A civ vet explores Alpha Centauri (SMAC)

[Mardoc]

The other leaders don't do that.  The others simply want to run their own faction, not dominate the rest.  Yang, Morgan, and Zakharov each think their rivals are weak for unnecessarily imposing restrictions on themselves, but they don't need to forcibly dominate them, they'll just ignore and outperform them.  

All matter is to be used for the purposes of the collective.  You answered your own concern, that it all comes back together when there is only one consciousness.  Yang believes that that end justifies his means to get there.

I think Yang fits the second perspective better than the first. He might, for diplomatic purposes, use the first perspective as a cover story, but ultimately he absolutely does need to bring the world down to one consciousness, using the other factions as fodder, and that is a much more thorough form of domination than the rest have in mind. As long as the other perspectives exist, they contradict the dream of the Hive.

[T-hawk]

Do you use armored probes to have support-free military units?

I would if I thought it was a good idea, but I think the cost isn't worth it.  A 1-2-2 rover takes 40 extra minerals for a probe module and plenty of other things pay back faster than 40 turns of support.  Also I'd usually rather have a regular weapon even at 1 strength to counterattack against mind worms and damaged units.

Surely there must be some sort of equivalent where even T-Hawk says "Wait that seems cheesey and like I'm gaming the system; I'd rather play with some sort of personal code of conduct so the game isn't tediously boring."

Not really, no.  Working around the negatives of SE choices and drones seems like good strategy to me.  There is no objective line or difference between good-strategy and gaming-the-system.  You can shame anything by claiming it's the latter.

I think you just want to drag me into a debate, and I don't want to debate this since I don't care what your personal rule set is.

I just want honesty in the debate.  Variantism is fine.  Just call it what it is.  You're playing self-imposed variants.  Maybe you're even having more fun with them than I am with my games.  But don't pretend your "personal code of conduct" represents any kind of standard or being noble or anything other than what you feel is fun or not-fun, and don't lead others like Haphazard into following your arbitrary ideal instead of making up their own mind.  That's all I'm getting at.

[Dark Savant]

Do you use armored probes to have support-free military units?

I would if I thought it was a good idea, but I think the cost isn't worth it.  A 1-2-2 rover takes 40 extra minerals for a probe module and plenty of other things pay back faster than 40 turns of support.  Also I'd usually rather have a regular weapon even at 1 strength to counterattack against mind worms and damaged units.

The other problem with relying on armored probes for military defense is that they can fall through the seams in the combat routines.  A stack of probe team defenders will sometimes just die because it isn't seen as "real" military.  (I don't recall the exact circumstances under which this happens.)

[Thoth]

It's been awhile but IIRC armoured probe teams get horribly pwned by artillery barrages.

[Fluffball]

you may want to make self enforced rules like no ICS.

I'm going to blow T-Hawk's mind and suggest that you do build some crawlers and experiment with different ways to use them (as I'm sure you would anyway.)

don't pretend your "personal code of conduct" represents any kind of standard or being noble or anything other than what you feel is fun or not-fun, and don't lead others like Haphazard into following your arbitrary ideal instead of making up their own mind. 

Haphazard is not incompetent and I'm sure he's already seen both sides of the "argument", although hopefully from the above quotes you can see how ridiculous you're being. Someone has a different point of view than you and you can't change it. Get it over it.

No offense but you're really starting to be annoying. I am not -- and never have -- told anyone how to play the game. Not Haphazard, not you; just stop and go have a margarita. I want to enjoy this thread, not be berated by your "logic" every other page.

[T-hawk]

Apologies if you feel I've been heavy-handed in the discussion.  I just don't like seeing the overreactive hysteria with sentiments like "broken" and "brain dead trivial" when that's not true.  Then I'm not enjoying the thread either.  SMAC has always had a hive-mind problem with people repeating that stuff without really critically examining the position, and that's what I'm trying to shed light on here.  (Yes, I'm arguing against the hive-mind and for the Hive-mind in the same thread. )

I'm touchy on this subject because, when I first started playing the game, I listened to arguments like yours.  I avoided supply crawlers and some of the other stuff thanks to the widespread arguments against them.  Population-booming (which we haven't talked about here at all) was actually a bigger issue than the crawlers; I followed someone's recommendation to edit Democracy and Planned to +1 growth instead of +2 in order to prevent booming.  I eventually came around to trying all the mechanics at full power, and felt like I'd been cheated out of enjoying the full game for myself. It bothers me greatly to see the possibility of that happening to someone like Haphazard.  I'll admit that I may be overreacting myself and it's unfair to take it back out on you, but that's the grounds of why I've been carrying on the argument.

