Infinity (level)

[annikk.exe]

Map Type: Very Large, Open
Difficulty: Medium/Hard

Features:

• Gravity
• Infected AI
• Numerous level-specific mechanics, which I shall leave you to discover for yourself..

To win, capture all asteroids.
Defeat occurs if you lose all your habitable asteroids.
Remember to send some scouts to the comet as it passes...  :>


Special thanks to main beta tester Smokey.

Other beta testers:
Simonstep
Temphix
Tristavius

[ArdB]

Thanks for this great map. I played all the maps that were posted so far but this one is the best.
Looking forward to play your next level.

[annikk.exe]

You're welcome, and thanks for signing up!  It's cool that this is your first post and it's in my thread.  ^_^

I was beginning to think nobody was going to have anything to say about this map, despite 40+ downloads already.

If you want to keep an eye on future map development, the Gravity Dev Blog thread is the place to be.. :>  When I start work on the next map, I will post updates on my progress in that thread.

[Bonobo]

Annik, I wanted to play your map before I wrote something about it. And first I didn’t have time, so …

Yesterday night I finally got to play. Wow, what an amazing game. First I lost, after perhaps an hour or 90 minutes, and what a hefty loss it was!

But in the second game I was cleverer (must’ve been so, otherwise I wouldn’t have been victorious cause I didn’t hack the level). And after perhaps 3.5 or 4 hours of excitement and transpiration I finally had conquered all asteroids. Had to give up my original home in the map, though, during the progress of the game, but …

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… then I took over the other galactic arms, clockwise, and making sure that I always had 500+ defending seedlings in each of my galactic arms.

It seemed that my seedlings were somewhat stronger than the enemy’s, since I was able to defend an asteroid with my seedlings amounting to perhaps half the number of aggressors.

Very very cool are those comets, which I learnt to use like a bus but often mixed up whether I had to “change the bus” or stay on it in the central crossing.

And funny things happened after victory, see attached image: One of the comets bumped off the right side of the universe and flew back into the window, but my seedlings which populated it were somewhat late to realize that they had to follow this comet, too, that was funny.

This is an amazing level/map, Annik, and it was great fun playing it. Much the more since this time I really had a chance to win it w/o having to hack the level. And I have the feeling that I may play this level quite a few more times

THANK YOU, SIR!

Greetings, Tom

[annikk.exe]

:D

Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the awesome feedback :>  Totally made my day.  :>

[Koss]

Amazing level. Very good balance. First & second time I lose, but in third, after 2 hour I can beat it. A.I. is good.
And final demo is nice
THANK YOU !
Waiting you next level.

[smeece85]

Awesome work!  Very fun and interesting.  Figuring out a strategy was the best part, and for once I felt like strategic movements were the singular key to victory.  In the past I've felt like the infected AI was too good and that chance almost dictated either victory or crushing absolute defeat.  Here was different though because it wasn't simply a race to fill in as many planets as possible, and the infected had to make the same decisions and sacrifices I did in order to get to the other belts.  Hard to describe except to say great level!  Thank you!

p.s., here was my strat:

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As soon as you can, put as many seeds on the comets as possible and keep a high number there for the entire game! You will likely have to loose your home land, but you can reclaim it after capturing a different belt.

[GMNives]

I've been having some trouble getting this map to work.

In order to get the game to recognize the level you need to modify the name from "infinity.lua" to "level_infinity.lua".

Then once I go into my client and attempt to open the level the menu buttons disappear and I am left with the manilla background for a suspended amount of time. I have to restart my client to recover from this problem.

I'm eager to give this level a try - but I've tried a lot to get this thing working with absolutely no luck so far.

[Bonobo]

My version of Eufloria doesn’t require a level name to begin with “level_”, I've played this lever a number of times w/o changing its name—you might want to update your Eufloria to the current version.

