posted 03-29-99 05:31 PM ET            

Given the supposed gearing up for multiplayer that seems to be a partial focus of the T.I threads, it would probably pay to set down a list of rules and planet types for T.I games.

I suggest a standard custom random map (shorter games, more early conflict, reasonable balance between builder/conqueror styles, depending upon the starting locations. Also set ocean to 30-50%, cloud cover to dense, and wildlife to medium. This give a land based game where sea and air power will form a decisive edge, and not the bulk of the armies.

Rules: Transcend conditions (of course), with all five victory type (including Cooperative) enabled, Spoils on, Blind tech, and do or die (though I'm not sure if this applies to human players).

posted 03-29-99 05:55 PM ET            

There seems to be too much division currenty between the two sides. A simple guide would be that the early game builder should construct one city improvement for every two military units (or pods/formers) built, while a conqueror should build one facility, pod, or former for every three military units built. Builders rely on having sensors, perimeter defenses, and a stronger industrial and economic basis (due to larger, more highly developed bases) to survive until they reach a level where their infrastructure is robust and their tech advancement gives them a firm advantage over less developed factions. Conquerors need to be more aggressive, snapping up badly placed or ill defended expansions and sending waves of probe teams to keep their tech up to date.

And you can play most factions as either: I've been experiementing with a fundamentalist Lal recently (finally some pay back for Santiago is in the offering ), while the Hive's growth and industry, and Santiago's police bonus both allow them to support bigger bases for less effort.

And the terraforming seems to attract too much divison as well. It's not really an either/or situation - you have specialist bases for most functions. Perimeter bases need growth improvements, then minerals, usually forest, which is easy to build and can support sensors. Energy can go to hell. More central bases should be a mix of minerals and energy, boreholes are good for this, as well as facility developed forests and mines. While energy is reasonablely important, minerals are the key, because it is here that you will build your elite units and basic secret projects.

And you should alway have one or two high altitude, heavily developed research centres, surrounded by farms, solar collectors, condensors (use low level land) and at least two centrally located Echelon mirrors, since high altitude terrain is where you get your energy from (and you can't sink Boreholes at altitude, anyway). These bases (two in total, never more) should be packed with energy banks, network nodes, fusion labs, research hospitals, and the Supercollider/ Theory of everything/ Merchant exchange wonders (use supply crawlers and cash to build these competitively).

Alternatively, a couple of well hidden sea bases are equally good for energy production, but require at least a couple of mineral rich land squares for support.

This variety of terrain is the reason I enjoy land based maps. Sea levels tend to focus too heavily on the desperate search for minerals, rather than having a range of specialist base types.

posted 03-29-99 06:22 PM ET            

As far as tech goes (I turn blind off), I go for the "butter" techs (gene splicing, env. eng., env. eco., etc.) that remove resource restrictions and lead to Hybrid forest. I use probe teams to steal combat techs (from d/ling the data from cities or bribing units and getting the free prototypes to tinker with in the workshop).

For social eng. my holy grail is the +1 energy/square, that means unless I'm playing Morgan I'm Free Market until Eudemonia (Planet's looking pretty scary...). Efficiency and Morale (I covet elite troops) are tied at second place, and Planet/Industry/Research vie for third. I'm not too worried about growth as that can be helped by having a couple of "breeder colonies" crank out colony pods to disband in my core cities. Bad Support and Police ratings can be bypassed with Punishment Spheres and Clean Reactors (usually in my breeder-now-penal colonies). A bad Probe rating isn't too onerous, as probe teams are cheap and naturally "clean."

As for gameplay, I guess I could be labeled a builder; though once I've got Hybrid Forests and Clean Reactors all bets are off...

Not sure how I would fare in MP as I tend to benefit from the ineptness of the AI as much as I do from my own (meager) efficiency and skill. Aggressive defense and multi-pronged attacks usually keep the AI at bay, however.

Oh, and as for Wonders... I find that on Transcend I can usually get two, maybe three of the "early" wonders, but hardly any of the "middle-era" wonders. The later wonders, I get just about every one unless something crazy happens. So, of the early wonders where I'm in the running, I aim for Weather Paradigm (I want those condensers asap and I hate spending a lot of time terraforming), Empath Guild (infiltration is vital, and I like to at least have a shot a governorship so keeping this out of the hands of the ever-expanding AI -and god forbid Lal- is important to me... I rarely have more than 10-15 cities even in the late game) and the Human Genome Project (anything to keep those surly drones down is a godsend, esp. early on.).

posted 03-29-99 10:12 PM ET            

On raising land: I raise land to create more easily developable land for cities that lack it, as well as raise areas to 1000 feet for better energy production. But that's a later fine-tuning step, I usually am only doing that at 2200 at the earliest.

On Land/Water: I agree that 70-90 water will cripple the AI in 90% of games. But there's no reason it should cripple the human, and it would also make your starting base of well-developed cities smaller, for a more interesting game, with lots of big-energy low-minerals easy-conquest seabases for the taking.

GB: You can get 2 of the early wonders usually? Wow. If I get one I count my lucky stars. The bigger the initial landmass, the less my chance, since my cities will still be prodcuing colony pods or just a Rec Commons when I get the message that my foes are building a project. I try for 'em too, but if you're getting two built, I think you could have found a more productive use for at least one of those 200 minerals.

On "just getting by on technlogy": If you're Miriam and you have comprable tech, your human intelligence and fanatic attack bonus will be more than enough to insure that equal tech is the same as an easy victory. Of course, if you're a builder...

