PBEM Tournament announcements and discussion

[korn469]

Enigma and everybody else

i agree with your point that a 2 against one will almost always end up with the coallition beating the loner. however if the game is unbalanced in favored of the UoP and everybody knows it then it won't be fun or challenging to play. If it comes down to where in every game that a person plays the UoP they will get double teamed just because they are the UoP destroys the fun of the tournament. Diplomacy should be based more on actual game need than on "hey that guy is the UoP lets rush him off the board!"

so that means we need to change some things to try and make as balanced as a map as possible. Game settings and map design have a significant impact on overall game balance.

Enigma, i also think that you are overrating fundy and underestimating Free Market. Remember that probe morale increases with techs like presentient algorithm, and all of those early techs are all on the way to fusion, none of them are on the way to tree farms. So UoP probe morale will get a boost from that...and one probe infantry team can stop one probe foil, which are expensive...and ferrying probe teams by transport foils is problematic. You will have to be in a dominant position to exploit probe teams, and the UoP is most likely to be in that position. Nobody running fundy is going to beat the UoP, unless their partner is Morgan and Morgan is feeding them a steady diet of technology...but that comes back to the fact that a 2v1 is going to beat the UoP anyways.

I agree that there should be unity pods in the ocean and on the North and south continants, but i still think that the north and south continants needs improvement, the person who starts right under the monsoon jungle has a huge advantage over the player who starts under any of the other land forms...

i also completely disagree with your following statement

quote: And here is where I would like to do a comparison, between a faction running FM/Dem and Yang running Pol Sta/planned. The FM Dem player would have a hell of a time defending their expansion because they could not shuttle units across the sea without huge drone problems. Having no bonus minerals at new bases would make it take much much longer for those new bases to make MORE bases on the continent they are on. Meanwhile low support means that they would have a hard time terraforming the continent. And the planet rating would mean that they would frequently lose production and units to native life forms, especially IoD's. And not being able to police the new bases would hurt production even more. Meanwhile Yang would have a breeze expanding. Not a single drone gets excited when he transports his military across the ocean. His bases grow at an exponential rate with +3 growth and +2 industry. Yang has several defense/police units at each base, and not losing any minerals to support. Although IoD's are still an annoyance at they can still give him cash. His new bases immediatley start building something new since their first person is a worker, not a drone, due to police. As I think I have shown Dem/FM already penalizes your expansion enough. In the above scenario Yang can expand like crazy while the pacifist player is fiddling around building rec commons and losing minerals to support.

ok if i'm Lal and your Yang in this tournament i do not think Yang's police state/planned will be overwhelming...

a FM player doesn't have to have huge drone problems when they ferry units across the sea...a little bit of drone management can make it no problem at all, it is only a turn or so between your landmass and the north or the south, and if you build a sea colony as a way point then your troops would still be inside of your territory when you move them by sea, but still airpower and MMI dominated, your drop troops can strike by around 2130 in this tournament...also there is such a thing as a poor man's punishment sphere...take any size one base have a crawler convoy minerals back to it, turn the person into a specialist, and then base your offensive force from that base, you could easily base five offensive units out of that base and have no drone problems with your army

second point about expansion is that you can fit like 12-15 bases on your main continant and if you manage them properly they will give you a good economic base to work from...bonus minerals hurt but you won't swith to democratic until after 2115 and by that time you will have already gotten a fairly good number of expansions up and running

Yang can grow at an exponential rate, but everybody besides Yang and Morgan can pop boom with ease...Yang cannot pop boom in SMAC 4.0 without eudimonic and in SMACX 2.0 he needs a golden age to pop boom...democratic players already have +2 growth and if they go planned instead of Free Market for short population/industry bursts then they can really out do Yang...also on librarian drones are that big of a deal, especially if you are the UoP and build the VW...unless you really have lots of bases you won't get drones caused by inefficency and with either the HGP, VW or PT you will never have bases that start with drones, at least not in this tournament

in the above scenario, instead of setting around twiddling my fingers i am researching air power and i'm gearing up to bomb the hive off the face of the map...and you can expand like crazy in Free Market you just need the right tools to do it with, and if worse comes to worse try using 20% psych

In this tournament i feel that we should try to keep it as official as possible and should not change any of the alpha text...no Morgan get 10 times the amount of energy the other players have or anything else to that effect we should keep the alpha and the faction texts exactly as they are and balance the map accordingly

airpower is the name of the tournament so far and the 2v1 is king, so i feel that the map needs an overhaul, one that would give increase the bite of an early conquest but wouldn't turn the game into rushfest2000, one that would decrease the signifigance of air power slightly and would not make MMI the game ending tech...also unity pods needs to be reigned in some especially on a players main landmass

korn469

[Tau Ceti]

Well, it is time to build some consensus here...

