Play as Barbarians & Increase player count beyond 7 in Alpha Centauri

[Blake00]

Hi guys,

A couple of questions as I'm about to start playing SMAC again for the first time in 15+ years lol!

1. Is there a way to increase the player count above 7 or is it too hardcoded into the game like with Civ 1 & 2? I've seen how fans have been able to push Call to Power & Civ 3 to quite high players counts, higher than originally intended due to their engines being more open to such things. It would be a dream to play a 14 player SMAC game with the original 7 factions and addon 7 factions all in the one game. Things with the council would get messy lol but oh what fun it would be. I found a thread over at Apolyton where what appears to be one of the SMAC modders talking about how modders were discussing (in a dedicated thread) how to implement this very thing however sadly the link he gave to civgaming.net is dead now. Did it ever amount to anything or was it put in the too hard basket?
2. I'm doing a series of games and videos where I attempt to play as the Barbarians via cheat mode, fan editors, or hex hacking. Had great success with Civ 1, Civ 2 & ToT as there's some good guides out there but as I look to other Civ related games things start to get a bit harder haha! With SMAC I notice that via the scenario editor I can create Alien (Barb) units and even give them regular units like colony settlers. However unfortunately the editor human player selector does not include Aliens (Barbs) so unless there's a hidden trick (like in Civ2's cheat editor) then you cannot take control of them. Therefore does anyone know of a good SMAC save file editor or save file hex editing guide that might make this a possibility?

 

[Petek]

Re: More than 7 factions. The consensus opinion is that it can't be done.
Re: Play as Barbs. Darsnan might know how. He checks in here from time-to-time.

 

[Darsnan]

Hi guys,

A couple of questions as I'm about to start playing SMAC again for the first time in 15+ years lol!

Best. Game. Ever!

1. I'm doing a series of games and videos where I attempt to play as the Barbarians via cheat mode, fan editors, or hex hacking. Had great success with Civ 1, Civ 2 & ToT as there's some good guides out there but as I look to other Civ related games things start to get a bit harder haha! With SMAC I notice that via the scenario editor I can create Alien (Barb) units and even give them regular units like colony settlers. However unfortunately the editor human player selector does not include Aliens (Barbs) so unless there's a hidden trick (like in Civ2's cheat editor) then you cannot take control of them. Therefore does anyone know of a good SMAC save file editor or save file hex editing guide that might make this a possibility?

I recall generating a scenario once where you got to play as the 8th Faction (I believe this was at Apolyton, but I just looked thru threads back till 2005 and couldn't find it. so maybe not), but I can't find it now. IIRC it was buggy as hell and you couldn't change your production from the (I'm assuming) hardcoded default option. If you want I can see about generating it again - shouldn't be too hard. Can probably do a trial version for you this weekend and post here so you can see that its probably not viable.

D

 

[Blake00]

Best. Game. Ever!

I recall generating a scenario once where you got to play as the 8th Faction (I believe this was at Apolyton, but I just looked thru threads back till 2005 and couldn't find it. so maybe not), but I can't find it now. IIRC it was buggy as hell and you couldn't change your production from the (I'm assuming) hardcoded default option. If you want I can see about generating it again - shouldn't be too hard. Can probably do a trial version for you this weekend and post here so you can see that its probably not viable.

Haha yeah I can't wait! I played the hell out of SMAC back in 99 and then returned to it 5yrs later in 2004 to play a 'planet friendly' SMACX game where my planet rating was so high I turned the aliens against the other factions and had so much fun. I now figure that if I fail miserably at taking direct control of the aliens in SMACX then doing another high planet rating game and taking indirect control would be the next best thing for a video in my Barbarian series.

But if if you succeeded then that is brilliant!!! OH YES PLEASE!!! That would be wonderful thank you!!

How did you take control of them?? Did you have to use 3rd party hacking/editing tools.. or did yo find a loophole in the in-game editor? Eg in Civ2 you can't select to play as Barb in the in-game editor but there's a loophole where if you switch to barb map view in the editor and then click on one of their units and end the turn you suddenly take control haha!

