Feedback requested for new factions:

[Marid Audran]

Hello gang, I've spent several days muddled in the Faction Editor and manually editing faction .txt files, and I've just put the finishing touches on a couple of hopefuls. Ostensibly they were meant as quick human replacements for the Progenitor factions (for I hate the alien inclusion in-game), but as time went on I become more and more involved in their design and factional ideology.

The first is a heavy modified faction from www.networknode.org On that site they were called the "Agri-Culture," and seemed to be based on an archaic agrarian model, like the old Mesopotania or American civilizations of earth. That got the juices stirring and after I'd tailored stat specifics to my taste I came up with the "Agrarians of Ceres."

LEADER: {High Councillor Wren Norbury}
BACKGROUND: {New Zealand Agronomist; Unity Terraforming Engineer}
AGENDA: {Planned society; Harvest of Planet}
TECH: {Centauri Ecology}
AI AGENDA: Planned

+2 GROWTH: {Emphasis on family, nutrient production}
+1 POLICE: {Populace feels secure with citizen militas}
-2 MORALE: {Lack of military paradigm}
-1 PLANET: {Large-scale terraforming ecologically disruptive}
{Formers may raise/lower terrain at half the cost}
{Free fungicidal tanks with the discovery of Synthetic Fossil Fuels}
GROWTH penalty doubled for GREEN economics: {Agrarians find fungal cohabitation aberrant}
{May not use Free Market economics}

Ideologically this faction falls somewhere betwixt the Gaians and the Free Drones: The terraforming and biological expertise of the former, the sense of communal welfare of the later. I thought they may be derived from Peacekeeper renegades and more subdued Believers members, or just Norbury's own people from the Unity.

Now the obvious hook of the Agrarians is the +2 growth, which will allow an early pop-boom, if you're so inclined. On a more general level you can potentially grow faster in the early game, and +1 police helps reign the drones in. With Demo/Planned you're in an immediate pop-boom, with creches in place you need but one of these SE choices. Ogie proposed that this faction would murder in Fundy/Planned w/Creches via probe rape, however to me the inefficiency hit would be very problematic to burgeoning drone populations, and your morale would still be -1. Other SE choices are less versitle: Police State/Planned kills your economy, and anything with Green doubles the penalty so you're reduced to a normal faction's use of the model (-2 Growth), which probably ensures a switch only after the majority of your growth has been accomplished. Free Market is disallowed, so you'll never make gobs of money. Planned (also AI agenda) is the only viable economic model for the Agrarians for awhile.

Their big trade-off, as touched upon, is the worst base morale on Planet, which can make early territorial expansions/wars with close (and especially hostile) neighbors quite difficult, ditto early run-ins with native life (morale/-1 Planet).

To reflect the agronomical nature of this faction I gave them some appropiate former bonuses. The Agrarian motto is essentially "Strength Through Terraforming," which I thought would resonate with any Builder player on here worth his weight in salt. Since most players end up pop-booming anyway with Demo/Planned/Creches and (optional) GA, I didn't think the +2 growth would be too much of a game-breaker. I thought about +1 growth instead but compared them to the Hive and they just seemed markedly inferior. Should be an interesting faction for any dedicaded Builder/Terraforming Fanatic out there (of which they're probably legion).

The second faction is one of my own creation, sort of the Morganites on water, put briefly. I liked the Pirates in SMAX and the idea of aquatic factions in general, and figured another seaborne one could fit the bill. However, instead of cruising the waters looking for ships to terrorize and whatnot like Sven, these guys, the "Nautilus Mercantile" actually want to make money and boast strong aquatic-based industries. The backstory I had in mind was that Etienne Peraud was Sven's Commerce Director but was disenchanted with Pirates' trade/economic policy and decided to take some like-minded economists and secede, perhaps with a few bored and adventurous contract Morganites in the bargain. Most of the SMAX fations are offshoots of others, with the exception of the Nautilus Pirates, since Sven was actually on the Unity in the first place, so I figured his own offshoot was due.

LEADER: {Admiral Etienne Peraud}
BACKGROUND: {8th French Republic; Nautilus Commerce Director}
AGENDA: {Oceanic Energy Monopoly}
TECH: {Industrial Base, Doctrine: Flexibility}
AI AGENDA: Wealth

+1 ECONOMY: {Aquatic conglomerate}
-1 RESEARCH: {Understaffed, overworked labs}
-1 PROBE: {Underpaid computer techs}
Robust SUPPORT: {Merchant expeditions must be self-sufficient}
2% INTEREST rate on energy reserves: {Trans-aquatic loans}
Extra DRONE per six citizens: {Sea-weary traders miss comforts of home}
Bonus mineral from shelf squares, waived sea former/colony pod prototype costs, may terraform improvements on trench squares: {Nautilus Pirate roots}
+1 ENERGY from fungus squares: {Mercantile attuned to xeno-energy resonance}
{May not use Knowledge values in Social Engineering}

