Law&Faith - TTT

[Kirov]

No problem with the password, it’s: dei9. Have fun with it.

I fully agree that a pure builder doesn’t stand a chance against more aggressive players, as they get to choose the time, place and army to attack. This means they can wreak havoc at a fraction of the cost incurred by the defender. This is why I always prefer a probe foil to another Network Node. Marine probes are especially underrated units and I don’t know why. When you bring them to elite on some hapless AI, you can then easily do stuff like framing human opponent (you can see my elite probe far in the North-East waiting for exactly that) or targeting infrastructure. What you saw here was my builder mode anyway. Normally, I never build Hybrid Forests and I never allow my opponents to do so. 15 H-F cost me 3000 mins and it makes me drool when I think of the army and covert ops I could field for that money. 60 probe foils? Wet dream. All things equal, I will always claim that they are better, or at least have more potential, than 15 H-Forests.

I think even a builder needs to invest in serious navy and army, set up some kind of perimeter. First to protect boreholes against throw-away 2-2-4 (18 mins), and then farther to scout for those nukes. I agree they are super powerful, but can’t say they’re OP, due to their less-than-stellar range. I know it’s costly, but builder or not, you either try to intercept them or simply throw the towel midgame.

I remember that I pick it up from Flubber (at ‘poly), the best SMAC player I’ve ever seen. His posts were always super smart and in one game we shared, he just wouldn’t make a mistake (granted he was Zak but still). He had this ‘active defence’ approach when you scout your borders and beyond with high attack units instead of waiting.

(You won’t see me doing it so much in this game just because I believed your word that you’re a pacifist. )

I think we do have a trouble when playing HtH together as I can’t just get you off the hook. You must be forced to spend more money on defence lest you run away with techs. So it’s either harassment or one-time big hit. So basically either you win or you don’t get to play like you want to.

And the bigger problem than buster is IMHO that snowball effect of energy. I mean, in 2200 we were mostly on par. 15 turns ago you started to get the lead. Now you’re in a rocket. You’d be with ODP in 10 turns or something and it’s not that I can’t catch up (still Miriam) but I can’t do anything else against better reactor, late-game Projects etc. And at the end you do 2 techs per turn. So the sad restriction is, I just can’t let late game happen. Unless we try tech stagnation or something.

Re: artifacts – I think popping with transports is way less effective than with foils. Artifacts are worth 50 mins and you need to bring them back. After IA, I was instabuilding Supply-2-2 Trance for 135 mins each. In total, I got 2300 minerals between 15 instabuilt crawlers (13 with armour 2, 1 – A3, 1 – A4, this one was used for the Planet Buster). And I really can’t say it was luck, with 6 foils I scooped 80% of pods, so I had my share of IoDs and tidal waves.

I guess that’s it for now but I will probably write some more.

[Kirov]

I have impression, PK had greater chance to win by transcendence, based on 2231 turn.
And a hypothetical question: if that game had this special rule, that we have in Garland's Legacy, that PK and Believers are bound by a secret pact, and cannot have open vendetta, how Believers would need to proceed in order to win before PK would do it? Believers would need to transcend before PK, in what way?
- probing?
- using AI factions to defeat PK in vendettas, that would be by stealth operations, like framing?
- conquering AI and building more bases than PK?

I believe you either win by transcendence or conquest, other options are just fancies. So really you just wouldn't convince me to go against Misotu with that.

But if I had to, I see one main option and that is probe war. I mean, she can't destroy my transports, right? So bring your probes to elite (Fundie, Command Center also works), get a few ships full of infantry elite probes and apply that genetic virus. If it works like nerve gas, you need 5 probes to completely eliminate one 16pop base. And if she has 6 defensive probes at each base, this means I have 60 offensive probes to use as well, if all things are equal. How do you want to intercept that without Vendetta is beyond me. A literal rectangular barricade of units would work, but you need two of them at each square (so they are not mind controlled).

And this assumes that you don't do that old abuse (I wouldn't) - send a mind worm, release it into the wild next to enemy HQ, nuke it. Barring that, you can frame enemy with AI, give said AI a nearby base and transfer some needlejets. When they go in, nuke the AI. Of course, this doesn't allow to conduct ongoing nuke war as the AI turns against you. But you know, an option for your Garland's Legacy thing.

Now that I think about transports with probes which can't be killed en-route, I want to dream about it some more...

A question - at one moment I saw a Morgan jet parked at Misotu's base. Could I, you know, nuke that Morgan jet with your rules? Treat the base as 'collateral damage'? Because it does give some room for abuse.

