Next ACDG - faction start positions (moved from "Darsnan as Game Creator" thread)

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Googlie


Buster, the Ringworld Engineer???

Then start me off next to the Spill Mountains with a Sziztletang Brone (and sorry if I'm butchering the spelling - I'm at work and don't have my Niven collection with me!) - gotta go and find that matter transducer, you know!


D

[GeoModder]

Well, that would be a nice scenario!!

What is actually the upper limit for a smac map? Number of tiles or the length? 256x24 is perhaps feasible?

[buster]

originaly poste by Honghu
I voted standard map because I was a DA at the time and I would want to change my vote to huge now that I'm a Gaian. However this seems unecessary since what buster said seems very reasonable to me.

I do not have many MP experiences. One thing I have a little concern is that if factions will meet around 20 turns, would it be likely a faction could be wiped out by the Spartans before it has time to develop the necessary defense technology? I do not wish a faction be eliminated this early.

Well that you may meet at turn 20 does not equal 10 rovers are parked at your door by then.

Organizing an attack takes a lot of preparations - just the fact that the units of the agressor will have quite some way to go means that while you may run into an exploring unit early (and if he is really agressive you could loose and undefended base) large scale attacks by nature will be quite a bit later.

As a matter of fact the only faction in this game normally capable of launcing a decent sized attack early (realistically maybe 2030 or so) would probably be your own if you manage to amass a decent amount domesticated wildlife. Worms are ****ty attackers though unless the base is right next to fungus but decent defenders - but as in all things numbers will make up for individual shortcomings. In any case of everyone present Gaia is probably the one who normally will have to invest the least of their early output towards millitary.

Anyway the plan is not to make anyone sitting ducks - it is not a 2110 slugfest setup - the thing is however that it may not be advisable to only concentrate on expansion and research and that serious consideration will need to be given how much you prioritice what.

In such games defensive terraforming plays a role (ie - you will want to be able to see what is coming - you will want to prevent rovers & worms from attacking without having to park in fron of your base first (that is remove fungus next to a base if you are not gaia - put forest there to slow rovers etc). The standard stuff - lokk at the way your territory is setup - from where someone may be coming, what way they are likely to pick and how to put them at a disadvantage, andwhat units you need to defend yourself. The smarter you arrange it the less millitary you will need. It is the attacker who has long way to go (ie the units you face were produced long ago and reinforcements have long to go wherweas you can rally your defense much quicker). Attacking is never easy - especially not early if it is to be a real threat rather than some annoying harassment.

For the defensive minded all I can say is that the smarter you setup your area the less defense you need - and for the potential agressor - somebody will probably not be listening but if they all are - I guess you wil just have to outsmart them and hit them where they are not prepared for it and harder than they envisioned.

Anyway for this kind of setup everyone has to think things over. You can try to get ahead paying no attention to millitary. After all chances are it will be one of the others who get attacked if any at all a millitary unit not used is basically a waste of resources that could have been used for something else. However - if your luck is bad - such a strategy could make you dead at 2130.

Agressors likewise need to evaluate if they are going to put all on one card. A half hearted attack will usually be easily repulsed unless the defender is wholly unprepared. Ignoring infrastructure and just cranking out millitary means you are staking all on a first assault. If it fails - or even if it doesn't, but if the result is that you you wipe someone out but does not take over much, there is still two others left and they will now be far more built up than you. A really successfull attack either - wipes out your biggest opponent or pays for itself (ie - what you concur must be more valuable than the resources you put into the attack). Otherwise the next attack will be harder and the last really, really hard. Maybe better to build up and go later when the the bases are less likely to get destroyed on taking and you have more infrastructure to support an all out assault, not to go at all but simply do the old "protection racket" or maybe you just give them hell or die trying hoping to spring that surprise on them that will enable you take over what is theirs before they can defend or destroy it.

The point is the game could go all ways and that the setup does not make one way the obvious or only viable way to go. Now settings things up like this is not that easy and things happen (units get catapulted - sometimes gaians get their first capture on turn one or two - sometime quakes alter the landscape and once in a while a faction loose their second base to a worm) but the point is that to make the game equal for all - yes a 2130 or so attack of some size should be a maybe not likely but possible event and that taking a gamble it won't means taking an actual risk of getting caught at a serious disadvantage.

