Hendrick's Bane - Page 2

Capt Dizle · February 3, 2003, 11:30

I have played to 2181 and will soon be posting a limited narrative and a comparison chart. I want to interject some comments about operations at this point. It is perfectly valid to undertake operations in a builder game because one must suffer the financial cost and deal with the consequences to political status and the impact on commerce.

In this game I accepted a war pact with Lal against the Spartans early. This is a good move for several reasons, not the least is which is that Santiago generally researches different tech lines than Lal or the human player. At this point she has 4 techs unknown to me. It would be beneficial to gain those through infiltration rather than to research them myself.

Although I do not have a good map of the Spartan's base locations, I can pinpoint them through careful inspection of the available map and infiltration data. So I am laying on an operation to steal that tech. This will require production of quite a few foil probes, which is a significant investment.

One negative effect of stealing multiple techs is that your base research cost can jump dramatically afterward, cutting into the gain in terms of raw number of turns needed to get to the end of the tech tree.

I will risk it, and therefore I am in a race to get the operation underway quickly. The longer it takes the more likely I will be cornered into researching the very techs that I want to steal due to tech selection limitations.

I am being forced to research Intelluctual Integrity now even though Lal has it. He refused to trade because of it's link to a secret project. A secret project that I have no interest in building. Nor is Lal building it either. Sheesh.

Capt Dizle · February 3, 2003, 11:59

Event Log MY 2171-81

2172

Began the turn by failing to get the opportunity to research Progenitor Psych, needed to get me in position to research Adaptive Economics for the Planetary Energy Grid.

Built the Empath Guild. Contact Morgan and traded Environmental Economics for Progenitor Psych. Great! Traded Ecological Engineering for Morgan's map. Gave Morgan Doc: Flex for good will. Accepted Morgan's treaty offer then gave him Doc: Loyalty for a Pact. Excellent.

Contacted Dee and traded Centauri Empathy for her world map. I refuse her effort to extort tech and then accepted her offer of a Treaty.

Changed research goal to Adaptive Economics at a lost of 40 research points. Five turns to go.

Called council and was elected governor over Lal with Morgan's support. Not that it was needed. All other factions abstained. The increase commerce dropped the research rate to 4 turns.

2173

First fungal pop. Commerce income is 54 turn, 137 net energy credits and 262.8 labs per turn. Commerce is good.

2176

Approaching the point of planting tree farms I decided to go into debt to help finance it. Borrowed 363 credits from Morgan.

Needing still more, I decided to have a tech fire sale. Sold 5 techs to Morgan, 4 to Dee, 6 to Lal, and one to Yang (gave him a tech for a truce first). Also traded Doc: Loyalty to Lal for Doc: Initiative. I even let Miriam extort a tech to see if she would buy some afterwards. No dice. I knew better but I got greedy. Altogether my bank account rises from 75 ec to well over 800.

2178

Built the Planetary Energy Grid. Nice boost.

2179

Allocated 10% to Psych SE to induce limited GA to induce some scatter pop booms. As this increased my economy at the bases affected resulting in +2 base energy there is little income loss and my tech production actually goes up.

Note that I am playing a forest first, low pop opening. I wonder what might have been if I had tried the Buster high pop game.

__________________________________________________ _
Looking forward to the endgame I can see that using the Sikander base placement paradigm I will not be able to re-home all of my crawlers to the SSC as Hendrick did as I will need to keep them home to work condensers, at least in my inland bases.

Or maybe I can build sky farms to handle that. We will see.

I have uncovered the volcano so I am thinking of setting up some bases there for the express purpose of utilizing the mineral bonuses to pump out rover and trawler supply units for the SSC. But I don't know if I am going to have the time to make that pay off.

