In singleplayer ( I haven't play any substantial MP, could work in MP), I typically find that if you invest in making armoured rovers, even if they have no upgraded weapons, are far superior over just standard footmen.
Colony gravships. Or whatever they are called. After chopper. Not plane. ARGGHH CURSE MY LAZINESS TO GET UP AND CHECK!!!
In singleplayer ( I haven't play any substantial MP, could work in MP), I typically find that if you invest in making armoured rovers, even if they have no upgraded weapons, are far superior over just standard footmen.
I noticed such units in several MP games, but I was never convinced about that. Usually I try to keep the best bang for buck ratio, which in SMAC means masses of expendable units with either weapon or armour maxed, the other at 1. To provide defence, I think I used scout patrols upgraded to 1-3-1 or such as the situation required. But it's been some time. You sure you can't achieve the same effects with more 4-1-2s?
On a related note - do you use any artillery units? I don't mean naval bombardment or building batteries just to overwhelm that specific entrenched base - I mean preparing an army composition with slots for artillery in mind. Somehow I never used it too much, for several reasons (they are only cheap on infantry, they are quite vulnerable in the open, etc.), but maybe I miss something.
Terrorforming, aka Water Rights: Raising or lowering land to divert a river into your territory. Likely good only in SP. Takes practice. Makes more of a mess than anything sometimes.
I use artillery extensively actually, I typically pack them on rovers. Rovers with armour, artillery can sit back, bombard a base and if attacked are fairly defendable, but can still withdraw if need be. And they can damage whole stacks of units so much they provide easy pickings for my other forces.
I also want to experiment with Artillery choppers.. I think they can be effective means of defencive artillery. I'll have to test them out, I think if they are still able to engage units directly as well as bombard, they'd be incredible.
The purpose is to deny them the energy from the river, especially if it starts in your territory and crosses the border and runs away from your bases. It's done in the interior, most often by raising a hill in the path of the river so it is diverted away from their territory. Surely a SP thing, since in MP there's not enough time before one of their units comes and wrecks your Former.Terrorforming, aka Water Rights: Raising or lowering land to divert a river into your territory. Likely good only in SP. Takes practice. Makes more of a mess than anything sometimes.
Could you elaborate on that? Any reason to do that instead of drilling to aquifier? Even if drilling is sometimes impossible (due to how rivers work), is it worthwhile to change your coastline just to get a river change its course? Raising/lowering usually has more important strategic implications, either you want to get to your enemy or simply get more land to settle in.
Also, another tip to preserve your integrity while starting wars: Just piss off the target so much they come after you. Like asking for technology or otherwise.Yea, I used to do that all the time. Usually I demand they give me a base or I'll crush them like a bug, and if that does not work demand they withdraw (right click their name on the comm, you can demand withdrawal even if they won't talk) after switching to a social setting they hate (switching back after for a refund).
I use artillery extensively actually, I typically pack them on rovers. Rovers with armour, artillery can sit back, bombard a base and if attacked are fairly defendable, but can still withdraw if need be. And they can damage whole stacks of units so much they provide easy pickings for my other forces.
I consider myself the expert in SP cheating
Is cashing in crawlers even an exploit, though?
And if you upgrade them to reduce the hurry cost of projects, I'd consider that to definitely be an exploit.
Is the upgrade stunt a cheaper way than cashing in what crawlers are on hand as-is and then rushing?Vastly cheaper, especially early on where rush buying is extremely expensive.
And if you upgrade them to reduce the hurry cost of projects, I'd consider that to definitely be an exploit.
You know, if it wasn't possible anymore to put armor on civilian 'weapon' types...
Sometimes you want armored formers, though, and it still wouldn't help with upgrading the crawlers to clean. I'd rather change the upgrade cost formula to make that tactic, as well as the similarly exploit-like IMO tactic of building cheap units and upgrading instead of hurrying units, ineffective, or if necessary simply ban it.
