Thoughts on Aliens

[Strate]

So I've beaten the game with every victory, and I have reached the following conclusion. Aliens are meant to be killed. Scavenging, 2nd tier of might, is easily the best reason for aliens in the game. Slaughter in the name of science is amazing.

Even if you go harmony, when you build the world seed, all the aliens will go hostile towards you. I played my harmony victory leaving a bunch of aliens free to roam my territory. When I built the build, they all attacked it. I wiped them out and realized there is no purpose to aliens other than to annoy you and give you science by scavenging.

In previous civ games killing the barbarians for culture farming was a thing. Now its killing aliens for science.

The next to culture virtues, Adaptive sciences and Martial meditations are also very good, so you don't really lose anything going into might so heavily.


Specific Aliens

The Kraken is a very slow moving unit that will one hit most boats and units. It moves 1 unit. If your boat fires 2 spaces, it will take reinforcements to box you in to kill your unit. modification from ultrasonic fence does prevent destruction of trade units by this unit.

The siege worm. Early ranged units do almost no damage to it, lure it near of of your cities by feeding it a weak unit, then it will stay in range for city bombardment to actually hurt it. It tends to move away when its almost dead so finish it off with something. Loves to spawn from dark tiles just outside your boundary. Ultrasonic fence does keep it out. The modification to trade units also prevents destruction.

Everything is basically equal to a level 1 marine, they get pwned by anything higher. Level 3 plus can solo swarms of aliens.

Whenever you receive an alien unit from an explorer find, it has decent movement, heals in miasma, and I basically use it to harass the enemy cities early as it moves and heals well. The flying one in particular is weak but moves very well. All aliens hate your tamed alien... so expect lots of aggression on your new pet.

The harmony special units kind of suck, the ones that utilize alien creatures... they seem to be very fragile in my limited experience.

Any thoughts or questions welcome.

 

[kirbdog]

All aliens hate your tamed alien... so expect lots of aggression on your new pet.

I noticed this too. I wonder why this is, exactly (and where it is coded). It's a weird feature when my soldier walks around without worry but this bug I own gets such hate.

My first guess... is that they tamed aggression against players by making the aliens less likely to attack human units (and that this left the converted aliens unchanged).

 

[Halbbruder]

My thoughts on aliens before game was released: do not ever anger them or the worms will crush you. They also had 60 combat strength then before they were nerfed too. I watched one demo vid where a guy got crushed by 2 siege worms on opposite sides of his capital. Initially, I thought ultrasonic fence was a tile improvement, not a building.

My thoughts on aliens after I get the game: do not anger them until ultrasonic fence is built in your capital. Do not anger aliens that are near where you are going to settle an outpost...and again, until that new city has ultrasonic fence. At level 3 units, just kill them.

 

[s0nny80y]

Angry aliens attack outposts, fyi.

 

[implodinggoat]

Its kind of a pity that the aliens don't upgrade to stay competitive with you as the aliens in Alpha Centuari did and to a lesser degree the way the barbarians in Civ V did.

There needs to be more upside to having good relations with the aliens and more downside to pissing them off later in the game.

 

[TLHeart]

aliens need to grow in strength as the game goes... remember the locus of cyron...

and the siege worms need to be stronger, or grow stronger the longer they live.

 

[Ryoga]

The Kraken is a very slow moving unit that will one hit most boats and units. It moves 1 unit. If your boat fires 2 spaces, it will take reinforcements to box you in to kill your unit. modification from ultrasonic fence does prevent destruction of trade units by this unit.

Correction, the Kraken can move 2 hexes, don't think you are safe by sniping him from two hexes away like you do for the siege worm, you are not.
The Kraken is however bound to ocean tiles so as long as you can snipe it from shallow water you are alright.

 

[Callonia]

Why do the aliens attack you for building the mind flower? Shouldn't they be happy that you're becoming part of them?

 

[Aldor]

My thoughts on aliens?

Never send a single unit against a nest (at least early game).

If you build naval units...drive them slowly, so you don't end up in range of krakens or sea dragons...its soo annoying to build a gunboat only to lose it next turn

 

[tesb]

most aliens are obsolete after affinity 1 (3 marines can clear any nest) and siege worms can easily be hunted with affinity 2 (upgraded rangers worm hunting party). very disappointing imho.

