Alpha Centauri, Mods related to it and sprite modding shenanigans in general.

[Comrade Crimson]

Alright folks; before you hamper me for not using the search function to find out if there is no other threads about Alpha Centauri-
I friggen did

And all I found of relevance was Pixel's Forum Let's play from the odd score of years ago; of which the factions mostly pertained to forum personalities. (Some of which like Majhudeen and others who apparently do not even exist anymore/go on this forum in this present day.)

So, without further a due I will be making this thread and also linking my work from the Alpha Centauri fan site too.


I've been tinkering and modding with Alpha Centauri for a good while. I've made custom sprites for a lot of different stuff and I've been making a few custom factions in my spare time.

I present to you a few concepts I've been thinking over.

The Páthos Bastion

First and only city name:

Komunumo

Leader: Statesman Maccus McKenzie

Background: Famous Actor, Unity Recreation Coordinator, Elected city governor of "Komunumo."

Agenda: Planned

Aversion: Thought Control

Qoute:
"One of the single most important things that matters in a person's development is the surroundings they live in. The neighbourhood, community that people live in can be a real defining impact on a person and their development... and whilst not the sole factor, a community can either inhibit or exhibit the talents and promise of their people. Simply put, we should make a nice place to live."

-Statesman Maccus McKenzie, Let's make a community.

3+ Talent "Cultivation of talent and skill through state programs and communal support."

9- Efficiency "Extreme autonomy makes standardization beyond the first city an utter nightmare."

+25% Defensive Bonus "Citizens are empowered to defend their beloved city state."

Free Tech: Industrial Automation

No graphics yet but generally the "lore" for this guy is he's a communalist, humanist thinker that wants his citizens to reach their full talent and potential. He also is somewhat of a self insert, in that lorewise he would be my son or some sort of descendant, hence the surname. Cheesy and scandalous as balls but hey; I thought it'd be cool to do a lets play of my future descendant-sort of. This faction would also be a city state; as in, only one city.



The United Army of Humanity or simply, The Unity

Leader: Marshal Humphrey Rodderick

Background: Former UN Peacekeeper, former Major under Santiago

Agenda: Thought Control

Aversion: Democracy

Qoute:

"Ever since the tragedy of Earth humanity has at multiple points nearly underwent extinction. Whether its from our own hands from self inflicted Armageddon, or the hostile alien world that is planet, we face a dire situation. Our petty rivalries, pride and ego blinds us to the truth. Death is imminent if we do not unite; we must be unified as a species if we hope to brave the storm of destruction."

-Marshal Humphrey Rodderick, Thoughts on Extinction.

Starts with Cloning Vats- "Citizens are produced to specification for wartime measures."

Free Punishment Sphere for every base- "Citizens are kept obedient through nervous tissue implants from birth."

-5 Planet "At war with Planet."

-3 Research "Lack of free will restrains growth of ideas."

-4 Economy "Eradication of free will makes others reluctant to trade with."

Penalty to Knowledge "The Free flow of information leads to anarchy and self destructon."

1+ Support "Utilitarian focus."


I wanted to make Rodderick a character who is both sympathetic, but also terrifying in his own right. A tragic character really, I wanted to make his faction ghastly as much as crushingly sympathetic: as he's a monster born out of the nuclear hellfire and societal collapse of what was Earth. A man driven to the utmost extremes, to remove human will and free thought to preserve humanity as a whole against planet mind and humanity's own self destructive tendencies. Someone who once was a good man, was driven to his complete edge and breaking point when the Unity mission failed. He would've been one of the people to vote to keep the Unity mission together to keep the mission united to ensure humanity was safe. The combination with the horrors of Earth, the hostility planet showed him and the fracturing of humanity as a whole would lead to Humphrey Rodderick, former UN peacekeeping soldier and a relative hero who was responsible for channelling people into the Unity project to save them and responsible for safeguarding it when all hell broke lose, to lose his mind and have it be replaced by a cold, psychotic paternalism that wants to eradicate free will as we know it. 

