Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: vonbach on October 07, 2015, 09:14:37 PM

Title: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: vonbach on October 07, 2015, 09:14:37 PM

Anyone else play with random research? I haven't chosen my techs in so long I cant play like that anymore.
It feels like cheating to me.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 07, 2015, 09:19:28 PM

I always play random.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Green1 on October 07, 2015, 09:22:26 PM

Well, it does add a bit of drama in if you do use blind research. But, it can kinda suck, too.

 Imagine you are just getting nothing but a worthless (unless you are an aquatic faction) tecsh like Prog Psych and a bunch of build stuff like Social Psych and Information Systems. No armor or weapons. Then, some warmonger like Santiago or Yang comes for you with impact rovers!

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: vonbach on October 07, 2015, 10:35:27 PM

Usually my research is good enough I can outpace the other factions.
Usually just by having three times the cities they do.
If i end up in a situation like that with a warmonger I just but them off typically.
Here's a question? Anyone play Ironman? This is a setting for masochists.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Green1 on October 08, 2015, 05:19:01 AM

I believe Ironman was one of those things back in the day to prove no one was save scrumming.

I personally never save scrum in games like this unless I am just learning it or I seriously misclick. Fortunately, AC even on the two hardest settings are no where near as anal (or impossible) as the more modern 4xs are.

What I do is include custom factions. Ete's Annihilators are particularly nasty.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: JarlWolf on October 09, 2015, 04:54:23 PM

Always random here. More fun, more challenge that way.  :danc:

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Nexii on October 10, 2015, 01:59:33 PM

I play with directed usually, but I've done a lot of tech balancing to make it such that the typical tech beelines aren't always optimal.  With flat unit+ability costing, being caught on 1/1 or 2/2 troops is really brutal against someone that's gone aggressive.  Similarly some nerfs to advanced terraforming makes it so going down that line at all costs isn't the only good play.

I suppose I could try some random games, the tech obtained would influence the strategy more (rather than being more in control of it).

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: vonbach on October 10, 2015, 11:10:25 PM

Quote

I personally never save scrum in games like this unless I am just learning it or I seriously misclick.

I do the save game abuse all the time. Usually when the computer pisses me off.
Its a bad habit of mine. No AI you are not going to kill a veteran unit with a
pre boil mind worm. Lets try this again.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Green1 on October 12, 2015, 06:32:41 PM

Quote from: vonbach on October 10, 2015, 11:10:25 PM

Quote

I personally never save scrum in games like this unless I am just learning it or I seriously misclick.

I do the save game abuse all the time. Usually when the computer pisses me off.
Its a bad habit of mine. No AI you are not going to kill a veteran unit with a
pre boil mind worm. Lets try this again.

I caught myself save scrumming in a recent Age of Wonders 3 game. Had to stop it. It was a 8 way FFA, no diplomacy. 3 huge stacks of stuff came and raped a metropolis I had with only a high level hero, an archer, a priest, and a militia. I did not see it coming. Nor did I want to lose that hero.

I stopped myself then dealt with it. Ended up losing.

Save scrumming really hurts you if you ever do MP. I did a team MP that me and a partner won. I messed up bad in the beginning and was basically carried through the game by my team mate. A lot would have dropped and quit. If it was SP, I had such a terible start, I would have just called the game.  I think save scrumming behavior hurts you if you ever dabble in MP. Unlikely, though. I read somewhere that only 20 percent of 4x players ever step foot in MP and maybe 5 to 10 percent keep at it.

Then again, it's your game as far as SP. It's not against the law. Not like 4xs have like any kind of League of Legends type E-sport movement to it except maybe Civ Fanatic's Hall of Fame Deity level challenges for Civ. But, there are no 1 M USD tourneys for Civ, so who cares. From hardcore wannabes though, it does have a stigma. They do have a point. It makes you a weaker player.

Think like golf. If you hit the sand trap, do you walk back to the tee to start again? Do you just grab the ball and place it on the green? Some may. Unless it's a tourney. But few golfers play tourneys. At that point, maybe not being a good player or the game itself is the goal, but being out there being entertained. Entertainment> Skill for them.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Yitzi on October 12, 2015, 09:57:36 PM

Quote from: Green1 on October 08, 2015, 05:19:01 AM

I believe Ironman was one of those things back in the day to prove no one was save scrumming.

More than prove; in SP it's treated as a special challenge and gives +100% to your score.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: vonbach on October 13, 2015, 01:33:08 AM

Quote

More than prove; in SP it's treated as a special challenge and gives +100% to your score.

