Alpha Centauri Forums
The Factions
*Best Factions*
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Alpha Centauri Forums
The Factions
*Best Factions*
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| Author | Topic: *Best Factions* |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-12-99 12:44 AM ET  
Ok I'll try to flare things up a bit more with this. I feel like talking about the Peacekeepers a bit, so I will start there. I feel the Peacekeepers are the very best faction for a few reasons. 1. The free human genome project for every 4 population. What can you say against that? Its just great. By the time you grow to a size 30, you have virtually the equivalent of 8 genome projects! 2. The extra voting for planetary governor. This makes attaining the planetary governor very, very easy. You can be nearly half the size of another faction and still pull out the governorship. 3. This is the most important, exceeding hab complex/dome restriction by 2. Exceeding the hab complex is really nice since you can choose a different tech path for a good long time, letting you jump to other, more important advances fairly quickly. Also, since the peacekeepers have the free talents growing that size is not nearly as difficult as with other factions which have serious drone riot issues. It is even more important in the later stages after hab complexes, since hab domes take a considerable amount of time to work up to. The extra 2 population in every base really makes a substantial difference in everything about a base. Also, if you are like me, you aim for tree farms/hybrid forests fairly quickly in the tech path. This also lets you nab the ascetic virtues, letting your population soar all the way up to an 18. Very nice indeed. 4. Easy expansion. The fact that you have the free talents lets you make new cities up to size 3 before they start revolting. This is plenty of time to churn out a former, colony pod, and defender, before you start getting into riot problems in the city. Additionally, later on when your cities get a bit bigger, you can use the extra talents to an even better use. You up your psych to around 20%, so that all your bases get golden ages. This increases energy income and growth, something that is easily obtainable by the pks and also makes your nation incredibly powerful very fast. The only negative, the inefficiency, can be a problem to an expansionistic type (extra drones fairly fast, and far flung cities get alot of inefficiency), but with a democratic and green society this can usually be overcome without much of a problem, and they are both models which are fairly easy to get with the way that you would want to go with the believers (empathy guild tech leads you right to green, and you of course want childrens creches so the tech for democracy is a no brainer). See any loop holes in my logic? You think another faction is better? Id love to hear about it (I love arguing if you haven't noticed, even when I don't even believe in what im arguing about  ).
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| ViVicdi |
posted 04-12-99 01:41 AM ET
All right, I guess I get you. Just like Humans were arguably the best MoO faction because you could get voted Supreme Leader often without firing a single shot, PK's can become Supreme Planetary Leader before the wars have time to gather up a good head of steam. By the time the half-dozen or so "phony wars" start to gear up into real ones, you win the election and short-circuit the whole grisly business. Okay, yeah, I guess for a "Diplomatic Victory" the PK's are the best. They may not look too purty on log paper, but, like MoO's Humans, they get the votes. And in a short game their growth curve isn't even that bad, because for most of a short game not even the PK's are pushing the envelope of the scalability threshold, so the extra talents more than offset the inefficiency. Who cares about lower theoretical maximums when you're never going to get that far before winning anyway? I definitely see your point ... ... but plowing under "The Flowers Preach" with a horde of Garden Weasels* is a so much more satisfying way to win ... * Ever notice the Plasma Shard looks like a garden tool? |
| Ghost |
posted 04-12-99 11:36 AM ET
I'll finish off my last thread with Atombomb and then slide into the new one. Oh, and all my stuff is for vs. computer... multi compromises some basic PK bonuses. Build order for Hive expansion is _____, scout, colony pod, where _____ is some basic enhancement or formers. Using police you can keep a larger pop (I bounce between 2 and 3) in control, with enough troops... and you always want a) one guy in each base (thus handling one drone) and b) one scout to accompany each colony pod (to protect from worms both while in pod form and once it becomes a colony... save that start up mineral burst for a former). I usually go former, recycle, recreation commones, creche, with a scout/pod in between each, and then once you have creche you can do it faster. It isn't pure expansion, but it's close. End of the Hive debate on my side. Peacekeepers. Now, the PK's are pretty damn good. I thought they were awful when I first played, even though I wanted to like them... but the harder the game gets the better they are. I think I'd have to revise my earlier order and put them in #1 on Transcend. They are pretty good at early game huge bases with the whole Creche / Planned / Democracy boom + extra Talents and size permission to pad the growth, and they play the expansion game pretty well too. Democracy is hard on them because they can't offset the support penalties, but if you play a fairly minimalist approach (only one former per base if you intend to use that base mainly for expansion) they do fine. They also suffer less in the late game, as their one penalty is pretty easy to remove and they continue to get better and better the larger their bases get (Morgan is pretty much the only other faction who has that sort of late game bonuses, which are simply an unmitigated good... UoP being really drone compromised at large sizes, or else they would get it too, and the other factions usually being able to approximate the bonuses but not so easily). The votes are pretty much just added cake... I think the Peacekeepers would still be the best (on Transcend) with just the Talents and the +2 pop max. But they have it, and so you might as well use it. Atombomb already outlined the Paradigm / Empath Guild early start... I wasn't guite sure about the overlapping triangles thing but the rest was solid. Grabbing Empath means you will be pretty much uncontested leader for the early game, and it never hurts to grab the extra commerce bonuses or the veto. Empath also gives you an infiltrator, which is key for locating other secret projects that someone has and you want (Governor also gives you infiltrator, but you should have Empath first). Perhaps one of the best reasons to grab Empath is to make sure that no one else does... PK's inherently have the vote bonus, and you want to make sure that a) you get elected Governor, which will be a lot harder if someone else has the Guild, and b) that you are the only one with infiltrators. It's just a short hop from 2 +50% bonuses to your voting abilities, combined with your lack of growth checks, to the status of Supreme Leader. But pretty much any option is open to you... with size comes power, with Governor comes $, and with power and $ any of the victories become possible. Do what you need to. Social Engineering For Lal: Democracy: Pretty much static.... you stick it there and leave it there. No police option, and Lal tends to have too much to gain via research and energy to put up with Fundamentalist. Even with Clone Vats, if you get them, you would probably want to stay Democratic for it's effic bonuses... depends on your need for support, but Lal's inherent negative effic can generally use all the help it can get. Planned: Good for early game expansion. Expand aggressively in the beginning using this... later efficiency becomes more important so you'd want to drop this, but hopefully you'd have the vats so you can afford to lose the growth. Even without vats, a 3rd rate choice for the mid and late game. Free Market: Generally a pretty solid choice for the PK's, due to multiple large productive bases. PK's don't tend to do a lot of military posturing unless they really have to, and the free Talents allow you to do some minimal military work even under some free market restrictions. Green: As always, good with vats. If you aren't playing with Free Market, use this for efficiency and eco help. Great when you realize ahead of time that the planet is going to crush you for your FME / Wealth exploitation... switch over to Green and try to convert the incoming rush. Power: Generally good with vats. You can play Democracy and Power against each other to cancel out negative support. However, when playing Lal correctly you are generally better off with either of the other two. Wealth: An interesting choice for Lal. Not useful without other econ bonuses (eduo or fme), but then it becomes pretty good. FME is a bad time for fighting anyway, so the morale hit isn't so bad, and as Lal you should try to have as many peaceful relations as possible... adding together the Governor bonus and the +3 Econ trade bonus allows you to reap a great deal of energy from any peaceful relations you have. Knowledge: As Wealth goes with FME, so Knowledge goes well with Green. +1 Effic cancels out your inherent penalties, giving you perfect efficiency with Green / Democratic (thus allowing you to tweak your energy allocation to more research... you should probably have a pretty good store of energy from FME/Wealth, and you obviously don't need a lot of psych allocation, so pump it into research) and +2 research is always a good thing (especially with skewed allocation). Knowledge's probe penalties are not so good, but one should generally try to avoid being probed in the 1st place. Adequate sensors will provide you with early warning of incoming probe teams, so be sure to use them in decent amounts if you are playing with Knowledge. --Ghost |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-12-99 02:05 PM ET
Pretty much everything you said about lal seemed like I was saying it, agreed. About the interlocking triangles...Here is the general form: (I don't know if this will make it more clear or not) You have a city, wherever.....from that city there is an optimum way of placing your remaining cities, should there be land present, in order to have the least amount of unused squares while still having 0 overlap between cities (overlap is not bad early, in fact you would want overlap if you were going to keep your cities small....but if you stay away from overlap you may have less cities, but each one is many times better than those that you would have with overlap (better bonuses coming out of improvements, and you need less improvements in general if you have less cities covering more squares). Anyway, getting back to how its set up.....you have one city. From there, you can build your triangle in a number of directions, it is up to you to determine that. Your first city will be one corner of the triangle (note: this triangle is not equalateral). From the city you can, one, make a city that is 5 up and one right or 5 up and one left to form another corner of the triangle. Or, you could also form one 5 right, then one down or up. Same down, and left. You could also set up 5 up, 2 right or 2 left, or the same for all the other directions. Anyway you do it, its the third city that is important. Lets say that you build a second city 5 up and one right. Then your third city, in order to complete the triangle, would need to be 5 right and 2 up from your first city for one triangle, and 4 left and 3 up for your other completing city. If you notice, either way, it forms a triangle with only one waste square, right in the middle of the three. You can continue this matrix for all eternity should you have the raise land ability (given by the weather paradigm or tree farm tech), since you can just form land where you need it in order to make the cities keep the matrix. In general, its better if you just try to keep the matrix as best you can, then use filler cities to complete your island, if it is fairly small and/or you can't get the weather paradigm. Otherwise, if you have a large island and you can easily get the paradigm before you start running out of space on your island, by all means keep the matrix in line, and just expand your island and then cities ensuing. As far as the one wasted square, I like sticking a condensor on every one of them. Then i raise the terrain (which dries out the land quite a bit on the higher regions and the regions to the right of the mountain). Since the condensors are there you can often have rainy area even on the highest levels, which is very nice indeed. If there are any arid squares at the highest altitude, then just convert those to forest. For the rest keep them farms/solar panels, since that produces insane quantities of energy. I managed to get a city up to 6000 lab using this little trick (it had all the possible + lab wonders and improvements, and it had merchant exchange, + I was able to keep my lab % at 90 through the use of transcends (In that game I was making 300 with 0% allocated to econ, not bad ). Anyway, it had 8 on the city square and 7 to all the other squares, making some seriously sickening energy totals (the energy bar was just a blur that extended off the side of the screen so that you could not even see where it ended  ). Anyway, its a great technique and you can really do some nice stuff with it. The best way to understand my triangle matrix of cities is to write this down and actually go into the game and look at how it works. Tell me if this clarified it for you. |
