SMAX opponents

[Mr. President]

For those who play Alien Crossfire: which factions do you usually put in the game? You do get very different experiences with different mixes of factions. My current game has the Pirates (me), Free Drones, Cult, Spartans, Gaians, University, and Morganites. I made the big mistake of putting in two green factions when I planned to use Free Market from the beginning. Fortunately Dawn went down relatively easily.

I haven't used Yang or Miriam in weeks because I'm afraid of them. Seriously, they're so aggressive and so dominating. I put in Lal sometimes, just to keep the storyline going. In the last game he was in, I had five submissive factions including him!

I've noticed that if both alien factions are in the game, they're both weak, but if you only use one, they're impossibly strong. I didn't finish the game with only the Usurpers in it because I was losing and everyone hated me. Perhaps that could be a kind of challenge: Play as a human against six Usurpers. Or as the Usurpers against six Caretakers.

[knowhow2]

The reason for the aliens to be strong is its huge start advantages which the AIs seldom managed to coop with. But for humans bases tend to fall when the X weapons starts rolling. In that aspect both Yang and Miriam tend to be harder to beat.

I don't think I have a favourite mix of factions. Different combo makes different challenge. For example it you want it challenging, the try this: you palying Miriam or Domai with tech stag and more aggressive AIs. Plus UoP, PKs, Gaians, Cyborgs, Angels and Morgans. Or this you palying Morgan with aggressive AIs and steal tech when conquer base mode plus following AIs - Yang, Santiago, Pirates, Miriam, UoP and Cult.

[Tizzy]

Depends what kind of game I'm looking for.

I usually don't choose either Progeniter faction, or Miriam or Yang, simply becuase I don't really like them.

However if I'm looking for a challenging conquest game, I'll put all of them in, plus Santiago, and maybe Sven.

At the moment I'm trying tiny map-quick transcend challenge, so I'm mostly playing Deirdre, against varying combos of Zak, Domai, Roze, Cha Dawn, Morgan, Santiago and Lal. I've stopped choosing Aki as she kept escaping in a colony pod instead of submitting to me!

I sometimes set all the factions to random, so I can't decide beforehand which type of game I'm going for.

[bobyk464]

I rarely put in the alien facations - I usually enable all the various victory conditions, and the aliens are a wrench in the works. And they're a diplomatically, how shall we say, "difficult?" And the unit icons are eyesores.

I've never played as the Cult of Planet. I include them as AI if I want an easier game. Love it when the Cult shows up next to me. Gives me more time to build while the other neighbors are busy beating up on him. But that can backfire, too, if someone takes him over too quickly and too easily.

I get a kick out of playing as Sven, but don't care to have him as an AI opponent. Land-based AI are really threatening only if they start on the same continent with you. But Sven doesn't see the ocean as a barrier the way the other AI do. Invasions across an ocean come natural for him. And he's not necessarily preoccupied with border skirmishes with the neighbors on "his continent," since he doesn't have a continent. Anyone nearby is as likely as anyone else to be considered friend or foe.

The Consciousness should be a threatening opponent with all their advantages, but I haven't yet see the AI play them as well as I would hope. Maybe they're tougher to deal with than the average faction, but not so potent as you'd expect. I can usually do pretty well when I'm Aki-Zeta myself.

Roze has the potential to be an excellent rival, but the AI has very little idea how to play her strengths to its advantage, and consequently, she winds up being a pretty weak opponent. If I'm "in the groove," so to speak, with a good starting position and diplomatically co-operative neighbors, I can do pretty well as Roze.

Like most folks, I don't care to be sharing land with Yang, Miriam, or Santiago. If I see any of these, I go for Impact Rovers as soon as possible and hope for the best. Miriam is the easiest to assualt - she's got no defensive bonus. And Yang is dependent upon rapid growth - if you catch him before he's got a lot of production centers up and running, you can rush him pretty well. Same with Santiago. And although she's got fewer troops, than Yang, they're pretty tough.

I've haven't yet played as Domai. Rumor has it he's pretty potent in human hands. As AI, he's never been a problem for me.

The remainder are pretty "ordinary" and I'll include or exclude them in a game without a lot of thought, keeping in mind that anybody, even Peacekeeper Lal, gets really aggressive once they get big enough. Deidre usually hates me, since I run Free Market a lot. Until end-game, sometimes I switch to Green for the efficiency. She still hates me then, anyways, for other reasons.

[Flubber]

My last few SP games were with totally random factions (including my own). In fact, while I used to choose my own faction, I do not believe I was ever in the habit of choosing my opponent. Suprise me is what I say.

[Tizzy]

bobyk464:

I've only played a couple of games so far as the Drones - the -2 research had always put me off before.
But the +2 industry does make them a pretty good faction. You can grab the useful early SP's without any problem and staking out your territoy is easy, as those colony pods are built very quickly. I found I was running out of things to build in the early stages (before crawlers) as I was building everything I wanted to before discovering the next tech.
You have less Drones to worry about too (-1), which makes it easier to run FM, which you mentioned you usually do.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Re: SMAX opponents

Originally posted by Mr. President
. Perhaps that could be a kind of challenge: Play as a human against six Usurpers. Or as the Usurpers against six Caretakers.

