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D4everman
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Fort Dix, New Jersey
Jun 2000
time: 05:13
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The Random Events are real pain in the ass. I usually disable them. (Ever since as Morgan in one of my first games I had amassed an obscene amount of cash...then I was attacked but i could afford to mind control and buy troops until the Random events shrunk my bank account to something stupid like 200 credits.)
My last game made me even more pissed at them. I made the attempt to build bio labs in every base, but I had other tihngs to build too...and planet Blight kept wiping the famrs out. Funny how the AI players never have that liability even when they have hardly ANY facilities! (I checked.)
So whats the general consensus on Random Events? I hate to be a crybaby, but they don't make the game any more fun for me...just frustrating.
D4
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i do hate them, i only find 2 of them to be useful
idustrial boom, espc in a SP produceing city
heat wave in a larger city
other then that they suck, even extra nuts can do some damage because your city grows to big then it can support
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what break throughs? ive never seen them
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Adam_Smith
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The Raisin Capital of the World
Dec 1999
time: 05:13
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I prefer random events for two reasons. First, it adds more realism to the game. In the real world planning doesn't solve all your problems, because there are RANDOM EVENTS. The second reason is that it makes the game more fair for the builders, because you have to build more infrastructure. In general it makes the game a little more peacefull.
Now you ask me if I hate it when I get a hail storm or something; of course I do, but my opponents are also getting them so not too big of a big deal.
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Basil
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Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Apr 2000
time: 21:13
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I wouldn't dream of playing without "random" events. As A_S says, they add interest to the game. They definitely effect AI-controlled factions - I've seen it several times - but you don't notice this much because
[*]random events only effect bases of size 4 or greater, and many AI bases are not that big
[*]AI-controlled bases don't have many facilities, which makes them unlikely to experience the positive events
[*]AI-controlled factions tend to be behind on the power graph, which makes them less likely to experience the negative events
[*]As player, you are not as likely to notice a random event happening to another faction as you are to notice a random event happening to you[/list]
One of the more curious events is the creche event. In my current SP game one of the Gaian bases was population 9 for decades before they developed hab complexes, as the result of a creche event.
There are lots of other curious not-so-random effects of random events that I've noticed. For instance, when I am playing the Gaians and running Green, I occasionally discover new resource squares and the old ones never peter out. But when I am playing the Morgans and running Market, my resource squares gradually get depleted and I never find new ones.
I'll just mention in passing that it's theoretically possible to deliberately trigger a "random" event that will destroy all of an opponent's orbital defence pods. I'll reserve how for future opponents! The set of circumstances needed to pull this off are rather self-contradictory, unfortunately.
So that's why I think that random events are a really nice feature of the game.
[This message has been edited by Basil (edited June 22, 2000).]
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joer
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Frankfurt, Germany
Apr 2000
time: 05:13
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::WHINE!:: I don't like when random events want to hurt me so bad. They're always so mean to me!
More seriously...I am one of the few wuzzes on this forum who isn't too fond of random events. Alpha Centauri is for me a game about having a superior strategy and planning, and predicting what the other factions are capable of, and drawing that into the plan. However, the randomness of a comet dropping on my biggest city has nothing to do with a bad strategic choice I made. It's just bad luck. I know bad luck is part of my real world and is realistic, but that doesn't mean I want to deal with it in a (rather unrealistic) game where I want to have fun. So in am not the biggest fan of increasing the luck factor in the game or punishing a group that was well played.
I also disagree that random events hurt momentum players more than it hurts builders. A builders biggest asset are his bases. If one gets struck by a crop failure and thus loses 10 rounds of productivity along with 10 sizes of population, then one's building effort isn't exactly rewarded.
A momentum player's biggest asset is his army. If one of his bases' pop gets halved, that doesn't stop his army of impact rovers rolling over me. And I have yet to see the random event that reduces the morale of all militairy units to green or drops the weapon level of all rovers back to machine guns.
But since everybody is so fond of it, I haven't got much other choice than to join MP games where random events are on. However, in SP, I prefer to wuzz out. And not feel the slightest guilt about it. So there! Enough whining for today! 
-joer.
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D4everman
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Fort Dix, New Jersey
Jun 2000
time: 05:13
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I'm almost sorry I brought the whole thing up. Sigh....for the record let me clarify why i don't like the random events...but before i do that let me tell you that the majority of you are right...the RE's do add flavor to the game.
If the RE's only effect the SP than they are, well, bullshit. If i had recieved a message about another character having a random event, good or bad, it would have helped. Seriously. If even in my darkest moment fighting yang if a reandome event had given him 100+ energey for a turn I 'd be pissed but oh well. but heres what happened....my crops died almost every ten years because of my lack of bio labs...a lack that didn' exist since i had built them religiously in every base since the I was able. So perhaps I'm whining...I just expect to be treated fairly by the AI. I know that the AI cheats in soe ways in order to compete with a human mind, but in the game in question it was ridiculous.
I concede that perhaps my playing is lacing and i should live with it and try to improve. Still I get pissecwhen it seems the random events are centered on only making my game harder. I guess its a double edged sword.
D4
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Basil
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Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Apr 2000
time: 21:13
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No, Planet Blight is supposedly (according to Prima's manual) the random event that happens because of lack of bio labs, and if it's happening in bases with bio labs that's a bug. (I haven't seen such a bug in my own games.) Prometheus Virus is the event effected by research hospitals.
