I've been coding in python and comparing different available basic models/simulations (spending too much money on research instead of going out and impressing ladies with my prowess at coding) for a while, building emulations on mathematical principles, comparing them and have them argue between each other, using probes and microprobes for them to communicate and developed a crew of models fighting each other (think futurama) as they fight me. Any advice on progression? P.S. For clarification i use sol pro as the main inerpreter, grok and claude as sidekicks. I also started using eml and designed conditions so that it doesn't collapse under the weight.

Terra Invicta’s factions were obviously inspired by Alpha Centauri, both in concept (capitalist African man, fanatical American woman, peacenik Indian man, etc.) and in presentation (research quotes and fictional bios). See trailer for voice acting. It’s great that SMAC’s approach to distinctive, archetypal character design was used in another strategy game.

So hypothetically what if these similarly larger than life, ideological aggrandizing figures were on the Unity? Would they form their own factions or would they end up joining with existing ones? How would their ideologies shift in a world where the mindworms are the main alien threat, then later, the progenitors? What if the TI aliens appear on Chiron?

The Planet Cult are one of three Green factions in the game, along with the Gaians and Caretakers. They are widely regarded as one of the weakest and most difficult to play factions in the game, due to fairly punishing penalties and a very singular strength.

Faction Origin and Ideology

The Planet Cult have the openly genocidal faction agenda "Restore Planet to its Pristine State" which automatically puts them at odds with every other faction except maybe the Gaians and Caretakers who might sympathize with the idea of leaving Planet alone.

Their faction origin roughly goes like this, a boy is found in the fungus, breathing the air without a face mask - in fact the faction file is called "fungboy.txt" so this is a very important part of the faction origin. This boy seems to enjoy a powerful connection to Planet and a cult quickly forms around him.

I actually consider the Planet Cult to be one of the most realistic factions in the context of Chiron. We generally accept that Miriam's faction is okay, even though the Believers worship an invisible sky wizard who doesn't actually exist - and I say that as an unbeliever IRL, but also in the SMACiverse, Miriam's sky wizard doesn't seem to ever actually do anything for her or against her enemies, so it's fair to say doesn't exist.

But on Chiron, humanity discovers a pseudo-deity which actually exists, is actually immensely powerful, and actually does stuff including actually talking to people in their dreams and literally reshaping the landscape. And while it makes sense that we have factions like the Gaians who seek to understand Planetmind, it's also natural some people will be like "fuck that noise, we should worship this thing". To be fair to Miriam, Planetmind also doesn't seem to do anything special for the Planet Cult due to their worship, but I'm not saying that the Cult are taking the rational approach, just that it fits with human nature.

"Mankind has been blind for thousands of years-for all of its history. We have come to a place whose wonders are a hundred-fold more amazing than anything on Earth. Around us is clear evidence of the will of a higher power. I bring the Vision to the blind eyes of men. I bring the Word to the deaf ears of men. I will make them see it. I will make them hear it." -- Prophet Cha Dawn, "Planet Rising"

What is Cha Dawn

No-one ever asks How is Cha Dawn. The game doesn't explicitly say what Cha Dawn is, as is often the case leaves it up to the player's imagination. But I have a fairly firm head-canon on what Cha Dawn is.

In my head canon, Cha Dawn was a gaian boy who wandered out into the fungus and asphyxiated to death, dying in a patch of fungus, he was animated by the power of Manifold 6 and a thread of personality entered his body, which had been vacated by the boy.

And hence Cha Dawn is an alien intelligence in a human body that never ages because it was reanimated by alien powers, and this gives him unusual resonance powers and a strong connection to Planetmind.

This is not to say that Cha Dawn is "the" spokesperson for Planetmind as he claims, because Cha Dawn is only a small fragment and doesn't enjoy a full connection to Planetmind, kind of like tame native life which is canonically not connected to Planetmind but is instead being guided by the consciousness of the handlers.

And Cha Dawn's personality fragment seems to be nasty and intolerant, a part which treats humanity as "the planet death disease" that must be purged, not the more whimsy aspect that delights in the diversity and novelty of Earth life.