| Ghost |
posted 04-12-99 03:30 PM ET
Atombomb-- Yep, that cleared it up... I often have failed to take advantage of the full power of the Weather Paradigm, using it mostly for boreholes and rivers up until now (although I think you should toss rivers into your schema... work like a charm for even more energy output. I figure you should build your mountain on the right side of your cont. for maximizing fertility for the rest, and just run a few rivers down the left side... they'll span the whole continent if there's no water in the way) . That was my bad... Better by far to go with the eco-friendly actions of altering terrain than slapping down boreholes left and right (still good for marine bases). When you said "Through the use of transcends" I wasn't quite sure what you were referring to. Did you mean up until the end of the game, or by using Transcendent thoughts? General -- ViVicdi-- No, I hadn't realized that about the shards... I wonder what other subversive Planet propaganda is in the game that I missed? Besides the whole "Planet will kill you if you are mean to it" thing... the Ghost who Walks |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-12-99 04:53 PM ET
Yep. I don't really go into boreholes very much at all. They are sooooo tempting, but I have managed to stay away from them. They just don't get the return you want, food is very important later on (every 2 food will give you an extra transcend). As far as what i was referring to was the special ability people in your city, like engineers, librarians, etc. As far as time for terraforming up, it does take a while, and you have to do it in a methodic manner, from right to left, or else you will mess up the rainfall and starve some of your cities. This is one thing that was really nice when I was playing as the believers. Once I had the paradigm I could crank out masses of formers. Unfortunately the believers just don't cut it compared to the peacekeepers and morganites. With those factions I usually get around 2 a city, sometimes one, and crank. As soon as I can I make all my formers clean, buying them up to it (its kind of expensive, but its worth the cost since you can make a ton more formers if you wanted to even). Once you get a mob of formers (my last game as the believers I had around 50 formers or something rediculous like that...that is probably overboard; try around 2 per base), I just start first at expanding my island so that I can expand more. That is the most important part of all. then I generally send all my formers to my capital first. Even though the cities to the right of my capital will become dried out, I just make sure that the city there always has masses of forests so that along with the condensors in the matrix gaps, I can get by without a problem. It is very important at the capital, primarily, because I usually put all the capitalizing wonders here. what I mean by capitalizing is wonders which build off of each other and capitalize on the effectiveness of the other wonders in the city. This would be like the merchant exch./supercolider/longevity vaccine(freemarket)/theory of everything combination. I always make as many of these as I can in my capital. Because of their nature together, I would even make the merchant exchange before I would make a wonder such as the genome project, command nexus, or several others. I may even consider it before the weather paradigm, but thats pushing it, since the 50% terraform rate REALLY makes a huge difference if you are trying to get your cities up in elavation for energy. Still, since I climb to tree farms quickly, I always have the option of waiting for that advance, then just making more formers so that I can still raise up the terrain. This brings me back to my previous 2 per city number. I would like to change that comment. The faster you raise your terrain up, the faster you will get those huge energy bonuses. Therefore, it would probably be benificial to have 3-4 per base even with the mineral cost for support. One other key to raising terrain, you really need to go for advanced eco. engineering fast, so you can put up soil enrichers on your farmland. This really helps alot. Another thing, you don't need to be in a democratic structure to raise terrain. And, even if you are, Its only one less mineral per base since 0 support gives 2 free and -2 gives 1 free. This is not so bad at all. If your still actively expanding, however, which I usually am since I like making land , it would probably be wise to stay to 0 support so that you get the bonus minerals when you make cities. Its not necessary, it just aids in expansion. The benefits of having the +2 efficiency may very well outweigh that (especially if your efficiency rating is causing drones). It is up to the player to decide that on a case to case basis.Now, as far as models to stick to, I have found that this works well: go into a planned/democracy asap, as ghost pointed out. Then when you grow to around a size 5 or so, and you have taken care of any close neighbors which may be causing problems to you, switch over to a free market. From here you need to up your psych, and hit the golden age. You should have the paradigm, and the merchant exchange (hopefully) by now. So you can start raising up terrain, and expand your island. Once you get to the point of about 15 cities, and you have your land raised up around most of them, it is best to switch over to a green, since the free market would be less beneficial to the general rate. At this point you should easily have knowledge, which you definitely want to flip into. From there its pretty easy. Wonders most important to shoot for early are as follows: weather paradigm, merchant exchange, empathy guild, ascetic virtues, supercollider, cloning vats, cyborg factory. Of course pick up any wonders that you can get along the way, but those are the ones that you should shoot for, in that order. If you can get all of those, and continue expanding, you should have no problem winning any way you wish. |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-12-99 05:12 PM ET
Well since my last comment about the pks didn't flare up anything I'll do a little devil advocating again, and call up the UofP which I haven't really commented much about yet. The fact is the uop really does have the potential to become close to, if not the best faction if they attain the right things. First off, about the virtual world. Yes, it is godly to the uop, but it really isn't as good as everyone says it is. Sure you dont have to bother making the theatres, and you don't have to maintain them, but if you can't get the vw, your still fine, you just have to add a little extra cost + time&effort into building the improvement. The key to uop is this: using tech to help yourself militarily. You can get particle weapons with incredible speed. If anyone is anywheres near you they will die, to one particle rover with maybe a few morale upgrades within the first 10-15 years. And this really is not that hard for uop to do. The only difficult part is getting the prototype done within 10-15 years since you won't have many minerals at the time. So, as uop, it is generally best to first: expand like crazy (no brainer) and second find out if anyone is near. If there is immediately get those particle rovers out and beat em into submission, quickly and effectively. This may make your research slower down paths that you might prefer to take as the uop, and it would also slow your expansion, but only slightly. In reality you are only getting two advances, applied physics/particle, that you would not want to get if you were going for a pure science path. And, what you will find, is that this is easily made up when you beat down your opposition, since they will give you money+tech when you win, and they will give you new techs when they receive them. Additionally you gain all the income their bases have. Not bad, and they don't have the riot problems that you have. After you have beaten down the nearby factions into submission then go for these advances: (I don't have a list of exact names so try to understand what advance i mean ) you have(applied physics, particle, doctorine:mobility) after that you want (virtual world advance, democracy advance, intellectual integrity, doctorine loyalty, and finally knowledge). At this point you put yourself into a knowledge society and soup up the planetary datalinks. These little beauties will do great things for you. With that wonder, you can basically concentrate all your knowledge down the smallest sliver of the tech path possible, letting other factions earn you all the other advances. I prefer to go straight for the hunter seeker after i have knowledge. From here hike up to tree farms/hybrid forests, then just get whatever, you will be way out in front of everyone. Wonders to aim for are the weather paradigm and merchant, as usual, virtual world, if you can, hunter seeker, supercollider. Also, once you have beaten down all the other factions nearby, you can easily grow and expand without any real military support. This means that you can also put yourself into democratic/freemarket models fairly quickly to go with your knowledge. This combination is the absolute key to controlling the drone problem. When your cities are big enough, and drones start being supplimented because of your size, your psych, which i would set at 20 or 30 % should kick in. Granted, you won't have a huge growth, but when your going military early on you want to go into planned society anyway (-eff early doesn't do anything really bad). Then after you have grown a bit + killed kick into your democracy, then finally freemarket. Last of all, once you have expanded to about 20 cities and raised your terrain go into green, just as with pks. You will find that as university you can get some truely sickening lab totals even very early on, especially if you gain all the key wonders in your capital, and you add a few scientists to suppliment your labs. I would appreciate comments, if you have any, shoot away. |
| Ghost |
posted 04-12-99 08:34 PM ET
Yeah, the UoP has the potential to be good... but they don't expand like crazy so well, which is my main strat. The additional drone really chokes off the development of the few larger key production bases you need in the early game, and the more you grow, the more it sucks... just the opposite of Lal. I would argue that you do NEED the virtual world... just for convenince' sake, to not have to worry about immediate psych at every new base. I generally find that the cost of the decent UoP units is too high for an expansion based model (it takes a while to make a particle rover with a 1 pop base), but you need to keep expanding to avoid the extra drones. Other players like to pound on you for tech stealing (I ALWAYS play with spoils of war) or threatening extortion, so you draw more than your share of firepower. -2 Probe from the start is also rough... other people might take knowledge values, but you KNOW that UoP is always a good target for cheap and effective probe raids. I am not saying they are all bad... certainly they are quite potent on the easier levels of the game. In some ways they are the best faction, especially given their hypertech early on (NN in all bases means Alien Artifacts won't be wasted). A UoP military can generally count on being twice as powerful as other factions for the early game, with Impact while others have lasers and Chaos guns while others are using impact. After that the weapons get a little farther a way and are less proportionately powerful in comparison to earlier models, and when others start getting NN your early lead craps out. In my current gaming paradigm (which may change with new strats over time) early expansion into lots of huge cities is the single most important key to victory. The UoP is forced to do this (for drone dodging), without being particularly good at it (they have a harder time setting up the few key good bases to produce formers, and especially SPs... they may have access to them sooner via tech, but they won't be able to produce early game sps quick enough to avoid being beaten by either Yang, Morgan, or Lal). I will admit that they, better than anyone, have the capacity to grab the tech edge and file down their disadvantages... but in practice, I simply find many others to be a lot better. Generally speaking, you will find that allocating 20-30% of energy to psych (to overcome all the drones) and then adding a 40% research bonus results in a less overall research than simply allocating 0 or 10% psych and then adding only 20% to research (20% energy to psych with +40% is just barely better than 10% energy to psych and +20% research at a base 100 energy and all non psych going into research). It is quite easy to have Morgan or Lal outteching UoP in the later game, especially if either of them (generally Lal) gets to be Planetary Governor. So, this mild controversy is about as much as you are going to get, I'm afraid. I don't think you were arguing that the UoP were the best, just that they weren't terrible. I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. the Ghost of John |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-12-99 11:17 PM ET
