Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => After Action Reports => Topic started by: bvanevery on February 10, 2018, 11:15:19 PM

Title: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2018, 11:15:19 PM

Comments and questions about the strategies I'm using in this game, are expected and encouraged.  Please make them in this thread.  As my AARs become longer and longer, I think that's the only way to keep this readable.  Don't worry about "interrupting".  I guarantee I can reestablish the flow with a massive wall of text and 5 screenshots if need be.

I'm trying the Yitzi patch again.  I think it may silence the background music though, so I'm a little annoyed with that.  Even disabling PRACX, the music is not playing.

I'm Aki again.  Huge map, average settings, random opponents.  Some Aliens are in this game, not sure which.  I start on dry land that doesn't look good.  However it seems like it might be attached to a substantial land mass to the south.  That would be a welcome change from the usual "crap island" starts I've been getting lately.  I don't like having to spend all my early research on Explore just to get off a tiny starting island.  It puts me behind.

I pop a pod and get a Rover and a nutrient.  I get another nutrient to the south, and a mineral, so this starting position is beginning to look quite a bit better than the initial dry scraggle would suggest.  I should be able to crank out Secret Projects well enough.

Obligatory early exploration and guess who's south of me?  I realized I might have to fight someone for this land mass, but I didn't expect it so soon.  Not long ago, I was in exactly the same situation with the Believers.  I made the mistake of signing a Treaty and thinking I could out-maneuver them while colonizing.  I can't.  They have support, I have a growth penalty, they colonize faster than I do.  Long story short, I experimented with heroic stands for awhile and then quit.  A Treaty is clearly the wrong decision with Believers at close quarters.

I was previously doing Discover, Build focus to get SPs to build.  Now I've switched to Explore, Conquer focus to get speeders to wipe Miriam out.  I don't care about getting rid of her permanently, she can respawn somewhere else on Planet for all I care.  But she's getting off my rock, however big this rock is.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2018, 11:48:21 PM

I have discovered Biogenetics.  That is not that helpful against the Believers at this time.  I already spent my excess cash to rush Formers and Colonists.  I have them approaching their 1st target city location now, an energy bonus.  Miriam has a Scout right next to that spot, indeed I've boxed it in there, and that could trigger the war.  She also has a Battle Ogre in the southwest.  That means I cannot delay creating a Laser unit prototype, no time to wait for Doctrine:Mobility.  I've taken out Battle Ogres with cannon fodder before, at least I do have advanced warning and can track its progress.  Maybe she'll foolishly use it to explore, and get it killed on a mindworm.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 12:05:41 AM

I try to give the Scout a forced way to leave, but Miriam doesn't take the bait.  She settles Blessed Savior just before I was going to settle my own city, blocking me from southern access.  This is a problem with Miriam: she spawns quickly.  I will have to backtrack to the coast a few squares north.  My Laser Squad prototype costs 28 to rush, so I'm doing it.  Next turn I get a new tech.  I hope it's Doctrine:Mobility as then I'll be able to build a Command Center and work on a Recon Rover prototype elsewhere.  If not, I will build Recycling Tanks at Tau Collective, the city which is mining the minerals deposit.  If I've got a Command Center on the minerals deposit, and a Recon Rover completed, then I'm definitely ready for war.  At that time I'll tell Miriam she's violated my territory and see if she gives me a war, so that I can keep my Noble diplomatic rating.

I'm noticing from the graph that the Caretakers, Usurpers, and Pirates are in the game.  Joy.  All are doing better than other human players.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 01:17:33 AM

All is in readiness.  I researched Nonlinear Mathematics.  I built the needed unit prototypes, a Recycling Center, and a Command Center.  I'm working on a Recreation Commons in my big minerals city.  Other cities are working on Colony Pods.  I've got a 4-1-1 in the city with the scout next to it, and a 2-1-2 and 1-1-2 outside of Blessed Savior.  It's time to threaten Miriam.  Do I tell her she's violated my territory?  Or do I demand she cede Blessed Savoir to me?  If she doesn't knuckle under, do I start the war or do I penetrate to her innards?

After careful consideration, I'm going to try "You have violated my Territory!  Leave at once!"  I'd like that to trigger a war.  Wiping out Blessed Savior will be easy.  Then I can recolonize there with citizens who don't resent me.  Whereas, if she cedes Blessed Savior, it may not actually open up expansion all that much.  This land mass may not be all that much bigger than I'm seeing.  There's a prominence to the southwest that could be Mt. Planet, but otherwise, I can't tell if it touches additional land.

So here goes.  Gonna think of some clever 733t speak for dialing her up.  7734209!  On a calculator upside down that becomes GO2hELL.  Now sing it to the old song, "MIRI[am] I've got your number, I'M gonna make you MINE!  MIRI[am] don't change your number, 7734209."

After a lot of small talk about techs I'm not going to trade her, and bribes I'm not going to accept from her for a Treaty, I pop the question.  She says, "How about you remove YOUR forces?"  Um, didn't plan for that one.  I said let's keep them in place.  Then she hung up on me.  But her Scout is gone and my Scout Rover is still there!  What gives?  That seems bugged.  I'm playing this turn over.

Ring!  Ring!  7734209.  Dance, Lal, dance!   :danc:  You !#!@#, you're not even in this game.  "MIRI[am] I'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER..."  You know what?  That ended the same way, just with a different message.  Women.  Er, I guess I'm a woman too in this game, forgot about that.  Still, "IIIII'M gonna make you MIIINE!"  And I'm replaying this turn, because this isn't enough.

Ring!  Ring!  7734209.  Dance, Lal, dance!  :danc:  !#!@#.

"Is that a threat?"  Um, yeah... but she hung up on me.  If I want war then I've gotta trash my reputation.

So I guess I'm gonna take a tour of her empire.  Perhaps she'll enjoy Scouts camping on her resources and starving her out.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 01:30:21 AM

I got Santiago's comm frequency out of a pod.  That wasn't useful.  She's Obstinate, didn't have any techs, didn't have a comm frequency to offer when I started poking at those, and hung up on me.

Can sitting in front of a Battle Ogre provoke a war?  Oh I sure hope so.  Meanwhile, Miriam's Scout seems to have left on its own accord.  I hope she isn't sneaking around in that fungus in front of my base.  I am going to move my own Scout in such a way as to detect that.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 01:37:34 AM

Yep, there she is.  Is it a she?  Does that make her a Girl Scout?  I just ate some Girl Scout cookies, so it's on my mind.  I put my own Boy Scout on "my" fungus.  She's leaving home, bye bye.

Dance, Lal, Dance!   :danc:  !@#$!@#$ !@#!@, you're not even in this game.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 01:45:24 AM

Well I got Doctrine:Flexibility.  I wasn't trying.  It gives me something to do other than bother poor pathetic Miriam.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 02:00:16 AM

She's moved her Battle Ogre around to "her" fungal square.  It was next to my Scout Rover just 2 turns ago.  Hope she doesn't have 2 Ogres, but I can handle it if she does.  The Ogre doesn't show on the regular map, but it does in my city blowup window for some reason.  I guess because it's adjacent to my Scout.  Well if this is her great "sneak attack" idea, my Scout is doing the most noble job of bringing me exactly what I want, at no cost to myself.  My 4-1-1 will destroy anything that steps forwards.  I've got a 2-1-2 and two 4-1-2's as reserve forces.  I'm just sitting around building death units while Miriam doesn't do much of anything.

I've got a Transport ready to go, and 1 Colony Pod to put on it, but no clear destination as of yet.  I will probably pop some pods in the water before committing to making a new base somewhere else.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 03:26:41 AM

Mriam built The Weather Paradigm.  The Caretakers built The Human Genome Project.  I've started on The Merchant Exchange in my capitol and currently have no competition.  I just researched High Energy Chemistry, which really puts the thumbscrews on Miriam's predicament.  Nevertheless we have no war and she just sits there.  I've built some Sensor Arrays to explicitly reveal her position and bolster mine.

I've got this colony about to make camp to the far southwest.  The $64 question: is this land attached to Miriam's or not?  I'm thinking maybe it is not.  In which case, I will colonize it and absorb Miriam later.  Like when I finally get probe teams.  Since I'm still doing a Conquer only focus, that could be awhile.

This turn I signed a Treaty with Santiago.  She doesn't claim to have commlinks for the 2 other human factions.  I wasn't interested in talking to Alien factions.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 03:47:44 AM

Yep it's a separate land mass.  It is also now reasonable to conclude that I've outclassed Miriam with 7 cities to 5, and better tech.  I've got Plasma garrisons in my front line cities and Impact Rovers in all my mainland cities.  I will send the 1 Recon Rover unit off to the new lands to pop pods.

One of the Aliens tried to start The Merchant Exchange.  I rushed it with 2 Artifacts and money to completely shut down any SP building programs they have in mind.  Don't want them to have time to switch to a different SP.  Nobody's building anything now, so Mission Accomplished.

