Scorched Earth...

[vitamin j]

Just wondering... Will the game let you obliterate your last remaining base, or does someone else have to do it? In an MP game I'm in, my spidey sense suggests an impending early invasion, which I'm totally not ready to deal with. If it happens, I plan to self-D my bases, rather than allow them to be captured. I've never tried it before. Anyone know?

[Deimos]

Yep, you can do that.

Is Do or Die turned on? If it is, when you blow the last base, you're out. Otherwise, you'll restart somewhere else, with some goodies to boot.

[Flubber]

It can be done but it is considered an atrocity IIRC as you are essentially exterminating your own people . Also I think you must have a unit in the base to do it so its not available as a last ditch measure when your base has been emptied of defenders. I think the unit is lost as well

This option strikes me as a last resort-- one that i would do in the right circumstances-- but a tough one nontheless. the question is whether or not you are certain to lose the base and more importantly how damaging is it for the enemy to take it. When I am about to lose a base, I will sell off improvements etc but often I see it as a probe opportunity. For me, the only time I have self destructed bases was when I was a couple of crucial techs ahead and I had a couple of bases that I could not adequately probe defend (seabases when my opponent had MANY elite probe cruises and sea movment SP)


As for exterminating your last base, I think that in MP that ends your play in the game. I can also recall a game where a player wanted to exterminate his sole remaining base to leave the game but doing so caused all sorts of weird bugs such that we took the simpler method of giving his password to another player to mark time until someone could get to his last base and capture it. I don't know the cause of the bug but it involved bases shrinking and changing owners as well-- It was quite a shock to open that turn All I am saying is that the game reacted weird

[vitamin j]

Cool, thanks guys. Hopefully it won't come to that...

[MariOne]

Beware, in ALL the pbems I played (I guess I've completed about 20 in 2 years), I ALWAYS saw the "pbem game-ending bug" hit.

That is, when a human faciton is eradicated, THE GAME ENDS, REGARDLESS OF VICTORY CONDITIONS (unless that faction is restarted thanks to Do or Die off).

We (that is the players involved in those games, organised at OWO and ACOL, but some of those players are/were also active here) found 2 or 3 workarounds to it, but the less disruptive one is indeed to *force* the dying player to self-oblitarate himself (that is, his last base), which doesnt' trigger the bug. This entails assuring that he is left with a last combat unit to do so.

Forcing the player to relinquish the base to AI has more unbalancing collateral effects, depending on the position of the player in the round (i.e. sequence of play).

The alternative is to leave the Victory sequence play, and then save the game IF THE GAME PROMPTS YOU TO DO SO (it doesn't always), and then resume and go on.

Flubber, my experience is contrary to what you report, I have never seen reduced and scrambled bases the MANY times we had to apply the self-obliterate workaround, but I saw it happen many times (not always) exactly when I went on with the conquest of that last base, and playtested the win-save-resume sequence.

Also, vitj clearly specified "last" so the part about the atrocity etc. is interesting but it's not what he asked


___

I several times thought to poll and inquiry about the occurrence of that dreadful bug (the worst FurXs gifted us in MP imho), but then didn't resolve to it.

I think I can assume redaing between the lines of your post here, that you positivley eradicated some human factions in a pbem *without* seeing the game victroy sequence play.
It would be the first reliable reporta bout it I'd receive.
Maybe it's worth to make indeed a separate thread/poll about it.

[Flubber]

Interesting marione- I recheckied the old game thread and you were right, the scrambled base thing happened after a last base was captured-- Sorry-- thats what I get for posting with a faulty memory. My error.

So capturing the last base of a human NEVER goes smoothly huh??

I rechecked the threads and in each case that went smoothly the player obliterated their last base/bases-- I thought it was just wanting to get out of the futile game since I did not think anyone in the game knew this bug.-- I hadn't fully appreciated this since it was other players doing the attacks.

IIRC there was one instance where I eradicated a player and it worked ok but the circumstances themselves were odd. The player indicated that he was unable to obliterate his last base so instead he released his worm into the wild inside his size one base on the theory that the base would die. It didn't and we had the odd situation of his sole base with a single wild worm as its garrison. I trooped over with a unit (and I had his password to "play " his turn) and when the worm died, the base disappeared with no further problems

So, what are the other work-arounds??


As for the atrocity thing-- sure its not relevant if its your last base but if he does a couple of bases while intending to survive, it could be relevant. Sincde the guy was talking about an impending invasion, I figured that torching a few of his outlying bases might be under consideration since a complete suicide of all his bases might not be the best option