[annikk.exe]

This map requires Eufloria v2.04

You can download the update here: http://www.dyson-game.com/files/PatchEufloria.exe

[kennywalker1q2q3q]

is there a limit on the amount of seedlings aloud in a galaxy after a while none of mine or the enemies trees generate seedlings, i thought it might be because the enemy had a about 3900 seedlings

sorry if this seems like a really stupid question

[annikk.exe]

There is indeed a limit, as far as I'm aware it's hard-coded.  If either you or the AI gets to the limit, the game is likely to be over anyway though.

[Bonobo]

There is indeed a limit, as far as I'm aware it's hard-coded.  If either you or the AI gets to the limit, the game is likely to be over anyway though.

Uhm, but …

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… I had the impression that in this map (Infinity) my asteroids and those of the AI sometimes stopped producing seedlings during the game, when it hat proceeded for about 2 hours. Could have been perhaps 2.400 seedlings on my side and perhaps 1.200 on the enemy’s, something like that. Then after some mutual butchering, the roids produced again.

[GMNives]

Finally got it working. This map KICKS ASS.

I haven't been able to beat it yet... But holy seed is it hard.

The moving asteroids add so much more to the game in terms of tact. I wouldnt mind seeing more of these "moving body" mechanics in future maps. Keep the amazing work up man.

[threephi]

Another great level and the hardest one yet!  Anikk, hard to believe but you keep outdoing yourself.  I really like how your levels demand the player exercise good strategy in order to win and each one makes you expand that skillset above what has come before.  This one took me three tries I think until I had a solid plan figured out.

I also really, really like the post-victory "show" when the asteroids all break loose and float around.  It's always been a bit anticlimactic after a long Eufloria battle for it all to just suddenly end and this was a brilliant idea to add a little reward after it's all over.  Winning this level means you will necessarily have a very large number of seedlings scattered about and I like to try and send them to and fro among the interweaving asteroids for the complex trails the masses of seedlings create as they stream between targets. 

I have found a bug in this section however, which resulted in an unrecoverable game freeze that required killing Eufloria from the task manager.  The conditions to cause this bug don't happen every time, in fact I've only seen it once out of five or six total times winning the level, but I don't see why it can't be repeated.

Here's what happened: I managed to send about 800 seedlings towards one of the comets as it slingshot very close around one of the now-freely-floating "sun" asteroids (the large unplantable ones at the head of each quadrant).  The comet passed very close to a sun so it departed with a very high velocity, and soon left view for universes unknown.  There were still hundreds of seedlings chasing it, and they continued on their trajectory after the comet disappeared off the edge of the screen.  A short time later, the game froze completely (still in the after-game show) with task manager showing Eufloria completely maxing out the CPU core it was running on.  My naive impression was that the game engine got stuck in an endless loop as it tried to compute a trajectory for the seedlings to a target that either no longer existed, or had out-of-bounds coordinates.  I've only seen the bug once (out of maybe six times winning the level) but if my theory is correct then it naturally would happen again under the same circumstances.

I also found what I think is a hole in the AI engine that when exploited, makes winning this level a lot easier than it should be.  I tested a few of your other levels and found the same flawed behavior in the AI.

Lengthy discussion of my winning strategy and the AI bug:

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The hole/flaw/bug involves the uninhabited and unplanted asteroids which are "pre-owned" by the AI.  If you put some seeds on one of these empty AI planets before the AI gets there or sends any seeds there, but don't plant any trees, and it is the most desirable asteroid in the AI's expansion path, the AI will completely avoid that asteroid or even cease expanding completely.  After noticing it in Infinity, I played through Infected Empire a few times and was able to induce the same buggy AI behavior there as well.

