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  • New June Single-Player Challenge

    On the Horns of a Dilemma

    The UNS Unity has broken up, and the colonists have landed. But very early on you realize that Planet is endangered.

    Two power blocs have emerged:

    - the Exploiters, led by CEO Morgan and including his cronies Chairman Yang and Foreman Domai. Their agenda is to create industrial might and wealth at the expense, if necessary, of a seemingly defenceless Planet,

    and

    - the Researchers, led by Acadamician Zakharov, and including his acolytes Roze and Aki-Zeta 5. Their agenda is to ruthlessly pursue the advance of knowledge through research, and Planet be damned.

    Disgusted, you (Lady Deirdre Skye), with a handful of followers escape these two horrific visions of the future and find a distant landmass to settle on, and there found your own faction, styled The Stepdaughters of Gaia

    You assembled enough followers and materiel to form 3 colony convoys, and have commissioned 3 scout patrol units. The sole terraformer (that was included in the Unity's cargo) and its crew has also defected with you. Unfortunately, the transport that moved you here was lost during one of Chiron's punishing storms as you were disembarking.

    Unfortunately, in escaping, you killed a couple of other factions' followers, so you know that the Drones and the Angels will be out to get you when they find you. But you do have some potential allies still in the other camps.

    You summon your chief advisors, and esconsed in your Colony Pod, examine the situation and decide how to make your moves here

    Transcend level, large map about 60% water, all victory conditions activated, directed research, no spoils of war (that's the CyCon's unique ability), random events allowed, Ironman on (to make it more of a hassle to just reload when you pop that sixpack of mindworms)

    Enjoy


    Googlie
    Last edited by Googlie; May 28, 2004, 00:14.

  • #2
    I played for 15 turns, amassing over 300 energy credits, two unity rovers, six mind worms, and the commlink frequency for CEO Morgan, who looked suspiciously like Roze. Also, all my units and bases look like they belong to Miriam. o_O

    Other than that, the starting continent seems too good to be true...

    Comment


    • #3
      someone tell the newbie about faction order in the Alpha Centauri.ini file.
      Basically, your SMAX is loading the graphics for a past set of factions.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by anarchie


        Other than that, the starting continent seems too good to be true...
        Well -- you know what they say if things seem too good to be true-- chances are that Googlie has given the AI even better land position than you have so watch out

        ( I only wish I had the time to try this)
        You don't get to 300 losses without being a pretty exceptional goaltender.-- Ben Kenobi speaking of Roberto Luongo

        Comment


        • #5
          Ah, yes - heavily disguised AI !!!

          But seriously, that's an unfortunate feature of smax - the faction graphics load in the order of the last game you saved (see your alphacentauri.ini file)

          You can manually edit that .ini file, or to get the correct graphics, just start a game with these seven factions, save it (call it "rubbish", or something) and exit. Now load the challenge game. The factions will now have the correct graphics.

          And, yes, the start position is juicy. But believe me, you'll need all the help you can get.

          G.

          Comment


          • #6
            You've set up a double Master-Slave AI, right? With nice terrain too? And two factions as atrocity victims?

            You are evil, Googlie

            -Jam
            1) The crappy metaspam is an affront to the true manner of the artform. - Dauphin
            That's like trying to overninja a ninja when you aren't a mammal. CAN'T BE DONE. - Kassi on doublecrossing Ljube-ljcvetko
            Check out the ALL NEW Galactic Overlord Website for v2.0 and the Napoleonic Overlord Website or even the Galactic Captians Website Thanks Geocities!
            Taht 'ventisular link be woo to clyck.

            Comment


            • #7
              Right - but not so severe as atrocity - just revenge and betrayal. Nice terrain for everyone, and some energy boosts for the AI so that they'll build some decent energy enhancing facilities (they do!!)

              Trouble with master-slave is that the slave gives the master the techs, but unlike humans, the master rarely reciprocates. So each power bloc is a submissive triangle - and yes, they do share techs and co-ordinate research.

              Darsnan playtested it for me as well, and in his game old Yang turned on his pactmate Domai (I'm guessing Domai switched to Dem, and that was too much for Yang) and reduced him to 1 base. Darsnan has a fascinating save around 2295 where he is producing 884 techs per turn (tech every 5 years) while Yang is at 1789 per, with a tech every 2 years And Y has 2524 council votes to Darsnan's 633.

