19-07-2002 09:12									#1
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I need to make my own personal transcendence to a difficulty leve above citizen, however I don't dare go above.

What are the changes between citizen and ? What can I do to tell if I can go up or not?

	19-07-2002 09:22									#2
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If the game seems very easy for you, you'll probably be able to go up a difficulty. I think at higher difficulties you get increasing technology and industry penalties, ie. the costs are increased.

	19-07-2002 12:29									#3
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quote: If the game seems very easy for you, you'll probably be able to go up a difficulty. I think at higher difficulties you get increasing technology and industry penalties, ie. the costs are increased.

Tech costs are increased, but industry costs aren't. The AI just gets industry bonuses.

	19-07-2002 17:11									#4
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The difficulty level is taken into account in some formulas and game effects.

I'll try to report some offhand.

The main one is the Drone-free citizens:
at Citizen diff you get 6 content citizen before the first Drone appears, ad Transcend Diff the second citizen is a Drone unless you quell it with a unit (depending on Police SE) or with facilities (RecCommons, HoloThreatres, ResHospital, etc) or projects (Human Gnome, Virtual World...)

Bureaucracy:
this also increase drones, not because of many citizens in a base, but because of how many bases you have. The Difficulty level is a factor in the formula, at highest levels the Bureaucracy Drones will appear earlier, with a lower # of bases, allowing you to expand less before those penalties appear.

EcoDamage
I can't recall offhand whether Difficulty is a factor in the ED formula, it might be.

AI "stronger" (by cheating...)
At higher difficulty levels the AI gets both increasing industry AND growth bonuses

tech cost
as reported by others, at higer diff your techs will cost more to research.

There must be some more, can't just make my mind now here from work.

	20-07-2002 01:34									#5
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Tassadar, you really disappoint me... I thought you were a good player of SMAC.

	20-07-2002 03:08									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Pandemoniak Tassadar, you really disappoint me... I thought you were a good player of SMAC.

Er....ok......Um, one question. Do I know you?

To everyone else: Well yeah, I kinda am dominating the world early on and achieving transcendence, but.....Sometimes I do bad. Like one game with Zakharov and I only had five bases, but I achieved transcendence anyway.....anyway, i'm thinking now is the time to go up a level.

Any specific Civ that does good/bad on......specialist?

	20-07-2002 13:13									#7
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quote: Any specific Civ that does good/bad on......specialist?

I've done well on every difficulty (at least up to Librarian, where I currently reside) with the Gaians and the University, and since I've been practicing, the Morgans. I think the Hive is hard to play at every difficulty level.

	20-07-2002 13:15									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Mr. President I've done well on every difficulty (at least up to Librarian, where I currently reside) with the Gaians and the University, and since I've been practicing, the Morgans. I think the Hive is hard to play at every difficulty level.

The Morgans....I hear that they are very difficult to play with as well. The Social Engineering bonuses/deficensies really hurt Morgan, and the 100 extra credits is near useless (or so I hear....)

How do you play with him?

	20-07-2002 13:18									#9
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I usually go Police State / Free Market / Wealth / Cybernetic. That'll get you in wars with almost everyone, but I'm able to build the army to deal with it. Spend the inital extra credits wisely. Don't rush too many units or facilities, unless they're really important like Children's Creches.

	20-07-2002 14:41									#10
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quote: Er....ok......Um, one question. Do I know you?

Hmmm, I dont think so, but I ve been following some of your threads and replys, so I can say I know and recognize your name...

quote: Any specific Civ that does good/bad on......specialist?

If you are very familiar with The University, try playing Gaians on harder level. You wont have the same level of research neither the free network node for each base, but the bonuses in Efficiency could compensate.
Play of course on abudent lifeforms, so that you can capture some and get a military force soon enough.

I think if you play this faction you'll have a game quite similar to Uni, but with a few advantages that can help you pass through the highest difficulty -more drones on higher levels will be compensated by the non-lack of ethic of Gaians, more aggressive opponents will be compensated by a early mindworm army, etc... - and if you are familiar with Uni, you wont have too much problems to have good science results...

But I cant guess, I dont know you

	20-07-2002 19:55									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Mr. President I've done well on every difficulty (at least up to Librarian, where I currently reside) with the Gaians and the University, and since I've been practicing, the Morgans. I think the Hive is hard to play at every difficulty level.

i used to play the hive a lot, but not anymore. i've been stuck on thinker for a while now, and i play and win with the UoP, pirates, CyCon and sometimes gaians. i thought about playing morgan but i like planned sometimes, and i REALLY like market so i don't play gaians as much.

	23-07-2002 04:52									#12
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I started playing on Librarian, and went to Thinker after a few games and played there for a few months. Then I took the plunge to Transcend, and the only thing I had to change was my early game style to account for getting the drone with my second citizen. Honestly the game isn't all that much harder at higher levels because the AI is only making the same strategic errors with more gusto. How many times have you seen the AI build so many units that it only has one free mineral in a base? With a higher industry level (which is one of the bonuses the AI gets IIRC) he builds his units faster, which only serves to reduce him to gridlock faster.

Besides that another built-in defense against the player running away with the game tends to balance things, ie the AI doesn't gang up on you as much at the higher levels because you aren't as far ahead. Of course my early game is so practiced that I get ahead of the AI very quickly unless I start out in a terrible spot no matter what the difficulty level. I can still lose the game sometimes, which honestly makes it more fun.

