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

That looks cool man.. although I'm getting some weird black graphical glitches around the garland crater.

 

That's an artifact of me partially sinking the Garland Crater. I don't need to sink the crater if you don't like that side effect. Or I could substitute in the Nessus Canyon and not sink that, which I probably wouldn't have to sink and therefore wouldn't have that weird effect.

Playtest #1 in the books: utter failure. MY MWs knocked off a few Scouts, CPs, and Formers, but even with 6 MWs attacking a base I couldn't kill the one Scout within. Also, I tried to give the Wraiths added XP by giving the NL cities Command Centers and Bioenhancement Centers, but the Wraiths were still at the larval form (i.e. no XP). Will need to experiment around with this and see what I can come up with.

D

 

And success! Here is a Sealurk commandeering a Transport:


And I was able to knock off the last defender in a city:


And once I killed the city all my adjacent units disappeared, so FYI before you kill a city you should document the adjacent units then once the city is destroyed (and your adjacent units disappear) replace the units using the Scenario Editor (and for the scenario I'll provide a set of instructions so others can replicate the process):


Interesting situation I encountered this afternoon in that I realized a Datatech Probe team was targeting one of my cities:


So I let it probe my city:


What!?! The Angels could've probed the secrets of the universe from Planet, and instead they steal the world map!?! Stupid Data Angels!

Very shortly after that the Believers killed off the PKs and then called an election, and the game crashed at that point:


So:

1. Scenario is now viable, albeit the crash noted above.
2. I can experiment/ playtest some more to define and possibly eliminate the crashing issue (not sure I can, but I can try).

D

 

Wow.. this is fascinating.

Maybe using your MW to harass/blockade enemy cities for a bit (attacking anything that tries to leave it) will help them to level up enough to destroy the defenders.

Was that a capital that you destroyed? Am still wonder if capitals are invulnerable to alien barbs like in Civ.

Problem is the units to put back in via the editor lose all their experience. Maybe quickly trying to retreat your army before dealing the final blow (with an expendable unit) might be a viable strategy. Of course if the AI has enough money to quickly buy in another defender it makes that strat rather difficult! But I def want to try to create high level MWs.

That crash is a worry. I'm guessing there's no way to disable planetary elections?

 

So NL morale seems to be linked to the mission year: I set the mission year 100 years farther into the future, and all the NL got more advanced XP.

No, just a satellite Spartan city.

There is a parameter in the Scenario Editor to select experience level for units you place. I'll detail this in the notes when I publish.

Not sure. I'll look into that and let you know. If there is I'll disable elections and playtest that way tonight.

D

 

2 more playtests in the books, and slowly inching towards making this a challenging AND winnable game. Note that I seem to have solved the crashing problem by disabling the Planetary Council, as I played 113 turns last night and no crashes. Still not quite there, though, but I've got two ideas I'm going to implement tomorrow morning and see how that goes.

There may be something to this, as I have repeatedly killed off the Spartan satellite cities only to come to a stalemate with the Spartan capitol:


In this pic I've got 3 Spore launchers and a captured Impact Scout Ship continually bombarding the city while I've laid waste to the cities adjacent tiles, but everytime I go to attack with my MWs or Wraiths I get a warning that my units will be annihilated, and they are. However new strategy tomorrow will be to kill off the satellite cities of a Faction, then migrate my forces to another Faction and repeat killing off the satellite cities, as that seems to be a viable strategy. Either that or hang fire with some units around a capitol until a stronger Faction comes along and knocks the capitol city down for me to then destroy. I think that will work, too. Anyways, I think once you finally do get your hands on this game you will enjoy it!

D

 

Can't wait mate!

Probably the quickest and easiest way to test if you can kill a civ is to cheat in some of those big 30 attack strength mk3 mech thingos and attack the capital. If the mechs all die instantly then they've got 'last city invulnerable defenders to barbs protection' turned on. Usually in Civ 1 & 2 to get around that I'd let them build a satellite city then attack both at the same time until both were empty and only then would I march in. If the mechs do clean out the defenses and kill the last city then we know there's no invulnerable defenders and its just the 'capital defense against barbs bonus' taken from Civ 1 & 2 which is just a matter of needing stronger units.

 

Did that this morning: took two rounds of the 12R Ogres attacking the city to kill off its defenders (who were all level 1 and level 2 armor, which really should have been a cakewalk for the Ogres). Then to make matters worse each time I sent one attacker into the capitol to knock it down population-wise ALL the adjacent units disappeared (as opposed to the satellite cities where the adjacent defenders didn't disappear till after the city was destroyed). So the solution is simple: not give the AIs capitols. I playtested that a little just now, and that seems to make the difference (i.e. removing the "Headquarters" from all the cities). If that does indeed work, then coupled with the other updates I made this morning means the game is now too easy. But I will playtest to verify. Regardless, I am zeroing in on the final version.