Well sheeot, i gotta argue about somethin....lets think of something....SPARTANS ARE THE BEST....err maybe not. But I do have a strategy for the spartans that seems to make them an adequate contender. The main thing you have to do is pick on anyone on your island, first, with your higher morale troops (I recommend getting a command center before you make any attack units, in each base that will produce). If no one is around, then go straight to the seas. Controlling water is actually a very, very legitimate strategy. You can build probe skimships mad fast, then steal tech from all over. As far as your economic structure, I would recommend going into police while your at war on your continent; other wise go into a planned society with fundamentalist for a while (you will need to steal all your tech, but at least you can steal it. The main idea is to get aaa on your ships as soon as you can, then just sit outside enemy islands bombarding all their improvements, and stealing their money/tech. The won't have anything that can really touch you unless they make a navy too, and you can most likely win if you have plasma and the extra morale, or you can also buy off the enemy units. While your perform your blockcade, make amphibious raids on all of the costal cities, or just drop them off normally and attack if you can't get ahold of amphibious troops that early. Also, if you go for a water tech game, you can usually climb up to cruisers fairly fast, meaning you can get the maritime control center. Once you have this it can be a real big pain. With this strategy in mind, lets go back to the believers. They have a possible +4 probe under a fundamentalist government. Additionally, though they receive negatives in knowledge, they still receive full economy. This makes performing certain probe operations easier (stealing cities, units). If you are strapped for cash, just send a bunch of probe craft over to morgan/pks/or uops. You can steal money and tech from them for a good long time. And, if you have the ships floating around like with the spartan strategy, there isn't a whole lot you can do to stop the probe teams. It is especially nice to steal cities from uop. If he is using a knowledge system and you are using fundamentalist, you can claim his cities for a rediculously cheap amount. And, with that, you can grow quickly as well (you just let him make you new cities then take them over for almost no cost). Its really a great strat to use. Oh, and one more thing.....hitting uop is also the best option because they usually go for hunter-seeker, and if you can get the tech for that and build that wonder before anyone else, you can safely probe everyone on the planet to death. One final part to this strategy, and its really, really a MEAN one. When you are using a blockade, as any nation really, send sea formers over and lower the sea level on his coast (stack cruisers on top of them so they can't be shot down very easily). If you have the paradigm its all the better. If his costal cities do not have pressure domes, you can destroy the city completely by sinking it. If it does, thats ok too because if you sink all of the land around a city it will not have enough food to support itself, and it will die off fairly quickly. Another advantage is that cities in the interior then become exposed to your forces. If the capital is not already on the coast, you can make it that way, then assassinate their scientists, or whatever else you feel like doing...over and over (I probably wouldn't assassinate scientists unless it was a nation I was ahead in tech on, since that would be fairly stupid....he is actually getting the techs for your forces too |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-12-99 11:21 PM ET
Btw, if you haven't noticed I don't think that air is all its cracked up to be, It's just that the computer was never very good at defending it so you could usually destroy them completely with maybe 3-4 powerful planes and a scout rover. When done right, water power can be extremely potent (I absolutely love aaa anything, especially on cruisers....its just fun watching them rip the hell out of all those silly air units). |
| Ghost |
posted 04-12-99 11:38 PM ET
I'll agree water is quite potent... high movement, free artillery, almost guaranteed targets. I think air is great, because it forces your opponents to either get suckered or waste special abilities and cash defending against it. Actually, I think pretty much everything is great, for that reason... your play a little psi, a little air, and your opponents will be wasting a lot of special abilities or getting whupped by assymetrical forces. As for spartans, tho... I am sorry, but they just stink. They've got morale, and police, but their industry penalty actually makes them worse at the one thing they should be really good at; pumping out mad units. The prototype ability is nice, and I certainly wouldn't mind it at all as an addition to any other force, but with the spartans, you just got nothing. They are slightly behind on expansion (although they do have a quick path to water bases) due to their industry neg, and they haven't got any research or econ bonuses, or the Peacekeeper specials, to make them formidable. The computer is nasty sometimes through sheer aggression, but pound for pound they just don't have it. Basically, there's nothing they do well enough to make them a contender (yeah, I know I am fairly anti - Believer, but even the Believers can whup the Spartans bad once they get by their initial tech stag) --Ghost |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 12:52 AM ET
Well im in an argumentative mood (I usually am ), so i will valiantly try to defend the spartans. Its fun to try and make what seems to be the worst faction seem the best. Ok, here is the deal. The spartans have one thing going for them, thats the police. I don't really consider the +morale because its only all that useful early on, and gradually decreases in value as the tech tree is climbed. Lets put the police part in retrospect along with the police model. You may not grow quickly, but when you do grow you can at least use all your population in the work force instead of making doctors. This is a major advantage. Large cities with rioters are only as useful as their size - the amount of doctors. In other words a city with 4 doctors at size 12 is not nearly as good as a city size 9 or 10. And keeping the population in line is very easy for the spartans. Under a police society you can have up to 3 police units, negating a maximum of 6 drones. This is very very beneficial to war. If you don't have drones, you don't need to worry about building improvements to get rid of them. Additionally if you do not have drones, you can utilize your cities full potential in workers. So, even though they have a lower industry, they also can accrue more minerals, as long as they can keep up in population. The way it seems to me, the spartans are one faction that could benefit from the vats the most. Since they can handle a fairly large population wihtout having to up psych a tremendous amount.Another thing about the spartans is the morale. Sure its not all that useful, in some ways, but it is always at least somewhat useful. The fact that you have it means that you do not have to spend money on bioengineering cetners, therefor it is like having a cyborg factory right off the start. That isn't so bad, especially if you can't get your hands on the cyborg factory. Also, if you do manage to get these things you can also attain elite status units without the need of the power model (with command center + bioengneering). In other words, they are much better at pumping military than you seem to illustrate. Another side to this is that they can expand oversees faster. This is not a tremendous advantage, but it is useful on maps with small land masses. The final part of this is the fact that the spartans, though hindered by industry, can actually expand more in the long run once they get moving. The fact that they don't receive drones as quickly means that the added drones caused by beaurocracy are much more easily handled. Additionally, it is always nice to have 3 defensive units in your cities just in case of attack. The probability of having your cities taken over is decreased significantly and you are getting less drones out of it to boot. As far as the tech issue, you will most definitely have to go to war, and make demands whenever you can. Be a bully, and use probe teams freely. Make sure, however, that you don't go to war with all 6 nations at once like the computer seems to like doing . Give it a try, you might find that the spartans can be better than you think. |
| Smeagol |
posted 04-13-99 01:48 AM ET
I know you're just trying to make the best of a bad faction with the spartans, but they really don't have these advantages over any faction but the gaians and the PKs. Any other faction can choose police state and get the Ascetic virtues wonder for the +3 police, and I have to add that with the special ability of doubling police effect along with the doubling from the +3 police allows you to get rid of 9 drones. I know that sounds wierd but it just uses the 3 units as a base for both calculations, so it gives 3 extra for each (+3 for police, +3 for special ability). The only real advantage then is the early morale bonus, but as you mentioned that is short lived and ultimately insignificant. As far as I'm concerned, the two best factions are easily the Morgans and the PKs, as long as you play at a reasonably high difficulty level. I prefer the Morgans because I don't like free market and can get the +2 economy with just wealth, but the PKs if played well could easily outpace the Morgans and win a simple diplomatic victory. |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 02:50 AM ET
In response to the ascetic virtues/police state....yes any nation CAN do this, but well, ascetic virtues is....just a bit down the tech tree. The idea of the police state is to neutralize drones early on when its difficult to grow wihtout running into their riots, and using this advantage to expand more effectively. As far as only canceling 9 drones, thats kind of stupid. I have never gotten to test that so I was just speculating. Anyway, I have found through some tests that the spartans actually do expand better than any other nation excluding PERHAPS the hive and peacekeepers. The negative industry does hurt, yes, but it really doesn't mean alot early on for the spartans if the situations are right. If you have a rainy terrain square with a mineral at a city just starting out, it will take 11 turns to grow and 12 turns to build the pod. In comparison, it takes 10 turns to build a pod and 11 turns to grow for all other nations except the hive. In other words, the spartans can crank out the colony pods just as quickly, since you have to wait for the city to grow anyway. When comparing it to the hive, they grow in 8 turns and 9 turns to build a pod with rainy + mineral. So the hive can crank the pods out faster early on. There is just one thing, though. The fact that the spartans, in a police state (which i go straight for, two techs to get it) allows the spartans to cancel two drones with one military unit. So early on they can get up to a 4 before they have a drone, if there is one scout in the city. This isn't really a big deal, however, since you usually would be building pods too fast to grow to a 4 anyway. But, what does matter, is the fact that when you expand too much you create drones. For the spartans this factor is almost insignificant. You just crank 3 defensive units (with +2 support you can have 3 defenders + former or attacker without loss), and your drone problems are over until your up to a 7. Not bad, for not even having a rec commons. I found that not having to spend the extra minerals to build the stupid rec commons, and, more importantly, the lack of the cost of the rec commons as i was expanding, prooved to be very, very benificial. Overall, by 2200 as the spartans I had a total of 27 cities. This is absolutely insane expansion! As the hive I was only able to manage 19. Part of this might have been due to the fact that I did have 3 more cities with at least 1 rainy+mineral square, but still in equal situations the spartans just can grow faster. Comon ghost lets hear it . |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 03:00 AM ET