The Pirates always struck me as Hybrid slightly erring to Momentum side of things, due to those free Naval Yards and Marine Detachment abilities. The Mercantile sacrifice those in favor of energy-raking capacity. The reserve interest struck me as an interesting gambit so I subbed that instead of Morgan's commerce bonus. Just so things don't get too carried away I gave them slightly aggravated drone problems to deal with. The Mercantile are something of a paradox in being a Builders' faction with poor research. I sort of figured with the majority of base space being used as trade warehouses, shipyards, and offshore platform assembly factories, research labs are left cramped and underfunded. Anyway, this faction may prove interesting, especially for a player who likes Morgan but is less comfortable on the water.

I haven't playtested these two factions yet, as I'm in the middle of some other SMAX games, and they're also freshly minted. Just wanted some theoretical feedback from the top of y'all's heads. Thanks!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

MA,

We chatted a bit on this last nite. So my initial thoughts are the Agrarians are interesting but prolly not too unbalanced. Growth will be their key. Specially in the early game prior to the pop boom phase. Running Planned with a +4 growth should allow a pod to be produced in fairly short order even without working a +2 nutrient square. So maybe the first worker can go straight to a forest who knows would have to give a go.

On the Mercantiles. I see you moved the interest back from 3 to 2%. I'ld still have to see how these work out. My gut says they're still a bit strong. +1 econ is to die in of itself. Add in the free pressure dome,the nice fungal bonus and extra mins in the coastals. You've got yourself a strong strong builder especially considering how rich the ocean squares are energywise. To my mind much stonger than Morgie. Specially cause he can pop boom going Demo/planned/wealth. The minus 1 research isn't too bad of a penalty in fact may not be harsh enuff. Minus 1 probe really is more of nuisance penalty than anything else. Isee the strength of this faction being an ICS fiend. The base squares are gonna produce insane energy and with the robust support even running Demo the free 10 mins are all that more attractive. Unlike Sven these guys are OK efficiencywise so that makes ICSing evenmore a possibility.

Were I to play these guys I'ld go to land ASAP in order to pop out pods faster than you can at sea. After first Bueracracy warning I'ld resume sea expansion.

Just my thoughts

Og

[Marid Audran]

Hi again Ogie,

Hmmmm, some cogent points about the Mercantile. If I pushed the Probe penalty to -2 and removed the ROBUST Support, would that balance things out more? Beyond that I could even increase extra drones from 1:6 to 1:4, like the University, or give them an increased hurry cost/tech research cost.

Also, just for the sake of vis-a-vis comparison to the Pirates, my particular settings gives the Pirates Immunity to GREEN economics. More than anything this was done to coax the AI to use this IMO very helpful setting for the Pirates, since Sven seems particularly fascinated in the possibilities of Chiron's native life (listen to his quotes when buliding Aqua Farms or Brood Pits). It would help humans out too, but I still see plenty of situations where they'd favor Planned/Free Market.

[Mongoose]

Re the Mercantile-

In my opinion, a PROBE penalty is almost inconsequential. I suggest replacing it with a -1 INDUSTRY penalty. They're merchants, not Industrialists, right? Besides, in a society overflowing with cash, what chance that anybody will be underpaid?

I agree with Ogie, as is this faction sems very powerful.

[Marid Audran]

Originally posted by Mongoose
In my opinion, a PROBE penalty is almost inconsequential. I suggest replacing it with a -1 INDUSTRY penalty. They're merchants, not Industrialists, right? Besides, in a society overflowing with cash, what chance that anybody will be underpaid?

I should have you speak to some of my buddies in the service/tech support industry. Well-heeled economies doesn't necessitate equitable distillation of wealth through the classes.

But that's a moot point; I agree that I've unintentially created a monster faction, a Morgan without his wings clipped. Autopilot AI games seem their domination. True, negative probe ratings are almost inconseqential. They are dormant unless probed yourself, and most decent players have a counter-espionage force on their borders. At sea it's even more negligable, since probe foils are more expensive and the AI almost never builds them. Negative probe ratings should adversely affect the morale of your OWN probes as much as positive ratings boost them. Might tame KNOWLEDGE a bit.

