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Old February 17, 2000, 02:50   #31
Helium Pond
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Let me just say, I've been trying this myself and it's HARD! Like zsozso said, it's a lot of fun too! When I opened the save game on the fast transcend HOF, I was stunned--how the heck did this person get this score with so *little* evidence of dominance??? Everybody should look at that save game--it's really pretty stunning. I'm inspired--I'm trying to do it myself! Wheeee! Thanks guys.

Preparing to stop blithering,

HP
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Old February 17, 2000, 14:01   #32
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You are right Korn469, I forgot to emphasize, that the main difference between this challenge and the UBC is that here everything is about speed. That's why there is no point saying it is easy...

For a parabole, compare a marathon runner and a 100m sprinter. The marathon runner might say: what's the point running a race on 100m ? It is very easy, everybody can run 100m ! Why don't you try 52km, you might die before you reach the Finish sign...

So, fast transcend games are like a sprint. It is a challenge on its own right: a race with time. You need different skills, different techniques, and only time matters not the fact that you reached the finish line (i.e. you have won by transcendence).

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Old February 18, 2000, 01:26   #33
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i will admit that every single fast transcend game i started on the optimal fast transcend settings were an easy victory over the AI...winning and even transcending is a given in these games, it is transcending before 2172 that is the hard part...my best game was 2176 and it took me a couple weeks of playing to get that score, there is alot of luck in these games and i might have to try going from my spartans to zsozso's gaians to win but i have only tried to top zsozsos score once or twice...i thought the 2176 games was one of the best i had played and i since it had been that hard getting a 2171 score was more than what i had time to try for as of right now

but my opinion is, it's a fun challenge, and to all those who think it's too easy, beat 2172

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Old February 18, 2000, 01:37   #34
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Hehehe. Ok, the challenge is thrown down, and I have some ideas. I've been itching to spill the beans on them but I'll wait to see if I can smash that record on SMACX settings. So that's about 7 extra techs I think. [I'm not using anything required by SMACX] Should make a nice change from playing with the juggernaught of Cha Dawn but I *will* be playing Borg style on a small map.

Its NOT an advantage to play on a huge map for the Borg. Borg is not builder. It doesn't mind having neigbours to assimilate. They work out about the same as colonising empty space -- pros and cons. Just forget about that pact stuff. It's going to be hard to beat the score from all those commerce bonuses though.

No, the main difference in size is the same as difficulty levels. Smaller maps mean cheaper tech and better food and production too. This is just the same as playing on Citizen, but if the idea is a transcend by any settings in the "customise game" slot then half the fiddles will come from this and only the other half from in-game play.
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Old February 20, 2000, 06:37   #35
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Transcend by Morgan in 2167. Now that I know what I'm doing i think i could do it quite a bit faster. Obviously "quite a bit" is a relative term for this challenge, but I used quite a different strategy because I can never be bothered messing with the AI.

This was different to zsozso's in many ways. It was SMACX so there were 75 techs minimum (there are 10 unnecessary techs). Knowledge of the way the tech choices are handed out was useful in avoiding all 10. Actually that turns out to be very easy. All you have to do is never pick to research Unified Field Theory.

I played on a custom sized map of 32x16 which appears to be the smallest the game allows. Tech costs seem linked to size of map pretty well. And probably difficulty level so I played on Citizen level. Customised size maps don't receive the bonus to growth and industry that the Tiny map gets, but IMO zsozso's method would gain from being played as Citizen. I suppose the idea of playing on Transcend is it means the AI gets to make regular contributions to the tech because its costs are practically nothing. I think the benefits of Citizen might offset this.

For one thing its not just the drones. There are various rules relaxed on Citizen. Whether zsozso's strategy would work on a 32x16 map I don't know -- I found the difference in tech costs worth the penalty to industry but he might not. Tech costs half as much as on a Tiny map.

I chose Morgan for the ability to plaster the map with 30 cities very quickly. Citizen level allows you (in fact mandates you) to keep the level one city when you build a colonist. With Wealth and normal support I was buying a new city for 34 energy. Each city was getting at least 8 energy from economy 4 plus being Governor. Plus Morgan gets 100 extra to begin with. Still I think next time I'll pp-boom a main big city and try and get some commerce bonuses.

Towards the end the cost of the last two SPs was the problem. The last tech only cost 500 and I was on about 1000/turn by then but I was keeping to about one tech/round or every other round at worst, all through the game. Coming up with the cash for the SPs was more of a challenge. Thankfull for the Unity core...