Yeah that's okay mate, I expect lots of bugs and frozen build ques but it was the same in Civ and I usually found interesting ways around the problems and was able to win the game without too much cheating haha. I quite enjoy finding ways around what seem like impossible problems and sharing them with the community!

I wish I could show you guys the Barbarian tutorial & victory videos I've made for Civ1, 2 and ToT to give you an idea of my plans for SMACX but I'm still editing the vids atm haha. However I have posted about my Civ 1 Barb game with some pics HERE and my Civ2 Barb game results HERE at least.

 

[Darsnan]

So before I go and experiment to create something more complex, attached is a trial run save: it only has the 8th Faction currently. Just unzip and then in SMACX load the game as a regular save. After you play around with the environment, then if you really want to do this I should be able to figure out how to add some other factions into the game for you. Let me know if the attached is really viable for you (i.e. you can stand playing it the way it is) and I'll proceed with something a little more complex.

D

 

[Darsnan]

And just to follow up, if you do decide for a scenario I've had some idea I thought I'd throw out there:

1. Make it an OCC (or modified OCC in that no CPs can be built, but everyone starts with a city and couple CPs). Otherwise your gonna play merry heck trying to knock out all the cities, as you can't conquer cities (you can only knock them down by 1 pop point each time you move a unit into their cities, and your unit ceases to exist).
2. Raging Planet setting? I could go either way here.
3. Empath units for the AIs? Cuz you know, you like challenges, right?
4. Planet size? Small or Medium is what I'm thinking.
5. Premise for the scenario is that you are Planet: ancient, omniscient, and not interested in sharing your home with anyone. And then these new kids on the block came and started trashing your home. So the name of scenario would be "Heah you kids get off my Planet!".
6. I think I can change the default unit the city can produce to a MW. Let me know if that's what you want.
7. Add a few facilities to your "city"? Say a Perimeter Defense. And the facility that increases NL Morale XP? Anything else?
8. Disable the XenoEmpathy Dome? Thought process is that I would hide your city in fungus, as its gonna be vulnerable to the humans. So the last thing you want is them zipping thru the fungus and attacking your city.
9. Hmmm, and wouldn't it be something if you could become Planetary Governor as the 8th Faction! I think that would be a unique accomplishment in all the annals of SMACdom!

D

Edit: adding things as I think of them.

 

[Blake00]

So before I go and experiment to create something more complex, attached is a trial run save: it only has the 8th Faction currently. Just unzip and then in SMACX load the game as a regular save. After you play around with the environment, then if you really want to do this I should be able to figure out how to add some other factions into the game for you. Let me know if the attached is really viable for you (i.e. you can stand playing it the way it is) and I'll proceed with something a little more complex.

D

And just to follow up, if you do decide for a scenario I've had some idea I thought I'd throw out there:

1. Make it an OCC (or modified OCC in that no CPs can be built, but everyone starts with a city and couple CPs). Otherwise your gonna play merry heck trying to knock out all the cities, as you can't conquer cities (you can only knock them down by 1 pop point each time you move a unit into their cities, and your unit ceases to exist).
2. Raging Planet setting? I could go either way here.
3. Empath units for the AIs? Cuz you know, you like challenges, right?
4. Planet size? Small or Medium is what I'm thinking.
5. Premise for the scenario is that you are Planet: ancient, omniscient, and not interested in sharing your home with anyone. And then these new kids on the block came and started trashing your home. So the name of scenario would be "Heah you kids get off my Planet!".
6. I think I can change the default unit the city can produce to a MW. Let me know if that's what you want.
7. Add a few facilities to your "city"? Say a Perimeter Defense. And the facility that increases NL Morale XP? Anything else?
8. Disable the XenoEmpathy Dome? Thought process is that I would hide your city in fungus, as its gonna be vulnerable to the humans. So the last thing you want is them zipping thru the fungus and attacking your city.
9. Hmmm, and wouldn't it be something if you could become Planetary Governor as the 8th Faction! I think that would be a unique accomplishment in all the annals of SMACdom!

