Sparta-Gaian relations

[Kassiopeia]

Now, with Morgan possibly out of the picture, the Gaian door is again in our sights. Should we try to warm up them a little (in a positive sense)? I was thinking of maybe pulling a googlie and sending Illuminatus an unofficial "memorandum" where I lament the evils of the Morganites, extol the possible compatibilities of Spartan and Gaian ideology and generally just let them know that we know more about the Morgans than you do and that they are going to be a big problem if we let them go unchecked.

Alternatively, someone else could do this, since it might be a good idea to keep my role in our "splintering" relatively neutral, so the factions can always be sure that the Chief Diplomat's possible bias won't influence him, and that he's really the "voice of Sparta", not the "voice of the Gaian-minded Spartans".

I have to emphasise that we really could use a pactmate before we go after Zak. With the Gaians that might not be as easy, however...

[KrysiasKrusader]

I'd like to know why we really need a pactmate before trouncing on an AI faction.

I'd like to know why we've seem to have had a sudden reversal in our general strategy (again).

[Googlie]

Originally posted by KrysiasKrusader
I'd like to know why we've seem to have had a sudden reversal in our general strategy (again).

Hmmm - I never did see these shifts as "reversals in our strategy" - more as discussions about what our strategy should be

Do we yet have a strategy?

Way back, (when the earth was young, yadda yadda, etc) we discussed what Sparta could do. It was felt then that enslaving Zak (if the game mechanics would allow him to be subservient to 2 factions) would be a good avenue to pursue. get him beefed up reserach wise, in a submissive pact to us, and either ensure that he gets the HSA, or else we'll garrison probes in his bases.

(A scenario can be built to have a faction subservient to 2 others, but I've never been able to test it in game play - or had the patience to, perhaps)

Then when we saw that Yang had the tech lead, we started discussing whether taking him out was maybe the best way to go, and trade with Zak/steal from Zak for what we needed

Only last turn did we infiltrate Zak, and saw how pitifully weak his defenses are (versus Yang's 37 1-2-2's or whatever), so now the discussion has veered again.

Waaaay back, also, the Gaians were identified as prolly the last faction standing with us (elites versus their wormy army), then we (I) plotted the Morgan link with a leapfrog pact, and we blueskied that.

Now we are again looking at/discussing a Uni invasion & enslavement, followed (inevitably) by a war with Lal.

A pactmate would be useful - not so much that we need one to assist militarily, but to assist diplomatically

ie, if it is seen as purely a Spareta grab for the AI's assets, we'll quickly trigger the 3 : 1 that we don't want.

But, for example, if it's seen as, say, a Sparta-Gaian alliance against the AI in general (our elites plus their wormy army taking on allcomers from the AI side), then Morgan and the Angels will be less fearful and suspicious of us. And if it drove them into each others arms, and loosened the apparent Angels-Gaian axis, then so much the better from our point of view.

So, in summary, I don't see it as a Strategy reversal at all (as, honestly, I don't think we've developed our military startegy yet) And I see a pactmate as being useful to avoid the ganging up that would cripple us in this game.

[KrysiasKrusader]

Originally posted by Googlie


Hmmm - I never did see these shifts as "reversals in our strategy" - more as discussions about what our strategy should be

Do we yet have a strategy?

Good point, and well said.

I have a hard time getting my words to mean what I'm thinking. And since I have a hard time thinking sometimes, this makes it doubly confusing for me.
(laugh!).

I'll be back here a little later. I'm working on a post in the covert thread for now...


Edit: And now I'm here...

Originally posted by Googlie
A pactmate would be useful - not so much that we need one to assist militarily, but to assist diplomatically

if it is seen as purely a Spareta grab for the AI's assets, we'll quickly trigger the 3 : 1 that we don't want.

Ahhh... Okay. Yes. That is wise, and am totally in agreement.

Originally posted by Googlie
So, in summary, I don't see it as a Strategy reversal at all (as, honestly, I don't think we've developed our military startegy yet) And I see a pactmate as being useful to avoid the ganging up that would cripple us in this game.

Bon, temps mieux.

No. We don't really have a strategy.

Be nice if we could get one going. Too bad talks are always so slow with the other factions, it seems.

