Fall '00 Challenge - Setup Discussion

[Capt Dizle]

Managed to settle the rules question by forcing Yang to submit.

2180 summary

Human Genome, Virtual World, and Merchant Exchange built. Missed WP.

34 pop, 14 techs, +34 credits and tech in 9 running FM/Wealth at 50%/50%.

Found Believers and bought UoP freq. Both at teed off at me. Treaty with Swen.

Elected Gov. in 2180. +19 Commerce.

Going for Planetary Transit.

Leading in tech, pop, and overall.

maximum map coordinates are 79,79. That equals 80*40 squares, the "normal" map size in (my ?) SMAX.

A new thread for progress reports has just started. Lets set a 10 week deadline for the truly competitive amongst us. (01/31/01).

Is there any way to get ones account fixed ? emails to MarkG do jack&sh**.
[This message has been edited by Ersatzflo (edited November 14, 2000).]

[Gregurabi]

Status report, MY 2246:

Yang is being driven from the land; soon, he will have only naval bases, which my Pact Brother Sven will most likely pick up once he gets back into the swing of things. Marr's infrastructure and troops are being picked off; no invasion is planned at this time, though (Yang must be first).

The Caretakers are a force to be reckoned with. While Zak and Miriam fought each other (with Zak having a small advantage), H'minee erupted from the south into the zone between them, then started taking (or destroying) both University and Believing bases. Zak is down to 4 bases, while Miriam holds 11 bases.

Zak leads the planet in technology (he has 2 techs that I don't know; nobody else has any techs that I don't know, except possibly H'minee whom I have not yet had the opportunity to infiltrate). H'minee leads the planet in military strength; I lead the planet in population; Conqueror Marr leads in wealth; H'minee leads in territory; and I lead overall.

On the graph, I'm first, followed very closely by H'minee. The Usurpers are third, followed by the Believers, the Hive, the University, and the Pirates.

I am currently running Demo/Green/Survival, with 60/0/40 allocation (I need energy right now to buy Tree Farms and other nice things, and to upgrade units and buy essential facilities in conquered bases). I earn 36 EC/turn in commerce, for a total of 69 energy/turn, with research breakthroughs every 14 turns. 126 energy credits are in the bank, and I just bought off my first Tree Farm.

I rule 17 bases (compared to 17 for Marr, 13 for H'minee, 11 each for Miriam and Sven, 9 for Yang, and 4 for poor Zak, who has been severely humiliated by H'minee). Population 104 (208 votes!). In these bases I have 11 Creches, 11 Tanks, 15 Rec Commons, 2 Banks, 8 Nodes, 1 Bio Lab, 9 Holo Theatres, and 3 Pressure Domes (yeah, they're in sea bases).

I built the Citizens' Defense Force and the Human Genome Project; and I recently captured the Command Nexus in a Hive base. Zak has the Virtual World and the Planetary Datalinks. H'minee has the Weather Paradigm, the Merchant Exchange and the Empath Guild. Sven and H'minee are competing to build the Planetary Transit System, and Marr has begun work on the Planetary Energy Grid.

I'm Pact Brother to Sven, and have a Treaty with Zak. I have a blood truce with H'minee. I'm at war with Yang, Miriam and Marr. I've been planetary governor continuously since 2156.

I have 29 techs, the highest of which are Doctrine: Air Power and Environmental Economics. Everyone has Air Power except Miriam, who's been researching it for a very long time now. We all got it around the same time (Yang had the first planes, actually, in 2229; my first plane was built in 2233).

