posted 05-24-99 01:56 AM ET            

The way to do it is to be green. In the game I am playing now I have 40+ bases with no problems of sea levels or mind worms. Several things to do are:

1. Reduce eco-damage from your cities.

2. Do NOT use PB.

3. Do not use nerve gas.

4. Plant lots of trees.

5. Have a positive planet rating.

posted 05-26-99 05:53 AM ET            

The cure: 1e-1-3 Empath Hovertanks (or rovers). Drop pods are nice. Call them "WormWipers" or something cool and make them Elite if you can. Easy money, no more worms. With the Dream Twister, even those stacks of 20 demon boils only bring you major cash... and if you lose a few units, you can build more in one turn or two anyway !

posted 05-26-99 11:17 AM ET         

If you MUST be a wanton polluter, and sea level increases are driving you nuts:

First of all, Solar Shades DO work to a large extent, if you can get them in place. It takes 20 years for a full 333m sea level increase to take effect, although it occurs in increments, and a Solar Shade does the same. (Does anyone know if the the Planetary Governor can propose Shades ever ten years?)

Try not to go TOO crazy with Boreholes.

And most MOST importantly... use your Formers! Can we say 'raise terrain', boys and girls? If there's something you must save from the encroaching sea, send your fleet of combat engineers over to it and raise some nice hills in that area. Then watch your opponents flood from your high vantage points...

posted 05-26-99 11:33 AM ET            

I don't consider the infinite sea level risings and superstacks of worms to be play balance. As Gaians, I've had cities running at 300+ Eco damage, and NEVER saw anything. As Morgan, I get slammed hard a 1? A 333m flood because I had two turns of 1 Eco-Damage? No, that's not "game balance" that's favortism. Just like SimCity favored Rail. Cause the programmers thought it was cooler to use that than anything else.

Game Balance. Hah! Give me a break.

posted 05-26-99 04:09 PM ET         

DarkStar, maybe as Morgan, you weren't the one causing the sea levels to rise?

posted 05-26-99 04:13 PM ET            

I thought it was neat to start with as well. But sometimes I would like to be able to turn it off and play on an alternate Chiron... you can turn it down some, but I'd rather not tinker with Alpha.txt. and later forget to change it back...

posted 05-30-99 03:14 AM ET            

Darkstar - the A-nonI, to the extent I've tested it, doesn't take into account other faction's ecodamage, in determining the occurence of any planet event - first, the A-nonI factions are granted huge amounts of slack (cheats, in lieu of AI), and the inherent starting values of the factions have a lot to do with what you can get away with as the human player - remember in CivII how the A-nonI would have a million smokestacks in every city, churning out those fanatics units, and they never generated any pollution - but if you nuked them, you get a negative score for pollution, and if they nuke you, you still get a negative score for pollution.

posted 05-30-99 03:45 AM ET            

I gave up on the A-NonI fight long ago. I understand you work in the "I" related fields, or did? So, are we "10 years" from home AI nets? 20? Unknown or unwilling to guess?

Yeah, I know they use a lot of cheats. Its easier to write a cheat, and quicker, than making a Super Idiot that pretends it has a clue once every 20 turns or so. But aside from some tweaks, Brian Reynolds, the AI for SMAC programmer, has stated that its the same AI code that was used in Civ II. [Imagine that... but he wrote the Civ2 AI code engine as well, or at least was one of them.] They taught (meaning CODED) in the respect borders and massing for an attack, rather than the constant stream. But the enhancements to the AI are less than the mods to fit SMAC. And its going to be the SAME AI, with a few extra tactics thrown in, that will be used in Civ3. What a surprise... But there is no need to reinvent the wheel, even if it is a triangle, right? They are working on making it a square...

