Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri Mod

[Chaotic Law]

I just realized something. When I play I only play with Domination selected. So I was looking ahead at the technology tree and I see that Centaur Ecology is locked. Can I still build the Spaceship when Domination is the only way to win? Please say I am wrong.

Chaotic Law

 

[Spatzimaus]

Can I still build the Spaceship when Domination is the only way to win?

I'm pretty sure you can't. While the spaceship "victory" no longer ends the game, it IS still necessary to link the spaceship Projects together and trigger a launch. Technically my spaceship code doesn't track the triggering of the victory condition, and simply checks the completion status of the Projects, so I COULD remove the victory entirely if I needed to, but that'd require editing several other UIs (like the Victory Progress UI, with is very handy to have in a space race).

So if you've set the game to Domination-only, you'll have no way to build the ship. The AI won't, either; city-states and barbarians can gain the tech without the spaceship through their secondary mechanism, but I'm pretty sure they can only do that when an empire has the tech.
Centauri Ecology will appear to be locked in the tech tree no matter what options you picked, because that's what a Disabled tech looks like. You can't gain it through Great Scientists, free-tech Wonders, Research Agreements, or espionage. So with no way to get that tech, it'll close off more and more of the tree as techs that depend on it would also be off-limits. You'll run out of techs to research right at the start of the Fusion era, and with no repeatable techs to select, you'd have no way out of the "pick a new tech to research" menu.

(I should really edit the setup menu to remove that button and add one for the transcendence win.)

 

[Darsnan]

Okay, can you speculate on those reasons?

1. I've outright won the game via domination.
2. I've gotten to the point in the game where I know I'm going to win via domination and don't feel like I'm gaining anything by continueing to play.
3. I've outright lost via domination.
4. I've outright lost via UN Vote (almost exclusively this is the Siamese and Greeks who win this way).
5. The game starts intermittently crashing to the point where I don't feel like pushing on - and note there are no hard crashes (i.e. I can keep playing when I reload the last autosave) - its just that the crashes are occuring often enough (once every ten-ish turns?) that its not worth pressing on.

D

 

[Spatzimaus]

I get that those are HOW you win, but I'm trying to find out WHY, to see if there's anything I can do to reduce the problem. For instance:

1. I've outright won the game via domination.
2. I've gotten to the point in the game where I know I'm going to win via domination and don't feel like I'm gaining anything by continueing to play.
3. I've outright lost via domination.

With domination wins, what is the tipping point? Is it that you get nukes, wipe out the enemy capitals on the first turn, and are then unstoppable (or get nuked unexpectedly and now can't recover)? Or are you rolling over the AIs with modern armor, mech infantry, and stealth bombers? Or is it still competitive up until you get Skimmers and Vertols?

If it's nuke-related, then my next version should really help. What I'm trying to do is this:
Manhattan Project adds 20% nuke interception, SDI adds 40%, and the Orbital Defense Pods add 4% each (you can build 10), which'd total 100%. (ODPs will also reduce the damage dealt by enemy orbital weapons by 5% when they target your cities or units, so having all 10 means an enemy Orbital Death Ray's base strength drops from 150 to 75.)
But, I'm trying to then modify the nuke interception chance based on the weapon type used; Atomic Bombs would be 150% of normal, Nuclear Missiles 100%, Planet Busters 50%. So even the Manhattan Project would give you a 30% chance to stop incoming atomic bombs, and adding the SDI would raise that to 90% for atomic bombs (60% for Nuclear Missiles), which should drastically slow down the early-Digital nuke spree. Even in the endgame, a Planet Buster would have a 33% chance of getting through, so these weapons would still be useful against other empires, and city-states have no nuke defenses at all.
(These numbers are subject to change. I might drop the Manhattan to 10% and raise SDI to 50%.)
I'm hoping that these will slow down the nukefest without eliminating the utility of nukes entirely. I'm also going to tweak the flavor values a bit, and make nuke units go obsolete a little faster than before to encourage the AI to build the more advanced (and more expensive) nukes instead of churning out atomic bombs.

If you're doing this with conventional units, then there are other things I can try. One possibility was to rebalance all of the strengths. For instance, the Modern Armor is 80 in the vanilla game, and I lowered it to 70. What if, instead, I changed it to 60 but with the Blitz promotion for free? (Still an upgrade of the 50-strength Tank, especially with the increased move rate, but not as severe of a jump in raw power.) And then I'd similarly lower the Gunship, Vertol, Skimmer, and Gravtank... if I can get the All-Terrain promotion working for the Vertol and Gravtank, they won't need the extra power anyway.