D4everman, in my experience it will only tell you about random events effecting other factions if you have units or bases or sensor arrays close enough to observe the base being effected by the random event. But it does happen, even if you can't see it, I've seen it happen when I set the computer up to play against itself using the scenario editor and I also once invaded an AI base which had obviously been recently hit by Planet Blight.
I'm sorry if it keeps on hitting you with lots of bad random events; I'd find that discouraging too. Out of curiousity, what faction & what SE settings are you at? It's my theory that running negative planet ratings and causing eco-damage encourages bad random events, but there's nothing in the documentation to support that.
I think the differences between JoeR and myself boil down to him thinking that random events are primarily just that, random, whereas I think of them as not being particularly more random than the results of combat.
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i often see the REs hitting the cpu, espcialy the virus that kills cities
i leave them on but i still hate them, almost all REs are negative, even things that boost production have side effects like eco-damage and starvation
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Googlie
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Commanding Officer, CRYPTEIA
Apr 1999
time: 21:13
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Prima's Guide says:
Random Events
No random events occur before Turn (75 - (diff x 10)). i.e. 75 minus the diff level of the game times 10 where Citizen is 0 diff and Transcend is 5. Thus at Citizen level, random events kick in no earlier than Turn 75 while at Transcend they can show up as early as Turn 25.
Each turn, the game randomly picks a base. If there are fewer than 100 bases in total on Planet, it picks a number from 0 - 99, and if no base corresponds to that number (e.g. if it picked Base 80, where there are only 20 bases in total) then there is no random event.
If the selected base is les than size 4, or if it is the only base of its faction, or if it is already under the effects of a random event (e.g. famine), then no event takes place.
After all the conditions are fulfilled, one of the following events is randomly picked ( ... but not quite sure where AC's observation re reloads fits in here ... Googlie ) At the basic level, all events are equally likely except as itemized below, but in practice if you "roll" a really good event when you are already ahead, or a bad event when behind, it will tend to ignore the event and do nothing.
If an event is picked that would have no impact (e.g. "Asteroid strikes Nessus Prime" when no-one has a mining base) there is no event that turn.
Event list
(sample)
Asteroid strikes base: never before turn 75, and only if faction is in first place
Biology lab: if no Lab at base, then blight destroys all farms and forests. If lab, then 10 year nutrient bonus
Energy Crash/boom: if less than 1000 credits, 75% reduction. If at least 500 credits, and in fourth place or lower, reserves are doubled
Hail Storms: never before Turn 75
Volcano: No effect before Turn 75. Never happens unless faction is in first or second place.
Asteroid strikes Nessus Prime: if chosen as event, 20% chance of it happening
Solar Storm/Flare: if chosen, 20% chance of it happening
These are found on pp 15 and 16 of the guide. Page 17 then details the probability of various pod popping results.
G.
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Misotu
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Leamington Spa, England
Dec 1999
time: 05:13
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I'm afraid I'm with joer on this (see his post earlier in the thread). Random events are just a bummer, good or bad. So you get a nutrient bonus. Great. Your city expands way beyond what you can realistically support when it disappears again. The network surge ... what is that? I never got a tech from it, even though it's described in terms of a "breakthrough". My suspicion is that it doesn't give you anything if you discover a tech that turn anyway. Hailstorms hurt builders more than momentum players. -1 mineral for 10 years - well great. Momentum players have many tiny bases, they could care less. Builders are *scr*wed* with -1 mineral. Random events screw a serious strategy, and the benefit they confer is - as far as I'm concerned - unnecessary.
I've had games with bio labs in almost every base and I *still* lose all my forest in that one base without the bio lab. Actually, bio labs are a pathetic improvement, you'd never build them under normal circumstances with a faction capable of pop boom except where you have the Supercollider and/or ToE and you're stuck for something more sensible to build. Like a fusion supply foil. With random events on, you have to build bio labs everywhere. What a waste of time.
But the serious one has to be the energy thingy that causes you to lose most of your reserves. Pretty much rules out the possibility of an economic victory, and damned inconvenient at the best of times.
Random events ... they really suck.
Edited to add: I could care less against the AI. But in MP? Spare me.
[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited November 10, 2000).]
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mark13
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Northampton, England
Sep 2000
time: 05:13
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Again, it depends what sort of a game you want. If you want an out and out strategy game, you turn them off. But if you want that element of uncertainty, that niggling feeling that something could go wrong any minute, turn them on - there is nothing like an asteroid strike wiping out your SSC and leaving your tech stranded at 20 turns....it can be a great leveller.
Energy crashes are a real pain in the a$$, but at the same time, I would have said it mirrors what may happen in real-life. The only qualm I have against this is that, as far as I know, you can do nothing to prevent it - which makes a random event potentially devastating. As for it ruling out an economic victory, come on it doesn't happen that often. As Robert Burns once wrote: "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley." And so it proves. I am someone who likes a little bit of randomness, that little feeling of uncertainty - it all adds to the excitement. In a motor race it is the same thing - in the lead by 40 seconds with three laps to go and what happens? Your engine goes. C'est la vie....
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21-06-2000 16:30
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