Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => After Action Reports => Topic started by: bvanevery on January 22, 2017, 07:56:04 AM

Title: Cha Dawn vs. Random, 256x128, no supply pods
Post by: bvanevery on January 22, 2017, 07:56:04 AM

256x128 map.  Weak erosive forces and dense cloud cover this time.  I've often thought of these settings as "making nice land, almost cheating for my benefit" but I've come to realize they also help the AIs get going.  Average native life.  Transcend.  Supply pods only at landing sites, if at all.  7 random factions of the standard 14.  I got Cha Dawn.  Also in the game: Morgan, Roze, Lal, Domai, Aki Zeta 5, and Santiago.

I started on an ok sized island.  I researched Explore early to get off the island.  I managed to get The Weather Paradigm and The Human Genome Project.  Other factions had perfectly good starts and cranked out secret projects of their own.  I wasn't able to do any other secret projects for quite awhile.  I got Domai's comm frequency from a pod early on.  We allied and I think I got a tech out of him.

I made a 1 square land bridge to a bigger island next to me.  I explored various islands around me and got some free mindworms.  Policy was to bring all but 1 of them back to base to use as police units.  Eventually I completed The Empath Guild and traded techs to improve my position.  I managed to have 2 Democratic allies, Lal and Roze, so I went Democratic myself.  I went through a Planned growth phase, then got myself elected Governor.  Went to Simple economics to see if I could get along with Morgan.  Domai eventually fizzled as an ally, guess he didn't like what I do with mindworms to him.  Oddly for an Explore researcher, I learned Adaptive Economics and succeeded at building The Planetary Energy Grid.  Other factions completed other secret projects such as The Citizen's Defense Force and The Planetary Datalinks.  When they did so, I took advantage of their willingness to trade.

2241.  Aki likes the idea of having Centauri Empathy so much, that she trades me Doctrine:Initiative for it.  She was the only one who had it, and she hadn't even started working on The Maritime Control Center.  So I do.  I acquired most of the other techs through trades this turn, including Industrial Automation, so I don't anticipate any trouble beating everyone to completing this secret project.

2254.  I complete The Maritime Control Center.  After building a Hologram Theater and Hab Complex in my "biggest minerals" city (15/turn), I will begin The Ascetic Virtues.  I don't think anyone else is near to getting that tech.  I'm surprised that I'm getting all this Build stuff, but maybe there's some formula in the game where if you do a lot of terraforming, you get Build stuff.  Fine by me.  I think I've got all the techs now, including Cyberethics, so I've gone Knowledgeable.  I'm a Knowledgeable Democracy.  I could go Free Market but I can't quite abide erasing my faction's Planet friendliness with the big -3 penalty.  I'm not interested in Green because I have +3 efficiency as is and want to keep my growth rate going, plus I don't really need to be more Planet friendly than I am.

I have tried to get Morgan as an ally, because if I went Free Market, nobody else would be pissed off by that choice.  It is uncharacteristic of me to offer bribes for treaties or alliances.  Surprisingly, he won't even take techs that he wants in order to sign a Treaty.  Thinks I'm too powerful.  Maybe some day I'll just have to settle his hash the old fasioned way, with a mindworm in the brain.  Presently I have no reason to do it though, as he is Magnanimous towards me.  Why can't he figure out that I should be making sweet love to him already?  Maybe it's my Boy George thing going on.

Aki Zeta 5 also won't sign a Treaty, but nevertheless likes me.  I haven't tried to persuade her otherwise, because I'm not sure there's anything one can choose that actually pisses her off.

The only one who seriously dislikes me is Santiago.  In this game I think she's the military nerd who has no friends.  Getting beat out by the mostly democratic research factions, who are all my allies.  If we have to kill her at some point we will, but I don't see her as a real threat.

2277.  I finished The Ascetic Virtues at some point.  Santiago eventually went to war with Roze, so I eventually went to war with Santiago.  I've built a navy but no actual fighting with her yet.  Aki started working on The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm and declared war on me.  Since she's a strong #2 in the game, I had all my allies declare war on her.  Somehow I even got Morgan to ally with me, then declare war on her.  That surprised me.  I'm on track to completing The Xenoempathy Dome soon.  I might be able to steal Pre-Sentient Algorithms before then and complete The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm myself.  Lal is working on it too, but neither of them have high production attempts at it.  Environmental Economics is known to some factions, but I haven't been able to get it out of them yet.  I could use some tree farms.

