whats the best group?

[mark13]

HP,
LOL - my advice would be to submit now unconditionally

Natan,
Point taken - in SP games this is definitely possible, but in MP - no way, not a chance. To start with, the University has such a research advantage, particularly early game, that the Hive can't even get close without waging war.....

[Dry]

It seems that I am a non-standard player here.
I won my first transcend/ironman game with Morgan and until yet, I was not able to win one with the Hive.
To be honest (on the Hive):
I must confess that I always stopped playing after 100 turns or so because I was never able to build a single SP.
To be honest (on Morgan):
Now that I have won with other factions, I have difficulties to win again with Morgan. I need always a restart or 2 to go back on Morgan strategy.

[Garth Vader]

One thing to consider when debating the relative strengths of the factions is whether you are playing SMAC, or SMACX.

I don't have X, but played it at a friends. The main thing I noticed was that it was much harder to attack early in the game. I then realized the benefit of some of the strategies I saw here, but dismissed as irrevelant.

If I had more time I would take some of you Hive doubters on, I am 4-0 in MP with the Hive. I would say that I have played against some half decent players.

[mark13]

I will not doubt that the Hive is a devastatingly powerful faction in the early/mid game. However, you must attack with the Hive, or you will simply be left behind in the tech race. I know, Garth (through personal experience ), that you are a momentum player, so you will be more inclined to play the Hive than most other factions.

Dry,
Morgan is a very difficult faction to play, but can be devastating if they are played well. I have not got much experience with Morgan, and to be honest, I have never fancied playing them much - although I am more a builder than a fighter, I do like to have some flexibilty on the military front.

The Hive, OTOH, as with a lot of momentum factions, need a lot of luck - they need to be next to the right people. If you are a builder, you will always come out second best with the Hive. But play them right, and the proverbial steamroller comes to mind.....

[Teeks]

I was goofin' around on Librarian over the summer, and decided to play Yang.... I ended up scoring 7766 (500 and something percent, well above my usual 290-300% on Transcend). I had 18,000 credits, which was pretty funny, since I was running Police/Planned/Power/Eudomonia. I got the vats pretty early and built orbital facilities out the arse. Most of my bases were in the 40's, but I was suffering from really, really, really bad ecodamage before I transcended. Overall, that was about the only game that I played Yang in which I enjoyed.
I LOVE the Drones, though, the +2 Industry really comes in handy to snag the SPs. The last couple of times I've beaten Transcend I've played the Drones, and when I've tried to build the Ascent I've been considerably short on credits to buy it. Just change gear into Planned/Wealth/Eudomonic and get a whopping +6 industry! That makes mineral costs go WAY down.
Another funny thing was, in another game with Domai when I transcended, I sat there for hundreds of turns building a SP which had already been completed...Turns out when I change that project to build the Ascent, the Ascent was at Negative 77 turns. I got a good chuckle out of that.


--Teeks
[This message has been edited by Teeks (edited November 06, 2000).]

[Misotu]

Teeks: An even cheaper way to buy an expensive project is to upgrade crawlers, and then send them to the base where you're building the project and contribute them to the project cost.

If you rush-buy a project, it's 4 energy per mineral. Upgrading a crawler, especially with the Nanofactory, can come as cheap as 1 energy per mineral *or less*.

And then of course, you get the full value of the crawler when you use it to rush an SP.

!

You still get the benefit of your planned/wealth/eudaimonia settings because the overall cost of the project is still much reduced ...

[Capt Dizle]

I guess we could rewind the clock 1 year or maybe 1 1/2 years and find this same discussion.

There are lots of ways to play this game, UoP is the best all round faction. Configuration dictates the best choices for particular games.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Re: Hive and inability to be a builder. I have found very effective means to use the hive as a builder (allright maybe Hybrid is a better term) faction.

The key is to recognize Yang is severely hampered by two key issues:

a) Horrendous energy production - Usually a good energy production is the hallmark trait for a builder faction such as Morgan or Sven at sea

b) Inability to pop boom in early game.

His strengths are incredible support, natural growth bonus, Industry, and drone management through police.

I accomplish parity or superior Hive performance by adapting a specialist approach with Yang. The key for Yang is larger scales (Adam Smith is fond of saying "Size does matter" and for Yang it is everything)and more population early and sustainable growth. So I maximize Yangs strengths in order to minimize his weaknesses.

Strength 1 -Support
Builds of at least twice the formers of any other faction. Target no less less than 2 or 3 formers per base.