D

 

darn.. and when you tried to kill their capital did they still have satellite cities or was it their last city? Cause yeah if that happened when they still had satellite cities then its def a capital thing and not a last city thing. Cause if its a last city thing then removing their headquarters prob won't do much.

Oh well, good luck with your final revisions! Hopefully I can finally start my refresher/regular game in the next week or so. Been so darn busy lol!

 

And success!


And you get to watch the human leaders burn!


And so I think its time for another benchmark:
a. Map is Small.
b. "Abundant Native Lifeforms" option will be selected.
c. NL City production is set to a special mind worm called a Wraith: it is amphibious, so use it appropriately!
d. NL cities do accrue ECs, however you can't rush units. But you can use probes to buy units and cities.
e. NL cities don't have graphics, and you can't change production.
f. I have not named the NL cities.
g. Sea Monoliths and Sea Fungal Towers are in the game.
h. Difficulty level is set to Librarian: your gonna probably appreciate this, as I am having a hard time dealing with the AIs at this level....
i. Isle of the Deep and Sealurk units can commandeer other units, so search out those unit-laden transports (especially transports carrying probes!).
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. I will provide instructions on how to do this when I publish the game.
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. I will provide instructions on how to set up game and play when I publish.
m. AI probes can probe your cities, so beware!
n. Planetary elections are disabled, as there was a crash associated with elections.
o. The Headquarters building has been disabled as the game won't allow NL to kill defenders in a capitol city. I will provide instructions on how to set up game for this to play when I publish.
p. Since I can't increase the morale of Wraiths via the city (i.e. Command Centers and Bioenhancement Centers don't give NL morale increases) then I have decreased the morale of all AI Factions in this game.
q. Playtesting has led me to believe you have a limited time to be successful in this game: once the AIs get Command Centers and Resonance Armor your gonna be in a world of hurt, so the sooner you can knock off Factions the better. And note I am giving you one last lifeline here to deal with really recalcitrant AIs. I'll write it into the intro I publish with the game.
r. Tech Stagnation is on.
s. No Colony Pods or Sea Bases can be built in this game.
t. Aggressive AIs enabled.


I should get this scenario out by Saturday evening, Sunday morning by the latest.

D

 

Wow!! This sounds great! Can't wait mate!

Are you allowed to rename NL cities? Surely we can think up 3 cool names for them haha

 

Either you can name them by opening the city view and changing the name, or you can give me the names you want to use and I can do it.

D

 

Yeah I earned my ECs on this one - the game was obviously never meant to be played this way, so I had to reach deep into my bag of tricks in order to make the game viable.

No. Only advancing the Mission Year seems to increase NL morale.

D

 

First draft of the premise for the game:

A planet drifts through the void, endlessly circling its primary. Sometimes a companion star encroaches, adding its light to the circling worlds, only to slowly drift deeper into space once more. Millennia turn to eons, and eons to epochs, and still the planet continues its endless journey. Until one day one of the lesser creatures of this world encounters something that is different. The creature stalks the strange craft, and as its kind had been primordially taught to do, it attacked and captured the strange craft. Having accomplished the task its primeval drive had been programmed to do, the creature wasn’t sure how to proceed, until a voice it had never heard before but instantly recognized spoke, “bring it to Me”.


You are Eywa, all knowing, all seeing, and master of this world. As the lesser creature you had created eons ago escorted the strange craft back to you, you reach out to probe the strange minds within: at first you thought it was the return of the false prophets who had long ago claimed to be your creators, but upon closer examination these beings are different, and if anything even more primitive. You notice a lot of the creatures on the strange craft have succumbed to the fungus your minion used to commandeer their minds with: some you can barely recognize the outlines of their former bodies, the fungus having completely absorbed them. However one of the strange creatures seems less effected by the fungus than the others, so you sift through the creatures memories, and find a world ruined by his kind’s greed and ruthlessness. You query him, “you would do the same to this world?”.

“Yes”, the creature’s fungus-addled brain answers honestly.

“No”, you reply, “this will not happen on My world”.


Objective: you are Eywa, and your mission is to rid Planet of the blight that is Humanity.

 

Very nice!!!

Hmm... here's some city name ideas..

Gaia's Fury
Pandora's Legion
Eywa's Vengeance
The World Tree
Tree of Souls

 

Scenario has been posted:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/smax-scenario-heah-you-kids-get-off-my-planet.644905/

Good Luck Blake00!

D

 

Thank you so much for this mate, I can't wait to try it out!