[Kirov]

Oh, and:

I have impression, PK had greater chance to win by transcendence, based on 2231 turn.

Absolutely. All this pop and Projects of mine would soon mean nothing. When you pick up the tech curve, there's no stopping you apart from violent solutions. That is my problem with all that late game - it has a lot of great stuff but before you get to enjoy it, someone just transcends.

[Mart]

...

A question - at one moment I saw a Morgan jet parked at Misotu's base. Could I, you know, nuke that Morgan jet with your rules? Treat the base as 'collateral damage'? Because it does give some room for abuse.

I would need to check it in scenario editor, what the game actually says in such case.
But it all sounds like very big abuse...

[Kirov]

Well, obviously hitting enemy base would be abuse, but I just wanted to point out to a fact. I mean, rules are rules. If a Morgan jet is flying around, why can't I take him down with a nuke, even if it's next to enemy HQ? There may be stuff like that with Garland's Legacy rules.

[Mart]

Yes, we will probably have "heavy" diplomacy in that game.

[Misotu]

This is all really interesting on the no-vendetta-probe-war scenario.

If there were no open vendetta allowed (and obviously using a planet buster *anywhere* in your opponent's territory would be an abuse Brother, no matter the pretext      ) then I think the probe war would be tough but counterable. I'd have to think about it, but:

- As it happens, I got to Pre-Sentient Algorithms a couple of turns before you, so obviously I'd have made sure of the Hunter Seeker with these rules! I didn't prioritise it this game, just too many things to do and I didn't think probes were going to be that important in the end.

- The small, tight empire makes a probe war harder to prosecute - the more bases, the more opportunities for the enemy and the harder it is to patrol effectively. Using units as a barrier would require about 60 units as it stands but in fact far fewer once my terraformers have constructed an artificial reef.  I would use foil supply units for this - they are maintenance-free and although they would need to be deployed in pairs, a tidal harness would ensure that one of the pair sourced energy for me every turn.

- The WP would have enabled me to use that little band of monsoon islands as a barrier by raising the land to make a reef right across my territory, with a sea gap behind. Only a few units would be needed to shut off the entrances completely and while I couldn't protect all my bases this way, it would definitely improve matters.

Using air transports or drop to deliver probes into my territory would overcome that but it gives me a chance to boot them out when they land and there wouldn't be any fungus around to hide in, that would have all been removed. My roads would be blocked off with crawlers. I'm not sure if you're allowed to kill probes under these rules? If you can, then I would, obviously.

[Misotu]

OK, well first of all you must remember that this was my first game in many, many years and I'd be the first to admit that I made *a lot* of mistakes! It was a steep learning curve in so many ways, but it was very generous of you to play the game you did - and I think a lot of fun for both of us   

I think even a builder needs to invest in serious navy and army, set up some kind of perimeter. First to protect boreholes against throw-away 2-2-4 (18 mins), and then farther to scout for those nukes. I agree they are super powerful, but can’t say they’re OP, due to their less-than-stellar range. I know it’s costly, but builder or not, you either try to intercept them or simply throw the towel midgame.

I agree with you of course, but even so it's not a hard and fast rule. You play to the game - and I did! I promised to build, and kept my word. You kindly responded and didn't play a full-on conquer game and it was clear from your research rate that you were building quite seriously. So I was correct in my early assessment that you weren't a threat to me conventionally as things stood, which is why in the end you had to build a planet buster, remember? So all those conventional arms early game would largely have been a pointless waste of minerals     even if it makes me look dumb not building them.

"Hybrids" and militarists always focus on military when it comes down to it - in MP this is a war game by default and anyway they'd rather build a probe foil/chaos rover/nerve gas jet than a network node any day. But pure builders *don't* focus primarily on military - that's what makes them builders     Somehow, a builder has to try to build as much as possible, while staying safe. And that’s the challenge of course, which is why I quite like it. I’ve played a few slug fest games, and they are ok I suppose, but nothing beats the excitement of waiting for the attack and seeing how it pans out    Very often it pans out badly, but I'm a good loser, heh. Very often the attacker gets a lovely surprise    Of course, in this game the attack didn't materialise in quite the way I envisaged earlier on   

I think, for a builder, the key is flexibility. The ability to respond quickly to a threat once the threat exists. On smaller maps, land-based maps and so on you don't get a choice, the threat is always there, so obviously you choose Gaians, not PK  and get tooled up. But on this map, as long as you patrol and pay attention, you will get a few turns' warning and you will know what the threat is, which enables you (hopefully) to build the counter. In theory it's very Sun Tzu - your defence is actually invisible because it exists only in potential. Once you know what form the threat will take, you tailor your defence to meet it. And there is always a chance that the enemy will underestimate your ability to respond, attacking earlier with a smaller force. I have seen this happen (although of course better players are unlikely to fall for it - and that's the important thing to learn and try to anticipate. What will better players send?)  The key is to get the enemy to waste minerals and turn-time on an attack measure that won't succeed and won't hurt you too much - not save them the mins and turns by showing them that you're ready for it. And in the meantime, you try to hit that unstoppable tech curve for *military* reasons.

