ACDG5: Demogame, anyone (especially newbies)?

[Maniac]

If you want to open up more SE choices, instead of a flat faction, you could give ROBUST to RESEARCH, EFFICIENCY and INDUSTRY. It would make Fundy, Police State and Power more viable.
(There's an unintended side-effect of making Planned a little more powerful, but that opens the perspective of using Planned with something else than Democratic, again strengthening the alternatives Pol State and Fundy )

; ROBUST = Halves the intensity of minus effects in the named
; social area ("ROBUST, EFFIC" halves minus efficiency
; effects in social model).

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Maniac
If you want to open up more SE choices, instead of a flat faction, you could give ROBUST to RESEARCH, EFFICIENCY and INDUSTRY. It would make Fundy, Police State and Power more viable.

If you chose a standard faction, then the aversion would trump ROBUST.

E.g. suppose you chose Peacekeepers. Even with ROBUST, you still could not choose Police State.

[Maniac]

I mean a custom faction with some ROBUSTness. For the rest it can be flat.

[Bodissey]

Re: I do have SMAX

Originally posted by vyeh


I do have SMAX; you're not upsetting me if you vote for SMAX.

Do you want to change your vote?

I guess I'll change my vote to 'either'.

[JoeStalin]

Two concerns about "federalism" concept, (having governors for individual bases or regions)

1. Game Pace. I could see a federated system as slowing down the game too much. We'd all be waiting for one guy to log on so he could staple his drones or whatnot...

which leads to my second concern:

2. Coordination. governors would focus too much on smaller projects. in doing so they could neglect the "bigger picture" of large scale coordination.

For Example: somebody decides to staple their drones: they fix their drone problem but punish the whole nation... This is an extreme example but i hope you see my point.

That said, i'll defer to you guys with more experience. I trust we'll set up an entertaining game. Just wanted to put my 2 cents in.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by JoeStalin
1. Game Pace. I could see a federated system as slowing down the game too much. We'd all be waiting for one guy to log on so he could staple his drones or whatnot...

This one is pretty easy to handle. We set a period of time (say 24 hours, not including weekends) for governors to do their thing. If a governor doesn't do anything, we assume that he is happy with the way his base is operating and we do the rest of the moves.

Originally posted by JoeStalin
2. Coordination. governors would focus too much on smaller projects. in doing so they could neglect the "bigger picture" of large scale coordination.

For Example: somebody decides to staple their drones: they fix their drone problem but punish the whole nation... This is an extreme example but i hope you see my point.

The demo council can establish rules the governor has to abide. So you or someone else could propose a rule that says a governor must get prior approval to nerve staple.

In ACDG1, players could "live" in only one region. The players who lived in the region would elect a governor for the region. The regions took on their own characters. In one region there were no boreholes.

By its nature, a democracy game involves politics. The point about governors focusing too much on smaller projects applies at the faction-wide level. The military general will want more units at the expense of base facilities.

These are the elements I think will make the game entertaining:

(1) rotation of the faction-wide positions (including faction leader and turn player) so that everybody who wants to play those positions gets to play those positions.

(2) creation of enough faction-wide positions (general, chief scientists, foreign minister) so that players can continue to have a significant involvement (rather than just debating on the boards). These positions would rotate so everybody who wanted to play a particular position would get a chance.

(3) a player getting permanent control of a base. This gives the builders a chance to create something permanent. Subject to the policies laid out by the demo council, the "green" person can plant forests and build Tree Farms and the developer can build boreholes.

Topics for discussion:
(1) Choice of faction: I'm supporting a flat faction along the lines of Mart's Unity Command proposal. Does anyone have problems with this? If we go with this, our Unity Command faction would replace the Peacekeepers and the other SMAC factions would be run by the AI. If there are issues, please raise them within 24 hours.

(2) Remainder of rules. If anyone has objections to the rest of the rules, please raise them within 24 hours. This is also the time for anyone with Multi-Player experience to propose special rules.

ACDG5 Fourth Pass


SMAC game


Faction
Player


Gaians
AI
 


Hive
 
 


University
AI
 



Morgan
 
 

Spartans
 
 


Believers
AI
 


Peacekeepers, custom, or flat
 
 


---


CMN
Mart
marcin777TAgmailTODcom


---


Preference
Settings


Map Size
Custom, 30x60


Ocean Coverage
50-70


Erosion Forces
Average


Native Life
Average


Cloud Cover
Average


Difficulty
Transcend


---


Transcend
Yes


Conquest
Yes


Diplomatic
Yes


Economic
Yes


Cooperative
Yes


---


Do or Die
No


Flexible start
Yes


Tech stagnation
No


Spoils of war
No


Blind research
No


Intense riv
No


No survey
Yes


No scatter
No


No rnd events
No


Time Warp
No


Iron man
No


Rand person
No


Rand social
No

---


Beginning Units
3 CP, 3 Scouts, 3 Unity Supply Droids


Special Rule
Copters cannot attack bases.

