Turns of SMAC succession game #2: Lal's World

[Avenoct]

Team Lal:

I won't be able to finish the turn untill 8:30 pm est, but I did start 2175:

First order of business: Call Zak.

Zak says he's feeling all funny and wants to destroy Miriam! I tell him that's a marvelous idea and we pact. We trade IB and IA for Opticomp, Polymorph, and Loyalty. Zak's holding out on Superconductor, which we will finneagle from him presently.

I decide to push my luck and call Santiago, who is seething, probably getting herself pumped up for another conquest, this time with us. She tries to tell us that diplomacy is not her best language, but I insist. She places demands, I retort with demands (call her bluff). Well, she simply refuses to trade tech and actually stormed out of her Comm-room (I could hear her walking away cursing our name). Things don't look good with the Spartans. I'm very tempted to steal Non-Linear from her, but will assess later.

-Smack Out

[Avenoct]

While I like the proposed headquarters site in terms of our continent, my imperialist advisors tell me that we will be taking over the Spartans operations in the Uranium Flats. There is also the matter of that unexplored landmass to the east. If we nabbed both of these sites, as ICS as that sounds (and that's what the Imperialists are paid for), our current HQ will suffice.

Probe Team, Rec Commons, Crawler, Crawler, Rover, CP, CP, Formers, Sea Formers, Scout P.
U.N. Humanity base founded in se on the well placed sensor.


2176: Spot the Gaians to our South, between our island and Zak. What a great position for a pact-sister....
Seapod with independent unity rover.

2177: Morgans build the PTS: Completed: CP and Formers
Seapod with materials: Crawler at U.N. HQ done
Zak has SoHB, High Chem, Non-Linear Math, Subatomic Theory, Superconductor. He won't talk to us, his pactmate! Once we get these, it's time to build up for some conquest.

2178: No World News: Completed: Two Crawlers
Seapod with materials: Crawler at Humanity base done
Infiltrated Santiago with probefoil: We're in big trouble: She only has Non-Linear and SoHB that we don't have, but already has 12 Impact squads, is working on Impact foils, batteries, speeders. If she invaded us now, we'd die.

2179: Rumor of a Believing foil going down to an IOD SW of the jungle. That pins her to the southern half of the map, as expected.
Completed: Rec Commons, 2 Crawlers, CP
Reserves: 80 SE: Vanilla 40/20/40
Seapod with a Unityfoil, Pod with Nuts in EastIsle

2180: Completed: 2 Crawlers
Seapod with AA (don't I have the luck?)
Our economy is just so bad. I can't figure it out.
Asked Santiago and Zak for trade....no dice.

2181: Completed: 2 Crawlers
Took a BIG risk: I was irritated that we were sandwhiched between University and Spartans who have recently made a Treaty. I used our probe foil to Frame Zak for stealing Spartans Tech. We succeeded! Spartans are now out to kill Zak. We have High Energy Chem. (Wish we'd gotten Non-Linear, but hey, this is darn good. Of course, now I can't call either of them (they'd ask us to beat on the other one.)

Searching hard for Morgan. He might help us catch up in the tech race. I'm letting our reserves grow a bit so we can fight off any mini-invasion, should one arrive.

2182: IoD drops off two mindworms on the west coast, right in front of a rover of ours: Bag, 40 credits and a now-disciplined 2-1-2.
Completed: One Crawler.

2183: Completed: 3 Crawlers, Probe Team, Sea Formers (chuckle)
Founded UN Information in Jungle SW, UN Equality V in NW to complete our island hold. Now we need Democracy.

Prototyping 1-3-1 at Information Agency, working on Probes for a possible probe invasion of Zak. Nice 7 Ecodamage at HQ (21 mins/turn). We have yet to get the much-awaited pop that means our future tree farms are all ecodamage-reducers...mineral-limit increasers.

2184: No News or Completions

Finally get a boat over to meet Deirdre. We trade tech for: Ethical Calc, Gene Splicing, and her World map, which is quite handy.

Finally, meet Morgan. Trade Opticomp and Loyalty for SoHB and his map (I'm map obsessed this game since we were in the dark for so long).

2185:

Stole Non-Linear from Santiago: Tried to Frame Miriam and lost, but got the tech. Since we have 1-3-1's, we should be able to resist the Spartans quite handily. Our Economy is on Track finally, and you are primed to now choose a tech to learn immediately next turn. You could go for governor, but I suspect we'd lose...we're not too popular. It's time to get Green and efficient, get some superior weaponry and take out some faction or other. Good luck!

2185: It's up to you. I'm late for class! I know that was only 10 turns, but it took awhile..I'd say, play up to 15 turns. 10 was all I had time for.

[Edit: See comments on this turn continued in my post below. Also, I eliminated the odd 1, 2, 3 versions that were attached before...it's now just 2185. Not sure, but I think my shareware zip program archived the turns? --Smack]

-Smack

[Scipio Centaurus]

I just wanted to mention to my successors that I had intended to check our SE budget to see if we could get away with running a 50:0:50 mix for awhile, but forgot to do that. It's definitely worth looking into.

