Alpha Centauri 2 Forum Community Succession Game

[Mart]

On SPs

I also think, that rushing WP is not that crucial. Yes, it is nice to have it earlier, but with IA and crawlers we will get EE and EE2 rather sooner.
Later we anex the Morganite base, that is going to have WP. If it is not far away, we could do it sooner for reason of "such an offense to Gaians."

Probe teams are better for disbanding for 2 reasons: they are fast (rover chassis) but what is better, they cost no support for travel time to base of building SP.
But I will not hide, that my intention for probes was: probing, probing and probing, plus defense against such cases like loosing UNHQ to Lal a turn after taking that base.
And Doc Flex, my thoughts: having sooner probe foils to sail towards other factions would be great.

[Mart]

Yes, but I think currently the red bar does not mean it's either of the Conquer techs, so we don't need to get Doc:Loy from Yang.
That comes from assumption that you had switched to 0% labs before you traded tech with Lal.
Since your investment was 0%, game didn't bother to set a new tech.

I did it after, so it may be a conquer tech there, or maybe switching after does not really count.
But the game will still switch after what you propose we do. And that is worth trying.

Also, if we are not planning to use probes for rushing a SP, we probably don't need 7 of them.

They will be useful. We may have some unsuccessful actions.
Yang may have several techs to take.
After we have Doc Flex, they can be used to sail to multiple directions.

[binTravkin]

On tech - if it's not set by game at the moment, we need to have it set it first, so we see, what it is.
This can be achieved by setting 10% labs at the end of this turn and checking F2 at the start of next turn.
If its yellow, then switch back to full labs and get it ASAP.
If its green - trade with Lal (and set 100% econ allocation if not enough credits).
If its anything else - set labs to 0%, infiltrate and see if Yang has it. E.g. Yang may not have anything from "Discover" that we don't already posess, thus making probing not worthwhile.
Basically, delay the discovery of this tech until we get it to switch to "Build", if possible, as then we would most likely get IA. Gene Slicing is also possible, which is also a good tech.

On probe disbanding - yes, I think the lack of support cost was exactly the reasoning to use them for SPs.

[Mart]

I also placed 3 scout units for hunting in the north.
In 4 turns increased native life period begins, so we may have opportunity to catch many mindworms.

Just to remaind - mindworms when on fungus cost no support. We should keep them there, when not really using them. Like not in bases for sure.

[Mart]

... like, it's soon going to be boring probably. Damn you, SMAC.
...

In some future turns, we may consider restricting ourselves with some things, like e.g. "chop-n-drop", by maybe chopper cannot attack bases, etc.
But let us see how the game develops. We may have some ideas after issues emerge.
AI drops to empty bases, once I lost a base to AI this way. However, it will most likely not coordinate that with chopper attacks. I am not sure, if I have ever seen this.

[binTravkin]

We haven't discussed which way we want to win.
Because it's important to know after we have IA.
To not make it very long, I think it should be either Conquest or Diplomatic.
Conquest is probably faster and more fun and can showcase use of various tactics.
When the going gets hot, we could probably even have a Twitch session with turnplayer showing how they are doing the attacking.
I think military was always my weak spot in SMAC, 10 years ago and now even more.

[Mart]

An idea.

Since this is singleplayer game and not a fierce multiplayer "death match," we can make some role-play additions:
Current Mission (or Chiron Quest, or any name like that can be used).

And this would be not-obligatory, as for our succession game rules. So if a player facing next 5-turn round has no good idea what to do, Current Mission is an option.
It could go like this:
A player that is currently playing turns and finishes last Mission, names another one.
However, this would need to be reasonable, like for example "Win the game in 500 turns!" would not be a good Current Mission.

So I go first, and the Current Mission is:
Conquer Hive till M.Y. 2200
Yes, the intention is to have Yang escape, so we can meet him again and can have twice the fun.
Well, I guess this puts some pressure on Vishniac, Kirov and Bodissey, but you really do not need to do it...

[binTravkin]

That's a good mission!
At least I would try to do it.
I too had thought about the MY 2200 limit in the context of Hive previously.

But in long term I vote for conquest victory.
Gaian conquest can actually be fun in it's own way.
We could do a mindworm+probe invasion. 

