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Author Topic:   Worst Random Event

Natguy posted 05-15-99 02:51 PM ET
As thee name states, I am wondering what events most people think are the worst.
My vote is the Energy Market Crash, especially if you're going for an economic victory. In the game I am playing now I had loads of cash, and was using it to prepare for my invasion of the Gaians, when I had a cras, and lost thousands of credits. I went from outright buying secret projects to having to think about buying an ECM Silksteel Sentinel.
Al Gore Rythm posted 05-15-99 04:51 PM ET
Well, I recently started playing with tech at 20% normal (instead of my usual 40% normal) and have found that, by far, the worst event, random or otherwise, is one that has you losing research.
For intance, if you assasinate a prominent researcher under such circumstances it can be a set back of 20, 30 or even 50 years. Ouch.
Captain Action posted 05-15-99 10:40 PM ET
The worst one for me is the 10+ mind worms when I let one of my cities go a turn with 100+ eco damage.
jimmytrick posted 05-16-99 12:21 AM ET
Capt, if you kill those worms it will bring in a bundle of credits, so, where is the downside?
Oh, I forgot, you didn't care to prevent the eccodamage so it follows you didn't prepare for the onslaught!
Your comment doesn't belong here, look for the thread: "WORST EVENT SUFFERED BY NON-SMACPLAYING BOOB"
Wolf Dreamer posted 05-16-99 12:53 AM ET
Speaking of unpredectable crap that sucks, fighting other factions' weaker units and not knowing whether you will win or not totally sucks. Save game, fight battle, lose to a weaker opponent, reload, try the exact same thing again, then win same battle with hardly any damage done to your previously destroyed unit.
Whoever has the best rating should always win. This is suppose to be a strategy game, not a dice throw.
Imagine playing chess or some other strategy game, but when you go to take a piece, you have to roll dice or some other crap to see if you can do it or not. Wouldn't that suck? You can not plan out a strategy with random battle results which don't make any sense.
seth5454 posted 05-16-99 09:03 AM ET
I really hate the communications blackouts where for twenty years u cant talk and it really starts to suck when u r at war and u need to call for a truce.
Plato90s posted 05-16-99 11:57 AM ET
Wolf,
The programmers deliberately introduce a randomness factor. After all, weaker units have wiped out stronger units enough times in real life. At least the SMAC model is far better than the Civ2 model, where it is actually possible to lose a Battleship to a Phalanx.
Besides, if you should lose the battle due to a bad random event - live with it. A good strategist doesn't let a tactical setback affect his overall strategy.
Wolf Dreamer posted 05-16-99 03:10 PM ET
Plato90s, I don't fully understand your post. Its better than the Civ2 model? Uh, ok. So the random combat outcome of this game does not suck as badly as that aspect of a game they previously made.
In real life weaker units wipe out stronger units do to terrain, training, and moral, all of which are already used in the game as modifiers. The real life reference doesn't change the fact that from a game play stand point, it sucks.
"Live with it", you say? The point of this thread is to tell what we all hate in the game. If enough people agreed with me, then the designers might think about changing it.
It sucks, and I shouldn't have to waste time sending in wave after wave of units just to take a base which should've been conquered in the first place.
The game automatically saves each turn because the designers realized that their random battle outcomes suck and many would want to reload. If I play the game with the options set to No Random Events, then it should eliminate all this random battle outcome nonsense.
sandworm posted 05-16-99 03:37 PM ET
I have heard of, but never experienced, a meteor impact that completely destroys one of your cities. The eruption of a new Mount Planet is something I -am- familiar with, fortunately it missed occurring under one of my cities by about 5 squares. Hailstorms destroying solar fields around a city are pretty annoying, but they can be rebuilt more easily than an entire colony.
Al Gore Rythm posted 05-16-99 04:37 PM ET
Wolf:
I think you need to lighten up, after all, this is a game.
Furthermore it is your logic which is flawed, not that of the developers. When you outclass your enemy by tremendous levels (Say Singularity Laser vs. Synthmetal) than you will win, guaranteed. Try it.
But when your advantage is small, than there is a chance for things to change. And then you're not guaranteed to win. For instance, if you have Impact Lasers and I have Plasma Armor does that mean that I instantly lose? You will, of course, have an ADVANTAGE but you will not have an automatic win against me. There is an enormous difference.
Plato90s posted 05-16-99 04:59 PM ET
Wolf,
Luck is very much a factor in combat, which I don't believe SMAC has a modifier for.
In fact, there are a large number of different factors which are not accounted for in the SMAC model. So let me reiterate - deal with it.
