Turns/Story of Probe Alert #1 Succession Game

[johndmuller]

Zak, I presume it's you who downloaded it (and sent me an email message), but there does seem to be something wrong with your email - I got:

Reporting-MTA: dns;cpimssmtpu08.email.msn.com
Received-From-MTA: dns;lexisnexus
Arrival-Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 13:02:58 -0700

Final-Recipient: rfc822;zakharov@care2.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;552 MAIL FROM: refused

[Zakharov VII]

That's weird...?? Anyways the e-mail was just to say I got it from the thread .

Anyways, I'm in a bit of a rush to post this...

First of all, I played an extra 5 years (to 2255) for two reason...one...at 2252 I realized I should have stopped, but I didn't have a saved game besides the one I was on and the 2240 one. Two, I wanted to finish up just one thing (the first Takedown ).

Anyways, lots of stuff happened. Things were going so wonderfully for a very, very long time...then two terrible things happened with Miriam (both on the same turn !!):

1 - She, uh...Fundied up

2 - She, uh...Fusioned up

I think #1 is worse, #2 "just" means that her troops now are twice as powerful...1 means that almost everything she's got is Elite (she has Command Nexus!) and that we're stuck with what I was able to probe before that.

Before 2248 or so when the "disaster" struck, we were doing wonderfully! Stacks of 5 Gatling-Plasma Infantries would fall to our might (as we were able to probe away after weakening some smaller stacks...unfortunately, the colateral damage killed off the last 2 in stacks of 5) without us losing a troop.

Now, however, we're somewhat desparate. But two things have helped:

1 - I've sunk half the little piece of land connecting to us with some Takedown-SS Sea Formers. There's only a 1 tile length of land now. Unfortunately, Miriam has started bringing out the airforce, killing off even our Silksteel armored sea formers. Also, because of this project, various other Formers had to be disbanded. We only have 1 land Former left (after some being killed, too), the Ferrari in the Uranium Flats. I believe we have 2-3 sea formers...it seems to me that we must have probed a former to get to the 5 we were at before...are we allowed to replace that?

2 - Deirdre loves us. We pacted with her around 2242, giving her Synthetic Fossile Fuels to seal the deal. Then we got Fusion Power for 125 from her. We also pacted with University sometime later (50s sometime), and got Pre-Sentient Algorithms/Advanced Ecological Engineering from one of them at some time. Anyways, the reason this pact sister is helping defend us is that she keeps on giving us Fusion Missile Needlejets! Oulunsala Rover Shrine has a Punishment Sphere, now, unfortunately, but it'd be all drones without it. As of right now, Miriam has no SAM units, and we have two aircraft right now (and it looks like she'll be giving us at least one more). That means that we can use the noodles to clog up the 1 tile wide land bridge! Since there are two of them, they can switch off on this duty until either we sink the last bit (not likely, Miriam's sending tons of planes to make trouble) or until...well...one of them gets killed off.

We have practically our whole military stationed in Oul (we had to leave the monolith shortly after she went Fundy - with her plenty of 2 movement infantry, we would have been crushed by colateral damage). That includes a nice 6-2-2 rover that I think is Elite, and our only Fusion Infantry, a 4-2-1*2 Elite. For kicks, hit F4 and hit the "Garrison" button .

Oh I forgot to mention. You've probably figured it out by now, but Yang's long gone .

We have a small station (a couple probes, a 5-1-2, a few other things) on the monolith near Santiland. She hasn't been active, but the occassional 5-1-2 has been sent...

In terms of Secret Projects, we got the Supercollider. Deirdre had already built the Ascetic Virtues when I got in, so we switched to Supercollider so as not to waste all those minerals. Unfortunately, that means our Merchant Exchange and Supercollider are split, at Morgan Industries and ZVII Center respectively. MI has built just about everything (some military buildings remain, does Command Center affect Probe Teams? If so you may want that, though it seems we get Elite probes anyways...), and so is continuously building 0-4-2*2 Zaky Special probes. Fusion Labs are being built because we have plenty of probe defenders in Oul. You can always start building more whereever. I would definately suggest a Fusion Lab at ZVII Center once the S-Defender is done since that will work well with the Supercollider.

