Continental Consciousness - 256x128 map

[bvanevery]

Details railhead

railhead

I have finally completed rails linking all of my cities.  I have a railhead that will be in contact with the Caretaker front line next turn.  Simultaneously a massive quantity of mindworms will be delivered to them.  I have lots of cities that I'm not willing to build Command Centers for, but they all have Biology Labs, so I figure why not?  At least, I will see how a sheer quantity of rail based mindworm onslaught goes.  They aren't the best worms but I sure have a lot of them.

My Silksteel defensive units did not hold up very well on the front.  I have denuded cities, but I've lost lots of expensive Shard units doing so.  My poor hapless Probe Teams from the old days are almost gone as well, I've only got 2 left!  They got missed during the generall call up and have been sitting safely in cities for all this time.  Well no more of that, off to the front you go!

I have a new raft of Photon defensive units entering service, which I hope will hold up better than the Silksteel did.

[bvanevery]

Details helpless

helpless

1 turn of penetration using massive numbers of Formers.  I'm not even using Super Formers, I only just got that technology and my fleet is too large to bother building anything new.  My forces are so massive that I can often build rails completely around a city and take out rearward Sensor Arrays before even assaulting the city proper.  The mindworms have been somewhat useful for eliminating units in the field, but I haven't figured out the best way to apply them.  I've been short of Probe Teams to introduce genetic plagues, but I built a Covert Ops center and will have more shortly.  One problem is when I eliminate a city, there's often a stack remaining with air units.  They're weakened, but the air units protect the stack from my ground troops.  I hope retalliation doesn't cause me any great problems.  I won't bother making SAM units unless the escaping air units prove to be a big deal.  Now is a serious test of whether AA Photon armor holds up to weakened enemy Copters.  I've got 1 such unit accompanying all the forward stacks.  I don't have quite enough to cover everyone on my line, so the rearmost units are exposed.

Unless the retalliation really slaughters me, I'm likely to get The Empath Guild next turn!  It's only 2 cities south of my present railhead.  The mindworms should be useful for taking that, as I want to minimize the damage to that city as much as I can.

[bvanevery]

Details good aliens smell dead

good aliens smell dead

I've cut a horrific swath through the Caretakers.  Next turn I will have completely wiped them off the continent.  I took losses from wounded planes and copters for awhile, but my AA Photon units were very effective at causing them to die a lot.  I think their air force is pretty much wiped out.  I've also now got enough AA Photon units that I'm able to effectively cover my troops, so I've stopped making them.  I'm making a new generation of X Gas Shard Hovertanks to replace the many offensive units I lost.  The Caretakers are on another continent and also in the water, so I will make a land bridge, and also a city or two to provide an Aerospace Complex for my air force.  It has been out of range all this time and done nothing, as I was happy to use rails and ground units to wipe out bases on land.  I don't really feel like making Marines to go after sea bases though.  I'd rather just use the units I've already got.  I'm cheap that way!

I just remembered that I did build 1 Tectonic Missile prototype, so I can make my land bridge rather quickly if I'm willing to sacrifice a few resources and water passageways.  I also built The Nano Factory, a not terribly exciting Secret Project.  My cities that lack Command Centers will no longer produce mindworms as I have plenty of them.  Instead they will produce Supply Crawlers.  I will either use those to insta-complete Secret Projects as they come up, or I will just crawl for energy because I can.  I really don't need more minerals, and I'm only going to build a Robotic Assembly Plant in 1 city.  That would be that 1 distant outpost in Lal's territory.  It has grown quite large thanks to The Cloning Vats and is almost ready to start terrorizing the Peacekeepers.

[bvanevery]

Details cybernetic

cybernetic

1st good Secret Project tech I've gotten in awhile.  It also lets me choose Cybernetic, which my faction only gets positive benefits from, no negatives.  Of course, building the Network Backbone would do that anyways, but who's quibbling?  I insta-complete the project with Supply Crawlers and cash.