I have:

[*]14 Missile Needlejets 6-1-10[*]11 Formers[*]7 Supply Crawlers[*]7 Impact Skimships (4)-1-4[*]5 Trance Synthmetal 1-2t-1[*]4 Probe Teams (rover chassis)[*]4 Scout Patrols 1-1-1[*]4 Trance Plasma 1-3t-1[*]4 Sea Formers[*]3 Trance Scouts 1-1t-1[*]2 Impact Needlejets 4-1-10[*]2 Skimship Probe Teams[*]2 Impact Batteries (4)-1-1[*]2 Trance 3Res 1-3tr-1[*]1 Transport Foil[*]1 Unity Rover[*]1 Impact Rover 4-1-2[*]1 Impact Squad 4-1-1[*]1 Missile Squad 6-1-1[*]1 Trance 3Res 2-3tr-1[*]1 Missile Interceptor <6>-1-8[*]1 SAM Impact Rover <4>-1-2[/list]
The SAM Impact Rover should have a medal; it's shot down 4 Usurper planes so far. (Unfortunately, each of those planes was traded for a former or sea former.) The Needlejets have seen a lot of action, of course; I've stabilized my forces, and am switching to more of a builder mode, except that I won't be running Free Market with this air force!

All 3 of the Boreholes in the Borehole Cluster have been destroyed. What a loss to science! Fortunately, I've built a few boreholes of my own; but my formers and my infrastructure have been attacked mercilessly.

Early in the game, I had peace with Yang and vendetta with Sven. Sven managed to terrorize my coast line and undo many former-years of work with bombardments. I had to shift into naval battle mode for a while (the 7 impact skimships are a remnant of my once-much-larger navy) and capture a Pirate sea base to force peace. Later, when Yang became stronger and attacked Sven, Sven and I worked out a Pact (in 2223); but Sven hasn't fully recovered from his losses yet.

Miriam had a terribly beginning, and was pitifully last on the power graph for a very long time. She won the first planetary battle in 2149 (I'm assuming it was against Zak), and started to improve after that. But she's always been behind in tech, and unless she gets Air Power soon (and Secrets of the Human Brain, which she still lacks), she's going to be overrun by H'minee. In her pride, she has refused to accept peace with me on equitable terms, so I've been chipping away at her sea bases while H'minee hits her on the land. On the other hand, she's nowhere near Zak any more, which I suppose is a good thing for both of them. Too bad H'minee's stronger than both of them combined.

For most of the game, I've been running Democracy. I never had much of a chance to run Free Market; the battles have been too frequent and prolonged. (I did squeeze in a few years of FM, from 2184 to 2196, and then 2212 to 2219, then 2220 to 2230.) I spent a lot of time in Simple, naturally; and a good deal of time in Planned. I went Green in 2240, once my air force was in decent shape and I was starting to feel the unhappiness effects of inefficiency with my newly captured bases. I've avoided Wealth so far, because I can't handle the morale penalties right now, with so much military action underway.

I probably won't have the fastest time on this game; in fact, until MY 2240, I didn't really have a good grip on the game at all, and had to survive from one turn to the next. Between 2230 and 2240 I managed to build my air force, get enough probe teams out, get the techs that Yang had hitherto kept from me, take a few bases from Yang and Miriam, and switch to Green government, which is my best long-term choice in the era between Air Power and Clean Reactors.

I don't have a lot of experience in tech stag games, so I probably didn't play very well. I neglected military techs in the beginning, and suffered for it when Sven started hitting me. (Laser (2)-2-4 skimships help, but against (4)-3-4 impact/plasma ships they just don't have enough power.) I was one of the last to learn Nonlinear Math, but once I finally got that, I was able to make up for a lot of lost time. (Most of my impact rovers have gone to that great impact garage in the sky; they served me very well against Yang, though. The (4)-1-4 impact ships served well against Sven, who simply couldn't produce units fast enough (no minerals). They continue to work against Miriam.)

[mark13]

WE,
Not sure, it may be large....I'm sure the flo-ster will fill us in though....

