Solstice 2005 AI challenge

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by mart7x5
Darsnan, how is your game?

I won in 2324. So you've got plenty of time to conquer Planet/ Transcend/ whatever, in order to beat my score.
BTW how is everyone else doing in this Challenge?


D

[Xian]

Im doing terribly but then again I have significant difficulty with regular SMAX on transcend ( I can still win but not easily, and its rare that i do it by transcendence. By regular standards ive never been a good Smax player so my opnion of how difficult it is doenst count

one question though, are the AI factions meant to be so agressive?

Very good job

[Chaos Theory]

Inherently aggressive AI factions tend to get more aggressive the weaker you are, and respect strength. All of the opposing factions are quite capable of being warmongers, but weren't specifically set up to go on a rampage.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Darsnan


I won in 2324. So you've got plenty of time to conquer Planet/ Transcend/ whatever, in order to beat my score.
BTW how is everyone else doing in this Challenge?


D

I'm in 2220ish

The Gaians have been eradicated up north and I have lukewarm relations with the Hive and Empire-- varies between unfought wars and truces. I have fought the Pirates quite a bit and am now munching away on the Agrarians and assisting my pactmates the cult to do the same. Ever since I came to the cult's assistence to beat back the Agrarians the cult seems to love me. The Agrarians beg for a truce every turn but I'm not going for it. My first satellite will go up soon so I'll have a better idea what I face.

[Mart]

Originally posted by Darsnan


I won in 2324. So you've got plenty of time to conquer Planet/ Transcend/ whatever, in order to beat my score.
...

Hive kinda escapes both militarily and scientifically. however, I got all satellites I could, based on my max base size, which is 11. Both nutrient and energy, still await mineral ones. I currently aspire to get cloning vats, and I have a chance. Slowly building military force for some faction take-over, I have now hovertanks, but in prototype stage. Hive will be a problem, since they can get Transced early. One of my weaknesses is that I trade technologies a lot, and AI for sure gets bonusses from it. I might even attack Hive as the first serious vendetta, skipping Agrians.

Guess who is the biggest environment pollutant.... Gaians

[Mart]

The year is 2275. Hive is making Voice of Planet. No way I can slow them down. I traded techs for too long with Yang. Interesting though, Gaians and Empire stil exist in reasonable borders. The only faction eradicated is Cult.

[Flubber]

Update

2227 and the Agrarians might have 5 more turns to live. The Cult loves me and has been gifting me units
The pirates keep dribbling units at me to die with no real damage on me.
The Hive looks formidable but I want to secure my flank before taking them on. The empire is far far away.

I am second to the hive on the powerchart . I have recently built the PEG and the AV and am about to complete the NA. This goes with the HGP, PTS,Supercollider, CF, CBA, and a couiple more I forget. Notable things I did not get included the empath guild ( I intentionally denied myself that), the WP and the HSA

[Mart]

In my game Hive was able to complete VoP in 2281. Then Transcendence in 2282. I switched to hive and just did that. However hive was not very succesful in its wars. Ocasional switching of bases with Pirates, Agrians, Gaians. Yang had very slow start and suddenly grew up at some point. My mistake was maintaining tech trades for long time.

I start the scanario once more. With correction of strategy

[Darsnan]

Your up awful late tonight mart7x5 - got a bad case of "Just One More Turnitis"?

Originally posted by mart7x5
In my game Hive was able to complete VoP in 2281. Then Transcendence in 2282. Yang had very slow start and suddenly grew up at some point.

Probably about the time Yang got those free Punishment Spheres, eh?

Originally posted by Flubber
2227 and the Agrarians might have 5 more turns to live. The Cult loves me and has been gifting me units
The pirates keep dribbling units at me to die with no real damage on me.
The Hive looks formidable but I want to secure my flank before taking them on.

Looks like your gonna best my score by about 100 turns! I'd see about doing better, but I'm busily working on my next SP Challenge.....

D

[binTravkin]

I will do it too, when I have time, so we can compare our stats, D.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Darsnan




Looks like your gonna best my score by about 100 turns!

Well -- since I am 97 turns from your finish I have my doubts . I don't really have a sense of how many more years it will take me to transcend and I'm not quite sure what surprises yet might be in store.

Right now I am trying to beeline for the TOE to complete my SSC. I am raising land to the north like crazy for my energy park and the fact that it serves as a defensive barrier is also nice. The AI is about to get a bit tougher as both the Pirates and Cult are researching fusion power ( the Hive already has it).