I just realized that if I go Police State, it will likely trigger war.  Perfect!  If I can only get Doctrine:Loyalty.

Next turn, Miriam offers to trade me Field Modulation for Nonlinear Mathematics.  Of course I won't do that, but I could counter-offer with Doctrine:Flexibility.  I decide "no" because keeping her bottled up is to my advantage.  So what if she has better defensive units in time?  My Impact Rovers will still destroy them.  It is better for me to increase my city count, for the day of final reckoning.

Then I get Doctrine:Loyalty that same turn, justifying my attitude.  I switch to Police State immediately.  The countdown to war has begun!  I begin The Command Nexus next turn in my "big minerals" city.  Meanwhile my capitol is free to make Transports, having nothing better to do.  I switch to Discover focus as I've got what I wanted for conquest.  Now I would like some probe teams, a Planned economy, or Secrets of the Human Brain.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 04:17:15 AM

An earthquake dramatically raised an island near me, but it didn't touch my land.  My Transport survived because I had moved it away the previous turn.  I often do that, but not always.  It depends on the speed at which I want to get things done.  The pod in question was 1 square inland, so it was sensible to move the Transport away and come back.  In case just this very thing happens.

I've rushed The Command Nexus with money.  I'll have it next turn.  Perhaps I'll build some Impact Infantry to destroy Miriam with.  Or maybe I won't, and will just build more Transports?  I dunno.  Miriam bores me.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 04:25:44 AM

Miriam has figured out Doctrine:Flexibility.

I screwed up and moved a wounded Scout before moving the Artifact with it.  The Scout got killed.  I hope that mindworm doesn't come after the Artifact, or only wounds it.  If it destroys it, then I will replay this turn.  I don't think I should lose an Artifact from a stupid mistake borne of tiredness.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 04:45:17 AM

I found the Ruins.  My Recon Rover survived an earlier mindworm attack by disengaging.  Luckily the mindworm didn't come after it, so I was eventually able to get to a Monolith and heal.

The Artifact on another island, didn't get chased by the mindworm that killed my Scout.  Instead it went after my city.  I am trying to bring a Transport around to pick it up, but I've discovered the Sargasso Sea south of Miriam.  I'm bringing a 2nd Transport from a different direction in case the 1st doesn't make it.  I hope Miriam doesn't make landfall and seize my Artifact.

I have made a wave of 4-3-1 in every mainland city.  Still no war with Miriam.  She pisses and moans about my Scout Rover that's in her backyard, but she never actually does anything about it.  I think she's intimidated, as well she should be.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 04:52:20 AM

I've discovered the Geothermal Shallows.

I'm making some Sea Colony Pods to surround my capitol with.  Because it has The Merchant Exchange, I won't be relocating it.  The cities making the colonists, have a very poor food outlook and otherwise wouldn't grow anytime soon.  I'm also no longer in need of military units.  I have enough to deal with Miriam no matter what happens.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 05:33:56 AM

I disconnected a road that Miriam built between us, and put forest in our way.  Miriam cannot use a speeder on land to get into any of my cities.  I'm doubting that she'll think of assaulting by sea from a Transport.  I think the new barriers must have changed the status quo for her, because she removed her Battle Ogre from the front line.

I have nearly circumnavigated the globe, heading eastwards along my latitude.  Note the revealed area in the minimap.  For a long time I seemed to be following the edge of a supercontinent.  I may still be, but fungus has interrupted my movement here and there.  I have not encountered any other factions in this time.  If indeed there's a supercontinental barrier between us, it would explain a lot.  All the other factions could be fighting over the southern half of the map.  In particular, maybe it is rather difficult for the Pirates to reach me.

I'm getting close to completing The Virtual World.  I have no competition.  I have switched to Build focus because getting Secrets of the Human Brain doesn't seem urgent.

I have built 2 sea bases around my capitol and am about to build a 3rd.  That would take care of centralized economics, as there aren't any other good resources in the vicinity of my capitol.  Just a lot of ocean.  I would need land raising capability to improve it - such as The Weather Paradigm that the Believers completed.  I'm running out of excuses not to invade them.  However I could settle the big western island.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 06:03:21 AM

The war begins, of all things via the strange complaint about the Spartans.  Why are Miriam and Santiago at war?  I guess they're close enough to do it, but in their limited circumstances it doesn't seem practical for either of them.  Santiago is a small ways southeast of us.  She has 3 cities on a large S-shaped island with a nasty isthmus of fungus cutting her off from access to the rest of it.  She was placed on top of the Unity crash site so has gotten intelligence on where other factions are.  I'm only seeing Safe Haven, which is very far directly south of me.  As far as one can get.  I don't see Cha Dawn but then she didn't crash on the Unity anyways, in fact I think she is made to start 3 turns later like the Caretakers do?  Or it could be that one just doesn't get full disclosure unless the Unity is discovered later, and Santiago discovered it immediately.

Anyways, I contact Miriam because she has the temerity to move 2 units onto my land.  I tell her to bugger off!  Sensibly, she does.  She complains about me being in a Truce with Sparta, that she won't tolerate it.  I figure hmm, what's up with that?  Haven't talked to Santiago in awhile, so I do so.  She offers a Treaty.  I propose an alliance, but she says she'll agree only if I go to war with Miriam.  Hell yeah!  And because Miriam and I didn't have a Treaty, and this is a legit political exchange, I get to keep my Noble rating.  Mission Accomplished.

When I settled my last sea base, I got the Bureaucracy warning.  So this is a better idea than doing more settlement while under a Police State.  I need to conquer Miriam, then switch to Planned and grow my cities.

Belatedly I realized I forgot to ask Santiago for other comm freqencies.  She asks for war with the Pirates while she's at it.  I figure sure, why not, they can't even scratch me where they are.  They'll scratch her first anyways.  Also got the Caretakers comm frequency.  Let's see what they have to say.  Eh, H'minee declares war.  Screw her.  I learn she has Missiles though.  If I had any idea where she was, I'd go steal them.

Pictured are my troop movements to the front.  I think I will try hiding behind my tree line for a bit.  See if Miriam will poke her nose forwards to be summarily destroyed.  If she succeeds in destroying forests, then I'll attack through those with Impact Rovers.

Now, this is a Yitzi game.  It's clear from looking inside Miriam's cities, that Yitzi doesn't solve the problem of an AI grossly overproducing units that have no military value.  She's got garrison units out the wazoo.  New Jerusalem is reduced to No Minerals.  She also hasn't built a single Impact Rover, despite having the capability.  I am now less inclined to wait and more inclined to blitz with Rovers, but we'll see what she actually does when I hit Turn Done.  I also need all my troops to come to the front anyways.

For her 1st move, she sends two 2-1-2's onto the forest and dies.  It looks like she wants to suicide her Battle Ogre next turn.  I mass on the rock north of Blessed Savior, bringing up 3 rovers, 2 artillery, and 1 infantry.

For her 2nd move, her Battle Ogre moves forwards to die.  I can't quite kill it with a 4-1-1 and lose it, but the Ogre is all but dead.  I trivially eliminate it with a 4-3-1, although surprisingly, even that leaves it half wounded.  I still have a fresh 4-3-1 in that same forest square, waiting for any more suicides.  I remove the artillery and redeploy it to the rock.  The big stack moves 1 square forwards and the artillery starts shelling Blessed Savior 2 squares away.  Shouldn't be any problem as she didn't build 4-1-2's.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 06:41:13 AM

Ok, where did she get the Impact Rovers from?  I guess I didn't methodically look at the Support of all her cities, but she sure didn't have those in her cities.  A deliberate ruse perhaps, or a way of avoiding artillery fire.  She's damaged my stack.  I will kill her units no problem, but this is annoying.  I probably better sound the retreat and not attack Blessed Savior just yet.  I will continue shelling it though, thinking that she doesn't have an Rovers to follow up with.

Can you tell I don't actually respect her and am not being all that careful at 1:40 AM?

I did recently reseach Pulse armor and will have some of those coming "soon".  I had hoped the conquest would be over by the time they arrived, and that they were just going to be my latest garrison unit.  They might actually be needed in the field.

Wow, I didn't expect to lose a 4-3-1 when attacking a 4-2-2.  I guess forests provide good cover.  On my followup attack she disengaged.  My 4-3-1 corps isn't doing so good.  2 dead, 2 half-wounded, only 1 full strength.  She has bought herself time.  But unless she can also buy minerals I say she's ultimately done for.

I got Cha Dawn's commlink out of a floating pod.  She allied with me in exchange for war against Marr.  Why not, he'd probably declare war on me anyways.  She also asked for a loan but I declined.  I know I will go Planned and that will piss her off.

Cha Dawn is on the diagonal opposite side of the board, as far away from me as she can be.  Marr is to her east and only1 city is revealed.  H'minee is to her west and shows 2 cities revealed.  Svensgaard is substantially to the east of Marr; they are all on the same southernmost latitude.  That explains why it has taken so long to contact them.

