SMAC Down: 2250

[Avenoct]

Toka, Yeah, I should have put the polar ice in one of the 1/5's...that was confusing. JustinSane gets a landmark....hrm....how about 'The Justinsanity Nexus?' Na...have to keep the manifold...'Justinsane Jungle' or 'Justinsane Peaks'?

Oh, the correct spelling is 'Lake Baikal'. It's a mile deep in places. It's formed by two continental plates pulling apart, but surrounded by high ground, the sea hasn't been able to come in. And of course, it's being heavily polluted by paper-pulp factories. 1/5th the worlds freshwater, all in one big tub.

-Smack

P.S. What's a 'Fukai?'

[mark13]

Smack - the Fukai are some nasty and 'orrible alien baddie - don't quite know what just yet though

Tokamak - might be a good idea to simply keep them well away geographically from the Fukai. Don't know where either faction is atm, so I can't really comment on current placings - it just sounds like they're too close to each other though.

[Tokamak]

"Fukai" translates into "poison jungle." It's from Hayoa Miyazaki's "Nausicca," which is almost certainly the inspiration for the xenofungus.


When I say "Fukai," I am refering to the vast fungal sprawl located in the center of the main continent (Atlantis).

BTW, the mythological (or otherwise) orgins of all my landmarks are described in the Names.txt that should have come with the zip. It's fairly entertaining reading, if I may say so myself. I had a lot of fun trying to come up with meaningful and fitting titles for all of my geographical features.

[mark13]

Oh right - I thought there were meant to be lots of big nasty units in there? Hmmm....

In that case, it may just be that the Hive is trying to get to the human player, has to cross the Fukai to get to them, and so comes a cropper. One solution would be to make all Hive units empath, of course - though it may be a bit radical....

I did scan the names.txt - there is some interesting reading there. I shall have to have a proper look at it tomorrow, and try to get to grips with some of the terms used (I know I'm not going to like the "Kyo-kami-hei" when I see it )

Anyway, going to get to grips with the early-mid game sometime tomorrow - expect a report up by then

[Tokamak]

The Fukai isn't really in the way. In fact Lake Sheol (it's center), is decidely out of the way. But Yang, using his AI-enhanced knowledge of the map, sees hostile units in there and decides to attack.

Miriam doesn't do this, although she also borders the Fukai. I wonder if it is because the Valley of Yugong starts out closer to the the Fukai than Mt. Sinai.

I could move the starting cities, but I can't move those special landmarks without making a new map . They are actually several landmarks layered onto one another. For so reason, such a combination is inmutable, once created. If you ever capture one of those landmarks, check it out! They're very nice places to be. I used more landmarks and less overkill terraforming to give the AI its advantages, this time around. The result is a much more pleasing-looking map.

[mark13]

On with the game....

2291 - Gifted all tech to Morgan in order to help him co-ordinate my research efforts. Found Hive border to boot, uncomfortably close - Morgan gifts me DocFlex as well as 500 energy credits.
Next beeline is for HEC. Now running 30/0/70, switch DEMOCRACY
Trade Dee's world map for Flex - she still won't offer a treaty.
Believers build VW
2292 - Hive 4-2-1 commando unit sighted heading our way. Methinks probes are in order
2293 - EcoEng still no HEC take EnvEcon instead - hey, there are worse techs
Morgan gifts IntInteg - his research rate is coming along rather nicely - probes commissioned as main defenders against Hive threat
Hive build PTS
2294-6 - Kitting all bases out with the necessary infrastructure for a pop boom. A healthy 800 energy in the bank will help in the cause to get tree farms up double quick (plus whatever I can scrounge from Morgan)
2297 - Fort Survivalist taken by PKs
2298 - EnvEcon - mass tree farm production, take HEC
Switch PLANNED - manage to get tree farms up in 8 bases.
2299 - Bribe a Hive 4-2-1. This should allow us to reverse engineer impact weapons
Switch to 40/20/40 to pre-empt any drone riots
2300 - Pop boom going as planned. Switch back to Market scheduled for 2304 - need cash though.
2301 - Morgan gifts Cyberethics - I suddenly realise I'm in with a chance of getting the PDL - no upgrades allowed, so six crawlers are scrambled, along with a savings fund, to help in the effort - Miriam gets it in 4
2303 - Planetary Datalinks built!!!!
2304 - Switch back to Market, boom complete, at 40/10/50 (+104/yr, 4 turns)
We (myself & Morgan) are now out-teching the coalition
2305 - Hive builds MCC. I'm devastated. No, really
High Energy Chemistry, take SFF (guess where I'm going )
2 fungus pops. Morgan hands PolySoft over.
Sparta lands with two (ready for this?!) Scout Patrols
Worms once again creating havoc, though relatively few units have come from Hive territory.

