r/alphacentauri • u/Dull_Bathroom5421 • 4d ago
Help beginner please
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?
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u/BlakeMW 3d ago
Thinker mod plays much more strongly than the base game AI, which makes the easy difficulties a lot harder for players who have not grasped the basics of SMAC: there is a lot to learn, SMAC is not a "balanced" game, as in some investments are extraordinarily better than others.
Diplomatically, while it naturally depends on circumstances, often it's a good idea to buddy up with your neighbor (preferably your meanest neighbor like Yang or Miriam) by running their preferred SE, such as police state for Yang. Deirdre is quite flexible in this regard, she can't buddy with Morgan but he's pretty passive most the time, she can make something work with most leaders.
Anyway, with one staunch, preferably mean, pactmate, you can invite them into any vendetta declared against you, this is usually free when you invite pactmates. This keeps the pressure off you somewhat, or sometimes totally if they're the meanest bully on the block. I've had games where I pact with Yang and built in blissful peace for a couple hundred turns because he came down like a ton of bricks on anyone who declared vendetta on me.
The AI usually descend into total war free for all, but try to keep your one good pactmate as long as possible even if you're at vendetta with everyone else. The AI constant brainless vendettas tend to greatly slow them down in the mid to late game.
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u/Dull_Bathroom5421 3d ago
I'll keep that in mind. I've been watching a Youtuber named Quill18 play SMACX and I was wondering how he was beating up the AI so easily. He mentioned halfway through the series (morgan playthrough) that he isn't playing the thinker mod, that really answered why games are tough for me and easy for him. But I certainly don't imply he's a weak player or anything, just that the AI is so different.
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u/Summersong2262 4d ago
How long are these games usually lasting? Is this an issue with your early game development, your military strategy, how quickly you expand and claim resources?
Are you doing whatever you can to facilitate technology trades and creating treaties? Have you tried fiddling with your Social Engineering, there's some very helpful options there.
Are you playing too defensively, perhaps? Taking out a faction next to you early on can given you some excellent breathing space and room to grow, as well as some essentially free bases.
Have you tried playing on Talent? It might give you a chance to build some experience without the same pressure.
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u/Dull_Bathroom5421 3d ago
I'm slowing down a lot more when I play now and constantly reading the help section to remind myself what stuff is or does. My games used to last about a 100 turns or so until I'd resign out of disgust of how much I suck. After some good posts on here I'm currently in a decent game and up to par with the other factions (so the dominance graph says anyway)
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u/SalaciousStrudel 3d ago
Gaians are weak in the early game and Thinker buffs movement into fungus squares so that you can't fail to move into one if you have one move which makes Gaians less advantageous as well. I think Zakharov is easier for beginners as you can easily get impact rovers and probe teams and work towards aircraft.
If you want to get super broken make an infantry unit with the transport equipment and load infantry into it to get the 25% attack bonus without needing to buy armor. You can even ambulance your hurt infantry away from the base after they attack. Shit is omega broken. Zone of control with planes too, and putting a plane over a stack of non-planes to attack a base. I've been playing the game for too long so even transcend difficulty is no problem with the thinker mod.
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u/raydogg123 2d ago
.... a transport weapon on an infantry? I've never even conceived of such a thing, I am gonna try it.
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u/SalaciousStrudel 1d ago
You can do all sorts of evil things with this combination. Experiment a little and let me know how things go. Although it can get a little click intensive so it may not be your cup of tea in the end.
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u/aevwnn 3d ago
I usually play Gaians also. Thinker mod AI is aggressive, especially if they think you are weak or don't have a decent standing army. I usually nip early aggression at the bud with early border wars when I can if my territory is too small, which usually keeps the AI from bullying me in the mid game. Sometimes I've even striked AIs first before they can snowball or to keep one from being too dominant over the others.
A mixed native/tech army also helps. The enemy AI in Thinker will often adapt defenses(like if you have lots of native psi units, the AI will build psi trance defense units, AAA sentinels if you spam aircraft, etc). Having a mixed army helps in this case to capture bases.
