Expand sea territory?

[nepeta]

Stupid AIs are always hugging my sea bases, or squatting on my beaches nearby land bases, very annoying as I don't want to go to war with my allies all the time for their clingy behaviour, which is only programmed.

So I'd like to make the teritorial boundaries extend into sea as far as they do on land, but I must be overlooking something in the text files. Please help

[vyeh]

There is no place to modify the text files to extend territorial boundaries into sea as far as they do on land.

Edit: Added clarifying language. See Petek's post below.

[Petek]

There is no place to modify the text files to extend territorial boundaries.

vyeh,

Did you mean to state that there's no way to extend territorial boundaries in the sea? The following line in Alpha(x).txt:

8, ; Territory: max distance from base

lets you change territory on land, but has no effect on sea squares.

Petek

[nepeta]

Yeah, I saw that line, assumed I must be missing something similar for sea territory, but alas

Thank you for confirming

[The Odor]

But at least in Alien Crossfire there is a clear marking for sea territory, which was not in the original game.

[551262]

If you want to guard your coasts, which are extremely vulnerable to amphibious troopers and probe teams bilking away tech (at least in MP), then you can build a ring of sea bases surrounding your coasts.

It's pretty expensive, but it gives you early warning to major incursions. It can also give the enemy a hopping point for his needlejets should he take the base -- which he probably will given that outside defenses are difficult to keep in tip-top shape. Let's say you had 6 garrison units, 4 probe teams, 4 needlejets, three foils and two cruisers per base, that's not only expensive to support but upkeep is not fun. Still, a warning is better than a rude knock on Morgan Collections sitting pretty at size 17 swiped by a Hive offensive against your coastline.

But there's another strategy. Leave just one probe garrison unit, say probe-4-1*2 and some AAA garrison. Stock a needlejet or two, one can patrol and the other can be on standby. (Choppers are fair game too, although I don't use them unless the A.I. uses them. Choppers make the game boring. Rotors do make the skies free of needlejets...) But leave the base as size 1 by crawling all its nutrients except the one for one pop. This forces the opponent to either use a foil/cruiser probe team to steal the base, or take it out entirely. Either way, when he does take it, there won't be anything free left. Foil and cruiser probe teams can be spotted with lookouts (deep radar AAA defensive foils, stack it on top of another unit so nobody can steal it) or needlejet patrols. Only problem with needlejet patrols is that your patrol radius is limited to 1/2 of your available moves. So a fusion penetrator will only have a patrol radius of 6, this allows it to return to base in the same turn, take off again next turn and so on. But equipped with deep radar does allow you to spot a cruiser probe team (with 6 moves).