Notes:
(1) Votes for SMAC: Heraclitus, timsup2nothin. Vote for SMAX: Maniac. Either: Bodissey, Nims, JoeStalin, vyeh.
(2) One faction will be played by us. The other six are AI. Interested players: please indicate which factions you DON'T want to play and if you have objections to playing a flat faction. Maniac is suggesting a custom faction with ROBUST to RESEARCH, EFFICIENCY and INDUSTRY and the rest flat.
(3) Rules are SMAC default except for Flexible Start (can move initial colony pods) and No Blind Research (allows more tech strategy).
(4) Note random events are turned off for multiplayer games. I'm suggesting we keep it because it will make the game more fun.
(5) I am suggesting 3 CP, 3 Scouts and 3 Unity Supply Droids because it will give the game a faster start. The ability to have an extra nutrient, mineral or energy per base at the beginning of the game will lead to faster development.
(6) The use of copters by humans against the AI bases can be a game breaker.

Topic for Discussions (continued)
(3) If you are interested in being the turn player or faction leader, please post
(a) Players interested in turn playing: timsup2nothin
(b) Players interested in being faction leader: timsup2nothin

(4) Governors. So far, Maniac and timsup2nothin are interested in having a base to govern. Is there anyone else?

(5) Other faction-wide roles. These would include general, chief scientist, etc. Is anyone interested in playing one of these at the beginning of the game? If so, which one?

[Mart]

I would give also 3 unity former droids, similarly like supply droids, disabled, cannot be built. Can make early turns more interesting and allow get Centauri Ecology later if chosen.
The reasoning is that the Unity mission would plan on terraforming of the planet. Some of the equipment would survive, however, colonists could not build more formers till developing the technology of Centauri Ecology.

As for other pre-defined units, there would be some for enhancing AI. I have a certain set, but I would have to test it, which I will do.

[timsup2nothin]

Not being completely looped in I have to ask. What exactly is a supply droid?

Off topic, but perhaps of passing interest, I had really good results with making formers available without any tech requirement and linking most of their capabilities to Centauri Ecology (or higher). I figured it doesn't take great knowledge of the environment to build a bulldozer, so 'formers' that could clear fungus, build roads and plant forests I made available immediately. Improvement in AI terraforming skills was remarkable.

Definitely not a unique idea, but the similarity to Mart's reasoning for providing formers caught my attention.

[Mart]

Supply droid is pre-defined unit, a crawler that can crawl resources as a regular one. It is however disabled as building option, so you receive some at start, and later you cannot build more of them. I forced also cost to 1 row, so using them for secret projects or prototypes is not profitable. Earth technology was unique in some way and not fully compatible with new developed on Chiron, so you cannot scrap them so well.

About formers without any tech - did you have to modify alpha.txt? If yes, this option is not good for games like this - any turnplayer or even observer to see the game correctly would have to change the alpha.txt file. This is prone for problems with which file version you have.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Mart
I would give also 3 unity former droids, similarly like supply droids, disabled, cannot be built.

Yes! I want them. It will speed up development and make the first few turns more interesting.

[timsup2nothin]

I vote for supply droids and former droids.

[Zeiter]

I'm interested in a one-person democracy game [edit: I mean the one human-controlled faction single-player democracy game, of course...call it a "Yangian slip."]

*SMAC or SMAX, either one works for me (slightly prefer SMAX, but either one is OK).

*Standard map or smaller is good.

*An ocean map? Doesn't the AI do horribly with ocean maps (as far as coordinating amphibious invasions? At least with a mostly land map the AI can stumble across the landscape in the direction of its target en masse and actually pose a threat. So wouldn't it be better to have a 30%-50% map?

*Also, with only average rainfall, isn't it too tempting to use forest-and-forget as a boilerplate strategy? I find games with dense rainfall much more interesting, as that actually gives me incentive to use farms and the occasional solar array (and the AI does better with this as well).

*I like the idea of the truly federated structure of the governors and whatnot.

*Any faction is fine with me. I'm halfway curious, though, to see what it would be like to play the Believers (it would be a creative stretch for a lot of players in terms of role-playing and gameplay, but that might be a plus, right?)