What gets my goat about everything is the strange bent and favortism. There is no reason with serious technology that is DESIGNED around "Green" technologies has to be toxic polluters. But Hey, they obviously put Morgan in as a whipping boy only. They only added the Economic Victory in for the Beta testers that were wantabee CEOs. They (a few of the beta-testers) told us that... just like the Supreme Commander victory for the Hitlers that were tied of micromanaging the War after Critical Mass...

posted 05-31-99 03:08 AM ET            

Home AI nets - depending on your definition (mine is pretty high level) I'd say 20 to 30 years before they are commercial. There is no real business driver for them, because there are still too many competing ideas, none of which quite work.

To get there, you need new hardware, most likely self wiring or partly biologically based chips (organic semiconductors - not sci-fi stuff). You also need dedicated, ground up instruction sets and assembly languages purely for AI apps. Finally (not counting venture capital, etc.) you need some new thinking in algorithm and feedback design.

With a very few tweaks, you're right - the AI engine here in SMAC is the same as CivII.
Unfortunately, the few of us who intelligently post here (not insulting anybody in particular, just limiting the numbers to those who are high level SMAC players) are not even the tip of the commercial iceberg for a game like SMAC - it's just like chess, where we are all rated A players, Candidate Masters and Masters, while the teeming masses of chess players are not even close enough to our skill level to be seen. There are a few hundred (at most) serious SMAC posters, and thousands of casual players at the worker and citizen levels who have a good time and struggle. They are the ones who drive the commercial success of Firaxis, or any other game designer.

If I was independently wealthy, or Firaxis paid me enough, or gave me a cut of the action, I could design a pseudo AI system for SMAC/SMACX/CivIII that would NEVER cheat, would play by the exact same rules as the human, would give lower level players a chance to learn, and would turn serious players into a spot of grease, or make them work hard and well to squeek out a narrow victory.

But I am long ago damned sick of writing code, so I have no desire to do the grunt work. That's why I do project management and consulting work, not coding. (Hey Firaxis - if you want algorithm design and spec level or pseudocode AI that will rock the TBS industry - mail me, let's talk about your development schedule. I'm serious.)

Back from blatant pitch -
Seriously, I hope there's some improvement in the holes in SMAC AI, but this is the one area of the game industry that has lagged far behind, because everybody can tell the difference between cool graphics, sound, etc. and crap, but only a few players are at the skill level to justifiably rag on the AI.

posted 05-31-99 04:49 AM ET            

I realize its a resource issue, but I find it very insulting. I mean, I don't use the cheats. Why did the game developers decide to? And I think part of this crew was responsible for MOO2 being released with a Computer Player engine that cheated so badly on Tutorial/Easy level, they had to patch it twice. It seems they forgot that many customers wouldn't know all the cheats and automatically use them. A few "diary" entries of Brian's design days om SMAC were posted at GameSpot, and apparently he only plays using cheats. Of course, that was called TESTING but if you use cheats to get around the code ALL the time, that means the in-between code doesn't get tested. That filled in a few light bulbs for me in how they MISSED so many obvious bugs that you could find in 10 minutes game play, no matter WHAT level you are on.

But I would think that in Single Player games such as SMAC that there are more high level players than in Chess. Between the strategy guides, cheats, logic holes, and training by the developers on their previous products that many players can play MUCH higher on SMAC than if they were exposed to it cold. Notice that a good number of the posters HERE on that play and win on the higher levels (and discuss such tactics for it) seem to have a history with the Sid and BR games. And since its the same engine, you are playing more against a known opponent, no matter how nice a graphic engine they give. In chess, when I was 14 playing against my father, I often looked ahead 15 to 20 moves against him, and was right often enough to consequently do well. He looked 20 to 30 though, so I still lost a little more than I won. But against other humans, I can't do that unless I KNOW them and know their style.

Not putting down your claims that we have some of the brighter tactical and strategic thinkers, because I do think that there are some absolute geniuses around here. But there are more experienced people against that opponent (the computer opponent engine) and that skews the bell rather strongly.