I've compiled a list in the general covert thread of our likely opponents in the other factions. perhaps if we selected to eliminate the strongest camp first, and worked our way to leaving the weakest for last.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Thoughts from the others?

I like it.
Something else we could add is that we'll only give the Gaians DocFlex two turns before they would research it.
The official reason would be that it would be unfair if they had the ability to use DocFlex way before we gain the ability to use HEC.
The real reason would be because they then have to tell when they will research DocFlex, which is useful information to determine how long we should make the no-trade terms with the Angels.

[Maniac]

I've been using Minute Mirage's Technology Choices Chart to see if the Gaians could select High Energy Chemistry after we gave them EthCalc & DocFlex. Problem is of course we don't know for sure what techs they have. Are we sure they have SocPsych & ProgPsych? This of course makes a great difference as currently (without the Psychs) HEC is at #2 of the mod3. (For those who don't know what I'm talking about, have a look at the last link in the Factional Datalinks.) If they have exactly one of those two techs (thus not none or both), they'll be unable to select HEC (and also DocLoy btw should SocPsych be that one tech). Also in the embassy Illuminatus IIRC said that they'll steal a tech from the Hive in two turns. If that's true, that complicates the situation even more of course.

[Googlie]

But if I'm right, then they'll steal the highest level tech that the Hive has - and his highest are only level 2 techs:

Flex
Polysoft
Nonlinear Math
Doc Loyalty

The game mechanics rate each tech with an "importance" number, which relates to the faction's priorities and aversions. The Gaians' is Explore, and Flex is an explore tech, so that will be ranked highest by the game engine. So they'd steal Flex.

(but if it's 2146 before their probe steals, they'd then get Yang's newly discovered (2145) Optical Computers, a higher, level 3, tech)

(Were it us, we'd get Doc Loyalty before Polysoft, 'cos the former is a Conquer (Powers's our priority) while the latter is a discover tech)

[Maniac]

Wow, interesting info!

A question, when you're playing blind research, do the research priorities affect what tech you steal, or is it solely determined by the faction's inherent priorities?

[Googlie]

I believe that your research priorities would factor into the engine

It'd be easy to test with a scenario - give my faction (say the Uni) a bunch of all 4 types of techs, then go to, say, Sparta as an AI but make its priority, say, discover. Then plant a couple of probes outside one of my bases and see what they steal

That'd reveal whether it defaulted to the Faction's core value in Alphax.txt or whether it was influenced by looking up the in-game priorities

[Googlie]

Here's the extract from alphax.txt regarding the tech tree (my bolding and italics):

Name, id, ai-mil, ai-tech, ai-infra, ai-colonize, preq(1), preq(2), flag

(although it says ai- this and ai- that, some years ago the tests illustrated that it also applied to human-controlled factions in PBEMs)

Doctrine: Flexibility, DocFlex, 2, 0, 1, 4, Mobile, None, 000000000

Doctrine: Loyalty, DocLoy, 3, 0, 2, 2, Mobile, Psych, 000000000

Thus to a colonizing (explore) faction, Flex is the more important tech

[Googlie]

Note to file

The Gaians obtained the technologies Doctrine Mobility and Gene Splicing upon opening their 2142 turn and accepting their profferred trade to us

Both techs are embargoed for 3rd party trading for five years, so the earliest the Gaians could onward-trade either would be the 2148 year

[KrysiasKrusader]

Doctrine: Flexibility, DocFlex, 2, 0, 1, 4, Mobile, None, 000000000

Doctrine: Loyalty, DocLoy, 3, 0, 2, 2, Mobile, Psych, 000000000

I remember reading a post, oh... gotta be years ago now, where someone actually cracked the code for how the computer selects what you'll be getting next while in blind research.
Anybody know what I'm talking about?

[Maniac]

Will we give the Gaians any formal response to the their trade refusal, or just keep absolute silence?

[Kassiopeia]

We discussed what we should do, and I think there was a good proposal from someone, but it's in some other thread and I can't find it right now.

[Googlie]

Was it this?

Author unknown
I'd be inclined to release an official communiqué to both factions that because of the abrupt refusal of all our possible and open proposals by the Gaians, we have decided only to trade techs to both factions at the same time, and not to only one faction.