SMAC (Alpha Centauri) exhibition game - Page 3

6xFPCs

United States412 Posts

June 18 2011 18:41 GMT

#41

On June 18 2011 17:51 Manit0u wrote:
Great job man. But I have to agree with Excalibur and Alethios here, screencaps are better. Mostly because it's faster and you only post the highlights and key moments, skipping all the tedious stuff.

Yeah, I am leaning that way too. I wasn't going to do video unless there are a supermajority or something that wanted it. Good to hear you guys name the same reasons I was thinking of, though.

On June 18 2011 19:16 Lunaticman wrote:
Can you somehow play this game in windows mode?

As in, run boot camp? I don't have the windows version, so I can't do that.

If you meant in a window, then yes, that's what I am doing. For my version, when you first start it up, there is an options dialog that lets you set that (though it notes that windowed mode is unsupported).

FYI, your terminology confused me because the terms are "windows" and "windowed [mode]". Hopefully one of my answers helps.

Was anyone on a PC able to get my save to work?

6xFPCs

United States412 Posts

June 18 2011 18:57 GMT

#42

MY2180

There are some critical moments in a lot of games. There's warpgate and stim in SC2, there's +1 speed zealots and the moment nine mutas pop in BW. We have reached one of those moments: Fusion Power. Imagine if there was an upgrade that doubled the hitpoints of every single unit. Well, that's what the Fusion Reactor does, and while it doesn't automatically upgrade current units, it does mean that we are going to be nigh-untouchable until someone else discovers it too. And that's not all: it also lowers the mineral cost of more "complex" units. Suddenly that trained 5-3-1 juggernaut you wanted can be built at half cost; our impact rovers would be roughly 2/3 cost if built with a fusion reactor. Oh, and the proper unit designation for fusion reactor is to add a *2 at the end, e.g. 5-3-1*2. And it also lowers the cost of complex chassis, too, so now every colony pod and former we build will be a rover colony pod and rover former (i.e. now 2 movement)

In light of this ridiculousness, I will be slowly building new versions of all our units to replace our obsolete garrison units. In the cases where the units are highly trained or experienced (we have a commando impact rover in Throne of God), I can simply spend some cash and upgrade them straight to the latest tech (5-1-1*2).

MY2182

The Hive suddenly changes from Command Nexus to and instantly completes Merchant Exchange (+1 energy each square in this base)! Then they start building Command Nexus again in another city. Hm, they also still have #1 military, in spite of the fusion reactor goodness I've already upgraded to. I'm pretty sure we will have time to get to Air Power (another lifechanging tech) before he really comes our way, but it's still worrisome that now he has a serious economic wonder on his side.

[image loading]

The power graphs make me worried too. Hive is moving up quickly, we're plateauing a bit. Gaians are in a solid third, and the rest of them make their respective beliefs and social values look bad.

Since we're running Green econ, maybe we should stop threatening Deirdre and set up an alliance with her again the Hive. Her mind worms are terrible against the swarms of Yang, though. Still, she's closer to him, so she can take the casualties while our needlejets slowly pick away at the horde.

MY2185

Now I'm very much regretting the placement of New Arzamas. No good resources, it'll take some serious terraforming to do anything useful. Just moving a former out there to plant a forest bothers me like that single scouting ling attacking drones--gotta take care of it, but really don't want to have to.

MY2186

Hive builds Command Nexus. Lal, are you ready to die?

some scary Hive production going on. Hive is such an easy faction to play when you go all out military.

MY2187

Didn't expect that. Santiago takes out Lal. Suddenly we go from two 1-base factions to zero. Actually wait, since it's the first 100 turns still, Lal gets free respawn.

MY2188

There's the Manifold Nexus! The nexus gives +1 planet on the social engineering table, which is to say that it makes your social more green if it is within your territory. Time to do a little more expansion.

The lack of formers early on, plus the singular military focus, is really starting to hurt now. Several bases desperately need terraforming, several more are outgrowing their happiness infrastructure, and Monitoring Station hasn't had any minerals for production in 30 or so years. This stagnation is contributing to our rapid decline relative to Yang, since his economy is always terrible anyway, but now he has the de facto superpower military. It remains to be seen how far he can stretch that military without us finding a spot where we can break it.

