SMAX "Eye of the Beholder" 2009 SP game

[Russia4Life]

Units

The units you have created are awesome and quite cheap for their abilities. Me and the hive are having an epic battle tank mk1 battle. morgan got wiped by the alliance of cyber and uni, so between me the drones and the hive we got the UN charter repealed so there is nerve gas going off everywhere.

As for that testing thing still working on getting it to pass what ever it does.

1 other thing I have been running green econ for most of the game for the effic bonus and have yet to catch a mind worm, am I just really unlucky or am I unable to due to some settings?

[gwillybj]

1 other thing I have been running green econ for most of the game for the effic bonus and have yet to catch a mind worm, am I just really unlucky or am I unable to due to some settings?

Your overall PLANET rating must be +1 or better in order to capture MW or other natives.
As time goes by your % chance to capture does decrease. If you captured a few natives over the course of 15-30 turns, your capture attempts will soon be successful less often.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

How about CFO for Vlagosz and Chancellor for Flamarion as alternate leader titles? I dunno about Abbess or Mother Superior for Prudence- if we hadn’t made her so young to start I’d be all over it. Union Rep or Shop Steward ought to fit Chakra well, depending on your emphasis. A simple, tribal, Chief for Sp’lorr. Hmmm- Maarifa— Mainframe or System Manager would cover the computer angle (though those really sound more Data Angels-y)- Lead Researcher the research side- Administrator/Admin would straddle the two.

I tried your fix of playing a few turns of a new game with the same faction line-up before loading the scenario game, and it worked. More trouble than just loading the scenario first, but I exited the game and then went back directly to the save, and it looks like I won’t have to do any of that again.

While I was in the faction load screen, I took a few notes about alternate adjectives. If you dislike/can think of better, hit me- else I’m gonna put the latter choices of these in the first draft faction files.

Vlagosz: (the Banker)
Shin: (the Dictator)
Maari: (the Cyborg) or (the Enhanced)
Flamarion: (the Astronomer) or (the Professor)
Chakra: (the Union Man) or (the Organizer) or (the Worker)
Selarr: (the Native) or (the Primitive) or (the Villager) or (the Naturalist)
Prudence: (the Nun) or (the Catholic) or (the Abbess)

***

I couldn’t resist using my timewarp exploit for a while, so The Word of God [base two] has the HGP already and is working on the WP. Not being able to expand, explore, or make terrain improvements keeps me from using that particular cheat for all that long, though.

As of 2514, Maari is in first on everything but military, which I still have, so I obviously didn’t timewarp to a really game-breaking extent. She’s started work on the Virtual World, to which I’m pretty sure I’ll beat her. I am a dirty, dirty cheater.

I’m 13/turn with research still at 60%, and 5 energy. 10% to psych, not for the psych befit- seems undetectable- but because it gives me an extra turn of research.

I’ve founded two new bases and contacted the Autochthone, who instantly declared vendetta. I stomped his unit without nerve gas.

I really crave to work on (Secretary?) General Haj (the Unifier) now, but I’ll try to get back to the scenario later and keep you posted.

[Russia4Life]

Your overall PLANET rating must be +1 or better in order to capture MW or other natives.
As time goes by your % chance to capture does decrease. If you captured a few natives over the course of 15-30 turns, your capture attempts will soon be successful less often.

My planet rating is as follows: -1 starting social penalty, +2 for green economics = +1 planet.
I don't know the exact number of MWs I fought (they appear very rarely) but I have yet to catch one. I don't have much time to play today, doing family stuff will probably pickup and keep playing on Monday.

Missing all the happiness SP's early really affected my playing style, I am running police/green/wealth. I had to use police to maintain order green to counteract the efficiency. And wealth gave me a big science boost the +1 energy in each colony helps alot when you have 45 or so.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

That reminds me to mention that I'm not running any SEs yet, though Police State and Fundamentalism are available; the lack of any support mins lost or any close neighbors seem to make the efficiency or research hits not worth it.

