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Author Topic:   This sucks!

ddayjoe44 posted 06-14-99 08:02 AM ET
I've been playing this game for awhile now, and I've NEVER been as p--sed off as I was today! Who in the heck wrote the program so that when you use a nuke (2 in this case) the planet is literally inundated with Mind Worms? I'm so ticked, I'm damn near ready to send the disc back to Fraxis with a note telling them to either re-write this BS, or keep the damn disk! I could not believe sitting there watching literally 8, 10, 12, Mind Worms atack up on one square, so that no matter how well your city was defended, it was a lost cause! I lost at least five or six cites with the Mind Worm attacks! All in about 2 - 3 turns. I might as well have just resigned the game BEFORE I considered using a Nuke. The outcome is just about the same. Geez-Uz! I realize the game is suppose to be a challenge, but when it's no longer fun, to heck with challenge! There has GOT to be a way to cut that nonsense down to something reasonable. If one of you guys already know, pass it on, 'cause I'm about ready to scrape this game for good!
evil_conquerer posted 06-14-99 08:21 AM ET
Whether or not the reaction is too strong is something to be debated over. In the meantime, here's something you can do:
Design gun choppers, gun needlejets, or whatever chassis you want with 1/1 weapons/armor. Give it empath song and either high morale or hypnotic trance. You have to scout out the mindworms and attack them first. If you attack, you have a 3/2 advantage *in addition* to the +50% the empath song gives you. In addition, if you attack first then you can blow up the whole stack at once, which means that you get thousands of energy credits (10 demon boils!) *and* your city survives. That sounds like a scam, almost: "Remove pesky mind worms and make loads of money in the process! Work at home while earning $20,000 a week! ."
yin26 posted 06-14-99 08:39 AM ET
ddayjoe44,
Ohhh do I hear you, my friend. If CDs weren't so scratch resistant, my game would be unplayable today! (yes, reinstalled after deleting--twice). See, SMAC is like that girlfriend who puts out juuust enough. Anyway.
The moral of the story as I have come to understand it is that you MUST take Planet into your overall strategy if you hope to A) use Planet Busters (nukes) or nerve gas and/or B) play past the dream sequence. That is, given typical game situations, well, a longer game, Planet will 'revolt' at some point (even without using PBs or nerve gas), so you have to be ready.
What this means is you've got to make sure there is no fungus near your cities, or the mind worms will just run up and overtake you. Forest are great. (BTW, you can remove fungus from very early in the game, so don't waste time). Also make sure each city has a sensor nearby for added defense. And put PSI defense on your defending unit and designate him as base defender (this is an option on the menu, in case you missed it--I did). This means that the unit you select will be attacked first. Very handy. You've already read about the chopper idea. That helps if you have choppers ready.
Finally, consider your Planet rating. It's a good idea to switch to a 'Planet friendly' social engineering status at the outbreak of mindworm hostilities. Crank up your % to capture midworms this way, and you'll soon see that you can take these suckers down without many losses.
You could use a Planet friendly faction each game, like Diedre, but that's so dull. I always play with the Believers. And they will anger Planet as fast as anybody else, so I have to plan. It's really a big gamebalance thing, this Planet stuff.
You will lose time, however, which is my complaint here. I've actually grown to appreciate this 'game-within-a-game' issue, but the sheer amount of time it takes to beat Planet back can really, as you say, ruin some fun.
But once you see the reason for it and can plan to win against it, it's kind of fun.
KriFos99 posted 06-14-99 09:20 AM ET
The "thinking" planet was probably angry... (How would you have felt if you got two nukes in your body) and because of that, you are "infested" with mindworms
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-14-99 09:54 AM ET
I once used 16 singularity PB's in one turn on some SOB in an IP game who had the nerve to do use a fusion PB on me - loved those overlapping craters I always clear fungus away from anywhere near my cities, and planting forest early is a great bonus, since the forest will expand one to three quares many turns, doing your work for you.
Before I launched, I went to a Green economy, and although I had some locusts of Chiron and spontaneous outbursts of fungus square growth, it was nothing I couldn't handle. I had trance units, etc.
You just have to be prepared, Joe.
ddayjoe44 posted 06-14-99 01:52 PM ET
Well, you won't believe it... I went back to a "save" from about 20 years prior to me having used the nukes. I played a couple of turns, got the Spartans to call for a Truce after kicking some serious butt, (I hadn't P.O'd the PK's, or Believers yet), so I thought "Hey, let's try this..." I called a council to have my faction be Leader of the Planet, and THEY BOUGHT IT!! Thanks God for being able to time travel in SMAC! BTW, I STILL think there should be a way to keep Mind Worms to a minimum with the SOFTWARE. (.Txt files??) As an added point of info, I DID have almost ALL fungus removed from any of my lands, especially around my cities. It started to crop up on it's own, blowing up forests, mines, etc, about 5 turns after I dropped the nukes. Thanks for the input guys! I REALLY gotta learn how to use the Workshop better! I coulda used some of that heavy weapon stuff you guys keep yackin' about!