If I hold an election, it'll be split 3 ways between myself, Svensgaard, and Miriam.  As I have 2 allies, I think I can win it.  Yep, my allies have 38 votes between them, so that should settle it.  Hope they don't pull any goofy stunts.  Here goes.  Actually Miriam didn't qualify for the ballot, so I won easily.  I tried to sell Cha Dawn's comm frequency to Santiago before the election, but she didn't bite.  Instead she asked for a loan and I gave it to her.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 07:34:07 AM

This ain't no blitz.  Why are Miriam's units doing so well defensively?  My units die freqently against her.  I'm trained, she's trained, neither one of us is Fundamentalist, so what gives?  Her city terrain is flat and not particularly higher than the ground I'm attacking from.  I hope Yitzi didn't jack the defense of everybody, because if it did, that's damn annoying.  It would make games take much longer to play than they're supposed to.  I've lost nearly all of my original units and will be relying on a combo of 1-3tp-1 and 4-1-1 to take her out.

It's 2:30 AM, why am I not winning?

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 08:41:54 AM

I have taken The Weather Paradigm at The Word of God.  Miriam won't surrender, so New Jerusalem is next.  I think she's having a less easy time defending against me now, because some of my troops are more experienced.

I've started on The Citizen's Defense Force and have no competition for it.

Svensgaard has shown up with a sea colony pod all the way up here.  I've got a wounded ship parked next to his pod, which for some reason is not moving.  Eventually I will heal up enough to kill it.  I'm making skimship probe teams to steal from him becasue he's got Bioadaptive Resonance.  I'm also making a few armed ships to take over sea bases, whether his or Miriam's.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 09:09:02 PM

I seize New Jerusalem.  Miriam won't surrender.  On land, Godwinson's Hope is next.  I've also been shelling He Walked On Water and have ships to take it over.  The Pirates show up sometimes and I destroy them with artillery and ships in my 2 southern ports.

I've completed The Citizen's Defense Force.  I haven't built any Police units as under a Police State, regular units have been sufficient to keep everyone in line.  I anticipate that I'll transition to Democratic Planned once I've cleared Miriam from my "core".  She has a number of southward sea bases, so may not feel like surrendering once I push her into the water.  A naval war is a different way of doing things, if only because the Pirates are involved in it.  I'm not sure a big naval buildup is in my interest, given how easy it has been to destroy Svensgaard's ships from shore so far.

By the time I got a Skimship Probe Team down to steal from Svensgaard, my allies had acquired the 2 techs he had anyways.  I traded them cheap techs, so now if I steal from Svensgaard, I'll get his map.  That's not valueless as there's an awfully big black area around Safe Haven on the minimap.  However someone's got a ship lurking just south of my Skimship Probe Team.  I didn't want to pay money to bribe it, so I had to retreat.

I have a number of Transports fishing for pods, and I've brought home a number of Artifacts.  Don't think I'll pop them just yet, as I know one of the Aliens has Missile technology.  I'd like to steal it, but maybe they're too far away for that to be practical.  I've continued with my Build focus.  I've only built 1 Energy Bank in my capitol as I'd like to get The Planetary Energy Grid.  Seems quite doable as nobody's been building SPs lately but myself.

I'm probably doing pretty well, but soon I'm going to have to consider the problems of long range war.

I've been raising the land around bases near my capitol, to increase its profitability.  Cheaply getting rid of ocean squares and so forth.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2018, 11:22:28 PM

I finally stole the Pirates' world map, so now I know what their lair looks like.

I find that my impact ships don't do a good job against Miriam's garrison forces in the water.  I either have to make new ships or blow it off until some other time.  Not sure what I will do as I have a lot of land combat forces and no land enemy to throw them at.  Democratic Free Market?

I think it's time to pop Artifacts.  I have tech supremacy over all the humans.  One of the Aliens has missiles, but it is too tedious to send a probe team all the way down there to steal it.  Maybe I will get a tech which makes my next direction clear to me.

I have 4 Artifacts in my home territory, all sitting in my "big minerals" city.  Popping the 1st got me Synthetic Fossil Fuels, so now I have missiles too.  The other 3 need to move to other cities to cash them in, so I have to wait until next turn.

Next turn I got Adaptive Economics, Doctrine:Air Power, and Advanced Military Algorithms.  That'll do!  I'll finish Miriam with planes.

I've decided to go Democratic Planned and disband all the land combat units that didn't get much experience, didn't have useful abilities like Trance Pulse, etc.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2018, 12:33:28 AM

I researched Environmental Economics, so now I'm building desperately needed Tree Farms.  My whole island is practically forest.

My untrained Impact Penetrator died when trying to attack Miriam's sea base.  Not sure what I expected.  I don't consider it any kind of loss though, as I won't have to pay suppot minerals for it.  I'll make something better, in an Aerospace Complex when I decide which city is going to be responsible for that.

Here is the world map.  I'm the big clump up north.

I am doubting that the Caretakers, the Usurpers, and the Cult of Planet can ever do anything about me.  One of the Aliens might become powerful if they defeat the other, but in other games I haven't seen them perform competent naval invasions.  It is far more likely they'll skirmish indefinitely, although the Cultists might take a beating between them.  I think the only threat they can present, is building SPs before I do.  If I'm sufficiently ahead in tech that won't happen, so that argues for switching to Democratic Free Market Knowledge at some point.

The Spartans are currently my ally.  They are behind other factions because they had a cramped start.  So, when I go Knowledge they may turn on me, but I think their military threat value is low.  They probably won't manage to research or build SPs or do anything that really threatens my control of the game.

The Pirates are capable of developing a real civilization if they're left alone.  They have all these bonus sea minerals to exploit, coupled with abundant food.  Energy is also easy for them if they want it.  My experience playing the Pirates is they're a good Builder faction, and the AI seems to know this as well.  However it is tedious to knock out the Pirates as it's a long range war.  Their bases also aren't worth anything to me, as I don't get mineral bonuses from the sea.  So I guess I need to stay ahead of them and knock them down as needed.  They cannot be allowed to become powerful the way Morgan was in the other game.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2018, 02:50:35 AM

I have discoverd the Manifold Nexus.  I'm surprised it went undiscovered for so long.  I've passed by its location many times, but it was blacked out.  Fishing for pods didn't cause me to venture closer to the small island.  Well, now I know.  It's not terribly important as I'm starting to build Hybrid Forests and have no eco-damage whatsoever.  But if I go Free Market, things could change, and it doesn't hurt to have a free +1 Planet anyways.  Also need to keep the Aliens from getting it, because they get a research bonus from it.  So I'll get a colonist over there in due course.

The disposition of the other players hasn't changed very much.  Cha Dawn ended our Pact.  Miriam sometimes puts some units on my island and I kill them.  Svensgaard sometimes shoots at me with his ship and my artillery fends him off.  I've raised land to thicken my island and nearly have a bridge to the western island.

I've made a lot of Secret Projects.  Currently I'm working on The Ascetic Virtues and The Supercollider.  I'm pleased that in this game I've mostly kept control of the SPs.  One thing I'm doing differently is pursuing Knowledge instead of Wealth.  Sure I can build things faster once I get them with Wealth, but experience has show it's more important to get them before others do.

Speaking of which, perhaps I should change from Build focus to Explore, Conquer focus now.  I'd like to prevent anyone else from getting The Maritime Control Center, and having The Cloudbase Academy can be handy too.  On the Build tech tree, the likely thing I'd get next is Superformers, but I don't really need them.  Because I haven't expanded anymore, my existing Formers have pretty much had time to terraform everything.  Plus I have The Weather Paradigm anyways, so I'm not slow at it.

BTW, at this point in the game I see no evidence that Yitzi has improved the play of the AIs in any way at all.  I'm kicking their butts.  Maybe they don't understand Huge maps.  Maybe they don't know how to deal with water.  Although, that's not true of the Pirates in an ordinary game of SMACX.  Given long enough, they can start to dominate because of their advantages on water.  Well, maybe I've been really efficient this game compared to the AIs, so I'm just doing everything faster / better than they are.  Time will tell.

But for instance, Svensgaard has had Doctrine:Air Power for some time now, and I've not seen a single plane.  Fine; not like I want to be bothered by air raids, and have to stop my building programmes to deal with it.  But it makes me wonder about his competence.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2018, 04:57:20 AM

The Caretakers showed up on my lands with an Empath Scout Rover.  I was about to bribe it when we had a talk.  I agreed to a Truce and demanded that she leave my lands.  She complied.

I'm still allied with the Spartans but it won't last.  I refused to join a war against the Cultists and told Santiago to make peace.  She did.