Also, to my immediate successor, re: acquisition of non-linear math... don't forget about our two alien artifacts (in the jungle bases). In a pinch these can be used to pick up techs instead of accelerating SPs.

[johndmuller]

Just took a peek so I wouldn't be too surprised when my turn comes around again. There were 3 files there, so I just looked at the first one (the one without the .1 or .2 suffixes); what are the others? Seems that things are going nicely, but I'm wondering what all the Psych is for; like Scipio says above, the 50/0/50 split would work. As it is, it looks like it is set up for FM (which would seem to work pretty well), since we aren't currently actually using any police.

Anyway (getting out of back-seat driver mode) Good Work.


Note:
I will be unable to take turns from Thursday (Aug 30) PM until Monday night (unlikely) or Tuesday (Sept 4) PM (more likely). Hopefully, I will get this next turn in time to play it, but no big deal either way. As far as skipping my turn after Thursday, you all can make whatever judgement calls it takes as far as when to play on or when to wait.

I'm sorry for any delay or decision-making burdens this may cause.
John

[Scipio Centaurus]

The psych energy allocation is a vestige of my own administration, I'm sure. (I didn't get my last note posted in time).

When I took over we had 3 bases at size 4 with no rec commons or hologram theaters - and a bunch of red happy faces as you can imagine.

I had to jack our psych budget up tp 40% to act as a psuedo-rec commons at our bases - killed off all but 2 drones. By the end of my turn we had built 5 rec commons and 5 network nodes (w/ VW), so I dropped the psych budget to 20%, but I believe we don't really need to spend anything on psych as long as we keep up with the drone-quietening facilities in a timely manner.

The exception would be if we decide to run FM as you suggest.

- Scipio

[Qantaga]

I just grabbed the turn, but it will be a couple of hours before I can play it. johndmuller, I will definitely have the turn to you tonight, so you will at least get in this turn before you have to leave.

[Scipio Centaurus]

Labor Day weekend this weekend. I am perfectly willing to wait for any player(s) that will be away from their 'puters, enjoying one last big summer fling!

- Scipio

[Avenoct]

Eesh, I really should have explained our situation better. I had an important appointment in which I installed myself as an employee of the Computer Science department. I was having a blast with the turn and would have loved to have made the last 5 turns of the 15, but had to run.

Basically, I think our SE allocations were like 60/30/10 or something. This was temporary for 2 turns to get Non-linear from Santiago before we researched it.
Make sense?
I do this a lot in SP games. It's risky, but often doable. Basically, if you are faced with good tech choices (that your neighbors won't give you presently) or bad ones, you take the good choice and hope to either trade or steal the 'good' tech. When you achieve this you are prompted to choose another tech. I view entering the tech-choose window for free as about the highest goal in terms of tech, for each time you do so you are enabled to change course in response to current events.

Thus, I could have studied polymorphic software (for instance) which maybe noone had, or study non-linear, which everyone had. I choose non-linear, tried to trade for it, realized I'd have to steal it, and did so, right at the end of my turn. But, I couldn't get our lone probefoil (this strategy is MUCH better done with multiple probes, but I risked it) in position by the date we would have researched the tech, so I slowed down our research...hence the 60/30/10 or whatever it was. This was only for a couple turns and netted us bountiful EC's with the Golden Ages.

On Labor Day: If half of us will be away, maybe we should suspend 'Chapter 2: Santiago Pays through the Teeth' 'till next week? Personally I'll be here giving myself some crash courses in Java to test out of a class.

Sorry for the mucked up end of my turn. We gained a zillion techs and all comm-freqs during my governorship. We started a war between Zak and Santi, but have fallen in against Santi ourselves.

-Smack

[Qantaga]

Smack,

I just sent you an e-mail, but I am posting here in case you are checking here first.

I have not loaded the game to take my turns yet. This game is a lot of fun and I know that I would hate to give up 5 of my turns. So, why don't you go ahead and finish the last 5 turns of your reign.

Also, since johndmuller is leaving Thursday, and may even need to do some packing tomorrow night, I will propose a one-time switch in turn order. johndmuller can take 2190-2205, then I will take his spot from 2205-2220. Then, we can go back to the regular order next time around.

I also agree that we can wait for everyone to return from the Labor Day weekend before skipping turns.

[Avenoct]

Then it's John D's turn. I'm through for the day, and am quite happy with the 10 turns I took.

-Smack

[Qantaga]

Ah, I misread your post, then. I thought you would like to finish off your turn. I will go ahead and take my turn. I will have it to johndmuller tonight.

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Smack
I had an important appointment in which I installed myself as an employee of the Computer Science department.

Congrats on the job. Less time for SMAC/X now?

