Should I get SMAC? And if so what are some basic stratigies

[Sandman]

You should plant forests profusely.

They improve even worthless tiles, spread naturally without your help, and clear fungus away.

If you start near the Believers, the Spartans or the Hive, then conflict is inevitable.

Sea squares are great for food and energy when improved, but terrible for minerals.

[MattyBoy]

If you get SMAC try not to read these forums too much. They take away the challenge and the game is so good you should savour learning it for yourself.

[Jeremy Buloch]

I started to read these forums to find out how to make SMAC run on Win2k. I also joined to help people figure out things. I don't need stratigies I've never lost.
-J.B.-

[MattyBoy]

Sounds admirable, but don't tell me you started on the hardest setting and won.

[Jeremy Buloch]

No I worked my way up from easiest to hardest.
-J.B.-

[Ned]

JB, If you get bored, try playing Sven, accelerated start, no pods or native life, aggressive settings, and Yang as one of your opponents.

I am playing this now, and am struggling. Yang is not that far away, and is sending waves of superior ships and invading craft after me. Ouch!

Also, more than once I have been overwhelmed by waves of impact speeders from the Aliens, Yang or the Spartans. I certainly have not won every game.

[MattyBoy]

JB - Good to hear it. That is how I started but I was still struggling to win on hardest setting when I became a forum junkie.

Ned - Is your avatar a photo of you? I still expect you to look like a scientist as per your original avatar. You don't nerdy enough to play SMAC obsessively enough on large maps.

[Ned]

Mattboy, No, that a photo of Vin Diesel, one of my favorite actors.

But, as a matter of fact, I did resemble the dude when I was a kid and had a crewcut.

I must admit, though, I am adicted to SMACx.

[Jeremy Buloch]

Hey Ned Try using the Spartans. You have superior weaponary with superb technology. Also save the game alot. When I mess up I load the game from the best position and start it over. In turn I never lose.



If you are having trouble with being attacked start over and build up your forces without meeting other factions. If you do meet factions don't attack unless you have superior technology and unless you have about twenty units to throw at the enemy. Try sending them in waves. Attacking at all sides of their territory. Kill the stronger factions and save the small factions till the end.
Also try to be the planetary Govenor. It helps if you build all of the secret projects.
Good Luck.
-J.B.-

[Adalbertus]

Jeremy, I know this method very well but I always try to think what happens if the AI tries to reload me until I make the mistake they prefer ...

[Ned]

Originally posted by Jeremy Buloch
Hey Ned Try using the Spartans. You have superior weaponary with superb technology. Also save the game alot. When I mess up I load the game from the best position and start it over. In turn I never lose.



If you are having trouble with being attacked start over and build up your forces without meeting other factions. If you do meet factions don't attack unless you have superior technology and unless you have about twenty units to throw at the enemy. Try sending them in waves. Attacking at all sides of their territory. Kill the stronger factions and save the small factions till the end.
Also try to be the planetary Govenor. It helps if you build all of the secret projects.
Good Luck.
-J.B.-

Jeremy. Actually, I like the adrenelin flowing - so I prefer to play Ironman. However, ever since I upgraded my computer - first to ME and then to XP, I have had severe crash problems with the game. I therefor have to reload a lot, but because of crashes.

Also, in the current game, I set the tech acquisition when capturing a base to on. This really favored the conquering factions like Yang - but initiallly, they all tried to conquer each other.

But, I must say, this current game is one of the best I have ever played with the AI. It is the mother of all sea battles.

(Oh - and another tweak to even thinks up - make the AI better - is to move Genejack factories to Optical Computers, and elminate copters from the game.)

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Jeremy Buloch
Hey Ned Try using the Spartans. You have superior weaponary with superb technology. Also save the game alot. When I mess up I load the game from the best position and start it over. In turn I never lose.
-J.B.-

No wonder you "never lose" if you are reloading back to a point when your position was good. To me every time you reloaded, you lost that game.