I had 33 cities out of a theoretical maximum of 63 for the map size. You have to pick a map with lots of land. The computer seems to give you the jungle as a special landmark each time, whereas on Tiny it gives you jungle, crater freshwater sea and mount planet I think.

I might try an alternative Borg-style attempt on Tiny with the drone faction. With all the industry bonuses they can get they could place down a colonist and be just 5 production short of a new colonist making up for the lack of money that Morgan had. They could avoid the FM route to research and go for librarians.
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Old February 20, 2000, 11:12   #36
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Correction -- 2168 not 2167.
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Old February 21, 2000, 10:25   #37
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Congratulations David!!!

Awesome result and very good tricks! The even smaller map and citizen-level for no base-abandoning are both neat! I'll have to try another game with these tips...

What factions did you have in the game ?
And did you enslave them or eliminated and did all the research yourself ?

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Old February 21, 2000, 11:26   #38
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David,

Clap, Clap, Clap, Applause Applause.

Very nice indeed.

Keep us all posted on any other tricks you come by.

Again congrats.
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Old February 21, 2000, 14:00   #39
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My faction choice didn't make much difference as all but I AI died I think immidiately due to map size. They were started as 6 copies of the university -- that might have helped. I think possibly you could get 3 AI to survive if one was the pirates. I can make 6 survive on a map twioce the size -- but then tech costs 30% more.

I found incidentally that when I lost a city to the University (revolt) and took it back I had gained a network Node I could sell off. I didn't try to make a strategy of it -- seems a little too abusive. It does work though. I guess you couldn't do it *too* often as the AI would refuse your calls?

I used the re-birth tactic. I normally use this to get the free independent former. But on Citizen level you only start with one colonist so its much more usefull. What I *wasn't* counting on was the fact that (on Citizen anyway) Morgan gets an EXTRA 100 energy each time you re-birth. [110 actually but I guess normal factions get the 10]. I haven't noticed this before but then I don't play Morgan normally.

None of my cities were very large so I didn't worry about trade income. My impression is that zsozso's strategy is reliant on trade energy and that AI research helps a lot. The AI gave me about 5 techs early on but basically I researched them all myself using small cities. Nothing larger than 4 and I built only one research hospital. Also with SMACX Unified Field Theory is not required for transcendence so no 2nd SP for research. I didn't build the Universal translator either -- no alien artifacts on such a tiny map.

Generally a very different technique.
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Old February 21, 2000, 14:03   #40
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I think a hybrid method of the two could do better than either.
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Old February 21, 2000, 14:09   #41
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Something else I tried: I built satelites and had +3 energy / city and +1 production. For the last four turns I had all workers as Transcendi for +4 research each.
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Old February 22, 2000, 18:03   #42
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I have been looking at szoszo's save file and have a couple of questions. I am rather new to smac and am having some difficulty understanding the lab point calculations in his five cities. It seems that network node + fusion lab + hospital together only add 50% to the lab bonus points of one transcendi (4+2=6) with lab % set to 0.Is this the general understanding (i.e. They are not cumulative)? Then why buy more than one of them? The answer may be the following, at least for one city. When we add the supercollider, the lab points go up by a factor of 4, not 2 (to 24)in a city with these three but WITHOUT quantum lab( which is advertised as being cumulative with fusion lab) (try it by removing the quantum lab in one of his cities). Putting in the quantum lab now adds only an additional 5 lab points for one transcendi (to 29). I would have expected 12, i.e. (4+2)x2. Can anyone explain the math to me? I find it confusing. Am I missing something here? Are there other factors affecting lab points?

Also I am curious to know how szoszo enslaved the whole world without losing a single one of his very few units, almost all of which were "independent". Is this normal in this strat? And why did he never build a farm in the Monsoon jungle?

I look forward to trying out some of these strats.
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Old February 22, 2000, 18:04   #43
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I have been looking at szoszo's save file and have a couple of questions. I am rather new to smac and am having some difficulty understanding the lab point calculations in his five cities. It seems that network node + fusion lab + hospital together only add 50% to the lab bonus points of one transcendi (4+2=6) with lab % set to 0.Is this the general understanding (i.e. They are not cumulative)? Then why buy more than one of them? The answer may be the following, at least for one city. When we add the supercollider, the lab points go up by a factor of 4, not 2 (to 24)in a city with these three but WITHOUT quantum lab( which is advertised as being cumulative with fusion lab) (try it by removing the quantum lab in one of his cities). Putting in the quantum lab now adds only an additional 5 lab points for one transcendi (to 29). I would have expected 12, i.e. (4+2)x2. Can anyone explain the math to me? I find it confusing. Am I missing something here? Are there other factors affecting lab points?

