Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Command Nexus => Topic started by: paranoiatron on August 30, 2013, 05:57:54 AM

Title: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on August 30, 2013, 05:57:54 AM

Hello, pleased to find this place. I've been playing this game solo for... Well, I don't think I've gone more than a year without playing it since it was first released, and I'd love to finally play through a full game with 7 human players. I'm thinking we could meet via Hamachi to play once or twice per week for a couple of hours each weekend. These are my preferred rules, though of course I'm willing to make adjustments if needed to attract sufficient interest:

-No unit restrictions
-Random map, large
-blind research OFF
-classic SMAC
-7 original SMAC factions only
-unofficial patch applied

... And, that's it, really. With the exception of the stickied rules for this forum, anything in classic SMAC goes, including copters and crawlers. I want a big, brutal, messy game that takes a long time, and some patient players to play it with. It would be cool to get one player for each faction, but whatever, duplicates aren't that big a deal really. I'd like to start within the next couple of weeks, say on the 7th or 14th, if possible. Post here if you're interested, maybe include some relevant info like time zone and available times, preferred faction, skill level, and any particular requests.

Edit: Wow, getting IP play to work really is nearly impossible. Alright, I'm shifting this to PBEM, everything else still applies though. I really want this game to move along relatively quickly though, so when we have enough players I want to set up a chat so that we can one day a week when we can get through a bunch of turns.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 30, 2013, 06:09:12 AM

Welcome to AC2!  How did you find us?

I advise you to hang around and be patient.  We get people looking for IP action from time to time, and they never seem to stay around long enough to meet each other.  You might want to root around and look for other 'looking for IP' threads, and check the MP Welcome thread - maybe PM some likely-looking candidates...

And of course, while you're waiting, there's worthwhile content and conversations worth being involved in all over the forum...

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: mustang19 on August 30, 2013, 06:14:13 AM

I can vouch for paranoiatron. Join us.  :danc:

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on August 30, 2013, 06:32:40 AM

Thanks for the welcome BUncle! I just came across this place while trying to set up an IP game with mustang, to get directions for setting up Hamachi. I'll definitely stick around, get in touch with some members here, and maybe try to pull some people in from elsewhere to round out the numbers. I posted a link on the Facebook group too. I'm so glad there are still active players of this game!

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: t_ras on August 30, 2013, 06:42:41 AM

I think trying to get 7 players to play together even PBEM is too many.
For IP I would suggest to play 2 players. Also most of the players prefer PBEM instead of IP.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on August 30, 2013, 07:21:39 AM

Thanks, t_ras, but we'll see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, so be it. PBEM is definitely an option if no one wants to try IP. I've done IP with 4 players though and it was a good time, so I think (hope) it can be done with 7. I wouldn't mind switching to PBEM in the mid- to late game, when turns start to take a very long time, but IP would be ideal to get started, get everyone introduced to each other and chatting a bit while we all get started... I'm optimistic.  ;cha;

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: JarlWolf on August 30, 2013, 08:05:56 AM

And while your waiting for that big messy multiplayer game, don't be afraid to dabble in Custom Factions me and others have created. You may be surprised how much life they can breathe into this game. I also recommend reading the various AAR's to pass the time, Green1, Dio, Ete and myself all have some AAR's. Check the Planet Tales and Theory of Everything subforums for them: You'll find them.

And welcome to AC2. Glad to have a fellow SMAC/X playing comrade!

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: mustang19 on August 30, 2013, 03:47:39 PM

Thanks, Jarlwolf.   8)

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on August 30, 2013, 08:03:09 PM

Thanks indeed, Jarlwolf! Anyway, I figure I should post the information I suggested others post... My timezone (and mustang19's I think) is EST, although we both have pretty flexible hours. I'm an expert level player, at least against the CPU, but haven't done multiplayer much. My favorite factions are Gaians and Spartans but I'll choose a different faction if someone else prefers those.

Title: Suggestion: Use Yitzi's patch
Post by: Earthmichael on August 31, 2013, 01:57:25 PM

I suggest you think about using Yitzi's patch.  It fixed tons more bugs, and has an option to disable the rising water, which bugs the heck of me, and fixes ecodamage facilities to work correctly.

If you don't use the patch, then there is an exploit where you can create and destroy ecodamage facilities (such as Centauri Preserves), multiple times, each time, getting a boost to free mineral production, and not having to maintenance cost for the destroyed facility.

In addition, without the patch, when you do trigger mindworms, ecodamage facilities act to greatly INCREASE the number of mindworks encountered, when is great if you are trying the harvest alien lifeforms energy exploit, but not so great otherwise.

It also fixes Echelon Mirror bugs (which I always seem to run into) which crash the game, and some other bugs.  I also think it fixes everything fixed by everyone else's patches, so I can't praise Yitzi's patch enough.  Read up about it, and decide for yourself!

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on August 31, 2013, 04:17:12 PM

Hmm, I did consider Yitzi's patch (especially after I saw in the poll that most players are using it), but then I saw it only has a SMAX executable, and I was planning to run this in regular SMAC. So, yeah, I would definitely like to use it, but is there any way to apply it to SMAC?