On bragging about Ironman: Amazing how these people claim that we shouldn't brag about Ironman because it's easily cheatable. I don't understand- I don't brag about Ironman, and if I did, it wouldn't be for the score or having that option on; it would be for the challenge, which they seem to be eliminating by keeping it on and cheating around it. Now, I've had some of my more enjoyable games played like that, but why not just turn off Iron man and play it with the easy save/reload?

posted 03-30-99 01:56 AM ET            

back to question: spoil on/ spoil off (i am from germany, so i didnt knew the expression in the us-version).
spoil on is a huge advantage for a conquerer. if you play with spoil off, it is unavoidable to build.
i myself never play with spoil on, so i have to invest in science. as a result my forces are small, but hi-tec, becaus i try to get a superior position in labor.

posted 03-30-99 04:42 AM ET            

As for the wonders... my first two cities (I tend to start out with two colony pods) build defender, colony, rec commons (or defender), defender (or rec commons), rec tanks, wonder. At this point I am usually at my max population of 4 (I'm a Morganophile) and can allow myself the luxury of a wonder or two. My subsequent cities build my military and additional colony pods. My trick to building wonders efficiently is to have a city constantly building a wonder (the Merchant Exchange comes early) even if I don't want it or has already been built, and when the wonder I want comes along I switch to that. This way I can usually pull off at least two quick wonders even if the AI has had a head start (rushbuilding when I get the "breakthrough" message).

posted 03-30-99 08:55 AM ET            

By mid game I try to erradicate fungus from my city limits, and spare former capacity is always dedicated to that. I just hate Planets mindworm explosions getting at my cities, the buffer allows me to get my wormbusters fired up (elite empath choppers).

And then build/grow forest. Even though fungus can produce good resources in the late game, so can forests. And any spare crawlers can always fungus farm elsewhere, and act as early warning.

posted 03-30-99 09:04 AM ET            

1. I am NOT a Morganophile

2. Therefore I could care less about getting the Merchant Exchange, and it is one of the SP's I happily leave to the AI

3. I agree that boreholes are great, and that they take toooooo long to build.

The only time I will build them is if I (a) have the WP or (b)have already achieved Clean tech (allowing me to build loads of formers without tying up minerals better [IMHO] spent on my defense budget).

This pretty much applies to condensors and raising/lowering land as well in my games.

4. If you can afford to keep the 'constant SP building' strategy going, you can generally keep getting at least 1/3 SPs indefinately (or until your exponential phase starts, after which you get them all).

Snowfire: On saving and restarting the game, etc., to bypass the Ironman restriction, I agree...what IS the point? That is one of the silliest things I've heard here.

posted 03-30-99 10:32 AM ET         

SMAC probes + Conqueror style play are very powerful, a good deal more so than Civ2. Remember, there were no morale differentials for spies in Civ2, and a determined Conqueror is bound to have higher morale probes sooner than most. I never have a problem keeping up with the technological Jones's using probes (for master k: that's an american expression meaning staying on par (that's a french expression!) with your neighbors).

True, spoils on maintains the Civ2 style, but why maintain it when, unlike Civ2, you can probe a city for tech multiple times? (BTW, I'd like to know what governs the inposition of 'security locks' on a base - these don't always appear after you probe a base the first time).

True, in MP players will more likely keep defensive probes in ALL of their bases, but here the offense vs. defense advantage in bringing superior force to bear on a point is even greater for probe warfare than for conventional combat.

So, master k, having spoils off should hardly ever force one into a 'builder' mode.

And the HS Algo? Nothing a PB wouldn't cure. Build that, and you might as well put a big sign over the base that built it saying, "Nuke Me".

posted 03-30-99 12:58 PM ET            

I think you MAY want to leave Spartans out of Human player hands in a MP... Its too easy to bully the AI to do everything you want, from hand over tech to bases on the little threat you will crush them like a bug. Does anyone else think the computer gives Spartan too much respect for its military? I know that is there power and everything, but playing "Bully" and having them roll over until extinction is just silly. They take much to long to stop trying to please you. At that point, you declare war, stomp a couple of their remaining cities, and they surrender. Surprisingly, a Submissive Pact Mate is much more likely to say NO to you than those who HAVEN'T surrendered. Go figure.

posted 03-30-99 01:00 PM ET            

Player2, I frequently raise the land on the Eastern border of my landform to trap rainfall (and to deny it to others). I had a spectacular case of that once in a game as the Gaian's in which I reduced Lal's bases to a collection of starving desert rats at the same time that my war machine was occupied with matters elsewhere. When his turn came, his stunted bases could offer minimal resistance.

Gebhard (and others), I'm building more boreholes with every game I play. 24 turns spent on a single project seems like a long time, but if you add up all of the other terraforming you would have to do to get 6m/6e into play, it's a lot more than 24 turns. In my own mind, boreholes are cost-efficient, even at the cost of 24 turns to build one.

Snowfire, if you think we're bragging about TI status here, you're missing the point. The idea is to share opinions about strategies that have been field tested uder the harshest possible conditions. We're all perfectly aware that the save-reload cheat can still be used under the IM setting, but we're all pledged to the ideal that cheating at solitaire robs the game of it's meaning and purpose.

Master k, I explained to you in the last thread why I think that the Spoils setting would have a minimal impact on the effectiveness of my strategy. Even with Miriam, I can research/trade my way to Probe units and after that, I'm home free. I've only ever had one game where an AI faction built HSA before I did and if Spoils had been off, I would have done as Agoraphobe suggests, and just PBed that base. Certainly, in any MP game, I wouldn't hesitate to PB the player who built HSA to destroy it.

posted 03-30-99 04:38 PM ET            

First, I always assume that my core 8-12 cities will always eventually get a tree farm, even if the city has only a couple of forests. The econ/pysch bonus makes it a worthwhile build, and reducing the environmental impact is often critical.
So the real question is are you better off building a hybrid forest or more formers?
A hybrid forest is the equivalent to 8 clean formers, or 4 clean rover superformers.

The answer of course is that depends :-)
If the city site is mostly arid or moist, with lots of fungus. I just plant trees and let nature run its course. One trick, I do is
ensure that forest can always expand, so
that means I sometimes level a Rocky fungus area so that a forest will eventually grow.