Time for a report:

Mission Year: 2305
Bases: 15
Pop: 79
# techs - 23
# Coalition techs - 24
SPs - WP, EG & PDL

Income - +100/yr
Tech rate - tech every 4 turns (273.6/945)
Running Demo/FM/Wealth at 40/10/50

Security nexus:
Formers - 15/1/3
Crawlers - 22/3/0
Probes - 5/0/3
Scout Patrols - 4/0/0
Synth Garrison - 1/0/0
Trance Scout Infantry - 8/0/1
Trance Synth Garrison - 1/0/0
Sea Formers - 1/0/0
Impact Squad - 1/0/0
Impact rover - 1/1/0
Atrocity on wheels (great name, btw ) - 0/1/0

Thoughts on the last 15 years:

Great stuff. Things are moving along swimmingly - though I have had a couple of rather fortunate breaks. The first one, of course, being the acquisition of Cyberethics - luckily, I was able to build the Datalinks just two turns subsequently. Hive units crossing the border have been few and far between (in fact, I have only seen two) while the Believers are seemingly yet to realise that they are meant to be at war with me. First I've heard of Santi, meanwhile, were the two scouts that just landed.

So, with eight bases boomed to size 7, and the tech rolling in, things are looking up. Though I'm only fourth in the powerchart currently, I can see how it would be feasible to take the Hive out here. Not sure on the maths re governorship, but I'm probably just about in position to launch myself as a viable candidate. Hell, the only other candidate will be Lal - and though he's at war with me, he doesn't have the proximity or the techshare, 1 flag to trouble me.

[mark13]

Tok,

Hadn't realised that the Planetary Datalinks should have been set to disabled (thanks to Flo for pointing that out ). Coupled with the diplomacy probs, I feel this scenario isn't playing anything like it should - and BTW, the Spartans haven't built the Vats yet.

[Avenoct]

Nifty turnposts Mark13. Are the datalinks eliminated or not?

-Smack

[mark13]

No, they're not, unfortunately - neither is the Cloudbase. I want to get a ruling from Tokamak on exactly what will be happening reagrding this scenario - i.e. whether we carry on regardless (with the outlawed projects, of course) or scrap this particular edition of SMACdown, and wait for the 2253 version. One thing's for sure - this has the potential to become a fantastic scenario.

[Avenoct]

Hrm, well putting 'Disable' on a project in the alphatext is easy, and scenarios and even PBEM's send this info along ( I once did this by accident), but on our, the players end, don't think it's possible to open up the editor and do similar. Only hope would be to make a 'dump base' and dump all the SP's you don't want in there with the SE turned on. Then of course you could obliterate the base and save the new scenario..those SP's would be gone.

-Smack

[Tokamak]

Hey, all! I've been kinda busy this week.

The next version of SMAC Down should be more or less final. I've finally done some real playtesting and managed to identify some major gameplay issues...

The Allies will be more friendly to you. In particular, Lal has been very difficult. I found out that he keeps signing pacts with Miriam!

The Planetary Datalink and the CLoudbase Academy will really and truely be turned off this time. I don't know how that one kept slipping by.

I'm just going to turn the Cloning Vats off. Giving them to Santaigo was in interesting idea, but it makes the election impossible to win.

The non-X version will be brought up to snuff with its cousin.

Depending on how motivated I get tonight, I might even have all this ready by tonight.

[mark13]

^

What happened to this? Anyone?

[Gaius Marius]

This scenario has been great - until I ran into the same problems as you all had been having. Specifically, Lal and Dierdre would not ally with me (or even sign a treaty), and the datalinks were not blocked.

Anyway, any idea if it is being updated, or if the creator (Tokamak) is even around anymore?

If not, anyone want to take a crack at fixing it?