              D is still finishing that playtest, and I'm interested to see how it turns out

              (Here's the upper end of Yang's Security Nexus - Graviton weaponed quantum powered choppers and drop troops !! Look more at what he's lost than what he has to see how strong he was



              And, yes, Darsnan is in Vendetta with Yang

              G.

              Comment


              • #8
                Oh my! Not sure if I should even try.
                Be good, and if at first you don't succeed, perhaps failure will be back in fashion soon. -- teh Spamski

                Grapefruit Garden

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by HongHu
                  Oh my! Not sure if I should even try.
                  But its good practice for playing Gaian. I highly recommend playing this one!


                  D

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Well, if I work fast enough then I might be able to release something for a July challenge.
                    He who knows others is wise.
                    He who knows himself is enlightened.
                    -- Lao Tsu

                    SMAC(X) Marsscenario

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Owch baby, owch

                      Yang with serious hardware = disaster.

                      I'm glad I don't have SMAX installed ATM

                      -Jam
                      1) The crappy metaspam is an affront to the true manner of the artform. - Dauphin
                      That's like trying to overninja a ninja when you aren't a mammal. CAN'T BE DONE. - Kassi on doublecrossing Ljube-ljcvetko
                      Check out the ALL NEW Galactic Overlord Website for v2.0 and the Napoleonic Overlord Website or even the Galactic Captians Website Thanks Geocities!
                      Taht 'ventisular link be woo to clyck.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        LOL - I picked the losing side

                        Roleplaying a little, I just couldn't, as the Gaians, align with the Exploiters, so eventually i was drawn into the conflict as an ally of the Uni/Cycon axis (Roze steadfastly refused to talk to me, but at least she tolerated me)

                        Sure, Yang did have quantum powered weapons almost as soon as I got Ind Auto, but they were subvertible (and reverse engineerable), so I managed to get Neutronium armored ECMAAA defenders before I even had researched silksteel alloys

                        But when he started with the choppers, that was enlightening. he actually teamed attack chopopers with interceptor aircraft so that I had to take out the latter before I could get to the chopper (but thank goodness it's vulnerable to small arms fire from the ground)

                        I thought that I had the answer when he started threatening Planetbusters - I simply put up a few ODP's. But like Darsnan found, he could outbuild me and shot mine down as soon as they were deployed. What an epic space battle that must have been!!

                        Then came the coup de grace - 3 singularity PB's in the same turn, and I was toast. I had some nine or ten Interceptor choppers recuperating at an aerospace just behind the front line, and that was what he targetted (He was Governor, so knew exactly where to strike)

                        Land erupted, seas rushed in, and suddenly I had no defenses to speak of. Was reduced to six bases and then Yang called for the el-supremo vote, and won easily, supported as he was by Domai and Morgan.

                        So what lessons did I learn:

                        The Uni/Cycon/Angels troika were crappy (and I've amended the scenario somewhat to give greater parity between the 2 blocs - the revised .sav is now the one that you'll download)

                        I played Gaia as a builder - big mistake. Couldn't compete with either bloc (maybe a less fungus-rich planet and play as the PK's instead of the Gaians, perhaps - that might be an interesting challenge too)

                        I was too inflexible regarding SE choices. I knew Yang hated DEM, but was too stubborn to change after I'd gone to DEM. If I'd gone with the flow and changed to POLICE - or even FUNDY, he would have stayed cosy with me (we were pacted for 50 or so turns). And Zak never really liked my running wealth either - (you can tell from this that I ran DEM/GREEN/WEALTH)

                        Ah well, I might have another run at it.

                        Jamski - do you want me to make a smac version - maybe a similar "Expoliter" bloc of the Uni, Hive and Morgan, opposed by a "Fanatics" bloc of Sparta, Gians and Believers, with you as the Peacekeepers doing the exit thing and trying to build Utopia free from these pressures?

                        G.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Just where the heck did Yang get 0-pulse armor??

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Assuming that you're reading from the screenshot, it's 8-pulse on my screen (you must have your resolution set too high!!)

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              It was Firefox's image auto-sizing which just happened to transform that '8' to a '0'. Good times.

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