Speaking of challenges. What about "No formers"?

[Zaxxon]

I was just thinking to myself that it might be a challenging game if you didn't build any formers for the entire game. Say on Transcend level with a standard size planet. Has anyone tried this before?

[Velociryx]

OUCH! lol

Maybe AFTER I get the guide out....can't get sucked into a challenge like that before, or you guys'd be waiting til Christmas on the blasted thing....

-=Vel=-

[Zaxxon]

Haha I'd probably be tarred and feathered if I caused any delay in your guide getting out.

So, uh, in that case take your time with the challenge hehe.

[VulturesRow]

That is an interesting challenge. Id say its probably damn near impossible to do it taking the builder or hybrid approach. In my opinion youd almost have to go momentum..interesting to say the least though.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Zax,

An interesting guantlet you throw down. I'm thinking a Gaian game to allow free nuts from fungus and by all means hunt down the ruins and borehole landmarks for base sites. If I get time I'm gonna give it a go as a builder/hybrid no less (gulp!).

Og

[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited May 25, 2000).]

[Lord Maxwell]

And pray for pods for forests... A real man would offcourse play with "pods at base sites only"

[Enigma]

Normally the AI's land is completely useless as far as terraforming. But this would really turn the tables as to effective use of land. The AI would probably have a few farms/solar collecters which is better than just nothing.

[Zaxxon]

Well I'm glad that so many of you found my challenge interesting. I personally don't think that I would last 100 turns in it myself. But I'd love to see how any of you more experienced players do on it.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Well I started this last night and here are the results so far.

Diedre in clasic Smac game (no SMACX).

Settings

Large world
Average everything
'cept High Fungus (had to give myself a little break)
Pods On (sorry wasn't a real He-man L. Max.)
Directed Research
Transcend Dif

Game Notes (from memory so take it with a grain of salt)

Started on largish continent in the middle of the world.
Popped pod at first base and thankfully got anutrient square on a rolling.

Set down second colony pod west of HQ and popped a pod directly west of that base and resulted in earthquake to the west of both colonies meaning all squares near the first two bases were rainy (yeah!!!)

Scout sent exploring finds Ruins to the east bout 10 squares distant from HQ's base site. (bigger yeah!!!!)

Pod popping in first 10-20 turns results in some nice finds a number of monoliths and 2 unity rovers.

Dissapointed that planet hasn't coughed up a worm for capture. Except that my scouts keep getting attacked (and in fungus). Lose 1 scout rover. Build queues are normally garrison/pod/recycle tank/pods. For low nutrient base sites build queue is garrison/recycle tank/pods.

First captured worm MY 2135 ish. Going to the ruins. (how could it take me that long to get my first worm and all the time planet is ambushing me Grrr.) Lost 2 colony pods just outside HQ and are now building escort 1-1-1's.

Discover Spartans MY2137 near ruins on an isthmus to the South east. MY 2140 discover Lal on same isthmus. They're already at war. I try to stay out of it for now as I planned to be a builder type (LOL... didn't stay that way for long).

Switch to Planned MY 2150 ish. Blow through first beuaracracy warning. Found incredible other base site at extreme west of my continent. (little bit of Monsoon Jungle 4 squares of which one is fungus and a Monolith to boot)

MY2160ish marks advent of Industial Auto. now my master plan can take effect. Begin crawler builds at all 15 bases. Don't have Rec commons yet so all bases are struglling to maintain size 2 with garrisons. Many crawlers will be needed to hit magic production of 10 mins per base site as best I'm getting from raw land is mostly rocky and rollings with no min specials. I'm working every monolith possible at this point. Switch immediatly to wealth.

Power graph says I'm potent. (not impotent )

My plan is to get bases up to magic 10 mineral productions and then continue crawler productions to harvest nuts from all fungus possible with an eye to pump up populations and specialize.

2170ish Spartans get pissed at me for running Wealth and declare vendetta. Pact with Lal against Spartans and begin probing.
Have 3 worms (whohoo even my 1-1-1's can't capture any looking to find SothB and Green ASAP).

Lose 2 worms to SPartans and two probes but gain 3 techs. Spartan war ends in truce as they land do amphbious landing. I block them with crawlers and upgrade them. Containment for now until I have some more worms.

