Why I Returned SMAC
mwig...@my-dejanews.com
Well, I really wanted to like this game. I really enjoyed the demo and waited
with impatience for the game to be released. There are a lot of good things
about SMAC, including the backstory and plot, the voices and graphics as well
as the early technologies. After playing for a few days, though, I just
couldn't continue and returned the game to EB. Here are my reasons:
1. The tech tree is more of a subterranean root system. The "tree" starts
wide and ends up narrow. In the early game, selection of a technological
path is significant. There are tradeoffs. Going after doctrinal technology
as opposed to straight weaponry has serious impacts on strategy, and you have
to balance economy-boosting technology against weaponry to keep your growth
rate up and your cities secure. But in the end-game, everyone has pretty
much the same technology. Prerequisites and the narrowing of the tech tree
mean that there is very little difference between factions at the same level
of technical development. Add to that the fact that certain technologies and
types of units come so late in the game that they are almost useless. Has
anyone used gravships or psi weaponry at all in a serious conflict? By the
time you can achieve this level of technology, you've all but won.
I would have preferred to see true alternate paths, something where if I made
a consistent investment in, say, gravitics, I could get abilities that no one
else was able to get. But my opponent, specializing in psi research, might
have different unique abilities. To an extent you can get this through
special projects, but since special projects are keyed to the converging tech
trees these abilities tend to converge as well.
2. The pace of the game is strangely unbalanced. The early part of the game
is paced well, with expansion and skirmishes balanced with the pace of
development and production. The pace of technological advancement in the
early years is slow but reasonable. However, all the techs that increase
your rate of tech production build up to a snowball effect of advancing
technology that has you cranking out breakthroughs at a rate that can exceed
one per turn. I wish that the advanced technologies were spread out a bit or
somehow slowed down so that the game didn't jump exponentially into
completion.
3. The micromanagement. I found the interface somewhat counterintuitive and
confusing. I'm sure I missed features that would make my empires run more
smoothly, but it seemed like any time I wanted to do something right I had to
do it myself. Governors acted oddly, the computer couldn't optimize
production in surrounding squares, automated formers cruised the highways of
my empire without doing any work, and keeping track of my military units was
a real chore. Even unit pathfinding as often as not wasted precious movement
points by moving units into an enemy zone of control or even not using roads
when they were available. Grouping was confusing. The report screens were
functional, but hardly gave the level of control needed to manage a large
empire's troops. And the design-obsoleting controls were so painful that I
finally stopped obsoleting designs because it was so arduous, and just lived
with the random clutter of unit designs the game generates for you.
4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer players
were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But the
game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the AI is
not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
I realize I probably sound like I'm ranting. I did enjoy the game at first,
and I'm sure a great many players will find it to their taste. From a game
with such potential, though, I guess I expected more advances in the "state
of the art" and less user-interface frustration. I will, however, continue
watching for new games from Brian and Sid. I am more than willing to give
them another chance.
Matt Wigdahl
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Mike
I would have to disagree about the good AI though... I have found that the
other civ's rarely attack well, and don't defend well at all. (for instance,
I was in a massive campaign, taking city after city, and yet they continued
to produce city improvements that were not important, when they should have
been making defensive units).
The AI's idea of attack... send a single unit to attack me. And I wonder why
the AI never has a chance...
--
Mike
Please remove the .NOSPAM from my email address when replying
check out - www.msu.edu/~tansymic
mwig...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<7adaqh$v8d$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
Choy Pui Yin, Irwin
plays at Thinker level and IHMO the AI is pretty good. When the AI attacks it
is often 6-7 units. When the Gaians in his game got the +50% PSI defense
project they start using Mind Worms to defend their bases.
Irwin
Pinochet
mwig...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
>1. The tech tree is more of a subterranean root system. The "tree"
>starts wide and ends up narrow.
Well, if you're thinking of a conifer rather than a tree like an Oak..
Mike
The AI seems identical on easy + hard levels... only increasing drones is
the only difference that I can discern.
--
Mike
Please remove the .NOSPAM from my email address when replying
check out - www.msu.edu/~tansymic
Choy Pui Yin, Irwin wrote in message <36CA631D...@netvigator.com>...
Bruce Gottfred
is perfect and there is always a lot of room for improvement. Hopefully
comments like yours will be taken by designers to try make their next game even
better. But I think you made a mistake returning AC and I'll try to explain
why:
mwig...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
> Well, I really wanted to like this game. I really enjoyed the demo and waited
> with impatience for the game to be released. There are a lot of good things
> about SMAC, including the backstory and plot, the voices and graphics as well
> as the early technologies. After playing for a few days, though, I just
> couldn't continue and returned the game to EB. Here are my reasons:
>
> 1. The tech tree is more of a subterranean root system. The "tree" starts
> wide and ends up narrow. In the early game, selection of a technological
> path is significant. There are tradeoffs. Going after doctrinal technology
> as opposed to straight weaponry has serious impacts on strategy, and you have
> to balance economy-boosting technology against weaponry to keep your growth
> rate up and your cities secure. But in the end-game, everyone has pretty
> much the same technology. Prerequisites and the narrowing of the tech tree
> mean that there is very little difference between factions at the same level
> of technical development. Add to that the fact that certain technologies and
> types of units come so late in the game that they are almost useless. Has
> anyone used gravships or psi weaponry at all in a serious conflict? By the
> time you can achieve this level of technology, you've all but won.
The tech tree works pretty much the same as it did in civ - except that you've
never heard of most of the techs. And it works OK, but people wind up with the
same tech in the end, as you said. This is pretty realistic though; tech in
our world works the same way, with certain nations just being a little farther
along the same path. I agree that it would be neat if different factions had
radically different ways of competing, as in Starcraft, but it isn't a game
breaker.
> I would have preferred to see true alternate paths, something where if I made
> a consistent investment in, say, gravitics, I could get abilities that no one
> else was able to get. But my opponent, specializing in psi research, might
> have different unique abilities. To an extent you can get this through
> special projects, but since special projects are keyed to the converging tech
> trees these abilities tend to converge as well.
I think a system like the original MOO is the most elegant solution to get this
kind of effect. You can divide the research 'dollars' between different types
of techs according to your priorities. You might choose to advance very far in
terraforming tech while ignoring military tech altogether. I especially liked
in MOO how you could select from techs in a category that would have different
costs to research. In effect you could skip techs in the tree to research more
advanced ones, as long as you were willing to accept a longer research time.
In AC, if you were not planning to have a war for awhile, why not skip
researching missile tech and go straight to the chaos gun? Why research
missile tech at all?
> 2. The pace of the game is strangely unbalanced. The early part of the game
> is paced well, with expansion and skirmishes balanced with the pace of
> development and production. The pace of technological advancement in the
> early years is slow but reasonable. However, all the techs that increase
> your rate of tech production build up to a snowball effect of advancing
> technology that has you cranking out breakthroughs at a rate that can exceed
> one per turn. I wish that the advanced technologies were spread out a bit or
> somehow slowed down so that the game didn't jump exponentially into
> completion.
I think the later advancements cost much more research that the early ones. In
my games the rate of new advancements didn't change much, even as I grew. In
fact it seemed like they took longer to appear because the turns grew much
longer. Which brings us to your next point, I guess.
> 3. The micromanagement. I found the interface somewhat counterintuitive and
> confusing. I'm sure I missed features that would make my empires run more
> smoothly, but it seemed like any time I wanted to do something right I had to
> do it myself. Governors acted oddly, the computer couldn't optimize
> production in surrounding squares, automated formers cruised the highways of
> my empire without doing any work, and keeping track of my military units was
> a real chore. Even unit pathfinding as often as not wasted precious movement
> points by moving units into an enemy zone of control or even not using roads
> when they were available. Grouping was confusing. The report screens were
> functional, but hardly gave the level of control needed to manage a large
> empire's troops. And the design-obsoleting controls were so painful that I
> finally stopped obsoleting designs because it was so arduous, and just lived
> with the random clutter of unit designs the game generates for you.
Firaxis has done a lot of work to take out some of the micromanagement that
crippled Civ2. But they still have some work to do. Many of the things you
noted I have seen as well. Also lacking are some 'executive control' tools.
Like if I wanted to insert 'build Submersion Domes' as the next item to build
in every city, or globally tell my stupid governors to stop building formers.
I haven't yet found a way to do these things. But this may just be a case of
'read the fine manual' for me. I'm still finding new and nifty timesavers as I
play the game, and you might be too if you hadn't returned it. :)
> 4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer players
> were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But the
> game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the AI is
> not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
> production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
I'm disappointed with the AI. The empire building AI is pretty good, but the
diplomatic is a letdown. The same old 'gimme tech or I'll destroy you' ploy
time and again from factions half your size. Your long time friends will even
pull it on you once you get powerful enough. Imagine the UK threatening the US
with war unless it handed over stealth tech. It makes no sense. My long time
ally Lal joins up with the evil Spartans who 50 turns ago captured half his
empire, to attack noble *me*? What did I ever do to deserve this? I see the
other factions the same way as I did in Civ2 - a bunch of ignorant,
self-destructive treacherous pricks.
> I realize I probably sound like I'm ranting. I did enjoy the game at first,
> and I'm sure a great many players will find it to their taste. From a game
> with such potential, though, I guess I expected more advances in the "state
> of the art" and less user-interface frustration. I will, however, continue
> watching for new games from Brian and Sid. I am more than willing to give
> them another chance.
I expected a little more from them as well. That said, it's still the best
game to have come out in a long while. I'm having a great time with it. If
you are waiting for the perfect game (or the perfect woman) you can expect to
be waiting a long time. Go buy the game again, you won't be sorry. And make a
commitment to that nice girl you've been seeing. :)
Bruce
Nachtergal Philippe
>
> 2. The pace of the game is strangely unbalanced. The early part of the game
> is paced well, with expansion and skirmishes balanced with the pace of
> development and production. The pace of technological advancement in the
> early years is slow but reasonable. However, all the techs that increase
> your rate of tech production build up to a snowball effect of advancing
> technology that has you cranking out breakthroughs at a rate that can exceed
> one per turn. I wish that the advanced technologies were spread out a bit or
> somehow slowed down so that the game didn't jump exponentially into
> completion.
>
Well, i personally like that, i found CIV2 endgame really boring.
> 3. The micromanagement. I found the interface somewhat counterintuitive and
> confusing. I'm sure I missed features that would make my empires run more
> smoothly, but it seemed like any time I wanted to do something right I had to
> do it myself. Governors acted oddly, the computer couldn't optimize
> production in surrounding squares, automated formers cruised the highways of
> my empire without doing any work, and keeping track of my military units was
> a real chore. Even unit pathfinding as often as not wasted precious movement
> points by moving units into an enemy zone of control or even not using roads
> when they were available. Grouping was confusing. The report screens were
> functional, but hardly gave the level of control needed to manage a large
> empire's troops. And the design-obsoleting controls were so painful that I
> finally stopped obsoleting designs because it was so arduous, and just lived
> with the random clutter of unit designs the game generates for you.
>
Only problem i found there is with the workshop.
Mainly : Type help on a unit in the city screen, and the workshop screen
will appear but
your city screen will usually NOT be updated when you leave the workshop
screen, you'll have to leave to city and come back to get an update of
the list of untis you can produce.
The upgrade button is also often funny, proposing you to "upgrade" the
new type you just created to an older one !
Further more, when defining a new unit type with same cost as a previous
one (most often, upgread synthmetal troops to synthemal TRANCE troops or
something like that : extra cost is 0 ), game will bring a screen saying
something like "Do you want to upgrade for free all your future Synt.
troops into Synth. Trance Troops yes/no ?"
And the upgrade of your production will be WITHOUT (i think) any loss of
minerals for the untis already in production.
The problem is that you might be know for sure just at that moment that
you want to upgrade so all your troops in production and if you want to
later switch manually your production, it will be done at a possible
cost of minerals (if more than 10 minerals are already gathered)...
This is really bothersome; in short, i'm asked a question i'm not sure
what i should answer and i don't make the decision RIGHT now (not even
looking for what my cities are producing,when i learn my next tech ...),
the change will cost me !
While i'm at it : some more small bugs/problems to add (including some
of those i already said on earlier posts) :
Children's creche :
Does NOT really offer a +2 to growth setting.
In fact,it works fine except if you already have
+4growth(democracy+planed economics) in wich case, you city will grow
quickly but you will NOT get the popuation boom (+1 citizen /turn as
long as enought nutrients) that online help say you ought to have for a
growth of +6.
Terrain info is incorrect in MANY cases :
Right click on the terrain will tell me that a farm would not improve
nutrient production while after the test, i clearly see it does. ( and
no, i didn't learn gene-splicing in between)
More like a glitch, it will say that a mine would improve the minerals
from 3 to 4 on the terrain but the terrain ALREADY ha s a mine. (what it
really needs is a road)
Also, here are a few problems related to the online help.
Info as to wich tech lift up nutrients/minerals/... limits doesnot
appear in the datalinks. ( only in the screen you get when actually
chossing the next tech you wanna learn)
I saw now info saying that nutrient/mineral/... bonuses were NOT
affected byt that "limit at 2/turn"
(and anyway, i think a -1 like in CIV2 would be more appropriated that a
rigid limt : rocky-road-mine squares should produce 3 per turn before
the limit i lifted i think, as this would slightly reduce the importance
of that lift-up tech)
Also, info on the Econimic setting is incomplete (stops at +3 while +4
and apparently +5 have still different effects)
No information as to when my inflitrator (from regular spying,not from
governor bonus) will stop giving me data on the target faction. (it
seems it does stop after a while)
Formula on pollution seems not to use one of its partial results. (put
this number aside ... then it's never taken back ??)
No information on what will cause global warming (will boreholes outside
any city radius affect it ? will boreholes inside cities with tree-farm
and hybrid forest affect it too ? ...)
That's all for now !
(the rest are mostly personall wishes about customization or how the AI
and automatic design of units for the worskhop work)
Nachtergal Philippe
Necron99
>
> I played a full game (and easily won), on thinker, the 2nd hardest level.
> The AI seems identical on easy + hard levels... only increasing drones is
> the only difference that I can discern.
Play on Trandsend level if you think the AI is weak. You'll get your
behind kicked. Miriam was using stacks on 15+ heavy units to wipe
out the near-by University. I was far away( huge map) and she still
sent stacks of 3+ units at a time to knock on my door.
Why play on easy level and complain about the AI anyways. Crank it
unit your happy... geeze.
Mike Webster
>4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer players
>were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But the
>game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the AI is
>not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
>production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
Just a note. The computer gets no production bonuses at all until the
5th and 6th levels. Level 4 (Librarian) is supposed to be the level
playing field. At lower levels, you're the one who gets production
and research bonuses. According to Brian Reynolds at the very least,
there is never a combat advantage for the computer at all.
At levels 5 and 6, the computer does get some production bonuses.
They also (roughly) always react on intelligence they have gathered
legitimately (it doesn't automatically 'know' everything about your
territory and bases without gathering it like a human player would),
even on the higher levels.
So do you still think the computer is cheating?