Since the new scoring system seems to have met with approval, except by korn469, I think I will implement it as outlined above, but making the AC score of your victories the primary tiebreaker.

As for the scenario, these seem to be definites:

1. Increase the distance between islands, probably so there are at least 10 squares between the tips. This will mean that sea bases are required as staging points for a drop invasion, which comes at an extra cost. Sea bases are also more vulnerable than other bases, and since you cannot drop units into seabases (even your own), they will have to be transported there. This will slow down the drop strategy.

2. Only a few Unity Pods on the player islands, and somewhat fewer elsewhere.

Some suggestions, which will probably be implemented unless there are protests:

3. Keep the polar continents the same size, but reduce the size of the jungle, the only really unbalancing landmark. Currently it is far too large.

4. I like korn469's starting tech suggestion. But I want to stop the University from running Free Market from day one, which would still be possible if their opponents were Morgan or the Drones. To stop this, we could simply add the additional rule that the University is not allowed to choose Industrial Economics as its bonus tech.

More discussion needed on these things:

5. Should we give Unity Foils to the players?

6. The separator islands - should they stay as they are? Be shortened a bit because of the greater separation between the islands? Be removed entirely, making amphibious assaults a more realistic option?

7. Should we reduce the number of extra starting units? If so, by how much?

Thanks for your input so far, and keep the suggestions coming, folks!

[korn469]

Tau Ceti

scoring system sounds fine i was just offering a suggestion

but as to the points you brought up

1. i agree, but i would also suggest that you also increase the distance between the starting landmasses and the poles

2. i agree completely!

3. i agree completely!

4. i agree with everything except for limiting the tech that the UoP can pick...Morgan can keep up with the UoP in technology and if there ever was a faction that could go toe to toe with the UoP it's the drones, dem/planned/wealth is just scary...pop booms and super industry!

5. i think the player should get two unity foils...one on each side of their land mass

6. what if you replaced the seperator strip of land with a fungus zone which would slow amphibious assults but not make them imossible, and it would give the players a good spot to hide ships in, if there are ten spaces between main landmasses maybe the fungus strips could be three spaces wide

7. i would say reduce the number of starting units by one or two formers, leave all the other units alone

korn469

[Pagan[CyC]]

There is one problem I have noticed that has not yet been mentioned: A faction that has the capability to view an opponent's city via F4 can also determine exactly where it is on the map. All one needs to do is match the 21 squares of the city with the corresponding squares on the map. This is trivial for cities on the main islands, and only requires a look at the scenario file to find the matching geography in the polar regions.

Each colony pod at start gives the UoP a 1 tech/turn advantage as soon as the city is founded. Would the significance of this be increased by reducing the number of techs at the start since each tech would cost fewer research points?

The Spartan and Believer advantages are lost on an island map. The protection provided by an island and the knowledge of opponent start location reduces the need for normal defenses early on, tilting the advantage towards builders.

I agree with Steve Draper's comments regarding accelerated start. I also prefer random maps. Are there others who would like the option to play unaccelerated random map games within the tournament?

[korn469]

Pagan[CyC]

i'm not positive and somebody will have to check this out but i think that starting techs do not count against your tech cost...so if you started with 60 techs it would cost the same to research the 61st tech as what it would cost to research the first tech if you started the game with zero techs...like i said i'm not positive but i'm pretty sure that is how it works

korn469

[Paul]

Korn, I agree with you #6. Besides, it would also make it more difficult to use drop troops because you can no longer build a land base on the strip to serve as a staging area for drop troops.

[EternalSpark]

Question -

How are atrocities handled in the tourny? Like, if I, as the Hive, oblits a morgan base, for the sole purpose of creating some drama and stuff - will this do something to my game?

