Fun Hypothetical

[Flubber]

Originally posted by paramir

No, It would take FOREVER to build

The Voice and Ascent ?? Not really that long

If playing the UoP or Morgan, I would beeline to IA and start building crawlers.. You could focus on minerals and just start pumping out crawlers (once you get IA you almost don't care about tech)

You would win for sure unless someone with airpower or top level reactors could get to you and start killing those crawlers....

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Senethro
I'm still saying Eudaimonia. All the techs you guys are proposing are useless on their own. Whats teh point of choppers without a gun? Or drop troops when you don't have borders with anyone and don't have crawlers to supply the extra minrows? Ditto treefarms, if you waste time building treefarms early then you're not expanding your colony and 3 maintainance is hellish expensive so you need a few pop to avoid going bankrupt.

Singularity > fusion
But even so, all that needs to happen for someone with singularity mechanics to lose the advantage is for one probe team to steal a unit. Hardly an uncommon occurance.

While I like the eudomania choice fine as well, I'll stick with MMI. If I beeline to nonlinear maths, how do you propose to survive if you are at all close geographically. Drop troops and choppers. If I picked the gaians, I might even have worms in the mix

[Flubber]

Lord Nword

Is this a modded or altered game ?

I ask since your bases seem to be building things like

Mind-machine lab
Cult of Planet
Planet ark

Did you rename something or are these custom units or something?

[paramir]

*Looks at map*
hey, even stranger he's building a habitation dome

[#endgame]

I'll bet it's Aldebaran. See AC-Creation forums, and look back in time.

[Senethro]

Originally posted by Flubber


While I like the eudomania choice fine as well, I'll stick with MMI. If I beeline to nonlinear maths, how do you propose to survive if you are at all close geographically. Drop troops and choppers. If I picked the gaians, I might even have worms in the mix

Choppers can't capture bases and you're not going to be withing 8 square range of me at the beginning of the game on any map above small. Additionally, both of those expensive units can be destroyed by recon rovers unless you add industrial base/synthmetal to your beeline. But that just gives me more time to reach IA and the joys of +4 industry. If I was playing the Hive then every new base could build a recon rover as its standard defender with its 10 free mins.

And a mind worm rush is a mind worm rush, same as ever.

[Sikander]

I'd sure like to have the map revealed early and some extra nutrients in every base, and Orbital Spaceflight would make those possible, though at a pretty high cost. You'd have to have a number of bases to make it pay off, but ot would be pretty nice to be able to build a few satellites by the time you hit the second bureau limit or so.

[Lord Nword]

Originally posted by Flubber
Lord Nword

Is this a modded or altered game ?

I ask since your bases seem to be building things like

Mind-machine lab
Cult of Planet
Planet ark

Did you rename something or are these custom units or something?

I opened the game with Aldebaran... and I'm using a custom faction as well... The game was originally played in regular SMAX...

And it's a Planet Park (same as centauri preserve...). It's been a while since I've played regular SMAX

The fact that the cost of a fission gravship would probably make me choose a diffierent tech, probably one mentioned in this thread.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Senethro


Choppers can't capture bases and you're not going to be withing 8 square range of me at the beginning of the game on any map above small.

True but my first couple of builds would be drop scouts which are not at all expensive and I would be looking to drop them a full 8 away from their starting location and begin exploring. Bottom line is that I should mmet other factions pretty quickly and we all know how easy it is to get the AI to make trades in the early game.

Originally posted by Senethro


Additionally, both of those expensive units can be destroyed by recon rovers unless you add industrial base/synthmetal to your beeline.

Ind base is generally easy to trade for but mobility would be my key. If you had a small island off your coast, watch out. My choppers would be dancing to hit your empire and then move off over water or two tiles into fungus ( and next turn back to base to recoup

Originally posted by Senethro


But that just gives me more time to reach IA and the joys of +4 industry. If I was playing the Hive then every new base could build a recon rover as its standard defender with its 10 free mins.

Your industry would be impressive but you are advocating rovers versus choppers. . . What makes you think that you would often get the first shot. The better assumption is that you are more often the defender and that an impact chopper would be successful more often than not.

Your problem might be that I DON'T try to capture your bases but instead, I find places to put bases in 2-3 directions and use these bases to swoop in and kill your formers and crawlers. +4 industry is great but its tough if your terraforming can't get done and you can't crawl anything without armoring the crawlers or escorting stuff

Originally posted by Senethro



And a mind worm rush is a mind worm rush, same as ever.