The next part of the challenge log, Brother Mark of the Peacekeepers:

2202 - Tech! Ethical Calculus - change to Demo, should get rid of some of that awful inefficiency...
Tech! Doctrine: Loyalty, demanded from Yang - LOL....all of a sudden he seems intent on keeping the peace, wonder why
Pact sworn with Miriam - 100 energy credits also for Vendetta against the Univeristy - I need the cash right now....
2203 - Tech! Centauri Empathy, probed from the Caretakers. Those lost techs are rolling in.... :evil grin:
2204 - size 1 base captured from Caretakers using bribed 3-Res Garrison unit.
2205 - New 'Behemoth Class' Impact rover (4-3-2) put in the production queues
2207 - Yang brings reinforcements onto the border - polls put his apporximate chance of a successful invasion at 2%
2208 - Pecae brokered between Yang and Svensgaard - for now....
2209 - Planetary Transit System completed - only have one more base to establish though
2210 - Tech! Adaptive Economics - can only go for DocInit

Status report at 2210:

Bases: 12 + 1 CP (population 48)
# of techs: 20 (4 in last 10 years)
Techs every 10, next in 10
Income: 67/yr
SPs: WP, VW, HGP, PTS
Usurpers have ME
University EG

The power graph:
Caretakers and Peacekeepers - nothing seperating them
University at 3/5
Usurpers at 1/2
Pirates at just less than 1/2
Hive at 1/3
Believers at three pixels high

Researching Doctrine: Initiative
Planetary governorship
About to start work on the Planetary Energy Grid - ETA 15 turns

Military:
1 Battle Ogre Mk1
5 Impact rovers (4-1-2)
3 Impact Infantry (4-3-1)
1 Behemoth Class Impact Rover (4-3-2)
2 Foil probe teams
9 Scout Defensives (1-2-2)

Facilities:
2 CCs (got the tech in 2202 - LOL)
11 Recycling Tanks
10 Rec Commons
6 Energy Banks
9 Net Nodes
5 Command Centres

A few thoughts:

What difference a few 4-3-1s on the border makes
For the first time in the game, Yang is on the defensive - stacking a load of 2-2-1s on the border, and giving me techs when I ask for them. And the best part? He still doesn't have impact weapons.....
The pirates are edgy, very edgy. I daren't run wealth - that is the one thing he doesn't like. I don't really want to get into a war with him, because I need access to the surrounding water - mainly for my foil probes.
The aliens are pretty hostile at the moment, but H'minee has been a good technological source of late
Zak is at war with me, and I plan on sending a couple of foil probes over there to steal some of his more prized technologies.....
Miriam is nothing more than a minor nation, and looks to be heading for Zak's torture chamber any second....
We have plans, anyway......

Mark13

[Googlie]

State of the nation - 2190

11 bases
26 pop
15 techs
explore 22%
discover 15%
build 18%
conquer 14%
SE settings: 30/10/60
Tech per turn = 431; turns per tech 12 years; next tech (Intellectual Integrity) in 2 years
Energy per turn: 11
WP, ME and CN built
Building the MCC (21 to go), and the PTS (30 to go)

Units:
2 colony pods
7 formers
14 plasma sentinels
3 supply crawlers
1 unity rovers
3 recon rover
1 unity foil
2 plasma hoverboats
2 skimship probes
1 Ogre Mk I

Pacted with Zak and Sven
Treaty with Miriam and Yang
Truce with Marr
Vendetta with H'minee
Still planetary Guv
Second on power chart to Caretakers

AC score: 158

[MariOne]

quote: Originally posted by Ersatzflo on 11-12-2000 08:05 PM ... abundant life: the purpose of this challenge is not to confront ourselves with the hardest possible settings. ... The map and faction allow for almost any kind of conquest/development scheme, allowing us to see how different strats work out long term. rules: please check out http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum27/HTML/000245.html?6 for rules. ...

- first, about the settings, why Transcend then? Why not Citizen?

- second:
OK, this is interesting because we can compare our strategies, and for comparison sake we should provide that we abide by the same rules, or the whole challenge is moot.
To a clear question, you kinldy and clearly answered declaring the PBEM Tournament Thread Rules (thank you for the link) as the official rules for this challenge. This means that anything not mentioned in that page should NOT be forbidden.

