Good TG contest map available
 

I basically wanted to make this available because a good map can give a player a big advantage for the contest.

Even though I spent more time than any sane person would getting a great map, I'd rather it be about skill in the game than endurance in restarting over and over after the first 15 turns or so. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

SO, if you're interested in playing, feel free to use the map to help get those top scores. With potential ringworlds included, it has nearly 500 planets in a small, spiral galaxy, and I'm guessing a realistic max on this one to be around 300M including your ships.

Good luck & hope to see more people playing!

-Drake

PS: sign up at http://www.twingalaxies.com/cgi-perl...hampionship.pl

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Very Noble of you Sir Drake.

I still haven't got the timing down for the ringworlds (RINGWORLDS! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif ) , but 500 planets is quite a bit more than any system that I have ended up with in my games, including building them out of asteroid fields.

Consider your challange accepted.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

You'll have to create 48 ringworlds and make about 150 planets out of asteroids to get near the 500 figure. I'm pretty sure that's about as many as you can reasonable expect to get in a game. Even if you do generate a 39 system quadrant, chances are pretty high you'll wind up with at least one black hole or nebulae. Without a good map, I don't think it'd even be possible for someone to reach the score of 278.7M that I finished with on this one.

As for actually getting those ringworlds built, I found that I got a much quicker start by demanding the AI give up and surrender to my fearsome empire. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Just as using troops to take over the AI HWs is more effective than just glassing them all, threats and diplomacy (after putting a chokehold on their economy) works better than troops. If I'd had to use troops, I might not have gotten a score half as high.

-Drake

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

278, wow.

My top score so far is about 57Mil. I too learned early on that troops were not the most efficient way to conquer the ai. In fact in all of my latest attempts, I can pretty much have the quadrant to myself by turn 35 at the latest.

What I have been trying to figure out lately is how to get these darn ringworlds built and still have time to have anything built on them.

Don't tell me, I want to figure it out myself. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Here's an example of how slap-happy a 2 week long game will make you. (Drake and Tomgs will know what I mean if noone else does.)

Towards the end of one game I got bored shuttling around population from one planet to another so I decided to do a little "galactic graphitti".

Attached is a pic of the galactic map at the end of the game. Re-aranged the warp points some...

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

You're one sick puppy. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:
What I have been trying to figure out lately is how to get these darn ringworlds built and still have time to have anything built on them.

Don't tell me, I want to figure it out myself. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't worry, I think I'll hold off on posting exactly what combination of traits and tactics I used for a couple weeks, just to be safe. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Nice constellation, heheh.

As far as having the quadrant to yourself, that map is well connected enough that you can be on your way toward writing your name in the sky in no time. The attached event log is without advanced propulsion, it'll give you something to shoot for. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

-Drake

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Drake,

You *did* see the new rule they added over on TG's webpage, didn't you? The one that says it is a bug in the game that lets you build ringworlds around suns in system that have planets? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

278M. That is just plain scary. And that event log of yours... WOW!

I can't wait for the contest to end. Maybe y'all will zip up your saved games then and post them on the forum so we can admire them. It is so absolutely mind boggling. (I can beat the game on high bonus but clearly I haven't scratched the surface of the game yet.)

I guess you build ringworlds around ALL of your stars? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

I thought that only one ring world can be built per system.If there is 39 system this would result in 39 RWs.Or maybe it's one RW per star.That would make a whole new ball game as there are systems with as mush as 3 stars, plus if you can create new stars in systems already having one or more stars this would be stunning.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by alasyr:
I thought that only one ring world can be built per system.If there is 39 system this would result in 39 RWs.Or maybe it's one RW per star.That would make a whole new ball game as there are systems with as mush as 3 stars, plus if you can create new stars in systems already having one or more stars this would be stunning. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A quick test reveals that you can't build a star in a system that already has a star. You also can't build one if there is a nebula or black hole present in the system. Of course, these are easily destroyed so that you can create a star in those systems.

