Fastest transcend on a huge map?

[Petek]

Re: So what are the exact conditions ?

Originally posted by zsozso


The best was 67 turns. There was an old thread about it on this forum, not sure if it still exists, though.

Here it is, a classic thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7334&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

[Mongoose]

This thread was dealing with HUGE maps. It's not right to throw in tiny map discussions.

[MariOne]

< rocks down from chair >

Zsozso posted!
Welcome back, what brought you here again?
Did we "evocate" you by talking of your records?
BTW, I wasn't following the matter closely at the time (nor ever did), so I wasn't aware until now of David Byron's record...

For all who happened to have praised my committment in game details, and those who hated my longwinded posts... It's probably just because they were not here at Apolyton SMAC gloden age: I'm just a SMAC accountant in the face of zsozso and his likes, whose skills were and are way over my head.

I was never actually into it, but I think that even in my best times I'd hardly could have managed all those dedicated strategies and even the "mild" challenge accomplishments, like the 0FOCC, or the Nomad one, leave me in awe.

___
PS: if you use the Lens icon in his post (Find more posts by zsozso), you'll see that he came back to post on the challenge subjects after a 22 months hiatus!

PPS: you'll see in the thread that Petek scooped up, that indeed the "Fastest" record was allowed *anything* that did not involve alteration of the original files or exploiting the lamest bugs.
Playing on Citizen not much for the drone absence, but for the faster research parameter and of course for being able to produce pods at b4 getting a base to size 2 and keeping it was a smart thing.
Of course, this is the general frame. Then one might argue - OK you found the settings allowing for the fastes, let's try now to set a record withouth THIS or THAT "too" peculiar setting.
For instance, if you want to set the fastest Huge record you might give it at try at Citizen level. If you get the record there, notwithstanding that it would be an astounding accomplishemnt as zsozso pointed in the linked thread, you might be left a little unsatisfied/unfulfilled and say "But, what if we also set a Transcendent level constraint".
On Huge maps sometime might pass before you meet other factions, and making them submissive or cooperative might require a bigger military initial investment, which you might not have time enough to make it rewarding. That is to say that on Huge, Transcend level might actually be more "difficult" as the "better AI" tradeoff for level restraints could not be as effective as on tiny maps.
BTW, don't forget that in SMAC there is still the maintenance bug, whcih has been fixed in SMAX only.

[zsozso]

Originally posted by MariOne
< rocks down from chair >

Zsozso posted!
Welcome back, what brought you here again?
Did we "evocate" you by talking of your records?
BTW, I wasn't following the matter closely at the time (nor ever did), so I wasn't aware until now of David Byron's record...

Its a nice feeling that people still remember me...
I had to leave smac because It was getting way too addictive to me and I wasn't concentrating enough on other matters of life (like my kids or running my software company). After this 22 months break, I still love smac and intend to play and post a little again - although not as actively and not with such devotion as before.

David's record was worth mentioning not only because he deserves the credit, but also because it is a radically different strategy (his moth-style) which works amazingly well despites its simplicity in all kinds of situations.
I think that's the way to do the huge map fast-transcend as well. There it will beat the submissive-AI technique with even higher margin.

Originally posted by MariOne
PPS: you'll see in the thread that Petek scooped up, that indeed the "Fastest" record was allowed *anything* that did not involve alteration of the original files or exploiting the lamest bugs.
Playing on Citizen not much for the drone absence, but for the faster research parameter and of course for being able to produce pods at b4 getting a base to size 2 and keeping it was a smart thing.

I aggree, that the "clean" challenge is to use whatever legal settings to achieve the absolute fastest transcend. In a way, it is part of the challenge to find what settings, options will allow the fastest result. So, the "do it on huge map" is a further restriction, just like there were variants on the OCC to make it more difficult. That is why I suggest to set up a precise set of constraints.

Other questions that come into mind:
1. SMAC or SMAX ? What faction choices are allowed in SMAX ? I.e. can I use, say 3-4 University factions on tha AI (for submissive pacts), or let's say 6 pirates on a mainly land map to keep more territory for myself?

2. How about pods ? If you really want to test skills and not luck, maybe it should be played without Unity pod scattering - that would certainly furhter stretch the time.

3. How about random events? Just to eliminate bad luck too, I would suggest turning them off.

4. One could make further restrictions to make it tougher: e.g. mainly ocean, not allowed to use submissive pacts etc.

The bottomline is: every rule-set you choose will define a slightly different challenge and some may alter what is the best strategy to do it.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Zso,

You've certainly been missed my friend. It certainly does my heart good to hear your alive and kicking and for that matter still SMACing.

By the by I can certainly sympathize with the addiction and interruption to Real life. I had to break from it for a bit as well, but for now I seem to have it at least under control.

Og

By the by for a nice change of pace forum with lots of SMAC stuff check out Civgaming.net.

