Do You Ever Just Play A Mindless Game Of SMAC

[Lucidor]

Originally posted by Spacecow
I just can't play a mean game. I even tried to be completely evil once. I started as Yang, figuring I'd gather up enough tech to gain proper infamy all at once, and then I'd just go around using PS/Planned/Power with small hordes of nerve gassable rovers and just one day up and obliterate whatever factions were handy, regardless of diplomatic status with them. If possible, I'd nerve staple whenever possible (even just for the heck of it) if I hadn't installed the required punishment sphere in that city yet. I think I ended up doing the completely opposite thing and got diplomatic victory in the end. Silly me... One day I'll play an evil game... really...

Being a scheeming, totally unscrupulous Miriam could be fun... I backstab for the Lord! Hallelujah!

[Emvepe]

Reminds me of the game I just completed(MY VERY FIRST). PBs EVERYWHERE.. I didn't even realise what I was doing wrong until after :P Oh yah and I became planetary governer and flooded the world!

[Main_Brain]

I dunno it seems that the AI takes over your playstyle..
I never Nuked except in my First Game and guess what the Ai doesnt too
*Lives in Happy MainBrainLand*

[Method]

the AI wont PB or nerve gas unless you've dont it to them or the charter's repealed. oh they'll build them, but they'll never launch them.

[Anodyne]

Originally posted by Lucidor
I sometimes just roleplay a little... Not wanting to exterminate a pet faction, or perhaps not wanting to ally with the Hive... You know - play as if I was a character from the game, not just some computer nerd.

I do that quite often, too.

[Clear Skies]

I sometimes just go in for mindless extermination - often in the endgame, when I'm bored and can't be bothered micromanaging a Vendetta. For example, in the last I was running up towards the Ascent, so when Aki declared Vendetta (for an emotionless cyborg she sure as hell hates Eudaimonia) I just built a whole fleet of sea probes and bought off every single one of her bases (they were all either coastal or sea). Then when Roze declared Vendetta (yeesh, what is it with these factions, you get a little way ahead and they all hate you...) I couldn't be *rs*d. Called up the Council, paid Lal and Zak roughly 10000 credits each to help me revoke the UN charter, then slammed 2 PBs right into the middle of Roze.
Then I got really really irritated with Zak. You see, he'd been building mag tubes all around University Base, and his Formers just kept moving around and around, over and over the same tubes again and again. It took ages for them to finally stop, and turns were just getting too too long. I renounced the submissive pact and he promptly declared war (I was running Power, which he hates). I PB'ed him to the edge of oblivion before I finished the Ascent.

Sometimes you just have to wind up and give that damn stupid AI a good hard kick up the bum.

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by TKG
the AI wont PB or nerve gas unless you've dont it to them or the charter's repealed. oh they'll build them, but they'll never launch them.

Absoutely not true with respect to PBs!!!

[Clear Skies]

Originally posted by Mongoose
Absoutely not true with respect to PBs!!!

Seconded! That evil backstabbing treehugging cow PB'ed me while the UN Charter was still in place!
OK, so we were already at Vendetta and the only two other remaining factions were my submissives, so she didn't have much to lose...and I'd obliterated one of her bases, but to obliterate SEVEN of mine?

Gah. Evil Gaian witch.

[The Mad Monk]

I always roleplay all of my SMAC games -- which can be a challenge if I randomize the leaders and don't know what to expect from who.

I have adopted a new style for my CivIII games, however: I call it the "blatent cheating" style.

CivIII is soooooo much more fun, now...

[The Bloody Baro]

I finally played my first mind-less game of Smac. I PBed miriam who was a pact sister of Yang. SO yang pops up and says whyed you PB Miriam?!!? If I could have I would have loved to said to make room for more sea coloines!

[Blake]

How about playing a game as the Data Angels, managing to form a pact with 5/6 factions, then when the first sunspots come along gleefully nervegassing the Gaians off the face of the planet and obliterating any captured bases.

After sunspots: Gaians? What Gaians? There were never any Gaians on my continent. I don't know what you are talking about....

