Peacekeepers - same map, same start

[bvanevery]

So in 37 years, I conquered 92 - 41 = 51 bases.  That's 51/37 = 1.38 bases per year.  I suppose you can beancount how much better you'll need to do than that.  Assuming you actually research MMI on time, which is a problem.  Or if you just go pure conquest and conquer almost every base.

I'm going to guess that because I had the Monsoon Jungle, I had way more population than you will, so you'll have to make up the difference by conquering enemy bases.  Let's say you need to conquer 45 bases in 30 turns and get MMI on time, to beat me by 1 turn (roughly).  Conquering 1.5 bases per turn is slightly faster than I did.

Let's say you conquer 45 bases in 20 turns, a rate of 45 / 20 = 2.25 bases per turn.  You would have only a 10 turn margin of victory.  5 of those turns, is just my dumb luck of accidentally making Yang hate me with an atrocity.  I certainly wasn't trying to commit any and I don't remember it happening.  If "look before you click" is the moral of that story, well whatever.  Not gonna damage my pride to lose over something so stupid.

Let's say you conquer 45 bases in 15 turns, a rate of 45 / 15 = 3 bases per turn.  That's more than 2x faster than I did.  If you can manage that and get your MMI, I will concede you playing a substantially better endgame than I played an opening game.  I would say well done, although I'd grouse about my 20 years of sunspots a little.

If you can pull off 3x faster, like 4 bases per turn, well then you were really motivated, and crafty.  Guess I'd have to play again and strip down everything.  I built a really "nice" civilization, the kind you'd like to live in long-term.  It's got real facilities, real defenders behind walls, etc.  Not a barely defended, barely won civ, which I guess is what you'd do if you really felt you had stiff competition.  The poor citizens!  What are they going to do without their Hybrid Forests?

So... are you the Flash?

[Mart]

In 30 turns a lot may happen. It is subjective, what is a better endgame, I am put into position, that I have to do it by 2340, so it is easier for me in this respect. Otherwise, I have to use strategies/techniques, that I usually do not use, as I prefer games that reach higher in the tech tree, and I place time of victory (how quickly) not that important. If a game is won earlier, there is a bonus of victory points, but points score is not that important for me.

[bvanevery]

I redid my math above, because I made a calculation mistake.

I don't care about point score, in general.  I specifically made sure "that's not the metric" for this slalom.  It would reward people for building grandiose empires, not fast empires.

Time of victory is the challenge though, that's what makes it a challenge.  We wouldn't have any other way to run a slalom.  I do care about time of victory in general, but for much longer games on much bigger maps.  So it is not my usual playstyle either, to figure out exactly how many Transports I need to push how many Missile Marines out how far to get victory such-and-such quick.  But I've played enough games like that in the distant past, to be quite confident about taking on all comers.  There's a reason I don't play on Standard size maps: it's not a challenge.

To be honest once I had the jungle, I played exactly like one of my big exhibition After Action Report games.  Kept on slamming down any base facility that would give me more pop or research, using massive amounts of money.  All of that could have been spent on military.  Only when I got MMI did I stop spending on research facilities.  I still built pop getters for awhile.  Only when the Santiago nonsense hit did I go Fundamentalist Green Power, dropping the high growth strategy in favor of outright slaughter.  Good decision as everyone moved a lot faster for the last 10 turns.  Probably shoulda spent more money on military, many times throughout the 2nd half of the game.

Yeah I rested on my laurels and didn't do anything unusual.  Now I think I will find the strengths and weaknesses of that approach, when faced with a real race.

Well, this is what rematches are for.  And we'd have to actually play 1 of the 3 "late" factions to fix their position, or else I say they should not be included.  Factions could still be chosen RANDOMLY, just restarting the game until the "undesirable" factions aren't in the game.  Or maybe just having 1 of them would work.  Or having only the Caretakers and Usurpers, where they might switch starting positions with each other, would be acceptable variation.

[Buster's Uncle]

Be a good idea to get Kirov or someone set up the game for a rematch -CMNs are trained in seeing to that games begin equal and fair - take the luck out completely...

[bvanevery]

3rd party setup is 1 way to do it, for sure.  But I think faction rules similar to what I wrote above, would also do it.

Caretakers and Usurpers switching positions can be very unfair depending on what faction one is playing though.  For instance, the Caretakers are more likely to get along with a Nature Loony faction in my experience, judging by the alliances I've seen.  Now, if the humans are playing the Consciousness, or the Hive, or arguably the Data Angels, they very typically go Planned at the beginning.  Aliens like that, so it might not matter so much whether one is next to a Caretaker or a Usurper.  On the other hand, insisting that the Consciousness go Planned is a handicap on their choice making.  And, Roze isn't going to stick with being Planned, past the beginning.

I think the following scenarios work:

- The players play Cha Dawn.  Random opponents.  Only 1 Alien faction is allowed.

- The players play an Alien faction.  Random opponents.  Only the other Alien faction or Cha Dawn is allowed, not both.

- The players play one of the other factions.  Random opponents.  Only 1 of Cha Dawn or the Aliens is allowed.

