Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => After Action Reports => Topic started by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 08:51:17 PM

Title: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 08:51:17 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 want to play a builder game where I make a lot of SPs, preferrably most of them.  I don't want to play a tech cripped, production cripped faction.  That's what happened with Santiago last game, relative to 3 other strong research factions.  I said if I got Santiago on the random draw, I'd reroll.  I'd also reroll Aki Zeta-5 because I've done so many games with her recently and I know how she works.

Would I object to the Believers?  She's tech crippled, but not production crippled because she has piles of support.  That's who I drew.  Is that enough to make a viable builder empire?  It may depend on who else is in the game and who my neighbors are.  I've played an isolated builder-oriented Miriam before, and did pretty decently for a time.  But IIRC, then I came in contact by land to a Santiago sitting on the Monsoon Jungle.  All I could do at that point was fight fight fight, the whole builder SP thing went down the toilet.  Other factions of course did all the SPs, being far away, unimpeded, and able to get the tech to get the projects started.  No way I could steal from them because they were too far away.  And even if I could, I was at war with Santiago and couldn't afford much in the way of SPs.

So there are things that Miriam definitely can't handle.  Experience has shown that her faction power of kick butt Probe Teams, is undermined by the vast distances of a Huge map.  Only luck would overcome it, like starting next to the University for instance.

What are the other factions in this game?  I'm checking that up front and center.  The Caretakers, the Morganites, the Peacekeepers, the Spartans, the Cultists, and the Drones.  Many of those can be serious threats.  The one faction I'd like to be farthest away from me, the one I'd wish to win the "unrestricted lottery", would be the Cultists.  They never make good use of it, they are a stagnating faction.  Might have to do with their -1 Industry penalty.  Ok well, let's see how things actually are on the map.

Things look flat.  I'm probably on an island, but it might be a good sized one.  If I'm on an island, then someone is going to be unrestricted in their ability to expand.  How do I deal with that?  I'm not likely to be able to research SPs and finish things quicker than other factions.  Domai is in the game and represents a lower bound on how long anyone can wait.  Once he gets something, it gets built.

I could build The Weather Paradigm and land bridge to other factions.  However in the past when I've done this, either deliberately or accidentally with an earthquake, it can have really bad consequences if one has a violent neighbor.  One gets into a war, without a moat, and is stuck with it.  So that means I also want to explore off my island, before deciding whether to bridge it.  This is sounding like an Explore, Discover focus, because I'm probably going to want Fundamentalism and probe teams too.

The land I was given is bad.  I can hope that the pods will be good, or that some kind of good land feature is nearby.  I move a colonist onto the adjacent pod, knowing that mindworms can't harm me on turn 0.  Also if it becomes a nutrient I can put my capitol there.  I'm not going to put my capitol where I've landed, 1 square inland.

Oh good God, that's unusual, and really sucks.  I don't ever remember getting to start on a Xenofungal Bloom before.  Well I sure hope I'm next to the Monsoon Jungle or something because otherwise, this might be a pretty short writeup.  I'm not settling anywhere near this mess, and I have to leave my Scout in place so that I can extract my colonist from the center of the fungus.

That land looks so dry to the north, that it could be the USS Unity crash site.

Next turn my pod pops a Monolith.  That dry land still looks Unity-like, but it's uncertain.  I move the fungal colonist to where the Scout is, and the Scout to the river.  It will go south to pop that pod.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 08:59:39 PM

No exciting crash site, just crappy land.  I might have to put my capitol on the river, in reach of the Monolith.  Then find where some real land is.  This is not looking like a good start.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 09:23:09 PM

I pop a nutrient on Rolling terrain.  I have some difficult choices to make about that.

I could found my capitol in reach of both the Monolith and the nutrient.  However a newly minted city will only make use of one of them, which means half of my starting resources are wasted.

Also when a city gets to size 2, it is better to have minerals as the 2nd tile, not food.  That way a colonist can be made quickly.  Going to size 3 requires keeping people happy, otherwise it's just wasted.  Now, I do start the game with Social Psych, so I have options that other factions don't have in that regard.  I could rush a Rec Commons, and thereby be working with an early size 3 capitol instead of size 2.  However my experience is that building infrastructure way too early, is a good way to thwart one's colonial growth.  I don't know that the extra food makes up for taking longer to grow to size 3.

Finally, as city sites go, this is a bad patch of fungus to be next to.  I'm under pressure to get something done as I'm a few turns behind already, but considering my other options is in order.

I could risk the river gauntlet and pop that pod with my colonist this turn.  If I don't stir up a mindworm doing so.  Not a terribly safe move, but being this far behind, gambling in order to catch up might be advised.

I could colonize the river square not in reach of the nutrient, and just use the Monolith.  Then my northern pod keeps walking, probably westwards.  This still leaves me with a capitol next to fungus, but it'll be easier to snip that fungus.

I could abandon the river area entirely by moving west onto the rock.  My northern colonist could move 1 square west and settle the capitol there next turn, in reach of the Monolith.

The better land is generally on the southwest side of a land mass.  Going east is probably more dry stuff.  Since I have 2 plans above that call for the northern colonist to go west, I will do so now, and see what kind of land is available.

Well I'm somewhat glad I did that.  Obviously not a good place for a capitol, in sight of water yet inland.  With 2 lovely fungal patches for seaborne mindworms to bother me as well.

I will move 1 square up river to reveal more land, move 1 square back to my original location, and found my capitol where I am.  That at least puts me entirely inland.  The Scout will go to the river and pop the pod in 2 turns.

Notice that because of this completely crap start, my 2nd colonist is going to take a long time before it gets to anywhere useful.  That fungal bloom definitely hurt.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 09:30:52 PM

I bring my independent Scout home because it doesn't require support, so is better to keep.  I use my more expendable supported Scout to make it easy for him to move onto the fungus.  When I head down river, I pop a 2nd Monolith.  This feels like The Lord of the Rings!  I've got the Two Towers.  This provides a lot more motivation to make a Rec Commons.  I've been switching to that just before popping a pod, hoping to get a completion, and then switching back when I don't get it.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 09:36:19 PM

Wow I just can't catch a break with this 2nd colonist.  So much for the "southwest coast" theory, this island seems to be completely dry.  Is this whole world dry?  I chose Average settings for everything, but that can still have variations.  If someone is sitting on the Monsoon Jungle while the rest of us are struggling like this, that faction is going to kick our butts.

I find myself totally unwilling to ruin my nice Capitol setup by cramping it with a 2nd city in range of these Monoliths.  That's a short vs. long term choice, and I may pay the price.  This colonist is going to have a lot more walking ahead of it.  Pretty much has to backtrack all the way to the east, unless the Scout finds something worth it to the south.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 09:42:33 PM

The Scout reveals nothing tempting.  It is 4 squares from the Colonist to the Scout, if I move along the river and risk mindworms.  4 squares also puts me 1 square east of the northern Monolith.  That's a sure chance of acceptable settlement somewhere, out there, and the southern way is not.  So I will begrudgingly head back the way I came.  I learned about that sort of thing driving around in real life cities and forests.  Sometimes you've gotta turn around and go back the way you came, not throwing good time after bad.

Either route requires moving 1 square east onto the river, so I do that for now.  The Scout has 1 more turn to find a miracle.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 09:49:00 PM

No miracles.  I pop an Artifact.  I seriously doubt I need to escort it back to base.  In fact I've chosen Explore only focus because I surely need to get off this dry rock.  I said I wasn't going to play a "tiny island" start, so I reserve the right to terminate this game early if things aren't working out.  What does the power graph say?  Umm, it doesn't.  Is that a No Contact thing?

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 10:33:10 PM

Doesn't look like I missed much, going the other way.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 10:39:16 PM

I think I have been walking around for so long, that I may not have immunity to mindworm attacks anymore.  Consequently, I was not willing to use the colonist to pop the pod.  The radar looked like there could be a land bridge to the north, but what I immediately see is fungus and water.  I will go south 1 square and settle.

I didn't pop the pod sitting on the fungus because my Artifact was nearby.  I wanted to put some distance between it and any possible mindworms.  Artifact in transit is not the time to be stirring things up.

I am currently supporting 3 scouts, plus I have my independent scout in my base.  I do not think I need any more scouts coming from this base.  I have started working on a Rec Commons because the land around my base completely sucks.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 10:45:14 PM

You've gotta be #@@#ing me.

Still no power graph.  I hope other factions are doing as badly as I am.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 10:55:11 PM

Well thanks for the little things.  Did this game confuse me for the Cultists?  I suppose I'll need to put a colony there, so I'm rushing my Rec Commons to get started on a colonist.

My productivity at the 2nd base is also piss poor, a factor I didn't consider but that could be expected.  8 turns until it produces its 2nd scout!  I'm going to rush it.  I could wait until my northern scout shows up, but that's a delay of 3 turns.  What if I pop something valuable like a nutrient or minerals that I could be exploiting?  Ummm well the point is moot, after rushing my Rec Commons I don't have enough cash.  Waiting it is then.

I think that's the name of this game.  Hurry up and wait.  In the fungus.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 11:48:27 PM

This is a weird game.  Look how fat and happy those northeastern colonists are going to be.  Clearly they didn't do Lent.

1 year until I finally get a tech.

I've been waiting to kill that stalk with scouts, but now I'm realizing that I may need to put scouts in 2 new cities.  If I don't get Formers next turn, I have a problem.  I'd like to believe that an Explore-only focus yields Formers as the 1st thing.

Finally got a graph.  The game didn't confuse me for the Cultists.  They're the only faction more pathetic than I am.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 19, 2018, 11:56:27 PM

Seriously?  I can't kill a friggin' mindworm I stir up in the fungus, when I've got a 25% attack bonus?  Well this game has been so stupid in every other respect, why not this?

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 12:00:27 AM

I put my scout on the rocky Monolith, thinking that was good defensive terrain.  Look, near dead mindworms are not supposed to be able to do that.  I am in disbelief.  Does being near a fungal stalk strengthen their attack ability?  I'm going to have to turn the colonist around and head up north.

My scout is now Unbelievable.  I'm going to use that pun again and again.

I'm realizing that thing is going to heal on the Monolith, then attack New Jerusalem.  I need to double the guard.  I halted my Former and took a small minerals hit making it a scout.  I don't like it but if I wait, it could move a lot faster than I anticipate and really mess me up.

Or it could go for The Lord's Truth.  If I couldn't kill it before, why will I be able to kill it now?  So I'm doubling the guard there too.  Which is even more minerals lost, changing the Former production to scout.

A few turns later, it attacked New Jerusalem fairly harmlessly.  Sure I get some defensive advantage for the city, but why did I get totally killed before?  Is the Monolith actually a huge psi defense liability?

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 12:58:34 AM

Weirdly, I got Biogenetics before I got Doctrine:Mobility.  I get another tech in 8 years.  I built Recycling Tanks in my bases.  2 bases also have Rec Commons, the northern one is working on it.

I have 11 units supported and am working on a Command Center.  I am thinking that if my scouts were trained, then I wouldn't have to fear mindworms so much.  That means fewer supported military units instead of having my cities "doubly guarded" like they are now.  More support available for Formers, to get rid of all this horrible fungus.  Also I need to take that fungal stalk down with something.

Domai started The Weather Paradigm this turn.   I feel obliged to start it as well.  He has +2 Industry.  I hope I have better minerals, and I have an Artifact.  I wanted my capitol to be my Command Center city, but given the threat from Domai, this is the only city that could conceivably win the race.  I don't like making the Command Center on my coast, as I will probably get Doctrine:Flexibility soon and would rather launch ships from there.  But I need trained scouts, and at least it is close to the fungal stalk I need to take down.  Maybe by the time I get Doctrine:Flexibility, my northern city will have better productivity.

I really think by this point by rights I should have at least 6 cities.  I've been cut in half.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 01:04:44 AM

I research Doctrine:Flexibility.  I switch to Discover focus for obvious factional reasons.  I'm rushing the Rec Commons in the northern city, which only needed 2 turns to complete anyways.  That will be my Transport spewing city.  It's not got as much productivity as I'd like, but it's all I can do for now.

Lal entered the race for The Weather Paradigm.  Worse, his faction starts with Biogenetics.  I was hoping that finishing The Human Genome quickly might block Domai from further efforts, if he didn't happen to research Biogenetics.  But I can count on Lal to switch to it.  Granted, Domai could switch to The Merchant Exchange.  Lal could switch to The Virtual World.  Lal's productivity is also unknown, but he's one of the Big Three factions.  He's even rated slightly better than the Caretakers, which suggests the Caretakers may have gotten a substandard start.