D

Edit: adding things as I think of them.

YESSSSS!!!! This is great! Thank you so much! I was able to load your scenario file. Had some weird visual bugs though. Eg all the Alien units you had created were surrounded by condensers (which are normally better used outside of city radius right? im rusty haha), created a city using the CP and the condensers where in the city farming view too. But when I turned on cheat mode and omniscient view they all disappeared.. but so id my city graphic tile haha although i could still click on it thankfully.

This is problem with not playing for 15 years.. half of what you said went right over my head haha. I'm gonna go play a regular normal SMACX game over the next few days so I can get myself up to speed on how to play the game again. Then I can start thinking like you are on how to really push the limits of what's possible and find ways to make playing as alien barbs viable. Should be fun!

But I'll try to answer now still:
1. OCC? Not sure what that means sorry. Hmm yeah if you can't capture cities that's a problem. Have you only tested with mind worms. I wonder if barb controlled human units can capture cities.. maybe there's one damn unit out there that under barb control can do it lol. If not i guess you'd blockade the capital and then maybe once you've pinned down/defeated every civ you use editor to create and drop a super singularity nuke thingos on each as that can wipe out a city completely off the map right? arrgh im so rusty haha.
2. Yup I played rageing hoards in my Civ barb games as it gave great re-enforcements. In civ playing on max difficulty made barbs stronger, although i was never certain if that still applied when human took control of them. I wonder how that works in SMAC.
3. Not sure. Need to refresh my SMAC knowledge
4. In my civ barb games I usually chose medium maps with large land masses but set to them to continents and then usually used the editor to make a few 'land bridges' that land units could cross but also boats could cross too. Cause yeah you don't want any civs too far away or out of range of your slow 'primitive' barb troops & boats. Give em too much time to build up and you'll be in all sorts of trouble haha.
5. haha yup.. thats a good theme! With my civ ones I'm calling them "Attila's Conquest" since he's the barb leader heh.
6 YES!!! Definitely. I'm guessing I can't use the in-game editor to change build ques either so yes please if you can hack a land city to build mind worms and an ocean city to build the sea mind worms that would be awesome. Do mind worms built from barb cities disappear after 5 turns.. thats the next worry. If they do we can't level them up and make them strong enough to conquer enemy civs.
7. Yup I'll stick a pic below of starting cities.. normally in my civ barb games I gave my self 4 starting cities and i made them all size 5ish with some irrigation and roads, then gave them city walls, barracks (to build vet barb units), aqueduct & granaries so they could grow. Barbs can't make money so I'd set one city to constantly build barracks which I'd sell to make money. I had another city building catapults, another building phalanx and another building settlers to work the lands around the starting cities and also build roads to enemy civs to help reinforcements get to the frontlines. I had to use 3rd party hack editors to get those barb cities to build those units instead of warriors too. I haven't found any 3rd party SMAC editors yet so how much of this can be done in smacx will be the big question haha..
8. Not sure. Need to refresh my SMAC knowledge. But hiding your cities in fungas sounds very cool and fits the alien play theme!!!
9. yeah thats another question.. does all that stuff work as aliens/barbs haha

 

[Darsnan]

YESSSSS!!!! This is great! Thank you so much! I was able to load your scenario file. Had some weird visual bugs though. Eg all the Alien units you had created were surrounded by condensers.

1. OCC? Not sure what that means sorry.

OCC: One City Challenge. Or maybe 3 cities per Faction, and then I turn off the ability to create Colony Pods.
Re Condensors: So the condensors are part of the bugs you will experience. There is no way around it. Unless maybe you change the pcx file which has the condensor in it (i.e. edit the condensor image out of the file).