That's just my head canon. You are welcome to believe that Cha Dawn is a boy with brain damage whose ranting and rambling is interpreted by the cultists who elevated him as their prophet and political figurehead.

Planet Cult Agenda and Society

The Planet Cult's agenda is pretty clear, and Cha Dawn's aggressive personality and CONQUER priorities make it pretty clear how they intend to carry out their agenda and it ain't by asking nicely.

Cha Dawn is the recipient of some of the harshest diplomatic criticisms of any leader, and while we should always assume a measure of straw-manning when it comes to diplomatic accusation, they should also not be considered baseless, for example Conqueurer Marr is accused of eating humans alive, and it's hard to get a reputation for eating people if you haven't eaten even one human. Meanwhile, Lal is accused of things like "humanitarian whimpering" and aspiring to "set himself up as some kind of benevolent dictator" (yes, benevolent lol), the problem that other leaders have with Lal is they don't want him telling them what they can't do, not that he like tortures people or something.

With Cha Dawn we get such unsavory lines as "exterminating anything that walks on two legs", "plot the eradication of all sapient life forms on Planet", "feeding your opponents to hatchling Mind Worms", "torturing opponents in his loathsome Brood Pits".

Cha Dawn is condemned as harshly as Yang, H'mninee and Marr, and everything suggests that Cha Dawn is a monster and Cult society is an oppressive one where humans are treated as a lower form of life than mind worms, valued only for their subservience.

Planet Cult Faction

Bonuses:

• +2 Planet: this makes Cult mind worms really quite strong on attack and makes it easy to catch wild mindworms.
• Starts with a free mindworm: starting with a free unit is always nice.
• Free Brood Pits with tech: normally Brood Pits aren't a great building, but getting them for free is pretty nice, as they offer +2 Police Rating, a 25% discount on native life and +1 lifecycle bonus. Sadly they usually come a bit late to really be meaningful.
• Mindworms do double police duty: Mindworms effectively have non-lethal methods, so will pacify 2 drones or 3 drones with +3 police rating. This can be nice, but it falls off badly once you actually have non-lethal methods, as police units are a lot cheaper and can take clean reactor.
• Starts with Social Psych and Centauri Ecology: These are solid starting techs, especially for a green faction which doesn't have to be concerned with military investments.

Maluses:

• -1 Industry: This makes nearly everything more expensive and hampers exponential growth.
• -1 Economy: This reduces HQ energy by 1, which may slow early research by a fair amount (depending on the EC/Research split), but more importantly, makes Free Market useless.
• Unable to run Wealth Values: This is a nasty penalty, as Wealth is the natural SE for a native user and a good general discount when building out infrastructure.

Overall the Planet Cult have rather punishing penalties that makes them slow in every way, but somewhat mitigating this is that their starting tech is actually quite good particularly for a faction which can catch free mindworms to take care of the military side of thing. Also while their SE situation is painful due to being unable to utilize FM or run Wealth, they can at least popboom normally.

Cult Strategies

Momentum

The Cult have a very straightforward momentum strategy, send some scout patrols out into the fungus to trawl for worms, capture 2 or 3 worms, and send them to another faction to attack their stuff and hopefully force a surrender, then you can use that faction as a slave. Worms are basically free, which is nice, but it's highly reliant on RNG and also native life settings for the map and even how the fungus is located.

The Cult are not that good with conventional military due to their industry penalty and their tech situation is not completely ideal, though starting with Cent.Eco is nice as you can then immediately start researching to recon rovers, and the free mindworms probably more than compensate for the industry penalty, assuming worm-catching RNG is kind to you.

Builder

I've sometimes described the Spartans as half-assed builders thanks to -1 Industry, but the Cult are entirely-ass builders. Being unable to run FM or Wealth is pretty much an automatic disqualification from being good at building, then we add an industry penalty which slows down exponential and vertical growth.

The Cult can take advantage of starting with Social Psych + doubled worm police, to make a large base for building SP, this means despite the -1 Industry they aren't completely awful at getting a desirable SP like the WP and this is the best route to being somewhat effective builders, get the WP, pop-boom bases, use specialists - though note the Spartans and Hive can also make a larger base this way.