I really could use a whole lot of Aritifacts fished from the water.  Without exploration goosing my SP output, I'm toast.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 01:22:52 AM

I launch my 1st Transport.  I will head to the bay with the fungal stalk, to pick up any scouts that are still alive after I attack it.

Lots of factions are building SPs now.  It begs the question as to which is better: The Human Genome Project or The Weather Paradigm?  If I had the former, everyone in my capitol would be happy, instead of having 1 drone / medic.  But if I had the latter, my Formers will all work faster, and I'll be supporting a lot of Formers more than likely.  Hard to say.  Previous experience is that gratuitously raising land can be a bit of a distraction.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 01:37:31 AM

I decided The Human Genome Project gives me a more immediate benefit, and also may cause more chaos in the ranks of SP competitors.  I tried to take a screenshot of the victory pyramid, but hitting any button made it go away.

I have 4 green scouts ready to take on the fungal stalk.  If that isn't enough, I have a 5th disciplined scout coming on the Transport.  I'm sure 4 scouts will do it.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 01:56:26 AM

It only took 2 units to kill the fungal stalk.  I lost 1 scout.  I should have put the Transport next to the badly wounded scout to pick him up next turn, but I forgot.  I'm leery of keeping Transports next to pods that can pop into earthquakes.

Morgan is working on The Weather Paradigm and The Planetary Transit System.  That's how far behind I am.  It also probably implies that he's been isolated and only working on Build techs.  Or that I'm really far behind.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 02:19:48 AM

Only now does Lal get Secrets of the Human Brain.  We had gone so long without anyone getting it, that I started to wonder if I myself would get it.  That would be ironic!

I popped a Unity Rover that I have to pay support for.  Joy.  The nutrient and the Monolith are useful for another city though.  Guess I'll make the obligatory colonist.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 02:25:47 AM

Domai wins the race for The Weather Paradigm.  He started first and has the best Industry, so that is no surprise.  Who will get The Merchant Exchange though?

My last lovely research was spent on Progenitor Psych.  Joy.

Exploring an island to the northeast, I bloomed yet more fugnus.  Double Joy.  Or is that Triple?  Yep, 3 times in this small area of land.

Also annoying is when I pop pods at sea, I keep completing scout rovers.  I don't have anything else worth building in my capitol.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 02:38:34 AM

The Caretakers complete The Merchant Exchange.  The races go on, without me.

I got a bright idea what to do about the pod completions.  I've prototyped an expensive Rover Former unit.  When I have nothing better to do, and I have 10 minerals or less committed, I'll switch production to that before popping a pod.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 02:48:18 AM

I gain Information Networks.  I guess my fantasy of being 1st to Secrets of the Human Brain wasn't realistic.  At least now I'll have something worthwhile to complete in my capitol.  For a few turns before I buy the Network Node outright.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 02:59:34 AM

Lal builds The Command Nexus.

I've built as many Transports as I think I can support.  My cities are starting to make Network Nodes now.  I have plenty of cash to rush them, but I'd like to get a completion from a pod that actually benefits me.  I will wait a bit before rushing production, as I've got this land to the west to clear out.

What am I doing this game?  I don't seem to have any neighbors.  I may be very isolated.  I think at this point, I'm playing to discover what the state of the world is.  I'd like to know what kind of game I'd likely get stuck playing, if I pursued it to the bitter end.  But if enough real world time goes by this evening, I will likely lose interest and find something better to do with my life.  Understanding the consequences of a crappy start may be a noble endeavor, but it's a crappy start.  At some point, enough of that !@#!

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 03:34:18 AM

Morgan completes The Planetary Transit System.  Simultaneously I research Planetary Networks.  The Virutal World is not finished yet.  Domai, Morgan, and Lal are all working on it.  I switch to a Planned economy.  I have 674 cash, 1 Artifact in my capitol, and 1 Artifact on my Transport approaching the capitol.  Maybe if I brought in some surplus units, I could perform a stunning upset and actually build The Virtual World.

Recently I fished Industrial Base out of the water.  Next turn a Synthmetal Garrison completes in my capitol.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 03:47:37 AM

I've got 5 scout rovers in my capitol.  The city to the east is making a Synthmetal Garrison next turn, which would free up a 6th scout rover to go to the capitol.  I think I've got this!  I only need to come up with 257 minerals.  I think 2 Artifacts, 6 scout rovers, and 682 cash more than covers it.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 04:03:27 AM

Got the warning that Morgan is nearing a major breakthrough on The Virtual World.  I cashed those 6 scouts.  I got a little overanxious and cashed my 2 Artifacts without thinking about whether I needed to.  Turns out I only needed 1, and I could have done this last turn.  I have an extra 314 cash to decide what to do with.

Generally speaking in these exact circumstances, I'm the winner.  But if for some weird reason I am not, to be honest I'm going to save scum it until I am.  The game has handed me very bad luck and I am "owed" this.  Also I did have the capability of finishing it 1 turn earlier.  I just didn't realize it because of the difficult accounting, with the "have to complete so much %" to avoid a prohibitive cost penalty and whatnot.  Technically I could go back a few turns, replay this, and guarantee the win.

I did not actually leave any of my bases unoccupied, and everyone has at least a Hardened unit of some kind.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 04:17:20 AM

I win!  Morgan is out of the races.  Lal is surely going to finish The Citizen's Defense Force.

It's 11 PM.  I'm going to savor this victory, this milestone towards having Miriam not suck.  Despite all the handicaps, I have managed to build more Secret Projects at this point than anyone else in the game.  Soon, Lal will tie me for that distinction.

I don't know what I'm going to do next, but it will be a lot of exploration and vertical growth.  I'm building Foil Probe Teams to find and infiltrate the other factions.  I have not changed my Discover focus because Secrets of the Human Brain is important, and I can't be sure who's going to trade it to me.  I would like to get The Empath Guild, and I might have some chance of out-Exploring other factions, but then again the Caretakers often build that one.  I certainly won't out-Build Morgan, and Lal seems to do a bit of all kinds of stuff.

Cha Dawn must be nearly dead.  Her graph is practically flat.  I haven't gotten any message about a faction being eradicated though.  That leaves Morgan to be upset with my Planned economy.  Well, first I'll worry about even meeting him.  He could be on the opposite side of the world for all I know.  Or he could be surprisingly nearby, doing that non-ship oriented close knit Build thing.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 05:47:22 AM

The Caretakers begin The Empath Guild.

To the west, I have a lot of pods on rocks to clear out.  Speeders survive better when they only pop things on flat or rolling land.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 05:53:43 AM

To the north, I have discoverd the Monsoon Jungle.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 05:56:24 AM

Far to the west, I have discoverd the Uranium Flats.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 06:06:40 AM

I research Secrets of the Human Brain.  I switch to Explore focus.  Ethical Calculus would allow me to go Democratic, which would be good for growth.  I don't need Hab Complexes yet as I can stand to settle more cities.  Also Morgan has discovered that tech, so there's a chance I can trade or steal it.  Finally, I just can't out-Build Morgan.

My scout rover got cloned.  Then my 2 scout rovers had to take on 4 mindworms from a pod.  1 may survive.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 06:26:33 AM

I've found the Geothermal Shallows.

I found Lal's comm frequency in a sea pod.  Brrring!   :danc:  :danc: Lal  :danc:  Oh, forgot.  We've been in sunspots for awhile. 

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 06:30:46 AM

I've found the Spartans.  They might be moving south in the direction of the Monsoon Jungle, or they might not be connected to it.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 06:38:31 AM

I've found the Morganites as well.  Now all sorts of city borders are lighting up on the map in the Monsoon Jungle.  Morgan must be in possession of it.  Perhaps the Spartans tried to settle in that direction, but got stuck on the approach, with say a Truce with Morgan.  Or they could be allied and Sparta is just incredibly stupid about movement.  Or they could be allied and Morgan gobbled up all the available land.  Well I'll find out soon enough.  Looks like a major theft target to me.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 06:46:29 AM

I completed an Aquafarm in a landlocked city with a lake.  I totally forgot that I don't have Gene Splicing yet and am food restricted.  Although I could surely steal it from Morgan.

I've inflitrated him.  I lost my Foil Probe Team doing that.  He's got piles of techs, all the way through Environmental Economics.  I guess I should try to be sneaky when stealing from him.  Switching to Fundamentalist.

I just researched Field Modulation.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 06:59:27 AM

No more Cultists!  Unless I rescue Cha Dawn someday.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 07:08:21 AM

I've infiltrated the Spartans.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 07:10:52 AM

The Caretakers have finished The Empath Guild, but we're still in sunspots.  It is odd that after all this time, I've built just as many SPs as any other faction.  What is holding up Morgan?

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 07:41:07 AM

Sunspots have ended.  Before moving so much as a single unit, I change my Economics from Planned to Simple.  I don't want to drive Morgan bonkers right out of the gate.  Maybe I can steal lots of stuff without him ever getting wise.

Morgan is Solicitous towards me.  Santiago is Seething.  Morgan is at war with the Caretakers.  Lal is an unknown.  Where to begin?

I guess there's no reason to talk to Santiago at all.  She only knows myself and Morgan.  I plan to steal from her, not trade.  It would be better if I stole from her first, but my probe teams are closer to Morgan.  Maybe I really should mine her out first.  She might threaten me and declare war, thereby making it easy for me to use my Foil Probe Teams on her.

Lal is Ambivalent towards me.  He would probably like to meet someone Democratic and stronger than I am.  Oh yeah that's right, I'm Fundamentalist at least until I've stolen everything I need.  So perhaps I don't contact Lal at all.

The odds of the Caretakers liking me are slim.  Morgan may offer an alliance to go to war with them.

The more I think about it, the more I don't want to talk to anyone.  I will try to steal from Santiago.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 07:50:42 AM

The 1st meeting with the Spartans goes ok.  She's Seething but doesn't try to threaten me.  She wants Lal's comm frequency but I don't give it to her.  I don't offer any Treaty.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 08:03:14 AM

I meet a Caretaker recon rover.  She wants me to fight Lal, but does not offer a Pact to do so.  I decline.  She offers a Treaty and I take it.  I ask for Domai's comm frequency and get it for 25 credits.  I sign off.

Domai's attitude is Noncommittal so I dial him up.  He wants H'minee's comm frequency but I don't give it to him.  He does agree to a Treaty.  I sign off.

I have built so many Formers that I simply can't use any more of them.  I have 2 landlocked cities that were producing them.  Instead I'm building Command Centers.  I really need Environmental Economics so I can raise land, but I have to get lots of stuff from the Spartans first.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 08:21:13 AM

I find Applied Physics in a sea pod, so I don't ahve to steal it.

I decide Lal is going to be my scapegoat for frame jobs.  He's a natural enemy and he may be very far away from me.  My 1st attempt at Santiago is botched.  Lal declares war.  Santiago, oddly enough, only sends me a stern rebuke.  I wonder if failing to get anything has something to do with it?  Well, I'm trying again.  2nd time goes much better.  I get Nonlinear Mathematics and I frame Lal!  They're at war now.

I've found a remnant of the Cultist empire.  I infiltrate the Caretakers.

I research Industrial Economics on my own accord.  With an Explore focus.  I've acquired massive amounts of cash from wandering around popping pods, so I'm going to build Energy Banks everywhere.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 08:41:58 AM

The jig is up with Santiago.  Enough failure that she's at war with me now.  Now it doesn't matter if I use my Foil Probe Teams on her.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 09:03:44 AM

I've drained all of Santiago's techs!  Only thing left to take would be a world map.  I don't think I'll go near her just for that.

That's interesting.  Morgan has Adaptive Economics but has not begun that project.  Stressed from fighting the Caretakers? His attitude towards me is Ambivalent.  He doesn't have any techs in common with the Caretakers, so I can start stealing from him now.

The Caretakers have only 1 tech that I don't: Centauri Empathy.  They are Seething towards me.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 02:15:35 PM

Morgan finally contacts me.  First he offeres a Pact to make war with the Caretakers.  As I have a Treaty with them, I decline.  Then he threatens me and demands 75 credits.  "So sue me."  He declares war.  Now I don't even need to be subtle with my probe teams.  I have 2 approaching on the Transport.  Others are waiting back home, as another Transport is bringing home an Artifact.

