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The naughty version of Alpha-Centauri, or the 'Harem Option'

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  • The naughty version of Alpha-Centauri, or the 'Harem Option'

    I just returned to the game a few months back (mucho thanks to the wonderful denizens of this board who explained how to get it to run on XP!) and discovered a wrinkle to the game I'd never run into when I played it extensively years back: the 'permanent submission option.'

    I will admit upfront I'm not an expert compared to many on this board. Oh, I can beat it regularily on 'Transcend' but due to that, there's many facets of the game I've not mastered as they simply weren't necessary and I've never played multiplayer. I've never built an echelon mirror, or a 'energy park,' never raised or lowered terrain, I seldom build sensors, and I don't use supply crawlers to boost my production to obscene levels as you don't really have to do any of that, thus I just use crawlers to rush Projects and get the resources out of those annoying hexes just out of range of my bases. Which I try to space as perfectly as I can with little or no overlap as I find ICS aestheticly displeasing.

    However, playing recently, I discovered something I'd simply never known: ' permanent submissive factions.' Rusty as I am, I may simply have forgotten about it, but I don't think so. You see I always liked the 'role-playing' aspect of this game, thus I was careful not to destroy any factions in the early going as I wanted them in the game for the grand majority of it. Near the end I'd finish off the obnoxious ones and collect them in my dungeon (love that video too--so sinister!) but when they annoy me in the early going, I'd either let them off with mild correction after I captured one base, or force them to give me a tech or one of the bases they siezed and keep them in the game for later.

    In fact I used to rescue them, especially the poor helpless Diedre who often would get herself into hopless situations with Yang or someone, and from the purest motives I'd nobly dash off to her rescue, pulling her fat out of the fire, and return all her bases to her. While I'd run Planned and Free Market temporarily for pop-booms and cash farming, I'd always return to Green to keep her lovely gentle soul happy and often ended up winning with her by my side, having won her affection and--in my mind at least--her hand in marriage in the end. All very decent and above board.

    However, recently I was playing as my usual Peacekeepers, and had a great builder game going. I had just finished my pop boom and had my terraforming projects proceeding at a brisk rate due to my wonderful 'Weather Paradigm,' and the game was going swimmingly. I was just about to finish up a project or two with Supply Crawlers and switch to the Free Market and rake in the cash.

    Then that little trollop Diedre, my nearest neighbor, got uppity and as I'd rather neglected my defenses, the little fungus-worshipping strumpet must have noted I was ripe for the picking. She'd prattled on about my Planned economy once and the necessity to be nice to even those horrific mindworms, but since I knew she was the tolerant, understanding sort and she wasn't going to throw a fit over it like she was Yang or Mirriam, and as I'd eventually come around to her point of view, all would be forgiven and I could proceed as normal. However I'd kind of forgotten I was playing with the faction personalities randomized so she wasn't her usual pacifist self, and she came for me with a massive invasion force of mind-worms, spore launchers, Missile Rovers and Isles of the Deep.

    As I never thought of that little skank as a threat, I was still sitting with green Synthmetal Garrisons and hadn't even bothered to upgrade them to the Trance version or run them through a Monolith. I'd been spending my credits finishing up some buildings in preparation for my cash-farming period, so I was dead broke and in the process of finishing up some pretty expensive improvements or Projects and switching now would be terribly painful.


    As I found out, it was even more painful not switching. The little tart not only destroyed my supply crawlers rushing off to finish projects, she took a lot of the cities themselves, destroying almost-completed Projects or Improvements. The vindictive little slitch not only massacred my helpless formers en masse, she had those disgusting spore launchers eliminate almost all my hard work terriforming. My newly-created commando Chaos Rovers, which should have stopped it before it got too bad, were subverted by her Probe teams, something I forgot the AI is quite wont to do in some situations, though not often with the Gaians. It got ugly and my proud democratic workers paradise was in shambles.

    I was outraged and this time the gloves were coming off. No mercy for that little tree-humping wench in this instance, she was getting the back of my hand like she was Mirriam this time. That's an understatement, she was getting the Dungeon for sure, even if she escaped in a pod I would track her down to the ends of Planet and consign her to the hell I usually reserved for Yang and Mirriam. I'd make her end long and terrible, and I film the whole sadistic event and release it to the world so it would become Morgan Holovids best selling snuff-film. To rationalize it with my usual noble demeanor, I'd offer all the rest of her people amnesty and she alone would pay for her horric crimes, but her end was definitely going to be macabre.

    Thus I tightened my belt, turned the rest of my almost completed Research Hospitals and whatnot into prototypes and consigned the brainwashed forces of her inhuman worm-worshiping faction to oblivion and took almost every one of her bases. I didn't let her off easy after just retaking my cities and taking one or some of hers and maybe a tech; I beat her filthy worm-eaten hide back across the continent and when she was down to almost nothing I got a screen I'd never seen before, or if I had it was from Yang and I just skipped over it quickly without reading it as he would never have anything to offer at that point anyway.