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Earthmichael on August 31, 2013, 07:15:32 PM

No, but why would you want to downgrade to SMAC from SMAX?  If you don't have SMAX, spend $3 at gog.com and get it!

Almost all of our games are run SMAX.  If there is some SMAX feature you don't want, then ban it in the game starting parameters.  I recently saw a game start which used SMAX but banned Cloudbase Academy.  Yitzi's patch is reason enough to run SMAX.  Just do it.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on August 31, 2013, 07:42:07 PM

I just never liked SMAX as much as vanilla SMAC. If I can disable absolutely all SMAX features, including native life, all facilities and technologies, then sure, I'll run the game in SMAX with Yitzi's patch. Otherwise it should be fine. Everyone here has a working terran.exe, and I can't imagine running SMAC vs. SMAX would be a dealbreaker for someone interested in this game. Thanks for the advice.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on September 01, 2013, 01:34:01 AM

OK, I was overly optimistic about setting up IP—I can't even get my own to work.  ;deidre; Okay, so, I'm switching this to PBEM. Please sign up if you can play at least one turn per day, and I'd really like to set up one day a week when we can all get together in a chat room and go through a bunch of turns at once, or else this will take forever.

Edit: After trying to play like 2 turns via PBEM I am sure I can't possibly get through a whole game like this. Never mind, y'all. Thread's over, game's not starting, maybe it's time to move on to a 4X game that isn't more than a decade old. Too bad they didn't write it with some decent network code. Good luck with your custom factions and fanfiction everyone.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 01, 2013, 02:53:24 AM

This is not what I had in mind when I mentioned patience, nor what I expected from someone who told me to chillax.  These problems can be solved, but not instantly nor without people willing to make it work.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on September 01, 2013, 03:00:06 AM

I definitely didn't tell you to "chillax". I may have told you to "chill" or "relax", but that's because I try to use real words. I've been trying for the past two days to get my port forwarding to work, and I simply decided that it was more trouble than it was worth. And I simply find PBEM unplayable. Feel free to use this thread to organize a game without me if you like.

Also, the attitude you have here is seriously off-putting. Receiving an unsolicited PM from you telling me not to use a simple privacy feature made me consider immediately leaving, as did all the unsolicited advice I received in this thread. Jesus, you're a bunch of autistic weirdos. I saw that you called a different forum a... Ahem, a "CivCentration Camp"? Lmao, what a creep. Goodbye.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiatron on September 01, 2013, 03:02:27 AM

Here's the hilarious PM I received from BUncle:

"I only realized today that you're in ghost mode, because I could see you all along - that is standard on forums for staff, but there's usually a clearer indication on other sorts of forum software than we use.  Now, what follows is strictly not site policy, but my personal opinion, and you need not act on it or even reply.

Ghost mode, hiding your lurking presence from other members, is fair if everyone does it and fair if no one does it, but not fair if some do it.  Information is power, and you deprive others of information they left available to you.  In the years I was a common citizen, ghosts drove me batpoop; one of the things I love best about my nerdbadge is that 'I see dead people'.

You may have your own good reason for ghosting - and your reason(s) may well be none of my business in any of my capacities.  I just wanted to share an opinion, and whatever you choose to do about it is okay."

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 01, 2013, 03:04:00 AM

This truth-challenged person has trolled two posts in a row, and I'm pissed now.  Does anyone think I should deprive myself of the satisfaction?


Edit: Ah, ninja'd with a Vegas violation making three in a row.  Goodbye troll.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Green1 on September 01, 2013, 03:20:31 AM

Even in more modern 4xs like Civ 5/4, I have found really massive games seldom get up off the ground.

BUT... the anarchists inside me REALLY does want to see a massive clustermess with lots of folks on any game. If only there was a way to where you could make a 4X like a MMO. Have like 100 civs/factions and be online at all time. When someone drops, another in the queue would take over. Brilliant. But, it does not work that way. and I know of no 4x MP run that way even in modern times. Many folks do not like taking over for other folks. A lot drop if something even goes slightly unfavorable. As it is with 4xs the last time I sought out huge MP games, it is hard to get a whole bunch of folks to commit hours a day for several days or be online at the same time.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: paranoiabot on September 01, 2013, 04:05:10 AM

Hey, everyone! How are you all? I came back to say:

1. JarlWolf, when I called everyone an autistic weirdo I didn't mean you! You seem nice.

2. What the [fuddle-duddle] is a "Vegas violation"?

3. I'm not sure what "truth-challenged" is referring to but I DEFINITELY did not tell this autist BUncle to "chillax". I would never even consider saying "chillax", because who the hell says "chillax"? Wow. I will deny these charges in a court of law if I must. It is my sincere belief that anyone who says the non-word "chillax" needs to both chill and relax.

4. Thanks, Green1, I know it's super difficult to get these things set up even without the extra difficulties of configuring SMAC, but all the same I'd have liked to give it a try if I could have configured my router properly. I can't believe you manage to play full games here by PBEM. Wow. Stamina. I just can't do it.