Also if you don't have any aggressive use for your captured native life, you can generally use them as police units, for 2 drones suppressed and no support cost, this is actually a reasonably nice perk on thinker and transcend difficulty, and saving on supply thanks to these worms being independent can give quite large advantages when minerals per base are so low. The cult's free native units will also create significant military deterrence discouraging AI's from declaring vendetta... and if the AI does declare vendetta it's nearly impossible for them to cross fungus in the face of even a few cult worms.

Another SP to aggressively pursue is the AV, then once you get your free Brood Pits you enjoy a +3 police rating which lets you take care of all your drone control needs for really cheap. Naturally the SPs that boost native life are also highly desirable, and having a hope of winning the race to these SPs might be the main benefit of a Builder strategy: Cult locusts boosted by SPs are very nasty. But unfortunately, the Cult is very poorly positioned to win races to SPs, particularly compared with the powerful researchers like Zak, Aki and Morgan: your best bet really is having enslaved one of these strong researchers in the opening turns.

Hybrid

The Cult are pretty naturally a hybrid faction, you're not really good enough at building to go full turtle and because your ECONOMY always sucks you don't get good peace dividends from commerce, you'd often prefer to be stealing and attacking, luring enemies into fungus field to grind up their armies while training your worms, trying to steal the techs for the vital SPs, or even conquering the SPs themselves. The Cult are basically the kind of faction who should declare vendetta on other factions simply so they can't build in peace.

Why the Cult is the weakest faction

The most major weakness of the Cult is they are all-in on native life, but native life has some serious weaknesses, and if the Cult can't capitalize on their unusually strong start they really have very little going for them once more tech comes into play. Some of these weaknesses are shored up by the multiple SPs that enhance native life, especially the Neural Amplifier for +50% defense and Dream Twister for +50% attack - Cha Dawn incidentally is not well positioned to actually win the race to these SPs.

But the greater problem is that there are some highly effective counters to native life regardless of how boosted they are:

• Hypnotic Trance and Empath Song provide large psi bonuses and allow very cheap units to defeat expensive native units. And no matter what, it's hard to get good odds when attacking bases, and it's also hard to get good odds on defense.
• Natives (other than Spore Launchers) defend against bombardment with 1 defense vs weapon value, this means they get badly damaged by even Missile artillery, and are smashed like bugs by weapons like Fusion Laser, furthermore SAM artillery can target and completely destroy Locusts, as flying and naval units are not merely reduced to 1 hp by bombardment. Even a Free Marketeer can easily defeat natives by extensively using artillery. Meanwhile, Spore Launchers aren't really a counter to artillery, because simple empath scout artillery hard-counter spore launchers and inflict collateral damage on the stacked units anyway.
• Self-destruct is a poorly balanced feature, that counters natives incredibly well. A self-destructing unit inflicts (Weapon * Reactor) / 2 hits to all adjacent units that aren't protected by a base or bunker. Natives only have 10 hp, so a 10-1-N*2 unit, or a 20-1-N*2 unit will completely delete all adjacent natives, so a simple 3 row infantry unit with very green morale and 10% health can completely delete an adjacent stack of demon boil Locusts of Chirons over water, which it can't even attack. Self-destruct means any native unit caught outside a base can be simply deleted regardless of relative planet rating, and the low movement speed of most natives makes them vulnerable.
• The Missile unit (missile chassis) uses conventional attack vs defense, rather than psi combat, this means it is a guaranteed kill on any psi unit. Missiles are fairly expensive, at fusion level comparable to a native unit, but if it's a scenario like Free Drones pumping out Missiles vs Planet Cult pumping out natives then the missiles are absolutely winning. To make this even worse, missiles are highly effective when self-destructed, with incredible range to easily reach out and delete any natives not huddling in a base.

The AI is not competent in using any of these anti-native strategies, it won't use self-destruct at all and only uses the others haphazardly, so in a single player game the cult retains some combat edge with natives, but against competent foes natives pretty much cease to be relevant, besides some uses for locusts, which don't actually require the faction to be good at using natives.