SMAC has autosaves in so players can CHEAT if they wish, not because of any inherent flaw in the combat system. Simiarly, they put in the scenario editor to let you CHEAT. That's why there's an Ironman option, which has only 1 turn autosave and no reloading.
Personally, I have no problems with the combat model. When my advantage is marginal [only 10-30%], I send in extra units to make sure I take the objective. When the advantage is huge [100%-200%], I don't bother. All your complaints tell me is that you are overconfident of your marginal advantage, make no effort at contingency planning, and don't like it when the results are exactly as planned.
evil_conquerer posted 05-16-99 05:00 PM ET
Having the stronger unit always win would place a HUGE advantage on technology. As Al Gore Rythm (invented the internet? ) said, if you have weapons only one point higher, then you would walk right over your opponent.
Also, in real life large numbers of slightly weaker units can destroy a few stronger units. In your version, 100 laser infantry could not defeat 1 plasma garrison. Of course, in real life this only works within reason -- 100 ordinary people cannot defeat 1 tank. But in SMAC it's like that too. Try launching about fifty scout rovers against one stasis infantry and see the results.
BTW, the point of this thread was not to gripe about the game (correct me if I'm wrong, Natguy). It was to say which random event you think is the worst. My opinion:
1. Asteroid
2. New Mt. Planet
3. Energy market crash
4. Sunspot activity (sometimes good)
5. Crop failure (with Cloning Vats it's a killer)
Natguy posted 05-16-99 09:24 PM ET
You're absolutely right, Evil Conqueror, but oh well. Life goes on.
I've never experienced the asteroid, and the new Mt. Planet didn't occur near my cities, so I suppose my vote is flawed. Oh well. Life goes on.
iak posted 05-17-99 07:43 AM ET
Solar flares, after you've built nice bunch of Orbital Defence Pods and Orbital Power Transmitters. Why does _every_ such satellite have to get destroyed? Luckily no-one has tried nuking me at such a moment. Before that, I've nothing against flares.
Earwicker posted 05-17-99 01:06 PM ET
I've never experienced the truly catastrophic like asteroid or solar flares knocking down all the satellites, so I've never gone off screaming. Mostly, it's the frustration of dealing with the "extortion" random events:
[negative event] will happen unless the base has [somehow-related base facility], in which case [positive event] will happen.
Colonel Santiago, I really suggests you build that Biology Lab. See, we don't wanna have any "accidents" out at the farm, do we?
I rarely get nailed by the Network Node and Children's Creche ones, but who has time to put Biology Labs and Energy Banks in all his bases?
That said, at least there's the posibility of a good effect with those -- unlike Prometheus Virus. It would be nice if that also had a positive corrolary.
Koshko posted 05-17-99 11:28 PM ET
Simple Dirty Trick for the Energy Market Crash. Reload right before it occurs, and spend the vast majority of your cash on buying city improvements and upgraging units.
I've never has an Astroid Hit me, and the only Solar Flare I've had was before I build any satellites.
The worse ones are simply the ones that occur at the worst possible times.
Tres posted 05-20-99 01:00 PM ET
at first: i like these random events, especially with iron man activated.
worst 3:
asteroid hit on nessus - nasty if you depend on too much nessus mining
prometheus plague - very hard hitting in industrial cities
global warming - pray to have enough pressure domes in your coastal cities
btw, i like seeing my enemies beeing hit hard from mother nature (one time yang, deirdre and santiago lost half of their empires to the ocean, their cities were just washed away)
quizara tafwid posted 05-21-99 12:58 PM ET
In the same game (Thinker/PK/Huge+):
1. Asteroid takes out my biggest city (luckily, no SPs)
then
2. Energy Market Crash when I had 240K energy saved up for an economic victory (needed 278K and was producing 40K per turn)
then
3. Right after the Energy Market Crash, a solar flare takes out 170 mining and defense satellites (luckily you get the triple energy output on the ground for 1 turn - ~80K of energy not counting the satellites)
BTW: 40K/turn is correct - 81 cities with 25 pop avg. each with at least 10 supply crawlers collecting energy and 170 energy and mining satellites (doh, I had forgotten that you only get to use one for each pop in the city so I kept building them - now I get to build them again ) converting minerals to energy.
Zoetrope posted 05-24-99 07:29 AM ET
Quizara, you were one unlucky guy in that game.
Energy Banks: these usually absorb power overloads, and store the extra energy, right?
