Pravin Lal's Runner-up Science Fair Runoff

[Kirov]

1)  Absolutely not.  This game is already bizarro kind with announcing that a Secret Project has been started, to everyone.  Why do I want my rivals to allocate minerals effectively?  ?? ?

2)  In light of the glitch, how is this done?  How do I get a communique from the actual player, and not an A.I. who will take control of a Human faction during a council vote dialogue?

1) The announcement is there by design. It was supposed to let people know that the race is on, that either this player gets the Project, or you can try and snatch from him. The winner gets the award, the loser loses a huge investment. But the idea was undone as SMAC beta testers failed to discover the true glory of supply crawlers. Most Projects in Multi get built in one turn, without any notice. If another player completes the same Project in the same turn, it is unfair to let all his investments go down the drain if he had no chance of knowing (i.e. there's no failure on his part). This is really quite a long tradition introduced to avoid a very debilitating result which was simply unforeseen by the game designers.

2) Among humans, we don't conduct diplomacy via the council screen. You only cast your vote or deal with AI. It's more about the turn order.

Let's say that there are players A, B C and D. A and D are contesters to the office. A gets all commlinks first and buys B's votes. He plays his turn, B plays his turn (and votes for A), now C gets the turn. He gets the option to vote, but A ignored him and D doesn't even know about the vote yet. Sure, C may approach him, but many people don't do that just because. Then D gets the turn and have absolutely nothing to do apart from losing the election.

So the custom tries to emulate the instantaneous nature of commlinks and works as follows: A starts the vote and posts about it. Good practice is to post the number of everyone's votes, too (I upload a screenshot). Then A sends the turn to B, but D can react now and negotiate both B's and C's votes. This ensures that all buyers can buy and all sellers can sell - not only more fair, but also more fun!

[Buster's Uncle]

-These are both long-standing rules in the community, there for good reason.

[Horseshoe_Hermit]

So the problem is that multilateral negotiation for council votes of course starts at once, but one player has all the information before everyone else.  Putting the screenshot fixes this.  Makes sense.  I'm still lost on how you pay for votes.

As to the other rule... it's a long-standing rule in the community, for a baby reason.  You know wonder races are completely in the dark in the rest of Civ, and Civ V definitely has wonder rushing by design.  Having an attempt to complete a Secret Project not work out... is because you didn't get there first.  This is the simple, fair fact.  You weren't forced to attempt the Secret Project (because we banned Cloudbase Academy), and there is frankly never so dire a situation as making the call to build with literally zero knowledge about rival progress.  There is infiltration, there is tech path snooping.  Crawler reserves can be guessed at.  And even that hop skip and jump from "no chance of knowing" to "no failure" to "unfair" is two more inferences that can be challenged.

What I'd like is something that solves the priority that player 1 gets in the race for everything, but that's not forthcoming.

I'll accept it because it's standard around here - and someone not in our game came out to plead it - but I won't agree with the case made for it, so far.

[Mart]

 

[Kirov]

As to the other rule... it's a long-standing rule in the community, for a baby reason.  You know wonder races are completely in the dark in the rest of Civ, and Civ V definitely has wonder rushing by design. 

Relax, you're home here. Most early SMACers came here from Civ2 and of course, although SMAC is so much more than "Civ2 but in space", the design is the same, good and bad concepts.

But there's a number of differences which greatly change your strategy from CIV (for one, you have a wider array of terraforming options at your disposal, which doesn't force you to specialize cities so much). And one of the most important ones is the supply crawler. In terms of project rushing, it works nothing like any element in Civ - whipping, forest clearing or faith buying. Basically in SMAC, all your bases can produce certain parts of the project at no loss, and each part is relatively cheap. You want to churn out those crawlers as soon as you get Industrial Automation, which is probably the most important tech in game. Usually you secure it and start competing for Projects before you have infiltration or any other reliable source of information.

I assure you that the goal of house rules, whatever they are, was never any kind of “wussification” of SMAC. This was once a very competitive game with a very steep learning curve (IMO much steeper than Civ2), the pinnacle of TBS for many years to come. But there were always big flaws in the design and after 20 years, I can just say that some things are broken and many of them are things you’re most likely to be unfamiliar with as they are solved differently in CIV. Air power (esp with choppers and CBA) is first to come to mind. Infiltration is hilariously OP. There are very strict tech beelines, OP techs to be navigated to among useless crap (we play blind, that it only helps so much – I always know which priority I want until late mid game). And that’s only a few.

