Who's the Best?

[Keygen]

As simple as the title says.
Who is the best player in Alpha Centauri?
If there is no such player then which players are considered simply the best?

[Solver]

Keygen,
IMO you need to tell a bi more, if this will be a PBEM, what settings, etc. Or just a poll on who's the best.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Keygen]

No Solver, this is not a game.
I just want to know which players are considered to be the best.

[Googlie]

Keygen:

very difficult question, due to the almost infinite variety of possibilities of winning a smac/x game

e.g.

Best at a One City Challenge? - which faction, and is best defined as "how soon to transcend"? Is a 2300 transcend as the gaians or the pirates (generally considered easy factions to OCC in) considered "better" than the almost impossible OCC transcend as the believers, say, in 2450?

Dificulty levels should not be a factor, as the "best" players will always be identified as playing at the transcend level.

e.g.

Fastest conquest - obviously easier with the Spartans, Believers or Hive than with Lal. Much easier on a tiny map than on a large or huge map.

So I think your opening comment summarizes the situation. There are a cluster of players - 10 of them - maybe 40 of them - who other player would like to get in their PBEMs - maybe that makes them "the best" by peer acclamation. But between this site, ACOL's and Civgaming's, there are prolly 500 active PBEMers, and I wager that most of us have only been in games with maybe 30 to 50 of them, if that.

So there may well be "closet greats" whose existence we here at Apolyton don't even know about.

Some of the tourneys and the challenges throw up winners - those would prolly be on any shortlist.

(And of course, the "greatest" come in cycles - as new play techniques get developed, styles change. It'd be informative to see a game pitting Sir Thomas A Stobie and CEO Bernard (of the early era) against Vel and Zso and JimmyTrick and Nel of eighteen months ago with Misotu and Aredhran et al today, to name but a handful)

So ... a very difficult question.

Specificity might produce some names

(e.g. "Who best plays Morgan as a builder on big maps?" or "who holds the record for fastest conquest at transcend level on small to tiny maps?" and so on.

Good luck in getting the answers.

Googlie

[Solver]

I completely agree with Googlie. It's not a pure wargame, where you can ask sucha question.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[mark13]

Of course, if you are interested in comparative OCC games, there is always the CGN OCC challenge series which has just started....

[Googlie]

Maybe a fairer question might be:

"If you were in the perfect 7-player PBEM, in SMAC, which faction would you play and which players playing which factions would you want in your game?"

e.g.

Vel playing Morgan
Misotu as the Gaians
Jimmytrick as Zakharov

etc

That would draw some reaction as to who is generally believed to play which faction the best.

Googlie

[Keygen]

Thanks Googlie for your really informative reply!
I know it is very difficult to find out who are the best players around here.
But it would be very interesting to discover them.
Those who are legents, who have won many opponents, who would take a place to a "Hall of Fame" topic.
Players who have spent much of their time to compete others and found their way to victory.
Players who's abilities will be recognized and cheered!
Players who the younger will respect and ask and the olders will accept their skills.

We could also record the best achievements on specific areas or conditions as you have both mentioned Googlie and Mark13. The fastest transcend, the fastest conquest, etc.

A long period...a couple of years with so many posts, so many PBEM games played and so many players playing each other that would be unfair not to know the fruits of all those efforts, don't you think?

[Keygen]

Why not! Not a bad idea at all!
Let's start from this point.
OK, so:
Vel is considered to play the Morganites better than anyone else, Misotu the Gaians and Jimmytrick the University.
What about the other factions?
SMAC first (Hive, Peacekeepers, Spartans and Belivers) and SMACX factions after.

[mark13]

What a great idea! We should get this set up as soon as we can....

Trouble is, there aren't too many decent momentum players around here - maybe someone like Garth Vader playing the Believers? What about Zso - he can play the Gaians, and Mis the PKs....

[Styx]

This is silly somewhat, as in all kind of competition how closer the skills are the more luck becomes an important factor. (Moonson,fungal bloom pods etc, and don,t underestimate the conspiracy going on, secret emails etc.)
So, you can,t tell who is best, its not even sure the best will win the game. However if you have a game with someone good skilled you will be coming aware of it.

[Keygen]

Accually Mark13 these posts are not refering to a new PBEM game that is about to start. But it would be indeed a great idea on starting a new game where each faction would be represented with the "best" player for that faction.

Styx, some players are simply better than others.
Some "less" better player might become better from time to time and beat the "good" players.
PBEM games are different than AI.
Human players are playing instead or a computer.
Secret contacts are in the rules of those games as it would be in the real life. Don't forget the people who play turn-based strategy games want them to be as close as possible to reality.
An extra virtue of a good player playing PBEM games is whether he can make good agreements with the others formaly or secretly.
And a player who have won some PBEM games would like a better challenge. He would possibly prefer to play in a game where everyone would attempt to beat him maybe with some secret alliances. If he's relly good then he would have a chance to find a way and beat them again .
And one other thing. Be the best doesn't mean that you don't lose at all!!!

[DilithiumDad]

Given that Styx has beaten me twice in PBEM's, and has won even with all other players ganging up on him, I think Styx belongs in some kind of all-around top 10 list!



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Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Keygen]

Is that true Styx? Are you a hard player?
So you might accually be one of the best players around here!
Well, let's wait for the olders to speak .