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

[johndmuller]

Commissioner's Report to the General Assembly for the period 2290-2299

Executive Summary:
We experienced a period of rapid population growth and military reorganization. After repelling several attacks on our mainland, we took the battle to CEO Morgan and captured the Morganic base off our east coast. We performed a great deal of building and development in the former Spartan territory to bring it near Internationally recognized standards; it is just now starting to get up to snuff. There are still a few residual problems with the sea level changes, but mostly it is mostly under control; some additional bases will need Pressure Domes if the sea rises again as they are close to the edge. Otherwise, we did a lot of military and population infrastructure, although I didn't get started on building any invasion force, just the designs of the naval components. We could use the drop method to get started on the island to the east with the Crater (a Colony Needlejet is almost ready), but when I while that was being organized, all of a sudden we needed to use the force to repel Morgan. Additionally, we are maxing out at 16 in some of our bases pending Hab Domes; some can be put into Golden Age status, although I'm not sure if we get much out of that (+1 econ in the bases I think). Generally we are pulling away, but the troika is still able to hurt us, particularly with PB's and maybe other atrocities.

Report Body
Breakthrough: The Will to Power (2290); researching Prob Mechanics); breakthru: Prob Mechs (2294or5), researching NanoMetallurgy; Built Universal Translator (2296), got NanoMetallurgy - Monopole Magnets was only one offered, got that. Next breakthru:Unified Field Theory (2299), now researching NanoMiniaturization (hovertanks).

Built Cloning Vats 2292 (Ahhhkkkk, Drones, Ahhhkkkk, MM, MM, MM, Ahhhkkkk) and Universal Translator (2296); Photus Mutagen next turn..

The High Standing Committee on Social Management issued a finding that the term "Thought Control" had been erroneously considered abusive of human rights in the past and would henceforth be known as "Enlightenment". Social Engineering policy of "Enlightenment" initiated. Translation: I like having Elite troops and was feeling seriously deprived.

Initial battles around Morgan's Deep Sea Lab, UN Equity Village out west and had a conventional missle attack on ? (didn't recognize while it was being shown). Took a light pasting, but working out more or less OK.
--A couple of years later, Miriam brought a big load of men to kick butt near UN Temple of Sol, but twas their butts kicked; they did, however knock off our big Former Crew (they had just finished the borehole, but could have raised some land.to keep it high and dry). At the other end of our island, we took over Morgan's DS Lab and got rid of a pesky bombarding Yang boat.
--In 2298, Morgan dropped in at Defiance Freehold with a bunch of his pals; we managed to squeak by with some drop units that I thought we were going to use to drop in on the Crater territory. At the same time, Miriam arrived at the opposite side with a big force of tough baddies we had to kill (she did offer to trade peace for tech, but I didn't think that she would go away.
--Various ships and planes sailing by and/or attacking, particularly the usual cheap shots at formers and crawlers; generally repulsed, although sometimes we had to trade a few of our pieces. Miriam's air stuff is almost as good as ours, so its often a close battle.

Yang has PB at Unification Cavern at (26,84) in the far south at last look; Morgan's got one too, at Morgan Interstellar, and Miriam's working on hers; we should probably do something about Morgan's at least..

A good place for a sea base would be at (86,32).to sorta connect our 2 landmasses.

Special purpose units:
AAA Prob Cops (base garrison) and ImpPhot Clean AAA Guards (protecting formers, crawlers & attack forces)
LazProb 3A-Clean C-Escort (protecting formers, crawlers & attack forces - naval versions) Note: the AI will attack it.
Shard SAM-Radar Cruiser (Attack only) and [/i]ShardProb SAM3A Battleship[/i] (Attack/Defend/Expensive)

Respectfully submitted, ,,,, , etc.
High Commissioner JDM of the Alpha Centauri Mandate

[Qantaga]

I just received the turn. Haven't even had a chance to look around yet, but I will play it and post it later on today.

[Scipio Centaurus]

SMAC No-Crawler Challenge Team Succession Game
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[I'll start a separate thread for this in the MP forum when we're ready to play the game.]

A SMAC Solo Play game using 'standard' succession rules, except that the human-controlled faction may not design or build any type of resource supply transport unit (crawlers, trawlers, etc).

The human-controlled faction can capture supply units via probe action and can receive supply units transferred to their control by AI factions. The human-controlled faction is free to use such supply units as they see fit.

Supply units owned by the human-controlled faction may only be upgraded to more advanced supply unit designs known to the human faction as a result of the previous capture or control of a prototype of such an advanced supply unit during game play.

Qantaga, Arima and myself are signed up so far. How about it Smack and johndmuller? I would like to have 4 or 5 players. If more than 5 players want to play, I can either sit out and just manage the game or I can split the players and start 2 games.

Any objections to the following setup?

