Nice Guy Strategies

[Ironwood]

First, I should mention I play the second highest difficulty (specialist?).

I've come to enjoy playing a "nice guy" in SMAC, claiming victory via either transcendence or economic victory. My strategy is a balancing act, attempting to keep everyone at relatively the same power, with a few of them being allies, often submissive ones with a pact to serve. Generally speaking, one or two factions are eliminated (by others, usually Miriam or Santiago) prior to my establishing global hegemony. Sometimes I'm forced to eliminate Miriam or Yang (they just won't play along). The result of everybody being roughly the same power-wise is generally world peace; there's no clear leader to gang up on, there's no clear loser to pick off, so I find it's easy to keep them all at peace (little one-turn wars aside).

I have two questions.

First off, has anybody ever managed to be elected supreme leader without first acquiring the necessary votes by conquest?

Second, is it just me, or is Alien Crossfire inherently more violent? The alien factions seem to be so overpowered at the start of the game that all the human factions line up behind their war. Between them and Dawn's non-stop aggression, the game seems to be nonstop warfare.

I have to admit, I haven't actually played all the way through a game of Crossfire in years. The post-apocalyptic flavor just doesn't interest me quite as much as the ideological story behind plain vanilla SMAC.

[Hydro]

Howdy Ironwood!

It is possible to elect yourself supreme leader, but you have to be really, really big – and have empire of huge cities all over the globe. If you run your SE right you can also likely have one or maybe two of the factions as natural allies, which will help. Just be prepared for some party pooper to say NO! Then you have to get out your guns again. Also, friendly factions must might vote for you even if they aren’t submissive or allied. You never know…

And yes, the game is inherently violent. When you look at the SE you see incompatibilities built in. After all, the factions are designed with different ideologies, which are manifest in a faction-specific level of aggression (aggressive, erratic, passive) and SE that the prefer and hate. In addition to this, the AI has its algorithms set so that #2 hates #1, #3 dislikes both #2 and #1, and the others are trying to find a Big Brother to suck up to and a weaker faction to beat the snot out of. This relative rivalry and the SE conflicts are a pretty good way to breed war.

SMAC isn’t really a war game, per say, but war is a means to an end. Even the most passive granola munching and Birkenstock wearing Gaian will have to break out the ammo eventually.

Hydro

[Sarxis]

I consider my using of Fusion warhead planetbusters instead of Singularity warhead planetbusters my nice-guy strat :P

[Ironwood]

I should have been slightly less verbose, it seems. I was asking if anybody's managed to achieve supreme leadership WITHOUT conquering the necessary votes... meaning, actually convince the AI to elect them. I seriously doubt it, but I was just asking.

I was also talking about Alien Crossfire being more violent than Alpha Centauri (not about the generally warlike nature of both games). Another thing I noticed: Alien Crossfire is heavily biased against the ultimate "builder" economic model: free market. In Alpha Centauri, if you take Free Market economics, you only piss off Diedre, who is a pacifist. In Alien Crossfire, you've got Cha Dawn and both alien factions, all agressive, all biased against Free Market economics, with no natural allies (no Morganites). I never really realized just how stacked against the peaceful builder the Alien Crossfire setup was! And I never understood why the Aliens were given a planned economy agenda, but I think I do now.

Probably all these are non-sequiturs, but I'm just enjoying the game a lot, after years away from the game, and feeling the need to babble on about it.

[Verrucosus]

It's not impossible, but in my experience a lot of things have to come together:
- Playing Lal (vote bonus).
- Getting the Empath Guild (another vote bonus) and the secret project that raises pop limits (shockingly I don't recall the name ... need to play again soon).
- Forging a strong alliance with Deidre and Zakharov through Green + Knowledge and unashamed tech gifting.
- Avoiding Democracy to appease Yang and Miriam.
- Large territory, sea bases.
- Geopolitics: Yang and Miriam should be on a different continent (preferably the same one together with Morgan and Santiago). Zakharov and Deidre should not be on that continent, but elsewhere and have enough room to expand.
- Timing: The decisive population growth should come so quick that you can call the election before your allies desert you because you are suddenly twice their size. Sunspot activity at the right moment can help. It allows switching to Democracy, Planned, a final pop boom while avoiding unit contact, and switching back before communications are restored. Of course, the infrastructure (terraforming, hybrid forests, hab complexes, drone control facilities) has to be in place beforehand.
- Getting Mind-Machine Interface early (artifacts + non-blind research help).