4. I've outright lost via UN Vote (almost exclusively this is the Siamese and Greeks who win this way).

Is this a win-on-first-vote thing where it hadn't occurred to you to bribe any city-states up to that point (meaning you now avoid losing this way easily), or do they ever win the UN through gradual accumulation of votes AFTER the UN is founded (where even though you might try to stop them, you just can't do it)?

One thing I'm considering there is boosting the diplomatic ratings of civs other than Siam and Greece. America, for instance, could be more willing to bribe city-states; not enough that they'd be able to overcome Greece or Siam in a diplomatic win, but enough that they'd pick up a few allies here and there and keep Greece from sweeping them all. France and England would seem like likely choices for this as well as the empires that went through major colonial phases. (I don't have any of the DLCs.)

its just that the crashes are occurring often enough (once every ten-ish turns?) that its not worth pressing on.

Once per ten turns is a lot better than it used to be, but it looks like the crash is inherent to the game, and occurs whenever an improvement/resource/whatever is deleted graphically. In the vanilla game this won't happen often, but in the future eras every tile will be improved and all non-water resources will require you to create a new improvement in place of an old one. I've definitely crashed the game using only pre-existing improvements, though, when I tried placing a mine on a uranium that had a trading post on top of it.

There's one little bit that I can try improving on this, still, involving art definitions, where I think it might be having a problem with some unset variables. So it might get better through my own efforts, but it's more likely that you'll have to wait to see what the next official patch does to the stability. (I know they're working on reducing crashes.)

 

[Darsnan]

I get that those are HOW you win, but I'm trying to find out WHY, to see if there's anything I can do to reduce the problem.

Why I win is a problem?

OK, so first, please remember that the reason I am helping you out is because I do plan on eventually building my own mod (I'd stated this when I first started posting in your thread, but haven't really mentioned it since), which will start out at the beginning of the game (i.e. not tacking more eras onto the end of the game).
What I am doing now with your mod is:

a) helping you out
b) learning how to mod
c) characterizing the AIs and the ciV environment

In response to your question about WHY I win, item C from above is probably the most important regarding this. The way I am approaching this is to play relatively consistently from game to game to game, and thus via multiple iterations of this playstyle in the same environment (i.e. same map, same faction, same game settings) I can discern the elements of the game, which should lead to a better playing environment for my mod once I get around to building it.

So I guess in a nutshell the reason I win my games is because the playstyle I've adopted "worked" for the certain set of circumstances I encountered in that particular game.
In my domination victories, one common denominator seems to be that I (or one of the other AIs) wipe out the Siamese and Greeks, and no other civ has allied enough C-S to gain a diplomatic victory (I don't interact with the C-S to try and gain their alliance, as I am not interested in how I can beat the game using C-S at this point, but rather how the AIs fare with this game mechanic).
Another common denominator regarding my domination wins is the distribution of uranium: as I'd mentioned previously its not a choice to research the techs involving nuclear bombs, its a necessity, and as soon as you research nuclear bombs you build'em and sling'em before the same happens to you. Typically I get to this point first, but if I end up in some early wars then I end up behind tech-wise and I can be on the receiving end of this treatment. In these cases I do play it out as long as possible, as it can become extremely interesting and enjoyable trying to fend off multiple foes while trying to recover my lands from nuclear obliteration.

is it still competitive up until you get Skimmers and Vertols?

I've never built a single skimmer or vertol, either because the game is over or I don't have the resources to build them.

If it's nuke-related, then my next version should really help. What I'm trying to do is this:
Manhattan Project adds 20% nuke interception, SDI adds 40%, and the Orbital Defense Pods add 4% each (you can build 10), which'd total 100%. (ODPs will also reduce the damage dealt by enemy orbital weapons by 5% when they target your cities or units, so having all 10 means an enemy Orbital Death Ray's base strength drops from 150 to 75.)
But, I'm trying to then modify the nuke interception chance based on the weapon type used; Atomic Bombs would be 150% of normal, Nuclear Missiles 100%, Planet Busters 50%. So even the Manhattan Project would give you a 30% chance to stop incoming atomic bombs, and adding the SDI would raise that to 90% for atomic bombs (60% for Nuclear Missiles), which should drastically slow down the early-Digital nuke spree.

Looking forward to playtesting that!

