fixed by >>1822827

Is it possible to see the blast radius of a nuke before you trigger it? I accidentally killed a 40+ population city of mine when I wanted to get rid off some worms.

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Don't trust anyone. Not even yourself.

Somehow, a fungal towel spawned on the same location as my 8-Res, and ...it's using it to defend itself???

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Would be nice if the replay also tracked history of all the planet busted map sections.

Is there a way to make orbital production repeating once scheduled? Like units?

>>1855368
It's near the top of the #rules section.
"Nutrient effect in mine square (0 or -1)" Default is -1. Change it to 0 and mines no longer reduce nutrient yield by 1 when built.

>>1855853
None that I know, I just queue one of each different orbital structure

I spent 8 hours playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri on Ironman. Then I got a bug where I couldn't click anywhere in the Alpha Centauri window, but Esc worked, so I just went Esc Esc to quit the game, thinking I can just reload the last autosave. Surely when you quit the game the game autosaves.

There is no autosave anywhere.

>>1856213
I don't know if this is a consequence of me starting another game right after this crash or not, but when I started the game I was able to do air units with missile weapons and basically all tech up to that. Because I thought it was just a bug, I removed all the plans from the workshop, except Fungicidal Formers. I then tried what happens if I build one. It started building Fungicidal Formers. Didn't even have formers researched. Missed opportunity.

>>1856221
Okay maybe it wasn't a missed opportunity. The AI had the same units available (but not the tech). So while I deleted my missile weapons they had theirs.

Is there a better faction for max pop score runs than The Hive in the original? I know that they have trouble getting population booms early, but hypothetically, if you eventually get Cloning Vats it becomes irrelevant and you can build faster pods.

Is Psi Defense armor ever worth doing over the higher/highest tier armors?

I'm trying to terrorize other factions by mass importing mind worms to their countries, but for some reason the mind worm immigrants refuse to ruin their country.

>>1856956
>mindworms are less descructive than africans
hmm

>>1856482
if you're ignoring military tech but have high morale from base building and social effects, maybe, Very much an edge case though.
In a randomised or redesigned tech tree it might make sense, but as it the military techs are pre-reqs to so many others that it's pretty useless.

>>1856256
Gaians get a bonus from fungus early, so if you nerve staple every drone maybe they can grow faster than Yang?

>>1857044
>if you're ignoring military tech but have high morale from base building and social effects, maybe, Very much an edge case though.
Why does equipping psi-defense disable Trance and Empath enhancement though? Does it allow you to attack/defend better against mind worms than Empath and/or Trance would let you?

Can you check who is at war with whom when communication is blocked by sunspot activity?

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>fully automate formers
>they start planting fungus everywhere
>including over my painstakingly manually planted forests & farms + solar
What went wrong?

>>1856482
If Deidre or the worms are out of control

>>1857092
you automated your formers and suffered the consequences
restore a saved game, or persist in the doomed world you have created

All I want is a way to mod automation
>automated worm removal
>automated forest planting
>automated fungus planting
(two separate options)

and maybe, just maybe, customizable governors - like you can edit your Explore/Discovery/Conquer/Build plan, and ban specific buildings/units. The existing customizable Governor sucks, because if I put him to Build in late game (which is where I want it the most) he starts building shit like Nessus Mining Stations when the fucking city doesn't even have a kindergarten or a pressure dome or a hab complex.

>>1857074
>>1857093
it's not for defending against mind worms, it's for forcing attackers to use psi combat instead of their weaponry. Which, if your normal armour tech vs their weapons is a worse ration of 2:3, is better odds for you.

Have you ever encountered a Sen Oni-san? that's Battle Ogre mk3 for you filthy EOPs

If you get all Morale upgrade Secret Projects, then Spartan morale bonus becomes useless.

>>1857162
Dig in the menu, there's a whole screen where you can set what units are allowed to do when automated.

>>1858091
Bro... >>1857092 it's literally nothing

>>1857135
muthsera

muthsera is only for girls

Today I learnt about the tabletop expansion based on this.

what are some good sources of tier list autism?

>>1859509
S tier: singularity lasers
F tier: hand weapons

>>1859509
This is the only one made
https://tiermaker.com/create/sid-meiers-alpha-centauri-the-secret-projects-1067577
however, since it's using just snapshot of the videos, only the most skillful fans can fill these in, so nobody submitted an entry yet.

