New SMAX PBEM - 4 Players Wanted

[Googlie]

Here's the skinny:

4 players play as Morgan, Zakharov, Yang and Domai

They land on an earth-like planet only to find that it's inhabited by an ancient Progenitor race (the Usurpers), who have a handful of bases and some light infrastructure in place.

Miriam and Cha Dawn see in Marr their "God" and become his submissives.

Your task is to win by transcendence, economically or militarily before Marr transcends, summons the Battle Fleet or wipes you out. (Co-op victory is activated, but of course only 3 players can enjoy a co-op vicotry)

Any interest?

G.

[Googlie]

No takers so far?

Let me expound on the scenario.

You have fled Alpha Centauri after finding it overrun by the Progenitors and Caretakers.

So you return to Earth.

Only to find that the Progenitors have beaten you to it, and they have occupied Australia.

Your escape pods make for, respectively:

Morgan, to New York
Zakharov, to Moscow
Yang, to Beijing
Domai, to London,
Miriam, to Buenos Aires
Cha Dawn, to Lagos

Miriam and Cha Dawn make contact with Judaa Marr, and these three form a southern hemisphere alliance.

Will they bulldoze their way through the northern alliance, or will it fragment into four independent, infighting nation-states?

Sufficiently different, or does it need further tweaking?

G.

[duMa]

No takers yet? What's with you people?

I would be in... but I don't have SMAX.

[Flubber]

I could try Yang ( I am hoping the super fertile land will counterbalance the alians immediately to my south)

[Archaic]

Count me in as good ol' Zak. Sounds like this could be an interesting game indeed.

[Mongoose]

Googlie, I can't resist a good Morganic challenge! If it's still open, I'll take Morgan.

[Qantaga]

I will volunteer to play Domai. The Googlie Effect (tm) is in full swing on this scenario. It sounds like big fun.

[Googlie]

We have game !!

Morgan: Mongoose
Domai: Qantaga
Zakharov: Archaic
Yang: Flubber

Let me ask for some input:

I've played +/- 75 years with each of the 4 factions as a single-player scenario - in all 4 the Troika becomes immensely powerful - but - only 'cos the other 3 "human" AI factions can't agree (in 2 games I was in vendetta with 2 others)

Now with 4 real human players that wouldn't happen (at least not in the early game) 'cos you'd be tech-trading, agreeing on boundaries, etc.

Playing Morgan, I met Miriam in Mexico, which was ideal.

I've put severe "what they can build" restrictions on the Usurper bases (in my first playtest, when I opened the scenario editor after 50 turns, they had 23 bases in Australia and sixteen colony pods circling around waiting for transports off the continent) to limit them to around a dozen or so bases (but now the'll get to size 10 pretty quickly, so you know they'll then beeline for Singularity mechanics for the subspace generators). They won't get off the continent soe asily, as I've restricted their ability to build transports (but they do build seapods)

Here's where I need input:

Leave the AI as is (Cult develops an awesome mindworm/sporelauncher army, Miriam ICS's like crazy and the Usurpers do a decent job of building infrastructure)

Make the AI (especially the U's) less powerful (but increase their defense against nervegas attacks - e.g. by giving them a couple of "on alert" clean AAA string resonance choppers per base - similarly, cut down on the fungus around the Cult to make his native army less potent)

Make the AI less populous (by removing some of the nut resource tiles around their start positions and retarding their growth with some aridity - course miriam has the Amazon jungle and Cha Dawn gets easily to the Central African jungles)

Thoughts? - How much of a challenge do you want?

G.

[Mongoose]

I don't think any aridity fix is necessary. (or would have much effect, given the Jungles you mention) Same for fungus tweaks fpr the Cult.

How many of those choppers are you talking about? What reactor? If they're given to the Us, would they be able to reverse engineer the components? String choppers (without AAA) in the early game would be devastating, even without the Us +25% attack! *shudder*

If the number is reasonably low and if the components can't be REd, then OK. Otherwise, I would say leave it as is.

[Googlie]

Good point - the AI does reverse-engineer rather effectively.

The way the game is currently set up, to win, the human players will need to take the fight to the Usurpers, to avoid them transcending, or summoning the fleet. I would imagine they'll get D:AP first, so will naturally build lots of interceptors. That should help stave off nervegas noodles.

And in any event, to get to Marr, you'll need to fend off and fight through the raging hordes of the Believers and the Cult, so my fears about an easily gassable Alien force are prolly misplaced.

We'll run with what we've got. (I've had scads of fun playesting each of the 4 factions - will prolly try each one thru to conclusion).

G.

[Flubber]

My comments are a bit late but in these scenarios, I sometimes wonder if the goal is to :

1. create a VERY tough AI such that the challenge is trying to beat them, even with human cooperation

2. create a moderately strong AI such that the human players can have a good game against one another that is not determined by the the first to conquer the hopelessly inept AI

Either type is ok. I think this game sounds like the former. In any event, conquering aliens is rarely that profitable given that their bases shrink away to pathetic size ones

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The map is earthlike so does it follow earth style terrain?? In Beijing, for example, will I get very lush farmand with mountains to the north?? Or is earthlike simply a description of the shape and terrain is more randomized

[Googlie]

It's a bit of a hybrid:

Create a strong enough AI to be a threat to the human players, forcing them to co-operate in the beginning-middle game before branching out for a solo run to transcendence. They'd start out with everyone's commlinks

Create an AI strong enough to be a viable competitor for transcendence (and in the Aliens' case, building the 6 subspace generaotrs)

The map btw is (I think) one of the better earth maps (Mark Bardwell's) - I've just modified it by adding most of the Chiron Landmarks. You can get Mark's map at:

http://www.civgaming.net/smac/maps.shtml

(and thanks for the input)

G.

[knowhow2]

If you set up second party, I would like to join.

[FlameFlash]

googlie, do you have that map file available? It'd be fun to use it some time just for my own enjoyment.

flameflash@mac.com if you happen to have it on-hand (preferrably zipped) or if you plan on doing this scenario again soon.

[Googlie]

FF:

I downloaded it from the Civgaming Network's Files section:

http://www.civgaming.net/smac/maps.shtml

It's a classic earth map. I added the ususal game landmarks, and you can downlaod any of the four single-player scenarios (then save the map) from Rynn's Gallery at:

http://googlie2.tripod.com/rynnsgallery/id11.html

G.