Going down with the ship?

[Spacecow]

I was kinda curious... does anyone play a losing game of SMAC or Civ all the way through? I've only done it a couple of times when I was playing Civ 2 and got stuck on an island. I found my anemic empire that I had been trying to bolster for the past hour or so smashed once an AI galleon decided to drop off a couple of dragoons. And even then, I think I quit before they decided to ship another galleon full of them. I've always got to be at least on par with my neighbors to keep playing. Am I alone in this playing behavior?

[BustaMike]

I've done it once or twice in multiplayer, and I don't think that it would really be possible to lose as single player without doing it on purpose.

[Chowlett]

Maybe for us, BustaMike - but I still remember a time when Librarian was a daunting prospect...

But no, I don't think I've ever played until I was eridicated, or someone else won by another means.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Re: Going down with the ship?

Originally posted by Spacecow
a losing game of SMAC or Civ

WTF is those, never heard of them.

[Method]

i may have quit losing games, but i've never actually lost to the AI. never seen an AI win before. should just try doing drones or believers with tech stag and agressive opponents one time just for the hell of it

[Mongoose]

I think tech stag would actually be a benefit when playing those two factions with a RESEARCH penalty. The 10 year moratorium on research accumulation only puts you half as many techs behind, all other things being equal. Pods still produce techs at the normal rate. Probes still steal techs at the normal rate.

I would think that using tech stag, you would only be 3 techs behind after ~ 40 turns, as opposed to 6 or 7.

I'll have to try that!

[Method]

ok...then i'll play the university on tech stag!

[MattyBoy]

I'm sure I've finished losing games just to see how it looks, but there is no way I would work hard for long in a clear no-win situation (that situation eventually stops arising in standard SMAC/SMAX)

[Chowlett]

How about the uni, running PS, Green, Power, Thought Control? That's the worst I could do without Fundy

[big_canuk]

But you haven't lost until it's actually lost. You can often send out a sea colony pod or transport and CP to a isolated or protected corner of planet. And then make friends with everyone through neutral SE. Then build again, and still maybe win it in the end. I have only had a couple of such games, against the AI, and one versus humans(versus humans I inhereted a poor position, that I failed to turn around quickly enough). Those are the most fun games to play. Much more fun than going through the motions where a win is inevitable by the time you get to IA.

Once a negative outcome is truly determined, it only takes a few more quick turns to see yourself in their punishment sphere. Definitely worth it!

bc

edited to make more clear.

[Mr. President]

I've gone down with the ship a couple of times; it's cool, in a sadistic sort of way. And unlike some people, I don't consider myself too good to lose.

[Darius]

I agree with big_canuk - the fun is in trying to reverse a losing game.

Now I finally understand you people who say you never lose to the AI - you just quit!

[Kirov]

I remember that when I first started to play on Transcend (after appr 3 months of playing SMAC), each game was a very hard challenge. I always ended up with 3-4 bases, begging AI (esp Hive) for mercy, until eventually being eradicated by AI (usu Hive). Ah, it was so wonderful time...

[MariOne]

Originally posted by Darius
Now I finally understand you people who say you never lose to the AI - you just quit!

While this can be true for me in games like MoM or MoO2, in SMAC (after 4-5 games climbing up thru the difficulty levels) I never lost to the AI on Transcend, and not because I quit when I'm behind.
I often do quit, but only because I'm too much ahead.
As a matter of fact, I rarely find myself behind the AI in SP, and even when it happens it's marginally behind and for a limited time.

Only recently, in a head-to-head CGN match against Mark (I guess his ID was mark13 here), we found ourselves much behind a Hive AI, which started in a big Jungle. But it was never actually a threat to us, and eventually, in ~100 years, we caught up.

Mind, this is not boasting.
It's just that single player is NOT significant to determine the strength of a player.
I have also been soundly beaten in pbem, and there are (or were...) quite a bunch of players who could reasonably claim to play pbems better than me.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by MariOne


Mind, this is not boasting.
It's just that single player is NOT significant to determine the strength of a player.

When I first joined this board and saw all the people saying deity/transcend was no challenge, my response was to take it with a huge grain of salt . . . But then I learned the higher level strategies that made SP a joke.

I have lost one SP game in the last long while and that was as Miriam ( double-blind research) on an island where I never met anyone for 100 years.

In that game I did play it out to the bitter end-- It did not take long as the Spartan chaos rovers rolled in -- I then replayed the game-- making sure to get the WP to build landbridges and by about 2170 probes and a submissive had me at tech parity and on to another win

The only fun in SP now is with the challenges. I still try the nomad challenge but it always depends n the continent layout