04-07-2000 18:50									#1
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I just wanted to know what game settings (Planet settings, rules, etc.) that the AI works the best under. I'm also wondering who the best AI factions are. My vote for best AI faction would be Yang for sure. I haven't experimented much with planet and game settings for this purpose though.

	05-07-2000 10:18									#2
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Just like human players, different factions do better under different conditions, although personally I've *never* seen Morgan do well. Some claim otherwise, so take that as you will. In general, warlike factions are going to do better on smaller, more land-filled, less fungussed maps, because they can fight sooner and keep peaceful factions from getting way ahead in tech. The reverse goes for peaceful factions, as you might assume, although the only factions that really like fungus are the Cult and the Gaians. The way to get the most competition out of the AI is to choose a map that's *not* to your faction's advantage. I've been playing Morgan on a tiny map, against the Progenitors. But, if you want a game that's an actual challenge, not just various degrees of stump the chump, you have to do multiplayer.

	06-07-2000 20:40									#3
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I have found that Yang is probably the best of the AI factions (SMAC). In almost every game with Yang, he is a strong contendor (Miriam is good too)

	07-07-2000 00:41									#4
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You may want to try "Randomise faction agendas" - many of the factional agenda cause the faction's problems to become much worse, eg Miriam loses 2 Research anyway, and always choosing fundy takes her down to -4.

	08-07-2000 09:54									#5
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I don't think that any AI faction (save for the Caretakers) ever have a real chance no matter whay settings you select. However, the best human (AI) faction is the Hive. I like to select aggresive factions because they serve as barriers and make it a little harder for the human (human) players to take land. The peacefull factions just fall over to a good human player and it's just a matter of who can get to them first.

	08-07-2000 01:09									#6
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Well, I'll have a go at answering your first question about how to give the AI a chance. I'd better give you my standard disclaimer that these are only my opinions and others may not agree...

Victory type - Transcendance is the most satisfying but economic is the most difficult for me. No matter which you pick, leave all the options open and decide in advance which one you'll go for and stick with it.

Do or Die - off

Look First - off

Tech Stagnation - off (you'll get a slower game, but I don't think you'll get a tougher game with it on unless you play around a bit and give the AI factions some additional starting techs.

Spoils of War - off

Blind Research - on (double blind, is best so either leave your default research priorities as is or tick off all four boxes to truely randomize your research)

Intense Rivalry - on (especially in SMACX) Although I seldom use this option. I figure everyone is already unrealistically aggressive.

No Unity Survey

No Unity Pod scattering - hey, I admit I cheat on this one. I love popping pods. But the AI is hopeless at it so it really gives you an advantage it there are pods.

Bell Curve - off. Those random events will hit you, the leader, the hardest so leave them in the game. You are particularly masochistic if you go for the Economic victory this way.

Time Warp - off? Although, I leave this option off more because the first few moves are often one of the most exciting parts of the game. I'm not sure it has much effect on the game's difficulty.

Iron Man - off if you get the terranx.exe crashes like I do. On if you don't. Play ironman style regardless. Strictly speaking, "on" is better but you open yourself up to a lot of grief with respect to crashes with SMACX.

Randomize Faction leaders and social agendas - on, will help a bit. If you know what to expect from each of them you can exploit them diplomatically easier. This is one I usually leave off as the work that went into developing each individual character, especially in SMAC, is great.

Battle Odds - off.

Air units can crash if out of fuel - this won't prevent the AI units from sometimes flying around for bonus turns but it will always affect you.

Maps - random

If you play SMACX, decide which victory you are going for and then pick a random faction in a random faction game.

A final feature that may help make things harder for you is the more you like to fight, the bigger that planet should be.

	08-07-2000 11:41									#7
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Accelerated Start can make the game more balanced, because it sets each faction up with about the same number of bases, and each one gets a secret project, which usually is not the case by, what is it, MY 2150 that it starts you at? A canny player can keep almost all the SPs out of the AI's hands, but accelerated start foils that.

	08-07-2000 19:07									#8
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My latest game vs the AI in quest of a tougher matchup was small Planet, abundant fungus. I played UP (which I admit was sort of cheating).

Yang to my north & west, Deidre to my east. They gave me a very bad time in the early game, since both of them seemed bent on vendettas against me. It was really touch and go there, esp. when Yang sneaked up on me through the fungus with 9 (!) heavy infantry units right next to one of my bases. On the other hand, the abundant fungus in the long term worked to my advantage by helping to slow down Yang's lemming assaults, and once I had Xenoempathy Dome his days were numbered.

Deidre, one of the peaceniks, can be a royal pain. The only difference seemed to be that eventually I was able to make friends with her, something that Yang would never do.