Darkstar posted 06-14-99 02:14 PM ET
On fighting Planet's Temper Tantrum Worms - Empath Scout Choppers are wasted on large stacks of worms. Try Empath Rovers (elite if you can get them) or Empath Hovertanks (either is frequently called wormburners). Ground units wipe out the whole stack. Air units get them one at a time.
The other advantage of using Rovers or Hovertanks is that the Worm Burning units from neighboring cities can mobilize for that 3rd or 4th stack.
And you can't capture those Planet Fits of worms. No matter how high your planet rating.
-Darkstar
Krushala posted 06-14-99 05:40 PM ET
Drop empath rovers work good on mind worm stacks. The energy collected from them can be nice. For extra cash I always have mind worms in fungus moving back and forth searching for mind worms. I had 12 demon boils just finding worms to attack. At least 150 energy a turn. For a real challenge try conquering your enemies without planet busters. More tedious but you don't have to worry about mind worms. I can conquer my enemys without building genejack factories/nanoreplicators or quantum converters. Just using boreholes and crawlers. I rarely use more than one PB myself.
I do hope there is an option to turn off planet with smacx. I know you can do it in the scenario editor. But I don't get any score when playing scenarios which sucks.
Shining1 posted 06-14-99 06:04 PM ET
I agree. Empath Hover tanks, rovers, whatever, just so long as it's a ground unit. Hover tanks usually get an extra attack, even at one third strength, and they travel roads really well. So thats a whole stack of 10 demon boils wiped out wholesale, IFF you can get to them first. Which is not always a given.
Basicially, Yin is right (except about the girlfriend thing - SMAC never argues, has little visual appeal and you can't edit girl.txt no matter how badly you want to make changes - though it's an oddly appealing idea, come to think of it). But you have to take planet into account, and as an orbital insertion type enemy. With no warning or diplomatic solution.
"Hate you we, earthjoe. F*cked off we at earthjoe. More we MindWorm, earthjoe? No? Go we now - make you more miserable we."
Proctor Zarkorov,
Chiron experiments with Sodium Penethol.
Shining1
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-14-99 06:31 PM ET
Krushala, conquest is a lot more fun without PB's - I've never yet had an AI opponent in condition to have the opportunity to use one on me, so I only build them as a deterrent for human players, like my friend who luckily had one more city than I had PB's in range. Anybody can drop a nuke - it takes tactical skill to conquer a more or less equal human opponent. The AI is just too weak to be able to stand, so I never even need to use PB's on them.
Personally, I like the active planet part - it's an important play balance that was missing from CivII - if you mine every sqaure meter of land and shallow ocean, the planet will bite back. So if you don't want planet problems down the road, you have to make a different set of production and development choices earlier. People like to brag about getting 100 resources per turn in SMAc, but then don't like the consequences. Just look up info on the city of Chelyabinsk in the former USSR to get some idea of the consequences of unrestrained "burn, baby, burn" industrial production.
Krushala posted 06-14-99 06:41 PM ET
Actually I was arguing against using planet busters. I prefer to do more with less. Until late game most of my bases have between 10 and 20 mineral production. To help against planet attacks. Never build genejack factories etc. I try to use a balanced attack even if the game favors copters. I build tanks, infantry, needlejets, intercepters, cruisers, and copters. I never seem to use gravships much as they come late in the game.
whirlwind13 posted 06-14-99 06:45 PM ET
oh yes....I know ALL about that. With my won-ton polluting late game, i annihalated my competition by droping 10 PB's on Morgan. Planet went BUCK WILD!!!! 50% of my squares turned to fungus as the worms spewed from the ground....30...40....50 worms...20 locusts of Chiron...watching my size 14 cities disappear I bought the A to T for 35K energy credits and got screwed out of a potentially high score...
The ArchChancellor
Rackam posted 06-16-99 11:58 AM ET
Here's an interesting challenge.
Build a base (and keep intact) capable of building the 'Ascent to Transcendance' in one turn.
~Rackam
onepaul posted 06-16-99 12:51 PM ET
50 wind worms after a Nuke ?!? So...what's the problem. Makes complete sense to me. THe mind worms "are" the planet. You piss the bitch off, she comes back with her babies...
aceplayer posted 06-17-99 06:20 PM ET
Never seen that - maybe because I dont
use the Planet Buster until I can achieve
a victory.
Hint - buy votes for Supreme Leader before using the planet Buster - and they will still vote for you....