On the other hand, if a city is located in
high terrain, and is relatively moist. This becomes my knowledge city and it receives a lot of Former attention. I find with planning, and several formers I can get an average of ~4 energy per square. The extra two energy I find more valuable than one additional mineral from a forest, plus the city produces more food.

Now for the typical city. I follow these rules.
Arid
Flat, Rolling: forest
Rocky: mine, road and put a supply crawler on it.
Moist
Flat: Forest, sometimes borehole (warm up surrounding moist squares.)
Rocky: Generally terraform to rolling, if I need a road, than I'll add a mine.
Rolling: Tough call. Roughly even split between condenser, farm; farm, collector and letting the forest take over.
Rainy
Rolling: farm, collector
Rocky: terraform to rolling
Flat: Generally forest, sometimes farm, and E-mirror

Eecholon mirrors: I generally use a mirror instead of a collector if it potentially benefits 3 or more squares and isn't adjacent
to another mirror. So most of my cities have
2-3 mirrors. I am a big fan of condensers, especially on low rolling moist squares. I find a single condenser means 4 or more food.
Best of all this square turns into 6 nutrient and a mineral one you add a soil enricher!
Boreholes one per mineral poor city.
BTW, I seldom have eco damage, of course I
am generally Green, and will fix eco-damage.

From "The secrets of terraforming, a micromanagers guide" datalinks

posted 03-30-99 05:24 PM ET            

In fact, I usually start building my first SP while researching Eco. Engineering. As soon as it's done, I'll have a team drilling a borehole, which will speed the SP considerably after the borehole's done.

By the way, I usually just use standard formers until fusion comes along, after which I use rover formers with a fusion reactor, and preferably super forming and clean, I have those technologies.

posted 03-30-99 05:38 PM ET            

Editing of Alpha.txt seems nearly complete, and aside from a couple of bugs that seem to crop up (I've posted these), I think I have a 'better' model available. Some of the main changes affect the early game - biogenetics is now the tech which allows 3+ food from a square, while Ecological engineering allows you to make both Condensors and Aquifiers. Hence 'builder' types can get some reward for early terraforming, and starting in a desert is not a game loser. Also, the other early forming improvements now have tech prereqs, further penalising the 'conqueror' types (for instance, solar collectors need Applied Physics, and Sensor Arrays need Information Networks).

The early weapons are now reduced in power, so impactors are str: 3 and gatling lasers are str: 4. More in line with CivII values, which were easily high enough, and considering all the other advantages armies get in SMAC (no 'kill stack' rule, +25% vs. base, +25% in open), these values are easily high enough to make early conquest a viable option. But you can now defend your bases against them, too.

Needle jets get a cost and movement increase, while copters get the opposite, a decrease in movement (balancing vs. ground units with the same kind of powers) and a cost increase. And the dreaded Plasma Shard occurs much later in game, so Fusion lasers last much longer than one whole step up the tech tree.

All this makes life easier for the builder/defender types, though a lack of aggression will still get you quickly eliminated, especially on transcendance.

posted 03-31-99 10:59 AM ET            

Shining1, do I take it that you might be in agreement with me that the Hive is the most seriously overpowered faction in the game? For a builder, the economic difficulties might be difficult to deal with in the later game stages, but the ability to be PS/Planned without efiiciency penalties, piled on top of the free PDs and the industrial and growth advantages is pretty grossly powerful in the early to mid game (i.e. there's no later game stage to worry about when you can so easily overrun the map).

Call to all TIs for comments on v3.0: were we premature in concluding that this patch "finalized" the game? Can other TIs confirm some of the observations being made out there that the missile range bug remains unfixed, that upper level PSI battle odds are still being computed wrongly and that singularity reactors still fail to increase hit points as advertised? I'm a little mystified that we can be up to v3.0 and still be questioning whether the game correctly executes basic game mechanics issues.

I'd also like to know if anyone can tell me from actual experience whether the bugs related to economic and diplomatic victory conditions have been ironed out yet? Since I seldom make it past the tech tree level for Shard weapons and don't have the patience for complete conquest, these are the two victory conditions I rely on. It would be nice to have confidence that they actually work right, now.

On the subject of bugs . . .

Design Workshop, Undocumented "Features": The game rules require that a unit cannot move and be ugraded in the same turn. If you try to field up grade a unit that has used any part of it's movement allowance with the ctrl+U command you'll get a pop up message saying you can't. If you field upgrade a unit before it moves, using that shortcut, the unit will be market as "already moved". BUT, if you upgrade units in the workshop by upgrading the whole class of units at once, you'll still be allowed to move them during your turn and any units that have already moved will still be upgraded. I've even field upgraded planes in mid-air this way. Another: The game rules require that if you change the item being built in a city, you'll lose 1/2 of your accumulated minerals above 10. BUT, if you use the upgrade feature in the design workshop to upgrade that unit to a higher class, the base automatically shifts production, without loss of minerals. Query: Has the prototyping cheat available in the Workshop (and described in other threads) been eliminated by v3.0 or not? I can certainly tell you that these other cheats/features remain in force and effect.

I do my best to avoid these Workshop cheats in my TI games, but I have to assume that if they're available, they will be used in MP games. Best if everyone is aware of them in that event to keep everyone on the same footing.

posted 03-31-99 05:35 PM ET            

This has been the case in my two last games. I would conquer a city then change my SE to match the losers, then when they initiated diplomacy (which they always do after you take a city) they would surrender. Note to test this I saved reloaded a few times and it worked in all cases and they would NOT!! surrender if I did not change my SE.

In the readme to ver 3.0 it was stated that the diplomatic AI would take much more account of the relative military strength of the communicating factions. Couple this with the SE "cheats" that the attacking style player can do, and you wind up with some pretty fast victories.

Case in point, my last two games at TI on a HUGE map large land ect... were won in 2287 and 2278 respectively. And both could have been brought home sooner if I had realized that if you conquer the last nonservile faction you get an immediate conquest victory.