Well, in my current game, a power overload destroyed an Energy Bank! The message was that I should save up more energy reserves.
laurens posted 05-24-99 08:33 AM ET
I vote for the Market Crash.
Is there any count? The list's getting long and confusing.
Urban Ranger posted 05-25-99 01:33 AM ET
Crop failure.
quizara: if you have 81 cities on a huge map, you do not need 278K energy to corner the market. 81 cities take up most of the space on a huge map.
quizara tafwid posted 05-25-99 10:18 AM ET
Actually, it was bigger than huge (huger?) It was 128 x 256. I had a huge continent all to myself at the start. All of the other factions had their own continent to start on but were kinda clumped together. I never met any of the other factions. It was only after I built the SP that puts you in contact with everyone else that I found out where everyone else was (by that time I had already built my 81 bases).
So, I'm too far away for anyone to PB me and only the Gaians have landed any troops on my continent (which were immediately wiped out). I've already won by transcendence, diplomacy, and working on economic. I'm sure I could crush everyone else and win by conquest, but I'm too lazy. All I do is knock down any base trying to build Voice of Planet, then I give it to Morgan (my pact brother). Even with a paradigm efficiency, any additional base outside my continent costs 40 energy to support (luckily, I have many Power satellites (since I can build 81 per turn if I wanted to). With all infrastructure built in each base, I have no ecodamage at all, even building satellites with the Beanstalk SP. I have maxed out the number of units you can build (it is 2^10) so to build any combat units, I have to give up a Supply Crawlers that is collecting energy. I have about a hundred formers raising my continent to keep it above the steadily rising sea because everyone else is polluting like crazy (Gaia has 70+ bases, Hive has about the same, Mirriam has about 40 bases, University, Spartens, and Morgan about 25 each) (which is why it cost 279K energy to buy the economic victory!) I've been trying to cover the entire surface with forests and ridding the oceans of Sea Fungus.
To reiterate:
Thinker/Huge+(128x256)/PK/Blind/No Unity Pods/Democratic/Free Market/Knowledge/Cybernetics
40+K energy/turn
Series II posted 05-25-99 11:54 AM ET
I have played about 20 games (none on transendence) and have had no big disasterous random events. Maybe I am just lucky. Tonight I start my first game on Transendence. Hive, huge world, huge oceans, weak erosion (more mountains), dense clouds, rare life. Maybe I will get some big disaster.
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Author	Topic: Worst Random Event
Natguy	posted 05-15-99 02:51 PM ET As thee name states, I am wondering what events most people think are the worst. My vote is the Energy Market Crash, especially if you're going for an economic victory. In the game I am playing now I had loads of cash, and was using it to prepare for my invasion of the Gaians, when I had a cras, and lost thousands of credits. I went from outright buying secret projects to having to think about buying an ECM Silksteel Sentinel.
Al Gore Rythm	posted 05-15-99 04:51 PM ET Well, I recently started playing with tech at 20% normal (instead of my usual 40% normal) and have found that, by far, the worst event, random or otherwise, is one that has you losing research. For intance, if you assasinate a prominent researcher under such circumstances it can be a set back of 20, 30 or even 50 years. Ouch.
Captain Action	posted 05-15-99 10:40 PM ET The worst one for me is the 10+ mind worms when I let one of my cities go a turn with 100+ eco damage.
jimmytrick	posted 05-16-99 12:21 AM ET Capt, if you kill those worms it will bring in a bundle of credits, so, where is the downside? Oh, I forgot, you didn't care to prevent the eccodamage so it follows you didn't prepare for the onslaught! Your comment doesn't belong here, look for the thread: "WORST EVENT SUFFERED BY NON-SMACPLAYING BOOB"
Wolf Dreamer	posted 05-16-99 12:53 AM ET Speaking of unpredectable crap that sucks, fighting other factions' weaker units and not knowing whether you will win or not totally sucks. Save game, fight battle, lose to a weaker opponent, reload, try the exact same thing again, then win same battle with hardly any damage done to your previously destroyed unit. Whoever has the best rating should always win. This is suppose to be a strategy game, not a dice throw. Imagine playing chess or some other strategy game, but when you go to take a piece, you have to roll dice or some other crap to see if you can do it or not. Wouldn't that suck? You can not plan out a strategy with random battle results which don't make any sense.
seth5454	posted 05-16-99 09:03 AM ET I really hate the communications blackouts where for twenty years u cant talk and it really starts to suck when u r at war and u need to call for a truce.
