Anyone for a PBEM game?

zsozso · November 28, 1999, 23:07

ProvostB and me are planning to start a PBEM game and we would welcome more players to join.

Please, post here or email if interested.

zsozso

November 29, 1999, 18:16

sure. i'm up for it.

------------------
"edgecrusher" Spartan Probe Team 'angelis'

caselogic · November 30, 1999, 01:04

Im interested in a smacx pbem game. My icq number is 322963 -

CaseLogic

Cthol · November 30, 1999, 03:31

if its a smac game im in. well... is it?
email me at cthol@iobox.fi

zsozso · November 30, 1999, 12:06

Hi guys,

I am glad there is some interest!
One problem seems to be the question of SMAC vs. SMACX.

Me and ProvostB both have SMACX, but I do not mind playing plain SMAC either.

Caselogic and Cthol stated their preference. How about you, edgecrusher ?

We could even start 2 PBEM games, one with SMAC, the other with SMACX.

I'd like to play Gaians in SMAC and Cult of Planet in SMACX.

How about your preferences?

zsozso

zsozso · November 30, 1999, 14:27

I've got an idea:
Let's play SMACX the 5 of us (ProvostB, edgecrusher, caselogic, Cthol and zsozso) with all human players and let the AI play the two alien factions. They are more powerful, but the AI is dumb, so that would make a nice balance.

How about using the accelerated start to avoid a very boring start ? Otherwise at start you make a move with your scout and the turn is over so you have to wait a long time for all others to play their turn and email you back the game for another 5 second play...

zsozso

Cthol · November 30, 1999, 14:57

i agree with you zsozso.

i know that zsozso wants to be the cult and

i think that provostB wants to be the cyborgs

(just a guess) so that leaves the probes,

drones and the pirates. i would like to be

the probes.... but ill manage with the

drones. (dont want to play as the pirates)

so make your choises people!

------------------
Cthol
Datalinks

rockville · November 30, 1999, 16:57

How often are y'all thinking about updating? If it's not several times a day (or once every two weeks) then I'd be interested... shoot me an email...

ProvostB · November 30, 1999, 23:18

if the pirates are going to be the AI, can we at least kick them out?

zsozso · November 30, 1999, 23:39

I just got an email response from Gerfang, he is interested to join too. With rockville, there would be 7 of us, so we can play a full human player game if everyone is still in.

For faction choice, we do not need to limit ourselves to the new factions, you can pick from the original 7 too. My only request is that nobody should pick aliens. If we do not get all 7 players in, then we leave whatever remains for the AI with aliens.

If someone else wants to play the Planet Cult, then I do not mind to play Gaians either.

As for the speed of the game, I would expect 1 full turn per day, i.e. everybody would play his/her own turn every day. For this to work out well, we need to organize the player order according to time zone and play-time preference. Fortunately, SMACX allows to setup the faction order as we wish. Faster turn -around is not realy practical considering the fact, that there is 7 hours time zone difference between me and Cthol and it might be even worse when we see the whole picture...

Please, everybody respond either here or to me in email with his/her preferences:

1. Faction (may indicate several in preference order)
- my preference is Planet Cult or Gaians
2. Play time of the day with time zone info
- my time zone is EST (Toronto) GMT-5, preferred playing time 9pm-12pm local, but 10am-4pm is also possible.

ProvostB emailed me, that he hates the accelerated start, beacuse the stupid AI does a very bad job. Well, that's true, but otherwise the PBEM takes off very slowly.
Another idea I've seen is to mess around with the starting parameters in the txt files to start up with several (e.g. 6) colony pods and scout patrols instead of one.
Let's vote on this question!

My suggested setup parameters:

1. standard size random map, average everything
2. all victory types allowed
3. Do or die ON
4. Look first OFF
5. tech stagnation OFF
6. Spoils of war ON (steal tech when conquer base)
7. blind research OFF
8. intense rivalry ON
9. No Unity Survey OFF (i.e. you DO see the land mass silhouettes)
10. No Unity Scattering OFF (you get the lucky pods scattered)
11. Bell Curve ON (no random events)
12. Time Warp ON (accelerated start)
13. Iron Man ON (you have a save at every turn anyway, that should be more than enough)
14. Randomize factions (both options) OFF

These are just suggestions, speak out if you have objections against any of these options, then we will debate it and/or vote on it.
Once I got all responses, I'll post the suggested game setup. If everybody accepts then we can get going!

zsozso

Cthol · December 1, 1999, 01:45

i wanna play smacx! (bought it today)
(sorry...)

i would have bought it before but it wasnt on sale.
smacx came to the stores 30th of november.

and one other thing... i haven't played a pbem game before. so i hope it wont be a problem. if there is anything totally new in it please tell me.

i know that Zsozso and ProvostB are damn good at playing Smac/smacx so i hope that you others arent very good at it. (i dont mean that im not good but... i could be better.)

[This message has been edited by Cthol (edited November 30, 1999).]

