Confession Time

[heynad]

I started playing a game around 1pm yesterday hoping I would finish the game before the day ends. I was playing Morgan on huge map/transcend level and was aiming for a quick climb up the tech tree for an ascent victory. Everything started well enough for me; I had a mid-sized continent all to myself and had good relations with UoP, which allowed me to obtain techs even more quickly. I was crawlering energy like a madman and paying little attention to the rest of the world. By the end of the middle game, I was still progressing quite well, having avoided major conflicts with other factions. However, by that time, the Gaians had managed to takeover 2/3 of the world, leaving me,UoP, and the Spartans really low on the dominance chart. The gaians then proceeded to attack my continent with massive air raids. I tried to bargain with her but she wouldn't listen. So I started mass producing an air force of my own and held her off for a good 20 turns. She didn't manage to land a single land unit thanks to my costal crawler blockade and air force. By then, I was about 10 turns from the Transcendent Thought. So, I got cocky and went on the attack and took over some of her bases. I was thinking to myself that I had already won and for the next few turns, I just kept skipping all my units. Finally, I get Transcendent Thought, and I spent about 15000 buying the voice of planet in one turn and skipped all my units again. The next turn comes, I spent another 35000 on Ascent to Transcendence. So, I click on end turn, thinking I would see the victory screen soon...
There I sat, watching the AI make their "last" moves. I see the message saying that I have ascended to the gods liking or whatever, I hit ok. And all of a sudden, a PB busted up my city with the SP i had built, taking all my surrounding prosperous cities with it. I couldn't believe what happened. It was heart breaking to say the least. I didn't know whether to be amazed by the AI or to feel stupid. Long story short, I quit the game afterwards. I probably should've kept playing and gotten enough energy to build the SPs again. BUt that PB broke my back, after 6 hours of playing straght.

P.S.
What are orbital defense pods?

[Wiglaf]

quote: I see the message saying that I have ascended to the gods liking or whatever, I hit ok.

quote: What are orbital defense pods?

ODP's are base improvements mainly used to shoot down incoming PB's or attack enemy space installations.

[cbn]

I lost a lot while learning the game but did get killed by the AI once recently as well. I was playing double-blind as cha dawn and ended up on a fairly small landmass alone. I made the terrible, huge unforgiveable error of not sacrificing everything to get the WP. I was left utterly alone until 2190 when the Usurpers dropped by. I was so VERY far behind in tech and the double-blind would not give me doc: Flex to build a boat. I thought I was toast then but the usurpers left me alone (took a bribe for a truce)and soon after the University dropped by and I got Doc: Flex and a pact and some techs. An intensive probing (probe skimships) campaign began as I probed my neighbors the Spartans and Usurpers for tech--= Big mistake

I had just about gotten to tech parity and figured I would be in good shape given time to build some up-to date-units and upgrade my garrisons. But the Spartans raised a land bridge to my island and began attacking on the same turn. No amount of attempted bribing or cajoling would sway them ( I think sunspots came then as well but don't remeber for sure) as wave after wave of missle rovers decimated my cities. I fought on until my last city was alone and with a single defender and was spared witnessing my own demise only by the call to dinner from Better Half. I think I still have the save but have resisted going back to view my own extermination.--Cha wouldn't do well in prison LOL. maybe I should go back since I am curious as to whether there is a "you are dead" movie.

But I learned from this and in a recent game (double blind) started as Miriam on an island. WP was an absolute must and I terraformed a bigger area and a pathway to my enemies and an eventual victory.

Although I often witness the absolute idiocy of the AI I was glad to lose since it make the game more interesting if it is not always a foregone conclusion. Thats why I hope to start working through some of the many challenges that are posted on here-- Some look like they could be real lessons in humility.

cbn

[Gregurabi]

Skanderbeg: oh, so close to doing well with Morgan! Once you start building an air force, you cannot remain in Free Market. Planes always count as "out of territory" for purposes of making drones.

The way I usually play Morgan in the mid-game is Demo/Green/Wealth. This gives you +4 efficiency, +2 economy, +2 planet and utterly horrible support/morale. But that's OK, because you have energy coming out of your ears.

With +4 economy, it's tempting to set your labs allocation up very high, and sacrifice your income (leaving you with no money to spend). This is OK for short periods of time (e.g., getting Air Power or Environmental Econ or Fusion or MMI), but it's not something you want to continue indefinitely. Morgan needs to have cash.

Later on, when you have clean reactors and punishment spheres, you can make all your planes clean, build one punishment sphere somewhere, and re-home the planes to that city. Then you can have an air force under Free Market without suffering the drones for it; but it's costly (you spend more for the clean reactors, and you can only build new planes in the p-sphere base).

But the irony here is that Morgan doesn't really need to run Free Market. You can get to +2 Economy with just Wealth; the extra +2 from FM doesn't do nearly as much for you (unless you've got a huge number of tiny cities, which is actually a common Morgan strategy).

[Gregurabi]

OK, here's my confession. In a recent game as the Pirates, I started out with a small number of sea bases and then started expanding onto land. I thought: this will be a good way to offset my lack of minerals. I thought: once I've built up a decent land infrastructure, I'll resume my sea colonization, using the land bases to produce the horribly expensive sea colony pods.

It must also be noted that I began the game in a relatively small, enclosed sea near the north pole. I had to go across land to get to another body of water anyway.

It turned out that the land I was colonizing was part of a large continent on which Miriam was the dominant faction. She'd been steam-rolling Cha Dawn and some others; and by the time she got up to my little corner of the land, she was a juggernaut.

I didn't actually lose the game; in fact, it's still saved and I haven't got around to continuing it for a while. She conquered all of my land bases, and I rebuilt my forces from the sea bases which were completly untouched. I built an air force (can't recall whether I learned the tech naturally or probed it from her; but she definitely had air power before I did), harassed/killed her forces with it, took out some roads, used some marine attacks to take back the coastal cities, and managed to reestablish a hold on parts of the land. She's still a lot more powerful than I am, but the AI doesn't know much about effective warfare.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Skand,

If you really want to play Morgan as "Morgan the conqueror" then as Gregarubi indicates you'll need to step away from FM for a period of time at least until you can get either punishment spheres or better yet AScetic Virtues and Brood pits (resulting in -2 police with no pacification issues but still keep science rolling in at 100%). In fact, if the mood fits you and you really want to steam roll the human AI factions then Police/Green/Wealth is a nice combo for Morgan.

His one glaring weakness support is aleviated by the support offered in Police thereby allowinghim 3 units per base. Plus the police rating will allow him to quell most any uprising at any of his new Aquistions (new base sites).

Now for Alien invasions you probably don't care as any captured base site will be a mere size 1 not requiring massive drone quelling.

Morgan in the above situation does nicely for war and still allows him decent cash for bribing and/or unit upgrading albeit less than the Demo/green/wealth approach but the extra police and especially support in the pre clean era are nice to have.

[Skanderbeg]

Gregurabi and Ogie, thanks for Your tips.

I will give Morgan another try sometimes.


I didn't want to play Morgan as conqueror, I tried to play him as builder.
Normally, a play as a builder, as long as nobody pisses me off.
I build my airforce only to keep the aliens away from my continent, by "offensive defense".
But, I as I have learned now, I shouldn't have done this under free market!