New June Single-Player Challenge

[Chaos Theory]

The -2 morale does indeed work. In combat an enemy unit might be listed as Veteran (+): +12%. That's the sign the gas is working, since Veteran (+) is +37%.

I used soporific gas because I considered the various abilities that could help my planes in combat:

Soporific gas - I used this, of course
Nerve gas - I liked my commerce, and didn't want atrocities
Dissociative wave - I added this as soon as possible
Empath - wasn't facing psi units
Highly trained - would have had less of an effect than soporific gas

And so, with that list, I picked the best two - soporific gas and dissociative wave. As a result, I always had the morale edge, and once I got wave, didn't have to worry about AAA.

[Googlie]

That's good to know (I've never put it on a unit as i did believe it was broken) - especially if Sparta or the B's are in the game - the battlefield becomes more of a level playing field then (or even more tilted if playing as the Spartans or Believers!!)

G.

[Blake]

I'm playing the SMAC version, thinks started heating up around 2205, when I first saw gaian units. Then the gaian airforce started killing my formers, so I retreated all my frontline formers to the interior, where there is plenty of work to do raising land and drilling boreholes. I'm planetary govoner since 2206 (after a GA pop-boom), I have the VW and LLV (horrible SP for my purposes, but beggars can't be choosers, and it does give about +50 credits/turn being in my HQ). I dont forsee serious problems, with genejacks coming soon my mineral production should allow for very rapid and fullscale militarization of ground, air and space. My primary attack will involve land bridges and elite infantry, if all goes to plan.

edit: I can't help thinking "This looks like a job for FundieWealth!", I need excellent probe teams, elite units, good industry, lots of cash to burn on upgrades/probes/rushbuy. Fundie/FM/Wealth is the ticket... going down to -1 effic and -2 research is going to hurt... but once the spoils of war/probes start rolling in it'll be all good.

edit2: I've decided to start another game in parrallel, this time playing on the most part crawlerless. Grabbed the WP easily because I agressively popped pods, getting 3 AA. So far the tech to env.eco is going smoothly, then I'll mass formers and start serious raise land and foresting, with the main SE being Fundie/Green/Wealth, with periods of planned pop-booming.

[Blake]

In my 2nd game (which I've been running FM all game and building many bases) I'm at 2220, and I think it's going very well overall. My SP's are WP, PTS, LLV (now useless, but nice for earlier popboom), Cyborg Factory (!!) and Cloning Vats (!!!!). Don't have fusion yet, but my tech to genejacks sure paid off, because it allowed me to snag two very vital SP's, that woulda caused me no end of trouble in AI hands. Just nicked Orbital Spaceflight from Miriam too.

With PTS, CV and Orbitals I can start some crazy expansion in both directions. I'm already up to Iota sector (unusual for me) and there is only one way to handle the drones new drones, a hardline policy of Maximum Fun Spheres in all bases unable to keep their drones under control.

And in an act of bizzareness, Santiago is delivering a cruiser transport full of elite fusion scout rovers, maybe so I can reverse engineer fusion reactors and get cheap shell units....

[Blake]

Within a decade of getting the CV I became unsurpassed, as the PK votes reached 900 (yangs ~250 w/ empath guild). I now have a dozen bases producing 50+ minerals per year. I'm also finally getting into the post-fusion techs, the formers (about 80 of them) have finally all been upgraded to super-clean. SE is Power/FM/Demo.

The Fanatics are proving easy to crush, Miriam offering scant little resistance to shard technology, however also little in the way of spoils of war, being the backwards sister. The gaians offer better booty, several SP's (altough Yang has the good ones), 3-4 techs ahead of miriam (about up to adv. spaceflight, but also some green techs) and generally better terrain. She also has better units, but magtube elite infantry will be more than sufficient to handle them. Once Dee's empire has been assimiliated I'll build a landbridge over to Morgans land and assimilate Jungle Morgan and take Yangs SP bases (especially EG). That should give me enough voting power for supreme leader while also eliminating those guaranteed to defy me.

[Blake]

**** VICTORY ****

Around 2245 I destroyed Dee (she experienced firsthand the fun sphere, which had also been experienced by every other gaian).
In the same turn I reduced Miram to one base (deep inside spartan territory) she refused to surrender... then next turn, she took one of her bases back with units hidden in fungus, and immediately offered surrender. While it is protocol for the surenderee to be the one losing bases, I decided to accept. Funny anyway.
I deemed Santiago unworthy of conquering, as she was still using plasma armor, so I garrisoned 3 ex-Believer bases to hold the line against the spartans, and moved most my forces to siege Morgan.
It took 2-3 turns to assimilate Morgan, I was mostly waiting on cash for punishment spheres, tho I probed heaps from both Morgan and Yang. I was also running low on defenders, despite having striped all non-frontline bases of units.
Destroyed the last of morgan (he had captured one of my bases on a random island, it got there by chopperpod)
Then I took the Empath Guild from Yang in 2249. Would have been victory right there, except I last called council in 2242, so skipped through the last turns. Score coulda been higher.

Achieved Diplomatic Victory in 2252. Score of 5100.
Yang, Zak and Santiago all remained mostly intact. Miriam surrendered with 2 bases. Dee and Morgan got to spend an enternity in the Peacekeeper fun sphere. Over two thirds of the Population under peacekeeper rule were thoroughly screwed down by punishment spheres. Nearly every base had a genejack factory. One half of all people cloned from the Cloning Vats were based on the DNA of Lal's dead wife. A dozen bases producing 100+ minerals, including one ex-Believer base. Never left Free Market, ran Fundie for a little while. Never upgraded a single crawler, the dodgiest abuse I used was self-destruct and 1-turn incremental rushbuy. Never did find out what happened to Santiagos gift of fusion scout rovers.

This was my second "attempt", I didn't lose the first time, just got annoyed by the crazy AI's melting the icecaps so all my terraforming planning was getting screwed up.