"builder" strats help spartans

[Daniel Senz]

carwlers are *very* vulnerable

well, crawlers are units wich can disturb the natural balance we know eg from civ2. but please keep in mind that they are very vulnerable and often not good defended.
why? of course, it appears cheaper to build a new crawler (exspecial in maintenance) than to defend them. but most times its easy to set them off. sure, the mainland is often unaccessable but those using ressources far away (and on sea) they are guerillia-food. with the doc:air or the mmi (kopter!) you can even destroy the supply line even in enemy mainland.
what do i want to say?
well, keep in mind that industry will decrease with the same speed as growing up. often the de-crawlered cities are defenseless cause they have very few "own" mineral supplys.
btw - to weaken this fact a good way is to "randomize crawler positions" - ie dont put them next to the city they are build but somewhere else

[Flubber]

I bumped this up. I am a renamed cbn and just wanted to update the progress of the MP challenge that Drago and I are conducting to test our relative positions. In the Hive game, my Hive eradicated the Spartans in 2237 and was in an unassailable position with one submissive and one AI opponent about one-tenth the size of the Hive. I did not bother to play it out.

In the other two games my University and Gaians are reasonably strong in 2255 with the Spartans still alive and kicking and a number of strong AI factions. I have 30+ bases in each game and lead in all categories in one and 6 of 7 categories in the other.


Based on the assertions as to the importance of morale in this thread I placed more emphasis on that factor in these games and have witnessed how truly important morale can be. I have watched my builds and my battles more closely and have seen that you can make your unit much stronger bytaking the time to build morale enhancing facilities.

However I remain totally unconvinced that the Spartans (or anyone one else other than the aliens) are overpowered or unbeatable. I will agree that the Spartans are a good faction, reasonably strong and very playable in a number of circumstances BUT I have yet to see an unbeatable strategy that means that the Spartans are unbeatable or even necessarily the "strongest" faction.

[DilithiumDad]

As a builder/hybrid type player I have usualy found the Spartans to be frustrating in single player, except with "Abundant Native Life" settings which makes playing the Spartans very fun. I place a great dela of importance on getting early secret projects and building network nodes and research hospitals, then adding tree farms. Building SP's and facilities is very tough for the Spartans --military units are a much better bargain (+10% cost for +25% better attack and defense).

I will have to try this Spartan strategy --It seems the key is to forget about early secret projects and just focus on capturing them, forget about those impossibly expensive Research Hospitals and rely on probes for tech. Beeline for Ind Auto then beeline for Superstring Theory, picking up lots of useful techs on the way.

Did you play with "Spoils of War" on? This setting greatly favors the Spartans and other momentum factions.

[g_storrow]

I think even though Drago Sinio spartan strategy might not be the best and like anything is beatable. He had previously only played against the AI where obviously human players are a lot better and you are used to playing MP games. I think something like that should be taken into consideration and that you knew his strategy as well.

[Flubber]

g_storrow

All true to a point. Before I embarked on the challenge I had played a grand total of one MP game from start to finish and had completed another as a replacement. Two more are ongoing (one of them only in the 2160s) so I hardly had a huge experience advantage.


I did know his overall strategy but I think thats irrelevant. When someone claims that a faction or a strategy is "unbalanced" to me they are asserting a superiority that approaches the unstoppable. If thats the case the faction or strategy should still win the vast majority of 1 on 1 games even against informed opposition. After all, all tactics were available to him.

Even though I dispute Drago's initial assertions I did learn a lot so far in this test and from his argument. I decided to accept his assertions that morale was very important and took care to increase the morale of my troops. The result was an easy time with native life and less loss of troops. I confess that I have incorporated a lot of what he was saying into my own strategies.

But I still don't accept that the Spartans are overpowered. I'm stubborn on this point since I don't accept that anyone but the aliens are overpowered. I do think that some are stronger than others but I don't see that any of the factions pull away as a certain champ. Personally, I like industry and therefore don't place the Spartans even in my favorite 5 but I just think thats a matter of personal playstyle.

[DilithiumDad]

The question is, what's the best way to play Spartans in single-player? Obviously, you are going to be putting more minerals into units and fewer into facilities, but how far do you take it? Some momentum players claim it's a mistake to build anything other than recycling tanks and rec commons --I would add Children's Creche (which has military benefits in terms of morale --after all it is Santiago who provides the text for the announcement on first build) and Command Centers to that list and more facilities in Sparta Command at least.

The new insight is regarding early Secret Projects. They cost way too much for the Spartans to afford, so better to target the factions that build them and take them away.