MY2190

The lack of mind worms is amazing to me. I've played games where I lose more units to worms than to other factions, and right now the only worms we're really seen were those three on the eastern border. So the weirdness continues in that it took until now to see a perihelion event, which causes all mind worms to upgrade to the next morale level--and since psi combat is based on morale only, it means all of them get deadlier. But we have trance garrisons and rovers scattered everywhere, so we should be alright. As Uni it's easy to lose a random high tech unit with low morale to worms, though, so I'm going to have to try to keep all the trained fusion reactor infantry behind their trance brethren. Did you know that the trance garrisons have a little speaker in front of them? Hypnotic trance via repeating speaker helps in psi defense, makes perfect sense.

Oh lord, the Gaians are not ready for any military action. They have the same amount of probe teams as defensive units. That's like having your spire up and building overseers--by itself, contaminate won't win wars, and probe teams won't either.

MY2191

Spartans pronounce vendetta against the Gaians? They take a second city and suddenly they think they can rule the world, I guess.

I want this city.

I grabbed a goodie pod. It was not good.

[image loading]

This is not looking good.

MY2193

Hive takes U.N. Planning Authority. We now share a border, and we will need to begin preparing defenses immediately. Again, I feel that the natural barrier provided by the fungus is a good bet, and as always, defeating a superior force will require some kind of abusive tactic. In this case, I'm thinking we should build some mind worms, and use them to ambush the Hive forces as they try to cross. That, plus our probe teams subverting stray units, should be enough to hold. 9 turns until HSA finishes (immune to probe), 13 until Virtual World finishes. If we can hold on for the next 20-30 years, the Hive offensive should not be a significant threat.

Oh come on Miriam. Are you really going to plop a base down right there? You're breaking my balls, Miriam. Breaking. My. Balls.

MY2195

Hm ok Miriam walks that colony pod right on by. No idea where she's going, but as long as it's not here, I'm fine with it.

Spartans sign a treaty with the Gaians. My guess is that they both don't want to be fighting when Yang comes knocking. The critical issue right now is which direction Yang sends his troops.

Getting drone riots almost every turn now. I wish I could expand more to increase production, but if I'm already facing this much unhappiness, I'm not sure I can. Even raising the allocation of energy to psych/happiness won't make much of the difference, so best not to push things too far.

Crawler tech, crawler tech, wherefore art thou?

MY2197

I see you, Yang. I knew you'd go for the monolith. I'm already waiting, entrenched on a hill where the sensor tower tracks your every move. Go ahead, get the morale upgrade. It will be the last thing you do.

MY2198

Yang moves to the monolith, asks to talk. All he does is demand 75 credits, but I'm not giving up anything. He's pissed, I'm mostly amused.

In Japanese, there is a term for an undisciplined warrior who tests his new blade on the first passerby he sees--tsujiri. Well, we have three blades to test, but two will be deadly to the testing subject. First, I check how much it will cost to subvert the unit: 54 credits. That's awesomely cheap, we can buy half his army as it slowly crosses the fungal fields. Second would be our mind worms, but they're still out of position, having just been built. So let's try our third, our nice Fusion Gatling Squad.

[image loading]

Might as well be named Firing Squad.

Our rovers in the west will help us turn that giant army of mind worms that we triggered into some nice credits and maybe a few captured worms, if we're lucky. Also, I suck at math and counting, so our newest base, Zvedny Gorodok, does not actually put the Manifold Nexus in our territory. So we'll need another pod. Sigh. At least it's in a nice spot.

MY2199

"Who gets to shoot him?" "I'll flip you for it?" "Sure!"
Actually the logical choice is to use the guy to the south, since the guy to the west is holding down our western flank and further from reinforcements.