- University of Planet
- Transcend Difficulty
- Huge Random Map
- 50%-70% Surface Water
- Average Erosion/Cloud Cover/Native Life
- All Victory Conditions Active
- Directed Research
- Unity Pod Scattering
- Unity Survey Off
- Random Faction Personalities (Not Agendas)
- Player Turn Order Determined by Random Lottery

First Round ~ 100 years
Second and Third Rounds ~ 75 years
Additional Rounds ~ 50 years

- Scipio

[Qantaga]

First, Scipio, your set up for the No Crawler Challenge sounds fine to me. Thanks for taking the lead on getting the game going.

On to Lal's World:

This turn was a polar extreme from my last turn. The last time I sat in the Brother's seat, we were conducted a brutal war with the Spartans. This time, I am pleased to report, was almost exclusively devoted to the building and maintenance of our vast empire. We did have some battles, but mainly they were defensive in nature.

Report to the General Assembly: 2299 - 2314

2300 - Immediately upon selecting "turn complete", a Planetary Council vote was called to melt the Polar Caps, which would have resulted in the sea levels rising at an even more rapid rate than they already were. Fortunately, Colonel Santiago voted against the measure which allowed us to exercise our power of Executive Veto to strike that measure down.

We got to see the completion of the Pholus Mutagen which had effectively been completed under the reign of the noble Brother johndmuller. I must say that this empire has been left in very good condition by all of my predecessors. Congratulations to everyone.

2301 - Morgan brought lots of jets calling and Yang sent several boats to visit. They destroyed a Former and a Crawler, but we took out 3 jets and 3 boats in return, so not a bad trade-off for us.

2302 - We started The Theory of Everything in UN HQ (our best lab base).

2303 - Drone Riots everywhere! Fortunately, Brother johndmuller had left several police units in the production queue and they will be online very shortly to quell this riots to some extent.

2304 - The Hive was getting close to finishing The Theory of Everything, so we rushed it to completion. We discovered Nanominiturazation and chose the Secrets of Creation as our next tech to work on.

Morgan is throwing several conventional missiles at us, but the damage caused is minimal. The Hive is still sending boat after boat toward us in the southwest. We have managed to eliminate any that come within sight of our coast.

We established UN Pillar of Rights on the northern portion of the Garland Crater island.

2305 - Lots of general upkeep in all bases. I am producing some Clean Shard SAM 'Copters to defend against the jets and ships coming our way. Morgan sent several Destroyers and Transports. He took out a Former, but we got all of his units in exchange.

2306 - Miriam is sending several Transports and a couple of Destroyers from the southwest. No trouble destroying them, although we did lose a 'Copter when it did not have enough fuel to return safely to base.

2307 - We discovered the Secrets of Creation. We took Matter Compression as our free tech and started working on Super Tensile Solids (thank goodness for Habitation Domes). We are also very interested in the Space Elevator.

2308 - Morgan founds two sea bases near us. He is producing Conv.Missiles. We could probably capture those bases pretty easily, but I am in a peaceful mood this turn, so I will leave that task for one of my esteemed colleagues.

2309 - The Hive captured a Believer base. Maybe now they will start to focus on each other and leave us alone for awhile.

2310 - Morgan throws a few more Conv.Missiles at us. I am not feeling quite so peaceful towards him at the moment. Still, he is causing no significant damage. We have a couple Conv.Missiles of our own, in case we need to retaliate.

2311 - We discover Super Tensile Solids. We are now working on Industrial Nanorobotics (only tech offered). We begin work on the Space Elevator. No other faction is working on a Secret Project, so we should be able to complete this at our leisure. It is scheduled for completion in 2323 even without rushing it.

The war between the Hive and the Believers did not last long. We received word that they have signed a Treaty and joined forces against us.

2312 - Miriam calls vote to launch Solar Shades. It passes, which is nice for us since a lot of our coastline was endangered.

2313 - Morgan takes Fort Liberty from Santiago, but we get it back immediately. We took out several Believer and Morgan Transports.

2314 - We discovered Industrial Nanrobotics. We are now working on Frictionless Surfaces (again only choice offered). The Nano Factory is available if anyone wants it.

Miriam popped up demanding Centauri Psi in exchange for a Truce. I was very tempted to accept, but she had a Fusion Destroyer Transpost loaded with 8 Shard units three squares off our coast. Since she has betrayed us before, I chose not to accept the Truce. We took out the Transport. Then, one of our SAM 'Copters found a stack of 4 Needlejets and took them out. I also took out a Destroyer, but another is looming on the horizon. It appears as if our days of peace are rapidly coming to an end.

There is a Sea Colony Pod passing through UN Canals & Locks. Brother johndmuller made a good suggestion of locating it at (86,32), but I have taken the liberty of raising the land in that area (to be completed in a couple of turns) to connect our continents by land. I am also raising the land on the other side to create our own little inland sea. Any of our boats can pass through UN Canals & Locks. You may want to place that Sea Pod up near UN Pillar of Rights (on the Garland Crater island), but it is ready to go anywhere.

There is still some terraforming to do on the former Spartan island, but it is whipping into shape quite nicely.

I did throw a lot of Nutrient satellites into the sky, but we could always use a few more.