Its  a great way to get your score to insane levels. But its an entirely different way of playing.
If your up to the stress by all means do so but you probably wont enjoy the game much.
I've done one full game on Ironman and it was not a fun game. I won but I didn't enjoy it much.

Quote

Save scrumming really hurts you if you ever do MP.

I've never felt the urge to play MP. But I see your point.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Green1 on October 14, 2015, 07:40:06 PM

Quote

I've never felt the urge to play MP. But I see your point.

You are not the lone ranger. I read on a dev board a long while back (I think it was Stardock forums when they were developing Fallen Enchantress and people were griping because MP was not included) that only 20 percent of 4x players do MP. Plus, 4x games don't lend themselves well to it. A straight session can go for hours and few outside of retired folks, house wives, students, or the unemployed have that time. And, PBEM can take years.

That said, I did venture into Age of Wonders 3 MP a few days ago. It was a 2v2. We won, but I was basically carried. My partner was a badass. It was fun, but I rarely have the time to do it and was getting odd looks from the family for being glued to the computer that long and neglecting them. I have also attempted PBEMs but it becomes to be an obligation rather than fun and the more folks you get, the more it can fall apart. I mean, game is cool, but will it still be cool in January?

But yeah. While save scrumming probably won't cause the Rapture, it is your game. If content where you get exploited fro making stupid mistakes is not how you want to spend your limited play time, it your prerogative. A victimless crime.  However, there are somewhat competitive SP things, too. For those like HOF Civ challenges, Ironman type stuff gets modded into those games.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: vonbach on October 15, 2015, 03:35:42 PM

I've always felt it was my right to abuse the computer honestly.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Green1 on October 15, 2015, 08:02:53 PM

I think blind research also brings to mind the way tech is handled in 4x games.

I do believe you can direct research as a civilization to a certain extent. After all, the Germans were pumping research into rocketry and jets  towards the end. But, a lot of stuff does come out of the blue, too. Like cell phones. Tech also bleeds into your neighbors baring secrecy trade embargos. Japan was still using swords and wooden armor when Perry showed up with a huge maetal battleship in the harbor. It was not too much longer till the Japanese were building their own and making guns.

I do not think any 4x has handled tech spreading quite realistically yet. Nor manufacturing or agriculture for that matter - but that is another rant.

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Vidsek on October 17, 2015, 08:10:23 AM

  From the first time I played SMAC, I've always had the impression or understanding that most of the tech advances were RE-discovering and RE-learning knowledge and production techniques that were lost in the demise of the Unity.  How to build an aquatic ship?  How to build a satellite launch vehicle?  Clearly ones like those were known skills to the builders of an interstellar ship carrying humans.  Same goes for the aliens in SMAX.  Truly new discoveries would be those concerning the psy abilities of the native life, and probably/possibly some of the highest tier techs, like matter transmission and such.
  That makes it likely that they would have some insight into which science advances would lead to which skills, and which would have to be rediscovered first to open up advances in another.
  The Unity pods that give tech saved from the Unity or scavenged from the Alien Artifacts were what I thought were meant to give the ''random'', serendipitous factor.  And trading for or stealing tech also fits in there.
  Of course, to perfectly embody these concepts....well, there would be a lot of deep thought and modding involved  ;lol

  I've used frequent saves a huge amount, especially before some significant move or event.  Mostly to run the same thing over and over to see the variations the AI comes up with, or to change a variable and see what that results in. And, yes, sometimes to back up when something unrealistic or fun-destroying occurs.

  The more I understand the game (and can adjust parameters and the AI), the more I tend to just play and take it as it goes.  Which is also a lot of fun :)

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: Kirov on October 17, 2015, 11:55:53 PM

Funny thing with blind research. I must say I always loathed it in the context of multiplayer which, for the lack of a better word, I'll call 'competitive' - that is, playing to win, microing, employing the most efficient tactics, etc. Blind is simply randomizing stuff like automated formers or governors, i.e. not the way I want to play my MP games.

However, currently we have one game with blind on, requested by one of our players. And I think I'm getting to love it for the following reasons:

1) It levels down skill differences between players. Every vet knows exactly which techs they want to have until late midgame (where all games will have been completed anyway), people with less experience struggle more and can sometimes accept tech deals which actually harm their potential (due to the fact that each tech clogs your tech rate a bit). There are many techs which you should almost never accept in a bargain or consider researching.

