26-08-2005 08:27									#1
	CEO Rubin makes planetfall! Get a bigger avatar today!

Having been away from my favorite game of all time for half a year or so, I decided to have a go at the single player skirmish. I picked the Morganites and set my six opponents to be randomly chosen. The world is of standard size with weak erosion and abundant native life. To tone down the strategic and tactical management a bit I settled for blind research.

Here is the story as I progress. Feel free to comment.

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2101: Planetfall is made near the southern pole. Rubin Industries has access to the sea, a Unity pod--and what looks to be a sizeable stretch of land to the north. Probably a secluded landing site, but not bad. Social Engineering has been set to 30% Economy, 10% Psych and 60% Labs. I hope for a quick research breakthrough--hopefully Centauri Ecology to make Formers available. I set research options to "build". After the usual confusion of choosing which direction to send the Scout Patrol and which direction to send the Colony Pod, I struggled to recall what I usually start out building: a Colony Pod, a Synthmetal Garrison or a Scout Patrol? I went with the Scout Patrol and was somewhat surprised that I had completely forgotten what to build first.

2104: A pop-up screen reports aliens falling from the sky! Oh well, this could mean a lot of things... will the Cult of Planet be here too? And is this an early warning of both of the alien factions settling on the surface?

2106: With the discovery of Centauri Ecology during 2105, Rubin Industries has just completed the first terraformer. The initial Scout Patrol had been changed to a Synthmetal Garrison, which was again replaced with a Former. I lost a few minerals doing that. Native life has been spottet southwest of Rubin Industries and an emergency Scout Patrol has been initiated. I have discovered 2 monoliths, a cloning device and an alien artifact near the Unity pods so far. Not bad! Learned that the Peacekeepers founded a base during 2104. Rubin Construction was founded quite far away from my headquarters--I hesitated a year and found a river. Rivers mean extra energy resources and I couldn't resist placing the base on the river--even though I did lose a few years of building and base income. To me, rivers are natural base sites.

2109: A Unity pod caused a Xenofungal bloom and scouting revealed more fungus. This could set back expansion. Both bases are living off of monoliths, freeing the formers to connect Rubin Indutries and Rubin Contruction with roads. Mobility adds to the flexibility of the Morganites in many ways. Roads are good.

2110: The first big victory for Morganic Forces! A huge fungal tower was exterminated by a brave Scout Patrol. The victory also increased the energy reserves by 60 energy credits. So far the main focus is on expansion and exploration. Producing formers work well while waiting for the bases to grow and rush build colony pods.

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	26-08-2005 13:03									#2
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Wow, who's back!

	26-08-2005 14:38									#3
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Around 2116: A spore Launcher (remnant of the previous fungal bloom) is causing some trouble to my expansion and terraforming initiatives.

2119: Industrial Economics is researched and Free Market becomes available. Centauri Ecology and Industrial Economics make up for perhaps the two most treasured technological discoveries at this point. But I still have a Spore Launcher to deal with and I decide to delay the switch to Free Market. Without much trouble, though, the seasoned Scout Patrols deal with the native lifeform the following year... However, a road gets destroyed and Free Market is delayed. It appears that Rubin Construction was founded at the base of Mount Planet. A pleasing discovery.

2121: The Peacekeepers announce that they have unveiled the Secrets of the Human Brain. I am wondering how well Brother Lal is doing. I have access to the overall status of all factions by now: The Caretakers, the Gaians, the Peacekeepers, the Data Angels, the Spartans and the Believers. I am somewhat surprised to see no Usurpers present.

2123: The previously discovered Alien Artifact is used to boost the construction of the Human Genome Project at Rubin Industries.

2125: The Morganic territory is slightly divided due to the abundant fungus just north of Rubin Industries. Four bases are up and running, research seems to be going smoothly and no signs of a stressed economy. Psych allocation has been raised to 20%, lowering research to 50%. Having built a few Recycling Tanks the strategic focus is a mixed one (energy, nutrients and minerals). Oh, census shows that I am ahead in territorial control.

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	26-08-2005 14:55									#4
	Inflate your Upload Space

How did you get the pretty colours to be correct in the screenshots :/

	26-08-2005 15:32									#5
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@Senethro: I suppose you mean that you have a cacafonie of colorlines in your screenshots? Go Start->Control Panel->Display->Settings and choose the highest color quality (32 bit on my comp) and you can take screenshots as you see Rubins'. I do a "prt scr" and paste the image in Paint where I modify it to a good size and so on and safe it as a .JPG so it can be posted here.