I've made a few Impact Rovers for home defense.  I'm sending old Scout Rovers to the western lands to pop those pods sitting on rocks.  I cashed in the Synthmetal Garrison units some time ago to make an Energy Bank in my capitol.  All of my current garrison units have Trance capability.  I don't believe anything is coming as Morgan isn't working on ships.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 02:39:12 PM

I'm going to frame Santiago because I think it would be helpful to my cause if they were at war with each other.  Hmm, got Ecological Engineering, but Morgan is in a Pact with Santiago and didn't seem to believe that she'd done it.  Actually I got no message about it, which was weird.  Hm, happened a 2nd time when I got Environmental Economics.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 02:50:39 PM

I've got an independent cloned Transport nearing my home waters with 2 Artifacts on board.  I've got a Trance Transport very far away coming home with another Artifact.  I've got a 4th in my capitol already.  To the west, I'm popping pods on rocky terrain with a big pack of scout rovers.  Hopefully they survive better that way, although I suppose one big mindworm burst could still wipe them all out.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 03:05:34 PM

I research Industrial Automation on my own.  That's a bit annoying as I would have stolen it imminently.

I have a lot of land raising projects in progress.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 03:12:46 PM

Here we have a serious kerfuffle with mindworms, but I think I will prevail.

I stole Adaptive Economics from Morgan.  On an earlier run I got the same strange behavior trying to frame Santiago, so I've stopped trying.

Why am I doing ok at this game?  It seems that the Morgan AI has vapor locked with too many military units in many cities.  It looks like an overreaction to the Caretakers, which have only held 1 city north of Morgan as long as I've been looking.  That 1 city is a Cultist remnant and doesn't have any road infrastructure attached to it.  I've not found any other Caretaker settlements, wandering around.  Morgan has amassed 72 Trance Plasma Garrisons, 10 armored Impact Squads, and a handful of other units besides, just to take on a city with 1 unit in it!  Morgan doesn't even have a Free Market economy, he's Simple.

In short, the AI is crassly stupid.  This is a Yitzi patched game, so that's proof that it doesn't help with this particular AI pathology.

I guess I'm playing a bit of a "garden game" at this point, rather than something with a challenge.  I don't think I've actually answered any questions about Miriam's capabilities as a faction.  Rather, I've demonstrated that getting a bad start sucks.  And that the AI sucks.  Well I guess I'll garden this for now, but if I get bored, I won't feel bad about starting a new game.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 03:39:36 PM

Morgan's northern border city is showing a bit of stress from the Caretakers.  Still, Morgan is way overreacting.  I helped out by stealing a tech with my Foil Probe Team that's been up that way forever.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 04:12:24 PM

I have stolen every tech from the Morganites and have revealed their world map.  From the Caretakers I need to steal Centauri Empathy and their world map.  Then I will have tech parity with all factions I'm in contact with.  Given that Lal is not rated as powerful, I will presume that he doesn't have new techs.  The point will likely be moot anyways as he may be too far away to do anything with.  I suppose I could talk to Domai and see if he knows anything, but I will wait for the Caretaker's data.

I have 5 Artifacts in my home territory.  I have 1 more to be picked up from the western lands.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 04:37:19 PM

Another major mindworm skirmish.  I sent the Veteran in to pop the pod.  I have 3 Elites and 1 Commando to react with.  I kill all but 1 visible mindworm.

That turns out to be 1 actual remaining mindworm, but it's deep in the fungus and I can't hit it.  I don't actually lose anyone on the 1st round because my rover in the fungus is able to disengage.  I didn't know they could do that from fungus, especially onto rocky terrain.  I've moved my 1 unwounded Elite rover up to take the hit, hoping he will also disengage.  Wouldn't it be ironic if he can't, despite being in clear terrain?  That would make the disengagement rules kind of perverse.

Odd, the mindworm did not attack the next turn.  Maybe it is healing up.  Well I need to do that as well.  It's going to be a long roundabout walk to get back to the healing Monolith.  I need to stay clear of the fungal patch that mindworm is in.

I gain yet another Artifact just off my east coast.  I'm rolling in 'em!

I'm surprised that even my non-Trance Transports are surviving Isle of the Deep attacks.  With barely any life and limping back to port, but it's interesting.  I guess Fundamentalism is helpful for something.

Domai has begun The Planetary Energy Grid.  So I guess the long free ride of not worrying about other factions is over.  I'm 1/3 done and need 12 turns to complete it.  I've finished my Tree Farms in 2 cities and have started on Supply Crawlers there.  I shouldn't have too much trouble with this race, but I do need to make sure I win it.  I don't want to use any Artifacts to do it.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 04:41:00 PM

I begin a probe of Caretaker territory.  I start on unclaimed land, which the Caretakers are spending a lot of effort scouting.  Hopefully I get to target without being sent home.  Next turn, I'm in Caretaker territory south of Adapt to Live.  No enemy units in sight.

Fishing the sea, I pick up yet another Artifact nearby.  At this rate I may have to build cities just to cash Artifacts.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 05:04:35 PM

I cash all my Energy Banks and use the extra money to complete The Planetary Energy Grid.  I had 2 Supply Crawlers in production but figured I can just park them on some mines.

Morgan has lost his northern city to the Caretakers.  Even without roads, I guess they just marched enough units for long enough that it finally happened.  Well, Morgan certainly has enough reserve forces to last awhile!  What an understatement.

Morgan has researched Advanced Subatomic Theory.  I will bring a team up to steal.

I'm about to steal Centauri Empathy from the base the Caretakers took from the Cultists.  I wonder if it's interlocked?  In any event, next turn I will reach the Caretaker base my land teams have been stalking.  Oops, didn't see the probe team in the erstwhile Cultist base.  I did kill it though, so next turn I make my run.  From a synchronicity standpoint that's actually better, as I'll hit 2 bases on the same turn.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 05:35:17 PM

My 1st heist went fine.  I stole Intellectual Integrity, which I was not expecting.  The Caretakers must have just researched it.  I framed Morgan.

My 2nd heist, they had blocked the way with a Recon Rover.  I had to capture it, which I was able to do untraceably.  But when I hit the base, my probe team was compromised.  The Caretakers have declared war.  Oh well!  I guess subterfuge isn't a permanent state of affairs.

Next turn hopefully my backup team will work.

The Caretakers are not actually working on The Citizens's Defense Force.  I will start it shortly.  Er, or not.  I forgot that Lal built that ages ago.

I will also start making Police 3-Pulse garrison units.  I was going to make Trance 3-Pulse, but I already have Trance units in every base.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 05:53:49 PM

I found Domai.  He's sort of a neighbor.  Certainly within infiltration and theft range.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 06:03:15 PM

The Morganites have declared war on the Spartans!  A fascinating development.  Maybe it will loosen the clot which is Morgan's industrial outlook.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 06:18:41 PM

Domai sold me a map of Caretaker territory for 50 credits.  They're extensive.  The most interesting bit is how they're beating the crap out of Lal.  Morgan's response may be subpar to the threat, but maybe I shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the AI as completely stupid.  With an empire that large, there might yet be more to this game than a gardening exercise.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 08:22:22 PM

The Caretakers sunk my Foil Probe Team that went to steal from Morgan.  I should have known that that ship never left, and that Morgan never sent anything to deal with it.  I'm sending my 1 Trance Impact Skimship to blow it up.

I sent a Transport with 2 land teams in a different direction to steal from Morgan.  Santiago met it in open water with an Impact Skimship.  We signed a Truce.  Truth is I don't need anything from Santiago anymore, and we're both fighting Morgan.  Santiago will probably get mad when I finally go Democratic Planned Wealth, but I'm not there yet.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 08:31:27 PM

The Caretaker ship meets me in open water.  We sign a Truce.  Wisely, she won't sign a Treaty.  To be honest I don't need anything from the Caretakers.  The last item of interest was a map, and Domai sold me that for 50 credits.  I'm leading her ship with mine though, just in case she decides to make a surprise attack.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 08:46:26 PM

The Caretakers knock off the isolated Spartan base that's in the way of their march to Morgan.  All 3 are at war with each other.  Morgan has gigantic piles of defensive units, and walls, so straight assault isn't going to get anyone anywhere.  I think they'd be vulnerable to having their minerals pillaged though.

Morgan blocked 1 of my probe teams from access using a garrison unit.  The other team, I made a mistake moving onto a Jungle square.  I didn't realize it was rocky, and it stopped my movement.  So that team will be dead.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 09:04:17 PM

I outmaneuver Morgan, sending an Elite unit over that very same rocky terrain that tripped me up before.  I steal Advanced Subatomic Theory.  I now have tech parity with everyone in the game, assuming that Domai and Lal have nothing further.  I have no reason to expect they would have anything.

I research Doctrine:Initiative.  Next turn I will begin it.

I could pop all my Artifacts now.  I just got yet another one, that I can get home fairly soon, so why not?  Thinking about this for a moment... Morgan is Fundamentalist, so he's not likely to provide me any further research.  At least, not at speeds worth waiting for.  Ok, sure, let's pop.  What do I get?  Well I've got 5 SPs to build now.

It'll take me 2 more turns, but I'm switching to Democratic Planned Wealth.

This turn I am merely Democratic.  Let's see what Lal has to say about that.  Oops, we're in sunspots.  He's not saying anything.

I don't think we've ever held an election.  Morgan currently has 76 votes to my 58, but I will be catching up.  Lal still has 72 votes, so he must have some sea holdings that haven't been crushed by the Caretakers.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 09:33:57 PM

Who's the Builder now??

I'm surprised to see Domai working on The Planetary Datalinks.  I guess that's the problem with sunspots, you lose your awareness of what's going on.  Glad I decided to take a screenshot or I wouldn't have known.  I'll need to prioritize that one to block him.  I'm about to infiltrate his datalinks, so hopefully I'll be able to see what progress he's making.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 09:44:48 PM

Domai is building it at Free Drone Central.  His production rate isn't a serious threat, but I don't know if he's using crawlers.  Our Industry rates are actually equal.  He's Democratic Free Market Knowledge with a +2 Industry faction advantage.  I'm Democratic Planned Wealth, giving me +2 Industry as well.

He has a 1008 credit reserve, plenty to finish the project if he had any brains.  But my experience is the AI doesn't have any brains about cash reserves and SPs. 

I've got an Elite probe team crawling around his coast, jumping on and off a Transport, so that I can get map data without pissing him off.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 10:05:20 PM

Yet another Artifact discovered.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 10:10:43 PM

Domai's rate of progress has noticeably increased.  He is using supply crawlers.  He's got 1 more in the city itself to use.  I'm still slightly ahead of him, but he's getting too close for comfort.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 10:20:28 PM

Domai is rushing The Planetary Datalinks.  His readout is now 0 turns to completion.  I don't get any warning about this because of the sunspots.  When I started the turn, I was just barely short of enough credits to complete the project myself.  However I popped some pods and killed a few mindworms, giving me enough.  I also probably could have disbanded a 1-2t-1 unit to make up the difference, as I was very close.  Ok, I have rushed mine as well.  I've saved the game, because to be honest if he wins, I'm going to save scum this until I win.  I'm never quite sure what the rules are for who wins a photo finish.

I've also got an Elite probe team sitting on that Transport, which I could use to sabotage his project.  Just sayin'.

In other news, the Caretakers take a Morganite city in the north of the Jungle.  I'm surprised at that.  The Spartans were accosting that city earlier but it seemed to be holding.  Perhaps someone got aggressive with probe teams.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2018, 11:03:44 PM

Chew on it deliciously, Domai!

My scout rovers got beat up something fierce by some mindworms.  I do have some survivors, and they made a noble contribution to finishing The Planetary Datalinks.

My Artifact is in the water heading to port.  I only have 1 unlinked node left.  I'm going to have to make some more cities, so that the next Artifacts I get will have somewhere to plug in.  I find that to be a strange driver of growth, but then, I was awfully isolated this game.  Lots of exploring to do.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 12:59:07 AM

My Artifact gave me Doctrine:Air Power.  By itself, not useful or important, as nobody's come to my home territory.  However it's a prereq for MMI, which has 2 very useful SPs.  I'm determined to get The Xenoempathy Dome, but after that I will switch to Conquer focus.

I have finally realized the ultimate strategic reality of this game.  The Caretakers were adjacent to most of the other factions by land.  I was not.  So, this entire game, the AIs have been waging wasteful Fundamentalist campaigns trying to beat each other up over land.  In the Caretakers' case it is finally actually working.  Of course they have taken so long to do it, that I have surpassed them in graph strength.  I am made to wonder what a world that has only the 2 of us sitting in it will look like.