I use the probe team to scout ahead one square, turns out there are four gatling laser squads (three 5-2-1, one 5-3-1) coming up. I move one of the eastern squads further west to get ready, and the first mind worm will be there in time as well should they try to hide in fungus (fungus is +50% def against non-psi combat, but gives +50% attack to psi attackers). Since they're stacked, each time they lose a unit, it deals 30% damage to the remaining. So with three, maybe four units ready to attack them, we should wipe out a serious chunk of their army thanks to our defensive setup. And if they get the chance to counter, there will be two units left at perhaps 40%, attacking into our units sitting in fungus (they have no psi attack), supported by sensor towers, for a total of 40% health vs 200% health and +75% def. If you multiply those numbers by their attack strength (5) and our defense strength (3), you get 2.0 vs 10.5.

[image loading]

Still, our power ranking is sliding, so let's not get too cocky.

Hm, I scout ahead with another probe team, seems like there's also two 4-2-1s coming at us from further west. All my calculations were for nothing! Our priority will be to take down that stack of four, however, and just count on native terrain defense bonuses (all my units are sitting on +50% defense) to hold through. I dispatch another squad from Mendelev College just in case. A look at the College also shows three turns to probe team immunity! Virtual World in seven turns, too, though i will rush that one at 3-4 turns remaining if we can afford it.

As soon as we get more mind worms, we will push to UN Planning Authority. The sheer amount of fungus there means that our mind worms will have a field day.

pic20
And it looks like Yang is starting to feeling some of the growing pains we were dealing with. Riots in three cities, all of which are probably rushing out rec commons, and two cities building non-military units. Maybe he's realized that trudging for ten turns across the unyielding landscape of Alpha Centauri, only to get smashed before getting near any bases, is not worth his time.

MY2200

Happy new century!

Deirdre wants to talk, they want to trade their crawler tech for fusion power. Uh... no. Hm, it turns out that she has both crawler tech and the higher level terraforming tech (let's us build boreholes, condensors, echelon mirrors, all very FT-heavy but ridiculously good improvements). Negotiations are at an impasse, though, since I will not trade away fusion power or the tech needed to build HSA (probe immunity) until I have it, especially since mine are a tech tier above hers in each case (hers are Explore 3 and E4, mind are Discover 4 and D5).

Here is Yang's troop movement. Time to slice and dice. Or perhaps just slap chop.

I start with the obvious: mind worms attacking the two units in fungus. I then use the squad furthest south to kill the now weakened remaining unit.

I work my way north, again attacking based on which units can reach what. I think I will need to use probe teams to capture some of Yang's units.

Two probe team subversion: 175 credits. Maintaining four squads and one mind word: 5 minerals per turn. One-turn massacre of half of Yang's army? Priceless.

On the western front, we lost our mind worms in a close attack on wild mind worms, but our rover finished off the thing, giving us 40 energy credits. I use the money to rush the last turn of HSA.

MY2201

Damn, Yang had a unit hiding in the fungus. We lose our subverted 5-3-1, plus a probe team. They will be avenged in a moment, but first...

HSA is ours!

We killed the unit hiding in fungus, and now we're movin' on up. Yang still has #1 military, but clearly our tactics are a match for his numerical superiority.

Looking ahead: The Gaians are trying to build VW, but are 12 turns away to our 5, we should be fine. I think we may as well just steal those two techs from them, since their military force consists of a mind worm, a recon rover (2-1-2), and five probe teams, which we are now immune to. So even a vendetta with them means very little to us.

nepeta

1872 Posts

June 18 2011 19:42 GMT

#43

Looks like you let Yang get way too big, good luck cleaning it up now :p Nice to do this exhibition games, more people should know about this game.

