FAMH Turn Reporting Thread

[Googlie]

This is a smax game on the Civilization veterans map

Players (in turn order) are:

Flubber - Morgan Industries
Archaic - The Space Academy (a Uni Clone)
Minute Mirage - University of Planet
Hercules - Gaians

There are no AI in the game

Rules:

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Multiple reloading of the game to try for different effects is forbidden. If a reload is necessary because of a game crash etc., an explanation should be posted to the turn administration thread.

Multiple drops or orbital insertions using the right-click menu is forbidden. So is airdropping from outside a base/airbase, or after having moved (except on a magtube) using the same method. Using the 'i' key when you want an airdrop means you will automatically comply with these restrictions.

Inserting Stockpile Energy into the build queue after a military unit is forbidden.

If a player employs a tactic that causes a state of vendetta, they are not allowed to "accept" a pending diplomatic agreement with that faction in the same turn, causing a change in diplomatic status or the transfer of energy or knowledge.

If an aggressive probe action (anything except infiltration) is used on a faction you have a truce, treaty or pact with, you must select 'Declare Vendetta' in the dialog box that appears afterwards, and notify the victim of your transgression, unless you have received permission in advance. No notification is required in other cases.

Upgrading units with the design workshop is allowed at end of turn only. However, supply crawlers upgraded in this fashion can still be used to advance Secret Projects in the same turn.

Communications only allowed between factions that have obtained each others' commlink frequencies in-game.

Social engineering choice limited to one switch per line per turn. (no flip-flop within turn!)

Psi units cannot be assigned multiple point patrol routes (avoid instant demon boil bug!)

Whenever the planetary council is called, the caller (or the first player to vote if the AI calls it) should post a notification to the thread, including vote totals (if applicable) and who has already voted for what. The other players should post how they vote.

No base trading with the AI. Extortion is allowed.


Passwords have been sent to all, and FAMH-Morgan, 2101 has been sent to Flubber

Good luck all

Googlie

[Flubber]

For some reason I am unable to unzip the file-- I am successfully unzipping my other game turns without issue. Please try a resend.

[Flubber]

2101 onto archaic --

Its weird playing this map without seeing the shapes of the landmasses ( as in the vets series)--

Have there been any changes ( ie are there now pods)? I see that we get the same start position ( except with "Look first" and a standard start ) as the vet series and the initial road.

[Googlie]

No changes (other than a very small edit as Buster hadn't quite got identical river courses for the 4 start positions - gave a tiny early-turn advantage to one faction (pre my edit) that is now removed.

I thought reading from the posts that this was what was wanted - I could have sexed it up a little, but isn't the intent for identical opportunity? (thus identical start positions, no pods given random advantages, no random eb=vents destroying all that good work, etc etc)

G.

[Minute Mirage]

Originally posted by Googlie
No changes (other than a very small edit as Buster hadn't quite got identical river courses for the 4 start positions - gave a tiny early-turn advantage to one faction (pre my edit) that is now removed.

Would you mind telling which faction's start position this was? It's certainly not a big deal, but I'd like to know if I can wholly count on the map when planning my moves. Btw, the borehole clusters are also asymmetrical, but I seriously doubt it will be a game-breaker.

Originally posted by Googlie
I thought reading from the posts that this was what was wanted - I could have sexed it up a little, but isn't the intent for identical opportunity? (thus identical start positions, no pods given random advantages, no random eb=vents destroying all that good work, etc etc)

G.

Yes, the idea was to get as identical starting conditions as possible and limit the randomness to a minimum.

By the way, thank you very much for CMNing the game!

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Googlie
No changes (other than a very small edit as Buster hadn't quite got identical river courses for the 4 start positions - gave a tiny early-turn advantage to one faction (pre my edit) that is now removed.

I thought reading from the posts that this was what was wanted - I could have sexed it up a little, but isn't the intent for identical opportunity? (thus identical start positions, no pods given random advantages, no random eb=vents destroying all that good work, etc etc)

G.

googlie-- I think you gave us exactly what was asked for-- its just when the "see the whole map thing" was changed I wondered if anything else might be

[Archaic]

Turn to MM.

[Minute Mirage]

2101 sent to Hercules.

[Hercules]

Turn 2102 to Flubber.

Well would you believe it. I opened the turn and saved it under the same name instead of a slight variation, to look at the Vets map and when I returned, it said I had played it before. This was not the case. My apologies.

[Hercules]

I seem to have my old posting problem back I couldn't edit the above post. I cleared out a lot of stuff from my Cookie file and must have cleared an Apolyton cookie as well. Maybe it will return.

Sorry for initial double post

[Flubber]

onward to archaic

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Minute Mirage
Would you mind telling which faction's start position this was? It's certainly not a big deal, but I'd like to know if I can wholly count on the map when planning my moves.

There was an imbalance in the number of river tiles in the starting base location's base radius. This had the unexpected consequence that a unit could move one tile down the road and then detour down the river for 1 faction (#3 in the map set-up, the Gaians, I believe in our game)

I tinkered with the river courses, then realized it was no biggy, as the detour ended up at the same place - by the monolith at the lake.

There's still a slight imbalance (it was difficult rerouting rivers, as one can only do it with the "change elevation" key to alter its course) so I chose to give a slight (similar) advantage to the disadvantaged at their likely second base location

Normally I, as CMN, wouldn't go into so much detail about what a map contains, but I sense that the core of this game is equality of opportunity, so that skill determines the outcome, not luck, starting position, etc . (And with no pods to pop, there won't even be an earthquake event or a "discovered a new river" to distort the map)

And I did notice the borehole imbalance, but as it is a "place natural landmark" feature, after ten or so attempts to get a similar troika as the other 3, and not succeeeding (it's an underlying map issue, with the river course being the determinant as to where the cluster goes) I gave up and left it as is.

I put it as a "back-burner" project to spend a bit more time with that map to tidy it up - hoping Buster takes no offense - and e-mail it to him for its deployment - either to just trash it or to replace the original in the Civgaming library. Haven't got round to that yet, though

[Minute Mirage]

Actually, I think you can determine how the rivers run quite accurately, by using CTRL+SHIFT+paint to build them. That is, you hold both CTRL and SHIFT down and drag the mouse through the squares you want the river to run through. This doesn't always work, but with enough tinkering you should be able to get similar rivers. Just remember to place the elevations before the rivers and save constantly (the damn editor is a pain to use).

You can get exactly similar borehole clusters by using the "place natural landmark" - feature enough times on the same square. In the end, you end up with a square surrounded by nine boreholes. Then you just remove manually six of the boreholes from the wrong places.

However, the one imbalance that I think can't be changed about the map is the moisture. As we know, the western side of a mountain gets more rainfall than the eastern side, which means big differences between the mirror-imaged starting positions.

[Archaic]

Turn to MM.

[Minute Mirage]

2102 to Hercules.