Playing as a hermit

Flubber · January 3, 2003, 12:12

I had not played SP for a long long time so I decided to get back into it by playing a "hermit" game. I chose the university ( Smax, large random world, transcend, all settings in the middle, random opponents -- drones data angels, morganites, usurpers, caretakers and cult.

I decided to play with these limits

-- I would contact nobody over the comm channels but could respond
-- I could accept gifts but would offer no tech in trade
-- I am not permitted to probe away tech
-- I am not permitted to conquer a base
-- I cannot call the council for any reason
-- I cannot colonize any lands not joined to my starting continent

The result is a pretty boring and easy game so far but one that is pretty slow tech wise. Its now 2205 or so and I have been elected governor (AI called the election). My tech rate is something like 3 times the best AI player but I now have to research all the crap tachs that normally I would steal from the AI-- I have the WP, VW, PTS, ME, CBA, CF, LV, the naval wonder and am headed for the Ascetic Virtues now. I have a dozen size 14 bases on my home continent which are now building crawlers and drop colony pods as I just terraformed a land link to more land. My capitol is building trawlers for my growing energy park.

As challenges go, I cannot recommend this as it is far too easy when played as the university. I had forgotten how far ahead of the AI one can get. Perhaps I will try this as the believers (getting to cyberetics to get the knowledge wonder could be a key)

Main_Brain · January 3, 2003, 13:48

Well you didnt include the big Research-AI's ;=)
Also it seems you were alone on your Home-Continent?
This of course seems to easens this Attempt.
Also I have this Question:

Quote:

-- I am not permitted to conquer a base

not conquer it or not capturing it?

spartak · January 3, 2003, 14:25

What's the difference?

Hydro · January 3, 2003, 14:44

Getting a fun SP game going can be frustrating. Here are some suggestions some friend and I have come up with. Try them if you like:

* No Unity pods – the AI is clueless on how to use these, and any non-AI faction (especially the Univ with free NN) gets a huge advantage.
* High rainfall – this helps out the AI’s generally hopeless terraforming
* Large land masses – lets the AI expand, since it is hopeless in setting up bases across water
* Limit yourself a reasonable number of bases (maybe 6, but 10 should be plenty), regardless of landmass size
* Diplomacy – always give tech when asked, give energy when you can (e.g. – bribing the AI to leave you alone, since you value your solitude)
* Decline to be Governor, and abstain in all Planetary Council items
* Used truly random tech, or semi-blind tech (such as sticking your priorities on Discover, and leaving it there). This largely eliminates b-line, and can do a lot to frustrating folks who assume they can have Ind Auto by 2130.

Flubber · January 3, 2003, 19:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Main_Brain
Well you didnt include the big Research-AI's ;=)
Also it seems you were alone on your Home-Continent?
This of course seems to easens this Attempt.
Also I have this Question:

not conquer it or not capturing it?

I wemt random opponents and thats what came up.

I was alone on my homeland but it was more an island than a continent

I transcended in 2301 without ever having set foot on land not connected to my homeland ( I terraformed a link to a big continent next to me). The AI was hopelessly behing in tech as here is waht they were researching

Caretakers -- fusion power
Usurpers -- airpower
Drones -- nonlinear math

well you get the idea --

It was about 2280 before the AI caretakers started to bother me. They even sunk a sea trawler or two before I decimated their forces and then they kept trying to land troops on my homeland. But their troopships could not get around my masses of trawlers and I sank 23 troopships in all. In the end, my labs were coming in at a rate of about 12000 per year and I was getting 2 techs a turn.

