The Final Solution - SMACX AI Growth mod 1.17

[bvanevery]

Details stop doing that

stop doing that

Morgan's speed of research is beginning to bother me.  It all started with this Cybernetic stuff.  I need to take him out now.  Switching ship production to X AAA Chaos Destroyers.  I've got enough R-Laser ships to defend the borders from Isles now.

Details good old fashioned rocks

good old fashioned rocks

This is my highest production city, the only one that still has some land.  Note the complete lack of eco-damage, despite no Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests, or Centauri Preserves.  I've probably cleared the deck for a vast amount of tolerable mineral capacity.  Pity I don't have any land to crank it up that high!  But eventually, there are ways.

Details yes you need special mind powers for this

yes you need special mind powers for this

Oh goody goody gumdrops!  I just won the Governorship.  I could even leave people alone if they weren't going to nuke me.  Note that in my mod, the Empath Guild appears rather late.  It's late midgame now, judging by the techs in play.  I consider Diplomatic Victory to be an abbreviated form of conquest.  So things that give you 2X votes, I consider to be Conquest technologies.  I suppose I could consider them to be "colonization and growth" aka Explore instead, but I'm not currently inclined to change it.  I like it just fine this way, and I'd need to hear a lot of feedback from other people the contrary.

Details activating cult mind control powers

activating cult mind control powers

I now have Thought Control available.  It has different penalties than in the unmodded game.  Given that I have +3 POLICE already, it may not seem like I need it, but I can use it to pay for the POLICE penalties on Free Market and Knowledge.  That will net me a little bit better research, a slightly better PROBE rating, and no more MORALE penalty.  So here goes!

Details hope he does not cheat

hope he does not cheat

My 2nd Conventional Missile strike appears to have changed Morgan's mind about his production.  I wonder if it works for stopping Secret Projects as well?

[bvanevery]

Details the busy beaver

the busy beaver

MY 2324.  Zhakarov has achieved Advanced Spaceflight.  In my mod that gives the Cloudbase Academy.  It's another late game Secret Project, as it's way too powerful in the unmodded game.  I'm surprised Zhakarov actually held on this long and actually made something of himself.  He was really getting hammered earlier.

Meanwhile, Morgan has got Silksteel Armor.  My Chaos guns should still be enough to cut through that though.  I wonder if I'll get more than 1 strike per ship though?  A Conventional Missile will take out any ship.

[bvanevery]

Details happy to help myself

happy to help myself

MY 2325.  Judicious use of Conventional Missiles has ended Morgan's production of the Universal Translator.  This almost feels like an exploit, but for the amount of work I've done this game, I'm tired of the AI getting any advantages!  They can all DIE!!!  They're also dropping CMs on me, so I don't feel bad about doing it to them.  I just pick my targets a lot better than they do.

My recent attempts to probe Morgan have failed.  He's just got too many units swimming around now.  I need to destroy his front line of cities that I've already stolen from.  It remains to be seen if my X AAA Chaos Destroyers are up to the job.  If not, then eventually I'll get genetic warfare capability, which will pretty much make it cake.

[bvanevery]

Details dropped like a bad habit

dropped like a bad habit

MY 2326.  Morgan loses 7 citizens due to 1 chaos gun attack!  Even if I die next turn, that was worth it.

Details serves you right

serves you right

I've ended the Cultist nuke program.

[bvanevery]

Details back in business

back in business

Want something blown up?  Yang's your man!  We can do it with nuclear flames, we can do it with machetes.  We can do it early and often!

I have to say I'm getting tired of being target practice for Morgan's CMs though.  It's turning into a game of whack-a-mole.

[bvanevery]

Details the god shall be in his pyramid

the god shall be in his pyramid

I paid to get this done a turn early.  I thought I was doing it for the money, but then I realized without commerce, I probably don't get any.  It's good to deny Morgan that money though, and I'll be able to make U.N. Council motions every 10 years instead of 20.  I think launching solar shades is in order soon.

Details feel the votes flowing through you

feel the votes flowing through you

That took a long time!  I'm surprised I still have viable opposition.  Now that I'm Governor and Empathizing, I can see into Zhakarov's mind.  He's got the Retroviral Engineering I want, but his bases are not terribly close to me.  On the other hand, Cha Dawn has got a lot of the techs as well, which surprises me greatly.  Someone must be bestowing gifts upon the lowly.  Well, I'll go steal something then!

I just realized that this game has totally deprived me of my usual method of conquest: rails to one's front door.  I have to manually push units on this map, there's no unlimited movement on rails.  Hrm.

