Speculation on dealing with the Spartans

[arginine]

I know it is way to early to speculate on this, but if angels & gaians have contact and are both in the south. That would put the Spartans in the north right next door to us. If the gaians and angels form an alliance, what would we do with the spartans?

Would we form an unholy alliance of a mighty spartan war machine backed by the research and industry of Morgan Industries bent on world domination?

Would we be uneasy neighbors whom share tech and trade purely out of necesity, but have closely watched borders?

Would we be enemies, and try to get peace and trade with whomever we can?

I know this is to early to tell how things will turn out, but we will meet our neighbor soon should we quickly build a few quick exploration foils.

[Whoha]

We can't fight the spartans, and they can't fight us. The hippie team wins if that happens.

[jtsisyoda]

I'm 80% sure the gaians and angels have cooperated already. If that's true, we could be left behind if we don't enlist the Spartans to cooperate. If it's not true, cooperating with the Spartans would simply increase our tech lead over the other two factions. Whatever we give to the Spartans, we give to ourselves as well, in a manner of speaking (assuming fair trades).

Is there a downside to it? Only if they attacked us. But if we're in cooperation, why on Chiron would they attack us first? They would almost certainly attack a faction that's not helping them. Morganite principles state friends are more profitable than enemies, and likewise, Spartan principles might be "attack your enemies first, then your friends".

[Drogue]

Just a reminder that co-op victory is off, so though alliances are possibly, they can't be taken to the end of the game.

[arginine]

If the Spartans have a mighty military compared to our weak one, they would be better off eating us and then deal with the hippie alliance and Yang. If they have a decent army with impactor weaponry and near elites and invade next turn, we will be crippled, if not wiped out. This underscores the importance of finding who's next door soon. I know that's paranoia, but we don't know what they are up to. Fortunately, it looks like they have spent most of their energies on expansion.

If we went to extremes in cooperation with the Spartans, specialization could be very effective. The spartans could pop boom our cities, use their cities to support formers working our territory (4 support is a mighty thing) and all the offensive military units of the alliance. We could build facilities in their cities, churn out weapons for our alliance offensives, and keep them up to date on technology. We could also use the Spartans to bully other factions into trade treaties, influence votes on the planetary council (for governer and the global trade pact)

[Mead]

Without cooperative victory the diplomacy will be interesting.

If the DA and Gaians are cooperating if we and the Spartans do not then ithe the DA or Gaians will be more likely to win.

We cannot cooperate with the Spartans (and the DA cannot cooperate with the Gaians) with an eye towards cooperation forever.

We, all, must look out for our own best interests.

I suggest we cooperate with eveyone on a transaction by transaction basis. I do not like to be duplicitous. I feel with can behave reliably (and maximize our profits) by dealing well/honestly with our opponents. They are all our opponents. If some other faction wants to feel like they owe us something for our cooperation then so be it, but we (ourselves) should remember that we are in this for ourselves.
Be polite, make no promises that are unprofitable for us, keep all the promises we make, and have a plan for killing all of our business partners.


Mead

[jtsisyoda]

Yes, this is all about how we can use them until we don't need them.

Unfortunately, since Morgan is usually the most hard-core builder, the Spartans might consider us natural first-targets.

Elite Impact Marines... the Spartans only need App Phys, Nonlinear, and Initiative, since they already have Flex. They may have some of those other techs already, too. Sensors and HEC(Plasma) would be the minimum required to hold them off.

[Micha]

With Jamski in the Spartan team, we shouldn´t be too sure of their integrity. Remember, he was the one who wanted the Hive to backstep the permipacted Drones in ACDG2...

I agree with jts, HEC´s the way to go. Or maybe even this 3+ armor (resonance?) that adds a bonus vs. speeders, for spartans usually have lots of speeders...

[jtsisyoda]

ECM vs. rovers comes with Adv Subatomic, two techs after HEC. Also two techs away from HEC is D:AP. I'd rather have D:AP.

Buster said some interesting things last game about backstabbing. Most people prefer to keep their word. When one person controls a faction, there's still a definite chance they'll go back on it. But getting a majority of a large team to be ok with "distasteful" backstabbing is unlikely.

However, the joint victory option was enabled for that game. In this game, you have no choice but to turn against any allies, eventually. We expect the Spartans to turn on us. But helping us first, then attacking us, is better than just straight up attacking us at the beginning.

[-SafaN-]

The only thing that can prevent them from making us the first target is a powerfull gaian-data angels alliance
we have to make them believe that we are always an easy target, while the other two can become to big for them.
And then we buy them before they understand they were wrong

[Impaler[WrG]]

Hey just though I would drop in I've been working hard on the FreeOrion Project at www.freeorion.org but wanted yall to know I am still lurking (not that thats realy very usefull)

I think its likly that all 4 factions could agree to weakening Yang who has realy taken off with some ungodly Mod help (Presumably Monsoon Jungle and Energy Bonuses/BoreHoles everware). The spartans are realy the only ones who have the potential to go up against Yang toe-to-toe so we would be wise to pay them to do so and then "Aquire" some Hive bases/ tecnologies of our own durring the fight.

[arginine]

It's good that you're supporting making a classic Master of Orion type game. Another good one would be very nice.

I suspect we are going to do some thinking once we build the next SP (looks like the PTS) and make contact with the AIs on the island.

What do you mean " are really the only ones". Any human faction could take them on, provided they can withstand Yang's masses. The Spartans do have an advantage, but they are not essential.

[Impaler[WrG]]

At this time I cant realy see any of the Human Factions going up against Yang with any sucsess. Well maybe the Gaians if they have a bunch of worms but definatly not Us or the Angels. As the game progresses though Human factions will outpace Yang and if we wait long enough ANY of them could take him out.

[arginine]

I was expecting contact, but not so soon...

There are different catagories.
General, Research and Technology, Military Affairs, Dealing with the AI, Relations with the Data Angels and Relations with the Gaians...

That would suggest they want cooperation. However, we have no idea of their military strength and their troop positions. Until we get impact weaponry or at least HE chem, we can not build even a decent defensive military.