Announcement

**KrysiasKrusader** · April 5, 2003, 01:20

Oh man... I know exactly how you feel.

I have always had a hard time with this faction myself.

When I first started playing SMAC PBEM, I picked up a few dropped positions. Three of them were with the Spartans. I soon discovered why people drop these guys often (by the way, the next most often dropped position is Morgan

).

The INDUSTRY hit is very difficult to overcome - especially in multi-player where your facing human opponents.

I'll collect my thoughts and post what I can in a little while...

**Lazerus** · April 5, 2003, 08:21

Ask gunnar thor, haven't seen him in action yet since i've just started the pbem im in with him but he picked spartans and has done in a few other pbems aswell so i'm guessing he either loves the pretty face or has a nice strategy for them

**KrysiasKrusader** · April 5, 2003, 18:37

When I first discovered Apolyton, I was hoping that I could find some help regarding this faction myself. It was the only one that I coulden't grasp how to play properly at the time. I had posted asking something similar as you. I'll see if I can find the thread and bump it...

Okay, it's here.

Although good general advice, it did little to actually help me in real PBEM games at the time.

In my first PBEM game as Sparta, I got clobbered so thoroughly it wasen't even funny (thumbs down). I vowed to myself that; I had better get to know how to play this faction better, or get used to being trounced, as I was by then in several other games with this faction.

CGN is an excellent site for SMAC. Here are a couple of links:

SMAC Academy

SMAC General help and strategy.

I'm slow at typing... More will follow in a few minutes...

**KrysiasKrusader** · April 5, 2003, 18:40

The following posts are a discussion between Mongoose and I back in the fall of 2002 by e-mail. I found them very helpful, and still occaisionaly refer back to them. They are heavily edited in order to protect any reference to other peoples play style, but I have tried to keep to the relevance of this thread. I was playing Sparta and having a hard time adjusting to the specific game situation. Hope they are helpful to some of you.

**KrysiasKrusader** · April 5, 2003, 18:44

----- Original Message -----
From: Krysia's Krusader
To: Mongoose
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 11:25 PM

Mongoose, between you and me.

I can't see it otherwise... See if you can tell me different.

- With my -1 INDUSTRY I cannot compete with the rest of you ( I
don't want to even think about ... ) Plus I can't even run WEALTH to
offset it as you(s) can. So I'm faced with trying to keep up with three
builder factions. If I could've at least have had the WP or EG, it would have
made things bearable. I don't, so it ain't.

- The only reason that I'm keeping up technologicaly is cause I'm
in FREE MARKET, while you guys aren't yet. When you and the... do
(combined with WEALTH), I'll be behind again. So whoever researches
faster, they get the "rights" to the SP... That don't help me any.

- Do like I do. Put yourself in my position...

Krysia's Krusader

Edit: Spelling

**KrysiasKrusader** · April 5, 2003, 18:55

----- Original Message -----
From: Krysia's Krusader
To: Mongoose
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 12:46 AM

Krysia's Krusader wrote:

KK in italics.

Mongoose wrote:

I can't put myself in the position you imagine for yourself. I can't duplicate the mindset you have about playing the Spartans. Much of your letter addresses the weaknesses of the Spartans. None of the strengths of the faction are mentioned or considered.

I have reread what I wrote, and admitedly you have pointed out the main theme. It seems (to me anyways), that a lot of dropped positions in games, are either the Spartans or Morganites. I have had more than my share at playing them. I enjoy being able to turn a position (or game) from a losing one, to a winning one (or trying to anyways). But putting individual player skill aside, and assuming equal opportunities from the map, I would still rate the Spartan faction on the lower end of the faction scale.

For example, you talk about "keep(ing) up with three builder factions." How and why is Gaia a 'builder' faction? The +1 PLANET, the +2 EFFICIENCY, -1 MORALE, the -1 POLICE or the aversion to Free Market?