I suppose strictly speaking Domai is not down for the count, as he got an island start as well.  A much better land mass than my own actually, that I think he may have made poor use  of.  I wonder if he got as much fungus at the start as I did?  At any rate I have done massively better than him.  Apples to apples, a human Believer kicks the snot out of an AI Drone.

I am working on a land bridge to the western continent.  I've been implicitly trying to do that for a long time, but various resources have sprung up and gotten in the way.  The final connection, if indeed no more resources get in the way, is rather accidental.

In general my starting island is quite a bit bigger than it used to be.  Rather than spending time with sea formers and water improvements, I've raised as much land as possible around cities, without disturbing any water resources or closing passages of movement.  So I've got really fat primo forests now.  I've got 4 cities at size 14 and The Ascetic Virtues completes in 5 turns.

I have linked all of my Network Nodes.  I will need to make some new cities somewhere.  Where, is going to depend on what this land bridge finally works out to be.

I am realizing that I don't get to choose Knowledge and my research is as good as it's going to get.  Well, I could go Free Market, but I won't.  Too many units out exploring, and once I get The Ascetic Virtues I'll have +1 Police.  I'd rather use 2 units in my bases as police, than get the extra money and exploration restrictions.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 01:25:15 AM

Morgan has liberated his northern city, and seized what used to be a Spartan city before the Caretakers took it, using probe teams.  I guess it works but it's murder on the populations.  Changing back and forth between human and Alien hands, denuding is a strong possibility.  Well I'm happy if they hold each other in check.  The Caretakers have got much more of a road network leading down here than they did once upon a time, but there's a gap before the front line.  Probably got shelled or pillaged.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 05:01:01 PM

So sue me.  What a loon!  Doesn't he know about my Unsurpassed rating and Missile Needlejet?  I was just scouting his shore with my probe team to see what his land looked like.  The temerity to demand money from me.  Well it'll make acquiring a map a lot easier.

I'm realizing, if I knock off Free Drone Central, I get The Weather Paradigm.  Domai's empire is not part of the whole Caretaker force movement dynamic, so there's nothing stopping me from doing that.

I tried to talk to Lal when the sunspots ended.  He still wants to execute me.  He's got The Citizen's Defense Force and The Command Nexus, which aren't critical to me at this point.  Taking them would cause me to tango with the Caretakers and I don't wish to.

The Caretakers have The Merchant Exchange and The Empath Guild at Decision:Manifold.  The latter would be useful, but it's not worth war right now.  We've actually never had an election and the factions haven't all met each other.  If I could win the election I'd call one, but presently I cannot.

The Morganites merely have The Planetary Transit System, which isn't terribly advantageous.  I've actually got all the best long term SPs in the game, except The Weather Paradigm.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 06:05:12 PM

I have completed all my SPs.  I have also bridged to the western continent.  I have discovered Yet Another Artifact at the extreme northwest of that continent.  It will take some time to get it home but I've got fast cruisers now.  I need to build another city and a Network Node as I have nowhere to cash the Artifact.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 06:49:01 PM

An unwitting earthquake connects me to the Caretaker land mass.  Well, they still have to go through Lal to get to me, not to mention a lot of empty wilderness.  I guess it gives me an invasion option once I get rails.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 07:14:42 PM

Yet Another Alien Artifact, so now I need to make 2 cities.  I've got a sea colony pod en route to a destination now.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Geo on February 21, 2018, 07:42:06 PM

Quote from: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 07:14:42 PM

Yet Another Alien Artifact, so now I need to make 2 cities.  I've got a sea colony pod en route to a destination now.

For linking a network node to your latest AA's?

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 08:59:07 PM

Yes.  Every single one of my existing cities has a Network Node and has been linked to an Artifact.  I am far from discovering The Universal Translator.

I have discovered the Manifold Nexus, near to the northwest.  Remarkable what you don't find when you lack Deep Radar and have lots of other things to do in the region.  As I need to make 2 new cities to pop my Artifacts, one of them will be on the island of the Nexus.  The sea colonist in the picture isn't going there, it's headed to a previously established sea site.  I will make a land colonist next turn.

Some of my cities are doing eco-damage now, so this is good timing.

I just realized that I've never infiltrated Lal, nor stolen his map.  I'll have to amend that.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 02:48:45 AM

I swear I'm going to get The Xenoempathy Dome, but this will do.  Some of my sea bases, I've raised land all around them instead of working the water.  I've got these monstrous Hybrid Forests that produce piles of minerals, due to the mines in the mix.  I'll have The Cyborg Factory in 10 turns, and The Cloudbase Academy in 7 turns.

If I wanted to seize the Monsoon Jungle, then Copters could certainly make that happen.  But I don't want it.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 02:59:16 AM

Can you believe this guy?  I destroyed one of his cities, admittedly just a walk-in he'd just founded.  Yet he still wants to get paid.  All of my old units are moving across his southern continent, sweeping out the pods he didn't pop and making trouble for him as he tries to colonize.  I've got a couple of Impact Rovers and Impact Batteries to mess with any actual military units he brings.

On the other side of his continent, I fish Yet Another Artifact out of the water.  So I will need to make a 3rd city.  Fortunately I have just the sea site for it.

This turn a city at the north of the Monsoon Jungle, that the Morganites and Caretakers had struggled bitterly over for quite some time, was denuded.  Can the Caretakers do more damage in the Jungle?  OMG the Planetary Transit System has been destroyed. I had no idea it was in that city.  I just always assumed it would have been built somewhere safer, but maybe things looked safer back when it was built.  What a stupid AI.  Morgan Industries, next door, is vapor locked with No Minerals.  Well if all of Morgan's cities are completely wiped out, that's no loss to me now!  I was just thinking about how I'd have to intervene if the Planetary Transity System was threatened, but the point is moot.

This is a bit of a wakeup call that the same thing could happen to Lal.  He has The Command Nexus and The Citizen's Defense force at UN Commerce City.  It's a weak base in a weak empire.  I'm not sure why Lal hasn't gotten creamed more, as he's been at war with the Caretakers since forever.  Maybe the Caretakers have thrown everything at Morgan.  Ok, now I've got 2 foreign cities to invade.  Those SPs aren't criticical but they are useful, and it would be a shame to see them lost to history.

Next turn, I got a Bureaucracy warning founding the 1st of 3 needed new cities.  Nobody's unhappy yet, but at some point I may need to drop the Planned economics.  I definitely don't need any growth in my core cities as they're all size 16 now.  I won't be going Free Market as I have too many military operations to attend to.  I suppose I could go Green as growth isn't that important anymore.  I could then go Fundamentailst if I don't care too much about Research.  I'm ambivalent about that.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 04:05:54 AM

I discovered Yet Another Artifact while standing off against Domai.  No further pod popping on the front until I walk away with the goods.  Other units are moving in a broad flank to explore other parts of his continent.  So now I need to found Yet Another City.  Maybe Artifacts will finally push me to be Green.

I've been mindlessly planting fungus on sea resource squares for a very long time.  I really didn't need to work my local waters, because I kept raising land and planting trees instead.  I put one Sea Former up near Morgan, and he finally got around to sinking it.  It did complete its life work though.  Should I put a Landmark there??  Well heck why not.  I bet the last time I did that, I had just started playing the game.  There's no game mechanical value to it, so much like renaming cities, it quickly fell by the wayside.

Oh, it says the landmark has to be in my territory.  I guess the world is going to have to live without "SUPER AMAZING FUNGUS".  Rest In Peace, noble workers.

I'm going to have to be a bit careful with my approaching Cruiser Probe Teams as I head for Lal.  This incident makes me realize that the water route to Lal's SP city is dangerous in that direction.  Going around the globe the other way is pretty tame though, and it's the same distance.  I could also build a massive road over land to get there, but if I did that, then the Caretakers would have a route to come bother me.  For now I prefer my moat.  Yes we're in a Truce but it doesn't have to stay that way.

I'm remembering that my military units are only fission powered, and that I've pursued Wealth.  Yes I've got Gas Missiles but it's not certain they're all that tough for conquest when poorly trained.  They might not be against well trained defenders, so I'll need to check on the enemy's level of training.  The Cyborg Factory will help, but I might want to make some more militaristic choices before cranking out invasion units.  I may delay a decision on that until I pop my Artifacts.  On the other hand my cities may run out of useful things to build, so maybe I'll just drown the enemy with units.

If I had the Xenoempathy Dome, half of my massive road network overland would already exist.  And it would be one way, useful to me only.  Well I haven't changed my research focus in forever, so delays in getting it aren't for lack of trying.  Fusion Power would make it cheaper to build Rover Formers, but I could start with fission engines if my cities really run out of things to do.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 05:04:11 AM

Domai has developed Impact Penetrators.  He's got 1 Active and 1 in production.  I'm not sure what he plans to do with them, but I'm the only person he's at war with.  My ability to harass his fringe cities may become limited.  I will wait until he actually kills a unit before I start to worry though.  Maybe he'll be completely stupid about killing my 1-2t-1 units.  I'd think he'd be more motivated to pick off my various Rovers, so they'll need to keep their distance.

His air power may affect my invasion plans.  Like, the force composition I take with me.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 02:19:09 PM

So much for being careful.  I actually scouted forwards with another cruiser probe team.  Must not have been enough.  He must have been at exactly 3 squares distance.  Oh well.  220 credits to bribe that unit, not worth it to me.  I try going around him to west, around that island.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 02:34:12 PM

The Caretakers conquer Morgan Industries.  Maybe they will wipe out Morgan entirely?

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 03:00:22 PM

I complete The Cloudbase Academy with ordinary production.  I complete The Cyborg Factory using some extra cash.  I pop the 1st of the new inbound Artifacts and obtain Superstring Theory.  Gas Chaos weapons are definitely enough to blow apart anything the enemy has right now, so I won't need to make any militant social choices.  I do still have the issue of my subvertibility.  I might still go back to Fundamentalist for that reason.  Unfortunately I have not obtained the tech for either The Xenoempathy Dome or The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm yet.

My Cruiser Probe Team outmaneuvers Morgan's ship and makes it to Lal's home waters.  It's hiding in a fungus patch ready to infiltrate next turn.

Domai brought up an Impact Rover which seems curiously immune to artillery fire when standing on a rock with a battered garrison unit.  That doesn't seem remotely logical, smells like a bug.  Sometimes I've noticed "doesn't take artillery damage" units in cities.  I think I'll ask in the forums about this.  Anyways I backed my synthmetal garrisons up to rocky terrain.  I'm wondering if the rover will attack my exposed artillery, or if he'll try to pop the pod in front of us.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Geo on February 22, 2018, 05:21:30 PM

Quote from: bvanevery on February 21, 2018, 08:59:07 PM

Yes.  Every single one of my existing cities has a Network Node and has been linked to an Artifact.  I am far from discovering The Universal Translator.

Does the Universal Translator also enables to cash in any number of AA's on your network nodes? I thought that ability was linked to The Network Backbone?

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 22, 2018, 05:46:02 PM

No, The Network Backbone gives you a research bonus for every network node on planet.  Universal Translator gives two techs and allows infinite AA cashing in at that base.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 06:26:10 PM

Alone, no problem.  A single shelling produced the expected result.  He did kill my other exposed artillery.  My 4-1-1 killed him.  Turns out he's got 2 more Impact Rovers coming through the rocks.  Well we'll see how long my expendable Synthmetal Garrisons hold out.

I pop an Artifact and get Biogenineering.  I begin The Longevity Vaccine in my capitol.  I just made some Fungicidal Rover Formers and am now starting on various Silksteel Chaos units, so I don't think I'll be making any clean stuff for awhile.  To be honest I have plenty of minerals, probably more than necessary to produce units in some small integer number of turns.

I infiltrate Lal's datalinks, but I lose the team so I have to build another one to steal his map.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 06:44:36 PM

My Trance Synthmetal Garrison on rocks survives an Impact Rover attack.

I kill one of Domai's colonists that was heading pretty far to the south.  I haven't seen any of his planes.

Santiago meets me in open water with a wounded ship and declares war on me.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 06:54:05 PM

The Caretakers conquer Morgan Data Systems.  That was a size 9 city.  They're doing something right.  Maybe they sabotage the city walls.

Domai brought up an artillery unit and killed my artillery.  Surprisingly, my own guys in the stack didn't take splash damage from the artillery unit's death.  Maybe that's a Yitzi patch thing?  In a straight game, my units would be badly damaged.