Faction Name: Planet Pioneers

Leader: Janvier Matapang

Background: Philippines Free Sector, Unity Oceanographer and Marine Biologist

Agenda: Wealth

Aversion: Power

1+ Green (Many followers are green thumbed and environmentally intuitive)

2- Police (dislikes despotism or strong senses of authority)

2+ Minerals for Fungus squares (Environmentally friendly and symbiotic resource extraction techniques)

Free Skimship Foil

Penalty to Police (Janvier dislikes despotic systems of control, as does his followers)

Starts with Doctrine Flexibility

Aquatic Start

Backstory and ideological focus:

Janvier Matapang was born in a turbulent time in the Philippines. Born to a modestly wealthy family, he grew up and had a strong passion for science and nature. The Philippines at the time of the late 2030's was a very unstable region. Climate change and political instability made the Philippines a rather split region constantly under aid by the UN and other organizations due to rampant flooding. The US had largely withdrawn as well due to pressing matters at home, and a power vacuum was left in the islands to where powerful despots and juntas arose in place of the American backed government.

His natural interest in science and nature along with the pressing matters of his country, Janvier underwent extensive education and was determined to help his nation and solve problems such as resettlement, food shortages and other persistent problems by founding a green corporation. He however met lots of opposition from despots in his country who hoarded over land and resources. Coming up with techniques to pioneer resettlement on aquatic settlements and his invaluable expertise with this led him to being selected for the Unity mission, much against his will initially as he wished to stay on Earth an help it.

Eventually though with worsening conditions he was forced to accept. After the Unity mission crisis Janvier took his own escape pod, not agreeing with Morgan or Deidre's camp, thinking that Morgan was too reckless to the environment and Deidre was too out of touch with her Earthbound ancestry and humanity.  Founding his own faction, Janvier's Planet Pioneers decided to etch their new civilization upon the principle of building up a stable economy and acquiring resources to advance their colonization effort, whilst keeping environmental damage to a minimum and if possible developing technologies to better accommodate to living on Planet's surface.


And again, no faction graphics yet for these guys.


Also, whilst were on the note of Alpha Centauri- what is your guys favourite vanilla factions? For me its somewhat hard pressed but I like Yang a lot; Domai is also pretty cool and probably closer to me ideologically; though storywise and character wise I don't really dislike any of them. Miriam, who seems to catch a lot of flak among people I find actually thought provoking as well as she's very genre savvy and is cautionary to the advancement of dangerous technologies, and her moral strength is made tragic by the fact she had to go as a crazed fundamentalist due to the sheer struggles she faced upon landing on Planet.

 

[Comrade Crimson]

Ain't nobody that plays Alpha Centauri here? Or you nerds just shy?

 

[Mage246]

I see some serious balance problems with the first 2 factions.

1. 3+ Talents is not strong enough to counter-balance 9- efficiency IMO. I get that the idea is to have a single city, but Alpha Centauri isn't well balanced for single-city wins, what with the large number of improvement destroying and city-destroying options. Plus you are going to have a pretty slow early game even with the Golden Ages, since you'll miss out on a lot of great city sites. At the very least you will need a +Research or +Industry boost.

2. -3 Research and -4 Economy are *extremely* bad. The economy one especially. The only possible way to win with this faction is an early game zerg with low tech units, but with the lack of military bonuses (plus pissing off Planet and losing lots of early units), I can't see that happening against any faction that doesn't have weak early game.

 

[Comrade Crimson]

I see some serious balance problems with the first 2 factions.

1. 3+ Talents is not strong enough to counter-balance 9- efficiency IMO. I get that the idea is to have a single city, but Alpha Centauri isn't well balanced for single-city wins, what with the large number of improvement destroying and city-destroying options. Plus you are going to have a pretty slow early game even with the Golden Ages, since you'll miss out on a lot of great city sites. At the very least you will need a +Research or +Industry boost.

2. -3 Research and -4 Economy are *extremely* bad. The economy one especially. The only possible way to win with this faction is an early game zerg with low tech units, but with the lack of military bonuses (plus pissing off Planet and losing lots of early units), I can't see that happening against any faction that doesn't have weak early game.

The Industrial Automation tech gives crawlers off the bat, which can offset a lot of production problems and is a huge leg up in the game. I might consider a research bonus though, or what'd be more interesting- free prototypes and maybe something interesting like a commerce bonus or even something crazy like a Habitation Dome, potentially. Keep in mind that your HQ base ignores the efficiency penalties, its just if you expand beyond your initial HQ. Specialists also ignore said penalties too.

http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Industrial_Automation

Specifically it gives Hab complexes, Supply transports and crawlers, the latter which can give +minerals to a tile if placed near a city; and social choice- wealth, which is fairly useful for developing infrastructure and gathering energy, and given that you are unlikely to be warlike with this faction it is extremely useful, especially as a starting ideology.