The +2 EFFICIENCY actually. Put this with DEMOCRATIC - PLANNED - WEALTH, add a childrens' creche, and you get the totals of: +4 EFFICIENCY, -1 POLICE, +1 PLANET, -2 SUPPORT, +2 INDUSTRY, +1 ECONOMY, +0 PROBE, +6 GROWTH. Thats pretty good builder statistics to me!

A key point about this game is that almost everything can be substituted for. Energy, minerals and nutrients can be 'converted' from one to another, albeit not without some loss to the conversion process. Gaia cannot run Free Market, Sparta can. Much of the INDUSTRY penalty can be overcome with the excess energy, even if the INDUSTRY differential is three (-2 vs. +1) Sparta can field an army away from home and maintain an airforce even in Free Market, before becoming a Police State, With Police State, and mitigating its inefficiency difficulties, that army can be of unlimited size. No punishment spheres and no clean units to home in the punishment spheres are required to make it work. +1 POLICE can be a big benefit while running Planned Economics. Booming is easier for Sparta than anybody else. Lastly, the +2 Morale is huge. You have seen how much time, trouble and expense it requires for me to create elite units in CGN 12. Sparta requires little in comparison.

Thanks for pointing out ways to make the faction easier to play. But be careful... I will sometimes be your opponent! The student may one day take the teachers place ... (little wink + smile)

As long as you do not run DEMOCRACY, or become #2 in the power charts, ... will seek opposition elsewhere. We are dealing with the AI here, it is quite predictable. Humans are not.

My assessment of the strategic situation in the short run is that it is in your best interest, perhaps your only best interest, to fight alongside of me and ... At best, this is going to be a murderous fight.

Unless you can prove to me otherwise, what I said before stands. Therefore, unless one of you does something stupid to ..., he will be seeking confrontation with me. He has already sent scouting units to my area. There could very well be a whole invasion force just 2 tiles into the "black" for all I know at this moment. Most of the fighting will be done by me, wether that's concurrently alongside you and ... I don't know. So wether it's in my best interest or not, is moot. I will fight, and I will fight to survive. Colonel Santiago would be proud.

Mong

KK

**KrysiasKrusader** · April 5, 2003, 19:02

----- Original Message -----
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 02:39:54 -0400
From: Mongoose
To: Krysia's Krusader

Sparta at Dem.+FM+Knowl.+creche = +3 EFFICIENCY, -4 POLICE, -3 PLANET, -2 SUPPORT, -1 INDUSTRY,+2 ECONOMY, -2 PROBE,+4 GROWTH, +1 MORALE,+2 KNOWLEDGE

Gaia at Dem.+Pl. +Wealth+creche = +2 EFFICIENCY , -1 POLICE, +1 PLANET, -2 SUPPORT, +2 INDUSTRY, +1 ECONOMY, +0 PROBE, +6 GROWTH, -3 MORALE

Sparta - Gaia = +1 EFFICIENCY, -3 POLICE, -4 PLANET, -3 INDUSTRY, +1 ECONOMY, -2 PROBE, -2 GROWTH, +4 MORALE, +2 KNOWLEDGE

These SE settings find Sparta MORE efficient. The Police effect is a downside of the extra energy in Market, but as I wrote before, the base -4 POLICE for this Spartan configuraton is not crippling. Nothing to be said for the PLANET difference...it's a downer. MORALE can mitigate it somewhat. The INDUSTRY difference is the major downside. The +1 ECONOMY is a huge difference, as it falls at the +1 Energy/square threshold. As I wrote before, in many cases, the latter can substitue for the former. The probe differential is an annoyance, no more. The GROWTH difference merely requires planned pop-booms instead of constant ones. Even without booming, +4 GROWTH is pretty good...as good as Morgan can do without the Vats. The MORALE differential is simply immense, and as I wrote above, offsets a large part of the PLANET difference. The KNOWLEDGE differential, combined with the energy flow from the INDUSTRY differential is huge.

