newbie plays deirdre

[joncnunn]

Might I sugest patroling your boarders with some military units, particlary native life forms that are immune from probe teams, to intercept and destroy enemy probe teams before they can reach your cities?

This is partically easy to do against the AI which apprently hasn't heard of the Destroyer Probe and instead just uses land based probe teams placing them on transports.

Originally posted by lord of the mark

I just got access to Knowledge, but im reluctant to go for that until i get the SP that stops probe attacks. Especially with my big tech lead, theres a lot worth stealing. I could build probe teams at every base, I suppose.

[joncnunn]

Continued thoughts on Gaia:

3. Most of your military should be native life forms. In particalar, the only land units you need is the best defender (with AAA and Trance as they become adviable) & mind worms.

You may need a couple of Gunfoils to acquire some isles, but the rest of the navy can be isles of the deep.

If you miss out on the SP that gives you a free inflitaror, you may also need a Destroyer Probe Team as a backup inflitration in case you get defeated for governor.

The airforce can also consist entirely of Locusts if you get out to a big enough tech lead, otherwise you might need a few Needlejets or Chopters. Once you have a dozen locusts, you can win the game any time you want by simply running over one oppoent at a time, continuing to build new locusts, until you control enough votes to be elected plantary governor.

4. As Gaia, remember the food bonsus in fungus. From the very beginning, you get 2 food from fungus (1 from CE which you start with and the other from being Gaia). Consequantly, farms and condesors aren't really needed in an abdundant fungus enviorment, just plant some forests, let them spread on their own and use your formers to enlarge your land mass. (Be sure to build the Weather Paradigm.) And with the tech for Voice of the Planet, fungus booms on forest become welcome, and you might even want to convert forest into fungus yourself.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Continued thoughts on Gaia:

3. Most of your military should be native life forms. In particalar, the only land units you need is the best defender (with AAA and Trance as they become adviable) & mind worms.

You may need a couple of Gunfoils to acquire some isles, but the rest of the navy can be isles of the deep.

If you miss out on the SP that gives you a free inflitaror, you may also need a Destroyer Probe Team as a backup inflitration in case you get defeated for governor.

The airforce can also consist entirely of Locusts if you get out to a big enough tech lead, otherwise you might need a few Needlejets or Chopters. Once you have a dozen locusts, you can win the game any time you want by simply running over one oppoent at a time, continuing to build new locusts, until you control enough votes to be elected plantary governor.
.

Your strat will work pretty well in single player but I like to advise people as to the oparts that will not work when playing competent human opposition.

First native ground units are reasonably powerful early but rather weak by even the early part of the midgame since
1. they are slow outside fungus
2. Every kill is a tough one-- opponents use trance scouts which are supre cheap
3. Artillery--This just DECIMATES native life-- any opponent that sees you coming can bombard you from 2 squares away.


IODs-- these seem to be good naval units but they are just weak-- If they are free captured ones thats great but there is nothing on the sea that has a good survival rate against competent opposition- The only tactic I have seen to be effective ( pre-airpower) is simply to outnumber an opponents navy-- But if you go IODs alone, an opponent needs only to build basic trance ships to have an advantage whenever you attack


Locusts-- If you wait until locusts you are dead-- Choppers RULE this game ( combined with drop units)

Don't get me wrong, locusts are good and valuable to capture remote bases-- I like them BUT -- they are somewhat weak attackers ( against trance AA), artilley just wipes them away and an opponet can win a war of attrition using cheap gun empath choppers

The biggest knock on native life is its expense. For every locust you build, I could use the same mineral expense to build some empath gun choppers and a decent SAM arty.

The second knock on locusts is their range-- At most it is 8 tiles. . . while you may be used to sneaking up on your enemies, you would find a human will be patrolling-- my favorite is the sea crawler with radar-- base it on a tile about 4 tiles off the coast ( so nothing sneaks between them and your sensors) ands patrol with it each turn-- IN any event, a good opponent will see you coming and could hit you on the way in

I'm not trying to knock you or your strategy but I will say that overreliance on one element alone rarely works in the PBEM world-- To succeed you must be reasonably strong with respect to conventional military, native warfare and probe warfare. Leave a vulnerability in one of these areas and you will regret it

[gwillybj]

SMAC = A Game for the Whole Family

Originally posted by lord of the mark
... my daughter asked me "would deirdre really do that"...

Is it time for a multiplayer game?
Lord of the Mark vs Maiden of the Mark

[lord of the mark]

Re: SMAC = A Game for the Whole Family

Originally posted by gwillybj

Is it time for a multiplayer game?
Lord of the Mark vs Maiden of the Mark

nah she likes talking about the faction leaders' personalities - she finds all the wars and unit pushing and city managing boring ("well at least daddy's not playing Civ2 anymore") She's pushing for "the sims" instead - which we'll get, eventually. At least she's not pushing for a console.

[lord of the mark]

re: worms versus choppers

once i got choppers, i found them more effective than worms. while they start weak due to the morale issue, i can move them up in morale by taking on wild worms, and enemy formers and pods, and weak enemy units. Also use of them to move around bombing sensors helps.

OTOH, now that principle opponent (Morgan) has AA defense, theyre much less powerful. Im trying a combo of copters and worms, with worms focusing on the strongest AA units, copters on everything else plus bombing the sensors. I just build Cyborg Factory, so that should help.

[lord of the mark]

ive also enjoyed using formers to plant fungus near enemy bases, which hurts their production, and gives me a route for attack.

[CEO Aaron]

LoTM: I'm assuming you're protecting your former with some kind of badass garrison unit while it plants fungus on enemy territory? On a separate note, so long as you avoid Wealth and have Creches built, DeeDee's morale penalty is effectively negated. I agree with you that once your opponent gets the appropriate worm-defense techs (empath, trance, artillery) conventional units get much more useful.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
LoTM: I'm assuming you're protecting your former with some kind of badass garrison unit while it plants fungus on enemy territory? .

in some cases yes, but in others just moving lots of formers in, and using copters and worms to opportunistically attack any units i can. Im using it against morgan, and he doesnt have all that many units around.

Im also using it on Miriam. There i did keep defenders around - now im in truce, and i can keep doing it without violating the truce - making it an even more powerful tactic.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
LoTM: I'm assuming you're protecting your former with some kind of badass garrison unit while it plants fungus on enemy territory? On a separate note, so long as you avoid Wealth and have Creches built, DeeDee's morale penalty is effectively negated. I agree with you that once your opponent gets the appropriate worm-defense techs (empath, trance, artillery) conventional units get much more useful.

Ive probably underbuilt creches, i tend think of them only for growth, forgot moral impact.