[Fluffball]

Apologies if you feel I've been heavy-handed in the discussion.  I just don't like seeing the overreactive hysteria with sentiments like "broken" and "brain dead trivial" when that's not true.  Then I'm not enjoying the thread either.  SMAC has always had a hive-mind problem with people repeating that stuff without really critically examining the position, and that's what I'm trying to shed light on here.  (Yes, I'm arguing against the hive-mind and for the Hive-mind in the same thread.  )

I'm touchy on this subject because, when I first started playing the game, I listened to arguments like yours.  I avoided supply crawlers and some of the other stuff thanks to the widespread arguments against them.  Population-booming (which we haven't talked about here at all) was actually a bigger issue than the crawlers; I followed someone's recommendation to edit Democracy and Planned to +1 growth instead of +2 in order to prevent booming.  I eventually came around to trying all the mechanics at full power, and felt like I'd been cheated out of enjoying the full game for myself. It bothers me greatly to see the possibility of that happening to someone like Haphazard.  I'll admit that I may be overreacting myself and it's unfair to take it back out on you, but that's the grounds of why I've been carrying on the argument.

Thanks. I realized a few pages ago you were fighting the SMAC community of 20 years ago and weren't even responding to me anymore.  

On the first post of the thread after the OP, I suggested he play it on his own and then later check out things like Vel's guide. Sandbox is fun, but following guides on the first play through of a game based around just seeing what happens, probably isn't fun.

[haphazard1]

On the first post of the thread after the OP, I suggested he play it on his own and then later check out things like Vel's guide. Sandbox is fun, but following guides on the first play through of a game based around just seeing what happens, probably isn't fun.

I have avoided looking at any detailed guides so far; definitely think it is better to just play the game a couple times and see what happens. There is enough shared DNA with the Civ series that I am not totally lost and everyone in the thread here has been very helpful with specific questions as they come up. The discussion has been interesting, although I have skipped over a few things (like the earlier link to the summary of the story line) until I manage to finish at least one game.

Today's question: how are borders/boundaries determined? It seem that if there is no other faction near by, a base will give you control of local tiles out to (I think) 7 tiles away. But once you have two factions with bases closer than that, how is control determined? SMAC does not have culture in the same sense that the later Civ games developed that idea, but there must be some rule for which faction controls which tiles.

Also, does the water/land boundary impact this rule? My situation with the Believers' water city just off my coast has me wondering if they will get all the water tiles while I get the land tiles?

I had plans for those water tiles, which are obviously now out the window. But if my western-most base is also going to lose its land tiles, that would be a significantly bigger problem.

[Fluffball]

Sea and land bases don't interact via borders. The borders of land bases just split the difference basically. You can plant a base directly on the border of an enemy and it will scoot the border towards his base.

With no rival bases around, the borders go out quite far... something like 8 tiles, but it's easy to trim those back with rival bases being planted.

The way to protect land you want without fighting is to claim the area enough that the rival can't plant a base to move your borders. If you want a peninsula for example, put a city close enough to the end of it to claim all the available land so there is no where someone can put a base to move your borders.

To get your sea tiles back you need to remove/capture Miriam's base. Seas bases have very small borders (just their workable squares IIRC, maybe 1 extra ring) and they can't steal your land tiles.

(All of this is IIRC of course, but I think I do.)

[T-hawk]

Land bases control land tiles out to 8 squares away (never sea tiles.) Sea bases control sea tiles out to 3 squares away (never land tiles.) If there's a dispute, the tile belongs to the closest base. If there's a tie for closest, it goes to the newer base, which means settling near a border can steal quite a bit.

When a land base is working a sea tile or vice versa, it's actually doing so without that tile being in that faction's borders, so that's possible only as long as that tile isn't within another faction's territory. Yes, to get your sea tiles back you need to settle a closer sea base of your own or get rid of Miriam's base. (Or the silliest impractical yet possible answer: terraform-raise Miriam's base onto land where it will control land tiles instead of sea.)

One clarification to what Fluffball said: a faction can settle directly within the territory of another. SMAC and Civ 3 allow that; Civs 4+ don't. The peninsula-ownership move can be breached that way, although the SMAC AI rarely or never does so. That does hurt relations; merely pushing the border by settling within your own territory doesn't.