I've started making 2 Empath R-Laser Speeders to kill fungal stalks and a marauding Spore Launcher.  It's an expensive unit but I have some silly productivity in some of my cities.  One will be done in 2 turns, another in 3 turns.  We don' need no steenkin' Fusion Power!

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 08:25:08 PM

This is handy.  I'm getting ready to invade Free Drone Central to take The Weather Paradigm.  Soon I won't need probe teams to keep it.

I popped an Artifact and got Genejack Factory capability.  I don't really need the production or the unhappiness though.  I will blow it off.

I'm still in a Truce with the Caretakers, so genetic plagues aren't immediately useful to me.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 22, 2018, 09:53:16 PM

No sooner said, than the Caretakers join an alliance with Domai to kill me.  Well now genetic plagues are certainly on the table.  But they've done such a good job beating up Morgan, who am I to weaken them just yet?

Ran into Lal getting a wounded ship home.  He wanted money.  What a loon!

Everybody in the game is at war with me now.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 04:01:34 AM

Popping an Artifact finally gives me Centauri Meditation.  I've started The Xenoempathy Dome.  With the acquisition of this long term ambition of mine, I no longer need an Explore focus.  I'm switching to Build because a rail line to invade Lal and then the Caretakers would be useful.  I might also like to raise a land bridge to Domai.  I've been working on it but it's been slow and diverted by resources rising out of the sea.

Next turn I'll complete The Longevity Vaccine with minerals, and The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm with cash. 

I've made a small mistake preparing my invasion fleet.  I'm not used to having fission units this long, and didn't realize my ships only carry 4 units.  I have enough ships and could make more rather quickly if need be, but my empty ships are en route to an eastern city and aren't there yet.  I've only got 1 ship in city, so I'm using it to ferry units to an intermediate island while the other ships catch up.

I found Yet Another Artifact in remote southern waters.  It will have to sail back to the western continent and then walk across to finally get to a base.  By the time it arrives in my home territory, hopefully I will have taken Free Drone Central.  If Domai hasn't cashed an Artifact there, then I won't need to build a new city for this Artifact.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 04:25:22 AM

Domai, you big dummy, you have to begin it before the turn that I finish it.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 05:16:42 AM

I have completed The Xenoempathy Dome.  I researched Orbital Spaceflight and my sea bases are working on Sky Hydroponics Labs.  My land bases have ceased military unit production and are working on fission Fungicidal Rover Formers exclusively.  Those tend to complete in 2 turns.  They will begin a massive road to Lal's city containing SPs.  Hopefully I will figure out Monopole Magnets soon and it'll become a rail.

My invasion fleet is in readiness, with my last Transport with military units catching up to the others.  Once they rendezvous, they will move to a patch of fungus midway to the target.  I currently occupy it with 2 worthless ships.  I haven't seen any plane activity so I think the risk of premature discovery is minimal.  Nevertheless I have 2 AA cruisers in the mix.

I can't remember how many units I'm bringing to the fight but it's "a lot".  I'm also bringing 4 artillery pieces as I expect Domai to have a pretty big stack of peons to wade through to take the base.  I haven't bothered with any kind of air force due to the distance involved.  Yes I could have engineered an air base or another city but I'm thinking there's no need.

Looking back at my older screenshots, Domai first declared war on me, and I began thinking about taking The Weather Paradigm, 40 years ago.  I completed The Cyborg Factory 16 years ago and started cranking out the Chaos units.  This is a pretty big operation.  I never got seriously started on a land bridge, I just didn't have the Formers to accomplish it.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 11:49:57 AM

My incoming force consists of 20 units, most of them offensive and Silksteel armored.  Last turn Domai sailed a Transport next to the fungal patch I was going to park on.  I sunk his Transport and decided to pick a different halfway point, lest I arouse suspicions.

I feel almost sad for Free Drone Central.  It is about to be the end of their world.  At least I'm not committing atrocities against them.

I've made 17 Fungicidal Rover Formers and have 2 more in production.  I don't need any more and have switched to Sky Hydroponics Labs.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 12:12:39 PM

Domai made my landing awfully easy for me.  He made Bunkers everywhere for me to conveniently walk into.  The AI is so stupid that way.  One of the first things I do upon conquering a territory, is pillage all the Bunkers the AI has made.  Although they do sometimes halt invading unit movement, for the most part they just represent strongholds for enemy troops.

My 1st Sky Hydroponics Lab has revealed the map.  My excess weak units, like Trance Synthmetal Garrisons, will load on Transports and attempt to pop pods in the north part of the map.  There are piles still to be plucked, but the question is whether enemy ship patrols are vicious enough to stop me.

The southern half of the map, I have picked clean.  The last 3 explorers are returning from Domai's southern continent.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 12:39:40 PM

I can't believe this guy.  Domai, the way extortion works, is you present a credible threat.  When you're about to be wiped out, is not the time.  I know the AI is stupid but good grief.  And what did he do as a followup?  He suicided a couple of hand armed garrison units against my bunkered stack.

Research breakthrough!  That's a substantial gain as I think I had 8 more turns of research to go.  And everyone's in a whole lot of trouble now, as this will enable me to go to Power without any penalty.  In addition I won't need Planned for growth anymore, so I can go Green.  With that gain in Efficiency, I could go Police State.

As Domai surrounded his capitol with all these nice bunkers, I am going to try a "flank and constrict" strategy.  The goal would be to preserve surrounding lands intact once I make the conquest.  The enemy tends to rush forwards and pillage, which is annoying when trying to sustain a conquered city.

I completed a Conventional Missile prototype and have begun working on a nuke.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 01:06:50 PM

I am chagrined to find that my ECM Silksteel units will not stand up to an Elite R-laser speeder.  I need less expensive units on my picket.  Losing something armed with a Chaos gun isn't fun.  Maybe the constriction approach isn't as good an idea as I thought.  I am taking a more direct approach, massing a bunch of units on a rock next to the city.

You know, I have to admit.  If I lost the battle for Free Drone Central, I would quit this game.  Yes, of course I will win the game, if I continue to play it.  But I saved up a long time to take over this city.  If 20 expensive units is not even enough, then I'd rather play a new game where I don't waste my time doing that.  I think I'm beginning to feel the mouseclick and writeup fatigue.  This is a pretty long AAR, at least in terms of web pages consumed.  It may not be longer that some of my older pictureless text writeups, but it's still plenty long and among the longest I've written.

If this offensive doesn't work, then I suppose the "correct" offensive would have been an air campaign with Copters.  Assuming of course that I build a forward air base.

This game hasn't proven whether Miriam sucks or not.  It does prove that if the AI gets bogged down in something completely stupid, the human can come back from an abysmal beginning and prevail.  I'd say regardless of faction.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 01:41:47 PM

Morgan Entertainment goes down.

No counterattack to my offensive positioning, so perhaps this campaign is within my control after all.  Artillery seems to have done its job.  I start destroying units in his city.  Some of my attackers do very well and take few wounds.  Others take quite a lot of wounds.  It is becoming clear that I'll need every gun I can spare to rapidly reduce this city, so I pull all my Chaos units onto the rock.  I leave the ECM Silksteel Police units to guard the artillery against any more Elite R-Laser Speeders.

I was worried that the game was going to make me look like an idiot, for coming up with what I thought was a sensible plan.  It looks like the plan is working as originally intended.  Fission units don't have to suck.

Resources rising out of the sea, and the Geothermal Shallows, got in the way of my land bridge.  I have transferred a large pile of Formers to the intermediate island, to raise land from that direction and avoid the resources.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 02:16:46 PM

Free Drone Central is mine.  They're never getting it back.  I'll be parked on The Weather Paradigm forever.  Now I suppose their pillaging will begin.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 03:14:28 PM

I complete The Cloning Vats and choose Power.

I haven't completed any kind of road to Lal's city.  In fact I've merely made a road most of the way to the Manifold Nexus.  Without Monopole Magnets, everything takes quite a bit longer.  I don't see a point in making new military units until I have a road.  And if I have a road and no rails, I'd like them to be Fusion Powered units.  I will have 16 Sky Hydroponics Labs imminently, after which there is no further benefit until I get Hab Domes.  Consequently, my bases are starting to produce more Fungicidal Rover Formers, for lack of anything else to build.

I pop Yet Another Artifact and will need yet another city, beyond even Free Drone Central.  I suppose I could conquer one of the cities on the way to Free Drone Central and shorten my land bridge that way.  On the other hand aesthetically and economically, I don't desire those cities, and I have several prepared sites in my home territory.  So I think I'll make my own city.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 23, 2018, 04:15:07 PM

I'm now Democratic Green Power.  The extra Efficiency allows me to shift more of my budget into research.  I think that's my most important bottleneck right now, as I need either Fusion Power or Monopole Magnets to wage my war against Lal.  Ideally I'd like both.

I don't actually need to take Domai's other cities.  I would prefer to destroy them, but I don't want Atrocity penalties for doing so.  My sea bases have nothing important to do, and it's extra mouseclicks to send units onto land.  So I'm going to make Gas Chaos Choppers and blow the crap out of Domai's units.  I suppose I could also sabotatge his cities.

Well, unless he wants to sign a Truce, which would be convenient.  Is he willing?  Point is moot, we're in sunspots.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 03:53:12 AM

I earthquaked one of Lal's sea bases.  Whatever.  Can I get that pod without getting killed?  If I popped an Artifact, would I make it home safely?

I just did a 3 ship sealift to get an Artifact far away from Lal and Santiago, although I still have to cross Domai's waters to get to Free Drone Central to cash it in.  As well as a bit of my own land around that city.  But, my defenders on open ground have been holding.  Domai has this curious habit of suiciding hand weaponed troops against them.  What is he thinking?  I wonder if that behavior counts as a bug.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 04:18:31 AM

Morgan has lost 2 bases in the past 2 turns.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 04:35:28 AM

Well he didn't kill my scout rover, but he did pop the pod before I could get to it safely.  Fortunately it doesn't look like it was terribly valuable to him.  I could have popped it the turn before if I'd been willing to risk a mindworm in the face.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 04:52:08 AM

I cash in an Artifact at Free Drone Central.  This will make things easier.

I captured my 1st mindworm.  It's in Domai's southern continent.

Another one of Morgan's cities fell.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 05:17:08 AM

I research Fusion Power.  I also obtain Unified Field Theory from an Artifact.  Next turn I'll start The Theory of Everything in my capitol.  Most of my cities are building Fusion Labs.  When they finish, they will make offensive and garrison speeder fusion units.  Lal is so dead.  I won't make additional Formers as I have a pretty large fleet of them already.  But it may take some time for rails construction to catch up with my land invasion of Lal.

I also built a nuke.  I could cash it on The Theory of Everything, but I've noticed that if I run out of unit design slots and I don't have a nuke, then the game forgets that I ever made one.  Then when I go to Quantum or Singularity drives, I have to build one all over again.  I guess I have to keep a historical archive of nukes.  I'll call this one "Fat Boy".

I will keep a Build focus for now as Super Formers could be useful.  Then I think I'll switch to Discover to get The Living Refinery.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 05:48:15 AM

For some reason I'm capturing more mindworms now.  I've had +2 Planet for a number of turns.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 06:04:11 AM

I obtained 2 Artifacts way up north.  It will be a challenge to get them home safely.  I will need 2 more cities if I do so.

I keep getting more mindworms, including my 1st Isle of the Deep now.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 06:24:15 AM

A 3rd Artifact obtained.  More mindworms.  Sheesh!

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 07:07:00 AM

MORE!  Now need 4 cities.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 07:14:48 AM

Lal produced a Cruiser from nowhere and sank one of my Transports with an Artifact.  This is the 1st time I've seen him with any ships in the water really, and it's not within ready reach of his sea bases.  Gotta wonder about cheating.

And yet I find another Artifact!  AAAARGGH!!

I also want to call attention to an extraordinary escape from Certain Mindworm Death, by an Elite Trance Synthmetal Garrison.  He captured a mindworm as he attempted to fight his way out of the ring.  Due to the Xenoempathy Dome, he was able to move 3 squares north of the center of the ring, and has the captured mindworm as a shield against further attacks.  Pretty sweet.

I had a research breakthrough and got Organic Superlubricant.  Not sure how many turns that saved me.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 07:59:27 AM

Another Artifact.

The idea of a long rail to Lal's city is nice, but it's not getting done.  Every time I found a new city to cash in an Artifact, I have to use Formers to work its lands.  I started to make a bunch of Trained Gas Tachyon Speeders this turn, but I'm realizing it'll be tedious to manually push them all the way to Lal.  I can either push lots of Formers or push lots of Speeders.  It might as well be Formers until a rail is actually done.