[Clear Skies]

Originally posted by Blake
How about playing a game as the Data Angels, managing to form a pact with 5/6 factions, then when the first sunspots come along gleefully nervegassing the Gaians off the face of the planet and obliterating any captured bases.

After sunspots: Gaians? What Gaians? There were never any Gaians on my continent. I don't know what you are talking about....

Rofl! I almost fell off my chair reading this...
I do occasionally use sunspots to hide atrocities, but usually only nerve stapling. Those drones don't half annoy me...
One atrocity I rarely, if ever, commit is base obliteration. I think I've only ever done it twice. Stapling, however, I do do quite often. In one game I got the Cloning Vats ages before the Telepathic Matrix, and got so pissed at the number of drone riot messages I got I ended up collecting 150 years worth of economic sanctions against me. Yum.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Clear Skies

One atrocity I rarely, if ever, commit is base obliteration. I think I've only ever done it twice. Stapling, however, I do do quite often. In one game I got the Cloning Vats ages before the Telepathic Matrix, and got so pissed at the number of drone riot messages I got I ended up collecting 150 years worth of economic sanctions against me. Yum.

I really never use attrocities. Base obliteration is certainly the most tempting. I tend to use the benign neglect method of reducing captured bases, but even this fairly simple method involves a regretable amount of micromanagemet. Basicly if I don't need the base as a military production center or airbase I just turn the entire population into specialists, sell off the improvements and produce colony pods to reduce the population. This produces some cash, some colony pods if you can use them, and reduces the chance of drone riots to zero.

One particular case where I am extremely tempted to obliterate a base is where an enemy base is within air range of my empire, but I don't want to take and hold it. This often happens across a strait, where capturing the base will put me on the enemy continent amongst numerous enemy ground forces. I sometimes try to court destruction in a small base by ridding myself of the perimiter defense and filling a small base with sacrificial infantry in the hopes that the AI will destroy the base in the counterattack. It's all a bunch of work whether I defend the base or try to arrange it's destruction. Smoking the base sure cuts down on it.

The fungal missles are a good tool to cripple an AI rival if you have the production and just can't be bothered to capture and administer their bases. The AI just can't deal with this effectively. Probe teams are another useful weapon for manipulating the AI, especially if you can play one against the other. This is chancy, but it can be really effective for the expense. The amusement value alone can make this worth it.

[Clear Skies]

Can be irritating though - at higher levels, probe-induced Vendettas are often permanent, which can prove annoying. I like being able to mediate peace in a second - especially in those massive 100+year wars that've been raging wildly. Call up someone and say 'please make peace' and they basically go 'OK, but only cos I like you'.
Clever AI....

[Blake]

I only do atrocities in mindless games of SMAX, usually they dont pay off between reputation, sanctions and ofcourse ecodamage.

Well, usually in the late game (should a game drag on that long vs enhanced AI's) I try to launch atleast one planetbuster to break the monotony, this generally involves repealing the charter and nuking the crap out a faction that has been annoying me.

Once I also played a mindless game as Ursuper, where my goal wasn't to conquer all the other factions, but instead act as ultimate peacekeeper (Conqurer Marr the Peacekeeper ). I built a small, powerfull empire and used Police/Free Market. I then proceeded to run numerous peacekeeping campaigns which would generally involve destroying the entire military of another faction, but never capturing a base, I got to use a lot of ships because it was the only way to extent my power with my strict non-expansion and non-capturing policy. The ships eventually got replaced by orbital insertions and gravships, yet another aspect I hadn't played with much before.

Domai got eradicated early but I liberated him with a probe team and proceeded to defend his fledging empire as part of my peacekeeping, the real amusing part is because I was deliberately not capturing bases and instead just emptying them my little pet Domai eventually captured virtually all the bases on the map. From locked in a Fun Sphere to world domination

I won by ET Phone Home victory and had only captured a single base (altough I had destroyed numerous size-1 bases). Domai controlled much more of the world than me.

Total nonsense, but one of the most fun games I've ever played.