Also I am curious to know how szoszo enslaved the whole world without losing a single one of his very few units, almost all of which were "independent". Is this normal in this strat? And why did he never build a farm in the Monsoon jungle?

I look forward to trying out some of these strats.
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Old February 22, 2000, 18:11   #44
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Sorry about the above duplication. By the way, what is "UBC" and where can I read up more about UBC and the various other challenges referred to in this thread? I have looked over the last 1oo days without much luck.
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Old February 22, 2000, 18:22   #45
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I just discovered the answer to one of my own questions. I missed the "Theory of Everything" SP which explains the X4 rather than x2 I was expecting. The other things remain question marks for me.
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Old February 22, 2000, 20:43   #46
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I haven't tried measuring it but I would expect the research bonus facilities to work by adding 50% to a "normal" 100% just as other bonuses work in the game. The two SPs ought to add 100% and NOT double the research. So with 4 +50% facilities and 2 +100% SPs that's +400% for a total of 20 research per transcendi. You are saying this doesn't happen?
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Old February 23, 2000, 05:33   #47
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David: This does not happen in Szoszo's save. Check it out. Autumn Green and Flower Preach both have Network node, Fusion lab, and Research hospital. This combo yields 6 labs per trancendi (should be 10 by your model). If I delete one of them, it drops to 5 (doesn't seem to matter which one is dropped). If I delete a second (next turn) it drops to 4. This suggests the following model (1) First facility adds 0% to labs.(2) The next three add 25% each cumulative. This checks out with Song of Planet which has all four, including Quantum lab, and yields 7 labs per transcendi(i.e. bonus 75% of base 4). A new issue arises with Greenhouse gate, which has all four plus Theory of Everything and Supercollider. This should add 8 (200% of 4) to the 7 for a total of 15. But the actual is 29! What is going on? By the model described in your post, we would expect 20. So how do get to 29? Could you look into this?
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Old February 23, 2000, 15:25   #48
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It might be good to have a forum especially for these formulae to be held in.... so they are easier to find.

Anyway I downloaded zsozsos 2169 file and he hadn't got transcendi yet but I expect its similar.

I noticed inconsistencies between the declared total economy and the total of counting the commerce bonuses the energy from workers and the energy from crawlers. He was getting less energy than the total. The main explanation was that the crawlers were reporting they were carrying one more energy than they really were (as measured by the drop when they stoped supplying and the amount they said they would supply when the supply order was given). Probably this is a bug with the SE economy 2 bonus of 1 energy to each square not applying to crawlers.

There was one economy point of descrepency left on the city I looked at which I couldn't account for, but I wasn't interested in pursuing it.....

The total economy is then split into energy, research and psych based on the SE % settings. I didn't pursue the rounding details of this either, although in my experience research gets prescedence in rounding and generally rounding to the nearest is the rule otherwise.

So if step [1] is calculating the integral division of the economy into the three parts... what I mean by integral is that no odd fractions from the division are retained.

[2] Add the effects of specialists (these are already integral).

[3] Multiply by the total of the various bonus effects/facilities. These are in units of 25%'s and you always round up. So that, eg 9 psych with a research hospital will become 12. Because of the ordering of the steps adding a doctor would result in 14 not 15. That is (9+2)*1.25 not (9*1.25)+(2*1.25).

[4] This is the step which may be explaining your problems. Reduce the overall figure by the fraction of inefficiency listed in the SE settings. This is done on a city by city basis but Children's Creche makes no difference. Round to the nearest integer.

[5] I'm guessing punishment sphere has a separate step for its halving, based on what others have said. I would guess that if you are producing energy on the production queue it is figured in step [2].

As far as I can see then, yes, all the facilities are cumulative with each other in all three categories and phrases like "the nano-hospital is cumulative with the research hospital" should not be interepreted as implying that it is not cumulative with, network node, fusion labs or quantum labs (or the two SPs) for research or tree farm (etc) for psych.