Lal's being a buthead and won't trade techs at thispoint. Make contact with Morgan and Zak. Zak trades techs but Morgan refuses as he is pissed I'm runnning planned.

2180's Zak is wiped out by Hive. Morgan is wiped out by Miriam. Find Miriam is directly to my west and is overrunning Morgan in the remainder of the Monsoon Jungle.

2180's - 2210's Get Human Genome, Virtual World, Empath Guild (and voted Governor). Lead techs and power graph with Yang a close second.

2220's All three warlike factions declare simulataneous vendetta in Axis vs. Allies style paly. Lal show still won't trade techs and myself vs. Spartans/Yang/ and Miriam. Spartans get eleiminated as they are onmy home turf first.

Yang starts landing to my North and Miriam to my west. 4 worms on defense start scrambling. have prototyped Impact weapons and being bringing speeder to the two fronts. Miraim takes my southern most base after destroyingmy last 1-3-1 defender. I respond with arty and a worm and recapture. I make the final decision to go with nerve gas as all looks bleak.

First 4X-1-2 speeder of the assembly line in MY 2227ish. Proceed to gas Miriam but leave Yang alone. Yang invasion forces nuetralized without base loss.

2230's YANG beats me to D:AP!!! Start seeing the first noodlejets. I get D:AP soon after and begin crash <4>-1-8 builds to maintian air superiority. Infinite Noodlejets come and I cn't respond. Yang take out my field of crawlers. I'm completey running on empty. Get missile tech and prototype 6x-1-10's. Still leave Yang for now as I pick off his incoming transports and concentrate on Miriam. She momemetarily take my western most Monsoon Jungle base and trashes my infrastructure. I recapture and use as a staging base for 6X-1-10's.

Truce with Spartans. Ram through UN charter removal in early 2140's prior to massive air strikes.

2240's get Chaos I'm gonna rock now. Strike on Yang shows he also has chaos (GRRR!!!). Miraim lands on east coast this time and takes a size 7 base (and obliterates it more the reason for gas now!)

Decide to employ gas on Yang as he is my main threat and no way I'm going to take him otherwise. Obliterate one sea base. Miriam has lost 7 bases.

2250's Leave me alone Yang already. Entire western part of the continent has no crawlers. I can't get air cover fast enough and when I do respond it's measely impact vs. chaos as the stupid things always scramble (grrr!!!). With no minerals at my bases from crawlers I'm struggling.

Miriam is not a real threat at his time.

2260's Where is fusionalready. Tech gains have slowed from my hey day of 1/4 turns to 1/10 turns. Almost to fusion and then I'll show Yang. Still lead the power graph in techs and population but have dropped from first to second. Can't probe him as my probes will be sitting ducks. Got MMI though and 8X-1-10's choppers are rolling off ever so slowly the production lines.

YANG beat me to fusion!! Drat. He is now showing up with chaos noodlejet fusion reactors. and to make matters worse he has now discovered missiles much to my latest 8X-1-10 choppers dismay (ohh I can see the PB's are gonna eventually fly!! and me with no formers to raise land after the inevitable flooding!!)

Just aquired fusion My 2172. Campaign to devastate Yang will commence as soon as I have 4 ChaosX-1-10 choppers. Say good night Yang!

Once Yang is peacefully sleeping (screaming in a PS that is) I'll resume my true peaceful nature and become the builder and naturelover I really truly am .

All in all a very cool game!! Haven't had this much fun or nail biting in awhile.

SP's for me Yeh!!

Human Genome
VW
Empath Guild
Cyborg
Cloning Vats

SP's for my ally (Lal the useless)
Hunter Seeker

Sp's for Nuetrals - Spartans (minor player at his point)
Citizen Defense

Miram - Weather Paradigm
Maritime thingy

Yang - Command Nexxus
Merchant Exchange


I'm still quite optimistic as long as I don't overcommit I think I'll wear Ynag down. I think I'll place a drop pod in the Monsoon Jungle and use as a forward base to eliminate Miriam.

Zax,

Excellent suggestion. I even put the odds a little in Dee's favor with some of the settings and am having a tough go of it.