Strength 2 - Natural growth benefit
Early game momentum for base setting and later on pop growth to allow base sizes over the magic 5 pop points for specialization. Even tho' in the long run Yang will be at a disadvantge vs convention Demo/Planned/Creches approaches the early growth is a huge benefit that must be capitalized on.

Strength 3 - Industry
'Nuff said this is Huge as it reduces rush build costs as well as unit build costs.

Strength 4 - Police. Yang can quell 3 drones by 3 garrison units before any facility is in place. What this means is that, the magic size 5 base (allowing specialization) can be accomplished without any facility build normally (until beauracracy warning). Your Ok until size 4, 5th population point becomes specialized to a meaningful specialist.

Of course I assume Yang runs SE choices of Police/Planned with an upgrade to wealth.

Key to the oeverall strategy is creating population points. In order to do so one MUST build the WP to allow condensor/farm combos pre genesplice (b/c lets face it it may be a while for Yang to research that far). This 4 nutrient area (7 if nut special) allows growth much earlier than other factions and in thelong run keeps on par with pop booming factions. A massive wave of formers that are luckily easily supported when Yang runs police allow the t=forming curve to keep ahead of the population placement. All Yang needs essentially to keep him inthe game is the WP special project. Failure to get that means Yang is reduced to the momentum style play. By creating this massive nutrient influx population gains are transformed into specilaists for either energy or research thereby allowing Yang to stay on par with the more energy rich factions.

Will Yang ever research at a rate on par with UoP in the first 150 years. Likely not. But he can be very effective as a builder none the less especially with twice the raw former power. Ultimately he can specialize his way into parity with the other factions.

Typically you see the AI playing Yang as a sprawling empire of small to medium size bases. Again the AI is a fool as Yang needs to embrace high population bases as he alone has best ability to quell unrest with Police 'specially when non lethal methods are employed.

Optional growth strat (depending on if you see it as ethical):

Planetary transit/Pod Booming - With Yangs inherent industry bonus, pods are produced at a faster rate than any other faction save Domai and allow population growth to key specilizing facility rich bases allowing Yang to keep on par with pop boomers.

Just my odd ramblings. Yang shouldn't necessarily be dismissed as a poor builder/researching faction he just needs to go about it a different way than the traditional Forest everywhere, research to and build tree farms/creches, employ a SE switch to allow pop boom strategy.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

JT,

I tend to agree. UoP is by far and away my fav. faction for builder purposes and has flexibility to go a-conquering as well (and yes these same subjects seem to be rolling around since at least a year past)

My point re: Hive is/was looking at a faction one needs to consider alternate modes of play vs. conventional play styles to capitalize on factional strengths. Sometimes these different play styles offer surprising results especially when considering the game configuration.

So when considering a blind on/tech stag/ huge world situation, Yang as a builder may not be a poor proposition b/c all he needs is centauri ecology and build WP and he is virtually set to follow the above plan, whilst others are dependent on climbing the tech tree through Industrial Auto and restriction lifting techs to really gain power.

[Misotu]

Well of course the old subjects come rolling around time after time. That's because not everyone has been around this board as long as jimmytrick

There are a few ways of handling this. You can either a) think "this is a bit old now, don't think I want to round this loop again" and not post or b) think, yeah, this has been discussed but that's an interesting remark, I'll respond or c) make supercilious, content-free remarks about how it was all over and done with a long time before most of the posters here now had even signed up.

a) is fine and a lot of people do this I imagine, b) is dedicated and resourceful while c) ...

Well.

Missing the point, perhaps?

[Dry]

Jimmytrick: I know that this is old story, but in all posts I've seen until now, I never had an answer to my question/problem. I saw a lot of answers to questions I don't have.
When someone posts about playing faction this or that way, he always gives middle or late game advices, (almost) never first turns advices.

I hear you all about the fact that the Hive has to be played diferrently, and I find all your solutions quiet intersting. In fact, they are what I would have done, if I had reached that point in the game.

My problem is getting those first energies that will start up the the research procedure, that will enable me to build terraformer (at least one!!!), probe teams, ...
I sometimes have the time to build 3 or 4 scouts, before I can build a first colony pod that will not destroy my city when produced or have the technology to build a terraformer that will improve my nuts.
More than often my start research is so slow that Santiago or Myriam or whoever, comes knocking at my green synthmetal door with impact weapons and I don't have even have a probe (or the money) to buy the bad guy's unit and build mines from the stolen design (which btw. bypass the problem of the prototype).
The problem with the Hive are the first 50-80 turns.