>>1859592
even if somebody remembered which pic goes with each project the list would be useless to anyone without perfect autisitc recall. Just get the icons off the wiki.

S tier: (major contributors towards game ending): space elevator, empath guild, clinical immortality
A tier (powerful, constant headache relief): free talents/fewer drones, +50% psi defense, singularity inductor, self-aware colony
b tier (nice to have but not essential): cloning vats, ascetic virtues, hunter seeker, weather paradigm, +50% psi attack, xenoempathy
c tier (questionable): free techs (except planetary datalinks), citizen defense force, planetary transit, pholus
D tier (net negative use of minerals): free +2 morale buildings (you don't need that many), projects that only enhance a single base, planetary datalinks

>>1819437
Any love for my guy Call to Power 1-2 here? always felt like the civ-like games such as it and smac were better than civ itself

childhood is idolizing zhakarov
adulthood is realizing miriam makes more sense

>>1859670
>adulthood is realizing miriam makes more sense
No

Gaians would literally implode if their leader looked like Miriam and Believers would be the most popular faction if there leader looked like Deidre. I can imagine a portrait of Deidre with Virgin Mary's hood, don't even need AI to slop generate it.

>>1859664
>hunter seeker
>b tier
>>1859670
yes

>>1859667
CtP 1 will always be better due to space layer.

>>1859670
>>1859706
pretend adults who think they're adult but they aren't, you're a child to me

>>1859706
probe teams don't usually cause 300 minerals worth of damage over the game. Main reason to get it is to prevent the strongest computer player from getting it (so ironically for Miriam it's more valuable than for Zack)

>>1854238
I love them, but I'm getting bored hearing the same early quotes over and over again. Sometimes I yearn for long games just so I can heard "That species shall be exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!”

— Academician Prokhor Zakharov, Lab Three aftermath

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This bitch serious? Everyone has Gatling.

I am going to nuke the whole planet. Wish me luck

>>1860051
based
do it on earth as well

>>1859730
Enemy probe teams can easily cause 300 minerals worth of losses by a single capture of a base, which is why you keep an eye on them. Once you have the hunter seeker algorithm you can get careless and wrap the game up so much faster. Putting the empath guild in S tier instead of hunter seeker is a really weird take.

Probe teams should be split into infiltration and hacking teams, makes no sense that Christian zealots are somehow master hackers when they can barely turn on computer

>>1860241
>temple os

>>1860241
God gives them the password.

>>1860239
>Enemy probe teams can easily cause 300 minerals worth of losses by a single capture of a base
That has never happened to me. I have never had anything captured except small border bases.

>>1860241
It's social hacking. Underground converts handing over the keys.

If I become Gaia hippie soiboi, will I get free sex from cute hippie girl?

t. disgruntled Morganite drone

>>1860241
as the other anon said, don't think of them strictly as hackers
university probes might be operatives with all sorts of high tech, believers might be agents who bribe, steal, intimidate, impersonate, or use other methods to get the same results

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Wow, he's almost exactly 3 years younger than me, exactly the same height but ~11 kg fatter!

>Deidre's GURPS stats
>Advantages: Beautiful [15]; Empathy [15]; Military Rank 4 (Lt. Commander) [20]; Strong Will +1 [4].
>Aki Zeta-5 has no Beautiful
Akibros...

>>1839975
>The drones need you
>They look up to you

>>1860535
>>1859698
They made Deidre resemble Mary the mother of god to reinforce the "bring forth a new god" plotline, I'm pretty sure. And she's a qt to make that concept more appealing.
If it was made today yeah maybe they'd make Miriam hot, as being a contrarian tradwife is now hip and cool.
Aki is part of a cybernetic hivemind so knows what every other borg's junk looks like, hence the thousand cock stare.
>>1859664
Getting Weather Paradigm for early boreholes is a huge powerspike. And if you can stack all the +100% Labs projects on your highest energy base you'll just win, though I guess if you can pull that off you were already winning.

>>1860560
>Getting Weather Paradigm for early boreholes is a huge powerspike.
still resource capped that early, and takes 16 turns to build. Still good, but not as good as +1 talent.


i probably underrated citizen defense force, its good if you're doing a conquest rush.

