Sea level changes

[Mr. Harley]

Surfing around the PBEM threads, I caught somebody uncertain about sea level changes. It seems a player about to be eliminated, after being back-stabbed from his viewpoint, went on an atrocity binge. I'd never thought of that strategy. Now, the remaining players are faced with some hefty sea level changes. More experienced players correct me if I'm wrong, but once you get a sea level change the mechanics will still wreck everything that's threatened.

At least in single player, which is almost all of my experience, even if you get the solar shades up immediately, what happens is that the sea level rises, and then goes right back down. All your improvements are washed away. You call the council to put up one set of solar shades every ten years, and thus partially offset one sea level rise (333 meters). However, the effect takes twenty years, just like the sea level rise.

Take the case from that game.

(I'll assume optimal preventive reactions after the fact - unsure when the sea level warning actually came)

2238 - sea level up 1000 meters in 2258
_____- council votes solar shades drops sea level -333 meters in 2258

2248 - second council vote solar shades -333 meters in 2268

2258 - sea goes +1000 meters, immediately drops to +666 meters, all enhancements up to +1000 meters destroyed. You can now reterraform everything from +1000 to +666.

2268 - sea drops to +333 meters.


Since the game has evidently entered the nuclear age, it will be interesting if they avoid any more atrocities, and even more sea level rises. Hopes this helps out the player who asked.

[Jamski]

Which atrocites did they commit to cause so much ecodamage? (if they were losing I assume not Planet Busters)

-Jam

[Lazerus]

Nerve gas Jam ... and lots of it .... and then some more

[Mr. Harley]

I wasn't going to name names - but the individual who posted just before me just possibly was the architect of that fiendish strategy. Or as a minimum, he evidently applied it very successfully.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
I wasn't going to name names - but the individual who posted just before me just possibly was the architect of that fiendish strategy. Or as a minimum, he evidently applied it very successfully.

It WAS annoying but with a combination of the solar shade and multiple formers rasing land, I have lost only probably 5 tiles of improvements. I believe I only have a handful of tiles that are now endangered and I am replacing their productivity with satellites.


I actually did not mind his nerve gas strategy since he was not gassing me ( tactical situation made me a much more difficult target) and the searise is every bit as inconvenient for the other players as it was for me.

It was an interesting strategy and added a bit of spice to the game. . . and for those that don't know, Lazerus was a replacement player that inherited a decently strong faction ( economically) with glaring military weaknesses and he got jumped before he had any opportunity to fix things ( only a few turns in). I would say that 3 to 5 more turns under his leadership and they would have been a threat to win the game.

[Flubber]

Re: Sea level changes

Originally posted by shawnmmcc


At least in single player, which is almost all of my experience, even if you get the solar shades up immediately, what happens is that the sea level rises, and then goes right back down. All your improvements are washed away. You call the council to put up one set of solar shades every ten years, and thus partially offset one sea level rise (333 meters). However, the effect takes twenty years, just like the sea level rise.

Take the case from that game.

(I'll assume optimal preventive reactions after the fact - unsure when the sea level warning actually came)

2238 - sea level up 1000 meters in 2258
_____- council votes solar shades drops sea level -333 meters in 2258

2248 - second council vote solar shades -333 meters in 2268

2258 - sea goes +1000 meters, immediately drops to +666 meters, all enhancements up to +1000 meters destroyed. You can now reterraform everything from +1000 to +666.

2268 - sea drops to +333 meters.


Since the game has evidently entered the nuclear age, it will be interesting if they avoid any more atrocities, and even more sea level rises. Hopes this helps out the player who asked.