Altogether, though different, these two SE approaches are very equal. I think the edge in flexibility goes to the Spartans here.

Major difference here is time dependent. Wealth is usually available before Knowlege. For the +1 Economy to outweigh the -3 Industry, the respective bases have to be fairly large. I would think that after a base gets to size 8 or so, a Spartan base under the above SE would outperform a Gaian base under the above SE. The trick to playing Sparta is to get to that point while you're still in the game...or to win before then.

I think you should consider the real-game alternative, not a theoretical everything is equal alternative. If your assessment is correct, and ... is coming after you ... Or do you think yourself strong enough to take on ... alone?

Mong

Edit: Spelling

**KrysiasKrusader** · April 5, 2003, 19:13

As you can see, ol' Mongoose knows what he's talking about.

I'll point him in this direction tonight and maybe he'll be able to give more good advice.

Now I'm going to start typing some things I do in multi-player SMAC PBEM's. Should take me a couple of hours...

**KrysiasKrusader** · April 5, 2003, 20:22

Things I have done when playing Sparta in PBEM's:

- Get a few ( 4 is a good number ) impact rovers out. Laser rovers otherwise, if impact weapons aren't available (you can upgrade enroute). Drive them up to someone's territory. Make sure that at least two are visible to your opponent, by his sensors, units or base sighting radius. Contact him diplomaticaly and say: " Heah Man! See them rovers? I've got 12 more right behind them. Now let's negotiate how well we're gonna get along, and how much your gonna gimme, cause I'm such a nice guy, and your so reasonable, and... etc."

- Use diplomacy as a weapon in your arsenal. Make deals, agreements, treaties, etc. If you don't have to build a huge army right away - don't. Wait for when you have all the proper infrastructure in place, and the technologies for armor and weapons. The longer the game goes, the more time you have at getting / founding more bases.

- You can't keep up with anybody else (all things being equal) at developing your bases and infrastructure. So let them do it for you. Meanwhile, your building troops to make it (their empire) all yours in the end.

- Don't be afraid to switch your Social Engineering settings for the situation at hand. There is no other faction that I have played so far that has switched more often in games. One game that I remember, I switched SE settings no less than 16 times in a 60 year periode (!). I have run from; the builder DEMOCRACY - FREE MARKET - KNOWLEDGE, to the probing / native life capturing FUNDAMENTALISM - GREEN - SURVIVAL, to the waring POLICE STATE - PLANNED - POWER. Plus many combinations in between.

- Lots of little Spartan bases = Lots of places to build your two-row infantry units.

- Missile infantry (6-1-1) cost just as much as laser infantry (2-1-1), 2 rows of mins. Rovers are way more (too) expensive. So getting 'elite' infantry is a big thing. They move two (!). Getting 'elite' 6-1-1's is when Sparta all of a sudden "turns the corner".

- A size three base with recycling tanks and working three forest tiles (production of 8 mins.), will build an infantry unit (ave. of 22 mins.) in 3 turns.

- A Spartan base is really a "barracks". It's where you will be building your troops to go and get everyone else's nifty bases.

- Pop boom ASAP. This will help offset your INDUSTRY disadvantage by increasing the number of worked tiles from your population.

- Facilities I generally build (more or less in order) depending on availability of pre-requisit technology: Recycling tanks, Children's creche, Treefarm.

- I'll build a few (2 or 3) Command centers. These are for building the "crack" frontline attacking / assault units. Garrisons and / or police units are built where ever and how ever, as needed.

- Once you have your "crack" troops built, switch to POWER. They are now 'elite'. Go get someone's empire with all their neat infrastructure and Secret Projects.

- Because of your +1 Police rating; you can have one air unit (or milatary unit away from your territory) per base while in FREE MARKET and still make it workable.

