Water World

[Kirov]

Hello guys, I need to come clean with one thing – I’ve just realized I was playing with my alphax.txt modified with bonus to research rate (of course unintentionally), as I played on a borrowed copy (long story). Only the last 10 turns were played on vanilla SMAX with scient.

I’m really sorry for that, although fortunately it didn’t affect our game so much. I didn’t put to use my last two techs (Doc:Init and NLM) anyway, so there is that. I shouldn’t have gotten IA that early, but I don’t think this additional cash and minerals made me last a single turn longer. I didn’t harm Dolgorukov with any hostile action, and funbot wouldn’t notice anyway  , so neither of you were hurt in the process.

(seriously, I’m so glad funbot won; I would feel stupid triple this much if we were still playing and I was winning; thanks funbot!)

The gameplay was scarcely affected, but I needed to say this and want to add that:

1) I swear I did not know that and I had no idea you can play MP with different alphax.txt files. If you wonder how I didn’t notice, this was the reason – I didn’t suspect anything because I was dead sure that the game simply won’t allow you to start with changed txt, or at the latest will crash when it checks for a given rule and sees discrepancies, or at the very least it returns some error message! Turns outs it does neither, as I learnt the hard way.

2) You can be 100% sure that I have a standard issue right now, all installed, patched, updated and fixed. I checked many things and everything works fine. I made two copies, one for the scient’s patch, one for the kyrub’s. There is zero chance this will ever happen again, I promise that.

This doesn’t really change my comments on the game, so more follows soon.

[Kirov]

OK, so here are my thoughts about our game and the map.

I must say that the game piqued my curiosity from the start. I thought it’s a nice beginning and it changes a lot as far as standard openings go (there is really just one huge problem with water scenarios – MCC becomes a game-breaker, vastly better than CBA). But at this stage I imagined now I have to find a decent island and settle there. It was only when I scouted around and bought maps from Data Angels (even before we reloaded), I started to get really scared. I realized that most standard Morgan actions go down the drain. The map is 99% water, a few several-tile islands scattered here and there, no defensive barriers between players, no mineral-rich areas, no fungus to slow down the enemy.

 Morgan employs tightly packed bases with early recycling tanks, forests a lot, relies heavily (i.e. even more than others) on crawlers and at least in my book has a tendency to have empty bases, even at a risk of losing one to mind worms. In short – many small bases with crawlers to make up for -1 SUPPORT. Water bases are disadvantageous to Morgan, as they provide food (and Morgan has 4pop cap) but low minerals, and they take ages to terraform (12 turns for farm/platform as opposed to 4 turns for forest). So quite early I adopted a very risky strategy – spread very thin, bases almost empty, try to grab as many islands as possible (I ended up with two), in general forsake defence for a shot at industry base and grab at least 2 SPs (WP and MCC) before others come fighting. I knew this plan was tricky, but decided I have no choice and just can’t play it safe. I actually lost quite a lot because of that (aggressive AI), yet to be honest I still can’t see a better approach.

I decided not to switch to full momentum strategy, as at the early stages Morgan has no choice but to play defensive. It is the worst momentum faction as he is the only one actually penalized in combat (-1 SUPPORT). The Gaians’ -1 MORALE doesn’t really count coz the Children Creche is bugged (something the kyrub’s patch fixes, by the way), and -1 POLICE basically equals no nerve stapling. Other builders like Uni or Aki have no combat penalties, so Morgan is the only one who comes to an early fight with his pants down.

There was also another problem with defences – I couldn’t patrol, not without a risk of losing patrolling units. On land, you can build sensor arrays and “hide” behind them – you see incoming units and can be on the attacking side. If you’re lucky, you inflict collateral damage, which increases the value of your units. However on this map any patrol units had less than 50% of survival – with 2-2-4 design if I find funbot first, we fight at 1:1, but if he finds me first, we fight at 5:4 for him. And with poor mineral output I couldn’t just throw away units like that. Also, if we had fungus, a defender could hide in it to spot incoming units and possibly get +50% defence bonus. As it was, I constantly felt like a sitting duck – I can’t see if he’s coming and can’t really spare resources to do recon. So I resolved to just pray a lot while building transport foils and colony pods.

First warning bell came when funbot put the Pirates into submission, but even then I clung to a hope this doesn’t mean quick rampage. I was actually quite happy he did that, because soon I bought maps from Sven. It turned out that both players Pacted him at some point and quite early I had the entire map discovered, which allowed me to pull back my exploration units.

(tip: in multiplayer you should never Pact the AI or trade maps under any circumstances. Ever. As far as I know, it applies also to Pact of Submission).