And don't tell me about sending colony pods to those energy ElDorados. I have tried. The poor b*****ds that survived the worms, and found one, arrived sooooo late...

Maybe I should restart/reload the game until I start in/trigger a 'good' location (river, monolith, ...)
The Hive IMO depends more of a 'good' starting location than other factions.

[cbn]

My favorites in SMAC originally were the peacekeepers, gains and university. They were the easiest to play and the reasons for this are outlined in many posts above.


Then I got SMAX and after just a couple of games I can say this:

Aliens -- seem just way too strong to be fun in SP unless you enjoy just winning without challenge.

Pirates-- A very different faction that I found frustrating in my first attempt(I tried to go to land to soon without full knowledge of where the aliens were). However in my second try I came to appreciate them and will play them again since their mineral problems require different strategies.

Cha dawn-- can you say "lots of mindworms" -- this is a huge momentum faction as the worm rush can be irresistable in SP

Drones -- I had read a lot here about the strength of this faction and my first impression was that the research penalty would be crippling, plus the AI seemed to play the drones so badly. But after 2 victories I can say that industry bonuses rock and the Drones are my current favorite. This faction makes me re-evaluate my previous prejudices against some of the research-crippled factions such that I decided to stop playing only my "favorites" .

From now on I will play my transcend SP games with all factions random (including my own). I just started my first game and found myself as the Spartans. I have generally viewed them in a similar fashion as Mark13 -- their advantages had elicited a big "so what" and my new-found emphasis on industry bonuses means that they would be far from my favorite. I decided to play them in character and in accordance with their advantages. I'm about 110 years in and second on the powergraphs (my pactmate Sven is first) but I have the Command Nexus special project and with the help of a monolith and my SE choices I am now pumping out elite impact rovers (the missle tech is next). I figure that the only way to play them is to be aggressive (probably should have gone to war earlier but I love tech trades) since the other factions (Morgan, Sven, Miriam, Domai, Aki, Yang) have a diversity of non-military advantages over me. So I am going to war, using the only factional advantages I have. This goes against my builder instincts but what the heck, its fun.

While I doubt that the Spartans will ever be a favorite (I love the industry bonus of the Drones and now think that I might like the Hive), they are playable and do require a different focus. While we all might have different favorites and the debate may rage as to which faction is "strongest", I am coming to the conclusion that the most fun to be had at this game is to play them all. I do know that it does make you change your mindset. For example morale was never as huge a factor when the strategy was to out-research the AI to Chaos and MMI. But as the Spartans I have a new appreciation for what I can do with high morale units much further down the tech tree (Domai will be conquered next turn -- likely without loss of a unit).

As many more experienced players have said in this and similar threads . . . -- All the factions are good and favorites are a matter of personal choice just like the question as to an individual's favorite food.

cbn

[weird god]

i want to excuse for starting an "old" thread like that and for all the boredom it may cause to experienced players - but as i already mentioned i´m a newbie to AC and thankful for all your posts.

------------------
mankind made alcohol, god made weed.....whom do you trust?

weird god, chief of EUROPA

[mark13]

weird god,

Absolutely no need whatsoever. If people don't want to discuss a topic, they just shouldn't post full stop, IMO.

Although the majority of these subjects have been discussed two or three times before, they are still interesting topics, and worth discussing again. In that way, it is often much more informative to have a discussion now about a particular topic than delve into the archives for the old threads, however good they may be. It is also much more fun, which is the reason we are here in the first place, is it not? That is not to knock the old threads, they can be very entertaining and informative.

And no-one can know everything about a particular subject - you might just learn something. Not much, I know, but something.

[cbn]

Weirdgod

No apologies necessary. I thought the whole idea of a board like this was for players to share their experiences. Also participants here seem to come and go so revisiting previously discussed topics can simply be fun for other new posters as well. I have posted questions here that I know I read here at some time before but for some reason cant't find the old thread.