Urgh, now the political question.  I'm now at +7 Efficiency.  I only need +5 to keep my budget focused on Labs, so I could afford to go Police State now.  But if I do so, Roze will surely dump me as an ally.  Do I care?  To the extent I might wish to win a Diplomatic Victory, maybe I care.  Yet it is such a natural fit for me... I gain only advantages, in particular a Chairman Yang worthy +3 Police rating and +4 Support.  All that Democratic Planned gets me is +1 Industry, offset by a drop to +0 Support.  I don't need the Growth anymore, I've got The Cloning Vats.  AaaaaaAAARGH!!  I think I shall succumb to the desire to be a bad, greedy person.  If Roze gives me trouble, I can take The Neural Amplifier and The Planetary Energy Grid from her, right?

I didn't think I'd have the Formers to make good on my pledge to wipe the Caretakers off the continent this turn, due to a final base that was far off the beaten path.  However a bunch of Formers finally completed all the Mines in my home territory, thereby doubling the number of Formers I could put into combat.  Even with those, I barely managed the elimination of the last base.  The distances on a Giant map are truly vast.

[bvanevery]

Details AAA survival

AAA survival

This I found surprising.  An AAA Photon unit that I put in my newly created base, survived a direct hit by a Conventional Missile.  Maybe it was a fission missile?  I suppose it must be the Caretakers that are dropping them on me as no one else is in range.  The whole point of this base is to bomb a few sea bases into oblivion.  Also it's exactly 14 squares away from my nearest mainland base, so that I can move my air force perfectly if I decide to make more planes.  Well we'll see how many more missiles they've got to spare.  I happened to have stacked the base full of mindworms, because I had nothing better to do with them, so I seriously doubt they're going to be able to hit my planes.

Details before bridge

before bridge

Yep they failed, and I wiped out 2 sea bases that had missiles in them.  I've decided this is where I'm going to set off the Tectonic Missile.  This turn I can probably wipe this island completely clean of cities, especially given the absurd number of mindworms I have now.  I'm really only limited by the speed at which I build rails, and I don't want to push any more units around.  If I find myself with a lot of extra cash, I could upgrade all my Formers to Super Formers, but to date I've had other uses for cash.

Oops, I forgot that I'm only using a Fusion missile and the radius of the quake is 2 squares.  Last time I used a lot of these things I had Quantum missiles.  Well that's what we save games for, in case we screw stuff up.  I will come across from my other rail head, where the distance to land is only 2 squares.  It'll seal the water passage in the bargain, but I could always put a city there, or sink it with Sea Formers, if it ever really matters.  And it probably won't.

Hrm, that bridging point is actually out of range of my missile.  Time for plan C: use the missile to get 2 squares closer, then use my huge fleet of Formers to raise the last square to the city.  I can sink 2 of their ships while I'm at it.  Goodbye!

Details last square

last square

Details stupid rocks

stupid rocks

Well shoot.  I didn't think about the possibility of raising a rock in front of me.  The traditional answer for this would be a Hovertank Former, which I've neglected to make, thinking I have enough Formers.  And generally that is true, I simply go around rocks.  Helps that I'm usually just laying rails on enemy roads that have already been cut through stuff.  Fresh roads have their own problems.  Do I have 3 Elite Formers handy somewhere?  Nope.  Never did go for Power, which might have created such.  This is going to delay me a turn.

[bvanevery]

Details prepare to bridge

prepare to bridge

Rocks have a compensating advantage: they provide good cover from enemy aircraft.  With only 2 AAA units I was able to fend off the Caretakers and keep my Formers from harm.  I actually meant to put more in but forgot.  I did put 4 mindworms in as well, but they were not attacked.

I'm finding that big stacks of mindworms are better for cleaning out cities with air units in them.  It's better to kill the air units while the city still exists, so that the air units are sitting on the ground.  The nerve gas ground units, just destroy the city and leave the air units in the air, where I can't hurt them.  After destroying everything in the city, I'll bring in 1 unit that needs healing to take it over.  This reduces an Alien city to size 1 anyways, which makes Obliterating a base rather easy.  Generally I take the healed unit back out of the city, while the railway still exists, and bring in an unimportant unit to do the Obliteration.  Once the city is gone there's no rail or road, so the point is not to have the healed unit get stuck on that bare square.