Cthol · December 1, 1999, 03:17

1. i wanna be Cyborgs (Aki Zeta 5)
next choise probes but i really want to be the cyborgs.

2. i live in GMT+2 i can/rather play 4pm-9pm

what if there comes a day when lets say someone has to go somewhere where there are no computers? and he cant play his turn.

im not saying that i'd have that problem but its possible.

------------------
Cthol
Datalinks

December 1, 1999, 15:55

Arrr, me maties. me wants the pirates. failing that the drones would be interesting.

the Ghost Pirate edgecrusher.

Gerfang · December 1, 1999, 19:48

Hello. I live in EST and I'd prefer to play between 6:00 and 9:00 PM. I do believe that it is unrealistic to assume 1 turn per day. It's a good goal, but we should assume that there will be one or two days a week when people can't mail off a turn. I'm pretty reliable, but might sometimes be away on a Saturday.

As for faction, I'm thinking the Fundies or possibly the UN. I will be purchasing SMACX tomorrow. I can start playing anytime after that.

Gerfang · December 1, 1999, 19:50

Hello. I live in EST and I'd prefer to play between 6:00 and 9:00 PM. I do believe that it is unrealistic to assume 1 turn per day. It's a good goal, but we should assume that there will be one or two days a week when people can't mail off a turn. I'm pretty reliable, but might sometimes be away on a Saturday.

As for faction, I'm thinking the Fundies or possibly the UN. I will be purchasing SMACX tomorrow. I can start playing anytime after that. Also, I'm kinda against accelerated start up because the game can be very random in quality of positon. I'd hate to have a restart because someone got a unfair disadvantage.

ProvostB · December 1, 1999, 20:12

what about difficultly level?

rockville · December 2, 1999, 01:11

I guess my faction preferences would be:

1. Gaians
2. Drones
3. Pirates
4. Morganites

I am in the Eastern Time Zone as well. I could play 7-9 am or 7-11 pm

I kind of like the 6 colony pod idea. I've just started to trust the computer to execute GoTos correctly, never mind create my starting position...

One turn per day sounds very doable, but we might have to make some leeway for the holidays...

Cthol · December 2, 1999, 03:36

how about Libarian (difficulty level)
or something near that. i usually play on libarian. i dont like the accelerated start either but... the start will be dull...
the six colony pods is tempting.

what about caselogic is he with us? he hasnt said a word.
[This message has been edited by Cthol (edited December 02, 1999).]

zsozso · December 2, 1999, 11:57

Here is what I gathered so far for play-time/faction preferences (times converted to EST and displayed in 24hr mode):

Player	time	faction
Cthol	09-14	cyborgs,probes
Gerfang	18-21	believers,UN
RockVille	07-09/19-23	gaians,drones,pirates,morganites
Zsozso	10-16/21-24	cult,gaians
ProvostB	21-23	cyborgs
EdgeCrusher	???	pirates,drones
CaseLogic	???	???

Guys, who have ??? on their line, please indicate your missing preferences!

About the startup: looks like everybody hates the way AI does the accelerated start (including myself), so let's forget about that. I tried to tweak some faction txt files to start with 6 colony pods, but I could not succeed so far. Looks like the game only accepts 1 UNIT parameter and ignores any further ones. This way I can only get 1 extra colony pod, so we could start with 1 city + 2 colony pods and 1 scout. That's not too much...

I'll keep trying and also contacted the guy who posted about the 6 colony start to tell me how to do it.

zsozso

[This message has been edited by zsozso (edited December 02, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by zsozso (edited December 03, 1999).]

ProvostB · December 2, 1999, 22:31

cyborgs, 6-8 PST

ProvostB · December 3, 1999, 00:26

PM, that is.

zsozso · December 3, 1999, 12:43

It looks like caselogic has lost interest, because he never replied to my emails and he has only 1 post on the whole Apolyton forum, so he might have been just a one-time visitor... So I suggest we go ahead and start up the game without him, using the AI to play the Usurpers (or should it be the Caretakers?).

I still couldn't tweak the game to start with 6 colony pods, but I can push up the starting energy amount to help some rush building, so we can get some units going quickly...
How about 200 energy for everybody at start?
Or should I make it 500 ?
I can add 1 extra colony pod, but that does not work for the Cult and Probes because they already have an extra unit at start (worm/probe team).

Cthol, are you willing to play the probes ?
If yes, I wouldn't want to handicap you with another disadvantage with the missing extra colony pod. Another possibility is to play with 2 cyborg factions - it is possible to create an extra faction that looks like e.g. the probes but have the same settings as the cyborgs (SE, advantages and disadvantages).
If you do not play the probes, then I won't play the Cult, but Spartans instead and that way everybody can start with an extra colony pod.

I would setup the following turn order:

1. RockVille (gaians)
2. Cthol (cyborgs/probes)
3. Zsozso (cult/spartans)
4. EdgeCrusher (pirates)
5. Gerfang (believers)
6. ProvostB (cyborgs)
7. AI (usurpers)

This way RockVille may be able to play his turn late night if he gets it early enough from ProvostB, otherwise, he can play in the morning.

