New Game 7 Human players

[dinoarms]

I am not on favour of demand withdrawal with both probes and miliatary units. If I read your last post correctly Buster than it possible to never be able to launch a successful miliatry or probes attack on someone without being sent back to ones nearest base on the opponents turn. This looks like a very unpleasant game...especially for momentum and hybrid players.


Announcement of probe action seems ridiculous as you should pretty much know who is probing you.


The only difficulty I have is with probing pact members. I feel this shouldn't be possible. If you wanna steal your pact brothers ideas you shouldn't be pact brothers. At the very least vendetta should be set and hopefully then all enemy units will return to the enemies nearest bases. Hopefully then if a probe is spotted you can renounce pact and be rid of it before it makes a move.

[buster]

Dino:

If I read your last post correctly Buster than it possible to never be able to launch a successful miliatry or probes attack on someone without being sent back to ones nearest base on the opponents turn.

That could well happen. In extreme cases it would be impossible to attack. A major part of the planning would have to deal with how to get around this - such as in good time sailing in a ship and doing a coastal bombardment or other event that can trigger a vendetta.

The only difficulty I have is with probing pact members. I feel this shouldn't be possible.

Well - in the game it is possible and frequently happens. Many players see a pact as purely a financial and information exchange arrangement.

and btw - now when we are almost there - one further piece of infomation. There are probe actions that do not trigger the message screen (infiltration). As this (also in SP games) does not result in penalty or in a message - this is therefore normally considered an allowed silent action.

Of course a rule can be made to disallow probe actions on pact brothers and silent infiltration if you want to do that, my personal opinion is that this only complicates and does not add realism.

On pact brothers one further note. If you try to probe a pacted faction and the city you are probing contains a probe unit - there will be a fight as normally when probes meet. This is however a "silent fight" - meaning there will be no message and no vendetta will result. If the attacker wins he can then perform a probe action and the probe action itself will trigger the message screen. If he looses you will be told nothing - only sign will be that one of your probes are damaged.

It is therefore possible to protect oneself by having probes in ones cities. Pact brothers will have to fight ones probes before they can do a probe action.

[johndmuller]

b: Pod scattering - Yes (Option on)

4. NO - allow individual upgrade whenever you want, not just at the end of your turn
This question is unnecessary because an individual upgrade makes it the end of the turn for that unit anyway. (I keep mentioning this because #4 conflicts with my play style)

6. Workshop upgrade at end of turn only - Yes

7. Reverse Engineering - Allow except for using Probe chassis to back into Rovers. (I thought we already had 3 votes for this position.

18. CMN Specs - OK

19. Instant terraforming - DISallow

Regarding #2, given that #5/#14 require a vendetta, one might very well Want to notify the victim irrespective of whether or not you Had to, in order to maybe molify them and call off the Vendetta.

Regarding #8,
(1) Clarifying that the "No Allow ..." means that the SE quickies, etc. are Not allowed
(2) Clarifying that the Crawler upgrades that are banned include not only those covered by the SE quidkies technique, but also other crawler upgrades made in order to enhance their trade in value rather than legitimate defensive purposes.

Regarding #17, if John Paul Jones is correct that the Instant Demon Boil multi-waypoint-patrol bug extends to normal units (I presume creating Instant Elite troops), we should probably extend the ban also. The buglist said that it wasn't fixed until SMAX V2, so it would be in play for us. It claimed that the bug occurs with 3 or 4 waypoints, so we could ban more than 2. I have no experience with patrols in MP (maybe it is dysfunctional and it isn't even an issue) so I don't know whether to expect any of us would be big users patrols (at least prior to knowing about this bug), so I don't know whether it would crimp anyone's style to rephrase the ban to be on any patrol with more than 2 waypoints.

Regarding #25 - Notification for Gov. Election - I thought that the notification applied to Any vote you call since they are all subject to negotiation and all the rest of the timing concerns.

I am assuming that the starting conditions will reflect the usual faction advantages/disadvantages i.e. money, free techs or facilities, whatever - perhaps buster will spell them out.

I am otherwise ready to stop voting and start playing, assuming new issues are not raised and/or old ones reopened.

[buster]

This thread has gone awfully quiet.
Have all said what they jave to say?

