Late-Game Boredom

[Dharma Punk Dan]

Playing my current game, I realized that most of the time, all I was doing was some major conquering. But now that peace has come, I find myself micro-managing over 100 bases in various stages of development. The problem is that I am also spending most of my time thinking about the parameters of my NEXT game. I feel like I am just waiting for the game to finish.

It's a huge map. My faction is ahead by light years. I have run out of tech to research. Diplo victory (supreme leader) is not being accepted by other factions even though I am the clear leader.

Short of retiring, how can I end this game without having to conquer another 100 cities? What do others do to keep the late-game interesting?

 

[Petek]

If you've run the tech tree, can't you just build the Ascent to Transcendence? It shouldn't take that many turns if you use crawlers to rush the required SPs. Did you disable this victory option?

Another possibility, which I sometimes use, is to use the scenario editor to turn over control of your faction to the AI. The AI will happily manage all your bases, but also will take other actions that you might find "unusual", to say the least. Post again if you want more specific instructions on how to use the scenario editor for this purpose.

Petek

 

[Dharma Punk Dan]

If you've run the tech tree, can't you just build the Ascent to Transcendence? It shouldn't take that many turns if you use crawlers to rush the required SPs. Did you disable this victory option?

No, I'm at a bit of a lull pre-transcendence. Working on the Voice of Planet right now. It's just that a turn is beginning to take about twenty minutes and the "production completed" voice is beginning to grate on my nerves after hearing it over and over and over and.....

 

[Cutlass]

you don't have to finish a game that gets boring......

 

[Petek]

With proper use of crawlers, you can complete the VOP in one turn and the Ascent one turn later. You can speed up the turns by setting most bases to stockpile energy, with one base building the VOP/Ascent and several others cranking out crawlers. If you haven't already been building/upgrading crawlers up until now, it might take a couple of turns to implement this tactic.

Petek

 

[NwabudikeMorgan]

or, if you're not loving the long turns, play standard maps instead of huge. I seldon play anything bigger than a standard map for exactly this reason, there's no point.

 

[sendos]

I dont think you get a bonus after retiring, so you gotta get VOP and ATT quickly. Since you're about to retire at 2500, you've got less than 20 years to go. How much money have you got? If you have a lot, spend it on the projects.
I've clocked the last few of my games with dimplomatic victory. I go for a huge map to prevent the biggest conflict you can think of, but actually I've chosen big maps and big conflicts still occur, due to 30-50% sea. What I recommend in your next game is to not accept truce whilst fighting a faction and winning, but if they offer a small amount of money, they may be proceeding to a surrender, so refuse, and if they do surrender, accept it, that way you've mercifully conquered a faction. You've said that you've made peace, so that's good in terms of focusing on managing the people, but don't make it last long.
To speed up the number of turns, hold every unit. Simple. I think there's also a hotkey, which I accidentally pressed which ends turn, and warns you if you press it, may as well check the manual.

 

[Dharma Punk Dan]

you don't have to finish a game that gets boring......

But that would leave things...unfinished.

 

[Dharma Punk Dan]

I dont think you get a bonus after retiring, so you gotta get VOP and ATT quickly. Since you're about to retire at 2500, you've got less than 20 years to go. How much money have you got? If you have a lot, spend it on the projects.
I've clocked the last few of my games with dimplomatic victory. I go for a huge map to prevent the biggest conflict you can think of, but actually I've chosen big maps and big conflicts still occur, due to 30-50% sea. What I recommend in your next game is to not accept truce whilst fighting a faction and winning, but if they offer a small amount of money, they may be proceeding to a surrender, so refuse, and if they do surrender, accept it, that way you've mercifully conquered a faction. You've said that you've made peace, so that's good in terms of focusing on managing the people, but don't make it last long.
To speed up the number of turns, hold every unit. Simple. I think there's also a hotkey, which I accidentally pressed which ends turn, and warns you if you press it, may as well check the manual.

That's a good idea, not accepting truce but ultimately surrender.

Eventually, I got the project that doubles your council votes and ended up winning via the supreme leader route. I had something like 4,000+ votes all by myself. Finally!

Of course, I immediately started a new game. Huge map, Librarian level, playing as Morgan. I am finding that I am getting my butt handed to me.

 

[vyeh]

I assume you know about build queues. You can even save a build queue from one base and load it in another base. You can also go into Warning Preferences and uncheck most of the boxes so the game doesn't stop between turns because new facilities have been built, etc. It will certainly end those "production completed" messages that irritate you.

For me, it is the formers which take the most time. Since you're not really worried about optimizing your terraforming, you could set your remaining forums to either fully automate or autoimprove home base and you can set the automation preferences in the game menu. In advanced preferences, check the box for move all units quickly.

Alternatively, you could start moving formers toward the base you're building VOP/Ascent and disband them in that base. For that matter, you can disband all surplus units in that base. It will speed up the project.

You can also set the governors in your bases. They're really dumb, but if you set Advanced Governor Settings (it is the downward pointing triangles next to "Governor" at the top of the base screen) so they can only build facilities (you certainly don't want more units), that will speed things up.

I would recommend that in the bases close to the VOP/Ascent construction site, you set the bases to making crawlers with advanced features (armor, special abilities). These can be hurried and then sent to the construction site to speed up VOP/Ascent. (Once you've designed these crawlers in the unit workshop, you can also upgrade standard crawlers. It is cheaper to build a standard crawler and upgrade it rather than hurrying production.

If you want to post your current game here, I could give more specific advice.

 

[Dharma Punk Dan]

If you want to post your current game here, I could give more specific advice.

No need to post my save. You and the others in this thread have been more than enough help. I've got plenty of ideas and even some reminders that I had forgotten since the last time I played SMAC on a regular basis (five years ago, maybe). But once I fired the game back up a month ago or so, I have not been able to do much else but play, even with classes starting. I might have to bring my laptop to class in case the lecture gets boring.

Using the build queue is obviously a good idea, especially in the late-game. I found that later turns during peacetime really revolve around Planet and its "awakening," i.e. Planet sending in multiple lifeforms against cities with high(er) eco-damage.

Your other idea of using formers to spruce up the place with advanced improvements is also something I will try to remember next time I get tired of clicking 100 notifications.

At a few points, there were so many things being built that I had forgotten what it was I wanted to do the last turn.

And finally re: the governor. I was using it during the game in question but I think I've learned my lesson. It's not just getting wrong what they want to build but it's also leaving out what should be built next that annoys me. Why pass the opportunity to build a project to build an Isle of the Deep? Seems silly.

 

[vyeh]

The governor is stupid. I assume you checked out the Advanced Governor Settings to see how you can limit the governor (so you could stop it from building naval units, which I think includes Isle of the Deep).

I'd recommend using Governors in conjunction with checking the Base Operations Screen. That will tell you what each base is building without having to open every base.

I think if you use the former automation commands along with setting the Automation Preferences and if you use the Advanced Governor Settings along with checking the Base Operations Screen and if you use build queues (so you set 5 facilities) and if you use the patrol command for your sea vessels and if you use the goto command when it will take several turns for a unit to arrive where you want it to go (and that way you wouldn't have to remember where you are sending it), you can reduce a lot of the tedium.

The disadvantage will be stupid facility builds and stupid terraforming and occasional drone riots, but I think you can reduce the number of tedious moves.