Thinker mod military capability, attempt 6

[bvanevery]

Details Roze is a populist

Roze is a populist

MY 2203.  I'm surprised that Roze had a slightly higher population than Svensgaard.  Her land is fairly ordinary, although she did start next to the Garland Crater.  Here's the real answer:

Details not as bad as Switzerland

not as bad as Switzerland

The new faction placement algorithm, in its infinite wisdom as to what constitutes "fair" or "good" land, threw the Pirates into a small landlocked sea.  Despite the enormitude of ocean otherwise available on the map!  I've never seen this happen in any game.  Granted, I don't think small landlocked seas occur all that often with my world generator either.  Large ones do happen, but the Pirates could put a full empire in those.  This sea doesn't look like it was unnaturally created, such as from an earthquake.  Nope, the faction placement algorithm just thought "hey, this looks good!"

Based on all my experience in these test games, I say it's broken.  If you think fairness of start is important, it's not worth using.  If you'll accept any old random roll and see how it goes, then it won't be a problem for you.  But in my gameplay universe, this has been really throwing off the dynamics I'd otherwise expect out of a Huge map game.  I'm mildly "impressed" though, that an algorithm could find a way to bring down the Pirates!     And here I was dreading having to play another runaway game with them.  Rah rah random factions.  Long live the Data Angels, and down with Deidre!

[bvanevery]

Details we shall gas her

we shall gas her

Morgan wants war with the Gaians!  Fine by me.  And I've got so many allies, let's all dog pile on her.  Roze is in.  Miriam does what I tell her.     Santiago is in.     Svensgaard is in.  Deidre has no friends.  Let's see how long we can agree to hate her.

[bvanevery]

Details you brain sack

you brain sack

Morgan and I trade a pile of technologies, making him very happy with me.  Then he terminates our Pact.  You're lucky I just got everyone to go to war with the Gaians, Morgan.

MY 2211.  Morgan signs a Treaty with the Gaians, defeating the purpose of all that war I got started with her.  Santiago has gone to war with the Pirates and asks me to join it.  I refuse, and Santiago cancels our Pact.  Yeah, can't keep people happy.

[bvanevery]

MY 2225.  Morgan subverted one of my empty Transports.  What a weird opening gambit for bothering me!  Well I was thinking about using probe teams on him to precipitate a war anyways.  Now I don't have to.  I'm mainly just making lots of mindworms.  Don't really have productivity for anything else.  I'll never catch all the big advanced infrastructure factions.

Details fun with Weather Paradigm

fun with Weather Paradigm

MY 2227.  Morgan does not have Advanced Ecological Engineering for Condensers, nor Industrial Automation for Thermal Boreholes or Supply Crawlers.  Nevertheless he has used the Weather Paradigm to do the usual Condenser and Borehole routine.  He has paid 24 turns for Condensers and 48 for Boreholes.  I see many Condensers, but only 1 Borehole.

Details Gaian supply crawlers

Gaian supply crawlers

The Gaians have Industrial Automation, which means they can make both supply crawlers and Boreholes.  I don't see any Boreholes yet.  They have 7 crawlers active and 9 in production.  The Gaians are cheating with Democratic Socialist Wealth.  Wealth gives them an additional +1 INDUSTRY.  I'm not sure why their supply crawlers show 7 bars per row, as I thought they got a 30% reduction on Transcend difficulty anyways.  I don't think it's capped at 7, I think the cap is at 5.  I would expect them to be at 6, unless they just changed to Wealth this turn.

Anyways they appear to be paying 56 minerals for a supply crawler.  And they don't seem to care.

MY 2229.  I steal Advanced Military Algorithms from the Morganites.  It enables the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  I start on it, and I switch to Wealth to get an INDUSTRY bonus. 

MY 2230.  I switch to Eudaimonic to get an INDUSTRY bonus.  I use 2 Artifacts and 816 cash to rush the HSA.

MY 2231.  I complete the HSA.  The Pirates ask me to join their war again, and again I refuse.  They terminate our Pact. 

[bvanevery]

Details thwarting my plan

thwarting my plan

MY 2231.  Morgan's gonna have the Neural Amplifier.  I've spent all this time to get barely underway.  All I've got are mindworms.  The "AI gets everything" game mechanic is a real problem here.  At least the city in question is fairly near me.  It's not coastal, so I can't use Marines to take it.  I could put an Airbase at the edge of my land and paradrop into it.  For the actual assault though, planes and Conventional Missiles are all very expensive in my mod.

Another possibility is to forget the fancy tactics.  Just trash 3 cities leading up to the one I need, using overwhelming force to overcome the Neural Amplifier benefit.  Capitalist will make him -30%, Neural Amplifier will make him +50%, for a net of +20% defense.  I am +40% offense when Green.

