Fall '00 Challenge - Setup Discussion

Zakharov is too old, Morgan still a nightmare, so its time for a new challenge. Swapping .sav files is the best way to learn ! I could set it up in a few days/ after enough input.
Please discuss faction/opponents to be played. map size, and other starting/allowed winning conditions.

I would argue for the PK's (overall flexibility, high pop.), because they can be played in pretty much any strategy imaginable (i wanna see people using the rumored to exist specialist cities . I'd prefer large map, abundant life, conquest/ transcend/ economic victories. directed research, no random wank. SMAX preferred !

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Flo,

I'ld be in for it.

My suggestion for game settings:

Lal's Ok but not preferable for specializing. Better factions are Miriam and/or Yang as specialization is very former intensive and requires good support to allow the ton o' formers in the early game pre-clean era.

Dif - Transcend

Large world
Average drink
Average rain
Average rockiness
Average native life (abundant is Ok as well but I was supposing an average setup 'cross the board)

Definitely directed research
Pods on or off (no biggie but probably off)
Spoils off
Random events on

Which victory condition are we looking for, Transcend I suppose?

AI factions Human pitted against?
2 - Progenitors
Cyborgs
Data Angels
Yang
Miriam or Santi


Thoughts?

Og

[mark13]

Fantastic!!!! I'd be in 100% for this idea - my vote would be for Lal for the reasons already specified - flexibility.

Vicotry conditions - transcend only (maybe economic) I would have thought, the others would unbalance the challenge too much....

AI factions -

2 Progs, probably Miriam in prefernce to Santiago, for the research penalty, Yang, Roze, and, ummm.... maybe Aki, although the research may be too much of a bonus....

I don't know though, I've never done one of these challenges before, so it would be better if everyone here stes it up while I browse the archives for exactly how these things work....

[big_canuk]

Sounds great. Please send me the save, when its decided. Pk's are fine. Settings sound good. Only addition to add a challenge could be aggresive AI. But, its fine with passive AI too.

[Fitz]

Is it just me, or has everyone neglected to mention what, specifically, the challenge is going to be?

You want a challenge, try this:

Standard map, Average everything except fungus, high native life.

Blind Research,Tech Stag, Spoils off, pods off, agressive AI.

Vicotory: Transcend only.

Human Player: Morgan
Caveat: must run Free Market as soon as available, for the remainder of the game.
Caveat2: You may not gift AI with Tech. Trade for money or tech. Giving in to a demand is the only way they get a freebie.

AIs: Dierde, Cult, Aliens (x2), Pirates, Drones

Fastest Trancend victory wins
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited November 09, 2000).]

[WhiteElephants]

I'm interested as well, but, as Fitz points out, I'm unclear about what the challenge is. Is this just a comparative game?

Anyway, my two cents:

I think random events should be off. If we are attempting to make a comparison it's tuff to factor in luck. Same goes for pods, I'd prefer them off. Definetly Transcend difficulty. Standard map. Why large? Doesn't that give you way too much time to prepare for war? At least on standard the momentum factions actually pose an early threat especially the aliens with their Ogres and bonuses. Average settings across the board though abundant native life would be interesting. Directed research and spoils off. Oh, and Iron Man. I think the other factions should be ones that are opposed to whatever faction is choosen to be played. And I think tech stag would also up the ante.

[mark13]

Fitz:
I don't really think making someone run FM as soon as they can will be much of a challenge. The whole point of comparative challenges is to encourage flexibility, different strategies - imprinting a specific strategy on a game will be counter-productive, IMO. I may be missing the point completely, though....

Standard map sounds good, we don't want to cuddle the human faction too much

I'll let the real experts decide the rest....

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

WE,

If Ironman is selected I'm going to take a pass. Not that I do restarts(such as restart until the pod gives you what you want) as I think that one of the biggest cheats there are but more b/c I don't want to get into a situation where the infamous terran.exe crash causes me issue.

My vote is Ironman off but rely on players good sportsmanship. i.e. no restarts unless the game crashes. Besides Ironman can be easily gotten around if your a dishonest player by multiple saves and restarts.

Everything else everyone suggests I can live with.