[vyeh]

I tried your fix of playing a few turns of a new game with the same faction line-up before loading the scenario game, and it worked. More trouble than just loading the scenario first, but I exited the game and then went back directly to the save, and it looks like I won’t have to do any of that again.

Everytime you start (not load) a new game, the game modifies your .ini file. As long as you don't start a new game, there won't be a change. So if you load a save, the faction colors and base graphics won't be right.

You don't need to play a few turns.

All you need to do is start a new game, load in the factions in correct order. Once you've made planetfall, you then load the save and your colors and base graphics will be right.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Everytime you start (not load) a new game, the game modifies your .ini file. As long as you don't start a new game, there won't be a change. So if you load a save, the faction colors and base graphics won't be right.

You don't need to play a few turns.

All you need to do is start a new game, load in the factions in correct order. Once you've made planetfall, you then load the save and your colors and base graphics will be right.

But what is it about scenarios? I've never seen this before.

[Russia4Life]

That reminds me to mention that I'm not running any SEs yet, though Police State and Fundamentalism are available; the lack of any support mins lost or any close neighbors seem to make the efficiency or research hits not worth it.

The only SE I ran until about 60 turns in was planned, the growth and industry bonus were helpful early, but then drones were getting way out of hand for just 1 police unit to control. So I added police state but -4 effic was killing all my energy so I had to switch from planned to green. Only issue now is slower growth.

[vyeh]

But what is it about scenarios? I've never seen this before.

This occurs anytime you don't start a game through the long process of selecting factions.

You wouldn't normally see this if you don't download someone else's files unless you've been playing one game with a set of factions and for some reason you open an old game that had different factions. Then you would see that the base graphics were messed up because your ini file reflected the new game rather than the old game. If you play a game through and start a new game, that resets the ini file and you don't get messed up graphics.

[Russia4Life]

update on mindworms

I guess I was just unlucky, I captured my first mind worm in the year 2628. Too bad it will be pretty useless at this point, with all the empath and resonance units running around.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

This occurs anytime you don't start a game through the long process of selecting factions.

You wouldn't normally see this if you don't download someone else's files unless you've been playing one game with a set of factions and for some reason you open an old game that had different factions. Then you would see that the base graphics were messed up because your ini file reflected the new game rather than the old game. If you play a game through and start a new game, that resets the ini file and you don't get messed up graphics.

But if you open an old file, then exit and start a new game, nothing, right? I've done that lots of times without this happening.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I've done what you describe by accident a number of times and not noticed this. I've got some old saves with different line-ups; I'm gonna hafta check this.

[vyeh]

Starting the new game with different factions isn't the problem, because you changed the ini file.

I think if you start a new game with different factions and then you open an old file you would notice something wrong with the faction colors.

When I was switching between Wealth of Planet and ACDG6, everytime I had to start a new game with the factions in the proper order and then load the saves in order to see the right graphics.

[Petek]

The following technique might be easier than starting a new game with the scenario factions:

When your scenario is working correctly, make a copy of your Alpha Centauri.ini file and rename it (e.g., Alpha Centauri.ini.scenario). If your colors ever get whacked up, delete your current ini file and rename the copy to Alpha Centauri.ini.

Petek

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

That should definitely work. I'll do that. Thanks.

[Darsnan]

I guess I was just unlucky, I captured my first mind worm in the year 2628. Too bad it will be pretty useless at this point, with all the empath and resonance units running around.

Can you attach a gamesave? I'm curious to see how you are doing.

One thing after I reviewed Buster's start is that I may have been too sadistic in my initial starting situation: making the initial research rate so slow probably wasn't necessary or ideal for this scenario. This is one of the issues I run into when playtesting iteration after iteration of scenarios, as I lose perspective and start to do things based on my playtesting experience as opposed to staying focused on a decent start for a player.


Otherwise, any comments/ feedback as far as what works/ doesn't in regards to units, diplo, etc.?

D