ACT and AXT tounaments: General discussion

[DilithiumDad]

Quite a few of these tournament games are in progress, but I have yet to see much in the way of general discussion!

Personally, I have been in two ACT games. I would like to hear from others who have done more, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling.

Map: The new tournament map is an improvement. The islands are good, and are spaced appropriately. The sea fungus barrier works as intended.

One problem is that while the islands are identical, the north and south continents are not. The first island has Garfield Crater and Nessus Canyon to the north, and The Ruins to the south. The second island has Sargasso Sea to the north and the Borehole Cluster to the wouth. The third island has Monsoon Jungle and Mt. Planet to the north and the Manifold Nexus to the south. The fourth island has an arid wilderness with no landmarks to the north, and Pholus Ridge and the Great Dunes to the south. Obviously, the third island is most desirable and the fourth island the least. In AXT, the aliens occupy the north and saouth, but it is still an advantage to have fertile territory on your doorstep!


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

[DilithiumDad]

The layout of the map affects the relative strength of the SMAC factions, in my opinion. Glad to hear from any who disagree!

Gaians: Very little fungus and very rare native life with few pods to pop on either land or sea makes this map very unfavorable to the Gaians. Despite the thick mats of sea fungus between islands, these yielded and a grand total of one isle of the deep in 60 turns of continuous trolling by a large navy! This leaves +2 efficiency as the sole faction advantage the Gaians have, and the map is too small for this to have a major effect.

Hive: The island allows the close base siting favored by Hive players. The Hive usually falls behind in multiplayer because of its inability to pop boom. The Hive is almost forced to attack early to press its early growth, support and industry advantages.

University: This is always the strongest faction, and on this map it's as true as ever. lack of pods and this of alient artifacts makes the free network nodes slightly less of an advantage, though.

Morgan: This faction works best when cooperative victory is on, and does not fare well in this kind of winner-take-all game shere opportunities for commerce are limited. It might be possible to survive as Morgan by being a kind of Swiss banker while the other three factions fight each other, but it would be tricky because of the lack of pop boom, low hab limit, and support penalty.

Spartans: The morale bonus is of greatest use in attacking and defending against native life. Spartan "worm bucks" will be few and far between here. Military advnatages over your opponents will be considerable, but slow research owing to trouble building research facilities and secret projects will be a problem.

Believers: The lack of research for the first 10 years will be very tough. After this, the -20% research can be overcome by building more nodes. By the time you have military tech and can transport it to your enemy, your army will be obsolete. Very tough on this map. Benefit is that your -1 planet penalty is completely meaningless on this low-fungus map.

Peacekeepers: With their larger bases and low efficiencey, they have an incentive to focus on their main island and not spread out. Have the potential to be one of the strongest factions.

[DilithiumDad]

Over on ACOL we had a tournament of 4-player games that were played as 2 vs 2 --team games.

The ACT and AXT games are winner-take-all, with cooperative victory disabled. This really makes the games a "balance of power" paradigm, similar to Europe before world war one or to the board game "Diplomacy". In the two games I have played so far there has been one weak or inexperienced player and the rest have been strong. The weakest player was quicly eliminated by one of the other players. The conqueror had doubled his number of bases almost overnight and went on to easy victory.

So one issue is the relative skill of the players in a game. Ideally, they should be similar. If not, it seems that the players should be very aware of the possibility of tipping the balance of power and be prepared to shore up or gang up on a very weak or very strong player. Alternatively, one can get quite an advantage by figuring out which player is the weakest and then swiftly moving in for the kill!

As I said, this is based on my own limited experience. Any other comments?

[DilithiumDad]

Still waiting for one of you gamers to comment! They must be popular, or there wouldn't be so darn many of them!!

[Misotu]

I want to comment ... I'm just trying to formulate a response because you've covered a lot of ground here and in considerable detail, so it's hard to work out where to come in.

I guess I'll start with the nit-picking - that's so much easier than being expansive and intelligent

No, seriously. The tournament isn't quite how you've described it. The ACT/AXT games *on the tourny* map are indeed winner take all, as you've said. But the other games take place on random maps, and here co-op victory is permitted. So we have team games on those maps, generally 2 against 2. I actually rather like team games, and have recently opted for random maps in the majority of my games as I find the tourny maps rather intense and would like them to be a smaller part of my SMAC fare.

For the rest of it, I think I'll have some comments on your factions analysis, but I need to mull it over a bit ...

[mark13]

Yeah, I would pretty much agree with that - the tournament map can get quite cutthroat, and while they provide a quick, and exciting game, on the whole, the diplomatic side is somewhat compromised.

Random map games can also be fun - although they take a looooong time to get off the ground sometimes. Although this isn't a problem if the turn rate is reasonably good, nothing is more annoying than waiting a week for a turn and getting to move a scout patrol.

