Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri Mod

[Spatzimaus]

One of the things I said when I started helping out on this project was that I wouldn’t fixate on one thing, yet it seems I’ve been doing just that recently, so I do appologize for this.

No need to apologize; I tend to fixate on specific issues, but I tend to switch back and forth between a few different ones from day to day.

The nuke situation is probably the most imbalanced part of the core game. Practically the entire Modern Era was designed around the idea that the game was basically over; you had overpowered units (Modern Armor, Helicopter Gunship, Stealth Bomber, even Mechanized Infantry), overpowered buildings (Broadcast Tower, Research Lab, Stadium), and the nukes. They didn't NEED adequate counters to these, because they weren't intended to be balanced, which obviously screwed up the future eras. The units and buildings I was able to balance by cutting their bonuses, but nukes are just a lot harder to manage.

So what game settings do you use? I’m curious how you can get away with not building nukes, and if this revolves around set-up options?

King difficulty, tech diffusion mod to keep everyone about the same, and I generally play Continents or Small Continents maps on a Small or Standard size. The map type makes a huge difference; atomic bombs don't have the range to reach across water, and even nuclear missiles have problems if the map is large enough. (Planet Busters, obviously, CAN reach, but since they're post-SDI I'm not as worried about them.) I build a good number of stealth bombers, and if I see a city with any missiles or bombs in it, I make sure to invade that city on the first turn (auto-destroying the nukes).

There's also a cheaper way to do it:
In my last game, I controlled half the world, with three major AI empires remaining, none of which were the usual warmongers. (Siam, Iroquois, and India, I think). All had a good number of nukes. So I used a few spare luxuries and some cash to bribe A into declaring war on B, B on C, and C on A. (Didn't really need that third one, but with B in the middle I knew they were going to get slaughtered.) Turn one of the war, nukes were flying everywhere, but not at me. It made it very easy to start invading them a few turns later.
Basically, it's just that if you're making it to these eras, you're often the civ in the lead. And if you're in the lead, AI empires are far less likely to declare war on each other, which means they're building up a stockpile of nukes with no one but you to use them on. Triggering a few AI-on-AI wars makes a HUGE difference, enough that it's just very abuseable.
Playing on King, then, ALSO makes a big difference, because if you're not far ahead of the other civs then they won't stop fighting each other.

So here's the other part of the problem:

1> TECH FLAVOR.
When I was adding my new techs I tried to stay consistent on the tech flavors, to where techs at the same tier would have the same totals. In fact, every single future-era tech has flavor values totaling to exactly 10, which means that the AI will pick techs based on its personal flavor preferences, without any "beelining" beyond just following whatever chains favor its preference. Since I laid out the techs in a pyramid pattern, this works out very nicely in practice.

The existing game's techs are not so consistent. Combustion is 15+5+5=25, while the techs next to it tend to total to ~15. Then look at the T12 (start of Nuclear Era) techs: Plastics is 5+5+2=12, Penicillin 10+2+2=14, Electronics is 15, Mass Media is 10, Radar is 8+4+2=14, and Atomic Theory... is 25+10+2 (where the 25 is FLAVOR_NUKE and was recently added; it used to just be the 10+2.)
Then the next tier, T13: Ecology is 10, Computers is 15, Rocketry is 10+10+20 (where the 20 is FLAVOR_SPACESHIP), Lasers is 15, and Nuclear Fission... is 50+10+10, where the 50 is the nuke flavor again.
The upshot of this whole thing is that the AI nearly always researches the nuclear techs as the very first thing upon reaching this era. I can change that easily enough, but the problem is that this only delays the issue a bit, so that you don't have to beeline for nukes yourself. It wouldn't prevent the nuke situation from getting out of control during the early Digital.

Note: the Balance mod, despite adding new buildings and yield increases to many techs and modifiying many buildings, did not adjust any Tech Flavor values (just building flavors). The Content mod added a few more things to the earlier techs, but again, did not change any tech flavor values. So the AI is exactly as likely to pick the nuclear techs in my mod as it would in the vanilla game.
I'll admit that this was an oversight on my part; I should have changed tech flavors when I changed the building ones, and I never accounted for all the things I added.

2> PROJECT/BUILDING FLAVOR
The Manhattan Project's flavor is 250 Nuke + 20 Offense + 20 Defense. The Nuclear Plant, by comparison, is 60 Production + 4 Growth.
In other words, upon reaching the tech that provides it, the AI will drop everything to build the Manhattan Project. (It had previously done this with spaceship parts as well, before I toned down their flavor.)

3> UNIT FLAVOR
The Atomic Bomb is 10+10+16+8, with most comparable-tech units, like the Rocket Artillery, totaling 30ish. The 16 is the Nuke flavor, so it was only 10+10+8 before, which meant that previously an AI was just as likely to build an atomic bomb as a new artillery unit, but now they're FAR more likely. The Nuclear Missile is 12+8+24+8 (again, the 24 is nuke).
(For comparison, the Planet Buster is 10+40+10, while comparable units total ~30. So I need to tweak my own unit as well.)

In other words, the AI, once reaching these techs, will see the atomic bombs and nuclear missiles as being far more valuable to build than any other unit, as well as being more valuable than a nuclear plant.
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What it looks like is the devs got REALLY lazy when they added FLAVOR_NUKE a couple patches back, and simply added the flavor ratings to each unit without reducing any of their existing values to compensate. So the AI just really, REALLY loves anything nuke-related. Now, it looks like FLAVOR_NUKE, like FLAVOR_SPACESHIP, is given an inherently low weighting, so big values for it aren't quite as damaging, but it still is adding to the previous total somehow and putting these options above all others.

So in the next version of the Balance mod, I'm going to lower a lot of the flavor ratings for these units so that their totals are comparable to other options, and see what happens as a result. But again, this is only a band-aid; the AI WILL reach these techs, will build the project, and will produce the units; they won't do as many (since more uranium will be locked into nuke plants) or as soon, but once they have the units they'll still be just as willing to use them. That's where the devs should have come in, with some diplomatic reason not to use a nuke you have. They didn't, and it's not something I can patch in myself in any way the AI would recognize.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Okay, upon further reflection, I'm going to try something a bit drastic for the next version, in an attempt to make nuclear offenses less viable.

The way it'll work is this:
> Military Base: -20% nuke damage to this city
> Manhattan Project: 20% nuke interception chance
> SDI: +30% nuke interception chance. Also a prerequisite for the first two orbital units (Geosynch Survey Pod and Ion Cannon)
> Perimeter Defense: -30% nuke damage to this city
> Atomic Bombs will go obsolete at High Energy Chemistry (one tech after SDI and Perimeter Defense).
> Gravity Shield: -100% nuke damage to this city. Yes, that means that cities that build a gravity shield will be utterly immune to nuke damage; the countryside around them will still get ravaged, but the cities will be as strong as ever. (Note that this is a -1 happiness building that also gives a huge defense boost for a hefty cost; it's not supposed to be a trivial decision to put one in each city.)
> The Orbital Defense Pod, currently a city-defense building, will be replaced with the Orbital Defense STATION, a Project that, like SDI before it, adds 30% nuke interception. (The result would be a 80% chance, or 1 in 5 gets through.) This project is also the prerequisite for the Orbital Death Ray and Subspace Generator, and I'll tie its presence into a couple other things in Lua, like having it increase the effects of the Sky Hydroponics Lab, Orbital Power Transmitter, etc.
> The Nuclear Missile will go obsolete at Quantum Power, one tech after that station unlocks. (The Planet Buster never goes obsolete.)

Then there's the Subspace Generator. I'm honestly not sure whether the interception from SDI-type projects would destroy the unit or just neutralize the nuke attack; I'm going to test that when I get home tonight. If it destroys the unit, then I'm going to completely rework both the Subspace Generator and Orbital Death Ray into more "interesting" effects. Something like, having the subspace generator fire like a normal bombardment weapon; if it targets a city then it gets a massive power increase, and if it targets a unit then it deals damage to nearby enemy units as well depending on how close they are.
The only headache is that when you target a city, RunCombatSim can't be used to tell which city it was. Otherwise, there are a few things I'd be able to try (like having the subspace vaporize any city-defense buildings automatically).

