World War AC

[death_head]

I'd still be concerned about the rover rush...I never said I knew what I was doing

Anyhow, I've decided to play the tech game now, so when I get around to it (kinda busy) I'll post a report.

[Velociryx]

Okay…lesson learned. Going it alone is a bad plan, as is spending too much time focused on infrastructure. Yang showed up in force with a bevy of Gatling rovers and took one of my border towns. Not a problem, I had some probes handy, so I probed two rovers and used them to beat the attack force back and “retake” the town—destroyed it on the recapture tho, and the damage was done.

The upshot was that I wasn’t even close to gatling technology, so that gave me a boost, and coupled with the researching of Plasma armor a couple turns later put me in (I thought) a good position.

So there I was, racing like a rabid dog toward clean reactors so I could start pumping out an endless supply of whosits and whatsits on the evil empire, bulking up my border bases—no time for infrastructure there! With the best troops I could build (and mixing in liberal numbers of probe teams besides).

Not quite fast enough.

Waves two and three arrived more or less at the same time. It was interesting to see the AI actually appear to coordinate the attack. It was also interesting to get the daylights beaten outta me!

I fought a delaying action, throwing everything (including the kitchen sink) at them, hoping to stall the march long enough to get a few planes in the air but it was no good. In the end, I DID have two jets in operation, and choppers on the way….they served me well, but there just weren’t enough of them to get the job done, so….I got tossed in the tanks.

That’s okay though, I think the core strategy is sound….it just needs a bit of tweaking.

On my next run through, here’s the general plan:
1) Beeline for Ind. Auto, and then straight to Centauri Empathy. Make it a priority to get the Empath Guild before I do anything else. Letting the AI explore for me will save me the time and trouble of building scout foils, and I’ll have better knowledge of the world map without having to pay for it. Auto infiltration will mean that when I use my probes, their first mission can be to steal tech, rather than infiltrate, also saving time.
2) Once more, I’ll run for the VW…never know, I might get lucky. I really liked the PEG, but that’s two techs I’m not sure I need to research right then. My gut tells me to run for restriction lifting from there, but OTOH, it IS a rather off-beat path, and my allies might research a tech or two along the restriction lifting route while I'm heading for PEG. Yep…I think I just talked myself into it. Besides, if I DO get them both, then most of the infrastructure work at my bases is done for me. Drone control, basic labs, and energy stuff, meaning all I gotta do is drop in CC’s and boom away! (building the TF and RH during the boom stage).
3) From there, it’s a beeline for D:AP. With luck and good terraforming, I’ll be able to stall incoming probes long enough to kill them with my garrisoned troops, and if I build garrison units with medium sized guns on the border, I can perhaps kill off any double stacked attackers to probe the survivor, grabbing up better weapons tech that way. That, coupled with getting MMI quickly, should see me developing a medium sized chopper fleet in short order (hey…I just got my tail WHIPPED by the AI, the gloves are definitely off….lol)
4) I have no idea just how big the continent I’m on IS, but with choppers, I’ll find out rather quickly I’m sure. And if I can secure the continent I’m on, I’ll be in a great position to help my allies.
5) I really like the early switch to Market, and I think I’ll stick with that. If I do it right, I’ll be booming to max size early in the game anyway, and while the tech is cheap, might as well make the most of it….besides, a few extra turns breathing room on the Empath/PEG might be what gets me both of them!

Again, EXCELLENT scenario! I’d have never believed the AI could put up such a splendid fight!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Alternate plan??

What if….

Can you tell it’s a slow day at work?! LOL….was sitting here plotting and scheming, and I think I may have stumbled onto an unusual way to win the game. I dunno, but I certainly plan to try it out this weekend!

The plan is to forget about the “usual” SP’s entirely. In fact, forget pretty much everything but beelining for the techs necessary to give you the Empath Guild (to contact your allies) and the Planetary Datalinks (to give YOUR side all the tech advantages held by the bad guys).

I have no idea if it’ll work, and I’ll need to study the tech tree up on the wall of the game room for a while to see what all those two beelines will entail, but I think it’s quite doable.

Thoughts and comments?

-=Vel=-

[death_head]

Sounds like a neat idea. Unfortunately, by the time you've got yourself up to their former standard, they will be miles ahead because of all the projects. I could be wrong though, I'll have to take a look tonight.

[JustinSane]

Vel, on my first run, I tried exactly that. The needed techs are centuari ecology, social psych, SOTHB, Centauri Empathy (for the empath guild) and social psych, ethical calc, doctrine mobility, doctrine loyalty, intellectual integrity, information networks, planetary networks, and Cyberethics (for the Datalinks). I chose the Planet Cult, hoping to defend myself by building mindworms, found I couldn't build them, and got overwhelmed before I even got to intellectual integrity. The problem with this, is that you need to research 11 techs, none of which are weapon or armor.
You're on the same continent as Yang and Miriam. No weapon or armor is a bad thing. The good news is that if you get there, you are only three techs away (progenitor psych, the first resonance tech, and biodaptive resonance) from 3r armor, 6r laser, and sopophoric gas pods. Even the spore launchers could come in handy if miriam goes artillery crazy, and you've already got the perimeter defenses.
It might be doable with a better player (such as yourself) playing the UoP instead of the rather slow researching cult though. I think it also could be possible for the cult, with the patched version allowing construction of native life.
edit: The other good news is that this tech path allows for an early pop boom, if you can find enough nutrient squares. And you only have to go off the bee-line by one tech to lift nutrient restrictions, if you decide to go that route. The other bad news is that Yang starts with doctrine loyalty and miriam starts with social psych. This means their bee-line to Cyberethics is a lot shorter, so you will really have to ramp up labs to have a shot.

