Couple of Q:s

[MorganFreak]

First off, I'd like to say hey to everybody and that I've enjoyed this site so far. Secondly, I have a few questions about diplomacy in SMAC. It seems like no matter what I do (especially when I'm trying to do the OCC), the AI players come after me anyway. For instance, last night I tried the OCC on Transcend, and I made it 300 years into the game. I had a city cranking out 100 energy and had a spotless diplomatic rating. I'd only ever been to war once, even. I was the third most powerful faction. Then all of the sudden, all but two of the AI players declared vendetta on me and I got wiped out. WHY?

Another question...this one technical. I'm running SMAC (patch 4.0) and the program keeps locking up on me randomly. I have an Athlon Thunderbird 900, 512MB of RAM and an ATA100 Hard drive. Oh yeah, I'm running an ATI video card as well. I have the sound turned off, as well as the videos, etc. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[RedFred]

On OCC, I am not sure I understood your 100 credits comment. Is that from surplus cash after expenses, from stockpile energy or from trade income?

Diplomatically I have found OCC much easier than regular games because you get a diplo bonus for being further down on the might chart. Are you giving tech to your friends to keep them buttered up? Have you selected a SE that does not conflict with your nearest neighbours? This is easier in SMACX because you can (slight cheat?) pick six factions that will be the least likely to go to war with you.

Or five factions. My most successful OCC games involve an eventual war with a distant faction. It seems that long periods of total peace will eventually lead to a period where one or several factions will attack you. But if you are in perpetual war after midgame with a faction that can't reach you anyway, this doesn't seem to happen.

Even with Miriam I will have transcended well prior to the 300 year mark. Are you making extensive use of crawlers? The other thing that makes the SMACX OCC game easier than in vanilla SMAC is the increased value of sea crawlers due to the Theromocline Transducer. But even in SMAC I recommend a costal city and a multitude of both land and sea crawlers.

[Fitz]

The best (and pretty much required) thing you can do to prevent crashes is disable your wheelmouse. You can either disable from the startup (which I have done) or by pressing Ctr-Alt Del and ending the wheelmouse program.

[MorganFreak]

Fitz Said:

>>The best (and pretty much required) thing you can do to prevent crashes is disable your wheelmouse. You can either disable from the startup (which I have done) or by pressing Ctr-Alt Del and ending the wheelmouse program.<<

Thanks, Fitz, I'll give this a shot!!

RedFred said:

>>Even with Miriam I will have transcended well prior to the 300 year mark. Are you making extensive use of crawlers? The other thing that makes the SMACX OCC game easier than in vanilla SMAC is the increased value of sea crawlers due to the Theromocline Transducer. But even in SMAC I recommend a costal city and a multitude of both land and sea crawlers.<<

Apparently not! What should I be harvesting with my crawlers? Last game I harvested mainly energy, but I was Landlocked, so that may have been my issue. Still---should I be going after Energy, Minerals or Nutrients? Thanks!! I'm still new to the OCC.

[RedFred]

N R G !!!

You will need a few crawlers for nuts when you aren't limited by the tech you need for hab domes. You will always need several mineral crawlers. But the vast majority of your crawlers should be raking in energy.

[MorganFreak]

Thanks for the advice. Now, I just have to research the quickest path to Hab domes. Because that, in the end, is the biggest handicap (IMO) that an OCC player faces.

[RedFred]

Good luck on the game and don't forget to let us know how it all turns out.

[MorganFreak]

I did it! It took me 400 years, but I did it!

One Q about the OCC Rules....do you have to have a Noble rating? I had to use Nerve Gas to secure my victory. Wiped out the Hive totally.

[RedFred]

Good going, MorganFreak! I'll bet that first OCC win was exciting.

I am not claiming to be the arbitrator of rules, but I think you should claim victory on the basic challenge despite the gas. I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually more difficult to win once you have gassed someone. I am guessing it was at the very end of the game, you voted out the atrocity restrictions or you did it during sunspots.

Velociryx was the first winner of the ultimate challenge which IIRC, involved among other things, no military whatsoever. I have never done that well. The minimum military I have built was three units (but I captured some native units).

[mrdynamic]

What does OCC stand for ?

[Googlie]

Spillover from Civ and CivII games:

One City Challenge

In smac/x we should call it the OBC

You only build one base and from that, win by transcendence, conquest (hard) or economic victory.

various rules, the most onerous version being no military other than prototypes, must disband any captured bases in #turns equal to pop plus 1, etc

lotsa fun - early games gave rise to some great fiction (Vel's City of Hope, my more modest Sven's Tale)

G.

[MorganFreak]

What's Ironic is I've now won three separate Basic challenges, and have found the game easier to manage with only one base. I've done it with the UoP and with PK. Morgan's harder because of the base restrictions earlier on, but I'm working on it now...