Random Events - Do you activate them? - Do you notice them?

[Earwicker]

I almost always play with Randoms "on", but I prefer the builder style - to which it is most accustomed. Most of the time, I give captured bases away to submissives (especially late in the game), so the risk factor isn't as great that the one missing Node will cost half my research.

It also trains me to spread out SP development just in case that asteroid comes smashing down. It is common that my SSC isn't HQ but one very close by. Never seen an asteroid yet, though [touches wood] - what is the radius of destruction?

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Earwicker:

what is the radius of destruction?

I'm not absolutely sure, but an asteroid creates a normal crater which is a quadratic area of 7x7 tiles, which I checked from a "Garland Crater" which was there from the beginning. I think, this is also the radius of destruction. Bad news for true ICSlers who can loose up to five cities. OK, for true ICSlers this is <5% of the cities.

When this happened to me, I think I had some earthquakes afterwards, i. e. tectonic movements which washed some of the terraformed tiles, and regularly changed the path of rivers, until about ten turns after the strike. But this also might be due to a rise of sea level which I tried to counter by a solar shade, the tiles I got washed had a height of 10 m.

[vitamin j]

I've been asteroided twice in SP games. Both times I was off to a very good start, far ahead of the closest AI competitor. I mostly just wanted to echo whoever mentioned the not-quite-randomness of the strike. Both times it happened, I used the autosave to go back to various turns. But the strike would come in the same year it had happened originally, every time.

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by vitamin j:

I used the autosave to go back to various turns. But the strike I used the autosave to go back to various turns. But the strike would come in the same year it had happened originally, every time.

Tried to do the same. It was also reproducible. In year 2312, as I mentioned earlier.

[fluffy]

I wonder if there is a threshold for 'attractiveness for asteroid hit'?

I make a point of never building more than 1 SP in a base nowadays, and haven't seen a single asteroid for months.

Anyone had an asteroid strike with a base with less than 3 SPs in it?

[T-hawk]

There's a number of conditions that need to be met. Going off memory here:

1. The player must be Unsurpassed on the power graph.

2. The player must have caused at least one fungal bloom of eco-damage.

3. The asteroid selects a base, which is the player's best base other than the HQ.

This happens 20 years before the event.

4. At the time of the event, if there is enough room for the asteroid to strike this base and leave a crater entirely on land, it will do so. Otherwise, you get an undersea volcano erupting.

I've never actually experienced an asteroid hit myself, probably because I play smaller maps and never have my best city landlocked to such a degree.

[RedFred]

No, there is no special asteriod magic to the year 2312. The second time I was hit was over 100 years before that. As well, I went back to a .sav five years prior and did some testing. Although I was never able to avoid the strike, by playing differently I was able to alter the year I was hit by several years.

[Earwicker]

Originally posted by T-hawk
4. At the time of the event, if there is enough room for the asteroid to strike this base and leave a crater entirely on land, it will do so. Otherwise, you get an undersea volcano erupting.

Reeeeaalllllly? Hmmmm. That explains a lot of things. I have gotten the volcano in almost every random-events game. Fortunately, it has always appeared on the other side of Planet and never caused me any trouble. I never have a landlocked HQ because sea squares are so good for energy.

[Adalbertus]

3. The asteroid selects a base, which is the player's best base other than the HQ.

Disagree. It hit my HQ.

[gwillybj]

life is one long random event

To butcher one of Corazon Santiago's statements:

"Life has been a random event from the beginning of time, and each new frontier has brought new ways and new places to die , and new random events. Why should the future be different?"

Random Events on .