- Careful with your formers. Due to the color configuration (black on black), you can't tell what they're doing once they start doing a terraforming function. You have to put the cursor on the individual units and look at what's up on the task bar.

**Hendrik** · April 6, 2003, 00:39

Reasons I don't like the Spartans:

I really think that industry is just too invaluable for most of the game not to have. Since everyone else will be running wealth, they will be developing faster than you. I find industry bonuses/penalties can have an exponential effect...

For comparison look how long it takes to build 4 supply crawlers for a player with 0 industry SE and a base that starts out with 5 minerals of production, assuming each crawler harvests a forest:
6 turns for the first one
5 turns for the second one, with 5 extra minerals carried over
3 turns for the third one
3 turns for the fourth one, with 3 minerals carried over
3 turns for the fifth one, with 10 minerals carried over
2 turns for the sixth one, with 5 minerals carried over
2 turns for the seventh one, with 10 minerals carried over

24 turns to get to 19 minerals of production

The same thing for the spartans:
7 turns for the first one, with 2 being carried over
5 turns for the second one, with 4 being carried over
4 turns for the third one, with 7 being carried over
3 turns for the fourth one, with 7 being carried over
2 turns for the fifth one,
3 turns for the sixth one, with 10 being carried over
3 turns for the seventh one, with 10 being carried over

Ok this is a *microscopic* example, but here the difference added up to 57 minerals of difference... This is just for one base, in 27 turns about 2 minerals of production per turn. During the next 27 turns his base will essentially have 2 extra minerals being produced by that base... multiply this by the existing -1 industry bonus and the mineral production per turn will drop to 17:21, he is almost 25% higher than you.

Industry can also act as a power multiplier in other ways... secret projects are very very hard for the Spartans to get.

Spartans have a hard time staying economically productive, both in the early game and the mid game. In the early game fewer bases means less tech, by IA not being able to run wealth means each of your fewer bases are producing less energy. If they want to stay economically competitive with someone who is running FM, they will need to sacrifice all of the turn advantage accrued by having an extra police unit.

There are many different ways of winning in SMAC, market cornerings, planet busterings, and X weapons are all very very easy ways of turning production advantage into morale, but morale doesn't do the same.

Morale only makes a difference in *some* battles (it doesn't take high morale for your chopper to rape his formers), overall I think that morale has a real hard time factoring into an advantage in tech or industry, both of which are real problems for Spartans. Not having as many bases or having run wealth will put you behind the development curve... and once someone is far enough ahead of you in tech, or accrues a significant production difference to overpower you, you are screwed.

The only example I could find that Krysia gave of Morale being the dominating factor in a battle would be having 6-1-1 units... which is a very short time period since needlejets come so soon.

Morale translating into better tech or more bases is kinda iffy... most players I play with do not deal with any kind of extortion, and play a scorched earth policy that makes war very unprofitable for you.

I have never seen a Spartan player's morale make a big difference against human opponnents of equal skill. In my experience the stuff I talked about above tends to constantly hurt the Spartans, while their bonuses makes up for it occaisionally.

Tech and production are the two things that ultimately contribute to power in SMAC. A tech advantage of a couple of techs can mean a decisive victory, or having 3 times as many bases as your opponnent and being able to overwhelm with sheer numbers.

A spartan player might be able to outtech a believer or a hiver, and maybe sometimes a Gaian, but almost never a builder UofP, Morgan, or Lal. In the early game Spartans can overwhelm a Morganite or a player who is unprepared for war, but they are almost always at a production disadvantage.

In my experience Santiago's SE just adds up to more hurt than help, there are few times when the benefits of +2 morale outweigh the penalties of -1 industry. All else being equal an attacker is not likely to succeed against a prepared defender if her only advantage is +2 morale, but in the long run a production or research advantage can be used to gain the initiative. Morale can't be used as effectively as a force magnifying level as superior production or tech can, and the Spartans are the only faction that can't produce or research very well.

