Six hunderedoh! and one . . . hehe.



Ribayer no worries . . . I hope it helps, personaly I'm not too sure 60k is possible to get in Huge Maso 1.11 (at least so far with my experiences). Just played another and managed to get all the TGs and wonders, (shudder) completely nerve raking . . . Still it doesn't seem enough . . .

I even built a millitary this time . . . I'd almost forgotten how much fun it was blowing the crap out of everything that moved (sarcasm) anyway, this leads me to think what uncapped scores on Gigantic might look like . . . I really don't understand why they cap the scores? I'm glad they do though . . . I think Huge is definately easier than Gigantic . . . more fun too imho.

Hope you don't mind me putting this here, I thought I should (for continuity) and also so as to reduce the flamage factor . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Off topic a bit . . . I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with certain people here in these forums that seem to have it in thier head that they have a point to make about 'playing the game as it was intended'.

Why did I bother to make all that cheesy goodness so apparent in my last post? Have a clue? So they'll change it offcourse . . . :notsure: . . . Shez.

Congrats on the 3.000 K ...thx for the tips Ginata...ups...i guess my spying isn't that good...well i'm european what can i say

Likewise guys... Great milestone

Playing a huge maso now that I will finish this weekend between football games. This was strange.

I put all AI at pure evil and then got evil too with planet events and random pop-ups. At a morality of 9, I just could not get the Arceans close in spite of 100% of their trade being with me. The other majors were close. In the minor department, the Cari and Scott were close but the I-League was only friendly. The Alexians were history.

So, to snuggle up to the Arceans I went evil to zero at the next pop-up. The Arceans went to close (after a nice tech gift like molecular medicine). But, those I-League fruitcakes went to hostile. I worked to get the I-League back but something about being zero morality really upset them in spite of freighter trading and gifting. Finally I was forced to bribe my pals into attacking them while I build some combat transports for a 3 planet vulture-mode alpha strike. I still don't have a capital ship although the Hero is getting pretty sturdy. The game is in the bag because we are all one big happy allied family now. Party palaces are coming up soon.

I wonder what got the I-League so upset? Somehow I couldn't buy their happiness. Oh well, bye-bye I-League. LOL.

Is there a way to tell the minor's morale? Is there a way to tell who the minor is trading with? Thanks.
[Message Edited]

Vincible, I asked you a question on the "How to score 60,000" thread. Thanks.

I'm not sure they can. Would take a major overhaul to plug that many holes. There is no "of course" when it comes to expecting design flaws to be overcome.

We have one elite Civ3 player at Realms Beyond who took it upon himself to find every possible crack not only in the game, but in our tournament rules. As the guy chiefly responsible for balancing those rules, I finally had to take him aside and read him the riot act. "Look, this isn't helping. We can't reach a perfect state of unabusable rules. Trying to write a rule (or expect the game maker to patch the problem) for every issue is no use. Some fixes break more than they fix, no matter how much work is done on them. Many of your bug hunts are only reducing quality across the board by forcing us to slap a lot of duct tape on the leaky pipes, which are only leaking because you leaned on them too hard in the first place."

Look what Stardock did to tech victory in an effort to close out abuses from early on: they broke the tech scoring. Nobody can rack up easy scores that way any more because nobody can get ANY score out of a tech victory any more. :notsure: I don't want to see any more fixes of that sort, if you don't mind.

"Anything goes that the game code allows" is a recipe for ruined games. You either have the game designers perfectly patch up the game so it can't be abused (never happens) or you get stuck with a flawed game and inundated with abuse. Since option A in that equation never happens, option B is guaranteed, UNLESS the community comes together and puts peer pressure on those who take the short-sighted view. If there is no esteem to be won by exploiting game flaws, because the community does not value illusory challenges the same as bona fide challenges, the abuse-obsessed are put in the back seat, rather than behind the steering wheel.

Some fixes are not worth having, which means drawing attention to game flaws is not a no-brainer. If they are of the variety of "can't be fixed without breaking something else", only bad things result from pointing them out in public view. Send Brad an email instead. Eh? Did that even occur to you? If he's not receptive to that, from the number one ranked player of his game, you were wasting your time anyway.


- Sirian

This is interesting. I've always gone all-out for dominance right from the start, no fussing around with alliances unless absolutely necessary, which as I got better at the game eventually turned out to be "never". Cotal, do you go for dominance at all? Or do you just go for the alliance as your top priority and not worry about getting ahead, since the AI won't hurt you if you're allied?

I carried out my terror star blitz in 2195. Only took that long because on a huge map, took the constructors a while to get there. As dumb as the AI is about terror stars being assembled next to his systems, I'm kind of grateful they are oblivious. It would not be any more difficult to send enough escorts to be sure to survive for one turn; it would only take longer and become more boring to mop up.


- Sirian

Hmm... my last post seems to have gotten lost in the ether.

I replied to your post in the 60K thread, Rick.

Sirian, I agree that cheese is a blessing when it lets you quickly wrap up a game you know you've won. I don't think I've ever played a turn-based 4X game that didn't drag at the end. Of course, the ideal solution would be for the AI to know when it's beaten and just surrender, but that's probably impossible to implement correctly.

