posted 07-01-99 09:40 AM ET     

Last night I finally built the empath guild. The top 2 factions were me (Hive) and the PK. The PK voted 90 votes for ME, the other factions all abstained as did I. The Pk voted me planatary govenor instead of them selves. Why? Well they were my submissive pact brothers.

Another one is that I popped a pod on a 1 square island next to several transports of an enemy faction. It triggered an earthquake and destroyed all their transports.

posted 07-01-99 10:41 AM ET            

Popping a pod deep in Hive territory which released 8 worms. They ignored my scout rover and took out 2 Hive bases. Thanks, Captain Planet!

posted 07-02-99 12:10 PM ET         

Deirdre gifted me three Planet Busters.

I wasn't producing any (don't use governors), wasn't playing ironman that game so went into autosave2 and sure enough the lady was building 3 PBs, and restoring the game she had none, and I had 3.

Do the Gaians ever use them? Was the AI that devious that it wanted me to use them against the others (I didn't)

posted 07-02-99 12:50 PM ET         

My strangest game was the one where three factions surrendered to me - two of them didn't even wait for me to fire a single shot. The most comical were the Spartans who surrendered to a single exploring skimboat far, far away from any of my bases.

posted 07-02-99 01:07 PM ET         

Weird ones are:
Gaia with Free Market agends
Zak with fundmentalist agends

posted 07-03-99 12:27 AM ET            

the hive serenderd to me and some terns later thay decler vendeta and thay had 3 bases.

posted 07-05-99 04:53 PM ET         

Mineral City was producing (with boreholes & crawlers) about 650 mins/turn, and Planet was going crazy (eco was 275 in the red for that one city)

It was all I could do to keep 6 shard copters to fry the worms, and was constantly sending in kamikazi formers to try and clear the fungus explosions.

Anyway, one ferocious battle I decided to use a trance shard scoutcar, and it captured a mindworm. Went to use that mindworm against another of Planet's and lo and behold I had 12 Locusts all at great boil status. Few encounters with the MW's later and they were all demons!!

Yang had been harassing me for 50 turns, so I sent the whole ariel armada his way (wow, that would make a great short story ) )and he asked for peace as soon as they appeared on his doorstep. I accepted as I was trying for fastest TI Transcend (missed by 4 years ) and couldn't take the risk of trying for servitude in case the battle dragged out.

But 12 Locusts, WOW

posted 07-06-99 08:30 AM ET         

My first battle was in 2272. This is about 100 years later than usual.

I mind controlled a city from the UOP with 15 Needlejets (very green!) 1 SP and 9 base facilities for 1200.

posted 07-06-99 02:43 PM ET            

Please, please write your posts out on a word processor with a spellchecker, you're giving me a terrible headache.

maybe I shouldn't expect fish to be able to spell ,

posted 07-06-99 04:43 PM ET            

Why, that's like having +4 morale PLUS an aerospace complex at a base, and still be producing Very Green Needlejets....=P

posted 07-06-99 06:37 PM ET            

Here one, how about been the first to take a base in the year 2317

posted 07-06-99 07:31 PM ET            

So, it�s an SP Librarian (I�m not a �HARDMAN�), standard planet, and random map. I�m Morgan as usual at the top of the map on what turns out to be my own continent with Mt Planet. The whole place is, though, a bit arid.

Lal and Zak get turned over early by Yang. And by mid-game we have a miniscule presence of Santiago, Deidre and Mim. A slightly larger presence by myself - only 8 bases, though. Meanwhile Yang has expanded everywhere - blue covers the map when I finally get that hydroponics pod up. My tactics are appeasement - just pay them what they want. Even those little guys who are below me - the extra tech means they worry Yang a (little) bit more. But we all know, sooner or later good ole Sheng-Ji�s gonna come for me.

But what�s this - Planetary Council. Unite behind Yang as supreme leader. Yeay, he�s just overrun Deidre�s Fishery and grabbed the Empath Guild. He�s defeated by a whisker but that means I have to get sneaky. I know the base exchange bug is the easiest way to fix him. So, I�m setting that up with a new sea base. In fact, I�m generous as I have the �new bases at pop 3� SP (can never remember its name). But that�s too slow - friend Yang has launched a surprise attack with nerve gas. OK. A few years with choppers have stilled this (as we know the AI can�t fight a multi-continental war).

All of a sudden, it�s the supreme leader thing again. Guess what? The other three (in yet further reduced circumstances) roll over and Yang is in charge. I either accept this or face vendetta from the lot. Well, I may be a builder but I�m not a quitter - and DEFINTELY not to Yang. So, let�s tough this out. I�m ahead in tech but really really small compared to Yang. I�ve Pressure Domed and built all the environicies I can. I�ve switched from FM to Green. This means......................

PB time. For a builder like me this is a rarity. I unleash a couple, ideally hoping to leave isolated islands that I can take over with probes and use as PB staging posts.

Anyway, Planetary Council time again. launch solar shade. And again improve Solar Shade (or whatever it says). Apparently global sea levels are falling more rapidly than my serial PB-ing which is the only way I�ve decided I�m gonna get this game over with. I could transcend or wait 15 turns for the corner energy market thing but Yang needs to be taught a lesson.