All of the factions are playable, but you have to have a higher mastery of the game in order to make the most of their talents. Morgan is an absolute powerhouse played correctly (and there are several methods to do this btw). Many people who are newer to the game seem to think that the path to victory lies in military prowess (which is why Santiago is popular amongst relative neophites I presume), but beating the AI in a war of attrition is actually a much greater challenge than just running away with the game on the strength of your economy. I tend to build insanely weak defensive forces early in the game (scout patrols and a couple of probes), and concentrate my energy on building up my economic base. Let the AI walk over to your area with his pathetic force and then just buy it. Now you have his weapon and armor tech (effectively) while you have concentrated on economic techs. You can easily build a small force to defend yourself on ground of your own choosing while your technology and physical size start to pull away from him. I usually wait until fusion and air power before I put out a serious military effort, unless I am really wedged in between a couple of implacable foes.

So don't worry about the higher levels of the game, you will have to make a very few adjustments, and once you have you will find that the AI is still pretty easy to kill. What the AI really needs at higher levels is a better terraforming script. If the AI was half as productive as I am in this area I would be getting killed a lot more often.

	25-07-2002 22:36									#13
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Definitely you are ready to move up in the world. The best thing about higher difficulty levels is that it forces you to spend more effort thinking through your strategy. You know you're going to miss out on some of the SP's, so plan accordingly - and find out where your rivals are so you can capture the SP later. The tense challenge of choosing between several available techs and hoping it's the right call.

You'll soon come to appreciate the joy of squeaking out a tough win, the nail-biting suspense of defeating Yang before his PB's are prototyped, etc. . .

	25-07-2002 23:36									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Mr. President I usually go Police State / Free Market / Wealth / Cybernetic. That'll get you in wars with almost everyone, but I'm able to build the army to deal with it. Spend the inital extra credits wisely. Don't rush too many units or facilities, unless they're really important like Children's Creches.

I would suggest Demo/Green/Wealth. That gives you +2 Economy without the police penalty.

	26-07-2002 02:04									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Earwicker Definitely you are ready to move up in the world. The best thing about higher difficulty levels is that it forces you to spend more effort thinking through your strategy. You know you're going to miss out on some of the SP's, so plan accordingly - and find out where your rivals are so you can capture the SP later. The tense challenge of choosing between several available techs and hoping it's the right call. You'll soon come to appreciate the joy of squeaking out a tough win, the nail-biting suspense of defeating Yang before his PB's are prototyped, etc. . .

Alright.....Would you guys recommend a random map, or the map of Planet?

	26-07-2002 03:03									#16
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The map of Planet is easier since you know it, and you know where the bonus terrains are, the huge fields of fungus, etc...
As well, there is only few locations where you can be stuck on a small island. I think only of (1) the island, western to the big L-shaped continent where the new sargasse are and (2) Mount Planet, which is not such a bad place to start.

But the Random map has the big advantage of discovery
If you select large landmass/arid it will be more continental than archipels. Arid also favors factions which has a good science rate.

	26-07-2002 03:04									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Pandemoniak The map of Planet is easier since you know it, and you know where the bonus terrains are, the huge fields of fungus, etc... As well, there is only few locations where you can be stuck on a small island. I think only of (1) the island, western to the big L-shaped continent where the new sargasse are and (2) Mount Planet, which is not such a bad place to start. But the Random map has the big advantage of discovery If you select large landmass/arid it will be more continental than archipels. Arid also favors factions which has a good science rate.

So......Map of planet, or randomly generated map?

	26-07-2002 03:07									#18
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I prefer Map of Planet, but its personnal. It just seems more real.

	29-07-2002 03:58									#19
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i like the map of planet too. a good place to start seems to be right near planetneck south of the jungle, or north of the unity wreckage (or freshwater sea for SMAC) on the L continent

	30-07-2002 03:27									#20
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I usually play transcend, but sometimes reloading (that's why I never post "achievements".
The playability of the Hive depends crucially on if you are able to find early on some energy resources and/or rivers. If you do, everyone else is doomed, if you don't you'll have a tough time. Contrary to everyone else, I take full advantage of the inefficiency immunity of the Hive (I think implemented in SMAC V4 and SMAX) and run Police State/Planned. You can support 4 free units/base as soon as you grab the first 40 energy credits to make the switch. Right from the beginning of the game this means you can have (quite fully productive) size 5-bases instead of size 2 for the other factions. As soon as you can afford, switch to wealth and you're an industrial powerhouse (+3 industry) and you're just thinking about what to produce. Problem in SMAX: Don't build any improvement you don't really need, 'cause you lack of energy (not a problem in SMAC due to the maintenance bug).
If not playing Yang in the early and early middle game, I usually spend every energy on my account to rush-buy. This is very efficient, not because of a few turns of productivity of one facility, but because you free your base. Which means, say, 50 EC spent quite early in the game to finish a recycling tank 5 turns earlier gives a bonus of a five turn's production of every facility/crawler/city built from this city afterwards, and you have your troops 5 turns earlier in place etc. This is also why I think the 90 more EC of Morgan are huge, because you get a few turns advantage for cities which still will spawn quite a lot of other cities and the 4 turns advantage count for the daughter cities as well!
Strangely enough, among the builder factions I've most problems (I've played Uni, Hive, Morgan, Gaia, Consciousness) I had most problems with the Uni, due to the drone problems. But maybe I just need someone to say "don't play ICS" or "play more ICS".

I usually play random maps. Has the advantage that the Map of Planet is still quite new for me.

	31-07-2002 02:06									#21
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Is it posible to have a one line summary of this thread?

	31-07-2002 10:35									#22
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Yes.

	31-07-2002 18:06									#23
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quote: Originally posted by bondetamp Yes.

Was that a summary or an answer?

	31-07-2002 22:08									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Spartak Is it posible to have a one line summary of this thread?

i'll have to go with "no". if there was one it would be:

"there are too many changes between citizen and transcend to summarise in one line."