[Mart]

MY 2310
Secret Projects - no change since 2303


Just researched Advanced Spaceflight, shard weapons, 13.
The tech bar is red, so checking what it may be:
- Superstring Theory (chaos gun)
- Neural Grafting
50% chance it will be the right one. Having 5 turns/tech, 5 more, maybe 6 could be acquired before 2340.


Cult is down to 2 bases, but Cha Dawn refuses to yield.
Caretakers are down to 5 bases.


This turn Miriam attacked, there might have been a message why, but hardly can be read when the turn processes. Miriam, Marr and Yang are real opponents at this time. As I calculated, all AI bases are 52 now.


Yang is 14 turns from completing Fission Planet Buster. That may be a problem, so considering bombing the base surroundings. It is rather away from Caretakers border from which direction I will attack Hive.

[bvanevery]

I take it MY 2250 is a misprint.  What year are you in?

When do the AIs ever use their nukes anyways?  It's been ages since I've seen them do it.

[Mart]

Yes, I corrected that, 2310. Just used the other post for template.


It depends, about Planet Buster, sometimes AI just keeps it/them in a base and do nothing. But with what is happening now, I would guess, Yang will attempt to nuke one of my bases. Hopefully it will not come to that.


Miriam has PB in 24 turns in New Jerusalem, but I am going to take that base before that.

[Mart]

MY 2315
Secret Projects - no change since 2303
Living Refinery is available, but just building crawlers, and they are not priority now.

Researched Superstring Theory! So no luck, it was not preferred tech. The tech bar is now white and possibilities seem to be limited only to:
Applied Relativity.
Ready in 4 turns. But I found 1 AA near north pole, near the last Caretakers base. F7 shows, that Usurpers have 2 AAs still.

Cult is gone.
Caretakers are down to 1 base, near the north pole.

Also I took next Believers base, sea base west from New Jerusalem, and now there are only 2 sea bases between me and NJ.
Usurpers are down to 2 bases on that southern peninsula on PK continent.

Yang started to build Aerospace Complexes, just in this turn in 2315 I destroyed one in a base, that will be attacked first. Hive has 3 bases with many, like 10, defending units. And Yang is getting Aerospace Complexes, so he is going to be serious foe.

[Buster's Uncle]

How's the diplomacy situation?  You look spread out enough that Supreme Leader might not be out of the question...

And it's the middle of the night there, isn't it?  Go to bed.

[Mart]

For Diplomatic Victory I would need MMI, and I still do not have Neural Grafting, needed for it. But there is a chance, I have one AA and Usurpers have now 3!
Conquest may be easier, I have 20 tacticals and 14 penetrators. Many are <13>, which means, that tacticals despite their -50% penalty to ground assaults, can destroy defenders in bases too. So I am capable of attacking multiple bases in a single turn. And only few bases have so many units in them, that I have to spend several turns for removing them. Usurpers do not have +50% defense, so they are easier than Caretakers. Only when they attack, which is now rarely compared to my assaults, they have advantage.

[bvanevery]

Hope you have a super-reliable way of getting AAs out of bases without them being destroyed.  Seems random to me, and most of the ones I tried to get, got destroyed.

Wiping out Yang's air force is easy.  You just keep hitting them when they're on the ground.  Yeah sure he occasionally sends up a Tactical and kills one of your Penetrators, but so what, you're outproducing him.  I did not bother to make a single Tactical the whole game.  Good luck on getting through Yang fast though.  He's spammy.

Of course it should be noted that I had The Cloudbase Academy when I was wiping out Yang's planes with mine.

Also I upgraded all of my planes to Shard, as I had piles of cash to do that with.  Really excessive piles of cash.

[Mart]

Hope you have a super-reliable way of getting AAs out of bases without them being destroyed.  Seems random to me, and most of the ones I tried to get, got destroyed.
...

I am not sure, but it might have something to do with what kind of unit is attacking a base, that the AA is destroyed/captured. I would think, that infantry can do it and not jets, cause they are in the air. Unless AA can be a floating anti-grav device of some sort.
Or maybe it would be from what tile the attack is made, like if from the sea, then chances are different.
I remember several months ago I captured AA from an AI base, but I do not remember the details.

[bvanevery]

No actually a jet did pull out an AA, 2 times.  1 time I got counterattacked by a Tactical next turn and the AA ended up back in enemy hands.  Then I subsequently captured it in another city I think.  Another time I got it and got to keep it, with a jet.  Other times, they got destroyed.  Seemed random.  Same problem with ground troops.  Sometimes I capture, and sometimes it even seems to teleport back into a friendly city.  Other times it just gets destroyed.

[Mart]

Conquest win in 2330.
I attach two saves in a zip file, before taking the last base of Usurpers and after replay.


I will post later some info how 2315 to 2330 went. I got sunspots in 2323, so this eliminated possibility of Diplomatic win effectively, conquest remained the last option. I was, however, able to get Neural Grafting and MMI, too late though. I got like several AA when conquering bases and several other were lost.