Play great Scenarios at:
[url]http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dome/3802/[/url]
aceplayer posted 06-17-99 06:22 PM ET
well smiles work, but signatures and bb codes dont
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Author	Topic: This sucks!
ddayjoe44	posted 06-14-99 08:02 AM ET I've been playing this game for awhile now, and I've NEVER been as p--sed off as I was today! Who in the heck wrote the program so that when you use a nuke (2 in this case) the planet is literally inundated with Mind Worms? I'm so ticked, I'm damn near ready to send the disc back to Fraxis with a note telling them to either re-write this BS, or keep the damn disk! I could not believe sitting there watching literally 8, 10, 12, Mind Worms atack up on one square, so that no matter how well your city was defended, it was a lost cause! I lost at least five or six cites with the Mind Worm attacks! All in about 2 - 3 turns. I might as well have just resigned the game BEFORE I considered using a Nuke. The outcome is just about the same. Geez-Uz! I realize the game is suppose to be a challenge, but when it's no longer fun, to heck with challenge! There has GOT to be a way to cut that nonsense down to something reasonable. If one of you guys already know, pass it on, 'cause I'm about ready to scrape this game for good!
evil_conquerer	posted 06-14-99 08:21 AM ET Whether or not the reaction is too strong is something to be debated over. In the meantime, here's something you can do: Design gun choppers, gun needlejets, or whatever chassis you want with 1/1 weapons/armor. Give it empath song and either high morale or hypnotic trance. You have to scout out the mindworms and attack them first. If you attack, you have a 3/2 advantage in addition to the +50% the empath song gives you. In addition, if you attack first then you can blow up the whole stack at once, which means that you get thousands of energy credits (10 demon boils!) and your city survives. That sounds like a scam, almost: "Remove pesky mind worms and make loads of money in the process! Work at home while earning $20,000 a week! ."
yin26	posted 06-14-99 08:39 AM ET ddayjoe44, Ohhh do I hear you, my friend. If CDs weren't so scratch resistant, my game would be unplayable today! (yes, reinstalled after deleting--twice). See, SMAC is like that girlfriend who puts out juuust enough. Anyway. The moral of the story as I have come to understand it is that you MUST take Planet into your overall strategy if you hope to A) use Planet Busters (nukes) or nerve gas and/or B) play past the dream sequence. That is, given typical game situations, well, a longer game, Planet will 'revolt' at some point (even without using PBs or nerve gas), so you have to be ready. What this means is you've got to make sure there is no fungus near your cities, or the mind worms will just run up and overtake you. Forest are great. (BTW, you can remove fungus from very early in the game, so don't waste time). Also make sure each city has a sensor nearby for added defense. And put PSI defense on your defending unit and designate him as base defender (this is an option on the menu, in case you missed it--I did). This means that the unit you select will be attacked first. Very handy. You've already read about the chopper idea. That helps if you have choppers ready. Finally, consider your Planet rating. It's a good idea to switch to a 'Planet friendly' social engineering status at the outbreak of mindworm hostilities. Crank up your % to capture midworms this way, and you'll soon see that you can take these suckers down without many losses. You could use a Planet friendly faction each game, like Diedre, but that's so dull. I always play with the Believers. And they will anger Planet as fast as anybody else, so I have to plan. It's really a big gamebalance thing, this Planet stuff. You will lose time, however, which is my complaint here. I've actually grown to appreciate this 'game-within-a-game' issue, but the sheer amount of time it takes to beat Planet back can really, as you say, ruin some fun. But once you see the reason for it and can plan to win against it, it's kind of fun.
KriFos99	posted 06-14-99 09:20 AM ET The "thinking" planet was probably angry... (How would you have felt if you got two nukes in your body) and because of that, you are "infested" with mindworms
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-14-99 09:54 AM ET I once used 16 singularity PB's in one turn on some SOB in an IP game who had the nerve to do use a fusion PB on me - loved those overlapping craters I always clear fungus away from anywhere near my cities, and planting forest early is a great bonus, since the forest will expand one to three quares many turns, doing your work for you. Before I launched, I went to a Green economy, and although I had some locusts of Chiron and spontaneous outbursts of fungus square growth, it was nothing I couldn't handle. I had trance units, etc. You just have to be prepared, Joe.
ddayjoe44	posted 06-14-99 01:52 PM ET Well, you won't believe it... I went back to a "save" from about 20 years prior to me having used the nukes. I played a couple of turns, got the Spartans to call for a Truce after kicking some serious butt, (I hadn't P.O'd the PK's, or Believers yet), so I thought "Hey, let's try this..." I called a council to have my faction be Leader of the Planet, and THEY BOUGHT IT!! Thanks God for being able to time travel in SMAC! BTW, I STILL think there should be a way to keep Mind Worms to a minimum with the SOFTWARE. (.Txt files??) As an added point of info, I DID have almost ALL fungus removed from any of my lands, especially around my cities. It started to crop up on it's own, blowing up forests, mines, etc, about 5 turns after I dropped the nukes. Thanks for the input guys! I REALLY gotta learn how to use the Workshop better! I coulda used some of that heavy weapon stuff you guys keep yackin' about!
