Redacted

[Monty]

Yes, good to see another update. You and the Hive seem quite evenly matched so that confrontation should be a fun battle. It's interesting watching someone play with minimal research and economy, surviving by conquest and stealing technology, as this is how some AI opponents usually play.

 

[JoKa]

I'm usually also quite annoyed by the AIs sub-optimal placement of cities - I mean, just looking at that clusterfuck of Garland Crater makes me cringe. Sheesh, it's not like we're playing on a huge map and have plenty of space to place cities with generous margins avoiding cannibalistic overlaps

This LP made me play the game once more. I think the city placement is nearly optimal, even when i got lazy with the terraforming halfway through. Difficulty is transcendent.

 

[Monty]

I see you have the same fondness for thermal boreholes that I do. The AI doesn't seem to use them enough, in most of my games only the University has really bothered with them.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Dudes, can you explain to me how to take screenshots from this game? I tried the solution that google gave me (setting something to 0 in parameters or whatever, it was kinda long ago so I don't remember that well), but it crashes my game every couple of turns.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Thanks for advice, it worked for me.

And the reason I was asking is that I wanted to post two screenshots from my Alpha Centauri transcend playthrough (crossfire addon, though), inspired by this LP.

So here is my main base in the late midgame (I like playing pirates, probably my favorite faction of them all):

And here's my base on the final turn of the game:

Nice difference, eh?

 

[CappenVarra]

This LP made me play the game once more. I think the city placement is nearly optimal, even when i got lazy with the terraforming halfway through. Difficulty is transcendent.

Sure, if it works for you, great. I'm not good enough to play on Transcendent, so you're probably right and there's nothing wrong with the overlap.

I just dislike having cities that don't use the maximum space available, because with more space I assume they can grow larger (well, without sky hydroponics labs at least), I have less cities to micro-manage, and there's less inefficiency. Then again, Gaians gets a boost to efficiency etc.

I should probably try a city placement like that once just to experiment, thanks for the idea!

And I still think the AI city placement is ass and that they should be razed

 

[Norfleet]

Yeah, I tend to burn all the AI cities, too, since I wantonly nervegas and nuke everything in sight, so it's not like those cities were going to survive anyway. All that moving and hunting down units individually seems like such a pain when you can just nuke everything, wiping out entire civilizations in a single glorious turn of nuking, leaving nothing but SMOKING CRATERS. What can I say? It's the only way to be sure.

 

[Pelvis Knot]

My last transcend game - I dislike using nukes, prefer conventional weaponry (psi):

 

[DwarvenFood]

Kalin
You, sir, have inspired me. Got the game on GoG today from a bro. Looking forward to the weekend.

 

[Ulminati]

You, sir, have inspired me.

Got the game on GoG today

 

[DwarvenFood]

Where else should I have bought it Ulminati , Steam did not have it :mhc:

 

[Ulminati]

www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Alpha-Centauri-Complete-Pc/dp/B001RIYNF2

Heck, even the buccaneer bay edition is better than letting the money-grubbing polacks leech off the work of Saint Sid.

 

[Storyfag]

www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Alpha-Centauri-Complete-Pc/dp/B001RIYNF2

Heck, even the buccaneer bay edition is better than letting the money-grubbing polacks leech off the work of Saint Sid.

Give us ur moniez. NAO!

 

[Ulminati]

Too late. My SMAC/SMAX boxes, manuals, tech tree poster, jewelcases, thingies and stuffies are safe in my apartment. I bought them when Firaxis still got moneh from the sales, like any true beleiver would.

 

[Shadenuat]

It's interesting watching someone play with minimal research and economy, surviving by conquest and stealing technology

I doubt there is other way to play Miriam. Believer's research is shit, economy average, you don't accumulate research for some time, so the way AI plays Believers (hordes of +25% attack fanatics and +something probe teams) is the right one. Miriam surely is not a builder, it's a rusher faction.

I'm more a builder player myself and have trouble managing rushing faction so well like the OP..

