Completed Let's Multiplay Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (PBEM) Game 3

[Nevill]

I've been watching Kalin's thread with great interest and I became envious.

So I wanted to check if maybe people are interested in another one of those. The base is the same, SMAC with Kyrub's patch, though if anyone is into Yitzi's patches we might try them out, too.

Playable factions

Gaia's Stepdaughters

Human Hive

University of Planet

Spartan Federation

Lord's Believers

Peacekeeping Forces

Morganites

Players and turn order:
Gaia’s Stepdaughters - Nevill
Human Hive - Grimgravy
University of Planet - Hellraiser
Morganites - Kalin
Spartan Federation - Cassidy
Lord's Believers - AI
Peacekeeping Forces - AI

I'd probably prefer Hive or Gaians, but I am fine with any of those.

The PBEM rules proposed in the previous thread seem sensible:

Spoiler

A player may not:
1. Reload the game multiple times or load the game into the scenario editor
2. Conduct diplomacy prior to having met in-game
3. Use colony pods to increase a base beyond its maximum population limit
4. Use build queue manipulation or other exploits to hurry production at reduced costs, or build something that could not directly be built
5. Take advantage of the stockpile energy bug by adding it after units in build queues
6. Upgrade crawlers before adding them to secret projects
7. Make social engineering changes and then change back in the same turn
8. Connect multiple artifacts to the same network node (supposedly possible if you rename the city)
10. Trade or give away bases to AI factions
11. Setting the home of a unit to the base of a pacted AI faction
12. Transfer missiles to AI factions
13. Start a terraforming task in one square, cancel it, move to a different square and then finish it there (in case of combat terraforming)
14. Perform an act of aggression against a player and complete pending negotiations in the same turn

Reverse-engineering is however allowed.
Planetary Council information must be fully shared with all players.
Do not use the design workshop to bypass the "no upgrading after moving" rule.
Do not retire unit designs through the design workshops (upgrade or disband them on the map, modify the design into something new in the workshop).

In-game rules:

Spoiler

 

[Cassidy]

15. No combat units with Drop Pods (to limit the usefulness of the Chop&Drop strategy).
16. To limit the maximum weapon strength one can use to that of twice the maximum researched armor. This does not apply to special weapons (rockets and busters).

 

[Nevill]

The same can be said about rules 1-14, no?

The rules are open to discussion, of course. But those were the home rules of our community when we played the game back in the day.

 

[Hellraiser]

I agree with Cassidy. 16 in particular seems popamole.

Compared to our current game, I would change our probe team rule to full paranoia mode. That is we do not need to declare war or break pact when probing. Would be lulzy. The only problem with that is that there is no declare war button anywhere and you need to attack to do it. So you can't deny trade rights to someone on a whim. And you can kill an allied probe team with your own without triggering vendetta or breaking the pact (tested this on AI). But think of the potential drama and accusations!

Also because it is totally impossible to not get your team caught in PBEM when probing (besides datalinks infiltration).
Also I would be willing to play University in such a scenario, because masochism

 

[Suicidal Meat Slapper]

While I don't personally have enough time open to participate as a player, I'd happily watch this madness.

Compared to our current game, I would change our probe team rule to full paranoia mode. That is we do not need to declare war or break pact when probing. Would be lulzy. The only problem with that is that there is no declare war button anywhere and you need to attack to do it. So you can't deny trade rights to someone on a whim. And you can kill an allied probe team with your own without triggering vendetta or breaking the pact (tested this on AI). But think of the potential drama and accusations!

If this idea is used, I expect that much ITZ will occur within few turns and the game will be quickly cancelled due to excessive amounts of .

Spoiler

It would be cute and quite pleasing to me.

 

[Nevill]

Also I would be willing to play University in such a scenario, because masochism

Do you mean you are game if the probe rule is dropped?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Wish I could play, but I will probably move around October-December and will probably be internet-less and possibly computer-less during the period.

 

[Grimgravy]

I'd be interested. That way I can get myself into a crappy ass position rather than inheriting it third hand.

 

[Nevill]

I'd be interested. That way I can get myself into a crappy ass position rather than inheriting it third hand.

What is your preferred faction?

Any opinion on the rules, or are you fine with anything?

 

[Grimgravy]

I would prefer NOT to be the Believers.

The rules from the current game are good.
Drop pods or no drop pods. Whatever the consensus is. I'm fine either way.
Not fan of the crossed out weapon limit.
Blind research might alleviate your armor issue without being so heavy handed. Does anyone have experience with blind research in MP?

 

[Nevill]

We have experimented heavily with rules, both in-game and house ones.

The things that upset the Balance (TM) most are:
Supply Crawlers (the factions that get them late are screwed), The Planetary Transit System (implosive growth is very powerful, a player that builds it can take on 2 others with proper ICSing, and it does not help that it is on the same tech with Crawlers), Doctrine: Air Power (instant death for anyone that does not have it and is in your vicinity, very easy to abuse and make your ground forces invulnerable by hovering a plane over them), Mind-Machine Interface (Choppers and Droppers mark an end of many games) and Fusion Power (whoever gets this first gains a huge advantage, doubling the hitpoints of his own troops while reducing the costs drastically). By the time Fusion Power is researched, though, you usually tech up once in 3 turns, so it isn't that big of a deal as the others.

Blind research makes these problems worse, especially in duels.

The more players you have, the easier it is to balance it out through diplomacy, though, if the others are willing. Hovewer, it requires a certain foresight to gang-up on the leader before they get unstoppable, and leads to large amounts of delicious butthurt.

