Green and Grey - turn track

[Darsnan]

on to the Cult!

[Googlie]

It's an interesting question. Does the Empath Guild give you commlinks? Or infiltration only?

The reason I ask is that when I click on your faction and then offer all techs, I also get on the list a couple of faction commlinks (of factions that you have not yet met)

(The setting of the trigger in the alphax.txt only relates to the ability of humans being able to contact each other, not human players and the AI)

For example, when you click on Chaunk and offer all techs, do you see the Gaian and University commlinks being offerred - I don't think so, as they appear on my offer sheet of techs/links that the Cycon don't yet possess.

So are you in fact able to contact the Gaians and the University in game? (If you have the trigger set to non-zero, then you could contact Darsnan at any time, as it has to be set to zero to trigger the "not until contact" rule)

[Net Warrior]

Well I must have all the commlinks because right after I completed the SP I got a pop up window informing me that I was able to call the council if I wished. Before that I wasn't in contact with two AI factions and after that they both showed up in my commlinks. OTOH, when I offer all tech, none of the newly acquired commlinks show up as being offered and I can tell by infiltration that they should.

I presume that I'm allowed to contact the human factions once I've got the SP. I hope I haven't screwed things up.

[Googlie]

We've always played (from 1999 onwards) that the EG gives the right to call council - and lets the EG holder be the "tech broker" for the other factions. But the debate started then as to whether empathic contact equals voice/commlink contact.

And, logically, if council has met, then shouldn't everyone get everyone else's commlink? But it's a throw-over from the old civII programming where when one faction gets the United Nations they can contact everyone, as can anyone else. But when SMAC was developed, wihth the ability to be contacted (the commlinks) being a negotiatable item. this 'automaticity' was removed from the other factions - illogically, in my opinion.

But, no, you haven't screwed up, as this is how we've played PBEMs for over seven years now. But it's one of the reasons why current CMN's set the EG to disabled at the start - bad enough that you get infiltration on every faction, but also that +50% on council votes, but also the ability to play technology trade broker for a number of turns, In stats I ran about a year ago, of all the PBEM's I CMN'd, the player getting the EG won the game over 80% of the time (but, of course, that data might just indicate that the best player in the field got the EG 80% of the time)

But that's how we set this one up up, so ...............

[Chaunk]

.... so we just need to crush the cycon now? Gotcha

Is the turn with you Googlie?

[Googlie]

And 2162 to Chaunk

[Chaunk]

2162 to NW

[Net Warrior]

2162 to Gaians

Crush CyCon

[Darsnan]

on to the Cult!

[Googlie]

2163 to Chaunk

[Chaunk]

2163 to the infiltrated one.

[Net Warrior]

2163 to Gaians (says Big Brother)

[Darsnan]

on to the Cult

[Googlie]

2164 to Chaunk

[Chaunk]

2164 to NW.

You guys gave me sanctions last turn. Meanies. I haven't even met most of you but you already hate me