Domai figured out Fusion Power.  I'm working on new garrison units for the field, and I'm about to finish the land bridge to my continent.  I will put 1 additional city out there to secure my border.  To be honest I've toyed with him.  I wiped out his units as best I could with my Copters until he had too many AAA units.  I lost a couple of Copters as a result.  I had a few of his cities vacant but I didn't want them.  Nor am I willing to commit atroicities against humans.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 08:20:41 AM

Morgan strafed my new Artifact.  I don't think the area was as dangerous when I first came to it.  I wish Morgan would spend more time defending his cities that are getting destroyed in the Monsoon Jungle.  At least I've extracted more Artifacts than I've lost.

I've completed my land bridge to Free Drone Central.  I don't have a full rail or a new city built yet though.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 08:58:09 AM

Sunspots ended.

Domai still wants money!  At least he's stronger than he used to be, but I'm still messing up his offensive units with mere fission Choppers.  Haven't even tried to fight him.  However I do need tougher picket units against his fusion R-Laser speeders.

Notice the completed land bridge and land claim city, left of Domai's dialog box.  Free Drone Central is underneath the dialog box.

An artifact yielded N-Matter Compression.  I've started a Tectonic Fusion Missile.

Morgan and I signed a Truce.  Then I stole my Artifact back from him!  Isn't that cool?  I thought it would have been destroyed by his air attack.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 09:11:21 AM

Using a convoy of 4 ships, I bring 2 Artifacts from the waters between Santiago and Lal, to my home port.  And remarkably, I've got a 3rd Artifact coming.  Chained Transport movement can be very fast.

I pop them both.  Time to switch to Discover!  I begin the Pholus Mutagen.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 04:05:53 PM

Founding the next base needed for an Artifact, I got a Bureaucracy warning.  I'm already at +4 Efficiency.  I can't do any better without Cybernetic becoming available.  I don't need new cities if I gain The Universal Translator, or if I pop every pod on the map.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 04:26:46 PM

Morgan goes back to war with me.  That didn't last very long.

Using another multi-ship convoy, I pop another Artifact and gain Photon armor.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 04:47:37 PM

I research Hovertanks.  9 years until my next research, with a 50% research budget.  Yes, for a faction of my power, I do lag technologically.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 05:10:25 PM

I complete the rail to the Manifold Nexus and finally begin serious work on the rail to Lal.  Boy this has taken awhile!  I've got Hovertank Super Formers coming imminently.  Plus they come off the assembly line Elite.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 24, 2018, 05:46:14 PM

I sign a Truce with Lal.  Hey, we're both Democrats.  He's "only" got The Citizen's Defense Force and The Command Nexus.  Which belatedly makes me realize that I haven't had a Command Center in Free Drone Central this whole time.  Didn't notice because of my Power and Cyborg Factory.  Well that will be rectified shortly.

The land rail still has value, as a way to get to Decision:Manifold.  It contains The Merchant Exchange and The Empath Guild.  The latter is quite important to me.  I've got a big population, but not enough to overcome all the other factions that hate me.  We've still never had a Governor in all this time.

I've set up for a 5 ship Artifact transfer!  It won't get it all the way home, but it'll get it out of danger and within sight of home.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on February 26, 2018, 02:27:37 AM

Interlude:

Site owner BUncle and I have come to serious loggerheads, possibly irreconcilable, about the quality of my work for promotion on this website's HOME page.  Many gory details are contained in 2 other threads.  The drama can be summarized by the following statement on my part:

Quote from: bvanevery on February 26, 2018, 01:29:38 AM

The idea that a "rage quitting NerdX" should be a barrier to showing my work, because the work isn't "finished", is absurd. 

You can click on that topic link if you want BBQ.  Although for my part, I'm looking for a result, not drama for its own sake.  The "writer" either gets a good venue to showcase work, or the writer walks.

What am I going to do with this mountain of a work in progress, meanwhile?  Although it is the best work I've done to date, it can still be better.  For instance, it could be shorter and more focused.  More scintillating in prose.  So I'm not going to write any blow-by-blow about it anymore.  That level of effort, plus the additional improvement and polish I have planned for such work, will be saved for a future work.  And whether that work appears here, or somewhere else, is largely up to what BUncle chooses next.

That said, you gentle readers could influence the situation one way or another, if you spoke up, or PMed one of us.  I don't expect anyone to wade into a drama not of their own making.  If I've had any audience at all, it would be nice to be made aware of it at this time though.  'Cuz otherwise, to quote The Doors, "This is the End."

I've definitely gotten bored with writing this up.  That isn't entirely a secret, I'm pretty sure I've hinted at that or said so previously.  It may be a simple function of the writeup getting to be too long.  It may be a function of the game itself, the whole "painfully stupid AI" thing.  A game the AIs should have won at the beginning, due to my lousy start, but they insisted upon losing.  No matter what happens, this game doesn't answer the titular question, "Does Miriam suck?"  I've only proven that any faction can recover from a horrible start, if the AI happens to behave stupidly enough.

I will probably play this game more.  I won't write about it as I do so.  When I decide I'm not playing anymore, either because I won, or because it's too boring to bother with, I'll give it an Epilogue.  And if that's my final contribution to this site, so beit.

Over the past 13 months, I've written 38 deep, substantive AARs, including this one.  I have 302 screenshots of SMAC in my Windows Screenshots folder at this time, and that's not counting all the ones I hand cropped in GIMP and Paint3D before I simplified the procedures.

In all that time, one other person wrote one AAR.  And thank you, lifehole, for doing so.  You made me not feel alone.

Nobody can take away that I did something here.  Not BUncle, nobody.  I gave.

I'm glad I wrote that mountain of words, and more recently provided that pile of screenshots, for my own reasons.  Otherwise it would be heartbreaking.  What I got out of it, is I know more about narration in games, and the dynamics of gaming communities.  Or lack thereof, sadly.

I hope it helps someone out there on the internet someday.  That was the goal.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: BU Admin on February 26, 2018, 03:41:41 AM

The management of AC2 wishes to formally note that the author of this AAR is encouraged to finish it, but finds the prospect unlikely after getting a day-long megaposting rampage in response to an offer to do a little extra as a favor, albeit with a practical condition attached.  It is to be further noted that there's been a distinct escalation as the day progressed, all on one side, as I declined to play this reindeer game, notwithstanding a powerful and vexatious urge to reply in kind.

The technical term for the above post in the forum managing biz is The Last Straw.


We are not here to be abused.  A cooling-off period is in order, ban to be lifted when I've had time to wake up.


-Yo, I didn't drift into forum management because of having an even temper.  I prefer to give things time when tempers flare, including my own.  It now being agonizingly clear that this isn't cooling off anytime soon, and having started the day irritated, I can't deal with this nonsense anymore, and I'm not going to.

b, when I have to use my staff powers on people, I've failed as a manager - so be it.  This subject is closed, and the next post on it is going to earn you a permaban and a post deletion.

I've declined to argue the issue today because there's nothing to argue about; I built this site from nothing with years of promotion, and your poorly-considered strategy of jumping up and down on my buttons without letup is hardly about to make me do a favor I don't want to.  Neither is bringing up nasty irrelevant side-issues.  I don't play dominance games and I only take so much crap; you'd have gotten a vacation hours ago if I saw you harassing anyone but me like this.

A suggestion, not an order:  go do something else for a week or two and see if you're still mad before you post here again.  Stuff  like that works, sometimes, and it can avoid a lot of hard feelings and bans and such.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on March 04, 2018, 03:47:31 PM

My ban is lifted.  I will not be writing any more AARs here.  What I've produced already, is more than good enough for the website's HOME page.

I played a fair number of additional turns of this game.  It quickly became clear that only my reportage on this game, had kept me interested.  Past the beginning when I overcame my fungus difficulty, it was not an inherently interesting game.  In fact it was quite a dull game, demonstrating how crassly stupid the AI really is.  Handed all possible advantages, it snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.  It sits around and does nothing, year after year.  I am more inspired to write a non-stupid AI, than to write about a stupid AI.

I played another game after this.  As Roze, I got early access to the Monsoon Jungle on my continent.  Compared to the Miriam game, it was nearly a perfect start.  Morgan was on my continent at some distance, with some fungus in the way.  He was hostile.  I bided my time and colonized the Jungle.  Then I conquered him.

After that, the only real power in the game was Marr, on another large continent across the water.  This was a Huge map game, as is usual for me.  I built a land bridge to him.  It took a very long time and I got lots of tech in the meantime.  I founded a city at the head of my bridge to control the water narrows and provide myself an Aerospace Complex, given that I had built almost every SP, had The Cloudbase Academy and The Cyborg Factory, etc.  Began the tedious process of skirmishing with Marr and wiping him out with nerve gas, when it had just gone on too long and was way too boring to continue.  Nothing I haven't done before, and with no reason to report on it, why bother?

I quit the game.  I deleted SMAC from all my computers.  I've gone on the internet looking for other games to play.  Other communities to possibly do AARs for.  Today I've been looking at AARs for Europa Universalis IV.  I played EU I eons ago, so I do know the genre.  I find I mostly don't care about these EU IV AARs, I think they're dull reads.  I suspect I'm going to find this true of games in general.  I could be a long time looking for a game with satisfying AARs to consume.

Maybe I need a different genre, like Sims narratives.  But when I last checked those out many years ago, even their "best" stories, as given by their 1..5 star rating system, weren't good stories.  I suspect that "being involved" in a given game, is the only thing that makes this stuff interesting.  "Standalone", for a cold audience, they all pretty much suck.

I currently have nothing to play, and the search for a new game is tedious.  I might reinstall SMAC.  I will probably try to force myself to do "real programming work" for awhile yet, before succumbing.  If I do, I will try a ridiculously large maps, Huger than Huge, with no supply pods available.  I've done those in the past, I've written plenty of AARs about them.  They have their downsides.  But maybe AIs will fare better on gigantic maps if they don't have to fight each other.  Such a map will curb any tendency to think I'm going to make land bridges.  I've proven in many games that they get really dull.  At shorter distances, naval invasions are always faster.  At longer distances, like when you'd have to push ships way too far across the map, land bridges also take forever and aren't much fun.  Maybe Tectonic Missiles would work better, but then you have to play "Planet getting mad at you" as well.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 04, 2018, 05:16:27 PM

Sigh.  In a goodwill token, I'm going back on my word and not issuing a ban for that first line, alone.  -This is not to be misunderstood that more posts harping on same will be tolerated.

I've suggested to two other admins -one the other owner- that they stick their heads in.  Problem is, they both have lives, and may not - also that I'll still be the one running things here if either does come in to mediate, and my stubborn buttons are pushed.

Look dude, I've refrained from counter-attacking when I felt under attack - this is because we freakin' can't afford to be driving off rare posters who voluminously and energetically post about the actual game.  That is valuable.  It was drawing more activity from others in response.  We need that.

-But, you know, it was discussion posts in other subforums that was doing almost all the traffic/activity raising.  I guess I understand why you got so angry, but your many, many hours of much-appreciated effort don't obligate me to reciprocate with effort my long experience deems futile, just as, say, Geo, addressing a long post to me obligates me in no way to reciprocate either his passion on the subject nor length in reply, (though courtesy does urge me to at least answer briefly).  -Which is to say that I read between the lines that you think I owe you - maybe I'm wrong to believe otherwise, but I do have to act in what I believe is the best interests of the community -which is a heckuva balancing act, it really is- and nothing has changed about my original position except having those stubborn buttons locked down.

Too, and there's a lot of cruel justice to this, in my origin in this community, I've been on your side of similar conflict with forum management.  I was prolific and getting mistreatment, and Solver would be laughing his behind off at me if he was aware of this present situation.  From the side where you're running things, it feels like nobody's so valuable to the community that you'll let them try to coerce you, which is what I did to them, and while there was plenty of bad tactics and strategy and attitude in how they handled the conflict, I cannot except myself from the same, in all honesty - it was some real Game-Of-Thrones-without-any-boobs crap went down, we were all nerdrage idiots, and everybody lost.  Vague as this characterization of that mess is, it's still as much as than I've chosen to talk it, since - everyone wants to be the hero of their own story, and I don't care to relate about a time I was a sucker and a hot-headed fool.  (They were still in the wrong, mind, but I handled my end so badly that I don't get to feel superior.)