The armor issue is that it offers little protection and the research path leading to it offers nothing. Organic Superlubricant (10-tier weapon) is right besides Fusion Power and leads to Advanced Spaceflight (13-tier weapon). You will be teching up to there like mad. Rockets! Busters! Satellites! Why would you not? Fusion Power and Orbital Spaceflight have a common pre-requisite, after all, they are all along the way and all have massive benefits accompanying them.

Silksteel Alloys offer 4-tier armor and nothing else. Photon/Wave Mechanics offers 5-tier armor and nothing else. And it requires Applied Relativity that offers a Supercollider and nothing else. Armor is already underpowered in the game (13 attack obliterates 4-5 armor in open field and most of the time in cities, too), and the research tree makes it completely useless after the 3rd tier.

But I simply state my observations. If people find it more fun to play that way, I am fine with that.

 

[Nevill]

Of course, we still have to finish our current game (plenty of ITZ to go), so I wouldn't really have much time for propaganda and the like if the games run simultaneously.

Well, the first turns are slow and there is not much to write about anyway.

Hellraiser, are you in? It can be the third game in the series.

I'll take... the Gaians, I think?

Grimgravy, what is your preferred faction out of the ones not taken?

Amended the rules to remove the restrictions. So, two questions:
1) No Unity scattering - on or off?
2) Blind research - on or off?

I'll probably wait until Sunday for people to sign up and then we will start.

How do you usually send turns here? Through e-mails? Via links in conversations?

 

[Hellraiser]

Sure thing, dibs on University as I mentioned. Props for Kalin going OmniMorgan Industries, I'd go with Morgan myself if Uni was unavailable.

We use emails, we've all got accounts set up specifically for these games which we share in a turn tracking Private Message conversation here on the codex.

VOTING YES FOR UNIT PODS - because they make the early to mid game a lot less boring and spice things up
Blind Research off - my experiences with it on transcend are very bad

Oh and my two proposed amendments to the rules:

Do not use the design workshop to bypass the "no upgrading after moving" rule. It has been banned in quite a few other PBEM games and is most certainly an exploit.

Do not obsolete and mass disband unit designs through the design workshops (upgrade or disband them on the map, modify the design into something new in the workshop). We had one turn rollback because me and TBS lost transport foils after Kalin made his obsolete.

Design workshop screen is quite bugged.

 

[Nevill]

Do not use the design workshop to bypass the "no upgrading after moving" rule. It has been banned in quite a few other PBEM games and is most certainly an exploit.

Just to make sure. This:

Spoiler

is not an exploit, right? Even though it is able to upgrade and move in the same turn.

 

[Hellraiser]

Do not use the design workshop to bypass the "no upgrading after moving" rule. It has been banned in quite a few other PBEM games and is most certainly an exploit.

Just to make sure. This:

Spoiler

is not an exploit, right? Even though it is able to upgrade and move in the same turn.

It is since normally an upgrade prevents you from moving on the same turn and a move prevents you from upgrading on the map screen. But we did not include it in the rules so it was ok in the context of the current match (changing the rules on the fly is lame).

 

[Hellraiser]

Yeah I noticed that.

That still leaves the issue of units that moved that turn but got upgraded. But I guess we'll just rollback if that happens.

 

[Nevill]

Do not obsolete and mass disband unit designs through the design workshops (upgrade or disband them on the map, modify the design into something new in the workshop). We had one turn rollback because me and TBS lost transport foils after Kalin made his obsolete.

It's an old and known bug. It only concerns the 'Retire Design' function, obsoleting units should be prefectly fine if my memory does not fail me.

That still leaves the issue of units that moved that turn but got upgraded. But I guess we'll just rollback if that happens.

As if anyone is going to check.

 

[Hellraiser]

Do not obsolete and mass disband unit designs through the design workshops (upgrade or disband them on the map, modify the design into something new in the workshop). We had one turn rollback because me and TBS lost transport foils after Kalin made his obsolete.

It's an old and known bug. It only concerns the 'Retire Design' function, obsoleting units should be prefectly fine if my memory does not fail me.

That still leaves the issue of units that moved that turn but got upgraded. But I guess we'll just rollback if that happens.

As if anyone is going to check.

Do not underestimate the power of our PBEM OCD.

 

[Cassidy]

I'd like to give it a try with Spartans because I already played with builder-centric* factions twice.

*Arguably the University, by virtue of being able to rush impact rovers faster than any other faction and because their drone penalty doesn't really hit that hard in early game, can be played in a more aggressive style. One of my major mistakes in the ongoing MP game, although it's not entirely my fault, was that I prioritized military research in early game a bit too much not expecting the University would be spawned in a completely isolated continent.

 

[Grimgravy]

I'd go with the hive out of what's left.

 

[Nevill]

Alright, I think that's enough players. It's on.

The turn order is in the first post.

 

[Storyfag]

I am now officially stalking this thread.

 

[Suicidal Meat Slapper]

This should be good.

 

[Hellraiser]

Much better starting location then when we first started on a small map. I have a pretty good idea of where I am, the question is of course where everybody else is. And I pray to Lords Athe, Dawkins and Sagan that AI Miriam is as far away as possible.

First virgin pod-popping was pretty good. Fungal bloom and mind worms around university base on turn 1 would suck so much.

 

[Nevill]

Year 2101. Still.

The landing was rough. The scientists set us up. They never told us that it was a pulsing planet. '100% percent predictable movement of celestial bodies', riiight. The sudden expansion of the Planet's size caused a year-wide timewarp and threw our Colony Pods to another, less habitable continent. The citizens live in fear and uncertainty in anticipation of new reality-shattering cataclysms.

We have made fast friends with the local fauna. They are very cute and I can swear I've heard them purr when they ate our lead researcher. We have sent them out to spread the message of love and peace and to make even more friends.

The Power of Friendship will triumph.