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Zeiter
I'm interested in a one-person democracy game [edit: I mean the one human-controlled faction single-player democracy game, of course...call it a "Yangian slip."]

"Into the Hornet's Nest" was essentially a one-person democracy game.

Originally posted by Zeiter
*An ocean map? Doesn't the AI do horribly with ocean maps (as far as coordinating amphibious invasions? At least with a mostly land map the AI can stumble across the landscape in the direction of its target en masse and actually pose a threat. So wouldn't it be better to have a 30%-50% map?

If the game were generated randomly, that would be true. I assume Mart will design a map that will help the AI. The problem with a 30%-50% map is that it would decrease the importance of the human-controlled faction in developing a navy and navy related techs.

Originally posted by Zeiter
*Also, with only average rainfall, isn't it too tempting to use forest-and-forget as a boilerplate strategy? I find games with dense rainfall much more interesting, as that actually gives me incentive to use farms and the occasional solar array (and the AI does better with this as well).

And what is wrong with a forest-and-forget strategy? I suggested middle-of-the-road options because you get a mixture of all terrain types. I had assumed that average cloud cover would result in some rainy squares, so there would be opportunities to farm those squares.

Originally posted by Zeiter
*I like the idea of the truly federated structure of the governors and whatnot.

Are you interested in having a base to govern?

Originally posted by Zeiter
*Any faction is fine with me. I'm halfway curious, though, to see what it would be like to play the Believers (it would be a creative stretch for a lot of players in terms of role-playing and gameplay, but that might be a plus, right?)

Two players have already stated they don't want to play the Believers.

Are you interested in being
(1) a turn player?
(2) a faction leader?
(3) another faction-wide officer (e.g general, chief scientist)?

[vyeh]

It has been 24 hours.

ACDG5 Unity Command


SMAC game


Faction
Player


Gaians
AI
 


Hive
AI
 


University
AI
 



Morgan
AI
 

Spartans
AI
 


Believers
AI
 


flat
demo players
 


---


CMN
Mart
marcin777TAgmailTODcom


---


Preference
Settings


Map Size
Custom, 30x60


Ocean Coverage
50-70


Erosion Forces
Average


Native Life
Average


Cloud Cover
Average


Difficulty
Transcend


---


Transcend
Yes


Conquest
Yes


Diplomatic
Yes


Economic
Yes


Cooperative
Yes


---


Do or Die
No


Flexible start
Yes


Tech stagnation
No


Spoils of war
No


Blind research
No


Intense riv
No


No survey
Yes


No scatter
No


No rnd events
No


Time Warp
No


Iron man
No


Rand person
No


Rand social
No

---


Beginning Units
3 CP, 3 Scouts, 3 Unity Supply Droids, 3 Unity Former Droids


Special Rule
Copters cannot attack bases.

Notes:
(1) Votes for SMAC: Heraclitus, timsup2nothin. Vote for SMAX: Maniac. Either: Bodissey, Nims, JoeStalin, vyeh, Zeiter.
(2) Vote for standard or custom: Heraclitus. Vote for flat: timsup2nothin, vyehVote for custom with ROBUST: Maniac. Any: Nims, JoeStalin, Zeiter.
(3) The use of copters by humans against the AI bases can be a game breaker.

Voting outcomes
Heraclitus won on SMAC and loses on faction.
Maniac lost on SMAX and on the ROBUST faction; I propose he gets the HQ base to govern.

Topic for Discussions
(1) If you are interested in being the turn player or faction leader, please post
(a) Players interested in turn playing: timsup2nothin
(b) Players interested in being faction leader: timsup2nothin

(2) Governors. So far, Maniac and timsup2nothin are interested in having a base to govern. Is there anyone else?

(3) Other faction-wide roles. These would include general, chief scientist, etc. Is anyone interested in playing one of these at the beginning of the game? If so, which one?

Timetable

(1) Mart has the specifications to work on the game. Generating a good game could take him a couple of weeks.

(2) I'd like to know who is interested in being turn player and who is interested in being the faction leader by Friday.

(3) At that point, I'm going to open a thread for strategic discussion. The first faction leader will lead the discussion on the thread.

(4) When Mart knows what the our starting position is, I hope he'll post a screen shot so the strategic discussion can be sharpened and we can begin to make some initial decisions.

[vyeh]

I've been browsing through the ACDG3 Spartans archives (I'm interested in seeing how the winning team organized its threads).

The Planet: A Survivalist's Guide thread is a collection of "all kinds of strategies or explanations of aspects of the game" limited to "monographs containing general or Sparta-specific strategy."