Free prototyping is fun though

**Ogie Oglethorpe** · April 7, 2003, 00:01

To add to KK's expose on Sparta.

Many have thought the key to Sparta is the ability to turn elite rovers and more than likely initially impact rovers.

I must whole heartedly disagree.

Understandings Sparta rather nasty negative namely the hit to industry, one is better served churning out cheap units.

To this end I have written extensively in the past on the benefits of best weapon-1-1 infantry being conveyed to the front and to the bases door step in land transports.

As KK suggests a 2-1-1 all the way through a 6-1-1 all costs but two rows of mins.

Once you have SotHB locked down, a command center (or alterantively Command nexxus SP). A switch to fundy alllows for elites to be made from a simple stop at a nearby monolith.

A simple land transport allows said (el cheapo) best weapon -1-1 to be moved into place attack twice with 25% bonus against a base and if enough movment point exist for the transport to be reloaded onto the transport and retreated to prevent counter attack.

It becomes insanely powerful as KK suggest once missile techs become available.

To my mind the ability to create early elites via the morale bonus and thereby obviate the need to create expensive rover platform units in order to achieve multiple blitz attack ability offests the industry hit.

All in all, I once shared the concerns of how to play Santi, but this couple with the ability to get out meet and greet early via free rover and pop pods (if pods enabled) make her to my way of thinking a strong faction, every bit as balanced as the other original 7.

Not withstanding the criticism that Hendrik offers all of which is valid. In the role I outlayed for Sparta they are best served going for early rushes and forgoing the early SP aquisition game. Namely beeline to Impact weapons, Flexibility, and Planetary nets. Next beeline to SotHB and start your fisrt conqest using elite 4-1-1's in a sprinkling of transports so as to not overwhelm your bases with support issues.

**CEO Aaron** · April 7, 2003, 18:41

Thanks for the very enlightening feedback on the strengths (and weaknesses) of the Spartan game. KK and Ogie's musings her use of elite tissue missile infantry certainly give me something to contemplate. As for Hendrik's analysis of Sparta's industry penalty, well, check the name, man, you're preaching to the choir.

I guess I'm going to try to put these tactics into practice by starting over from my start point (2201), plant my loose colony pods, switch research to centauri ecology, build recycling tanks and command centers, road out to the closest monolith I can find, then switch to fundy and try and bash the Peacekeepers into submission. Running fundy I can expect to stay pacted with Mimi indefinitely, and it's not like I have any hope of catching up tech-wise with the Morganite monstrosity I helped build. With any luck, I may be able to steal enough tech to give me a shot at stealing the Cyborg Factory, at which point I think I might have a chance at dominating the end-game.

As an aside, I had a chance during one of my runs at this to see what the AI had done with my beautiful Morganite empire, and I nearly wept. My massive forests and condenser farms had been bulldozed in favor of farms and solar collectors, he had even filled in a few of the boreholes I had built. I don't know if I can stand to play this challenge too many times, seeing what a farce the AI is making of my infrastructure.

**Kody** · April 15, 2004, 09:11

Once you have SotHB locked down, a command center (or alterantively Command nexxus SP). A switch to fundy alllows for elites to be made from a simple stop at a nearby monolith.
....
All in all, I once shared the concerns of how to play Santi, but this couple with the ability to get out meet and greet early via free rover and pop pods (if pods enabled) make her to my way of thinking a strong faction, every bit as balanced as the other original 7.

uh ho.. no pods and probably no monoliths too

**Maniac** · April 15, 2004, 13:55

We are currently organizing a new Alpha Centauri Democracy Game and the Spartans will probably be one of the factions. However we are very aware of the Spartans -2 Industry weakness compared to other factions and know it will be a tough experience.

So anyone with Spartan experience and an interest in helping us build up this faction to a decent force is more than welcome in Sparta Command!

Announcement

Arrrrg, Spartans.

Arrrrg, Spartans.

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