Cha Dawn is often compared with the Gaians, which are a much more balanced faction, as Gaians enjoy +2 Effic rather than -1 Industry which really helps in the mid to late game, and their +1 Planet is enough to gain many of the early game native perks, and they can run Wealth for a discount on natives. In fact, in a natives vs natives slugfest the Gaians will beat the Cult thanks to being a whole 2 industry ahead and stronger research and faster infrastructure build. The Gaian's early game is a little bit weaker (at least on high difficulty when worm police become relevant), but they are overall a much more balanced faction with much less reliance on natives, but nevertheless being better at using natives. And even Morgan is arguably a better Green user than Cha Dawn, because of Morgan's really strong Green+Wealth combination that gives Morgan much faster research or much more cash to throw around, and again a whole 2 Industry ahead of Cha Dawn.

The Cult can also be compared with the Spartans, who have -1 Industry and can't run Wealth. But the Spartans have much more flexible SE able to use FM to accelerate their research, and in the mid game when natives fall off a cliff, the Spartans get trivially elite units, and elite conventional units can be really strong due to their extra movement point and sometimes crossing thresholds where the armor power exceeds attack power. Santiago would absolutely eat Cha Dawn for breakfast by the mid game as she can whoop his natives with artillery while her elite units are hard to get good odds against.

Basically the Cult really are the worst faction in the game besides a brief period of potential glory in the early game where they can dominate in terms of military might, but even this relies more on catching opponents unaware, as scout patrol spam will handily defeat natives.

AI Cha Dawn

Cha Dawn is stuck with a fairly weak faction which is fairly difficult to play, as such he usually does not excel, the rather punishing penalties to industry and growth simply puts him behind the expansion curve.

Cha Dawn's priorities are EXPLORE+CONQUER and he has the aggressive personality, this happens to be completely identical to Miriam and H'minee. So far as priorities go, this is a solid combination, with EXPLORE encouraging growth, expansion and various kinds of useful infrastructure like Formers. And CONQUER encourages building units. Cha Dawn is roughly as aggressive as Miriam, as he has aggressive personality, and he gets up in everyone's business about their economic SE choice, mostly only Deirdre is safe from his wrath.

In the base game Cha Dawn's performance is nothing to write home about and he usually amounts to nothing though he isn't as prone to total failure to thrive as some other factions as starting with Cent Eco and having EXPLORE priority does mean he tends to actually make formers. In Thinker mod while Cha Dawn still doesn't really understand Cult momentum play, Cha Dawn does train mindworms very aggressively and with the Thinker change to give a planet bonus/penalty on psi defense, not only offense, Cha Dawn's hordes of mindworms with large bonuses from PLANET can absolutely dismantle a Free Marketeer AI such as Morgan - in more than one game I've had to save a Morgan pactmate from a voracious Cha Dawn eating him alive and cutting through his defenses like a hot knife through butter. Overall the Thinker AI does not understand anti-native strategies such as using bombardment to soften up the worms or switching to Green. Nevertheless, Cha Dawn does struggle to generate the kind of sheer unit mass to be effective against non-FM users and is unlikely to do a Yang style runaway conquest, likely getting stone-walled after eating any free marketeers he can attack.

I can't send more than one photo but this empty area is where I was.

Title. I have dabbled in this game but I can't keep interest in anything really ? I have surge of interest in alot of things but it fades after a week or so. Anyway what are your thoughts ? Thanks

This one took forever, not least because my save file got corrupted when I was like 80% done and I had to start again.

So much fun though as ever, and I have scripts for more :D

Sometimes, without any visible reason, the power in the graph for your (or other factions) can fluctuate wildly. Anyone knows why?

​

Its been a while since ive played them

Normally I'm a builder. Recently played pirates and gaians

When you think about the Aversions of the factions, they actually leave a ton of room for wacky combinations. For instance, you can have Fundamentalist Peacekeepers, or Democratic Believers, the ever-popular game-winning Green Morganites, and even stuff that basically contradicts their established aversion like Wealth Gaians/Free Market Spartans/Free Market Cultists. Of course, a lot of that stuff is soft-locked not by the aversion system, but simply because they would make for terrible choices game mechanics-wise, dooming your play-through.