Just so you know, I went into this test fully believing that the spartans would amount to nothing. Then when things started taking shape I relized their potential. It was a pretty big suprise to me, and I am forming a new ranking list as follows: 1. pks(they still have to take the gold) 2. morgan(they can't beat the spartans in the expansion battle but they are still alot better off with all their economy bonuses) 3. spartans (you can't deny that expansion ability, its nuts but insanely great.) 4. believers (The probe advantage these guys have is just too much, and if you manage to weasel your way into getting the vats no one can stop you. Why make your own tech when you can steal it? Why make your own CITIES when you can steal them too? nuff said there.) 5. hive (these guys have a great growth rate and, more importantly, bonus industry and flat efficiency. They are a hive, what else could you want?) 6. Gaians (I might change my mind about this one at some point. I really think that the +2 efficiency has the potential to really make them climb much higher in my ranking, but I have not tested enough to know. efficiency allows easier mass expansion, which is critial. This will be the next race I really delve into) 7. University (On the hardest level these guys just have it rough. They are far too dependant on attaining certain wonders to be powerful, and have to spend far too much time twiddling their thumbs with rec commons/other drone eliminating things. The drone problems on transcend are just too much. However, if you do manage to get the hunter seeker, virtual world, and expand well, they could still be a contender, but you would need to keep superior weaponry at all times, and have highly advanced defenders.) |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 03:08 AM ET
There was one major thing I did not include in the amount of cities by 2200 test. The spartan cities were size 3-5 primarily, while the hive had mostly 4s with a couple of 3s, a bunch of 5s, 1 6, and 1 7. That does make a bit of a difference since the 6 and 7 have the potential to be as good as two of the spartan cities each. However, the 7 also had 2 doctors, making it only as good as a size 5, and the 6 had one making it only as good as a 5 as well. Sorry about leaving that part out, though it really doesn't change how I would view the situation (more cities is better, since smaller cities grow faster....and they are all capped by the hab complex problem anyway, at least for a bit). As far as tech, the spartans were up 3 advances (this makes sense, no economy negative). |
| Al Gore Rythm |
posted 04-13-99 01:09 PM ET
I'm just gonna but in right now 'since it seems this is mostly Atombomb and Ghost saying "yup" to oneanother. Anyway, I want to say that arguing about a best faction is a rather stupid quest. Because, put quite frankly, there is no such thing. There are far too many styles of player, and specific preferances that a player has, to say there is one faction that stands above them all. Sorry, Atombomb, the PKs aren't the best. One reason why I think this bias is all around about one faction or another ruling/stinking is because the AI plays poorly with most factions and better with some. The factions are not at fault there, merely the player (the AI.) In the way I play, for example, I act like Makeaveli. I manipulate my opponents for what they're worth, and stamp them out when they are no longer serving me to a satisfactory point. You play a more peaceful game, Atombomb, and that's your own preferance. But it isn't everybody's, and sure as heck ain't mine. |
| Ghost |
posted 04-13-99 01:35 PM ET
You just want to force me into defending the Hive again... The only way I can account for your responses is that you did in fact want to prove the Spartan better, and that influenced your results by playing them better. The Hive has either a) far better efficiency than the Police Spartans if the Spartans are also using Planned (-4 Effic Spartans, 0 Effic Hive), thus causing the Spartans to have a really crappy energy rate for expansion bases (much worse than the Hive with any expansion) and more drones in general, or b) if they are using some other value besides Planned then they expand MUCH more slowly (especially if using green to get effic back up to 0). I did this out before... the planned Hive (even before wealth) produces new colony pods and new population in 3/4 the time that the no planned Spartans do, and every time this happens the Hive just pulls that much further ahead, wih quicker bases producing quicker bases in turn. The 2 - 3 turn advantage that even default Hive has over Spartans snowballs rapidly into much larger Hive pop. (also, the Hive has planned by the time spartans have police, so whatever other factor are built in you have a) the hive starting out with the same police abilities as the Spartans with superior growth and industry, then b) the Hive having vastly superior growth and industry while the Spartans get the same support (which if I remember correctly was your previous "vital attribute" for expansion... I'm sticking with Growth and Industry), 2 points better police, and 2 points lower efficiency. Also c) the early Hive growth will put them ahead in tech.. even a one pop base can harvest 2 squares, its basic one and one other, so you are building up energy, even in small bases. One easy direction for research to go in is Integrity, which leads to non-lethal methods, which allows the Hive to get x2 police with very little cost... and it is MUCH closer than Ascetic Virtues) I also listed my solution to the expansion drone problem before, but I'll do it again. The Police +4 is definitely nice (for example, if I were playing any other faction, and somebody magically gave me +4 Police, I would thank them... but I wouldn't seek it out), but early Hive has police +2, allowing them to use multiple police per base. I always accompany a new pod with a sentinel unit for protection, and have one sentinel in every city as well to defend it. So, I let my pop (as said before) bounce between 2 and 3, with the colony escort serving as extra police unit the colony pod is created, at which point the pop. goes back down to 2, only needs one police, and the colony pod and sentinel leave for greener pastures. If there is time (or if I feel like making there be time by switching onto rocky mines and off nutrient production), I produce the following in between sentinel/pod cycles... a former, a recyling tank, a recreation commons, a childrens creche, and then another former. {BTW, when you are getting medium size cities, you should really start using empaths instead of doctors. Doctors are sort of a waste of space, but Empaths are quite good.} Spartans are also definitely behind Gaians. I play Green Police Gaians and they do quite well, with wonderful efficiency (w/Creche), a short path to the Paradigm, and native unit recruitment which puts them at a serious military advantage. I don;t feel like going into all of it now, but suffice to say that from my experience the Gaians beat the crap out of the Spartans at every point of the game. (They tend to do marvellously well at subjugating a couple factions with Psi units, and by the time other people are building Psi defenses you have caught up with your opponents Conquer tech via the factions you've subjugated, leaving you with a large lead in explore / build techs) Well, if you were primarily striving for disagreement, you got it. Spartans are the bottom of the barrel. They do have the best color of all the factions, but that is where their superiority ends. You tend to use technology to wipe out the bad points of your chosen factions weaknesses, while assuming that no one else will do the same. The ease of getting Non-Lethal Methods pretty much trumps your whole police argument... I suppose it does allow you do maintain a 9 person base with only two police, as opposed to Yang only being able to control a 5 person base with 2 police, but by that point it really doesn't matter... there are other methods of controlling your people, much easier ones, which don't compromise the total integrity of your society in order to do them. -- Ghostbuster |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 02:11 PM ET
Ok lets make a few points about the spartan structure: 1. I only use police, not planned. The reasoning is pretty obvious: -4 efficiency just does not work; its basically just your capital producing everything. You wonder how I could grow and expand so rapidly without planned? Thats not too hard to explain. When you don't have drones, you have workers. This means that you can easily grow nearly as fast as the hive because you have more workers brining in foodstuffs. 2. As I pointed out when comparing believers to the hive, the hive has the inherent problem of having horrible energy incomes while their cities are small. The spartans do not have this problem. They gain energy normally, hence they can easily be ahead in tech/revenue. Additionally, getting back to the drone issue, if you have workers you are most likely also bringing in more energy since you are harnessing more squares. 3. After thinking about what I said last night about the comparison between 2 size 3 cities and one size 6 (or whatever), I definitely have to say that the two size 3 cities are much better. Here is why: If you build cities in a matrix as I do, there are not interfering squares. Therefore, two cities have twice the potential to have highly productive squares than one city. By the time you hit 3 you probably will not be using any more added mineral/nutrient bonuses, just normal terrain. On the other hand, it is feasible that 2 size 3 cities could have highly productive squares for at least two of the workers, and another halfway decent one for the third. Therefore, the two cities will bring in more minerals/nutrients, overall. Another thing is that 2 cities have fewer drones, making them easier to manage than one large city in this situation (this changes later in the game, when improvements make 1 large city far better than two smaller ones). The thing is, by the time you get to the latter stages of the game you don't have two small cities on one side and one large city on the other...you have 2 large cities compared to 1 large city. The one thing that the hive did have an advantage in in this comparison was that they did have more improved squares. But since the spartan cities were not that big, and each had a former working for it, that was not a problem. It was easy for the former to keep up with the city growth and make the squares more productive by the time the city could use it. 3. I don't think you realize how much police is worthwhile here. The hive can NOT have the same police value (without ascetic virtues). But this is rediculous, you will not have ascetic virtues that early in the game. The whole point of the spartan strat is to use their early advantage to vault them up, early on. By the time you hit ascetic virtues, the spartans will no doubt be into a green society and have larger cities than you do(the extra workers not being doctors makes a HUGE difference, you should do more tests). Additionally, you added in the bit about empaths. You are going a little too far into the future again. Empaths are at least a decent ways into the game, and they aren't down a tech path that the hive would be wise to go on. Using the "you should be using empaths" argument is rediculous. 4. Lets look and see if empaths are really better than having the workers. As the spartans, you do not need hologram theatres, rec commons, or many other things for a good while, if you have 3 units in your city. When this gets blown up into 20 cities or so....thats 20*1 + 20*2 or 60 revenue lost that the spartans still have to fiddle with. I don't know about you, but I believe that 60 extra economy is a big deal. That is coupled with the fact that each spartan city will be bringing in more energy, on the average, because they do not have the econ negatives and, additionally, they have more workers bringing in energy. The empaths, on the other hand, are decent and might bring in 60 overall for your 20 cities, but you still are left with less minerals/nutrients/energy coming in. 5. About support, in a police society the spartans receive the same +2 support as the hive. In other words, they have no problem supporting the 3 defenders and a former/attacker. 6. You state that even a size 1 city can harness two squares. Well your right! But wait....the hive gets a -1 energy.....oops! That means that the hive only gets 1 square benefit when you make a new city. Nuff said. 7. Yes you can go for nonlethal methods. However, nonlethal methods also decreases the defenders ability to fight by half. In other words, if you go for the same police advantages as I do, someone is gonna come through and put a royal beat down on you without any problem at all. 8. I would like to reempasise the advantage of having a military unit taking away drones compared to say a rec commons. Not only is it added defense, which is crucial for massive expansion so that you aren't easily destroyed for overextending yourself, but additionally, one unit takes away two drones. In other words, for 11 minerals as the spartans I can have the same drone destroying ability as you can have with, at the least 16 minerals (planned society, build two scouts at 8 minerals each). However, if you are using 2 units to go against my one, that means you can only have one more unit, and you are using 2x the support for that unit. On the other hand, if you build a rec commons, it is only just as effective as a scout patrol, and it has a significantly higher cost in minerals, plus the cost of maintenance. Do the math! Originally I was just trying to make something out of nothing, as you seem to be reflecting, but I now realize through tests, that the spartans are actually a sleeper nation waiting to be uncovered. Granted, you have to be on transcend (the whole police deal isn't an issue anywhere else, but we have gone over this), but overall the fact that just one little measly defender can take out 2 drones is just superb early on. |
