posted 07-10-99 05:48 AM ET            

But don't know where to start. I usually play librarian or thinker and usually win. I juust get fed up with the drones on transcend.

A question first. How much automation do you use?

posted 07-12-99 02:23 AM ET            

And if I'm not alone on the continent, it's hell. I can't attack my neighbour becouse there are several boils between his and my base, so while my attack force arrives to his base, they are half dead.

I usually (hell usually, always ) play with UoP.

posted 07-12-99 07:57 AM ET            

Everything so far in this thread agrees with my experience, if not my practice.

Yes, the Believers are a quick win.

Zakharov: when you came third, it may have been because you were on a continent of your own. The Believers are most deadly to their foes when they start next to them. Their policy is simpler than anyone else's: build lots of troops and attack constantly. Take multiple bases per turn once you have enough troops, because the AI can't cope. (Come to think of it, if my opponent were doing that to me, I'd have a hard time coping, too.)

UoP, yes, my favorite builder faction - I just love new toys, and being the first on my block.

The factions' strategies in a nutshell are as follows.

All factions should expand as fast as they can early, to claim territory for later development, to limit their rivals, and to find someone to victimise and/or intimidate.

Energy is the most important commodity on Planet. Energy is where Savings, Psych, and Labs come from. With Savings you can hurry production, buy bases, bribe rivals, swing votes. Psych (though I usually set it to zero and Labs to max, whoever I play) is what prevents your bases going on strike, defecting to someone else, and being a cheap buy for enemy probe teams; it's also what enables population booms. Labs (research progress points) are self-explanatory.

How do you get energy? Terraforming or trade. Terraforming: get those formers busy, clear that fungus away from your bases, and develop enough squares to get food, minerals, and energy: keep your population fed and occupied producing buildings, units, and energy (for savings, psych and research).

When you have the tech that gives Wealth, send those Supply Crawlers to fetch the resources that your population is too few or too far to reach. Also use them to rush-build Projects: I have a base or two building projects (even obsolete ones), while their neighbors build supply crawlers or (once I have Fusion reactors) supply speeders and send them to hurry the Projects.

There's a supply crawler trick, that's effectively a cheat: switch to a very low production society (Not-Planned plus Power) the moment before you deposit your supply crawler into a Project (because this increases the value of the supply!), then switch back to a high production society (Planned plus Wealth) before end of turn, so that all supply units and projects are built quickly. Also, be Planned/Wealth for the end-of-turn on which the Project will be built, so it will require the minimum number of minerals to build. This can increase your rate of production of Projects by 30% (or maybe it's 40%). This feels like a cheat, because it's such an unnatural, contrived and micro-management slow-down thing to do.

Auto-forwarding supply-crawlers is the easy and non-"cheating" way to hurry projects, and still makes a huge difference to the time taken, as the minerals burden of building them is shared among several (or many) bases.

Faction by faction.

Peacekeepers: keep those population booms rolling. (Big cities.) Lal has high population ceilings but poor efficiency (more energy losses the more bases he has, so if you want to spread, keep those bases far apart). Try to monopolise those Nutrient and Anti-drone projects, so that your giant cities rarely have a worry, while everyone else has their hands full coping with riots in their tiny bases. Riot equals half-price to buy the base as well as halting production there. As you can see, smiles on the home front are half of the PKs are about.

The other half of the PK game is Lal's winning ways at diplomacy. Yang will never trust you, but everyone else can be your best buddy. I recently won a PK game as Supreme Leader because Miriam loved me even though I was not Fundamentalist and she was number two for a long time, just because she asked for my help once in mid-game and I gave it. Yang was number 3 and voted against me, but with superpowers 1 and 2 compacted, plus everyone else so enthusiastic about it (because the Peacekeepers, Morgan, University and Believers were in a long-standing pact, and the Gaians and Spartans who had foolishly fought the pact of the PKs and Believers were compelled to submit by superior PK force, technology and strategy), what could he do but be swiftly annihilated? Although he still had a large continent of his own, nevertheless his earlier attempts at conquest had all been rebuffed, and he was now vastly overpowered and outteched, so he accepted the vote.

Gaians: go Green, catch and use those mindworms. Spread across Planet, via the fungus. Obtain the Centauri projects, especially Xenoempathy (so even your conventional units can use the fungus as a highway). You have low morale, so build whatever you need (buildings and projects) to increase the life cycle of your native units.

Native land and sea units ignore everything but morale, so they're better than most conventional units at taking a well-fortified base with heavily armored AAA/ECM defenders.

Gaians are quite adequate at building and research, and as the game progresses, high Gaian efficiency ratings will let you expand without limit, earning more energy than most other equivalently vast factions.

UoP: tech, tech, tech. Virtual World is very good, but Hunter-Seeker for sure. Remember every base brings another Network Node. However, NNs "only" increase research by 50%. To get a decent research base, also build Biology Labs in every base - they give +2 Labs, which is valuable early on, and they also protect against some plagues.

Morgan: buy, buy, buy. Your bases are small throughout the early expansion phase, so build as many bases as you can. Each base brings more money, I mean energy. Hurry buildings and the more important units (formers, colony pods, frontline troops) as much as you can. In the early game, Morgan may be on the defensive, but go for Probe Teams, and save enough cash to buy out the obstinate foe's bases and any obstructive units along the road. With energy, and stealing tech, Morgan should have Excellent standing in research. When your tech and infrastructure is built up (some time after you get Hab Complexes), search the Infiltration data on enemy bases to look for easy targets for conquest. Use a combination of probe teams and conventional forces to take them. Oh, one more thing, the Morgan AI demands that everyone else be Free Market, but Morgan can become rich without using it! Wealth is enough for his Economy rating to be as high as you need. Switch to Green for wartime.

