Morgan

[Vi Vicdi]

Quarterly Report (2225)
55 population in 15 bases
22 techs, 1 per 19 turns, next in 17
Weather Paradigm, Planetary Transit, & I'll have Maritime Ctrl in 5 turns

Domai, Miriam, Svensgard: Truce
Caretakers: Atrocity-crazed Vendetta

Dominance, overall: Usurper, Me, Caretaker, Pirate, Drone, Believer, Hive

AC Score 254

For a Morganite I've been running awfully thin for an awfully long time, but I've wiped out about 2/5 of the Caretakers' population and cut out about 2/3 of her territory. My Nerve gas impact rovers were doing an adequate job on opponents in the field but took about 50% casualties in base assaults. When the Perimeter Defenses started flashing up I knew it was time to pull back and regroup.

The Caretakers are fighting me on two fronts. To her north (my southwest) I have been mostly on the defensive, outmaneuvering her infantry with my rovers. My kill ratio is around 5-1, but sheer numbers have kept me from attacking M'Dar Holding, her northernmost base. I crushed a major surprise offensive from the extreme western part of this front. She kept her forces well-hidden until she was ready to strike, but a lucky sensor pod gave me just enough time to shift my forces enough to rout her.

Due to my underestimating my own industrial capacity in the east, on the Southeastern Front what I thought was a holding action turned into a major offensive that had me storming across the great dunes, roaring through Planetneck, and destroying the Caretaker capital. I plan to run down Cape Storm to eliminate some relatively new bases she has placed there, and hold the line at Planetneck. Bottled up from the North and South her units in the field will be easy to pick off if I build some bases nearby to capture her sensor pods.

My hope is to hold the line until my prototype of the R-Laser is completed & my energy reserve is high enough to upgrade my forces. That should help compensate for her perimeter defenses.

The real damage the Caretaker has done has been in the areas of Social Engineering and infrastructure development. I've pumped out a ton of crawlers, so that part of my infrastructure at least is ready, but in terms of buildings 90% of my bases have the defensive stuff (Creche, Perimeter, Cmd Center), about 75% have Rec Commons, and I've got a total of 2 (count 'em) Network Nodes -- built because I had to, for artifacts.

Social Engineering wise I've had the best success with Fundamentalism + Green (a must when fighting the Caretaker) + Wealth, but for research this is a killer. During the heaviest fighting I couldn't afford the morale hit of Wealth so I had some pretty lean times for a few years. My military took care of bidness, though!

Technologically I've got some good weapons (R-Laser & Res Armor) but I don't even have Gene Splicing. Most of my tech I got from probing the Caretaker -- Fundy kills your research, but against a technologically superior opponent (which she used to be) the probe morale is way more important. She doesn't have any more tech, so Fundy is really hurting now.

Filed under the heading "wishful thinking" is the place I've chosen for my energy park -- the Upland Wastes. Actual construction is probably 20 years away. The complaint against the "energy park", that you build it too late to affect the outcome of the game, is probably going to prove true in this case.

In most Morgan games by 2225 you've got Eco Econ, Clean Reactors, maybe a fledgling energy park, some treaties, pacts, or submissives, etc. What I've got is more like a giant trailer park. The Planetary Transit System is the only thing keeping me competitive. I can't believe I'm in 2nd place. The other factions must really be hurting.

[Vi Vicdi]

2239: 75 Population in 26 Bases. AC Score 464.
Took Empath Guild last turn & Virtual World this turn from Caretakers. Caretakers down to 7 bases. Probed Air Power from 'em. Shot down their prototype bomber w/ a "Unity Chopper." "In your face!"

Svensgaard unilaterally declared vendetta because of "Wealth" but seems to lack amphibious troops. His bases half-circle my continent from west to north to east; my Marines & first air unit prototype have already begun attacking on the east coast. He got elected governor by a 20-vote margin. Miriam voted for him, but nobody voted for me. I should've waited.

