Last Man Standing

[Kirov]

Bad news...I given Morgan industrial economics instead of insdustrial base. Guess I now notice I was researching IB, I hope it wont make any problems in the research path. I'm curius how JarWolf didnt notice.

This is not that a big problem - please just don't switch to FM before you finish IB and I think we're good here. The worse thing is that in the second game I have size 2 base and no drone yet (2 unmodified workers). If this goes for everyone else, that's fine, but if it's only me at Librarian - sigh, I think it'd be best for you if you all surrendered.

[Earthmichael]

Well I can attest that in both games, I only get one free drone.  I am not sure if any modification is possible once the game is started.

I am open to tech trades in both games if anyone is interested.  I would particularly like to trade for Centauri Ecology, Social Psych, or Biogenetics.  Msg me if interested.

 

[Kirov]

EM, does it come maybe from the fact that you play Zak? I haven't played him for years so when do his extra drones kick in, right away or at pop 4?

I'm quite sure the game cannot be modified in any way once started. t_ras, what price do you have to pay for FM? Please check both games. Can anyone else see his SE choices for the cost? I cannot do so yet, I'm afraid.

[Earthmichael]

Zak's first extra drone kicks in at pop 4.

My society changes cost 40.

[Kirov]

OK, is there any other explanation for Santiago having two free workers, before Police is applied? I can't think of any, but maybe I'm missing something?

[Earthmichael]

No, there is no explanation other than difficulty level.

Even if you had a SP helping, it would be applied later.  The first line would still show a drone as the second citizen.

Now if it were the Free Drones, that is normal for them as a faction bonus.  So either the Free Drone faction bonus got somehow applied to the Spartans, or the Spartans are set to a lower difficulty level.

Society cost would show this for sure. 

[Kirov]

No, there is no explanation other than difficulty level.

It looks so. It happens that a CMN forgets to 'force the current difficulty' on. I don't remember if it makes only one player play Transcend or maybe all but one, but either way such defect is unplayable.

I can wait for SE to make sure but unfortunately poor Spartans are not so big on research and it will take me some time to grab SE. But I've checked twice that I have two workers.

Can we contact the CMN for this game? Maybe he has the file from before he entered the passwords, that should shed some light. But everything suggests that we need to replay. Does everyone agree? The settings looked cool, I'm certainly in.

[Kirov]

LOL, I forgot that t_ras said he had created the game just several posts above. t_ras, you definitely need a post-it note on your monitor: 'Did I force the difficulty level today?'

I wonder if both games are affected. I have no means to check the first one.

[Earthmichael]

I could give everyone some techs to change society, so that they can see if they are transcendent, and then we can just go back to the original save.  Does that work for everyone?  If so, I will create some saves doing just that.

If we have to restart, would anyone object if we switched to SMACX?  Do all of the players have SMACX?  (It is included in the GOG release.)

T_ras, would SMACX mess up your scenario?

This is my only SMAC game, and I end up forgetting and running SMACX and crashing each time.  Also, I don't really want to try remember the differences in the tech charts and such.

[Kirov]

I could give everyone some techs to change society, so that they can see if they are transcendent, and then we can just go back to the original save.  Does that work for everyone?  If so, I will create some saves doing just that.

Good idea, let's do that. Please send it to me in both games, I'd like to be on the safe side.

T_ras, would SMACX mess up your scenario?

I believe the map file should work, the scenario file not so. I also prefer SMAX slightly more, but it's not a big deal for me.

I was more concerned about playing two games with the same players at once. Imagine that you need to send two messages at the same moment to another player, one saying 'thank you for our recent trade' in the first game, and 'I hope you get genital herpes, traitor' in the second one...

[Earthmichael]

Here are the test files where I have gifted Planetary Networks and Industrial Automation to all of the other players.

Just accept the offer, then go to the society screen, and see how much it costs for a single society change.  For me, it is 40 EC, which I believe indicates playing at transcend level.  Please report if your society change cost is different than 40 EC.

Each will have to play the turn (really, just hit end turn after checking society) and pass it to the next player so that each player can check.  Since we are not going to continue from these saves, you don't really need to do anything on your turn.

[t_ras]

It costs 24 for me, so it seems EM is the only one with tracend (which actually would be fair play ). I probably forgot to force it.
Regarding SMAC, since the one asking for it left the game and I replaced JarlWolf, Id be more then hapy to restart as SMAX. Morgan is a hard one for me...

[Earthmichael]

If we restart, you can change factions if you like.  I agree that Morgan would be hard to play with this kind of game, not exactly a real builders game.  If anyone else wants a faction change, perhaps they can chime in too.

Is the intent for everyone to be playing on trancend?

[t_ras]

That is what I meant, yeah, trancend game.

[Kirov]

So I guees we reload. t_ras, is it the same for both games?

I agree Morgans are handicapped on this map. Feel free to change your pick. I didn't want to play Santiago at first, but now I want to see how it rolls.

Since we have Gaians onboard, please pay extra attention to the amount of fungus at Sir Dragon Hat's starting location. Too little and he'll replace Morgan as a target practice, too much and he's bound to be the last man standing.

EDIT: a minor thing.