Aki vs. Yitzi and PRACX

[bvanevery]

Comments and questions about the strategies I'm using in this game, are expected and encouraged.  Please make them in this thread.

I've typically played the straight GOG patched version of SMACX.  I've tried Yitzi's patch in the past, but at the time, I didn't feel it resulted in any kind of different game than what I was used to.  The last game I played was exceptionally long, and has a big AAR writeup under the title "slow transporting".  I quit just 5 turns before the Morganites would trigger the Ascendance sequence, with the reasonable assumption that I'd win the game by out-producing him at the last minute.  I figure it may be possible for a Yitzi patched game to have an effect over such a long haul game.  I also found that having to take screenshots then quit the game was error prone, so I'm now more interested in PRACX's solution to the Alt-Tab problem.  However I've also learned that I could try Ctrl-Alt-Tab if PRACX doesn't work out.

The moral of last game is I do not want the AI dictating how I play the game.  I spent 3/4 of the game playing in reaction to Morgan, because he was on the opposite side of a Huge map and equal in power to me.  The endgame of that, is an equally powerful player will threaten to Transcend, at which point the game is over.  Sure I can win such a game, but I want to play the game, and not have AIs tell me when it's time to win, or to do other things.

Thus, no faction can be allowed to be as powerful as myself, even if friendly.  And the most inconvenient faction to deal with, may be the one I have to.  It might be better to ignore a militant faction right next door to me, if they can't actually harm me and their lands are worthless.  For all the effort at invading Miriam's Monsoon Jungle last game, what did it buy me?  The right to tread water with Morgan for a very long time.  Better to have dealt with Morgan, the real "threat".  I also obsessed about taking out the Caretakers first, to make it possible to win a Diplomatic Victory.  That turned out to have no value at all, as the Caretakers were never a threat.

This game: Huge map, average settings, random opponents.  No Aliens in this one.  Turns out Svensgaard, Lal, Domai, Roze, Morgan, and Miriam are in the game.  I've met everyone but Miraim.  She got a bad start and is weaker than other factions on the graph.  She may be somewhere remote.  Maybe she's the "other side of the map" player this time?  If so I'd count that as a good thing, as I can probably ignore her forever.

I'm at Peace with Svensgaard but he's Seething at me, and just north of me so we will surely go to war.  Lal and Domai are my allies.  Roze will only sign a Treaty but is Solicitous towards me.  Morgan I just met, by settling a city next to a Monolith I knew someone else has poped, so I got that foothold before meeting him.  Of course he's not going to like my Planned economy and I won't be changing that for awhile, so it'll be war.  Also after last game he deserves it!

I had trouble with a lot of fungus in my way.  Although my initial exploration looked like I might be connected to land, I started with a pure Explore research path anyways.  That turned out to be a good move because I needed those Transports to sail around difficult fungus patches.  I had a city to the south, near that Monolith, but it got destroyed by a mindworm.  I knew one had previously been in the area, and after many turns I wanted to believe it had left and found someone else to bother.  But it eventually came back, I figure, and whapped me before I was fortified.  Some other colonists en route did escape and enabled me to settle that southeast city on the Grand Mesa.

When I contacted everyone I seemed technologically quite backward, to the point of Lal giving me Polymorphic Software for free and then cutting off communication.  Over the next few turns I discovered and traded enough to catch up.  I'm a little surprised to have been technologically weak since I'm the +2 Research faction of the game.  Were my fungus troubles really that bad?  Were other player starts really that good?  Is the AI cheating again?  One of these days I'm going to learn what advantages the players really have on Transcend.  The most obnoxious one is when I see Domai getting things I don't think he should be capable of getting.  How exactly does he run circles around me?

I have techs for plenty of Secret Projects, but I have not begun one yet.  A lack of minerals is a quirk of the land I got.  So I'll have to make up for it with food, forests, and Artifacts.  I haven't managed to get that many transports in the water as 2 got destroyed already.  Now all my cities are making Recreation Commons, to be followed by Recycling Tanks.  As I've got Secret Project access for all the other research areas, I've switched to Conquer focus in the hope of picking up Doctrine:Loyalty.  Also, frankly, I'll be conquering very soon now.

