Super advantage for Pirates and custom made aquatic factions.

Has anyone noticed that in a large percentage of games, that the pirates start very clse to two of the most valuable landmarks in the game. Either the monsoon jungle, or the Uranium flats. The AI seems to cluster their bases around the coast of these two landmarks. It gives the Pirates a great advantage in addition to their other bonuses. Do you think this feature is unbalancing, or essential for getting your sea empire off to a good start in the early game.

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[BustaMike]

From my experience this sort of thing makes the AI pirates retarded. The computer "cheats" and automatically knows where the jungle is; however, it goes completely out of it's way to make cities there even if the jungle is in someone else's territory and it can't use any of the actual jungle squares. Also the AI loses several turns that could have had a city making stuff moving its colony pod as far as required to find the jungle, and gets more inefficiency because the bases are so far apart.

[TeknoMerc]

another aquatic faction tendancy:

i made another aquatic faction -- the Sisters of Nature, sort of an aggresive growth environmental zealot faction. one thing i noticed in 6 games (huge map, all AI, transcend) is that the aquatic factions get a real boost in the first 100 years.

they are almost always in the top 3 rankings. unless they get involved in a war and the others don't, then the aquatic facs stay in the top spots until they get ganged up on. btw, all games included both the pirates and the sisters.

this is just an interesting observation. i do wonder if i could tweak an aquatic faction to slow, but strong advancement pattern.

TeknoMerc

[Master Marcus]

Yes, the AI Pirates is often advantaged ( regularly the strongest or 2nd ) and his HQ often placed near the Moonsoon. However when I play as the Pirates, I never saw my HQ placed near the Moonsoon or any other significant landmark, but always near a coast of course.

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[Adam_Smith]

Sven AI shows up strong on the graph, but is totally week at fighting. For the most part he just waits for you to come and conquer him usually. Also, he never builds land colony pods. They are not only essential in the beginning, but if you don't you will loose all your base squares to the land factions.

He is also more challenging to play, because of -1 growth and -1 efficiency

[TeknoMerc]

quote: Originally posted by Adam_Smith on 03-27-2000 02:54 PM Sven AI shows up strong on the graph, but is totally week at fighting. For the most part he just waits for you to come and conquer him usually. Also, he never builds land colony pods. They are not only essential in the beginning, but if you don't you will loose all your base squares to the land factions. He is also more challenging to play, because of -1 growth and -1 efficiency

based upon the 12+ games (transcend) i played with the pirates, i don't see these tendancies. the pirates usually threaten to get tech and take a little while to attack (about 50-70 yrs). when they do, however, they usually have good enough tech to do some damage. i have never known the pirates to just sit and wait in my games. they are at war with some faction about 1/2 the time.

also in every game, the pirates have some land bases (usually 3-7) after about 200 yrs. granted, the land base stealing sea squares takes place as you describe, just not as bad.

btw, i have not modified the pirates in my version, just some of the tech tree ala SNACish for SMACX. adam, are you running with different mods, faction edits?

TeknoMerc

[Adam_Smith]

TechnoMerc,

If you play multiplayer I wouldn't count on Sven defending your borders against a human player. He is really weak. They will plow right through him and be on your porch.
[This message has been edited by Adam_Smith (edited March 28, 2000).]

[Civ-wrecked]

The pirates is definitely the most difficult faction to play. The -1 growth is not too bad thanks to the kelp but the -1 efficiency takes away the only advantage a water-based faction has. Also, getting the early and important SPs is very difficult without mineral-rich land bases right at the beginning.
BTW, I like to wrap up all of my games after 150 turns or so to avoid the tedious micronagement after that, therefore, getting a few land bases after 200 turns is just way too late for me.

[kaz]

I think Sven would be deadly as a human player, but as an AI, he blows. And this is becuase he STAYS IN THE SEA. Take the first 20 turns to find the Monsoon Jungle or your personal favorite place(I like the "land base on one square island with a sensor on it" tactic).

The real trick with Sven is to only terraform the sea, and put a few forests or boreholes on the land for decent minerals. During pre-Genesplicing, being able to get a square that's 2-1-2 is as close to an ideal square that a player can hope for.

After the the other limit raising techs, beibng able to get 3-1-3 or 4-1-4 with facilities is as close to an ideal square that anyone could hope to possess.

[Civ-wrecked]

Getting a colony pod on land for the Pirates
isn't simple. Firstly, their mineral production is sub-standard, and, secondly they need to produce both the pod AND the transport to get the pod on land. Building 3 extra transports to get the pods on land and to search for the artifacts, say, would take 90 minerals, almost half the cost of an SP, not counting the support cost for those transports and the extra minerals needed for the sea formers (compared to land formers).

The only advantage of the water-based faction is that there are a lot of sea pods to pop for the artifacts to rush the SPs.

[Sikander]

Civ-wrecked,

I don't agree that Sven is so incredibly disadvantaged in the early game. Here are a list of some of his early game advantages:

1) Base site selection. Because Sven starts the game with a gunfoil and two sea colony pods, he can explore a large area very early in the game. Among the advantages here is the ability to find good base sites for his first two bases more often than land based players. The best thing for Sven to find are mineral specials.

2) Early production. Sven's early production is good. Besides being able to move to a more advantageous site, he also begins with the free pressure dome, which gives him +1 food, energy, and minerals in the base square. Other shallows squares produce 1 food and 1 mineral before terraforming. Thus Sven will always start with a production of at least 3 food, 3 minerals and 2(3 in capital) energy in his first bases.

3) Early contact. Sven's mobility gives him the best chance to meet other factions in the early game. This is the best time for the human player to trade tech's and get trade agreements with other factions. The tech alone can be wonderful, as Sven immediately has tech to trade with the other factions, and the whole process can gain a momentum which can catapult Sven into a fairly large tech lead before the Empath guild can be built.

4) Defense. Sven has only to defend against native life forms in the very early game. After that some factions may pose a mild danger to his holdings, especially after they develop airpower. The AI unfortunately is a terrible tactician when it does to combined arms operations, and this factor makes the loss of a base even more unlikely for the Human playing Sven.

As for getting a colony pod on land, I don't usually find it too difficult. I build a scout, and then a transport in my first two bases, then a sea former. While this is happening, I use my gun foil to scout, paying particular attention to land masses. My transports harvest pods found by the gun foil. When I have finished the former, I start building colony pods. If I have found any islands which appear to be empty, I will build colony pods and transport them there. If a lovely sea base site is uncovered (especially mineral specials), I'll build a sea colony pod instead.

Sven does have two significant problems. Firstly, he cannot churn out cities as quickly as a builder alone on a continent can. Sven is a long term builder. He cannot pop boom easily, but he has a lot of food, and can easily find territory to expand into. Sven's second problem is his potentially weak mineral production. This can be fairly easily avoided to some extent by including land squares in the base radius of sea bases (and using forests, mines and bore holes on these squares), and founding land bases, especially on empty landmasses. When crawlers come along, mineral production can grow as much as you like.