Newbie!!

[civcop]

I have two newbie help questions (actually, one of them is because I'm too lazy to look it up).

1. Can I add just one or two custom factions to the game, after I have downloaded said factions, and add them to the SMAC ones?

2. If I employ a planet buster, will Deirdra get all bent out of shape with me over it (or any other faction for that matter)? I started a new game as the Univ. and am kicking butt. I want to finish off Miriam and her crew and just obtained planet busters. Is there a consequence in using them? Oddly, the Gaians are the 2nd most powerful faction in the game and we have been friendly the entire game (we have a pact). Deirdra is making strikes at Believer bases and helping me out (we are combined against the Spartans too) and I don't want to ruin our relationship.

[Method]

1. ??????

2. use of planet busters is really really fun. at first. when i first fired one, it just kinda made a noise, and i went "what?? thats it?? then came the big explosion and the lake. ooooh such fun. and then the bad stuff. when you use a planet buster when the U.N. charter is still in place, every faction will declare war on you, and so yes deirde will be p*ssed, but no more than anyone else (except perhaps miriam ). if you want to have nuke wars repeal the U.N. charter first, and then you should be fine (i think). in the datalinks it says you will be expelled from the planetary council, but i have never seen that.

Also it is wise not to detonate one right next to one of your bases. in my first game ever, i lobbed one at a hive infantry right next to my most productive base. i didn't know how big the explosion would be cuz i was used to the nukes of Civ II. but who cares? who needs a huge science center when you can have a giant radioactive lake?

[civcop]

Originally posted by TKG
1. ??????

2. use of planet busters is really really fun. at first. when i first fired one, it just kinda made a noise, and i went "what?? thats it?? then came the big explosion and the lake. ooooh such fun. and then the bad stuff. when you use a planet buster when the U.N. charter is still in place, every faction will declare war on you, and so yes deirde will be p*ssed, but no more than anyone else (except perhaps miriam ). if you want to have nuke wars repeal the U.N. charter first, and then you should be fine (i think). in the datalinks it says you will be expelled from the planetary council, but i have never seen that.

Also it is wise not to detonate one right next to one of your bases. in my first game ever, i lobbed one at a hive infantry right next to my most productive base. i didn't know how big the explosion would be cuz i was used to the nukes of Civ II. but who cares? who needs a huge science center when you can have a giant radioactive lake?

Question #1 was incomplete. I wanted to know if I could add a custom faction or two seperately to the game and pick and choose which factions I then played with (or as).

Lol @ your response. Let me guess, the hypocrites will get mad about it but will not hesitate to use the very same weapon on me. Oh well, if I decide to use it and Deidra gets mad at me and breaks out pact I'll just lob one her way too ("Here ya go Dee Dee...walk with planet you fungus-loving freak!!")

I think I'll refrain. I'm chairman of the council right now (by a very large margin over Lal the weenie) and was going to try for a diplomatic victory. Just for fun I'll probably save my game, let loose a planet buster parfait on Miriam and see what happens. I can always re-load my saved game if I don't like the results. I'm not very happy with Morgan either so perhaps I'll build two

[Wiglaf]

Question #1 was incomplete. I wanted to know if I could add a custom faction or two seperately to the game and pick and choose which factions I then played with (or as).

I believe so, yes. The custom factions you install might have to replace existing ones, but as I haven't experimented with them in a long time, I might be wrong. If I'm not understanding your question please clarify.

and welcome to apolyton!

[civcop]

Thanks Wiglaf. Yes, that was what I meant. If I want to install two created factions, for example, must I replace two existing ones or can I add them to the existing ones. If I can add them, do I then play with all those factions in the game or am I limited to only 7 factions being allowed to be in the game?

If I cannot add on, I will probably leave well enough alone. The 7 originals represent a nice mix of idealogies at work. I'm not a big
Sci-Fi fan so I don't much care if there are drones, aliens or other odd groups in the game.

[knowhow2]

In SMACX (which I gather that you don't have), you can put another (at least) 2 custom factions next to the existing ones (14) of cause you still only can pick 7 for gameplay. SMAC I don't know, try!

Planetbusters (PBs) could be lots of fun, the first two times. But after that it just gives you headache. ED (ecodamage) is a HUGE problem (advice to read about it first at some old thread) and you do get it when firing PBs whether or not you repealed the UN charts or not (but with difference in degree of EDs) But be prepared to take the war into full scale if you do decide to use it. The faction you bomb will NEVER surrender, not even if you vote for Supreme Leadership.

[Vytae]

If your gonna use Pb's go all the way and use Pbs on everyone! PBs for all! if your on a "large" or smaller map,turn chiron into a water world! bwhahah! Also,the better your reaction engines (fission/fusion/quanton/singularity) the bigger the area of effect

A singularity PB will basicly clear your screen and stick a large lake in it. fusion and quantum just clear the middle of your screen while fission merely takes out a base or two.

[MariOne]

I'll answer about adding factions, although I'm not an expert in it. answering offhand from work, so excuse me if I can't check for everything I recall, I invite you to search the interface and experiment yourslef.

