A Tale of Two Constructions

[bvanevery]

[Free] Droning on again.  On a Huge map with random opponents, I've started on a small but acceptably sized island.  Think "Merry Old England".  Although I get a reasonable number of supply pods, food appears slightly out of reach, and a lot of fungus is to the west.  Exploration soon finds The Ruins that way.  As there really was quite a lot of fungus in the way, my 2nd colony hadn't had anywhere good to settle.  So I settle it right at the center of The Ruins.  I begin The Merchant Exchange immediately in lieu of further expansion, as with such an early start, I figure I will get it and it will be valuable.
 
My 1st city doesn't have good food, and an ocean borne spore launcher shows up.  Pod popping to the east finds The Borehole Cluster on the same island.  A mindworm comes out of a pod, and I worry that it might destroy the Boreholes before I've even had the remotest chance to protect them.  But instead it hassles my capitol, along with the spore launcher.  I have to abandon making my 3rd colonist and take a Scout to fend off the imminent attack.  That works, and the spore launcher eventually gets tired of shelling me and just leaves.

As I write this, I've founded a 3rd city next to 2 of the Boreholes.  I have Formers beginning to make forests and roads.  I completed The Merchant Exchange with a bunch of cash I must have acquired from popping pods.  I've begun The Weather Paradigm and have 1 Artifact I can use if I wish.  My only Secret Project competition at this point is the University, which is working on The Virtual World.  I have not bothered to check who else is in the game.

I have focused on Explore, anticipating that I would need to get off this island, if only to fish for Artifacts with transports.  So far I've got Doctrine:Mobility.  I'm sure ships will be along shortly.

I am rated the worst of all the factions on the graph, by a huge margin.  This little teeny block standing next to great big tall bars.

Some time later...  I used that Artifact to complete The Weather Paradigm quickly.  I figured no use hoarding it, as I'd get others with my Transports, and lacked Information Networks anyways.  I've switched to Discover focus in order to hopefully get Planetary Networks, anticipating the need to steal stuff.  Also not really expecting violent enemies imminently.  There are no Aliens in the game.  The Pirates are extant, however, and they could be a real PITA if they show up on my shores.  Maybe I'll luck out and they'll be somewhere else on Planet.

I've got 5 cities and a colony pod about to make a 6th.  2 unpopped pods are next to the Borehole Cluster because I don't yet have the extra troops to ensure safety when I pop them.  It's so easy for Boreholes to be destroyed by enemies.  I consider it a complete liability, and it's only because I was gifted them at close range on my home island that I'm trying to protect them.  It takes a long time to get the techs to actually make full use of them.

I've had lots of mindworms come to my island as I've popped pods in the ocean with my transports.  I consider this a necessary purging though, because either I do it now or someone else does it later.  The need to defend myself has kept me busy.

Zhakarov turns out to be my next door neighbor to the northwest.  He is the most powerful faction in the game.  He has been friendly and traded some techs with me.  Among them was Polymorphic Software, so if the Pirates show up, I needn't worry to much as I'll have artillery.  Although, I don't even have lasers yet.  I could probably buy that form Zhakarov shortly, as I've accumulated 400 credits from my maritime exploits.  But in other games I've felt that "paying out" for tech, puts me at a production disadvantage.  I'd rather buy a Secret Project quickly.

Well, once Zhakarov completed The Virtual World, I got over it.  I had money, and he was selling Planetary Networks awfully cheap.  Pointless for me to stand on principle.  Now my 600 credits are gone but between him and Lal, I'm caught up.  They wanted war with each other, but I declined to join in.  I did ally with Lal, and he hasn't declared war on Zhakarov yet.  They aren't really near to each other, and I see no strategic reason for them to be fighting.

Later still... Zhakarov keeps selling cheap techs so I keep buying them.  Nobody else is anywhere near me.  So I've got for instance, Adaptive Doctrine.  Deirdre is starting to build The Planetary Energy grid and I don't even have Industrial Economics yet.  I've got many transports in the water, and 3 free rovers exploring a large land mass to the southwest.  I founded a 7th city and will now start to grow them, rather than founding any more for now.  They cover my original island well enough and I'd like to do sea bases off my coast.  That will protect me from encroachment by other players, such as the Pirates or Zhakarov.  I also have some land resources that will be too squished against other cities if I put a land settlement on them.