PRACX has made the screen capture easier as I can just Alt-Tab.  However it also seems to be providing an interlaced capture, and my background music is gone.  I've not had any "mighty tunes" playing this whole game, not during the intro, the planetary configuration menus, or when finally playing.  I will check my .ini to see if I've inherited some kind of "audio off" setting from Yitzi.  Another quirk is I couldn't hit spacebar to get past the opening movie, I had to hit ESC.  Hitting spacebar would make the opening movie repeat, which was weird.  Easy enough to disable the opening movie, which is what I typically do anyways.

Hmm, that's weird.  The .png I saved from Paint3D doesn't appear to be interlaced.  Fine with me; the goal is to have screenshots here look good.  Note a yellow dotted border in the extreme northeast, that's Morgan's land that I got a foothold on.  On the minimap you can see Svensgaard immediately to the north, Lal near to the northwest, Domai near to the west, and Roze deep to the south.

[bvanevery]

An earthquake changed my southern land a bit, and destroyed the transport I disembarked from.  Notice the Scout that's high and dry.  It almost touched the island that Svensgaard is currently utilizing from a sea base.  Nice it would have touched, so that I could easily deprive him of the use of that island.  As is I'll take it though, as that's decent land near my capitol to settle.  I lost an east-west water passage in the process, but it's not that hard to get around my island anyways.

The Transport services have really had an abysmal loss record this game though.  I've made 4 and only have 1 left!  Interestingly, being crushed by an earthquake doesn't count as a loss.  Technically that transport is still buried underneath somewhere?  Could it be freed if the land was lowered?

I rushed a Rec Commons in my capitol and have started Recycling Tanks there.  Even though I don't have real productivity, I figure I need to get a Secret Project going.  I loaned money to Domai so I don't have as much cash as I otherwise might.  I've got 1 Artifact and 1 Battle Ogre in my capitol as well.

Ok, now I get what happened to the interlace banding.  Before I posted a 1440x900 image.  The website downfiltered it to 1200x750, which wiped out the banding.  This time I submitted a cropped 1200x900 image, so you can still see the banding in the inlined image.  However if you click on the image to see the larger "scaled 76%" version, the banding is gone again.  So it just has to do with what filters have been run on things.

[bvanevery]

Things are breaking loose faster than expected.  I tried to avoid running into Svensgaard's ships, but my Transport got fouled by him near Lal's lands.  First I talked to Lal and loaned money to him.  Then I was forced to talk to Svensgaard and he tried to extort me.  I told him to shove it, so he declared war.  I re-contacted Lal and had him declare war on Svensgaard.  Then I contacted Domai, who has met Miriam and was in a war with her.  He asked me for my help with that, and I consented.  Then I asked Domai to go to war with Svensgaard, and he consented.  Then I sold Miriam's comm frequency to Lal and Roze.  Then I called an election and had Lal elected Governor.  I figure someone will get a map of Miriam's territory soon enough.

I'm working on a prototype Laser Artillery.  It'll be done in 4 turns, less if I spend money.  Svensgaard has a lot of ships but hopefully no land force yet.  If he had rovers and transports I'd be in big trouble right now, as my bases only have Scouts in them.  But Svensgaard has a bad habit of putting his capitol in totally useless deep ocean.  I'm not sure why he does that.  Maybe the AI doesn't have any code to take advantage of "look first" ?

[bvanevery]

I beat off the Pirate ships with Impact Artillery, a tech I recently developed.  Having secured those 2 northern cities, I made lots of Skimship Probe Teams.  Svensgaard kept sinking them which was annoying, but eventually his luck ran out and I was able to capture a ship I ran into.  With that I infiltrated his datalinks and captured Crow's Nest.  He isn't interested in surrendering so I'll have to do more stuff to him.  Fortunately I just researched High Energy Chemistry, which will make my defense easier.  I'm not going to nerve gas him though.