@Rubin: Welcome back, long time no posting.
Regarding the missing Usurpers, in my experience that happens quite offen when randomly choosing factions. Something buggy on the game there.
And 6 months? Thought NC was finished late May this year?

	26-08-2005 16:23									#6
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Wow Rubin - you never told me you were a graphics wiz!


Oh, and where are my manners - Welcome Back!


As far as playing Morganites are concerned, if you want to see what the CMN/ Creators have been up to recently why give Chaos Theory's Solstice Challenge , which pits the human-led Morganites against some souped up AI's.



D

	26-08-2005 16:33									#7
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quote: How did you get the pretty colours to be correct in the screenshots :/

If you have both the Adobe Photoshop and SMACX opened simultaneously you can have such nice screens without problems without any adjusting of color settings.
Just open Adobe first.

	26-08-2005 23:10									#8
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Oh, GeoModder, you are of course correct. Late May is the last game entry I have for the Naval Clash game. However, it feels like more than half a year since I've played.

Senethro, all I do when taking screenshots is making sure that I paste the images into the image program and save them without closing the game. That seems to preserve the colors.

Well, the game has moved on:

---

At this point I am not aware that this game has no chance of longevity. Here are the brief outlines:

I push through the "build" research, discovering Industrial Automation by 2142 and putting me in the technologial lead. I struggle with base placement (even building a a pointless road across Mount Planet in search for a suitable base site).

I suffer from single player attention failure and experience 3 drone riots (first one in my headquarters). I misclick and formers harvest forests instead of planting new ones. Twice I find myself with no energy credits to switch to wealth (first) and democracy (second) after the technological discoveries have been made. I fail to spot a Unity pod and explore it by accident, revealing mineral resources.

Late 2140's the Human Genome Project is complete; I get the first Golden Age notice and go for some supply crawlers. By 2150 I am the overall leader on Planet.

The only resistance is scattered mind worm harrassment.

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	26-08-2005 23:35									#9
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With 10 bases up and running the game enters a long building phase. I've directed my research to provide me with "explore" technologies. Life is starting to get very lonely on planet. My expansion and exploring efforts have seemingly ceased completely.

During 2165 Lady Deirdre shows up near my eastern borders. She quickly declares war and I am looking forward to invading her bases. But 2 years later the Gaians have been eradicated by the Spartans! Back to the solitude again.

Finally, during 2177 I dispatch the first naval vessel and by 2179 I encounter a friendly Datajack Rose. We enter a Pact of Brotherhood and I gain access to almost all commlink frequencies. The result is war against the Believers, the Caretakers and the Spartans. Santiago immediately covenes the Planetary Council and I become Planetary Governor.

This is actually a rather disturbing turn of the game. The information I have access to via the Planetary Governorship, the map data already mapped and the power graphs show that the game is over. I have a solid infrastructure and the only possible threat is a momentum Santiago far, far away from my territory. Due to the poor state of the rest of the factions, Santiago has no real options to grow big via conquest and there are no technologies for her to acquire. My secluded location effectively prevents harrassment from any faction and I am in a position to dictate when and where I want to deploy my forces. Hence, I do not hesitate to declare this game over.

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	26-08-2005 23:35									#10
	Remove this text

Looks like the good colonel will be your adversary. But perhaps the Peacekeepers can rise soon.

Nice touch with the image program!

	26-08-2005 23:48									#11
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That is...disturbing.
-

Although I guess Morgan Industries tends to do well when left alone to build over a favourable area...but not that good!

Awesome images, by the way.
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	26-08-2005 23:57									#12
	Remove this text

Kudos on a nice job with a blind research game. I find that playing Blind makes builder factions hard to play sometimes. That said, it seems that you had some pretty ideal conditions, and luck breaks on the tech tree. Morgan left in relative peace to develop infrastructure can become terribly frightening, which is the reason I stopped playing on the larger maps. My games simply would become a foregone conclusion.

	27-08-2005 00:16									#13
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Dang, haven't seen Rubin for a looooong time. Welcome back!

I say don't give up on the game, use yer probes or something...although a fullblown war seems to be very, very costly.

Methinks the Datajack suckered you in to a war in which you had no idea was going on...very clever.

	27-08-2005 00:40									#14
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Game over? Aw I was enjoying this thread.

Do please feel free to start up a new one (that goes for the rest of you )

	27-08-2005 02:33									#15
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Its annoying when the CPU completely fails to perform. I would be calling it game over as well by that point.