Personally, I'm not very good at it I'm afraid -I like to play on very large maps on medium difficulty settings, building/conquering until I've got more than a hundred cities and planting forests all over my land. Opponents who don't agree with me I kill or out-position, the rest I declare war on after a looong time and kill them off with quantum warheads. Seeing their entire land sink into giant sea-craters is really great for relieving stress ^^

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The colours are off somehow, but look at the minimap and think about the size of the world :p

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End game bases. Notice the straight lines in the minimap: wherever it looks like someone took a rhomb out of the land, there was a nuke blast -^

I don't know why the screenshots are so messed up sorry

nemY

United States3119 Posts

June 18 2011 20:17 GMT

#44

My biggest complaint with playing vs the AI (which is all I've played against so far) is that Lal and Morgan always become someone else's bitch (usually the Hive or Miriam). If Lal starts next to Yang (which he has in the past two games) he's dead. The AI of course doesn't know how to play with Morgan (since strategically speaking, you have to play him the most different than any of the other factions I think) and I made him my bitch in my most recent game after taking one of his bases (he only has like 6 bases total anyways). I got really lucky and was able to curbstomp Miriam after she stacked 29 of her units in one space (via artillery bombings + mindworm rape I'm Gaians). But really, the only two factions I feel like I ever have to worry about while playing are Yang and Miriam (the two most militaristic ones of course).

6xFPCs

United States412 Posts

June 18 2011 22:47 GMT

#45

On June 19 2011 04:42 nepeta wrote:
Looks like you let Yang get way too big, good luck cleaning it up now :p

He's big, but he's far away, and his military will always be behind ours in tech. Working on the next post, but I can let you know that we get chaos theory (8 atk), and I don't even feel the need to prototype it because our mind worms are messing up his units using the screamingly gruesome approach that is psychic terror.

On June 19 2011 05:17 nemY wrote:
My biggest complaint with playing vs the AI (which is all I've played against so far) is that Lal and Morgan always become someone else's bitch (usually the Hive or Miriam). If Lal starts next to Yang (which he has in the past two games) he's dead. The AI of course doesn't know how to play with Morgan (since strategically speaking, you have to play him the most different than any of the other factions I think) and I made him my bitch in my most recent game after taking one of his bases (he only has like 6 bases total anyways). I got really lucky and was able to curbstomp Miriam after she stacked 29 of her units in one space (via artillery bombings + mindworm rape I'm Gaians). But really, the only two factions I feel like I ever have to worry about while playing are Yang and Miriam (the two most militaristic ones of course).

Yeah, the computer has trouble with Morgan if he gets limited early, or doesn't have time to set up proper defense. Usually this is because he spawns too close to another AI, as you've said. The other thing is that Morgan has to use rush-buying intelligently, but the computer doesn't seem to understand the concept, instead pooling cash for no reason that I can see. So one of his biggest strengths is completely unused.

Lal likes to get a few bases and make them grow big, for specialists plus good city improvements, and the problem is that if he doesn't have proper defense, losing even one base is a big deal. Hive will almost always be able to take one base from him, so Lal v Yang almost always goes to Yang. The exception is if Yang gets energy starved and has no tech--it's funny to watch 10+ laser infantry (2-1-1) die trying to take a base with perimeter defense and two 1-3-1 plasma garrison, the defenders end up commando or elite by the end of it.

whatusername

Canada1181 Posts

June 19 2011 00:34 GMT

#46

On June 18 2011 19:16 Lunaticman wrote:
Can you somehow play this game in windows mode?

If you have Windows 7:
What I did was download Windows XP Mode from Microsoft here, and if you dont have windows ultimate or professional or whatever download VMLite so ur able to run XP Mode off of that, then install Alpha Centauri in that to play windowed. It's really complicated but it's worth it, so much easier to play with a high resolution monitor

6xFPCs

United States412 Posts

June 19 2011 23:04 GMT

#47

MY2203

We lose a mind worm and probe team to Yang; that +2 ground morale is keeping his units at veteran level so they're trained enough to take down mind worms when they are on the attack. What he didn't expect is the second mind worm, and since he had to leave his unit in fungus to make the attack, we win with a handy +70% to psi attack on our side (+50% fungus, +20% planet rating due to green econ).

MY2204

What is this? Morgan wants to talk, and it turns out he's sitting on 520 credits and a "sufficient" strength rating. I trade him HSA tech (we have HSA so it's much less valuable) for ecological engineering (E4, let's us build boreholes, removes mineral restrictions). I also trade a useless D3 for crawler tech!

