The Planet Rising - May2014 GotM scenario for the Pirates

[Yitzi]

Well, I played a few more turns, and he showed up in force...

[Dio]

Conventional Payloads to the face hurt...

[Mart]

Was patch version specified?

I played with last scient version (I guess)

[Kirov]

Created with some previous version of Yitzi's, works fine with the current one and I'm quite sure with scient's.

[Yitzi]

It's occurred to me that due to the effect of PLANET, and the fact that isles of the deep are transports and can unload onto your island (as I found out the hard way), and the ability to bombard, the attack-focused approach probably is better despite using slightly more expensive units.

Also, I think probing for techs is going to be an important part of a winning strategy...now for another try and see how that goes...

[Yitzi]

Well, I found a bug that has a huge impact on this scenario: If you bombard a unit with psi defense (either from a ship or an artillery unit) with a non-psi unit, the attacker gains the benefit of its weapon against the 1 or 2 of the psi defender.  Obviously, this makes your battleship too powerful (but being unable to bombard at all is too much of a weakness), so I plan to fix it and post patch version 3.0.0 with it fixed, so that the scenario can be played without the bug.

[Vishniac]

Well, I found a bug that has a huge impact on this scenario: If you bombard a unit with psi defense (either from a ship or an artillery unit) with a non-psi unit, the attacker gains the benefit of its weapon against the 1 or 2 of the psi defender.  Obviously, this makes your battleship too powerful (but being unable to bombard at all is too much of a weakness), so I plan to fix it and post patch version 3.0.0 with it fixed, so that the scenario can be played without the bug.

Why should this be a bug?
If my battleship (remember USS Iowa and his pals?) bombards mind worms from 25km away and wipe out a full football-field surface of mind worms with one shot, I can't see how psi defense could counter-attack or even help (except spore launcher, being artillery themselves).

[Yitzi]

Well, I found a bug that has a huge impact on this scenario: If you bombard a unit with psi defense (either from a ship or an artillery unit) with a non-psi unit, the attacker gains the benefit of its weapon against the 1 or 2 of the psi defender.  Obviously, this makes your battleship too powerful (but being unable to bombard at all is too much of a weakness), so I plan to fix it and post patch version 3.0.0 with it fixed, so that the scenario can be played without the bug.

Why should this be a bug?
If my battleship (remember USS Iowa and his pals?) bombards mind worms from 25km away and wipe out a full football-field surface of mind worms with one shot, I can't see how psi defense could counter-attack or even help (except spore launcher, being artillery themselves).

It shows weapon and armor as what they're supposed to be (e.g. psi 1 vs. psi 1 when attacking sea), but the strength is calculated using the unit's actual weapon.  It also allows the defender to benefit from bonuses that normally don't apply in psi combat, unless the attacker is a spore launcher.  Plus, there used to be a bug with spore launcher attacks not working properly, so it seems that the bug was actually all psi artillery, and what happened is that they fixed it by saying "work properly if it's a spore launcher", but didn't fix the underlying problem.

[Yitzi]

Well, having looked at the code, it seems it's not a bug...however, using the ability to bombard psi units as though they had armor 1 will probably make even the "hard" version too easy, so I still plan to provide a "fix" so that people who want to try it without that exploit can do so.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, I played a few more turns, and he showed up in force...

As in you lost?

[Vishniac]

...using the ability to bombard psi units as though they had armor 1 will probably make even the "hard" version too easy...

You'll notice that we are waiting for someone to post their win with either version...

[Yitzi]

Well, I played a few more turns, and he showed up in force...

As in you lost?

Yeah.  I think that offense is the way to go...

...using the ability to bombard psi units as though they had armor 1 will probably make even the "hard" version too easy...

You'll notice that we are waiting for someone to post their win with either version...

Point...maybe I should try with abusing bombardment and see if I can at least do the normal version that way, just to check that it can be done (though it's still a cheap tactic).

[Vishniac]

Tried again. Stopped in 2132 already: locusts took Port Svensgaard and another base and killed 4 or 5 formers...

To have a chance, those early locusts should be removed.
To be more in theme, Cult should be in vendetta with factions other than Deirdre and those factions should be well-inclined towards the Pirates. That would show the "mankind unites against a common threat" factor. While, in my previous game, I had to fight Zak who was in Treaty with Cha Dawn and who, I suppose, gave him Fusion Power! 

[Buster's Uncle]

Which difficulty version are you talking about?

[Vishniac]

The standard one alas...
And by 2132 the Cult also already got the HGP, the WP and a third SP