Possible new PBEM - Forced Victory Conditions

Googlie · April 29, 2002, 09:36

I'm sure there's a challenging smac PBEM there for the playing where the faction has only one method of winning - any other method forbidden. e.g.:

Morgan must win economically
Lal must win diplomatically
Miriam, Santiago and Yang must win militarily
Dee must win militarily thru green conquest
Zak must Transcend

I'd see an accelerated start to see each one on their way, with a "helping" SP:

Morgan: Merchant Exchange
PKs: Clinical immortality
Believers: Citizens' Defense Force
Sparta: Cyborg Factory
Hive: Command Nexus
UoP: Virtual World
Gaians: XenoEmpathy Dome

(not sure about the smax factions. maybe:

Usurpers and Caretakers must summon the battlefleet
Drones must win economically
Pirates must win militarily
Cult must win militarily thru green conquest
Cyborgs and Angels must Transcend

Marr gets the Planetary Transit System
H'Minee gets the Cloning Vats
Domai gets the Planetary Energy Grid
Svensgaard gets the Maritime Control Center
Cha Dawn gets the Manifold Harmonics
Aki gets the Network Backbone
Roze gets the Nethack Terminus)

Does this sound like it might be different?

G.

xeno7667 · April 29, 2002, 13:27

Very interesting idea!

I am in as Cult of Planet or Gaians!

The only qustion is: is it balanced?

knowhow2 · April 29, 2002, 14:28

Lets go another game.

As the asskicking Yang!!!

question: what is a green conquest?

Paul · April 29, 2002, 14:36

Interesting. I'd like to play Zak.

Chaunk · April 29, 2002, 15:03

I'd love to play the PK's, but some of the projects seem a little unbalanced, especially the Cloning Vats for H'minee and the Manifold Harmonics for Cha Dawn.

Maybe just make it SMAC only?

Googlie · April 29, 2002, 20:42

In no fixed order;

When I mulled over the concept, I did have smac in mind - the smax ideas were more of an afterthought. The concept seems to lend itself better to smac factions. As well, with aliens, Lal's victory condition becomes more onerous, as both alien factions have to be eliminated before a player can win diplomatically - so Lal would need to either build - or cajole to get - a military presence to take out Marr and H'minee, which would cramp his ICS (as well as deny him the PTS or Vats)

I've no idea if it is balanced or not - haven't got around to scenario testing it yet (would have to play all seven factions, as one can't tweak the AI to be that precise in its strategies)

The thinking behind the two SPs for the aliens - while they would propagate like rabbits with the Vats and the PTS - is that their victory condition requires the six bases of size ten at least, each with a subspace generator. So they have to survive to the D12 tech level, then build, and as everyone knows they are a pathetic faction against nervegas.

The Manifold Harmonics for Cha is a sop to his pitiful -1 industry and -1 economy. With an inherent +2 Planet rating he'll get an extra nut, energy and mineral per monolith and fungus square (and if I were to CMN it I'd set it so that seed pods never produce monoliths, and be sparing in how many I made accessable to him. He sure wouldn't start out with the Ruins !!)

If we make it smac (on the smax platform) we have:

Gaians: xeno7667
Hive: knowhow2
UoP: Paul
PKs: Chaunk

A green conquest is a military victory largely using fungus, native lifeforms and psi weaponry - here smax would be good for the greater variety of units, as well as fungal and tectonic missiles.

Let's see if there are any more nibbles

G.

Googlie · May 1, 2002, 09:17

bumped

KrysiasKrusader · May 1, 2002, 14:09

Whats a Cyborg Factory ?

HenryMad · May 3, 2002, 07:19

Very interesting !

I would like to take cyborgs and guarantee quite fast answer to incoming turn

smhfan86 · May 5, 2002, 00:57

Awesome idea Googlie, could I take the Spartans?

smhfan86 · May 7, 2002, 17:00

bump

Googlie · May 7, 2002, 21:13

OOh - sorry guys - I hadn't visited for a few days

We now have:

Gaians:................. xeno7667 ..... green conquest
Hive:..................... knowhow2 .... conventional conquest
UoP: ..................... Paul .............. transcendence
PKs: ...................... Chaunk ........ diplomatic (supreme leader)
Consciousness: .... HenryMad ..... transcendence
Sparta: ................. smhfan86 ..... conventional conquest

It looks like a smax game (with the 'Borgs) - everyone have smax?

I can set it up as a six player game, or we can hang for another couple of days to see if anyone else drops by and wants to play (KrysiasKrusader maybe?)

It'd be neat to have someone play as Morgan, going for an economic victory.

(And for KK, the Cyborg factory is the SP you can build, after getting MMI, that gives you a Bioenhancement Center in every base - great movie too)

G.

Mongoose · May 7, 2002, 21:23

Googlie, have you some special rule in mind re: defying the Council? Off? Otherwise, Chaunk can't win.