My play was very sloppy however as I was not alocvating specialist each turn and many times I found that a worker was assigned to produce 1 mineral when a specialist would have been much better. Score was 2891 and 271%

Flubber · January 3, 2003, 19:10

Oh and I played that I could not capture an opponents base by any means. I could theoretically destroy an opponents base but could not take any action that garnered any base I did not build myself

Flubber · January 3, 2003, 19:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Hydro
Getting a fun SP game going can be frustrating. Here are some suggestions some friend and I have come up with. Try them if you like:

* No Unity pods – the AI is clueless on how to use these, and any non-AI faction (especially the Univ with free NN) gets a huge advantage.
* High rainfall – this helps out the AI’s generally hopeless terraforming
* Large land masses – lets the AI expand, since it is hopeless in setting up bases across water
* Limit yourself a reasonable number of bases (maybe 6, but 10 should be plenty), regardless of landmass size
* Diplomacy – always give tech when asked, give energy when you can (e.g. – bribing the AI to leave you alone, since you value your solitude)
* Decline to be Governor, and abstain in all Planetary Council items
* Used truly random tech, or semi-blind tech (such as sticking your priorities on Discover, and leaving it there). This largely eliminates b-line, and can do a lot to frustrating folks who assume they can have Ind Auto by 2130.

For a good challege play Miriam using double-blind research (tick all or none as priority) and use random worlds until you find yourself alone. I have won this a couple of times but the last SP game I lost was like this as well (spent 100 years alone on an arid island and could not get doc flex)--

Another decent game is the One City Challenge-- There are many variations on this but the basic one of transcending while never ending a turn with more than one city can be fun

Xian · January 3, 2003, 20:05

HOW THE HELL DO YOU PLAY SO WELL?!?!?!? i F@^%# LOSE ON ANYTHING WITHIN 2 FROM TRANSCEND!!! WTF?

I must be missing something incredibly important, or i must be just dumb, i fing the game a challenge enough vs the AI factions on transcend!

But these are all good suggestions for the "citizen" difficulty |-)~

Marid Audran · January 3, 2003, 20:42

Three words Xian: Vel's Strategy Guide. You can find a URL to it in the SMAC/X FAQ.

stuntman19 · January 4, 2003, 01:51

I haven't played much smac\x for over a year now, but normally terraforming and the use of crawlers\trawlers really breaks the game open in SP. It is what enables one to utlilize specialists, golden age, and reach a 2 tech\turn research rate. Flubber did some smart things, land bridge for one, but even then he was so far ahead that he admits to getting sloppy or he prolly would have won sooner.

I use to give AI factions crawlers to start with but they still don't seem to use them properly. Really the only way I found was to not allow terraforming or crawler\trawler use at all to keep SP close.

Hydro · January 4, 2003, 08:34

Other ideas:

* No population booms, since this wildly unbalances the game against the AI. In my experience the AI only pop booms by accident.
* No or very limited crawler use. I've only rarely seen the AI use crawlers for harvesting resources.
* Limit yourself to a handful of SPs. However, if you limit crawler use it is possible that the AI will get more SPs than they would otherwise.

Lastly, role play and don't do things that faction leader wouldn't do. This is subjective, and it is the way I've always done things.

MA is right - get Vel's most excellent strategy guide now, if you don't already have it! His insights are keen, and he is an excellent writer.

Clear Skies · January 4, 2003, 09:04

Designing & gifting clean crawlers & sea trawlers to the AI tends to be useful...especially if you get them to them before they discover the prereqs. That way they tend to keep producing them for quite a while...
And Xian, I'm with you. Transcend is plenty hard enough for me...mind you, I tend to play mostly without crawlers or specialist cities. Might be the reason, but I see that as kinda cheating...

Xian · January 4, 2003, 15:57

Ivs never used supply crawlers, i probably should, and as for specialist cites i barely know what they are

/me gets the strategy guide

stuntman19 · January 5, 2003, 09:49

Xian...basically crawlers allow you to massively increase your prod in any of the resources you wish and maximize base size quickly using pop booming. If you have an energy park feeding a super science base(ME,Supercollider, and TofE) and then use specialists(Thinker or Engineer) one base can come close to a tech\turn if I remember right.

Clear Skies...did the clean crawlers actually serve a purpose for the AI? When I tried they made them but had them conveying one mineral or something not very productive when I checked thru infiltration.

Flubber · January 6, 2003, 13:18

A couple of things

Why are you building clean crawlers (except to pump up the mineral cost when you cash them) ?