My 4th transport escaped the Pirate dragnet, only to be later sunk in Miriam's territorial waters.  At least I discovered where she is.  Basically just west of Domai.  So, not only have I been minerals deprived, I've been a bit Artifact deprived with all this seaborne violence.

I completed The Human Genome Project with the help of a 2nd Artifact I found.  Others have completed The Merchant Exchange and The Weather Paradigm.  4 factions are working on The Virtual World, and I think they were all working on previous SPs before switching to that.  Consequently, with a war pressing, I won't be joining that race.  Good decision as now I've found out Morgan will complete it in 7 turns.  Instead I've been building a Research Hospital in my capitol, hoping to pick up Doctrine:Loyalty before anyone else does. 

[bvanevery]

Lal completed The Virtual World in 2 turns, even sooner than Morgan was going to do it.  His attitude towards me isn't very good.  He was Obstinate, but then we traded techs and he became Noncommittal.  I am surprised to find out that he shares a significant amount of land with the Pirates.  Maybe that was earthquake triggered initially, but the Pirates appear to have decided to spread on land at Lal's expense.

I've also noticed that Miriam is in control of The Manifold Nexus.  At some point I will try to take it over, as it is nearby.  I've found that increasing one's Planet rating is useful in mid to late game, when factories start spewing out minerals and mindworms get uppity about it.

I attacked Provision Point with my stolen Synth Impact Skimship, leaving Crow's Nest empty, because P.P. only had a scout rover and transports in it.  I nevertheless took wounds and Svensgaard rushed a Synth garrison for defense.  I have retreated to Crow's Nest to heal up, but I will attack again.  I don't care all that much if Svensgaard retakes Crow's Nest, as it's not what I'd call a valuable or strategically defensible base.  Instead I'm going for the long shot of ending his influence in the region with just 1 ship.  It's going to take some time to get new Plasma units together.  At least my continuing attacks on Svensgaard, may cause him to use up some credits rushing things.

[bvanevery]

I used Skimship Probe Teams to sabotage Provision Point.  The only thing he had was the production of new units, which is exactly what I wanted to target.  So I got to train up my probe teams, wipe out Svensgaard's transports and colony pods, and take the base.  Must say, that was a fairly effective tactic against an isolated base that I haven't previously used.  It's just the accident of having made a lot of Skimship Probe Teams and not really having anything better to do with them.  Some of my farther out ones have started popping pods, but that often gets them killed so I'm not convinced it's a great use of resources.

I tried to trade with Roze for Secrets of the Human Brain, but she wouldn't trade.  She's raised her price to buy it too.  Previously she wanted 175 credits, now she wants 200.  Since I have 187 credits, I'm annoyed.

One of my Skimship Probe Teams is now Elite.  My "buddy" Lal is working on The Command Nexus.  I am annoyed by this.  Should I repress him?  Or should I steal from Morgan instead, who is working on The Planetary Energy Grid?  If that goes south, it only precipitates what was inevitable.  With the Pirates on the run and busy with Lal, I think going after Morgan is the better move.  I'm not likely to build any SP associated with what I steal, I just don't have the productivity.

[bvanevery]

Svensgaard researched Doctrine:Loyalty, obviating any concern about stealing it from Lal.  Morgan declared war on me, obviating any need to use my Elite probe teams.  So for now I hold them in reserve; I have 2.  Getting Doctrine:Loyalty from Svensgaard's defenseless capitol was trivial, but Lal will complete The Command Nexus in 4 turns and I can't catch up.  His current attitude towards me is Noncommittal and if I actually wanted to piss him off, I'd just invade him and take the Nexus.  As it stands, better to let him complete it, because at least it's nearby to invade later if I so choose.

I didn't think I had a reason to take Morgan all that seriously, but he made a nasty little landing.  I don't have any offensive units to deal with it.  I have a Plasma unit on defense.  I shelled his Imapct Rover with an Laser Artillery unit, which took a small chip out of it.  I brought back a Scout I had just loaded onto a transport, and attacked his Scout Rover with that.  It disengaged, half-wounded.  I hope they just sit there pillaging, as that will give me the chance to shell them again.  If he actually attacks with that Impact Rover though, this could be a bit of a rockfight on my part.  Hope a Hardened Plasma unit does enough of a job weakening him.