I tried the multiple alien factions 1 vs six. All alien factions, even those of the same flavor, are at unterminable war with each other and go after any of them they can reach.

[Ironwood]

I don't generally put a whole lot of thought into who I'm playing against. I either go for pure SMAC (I like the idiological balance and conflict), pure SMAX (I like the extremity of these factions, even the Pirates), or an entirely random mix. Still, if I've got aliens in, I want *both* aliens in.

Probably one of the most fun games I ever played was as the caretakers. The focus on conquering one particular opponent was enjoyable, and they're sufficiently more powerful than their human neighbors that I can afford to focus this completely. I ruled over most of the humans, defeated my enemies, then summoned my people to exterminate the vermin!

[Earwicker]

I usually go for the "surprise" route also but do occasionally choose to dictate the factions so I can leave the aliens out.
1. The choice among the 12 human factions leaves enough variation for interesting games.
2. Powerful early: if they start too close to human AI factions, those are quickly decimated (if not eliminated entirely).
3. Powerful early, and always will seek a fight: if they start near me, they can wreak some havoc but their incursion is usually to my benefit. They start off with techs I could steal and use (all of which are off my beelines). They send ogres into battle when they shouldn't risk them. Their advantage is quickly gone.
4. They will never surrender and submit, and even being at peace gives you no commerce advantage.
5. Captured bases become size 1. Although I do like buying their escape pods and giving the dinky bases to submissives . . .

Okay, so maybe they aren't so bad to have around, but Yang troubles me a lot more for a lot longer than does Marr.

Anyway, my favorite combinations are ones that make for the most challenge - so it depends upon who I am.

Domai - I want researchers to challenge me for SP's, and aggressive growth factions to challenge me for land. So put in Zak, Aki, Yang, Lal, and Pirates, plus either Spartans or Lords.

Roze - I want mostly aggressive non-researchers so that I can't get too lazy about my probe actions (and so I can't get too risky about angering all of them at once). Domai, Lords, Yang, Pirates. Probably get the Borg in their to challenge me for tech. Not the Univ.

Others later when I get a chance. Gotta roll . . .

[Method]

i've played 4 games i think since having SMAX. the first one was only new factions, and was a sort of test as the borgs that only lasted until 2200 i think. i havn't played them since. and fungboy conquered domai and marr in that time.

next game was the pirates and i did all crossfire factions again. the aliens pissed me off so much i havn't played with them since. their aggression took me by surprise, but x6res rovers (swiftly followed by several x empath shard choppers) were enough to pound the sh*t out of h'minee and marr just took waay to long because he had about 6 very small continents. i pacted with roze and aki, eliminated the bugs, submitted fungboy, and fungal missled the crap out of domai (funny because usually in that situation the AI will go green but domai can't! haha!) and transcended in 2370 or something.

i was the pirates again, next time. and this is the combination i have been using since. 2 aggressive factions (except miriam or the bugs. im afraid of them.) santiago yang or fungboy, and the rest researchers. santiago yang morgan aki roze and lal were a good combination.

next i did a custom faction from the netnode replicants, which were a bit overpowered cuz you could pop boom them in green . domai gaia santiago fungboy aki morgan. worked fine but fungboy is still a pain in the ass.

current game another fac from networknode, the bree +++planet --growth alien sea faction. fungboy roze aki santiago morgan gaia. aki is really annoying cuz she wont give me her tech, and fungboy is too powerful. the AI plays him well. +++++planet is amazing but fungboy finally learned how to use trance/res all i have is worms! what will i do?

i havn't played with or as zak for a while. im kinda afraid to because he's really good. another customfac from the netnode which i'm playing next Gen-X is just UoP on steroids. +++research --probe -morale. oooh such fun.


SPAM! SPAM SPAM SPAM!

(someone whispers in his ear)

what? you don't get a higher post count for writing SPAM on every post? well son of a bit....

[Admiral]

I usually just pick random factions, though the last few games I have played 3 gaia 4 fungboy. Funny that even when you have the same agenda and SE choices the AI still hates you.

[RedFred]

I usually go random factions. But I agree that your opponents really set the flavour of the whole game. Games with AI Zak and Aki will finish quicker because of the quick tech you can get off them. Games with the AI Drones will mean that you have to work harder to capture your fair share of early SPs. Games with AI Sven will mean an annoying amount of bases just offshore of your continent. Sven always seems to turn on me no matter how nice I am. Games with the AI Progenitors mean that you can expect to be at war for significant portions of the game...

[Mr. President]

I finished off the game I was talking about in the initial post with a diplomatic victory. Morgan was a Pact Brother because I used Free Market, Zakharov was afraid of me, and the Cult surrendered. Now I'm playing as the Usurpers against all humans. I managed to eradicate the Free Drones and enslave the Gaians, Pirates, Morganites, and Cyborgs. The Spartans have taken over a whole large continent, and they're starting to turn hostile. The game is going to get nasty very soon.