A 2278 victory equates to winning CivII in 1640 which is quicker than I was ever able to do in CivII at the deity level (1848 is my record there whats yours?). This seems to also support your thesis that Smac is much easier than CivII.

I have a couple of questions for TICHQ to mull over. First please note that there is no longer any production corruption as there was in CivII. Does this not unbalance the game in favor of having many small cities vs a few large ones? This would seem to favor the aggressive player. Any way to change this?

posted 03-31-99 07:05 PM ET            

As for the Hive, well, lets put it this way. I already know the Hive is overpowered. So much so that I've added an extra drone for every four citizens, and reduced the Immune, effic to robust, effic. And I'm still way ahead. That -2 Econ is a real bastard, but probe teams and the WONDERFUL production advantage makes up for it (about the only faction that stands a real chance of competing with the Transcendance A.I in building SPs).

There is one, final solution, available to put the conquerors firmly in their place - in Alpha.txt, set the 'Probe teams can steal technologies' to zero. I have a feeling this won't be a popular idea, but it sure makes those heavy penalties the builder factions have make more sense.

posted 03-31-99 11:26 PM ET         

Try playing them with a huge economy, now you probably wont be able to do a whole lot of bribing in MP unless its the computer or a human player desperate for cash, but you can just outright buy military units every turn during a time of war. Then after the war, go back to building up your stores.
Civ II made money far too powerful, SMAC lessened a little, but its still over rated.

I dont care how much money a nation has, its going to take a reasonable amount of time to build anything, even with virtually unlimited resources (which Morgan can almost achieve) its in this aspect that both Civ II and SMAC dont do well.

My best strategy, play Morgan, and spend freely. Hurry up the building of units and imrpovements if you ever have any money. Go hunting for native life. don't try and save in the early game, just buy those improvements and formers and get to growing!

Its not until mid game I start saving up, then I use the extra for unexpected wars, or buying SP that the computer might finish before me. And by the end of the game, the bonus Morgan gets to economy, I can usually just put it to 100%, and use improvements to take care of drones, and buy/steal research.
And the money I am making I just mass buy improvements in conquered cities.

posted 03-31-99 11:41 PM ET            

"Tell you what. I can crush you right now with my 4 recon rovers against your scout patrols, since you were busy researching gene splicing instead of industrial base. And I will not stop- I will crush you all the way to the ground. Or you can "surrender," give me this city I want, all your technology, and you become my research assistant while I switch to fundamentalism. Since the surrender option isn't available for human players, you'll share in the co-op victory after I'm elected supreme leader with my armies and your tech that you feed me. Take your choice."

Specifically, the University and the Believers could become the ultimate alliance, with the Believers inceredible military and the technology that the UoP gives them.

posted 04-01-99 12:21 AM ET            

The case in point is the technology stealing. Miriam would be almost wiped out if she couldn't steal tecnology whenever she needed it. The Hive's -2 Economy also makes them bad at research. Yet these factions seem to be the preferred T.I players identities, simply because they allow you to play aggresively, and tech stealing probe teams easily make up for the economic disadvantages. Standard stragety for Miriam is to forgo research altogether - if that's a viable way to play, where does the University end up?

CivII had a rule that prevented diplomats from stealing tech from the same city twice. SMAC has the 'security interlocks' which sounds nice but doesn't seem to cause too many hassles. Stealing more than one tech from a city should be more difficult than it currently is.

Snowfire: Miriam isn't such a bad builder, that +2 support means she pays less for units - including formers - than other factions. So while morgan is sweating minerals under his -1 support, Godwinson is smiling.

posted 04-01-99 09:31 AM ET            

I've started a new game with Yang, and so far it has gone pretty well, with a good starting location. Deidre is on the same continent, but she seems to be playing nice. She actually gave me Santiago's comm freq for FREE. Odd, considering our countries are border-to-border right on top of the jungle, and our power bars are about equal.

posted 04-01-99 01:37 PM ET            

Morgan is probably the most difficult faction to play due to the difficulty of securing one's continent early. Whether you want to or not, SMAC guides you into that with the aggressiveness of the AI, in land grabbing, border jumping, stealing tech that you would rather keep to yourself/sell to them, etc etc. I hadn't been able to repeat my early successes with Morgan in the demo until I started playing it as 'Morgan', and started opening every market possible. To succeed with Morgan, you have to have a very dedicated 'spread like mono' attitude and just constantly crank out the pods and defensive units to protect your newest market. Fill in every SQUARE of land with city coverage, and forget about not overlapping as the 4 Pop limit is the biggest enemy and prevents any city from being a true Resource Center unless you give it the order to build the Hab.

On the issue of loss of production shields in Civ... Much of what was 'production' in Civ is now 'Energy'. How can I be so crazy as to state that? Oil in Civ was Shields. Oil in SMAC would be 'Energy'. There are other obvious instances where certain raw resources swapped between the two and I think that is one of the reasons that there are less potential 'shields' that are easily 'losable' to the less honest in SMAC. Other in game answers includes the fact that ALL cities in SMAC are closed environments due to the fact that you can't breathe the air. This makes it harder for criminals to hide in the corners and what not, preventing them from being able to have a shipment of silver ore from 'falling of the truck'. In such closed communities, how quiet and hidden from those in charge can things truly be? So what does such a thing leave for sticking to fingers? Energy.

The out of game reason is simple... your SE already determines your loss of production or bonus production capacity. Further penalizing Factions with yet more mineral loss would decimate the AI running those mineral inefficient factions. Like the Spartans. :-) How could the Colonel threaten to roll over you if all but her core cities were incapable of producing one unit in less than a hundred turns?

Speaking of closed systems, I always thought it would be convenient if I could quell a riot by shutting of their rebreathing system of the living quarters that were rioting. Who needs Nerve Stapling? :-) You shut down their Oxy, and they are going to not be a problem for long. And no cost of drugs or surgery or what not. And you could even blame it on an accident. :-) Of course, you might create a resistance movement that acted as infiltrators for factions that don't do such things, but you would get sanctions, keeping trade lines open...