Plato90s	posted 05-16-99 11:57 AM ET Wolf, The programmers deliberately introduce a randomness factor. After all, weaker units have wiped out stronger units enough times in real life. At least the SMAC model is far better than the Civ2 model, where it is actually possible to lose a Battleship to a Phalanx. Besides, if you should lose the battle due to a bad random event - live with it. A good strategist doesn't let a tactical setback affect his overall strategy.
Wolf Dreamer	posted 05-16-99 03:10 PM ET Plato90s, I don't fully understand your post. Its better than the Civ2 model? Uh, ok. So the random combat outcome of this game does not suck as badly as that aspect of a game they previously made. In real life weaker units wipe out stronger units do to terrain, training, and moral, all of which are already used in the game as modifiers. The real life reference doesn't change the fact that from a game play stand point, it sucks. "Live with it", you say? The point of this thread is to tell what we all hate in the game. If enough people agreed with me, then the designers might think about changing it. It sucks, and I shouldn't have to waste time sending in wave after wave of units just to take a base which should've been conquered in the first place. The game automatically saves each turn because the designers realized that their random battle outcomes suck and many would want to reload. If I play the game with the options set to No Random Events, then it should eliminate all this random battle outcome nonsense.
sandworm	posted 05-16-99 03:37 PM ET I have heard of, but never experienced, a meteor impact that completely destroys one of your cities. The eruption of a new Mount Planet is something I -am- familiar with, fortunately it missed occurring under one of my cities by about 5 squares. Hailstorms destroying solar fields around a city are pretty annoying, but they can be rebuilt more easily than an entire colony.
Al Gore Rythm	posted 05-16-99 04:37 PM ET Wolf: I think you need to lighten up, after all, this is a game. Furthermore it is your logic which is flawed, not that of the developers. When you outclass your enemy by tremendous levels (Say Singularity Laser vs. Synthmetal) than you will win, guaranteed. Try it. But when your advantage is small, than there is a chance for things to change. And then you're not guaranteed to win. For instance, if you have Impact Lasers and I have Plasma Armor does that mean that I instantly lose? You will, of course, have an ADVANTAGE but you will not have an automatic win against me. There is an enormous difference.
Plato90s	posted 05-16-99 04:59 PM ET Wolf, Luck is very much a factor in combat, which I don't believe SMAC has a modifier for. In fact, there are a large number of different factors which are not accounted for in the SMAC model. So let me reiterate - deal with it. SMAC has autosaves in so players can CHEAT if they wish, not because of any inherent flaw in the combat system. Simiarly, they put in the scenario editor to let you CHEAT. That's why there's an Ironman option, which has only 1 turn autosave and no reloading. Personally, I have no problems with the combat model. When my advantage is marginal [only 10-30%], I send in extra units to make sure I take the objective. When the advantage is huge [100%-200%], I don't bother. All your complaints tell me is that you are overconfident of your marginal advantage, make no effort at contingency planning, and don't like it when the results are exactly as planned.
evil_conquerer	posted 05-16-99 05:00 PM ET Having the stronger unit always win would place a HUGE advantage on technology. As Al Gore Rythm (invented the internet? ) said, if you have weapons only one point higher, then you would walk right over your opponent. Also, in real life large numbers of slightly weaker units can destroy a few stronger units. In your version, 100 laser infantry could not defeat 1 plasma garrison. Of course, in real life this only works within reason -- 100 ordinary people cannot defeat 1 tank. But in SMAC it's like that too. Try launching about fifty scout rovers against one stasis infantry and see the results. BTW, the point of this thread was not to gripe about the game (correct me if I'm wrong, Natguy). It was to say which random event you think is the worst. My opinion: 1. Asteroid 2. New Mt. Planet 3. Energy market crash 4. Sunspot activity (sometimes good) 5. Crop failure (with Cloning Vats it's a killer)
Natguy	posted 05-16-99 09:24 PM ET You're absolutely right, Evil Conqueror, but oh well. Life goes on. I've never experienced the asteroid, and the new Mt. Planet didn't occur near my cities, so I suppose my vote is flawed. Oh well. Life goes on.
iak	posted 05-17-99 07:43 AM ET Solar flares, after you've built nice bunch of Orbital Defence Pods and Orbital Power Transmitters. Why does _every_ such satellite have to get destroyed? Luckily no-one has tried nuking me at such a moment. Before that, I've nothing against flares.
