Secret storylines

[moon182]

Or at least unusual ones!

I'd just been playing Alpha Centauri after it lying in a cupboard for a few years - amazed that there's still an active forum for it!

Anyway, I was playing as the peacekeepers and having a blast, when I built a mindworm. There's a page of information about how you send some girl to control the worms, and you hope she doesn't die. I remembered it pretty exactly from when I used to play, so all pretty standard so far.

Roll forward god knows how long, and I was in a war against Miriam with a ton of mindworms. I'd already lost a fair few, then she killed the my first one. It skips to a screen saying how sorry you were that this girl had died (she's called Sarita), how she was going to be the next leader after you, and how you weren't going to rest until you had burnt New Jerusalem to ground.

Being sad, I found this immensely exciting and put everything else on hold to kick some believing ass. When I eventually captured New Jerusalem it changed the name automatically, and went to another text screen, telling me that I was renaming the city 'Sarita's Memorial' in her memory, and just being pretty poignant in general.


Has anyone else come across this? Are there things like this that can happen for all of the factions? Do the circle of ruins/alien boreholes/etc all have their own stories if you do something to them?

 

[Bllasae]

One word: Cool.

 

[NwabudikeMorgan]

All the factions have the same thing for the worms, and the base you choose to rename in honor of the fallen talent is *either* the base nearest to where the unit dies, or the home base of the unit that killed it, i can't remember which, but i know it's not always the capital

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

.......

Any way to mod that out of the game? I'd rather do without the sentimental BS.... I'm a Machivellian SOB when I play these kind of games.

 

[vyeh]

You can change the text: Look at interlude.txt, interludea.txt and interludex.txt.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Well, I was more wanting to do away with the whole "Rename the city" crap... I'll rename the cities that I want to for the reasons I want to;

I could give a good dod-gamn about some worm herder who gets killed in the line of duty: That's what happens during a war, so no need to get bent out of shape about about, IMO....

That's one of the things I like about Civ III and the Half-Life series: Civ III doesn't have any BS events, and in Half-Life, Gordon Freeman (the guy who you play as) doesn't actually say anything, which allows you to kind of ad-lib your own comments as you go.

 

[Daniel Khan]

On the other hand, such "sentimental BS" can rally the easily-swayed masses to be that much more enthusiastic about your leadership.

As if their opinion was valued.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

On the other hand, such "sentimental BS" can rally the easily-swayed masses to be that much more enthusiastic about your leadership.

As if their opinion was valued.

Well, if the event actually DID have an effect on the happiness of your in-game citizens, then I wouldn't mind so much, but since it doesn't amount to a hill of beans, I'd rather do without it....

As I said, in these kinds of games, I determine who I fight and for how long, and what the goals of said military action is, based on the strategic and logistical realities are, Not some emotional crap.... I've read way too much Sun Tzu to plan otherwise.

 

[vyeh]

You can also turn off the interludes altogether. That will probably stop renaming. I've never had a base renamed on me and I play with the interludes off.

 

[sir_schwick]

What a downer. Just change the interludes to talk about how awesome you are or something. Maybe how apathetic you are towards casualties. As a side note, hope I never have you as a CO in a military engagement.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

What a downer. Just change the interludes to talk about how awesome you are or something. Maybe how apathetic you are towards casualties. As a side note, hope I never have you as a CO in a military engagement.

Actually, I'm not a complete a-hole: The way I see it, when I take over a city, my goal is to make the people my SUBJECTS, and treat them nice.... One way NOT to do that (in point of fact, it's a perfect way to piss people off) is to re-name the city after a fallen soldier just because you got into a snit about that soldier getting killed.

As for the rest, better not talk about things you don't have even the first CLUE about! I've BEEN to Iraq and Afghanistan, and was an NCO at the time, and I made damn sure that I did everything in my power to make sure that everyone under my command made it back home... Still, wars will have casualties, and getting overly emotional and flying into a rage against the enemy won't solve anything. As a matter of fact, it's a sure-fire way to get even MORE people killed, not to mention drag the war out, which, in turn, will cause even greater death and suffering on both sides.

....Now that I think about it, I may just change the interlude text to read how, when I capture an enemy capitol after the long war, I erect a monument honoring the bravery of soldiers on BOTH sides, which allows the conquered people to save some face and therefore make them more loyal to me.

Of course, if you'd have read the Art of War and understood anything from it, you'd know this already.

 

[Sarcasticon]

Don't forget that we're talking about SMAC/SMAX here guys, don't take anything here personally

 

[Destructicon]

moon182, there are a couple of storylines that may unfold in a SMAC game - the awakening of Planet and unification/conquests and transcendence victories come to mind. There are additional storylines in SMAX involving human vs alien contact and conflict as well as alien vs alien conflict.