What you describe in the above post makes me sad.  It's everybody loses stuff, and hey, I like everybody wins solutions.  You are valued here at AC2, and by me - I could have made my bvanevery problem go away a soon as it became clear there was a problem last Sunday, and erased all the evidence.  That I haven't, that I've refrained from putting something stupid in your custom title and a million other cheap ways I could retaliate, is a measure of the esteem in which you and your contributions are held.  Within the considerable limits of not budging on the original point of contention, can we not reach any accord, any understanding, any win-win solution?  There's probably -I'm very fuzzy on just how, but it ought to be doable- some way to frame AAR narrative conclusions in way more satisfactory to a reader looking for a story with a proper end without making much change to the way you play.  Girldogging about the disappointing AI in the course of the narrative, sure - but a more positive spin on the way you declare the game won and choose to move on might do a lot to satisfy my reservations.  I dunno, but I'm certainly interested in discussing the possibilities and how to make it work.

Let's put our heads together and try to find that win-win for everybody.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: t_ras on March 04, 2018, 08:28:17 PM

Hi bvanevery,
I don't think your unfinished AARs are the problem, I tried once and didn't finish, so you are encouraged to keep posting as many of them as you feel like.  The issue is that the promotion in the front page is a limited resource as any other. If your AARs, good as they may be, are not finished and people are showing more interest in other things, then we should go with what people are interested in, to keep them coming. This is for the good of the community.
Of course AARs are an integral part of most games and almost all gaming communities. For that reason we'll be more than happy to promote yours if they are a little more evolved (and finished).
Now I think it will be better to just calm down and enjoy (and please don't go for the "he started it and should calm first", it won't count as calming down ;) ).
t_ras (moderator)

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 05, 2018, 02:47:37 AM

Quote from: BUncle on March 04, 2018, 05:16:27 PM

There's probably -I'm very fuzzy on just how, but it ought to be doable- some way to frame AAR narrative conclusions in way more satisfactory to a reader looking for a story with a proper end without making much change to the way you play.  Girldogging about the disappointing AI in the course of the narrative, sure - but a more positive spin on the way you declare the game won and choose to move on might do a lot to satisfy my reservations.  I dunno, but I'm certainly interested in discussing the possibilities and how to make it work.

Since I posted that, it strikes me that it dances up to an issue I hadn't really been conscious of,  but strongly informs my opinion of the promotional potential of this stuff.

I once had a PM conversation - and please forgive me for being vague about what the other guy said; PM publishing is a hanging offense, but not for your own words, just anyone else's, and I hope I'm to be forgiven for skirting that in a modest way, but it's relevant:

"I will say that I think you and I are a lot alike; the world sucks, and we're pissed."  -And he replied, more or less, that that at least SMAC doesn't entirely suck, and that's why we're here.  -Well yes indeedydo, and there's my central thesis, sort've.

-And I don't know that I can do this idea justice in one go, but I hope throwing it out there will be accepted as a neutral observation and not any sort of "you suck" or "and that's why your AARs suck" - which is no part of my intention in raising an aspect that I think, nonetheless, that we need to look over and talk about.

Green1 has tarred me with a number of times with the label 'bittervet' for my grousing about modern "Star Trek" -scare quotes used on purpose, 'cause he ain't wrong about me when it comes to that- and to some extent, that's you and your AARs.  Again, I don't mean this critically, merely an observation of clear fact, but you complain a lot about shortcomings of SMACX -that pretty much everyone agrees are there, mind- all through, at great volume.  -Nothing inherently wrong with that; you're clearly a blunt, let-the-cards-fall-where-they-may sort and that's just your way --- but unfortunately, there's a strong overall trend of negativity, there.  I mean, party down with your own bad self and all that, and I didn't see it clearly last week to articulate when this started, but I realize it's always been there in my reaction to your hard work; forgive me, but 'grumble gripe (a few borderline words often thrown in that aren't in the swear filter, but make me twitchy when I see them too much) grouse' and THEN usually "this has gotten boring [tedious, frustrating, not worth it, whatever] I quit" taken altogether is the problem.

I regret that I didn't see that more clearly sooner.

Like, good promotional fodder for AC2, if there's any opinion of SMACX embedded, kinda inherently needs to promote SMACX itself, doesn't it?  We've got a cool community going here, and I gather this is by far the most peaceful/harmonious it's been in its history going back on other forums 20 years, and not just because things are quiet these days, but that's not something easy to go on Facebook and pitch to strangers, and that certainly wouldn't be welcome at all at other forums, when entertaining game content tends to be.  (Of course, the best-working bait for drawing eyes is the .exe patches, which have a buried "sucks" implication, but more "fix".) I mean, community veterans who've been away for a long time and long-time players who've never been a part of the online community, both, are better attacked here by being reminded how awesome the game is, Right?  That goes far moreso for the kind of people who'd like SMACX if only they'd try it.  Gotta be at least hundreds of thousands of nurdz out there in the world who'd turn out to be Our Kind Of People if only they found SMACX and AC2 - so part of promoting the forum is selling the game, and that's easier being positive about it, surely?  I think the logic scans and all that.


SO - I see three possible ways -there may be others and I'm open to ideas- to attack our impasse that I ask for a commitment to finish most of the games you start reporting before I'll go back to promoting, and you deem said commitment to wasting your time grinding bad/forgone-conclusion games to a pitiful end a deal-breaker:

• 
  1.) As I already said, figure out a way more satisfying to a random reader to spin the end of the narrative you post.  Under this model, you're not necessarily changing anything whatsoever about your evil ways, but simply leaving the negativity out of the last post and explain why you think winning or losing is inevitable and describe how you think it'd go if you'd played it out.  (I'm unsure how to spin the games that were just boring you/cheesing you off, though.  Worth discussion, I guess, 'cause those aren't that rare.)
  
  
  2.) Positive-tone writeups.  I don't see this one happening, so moving on...
  
  
  3.)  Own the negativity and make a joke of it and a selling point.  It's not impossible to sell that kind of thing to a wide audience, witness the comedy of Lewis Black.  (Do go search Lewis Black on YourTube if you're not familiar; worth the trip.) Work up some title phrase to lead all your future AAR names like a simple "Grumbler's take" "Ranter's take", leave off the take, even, or something about Nerdrage or Ragequit or - you get the idea, and no insult whatsoever intended, just trying to think of how to package you being you in your heretofore customary style effectively.  ;nod
  
  It strikes me as having the most potential, if we do it just right, of drawing worthwhile attention and letting bvanevery be bvanevery with another boilerplate statement leading your future OPs that you rant because you love (or something frivolously/amusingly positive-spinning like that to introduce the grumble on the right note)  - and work in a few jokes when you can as you go, and maybe that positive spin on wrapping up the end, or maybe commit and turn the rage to eleven, if you can make that funny enough (Ask any Apolyton OTf veteran about Wiglaf.  I can definitely sell some Wiglaf-ish AARs in 'poly OT).  None of this really solves the problem I've pointed out, except - if it's entertaining enough, sorta trashing the game still manages to make it look worth trying by entertaining association.

I'm sincerely interested to your response to these ideas, and any new ones/modifications you pitch in -it has to work for you or it doesn't work- and all that.

P.S. Something about SMAC-Talk for 3.)?

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on March 05, 2018, 05:49:03 AM

In hindsight, both of us wish you'd come up with the "negativity" objection sooner.  That I can see as a legitimate objection.  A dimension of the "read" that I should be thinking about and deciding upon, one way or another.  Something I never considered when writing them; I only communicated my direct feelings about any given game.

There were plenty of legitimate ways to object to most of my AARs.  The main one I saw was length and wall of text.  That is not so exciting, unless one is very committed to digging out the gory details of a strong analysis that happened to be in the pile of text.  A massive <SNIP> would probably be better for a highlight reel.

The literal objection "you didn't finish", I could not take seriously because in 1/2 of the games, the game was 99.9% finished and only the formality of pressing an I WIN button remained.  I also wasn't writing an instruction manual, where formally showing a novice screen by screen may be necessary.  I assumed everyone here knows how to push the buttons to win the game, when they are so far ahead.  So in 38 AARs, I'm sure there are several I have produced that are HOME page worthy, even if they are not all so.  And, a rather substandard early one of mine, has been sitting on the HOME page for a year anyways.  If it's so bad, why not remove it?  If it's been up that long, it can't suck that bad, and I've done far better work since.

But returning to negativity, which is an issue I take seriously.  I would point out, the problem can be solved by removing things from an AAR.  Including the ending.  Including the beginning.  Frankly there's no rule or law out there that says an AAR has to be about a complete game.  At any time, I could have spilled gory details about a specific section of a game.  In a case like that, I'd probably concentrate on some core tactical detail, some incident that occurred that had an interesting or clever result.  Moments like these sometimes occurred naturally in my games anyways.  That's why producing 38 AARs is deemed to be of value, finished or not: there's stuff in there.

But let's assume for a moment, that I don't want to remove things.  I've read other authors who didn't want to remove things.  They wanted to present their unvarnished experience playing a game.  The highs, the lows, the cool moves, the screw-ups.  They don't promise to play well, they often warn you that they may play badly.  I was surpirsed to find some people going out of their way, to assure that they weren't faking their games, or staging their games.  That these were the actual games, the actual things that happened.  Really, people do it otherwise?  I guess they must, somewhere out there.  But it didn't naturally occur to me that someone would choose to be a showman or a flim flam artist, rather than a war reporter.

This, despite the fact that 4X TBS game designers have theorized for years, that we could simply lie to you about everything.  We could make the ships just appear somewhere, for dramatic reasons alone, just to dazzle you with oh-so-kewl endings.  Some semblance of such cheats have actually been put into wide commercial practice.  Like having all the powers of an enemy automatically increase as your own power level increases.  Lotta RPGs pulled that stunt, and I heard Emperor of the Fading Suns pulled it too.  Could never really tell myself though, because if you think SMAC is bad for finishability, you should check out that wreck.  I've literally never finished a game of it, and not for lack of a pile of playing and even trying.

Now let us consider "notions of non-ideal content".  On one hand, imagine a player that is cheerful but plays badly.  On the other hand, imagine a player that is grumpy but plays optimally.  You don't have to imagine that BTW.  That's me, and I just gave you a year's worth of content!  Which is better?  Is either inherently a dealbreaker?  Personally, I strongly doubt it.

I think ideally, in a healthier community with more blood in it, you'd end up with both.  Then you wouldn't get stuck with only 1 style.  I'd frankly fall asleep if I was reading about low level play all the time, why bother?  That's what learning a game is for, to get over that hump.  But someone else might dislike that I'm getting pissed off at the game all the time.  They may not understand or appreciate my objections as a would-be game designer in the same genre.  In the extreme, it can lead to fanboi / fangrrl dynamics where the fan "thinks the game can do no wrong".  Which leads to bitter feuds and moderators sorting things out, unfortunately often without enlightenment and banhammers and children screaming at each other but I digress.  Got kicked out of a developer community like that a long time ago.  Technically I left before they were going to vote on whether to throw me out.  Too petty and demeaning to particiapte in.

Some people don't like negativity as a basic core aspect of their personality.  Has nothing to do with the subject matter, just whether something is "negative".  Then again some of us can't stand people who are positive to the point of being Polyanna about things.

My takeaway from that is, since people have different opinions about what's good or bad, enticing or off-puttting, how are you going to know in advance how an audience will react?  When someone complains, how do you know they represent a community, or a demographic?  They may not.  They may just be the loudest crybaby in the room.  NerdX rage quits your site?  Maybe he just did you a favor.

What if someone actually wants to know what sucks about the game?  Do you insist on turning people into fans?  Someone out there on the internet probably shouldn't be playing SMAC.  Part of me doesn't want someone walking away, thinking I'm participating in some kind of cult of loony tunes.  "SMAC is so... ah, it's so... SO!"  I prefer honest opinions, that's my personality.  Sure there's debate between what's honest or negative or what's too honest, I don't deny that.  It shouldn't be an excuse to bludgeon people, but it shouldn't be people taking soma in Brave New World either.  You drones will be happy, Placation merit badge....

Let's say nobody really comes along to offer you free content, that fits your imagined ideal list of AAR characteristics you'd like to have.  It's missing one of: sexy, family friendly, edgy, well written, has pics, edited for length, important critical examination, demonstrating a high level of play, accessible to beginners, makes you feel good inside, cheerful, truthful, humorous, serious, encourages community participation, role plays, tells a good story....  I hope you get where I'm going with making the list longer and longer.  There can always be some objection why the AAR isn't "good enough" at something.