Hmm yeah if you can't capture cities that's a problem. Have you only tested with mind worms. I wonder if barb controlled human units can capture cities..

I have not. I can try to tonight and report results. However I'm expecting your going to have to line a bunch of units up and conga-line them into the city to reduce its population to nil.

2. Yup I played rageing hoards in my Civ barb games as it gave great re-enforcements. .

OK.

3. Not sure. Need to refresh my SMAC knowledge.

Empath ability gives an attack boost against native life.

4. In my civ barb games I usually chose medium maps with large land masses but set to them to continents and then usually used the editor to make a few 'land bridges' that land units could cross but also boats could cross too. Cause yeah you don't want any civs too far away or out of range of your slow 'primitive' barb troops & boats. Give em too much time to build up and you'll be in all sorts of trouble haha. .

I can do all of that and more as far as the map is concerned. Do you want to preview the map, or do you want to be surprised?

5. haha yup.. thats a good theme!

OK HYKGOMP it is!

6 YES!!! Definitely. Do mind worms built from barb cities disappear after 5 turns.. thats the next worry.

OK I will keep you posted regarding the MW as the default unit. Also, I've never known that NL would disappear after 5 turns. I'll check that out and see.

7. Yup I'll stick a pic below of starting cities..

OK I'll look at that later when I get home from work.

8. Not sure. Need to refresh my SMAC knowledge. But hiding your cities in fungas sounds very cool and fits the alien play theme!!!

I'd recommend we do disable it. But after you play a few warm-up games with SMACX you should have a good idea what you think is best.

9. yeah thats another question.. does all that stuff work as aliens/barbs haha

IIRC the game does consider the 8th Faction as a human faction. Guess we'll see, though, huh?

 

[Blake00]

Yeah 3 cities per faction and block CP sounds like a good idea. I'd definitely love 1 of the barb cities in the ocean if the game lets them have one in there.

In Civ 2 the last unit guarding a civ's last city was invulnerable to barbs.. so you had to wait for them to build a 2nd city then use 2 armies to smash both city defenders and then once both were empty you could walk in and kill the civ. Capitals also got huge defense bonuses against barbs. I wonder if any of these 'death protection' protocols are in SMAC too as that will make things even more difficult!!

Yeah I noticed that if you create alien/barb units in the SMAC in-game editor they disappear after around 5 turns. I'm hoping thats just with editor created units and not with barb city produced units. If they have the same problem then that makes things more difficult although 'raging planet' reinforcements should hopefully still give you a fighting chance.. I figure if i can get a few land and sea mindworms leveled up to demon worms then its party time lol.

I noticed that the design workshop and cheat-in techs doesn't work of course.. techs never worked in civ 1 or 2 either but you could to use 3rd party editors to force cities to build more advanced units like catapults etc heh. However because of these issues in SMAC I'm guessing we can't give ourselves singularity buster missiles.. as that may be the only way for a barb/alien to kill a city if all our unit attack tests fail.

Nah I'm happy to see the map. I'm prob gonna turn on the in-game editor once I load the scenario anyway haha.

 

[Darsnan]

OK, here's some feedback on my playtesting this morning:

1. I can create a sea base for you. Based on my playtesting to date I'd recommend we not include Sven in the game.
2. You can communicate with the other Factions via the Diplomacy window! However: a) do not click on the "Profile" button" as the game will crash, and b) doesn't really do you any good to communicate with anyone....

3. You can vote in the Planetary Elections! However a) even though I had the most votes I wasn't a candidate, b) my 5 votes weren't tallied in the election, and c) I actually couldn't call the council to vote.

4. In each of your 3 bases I will place a Fungal Tower. That way you've got a last line of defense.
5. Not having much success taking cities to date. And as the AIs progress with tech and morale it will only get worse in-game....

6. So far still haven't been able to get your cities to produce MWs. I even tried giving an AI Centauri Empathy (tech for MWs), then creating some probe teams and probing the tech away for the Aliens: my cities didn't update to MWs as far as what to produce. I know its possible to change the default production - just gotta remember what it is!