[bvanevery]

Details ain't over 'till the gun lady sings

ain't over 'till the gun lady sings

MY 2232.  Well look at that, Morgan's gonna be at a tasty -30% Psi defense after all!  I really need Advanced Ecological Engineering to bridge our continents.  I've been making a lot of Isles for troop movement in the absence of that.  I just remembered that I can cover my landing with a mere Gun Needlejet.  Morgan doesn't have Doctrine: Air Power yet, and the AI doesn't typically make SAM units.

[bvanevery]

Details air cover tactics

air cover tactics

MY 2234.  My invasion begins.  It would probably be better to have 2 Gun Jets to provide continuous coverage.  These units are going to try to take out the Sensor Array and steal Morgan's map.  My horde of mindworms is currently doing police duty, so I'm starting to make lots of cheap Police Scout units to replace them on the home front.

Details war choices

war choices

I have switched my values from Wealth to Power to make everyone a better fighter.  Not sure if I'll keep Eudaimonic.

[bvanevery]

Details the lay of the land

the lay of the land

MY 2235.  Well I got the map and took out the Sensor Array.  The whole place is crawling with units though, so I had to leave 1 guy behind to die.  I think I will keep Eudaimonic because I need the GROWTH and JUSTICE offsets.  I don't like the loss of MORALE, but INDUSTRY helps, and my main weapon is cranking out mindworms.  If Thought Control was available I'd do that instead, to keep Roze happy.

Details from one warlord to another

from one warlord to another

MY 2236.  Santiago doesn't even care that I value Power same as she does.

Details I hope a sign of things to come

I hope a sign of things to come

Morgan's MORALE is so bad that he fails to kill my Synthmetal Skirmisher.  And the AI is so stupid that it didn't follow up with a 2nd attack.  I know it's got plenty of units to do it.  So fine, I'll limp back to safety.

Details serious mindworms

serious mindworms

This invasion would be better with a land bridge and a rail, but I can handle the loading and unloading for now.  I don't know what Deidre intends to do with the ships, but I'm just ducking in and out of port. I have enough artillery that she can't harm me in port, nor shell my shores.  She's otherwise invading Morgan fairly effectively in the west.

[bvanevery]

Details a gift before Caesar

a gift before Caesar

MY 2237.  This city did have a Trance Plasma Sentinel unit under construction last year.  In fact, they completed it, it's in the supported units window.  So what did this genius AI do with the unit?  It left.  With 6 mindworms facing the city.  This should be a blowout.  Is that how Morgan's "fighting" is going to be?  I know the Gaians are providing pressure to the west, but he really should have been able to delay me somehow.  I've seen lots of R-Laser hovertanks for instance.  R-Lasers are only strength 3 and correspondingly cheaper in my mod, only the cost of an Impact gun, so not that difficult for a Borehole driven power to crank out as ordinance.  Well, maybe the Gaians are giving him a harder time than I thought.  We'll see.

I lose 2 mindworms and take the city.  If he had left the Trance unit in there, he might have held.  If he had brought anything else in for defense, he definitely would have held.

Details looks like D Day in reverse

looks like D Day in reverse

The Gaian navy has worn out its welcome, so I fry one of the ships with my artillery.  I want to directly supply my city but that 2nd ship is still in the way.  So I will land as I can.  The fungus flank is not a good place to land because of the R-Laser hovertanks pointing at it.

[bvanevery]

MY 2238.  I've loaded an enormous number of mindworms into my captured city.  I have the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm so I'm in no danger of it being subverted.  I've put 3 mindworms on the fungal flank, covered by the Gun Jet.  That may be enough to wipe out the units trying to hold the area.  The Gaian navy keeps coming, I think they like this choke point.  I keep shelling.  It slows down my landings but does not stop them.  I'm starting to make ECM 3-Pulse units for home defense, as I wouldn't want the Spartans sweeping in with hovertanks while most of my mindworms are off on campaign.

Details siege

siege

MY 2239.  Morgan asks for a Truce, and I'm having none of that!  He proved that his R-Lasers can fry my mindworms even behind a city wall.  I will need those ECM units for defense.  For now though, I do have overwhelming force.  Still I don't attack his next city.  Even though it has no wall, the 2 Sensor Arrays protecting it give him more of an advantage than I'm happy about.  I put lots of mindworms in the field and hope it confuses the AI into fighting me in the open, or not at all.