Mike
Tom Chick
<pe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Children's creche :
>
>Does NOT really offer a +2 to growth setting.
>
>In fact,it works fine except if you already have
>+4growth(democracy+planed economics) in wich case, you city will grow
>quickly but you will NOT get the popuation boom (+1 citizen /turn as
>long as enought nutrients) that online help say you ought to have for a
>growth of +6.
The Creche works as advertised. It doesn't apply a global growth
bonus, but rather only affects the nutrient tanks of its city.
>Terrain info is incorrect in MANY cases :
>
>Right click on the terrain will tell me that a farm would not improve
>nutrient production while after the test, i clearly see it does. ( and
>no, i didn't learn gene-splicing in between)
This has been confusing to me, too!
>Info as to wich tech lift up nutrients/minerals/... limits doesnot
>appear in the datalinks. ( only in the screen you get when actually
>chossing the next tech you wanna learn)
It's in the manual and on the tech poster.
>No information on what will cause global warming (will boreholes outside
>any city radius affect it ? will boreholes inside cities with tree-farm
>and hybrid forest affect it too ? ...)
I'm hoping Brian or someone will give us the lowdown on how global
ecology is calculated and whether local eco-damage is indeed zeroed
out by a Centauri Preserve. I think a lot of us are confused by how
this works.
-Tom Chick
*** ***
*** No .sig for me, thank you. ***
*** ***
Christoph Nahr
>Well, I really wanted to like this game. I really enjoyed the demo and waited
>with impatience for the game to be released. There are a lot of good things
>about SMAC, including the backstory and plot, the voices and graphics as well
>as the early technologies. After playing for a few days, though, I just
>couldn't continue and returned the game to EB. Here are my reasons:
I'm still undecided myself. When I got the demo, esp v1.1, the old
Civ addiction set in with full force and it continued maybe 8 hours
into the full version. Then came the hangover. While playing some
more and reading the manual, I looked more closely at the game and
came the roughly the same conclusions as you did.
>1. The tech tree is more of a subterranean root system. The "tree" starts
>wide and ends up narrow.
Fully agree here. Another tech-related problem is the combat system.
The early game has lots of tense combat: will my 1-2-1 infantry hold
up against the 2-1-2 attack rover? But late in the game everyone has
something like 34*-!!65#*-91^°? Ultra-Plasto Nano-Laser Jump Squads
(those funky symbols are supposed to denote special abilities). What
difference there might be is completely lost in their convoluted
labelling and naming conventions. Worlds apart from Civ's bombers &
battleships appeal, and not just because of the sci-fi setting.
Tangential rant: I think what happened to Civ's combat system with the
transition to SMAC is much the same as what happened to Warlords with
the latest releases. The system was burdened with more details than
it could reasonably bear, and consequently broke down. There are also
sensible extensions to the combat system in SMAC, such as
disengagement and ranged artillery fire, but overall there are too
many numbers and ASCII symbols and weird names.
>2. The pace of the game is strangely unbalanced.
Partly this is unavoidable, every builder game is geared to give a
successful empire more of everything, and faster too. There would be
no sense of reward if this didn't happen. But I agree that the
discoveries appear way too fast late in the game. This is a pity
because these later discoveries are particularly "alien", and you need
a longer time to figure out what they are supposed to mean. As it is,
a flood of weird names rushes by. Less would have been more.
>3. The micromanagement. I found the interface somewhat counterintuitive and
>confusing.
The interface annoyed the hell out of me. Brian & Co. appear to be of
the opinion that nothing was really wrong with the interface in Civ2
because the SMAC interface is just as bad. Much like Rebellion's, it
*looks* like an easy-to-use mouse interface but really isn't. In
order to get anything done you have to learn the hot keys, period.
The option to automatically make units obsolete hardly seems to work
at all. Manual control of unit obsolescence is an interface nightmare
of unparalleled proportions. The build queue is the worst
implementation of this concept known to mankind. Formers will wander
back and forth between the same to squares without doing anything.
Governors will build military units forever, even with a garrison
force of 6 units and no visible threats, even when set to "Build" or
"Discover", even when there are plenty of structures still missing in
that colony. Governors will or won't resolve a drone riot on their
own, and you will or won't get an appropriate message about it.
>4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer players
>were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But the
>game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the AI is
>not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
>production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
I'm not quite sure yet if the AI cheats although enemy factions do
seem to build an enormous amount of units and "wonders" compared to
their tiny empires... even on easy or medium difficulty levels.
>I realize I probably sound like I'm ranting. I did enjoy the game at first,
>and I'm sure a great many players will find it to their taste. From a game
>with such potential, though, I guess I expected more advances in the "state
>of the art" and less user-interface frustration. I will, however, continue
>watching for new games from Brian and Sid. I am more than willing to give
>them another chance.
I'll put it bluntly. It's not an achievement of this Brian Reynolds
game but a testament to the addictiveness of Sid Meier's original
design that I have not yet wiped this game from my hard drive.
For a true update to Civilization, I keep looking forward to Call to
Power. SMAC didn't clean up any of the problems with Civ2, and its
changes or extensions to that game are a mixed bag where the good
doesn't really outweigh the bad.
--
Chris Nahr (cnahr@ibmnet, insert dot after ibm to reply by e-mail)
Please don't e-mail me if you post! PGP key at wwwkeys.ch.pgp.net
fol...@concentric.net
tomc...@cutthispartout.primenet.com wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Feb 1999 17:43:45 +0100, Nachtergal Philippe
> <pe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >appear in the datalinks. ( only in the screen you get when actually
> >chossing the next tech you wanna learn)
>
>
The manual's tech tree in Appendix 2 doesn't mention mineral restrictions at
all. The tech poster (as I recall from searching through it last night)
lists the "Lifts mineral restrictions" and "Lifts energy restrictions"
technologies, but not the technology which lifts nutrient restrictions. (I
couldn't find it, at least, so I might be wrong. By the way, found out from
reading the newsgroup today that the tech in question is Gene Splicing.)
Follol
David Bohnenberger
>I'm disappointed with the AI. The empire building AI is pretty good, but
the
>diplomatic is a letdown. The same old 'gimme tech or I'll destroy you'
ploy
>time and again from factions half your size. Your long time friends will
even
>pull it on you once you get powerful enough. Imagine the UK threatening
the US
>with war unless it handed over stealth tech. It makes no sense.
I've been thinking about this same thing and you are right, it makes no
sense. However, if all the others cowered before you when you got ahead, the
end game would not be much of a challenge.
mwig...@my-dejanews.com
m...@hempseed.com (Mike Webster) wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:51:00 GMT, mwig...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> >4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer players
> >were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But the
> >game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the AI is
> >not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
> >production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
>
> 5th and 6th levels. Level 4 (Librarian) is supposed to be the level
> playing field. At lower levels, you're the one who gets production
> and research bonuses. According to Brian Reynolds at the very least,
> there is never a combat advantage for the computer at all.
>
> At levels 5 and 6, the computer does get some production bonuses.
> They also (roughly) always react on intelligence they have gathered
> legitimately (it doesn't automatically 'know' everything about your
> territory and bases without gathering it like a human player would),
> even on the higher levels.
>
> So do you still think the computer is cheating?
Yes. I was referring to the production advantage the computer gets at
Transcend level.
Matt Wigdahl
White Cat
> much that actually saved me real time in the game. Global queue
> commands, etc. would be nice. "Bring all units off hold" would be
> nice too.
You can do that from the "Unit Status Window" or whatever it's called
(press F7). Select the type of unit, and click "Cancel orders" on the
bottom-right of the screen.
_____________________________________________
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mwig...@my-dejanews.com
Bruce Gottfred <bru...@newbridge.com> wrote:
> I like a good airing out of the weaknesses of a game that I'm fond of. No
game
> is perfect and there is always a lot of room for improvement. Hopefully
> comments like yours will be taken by designers to try make their next game
even
> better. But I think you made a mistake returning AC and I'll try to explain
> why:
>
<snip>
> The tech tree works pretty much the same as it did in civ - except that you've
> never heard of most of the techs. And it works OK, but people wind up with
the
> same tech in the end, as you said. This is pretty realistic though; tech in
> our world works the same way, with certain nations just being a little farther
> along the same path. I agree that it would be neat if different factions had
> radically different ways of competing, as in Starcraft, but it isn't a game
> breaker.
Hmmm... I never played either Civ game, so I'll take your word for it. I'll
agree it isn't a game breaker, just a contributor. I disagree about the
comparison to our world, though. Scientific research covers an enormous
range today -- far more breadth of knowledge and specialized applications
than technology in the past. Biotechnology alone was restricted to medicinal
herbs and chirurgy a few centuries ago, and look what a flowering of
applications we have today. Same for organic chemistry and
computers/telecom., to name two other examples. The reason every nation
seems to follow the same technical path is that the relevant information is
readily disseminated. Even encryption technology, which the U.S. government
tries to regulate, has and will continue to flow to countries that the U.S.
government would prefer didn't have it. It's as if we all had probe teams
constantly infiltrating each other's cities. :) I still feel technology
should diverge as it advances, not converge.
<snip>
> I think a system like the original MOO is the most elegant solution to get
this
> kind of effect. You can divide the research 'dollars' between different types
> of techs according to your priorities. You might choose to advance very far
in
> terraforming tech while ignoring military tech altogether. I especially liked
> in MOO how you could select from techs in a category that would have different
> costs to research. In effect you could skip techs in the tree to research
more
> advanced ones, as long as you were willing to accept a longer research time.
> In AC, if you were not planning to have a war for awhile, why not skip
> researching missile tech and go straight to the chaos gun? Why research
> missile tech at all?
Agreed. I still love the original MOO for its simple approach to empire
management, and its technology scheme for the very reason you mention.
<snip>
> Firaxis has done a lot of work to take out some of the micromanagement that
> crippled Civ2. But they still have some work to do. Many of the things you
> noted I have seen as well. Also lacking are some 'executive control' tools.
> Like if I wanted to insert 'build Submersion Domes' as the next item to build
> in every city, or globally tell my stupid governors to stop building formers.
> I haven't yet found a way to do these things. But this may just be a case of
> 'read the fine manual' for me. I'm still finding new and nifty timesavers as
I
> play the game, and you might be too if you hadn't returned it. :)
>
<snip>
You might be right. I read the manual through twice and didn't find much that
actually saved me real time in the game. Global queue commands, etc. would
be nice. "Bring all units off hold" would be nice too.
>
> I'm disappointed with the AI. The empire building AI is pretty good, but the
> diplomatic is a letdown. The same old 'gimme tech or I'll destroy you' ploy
> time and again from factions half your size. Your long time friends will even
> pull it on you once you get powerful enough. Imagine the UK threatening the
US
> with war unless it handed over stealth tech. It makes no sense. My long time
> ally Lal joins up with the evil Spartans who 50 turns ago captured half his
> empire, to attack noble *me*? What did I ever do to deserve this? I see the
> other factions the same way as I did in Civ2 - a bunch of ignorant,
> self-destructive treacherous pricks.
>
If they are going to attack anyway, they may as well try to hold you up for
some tech first, I guess. At least conquered factions stay conquered.
One other thing I forgot to mention at first are the sound bugs. Man, they
were irritating. I upgraded to DirectX 6.1, got updated drivers for my card,
and although that helped, I still got occasional stutters, snaps and random
voices throughout the game. <snip>
>
> I expected a little more from them as well. That said, it's still the best
> game to have come out in a long while. I'm having a great time with it. If
> you are waiting for the perfect game (or the perfect woman) you can expect to
> be waiting a long time. Go buy the game again, you won't be sorry. And make
a
> commitment to that nice girl you've been seeing. :)
>
Married her almost 8 years ago!
jn...@my-dejanews.com
fol...@concentric.net wrote:
> In article <36ce21c9...@news.primenet.com>,
> tomc...@cutthispartout.primenet.com wrote:
> > On Wed, 17 Feb 1999 17:43:45 +0100, Nachtergal Philippe
> > <pe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >appear in the datalinks. ( only in the screen you get when actually
> > >chossing the next tech you wanna learn)
> >
> >
>
> The manual's tech tree in Appendix 2 doesn't mention mineral restrictions at
> all. The tech poster (as I recall from searching through it last night)
> lists the "Lifts mineral restrictions" and "Lifts energy restrictions"
> technologies, but not the technology which lifts nutrient restrictions. (I
> couldn't find it, at least, so I might be wrong. By the way, found out from
> reading the newsgroup today that the tech in question is Gene Splicing.)
>
On my copy of the poster, it does. (Build 3, near the center of that row, in
Bold print, last line in that box.)
Jon Nunn
Friends Don't Let Friends Do Cobol
Tom Chick
>The manual's tech tree in Appendix 2 doesn't mention mineral restrictions at
>all. The tech poster (as I recall from searching through it last night)
>lists the "Lifts mineral restrictions" and "Lifts energy restrictions"
>technologies, but not the technology which lifts nutrient restrictions. (I
>couldn't find it, at least, so I might be wrong. By the way, found out from
>reading the newsgroup today that the tech in question is Gene Splicing.)
Manual pp.36-38.
Yyrkroon
<7afksq$2i$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>
>Yes. I was referring to the production advantage the computer gets at
>Transcend level.
>
>Matt Wigdahl
Allow me to liken to a computer chess game. A good AI will prove
competive when restricted by the same rules also restrict a human player. A
bad AI would require "cheats" like an extra bishop and rook on level 5, and
an extra queen and knight on level 6.
YY
Avatar
Allow me to liken it to a chess game. ;p
In chess, the maximum number of theoretical opening moves is 20. On a
completely open board, one you've cleaned off specifically for that
purpose, the maximum number of possible moves is less than 123. It's a
sharply defined array.
Obviously, the computer has a few more options in SMAC. Hell, my
cruisers can move up to a maximum of 256 possible ways (gotta love the
marine center) in a single turn. Add to that the complexity of the
combat system, which is definitely -not- a 'queen takes rook' type of
exercise. Add to that the production system. Add to -that- the
diplomatic system, and a few formers wandering around. Add to -THAT- all
of the long-term strategy issues, like technological advances.
Just becuase the game has organic computer networks and mind-machine
interfaces, it doesn't indicate that Sid, Brian, and company have
installed them on your desktop. <chuckle>
Avatar
--
"Why do you not let me contemplate in peace?"
"'Cause I'm the GOD OF DESTRUCTION, that's why!"
-Kushinada and Susano Orbatos, "Orion", Shirow
Nachtergal Philippe
>
> On Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:10:07 GMT, fol...@concentric.net wrote:
>
> >The manual's tech tree in Appendix 2 doesn't mention mineral restrictions at
> >all. The tech poster (as I recall from searching through it last night)
> >lists the "Lifts mineral restrictions" and "Lifts energy restrictions"
> >technologies, but not the technology which lifts nutrient restrictions. (I
> >couldn't find it, at least, so I might be wrong. By the way, found out from
> >reading the newsgroup today that the tech in question is Gene Splicing.)
>
> Manual pp.36-38.
>
Anyway, even if it's in the manual, it should be made clearer in the
game itself too.