    She would offer me everything she had, which included a few techs I'd not bothered to research yet, all her coin and she'd offer to serve me for life! In the mood I was in, what with I had in mind for her misbegotten spore-slavering skin, it took on rather...different...connoctations than Firaxis probably intended and it might have otherwise occured to my normally chivalristic self. She'd be...serving...me alright. Every day and twice on Sundays. Morgan Holovids would have their best-selling vid all right, it would just be of an entirely different nature.

    Even better, it turned out she was eager to please, and in fact liked it as she'd tell me repeatedly during the follwing centuries of servitude. I never knew it got like this, I'd had factions go 'submissive' on me before, but they didn't act like they were recreating 'The Story of O' like this time.

    Thus I've wondered, has anyone ever played a game with something..naughty... like that in mind as a paramount goal? how many factions can you force into permanent submission like that? I've gotten at least two in that role so I know more than one will sell themselves into slavery. Are they that way forever? Do they ever rebel? I won that game with a political victory thus never made it to Transcendance, so I'm wondering if it's possible to get all of them into that state?

    What with Santiago, Lady Diedre, the leader of the Cyborgs who looks suspiciously like the delectable Jeri Ryan, Roze--who readily admits her lurid fantasies--you can have four scrumptious little slave girls. Mirriam would need some time under plastic surgery, but we have the technology to make her into a simmering young Ann-Margret (Remember her in "Tommy" or "Bye-Bye Birdy? :::Slobber:: thus all but one of the slots could be taken up by members of your harem.

    It rather adds a certain amount of...spice...to those who like the role-playing elemnent, does it not?
    Last edited by Kaosium; May 30, 2006, 12:23.

  • #2
    GReat story !!!!!
    You don't get to 300 losses without being a pretty exceptional goaltender.-- Ben Kenobi speaking of Roberto Luongo

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    • #3
      Dee? Roze? Santi? Mirriam!? Pfft, who needs 'em? Bunch of freakin' wackos.

      That would be like Mary Matalin hooking up with James Carville... wait a minute, that did happen... No, it still doesn't make sense. That's the exception that proves the rule.

      Pretty women are a dime a dozen and attracted to power like bees to nectar. Look at Bill Clinton... of course, the proper metaphor there would be "like flies to shyte."
      (\__/) Save a bunny, eat more Smurf!
      (='.'=) Sponsored by the National Smurfmeat Council
      (")_(") Smurf, the original blue meat! © 1999, patent pending, ® and ™ (except that "Smurf" bit)

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      • #4
        KKKLINTON!

        i was enjoying it up to the point where the foolish builder somehow turned things around

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Straybow
          Dee? Roze? Santi? Mirriam!? Pfft, who needs 'em? Bunch of freakin' wackos.

          That would be like Mary Matalin hooking up with James Carville... wait a minute, that did happen... No, it still doesn't make sense. That's the exception that proves the rule.

          Pretty women are a dime a dozen and attracted to power like bees to nectar. Look at Bill Clinton... of course, the proper metaphor there would be "like flies to shyte."
          Err, who cares what they're thinking if they're on their knees before you wearing only chains, eager to please?

          Being basically a decent sort, I could never take advantage of an innocent that way, but one who has massacred my people wholesale, perhaps destroyed the future of the human race, and told me repeatedly how much they were planning to enjoy my horrible execution, I would accept that sort of submission in lieu of the death they so richly deserved.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Senethro
            KKKLINTON!

            i was enjoying it up to the point where the foolish builder somehow turned things around
            Well, if you dislike builders, think of it this way: It has 'encouraged' me to start playing the game more like a conquest game more often. I have certain rules though, I never declare on them first, but if they declare on me I don't stop until they're in chains, which is more martial and unforgiving than I usually play. Mind you I've been known to tempt them into attacking me first though....

            I don't declare first because if you just start picking on them it's too easy to win and I can't salve my conscience with the fact they 'deserved it.'

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            • #7
              So, it's finally happened. SMAC/X has gone D/s! Another victory for the dark side. Cool narrative (up to a point) Kaosium.

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              • #8
                Kaosium:

                Presumably, when elected El Supremo, you mandated a namechange from Chiron to Gor?

                G.

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                • #9
                  Heh, or De Sade. I was kinda channelling him or Norman when I wrote it. I don't usually play that way, but I got into that mess because that game started out so outstanding for me. Started on a river in a sea of Unity pods and popped my recycling tanks, a monolith, a Unity Rover who was instantly cloned, and a Battle Ogre all on the first turn amongst a plethora of bonus resources. Thus instead of playing a typical hybrid game I was lured into neglecting my defenses and trying to get all my basic buildings done in my core cities. Had I gone straight into conquest at that point I would have rolled over everyone and it wouldn't have been an interesting game.

