As of 2025, none of the Alpha Centauri factions appear in the startup menu. Looks to be a problem with Rising Tide.

Do any of these work with RT yet?

is it compatible with codex mod?

None of the SMAC factions work with RT yet. They do work with the Vanilla version of Social Engineering.

Do any of the SMAC factions work with the RT social engineering mod?

Hello Autor, i want to ask if you will Update, or redo the mod to addapt it to rising tide?

Thanks for the quick response - still a bit strange how it seemed to work with the 'combined' mod (but then again there's a lot more to it), but a little reading shows that this seems to plague quite a few mods.

Hopefully Firaxis will look into this(and also into why you have to hamstring the leader animations in order to add any other leader screens).

Really enjoying what I've played so far - keep up the good work!

Now, to find a mod that makes Krakens and Siege Worms a little less like the hand of an angry God....

I looked into. The bug you're talking about has a very specific cause that needs to be fixed by Firaxis. That being said, I can firmly say it is not an issue with my mod. The bug is caused by mods that add custom unit promotions or build actions. Most popular mods which cause this issue are things like advanced explorer or alien mods.

Aha, the plot thickens... I also had the same issues with an individual 'faction' mod from another author, so I tried the 'Unity Project' version instead... and the UI is back!

Okay, weird bug - every time I start a game as the University, the 'Unit Info' graphic in the bottom left is missing and it never returns, even after a save and reload. This makes it impossible to issue 'Automation' orders (and manually exploring the planet is kinda tedious)!

Doesn't seem to happen with the other SMAC faction mods though....

Alpha Centauri was a much darker game than Sid Meier's Civilization series. It let player's explore the benefits and costs of different ideologies, systems of government, economics, and belief through the game's gameplay. Ultimately, no reinterpretation of Alpha Centauri would be complete without the weaknesses of each faction.

As a design tenant, it is not that fitting in the context of BE. BE is a very optimistic game, along with the entire Civ series, and it's core design is built around this attitude. That being said, the primary reason I liked Alpha Centauri was not for its gameplay, but for its ability to tell a story. Stories are made more interesting when they are populated by characters with strengths, flaws, and beliefs that fall in the gray zone of morality. When I make mods, I'm more interested in telling an interesting story through the gameplay, and I think adding weaknesses to otherwise strong factions is a good way of doing it.

I looked into some of your mods, and I wonder why all these traits have side-effects.

Autoplant mod is done. Check it out if you want to at:
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=353440776

Good point, I will look into that. I hate that they changed the auto plant

Haha! Clearly the solution is to create a mod that undos their patch. :p

fyi: If you were doing an autoplant quest mod, you actually will get metric tons of subscribers if you undo the trade route change.

Nvm what I wrote, just noticed they came out with a patch that is nearly identical to my mod....

Glad to hear that. I am putting the finishing touches on my second mod for BE myself. I know how annoying it can get when one random needle in the haystack of code can throw the whole damn thing off.

Hey Chuck. I'm in the process of updating the mod for the latest patch. It should include a comptibility fix with Frag_Jacker's mod. The issue is an odd one with a mismatched string I did not notice on my last inspection!

Oh well then thanks! It saves me the time actually splicing both mods together. I will say this, I don't know which way the mod loads now, but together his mod completely breaks down. His ops choices are unnamed and become unselectable.

I just got done looking through his code. It seems like the compatibility issue is only a matter of load order. If my mod loads after his, both mods should work fine. If his mod loads after mine, then the University loses their weakness. Sadly, I don't know how to control mod load order at the user level. I can add his modID in my references to affect the load order, but it'll only take effect the next time I update the mod.

I mistook the mod for a different covert ops mod. I'll take a look at it myself tonight nd see what my be the necessary changes.

When I get the time (my water heater just busted and I have my finals this week so I'll be busy for a few) I will splice both mods together and send you the script to put out a mod that has both aspects of each mod.
Have you been able to check out the covert ops mod I linked? I want to make sure that it is something you wouldn't mind adding to your mod before I begin.

I wouldn't mind at all! I've marked out the areas I've changed. I apologize for the sloppy code. It was the first mod I ever did!

@lilgamefreek - would you be able to creat a fix for use with Enhanced Cover Ops mod at http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=344703016

If not, would you mind if I took a look at your code so that I can attempt to creat a combined script that would combine the two mods so that there are no conflicts?

