Miriam digging in

[buddha888]

As Santiago, I've got Miriam entrenched on a little island of about 4 fully developed bases.

I've captured/destroyed all her outlying satellite bases and have New Jerusalem surrounded, but she's got about 30 troops dug in in there.

I'm pounding them everyday but she's putting up a good fight and sneaking reinforcements in daily from the other bases.

Any suggestions? I have to take her out eventually but at this point, the war is costing me £££ and time and I'm thinking of calling it a day.

[Chaos Theory]

Starve them out! 30 troops cost lots of support, even for Miriam.

[Senethro]

Good call. Bomb out her terraforming and occupy as much of the base grid as can be made safe. Capture her other bases so their units are rehomed to New Jerusalem. Also, check to see if shes in Police State.

Alternatively, if shes had time to make fully developed bases you should have Planet Busters, yes?

[buddha888]

Yes, but I'm a hippie Santiago - don't like blowing up the world!

I took the Morgan way out - squeezed her other (weakly defended bases) and then forced her to make a submissive pact. Will she turn on me in the future or will she be sweet now?

[Chaos Theory]

Submissives tend to be pretty loyal. I don't think I've ever seen one turn for anything less than an atrocity against them or planet buster.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Submissives tend to be pretty loyal. I don't think I've ever seen one turn for anything less than an atrocity against them or planet buster.

True but I have seen them steal tech. If you don't have a probe team in every base, they use their pactmate status to go through your territory (you don't seem to get the option to merely eject them)-- I sometimes don't want my submissive to have certain techs-- they may trade it on or lose it to an enemy probe

[Flubber]

Re: Miriam digging in

Originally posted by buddha888
As Santiago, I've got Miriam entrenched on a little island of about 4 fully developed bases.

I've captured/destroyed all her outlying satellite bases and have New Jerusalem surrounded, but she's got about 30 troops dug in in there.

I'm pounding them everyday but she's putting up a good fight and sneaking reinforcements in daily from the other bases.

Any suggestions? I have to take her out eventually but at this point, the war is costing me £££ and time and I'm thinking of calling it a day.

A few comments

1. Its tough to give specifics without knowing the approximate tech era-- Do you have planes, choppers, arty-- what weapons versus what armour? Despite that, a few ideas

2. use probe teams to take out any applicable defensive infrastructure she has--use units to destroy any nearby sensors

3. You mention units coming from other bases-- Are these other bases as well defended? Take them out if not and limit her to the one unit a turn that a base can produce

4. Do you have good weapon ships or arty? In a war of attrition this can be fabulous-- Inside a abse, IIRC the defenders can only be reduced to half their health but if you are doing that to 30 units, the benefits are obvious. It may take a few barrages and this seems to work better if there is no perimeter defense (IO've seen no prrof of this but it just seems to be true. I like the arty barrage becayuse it save on the damage to your own units.

5. tearing up terraforming works as well-- but its double-edged since then you need to re-terraform later

personally I would focus on the weaker bases if possible to remove military support while probing the base to kill all defensive improvements and destroying any nearby sensors. This should give you time to get some arty or ships in place to begin barraging. Barrage until you get everyone down to half health and continue barraging every turn thereafter to keep them there while the attack goes on . Then march up with a best weapon attacker and whale away. It may take a few turns but if you have choppers, you can save them for when the best defenders have been killed to mop up

[Flubber]

Originally posted by buddha888
Yes, but I'm a hippie Santiago - don't like blowing up the world!

I took the Morgan way out - squeezed her other (weakly defended bases) and then forced her to make a submissive pact. Will she turn on me in the future or will she be sweet now?

Ahh -- that works too

Submissives are generally pretty tame. If they aren't on the same continent as your main empire, its pretty easy to probe defend your few nearby bases against her getting silly.

I find submissives though range from cooperative slaves that will give you everyyhing they have to submissives that pretty much refuse everything

[buddha888]

Re: "long range fire" from my cruisers - why does this sometimes fire multiple instakill barrages and other times only fires one weakass salvo that doesn't even damage the target unit?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by buddha888
Re: "long range fire" from my cruisers - why does this sometimes fire multiple instakill barrages and other times only fires one weakass salvo that doesn't even damage the target unit?

hmm-- well

1. ships will artillery duel to the death with other ships

2. If the defender has arty on land defending, it seems that a few barrages go each way until it just stops. Usually one or the other side will have 30% damage or so and you can duel over a couple of years until someone dies

3. Units inside bases do not seem to go below 50% health with an exception for probeteams IIRC ( maybe natives).

4. In the field, you can barrage them down much lower and you can barrage native life to death. I don't think you can kill a non-arty conventional unit but I'm not sure on that.

As for the different effects, I just take it as the ups and downs of war. Some barrages are more effective than others. I do know that a higher weapon or reactor does increase effectiveness. I also seem to remember that barrages in SMAC seemed to be weaker than those in SMAX . . . I don't know if any patches changed that

[CEO Aaron]

Here's what I would do: Recall my invasion force, save the fleet units containing Mimi to her little island bunker. Scrap the recalled ground forces, using the recouped minerals to produce a respectable fleet of probe foils. Probe rape her costal bases til every last improvement is demolished, then incide drone riots. With her bases in chaos, you can casually buy them out. Their defenders become your troops, which you can use to conquer any inland bases, if necessary. If not, scrap them to rebuild rec-commons and other drone placating facilities you'll need to bring the populace to heel.

[Chaos Theory]

Buying Miriam's bases, especially ones near her HQ, will be very expensive, and will be impossible if she's running Fundamentalist, as the AI is wont to do.

[Flubber]

I agree with Chaos- kill kill killl

[Senethro]

MAIM! KILL! REND THEM LIMB FROM LIMB!

[Kataphraktoi]

i smell the scent of multiple +1's in the air...

i think the prob here is that you didnt build enough supply. 30 units should only take 5 or 6 hovertank units to remove-plusone to drop on the base itself,or like 10 if they have aerospace.just bury them in drop units...

unless this isnt one of those 22xx ending assaults in which case i just got +1 also