                  With all the Unity Rovers I got in the first few turns I ended up with about seven artifacts, most close by and ended up with The Weather Paradigm and The Human Genome Project by about 2150. Usually that's the goal I set for having one project done, and in this case I had two, plus I was more than halfway done with The Virtual World with the cash on hand to rush it if I wanted, but since I was so far ahead I decided to save that money to upgrade my military--and then later decided to finish up Research Hospitals and other projects instead with it.

                  Thus I was especially irritated when the usually gentle Dierdre consigned that great start to oblivion with her vicious unprovoked attack circa 2200. Had that been Miriam or Yang on my borders I would never have been lulled into such a sense of security, but I'd forgotten I'd set the faction personalities on 'random' so that wasn't the normal Dierdre, it was the Yang/Miriam incarnation.

                  She crushed half my empire before I turned the tide and looking at the ruins of once-fantastic start I decided to rid myself of her brutal persona for life--when she offered abject surrender I was quite surprised. Come to think of it, I'd seen that screen before when consigning Yang to oblivion, but as he'd never be ahead of me in techs in that point in the game, nor ever had any money I never took him up on it, he never had anything to offer and I never realized that option existed. I just finished him off wondering why they had two consecutive screens of him begging for mercy.

                  Thus my desire to see her completely extinguished was quite strong and I pressed it all the way to that point and was astonished I'd played so many games without realizing that facet of the game existed. I was thinking pretty awful thoughts of what I'd do with her once I had her in my dungeon, but not of that variation, more along the lines of having her slowly consumed by mind worms while the world watched on Morgan Vid. It wasn't until I saw her show up regularily with free techs and was always telling me how much she liked serving me that those...naughty...thoughts creeped in.

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                  • #10
                    Re: The naughty version of Alpha-Centauri, or the 'Harem Option'

                    Originally posted by Kaosium
                    ***
                    Thus I've wondered,

                    ***

                    how many factions can you force into permanent submission ***?

                    I've gotten at least two in that role so I know more than one will sell themselves into slavery.
                    I've got at least three, maybe four into submission.

                    Are they that way forever?


                    Do they ever rebel?
                    If you commit atrocities they may rebel. Plus I've had at least once instance where someone else tech probed them, and framed me, causing them to break pact with me.


                    I won that game with a political victory thus never made it to Transcendance, so I'm wondering if it's possible to get all of them into that state?
                    Once you do the game ends in a victory by conquest.

                    ***


                    Mead

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                    • #11
                      Thank you for those answers.

                      I've another one, what determines whether they'll surrender or they'll escape in a colony pod or face extinction? I traditionally play without the 'do or die' option as I don't want any other factions wiping out another, but with that option I've found some will escape and others will accept submission. I just started using 'Do or Die' and some will die instead. How is that determined?

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                      • #12
                        I believe that the percentage chance of the faction respawning (escape via colony pod) is a function of how many game turns have progressed. In other words, the longer the game goes on, the less likely a defeated faction is to escape your merciless grasp. IIRC, the 'Do or Die' knob simply turns off the pod escape outcome altogether. I think the only real use of the do or die option is if you're trying to get the fastest possible conquest victory, otherwise, I'd leave it on. It makes the game more fun.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Kaosium
                          I traditionally play without the 'do or die' option as I don't want any other factions wiping out another, but with that option I've found some will escape and others will accept submission.
                          Actually, in SMAX, when another faction wipes out a faction, you can send a probe team into their HQ and liberate the captured faction leader. The released faction leader starts again somewhere on the map with a permanent Pact of Submission to you. Unless you start with the atrocities, of course.

                          If we're going for the D/s theme, this is probably a more 'realistic' portrayal of such relationships, though perhaps not by much.

                          And since I prefer playing the Gaians as Deirdre and have a fondness of the Spartans that often prompts me to liberate Santiago when needed... well... the power dynamics here would be pretty interesting. Or, if you prefer, messed up.
                          "I'm too young and too male to be the mother of a seventeen year old female me!"

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                          • #14
                            That's right. I read that fan fiction you posted last year.

                            That was you, wasn't it?
                            Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Mr. President
                              That's right. I read that fan fiction you posted last year.

                              That was you, wasn't it?
                              Probably. If you mean the little fanfics I think you mean, that is.

                              But I haven't written about Deirdre and Santiago in a D/s relationship.

                              Yet.
                              Last edited by WotanAnubis; June 14, 2006, 09:21.
                              "I'm too young and too male to be the mother of a seventeen year old female me!"

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