Now you come up with:

quote: Originally posted by Ersatzflo on 11-13-2000 04:00 PM ...regarding jimmytricks rules questions (the fiend !): using captured units as templates is not allowed. You are barely able to copy them, but don't understand the captured technology well enough to modify it. ...

How do you call this?
I call it CHANGING THE RULES UNDERWAY.
Had you stated that rule from the start, I would have had no problem in abiding by it.

ASIDE:
Icidentally, I strongly disagree with that rule, and with the lame (NOI) explanation you provided:
I capture a chaos infantry, and you DO grant me the ability to COPY that unit with a chaos weapon, which technology I don't understand.
Now I fully understand and since a long time the tech to build both infantry and rover chassis.
Thus, if I substitute a component that I know very well (infantry chassis) with another component that I also know very well (rover chassis), I'm not modifying in anyway a component which tech I don't understand. I use it as a BLACK BOX COMPONENT!. But what is assembled around it I'm able to design and modify with full mastery.
Your position is a Civ-like one: unit designs come unalterable as a whole with a tech.
You might have noticed that in SMAC instead a tech gives you the knowledge and ability to build a COMPONENT.
Anyway, as I said, I'm able to have fun also if I have to throw logic away and adapt to the majority.
/ASIDE

So far I didn't use that game FEATURE, so I'll abstain to do it in the rest of the challenge.
But should someone have already exploited it, I'll of course vote to allow it, instead of forcing them to discard that attempt, on the ground that the rule was NOT STATED before the beginning of the challenge.


I have a curiosity:
in your settings summary you didn't specify the kind of victories allowed, thus I assume that by default they're all available, included cooperative.
As I understood it, we don't stricly have a parameter to compare the value of our games, like year of victory or SMAC score.
It's more interesting to share the strategies and the stories.
That is, if I get to win 20 turns earlier than someone else, BUT relying on pure chance and luck (and if I replay the same 10 times I'd always lose), I didn't then achieve a better victory than the one who'd win 20 turns later, but with a sound, smart, innovative, bullet-proof, unbeatable strategy.
Am I correct?

Sorry if I look like a troublemaker.
Actually, I only want to have fun, hopefully like you all do too.
It just that I can see little fun in playing a Sinlge Player game, should we found out in the end that everyone adopted different rule frames and the games can't be compared...

BTW, if someone's interested, I could feed your LOGS into an Excel spreadsheet, with the mission years on the left column as a time coordinate, and each story rolling down on separate parallel colums, so that your achievements can be easily & visually compared on a time scale.
(I guess I'd do it for my own pleasure, I just won't bother to upload it if none's interested....)

[Googlie]

MO:

The spreadsheet's a great idea

I cut and pasted the reports of the various players to word, then opened multiple versions in different windows and compared that way, but the spreadsheet idea is better (more work, but hey, if you are willing to do it......)

G.

[MariOne]

First draft tomorrow evening (hopefully)
So far only mark13, Googlie, big_canuk and VoodoChile provided a proper log, the others only "single point" reports and "sparse" comments (hard to fit in a time scale, I mean).
I didn't begin to play myself!
I actually enjoy more in providing logistic and organizational support for a group, than doing the things myself...

[VoodooChild]

I'm saving every turn (I love 20 gig drives), so if you need stats for particular turns let me know. I think it would be wise to establish bench marks for summaries and criteria of what you need.

[Capt Dizle]

Quote from MariOne: "That is, if I get to win 20 turns earlier than someone else, BUT relying on pure chance and luck (and if I replay the same 10 times I'd always lose), I didn't then achieve a better victory than the one who'd win 20 turns later, but with a sound, smart, innovative, bullet-proof, unbeatable strategy.
Am I correct?"

MariOne,

I believe if you want to measure performance then you have to adopt some objective standard, such as year of victory. Of course we don't have to get all that competitive about this.

Here is a quote for you, "Luck is the residue of design".

Even if we are playing a tough scenario we are playing versus the AI so I have to scoff at the concept of your sound bulletproof strategy.