Capt Dizle · February 3, 2003, 15:59

Morgan Builder	Mission Year 2181	University beer run
Hendrick	Player	jimmytrick
26	Bases	21
81	Population	71
6	Commerce Rate	5
30	Commerce Income	99
Total: 6 Human Genome Project, Weather Paradigm, Planetary Energy Grid, Planetary Transit System, Empath Guild, Merchant Exchange	Secret Projects	Total: 7 Human Genome Project, Merchant Exchange, Planetary Transit System, Virtual World , Weather Paradigm, Planetary Energy Grid, Empath Guild
21	Technologies Discovered	24
1041	Research Cost	1350
313	Accumulated Research	451
285	Labs per Turn	355.5
4 turns	Tech Rate	4 turns
Neural Grafting in 3 turns	Tech Goal	Intellectual Integrity in 3 turns
Free Market/Wealth	Social Engineering	Demo/Free Market/Wealth
150	Energy	642
50-0-50	Energy Allocation	40-10-50
332	Gross Income	253
-75	Maintenance	-36
257	Net Income	217
4 Children's Crèche, 23 Recycling Tanks, 24 Recreation Commons, 14 Network Nodes, 8 Tree Farms, 3 Research Hospitals	Infrastructure	7 Children's Crèche, 20 Recycling Tanks, 21 Network Nodes, 2 Recreation Commons, 6 Tree Farms, 1 Research Hospital
3 Scouts, 1 Unity Rover, 1 Synthmetal Sentinel	Land Units	1 Mining Laser, 1 Unity Rover, 2 Scouts, 1 Trance Synthmetal Garrison, 1 Synthmetal Garrison
--	Naval Units	--
--	Air Units	1 Scout Chopper
54 Formers, 49 Supply Crawlers, 3 Probe Teams, 4 Alien Artifacts, 1 Colony Pod,	Non Combat Units	47 Formers, 56 Crawlers, 2 Probe Teams, 5 Alien Artifacts, 2 Transport Foils, 4 Sea Formers
117	Total Units	127
Pact: None Treaty: Lal & Miriam Truce: Santiago & Lal Vendettaeirdre & Yang	Politics	Pact: Lal & Morgan Treaty: Deirdre Truce: Yang & Miriam Vendetta: Santiago

Capt Dizle · February 3, 2003, 16:02

Hendrick, I think I am gaining ground. You better issue some stock.

Edit: Left 4 colony pods off my unit list above but since I got the table to work I am not about to edit it there. BTW, that little grin in the part showing Hendrick's political relationships was a typo. I swear.

Hendrik · February 3, 2003, 16:29

I think it is indeed highly likely you will gain some ground - until I pop boom in 2197. The Sikander build style also means much lower mineral production compared to my style... I don't think you will be able to throw nearly as many formers and crawlers at an energy park as I can.

But we will see, it ain't over till Miriam sings.

Oh and could you email the save files to me or post them here? I always like getting the feel of a game from the save files.

Capt Dizle · February 3, 2003, 18:14

Here you go.

Capt Dizle · February 4, 2003, 11:48

Morgan Builder	Mission Year 2188	University beer run
Hendrick	Player	jimmytrick
26	Bases	25
87	Population	102
7	Commerce Rate	5
91	Commerce Income	96
Total: 7 Human Genome Project, Weather Paradigm, Planetary Energy Grid, Planetary Transit System, Empath Guild, Merchant Exchange, Planetary Datalinks	Secret Projects	Total: 7 Human Genome Project, Merchant Exchange, Planetary Transit System, Virtual World , Weather Paradigm, Planetary Energy Grid, Empath Guild
24	Technologies Discovered	26
1478	Research Cost	1552
350	Accumulated Research	655
418	Labs per Turn	517.2
4 turns	Tech Rate	4 turns
Bio-Engineering in 3 turns	Tech Goal	Planetary Economics in 2 turns
Demo/Free Market/Wealth	Social Engineering	Demo/Free Market/Wealth
34	Energy	844
50-0-50	Energy Allocation	40-10-50
429	Gross Income	395
-127	Maintenance	-105
302	Net Income	290
7 Children's Crèche, 24 Recycling Tanks, 26 Recreation Commons, 21 Network Nodes, 14 Tree Farms, 9 Research Hospitals, 2 Habitation Complexes	Infrastructure	19 Children's Crèche, 24 Recycling Tanks, 25 Network Nodes, 15 Recreation Commons, 19 Tree Farms, 2 Research Hospital, 1 Habitation Complex
4 Scouts, 1 Unity Rover, 1 Synthmetal Sentinel, 1 Mining Laser	Land Units	1 Mining Laser, 3 Unity Rover, 1 Scouts, 1 Trance Synthmetal Garrison, 1 Synthmetal Garrison, 2 Empath Scout Defensive
--	Naval Units	--
--	Air Units	1 Scout Chopper
73 Formers, 60 Supply Crawlers, 3 Probe Teams, 4 Alien Artifacts, 1 Sea Former	Non Combat Units	51 Formers, 64 Crawlers, 2 Probe Teams, 6 Alien Artifacts, 1 Transport Foils,6 Sea Formers, 4 Skimship Probe Foils
148	Total Units	147
Pact:Miriam Treaty: Zakharov Truce: Lal Vendetta: Deirdre, Yang& Santiago	Politics	Pact: Lal & Morgan Treaty: Deirdre Truce: Yang & Miriam Vendetta: Santiago