Easy enough to figure out. Play a crippling huge (or whatever), then a crippling gigantic, and note the score ratio. Then play a maso huge and multiply by the score ratio.

Or you could just look at someone else's scores and figure out the ratio from that.
[Message Edited]

Addendum: a careful analysis would have to check to see that the score ratio was the same on various different difficulty levels.

Sirian, you've made some good points, I never considered sending Brad an email . . . he seems so busy but it's a thought. I did post a list of suggestions for a nightmare level of play . . . though if changing the coding is as hard as you say it might have to wait until Galactic Civilizations 2.

Relatively speaking I haven't been playing maso that long compared to others here, but I have played a lot of games I guess.

Vincible, thanks for the suggestion . . . regarding dominance . . . I'm pretty big on economic dominace, it's pretty tricky early on but I must admit thats one of the favorite aspects of the game for me

Isn't this something like a NASCAR driver saying, "Sometimes I drive a little fast". LOL.

Cotal Ginata, you are the pacesetter and thanks again for helping me learn new ways to play so it stays fun.

Vincible, thanks for replying to my question in the 60k thread.

Ray, thanks for your presence back on the forum. The forum and this thread really missed you.

OK, back to the seriousness of playing.

I never seem to get dominant economically until I start culture flipping but maybe that is lack of military or "fear of flipping". I don't spread out much in the beginning - almost always colonizing only within my initial range of colony ships. [insert chicken sound here]. LOL.

vincible, I think maybe Wild has the wood on you. Your arm wrestle with him has been fun to watch for a while now...

Ricbayer, not spreading out in maso makes it (at least I find) realy (realy x big number) hard to balance the economy in the early spending free fall . . . you must have masterful accounting skills! I'm pretty hap' hazard with my sliders which isn't good compared to the AI counting every single bc infinitum turns in advance . . .

I do occasionly (more often than not) lose a couple satalite collonies because of the AIs early influence from over expansion . . . but it makes it all the more satisfying when you reclaim these worlds . . . and until such time its an extra sorce of revenue, good advertizing and gives you more research ability.

Also spreading out makes the Tech market place so much more dynamic which I find is essencial on larger maps, mind you meeting too many AIs too soon (when you've got squat) is a recipie for disaster too . . .

ric - are you concentrating on your population and morale early enough? I suspect that mid game economy boost is coming from the extra population that comes on board when you are flipping. If possible, try keeping morale way high (plus relevant trade goods if possible) early even if your spending slows a little. Perhaps have a look at the relative populations (yours and civs) to guide you? It's probably different on large/gigantic but this is a real factor on small maps. Good luck!

Seems like the expectations on the AI improvements in 1.12 are quite high.

Of course, I'm hoping to see major improvements but I really wonder how much time Brad could have spent on Galciv considering his CEO responsibilities and his involvement in so many other software products.

I hope to be pleasantly surprised though.

~SDC~

Good morning, all!

Hope you all had a great weekend. I'm feeling somewhat better, still have a little cough but otherwise doing much better.

In regards to the discussion on colonization, I always try to spread as far as I can. I'm with Ginata, it's better to lose a system or two to flipping but still get that time of extra research, etc. I never worry about flipping, and will commonly colonize a system in the middle of nowhere, then try to keep it! I'm a little greedy I guess.

I started a Huge/Crippling last night. I'm trying out a different starting picks strategy. Trying less Diplomacy, more Pop Growth and Morale and a little Research. Also playing an Abundant/Tight Clusters galaxy, which I never do. I like playing Occasional or Uncommon and always Loose Cluster. Just interested to see the changes.

Well, everybody have a great day!

The latest Metaverse Review is out!

http://metaversereview.joeuser.com

Headlines Include:

~ Fellowship of the Ring breaks 3 million
~ Evil Changes Form
~ Weekly Spotlight Empire

And More!

Good job on the MR as always, Theoden. And I'm glad you're feeling better. Now I'm sick, dammit. Do those special forces people have biological weapons? Where's my crystal ball...



If research production is free, as someone's post suggested, then research becomes a very strong pick! I was going to try testing this, and if it really worked, I was going to try putting points into research next game as well.

About spreading out: I grab every star I can when I play rare maps, since it's likely that the AI won't have enough stars to build up overwhelming culture. On abundant maps its a judgement call. If something is going to flip and I can't stop it, I will disband the colony rather than let the AI have it free!

Not all bonus research is free, but I think 2/3 of it is. I usually get as much research as I can.

vincible: We'll have the Hazmat teams search the Halls for the fiendish bio weapons planted by the Spec Forces! Sorry to hear you're sick. It seems to be going around all over the US.

I'm trying the new picks on Crippling so I can see the effects a little better. I find "testing" things on Maso tends to be a little dangerous... LOL

The Special Forces are GOOD guys. Don't you keep up with Gerakken's reports?

I know from experience the only bio-weapon my compatriots know about is the hang-over.

Congrats on 3 million points!

Cypher

I think I would look for Evil Empire bioweapons before I look for Special Forces bioweapons. LOL