MY 2167 Planning Thread

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
It's a smax color thing - black on black for sparta.

Yeah for some reason text colour is always black in SMAX multiplayer, no matter what you set it to in spartans.pcx .
Only solution to make it readable I can think of is changing Sparta's faction colour to dark gray/grey (however that's spelled).

Doesn't look as good as white on black though IMHO.

[Maniac]

A bit closer to the original dark but of course also a bit more unreadable.

What do you think looks best of the two?

[Modo44]

Thanks guys, but I changed to Cyborg look instead.

Originally posted by Maniac
Unfotunately we don't have a strike force ready to invade Terrapeso. Though as Modo suggests, we could load up the Tiger's Claw with eg a probe and three combat units next turn, and sail towards Vander Eudaimonics. I doubt we could get further than there though with so few units.

I think we should prepare to do that anyway. If Morgan starts phony negotiations (this time we are interested in ending them!), we could teach them a lesson. The range of our transports is so good, they will hardly be able to anticipate a blow. And, as said, we can immediately gift a captured base to Yang, or leave it empty, extracting to the ship. By the way, those are few units, but those could be very strong units too.

We can always rethink this in three turns, depending on the Morgan Doc:Air situation and our relations with Yang. My idea is to prepare a potential attack, using the units available.

[Modo44]

Opened the turn. Morgan likes us... How good are the chances of a dameged B-6 destroying a Crawler? Are we willing to risk it, if it gives us a chance to destroy an AA as well? Please?

I don't understand something. Many bases show Drones with no talents to oppose that, yet there seem to be no riots. How does that work?

One more comment on a possible building spree. We should consider rushing smaller structures (I mean real rushes - as soon as the first row is built; for Rec. Tanks and Creches), and adding Energy Banks as well. It looks like some of the bigger bases could really profit from that.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Modo44

I don't understand something. Many bases show Drones with no talents to oppose that, yet there seem to be no riots. How does that work?

Ah - welcome to smax (I don't remember if it was in the original smac as well - it certainly is in the Classsic Smac that comes with smax)

We have "fake drones"

Go into each base and hit the "Psych" button (instead of the "resource" one) and you'll see that those "drones" aren't really drones at all but really contented Spartan citizens gainfully going about their business

(Ot just hit the "F4" key - that brings up the list of bases from which you'll see we have no drones)

[Maniac]

Seems like the Hive aren't planning to keep the peace... They've cut off our access to the mine and forest. On the bright side at least, they've also marched a unit in Gaian territory despite the truce.

Should we do nothing?
Or go to war again?

For the record, in case we'd go to war:

1> We can first execute a framing operation. As far as I can tell the chance for framing the Gaians is just as high/low as framing the Corporation though. So who would we want to frame?

2> If we want to declare war, don't do it directly. Ask Yang to withdraw troops, which he of course won't do. That way we prevent another reputation loss - which may be important to keep good relations with Lal - he refuses to talk to us right now.

[Maniac]

Little problem.
It seems that the way I described to flame the Fungal Tower won't work after all: the hoplite loses all its MPs when it moves to the fungal tile. That's probably because the underlying terrain is rocky.

So I guess we'd better flame that tower with the CDF right next to it. If it fails, the Skanky's Sileni can finish the job.

This means the CDF currently on the monolith would have to move in FL anyway for garrison duty. (Unless of course the CDF that flames the tower would be less than 50% damaged. Then it would have a MP left to move back to FL)

[Googlie]

Great minds think alike .....................

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Maniac
Little problem.
It seems that the way I described to flame the Fungal Tower won't work after all: the hoplite loses all its MPs when it moves to the fungal tile. That's probably because the underlying terrain is rocky.

I thought we needed the Xenoempathy Dome to get the fungus treated as roads?

[quote]So I guess we'd better flame that tower with the CDF right next to it. If it fails, the Skanky's Sileni can finish the job

This means the CDF currently on the monolith would have to move in FL anyway for garrison duty. (Unless of course the CDF that flames the tower would be less than 50% damaged. Then it would have a MP left to move back to FL)

We are hell bent on flaming it, eh? What's the ec gain versus the cost of replacing the unit{s} that might be lost in the effort?

