The UBC

[Sikander]

I have played SMAC on and off for the last year or so. During that time I have always wondered what the limits of the game are regarding the Score. What is the highest score recorded, and under what conditions?

One reason that I have not ventured a serious try at finding the answer to this myself (and probably the reason no one else seems to either) is that the game takes so long to play as it is, that any sort of guilding the lily might well cause permanent brain injury as well as the retirement of a perfectly good game into the 'never again' pile.

Nonetheless, I would like to open the floor for discussion of "The Ultimately Boring Challenge". The goal is to reach the highest score total for each of the standard map sizes utilizing only standard SMAC/X factions, and any game parameters you wish. What other rules would be fair to use? Some who have problems with the terran.exe crash may want to vote not to include the 'Iron Man' setting for instance.

Which factions do you think best suited to this challenge? Is anyone crazy enough to give this a try?

[Aredhran]

NOT ME !

[Googlie]

There's thread somewhere here by someone who was testing the maximum numbr of bases - I think he was over 300 and his AC score was in the tens of thousands (77,000%, or something) - said it took 2 hours per move, or summat like that.

Not me, neither.

G.

[Christantine The Great]

How do you get rid of the terrain.exe problem?

[Aredhran]

Play another game

And what's with the ridiculous Santa Clause smileys ?

[Rynn:]

Hey, Rip van Aredhran - - we had them last year - did you sleep through Christmas?

Bah Humbug!

[Deimos]

The player who was doing this was Black Sunrise. He's in a couple of my PBEM's.

[DilithiumDad]

Visiting my Hall of Fame, I found that my highest score was 9682 points or 726%, Transcendence Victory in 2280 as the Provost. Thinker level, Ultimate Builder Map.

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Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Helium Pond]

I think the best way to do this would be to see who could get the highest score in 100 years. That way, it couldn't get as massively awfully incredibly soul-numbingly boring as it otherwise would.

[Sikander]

DilithiumDad,

Wow, that's an impressive score, especially for the year 2280. How did you do it, Submissives?

Helium Pond,

I hear what you are saying, but I fear that only conquest type victories would make the grade that way. Plus, it wouldn't be the Ultimately Boring Challenge without a little soul numbing along the way, now would it?


[This message has been edited by Sikander (edited December 09, 2000).]

[Sikander]

I have heard a lot of people say that fungus has the best production in the late game (when you would be trying to run up your score). I wonder about that. As far as I can tell, the best fungal production I have seen (not playing Dee) is 3 Nut, 4 Min, and 5 Energy, for a total of 12 FOP. This is excellent no doubt, as it equals a borehole, and in many cases requires little or no terraforming. However, let's compare it to a maximally formed land square.

The land square produces 6 Nutrients with a condensor, farm & soil enricher, and perhaps 1 Min or Energy. This seems like an easy win for the fungus, as not only is it producing 5 or 6 more FOP, but most of those FOP are multiplied by the many facilities that your bases have, perhaps as much as +200%. The only thing that the formed land square produces is Nutrients, which are not multiplied by anything except food satelites (50% assuming pop boom).

Looking a little deeper however, things get murkier. Let's compare two worked fungus squares with two worked formed squares. First the fungus:

6 food, (-4 food for the workers) nets 2 food, which nets a transcendi (4 labs, 2 econ, 2 psych) and another food from a food satelite, energy from the energy satelite, and another mineral from the mining station. Multiply these gains by all of the facility multipliers (at +200%) and you end up with:

12 Labs
6 Econ
6 psych
1 food, 3 Energy, 3 Mineral (satelites * facilities)
----------
31 FOP

8 Minerals +200% for factories etc = 24 Minerals

10 energy +200% = 30 Energy

Giving a total of 85 FOP for these two fungus squares.

Now the two condensor, farm, enricher squares. Let's assume that both are flat, and that neither have a river or special.

12 food - 4 food for the workers for a net of 8 food. This supports 4 transcendi, who in turn create another 4 food (from satelites), which supports 2 more transcendi who provide another 2 food, which provides yet another transcendi and 1 food remainder. The total is 7 transcendi and 1 food remaining, or

84 labs
42 econ
42 psych
21 minerals
21 Energy
1 food
------------
211 FOP!