7. And if you play with the "Scenario Editor" on and "Omniscient View" on (because, you know, you are an Omniscient God!) then you don't have to worry about all the Condensors filling the screen.

 

[Blake00]

Wow.. thats awesome.. nice work!

1. Cool.. although if we can't get it to build an isle of the deep that'll reduces its usefulness. Although being harder to get to I guess it would ensure the alien barbs live longer lol!!! And rageing planet should bring in some isle of the deep's to defend it too.
4. I heard on another forum that the fungal towers are the only units placed from the editor that don't disappear after 5 or so turns. So yup that's the best defense lol. Did you end up experimenting and seeing if city built alien barb units disappear like the editor ones do?
5. Darn that's a real shame. did you try with a alien barb controlled human unit too? (eg i noticed via the editor you can bring in huge battle mech mk3s for barbs). But if all that fails then I guess that means planet buster missles are the only way to kill other civs and alien barbs can't get access to that weapon. Rustiness showing here but is there a diplomat bribing unit in smac that the barbs could get access to? If so I wonder what would happen if a barb diplomat tried to bribe another civ's planet buster sitting in an airbase haha.
6. Darn that sucks.. worse case scenario if the barb cities can only produce basic scouts they could be used to block & starv out enemy cities while rageing planet reinforcements do the killing.

Just managed to successfully take control of the barbs in Call to power 2 as well so this has been a good week haha!

 

[Darsnan]

Success!

More feedback:

1. Cool.. although if we can't get it to build an isle of the deep that'll reduces its usefulness.

But your continually getting reinforcements via the random units that show up in game, which include IoDs, so it shouldn't be a problem. And I've also got another workaround here that I think you'll like!

4. I heard on another forum that the fungal towers are the only units placed from the editor that don't disappear after 5 or so turns. So yup that's the best defense lol. Did you end up experimenting and seeing if city built alien barb units disappear like the editor ones do?

Yes and the units your cities produce do not disappear after 5 turns. However I ran into another problem involving disappearing units that appears to be hardcoded: after you are attacking a city and it is reduced to one pop and the last defender is killed all adjacent alien units disappear from the screen. I can't do anything about this. So your only choice is to do the following:

1. knock the city down population-wise to one.
2. observe all of your units which are adjacent to the target city
3. kill the last defender
4. After your units disappear replace them all via the Scenario Editor
5. Kill the city

5. Rustiness showing here but is there a diplomat bribing unit in smac that the barbs could get access to? If so I wonder what would happen if a barb diplomat tried to bribe another civ's planet buster sitting in an airbase haha.

I have come up with a different approach to "barb diplomacy" that you will have access to and I think you will like. And ideally it should give a continual stream of units that you can then use against the ever-increasingly difficult human cities defenses. Question is how much fore-knowledge do you want to know before you actually start playing this scenario? Or to put it slightly differently, the way I design scenarios is that my scenarios are like a box of puzzle pieces: you then need to figure out how to put together these puzzle pieces in order to win the game. So let me know if I should start going dark in regards to the solutions I come up with, or you want a steady flow of updates regarding the problems I'm encountering and the solutions I've discovered.

 

[Blake00]

What did the "success" pic mean? I'm trying to figure out what's changed but am failing miserably hahaha.

4. Holey moley! So if you bring back the units via the editor and attack a size zero city it WILL actually kill it?? as in you can actually kill cities as the barbs?? if so that is friggin BRILLIANT!!!
heh the annoying disappearing thing kind of reminds me of an annoying problem in Civ where once a civ dies and it respawns as another any barb units in the respawn area instantly disappear (to ensure the new civ is safe).. I lost huge armies to that issue grr lol.
Glad to hear the units built from cities don't disappear . Although since they're junk scout patrols it prob doesn't matter now haha. I just realised that to get formers working the land around the barb cities i'll need the editor and that means they'll disappear after every 5 turns haha.