If you want a challenge in SP, try Miriam on a huge world with doubleblind research. Like always you should defeat the AI but sometimes , the forces conspire against you ( I was on a small island that could hold only about 5 bases and missed the WP. After 100 years I still had not met anyone or managed to get Doc: flex. Suddenly a neigbor raised land and sent about a dozen rovers and I was done)

But by losing i learned that I needed the WP in that situation to meet people and probe some tech

[Method]

Originally posted by Jeremy Buloch
When I mess up I load the game from the best position and start it over. In turn I never lose.

you should try ironman. not only do you get +100% on your score at the end, it exits a lot faster. all you have to do is click "save." IIRC you do get autosaves just in case it crashes or something. now playing ironman with autosaves off! that'd be hard...

[Blake]

Yep, with autosaves on you get the autosave for the current turn. Which really makes ironman not much of an ironman setting, seeing critical "combat rigging" can easily be done by reloading from the start of the turn.

In any case, Ironman has no real incentive to stop players save/reloading, atleast not from a gameplay prespective, you just lose some realtime, and not much, if you have a fast computer.

[Ned]

I "just" discovered and interesting technique. (I have been playing this game for awhile now and never used it before.)

A major problem is holding the base against a probe counter-attack. A solution is to give the base to Miriam, assuming she is your ally, and then move in your troops. Miriam's +3 probe rating prevents the base from being retaken by enemy probes.

[Jeremy Buloch]

I rarely have problems with Probe attacks because I allways build the Hunter Seeker Algorithm. I sugest you do the same if Probe teams are compromising your plans.
-J.B.-

[Pandemoniak]

You should play Ironman just for the fun of it. I used to do the re-load thing everytime on Civ II, but now I play on Ironman without Autosaves, and believe you think twice before you do something, and thats really better !

Of course you can just resign if you lost a very decisive battle, but remember : The Drones need you, etc...

[Jeremy Buloch]

Yea I'll try Ironman I like a good challenge.
-J.B.-

[Method]

its only a challenge if you're used to saving really often and reloading when you screw up. if it crashes you can always load up the autosave.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Jeremy Buloch
I rarely have problems with Probe attacks because I allways build the Hunter Seeker Algorithm. I sugest you do the same if Probe teams are compromising your plans.
-J.B.-

Jeremy, I play transcend. I get the HS only about a third of the time. I normally play double-blind with a twist: I have all factions set to Build, Explore, Discover. Playing this way, I find I often never have the tech to build the HS before some AI faction has long ago built it.

Again, I really miss Ironman. Those games are really "tense."

[Jeremy Buloch]

Well TKG I guess Ironman will be a Challenge for me cause I'm so use-to saving. I've just started a game with Ironman on and I'm doing well so far. I'm the Spartan Faction. I haven't met up with anyone else yet.
Good Luck to me!
-J.B.-

[Iskandar Reza]

Originally posted by Ned
I "just" discovered and interesting technique. (I have been playing this game for awhile now and never used it before.)

A major problem is holding the base against a probe counter-attack. A solution is to give the base to Miriam, assuming she is your ally, and then move in your troops. Miriam's +3 probe rating prevents the base from being retaken by enemy probes.

Wouldn't a much simpler solution to this be having a probe team of your own guarding the base? I never go to war without at least half a dozen probe teams in my attack force.

[Pandemoniak]

A really challenging game is a game where luck is needed...

[Jeremy Buloch]

Iskandar Reza,
If you have Drop Pods then you could send Reinforcements such as Gaurds if a Probe team decides to compromise your plans. Yet you will need sensors around your base to be able to see attackers from far away. I still say The hunter-Seeker Algorithm is the best way to get rid of annoying Probe teams.

-J.B.-

[Method]

it is

the AI never uses enhanced probes (not that i've seen anyway), and the nethack terminus is useless to it because they only use fission reactor probes. besides you've usually won the game by that time anyway.