We have a winner! Now I realize that these squares take considerable former time to create, and fungus can be easily found on most maps. In my own defense, I did not use crawlers to bring in the food, which would have freed another couple of workers to act as Transcendi. As I am at work, and don't have the game with me perhaps my analysis suffers from accuracy vis the maximal productivity of fungus, or the productivity of Transcendi. If this is the case let me know, and I'll rework the calculations. Still it is clear that food really rules by the late game (after the restrictions are removed, infrastructure built, and satelites going up every turn).

I would imagine a high score champion might well terraform all of the sea squares away and replace them with thousands of condensor / farms / enrichers, each worked with a crawler. Bases would produce satelites, at least until there was no way that any one base's population would reach the total already produced. Each square could support 5 population max, for a truly staggering potential point total.

[DilithiumDad]

For the UBC, I suggest a limit not of 100 turns but of 200. Everyone should be able to transcend admirably by 2300, I think.

High score tips for SMAC 4.0:

1. Build or capture every secret project. (25 points a pop)

2. Get as many transcendent thoughts as possible (10 points a pop and unlimited!)

3. Max out your population (1 point per unit of population, unlimited). Beeline for Hab Domes and get them early as possible. Build the Space Elevator (comes with the Hab Dome tech) and use orbital insertion to found a base at every possible location. Always have more Hydroponic satellites than you have citizens in your largest base. Leave some fungus around or create some with ecodamage (see above).

4. Max out your commerce (1 point per credit of commerce) by having submissive factions. Gift bases to your submissives to keep them strong. Terraform their bases for them for more energy (make tidal harnesses for them). Make certain that on the last turn (in 2299) you are running with a high economy rating to boost commerce score. (Demo/FM/Wealth/Eudamonic)

5. Crawlers! Use crusier crawlers and drop crawlers with orbital insertion to harvest resources from every open tile.

6. Play on a huge map. Huge Map of Planet or my modified version of it will give you plenty of room to expand. Larger map size slows your research, but it will pay off in the end.

7. Three best factions: U of P, Morganites (with beeline for CLoning Vats), and Peacekeepers.

The winner of the UBC will build the Ascent to Transcendence in 2300, and Voice of Planet probably in 2298.

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Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet
[This message has been edited by DilithiumDad (edited December 12, 2000).]

[Helium Pond]

I spoke unclearly (seems to be a habit): My suggestion was that people compare their scores at the time they reach 100, not that they necessarily win by that time. In other words, like a comparison challenge. Although, huh. Winning gives your score a huge boost. Well then, maybe it would be 100 years, no conquest victory allowed, who can have the best score. But I think this is going in a different direction than you want. I'm just speaking as a person who likes to avoid soul-numbing (and ICS, at that matter) whenever possible.

[Sikander]

Okay,

So the Ultimately Boring Challenge should be limited to 2300 for our purposes (competition), though anyone can go for the 'Ultimate Ultimate', and play a game out as far as they would like for the amusement of all. Objective is highest score possible using any allowable (non-custom) game settings.

I would like to suggest a few ground rules for discussion:

1) I would like to limit the factions to SMAC/X factions, no customs.

2) I would like to limit the maps to random maps generated by the game, with no custom sizes.

3) What sort of things possible should be listed as cheats? I would be willing to allow certain things normally considered cheats (like trading bases with the AI) or in the somewhat grey area (crawler upgrades) in order to allow each player the maximum leeway. What do you guys think about this?

4) I am likewise unsure about the Ironman setting. I always play this way (take it as it comes), but do not usually use the setting as it can be inconvenient at times. As the setting is no guarantee of good behavior and we are all on the honor system anyway, I wonder if it is worth allowing this setting?

Any comments, thoughts, questions about this before I actually fire it up and give it a try?

[mark13]

quote: Any comments, thoughts, questions about this before I actually fire it up and give it a try?

Rather you than me

[DilithiumDad]

I would take issue witht he requirement for random maps. Huge Map of Planet or its offspring, The Ultimate Builder Map, should be allowed. Totally custom maps consisting of all Monsoon Jungle with a monolith in every tile just might be cheating

The base trading bug seems to be fixed in patch 4.0. The AI is very reluctant to trade bases, e en when you offer a larger and better developed base to them.


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Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Sikander]

D-Dad,

What is the Ultimate Builder Map? I see that you are it's creator, so I'm sure you can fill me in or point me to a copy of it.

My concern is that a map which isn't generated by the game (and the huge map of planet is ok by me) will not provide a level playing field. I want everyone to be able to fire up SMAC/X and take their shot at this if they wish, by merely setting the normal parameters of the game, and without having to compete with someone's overly advantageous set-piece game map. (Not that the UBM is that.)