But in 2119 the first Data Angels base fell and then I realized that funbot won’t give me a chance to build an SP. And when their second base fell in 2121, I knew the game is essentially over. Even if somebody showered me with techs, I still didn’t have the industry to use them and time was running out. We had some tech trades with Dolgorukov, but it is of little use when your overall empire produces ca 20 minerals per turn. I had been saving cash for a long time and hoped to lure him to Morgan Marine and recapture my base cheap along with some units (navy doesn’t increase the cost of mind control), but meanwhile I had to do the same on my HQ. When my second probe foil died (the first one perished downloading HEC from funbot, but again – it was too late to use it), I promptly surrendered.

So that was that. I really don’t want to sound like “it’s not me, it’s the map” kind of jerk, so here are some unusual facts I believe we all can agree on:

- no SP has been built. I don’t know about you guys, but it may be the first game in my entire life without a single SP on the map.
- as far as I know, no supply crawler has been built (I started two, but had to switch production to military)
- the game has been essentially won with one tech (!) – Applied Physics.
- last but not least – come on, the game ended in 2139! That must be a record of MP games.

So to sum up:

AT t_ras: thanks for the map and the experience, I really enjoy water games (every now and then ) and this setting has a lot of potential, but I’d recommend the following additions to balance the map:

- two-tile wide strips of fungus to separate players from each other
- bigger islands to sustain land colony pods, forests and crawlers
- also, places where sensor arrays can be built (maybe on some kind of peninsulas or isthmuses)
- standard fungus patches to hurt low PLANET factions and help high PLANET ones.
- supply pods to instabuild and help industry. This is beneficial to all players but will come extra for builders who build upgraded crawlers and the map may see some Projects built

AT funbot: I’m not saying the above to diminish your victory. You did what needed to be done and are rightly the winner. What I liked in particular was how you handled the AI and the fact that you didn’t take that Roze base (Conshelf 57) too early, before you finished Uni (I infiltrated you and stole HEC there, but it was too late). Still, I believe there is more to your strategy than sending Laser units, so I want to see that!

AT Dolgorukov & funbot: Gentlemen, if there is something I didn’t like about our game it’s that it was too short. So thanks for the fun and I hope I meet you on new Planets soon!

Take care everybody!

[t_ras]

Thanks Kirov. I notice for the next scenario. I believe I'm still a "nnob" CMN, so I'm allways learning.

[funbot]

Ohkay, i will also try to recollect and share my experiences with this game. No need expect any deep analyse of my tactics since there wasnt really that much depth in it lol.

Anways, first of all i have to say that i must be glad that we all gained second chance with this game, since with first run the pirates really managed to suprise me and took one of my starting citys. Which was, yeh, Baaaad!

But then the reload came and i realised not take any chances anymore, even though i still wanted to submit pirates ASAP to secure my starting area, and ofc with rest of its perks having submitted ai was too very tempting. So i start focusing my production only making more ships (early game i did also some colony pods) and start skismish fights against pirate right away when possible, for beginning just seek&destroy all boats i can find + scout area. Ofc such goals are more risky in early game, but being patient and careful (wide area scouting, atleast 2 foil teams, 3 preferred) and with miriams excellent fighting buffs turns the odds reasonable and rewards big.

And i fairly succeeded there, 1/4 loses and 3/4 wins were just enough to bring them on their kneels fast and throughly.

But in the middle of war the biggest twist of events were having dolgu invading my territory. Even if wasnt really that intimitated by one 1-1-4 foil in my area, i still felt this was a act of insult against my faction (yes, i tend to get pretty emotional with this game lawl). So after long consideration (5-10 minutes just running around my room and thinking the odds and consiquences) i decided to attack my seemingly superior faction, bringing longterm consiquences to whole game. Because it was purely obvious after declaring a war that one of us must go down eventually, and time isnt never on believers side. Specilly when university is against you. (i kept having nightmares from that on of 4-3-4 foils wearing universitys flags, overrunning my troops).

So there i was, as low tech faction, having next-to-nothing faction soon submitted and only 1-2-4 prototype foil to be proud of. I started to feel bit anxious by now . But then another event happened when i desperatelly tried to find something solid to fight with, and i comnlinked Data-angels which openly despiced me by then, and she traded me a comnlink to planet of cult and again planet of cult traded me the drones comnlink.

