Sabotage!!

[CEO Aaron]

Okay, the scenario: Me, playing on Thinker (I'm not a Transcend stud just yet) as the U.N. The hated University has nearly finished the Command Nexxus in a nearby port city(I'm already Governor, so I can see his city production). After seeing the warning, I quicky divert some nearby foil probes to sabotage the project. First probe: Kills the Network Node. Second probe: Demolishes recycling tanks. Last probe: Yahtzee! Command Nexxus production stopped.

Smugly congratulating myself for resourcefulness and initiative, I proceed to the next turn, where the Command Nexxus appears, completed, out of nowhere, in a completely different city. Feeling suspicious, i returned to a pervious save, and discovered that the turn before, this offending city was producing an Impact Rover. What gives?

[Method]

i knew the AI cheated, but this time travel thing is new to me too

[CEO Aaron]

Its not the time travel that bothers me, its the, as far as I can tell, single turn rush build of a Wonder after I had clinically proven it had been sabotaged.

[Mongoose]

Cash Rush?

[Uberslacker]

I doubt very much the University as run by the AI would have that sort of money. It *is* possible, but Occam's telling me that the AI is a cheating bastard.

[MariOne]

Technically then, you need one turn to pay the the rush, and you get the item only on *subsequent* turn.
Cash Rush can't be considered the reason for something that you saw wasn't already rushed the turn before.

But OTOH you can beat the AI by rushing a project even if you got informed that it was due for next turn.
IF turn sequence were respected as it happens between humans, no matter how you rush your project, the AI should get it before you.
Instead you can snatch it, against the physics laws...

So, this shows how normal time-sequence restraints do not apply when talking aobut AIs and Project. And this could be imagined to happen the other way round, not only when it favors you...

The rationale of all this... you guess what my advice could be?
If you're tired of the AI inconsistent behavior, play against humans!

BTW, to end all this fuss about "heating" AI.
Why should you expect that the AI abides by the SAME rules that apply to you???
Can't you plainly accept that the mechanics or at least the parameters ruling the AI behavior are DIFFERENT than those you're subject to?
Hell, to many players, those AI advantages are NOT EVEN enough to make it a challenge, so that they alter the game to give even MORE advantages to the AI!!!!
So why *****ing?
The only (SAD) catch, is that for it to be fair, you should be totally AWARE of the way your AI opponent behaves, and which restraints (slacker than yours, by design!) it is forced to play within.
That is, IF you expect to play a game the "scientific way".
Many game designers (and some players... ) think that it is NOT desirable to KNOW the maths underlying game behavior, but only general conceptual trends, to truly enjoy a gaming experience.
It is fun to be forced to face lots of enemy AI units, rather than just a few. Why should a player care whether the AI achieves to produces that big army because it's efficinet and smart in the provisioning and usage of resources, or plainly because AI units are muche cheaper to produce that the human counterparts?
(beware, I understand but do NOT agree with this school of thought, so don't argue with me because of it )

[MariOne]

PS: of course my keyboard ate a 'c', and "cheating" AI became "heating"!!

[CEO Aaron]

Its not the cheating, per se, that annoys me about this situaction, its the fact a strategy that would be completely valid against a human player is worthless against the AI. Sure, the AI can fudge production, build better than it terraforms, etc, because its shitty at terraforming, horrible at unit tactics. But _come_on_, I blew that project up fair and square, found his city, stole his map, and got probe there in time to stop it. To be robbed of this victory, simply because the programmers didn't see fit to make the AI smart enough to realize that it had lost its project is just LAME.

[MariOne]

OK, OK, you made your point!

as this discussion is far from pointless, I invite you to reflect on these two thoughts:

1. most of the posts here report strategies valid against AI but completely worthless against a human opponent. Some even praise/boast such strategies *because* they are tailored against the AI...
I fully understand your point, and I hope you understand how I shared the same kind of frustration all the time I posted here, now that you see it from the other end.

2. Yes, it's lame, but once you know it, you'd adapt to that as it's the (lame) way the SMAC AI works, just as you adapt tho the (lame) way the game allows you to steal a Project under the AI's nose by breaking the turn sequence.
You'll know which lame ways are allowed to beat the AI on a project (or in general), and which lame ways won't work...
See, FurXs® was not even good to consistently program the way the AI cheats!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Completely off track, but since you had 3 foil probe teams set to strike why did you decide not to let UoP finish the Nexxus and then simply subvert his base thus claiming the Nexxus as your prize?

I realize this doesn't address the insta-build Secret Project but it strikes me as a more efficient use of the probe teams especially since UoP is so susceptible to probe actions.

[Cybergod]

This is new to me... Could this ever happen with VoP or even AtT???

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Cybergod
This is new to me... Could this ever happen with VoP or even AtT???