Miriam has a Treaty with the Spartans and a Truce with the Cultists.  She's at war with the Pirates, the Caretakers, and myself.  She's never met the Usurpers.  I've refrained from making peace with Miriam because I might someday want to take over her sea bases that are near to my coast.  Also she's been allied with other factions in the past, and I don't want the "enemy planes in an unassailable base" problem.  If she makes friends who want to attack me, I want to be able to take over her cities.

Miriam has planes but she hasn't tried to use any on me.  I'm finally building fusion powered Silksteel Gatling Police.  I've had the capability for quite awhile, but no need.  Now my populations are getting high enough to justify police units, and I have The Ascetic Virtues.  So, I can use 2 units as police.

I've bridged my main island and the west island.  I've settled the Manifold Nexus.  I'm raising land east of my capitol to put an economically valuable city there, and to turn the ocean south of that sea base into shallows.

I'm building a Fusion weapon prototype and I've also got Orbital Spaceflight.  I haven't launched a satellite yet, or even built an Aerospace Complex.  My Transports still manually explore the oceans, pushing back the black.  I don't think there are any more pods in the water anymore.  I should probably put some probe teams on the boats and pop pods on land.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 12, 2018, 11:06:57 PM

Miriam finally got around to strafing one of my Super Formers.  I've only built 1 Aerospace Complex, just north of that sea base I've taken from her.  I've only built Penetrators so far, as I expect to have a Planned economy until my cities are size 16, so didn't care about Free Market unhappiness penalties.  One of my Penetrators is about to sink Svensgaard's wounded transport.

Right now I'm building an Orbital Power Transmitter, since my plan is to take sea bases that are touching my lands.  I really think my 2 Shard Penetrators are probably enough for that.  I've made some amphibious garrison units, but I keep having to make new models because I keep getting new armor techs.  I've got Probability capability now but haven't prototyped it yet.  I've never built a Skunkworks, too many changes coming too fast and I couldn't commit to a city to put it in.  One of these days I'll make a nuke, but I see no rush.

I keep building Secret Projects without challenge.  Next turn I will complete The Living Refinery.  I'm building Tachyon Fields around most of my bases for lack of anything important to do.

I'm still working on raising land east of my capitol.  I haven't settled it yet.  I built a fair number of Super Formers in various places because I was stalling on committing to a bunch of military expenditures.  I really don't need to do much, just take a few bases here and there.  I've got 2 cities where people are now becoming unhappy, but as these are still local problems I don't want to raise my taxes yet.  My budget is currently 40-10-50.  So I'm making colonists to fill in various gaps in my empire.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2018, 01:23:07 AM

Surprisingly, the Believers attacked the sea base I took from them and wiped out my garrison unit.  Then their allies the Pirates seized the base as a walk-in.  So now it's a Pirate base.  If I seize it again, will I have liberated it?  Will I not have to pay the Captured Base unhappiness penalty anymore?

I need Neural Grafting.  I've been researching Conquer only for a very long time, but I haven't gotten that particular tech.  I can't complain too hard though, as I just got the tech for The Theory of Everything.  I'm building that in my capitol.

I've got Monopole Magnets now, thanks to 2 Artifacts I popped, but I haven't begun working on rails yet.

I have finally infiltrated the Alien factions.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2018, 03:28:29 AM

Eventually, the Pirates left this sea base empty for some reason.  They're still allied with the Believers.  Did the Caretakers hit him with a missile?  They do control the interior of the Monsoon Jungle, on an island south of this base.  The Believers and the Pirates both have bases around its coast.  The Believers used to control the interior but the Caretakers took over.

Well, whatever the reason, I'm walking in with a Marine.  Earlier I took that other Believer base touching the southern point of land.

I'm building a buch of Secret Projects including The Cyborg Factory.  Yep finally got my conquer techs.  I've switched to Build, hoping to pick up The Longevity Vaccine.

I still haven't started on rails.  I thought Soil Enrichers should be a higher priority.  I've filled in a lot of blank spots on my land masses.  I'm still raising land east of my capitol and putting cities out there.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2018, 05:48:37 AM

I've signed a Truce with the Believers.  Some time ago I filled in the interior of the western island.  Now rails and Formers are arriving in force and I don't need them being shot at.  Miriam may not have the planes anyways, but I have no desire to take the bases touching the island.  I've done lots of city improvements elsewhere and these are not important cities to have.  I've got enough room for my inland bases because they have the land claim, thereby getting all the land resources to themselvse.  If I took Miriam's bases, I'd actually have to share the land between my land and sea bases.  Better to leave her in poverty in the water.

I offered Svensgaard a Truce, but he's all wound up and wouldn't take it.  I guess he needs to get his ass kicked to see sense.  I'm not really motivated to do that right now, as he's not bothering me with any units and I've got internal stuff to deal with.

Santiago has been at war with me for some time, but we haven't had any actual conflict.  Presumably she just hates my Knowledge.  For sake of form I dialed her up just now, but she wanted money so I told her to stuff it.  Needs her ass kicked.

Cha Dawn sunk one of my Transports a long time ago, but otherwise we haven't been fighting.  Tried to dial her up just now, but she won't talk to me.

Dialed up Marr.  Thought his attitude was Noncommittal but when the screen popped up he was Seething.  He promised my death.  The last time I even saw a unit of his was eons ago.

H'minee and I have a Truce, but now her attitude is listed as Seething.  I could swear it was Noncommittal same as Marr.  Whatever.  I'm not contacting her.

Many of my cities are to the point of being unhappy now.  To deal with it, I make hovertank colonists and send them to the more recently built cities, that don't have much population yet.  In 2 turns I'll complete The Longevity Vaccine in my capitol.  Then my cities will grow a bit more, as 2 drones will become happy under my Planned economy.  My tax rate is still 40-10-50.  If I didn't have that SP about to complete, it would be time to raise the Psych.

I'm building Robotic Assembly Plants everywhere.  I'm not going to bother with Genejack Factories as I don't need the unhappiness.  I've actually switched my research focus to Explore in order to pick up The Pholus Mutagen.  I currently don't have any eco-damage at all, but I haven't finished any of those Plants yet either.  As I have a +1 Planet rating thanks to the Manifold Nexus, I may not have any problem.  I also recently captured my 1st Mindworm while exploring.

I'm wondering what the point of this game is.  To demonstrate maximal optimization of a Builder oriented empire?  I'm doing that "fixate on a perfect circle from your capitol" routine.  I'm losing interest in founding new cities or leveling them up.  Feels like I've been there, done that for many hours now.  The long spells of waiting for Build stuff to complete, also aren't visually interesting.  They don't tend to trigger narrative comments on my part.  I could do another screenshot of all the Secret Projects I've built, but why bother?

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2018, 05:27:19 PM

The next morning I wake up and don't even feel like playing this game.  That's definitely saying something.  I don't think I'm quite ready to abandon it, especially given all this work I've put into a writeup.  But clearly I'm bored and something is wrong.  I need to find another direction for this game.

I thought about starting another game where the Pirates roleplay an extreme phobia of land.  So they do everything in their power to turn the world into water.  I've played "flood the planet" games before, from a game mechanical standpoint.  Tactically, it doesn't amount to much, as the AIs just build Pressure Domes to compensate.  Flooding degrades other players' empires, but it doesn't destroy them, which was the hope.  A roleplaying orientation is different though.  I'd do everything because I hate land.

I just can't do nukes and flooding in a game I've spent meticulously hand-crafting all of my land tiles though.  I built a lot of the land in this game.  I'm still at it, my land raising projects are not quite done.

I do imagine building a full complement of Sky Hydroponics Labs and Orbital Power Transmitters, now that I've completed The Cloudbase Academy.  I've tended to forget about that in other games.  In a recent game, I finally realized that you only need as many satellites as your maximum city growth size.  Cities can't utilize any more than that.  So 16 of each and I'd be good to go.  Shouldn't be any problem to belt out, given that I'm working on Robotic Assembly Plants everywhere now.

Ok, I guess that's a direction.  But I'm still suffering boredom from what I did yesterday, and need that to clear out of my system for a bit.  I will wait until I more naturally need a "SMAC fix".

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2018, 10:35:11 PM

I finally finished the land raising to the east of my capitol.  I had wanted to turn deep ocean into shallows around my sea bases, but resource bonuses kept coming up when I raised land.  These caused me to steer the land farther away.  Ultimately I created shallows the expensive way, by raising them 1 square at a time with sea formers.  The problem isn't valueless however because I founded 4 new cities fairly close to my capitol.  2 of them are midsize because they've been the primary recipients of excess colonists from cities where people are unhappy.

Now that I've got The Longevity Vaccine I may have less intensity of unhappiness for awhile.  Orbital Power Transmitters may eventually provide enough money that unhappiness stops happening in my biggest cities as well.  Eventually many of my cities will have been conquered so long ago, that I'm no longer paying the Captured Base penalty.  However it happens, I will eventually pump all my cities to size 16.  I'll consider making new ones, at the next radius from my capitol, but it is again a lot of ocean raising work.  I may also get to a point where food from Sky Hydroponics Laps causes bases to hit size 16 every turn, thus I could spend all my time spewing out colonists and nothing else.  At that point it's simply a choice about that vs. other things I could build, as there is no inherent efficiency in "waiting to grow".