We're on Fundy (we may want to switch out sometime soon)/Free Market (stayed this way)/Wealth (bounced to Survival during the difficult period right when Miriam was on Fundy). We're getting a tech every 7 or so years, and I'm pretty sure we're going for Probabily Mechanics (next turn!) so that we have even more powerful defense (Miriam uses missile and gatling right now - we could have had a truce, but only if I let her have Superstring Theory and the Chaos Guns that come with it! No thank you, especially since she might have demanded another tech, or launched a surprise attack, etc...everyone hates her, so she shouldn't care about integrity! I've never seen an AI use Planet Busters, but DON'T let her get Advanced Spaceflight!!). Deirdre/Zak are researching Orbital Spaceflight, I think, and IIRC they'll be done on the same turn. One of them should help us with that, then if the defenses are fine we can change MI to some satelites (so I guess we should get an Aerospace Complex there).

Finally, why is it that whenever I do succession games we get a terrible start?? I mean, here we were sandwiched between Santiago and Yang, and then Miriam came pouring down our throats! Why can't we be on a peaceful continent, like Deirdre or Zak?? Not much of a challenge, I guess. After all, probes-only is only difficult if you're in a war with someone immune to mind control, right ?

Z

[Blake]

Started: Both Miriam and Santiago are fundied, Damn. But no fault of previous CEO.
A sizable military force at O-base, sea former deraising a landbridge, CEO Blake suspects that deraising isn't even a word and so orders the formers to go home. He then reviews the military at O-Base and decides there is enough to go conquer the Believers, and so sends out most of the units, covered by a noodle.

2256: Spartan elite rover attacks and wins at spartan monolith, there is no way to see them coming and no way to stop them, and they are too expensive to probe. Attack and destroy rover, but retreat may be nessecary.
Research new armour, next monopoles. Design new units (cleaned up the workshop previous turn), including a new former Former-5-1*2, Super. Will scrap the sea formers to assist in constructing the land formers.

2257: Order strategic retreat from spartan front, all the units start hightailing back to morganite cities.
The invasion force moves forward.

2258: Invasion force retreats to lick it's wounds. Ow, those believers are mean!
Ring Zak and do some tech swapping, got Cent.Med and Orbital Spaceflight... must get orbitals, mmmm orbitals...

2259: Invasion force continues the *strategic retreat* with the spartans hot on their tails, a deenoodle moved over to pick them off as they enter the forests....
Building masses of hardened probe-5+-1 to throw at Miriam, and some new formers. (I've forgotten how the former rules work, so will just build up to 4 formers). Going to drill some boreholes and then lay magtube to make it easier for our enemy to capture our empire.
In happier news a massive wad of cash is waiting for those Spartans...

2260: A hardened Probe beats off 3 elite Believer units, yeah! It dies, but for 3 rows, I'm not complaining.
One of my cheap and nasty fusion foil probes mind controls a spartan rover which strayed too close to the water. Heheh. 380 credits, expensive, but not overly so.

2261: *POP* goes the forest, it gave the poor probe team in the tile an almightly suprise too.
The spartan rovers destroy themselves against a ECM silksteel probe. They could have left one to be probed. Santiago must not like sharing.

2262: Research Monopoles, Yay! Next tech Neural Grafting.
In other news I have an excellent view now, sailing around Chiron in the new Morganite Sky Hydroponics lab. I can sleep easy without worrying about those spartan or believer wenches storming the place.

2263: Buy two new Rovers from the Spartan Army Surplus store, 600 credits. We need to give her fusion to get better units

New Borehole drilled. Weeeeee. No attractive pickings at the Spartan Army Surplus store.

2264: One of the spartan army surplus units is destroyed in combat, I want a refund!

2265: Well, not too much happened.

2266: Yeah, I know I'm overplaying, but I want to set up our empire good for the next CEO. Zak has gifted us our first chaos-fusion noodle. This is very good news.

2267: Santiago calls, claims that I'm a fat ba$**** and thats she wants to destroy me. Good thing I'm in the Sky hydroponics lab. In other news purchased two new infantry units from the Spartan Army Surplus store. Really wish santiago would get Fusion power...

2268: Dee gives us some FUSION FUSION NOODLES! This is very good news, Miriam is still running around with missile.