[bvanevery]

Details attrition baiting

attrition baiting

MY 2240.  Well I lost 2 mindworms, but he had to wound himself pretty badly to do that.  That might actually be a good trade.  A 3rd unit of his actually died trying to attack my wounded mindworms in the open.  Then he begged off, either because he's stupid, or because Deidre is applying pressure.

I did not clear the Sensor Arrays before beginning the assault.  Consequently I lost 2 more mindworms.  I don't think my production rate is good enough to keep up that kind of attrition over the long haul, but I need my beachhead.  I use the hovertank to take out a Sensor Array protecting another city.  I use the Gun Jet to cover it.  I've seen Morgan try to construct an air force, but I haven't seen any planes actually go up yet.

Details valuable property

valuable property

I seize my 1st Borehole.  Am I going to be able to protect it?  All the more reason why I need ECM units and can't just advance with a "glass cannon" mindworm army.  I predict that pretty soon I'll be consolidating this beachhead and not advancing anymore.

Details Morgan's vulnerable western front

Morgan's vulnerable western front

Morgan Construction, the home of the Weather Paradigm and the Planetary Energy Grid, looks like it's about to fall to the Gaians.  It's a pity I don't have the industrial capacity for lots of drop units.  If I were stronger, and that's pretty much saying everything isn't it, those could be mine.

I check on Deidre's attitude towards me and she's Noncommittal.  I consider signing a Treaty with her.  We're both Green, it's not going to be completely easy for me to roll over the Morganites, and I'm going to need time to consolidate his lands afterwards.  So I try to ring her up, but she's not speaking to me.

[bvanevery]

Details the rich get richer

the rich get richer

MY 2241.  Nothing I can do about this.  Something to remember about runaway AI economics.

The Morganites finally shoot down my Gun Jet.  Oddly they didn't bother to take out the hovertank underneath it.

Now how many mindworms are required to take out 1 Hardened 3-Res unit behind a city wall?  No sensors.  I have 3 fresh mindworms available to try.  In the 1st battle the odds are even and I do 40% damage before dying.  In the 2nd battle the odds are 10 to 8 and I bring it to 70% damage before dying.  I've saved my slightly larger Boil mindworm for last.  The odds are 8 to 2 and it clobbers the defender.  I send in a nearly dead mindworm by road, fully heal up, and take out a Former.  A 2nd Former stacked with it gets damaged, and I kill it with the Synthmetal Skirmisher.

The Elite Scout Tank, free of any obligations, tries to take out a Sensor Array in front of the next city.  However it is blocked by a plane I didn't think hard enough about.  Just as well, I don't have the force to attack next turn anyways.

Details triangle defense

triangle defense

I can defend the Borehole if nobody shells it from the ocean.  If the Gaians show up again with speed 8 Cruisers and decide to have at it, there's nothing I can do about it right now.  I'd need an AAA unit to protect it from shelling and keep Morgan's planes at bay, and I don't have the productivity yet.  Still getting these cities under control with Recreation Commons.

[bvanevery]

One aspect of the March development release worth nothing, is the terraformers are definitely doing a better job of not building roads.  I have forest choke points blocking me from reaching cities.  The February development release would build roads on every single forest square.  That would make it extremely easy to invade from city to city.  Here I'm not in easy mindworm range of the city I'd rather go after next, even though it's only 3 squares away as the crow flies.

MY 2243.  Why was I laboring under the delusion that I built the Command Nexus?  I didn't.  So my new troops all sorta suck.  Even more reason why I can't expand anymore.

Details it takes a thief

it takes a thief

Morgan doesn't have Fusion Power, but he does have a Fusion unit.  He must have subverted one of the cities Deirdre took from him.

I steal 90 credits from one of his cities, but my 1-1-1 probe team dies.

MY 2244.  I steal a mere 44 credits.  His money has dropped a lot, probably from Deirdre taking over some cities.  He used to have 1900 credits and now he's got 500.  He's learned Fusion Power.

I've been hoarding a large pile of cash, thinking I might get to do my traditional steal a tech and build a Secret Project thing.  But it's becoming pretty clear that the Gaians will clean up all the techs and Secret Projects from here on out, until they are invaded.  So I rush a number of Command Centers, which will start making hovertank probe teams.  I also begin more mindworms.

Aside from the 3 cities I took from Morgan, most of my cities are only size 4.  When they get to be size 5 they become unhappy and I make a colony pod.  I'm still trying to settle my original island while all this crazy spam war is going on.  I'm at an order of magnitude less capability than various factions.  I hope they have an order of magnitude less intelligence than I do.