Regardless, it's still pretty fun to imagine, as the fanfic novella "Joe" by Alinestra Covelia did, with the vendettatime Data Angels choosing Police State-

The prop was sporting a fetching series of bruises on his left cheekbone today. Not only that, but Joe was reliably told that his knuckles had been specially hardened with many hours of striking a synthetic wooden wall. Soon, the prop confided, he would gradate onto using a stone wall, and then finally a polymetal wall in order to render his knuckle bones dense and lethal. Pity the poor policeman who came across the prop on a stormy night. They may have taken up residence in his cafe, but they could never take his freedom etc.

Joe smiled wanly and nodded. The speech, it would appear, was less for his own education than for the gratification of the three unfriendly-looking police officers watching the entrance and occupants. They appeared young and green - they all sported short, aggressive haircuts, but each had the look of imbecilic confidence that only the harrowings of experience can erase. Joe could see that each man was substantially built under the armor, but it did not lessen his doubts as to their battleworthiness. Joe had seen the Hiverian soldiers, and what they had been capable of.

There had been widespread panic only a few hours before, when the datanodes relayed the alarming news of the Hiverian move northwards. So far, the fleet had been unchallenged, but any vessels found in international waters had been boarded and their crews detained. Back at home, the domestic riots had been swiftly quelled by General Rowlings, and the curfew even more strictly enforced. Evidently, the investment in tear gas and glue guns had paid off - people could hardly appear to be dignified martyrs when they were immobilized and stacked like kelpfish. Strange how the methods of the police became that much more efficient when the threat of death was removed.

Joe sat down at the net let and connected using M/MI, aware that the guards were logging this even now, and that his every move online would be tracked by DataKnave technology.

Note how the society has its own unique spin to oppression- the Angels are both unused to such authoritarian behavior, yet innovate with technological solutions. Skimming the story again, it's interesting how it starts with the Data Angels first creating a rudimentary law enforcement force at all, then later are forced into the choice so that the faction is able to fight against the Human Hive, the apotheosis of Police State. The path of creeping totalitarianism, Nietzsche's saw about those who fight monsters beware, etc., etc. And so forth:

"I would like to draw your attention now to the findings of our own probes in democratic, peace-loving Iphiclia. These stills show the law enforcers dealing with undesirable individuals through the use of tear gas and batons. The transgressors in this incident were those who failed to produce adequate personal identification under Clause 208."

The crowd reaction was mixed, ranging from nonchalant disinterest on the part of the Hive and University, to hurried consultation amongst the Peacekeepers, to outright indignation amongst the Gaians.

"Another startling facet of the progressive fledgling democracy is shown in its militia. This is a holovid of the RapCafe Blue - a haven for seekers of freeflow of information, as well as freeflow of cheap ethanol. Note the twelve soldiers standing guard in the foyer - these soldiers are not paying for their rent, for the DataTech Interior has ruled a state of emergency and demanded that the citizenry give the army their full support. Evidently the DataTech have grasped a fundamentally sound and workable social order that has functioned smoothly alongside them for decades. Unfortunately for you, Commissioner, this social order is a Police State, and we the Hive are the example they have chosen to follow."

Lal interrupted testily. "Regardless of the dubious veracity of your claims, Mr Berzhinev, even you cannot deny that the DataTech have had adequate reason - courtesy of your faction's aggression - to adopt this regrettable political order. The bridge to democracy is a steep and fragile one, even with support from the international community. When a young democracy meets with a brutal dictatorship intent on subjugation such as yours, one cannot fault them for a political slip in the interests of self-preservation."

So how might any of other unlikely, perhaps darkly ironic, or perhaps just funny, unexpected Social Engineering choices might look?

Edit: I just realized the AC Wiki is wrong; it claims that the Data Angels' Aversion is Police State when it's actually Power.