Earwicker	posted 05-17-99 01:06 PM ET I've never experienced the truly catastrophic like asteroid or solar flares knocking down all the satellites, so I've never gone off screaming. Mostly, it's the frustration of dealing with the "extortion" random events: [negative event] will happen unless the base has [somehow-related base facility], in which case [positive event] will happen. Colonel Santiago, I really suggests you build that Biology Lab. See, we don't wanna have any "accidents" out at the farm, do we? I rarely get nailed by the Network Node and Children's Creche ones, but who has time to put Biology Labs and Energy Banks in all his bases? That said, at least there's the posibility of a good effect with those -- unlike Prometheus Virus. It would be nice if that also had a positive corrolary.
Koshko	posted 05-17-99 11:28 PM ET Simple Dirty Trick for the Energy Market Crash. Reload right before it occurs, and spend the vast majority of your cash on buying city improvements and upgraging units. I've never has an Astroid Hit me, and the only Solar Flare I've had was before I build any satellites. The worse ones are simply the ones that occur at the worst possible times.
Tres	posted 05-20-99 01:00 PM ET at first: i like these random events, especially with iron man activated. worst 3: asteroid hit on nessus - nasty if you depend on too much nessus mining prometheus plague - very hard hitting in industrial cities global warming - pray to have enough pressure domes in your coastal cities btw, i like seeing my enemies beeing hit hard from mother nature (one time yang, deirdre and santiago lost half of their empires to the ocean, their cities were just washed away)
quizara tafwid	posted 05-21-99 12:58 PM ET In the same game (Thinker/PK/Huge+): 1. Asteroid takes out my biggest city (luckily, no SPs) then 2. Energy Market Crash when I had 240K energy saved up for an economic victory (needed 278K and was producing 40K per turn) then 3. Right after the Energy Market Crash, a solar flare takes out 170 mining and defense satellites (luckily you get the triple energy output on the ground for 1 turn - ~80K of energy not counting the satellites) BTW: 40K/turn is correct - 81 cities with 25 pop avg. each with at least 10 supply crawlers collecting energy and 170 energy and mining satellites (doh, I had forgotten that you only get to use one for each pop in the city so I kept building them - now I get to build them again ) converting minerals to energy.
Zoetrope	posted 05-24-99 07:29 AM ET Quizara, you were one unlucky guy in that game. Energy Banks: these usually absorb power overloads, and store the extra energy, right? Well, in my current game, a power overload destroyed an Energy Bank! The message was that I should save up more energy reserves.
laurens	posted 05-24-99 08:33 AM ET I vote for the Market Crash. Is there any count? The list's getting long and confusing.
Urban Ranger	posted 05-25-99 01:33 AM ET Crop failure. quizara: if you have 81 cities on a huge map, you do not need 278K energy to corner the market. 81 cities take up most of the space on a huge map.
quizara tafwid	posted 05-25-99 10:18 AM ET Actually, it was bigger than huge (huger?) It was 128 x 256. I had a huge continent all to myself at the start. All of the other factions had their own continent to start on but were kinda clumped together. I never met any of the other factions. It was only after I built the SP that puts you in contact with everyone else that I found out where everyone else was (by that time I had already built my 81 bases). So, I'm too far away for anyone to PB me and only the Gaians have landed any troops on my continent (which were immediately wiped out). I've already won by transcendence, diplomacy, and working on economic. I'm sure I could crush everyone else and win by conquest, but I'm too lazy. All I do is knock down any base trying to build Voice of Planet, then I give it to Morgan (my pact brother). Even with a paradigm efficiency, any additional base outside my continent costs 40 energy to support (luckily, I have many Power satellites (since I can build 81 per turn if I wanted to). With all infrastructure built in each base, I have no ecodamage at all, even building satellites with the Beanstalk SP. I have maxed out the number of units you can build (it is 2^10) so to build any combat units, I have to give up a Supply Crawlers that is collecting energy. I have about a hundred formers raising my continent to keep it above the steadily rising sea because everyone else is polluting like crazy (Gaia has 70+ bases, Hive has about the same, Mirriam has about 40 bases, University, Spartens, and Morgan about 25 each) (which is why it cost 279K energy to buy the economic victory!) I've been trying to cover the entire surface with forests and ridding the oceans of Sea Fungus. To reiterate: Thinker/Huge+(128x256)/PK/Blind/No Unity Pods/Democratic/Free Market/Knowledge/Cybernetics 40+K energy/turn
Series II	posted 05-25-99 11:54 AM ET I have played about 20 games (none on transendence) and have had no big disasterous random events. Maybe I am just lucky. Tonight I start my first game on Transendence. Hive, huge world, huge oceans, weak erosion (more mountains), dense clouds, rare life. Maybe I will get some big disaster.