First SMAC win

[civcop]

I just finished my first complete game and won with a diplomatic victory. Oddly enough, I was the Spartans. Lal and Zak were friends the entire game, I wiped out the Believers, Morgan jumped on the pact bandwagon and Dee Dee (who has the most wonderful voice in the game) was at treaty with me for nearly the entire game (near the end she got all huffy and pouted...don't remember why). At any rate, I took the advice of many here and built a boatload of formers and crawlers and put them all to work. To be honest, when it became apparent that I was unbeatable I put all the formers on auto so I wouldn't have to mess with them. I had PBs at about half of my bases but never had to use them. Just as I started building them, and in the midst of wiping out Miriam's brood, someone (Yang?) called the council to repeal the charter. I was the big cheese and voted it down. Even though I was the only one with PBs at the time and had the greatest military might and best labs, I felt it rather cheap to win that way. So I went old school and eliminated the orange meanies with ground troops (mostly worms). Just thought I'd brag about my win. Yes, it was only on citizen level, but I'm working my way up.

[Method]

generally i find the diplo victory easiest. all you have to do is get everyone into sumbissive pacts except one person (just don't atrocity them or they will defy the council) and you can't lose.

but thats great civcop i didn't even win my first game. i didn't lose though, i just had a habit from Civ II to just play my games into the year 3 million and have about future tech or transcendant thought 200. of course now that i figured out that you lose points the later you go, i just win ASAP if its too late to transcend. actually the first game i didn't get all the SPs was on librarian and at first i couldn't beat talent. since i got the game in january last year i have (slowly) made my way up to thinker after playing librarian for about 3 months.


BTW whats the mandatory retirement on librarian up? 2500 or 2400?

[Wiglaf]

great going, civcop

diplo victory is VERY hard for me on the hardest difficulty level, and since you aren't used to SMAC I'm sure it's just as frustrating for you now! good story, good game.

TKG, try a search if no one responds (I don't know offhand)

[Kassiopeia]

Good luck Civcop, it's great time when the game is rather new and all the techs etc. are novel rather then familiar. *sigh*

The mandatory retirement is MY 2500 for lower levels of play and 2400 for higher.
And TKG, we have equal levels of experience, new to Thinker, game is about 1.5 years old and so on.

[civcop]

Let me clarify

I should clarify. This wasn't my first game, but the first one I took through to completion. I figured that diplo was the easiest victory, especialy on citizen level. The other factions seem too eager to pact with you once you become very powerful. I almost felt bad making demands to the others who held submissive attitudes...it seemed they would do whatever I asked. I also forgot to mention that the Hive began the game right next to me on the continent (large customized map with the lowest water setting--so I wouldn't have to build up a navy and take out all the ocean bases). I eliminated Yang and company first, then started in on Morgan. Morgan saw the light and went from blood truce to pact in short order. Miriam had befriended me and then got all mad for no reason (actually it was because I was pacted with Lal) and pronounced vendetta on me.

BTW, are any other secret project movies purposely funny like the Longevity Vaccine is? That Morgan TV thing cracks me up, especially the South Park-esque part with Morgan and Lal in it.

[Wiglaf]

I think you can find all the videos on your computer and view them outside of SMAC, although it might be a spoiler for you.

not many are very funny, but several, especially later on, are very cool looking and great to see every once in a while.

[T-hawk]

The mandatory retirement is MY 2500 for lower levels of play and 2400 for higher.

That's what the manual says. Alpha.txt says 2600 for the first three difficulties and 2500 for the last three. I'd believe alpha.txt .