I still own only the demo at this time and i had at first (now i know it
by heart ;) ) to switch back to windows and one of the .txt files to
see which tech did it...
BTW : the online help on centauri preserve is quite incomplete too :
"give +1 lifecycle to natives you breed here". ( further info. is given
in the advaced help about pollution and such. )
Phil
fol...@concentric.net
tomc...@cutthispartout.primenet.com wrote:
>
> Manual pp.36-38.
>
Argh! Thanks Tom.
Follol, who really really wants an index! :-)
jn...@my-dejanews.com
>
> BTW : the online help on centauri preserve is quite incomplete too :
> "give +1 lifecycle to natives you breed here". ( further info. is given
> in the advaced help about pollution and such. )
>
While troops have morale (Green, Vetran, etc), Native lifeforms have
lifecycles (hatching, boil etc.). So when you build Biology Labs, any life
forms you breed start out meaner much like military troops do on things
giving morale bonus.
There's a nice chart listing the bonus/penalty of each lifecycle along with
bonus/penalty for military troops training.
Jon Nunn
Friends Don't Let Friends Do Cobol
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
Stephen Cox
> 4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer players
> were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But the
> game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the AI is
> not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
> production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
What did you expect? If you want to the AI to be better, then play against people.
You are asking for an AI that can play the same level as a person. Wel,l we aren't
there yet. As for the cheats, the game tries to provide a challenge for you. Once
you learn how the AI works then it has to rely on something else. So, what's the
problem?
Stephen
mwig...@my-dejanews.com
Well, for me the problem is that I don't really want to play the game if the
AI "isn't there yet". That kind of challenge is not one I want. Most
strategy game AI seems to use the production bonus approach, which leads to
very luck- dependent starts. If you can survive long enough due to good
placement, pods, or whatever you'll eventually overcome the curve and start
smacking (no pun intended) the AI around like you do on the easier levels.
I'd rather the AI exercise the legitimate advantages it has -- namely, the
ability to make full use of all its forces and options every turn.
The computer should never lose track of its units like I sometimes do, should
never let drone riots even start if it doesn't have to, should always have
optimal terraforming and production in every city every turn. It should know
my every move if it has an infiltrator active. It should upgrade its
obsolete units and have troop detachments that move to where the conflict is
or where the weak spots are. That's the kind of advantage I would respect.
An AI of this type should get STRONGER with respect to humans as the game
progressed and got larger, rather than weaker as seems to always be the case.
Check out Stars! for a notable, and possibly unique exception to this rule.
The problem with playing against other humans is that it takes too long and is
not easily schedulable, not to mention the fairly widely reported multiplay
problems. I tried multiplay with MOO2 and even with a small universe and a
high-tech start it was like watching ice melt. PBEM might be better. I have
played a lot of Stars! and that was great fun. Maybe PBEM SMAC, if stable
enough, would be the answer.
Matt Wigdahl
Bruce Gottfred
>
> Bruce Gottfred wrote in message
> the
> >diplomatic is a letdown. The same old 'gimme tech or I'll destroy you'
> ploy
> >time and again from factions half your size. Your long time friends will
> even
> >pull it on you once you get powerful enough. Imagine the UK threatening
> the US
> >with war unless it handed over stealth tech. It makes no sense.
>
> sense. However, if all the others cowered before you when you got ahead, the
> end game would not be much of a challenge.
Someone else said the same thing to me through email, and while I'm sure that
is the *reason* the endgame winds up this way (ie, the designers made it that
way), I don't think it *has* to be like that.
Lemme get behind the podium. *ahem* Now pay attention!
The typical 4X game (MOO, Civ, AC, etc) goes through 3 phases:
1) Initial Exploration and Development. Fun phase of the game. See who's
friendly and who's not. Develop your core building sites - the only ones that
really will contribute to your economy later in the game. A rush for
territory. Your game might end here if you started next to a particularly
aggressive opponent.
2) Crisis. Hell breaks out all over. Different sides flex their muscles and
bash each other around. Those that did poorly in the first phase get wiped
out. In a good game you will have a few close calls and maybe even take a bit
of punishment here. There's a lot of tense waiting for critical research to be
completed or weapons to be built. Can your empire stand up to the rising might
of your enemies? Or will you be washed away? Undoubtedly the most exciting
and addicting phase of a game. The part of a game you're most likely to be
playing at 3:00 am when you have to work the next day.
3) Resolution and Clean-up. You've broken your mightiest enemy's momentum
through a brilliant defense or a clever counterattack. (If you instead are the
one broken, you've probably quit by now.) You're going on the offensive and
you know you cannot be opposed. Lots of work fixing up your conquered
territory. Your forces are powerful and take a lot of work to manage. You
probably have far more units than you need to finish off those that still
resist you, and they are of higher quality. The game is basically over. The
dullest and slowest part of the game.
So if the goal of a game is to spend most of it having fun, the resolution
phase should be minimized. I don't believe you can actually get rid of it, but
you can shorten it. I would suggest one way to minimize it is to have the
enemy minor powers beg for mercy and your allies to stay allied. In other
words, to behave as real nations would do. That way the turns pass quickly at
the end of the game, and you can coast to your victory.
Unfortunately, all 4X games I've played instead have the remaining powers get
more belligerent and continue to harass you. You have the choice of either
destroying them, which is tedious, or defend against them, which is also
tedious. IMO, not fun and not realistic.
Getting back to AC, the games I've played so far have bogged down at the end
and I've lost interest when faced with invading another continent packed with
obsolete enemy units. Why won't they just give up and let me move to
transcendence? I don't want to hurt them! Also, the game world becomes a dull
and sterile place when there is only one other faction remaining. I really
don't enjoy the endgame.
I realize some people might like their opponents to keep fighting. The
'aggressive opponents' option could be used by those so inclined. Or they
could just refuse to accept the surrender of their enemies and then attack
their friends. Myself, and I hope others, would like to trim the endgame of
the tedium and stick to the good stuff.
Bruce
BTW, for the irony impaired, the lecturing tone of this post was for the
purposes of self-mockery, and I was not attempting to 'preach' to anyone. I am
not claiming to be any sort of expert; everything in this post is IMHO. I'm
just some guy that likes games...
Bruno Wolff III
>
> So if the goal of a game is to spend most of it having fun, the resolution
> phase should be minimized. I don't believe you can actually get rid of it, but
> you can shorten it. I would suggest one way to minimize it is to have the
> enemy minor powers beg for mercy and your allies to stay allied. In other
> words, to behave as real nations would do. That way the turns pass quickly at
> the end of the game, and you can coast to your victory.
This is one good option. Another option to use, is some sudden death event
that makes your opponents a threat up until very near the end of the game.
This won't work well with human opponents, but can makes things interesting
against computer opponents.
Another option is putting in a time limit so that you are under pressure
to end the game as quickly as possible. I think for many strategy games,
getting the time limit right isn't easy.
Yyrkroon
Bruce Gottfred wrote in message <36CC89A3...@newbridge.com>...
>I realize some people might like their opponents to keep fighting. The
>'aggressive opponents' option could be used by those so inclined. Or they
>could just refuse to accept the surrender of their enemies and then attack
>their friends. Myself, and I hope others, would like to trim the endgame
of
>the tedium and stick to the good stuff.
Could not have said it better, Bruce. I think those of us who feel this
way are legion.
YY
Andy Ward
the bases I've captured to the rear of my advance to other factions, I
really don't want any more bases to manage especially ones that have been
ravaged by war. Then when the faction or factions I'm waring against
surrender I go for the diplomatic victory. The factions I haven't wared with
love me because I've given them bases and vote for me along with the
submissive factions. Makes for a nice tidy, quick ending.
>
>Actually they usually will. When other factions "swear a pact to serve
>you" you don't have to eliminate them to win. Better yet, the
>diplomatic victory is designed to let you end the game quickly in a
>situation where you've already "won". Only drawback is that factions
>you've committed atrocities against may not submit.
>
>Brian Reynolds
>Alpha Centauri Designer
>FIRAXIS Games
>
>
Michael J Greene
I reach the point where I in in an unassailable position,
militarily/economically etc.. the factions DO roll over and plead for mercy.
I have already 'won' 3 games this way, it doesn't help the score but it does
what you are talking about. Many an 'abject and total' defeat has been
handed out, sometimes after barely firing a shot...and being the magnanimous
type, I always accept.. It was a bit strange, in the "end-game" of my last
outing, the Spartans were the only real holdouts, and as SOON as I activated
my destroyer transport filled with troops (after she sneak-attacked me,
which I had already prepared for..), she capitulated - she almost Knew what
was coming...(then again from the treatment Miriam got, how could she not
guess..) Seems once you convincingly crush a relatively strong opponent the
other factions 'get the message' and react submissively not long after you
initiate an assault - although yes, they still gang up on you, I suppose
they want to see if you've got the balls to attack...or if you are content
to give them time to catch up..
Brian Reynolds wrote in message <36ccb44...@news.clark.net>...
>
>
>On Thu, 18 Feb 1999 16:44:03 -0500, Bruce Gottfred
><bru...@newbridge.com> wrote:
>>Getting back to AC, the games I've played so far have bogged down at the
end
>>and I've lost interest when faced with invading another continent packed
with
>>obsolete enemy units. Why won't they just give up and let me move to
>>transcendence? I don't want to hurt them! Also, the game world becomes a
dull
>>and sterile place when there is only one other faction remaining. I
really
>>don't enjoy the endgame.
>
Chan Hoong Keong
>
>4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer players
>were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But the
>game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the AI is
>not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
>production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
Let's face it. Almost all strategic/tactical games cheat. Even the probable
best game of 1998: Starcraft+Broodwar. Who can believe the Zerg can
muster such an overwhelming forces? Not to mention all those puzzle like
levels...
--
Email : hkc...@hkchan.pc.my
Brian Reynolds
Andy McFadden
Bruce Gottfred <bru...@newbridge.com> wrote:
>3) Resolution and Clean-up. You've broken your mightiest enemy's momentum
>through a brilliant defense or a clever counterattack. (If you instead are the
>one broken, you've probably quit by now.) You're going on the offensive and
>you know you cannot be opposed. Lots of work fixing up your conquered
>territory. Your forces are powerful and take a lot of work to manage. You
>probably have far more units than you need to finish off those that still
>resist you, and they are of higher quality. The game is basically over. The
>dullest and slowest part of the game.
Most 4X games are top-heavy: the strong get stronger, the weak get weaker.
He who has the most bases will be in the best position to capture more
bases. This is the way real life goes, so it's hard to argue against
unless you want to add chess-like elements (i.e. position relative to your
opponents is more important than just having more pieces... so the guy
with the most bases/territory/whatever isn't necessarily in the best
position).
Master of Orion had two solutions for eliminating the dreaded Phase Three:
the "council vote" gives you the victory when you have 2/3 of the galaxy
captured (or less than 2/3, but lots of friends), and in MOO2 you could
go invade Antares as soon as it became technically feasible. Civ2 let
you launch a spaceship.
Ironic, though, that to get the highest scores you have to squash everyone...
>So if the goal of a game is to spend most of it having fun, the resolution
>phase should be minimized. I don't believe you can actually get rid of it, but
>you can shorten it. I would suggest one way to minimize it is to have the
>enemy minor powers beg for mercy and your allies to stay allied. In other
>words, to behave as real nations would do. That way the turns pass quickly at
>the end of the game, and you can coast to your victory.
Alternatively, you can declare victory to yourself, and start a new game.
I've left Civ2 games "unfinished" because the end felt more like work than
fun.
I've often pondered ideas for making the clean-up phase as difficult as
the initial phase. In Netrek, as you pushed forward you got closer to
the enemy's home world and farther from your own, so breaking a Last
Planet Stand (LPS) was fairly difficult if the other team had half a clue.
What made this work was that both sides had equal but limited resources,
and the ease of capturing planets was dependent on (among other things)
the relative distance from your respawning teammates.
This is rather different from the traditional 4X game, and doesn't give you
the thrill of mobilizing a huge economy to crush your less-fortunate
neighbors. One game that comes somewhat close to this is HOMM, where the
number of heroes you can drive around isn't dependent on your economy,
and you can only mobilize an effective force in so many places at once.
However, once you have a large number of the same type of castle, and have
decent supply trains to your forward heroes, the game tips rather quickly.
(Fortunately, it's also *over* fairly quickly... the clean-up on a HOMM
scenario is relatively brief.)
--
Send mail to fad...@netcom.com (Andy McFadden)
CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/ (a/k/a www.spies.com/~fadden)
Fight Internet Spam - http://spam.abuse.net/spam/ & news.admin.net-abuse.email
Choy Pui Yin, Irwin
allow little time for the AI to prepare itself.
Mike wrote:
> I played a full game (and easily won), on thinker, the 2nd hardest level.
> The AI seems identical on easy + hard levels... only increasing drones is
> the only difference that I can discern.
>
> --
>
> Mike
>
> Please remove the .NOSPAM from my email address when replying
>
> check out - www.msu.edu/~tansymic
>
> Choy Pui Yin, Irwin wrote in message <36CA631D...@netvigator.com>...
> >You guys need to post the difficulty rating that you were playing. My
> brother
> >plays at Thinker level and IHMO the AI is pretty good. When the AI attacks
> it
> >is often 6-7 units. When the Gaians in his game got the +50% PSI defense
> >project they start using Mind Worms to defend their bases.
> >
> >Irwin
> >
> >Mike wrote:
> >
> >> Very well said.
> >>
> >> I would have to disagree about the good AI though... I have found that
> the
> >> other civ's rarely attack well, and don't defend well at all. (for
> instance,
> >> I was in a massive campaign, taking city after city, and yet they
> continued
> >> to produce city improvements that were not important, when they should
> have
> >> been making defensive units).
> >>
> >> The AI's idea of attack... send a single unit to attack me. And I wonder
> why
> >> the AI never has a chance...
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Mike
> >>
> >> Please remove the .NOSPAM from my email address when replying
> >>
> >> check out - www.msu.edu/~tansymic
> >>
> >> mwig...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
> >> <7adaqh$v8d$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >Well, I really wanted to like this game. I really enjoyed the demo and
> >> waited
> >> >with impatience for the game to be released. There are a lot of good
> >> things
> >> >about SMAC, including the backstory and plot, the voices and graphics as
> >> well
> >> >as the early technologies. After playing for a few days, though, I just
> >> >couldn't continue and returned the game to EB. Here are my reasons:
> >> >
> >> >1. The tech tree is more of a subterranean root system. The "tree"
> starts
> >> >wide and ends up narrow. In the early game, selection of a
> technological
> >> >path is significant. There are tradeoffs. Going after doctrinal
> >> technology
> >> >as opposed to straight weaponry has serious impacts on strategy, and you
> >> have
> >> >to balance economy-boosting technology against weaponry to keep your
> growth
> >> >rate up and your cities secure. But in the end-game, everyone has
> pretty
> >> >much the same technology. Prerequisites and the narrowing of the tech
> tree
> >> >mean that there is very little difference between factions at the same
> >> level
> >> >of technical development. Add to that the fact that certain
> technologies
> >> and
> >> >types of units come so late in the game that they are almost useless.