Let�s look what happened - only Yang and I seriously developed but his industry is still in the stone age. Mine is advanced, but small and eco-protected. These AI geezers over-reacted with the solar shade. So here I am chucking PBs around in Yang like volumes, with the religous fervour of Mim and the attitude of Santiago with a personality disorder - and the sea levels are still falling. And hardy a mindworm in sight...

What happens when the tide goes out?

posted 07-08-99 04:22 PM ET         

Selected custom (huge) planet, average, transcend and Gaians. Capsule landed and founded Gaia's Landing. Moved first unit.

Grey vehicle I'd never seen before, able to move 3 spaces through fungus and over ground.
Thought 'I don't remember new units being mentioned in v. 4.0' It was a hovertank.

Flipped to base, colony pod there ok, but the base was building an empath 4-6-1 AAA garrison unit. Checked year - 2101.

Figured I must have hit fast start by mistake, so exited, hit fast start, and usual scout etc. Exited again, fast start, same scout.

Couldn't repeat the hovertank. (I should have continued the game, would have been an awesome military advantage.

Bug? Or did I just do something stupid and unusual in starting?

Oh, btw, I did look at the workshop to see if this "new" unit was listed, and had all sorts of units, including helos and drop troops. Weird.

Googlie

posted 07-12-99 08:37 AM ET            

In fact, this whole game was weird.

I started south-west of the Gaians, who never liked me, Green or not. Further east, but on the same continent, was Morgan, who was faithfully Pacted with me. Across the western sea, Zakharov was also a Pact partner. The Believers had a continent of their own. It was much later that I learnt that the Hive were on a continent near the south pole, while the Spartans were on a large chain of small islands due south of me.

I thought I was doing well, until Deirdre gratuitously violated our Treaty by lobbing several missiles at my larger frontier bases (looks like Brian Reynolds and his team did finally fix that bug, which has plagued us since Civ2 was published), then she invaded my land with speeders and shock troops. My now undefended bases were at high risk, so it was time to send the bombers (regular needlejets) and choppers. I wasn't adequately prepared for a lightning war, so this took a while, but my ever-hopping drop troops (one or two can do wonders!) kept her on the back-foot. When all she was left with were two small sea bases and one menacing mindworm (threatening to retake a landbase), she was still defiantly demanding terms favorable, but the moment I approached within one move of the worm with my recently fitted Empath Chaos Rover, she submitted.

Deirdre was pacted with mighty Miriam, who had a huge number of bases, and an army rivalled only by Yang's almost equally extensive continental empire. By astutely provoking Deirdre (PKs: "Withdraw from my land!" Gaians: "We'll soon see whose territory this is!") I avoided drawing the Believers into the conflict.

By the time I was finished pacifying Deirdre (pacifying is what the Peacekeepers do ), Yang and Santiago had combined to attack Miriam, who though she was number 2 behind me on overall ratings, and I was Democracy when she called, offered me a Pact plus several hundred in cash if I would side with her.

Wow! She's never been so obliging before: guess I must be one swell guy! The Spartans aren't strong enough, and the Hive are too far away to threaten me (short-range missiles sure change one's perspective of threat). Happy, happy.

So I go in to bat for the Believers, take a route through Morgan's land to pummel the Spartans a lot, then take journeys right around the world to reach her battlefront, where my limited chopper forces patiently slog it out with Yang to take the two bases that he had won from Miriam.

Then I hand the two bases over to Deirdre, reasoning that these ancient Pact sisters will respect each other. Wrong! The first thing Deirdre does is to declare Vendetta against Miriam! What an idiot!

The same thing happened when I handed two frontline bases that I'd won from the Spartans over to Morgan. Maybe he was provoked by a Spartan spy (but I think Morgan had Hunter-Seeker!), but he should have kept his cool, because of course the bases were both soon lost.

So it was left to me to grind down the Spartan AAA and ECM, bombing sensors as I went, until they were down to their last two isolated bases, and, like the Gaians, submitted.

So, the situation now is: number 1, the Peacekeepers, pacted with number 2, the Believers, and numbers 4 and 5, University and Morgan, while numbers 6 and 7, Spartans and Gaians are in submission to number 1. Yang, number 3, is our mutual enemy.

I have been growing courtesy of the Cloning Vats, so I outnumber everyone substantially, even though the Believers and maybe Hive have more bases. So I call a vote for Supreme Leader.

posted 07-18-99 09:50 PM ET         

That's how supply crawlers work, and needlejet suppliers would be the same. Put it out its # squares to the resource, and start harvesting. In theory every turn it will return to base, drop its load then return to the square being harvested. In reality it just sits there and you get your + whatever minerals/energy/nutrients every turn. When you want to use the jet again, you've got the original range left (as you would with supply crawlers)

posted 07-30-99 03:28 PM ET            

I see the AI build a lot of Condensers on rocky terrain. What a waste.

At higher levels eco-damage is self-propagating ... when fungus produces 3 minerals its expansion in response to eco-damage just makes the problem worse!

The "air shows" are pretty weird: bombers that just fly around you and don't drop. I had a bunch of ships surrounding a base Yang took from me and packed with Bombers. He didn't bomb the ships! Ultimately it took a transport full of marines to retake the base, but he was foolish not to use some of his 8 or so bombers when my ships were right next to his base.

The AI kamikazes probes into you after you build HSA. Duuh. (Maybe v4 doesn't ...)