Librarian and Thinker

[sendos]

I'm trying to transfer my AC skills to the next level, but I see that the difference between librarian and thinker is extreme!

What would the best option be? (Note: I usually take the same old mixture of factions which are drones, pirates, Peacekeepers, Hive, Spartans, Believers and Morganites.)
a) Be a war-like or defensive faction but sacrifice domestic development like the Spartans, Pirates, Believers or Hive
b) Be a faction that focuses on domestic development in credits and research but be rather vulnerable such as Morganites, drones and Peacekeepers?

What annoys most is when I land on an island when I ask for 30-50% sea cover.

 

[bdanv]

first of all you should read Vel's Guide: http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?48-Vel-s-SMAX-Guide.
it can take you from librarian to transcend in no time

a) Be a war-like or defensive faction but sacrifice domestic development like the Spartans, Pirates, Believers or Hive
b) Be a faction that focuses on domestic development in credits and research but be rather vulnerable such as Morganites, drones and Peacekeepers?

it depends on your landing site. if you're too close to another faction and this can hinder you future development, the best approach is to go to war immediatelly. you'll lose some speed in the early game because of it but it's worth it.
otherwise, if you have enough space, the best strategy is to expand until you get the efficiency message.

What annoys most is when I land on an island when I ask for 30-50% sea cover.

just go for Doctrine:Flexy (assuming you play directed research) and find a nice free piece of land to settle.

 

[sendos]

first of all you should read Vel's Guide: http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?48-Vel-s-SMAX-Guide.
it can take you from librarian to transcend in no time

I've had a read and it's quite nice but I didn't read all of it of course. I guess it will come in handy for me later on.

it depends on your landing site. if you're too close to another faction and this can hinder you future development, the best approach is to go to war immediatelly. you'll lose some speed in the early game because of it but it's worth it.
otherwise, if you have enough space, the best strategy is to expand until you get the efficiency message.

True, but the faction itself also plays a part, but I seem to have answered my own question by being the pirates, thanks to the link you gave me, so thanks for that.

I've managed to go well as the Pirates, but the drones have taken some crucial projects. With Free market, my profits are 165 credits per turn and my research is every 8 turns (go Empaths! My energy output tripled as soon as I got it!).

EDIT: Another thing I'd like to point out: in Thinker level, the fights seem rather biased towards the AI factions. This is a bad method of increasing difficulty for people who want a challenge. Instead of that, just make the AI factions smarter, although the factions seem to get smarter when they have more tech.

For example:
- I have a Elite shard chopper attacking a rover without armour. Sure, I win, but I suffer a bit of damage and I think I shouldn't suffer any damage at all. This has occurred too often, therefore there's something biased about the fights.
- I lose fights when the odds are convincingly in my favour more than enough, such as losing a battle with the odds 9 : 3 in your favour, or even 19 : 11.

Maybe it's just bad luck for me, but if there are many SMAC/X players reporting the same problem, then it can't really be bad luck.

 

[Volcanon]

Doesn't the "stat screen" say something like "AI bonus +0.5" or something. it did when I played at the hardest difficulty.

 

[bdanv]

For example:
- I have a Elite shard chopper attacking a rover without armour. Sure, I win, but I suffer a bit of damage and I think I shouldn't suffer any damage at all..

why not? the rover has hand weapons. the crew can throw them at your chopper..

- I lose fights when the odds are convincingly in my favour more than enough, such as losing a battle with the odds 9 : 3 in your favour, or even 19 : 11.

as you say, those are odds. nothing odd there.

 

[sendos]

Doesn't the "stat screen" say something like "AI bonus +0.5" or something. it did when I played at the hardest difficulty.

I think that's for the hardest difficulty. I didn't see any AI bonuses in the stats on thinker level.

as you say, those are odds. nothing odd there.

True, but if you lose many battles in the odds that I have stated in your favour, you sort of feel robbed of chance or think that something biased is going on. It matters most in the early parts of the game though.

Anyway I have clocked the Pirates on Thinker with a 382% rating. I did customise the sea cover to 50-70% though. Thinker truly is a challenge especially in the races to get particular projects. Since the drones got hunter-seeker algorithm, I had to attack the base that had the project before progressing on to defeat them. And the blink special ability is indeed a powerful ability. As soon as I got it, I completed the game very quickly.

Once I clock thinker about 10-15 more times as different factions, I'll go to transcend level.

 

[Volcanon]

Hardest difficulty is the easiest if you get in bed with one of the "War" races and ride their wars to victory. If you suck up to hive, he never ever betrays you. You can betray him, though. (Or, more easily, just give him a bribe to vote you as ultimate leader after everybody else is dead).

 

[bdanv]

..Once I clock thinker about 10-15 more times as different factions, I'll go to transcend level.

..and once you finish the game on transcend, you have to try MP. it's a completely different experience.

 

[sendos]

Hardest difficulty is the easiest if you get in bed with one of the "War" races and ride their wars to victory. If you suck up to hive, he never ever betrays you. You can betray him, though. (Or, more easily, just give him a bribe to vote you as ultimate leader after everybody else is dead).

I could, but the Hive and other factions will always demand stuff from me and I always start wars by refusing to submit to warlike factions (their aggression not mine). I never really start wars by my aggression and I'm always noble as I'm described as in the game. Besides, I can only stick with one war-like faction and this epic war could rage on past the retirement year of 2500, meaning that I won't really win. Well, if I do that and get at least 100% rating then I guess I clocked transcend by 'sucking up' to a warlike faction.

So I might give it a try, Volcanon, maybe as Morganites.

 

[Kilkakon]

One way of making the game harder could be to try to play a faction and play to their weaknesses rather than their strengths, e.g. building human units as Cult Planet, or trying probes with Uni, etc.

 

[sendos]

I think I've found more proof of bias towards AI in bribing units:

I'm currently playing as the Drones and I am defeating the Hive. I managed to bribe their units for around 50-80 credits. However, when the Hive start using probe teams, his cost to bribe my units must have been only 20-30 credits. His income is only 10 credits/year and so I noticed a small difference when I lost 3 of my units to the Hive when the Hive used to have about 120 credits and then it was reduced to 90 (I know this because I have Empath Guild). Both the Hive and I have normal security measures (0 probe).

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

The Pirates are actually a more difficult faction to play than average, so if you're doing ok with them, you are probably doing ok at Thinker in general. One (cool) thing about AC is that the different factions play very differently, to the extent that many players have completely different base strategies with each faction. You might want to pick a favorite faction when trying to move up a difficulty level rather than trying different factions, as it may be more difficult to master both the new faction as well as the higher difficulty at the same time.

One nice thing about the Pirates is that you are not as vulnerable to an early game rush if you build your bases at sea or use your mobility to settle an empty piece of land. Also the Pirates are one of the few factions that can use any SE choices they like, which helps if you are trying to keep in the good graces of a particular AI faction. On the minus side, building sea formers and sea colony pods is expensive, and building infantry colony pods to settle land from a sea base requires some sort of transport to be built. So early game expansion for the Pirates is typically slowed by this.