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Tizzy
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My favourite is the University. I love racing up the tech tree, and win concistently with UoP.
I can play reasonably well with a few other factions (CyCon, Angels, Gaians), but I've never got to grips with the Pirates or Morgan.
And I've yet to play as the Hive, Believers or Drones
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MorganFreak
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I think the name says it all. But the University is a close second. I'm a builder, because conquest games are boring to me.
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Qualicide
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victor NY, USA
Mar 2000
time: 05:14
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Drones all the way.(the fact that they ARE, don't argue with me, the most powerful faction helps too...)
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bobyk464
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I find playing the University pretty difficult if I don't manage to build the Virtual World. I'm sure there are others that can play him better and manage without the VW, but for me, it's pivotal: TWO free (and important) base facilities from the start is a pretty hefty advantage. The Hunter-Seeker is pretty important, too (doesn't matter which faction I'm playing, or whether or not I've got the HSA, it's still a good idea to keep at least one probe team in every base anyway).
I've had better success as Aki-Zeta 5. Tell me why Zak is so far ahead of her in this poll? Is it that the majority don't run the Alien Crossfire expansion? Or does getting the free Network Node outweigh the University's inherent drone handicap by that much? And for the hard-core University minions out there: how do you deal with the situation if you don't get the VW?
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monkeyman
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Monkeysville, USA
Sep 2001
time: 23:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Monkeyman, I find the Pirates the single most difficult faction to play. They have low efficiency and cannot easily pop boom. To get enough energy, they have to FM. But this just kills their naval advantages. A real problem. Not enjoyable at all. Ned |
Yeah, I suppose that's true, but I'm coming at this from the angle that after 5 SP games, one at easiest(Win), next at middle(W), next at transcend (Loss) and transcend (L), and transcend (W), I stumbled upon Vel's strat guide. Up to this point I never used crawlers or even heard of pop booming. I shouldn't have read it. Anyway, I've played the rest of my games without real fear of losing unless I take some things out of the game. So pop booms, crawlers, chop & drop are all no-no's  if I want a challenge. I am trying to exercise the discipline to play a Gandhi game (no attacking), but the temptation to send a fleet of deathspheres at Yang is just too much
So, for my quarter(25c, that is...), its "Rum, sodomy and the lash"...
-mm
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Xian
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The Hive for me.
1. Im against capitalism in REAL LIFE
2. EVery thing about them just looks extremeley cool, especialy base design and their symbol
3. They live underground, free defense against mindworms, helpful early on
4. Unaffected by negative Efficiencey in 4.0
5. Easy to build huge population
6. They live underground
7. Chairman Yand himsel;f just looks the collest, teh only better is morgan
8. The AI plays him very well, when i play other factions in single player, its cool to see my persona represent me without me at the controls
9. They live inderground
10. More votes because of population
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Blake
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Brainfallocatione
Oct 2000
time: 17:14
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11) Chairman Yang wears a dog collar.
I like the hive because it is powerfull and isn't fiddly to play. Drone control is easy (thanks to police). Building stuff is easy (your too poor to have to go around rush buying all the time). You dont have to bother with pop-booming and messy SE switches.
And if you want someone smited you dont need to mess around with SE changes or setting up specialist bases / PS bases. Just good old fashioned family fun.
And oh yeah, your stereotyped as being evil. While I dont play the Hive as an evil warmonger I'm more than happy to justify actions "because I'm evil". I especially enjoy enslaving factions "for their own good" (or the good of their people). Also planetblustering the peacekeepers "for the greater good of chiron", coming from anyone other than Chairman yang that would sound insincere.