	09-07-2000 09:53									#10
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I almost always play on small planets because I hate micromanaging and my computer can get bogged down easily late in the game. Lately I've tried no pod scattering and I never realized how much of a boon those pods were. If your the Cult or Dee even infested pods are usually good.

The more you like to fight the bigger the planet should be? I don't play on large maps often but I was under the impression the opposite was true. I actually like fighting so I thought that was an advantage of small maps. Also I find economic victory the easiest one. Thats the way I usually go because its quick and gets the boring end game out of the way.

I do play Multiplayer on PBEM but It's hard to test out stratagies and parctice because the games move so slowly. I've actually found that my game gets worse as the game progresses because in SP the game gets progressively less challenging.

Thanx for all of your responses.

Oh yeah SJ sounds like you were pitting things against yourself to me. .

	09-07-2000 14:57									#11
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Correct, small maps favour players who like to fight. That's why it was suggested that, to help the AI, agressive humans should play on large maps, thereby making it harder for themselves.

	16-07-2000 06:08									#12
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I agree with most of what was said, especially with acclerated start making for a more balanced game. In particular, none of the AI factions is ever really "pathetic" with Time Warp. It's just annoying because you inherit poor terraforming, tech choices etc.

Regarding maps, Random maps favor the human player. The preset maps like Huge Map of Planet, Large Realistic Map and the Ultimate Builder Map are designed to separate potential start sites to allow for faction development and have extra bonus resources to counteract the AI's weak terraforming. Preset maps will always favor the AI; they seem to "know" these maps. Most likely, the beta testers for SMAC and SMACX used Map of Planet to test their balancing.

------------------
Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

	17-07-2000 10:20									#13
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Q_tip, Economic Victory the easiest? I have heard other on this board state the opposite.

My I suggest arranging a hugh world with little or no fungus, no pods and choosing a faction that cannot run Free Market.

Ned

	17-07-2000 22:16									#14
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I've just tried playing a random faction with an accelerated start. It's only a short way into the game but so far it's been pretty satisfying.

Ned- I can't play on Large maps because my machine simpley can't handle it. Even on small maps when Yang starts building 30+ needlejets the game will get bogged down.

As a challenge I played Morgan on a tiney land map, with abundant fungus and Miriam, Yang, Marr, Hinnee (?spelling), Cha Dawn, and Domai (Trancend). Morgan is by far my worst faction and admittedly a Conquest victory in that game would have been nearly impossible (Miriam and the Aliens were all very strong in the end) but I was still able to win by selling off a bunch of base facilities and cornering the energy market and then building nothing but SAM laser rovers to hold off my enemies. (Miriam had D:AP and many more jets than I could fight off with other jets!)

I think next time I'll turn the econ. victory off and see how well I can do.

	17-07-2000 22:22									#15
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Sorry Browser problems. It didn't look like the other post went through.
[This message has been edited by Q_tip1976 (edited July 17, 2000).]

	17-07-2000 22:51									#16
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Ditto. Sorry about the triple post.
[This message has been edited by Q_tip1976 (edited July 17, 2000).]

	18-07-2000 07:50									#17
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Q_Tip, What kind of machine do you have. I have a two year old Dell PII 350. It handles the game, even with large maps, quite well.

I agree with you about "energy" factions having problems. I just had by b*tt handed to me by a custom faction name SIZ while playing another custom faction, Microsoft. Siz has a positive planet rating and Giain Psi (+50% offense and defense)and is immune to mind control. Gates has -1 morale (although +2 econ).

To make a long story short, Gates has real problems with "very green" units up against Giain Psi and positive planet native life he apparently captured early in the game. I was virtually defenseless.

I suspect Cha Dong and Lady Diedre herself would cause very similar problems to Bill Gates or his original game equivalent, Morgan. I think the only defense is to somehow stay far away from these folks, on a different planet if possible, until one can develop adequate defenses against the worms.
So, for a real chanllenging game, play Morgan or Gates on a high fungus planet with every other faction planet friendly - Diedre, Cha Dong, Himmee, Siz, Santiago (high morale) and the Kef Guerillas.

	18-07-2000 20:29									#18
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Ned

I have a Celeron 400 and it sucks hard core. (Should have never let the GF order the thing on her own. By the time I knew the computer was in the apartment ) The rest of the machine is pretty good. I'm planning on puting a new motherboard and processor as soon as I have the cash but that could be a while. (Grad student=Poverty)

Any way I'll give your native challenge a try after I finish up my current game (which has been pretty good actually but the tide is begining to turn in my favor).
[This message has been edited by Q_tip1976 (edited July 18, 2000).]