In SMAX, they added the new factions, so you end up for having more factions than slots available. So, they added the feature to load any of the defined factions in any of the slots, or to let the game pick opne at random. This works both in singleplayer and in multiplayer.
Firaxis also stole a Faction Editor from a swiss poster who wasn't careful enough to copyright it, so that you have a graphical interface to create your own custom factons. nothing that you can't do tinkering with the .txt definition files.
This should allow yuo to make avaiable a coup0le of you r custom factions along with the other 14 to choose from, without having to replace themn, as someone said here, although I never checked it first person.

In SMAC, there are 7 slots, and the game will only load the 7 facitons you define and lets you just pick the slot you want to play.
It is possible tho to "LOAD" any faction definition you want in a slot.
This is made when you build upo the game. Apart choosing in the end the solt/faciton you want to play, you can LOAD the desired faction in the desired slot, using the LOAD button indeed. Beware, you will be prompted for the name of the factionname.txt file, without the txt extension. And IIRC there is no "...browse" utility, so the factional file has to be in the game's root directory, or you'll have to place it in the custom scenario sublfolder if you prepared a custom scenario in a subfolder (indeed).
A facction is defined by a .txt file and by one (or more?) .pcx file with faction graphics (the base icons, the face of the leader, the faction logo, and few other things).
If you load for instance "hive" in the first slot in place of the Gaians, you will play with the Hive faction (defined as in hive.txt) in the first slot. The faction graphics will be taken correctly from hive.pcx. But the dominant color of a faction is fixed with the slot, in SMAC (it has been made flexible in SMAX). So, the faction who'll be playing in the first slot (regardless whether it's human or PC) will always have a GReen color, albeit with some other faction's graphics.
Beware, the character color written on the banners (units orders, basesizes) will be that of the .txt you pick. As every faction uses black characters on color background, while Sparta uses white character on black background, scrambling factions that way may cause unreadable banners (any faction in Spartan slot will be black on black, or try Sparta in the Univ or Morgan slot, white on white or white on yellow).

That way, when you SETUP each game, you'll be able to pick the 7 playing factions at your desire.
You have to look in the game dir, because LOAD function doesnn't let you browse for the existing definition, and you might need to remember that the Believer's file is named believe.txt or the Peacekeeper's one is peace.txt, while Sparta's faction file is actually spartans.txt or something.

To obtain custom factions, you might backup the original factions and edit their .txt file to your desire (you can leave the original names in the files, as the factional names actually diplayed in the game will be defined *inside* the file).
Or you just create new file factions with the name you want, and call them when you load your custom faction in the desired spot.
In such case, you must also provide a yourfaction.pcx file. I don't know how the game would behave in the lack of it, you might just test. At worst, you'd just need to make a copy of a faction.pcx file of your preference with yourfaction.pcx name.

So, in SMAC, if you just put one or more of yourfaction.txt and .pcx files in the game directory, you can LOAD them in one of the same game slots without having to erase the original default factions. Of course, as there are only 7 slots in a game, if you pick some of your custom factions, an equal number of the original ones will have to be left out from the line-up of that game setup.

This all will have to be done manually.
Mind, nothing prevents you from loading duplicates of the same faction in more than one slot. You might even setup a game with all 7 identical factions if you wish. I am not sure, but I think to recall that if you don't do it properly tho, you might have some problems in setting up multiplayer pbem games such way.

[civcop]

Mari, et al, thanks for the assistance. I've stopped playing Civ 2 entirely now since I got SMAC. When I begin to tire of it I'll be ready for Civ 3! Plus, I can read all the Civ 3 reviews here and see what bugs exist, what about it is stinks or is good, etc.

While others are leading the pink French onto domination of the world, I'll still be doing battle with the cast of SMAC.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by MariOne
Mind, nothing prevents you from loading duplicates of the same faction in more than one slot. You might even setup a game with all 7 identical factions if you wish. I am not sure, but I think to recall that if you don't do it properly tho, you might have some problems in setting up multiplayer pbem games such way.

In the ForumWars series we've done exactly that. All 3 teams in one match wanted a Uni faction, so I copied them twice, remaning one the Varsity and the other the Versity - gave both cloned factions their own unique basenames. Did the same in series II where 3 teams all wanted the Peacekeepers, so we have the UN Peacemakers and the UN Pacifiers clone factions.

I load these, though, through the Scenario Editor, and as it's a SMAC game the colors are off depending on turn order (for the inter-forum games turn order is determined by dice throw). PBEM players need these clone faction texts and graphics loaded into their directories in order to get the proper base names.

G.

[Method]

Originally posted by civcop
While others are leading the pink French onto domination of the world, I'll still be doing battle with the cast of SMAC.

What?? the french are pink im civ III? what is the world coming to

[civcop]

Not only are the French pink, but they will actually be fighting by choice in that game! Truly, what is the world coming to? And Firaxis expects us to accept this concept as realistic?

For a chuckle, I changed some of the city names in the city.txt file of my Civ 2 game. One of the French cities became "Rude Waiter". I thought it was funny. I hope there are no French citizens in here