Thanks for the long thoughtful post.
Summary of my post: my impression is you seem to be a casual player who likes to keep things simple and familiar.
Not exactly right. In years past, I played it
a lot but only single player. Not so much in recent years. I tried it again after Civ3 was so disappointing. And I tried again recently after trying Civ4, but this time around, with your mod.
I am in something of a rut in that I like a little bit of the role play, so I do not change change the Research Priorities, and try to use the SE most identified with Faction.
In that case SMAniaC just won't appeal to you I think, for as you have noticed, I reworked the whole tech tree plus contents, and have tried to add more strategic choice = make it more complex.
I do not mind complexity when it makes things more interesting. The original tech tree had not exposed itself as a particular weakness to me, but then, I dont game multiplayer, and I use blind research.
Some comments on your points:
In unmodded SMAC there is basically only one good research "strategy": Industrial Automation->Environmental Economics->Air Power->Mind-Machine Interface.
Yes, I know. I also know about pop rushing, crawlers, energy farms, and the mathematical advantages to sprawl. I do not take advantage of these exploits, and since I can usually (but not always) win at transcend level, I find the game play and balance quite satisfying.
I consciously made fungus more productive earlier so it is a valid alternative terraforming strategy compared to forest and condensers/boreholes.
Hmm. I have never been able to make condensors and boreholes really work for me. The Eco-Damage just never paid off. (But then, the AIs do not use them right either.) Plus, I like using fungus as a weapon, so fungus being productive early scratches that tactic!
By the time your fungus produces 2/2/1, you should also be able to build tree farms and hybrid forests for 3/2/2 forests btw.
Yes, but I had not had my first bloom, so had been waiting. Working forest
until fungus becomes productive is not only what I am used too, it also seems like it fits the story line better.
Is this SMAniaC-specific?
Did you not tweak the radar attribute to use one of the high-end armor visuals?
I'd suggest not to use blind research.
I am hardly the only one who thinks blind research is a
feature. (As well as feeling more realistic, it also eliminates a temptation that puts human at unfair advantage over the AI.)
Might you feel it's random because you do not know what to expect?
Well, yes! 1) Some of it is just different, not better/worse. 2) I am not trying to exploit the tree. 3) I still think some powerful things come out of order.
Have you checked out the modtechtree.jpg file in the documentation folder? My expectation would be that blind research would follow the Explore/Build/Discover/Conquer preferences very well. At least the AI does.
No. Probably things happing in the order as designed. I probably should study it for flaws, and play more games, before complaining.
I wanted to have more valid SE choices. If you say yourself you want things to be simple, then SMAniaC just isn't meant for your playstyle.
If I liked simple, I probably would have been content with Civ2 or Civ3. The added complexity is more realistic but does not seem to result in more interesting game play. In particular, loosing (late game) future society values in order to have a more a more complete (but more contemporary) social engineering model feels like a zero sum equation.
What you describe seems to me like improved AI performance.
I do not think so. With even classic SMAC the AI loves to build sea bases next to player land. The easy explanation for this is that the AI fails to include in its calculations that those tiles have
no production value for the city.
My impression from these comments is that you do not want a challenging AI - you just want them to leave you alone.
Actually, the opposite. I wish I could have a smarter AI, but one that also valued fewer stronger cities and units. Waiting three or four minutes between turns while the AI shuffles hundreds of Larval Mass strength Isles of the Deep around is not my definition of a challenge!
In that case I guess you should simply select the non-agressive non-aquatic AIs who don't have Conquer as a preference as your opponents. Those are the Angels, Consciousness, Drones, Gaians, Morganites, Peacekeepers, University, Empaths, Genesis and Centauri Republic I think.
Can you point me to where you write about how you tweaked the shipping factions? In my mind, they are closely associated with the shipping SE model, so I think that would be interesting to me. I do not mind aggressive AIs, but prefer that they not be stupid about it. Yang, for example, tends to be boring because he is so rabid he goes for the nukes and alienates the other AIs. Likewise, the believers are interesting only at the start of the game since they get too far behind in the tech race. I like playing against Lal and Spartans because they are always aggressive
and competitive.
I usually know the difference between merging directories and overwriting them, I must have had a brain fart.
So my reply to the following points is simply:
