Tech Share Challenge

[death_head]

A note about Morgan-
While it is true that the AI is an incredibly bad Morgan player (my favorite- watching them go off to war with FM on) in the hands of a human player, Morgan is incredibly powerful. Simply put, he makes a ton of money. In addition, he is the only one who can get +1 e/square without FM. The bad support can be overcome by simply not building many units. The extra cash can rush early facilities and formers, giving him a building advantage, and by building several small bases you overcome the size 4 population cap. A powerful faction indeed, particularly on a huge map.
Wouldn't it make more sense to play as Zakharov. All of his strengths are in research, so by giving away all your tech, he loses all his advantages. Similarly, give the AI the six worst factions at researching, and you will have a very difficult game, something like this-
You are Zak
against
Miriam
Domai
Deidre (no FM)
Yang (bad econ.)
Cha Dawn (bad econ.)
Santiago (having your tech will make her troops deadly)
I'm pretty sure this would be the most challenging game yet. If I can fix my home computer I will let everyone know how this goes.

------------------
Carved upon my stone-
my body lie
but still I roam.
-Metallica

[Jasonian]

I accidentally got myself into this challenge. Ooops!

After I finished cleaning out the Believers for Zak and getting a submissive pact from Miriam (already had one from Zak), I gave back Miriam a lot of her old bases and gave a couple of them to Zak to help even it out. I then gave them both all my tech, and proceeded to sit back and watch what happened between the two (just for the fun of it. )

Well, apparently they put that tech to good use, because they used it to get credits and truces from everyone else. Suddenly, the Angels (who were doing really well, oddly enough) were on a technological level with me, and proceeded to begin the bloodiest war I've ever been in!

It's good fun fighting on the same tech level. I think I'll try out this challenge "for real" later on.

------------------
The poster with the title formerly known as Prince.

Banned on Black Saturday in the name of those who went before him.

[stuntman19]

A solid game to try is limiting yourself to only tech which you have researched yourself. So trading or stealing of tech of anykind is not allowed, not even brainwashing stronger troops. Soon, unless you expand rapidily with many research facilities, you fall behind tech wise. Also it seems the AI for some reason becomes smarter when it is way stronger than you. It built choppers, probe foils, crawlers, bore holes, orbital facilities , and university even built skybases. Most of these I had never seen the AI build and especially in large quantities.
I wonder if the AI has to perceive itself as way superior to build some of this stuff? Anybody more knowledgeable have some insights?

Anyway it made for a good SP game, instead of the dominating you can do normally.

[Misotu]

Funnily enough, I just posted the same question in another thread. I've set up a scenario where I've deliberately made the AI very strong. Overdid it in fact, but when I was test-playing the scenario I found the AI building foil probes and choppers. They also executed very competent chop/drop attacks, used needlejets to cover ground troops and did a lot of other minor stuff far more competently than before. For example, their usual reluctance to attack bases using air units was not at all in evidence.

If this is the case - that the AI needs to be very strong by comparison with the human player in order to use these tactics - then it's a pity.

[Black Sunrise]

Ahem.
This may be me, but I find tech-sharing in SP to be one of my major strategies to getting a quick win/high score. Time spent by my opponents researching old techs is time wasted. If you give them all your techs, every chance you get ( get a new one, give it to everyone who'll speak with you! ), then they research new technologies.
Now I have new things to trade for, steal, conquer, whichever.
So rather than my game being harder, I find it can be a bit more tricky, but is generally easier.
Thoughts?
Regards
Black Sunrise

[DilithiumDad]

Black Sunrise, that is indeed one of the ironies. Most newbies stubbornly hold on to their narrow tech lead and turn down AI demands for free tech. It does make the game easier in some ways. It certainly makes it more interesting. There is nothing more boring than a chop and drop campaign through 40 bases with nothing higher than synthmetal defending them.

[DilithiumDad]

Regarding faction choice, I have already pointed out that Morgan is an excellent choice for this one. Playing Morgan and fighting your militarist neighbors you have just pumped up with military tech --now that's challenging!

I have tried the tech share challenge with Zak, but it becomes difficult to share tech by mid-game with lots of vendettas. It becomes a challenge just to keep giving away all that tech to every faction, especially Miriam but also Deirdre, Yang and Santiago seem to refuse tech after a while.

------------------
Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Basil]

I think I know why the AI builds crawlers (but only when it is doing well relatively well). I "played" a game where I set *all* the factions to AI control using the scenario editor, and then sat back and watched what they did. It turned out that once the AI got industrial automation, it knew that it should build crawlers to cash in at bases building secret projects. So the factions (in this all-AI game) built crawlers whenever they were building SP's (and naturally it was the leading factions that were building SP's). If they had any crawlers left over when the SP was complete, they'd use them to extract resources, but they were very stupid about this: they were quite capable of extracting 0 minerals from a fungus square, for example.

I also have a guess at why the AI started building probe foils in Misotu's game. Misotu mentioned that it was not the AI in general but the Pirates who were using probe foils. I suspect that the Pirates captured one of his probe foils using their Marine Detachment ability, and once they had probe foils in their "unit mix" they were able to build new ones.

[This message has been edited by Basil (edited August 20, 2000).]

[Vultur]

I've got an idea for Tech Share Challenge!

The Share Tech Challenge
Before playing SMAC/X, select all the
factions but yours and add SHARETECH, 2
then play the game as you want.

The Ultimate Share Tech Challenge
Before playing SMAC/X, select all the
factions but yours and add SHARETECH, 1
then play the game in this method:

• Trascend Level.
• Normal Map
• Arid/Strong erosive forces
• Lot of native lifeforms (few if you are Caretakeer,Gaiain,Cult)
• One for all Off
• Ruins of war Off
• Tech stagnation
• Blind research (off if you are alien)
• Intense Rivalry
• IRON MAN
• Try to survive!

^ As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with reedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse
has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
^
^ -- Commisioner Pravin Lal,
^ "U.N. Declaration of Rights"

^The luck helps the prepared mind
^
^ --Blaise Pascal
^ Datalinks

[This message has been edited by Vultur (edited August 27, 2000).]

[Simpson II]

I started the ultimate challenge last night, as the Spartans. It became rather easy once I had subjegated Zakharov, and he started gifting me his techs...

[Googlie]

Basil:

I'm not so sure.

Some time ago I edited alpha.txt to give sea crawlers the same basic unit status as ordinary crawlers, but the AI never once built them in a couple of games I played

G.

[Vultur]

quote: Originally posted by Simpson II on 08-23-2000 03:06 PM I started the ultimate challenge last night, as the Spartans. It became rather easy once I had subjegated Zakharov, and he started gifting me his techs...

OK, you are a tough one
So, I've corrected some rules.
---------------------------------------------
^The luck helps prepared mind.
^
^ --Blaise Pascal
^ Datalink