 

[Bandersnatching]

My thoughts:
I agree that the best use for aliens is to kill them and gain science/XP from it.
They aren't nearly aggressive enough, not even when you actively hunt them down and take out their nests.
As you rise in Affinity levels, aliens become less and less relevant until they are absolutely no threat at all and are relevant only in the time it takes to clear them out to build new settlements.
I was scared of the siege worms the first game I played, but not after that. That game was actually an anomaly (and for that it was quite fun); my capital was surrounded by three nests and every station that landed anywhere near me got run over by a siege worm at some point. The aliens even got orange a few times. The danger felt THERE, like at any point the aliens could come in and wreck my colony if I wasn't putting forth constant effort to defend it. I really feel like BE games should be more like that - like this world is inhabited by an overwhelming and superior force that can and will destroy you if you antagonize it, and how you deal with it will shape your society as you (try to) spread across the planet.

 

[Kenric af Grashen]

I think they're quite boring now I'd like to see different types of aliens every game. though that would be impossible but if they had 4 or 5 sets of aliens and 1 set was randomly assigned at the beginning of each game.

and I agree the moment you start upgrading they become more of a nuisance than a problem

 

[Serenum]

most aliens are obsolete after affinity 1 (3 marines can clear any nest) and siege worms can easily be hunted with affinity 2 (upgraded rangers worm hunting party). very disappointing imho.

Agreed.
I don't understand how the Aliens are meant to play a larger role in the game when compared to Barbarians in Civ5. Barbarians at least stayed somewhat competitive, getting stronger units as you did. They were also always agressive.

Aliens on the other hand, start neutral and if you just leave them alone will stay neutral up until the point where one unit can be used to exterminate them. Even big, scary units like the siege worm and the kraken are mostly passive even when you managed to aggro the smaller aliens.
How exactly are these Aliens anything other than nerfed Barbarians?

 

[Gorsky]

Choosing 'frenzied' aliens helps a little bit

 

[KrikkitTwo]

My proposal:

Bioweapon Center: Wonder (Alien Ethics)...quote "This is monstrous" Dr. Weaver [redacted]
Allows you to upgrade wild aliens based on your Harmony Affinity level
Alien Hostility will increase towards civs you are at war with

Wolf Beetles, upgrade at harmony 6, 11
Manticores, upgrade at harmony 7, 12
Raptor Bugs, upgrade at harmony 8, 13
Drones, upgrade at harmony 9, 14
Sea Dragons, upgrade at harmony 10, 15
Siege worms, upgrade at harmony 11, 16
Kraken, upgrade at harmony 12, 18

Artificial Nest: (Alien Domestication)
Building... cannot be in same city as an Ultrasonic fence, consumes ?? Xenomass, requires Harmony level 8?10
spawns alien units every X turns
makes aliens friendly towards you (same as a normal nest inside your territory)

 

[Ryoga]

Unfortunately the AI seems to know only one way to deal with aliens so making aliens stronger will cause more problems to the already uncompetitive AI than to the human player.

 

[Alkaid]

I'm not really sure how I feel about the aliens. I like the functions and ideas of them but in the end they basically exist to impede my explorer's movement a bit early game and kill a couple trade routes before I get the fence upgrade. Nests are dealt with easily if you can position your explorer 2 non-forest/etc. tiles away from it and wait for a clear shot to move on it and destroy it.

I found barbs in Civ V a lot more threatening and harder to deal with early game. Aliens I can just ignore 99% of the time.

 

[joncnunn]

Why do the aliens attack you for building the mind flower? Shouldn't they be happy that you're becoming part of them?

In the back game story, it states that the aliens are confused when its first completed, this is similar in SMAC to how just having the tech to build the Voice of Planet secret project increased mind worm activity and the massive amount of fungus that appears when it's complete.

If you leave the aliens alone they should calm down in a few turns, but this is a strong reason to have already completed fences.

Also, harmony in SMAC is like the Native American version of Harmony (Man is the top predator in the ecosystem.)

 

[tesb]

smac had a deeper background story regarding the aliens. mindworms were actually the immune system of the planet hunting for anything with a consciousness (that is why they used psi attacks). they weren't just mindless animals like in BE.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

smac had a deeper background story regarding the aliens. mindworms were actually the immune system of the planet hunting for anything with a consciousness (that is why they used psi attacks). they weren't just mindless animals like in BE.

Well in BE they are only semi-mindless (given the planets global response..they are still like an immune system.. but haven't determined if you are a threat yet*)

*although this needs to be stepped up significantly.