 

[Darsnan]

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What it looks like is the devs got REALLY lazy when they added FLAVOR_NUKE a couple patches back, and simply added the flavor ratings to each unit without reducing any of their existing values to compensate. So the AI just really, REALLY loves anything nuke-related. Now, it looks like FLAVOR_NUKE, like FLAVOR_SPACESHIP, is given an inherently low weighting, so big values for it aren't quite as damaging, but it still is adding to the previous total somehow and putting these options above all others.

IIRC when the game first came out why the AIs would build nukes but not use them (i.e. the nukes would just sit in their cities, even while they were being overwhelmed by enemies). Now they seem to have gone too far in the opposite direction.

Okay, upon further reflection, I'm going to try something a bit drastic for the next version, in an attempt to make nuclear offenses less viable.

Would it make sense to wait till after the enxt patch and see if the devs tweak this logic themselves, then go from there?

Edit
Game went better last night in that I tried plopping a city near where I figured an oil deposit would be, and I was right! Having the offensive/ defensive (intercept) capabilities of aircraft make a huge difference strategically, as I was then able to dedicate my build queues to cranking out mech infantry and arty, instead of having to mix in some AA units instead. Having aircraft also makes a huge difference tactically as well, as I don’t have to figure out the best way to snuggle in an AA (or two, or three) around a city for defense against enemy aircraft.

Segue: I do consider this one of the weaknesses of 1UPT in that it really compounds a player’s ability to defend a city/ important feature, especially when they are lacking a strategic resource such as oil or aluminum: a player with these strategic resources can quickly stack as many a/c as necessary into a city to defend against enemy a/c, but a player who doesn’t have these resources has to (much more slowly) place AA units in individual tiles, which then leaves these AA units vulnerable to ground assault/ artillery barrages. Sort of a double whammy there for those who spawned in regions without the necessary strategic resources for a/c.

The conflicts last night were different as well. My first war involved collusion with the French against the other civ on our continent, the Persians. It was very early in the game, and I had no desire to go to war, but based on my experience with the French (and knowing they will always war on someone), then it was better for the French to war on someone other than me at that point in the game. To make a long story short why, even though I shared a common border with the Persians, I never fired a shot against the Persians in that conflict, instead focusing on and taking out a Persian allied C-S, and when the Persians finally sued for peace I gained quite a bit of gold and resources from them.
When the French finally did declare war on me I was ready in a nicely prepared defensive shell, and all the French assaults failed to get within a tile of a city, and when they sued for peace I got a plum of a city which divided the French empire in half. The French then again went to war with the Persians, and once they had exhausted their meager offensive capabilities why I swept in and wiped them out, using only conventional forces.

So, this leads to the question of the day: for SMAC faction development have you started mapping the Civ 5 civs to factions yet? Tentatively I want to say that the French map to the Hive, simply because of their (typically successful) warlike tendencies.


D

 

[Spatzimaus]

Would it make sense to wait till after the enxt patch and see if the devs tweak this logic themselves, then go from there?

The next patch has very little content or balance. It's all stability and UI fixes. I was singularly unimpressed when I read through it, but they say that it's really the first half of a two-part patch and the OTHER half will have all of the balance and content changes. So I'm not worried about stepping on their toes.

Also, I just don't see them making the kinds of changes necessary for this. It's too large of a change, and ONLY matters if you're playing the game well after the point where nukes are unlocked, and that pretty much only happens in mods like this.

a player with these strategic resources can quickly stack as many a/c as necessary into a city to defend against enemy a/c

The flip side of this is that if you lose that city (or it gets nuked) all of the aircraft are destroyed instantly, whereas land-based AA can't get wiped out by conquering a city. (A nuke obviously CAN take them out.)

AA units also are passive. A fighter needs to be explicitly ordered to intercept, and can't do anything else, while an AA unit can be running over weak units or capturing workers and still provide anti-air support. This is the real reason why the Plasma Artillery is so dangerous; you can bombard a city on your turn, and still get the full air defense on the opponent's turn. A needlejet used for bombardment, assuming it isn't killed by the intercepting fire, is done for the turn.

The French then again went to war with the Persians, and once they had exhausted their meager offensive capabilities why I swept in and wiped them out, using only conventional forces.