Btw, I'm experimenting with an accelerated start (in comparison to my usual) in order to start the point-racking as early as possible. Once I feel good about my technique, I will be starting my first attempt. I will keep you all abreast of developments.

Keep on Scoring!

[DilithiumDad]

I did finally get the UBM on a web site. It's a new small site --I will see. I submitted it to Apoloyton over a year ago and they have yet to post it. I have sent e-mail to complain, but have just been ignored. I think they just have not updated the Files or the Hall of Fame section since late '99.

Meanwhile, just e-mail me at pre@po.cwru.edu and I will send it to you along with my scenario "The AI's Revenge" (so far unbeaten!).

To create the UBM, I started with the Huge Map of Planet, added the Manifold Nexus in the empty space below the Inland Sea, and put the Borehole Cluster up north of the Great Dunes. Then I played a huge number of 10-20 move games and noticed which factions were #1, #2 etc relative to their landing site. HMOP has 11 possible landing sites, but they are not equal. Landing near Monsoon Jungle was way better than getting the tiny Isle of Deinaria. I added 4-tile mini-jungles to each landing site, shrunk the Monsoon Jungle, and added monoliths and Unity pods to the weaker sites until all the sites were balanced. I added additional land tiles where needed and riased a new island start site I call Great Northern Island so that there are 13 landing sites that are all equally likely to be selected by the landing site alogrhythm. All are equally favorable as shown by AI performance. (It's a testament to how poor the AI plays, but there is no particualr site that favors one faction but not another, with the exception of the Pholus Ridge/The Ruins site which favors the Gaians).

The HMOP is good about separating start sites. The UBM is even better. The closest your HQ will be to another faction's HQ is 20 tiles, and more often it's twice that. Plus, I added extra fungus tiles to separate landing sites. The closer you get to your neighbor's territory, the more fungus there is and the more mind worms you will encounter. (Certain patterns of fungus tend to propagate worms)

So, the UBM is recognizable as the HMOP with some extra land, the minijungles at start sites, and (even) more fungus. The UBM has been used in all the games I have CMN'd over on ACOL (a few have complained about all the fungus, I must admit) and others have used it too.


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Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Misotu]

I'd like to give your scenario a go DiDad - I've emailed you to request this and your map (which I've played on in AIR3 as you know, and found to be good. No problems with the fungus personally - mind you, I was the Gaians in that game ).

[Sikander]

Dilithium Dad,

I've sent a request to get the UBM. It sounds interesting. At least it's been well playtested, unlike some other set maps.

[DilithiumDad]

Map of Planet was tested by the beta testers; UBM was modified from that. Not only did I test it but also I modified it based on play results, including early multiplayer results. It really cheeses me off that Apolyton won't post it.

Of the maps in the Apoloyton vault, I have tried Large Realistic Map and it is quite well balanced, certainly better balanced than a random map.

[DilithiumDad]

Interim results from UBC

On UBM, as U of P, landing site is north shore of Inland Sea. Nearest neighbor is Miriam (naturally) on the north Pholus Ridge landing site. She expanded rapidly down to our border, securing her claim to all of Pholus Ridge (curently in Truce). Santiago has Monsoon Jungle and the entire eastern mega-continent (including the Borehole Cluster) and is #1 in might (have treaty). Deirdre has Great Northern Island and is #2 of the AI factions (have vendetta that has yet to be acted upon). Lal has Uranium Flats (treaty), Morgan has Garland Crater (pact), and Yang is safely isolated on the Isle of Deinaria (truce), from where he is making amphibious raids on Lal and Santiago. The Manifold Nexus and Mt. Planet are up for grabs.

Here's AC scores. Note that I shifted from Demo/Planned to Demo/FM in 2204.

Year 2200 2202 2204 2206 2208
Population 150 169 188 191 195
Commerce 73 75 93 113 117
Tech 22 23 24 25 26
SP's 175 200 200 200 200
TOTAL 842 934 1010 1058 1076

TOTAL include Ironman bonus.

So, Demo/planned pop booming gives you the highest score, but FM moves you up the tech tree faster for more tech and SP's and quicker acquisition of things like hybrid forests, orbitals and hab domes to boost your pop. (Although actually, you can see that I was getting breakthrough about every 2 years regardless).