However, I would still prefer world size at large 'specially if tech stag. Normal or smaller is too easy for tech gains 'specially if you gain yourself a submissive as is most likely the case in the smallish worlds but I can live with Normal or smaller as well.

Remember the competition here I assume is against the other players records not necessarily 'gainst the AI which is destined to lose .

Og

[Capt Dizle]

since when have standard maps been tougher than huge ones?

[Capt Dizle]

blind research, are u guys nuts? that makes the game a crapshoot...lets just toss a coin instead..(shaking head)

[mark13]

Yeah, I agree with jt that blind research is an absolute no-go, certainly not in a comparative game, anyway.

[big_canuk]

Fitz, WE:

I believe Meister Flo intended a challenge to be a comparative game as in the "Zakarov..." thread from Vel. Everyone is emailed the same starting position. Reporting every 10 turns is kinda nice too!

Meister Flo:

Am I right?

[Helium Pond]

I'm curious about this. How do these things work? Does everybody play off the same .SAV file to start with? And what exactly is the challenge? It seems like there's a desire to keep rules restricting play to a minimum, but also a desire to make the game include specialist cities. Or is it simply everyone takes the same .SAV and we see who does the best with it? How often do people compare and swap their files?

Sounds cool, a real learning experience...

[WhiteElephants]

I've never had the terran exe. crash (knock on wood) so I didn't consider it a problem. I just figured it would be too much work for a dishonest player seeing how they don't want to do the work to play fairly. I would go with Iron Man of in this circumstance.

Jimmy -- I have considered maps larger than standard easier because I tend to focus on building. If a momentum faction is choosen to play then I would recommend a larger map as it complicates your ability to conquer other facions with the logistics involved in building and transporting troops abroad giving other factions a larger time margin to react to and/or prepare for invasion.

In my experience with gaining submissive on standard maps is that they become fairly useless except for the trade increase. Tech stag on a standard size map would increase the research time though I don't know if would be long enough for your tastes or not. You also have to consider that the AI is poor at research as it is. Making the time between research any longer would probably not help them, but hurt them. So, I guess the decision to be made is whether or not we want to try and strongthen the AI or focus more on the players.

Jimmy -- I didn't mean directed research off though I can understand why you thought I put that. Here's another go at it.

Directed research. Spoils of war off.

I'm sure it was the "and" between them that screwed it up. I'd like to remove any degree of chance or luck from the challenge as well just as I stated above. My bad.

[Blunderdog]

Hey, count me in. No Ironman and no random events are my votes, btw.

"I'm not dead yet."

[Fitz]

Ah, I see now. The word challenge threw me. A comparison game, with the challenge being to just prove you can stratagize really well (and incidentally impress everyone else ), makes perfect sense to me.

Fine, but I don't really like the PK, since they can't run Police State. And their efficiency penalty hurts.

yes, BigCanuk and Helium Pond, you are right about the purpose of those challenges. Giving everybody the same starting environment on the same map (read: minimization of random factors) makes comparison of different playstyles easy. Its like this strategy discussion board, with a hands-on aspect. And, its a great excuse to start yet another game of SMAC

[mark13]

It sounds great, actually, seeing as there are many, many people here (me included) who weren't around to see the last one.

IMO, though, this challenge must not be too challenging - the purpose of this game is not to beat the AI (that is a given ), but to compare results with other human players.

Another thing, what is the standing on number of attempts? Do we just get one go at it, or several, in order to chip away at the transcend time?

Mark13

[big_canuk]

Mark13:

I would think you could play the map as many times as you like.

However, from the discussion in the "Zakarov..." thread, I would think that the results from the first attempt, where you don't know the map, the locations of the other factions, and the locations of the landmarks, would be most interesting to most smacers. It certainly would not be possible to compare 1st attempts with subsequent ones.

[big_canuk]

WE and others:

Re: Random Events

My experience is that random events are anything but random. I now virtually never experience them, because I know that I have to build a reasonable number of the basic facilities. (Network Nodes, Energy Banks, Bio Labs) If one forgets them, then one gets punished by the computer.

Playing without random events would not make the game less random. It would just remove one of the crucial aspects of play.

When Meister Flo wrote:

quote: Originally posted by Meister Flo on 11-09-2000 05:16 PM (read: minimization of random factors)

he did not mean, IMHO, to turn random events off.

