Apollo ARC OCC contact win, steal science is OP?

[ggmoyang]

Activating the Beacon:

Spoiler :

Win:

Spoiler :

Steal science gives 25%(with special agent) of currently researching tech cost, no matter how low your science is. Well, this is same for the steal tech but... steal science can be used for slingshot.

 

[Sprenk]

Grats!

Though if people are already winning OCC on the top difficulty level in a game that, on the surface, isn't conducive to OCC, that's a clear sign the game is too easy?

 

[Ryika]

Grats!

Though if people are already winning OCC on the top difficulty level in a game that, on the surface, isn't conducive to OCC, that's a clear sign the game is too easy?

Well, it's turn 258, AI has often won at that time, so it's actually rather close.

But still, I think the fact that the game is too easy without self-restriction isn't something to argue about. Everyone already agrees on that.

@ggmoyang: grz! Will have to try that some day. Did you use diplomacy to make the AIs fight (and delay?) each other, or did you just concentrate on yourself and hope for the best?

 

[Question]

Why bother with stealing 25% of a tech when you can steal 100% of it with steal tech?

 

[Sprenk]

Why bother with stealing 25% of a tech when you can steal 100% of it with steal tech?

Well, stealing tech has a substantially lower success rate than stealing science. More importantly, perhaps, you'll get something random rather than something you actually need for your environment and/or Affinity/Victory condition. Somebody ought to test this out, I suppose, but right now I go with science stealing.

 

[Aeson]

My first OCC attempt was on a standard map. Just was a bit too slow and Brasilia beat me to it. Didnt help that Kozlov spawned right on top and spent the entire game pillaging my outer ring of tile improvements.

Techs are random so unless you get lucky and steal something you need, the science is better since it's always directed where you want it to be.

 

[Ryoga]

Wow, you won with just a +18 science per turn, amazing °°;

Also, nice terrascaping.

 

[Promethian]

I've tried holding back agents (usually around 3) to boost the success chance and I still fail steal tech at least 1 in 4 times. It just isn't worth it. Better to have all agents out there stealing science or energy.

 

[ggmoyang]

Why steal science? Because I need specific tech for winning. Deep Space Telescope is needed if you aren't lucky with expeditions. (I got NO progenitor ruin in this game)
Also, steal science is guaranteed to give 600+ beakers(didn't math throughly, but I think this is higher than expected value of steal tech) and have higher success chance.

About low science: I was broke because of mass Terrascaping so I sold BPT for energy. 1BPT=76.5 energy.

Buying DOW: I wasn't bordered to anyone for long time so didn't bothered that.
I only tried when I was about to complete Decode Signal, but no one accepted.
I was allied to KP though. It's easy to ally if you have same affinity.

About Terrascaping: Beacon pays the maintenance. Fix it please

About AI status to winning: It was close indeed. Not so close though.

Spoiler :

 

[rune42]

Its strange how people are talking about how OP internal trade routes are, how Polystralia is the best sponsor, and how ARC is one of the worst.

Yet, here we are. ARC on Apollo, a single city, only 3 external trade routes, and only ~250 turns for victory.

 

[Ryika]

Its strange how people are talking about how OP internal trade routes are, how Polystralia is the best sponsor, and how ARC is one of the worst.

Yet, here we are. ARC on Apollo, a single city, only 3 external trade routes, and only ~250 turns for victory.

Special restrictions do of course change the overall balance. Although I might consider playing around with ARC some more in the future.

 

[aguliondew]

Curious did you go full knowledge or mix in might for the increased intrigue?

 

[rune42]

Curious did you go full knowledge or mix in might for the increased intrigue?

If I had to make an educated guess, i'd say the OP beelined for the +1 Covert Ops in knowledge, then switched to Prosperity and Industry. If you're lucky with resource pods, you can have +1 Covert Spies right after you finish the Spy Agency.