I've never seen, and do not think there are, storylines about the landmarks or ruins.

ps. Welcome to the forums, Moon182!

 

[Robert Can't]

As the University the mind worm person is called Natilya, or something like that. The city gets renamed to Natilya Lab.

 

[attackfighter]

Actually, I'm not a complete a-hole: The way I see it, when I take over a city, my goal is to make the people my SUBJECTS, and treat them nice.... One way NOT to do that (in point of fact, it's a perfect way to piss people off) is to re-name the city after a fallen soldier just because you got into a snit about that soldier getting killed.

She's actually your second in command and a close friend iirc.

 

[Verily]

The second-in-commands are:

Gaians: Lindly
Hive: Ota Kyi
Morganites: Jeneba
University: Nataliya
Spartans: Voki
Believers: Jessica
Peacekeepers: Sarita
Consciousness: Alpha Talent
Angels: Katt (with the clever name Katt's Cradle for the memorial)
Free Drones: Maxwell
Pirates: Ensign Jones
Cult: Fatima

In SMAC, all of them were female, but the Free Drone second-in-command is male while the Consciousness and Pirate second-in-commands are ambiguous. The event line is disabled for the Caretakers and Usurpers, although they both have the name set as "Hackjob" (LOL).

I've also always found it odd that, while the storyline emphasizes that the factions are based solely on ideology, each faction in SMAC has a strong ethnic flavor based around its leader's background. (The SMAX factions do a much better job with this.)

 

[T-hawk]

I've also always found it odd that, while the storyline emphasizes that the factions are based solely on ideology, each faction in SMAC has a strong ethnic flavor based around its leader's background. (The SMAX factions do a much better job with this.)

I'm not so sure. Certainly the Hive faction is strongly Chinese and University is Russian (check the base names). But I think the effect stops with only those two. The Peacekeepers aren't particularly Indian beyond Lal's speaking manner. Morgan doesn't come across as African at all - the unbridled capitalism and Microsoft jokes are American if anything. Deirdre doesn't do anything Scottish and Santiago doesn't do anything Puerto Rican or Mexican. Miriam's faction is of course evocative of Western Christendom, but not of any particular nationality; there's nothing to mark her church as American rather than Anglican or Catholic or anything else.

I agree that the SMAX factions are entirely devoid of ethnicity. Svensgaard is the only one with any national flavor at all, and his doesn't even match - the flavor is Nordic but his heritage is nominally American.

 

[Verily]

I'm not so sure. Certainly the Hive faction is strongly Chinese and University is Russian (check the base names). But I think the effect stops with only those two. The Peacekeepers aren't particularly Indian beyond Lal's speaking manner. Morgan doesn't come across as African at all - the unbridled capitalism and Microsoft jokes are American if anything. Deirdre doesn't do anything Scottish and Santiago doesn't do anything Puerto Rican or Mexican. Miriam's faction is of course evocative of Western Christendom, but not of any particular nationality; there's nothing to mark her church as American rather than Anglican or Catholic or anything else.

I agree that the SMAX factions are entirely devoid of ethnicity. Svensgaard is the only one with any national flavor at all, and his doesn't even match - the flavor is Nordic but his heritage is nominally American.

Look at the names of the minor characters within each faction. The Morganite names are all African, the Gaian names are very British, the Peacekeeper names are all Indian, etc. The only exception are the Spartan names, which are not particularly Hispanic.

Obviously their ideologies don't "match" their ethnic origins--nor, really, does that of the University. (The Hive does.) But that's not the point.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

She's actually your second in command and a close friend iirc.

Still, according to the The Art of War (and just plain common sense), you DON'T want to rub a defeated people's faces in their defeat, particularly if you want them to remain as your subjects... It is always much better to let them save some face in the process: I.e. how the US handled the surrender and re-building of Japan vs the way France treated Germany at the end of WWI... The former led to a strong friendship between the former foes and the defeated nation becoming one of the world's most prosperous, while the latter led to Adolph Hitler and WWII....

...Of course, the Firaxians are my favorite faction anyways.

 

[Perfection]

Look at the names of the minor characters within each faction. The Morganite names are all African, the Gaian names are very British, the Peacekeeper names are all Indian, etc. The only exception are the Spartan names, which are not particularly Hispanic.

Obviously their ideologies don't "match" their ethnic origins--nor, really, does that of the University. (The Hive does.) But that's not the point.

I would presume that the second hand might be a trusted college colleague or somesuch