If you're doing this with conventional units, then there are other things I can try. One possibility was to rebalance all of the strengths. For instance, the Modern Armor is 80 in the vanilla game, and I lowered it to 70. What if, instead, I changed it to 60 but with the Blitz promotion for free? (Still an upgrade of the 50-strength Tank, especially with the increased move rate, but not as severe of a jump in raw power.) And then I'd similarly lower the Gunship, Vertol, Skimmer, and Gravtank... if I can get the All-Terrain promotion working for the Vertol and Gravtank, they won't need the extra power anyway.

IMO armor is just re-skinned calvary/ knights: it charges out, attacks, and retreats. My observation is that the AIs do employ these units in that fashion, so giving them an extra movement point would probably be beneficial to the AIs.

Is this a win-on-first-vote thing where it hadn't occurred to you to bribe any city-states up to that point (meaning you now avoid losing this way easily) .

I don't bribe city-states, and sometimes when I lose this way I'll just keep playing if its interesting enough.

One thing I'm considering there is boosting the diplomatic ratings of civs other than Siam and Greece. America, for instance, could be more willing to bribe city-states; not enough that they'd be able to overcome Greece or Siam in a diplomatic win, but enough that they'd pick up a few allies here and there and keep Greece from sweeping them all. France and England would seem like likely choices for this as well as the empires that went through major colonial phases. (I don't have any of the DLCs.)

I think this is a good idea to re-balance other civs as it mimics how a human would play (i.e. a human would "learn" to bribe several C-S to prevent the Siamese or Greeks from gaining a diplomatic win). France I like as they are - very Hivish in that they are very warlike and chunk out lots of units to contend with. So perhaps the Iriquois instead?

D

 

[Spatzimaus]

Why I win is a problem?

Yes, because your pain is funny.

Really, it's that I'm trying to make the AI be competitive for as long as possible. If you've found a strategy that consistently leads to a victory at a relatively early stage (and Digital counts as "relatively early" to me), then it's a problem because the "competitive" phase is therefore over ahead of schedule. So if I can find a way to prevent your strategy from working, or at least make it a bit less optimal, then it's good for the game as a whole.
My goal is that militarily, the Fusion era should be when the major warfare occurs, and that the introduction of Titan and Orbital units should be the "game over" moment, militarily. The Digital Era is supposed to be more Renaissance-like, with a lot of wonder building and tile improvement. So if you're going on unchecked rampages in that era, it means my balance isn't right yet. It's not about you, or your particular playstyle; if any one strategy is that good, then AIs (who follow strategies in a very random way) would either win easily or lose badly based solely on the path they chose at particular moments, and that's bad.

I don't interact with the C-S to try and gain their alliance, as I am not interested in how I can beat the game using C-S at this point, but rather how the AIs fare with this game mechanic.

What I'd prefer to encourage is the idea of each civ having one "close" ally that they'll try to keep on their side at all costs. Remember, there's a 2:1 ratio by default, so this'd still give more diplomatic empires the chance to pick up large pools of allies, but every America should have a Canada that stays on its side.
While I can easily code Lua to increase or decrease decay rates of alliances, this sort of thing really requires DLL access to get it right. But that's the benchmark I've been balancing around, where each empire would try to have a single minor civ solidly on its side. (What I've found is that Cultural city-states are just far too weak in the later eras, but I'm working on that.)

Another common denominator regarding my domination wins is the distribution of uranium: as I'd mentioned previously its not a choice to research the techs involving nuclear bombs, its a necessity, and as soon as you research nuclear bombs you build'em and sling'em before the same happens to you.

I've rarely done that, but I see the appeal. My goal is to make it so that the player sees the nuke path as being no more valuable than the diplomatic or conventional military avenues. My upcoming interception changes should help with this, but I'm also looking at reducing fallout cleanup times, reducing the amount of fallout in the first place, reducing the damage dealt to units caught in the open, and so on; in effect, reducing the amount of time needed to recover from an unexpected nuclear attack when it DOES happen.

So one question about this: do you have this problem with atomic bombs, or is it only the level 2 detonations (nuclear missiles, which destroy units outright) that unbalance this whole thing? That is, if I reduced the effect of the Nuclear Missile to only be a level 1 explosion (same damage as the atomic bomb) but gave them a much bigger (planetary) range and a lower interception chance, would it help the situation any, or would the effect be as unbalanced as it is now?

France I like as they are - very Hivish in that they are very warlike and chunk out lots of units to contend with. So perhaps the Iriquois instead?