Traded treaty w/ Domai for war w/ Usurpers. Usurpers are #1 but far away. Domai has all the "big 3" restriction-lifting technologies. I will probe the Usurpers first, and will only jeapordize my treaty probing Domai if I have to. Oddly enough I'm #1 in tech, even though I don't even have Gene Splicing. Weather Paradigm has proven extremely valuable!

Now that I have captured Virtual World I'm building Network Nodes & Hab Complexes everywhere. It is long past time for building up.

[Vi Vicdi]

Domai is getting hammered by the Usurpers, so I probed him for Ecological Engineering, figuring what the heck? He declared Vendetta on me, but I needed the tech and he's about to get wiped out, anyway.

The Command Nexus has been destroyed, but if I can capture Free Drone Central from the Usurpers (difficult) it holds a huge cache of SP's (the Energy Grid, Merchant Exchange, and Human Genome Project).

I'm governor now, too!

So I'm governor, my infrastructure got hit by the Pirates but we're at peace now, the only significant war I have is with the Usurpers, and they are comfortably out of striking distance of my continent.

Finally, I've got the 3 terrain techs, and can finally start pumping some energy into my capital ... things are definitely looking up!

[Vi Vicdi]

(MY 2261, by the way)

[Vi Vicdi]

The Drones have been beaten into a tiny corner of their continent. They, like the Caretakers, have pulled the ol' "Sea Base Near the Pole" trick. At least I got a pact with Domai -- but I had to give him fusion, which was a mistake, because he'll probably give it to everyone else.

I fought another war with the Pirates, but it only lasted 1/2 a turn. The best way to fight a war is, once they declare war on you, go on the offensive, take as many bases as you can, leave them undefended, and when your opponent calls you up demanding "land for peace" accept -- that way he doesn't get to counterattack, so you don't lose your formers and crawlers. Leaving the bases undefended, meanwhile, means he doesn't get your latest military units when you give back the base.

During the fighting I took his capitol -- now his tech advances are down to 1 every 53 turns. However, that doesn't make his 2 dozen bombers any less dangerous ... yet ...

The Usurpers are another matter. They annihilated my invasion force -- at a cost of 2 bases destroyed and 1 severely damaged -- but they are too far away, particularly with the loss of their bases, to do any damage to me. I would, however, like to capture Manifold Nexus, so as to deny the Usurpers the extra 20% research they get from it! They also built the Citizen Defense SP. That will slow me down a little.

I need to start thinking about the fastest way to win the game, which as we may or may not remember was supposed to be a SPEED game. In the year 2285 my time-horizon for winning is woefully distant ...

[Meister Flo]

Vi Vicdi, You are the man . And winning your wars fast, too. I haven't played the last two weeks, but will do it soon and update my progress a little, promise.

[Vi Vicdi]

"Containment may be a moot point, old friend." -- Zed, Men in Black

TerranX is crashing consistently when I click "Turn Complete" in MY 2290.

Svensgaard flies some jets out to attack my formers. One jet finds an undefended former and starts to attack. TerranX crashes. Every freakin' time.

I have crushed the Pirates. Their jet raids are a pathetic shadow of what they once were. I have taken their capitol. They are taking their last stab before they slide into oblivion. And yet they have the power to shut down the game for good.

"TERRANX caused an invalid page fault in
module TERRANX.ICD at 015f:004bf8d3."

I have surface scanned & defragged both hard drives, to no avail. My last hope is to install SMAC-X on another machine, end the turn, and see if it crashes.

If that doesn't work I will either quit in disgust, put the game on hold until that patch they were talking about is released, or I'll have to disband all formers within range of the Pirates' jets. Either way, I'm not a happy camper ...

[Technocrat]

Vi Vicdi:

As Meister Flo said, you are the man ! I've been reading your Morganite battles for awhile, and you must be a great player - my wars invariably last for centuries, resolved only after (and if!) I have a large technological and financial edge over my opponent(s).

