Great starts gone worng

[Frankychan]

Re: Great starts gone worng

Originally posted by furrykef
...

(P.S. The word "wrong" in the topic was misspelled on purpose -- or more accurately, I misspelled it but decided to leave it. )

Smarta** reply withheld.

[Enigma_Nova]

-sig-
Got myself eaten by MWs. I was going to quit until Mr. Green God annoyed me into playing on.

[Santiago_Claus]

I lost badly on one of the "challenge" maps a newbie posted here.

He said something to the effect of, "Why am I not getting ahead? Is it the map?"

The starting position was on a river, but the rest of the territory was arid and inhospitable, a peninsula whose continent-ward reaches kept the tantalizing promise of the Pholus Ridge landmark cruelly covered over by fungus.

The first time I played I had my second base site picked out and *BAM* fungal bloom from a pod. Another pod was full of worms, and another still more fungus.

I thus "started" with 2 bases which were surrounded on all sides by either water or fungus, and under that fungus was an arid desert.

Too impoverished to even compete for Weather Paradigm, which would've been a godsend, I managed to painfully dig 2 more bases out of the hard scrabble, then Santiago, who owned most of the rest of the continent, China to my Korea, sent wave after wave of Impact Rovers down upon me. I negotiated a couple of peace treaties and handed her a few humiliating defeats, but she smelled blood in the water and moved in for the kill.

I replayed the game, and those 3 pods turned into 2 nutrients and a monolith. After a hard run at Weather Paradigm I got condensers onto those nutrient specials and 8 turns later (I counted) took first place -- and never lost it.

The Monolith sped my forces' rush against the unprepared Santiago, who capitulated to my Gatling Rovers and spent the rest of the game on the far north of my huge continent bringing me pact money. (This super-Asia-sized continent was so large it had room for Yang over where Europe would be. Yang's territory was closer by sea to the east than overland to the west.)

Maybe we need a "fungal bloom challenge", hee hee:

Dateline: MY 2104

The 3 nearby pods have all blossomed into fungal towers. Now it's up to YOU to save your beleagered faction!

Seriously, though, play those rough positions and long odds, they're good games. You're not any less l33t if you can't beat the AI when surrounded by fungal towers ... but think of how cool it'd be if you DID it!

[furrykef]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Kef, in SP, the AI never beats you. You beat you.

By this I suppose you mean that if the AI "beats" me it's completely through my own fault -- which is true, in a way. But I still like to look at games as competition, not necessarily against myself. I'm actually designing a game that is founded partly on the principle of having an apparently intelligent and human enemy.

- Kef

[Vev]

Just confirming... fungal towers are not active until when the native creatures full strength? Which I believe is 2115 for transcend. So until 2115, fungal towers just sit there quietly not making new fungus patches or gribblies?

[smacksim]

For me, great starts are wrong. It frustrates me no end when I've made a couple-four bases only to find out that I'm alone on a large continent with the Jungle and the Flats. Ugh!

It's been said a million times, but the map's placement of factions is just so weird. Half the time there's an Uber continent with no faction on it....we're all clumped in the other hemisphere on islands. Half the time four factions will share a small continent with no landmarks. Often, one faction will have the jungle, and two others will be in an archipelago junkyard (seeing as how the AI doesn't land colony pods very often.

As far a great starts gone wrong? I agree that it's best to play on, if possible, but I personally am the worst about re-starting. I have the strange behaviour of needing ironman type rules against my experience and propensity to re-load, while at the same time having the incurable 'Ctl-L' twitch that makes it difficult to stay with turns/games that have taken an ugly turn. When I do stick it out, it's always better.


-Smack

[Blake]

I only restart due to too-good starts, or when playing some oddball ruleset that doesn't allow for adaption. Bad starts are the best, it so owned the time I got one corner of Mt Planet as Morgan on a continent claimed by the Caretakers... and they soon vendetta'd - my 3 bases inside each others radius vs Caretakers a dozen+ bases. I beat them off by running green, building my own mindworms (which I healed in a single tile of fungus), and using the alien resonance armor/guns, with my only human faction contact cha dawn on an island covered in rock and fungus.

[Santiago_Claus]

Vev, I don't know if fungal towers are "active" in the sense of spewing out mindworms and fungus patches, but xenofungus blooms from pods will definitely create them.

[Livid_Imp]

Something I think many of you are missing, is that not all games are played alike.

I typically like to play the "build utopia" style where the main goal is to make a perfect empire. This is kind of like playing SimCity where there is no defined end or goal to the game, you just know when you have built that perfect city. For me "build utopia" includes building ALL the SPs and Transcend only after all tech is discovered. Meaning if the AI beats me to a SP....I'm done. I've been beat.

Alt-F4 deliver me from the agony of defeat.

The first time I beat Transcend, I was playing the Spartans because I didn't realize how bad the industry penalty is and I would try to play them as a builder faction.
I struggled under the University's fat boot for about 3/4 of the game....I was the b!tch submissive for once. Handing over tech and money at a embrassing rate until Zach got himself in over his head in wars. Then I attacked making a b-line to the city with the HSA in it. Once I took the HSA I probed the sh!t out of him until I had tech parity, the rest of the game was connect-the-dots at gun point.
It was a really hard game, one of the hardest I'd ever played, also one of the most satisfying. But years later this kind of game just doesn't do it for me anymore. I realize that I can just go take all the SPs I missed, but I want to play a higher game which requires more planning than reactive military campaign. Not a better, or worse way of playing....just different.

[Chaos Theory]

Here's a start worth giving up. Stupid faction placement algorithm...

[Flubber]

at chaos theory's start

Thats a good one

I always play with look first on so I could have moved the pod 1 tile down the river and get the transport out into the ocean


It actually is a pretty good start terrain-wise so I would just scrap the transport for its minerals and move on-- you are playing the university after all . .. it should be easy to win

[Enigma_Nova]

I'd keep the Foil around and scuttle it on a Cpod.
I could probably win on that map.
Send me a save, CT.

[Chaos Theory]

I didn't keep the save, it was one of many while I was continuously generating new games, to see what kind of terrain I could get and how often.

I play with look first off because the AI will do stupid things given the chance.

[livid imp]

Other than the wasted foil that looks like a damn nice spot for a capitol. Two energy and two nut specials, plus a river and rainy tiles. Looks like a winner to me. Was that generated with the "No unity scattering"....the no unity pods option?

[Chaos Theory]

Yes, this was generated with No Unity Pod Scattering.

The spot has the following pros and cons:

Pro: HQ on a river
Pro: 2 nutrient specials
Con: Strongly limited space
Con (and the real reason I would refuse to play this): Stupid land-locked foil!
Con: No unity pods (normally some exist near the HQ)