To those TIs that find Transcend too easy... have you tried the lower levels? In MOO, I found that Impossible was ridiculously easy to be, but at Hard, the AI generally crushed me as it employed *better* military tactics and whipped me regularly like a red-headed step child. I have never forgotten that... sometimes the AI is optimized for a level less than top, or employs tactics that work best against you at a level below top.

Just a thought...

posted 04-01-99 04:44 PM ET            

I tried out the SE/surrender algorithim. I took another PK city, with two large juicy cities just to the south. But I decieded I would give Brother Lal a chance first. I switch to democracy, call him up, and what do I get? "I surrender. Please don't kill me!" I accept his surrender, go back to the social engineering screen, and accept my 40 credit refund for going back to Fundamentalism. It's too easy. I think that AI leaders should keep track of things- if you were green for 100 years and have no temporarily switched to planned to boom your growth, the AI should not go bezerk (if you're silly enough to contact them then). Also, while having a start at democracy is certainly nice, there should be something like "I'm glad to see that you're trying (insert agenda). I'm sure you will soon realize the immense benefits of it soon. Still, I cannot easily forget the many years of (old SE choice you used) that you inflicted on your people."

posted 04-01-99 05:58 PM ET         

Is this a confirmed bug? I had actually thought it was a feature when I first encountered it - you know, a part of "PSI" combat being bad ratio readings that lured units to their death. Or is this just a deluded rationalization?

posted 04-01-99 06:12 PM ET         

Also, I think that switching SE should be more difficult if you've had the same choice for an extended amount of time, maybe a ration of 10 to 1. ie if you were at green in the following example for 100 years, it would take 10 years to swtich to Democracy.

posted 04-01-99 11:11 PM ET         

I am Morgan, paired off with the hive in the middle continent. And the tree huggers and warmongers are on the west continent. UoP is on the northernmost one. This is on the Huge map of Planet.

Gaians and Spartans are getting along fine, I am at war with the Hive trying to get the continent to myself and having extreme difficulty. The believers have control of half their continent, with more bases than I care to count, and have the PK in the squeeze. UoP is cramped on their little island.

posted 04-01-99 11:22 PM ET            

I for one have been following your discussion of builder/conqueror strategies and have learned much about the game and player proclivities from all of you. In particular, I find it interesting that players adopt a particular situation and strategy and seem to be inclined to continually repeat these methods game after game(including myself). I guess what I'm trying to say is that it is the human in us that causes us to pick a certain map style, faction, preferences, rules and strategy that suits our desires and we then try to find a way to successfully employ our skills.

I'll use myself as an example. I like to play larger maps, on the top three difficulties, Spartan faction, blind research, no spoils of war, passive-aggressive builder style, heavy diplomatic interractions, building mines and forests and taking any victory that can be reasonably achieved. Given this, I usually win most of my games and I don't find the A/I to be very challenging except for the cheating and drone riots. (BTW, I do not cheat at all and I frankly can't begin to believe some of the cheats that I have seen posted. In short, my philosophy is why play at all if you're going to cheat.)

Given all of this, I also realize that there are two things inherently wrong. First, in multiplayer I will be as vulnerable as anyone else, especially if another player picks up my patterns. Second, it is almost impossible for every player in an MP game to play with all of the variables optimized for their style of play. Therefore, everyone will have to adapt their style since humans are not "dumb" like the A/I.

Case in point, you(Analyst) have stated your preference to conquer and overwhelm your opponents from the get go. In multiplayer, I would neutralize your strategy by building a coalitition against you as the coalition would be strongest with all players still in the game. This should be pretty easy to do as no one will want to be victim #2 and they will transfer energy credits, tech and units to take the steam out of your attack. You will then be vulnerable to the counter attack as you have neglected your tech and infrastructure. Clearly then, the only difference in the result is that your human opponents will adapt and react to your style and you will have to do the same or lose the game.

As a result, I think it important to continue discussion of the build/conquer concepts. However, I do not reasonably think that a head to head comparison can be made until we have all played a good number of MP games as beating up on the A/I just doesn't teach us very much.

onkelroggy out

posted 04-02-99 09:26 AM ET            

One thing I've noticed -- the AI seems better at terraforming on Thinker rather than Librarian, but that has actually made the game easier. Why? When I started in on Deidre, she already had a VERY well-developed road network which made city hopping with rovers easy. With Librarian games, usually the AI didn't have quite such a nice set of roads to romp on until later in the game.

posted 04-03-99 12:12 AM ET            

In actuality, I haven't noticed any measurable difference in the A/I "intelligence" between the top three levels. Rather, I have found the almost incessant drone riots and mind worm attacks much more annoying and formidable than the A/I in the top two levels. Also, the A/I mostly prefers to cheat like the time I had 13 "random" negative events in a 17 turn period.

However, I will also grant that mind control and probe team actions are a more significant portion of the game at these higher levels and they can take you by surprise. Especially if you haven't practiced this style due to playing at other levels.

I'd appreciate hearing if anyone else feels the same way.

posted 04-03-99 02:22 PM ET         

I still like the idea that more is better. Although, it might not seem sane to have 19+ cities due to the increased inefficiency. Think of it this way, Large developing countries are hardest to take over. There's just too much land to cover. I still treat each city as a city-state so my country is still more of a Con-Federation. Every city is self-sufficient. Presently developed cities crank out offensive units while newer cities build and the cycle continues.

I'm using a different tactic of attack though. When I get the hovertank, I immediately design a 10-8 AAA, 2x police hovertank to use as garrison. Then I change my GI's into 10-6 cloaked, clean reactor and use these to attack. This is my transition from infantry based defense to a hovertank based defense (b/c those blasted missles will come eventually around this time and I need a unit with more HP). The version 2 GI's basicly become a sort of land destroyer. I use them to move around and destroy farms/road. I usually have about 50 of them (think 2 from every base). Yes, I know I can take the computer player out with my infanty but then I'd miss the fun out of building and designing new superunits.