[bvanevery]

Details I need a Department of Homeland Thievery

I need a Department of Homeland Thievery

MY 2330.  I completed the research myself.  Now I'm genetic warfare capable!  I need so many Conventional Missiles to try to whack down nuke threats though, that I'm not sure how much I can afford to put into probe teams.

Details attrition

attrition

My X ships do not hold up, they get counterattacked.  However the defense is not thorough and tends to leave cities open.  I have at least succeeded in prying my way through the enemy's line of cities, exposing a vulnerable city I haven't stolen from.

I am now remembering that I allow drop pods on ships in this mod.  Nobody can drop into water, but they can scoot off of land into the water.  There's very little land they can do that from, but not zero.  It could be helpful for extending my attack range.  If it turns out to be way too effective, I'll need to consider whether I've created an exploit as opposed to an interesting unit.

Details whack a mole

whack a mole

I terminate another Morganic nuclear project.

I just realized that the Empath Guild gives me infiltration to all factions.  Perhaps it can be justified to have that Secret Project come so late in the game, given that I had failed to infiltrate four factions previously.  It's "only" a Huge map but it does take a long time to push Foil Probe Teams across that.  Then the geography and enemies were simply in the way.  Then we had the mindworm holocaust.  Now enemies are in the way again.

[bvanevery]

Details a hard crunchy shell

a hard crunchy shell

MY 2331.  AAA Silksteel armor is tough enough to withstand a Conventional Missile strike.  I don't think the Aerospace Complex helps; at least, the docs don't say it helps.

[bvanevery]

Details facepalm

facepalm

MY 2332.  Zhakarov nukes my capitol.  You know, I saw that he was building a nuke a few turns ago.  I tried to stay on top of things and shoot CMs to deter nuke production.  But it's morning, I'm not fully awake, I was trying to feed myself and my dog and get my day started.  I bumbled on this, because frankly, this game of CM whack-a-mole is boring.  And now I've paid the ultimate price.

Details what now

what now

So now there's a pariah worse than myself in the world, but that's small comfort!  I lost 5 Secret Projects from that.  No, there is no universe in which those projects were going to be spread out at multiple bases.  You may recall that the Maritime Control Center, lost earlier in the game, was the Secret Project spread out to a different base.  That just lets mindworms eat it.  You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.  If you go down the path of chemical warfare... in short you're ultimately damned.

After the mindworm holocaust, should I have attacked Morgan immediately and never taken time to rebuild?  Did I give everyone else too much breathing room?  To be honest I never expected Zhakarov to survive, let alone thrive.  The Usurpers were really clobbering him earlier.  I mean, they took his capitol and all of his lands!  But he held out in the ocean.  The world sunk and he was still there.  I guess there's a lesson in that.

It's tempting to quit the game.  I've done a lot of work in this game, to be summarily punished like this.  I will continue for now, but I'll be honest: my enthusiasm for this game is now low.  I don't want to play "whack-a-mole to keep from getting nuked" anymore.  It's not fun.  Even aside from having screwed it up from being half asleep, it's not fun.  You have to sit around with the security nexus all the time, looking for bases that are producing nukes.  Then you need enough CMs to do something about it, which holds up everything else you could be doing.  It's a drag.

In pretty much every other game where I've gotten to some juncture like this, I've always said the basic mistake is the same.  I've let the enemies grow.  I did not kill them early enough, often enough.  I've typically quit such games because I've realized the basic strategic mistake was made long ago.  I don't think this game is an exception, it's just a variation.  Chemical weapons look like they're doing you some good, but taking a mindworm apocalypse in the face, is only giving your enemies an opportunity to grow.

So the answer is clear enough.  I need to write a 4X TBS that doesn't have this griefing @!#$ in it.  So tired of "not allowed to win" game design.

[bvanevery]

Details beg borrow steal

beg borrow steal

MY 2333.  I hijacked a University ship, giving me access to Silksteel Armor.  I also stole Advanced Spaceflight from the Cultists.  I don't think I'm going to propose launching a solar shade after all.  I've done a lot of work to adapt to the new oceanic environment, and perhaps I'm better adapted than my opponents now.

I have decided that after the current crop of Conventional Missiles, I'm terminating their production and will not play whack-a-mole with them anymore.  It is not fun.  If that causes other factions to wipe me out with nukes, so beit.  I'm tired of this game and I'm not going to do anything that feels tiring.  To be honest my last AAR had a similar problem: I said I was gonna plant fungus all over my enemies and things like that, and ultimately it turned out to be tiring.  So eventually I reversed course and just conquered Planet outright.  Which was still tiring, but not as bad as what I'd been doing.

