Diplomatic vs. Conquest Victory

[Seafroggys]

Wow, my last post was in early 2000 on the Test of Time forums. I can't believe my account is still active after over 6 years of inactivity!? Thank god I still used the same password, but my signature is sooo way out of date and not me. I've changed a bit since I was 13

Anyways, I've been getting back into SMAC and something has been bothering me.

Are there any advantages to a conquest victory over a diplomatic victory? Because as far as I can tell, a conquest victory is pointless, because in my past 4-5 games I conquer enough of Planet to get over 3/4 of the votes on my own to crown myself surpream leader. No need to spend the time getting every last city when you can just end it quickly.

Btw I always get the Empath Guild, so I have +50% votes.

[CEO Aaron]

Sometimes you're left with no choice, if you've broken the UN Charter or somesuch, certain factions may never surrender to you, and will have to be eradicated.

[Verrucosus]

Also, Diplomatic Victory is allowed only after discovery of Mind-Machine Interface. When using blind research with a "conquer" or "explore" focus, scientists go after Air Power very early, but they are very reluctant to research Neural Grafting. Maybe I haven't used the best research priorities, but in my less patient days there were many games when planetary conquest preceded the arrival of Mind-Machine Interface. In the meantime the mildness of age has come upon me and I have to admit that I haven't won by conquest for quite some time now.

[Leon Trotsky]

Also, bear in mind the factors of map size and ocean coverage. A small dry planet cries out for conquer.

[Seafroggys]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Sometimes you're left with no choice, if you've broken the UN Charter or somesuch, certain factions may never surrender to you, and will have to be eradicated.

I've never had that problem (well, recently, I remember playing a game two or three years ago where one didn't surrender to me).

I've usually played Large maps, 7 factions, and at the Librarian and Thinker difficulties.

[CEO Aaron]

Well the difficulty isn't what determines the truculence of your opponents, but rather the tactics you've used to bring them to heel. Any use of nerve gas, base eradication or planetbusters will typically make the targetted factions permanently unwilling to accept your rule, and will battle to the last man.

[Frankychan]

Sometimes it's just easier to flatten your neighbors then have to listen to them squabble about your atrocities in Planetary Council.

There have been times where I just wanted to end the game early, but didn't have enough diplomatic weight to have everyone unite against me. But I did have enough "toys" to reduce their votes to a more favorable outcome in the next vote.

But what the good CEO says is true. Sometimes you kick a faction down for too long and they'd rather take on everyone else before submitting to your benevolent rule. I think this has only happened to me once or twice. I'm thinking it was either Miriam or Aki-Zeta...

[Verrucosus]

A temporary separation from my Civ4 disk has thrown me back into the arms of Alpha Centauri. In my current game, all of the ingredients of a rapid diplomatic victory (Lal, Empath Guild, Monsoon Jungle, pop-booming) are in place, but the tech requirement is still giving me trouble.

Please allow me to turn my earlier comment into a question: How do you get Mind-Machine Interface as quickly as possible when using blind research? (The problem seems to be Neural Grafting whose 3-1-1-1 statistic makes it unattractive compared with other military techs on the left branch of the tree.)

[CEO Aaron]

Just keep all of your pre-requisite techs in mind, and ruthlessly steal any techs that lead up to MMI. Also, a big pod-harvesting regime for when you've finished all your pre-reqs would be a good plan, so that you can start hooking up all your alien artifacts on the turn after you have obtained both Doctrine:Air Power and Neural Grafting.

[Verrucosus]

Thank you. I had hoped that there'd be a wondrous combination of research priorities to get there sooner, but artifacts and stealing are quite valid options. With theft, there's the problem that the AI doesn't seem to value Neural Grafting any more than my own scientists - even Zakharov doesn't have it in this case.

Pod hunting is an excellent idea though. The seas are mostly clear by now, but there's an untouched continent the might hold the secrets of MMI. (Reminds me of Civ1 where you could find a "primitive tribe" that, in the late game, could share the secrets of Advanced Flight.) Anyway, pod hunting is what I'm going to try now.

[Sikander]

I've had the primitive tribe give me Advanced Flight more than once, to my great amusement.