True-- but imagine a rush that is generated by the fungus just outside your empire (If I capture a worm far from you, I will turn it back to the wild to kill it) I hadn't thought this out but early droppers plus early choppers should mean a bonanza of wormkilling and great worm defense

I don't say that MMI is winning as a lot would depend on the map and game setup BUT I would dispute that eudomania wins for certain either

[Flubber]

Following up,

The folks I would be afraid of are probably those guys with the great reactors. If they played normally they could soon have units that are essentailly invulnerable to conventional attack (another reason I might want to be the gaians-- hate the morale hit but an early native ability might counteract some of what people are doing)


All in all , a very interesting question . . . I go back to Darsnan's comment about rock paper scissors. I think that if you look hard at it, no matter what tech you pick , there is a counter that would almost certainly beat it on a given world size and settings.

So is the answer the infamous "it depends"?

[TimeTraveler]

I just realized something...

When I first looked at Eudaimonia, I was mainly thinking the +2 growth of Eudaimonic society, and how when combined with any two of Democratic, Planned, golden ages, and Creches, it would be +6 growth. Then mere minutes ago I realized that I was also completely missing +2 industry, +2 econ, and the Telepathic Matrix. ...so with Eudaimonia and some beelines to Ethical Calculus and Planetary Networks, one could have pop booms, +1 energy per square, and a complete lack of drone problems! ...and then that could later be added with either rebalancing of industry, support, and morale through Power, increasing research and efficiency through Knowledge, or further boosting econ and industry through wealth.

Yeah... I think I'm going to switch my top choice to Eudaimonia.

I think after my current game, I'm also going to edit the game to try to make it and a handful of other techs (like DS, BM, IA, Fusion, Ecology, and PN) less overpowered.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by TimeTraveler
I just realized something...

When I first looked at Eudaimonia, I was mainly thinking the +2 growth of Eudaimonic society, and how when combined with any two of Democratic, Planned, golden ages, and Creches, it would be +6 growth. Then mere minutes ago I realized that I was also completely missing +2 industry, +2 econ, and the Telepathic Matrix. ...so with Eudaimonia and some beelines to Ethical Calculus and Planetary Networks, one could have pop booms, +1 energy per square, and a complete lack of drone problems! ...and then that could later be added with either rebalancing of industry, support, and morale through Power, increasing research and efficiency through Knowledge, or further boosting econ and industry through wealth.

Yeah... I think I'm going to switch my top choice to Eudaimonia.
.

It doesn't change my reasoning since I agree that if the eudo player is permitted to build and build, it could lead to a crushing lead. If for instance they had time to build the telepathic matrix before facing major attacks, every one else would be in trouble

I confess that part of my thinking in choosing MMI is the idea that a drop probe will be able to find a vulnerable spot and steal an opponent's advanced tech ( after all , the drop probes can come from anywhere and a single probe defender would likely be inadequate if an opponent can hit you with choppers) .

[Ka Plewy]

think after my current game, I'm also going to edit the game to try to make it and a handful of other techs (like DS, BM, IA, Fusion, Ecology, and PN) less overpowered.

Eudaimonia is not overpowered. Think about it, it comes late in the game. It balances the player who gets the Cloing Vats (+6 Growth with other SE choices).
Gives Yang and Dee +2 (or higher) energy, given they make the appropriate SE choices. No, it's not overpowered, quite the opposite, it's just late enough in the game for it to be considered underpowered. Don't weaken a tech without considering the context of where the tech is placed and what it balances out.

[livid imp]

Nword,

Why not cover all those condensors with crawlers? At least the cluster of fours that don't fall in the city work limits.

[Commy]

I am realizing it now...Eudaimonia would kill...so maybe your military sucks...yeah, sure, some people have singularity reactors, some have copters, and some have drop pods...but +2 economy without pacifism, pop-booming, and telepathic matrix would literally kill...my next game, I'm playing as Morgan...

But anyway, with the singularity reactors...since they give you 40 hit points, even mindworms would be at loss...not completely, but their success would be minimal...

Perhaps another consideration is transcendent thought...see, you have to have controlled singularity and transcendence to research the first one, but do you have to have both of those techs to research the second one? Does tran. thougth 1 allow you to research thought 2? I ask this because, if you had a tech lead, or good probe teams, if all you did was research thoughts, then your score would literally kill everyone...if score matters to you...