This morning I tried again. Got the illustrious Datajack Roze, who in my mod doesn't need to infiltrate to get techs. That oughtta be an awfully convenient way to start the game, eh? I start with 2 supply pods near me. I usually take advantage of the beginning of the game near immunity to mindworms to pop these things. The 1st one gives be a fungal bloom, ruining my landing site! The 2nd is now on a river square with fungus.
No matter, I figure I'll move a colonist onto the clear part of the river, then just walk upriver next turn. I'm thinking, even on fungus, on Turn 2 a mindworm can't kill me. And for extra efficiency, I'll walk my other colonist onto that colonist, so that I don't need my Scout to do that "fungus crossing" job. It can go after another pod. Sounds nice, right? Well, I do pop a mindworm. No problem, units are all but immune to mindworms, right? I'll just put both colonists in the same sqaure, what can possibly go wrong? Even if they both die, I'd just restart somewhere else on the map, which wouldn't be the most awful thing ever.
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Rozey Mindworms |
Guess what? I was
half right about the immunity. I believe the colony pod that was attacked, was completely unscathed. But I forgot about splash damage, because who would think of that? Surely, if you don't take splash damage in an attack, things can't get killed, right? Well they weren't that careful about it. Splash damage
did kill my 2nd pod, I think.
Well I almost quit this thing, not "rage" quit exactly, but definitely "peeved" quit. In the course of writing this up, I remember that I could go back a turn and just do it over. Am I even right about my mindworm assumptions? Went back to Alpha Centauri Autosave 2.SAV and anti-save-scummed until I got a mindworm again. Now I've saved that game, here's what I'm working with. 2/3 of a move remain for the colony pod with the mindworm next to it. My other units haven't moved.
 Contemplating the Illustrious Mindworm |
Contemplating the Illustrious Mindworm |
I figure, my whole tactic is based on the assumption that I can't die on turn 2 from a mindworm attack, even while standing on fungus. So I don't need the Scout for anything. I pop the 3rd pod with it. Almost to tempt me, that yields a Unity Rover. I save the game, because I want to prove that I can be cheeky. The Rover has yet another pod next to it, but it's in fungus and it wasn't easy to tell that. I reload my game to prevent waste of motion from fungus I should have been made to see, and just move it somewhere else. My other colony pod stuck in the fungus, I try to move to another square, knowing that it won't be able to. I've got the move to burn, might as well do something with it. I save my game and hit Turn Complete. I find out...
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Death Is Good |
...my belief is wrong. A mindworm
can kill you at the beginning of the game
if you are standing on fungus. And oddly,
no splash damage is inflicted on a 2nd colonist. Whatever!
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Death to Mindworms |
I go back to when I popped the Rover. I use it to kill the mindworm. I move my 2nd colony pod onto the river fungus my 1st colony pod is occupying. I move my 1st colony pod 1 more square along the river and found my capitol. I rename it to "Mindworm SNAFU" to honor this near debacle. It's pretty much the same settlement plan, except a mindworm appeared, then a Rover conveniently appeared to kill the mindworm. Whatever!
I played for a few more hours, but got bored and quit. A rockfight with some Caretakers. I guess I'm not enamored with Huge maps right now.
New SMAC quizzes available.