[Hendrik]

Zso-
You seem to be the first person to take up the challenge, the rules haven't really been defined yet. 2 out of 2 games so far have been played without the use of submissive pacts, Sik and I started this discussion to find what faction/strategy was the fastest for play. As far as UofP clones... the focus in this game is on doing the research yourself. Any combination of single factions bar UofP is good.

If this starts getting competitive we might introduce no random events/ no pod scattering, but right now it isn't highly competitive.. there are 3 people who have posted stuff in the archaic build thread, and you here. It is ok to play with pods and random events.

And that is the only challenge there is... just being as fast as possible. I could improve upon the save I posted here by not researching unified field theory.

If this gets REALLY competitive we should start using the same mapset without unity pods, and have the AI be far away from the human player.

Nice to see you back!

[Capt Dizle]

We used to do these fast transcends challenges all the time. Surely the the threads are still around.

We would play the same map from a common save.

I can't remember the fastest times because each game was different and we were looking to beat each other not establish a benchmark.

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Hendrik
there are 3 people who have posted stuff in the archaic build thread,

Er....I believe it was the *Sikander* build thread. ^^;;

Which reminds me, I need to hurry up and finish a few more turns. After you caught up with me comparing our positions in my last save, I went and had my research spike thanks to facility rushing.

[CEO Aaron]

I for one, recommend weaning yourself from the 'real life' addiction, it can really cut into your game time if you let it get out of hand. :P

[Archaic]

It's not "real life" addiction actually. It's something far far worse.......something I won't dare mention here for risk of killing my rep. ^^;

[zsozso]

Aaron, I like your angle on the problem, i.e. 'real life' addiction

Anyway I just wanted to indicate here, that I have started to play this challenge and will report the progress in the thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74735

Options, settings and starting strategy is described there.

[zsozso]

I have transcended in year 2193 (i.e. game completed in 2192, hitting turn complete gives you the trancending end of game). I have attached saves every 10 turns, plus the last one just before completion in the above thread.

In summary, it could have done done a bit faster, because I made a number of strategic mistakes and I was getting too bored and lazy to do the finest micromanagement. The reason is that it is extremely tedious to play this kind of game on huge map. Around 100 bases and 100 formers to micomanage for maximum efficiency each turn ::

Note, it was citizen level, now I'm going to try on transcend level.

[Capt Dizle]

Well, you have set the standard for citizen. Congradulations. Be welcomed to play from Hendrick's position for comparision if you like.

SMAC ON.

[MariOne]

I wonder...
You played the gaians (unless I missed something newer) because of the free (from production AND support) army.

But as this is not a scoring game, you might as well pick Rare if playing with a worm-unfriendly faction.

In the non-intenstive overview with 7 Zaks, I hardly ever built a unit.
At CITIZEN, you don't have Drone problems, you don't have close neioghbors, so I pcould go with all bases unguarded.
If you really meet or spawn the odd worms, you can bear some loss, or build a single Empath Rover for the purpose and get some cash back.
True, without free worms you'll be slower in popping all the pods, and you'll get less cash from fungus-trolling.

But balance this:
With Gaians, you have greater efficiency, but no research boost.
You have 1 extra nut in fungus, but of course you'll restart till you begin on a grassy slope (or even beter in the Jungle), so Zak could do without the extra fungus nut, and Gaians can't switch to FM.
Zak can begin by picking PlaNets and swtich pronto to Planned. On huge the BureauDrones limit won't hit that soon, and he'll benefit from faster growth and faster pod production (at Citizen growth is not a restriction for expansion, but helps increasing production). Only downside will be being unable to unbalance the SE too much, but in the early phases some ec to speed first expansion might be as important as some research turn sacrificed.

So, in summary, I dunno whether hunting money and efficiency is enough to balance faster research, Planned from the start, and FM when convenient.

Anyway, I realised some other benefits of playing at Citizen, that I forgot, the last time I had used it being 4 years ago

- as we said, no Cpod base disbanding
- no SE switches cost
- no retooling penalty
- no prototyping cost (useful for immediately available crawler upgrades)

I wonder, if the format of this "challenge" allows for free switching whenever you have to rush the rare unit, always paying a 2ec/min facility price for them.
After all, this is not forbidden in normal play, it is allowed, with a cost. The waiving of that cost is just a feature of the easiest level, along with the others listed above....
Didn't think to apply that to projects....

I think I could have aimed for 2220/2230, would already be a challenge for me to get below 2200 like zsozso did...
Playing it at higher difficulties will reintroduce the growth/expansion dependence, and will maybe a more usual feeling....

[zsozso]

MariOne, your analysis is correct. I was wrong to choose Gaians. Now I revised my strategy and playing Zak against 3 Zaks and 3 Morgans on transcend level - starting from the jungle. You can see the saves and more details in the other thread. At 2151 I'm at par with the Gaian game despite the transcend level versus citizen.