KrysiasKrusader · May 7, 2002, 21:51

I can take Morgan, ( or the Believers if I really gotta) but only if we play SMAC. Don't got SMAX

smhfan86 · May 7, 2002, 22:44

Hey Googlie,

Maybe we could have two games going at once. One pure SMAC and the other pure SMACX. It'd be interesting and fun to see how both turn out.

In the SMACX case, I'd go for the Cult. A faction I've rarely played, but might have fun trying out. Especially if it means planting fungus all over the place and using mindworms to the max.

p.s. what size map are you thinking of? large, huge?

knowhow2 · May 15, 2002, 08:43

bump^

knowhow2 · May 22, 2002, 04:50

I'll be out of town for the entire weekend (fri-sun).

Real Life.

FlameFlash · May 22, 2002, 09:36

This certainly sounds interesting... are we still taking sign-ups?

knowhow2 · May 27, 2002, 11:49

bump^

smhfan86 · July 16, 2002, 02:16

ba da bump.

Googlie · July 16, 2002, 13:51

OOOH - I forgot all about this one (thanks for the bump)

As we started off on a smax footing, I'll slot FlameFlash in as Morgan going for an economic victory, and change smhfan86 to the Cult, going for a green conquest victory.

That would give us:

Gaians:................. xeno7667 ..... green conquest
Hive:..................... knowhow2 .... conventional conquest
UoP: ..................... Paul .............. transcendence
PKs: ...................... Chaunk ........ diplomatic (supreme leader)
Consciousness: .... HenryMad ..... transcendence
Cult: ................. smhfan86 ..... green conquest
Morgan ............FlameFlash ....... economic victory

Nice mix - 2 chasing transcendence, 2 chasing green conquest, 1 after a conventional conquest, 1 economic and 1 going for supreme leader

All in agreement?

Huge map, to allow for the fungussing of planet and the ICS of the PKs - I'll doctor the map to give the Cult and gaians plenty of fungus to romp in, give the PKs opportunities to sleaze, and Morgan, Yang and Aki some incentives to do their thing

Do you want co-op activated? - Might give an added dimension if, say, the Gaians and Cult teamed, or Aki and Zak.

G.

smhfan86 · July 16, 2002, 14:02

ooh, looking good. no prob about the bumping G, i always thought this was a great idea.

and yup, i think co-op should be activated, although, i think the max should be two.

although, what will the co-op victories be?

knowhow2 · July 16, 2002, 15:34

Chaunk has recently declared that he will be dropping out of all his current PBEM-games. Putting him in this one probably would be asking for problems.......

smhfan86 · July 16, 2002, 17:07

I was just gonna say the same thing KH2.

Rather than finding a replacement for Chaunk, it might be better to go 6 players, with no AI.

I'd like to change my vote for co-op victory, to no co-op. This will ensure that everyone goes only for their assigned victory condition.

Also, it'll make for interesting and uneasy alliances.

smhfan86 · July 16, 2002, 17:16

actually, now that i think about it, trying to conquer a huge planet is pretty much impossible.

so once again, i change me vote, to co-op victory, although, still with a maximum of two players.

however, we still need to clarify as to what would happen, if 2 players with different personal victories team up.

oh, and is it possible to make it so that our faction colors and bases, etc, don't change, since this is a smax game?

i read somewhere, that it was possible to do something once, and u wouldn't have to worry about it for the rest of the game.

knowhow2 · July 16, 2002, 20:13

well I'm one of the conqurers and i think is possible.

also co-op with someone with different victory condition is impossible. so no co-op unless the have the same goal.

FlameFlash · July 16, 2002, 21:59

If it was just co-op with similar victory conditions then those of us who don't have a fellow player who needs the same victory condition would certainly have a problem.

Possibly those of us who are the only ones pursuing our one victory condition should be allowed to team up with others who are also alone in the world?

Co-op among conquest also makes for it to get interesting because then the two naions aren't worried about each other trying to take over the other one... they're just trying to take over the world together (which creates an unfair advantage.)

Personally, I think no co-op but allow for pacts and all of that against one or two factions. A transcend victory person might happily pact with a military person in exchange for protection and supplying of tech, likewise, I know I wouldn't have a problem with buying my army by renting it from somebody else... just like in any game, there'll be the possible ally doubt of being stabbed in the back at any time after each faction has made a name for themself through diplomacy.

knowhow2 · July 16, 2002, 22:08

However in any game - players actually could win together "co-op", a conquest can only be achieved in one way. Conquest.

the same goes for transcend and so on.

pacts are an entirely different agenda.

smhfan86 · July 16, 2002, 22:19

if no co-op, then i suggest a large map, because the idea of trying to conquer a huge map, with 6 players, is rather frightening. mostly, because, some of the players won't be the original players. can u say replacements?

and i've had a hard time finding replacements for the games i have already. maybe it's pitch.

FlameFlash · July 16, 2002, 22:32

What is a green conquest, anyway... not familiar with that one. One where you take over the world with mind worms?

I still think turning the co-op vicotry off would be the best thing... I would think "second place" would be the position held by whoever was second in line in the power graph.