SMAX "Eye of the Beholder" 2009 SP game

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I reviewed Buster's start

That's Uncle, please. Buster is my niece.

Note that Roosky came back and attached a save yesterday afternoon, post# lucky 13. You should put a lot more stock in what experienced scenario players -your intended audience- do than in what I do.

I'm running planned right now. Took a dreadful research hit- 47/ turn to industrial automation. When I've gotten my population up a bit, I'll have to switch to green and capture me some worms.

Maarifa is still in first place. Anton looks to have jumped ahead of me after I got his frequency from a pod pop- I didn't think he'd gotten the better of me in our trades, but he's suddenly first in a couple of categories. Not wealth or tech, though.

I think I found the optimal work-around for the graphics scramble. I started a new game with the proper line-up, made a save I named "line-up" and loaded the scenario game. This takes two seconds, works, and is surely the quickest, simplest solution available.

[Darsnan]

That's Uncle, please. Buster is my niece.

Appologies - didn't know this.

You should put a lot more stock in what experienced scenario players -your intended audience- do than in what I do.

Still, in the early game I should give players a good incentive for carrying on, as well as allowing them lots of options to play the scenario their way, such as base enhancements which become available thru researched techs (i.e. keep the research rate at a reasonable level).

Maarifa is still in first place. Anton looks to have jumped ahead of me after I got his frequency from a pod pop- I didn't think he'd gotten the better of me in our trades, but he's suddenly first in a couple of categories. Not wealth or tech, though.

I'm guesstimating your about 30-40 turns in then. This is as I experienced (and it was always Anton's commlink I podded as well ). Did Anton offer pact with you?

D

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I'm guesstimating your about 30-40 turns in then.

It's 2521. I did do some serious cheating yesterday. (I remember/ Doing the tiime warp!)

This is as I experienced (and it was always Anton's commlink I podded as well ). Did Anton offer pact with you?

No, perhaps because I was already pacted with Chakra. Possibly because I traded him my maps for a technology. Also have a treaty with Shin.

Got Chakravartee's frequency from a pod, too, just a few turns before I would have found him myself. And the other day I got Emille, but didn't save because of the graphics scramble. He's first in miltary at the moment!

[Russia4Life]

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

Probe bugs and battle tanks are borderline overpowered but other than that I don't really have a problem with the units. You can reverse engineer a hovertank chassis and a couple of abilities even without the tech for them because they are used in your units.

I probably should have just used forests, but oh well I started using condensers and boreholes I will stick to it and see what happens. The AI are using alot of forests.

In this game I have been hit very hard on my northern outlying bases by the hive before I got a decent counter offensive going, so I lost maybe around 6 or so sized 1 to 3 bases. I eventually got enough power going to destroy 3 hive bases. They pushed me back and now it is a essentially a stalemate again, I just got monopol magnets so mag tubes might help me pwn them faster or let them pwn me faster I am not sure if I want to tube up to him yet. The drones are pretty helpful allies, more so than any other AI in any game I have ever played they are giving me units left and right, sometimes they give me too many and I end up getting my formers disbanded that has happened at least 7 times on my smaller southern bases They are also using alot of probe bugs. Not a whole lot I know about the uni and cyber. I think they are in a pact still. The caretakers are just an annoyance at best I have mind controlled some of their shore bases but then they just mind control them back, so I am generally just making sure they don't land any probe bugs those things can cause alot of havoc.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I just want to call everyone's attention back to post #1 in this thread. Darsnan has posted an update, and it's easy to miss as I write this. But the research rate has been adjusted, and the factions all have their new names now, so I think it's worth it.

D, sorry if this is presumptuous of me.

[Russia4Life]

I just want to call everyone's attention back to post #1 in this thread. Darsnan has posted an update, and it's easy to miss as I write this. But the research rate has been adjusted, and the factions all have their new names now, so I think it's worth it.

D, sorry if this is presumptuous of me.

I am getting a tech every 5 turns since I got brood pits and was able to switch from police state. I am also the tech leader and have been for a while. Probably due in part to all the empaths and engineers I have and the fact I am running 80% labs. Anyways, 5 turn breakthroughs with -2 research is good enough for me, I don't really think it needed changed.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I was living with the research rate, myself, though it was and still is mighty slow.

