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Author Topic:   Proof that Morgan is Insane.....

Nell_Smith posted 04-06-99 10:57 PM ET
In one recent game, Morgan, my Pact Brother, was being attacked by the Believers (just to make a change!). He had eight cities and I checked a few of them to see how well defended he was. Each one of them had only one Synthmetal or Plasma Sentinels unit, so I was about to donate him a couple of decent units when I checked his capital city... and found that he had 32, count them, 32 Scout Patrols in there, supported by a resource production of 6. Maybe he was planning on getting Miriam's Chaos Rovers to drop dead with laughter as they watched his Dreaded Scout Army creeping towards them??
PS: The interesting thing was that, despite the -26 per turn resource shortfall, 10 turns later there were MORE Scout Patrols in there, not less!
funnyperson posted 04-06-99 11:09 PM ET
Sometime it just happens once UoP on my game they made all these units with hand-weapons, but I knew they had the impact tech. Well I traded them that for world map about 50 turns ago, but still he make all these units. So I ended my Pact with him and wipe-out his 6 bases only losing 5 units of mine. AI aren't smart all the time.
Nell_Smith posted 04-07-99 12:10 AM ET
Uh huh... I guess any faction with a leader that stupid deserves to die!!!!
It's only happened to me once, but it sure gave me a great laugh
DeVore posted 04-07-99 11:52 AM ET
Happens to me all the time and I definately don't have a clue just how they manage to keep building those units when they're outa cash and have massive resource shortfalls...bloody AI cheaters.

/Dev
Jorgan posted 04-09-99 07:17 AM ET
I'm not surre this tactic really is insanity. With Morgan, you might have sufficient energy to upgrade lots of scouts into fighting forces, but may lack the mineral resources to build combat units. I found the economics of stepping up unit building with energy to be very steep except for the last row of minerals required (or maybe that's depending on how many percent finished the unit is). On the other hand, upgrading a scout to a decent unit in this level of game costs about 80 energy units.
Now Morgan may just have this much energy...
And then, numbers count, too - unless the enemy has copters, it will take one enemy unit/round to eliminate one of the scouts. If nothing else, this buys time until a faithful ally will go and beat the crap out of one's enemies (has this ever happened except in multi-player mode?).
The Panther posted 04-09-99 11:45 AM ET
What???
At what level of difficulty do you play. I usually have lots of problems smashing the newest of armor types.
Primogen posted 04-09-99 04:00 PM ET
Someimes the computer can be really dumb, even on higher levels, the scout army is a good example. But diplomacy, expecially with allies is also strange. For example have you ever seen an AI ally attack an enemy alongside your forces? They always attack with not enough force in one go, rather sendseveral waves of 3 or 4 units.
sandworm posted 04-09-99 06:22 PM ET
Does anyone know if Morgan does any better on a low erosion map? He "should", but the AI can screw a good thing up even better than I can.
WyldKarde posted 04-09-99 08:52 PM ET
You want dumb? How's this...
My arch-nemesis Yang and I were at war as usual. I had two cities on his mainland and had just ferried over my air force from my own territory. Nothing very fancy, just a few squadrons of Needlejets and a couple of copters. They duly set about pestering a nearby Hive city and I discovered to my horror that he'd stationed about thirty or so Needlejet squadrons in there. Naturally, I did all I could with the forces on hand, but as the end of the turn rolled around there were still a *lot* of Hive jets in there. I expected to get pounded on and probably driven back to my own territory.
Instead those Needlejets just sat there. All through his turn. He even moved a couple more into the city.
DUH.
Ok, so even if there weren't any inteceptor squadrons in there, he could've pounded my forward cities into rubble and left me without anywhere to land my own airforce. Instead those Hive jets just sat there. Next turn I sent in the choppers again and finished 'em off.
After that there wasn't a lot of Hive military left, and the entire rest of the war was just mopping up.
Methinks that even beats Morgan's scout-overload for dumbness. Yang had the means of my defeat on hand and ready to roll, and instead he just let 'em sit there and get junked. ::sigh::
Maybe next game he'll be more of a challenge.
trippin daily posted 04-10-99 10:24 AM ET
here's a simple fix... if you like bloody games... go into the faction text files... and edit
University of Planet, The Scientist, University, M, 1, Zharkov, M, -1, 0, 1, 0, 0,
to
University of Planet, The Scientist, University, M, 1, Zharkov, M, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0,
just change that -negative number one to a positive one.. and now that faction becomes agressive.. meaning that it produces units with attacking values more often, the downside to that is also that it will attack more often.. u can change it to a zero i believe... that should be a balance btw both... im not to sure, for ive never changed it to zero, only to 1... but i've changed the values to -1.. and it made a BIG difference... don't do this if u enjoy long games... cause UoP will get really big and bad, and then it will just go on a rampage... and if u do have the tech to stop it.. he'll turn into a yang, hurling pb's at ya. its a fix.. not a good one, but its a fix
trippin daily posted 04-10-99 10:27 AM ET
i screwed up in that post... if u read it you'll see... oops
firesky posted 04-10-99 11:57 PM ET
I am at the Thinker level, finally get some sqauds into my buddy Yang's territory during a long and bloody campain, and laid before me is the most impressive terraformed land scape I ever seen! here I am with over 30 terraformers zipping around and not even accomplishing half of what he already has..but the worst is after careful recon of his territory, I can't even seem to locate one terraformer? oh well, guess you need a cheating AI against a human brain
Druid posted 04-11-99 12:11 AM ET
Well.. it certainly is dumb to build lost of 1-1-1 units if you never do anything with 'em.