I don't believe I've ever read a thread discussing random events. Does anyone know of one. I would appreciate some more detail, because, while I don't suffer from them now, it would be nice to know the probabilities. They might be based on the number of facilities versus number of bases modified by the number of turns since the required tech has been discovered. ---But, this would be a discussion for that tread.---

Re: Pods

Now this is a tough one. On a large map, with 100's of pods availiable, the randomness tends to average itself to a consistant outcome. In a way, pods only at landing is more random than no pods. It only changes the advantage of exploring. With only at landing, one player could get 4 great outcomes, while the next doesn't.

But... it really doesn't matter. I could go either way.


[This message has been edited by big_canuk (edited November 09, 2000).]

[Capt Dizle]

I would like to comment on the competitive nature of this proposed comparative anaylsis game.

I have never considered myself the best of players nor particularly arrogantly self-possesed about my skills. But I have been and will continue to be contemputous of many of the so call "strategies" that have been written of ad infitium on this and other boards.

Example: solar park patterns. Pure idiotic horse**** this endless debate and mathematical excercise about which configuration yields that best result.

Here is my point. If you delete PRESSURE then smac(x) becomes meaningless as an exercise of strategy. It becomes akin to architechure or some other disclipine.

Not that I would preclude anyone from indulging themselves, but for me, it would be a waste or effort.

Anyone can design a solar park, but who can build an effective and efficient solar park while being targeted by nerve gas enabled missle choppers and silksteel drop troops?

Set a goal and go hell bent for leather, first one there is God and the rest of us suck. Then we can look at the winner's game and see why we suck.

My prediction is that many of the fancy smancy defensive schemes and building paradigms we read about here will not even show up in the loser's game because of the Pressure.

Doesn't pressure have something to do with the formation of diamonds?

This format isn't as raw as multiplayer but if you buy into the competitive intent, it is clearly more fun than standard ai bashing.

Bush/Chenney 2001, 2002, and however long it takes...

[Misotu]

I'd definitely be up for it. PKs are a fine choice. Directed research is probably better for a compare game. Not bothered about the other settings, any are fine by me, though as someone else pointed out pods at landing site only can give wildly different results and don't even out over the game.

When you've set it up, can you send it to me Flo? My email address is misotu@hotmail.com.

Thanks!

[Capt Dizle]

Flo...

Well, why don't you see if you can coax AnnC or Vel out of retirement for a conquest CAG game of SMAX. Maybe a pirate thing?

That might be worth a reinstall, if I can find my CDs.

jt

[Simpson II]

Well, I'm not that partial to the PKs, but sign me up anyway. My e-mail is j.moughan@excite.com. It'll be interesting to see some of the .sav games at the end!

[Googlie]

and how could I resist?

googlie@mybc.com

[VoodooChild]

I'm down with it.

jvoodoochild@yahoo.com

[mark13]

Oh yeah, e-mail: anne.harrison1@ntlworld.com

jt,
In response to your previous post, I would concur that the competitive nature of the game and the people participating should be satisfied. However, this does not mean that this is a challenge to see 'who is the best SMAC player' - it is a bit of fun. No-one here, I expect, will be taking it that seriously, and although it is a good way of comparing results, we're not going for an Olympic gold medal here. It is a bit of fun, nothing more.

quote: Bush/Chenney 2001, 2002, and however long it takes...

LOL - ever the optimist

[Gregurabi]

Do Windows saved games work in the Linux version? If so, I'd be willing to give it a shot. (greg@wooledge.org or just click the little mail icon above.)

[WhiteElephants]

Big Canuk -- So you would have no problem with popping an early pod and a burst of fungus popping out effectively ruining half the area you have to work with? Solar collectors deystroyed by hail storms? Satellites deystroy by so cosmic ray crap (or whatever it is?). The only way I know to avoid these is to not have them and that would also remove a crucial aspect of the game. Besides who is going to do well without bio labs, research hospitals, energy banks, etc.?

And if this wasn't of competetive nature I wouldn't be playing PBEM or even be in this forum. What's stopping me from comparing results of my own game to my own game?

[WhiteElephants]

Oh, my email is FeenyBe@cs.com. Thanks, whoever?