Any tricks up your sleeve?

[Kirov]

You're right and I actually create advanced version of crawlers whenever I pop pods. So I don't know, maybe nobody cared about upgrading field crawlers and it wasn't an issue for anybody. After all, it's not a particularly important thing, I could use it like once or twice in my life, it's just I don't like any options disappearing from the table for no good reason.


Which reminds me of another tip: before popping a pod, hit 'V'. Now hit 'B'. This opens the nearest base to your unit. Now remember your production and change it to either the most expensive facility or the most costly version of a crawler (I prefer the latter). Pop the pod and if it's instabuild, you have a very good crawler, on rare occasions even enough to actually cover the cost of an entire SP. If it's not instabuild, simply revert the production.

Use it more often at sea, as instabuilds are more likely there. And always do it in MP games. 

[Yitzi]

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.

[Kirov]

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. It's hilarious really. Other factions pronounce Vendetta, your Integrity drops to Wicked, and the actual victim is like nothing happened. It was only a few attempts, I'm not going to use this trick anyway so I'm not testing it further.

Of course, it is still useful and fun to use against an unaware human opponent. "Dude, you nuked me!", "What, you got nuked? Man, I'm so sorry", "You'd better be, that's your nuke!", "What do you mean, we still have our treaty, check it out. I'm sure it was the Hive. Yeah, it must have been the Hive".

[Kirov]

Unless it's banned, either explicitly or via a "no changing things intending to possibly or definitely revert them" rule.

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.

[Kirov]

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 (yeah yeah, that's what she said!)

- 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).

[Yitzi]

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.

Sounds like a bug.  Not a particularly big one, as it's easy to ban and not likely to happen naturally, but a bug nonetheless.

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.

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.

Upgrading field crawlers to slow the advances of your opponent actually seems more fishy to me.

Not to me (as upgrading units is meant to be used for new tech or last-minute changes), though I'd ban crawling with it in the same turn and maybe make it more expensive.

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

Does make sense, in that forest can only spread one square.

- 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).

Cute trick, and fully acceptable (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).

[Geo]

...(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.

[Kirov]

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 assure you this is absolutely not an issue in any single- or multiplayer game you're in. You just dump a couple of post-its, there is no need to write a book on the map.

[Kirov]

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. Sometimes players want to change the production and then they pop a pod and then have an honest change of heart about that production. You can't and shouldn't control things like that. 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.

[Yitzi]

This is far from the same. You can lawfully change production as many times as you want for no penalty.

The retool penalty doesn't count?

You'd have either to ban it altogether or leave it intact, because in MP games you simply cannot ban intentions.

I don't see why not...

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.

Although that requires having those units not going to pop other pods, and someone else might be on the other side of that pod and grab it first...

[Kirov]

- never, under any circumstances make a pact of brotherhood with anyone during an MP game. And especially with the AI.

Erratum: Pacting with another human player in an MP game does not result in the automatic map trade, unlike with the AI. The option 'World Map' must be separately negotiated for. I didn't know that before since I avoided any pacts in MP.

[Kirov]

Not really a trick, but it's not worth a separate thread and I wanted to share something I found out:

- 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.

[Geo]

- 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.

Neither do the alien basesites.
Its in canon, really. The Cult didn't crashland, but were founded later.
OTOH, the same should hold true for breakaway factions like the Free Drones or Data Angels. Those supposedly went on their own as well after Planetfall by their 'founder' factions.
Perhaps requesting this as an option for Yitzi's patch?

[Kirov]

Oh yes, you're right, I believed it applies to progs only. 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?)

[Geo]

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?)

A take-over instead of a splintering could explain that. But if that's the case, neither the Morgans, Hive and perhaps University should be on a map with respectively the Angels, Drones, or Cyborgs ingame.
The game is rigged for certain stuff when either the Usurper or Fungboy filename is used as a substitute for a new faction. Not sure if I saw all the 'unique' things to those filenames yet.