Exactly. The biggest danger is that the AIs will stop fighting each other as much once a clear leader (usually YOU) emerges. That'll make them build up their militaries (and nukes) with no one to use them on. But throw a few bribes around, maybe offer a luxury or two, and you can get them to wipe each other's armies out.

Again, this might also go back to the fact that I play on King with a tech diffusion mod. I never pull far ahead of the AIs, and they never pull far ahead of me. In the early game I was constantly playing catch-up and rarely got any wonders, but even after I'd conquered half the world, I was STILL beaten to two Digital-era wonders by civs that had gone up the top of the tree while I was focusing on the bottom half.
That sort of situation apparently keeps the AI from triggering its "dogpile on the leader" logic, or at least not as severely.

So, this leads to the question of the day: for SMAC faction development have you started mapping the Civ 5 civs to factions yet?

Not really. If I was to add SMAC factions (which I won't, until I get to the inevitable scenario that takes place on Planet) I'd probably try making custom traits for each. Remember, these factions are supposed to represent somewhat multicultural colonies from various nations on Earth, so they'll never be side-by-side with the existing civs.

But in general, the Hive's trait would involve an unhappiness modifier (sort of like India) or the Chinese great general bonus, the Spartans would be either an Aztec-style culture kill bonus or a Japan-style Bushido, and so on. Possibly both for each; I'd be okay with making stronger traits (essentially doubling up) since with only 3 eras to work with you'd have fewer UUs/UBs. After all, you're looking at 7 SMAC civs (12 if you include the non-alien ones from the expansion), so doubling up the traits is okay.
But this scenario is a LONG way away, if I ever get around to doing it. For now I'm focusing on the Earth-centric mod, where Lal, Santiago, etc. are only known from the communications they sent back from the AC colony.

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Forgot to add, I thought of something related to the nuke discussion. There's a remarkably simple solution to some of the balance issues we've been discussing, about how nuclear missiles are just so strong.
Two solutions, actually.
1> In GlobalDefines are the parameters for nuke damage. The parameters are split into Level 1 (atomic bomb) and Level 2 (nuclear missile). So the first option is just to tone down these numbers, to where a single nuke just doesn't do as much damage. (You can also set nuke blast radius, but it applies to both types).
2> The second option is even simpler: change the Nuclear Missile from Level 2 to Level 1. Give it the exact same effect as an Atomic Bomb and just jack up the range to true intercontinental distances; harder to stop, not nearly as crippling. This way, I could keep the Planet Buster at Level 2, but since it comes AFTER the invention of SDI it's not as unbalancing.
It's something to think about.

 

[Chaotic Law]

Ok, I have been playing the v21 mod for a few days now. I started from Ancient and I have to say the excitement of getting to the changes you put ingame made me pretty excited. KGB was the first I think. So anyway I am on Turn 1379 (1890AD), Price difficulty, (1909 Science, 345G and 4 Happiness per turn) I have only had 3 crashes so far. They all seemed to be related to a sound playing. All 3 were the same. The game just locks up after I finished moving or attacking with 1 unit and it automatically cycles to the next. But it never gets to the next unit. Anyway just my impression. Only Egypt France and Babylon left with 2 city states. I have complete control of the game. I took all their cities that has access to Uranium so no fear of a nuke. I did run into 1 issue. The stealth bomber never gets any abilities as it experiences up. The bomber has 23 XP but has never triggered getting a new ability.

So just wanted to let you know I love it so far. I need to play it on a much harder level as this game is way too easy. I usually put myself on 1 team and play against 2 or 3 other on a second team.

Chaotic Law

 

[Spatzimaus]

The stealth bomber never gets any abilities as it experiences up. The bomber has 23 XP but has never triggered getting a new ability.

That's actually a known issue with the game; they're fixing it in the next patch. (It's in the patch notes.) No idea why it happens.

I have only had 3 crashes so far. They all seemed to be related to a sound playing.

In my experience, crashes happen at three points now:
1> The game tries to play two sounds at once, usually involving a combat sound overlapping an ambient one. (The fact that we can't turn off the ambient sounds without disabling everything else is a separate bit of stupidity.)
2> A unit, usually naval, moves past a shoreline quickly enough that the game tries to redraw a bunch of improvements (triggering SerialEventImprovementCreated).
3> An improvement is removed from display, usually because a worker replaces one improvement with another (also triggering that same serial event) but also possibly as part of my terraform code.