On Labor Day: If half of us will be away, maybe we should suspend 'Chapter 2: Santiago Pays through the Teeth' 'till next week? Personally I'll be here...

I'll be around...

Sorry for the mucked up end of my turn. We gained a zillion techs and all comm-freqs during my governorship. We started a war between Zak and Santi, but have fallen in against Santi ourselves.

I think war with Santiago was inevitable... and sooner rather than later, judging by her past behaviour. Your turn play seemed brilliant to me, especially the diplomatic machinations (heh heh!). I would have maybe tried to convert one of our AAs to non-linear math before risking the tech theft, but WTH... tech theft is what probefoils are for. I'm glad we're on military tech parity with Santiago, before she has a chance to launch an invasion.

- Scipio

[Qantaga]

Wow! Where do I start? I could write several pages, but I'm sure you all just want the highlights , so here goes:

2186 - For my first act, I hit "Turn Complete" on 2185. Immediately, at the start of 2186, Santiago brought an Impact Rover up next to UN HQ and demanded D:Loyalty to end our Vendetta. I felt weak and ashamed as I humbly handed the tech over. That wasn't enough for the heartless wench. She laughed and demanded Gene Splicing as well. I wanted to resist, but all we had was a Scout Patrol in UN HQ and the 1-3-1 Plasma Prototype had not been completed yet for upgrade, so I had to hand that tech over as well. Upon turning that one over, she pledged Blood Truce.

I took advantage of the next decade to build our infrastructure and terraform as much as possible.

At the start of 2186, thanks to Smack's previous tech advances, I was able to immediately get EcoEngineering. I then chose EnvEcon for the next tech to lift our resource restrictions. I ran the next few turns at a 30/0/70 rate to discover it as soon as possible. I then moved it back to 50/0/50 (where it is now) to generate more credits.

2187 - I popped three pods, two with AAs and one that had 8 worms in it. Needless to say, that Rover went down quickly.

2191 - Zak pronounced Vendetta on the Hive. Zak is in big trouble. The Hive took over his eastern-most base and Zak is probably not long for this world.

2191-2195 - I was concentrating on Energy Banks, Creches (for the big Lal boom when someone is ready for it) and Command Centers to offset the morale effects of running Wealth. I was also trying to protect myself from any Santiago advances. I built several Boreholes and drilled to acquifers.

2195 - I used a Probe Skimship to take over one of the Spartans' Impact Skimships (undetected).

By now, I also found a couple more AAs, so we are overflowing with them.

2197 - I used a Probe Team to take that evil Spartan Impact Rover (undetected) that had been sitting on our peninsula north of UN HQ. I then used it to immediately take out two Recon Rovers that Miriam had landed on our peninsula.

Deirdre raised her island and her territory is now a part of our island.

2198 - Discovered EnvEcon. We can now build Tree Farms, but we still haven't had the fungal "pop" that we need before building them. We are now researching SynthFossilFuels and will have it in 9 turns.

Also, in 2198, I stole Superconductor from Santiago. She captured our Probe Skimship and declared Vendetta, but that was inevitable. We should be ready for her now. We have an Impact Skimship patrolling the straits between our territories. I have destroyed 3 Transport Foils each loaded with 2 Gatling Infantry units, so keep an eye out. We also have a Probe Skimship up there with another on the way. There is a Gatling Skimship or two that will be operational soon.

I couldn't resist cashing in one of the AAs. We got Intellectual Integrity with it, so UN HQ is working on the Citizen's Defense Force now.

Zak called up, desperate for help. I knew he was on his way out, so I wanted to take advantage of our pact before Yang eliminated him. I traded with Zak for Adv.Military Algorithms and Adv.Subatomic Theory.

johndmuller, you may need to take a look at the worker distribution in the bases. We had a few worms come ashore and I had to shift workers around to protect our Crawlers and destroy the worms, so the distribution may need a little work.

Also, Miriam has an artillery somewhere offshore of our western-most base, UN Equality Village, and is destroying enhancements. A Gatling Skimship will be coming out of one of our southern bases very soon and you may want to send it west to take out Miriam before sending it up to help with the war with Santiago.

We do have an AA stranded on an island a good way to the southeast of our HQ that you will need to retrieve.

We are still running Wealth, so you may want to switch that around to a more military setting when you get ready to take on Santiago.

Again, any suggestions, comments, etc. are welcome.

Good luck!

[Avenoct]

100 turns in 3 days? Pretty good pace for an MP game.

Sounds like I cut out right before things got tough. I'm already primed for the next turn. At this rate we'll play a game a week, rather than a turn a week.

-Smack

[Scipio Centaurus]

Santiago's got tons of forest square on her island; she's built a base in the middle of the alien ruins; she's built another base in the uranium flats; she's intimidated at least 3 techs away from us...

I'm impressed.

Smack, did you 'accidentally' load up your aldeberaan mod for this succession game?

- Scipio