Afterlife: Ok, so How Do You Play?
Bill Ingram
Ok, so I've had this game for two days now. I zone a few diverse areas,
I construct a few buildings and within a few years I'm spending 1200
or so pennies per year on labor and have a whopping income of about
35 cents per year.
I wait a few years, hoping the situation will reverse itself after
more souls move in. No dice. The graph of my finances is an
absolutely straight line to bankruptcy.
So, I restart and shift the buildings around, and use cheaper
buildings and more efficient networks. No dice. After about
the same number of years, my empire is still only making about
35 cents per year.
Even if I make a few changes in effeciency, and I made 60 or
100 pennies a year, I'd still be losing over 1000 pennies a
year.
I had heard someone was creating a strategy guide or a FAQ.
How's it going? I need to have a look at those things
desparately. As you know, LucasArts shafted its customers
big time on any helpful documentation (and I, for one, won't
be wasting my money on any more LucasArts products if they
continue such a greedy policy).
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Brian Griffin
In article <31DF59...@its.bldrdoc.gov>, Bill Ingram <bi...@its.bldrdoc.gov> says:
>
>Ok, so I've had this game for two days now. I zone a few diverse areas,
>I construct a few buildings and within a few years I'm spending 1200
>or so pennies per year on labor and have a whopping income of about
>35 cents per year.
>
>I wait a few years, hoping the situation will reverse itself after
>more souls move in. No dice. The graph of my finances is an
>absolutely straight line to bankruptcy.
>
>So, I restart and shift the buildings around, and use cheaper
>buildings and more efficient networks. No dice. After about
>the same number of years, my empire is still only making about
>35 cents per year.
>
Rezoning won't help; he key to profitability is getting labour costs
down: make sure you have enough topias so you have no commuters,
and enough schools that you have few imported workers. Watch all
the graphs and listen to your advisors, and you ought to be
turning a profit within a few centuries.
(and in hell, you don't *want* "efficient networks". Make
those souls WALK! ;))
----
Brian Griffin gri...@cdt.infi.net
"Sitting in Mangrove Valley chasing light beams..."
-Hunter/Garcia "Doin That Rag"
Justin Pierce
Today, for the first time, I actually turned a profit in Afterlife. The
bad news about this was that it took me about 1600 years. The good news
is that my cash flow only seems to be improving.
SO, after gleaning all I could from this newsgroup, here's a little advice
I can offer:
1) Go SLOW!!! This game moves at a much slower pace than SC2K. You'll
be heavily tempted to build like mad (I know I was), but that's the surest
way to bankruptcy. Don't try to build both planes at once. Start out
with just one (I chose Heaven, since there's fewer roads to worry about),
and you'll save yourself endless headaches. Start out with just one 3x3
section for each reward (no building can be larger than 3x3). Encircling
4 such sections with a road seems to make for a decent base structure.
Watch the populations of these carefully. You'll notice that as the
structures upgrade, their capacity increases. You should only have to add
new zones in two cases: when all of your zones of one color are 3x3
structures (max capacity) AND those structures are more than 85% full, OR
when you are losing SOULs of a particular color.
2) Reduce your labor costs. Start out with a second-level T-Center set
to the minimum acceptance rate. This allows for a decent return-rate on
trained Angels while providing a high AQ. While the game warns you not to
let your imported workers get below 10%, I recommend 20%, since when a 3x3
zone becomes a 3x3 structure, there is a huge drop in imported workers and
you may end up with rioting. Try and keep the number of Angels down if
you can.
3) Balance. This is annoying, but when you go slow and keep your Heaven
small, it's not too much to worry about, especially when most of your
structures are 3x3.
4) Ad Infinitum. In Heaven, you want to keep this away from your SOULs.
Save money on roads by allowing the rivers to channel Ad Infinitum. Place
a siphon away from your structures, build a road from the siphon to the
river, and build a road from your city to that same river.
That's all I can think of right now. Save often, and good luck!
-Justin Pierce
-japi...@uiuc.edu
David Leary
In article <31DF59...@its.bldrdoc.gov>,
Bill Ingram <bi...@its.bldrdoc.gov> wrote:
>Ok, so I've had this game for two days now. I zone a few diverse areas,
>I construct a few buildings and within a few years I'm spending 1200
>or so pennies per year on labor and have a whopping income of about
>35 cents per year.
This is familiar ... but you'll recover, don't worry.