Since these aren't really my fault and are in the core game, I'm hoping some of the stability fixes they're putting in the next patch will help with these.

I need to play it on a much harder level as this game is way too easy.

While I preferred testing on Prince because it's the "baseline", it's just too easy so I always play on King now. Although, I use a tech diffusion mod to ensure I don't fall TOO far behind before the benefits of better empire management kick in, and conversely, the AIs won't fall far behind me once I get on a roll (which removes the need to force AIs to team up).

To your game, I would say that an income of 345G before 1900AD is an awful lot, although I'm assuming based on your past comments that this is Marathon speed on a Huge map and maybe you were in a Golden Age, in which case it'd be pretty typical. If it wasn't a Golden Age, then that's way too much, although 1900AD might not be the most useful metric; what tech are you currently researching? If you're past the point where you've placed Energy Banks in your cities then it's a lot more reasonable.

As for nukes, be careful; having all of the uranium will NOT stop them from building nukes eventually.
> Wall Street (at Combustion) produces one unit of each strategic, including uranium (although you won't get the uranium until you unlock that resource, of course). One unit might not be much, but hey, it's something. If they use it on a nuke before using it for a nuclear plant...
(In v.0.20, city-states could build these national wonders, and I may re-enable that in the next version because I kinda liked the effect of having city-states specialize a bit. A city-state that built Wall Street would then gift all of these resources to its ally.)
> Planet Busters don't use uranium, they use dilithium.
> Fusion Labs produce Uranium and Aluminum.
> The Supercollider produces 10 units of Uranium.
But it sounds like you've got the game in hand, so you'll probably be done before Fusion Power and you'll win the race to the Supercollider. Just saying, though, that you're not completely safe from nukes just because you control all of the on-map uranium.

 

[Chaotic Law]

I totally forgot about the Stockmarket. Hmm, Well France was able to build nukes before I took the resource from him, so he could have one sitting somewhere. I am struggling to finish this game as my score is double the next closest to me. So its all about seeing the new stuff you put in.

As far as the game I am in, I was not in a golden age. But I was deep into the process of having my Combat Engineers change most of my grassland to jungle and then putting Trading Post on them. End effect was 3 food 2 or 3 gold depending on location and 2 science. Some of the tiles are also getting 1 hammer although I dont know why. Yes all my major cities have Energy Banks.

Chaotic Law

 

[Spatzimaus]

End effect was 3 food 2 or 3 gold depending on location and 2 science. Some of the tiles are also getting 1 hammer although I dont know why.

Non-freshwater Trading Posts get +1 production at Industrial Economics, the same tech that gives Energy Banks. This'd offset the -1 production for the jungle (meaning jungle-on-grassland is no longer a free +1 food, although the science boost obviously helps). If the tile was a plains instead of a grassland, you'd have a net +1 production.

 

[Chaotic Law]

I would like to make a suggestion. Can you name your 2 mods Crazy Spatz Alpha Centauri and Crazy Spatz Balance Mod so they are both together on the mod list? That will also help when you actaully upload these to the ingame mod menu. Thanks, so I am starting over on a harder level.

Chaotic Law

 

[Spatzimaus]

Can you name your 2 mods Crazy Spatz Alpha Centauri and Crazy Spatz Balance Mod so they are both together on the mod list?

These were never intended to be the permanent names for the mods. Especially the content mod... Spatz's Mod for Alpha Centauri is really only the name because of its acronym. After all, it's not even ON Alpha Centauri, which has confused a lot of people. Ideally, I'd find a new name for it that doesn't directly link back to SMAC, but which users can still keep track of (something like Planetfall).
In the near term I might change it to "Crazy Spatz - Balance" and "Crazy Spatz - Content" to keep things simple (and yes, to keep them together on the list), but at some point I'm going to need a permanent name.

 

[Chaotic Law]

I do like Planetfall. The other 2 interim name are also good. In reality it doesnt make much difference to me. But its nice to see them next to each other. I do run a few other mods with these. But the list is short.

Chraotic Law

 

[Spatzimaus]

I do like Planetfall.