| Ghost |
posted 04-13-99 02:32 PM ET
I have to go to class so I'll make this short. I never said that empaths were better than workers, I said they were better than doctors. Your exmaple in which doctors were featured heavily was a size 12 city. I'll generally have empaths before size 12. I terraform my new cities, so it's not just 1 enegry. when you are keeping you cities small, and building formers with your free minerals, then you generally only have to terraform a few squares per city, because your pop is small enough that you won't need to have more than 2 or 2 tops. So, your old terraformers can move over to their neighbors new city and help form it. You can't seem to shake the idea that -1 economy per base isn't crippling... but it isn't. I have REPEATEDLY noted that I tend to stick with 2 pop per base, sometimes up to 3, meaning that the -1 energy is even less of an issue. By the time the Spartans have 16 bases, the Hive can have 45 (I already posted the math for this)... -1 energy per base is just not crippling under those conditions. Ahead in energy, ahead in production, ahead in tech... all come out of a massive lead in numbers. Stop saying "it doesn't work" amd do... it works for me. Also, in your expansion example for Spartans you used mineral rich spaces, and yet you assume I will be building on crap. You also jumped on the Non-Lethal Method example without commenting at all on the fact that my main example is with 2 normal units. -- Ghost is going to class |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 02:37 PM ET
One other point about police for the hive... if you decide to use military to stop drones as the spartans do you will quickly find that you will be over your 4 unit cap fairly quickly, if you wish to have more than one former per base or any attackers. On the other hand, the spartans do not have to worry about supporting extra units until much later, so they can support extra attacking units early on. Therefore, your police/expansion strat does not let you wage war without serious consequences while mine easily lets me make a few strong attackers to flare things up a bit for other nations. This is always a good thing since picking on peaceful nations early on is almost always fruitful. In response to having the gaians below everyone on the list I think I pointed out why. It was more of a default position since I did not know enough about them to put them in a place I would be confident with. I did know that i liked them better than uop however. I do have a new ranking though(this is where I think that the gaians will end up eventually): 1. pks 2. gaians 3. believers 4. spartans 5. hive 6. morgan 7. uop Why did i put morgan so low? Well I realized that when I played morgan the only real reason why I did so well was because I was able to use a choke point on the map to prevent spartan forces from causing a problem. Later the fact that the morgans can achieve a +2 econ just with the weatlh society is a huge advantage, but they can still have all their money/tech stolen pretty easily, and with the -1 support its a real pain to build military, or build units in general. I might change this but for now I really think this nation needed a drop. |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 02:57 PM ET
Well since I am back from class I'll blab a little bit . I don't see how you can say that the -1 energy per base is not crippling when you are only size 2 or 3 (mostly 2 since once you are three you presumeably build a pod). Think about it, the maximum energy you could have, without an energy bonus, is 4 for a size 2, as compared to a maximum of 5 for a spartan size 2. This isn't horribly significant, but you would need to have a river and be harnessing both squares from the river (the city does not receive a bonus on the river for no particular reason). At the minimum, a size 2 can have 0 energy as the hive and 1 for the spartans. If you do terraform immediately, which does take time and resources for the former, you still, on the average, will only be receiving 2 energy for a size 2 while a spartan would receive 3 for a size 2. Thats a decrease of 33% for the hive as compared to the spartans. I don't see how this could NOT be crippling(unless you only play the hive and you have grown used to it). About using "math" to find that the hive can have 45 cities when the spartans have 16, your "math" is called "convenient memory". You forget the fact that when your expanding you will hit that extra drone bureaucracy quicker, and a size 3 city will be in drone riots normally with one unit in it, 2 after the beaurocracy kicks in (in most cities, not always all...the bureaucracy is pretty picky). Once you do hit this point, you will be spending more time trying to fix your drone issues (a drone immediately when you build a city if it doesn't have a unit, and one at size 2 with a unit) than you will expanding. At this point the spartans will surpass the hive in cities. Another flaw in your math is that the numbers don't always work out on paper the same as in the game. Regardless of how many minerals you have you can only build a pod when your city grows. This means that the hive might be able to build a pod 2 turns sooner, at best, than the spartans. gotta love the police. Btw, I find it interesting that you are ignoring alot of the really important parts of the comparison; The greater cost to keep workers happy, the less workers when your cities grow, and the fact that nonlethal methods with +2 support does not answer +3 support. Comment please (class probably cut this short). Also, if "it works" for you (hive expansion) see if you can get over 27 cities by 2200 (plan on large map with large land mass so running out of room probably won't be a problem). Also keep track of your tech rate and income. Mine was 26/turn for income and tech every 13 turns (tech is not easy to compare since tech rate slows as you gain more advances....I was pretty far up the tech tree at the time). |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 02:59 PM ET
As far as expanding on all mineral rich spaces, I did not. I expanded wherever it fit my matrix. In general, I chose to expand to the better spots first if they were not too far away, or the spots that did not need clearing first (I had quite a few spots that needed fungus/rock clearing in order to build). |
| Smeagol |
posted 04-13-99 04:04 PM ET
I play Morgan with police state, so the -1 support is made into +1 right away. I think being able to have a +2 economy so early without any real negatives puts Morgan up higher than that. Not only can I support a huge army, but I can buy it in a few turns as soon as I get that +2 economy, and rush out as many units as I want. I'm not saying this is the best way to spend Morgan's money, but I think militarily he is among the stongest if played this way. But I've seen a strong case for the hive and PKs from you guys, and I think both can be excellent factions also. Any faction played well is a good one, obviously. I think the hive are good, but I have to agree that the -2 econ is a difficulty, and I think changing to wealth is an excellent idea for them-- then only their home base suffers at all. I've seen strategies on how to start out with the hive, but I'd like to see a long term strategy for them if you guys could provide it. I'm just wondering how close to place bases and how close they have to be to not suffer from inefficiency (because having 0 efficiency is still not the best). Does the children's creche modify that to +2 for them? |
| Smeagol |
posted 04-13-99 04:13 PM ET
Atombomb-- I agree with you entirely on the spartan early police issue-- it does take a long time to get to ascetic virtues, and my inexperience with games on transcend level was making me think too lightly of the drone problems (I usually play on librarian, so drones are much easier to control). I just don't like the industry penalties the spartans suffer from, and I think to really benefit with them you have to use the power value for the amazing support it gives, so industry is at a whopping -30%. Is there a better way to play them? |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 04:26 PM ET
yes, use police state. As far as using power, NEVER use power unless you get the vats. Its just not worth it, plain and simple. I found that usine police, green, knowledge, and any of the future societies, depending on the situation, is best for the spartans. If later you have the vats, then kick into a thought control/power society for sure. |
| Ghost |
posted 04-13-99 06:08 PM ET
Atombomb: a) As spartans you have worse bureacracy than the hive... you do have other ways of dealing with drones, but it remains a fact. b) to repeat myself for the millionth time (you really need to read), I accompany new colony pods with units. I tend to reassign support duties to the new bases they are hanging out at. c) you really have hardcore attribute fixation. you stick to one and anyone who isn't the best at that attribute is no good. First it was believers, with +4 support... now its Spartans, with +4 police. Most people pay a little minerals every turn for support. Just because I don't have +4 support doesn't mean I can't produce a lot of units. It means that there is a slowdown point, yes, but with planned / wealth I am producing units much quicker than spartans... 40% faster as opposed to 10% slower. d) I am not arguing that -1 energy per base with lots of bases is unimportant, but you continually argue that it invalidates Hive expansion... which it just plain doesn't. I naturally try to get Wealth as quick as possible, which reduces the energy loss to -1 at the headquarters. f) you are right, in part, about the math... I am not generally able to expand at ideal rates, due to other issues. But the Hive expands faster than anyone else, and you can't leave alone trying to prove that isn't true. I am going to refuse to argue that point with you, from now on... there is no end to the weird points you are willing to argue, and my experience says you are wrong. End of that argument, period. g) Smacking morgan down, eh? Kind of a weird move, but you do want you want. You'd need a lot better logic than that, tho... Morgan's best on huge max water, and the Spartans will take a while to get to him (and you need to relax on this Spartan thing...). He's got the money to do most whatever he wants. They aren't rushers, that's for sure, but they have real potential. I don't like Morgan, personally, but I have to admit he's good. His tech is good via power, his low pop is an advantage in some ways. He isn't a military genius, and so if he can't buy off the opposition in the early game he is fodder to a more militarily powerful opponent... but his military / probe combo comes in strong later, and military isn't the only way to win, either. Al -- Smeagol -- Whew... that was a long aside. What else did I have to say to you... Oh, yeah. Morgan and Police is pretty weird... I just never tried it. I am not saying that it's bad, but I generally play him Demo - FME - Wealth at peacetime and switch to Green during war and during the later game, for the efficiency and Wealth. I suppose Police does help out a lot with some of his weaknesses, but I would never play it once you've expanded a bit unless you had Green and creches to balance out the inefficiency. One of the great things about Green - Demo for morgan is that it gives you total control over your energy allocation... you don't lose efficiency when you toss 90% into wealth and the other 10% into psych (using commerce to give you income), thus supercharging your research. Police would invalidate this, but support a military morgan more efficiently... on the other hand you can always go clean reactor, which we all know has its problems but still leaves you with a lot of perk. Hmmm... I'll think about it. --Beetlejuice |