And thanks for the update on Nets.

posted 05-31-99 05:35 PM ET            

It is due to the high level of moronic bickering and flame-broiling going on in the forums. Newbies and Vets alike are affected and it only gets worse. So, everyone stop the flaming, before the mindworms crawl out of the screen and eat yours.

posted 06-02-99 12:15 AM ET         

I guess in most of my 50 games I've been the polluter. (Or didn't really read the scrolling yellow message - that's been known to happen before)

Thanks for the tip.

posted 06-02-99 06:05 AM ET            

And what's this ragging of Morgan? His detractors need to get into his mindset, and exploit his advantages. Morgan's economy makes him a great faction to play. Energy => research, buying power, and bribes.

The first thing to know about Morgan is that because of his lower population caps, he wants to build colonies like crazy, wherever there's room, and closely packed (say two squares apart).

Later in the game, when Habitation Complexes and Hab Domes are available, these many bases can grow like topsy, and with industrial, research, psych, and centauri buildings in each, Morgan becomes very strong very fast.

Also, with his low population bases, there will be fewer drones! So he can afford to miss out on the psych projects, wait to build psych buildings, and because he's rich, he can painlessly increase the psych percentage.

By midgame, when ecodamage starts to be a concern, Morgan can switch from Free Market to Green, and make even more money! By this stage, Wealth and Knowledge are about equal for him, too.

Morgan can use Police State, Democracy, or Fundamentalism, to advantage, depending on the situation. And because he's rich, he can afford to change social engineering as much as he pleases at the drop of a hat.

He doesn't even have to be a polluter; and he can kill worms as readily as the best Spartan.

With his economic advantage, Morgan can pile on the research at a great rate, or jack up the psych to go into perpetual golden age, or just pile up the dough for a special project, a bribe, or a massive army upgrade.

With Clean reactor, he can build as big an army, navy and airforce as anyone.

And when he Pacts with another faction, he gets most of the benefit from commerce. Aggressive allies help defend him, research allies boost his tech even higher.

He can easily afford to subvert enemy bases, and blame it on someone else. He's insidious!

Frankly, your favorite faction, be it Zak, Yang, Miriam, Lal, Deirdre, and of course Santiago, is surely jealous of a well-played Morgan on most counts: wealth without needing free market, fundamentalism while keeping a decent research rate, democracy with money for probe actions, the number of (rich!) bases, the size of army he can support, the tech level of course, and the number of friends that he can buy.

Morgan can win by economy yes, but I usually win by diplomacy or conquest. Two nights ago, Nwabudike won easily by conquest on the medium map of Chiron before anyone had learnt Hovertanks.

Extend the game, or enlarge the planet, and Morgan's even stronger.

posted 06-02-99 01:14 PM ET            

Zoetrope - I like Morgan. I think Morgan is the coolest Faction (IMHO). And I use many of the tactics you mentioned when PLAYING Morgan. I just find that Morgan is the most screwed (least balanced) of the Factions, and hardest to play. Once you get Morgan cranking along though, you can have a blast. However, that's a very difficult first mountain to get him over, and I find I can't do it reliably no matter how large a world I start on, or other modifiers. My machine seems to believes that 19 out of 20 times, it should put The Hive, The Spartans, and the Believers as close as possible to me when I try Morgan. They, of course, immediately pact with each other to wipe poor pathetic me out from somewhere between turn 10 to turn 30. That's understandable though, as until FOIL technology, their only typical access to new land is THROUGH me. Go figure. I am not kidding about this. Worst starting position I have ever had is on 256x256 as Morgan having all six factions just about evenly surrounding me, with four sharing red city border with my cap, and the other two merely 7 and 8 tiles away. All on the same land mass. And, of course, it was the SMALLEST land mass (not counting landmarks dropped in the ocean). I have better luck on Tiny maps with Morgan. Then I only tend to get 2 of the 3 aggressor factions as immediate neighbors... but it doesn't make for a fun game. So unless I am in a Masochistic mood, or just want to play a quick 40 or so turns of early Game, I tend to skip trying Morgan.