[Tau Ceti]

There are no extra penalties associated with committing atrocities. You will have sanctions imposed on you of course; the usual rules are in effect. But it does not affect your tournament score in any way.

Other matters:
I also like korn469's ideas 1 and 6... any further opinions? As for no. 4, I am worried that the University will still have MMI before the Drones can get anywhere near Democratic/Planned/Wealth. The 10-year research disadvantage was not designed to take into account an accelerated start/Free Market University competitor. And I do not think Morgan will be able to overtake the University's initial advantage. If they both have to research IndEco first, that makes it more fair, in my opinion.

[Garth Vader]

I don't think atrocities are handled any different than the regular game. If you oblit an enemy base they will not like you and the third player may not like you either.

I know it has been suggested to keep as close to the original as possible, but the easiest solution to a lot of the inequities would be to triple the cost of planes and choppers. When I got air power I was able to very quickly build 10+ X-missle jets and obliterate enough enemy cities to slow their research so they wouldn't get air power, or if they did, not have the industry to match me. If air units were much more expensive they would be more of a luxury and not the core of your military.

I am worried about moving the continents too far apart as that would almost eliminate all momentum factions from having a chance to win.

[TigToad]

Well, if we are changing the conditions of the tournament, I say we go all the way... and I know this idea isn't going to go over well.

First off, scrap the islands all together. Starting on an island is just silly. It benefits the tech factions incredibly.

If we were to do it my way, we'd up the players per game from 3 to 4. We'd play on the normal map of planet (this was the map the game came with as a 'balanced' map). We'd keep the other 3 computer factions in the game. A complaint was made that computer factions are too easy to get to submit, but hey, thats part of the game. Taking out the other factions to me is the same as modifying the alpha.txt file.

Also, limit the ammount of games people can play to two. One Smac and one Smac/X. Smac games are the original 7 factions. SmaX games are the 7 new factions, humans can't play progenitors and this way no one has to play Cha-Dawn. (Probes, drones, cybernetics, and pirates are all popular factions). Everyone starts with what they start with, no one is unfairly limited. Also, upping the number of players to four, while slowing down the tournament, does keep the 2-1 thing from happening quite as bad.

Of course one person is going to gain an edge over another when they start near the Uranium flats or Monsoon jungle or whatever, but with random starts, etc it becomes a game of smac and even if you have air power first you don't necessarily know what direction to build in to kill your arch enemy. I think the tech tree would get expanded in as more techs would be needed to win, the momentum players could launch ground wars to take advantage of their bonuses, and the game maintains a good ammount of diplomacy. Also, the games would be much much easier to start up.

Finally, how to decide who gets what faction or who plays whom? Thats easy, too.. you set a time limit for sign ups, maybe April 15th or 20th... you start all games the same day... you know everyone who is playing, you can do it nice and random. Tau's done a great job running and I'd trust him to draw random lots. Draw one player, look at their faction preference list (4 long obviously), they get first choice.. draw second player, etc.

As soon as those 4 are drawn move on to game 2... game 3.. etc.

The current tournament games would become 'for fun' games as they wouldn't mean anything. But we'd have obvious winners... moving through multiple rounds.

There is luck in any tournament based system I've ever participated in. Sometimes its just the luck of the draw as it would be here.. if I get paired up against Tau and Korn in a game, personally, I'd be excited to play that game instead of pissed that I'm probably going to lose the tournament.

Just my 74 cents.

TigToad

PS_and for goodness sake lets up the difficulty to at least thinker if not transcend..we're trying to find the best player--and all of us play our normal games at transcend anyway.
[This message has been edited by TigToad (edited March 31, 2000).]

[korn469]

tau ceti

if we are going to keep the present system then here are my specific ideas on how to balance out the map...