I'm not aware of any game enforced limit which prevents you from building a SW/RW around every star in every system.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

You can definitely build more than one ringworld per system, all you need is a free star. I think there are 3 or 4 systems in that map with 3 stars.

I think I ended up getting around 1.3M in resource generation from each ringworld, so with 48 ringworlds, that comes out to over 60M in resources alone just from the ringworlds! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif

That's pretty much the only area that I think the score could be significantly improved upon. If you can get them up faster, you can put more facilities on them. I didn't end up hitting the max for domed ringworlds, so I didn't have to worry about converting them to a new atmosphere at least.

I have no problem with making the save games available. There's really no 'secret' to it, just quick expansion, use of the AI surrender dominoe effect (as I like to call it), and doing everything I could to improve my total resource output for the endgame. I stopped research completely at about turn 100, and only built 4 facility types on my non-system enhancement planets once I finished the ringworlds and didn't need storage anymore.

And don't be faking me out with word of contest changes! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif I'm half-scared they'll think that kind of score can't be achieved without some kind of cheat, so therefore whatever I did will be called a cheat. Ok, I don't seriously think that, but still...

I definitely have to give credit to this board for helping me get that score. Around turn 60 or so, I was reading the board and saw a post that mentioned something I had assumed I couldn't do. Without seeing that, my score would have been 1/2, 1/3 or less of what it ended up being. I'll have to track down who that was and thank them. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Well, I think I'll stop giving hints on how to hit that score. The people I'm competing against are smart enough as it is without me drawing a step-by-step diagram on how to beat me, heh.

-Drake

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 13 February 2001).]

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I can't wait for the contest to end. Maybe y'all will zip up your saved games then and post them on the forum so we can admire them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> We're actually looking into things like this. We have a guy taking some of the videos of our other contests and making .avi files out of the good parts and things like that. But we have a policy about not sharing anyone's technioques without their permission since a number of top players don't want their competition finding out how they do what they do, and we have to respect that.

And thanks for the map. You know I'd actually considered providing an "official" map and having people all use the same one just to make things easy on me, but then I decided I'd rather use the map as a tool to catch careless cheaters so didn't go with it.

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nyx:
And thanks for the map. You know I'd actually considered providing an "official" map and having people all use the same one just to make things easy on me, but then I decided I'd rather use the map as a tool to catch careless cheaters so didn't go with it.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No problem! Sorry if I ruined a cheater detection method for you. I hadn't really considered it from that perspective.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

No problem at all, so far cheating has been a non-issue (knock on pLastic-covered particle board). All the scores have been legit. And I don't know that everyone will take advantage of your map. Especially your two prime competitors who seem a bit micromanaged too death.

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Amen to that Nyx. I am going to have to take a couple of week break from playing once this contest is over. I have actually had mornings were I wake up out of a sound sleep and think, "Ooo, maybe if I do this I can add a few million points to my score."

That's just sick! laf

Thanks to TG for adding some more enjoyment to an already addictive game.

And I know I will be running at least one game on Drake's map. Even if I can't work out the ringworld thing, with all those extra planets, I figure I ought to be able to break 100 Mil.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Well I will be lucky to break 100M in my game so your score looks safe for now http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif. I didn't use emergency build as aggressively as I should. I am too used to not using things to make it easier on the AI in regular games so I didn't break that mindset enough for the contest. I definately will beat my Last game by a good margin but since I am at turn 115 I don't think I will start over again just yet. When the patch comes out I think that high score will be unmatchable because of the changes to emergency build.

I will have to take a break from the contest when the patch comes out just to see what the changes do for the game so I don't know if I will try another game or not.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

There should be a new competition after the patch.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Emperor Zodd:
There should be a new competition after the patch.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No. There shouldn't. Geoschmo, Tomgs, Drake et. al. have lost enough sleep already. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:
Even if I can't work out the ringworld thing, with all those extra planets, I figure I ought to be able to break 100 Mil.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Heck, if you improve from 7M resource production to 50M, don't give all this credit to the map. I'd say the map will help with your upper limit, the 7x increase is all you. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[quote]Originally posted by Tomgs:
When the patch comes out I think that high score will be unmatchable because of the changes to emergency build. [quote]

Yeah, you're probably right. at 150% rate instead of 200%, I'd lose 2 turns for each planet just building the space yards. Other than that though it'd mainly affect my ringworld building I think. Still, those two turns early lose me over 10M points alone at the end, and that's just a minimum effect. The ringworld situation would be even worse, for a number of reasons.