> Has
> >> >anyone used gravships or psi weaponry at all in a serious conflict? By
> the
> >> >time you can achieve this level of technology, you've all but won.
> >> >
> >> >I would have preferred to see true alternate paths, something where if I
> >> made
> >> >a consistent investment in, say, gravitics, I could get abilities that
> no
> >> one
> >> >else was able to get. But my opponent, specializing in psi research,
> might
> >> >have different unique abilities. To an extent you can get this through
> >> >special projects, but since special projects are keyed to the converging
> >> tech
> >> >trees these abilities tend to converge as well.
> >> >
> >> >2. The pace of the game is strangely unbalanced. The early part of the
> >> game
> >> >is paced well, with expansion and skirmishes balanced with the pace of
> >> >development and production. The pace of technological advancement in
> the
> >> >early years is slow but reasonable. However, all the techs that
> increase
> >> >your rate of tech production build up to a snowball effect of advancing
> >> >technology that has you cranking out breakthroughs at a rate that can
> >> exceed
> >> >one per turn. I wish that the advanced technologies were spread out a
> bit
> >> or
> >> >somehow slowed down so that the game didn't jump exponentially into
> >> >completion.
> >> >
> >> >3. The micromanagement. I found the interface somewhat
> counterintuitive
> >> and
> >> >confusing. I'm sure I missed features that would make my empires run
> more
> >> >smoothly, but it seemed like any time I wanted to do something right I
> had
> >> to
> >> >do it myself. Governors acted oddly, the computer couldn't optimize
> >> >production in surrounding squares, automated formers cruised the
> highways
> >> of
> >> >my empire without doing any work, and keeping track of my military units
> >> was
> >> >a real chore. Even unit pathfinding as often as not wasted precious
> >> movement
> >> >points by moving units into an enemy zone of control or even not using
> >> roads
> >> >when they were available. Grouping was confusing. The report screens
> were
> >> >functional, but hardly gave the level of control needed to manage a
> large
> >> >empire's troops. And the design-obsoleting controls were so painful that
> I
> >> >finally stopped obsoleting designs because it was so arduous, and just
> >> lived
> >> >with the random clutter of unit designs the game generates for you.
> >> >
> >> >4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer
> players
> >> >were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But
> the
> >> >game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the
> AI
> >> is
> >> >not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
> >> >production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
> >> >
> >> >I realize I probably sound like I'm ranting. I did enjoy the game at
> >> first,
> >> >and I'm sure a great many players will find it to their taste. From a
> game
> >> >with such potential, though, I guess I expected more advances in the
> "state
> >> >of the art" and less user-interface frustration. I will, however,
> continue
> >> >watching for new games from Brian and Sid. I am more than willing to
> give
> >> >them another chance.
> >> >
Grifman
<mjgr...@emmessenn.com> wrote:
>Actually, I have to agree with BR, my experience has been (so far) that when
>I reach the point where I in in an unassailable position,
>militarily/economically etc.. the factions DO roll over and plead for mercy.
>I have already 'won' 3 games this way, it doesn't help the score but it does
>what you are talking about. Many an 'abject and total' defeat has been
>handed out, sometimes after barely firing a shot...and being the magnanimous
>type, I always accept.. It was a bit strange, in the "end-game" of my last
>outing, the Spartans were the only real holdouts, and as SOON as I activated
>my destroyer transport filled with troops (after she sneak-attacked me,
>which I had already prepared for..), she capitulated - she almost Knew what
>was coming...(then again from the treatment Miriam got, how could she not
>guess..) Seems once you convincingly crush a relatively strong opponent the
>other factions 'get the message' and react submissively not long after you
>initiate an assault - although yes, they still gang up on you, I suppose
>they want to see if you've got the balls to attack...or if you are content
>to give them time to catch up..
Yeah, I tend to agree. I had been smacking the Gaians and Hive upside
the head for quite awhile taking city after city. I didn't have any
time for the Believers other than raids with my airforce that took out
unit after unit :) Just on a whim I opened communications with their
leader, and out of nowhere she offered total submission! Guess she
knew what was coming next :)
Grifman
Twilight
>> of technical development. Add to that the fact that certain technologies and
>> types of units come so late in the game that they are almost useless. Has
>> anyone used gravships or psi weaponry at all in a serious conflict? By the
>> time you can achieve this level of technology, you've all but won.
>
Well i cant speak for you but those techs DO mean alot in Multiplayer
games.. Especially grav ships. Plus someone mentioned using nothing
but forests. So we tend to do a bit of satelite warfare and kill his
Sky Hydroponic farms and using Probe teams ( launched Via Drop pods )
to take out hybrid farms . It reduces a city to drone rioting status
in good time .
>in every city, or globally tell my stupid governors to stop building formers.
>I haven't yet found a way to do these things. But this may just be a case of
>'read the fine manual' for me. I'm still finding new and nifty timesavers as I
>play the game, and you might be too if you hadn't returned it. :)
>
Well in every city when u bring up the city screen the 2 arrows next
to the governor priority ( build,discover etc ) you can click on that
and u can then choose what a governer can or cannot build , like no
units what so ever etc..o every colony pod from a city where you have
clicked to prevent the governors building certain things also
automatically by default have those same settings .
>
>with war unless it handed over stealth tech. It makes no sense. My long time
>ally Lal joins up with the evil Spartans who 50 turns ago captured half his
>empire, to attack noble *me*? What did I ever do to deserve this? I see the
>other factions the same way as I did in Civ2 - a bunch of ignorant,
>self-destructive treacherous pricks.
Well you wouldnt want the AI t start fawning away at you once you are
on the lead would you?? Wheres the fun if they all be subservient and
let you win.??
"I can picture in my mind a world without war , a world without hate . And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it. " -Jack Handey
Sean Roberts
redundant. You've technically won the game already, but who wants to face
mounting a huge campaign to eliminate the last faction when outcome is a
forgone conclusion.
Sean
"The Planet of the Apes is real. I've been to that planet ... it scared
the hell out of my staff."
General Boy
Bruce Gottfred
I'm not really in a position to criticize AC yet, having only played a few
games some of them only with the demo. But in the last one that I got to the
end, I took 30 cities from Yang and he still was demanding tech for a truce.
Then Deirdre who had only three cities (to my 60) and who I shared similar
values with declared war on me. What was she thinking? It would have been
nice if the AI that made that decision could take into account the state of the
game and realise things for her were hopeless.
But that was only one game and perhaps it doesn't happen every time. Some
people have already posted about how AC is different in the endgame. I'm
probably going to be spending quite a bit of time in the next few months
finding out if they are right.
Thanks for the response, and for a great game.
Bruce
Neil Fradkin
the
>AI "isn't there yet".
Then strategy gaming is not the hobby for you. There is not a single complex
strategy game where the AI can beat you often without "cheating" (chess is
not a complex strategy game).
>That kind of challenge is not one I want. Most
>strategy game AI seems to use the production bonus approach, which leads to
>very luck- dependent starts.
The AC AI puts up a damn good fight on the level where it gets no
bonuses. Though I usually win on the even level playing ironman style, it's
certianly a challenge.
>If you can survive long enough due to good
>placement, pods, or whatever you'll eventually overcome the curve and start
>smacking (no pun intended) the AI around like you do on the easier levels.
In other words, if you have an advantageous start, you'll win. What do
you expect? It's going to be a very long time until AIs can beat a human
consistently, especially if the human player gets a good starting position.
Computers are good at the details but they cannot really see the big
picture. Sure the AI can set it's workers perfectly, and keep track of every
unit, but a computer by nature does not have any pattern recognizition
skills, it can't strategize like a human.
As a side note, I'll never forget the one time I replied to a "civ 2 is
way too easy on diety level" post with "don't reload everytime an enemy
builds that wonder you want, or a barbarian horde pops up from a hut or you
lose a battle". The poster's response was "how did you know?".
Neil Fradkin
end
>and I've lost interest when faced with invading another continent packed
with
>obsolete enemy units. Why won't they just give up and let me move to
>transcendence? I don't want to hurt them! Also, the game world becomes a
dull
>and sterile place when there is only one other faction remaining. I really
>don't enjoy the endgame.
Crush the major cities of the enemies with fast units and go for
diplomatic victory. This is how most of my games end, way before
transcendence. Once I know I've broken the enemy, I switch over production
to get out a round of maxed out hovertanks (and probe teams to take out
defenses), and I take over the enemies major population centers until I have
enough to get the vote.
mwig...@my-dejanews.com
"Neil Fradkin" <nfra...@secant.com> wrote:
> >Well, for me the problem is that I don't really want to play the game if
> the
> >AI "isn't there yet".
>
> Then strategy gaming is not the hobby for you. There is not a single complex
> strategy game where the AI can beat you often without "cheating" (chess is
> not a complex strategy game).
>
Incorrect. Stars! is a complex strategy game and it does not cheat
(according to the designers), and it can beat me (and I suspect most if not
all players) often on the highest levels, in medium galaxies and above. It
does so by exploring and using all its possibilities every turn, something
that most human players just won't do. But mostly you are right; no other
games that I am aware of do.
> >That kind of challenge is not one I want. Most
> >strategy game AI seems to use the production bonus approach, which leads to
> >very luck- dependent starts.
>
> The AC AI puts up a damn good fight on the level where it gets no
> bonuses. Though I usually win on the even level playing ironman style, it's
> certianly a challenge.
>
I defeated the AI on even level (Librarian?) the first time I played, with no
save/reload. There was challenge, but there sure wasn't the second time.
> >If you can survive long enough due to good
> >placement, pods, or whatever you'll eventually overcome the curve and start
> >smacking (no pun intended) the AI around like you do on the easier levels.
>
> In other words, if you have an advantageous start, you'll win. What do
> you expect?
I mean a lucky start, regardless of the player's strategic skill.
"Advantageous start" I would take to mean a well-played first 50 turns,
regardless of luck of the draw.
I guess another way to balance the game might be to have higher difficulty
levels start the player in a worse location, and the computer players in
better locations. This might be a better way to even things out than
production bonuses, though the short-term effect might be the same.
> It's going to be a very long time until AIs can beat a human
> consistently, especially if the human player gets a good starting position.
> Computers are good at the details but they cannot really see the big
> picture. Sure the AI can set it's workers perfectly, and keep track of every
> unit, but a computer by nature does not have any pattern recognizition
> skills, it can't strategize like a human.
>
The AI should have strategic pattern recognition skills of at least some
level. I don't expect it to strategize like a human, but I do expect that it
will shore up obvious weaknesses in its empire without needing extra
production to do it.
> As a side note, I'll never forget the one time I replied to a "civ 2 is
> way too easy on diety level" post with "don't reload everytime an enemy
> builds that wonder you want, or a barbarian horde pops up from a hut or you
> lose a battle". The poster's response was "how did you know?".
>
>
I always play without save/restore cheating. It would be hypocritical for me
to complain about the computer AI and then abuse the game myself.
Matt Wigdahl
jame...@uiuc.edu
mwig...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> Incorrect. Stars! is a complex strategy game and it does not cheat
> (according to the designers), and it can beat me (and I suspect most if not
> all players) often on the highest levels, in medium galaxies and above. It
> does so by exploring and using all its possibilities every turn, something
> that most human players just won't do. But mostly you are right; no other
> games that I am aware of do.
Well, the general consensus in the Stars! newsgroup is that the AIs are fun
to learn against, but they really do not play well at all. They build poorly
designed ships, they do not send enough of them to win battles, and the
races themselves leave much to be desired. Poor use of minefields to defend
their space too.
They can be hard to beat in large galaxies because it takes a lot of work to
root them out if they manage to get established. At those levels, the
computer tends to use a "hyper expansion" race that colonizes everything and
recolonizes at the drop of a hat when it loses planets. However, there are
very effective strategies that have been posted in the newsgroup even in this
case. You can't attack in just once place with a large fleet and then move
on. You have to kill every world you find and leave a garrison to pick off
the colonizers one by one. Outgrow and outpopulate the computer. Restrict
their recolonization with tons of minefields everywhere. This is a pain for
humans who don't want to spend hours and hours making sure everything is
covered, but it certainly doesn't point to smart AIs.
Disclaimer: Don't get me wrong; I really like Stars. Multiplayer games are
incredible experiences. The biggest reason I haven't finished my first full
game of SMAC is that the multiplayer Stars game I'm in is at a critical
juncture. How I managed not to switch all my sleep time into SMAC time, I'll
never know. :-)
Jim
Stephen Cox
> As a side note, I'll never forget the one time I replied to a "civ 2 is
> way too easy on diety level" post with "don't reload everytime an enemy
> builds that wonder you want, or a barbarian horde pops up from a hut or you
> lose a battle". The poster's response was "how did you know?".
Well said!
I am enjoying this game. I do not reload if I lose a city to a fungus, nor do I
reload if another colony completes a project before me. I think it's ruins the
balance of the game when you do this.
I will admit, however, that sometimes I get really pissed at a colony and cheat
buy giving myself an obscene amount of energy credits which I then use to create
numerous units to destroy them with. But at this point I am about to lose
anyway, so what the hell!
Stephen
Gary Hladik
>Well, I really wanted to like this game.
Strangely enough, I'm trying really hard to *hate* it. :-)
Let's be honest with ourselves: SMAC is about as close to colonizing a
new planet as a Mars candy bar is to the planet Mars. The time/distance
scales are ludicrously inconsistent, right? It takes years to walk or
drive to the nearest base, and a year(!) to fly there. If I want
to build an infantry squad, it takes me as long as it took old Earth to
fight World War II. My high-tech attack aircraft can only strike once
every two years, tops. Yet if I'm lucky enough to discover a mineral-rich
Unity pod a thousand miles from base, it's instantly teleported home!
Far out! :-)
"Research" is a joke. My best eggheads huddle for three or four years
and then emerge with some bombshell like, "Hey, guys! If we use WHEELS,
we can explore a lot faster!" Aaaaargh! I'm stuck on a hostile planet,
locked in a death match with six other walking caricatures, and Homer
Simpson is running my labs! :-)
Admittedly, I've only played the demo, but so far SMAC reminds me a lot
of the old Star Trek card game "fizzbin." Take Drones, for example.
("Drones?" Hell, next they'll have us living in Hives or something!)
You get Drones with increasing population, except University gets an
extra one for every four people, except you can reduce Drones with
a Recreation Commons (Maybe they play Civ2?) except you don't need it
because Psych creates Talents who pacify Drones (Is "Talent" 22nd
Century slang for "Hooker?") except you also get Pacifist Drones (who
will still riot, BTW) and they can't be offset with Recreation Commons
but you can Police them, unless you have a "Free Market" (i.e. the Police
are on the take) but you CAN turn a Worker into a Doctor instantaneously
(Barbie's Instant Doctor Kit?) which also pacifies Drones ("Wow, the
colors...") except now there aren't enough Workers to feed the base
because Doctors only treat one Drone per year and play computer golf in
the Recreation Commons the rest of the time... :-)
To make a long story short (too late), I have the uncomfortable feeling
that I'm being bamboozled with eye candy and dazzled by fancy footwork,
and when I finally reach the center of the Labyrinth I'll learn to my
dismay that the Emperor not only has no clothes, he doesn't freakin' exist!