Napoleon actually has one of the higher diplo ratings in the game already. If Siam and Greece aren't in the game, and France is, you'll often see France cleaning up on city-state alliances. Some of this is tied to the randomness of the leaders, but he's still pretty far up the scale.

In general, this fits pretty well with history. People like the Iroquois were pretty isolationist, in the sense that they never really had contact with any empires other than the ones whose war they got involved in; you wouldn't see Iroquois diplomats wandering around Geneva trying to get the Swiss on their side. But for centuries, the French and British would colonize/conquer/ally with places on the opposite side of the world on a regular basis. (The Dutch and Spanish weren't exactly far behind.) And America's extraterritorial pursuits are... plentiful. I'd also put Rome on this list.

That's why it's so funny that Greece and Siam are the ones who have this bonus. In real life, these weren't exactly powerhouses of international diplomacy. And yet, because their traits are city-state specific, they need that higher rating to stay competitive.

 

[Chaotic Law]

After reading many of the comments left here I see that many people have their own playing style. Like I said I always play with Domination Victory. Now will be the 1st time I try for one of the other victories but only because I want/need Centauri Ecology. Oh btw, which victory will trigger being able to research Centauri Ecology? I also play with minimum City States usually just 6 on a small map. The only reason I dont set it to zero City states as I need someone to level up my units. If it werent for that then I would always play with zero. The reason for that is I CANT raze their cities. They almost always found the city in some stupid place that restricts that city form being real nice. Like 1 hex away form a river or coast tile. I am waiting for someone to make a mod so I can raze ANY city. My main focus on playing this game is TERRAFORMING!!! I love reshaping the landscape. I usually have an army of workers reshaping the land for me. Dont know if that helps any but I figured I would throw in my 2 cents.

Chaotic Law

PS: I never build nukes and do my best never to be nuked. Reason is if I nuke somebody I have to go in and clean it up. My workers have better things to do.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Like I said I always play with Domination Victory. Now will be the 1st time I try for one of the other victories but only because I want/need Centauri Ecology. Oh btw, which victory will trigger being able to research Centauri Ecology?

To be clear, the "Spaceship Victory" condition is necessary for the projects that lead to that tech, but "winning" that victory doesn't actually win the game. You'll get a little popup that says you're #1 in science, but the game will continue on as normal and it doesn't register as a victory. So you can still have it where the only way to win the actual game is through Domination, but you need to have the spaceship victory turned on internally. (There's a Lua command you can use to turn it on in FireTuner, if you don't want to start your game over. I'll try to find the format for that when I get home; I don't know if it'll re-enable the various spaceship parts, but you can try it.)

I could also make it so that there's some other way to get that tech if you've disabled the spaceship, but I'd prefer to leave it as-is and just set the spaceship to always be on.

Time, Diplomatic, and Cultural can be turned off as normal. Transcend can be turned off internally, but the UI right now hard-codes it on.

PS: I never build nukes and do my best never to be nuked. Reason is if I nuke somebody I have to go in and clean it up. My workers have better things to do.

I'm the same way, usually. But I also dislike nukes because it's just too easy; destroying all of the units in an area is bad, but it's far worse against an AI who doesn't really think through his 1UPT positioning. That sort of edge for the player is just too much. It's like ICS; you had people winning on Emperor/Deity with ease because they knew to place cities on a grid instead of in the best locations, which gave them a huge edge over the AI.

 

[Chaotic Law]

So all I need to do is build the Spaceship and Centaur Ecology unlocks? If not then what victory conditions do I need to set. Sorry for being ignorant but I have never gone that route.

Chaotic Law

 

[Spatzimaus]

So all I need to do is build the Spaceship and Centaur Ecology unlocks?

Yes. Or, just sit back and wait and it'll have a random chance of unlocking once someone ELSE builds a spaceship. The only thing the victory toggle controls is whether or not the spaceship can be built by ANY civ, which is why it needs to be on. You don't have to be the one to build it, although you get better benefits if you do.


What happens is this: at the start of each turn, the game loops over all players. It checks to see if they've built (at ANY time in the past): one SS cockpit, one SS engine, one SS stasis chamber, and three SS boosters. And by "built" I mean completed, moved to your capital, and sacrificed. (That's what completes the Projects.) In a vanilla game, that'd be enough to win the game, but I've disabled that trigger; all the Victory declaration does in that case is specify how many of each part you need to sacrifice and handle the UI for Victory Progress.

