Not a great title.....
I think I mentioned this before in 1999... while researching a method of beating Zsozso's fast transcend time of AD2172 I investigated how the program determines what choice of techs to allow you to pick next. This allowed me to Transcend in AD2168 by skipping over 10 techs that aren't needed in SMACX (I think he transcended in SMAC so he had a few less techs for that reason).
This applies to the so-called non-blind research option. In fact you still can't chose any tech you want. Each tech is in one of three groups, lets call them 1, 2 and 3. These groupings have nothing to do with the colours of the techs. The rule is simple. Your Nth tech cannot belong to group (N mod 3). That is, on each turn you have about two thirds of the possible techs that are available in terms of prerequisites, actually available as a choice.
The "first" available tech is also always available to make sure you can't get into a situation where no further research is possible -- which you could just about have done otherwise.
Sometimes in some of the challenges racing to get to a key tech such as Industrial Automation (and here I'm thinking of the one city challenges where crawlers are indespensable if you are playing to transcendand/or on a huge map) it is useful to know how to do this minimally.
For example if the Peacekeepers had non-blind research they could get to IndAut in 5 techs. That is their 6th tech would be IndAut. IndAut is in group 1 so that's possible. The Usurpers on the other hand seem to get five starting techs (is that a patch thing? my rule book claims they only get three) so the minimum would be ten techs to get IndAut. Since 10 mod 3 is 1 this is not possible and Usurpers would have to get IndAut as their 11th tech.
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Now I normally play with blind-rearch off because I think being able to choose is an option that makes you think more.... hence a better game... however this morning I was investigating the effects of blind research and it seems to have no basis in common.
The various techs all seem to be able to be researched irrespective of what number of techs are already researched -- no mod 3 rule.
It seems very hard to get to just Industrial Automation with blind research. Typically between 12 and 25 techs are needed instead of the 5 that are listed pre-requisites.
I hypothesise that the blind research model has additional pre-requisites, or in some other way makes sure you cannot get to certain techs too quickly no matter how lucky and no matter what colour/s of tech you choose to research. In particular to get to IndAut it seems I pretty much had to have Advanced Physics, Centauri Empathy, Doctrine: Mobility, Social Psycology and Ethical Calculus. (For these tests I am assuming that using the edit scenario's "gain a tech" option functions the same as gaining a tech in a regular game --- it does with non-blind research)
Remarkably even after starting a race with only IndAut's two prerequisites and chosing "yellow" I could not get IndAut to come up until after numerous lower level techs had been researched.
There also seems to be a distinction between choosing all the colours and chosing none of them. Can't really say what.....
Even given this hypothetical additional pre-requisites, the colour choice doesn't always seem to be honoured (this is what really put me off about blind research -- if the thing worked properly - by picking from all the techs available of the chosen colours -- it would be fun -- as it is the colour choice seems virtually without effect).
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Does anyone regularly play with blind research "on"? Does anyone have any data on this?
I think I mentioned this before in 1999... while researching a method of beating Zsozso's fast transcend time of AD2172 I investigated how the program determines what choice of techs to allow you to pick next. This allowed me to Transcend in AD2168 by skipping over 10 techs that aren't needed in SMACX (I think he transcended in SMAC so he had a few less techs for that reason).
This applies to the so-called non-blind research option. In fact you still can't chose any tech you want. Each tech is in one of three groups, lets call them 1, 2 and 3. These groupings have nothing to do with the colours of the techs. The rule is simple. Your Nth tech cannot belong to group (N mod 3). That is, on each turn you have about two thirds of the possible techs that are available in terms of prerequisites, actually available as a choice.
The "first" available tech is also always available to make sure you can't get into a situation where no further research is possible -- which you could just about have done otherwise.
Sometimes in some of the challenges racing to get to a key tech such as Industrial Automation (and here I'm thinking of the one city challenges where crawlers are indespensable if you are playing to transcendand/or on a huge map) it is useful to know how to do this minimally.
For example if the Peacekeepers had non-blind research they could get to IndAut in 5 techs. That is their 6th tech would be IndAut. IndAut is in group 1 so that's possible. The Usurpers on the other hand seem to get five starting techs (is that a patch thing? my rule book claims they only get three) so the minimum would be ten techs to get IndAut. Since 10 mod 3 is 1 this is not possible and Usurpers would have to get IndAut as their 11th tech.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now I normally play with blind-rearch off because I think being able to choose is an option that makes you think more.... hence a better game... however this morning I was investigating the effects of blind research and it seems to have no basis in common.
The various techs all seem to be able to be researched irrespective of what number of techs are already researched -- no mod 3 rule.
It seems very hard to get to just Industrial Automation with blind research. Typically between 12 and 25 techs are needed instead of the 5 that are listed pre-requisites.
I hypothesise that the blind research model has additional pre-requisites, or in some other way makes sure you cannot get to certain techs too quickly no matter how lucky and no matter what colour/s of tech you choose to research. In particular to get to IndAut it seems I pretty much had to have Advanced Physics, Centauri Empathy, Doctrine: Mobility, Social Psycology and Ethical Calculus. (For these tests I am assuming that using the edit scenario's "gain a tech" option functions the same as gaining a tech in a regular game --- it does with non-blind research)
Remarkably even after starting a race with only IndAut's two prerequisites and chosing "yellow" I could not get IndAut to come up until after numerous lower level techs had been researched.
There also seems to be a distinction between choosing all the colours and chosing none of them. Can't really say what.....
Even given this hypothetical additional pre-requisites, the colour choice doesn't always seem to be honoured (this is what really put me off about blind research -- if the thing worked properly - by picking from all the techs available of the chosen colours -- it would be fun -- as it is the colour choice seems virtually without effect).
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Does anyone regularly play with blind research "on"? Does anyone have any data on this?
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