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Maniac

1> We can first execute a framing operation. As far as I can tell the chance for framing the Gaians is just as high/low as framing the Corporation though. So who would we want to frame?

In my sims I always had a better chance of framing the gaians, for some reason (about 90% versus about 30% with Morgan)

2> If we want to declare war, don't do it directly. Ask Yang to withdraw troops, which he of course won't do. That way we prevent another reputation loss - which may be important to keep good relations with Lal - he refuses to talk to us right now.

Trouble is, he may not talk next turn or the turn after anyway. if we are unsuccessful in framing he'll declare V on us anyway, resolving that problem. If we try to "blind-control" that arty unit and fail, likewise

We could try for a double whammy - 122 for the arty and 76 for the infantryman - but there are drawbacks - costs 122 then 76 to achieve, and we'd have instant problems in MT with support

Why are we so worried about our rep in any event - we're "ruthless" after our base obliteration

EDIT: Ah - you meant that Lal refuses to talk to us right now - I had assumed Yang

In fact, Yang refuses as well

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Maniac
2> If we want to declare war, don't do it directly. Ask Yang to withdraw troops, which he of course won't do. That way we prevent another reputation loss - which may be important to keep good relations with Lal - he refuses to talk to us right now.

How do you do that, if he is ignoring our calls?

Oh, and drop the subversion idea. That cash is there to rush Rec Tanks.

Edit for spelling. I need a better keyboard...

[Googlie]

I see that Zak did indeed move that second probe from Climactic Research to Gagarin Memorial, to fill the void caused when we pulled ours out

And there's a mindworm at the outskirts of Climactic Research that we could destroy with the Skanky at Fort Liberty for the 20 ec's extra (But we'd need to move the Elite Hoplite from the monolith into FL to compensate, assuming we don't recall that CDF at the fungal tower)

And we can get that TH crawler back onto the mine, and reallocate its worker to the food special

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Modo44
Opened the turn. Morgan likes us... How good are the chances of a dameged B-6 destroying a Crawler? Are we willing to risk it, if it gives us a chance to destroy an AA as well? Please?

Sounds great!

Originally posted by Googlie
I thought we needed the Xenoempathy Dome to get the fungus treated as roads?

You indeed need the Dome to treat fungus as roads. However I noticed while normally moving on fungus costs 3 or 4 MPs, if you have a positive Planet rating, it costs only one or two, depending on the unit and the underlying terrain.

So Skanky's Sileni would use only two MPs to move on the fungal tile, and would have one left to attack the Fungal Tower.

We are hell bent on flaming it, eh? What's the ec gain versus the cost of replacing the unit{s} that might be lost in the effort?

We'd gain 60 credits, so even if we'd lose the CDF (10 mins) - which isn't sure of course - we'd still gain 6 credits per mineral lost.

Originally posted by Modo44
How do you do hat, if he is ignoring our calls?

Open the commlink menu on the right. Rightclick on Yang, and then click the option that asks to withdraw troops. Even works under solar spots IIRC.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Googlie
In my sims I always had a better chance of framing the gaians, for some reason (about 90% versus about 30% with Morgan)

However, in-game it's the same odds for either (My sim might have been suspect as i used it so many times I wonder if the game "remembers")

But if we succeed, then IMO it's better to frame Morgan

And if we fail, it doesn't matter anyhow

So, on balance, I'd go for a Morgan frame

[Modo44]

The odds being 50% to 67%, I assume? Worth a try, since it looks like we are going back to war anyway.

It seems to me Yang decided on our long-term commitment. No matter who "officially" starts the conflict, we will be fighting him for a long time now. Too bad, for my hopes to conquer Morgania were coming back.

EDIT: We could hold Yang with two B-4s, that Artillery there, and the Ogre in MT as a last resort. It would require upgrading at least one of the units in Twonuts Stand to something useful, though (in case Hive units use the fungus to get there unnoticed). That still leaves a good percentage of units free to concentrate on Morgan.