Last edited by Blake on 11-09-2001 at 07:17
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Xian
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quote:
Originally posted by Blake
And oh yeah, your stereotyped as being evil. While I dont play the Hive as an evil warmonger I'm more than happy to justify actions "because I'm evil". I especially enjoy enslaving factions "for their own good" (or the good of their people). Also planetblustering the peacekeepers "for the greater good of chiron", coming from anyone other than Chairman yang that would sound insincere. |
so true, so true
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bobyk464
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
I find the Pirates the single most difficult faction to play. They have low efficiency and cannot easily pop boom. To get enough energy, they have to FM. But this just kills their naval advantages. A real problem. Not enjoyable at all. Ned |
Kelp farms are pretty good at what they do. Perhaps this is a fault in my playing style, but I find the slow growth agreeable in the early game - drone control is easier, related infrastructure costs are lower, and less energy needs to be diverted to psych. A base with a nutrient bonus will grow too fast for me - I'll use it to produce new colony pods for land or sea.
Energy is a problem for Pirates in the early game, and sometimes even partway into the mid game. Ocean tiles will always produce nutrients; however, you've got to make a choice between minerals or energy in the early game. I opt for Mining Platforms and take the minerals for the first 4-6 tiles worked, except in energy or nutrient bonus tiles - always Tidal Harnesses there. Once a base gets larger, then I go for more of a balance between new Mining Platforms and new Tidal Harnesses. Once you get yourself to the +1 energy per tile situation, things clear up a bit, since now all tiles will be producing energy. And once energy restrictions are lifted, Tidal Harnesses produce quite nicely, and coastal Boreholes can crank out hefty quantities.
Heavy use of foil crawlers is a VERY good thing - send formers to put Tidal Harnesses on energy bonus tiles anywhere in the world's oceans, and put crawlers there (works great for mining platforms on mineral bonus tiles, too!). Be prepared to occasionally replace those crawlers - they're vulnerable even if they're armored. Most will survive a very long time, but sometimes you just wind up in somebody's path and have to keep replacing the same units over and over again. Then you need to ask, "What's this worth?..." Later on, a large, protected energy park of foils can be developed closer to home.
Running FM with Pirates certainly tends to keep you at home. I haven't found a really good way to deal with this. Designating several bases as military complexes, building Punishment Spheres there, and supporting campaign, hunter, and patrol units from there is one approach. If these bases are in your front lines, you're vulnerable; if they're in a more sheltered cove, it's a long path to send a newly built ship there, reassign its support, and then send it on its way again. Supporting an invasion force brings up the same kind of problems. Sometimes it's best to just drop out of FM and have at it with all those Marines for a while, returning to FM once you've established new territory as your own and the pacifist riots won't occur anymore.
Later in the game, you've got enough energy to divert to psych so you don't have to worry about this so much. And by that time, airpower rules, so you'll be disbanding parts of the navy, and supporting fewer ships from the vulnerable sea bases. At that point, I like to have a few bases far inland that become air power centers. Same as before - Punishment Spheres, and all air units supported from those bases. Still risky, but I've never had the AI use a Planetbuster on one and take out a large portion of the air force in one shot. Maybe there'll come a day...
Now, as for pop-booming, I doubt it's possible, and it's certainly not practical, to execute an early pop-boom with the Pirates.
Later in the game, you can pop-boom by diverting more energy to psych and creating Golden Ages everywhere. I don't know if there's a best time to do this - probably changes from game to game. I guess just do it before it's too late.
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bobyk464
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Curious, too, that I haven't quite found the rhythm for playing Yang. I'm not that fond of playing against him, either. The AI plays him well enough, though, and sometimes I find myself either at the time when I'm first able to strike back or at the end of a drawn-out conflict, saying with satisfaction, "Take that, Chairman Yang."
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Blake
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Brainfallocatione
Oct 2000
time: 17:14
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My strategy for hive basically goes like this:
Build 1 scout, 1 former per base (extra scouts to hunt worms, and scout)
Build colony pods like crazy
Then once I have exceeded the buro limit by a bit:
Build another scout for every base (2 for new ones)
Build a heap more colony pods
And once I've built the WP (getting adjacant bases to help by disbanding formers, if nessecary)
Build more formers
Terraform every energy/mineral resource with a borehole, lowering terrain if nessecary (always lower the resource itself)
Terraform all the nut resources with farm+condensor.