[Flubber]

the challenge match is over with 3 defeats for the spartans. The only conclusion that can be reached is that for now the strategy espoused by Drago is not "unbeatable". However, he has already come up with some major alterations and refinements that mean that his opponents in the future had better watch out.

[Kody]

Dregging the bottom of the barrel already.....

[Jamski]

I was looking for a thread like this. Thanks Kody.

Of course the Spartan's great strength is that they can run Demo/Planned for the popboom AND they can run FM for research, AND they can run Green for Effic late game, and the big minus is the -1 Industry.

I'm always in two minds with this faction.

-Jam

[Kody]

When I said dregging the bottom of the barrel, I meant that I didn't find anything that insightful in this particular thread about spartans.

.....

Well wanna hear my current analysis?

Spartans are actually balanced assuming default settings in a single player game.

The early game spartans are balanced because they can pop pods faster due to the rover and can withstand mindworm from pod pops better due to their morale bonus. The increased ability to pod pop and explore helps to offset their industry negative.

Mid game they've got the whole elite thing going for them. Specifically two row elite infantry with a command centre and monolith means they can conduct raids against other factions. Also they're able to pop boom for specialist growth. Also able to use freemarket combined with police state which allows for war without pacifist drones (the -2 efficiency modifier isn't that bad when you have only a couple of bases). The crawler upgrade trick can possibly be used to get one SP, but it'll still be difficult getting the extra minerals.

Late game they're average compared to factions such as Peacekeepers and Gaians. The emphasis is energy or growth not industry by that stage so spartans do fine.

_____________________________

Now for why I'm feeling like I'm in trouble. No pods in that game which means I'm going to be lagging industry wise. Assuming other players know how to gather turn advantage properly spartan will be fairly far behind.

The other problem without pods it's likely there won't be any monoliths. This means elite units won't be easy to produce until "power" or "intellectual intregity", this will probably mean that elite units won't kick in until around air power which is the time when elite infantry doesn't mean that much.

In multiplayer from what I've read people don't give into demands as easily as the AI and probing/extorting tech which is a good strategy in SP in multiplayer tends to be more difficult. Also I feel that multiplaying scenerios tends to favour builder stances due to accelerated starts that CMNs tend to give. The accelerated starts mean that the builders get on their feet faster while the mometum factions are still trying to move their units out. Free starting units makes a much bigger difference when the starting terrain is normal.

Finally I just not the war monger type that's required for playing Spartan.

[Jamski]

Yes Kody, but you don't have the hardest elite opponents in this game, so I'm sure you can do ok.

Although... I have started playing more number-crunchy than you... and I have the credits to burn...

Spartans - like all the other factions - are just as good as the player. The -1 Industry is hardly a big deal, because you end up saving minerals on drone supression (Either dead cheap police units or less drones in FM mean you can squash drones nearly as well as Lal) The extra morale means you basically PWN worms, which gives you the cash for early game rushing to keep up with the +Ind factions, and the Spartans boom so easily its scary.

If you can find a neighbour who is willing to cooperate or to be crushed before MY 2150 then the Spartans are pretty set. More cash than Yang and better research than Mim make the Spartans the best placed to settle down after the early wars, and mean you normally have best troops with best weapons, evren if the quantity is a bit poorer.

Its swings and roundabouts. No faction is perfect. Gaians are hurt by no FM, Yang needs GA to popboom, which is hard with -2 Econ, Mim has terrible problems early with research, The Uni gets proberaped terribly, and if they lose out on the VW and HSA, they can forget the late game, Morgan can be eliminated by Dee, Mim, Yang or Spartans before he's even got going, Lal has no real focus and so on...

-Jam

[Kody]

Ahh but by the time you need to start seriously worrying about drones you're almost into the midgame. Unless you're morgan trying to conduct a war in freemarket.... Then drones aren't a problem after that simply because of specialists.

From what I've can understand drones will only be an issue if you're not planning ahead.

If you can find a neighbour who is willing to cooperate or to be crushed before MY 2150 then the Spartans are pretty set.

Yeah but I don't really want to go to war...

I admit after the inital years you are okay. Just worried because I know how much the early game means.

Edit:
And I've stayed up for hours reading strategy again. Maybe I should stop trying to play this game....

[Illuminatus]

Kody, could you find one thread for Gaians?

[Skanky Burns]

Kody, why the focus on Spartans if you don't really go to war?

[Maniac]

He got stuck with them in a PBEM.