Anyway, I was content to just read your struggles until your last post - I've been having the same God-forsaken problem (I've found it occurs more frequently when Interceptors are involved, btw), and I also did the same things you did to try to solve it. I was originally going to post this when, after running ScanDisk and correcting a few errors on my drive, the bug appeared to go away, but, unfortunately, the bug came back within the same day, so I just want to know now whether it helped you to install the game on another machine?

Technocrat

[Drago Sinio]

Vi Vicdi, I have had the same problem many times, under exactly the same circumstance. I have had no choice but to abandon the game. It doesnt happen every game, but once it starts, it happens over and over again.

[Vi Vicdi]

I re-installed in the default directory based on advice from EA tech support and it isn't crashing anymore. This involved quite a bit of logistics, including moving the swapfile to drive D:. A major pain, but the problem is fixed.

The war with the Pirates took a turn for the weird when Svencer-for-hire decided to fly around a dozen jets ... around. I've put a blockade in place that will hopefully cause his entire airforce to crash-land. I'm really stymied as to why he just buzzed me, though, instead of attacking.

The crash was being caused by a fighter scrambling to protect a former. This time it scrambled and protected the former. No crash. Go figure.

The Usurpers finally got in an attack on my territory -- a lone needlejet took out a supply crawler. I blockaded that bomber, too ... it's at extreme range, so I'm sure I can make it crash.

The Pirates managed to take out my only transport on the eastern front, stranding 3 LST's (amphibious rovers) on a base surrounded by water. It's a race to see whether I can build another transport & pick up those ducks before they get slaughtered.

I've been trying to avoid a major military buildup until MMI & Cyborg Factory. I do NOT, however, want to fall into the piecemeal strategy that served Imperial Japan so poorly. Rush-building transports to save stranded LST's is a warning sign of exactly that ... but the Pirates have so few bases left ... and if their airforce ditches en masse ... then I keep waiting for MMI.

[Technocrat]

Wait, could you enlighten me: what's a "piecemeal" strategy?

[Vi Vicdi]

A "piecemeal" strategy is one whereby you commit whatever forces you think are necessary to achieve an objective, and as you come to find out they aren't enough, you invest a few more assets, but not enough to turn the tide, so you dole out a few more, but not enough, until ultimately your total investment becomes so great that if you had simply massed that much force to start with you would have won easily.

Flexibility is your protection against falling into this trap -- you have to recognize when it is happening, and change your approach. Because I tend to "travel light" until MMI I am extra-vigilant (paranoid?) of this particular trap.

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2297. Loaded with techs, and still no MMI! Advanced Spaceflight instead. Garden Weasels with no choppers to mount them on. Horror!

The transport I used to extend into Pirate territory got sunk with a bunch of LST's on it. The western forces were already on their way to the east, so the only thing I rebuilt was a replacement transport. When I get MMI I will have to almost build a whole army from scratch.

Part of that Western force diverted North to finish off the Caretakers. I now have an Aegis cruiser (no wpn, max armr, AAA) escorting the humble little transport foil that carries the LST's and a Marine.

The Eastern force is carried in a shiny new cruiser trn escorted by a heavy cruiser (max wpn & armr, AAA).

The military campaign has consisted mostly of hitting Usurper bombers stashed in Pirate bases. I did manage to take over the base where the LST's got sunk, and I promptly turned it over to Domai.

Domai has gone nomad, w/ global 50% inefficiency and no capitol. Poor guy. Kicked off his continent entirely. Pact brother to the end of the game, I betcha. And every base I give him makes me money!

I can't give bases to Miriam, who downgraded our pact to a treaty, because she won't talk to me. This is bad. However, she has placed bases inconveniently within my territorial waters, so war with her won't be without its upside.

Meanwhile if military production is on standby, what exactly are my factories cranking out? Supply crawlers.

