do chemical weapons cause eco-damage?

[Geo]

BUncle doesn't multiplay, so no luck there.

[Buster's Uncle]

We might have rigged something with Mylochka, had there been enough time...

[bvanevery]

I've only multiplayed SMAC on my own LAN.  I had a friend of mine who was into the game, but not as good as me, and I'd beat him up some.  I'd give him advantages, I played on Transcend.  Don't kill me if I don't know what I'm talking about, did it wrong, and somehow botched the difficulty settings with him.  His suffering was long ago.

Freeciv, I've done multiplayer internet matches with small numbers of people, like 2 or 3.  Generally I PWND them, but we were amused nonetheless.  Those maps had to be pretty small, to get anything done.  Freeciv also has this weird quirk of simultaneous movement, or at least that's the default.  So it becomes this weird RTS hybrid where you can dance your units around a certain way to provoke your opponent into doing stupid things.  The main exploit being, getting him to step forwards out of his city when he thinks he's attacking your unit next to the city.  Neener neener neener!  Then either walk into his city from another direction, or attack his vulnerable unit with a 2nd unit you had waiting to do that.

[Vishniac]

Someone on Reddit claims they do.  Myself, I've never noticed.  If they do, it's possible that I was controlling my eco-damage for other reasons and wouldn't have noticed.  Forests, Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests, Centauri Preserves, not going Free Market.

Makes me think of doing an AAR about maximizing eco-damage though.

No need to maximize anything for it to be one of the nastiest surprises of your SMAC-life.

I'd say, for maximum effect:
- choose Svensgaard
- standard map should be enough
- have some tough opponents like Yang / Santiago / Miriam
- wait until your bases are 14 or more probably 16 and you have planes and copters.

I don't remember but I think you'll need a minimum of 10-12 chemical attacks before seeing what happens. If still nothing, well, keep on gassing!
And come back telling the tale after! 

[bvanevery]

Umm why would I wait that long?  Nerve gas is an early Conquer tech.  Tell you what, I'm not going to wait that long, and I'm going to use the Hive.  Working title, "Chairman Yang Gasses Everyone".  Let's see if there's any reason to care.

[bvanevery]

Details before

before

It took me until MY 2220 to work my people into position, but now they are ready!

Details after 5 gassings

after 5 gassings

No Planet retalliation yet.  However my Integrity has dropped from Noble to Dependable.  Can't I apply gas with a great deal of nobility?

[bvanevery]

Details oopsie

oopsie

Details daisy 7 gassings

daisy 7 gassings

Lotta dead babies.  Treacherous.

[bvanevery]

Details Tiny

Tiny

Details Tim 11 gassings

Tim 11 gassings

Infamous.

[bvanevery]

Details chubby

chubby

Details bunny atrocity 15 gassings

bunny atrocity 15 gassings

Details Pirates unconquer themselves

Pirates unconquer themselves

Details Pirtz SUXX

Pirtz SUXX

Still just infamous.  Wonder what the big deal is?

I AM NORTH KOREA!

[bvanevery]

Details first fungal pop

first fungal pop

MY 2233.  I've lost track of how many chemical attacks I've made.  Probably slightly less than 20.  I could have sworn that base was doing 3 eco-damage a minute ago.  Perhaps I got confused with another base, but lots of bases are doing eco-damage now.  And they're relatively low population, surrounded by forests, and the Manifold Nexus is within my control.

2 more pops the next turn, but no mindworms.

[bvanevery]

Details first mindworm

first mindworm

Guess I'm doing eco-damage.  Manageable so far though.  With the Pirates un-conquering themselves, I have to invade them all over again.  I don't have planes or marines so I don't have a way to make chemical attacks on their bases yet.  I intend to find out whether Obliterating bases causes eco-damage.

[Buster's Uncle]

I hope you've got a lot of superfluous/disposable cheap troops.  Those pop stacks get huge...

[bvanevery]

I'm familiar with how to fight "basic" onslaughts of mindworms, where typically there's 1 stack of 16 and maybe 2 or 3 accompanying stacks of 1.  You just hit the fungal tower first.  They all die.  Sometimes you even capture them all.

Details after eradicating Lal

after eradicating Lal

Wow, I know that base wasn't doing 34 eco-damage before.  Planet is pissed.  That's not even remotely due to industry.

[bvanevery]

Details bunch of pests

bunch of pests

I got a large number of attacks on my bases this turn, especially Lal's former city where I captured The Citizen's Defense Force.  Last turn it was veritably surrounded by fungal pops.  This turn 8 mindworms hit me and I didn't have any Trance troops in there at all.  Wasn't the sort of thing I needed against Lal.  They destroyed every unit except 1 Artifact in the city.

Now I'm rushing to regarrison with Scouts and Missile Rovers, as that's all I've got in the region.  They are likely to destroy my X rovers; fortunatetely I don't really need them right now, but from a production standpoint this is wasteful.  If this weren't a "Whee!" game I'd be quite irritated.

My home cities are far better prepared for mindworms.  Plenty of Trance garrison units, Empath Recon Rovers, had time to make Sensor Arrays, etc.

[bvanevery]

Details what goes up

what goes up

They don't seem to want to stop punishing me for my earlier transgressions.  There haven't been any new ones.  Darned if I'm going to go Green though.  I wonder how bad this would be if I didn't have the Manifold Nexus?  If I hadn't known in advance that something like this would happen, I'd be really annoyed right now.  SMAC making sure I'm supposed to have an un-fun game and not win.  Like when you try to clean people out with nukes.