Whenever we ban something, like EG or CBA, the basic idea is they give an advantage for cheap which otherwise is or should be much more expensive. Like, infiltrating everyone should be one of the most difficult things to pull off.

I can write more every now and then about things that you can expect to be different. I remember mostly Civ 2 and Civ 4, but just recently I bought Civ 6 + RF (which version do you play?). And you will soon get the hang of how things on Chiron can work differently. I wonder what you’ll have to say. For now, I’d ask you to trust us, we’ve played this game for a long time. It’s all there so we enjoy it more, not to take anything away.

And hell, if you don’t agree to follow this rule, well that’s your choice.

[Kirov]

Makes sense.  I'm still lost on how you pay for votes.

You just approach the player in question via PM or email and say "hi, I'd like to have your votes". The details of all agreements vary greatly, but as a rule of thumb, as the Governor you get infiltration to everyone, so that's one currency you already can pay with. Whenever I vote for someone, almost always I expect screenshots of of F3-F7 screens of other factions, at least twice per office. On top of that, you will probably offer techs, your votes in turn on the election, or some other action. Cash is not that important part of deals, and I would never trade away my world map no matter what. These are very general tips, the prices will heavily depend on your rapport and any conflicts or aligned interest which you may have with that player. If you're considered a threat, don't expect anyone to give you infiltration to themselves.

[Horseshoe_Hermit]

 

[roninscg]

 

[Kirov]

jesus that opening is slow for me.

Guys, I'm away for the weekend, be back with you on Sunday.

[Horseshoe_Hermit]

As to the other rule... it's a long-standing rule in the community, for a baby reason.  You know wonder races are completely in the dark in the rest of Civ, and Civ V definitely has wonder rushing by design. 

Relax, you're home here. Most early SMACers came here from Civ2 and of course, although SMAC is so much more than "Civ2 but in space", the design is the same, good and bad concepts.

But there's a number of differences which greatly change your strategy from CIV (for one, you have a wider array of terraforming options at your disposal, which doesn't force you to specialize cities so much). And one of the most important ones is the supply crawler. In terms of project rushing, it works nothing like any element in Civ - whipping, forest clearing or faith buying. Basically in SMAC, all your bases can produce certain parts of the project at no loss, and each part is relatively cheap. You want to churn out those crawlers as soon as you get Industrial Automation, which is probably the most important tech in game. Usually you secure it and start competing for Projects before you have infiltration or any other reliable source of information.

I assure you that the goal of house rules, whatever they are, was never any kind of “wussification” of SMAC. This was once a very competitive game with a very steep learning curve (IMO much steeper than Civ2), the pinnacle of TBS for many years to come. But there were always big flaws in the design and after 20 years, I can just say that some things are broken and many of them are things you’re most likely to be unfamiliar with as they are solved differently in CIV. Air power (esp with choppers and CBA) is first to come to mind. Infiltration is hilariously OP. There are very strict tech beelines, OP techs to be navigated to among useless crap (we play blind, that it only helps so much – I always know which priority I want until late mid game). And that’s only a few.

Whenever we ban something, like EG or CBA, the basic idea is they give an advantage for cheap which otherwise is or should be much more expensive. Like, infiltrating everyone should be one of the most difficult things to pull off.

I can write more every now and then about things that you can expect to be different. I remember mostly Civ 2 and Civ 4, but just recently I bought Civ 6 + RF (which version do you play?). And you will soon get the hang of how things on Chiron can work differently. I wonder what you’ll have to say. For now, I’d ask you to trust us, we’ve played this game for a long time. It’s all there so we enjoy it more, not to take anything away.

I started three games of Civ6.  I'm currently in three games of Civ6.  I will probably not play more than three games of Civ6.  Not the worst $50 I ever spent.

And hell, if you don’t agree to follow this rule, well that’s your choice.

Of course I must.  You would have assumed that's how the game would run before I set it up, I have to play along.

Anyway, you literally just reduce the risks of crawler rushing a project.  The impact on hard-building SPs is a blip, one turn to divert.  Peanuts.  I don't get why we want Crawler Rushing to be more successful...

--
were you saying the cinematic is really slow?  Before or after the message "Welcome to Alpha Centauri" ?

[Mart]

 

[Horseshoe_Hermit]

 

[roninscg]

 

[Kirov]

to 

[Mart]