Universal Translater - Does anyone really use it for other than the 2 free techs?

[Mead]

Originally posted by RedFred
The UT is perfect for the OCC. Anybody who hasn't tried some form of One City Challenge, I say go for it. You are in for a really fun and quick game.

Based upon your suggestion I tried my first couple of games (both as Gaian) at OCC. It was fun.

I lost the first one (first game I lost in SMAC in a long time). I guess it did not help much having Sparta as a close neighbor. Although I tried to be nice to her, I was too close and she must have found it better to just kill me.

The second I won.
It was easier since I was out of the way in the bottom left corner of the map (huge). Morgan was my nearest neighbor and all the less pleasant factions (Hive, Miriam, Sparta) were very far away.

I did not build the UT. I was too far behind tech-wise to be able to do it.

During the game I made my area an island, kept out of the way of the fights between the big factions. Allowed Sparta, Hive, and Miriam declare Vendetta on me so I could keep in good graces with Lal (ran and kept Demo as soon as I could).

I made a nice energy park on my island (even enlarging the island in the process, but not enough to connect me to other lands or to have any part of my island not within by base boundary line - to keep my allies from deciding to make a base there).

I upgraded to clean reactors as soon as possible. Usually, when I play using the huge map and 50+bases I do not bother much with clean units except for the clean police units.

I had a large number of crawlers working my energy park (which BTW had roads to them) and when it looked like Lal was getting close to being able to build VoP I started building upgraded crawlers and kept them in garrison.

I only had to take one base. This was a Spartan sea base that Santiago made too close to me and started to use to pick off my crawlers. I took it with a combo chopper/locusts attack and then turned it over to my best buddy (at least until near the end of the game, when a few turns after he broke the pact with me, Powerful Beyond Belief Lal told me to declare Vendetta on him or I would go down) Morgan.

Once Lal built the VoP I rush built the Ascent to Trans (I brought all the crawlers home and cashed them in along with the upgraded ones that were in garrison). It and ME, were the only two SPs I built. Even if I could have built the UT I would not have been able to use it to cash AAs because I had only one AA. I built up the land around my base so much that my base became landlocked. With no operating transports I had no chance of getting any more AAs.


It was a thrilling game. The very real possibility of losing made it exciting. Thanks.


Mead