My plan is to keep the Cult happy with me for a little while longer (staying in green) until I can get a few Punishment Spheres up and switch to FM again and if necessary I would then subjugate the Cult-- I'll have them pretty much surrounded once I finish with the Agrarians-- but I would prefer not to bother and keep them, as friendly pactmates

[Lazerus]

God i never thought i'd be so happy to get thought control !!!!
yeah im an appalling Morgan player, i lost out on all the major SP's like CBA, Cyborg factory, citizens defense force and such to the Agrians and they slaughtered the cult and then came for me along with the Hive and Pirates !
Fought tooth and nail snagging the cloning vats and pumping up all bases like crazy with genejacks so i'm throwing out the shard choppers,missiles and drop troops like crazy now that i don't have to worry about drones. Managed to save a few cult bases so even running FM cha dawns happy with me for now, took several Hive and Pirate bases so now they can't keep running my crawlers with their noodles and i've reclaimed most of the cult land from the Agrians getting the CBA and command nexus from them so far. Tech rate is now 1 per 2 turns, about to get the theory of everything built in early 2230's so that should keep my rate steady for abit. I don't think i've got any realistic chance of improving my tech rate higher but conquering land and turning the pop into specialists with the vats and sats should keep my steady through to the end of the game.

Now just to hope that the AI don't start throwing those PB's about until i get some ODP's up because they've got around 5 each

[Flubber]

Sounds like we are at similar development

Originally posted by Lazerus

yeah im an appalling Morgan player, i lost out on all the major SP's like CBA, Cyborg factory, citizens defense force and such to the Agrians and they slaughtered the cult and then came for me along with the Hive and Pirates !

Ya I saw the Agrarians munching through the cult so I began a major military assistence program. With my help the cult stopped losing bases and began pushing the Agrarians back. I just have a couiple of chopprs up that way now as I am spending my time munching the Agrarian waterbases. The pirates have mainly just been annoying. With the long range it is tough to fight at sea against an opponent that ALWAYS finds your units. But my air patrols take out most of the shipping before it gets close anyway.

Originally posted by Lazerus
Fought tooth and nail snagging the cloning vats and pumping up all bases like crazy with genejacks so i'm throwing out the shard choppers,missiles and drop troops like crazy now that i don't have to worry about drones.

Sounds as if you are a little ahead of me in tech but then again I "discouraged"AI trades by trying to keep them peeved at each other.

Originally posted by Lazerus

Tech rate is now 1 per 2 turns, about to get the theory of everything built in early 2230's so that should keep my rate steady for abit. I don't think i've got any realistic chance of improving my tech rate higher but conquering land and turning the pop into specialists with the vats and sats should keep my steady through to the end of the game.

My tech rate can be similar (in 2227 pre TOE)-- I am currently running 60% Labs while going demo/green/wealth and I am getting a tech per 3 turns IIRC. I hope to build the TOE by 2234 which should get my rate down to 1 in 2 and hopefully with a few other changes will soon get to a tach a turn

Originally posted by Lazerus



Now just to hope that the AI don't start throwing those PB's about until i get some ODP's up because they've got around 5 each

Only the Hive and Pirates can currently build PBs. Heck the Agrarians are researching doc air . . . so my AI group is behind yours in tech.

Generally, I always find in scenarios that my development is a bit behind that in my normal games even if the AI doesn't do anything that crazy. I tend to be VERY cautious since I don't really know what to expect.

[Lazerus]

I played a few more turns last night, i accepted truce with the pirates while i poured shard choppers into the 2 sea bases i captured right next to his main continent. A few turns later i think some of his choppers got stuck bouncing across my continent so he broke truce and shot up a few of my crawlers. I've taken 6 bases from him so far, mind controlled a few for around 3k ec each but they had around 10 fusion noodles in which was nice Managed to take out all his PB's and got a couple of SP's from him, he's pretty much gone as a threat now. Consolidating atm though since he's got some 8 AAA*2 + aerospace bases that i'll need a few missiles for. The Hive has broke pact and declared war on the pirates now aswell (woo!) but then somehow convinced the Gaians who had been my long term pact/treaty friend to declare war on me for no reason so that hurt my trade abit.

Agrians keep begging for truce but i'm going to completely finish them, getting some nice bases which are beginning to pump out the formers to quickly try and get the land developed and pour out some more bases to keep booming, currently getting around 4.3k lab points with the tech cost at 5.2k so if i build abit more and switch to cybernetic in a few turns when wars have finished i'll hopefully get 1 per turn.

Cults still giving me masses of units and since i've got the Nano factory now i'm upgrading everything to 13-8-1 AAA,drop*2 for minimal cost and leaving them hanging around ready for the inevitable day when he'll probably cancel pact.

Keep me informed on any useful tactics you pick up that i might still have time to put into use Flubber

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Lazerus

Keep me informed on any useful tactics you pick up that i might still have time to put into use Flubber

Sounds like you are doing just fine.

I only managed a single turn this morning and am setting things up to explode my population again. I'll probably get 3-4 turns in tonightbut the playing gets slower from now on.

Heck half the reason that I stop ICS expansion is that I get tired of managing so many bases