>I wait a few years, hoping the situation will reverse itself after
>more souls move in. No dice. The graph of my finances is an
>absolutely straight line to bankruptcy.
How long did you wait?
>So, I restart and shift the buildings around, and use cheaper
>buildings and more efficient networks. No dice. After about
>the same number of years, my empire is still only making about
>35 cents per year.
You need to get your "soul rate" up. On easy, with disasters off (which
halves the soul rate) I've had mine up to $1.75 a soul. It goes up when
your afterlife is more efficient. Bigger buildings (i.e., 3x3 buildings)
are more efficient. Keep the "anti-evolutionary" vibe producers (gates
and karma stations) well away from your zones, and plunk topias down
right next to them. Intermix zones in heaven, and make big sprawling
stretches of one color in hell.
>Even if I make a few changes in effeciency, and I made 60 or
>100 pennies a year, I'd still be losing over 1000 pennies a
>year.
Try starting this way:
Buy enough housing for ALL angels and demons so they don't have to
commute. Housing is cheap.
Buy one training center for each realm, the second one up from the top,
and set it on 30% recruitment (the lowest possible). Leave it alone
until your advisors tell you you're down to only 10% imports, then turn
them off.
>I had heard someone was creating a strategy guide or a FAQ.
>How's it going? I need to have a look at those things
>desparately. As you know, LucasArts shafted its customers
>big time on any helpful documentation (and I, for one, won't
>be wasting my money on any more LucasArts products if they
>continue such a greedy policy).
I was annoyed by the plugs for the strategy guide in the docs, but I
found the (tiny) manual plus the tutorials to be more than sufficient to
learn how to play the game. Once I figured out how vibes worked, and how
to make money, things got a lot easier.
I only micromanage now to get rid of "lost souls" (adjusting the balance
in the zones that aren't developing, rather than plunking down endless
new stretches of new zones). The advice in the manual to place new zones
every time you see a lost soul spike is BAD. Make your existing zones
more efficient, and you'll save money. I'm now rolling in so much cash
that I can auto-balance the whole afterlife every couple of hundred years
and not even feel it.
It's an interesting game, once you figure out how to play ...
Good luck!
Dave Leary
Stan Ragan
Hello Folks,
I was playing around with the planet manager last night and was trying to
figure out what's the best combination of Sins/Virtues/Beliefs to promote for
quick planetary growth. (I want those gates a swingin').
I know lust will cause population increases. And Tech advances can increase
population density. Anyone else know the planetary effects of the other
Sins/Virtues/Beliefs ??
Thanx,
Stan
---
Stan Ragan
Information Systems
University of Alabama Health Services Foundation
INTERNET : sra...@hsf.uab.edu
Ron Jarrell
I'm making a profit, but it took hundreds of years...
1) Heaven needs to be compact, and easy to walk from point to point.
SUMAists expect to go to blue first, then work their way back to
green. Put blue closest to the gates, and work from there. Heaven
likes small zones of color next to each other...
2) Hell is the opposite.. The damned expect to suffer, so long walks
are important, both between the gate/karma station and zones, and
between zones. It should take a while to walk from point a to point
b. SUMAists expect to go to GREEN tiles first, and work down to
blue (hell things the sin importance is REVERSE from heaven.) Which
means green should be FARTHEST from the gate. I did a long central
road, with some long crossroads, and little L winglets on the end
with the original 3x3's, and room to expand. Hell hates zones of
color next to each other, and favors large single blocks of color.
(Note, the bigger the building, the more squares away the program
checks for whether the adjacent blocks are a different color or not.)
3) SOULs walk on roads. Period. Everything related to SOULs has to be
connected to a road, and no fate zone can be more than 3 squares
from a road. SOULs hate cutting through the wrong zone to reach the
right zone. The only things that don't have to be attached to a
road: Topias, Gift objects, Limbo facilities, banks, and karma
track. (karma track IS a (special purpose) road, and everything
else has nothing to do with SOULs...)
4) Training centers are a must, but only *permanent* SOULs will apply
for training. Permanent souls who settle in their fate zone will
not change their mind and come out again to be trained. So your
best bet is at least 2 centers; one right next to the gate that they
hit FIRST, before seeing the zone, and one in the middle of the fate
zoning to catch SUMAists who have finished with one zone, and are
changing to their next zone. Putting it near the karma structure
is mostly useless; only temporary SOULs are walking down that way,
to be reincarnated. Watch your ratio; too many idle demons/angels
causes gangs of them to go attack the other plan. Rampant rioting
in the staff will trigger Ragnarok 'n' Roll and end the game.