I intend to put rails along the northern pole.  Unfortunately that can be a Quixotic project, because if anything changes about the global temperature, those squares are only 10 m above sea level.  They will all summarily sink.  I'm not causing any eco-damage right now, and even if I started to, I haven't built Centauri Preserves yet.  I'm also trying to discover The Pholus Mutagen.  Over the long haul though, someone else could start doing eco-damage.  I don't currently have the votes to force the launching of a Solar Shade, as I haven't conquered anyone to make them my slave.  Also a Solar Shade can only be launched every 20 years, and flooding can come faster than that.

So I wonder how I'll deal with some faction's errant industry.  Fungal missiles?  I've never done a massive fungal missile campaign before.  I've experimented with it tactically in some games, and I seem to recall that ocean coverage was not good with these things.  On land, it's good to combine with The Xenoempathy Dome as a way to rapidly move through a wilderness to get to an enemy.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 13, 2018, 11:08:10 PM

I discovered Digital Sentience.  I thought that was odd for an Explore focus, but I suppose my tech foci has been all over the place, and my prereqs are fairly broad.  I rushed the Robotic Assembly Plant under construction in my capitol, and the next turn began The Network Backbone.  I was going to wait until that completed before going Cybernetc, but then for some reason I happened to look at my social choices screen.  I was reminded that the Consciousness doesn't suffer any penalties from a Cybernetic society because it's a rational choice.   So cybergal I am now!

AFAICT my research bonus is maxed now.  I think +5 Research would max it, but I don't know of a way to get a +1 Research bonus or -1 penalty as a human.  An Alien could get a +1 bonus from the Manifold Nexus, but I am not.  I've got +5 Efficiency now, but it only changed the happiness balance in 1 of my cities, so I don't think Bureaucracy was my problem.  I still need population growth so I don't see any reason to change my other settings.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2018, 05:13:55 AM

I have researched Super Tensile Solids.  It wasn't nearly as hard to get as I thought.  First I switched to Conquer focus to get the Neutronium prereq, then I switched to Build focus.  Now I can make Hab Domes and The Space Elevator.  I'm not sure what to research next.  I guess it would be good to have some Orbital Defense Pods?

My rail across the north pole is nearing completion.  Once it is done, I want to start raising land in the ocean west of my capitol.  That will be the last profitable economic zone in the vicinity of my capitol, I think.  Not enough time or incentive in the game to do more than that.

It probably wouldn't be that difficult to Transcend in this game, if I want to.  I'm not sure what exactly I want to do to win.  The other factions are so pathetic, I don't hear a peep out of them.  I'm not sure they fight each other all that much either.  Maybe I could pave them all into a big tectonic land mass so they can kill each other?

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 14, 2018, 05:29:41 PM

A solar flare destroyed all 16 of my Orbital Power Transmitters.  It would have also destroyed my Orbital Defense Pods if I'd had any, but I don't have that technology yet.  The flare left my Sky Hydroponics Labs alone.  I've overbuilt those, I don't actually have any cities that are size 25 yet.  But it may not be long, as I'm noticing my capitol is size 24 now.

Miriam has been bugging me a tiny bit.  She sunk a worthless sea former.  I sent a Penetrator to sink her ship, and it did, but for some weird reason it immediately ran out of fuel.  I think sometimes when you put a Penetrator back in a base, there's a weird bug where the fuel usage doesn't actually get reset.  The workaround seems to be to activate the unit and hit spacebar to end its movement, but I didn't notice the low fuel so didn't do that.  It had been sitting in base several turns, it shouldn't have been out of fuel.  I could have replayed the turn but I didn't, as it's less work to build a new one sometime.

Not like Miriam makes any great threats anyways.  She also strafed a simple Former working on a Mine.  I've been using those original Former units forever to work on Mines, because I don't care if they actually complete or not.  She has rarely strafed them.  A single Interceptor would probably take care of the problem, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I've completed The Space Elevator.  I could do orbital drops to pick up pods now.  However, a fair number of the remaining pods are in oceanic waters fairly easy to access by ship.  I've been doing so with 1 ship and 1 rover, which has netted me a gaggle of independent mindworms in the process.  I did find an Artifact or two.  I suppose I'll consider dropping onto pods deep behind enemy lines, if there are any left, but building Flechette Missile Defenses and new Orbital Power Transmitters are higher priority.  Nobody's actually lobbed a missile at me yet, but I've seen the Pirates making them, and I don't want them coming my way.

I'm soon to complete The Cloning Vats.  I won't be needing to push excess colonists around anymore, except to found new cities.  I'm not presently motivated to do so, but the lands I've raised to the west of my capitol are now quite substantial.  They're crinkly water passage looking things.  I can't call them fijords because they don't have much altitude.  I find myself compelled to link with further land masses to the west, such as contain the Ruins and the Manifold Nexus.  I've been raising land arond the Nexus for some time now, so it's on a much bigger island than it was, but an eastern link has eluded me due to the water improvements I made earlier.

I have this 1 sea base surrounded by hostile neighbors, that doesn't have much in the way of tile improvements around it and is pretty pathetic.  I've devised a new unit to try to change the situation: the Neutronium Super Former Submarine.  Hopefully hard to detect, and difficult to kill even if detected.  I've already got a Neutronium surface vessel working the tiles, it just went into service and isn't in the main danger area yet, so my jury's out on how well armored Formers perform.

I don't really need to remove fungus at sea anymore.  I've got Centauri Psi and get 2-1-1 from fungus squares now.  That wouldn't be ok in pure fungus waters, but all of my sea bases are longstanding and have mostly cleared, developed water tiles.  I don't need to remove fungus around my cities on land either, because frankly there isn't any.  I do remove fungus when building rails, even though frankly now I don't have to.  Force of habit.  Keeps mindworms from showing up when I move troops around.  My Planet rating is +3 so it's not so likely to happen, and I might capture them even if I did, but eh.  Maybe I just want an excuse to use my Fungicidal Formers for what I designed them for?

Lots of things I do at this point in the game don't matter.  I am an artiste!

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2018, 02:53:22 AM

Neutronium fusion Sea Former armor works really well against fission missiles!  The attacking Believer ship summarily sunk, hardly scratching my Former.  Note the actual ship on the extreme right of the screen, half cut off.  This happened between turns so I had to think fast about taking a screenshot.

And that's only the fusion generation: I just got quantum drive.  I'm thinking a fleet of Clean Submarine Pulse Neutronium Transports could completely smother all those sea bases south of me.  Or maybe they could be Sea Crawlers and I'd take the resources from those tiles.  I will experiment.

I guess there's a risk that if I did use quantum drives, and the Pirates ever successfully attacked one, they could gain quantum and neutronium capability.  But I suspect it would only be for that 1 unit type.  I haven't noticed the Pirates designing new units on the basis of technology they've captured.  Especially: the AI does not know how to make ship based probe teams.

Next turn I will complete The Cloning Vats.  I'm at work on The Universal Translator.  My research focus is still Conquer.  I'm still trying to gain Orbital Defense Pod capability.

Maybe I should look at Nessus Mining Stations as well.  I can't remember the last time I built one, maybe in some ancient game a decade ago?  I just don't typically need minerals at this stage of the game.  When reading the archives today, I learned some interesting things about their eco-damage behavior, according to Yitzi.  Says they don't inherently increase eco-damage, they're exempt.  However, when factories increase minerals output, they are not exempt.  I'm not sure how much difference that really makes, since I have Robotic Assembly Plants in every city.

I might be able to handle a lot more minerals.  I currently have +3 Planet and could go to +5 if I go Green.  Once I have The Cloning Vats, I don't need Planned for growth anymore.  For that matter I could blow off being Democratic.  Democratic Planned and Police State Green have equivalent efficiency, it's the severe growth penalty that has kept me from making that choice.  I'd increase support and lose an Industry bonus.  Well, I'll think about it.  Nobody will care that I'm a Police State.  Cha Dawn may start to like me if I'm Green, not that I care what he wants.  The Aliens haven't liked me anyways even though I'm Planned.  Maybe I'll try talking to everyone again, now that I'm so much obviously stronger.  See who's got some sense.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: Geo on February 15, 2018, 09:41:52 AM

That's still alot of inhabited islands.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2018, 01:11:01 PM

Meaning what, that I should be worried about something?  Nobody's done hardly a thing to me.  I could build 1 Quantum Neutronium Former to finish mining where I got 1 old Former strafed before.