I'm now building Network Nodes in distant bases that I never built before.  I'd like to think that one of these days, I will get around to taking over the Virtual World.  Wouldn't it be ironic if someone nukes it first?

Details nukes are bad for business

nukes are bad for business

It turns out my capitol was worth a lot of money.  I didn't realize my net income had dropped to 4.  I've only got 14 credits left due to that ship subversion.  I hope that building a new capitol will get my money back up, but it may not.  Just more reasons to hate this game.

[bvanevery]

Details this sucks

this sucks

MY 2334.  I'm not happy.  If this is a widespread occurrence I swear I'll quit.  It has taken me forever to build the subsea trunklines and genejack factories, with a lot of real world hours spent making it happen.  I'm not going to play the same game where I have to build the damn things all over again.  I will just write the game off as tedious beyond playability, going down this path.  Fortunately, this seems to be an isolated incident, at present.

Just realized that with my theft of Advanced Spaceflight, Flechette Defense Systems are now available.  Hmm come to think of it, Orbital Defense Pods too.  But who has time to build such things?  I've also gotten into long term ODP spam games with enemy factions before.  It's extremely tedious.  The AI will never tire of sending more ODPs up to bother you.  I will stick to my ground, er, water focus.  Ok ok, I will build one ODP and see how it goes.  I've only got one Aerospace Complex and honestly, it doesn't need to produce planes.  This is a naval war, although I guess I could make some Carriers.

Details my DNA is better than yours

my DNA is better than yours

2 probe teams inflicted my first genetic atrocities.  They were only good for 4 dead civilians, so I'm not that impressed with the results.  The cumulative effect on a stack of non-native lifeform defenders is pretty bad though.  So they have their use, but they're not a replacement for X ships.  I need both to take down the cities.

Will I ever nuke anyone?  They seem like such excessively expensive weapons.  Maybe one day I'll have Robotic Assembly Plants and just cough such things out for breakfast.  Right now though, I feel minerals poor.  Well the whole world turned into an ocean, whaddya expect??!

[bvanevery]

Details kick me

kick me

MY 2336.  Cha Dawn nukes me.  That was also the city I was making my prototype Planet Buster in.  Cha Dawn was another one of those factions that I thought Marr was going to completely wipe out.  Indeed, earlier in the game, he was all but dead.  But great floods slow all warfare down, it seems.  Now I really don't care what happens in this game.  I think the only reason I don't quit now, is the graph still says I'm more powerful than others.  Well, tied with Morgan at this point.  Small consolation, as I'm not willing to defend myself from nukes.  It's too boring.  The real defense against them, is to be so much better than everyone else that they never get a shot off.  I think I've proven that chemical weapons make that difficult, maybe even impossible.

So Cha Dawn is in the pariah club too.  I don't know that that's going to help me, but at least Morgan's big alliance will gradually break up.  I only have to take, what 4 more nukes in the face?

Details mindworms can have my brain now

mindworms can have my brain now

Every single one of my cities had drone riots.  That can only mean one thing: the Ascetic Virtues was in that city.  So was the Neural Amplifier, so I won't want a mindworm apocalypse any time soon.

Details more killing

more killing

This gives me the excuse to stop pursuing Knowledge.  I need to get my POLICE back up to +3, and I want the full +2 PROBE benefit from Thought Control.  I don't have the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm anymore and that will make it harder for my units and bases to be subverted.

[bvanevery]

You know what?  Eating dinner, putting a beer in me, I can't even pretend to be interested in this game any longer.  It's a farce!  Game over.  Complete piece of crap.  Not going to waste my real life bothering with this.

I think I will release the few changes I've come up with for version 1.18 of my mod and call it a day.

I'm also realizing, the whole game might have been determined by, the ease with which Morgan was able to corner the energy market.  That suggests a rematch.  Against Morgan at least; I don't want to play Yang again.

[ih8regin]

You likely did ONE serious mistake here: You didn't raise land while there was land and no mind worms, AND WP at hand. After that, you might be able to drown EVERYONE with increased atrocities, ticking Planet off its mind and into more global warming. Then, once everyone would be sitting in deep trenches, you would still have some land above water. They would starve, there goes your Final Solution.

[bvanevery]

In a subsequent game I have found that land sinks alarmingly fast, to the point that it's debatable whether using Super Formers can raise it fast enough to keep up.  It is certainly very tedious and unfun, of that much I'm sure.

Any method that requires more preparation before finally engaging in atrocities, is on some kind of sliding scale of cheating or not really dealing with the problem / facing the scenario.  I didn't feel good about how long I waited the last time.  Did I write that one up?  Think I did.