>>1855441
...Proceed with the attack. Resources exist to be consumed.

>>1859730
I tend to play Zakh and I like Hunter Seeker Algorithm to eliminate the weakness.

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>>1859752
"Mr. President, I must caution you that my engineers have completed an advanced piston-jet fighter prototype. The first prototypes are entering service now rendering my airforce practically invincible."

>>1857494
I did during the first game I won. I spawned right next to the data angels and got a good pod... Then crushed them in 5 turns and had the continent to myself. Pirate guy didn't know how to make a proper navy so I crushed him next, and that was the game

>>1855434
Nuke blast radius is reactor power times tiles from the center tile.

>>1860530
>exactly the same height but ~11 kg fatter
you're a woman aren't you

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>>1860752
Bro, you posted this literally an hour too late
>placed two cruisers full of nukes next to enemy shores
>start nuking
>don't even notice they're both gone before firing a single nuke
>I nuked my nukes

Here's the result of my Planet nuking attempt. I thought that it was possible to trigger a nuke anywhere, with some shortcut/action maybe, but I couldn't find it. So I could only nuke terrain with bases on it. Sad!

>>1860901
And the worst part is that if you nuke someone to death, it doesn't actually eradicate the faction until the next turn. So I have to survive one more turn of infinite worm attacks. Last time I ended my turn, it took about 5-10 minutes to get through all the worm shit.

>>1860901
Do you nerds generally approve of the expansion, crappy new factions aside?

>>1860905
Pretty sure most people like to play SMAX + original factions. The only annoying thing about it are the new worm types.

>>1860909
>SMAX + original factions
peak 4x right there

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That's a lot of water.

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>>1860936
This is literally the same turn (my turn hasn't started yet). Does it mean that the sea will rise by the highest number, or... the two numbers combined? I hope it's the latter. Not that I care, surely I will win before the planet gets looded.

>>1860939
>Not that I care, surely I will win
I ended my turn with no faction alive on the map other than me. The game hasn't ended... I haven't received a notification for the last faction I nuked to death, but they're nowhere on the map and my comm link is empty. What gives? Is my game fucked and unwinnable because I nuked the last enemy to death? For fuck's sake. I can't survive more than a few more turns tops of these insanely long worm turns.

>>1860941
My only way out is to corner the market (which consists of me only) or wait until I can elect myself planetary governor (even though I am the only one on the council). But the earliest I can do is 15 turns from now, no chance I can survive the worms (mostly due to the insane length of turns).

Any way to disable Forest/Kelp/Fungus expands notifications?

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>>1853374
>What's your highest score?
this mine!

Leader (In)compatibility:

Natural Allies:
>Spartans & Believers
>Spartans & The Hive
>UNs & Gaians
>UNs & Morganites

Natural Enemies:
>Spartans & University
>Spartans & Morganites
>Believers & University
>Believers & The Hive
>UN & The Hive
>Gaians & Morganites

But in my games, Gainas love allying themselves with Planned & Free Marketers, Morgan with Commies & Greens, Hive with the religions and democrats, etc.

>>1860954
I am still waiting... 5% = my turn, 95% worm turn

My research stopped after I had first post-transcendence tech
Sad

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Is there a meta for placing bases on the official map?

>>1860281
>That has never happened to me. I have never had anything captured except small border bases
I got really unlucky just one time, when I captured a small enemy border base with a huge army of mindworms, and the instant I hit end turn a probe team showed up, bought the base, and flipped 10+ of my mindworms inside and around the base all at once. Learned my lesson there of course and haven't lost a base since, but the hunter seeker algorithm is always a relief.

>>1861352
It's probably the same as placing everywhere else - that stupid "place bases as close as possible to each other" / going wide. I never play that way, I always go tall even though it's objectively worse because I am literally not utilizing most of my territory within the base range until Hab Dome.

Real big IQ question.

>Rank the social policies (or what's the most/least important social bonus).
Obviously, growth +6 is the most desired but what about the rest?

Are there any negative consequences for keeping independent units independent? And why are sometimes units you find on the map independent (i.e. cloned or unity rovers) but sometimes they get support from the nearest base?

