The Battle of Ten Cities

[Nevill]

Credit goes to ExCx for this one.

So there was a thread in the Command Nexus forum where a match was proposed on a small map with a few house rules - you know, banning overpowered projects, limiting some of the less balanced units, the usual. However, there was one rule that stood out:

-5 bases max

The idea was quickly discarded because it was pointed out how it imbalances gameplay with all the different faction bonuses and styles, but it got me thinking. Can it be made to work?

Everyone who played SMAX multi extensively knows that 5 bases are way, WAY too few for a normal gameplay. There is not enough SUPPORT to go around, the research stagnates quickly, and you either have to place your bases near each other (and suffer from overlapping territory), or make peace with being slow to respond to unexpected threats to individual bases. It has much more in common with One City Challenges than with the way the game is supposed to be played.

But it also presents some very interesting questions that you do not see often, especially with Crawlers disabled. Where do you place your bases - do you spread them out to maximize the benefits from covering most territory, or do you cluster them around resource bonuses to get a good headstart? Do you build any bases on a shore (detracting from an overall quality of the base as ocean terraforming is very lackluster), or do you only develop inland, risking a possible invasion from a more maritime-inclined opponent? More bases on the shore would make for a more powerful fleet, but if it fails, you will fall behind rather quickly. Finally, Secret Projects have to be re-evaluated - The Merchant's Exchange gets actually useful for once, while things like The Command Nexus experience a drop in their importance. Yeah, you get a free ComCenter in 5 bases for 200 minerals, so what? You could have built them normally, y'know.

So I contacted a fellow enthusiast, and we designed a challenge between the two of us. We would play on a custom map, designed specifically with a duel in mind, starting on two islands on the different sides of the map, and - since this requires quite a bit of planning - having our respective islands revealed. All AIs would be purged off the map.

The house rules are as follows:
- No player can build more than 5 bases at any given time, unless they conquered a base from another player.
- Captured bases can not be obliterated.
- Cloudbase Academy is banned (might have been excessive, it just carried over from our last game)
- Planetary Transit System is banned (that's definitely excessive, we could have allowed it since the base number is limited)
- Supply Crawlers are banned.
- You can only use weapons if their power does not exceed the value of your most powerful researched armor *2.
- Copters have to be equipped with <SAM> special abilities.

All other rules about exploits apply, i.e. self-destruct is banned, all game-relevant information should be provided to all players, no double-terraforming in the same turn etc.

We'll probably be adding to this list as we go, it's a new experience for us so we have no idea what should or shouldn't be allowed. We'll probably end up banning PlanetBusters, for example, but it isn't a concern for now.

To minimize the disparity between factions, we ended up with the following system. First, Player 1 designs pairings that he thinks would be equal in terms of power. Next, Player 2 would decide whom he wants to play in each of those pairings. Finally, Player 1 chooses the pairing he wants, while taking the remaining faction.

Several pairings were formed by me: Peacekeepers/Believers, Gaians/University, Sparta/Hive, Drones/Believers, Usurpers/Cyborgs and Angels/Morganites. Auriga picked the factions he wanted to play, PeaceKeepers among them, and I chose the Peacekeepers/Believers pair.

And so, the battle has begun!

  - Auriga
  - Nevill

Small map, Tech Stagnation OFF, Blind Research OFF.

[bvanevery]

- You can only use weapons if their power does not exceed the value of your most powerful researched armor *2.

Why?  You don't think anyone has a right to do better research than you?

[Nevill]

They can do better research, it just means they need to research armor to make use of their better weapons.

It's a rule made to incentivize researching an otherwise dead tech tree.

The game is already finished, I think we were done with it in a week. I just can't write the report properly.

Short version: by 2190 the Eco-damage hit triple digits, the Planet went to [poop], and dozens of Locusts murdered everything.

In an ironic twist, the more bases you have, the safer the ecology actually is.

[bvanevery]

an otherwise dead tech tree.

What does that even mean?

[Nevill]

It means that in a competitive game no one would ever research the armor tree if there are better research topics available.

It is not a rare sight to see 12 and 13 strength weapons (tier 7 tech) with the highest researched armor being the Plasma one (tier 2 tech). I have a game that goes from Plasma armor to Resonanse-8 armor (which lies in a different tech path) without anything in between.

The armor tree holds very little of value, and is downright a waste of time to delve into.

[bvanevery]

The armor tree holds very little of value, and is downright a waste of time to delve into.