Capt Dizle · February 4, 2003, 12:08

The 2181-88 period was quiet on the diplomatic front. A limited pop boom induced by the 10% energy allocation has allowed the University to pass Morgan in population and draw even on most fronts. In fact I find the game positions to be remarkably close.

Interesting to note that I switched to SE choices FM, Wealth, and Demo ASAP and have remained in them for the entire game. I felt the efficiency boost from Demo was more valuable that the free minerals for new bases due to bdrones.

I now am faced with a decision about a possible switch to Knowledge. It seems more advantageous to remain in Wealth becasue a GA pop boom at a lower economy rating would reduce the energy yield in golden age bases. As time passes and the bases become larger this will not be as important a factor.

The industry bonus is also still helpful during a time period when I am looking to rush build facilities constantly.

I will build the Ascetic Virtures secret project as soon as I able with an eye toward constant movement to size 16 bases. Research hospitals are going in to be followed by Hybrid Forests.

I initially intended to make 25 core bases, I need one more as one of the bases I have built near Mt. Planet will be used for crawler/trawler production. I may also build some other specialist bases near Mt. Planet.

And of course as I begin to build the energy park I will need some extender bases so I can keep some units on the frontier to handle mind worms.

My two biggest concerns are avoiding eccodamage and finding a way to deal with Yang. As the energy park is going to extend towards him I have to be concerned about the danger of Hive airpower.

The first tech raid on the Spartans is coming up shortly.

Capt Dizle · February 4, 2003, 23:10

Its 2200 and I am too tired to make a report. But I will share one thing, on this turn I got the event "solar flares". Having promised myself that I would play this game as hard as I can I must now go through all 81 of my crawlers, switch them to convoy energy and then go back and reset them next turn.

But not tonight.

Capt Dizle · February 5, 2003, 14:57

MY 2188-2101 Notes

Emphasis on infrastructure and limited pop booms.

Tech raid on Santiago yielded Adaptive Doctrine, Optical Computers, Advanced Military Algorithms, Superconductor, and Nonlinear Mathematics.

Traded with Dee for Field Modulation.

The tech steal got me to the point of having all techs on the board. Given my tech rate acquiring additional techs from the AI is shaky. I determined then to cash in 5 of the 7 artifacts that I have, the other two being in transit.

This yielded Superstring, Pre-Sentient Algorithms, Retroviral Engineering, Fusion, and Centauri Genetics. The key tech I was looking for was Fusion of course. Fusion Labs are under construction. The artifacts were cashed in 2101. I will next pursue Advanced Ecological Engineering so that I can upgrade my formers to fusion, clean super formers.

Experienced solar flares as noted above and switched almost all of my crawlers to energy and specialists to technicians. This yielded a net of 4240 credits in 2101, which based on a 60-10-30 allocation was about 3.5 times my current income level. This beats the hell out of suffering an asteroid strike. This nice one time bonus will help to fund the fusion labs and former upgrades.