Under such admittedly rare conditions, I have managed to win in a completely peaceful way a few times, but always immediately after getting MMI. When I didn't win the vote at that time, the non-allied factions kept expanding while I had hit my hab limits and for each vote they gain, I need three to get elected supreme leader. The late game offers help in the form of hab domes and another vote bonus from clinical immortality, but I have never been able to keep the peace for that long.

I agree about Alien Crossfire being more violent. You could try to mix factions (how about Morgan, Zak, Deidre, Lal, Svensgaard, Rose, Aki-Zeta?). Also, funny things can happen when you use "random agenda". [Caution: Things may well get even more violent. Also, Zakharov with Miriam's social agenda is more character development than I could take.]

Verrucosus

[Hydro]

Yes, you can be elected Supreme Leader, and Verrucosus hit the key elements. I’ve found that you can maintain a good relationship with Dee if you stay Green (which is almost necessary when you’ve got gobs of bases to keep your efficiency up) and tech gifts. I’ve also had good luck with Aki and Rose. The others are really hit and miss, and forget any long-term non-submissive relationship with the aggressive factions. Also, it really helps to meet them early, get a good relationship going, and keeping it. In one memorably PBEM as Yang I managed to get Dee and Lal as Pactmates through almost the whole game through shameless bribes of tech and energy. Getting a non-submissive Pact later in the game is pretty hard.

You can also play defensive, where you get overwhelming firepower and simply prevent the AIs that hate you from making any inroads. By that time you can generally squish them at leisure so you aren’t really threatened anyway. Ignore them and continue to grow vertically.

Also, if you’re a builder you can frequently get much more energy running Green than FM. The efficiency really makes a difference as your empire grows (and particularly as you get lots of big bases). Try Dem/Green/Knowl/XX or Dem/Green/Wealth/XX. Throw in GA and Dem/Green/Wealth gets you the advantages of FM with none of the liabilities. Also, the greater efficiency means you can crank up the research with less or no penalty. Interestingly, if you are Morgan Dem/Green/Wealth/XXX is a no brainer – you get FM advantages with the resulting +2 eco with no penalties of FM. When playing Morgan I almost always select Green rather than FM if I have Wealth available.

The Alien Crossfire have two factions that are builder friendly: Aki (passive; choice Cybernetic; aversion Fundi), Rose (erratic; choice Demo; aversion Power). All the aggressive factions will hate you (aliens; Cult, who also hates the builder SE Wealth). I’ve generally also had difficulty with the Erratic factions (Domai – hates the builder SE Green; Pirates – generally hate everyone). None of them hate FM, by the way – although they may complain if you select FM instead of their preferred SE in that line.

Hydro

[Archaic]

I've managed electing myself Supreme Leader fairly easily. Within 50-60 turns when I go for that route. If you're going for ultra-thin expansion and go for a GA pop boom, it's really not all that difficult.

Strangely though, I've never experienced what Hydro mentions here, having greater profits on Green than on FM. Even with the efficiency bonuses, going FM consistently gets me hundreds more credits per turn than Green at any point from the mid game forward.

[Hydro]

My Dem/Green/Wealth examples are based on Deirdre and Morgan, primarily. For Dee the key is GA, which requires energy to psych - unless you have a few drone controlling SPs the energy tradeoff is a problem.

For Morgan I've almost always found that the benefits of Dem/Green/Wealth outweigh Dem/FM/Knowl (its likely SE competitor) if you have a huge empire, which is when the energy loss mounts quickly and efficiency is paramount. Also, fighting a war with FM is a pain (even if you re-home your support free troops on a punishment sphere base - which always seemed like an exploit to me). In mid game you may choose to go green/wealth and forgo the extra energy if you don't have the production base or ability to build support free units. Not having an air force can be a severe liability if your opponents do.

Your SE depends on circumstances. I suggest fiddling with your SE to see what works best. If you are REALLY energy hungry go FM/wealth. If you are Morgan then you have +4 (+5 if you have GA) economy, which is a glorious thing.