Boreholes are vulnerable to sea bombardment, but the cheap counter is placing a supply crawler over the top of them. 2-2-4s or similar are easy to take out with air units, so the builder has to have a few of those and increase that number steadily with elite prototypes as new techs become available  plus the ability to churn out another dozen over a couple of turns at any point. Here the defender has the advantage in that the units are in the field of combat as soon as they're built, no turn gap while they move into position. Cheap little jets hitting supply crawlers can be countered by cheap little interceptors sitting in bases next to those supply crawlers (or moving them out of range of course). Of course there will be losses. The trick is that they should not be critical. Building a big military in advance, then having them sitting there draining your minerals when there is no possibility, yet, of an attack simply plays into the militarists' hands. They have forced you to play their game, not yours. Or, as you say:

"You must be forced to spend more money on defence lest you run away with techs. So it’s either harassment or one-time big hit. So basically either you win or you don’t get to play like you want to. "

Quite   

It's a fine line, full of risk and I fully agree that it's not the best strategy if you want to win your games, which is why I didn't play this way usually in the past - or at least not to this extent. But I like a challenge and there are things to learn, ways to refine. Don't forget that an energy empire based on forest and sea converts to a serious mineral empire in a single turn ...  it’s just a question of getting the balance right and resisting the urge to build just … one …. more …. tree farm.

In the old days I played a lot of build challenges and probably won 95% of them, but I also played standard MP in a more hybrid fashion and probably won around half. So I wouldn't expect you to spare the nerve gas in a future game, don't worry      Having said that, you are obviously a far better player than I so losing a series of slug fests might get a bit samey 

I didn't get the navy thing together at all - forgot that I'd get FM drones with ships if you can believe that and then got exasperated because I couldn’t get my ships round to my little FM military base without huge disruption. And then I thought choppers just had to come up and are way better scouts than ships.  So on the military front I completely agree that I messed up, esp. in the last 10-15 turns or so. I was just so sure that I'd get MMI - and this is where I overcooked it, I held off, thinking it was just around the corner. I couldn't believe finally getting Unified Field Theory instead of MMI although of course it was too late anyway.

My assessment said that I couldn't survive planet busters, no matter what, so I'd pretty much accepted the inevitable by then. I had bet the farm on achieving a better early tech rate delivering a workable tech lead and it didn't pay off. Such is Planet   

On transports vs foils for pod popping:  Certainly your approach was astonishingly effective and of course foils also have more movement points which is a serious factor. But on the other hand, artifacts are *not* worth 50 mins (! so militarist!)  They are worth a tech, and on blind research getting a random tech is not the risk it is in guided research. Every tech is pretty much random anyway. But given tech was my strategy, I should have made it a serious priority. I took way too long to get those 4 transports built, very stupid, and I should have built way more then cashed them in when their job was done. That was probably the point at which I sealed my fate, looking back. After that, I can claim bad luck regarding artifacts, but very good luck on IoDs. I didn't lose a single transport until your foils turned up and forced me to pop on my last movement point.

And the bigger problem than buster is IMHO that snowball effect of energy. I mean, in 2200 we were mostly on par. 15 turns ago you started to get the lead. Now you’re in a rocket. You’d be with ODP in 10 turns or something and it’s not that I can’t catch up (still Miriam) but I can’t do anything else against better reactor, late-game Projects etc. And at the end you do 2 techs per turn. So the sad restriction is, I just can’t let late game happen. Unless we try tech stagnation or something.

I get your point but energy doesn't snowball on its own you know! The snowball effect is entirely the product of an energy vs mineral strategy which requires production and focus and that has its own major downsides. A military strategy also snowballs - every turn produces new cities, more pop, more research, more production, more units resulting in an unstoppable war machine - and given the risks associated with an energy strategy seems to me that the energy reward is pretty much in line.

I know what you mean though, there's a lot of interesting stuff late game which I've never used. I'm not even sure how most of it works to be honest.

