Latest Effective Tech in MP?

[mark13]

Wow - I have had a look at the save game, you say you were playing it as an SSC - even when the SSC got nuked, the techs were still coming in every three turns! There's backup for you....

To be honest though, I, for one, would find a 'pure' builder game quite dull, mainly because it limits your options so much. A game without so much as the threat of an invasion would be dull to me - you have to prepare for the unexpected.....it just seems silly to look at Misotu's coastline bases defended by a single scout patrol

You say you were running no psych allocation, well WHY ON EARTH NOT?????? From the sounds of things, with even 10% psych allocation, your bases would have gone into a golden age and you'd have been positively raking in the energy, what with the commerce boost...

But no, it still sounds like a fascinating game to be involved in - a scramble for the Ascent, not something I have experienced before...

All I need to do now is to wait six months for the other PBEMs to get into a similar situation....
[This message has been edited by mark13 (edited November 06, 2000).]

[Misotu]

Well, there was the threat of an invasion from the Aliens of course. I was pretty much spared most of that because of my pathetic position on the power graph and because Tig was in all-out war with them, so I guess they focused on him.

I'm not sure which year you're looking at, but in the MY immediately after the buster, I think my research rate dropped to 1 every 7 turns or similar. Panic! I had managed to move most of my crawlers out of the blast range, then rehomed them to better bases and threw up an HQ somewhere so it did indeed improve again pretty rapidly.

The builder game was pretty intense - very exacting in terms of making the right decisions about SE, facilities and energy. I've never thought so hard about strategy before, it was fascinating. I certainly found out a lot of stuff. The hard way And then once the war started ... it was such a blast just seeing what was possible in terms of switching from one footing to the other as fast as possible. You might enjoy this kind of game more than you think ...

Psych allocation. Yes, well ... Now that I almost understand the commerce formula thanks to you guys it seems clear that the +1 energy from GA is not so dramatic, necessarily, and especially not if the majority of your energy is derived from crawlers. I don't know - it'd be interesting to go back and experiment ...

quote: All I need to do now is to wait six months for the other PBEMs to get into a similar situation....

Are you playing any games on the tourny map, or are all of yours random map starts? The tourny map really gets the game going very rapidly, things get pretty interesting in not many turns at all. Quite a few of them end in transcend - or feature transcend attempts at least. If you haven't tried it yet, I'd recommend giving it a whirl.


[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited November 06, 2000).]

[Tau Ceti]

Mark: 10% Psych would not have been enough to get Golden Ages. I know, as I consistently used that setting , and I had the HGP too. I did get GAs in one or two cities (those that had Hybrid Forests, I think); still, the additional 1 or 2 commerce income is not very significant, percentage-wise, when commerce is already at the 16 to 20 level (Global trade pact, pact, and +4 Econ from FM/Wealth/Morgan makes trade profitable!). I doubt it would have been worth a 10-20% reduction of the research rate, and econ was generally set as low as possible anyway.

And you should not knock the builder game until you have tried it. There may not be much military warfare (though there WAS quite a lot of it at the end), but there is certainly enough economic and diplomatic warfare to make up for it! And there is something pleasing about having games end in something other than one player presiding over a nerve gassed wasteland...

Mis: He has my 2171 turn (two years before the buster) and 2180. By that time you had recovered quite well, I must say...

Both: Mark has only random map games, but I have a tournament map game waiting for him, as soon as my email comes back up (see my latest thread in the multiplaying forum).

[Helium Pond]

The tournament map sounds like a lot of fun. I can only afford to play one tournament game at a time right now, and the current one is on a random map--it's going pretty slowly. I'm really tempted to request another game, but I'm already spending too much time on SMAC.

Fitz:
I'm guessing you're using a campus LAN, or something like that, and you're students, right? All in the same computer lab or something? That sounds like a blast, wish I was still young... And the Airborne Pod/rush-built Psi Gate strategy sounds like a killer. What a cool idea!

[Misotu]

The more MP you play, the less SP you play ... it's a sliding scale

[Fitz]

We play LAN games by getting together four people, with their computers, for a whole ****ing weekend. That's usually 20+ hours total including friday night. Waste of time really, but a lot of fun.

All the final techs are very important if you cann't transcend and everyone is close in military/economic power. The two most usefull militarily tend to be psi gates, and to a lesser degree, gravships. Gravships are the best air power for a reason. They only get one attack, but they can conquer bases, which can be a godsend with their range. Psi gates allow for a common tactic of an airborne colony pod, followed by a rush build of the gate. Then you can start funneling troops through them. I've never personally used that tactic, (since I'm not the best of us, I tend to be defending like mad), but I've been on the recieving end of it enough times.

[mark13]

I can't wait to play the tournament map - I have had a look at it, I've also heard you start with extra units (I hope so, transcending in 2180-odd, or I'm doing something very wrong ), which sounds like it should be a lot of fun....

Give the random games a couple of months, though, and I'm sure they will liven up pretty quickly - I tried to get into a good game quickly with ACT21, but, erm, well....

Believe me, Tau, I am not knocking the builder game, I am just saying that from the sounds of things, it would be quite dull. I had, of course, as Misotu pointed out, factored out the threat of alien invasion....but weren't you just an eensy weensy bit tempted to throw an army at your opponents?

I can't wait, I just can't wait!!!!

Mark13

[Fitz]

HP: No, we just move four computers to the same house and set up our own LAN. Simple, but it means committing a large part of a weekend. We even did it for a whole week once.