I've discovered that a sea supply crawler by itself will not blockade resources.  At least in the sense that, it can't extract resources from a tile that is already in use.  It could set up on an unused tile and prevent those resources from being used in the future.  I'm hoping that by accompanying the sea crawler with something else, I can block resources temporarily, then use the sea crawler to block them permanently.  Mabye a simple transport will do.  That would be best, as it would be a tactic even a Free Market economy could use.  Although, I just went Police State Green so it's not actually my problem.  Anyways, yep, the tile can be temporarily blocked with something as simple as a plane flying overhead.  That'll work fine near my coast for now.

I've got Nanohospital and Quantum Lab capability, but I'm not building them except in my capitol.  I'm very far ahead on tech.  I'm building a lot of Orbital Power Transmitters to replace the ones I lost.  I've learned that The Space Elevator will mislead you as to your city's mineral output when building a satellite.  It doubles the amount of minerals your city says it produces when doing that, but if you build anything else, your minerals goes back down to normal.

As long as I'm posting, here's what the western lands look like now.  It's a bit pointless and obsessive, but I don't have anything else I need to do with my Formers, so why not.  Notice all the chunks of minerals that rose out of the sea that I didn't want to disturb, that caused me to change course and build in a different direction.  I generally try to preserve the topology of the water so that I don't make my land impassable to ships.  I'm pretty obsessvie about succeeding at that.  Maybe I should just consider lowering some land sometime instead of always raising it.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 15, 2018, 02:45:14 PM

I finally connected the Manifold Nexus to my mainland.  I've got another team of Formers coming from the east, so the connection will be in 2 directions, forming a giant loop!

I finally researched Orbital Defense Pods and am starting to throw them up in the air.  I'm not sure I'll make any Nessus Mining Stations, as 2 of my bases that have piles of minerals are now doing a small amount of eco-damage.  Currently I have them building Secret Projects, but when they are done I'll have them build Centauri Preserves.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2018, 01:15:20 AM

I have completed the big rail loop through the Manifold Nexus.  I continue to compulsively link islands throughout an unoccupied ocean, as I really don't need my Formers for anything else.  I did make a couple of heavily armored Formers which I'm using to finish a few tiles on my mainland.  The Quantum engine ones were invulnerable enough, and now I have Singularity engines.

I've launched 19 Orbital Defense Pods, 25 Orbital Power Transmitters, and 25 Sky Hydroponics Labs.  My capitol is my largest city with a population of 36, so I still have some expansion room before these satellites no longer benefit me.  To be honest though, the drill of launching more and more satellites is pretty boring.    At least I've turned off "Golden Age" notifications so that it takes fewer mouseclicks during the maintenance section of a turn.

I've completed piles of Secret Projects.  It's mostly not interesting, because I already have umpteen zillion advantages and don't need more advantages.  At this point it's collecting gewgaws and blocking other players from ever building a SP.  I think the last time a player was able to challenge me on a SP was eons ago.  I think the Believers had the temerity to start The Neural Amplifier as I was finishing it.

I completed Clinical Immortality.  With the voting bonus I finally have enough to win a Diplomatic Victory.  If only the Caretakers and Usurpers were out of the game.  So it looks like I'll either transcend or do a leveraged buyout.  My money is coming awfully fast now, but I'm not sure I want to keep building satellites until I finally win.  Bor-ring!

My blockade against the Believers using armored sea crawlers is starting to work.  One of her cities is starving and won't have any minerals much longer.  Funny, this isn't an atrocity, even though it has a similar effect.  Not terribly Geneva Convention that's for sure.  Pretty much like slaughtering buffalo.

What has stopped me from committing atrocities this game?  Inconvenience?  I think I've had this naive idea that someday, someone will want to be my friend again.  You'd think Cha Dawn might, given how long I've been Green now, but she ignores my transmissions.  If I bring a probe team next to one of her units, will she suddenly talk?  Granted it's a transport at sea, next to my giant rail line.  Trying the experiment now.  Nope, that didn't work.  Well, I have had a Fusion Cruiser Probe Team sitting around at the Manifold Nexus forever.  Let's see if I can sail it to her and force some repartee.

I can't believe some of these fool factions still have the nerve to ask me for money.  They haven't done a thing to me all game, and surely they must realize by now that I could crush anyone at a whim?  Maybe they know I'm human and bored of playing this game!   ;lol

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: PvtHudson on February 16, 2018, 09:27:55 AM

Impressive homestead. Indeed, playing to the point when no one could challenge you either militarily, or economically, or at least cause you some trouble, is an entertainment for a few, call them 'gardeners'. Time to up the difficulty? Say, play Aki with -2 growth? Or 1-2-0 forests? Or give Progenitors free Nerve gas pods at High-energy chemistry? Throw in Antimind to hone a different tactic? Only probe-steal techs from enemy bases with Network nodes? Choppers with shortened range? I've found out those (someone could suggest more) changes which curtail features that benefit you more than AI can substantially prolong rivalry period of the game. If you survive the start, it is. Once again thank you for the effort to put here these AARs with all those handy screenshots.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2018, 02:43:53 PM

I'm not sure what I really want out of the game now.  "Challenge" isn't strictly speaking the correct word.  At least, I don't want the kind of challenge where I find new excuses to tediously wade through piles and piles of enemy units.  Or piles and piles of gratuitous mouseclicks, which is what my satellite making feels like.  Maybe I need to turn off notifications for satellites completed, although sometimes I could swear that the queue has forgotten I was making a satellite, has gone to "stockpile energy" and needs me to assign something to do.  I wonder if it relates to running out of unit slots?  I suppose I could turn off auto-designing units now.  Everything offered is stupid nowadays anyways.

I settled the Ruins for laughs.  And the big joke is, now I get more productivity out of plain fungus than I do out of Monoliths!  Go figure.

I have not bothered to make drop units to pick up the last few pods in enemy territory.  Instead, I'm sending out an antimatter plated submarine transport.  It will rendezvous with the simple silksteel transport that's been tooling around in the unoccupied ocean all this time, and pick up the recon rover that I've been using for the pod popping.  Then we'll head deep into enemy territory.  I suppose a flaw in the plan is the rover can't offer protection if I actually do find an Artifact, but then again nothing can, from a conventional missile attack at least.  Last time around, I just sat there for 1 turn vulnerable and nothing attacked me.  So hopefully my luck holds, but I've seen games where Artifacts get the missile.

I built The Singularity Inductor.  A number of my cities now need to make Centauri Preserves to clean up minor eco-damage.  My biggest minerals producing city was boosted enough that it's producing 17 eco-damage, even with a Temple of Planet.  It's got 7 mines, that's just how the terrain got raised once upon a time.  Hey I'm happy if Planet wants to add some fungus around it.  Instead of a 0-4-0 mine I'd get a 3-4-5 fungal patch, it's actually an improvement!  But I cannot bring myself to gratuitously plant fungus.  I spent so much time manually improving every single tile, and culturally, I still don't trust the fungus.

I have The Voice of Planet available now, so I could win the game.  However I actually find transcendance a rather depressing ending for humanity, as I think it probably entails the destruction of individuality, in favor of some kind of hive mind.  So I don't think I will do that, unless I just get so bored that I want this game over at all cost.  What will I do instead?  I could corner the energy market, as my satellites are producing mad money now.  My current income is 2900 per turn, and without Secret Projects to finish with cash, I don't have anything to spend that on.  I'm not ready for "yep you have to end the game" though.  I feel like something is missing, that there's something more I need to do here.

I think the stasis of all the other factions bugs me a lot.  They haven't shifted their basic political boundaries this entire game!  The Spartans just took a base from Cha Dawn, that's about it.  I wonder what would happen if I changed my politics so that all the humans like me?  If I want even Miriam to like me, I guess I'd have to go Frontier Green Power Cybernetic.  I'd lose my +3 Police rating, which actually isn't important in my own bases anymore.  I'd keep my +4 Support, which is good since my bases are so huge, effectively meaning I don't have to ever produce Clean anything.  I could go Thought Control instead of Cybernetic, essentially trading Efficiency for Police.  Do I want to implement my will with Probe Teams?  I already have kickass probe team capability due to my SPs.

Well, first let's even see if Cha Dawn can be reasoned with.  Next turn my destroyer probe team will actually make contact with her.  Of course nowadays I can offer some pretty stupendous bribes to get my way.

What will I do with the aliens?  I find I desire to set them up to kill each other.  They will probably do a bad job of it though, and I'm not sure that gets me to winning the game.  I do not find myself relishing the idea of exterminating them.  If nothing else, it would take a lot of mouseclicks.  I've played many other games where I've been there, done that.  I mean, I could have exterminated everyone in this game a long time ago.  Why now?

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2018, 04:24:25 PM

I've completed the tech tree.  So, I switched from Knowledge to Power in the hope of making friends with the Pirates and the Spartans.  I don't pay any industry penalty because I have The Cloning Vats, but I do lose 1 Efficiency.  It increases my Support so I can afford to not be a Police State anymore.  That will also get me 2 more Efficiency.  Going Frontier will hopefully placate Miriam.