An industry penalty didn't seem logical to me (Merchants foremost maybe, but still aspiring industrialists), but I've made some signifigant alterations to try to re-balance the Mercantile:

+1 ECONOMY: {Aquatic conglomerate}
-1 GROWTH: {Long merchant expeditions away from families}
120% Tech cost: {Cramped labs, grants difficult to obtain}
125% Probe cost: {Computer techs behind latest encryption techniques}
150% Hurry cost: {Networking industries difficult at sea}
Penalty doubled for PLANNED: {Regulated economies breed mass smuggling}
Extra DRONE per five citizens: {Sea-weary traders miss comforts of home}
2% INTEREST rate on energy reserves: {Trans-aquatic loans}
+1 ENERGY from fungus squares: {Mercantile attuned to xeno-energy resonance}
Bonus mineral from shelf squares, waived sea former/colony pod prototype costs, may eventually terraform improvements on trench squares: {Nautilus Pirate roots}
{May not use Knowledge values in Social Engineering}

Research/Probe penalties now more meaningfully represented. Robust SUPPORT removed; same problems colonizing under Demo as anyone else. Growth rates reigned in, Planned will be run only with severity. Extra drones moved forward. Hurry costs increased; this should be poignant for the human player who finds rush-building the most profitable option with surplus cash (I certainly do).

An improvement?

[Mongoose]

Seems better to me. Needs play testing! Any chance you could attach it here? If not, maybe email to me? jlnader@mindspring.com

Does the hurry cost penalty affect the cost to upgrade, do you know?

[Marid Audran]

You got it; Mercantile attached as zip. The base and faction graphics aren't my own, but were borrowed from one of the Waterworld factions on Networknode, O.E.D. I believe.

I don't think hurry costs affect upgrades; they seem irrelative in the alphax.txt file. Those more mineral pricy sea colony pods, formers, and foils will still need to built though. Anyway, give it go, maybe including the Pirates to see how the aquatic factional attributes match up.

[Mongoose]

Can't DL. I get a 'Congratulations, you have found a missing page!' message. Sure the file isn't too big?

[Mongoose]

Who DLd this? I still cannot!

Mong, mystified

[Marid Audran]

Mongoose: File emailed you you. Don't know why you can't DL directly from Apolyton; it's 350 kb.

[Mongoose]

Thanks, MA. Email received.

[Mongoose]

Curious. From Mercant.txt :

#ALIENFACTIONTREATY

--snip--

"Hive: safe ally. Treaty: admirable idea."
"Hive: control: too important. Ally: dangerous. Answer:
no."


Why Hive? Omission?

[Marid Audran]

Oh, must have forgotten about Progenitor relations, so the game must have subbed the Hive in by default. Sorry about that.

[Mongoose]

No problem. I was just asking. This faction editing thing is something I know very little about.

[Mongoose]

Good news and bad news.

Good news: After deleting all my old bookmarks that has the site IP instead of Apolyton.net (per MarkG in the 'Please Moderator' thread) I am able to access the DL.

Bad news. I can't load the faction. Help!

This is what I did..
1)unzipped the file (duh!)
2) copied all the newly unzipped files into my SMAC folder
3) edited alphax.txt, in the custom factions section...replacing one of my current seven custom factions with Mercant, Mercant
4) start a new game of SMAX (note: No custom factions are in the AC.ini
5) select 6 other factions for play all ok to this point!
6) select Mercantile for inclusion

7) get terranx has caused an unknown error message and crash to desktop

[Marid Audran]

OKAY! At first I couldn't load it either; same Terranx crash. So then I re-designed the Mercant.txt from scratch in Facedit. It seems that while you can cut-and-paste Base names and Diplomacy sentences in the .txt files, if you do the same with Datalinks blurbs, and don't write them initially in the framework of Facedit, it can cause severe problems.

Now the mercant.txt loads just fine; I've attached it (cleaned up, Progenitor diplomacy included) in an updated zip.

(Good lord, even when I've banished them from existence the Progenitors cause me problems)

[Mongoose]

That did it! I'm about 40 turns into a game. Too early to draw any conclusions yet. Just changed to WEALTH.

One thing so far... Unit colors are the same as the PK. (at least to my eyes) Any way to differentiate that?

Base graphics are cool.

[Marid Audran]

Glad it loaded fine, ditto that things are indecisive at this point (shows that they being overpowered isn't at once evident).

Yes, they do use the Peacekeeper colors. I'm not sure what the tag for that is. The original faction that used the graphics, O.E.D., was a sort of aquatic version of the Peacekeepers in ideology, so that explains it (the Agrarians use the Morgan colors).

Yes, I like the base graphics too. Rather fitting for a Mercantile.

[Marid Audran]

Well, parked into a mid-game with the Agrarians, I thought I'd share my preliminary analysis, and such. It's probably going into a vacuum, but I found the experience interesting and still welcome feedback.

Speaking of which, Mongoose, did you finish that Mercantile game? If not, how far along did you go? Was the +1 Economy for an aqautic faction a deal-breaker, or what?