I asked Lal to join the fight against Morgan and he refused.  He now has a Treaty with the Pirates and is at war with Miriam.  Meanwhile the Drones are at peace with Miriam and at war with the Pirates!  Dudes, fight the people next to you please?  Maybe I'll have to frame someone just to get them fighting again.

I just researched Synthetic Fossil Fuels, an interesting result from a Conquer focus.  Well I'll take it.  I need to get my production focused on Morgan.  I've got that 1 foothold base which is in jeopardy of being mind controlled.  I'm trying to get a probe team built there.

[bvanevery]

The !@#$!@#! Morganites !@#!@#!@ my base just after I posted the above.  No chance.  This game is !#!@ing with me.  It's not playing like a Huge map game, everyone is close together.  I've gotten tons of stress very soon after meeting everybody.  Now, if I thought someone was sitting back not getting any stress at all, and building lots of SPs like last game, I think I'd just quit and start over.  Why waste the time?  But the Believers and the Data Angels haven't built anything yet.  The latter are working on 2 copies of The Planetary Energy Grid though.  My near neighbors seem to be fairly stressed out too, which is why I'm not rage quitting.  Also I'm trying to remeber that this is a Yitzi patch.  Even though I have my doubts that Yitzi has anything to do with the present instances, I will make some allowances for it "playing differently" than what I'm used to.

The Impact Rover took the bait and went after the Green Synthmetal garrison that I didn't need.  I then beat it off with a shovel wounded Scout.  I shelled the Scout Rover.  The Transport is trying to get away, but I just rememberd I've got 2 pieces of Imapct Artillery I can hit it with.  If I don't kill it, I will certainly slow it down.  Except I friggin FORGOT because of all this !#$!@# writing stuff up!  !@#!@##

[bvanevery]

Miriam trounces Lal in an election.  We tried.

I'm somewhat secure against Morgan, having Plasma sentinels and Probe Teams in every city, and a few Missile Rovers to deal with landings.  But I am not close to retaking my base.  Productivity is slow.  I did steal Industrial Automation so I could eventually get minerals, but that is also slow.  I have my sea bases producing either sea colonists or missile ships.  Land bases produce colonists when people get unhappy.  My capitol has a Research Hospital and a Battle Ogre so it is happier than most.

[bvanevery]

You know what?  I don't like this game.  It's making me itch.  I don't feel like I'm getting to do what I want.  I don't generally play Huge map games in order to be messed with nonstop early on.  If I wanted more early rockfights I'd be playing on a Standard map.  For !#!# sake I was invaded when I still had Scouts, and it's not because I blew off building up defense for a long time.  It's because I couldn't have done it any faster than that.

Also, there's something about the PRACX that's off.  The UI seeems slowed down and latent.  I'm going to get rid of it and reinstall with Yitzi patch only.  I hope Ctrl-Alt-Tab allows me to task switch, because that was definitely more convenient than having to quit the game each time.  Actually on further examination, Yitzi includes a version of PRACX anyways.  So it's probably better to leave my more current installation of PRACX intact, and try disabling options until it behaves like I want it to.  I'm taking a guess that MouseOverTileInfo creates latency, so I'm setting it =0.

I started this game sometime in the morning.  4 PM now and I'm like, why bother?  This one isn't fun.  Not worth the mouseclicks.  I think a fair chunk of the time has been spent writing up what happened.  Maybe that is part of why it's not fun.  If the game is not all that much fun, writing about it amplifies the fact of it not being much fun.

Conclusion: either Yitzi did something, or... fungus, Pirates, and an additional invader is not fun.

[bvanevery]

EPILOGUE:

I blew off this game.  I don't like being messed with nonstop early on.  I can handle it; I've been here hundreds of times before.  But I don't want to handle it.  It's not what I consider enjoyable about the game.