[John Paul Jones]

I'm ready - to convert all your bases to the one true faith !
To clarify whatever it was that was unclear - if i said "im ok with this or thats ok or thats fine or yes thats ok" that means i agree with it

[Tai Mai Shu]

I already voted, don't have anything new to add, and would love to start

[dinoarms]

Buster et al

I believe we have determined the settings for the game. This is what we have agreed upon.




Fixed:
Transcend
Rated
Cooperative Victory disabled
Small or Standard map


Voted:
standard map
Ocean 30-50%
Low Erosion
Aliens average
Cloud Cover Dense
Do or Die
Look First
Spoils of War
Directed research
No Unity Survey
Random Events On
Pod scattering


Map

standard, unknown, balanced with all SMAC landmarks well distributed.


YES
- Pod Scattering
- Upgrades anytime provided the upgraded unit does not move afterwards
- Declare vendetta in Pop-Up for probe actions
- Design upgrades at end of turn only
- Reverse engineering (except probes to rovers)
- Pod booming past hab limits
- CMN standard rules
- notification of upcoming planetary elections

NO
accelerated start
- Use of the demand withdrawal button
- SE quickies and no upgrading crawlers for quick SP's
- Multi air-drops
- Multiple drops or orbital insertions using the right-click menu
- Inserting Stockpile Energy into the build queue after a military unit
- Using pending diplomatic agreements after starting a vendetta
- SE same turn flip-flops
- Units assigned to multiple point patrol routes
- Instant terraforming
- Setting the home of a unit to be the base of a pacted player
- Renaming a city to allow multiple artifacts to be connected to the same network node.
- Using the(Shift-u) command to allow the passenger to unload while the air transport is in flight.


COMMUNICATION

none before contact
email communication is allowed
CMN must be notified if sunspots occur
No using continuous communication to maintain com through sunspots

[dinoarms]

This is what we have not agreed upon

Up to CMN

Random events
Anouncement of probe action
starting material

[dinoarms]

I personaly don't care whether we start with 2 pods or 4 or whatever. What I don't like is starting with other factions techs. I would prefer if we started with our own factions tech and nothing more

[Tai Mai Shu]

Random events on please It makes the game a bit more interesting. The rest I have no opinion on.

[dinoarms]

I'm with Tai Mai Shu on Random Events

[buster]

Seems nice and complete.

For the matters I need to decide I consulted my tea leaves and came up with following:

Random events will be on.
Probe actions do not need to be announced (but as in other rule vendetta or cancel pact must be chosen as action).
Starting material will be vanilla settings - (why do all the work of adding extra if noone realy wants it).

The game will be sent off to first player (Gaia) tonight at 22.00 GMT. That is about 12 hrs from this post.

I would like to receive a list of players names, their faction choices and email addresses by mail to kn@brandenborg.dk (could you do that Dino?).

Also anyone who wants a particular password please mail me with your request. Else I will give you one.

It will be a random 32 digit alphanumeric code (joke).

[Tai Mai Shu]

Could you post when you send the first turn to me please? I'd just like to know in advance if I got it or not as I'm not sure if it came through or not.

[dinoarms]

All....we are ready to go.

All we need is Solver's Email.

Also if you choose you can send a password to Buster. Otherwise he will generate a random 32 digit Alpha Numeric one for you.....and you wouldn't want to have to type that one every time you play would you?




The Gaians : Tai Mai Shu
Spoofmaster@hotmail.com

The Hive : SmartFart


SmartFart@pulp-fiction.com
emperoratrix@lycos.com

The University : Solver


Morgan : johndmuller
johndmuller@msn.com

The Spartans : Levelisk
jeffrey@thecases.com

The Believers : John Paul Jones
johnpauljones@oceanfree.net

The Peacekeepers : dinoarms
dinoarms@altavista.com
crackplaza@yahoo.com

[johndmuller]

Due to the holiday coming up Wed. (in U.S.), we may get off to a bit of a slow start; I'm in a different game with Levelisk and he said:

(from Levelisk) Just so you guys know, I will be on vacation from Monday, July 2nd until Thursday, the 5th, and won't be able to pass on any turns in that period.

I don't know exactly what his schedule is on Monday, whether he will get his first turn in before he goes or not, so I guess we'll see.

I'm also planning to vacation, during the latter half ot the week, but I hope to be able to take some turns anyway (technical issues willing).

I think that solver uses this email address (saw it in another thread) if you still need it.
solver@apolyton.net