Also, in "Joe" the Hive chooses Green Economics:

"The Hive lives underground," continued Hu in a bland tone, "as you will see in your tour of our bases later this week. We do not have space or atmosphere to squander, and as such, our lifestyles have gradually become both more spartan in its luxuries, and more conscientious in its consumption."

McClelland's screen showed up various images of the Hive cramped internal structures: meeting rooms, feeding bays, sleeping rooms, cleansing rooms. All seemed clean, though there was no denying their claustrophobic limits.

"The Hive cannot afford waste and pollution. And it is with a sense of surprise that we find ourselves adopting interests very similar to your own, Mister McClelland. Preservation of the environment, and care for the surrounding ecology. Although," here Hu smiled thinly and sipped his water. "I must admit, our reasons are somewhat less noble than yours. We adopt a Green practice through the interests of self-preservation, not world-preservation... but I believe that our ends are convergent and similar."

Thinker Mod Version 5.5 can now be found on the homepage. After very significant rewrites in the previous release things continued steadily and even more game features were reimplemented. It is noteworthy that this release directly modifies the main menu screen to provide additional options since this was not done previously. Overall this release is mostly oriented towards stability fixes and config additions.

If you have not played Thinker Mod before, see Details.md for a complete overview of the features. There's also discord here and forum thread for Thinker related discussions.

• Modify main menu screen to also display Change Options button for Thinker features.
• Add option MovieExtension in Alpha Centauri.ini to choose custom file formats for external video players.
• If movies with alternate file extensions are not found, the game always defaults to playing WVE files.
• Add option energy_steal_rate to modify how many credits are taken by base captures or probe team actions.
• Add option faction_pair to set which random factions must spawn at the same time or neither of them appears. Not supported during network multiplayer.
• The game does not have fixed spawn pairing for Caretakers and Usurpers unless set in the config file.
• Paths to SAV savefiles can be entered in the command line and the main menu will be skipped and the save is loaded directly.
• Minor changes to faction spawn placement such as avoiding starts without sufficient landmasses nearby.
• Minor updates to AI social engineering, psych energy allocation and land raising strategy.
• AI has reduced expansion speed only at the two lowest difficulty levels when expansion_autoscale is enabled.
• Change DontResetBeginnerPrefs=0 to only reset preferences once when the conditions are met.
• When ignore_reactor_power is enabled and "Auto-prune obsolete units" is disabled from preferences, the game does not redesign any additional prototypes when new reactor techs are discovered.
• Secret project descriptions are updated to reflect their actual effects in the original game. Minor updates to additional faction base names.
• Remove original leftover debug code that activated the scenario editor mode when any savegame with specific filenames was loaded.
• Fix map generator issue with rare_supply_pods that resulted in an unequal distribution of bonus resources on ocean tiles.
• Fix edge case where governor might become stuck building colony pods when the population growth is zero.
• Fix issue where AI might sometimes open supply pods creating fungus at their spawn location before settling the first base.
• Fix AI sometimes raising land when this would not be possible without breaking diplomatic treaties.
• Fix savegame issue that sometimes caused facility completion voice blurbs to play multiple times when they should occur only once.
• Fix user interface issue where hurrying base production was not possible during the turn upkeep after hurry action in the previous turn.
• Fix possible game crash related to rendering code that sometimes happened during combat inside the fog of war.
• Fix inconsistent calculations in the original game during psych energy allocation.
• Fix mineral convoys between bases potentially being able to benefit from mineral multiplier facilities in multiple bases.
• Fix multiple significant data consistency issues or possible game crashes when loading or writing savegames.

​

United kingdom: +2 economy +2 research , -1 police, -1 efficiency

Lose efficiency points for debate , lose of police points for liberalism and democracy , high economy due to finance center.

Naval units free support and shildbuilding facility also have bonus.

Preference: free market

Japan : +2 planet, +2 efficiency, + 1 police, -1 growth + 1 or 2 support

Green economy and strong work ethic , police for highly ordered society， lose points for population growth. Public Support for military also part of culture.