[Geo]

Mission: have a SP before MY 2190.

[Mart]

That would be for Vishniac. He will play till 2191, so if he accepts...

[Geo]

I wasn't serious, Mart. Also, please check the Average World thread regarding a bug.

[binTravkin]

It may actually be possible to build a SP by 2191.
Either if we have IA in 2 turns or with the probe disbanding approach.
AA gives 50 mins, one of the bases has 5/mins turn (50 total in 10 turns), plus disband 5-6 probe teams, plus some credits to finish it.

[binTravkin]

Actually, thinking of it, I'd now be in favour of building WP.
It's very powerful if we want to popboom (and I think we should).
To get to size 7 most of our cities would need just 1 condenser, 2-3 for size 14.
And we're only missing Creches as infrastructure.
A size 7 city would have base mineral production of 14 (base + 1 condenser tile + 6 forests/monoliths), whereas our current cities manage 8 at best.

We also have a good chunk of ECs. If we top that off with running 100% or 90% econ for a few turns, we can rush the SP directly at 4 energy per 1 mineral, assuming prior investment + AA + some probes disbanded.

WP would also enable us to increase our territory and put more bases by raising land.

On the EE/EE2.
We're theoretically 2 techs away from EE, but it is really unlikely we will get it so soon.
I'd say its 4 techs away as an optimistic estimate.
Since we have tech per 7/8 years, thats ~30 years vs <10 for WP.

[Mart]

It is Vishniac's turn now. So decision is his how to proceed. We are in succession game, so every player can pursue his/her aims. Our discussions are strategy brainstorming to give options.

[Kirov]

On research, probe teams, WP and pop booming:

I agree that pop booming is a no-brainer but the crucial question is 'when'. Of course it's a powerful tool and population is the most important thing on the power graph, but I say it's not that powerful in itself. Pop itself gives you votes (which is a good thing) and might (which is a bad thing actually), apart from that it's worth as far as it translates into minerals and energy. Populants mean workers and specialists, otherwise they're just mouths to feed. If you pop boom only to work 2-1-1 tiles, I think the synergy could be better. Which is why I'm usually not that in a hurry with booming. Efficient mineral-related infrastructure is a cornerstone and I trade a condenser for half a borehole any time. Instead of working 2-1-1, it's way better to put a crawler on forest. Which is, in essence, what I do to grow before the 2xEE era. Take care of minerals, use them to expand (new bases with PTS), explore (probe foils), grow upwards (commons, creches, nodes) and take care of more minerals ('when in doubt, build a crawler' is my motto).

In short, early pop boom requires you to have better terra infrastructure (condensers, farms, kelp farms) and facilities (creches, everything drone related) at the moment when what you should crank out are crawlers, crawlers, and then maybe some crawlers.

This reminds me: I hate holo-theaters and wait with them until late mid-game. They cost 3 maintenance, a lot, and it's always better to put a crawler on 2 nuts and make a doctor than build a theater.

But back to the topic: The above is why I build crawlers, then tree farms and then I pop boom. Tree farms, as pricey as they come, allow you not to juggle workers and crawlers in search for 2 nuts. With tree farms, all you need is just add a few facs, maybe change the PSYCH slider and voila, pop boom going as smooth as good whisky. And when we get to the WP/EE, I strongly recommend to engage all our formers in building boreholes within 2-3 turns. Condensers can wait, not because they're bad but because they're not boreholes. The same goes for sea formers and kelp farms - sure they're neat, but when you build sea formers, you don't build land formers and crawlers, and this is the part when you behave sub-optimum.

You can argue about specialists, but I'd like to remind you that the ivory tower bastards need good infrastructure, too. Building crawlers and thanks to them building nodes faster will be more efficient in my opinion.

As for WP: I agree it's powerful. And maybe even worth cashing those probe teams, although I'd hate to do that as I love probe teams. Paying cash towards projects is a worse idea, while staying at Econ 'for a few turns' is way way worse. Guys, Econ is addictive, tempting for quick short-term boost but very harmful to us in the long run. It's ridiculous that we don't have the IA yet. We need to get back to full Labs and only go back to Econ for very good reasons; building WP is not one of them, in my opinion. However, I'll help with that if I'm outvoted.