I've gone mad with energy hunger. I have cranked my SE to 60% lab 10% psych 30% econ. The energy park is swarming with formers. No clean reactors or Genejack factories to help with support, either, just a lot of sweat. The oceans are packed with trawlers -- wherever I have a reasonable chance of keeping others out of my territory.

The 3 bases with Aero Complexes have been pumping out food sats (I have 12) but they are all switched to energy sats.

All this to get MMI, Cyborg Factory, and Cloudbase, then I unleash the juggernaut. I thought I was saving a bundle by not building Bioenhancement Centers, Aero Complexes, or military units until MMI, and truthfully if my position were weaker it would have been a big mistake.

However, I'm sitting on a huge continent, my enemies are far away, and the momentum of all the infrastructure development I've got going will carry me for the rest of the game when I switch to military production. I'm getting 2 turns per tech (3 if econ set to 40%). One Artifact is also in the pipe.

Secret Projects: About 30 turns ago I tweaked my efficiency by moving my capitol South to Morgan Mines, where I built The Supercollider. Now I am halfway done w/ Theory of Everything at Morgan Industries. A former Caretaker base in the Monsoon Jungle is about 30% done w/ Living Refinery. Basically whenever an SP becomes available I build it.

And STILL NO MMI! (Grrr ...)

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2300

Well, a few short years later and everything has changed. Miriam declared war on me, I got MMI, my 1st chopper just got built (prototyped Plasma Shard to boot), I'm 1 turn away from Cloudbase and 3 from Cyborg (I'll pay to get it now if nothing else) and the Living Refinery and Theory of Everything are, well, let's just say a little further behind schedule than a couple of turns ago (evil grin).

T of E is being relocated to a base with ocean access which is good because at the very beginning of the game an earthquake cut off Morgan Industries from the ocean. I have the Ocean bases can quickly bring energy trawlers on-line.

I switched my SE to 50% econ / 40% lab to take advantage of my new techs. I've got a couple more artifacts now, too, so more money is definitely the way to go.

My prototype chopper's first turn it scored 3 kills. Miriam zapped a bunch of trawlers and a couple of formers, so she's got my number thusfar. We'll see, when her bombers land, how quickly I can turn around my kill ratio ...

The Pirates are near death, because my forces, though meager, are combined in an appropriate way, so he has no chance of fending me off (he has no fighters!). The forces that crushed H'Minee have swung Southeast to destroy Pirate holdings on the coast east of "The Ruins" while the Eastern force is hitting his holdings on The Ruins' west coast. This force is out of range of air support. I will have to put my faith in the Aegis buying enough time to unload the transport should things get nasty.

The Usurpers have used a Pact with Miriam to start bombing me again. I lost a crawler and a former. Miriam has put sea bases all along my west coast. I'll be vulnerable for a few turns. On the upside I managed to recapture Manifold Nexus from the Usurpers, and I've got about 4 1-4-2 AAA/ECM's patrolling the area, along with a huge mindworm and an island airbase which has served very well. When my invasion force was crushed about 25 turns ago the airbase allowed that force's 2 bombers to continue operating without pause. Being on an island it is almost impossible to attack except from the air! I have used the defense rovers and bombers for "screening" for about 20 turns, just to harass and draw out the Usurpers, but after capturing a wayward mindworm this "nuisance force" managed to get back Manifold Nexus! Pretty cool.

Yang keeps to himself ... well he is on the other side of the map. Unless he pacts w/ the Usurpers he won't be much of a threat.

My only ally for the rest of this game appears to be Domai. The U.N. Charter is consequently looking less and less attractive. He'll never turn because I keep giving him bases, so once the Charter's gone I will have complete freedom.

Amazing what can happen in 2 or 3 turns, isn't it?

[khendon]

Hi!

I guess this is a stupid question, but you're all playing on the hardest difficulty level, right?