2) Related to the above, it removes all the boring, most obvious beelines - IA, then boats, then either 2xEE or D:AP. In very few situations you need to stray from them.

3) It removes the annoying abuse when two players join forces, both research tech A at the same time, the one who's first sends it to the other, who immediately switches to tech B and voila! they both have A and B in the time needed for A only. This is simply too much as not a single lab point is lost here.

4) It forces you to buy unnecessary techs (mentioned in (1) above) just for the purpose of removing them from your tech options.

5) It forces you to probe or otherwise get creative with tech acquisition.

Anyway, forget about easy Industrial Automation, the single most important tech in the game. The main drawback, of course, is that you can be more or less lucky with your tech asortment. But for now, I'm going to propose or insist on blind research in my games to come!  ;b;

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: realjackryan on August 14, 2016, 09:57:28 AM

Does anybody have insight into how AI change between Blind and Direct Research?

Title: Re: Anyone else always play with random research?
Post by: bvanevery on January 10, 2017, 12:28:38 AM

Always blind research.  Hey it's the default rule.

Caveat: I play SMACX.  Nowadays always with 7 random factions from the 14, including the one I'm playing.  Otherwise after 17 years I'd be pretty bored with the game.   ;lol  The Caretakers and Usurpers have directed research as a faction power.  That's one of the main reasons I play all the other factions with blind research, I don't think everyone should be getting a free faction power.  Same thing with getting tech when conquering a  base.  I don't play with that, because that's Aki Zeta 5's power.

Blind research can be a real PITA to get things done.  However it's also a challenge, and I need some of those.

Directed research makes it trivial to get ahead in the game, IMO.  Granted, I'm an almost 17 year exclusively single player gamer.  I did have 2 PCs set up for 1 on 1 multiplayer once.  Against a friend of mine who wasn't particularly good at the game.  He could never do much to me.  Neither did we ever really finish the games we started either.  I really came to view SMAC as an inappropriate game for multiplayer.  Takes way too long.

I've also lately been playing on rather large maps, 256x256.  That's a bit of a drag, but as I've not done a lot of it yet, I'm not quite ready to give up on the challenges presented.  Sometimes those maps give pathological start conditions though, like 1 square islands, to many factions.  Wonder why that happens?  Nowadays I'm just restarting if that's the problem.

On these 256x256 maps, I have the foreknowledge that Exploration is going to be really important.  In particular, if the default unity supply pod scattering is allowed, scooping artifacts and energy credits from the oceans is enormously profitable.  So profitable as to be a crutch.  The AI factions don't understand this, so they are at a disadvantage that way.  Lately I've started turning off the pods.  Haven't played many games of that yet.  It makes these huge worlds really, really boring and pointless to explore.  I think you could say I've been playing "Pac-Man" in SMACX for a couple of years... now I'm thinking about what the game is, if it isn't "Pac-Man".

One thing I've turned off, is random events.  The bad ones are way too obnoxious and painful to put up with.  Like you've accumulated 1000+ energy and the market crashes, reducing you to 1/3 of that.  I've had that happen even when I had built The Planetary Energy grid.  Every single one of my bases has an energy bank, WTF is the problem??  Having research fizzle due to a claimed lack of network nodes is not fun either.  The good events don't make up for that kind of punishment.  The setting AFAIAC is "do you want some s**t in your SMACX sandwich?"  In recent discussion of these un-fun design misfeatures on my gamedesign-l (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/gamedesign-l/info), someone suggested hey, why don't you just turn that crap off?  I said "good idea" and haven't looked back.

Turning random events off, the only thing I really miss are sunspots.  They can be useful for pulling distasteful Social Engineering choices, as nobody can bother you for the duration.

I also play with "look first" before settling 1st colony.  I think it would be irritating not to find a suitable piece of flat ground.  Better yet, pop some pods first, then settle on the nutrients.  Or near minerals if I get lucky like that.  Minerals = early secret project.

I've played a lot of games with tech stagnation, but eventually decided it didn't add that much to the game, and severely penalized the AI players.

Abundant native life seems to really penalize AI players so I don't do that.  I've seen games where most factions are Dead On Arrival.  Presumed wiped out by stupid choices regarding mindworms.  I've decided to just start over if I see that sort of thing happening again.

So now you know my assumptions.

Oh and always Transcend.  On 30%..50% land worlds.  Which seem to yield a surprising number of water worlds with island archipelagos.