He's so happy with our trading that he declares war! Haha, of course it's because of our green econ. But now our probe teams can go rough him up for cash AND tech. Everyone wins.

Moving on... we follow the river up to UN Planning Authority, and steal a tech (B2). I then subvert Morgan's random low tech unit, kill his nearby colony pod, and start moving his weak little unit towards his undefended base. What made him think he can fight me?

I start Zoloto Gold on a research hospital. I think if I can hold UN Planning Authority with just the current army, I can switch to crawler production and make ZG a science supercity, since we got the tech for Supercollider (+100% labs this base) earlier. With the Uranium flats, plus plenty of free ocean for tidal harnesses, it won't be hard to get ZG producing 100+ beakers a turn, given the time to set up some crawler parks.

MY2205

Yang tries to push me out of the fungus near UN Planning, but he loses the expensive unit he attacks with simply because Fusion Reactors are amazing. I blithely attack straight into his perimeter-defended base, and we take UN Planning Authority, perimeter defense intact. We also remove what is hopefully the last Hive unit lurking in the fungus. With two mind worms in the area and several squads moving up, this should be an easy hold. We will wear down his army here, as we don't want to press forward into the heart of the Hive military-industrial machine.

MY2206

We spot several Hive units moving in from the NW, we send out a mind worm to destroy them, but Yang wants to talk first...

Nah, I think I like UN Planning Authority. And there's no way you'll take it from me when you have two squares of fungus to trudge through before even reaching the base. So he gets seriously pissed when I decline and he will probably stay at war with us for the rest of the game. That's fine by me.

This is the war zone. I'm building a road up to connect our main territory to UN Planning Authority. Creep spread so important! The rivers help (they act as roads if you follow them), especially when sending probe teams towards Morgan, but roads are the foundation of nearly every major empire in history. Who am I to argue with history?

The first probe team drains 51 energy from Morgan, AND gets promoted to Elite (+1 movement); the second nets 33 energy. We'll keep stealing energy until our infiltrators report that he has a new tech that we don't. That's what I like about this guy, he always has something I want to steal.

MY2207

Gaians build Xenoempathy Dome (all fungus act as roads for your units). Sigh, they're using the Uni-Hive war to their advantage.

MY2208

We take out a few random Hive units NW of UN Planning Authority. Their forces in the area seem to be mostly gone, only reinforcements to prepare for now.

I also sabotage Morgan's production of a defender for his still-undefended city. Now we have 14 turns before he can build a defender haha.

But count on a random wild mind worm to ruin my day. I will lose a squad for sure due to the fungus bonus now working against me.

MY2209

Gaians pronounce vendetta upon the Hive! This is exciting.

A few Hive troops moving in from the north, I simply put an elite squad out one square and wait for them to try something

MY2210

They tried something and died, how sad.

Hm, the Gaians have now dragged the Spartans into their war against the Hive. This could split their forces enough that our crawler focus back home becomes a smart choice. Thanks for making me look so smart, Deirdre.

We take Morgan Data Systems, plus 40 energy for our troubles. We also use a sea probe team to download their world map. Looks like it'll be tough for them to even send units at us, as they are on an island. Note that I took Data Systems first, then used the probe team, so that the probe team gets sent to our new base upon completion of their mission, instead of going all the way back to a base in our main territory.

[image loading]

The white line goes up! We're happy!

Oh, goodie pods, why do you hate me so?
We're going to disband that rover and let that Hive city deal with this, hopefully they'll lose the city and thus their inclination to attack our western border.

MY2212

We continue to press forward against the Hive. Morgan will just be a host for our probe team leeches for the time being.

[image loading]

Fusion reactor continues to be unstoppable, even in covert ops. Though to be fair, we would have won without it in this case.

MY2213

Miriam gives us five plasma garrisons and an outdated impact squad. The garrisons somehow get auto-upgraded to fusion reactor, the squad doesn't get upgraded. Weird. We'll use two to garrison some of the nearby cities, but probably just disband the others for minerals towards formers.

[image loading]

Morgan makes a pathetic attempt at retaking Data Systems, his units are the least trained morale level possible, and he's still only at 2 atk. It would take every last unit he has to retake this base.

