Excessive MM?

[Tai Mai Shu]

Do you ever just feel like quitting mid game because the game just got really tedious and a turn takes an hour to finish? I've been getting that a lot lately and when midgame comes it's extremely hard to keep interest in the game. How do the rest of you deal with it?

[Clear Skies]

Yes. I hate excessive micromanagement. By the midgame I usually assign Build governors to almost all my bases. I like using group automatic movement, and I only wish the automatic former AI was better - I'd use it like a shot...

I do often feel like quitting. Sometimes I just use the 'Turn Complete' button if I have no Vendettas (should that be Vendettae?) and nothing but Formers to shift about. I tend to get bored during long movements of enemy forces (did you know holding down Shift makes them all move a lot lot faster? It also makes battles go a lot faster too - especially useful for massive mind worm movements) and often start doing useless things like trying to spell my initials in forest or something dumb like that.

[Kassiopeia]

I'm pretty short tempered myself. If I'm convinced that this is not gonna be worth it's while, I quit. I usually save so that if I change my mind I can play again. Sometimes when there's a war that i will win, after a long hard pushing, I usually just freak off and PB the **** out of everyone and consecutively get worm raped
but if one wants best scores, one must keep on playing and Ascend to Transcendence.

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by SMAC Fanatic
Yes. I hate excessive micromanagement. By the midgame I usually assign Build governors to almost all my bases. I like using group automatic movement, and I only wish the automatic former AI was better - I'd use it like a shot...

I do often feel like quitting. Sometimes I just use the 'Turn Complete' button if I have no Vendettas (should that be Vendettae?) and nothing but Formers to shift about. I tend to get bored during long movements of enemy forces (did you know holding down Shift makes them all move a lot lot faster? It also makes battles go a lot faster too - especially useful for massive mind worm movements) and often start doing useless things like trying to spell my initials in forest or something dumb like that.

You can set "Fast battle resolution" from Preferences and take that stone off the Shift key
"Vendetta" is as far i know an Italian word, so I don't think it's plural is similar to Latin.
PS. Is the plural of "polis" "polii"? Anyone with more extensive info on Latin then I have?

[Clear Skies]

Well, it certainly isn't polises...that would just be stupid...

I reckon it could be either poli or polii. Either way it still sounds like the mint with the hole.

Did you know that there was once a two-hour debate in the British House of Commons about whether the plural of Referendum was Referendums or Referenda? Wondrous thing, British politics, eh?

[death_head]

You know, you can have all units move quickly and skip the animation...makes the game go a lot quicker, believe me.

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by SMAC Fanatic
Well, it certainly isn't polises...that would just be stupid...

I reckon it could be either poli or polii. Either way it still sounds like the mint with the hole.

Did you know that there was once a two-hour debate in the British House of Commons about whether the plural of Referendum was Referendums or Referenda? Wondrous thing, British politics, eh?

I do now
Do you know is it somehow "mandatory" to use proper plurals with directly Latin based words? "Polises" wouldn't bee too wrong, right?
And I think it's "referanda" or "referandae", BTW. I think I'll study Latin at high school, just to be posh

[Blake]

To be thruthfull, I dont cope with MM. Once I get to the point of a game where I decide I cannot lose, I quit. (or win by diplomactic victory, but I dont like that victory much)

The only games I ever seem to complete are OCC's, altough I do recall a couple of incidents when I continued a normal game, in order to achieve a planetbuster victory.

[Avenoct]

Ah, the human attention span is a mysterious thing, isn't it? I'm like the rest of you. I rarely complete SP games. I did at first, when it was all so mysterious. Maybe that's the real reason I started on Aldebaran, to give people that sense all over again. I like to switch factions and map sizes a lot, but I can't take Ironman settings, though I've tried. I just like to cheat too much. Since using some of Ned's ideas aka ShiNing1's ideas for SNAC, the games have gotten tougher and a bit more interesting overall. Eventually though, SP games I guess just lose their attractiveness when the human has explored most of the avenues of possibility.