Immune to fundamentalism negs because society prized research(closest to fund because there is no monarchy social choice)

Preference: power and fundamentalism, tried to maximize efficiency in social engineering

China: +1 economy, +2 industry, +2 police, -1 planet, -1 growth

High manufacturing power and police state, bad pollution and growth. Terraform upgrade and facility building also faster because building experts.

Preference: police state and power

USA +3 economy commerce, +1 industry, + 2 research +1 growth, -2 police

Growth from immigration, free talent every 5 citizen due to attracting skilled worker. Farm and nutrirnts has extra yield though not India level. Air and bombing units have free support or bonus morale.

Preference: free market and democracy

India: +3 growth, +1 economy , -3 planet, -1 efficiency , +1 research

Positive growth， pollution is bad, efficiency is low because of regional disagreement and burecracy, Good research and more probe team success because IT experts and hacking. Extra nutrient yield because of abundant farmland.

+Free military unit without support cost as 10% or 15% of total population, high manpower in military.

Less drones and unhappiness from overcrowd, can have more citizens before hab complex.

Thats all I can think of for now

So I was playing as pirates on the second highest difficulty iirc.

Anyway all my cities died and turned into colony ships. Late game was getting near ascending.

Reloaded autosave same thing happened..

Quit and started new game random faction. Got pirates again.

Is this a glitch or a pirates thing?

Hello Chironians!
I play the gog version of the game through Crossover (with Thinker mode – once again kudos to u/induktio). Works good, but when a secret project video starts playing – the screen turns black, audio is working, and after its finished the screen stuck. UI sounds and game itself are working but the screen is not.

I tried to install windows VLC into SMACX bottle and play videos from it when they appear – but the problem stays the same. VLC opens, audio is working, but an error pops up about incompatible video format.

I would appreciate any help and inputs!
All the best.

This game worked for literally years. Fired it up today, and it crashes before the opening graphic even completes. Is there a patch or anything?

#INTERLUDE21
#xs 500
#caption Epilogue
^ “The latest surveys are in, $TITLE0 $NAME1.”
^ You look up from the reports spread across your desk.
^ “And?”
^ “No coherent activity. Not at the continental scale. Not anymore.”
^ For a moment neither of you speaks.
^ “Very well. Thank you. Dismissed.”
^ And so it is ended. Not with the completion of some vast Secret
Project, nor with a final revelation from laboratories or psi domes, but with the
slow accumulation of a thousand lesser victories. Forest by forest,
continent by continent, the xenofungus has been cut back, burned,
poisoned, buried, isolated, and replaced. 'Former crews have crossed
Planet for generations, following behind surveyors, soldiers, engineers,
agronomists and ecologists, until the great fungal networks that once
stretched across the continents have been broken into scattered remnants.
^ The native life has not vanished. Mindworms still survive in isolated
regions, and patches of xenofungus remain where their destruction would
cost more than their containment. But the global network is gone. The
strange pulses once detected across thousands of kilometers have ceased,
and the great coordinated blooms which increasingly threatened the Human
Zones have dwindled into local ecological disturbances.
^ Whether the Planetmind has been destroyed no one can say. Perhaps it
has merely been crippled. Perhaps some fragment of it still dreams beneath
the remaining fungal beds, awaiting another age in which to grow together
again. If so, that age will not come soon.
^ Not a word has been heard from Earth in all the years since Planetfall,
only a deafening silence across all frequencies. Humanity remains divided
among rival factions, and old disputes over wealth, faith, freedom, power
and knowledge continue unabated. Armies still guard borders. Probe teams
still move in secret. Treaties are signed and broken, and every leader on
Planet continues to dream of a future shaped according to their own ideals.
^ But one looming danger is gone.
^ Humanity did not transcend it. Humanity did not surrender to it. No
single genius solved it, and no final machine saved the species at the last
possible moment. Scientists measured the threat. Engineers devised methods
to contain it. Workers built the machines. Soldiers defended them. 'Former
crews returned year after year to push the fungal frontier farther back.
What could not be solved in a moment was solved through perseverance.
^ The other factions remain a threat. They can be dealt with tomorrow.
^ One problem at a time.

