I played with random factions for all computer slots. Ended as you noted up with a perfect spread of enemies.
I'd recommend that any late commers either play smac-classic (and then turn pods off, as you get an obscene amount of AAs in classic smac) or set the other factions to: Both Aliens, Yang, Cha Dawn, Drones and Spartans. (Might exchange Cha Dawn for Miriam.)
On base placement: I went with a borg spread of bases, when fungus allowed it. The base square is the best square you will see in the entire game, so use it and use it well.
I think I used demo/planned for the entire game since I got it. Drones were generally not a big problem, sans small bases, and distances weren't huge, as every base had a single squares gap to the next one. This configuration lets you keep +2 eff as gaians, which is pretty good.
Playing a builder game early can get you into some pitfalls, you can easily end up having every base spending more energy on maintenance than it pulls in. (A major reason to do this in smac-x as normal smac is bugged for maintenance at thinker and transcend. It costs 1/3rd of what it should on transcend in normal smac.)
With 2 food coming of every fungus square you might as well put crawlers out all around for specialist bases. 5 of em lets you get an all librarian base. Even with little infrastructure you still cash in big time on the techs. (Esp as you don't need no stinking drone control facilities.)
And, as the final twister, play double blind. (Blind research, all squares checked.) And with steal tech when conquer base turned off. I'll have to try it again, sounds damn close to impossible now.
I'd recommend that any late commers either play smac-classic (and then turn pods off, as you get an obscene amount of AAs in classic smac) or set the other factions to: Both Aliens, Yang, Cha Dawn, Drones and Spartans. (Might exchange Cha Dawn for Miriam.)
On base placement: I went with a borg spread of bases, when fungus allowed it. The base square is the best square you will see in the entire game, so use it and use it well.
I think I used demo/planned for the entire game since I got it. Drones were generally not a big problem, sans small bases, and distances weren't huge, as every base had a single squares gap to the next one. This configuration lets you keep +2 eff as gaians, which is pretty good.
Playing a builder game early can get you into some pitfalls, you can easily end up having every base spending more energy on maintenance than it pulls in. (A major reason to do this in smac-x as normal smac is bugged for maintenance at thinker and transcend. It costs 1/3rd of what it should on transcend in normal smac.)
With 2 food coming of every fungus square you might as well put crawlers out all around for specialist bases. 5 of em lets you get an all librarian base. Even with little infrastructure you still cash in big time on the techs. (Esp as you don't need no stinking drone control facilities.)
And, as the final twister, play double blind. (Blind research, all squares checked.) And with steal tech when conquer base turned off. I'll have to try it again, sounds damn close to impossible now.
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