MP game.
Welp, at work to save time--We limited ourselves to 12 cities and smaller maps and no tech stag though. Since each faction is on an island I used a patch of land to plant fungus and moved my 1-1-2 trance rovers in there to make money from mindworms. Great way to get my squad of rovers to elite status in no time. I even delay Switching to "Green" because I might lose out on money if I take over a worm. At MP I do have a more Federal approach. Border cities always have more defense (think big circle surrounding smaller circle and an even smaller circler). My whole country is one large web. I even move my Capitol to the center. Funny thing is that, port cities (outer most web) are built first so they have more infrastructure. While I'm colonizing inward, the outer cities are building up the defense. Yes, it does become wars of attrition because I don't attack as often.

3 things I do a lot-
Starve out the enemy if they're bent too much on a large army by having a large defense.(meaning they keep on building units and little infrastructure).

Riot and steal if they're too bent on infrastructure. This works best if I got the HS first, if not I go to the brute force method.. .

Nuke, missle, or destroy all SP's that aren't mine.
--I've thought about maintaining taken over SP's during a MP game, but sometimes I'd lose it especially if the city is on a large mass of enemy cities. Nowadays, I always expect people to spend a huge wave of units to take it back. So when they do and send a lot of units to defend that city. I nuke it.

I think the largest equalizers are the Empath Guild, Weather Controller, and SP's that give free buildings early on. Although, I'd give up WC for EG any day. Knowing what your enemies are building and such. . .::shudders::

posted 04-06-99 10:49 AM ET            

StargazerBC, I've noticed that the AI gets to switch production during my turn too. What I've also noticed is that the AI gets no penalty for switching production. Just a couple of the many AI cheats. Your observations about the flow of your MP games with your friends are very interesting. I also think the PB "solution" will be a lot more common in MP games that last that long.

Snowfire, nice to see some "official" confirmation of our observations about the AI and it's use of the waters.

Onkleroggy, welcome to the TI thread. As has already been pointed out, I intend to neutralize the reputation effect by playing MP under a different handle. Even if we were to round up TIers for a "club" game, though, my experience is that you would find the "coalition" strategy harder to do than to describe.

My fellow TIs will be pleased to know that I am capable of admitting to weakness and a failure of my strategy. Recall that I earlier posted that I'm playing a game as Miriam in which Morgan got to start on his own large continent, about as far my my own bases as can be accomplished on a standard sized map. I'm at a point where I'm going to win this game comfortably, but it's also easy for me to see that any competent human playing Morgan could have easily built a super-empire by now and would certainly be in a position to wipe me off of the map. Even the AI has managed to build Morgan up into a respectable 14 base empire by 2275. A human could have done so much more . . .

Part of the reason I've not been able to do anything about Morgan yet is pure geography, but part of it is also the alteration of geography. This is the first game I've ever played where I suffered the indignity of having the other factions vote to raise the sea levels and being unable to defeat or veto that vote in Council. The result has been a massive slowdown in the usual pace of my conquest--partly because amphibious assaults over large stretches of water are just plain less efficient, partly because I had to waste time building expensive Pressure Domes and rebuilding terraforming infrastructure and partly because the computer cheats.

One thing is for sure, no one will be able to convince me now that the computer AI doesn't get to look at where your units are on the map. I don't care what the designers say. Watching the AI presicesly track down and kill my water units at ranges far out of their sight over and over again leaves me no alternative but to assume that the only way to accomplish this is by giving the AI map data. This is just piled on top of repeated observations by others that the AI seems to see cloaked units and units hidden in fungus perfectly well. I'm willing to give my Builder style fellow TIs the benefit of the doubt, though, and assume that I wouldn't have been able to penetrate their radar unit nets with any greater success, leading to more or less the same result.

posted 04-06-99 08:41 PM ET            

And I might add, Analsyt, that I've confirmed your observastions back in my non-Ironman days. A transport found itself next to a warship that had just messily devoured it's brother transport. It sensibly ran to a fungus patch down south- there were a good 3 locations it could hide in. I saved before that, of course. No matter which patch I stuck it in, the enemy warship found it everytime.

posted 04-06-99 11:15 PM ET            

New tactics that appeal to me (playing as the Hive).

Breaking strong points: most easily done with missiles. Pumping 2 to 3 "cris missles" (C/o Serb warcriminal Arkan) into a city is the best way to remove those pesky air defenders, so that your planes can take out the ECM garrison and your drop X Tachyon Hovertanks can mop up (that nerve gas is a great way to incapacitate a well built up city, too, without all that messy fooling around with probe teams).

*sigh* Does anyone else find the SMAC interface an inelegant way to manage production of a decent combined arms force?

Experienced problems with the A.I's unlimited range conventional missiles. Feels a bit dumb, in that the Planet Busters got fixed in the last patch. Without being a total git, I would suggest that maybe firaxis is being lead hand in hand a bit much on these issues.

And Planet Busters are fun. Used a Quantum Buster to take out 4 size 11+ Morgan cities. BOOM! No more army! Ha ha ha ha ha! Score one to the person with the best intelligence network!

Took ages to stop Deidre and Zakhorov from firing their free, unlimited range missiles at me though.

(Yes, I'm rambling now, but this is the important bit). Has everyone else noticed that the A.I seems to be constantly shifting production when being invaded. I've had morgan and deirdre make at least half a dozen attempts between them to build a planet buster, and everytime they reach about 25% completion and change to another project.

Furthermore, the A.I shifts it's production DURING YOUR TURN. Launch a surprise attack against a poorly defended base and their "XXX useless facility" (i.e I can't remember what it was) gets changed to a Probability defender. Straight away. Not next turn after morgan has had a good think or anything. Immediately.