5. BUncle I think it's hilarious that you're "pissed" and that you derive "satisfaction" from banning people who intend to leave. So get this, now you can ban me again, if it will make you happy! Consider this account my gift to you, as I don't intend to post again anyway. Whew, ban away, kiddo! Just have a grand old time!

:o

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 01, 2013, 04:08:48 AM

Okaydoke, son.  Tell TF I said hi.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 01, 2013, 08:16:26 AM

Well, are there any adults looking for a game?  We seriously want to be of service in this with anyone having some modicum of class and a reasonable level of patience.  I know diddly about IP, but we have people who do - but who do not work on command instantly like a vending machine, only for free.  However, it has been done and it will be again.



Things in need of addressing:  we don't have a whole lot of what you'd call rules here, but three I've posted are
1.) No Passing around people's PMs, a rule pretty much every forum in the known universe also enforces.  What happens in Vegas better stay in Vegas. 
2.) No trolling.  That's a pretty well-understood one you should assume every at forum you visit unless clearly given to understand otherwise.  (And by God, if you come into OUR house and slag on OUR game, you just trolled, and you better not blow up at me and insult everyone but Jarlwolf [who IS cool] when I let it pass.  I let a lot of stuff pass, but there are limits.) 
3.)  Well, to quote-

Quote from: BUncle on October 19, 2012, 08:42:01 PM

You're all adults, and my partner and I are adults, and we all act like adults, and we're going to keep acting like adults, and treat each other like adults.  If you're not an adult, you're going to act like one anyway at AC2.

That's a real rule here, and if you don't get it, you're not ready to play with the grownups yet.

Talking to an owner of the site about 'unsolicited' anything is not an optimal strategy.  Claiming a clearly labeled (in actual English and everything) expression of opinion (from someone who could express an order) is "telling me not to" then breaking a rule to prove yourself wrong is neither all that wise nor an impressive display of reading comprehension.  The phail of the second DL (way to go with that never intending to post again) to get in while I was off AFK was sad.  Cross-site trolling is for babies and forcing someone who works at being peaceful to deploy the hammer is not cool.  If you're going to troll or just act out, do it with wit and style and you'll be surprised at my patience.  Obvious trolly kidstuff, not so much.



Now, are there any adults looking for a game?

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: cabbar on September 01, 2013, 02:30:10 PM

Hi all. We have a little group that play IP games. So if it goes to that including me, there could be 2-4 players available, depending on their availability.


Cheers.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: 551262 on September 02, 2013, 08:36:46 PM

I'm up for trying anything. I say enough of the chatter and let's get playing!

Where do I start? I'll play Sparta or Believers (if someone wants to gift me tech), don't care for SMAC-X. IP I want to give a shot at. Mac user. Tell me what patch/update to run and we're off.

-Random map, small size, 30-50% ocean coverage, blind research off, no restart, pick your teams and let's play!

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: cabbar on September 02, 2013, 09:00:24 PM

We are about 3 SMAC/SMACX players, on linux. Good for IP, weekends.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: JarlWolf on September 06, 2013, 11:54:53 PM

Quote from: paranoiabot on September 01, 2013, 04:05:10 AM

Hey, everyone! How are you all? I came back to say:

1. JarlWolf, when I called everyone an autistic weirdo I didn't mean you! You seem nice.

The fact you used Autism as an insult has lowered the respect I had for you, and the fact you insulted people who were trying to HELP you and help you be on your way to integrate and find more games in the community is a little bit shameful. I seem nice until I see arrogance, then I get rude, sometimes even violent.

I'll let you know I actually do suffer from mental sickness, aggressive PTSD. And insults towards that area is just disrespectful.

Edit: Also, I apologize for speaking on this matter folks. I had to speak my mind on this...

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Kirov on September 07, 2013, 04:02:10 PM

Wow, what actually happened here? I remember I'd read this topic just before I left and wanted to offer an IP game when I come back. And now I'm an autistic weirdo for some reason. Not every day you learn such stuff about yourself.

BU, this reminds me of our recent conversation. Good you pacified him before it devolved into a regular flamewar. We don't need to put up with a troll for diversity issues.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Kirov on September 07, 2013, 04:05:13 PM

Quote from: 551262 on September 02, 2013, 08:36:46 PM

I'm up for trying anything. I say enough of the chatter and let's get playing!

Where do I start? I'll play Sparta or Believers (if someone wants to gift me tech), don't care for SMAC-X. IP I want to give a shot at. Mac user. Tell me what patch/update to run and we're off.

-Random map, small size, 30-50% ocean coverage, blind research off, no restart, pick your teams and let's play!

I'm interested and can play even tomorrow, i.e. Sunday 8 September (actually I can play even today; it's either you guys or some single player). I guess there are no issues between different OS at play? I remember I played with a Linux user and it was fine.

I just need to set up my Hamachi and can play. We may need a chat or skype to coordinate.

Title: Re: Starting a new game, looking for 7 players
Post by: Kirov on September 07, 2013, 08:29:32 PM

Quote from: JarlWolf on September 06, 2013, 11:54:53 PM

I'll let you know I actually do suffer from mental sickness, aggressive PTSD. And insults towards that area is just disrespectful.

Ah, I need to ask: how did you get it? There's only one likely place I can think of.