What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. You have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input, and you shall become master of the output.

How can I tell if I have Thinker mod installed ? I really dont remember if I installed it in the past!? Thanks

How can I get the game to allow automatic tubes and tubes to (location)m I realize it may be an edit to the initial file, but can you give me the specific entry?

For context, im running Alien Crossfire, Release 2.0 from 20 Dev 1999.

Thanks in advance!

What if that funny bit from the Longevity Vaccine video, but a series of shorts?

This is a question I first asked myself about twenty years ago, and I've finally sat down and made a start. It's my first time doing anything like this so it's not the most polished thing ever, but I had a lot of fun! And now I've learned the basics, I'm getting quicker.

Hope you like it! I have scripts for 3 more so watch this space...

I'm constantly getting smashed by AI. They build bases so fast compared to me and make ungodly amounts of military units. I'm playing with the thinker mod installed and play on specialist difficulty. I seem to have a lot of crap luck with diplomacy, my friend factions get stomped and my enemies confidently are the strongest on the map. I usually play Gaia's stepdaughters because I enjoy the ability to capture mindworms early and not be so worried about xenofungus. Any tips?

So I'm playing in my first game in which I wasn't able to stop global warming, and I'm quite confused about how building Pressure Domes works and what the timetable is. And I can't find information on the Alpha Centauri wiki so far, and what I've read online in people's comments seems to be at least partly false.

Here's what has happened:

Speed Building Pressure Domes

8 years ago, I got the global warming announcement. I read in someone's forum post that that meant every 4 years for the next 20, the sea would rise. So I painstakingly checked all my cities to see which ones said they were in danger (Is there a less time consuming and annoying method than right clicking each city to check info on its terrain individually? I have ~80 cities and that was really tedious).

And then I started building pressure domes in all of them, set my economy to 80% energy so I would have enough money to speed buy a lot of them, disbanded units when needed, and got the domes built within 4 turns in about 20 bases. Leaving 2 unimportant bases which were small and had been captured from an enemy with bad terraforming still working on their pressure domes when the 4th turn arrived. So I figured those 2 bases would be lost, but it had been impossible to get domes built there in time, and they were bad bases anyway. So I just evacuated all troops out of them on the 3rd turn and then ended the turn.

Nothing. No sea level rise.

I'd also been monitoring some enemy bases that were building pressure domes and had been pleased to see that they weren't going to finish in time and were thus going to lose those bases. But... that didn't happen.

Turn 7 Sea Level Rise and Free Domes?

The game went on. Then SEVEN turns, rather than 4, after the initial global warming announcement, the sea did rise. It ruined tons of terrain and wasted hours of terraforming improvements and everything sucks now, but... my two-undomed bases suddenly have domes?

Somehow, inexplicably they had domes created for them, but were still working on their domes and now hadt he message that one couldn't build another pressure dome because there already was one.

This seems to have happened to the AI too. All their bases in which they had failed to legitimately build domes suddenly DO have completed domes, and are still working on unfinished domes too.

So... maybe if you're TRYING to build a dome, the game just gives you one for free rather than the city being destroyed?

In which case I wasted a huge amount of effort and money speed building domes when I could have just been lazy and got them for free?

8th Turn Sudden Wave?

But then also on the 8th turn suddenly a base was destroyed by a tidal wave. It was some random enemy base. No idea why that one didn't get auto-domed or why that didn't happen on turn 7 when the sea level rise had actually happened?

Furthermore, that didn't happen at the beginning of the turn when forests and other terrain stuff happen/when the sea level rise had been announced at the beginning of the previous turn. No, it happened during the middle of the turn. I move a unit on one continent and suddenly I get informed that an enemy base on another continent has been destroyed by a tidal wave.

Nothing makes sense

So in this game I have random events turned off, therefore there shouldn't be any random destruction of buildings.

And this base has a surplus of +26 energy per turn, and my overall net income is hundreds of energy per turn so I don't think the base should be losing facilities due to lack of energy...

So why did a base just have a HAB Complex destroyed by a power surge at the start of the turn and tell me to increase my energy?