Axs001

[johndmuller]

Commodore, it's in the preferences ("Autosave each turn"). It was probably always set "Off". I noticed it in between rounds when I started an SP game - I was having system problems (using NT4 and a screen saver is apparently bad for SMAX on my machine) - and there were no autosave files. It seems that playing that game had the effect of turning off the autosave option on that machine so that when I started a new game it went with that.

[Tau Ceti]

2295 to Walt. Indeed there were autosaves, so I only lost about five minutes. Phew!

I switched to a more builderish SE stance (FM/Knowledge instead of Planned/Power), but kept the offensives going. The Gaians are gone, and the campaign against the Hive has started in earnest. The Hive itself was among the first to fall.

Unfortunately both the Hive and the Spartans now have Fusion Power and are building AAA Silksteel units. But with a current research speed of 2 techs/turn (not turns/tech!), and our being two techs away from Quantum power, it is not hugely worrying.

Most of our combat units are getting old, but with Quantum around the corner I waited with upgrading them.

We have all the SPs. Current tech level is Digital Sentience; working on Frictionless Surfaces at the moment. I have not gone up the Bio-Engineering branch, as there was not all that much use for the CV (at least compared to Cybernetic SE). 18 Orbital Power Transmitters are up, and the energy park is coming along nicely.

[Walt]

I'm back in town, only a day later than expected. I'll try to get the game on to SITS today, but tomorrow (Saturday) morning is more likely.

Good job, everyone, on our progress.

Is it too eary to start talking about what set-up changes to make for the next one of these games? I take it we're all agreed that the next one should be played at Transcend level? What other changes should we impose?

Walt

[Walt]

Well, that took somewhat longer to play out than expected: maybe I should have played only five turns...

I played eight, and just sent the end of 2303 off to SITS.

Status: the Hive is gone, and all but six of Santiago's bases are now ours. I imagine Tony will finish the game in a year or three.

Tech: I cut down the tech rate (nice job, Tau Ceti) after a couple years to a meager one tech per turn. That allowed us to accumulate over 2000 cash per turn, and with that I funded a chop-and-drop pogrom against the remaining un-pacted factions. I think I was prototyping a Quantum-Gas Chopper, but the Shard Choppers are really overkill against plasma armor, and a half dozen of those, plus a whole lot of drop scout infantry make up our military forces.

Have fun, SITS!

[Scipio Centaurus]

Maybe in the next game we could challenge ourselves by playing a definitive non-builder faction (i.e. Spartans or Believers) and requiring that we win by transcendance? Or we could arbitrarily decide to not build any crawlers? Seems like crawlers are the most unbalancing factor in these games.

Also I think we should have the first player only play 15 turns. Then, if it's not too complicated I would suggest that each succeding player play 1 less turn than the previous player, until we get it down to 5 turns per player. Seems like the 12 turn per player recommendation for our second round didn't last too long. I can understand why, as it took me the better part of an hour to assimilate everything that had happened to our faction during the years I was out of power. Then I was finally able to play a turn!

I also think it was more interesting when players gave a short review of their administration's achievements and longer term plans. No one would be obligated to follow any previous player's long term plans, of course. And I agree with Walt's (I think) suggestion to CC the game turn SAV file to all players, even though only 1 player actually plays the turn(s). I would have loaded them up to take a look. I think that would help keep up interest between rounds.

- Scipio

PS I was just looking through the SMAC counterpart to the succession game and I noticed that you can attach files directly to messages posted to this thread. (Damn! What will they think of next?) So maybe everyone could just attach the zipped game SAV file here instead of trying to maintain email address book entries for everyone.

[johndmuller]

I think I like Scipio's ideas - Miriam would be a good challenge, especially with the suggestion below.

We could seriously limit our military by only building probes and getting any other units we want by probing them away from someone else (no upgrades either); we wouldn't have to ban crawlers then as there wouldn't be that many in circulation from just the AI. We would be basically builder spies.

[Scipio Centaurus]

Ouch! Builder spies. I like it. I think it would only work if we play Believers and we better make dang sure no one else gets the HSA!

Actually my no-crawlers recommendation I would not suggest in combination with a non-builder faction. I meant those first two suggestions to be mutually exclusive.

[SITS]

I got the turn but I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to play it. I'm half-way through the first year and have taken all but one of the Spartan bases. To be honest I can't be bothered to finish it off as it is just mopping up. So I'll post the turn here if people wish to finish it - I would much rather divert my energies to a new game...

An idea would be to do one of the challenges - I can't remember who or where. There are two AI factions subbed to another AI faction, trading techs etc which apparently makes for a very difficult game...

[Scipio Centaurus]

OK. Sounds like everyone's had about enough of AXS001. Also sounds like we could definitely use more of a challenge.

Is Anunikoba still with us? I'll set up AXS002 if you [Anunikoba] feel like taking a break and just want to play (or not play). If you want to keep CMNing that's OK too.

I just read back thru the game thread and here's what I came up with for suggestions for AXS002.

1> Assuming the game will still be SMAX.

2> Game set at Transcend difficulty level.

3> Various suggestions for number of turns per player. Most players seemed inclined towards fewer turns per player in each round.

4> We play a non-builder faction such as Believers, Spartans, Data Angels, etc. We must achieve victory by Transcendance. Crawlers OK.

5> We play any faction, but we cannot use crawlers. Maybe we could steal them from other factions, though?

6> We play a non-builder faction (Believers was suggested, but Data Angels might work very well here too) as a non-industrialized proseltyzing religious order or espionage oriented faction. We can build no units, except probe teams, obviously. [Jehova's Witnesses?] We must bribe or convert to our religious faith any units we want from other factions. No upgrades and I assume no mass production from stolen designs. I assume we can build any infrastructure, though. What about non-combat units like formers, crawlers, etc.

7> Play one of the pre-designed challenge scenarios where there is a dominant opposing faction with some permanent submissive pacted factions under their control. I believe this suggestion refers to some scenarios designed by Googlie on his Spartan Chronicles website. There are some other challenge mods available in the 'Creation' thread as well.

Any thoughts from anyone?

- Scipio

[johndmuller]

I kind of like numbers 5 and 6, but between them I'd go for number 6 as it sounds like it might be fun once it got going. I'd like to be a purist about it, but perhaps we ought to let each of the players (as in us) build and maintain/upgrade their own Former. We could of course, still use each others formers for the usual purposes when it was our turn, but each one would be named after its creator (who could replace it if it got killed or even if they just felt like it, say to take advantage of a new tech, like the hovertank chassis or cruisers) and who would be responsible for its upgrades, etc. We'd each get a design slot and that would be the only thing in it (unless it got cloned by the game).

Aside from the former lark, I think that having to steal everything else would be a lot of fun, although it might be risky business in the early going, unless we were really patient (and remembering the last game, I wouldn't be betting on that).

[Sarxis]

Yeah, I will sit this next one out. I have several pbems going, and some other things in other games too, so my schedule is full at the moment. AXS001 was fun though, and thanx all for playing!

[Walt]

I'll have to sit this one out as well, I'm afraid...