So, reluctantly, I guess I'll just have to set this awful game aside and
look elsewhere for immersive atmosphere and self-consistent game play. :-(
After one more session, of course; I owe that motherf**ker Yang some
payback for breaking our Truce last game.
And then I'm gonna teach that Miriam bitch the *real* meaning of "God's
wrath!" :-)
Gary
IWannaWin
wrote:
>In article <36CC89A3...@newbridge.com>,
>Bruce Gottfred <bru...@newbridge.com> wrote:
>>3) Resolution and Clean-up. You've broken your mightiest enemy's momentum
>>through a brilliant defense or a clever counterattack. (If you instead are the
>>one broken, you've probably quit by now.) You're going on the offensive and
>>you know you cannot be opposed. Lots of work fixing up your conquered
>>territory. Your forces are powerful and take a lot of work to manage. You
>>probably have far more units than you need to finish off those that still
>>resist you, and they are of higher quality. The game is basically over. The
>>dullest and slowest part of the game.
>
>
>Master of Orion had two solutions for eliminating the dreaded Phase Three:
>the "council vote" gives you the victory when you have 2/3 of the galaxy
>captured (or less than 2/3, but lots of friends), and in MOO2 you could
>go invade Antares as soon as it became technically feasible. Civ2 let
>you launch a spaceship.
>
For the best military victory in MOO, just vote against yourself when
you have enough votes to win and you will fight everybody all at once
in a free 4 all. This provides a quicker military ending because
you've to take everybody at once and they don't waste time posturing
about how their army can take you.
==============================================
Win tickets to Superbowl XXXIV in January 2000
http://www.iwannawin.com/superbowl
==============================================
Yyrkroon
Gary Hladik wrote in message ...
>Strangely enough, I'm trying really hard to *hate* it. :-)
What a genius post. This one definitely earns my vote for post of the
month, and a nomination for post of the year.
YY
AcK!
<bru...@newbridge.com>'s $2000 typewriter and wrote:
>you can shorten it. I would suggest one way to minimize it is to have the
>enemy minor powers beg for mercy and your allies to stay allied. In other
Well sometimes the 'pacts of submission' do come in. In my short experience, the best
time is early in the game. Once it gets late, it's fighting down to the last citizen.
TTYL
... If it's not on fire, then it's a software problem.
krup...@yahoospa.com
remove "spa" to email
Allienne Goddard
Hey,
I've only played one full game so far. It came down to my controlling
the southern half of the planet, the Peacemakers controlling a large
central continent, and the Spartans controlling the northern half. I
struggled for a while to get a foothold on the Peacemaker continent,
and finally got one. Just then Spartans, who I was neutral with, took
an unguarded sea base just north of the Peacemaker continent.
Santiago immediately called me and threatened to wipe me out. I
replied, "Yeah, whatever", and she promptly surrendered. Then I mind
controlled a Peacemaker city, and he surrendered. Conquest complete.
I was quite pleased that they folded, since particularly the Spartans
were quite powerful, and it would have been time consuming. Keep in
mind, I was first in everything (tech, military, etc.), and had almost
enough votes to claim world leader by myself, so that probably had
something to do with it.
Yours -- Ally
David Short
snit-snip
>Tangential rant: I think what happened to Civ's combat system with the
>transition to SMAC is much the same as what happened to Warlords with
>the latest releases. The system was burdened with more details than
>it could reasonably bear, and consequently broke down. There are also
>sensible extensions to the combat system in SMAC, such as
>disengagement and ranged artillery fire, but overall there are too
>many numbers and ASCII symbols and weird names.
agreed. I'll probably figure out what those Ascii symbols mean
someday.
>>2. The pace of the game is strangely unbalanced.
>
>Partly this is unavoidable, every builder game is geared to give a
>successful empire more of everything, and faster too. There would be
>no sense of reward if this didn't happen. But I agree that the
>discoveries appear way too fast late in the game. This is a pity
>because these later discoveries are particularly "alien", and you need
>a longer time to figure out what they are supposed to mean. As it is,
>a flood of weird names rushes by. Less would have been more.
Just my opinion SE3 showed that this did not have to be the case.
I don't know enough to trust SMAC's automation yet.
>>3. The micromanagement. I found the interface somewhat counterintuitive
and
>>confusing.
>
>The interface annoyed the hell out of me. Brian & Co. appear to be of
>the opinion that nothing was really wrong with the interface in Civ2
>because the SMAC interface is just as bad. Much like Rebellion's, it
>*looks* like an easy-to-use mouse interface but really isn't. In
>order to get anything done you have to learn the hot keys, period.
I'm pissy about interfaces, but I'm glad that this one remindes
somebody else of Rebellion's. I don't think it's that bad,
but boy is it uneven.
>The option to automatically make units obsolete hardly seems to work
>at all. Manual control of unit obsolescence is an interface nightmare
>of unparalleled proportions. The build queue is the worst
>implementation of this concept known to mankind. Formers will wander
>back and forth between the same to squares without doing anything.
>Governors will build military units forever, even with a garrison
>force of 6 units and no visible threats, even when set to "Build" or
>"Discover", even when there are plenty of structures still missing in
>that colony. Governors will or won't resolve a drone riot on their
>own, and you will or won't get an appropriate message about it.
more snit-snip
>I'll put it bluntly. It's not an achievement of this Brian Reynolds
>game but a testament to the addictiveness of Sid Meier's original
>design that I have not yet wiped this game from my hard drive.
Agreed.
>For a true update to Civilization, I keep looking forward to Call to
>Power. SMAC didn't clean up any of the problems with Civ2, and its
>changes or extensions to that game are a mixed bag where the good
>doesn't really outweigh the bad.
I've never been one of those "CTP is the devil" posters, but I've a much
more put-up or shutup attitude about it than most. They have not done
anything interesting YET.
dfs
Neil Fradkin
>(according to the designers), and it can beat me (and I suspect most if not
>all players) often on the highest levels, in medium galaxies and above. It
>does so by exploring and using all its possibilities every turn, something
>that most human players just won't do. But mostly you are right; no other
>games that I am aware of do.
Though I haven't played Stars! in a while, I was never too impressed
with the AI. I could consistently beat it without too much trouble. Heck,
the AI helped in it's own defeat many times, "thanks for that 2000 ton
mmineral packet, I was just running low" ;) Like in most 4X type games,
unless I was seriously stifeled in the very early game winning was almost a
sure thing (though I will say that the AI was certianly no pushover wither).
>I guess another way to balance the game might be to have higher difficulty
>levels start the player in a worse location, and the computer players in
>better locations. This might be a better way to even things out than
>production bonuses, though the short-term effect might be the same.
I think this would be percieved as cheating just as much as produciton
bonuses. By the late game this would be no advantage really.
>> It's going to be a very long time until AIs can beat a human
>> consistently, especially if the human player gets a good starting
position.
>> Computers are good at the details but they cannot really see the big
>> picture. Sure the AI can set it's workers perfectly, and keep track of
every
>> unit, but a computer by nature does not have any pattern recognizition
>> skills, it can't strategize like a human.
>>
>
>The AI should have strategic pattern recognition skills of at least some
>level. I don't expect it to strategize like a human, but I do expect that
it
>will shore up obvious weaknesses in its empire without needing extra
>production to do it.
Computers are serial machines. Pattern recognition is a massively
parallel task. For a computer AI to have effective pattern recognizition
skills will take a big leap in technology from what we have today. Not that
I don't want good computer game AI, it's just with the current limitations
(processing power, time a player is willing to wait for an AI to make it's
moves, etc.) unless the system is made purposely simple for the AI and the
AI has relatively few choices to make each turn an AI that consistently
beats good human players without any sort of bonus is not realistic.
mwig...@my-dejanews.com
"Neil Fradkin" <nfra...@secant.com> wrote:
> >Incorrect. Stars! is a complex strategy game and it does not cheat
> >(according to the designers), and it can beat me (and I suspect most if not
> >all players) often on the highest levels, in medium galaxies and above. It
> >does so by exploring and using all its possibilities every turn, something
> >that most human players just won't do. But mostly you are right; no other
> >games that I am aware of do.
>
> Though I haven't played Stars! in a while, I was never too impressed
> with the AI. I could consistently beat it without too much trouble. Heck,
> the AI helped in it's own defeat many times, "thanks for that 2000 ton
> mmineral packet, I was just running low" ;) Like in most 4X type games,
> unless I was seriously stifeled in the very early game winning was almost a
> sure thing (though I will say that the AI was certianly no pushover wither).
>
Hmm... I guess what I should have said, to be closer to what I meant, is that
the Stars! AI in a larger galaxy was able to manage a larger empire than I was
willing to manage, and therefore it won. I agree that its ship design and
combat tactics were nothing to write home about.
> Computers are serial machines. Pattern recognition is a massively
> parallel task. For a computer AI to have effective pattern recognizition
> skills will take a big leap in technology from what we have today. Not that
> I don't want good computer game AI, it's just with the current limitations
> (processing power, time a player is willing to wait for an AI to make it's
> moves, etc.) unless the system is made purposely simple for the AI and the
> AI has relatively few choices to make each turn an AI that consistently
> beats good human players without any sort of bonus is not realistic.
>
Although I think these statements should be wrong I can't prove it, not
knowing enough about either pattern recognition or game AI. There are a lot
of unused cycles between the turns of a strategy game. This is a lot of time
for an algorithm to use for strategic analysis. I'm going to try to learn
more about AI in general, as this whole thread of discussion has really made
me think about what game AI does, and what it could/should do.
Matt Wigdahl
denn...@telepath.com
Its not wrong. Computers are built to perform rote tasks, like moving data,
simple math and sorting. Our brains are complex neural nets with the
equivalent of billions of parallel processors, hardwired from birth to look
for and synthesize patterns. Thus tasks that seem very difficult to us, like
performing thousands of math operations flawlessly, are trivial to computers.
But seemingly simple tasks like speech recognition or identifing moving
objects are nearly impossible for a PC.
T.E.D.
Sam Green
>1. The tech tree is more of a subterranean root system. The "tree" starts
>wide and ends up narrow. In the early game, selection of a technological
>path is significant. There are tradeoffs. Going after doctrinal
technology
>as opposed to straight weaponry has serious impacts on strategy, and you
have
>to balance economy-boosting technology against weaponry to keep your growth
>rate up and your cities secure. But in the end-game, everyone has pretty
>much the same technology. Prerequisites and the narrowing of the tech tree
Yes and no... I've noticed that tech in SMAC seems to very much work along
the lines of "the rich get richer".
I also like the fact that you can't just go all out in one direction without
getting at least a few techs outside of your current target group. You *can*
focus on certain things (like up/down terraforming, how *excellent* for
warfare, but it's probably easier to just get the weather paradigm), but you
won't really see the kind of totally unbalanced development you got in civ1
(like, for example, just figuring out chivalry after fusion, or using
genetic engineering without electricity).
The thing that *really* makes me happy about SMAC is that there's no one
"must have" route to success, as there is in civ. In civ, you just would go
republic, get railroads and then industry and, well, at that point you could
usually just out produce the computer. In SMAC each game is different,
requiring much different research goals.
>mean that there is very little difference between factions at the same
level
>of technical development. Add to that the fact that certain technologies
and
>types of units come so late in the game that they are almost useless. Has
>anyone used gravships or psi weaponry at all in a serious conflict? By the
>time you can achieve this level of technology, you've all but won.
I beg to differ! While I'm usually quite far ahead of the other factions in
tech, in the 5 or 6 games where parity has been achieved, there is plenty of
difference. When the spartans are medium tech they tend to have a ton of
slightly under tech units (cheaper) with virtually no infrastructure. The
Hive tends to have decent infrastructure, adequate units, but really tiny
bases (since they're so close together), and Lal tends to not have much of a
military at all, but the best infrastructure, so he's able to pop out a few
killer units fairly quickly. Morgan is really weird to me... He has a ton of
cash, big bases, and a fair amount of units, but they seem rather
innefectual.
>I would have preferred to see true alternate paths, something where if I
made
>a consistent investment in, say, gravitics, I could get abilities that no
one
>else was able to get. But my opponent, specializing in psi research, might
>have different unique abilities. To an extent you can get this through
>special projects, but since special projects are keyed to the converging
tech
>trees these abilities tend to converge as well.
That would be cool: something like in the old empire where if you built a
unit in the city and kept producing that kind of unit it became cheaper
since your city was considered to be expert at building that sorta thing. I
could see something like the first faction to discover this thing got a +2
bonus until someone else discovered it, and then +1 for 10 turns or so after
a second faction got it. Or, maybe, a small bonus to the research speed in a
given field if thats the one where you have the majority of your tech (ala
MOO's bonus to certain races in certain fields)
Sam
Guido den Broeder
> Its not wrong. Computers are built to perform rote tasks, like moving data,
> simple math and sorting.
They are, but only because that's what they are particularly good at at
the moment. But as soon as they are able to perform more complex tasks,
they will be put to use for that as well, dont you think?
> Our brains are complex neural nets with the
> equivalent of billions of parallel processors, hardwired from birth
AFAIK only to a certain extent.
> to look
> for and synthesize patterns. Thus tasks that seem very difficult to us, like
> performing thousands of math operations flawlessly, are trivial to computers.
> But seemingly simple tasks like speech recognition or identifing moving
> objects are nearly impossible for a PC.
Things will change though. Are changing in fact. Both examples you
mention are already within grasp. Other more complex tasks like decision
maling under (not precisely unmeasurable) uncertainty - fuzzy logic -
will IMHO follow.
Regards,
Guido
Scott Nelson
David Short wrote in message <7ars69$l12$1...@mercury.wright.edu>...
>Christoph Nahr wrote in message <36ce1202...@news1.newscene.com>...
[snip]
>>disengagement and ranged artillery fire, but overall there are too
>>many numbers and ASCII symbols and weird names.
>agreed. I'll probably figure out what those Ascii symbols mean
>someday.
On that note, has anybody got an explanation of what all the brackets and
asterisks and what-not mean in the unit statistics?
And is there a simple way to see what the overall diplomatic situation is
(i.e., who has vendeatta with who, who has treaties with who...)?
Scott
ske...@inreach.com
http://home.inreach.com/skeeve/
Quixote
Scott Nelson wrote in message ...
>And is there a simple way to see what the overall diplomatic situation is
>(i.e., who has vendeatta with who, who has treaties with who...)?
>
>Scott
>ske...@inreach.com
>http://home.inreach.com/skeeve/
>
On the comm link button it tells beside each faction name you diplomatic
relation to them.
White Cat
> Only problem i found there is with the workshop.
>
> Mainly : Type help on a unit in the city screen, and the workshop
> screen will appear but your city screen will usually NOT be updated
> when you leave the workshop screen, you'll have to leave to city and
> come back to get an update of the list of untis you can produce.
That's odd; I'm quite sure that my list has always been automatically
upgraded.
> While i'm at it : some more small bugs/problems to add (including
> some of those i already said on earlier posts) :
>
> Children's creche :
>
> Does NOT really offer a +2 to growth setting.