Now if you could work on multiple things in the same turn it'd REALLY hurt, but as it stands, I lost a lot of extra construction time building facilities on my planets under emergency build. The change to facility construction wouldn't be affected. I'd just have to up my construction rate 6 points to compensate, so it wouldn't be that bad. (Give yourself a gold star (or a ringworld if it makes you happier, heh) if you can figure out what rate I set my const. at now from that info. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif)

-Drake

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Drake,

I don't suppose you'd like to go ahead and post your turn 150 save game? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

I'll think about it. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif Anyone seriously interested in copying my race settings could probably do so already with all the stuff I've posted thus far, so there's a good chance I'll upload the turn when I get home later tonight.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

I don't think it will make a huge of difference to anyone's performance. I think your technique and timing are more important to your performance than the racial settings.

Of course settings help, but pluging in your settings aren't going to add 220 Million points to my score!

RINGWOLDS!!!! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>There should be a new competition after the patch.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Well, what I'm pushing my bosses on is a head-to-head team contest, not a high-score one. Up to 20 players on a map right? Well, with the TCP/IP connections coming out, we could setup a gig where, say four-player teams get together and take each other on. No AI players, just other humans. Give the ShadowXpanse Leage and all the others a chance to flex some Imperial Muscle. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Also, our past trend is to keep records on all Versions. So there's a world record for Pac Man arcade, and one for Mame, and one for Atari, and this, and that. If there's enough interest (sadly, this doesn't seem to be the case just now) we'd probably do something like that keeping records for each Version. But as it stands we're just not getting much response from the public on the contest. Only about 80 visitsper day compared to 2,000 for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. Nevertheless, even if there isn't an official contest, all world records can be challenged at any time, so we will need to sit down, probably with Aaron, and figure out how to work things out as the patches keep coming.

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

I would be curious in when your first ringworld went up. I think I may with careful micromanagement get my 1st one filled with facilities with it being domed.

I'm ready to be done with my ringworld building so I can start on building the bases I need for the score.

My biggest problem was using the AIs as cargo storage rather than building my own. I got rid of the Last one around turn 50. Also my map will only end up with about 425 worlds but there is not time to restart another one with your better map.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

I had my first batch of ringworlds (5 of them I think) go up on turn 84. I had 35 ringworlds up by turn 90, and the rest finished over the next 5 years or so.

Good work Hydraa. I'll be interested in seeing how your game turns out. Glad to hear more people are playing.

Geo - you're right. Technique and timing played a larger part than settings.

So, here's the save from the Last turn. I'm going to hold off on making the stats available until after the contest, if anyone still wants to take a peek then.

Knock yourself out. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

-Drake

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Thanks, Drake!

You are a prince among men!

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Ok Raynor, enough already, I've got a big enough ego as it is. Hope it helps with your game. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Good luck to everyone else competing. I'll be interested in seeing how things turn out. I'm hoping to still win of course but if not, whoever does will definitely have earned it!

If anyone has any general questions, tips, criticisms, etc, let 'em fly. I'm always interested in strategy discussions to try and improve my game.

-Drake

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 15 February 2001).]

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Hydraa,

If you look at the message earlier in this thread, Drake conquered his first AI on turn 7 and the 15th by turn 20. I think you are going to have a very good score. But until we can match what Drake did--Turn 20!!!--it's going to be hard to match his score.

With 16 homeworlds, that's about 64,000 research points by turn 20. Plus, you have a space yard, resupply depot and space port in 16 of the 39 systems. If that isn't a great start, I don't know what is...