Although, I don't know what hope to really hold out.  Cha Dawn wouldn't speak when I came up with my cruiser probe team.  So I infiltrated her base and left.  Maybe I have to conquer a city to get her attention?  I wonder.

The fastest way of getting the Caretakers and Usurpers fighting each other would be with a spread of Tectonic Missiles, perhaps followed by some road work.  I've made a "Missile Submarine" to deliver them.  Hey, worked for the Cold War.

I've switched my economy to 70-20-10 because I don't need research anymore.  I've got the labs and I believe extra tech increases one's score, but I don't really care about that, so I will minimize it.

I forgot that I've had an Artifact sitting on an island for awhile, because it was covered by my mindworms.  Oops!  Well I'll put it in a museum somewhere.  I actually sorta enjoy watching shiny bald headed Artifacts zoom around on my rail lines.  However, my rail line hasn't reached this particular island yet.  I keep making rails, although I don't bother clearing fungus anymore, I build the rails right through the fungal patches.

I completed The Bulk Matter Transmitter.  That raised my minerals output rather seriously and is causing substantial eco-damage.  Consequently, most cities are now building Centauri Preserves, and many cities are building Temples of Planet.  I hope it is enough.  I actually haven't had any fungal pops so far, nor mindworms appearing.  I wonder if that's because I went pretty eco-friendly early in the game and never had any serious risk of flooding?  Well, I'm not going to undo all my careful terraforming work now.  That would be for the next game, drowning everyone with the Pirates.

I never built a Nessus Mining station.  At this point it would be ecological suicide.  Yitzi says that base minerals from satellites don't impose eco-damage, but minerals from factory output bonuses do.  I've got a Robotic Assembly Plant in every city, and The Singularity Inductor puts a free Quantum Converter in every city.  I've never built Nanoreplicators or Genejack Factories.  Perhaps the game designers didn't expect 1 faction to build all of these minerals boosting things.

My simple 1 movement Formers from the ancient days, I've got on tree planting duty.  Maybe it'll help with eco-damage.  I could sell off my Robotic Assembly Plants, but I don't want to.  Planet might fix everything with a few fungal pops, and I haven't ever launched a Solar Shade.

What am I supposed to do with 4000 credits?  And that's just this turn.  My income is now 5000 credits per turn.  I have 32 Sky Hydroponics Labs and 36 Orbital Power Transmitters.  My capitol is size 38 and actually uses all of that.

I just tried talking to everyone again.  I don't care how rich I am, there's no way I'm paying Svensgaard or Santiago for making war with me.  Svensgaard says he's got a Planet Buster, so I think I will buy whatever cities he's got those in and deprive him of his arsennal.  Sort of take on a UN Peacekeeper disarmament role.  Then we'll see if he's ready to make amends.

Ironically, I've never built a nuke, and only next turn will I finally produce one.  Mine is, ah, bigger than theirs.

Meergard here I come, baby.  He's got his 1 nuke there, although he has 2 more in slow-as-molasses production.  I hope a submarine probe team escapes detection.  If not, I hope the Stasis Generator armor actually matters.  It may not.  If not, I suppose I'll need an armored escort.  I tried to make some kind of exotic useful orbital insertion unit, but probe teams can't be amphibious, nor can they have a gravship chassis.  I [/i]could[/i] drop some Formers from orbit, instantly raise Meergard onto land, and thereby make it trivial to take over.  Or I could just wait until my Missile Submarine gets close enough and drop a Tectonic Missile next to it.  Hmm, meditating...

The islands next to Meergard, actually have pods on them.  That's a good excuse to put drop units in the area.  Even if I don't need Artifacts anymore, I'd like to put them in a trophy case somewhere.  Like maybe special "Artifact Parks" on the map, with defensive units to keep them from being stolen.

I've designed the Super Drop Former, and the Drop Probe Team with antigrav movement boost.  Drop transports don't turn out to be all that effective as they can only carry 1 unit.  I only really need a drop transport if there's an Artifact to pick up.  Actually if I'm taking over a city soon enough, then I don't even need that.  The probe team, I'll have next turn.  I'll be able to produce 4 Formers in 2 turns, which is enough for raising.  I've got so many cities tied up with other tasks that I can only produce so much right now.

Just realized my tactic would be thwarted by enemy Aerospace Complexes.  Fortunately, Meergard doesn't have one!

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2018, 06:41:08 PM

For some reason I couldn't drop my probe team on the pod next to Meergard.  Maybe there's a hidden unit nearby that's exerting a zone of control.  I was able to drop it on the other pod on the island, and this yielded an Artifact.  So now I'm exposed, but at least we're in the fungus and Pirate Seige doesn't seem to be able to see us.  Soon we may find out if armor on a probe team means anything.

I've switched to Frontier, netting me +6 Efficiency.  I'm down to +1 Police which lets me use 2 police units.  To be honest none of my cities really need police anymore.  They never did; I just didn't want a Support penalty from Democracy anymore.  I think I will keep Cybernetic, as I think the efficiency is worth more than the benefits of Thought Control.  And I certainly don't need any Eudaimonic money!

I'm still starving Miriam's coastal city, so she would do well to talk to me and make a Treaty.  But she's still ignoring my transmissions.  I'm beginning to sink a Caretaker base in the region, using my heavily armored Sea Formers that have nothing better to do right now.  That's only costing me 151 credits.  Sometimes the sinking costs are prohibitive but not in this case.  This base is pretty darned far from the Caretaker capitol, if that's a factor.

Oops, I was next to a sea energy resource when I started that sinking.  I'm worried that if I lower the ocean it will ruin the adjacent sea resource.  I should do an experiment on that somewhere, with a less precious resource like a nutrient.  Not like you don't get nutrients out of the sea, lol.  I cancelled my sinking.  I'll move over 1 square next turn and start again.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 16, 2018, 10:43:40 PM

For some reason when I moved over 1 square and started lowering, the base instantly got lowered that turn.  Unfortunately the base had a Pressure Dome, although it did seem to diminish to size 1.  I will look at the interior of the base more carefully next time.  Could it be that an Alien faction automatically gets a Pressure Dome when a base sinks?  That wouldn't be much fun for trying to drown them.

I found the problem with my orbital insertion.  The square I wanted to land on had a fungal stalk on it, and I couldn't see that from orbit.  Also one cannot land next to a fungal stalk.  I discovered that when popping the other pod on the island with my probe team, which yielded a Monolith.  No problem, my probe team will guide the Formers in next turn and Meergard will be mine.  I assume with almost 20k credits by then, I will be able to afford it.  Then I'll see if the Pirates want to make peace or keep getting taken over.  I woudldn't mind expanding my water perimeter at their expense off my home shores.

The Believers, on the other hand, I'm having more fun strangling them.   I suspect the base isn't going to disappear entirely though.  Maybe it will if I bomb it?  Or does it have to be a naval or land unit that finishes it off, assuming it's dropped to size 1?

I'm building a horde of Drop Formers.  Maybe that's all I'll build from now on!  Until I'm totally sick of it.  Might have one really long "last turn".  It might be a more Planet friendly way of raising land, and it's definitely more precise, even if it takes longer.  Yitzi said that Tectonic Missiles actually count same as dropping a nuke as far as Planet getting pissed off.  Well we'll see, as I've built 7 and they're heading out to sea now.   It'll be some time before they're in range of a target, and Drop Formers definitely have the deployment advantage that way.

Maybe I could be really annoying and plant fungus all over people I don't like with them, once they're done with more important stuff.  They can try to attack them and will probably be destroyed trying.

I'm also making a fair number of Drop Probe Teams if I decide I want to screw with anyone that way.  I loaded my old rover based Probe Teams onto my Missile Submarine as well, seeing as how it has a Singularity engine and can hold 16 units.  The damage I can do...

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2018, 12:37:43 AM

Meergard is mine.  I raised the land in 1 turn.  Svensgaard's nuclear inventory is mine, and I've got an Artifact in that city now too.  That sounds like an awfully tempting target for missiles, so I took 2 precautions.  One is I disbanded an old transport and built a Flechette Defense System immediately.  I hope I don't get missiled before that completes.  The other is I got Svensgaard to sign a Truce.  We'll see if he sticks to it.  I actually offered him credits if he would sign a Treaty, but he's Seething and wouldn't budge.

It seems that taking a base is the key to getting someone's attention, so I've got more bases to take.  I'm actually ok with people only signing Truces.  I can continue to starve people to death at sea under a Truce.  Although, I can't kill off their last few units.  Small wrinkle that.  Well, maybe I'll save the Believers for the last op.

I've dropped a lot of probe teams and formers on the remaining pods.  Some of them sprung mindworms, so next turn we'll see what holds up in the face of those.  I didn't get any more Artifacts.

I'm getting a tech every turn, even with a 10% research budget.  Oh well.