It is a violent game, that much is evident in my Agrarian test. All the factions ended up on one huge supercontinent on a 20% water world, so there are no isolated island nations or natural borders. Sort of brutal free-for-all. My immediate neighbors were an always bellicose Sparta. Not a good thing; I'm up against the best-trained force of soldiers on Chiron (+2 morale) with the worst-trained force of soldiers on Chiron (-2 Morale).

I was lucky to steal Nonlinear Mathematics from Santiago and prototype a quick Impact Infantry w/Alien Artifact before she overran one of my bases with a battle Ogre she found, as well as her general army. I was struggling to get some forces up and running just to stay alive and man the borders. To that end, after some deliberation, I built the Command Nexus (over the choice of the Human Genome Project or Weather Paradaigm) to neutralize my atrocious morale. Until I built it, most of units spent their time in green or very green morale modes. Even afterwards I wasn't getting troops much better than hardened, in tandem w/high morale and Fundamentalism. A factional deficiency definitely leaving its mark on my operations.

Eventually after Gatling became the mainstay weapon on Chiron (and out of Santiago's hands) I overwhelmed and eradicated her faction. The pre-planning of it took awhile though, with my inferior military. After she was gone, I concentrated on the rest of my infrastructure and growth at home. After a quick immediate pop-boom from Demo/Planned and I researched/traded/stole most of the techs needed to get by, I went into Police State/Planned while I filled in the edges of my territory.

Contrary to what the thought of a -4 Efficiency rating might do to you (send you into convulsions), This SE setting actually fit Agrarian needs quite nicely at this juncture. True, I was getting absolutely no money or research done (except a small pittance from HQ). But I had a +3 police rating, which was all the drone control I needed to reign in my sized 7-9 core bases and slowly ascending outer ones. With non-lethal methods and police, I could potentially qwell up to 12 drones! +2 support was also excellent for pumping out formers and supporting these police. My industry was good, and I still had a +4 growth rating, +6 where Creches were concerned. I don't think I've ever been so comfortable in Police State before, except as Yang.

Who, by the way, was intent on making life uncomfortable for me. Yang, to my north and west, had eradicated nearby neighbor Zak, Miriam to my east and south, had eradicated Morgan. So much for my builder neighbors. I have Lal as a pactmate, though his HQ was taken by Santiago before her defeat, and his economy sucks for it. He has two lone bases which aren't building a new HQ, which serve mostly as decent-sized probe factories for token resistance against Yang/Miriam. In peacetime I took the time to construct the Citizens' Defence Force, needing all the defence I could get in this borderless plain.

War eventually broke out with Yang, impossible to appease even in Police State and his two-tech demands for a truce are outrageous. I had to switch over to Fundy/Green to start a military campaign with some semblance of funding. Unfortunately, my super-drone control went with it, and more energy allocation is going to psych, and citizens to doctors, than I care to. The war hasn't gone well and Yang has taken two bases with coordinated stacks. I've gotten a rover/infantry force up and running to protect my remaining borders, which are always busy. Money is very scarce and I have to rely on probes to bleed some out of Yang (!). One of Yang's cities has the Virtual World in it, which would do wonders for me, but it's hard to coordinate a strike force needed to take it when so many of my forces are wrapped up in defence.

And more will be needed since Miriam (impossible to appease even in Fundy) recently declared war on me as due to the same reason; I not willing to cough up two techs for "peace." Both Yang and Miriam occupy vast stretches of land on this Pangea, but Miriam even more so, and will be even more dangerous. I need to scramble some more units to defend more weak links in my limitless colony perimeter. Though things look grim at the moment, I'm hoping when I finish researching Advanced Military Algorithims the Power SE choice can turn the tide. Missle weapons and Silksteel are the arms of the day for now.

Things have been uniquely challenging with the Agrarians so far, their growth and police boons coming at a heavy morale price, which can really work to your detriment when sandwiched betwixt Yang and Miriam. All that easy pop can turn against you too, without proper drone controls reigning things in. The -1 Planet was more of a nuisance really, eco-pops coming in a bit earlier. As an aside the free fungicidal tanks didn't work; when Synthetic Fossil Fuels came in, all of my infantry and rovers got free "fungicidal tanks," but my formers didn't. I'm going to have to find a benefitical workaround, like a free super-former or something. I'm actually thinking, additionally, of ditching the -1 Planet setting for something else, like -1 Industry and giving the Agrarians an inherient 20% psi-defence. Not so much as to further cripple them as give native life a realistic alternative for these farmers in terms of battle. Second rate to Dee and Dawn perhaps, but doable; accelerated starts with the Agrarians reveal the AI giving them an inordinate number of pre-gen worms, probably to offset their hideous morale. Might as well work that angle.