For my science bases terraform a few more tiles with farm+condensor. (you dont need to crawl them, each condensor supports 1 libarian even when worked, this incidentely is equivilant to a 4-1-3 tile).
I usually use 2 police units per base, I would much rather pay 1 energy for 2 drone control via rec commons than 1 mineral for 1 drone control with the last military unit (exception for SP building base - which supports less units, and other exceptions ofcourse...). 4 drone control is just right for supporting libarians.
When I find the poor sod with the rotten luck to start next to me I take them out with a swarm of whatevers, be it laser infantry or impact rovers, with enough numbers early enough laser infantry get the job done. It really depends when you find your neighbour. Support the army with the captured bases and keep them around, you never know when an army may come in usfull, and it's not like you have support or drone problems (indeed the conquering army takes care of drone control in the captured bases).
With a slave faction and my borders secure I start growing vertically - using lots of libarians, spare colony pods get asorbed into bases which need to grow (usually to support another libarian), recently in a double blind (tech stag, blind, keeping priorities as build/conquer) my HQ is size 12 from pod-booming, and I dont even have planetary networks yet (year 2202 and still no libarians, this hurts my strategy somewhat, I have so little to build that I have nothing better to do than build a number of 4-3-2 tanks, for when I get doc:flex and can go out and hurt people). Incidentely in that game I found Lal right next to me and swarmed him with laser infantry, he surrended when I took one base and I accepted... but I think he tricked me, because he only has two bases and refuses to build more - or do terraforming, fat lot of help his 1 tech every 80 turns is.
So I'm gifting him a heap of colony pods and using my formers to build condensors in his land. Triple blind is fun because you have lots of time to implement long-term strategies like that.
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Dimension
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Columbus OH
Feb 2001
time: 00:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Darkstar
Previous to the release of SMACX, I liked most of the factions. I tended to play the University and Hive the most. (Then Gaians and PK... then Morgan, Spartans, and Believers at last... Spartan and Believers were just TOO easy to win with. ...
After SMACX, Pirates, hands down is my favorite.
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I like the pirates the most ... probably because they're such an original / innovative faction. I love planting a base right in the middle of Geothermal and pod-booming it up to 30 for ridiculous amounts of tech. When I'm nowhere near the Geothermal Shallows, I'll just make sure the University doesn't get Hunter-Seeker and then I can run Police State, forget about tech, and let spy cruisers do all my work.
I started off playing mostly the Gaians when SMAC came out. I think it was just because Dierdre was the most attractive leader  . That was before I had ever even tried using supply crawlers. I still got to where I could win consistantly on Transcend just by running people over with mindworms in the early game then switching to a builder game and beelining for MMI.
Then I started playing the University. I guess you guys just have an entirely different playstyle than I do if you think the University is fun... Especially if you can say the Spartans and Believers are too easy to win with but the University isn't. The only way I can see making the University a challenge would be to not allow them to build The Virtual World or The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm. It's just too easy to sit back and build and totally out-tech everybody. You always have AAA Tracking before the needlejet fleets show up at your bases. It's hard not to get whatever SP's you want. Even the high-level techs that give you better armor seem to show up in plenty time to hold off any attack with just a couple defenders. You'll usually get MMI when most other factions don't even have AAA Tracking, then you can just chop/drop with zero resistance. It's also incredibly easy to surpress any neighbors that might give you trouble in the early game since you can get impact weapons so fast. The University is just too unbalanced. Their only drawbacks are small ones (drones and a low probe rating), both of which are totally negated by two SP's.
I definitely like the Spartans second best. Like my old Gaian strategy, they're very well suited to running over a few factions in the early game then switching to a builder game.
The Data Angels seem like they could be a really fun challenge, but I'm going to have to replace that hideous picture with something before I spend much time playing them.
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05-09-2001 15:42
Everybody could make use of it 
. Also, since I play with non-directed research (the only way to get any variability in SP), they are still very viable.
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