I play at Transcend-Ironman level, and I *usually* build vanilla 1-1-1 units. Especially after I get the SecretProject that cuts upgrade costs in half [I forget the name just now...sigh... must be the mindworm attacks that affect my memory!].
Then I can mag-tube 'em to whereever I want 'em and upgrade 'em on the spot to whatever the need is. Sometimes I need: trance-police or AAA-hi armor or AmphibDrop troops etc etc, and there's no way to guess in advance.
It's faster, cheaper to build at the minimum level and then upgrade. Note the conditions, tho... ability to move 'em to where needed, and you'll need an extra turn to get 'em to where you want [compared to build on the spot], plus it costs $ to do it this way. BUT I find it's faster and more flexible...
So, , sometimes *my* little empire looks quite similar to the one you said Morgan built....keep a flexible,cheap,upgradable defense force while waiting to see where and in what form the attack will come.
QuantumJ posted 04-15-99 10:58 AM ET
I use the upgrade strategy when playing as Morgan. It is also handy to have some weak units when playing Yang later in the game. When the man starts dropping missiles in using his special undocumented ICBM ability, set the cheap 1-1-1 units to defender. The missiles waste the cheap units, but you can just build a stack more and Yang spends a fortune doing no good.
A tactic I learnt from Saddam and Slobadon...
Jammer.
Nell_Smith posted 04-15-99 06:45 PM ET
I agree totally about the upgrade strategy. In fact, I hardly ever disband a unit, but always prefer to save up a bunch of energy and then upgrade all those old, say, 1-2-1 Synthmental Sentinels into groovy new 6-3-1 Missile Squads. It's amazing how much this affects the faction powergraph... adds about 10% or 20% to your bar in the graph in one fell swoop. And if, in the case in point (all the way back at the top of the thread!), Morgan actually HAD upgraded some of those Scouts, I'd have given him a big "well done"... but sadly he decided not to bother, and Miriam flattened him flatter than a very flat thing... )
Using cheapo scouts as missile fodder is another good tactic, although I don't usually find missiles appearing very often in my games. Maybe it's just the way I play or something, but even Yang doesn't seem to build a lot of them. Weird.
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Author	Topic: Proof that Morgan is Insane.....
Nell_Smith	posted 04-06-99 10:57 PM ET In one recent game, Morgan, my Pact Brother, was being attacked by the Believers (just to make a change!). He had eight cities and I checked a few of them to see how well defended he was. Each one of them had only one Synthmetal or Plasma Sentinels unit, so I was about to donate him a couple of decent units when I checked his capital city... and found that he had 32, count them, 32 Scout Patrols in there, supported by a resource production of 6. Maybe he was planning on getting Miriam's Chaos Rovers to drop dead with laughter as they watched his Dreaded Scout Army creeping towards them?? PS: The interesting thing was that, despite the -26 per turn resource shortfall, 10 turns later there were MORE Scout Patrols in there, not less!
funnyperson	posted 04-06-99 11:09 PM ET Sometime it just happens once UoP on my game they made all these units with hand-weapons, but I knew they had the impact tech. Well I traded them that for world map about 50 turns ago, but still he make all these units. So I ended my Pact with him and wipe-out his 6 bases only losing 5 units of mine. AI aren't smart all the time.
Nell_Smith	posted 04-07-99 12:10 AM ET Uh huh... I guess any faction with a leader that stupid deserves to die!!!! It's only happened to me once, but it sure gave me a great laugh
DeVore	posted 04-07-99 11:52 AM ET Happens to me all the time and I definately don't have a clue just how they manage to keep building those units when they're outa cash and have massive resource shortfalls...bloody AI cheaters. /Dev
Jorgan	posted 04-09-99 07:17 AM ET I'm not surre this tactic really is insanity. With Morgan, you might have sufficient energy to upgrade lots of scouts into fighting forces, but may lack the mineral resources to build combat units. I found the economics of stepping up unit building with energy to be very steep except for the last row of minerals required (or maybe that's depending on how many percent finished the unit is). On the other hand, upgrading a scout to a decent unit in this level of game costs about 80 energy units. Now Morgan may just have this much energy... And then, numbers count, too - unless the enemy has copters, it will take one enemy unit/round to eliminate one of the scouts. If nothing else, this buys time until a faithful ally will go and beat the crap out of one's enemies (has this ever happened except in multi-player mode?).
The Panther	posted 04-09-99 11:45 AM ET What??? At what level of difficulty do you play. I usually have lots of problems smashing the newest of armor types.