5. No please tell all haha. If this was a regular scenario then yeah I'd prob wanna figure stuff out for myself but this Alien Barbarian business is a special project that will result in a walkthrough video tour where I pass on every exploit and trick I can find out to allow Barb players to win in each Civ like game I try. I don't wanna miss anything so please activate extreme spoiler mode for this one haha.

 

[Darsnan]

What did the "success" pic mean?

I got the cities to produce Mind Worms!

4. Holey moley! So if you bring back the units via the editor and attack a size zero city it WILL actually kill it?? as in you can actually kill cities as the barbs?? if so that is friggin BRILLIANT!!!

Or you could leave your units outside the city 1-tile radius and then finish the city off with a Speeder unit.

5. No please tell all haha. If this was a regular scenario then yeah I'd prob wanna figure stuff out for myself but this Alien Barbarian business is a special project that will result in a walkthrough video tour where I pass on every exploit and trick I can find out to allow Barb players to win in each Civ like game I try. I don't wanna miss anything so please activate extreme spoiler mode for this one haha.

OK I'll spoiler things like this moving forward.

Spoiler How Barbs do "Diplomacy" :

So I plan on giving the Sealurks and IoDs the "Marine Detachment" capability, which means that when they attack ships from any of the other 7 Factions, the Barbs (well, NL) have a chance to board and take control of that ship. This includes transports full of units, which you can then turn right around and attack said Faction with! Bwahahahaha!!!!!

D

 

[Blake00]

ahh well done!! I thought maybe you'd done that but it still said scout patrol and i couldn't quite make out the icon. Now I can see its a little mind worm. Woohoo!!!

So if if units disappear only within 1 square radius thats great news!!

oh man that ability sounds awesome.

Sounds like we're in business for a winable barb game. Can't wait to try it!

 

[Darsnan]

Sounds like we're in business for a winnable barb game. Can't wait to try it!

Me too!

Of course I have to build it first. Which first step is to generate the map: I've sketched it out on paper based on your initial comment that you wanted to have land bridges connecting all the landmasses:

Quick Cartography overview:
1. Where there's an X (and note not a scribbled out X!) that's where I plan on placing a city belonging to one of the 8 Factions.
2. "Marsh" means that there will be several water avenues between the two seas.
3. Note there are no Green Factions in this game, so you don't have to worry about those Factions immediately pilfering your units. However most of the listed Factions will be able to run the Green Social Engineering choice, so you will have to be cognizant of that threat!
4. I will also be adding Sea Monoliths to the game, so your aquatic units will be able to get a morale upgrade just like your land units will.

Any questions/ feedback please let me know so when I build the map I'm doing it to your expectations.

Also, I think now is a good time to get a benchmark of where everything is at:
a. Currently I plan to select the "Small" Map size. May change based on initial testing.
b. "Raging Barbarians" option will be selected.
c. In order to encourage more NL outbursts I plan on going heavy on the minerals, thus generating more eco-damage, and thus more NL outbursts.
d. I plan on giving the NL cities more energy, so in case you capture a probe ship you can use it to capture other units/cities.
e. Sea Monoliths and Sea Fungal Towers will be in the game.
f. NL cities don't have graphics, and you can't change production.
g. NL City production will be set to a special mind worm: I was thinking of calling it a Wraith, however if you've got a different name please let me know.
h. And speaking of names, do you have a preference for the name of your Faction Leader, as well as the names of your 3 cities?
i. What difficulty level do you want me to set the game to?
j. As far as explaining the NL's ability to commandeer aquatic units, I was thinking of using the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus (better known as the Zombie Ant Fungus) as an analogy. I'll write up a little blurb in the intro for the game.
k. A player playing as the 8th Faction cannot conquer other Faction's cities - you can only kill them: the way to do this is to kill the last defender, then keep feeding units into the city (each one decreasing the population by one) until the city reaches zero population and is destroyed.
l. You will need to play in Editor mode, otherwise there is an annoying bug in that there is a condensor showing up on every tile.