Ohh forgot SE settings. Most of the game was running planned wealth and Demo/planned/wealth as minerals were so scarce I wanted every last one to count and needed rawpopulation to support R&D efforts. Which explains my inability to capture meaningful native life as planet was only +1. Now that I have cloning vats I switched to Demo/green/power and plan to do a little clobberin. I may even go as far as Fundy/green/power but not yet until I get some probes into position .


[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited May 26, 2000).]

[Zaxxon]

Jesus Ogie you had me laughing so hard while reading your game here that I was in tears.

Just out of curiosity, how come you did SMAC instead of SMAX? Would the game have been easier or harder if it was SMAX?

Anyhow, my hat is off to you. It's been quite amazing to see you stand up to the challenge. I'd have to say that the worst part of it for me would be that there's no roads and so any offense force would take a long time to get into position.

[JoJoTheDogFacedBoy]

How about SMAX fungal payload? It comes pretty late (C8), but it would help to make more squares fungus without terraforming.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Well it's finished. COnquest victory 2414. Could have transcended by 2418 ish but chose conquest instead.

With fusion under my belt it was a straight run. Kept a few Xbest weapon choppers flying into the industrial giant to the north called Yang and he repsonded by beating me senseless. Was able to establish brige head to his main continent by focusing on the extreme west of his continent which was closest to my bases providing said x chopper support. Happened in mY 2280 ish. Also ofunded a base on a small island south and to the east of the captured base. Hold was tenuous at best but it allowed me time to keep tech rolling in as he wsa busy reacting instead of attacking. On the western front 'gainst Miriam it was more a mopping up action and also allowed me the opportunity to build some prime bases in the Monsoon Jungle. 3 were in place in and around My2310 ish. Growing like weeds thanks to the C-vats.

Tech strat after fusion was to get every possible green tech in an effort to get something useful out of the fungus other than simply nutrients.

Allies vs Axis war continued on for next 100 years. Miriam was effectively knocked down to one small sea base by MY 2350. Give and take on Yangs continent (more take than give). He must have had over 70 bases in his hey day.

During this time I had to continue to play peascemaker between Spartans and Peace keepers. Useless Lal kept pickin a fight with the good colonel. Spartans have changed sides so many times that I begin think of them as Italy in WW1.

Bout 2370 ish, I decide its time to cement the allies vs Axis and call for supreme leader vote. I win easily thanks to support of Lal the useless (who still never traded me one tech the entire game. Granted he didn't have any towards the end game but still grrr... )Miriam and Yang refuse to acknowledge the results so now the Allies are Spartans(Italy)/Lal(the useless)/Tree huggers (me) vs. Yang (Big Blue) and Miriam (the tropic island retreat)

The game starts to build momemtum and in a series of chopper strikes I have gradualy reduced Yangs 70 bases down to about 20 or so. The inevitable draws forward. At one point Yang in a fit of desperation tries to PB me with his stockpile of three PB's. All of which were intercepted by my 7 ODP's. It was close though as I only had 2 undeployed left for the last PB.

At 2400 I decide to eliminate Miriam and send a lone shardX- chopper her way. Christian Island retreat no longer exists.

At 2410 the decision lies to either finish Yangs 7 remaining bases off or get the 4 remaining techs and build the Voice o' planet and Ascent.

I opt for the more warlike option and off Yang in 2414 as planet was getting uppity in the last few years with worm sprouts back home at my by this time very industrious bases.

A nip and tuck game until fusion and really sealed up upon discover of Centauri meditation fungus was then 3-1-1.

As to why I chose classic SMAC. No particular reason other than I knew I wanted to play Diedre in order to get the plus one nutrients out of fungus. Couple that with the fact I hate the aliens and I thought what they hey might as well play good old SMAC (I guess I was lazy and didn't want to set up a SMACX game).

If I had been playing SMACX the fungal missiles certainly would have come in handy. As it was I was able at times to selectively psuedo T-form a few bases by shifting some crawlers around to promote pollution to induce fungal sprouts. I didn't want to do a lot of this though for fear of sea level rises. As it was I pushed through council solar shade twice and seas were kept even if not slightly lowered.



[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited May 30, 2000).]