Ya, with no ocean city options (which was one key pirate feature to start the game with), and the limited units.
I'd see if you could do 1 extra view and move distance on water, maybe enhanced naval unit strength at the cost of increased unit maintinence costs like +1 per naval unit.

@Jedi Wolf: I always enjoyed those two factions the most as well! I must admit, I don't look forward to trying to do the Nautilus Pirates justice though. :/ But it tells you something about how much I like Cha Dawn when I have them scheduled very last after the pirates.

University and Pirates were the two factions i always enjoyed. Just so disappointed with CIV BE and the lack of ocean usability, limited units, and no teraforming. Even the game creation options are limited compared to Civ 5.....

Aight sweet thanks! :D

I don't see reasons for why it wouldn't be. Only that it needs to use the Civ5 workaround for installing mods as DLC to work.

Is this multiplayer compatible?

this will be cool :)

You could always play against them!

Thanks for the speedy answer. I upvoted the mod already and will probably keep it but I don't know if I'll play as them again. Really enjoying my campaign and suddenly I lost my capital lol and I had a whole slew of wonders and a counter intelligence spy in it.

@slcowden: Nothing too drastic. I can give you the short version and the long version of both. Also I'm planning to do Morgan next and just released Gaia's Stepdaughters so be sure to check that out!

Short version: AI spies are more likely to stay in cities that are vunerable to espionage. This means both university cities and cities with high levels of intrigue.

Long version: How AI spies work is that they bounce around two different states, traveling and performing op/counter-intelligence. Whenever they have the ability to make a choice between the two, they roll a dice and depending on the roll, they'll travel to a new, effictively random city. The intrigue level of their current city effects their chances, but at max intrigue, they're only +5% more likely to stay in the city. The base chance of staying in a city is 20%. A city being a capital also gives a bonus. In the end, AI spies spend a lot of time jumping around, and rarely develop a cities intrigue levels to serious numbers.

The mod changed AI behaviour so that intrigue levels weigh a lot more heavily. I think it's about 10% per level, so spies are 50% more likely to stay in a full 5 star city. The capital bonus remains unchanged. Also, the citie's vunerability from it's espionage modifier weighs a little as well. This means spies are about 10 or 20% more likely to stay in Zakharov's cities in this game... I think, in the worst case scenario of your capital having lvl5 intrigue as zakharov, the chance goes to 100% of staying, which in all honesty I think is okay and kinda cool.

@lilgamefreek
I am currently playing as the University. I am still in the early parts of the game, so I have not really gotten to the point where all of the AI have built Spy Agencies. I am interested to find out how the espionage dynamic makes things more interesting and challenging.

Keep up the great work I can't wait to see your version of Gaia's Stepdaughters and Morgan Industries.

Note there was an issue with the mod name in a recent update, that caused the mod to fail to install. If the fix is not updating for you,

1.) go to the folder Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth\MODS and delete any files related to Gaia's Stepdaughters.

2.) go to the folder Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth\cache and delete the CivBEModsDatabase

@Tnin: The University does not suffer a weakness to spy success rate or detection rate, so the higher level ops are not easier only faster. It is important for the university to grab wonders or invest in buildings that cap intrigute level, as well as keep their spies around defensively.

@ slcowden: Thanks a lot of the kind words and I'm glad you enjoy them. I'll try hard to implement the rest of the factions in interesting ways. Are you playing as The University or against them?

@ Kai: I'm hoping for more feedback about this, as I can see this happening. Currently, the covert ops AI is a little silly, and I think I edited it so that spies are a little more intelligent and dedicated to their work. I'm hoping I didn't overdue.

@ satdanov: Thank you for the kind words. Fizzeh is certainly doing a great job on his own versions as well, and beating me to the factions by quite a wide margin!

How do you stop the sponsor that has a bonus to covert ops from doing a coup'de tat on your capital???????

I have been playing with this mod for a couple of days now on a marathon game. I just wanted to give you some positive feedback, I really live this version of the University of Planet.

Could be OP in the beginning and frustrating in the end of a game, when not just tech is stolen but you might get sabotaged every other turn.

Much to op!

Don't tell him I said this, but this is a lot better than Fizzeh's version :)