Full knowledge is pointless because you don't get enough raw beakers for the synergy bonuses to be useful. And without internal trade routes, the AI will have most of the wonders. ARC's +25 intrigue bonus is good enough that you don't need to waste time going down the Might tree.

 

[Question]

Well, stealing tech has a substantially lower success rate than stealing science. More importantly, perhaps, you'll get something random rather than something you actually need for your environment and/or Affinity/Victory condition. Somebody ought to test this out, I suppose, but right now I go with science stealing.

The success rate is not that much lower and 1 tech stolen can = 4 steal science ops. By spamming steal tech you can easily power through the tech web.

 

[rune42]

The success rate is not that much lower and 1 tech stolen can = 4 steal science ops. By spamming steal tech you can easily power through the tech web.

1 tech stolen does not equal 4 steal science ops

Outer ring techs costs over 3.2k beakers. If I switch to an outer ring tech and my science ops succeeds, I gain over 800 beakers.

If I randomly steal Defense Grid, a leaf tech from the center ring, I gain 249 beakers. Its also worthless if an AI has already built the wonder from it.
If I randomly steal Tactical Robotics, a leaf tech from the middle ring, I gain 770 beakers. Its also worthless if you're not Supremacy.

 

[aguliondew]

That is interesting steal beakers based on the tech you are researching. So you can research a higher tech while doing the lower ones. That seems as broken as trade routes . A lot of balancing issues in vanilla.

 

[Question]

1 tech stolen does not equal 4 steal science ops

Outer ring techs costs over 3.2k beakers. If I switch to an outer ring tech and my science ops succeeds, I gain over 800 beakers.

If I randomly steal Defense Grid, a leaf tech from the center ring, I gain 249 beakers. Its also worthless if an AI has already built the wonder from it.
If I randomly steal Tactical Robotics, a leaf tech from the middle ring, I gain 770 beakers. Its also worthless if you're not Supremacy.

It depends on whether you are lucky enough to steal a outer ring tech or not. I have stolen last ring techs before when i had plenty of lower tier tecs unresearched. And you can steal multiple techs a turn.

Thats why if you are spamming steal tech, its better to research the lower tier techs manually so you steal the expensive ones.

As a bonus you dont have to keep switching techs 1 turn before the steal science op finishes.

Oh and fun bug : steal science ops do not cause beakers to overflow. If you are 1 turn away from researching a tech and you have a steal science op go off successfully, none of the beakers will overflow.

 

[Aeson]

Its strange how people are talking about how OP internal trade routes are, how Polystralia is the best sponsor, and how ARC is one of the worst.

Yet, here we are. ARC on Apollo, a single city, only 3 external trade routes, and only ~250 turns for victory.

Compare what you can do without the self-imposed restrictions though. 250 turns is long enough to completely finish out the Tech Web, get all Affinities to 16+ and probably even simultaneously trigger all victory conditions.

That mainly because of Trade Routes.

So while ARC fits well with OCC (because Covert Ops don't scale to number of cities), and Covert Ops are very useful in general, they hardly compare to the utility of Trade Routes. (Polystralia also will do well in OCC, it will be interesting to see which is faster.)

 

[Doviello]

I played with ARC on a duel map, rushed the spy agency, went Might for the bonus intrigue, and when i got to intrigue lvl 5 on the AI capital i pulled the other agents back to increase chance of success and won super fast

In my other games, however, i never managed to get intrigue above level 2. I don't really understand the covert op system yet.

 

[Ryoga]

I played with ARC on a duel map, rushed the spy agency, went Might for the bonus intrigue, and when i got to intrigue lvl 5 on the AI capital i pulled the other agents back to increase chance of success and won super fast

In my other games, however, i never managed to get intrigue above level 2. I don't really understand the covert op system yet.

Probably the other faction didn't even have spies yet.

Once an AI has spies it becomes impossible to make their intrigue raise just by yourself. They just need to put a spy on their city and it will decrease. You need the help of other spies from other factions to have a chance.

Or you can target multiple cities with an extra spy so that the AI can't possibly defend them all.