Xian

I use very simple methods

-- beeline to industrial auto to get crawlers
-- use crawlers to bring in minerals for faster builds-- Once I get a base or two that can produce a crawler a turn (perhaps with some cash added for rush-building at first) I am very happy--- these crawlers can move outward and then be rehomed to help other bases mineral or food production (and remember to click on the crawler and have it produce something even when en route to a final location)
-- build the WP so advanced terraforming is possible and quicker
-- start building condensor farms which are crawled (extra citizens can become librarians if they would be unhappy otherwise)
-- switch from FM to planned and pop-boom (I did this twice-- once to get to size 7 and later to get pretty much all my bases to 14 (time your switches-- save up some cash and rush-build while in planned)
-- choose 2-3 bases as super science cities (ports are often best)-- throw every science and energy enhancing facility in them and use sea crawlers to bring in energy-- other nearby bases also produce crawlers and trawlers to be rehomed to these best bases

get the cloning vats for a perpetual boom, have satellites providing energy, food and minerals and then the future SE choices allow just insane abilities.

Specialists and crawlers go hand in hand-- 3 crawled condensors will bring in 12 food, feeding 6 citizens (more when soil enrichers are available. Turn those into librarians and you get 6 content people and a great science boost. Once engineers are available it really pays off. My terraforming is designed from the start to maximize one factor of production-- rocky squares get mines or boreholes while everything else gets a forest or a condensor/farm combo. workers generally work boreholes or forest while everything else is crawled

I don't claim my system is optimum but it is easy enough to beat the AI (particularly as the university on a large world). If your goal is to learn an easy way to beat the AI, this is it. But beware, it will get easy to beat the AI and then you will start seeking other challenges --- like winning

1. with no crawlers and/or no formers,
2.only building one base
3. using double blind research
4. using the scenario editor to take over the last place AI and then trying to win (the difficulty is catching and beating the faction you previously developed)-- I think some people have switched more than once
5 win without building a base ( I did this on a tiny world using the cult) its impossible unless the lands are all linked or you pop a boat since without a base you are limited to your initial units and captured worms

I've done each of these except number 4 ( hmm-- I know what my next game will be) and there are dozens of engineered scenarios for even tougher challenges.

When I first came here, I could not understand how people could talk about how "easy" it was to win at transcend. Frankly I thought they were full of crap. But after reading up on the methods here, I won at transcend and then won again and again until now, I have lost ONE game in the last 50 or so to the AI (I played double-blind as Miriam and got stuck on an island-- I never met anyone for a hundred years and when they came calling it was a spartan invasion fleet that just rolled me . . . I actually replayed that game from year one, this time making sure to get the Weather Paradigm and using formers to link to nearby lands to give me adequate space and won easily.)

So

READ VELS STRATEGY GUIDE

then read it again

tinker with your game and read old threads here on pretty much every topic . . .

and pretty soon you will be crushing the AI.

Sarxis · January 7, 2003, 03:36

No Faction is an island unto themselves.

Just felt like saying it.

Xian · January 11, 2003, 20:48

thanks for the help ill try this stuff out

Capt Dizle · January 12, 2003, 01:18

jt's current house rules for SP:

1. Must use initial colony pods to found two separate bases.
2. Conquest/diplomatic win only.
3. Double blind tech stag.
4. Can't build colony pods until 100 turns have passed AND industrial auto is in hand.
5. Any bases captured before the above must be gifted or starved. Improvements may be sold. Bases captured after the above may be kept but no non-military base improvements, formers or crawlers may be built.
6. Any bases established after the requirements of rule 4 are met can only build military improvements or military units. You can rehome formers and or crawlers to these new bases however.
7. Can never sneak attack, declare vendetta, accept truce or peace, nor enter into a pact that would cause vendetta. Exception: Submission pact.

Googlie · January 12, 2003, 01:53

To balance the playing field (as the AI rarely, if ever, builds crawlers, set the cost to, say, 8 - this makes them as expensive as an energy bank or network node - with the added advantage that greater engined don't reduce the cost, as it's not autocalculated

So the temptation to build them disappears, and certainly they become useless for SP building.

