I perfectly see what you mean. And I mean literally see, because I infiltrated you in 2140, when we met. The game was essentially over even back then, but I wanted to play some more to see you pop-booming and see how many Projects I can grab.
Several comments on the gameplay:
Yes, you made a few mistakes like switching to FM, which was indeed a bad idea (only in the hindsight, back then I thought it’s valid). But apart from that, you don’t have much to kick yourself in the butt for. The main problem was playing Santiago as a half-baked builder. I take that back, the main problem was just playing Santiago. She really lost
a lot in my eyes here. And this whole talk about going for IntInt, policing, etc. right now really seems a huge steaming pile of BS. I suspected it a bit, but I’m honestly surprised at the dismal inefficiency of Santiago trying to grow peacefully.
When we get to the bottom of this, there is only one reason you couldn’t win this game – mineral advantage. Deirdre can’t run FM, but her inherent bonus cancels out nicely with Planned, so she runs it for free. Considerably early IA gives her +2 Industry and option to build crawlers. And essentially the game was over at this moment. There is one thing which is not that obvious to many players – in SMAC, mineral advantage gives you initiative. With +2 Ind, I could afford to build an early probe foil. I found you very quickly due to the map layout (I started in the middle and had the Mount of Planet; I figured you must be in the middle as well, and then I saw another Mount of Planet; I swam there in a straight line and sure enough, quickly found and infiltrated Sparta Command; it was way too easy and something to mention to Darsnan). And early infiltration allows you to save a lot of minerals, because you know what you have to prepare for. Since 2140, I’ve known that I didn’t need defensive probes, patrolling boats or stuff like that. I didn’t even have to bother with sensors. All I did was switch my entire production to crawlers and take it from there.
In the last turn, after cashing towards VW, I’m left with 30 active crawlers. This means that I have built 64 crawlers in total, while you didn’t even have IA yet. I had several bases with eco-damage (21-25 minerals/turn). I think there’s absolutely nothing you could do about that. I consider you a good player, honestly, it’s just that the extent Santiago sucks... wow.
I also believed that pop-boom for Sparta is a valid strategy, but now I can only say to myself – really? You honestly thought that?
Without IA, you have no crawlers and are quickly left behind in the race for minerals. I crawled the entire Mount of Planet around and could fight Miriam using only one base.
Without Planetary Networks, you have no means to infiltrate and vastly limited capability to prevent infiltration. Here at ac2 not many people see the power of probes and infiltration and frankly, I’m really surprised about that. A successful infiltration allows you to save literally hundreds of minerals not spent on defences.
For the early pop-boom, you need farms instead of forest. This is yet again a huge deal, as they build longer and yield no energy. And don’t spread. No, foresting is the key to the early game, and now I’m inclined to think that pre-tree farm pop-boom is a suicide. Maybe it would be better with WP, but Sparta is not going to have WP.
You don’t compete for SPs and give your enemy a free reign here. Seriously, I was wondering if I can squeeze out all of them (including CN, ME and MCC) and the answer is: quite likely. I didn’t even need VW that much, what with HGP+PTS combo.
Building hordes of crawlers gave me a lot of money from stockpiling. Meanwhile, as Sparta you need to put at least CC and possibly RecCommons in all your bases, at the annoying 0 Industry at best. And with little money to hurry. All this means you can’t really build probes, make decent exploration, worm hunting, etc. The sole fact that you allow your opponent to take PTS effortlessly is a
huge disadvantage of this strategy.
Kata, what were we thinking? This strategy is good for single player only. Sparta with IntInt has no crawlers, no money, no SPs, poor terraforming, and must count every mineral, so also no exploration, probe defence/offence, etc.
I want to explore and be good with all factions, even the sucky ones, so I’d be happy to thoroughly discuss it and set up a new game, maybe with another strategy, maybe I could play Sparta to see what my options are. Maybe we can both play Sparta. But the conclusion of this game remains for me that Sparta sucks big time. You really don’t have to be too harsh on yourself (but the next time, please don’t sell your map to Domai so I can buy it for 50 bucks).
So what do you think? Do we play again? I’m all for it. Do we want to try something new with poor factions or go the standard route? I’m for the former again.