Near the beginning of the game, I popped a pod on the extreme west side of my island that set off an earthquake.  Then the popping unit got killed by a mindworm, so I hadn't strictly explored the far west.  It looked like it would just be water, but it is not, it touches land.  I might actually have access to a supercontinent now.  I haven't been able to get over there yet.  The curvature of the water, abundant fungus in the way, and the need to repel all the mindworms I myself triggered in the ocean, has kept me busy.

On the graph I am no longer considered a wimp.  I am fairly even with everyone else, and Zhakarov is only slightly ahead of others.  That said, on the other data readout I am described as "Pathetic".

I met a badly wounded Spartan scout rover just over the land bridge, while toodling my transport through the strait.  She had the temerity to threaten me, so of course I told her to screw off.  I brought a hardened synthmetal sentinel to my western city by transport to garrison it, as previously it was empty.  Didn't really expect anything threatening out there upon founding, so was working on a recycling tank.

So we are at war.  I imagine she's somewhere on this supercontinent I've connected to, spreading out everywhere and becoming powerful.  Just afterwards I met Cha Dawn, across water to the southeast.  He didn't give me any crap and we traded techs.  I got comm frequencies for Deirdre and Svensgaard from him.  Deirdre signed a peace treaty, Svensgaard a Truce.

So I've pretty much got my marching orders for now.  Clear fungus, build a road to my westernmost city, explore the supercontinent, find out where the Spartans are.  Then make war.  It has not, in my experience, been easy to get along with the Spartans as the Drones.  I tend to either want Wealth for production, or Knowledge for efficiency so that I can go Planned. 

On the other hand, it would be rational to research Industrial Automation, go Wealth, wait for Zhakarov to get pissed off about that, do a 1 tile land bridge to his territory with The Weather Paradigm, and take him over.  I could even just take him over without all that preamble, but I think that's kinda dickish.  I go back and forth about being more of a dick; lately I don't want to.  After all he was pretty cool about selling me techs cheap for awhile.  Nowadays his attitude towards me is "Noncommittal".  Zhakarov can potentially be a long term ally though, as I've certainly gone Democratic Planned Knowledge long term.  Since I can't go Green, there's really no other way to get the efficiency to go Planned.  Free Market is a way to go, but it hampers or even precludes conquest.  Well, I guess we'll see how things turn out.

I'm trying to get the Spartans in contact with my ally Lal, so that he might wheedle a map out of them.  I could just hold an election now, although it's more fun to sell commlink frequencies for a bit.  I've also only got 13 votes and imagine I could do better.  Maybe thinking I could beat Lal on the vote is unrealistic.  My research will probably be too slow to get anywhere near Centauri Empathy before someone else gets it.


Later... It took awhile to build a road to that western city.  Santiago had that scout sitting outside it for a long time, but then it left.  I was wondering if it was poking around in my abundant fungus, but I never got attacked.  A few turns later I sent a Former somewhere on the flank that would be unsafe, if it was still prowling, and it came to no harm.  However, then 2 armored infantry showed up on the rocky terrain next to my base.  I attacked with an impact rover I'd brought up to deal with the scout, but it only injured 1 of the infantry.  I hope I'm not about to lose that city.  I am tempted to save scum this.

Zhakarov now has a bad attitude towards me now as well, so we may be headed for war soon.  Good for me actually as he has piles of technologies I'd like to steal from him.

Meanwhile I'm researching Explore.  I completed The Planetary Transit System and wouldn't mind getting The Maritime Control Center.  My capitol is now in The Ruins and the population is booming, it's size 10.  My other bases are really scrawny by comparison, some are only at size 3.  I have been raising land around the Boreholes to protect them from seaborne artillery, although I can't completely protect them, because I need port access to 2 cities in the vicinity.  I think with artillery in each city though, that should stop anything from shelling the Boreholes.

!@#!#$@!! these are Elite impact infantry units attacking me.  I have 1 synthmetal sentinel in the city.  They have shown up when a 2nd synthmetal sentinel is literally 1 tile away from entering the city.  If they weren't Elite, the wounded infantry would die, then the unwounded would kill my synth defender.  My city would be open but untaken, and then would be reinforced by a completed unit + an arriving synth.  But because they are Elite, they kill my synth and take my city.  I'm not sure I can save scum this.  I'd have to go back a couple of turns and replay.  Which is "more cheaterly" than I usually care to do... but I did not ask for this earthquake, this land connection, all this fungus, rocky terrain right next to the energy resource I settled on, etc.  Feels like I'm being griefed by bad luck.