[Lord Maxwell]

Well, my game this far. (I played on a large world instead of a normal one.) Pods on. (I got one, count em, one forest pod out of the 50 landpods I've popped. Exactly 0 farm, solar or mine pods. Hurray!)

I play as Gaia on a large world, abundant fungus, dense cloud cover. Average rockiness, average land.

2115 - I eradicate dataangels. They simply lived to close.

2132 - Consciousness entered an submissive pact with me. I found university this round as well.

2140 - University get the same deal as consciousness. Only me and my two allies on the largest continent. (The only continent, everyone else must be on islands.)

2150 - I finally take the lead in all categories. 12 cities. (2 lost to worms.)

2180 - 21 cities, 10 mindworms, some lost.

2201 - Lal agrees to serve me.

2230 - Morgan agrees to serve me. He would have surrendered about 16 years ago had it not been sunspot activity. I now have 53 cities and about 2000 cash lying around. (I spend a few hundred on each start-up base, will spend like 1200 in the next couple of rounds.)
I have two IoD that are demon boils. A ton of land locked mature-demon boils.

Conquest of the remaining faction (Fung boy) will be easy, I am the only person on planet with air power right now.

I snagged about 60% of the secret projects. Only one I regret missing is Planetary transit system. I could easily take it from morgan, but it would cripple him. He is better of teching for me.

I get one tech every 8 turns on a 50/50 spread, running green/wealth.

A quick look at the map tells me that there is room enough for another 27 land bases on the map, all little islands counted. (Cept the four that are completely covered in fungus.)

My power bar is twice as high as the others combined.

Also, if you want to feel good about having done this challenge, play as Gaia on a tiný world, max land, max fungus. You should be able to win a military victory in 40 years if everyone start on the same continent.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Lord Max,

Good game. You took adavantage of early and often submissive factions. I too should have done the same but I was woefully inept at capturing early worms plus I had my mind set at being a true builder at first until Yang and Miriam came a 'callin that is (then it was just survival of the fittest ).

Looks like the game will be in the bag shortly for you.

[Zaxxon]

Excellent game Ogie, I enjoyed reading the entire thing. I would have to say that I agree with you on starting off as builder, if only to actually make the game a challenge up to its full potential. Rolling people over right from the beginning kind of defeats the premise of the scenerio.

Your game sounds like it was pretty much clear cut, Max. Take em out early and take them down hard.

Congrats to the both of you.

[Lord Maxwell]

I played with random factions for all computer slots. Ended as you noted up with a perfect spread of enemies.
I'd recommend that any late commers either play smac-classic (and then turn pods off, as you get an obscene amount of AAs in classic smac) or set the other factions to: Both Aliens, Yang, Cha Dawn, Drones and Spartans. (Might exchange Cha Dawn for Miriam.)

On base placement: I went with a borg spread of bases, when fungus allowed it. The base square is the best square you will see in the entire game, so use it and use it well.

I think I used demo/planned for the entire game since I got it. Drones were generally not a big problem, sans small bases, and distances weren't huge, as every base had a single squares gap to the next one. This configuration lets you keep +2 eff as gaians, which is pretty good.

Playing a builder game early can get you into some pitfalls, you can easily end up having every base spending more energy on maintenance than it pulls in. (A major reason to do this in smac-x as normal smac is bugged for maintenance at thinker and transcend. It costs 1/3rd of what it should on transcend in normal smac.)

With 2 food coming of every fungus square you might as well put crawlers out all around for specialist bases. 5 of em lets you get an all librarian base. Even with little infrastructure you still cash in big time on the techs. (Esp as you don't need no stinking drone control facilities.)

And, as the final twister, play double blind. (Blind research, all squares checked.) And with steal tech when conquer base turned off. I'll have to try it again, sounds damn close to impossible now.

[Zaxxon]

Double blind is so incredibly painful to play that it hurts me just to think about it. I'm sure the AI gets a good laugh out of it when you don't get formers until 50 years after they do (not, of course, that formers matter at all in this challenge). And that's just the beginning of the pain, hehe.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Bump for Simpson II,

A right fun game this one was. Please feel free to ignore my massive amounts of typos and misdatings.