To clarify, I didn't mean that I was proposing to use the name Planetfall for my own mod. I meant "like how the most popular SMAC mod in Civ4 used the name Planetfall instead of calling itself Alpha Centauri". Besides, being that we're on Earth instead of Planet, it'd be more like "Earthfall" anyway.

I really just want the final name to be in place by the time I get to version 1.0, which will be whenever I start getting 3D unit models worked out. And that's still a month of two away. I'd also like to have some sort of graphic for the mod in place when that time comes, for when you look at it in the mod browser, but that's a low priority.

 

[Chaotic Law]

Ok, if all this is on earth then maybe combine the 2 names. Eartha Centauri or Sol Centauri. Hmm, whats the greek word for earth? Ok I looked it and its Gaia so maybe Roman: Terra Centauri. Anyway, I know its not that important. But some things to think about.

On another note. Started a new game. 621 turns and no crashes. Haiwatha is going on a rampage. I have never seen him do that before. He has already taken out 2 other Civs. He is at war with everbody except 1 city state and me.

Chaotic Law

 

[Eiken]

Ver nice mod, playing on Prince, epic as France, i controled half planet befor nuclear era and after i get nuclear bombs i tried to nuke some nation to stone age (Hiawatha), i notice after i steamrolled him (fire two-three nukes every 10 turn, killed bunch of my unit with every hit) my workers (or upgraded workers) do not repair pillaged farms,mines etc., they just cleared fallouts.
After this fun war i won diplomatic victory (strange, when you see me fire around 10-15 nukes).
Hope you add something like "You used nukes, we hate you." At least for City States

 

[Spatzimaus]

i notice after i steamrolled him (fire two-three nukes every 10 turn, killed bunch of my unit with every hit) my workers (or upgraded workers) do not repair pillaged farms,mines etc., they just cleared fallouts.

I never automate workers, but I'm not surprised to hear this. Fallout adds -3 to all yields, so clearing it off is MUCH more valuable than repairing an improvement, unless you really needed a certain resource to be hooked back up (and the AI just doesn't value things that way.)

Hope you add something like "You used nukes, we hate you." At least for City States

I COULD add that. It's not hard to code. The problem is, the AI would have no clue why its relationships were tanking, and therefore no reason not to continue to use nukes. The way the AI is coded, we just can't add that sort of consideration without DLL access, so the AI would continue to act the way it does now. This'd make it trivial for a human player to win a diplomatic victory, so I'm not going to do that.
Also, there's no way that I've found to get positional information for a nuke attack, so I couldn't just limit the diplomatic damage to those city-states near ground zero. It'd have to be everyone or no one. To make things worse, I could ONLY adjust city-state relations, I couldn't have this ruin AIs' relationships with each other (which is what I'd REALLY need).

So instead, I'm focusing on the defensive side of nuke warfare. With what I'm doing in the next version, by the mid-Fusion era you'll be able to make your core cities be completely immune to nuke damage, and by the start of the Nanotech you'd be able to be entirely immune to nuke attacks altogether across your entire empire. Things will still be hairy for the two tiers between Atomic Bombs (T13) and SDI (T15), but after that it won't be so bad.
I'm also considering downgrading the damage of the earlier atomic weapons, so that they just don't do as much to units caught in the open. (Planet Busters would be more deadly.) I haven't tried that one out yet, though.

 

[dinobot386]

I like the name "Earthfall"

Catches peoples attention who played the Planetfall mod

 

[Spatzimaus]

I like the name "Earthfall"

At first I thought that it was just too apocalyptic. But given the nukefest many people have been experiencing, plus the Breakout throwing psi units around, it's really starting to grow on me; the future eras are definitely more violent than the earlier ones, because you can't turtle up and develop your industry once everyone has nukes and orbital weapons.

(Of course, Earthfall is the name of a book by Orson Scott Card, based loosely on the Book of Mormon, so I'd want to make sure no one thinks this mod is in any way related to that.)

-----------------------------------------

There's one issue I'd like to bring up, in this discussion of getting version 1.0: Feature Creep. (Not to be confused with the Creepers from Minecraft. I hate those guys.)