2300.  Lal completed The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm some time ago.  I actually researched Pre-Sentient Algorithms before I could get over to Aki to steal it  This happened with Synthetic Fossil Fuels as well.  I've given up thinking I'm going to invade her, and even probing her seems pretty pointless.  When I sent my navy out, it sorta wandered around in an unfocused manner in various places.  I fished for isles of the deep and got them.  I had only 1 skirmish with Aki where we each lost a ship.  It was pretty boring and nonproductive and I realized the large distance I needed to cross to invade Aki.  Also that I really didn't have the production to crank out a decisive number of units.  Just a drag really.  So I overcame my reluctance to a Free Market.  I sent the fleet home and declared it.  I have 1 independent isle roaming around, the only one that was free from the fishing.  The rest required support, and there's not much point in those.  I finished The Xenoempathy Dome which among other things gives a +1 life cycle bonus, so I can make some pretty terrifying indigenous life. 

Title: Re: Cha Dawn vs. Random, 256x128, no supply pods
Post by: bvanevery on January 24, 2017, 08:28:04 AM

3:30 AM trigger.  I find I just don't care about the game anymore.  Being interrupted over a period of days, not being able to play continuously, is part of it.  Also found Free Market to be damn boring.  Other factions would get some secret projects, I'd get some.  I'd have trouble stealing techs because I didn't think it was fun to push cruiser probe teams a few turns towards the enemy to get the techs.  Research was happening so fast that half the time, I'd research it before being able to steal it anyways.

I think the final straw, was I had a whole pile of cities with hybrid forests and Genejack factories, and just this 1 city doing eco-damage of 59.  Like WTF?  Everyone else is doing zero, why is this one spiked?  Didn't make a lot of sense, and made me think there's something goofy about the eco-damage model.  It triggered global warming, possibly 330 m worth, and that threatens to wreck some of the stuff I've just spent hours and hours building.

Yeah sure I could have kept on playing, that wasn't a game stopper, but I'm really bored.  I don't like sitting around waiting forever for techs and to build secret projects and such.  It also doesn't feel like winning when half the time, the other factions complete the secret projects before you do.

I was only using 1 laptop, which makes typing up game events more difficult.  I think not sticking to the discipline of writing up what I'm doing, kills my motivation.  Like, I put up with more when I think I'm telling someone about it.  Except that I don't know anyone's reading this anyways.

One thing that was a bit weird about this game, is all the rocks.  Don't have quite as many forests because I'm not going to go around leveling the rocks.  Seems like a waste of resources.  But it probably makes the landscape more eco-damaging.

Also it was a bit weird to play Cha Dawn as Free Market.  That's because wandering around the map was boring.  I wonder if having -1 Planet increases eco-damage.

Title: Re: Cha Dawn vs. Random, 256x128, no supply pods
Post by: Thanaburn on October 18, 2017, 07:50:26 AM

I like Cha Dawn more, it works very well.

Title: Re: Cha Dawn vs. Random, 256x128, no supply pods
Post by: Green1 on October 18, 2017, 09:54:22 AM

That is an sometimes issue with very, very large maps in a lot 4x games and my biggest motivation to press "exit game" and never return to the save.

Late game can get grind-y.

That, and if I get interrupted/busy and a week later when I can game unaccosted I have no idea of what I was doing or whatever and would prefer start over in the early game.

Title: Re: Cha Dawn vs. Random, 256x128, no supply pods
Post by: bvanevery on October 18, 2017, 04:07:32 PM

Many months later, I'm currently out of my SMAC cycle, having reached a point where I've recently tried everything I could think of.  One of my last hurrahs was playing the Pirates and deliberately trying to drown the world, to avoid that problem with eco damage and stuff I've built by hand getting wiped out.  Yes the world did drown, but much more slowly than I expected.  Not really fast enough to do much military damage to anyone else.  I was trying to weaponize the climate and that didn't really work.

Title: Re: Cha Dawn vs. Random, 256x128, no supply pods
Post by: Geo on October 18, 2017, 04:23:05 PM

Clearly you didn't drop enough Busters then. :-\

Title: Re: Cha Dawn vs. Random, 256x128, no supply pods
Post by: bvanevery on October 18, 2017, 05:23:38 PM

Pretty sure I did drop a fair number, as in, eliminating all cities within missile range of me.  And they certainly triggered lots of flooding, which along with heavy industry, was the point of the exercise.  Although I think I quit that Pirates game when someone re-colonized areas I'd already nuked, then immediately used the new base to nuke one of my less valuable cities.  The whole "drown 'em" thing hadn't really worked, and now the whole game was turning into Whack-a-Mole.  There's really no point in wiping out enemies with nukes, nukes, nukes, as Chemical Weapons are far cheaper to produce, don't have ecological consequences, and don't get you kicked out of the UN.