And why does beating 1 worm with infantry destroy every single worm on the same square, but beating it with flying units only takes out one? Is that a bug perhaps?

If you play with Alpha Centauri civilizations mixed in with expansion civilizations, the expansion civilizations should start 1-2 turns later, and the aliens even later than that.

>>1861687
dont the aliens start 15 turns later or something already

>>1861714
Yes, but SMAX human civs should have a similar treatment. And they shouldn't do planetfall either, since almost all of them are basically factions that split off from the original 7.

>>1861678
Independent units are just free units, nothing else to it. When you find a unit from a pod, the game checks what the nearest base is to make that their home base, but if the nearest base is foreign, the game stops there and makes it independent instead.

Air and naval combat is treated different from ground combat in other ways as well, it's not a bug.

What's the logic behind copters getting fuel/2 attacks? Think it was even fuel/1 in the base game.

I used to be a helicopter enthusiast who would seethe at the dominance of jets in all other games, so I never questioned it as a kid. Why would you ever use jets for anything other than anti-air in Alpha Centauri once you have copters?

>>1861687
>>1861717
Ideally the game should start with the original factions, with the expansion factions appearing as 'city states' later in the game if certain conditions are met. Like if enough drone riots pop off Domai appears, if University pulls ahead in the power curve then Aki spawns, etc.

Why do population 1 bases sometimes get destroyed when the last military unit is destroyed, sometimes not?

Do Soil Enrichers cause the same eco damage as boreholes?

>>1861498
I meant coordinates. Playing for such a long time you commit the regular map to memory and know where the really good spots are.

>>1861687
Is there a mod that lets you field all 14 factions?
>>1861714
>>1861717
>>1862260
>the 5 human add factions pop up later (Citizen, Specialist) or you lose a base (Talent, Librarian, Thinker and Transcend); the aliens come in later still
Thoughts for food.

>>1862595
iirc walls prevent pop loss

>>1862602
Holy shit, I only now realized that Soil Enrichers and Condensers are two different things. I literally never ever used the free +food from Soil Enrichers because I thought they cause eco damage. And apparently, drilling to aquifer is also free, worms don't care. Can I cover my whole territory with rivers?

>>1863146
None of those improvements cause eco-damage directly, it is only caused by getting too many minerals per turn in one base but the improvements (and your planet rating) then determine the amount of damage done. You can also increase the limit of clean minerals by spamming tree farms and centauri preserves, so much so that you can eventually cover your territory with boreholes and condensers and still get away with 0 eco damage

>>1863173
>None of those improvements cause eco-damage directly, it is only caused by getting too many minerals per turn in one base but the improvements (and your planet rating) then determine the amount of damage done. You can also increase the limit of clean minerals by spamming tree farms and centauri preserves, so much so that you can eventually cover your territory with boreholes and condensers and still get away with 0 eco damage
No fucking way. On what difficulty? On Transcend, I explode in eco damage the moment I get the fungus bonuses secret project which amounts to like 4 minerals per fungus. Or the quantum converter in every base project + the "+2 minerals every base" (which is actually +50% minerals in every base, unlike what's said).

Seriously, has anyone ever had this before? I'm not sure if it's because of the Thinker Mod or not, because I probably only got to Transcendent Thought once since I installed it, as Gaians. But whenever I get to Transcendence as University, I research the 1st thought, and then it shows in research "Biogenetics" which never researches, and I never get another Transcendent Thought. Tried to change policies, change energy associations, change huge/tiny map, nothing helps.

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>>1863257
IIRC the initial clean mineral limit is around 14 or so; once you go above that, you eventually get a fungal pop, which the game doesn't tell you also causes the clean mineral limit to increase by 1 permanently in all your bases.

After that has happened, every time you finish building a centauri preserve ANYWHERE, you permanently increase the clean limit in all your bases by 1. Meaning if you build a centauri preserve in 20 different bases, all bases can now work 20 minerals more before causing any eco damage. Here's a screen of my current transcend game. I'm using satellites (which are always clean) too but that's still 35 minerals picked off the ground with zero eco-damage.

