Good TG contest map available - Page 3

Drake · #21 February 14th, 2001, 06:59 PM

I'll think about it.

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.

geoschmo · #22 February 14th, 2001, 07:34 PM

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!!!!

Nyx · #23 February 14th, 2001, 08:16 PM

quote:
There should be a new competition after the patch.

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.

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.

Hydraa · #24 February 14th, 2001, 08:54 PM

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.

Drake · #25 February 15th, 2001, 03:14 AM

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.

-Drake

raynor · #26 February 15th, 2001, 04:47 AM

Thanks, Drake!

You are a prince among men!

Drake · #27 February 15th, 2001, 05:05 AM

Ok Raynor, enough already, I've got a big enough ego as it is. Hope it helps with your game.

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).]

raynor · #28 February 15th, 2001, 09:58 AM

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.

geoschmo · #29 February 15th, 2001, 06:05 PM

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?

Drake · #30 February 15th, 2001, 06:41 PM

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).]