what tools are used for updating these to RT?

Yes please, seems these dont work anymore.

Please update for Rising Tide!

Seems like none of the good mods are updated. :-\

please update mod for RT

damn would have loved this mod in rising tide

This mod is supported in rising tide correct?

RT?

Nvrmnd just took like 2 turns in my territory

A siege worm entered my sphere of territory and was not domesticated, is it supposed to not be domesticated or what?

is this going to be updated for rising tide? pls do this sponsor is amazing

Fantastic concept! If only the vanilla sponsors felt so unique.

Awseome! I can have a reason to commit mass genocide again! Lol, but anyway can you create a Cait Sith (From Sword Art Online)? It would be awseome if you could!

sehr gute Arbeit geleistet von euch immer weiter so :)

Love this mod when I use the warlike alien mod, the game basically gives me an army without me doing anything but temping it with an explorer unit. More power for my army via the power of harmony! Harmony Players unit!

Well, I've done a few minor mods for Civ V, and even before I got BE I was checking out what mods were being developped to bring back SMAC.

My own modding skill isn't great, but if a few encouraging words for those doing work I appreciate helps.... Seems a small price to pay. :)

Seems to me a lot of people complain about BE and what it isn't, when they could be making use of the new things it *did* introduce to develope all sorts of fun things. It's a very nice change to see people moving forward.

((There were some pretty good mods for Civ V that made the game rather similar to SMAC. If they could do that with Civ V, it should be possible to get a lot closer with a Civ that is actually set on an alien world....))

I think I recognize your steam avatar from way back when I just started modding! It's always nice to see the same people returning to comment. Thanks for the kind words.

Once again, thank you for all your hard work bringing the SMAC/X factions to BE. I don't often play with mods, but when I do, it's usually to try to make the game feel more like SMAC

In the vanilla game, only 4 different aliens spawn from nests, beetles, bugs, drones, and manticores. They spawn at differing rates depending on current relationships with the aliens. Hostile aliens favor spawning the more powerful bugs. The Cult spawns these aliens from their nests with the hostile alien ratio.

All other aliens spawn as a ratio of alien populations to some game state property out of sight of players. Normal sea aliens are a ratio of sea aliens pop to ocean tiles. Colossal units like seige worms and krakens are spawned according to a ratio of colossal alien pops to normal alien pops. There are additional reductions taken into account for total number of sea aliens killed over a game.

It is important to note these are vanilla behaviors that the cult must work around. These were found from investigating code that comes with the game but does not necessarily run. Actual behavior may be different.

Just some things I've been testing...

Most aliens respawn from nests.
I THINK coastal nests also respawn sea dragons.
Siege worms respawn in land that you do NOT have vision of. They do NOT seem to spawn from nests.
Krakens similarly spawn in deep water that you lack vision of, but a very, VERY important fact of krakens is they CANNOT swim in shallow water, so spread your influence to deep water if you want to even TRY to capture krakens.
Finally, siege worms and kraken respawn seems to be based on the amount of unclaimed land/water, respectively. They also don't spawn till turn 20.

Correct me if I'm wrong anywhere.

And for the love of harmony players, DO NOT USE the "call worm strike" covert op on this faction!!!

Hmm, if only there were a way to make those ranged-attack aliens have 2 movement points...

@lilgamefreek How do this quest actually work? Hmm.. If you increase aggression of aliens in an AoE of the fence, will it make them in an urgent need to fuck you up? If so, then... Maybe we will need some time to explain it, if you are going to do something with this idea. The fact, that the change in the fence is required is unquestionable. If you do not want to work with the quest(understandable), you might want to leave it as it is - giving + radius on your army-maker fance is neat, and caravans will always be caravans. Also, Atilla-like concept profits on this one - the bigger your cities are ( and the further you are into the game ) , the fences will loose their efficiency.

@Feeder: BE mods don't have a good method of working in multiplayer yet. I think it will come to hot seat eventually through the efforts of various modders.