Believers: surprisingly similar to a militant Morgan. Believers have few money problems (not that they're super-rich, but comfortable compared to Sparta and Hive), and use a mixture of Probe teams and conventional troops to overwhelm the foe. Believers can go Free Market/Wealth, or Democracy/Planned, or Green/Power, anything that doesn't use Knowledge, and Wealth is almost as good as Knowledge anyway. One difference from Morgan is that with their high Support rating, the Believers can sustain a veritable Torrent of troops; and since their +25% attack rating and slower research leads them to go for quantity and constant military pressure on their foes, they will typically build that Torrent, as well as a vast multitude of Probe Teams. Even in the AI's hands, the Believers spread far and wide and intimidate just about everyone almost all of the time. Try them again, more aggressively this time, and you'll see how the computer factions buckle to your demands, which are backed by your Hordes.

Spartans: on a Huge map, I don't play the Spartans at all well. They have weak industry, and I found that when I started far from everyone else, with no contact, I took ages to accumulate capital and to do sufficient research to reach them easily. The win was inexorable rather than enjoyable.

The Hive: Yang has good industry and population growth, doesn't suffer negative efficiency on the social scale (but does, like other factions, lose energy in farflung bases). But his economy is weak, and he can't use Democracy to assist population booms, though some of his bases have golden ages some of the time. His most usually suitable social setting is Police State (and Planned), so he's the natural enemy of Lal's Peacekeepers. In negotiations, you can set your government to the most primitive kind to avoid offending Lal unnecessarily, but your settings can never please him. In principle, you could be a beloved pact brother of everyone else, but at Thinker it doesn't always work out that way.

So, with Yang, expand far and wide, as with most factions (except perhaps Lal). When you meet other factions, consolidate if you have to, becaus eyou're a good builder, but get Command Nexus, get Citizens Defence Forces if you can, so you have no rival for Perimeter Defences. For that matter, use your industrial might to build every SP to keep it out of the hands of any faction that needs them: VW, HSA, Supercollider, etc, to stifle UoP (the HSA also defends absolutely against Morgan's and Miriam's otherwise deadly probe teams), Empathy thingo and Cloning Vats so that Lal doesn't get out of hand, Centauri projects to stifle Deirdre's main weapon, Command Nexus and the Maritime and the Cyber ones so that your military is more skilled than Santiago's and can stand up to attacks from Miriam, the Merchant Exchange to steal a march on Morgan, etc. It always helps to be Governor, so build that population by having many, large bases.

Conquer anyone who is a serious rival to your governorship, but, as always, provoke them to break the treaty, so that you don't become as widely hated as Yang can be: you probably do want a couple of supporting votes, until you naturally grow to half Planet's population or get those Cloning Vats.

posted 07-13-99 04:00 AM ET         

I'm always amused, when people write, they hate tanscend. level because of too much drone-riots.

What do you think, are enhancements (like rec. center) for? Ok, you can say, TI is too difficult for me, because while I'm building enhancements, AI is conquering my bases with huge armies. In this case, your playing-skills are behind AI (some say A-non-I).

But if you are experienced and smart enough and take your time for micromanagement, you always can handle drones AND AI-armies easily on TI-level.

posted 07-13-99 10:09 AM ET            

It always amuses me when people poke fun at those who play at a difficulty that provides the most enjoyment for them

posted 07-13-99 10:42 AM ET         

As long as you are not bragging to others about how skillful a player you are than what rules you play with are up to you!

Now if you are one of those "I am the best player in the known universe" than you better be playing Transendental Ironman and maybe the Believers with slow tech and blind research turned on with a huge planet with unity pods at base only.

With that said:

Do you restart the game if you start on a small island and find the Great Dunes to your East.

How about if you share that island with Mariaum (Beleivers).

Do you play with unity survey on or off? Is this cheating?

Do you play using the "Map of Planet" and use the map from the strategy guide? Is this cheating?

Do you pick planet parms to benefit your faction (size, life, clouds)?

Do you play games that you set up for your enjoyment? If so great. DO you like to micromanage? If so great, if not great.

posted 07-13-99 11:19 AM ET            

As a matter of interest, I have found that the most enjoyable games are those where you don't get such a good start position then you've really got to work. I always use random map and never restart.

My current game is the pits. I started on a continent on my own with the Ruins, Garland Crater and Monsoon Jungle. No fun. I'm only carrying on out of masochism.

posted 07-13-99 11:23 AM ET            

Oh, by the way, ARES 7, I also handicap myself by serial substance abuse while SMACing. It sometimes makes it difficult to concentrate on all of the small things.

posted 07-13-99 11:44 AM ET         

I am playing my first Morgan game now and am really enjoying the differences. I have raised sunny mesa to 3000+ feet in EVERY city square. I may try and raise my HQ to 3000+ feet in every square.

You don't know what fun you might be missing.

posted 07-13-99 12:06 PM ET            

Absolutely. I expect one day, I'll get bored with playing Morgan (don't like the yellow colour, for a start) and change to another faction. Believe it or not I started out with the Hive, then the Spartans. But I couldn't really get on with them.

Morgan and I get on. I know what I should be doing with him and enjoy getting dealt a tough hard to start with.