Before detailing the AI problem I want to describe my strategy for winning this level since I discovered the flaw while developing it

The early phase of my victory strategy for Infinity is to get the seed economy going as efficiently as possible and also quickly capture the two upper-most asteroids in the home quadrant so you can put about 45-50 seedlings on the first comet that swings by.  That is usually close to all my seeds at that point of the game, but if you have taken those two top planets, and fully planted the first three, you will quickly grow enough to conquer the remaining two asteroids with plenty of time to build a large enough force to crush the first invasion when it arrives.  One seedling from the first comet gets transferred to the other comet so I can orbit it around the upper right quadrant's sun in order to get an early look at the AI's base and how many seeds are coming on the invasion comet.  The remaining seeds ride to the lower left quadrant for an early pre-emptive strike to cripple the AI there so I can get those asteroids producing seedlings for me instead of the bad guys.

After the first run through with this strategy, it seemed quickly winning the lower left wasn't quite enough to guarantee victory as the AI kept hammering me with huge invasion forces from the upper left.  Next game, I let a bunch of seedlings stay on the first comet all the way to the upper left to get an early peek at the AI stronghold.  I was surprised to see most of the asteroids were still empty at that early stage as the AI was still in expansion mode.  I hopped all of my seedlings onto the empty corner asteroid (the one closest to that quadrant's sun planet) and planted a tree.  This slowed the AI down appreciably but didn't quite do enough I thought.

The next time I tried this variation of my strategy, after landing my seedlings on the upper-left corner asteroid (owned by the AI but unplanted), the game wouldn't let me plant a tree even though I had enough seeds (a bug in Eufloria itself).  [aside--this game bug occurs sometimes when you have this exact situation, friendly seeds on a virgin enemy asteroid that has neither trees nor exposed roots but can be planted.  Effectively you cannot select the asteroid--the asteroid menu with the tree buttons disappears when you release the mouse click after selecting the asteroid, making it impossible to click the tree buttons.  It seems to only happen with certain numbers of seedlings on the asteroid, above which it doesn't occur.  This bug is entirely separate from the AI bug but I mention it in case Alex or Rudolf are reading, and because the one led me to discover the other] 

Anyway, this was a frustrating situation--I had sent ten of my precious seedlings deep into enemy territory on an important sacrifice mission but they were suddenly stuck in limbo.  I couldn't plant a tree and I also couldn't retreat since there were no adjacent friendly or neutral asteroids  But here's the AI flaw--surprisingly, the AI completely avoided that asteroid like the plague!  The AI kept developing the other asteroids in that quadrant, but would not touch the corner with my lowly ten seedlings on it even after having the maximum 100 seeds on each of the other planets.  It also _never_ sent seedlings onto comets as they passed by even though the comet's path in that quadrant brings it within the send radius of the two next inner-most asteroids.  Needless to say, eliminating the threat from the AI's strongest forces with only a handful of seedlings made the level something of a cakewalk

A little more detail on the bug:  After mopping up the AI in the upper right, I sent about 2000 seedlings to that corner asteroid in the upper left.  With no trees planted, the AI still stood in place.  The instant I planted a tree, the AI finally sprung into action and ran into a deathtrap.  I tested the bug a few more times with different numbers of seedlings.  When I put only one seedling on the corner, the AI invaded like normal.  With seven or more, it wouldn't invade.  However, when I also put seedlings on the asteroid directly above the corner one, the AI invaded normally.

That dovetails with what I saw in Infected Empire.  First I cornered the AI on one asteroid, carefully leaving a trail of open virgin enemy asteroids for the AI to expand into, some with my seedlings on them, some not.  When I had seedlings on the one biggest asteroid within the AI's occupied asteroid's send radius, but didn't plant a tree, the AI wouldn't expand.  The AI wouldn't even expand into other reachable unplanted AI asteroids that were completely empty.  So long as I kept my seeds on that one best asteroid within its reach, but didn't plant a tree, the AI wouldn't expand.  However, if I planted a tree on one of those other previously empty, less attractive asteroids that the AI had ignored earlier, it attacked.

Ok... if you read that and your eyes haven't fallen out of their sockets yet, I want to say again what a great job you did on this level.  The care that went into it definitely shows, especially the balancing of when the comets arrive, how fast they go, how strong the AI's attacks are, the number of trees on each asteroid, etc. etc.  Kudos to you and your testers!