First of all the most effective way to save land is with your terraformers-- I think it takes 8 years to raise a tile 1000m ( depending on planet rating and WP etc) so it is easy to keep any give tile out of the drink unless the sealevel rises are far in excess of 1000m--

Also-- you can take advantage of the elevation rules

1-1000
1001-2000
2001-3000
3000+

Every tile MUST be adjacent to a tile that is in the same grouping or one grouping up or down. This means that if you pull a tile up to 3000+ then each tile adjacent to it MUST be in the range of 2001-3000 and the next ones out must be at least 1001-2000 etc. Therefore, pulling at the highest points can keep large areas of land out of the drink-- I have been sucessful even when searises were listed at 3500m per 20 years-- you just keep pulling the peaks upward-- IT does not much matter since almost all the tiles turn to fungus and the worms run rampant anyway


THos above effect though can also lead to the washing away of improvements even if you never SEE the tile submerged. Imagine a tile is at 150 m and is adjacent to a tile at 1400m. This is perfectly fine since they are in adjacent groupings. Imagine there is a 200m rise in sea level. The tiles go to the level of minus 50 and 1200m-- THats what you would see on the next turn but for the adjacency rules. What actually happens is the tile does go to minus 50 for a moment ( you never see it submerged) and then re-emerges with some positive elevation -- I have not tested this enough to be confident what this elevation would be except to say it would be less than 1000. Note that all improvements and units on this tile are washed away by the flash flood.

THois is different that your shade example since there need not be any solar shade or terraforming impacts for this to occur. All that happens os that the game implements the sea rise and then corrects for any adjacency issues .

I don't know when the impacts of the shade versus the atrocities occurr-- I have insufficient experience with atrocities . . .


Oh and the game in question . .. We are in the PB era but all 3 factions have a single PB -- anyone advancing their PB into range of anothers core bases will then come into range of their opponents PB-- Everyone is pacted with everyone now anyway so I think its one big happy group

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Jamski
Which atrocites did they commit to cause so much ecodamage? (if they were losing I assume not Planet Busters)

-Jam

Gas-- I jumped Lazerus ( conventional chop and drop attack) to kill one of his PBs and then a turn or two later convinced another player to attack Lazerus to take out his only other PB when it moved into a position where it could possibly hurt me.

Lazerus razed a bunch of bases to make it difficult for me to advance on him ( and deny me further spoils of war) and proceded to gas the heck out of the other player. He did not gas me once. Worms took out his final base. I was unscathed except for having to deal with sea-rises. About half my bases rushed formers and they are now well in hand

[Lazerus]

yep didn't stand a chance, was hoping to get my PB off at you and shock you into peace since i knew you weren't exactly going to let me live once you arranged for pact brothers to hit me aswell. I have my own strategy? cool

*adopts James Bond baddie-esque accent*
So you will attempt to take the world from me eh? well if i can't have it nobody will mwhuhahaha

*pushes big red button*
......
hmmm....
...
*pushes big red button again*
..............
Blast why are evil overlords always surrounded by incompetent Drones !!



Nice info on sea rises btw

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Lazerus
yep didn't stand a chance, was hoping to get my PB off at you and shock you into peace since i knew you weren't exactly going to let me live once you arranged for pact brothers to hit me as well.

Nice info on sea rises btw

I don't know if you would have been able to successfully PB me even if given the opportunity. I had taken two precautions

1. I had a line of trawlers and sea formers just 3-4 tiles off my coast. I thought that they were out of range of your aircraft so your PB would have insufficient range to go around them and hit a good base

2. Even if you could get through the screen, all my good bases had been emptied of defenders and all formers and crawlers had moved far enough away that you could not get a base by hitting an incidental unit. I have always assumed that PBs are like nerve gas choppers and you can't attack without a target to hit.


On the sea rises-- Found that out in an old thread I started on "washing" of tiles (back when I was "cbn")-- it is super handy to know and I find sea level rises to be much less inconvenient although its still a pain when you are trying to figure out what combination of terrain raises will save both land and sea terraforming .. .

[Mr. Harley]

Thanks for the mechanics on raising land, Flubber. Can you link to that old thread? When playing single player I've only had to deal with sea level changes once - I take the first volcanoe as a VERY serious sign that it's not nice to fool with mother nature.

[Flubber]

here you go

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7363