During that loop, it looks to see if that player has the Centauri Ecology tech already.

If the player in question has completed all of the Projects but doesn't have the tech, then they must have completed the spaceship during the last turn. Congratulate the player, and award the Centauri Ecology tech, a golden age, and a free Policy. (If you're the first to complete the ship, it gives a little more: an extra free tech and the golden age is twice as long, although I might still change this a bit. If two civs tie, both get the benefits I think.) Also, all of your current wars instantly end when you launch a ship.

So that's the hard way to get the tech. There's an easier way, if you don't want to bother with the ship: the Breakout.
As soon as a spaceship launches, a timer starts, with 10-30 (randomly set) turns on it. Each turn, a random number between 1 and N is removed from the counter, where N is the number of ships that have been launched so far. (That is, if the timer was set to 20 by the first ship, and after 8 turns a second civ launched a ship, then it'd start ticking faster, removing 1-2 each turn, meaning the last 12 would take ~8 turns on average.)
When the timer runs out, the Breakout occurs: spore towers spawn all around the world (and will continue to spawn at a slower rate from then on), everyone gets the Centauri Ecology tech for free (including city-states and barbarians), and all spaceship parts go obsolete (meaning you can't get the other benefits for launching).

Generally speaking, it's in your best interests to make the ship; besides the bonuses for launching a ship, giving the AI a ~20 turn lead on building the Wonders and units in that line of techs is just a bad idea. But you don't HAVE to do it, if you're too busy fighting for your life or something. (Maybe you're doing a one-city challenge, for instance; kind of hard to build six parts that way.)

There's actually a third path I haven't mentioned before, because it doesn't actually give you Centauri Ecology. If some other civ has completed a ship (giving them Centauri Ecology), and has then researched Centauri Empathy (or gained it using the free tech for launching first, or used a great Scientist), you could steal THAT tech using KGB or the Planetary Datalinks. Only the disabled Centauri Ecology tech is directly protected from theft. So it's possible, although horribly unlikely, that you could progress beyond Ecology before the Breakout occurs.

-------------
I've tried to explain this through in-game documentation, in the Concepts part of the Civilopedia and the entry for the Centauri Ecology tech, but as you can see, it's not a simple mechanism. Besides, it's mostly transparent to the user: if you build a ship, you get the tech and some other stuff. If you don't build a ship, you'll eventually get the tech anyway, but no other stuff.

 

[Chaotic Law]

Ok, thanks for the complete explanation. Much appreciated. Well off to start another new game. Oh I saw that you added sewer system into this build. I like that.

Chaotic Law

 

[Spatzimaus]

Oh I saw that you added sewer system into this build. I like that.

The Sewer System has been in there since the beginning. And I do mean "beginning", as in, six months ago when I released v.0.01, alongside the Aqueduct and Recycling Center. The only thing to note is that it's in the Balance mod, not the Content mod, so if you tend to use one but not the other you might have missed it. These three buildings are basically made to offset the +0.2 unhappiness per population change (it's 1.2/pop now, instead of 1.0), under the assumption that you'd build one every ~5 sizes.

The only thing that's changed about it since I first implemented it was that it got a new icon a couple versions back. Previously, it had just used the Granary's icon.

 

[Chaotic Law]

I just started to use the Balance mod with v22. So that probably why I didnt see it before. I am amazed at all the work you have done. Keep it up!! I started a new game but got bum rushed by England very early on, so going to start a new game tomorrow.

Chaotic Law

 

[Darsnan]

One thing I’ve been meaning ot mention but haven’t is the KGB Wonder. The KGB Wonder’s benefits are the ability to “steal” a tech from other civs on a turn by turn basis.
Since you’ve implemented the KGB, why almost exclusively I’ve been able to snag it. It’s relatively inexpensive (I think its about 2/3rds the cost of other Wonders in that region?), and it doesn’t seem the AIs prioritize it. However I am finding I get on average around 4-5 free techs a game via this mechanism. Considering the costs of research agreements, why this is a relatively cheap alternative in this sense as well.
I also find I can fit building the KGB easily into my build queue of Sistine Chapel (or Louvre as I don’t always get the SC)/KGB/Cristo Redentor, and almost exclusively I can get the CR in this realm.

Question: have you considered upping the cost of the KGB, giving it a higher priority, or letting it get superseded when the Planetary Datalinks is built?