I do recommend reading old threads though. Often, other newbies had stuggled with some of the same basic problems that I struggle with now. Also strategies come up that I would never have thought about (armored probe team garrison for multipurpose defence for example).

cbn

[Misotu]

Weirdgod

The same subjects do come round many times - but that's because new people are reading and posting here. It's much more interesting to have a discussion than, say, spend a week reading the archives

Anyway, I quite like an opportunity to make excuses for liking the easy factions

Post whatever you like. Ask whatever you want. You'll probably do better than me. Not only do I ask questions that have been asked - and answered - 6 months ago. Quite often, it was me who asked the same question originally

[mark13]

I like the Pirates, personally, as they have a totally different feel to many of the other factions. First of all, starting at sea can be a massive advantage - it basically gives you a free Recycling Tanks at every base. Being based in the ocean can also incur diplomatic advantages - the AI factions just aren't going to bother with you until they have a reasonably sized navy. However, mid-game is the Pirates' downfall - an inability to pop boom and the -1 efficiency can hit the builder player hard. It is during this period that you must go on the offensive - and your marine detachment and free Naval Yards stand you in good stead to do this.

The late game can be very slow going for the Pirates without the CV - it can be a long road to transcendence. The efficiency problem is nothing more than a minor inconvenience once you get into the mid-game proper, and by that time you should be well placed to rule the waves anyway.

I must confess that I've only ever played the Pirates twice to the end - it will be interesting to see what everyone else thinks!

Mark13

[Capt Dizle]

Misotu, I stand ready and quite pleased to make supercilious, content-free remarks about how it was all over and done with a long time before you grew up and daddy bought you a SMAC toy.

Thanks for the zip file.

jt

[Misotu]

Oh well you know ... sometimes I just get irritable

[Vev]

I like to play all the different factions and explore their personilities and their ability to function under various circumstances.

I have a question, does the drone's "take over rioting cities" ever work?

The problem is that i have a friend who seems to just had enough of civ2 and alpha centauri after playing it - it's one of the few games he has the runs well on his computer and enjoys playing - for about couple of years.

From what I gathered, he likes using UoP. So much so that he does like using any of the other factions. Another reason for not using the other factions or even playing differenty, is that once he finished the game in one way, he fails to see the purpose of playing it again in different approaches.

Other reasons are:
- it runs too slow on a P200 with 640x400 res and low res graphics
- the computer is dumb

Now that I'm in holidays, I just found out his interest in playing a multiplayer AC is virtually nil.
It's very frustrating and my other friend has never played Civ type games at all.

Can somebody help me?

[Kirnwaffen]

Question: What does everyone think of the Pirates? I'm an ardent fan of the Pirates, but I don't see them mentioned much.

[mark13]

Vere,
The problem is you can't force someone to like playing a game - they either do or they don't. As such, you can't force a particular style of play on someone. Of course, you can encourage them to play a certain way, but you can't enforce that philosophy.

If the main problem is that is runs too slowly, change to 800x600 resolution. I have a p200 and the game runs perfectly.

[mark13]

I did lose a size 6 city the other werk - the fortunate thing was the faction the base revolted to was my pact brother - I just bought the base back for 200 credits....

[weird god]

i think it was my pact-brother as well...but i´m not 100% sure...

[weird god]

quote: Originally posted by Vev on 11-13-2000 12:01 AM I have a question, does the drone's "take over rioting cities" ever work?

yes...i lost a city some weeks ago due to drones. consequence was that another faction got it - it was one of my most important and central city so i had to reload

------------------
mankind made alcohol, god made weed.....whom do you trust?

weird god, chief of EUROPA

[cbn]

Kirwaffen


In response to your question about the Pirates--

I think that it is obvious that their sea start makes them the most "different" of the factions. I agree with Mark13's comments about their early game and naval powers. I have found that you can meet everyone early and face no opposition to your seaborne expansion. You should get more pods than anyone else and depending on AI placement also get the Planet + for taking control on the Nexus and also the unit and money + for the wreckage.


I tend to think of the Pirates as an "energy" faction (as opposed to the Drones mineral bias) and play them to sea-crawler lots of energy and rush-buy facilities I need. Minerals are the biggest problem so I generaly try to find a vacant area and go to land fairly early. One or two well positioned land bases can yeild a lot of space for mines and boreholes (and I have even found myself raising land to borehole some more). I have found without a land based city, AI factions will come along and I cannot use a worker on any land squares that are in someone else's territory even though the its adjacent to my sea base --grrrr. It does take a bit more effort to crawler in those minerals (ie a transport to get the crawler there) but I generally find that I want a transport or two nearby to ferry troops in any event (to go worm hunting for cash or deal with native or other artillery).


I have thought about sinking land using my sea formers to utilize my naval advantage but-- at least in the early years the cost was prohibitive.


My other comment is about probe warfare. The AI has NEVER built a probe foil or cruiser in my games (just lucky I guess) and seems unable to defend against mine. You can fairly easily steal tech and with the ability to generate energy from tidal harnessess I have had to impose a self handicap of not bribing AI cities in some games.