I forgot to go for the Global Trade Pact for a number of turns and was darn lucky to get it by a vote of 4-3. I was concerned about Deirdre as she has become quarrelsome. Both Morgan and Lal are magnanimous, but Lal could turn on me in a moment.

The only thing I am disappointed in as far as the comparision with the Morgan Builder game is the fact that Hendrick blew past me in population. This shows the difference between a carefully organized pop boom as demonstrated by Hendrick and the limited type of boom I am running with the 10% psych allocation. I will have to pay closer attention to growth over the next segment.

Now it's time to start that energy park.

Capt Dizle · February 5, 2003, 15:02

Morgan Builder	Mission Year 2101	University beer run
Hendrick	Player	jimmytrick
26	Bases	25
212	Population	184
7	Commerce Rate	6
423	Commerce Income	694
Total: 7 Human Genome Project, Weather Paradigm, Planetary Energy Grid, Planetary Transit System, Empath Guild, Merchant Exchange, Planetary Datalinks	Secret Projects	Total: 8 Human Genome Project, Merchant Exchange, Planetary Transit System, Virtual World , Weather Paradigm, Planetary Energy Grid, Empath Guild, Ascetic Virtues
36	Technologies Discovered	42
2341	Research Cost	2786
314	Accumulated Research	405
890.4	Labs per Turn	1068
3 turns	Tech Rate	3 turns
Superconductor in 3 turns	Tech Goal	None in 3 turns
Demo/Free Market/Knowledge	Social Engineering	Demo/Free Market/Wealth
230	Energy	4766
40-20-40	Energy Allocation	40-10-50
810	Gross Income	1549
-268	Maintenance	-287
542	Net Income	1262
25 Children's Crèche, 26 Recycling Tanks, 26 Recreation Commons, 25 Network Nodes, 24 Tree Farms, 3 Hybrid Forests, 20 Research Hospitals, 24 Habitation Complexes	Infrastructure	24 Children's Crèche, 25 Recycling Tanks, 25 Network Nodes, 23 Recreation Commons, 24 Tree Farms, 22 Research Hospital, 19 Hybrid Forests, 10 Habitation Complex, 1 Thermocline Transducer
4 Scouts, 1 Unity Rover, 1 Synthmetal Sentinel, 1 Mining Laser	Land Units	1 Mining Laser, 2 Unity Rover, 0 Scouts, 1 Trance Synthmetal Garrison, 1 Synthmetal Garrison, 3 Empath Scout Defensive
--	Naval Units	--
--	Air Units	1 Scout Chopper
84 Formers, 67 Supply Crawlers, 3 Probe Teams, 0 Alien Artifacts, 5 Sea Former	Non Combat Units	65 Formers, 83 Crawlers, 2 Probe Teams, 2 Alien Artifacts, 1 Transport Foils, 7 Sea Formers, 5 Skimship Probe Foils
168	Total Units	174
Pact: Miriam Treaty: Zakharov& Lal Truce: None Vendetta: Deirdre, Yang & Santiago No Global Trade Pact	Politics	Pact: Lal & Morgan Treaty: Deirdre Truce: Yang & Miriam Vendetta: Santiago Global Trade Pact 2195

Hendrik · February 6, 2003, 00:42

The attachment you made was for year 1, not year 101

I am completely amazed at how many hybrid forests you have compared to me, quite impressive.

The next ten years are the sharpest in terms of pop growth and infrastructural development for my game, if you can maintain your lead then you will be ahead for the rest of the game.

Capt Dizle · February 6, 2003, 12:47

Hey, I am notorious for fumbling the late game.

I have gotten to 2209 and have built the supercolider, switched to knowledge, put in thinkers, switched allocation to 20-80. This results in a tech rate of one per turn. I feel pretty good about that. But I am in deep water as far as how to avoid researching the unnecessary techs. If I can avoid those I will shave some time off the game. Someone posted that you can do this by not researching Unified Field. Of course if give only that choice you have to take it.