| Ghost |
posted 04-13-99 06:50 PM ET
One of the weaknesses of the new Spartans, btw, is that they are pretty much unable to get +2 econ. If they are using Police to suppress Drones, then they can't afford the -5 police penalty for FME, and they can't take Wealth at all (not that its that good by itself anyway). You would therefore probably need to use Knowledge as a general policy (Power is great w/vats for wartime, but it obviously isn't a Peacetime option)... which then leaves them really vulnerable to Probing. Not a crippling state of affairs (pre-drop pod probing can be avoided for the most part if you are careful), but not an ideal one, either. It was a good set of arguments, tho, Atombomb. And they are obviously quite good with eudo, once they get it... they can easily absorb the -2 Morale penalty, even during wartime, and they'll probably have snagged a few morale sps. But thats later in the game. Al -- --The Ghost with the Most |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 06:58 PM ET
yes, it is true that the spartans hit the bureaucracy negative quicker, with the negative efficiency they hold under a police society. However, its not a problem to control at all. For the hive it really is. You keep mentioning "I send an escort with my base blah blah"....the thing is what does that do for you? not a whole lot. You can have a scout patrol when you build your city if you want. And, if you are cranking extra scouts at home for your new bases that means that you will not be expanding as quickly. Maybe outlining my order as the spartans will clarify things a bit: first two cities, when build, build a pod if the pod builds after growth. If not, try to manipulate it so you can (sometimes harnessing a +2 food square for a while then a mineral square for a while works well). Thats right, pod before scout patrol(on large maps only of course). When you make your new cities, do the same, then build a scout at your first two bases. Watch out just before you build the pod/grow, since you will need to take a worker off as a doctor so that you don't lose a turn due to riots. Continue this for a while. Use your speeder to map out the area so that you know where the best city placement is. Spartans have a big advantage there. Other factions are much slower to explore their land. And, more importantly, if you have a speeder you can go onto the scattered pods without as much danger (if its out in the open) as long as you do it with your first move, since you have a second move to attack any mindworms. However, I usually leave all the pods alone until there are cities planted next to or surrounding them closly. That way you cut down on the possible negative effects. After you have grown fairly large(to the bureaucracy point) and have some tech, I use this order for my new cities: scout patrol to cancel the drone, former/pod(depends on if there are nearby expansions), former(or another pod, and depending on need), repeat last step until no more pods are needed, then former; another higher defender (synth or plasma), childrens creche(do it for the children ), then the final military unit (scout in interior cities, high defender in outer cities), then recycling tanks, and whatever else looks good at that point. Notice, no rec commons. You don't need them, period. That is an advantage no matter what you say. Even after the bureaucracy is very very swelled, you still only need a rec commons once you hit size 7, a ways away.About going into a planned.....I actually found that if you have adequate comlinks you can actually get away with going into a police state/planned. No one seems to mind police state enough not to make a pact with you; in fact I found that every single faction made a treat or a pact with me. Once you have connections to everyone, just talk to them fairly often and climb the tech ladder trading their own techs to each other, with you as the middle man. If you can get into this type of a situation, by all means go into a planned society and grow. Later on after you have gotten fairly big switch over to a green society for the added efficiency, and start getting your own tech again. What is really nice about climbing tech in this fasion is you can usually be the highest in tech, without much difficulty, even though you have absolutely no rate (this works for anyone really, but for some reason everyone seemed more cooperative to the spartans, possibly because the ai thinks of the +2 morale as a really big deal). About smacking down morgan, think of spot 6 and 7 as my spots for nations that I really don't know what to think about. Morgan will probably end up higher on my list, but I don't think he will be nearly as high as before. I do feel, however, that the uop on the hardest level has it way too tough to be worth monkeying with. As to your response to the -1 energy/base problem, I am not saying that it invalidates hive expansion at all. Hive is still all about expansion, but what I am saying is that they have to wait until those cities grow before the - energy becomes insignificant enough to be good. About going for wealth asap, I guess thats a fairly good plan. You have +1 industry which is very nice, and you get rid of the nasty econ problem, as you pointed out. However, the - morale is not to be scoffed about. If you go straight for wealth you will find that once you have it, morale will still be a very important part in determining if someone beats you down or not. I will guarentee you right now that if you slip into a wealth society, that the spartans can easily own you once you are found (early water accessability wouldnt make this hard). The fact that you get away with a wealth society is primarily because computers suck, as always. Even with double the production rate they still can't manage to cause problems for anyone. -2 morale is a pretty big deal, you should think about your countermeasures before you randomly spew out what you would do to cancel out your problems. In this case I would say that going into a wealth society would only get you killed against real players. |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 07:05 PM ET
Just a comment about not being able to get the +2 econ, that isn't true. Once you grow large enough and you have the extra minerals/income to kick in the rec commons/hologram theatres you will find that you actually can kick yourself into a market economy better than anyone. This is actually one of the very best things about the spartans: they can actually wage war with a police/free market. -2 police causes no extra drones, so it is a very good option if you kick some stuff into psych. You would want to, of course, go into a knowledge society for the efficiency and also cybernetic, but the idea is feasible. In my case I would probably have so many cities that I would tend to use green instead of free market purely because the extra efficiency gives you a better rate than if you had the +1 energy/square (there is nothing good about energy if you can't use it). Also if you raise up your terrain in altitude, this makes the advantages of the market economy less apparent (something that the hive should invest in doing too since they can't really claim the +2 econ either). However, getting back to the point, spartans actually have the best situation for going into a market economy since they can do so without creating more drones. |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 07:12 PM ET
About what ghost said....I feel very similarly about matters. I argue for two reasons: purely for the sake of arguing, it makes me think(something I enjoy doing). Also it helps me gain a better understanding of all the factions and what I would do if I were stuck with them. My ultimate goal is to have the creators of the game add a "random" option for all members in a multiplayer game (this would be the fairest for when everyone wants to play one faction). And, if I was stuck in the position of playing the spartans or the believers I would definitely want to know how to play them instead of just giving up from the start and leaving. When I first started playing the game I firmly believed that the hive was the best faction, and that the spartans were godaweful and the same with the believers and gaians. Its nice to realize that there are actually ways to make these factions just as good as any other. |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 07:14 PM ET
Just to clarify the part about not creating more drones with police/free market as the spartans, What I meant was when at war they do not create more drones, thanks . |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 07:17 PM ET
Here is a nice strategy to still gain techs even with a -4 efficiency. Just get cetauri empathy quickly and make bio labs in all your cities. If you have around 30 cities, having a biolab in each really helps out alot(though maintaining those biolabs could be a problem unless your capital isreally cranking ). Btw, I love biolabs big time when I am playing as the believers, the hive, and the spartans....they just rule . |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 07:22 PM ET
Ok I have the tech path that I would follow up to after I get loyalty. I found that it is best to go straight up to industrial automation as with the believers. This is especially true for the spartans, since the wonder essentially wipes out the extra drones created by bureaucracy early on, so with one military unit you can be at a three without any drones. Additionally with the slower growth and constant pumping of pods keeps your cities low, but once you gain the wonder they all become size 3, and all new cities as well. very nice. After that head straight to centauri empathy and stick yourself in a green economy. The best way to do this is to talk to deidre, since she directs her efforts there quickly. Also she is willing to trade for the tech even though it offers a wonder, I have found, which is very nice. Make sure to pick up particle weapons when you can, they are important just in case some faction looks particularly juicy to beatdown. |
| Smeagol |
posted 04-13-99 07:57 PM ET
Ghost-- I always choose police/green/wealth with morgan... and those creches are a priority. Of course it isn't the best way to max out his economy, but it works well and I feel a lot more comfortable being able to stick with it without any drastic penalties. You said that the hive pretty much dies out in the tech race after cloning vats... why? From what you are saying, by then it has a great deal more bases than the other races, so it should still be doing a great deal of research. It has virtually no penalty to economy at this point. I like the hive's philosophy and it makes the game more fun for me when I can use a faction like that, but not if my hopes with them are futile in the long run! That's the impression I'm getting from you-- either conquer after cloning vats or you lose. Is that it? |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 09:16 PM ET
Smeag has a point, and it fits the reason why I started playing the hive in the first place. As the hive, the idea is to just get 2x the size of everyone then you could outpump anyone in tech. I realize now that it isn't really possible to expand an incredibly huge amount more than anyone, but the very name the hive lent to it, so back in the day it seemed legitimate. As for how you play, straight for the vats then go army.....this is kind of messed up like smeag said. If you get that high and you get the vats, you could easily win just by pumping techs. There is no reason to stop doing that and go for military conquest (something that would probably be alot more difficult that you may think against human players). |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 09:22 PM ET
As far as the best way to play morgan goes, its best just to go into a free market/democracy/wealth until you grow really large then switch over to green in the combo. Using a police state is rediculous, really. Sure it helps control drones, and gives more support, but you will hinder your income/tech rate significantly. Its best to hike into the free market/democracy and try your best to grab ascetic virtues(not completely necessary as I will explain later). To help the drone issue, just put about 10 or 20 % into psych, and you should have no problem at all. As far as futuristic society, definitely go with cybernetic (the efficiency is crucial really) but make sure you grab the wonder that takes away its negative first. As far as the support, that is not really an issue. You can just make clean units. Since you will have superior tech you won't need alot of them, just enough. Also upgrade all your old defending troops which are taking minerals, and your formers, to clean too(you will need to make the prototype yourself most likely). I prefer clean/morale combo for all my units. Also, if you keep your psych up you should not have a problem keeping drones down even with airplanes (which always make drones). |