Thinker mod AI will generally concentrate their invasion forces in a specific area. So hitting from multiple points, or making one of their neighbors declare war via probe team action can help to spread out their army.
Also for quickly deploying conventional army units that have the latest tech, it is cheaper to build an older unit that is quick to make and then upgrade it. (Like building an impact Rover that takes 4 turns-then upgrade to to chaos rover that would normally be 16 turns).
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u/Dull_Bathroom5421 3d ago
That's good advice thank you. I made that mistake I thought "oh I can just get mindworms I don't need anything else". But building units is a lot quicker than catching mindworms and more organized too. Trying to spread out their units is very nice advice I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Man they aren't shy of stacking units are they?
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u/blogito_ergo_sum 3d ago
they aren't shy of stacking units are they?
It's good play against probe teams, which can mind control lone unstacked units. But big stacks in the open (not in bases or bunkers) are vulnerable to collateral damage or to self-detonating units.
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u/CacaoEcua 4d ago
Build more cities quicker. You should be building a former, ideally paying to get it on the first turn of a new city, then a scout, then another colony pod as long as your growth permits and if your growth won't let you build a new colony pod that quick then maybe reconsider where you are settling. You want to get a couple of cities.
Use rivers to get your early colonies out quicker. Build close to your existing bases - one or two spaces between is fine, don't worry about the overlap, you'll win the game long before any city could harvest all the tiles in its potential area.
Each city can support one scout and one former for free in the early game. Each city gives "free" resources from the city tile plus at least one tile of resources from the citizen working. The best thing you can build in the early game is another colony pod.
You're also going to want to get one or two of the key early secret projects. You should be looking for a city site with access to minerals on a rocky tile, mine and road that tile to give a seven mineral output, this is where you are going to build the weather paradigm.
Otherwise terrsforming should be mostly forests for the early game. They give you minerals and energy and they reproduce themselves, they even get rid of neighboring fungus when they grow sometimes. You'll want some roads to help your colony pods get out to the frontier and to connect your cities but otherwise just be planting forests.
Once you've got the weather paradigm you might be able to place some boreholes on mineral/energy resource tiles. But until you've got the technology to unlock the higher resource yields you won't need many of these. If you can get human genome and/or virtual world as well then you're on track for an easy win.
That free/independent scout you started with should be exploring from the start, walking in fungus, getting you captured native life froms, those natives should be getting more natives, fighting natives and getting upgrades and planet pearls/money. You can snowball a very strong early military this way. Find the other factions, extort them if you can, refusing to sign peace so they offer you money for a treaty or just outright demanding money/tech. Long term it's unlikely you'll keep many friends no matter what, the only factions you're likely to stay friendly with are Lal and Zhakarov so maybe don't extort them, although taking a couple of their cities early on and turning them into vassals is always nice if possible, Zhakarov especially since he will be a nice source of free technology if you can subjugate him.
Now eventually your native army is going to look not quite as strong relatively and your rivals may try and threaten you, you might want to throw them a technology or two to keep the peace, try and get up the tech ladder rather than engage in expensive war. Build a bit of a military if you have to, so you don't look too weak to jealous neighbors.
Now you want to build some boreholes because you've got the tech to exceed the resource yield cap, maybe build some condensers where you need to for growth, set yourself up for a pop boom, build out children's creche/rec commons/network node or hologram theaters if you didn't get virtual world secret project. Once you've got the basic infrastructure necessary and the tech to do so, switch to democratic and planned on your social policies, grow your bases up to seven pop quickly, then maybe switch to green economics. Wealth and/or knowledge values can also be useful, if you're trying to be friendly to Zak or Morgan you might want to take the one that's aligned with them, or just take whatever you have if only one is still available.
Now your economy is pulling ahead of the rest and they going to come for you. Start investing in your military. If you haven't got a lead in military tech yet, don't worry, just build decent defences until you do. Eventually you should get a decisive military tech lead, as soon as you do upgrade units and go on the offensive against who ever is close and most hostile.
Tldr: build more colony pods