Employers do this a lot.  They make job ads with absurdly long lists of features that they'd like to have, in their ideal candidate.  Nobody with all of those skills would actually take the job, because they wouldn't need it.  They'd be running their own startups and being The Next Big Thing, not scraping for the alms that some employer is offering for a pipe-dream skillset.  Someone who's been around the block, will worry about selling them one of the major things on their list.  Maybe two.  After that, it's like, get real.  You couldn't possibly pay anyone to have that much skill and still be your employee.  It's the stuff that Dilbert cartoons are made of.  "Team Player, Can Write A Linux Kernel Single-Handedly, ...."

Another perspective on the problem: I judged the Independent Games Festival for 6 years.  Yep, never made a game.  Didn't have credentials that way.  I had run gamedesign-l for many years, and I made some loud complaints about the judging of one of the early IGFs.  Well the contest chair at the time, I guess he needed more judges, 'cuz he drafted me into service.  I said um, ok.  So I tried to be part of the solution for awhile, until they got a new contest chair.  Who was making some stupid moves from a game design standpoint IMO.  He was more interested in populism at the time than advancing originality and innovation, things which we had tried to make the contest about.  In the 6th year I failed to hide my ire suffciently, and someone in an indie gamedev forum took some kind of umbrage at something I said about something else and went to the IGF and waaaaah and I didn't try to deny any of it, so...

...I didn't have to judge boring games anymore!  Something I learned from those 6 years, is the contest is only as good as the entrants.  Some years we had a lot of good entrants in some category.  Other years we didn't.  Had to play 'em all anyways.  Still had to give the awards away.

I've put 38 entries in front of you.  In the course of a year.  Single-handedly.  Only 1 other person made 1 entry last year.  I don't think anyone has produced the volume of entries that I have, at any time, in the history of your archives.  I don't know about other sites, I haven't checked.  I also know that 1 of the guys who had the biggest pile of views on your site, burned out.  The point is, you have an awful lot of work in front of you.  It's pretty hard to believe that none of that stuff is usable work.  That says to me, "Manager is being too picky about free stuff."

I'm a veteran of a lot of open source projects.  Among many smaller failures, one big one, which I made a man-year contribution to.  Then things fell apart.  That project leader was too picky.  Everybody else's work had "bugs".  So that would become a reason why Windows shouldn't be supported, "too buggy".  Like his own code didn't have bugs!  Like I didn't spend time fixing his bugs, so that Windows builds would work.  Got tired of hearing why this or that couldn't happen, because, bugs.  We had words, relationship over.

Ok, now you know a lot about what I think.  But what about negativity and my AARs?  Here's what I will do.  I will look at my recent AARs with screenshots, and decide for myself which ones I think, are not negative enough to be dealbreakers for putting on the HOME page.  Ignoring the last :mad: posts.  I'll remove the pointy boilerplate parts of those, if not necessarily the dry conclusions.  I'll come back with my list, and we'll see if there's any overlap with your own world views.

The problem is, I did do a year's worth of free work already.  It doesn't make me eager to do more work, or discard old work, unless there really is so much negativity as to render something unusable.  If we have totally different opinons on what's "acceptable and valuable content", then this is not an attractive venue to work in.  There has to be overlap between what we think is worthwhile, especially for huge hours I put into stuff, and have already put into stuff.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 05, 2018, 08:01:16 PM

-I will note that I'm pleased with the shift in tone - not so much in the degree to which it actually engages my suggestions as opposed to making the same arguments I was seeing eight+ days ago.  Took a couple of years, but the internet long ago cured me of any notion of fun or winning having arguments on the internet; I still decline to be in this one.

However, you're not wrong about a low-turnover Front Page looking lame and dead, and you're not wrong about Civ6, either, which was an even bigger waste of time and work for us than BE, and considerably further off-mission for us.  I got a subforum theme I'm sorta proud of out of that, for a major chunk out of six months of my life and no traffic I noticed (besides Nicholai coming over to spam 6 news linking back to WPC, which turned into some amusing news-scoop one-upsmanship when I reciprocated and actually kinda led to a little breakthrough in some old interforum politics and a link exchange that I'm proud of nagging certain parties into - no traffic, though).

I'm conflicted about whether your edits and two new posts constitute enough improvement to, say, improve my recent stubbornness so far as to follow your suggestion about hitting the promote button on the two AARs you deem worthy in the new thread.  I will level with you and say that I don't know what good the Front Page is -barely, IMO,  would be worth the couple minutes it takes me each time if the content promoted came with oral from Scarlett Johansson and a free legal copy of SMACX with all the fan patches installed and a diskfull of scenarios.  I MAY truly unbend that far, 'cause I do want you happy and doing your thing -and I do not contemplate un-stubborning lightly- but that's a pretty far piece from me being satisfied enough to be pimping your stuff on the Facebook and the other forums, which I DO believe could do enormously worthwhile eye-drawing with the right stuff to use for bait. That's going to take more.

I'm thinking about it, trying to decide how I feel.  Stay tuned.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on March 05, 2018, 08:19:08 PM

My view is, the HOME page needs to demonstrate Life by whatever means necessary.  It is sort of a mimimum building block for anything else you want to accomplish.  I can't promise you any kind of traffic because of an AAR, whether the 2 "most suitable" ones I've already written, or any future one.  I do know that dead HOME pages don't attract anybody, they repel.  The only thing worse is a dead forum.  As you know, I'm here because all the other SMAC forums are dead.

Promoting things on Facebook is beyond my expertise.  I don't even do Facebook, I don't believe in it.

Promoting things elsewhere on the internet, is a learning curve I'm willing to go up to some degree, because it would be useful to know for my existence as an indie game developer.  For many years I've refrained from bothering because I didn't have a product to sell.  However I've also languished as far as inspiration.  I think there's a degree to which "buzz" can stimulate effort, although one must remember to make actual products.

I tried to do Reddit for a time, but I just get too bored with general toxicity over there.  They do have an active game design forum though.  I tend to nod off when it becomes things I've heard a lot of times before.  It's definitely a productive place for some kinds of aspiring game designers, who maybe haven't already talked about everything under the sun yet.

I recently started looking at the Paradox AAR forum.  Maybe there is something to learn there.

I wonder how Pandora is doing lately?  Their community didn't look healthy last I checked.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 05, 2018, 08:31:23 PM

Yeah, you're right about all of that.  I don't believe in Facebook, either, but am on there anyway for several reasons, mostly that it's a powerful promotional tool, notwithstanding being a moron's Big Brother that figured out entirely too much about me from riffling through my junk email account.

I DO have some actual on-paper mass marketing/PR credentials, a degree in communications/broadcasting and some professional experience in newpaper journalism, and RL experience fairly successfully working local free media promoting a chess club.

The online stuff isn't high-difficulty level, just needs shamelessness and high energy/persistence getting the URL out there, for SEO, among other things, and the chief difficulty having to do with the ocean of noise one seeks to be heard in (also, aspie Wikipedia editors are a barrier, but one I've had a little success navigating after long study).  It's all simple in principle, labor-intensive in application - and tricky about the details at each and every place to offer links to welcome content and not be deemed spam.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 05, 2018, 09:10:19 PM

-I've asked the other three admins to have a look at Miriam makes me shiver and slow transporting and give me a second opinion.  "I'm WAY too deep into the trees to see the forest", I said.

Basically, you're in automatically in if any of them can find a little time to look and give me a thumbs-up.  If there's no action on that by Wednesday lunchtime, I'll probably do it anyway.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 05, 2018, 10:40:08 PM

Now, as to the Pollyanna stuff, actually we don't have much difference in instinctive attitude --- just, long, bitter experience has taught me that a little of that in the right places makes for a happier life in your worldview, and better treatment at most times and places brought to bear in your communications habits.

Like, to most people, "How are you?" actually means "Hello" most of the time.  It's not a lie to reply "Just fine, thank you!" if they didn't really mean to ask and you're not actually all that fine.  -My problems may not need airing or be someone's business just because they asked, for one thing, and they probably weren't really asking. [shrugs]  As a default mode of behavior, being pleasant-seeming pays off big-time, isn't considered a lie by the general population, but more like if you don't, you're being inconsiderate of people who meant "hello" and then get bummed out by brutal honesty.

(Incidentally, IRL when I remember all that in the face of a "How ya doin'?" -I still slip and tell the truth too often- I'll sometimes respond with "Do you want an honest answer or a pleasantry?" which usually gets a laugh and a roughly 50-50 split on which.  The pleasantry is always a VERY perky "Just fine, thank you!" avec girly head-tilt, which also gets laughs.)


And when it comes to marketing/PR/sales sort of issues - my integrity ain't for sale.  -But a spoonful of sugar and all that is part of our culture and our language that nobody thinks to explain to us low-social-instincts nurdz types is usually understood for what it is, and is being pleasant and positive and not a lie.  I take lying seriously as the next spaz who isn't a dirtbag, and this stuff was very, very hard for me to figure out over a decade later than most mundanes internalize in their late teens w/o ever having really thought about it, and against my instincts to implement.  Putting the best face on things in promotion is just the way it's done - discussion of bugs and crap AI and such is for Theory of Everything, and in no way discouraged there, ever, but still not the part you push out front and wave about when you're looking to draw people and build the community.  It's only a lie, the being-positive stuff the masses like -and nurdz respond just fine, too, if you do it right and adjust your levels according to who you're talking to- when there's an intent to deceive.  That is no part of anything I've suggested.

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Green1 on March 10, 2018, 03:52:48 AM

Speaking of work on AARs....

- It takes a lot of time.
- It is unpaid (with the exception of VERY LUCKY, VERY TALENTED, and hard working youtubers, twitch streamers, and esports lottery winners). Even then, most make pocket change if anything. So, it has to be FUN.
- Can generate some interest on sites.
- Is actual WORK and can affect enjoyment.

Now, I have had A LOT of unfinished stuff. I feel you. Sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes my interests shift. I have the bad habit of biting off lots more than I can chew, getting into it, then making a fool of myself. Unfortunately, if it comes to feeding my family and dogs, dealing with career stresses, my side projects suffer. Last two to three years have been worse than usual. So much so, that while I do have projects I am afraid of even mentioning them because I am afraid I will be accused of "yet another thing I can't deliver", so I keep silent about it till I have something to show.

I do know this, though. Even if I had issues with the management of the place that hosts whatever stuff I put up (and I have dealt with a few places), I would not say anything about it on the project itself. If they want to put it on a front page, cool. It is not my decision. Not that it matters. No offense, but this is a fairly small fan forum board. Guess it's kinda cool, but it does not get you a job typing game articles for Massively, Kotaku, or even Civ Fanatics. It's a fun, geeky little thing.

If I were you, I would ask BU to remove both your rant and BU's public discussion of moderation. That way, it makes you look better and does not look like drama. The only ones who like drama are trolls, not folks wanting to see if Miriam sucks (which she doesn't) or EPIC MIRIAM OWNAGE. Otherwise, it makes both you and the site people look bad unnecessarily.

Then continue to do the AARs if you are having fun with it, don't if you are not. :D But don't crud up the place if you aren't having fun. the readers don't want that, you don't want that, the management don't want that.

GOOD LUCK!

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 10, 2018, 03:56:27 AM

...Huh.  I saw Green posted at this hour and braced myself - he's a pal, b, but chaps me hard all the time when he wants... :)

(I've had history with a chap -same one who made he hate PMs early on- who loved editing key posts and disappearing stuff to a really dishonest level, and I'm not comfortable with that sort of thing - but no objection to moving it to the "shall I continue" thread...)

Title: Re: Does Miriam suck?
Post by: bvanevery on March 10, 2018, 05:00:26 PM

You've probably guessed that I prefer authenticity, honesty, and transparency over niceness.  I'm not at all inclined to delete anything I haven't already deleted.  Which merely consisted of cleansing the ends of my AARs that had the :mad: stuff.  People should know that communities have interpersonal dynamics and how those work.  And that communities are capable of recovering from such dynamics.  I didn't expect that to happen here, but it did, so let the record stand that it did.

Other AARs can be the "all happy" thing.  I will note, however, that my available labor for such things in the coming year cannot be expected to be the same.  If I write AARs at this scale, I'm not getting a game AI done.  I'm giving you fair warning that my body of previous work, is likely to remain the vast majority of my work.  I really only have the goal of cranking out "one final good one" and after that, other projects are likely to take higher priority.