I also like the Pirates since they are different. I look forward to the next time they come up (I play SP with all factions random).

cbn

[mark13]

I guess Firaxis didn't see the need for writing a probe oil unit into the AI. Too bad - it would have made the game a lot more challenging....

Minerals can be a massive problem for the Pirates - and without base facilities you can't do much in the way of labs production. I always, in the early game at least, kelp/harness most of the tiles, but leave a good few for kelp/platform, as these produce 2 nuts and 2 mins each. Once a subsea trunkline is built, it pretty much negates the need for any sort of borehole - I find it is better to bring in energy from additional tidal harnesses.

I also agree with your comments on the Nexus and the Unity wreckage, although this relies a *lot* on the placement of the enemy factions.

[VoodooChild]

Fun with Pirates:

Build bases only on mineral specials. Between your auto pressure dome and the special your cranking out 5 minerals from the get go, and you'll need them for the inflated seas units costs. Kelp up to 6 squares around you, and harness as you have workers. After pop 6 all new borns become lab rats or doctors. You have plenty of food so if your next worker is going to be a drone, convert one of your pops to a lab rat. This will not only slow down your growth until you build more happy places, but it offsets some of your inefficiency.

After you get the standard techs, beeline to EthCal for the creches and built to reduce your horrid efficiency. Next goals are wealth, crawlers, lift nuts, and lift energy. Change to a Democracy as soon as you get the tech. Again you need to reduce your inefficiency, so what if you have to wait an extra two turns. Between the early limits and your harnesses, you don't need to fun free market. Green is the best since it will allow you to capture IoDs. You should let those IoDs explore and pop pods since they can carry AAs. Once you have Knowledge the tech race is yours.

Don't be tempted to increase your labs at the expense of credits. You need the money. Rush build every building, upgrade crawlers for SPs. Early in the game it might be worthwhile to switch to Planned to help with the first set of SPs, but after crawlers are on the scene forget about it.

By midgame you should be in fine shape, with more than enough income to deal with your lack of minerals. Your armies should be limited to trace garrisons behind a screen of ships and pfoils. Your destroyers should by laser or 3res with best armor. Keep your weapons small to increase your chances to capture ships. If you cause 80% damage without killing it, you'll have a new ship. Use your captured transports to dump armies onto the mainland.

[Zonk]

I would think that going from 640x400 to 800x600 would slow you down (in fact, I'm sure of it) The size of the map is probably the most important aspect here. If you have speed problems, the readme file addresses these issues.
Talking about the Hive, I don't enjoy playing them. The times I've been close to them in early game, they have caused a little trouble. I've found that if I have good enough weapon technology to mount even an averge offense, the good Chairman will usually pull back and defend, slowing down his offense enough for me to get up to speed. Of course, I'm talking about AI here, in SP.
I've been playing SMAC and SMAX since day one (SP) and the only faction that has overrun me early is the Cult (sorry little kid). Of course, I have had my problems with the Aliens. The key here is sending out some recon early, and adjusting your reasearch to weapon techs, if necessary. Know thine enemy. On the smaller maps, of course, you are going to have to be ready earlier. You won't have the luxury of 100 - 150 years of being all alone on your little corner of Chiron.
Just my opinions. I even had one game where Morgan acheived an economic victory. I was happily playing builder when I got notice that he would "corner the market" (or whatever the wording was) and by the time I could saddle up and get over to him, it was too late. Has anyone else been victim of an economic victory? I didn't have infiltration, and wasn't Gov, so I didn't get to take a look at his infrastructure. I can't remember which faction I was playing at the time.

[mark13]

quote: Has anyone else been victim of an economic victory?

I have to tell you about a game I had with the PKs, and the Morganites had initiated an economic victory. I was building a PB at the time, so I thought it would be a fairly easy job. What I didn't realise, though, was that his HQ was just too far away, so that had been scuppered. By this time, of course, I only had 12 turns to get him, so the plan was to build a base, get an AAA garrison in to defend it against missiles and the like, and use it as a stopping point for the PB. So I did that, and prayed that my two 1-<8>-1 garrisons would be enough to withstand the inevitable barrage of conventional missiles. I also rushed an Aerospace Complex there (this was SMAC, so no Cloudbase). Sure enough, SIX conventional missiles came in, but they could not penetrate the two garrisons, guarding the PB. So I sent it in the next turn, and blew up his HQ, with TWO TURNS remaining.

Man, that was some game, and I transcended not long after.