I usually approach this cautiously, causing one fungal pop intentionally and then gradually increasing mineral yields while increasing the limit, but the one time I built a genejack factory for shits in a situation like this (a building I usually never bother with) it immediately caused two volcanoes and a swarm of locusts to spawn. It's easy to accidentally shoot high above the clean limit in the end-game too, when the game replaces much of the land with fungus which has a high mineral yield at that point.

I love the apocalyptic end games I must admit. I wonder if it's better with the ai mods.

>>1863377
>a centauri preserve ANYWHERE, you permanently increase the clean limit in all your bases by 1.
Man, that's annoying. Once again SMAC punishing you for going tall instead of wide.

>>1863392
could've made it a repeatable project, but...
>tall instead of wide
turtling shouldn't ever be viable in a 4x desu
yeah, ICS is a hassle and the micro hell is real but why in the world should an ingame equivalent of singapore or a smaller nation be a competitor to a continent spanning power

>>1863173
>>1863146
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Ecological_damage_(SMAC)
Worked improvements, including soil enrichers, do cause eco-damage but can be mitigated with tree farms and forests.

What determines whether you get multiple techs per turn?

>>1862630
nta but i figure it should be straightforward to suss out
Monsoon Forest is the OP spawn point, especially when the spaces next to it are still quite fertile. Then maybe ringing the inland sea on the 'snake' continent is second best.

The northern island and southern volcano are shitholes though. southern volcano has a lot of energy between the island and the sea north of it but i dunno about the food situation

>>1863900
I never get the Monsoon start on Transcend difficulty, bet it's rigged

>>1863900
I'm fond of the little spot right before peninsula in the "elbow" of the serpentine continent you always miss by one square because when you position a base right you get sea minerals and sea energy while also controlling movement where the "snake" "rears up".

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>>1863280
Here's how it looks. Change Research Goal shortcut does nothing, neither does going there to click from HQ.

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>if you make a Centauri Perverse BEFORE fungus pops, it does nothing
Jesus

>>1863893
Your labs spending, silly.
SMAC is different from Civ in that there's no minimum time to research a tech. If you output enough labs you can actually blow through multiple techs per turn.

>>1864432
i wonder what spaghetti code monstrosity is responsible for that quirk

>>1864530
I'm almost certain it's planned. Think about it: when a fungal burst happens the best you can do is sooth it.

>>1864779
And why does worshipping Centauri not prevent the fungal burst happening beforehand?

>>1861038
A faction's preferences just isn't as strong as some of the larpers in these threads like to claim they are. Of course, the erratic nature of the AI means that you can never be quite sure why they do the things they do, but preferences aren't the only thing that affects diplomacy. Also the factions aren't going to trigger each other if they're not actually running those policies in the first place, and your post is a bit contradictory in whether you've actually noticed this.

>>1864935
It's all just Gaian superstition until the Planet actually announces itself, they're worshipping incorrectly

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>capture random U.N. base with Mind Control probe
>somehow, they get 8+ energy from fungus
Is this just a bug or am I missing something here
None of my other bases get 8+ energy from fungus

>>1865700
It lasted 1 turn only

>be me
>be Miriam
>thinker mod
>in last place (everybody has a monsoon jungle and rainy tiles except me)
>finish probe team research
>immediately set labs to 0%
>few turns later be #1 in research

honestly this is so easy it makes me think most of the other factions should do it too.

>>1865816
Oh my god, a girl! Hi Miriam

How do you raise your integrity? Both in Alpha Centauri and in IRL

For me it keeps going down just by attacking my neighbours, but I didn't break any treaty with them, I refused their friendship (because they were hogging my Monsoon Jungle

>>1866032
>How do you raise your integrity?
You don't, it's gone for good

You can avoid losing it by stealing a tech whenever you want war, the AIs are nearly guaranteed to declare vendetta in response

>>1866095
Fuck. Is there no other way? What if I already have all techs?

>>1866103
Then you get their map instead of a tech, along with the war declaration

>>1866116
Ok nice

Which faction has the strongest irreplaceable bonuses? Like things you literally cannot get, no matter how much you pay for it. In example,
>Spartan Free Prototypes
You can get that just by having Skunkworks.
>Free X in every base after you research X related technology
I'm pretty sure almost every one of them has a Secret Project equivalent, except stuff like Brood Pits for Cha Dawn.