I check on the Spartans.  They don't have any advanced Build techs and their terraforming is still quite ordinary.  They do have some decent armor, notably the Photon Wall, which in my mod is strength 8.  However weapons and armor have increasing expense in my mod, it's not linear, so they probably don't have the productivity to bang many of those out.  They have some cities with 10 to 13 minerals in them, and one in the Monsoon Jungle with 18 minerals.

So the Spartans are a threat, but not a monster, and they're busy fighting the Pirates.  That's probably intractable because they're unlikely to get into Svensgaard's lake moat.  They spend time exchanging the land cities.  I can't see into the Pirate bases, I was never able to get a probe team that far up north.  Their Explore, Build focus may have given them supply crawler and Borehole capability by now, but they've never had any safe land to do it on.

My allies the Data Angels have 14 Fusion Plasma Supply Crawlers and 10 more in production.  Their rows have 6 bars to them.  Looks like they're paying 9*6 = 54 minerals for these things.  They obviously don't care and aren't impeded, sitting on a large island continent by themselves.  I don't see any Boreholes even though they're Borehole capable.  No Condensers either.  They have used Soil Enrichers.

Details the jacker doesn't know jack

the jacker doesn't know jack

Now again, this is obnoxious.  In my mod their compulsion is Thought Control, for the very good reason that it would make their probe teams really powerful.  Yet Thinker mod ignores this compulsion completely and goes Eudaimonic.  So I face the situation where I'm avoiding talking to my ally, because I'm Eudaimonic myself, because I don't want to get chewed out for it.  Even though she's doing it herself.  It's borked.  I'm losing free techs because of this.

[bvanevery]

MY 2246.  My 1-1-1 probe team became Elite last turn, increasing its range.  This turn I was able to steal Industrial Automation.

MY 2247.  My 1-1-1 probe team steals Fusion Power from the last city within its range.  I design new units.

Real life interruptions.

I have received playtesting feedback about my mod, that base cracking is too difficult now.  That it's painful to the point of being boring.  I changed 3 major factors:

• I eliminated the +25% Infantry bonus vs. bases.  The main reason is I don't like it when Scouts show up at the beginning of the game, and trash my defending Scout.  Also I don't like having to fret over whether an Infantry, Speeder, or Hovertank is best to attack a base with.
• I raised Sensor Arrays from +25% to +50%.  They make a big difference and I actually like this mechanic.  I spend a lot of time thinking tactically about how I'm going to take out Sensor Arrays, or whether I have enough advantage to forego it.
• I raised the inherent base defense from +25% to +50%.  One benefit is enemy Scouts really can't do anything to your Scouts in base, at the beginning of the game.

Also in my tech tree, weapon and armor strengths proceed at the same rate.  You're not going to gain a weapon advantage over someone who has basically the same tech you do.  You could gain a production advantage, simply hitting them with more troops until they die.  You could gain a maneuver advantage, bringing stronger forces to bear against more weakly held cities.  That favors the use of Speeders and Hovertanks, or some other clever understanding of terrain and logistics.

The testing feedback, however, is I've gone overboard.  I think this is confirmed by the number of probe teams I've used to trash Perimeter Defenses in recent games, and the fact that I don't like it and get bored doing it.

So, right in the middle of this game, I'm dialing the inherent base defense back to +25%, as it is in the stock game.  That's a modest change.  We'll see what difference it makes.

[bvanevery]

I have also decided giving Perimeter Defenses as a Conquer 1 tech is a really bad idea.  The AI obsesses about them, limiting its expansion.  I've seen it obsess about Heavy Artillery in a similar way in the past, and the answer was to move that to Tier 3.  So the Perimeter Defense will now follow suit.  It's too late to test the change in this game, we're long since past the Conquer 3 tech era.  But it's worth noting if I do another test game after this.  Real life is interfering a great deal with my ability to continue this particular game, so all things considered, I might start fresh.  I haven't decided yet.

In my mod, Synthmetal armor is a good defense against Scouts, and it's available as a Tier 1 tech.  Lasers are strength 3, can overcome Synthmetal armor, and aren't available until Tier 3.  The main downside to Synthmetal armor as an early defense, is you have to prototype it.  In moments of early desperation, I personally have blown an Artifact to get the job done.  If the game beginning is more relaxed, then I've just built the prototype in some high minerals city when I've had the time to do it.

The beginning of a Huge map game is supposed to be more relaxed.  With the stock binary faction placement algorithm, it's possible to get a neighbor right next to you, but it's unusual and not something you expect to happen.  You have to be prepared for the possibility, scout your immediate surroundings, and not do things that would leave you wide open to invasion, but that's about it.  Whereas in Thinker mod, I do believe I've been put into some kind of "close quarters cage match" every single test game.  When / if I start again, I'm definitely turning that off.