I wonder how that compares to games like 'Solitaire' or 'Chess', both of which apparently some people play endlessly? Is it the inability to master chance in Solitaire and the inability to master strategy in Chess? If so, could those things be better incorporated into strategy games in the SMAC-Civ series? It would, for instance, be interesting if the game had an online database of supported factions that, mid-game, could be secretely downloaded and pop-up magically on the map, or other random events...ala the solitaire avenue. But as to the chess avenue, I think the AI's a ways off in the future yet, as numerous threads have already discussed at length.

-Smack

[mrdynamic]

Yeah, Ive quit before when I was sure I was gonna win, seemed like to much work to play it out when 1 turn was 45 min. I did play thru to transendance tho once. I was dissappointed, that I could not use the new terch like gravships. By the time I got those suckers built the game was over as I was getting new tech every 3rd turn and the final project took 19 turns

[Ned]

I believe the designers recognized the MM problems and gave a host of automatic features in SMAC that simply were not present in prior CIV games. So, unless you are trying to play the perfect game, you just might try them.

Automating your airforce and navy is a simple expedient. The navy patrols very well and gradually drifts toward the enemy. There you can take command if necessary. The airforce does pretty much the same thing. The bottom line - no tedium at all in getting your air an naval forces across the map.

Automating sea forming is a must.

Turning captured bases over to a submissive or turning the base on to full automatic permanently solve your problem with the base. You can rush build from F4 screen.

Group moves are another way to take the tedium out.

In the end, you can continue to closely manage your original core bases and combat at the theater of operations. Everything else can be turned over the to the AI.

Ned

[JustinSane]

I'm quite an avid chess player, having played over 10,000 games on the Internet Chess Club, so I think I might be able to make a fairly accurate analysis of how SMAC and chess differ. Though there are clearly major differences between the games, I think that there are basically four factors that make chess, long term, a more compelling game.
The first is the sustained tension: from the first move to the last, it is usually possible to make a mistake severe enough to result in the eventual loss of the game. Chess games average between 30-60 moves. That's a lot of opportunities to go wrong. In SMAC, usually one faction (the human one) can obtain such an overwhelming superiority that no one mistake could result in loss. The omni-present possibility of loss in chess keeps the players concentrating throughout and helps prevent the tedium of a mop-up job where the eventual result is inevitable.
Paradoxically, the second factor in chess is the comparative speed and ease with which an overwhelming advantage can be converted to victory. All one needs to do is checkmate the opposing king, not wade through endless enemy bases while dealing with the micro-management inherent in a huge SMAC empire. An experienced chess player who has won a knight from the opponent can basically cruise to victory with a minimum of hassle, simply using the preponderance of force the extra piece provides.
Third, chess is a game of absolute information. This takes on a few different forms. The first is that you can always see what your opponent is doing, and he can see your moves as well. This removes the element of randomness. Also involved in this is the ease with which chess games can be recorded, so that they can be replayed or analyzed later. I would also consider the absolute equality of forces at the beginning of the game an advantage, since there are no balance problems whatsoever. (No "White builds the Praetorian Guard! All rooks can now move diagonally! ", etc.)
Fourth, chess games are faster than SMAC games. At the tournament level, chess games can last up to six hours. At the highest levels of play in SMAC, from what I understand, players can spend an evening on just a few turns. I doubt anyone will ever complete 10,000 games of SMAC against human opponents.
All of that said, SMAC is still an awesome game

[Avenoct]

Justinsane, while I work on your landmark on Aldebaran: How could one bring some of those elements to strategy games like SMAC? Specifically I mean bring the :

The first is the sustained tension: from the first move to the last, it is usually possible to make a mistake severe enough to result in the eventual loss of the game.

Without taking away the colorful complexities of units, etc.?

I don't think the CIV-type games of the future could develop under the second factor you mention, or could they?:

All one needs to do is checkmate the opposing king, not wade through endless enemy bases while dealing with the micro-management inherent in a huge SMAC empire.

