Finished - at last

Chowlett · November 30, 2000, 10:36

Finally finished my first game of SAMCX last night, very enjoyable. No log kept, but here are recollections of the game.

Playing as the Conciousness on Thinker, I started on a long-ish narrow island, with Zak to the north and Lal appearing slightly later to the south. On the basis of "needing expansion, and hey it's Zak", I quickly submitted him. He provided me with several techs throughout the game. Contact with the other factions was made after building the Empath Guild. Yang took offense at my Democracy and declared vendetta, as did H'minee after a while. With Yang nowhere in sight, I gassed H'minee into small alien pieces and off planet in very short order. Naturally this put me in Marr's good books.

While gassing, I ran across Santiago, who went to war with me. I quickly took a base, and she sued for peace. She much of a threat, and Yang had been found and was starting to send waves of needlejets over, so I accepted Truce and Treaty. She never went back on it, and in fact became a Pact Sister late game. Meanwhile, my hefty <4> defenders had been resisting Yang, so I started to take the fight to him, I got several of his bases, including one or two on his main continent and a handful of seas. At that point, Marr came calling, with literally hundred of missiles (thankfull not all in one turn.

By this point, I was up around Prob Mech, and most other people had Chaos at very best, so my <6+> defenders got rid of any real threat, even taking missiles down regularly by the end game (I love singularity power). So I started to half-gas Marr to get him off my back, continued to press into Yang's territory, and used my 3 or 4 central bases to keep up the research (I actually only had 3 land bases on my original continent - I was that pushed for space by Zak and Lal). By the time I hit Sup. Tens. Solids it was all over. Cloning vats and hab domes make short work of techs, so long as you remember to build in the drone facilities. Kept Marr and Yang at bay (and nicked one or two bases), and transcended in about 2500. Slow game, I know, but I don't tend to play many of the more recommended methods much at all - I seldom even use crawlers.

I built - um - WP, VW, PTS, CDF, EG, PEG, NA, PD(as denial really), MCC(with only 3 lands, a necessity), SC, HSA, LV, XD, CF, CA(!-this is powerful), ToE, CV, PM, UT, LR, NF, MH(just for the fun-it finished with the Ascent), NB, SAC, Voice, Ascent. I feel it was perhaps a walkover. Anything else above about ME was unbuilt.

I have the autosave of the turns leading to transcendance if anybody wants them.

Next comes Roze, for a change, then maybe I'll try Sven. At some point, I'll hit Transcend.

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The best way to avoid errors is not to do anything - Dr Beardon (Maths)

("Something is worth doing"=>"It is worth doing properly")<=>("Something is not worth doing properly"=>"It is not worth doing") - A truth first expounded by Murgatroyd

mark13 · November 30, 2000, 14:45

Chowlett, may I be the first to offer my congratulations - from the magnitude of that victory I would hop straight to transcend level. There isn't too much difference, just in the number of drones, and that the AI gets 6 minerals per row, instead of 8. An impressive victory it was though, with Yang, Santiago and the aliens, it sounds like a real bloodfest....

Mark13

Blunderdog · November 30, 2000, 19:23

I agree ... it seems that you are plenty ready for Transcend.

Skanderbeg · December 1, 2000, 07:56

Congratulations!

The first victory always is the sweetest!

Chowlett · December 1, 2000, 16:17

It's better - although I do agree that some items are definitely overpowered (CBA for one), in general it's an improvement.

I just started a transcend game as Roze, and have found myself on a continent with the conciousness to my south, and the usurpers sneaked in between us. I'm at war with both of them and Domai (who's far enough away not to trouble me, yet). I've already missed out on WP, HGP and EG, so it looks like being quite a challenge. At least I've got tech probe sources and expansion room to the north. Pacted with Deirdre and Zak. Incidentally, that victory with Cyborgs was in fact on Librarian, so not as impressive as it sounds.

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The best way to avoid errors is not to do anything - Dr Beardon (Maths)

("Something is worth doing"=>"It is worth doing properly")<=>("Something is not worth doing properly"=>"It is not worth doing") - A truth first expounded by Murgatroyd

RedFred · December 2, 2000, 01:45

Glad to hear you finally got it done!

How did you feel the game stacked up against vanilla SMAC?

cbn · December 4, 2000, 22:25

It sounds as if you are ready for transcend. Actually the things that make the game harder actually work to make it easier/more enjoyable in some respects. The AI factions actually research some techs that you can trade for or steal thereby moving up the tech tree more quickly. Better terraforming and bigger bases mean that the AI has bases worth taking and holding in some cases (although at any level the AI terraforming is not that great).

I think that people (not necessarily you Chowlett) are unduly hesitant to attempt the highest level on these games. I remember with CIV2 I used to play on King and win most of the time but not always. Then I found this board, read up and went up two levels to Deity and never looked back.

If you read this board and follow even the general advice, soon transcend will be a fairly routine win. Then its on to other challenges-- My current is double-blind with no base or unit bribes permitted. When I get to the point that I can win this routinely (as Morgan) I'll seek another challenge. I haven't tried OCC since my CIV2 games --hmmmm