Also, the latter faction has the Cloning Vats- which puts every base in permanent population boom and removes the problems of Thought Control and Power.
http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/The_Cloning_Vats

Which with their 1+ support means they effectively have 13+ social bonuses with permanent pop boom; said penalties are there to balance them out. The -planet indirectly gives them means to make energy credits too with planet pearls. The key here is maybe increasing troop survivability, I am hoping the pop boom and 1+ support is enough but I might add in more specific bonuses like Psychic Combat strength, which wouldn't unbalance them versus other factions but would help them greatly with any Psi damage units.

What I do find interesting is that you're the first person to say these factions are underpowered, people in the Alpha Centauri forum have claimed that the Unity in particular is rather OP- at least in its paper, theory format you see here. Its somewhat refreshing to see a change of opinion.

I'll definitely contemplate it. Personally I think I'll ultimately have to find out through testing; but any ideas you got are welcome.

 

[Mage246]

I personally frown on crawler exploiting. I'm not surprised that the forums say otherwise, since they're MP focused, and that means crawler abuse. They were clearly never balanced during game development, and the AI doesn't even use them. It's bringing a nuke to a knife fight in single player, and in multiplayer it's just dumb that you're forced to play a certain way to win.

 

[Comrade Crimson]

I personally frown on crawler exploiting. I'm not surprised that the forums say otherwise, since they're MP focused, and that means crawler abuse. They were clearly never balanced during game development, and the AI doesn't even use them. It's bringing a nuke to a knife fight in single player, and in multiplayer it's just dumb that you're forced to play a certain way to win.

A fair point. I will admit that crawler exploitation is a route I did not want to feasibly go, either. Though the benefits of the hab complex, social policy of wealth are reason enough for the tech as well; and in this case I think it is justified given that it is limited to one city. Otherwise it is just pure scumbag behaviour.

The question here is; do you have any alternatives to suggest? Something that would boost them, without crawler exploits? I am open to ideas.

Edit: And I encourage any ideas you have, because to be frank; because the responses I've gotten is mixed and unclear in that other community. Some people are helpful; but some just don't really add much in terms of actual ideas or what is more common, a large dissipation of interest leaving me forgotten/ignored at times. Not that I demand constant or even lots of attention; but some feedback to questions would be nice at times.

Say I went with a research bonus or something more quirky; how much would you suggest to balance it out? Mind, I want to prevent expansion to a new city but not stagnate said first city. Its meant to be an absolute gem; and if its not the best city in the entire map then the player/AI is doing something horribly wrong. That does not mean its the strongest faction; but it certainly can become so if technology is researched right and cards are dealt well.

 

[Pixel]

As a rule of thumb it's better to have minor penalties (IE -1 or -2) rather than huge ones like -4. Game's better balanced around that, because of the social engineering. Same way with bonuses.

 

[Comrade Crimson]

As a rule of thumb it's better to have minor penalties (IE -1 or -2) rather than huge ones like -4. Game's better balanced around that, because of the social engineering. Same way with bonuses.

Some of the extreme cases need to stay though; mostly with Pathos Bastion and the negative planet (and some sort of other problem) with the Unity. But; for the latter especially, I am open to any alternative ideas.

Gameplay wise I am looking for the follow behaviours to occur with the factions:

The Pathos Bastion is to be limited to one or very few cities at most; preferably just one, and its meant to have high amounts of talents and possibly research. It's meant to be an affluent city state, effectively.

The Unity or Army of Humanity is as aggressive a faction you can get. They rarely ally with anyone, and their first and nigh only intention with an encountered faction is to annihilate their forces and to take over their cities, as well as rapidly expand. I intended for them to summon horrific amounts of mindworms too and cause serious eco-damage, so they can harvest energy credits from planet pearls.

The Planetary Pioneers on the other hand are all about modest expansion on the water, and are a moderate mix of aggression and peace, preferring to peacefully expand but not afraid of war. They are also meant to colonize in rather fungal rich areas and be rather hardy and more survivable in a lot more locations than other factions would be.

Say I was to make changes to these factions; what would you folks suggest? The Pathos Bastion negative efficiency is likely to stay as your HQ doesn't receive the drawbacks of such horrid efficiency, but any cities you make do. Which makes it perfect for a single city faction.

The latter 2, however are up for discussion.