[Tokamak]

Vel: Your observations about the AI coordinating its attacks match my own. I'm wondering if maybe it happens because the fungus slows down its troops and forces them to coagulate. Is there a lot of fungus between their rallying points and your bases? If this turns out to be why it's using stacks, I'll be sure to adjust the terrain on my new map to harness this effect!

Your choice of Free Market for the early game intrigues me greatly. I still lean towards going Planned at the begginning, but your comments are making me wonder. If I get the gumption, I think I'll run two 40 year games (using the editor to magic the badguys away), and try to quantitatively measure the end difference between the two approaches. If anyone feels the urge to do this themselves, please post the results!

The Planetary Datalinks will be god-awfully powerful in this environment. You'll be harnessing the research of all seven factions simultenously. That's probably worth nearly a tech every turn (with the occasional redunant efforts slowing you a little bit). Let us know how things turn out.

Cyberethics occupies an awkward spot on the tree for your average builder. A true beeline would leave you without Free Market or Wealth (but it would give you Planned). On the bright side, you could make a run for the Virtual World on the way up. The Command Nexus and Citizens' Defence Force are also on the way, but Yang usually gets the CN within the early teens, and the CDF is a so-so project.

All: Has anyone succeeded in "legitimately" aquiring one of the early 180 min. projects? (ie not using the 'start with WP' option'). If so, how?

Again, thanks to everyone for your support on this project. I had no idea that it would become so popular! Without all this input, a 'real' mod would never have even crossed my mind. In addition to praise, though, I could really use some criticism. What could be done to further strengthen the AI? Did I miss any tricks? Should the player have a more reasonable cahnce at snagging the early Projects? Etc, etc. When the new map comes out, I especially will need criticism, since unlike in this version, EVERYTHING in that scenario will be more or less my own creation. The map of Chiron in SMAC was the result of over a year's worth of creative effort made by several very talented professionals. My map will be the result of about a week's worth of effort by a lone hack I'll do my best, but I'm expecting there to be some serious gameplay issues all the same.

-edit-

JustinSane: Just saw your post. Excellent point about Miriam and Yang. I hadn't thought about that. The Coalition's path up the tech tree seems to be pretty random. Sometimes they hit CyberE early, smetimes they don't.

- I've noticed that the usually-capricous AI becomes much more calculating when it's getting close to Fusion Power. Somewhere around the area of AdvMilAlg, they begin to exclusively focus on the prereqs for Fusion. I'm guessing that Firaxis gave the AI a limited look-ahead ability, rather than coding in any real tech plans. Are there any other techs that the AI seems to be drawn to like this? -

[Avenoct]

From the SMAC factiontext:

SHARETECH = Gain any technology known to # other players

(IE 'SHARETECH, 3' to gain tech known to three other players)

Also, since Blake mentioned it:

VOTES = Multiplier for governor votes

(IE 'VOTES, .5' for 1/2 votes)

And of course, the handy:

COMMFREQ = Gets an extra comm frequency (another faction to

; talk to) at beginning of game. (Parameter is ignored)

which isn't too useful, but thought I'd include it.

I'm going back into the game to the SE to see if forcing techshare is possible..

Happy Crawlering,

Smack

[Tokamak]

Hmm... I tried 'sharetech,' and it didn't work. Maybe I just screwed up. I'll give it a go.

[Avenoct]

You probably already know this, but to make sure:

Make sure to use all capitals (ie SHARETECH, 3 not Sharetech)
Add this to the line that includes other special abilities (ie FACILITY, 1, SHARETECH, 3)

maybe you are using SMAX to test it and its not recognized by SMAX?


Additionally I just went into the SMAC SE and here's what I found:

You can (again you know all this, but just in case it varies SMAC vs. SMAX or somesuch):

In Faction Diplomacy SE:

Force pact
Force Commfreqs with any faction
Force infiltration
Force Gang up on Human
Force Cooperate with X faction
Force make these permanent

Also you can set Faction Strategy to :
Gang up on human player or
Team with human player

I'm assuming you are using these already.

Unfortunately there is NOT a Force Sharetech, but the Diplomatic choices above will in all likelihood convince two or three or however many AI factions to sharetech.

-Smack

[Tokamak]

Even pacted AI's just don't trade techs often enough. I original plan was very similiar to the scheme you just described, but the @#$% AIs just wouldn't work together. I even placed 'diplomatic" scout patrols from each faction in the HQ of the others, hoping that the frequent unit collisions would spark more conversation between them.