1. add in four extra sea squares between landmasses, place them right beside the current landmass, these would be vertical areas, this would increase the closest point between landmasses from 4 sea squares to 8, out of drop range and just barely in land of bombers...this would decrease the importance of airpower an MMI

2. add in one horizontal strip of sea squares between each of the poles

3. remove the land strip and instead pur in a three square wide strip of sea fungus, and make this fungal barrier be over top of an ocean trench, like the black deep water you know

4. give each faction two unity foils one would be on the east side of the land mass the other would be on the west side

5. leave the number of land starting units the same except change one of the scout patrols to a scout rover, and for the spartans change two of the scout patrols to scout rovers...for the data angels change one of the scout patrols to a probe team

6. decrease the number of unity pods on the main land from 22 to 7

7. increase difficulty to thinker

8. and here is something that might help out with balancing the drones and the believers...what if you changed the starting year from 2101 to 2106 would that mean that those two factions would then just have a five year no research penalty? if that is still too much of a penalty then we could change it the starting year to 2111 so they wouldn't have the 0 year tech penalty...i think that would work but i'm not sure

or

we could go with tigtoad's suggestion

korn469

[Symil]

I really second Mis's move for more maps. I'm in this for the opponents, and the structure. Kudos to TauCeti for doing well on both accounts. I have a SMAC & a SMACx game running for variety, and I still get them confused. It would be nice if I could begin more on different maps.

As for the tournament, I do not think it will ever end. It is more of a rating on the current abilities of everyone playing.

[EternalSpark]

quote: PS_and for goodness sake lets up the difficulty to at least thinker if not transcend..we're trying to find the best player--and all of us play our normal games at transcend anyway.

GOD NO! Speak for yourself! Upping the difficulty will choke this tourny, cuz I for one don't play Transcend/Thinker... I think the Difficulty is BEST where it is... unless you are WANTING nobody else joining. VERY bad idea. VERY BAD.

-ES-
It prolly will be upped, and my and my bro can't play then... oh well... I thought this tournement was for fun... I guess its not that way
[This message has been edited by EternalSpark (edited March 31, 2000).]

[Misotu]

I like Tig's proposal to use the map of Planet and random starting locations for SMAC games. For SMACX, that might be more difficult because it's a huge disadvantage to start close to an alien faction. On the other hand, maybe that's where the luck factor comes in.

I still think we could use more maps, although I appreciate that this would be a lot more time-consuming. Maybe we could add random maps, no accelerated start, into the mix as was proposed earlier. If some people wanted to play only the tournament map or map of Planet, they could choose to do this.

I would be disappointed if the number of games were limited to two. Several of the games I'm playing are a turn a day or less, and I have a lot of time to kill right now.

If I can only play two games and have to draw lots for factions, I could end up playing just two measly turns a day, both with factions I either haven't played at all, or really don't want to play. I appreciate this would be a test of a real player - but I'd like to have fun too!

I like Tig's idea of expanding from three to four players in some/all games - one of the most interesting things about multiplayer for me so far has been co-operating within a pact. With four players, you stand a good chance of a 2-2 battle, which would add an interesting slant to the game. Course, it would slow the games down which is another reason not to limit the number of games to two.

I think I've seen several people suggesting that we'd need multiple tournaments for different maps or something, but I don't really see this. A game is a game. You still have to beat the other players, whatever the conditions. If AC score/year of victory don't count in the scoring, then I don't really see why playing various maps/starting conditions within the same tournament should be a problem?

I suppose this is theoretically about finding the best player, but in practice I don't really see that happening. To get that result, you really need more of a knock-out tournament, which would limit the fun for those of us who'd be crushed in round one

I must admit, I'm playing for the following reasons (in priority order):
- for the fun of it,
- to learn how to play better
- because it's well-organised and ...
- there's a bit of competition thrown in to spice things up.

Maybe if I were a seriously good player I'd feel more strongly about the scoring and getting the thing really balanced. But you know, once the results start to come through, it'll be easy to see who the best players are. Provided the results are posted in a played-won-lost format, it won't be too hard to spot the people who win a lot more than they lose. Would it be possible to get a permanent link to the results on this forum (like the FAQ link), rather than having to keep updating a thread?

Anyway, I still vote more maps, choice of factions and plenty of games

[Garth Vader]

I also think the map of planet or random maps would be good.

I for one don't care if there is any rankings. I started playing to experience a MP game and to see how well I could stack up against other people and to learn different techniques of playing.

I would have no problem with moving difficulty to thinker, that's what I play my SP games on, I haven't tried a transcend yet.