Darkstar	posted 06-14-99 02:14 PM ET On fighting Planet's Temper Tantrum Worms - Empath Scout Choppers are wasted on large stacks of worms. Try Empath Rovers (elite if you can get them) or Empath Hovertanks (either is frequently called wormburners). Ground units wipe out the whole stack. Air units get them one at a time. The other advantage of using Rovers or Hovertanks is that the Worm Burning units from neighboring cities can mobilize for that 3rd or 4th stack. And you can't capture those Planet Fits of worms. No matter how high your planet rating. -Darkstar
Krushala	posted 06-14-99 05:40 PM ET Drop empath rovers work good on mind worm stacks. The energy collected from them can be nice. For extra cash I always have mind worms in fungus moving back and forth searching for mind worms. I had 12 demon boils just finding worms to attack. At least 150 energy a turn. For a real challenge try conquering your enemies without planet busters. More tedious but you don't have to worry about mind worms. I can conquer my enemys without building genejack factories/nanoreplicators or quantum converters. Just using boreholes and crawlers. I rarely use more than one PB myself. I do hope there is an option to turn off planet with smacx. I know you can do it in the scenario editor. But I don't get any score when playing scenarios which sucks.
Shining1	posted 06-14-99 06:04 PM ET I agree. Empath Hover tanks, rovers, whatever, just so long as it's a ground unit. Hover tanks usually get an extra attack, even at one third strength, and they travel roads really well. So thats a whole stack of 10 demon boils wiped out wholesale, IFF you can get to them first. Which is not always a given. Basicially, Yin is right (except about the girlfriend thing - SMAC never argues, has little visual appeal and you can't edit girl.txt no matter how badly you want to make changes - though it's an oddly appealing idea, come to think of it). But you have to take planet into account, and as an orbital insertion type enemy. With no warning or diplomatic solution. "Hate you we, earthjoe. F*cked off we at earthjoe. More we MindWorm, earthjoe? No? Go we now - make you more miserable we." Proctor Zarkorov, Chiron experiments with Sodium Penethol. Shining1
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-14-99 06:31 PM ET Krushala, conquest is a lot more fun without PB's - I've never yet had an AI opponent in condition to have the opportunity to use one on me, so I only build them as a deterrent for human players, like my friend who luckily had one more city than I had PB's in range. Anybody can drop a nuke - it takes tactical skill to conquer a more or less equal human opponent. The AI is just too weak to be able to stand, so I never even need to use PB's on them. Personally, I like the active planet part - it's an important play balance that was missing from CivII - if you mine every sqaure meter of land and shallow ocean, the planet will bite back. So if you don't want planet problems down the road, you have to make a different set of production and development choices earlier. People like to brag about getting 100 resources per turn in SMAc, but then don't like the consequences. Just look up info on the city of Chelyabinsk in the former USSR to get some idea of the consequences of unrestrained "burn, baby, burn" industrial production.
Krushala	posted 06-14-99 06:41 PM ET Actually I was arguing against using planet busters. I prefer to do more with less. Until late game most of my bases have between 10 and 20 mineral production. To help against planet attacks. Never build genejack factories etc. I try to use a balanced attack even if the game favors copters. I build tanks, infantry, needlejets, intercepters, cruisers, and copters. I never seem to use gravships much as they come late in the game.
whirlwind13	posted 06-14-99 06:45 PM ET oh yes....I know ALL about that. With my won-ton polluting late game, i annihalated my competition by droping 10 PB's on Morgan. Planet went BUCK WILD!!!! 50% of my squares turned to fungus as the worms spewed from the ground....30...40....50 worms...20 locusts of Chiron...watching my size 14 cities disappear I bought the A to T for 35K energy credits and got screwed out of a potentially high score... The ArchChancellor
Rackam	posted 06-16-99 11:58 AM ET Here's an interesting challenge. Build a base (and keep intact) capable of building the 'Ascent to Transcendance' in one turn. ~Rackam
onepaul	posted 06-16-99 12:51 PM ET 50 wind worms after a Nuke ?!? So...what's the problem. Makes complete sense to me. THe mind worms "are" the planet. You piss the bitch off, she comes back with her babies...
aceplayer	posted 06-17-99 06:20 PM ET Never seen that - maybe because I dont use the Planet Buster until I can achieve a victory. Hint - buy votes for Supreme Leader before using the planet Buster - and they will still vote for you.... Play great Scenarios at: [url]http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dome/3802/[/url]
aceplayer	posted 06-17-99 06:22 PM ET well smiles work, but signatures and bb codes dont