I did not end up save scumming.  I had 2 Skimship Probe Teams in the vicinity, so I stole from the newly conquered city, then infiltrated.  Then I counterattacked with an impact rover and walked into the empty city with the synth that was previously on its way.  The city was beaten to a pulp in the process, but I got Superconductor in the bargain.  Those skimships were on their way to steal other stuff from Sparta, but she only has 1 coastal city exposed that I know about so far, and it's farther away than my own city.  So, getting my city badly beat up, at least got me a tech.  I still think that was really annoying though, and I hope I'm not going to get more of the same.  Too much damn fungus around here, that's why they were able to take me completely by surprise.  And it's the border of my empire, so I've not had time to build roads and de-fungus.

Later still... No such luck.  Her entire productive output has been dumped on me repeatedly.  I've barely managed to stay ahead of her artillery shelling me to death.  I was stubborn for a long time about trading techs, thinking I was just going to steal them.  The map is too big and it takes too long though.  Eventually I finally traded a pile of techs with Deirdre, whom I then allied with, despite my Planned economy.  Being nominally at war with Cha Dawn might help, as they seem to always hate each other.  With that I went to a Power society, hoping to better match Santiago, but even that is not enough.  Her artillery blows away my artillery and it's really annoying.  I sent more artillery from other cities, and maybe it was enough to start to match her... but this got really old, so I quit.

This is a game where I got "bottled up".  I had nowhere to expand, and no time to expand, because I kept getting hammered.  Despite having The Weather Paradigm, my land was poor from a food standpoint, and the rest of my cities could not grow.  Eventually I was producing a bunch of Formers and Supply Crawlers, trying to get more minerals together.  This was starting to work, but again, really really painful slow and dull.  That's the theme of this game, dull, dull, dull.  Like fighting trench warfare in WW I.

I amassed piles of Artifacts that I didn't make any use of.  Strategically, they are worth more later, after I steal from others.  Enjoyment wise though, I think this made the game very painful and unrewarding.

I did complete the task of protecting The Borehole Cluster.  I even got Ecological Engineering, so started being able to benefit from the minerals.  It clearly wasn't worth the engineering effort compared to all the other things I could have done with the Formers instead.  Extra minerals?  4.5 mines would have provided the same amount of minerals and been a lot fewer turns at it.  I did have to use Supply Crawlers anyways as I didn't have enough food.

Man that was annoying several hours!  I had stupid movies going on in the background on the TV.  When the last stupid movie ended, I looked at the game and said, that's it, this is done.  Better luck next time.

One could argue that building The Merchant Exchange at the very beginning, was fatal to me.  Although there was also a lot of fungus in the way.

[Kurvivor]

So, good Colonel is one of the oponents that can really ruin things if unchecked, eh?..

[bvanevery]

If unchecked and you cripple yourself with an inadequate start.  Yes, I got a crappy island to start on.  The computer may think The Borehole Complex is an asset, but in my experience it's worthless, because it takes way too long to get Ecological Engineering, and it's too fragile to protect.  But it was my choice to immediately start building The Merchant Exchange on The Ruins.  I should have kept colonizing, and I should have explored the extreme west of my island sooner.  I'm not even sure building The Merchant Exchange on top of The Ruins is worth anything until midgame anyways, because I don't think Monoliths are immune to the starting energy restriction, before you get Environmental Economics.  That makes my play about as useless as The Borehole Complex, except that The Ruins are actually good for banging out Secret Projects, production-wise.  At best it could be said that I deprived someone else of The Merchant Exchange, which is small comfort.

In the next Drone game I played, which I'm still playing and writing an AAR about, I had a massively crappier island to start on.  I was given a slow transport and immediately got off the island... well, more or less.  The fine details of why I didn't settle it, are contained in the AAR.  But let's just say I settled the Monsoon Jungle on a small island just to the south.  And I made sure to investigate my surroundings thoroughly, and to colonize to the extent that I could.  I immediately had to fight Yang, who is definitely a super PITA if left unchecked on a large land mass.  Even with early confrontation, where I got a decided advantage over him in due course, I was fighting him for a long time before he surrendered.  That early "jump" though, cemented my dominant position in the game.  That could have been the case against Sparta in this aborted game, but it wasn't, because I didn't prioritize correctly.

I think it was also unusual that topologically, Sparta had nowhere to go but me.  A strong enemy that's fighting a few opponents is one thing.  A strong enemy that's channelling everything it's got to your front door, and has gained Elite units, is really irksome.