Primogen	posted 04-09-99 04:00 PM ET Someimes the computer can be really dumb, even on higher levels, the scout army is a good example. But diplomacy, expecially with allies is also strange. For example have you ever seen an AI ally attack an enemy alongside your forces? They always attack with not enough force in one go, rather sendseveral waves of 3 or 4 units.
sandworm	posted 04-09-99 06:22 PM ET Does anyone know if Morgan does any better on a low erosion map? He "should", but the AI can screw a good thing up even better than I can.
WyldKarde	posted 04-09-99 08:52 PM ET You want dumb? How's this... My arch-nemesis Yang and I were at war as usual. I had two cities on his mainland and had just ferried over my air force from my own territory. Nothing very fancy, just a few squadrons of Needlejets and a couple of copters. They duly set about pestering a nearby Hive city and I discovered to my horror that he'd stationed about thirty or so Needlejet squadrons in there. Naturally, I did all I could with the forces on hand, but as the end of the turn rolled around there were still a lot of Hive jets in there. I expected to get pounded on and probably driven back to my own territory. Instead those Needlejets just sat there. All through his turn. He even moved a couple more into the city. DUH. Ok, so even if there weren't any inteceptor squadrons in there, he could've pounded my forward cities into rubble and left me without anywhere to land my own airforce. Instead those Hive jets just sat there. Next turn I sent in the choppers again and finished 'em off. After that there wasn't a lot of Hive military left, and the entire rest of the war was just mopping up. Methinks that even beats Morgan's scout-overload for dumbness. Yang had the means of my defeat on hand and ready to roll, and instead he just let 'em sit there and get junked. ::sigh:: Maybe next game he'll be more of a challenge.
trippin daily	posted 04-10-99 10:24 AM ET here's a simple fix... if you like bloody games... go into the faction text files... and edit University of Planet, The Scientist, University, M, 1, Zharkov, M, -1, 0, 1, 0, 0, to University of Planet, The Scientist, University, M, 1, Zharkov, M, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, just change that -negative number one to a positive one.. and now that faction becomes agressive.. meaning that it produces units with attacking values more often, the downside to that is also that it will attack more often.. u can change it to a zero i believe... that should be a balance btw both... im not to sure, for ive never changed it to zero, only to 1... but i've changed the values to -1.. and it made a BIG difference... don't do this if u enjoy long games... cause UoP will get really big and bad, and then it will just go on a rampage... and if u do have the tech to stop it.. he'll turn into a yang, hurling pb's at ya. its a fix.. not a good one, but its a fix
trippin daily	posted 04-10-99 10:27 AM ET i screwed up in that post... if u read it you'll see... oops
firesky	posted 04-10-99 11:57 PM ET I am at the Thinker level, finally get some sqauds into my buddy Yang's territory during a long and bloody campain, and laid before me is the most impressive terraformed land scape I ever seen! here I am with over 30 terraformers zipping around and not even accomplishing half of what he already has..but the worst is after careful recon of his territory, I can't even seem to locate one terraformer? oh well, guess you need a cheating AI against a human brain
Druid	posted 04-11-99 12:11 AM ET Well.. it certainly is dumb to build lost of 1-1-1 units if you never do anything with 'em. I play at Transcend-Ironman level, and I usually build vanilla 1-1-1 units. Especially after I get the SecretProject that cuts upgrade costs in half [I forget the name just now...sigh... must be the mindworm attacks that affect my memory!]. Then I can mag-tube 'em to whereever I want 'em and upgrade 'em on the spot to whatever the need is. Sometimes I need: trance-police or AAA-hi armor or AmphibDrop troops etc etc, and there's no way to guess in advance. It's faster, cheaper to build at the minimum level and then upgrade. Note the conditions, tho... ability to move 'em to where needed, and you'll need an extra turn to get 'em to where you want [compared to build on the spot], plus it costs $ to do it this way. BUT I find it's faster and more flexible... So, , sometimes my little empire looks quite similar to the one you said Morgan built....keep a flexible,cheap,upgradable defense force while waiting to see where and in what form the attack will come.
QuantumJ	posted 04-15-99 10:58 AM ET I use the upgrade strategy when playing as Morgan. It is also handy to have some weak units when playing Yang later in the game. When the man starts dropping missiles in using his special undocumented ICBM ability, set the cheap 1-1-1 units to defender. The missiles waste the cheap units, but you can just build a stack more and Yang spends a fortune doing no good. A tactic I learnt from Saddam and Slobadon... Jammer.
Nell_Smith	posted 04-15-99 06:45 PM ET I agree totally about the upgrade strategy. In fact, I hardly ever disband a unit, but always prefer to save up a bunch of energy and then upgrade all those old, say, 1-2-1 Synthmental Sentinels into groovy new 6-3-1 Missile Squads. It's amazing how much this affects the faction powergraph... adds about 10% or 20% to your bar in the graph in one fell swoop. And if, in the case in point (all the way back at the top of the thread!), Morgan actually HAD upgraded some of those Scouts, I'd have given him a big "well done"... but sadly he decided not to bother, and Miriam flattened him flatter than a very flat thing... ) Using cheapo scouts as missile fodder is another good tactic, although I don't usually find missiles appearing very often in my games. Maybe it's just the way I play or something, but even Yang doesn't seem to build a lot of them. Weird.