Has anyone played the Science Fiction Game?

[Ecowiz]

Since this forum is a bit slow i figured it would be a good idea to try and raise this question.

Most of ToT posts are about Fantasy or Midgard, by far the most interesting features of ToT (although for now I play mostly Extended Game - is easier to follow the Tech advances). Does that mean that no one plays ScienceF? I played I once and I found it a little bit dull, but it also looks like it may have some interesting features (the worlds are far more different than on the other games and there seems to be another variable in city management, if I'm not mistaken).
Any inputs on this?

[Advirus]

I played one SF game, and when I'm tired of CTP, I'll play another. I think it's worth a second shot. The new tech tree made life very interesting. I would usually select a wonder that I'd like, then autoresearch the appropriate tech. I'm curious about the trigger necessary to be able to research Earth gate. I got onto all 4 worlds, I researched about 20 Xenology Studies, but was never able to research Earth gate.

[Cam]

I've got to confess to not playing more than about two thirds of the way through the sci-fi game, but in order to address Advirus' point, it would seem that you need to kill a Urdar unit and a Dondasch unit to get the two wormhole technologies that lead to Earthgate. There are a string of other technology related events that ultimately lead to Unification Theory.

Not wishing to sound unhelpful, but your best bet might be to spend a little time with rules.txt and events.txt and see how the game unfolds. John P. used binary flags and masks, which does help a little in understanding the conditions, let alone some good but brief explanations in the events file.

[Lucky Luke]

I've played ONE sci-fi game for now (I forgot which tribe I played). I was confused for a few turns when my research program was limited to Xenology Study quite early in the game. I explored the rules.txt and events.txt files in order to find a solution (which is that technology research is limited untill all tribes have fulfilled a certain condition ie build a specific unit). For the rest I use the same strategy as for the original game, I restrict myself in only playing on 1 map (the orbit map has limited resources -cfr cloudlands in fantasy- and by the time you are able to explore and colonise the other maps it is far too late in the game to obtain any gain from it)and frequently consult my advance folder just to make sure I get the right advance at the right time. I must admit that the sci-fi game is quite tempting but I personally find it too easy to play cfr fantasy (and certainly Midgard) games.

PS By the way, I think a never got a research possibility for the Earth Gate tech although I (at least I think)stole the Wormhole advances from another tribe

PPS Playing ToT Sci-fi AFTER CtP ???? I'd advice AC/Alien Crossfire if you want an equivalent experience (but this not the right forum for that discussion)

[The Mad Monk]

I've played two SF games, and will probably start a third soon. I play the games in rotation, since that keeps it fresh for me. I really enjoy the SF game, since it forces you to use differnt strategies early on (example: the impact of the Bombus on defensive strategy). I've posted a few times on the SF game, but I think most of them are probably lost in the mists of Apolyton by now...

I've never gotten the Earthgate; from what I've seen, each of the critical techs is tied to defeating a specific barb unit, and ONE of those units has NEVER appeared in either of my games (it's the non-flyer, BTW). I'm guessing that its appearance is tied to a date late in the game, and my games have never approached that date.

As for colonizing the other worlds...I always put a few cities on the platforms a little beyond the borders of my nation, since they work well as airbases, plus you can use starports to "bounce" units across the planet without the loss of movement or the risk of interception.

Naumachia is fantastic for production; I can't stress that strongly enough. Quick-build some cities there (buy the shield producers, and dump a load of colonists into them to build pop), and you will see size ten cities with triple-digit production!

Cities founded on Nona tend to be less productive in shields, but have tons of food and sprout to large size with little effort on your part. Plus, Nona really is the safest place to found a city (AIs never seem to get there).

[Indiana Jones]

The non-flying barbarian is a Dondasch (I think). It only appears on Nona, so you have to go hunt for it. Also be sure to take along a lot of firepower because you have to kill it. If it dies while attacking you the event won't fire and you have to find another one.

[The Mad Monk]

That's pretty much what I expected. I tried planting cities everywhere you could walk on Nona, figuring that if I couldn't find it, it would find me; it never did.

Has anyone founded a city on 'impassable' terrain? I found that you can in the SF game, at least. I also found that units that can't enter impassable terrain can't enter the city(!) Since I only founded two of these and the AIs never attacked either, I'm not sure about the strategic consequences.

(And you thought that mountain cities thread was bad... )

[Sten Sture]

A-ha! It took me ten pages, but I finally found the same problem that I have been having - no Dondasch to kill to get Wormhole Control and access to researching Earthgate.

Not sure how to fix this in mid-game other than changing the rules.txt research requirements for Wormhole Control to make it available through regular research. The Dondasch are created at the same time as the other two guardian types, but are land based instead of Helocopter types. (which means they aren't easy to shoot up with fighters...) Not sure looking at the events and the rules why they wouldn't appear. I popped open the map with the cheat menu and couldn't find them and went back to old saves to try to find ones that may have disappeared, but to no avail. I have not checked their arrival locations to make sure that they aren't all in the "water", but surely that wouldn't be the case.

Anyone else run into this or know the fix???


Overall an interesting game with an inventive tech tree and events structure. Some way off balance units though make it not that difficult, unfortunately.

(btw - had an Adamaster capture a city, which I thought AI helo's wouldn't do...)

[The Mad Monk]

I think there is a flag in the unit stats (in the TOT-only section) that gives helicopters the ability to capture and pop huts.

Which units did you find unbalanced? There were a couple units in there that made the cruise missle equivalent pointless, but I'd chalk that up as annoying rather than unbalancing...

Oh--and congratulations on succeeding in your quest!

[Sarxis]

I tried to once, but lost interest because I got Alpha Centauri.

:sigh: Probably never will play it either since MOO3 and CivIII are coming out soon.

So long great companion ToT- shall miss you!

[Sten Sture]

TMM - The AI built too many air units, and used them as defenders in my game = 6a1d 1h2f looks like good defense stats to me! When I got Mech Armor (only 20-25 techs) and built a few of the Iron Maiden units 7a6d 4h4f 3m cost 40, I could get 2 or 3 kills per unit per turn. Wiped everybody out (down to one city) in just a handful of turns. Even the regular defending units that the AI had available to it were 2a3d 2h1f. On a mountain & in a fort maybe, but not on grass in a city.

The Pastaccio 6a7d 4h4f all as road paratroops were also way ahead of the prior troop capabilities, so they wiped out what the Iron Maidens couldn't get to.

I kinda wish the game would have given the Alien civs some better def units and placed them on the other planets. They would have gotten to decent size before I found them. I might monkey with the design to see if I can mod it a little to help them out.

Good point about the hut flag - I wonder if that is lit. I changed the prereq's on Wormhole Control in the rules.txt but am just before the point where should be researchable...