I completely understand the mineral focus, and obviously in a standard MP game going for energy the way I did in this one isn't going to pay off (although it was good fun). But nevertheless, energy is well worth a lot of attention:

• Minerals are heavily restricted by eco-damage. Even with hybrids and tree farms my late game min output per base was capped at 36.
• This means that you have to build way more cities - tedious to manage, harder to defend and inefficient energy-wise.
• There are so many energy-multiplying facilities early game.
• Boreholes are nice, sure. But the mineral restrictions mean you can't have many per base and they are hugely time-consuming to build.
• Tidal harness plus thermocline delivers 5 energy/turn with FM (cf borehole 7 energy/turn). Fast to build, cheap to set up. What's not to like?
• Crawler energy from forests is pretty good too. Very easy to switch from 2/3/4 energy to 2 mins per crawler as required.

Of course, without crawlers an energy strategy is much less viable. It relies on channeling energy through a few highly-efficient/highly-developed cities, thus delivering both a serious return on infrastructure investment and optimal returns.

Thanks for the password! I haven't used it yet but I will. I hope you don't mind - it's a fast track back to the MP mind set and you really did play this game admirably well   

[Mart]

Yes, the late game is a problem in SMACX, and my guess is, that they did not test it properly before the release. Like many projects in RL, deadlines and deadlines. So we may only consider modifications. The only problem is, any changes to gameplay cause that feeling: "it is not the same game"

But anyway, I remember playing shortly vanila civ4 multiplayer online. The game was typically until someone got iron first and by making swordsman rush conquered some other human players. Something like that. It was very early game. So in SMACX we at least play till like Doc:Air or copters.

[Kirov]

Well, considering that’s your first game in such a long time, I can only imagine how hard it was fighting you back in the day.

When I saw your foil supply crawling energy, it reminded me that I used to be a die-hard builder as well. But after a while when I joined MP, I figured I must get rid of such habits as they hampered me. I mean, it used to be painful to skip a network node in favour of some unit. So the other day I set up a single-player game, a Morgan against 6 Usurpers on a tiny planet, lots of land. When all you build is 3 command centres throughout the whole game, you can free yourself from the shackles of perfectionism.

There are two elements which pushed me to the ‘pro-active’ approach (‘militarist’ is just a bad word, it’s 2015 so let’s be PC here). The first is that SMAC clearly prefers it. As you yourself pointed out, builders just have it harder. I’d say that if ‘militarist’ is -100, hybrid is 0 and pure builder is 100, then -20 is probably the optimum way to go. I mean, some basic facilities are too cheap not to build them (commons and tanks, also nodes in a few core bases, a project or two) but after that it’s just printing units, even if a bulk of them will be formers/crawlers. And it’s always better to have an away battle instead of visitors, at least in terms of destruction. A losing attacker can still obliterate some of your secret projects.

And then of course is the thrill. I still remember (2004/2005) an HtH where human Zak conquered a Hive coastal base with VW, far away from me. Far enough to think it’s safe. So I dispatched a foil probe, bought the base from under him and synchronized it with an invasion from precisely the other side of his faction… Oh the riots, oh the famine; I can still see that chaos like it was yesterday and how my hands were shaking when the probe entered the base… I felt that there was no going back to building H-Forests after that.

And such tricks are actually quite hard to pull off, too. They require map awareness, advanced planning, carefully selected army composition. When you want to achieve something 15-20 turns from now, it’s usually months in real time. Add some very tense navigation through fungus and other possible obstacles. Bottom line is, it’s stressful and long-term and people usually don’t expect it and therefore the damage dealt can be very huge.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to convince you here, I’m just saying what you already said – at the end of the day, if you’re a builder in SMAC then it's because you like it. And fair enough, you do.

I will want to play another game with you, maybe after some break as this game was really consuming to me! I tried, and failed, not to play when busy with work. But the fun was just too much, I couldn’t focus when my turn was in. This time we can seriously alter the environment – no crawlers, nerfed airforce or something. Maybe tech stagnation. And I want a faction stronger than Miriam.

Of course, there is this team play, though I don’t know if we find two more players for that. I’d love to have you on my side, but for the sake of balance we will probably have to go against each other. I will not be above going after you literally as soon as possible, so sorry in advance. Take it as a compliment.

[Kirov]

As for the 'no vendetta' thing, like I said I wouldn't dare to go against Misotu with that, and if I would then it'd be pure building, too. And I doubt my skills here, it's been ages since I actually transcended. I just think it would be swell to have transports full of probes which cannot be intercepted. Oh I would be so annoying.