I think the key word is variety. A little bit of this, a little bit of that....all makes for a better gaming experience. And a lot more fun, too, as the tactics can vary from game to game quite drastically.

One game I remember vividly where I was put right into the deep end was ACT021. I picked it up in 2166, with the diplomatic situation precariously poised on a 2v2, with war inevitable at any point in the future. In my general naivety, I failed to recognise this, and got devoured by the hostile Believers next to me within ten turns. It lost us the game. Gulp. A pretty steep learning curve - which is why games like that are so great - the diplomatic side of the game was engrossing in every sense of the word.

I haven't played many other PBEMs in my limited experience thus far of MP SMAC, but that is why this tournament is so great, IMO - the variety of circumstance in any given game is endless, and the prospects equally so. I, for one, cannot wait until some of my other PBEMs get to a more advanced state.
[This message has been edited by mark13 (edited January 26, 2001).]

[Misotu]

I don't suppose Tau has enough hours in the day nowadays but I think that an accelerated start random game would be good. I don't mean the way the auto feature does it, I mean more like the tourny map. More colony pods and scouts ... maybe even a former or two ... to get the game moving. Course formers are a problem if the Gaians are in the game, because it negates their advantage. But then, so do extra colony pods in a way, because it means that everyone can get to Cent Eco so much faster ...

I know what Mark means ... I have a few games going on where I *know* they're going to be great, but getting through the first 50 years can be a bit of a drag

[mark13]

I think it should work as another option - a 5 pod random map start might be good fun. In the CGN tourney, everyone starts with 5 pods, 2 formers, and 3 scouts - all independent. This makes the 20 years after planetfall a lot more interesting, whilst still having the feel of something you have done yourself, rather than the 'Accelerated Start' rule.

[Misotu]

To DiDad, on the factions. I think your analysis is a little pessimistic, based on my experience. I have played the tourny maps (both the earlier 3-player and the new 4-player) as a number of factions now - PK, Gaia, Pirate, CyC, UoP.

Gaia are *strong*. Yes, you lose the native life capture benefit, you're just not going to get the opportunities you'd normally expect. But that +2 efficiency really rocks. I have won as the Gaians, and *your* performance in ACT035 was dead impressive. +2 efficiency is still worth rather a lot, even on that island, and the benefits of effectively penalty-free planned should not be underestimated - when expansion is limited, base growth is key. The research capabilities of the Gaians are pretty fine, enabling them to get to orbital improvements and then hab domes quite smartly. No need for the Vats, so they can really focus their beelines.

PK, in my experience, perform about the same as the Gaians although even in that closed environment the efficiency penalty bites. Larger bases and the ability to run FM but also pop boom are the real advantages of the PKs when there's not much room for expansion and hab domes are late game. But their inefficiency will always extract a price and FM is difficult, given the need for a deterrent force.

UoP, yes they are strong but vulnerable to the foil probes of a determined aggressor given the island environment. I have won more easily as Gaia/PK.

Morgan actually does extremely well when played by an experienced Morganophile. It's true, however, that the lack of possibility for expansion hits Morgan harder than other factions. I had very close-run games against Morgan twice - once I took it as the PKs, but only by serious collaboration with UoP and lucky research options. The other I took as CyC, but again only by collaboration for a while with UoP and then subsequently with Morgan himself

The Pirates ... well. The Pirates *suck* in that environment. I am actually doing well in my game as the Pirates, but I took it over from someone else who gave me a rather excellent start. I have spent the whole game trying to overcome their inability to pop boom and efficiency problems. They *suck*.

If I have a comment on the tourny maps, it is that many players underestimate the importance of diplomacy. It is *key* to look at the prevailing situation and form alliances based on a long-term analysis. For this reason, I rarely form strong relationships in tourny games before hitting the mid-game, even late mid-game. Until then, you cannot see the picture. Most critical is the necessity to deal with honesty and clarity, since it may be necessary to form relationships and, later, dissolve them. This is not hard, provided one waits for the correct moment and offers an honest explanation at the time.

[TigToad]

I've finished five tournament games thus far (2-3 record btw). I've played four on the tournament map and one on a random map. I'm involved in one other tournament game on the map of planet. I've played as different factions each time... and feel I can give a run down of how they fare.

Gaians: Victory against Fistandilus and Zso.. not really a fair comparison, as Fist and Zso pounded each other with warfare, and when Zso was about to beat Fist I came to his aid... then when the war started to turn Zso dropped out due to time and Fist surrendered (he had been raped by Zso). (They were University and Conscousness).

Morgan: Terrible defeat. I had a huge tech lead. I had money. I had infrastructure. I had a firm alliance with the Peacekeepers. The Hive had the Command Nexus and the Weather Paradigm. No contest.. we got rolled by hordes of impact rovers on land bridges before we could get air power rolling. Morgan SUCKS at fighting, especially when you have to rush built units and your opponent is running fundamentalism to keep your probes at bay.