Sometimes you want armored formers, though, and it still wouldn't help with upgrading the crawlers to clean. I'd rather change the upgrade cost formula to make that tactic, as well as the similarly exploit-like IMO tactic of building cheap units and upgrading instead of hurrying units, ineffective, or if necessary simply ban it.
Indeed, I ban upgrading crawlers in my games, but I miss the option to put armour on crawlers in field for tactical reasons, not for SP.
That's not so hard...De-ban upgrading crawlers, but make a rule that once a crawler is upgraded it cannot be cashed in for SP.
Maybe because it would be hard to monitor for anti-cheat purposes.
Maybe because it would be hard to monitor for anti-cheat purposes.
Even a simple ban on upgrading is probably unfeasible to monitor, though.
Maybe because it would be hard to monitor for anti-cheat purposes.
Even a simple ban on upgrading is probably unfeasible to monitor, though.
I thought once infiltration is achieved, the unit list (F4?) shows you all unit types of a faction in existence.
I tested it and the moment you upgrade, the relevant design goes into your F7 and stays there until the end of the game.
And always do it in MP games. ;)
Unless it's banned, either explicitly or via a "no changing things intending to possibly or definitely revert them" rule.
Amendment to the thing with nuking a wild mind worm:
I did some tests and it seems that you get diplomatic consequences after all, from all factions but the one actually affected by the nuclear blast.
Well, I see absolutely no reason to ban it. It's just as good use of the game mechanics as mind controlling bases which riot or doing atrocities while under sunflares.
Upgrading field crawlers to slow the advances of your opponent actually seems more fishy to me.
2 more tips, which I recently posted somewhere else but it's good to have them in one place:
- when you want to quickly forest some area, terraform forest in checkers, not in bulk patches; the chance of spread depends on adjacent forest tiles and the actual size of your wood has nothing to do with it
- use the 'name/erase landmark' feature (Shift+N/Ctrl+Shift+N) to your advantage; you can leave messages to yourself, especially in MP games which take days between the turns. You can write down when you stapled your base (the game doesn't say) or put down reminders like "upgrade formers" (once you get BioEng, it takes many turns to fully upgrade your formers to clean as some of them are doing boreholes now and you're going to forget about upgrades). Use some sort of code of abbreviations only you understand (in a recent game, "IA/47" meant that I wanted to set up 10 supply crawlers to dash for PTS in one turn in 2147).
...(as long as you don't use it to trick other players or limit their ability to use the same trick by placing up to the maximum number of landmarks).
Ah, there's the tricky parts...
Personally, I'd just dot it down on some paper and put it on my desktop as a reminder. ;)
I see it more like changing your social engineering to get an advantage, and then changing it back in the same turn to refund the cost (which I believe is banned)...it's slightly different in that the advantage is probabilistic rather than definite and you only revert when you don't get the advantage, but it's still exploiting the ability to do something and then revert it at a total cost of zero.
This is far from the same. You can lawfully change production as many times as you want for no penalty.
You'd have either to ban it altogether or leave it intact, because in MP games you simply cannot ban intentions.
And even if you did, the way around it is quite obvious - I'd poise several units to pop several pods at once right at the moment when a build has been done.
- never, under any circumstances make a pact of brotherhood with anyone during an MP game. And especially with the AI.
- When you pop that dish thing at the Unity crash site (upper left corner), I think it's some thingamajig from the bridge, Cha Dawn's HQ doesn't show up unlike other human HQs, even when it's already established. Funny bonus. :)
As to other SMAX factions, they do get the message about their own Planetfall, so I think their story about being splinter factions doesn't really hold up (i.e. how can DA be splinter of Morgan if there is no Morgan on your map in the first place?)
Perhaps requesting this as an option for Yitzi's patch?
Yeah. At first glance, the only broad way the game as it is distinguishes between 'groups' are the alien and aquatic flags.