I don't remember ever playing a game to trancendence with SMAX. So going through the end of the tech tree will be a first for me.

The game is pretty time consuming at this point.

One correction to my last chart, I built the Longevity Vacine in my SSC. This was more helpful than I thought but from this point forward credits will not be as important as labs. Working very hard to get more energy to the SSC. I haven't transfered the HQ there because I am unsure if I will gain enough to offset the lost energy from other bases due their inefficiency going up. Some of them are costal bases and boy, they are generating a lot of labs. Coastal bases rock.

MariOne · February 6, 2003, 14:16

Rock makes cliffs, sand makes beaches

Capt Dizle · February 6, 2003, 17:29

Thanks for that info Mose. Thinks are much clearer now.

BTW, that has to be a record for your shortest post, no?

Capt Dizle · February 6, 2003, 20:52

Danger! Danger Will Robinson. Now playing this game with generous quanities of rum mixed with diet coke.

Sikander · February 7, 2003, 02:09

Quote:

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Danger! Danger Will Robinson. Now playing this game with generous quanities of rum mixed with diet coke.

They need to invent Diet Rum, otherwise you may as well use Classic Coke.

MariOne · February 7, 2003, 07:59

Quote:

Originally posted by jimmytrick
BTW, that has to be a record for your shortest post, no?

No.

Capt Dizle · February 11, 2003, 13:10

I promise to post more details and charts and saves but I just wanted to talk about luck. Luck needs to be leached out of these games else the comparisions are moot.

Points of fact:

Turn 2115 My first two power sats will be built in little 3 pop service bases as a result of materials pods. Branch Rickey said that luck is the residue of design and I did remember to switch production to power sats before I popped the pods, but really....

Turn 2116 A Yang artifact appeared two tiles away from one of my garrisonless service bases last turn. This turn it moved next to my base as if to capture it. I had upgraded a trained scout to a drop scout earlier and so I dropped it into my base. Attacked the AA. I expected this to cause vendetta and was prepared to back off cause Yang has noodles near my solar park. But I was allow to capture the AA without diplomatic penalty. (diplo stance was blood truce under sunspots) Immediately cashed in the AA for Sentient Resonance. Also this turn was my first two tech turn out of pure research. +3 techs.

2117 Researching 2 techs per turn I chose two secrets techs and ended up with +4 for the turn. This turn I got my second! solar flares event of the late game. Although this eliminated my three existing power sats I don't care because I launched 11 in the turn. It happens in this order, sats destroyed at beginning of turn, then builds the triple energy next turn. I also built the Network Backbone, but not in my SSC, this turn. Triple energy running at 90% lab allocation shows a yield of about 25,000 labs next turn off a cost of about 5000. This is before I switch crawlers (maybe 60 of them to energy from mins and nuts). I will lose at least 2200 labs to truncation in my SSC as its well over 7200, and maybe more. Still it looks like I will get 4 techs next turn or five if things fall right. Luck. Am at 63 techs and have not had to research the unnecessary techs yet. It won't be long now.

The conclusion after looking at my game, Hendrick's and zsozso's is that we have to eliminate or abate the luck factors to determine the true ways and means of fast transcendence.

jt

Capt Dizle · February 11, 2003, 13:27

Correction: Another look at my F2 screen shows that at 90% allocation I will make 29785 labs with the help of these flares, with a carryover of 5209. Cost of 5220 (I was only 11 labs short of getting a fifth tech last turn). If I jack the energy allocation to 100% labs generated jumps to 32776. I don't know if the game recalculates tech cost in the middle of the turn but if it doesn't I'll have enough labs to generate 7 techs minus whatever I lose to truncation. Is that insane or what.

Sheesh.

One possible plus is that I set up my SSC in my #8 base so instead of losing thousands of labs immediately to get the 11 labs I'll need for the first tech next turn I'll only lose 499. That falls in the residue of design category but I'll have to play the turn to see if it really paid off.

Mongoose · February 11, 2003, 13:33

Eliminating pods (only at landing site option) and playing with random events off would go a long way toward that elimination.