| Naf |
posted 04-13-99 09:26 PM ET
I dont think there is a *best* faction. I think some people are confusing what they think is the best, with what simply is there favorite. If your just gonna build up your bases, aim for good tech then go to war, some factions are better than others at that approach. Taking different approaches yields different factions excelling. I played an extensive amount of MOO and MOO2. Many hours of doing that along with lots of multiplayer MOO2 games made me realize no race is really better than any other. I know a lot of people think the University in SMAC is far better than say the believers or the Spartans. But the people that say these things probably play the believers and spartans exactly the same way as they play the U, which is why they do poorly with them. Or they probably just have thier own way of playing, and coincidently the U just happens to match them better than other factions. Guess my main point is, no faction is better than the other if played right. *Playing right* in my view means focusing on what your faction is good at, OR what they are simply not as bad as factions at. That last one's an important concept many people overlook. |
| Ghost |
posted 04-13-99 09:42 PM ET
Atom-- I use Planned / Police / Wealth for production and expanding; it is a well thought out solution with Command Nexus. I don't play multiplayer, so I don't have to deal with really irrational people all the time; that has been one of the repeated statements in these texts, that we are playing against the computer; else why PK voting? When I am under real attack, I can switch off Wealth and onto Power, and get that morale bonus instead of a penalty, on the troops I have been producing while under Wealth. And with double the number of +3 morale troops (the bonus for nexus is halved for the troops created while in Wealth) vs. whatever you have... maybe better, but it doesn't get ALL that much better... I'd rather have the twice as many, myself, especially on my own territory (which it would be if you are attacking)... and especially if you are leaving the majority of those troops you are producing at home to "hold the fort". What was that "computers suck" weirdness you tossed out? You're obviously really hyper about Spartans right now (and hence the military option), which is fine, but just because you like them doesn't mean they are the only way to play the game (remember the good old days when you got really irrational about the unstoppable Probe option when you were playing Believers... now it's the military, which is at least a little more reasonable, but not an instant solution to a problem on the other side of the globe, either). Nor does it mean the Spartans will be able to put a decent sized force right into my lap without my noticing and having time to do something about it (one turn is all it takes to change social engineering from Wealth to Power). Hence, "Going into a wealth society will get you killed against real players" is a pretty uninformed statement... either Free Market, Wealth, Democracy, and Knowledge are terrible options, then, because they each harm the state's ability to defend itself in some way, or maybe they are concerned with something else besides warmaking...? Your call. Smeagol-- As has been eluded to in other posts, +2 econ gets really useful in the mid - late game, with more multipliers from base enhancements... and the Hive can't get it. Don't give up on the Hive, by any means. I think the Hive is great... for me, their mass early lead wins the game every time on whatever level, and that's the way I like to play right now... for me, they are the best for my current style (although I recognize PK's to be better, and like Gaians more... I just have an attachment to the little tree huggers and their cute native units). There are other ways to play, and you'll probably want to experiment with all of them... it's great to play as someone else when you are used to taking the abilities of your faction as "givens"... it's hard when you are used to thinking of mindworms as your friends, for example. Atombomb and I tend to discuss things as if Transcend was the only way anyone ever played the game... which just isn't true, but it provides a reasonably static context for comparison. Atombomb and I are just 2 people who like to argue about this stuff... but there are lots more ways to play. If you are really new, you might want to check out gamespot.com's alpha centauri guide as a good starting point. --Ghost has to do some work |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-13-99 10:34 PM ET
Your logic is considerably flawed here. The problem with the -2 morale is that is is straight out, after all factors are taken into account. Therefor, you could conceivably have enough to give you 6 morale when the unit is built, but because 5 is the cap, elite, you would end up with 3 morale units. The other part that is flawed is the bit about the nexus canceling the wealth negative. I meant to comment on this before but forgot. For one thing, all the nexus does is give you a command center in each city. This is not the same at all of giving you +2 morale outright, because any nation can build command centers in their cities. when it comes down to it, you still have 2 less morale no matter what. As far as being hyper about the spartans, I would say enthusiastic that they don't suck is a better way of putting it. I went along and played some more years, and things only seem to be getting better. Once you hit the knowledge model, you can actually get by with a decent tech rate with police and planned!(the -4 is disproportionate to -1, -2, and -3....it completely destroys your energy except in your capital). Then when you kick into green, -1 efficiency is fairly good too. I still fully believe that the believers could compete with the spartans, and still may be better, but the spartans definitely have their advantages over the believers. About the problem of having 3 support taken up at home, you eluded earlier that you would counter your drone power with the 3 military as well, instead of making the rec commons (you were trying to evade my argument) yet here you state that I would be behind in support. Its just not that way my friend! As far as making out that free market/democracy/knowledge are as bad as wealth for playing "real" players, this is definitely not true. Free market and democracy do not, in any way, destroy the overall effectiveness of your troops, they stimply limit how many you can produce and use to attack. As far as free market goes, you would need to base yourself more on a defensive unit approach (unless your the spartans or have ascetic virtues). With democracy that isn't really a hindrance to war at all except in speed of pumping. Just build clean units. Knowledge is a hindrance, but anyone can probe you anyway, its just cheaper for them with -probe. Stealing cities is expensive, and stealing tech only hurts you indirectly, whereas a lower morale hurts you considerably. As far as opponents probing you, you can always stick probes in all of your exposed bases to fight with them when they attack, then kill them with other units when they run out of moves outside your base. A nation like the believers is most likely going to crank masses of them, so it would be difficult to stop, but a modest force of probe teams could be stopped adequately. |
| Smeagol |
posted 04-13-99 10:35 PM ET
Ghost-- Yeah, that makes sense... I'm not exactly that new to the game, but I haven't really played into a game too deeply because I wanted to really understand it first. I've read gamespot's guide and found it useful. Also, I've only used Morgan, and only to the point of mid-game, and I realize that I will inevitably kill the computer even without using FME (on librarian, at least). I just don't have the patience to deal with the problems of a FME, and that means I need to use Morgan if I want any kind of obvious economic advantage early in the game. I also like the freedom to support a large army at any time, and my strategy with Morgan suits this well. But I don't *like* using Morgan-- I want to be a communist, damnit! So this is why I am looking for some redeeming factor in the hive that makes me desire to play them... and I'm not certain I've found one, but I'll give them a try and see what happens. |
| Smeagol |
posted 04-13-99 10:39 PM ET
Atombomb-- Your idea of using clean reactors somehow eluded my thinking so far. How much more does this cost? I guess I just never really noticed them. |
| Travathian |
posted 04-14-99 01:30 AM ET
PK Gaians Morgan Believers Hive UoP Spartans I'll agree with both of you, its hard to say that the PK are not the best faction at the higher levels. But in the mid levels, I'm still inclined to go with the tree huggers and bankers. I'm going to check out some of those Spartan strategies, but I'm still inclined to think they are at the bottom of the barrel. Gains rank second at higher level only because they can so easily fend off the natives once they go Green, and have 75% chance of capturing. And so can have plenty of free units to help defend while they build infrastructure or climb the tech tree. Morgan, well, I am a Civ II money monger. The same strategies apply in SMAC, except the caravans are gone, and inplace he needs to make Planetary Gov priority 1. Belivers, probe, probe, probe. That's all I am gonna say. The key to their game is harassment. Never let up and your opponent will beg you to stop. Hive, just a bunch of punk bastards, I hate them, but damn can they be good. UoP I consider a lost cause on TI, its just far to difficult to control drones, and I hate spending so much money and effort on it, just for the research bonus. Better to play PK and go for labs. Spartans I just havent used, and I am not really the warmonger from the beginning type. Plus I usually play on the big maps with average water, so I rarely have more than 1 other faction on my continent. |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-14-99 01:55 AM ET
As far as clean reactors, look up the formula in the help files for costs of units. Somewhere in there it will include how much prices are changed when you add on certain special abilites. Clean reactors have a "2" cost on the scale which is as high as they go (0, 1, or 2). How much extra it costs depends on the unit, so you have to just do it out yourself or experiment. |
| Atombomb |
posted 04-14-99 02:07 AM ET
About what you just said about the spartans, trav, you don't need to bully anyone if you don't want to. The mear threat makes all the naturally unagresive nations want peace with you, and all the agressive nations love your police state so they ally up too. In the test game I played I actually had treaties/pacts with everyone except for the believers, which never really did anything but beat on other nations anyway, just threatened me. I was on the same island with morgan, whom I could have easily forced into subservatude early, but I found that by leaving him around and just expanding I gained alot more from him. He was more than willing to sell/trade tech all the time. Also I canned him into a corner so that I had around 80% of a gigantic island anyway, which was nice. He also made a good buffer for me from the believers . Right now it is 2221 in my game, and I already have silksteel, air power, planetary economics, and all others across the board at that level (thats alot of tech for 120 years). My rate, in a police/planned/knowledge state is 27/14turns. The 14 turns is not all that high, but considering I have -3 efficiency its damn high. I can go into a green eco and make 60/7turns but I am waiting until my smallest cities grow to at least a 5 before I do that. What I assumed about quick growth because of more workers was very right. In the expanse of only 20 years, my size 5 cities, which were as big as I had at 2200, had grown to 7s and 8s (I got population booms to bring them over, no hab complexes done yet). Additionally, I still have no drones, and only a rec commons to get rid of drones in those cities. Its truely great . My city count has slowed down since I ran out of land to move to and I did not get the weather paradigm (actually I only got two wonders; empathy guild and the ascetic virtues). This was mostly because I was spending so much of my time expanding early on, and for some reason the believers decided to go wonder happy (they had 3 completed in 30 years, completely ludicrous). Anyway, even without all the wonders, my economy is just rocking. Spartans are great . |
| Travathian |
posted 04-14-99 04:08 AM ET
I'll have to try that out also, but it'll be a few games though. I wanna go on the rampage with the believers after my current game, and play with probes on just one big a$$ continent. See how fast I can expand with my labs set to 0, and just mass produce the suckers and expand like crazy.