Ahh, I see the problem now. I was using the SMAX 'techshare' parameter, which is not them same as 'sharetech.' I'll e-mail the finished package to both you and Cybergod sometime later today (probably about five-ish, central time).

Be aware that since sharetech isn't specific to inflitrated factions, teh game will be very different. I'll increase the parameter to 2, but even then, it'll be a challenge.

I guess this is just one more reason to get SMACX

Anyone else interested in a 'vanilla' version of SMAC Down is welcome to e-mail at nsvad@austin.rr.com

[Avenoct]

Awwww Drat!

Too bad the AI wouldn't cooperate even with :force-pact, force commfreq, and force-forever.

The Sharetech thing will be interesting....I too anticipate it'll be much harder this way. I'm already anticipating withholding some techs from my hopeful pactmates...I can't wait! Thanks from me in advance Tokamak for the conversion to SMAC, and even moreso for getting a bunch of really experienced players all-riled-up!

Smack

[Tokamak]

This thread is becoming more and more of a Creation thing, so I've set up a new thread for development and ideas. Discussions about strategies are probably more appropriate here, but either will do.

[JustinSane]

The Hive seem to be a bit vulnerable to an early rush in this scenario. Playing as the Planet Cult in my current attempt, I decided to scrape together a few units and throw them at the Hive early, while teching to centauri empathy. I had a couple of mindworms, a spore launcher, and a couple scout patrols. It's 2146 now, and the Hive are no longer on my continent. In the interests of disclosure, I did replay a couple of turns, each time to avoid unpleasant probe action, but still, this was a surprisingly easy conquest, considering how tough my previous attempts have been militarily. My population (mostly captured) is around 55, I've got the empath guild and the command nexus(captured), pacted with each alliance member, and probed the Hive for every tech the coalition has at this point. I'm in sole possession of some beautifully terraformed monsoon jungle as well
I did reverse-engineer rovers after the discovery of planetary networks, and traded for applied physics as soon as the guild finished building, so by the end of the attack I had several actually built military units. I'd imagine that if I'd went with a standard reverse-engineered rover rush build, info net- plan net-applied physics-impact weapons, my conquest would have been even easier. This bee-line is only one tech longer than the centauri empathy line for the cult, and would have left me in nice position to continue the attack against miriam, whereas now I've just got to regroup and exploit my current position, since her army is too big for an immediate attack to succeed. Also, yang probed resonance manipulation away from me, so she's got 3 res garrisons now, in addition to the Citizen's defense force.
My, this post is getting rather long.. Anyway, has anyone tried rushing yang yet? The hive (the headquarter base of the faction) is within reasonable striking distance quite early, especially if you colonize down through the valley with the borehole cluster. Taking this base really seems to dent the research capability of the entire coalition as well, probably because then all of yang's bases on the continent aren't contributing, since their other headquarters is the on other side of planet.

[Velociryx]

Okay….I think I’ve got my next go ‘round strategy mapped out. Try this on for size:

Beeline:
Industrial Base
Industrial Economics
Planetary Nets
Industrial Automation
Biogenetics
Social Psych
Secrets of the Human Brain
Centauri Empathy
Ethical Calculus
Doctrine Mobility
Doctrine Loyalty
Intellectual Integrity
Cyberethics

This gives me several key techs, allows for the early market switch to get the extra point of energy from non-river forest tiles, and makes those 2n1m tiles even better!

Early crawlers, which I’ll need in order to beat the AI to the projects I want, and to bulk up my mineral counts to speed the production of probes and garrisons.

From there….I’m not sure. It might be best to go back and research the early armor and weapons techs I missed (stuff they researched before I complete the Datalinks), relying on their own tech sharing to give me the newer stuff they get. Once we’re all caught up, we’ll be able to out tech them easily, because we’ll have access to their technologies as soon as they get them, as well as being able to combine our own research efforts. That should see us getting resource restrictions lifted pretty quickly, and air power not long after.

At least, that’s the theory.

Wish me luck! I’m heading home in 90 more minutes!

-=Vel=-

[Tokamak]

JustinSane: Wow, Yang whipped within the first century? I feel strangely sad...
I wonder if maybe the Coailtion would benenfit from having a single member of theirs add Conquer to their list of priorites. The earlier war techs would help (not that that would help against natives). I'd just be worried that the Conquer flag might make the AI less infrastructure-happy.

I'm not so sure that a rover rush would have a better chance. Remember, Yang has those underground bunkers. Or do those help in psi combat, too? I've forgotten.

It's good that the AI CAN be beaten, although I'd certainly like to have seen its demise occur later and more gradually. Thoughts on this, folks?

Vel: Good luck! If you survive the early game, I think you'll a fairly easy run of it during the start of the second century.

All: Has Santaigo started pestering anyone yet? I really wanted there to be a naval war aspect to the game, but if the silly AI can't mount one, then I'll change my design accordingly.