In Zsozso's game, imagine the difference had one of those early pod pops in the Jungle been an earthquake and not a commlink or a L1 tech.

The elimination of luck actions bear on what the purpose here is. If, as MariOne suggests, you seek merely to set a benchmark, then leaving the luck in is probably in order. If you seek to compare the efect of different styles, as you seem to be doing, JT, then the luck element ought to be reduced as far as can be done.

Capt Dizle · February 11, 2003, 15:46

2118 Holy truncation Batman! Only 4 techs. Lost probably 15,000 labs somewhere. I don't know how. I could have backed down to maybe 80% and have gotten 7 or 8 thousand ecs and still have gotten the 4 techs. But I had to try it.

I have to take a break from this game but looks like I could be out in 5 or 6 turns if I can avoid the dead end techs.

Capt Dizle · February 11, 2003, 16:47

Quote:

Originally posted by Mongoose
Eliminating pods (only at landing site option) and playing with random events off would go a long way toward that elimination.

In Zsozso's game, imagine the difference had one of those early pod pops in the Jungle been an earthquake and not a commlink or a L1 tech.

The elimination of luck actions bear on what the purpose here is. If, as MariOne suggests, you seek merely to set a benchmark, then leaving the luck in is probably in order. If you seek to compare the efect of different styles, as you seem to be doing, JT, then the luck element ought to be reduced as far as can be done.

I hear what you are saying but ..

benchmark : a point of reference from which measurements may be made b : something that serves as a standard by which others may be measured or judged c : a standardized problem or test that serves as a basis for evaluation or comparison

I am stuck on the last bit there.

Capt Dizle · February 11, 2003, 22:11

2119 Luck continues with one of my nodes experiencing a major breakthrough. I don't remember this happening before. I thought the lead faction was supposed to get negative events but except for a few things like mineral and nut bust nothing doing. +3 techs

2220 +2 techs and still dodging UFT. Sunspots ended and I allowed Yang to extort a tech. Too tired to scuffle.

2221 +2 techs and researching TOT. As I got the Space Elevator late I wasn't really prepared to exploit it in an attempt to grab a few late techs but I did drop on one AA in 2220 and put in a drop colony pod. Couldn't build the base until this turn however. With TOT safely in the research queue I cashed in the artifact thinking if I got TOT I would save one turn. Of course I got UFT.

2222 Threshold researched.
2223 Voice Complete.
2224 Ascent.

A dozen turns better than Morgan thus preserving Zak's honor but it was indeed a lucky game.

No less than 30 turns after the jungle bunny Zsozso.

If ever I play another of these games the luck factors will have to be lessened. Otherwise it's much ado about nothing.

Hendrik · February 12, 2003, 00:08

JT- good job. I concede that Morgan isn't the ideal faction for SP fast transcend, unless someone else is willing to give the old CEO a try I am not going to participate in any more of these challenges, because they are basically very much suited to Zack.

I was pretty amazed that you managed to do so much better than me during my pop boom period, I thought that such a large coordinated pop boom would make up for the slow start. I guess not! Could you include some save files from the last 25 years or so?

I still think Morgan makes a great MP builder/hybrid faction, perhaps it is just because I haven't been playing against extremely skillful Zack MP opponents. But usually Morgan's commerce income makes up for the difference, and with Morgan's cash I feel more capable of utilizing techs. Morgan is just a midgame monster with green/wealth in terms of versatility. I also think -2 probe is a much larger liability in MP than in SP.

I would love to see someone else create an inventive Morgan strat for SP to compete with the brilliant byron hybrid zsozso competed with or the sikander build style you used. It is probably possible to make a scenario where Morgan would do better as a builder than Zack (IE lots of pacts, arid planet). But that is for the most part splitting hairs. I didn't create a particularly innovative strat, I just made a huge number of bases using conventional techniques.

