Poll: How do you keep games interesting vs the AI?

[T-hawk]

Most of us can wipe the floor with the AIs even on Transcend difficulty. So what do you do to keep the games interesting?

[Flubber]

I guess that I am a combination of a couple. I play SP a lot less now and my last few games were an OCC and a nomad challenge. Prior to that I had tried I had tried a variety of self-handicaps such as double blind where I am not permitted to use probe teams or a no-chopper game.

Now that I play MP I will confess that the thrill of SP is much less. When I do play it again I might have a go at some of the super-AIs that are making the rounds now.

[TresXF]

i like to play challenging scenarios with tweaked up ai behaviour patterns (that's why i make them )

[Blake]

I have played a crawlerless OCC as Morgan (no pop-booming) against enhanced AI's. You need an "all of the above" option

[yavoon]

I like to just cut out the obviously abusive units u can get. which starts off with the chopper and crawler as the two biggest things in the game. Its also important to realize that any computer not on ur continent is about 1/10th as threataning as one on ur continent. In that fun, I generally make pangea(single continent) games now. not like sea combat is all that great, I still go and pop pods with sea units and build coastal bases and the like.

every once in a while miriam will find the jungle, kill like 3 factions by year 70 and run me over with some ungodly amount of 4-3-1 units. though if I had made the map larger w/ more water, miriam wouldn't have been on my continent, and I woulda won easily. on the settings I play, I still have a hard time winning as morgan, since early wars(first 40 years) are so hard to play around. I don't know how anyone thinks morgan is good, course that might be prejudice.

[knowhow2]

The never ending new discovery of before unseen tactics or strategy. And may I add, 14 factions!!!! Takes awhile to win with everyone of them. My fastest AtT still isn't nearly as good as it could be (2212).

Still haven't won any victories with Angels, Pirates, Cyborgs and the2 Aliens.

The pure joy of eliminating the last of Miriams bases (or yang).

[T-hawk]

I generally make pangea(single continent) games now.

In alpha.txt, there's an entry for Islands in the map generator section. I'd guess that setting that to 1 generates only one continent in the game... is that what you mean?

every once in a while miriam will find the jungle, kill like 3 factions by year 70, and run me over with some ungodly amount of 4-3-1 units.

Miriam's only overran me once and she didn't have the jungle then, although Yang does all that on a fairly regular basis.

I still have a hard time winning as morgan, since early wars(first 40 years) are so hard to play around. I don't know how anyone thinks morgan is good, course that might be prejudice.

Morgan's strength is in one very particular SE arrangement: Democracy/Green/Wealth. He gets the magical +2 energy/square without Free Market at +4 Efficiency, and so can just POUR money into war. Getting started is a tad slow with the Support hit, although a brief excursion into Police State early helps get things going.

[Sarxis]

I haven't played SP in a while (pbems), but a lot of times I would just help the AIs out by giving them free stuff and/or sometimes terraforming for them.

[Zakharov VII]

Consistantly now, I use Smack's "supercharged" AI, I don't allow myself to build crawlers, and I only terraform forests and sea improvements (not that big a disadvantage, but early growth is tough)...

Occasionally I try OCC or double blind variations, but the I just keep adding restrictions on my "supercharged" games once they get old and easy to win.

I'm considering trying something weird like Miriam as a builder (no conquering other bases - includes mind control) or Morgan as an agressive faction. But I prefer builder, so I think Miriam as a builder would be my next effort

Z

[yavoon]

easy way that not many people talk about. prolly cuz smac is full of builders who luv big pretty empires. simply make the games shorter. the more tech you have, invariably the more you're gna pound the ai over its head. even if its not with cardinal techs like crawlers and choppers. Ne new tech u almost always use better than the ai can. also I do recommend not sticking ai's on other islands, cuz an ai on another island is all but useless as an opponent

another huge advantage you have that I don't hear talked about a lot, is the diplomatic round robin tech trading u can do. even with factions like the hive, u can have the tech lead early simply cuz u can trade like a bat out of hell. I guess if ur the university, its less of a deal. but as the slow tech races like yang/miriam that tech trading early is huge in leap frogging u close enuff to the important techs.

[Cybergod]

Originally posted by yavoon
another huge advantage you have that I don't hear talked about a lot, is the diplomatic round robin tech trading u can do. even with factions like the hive, u can have the tech lead early simply cuz u can trade like a bat out of hell. I guess if ur the university, its less of a deal. but as the slow tech races like yang/miriam that tech trading early is huge in leap frogging u close enuff to the important techs.

I once played a game with a Lal that landed right in the middle of the #Dunes in an overall arid world . I eventually met everyone and traded tech and my "First Tech Discovery Monument" came in something like 2130s with Eco. Engineering!!!

When I started playing Smac, I used to be an all-out momentum, rushing rovers and gas as I went. Then I switched to hybrid and enjoyed my newlyaquired techs that I used to only dream of (I wasn't even getting to Eco. Engineering!). Now I am thinking of playing real Builder style, peacefully researching to Transcendance (they should make an angel smiley with a halo here )...

To keep the game interesting, I refuse pacts and stop vendettas between myself and others and watch the global diplo. scene unfold, waiting to a point I'd find a challenge and then carefully edge in on the conflict - I found it pretty interesting when, 4 factions left (including myself), Spartans, Hive and Believers were having a three-way war, and when I joined in, they all signed PActs and united against me! I was playing Zak, I think.

[Morganstern]

T-Hawk, I am certainly not among those who can "wipe the floor with the AI at the Transcendence leverl." The game at the adjacent level, I believe it's Thinker, is plenty for me, although normally I do ultimately prevail with a comfortable margin at that level, but not without a good fight from some faction in mid-game. I am still mystified by the need to radically alter this game.

[Googlie]

There's a lot you can do when setting up a game through the scenario editor that doesn't involve changes to faction.txt or alpha.txt. I've built a few with master/submissive arrangements in place (create two power blocs, each with a builder, a researcher and a warmongerer, have them hate each other, leave spoils on, and then you have a wonderful diplo game in hand - when you ally with one bloc the other comes calling)

They'll vastly out-research you, and if you use the tools of the scenario editor to set their strategies, you can really work the troikas (have one concentrate militarily on land, one on sea and one on air, give the builder a terraform/build focus, the warmongerer an aggressive/attack focus and the researcher lots of probes - offensive as well as defensive - and the AI does a pretty fine job)

You can find some of these scenarios at Rynn's Gallery

Googlie

[mdbill]

Has anyone ever been successful using drone riots and revolting cities to grow their empire? I tried this as the Drones (naturally)and kept some neighboring cities in perpetual riots, but no luck.

All my cities were in Golden Age (wondering if that helps)

Does anyone know the formula?

Do you need more wonders? more money?

Do you have to be in a Treaty, Truce? or can you be in Vendetta
and still get the city to join you?

Or is this just an impossible strategy?

- Bill