When I added SDI to the game a couple versions back, I crossed a line. It was, simply put, the first building/wonder/project in the future eras that wasn't taken directly from SMAC. I was okay with it because SDI was in the previous Civ games, and it was an absolute necessity to keep nukes under control, but it still broke a precedent I'd been careful to follow.
For units I've poached from non-SMAC sources, since there aren't exactly Trolls, Doppelgangers, and Bolos in that game, but that was necessary because of the lack of a SMAC-styled unit modification system. Besides, the SMAC units tended to be kinda boring, and I wanted to take advantage of the Civ5 system.
And the resources are obviously new, because SMAC never really had any. It had some tiles with the equivalent of bonus resources, but nothing like luxuries or strategics.
But the buildings and wonders were all based on SMAC buildings and projects, even if the actual effects are very different. Same goes for techs; every tech is either directly taken from SMAC, or in a couple cases are the combination of two SMAC techs.

It'd be very easy to just add more and more futuristic things to a mod, both units and buildings. The problem with doing so is that if you add more assets, then you need more techs to keep from lumping too many things up at any one tech. As it is I've got 16 techs in several eras, where the norm for the vanilla game is 11-12, so I'd almost be better off rearranging the techs so that my mod added FOUR future eras of 11-12 techs apiece. I'd prefer not to do that, which brings us to the question:

How far do you get?

Does anyone ever reach the Nanotech Era through anything other than purely mop-up/One More Turn type gameplay? At what point, technologically, is the game basically "over"? In effect, I want to know how much of the content I've added is actually making a difference in the outcome of the game, and how much is only there for the curiosity of players who've already won.

If people are still having competitive games in the Fusion Era, then it might be worthwhile to rearrange the techs into four eras, which'd also open the door for adding a few new things down the road (and allow me to put a bigger gap between the normal units and the Titans). But if it's basically over by that point, then there's no reason to bother.

 

[Chaotic Law]

Ok, the first game I played was version 21. I got a few techs into your new stuff but I had pretty much already won the game. So I started over on King. Hiawatha went crazy and is taking over the world. I am not much farther along than I was in my previous post (been playing Portal 2 Co-op with my wife), but the main thing is that Hiawatha has 2 times my score so he will be a real challenge. I think bt the time we get to nukes it might just be me and him. If thats the case I will play nice nice to him so he doesnt blow me off the planet then when my defenses are good enough I will slowly start taking his cities. Thats the plan anyways. I really do want to get to all your modding goodness with this game. Main thing is you do have a point, I want it to still be a fight when we get to end game. I will let you know how it goes.

Chaotic Law

 

[Darsnan]

which brings us to the question:

How far do you get?

Does anyone ever reach the Nanotech Era through anything other than purely mop-up/One More Turn type gameplay?

I get into the beginning of the Digital era, but the games usually don't last long after that, for various reasons.

D

 

[Spatzimaus]

I get into the beginning of the Digital era, but the games usually don't last long after that, for various reasons.

Okay, can you speculate on those reasons?

Are you winning through diplomacy, where the amount of money you're making is causing the problem? And how much of that is due to the really long golden age you get from building a spaceship? I'm looking at downgrading it to a single-length GA for the space race winner and nothing for the rest, instead of a double-length for the winner and a single-length for the others. (Alternatively, if I can figure out how to trigger it, I could give everyone a normal GA and give the race winner a Great Empath, which they could sacrifice for more length if they wanted.)
Are you winning militarily? The original idea for the Digital Era was that it was supposed to basically stall out, militarily, with the new units not being much stronger than the old ones.
Or are you winning culturally? I'm actually in the process of changing the policy cost progression right now, because of that extra policy I need to add to make negative-happiness buildings work. So instead of (25 + 6*(N^1.7)) as the base cost, it'll be more like (20 + 5*(N^1.7)), where N is one higher than it was before. But since I'm changing this progression anyway, it shouldn't be hard to reduce or increase the number of policies people are getting.

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My plan is for a new version to come out on Friday. Real life is going to be pretty busy for me before then, and I want to test a couple bits I've added more extensively. If I'm lucky, then the negative-happiness buildings AND possibly the Empath specialists will finally work, and if those work then they're going to need a LOT of testing and rebalancing of other happiness buildings.