Best settings and oppponents for challenge in SMACX?

[Dis]

I had an interesting game. I had planned on switching sides, but I had such a bad start, I played through with my original faction. I did not take the lead until after the mid point in the game.

I was the Morganites, one of the factions I struggle with the most. I lost 2 of my first 2 cities (other than my capitol). One I lost to mindworms. And one I lost to another faction. Not in a war mind you. I'm not sure how I lost it. I did not think I could lose cities to other factions. I think it was because of rioting. does anyone know? sometimes I get rules confused with civ3 (where you can easily lose cities to the AI). In any case, my first 2 cities were gone, yet I managed to build up and get some crawlers for minerals going and eventually took the lead.

though interestingly I never did attain governor the entire game. That's a first for me. I did one vote in 2497 just to see if I could get it. I was still less than 100 votes away from getting governor. The peacekeepers brought up unite for diplomatic victory twice, but they did not get the majority.

And I stayed out of major combat in this game. I did get in wars when I refused demands (but these were distant factions on other continents). But for the most part I just gave them what they wanted. I had no military to take anyone on. But I should note this is the first game I did the punishment sphere trick. And I used clean reactors. Because I ran democracry, free market, wealth the entire game. Never changed.

Peacekeepers were actually fairly nice to me. Sure they demanded stuff, but they gave me free units to fight a war even though I wasn't pacted with them.

I also used arid planet with flat terrain. That made it more interesting as well.

[Petek]

Originally posted by Dissident

I lost 2 of my first 2 cities (other than my capitol). One I lost to mindworms. And one I lost to another faction. Not in a war mind you. I'm not sure how I lost it. I did not think I could lose cities to other factions. I think it was because of rioting. does anyone know?

If a base stays in drone riots for more than one turn, its citizens may "defect" to another faction. That's probably what happened.

[Mark123jansen]

usually to the drones if theyre in the game

[Dis]

no drones in this game. I find they are too dominant over the other factions. They still offer no challenge to me mind you- because their units are usually fairly old and not upgraded. I just wanted a game where all the factions were of decent size.

Although the peacekeepers ended up taking over most of the world anyways. So much for peaceful factions. I never seem to have games where all 7 factions make it to the end.

[DilithiumDad]

2497? Are you serious? That's a lot of turns! My SMAC games last to between 2220 and 2240. SMACX is considerably longer --2250 to 2280. The record for me is on Ultimate Builder's Challenge where the object is to rack up maximum score --I gave up in boredom at 2300. I could have trascended and won decades earlier but I was pumping the score --I was on Transcendent Thought 44 or so. And that scenario had tech stagnation, arid planet and souped up AI.

[Dis]

I could have transcended around 2475 actually. I figured I'd run up the score a little

As I said, I spent many turns with one city after my other 2 were taken away. And I didn't mention before that city was building a SP (virtual world). I spent many turns just hitting enter. . That's how the first 100 years flew by. Virtual world was the only early SP I got. And I only got a couple middle SP's. (I failed to get Hunter Seeker which I usually try to get).

yeah I made a choice. Do I finish building this SP or do I build settlers. I chose to finish building the Virtual world. I wanted to deny it to the University (they were eventually conquered by the peacekeepers).

[Clear Skies]

Re: Fun to try

Originally posted by DilithiumDad
Here's an eye-opening exercise to try. Play as usual until your might bar is #1 and at least twice as high as your nearest competitor. Now, instead of romping ediously to victory, activate the scenario editor. It will warn you that using the Scenario Editor in a game is cheating but that's OK --you are cheating to make it harder! Now, switch views to the WEAKEST faction and take them over. Now the challenge is to take the weakest faction and win! It's doable!

I tried this - switching every 50 years, starting off as Zakharov. When I came to switch, the weakest faction was Miriam.
Little did I know how weak. She was one turn away from obliteration...

No, really. Only New Jerusalem left, population two, empty, with a Morganic unit just about to roll into it and destroy her. I had to plead for my life
Luckily it worked; went on to push Miriam to #1 in the powergraph before switching to Yang, who had four bases and had tied up every single mineral supporting military units. What IS it with the AI???
Eventually won through diplomatic victory. It's a wonderful way to play, but it's such a wrench giving up all those secret projects :/

[molly bloom]

Whenever I'm feeling smug, I always have the Pirates and a world with a tendency to have more archipelagoes.


Even with the A.I. playing the Pirates can be excruciatingly annoying, sat outside coastal bases, pop pop popping away at lovely lush forests, or next to coastal mines or boreholes, or just nibbling at infrastructure like coastal highways, or sensors, or formers.


And they're such untrustworthy b@ast@rds.


If I didn't have a skinhead cut, they'd routinely have me pulling my hair out.

[DilithiumDad]

I agree that the Pirates are very effective AI. Part of this is because you have limited visibility at sea. The pirate ships seem to "come out of nowhere" because they know exactly where you are and you have no idea where they are! Somehow this works much more powerfully at sea than on land, although Miriam is expert at hiding in fungus (despite her -1 Planet rating!).