eXterminate! eXterminate!

[bvanevery]

I still have my download of SMAC in 1 remaining place, a venerable USB hard drive that I keep "larger collections" of files on.  Typically big massive downloads that I'm not so keen on downloading again, even if I don't actually use them.  Just in case I decide to use them.  But honestly, most stuff on there probably lies fallow, until I decide it should die properly.  Not that SMAC is a large download at all.

So yeah, I reinstalled.  I thought I was going to enjoy playing the Pirates.  Turns out I didn't.  Why is that so?  I think it's because I sat back and did Secret Project and city improvement stuff.  It seems oh-so-important to do.  Yet it just takes a long time, and often makes me bored.  So I can do really well at that sort of thing, the Pirates were honestly doing better at banging out the projects than any faction I'd played in awhile.  But it's a bit of a dead end, a trap.  It also exacerbates the AI whack-a-mole problem, given the computer lots of time to spawn more and more stuff, that you'll have to spend more and more mouseclicks to kill.

So what is the best faction for wiping everyone out, quite brutally, on a Huge map?

• Is it Yang, with his no penalties (but no bonuses) Planned Police State?  For many years this was the faction that most resonated with me, that personified the grimness of the game.  "Into the tanks!" and I don't mean the kind you drive.
• Is it Aki-Zeta, who can choose to run a Police State because she starts with +2 Efficiency that she can squander, and doesn't suffer a Morale penalty like the Gaian pacifists do?  Stealing techs by invading bases can come in handy as well.
• Is it Marr, because he gets a Morale bonus, doesn't have to build Recycling Centers, starts with better tech, and can choose to research whatever tech he wants to destroy people most effectively?  I have considered the Aliens overall to be the "cakewalk" factions, they make things a bit too easy.
• I don't think it's Santiago.  Although I've won many games with her, on a Huge map she's in trouble if she doesn't start with an enemy nearby to crush.  One needs some infrastructure to cross longer distances, and all those Morale bonuses are wasted without an enemy to kill.
• I don't think it's Miriam.  She has the Support, but Research is too slow.  Yes you can manipulate enemies with probe teams, but on a Huge map that becomes a problem when enemies are far away.
• I don't think it's Domai.  Research is slow, and not being able to go Green is a handicap for militarism.  He can't really afford a Police State.
• I'm not sure I've ever really tried to use the Pirates militaristically, from the very beginning.  Seemed more natural to just build on the water.  But they do start the game with the highest level of mobility, and they could in principle build a Command Center immediately.  I guess my jury's out on the Pirates, for lack of data.

Since I didn't enjoy the last game I played with the Pirates, I'm not going to try that presently.  I've done Alien games to death, not gonna try them again either.  I've played plenty of Yang or Aki games in the past, but I have not usually been truly ruthless about it, like say using chemical weapons on human factions.  I also have almost never done Punishment Spheres; nowadays, I think I'd be more likely to completely wipe a city out, rather than try to preserve its population.  But maybe it would be a good idea for conquering large cities later in the game.  Developing lots of cites and giving them proper infrastructure does get tiring.

So let's try... Aki!  Because I really think the right answer is Yang, and I need evidence that it might not be Yang.

I do have a personality quirk.  I can wrap my head around the idea of using chemical weapons on an enemy, but I have this strong desire to keep my reputation Noble.  I realize that a probe team can pretty much give me any war I want, but I don't tend to do it.  I will try harder not to be friendly, and to make unreasonable demands of factions, so that they give me war.  But sometimes they just give up some techs and then we're not fighting for awhile.  I'm a bit cognitively dissonant about being friendly vs. extermination.  Part of me wants other factions to love the feeding trough as much as I do.

[bvanevery]

Aki-Zeta, Huge map, average settings, random opponents.  I start on what looks like it could be a large island, on a flat piece of terrain with so-so agriculture around me.  I pop a pod next to me and it yields a nutrient resource, on flat ground.  Moving to that tile would make me have an inland city, not a coastal one, so I stay where I am for sea access.  I found Alpha Prime.  I get a scout rover while exploring, get 2 Monoliths, and also an Artifact.  I set my research focus to Explore, Conquer because I'll need boats to go bother other factions, and Doctrine:Loyalty to become a Police State.

Turns out Santiago is sharing my island.  I don't understand why but she's got Doctrine:Flexibility already.  I ask her if she's got the comm frequency for the Pirates, who are also in the game, but she says she doesn't.  Hmm.  I've never seen the computer lie to me before about having contacted another faction, could this be the 1st time?  Anyways I intend to trade with her.  I nearly have a heart attack when my fingers slip on the touchpad of this old laptop, some kind of mechanical or driver issue, and I say I'll take Doctrine:Mobility instead!  But she makes an additional trade for a Level 1 tech for Doctrine:Flexibility so all's good.  Now I don't need Explore anymore, that job's done.  We sign a Treaty but she doesn't want to ally.

I had started making a Former, but now that I'm going to need to colony jockey for a few turns, I switch to a colony pod.  2 in the making.  Santiago is friendly for now, but she does have a Battle Ogre and I don't know how long this friendliness is going to last on this island.  I pretty much need to get a war machine going immediately, while still remembering to spread off island.  Bit of a balancing act.