Huh ??

Stealing the Voice is irrelevant since IIRC the mere existence of the voice would allow anyone to build the ascent. As for stealing the Ascent, if its already built, the game is over and I do not think that accumulated minerals come with a base if you probe it before it completes the project-- I could be wrong on that but I always probe away AI bases after a project is complete just to be safe

[Cybergod]

What I meant was - could the AI build AtT in one turn???

And CEO Aaron, maybe he was jealous of your retro-engineered foil probe-teams?

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by Cybergod
And CEO Aaron, maybe he was jealous of your retro-engineered foil probe-teams?

What gave the impression that the probe foils were retro-engineered? Indeed, retroengineering a foil chassis is devlish difficult...without it, you cannot subvert a naval unit at sea. Unity foils don't provide the foil chassis, just as unity rovers don't provite the speeder chassis. The only ways to reverse engineer a foil probe are 1) if some other faction gifts you a seagoing unit or 2) if you use a land probe to mindcontrol a base which has a seagoing unit in it or, implausibly, 3) you acquire Doc:Initiative before Doc:Flex and use cruiserprobes.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Cybergod
What I meant was - could the AI build AtT in one turn???

Not really that relevant a question IMHO but i see no reason for the AI to have different behaviors for different projects ( for which it has the tech)

The more relevant question is why the AI would have the tech for those projects ??

[Cybergod]

Mongoose - Maybe I missued the word retro-engineered, if so, I apologise. Foil probes do not come as pre-designed units and the AI never builds them so you have to either retro-engineer them from standard land probes (pre-designed) and place a foil/cruiser instead of speeder and there you go. But you can also select it and design it normally, as with normal units, which the AI can't do and can only deploy land-based probe teams. Not to mention the fact that a human can knock on a fusion reactor to probes to help against probe-vs-probe warfare.

[Mongoose]

You're right. You misused the word retro-engineered.

[Cybergod]

So much for missusing words... won't happen again...

[Cybergod]

And the "heating" incident which destroyed the letter C... (just spamming... )

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MariOne
But OTOH you can beat the AI by rushing a project even if you got informed that it was due for next turn.
IF turn sequence were respected as it happens between humans, no matter how you rush your project, the AI should get it before you.
Instead you can snatch it, against the physics laws...

In a single player game the human player always goes first.

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger




In a single player game the human player always goes first.

Nonsense. Fire up a game of SMAC. Choose the Peacekeepers. Select 'look first' from among the games' parameters. Found your first base in the landing square. Check the monuments. You will see a message about which of the other factions was the first to found a base. (ususally the Gaians, because they move first in the turn sequence)

This is beside the point, anyway. In the case where the game gives you warning about impending AI completion of a SP, if you check their F4 screen (you do have them infiltrated!, right?) you will see that they have already accumulated enough minerals for the project already or will have enough counting their next turns' mineral production. At that point, it is your turn. If the turn sequence were followed properly, the only things you could do to prevent that project from completing would be 1) sabotage it (CEO Aaron's choice) 2) take the bases where it is under construction or 3) (in the case where the upcoming turns' production will be required to furnish enough minerals) disrupt the mineral producing ability of the bases so that it produces below the required threshold for completion.

However, the normal turn sequence does not strictly apply here, as MariOne has noted. If, instead of one of the above three options, you rush build that same project yourself, either entirely or so that your next turns' production grants enough minerals to finish it, you, and not the AI, will complete the project. In this case, you will often get a repeat of the previous turns' warning message about the AI nearing completion of that project, which will then be immediately (or almost so) followed by the movie playing when you complete it.

[Adalbertus]

Hey, I'd always prefer
miss-using
over
miss-sueing

[Cybergod]

Hey, I'd always prefer
miss-using
over
miss-sueing

And I just love it when the warning messages ("Chairman Yang of the Hive have are aproaching mayor breakthrough with Command Nexus!" or something along those lines) are not shown at all and ZAP they do it the next turn...

[Mongoose]

I think that happens when they rush it at the end, Cybergod. I never verified that.

[Adalbertus]

Cybergod,
I played with some of the attempts to spell misusing,

Mongoose, I got the same impression, also didn't verify it. Mainly because the most likely to do so is Morgan, and when I get infiltration through Empath Guild or probe teams, he wouldn't build any more secret projects ...

[CEO Aaron]

And I just love it when the warning messages ("Chairman Yang of the Hive have are aproaching mayor breakthrough with Command Nexus!" or something along those lines) are not shown at all and ZAP they do it the next turn...

The only time I've failed to get the announcement is during Sunspot activity, which has to be my least favorite random event.

[Cybergod]

That's why I prefer No Random Events... But I play with that option off from time to time.

Aldarbertus, Morgan can be a cash-cow to milk by clever use of probe-teams!