We are still way ahead on the power chart, but Yang and Miriam are going to prove quite a challenge. Not to mention our old friend Morgan. Good luck, Brother Arima.

[Qantaga]

One more note. I did not design any new military units during my tenure, but there should be a few new weapons/armor/abilities to play with in the Design Workshop. Good luck.

[Arima]

Hello all...
MY 2334-2335

My first move in the game was to check vote totals, to test plausibility of Diplomatic Victory...
Dedrie, Yang, Zak, Miraim, Santi, Morgan had 479
I had 1524. 1524/2003>3/4

Wow! I can elect myself Supreme Leader by myself! Without Clinical Immortality!

So I did so. (Actually Dedrie, Zak, and Santi helped, but they had 40 some votes, so it didn't matter.

VICTORY: DIPLOMATIC Achieved MY 2335


I'll be posting the turn w/o the victory latter.
FYI, our points were as follows:
Pop: 747
Commerce: 112
Tech: 60
Secret Projects: 300
Diplomatic Victory: 770
Total Score: 1989

So, it's up to you guys if you want to continue on a different victory path, so if you want to start the 'no crawler challenge'
(In order to see the victory, d/l the previous turn, then try for diplomatic)

-Brother Arima

[Scipio Centaurus]

Hey, congrats on Team Lal's diplo victory! I'm game to continue, if you all want to hone your strategic planning & execution (conquest) skills. I may slack off a bit on my reporting, if we decide to play on.

- Scipio

PS. The no-crawler challenge can be started at any time. Feel free to mention the game to any friends you think might be interested.

[Avenoct]

Excellent work my fellow oligarchs!

I found that game to be far tougher than usual. The AI seemed to do really well for itself. I'm up for the no-crawler challenge and would like to suggest that we move back toward a model of decreasing turn-length's / round. I suppose it probably doesn't even matter how many turns we each take, but 15 turns near the end of last game would have taken me a half day! It sounds like Scipio is suggesting a good model. Also, sorry to bugger out of my last turn....had to get Aldebaran stable.

-Smack

[Arima]

This is the continuation, in case you want to play it.

MY 23xx-2334

aka: We won... don't bother.

The turn was pretty basic: I built up on infastructure more, and I attacked several Morgan bases, in hope of getting HSA. I didn't, but I got the seconds best thing... surrender. So Morgan is gone, and Dedrie, Miraim and Yang are the only ones not having submissive pact with...

Scratch that statment. In order to intice dedrie to declare vendetta, I moved one of my units to a Spartan base. She declared Vendetta, I took one of her bases, and she swore submissive pact. Two left.

Also, I built several nice SPs... namely Space Elevator, Network Backbone, and Telepatric Matrix. Goodbye drones! I also started a beachead on Miraim, so commence operation!


PS. I have economic on 40-60. We're getting tech in one.
-Arima

[Scipio Centaurus]

Update To SMAC No-Crawlers Challenge Succession Game
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I messed around with my alpha.txt (SMAC rules file) and got the game to run without activating either the Supply Transport Module (for use in the DW) or the default Supply Crawler unit. Both items normally become available with Industrial Automation - but not when I start the game with the modified rules file!

I don't think anyone else needs to make any adjustments to any files on their system for this change to manifest during play of this game only. I should have tested that by saving the game file with the changes confirmed - and then reloading the game after restoring the original alpha.txt rules file. But I won't get around to doing that till after this message has been posted.

If the supply crawler and supply transport module do become available when you load the game turn on your 'puter, just discipline yourselves to not make use of them.

Smack, do you know if the original alpha.txt changes become a permanent part of the game SAV files as they move from machine to machine?

Looks like the game will insist on the first player of UoP picking the free UoP tech before offering the opportunity to save the game, so I guess I will go ahead and play the first few game turns. That will also give me a chance to evaluate the starting position. I'll restart if it looks really bad (i.e. our HQ is on an island composed of 6 arid rocky squares or something equally obnoxious)

We have 5 players.

Player Turn Order for SMAC Succession Game ACS03
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1. Scipio
2. Arima
3. johndmuller
4. Qantaga
5. Smack

Game Years per Player (by Rounds)
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Round 1 ~ 20
Round 2 & 3 ~ 15
Rounds 4+ ~ 10

After the first round, any player can play an extra 5 years at their discretion. Good if you're in the middle of something and you don't want to give up control to some 'bumbling fool'

The game turn thread is here

- Scipio

[Avenoct]

I don't think anyone else needs to make any adjustments to any files on their system for this change to manifest during play of this game only.

This is in fact true. I accidentaly used an alpha version of Aldebaran to start an MP game over at ACOL many months ago. Though the alphatext changes were minimal, they persist in that game even now. The other 2 players decided they would live with the game as it was, so in effect we are playing a variation of SMAC that exists nowhere else.

As to the new game, sounds excellent. Start a new thread when you get the first turn finished..we've about killed off this thread <--I just love Mr. Red Sperm Head.

-Smack