I can only suppose that zsozso's inefficiency was worse when you were looking at it because his labs were only at -6% in 2169. Or possibly you are not taking into account the difference between the transcendi and whatever you are turning it into -- if a worker, the extra energy, if an engineer the +2 research that the engineer provides?

Do you still get the descrepencies after this? What save file are you looking at?
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Old February 23, 2000, 15:39   #49
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Rusty Nail -- UBC is the Ultimate Builder Challenge, which you can find in the Strategy forum.
[This message has been edited by Blunderdog (edited February 23, 2000).]
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Old February 25, 2000, 03:41   #50
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David: I looked at the szoszo save listed on this thread above on Feb.8,2000, the only one I know of. You are making things too complicated. Remember, the lab% is set to zero, so allocations of energy, efficiency, etc. are irrelevant. You have one transcendi. It is trivial. And you get 6(!) labs with three lab facilities (hospital, network node, fusion lab). Something is very wrong, or I am missing something.

By the way, could you post one or more saves from your Morgan exercise? I am trying that one and I would like to hear more about how you did it, e.g. when do you rush buy, what is the critical path to success, what facilities were built, did you build hab complex, how you handled drones,the AI's etc? There can't be much margin for error.
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Old February 25, 2000, 15:34   #51
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Does setting lab to zero mean zero inefficiency for research though? It might apply even if it is not listed. Remember specialists are added in and THEN inefficiency applied. Inefficiency from the SE % split applies to specialists (but the economy loss due to inefficiency does not of course). Try a 50-50 split of the economy and just take off all the workers. See what difference changing a Transcend to an Engineer makes.

I didn't build any facilities except at one base. Dealt with drones through 30% psych initially, then nerve-stapling (for which I had to quit my FM for one turn) and finally Transendi -- very good for research and drone prevention. Oddments of Empathi. I rush built new colonists only. Citizen level allows you to change what you build without penalty so you can rush build at facility cost for both colonists and partially, for SPs. Re-birthing gives you a lot of money to start with. There's a lot you can get away with on Citizen you can't on a real game
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Old February 25, 2000, 19:51   #52
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David-
ToE and Supercollider double total labs output. If you have both in the same base it *quadruples* labs output. One game as Lal I had 400 energy before division at HQ, and near the end I was getting 4000 research points. This is with every possible facility, including Network backbone which adds a bonus not dependent on base energy.

Also the two energy modifying SP's- Space Elevator and Longevity vaccine- I am fairly sure they modify income *after* all other calculations are done.

I am not sure what the instructions mean when they say "x is cumulative with y" but it is possible they are saying that the two are not redundant and both function at same time. I am really not sure how the calculations work for labs or econ, I just know that a better infrastructure can really speed things up.

Nail the thing about David's strat that is most important is the energy per base square. A normal base square for a faction with a econ of 0 is 1. Morgan gets +1 energy per base. But if you run FM/Wealth and are governor you get +8 energy per base square, this means small Morgan cities are actually more productive with techs than small University cities. Plus all that econ adds up tremendously.

Morgan really benefits from ICS sprawl because the energy allows him to develop bases. Unlike a typical ICS university base with huge drone problems, Morgan has the money to pay to reduce drones. Of course I am only talking about relatively small numbers of cities, but when Morgan expands it makes a big difference because of all the cash. Playing Morgan like the computer does- miserly saving your cash and building a grand total of 4 bases- is a quick road to flat growth. There is only so much you can build, and rather than build 4 research hospitals in already developed cities it makes more sense to expand and then build tree farms. Morgan has true exponential growth when he starts plunking down infrastructure in those tiny ICS cities.

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Old February 27, 2000, 03:09   #53
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Wow... that is one powerful fast transcend tactic you came up with, i just completed my first two under 100 turn transcends using the Morgan expands rapidly on a low difficultry 16x32 map, and can defintely see where the improvement will come from. Even on settler I'm noticing drone riots like crazy though.

I think I figured out why one 'super science city' can't get more than one tech break through a turn. I believe the game gathers up the tech from each city one at at time at the start of your turn and when a b-thru comes you get it, but any tech above that ammount is lost. You can, for example be only a few points (lets say 20) of a tech..get it from a small city, then still get your large tech boom from your Science city. Just observations.

I'm going to continue to see how fast I can transcend, but with Zso gone now, its lost a lot of the fun...

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Old December 16, 2000, 04:32   #54
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Old June 12, 2001, 02:18   #55
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Old November 1, 2001, 23:34   #56
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(toot toot!)
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