[bvanevery]

Details dumb place for a base

dumb place for a base

I was wondering how I'd get rid of that Sea Colony Pod.  Well if I could just count on them to do stupid things, like putting themselves in the way of my land bridges, I'd have no problem.  Since I can't, it's time to make some Transports from the former Caretaker base that has The Empath Guild.  It's my southernmost port and nearest my victims.  I will make a few Marines, send them by rail, and that will be the end of the Caretakers.

Details personal favor

personal favor

Oh looky she moved all these planes in, to feed my hungry mindworms!  How thoughtful of her.  They're crunchier than they look though, so I'll need to introduce a genetic plague to tenderize them.

Details the colony is watching you

the colony is watching you

I wonder how insta-completable these will be?  They're expensive and I don't have a lot of cash.  I wonder how many Supply Crawlers I'll have to strip from energy crawling duty to get it done?  Not that many, as it turns out.  The number of Supply Crawlers I put out per turn is pretty massive.  I also just realized I've got cities that produce 40+ minerals from the Mines surrounding them alone, so they will make Orbital Defense Pods in 3 turns.  I don't need more minerals from Nessus Mining Stations, I've got tons.

[Buster's Uncle]

Best thing to do with any spare colony pod is to enter it into one of your bases that could stand instant growth by one, and hit "b".

-This is legit, IMO, unplanned, and there's also a mildly exploitish tactic, especially after you've got Cloning Vats and rails and big bases with nothing urgent to do, to do en mass and grow any new or lagging behind-base fast.

[bvanevery]

I only have 2 bases on my mainland that are less than size 16.  It is not important for me to make them grow faster than The Cloning Vats makes them grow anyways.  One is already size 9 and can spit out the Transports I need in 1 turn.  The other is size 4 and its main function was to serve as an air base to wipe out a few Caretaker sea bases.  It also made a land claim on the Borehole Cluster, although I don't actually use the Boreholes for anything.  I didn't want Cha Dawn settling on them, but he hasn't done anything except settle 1 sea base anyways.  He's kind of a weenie.

Making my bases grow larger than 16 by adding Colonists to them, in the absence of Hab Domes, sounds like cheating.  What is the point of gaining technologies and Secret Projects like The Ascetic Virtues, if the limits don't actually matter?  What is the point of Lal having a higher base limit than other factions?  Well, I'm going to build 1 Colonist to find out whether it actually works or not anyways.  That's faster than trying to look stuff up, either on the internet or digging my paper manual out of a box in the basement.

Incidentally, I've been trying for a very long time to get Hab Domes, going for a Build only focus, but I can't even seem to get the basic prereq of B7 Probability Mechanics.  So my civ has evolved with what it's actually got, which is quite a lot.

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle.  Now I've got a capitol that's size 17, using its own colonist to do it!  Now I have to find a way to decide whether this is cheating.  Morgan, for instance, would play totally differently if he can violate hab limits early in the game.

Details remnants

remnants

The Caretakers don't have much left.  I count 4 nearby land bases, 4 remote land bases, and 10 sea bases.   The nearby land bases, I may be able to destroy next turn.  The remote bases will take awhile to reach, and perhaps I won't build rails to do it, but will just send hovertanks and elite rovers to finish them off.  It looks like they don't even have any roads, so that could take time.  For the sea bases, I've built an airbase and will begin nerve gassing some of them into oblivion.  I have Marines in production to finish off the rest.

[Buster's Uncle]

...I, as resident SP cheat expert in the community, would deem exceeding hab limits on purpose an exploit, yes, but very arguable/borderline, as any MPer might simply deem that smart playing or not according to whether they could afford to do so and what making a particular city big accomplishes - it's just not so indisputably a broken bug as something like the patrol-elite trick, but maybe an intended feature.  [shrugs]

I've taken the colony pod-city grow exploit up heavily in my most recent cycle of heavy playing, as a way to shave nearly 100 off the turns it takes to grow my capitol/super-science city to 127 - by the point I try that, it's a little rare for the five or  six adjacent bases to have anything more important to do, as I'm playing out the clock by then...

