Solstice 2005 AI challenge

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Lazerus
Turns are sooo long ! 124 population increase this turn atleast

wow-- I find the same thing though-- I played for half an hour this morning and was on the same turn when I finished as when I started

Plus since I was going green for so long , the CV certainly booms up that population quick

[Lazerus]

Well it's eventually completed 2256 so you've got plenty of time to beat me Flubber
Finished the game with around 1350 population and that was without trying until the last 4 turns.
Final score = 5167 !
My Gaians finished really strong, tech per turn, quantum power, and just about to research secrets of the manifolds. I think the fact i took the Hive and Pirates away from them and also kept nagging the Empire to leave them alone forming a nice trio between us is the reason.

Massive thanks for the scenario Chaos was a great challenge and a brilliant piece of designing in the way you've managed to make the AI's perform

[Lazerus]

Was nice watching the replay, everything so calm until around 2230-2235 and then boom, a massive yellow explosion flying over the agrians, into the pirates and then the Hive

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Lazerus
Well it's eventually completed 2256 so you've got plenty of time to beat me Flubber

I don't think I can beat that !! I need to haul out my tech tree and see how many advances away I am but I think 20 years to finish is far too much

[Flubber]

I couldn't quite manage to beat Laz as I transcended in 2260. I actually think I could go back to my last save and at least match the 2256 as I made a number of mistakes the key one being not reallocating a bunch of crawlers away from my best science city to avoid a lot of wasted labs. I had a bunch of turns (maybe as many as 5 )where my labs were way more than enough to get two techs in the turn but I was simply too lazy to rehome 30-40 crawlers. My other mistake was not grabbing quantuum power at the first opportunity to get some quantuum labs in my best bases.

In the last few years, the cult peeved me off again as they sent MASSES of probes at me even when treatied. Despite having no commerce, I managed to tech at 3 techs a turn at the end.

Thanks to chaos theory for an interesting scenario. The differences were intriguing but I found that playing as an isolationist builder worked pretty well as long as I raised enough land so that attacking forces came ashore away from anything vital. That and a couple of seabases that allowed no enemies to traverse certain waters helped a lot.

NO PBs flew. At the end I was tempted to start shooting down enemy satellites but figured every ODP was better as protection.

[Blake]

I'll have to try this. Wonder if I remember how to play... (what a silly question! ofcourse I do!) finding time otoh... let "just one more turn" handle that?

[Mart]

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

You can't imagine how weak my immune system is for that particular kind of desease. I sometimes stay till 8 am up. From saturday to sunday. I am actually not sure why the invention of the free of work day was made. To train strength of will I guess.

I just took a look into alphax.txt.
Mines do not decrease nutrient production by -1. Nice.

[Blake]

Pretty easy so far, 2156.

I started out by loading a CP into a boat and sailing off yonder (impressive move speed), this CP got dumped off about 10 tiles from HQ and immediately founded a base, in case it was the territory of another player (as you can found in another players territory if you havn't met them). It turned out to be right next to the Dawn base Well of Souls.

Relations started off cordial with the Dawn, after a while he rang up in a panic about pirates, my first instinct was to laugh at him and his silly childhood fantasys but my advisor pointed out there was an oppurtunity here and I formed a pact with the dawn against these "Pirates". Sweet deal.

Boy did I feel silly when a couple of pirate ships showed up and killed one of my transports! Anyway the pact turned out useful when the cultists defended one of my bases from a pirate scout patrol attack.

At 2156 I have rapid crawler production, the Dawn has been thoroughly hemmed in by a line of bases, the Manifold Nexus is under my control (maybe boy genious shouldn't have showed me where it is!), I'm running wealth only, as Cha Clueless Dawn is in a pact with me, and I'd rather keep it that way until I feel the need to make him donate the Virtual World to my cause.

I forsee no serious problems, the PTS will probably be my first SP, but the Dawn pratically built the Virtual World for me. My strategy will probably be to conquer the Cult fairly soon and make them surrender, then donate the bases of other factions to them while I build up my homeland. The agrohippies are helping keep the dawn contained, and I'll probably conquer them and hand their bases over to dawn, prehaps making them submissive also. That's the plan anyway.

