Your most satisfying game setup?

[nhs_boy]

Just thought I'd post my favourite game setup for single-player SMACX, and ask about other people's here...

I like to have the difficulty on Transcend (or one below if I'm feeling lazy), and play the Nautilus Pirates on a medium-size (or smaller) map with the only possible victory being 'conquer' (cooperative if that floats your boat). It's a lot of fun to dodge around desperately trying to please all the other more-powerful factions while you wait for Isle-of-the-Deep technology to be researched, when you start to get revenge for the years of indignity...

But that's just me. Other people's thoughts?

[LoriTX]

Well lately I have been playing Random Player with Random AI's.

But usually play Gaian or the Female Alien Caretakers(for the fun of it)

Huge Planet
70%-90% ocean coverage (love to fight over the small amount of land)
Transend or Thinker(if I dont want to war so much)

Lori

[Commy]

Standard Map of Planet...

Play as Peacekeepers...

Blind Research is off, Unity Survey is on....

Diplomatic victory condition only...

And of course, on Transcend...

[nhs_boy]

Ah, I forgot the most important thing!

Tech Stagnation.

Makes for a much more epic, chunky game...

[Zoetrope]

I can relate the _least_ satisfying setup: as the Drones on a tiny island in a world-spanning ocean swarming with Pirates. Being hammered repeatedly almost from the start by sea artillery so no builds would complete and no units repair was _not_ my idea of fun.

I imagine the reverse would be almost as annoying: Pirates in a puddle of water on a land map occupied by strong opponents.

The second hardest situation I've faced was as a land-based builder faction on a small (? well it felt very cramped) map squeezed up against the sea by several AI players including a very aggressive Usurper. No matter what diplomatic, military, research or growth strategy I tried, I couldn't last beyond 50-70 turns.

The only approach I didn't try in that game was to go to sea; I'm not much of a sea-goer, except when playing as the Pirates.

Incidentally, and to give a positive example, on ocean maps I play the Pirates as a gung-ho expander. Never mind the -1 inefficiency, it's still better to plant sea bases everywhere, feeding them with fast-growing kelp farms. In my veru first Pirates game, by using mostly sea colonies and sea formers I had 100 sea bases within 100 turns. By then I'd claimed almost the whole ocean, and had plenty of bases in which to build aircraft to dominate the skies over all the other factions.

The third hardest game I was again a builder (Zak, I think) on a small map comprising strips of land connected by bridges, with Santiago to the west, Yang to the east, and water to north and south. I attempted peaceful relations but that failed, so I replayed and was able to survive for a while after I aggressively pre-empted Santiago's attacks by quickly building an attack force and taking a base or two of hers, but my momentum didn't last.

Grr, losing in single-player is just not right.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Zoetrope

Grr, losing in single-player is just not right.

QFT

[Zoetrope]

QFT = Quantum Field Theory?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Zoetrope
QFT = Quantum Field Theory?

Sorry--its used here in the Off-topic forum very frequently and means Quoted For Truth--

Sorry since the AC boards have slowed down, I do spend a bit of time in the Off-topic and picked up some of their habits

[xalien]

Huge map with max ocean coverage (naval actions, yay!) and abundant NL's

Transcend + ironman

Tech stagnation and furthermore reduced by 30% tech rate in apha(x).txt

Preferred factions: pirates, gaians, cyborgs
Rival factions: original SMAC's 7, sometimes I'll let in usurpers, they tend to grow biiiig and powerfull and make a good early game probe-rape victims (hey, it's not like there's any hope of peacful co-existance with them anyway)

Quality over quantity: my empire ought to look cool - minimum or no overlapping base squares, this usually limits my empire to 12-15 bases (but higly efficient ones) until I start conquering.

[Maniac]

Tiny Map
Pirates
90% water
opponents: Cult, Spartans, Hive, Believers, Caretakers, Usurpers

[Mart]

7 original factions
Rob's World
Peacekeepers

[molly bloom]

I always play on the largest map, transcend, Iron Man, and mix and match factions from SMAC & SMAX .

I usually play Gaian/Peacekeeper/Uni/CybCon occasionally Morgan, rarely Spartan, hardly ever Miriam (shock) or Yang.

The other factions I occasionally play just for the change.


I like lengthy single player games...

[BlackCat]

SMAX

256x320 map
70-90 % water
avg erosion
avg fung

unity survey
no pod scattering
blind Research off
transcend

Goals : all SP's, conquest victory.

Primarily Aki, but has done it with all X factions and some C. Haven't succeded with Miriam yet - stumbles on all SP's.

[Commy]

Has anybody ever tried to have no victory conditions except conquest on a huge map? Because, by doing so, you'd be forced to play all 400 turns of the game. This would be one way of actually having to use the late game technologies...

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Commy
Has anybody ever tried to have no victory conditions except conquest on a huge map? Because, by doing so, you'd be forced to play all 400 turns of the game. This would be one way of actually having to use the late game technologies...

Most of the SP Challenges I've posted over at CGN have been Conquest Only on Huge maps. Problem here ends up being that someone always figures out loopholes in the defenses I've set up for the AI's. Although I am getting better at assisting the AI's, why the Humans in all of their nefarious ways always seem to be one step ahead of me!


D