Later...  Not 2 turns after I posted the above, I researched Nonlinear Mathematics.  So that pretty much gave me the confidence that Santiago doesn't matter at all.  Unless she could jump me before I built my infrastructure, which seems unlikely given her Industry handicap, I could kill her at will.

I successfully pushed 2 cities in her direction, securing the Monolith to the north I had already popped, and a nutrient resource that otherwise would have been in her territory.  Having 4 cities with a reasonably strong resource base, I ceased expanding and set about improving them.  I started worrying about how I'd get beyond size 2, but as if on cue, Morgan shows up with a scout on land.  I found this odd as it didn't look like a connected continent he could walk to.  We ally, I get Santiago's entire map, and I see that Morgan arrived by slow boat from a fair ways off.  He proves very useful for tech trades, and I imagine our combined research is probably seriously outclassing Santiago.

Santiago doesn't make a move against me.  She does contact me, at about the time when ordinarily she'd be making threats if she was so inclined.  Instead it's "I want free tech" and I say "no".  That's the end of that.  I didn't seek to goad her into war, as I wasn't done putting the finishing touches on my infrastructure yet.  I've got my capitol working on a Secret Project, presently The Human Genome Project but I might yet hope for that to become The Command Nexus.  I've got another back line coastal city working on transports to fish pods out of the water.  I've got 2 front line cities with Command Centers to take on Santiago.

I took a recon rover on a transport up to the northeast tip of our island.  Santiago hadn't gotten to a pod behind some fungus up there, and that's how I got Biogenetics.  I went to a small island to the east, and while popping a pod set off an earthquake that destroyed my transport.  I set off a 2nd earthquake on that island as well, so it increased slightly in size yet again, although most of that expansion went off the north end of the map.  That part won't sink if there's ever global warming though.  The island otherwise had a fair amount of fungus, and I was down to either crossing fungus or popping pods on fungus.  I got lucky doing so and yielded up my 3rd Artifact.  However I need to get it back to my capitol and I don't have another transport built yet.  Working on it.

Meanwhile Morgan met Deirdre.  Suddenly Morgan's got Secrets of the Human Brain and Planetary Networks.  I found that rather odd as he didn't discover them.  I trade with him and get the Brain.  I talk to Deirdre and quite surprisingly, she gives up Planetary Networks like it's no big deal.  What a gift!  So after I get done talking, I go Planned.  Boy Santiago is in trouble now!

Someone is working on The Empath Guild so we may all be talking to each other rather soon.

Having planted plenty of forests for my 4 cities, I'm trying to creep up on a Monolith to the northwest.  It is 1 square out of the city radius of Sparta Command, and 1 square over the border.  So if I settle on the flat rainy square on the border, it's mine.  There's fungus around there too, and some rocks, so I have to be careful about reprisal.  I've started producing synth impact squads, best armor I've got right now, so pretty soon I'll have my front line all stocked up with death.  I will soon send a probe team to see what Santiago's strength is like.  And of course I can now steal to start a war at any time I want.

Later...  Well, I pretty much failed.  I never did start that war with Santiago.  She never asked for one.  I kept building my bases, and was reminded that Aki doesn't increase population too easily.  Yeah all my bases were a decent size, and a Planned economy actually nets me +1 Growth, but I'm not sure 5 bases is enough to feel powerful and get stuff done.  It was certainly enough to keep Santiago wary indefinitely, and I have no doubt that I would have kicked her ass had she made a move.  But I found myself in a position of psychological stalemate.

The big problem is I never figured out Doctrine:Loyalty.  Even Santiago researched it.  Of course I went down the primrose path of Optical Computers followed by Superconductor, yet more reason I knew I'd kick her ass if it came to it.

Meanwhile Zhakarov was sitting on the Monsoon Jungle, not far to the south of us.  Morgan got me to declare war on him, not long before both he and Deirdre dumped me due to my Planned economy.  I figured hey, great, I'll just go steal Zhakarov's techs, no problem.  But my production took too long to get Skimship Probe Teams together, with the other production concerns I had, with only 5 cites.  I stole something, but it certainly wasn't Doctrine:Loyalty.  And he completed The Command Nexus, and some other Secret Projects, in a very short period of time.

Then suddenly Zhakarov has completed The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  That doesn't end my ability to steal from him, as I could take one of his bases.  But I'm looking at the size of all those bases clustered in The Monsoon Jungle, and imagining all the stuff that must be in them, and thinking logistically this may not be a cakewalk.  I sorta forgot that I could nerve gas him, oh well.  The invasion looked intimidating.  Would I need to build up even more than I had?  I didn't see any far off bases that would be easy for me to invade, and he did have The Citizen's Defense force.

At 3:30 AM I felt like, well, I did a pretty bad job at this game, and decided to quit.  Not enough expansion, whether peacefully or at someone else's expense.  Really I have problems being aggressive, part of me doesn't like it.  Let alone nerve gassing human factions. 

My feelings about Aki as an eXtermination faction are inconclusive.  I really didn't do the job.   The one thing I did learn, is you can think you're going to be a Police State, but you are not a Police State until you actually research that tech.  So Yang may really be the superior faction after all, because he starts with Police State.  He just has to save up 40 credits to make the transition.  That's not that hard, either by popping pods or flushing and killing mindworms.

If at first you don't succeed, try try again?