>
> In fact,it works fine except if you already have
> +4growth(democracy+planed economics) in wich case, you city will grow
> quickly but you will NOT get the popuation boom (+1 citizen /turn as
> long as enought nutrients) that online help say you ought to have for
> a growth of +6.
It did for me when I played as Spartans with those social settings and a
Creche. Are you sure you had at least 2 surplus nutrients in each city,
and hadn't hit the population limits that Habitation Complexes/Domes
lift?
> Also, info on the Econimic setting is incomplete (stops at +3 while +4
> and apparently +5 have still different effects)
No, the help file lists up to +5.
_____________________________________________
.'. | Extra-Topping Speedy, a.k.a. White Cat |
|\ _|_|_ /| | |
|\ ,-' .|. `-. /| | "I'm too lazy to pull up my quotes file |
\`-._,'|'._,-'/ | and paste one in at the moment." |
|`-.|_(_)_|,-'| | - White Cat |
/|| o | o ||\ | |
\|'.__.|.__.'|/ |Speedy's Samurai Pizza Cats WWW Hall of Fame |
\|== | ==|/ |http://www.kneehill.com/~karye/spcwwwhof.htm |
`---|_|---' |_____________________________________________|
Brian Reynolds
Offense strength:
? = Psi
* = Planet Buster
<> = Air Superiority
() = Artillery
^ = Airdrop
~ = Amphibious
x = Nerve Gas
e = Empath
! = Blink
Defense strength:
? = Psi
<> = SAM
+ = Comm Jammer
t = Trance
Brian Reynolds
Alpha Centauri Designer
FIRAXIS Games
On Tue, 23 Feb 1999 05:16:20 GMT, "Scott Nelson" <ske...@inreach.com>
wrote:
>On that note, has anybody got an explanation of what all the brackets and
>asterisks and what-not mean in the unit statistics?
>
Roberto Ullfig
>
> Offense strength:
>
> ? = Psi
> * = Planet Buster
> <> = Air Superiority
> () = Artillery
> ^ = Airdrop
> ~ = Amphibious
> x = Nerve Gas
> e = Empath
> ! = Blink
>
> Defense strength:
>
> ? = Psi
> <> = SAM
> + = Comm Jammer
> t = Trance
>
> Brian Reynolds
> Alpha Centauri Designer
> FIRAXIS Games
>
And what are those "+" signs next to a unit's morale? Some sort of
indicator as to how far they have to go to increase their morale?
And do all Monoliths function the same and why can units sometimes
increase their morale at one and sometimes they can't?
--
Roberto Ullfig
Taki Kogoma
Roberto Ullfig <rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> allegedly proclaimed:
>And do all Monoliths function the same and why can units sometimes
>increase their morale at one and sometimes they can't?
I've encountered two flavors of monolith: Morale Upgrade and Repair.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
quirk @ swcp.com | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
Jason Lutes
> [...] What I'm looking for is a way to see what the Hive's relation
> is to my Pact brothers and sisters before call him and try to make nice. If
> I make nice, my brothers/sisters who have a vendetta with him are going to
> get all pissy and ask me to beat on the Hive some more. This can cause
> trouble.
IIRC, you should check the profiles of your Pact brothers and sisters
instead of Yang, unless you've infiltrated the Hive's datalinks. I think
that, in order to get a full list of a faction's diplomatic relations,
you need either to be Pact mates or to have infiltrated them.
Scott Nelson
Quixote wrote in message <7atgel$jgq$1...@mercury.hiline.net>...
>Scott Nelson wrote in message ...
>
>>(i.e., who has vendeatta with who, who has treaties with who...)?
[...]
>On the comm link button it tells beside each faction name you diplomatic
>relation to them.
I knew this. What I'm looking for is a way to see what the Hive's relation
is to my Pact brothers and sisters before call him and try to make nice. If
I make nice, my brothers/sisters who have a vendetta with him are going to
get all pissy and ask me to beat on the Hive some more. This can cause
trouble.
Scott
ske...@inreach.com
http://home.inreach.com/skeeve/
John Dilick
proclaimed:
>In <36D2F841...@midway.uchicago.edu> on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic,
>Roberto Ullfig <rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> allegedly proclaimed:
>>And do all Monoliths function the same and why can units sometimes
>>increase their morale at one and sometimes they can't?
>
>I've encountered two flavors of monolith: Morale Upgrade and Repair.
Don't forget the infamous 'Silent' type as well.
--
John Dilick dili...@home.com
If at first you don't succeed, cheat. Cheat until caught, then lie.
John Alcock
wrote:
>Scott Nelson wrote:
>
>> [...] What I'm looking for is a way to see what the Hive's relation
>> is to my Pact brothers and sisters before call him and try to make nice. If
>> I make nice, my brothers/sisters who have a vendetta with him are going to
>> get all pissy and ask me to beat on the Hive some more. This can cause
>> trouble.
>
>IIRC, you should check the profiles of your Pact brothers and sisters
>instead of Yang, unless you've infiltrated the Hive's datalinks. I think
>that, in order to get a full list of a faction's diplomatic relations,
>you need either to be Pact mates or to have infiltrated them.
>
Or be governor. Governor gets to see everyone's relations with
everyone.
John
--
Work: jal...@NOSPAMwatson.ibm.com
Home: jal...@NOSPAMct1.nai.net
Roberto Ullfig
different things depending only on the unit that uses it. For instance,
if a damaged unit enters _any_ monument it is always repaired. What I
don't understand is why sometimes a unit gets a morale upgrade and
sometimes it doesn't (i.e. The Silent Monolith).
--
Roberto Ullfig
mark edward hardwidge
> What I don't understand is why sometimes a unit gets a morale
> upgrade and sometimes it doesn't (i.e. The Silent Monolith).
I believe units can only get one monolith morale upgrade in
their lifetime.
--
Mark E. Hardwidge
hard...@uiuc.edu
Robert L. Mullen
<rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>Actually, the monoliths all seem to be the same; it's just that they do
>different things depending only on the unit that uses it. For instance,
>if a damaged unit enters _any_ monument it is always repaired. What I
>don't understand is why sometimes a unit gets a morale upgrade and
>sometimes it doesn't (i.e. The Silent Monolith).
>
A unit is allowed only one Monolith upgrade, after that ALL Monoliths
visited by the unit will "be silent". The exception to this is if the
unit is damaged... in this case the unit will be repaired. I've seen
units repaired AND upgraded with one trip to a single Monolith (just
in case anyone was wondering )
Later,
Rob
Roberto Ullfig
>
> Roberto Ullfig <rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> > What I don't understand is why sometimes a unit gets a morale
> > upgrade and sometimes it doesn't (i.e. The Silent Monolith).
>
> their lifetime.
>
> --
> Mark E. Hardwidge
> hard...@uiuc.edu
Well, the GameSpot strategy guide (which includes the formula for eco
damage BTW), says that each unit can only use a particular monolith to
upgrade only once; but I'm certain that last night I was sending newly
created Commando units to a certain monolith and it was silent. I have
upgraded to Elite units at a monolith so I know that's not a problem. I
also seem to recall getting an upgrade, having that unit engage in
combat and then return and get an second upgrade at the same monument.
--
Roberto Ullfig
Chris Byler
>>Scott Nelson wrote:
So does the owner of the Empath Guild (who is usually governor
anyway...)
OTOH, you should probably go ahead and infiltrate the Hive's datalinks
if you know where any of their bases are. It's not that hard, even
for a freshly built probe team. Infiltrate Datalinks is probably the
easiest mission a probe team can perform, and it's not an automatic
sacrifice mission either. (If there are automatic sacrifice missions
in SMAC... I haven't tried any of the nastier options yet.)
--
Chris Byler cby...@vt.edu
"I'm not a speed reader. I'm a speed understander."
-- Isaac Asimov
Chris Byler
<rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>Actually, the monoliths all seem to be the same; it's just that they do
>different things depending only on the unit that uses it. For instance,
>if a damaged unit enters _any_ monument it is always repaired. What I
>don't understand is why sometimes a unit gets a morale upgrade and
>sometimes it doesn't (i.e. The Silent Monolith).
Any given unit can only get one morale upgrade from monoliths, ever.
That's why you don't always want to investigate them as soon as
possible; it may be better to wait until the unit becomes Commando,
then use the monolith to get that tough (and valuable) Elite
promotion.
You can get repaired an unlimited number of times, though.
Pope Jubal
"Scott Nelson" <ske...@inreach.com> wrote:
> >>And is there a simple way to see what the overall diplomatic situation is
> >>(i.e., who has vendeatta with who, who has treaties with who...)?
>
> [...]
> >On the comm link button it tells beside each faction name you diplomatic
> >relation to them.
>
> I knew this. What I'm looking for is a way to see what the Hive's relation
> is to my Pact brothers and sisters before call him and try to make nice. If
> I make nice, my brothers/sisters who have a vendetta with him are going to
> get all pissy and ask me to beat on the Hive some more. This can cause
> trouble.
>
If you right click on the faction and choose faction information (don't
remember the exact right-click menu item name) it will give you all of the
available information. If you have an infiltrator for that faction, SMAC
will tell you the names of all of their cities, their city size and all the
technologies they have researched. It will also give their diplomatic
relations with the other factions.
Pope Jubal
-Posting with DejaNews because I can't get anything else to post with
my work's firewall. Don't you just love corporate internet access?
Colen 'Not Colin' McAlister
>In <36D2F841...@midway.uchicago.edu> on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic,
>Roberto Ullfig <rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> allegedly proclaimed:
>>And do all Monoliths function the same and why can units sometimes
>>increase their morale at one and sometimes they can't?
>
>I've encountered two flavors of monolith: Morale Upgrade and Repair.
>
IIRC, you can only be upgraded by a monolith once, but repaired as much
as you want.
Skrills for the Skrill God!&%$# SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!&*!%$!#@
--
Colen 'Not Colin' McAlister, UIN 13168333 <brother...@geocities.com>
Colen's Warhammer Page: <http://surf.to/colen/> DiaChronos Software:
<http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arena/4368/programs/>
Brian Reynolds
Brian Reynolds
Alpha Centauri Designer
FIRAXIS Games
On Tue, 23 Feb 1999 18:49:37 GMT, Roberto Ullfig
<rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>Brian Reynolds wrote:
>>
>> Offense strength:
>>
>> ? = Psi
>> * = Planet Buster
>> <> = Air Superiority
>> () = Artillery
>> ^ = Airdrop
>> ~ = Amphibious
>> x = Nerve Gas
>> e = Empath
>> ! = Blink
>>
>> Defense strength:
>>
>> ? = Psi
>> <> = SAM
>> + = Comm Jammer
>> t = Trance
>>
>> Brian Reynolds
>> Alpha Centauri Designer
>> FIRAXIS Games
>>
>
>And what are those "+" signs next to a unit's morale? Some sort of
>indicator as to how far they have to go to increase their morale?
>
Neil Fradkin
and
>>confusing.
>
>The interface annoyed the hell out of me. Brian & Co. appear to be of
>the opinion that nothing was really wrong with the interface in Civ2
>because the SMAC interface is just as bad. Much like Rebellion's, it
>*looks* like an easy-to-use mouse interface but really isn't. In
>order to get anything done you have to learn the hot keys, period.
Not true at all. You can manage all your cities effectively from a
single screen (f4). Everything a unit can do is accessable from it's right
click menu. Comparing it to rebellion where you have to open multiple
windows to do anything is way off base. My only real interface complaint is
that the f4 screen isn't sortable.
>The option to automatically make units obsolete hardly seems to work
>at all. Manual control of unit obsolescence is an interface nightmare
>of unparalleled proportions.
The option is to prune obsolete units from the list, not to make designs
obsolete. RTFM.
>The build queue is the worst
>implementation of this concept known to mankind.
How? You can insert at any point, delete things, save a build queue.
What else do you want from a build queue. The only thing wrong with it is
the seperation of the queue from the current build item.
>Formers will wander
>back and forth between the same to squares without doing anything.
Use auto improve home base, this works well for me.
>Governors will build military units forever, even with a garrison
>force of 6 units and no visible threats, even when set to "Build" or
>"Discover", even when there are plenty of structures still missing in
>that colony.
RTFM. Simply turn off the option to allow governors to build military
units in that city.
>Governors will or won't resolve a drone riot on their
>own, and you will or won't get an appropriate message about it.
Funny, they usually resolve riots for me. Is manage population checked
in the governor options?
>I'll put it bluntly. It's not an achievement of this Brian Reynolds
>game but a testament to the addictiveness of Sid Meier's original
>design that I have not yet wiped this game from my hard drive.
>
>For a true update to Civilization, I keep looking forward to Call to
>Power. SMAC didn't clean up any of the problems with Civ2, and its
>changes or extensions to that game are a mixed bag where the good
>doesn't really outweigh the bad.
It sounds like with an actual read of the manual and how to use the
features most of these problems would be solved.
Grifman
wrote:
Ya know, I read his post and thought the same thing. It would be one
thing if he asked if there was a way to do something, but to criticize
it because he doesn't know how to do it is rather inane.
Grifman
Ralph Trickey
wrote:
>>Formers will wander
>>back and forth between the same to squares without doing anything.
>
> Use auto improve home base, this works well for me.
>
In my first game they put roads everywhere, I also had one get stuck
in the mag-tubes, they also wanted to travel to the ends of the earth
to do their job.
They seem much better behaved in this game.
>>Governors will or won't resolve a drone riot on their
>>own, and you will or won't get an appropriate message about it.
>
> Funny, they usually resolve riots for me. Is manage population checked
>in the governor options?
>
There are 2 situations, one is where they can resolve it and they do.
The identical one is where they can't because they would cause a
resource shortfall. There is no way to tell whether or not they've
solved the problem when you get to that screen.
--
Ralph Trickey <Ralph....@BigFoot.Com.RemoveToEmail>
Sam Green
Bruce Gottfred wrote in message <36CC89A3...@newbridge.com>...
>So if the goal of a game is to spend most of it having fun, the resolution
>phase should be minimized. I don't believe you can actually get rid of it,
but
>you can shorten it. I would suggest one way to minimize it is to have the
>enemy minor powers beg for mercy and your allies to stay allied. In other
>words, to behave as real nations would do. That way the turns pass quickly
at
>the end of the game, and you can coast to your victory.
Yah, in games like Civ2 or MOO, I always got very bored when it came to just
finishing off my opponents. When I've got 40 some odd tanks rolling through
Europe, 5 or 6 conquered cities spewing out more readily, and my opponents
have another 10 outpost-type cities (size 1-6, no infrastructure) it gets
really pointless. Sure, it's semi-realistic, fight to the death and all
that, but I *really* wish there was a submission routine in Civ2. Thank Sid
it's there in SMAC! (Silly MOO thing: just for fun, make a huge galaxy,
colonize all planets, leave one planet for each race alive. Put ships in
orbit with black hole generators (take out missilebases and ships, but no
bombardment). Why oh *WHY* didn't they implement a submission option?!? If
that's not a situation calling for it, I don't know *what* is.)