Also, concerning nukes: I'm really beginning to lean towards your thought of having less damage inflicted (i.e. changing the blast radius via the xml files): considering how long it takes to build units, why I think less damage to a standing force favors a player who doesn't have uranium, as he can still have a sizeable force to counter the inevitable rush after the nukes fall.


D

 

[Spatzimaus]

Since you’ve implemented the KGB, why almost exclusively I’ve been able to snag it.

It's a national wonder. Everyone can have one. (That's also why it's cheaper than a "normal" wonder of that era.) The Planetary Datalinks and Nethack Terminus, the other two main espionage buildings, are also national wonders. The only World Wonder involved in the espionage process is the Telepathic Matrix. So the AI empires are building their own KGBs and stealing techs from you as well.

Unfortunately, the game's interface doesn't separate world wonders from national wonders, outside of the civilopedia. I might try fixing that myself, because it really annoys me. At the very least I'll put something into the help text to explicitly denote this.

However I am finding I get on average around 4-5 free techs a game via this mechanism.

The exact rate is subject to change, of course. Right now the KGB caps at 4% (meaning if every other civ in the game, including city-states, has a tech and you don't, you have a 4% chance each turn of stealing it, assuming Standard game speed), the Planetary Datalinks adds another 5%, and the Nethack Terminus adds a final 1%. I can lower that to 3/4/1 or something, if it ends up being too fast.

Are those 4-5 techs happening when you're the tech leader, or are you consistently behind in technologies when you're getting them? Remember that these mechanisms were put in place to primarily help the civs that lag behind technologically (like a civ that's had half of its empire conquered and so now has little research output). If you're the front-runner you'll still get a tech or two from some other part of the tree, and if you like starting on a higher difficulty level then it'll be very useful early on.

Also, concerning nukes: I'm really beginning to lean towards your thought of having less damage inflicted (i.e. changing the blast radius via the xml files)

I'd love to change the blast radius for some nuke types and not others, but in the XML that's an all-or-nothing thing. What I was looking at was reducing the damage and/or fallout chance of nukes, since that CAN be done on a 2-level basis.

 

[Verticalo]

Is it able to make something fun out of the united nations?

Something like you don't need a certain amount of votes to win, the one with the most votes gets some benefits. Something like the spaceship.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Is it able to make something fun out of the united nations?

Not easily. I'd originally wanted something along these lines, where the UN would unlock resolutions (and give its founder +1 votes), and a later wonder (initially the Empath Guild) would enable the victory condition as well as adding another +1. Unfortunately, the +1 vote is tied explicitly to the enabled voting, so you can't also give the owner of the Empath Guild +1 votes. I can disable the victory on the voting (the same way I did the spaceship), and add a second victory condition that's awarded through Lua, but it'd still be a simple question of voting every 10 turns in the usual way.

It's not trivial in the current setup to add integrated resolutions. So it'd basically be, vote every 10 turns; the "winner" gets some benefit (either a fixed benefit or something random, like a random Great Person), until someone builds the Empath Guild, at which point winning the vote wins the game. Or maybe the Empath Guild just unlocks more options, and the Ascetic Virtues enables the victory vote.
(I COULD try triggering a second screen with some possible resolutions to choose from, but that's a lot more work.)
I may look into doing that at some point in the future, but I'm still hopeful that the devs will put in some better Lua stubs for this. The biggest problem is that the AI, as always, will have no idea that the rules will change at some point down the line.

 

[dinobot386]

Do you think you might be able to add some sort of random events (such as diseases or natural disaters hurting population or buildings)

I know theres a mod for it out there but its probably not a good idea to run it at the same time as yours

 

[Spatzimaus]

I know theres a mod for it out there but its probably not a good idea to run it at the same time as yours

Actually, that sort of mod is one of the few things likely to be completely compatible with my mod. Event-based Lua triggers don't cause many compatibility issues, because it'll just execute all of them sequentially.

So no, I don't intend to implement a random event system into my mod. Not that I wouldn't like to play with a mod like that, but I don't want to diverge TOO far from the core game; all of the things I've added so far to the Balance mod have been designed to level the playing field with the AI in various ways, so I've held off adding some things that I might otherwise like.

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

On a different note, I've got a request. I need to test SDI. I tried using the Team:ChangeNukeInterception function in Lua to simulate a 50% nuke interception rate, and nothing happened. Every nuke still got through.

So, has anyone seen SDI actually stop a nuke attack? (If so, then the Lua stub just isn't working correctly.)

 

[Chaotic Law]

I will keep an eye out for that.

Chaotic Law