I downloaded and installed the upgrade, and started the new scenario version before I loaded my save (I didn't want to start over, either.)

Some of my hard work on the faction files does show, in the datalinks entries, although the factions don't have the splinter names, the datalinks on the leaders are mostly accurate now, and some small things, like most of the references to Planet and the Unity have been changed, and do show up. I'm pretty pedantic, and it matters to me, anyway. It's a better scenario the more immersively consistent it is.

And when you play again in the future, it’ll definitely be better this way.

[Russia4Life]

Will my save work on the update? If it will I might as well get it, if not I will finish this game then get it. It is only 2690 but still I'd hate to see that many turns be for nothing, plus I am having fun(except for the probe bugs those are so very very annoying).

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Well, I described what I know about. I don't know if you have to start a new game before you load your save or not to see the little changes I can see now- and I can't tell if there's any difference in the research rate. I’m a graphics guy, and a writer, but I’m not a real hardcore techie.

I poked around the new game a little bit before I loaded the save, and it was pretty cool to see all the changes I did to the files yesterday actually implemented in the game. I changed the name of all the faction's headquarters for another example. But I won't blow smoke at you, Russ; I ain't got no perspective about if it’s worth it for someone playing a game in progress to go ahead and install it.

I do know that I’ve been out of the game a couple of times since then today, and just loaded my last save to resume- all the changes were still there, so I sorta doubt the new game was necessary.

As I said, I'm not about to start over either; I, too, am having fun. I love the cargo capacity on the APCs, and the amphibious ability on those and the scouts.

[Russia4Life]

After giving it some thought, I decided to start over with the updated stuff. I was probably less than 100 turns from victory anyways. I will try a different strategy in this game, probably using fundamentalism because getting 5 or more units bribed by probe bugs each turn was one of the most annoying things ever, not only that but they could withstand attacks from units too because of their psi armor. Go full out ass kicking and tech stealing style, and see how things work out.

__________________________________________________ ____________________________

Started a new game, 7 out of the first 12 pods I got were artifacts!!!!!!! Was this something that was changed or was it just luck of the Irish(O'Connor sounds Irish so figured I'd ask ) also I later came across 3 more. Between the artifacts and rushing I was able to build the early SP's without any trouble, and still have 1 artifact left over that is loaded on an apc. I rarely even got a message saying that someone else started a SP, so I probably could have saved my credits but oh well. I am quite far behind on the dominance chart though probably because I spent all that time and money building SP's instead of units and more bases. As long as that shin guy don't come looking for trouble early on I should be ok.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

...Clearly, there's a problem with the leader titles in your faction dominance chart; none of those are right. (It should be Protector Shin, Chief Selar, CFO Vlagosz and just Chancellor Fla.)

I'm gonna alert Darsnan.

What does it say in the Datalinks? It was right for me.

[Russia4Life]

There is no delete post ability on this forum as far as I know, so I think once a post is made you can only change the text.

As for the titles and such I have no idea why it is what it is. I put everything where it was instructed to go.

These are what the faction leaders are called in the datalinks (F1)
CFO Anton Vlagosz
Chief Selar S'Plorr
Marifa Angvu (Administrator)
Sister Prudence O'Connor
Kyong Shin
Chancellor Emille Flamarion
Union Rep. Chakravartee Chaturbhuj

[Illuminatus]

Allowing users to delete their posts would create difficulties when dealing with rule breaking

As for doubleposts I delete them whenever I spot them.

[Russia4Life]

That was pretty evil, he changed the drones social agenda to planned. They were getting all pissy and complaining about me running green . I started wondering why, so I looked at their faction profile and saw that it was changed .

The game is progressing pretty much the same as the last one. Drones have a pact with me and together we are pwning the hive (only this time it is earlier than last game so we are fighting with empath rovers instead of battle tanks), and again the Drones are giving me too many units to support and my formers got disbanded in my southern bases.

[vyeh]

A lot of alphax.txt material is embedded in the game saves (this prevents someone from cheating by changing the alphax.txt file on their hard drive in MP games). I suspect that when Buster's Uncle updated his scenario folder with new graphics, he did see the new graphics in his old game save when he reopened it. (Is this the case?)

But I wouldn't expect the new tech rate to take hold.