It occurs to me: did anyone make any Secret Projects other than myself?  Checking.  Huh, the Caretakers made The Human Genome Project and The Empath Guild.  Well I'll just have to buy them out or invade them or something.  I've designed Drop Graviton Shock Troops, which is the largest "no additional cost" gun you can get with drop pods, non-lethal methods, and time stasis armor.  My version of a pea shooter.   ;lol  I just wanted a garrison unit to replace the pathetic fission units in my newly captured base, but they'll also work for destroying things if need be.
 
I had to disband some old units to make room in my unit designs for new ones.  It's weird having that kind of limitation in a game.  I guess SMAC was made a long time ago, when having only 8 bytes for a unit instead of 16 bytes was a big deal.  Anyways my impact infantry and artillery are no more.  I still have an impact rover out and about, that I'm about to kill an interloping Alien colony pod with.  Otherwise I'd disband that too.  It's actually hard to find cities to disband them in though, where I'll actually speed the production of something.  Most stuff only takes me 1 turn to make nowadays in most places.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2018, 01:47:59 AM

Some formers died from the mindworms.  Oddly, a probe team lived.

Cha Dawn came to talk to me with a probe team, after I linked to one of her islands.  She signed a Truce.  Then she destroyed her probe team on my former.  Sorry guys, you have to research harder if you don't want The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm to work!

I'm finally going to release some Tectonic Missiles.  The goal is to create a land bridge between the Usurpers and the Caretakers.  Unfortunately the bridge is likely to be rather long and runs through Pirate waters.  As I now have a Truce with the Pirates, I'm a little uncertain whether I can detonate Tectonic Missiles over them.  Guess we'll see soon enough.

Looks like in a moment, I'm going to seriously improve the quality of the ocean around Safe Haven!  You'd better thank me, Svensgaard.

Or not.  Detonating the missile will break my Truce with the Pirates.  I will have to be more delicate with my Drop Formers.

For my next trick, I shall detonate a missile in such a way as to give Marr strategic control of a narrows.  Nice bit 'o' work, eh?

Damn, I'm just not seeing any way to make a bridge through Pirate territory to the Caretakers.  Too much claimed ocean in the way.  How am I going to get them fighting?  Would I really need to make a superbelt through open ocean?  I can do it, I have the industrial output to make enough Tectnoic Missiles, but I wonder if there are any ecological consequences.  I guess I'll see after this turn whether Planet is pissed at me for firing missiles.  I think I'm out of range of anything I'd like to do this turn, and I can only post 5 attachments anyways, so I'll save further launches and illustrations for next turn.

I'll figure out where to drop my Formers to make this happen.

I've started to disband the really old 1-movement Formers.  I may need the unit slots for something else, and it's boring to push them around anymore.  They planted a few trees here and there, which might grow into mighty forests someday.  But I don't really need them to.  I've got 2 bases that pollute, otherwise I'm running a clean civilization.  Hopefully fungal pops will eventually clean up those bases.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2018, 02:39:39 AM

Still same turn.  I think I went the wrong way with the Tectonic Missiles before.  My bridging was "neat" but it's not actually possible to get through the Pirates peacefully.  I think I need to go to the west of the Usurpers, through a lot of open ocean, and completely around the Cultists so they are not summarily killed.  If the land alone doesn't bring the 2 Aliens into fighting range, perhaps some rails will.  I think part of this project is still in range of my Missile Sub, so now I launch some more.  2 missiles later I've started the project, but clearly it's going to take a lot more missiles.

I'm out of range now, so more missiles do have to wait until next turn.  I've only got 1 "finished" base in the region that would do a good job of resupplying missiles, without me having to undergo lots of tedious mouseclicks.  That would be The Manifold Nexus.  So, I will try walking 1 missile per turn from there, including the 3 missiles I have left to launch from my sub.

My original route seemed like it would be so close to working, that I'm not quite willing to give it up.  I've deployed my Drop Formers to fill in a body of water at the western edge of Caretaker territory.  It's going to be an interesting test of Singularity Time Stasis durability, putting these Formers right next to Caretaker bases like that.  I'm realizing that Drop Formers have a serious mouseclick advantage, in that I don't have to push them across the map when deploying them.  So this project might end up being more "raising and rails" than earthquakes.  We'll see.

I also dropped a probe team 2 squares away from the Caretaker city with The Human Genome Project.  That's another test of whether they can react.  If they can't, it's mine next turn.  The Empath Guild is in their capitol, so I'd have to actually take it from them.  Which I jolly well might.  I can't really vote myself to victory if I leave the Aliens alive, but there's something about having all those votes...

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 17, 2018, 03:07:31 AM

Tectonic and Fungal Missiles upset Planet pretty badly, eco-damagewise...

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2018, 03:46:58 AM

Fungal missiles do??  Why would they?  Not that I've used more than 1 the whole game, as a test.

I do seem to have developed some substantial eco-damage in various cities.  Hopefully I can compensate with more Centauri Preserves and Temples of Planet in cities that don't have them yet.  I can't tell if the damage is from Tectonic Missiles, or from the cities just getting bigger every turn.

My path around the Cultist peninsula is not subtle.

Elsewhere, Marr destroyed an awful lot of his planes trying to take out a stack of 4 Singularity Stasis Drop Formers.  He failed, but he badly wounded them, to the point of taking them offline in some fungus for a bit.  If one of his planes would leave, I could heal at a Monolith.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2018, 04:38:06 AM

Why did H'minee leave me a walk-in to her capitol?  Fine, I'll take it.  Don't see me arguing.  The Empath Guild is mine.  I don't think I'll make peace just yet because I want to raise some land.

The Believers decided to talk to me.  We signed a Truce.  I'm still starving her sea bases though.  I keep offering people money for Treaties, and considering how rich I am, you'd think they might bite on it.  Nope.  So they can starve.

I've put a drop probe team near a Spartan base I'd like to take over, but I've realized I still need to be at war with them to make my path.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2018, 05:40:21 AM

I find that I'm not interested in trying to get the Caretakers and the Usurpers to fight anymore.  It's a huge project, and it's not likely to work anyways.  For the amount of mouseclicks I've expended so far, I probably could have wiped at least the Caretakers out.  Trying to make all these paths was interesting for awhile, but I've been at it a long time, putting all kinds of stuff across the oceans.  Ultimately to no purpose: I have linked islands that I will never inhabit and never defend.  Nor do I think anyone else is going to get around to colonizing them, before I'm tired of this game and want it to end.

Fatigue!

I have shifted my production to satellites.  I'm going to corner the energy market and call this game over.  I'm 25k away from achieving that, which I might make in as few as 4 turns.

The moral of this story is I need something for my Formers to do, other than twiddle around in the ocean.

A secondary moral is once I've got Hab Domes, I'm not going to build any more cities.  There's no reason to.  I don't really need centralization around my capitol when I've made enough gold to make bricks fly.

A third moral is the starvation strategy is kinda slow.  Also I'm not sure if submarine transports interfere with tile harvesting.  I coulda sworn I used a transport earlier to rob the enemy of his tiles, but it wasn't a submarine.  I'm bringing over the "believed good" transport to the sea base I'm having trouble with, to see if it makes a difference.

Everything is kinda slow now actually.  Screen scrolling is slow.  Unit movement is slow.  The poor old game may be having to think about too much.

I also made too much peace for my land connection project.  The Cultists, for instance, are interfering with my big Tectonic Missile path.  I can't both stay at peace with them, and avoid touching their land, using missiles.  The whole point of this causeway is to go around the Cultists and not involve them in any Alien fighting.  I've had to bring in more precise Formers to get past the boundary difficulty.

I'm also not sure that Tectonic Missiles save any overall work.  Whatever I save in time spent raising land, seems to be lost futzing around with Planet getting unhappy and causing eco-damage.  I did get a Global Warming warning recently.  The Council did vote to launch a Solar Shade.  But if I keep using the missiles every turn, I bet that's not enough.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 17, 2018, 06:04:33 AM

You know what?  I don't even care.  Obviously I won the game eons ago and am just fooling around.  I quit.  Not even going to bother with another screenshot.

Seem like a lame way to end one of the longest AARs?  Well maybe there's a reason for that.  The game became lame.  I think there will be a next time, and I will think about how to not make it lame.  I mean really, I cannot be arsed to push ONE.. MORE.. FORMER.. AROUND!

Make it stop!

Instead of the Threshold of Transcencence I reached The Threshold of Boredom.

Title: Re: Miriam makes me shiver
Post by: bvanevery on February 25, 2018, 08:07:47 PM

EPILOGUE:

I won this game.  I didn't go though the formal exercise of declaring a victory, which I could have done at any time since forever.  I toyed with my enemies, "sandboxing" them.  But eventually that wasn't amusing anymore, and I could no longer lift a finger to move... one... more... piece.  I wonder what it would take to bring a game like that to an actual satisfying fruition?  It eluded me here.