What are we looking for? Some mathematical pre-planned optimal strategy? I hope not.

The game can be broken down into two major thought processes. Productivity puzzles and operations puzzles. These puzzles overlap of course but there is no way around them.

How to produce the most energy? How to get my troops to that spot in the minimum number of turns?

How many formers shall I build per base? Should I build roads for interior transport?

What is the best way to rush build that secret project? Maybe I should build a base there so I can base needlejets out of it to provide air support for future operations in that theatre.

The way a player balances these two processes, the priority he places on each, and the results he gets from his approach is very interesting. But hard to communicate perhaps.

There are two many variables in this game, even versus the AI, to look for paradigm strategies.

The better victory is produced not by mathematical spreadsheets but through mysterious processes of human intuition. That’s hard to put in a spreadsheet. I would be more interested in hearing of thought processes than looking at logs.

The lucky guy probably played the better game.

[Misotu]

I want to play this one ... but I keep getting terranx.exe crashes and the game hangs when I try to save it using (ctrl) s.

I've turned on autosave I'm afraid, but I haven't got beyond turn 15 yet ...

Bah!
[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited November 18, 2000).]

[Misotu]

BTW MariOne, I agree that if you capture a unit with new armour/tech/chassis you should be allowed to cannibalise the unit in the workshop. As far as I know, this is permitted under the Apolyton PBEM rules although of course Tau Ceti would have to rule on that.

[MariOne]

JT, that's what I said.
If you mean that your whole strategy relies in the end on your 90% damaged recon rover to win a battle against a plasma garrison, otherwise you're bust, and you indeed happen to win and you claim that your was the best strategy, then we agree that the lucky guy played the better game.
I told I wanted to use a spreadsheet NOT mathematically (you know, a spreadsheet is just a grid, if you prefer you can do the same with PowerPoint, or with a word processor, or with a database if you find those tools handier. Or with pen and paper and snail mail it to your friends), but just to see the comments and achievements of the players running down in parallel to be "easier" compared on a time scale TOO (BTW, In the end it's not clear: do you want year of victory as objective standard to compare our games, or do you prefer to compare the WHAT and HOW rather than the final WHEN?). Because parts of the puzzles you have to solve are also the order and the timing of your actions, as you say.
I am one of the greates adversaries of paradigm strategies (maybe because I can hardly think of one? Sorry, I'm not a proud CoC SMACer like you...).

PS: BTW, did I need to shove an explicit " " up there?

[Capt Dizle]

Mose,

Yes, we should compare methods and applications. Notwithstanding, by definition, first is always best.

jt

[Gregurabi]

I didn't keep a log for the first 50 years, and my pace in this game isn't anywhere near the leaders' paces. I'll keep better notes on my second attempt.

[WhiteElephants]

Jimmytrick -- I don't neccessarily agree that the earliest victory is the best. For instance, you chose to approach this challenge with a momentum type strategy and went for a conquest victory. I, on the other hand, chose to go for transcendence. Now anyone who has played this game for a fair amount of time can testify that after Doctrine Air Power the AI factions are a non-factor and it's mearly a matter of time before you wipe their snot off the map. Factor in MMI and it gets ridiculous. In your approach to the game I would argue that the it was far more important for you to reach DAP and MMI where as in my approach it was far more important to reach trascendence. So comparing the time when I transcend and the time when you conquered the planet isn't a fair comparision to determine the best strategy. It's like comparing apples and organes. Had we all played for a conquest victory I would then be able to agree that the earliest victory is the best, but as it stands I feel that this challenge was somewhat flawed in that respect. I think that if you are going to play for the earliest victory, conquest is going to win out every time with every faction. So does that mean conquest victory and momentum strats are the best? I don't think so, but each player has to judge that for themselves.

[Capt Dizle]

I agree with you completely. You can't compare conquest with any other type of victory, but, within categories of victories first is best.

I might switch to transcendance at some point just to see what I can do. Fusion Labs are on the horizon.

jt