This is stilmulus/response type stuff, not decent A.I. Morgan had enough units to shift another one to that base next turn for protection, especially as my attacking force on THAT side of his empire was weak.

posted 04-07-99 04:15 PM ET            

Analsyt - I have recently come to the (somewhat tested) theory that the computer only understands military strength. Would you agree? (I've posted my ramblings on this in a different thread.) Or have I missed something truly significant?

While it can be aggravating to see the Computer autoswap to a defender, you can make this work for you. If I don't want an enemy city to build what it is building, I simply launch a raid against it. Aerospace complex, SP, Planet Buster, whatever. Unless the computer has a large stack of defenders, it will swap over to a defender, wasting the excess. You can bop it again and make it swap if it chose an AAA Interceptor or what not... it will generally settle on a current infantry/garrison unit of some form. I thought you TIs were cognitive of this (and took advantage of this)? This is the way its played since 1.0...

posted 04-08-99 12:54 AM ET            

As for missiles vs. planet busters, this is a bug, don't expect it to make sense. Firaxis claims to have fixed the A.I infinite range PB's, and since I'm not stupid enough to allow my enemies to actually finish construction of a PB, let alone use one, that's fine. But those missiles are flying too far.

posted 04-08-99 08:40 AM ET            

Briefly: SE choices still rule the roost in Diplomacy, even after their de-emphasis in v3.0. In the very early game, though, when SE is limited (or unavailable) military might is everything and even building a single unit can dramatically affect AI mood. Military might breaks down into several factors. I rank them in the following order: (i) number of offensive units; (ii) positioning of offensive units (you bet the AI knows where they all are); (iii) overall military strength (with morale of troops an important calculating component); (iv) military technology; (v) global faction strength.

posted 04-08-99 02:06 PM ET            

Analyst - Thanks for the feedback. My experience and theory seems to place maximum emphasis on: Military strength and how it affects your power graph/standing. Exception: Number of units DOES NOT SEEM TO MATTER if they are all ATTACK 1 units, and the computer has a few Defense 2 units.

Distance has *NEVER* been a factor in my games. The fact that noone has Flexibility (Foils) has not prevented me from extracting EVERYTHING all other factions have (well, except Morgan which supports the "You don't have any ATTACK units to threaten me with" hypothesis) including comm frequencies so that I can bully even more factions. And in the beginning, that jump in your "overall" spike for aquiring the starting techs of the other factions seems to be enough to keep all the other factions crushed and scared of you.

I don't think the Morale of troops is very important to the 3.0 AI "Yeller" Machine. If it did, then the AI should be *a lot* more afraid of Miriam. +25% attack bonus is a HECK of a Morale upgrade. Miriam should be able to bully everyone but Santiago.

Position has seemed to have little effect, unless I had a stack within striking range of (read: next to) the Capital of the faction. That tends to cause the AI to want to sue for peace and/or beg me to retract the units.

Military Tech only seems to be important in how it affects that Power Spike, which the computer seems to use as a guide as to "Are you Weak in comparison to Your top current capability (and is your current vs potential % less than my current vs. potential %)?"

Global Faction strength... yes, that seem to be the guiding key measurement (with some silly bugs thrown in (see above)).

Humm... I think you may want to re-evaluate your position Analyst. I *don't* think the computer gives extra weight to rovers. I think it gives extra weight to Santiago. The main reason I say that is I can remember all too well bullying UoP (on a seperate land mass, half way around the world) into giving me Impact. They were #1 (with existing Impact troops (including Rovers With Impact Weapons) in the Scenario Editor). I (as Santiago) was #6 (and had yet to get Lasers). They handed over Impact at the threat of being squashed like a bug. That shot me to #3 (the Tech), and when my next set of troopers marched out of the barracks (all with Impact) I went to #1 on the graph. That was when I shut down the game, and logged into here looking for others thoughts on the matter. That wasn't on Transcend, so maybe there are level factors that were not taken into account, but the #1 Faction handing over the tools of their own destruction to a third world faction just does NOT make sense to me. And let all the fun out of playing the Spartans for me.

Now, I have always enjoyed the "Refrain from Squashing you like a Bug" option... its so in character to the AI (and payback for all those silly CivII diplomatic encounters). But I never expect it to work, unless I am SERIOUSLY #1 militarily. So why could I pull it off with the Spartans, when I was always ignored playing the other Factions (Heck, as the Hive at #1 talking to an immediate neighbor at #6 I've gotten "Just declare war or shut up" more times than I can remember!) Or was it because I rarely change my SE with the Spartans as it causes the computer AI to just get Stupid in dealing with you? While I *like* the SE, its the simple WORST factor for Diplomacy (as discussed previously).

Perhaps its time to crank up SMAC tonight and see what a TI game (playing Bully Spartans) does and reacts? I just don't like using such cheats to win...

posted 04-08-99 04:10 PM ET            

The unit positioning factor component of my theory began in my very first game of the full (i.e. non-demo) version of the game. I played the Gaians and started adjacent to the Spartans (among others). Very early in the game, Santiago walked offensive units up to my bases and started making demands: money, tech, the clothes off my back, etc. Her mood was always "Seething". I capitulated, being helpless to do otherwise. After some turns, I noticed that the AI seemed to need to always move its units, sometimes ending their movement a square further away. What I did was build a bunch of scout units and surround the offending Spartan units, leaving only a single square not in my ZOC for the Spartan unit to move to. Sooner or later it would and I would reposition my scouts, etc. In this manner, I "herded" half a dozen Spartan units back across their own border. As I did this, I kept checking Santiago's mood. It gradually went from "Seething" to "Non-Commital". Once I got her units back in her own territory, I field upgraded those scouts to amix of offensive and defensive units. She retreated her own units into her bases and her mood became "Solicitous". I've never forgotten the lessons of that encounter and I've had occasion to repeat them. The AI is very reactive to the relative positioning of your offensive forces and it's own offensive forces and the effect stretches far beyond your having a unit next to it's HQ base (though it ceratinly is most profound at that moment).

posted 05-03-99 02:34 AM ET            

I had tried that bullying tactic on Transcend with Santiago. I found I only got about 1/3 to 1/2 of what I asked for. Until I made the mistake of swapping SE... that was when everyone got stupid. I tell you, I currently think that SE sucks, and the diplomacy model using it to decide most things sucks badly. Its worse than MOO and MOO2's! But I have found a way to play Spartans and not have them get everything they want due to everyone simpering for me.