 

[CappenVarra]

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

Woot Woot!

 

[newcomer]

And how many turns will it be before the sunspot ended?

 

[CappenVarra]

1B Scrap and destroy the less useful ones, but retain some of the frontier bases so that our aircraft can refuel.
2C Keep bombing them, but try to capture a few bases intact, to increase the maximum reach of our aircraft.
3C Better not start a two-front war unless we can avoid it. If they want a fight, then let them initiate it.
4A Continue to focus on air units, the enemy lacks anti-air defences and is wide open to attack.

 

[Norfleet]

1. B: Most of those bases look shittily positioned. You will have to burn many if not all. But feel free to make them cough up colony pods to the death, so you can reposition them. Also, they don't HAVE to be overseas, you know. You DO have formers, right? You can...fix that.

2. A: KILL WITH FIRE. The AI can't place bases worth shit. They're probably disrupting your grid, too. You can rebuild them using pods coughed up by the other bases you're dismantling.

3. A: The Green People are on the other side of the freaking map. They have no legitimate business in your region and their presence is a blatant act of war. Gas, nuke, and burn them before they take your clay. Remove Gaian from the premises! I've never heard of a case where it was feasible to actually negotiate reasonably with the AI here, especially once they start invading you like that. DEFEND YOUR CLAY! This clay is yours and yours alone!

4. E: YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS. Focus on building the unit types that have proven effective, counteract naval incursions with air patrols and airstrikes before they even reach your shores. And remember, your words mean nothing unless they are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

 

[Pelvis Knot]

B C C A

 

[Pope Amole II]

1 - B. Unless we keep those frontier bases online, it was pointless to go into heavy air strategy.

2 - C. Knowing the AI, the war with gaians is inevitable, and so we'll need some good defenses.

3 - C. You'll have all the time in the world with gaians after you've finished hive, no need to hurry.

4 - A. Nerve gas pod bombers ftw.

 

[newcomer]

BCCA

Try to relocate the horribly-placed university bases closer to the Hive, or even relocate them into the waters. We also need good naval defense to destroy the Gaian demon snake!

 

[Storyfag]

1B Scrap and destroy the less useful ones, but retain some of the frontier bases so that our aircraft can refuel.
2C Keep bombing them, but try to capture a few bases intact, to increase the maximum reach of our aircraft.
3C Better not start a two-front war unless we can avoid it. If they want a fight, then let them initiate it.
4A Continue to focus on air units, the enemy lacks anti-air defences and is wide open to attack.

This

 

[Shadenuat]

1. "B". Create a better defensive line, probably keep the base at the farest coast to make a drop on gaiyans. But all that cluster of angry atheist Emmeth Browns have to go.

2. Hmm, are't you fundamentalist yourself? Can't Yang see his drones would be better with strong belief? Then again, Yang is an expansionist whith strong urge to play his own game and, while you would confront Deidre, he certanly would continue to expand and will backstab you at some point.
"A". Bomb them. Your Empire is already over-reached the point when game starts to add more drones and efficenty penalties. Let's slow expansion and just eradicate the threat before we face Gaians.

3. "C". Create a colony pod on needlejet and drop it not far away from them. Also drop a few armored probes to them, and start scouting ahead, without engaging into war.

4. "D". Obviously we need planes to finish Yang. But try and think about some high morale ground units which can hold bases againt possible future worm spam.
I'm a fan of mixed forces myself, with combination of infantry, rovers and a plane on pile to a few of those for support.

My little Eden

Nice. And I agree that you can turn any faction into anything. That's the beauty of the game.
I see you already got to magnetic tubes

In this game, the universally hated Lal is massively overpowered

Is't he always? He just does't have any weaknesses. Or strengths. Well, aside from one amazing one if you play as Lal - by easely collecting votes, you in fact can get a probe team into any faction by keeping your place as a leader. Add Sensation Guild and that's almost always definitive diplomatic victory.