2269: Researched Neural grafting. What a choice, MMI, Probabiliy mechanics (6 armour, tachyeon field), chose Probability.

2270: Dee rings and demands 75 credits. I let her have it. She then started prattling on about exploitation. I think she's onto Diamonds little scam.

Woke up the new CEO, he was complaining about "a pain in the neck", it looked nasty. Nipped down to the basement to borrow a Dee, and hopped back on the rocket to the Sky Hydroponics lab.

Report:
We have scads of money, about 2200.
Our commerce is 168, the trade pact is enacted.
We also have a fair few units, enough for an assualt against Miriam, I would say.
Our formers have almost complelted a mag link up, connect O-base then build a magtube to The Hive, which should fall without too much fuss. Both Miriam and Santiago have inteceptors so use Noodle ZoC blocking with care, altough our formers can take a beating from missile units, so we should be okay.
Watch for Miriam dropping out of fundie, when she does, probe the bejesus outa her. (on a simialler note, keep a big pile of money handy)
The Spartans are jokes, I have ECM probes wandering around the border, they can probe any tasty morsels which trickle down, but remember to probe closer rather than further from out empire, then the money goes further.
We should also consider an invasion against Sparta, this would go something like: Send probes ahead to asorb damage and cause ZoC Havoc.
Send army in behind probes.
Use Noodles to clear out Defiance Freehold, take with rover, then move back out city, move in armoured probe as garrison, take Sparta Command, probe everything which moves.
If done right it should only require a couple of noodles, a half dozen probes, and a rover or two, and a big bankroll for when Sparta Command falls.

Ofcourse the value of the spartan empire is dubious, but a pet sparta would be a VERY nice thing to have, with enough probed bases in the turn taking Sparta Command (also probe Ironholm, Survival, etc) it may be possible to force submission in a single turn, especially doing a semi-quicky out of wealth for the few turns.
But I'd say that'd be a project for two terms time.

[Fromage]

Sorry that I didn't notice you. I lost my internet connection for 7 days (It took 3 visits from phone company guys to fix it).

2270 CEO Fromage takes control of Morgans again after a long holiday in Oulunsalo.

I think Morgans needed a good governor now when large scale attack in almost ready to start.

2270-2275 Small skirmishes in west with spartans. Some probes went in bunkers that located in rocky areas and Spartans had hard time getting them out. They lost 4-5 against every probe we lost. Mean while, it was peaceful in the eastern front. Formers build mag tubes and air force covered them.

2276 Mag tubes in east are ready. Wounded probe stands two squares from first Beliver city and lures 20 squads of noodles to chace him. Of course he dies, but he lured most of the defence away from the city and we started our assault. Noodles with a little help from speeders easily take the first city. Formers connect the new city in our mag tube network at the same year, probes cover all the exits and we can carry on our attack.

2277-2280 We use the same tactic than before. Three more beliver cities fall to our forces and we had lost only 1 or 2 units. 2279 gaians gave us two more noodles, but bad news in 2280; University end their pact with us, because they didn't like our wealth.

2281-2283 Our strategy is strike through the Belivers land into the New Jerusalem and capture their capital. Blitzkrieg tactic works, we carry on our attack and two more cities fall. Our forces are cutting Belivers in two pieces and our formers are advancing at the same speed than other forces so every new conquest is connected to mag tube network. Everything is fine and our drones celebrate our new victories.

2284 just when vistory is near, disaster happens. Beliver fightter destroys our air cover over the formers and they kill three of them. A second later one fighter attacks our city and last former is gone.

2285 CEO Fromage retires. There are parties in every town to celebrate his victories. Every drone thinks he is the greatest leader they have ever got. They think war in east has gone as well as before. It's great that they didn't hear about the latest losses yet and they will blame the new CEO from the problems.

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We got about 8000 energy, so we can buy all the spartans after belivers are finished.

We got 1-6-1 probes, so defence isn't a problem.

I hope you can take care of the Belivers. Their airforce is a problem, because they have about 20 planes. If we lose our planes, they will butcher us.

New secret project is on the way on our capital. 5 years later we get a new tech and theory of everything. We propably could rush buy it then.

[Fromage]

What happened to this game?