The Game From Hell...

[Famyn]

A while back, a guy named Griggar posted a challenge over on the sidgames forums to get someone to play a game and get over one million energy credits.

I took that challenge. The game I played after that I like to call 'the game from hell.' For good reason. It was hideous.

I picked the Peacekeepers, one of my better factions. Early game, I was helped out by capturing several Spartan bases. I began my usuall tactic, ICS, with 2-3 open spaces between cities. My ICS, each city has the 'right' to develop the eight squares around itself, with the outside 12 open for grab with other cities, or sometimes open if city placement is somewhat farther apart.

So I get into this game. This hideous monstrosity that I didn't know what I was getting into.

Roughly around 2300 I had 'won.' I had all the wonders (all but two of them were in one single city, an industrial giant that I founded in the center of the crator). I decided not only to go for 1,000,000 energy credits, but to a. fill up the map completely with cities and b. terraform every single square, no exceptions. Each land square would have a forest and a magtube, and every sea square would have a kelp farm and wave harness (yes, this might have been wasteful, but I was counting on the jacked mineral production for energy late game).

This game took me an entire week to complete. An entire week of doing nothing but playing. I still have nightmares sometimes...

I did accomplish the goal, however. When I bought the transcendence, I had 2.5 million in the bank. My transcendent thought was up to 500+. My smallest city was still over 20. I had maxed orbitals. Only a few of the cities were still producing buildings. The year was around 2420. I used units to try and count cities. The game said I only had 72 24-12-1 AAA shock troops. I knew it had 'rolled over' from 255, so I obviously had over 300 cities on this poor map

Unfortunately, I only got a 422% rating. Since I suck, I can't win any higher then libraian level

Whats the point of this story? Don't try this at home unless you have an entire week to spend playing AC. And you have slight machocistic tendencies.

[Garth Vader]

I used to do stuff like that in Civ. I think the only reason I did was that the population was displayed on the screen and I wanted 100, 200, 300 million. I don't do that in AC because the population is done differently and because I remember spending a week doing nothing but terraforming.

[RedFred]

What is this about librarian level? Seems to me that if you can totally whomp the AI at librarian you are ready to move up in difficulty level. I guarantee you will find it much less boring.

A cautionary note about loading up almost all the SPs in one city: I have had my "wonder" city turned into a big crater on a couple of occasions. Now I spread SPs around much more. Another warning - a whole mess of SPs can also attract AI PBs almost as much as a whole pile of military units stationed in one city.

[Provost Harrison]

I just get fed up of having to manage so many cities, so I stick to a more reasonable number (50 ish). That way I don't get bored, although I don't get the high scores!

But I have had many millions of energy credits before, even on a few cities like this.
[This message has been edited by Provost Harrison (edited May 03, 2000).]