I think
#1) Pirates
#2) Believers
#3) Gaians or Cyborgs or Data Angels

>>1865816
exactly what that +1 PROBE was made for, sneaky Miriam

>>1864935
Not yet sapient enough.
Sentient enough to react.
Not sophont until you blast the datalinks into its connectome.

Peacekeepers are such a shit faction.

Their basic strategy is 1. get a massive population 2. use big pop + vote bonus to become Supreme Leader.

Their powers are supposed to be able to pop boom easily, and benefit from it more because of the +2 to pre-hab base size. Pop boom requires +6 growth, so you need 3/4 of
>Democracy
>Planned economy
>Children's creche
>Golden age

You get an extra talent which helps get golden age. The problem is that pesky -1 efficiency. The children's creches give local efficiency, which helps with the energy loss but you still get extra drones for having too many bases. Even a single unmodified drone will stop a golden age, and inefficiency will kill your Psych production, so you'll have to be running Planned. Then the -2 efficiency from Planned will cancel out the +2 efficiency from Democracy, so you're at net -1. The way the formula works, positive effiency isn't super important, but negative efficiency is really bad. Democracy's drawback is -2 support, but that isn't a huge deal since with extra pop one forest can pay the upkeep on 2 units. The problem is if you are running both democracy and planned, you will piss off Miriam, Yang, Diedre and Morgan, and Sparta probably hates you anyway, so Zack is your only friend. You really don't want to be running Planned unless you're booming. Green for wartime (net +3 efficiency) or Free Market for cash money.

Pop booming isn't even a unique strategy (everyone can do it, though its slightly harder for Yang and Morgan) so it sucks that your inefficiency gimps your city spam.

Also, you can't pop boom unless you have at least 2 surplus nutrient income already, even if the marginal new worker could hypothetically work a 1 or 2 nutrient tile. You will need the tech that allows more than 3 nutrients per square and you will need farmed rainy tiles or condensors.

Peacekeepers are irredeemably bad.

>>1863280
>I'm not sure if it's because of the Thinker Mod or not,
I just realized that you can just load a save without Thinker Mod to test it. And indeed, it was the Thinker Mod. For some reason, having it on prevents me from researching T.Thought 2+.

>>1866977
>>1866949
Peacekeepers are great if you play like a pajeet and just focus on shitting out population while rushing UN victory.

BLOODY BITCH BASTERD I FUK YOU BLOODY

You should have a reduced score if you play with some modifiers like pick a tech to research I always pick it, or looting tech from bases

How can I change the bonuses in fungus from Manifold Harmonics? The mineral bonus always fucks me up, which is ironic, that being too much pro planet somehow makes me cause eco damage

>>1863992
11/53

>>1866949
Golden ages aren't that important, like at all, and Peacekeepers are one of the easiest and most versatile factions in the game.

Reminder that as second in command of the Unity, XO Yang is Garland's rightful successor and legitimate leader of Planet.

>>1867464
Golden ages give +2 growth which lets you pop boom without destroying your economy with Planned, or not build creches.

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>>1866949
>not building the human genome project
>not building the empath guild
ishygddt

Bumping with a question I never gotten an answer for over 20 years of never finishing any SMAC session I had started about once~twice per year, do the Lord's Believers' +25% attack bonus also counts during PSI combat?

Why does Prax make SMAC crash every end turn???

>>1867840
found it. I just need to change the resolution to 1360 from 1366

>>1867748
No.

>>1867748
Yes

>>1867748
maybe

>>1867748
I don't know.

>>1867748
Can you repeat the question?

>>1867748
in the options you can turn on to always get a confirmation screen before finalizing the attack order. In that screen you can see each and every modifier/bonus so that you would never have to ask again.

If you play as Believers and change your gender/name, does it still show ugly ass Miriam pictures during diplomacy screen?

>>1869262
Yes but I remember it being very easy to change the pictures if you want to switch it out for Doug Wilson or Ian Bozant.

>>1867748
Nah it's strictly worse than Marr's alien attack bonus which does affect all combat, in fact Miriam is the worst at attacking natives because of her inherent -10% from Planet

It's so depressing when you try to beat your pop + tech score (when you manage to basically win late game, you can prolong as much as you want to) and it takes literally an hour of micromanagement every turn, because you have a shitload of money to hurry every base facility. I would kill everyone here (as a sacrifice, nothing personnel) for a mod that lets you save a build order, or just set governor's build orders (i.e. if build, you do this this this and that, exactly) and checkbox something like "auto-hurry production".