5) Before starting time, go down the planet, select the highest population
area (or the most central; or you may only have one.) and use the
virtue controls to inspire demonic lust with the maximum power you
have. It's relatively cheap now, and it'll turbo charge your population
for millenia. Check occaisonally to see if a booster innoculation
is needed. Note this will cause hell to get a LOT more people than
heaven. You can balance this, if you like, by inspiring heavenly peace,
which is good at precenting wars in later eras that have nuclear war
(rampant nuclear war triggers armageddon and ends the game). Or
pick two virtues, and lean the balance back towards heaven.
6) Gates and karma stations ALWAYS put out anti-vibes, i.e. vibes that
are WRONG for their plane. Keep them away from zones. Bigger structures
spread their vibes farther. A level one gate affects 3 squares, level
2 hits four squares... Training centers and Topias always put out
pro-vibes. I like to put a training center between the gate and the
first fate zone. Provides the buffer I need, plus they tend to cancel out.
7) Gift structures put out major pro-vibes, and each counteracts 1 disaster
with its area of effect. (Typically 10-15 squares or so).
8) Siphons put out toxic waste bad vibes. Which is what you want in Hell,
so putting it in the middle of things helps; and is bad for growth in
Heaven.
9) A minimum starting plane: 1 topia, 1 training center, 1 gate, 1
karma station w/track, one zone each of the solid color fates, road
as needed.
10) Soul rate is a function of population and overall efficiency.
Stan Ragan
In article <4rtmeu$11...@maze.dpo.uab.edu> sra...@hsf.uab.edu (Stan Ragan)
writes:
[]
[]Hello Folks,
[]
[]I was playing around with the planet manager last night and was trying to
[]figure out what's the best combination of Sins/Virtues/Beliefs to promote for
[]quick planetary growth. (I want those gates a swingin').
[]
[]I know lust will cause population increases. And Tech advances can increase
[]population density. Anyone else know the planetary effects of the other
[]Sins/Virtues/Beliefs ??
One thing I noticed also is that if your "HATE" factor is pumped up pretty high
(demonic or so), you keep getting the "Conquering Empire kills 40K worth of
your population" disaster. It gives you a quick boost in the afterlife realm,
but doesn't do much for your planet pop. Hiring a few poets to do a little love
promotion worked wonders.
Stan
Kagetora
| jar...@solaris.cc.vt.edu (Ron Jarrell) wrote in article
<4rto3n$e...@solaris.cc.vt.edu>...
|
| I'm making a profit, but it took hundreds of years...
And several Mil SOULs. I have no idea why it takes the game so damn long
to finally get around to training your angels/demons...i was still
getting imported workers when I had tons of topias and training centers
operating at full capacity.
| 1) Heaven needs to be compact, and easy to walk from point to point.
| SUMAists expect to go to blue first, then work their way back to
| green. Put blue closest to the gates, and work from there. Heaven
| likes small zones of color next to each other...
Make sure you put some space between the gate and your zones...as the gate
lets off bad vibes. Alternately, plop down training centers and/or topias
around the gate. I doubt I have to tell you the longer road is alot
cheaper... ^-^
| 2) Hell is the opposite.. The damned expect to suffer, so long walks
| are important, both between the gate/karma station and zones, and
| between zones. It should take a while to walk from point a to point
| b. SUMAists expect to go to GREEN tiles first, and work down to
| blue (hell things the sin importance is REVERSE from heaven.) Which
| means green should be FARTHEST from the gate. I did a long central
| road, with some long crossroads, and little L winglets on the end
| with the original 3x3's, and room to expand. Hell hates zones of
| color next to each other, and favors large single blocks of color.
I just "spider" roads out from the gate, one leg for each punishment, with
plenty of space, training centers, and distopias in between blocks and
immediately around the main gate. This grows harder to do as the pop.
expands, but it's quite doable with a little monkeying.
[snip]
| 4) Training centers are a must, but only *permanent* SOULs will apply
| for training. Permanent souls who settle in their fate zone will
| not change their mind and come out again to be trained. So your
| best bet is at least 2 centers; one right next to the gate that they
| hit FIRST, before seeing the zone, and one in the middle of the fate
| zoning to catch SUMAists who have finished with one zone, and are
| changing to their next zone. Putting it near the karma structure
| is mostly useless; only temporary SOULs are walking down that way,
| to be reincarnated. Watch your ratio; too many idle demons/angels
| causes gangs of them to go attack the other plan. Rampant rioting
| in the staff will trigger Ragnarok 'n' Roll and end the game.