It is not like Sparta sending two rovers your way in 2110 mean you are atomatically dead by 2130 or whenever they may arrive no matter what you do. They will have quite some way to go if they are going at all. The point is if you take for granted they won't you could be. It Estimating the risks and balacing out priorities is your job and making the right choices is your job. Balancing the setup is as I see it about leaving as many options as possible open and not making just one or two the obvious right one.

On the early attack by an agressor on a builder that means not so close that it is the obvious choice for the agressor while he has the edge but no so far that it is out of the question or too impractical to be realistic.

If I can get every builder to worry that they could be both under attack and falling behind at the same time and every agressor to argue internally whether they will be loosing a golden opportunity or wasting the too few units they have by going on the offensive now I will have done my job well.

[Chaunk]

Originally posted by buster
If I can get every builder to worry that they could be both under attack and falling behind at the same time and every agressor to argue internally whether they will be loosing a golden opportunity or wasting the too few units they have by going on the offensive now I will have done my job well.

Lets leave it to the CMN then!

C

[conmcb25]

*con wonders why we did not choose the map size BEFORE we decided on factions*

MAYBE the REASON I joined the Morgans was because my impression was we were going to have a larger than normal map?

[GeoModder]

it will be a larger then normal map, Conmcb25!

[conmcb25]

Good
When is he going to make the map?

[Net Warrior]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by conmcb25
*con wonders why we did not choose the map size BEFORE we decided on factions*

The same thought occurred to me. Oh well.....next time.....

[Impaler[WrG]]

I am wondering if we can agree to alow the Game Creator to eventualy join the game at some point.

At first it would seem very unfair for someone who already has knowlage of the map to be alowed to play but I have some ideas that might less the impact and alow this person (who ever it ends up being) to partispate in the fun they help to produce.

First off they must fully deleate any copies of the map after the game has started, they should then do their best to fogret the map (hopfully they dont have photographic memory)

Then cant join the game untill the first Govenor is elected, this will be a LONG delay ofcorse and much exploration will alrady be underway.

Secon they can only join the human team that is lowest or second lowest on the power graph, so any help that team did recive would be an under-dog advantage and less likly to tip the balance of the game.

Ofcorse an alternate proposal would be for the Map maker to also be the game God, I am not shure if any prospective map makers are at all interested in that position though.

Dose this sound like a feasable and fair way to alow map makers to partispate in the game?

[Snowflake]

Actually I was thinking that the map creater would be the CMN of this game. Is this assumption not correct? Of course we could have another moderator who does the locks and the tops, but it seems reasonable for the game creator to make certain in game arbitrations since he would be the one who knows the game the most, also he would be the most fair and unbiased person, as this is a prerequisit for the game map creation.

[Googlie]

Well Buster (and I) had said at the beginning that we'd be interested in single-playing the AI factions just to give some real opposition to the teams instead of the usual AI walkovers. (recognizing that we weren't playing to win, but just to assist the AI in making sensible terraforming and build decisions - diplomacy would be left "in character" for the faction defaults as closely as possible)

I've since thrown my lot in with Morgan (but see below), but Buster might still be interested in doing this as well as map building provided we had a third party CMN

I'm currently testing some Kody concepts that might enable a CMN to do a lot more with the AI in a PBEM than currently available through the various scenario editor set-up tweaks and strategy trees. It's pretty ground-breaking for CMN's in PBEMs, and I'm leaning towards pulling out of Morgan and testing it in the new ACDG

[Chaunk]

Could you tell us more about the concepts? Do you mean, for instance, entirely replacing the save every once in a while to redo terrain, terraforming or base orders or somesuch?

C

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Chaunk
Could you tell us more about the concepts? Do you mean, for instance, entirely replacing the save every once in a while to redo terrain, terraforming or base orders or somesuch?

C

I would vote against answering that question. Let the CMN's keep their secrets, that way in order to surprise us even moreso in the future. This especially since SMAC2 is obviously not coming out in the near future - gotta keep the juice flowing in this version a while longer......



D

[Hydro]

I'm willing to trust any map designer of good character.

I'd like to campaign for a super-huge-jumbo Planet. Not that I'm biased, of course...

On a serious note, I seem to recall some tweaks done to the tech tree to spread out some of the facilities and abilities, and made the traditional b-lines a little less obvious. I enjoyed the change since it made me work a little harder. I'll check to see if I still have that around. It did require a separate install of SMAC since it modified the tech tree files.

Hydro

[Snowflake]

If something like that happens I'd imagine people would require to be in the know. It would be such a chaos when people go on planned b-line only to find out the tech they want next is not there.