3 Players Wanted (transcend level)

[johndmuller]

MY 2109 to Tai Mai Shu - Peacekeepers

[Tai Mai Shu]

MY 2109 to the Free Drones.

Peacekeeping scientists report an anomaly in their research budget and report that it will now take 31 units of energy to finish up Centauri Ecology instead of 33 units.

[johndmuller]

MY 2110 to Tai Mai Shu - Peacekeepers

[Tai Mai Shu]

MY 2110 to the Drones for freedom.

Would like to report our first tech discoveries, from Information Networks to Centauri Ecology.

[johndmuller]

MY 2111 to Tai Mai Shu - Peacekeepers

Thanks for the tech.

[Tai Mai Shu]

MY 2111 to Foreman Darius.

Only thing that's interesting to note is the huge leap in tech cost for Darius even though he hasn't researched anything nor moved in the power charts. It might have something to do with his -20% penalty to research, but this is only speculation.

[johndmuller]

About the only thing that happened is that he got tech from you, TMS (and presumably will get one from me on his next turn too - we'll see if it goes up again). He might have switched research targets and then switched back again, but I doubt it. While I think I understand his tech cost going up in light of what we have seen in that thread we remember and with our own experiences, I'm not sure I have seen any posts regarding why his tech costs are generally much higher than ours. You can see the -20% operating on the tech "production", but I didn't know that it also would apply to the tech cost as well - that's a double dip. At the rate he's going, it might be just as well if he adjusts his energy apportioning formula way in the econ direction; at least he'll get money out of it. Oh well, I suppose our good research rates will slow presently and maybe his won't look so bad then.

[Darius]

Originally posted by johndmuller
At the rate he's going, it might be just as well if he adjusts his energy apportioning formula way in the econ direction; at least he'll get money out of it.

Hi, guys.

Actually, I went in the opposite direction. I was only getting 2 credits for economy anyway, so I adjusted toward research.

I rushed two formers last turn, and am now doing colony pods again which will establish bases on Pholus Ridge (is that the landmark? +1 energy per square, anyway) so I still expect my rate to improve substantially in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, I'm refusing tech gifts for now to prevent any further cost inflation.

(Hey, check out my new avatar.)

Darius

[johndmuller]

MY 2112 to Tai Mai Shu - Peacekeepers

[Tai Mai Shu]

MY 2112 to Darius/Domai.

Btw, kewl avatar, is that a pic of Darius or something? I don't recognize the face.

[Darius]

Yep, that's Darius I, king of Persia 521-486 BC. He was known for his great building projects, but was defeated in battle. Kind of like my SMAC game.

[Googlie]

If the research drops 20% (as for the Drones) it should take 25% longer to obtain the researched tech (80 going to 100)

We should prolly start an official Democracy in Peril thread for turn reporting - I'm sure prople drop in to see what's on offer with the "3 players wanted" heading

G.

[johndmuller]

googlie,

Re new thread: What happens if you edit the initial post; can you change the subject? if so, does it change the thread title? In any case, I'm in favor of whichever solution.

Re the tech cost: It looks like the production of tech points, if you will, is already factored down by the 20%; when I noticed it, Darius' tech per turn was listed as 1.6 (presumbly 80% of 2). In addition, the tech cost was much higher than that for TMS and myself even though we were all working on our second tech (or 3rd, depending on how you handle the gift tech), we all had the same techs (2) and each of us had received 1 gift tech from another. I didn't note the exact difference in tech costs, although IIRC, it seemed like more than 20%; if I had to guess, I would say that his was in the mid to high 40s and ours was 33 (which dropped to 31 while we were paying attention to it - while his stayed about the same or went up). Even if it were exactly 20%, that would combine with the tech rate decrease to double the penalty to 40%. AFAIK, Darius was running 50/50 allocation at that time, he has since switched to something else.

Re initial techs: Both Darius and I started out with Industrial Base, which was sort of a waste given that we made a pact and started exchanging techs right away. In my SMAC manual, it claims that Morgan is supposed to start with Industrial Econ instead, although starting test games of both SMAC and SMAX, it gave Morgan Industrial Base. I suppose that this has been thrashed out in the forums already, but it seems like I have started with Morgan and Ind Econ at some point. The only time I think I remember getting Ind Econ for sure is a game I started from the "tournament" map and that was possibly tweaked in some way. Who knows?

[johndmuller]

MY 2113 to Tai Mai Shu - Peacekeepers

[johndmuller]

MY 2114 to Tai Mai Shu - Peacekeepers