G7: 4-way challenge

Thought I'd start a thread here for us to keep tabs on our game. We can post turn completions and trash talking here, in a convenient forum, so that people like me, who need their SMAC fix during the day when away from their home PC can still keep tabs on things (just don't tell my manager).

Here's my proposal for our four way game. If you have any issues with any of these, speak up and we can discuss. Pat, be sure that you're happy with our choice for your faction. I personally have never played the University, but Justin says that they really kick ass. Just don't ask Ric about how they do when crowded in at the beginning (Game 2...).

Factions:

Gaia's Stepdaughters - ricman01
University of Planet - pieman7
Morgan Industries - holmey
Spartan Federation - warpage

[emails pulled in case you don't want them available in a public forum]

The settings are a kind of series of compromises. Planet settings are
geared so that the planet isn't so small that we'll all just kill each other without building some infrastructure, but it isn't so huge that we won't see each other before the game hits 2001. The other settings are middle of the road so that nobody gets any extra advantage.
** If it were totally up to me, I'd want to turn the erosive forces to weak (more mountainous terrain), but some may claim that it would give the more war-like (and mineral dependent) factions such as the Spartans an advantage. I would claim that more mountains means more varied terrain, which is more fun to explore. If no one backs me up on this one, then I'll leave it as average.
** Talent difficulty level is the first level where you have to pay for prototypes, and it's also the only level where the AI has no advantages or disadvantages (other than crappy AI programming) against the human factions.
** There may be more debate about how the rules are set up, but I think it is a fair list. Blind Tech kinda sucks, but it's probably the best way to keep those of us more familiar with the game from totally dominating over the newer player(s). If everyone wanted to change that, I'd certainly be willing to do it.

Settings:

Run SMAC with enhancement 4.0 on.

Custom Random Planet[*] Large size[*] 50-70% ocean coverage[*] Average erosive forces[*] Average native life[*] Average cloud cover[*] Talent difficulty level[/list]
Rules[*] All victories enabled[*] Do or Die (Don't restart defeated factions) ON[*] Look First (Start off as a colony pod not a base) ON[*] Tech Stagnation OFF[*] Spoils of War (Steal a technology if you take a base) OFF[*] Blind Research ON[*] Intense Rivalry OFF[*] No Unity Survey (Cannot see entire map at start) ON[*] No Unity Scattering (Supply pods not scattered) OFF[*] Bell Curve (No random events) ON[*] Time Warp (Accelerated start) OFF[*] Iron Man OFF[*] Randomize Personalities & Social Agendas OFF[/list]

Finally, I'll get the game started once I get all the custom faction text from everyone. When you start up a game, you get the option to pick and chose the descriptive words for seven categories. Here are the defaults for Deirdre:

Name: Deirdre
Formal: Gaia's Stepdaughters
Noun: Gaians
Adjective: Gaian
Title: Lady
Description: beautiful
Gender: Female

Instead, one could change things to be:

Name: Bubba
Formal: Inbred Rednecks
Noun: Rednecks
Adjective: Redneck
Title: My Own Uncle
Description: dumb as a carburetor
Gender: Male

It helps spruce things up if you come up with your own stuff here. If you have absolutely no imagination whatsoever, let me know, and I'll just leave you with your defaults.

I'll set up the game once I've heard back from everyone about their faction selection, descriptions, and we come to a consensus on the rules.

Keep your eyes peeled here for upcoming announcements.

-Warp
[This message has been edited by warpage (edited January 06, 2000). Formatting changes]
[This message has been edited by warpage (edited January 06, 2000). More formatting changes]
[This message has been edited by warpage (edited January 12, 2000). Changed names to Apolyton user id names]
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[This message has been edited by warpage (edited January 22, 2000).]

Ric sent me a private email:
>I'm fine with weak erosive forces. No spoils of war?

My response went:
My take on Spoils of War is that 1) it promotes the player who attacks first rather than building up your faction (i.e., the Tech race only goes til about level 4 or 5 before one person has conquered the world) and wouldn't we rather build a bit anyway?, and 2) it gives an extra advantage to someone who just got an advantage by taking a city.

I can be talked out of it, of course...

Well, the game is still on hold for another day or two. Pat just got ahold of me, he was out of town for the last ten days. Also, Justin is eagerly awaiting his new network card, which will allow him to connect into our cable modem, and also give him his own email address (which I'll email to the group, once we figure out what it is).

The thought has crossed my mind to try and play the first 20-30 turns via an IP game, rather than in hotseat. I figured out how to change back and forth between the two, and that may save us from some of the boredom which plagues those first N turns of a PBEM (reference G3). We'd need to find an agreed upon evening, of course... I'm busy on Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday evenings with volleyball, but am amazingly unfettered on other nights, for the most part. If others let me know your schedules, we should be able to work something out.

Still waiting for faction text adjustments from Pat and Justin, and then I'll get things set up.

-Warp

[Mog'Dug]

are there any openings in this game? I'd play the Hive.

my email is Zod_Martini@hotmail.com

Mog'Dug -

Sorry, but I'm just trying to organize a game amongst coworkers and friends. Some of us are relative newbies (we're waiting on one player to install the game!) and I've only played a few hotseat/IP games, myself (the G7 refers to Game 7 for me).

If we decide to open 'er up to even more players (we'll have to see what kind of turn around we get with four players, first, I wouldn't want to play one turn a week or anything) then I'll post another thread here for that game.