@speedball: I'm glad to hear you're having fun with the faction. I was pretty worried about how well this faction might turn out as it can be frustrating at times trying to get a settler deep into alien territory.

@Kazaaakpleth: That actually gives me a neat idea for a replacement of the ultrasonic fence. I probably can't code it so that the Aliens are attracted to it, but I may be able to rework it another way so that alien captures are more reliable upon building it and it serves as a useful replacement for Cha Dawn. The only issue is that building quests are actually quite painful to modify compared to buildings themselves, and it's possible the cultists will lose out on the critical "Trade units immune to aliens" quest.

You need a combination of luck and skill to get the most out of Cha Dawn but by GOD you will kick ass when you get a couple siege worms or alien nests in your territory. So sweeeet. I love all your mods, they are so TRANSFORMATIVE of the base game.

I have started the game with this faction and I can say for sure - this one totally profits from agressive aliens. There are no that a lot of nests on the map. The best I've gotten was like 3 nests in total and I still wasn't crushing the hell out of my opponents - just bad luck with getting these pesky aliens enraged. The concept is just awesome - something that makes your game-plan change is always awesome. I think, tho, that if you wanted to give this one an Atilla flavor, u might want to buff it just a little bit - make it more stable. You can get super-lucky and dayum-unlucky at the same time , when Atilla profits from just being himself. I propose making a unique building for this faction - Changes ultrasonic fence. Instead of frightening aliens it makes them move to the city. Has double( or something smaller :D) of a standart fence radius. All aliens in the radius move half their speed( just for balance). You may think of something cooler, but I am just throwing ideas at you :D

I can't say for sure. The intention has always been for him to be an early game warmonger, like atilla. Atilla is at his tactical best very early on with his battering rams and horse archers. With the right luck, he can even capture an enemy capital in just a couple of turns into the game. I wanted the Cult to have a similar strong advantage early on and with a lucky siege worm or two, make it possible to really ruin someone's day.

gotta test this, can't say if this is totally balanced :D

I love this faction! You are a saint.

Awesome work as usual. Thanks for the update!!!

suggestion: bonus culture towards Harmony affinity

It's probably random chance. I've only gotten forest and tundra starts so far. Nearest neighbor has fluctuated quite a bit.

For some reason this faction seems to attract a desert start AND the first landing of a faction happens REALLY close as opposed to the first one being really far away.

Well you might also want to look into the art files for the Civ IV Mod Planetfall as it is based on SMAC/AC

I also felt their original logo always looked too much like alien genitalia, though I wouldn't put it past the artists of making it intentional.

I forgot to say, thanks for your input. I appreciate it a lot. I really hope I can get the main unity project updated by tonight!

I mostly had trouble finding a good piece of art or screen shot to sample their original color palette. I'll look into starting an Alpha Centauri game of them and seeing if I can get a good shot to sample from. I went with the purple and gold because I thought the royal colors might be fitting and that the current SMAC mods I've made are lacking in vibrant logos.

This may sound a bit petty but the color of this factions really need to change. The quasi-Rome is offputting considering the original faction was more of a pinkish color. What you have just seems wrong.

There are some serious buggeries going on with the winter patch. I'm working through them bit by bit to make sure everything is good in The Unity Project. This also gives me a little more time to redo things into a more "final" form, since this is the last faction.

As for pushing factions to one affinity or another, I can alter their flavor profiles but that's it. Otherwise, the AI's choices are out of my control, even if I set one affinity flavor to maximum and the rest to zero. I could hardcode it so that the factions automatically earn levels towards a certain affinity as AI, but that's very heavy handed and I'm not sure if that will even cause the AI to favor that particular affinity or rather just earn progress towards a different one regardless.

Also, why didn't the base mod upgrade?

Do factions have a way for them to be given a push towards one Affinity or another? I keep seeing the Gaians go Purity and University go Harmony when any player of SMAC knows that wouldn't happen. (While I can see Supremacy for the University, the one tech where you had Prokor Zaharv talking about eradicating aliens seems pretty Purity to me)