Out of interest, how much infrastructure do you need to pop-boom with Morgan? I've not had much experience with the situation. I found it extremely easy to Golden Age by 2200 using VW-Hologram theatres and Research hospitals which GAed all my bases from size 3-11. I was running Demo/FM/Wealth with 70% psych.

	27-08-2005 06:59									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Senethro How did you get the pretty colours to be correct in the screenshots :/

If I understand your troubles correctly, try adding under your:
[Alpha Centauri]
DirectDraw=0

It is probably important to have it below [Alpha Centauri] but I am not sure of that

My preferences have just one option, since I use WinXP:

[PREFERENCES]
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1

	27-08-2005 08:38									#17
	Full PM-box? Change here!

With the amount of energy Morgan gets, the limiting factor in GAs is not psych, but bureaucracy and the psych limit. On Transcend, without the HGP (or other talent-granting effects besides psych), any city suffering extra drones for any reason (usually bureaucracy) cannot enter a GA when it has an odd population. With two extra drones, even an even-sized city can't GA. The HGP relaxes this somewhat, but for Morgan, ICS and pop-booming are incompatible until the Cloning Vats.

	27-08-2005 13:51									#18
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I was doing a messy 2 square spacing targetting nut resources, monoliths and rainy/rolling/1000m tiles for fast growth.

What do you mean by psych limit? Does psych have trouble countering B-drones?

	27-08-2005 21:48									#19
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Psych is capped at 2 per point of population in a base. This means that with psych, you can barely bring a base that's all normal drones to a base that's half talents and half drones, letting facilities/specialists eliminate the rest of the drones. If a base is odd-sized, you need a little more than half talents, so if it starts out all drones (1 bureaucracy drone), you can't enter a GA without another source of talents (HGP, Clinical Immortality, Paradise Garden, TALENT SE score, Lal's talents). Abilities like Domai's NODRONE can also help mitigate bureaucracy and allow GAs more easily, but drones must be removed before psych is applied to help psych make talents. Super-drones really tend to kill GAs.

	27-08-2005 22:33									#20
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What happens to the rest of the Psych energy? Is it wasted or does it go back to econ/labs? At what point are the facility multipliers applied?

I feel like I should know, but I've gone through plenty games ignoring psych completely :/

	27-08-2005 22:47									#21
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The extra psych is ignored. The cap is applied after facility multipliers.

	27-08-2005 22:56									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Chaos Theory ...TALENT SE score...

Huh?
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	27-08-2005 23:19									#23
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It's something that is implemented in SMAC/X, but just barely. You can assign a TALENT rating to SE settings, or grant a SOCIAL category bonus or penalty to TALENT in a faction's file.

	27-08-2005 23:50									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Chaos Theory It's something that is implemented in SMAC/X, but just barely. You can assign a TALENT rating to SE settings, or grant a SOCIAL category bonus or penalty to TALENT in a faction's file.

Cool. Eudaimonic could grant a +1 TALENT rating.

	06-09-2005 06:47									#25
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Welcome back Rubin. We need more Morganite threads to counter Frankychan's spam :P.

	06-09-2005 07:31									#26
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quote: Originally posted by binTravkin If you have both the Adobe Photoshop and SMACX opened simultaneously you can have such nice screens without problems without any adjusting of color settings. Just open Adobe first.

thanks couldnt get the other tips on screenies to work.photoshop did the job. you would not believe why i need it though lol . ill have to email you a copy of it,just for kicks

	06-09-2005 09:25									#27
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Chaos Theory ... You can assign a TALENT rating to SE settings...

Yes, it can be useful for modding with alphax.txt replacements.
What is lacking, however, is that this Talent is not on the list of social effects, it just does not show on the social engineering screen. It may be sometimes confusing.

	09-09-2005 08:47									#28
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quote: Originally posted by #endgame Welcome back Rubin. We need more Morganite threads to counter Frankychan's spam :P.

Hey, I'm just trying to show everyone here the wisdom of following the good Chairman.

Which reminds me, I have to go back to that game and re-do the Planet Bustering.


.....and I don't spam. All my posts are of the highest quality.

	15-09-2005 23:08									#29
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Yeah, I'll back up my arch-nemesis FrankyChan in saying that I would never characterize his posts as spam. While his plebean anti-commerce demagoguery is as misguided as it is infuriating, his tales of conquest are quite entertaining.

	16-09-2005 07:38									#30
	Get a bigger avatar today!

I never said spam wasn't entertaining. I do find them good reading.