If I get the answer from Cthol and no objections from anybody, then I create the map and send it out to RockVille to start tonight.

zsozso

[This message has been edited by zsozso (edited December 03, 1999).]

rockville · December 3, 1999, 14:47

Sounds great. I'm looking forward to it...

I think 200 energy is fine. 500 might be a lot in the hands of a player with conquest on his/her mind (not that that's me, of course...I have completely peaceful intentions)

It's too bad we can't find a 7th... oh well, the Aliens as AI are a pretty ok substitute...

And I'm ok with there being two Cyborg factions. Who can refuse the relentless pursuit of knowledge?
[This message has been edited by rockville (edited December 03, 1999).]

Tau Ceti · December 3, 1999, 18:23

[This message has been edited by Tau Ceti (edited December 03, 1999).]

zsozso · December 3, 1999, 18:30

I've created a "new" faction for Cthol. Well, there is nothing new in it, from the outside it looks exactly like the probes and inside exactly like the cyborgs. I.e. I copied all graphics files from the probes to a new name borgs* and copied the cyborg.txt to borgs.txt and modified the name in it.

This way we can play with 2 factions that work like cyborgs, but one of them will look like data angles - so we will not have problems to see who is attacking us

The only inconvenience is that YOU ALL HAVE TO HAVE the files for this new faction and the modified alphax.txt which contains this faction. You can download these files from here:
http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home.com/SMAC/borgs.zip http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home...MAC/alphax.txt

NOTE: before you place this alphax.txt file into your game folder, you may want to backup your original file (e.g. rename it), just in case something goes wrong, you can put that back!

If the borgs.zip is too large for a single download, try these instead (the zip contains these files): http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home.../BORGSvals.tmp http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home.com/SMAC/borgs.flc http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home.com/SMAC/borgs.pcx http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home.com/SMAC/borgs.txt http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home.com/SMAC/borgs.tmp http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home...MAC/borgs2.pcx http://CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home...MAC/borgs3.pcx

So, let's start the game and have fun!!!
I am sending the starting .SAV to Rockville as soon as I finished writing this post.
When you dones your turn, please email the game to the next player according to the order below and please also CC the following email address:
root@CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home.com

I'll setup a program to place the saves on a web page automaticaly, so we'll have a full history-log and also a place where you can download the save again if you lose it by accident (you won't have to ask from the previous player, who might not be reading his email for a while).

1. RockVille rockville@zdnetmail.com (gaians)
2. Cthol cthol@iobox.fi (borgs)
3. Zsozso zsolt@simbiosys.ca (cult)
4. EdgeCrusher edgecrusher2k@hotmail.com (pirates)
5. Gerfang amatrang@mediaone.net (believers)
6. ProvostB Fino999@aol.com (cyborgs)

zsozso

ps: If somebody knows he/she can't play for a day or more, please notify us all in email!
That way we do not have to wonder if somebody just dumped the game or simply busy/away for a while.

ProvostB · December 3, 1999, 22:34

what's the email for the usurpers?

December 3, 1999, 22:47

wait. i don't want to goof with my alpha.txt... it's too much of a hassle for when i play my other PBEMS.... sorry, unless you can fix that, or give me something easy to do with it, i'm out.

zsozso · December 4, 1999, 05:09

ProvostB: the usurpers are played by the AI, you do not need to send the save to them

You'll need to send it back to Rockville.

Edgecrusher: the alphax.txt contains only one extra line compared to the original, and that line adds a "custom faction". This will not affect any of the existing factions and therefore any of your other games PBEM or single player. You need to add the BORGS faction after the "#CUSTOMFACTIONS" line. You can do it yourself in your alphax.txt if you do not want to overwrite yours with mine.

;
; These are factions you want included in the startup list.
; These may also be chosen when a random faction is selected.
; First item is file name, second item is search key.
; These should always be the same except for debugging purposes.
;
#CUSTOMFACTIONS
BORGS, BORGS

zsozso

[This message has been edited by zsozso (edited December 04, 1999).]

Cthol · December 4, 1999, 10:29

send the save Rockville!
and by the way if the save is bigger than 350 KBs you have to send it to my other email adress =
cthol@jippii.fi

OK?

and i dont understand this thing (Quoted from zsozso) =

When you dones your turn, please email the game to the next player according to the order below and please also CC the following email address:
root@CR190515-A.hnsn1.on.wave.home.com

I'll setup a program to place the saves on a web page automaticaly, so we'll have a full history-log and also a place where you can download the save again if you lose it by accident (you won't have to ask from the previous player, who might not be reading his email for a while).

(quote end)

please explain. that

the borgs are ready to rock!!!
and nice going ProvostB!!!!

[This message has been edited by Cthol (edited December 04, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Cthol (edited December 04, 1999).]

rockville · December 4, 1999, 10:46

Well, in what can only be described as "typical", my email provider decided to make this the day to take down the server for "maintenance". I'll email Zsozso with an alternate email address.

Sorry everyone...