>Unfortunately, all 4X games I've played instead have the remaining powers
get
>more belligerent and continue to harass you. You have the choice of either
>destroying them, which is tedious, or defend against them, which is also
>tedious. IMO, not fun and not realistic.
Yeah, especially since most 4x games have such putrid AI that there is
really not a hope in hell of them coming back strongly. It's *hard* to
defeat a superior (techwise) opponent even when they haven't messed up your
empire, but it's *impossible* when they have a tech edge *and* you don't
know what your doing. Far better to have the computer submit and stop
wasting time with a silly defense. (Funny thing: Yang threatened me with
Laser Gatling squads when I had chaos weapons already. I dropped 5 of em
around The Hive, took it, just to show him what he should research next :p)
>Getting back to AC, the games I've played so far have bogged down at the
end
>and I've lost interest when faced with invading another continent packed
with
>obsolete enemy units. Why won't they just give up and let me move to
>transcendence? I don't want to hurt them! Also, the game world becomes a
dull
>and sterile place when there is only one other faction remaining. I really
>don't enjoy the endgame.
They do give up... Contact em and just refuse to do anything they say.
Sometimes they submit, sometimes not. One thing I do (especially since I
don't worry about score) is just zap em with PB's. Nothing better than
taking out 4-5 bases with one shot. My wife gets this very stricken look
when she hears me cackling as I build those tasty PBs during multi-player :)
Courageous
> really not a hope in hell of them coming back strongly. It's *hard* to
> defeat a superior (techwise) opponent even when they haven't messed up your
> empire, but it's *impossible* when they have a tech edge *and* you don't
> know what your doing.
The best bet would be to negotiate a truce, amass forces,
and arrange a two front simultaneous attack on that stronger
enemy with the assistance of a mutual ally.
On the diplomatic front, this would lead conquering nations
to naturally want to enforce non-proliferation treaties
on conquered nations. Intel information could be used to
determine if those treaties were being complied with.
The conquering nation would have to decide how to handle
non-compliance.
I liked Imperialism's diplomacy, actually. I particularly
liked how it was very easy to screw up and become the
next whipping boy of the world community. You weren't
generally long for this earth after that happened.
Imagine SMAC with all the other factions declaring
vendetta and strongly prosecuting their wars at once.
"Let loose the dogs of war."
As for non proliferation treaties, I can imagine that
even certain TYPES or numbers of weapons might be
disallowed; or some combination thereof.
Perhaps truces and submissions should have a negotiated
peace? That would be a cool idea for some future game. :)
C/
J Swing
way), I don't think it *has* to be like that.
>So if the goal of a game is to spend most of it having fun, the resolution
>phase should be minimized. I don't believe you can actually get rid of it, but
>you can shorten it. I would suggest one way to minimize it is to have the
>enemy minor powers beg for mercy and your allies to stay allied. In other
>words, to behave as real nations would do. That way the turns pass quickly at
>the end of the game, and you can coast to your victory.
One option used by Birthright (okay, so it's not a pure 4X game) was to have
the game end when the player had earned a specific number of points. The
points could be earned with typical metrics (population, military power,
relative rank, etc) and once a preset total had been reached the game would
label you victor.
You could set the point totals up at the beginning of the game (short, med,
long) and have it also depend on the size of the board. The player(s) can go
earn the points in a way that fits with their playing style, so you keep the
different ways of winning the game (points for your pop, some points for your
allies' pop, points for tech level and special proj, etc).
If the balance is done well, the cleanup phase is very short.
Of course, then you can't compare scores with others, but it does reduce the
resolution phase.
My $.02
J Swing
Ben Polk
> On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 20:53:22 GMT, Courageous <jkra...@san.rr.com>
> wrote:
> >I liked Imperialism's diplomacy, actually. I particularly
> >liked how it was very easy to screw up and become the
> >next whipping boy of the world community. You weren't
> >generally long for this earth after that happened.
>
> Was just playing that today, and liked the way your allies would get
> mad at you when you made separate peace with your joint enemies. Have
> to file that away for next time. But on the other hand I wish there
> was some better way to end wars besides (a) someone getting wiped out,
> or (b) all of someones allies turning on him.
Yeah, I didn't like that in Imperialism either. We put something in
Imperialism II where countries have a concept of something you could call
"war enthusiasm", which goes up and down based on the progress of the war
and the passage of time. Everything else equal it slowly declines, but
military success by a computer country or it's allies can raise it. It is
combined with the other factors determining when a country will sue for
peace, so eventually stalemated wars sputter out.
And btw, congrats on AC - it looks great.
Ben Polk
Frog City Software
posted and emailed
Brian Reynolds
wrote:
>I liked Imperialism's diplomacy, actually. I particularly
>liked how it was very easy to screw up and become the
>next whipping boy of the world community. You weren't
>generally long for this earth after that happened.
Was just playing that today, and liked the way your allies would get
mad at you when you made separate peace with your joint enemies. Have
to file that away for next time. But on the other hand I wish there
was some better way to end wars besides (a) someone getting wiped out,
or (b) all of someones allies turning on him.
BR
Scott Nelson
Pope Jubal wrote in message <7b1ooi$97g$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <FWLA2.84$BQ6.1...@news.inreach.com>,
> "Scott Nelson" <ske...@inreach.com> wrote:
>
>> >>And is there a simple way to see what the overall diplomatic situation
is
>> >>(i.e., who has vendeatta with who, who has treaties with who...)?
[snippage]
>If you right click on the faction and choose faction information (don't
>remember the exact right-click menu item name) it will give you all of the
>available information. If you have an infiltrator for that faction, SMAC
This is exactly what I was searching for. And it works. And its not in the
manual as near as I can tell. Besides this and right-clicking on the
production queue for neat options, does anyone know of any useful
undocumented things like this?
Scott
ske...@inreach.com
http://home.inreach.com/skeeve/
L'Empereur
Brian Reynolds <brey...@firaxis.com> wrote in article
<36d5f1f...@news.clark.net>...
What about simply keeping track of a sides losses.. when a side loses say a
proportion
of its forces (compared to startingforces+built) and bases lost. I woul
call thsi some sort of threshold
for surrender. (I don't mean submission.. just knowing when its getting
bad).
I'm finding that the biggets beef in the dippy stuff is that (if ever) a PC
player sues you for peace
they ask the most OUTRAGEOUS demands even though you're kicking them into
next week. You're right
there's no gradient.. :) (i'll end the vendetta if you give me Homo
Superior even though all i'm left with is one base and 1-1-1 infantry) MOO
II, CIV /II also had this problem
We (me and and some colleagues) had a similar problem revisiing the
diplomacy of several (EIA, W&P, EW)
war board games and the above mentione dproblems for non-player powers were
similar. The way we got around it is to keep running totals of losses
(territory and units)
Anyways Great Game Brian!
NAppy.
Geoffrey Tobin
levels
of difficulty, which map sizes, and other geographic and climatic
conditions
most favor which faction?
It seems that on a Huge map at low levels, the AI has low production, so
the University (win by tech), Peacekeepers (win by population) and
Gaians
(win courtesy of Planet) all do very well. But as the difficulty
increases,
factions get more production, which begins to favor Yang over Zakharov.
It's not yet clear to me how these factors affect Morgan, but I haven't
played as him (or Santiago or Miriam or Yang or Deirdre for that matter)
since I bought the full game.
Playing as Lal the Peacekeeper at Specialist level on the Huge map of
Planet,
I've built about forty cities and my population is several times
everyone
else's put together (last vote for Governor I had over 400 votes on my
own,
and my combined opponents could barely muster 100), but I cannot attempt
diplomatic victory because the random techs aren't turning up
Mind/Machine
Interface, though it's only one turn away and my Research focus is
Conquer!
I'm on the large convoluted continent, having started on the
south-western
peninsula and built up to the monsoon jungle in the northwest. Gaia's
Landing
is in the northwest of the eastern subcontinent, so I've built cities
toward
Deirdre's territory from her west over productive land, and from the
south
via the narrow landbridge across the gulf. I split her territory in two
by
building a wedge between her cities, then totally mind-controlled one of
her
cities. Problem is, she seems to have suspected, as she soon became
more
demanding than usual and launched a sneak attack which took one of my
cities
when several of my forward bases were yet unmanned, then demanded the
return
of the city I had captured. I had very few troops or planes, while she
was
number one or two on the military scale.
So I acquiesced to the return of her former base, though I was miffed
when
she renamed the city she'd captured from me - now I know how the CPs
feel. :)
However during the truce I put my economy on a war footing (savings to
100%,
research and psych to zero), set all my governors on conquer and forbade
them
to build anything but jets (it's nearly 2300 but noone's discovered
choppers)
and a few spies, so my Might rapidly changed to Unsurpassed. After I
captured
Gaia's Landing, she changed her whole tone and wanted to be friends, but
I
refused to agree to more than a blood truce, then broke that in order to
capture
a few more of her cities, which she now seems resigned to suffering.
Currently I'm autoforwarding scores of needlejets from my main cities to
my
bases within striking distance of her oldest settlements, and have set
my
economy to a balance between tax and science, hoping to discover MMI
while
Zakharov is still around to see it.
Yang is making great advances against the University, has recently taken
all
their southern cities plus the University Base. Unfortunately, Zakharov
is
ignoring all my communications, otherwise I'd give him some tech and/or
units
and/or finances to fight back with. They're on the continent to the
extreme
west, which is east of my most easterly and underdeveloped bases. I
don't
have Carrier or Drop tech, but I suppose I could send a few missiles
Yang's
way to distract him from Zakharov. The Gaians had formed a pact with
the
University against the Hive, but made friends with Yang before they'd
seen
any action I think. Hmm, maybe the unexpectedly strong threat from me
forced
Deirdre to cancel her plans to battle the Hive for military supremacy?
The Spartans crushed the Believers long ago, but Miriam escaped and was
blessed to land on a third continent that's lenticular in shape, which
she had all to herself so she's rebuilt quite impressively, and having
filled that continent is looking for places to invade. She sent a
skimship
to attack one of mine, which was able retreat, so I sank Miriam's boat
using a Needlejet I had recently built in a west coast city.
I have several cities with an eco-harm rating of about 6, no higher as
I've
been building new cities more than building up old ones, but no better
as I've
only recently gained some environmentally friendly techs; setting Psych
to 10% has sufficed to produce many Golden Ages to boost my population.
The worms have eaten a few formers, but I continue to wipe Xenofungus
off
the surface of Planet and from the sea, so the worms have further to
travel.
I have the Xenoempathy dome (indeed all wonders except Merchant
Exchange,
which Yang has captured from Zakharov), so my fungicidal formers are
advancing
quickly now: move two or three formers from road to fungus, clear
fungus, build
a road, then proceed.
Morgan doesn't like my Green economics, but he's playing fair. When
Deirdre
attacked I was low in energey reserves, so I asked Morgan for a loan; he
said
my credit was good, and lent me about 1000 energy, which I'm repaying at
16 per
year for 100 years. That's a low annual compound interest, and I hope
to be
Supreme Leader before Morgan receives back a fraction of what he lent
me.
Neil Fradkin wrote:
> ...
> Once I know I've broken the enemy, I switch over production
> to get out a round of maxed out hovertanks (and probe teams to take out
> defenses), and I take over the enemies major population centers until I have
> enough to get the vote.
Ah, hovertanks! Wish I-earth-Lal had that tech. And choppers. And
Drop troops.
I'm building one or two Fusion PBs. Do you think it's worth my while to
build
several more, to blow away the other continents? I've never committed
an
atrocity, let alone a major one.
--
Best wishes!
Geoffrey Tobin
Email: G.T...@latrobe.edu.au
WWW: http://www.ee.latrobe.edu.au/~gt/gt.html
Geoffrey Tobin
>
> ... enemy factions do
> seem to build an enormous amount of units and "wonders" compared to
> their tiny empires... even on easy or medium difficulty levels. ...
I'm slowly working my way up the difficulty scale, and the only
difference I've
noticed in respect of the AI building wonders is that as University on
Citizen
I build every wonder, whereas as Lal on Specialist the AI builds one
(Merchant
Exchange) before I do. The resource convoy units are excellent
helpers! Especially
now that I've learnt about auto-forwarding (it's like fleet re-whatsit
in MOO2), I'm
always beating out several CPs to multiple wonders in parallel, with
minimal
intervention.
Geoffrey Tobin
>
> I've encountered two flavors of monolith: Morale Upgrade and Repair.
Aren't they the same Monolith? When your (military ground) unit first
meets
a monolith, the unit is upgraded. Whenever the unit's damaged, if it
goes to
any Monolith it's repaired. Always worked for me.
Simon de Vet
Geoffrey Tobin wrote:
> Taki Kogoma wrote:
> >
> > I've encountered two flavors of monolith: Morale Upgrade and Repair.
>
> Aren't they the same Monolith? When your (military ground) unit first
> meets
> a monolith, the unit is upgraded. Whenever the unit's damaged, if it
> goes to
> any Monolith it's repaired. Always worked for me.
They're the same thing, even.
If a unit is repaired, it is repaired. If it is upgraded, it is upgraded
AND repaired. They just don't tell you about the repair in the second case.
A wounded commando goes in and a healthy elite comes out.
Jon Nunn
I have noticed the following limitations:
1. A given unit can only undergo one morale upgrade by monoliths.
2. Monoliths have limited lifespan. There's either a percentage chance
of them disapering each usage or after X times their gone.
(I sent several units in an army thru a Monolith for morale upgrades, but half
way thru sending them all the Monolith disappered.)
Jon Nunn
Programmer Analyst
Friends Don't Let Friends Do Cobol
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/users/nunnacl/personal.html
Neil Fradkin
>build several more, to blow away the other continents? I've never
committed
>an atrocity, let alone a major one.
For full effect, wait until you have quantum or singularity power ;)
her...@apostate.com
the large jump to the highest morale setting (from the second highest). Once a
monolith gives a morale upgrade, it goes silent. Up until it goes silent, any unit
can get free repairs (I'm assuming that the unit will either (a) get a morale upgrade
or (b) get a free repair, depending on whether or not it already has gotten the
upgrade).
So, a newly-built unit enters monolith A. Since this is among its first actions, it
receives its only free monolith-provided morale upgrade--also, monolith A now becomes
silent, having fulfilled its purpose. The newly-upgraded (with respect to morale)
unit now enters monolith B. Since B is still active, the unit can either get a
morale upgrade (which it can't, having already received its upgrade) or get repaired
completely.
At least, that's how I think it works. The "silent" treatment may also happen when a
fully functional unit enters an active monolith (after having received its
upgrade)--if there's no damage to repair, then the monolith won't work.
HA
Roberto Ullfig wrote:
> Actually, the monoliths all seem to be the same; it's just that they do
> different things depending only on the unit that uses it. For instance,
> if a damaged unit enters _any_ monument it is always repaired. What I
> don't understand is why sometimes a unit gets a morale upgrade and
> sometimes it doesn't (i.e. The Silent Monolith).