So?  If that's the case against human opponents, why not just accept that the tree is whatever it is?  The game is about players choosing whatever they think is of value to them.  I can probably think of all kinds of goofy unit designs that aren't valuable and are very expensive.  So what?  Don't choose them, if you're trying to win.

Against AIs, armor definitely has value.  It stops the AI from being effective at shelling you with artillery.  It causes the AI to halt its movement on open ground rather than attack you, particularly if you're standing on rocky terrain.  ECM and AAA armor stop respective units from doing anything to you.

Even against humans, you do realize that "glass cannons" can be taken out with Recon Rovers, right?  That are far less expensive to produce.

[Nevill]

If that's the case against human opponents, why not just accept that the tree is whatever it is?  The game is about players choosing whatever they think is of value to them.

Indeed. So the two players who actually play the game decided that some house rules to fix some things they consider broken would make it more valuable to them.

It's not like I can do anything to change your mind if you disagree with me on this.

[bvanevery]

I would only point out to you that however "dead" you think the tech tree is in competitive multiplayer play... choosing your research path, is not how the game was designed.  Unless you're one of the Alien factions, you're supposed to be researching blind.  If you pick Build at the beginning you're going to get a kind of armor, or you may be a faction that already starts with Industrial Base.  If you pick Conquer you're going to get a better kind of armor.  If you pick Discover or Explore you're not going to get any armor.  If you pick multiple areas of focus you hedge your bets but lower your specific chances.

So why don't you do multiplayer blind research, which is the default?  What about it made you not want to do it?

[Nevill]

It *might* work with more than two people where you can always drag the more powerful player down with the alliance of the rest. It does not work in duels at all. In seriously competitive plays you - mostly - know your turns five years ahead.

Alpha Centauri is not a balanced game by any means, and there are many advantages that, stacked one upon another, could make a player unstoppable. If one gets Optical Computers (a completely useless, empty tech) and hampers their research while the other gets Ecological Engineering (boreholes, the sole OP terraforming choice), then the first one is as good as dead. What makes the game interesting is creating your own set of OP tools to fight the OP stuff your opponent has, and not letting them stack game-winning combinations, but for this to work, you have to be in complete control of what you are doing. Your opponent goes for Weather Paradigm and mass boreholes - grab Human Genome and popboom to profit off of mass forests. They have Virtual World to cut down on drone suppressing costs - grab Planetary Energy Grid and ramp up the psi output.

In this game, we were competing for the same project (Ascetic Virtues, very important for such a limited number of cities), and it came down to the Research Points in single digits (with research time of 2 and 3 turns for Auriga and me, respectively) to determine who would get it - and I knew it were my mistakes that lost me the race (I underestimated Auriga's research output and when I had Adaptive Economics secured, I swung by to the green tech-tree to grab XenoEmpathy Dome... in response Auriga turned the LABS slider to 90% and took 3 techs in 6 turns, taking the Planetary Economics and the project with it). Such a contest would be unthinkable with Blind Research on, and I'd rather not have the game decided by a random factor.

Playing with Blind Research is like playing with a Governor and hoping that the AI would make sane choices when it comes to city development.

[bvanevery]

It does not work in duels at all.

The game wasn't designed for duels, except in the localized "initial conflict" sense.  For instance, if someone is aggressively bothering you at the beginning, making contact with other players who will ally with you and trade techs is a good way to counter that.

If one gets Optical Computers (a completely useless, empty tech) and hampers their research while the other gets Ecological Engineering (boreholes, the sole OP terraforming choice), then the first one is as good as dead.

EE takes awhile to make use of.  You need Formers and time to do the terraforming.  The minerals increase is not so useful unless you also have Industrial Automation to put a supply crawler on it.  TBH forests + nutrient resources is more practical early in the game.

Your opponent goes for Weather Paradigm and mass boreholes - grab Human Genome and popboom to profit off of mass forests.

You are premising some awfully early decisions as somehow having a major effect on the rest of the game.  Can't say I'm buying that.  It takes a long time to get Environmental Economics, and a long time to build Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests after that.  A lot can happen in between.

Such a contest would be unthinkable with Blind Research on, and I'd rather not have the game decided by a random factor.

It should be decided by your troops on the ground, not a bunch of faffing with research.

Playing with Blind Research is like playing with a Governor and hoping that the AI would make sane choices when it comes to city development.

You heard of Probe Teams?