CEO Aaron · February 12, 2003, 03:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Hendrik
I would love to see someone else create an inventive Morgan strat for SP to compete with the brilliant byron hybrid zsozso competed with or the sikander build style you used. It is probably possible to make a scenario where Morgan would do better as a builder than Zack (IE lots of pacts, arid planet). But that is for the most part splitting hairs. I didn't create a particularly innovative strat, I just made a huge number of bases using conventional techniques.

I experimented fairly extensively trying to adapt Sik's opening and play style to Morgan, and came away with a couple of conclusions. Morgan really loses out on some of his best features when packing his bases so tightly. Specialists are good at creating lots of labs OR psych OR credits, but not all 3 at once, at least until you get Transcends.

In the mid/late game, the combo of green/wealth for +1 energy per square needs lots of harvested squares to really shine. If I only have 4 citizens working tiles, I'm only getting +4 energy compared to what Zak would get. Add in the 3 more specialists that Zak can have due to Morgan's lower hab limits, and you see how ultra-tight spacing really doesn't work too well for Morgan.

Besides, Sik's build really needs to grab Centauri Ecology right away to clear off any rocky/fungus tiles for fast base placement, and Morgan really can't pass up grabbing Biogenics right off the bat, to capitalize on that starting cash and counteract the support limits.

zsozso · February 17, 2003, 07:17

The "jungle buny" (that's me) has started to play from the game-save that the mighty Jimmytrick has provided in this thread (under the name "beer run"). First off, let me state that this map is also waaaaay above average for starting location. It may not be as good as a jungle start but it is not far behind. Definitely not by 30 turns behind

You have started on a huge continent alone surrounded by 3 very valuable landmarks (Mount planet, Uranium flats, Unity crash site) and plenty of fertile (rolling rainy) tiles. Dangerous momentum factions half-world away, two neighbours that are easy to get along and make some treaty/pact (Morgan and Lal). So, JT, your rant about artificially good start can readily be applied here too.

For the sake of comparison, I'm playing it with pure Byron style as long as there is land worthy of colonizing around. Note, Byron advocated against wasting minerals for base facilities, but certain SPs should be rush-built (WP, PTS, HG).

MY.2111 stats:
Bases: 2
Pop: 3
Techs: 6
Research: IndAuto - getting it next turn, cost 54, tech/turn 8
SE: frontier, planned, survival, none, 50-0-50
Agressive pod popping at start, built 2 scouts in addition to free one, plus using the Mining laser from the unity wreckage too - also have 3 unity rovers by now and a unity foil. One AA linked up, 3 more on the way to walk home-bound.

zsozso · February 17, 2003, 07:27

MY.2121 stats:
Bases: 5
Pop: 12
Techs: 13
Research: CentEmp - getting it in 8 turns, cost 231, tech/turn 22
SE: democratic, planned, wealth, none, 50-0-50
SP: PTS
With the PTS completed, agressive expansion may start - no need to wait for growth, each base can rush a colony pod from the 10 free mins for 37 energy. Of course, I have to get off demo for that. But now, it is important to run demo, because I am trying to enslave Lal. Major military action with high-tech equipment: a unity rover and a mining laser

zsozso · February 17, 2003, 07:39

MY.2131 stats:
Bases: 19
Pop: 49
Techs: 19
Research: Neural Grafting - getting it in 8 turns, cost 855, tech/turn 84
SE: frontier, planned, wealth, none, 50-0-50
SP: PTS, HG, WP, EG

Elected governor, Lal has submitted in 2125 - he was hard to convince, friendly Pact with Deirdre, Treaty with Morgan, truce with the others - nasty buggers wouldn't sign treaty for any price.
One colony pod has just reached the location for the first science center: The Mount Planet. Another one is approaching the place for the second science center: Uranium Flats. I built the very first former in 2123, prior to that only some crawlers for rushing SPs but mainly colony pods. By now, I have built
13 formers and another series is in production - starting some major terraforming soon. So far just used the land as the Lord (i.e. the computer) made it.

Capt Dizle · February 17, 2003, 10:16

nah, you'll get no more arguments from me zsozso, I couldn't duplicate your first 31 turns with unlimited reloading....