MY2214

We take UN Equality Village. Hive asks for truce, we give truce. We know he'll break it, but it'll just be another hit to his reputation, and the sooner people realize they shouldn't make treaties with him, the more stuck in his military-only hole he'll be.

MY2215

Hive troops are milling about near UN Equality Village. Going to reshuffle defenses to favor Equality Village, and hope one or two units can hold the fungus north of UN Planning Authority by themselves. With a rover now in play, plus artillery, our tactics need to shift, but we simply lack units of any kind at the moment due to all the crawlers we're building back home. We will need to consider evacuating UN Equality Village, then giving it back to the Hive to keep them at bay for a bit. Our Chaos rovers are in production, with the first prototype already heading north. Once they get to the war front, we should be able to take and hold UN Equality Village and UN Commerce Committee by sniping units with rovers as they try to head south across the open ground (rovers get +50% attacking into open terrain). We also have several probe teams in the area, but subversion becomes more expensive here due to the smaller distance from their capital.

[image loading]

After pulling apart the first Hive offensives and taking two cities in the counterattack, their power graph has taken a nosedive. We're still doing well. Gaians are still bumbling along at about the same level relative to us, though they've overtaken the Hive. I can't wait for them to build more secret projects; their cities will be ours eventually.

Oh and I talked to Deirdre, but she really wants Fusion Power (D6) and I only kind of want Centauri Meditation (E5), so no trading happens, she just praises my green econ while I smile, nod, then hang up. Maybe one of our elite probe teams will head in her direction, steal a tech, and blame it on Yang. Hopefully successfully; if we fail, we give both of them justification to go to war. Still, a free E5 might be worth it.

JohannesH

Finland1364 Posts

June 20 2011 12:35 GMT

#48

It's not so interesting when it's so obvious you'll win the game :/

Daltrain

Australia15 Posts

June 20 2011 13:14 GMT

#49

I just bought this of GOG thanks to you, man it brings back memories from when I was too young to know which units and tech were good and bad, so I think I'm gunna copy your choices while i learn

Iplaythings

Denmark9110 Posts

June 20 2011 14:11 GMT

#50

I know jack about alpha centauri but I enjoyed reading this (alot!) and it has made me wanna play civilisation 4 ALOT.

So I only ask of you to keep it up and play another game like this when youre finished (if it's not too much to ask).
Thanks for doing this!

Alethios

New Zealand2765 Posts

June 21 2011 11:06 GMT

#51

On June 20 2011 21:35 JohannesH wrote:
It's not so interesting when it's so obvious you'll win the game :/

Fair enough.

For my own part, I'm really enjoying this. I keep checking back waiting for you to post the next installment!

jackofclubs81

United States196 Posts

June 21 2011 11:32 GMT

#52

On June 21 2011 20:06 Alethios wrote:

Show nested quote +

Fair enough.

For my own part, I'm really enjoying this. I keep checking back waiting for you to post the next installment!

Same here with me. If I wasn't going out of town next week i would probably try to do an exhibition myself haha.

Iplaythings

Denmark9110 Posts

June 21 2011 11:45 GMT

#53

speaking of which i sorta wanna try it out, any of you know if there is an download working for windows vista? the one at firaxis' homesite is only updated for XP

Brad

2754 Posts

June 21 2011 12:08 GMT

#54

I wish more games like this were in development. Along with building games they are my favourite.

6xFPCs

United States412 Posts

June 21 2011 22:41 GMT

#55

Busy day yesterday so no update, sorry all. Hopefully I can crank something out tonight. I am not sure how to proceed against the Hive, but I feel that even with chaos rovers, waiting until our Supercollider is up before pushing further into Hive territory is the safest option. 90% confident he will break the truce, and soon, so I am thinking about how to best defend Equality Village, since there is no fungus to abuse with mind worms, and subversion is a bit costly now that we're closer to Yang. I hope chaos guns will be enough, but I don't want to just put them up front and pray, either. It's feeling more and more like I will need to set aside cash for emergency subversions, just in case.

