Random Events...they really suck

[D4everman]

The Random Events are real pain in the ass. I usually disable them. (Ever since as Morgan in one of my first games I had amassed an obscene amount of cash...then I was attacked but i could afford to mind control and buy troops until the Random events shrunk my bank account to something stupid like 200 credits.)

My last game made me even more pissed at them. I made the attempt to build bio labs in every base, but I had other tihngs to build too...and planet Blight kept wiping the famrs out. Funny how the AI players never have that liability even when they have hardly ANY facilities! (I checked.)

So whats the general consensus on Random Events? I hate to be a crybaby, but they don't make the game any more fun for me...just frustrating.

D4

[Qualiciide]

i do hate them, i only find 2 of them to be useful

idustrial boom, espc in a SP produceing city

heat wave in a larger city

other then that they suck, even extra nuts can do some damage because your city grows to big then it can support

[WhiteElephants]

I was under the impression that certain facilities countered certain random events. Such as a research hospital countering a virus outbreak (or maybe it was a bio-lab) and a energy bank containing an energy surge. To me it has been an incentive to build facilities I may have ignored for a while. Of course, I have yet to find the facility that counters the meteor shower or the asteroid impact.

[JAMiAM]

The Umbrella Factory will protect against Meteor Impacts. Coming soon, in a patch near you.

But seriously...I can't believe that you guys would WHINE so much about one of the few ways the game remains unpredictable (at least in SP), this long after it's been out.

Besides, I think that the events predominantly hit the leader, and in the case of negative events, the AI needs all the help it can get.

[waynehead]

I love those Network node breakthroughs, though.

------------------
My sorry excuse for a website

[Qualiciide]

what break throughs? ive never seen them

[Adam_Smith]

I prefer random events for two reasons. First, it adds more realism to the game. In the real world planning doesn't solve all your problems, because there are RANDOM EVENTS. The second reason is that it makes the game more fair for the builders, because you have to build more infrastructure. In general it makes the game a little more peacefull.

Now you ask me if I hate it when I get a hail storm or something; of course I do, but my opponents are also getting them so not too big of a big deal.

[Velociryx]

I totally agree 'bout random events, Adam!

With the events turned on, it *forces* you to pay more attention to infrastructure or suffer the consequences, making the game more builderesque in its nature. And as to those consequences.....nothing stops a diehard momentum player in his tracks faster than having an outbreak of the Promethius Virus knock his size ten base to size three, or blight knocking out all the forests in a given base-radius......OUCH!

-=Vel=-

[Basil]

I wouldn't dream of playing without "random" events. As A_S says, they add interest to the game. They definitely effect AI-controlled factions - I've seen it several times - but you don't notice this much because

[*]random events only effect bases of size 4 or greater, and many AI bases are not that big[*]AI-controlled bases don't have many facilities, which makes them unlikely to experience the positive events[*]AI-controlled factions tend to be behind on the power graph, which makes them less likely to experience the negative events[*]As player, you are not as likely to notice a random event happening to another faction as you are to notice a random event happening to you[/list]
One of the more curious events is the creche event. In my current SP game one of the Gaian bases was population 9 for decades before they developed hab complexes, as the result of a creche event.

There are lots of other curious not-so-random effects of random events that I've noticed. For instance, when I am playing the Gaians and running Green, I occasionally discover new resource squares and the old ones never peter out. But when I am playing the Morgans and running Market, my resource squares gradually get depleted and I never find new ones.

I'll just mention in passing that it's theoretically possible to deliberately trigger a "random" event that will destroy all of an opponent's orbital defence pods. I'll reserve how for future opponents! The set of circumstances needed to pull this off are rather self-contradictory, unfortunately.

So that's why I think that random events are a really nice feature of the game.

[This message has been edited by Basil (edited June 22, 2000).]

[LoD]

I agree with the majority here. Random events add flavor to the game.

LoD

[Garth Vader]

I also think random events hurt builders more. The big hurt is the energy crash. Momentum players don't have as much cash so they have less to lose. I often turn off random events just because of the energy crash. I will save up energy if I am researching a new reactor or something like that. Then you get a crash and lose 2500 ec and can't upgrade anything. What's a momentum player going to lose, 100?

Joer's point about the army vs bases is valid too. A momentum player usually has more, less developed bases. If one craps out due to a random event it's no big deal.

[D4everman]

I'm almost sorry I brought the whole thing up. Sigh....for the record let me clarify why i don't like the random events...but before i do that let me tell you that the majority of you are right...the RE's do add flavor to the game.

If the RE's only effect the SP than they are, well, bull****. If i had recieved a message about another character having a random event, good or bad, it would have helped. Seriously. If even in my darkest moment fighting yang if a reandome event had given him 100+ energey for a turn I 'd be pissed but oh well. but heres what happened....my crops died almost every ten years because of my lack of bio labs...a lack that didn' exist since i had built them religiously in every base since the I was able. So perhaps I'm whining...I just expect to be treated fairly by the AI. I know that the AI cheats in soe ways in order to compete with a human mind, but in the game in question it was ridiculous.

I concede that perhaps my playing is lacing and i should live with it and try to improve. Still I get pissecwhen it seems the random events are centered on only making my game harder. I guess its a double edged sword.

D4

[Kinjiru]

Heya D4-

As for specific example, I REALLY think it is research hospitals, rather than bio labs that will prevent the RE you are talking about.

-Kinjy

[Basil]

No, Planet Blight is supposedly (according to Prima's manual) the random event that happens because of lack of bio labs, and if it's happening in bases with bio labs that's a bug. (I haven't seen such a bug in my own games.) Prometheus Virus is the event effected by research hospitals.

D4everman, in my experience it will only tell you about random events effecting other factions if you have units or bases or sensor arrays close enough to observe the base being effected by the random event. But it does happen, even if you can't see it, I've seen it happen when I set the computer up to play against itself using the scenario editor and I also once invaded an AI base which had obviously been recently hit by Planet Blight.

I'm sorry if it keeps on hitting you with lots of bad random events; I'd find that discouraging too. Out of curiousity, what faction & what SE settings are you at? It's my theory that running negative planet ratings and causing eco-damage encourages bad random events, but there's nothing in the documentation to support that.

I think the differences between JoeR and myself boil down to him thinking that random events are primarily just that, random, whereas I think of them as not being particularly more random than the results of combat.

[RedFred]

Another random events fan checking in. I like the greater level of unpredictability of the random features; both the challenges of dealing with a bad event and the unexpected luck of a good random event.

I take the randomness to extremes. I mostly play random factions games, with random maps and blind (random) research. Keeps the game fresh for me.