Well..it's 2 AM here, just three or so hours from my home town of Irving where you appear to be playing from. Guess it's time to stop thinking about SEIV and go to bed finally.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Drake,

Took a look at your save game. The setting were about what I expected, with a few suprises though. A couple of questions from a strategy perspective...

All three racial techs are neat, but do you think you got enough benefit out of it to make it worth it? I guess I just haven't played the racial techs enough. I suppose that the facilities from the temporal and religous techs must give you some pretty impressive bonuses?

-50% on Happiness? Doesn't that make it hard to keep production levels up? I could see later in the game some of your facilities counter balancing that, but doesn't it cause problems early on?

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Well, I'll address the happiness issue first. At 50%, an idle planet will go from jubilant to happy in 5 turns. (it'd be 8 turns if it was set to 80-100, range for that might be greater, didn't test it much).

As long as you build facilities and/or ships (actually completing them), it'll help to stave off happiness loss at that planet. I found that a planet building something every turn balanced out the increased happiness loss per turn. Since it's more effective to build the most expensive facility you can get done in the least amount of time, this helped boost happiness until I got the temporal vacation service facilities built.

For an idle planet, if you pick 50% happiness, you need a +4 or better to maintain your happiness level. All +happiness facilities are +1 to +3, except for the temporal vacation service, which is +2,+4,+6 for the three levels. Since I needed to research temporal early to get to the temporal space yards, getting the TVS facilities early was no big deal, and happened well before any of my planets were finished building and sitting idle for a few turns.

About the advanced racial tech: of the three I picked, temporal was the most important, followed by organic. As it turns out, because the value improvement facilities stack, religious wasn't necessary. I went with it at first because I thought it would double the max rate I could improve planets. If I had to do it over, I'd probably go with propulsion experts and take out the AI a few turns earlier. If I hadn't taken temporal, I would've set happiness to 80% instead, but since 50% is no big deal when coupled with TVS, I took advantage of the extra 300 pts. If I was in a war and losing battles I'd have problems with happiness loss, but that obviously wasn't a concern here.

-Drake

(spelling edit)

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 16 February 2001).]

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

I see, interesting. Very close to what I was doing although I had not tried the temporal tech at all yet. I can see now how that could make a diff.

I probably would have eventually. I have been doing a lot of expirimenting lately. Your 278 Mil has blown be out of the water and caused me to reevaluate what I thought was even possible.

Very well done.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:
Your 278 Mil has blown be out of the water and caused me to reevaluate what I thought was even possible.

Very well done.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks. I wouldn't be surprised if someone else surpasses me at this point, and breaks 300M. I think making even better use of the ringworlds is where I could lose some ground.

The planets I wasn't able to improve to max value were most likely system enhancement planets, or initially no atmosphere. If I'd gone with none to start, I think I would've gotten a better result with those planets.

In my particular game it would've been harder, because I only had one other CO2 breather. If you kept at it though, you could get another game with better balance in atmosphere types.

-Drake

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Have they made illegal the following setup yet in the tournament??

merchant(the culture selection) +5% maintenance
20% maintenance bonus
equals a 25% bonus
which means you pay no maintenance on your ships and bases.

just curious, as i am sure that would kill a lot of competition, and i see it as a goof in the program.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Nyx kicked that one around, but the consensus was that maint was not going to be an issue for the top scorers, so it didn't need to be outlawed.

If you check the TG SEIV contest page it has the latest info on what is and isn't allowed.

No changes have been made recently.

Re: Good TG contest map available
 

Triumvir, that's what I thought at first, but it's no big deal. Consider that my resource output at the end of my game was over 70 million in each resource per turn. You don't need bases for score until the end of the game, and at that point the maintenance cost was insignificant.

Prior to that, you just need to make sure maintenance costs don't hamper your expansion. Once you get past the critical expansion/ship construction/ringworld construction phases, points put into lowering your maintenance costs are worthless, as they don't help your score and could've been used elsewhere.

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 15 February 2001).]