[bvanevery]

I read the manual, which only says hit "B" with a Colony Pod to "Join Base" and increase its size.  The manual describes the Hab Complex as increasing the size limit of the base by +7, and the Hab Dome as increasing the size limit to 127.  Based on everything I've ever seen in SMAC, I cannot believe that it was intentional to let bases go over these limits.  None of the base population (dis)incentives make sense if you can just add colonists without restriction, as it takes a lot more food to grow from size 11 to 12, compared to 2 to 3.  I notice that this website has a bug list where this issue is at the very top of the Unsorted category.  The list is intended to be sorted into bugs vs. undocumented features.  I say it's a bug, and as such, I'm not going to use it to cheat.

Details rail crew

rail crew

I did obliterate the 4 nearby land cities.  I'm sending hovertanks after the 4 remote land cities.  I will not build any further rails in that direction.  With the Caretakers nearly dead, I think it is time to invade Deirdre.  As it happens, my easternmost rail is pretty near the Manifold Nexus.  I think in 2 turns I could reach it.

My city on Lal's backside, has 31 minerals and 16 population now.  Unfortunately I keep having to do this and that to keep people happy.  A Paradise Garden should square that up.  I just couldn't bring myself to make a Punishment Sphere back in the day.  I was a Democracy at the time and it would have been out of character.  I also think it's still out of character, as torturing people strikes me as deeply irrational.  I would expect the Consciousness to want to purge people of emotions, not revel in them to make them terrified and therefore compliant.  I'm not even sure they would punish people.  Maybe they'd just kill whoever is completely useless, and otherwise reprogram / reimplant them.

My Supply Crawler situation is getting pretty absurd.  I wonder if it actually helps me in any way?  Many of my bases gradually climb slightly upwards in energy, at the cost of a lot of mouseclicks.  I don't see any noticeable effect on my research rate though, and it might be hard to pass from 1 tech every 2 turns, to 1 tech every turn.  I've changed my budget to 10-20-70 and I suffer no penalties for it.  I still make 228 credits/turn and I still have very little to spend them on.  I'm wondering if I should just build ridiculous numbers of Clean Super Formers to build rails to just about everything and end this game.  It might result in a few massively long turns of Former pushing, but how is that different than doing it on turn-by-turn basis?  I get the feeling that I'm just fooling around with the Suppy Crawlers, that they don't make my victory come any faster.

[Buster's Uncle]

Dunno, man - I didn't realize/recall the manual mentioning the "Join Base" - I tend to think that pushes the hab-exceeding over into Officially Kosher, as I'd think it unlikely the playtesting turned up that join trick in time for the manual -implies intended feature, in fact- and not the hab-exceeding...

[bvanevery]

"Join Base" is officially in the manual, and there was never any doubt that it's part of the game.  The question is whether you should be able to use that to exceed base size restrictions.  I say it's a bug.  Otherwise why have base size restrictions?

Details eh

eh

I don't care about this tech.  Just last turn I decided not to build any more Supply Crawlers, and instead am making a new raft of Satellites.  My intent is to have all that done before I finally get Hab Domes... assuming I ever get them, at this rate!  Well I guess now I'll build Quantum Labs for lack of anything better to do.  Deirdre's going to really hate these new Quantum units.

Details manifold nexus

manifold nexus

I've colonized the Mainfold Nexus.  I've got roughly 40 mindworms in that base, ready to attack Deidre next turn.  I wonder how far I'll get with those?  It will depend a lot on whether she's got air force or missile reserves to pound me before my offensive.  Everything out there is expendable though, they're all old units.  The only way she could stop my advance is to nuke me.

[Buster's Uncle]

I still say feature, but hardly a hill worth dying on - we all make these decisions for ourselves, and that's all that matters unless you're playing against a people.

[bvanevery]

Details all quiet

all quiet

No attacks came.  Consequently I took the opportunity to plant lots of forests around my base.  It seems that my "vast" fleet of Formers, is merely enough to terraform the land of 1 city.  Less if one considers that I left the fungus alone.  I am approaching 50 mindworms in the base now.