If you had been giving in to demands, Analysist, that also moves the mood along the slide positively. Not that I can bring myself to give in very often.

I'm still refining and updating my opinions (obviously).

posted 05-04-99 04:48 AM ET         

But as far as the 'probe teams are too powerful' thing goes... Probe teams have no upkeep cost regardless of armor, etc. So I have a standard probe team as part of my generic starting build queue... every single one of my cities has at least one probe team.
As probe team morale is affected by techs, not just your SE, you can easily be a democracy and still have decent probe teams.
Further, a defensive rover in your city, combined with sensors, is usually enough that you can go out and bap any incoming probe team before it can even get into the base.
I've also noticed that the AI doesn't do the naval probe team thing... at least not to me yet.
(which is silly, 'cuz they're the best, and can be well out of sensor range before they move in to strike)

I'm not positive on this, but any minus to probe does not affect probe teams effectiveness in defending, right?

posted 05-05-99 10:49 AM ET            

A word for Alkis, before I go. Your self-characterization as a Builder and your discomfort with Yang go hand in hand, but that doesn't mean that Yang isn't overpowered. Your observation that Yang can't boom his population overlooks that there are specific offsetting factors for that deficiency. First, Yang's natural growth advantage partially negates that natural SE disadvantage. Second, use of the Golden Age trick, while less efficient, will also offset the inability to population boom. Of course, in the long term, Yang will still fall behind in population, and his economic disadvantage is crippling to the Builder strategy, which leads to the real solution--don't play Yang as a Builder.

Yang's natural industry and growth advantage, combined with his ability to employ the Police State/Planned combination without efficiency penalties, is a ferocious early game advantage. Taking advantage of this combination, Yang can rabbit like mad in the early game and have twice as many bases as any other faction--and all of a serviceable size to boot. Having twice as many bases means having the ability to build twice as many offensive military units in any given span of time (and the industry advantage neatly offsets the smaller base size in accomplishing this). This is why the CN is a "holy grail" for the Yang/Conquerer strategy. Your observation that you can build a sufficient amount of veteran units for *defense* using a few bases with Command centers and monoliths is true--provided you are playing against the computer. But with Yang rabbiting to double your number of bases and building veteran offensive units *at every base*, an overwhelming collection of offensive firepower can be accumulated in a surprisingly short amount of game time. This early advantage in offensive firepower can be employed with devastating effect. Your observations regarding Yang's weaknesses only come to fruition in the middle to later game stages. The proper way to play Yang is to ensure that no middle to later game ever occurs for those factions able to take advantage of it.

If you've read through these threads, then you know that I disagree with your assesment of Miriam as well. Her early game advantages are immediate and can be used to devastating effect. Further, I believe it was Shining1 who said that she can be effectively employed as a Builder faction, also.

posted 05-06-99 09:03 PM ET            

Don't underestimate the advantages of that +2 Support early on - meaning that Miriam can pump out formers and/or go democratic with near impunity. Base defense is also enhanced if you take an active approach - not only do you get +25%, but your probe teams can buy attacking units at a lower price. Should you get invaded, the builder's ability to use a small number of offensive units most effectively can't be underestimated - and Miriam does this best.

Naturally, the Believer's tech sux. But probe teams and some good allies can overcome this - getting the planetary datalinks can also help (Miriam's number one project). (Probe teams, however, are the key. Build them like the plague - infiltrate, learn their secrets, keep checking their placement of forces, etc).

Finally, if you play as the believers, you don't have to look at Miriam's ugly face nearly as often as you otherwise would.

posted 05-08-99 12:29 PM ET            

I've become supreme leader with the PKs as early as 2270, and just because I was waiting for sunspots to end so that I could contact the other factions and request it. I'm not sure if this was luck-- the Spartans were pretty big but my faction dwarfed all others (about 25-30 mostly size 18 bases).

posted 05-09-99 02:52 PM ET            

I built Virtual World and Weather Project by 2152 but I only had 8 cities by then, and even worse, only 2 formers. I don't see how the PK can make up for the cost of all those free Network Nodes. Morgan can get Wealth which *might* do it -- the -3 Planet is punishing in combat against Abundant Lifeforms and the -5 Police of course... both avoided.

>Anyway I played that game till MY 2225
>approximately, then I went to sleep. I
>have this one save where I have
>superiority, I am planetary Governor,
>UoP is my submissive pact brother and I
>am first in maybe everything but military.

I have a similar situation just saved at 2192. Researching Cybernetics with 243.6 energy/turn. [Except I can never get any AI to cooperate with me under any circumstances it seems - even Morgan]

>Conclusion: The idea of an early free
>market is playable!

posted 05-12-99 11:28 AM ET            

Anyways, sorry to see you go Analyst. It seems that the current talk of Morgan, comparisons between factions and their builder/conquerer aspects were things we covered in the first TI threads. Well, c'est la guerre.

Just to let you all know, I'm a card carrying Spartan and damn proud of it.
Smeagol: Long term advantages for the Spartans? There are none, nor do there need to be because there will be no long term. Stopping the war machine to build is counter productive. All the Social Engineering tricks of Morgan won't save him from an Impact Rover rush on turn 40.

Alkis: I don't see how you can rate the factions without some sort of context. What sort of victory are you going for? If it is cornering the market, would you pick Yang? If it was Conquest, would you put Lal in the top 3? If it were Transcendance, would you pick Miriam?

posted 07-20-99 01:52 PM ET            

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