University: Fun defeat. Misotu as the consciousness and Tau Ceti as Morgan. We agreed from the start to do a 'friendly race to transcendence'... my idea actually. Misotu got a huge tech lead thanks in part to our pact while we kinda hosed Tau by not pacting with him. By the time I saw her lead was huge, I planetbusted her capital. So much for friendly. War then broke out as both Mis and Tau declared war. Realize we actually had satellites, planetbusters, etc at this point. We had a very fun satellite war as we (mostly me) tried to break through the defenses to nuke each other. Tau got lucky his stupid 50% defense thing shot down two planetbusters earmarked for his capital... but in the end my guilt at nuking Misotu gave her the game as I aided her research once I'd lost my two front war. Another side note, I had great fun in this game just 'messing around'. I completely eradicated the aliens on the southern continent taking their bases for my own... unfortunately, it wasn't enough--but I hadn't seen anyone do it so I did. Only reason I was able was our three way peace lasted so long.. I'd hoped to gain enough ground in bases to use that as a research edge, but the only good SP I got was the Network backbone and that came too late to be of use.

Believers: Crushing victory. Learning from my earlier game as Morgan, I took the Believers against the Pirates and the Data Probes (I think). Against two less experienced opponents I snagged the Weather Paradigm, Command Nexus and Empath Guild and got to air power first as I annihilated one opponent and the second resigned having not yet researched Synth Fossil.
Key to this game was early tech trades where I got a tech from one faction and traded it to the second faction, etc.. always using the "poor me, my research sucks" defense to keep the others at bay. Infiltration is awesome in a free for all game.

Peacekeepers: horrendous loss. In this game, an uncertain early alliance with the Gaians on a random map proved costly as the Drones and Consciousness teamed up. When the uncertain alliance player quit and Misotu joined in the alliance strengthened but the Drone war machine backed by Conscousness research was already too strong and my crap starting position turned out to be too much to overcome before we finally surrenedered. (We did manage to get MMI first in a run of luck, but the Drones had more population than my peacekeepers and the Gaians together and the Consciousness was placed well away from the other factions at the start making it hard to hit their research engine. Two notes, I don't like the Peacekeepers, they don't have a strength and I enjoy playing to strengths. Secondly, planet sucks, I lost three bases to mind worms and the Pirates, my early neighbors (CPU controlled) never did like me much and Yang got completely consumed by the Drones early) leaving the Believers who declared war on me first thing and wouldn't speak to me again).

Morgan: attempt two.. in progress. Map of planet. Other humans, Misotu as the Pirates, Flo has (datajack or the consciousness) and Cederon as the Peacekeepers... with the Spartans and Yang as well as the University for the computer. Currently its early in the game and I'm pacted with all... but the Pirates have bases near mine on land which I don't like.. and Flo has made noises of unhappiness with me over my other pacts. Yang and Spartans won't play a role in this game, but the University are high in tech and will be a wild card. Outlook, bad for me. I'm too far away from other factions to effectively use probes and too close to avoid being attacked as soon as someone gets air power and an attitude. When the alliances break and the first war is declared (it certainly won't be by me!), I'm not sure I'll have the best alliance as I'm likely going to be the juiciest target (assuming it isn't the CPU University targed first).

Just some (long winded) thoughts. Hope they're of use...

Tig

[Paul]

If we're all going to share our tournament map experiences I'll join in.

First game as PK with Zsozso (Sparta) and MtG (UoP): Early on Zsozso built a landbridge toward me and attacked me, but I managed to keep the base on the chokepoint. I was pacted with MtG who made some threats to Zsozso. At that time Zsozso had to drop out of the tournament and got replaced by Enigma, who was apparently intimidated enough by MtG's threats and made peace with me. MtG had also given me some techs. That was probably not entirely altruistic; but if I had been overrun the Spartans would have doubled their territory. My inexperience and the vendetta with Zsozso had still left me behind the other two factions when Enigma contacted me. MtG was getting far ahead and he wanted to know if I would work with him against MtG. Since coop victory was not allowed I realized that a UoP-Sparta vendetta would be the only way for me to win this game, so I provided Enigma with information on MtG's base defenses (mostly still scout patrols). Enigma's X-rovers and later X-jets did considerable damage to MtG. I was still pacted with MtG so I gave some symbolic support but mostly stayed out of their vendetta. I built up my bases with treefarms and most of my continent was covered in forest, so I want dem/planned for pop-booming. Around that time it became clear that Enigma was slowly winning against MtG, so I thought it would be a good idea to give more than just symbolic support to his war effort. MtG and Enigma were basically killing each other with their x-jets. Enigma also attacked me with x-jets, but I was the only one pop-booming, so I managed to replace the lost population. In the end I was the only one with any decent sized bases left, so I had more production capacity and I was also the only one with a decent research rate, so I would probably have won even if MtG and Enigma hadn't quit the tournament at that time.