If the computer comes after you, watch them try and go after that one base. Have some cash handy, and ensure that your pact bro/sis goes to war with them. When they start amassing their forces towards your one base, send in the marines from your main base, with plenty of probe teams up front to reek havoc (and destroy certain improvements like perimeter defense or units being built). |
| Al Gore Rythm |
posted 04-14-99 12:18 PM ET
*sigh* You guys argue alot, huh? Ghost: PKs have an advantage, this is true. But what is your point? Transcend is not a player. Transcend is not skill. Furthermore, numerical balance is "Balance for Dummies," for lack of better words. There is much more to gameplay than numerics, statistics and variables. You cannot place the preferance, tactics and strategic intelligence of a player into 1s and 0s. And thus, numeric balance is invalidated when trying to use human players in the formula. So while there may be specific factions with advantages against the computer on set difficulties, I challange you to try such theories against skilled players on a level playing field (say Talent or Librarian.) Now, if we were to say that this is a matter of difficulty and AI instead of skilled playing then you are still incorrect. Because playing style does cause the balance of factions to teeter and sway. You say PKs are the best, why? Because they have a Talent for every four laborers? This may be an advantage to you on Transcend, but in my style of play it is absolutely, positively worthless. As a rapid Hive expanionist I can just brutally put down my drons with nerve staples and police. And, if need be, Punishment Spheres. I have no need for Talents, and so such an "advantage" in your eyes and style is completly negated in mine. A similar difference in perspective can be drawn through any faction. The UoP does suffer from excess drones on higher difficulty, yes, but why follow the rules, Ghost? Why are you afraid to be a brutal authoritian such as yours truly? If I were Zakharov in such a position I'd just never staple the lot of them and set up recreation commons during the time of their -err- 'slumber.' Problem solved. So, if you are to compare the game vs. the AI and difficulty, you must remember that different styles of play can and WILL affect which faction you can see as the best. So, in your perspective, you think PKs are the best. I prefer the Hive, thank you very much. Now I must take my leave. Morgan has just asked for a royal capitalist arse-whomping. |
| Ghost |
posted 04-14-99 01:14 PM ET
Al -- There are NO level playing fields, was my point. You claim Talent level is more level... it's just a different setting, and it doesn't emphasize the PKs strengths (and nor does multiplayer in general). Different factions play better on different levels, maps sizes, land proportions, and out of different starting placements. If you are playing multiplayer, then more atrocities tend to get used because human opponents will tend to react just as badly to being attacked as they will to being attacked with nerve gas, and they don't tend to care what you are doing to your drones. Thus, your mass stapling tactics stress multiplayer. It has been admitted many times that we are arguing about Transcend, vs. computer. If you have something to add to that, thats fine. If you want to add something different, thats fine; we'll start a new line. But you can't really make a good argument for saying that trying to hash out who is the best faction in high level anti-computer is stupid, and then cite mid level multiplayer reasons for that. And, umm, Transcend is skill. It is not as flexible as another human being, but it gives the computer strong advantages over human players. Finally, numerical calculations have a lot to do with who is better. Morgans easy +2 econ is a valid point; the Hive's easy combined effects to massive growth and expansion are another. I'm not saying the calculations are everything; you still need a compotent player to use them. But number crunching can tell us how to play a faction well, and what directions its abilities are best taken in, and the best ways to get some of the "magic numbers" of the game (like +2 econ, +3 police, support, or probe, +6 growth, and so on), and they help to compare the strenghts of different faction / SE combos, which are not all the game is but ARE pretty important in a forum about different factions, under a post of which factions are best. If you are good enough that you already know all the best ways to use every faction, by all means you can leave this particular line alone, becuase it won't teach you much. You'd be better off in the Strat page. But I am learning things about factions I don't inherently like, and I am learning new things in order to defend the factions I do like. That's why I keep posting on this line, and will continue to do so. --Ghost in the Shell |
| Al Gore Rythm |
posted 04-14-99 01:55 PM ET
Ah, I see, Ghost. I don't have the time to read all of this debate so I wasn't aware of that. As for Transcend, I disagree. An advantage for the computer is not skill, it is an advantage. It is skill if you can overcome such an advantage. And if you meant it in that way... well... whoops. Also, I never staple and commit other atrocities liberally against the computer as well as against humans. I am a Makeaveli, as I said. Forests or Terraforming? Whichever benefiets me more. And so on. For statistical balance, another misunderstanding. What I mean to say is that you cannot weight the entirety of a faction's worth upon numbers. As I pointed out, while in some people's eyes having free talents is nice, for the more brutal such as I, it is of little value. You can weigh, of course, a portion. But from what I did read of this thread I was given the impression that you two were arguing over mere statistics. And no, I don't know every faction strategy. Indeed, I'm not the best of players for even one faction. But I'm comfortable with the Hive enough and have built upon my Hive strats from then on. As for land sizes and such, I disagree. But I'm too tired to argue now. If you all would ever be interested in a PBEM with a rusty old Civ fan and a rusty (haven't played much in the last week or two) SMAC player go ahead n'post. |
| Al Gore Rythm |
posted 04-14-99 01:58 PM ET
Errr... dunno how that "never" got in that sentance about nerve stapeling. But simply said, I do commit atrocities when it fits me no matter who my opponents are, computer or living. |
| Travathian |
posted 04-14-99 03:48 PM ET
Al have you ever played a computer game where the computer played as good as even a mediocre human player? I'd doubt it. Until the world of computer software makes significant advances in artificial intelligence, the only alternative is to give the computer some sort of advantage. The computer doesn't learn from its mistakes, or by how you play (by this I mean game to game, not within the same game) so it simply relies on what strategies its programed to do. The programmers knew this and luckily helped to compensate for it by offering various options to make the game more of a challenge, NOT make the computer any better, but to challenge the human more. Try playing UoP tiny map, no water, TI aggressive computer, tech stag, Economic victory only. Granted this is extreme, but it does tell you how difficult it can be to win under the wrong circumstances. Or, play UoP on the easiest level, huge map, no water, and see how disgustingly easy it is. I think Firaxis did a great job of allowing players to customize the game to control the difficulty, but as far as computer AI, they can only go so far. And I think the whole reason most people dont bother with MP strategies is because no one plays MP for the most part. I play SMAC for the long drawn out conflicts, hours roll into days then weeks. I wouldn't even try MP given my style of play and lack of patience! |
| Al Gore Rythm |
posted 04-14-99 04:34 PM ET
Trav: I know quite well how dumb AI is. I never said that the AI should be great, I think the AI in SMAC is darn good, but it still does not function near the power of a human player. I don't play UoP, simply put. And I don't plan on starting now, even for testing purposes. And why do people keep on misinterperting me? I never said a thing about MP strategy. This discussion is about the Best Faction. I myself said (or atleast this is what I think I said) that you cannot make an assumption about best factions flat out because the AI is not up to the level where it can play as intelligently as a skilled human player. I was not aware that this was just a discussion of the best faction to fight the computer on transcend. I don't play MP much either, but the fact of the matter is there are no 'MP' strategies that are any seperate from regular ones. You play your faction to your fullest, and that's that. Okay, 'nuff strategizing. Need to nerve staple something. |
| Travathian |
posted 04-14-99 04:56 PM ET
"I don't play MP much either, but the fact of the matter is there are no 'MP' strategies that are any seperate from regular ones. You play your faction to your fullest, and that's that." Whoa, I have to totally disagree. What happens when you the Gains and another human player, the PK, start on the same small sized island. Will you assume once you sign a treaty, they wont attack you? They'll be peaceful? I sure wouldn't, I'd be after your butt to kill you outright, no matter which faction I am. MP strategies are by far different. If you play your strategy as just the typical stereotype, you're hurting yourself. Cause then when you play the Morgans, every probe team which comes after you will steal energy, knowing thats your strong point. Part of MP is knowing your enemy, and explointing their weaknesses while trying to promote your strengths. There is a very fine line between these. Its good to go into a game with a plan, but be prepared to quickly change it though. |
| Al Gore Rythm |
posted 04-14-99 06:30 PM ET
Well, I don't know how you play, Trav, but "Peace" to me is just "That Thing Between Wars." In other words, I am always in a state of military readiness. I know you're planning to kick my butt, I know the computer is too. But, so am I. And do not assume I am one of those stubborn-plan types. I am ready and often have to change plans. This is why I play the Hive, they adapt swiftly to virtually anything you throw at them. Perhaps others play a bit more peacefully and trust their "allies," I do not. They are called "enemy factions" for a reason. P.S. |
| Travathian |
posted 04-14-99 06:36 PM ET
I'm starting a new thread, this one is getting too long for me . . . |
| Travathian |
posted 04-16-99 01:01 AM ET
goto the new thread =) |
| googlie |
posted 06-22-99 11:12 PM ET
Reactivating |
To close this thread, click here (moderator or admin only).  |
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