[Lazerus]

oh just pray and pray that the Agrians don't become a rampant monster and you've got to kill hundreds of infantry with AAA or the Hive and pirates start sea bases packed with noodles all over your coast to pick off those crawlers

[Illuminatus]

Certainly interesting scenario. I believe the key to winning the scenario is popping pods. I've sent probe teams to unity foils and ferried them across land where they popped pods with remarkably good results. As new bases grew slowly, I had them build several new PT for exploration which also explored a good portion of Planet and popped a dozen pods before falling prey to NL.

One of PTs ferried east encountered Cultist pod, which was successfully subverted for 200 credits, but was well worth it as Manifold Nexus is now in my teritory. I have a pact with Cult and trade technologies with them but to maintain pact I had not run FM in early years before IA (which I got in 2124).

I have popped up 15 artifacts by now (MY 2133), of which 11 were not destroyed by NL. I've used 6 of them to build PTS in 2125 , only a year after I discovered IA. I used one to speed Weather Paradigm, and payed out the rest recently with EC (had to help myself by taking a loan from Cult ). Four of them are active, but pretty far away, and foil is needed to transport safely three of them. Since I lost one to IoD it will take some time until they reach my teritory. If I haven't lost four of them to NL perhaps I could have saved money on building the TWP which I could use right now to hurry CPs in all bases.

I have pact with Cult, I have Agrians comm frequency, but since they show up as seething I avoid communication with them. A turn ago, I saw a fight between a MW and their CP which they lost. Surprisingly, their CP was about ten squares from my outer reaches, so I am worried a bit about eventual contact. Also, Cult also seems to send most of his CP westwards, thus denying my teritory. I attempted to buy one Cult base which is dangerously close to my teritory but the little brat asked for over 1000 ECs. We remain pacted, mostly due to me agreeing to any trade they suggest.

I've lost most of scouts by now, and most of them are escorting AA to shore. Hive has discovered SotHB ( ), and built HGP. It seems that it will soon finish Command Nexus too, beating Pirates. Strangely enough, no one is even attempting to build WW. Deirdre is building CDF. Due to PTS I presume I can match AI grow in future (17 bases now), but I spent almost all of my cash reserves and they are needed now to hurry CPs and RecTanks. When I get 4 AA back (hopefully without NL interference) I could perhaps build WW (if no one builds it) or CDF (since Cha Dawn is researching II). I will need to do something with Cult too, since its base is only 5-10 squares away from almost all of my western bases.

[Kataphraktoi]

conquest win 3 moves into turn 2251,reloaded the same save and transcended at 2241. am on orginal smac and played it yesterday(first smac game in ages).i finished tech advances by 2230 with 12000+ sci per turn (2 techs\turn),i got screwed up by the fact that smac golden ages dont pop boom,which i totaly forgot

i just used singularityL hover tanks with drop pods and finished everyone off in 20 turns or so...the hive added 10+ turns to this,i had to rush dozens of gravships on site(the hive homeland) to conquer them. used Sing busters,3 on hive,1 on pirates homeland(had nowhere that wasnt protected by aerospace to drop on)


i wonder if the smac versian isnt easier somehow,i got ALL SP except for four(of which only maritime was usefull). i never lost a base,and never built any defensive units even(constant FM).it might have been harder if they actually attacked me,but i was pacted with pirates+agrians=safe?

and i can upload my saves later,but im at my cousins house and unbeleivably we have no internet at home ATM(thats why i havnt been on lately)

do i get fastest win award?

[Illuminatus]

Well I transcended in 2256. . I did manage to get almost all midgame and lategame projects (I lost HSA and DT to AI however). Most of AIs were busy building missiles and needles.

[Chaos Theory]

I suppose this one was a bit too easy. I'll make amends soon enough.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Cataphract887
conquest win i wonder if the smac versian isnt easier somehow,

Perhaps-- well the tech tree will be different with a ton of different SPs available but I don't know if that would make it that much quicker

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
I suppose this one was a bit too easy. I'll make amends soon enough.

Well I do know I played it far too safely in retospect. When I play a scenario on the first go through, I just play to win which means I am pretty conservative. If I played it now, knowing the layout of the factions I could have speeded development by ignoring military longer.

I don't know that it was "too easy", but it was defintely possible to build and pretty much ignore the other factions