My next tournament game I played as UoP against Misotu (PK) and Enigma (Morgan). Actually, I believe they both replaced other players but I don't remember who they were. In this game all three players were pacted with each other and it become obvious that it would become a race to transcendance. In the end Misotu won the game, but Enigma and I would have both transcended in that same turn. One or two turns before the end Misotu cancelled her pacts with us, when I was just one turn away from discovering threshold of transcendance. The loss of trade income meant that it would take me an extra turn to discover it, so this was a clever move by Misotu, winning her the game.

My third game was as Morgan against the Hive and UoP. I played an ICS strategy with closely packed bases to overcome the hab-limit problems. The other two players were at vendetta for quite some time, while I could develop peacefully and get ahead of the other two players. When I joined in the vendetta at the Hive's side the UoP was quickly eleminated, also because the UoP player was inexperienced and hadn't realized that aerospace complexes protect against enemy airdrops. This allowed me to drop into his bases while he couldn't do the same to me. After that, the Hive and I spent a few turns at peace before he attacked me. The element of surprise helped him in the beginning, but after that my research and production advantages allowed me to turn the tide and he surrendered when that became clear to him.

I played one game on the new tournament map as UoP against Misotu (PK), Dilithium Dad (Gaians) and Viriato (Hive). I thought that the larger distance between the coninents would allow more time for peaceful development in the early game, but I was wrong and the Hive quickly overran me because I wasn't prepared for war. I just read in the game's thread that Viriato has just won that game.

In the first posts of this thread I noticed that Dilithium Dad said that the UoP would be the strongest faction on the map, but I haven't noticed that in my game, none of which were won by the UoP player.

One thing I have noticed is that if you start a vendetta you'd better be able to quickly roll over the other player. In that case you will have doubled your territory and will most likely win the game. But if you get into a war of atrition both players are killing each other, giving the game to the other players. This helped me in the two tournament map games I won, although there will be the fourth player to deal with now that we have a four-player map.

[Tau Ceti]

I would not oppose extra starting units in the random map games - it sounds like quite a good idea.

When the tournament was reorganised last April, some players expressed an interest in playing non-accelerated games with standard starting conditions. That is probably the main reason why it is the way it is, although for example the most vocal player in proposing it, Pagan[CyC], never played a single game of the new tournament.

So if people want it, I am happy to provide it. I would hesitate to make it an option, though, as that makes it even harder than it is now to match the preferences of different players.

A couple of small problems: Standard-size maps are really rather small (builder speaking, of course ), and extra pods and scouts etc. would probably mean that contact would happen very early. Also, unless ocean coverage is set to lowest, there might well be a lack of decent land for that many cities right away. Personally I have found that large maps with lots of land tend to work very well with 3-4 players, but the momentumers might disagree. Opinions?

And of course, extra starting units would necessitate making random map SMACX games scenarios as well, which introduces the annoying, but probably tolerable faction graphics bug.

[mark13]

Tau,

I think it is all about striking a balance. 3 player games on standard, and 4 player on large, sound like fun - as long as there is plenty of land, of course.

Of course, the pure builders will want 2000x1200 maps, and the momentum players will want tiny maps....

Still, see how it goes, maybe experiment a couple of times, and see what you think....it never fails.

[DilithiumDad]

Great discussion!

For the random maps, I would be willing to provide a series of modified and balanced random maps to Tau which he could use alternately (he'd just have to make sure that no player got the same map twice!). This would have to be SMAC right now --I think there are some scenario editor differences in SMACX.

I totally disagree with Misotu about the importance of efficiency on the 4-player tourney map. Being able to run Planned before discovery of Ethical Calculus is a rather small erly advantage. Later in the game, the math just isn't there --efficiency makes for a difference of only a 2-3 credits per base at a few distant bases.

Logically and mathmatically, the U of P should be the strongest on the tourney map. Yet, U of P rarely wins in actuality! I think I'll have to try it myself and see what the heck is going on....

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

[Misotu]

Well, we'll agree to disagree on the efficiency then. But I'm pretty happy with Gaia on the tourny map, I must say I think one of the reasons why UoP does badly is because they tend to get targeted early.

Regarding Tau's comments on the map size with more starting units, these are good points. Mark, I think we went 4 players on random maps (and then on the tourny maps) because 3 was found to be a bit unsatisfactory diplomatically. You almost always get a 2 on 1 situation.

My vote would go to larger maps - admittedly this is more tricky for a momentum player but with 4 players in the game and co-op victory on, an alliance with a builder to obtain tech should not be too much of a problem?