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>>1871907
>checkbox something like "auto-hurry production"

>>1872345
Yeah but that's "may". The piece of shit never hurries anything even when I am swimming in money.

>>1872369
I imagine it probably doesn't work very well, but it does something. I've got more than 400 bases in my game and I'm getting 26k energy per turn but with this setting turned on everywhere, my money hovers at around 15k without increasing that much so the governor must be hurrying something.

Honestly though the build queues aren't the real problem when going for max pop, it's the terraforming. Assuming you have the telepathic matrix, cloning vats, and either cloudbase academy or space elevator or both, and a shitload of satellites, then all you need to actually build in every base is a hab complex and dome. Terraforming for nutrients takes so much time.

>>1872433
>>1872369
Oh and aquafarms, to get the most nutrients from water.

>>1872345
yeesh, this skibidi giving me bug vibes fr fr

>>1872433
>I've got more than 400 bases in my game
I kneel. And I thought I would get a record with my 100 hydroponics pods.

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>>1872440
I'll share some of my progress. I started this autism on a huge map of planet while I was sick for a week, but now that I'm better I don't know if/when I'll finish it.

Transcend difficulty, the game was actually really fun while Deirdre, Hminee, Marr and Lal were all putting up a fight. I allowed tech stealing when conquering a base in the hopes that it would help the AIs. I started by the Freshwater sea while Marr spawned in the jungle, and he got all the way to photon wall armor before I got to him.

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>>1872478

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1.7 MB JPG

>>1872479
I'm slightly worried my faction dominance curve seems to have overflowed but I don't think it affects my score. This has been a learning game and I've been using drop pods to colonize remote islands for the first time.

Also, fuck Lal. He capitulated while he was still allied with Marr, but he had a unit inside Marr's base that I was trying to attack and refused to acknowledge my envoy when I wanted to tell him to join my war. When I tried attacking the base, the game thought I was breaking my pact. I wasn't going to wait several turns for him to start listening so I lost my noble integrity instead.

>>1872478
I want to get off Chairman Yang's wild ride

A real Chairman would have wiped away the established settlements of conquered countries just to keep the spacing of the city spam uniform throughout the planet

So how do you make sure the enemy doesn't interfere with your base spam without them being pact brothers so you don't end up winning combined conquest?

>have just ~50 bases
>1h40m to go 5 years...

>>1873019
Don't make pacts, instead just kill them until they have one base left in the middle of the ocean

Really the only time you should ever make pacts is if you're looking for a quick conquest win, and even then only if they offer complete surrender first

>>1873906
Yeah, I only do pacts when they surrender too unless it's Deidre-chan... I always offer her pacts/accept her pacts hoping she gives me sex in return (she never does)

least favorite factions:
Cha Dawn
Miriam
Datajacks
all alien scum

(bottom 5 starting from worst on top)

>svengard in the lead again

Secret projects are too strong and cheap and generally shit up the game.

>>1875805
skill issue

>>1873853
I haven't done a single turn since this post, that's how much PTSD I got

I enjoy micromanaging.

>>1877827
understandable
may Planet have mercy on thy wretched soul

I enjoy

Diedre was right

>>1848686
You savescumming faggot/genius!

Today I had a fantastic dream, in my dream it was possible to edit autobuild orders, or save build orders and load them/copy and paste them between cities.

>>1889688
learn to click & lovin it, lazy chudcel
*takes a week off from work to do three turns in her game*

Are there any fair and balanced custom made factions that cover something that's not already covered?

>>1889717
terran.exe

>>1893295
mind that it does some minor rebalancing too, streamlines native lifeforms, removes alien races that don't fit the setting, etc. in general, all changes are for the better and it's weird the devs didn't make the game this way in the first place

>TFW the interlude text where your best friend & head scientist (who coincidentally happened to be a cute girl) becomes a host for your first cultured Mindworm colony - but the body horror description no longer disgusts you.

>>1893387
>cute girl head scientist would rather get worm'd than have sex with you, her bestie
Zhakarovbros...

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We must dissent