Because, on the surface, this seems like a trade off: Color and story and whathaveyou and ICS and yes, micromanagement! for SPEED and simplicity. Not that chess is simple, it's just simple to encompass. But this second factor seems even more interesting b/c what happens to the developing SMAC player vs. developing chess player.

In Smac, it's possible to create a scenario similar to chess, where all you need do is move your units into the enemy HQ and it's game over. Further, one could set up the units to be similar to chess units. There are of course many things that would remain different, ie combat!, but, the point is that in Smac, while a player usually starts small, as they learn the strategies of the game they either have to make the AI cheat (transcend) or play larger and larger maps to sugar-coat the fact that the AI isn't going to improve, with ICS, micromanagement, and other things. If Smac games were shorter, and the AI better, I think the similarities (to chess) would increase, and while I wouldn't want the games shorter, against a truly intelligent opponnent, that would be the only way to develop as a player. Er, went off on a tangent again...darn!

Happy Crawlering,

Smack

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by kassiopeia


I do now
Do you know is it somehow "mandatory" to use proper plurals with directly Latin based words? "Polises" wouldn't bee too wrong, right?
And I think it's "referanda" or "referandae", BTW. I think I'll study Latin at high school, just to be posh

Not to stray too far from topic... If the plural of goose is geese, what's the plural form of mongoose?

- Scipio

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Scipio Centaurus


Not to stray too far from topic... If the plural of goose is geese, what's the plural form of mongoose?

- Scipio

*Checks dictionary* Mongooses, wise guy...

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by kassiopeia


*Checks dictionary* Mongooses, wise guy...

Strange? I would have assumed polygoose...

- Scipio

[death_head]

MONGII

I'll write my own dictionary.

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Ned

Automating sea forming is a must.

Ned

Right. If there are non-fungus NUT/MIN/ENERGY bonus squares within the seabase's production zone I'll start off by manually building an appropriate enhancement at each such square, then after those are completed I'll release the sea former to improve the home seabase.

It's generally the same for land bases, but there are many more special cases that should be handled manually, like rivers, boreholes, echelon mirrors, condensors, etc... I'll start land forming by putting in a single forest/sensor square, enhancing bonus NUT/MIN/ENERGY squares, building roads to adjacent bases and then foresting every river square within a base's production radius - in that general order. Then if there are oddball combos like a NUT bonus or river in a rough terrain square and I have plenty of rough terrain squares elsewhere I'll even take the time to level the ground around the NUT bonus (increasing nutrient production by +1) or river (so I can put in a forest).

My general rules of thumb for land and sea formers are as follows;

1> Manually make specialized improvements untill there are none left to make

2> Set the former to improve its home base.

3> Move the former to another base (and reset the support for the former - CNTRL+H) then have it start at #1 for its new home base.

4> Once all bases have been fully improved begin releasing formers to full auto. I don't often get this far.

For land formers I will sometimes deviate from the above by setting a few formers on special faction-wide projects like mag tubes.

- Scipio

[Wiglaf]

Do you ever just feel like quitting mid game because the game just got really tedious and a turn takes an hour to finish? I've been getting that a lot lately and when midgame comes it's extremely hard to keep interest in the game. How do the rest of you deal with it?

I don't know what the reason is, but many people dislike automated formers. They seem to do a good job to me, and save at least an hour or two of wasted time. On top of that, directing each one of those big bulky boxes to build roads, tubes, farms, etc can very quickly make anyone go insane anyway.

City governors are good for unimportant cities you really don't need to spend time on, namely size two outposts far from the fighting.

My longest turn is about 15 minutes, with the above and some other little shortcuts.

[mrdynamic]

I prefer to MM but on large maps it just is not feasible once your empire gets so large. Something you just gotta get used to if you want to manage a large empire. Im sure Bill Gates MM in the beginning, and I know he does not MM now.

If tried the automation features described by the others above , it works quite well once you get used to it and your turns fly by..