Just disbling the tech needed puts them in the colony pod class - they appear right from the game start.

(Course you'd need to copy the entire smac directory over to a new one - say "funsmac" otherwise you'd be screwing yourself in PBEMs if you forgot to edit the cost before each turn after playing your single-player game)

G.

Hendrik · January 12, 2003, 03:28

I just have a hard time giving myself a handicap in SMAX, but that really seems to be the only way to make losing possible. I recently played the CGN challenge where all the other factions are pacted together, start with pre-founded bases (in positions difficult to probe) with lots of terraforming (boreholes) done. Each faction started with several bases, Morgan had two continents, two HQ bases, and was pacted with every AI faction. He had several bases producing more than 100 energy, and was raking in tech at 2 turns/tech or 3 turns/ tech up to transcendance. Even with these massive AI bonuses I still had a relatively easy time winning, I lost most of my crawlers, but I just played a hermit game and build up to the point where I had enough energy production and labs to do reasonably well, and enough mineral production to crank out probe foils. I finally caught up to Morgan in tech while he was about 5 years from discovering everything, and easily transcended.

I just have a hard time giving myself handicaps, I usually don't find playing with a handicap enjoyable. Miriam double blind sounds interesting... but I remember the UBC with loathing. I have not done the OCC but it seems to be mostly luck, if you start between Yang, Miriam, and Santiago on a relatively small map even the most skillfull of players would not survive under OCC, if you play on a huge map with lots of water the AI is incapable of launching a sea attack supported by a navy, so it would just seem to lead to a long boring game. Anyone here have a particular handicap or scenario to recommend?

vitamin j · February 1, 2003, 02:52

It's interesting to see how people limit themselves vs the AI. I don't think it's possible to lose, though...

I've been playing a lot of SP lately, ( ok, too much...) with my own "SP house rules".

* Huge Map, minimum oceans, average everything. Transcend.
* No Unity Pods or Random Events. (yes, no alien artifacts...)
* No Secret Projects.
* No Crawlers. (just an option, you fiends...)
* No Choppers.
* No Probe Teams with greater than fission reactors.

I've also been using tweaked faction and alpha/alphax files.

AI factions get +2 police and +2 support (added to their base values in these areas), and all AI units come with non-lethal methods with Int Integ. Polymorphic encryption might be a cool one, too.

I almost always play as Deirdre, vs Uni, Morgan, Angels, PKs, Drones, and Hive.

More significant rules changes include:

* No nutrient reduction for mined squares. (important for the AI.)
* Clean reactors moved to Nanominiaturization.
* Genejacks moved to Bio-Engineering, Longevity Vaccine to Retroviral Engineering.

Many "little" things have been changed in the rules. I'll go into more of them if anyone is interested.

I've just recently started using crawlers again and found myself to be very rusty!

Edit: Forgot to add Transcend difficulty...

johndmuller · February 1, 2003, 03:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Googlie
To balance the playing field (as the AI rarely, if ever, builds crawlers, set the cost to, say, 8 - this . . .
. . . (Course you'd need to copy the entire smac directory over to a new one - say "funsmac" otherwise you'd be screwing yourself in PBEMs if you forgot to edit the cost before each turn after playing your single-player game)
G.

Don't PBEMs lock in the initial setup conditions somehow? If not, someone could do the opposite kind of thing, like make PB's cost the same as scouts (for themselves only); I would have thought a glitch like that would have gotten some press, even if not too many people mess with the files.

Capt Dizle · February 1, 2003, 10:18

No, PBEM games use whatever alpha.txt rules are in place when the turn is opened. This is the reason that we don't see more creative scenarios with SMAC, you would have to switch the alpha.txt or just create a new directory.

vitamin j · February 1, 2003, 11:03

Something else you can do, that I actually haven't done that much, is to make a point of giving the AI some of the more essential units used in the game, by using the ctrl+shift+U command. Foil probes, sam rovers, clean formers, etc., are all excellent candidates. They will build them.