And as being a inferior faction due statistic (might been something between pathetic / formiable), making pact with these new friends were easy as pie, and asking them to start war against unsurprassed factions was even easier by then. But the biggest factor that came from this was that planet of cult had Applied physics on their posession and were happy to trade them to information network (which, ironicly, was recently gained from university just before the war ^_^). This was when i realised that with 2-2-4 foils and my next endless support I already have keys of victory in my hands.

After that i sold all my tech to Ai friends for energy, and used em' to speed up the foil production and upgrades to give the final edge for my troops.

My only regret on this game is that i Was bit hasty on setting up the vote for planetary governor, since if i had waited for around 10 turns, i had enough votes to win easily due my upcoming base captures. But i didnt honestly expect that my campaign of war would have become so succesful as it did, and atleast i made it clear that no of human players were going to get the infiltration but my close pact friend instead.

And so, sooner than later i had good 4 unit 2-2-4 squad for attack and couple foils for defence and home base scouting (i was and always am severly paranoid on anything that lies in fog of war) and i headed toward university to give a bit harashment atleast if not anything else. And on the way i decided to check out data-angels bases on the way, and being absolutelly delighted that they had only scout defending their bases. So i seized the opportunity, captured the bases, switched support cost to them and nervestabled their ass off ^_^.

So, now i got massive relief on my support section, able to make more and more units, so i managed to make another 3 foild squad for invasion, but this time i sended em toward universitys capital from another direction, being eta pretty much at same time as my another invading force.

And so, 2125 year came, i managed accidently to find universitys main forces next to his capital, which i utterly destroyed with good odds. And after i saw couple formers of his, i was fairly sure that due the support cost and need to compete against morgans tech advancement, i had pretty solid confirmation of having superior army against uni. So i took my time on positioning my troops carefully, setting foils as wide as possible for bigger detection radius in mids of war of fog, but still being able to retialite for any suprise attack. And always aiming to be just far enough from cityradius from detection but close enough to be able atleast bombard with my foils twice and attack twice against the base itself when the attack occured.

So within 6 turns, uni was totally defeated with this tactic and due my endless production of foils (and one lucky shot with my probeteam which arrived just in time to make the final stroke), the end was pretty much history. I had more (nervestabled) bases to give more support and production to make more foils, so soon i had three separated taskforces able to make attack of their own direction, and yet to have more support coming on their way from nearby bases. So there world domination was only a matter of time by then, and that i did ^_^.

As for sidenodes: This was the first time ever i reached on wicked status by my reputation. Was quite refreshing really, for being a totally insane militarictic looney  .

And yes, i do agree on kirov that fungus was defnedly something i missed in this game, just to bring paranoia aspect to another level and due their effectivenes to disturb straight travel routes.

(seriously, I’m so glad funbot won; I would feel stupid triple this much if we were still playing and I was winning; thanks funbot!)

You can fairly trust on the matter that it was truly my pleasure ^_^. But anyways, as said, your plunder didnt have any effect on game so it isnt biggie. Glad though that you were honest about. And i was glad to notice that when i looked back my saves, i didnt find any point where i had messed up the game with my wrong impression on the stockpiling rule (expect at late game once, but didnt use energy anyway at that point)

But yeh, thats about it then from me. This was a real intense game for me, so i was really happy to be part of it. And really reall really eager for more.

[Kirov]

So after long consideration (5-10 minutes just running around my room and thinking the odds and consiquences) i decided to attack my seemingly superior faction, bringing longterm consiquences to whole game. Because it was purely obvious after declaring a war that one of us must go down eventually, and time isnt never on believers side. Specilly when university is against you. (i kept having nightmares from that on of 4-3-4 foils wearing universitys flags, overrunning my troops).

  Cool story, mate! As I bought Roze's maps even before the reload I knew very well that there are no real obstacles between our territories. I was playing with my pants full ever since 2103.  I want more of such emotions! 

My only regret on this game is that i Was bit hasty on setting up the vote for planetary governor, since if i had waited for around 10 turns, i had enough votes to win easily due my upcoming base captures. But i didnt honestly expect that my campaign of war would have become so succesful as it did, and atleast i made it clear that no of human players were going to get the infiltration but my close pact friend instead.

Yes, actually I wanted to comment on that. You shouldn't start the council for the first time unless you run for the governor. Simply put, you give everybody commlinks to everybody and you lose your advantage. I had all commlinks very early (I was somewhat in the middle, so to say), long before you but decided not to trade or even mention them. Basically, you don't want players to contact each other and the AI.

Another thing: at Apolyton it was customary that when you start an election, you should post in the thread a message about who has how many votes and which AI votes for whom. I believe this is designed to allow others to conduct diplomacy, otherwise the one who calls the council has an upper hand.