Happy SMACing

-Warp

[Mog'Dug]

cool, I can understand that. I'm in a game of CTP (Master2000) that's really fallen apart.

1 turn in 11 days, and people keep dropping out.

good luck.

[ricman01]

Don't want 1 turn a week, Meal?? What about G3?? I'm all for the first xx turns to be 'real-time' internet style. I'm getting antsy, let's rock!!

Get Pieman in gear and we're off and running. JJ is on the cable modem as of tonight (assuming he purchases the appropriate cabling - his PeeCee is down in the basement (burr!) next to Toe-star's. The hub is up in my BR. Once that's a go, then we're officially ready to SMAC.

I got an email from Pat and he mentioned that he's still not up and running. He may need your gentle nudging...

G2 will be coming your way tonight, and assuming JJ gets going tonight, I would imagine that G3 will be back on track.

What nights work for you for the IP beginning for G7? Tuesday, Friday and Sundays are out for me.

--Warp aka Meal aka lots of things I don't want to think about.

JJ is up and running. Just waiting for Pat now, and we're off!

[holmey]

jj signing in and ready for action.

holmey -

Still looking to get your custom faction descriptive info. Need:[*]Name:[*]Formal:[*]Noun:[*]Adjective:[*]Title:[*]Description:[*]Gender:

Ric, you gotta get on Pat's case, now. Let's do it!

It's a go!

And we're off. G7ric2101.sav has been sent to ricman01.

The only modification I made to the set-up (above) was going with weak erosive forces. It shouldn't favor any one faction over any other.

I'm still waiting to hear back from you all regarding a night to set up an IP game to take us through turn 25. Post your bad nights, or your preferences here (or post and say that you don't want to "acclerate" those first few turns and you'd rather just play them out email-wise) and we'll get some sort of consensus.

Feel free to get on anyone's case who has the turn for over 48 hours (unless they let everyone know that they will be out of town or busy with people in town or other good reasons up front). And remember, this is all in fun - if you ain't having fun, it's cuz the Mealonians are tromping all over your territory. Heh heh heh...

[ricman01]

First off, I'm not gonna post here every time I send a turn off to Pat. That being said, Pat your turn is waiting for you

Also, I'm jetting off to Colorado this weekend so I won't be doing any turns or internet play until Tuesday at the earliest.

Three things:

1. Pat, consider your case "gotten on."

2. I hate the fact that I've had to respond to myself so many times in one thread.

3. ricman01, why would it be that you wouldn't want to post here and let the other three of us involved with the game know where the turn resides? Is it that much of a pain in the posterior to post a one line message to everyone?

-Warp

[pieman7]

First turn complete.
Sorry about the wait guys.
2 weeks was a long time to wait.
Call me a slacker.
I'll be monitoring my home e-mail more closely now.

Pieman07 -

No problem, dude. As things would work out, we may not be able to take as many turns as we'd like. The other three of us all got laid off last Tuesday and are fast and furiously looking for work. Of course, at this point it's polish-up-the-resume-time and hit the net looking for work. Playing a turn of SMAC every now and then can help break up the monotony.

The order of the turns is as noted (but not explicitly mentioned) at the very top of this thread: ricman01, pieman7, holmey, warpage. Good luck,

-Warp

Hey, I just noticed a neat feature when I mis-typed in an underscore "_" to flatten out some terrain. I mistakenly hit the plus "+" key which allows a person to adjust their custom faction text. So Pieman7 and the rest of you can go ahead and customize to your heart's desire.

Oh, and holmey, now consider your case "gotten on." Honestly these first turns take all of five minutes, is it that hard to find the time?

-Warp

Received 2101 from holmey and sent out 2102 to ricman01.

-Warp

pieman -

In case you're wondering why the game seems to be on hold, both ricman and holmey are in CO right now, interviewing (those bastards). Ric gets back on Sunday (before the Sub-par Bowl) and Holmey is here late Tuesday night. Unfortunately, I'm out of town Feb2 - Feb6 (in Houghton for Winter Carnival!), so things will remain slow for a bit longer.

Hope this helps.

-Warp

[holmey]

ok guys, i'm gonna plead temporary insanity on this one. this job hunt thing has been pretty crazy.

anyway, after a long pause, i'm back in the game -- i picked up myself a real monitor (i can see more than 1 square at a time now -- now i see how you guys can crank those turns out so fast! )

i've done my turn and the game is now in the hands of the meal

G7sac2103.sav is now out of the hands of the Spartan Federation and off to Gaia and the Ric.

[ricman01]

G7 on its merry way to Slacker (aka pieman I hope)

[pieman7]

G7tyc2103.sav sent to Holmey

[holmey]

G7 yr 2103 sent to the meal

Freaking worms all ready.

G7sac2104 off to Ric.
[This message has been edited by warpage (edited February 16, 2000).]

[holmey]

g7meal2404 sent to meal.

G7sac2105 off to Ric.

[holmey]

sent g7mele2105 to the mele.

had some problems w/ smac crashing and wacking out (not necessarily in that order). i had to get back into the turn to finish it. smac is now calling me a cheater.

Unemployed Friday Night Lamers send G7sac2106 save file off to Ric.

Pod popping has been unproductive...

-Warp

[pieman7]

Ahhhhhhh, does G7 exist anymore?