>
> John Dilick wrote:
> >
> > Yea, verily, on 23 Feb 1999 16:01:58 -0700, qu...@swcp.com (Taki Kogoma)
> > proclaimed:
> >
> > >In <36D2F841...@midway.uchicago.edu> on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic,
> > >Roberto Ullfig <rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> allegedly proclaimed:
> > >>And do all Monoliths function the same and why can units sometimes
> > >>increase their morale at one and sometimes they can't?
> > >
> > >I've encountered two flavors of monolith: Morale Upgrade and Repair.
> >
> > Don't forget the infamous 'Silent' type as well.
> >
> > --
> > John Dilick dili...@home.com
> > If at first you don't succeed, cheat. Cheat until caught, then lie.
>
> --
> Roberto Ullfig
her...@apostate.com
able to avoid triggering the "morale upgrade"? If I already have
top-of-the-line units, I'd rather save monoliths for field-repairs.
And speaking of field repairs, has anyone seen the, what's-it, nanofactory
(?) actually cause a unit to repair on its own in the field?
HA
Geoffrey Tobin wrote:
> Taki Kogoma wrote:
> >
> > I've encountered two flavors of monolith: Morale Upgrade and Repair.
>
> Aren't they the same Monolith? When your (military ground) unit first
> meets
> a monolith, the unit is upgraded. Whenever the unit's damaged, if it
> goes to
> any Monolith it's repaired. Always worked for me.
>
Michael Sims
night, that the Hive might be giving me challenge. The had moved troops all
along my border, which was a very vast one at that, before he declared
Vendetta on me. There were two cities next to each other, one was mine and
one was his, that we both had major troop build up in the cities. I had it
on the hardest level, with the factions more aggressive than normal. I
thought, finally, a show down worthy enough for my crack troops to fight!!
Ha, not really. Sure, it too easy when it came down to the actual fighting.
I had a bit of a hard time taking the city, but I was also better armed than
he was. My troops where at a attack 8, defend 5 at the time, while his was 6
and 3. He had the home defense advantage and a bit more troops, so I would
say that it could be able even, really. I finally got the city weak enough,
were I knew I could take it the next turn, after several turns of fighting.
He had one more troop in the city and it was weaken, but I had nothing left
to throw at him for that turn. (Don't you hate when that happens!!) One
small problem, he had several troops in the area that could easily move into
the city for it's defence. I guess he was trying some other maneuver, cause
that never happened. He move around me instead. Didn't support the city nor
attach my forces, which were weak and in the open. I though for sure he
would ruin my plains for that battle! Nope, just moved right along, which my
back up units took care of. (They were still trying to catch up from another
battle and ran into those poor folks!) So, I easily took the city! What a
shame. Those troops that were building up on the vast borders and were
marching on to the heart of my empire? Well, they all seem to break ranks
and scatter all over the place attempting to harass me or something. I still
can't figure out what they were trying to do, but if he would have grouped
them he might would have done some real damage. Instead, I had copters and
bombers pick them off like little chumps out in the fields! The only thing
left to tell now, is that I had to tighten' that vast border! ha Mike
Mike wrote in message ...
>Very well said.
>
>I would have to disagree about the good AI though... I have found that the
>other civ's rarely attack well, and don't defend well at all. (for
instance,
>I was in a massive campaign, taking city after city, and yet they continued
>to produce city improvements that were not important, when they should have
>been making defensive units).
>
>The AI's idea of attack... send a single unit to attack me. And I wonder
why
>the AI never has a chance...
>
>
>
>--
>
>Mike
>
>Please remove the .NOSPAM from my email address when replying
>
>check out - www.msu.edu/~tansymic
>
>mwig...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
><7adaqh$v8d$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>>
>>
>>Well, I really wanted to like this game. I really enjoyed the demo and
>waited
>>with impatience for the game to be released. There are a lot of good
>things
>>about SMAC, including the backstory and plot, the voices and graphics as
>well
>>as the early technologies. After playing for a few days, though, I just
>>couldn't continue and returned the game to EB. Here are my reasons:
>>
>>1. The tech tree is more of a subterranean root system. The "tree"
starts
>>wide and ends up narrow. In the early game, selection of a technological
>>path is significant. There are tradeoffs. Going after doctrinal
>technology
>>as opposed to straight weaponry has serious impacts on strategy, and you
>have
>>to balance economy-boosting technology against weaponry to keep your
growth
>>rate up and your cities secure. But in the end-game, everyone has pretty
>>much the same technology. Prerequisites and the narrowing of the tech
tree
>>mean that there is very little difference between factions at the same
>level
>>of technical development. Add to that the fact that certain technologies
>and
>>types of units come so late in the game that they are almost useless. Has
>>anyone used gravships or psi weaponry at all in a serious conflict? By
the
>>time you can achieve this level of technology, you've all but won.
>>
>>I would have preferred to see true alternate paths, something where if I
>made
>>a consistent investment in, say, gravitics, I could get abilities that no
>one
>>else was able to get. But my opponent, specializing in psi research,
might
>>have different unique abilities. To an extent you can get this through
>>special projects, but since special projects are keyed to the converging
>tech
>>trees these abilities tend to converge as well.
>>
>>2. The pace of the game is strangely unbalanced. The early part of the
>game
>>is paced well, with expansion and skirmishes balanced with the pace of
>>development and production. The pace of technological advancement in the
>>early years is slow but reasonable. However, all the techs that increase
>>your rate of tech production build up to a snowball effect of advancing
>>technology that has you cranking out breakthroughs at a rate that can
>exceed
>>one per turn. I wish that the advanced technologies were spread out a bit
>or
>>somehow slowed down so that the game didn't jump exponentially into
>>completion.
>>
>>3. The micromanagement. I found the interface somewhat counterintuitive
>and
>>confusing. I'm sure I missed features that would make my empires run more
>>smoothly, but it seemed like any time I wanted to do something right I had
>to
>>do it myself. Governors acted oddly, the computer couldn't optimize
>>production in surrounding squares, automated formers cruised the highways
>of
>>my empire without doing any work, and keeping track of my military units
>was
>>a real chore. Even unit pathfinding as often as not wasted precious
>movement
>>points by moving units into an enemy zone of control or even not using
>roads
>>when they were available. Grouping was confusing. The report screens
were
>>functional, but hardly gave the level of control needed to manage a large
>>empire's troops. And the design-obsoleting controls were so painful that I
>>finally stopped obsoleting designs because it was so arduous, and just
>lived
>>with the random clutter of unit designs the game generates for you.
>>
>>4. I will say that I was somewhat impressed with the AI. Computer
players
>>were aggressive and exploited weaknesses and used diplomacy well. But the
>>game cheats, and I just don't get excited about playing when I know the AI
>is
>>not intelligent enough to beat me straight up and ends up getting a big
>>production boost so it can overwhelm me with human wave attacks.
>>
>>I realize I probably sound like I'm ranting. I did enjoy the game at
>first,
>>and I'm sure a great many players will find it to their taste. From a game
>>with such potential, though, I guess I expected more advances in the
"state
>>of the art" and less user-interface frustration. I will, however,
continue
>>watching for new games from Brian and Sid. I am more than willing to give
>>them another chance.
>>
>>Matt Wigdahl
Chris Byler
Reynolds) wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 20:53:22 GMT, Courageous <jkra...@san.rr.com>
>wrote:
>>I liked Imperialism's diplomacy, actually. I particularly
>>liked how it was very easy to screw up and become the
>>next whipping boy of the world community. You weren't
>>generally long for this earth after that happened.
>Was just playing that today, and liked the way your allies would get
>mad at you when you made separate peace with your joint enemies. Have
>to file that away for next time.
Be careful. Under the Civ2/SMAC diplomatic model, you have to make
peace with someone before you can even discuss anything else, so if
you make peace with your enemy and then discover you can't broker
peace between them and your ally, you're screwed. You would have to
either break the peace you just made (and suffer an associated loss of
reputation and a permanent grudge from the person you "betrayed" this
way) or have your ally get mad at you for a "separate" peace because
you couldn't broker.
If you're going to implement this idea (allies get mad about separate
peace), you need to allow the player to make demands in peace
negotiations, like "I'll make peace with you if you also make peace
with my ally". True multi-party negotiations would be nice, too, but
I don't know how well that would work out in implementation.
One thing that annoys me about Civ2/SMAC diplomacy is that you can't
make demands in peace talks. You have to wait for the computer to
offer you bribes. (The exception to this is when you are already at
peace, you can demand something.)
Oh, and how does the computer know which techs to demand when it
hasn't infiltrated my datalinks?
>But on the other hand I wish there
>was some better way to end wars besides (a) someone getting wiped out,
>or (b) all of someones allies turning on him.
No peace talks?
Jon Nunn
"reply_address <at> my-dejanews com (you know the drill ;-)" <dot> wrote:
> What I'm curious about is, if you have a unit start out Elite, will it be
> able to avoid triggering the "morale upgrade"? If I already have
> top-of-the-line units, I'd rather save monoliths for field-repairs.
>
> And speaking of field repairs, has anyone seen the, what's-it, nanofactory
> (?) actually cause a unit to repair on its own in the field?
> HA
>
I've seen all the secret project movies. (Design a new scenario, go to
scenario, and select watch secret project videos.)
Actualy any unit can repair on its own to some extent in the field if it
doesn't move. Native forms need to be on fungus / sea fungus to get to 100%
in the field though, and other military units normally need to be in a city
to get to 100%, but there is a secret project that gives all your troops
advantages of being in fungus / sea fungus normally reserved for native life
forms, "Welcome earthDeirie earthForest, ... your welcome to play with us
..." that might include repair up to 100%.
Jon Nunn
Programmer Analyst
Friends Don't Let Friends Do Cobol
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/users/nunnacl/personal.html
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
Erik Larkin
Well, this is pretty close. From what I've seen, a monolith will only
give *one* morale upgrade *per* land unit. A monolith will continue to
give free repairs (again, only to land units) after a unit upgrade, even
to the unit it upgraded. After a certain number of visits (don't know
if it's random or a specific limit) the monolith just disappears from
the map. Can be pretty annoying when you were relying on the monolith
for field repairs. A monolith is silent only when a fully healed unit
that has already received a morale upgrade visits the monolith.
EL
> > > >I've encountered two flavors of monolith: Morale Upgrade and Repair.
> > >
> > > Don't forget the infamous 'Silent' type as well.
> > >
> > > --
> > > John Dilick dili...@home.com
> > > If at first you don't succeed, cheat. Cheat until caught, then lie.
> >
> > --
> > Roberto Ullfig
--
Erik Larkin, consultant
TeraLogic, Inc.
650-526-6011
Philbo
>What I'm curious about is, if you have a unit start out Elite, will it be
>able to avoid triggering the "morale upgrade"? If I already have
>top-of-the-line units, I'd rather save monoliths for field-repairs.
>
>And speaking of field repairs, has anyone seen the, what's-it, nanofactory
>(?) actually cause a unit to repair on its own in the field?
Yes, if the unit does not move (and perhaps is not attacked??) for one turn it
seems to be repaired by the start of the next turn. I'll watch a little more
closely.
--
Phil Bornemeier | Not making a choice is making a choice
pbo...@hexis.net | It is a choice to stay where you are.
Remove "h" from address to beat SPAM blocker
AcK!
brey...@firaxis.com (Brian Reynolds)'s $2000 typewriter and wrote:
>+ to morale means unit would receive morale increases on defense.
Then what does the (d) sign mean?
>On Tue, 23 Feb 1999 18:49:37 GMT, Roberto Ullfig
><rul...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>>Brian Reynolds wrote:
>>>
>>> Offense strength:
>>>
>>> ? = Psi
>>> * = Planet Buster
>>> <> = Air Superiority
>>> () = Artillery
>>> ^ = Airdrop
>>> ~ = Amphibious
>>> x = Nerve Gas
>>> e = Empath
>>> ! = Blink
>>>
>>> Defense strength:
>>>
>>> ? = Psi
>>> <> = SAM
>>> + = Comm Jammer
>>> t = Trance
TTYL
... Homer, are you rounding up immigrants?! -Marge Simpson
krup...@yahoospa.com
remove "spa" to email
Brian Reynolds
>peace with someone before you can even discuss anything else, so if
>you make peace with your enemy and then discover you can't broker
>peace between them and your ally, you're screwed. You would have to
>either break the peace you just made (and suffer an associated loss of
>reputation and a permanent grudge from the person you "betrayed" this
>way) or have your ally get mad at you for a "separate" peace because
>you couldn't broker.
>
>If you're going to implement this idea (allies get mad about separate
>peace), you need to allow the player to make demands in peace
>negotiations, like "I'll make peace with you if you also make peace
>with my ally". True multi-party negotiations would be nice, too, but
>I don't know how well that would work out in implementation.
Multi-party diplomacy is definitely a cool direction. SMAC started to
move vaguely in that direction w/ Planetary Council and the ability to
ask your friends to make peace w/ other factions. Probably more
developments in that area next game.
>One thing that annoys me about Civ2/SMAC diplomacy is that you can't
>make demands in peace talks. You have to wait for the computer to
>offer you bribes. (The exception to this is when you are already at
>peace, you can demand something.)
>Oh, and how does the computer know which techs to demand when it
>hasn't infiltrated my datalinks?
It "peeks" for that purpose, which is really intended not as cheating
but as a shorthand (so you don't have to go through a bunch of menus
that say "I demand X" "Well, I don't have X so demand something else."
"Do you have Y" "Nope" "How about Z?" "Got that" "Well hand it over",
if you see what I mean. Easier to have them just ask for Z in the
first place)
BR
Brian Reynolds
wrote:
>What about simply keeping track of a sides losses.. when a side loses say a
>proportion
>of its forces (compared to startingforces+built) and bases lost. I woul
>call thsi some sort of threshold
>for surrender. (I don't mean submission.. just knowing when its getting
>bad).
An algorithm like this is present in SMAC; we were talking about a
different game from a couple years back.
>I'm finding that the biggets beef in the dippy stuff is that (if ever) a PC
>player sues you for peace
>they ask the most OUTRAGEOUS demands even though you're kicking them into
>next week. You're right
>there's no gradient.. :) (i'll end the vendetta if you give me Homo
>Superior even though all i'm left with is one base and 1-1-1 infantry) MOO
>II, CIV /II also had this problem
That's often because your reputation is so bad that they don't really
trust you to truly make peace.
BR
Brian Reynolds
wrote:
>Yeah, I didn't like that in Imperialism either. We put something in
>Imperialism II where countries have a concept of something you could call
>"war enthusiasm", which goes up and down based on the progress of the war
>and the passage of time. Everything else equal it slowly declines, but
>military success by a computer country or it's allies can raise it. It is
>combined with the other factors determining when a country will sue for
>peace, so eventually stalemated wars sputter out.
>
>And btw, congrats on AC - it looks great.
>
>Ben Polk
>Frog City Software
Hi Ben,
Thanks for the note! Have had a great time w/ Imperialism. Looking
forward to Imperialism II -- let's trade some copies!
Oh, and speaking purely as a fan, how about some more keyboard
shortcuts next time--I'm getting "Imperialism mouse hand" :-)
Brian Reynolds
FIRAXIS Games