Hydro

[Whoha]

I've seen green do better in very late game, but if I had a large enough energy park(it would have to be gargantuan to overcome all energy loss due to inefficiency across your empire) going to the HQ then FM would do better.

[CEO Aaron]

It depends a great deal on your playstyle. If you use lots of boreholes, stay at war with some or all rival factions, and don't rely heavily on specialists, green can outperform market starting in the early midgame. It's all a function of how much energy you're losing from efficiency versus how much you're gaining from +1 per square, base square and commerce credits.

For me it's moot anyway, because once I get past a certain point, I go Green so I can start stomping heads. Fundy/Green/Wealth for Morganite domination!

First off, has anybody ever managed to be elected supreme leader without first acquiring the necessary votes by conquest?

Never have, but then I've never tried. It's certainly possible, just go with a faction with good booming potential and spread like a virus.

Second, is it just me, or is Alien Crossfire inherently more violent? The alien factions seem to be so overpowered at the start of the game that all the human factions line up behind their war. Between them and Dawn's non-stop aggression, the game seems to be nonstop warfare.

The factions in SMAX aren't as well-balanced, no. I don't remember the last time I played with the expansion factions. I just play SMAX and use the original 7, keeping the new techs and secret projects, which do spice up the game rather nicely.

But I wouldn't say that the game is more or less violent. Yang, Miriam and Santiago are all bloodthirsty and hard to keep happy in the original 7, as you observed in your post.

I have to admit, I haven't actually played all the way through a game of Crossfire in years. The post-apocalyptic flavor just doesn't interest me quite as much as the ideological story behind plain vanilla SMAC.

I pretty much agree. I also like the 'no aliens' part of SMAX, it reminds me of Firefly.

[Blake]

I used to play some challenge games where I won without training any military units (or nothing with more than 1 attack/armor).

That was typically easiest done with UN victory by Lal, with cherry-picked opponents, but I also did it with much harsher settings (although still winning by vote rather than anything else)

To win with no ability to wage war is probably the ultimate in nice-guy play.

I don't feel the need to give too many spoilers in how to do it. Just know that you need to be accommodating in your SE and you can ignore a great many techs because you just have no use for them. And you need to manipulate power (staying middle of the pack) and diplomacy (mainly creating a common enemy, such as Miriam, as an outlet for aggressions).

[Ironwood]

Here's a question. Earlier, it was said that a faction's "opposed" ideology (such as Mirian's Knowledge, and Zhakarov's Fundamentalism) was also what they would object to most diplomatically. Now, perhaps it's just because it's been a long time since I've faced one of those while having the "wrong" ideology, but is that actually true, or does it just deny that option to the faction?

It's impossible to tell with most of the factions, as most of them have an opposed SE option that is also an alternative to their agenda (ie Lal is "opposed" to Police State, but will object to any gov that isn't Democracy), thus Miriam and Zhakarov are the only ones with whom this can be tested. When I've had Miriam complain, she hasn't complained about my Knowledge, she's complained about my Democracy (or maybe Police State)... though I've never faced her with Knowledge values and Simple government. It's the same with Zhakarov. I so rarely use Fundmentalist government that I've never really seen if he objects or not, though I should note that in my current Spartan game, Zack and Miriam were allies.

I'll test this once I get a chance, but I thought I'd ask, since it may be a while, between work, school, and the fact that in my current game, my hegemony is so complete nobody dares complain about anything.

[CEO Aaron]

The way it ACTUALLY works is that each faction has a 'favored' SE setting, which, if you run it, gains their approval. If you run something else, you lose their approval. For the basic 7, the settings are as follows:

Miriam: Fundamentalism
Yang: Police State
Morgan: Free Market
Dierdre: Green
Lal: Democracy
Sparta: Power
Zakharov: Knowledge

Early in the game, everone tends to run the SE defaults, so you neither gain nor lose ground with the AI opponents. Once you start running a non-default SE setting they don't like, the likelihood that they'll declare a vendetta increases.

Interestingly, if you refuse to answer their transmissions, you lose some standing, but less than if you speak with them and you're running a SE setting they don't like. So if you want to keep Sparta off your back, but insist on running wealth or knowledge, just don't pick up the phone.

[Ironwood]

I figured that's the way it worked. In other words, Miriam doesn't hate Values: Knowledge, she's just denied its use; Cha Dawn doesn't hate Values: Wealth; he's simply denied its use... and so on.