On June 20 2011 21:35 JohannesH wrote:
It's not so interesting when it's so obvious you'll win the game :/

Sigh, you're absolutely right, especially now that the Hive's resugence is over and their subsequent attempt to stop me failed. But since my intentions were mostly to demonstrate sone of the thought processes and complexity in SMAC, I am probably just going to continue steamrolling through the rest of this game without adding any random restrictions (only econ victory allowed, etc.).
On the plus side, we're winning!

I'm also brainstorming ideas for a succession game (Morgan, Librarian difficulty?, 2x 40yr turns to start then 20yr turns?) but no one with the PC version has let me know whether or not they can load my Mac save. GOTM (game-of-the-month, everyone plays same starting save independently, in competition) is also a possibility if others want, though i feel that succession is more community-oriented and engaging to follow.

maryelizbethwinstead

Mexico223 Posts

June 22 2011 02:19 GMT

#56

Pls link connect updates in pg 2 and 3 to OP...

Having so much fun reading your work! It's like an LR thread without the balance whine!

6xFPCs

United States412 Posts

June 22 2011 14:47 GMT

#57

Short update again, apologies. Hope you're all still enjoying this, and remember, feel free to ask questions or discuss! I know I'm not a perfect player, and I definitely have my idiosyncracies when it comes to things like base layout and military style. I can respond more easily than I can do new posts, and don't worry, the former doesn't cut into the latter (thanks, iPhone!).

MY2216

We lost another unit to wild mind worms, near UN Planning Authority. Yang moves his forces back from Equality Village though, so at least the loss is not going to compromise our defense.

Also forgot that I built a lot of Hologram Theaters pre-Virtual World. I check how much I can sell them for, and it turns out I have 9 I can sell for 270 credits. I can't recall if I get charged maintenance on them, so I sell immediately.

MY2217

Gaians are almost done with Planetary Transit System (all bases start at 3 instead of 1). PTS plus Human Genome is a swell combination.

I'm using a number of crawlers to speed up construction of the Supercollider in Zoloto Gold. Sea formers are already putting up tidal harnesses nearby, ready to be crawled/seacrawled.

MY2218

Gaians build PTS, start work on Maritime Control Center (+2 sea movement for all sea units, naval yard in every base). That means they have new tech!

Crawlers!

Remember that Hive city that we send a horde of wild mind worms after? No, really, it used to be there!

Oh and Deirdre wants 325 energy for Centauri Meditation. No thanks, we can do our own research. She won't even talk about Doctrine: Initiative, the tech that let her start Maritime Control Center.

MY2220

Morgan builds Planetary Datalinks (you get tech automatically when 3 others have it). Not too useful since only the Gaians and ourselves have any decent tech, but I guess they're far enough behind that they'll get plasma armor. We do plan on eventually taking their island, but it's still not a priority.

We build our first borehole. Still energy capped at 2, but 0-6-2 is still a nice square toi have.

We are seeing some serious mind worm activity now, perhaps Planet is trying to make up for the last century. We lose a sea former, and I rush out an empath (+50% atk vs psi) and trance sea unit to take care of things. We will want more such sea units to defend our sea crawlers. I decide to rush the last 12 turns of Supercollider for a hefty investment of 464 credits, since we don't have many other avenues of spending money short of rush-buying crawlers (not very worthwhile).

MY2221

Our empath hoverboat cleans up the isle of the deep, and our rover captures the mind worms that landed from it.

With a measly 4 crawlers up, ZG is already running 68 beakers! Network Node, Research Hospital, and Supercollider combined give +200% research here. Adding a fusion lab will give us another +50%. Pretty soon ZG will crank out more research than every city on Alpha Centauri combined. No joke.

Another 65 energy from Morgan, via probe team. Running total is around 600 energy.

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As usual, we're doing well.

KillerSOS

United States4207 Posts

June 22 2011 16:42 GMT

#58

I love Alpha Centauri sooooo much

vaderseven

United States2556 Posts

June 22 2011 22:23 GMT

#59

I would play either a a shared start where people submit saves kinda thing OR a TL AC game.