Just keep everything in proportion and don't build a glut of the community
colleges....the other stuff is bigger, costs more, and has a lower
turn-out rate, but they're good for when your influx of SOULs slow down.
(i.e. you stop pumping out workers at an exhorbitant rate when their
SOULs aren't occupying them)
| 5) Before starting time, go down the planet, select the highest population
| area (or the most central; or you may only have one.) and use the
| virtue controls to inspire demonic lust with the maximum power you
| have. It's relatively cheap now, and it'll turbo charge your population
| for millenia. Check occaisonally to see if a booster innoculation
| is needed. Note this will cause hell to get a LOT more people than
| heaven. You can balance this, if you like, by inspiring heavenly peace,
| which is good at precenting wars in later eras that have nuclear war
| (rampant nuclear war triggers armageddon and ends the game). Or
| pick two virtues, and lean the balance back towards heaven.
Normally, if you don't fiddle with the Sin/Virtue rate (at least on all
my games), Hell gets the bigger population anyways.
| 6) Gates and karma stations ALWAYS put out anti-vibes, i.e. vibes that
| are WRONG for their plane. Keep them away from zones. Bigger
| structures spread their vibes farther. A level one gate affects 3
| squares, level 2 hits four squares... Training centers and Topias
| always put out pro-vibes. I like to put a training center between
| the gate and the first fate zone. Provides the buffer I need, plus
| they tend to cancel out.
I usually put them way the hell out of the way, even in heaven, and make
really long karma tracks.
| 7) Gift structures put out major pro-vibes, and each counteracts 1 disaster
| with its area of effect. (Typically 10-15 squares or so).
Good to put near gates (protect gate function and conteract anti vibes),
karma stations (counteract anti vibes), or in the middle of large zones
(again, vibes).
| 8) Siphons put out toxic waste bad vibes. Which is what you want in Hell,
| so putting it in the middle of things helps; and is bad for growth in
| Heaven.
Put them far down the road in Heaven, near your karma stations (yes, rock
placement can make this a real bitch). Alternately, put training center
or utopia buffers if your zones are nearby.
| 9) A minimum starting plane: 1 topia, 1 training center, 1 gate, 1
| karma station w/track, one zone each of the solid color fates, road
| as needed.
And put the station, topia, and center near your gate...get all the
bad/good vibes in one place, so they can counteract one another.
--
"Power is in tearing human minds to | Oni Dragon -==UDIC==-
pieces and putting them together again | Kage...@pernet.net
in forms of our own choosing." - _1984_ | POLS...@hal.lamar.edu
Johnny Lamar Rhyne
Hello,
I am having major problems in SC2000. How do I build a large and
sussful city?
Torch16
I found out if you build slow, you can keep in the green. At the beginning
you are going to be in the red but if you build slow, you can pull into
the green. And dont buy the big stuff right away. I start out w/ 2
indus, resid, and commerical in high dense, and the block size costing me
about $420-$480. This size usually works with little to none wasted
space in the middle. I always found that building in 1900 is easier than
any other dates.
Chris
PS- dont bother w/ energy consveration, its gets very expsensive and its
cheaper to build another powerplant then pay 5k+ every year. (I think ive
gotten that to go up to 600K)
Peter Stewart
Torch16 (tor...@aol.com) wrote:
: I found out if you build slow, you can keep in the green. At the beginning
Also, if you don't feel guilty about using this technique, there's a cheat
in the DOS version of SC2000 (this unfortunately does not work in the
Windows version). After starting a new city, in the main window type
"fund" (without the quotes). It will ask you if you want to take out a loan.
Answer yes. Do it again. Then go to the financial window and take out a
third loan normally. It will indicate that the percentage is ".%". Say yes.
Thanks to what I suspect is an overflow of an internal variable, the game
will give you 1.5 million dollars per turn after the first.
Pete
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pete Stewart | "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"
ste...@bae.bellcore.com | - Salvor Hardin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Johnny Lamar Rhyne
In <4s89cp$8...@athos.cc.bellcore.com> ste...@bae.bellcore.com (Peter
incompetent"
>ste...@bae.bellcore.com | - Salvor Hardin
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
I have used it and I built a huge city. Is there a version you can
type "ID4" which tiggers a giant ship to blow your city to ashes?