Any questions/ feedback please let me know.

And just so your aware my customer is in town the next two weeks, so progress will be slow from my end.

D

 

[Blake00]

Looks and sounds great mate! Can't wait to see the final product! Just don't make it too bigger job for yourself otherwise you may not get it done (I problem I often suffer from with my scenarios and mods hahaha).

a-f. Sounds good mate!
g. Wraith sounds perfect!
h. Well we're playing as a sentient planet turning its wildlife against colonizers/invaders so how about either Pandora or Eywa haha
i. Normally I played Barb games at deity in Civ due to the bonus barbs get at higher difficulties. But I was never sure whether I got that bonus once I took control of them. And I have no idea if such bonuses exist in SMAC.. so up to you lol.
j. sounds cool
k. ahh darn.. I misunderstood your earlier msg as successfully bypassing that problem and killing a city. So if you knock a city to zero can it regrow?

 

[Darsnan]

Looks and sounds great mate! Can't wait to see the final product! Just don't make it too bigger job for yourself otherwise you may not get it done (I problem I often suffer from with my scenarios and mods hahaha).

Oh I don't think you'll have to worry about this being too big of a job for me: if you look at the top of this forum you'll see the Altera Centauri, which is a compilation of ALL the scenarios scattered across the Interwebs. Now that was a task collecting all of those! This is relatively easy in comparison.

k. ahh darn.. I misunderstood your earlier msg as successfully bypassing that problem and killing a city. So if you knock a city to zero can it regrow?

And this is why I'm doing benchmarks, so as to ensure its clear what can and can't be done in this game. I've gone back and edited item k to state the following:

k. A player playing as the 8th Faction cannot conquer other Faction's cities - you can only kill them: the way to do this is to kill the last defender, then keep feeding units into the city (each one decreasing the population by one) until the city reaches zero population and is destroyed.

Hopefully that clarifies exactly what we can do in regards to enemy cities (i.e. we can't conquer the city - only destroy it).

D

 

[Blake00]

And I noticed most of the stuff in the SMAC downloads section was uploaded by you. Great to see such preservation efforts!
I do a bit of that too hosting rare mods and scenarios on my website for games that disappeared off the net. Doing a little bit of it here too as I occasionally find a great Civ editors or scenario missing from the downloads sections.

Ahh thanks, now I understand. Can't capture but you can kill players off which is great news!! Can't win a game if you can't kill players off haha. In Civ you can get the whole victory & score ending sequence as Barbs which was cool as I half expected a crash or something lol so it will be interesting to see what happens in SMAC.

 

[Darsnan]

First cut of the map is done: if you use the rough sketch I'd posted earlier as a guide you can see how I plan on laying out the Factions. Let me know if the map is too compact and I can generate it a size larger (I think it will work as is, given that CPs will be turned off, and that you want the 7 other Factions to have some attrition amongst themselves, so therefore closer/ map compactness is better).

Wraith is named, and you will be the only one who can produce this unit. I will probably play around with how quickly you can produce these units in your cities so that it adds an element of strategic planning, as these units will be superior to the common MW, and therefore you'll want to strategize how best to employ this limited asset.

Directions on how to view the attached map:

1. Download and unzip the attached file, and place the HYKGOMP.MP file into your /Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/maps folder.
2. Start Alien Crossfire, and from the main screen select Scenario, Load Map File, and load in the HYKGOMP.MP file.

Once the map is loaded hit X a couple of times to zoom out for a better view (you can hit Z to zoom in).

Edit: btw I also added item l to my post above:

l. You will need to play in Editor mode, otherwise there is an annoying bug in that there is a condensor showing up on every tile.

If you think of anything else please let me know and I'll add it to the list, so that once the scenario is completed the instructions are pretty well set, too .

D