[CEO Aaron]

That is correct. Which makes for some interesting interactions, diplomatically. For instance, if you run Fundy and Knowledge, you get +1 efficiency and +1 morale, and both Miriam and Zak love you for it.

[sir_schwick]

I had a game as Zhakharov where there was relatively peaceful development up till about 30 years past needlejets. Aside from minor border wars(I never was the belligerent), I played as a good trader, etc. Managed to pact with No. 3 and 4 and got elected as Supreme Leader. However the Hive and its Spartan submissive refused to play along. Only time I have ever had a serious war of succession based upon a diplomatic victory.

[Ironwood]

I was thinking about it, and I realized that, despite the fact that Miriam doesn't really mind Knowledge, and Zhakarov doesn't mind Fundamentalism, their aversions still set the two up for an almost unavoidable rivalry.

With Miriam, while Lal and Yang have the conflicting agendas, they are both capable, if they choose to do so (and Lal often does) of taking fundamentalism. Miriam can take either democracy or police state. So, though relations between them are hardly ideal, a non-University player that wants to placate her is capable of running fundamentalism.

Likewise with Zhakarov. Though his agenda conflicts with Santiago's, both are capable of submitting to the other's agenda.

However, Zhakarov can't run fundamentalism, which means he's likely running democracy or police state, which means Miriam will always hate him. The best he can do in her eyes is run a simple government. Miriam, likewise, is forced to run Power or Wealth, causing Zhakarov to hate her. Neither can ever attempt to curry favor by submitting to the other's agenda.

Thus, the aversions do not make an AI hate anyone who uses that SE choice. It isn't that Miriam hates knowledge, it's that she cannot pursue it, and thus Zhakrov will never love her. Likewise with Zhakarov and Fundamentalism: Yang, Lal, Morgan, Diedre, and Santiago can do all the fundamentalism they want. They can hold great big militant revival parties, and Zhakarov will never bat an eye... so long as they pursue Knowledge while they do it. However, he cannot run fundamentalism, thus Miriam will never love him.

[CEO Aaron]

Yeah, the Zak/Miriam opposition keeps them foes, but my point was that you can stay friendly with them both if you run the right SE choices and don't take sides in their quarrels. The same cannot be said of the other classic rivalries. You can't stay friends with both Lal and Yang, you can't stay friends with both Dee and Morgan, and let's face it, no one is crazy enough to run power to stay friendly with Santiago. Well, maybe once you get the cloning vats, I guess.

[McLaine]

Whe playing traditional AC, I usually go for democracy/green/scientific. This of course makes Myriam and Yang my foes and later on (once I switch to science) also Santiago. I can solve the latter by playing the Spartans myself, but still end up either eradicating Yang and Myriam or beating them into servitude.

Once this done, I can grow usually peacefully until I reach Transcendence.

A possible exception is Morgan - sometimes I have to go to war with him too.

I have yet to accomplish a fully peaceful life in AC. But I guess I'm not th

[McLaine]

I have won a couple of times a game with Transcendence (AC classic, I am trying at this very moment with Alien Crossfire).

I usually play the Spartans - this takes out a violent faction and I can go for democracy/science/green.
This puts me in line with the University and Deirdre but inevitably takes me to war with Yang and Myriam and sometimes Morgan at the end.

I expand very rapidly and to sea as soon as I can. Seabases are really good if you develop the ocean shelves with sea formers and are more easy to defend against agression. I always try to get to the Manifold Nexus if possible, that gives an extra point towards planet and mind worm capture.

I usually buy my peace until I have a clear lead in the nr of bases, then start to develop the military (it helps that the Spartans don't have to pay for prototypes).

The first war - Yang or Myriam - usually kicks in before I have airpower, so I fight it using ground troops and captured mind worm boils (green).

Once I have airpower, I just set all my bases to produce attack planes (given you have expanded enough and developed your bases with formers the fact that the Spartans suffer a bit from -1 industry doesn't matter much.

By then, the second war erupts (either Yang or Myriam) which I win using the air power. From there on, the road is pretty peaceful.

I also try to go for the Virtual world (to avoid drones), the Hunter-seeker algo (drones) and basically all sort of secret projects I can build.