Newbie Help and Strategies wanted!

[QuixotesGhost]

Yeah "Economic" is a weird victory because it's best to go for it early midgame because that's when you'll see the biggest boost in your income - Fusion Labs, Tree Farms, and Hybrid Farms come really close together and you don't get a sweet spot like that at any other section of the tech tree. Past that the target for Economic victory often increases faster than you can keep up. I think the most important trait for the target is the size of your opponent cities. I notice a big jump right after the AI starts getting tree farms and another big jump when they get Habatation domes.


I'd go with the Peace Keepers - being the most balanced faction in the game, you can do anything with them. Playing with them will give you a good idea of the ins and outs of a lot of the facets of the game.

Also, you say you're a fan of Atlas Shrugged. I'm curious if you have played Bioshock yet. You might find this hard to believe, but the game is actually based around the novel. The premise is basically Galt's Gulch gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Opening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTnZu...eature=related

The game drops a ridiculous number of Atlas Shrugged references. You'll probably enjoy it immensely if you enjoyed the novel.

[StealthKab]

Oh yeah, I bought Bioshock day one. That's actually what got me to get the book and read it. Amazing game. Poor Little Sisters. Back when that and Fallout 3 were at a previous E3, those were my most wanted titles.

So many great games this year and so little money...

[StealthKab]

Man, playing as the Peacekeepers is a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be. No money to rush things, units aren't all that tough, and the prototype units. For some reason when I played as Morgan they didn't have to build prototypes. Does that have to do with difficulty?

[vyeh]

There is no prototype cost at specialist level. What level are you playing at?

[StealthKab]

I started out when playing Morgan on Specialist. When I went to play the PKs, it was Citizen...maybe, I think. Whichever the middle difficulty. I was wondering why I never had any prototyping problems I kept reading about.

Sort of a weird question...why is Yang's color blue? Should be anything but blue. AC's color schemes doesn't make much sense.

[vyeh]

I have no idea why Yang's color is blue.

[StealthKab]

Here's something I hope you guys can help me out on. Once I got a hold of Alpha Centauri and decided that I liked it I've been trying to find Alien Crossfire. I think I might be able to get a hold of that too. The question now is what does it significantly change. You know, besides the obvious, like the alien factions and the newer human ones.

From what I understand, in AC having the Hunter-Seeker Algorithim was a gigantic advantage if you weren't Miriam's Believers...but in Alien Crossfire there's a tech that helps get by. More specifically, how would my strategies for Morgan (I think he's my favorite) change. Anything anyone can add would be great, I'm looking for whatever and have been readin other posts to get info.

[vyeh]

(1) You remember how you didn't do the sea thing? There is an aquatic faction, The Pirates. There are new facilities that improve the output of sea squares.

(2) There are three new native life forms. Personally, I find Spore Launchers and Fungal Towers add more challenge. The AI has this habit of bombarding your improvements from the sea ...

(3) There are new landmarks.

(4) There are new techs, which give additional weapons, armor and special abilities

(5) There are new secret projects.

(6) There is a new probe team ability which frees captured faction leaders from the capturing faction.

(7) How your strategy would change would depend on the factions you're playing. If the two alien factions are in the game, I think you would be forced to respond to them first. Alien Crossfire is somewhere between an expansion pack and a sequel. If the Pirates are in the game, I think you'd be forced to play the sea game. The Data Angels would probably force you to address probe actions more (at least defending against them).

[StealthKab]

Which do you prefer? The original or Alien Crossfire? I'm trying to find a pdf manual of Crossfire so I can check out all of the features and crap.

Crossfire sounds interesting because of the new alien factions. So, some of the human ones sound interesting as well. But I suppose the real big differences between the two are the new techs and what not.

Edit: Ha, found the manual. Linux version, but whatever. Works all the same.

[vyeh]

(1) I prefer Alien Crossfire (SMAX), but I mostly prefer the original factions, except for the Pirates.

(2) The fungal towers and the spore launchers increase the atmosphere.

(3) The pirates are a potent faction. When they are in the game, your attitude toward the seas change.

(4) The Cloudbase Academy is significant.

(5) Think of SMAC as rev. 1 and SMAX as rev. 2. If you don't get SMAX, SMAC is much more than half of the playing value of SMAX. Out of curiousity, how do you think you can get hold of SMAX?

[StealthKab]

Same way I got Alpha Centauri. A friend of mine has literally cases full of old video games. One happened to be SMAC. Once I realized there was an expansion I ask if he had it could I get it? He doesn't care, all the more better since I from what I gather is that SMACX is fairly rare. Suikoden 2 rare.

[vyeh]

For your first game of SMACX, I would suggest you play Morgan against the other original seven factions on the standard map of the Planet at Specialist difficulty . Then you can focus on the differences between Alpha Centauri and SMACX.

[Hydro]

Glad to see a few new SMACers!

A few tips for the Peacekeepers. First and foremost, the PKs population boom like no one else can. With their extra Talents and higher habitation limits (9 vs 7 for cities without hab complexes) and +6 growth (Demo+Planned+creche) you will get HUGE. Growing your population is the best way for Lal to get resources, and especially energy. There are various strategies for pop booming. I like booming in phases (a few cities get crèches, switch to Planned for a few turns and away we go!). Others like to wait until most/all cities can boom and do it in one fell swoop. As a side benefit, booming will get you much more in the way of minerals too, so you can build improvements (tree farms, net node) or units faster. That is always a plus. The main problem is that you may quickly outgrow your nutrients and improved tiles so be sure to build enough terraformers (at least 1 or 2 per base).

My second tip is that when you aren’t going Demo/Planned (for pop boom) go Demo/Free Market. FM will get you lots of energy, which gets you a good energy reserve for rush buying improvements and for research. For the Wealth/Knowledge SE I like Knowledge. One of Lal’s problems is a low Efficiency (he has -1 to start), so Demo (+2 efficiency) and Knowledge (+1 efficiency) will help. Note that more efficiency means you can have more and larger cities with fewer problems. Plus, the research bonus with Knowledge helps too!

Good luck!
Hydro

As a side note, I’ve never read Ann Rand - kind of thought she was on the wacko fringe like L. Ron Hubbard (of Scientology fame). Maybe I should educate myself…

[StealthKab]

You mean new SMACXers now. Got Crossfire. Was going to take Jagged Alliance 2, but I already have it downloaded from StrategyFirst. I was thinking of doing that same thing. Play a game I know fairly well and then see what's different, then play another game I know and add in the aliens.

One thing that confuses me about SMACX's story is how did the other factions land on Planet?

Yeah, Ayn Rand did have a cult thing going. But the philosophy of what she's saying isn't really crazy. It's pretty American. Basically you keep what you earn, government doesn't interfere, and basically do what you want as long as you don't infringe on others rights. Basically Morgan Industries.

[vyeh]

SMACX is a revision of the SMAC story. You only have seven factions, which is some combination of the original and new factions. So if you're playing the new factions, then The Pirates, Data Angels, Drones, Cybernetic Consciousness all fled from the Unity instead of the original seven factions. The founder of the Cult was found 5 years later in the wilderness of Planet. The two Alien factions landed at that time.