Crossfire

[Guynemer]

I had decided it was time for me to step up into the Thinker difficulty level; as such, I chose to play as UofP, the faction I find the easiest to play. The map was huge and random; just for kicks, I randomized personalities and agendas as well, which may explain why Miriam fawned over my vast research facilities.

I started off smack dab in the middle of one of three large continents. There were large peninsulae to the southwest and the southeast, and a huge blob of land stretching to the northwest. In almost no time, I found I had neighbors--on all sides. The good news was that they were Lal, Morgan, and Miriam. Tensions were off-and-on with all three for about a hundred years, my only gains a few Believer cities. Then, around 2220, all three declared Vendetta; I had anticipated this. I quickly removed Miriam from the continent, leaving her three sea bases to surrender from; Lal capitulated after I took his about 1/3 of his cities, and Morgan wouldn't surrender at all--punishment sphere time.

Around the same time, I discovered Pre-Sentient Algorithms, and switched over The Planetary Datalinks to Hunter-Seeker, the Holy Grail of SPs for UofP. Unfortunately, this allowed Deirdre, the #2 faction, to grab the Datalinks. Usually I sell all my techs to my vassals, and rely on their air power to support any wars; this was now out of question, lest Deirdre catch up to me and my vassals in tech.

Deirdre and I never progressed or regressed beyond an Informal Truce, but I was loathe to start a Vendetta since she somehow managed to grab the big armor techs before I did, but was behind in everything else. So I let her and Santiago slug it out on their continent, while I invaded Yang's island empire, destroying his PB in the process. As soon as he capitulated, Corazon declared Vendetta; that was over in about five years.

I now had four vassals by 2300; it was at this time I stumbled upon Mind/Machine. This is the reason I love Blind Research; normally I find it early enough to build missile choppers. The earliest chopper I could manage in this game was a shard rotor. Anyway, now it was academic; I was unable to secure Supreme Leadership at the first election, but by 2327 there was no question--my earliest victory yet. And best of all, Deirdre didn't put up any resistance beyond voting NAY.

This was a fun one; I've never started next to so many factions at once. However, I'm not sure if I like randomizing personalities and agendas; it seems that the normal personalities and agendas are optimized for that faction's inherent strengths and weaknesses. Randomizing them seems like it could handicap the AI.

That about does it. Gonna try the Gaians on Thinker next, then a couple attempts at Thinker Ironman, then I think I'm going for Transcend. This game is still as fun as when I first played it; three cheers for Firaxis!

Guynemer

[Velociryx]

That really DOES sound like a good game, and yes, I agree with you....certain leader personalities and attitudes just seem to GO better with certain faction benefits. I think randomization really could throw the AI for a loop! (Anybody care to run Miriam as though they were the UoP? Or play Yang like Morgan? LOL :-) )

You'll enjoy Transcend....even with (or perhaps because of) the AI cheats built into the level, it feel uncannily "real" at times. :-) And I agree with you....I'm having as much fun with it now as I did the day I got it.....A good game indeed!
-=Vel=-

[Capt Dizle]

Vel, care to elaborate on what the AI cheats are?

[Guynemer]

Vel,

I'm curious, did you have to significantly alter your strategies and tactics when you jumped up to Transcend? I just want to be ready for any truly nasty surprises.

Cheers,
Guynemer


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"My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine

[Velociryx]

Well, as to AI cheats, I don't know specifically of course, but I can tell you that the computer factions tend to have a higher chance of starting near the "good" terrain (Borehole Clusters, Monsoon Jungle, etc.), and they can build and research things amazingly quickly (Industry & Research +2 (in addition to normal faction bonuses would be my guess) or something like that. And if you really want to make your life miserable, play some peace-time faction like Morgan and set all your opponents to be more aggressive and you've got a nasty game indeed.....:-)

As to my strategy....nope....I'm fairly consistent with it on all levels....in fact, there's a post I left to that effect on the Help section of these boards. (Somebody left a question about Morganite strategy on Thinker Level, and I put my two cents in) :-)

Good luck guys, and lemme know how you fare!
-=Vel=-

[Theben]

Well, I've been able to defeat the game quite easily up to and including thinker level. However my attempts at trancend level had less fruitful outcomes. There seems to be a exponential leap from thinker to trancend(as there should be). Also I no longer randomize the factions, they appeared to not function as well in my games too.

[Transcend]

I didn't notice much difference between the Thinker and Transcend level. I finished Gaians and Universities at Transcend level respectively. I would imagine that if I play with Morgans and Hive, transcend level should be even easier.
Now I'm working on the 1 City challenge (actually 2 cities because I used the colony pod at beginning of the game). I already achieved transcendence at Librarian level in year 2416. I would expect another 50 years for playing at transcend level.
In deed it was tough to play with only 2 bases. Everyone else tend to bully you. At any time there were at least 3 factions declaring vendetta against me. I had to make some diplomatic tricks to play them against each other.

[Googlie]

the guides (or one of the posts - I don't remember) say that the game is evenly balanced at Librarian - no human nor Ai advantage. At Thinker, and moreso at Transcend, the AI is given advantages, in starting locations, cost of units and facilities, pace of research and cost of SPs.

(I also think the AI cheats at these levels. In a current OCC Transcend game on a huge planet (256 x 256, mostly water) I had three transport foils moving three sqs per turn for about 30 turns, discovering nothing. After one AI got the Planetary datalinks, called council discovered me, three turns later they were offshore with transports and gunships. Co-incidence? Doubt it. Cheat? Certainly in my mind.)

[Velociryx]

Yeah....funny how that tends to happen on Transcend....LOL :-)
-=Vel=-