Love this game so much. Haven't played in too long.

6xFPCs

United States412 Posts

June 23 2011 00:51 GMT

#60

I messed up another image in the previous post, but I've already deleted the old screenshots! Another one lost forever, sorry. It was just a picture of the first borehole, though.

MY2223

Lal wants to talk. He's at war with the Spartans and wants us to help. No thank you. We sell him a D5 for 50 credits, since I think Morgan already got it for free (me, Deirdre, Yang all have it).

Retroviral Engineering is our next tech, which allows for Genetic Warfare (probe team attack that decimates a base, considered an atrocity) and for the Genejack Factory improvement, which gives +50% minerals (first of its kind) but causes one extra drone (remember, drones=bad here). Fairly useless because we're more energy-heavy than mineral-heavy, and because we have enough drones issues already.

side note: there is an improvement called the Punishment Sphere that suppresses all drones at the cost of -50% tech, plus makes mind control more difficult. Probably the most interesting improvement in the whole game, it enables free market factions to have an army, makes your critical cities holding twenty secret projects impossibly expensive to mind control, etc.

I rush buy the 9-turn-distant Fusion Lab at ZG for 180 credits. Next up in production: Energy Bank (+50% econ).

MY2224

Gaians starting to feel the brunt of Hive military power. So that's what Yang's been busy with, I was wondering where his forces went.

Upon inspection, it appears that the Gaians' primary city (Resplendent Oak, with 3 secret projects) is already under siege as well. Let's gear up to take advantage. Maybe we'll stomp Santiago out, then take Resplendent Oak for ourselves once the Hive army has been worn down a little against Deirdre's perimeter defenses.

I spend 160 credits upgrading some of our 5-3-1*2 infantry to 8-4-1*2. They're commando-level morale, so it's definitely worth it. I will begin to move them south towards Resplendent Oak, it's a long march.

MY2225

100 beakers.

I rush buy New Jerusalem's Bioenhancement Center (+2 morale all unit types). By building trained versions of units, I should be able to produce commando units out of the box. With the nearby monolith, this means I can crank out elite units (+1 extra movement, very important). With New Jerusalem supply me with this kind of military, plus the tech of Zoloto Gold, I don't see how anyone can stop me.

MY2226

A borehole completes near the once-useless New Arzamas. Did you know that a borehole on the western coast causes extreme moisture in the surround area? I did, and now New Arzamas has a borehole and lots of rainy squares. FYI, a borehole anywhere else dries the surround area.

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120 beakers. Ok, I'll stop counting.

MY2227

Our first fungal bloom ("fungus pop")! Caused by excessive minerals production at bases (you may have noticed the "Ecological Damage" thing), each pop adds one to the allowed limit of minerals that are considered "clean" (starts at 17, I think). Each pop also causes some fungus to grow near one base that has been causing damage, and after the first few (first 2?), spawn mind worms.

Oh and until the first bloom, no "clean" actions (building tree farms, centauri preserves, etc.) count towards raising the clean mineral limit. So the first one is good. The second one is neutral. Then it starts getting bad. By the 20th you may die to mind worms (completely serious, it starts to spawn double-digit numbers of them, in land, sea, and aerial form).

MY2229

We drain 96 energy from Morgan, among other things.

Yes, that's 27 active crawlers, 11 active sea crawlers.

Our army is getting into position. Maybe Santiago will declare vendetta herself, but we don't really care anymore. Our reputation may not be so great, but who needs trading partners when you are getting a new tech every 4 years? Yang still has #1 military, however.

Good luck, Deirdre.
(notice all her injured units? Hive artillery prevents them from healing, so she's trying to build her own artillery to fight back.)

What's this? Hive and Deirdre both have Missile tech (6 atk)? It's not like we really need it, but we're Uni, we like tech. Let's talk to them.

Hive ignores us, Deirdre offers us Synthetic Fossil Fuels (aka Missiles) for 375. We don't have that much on hand. It may be time for us to make our move...

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Status check: Big white bar, small bars of other colors. It's like racism, almost.

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