Spartan Opening

[CEO Aaron]

As is my wont, I've been mucking with Sparta again, trying to ascertain how best to utilize their advantages in a hybrid style fashion. I feel that of the original SMAC 6, she's arguably the weakest, her innate advantages being ill suited to growth in absence of an opponent to exploit.

So, assuming you haven't discovered a nearby rival to conquer, and that you're not rushing for impact weapons asap, what techs do you try to discover to lay the groundwork for your engine of conquest?

[Maniac]

DocFlex

[Flubber]

Since you already have mob I say doc flex for pod popping or the potential of naval bombardments and landings- Its such a short sidetrip for the benefits that are possible

[WotanAnubis]

I am in no way an expert, but you asked what to do in case the Spartans have no nearby enemy to exploit.

Well then... go out and find one! Build that invasion fleet and crush someone. And, you know, go pod popping while you're at it.

[Leon Trotsky]

If you somehow know that you have no neighbours (perhaps because you are playing in a pre-defined scenario of which starting locations are distant one another) you can pull off a successful early free market, so Industrial Base / Industrial Economics would be a good start.
Pod Popping with Foils is also nice, and you'll need Flexibility for one of the technological landmarks. Also, if you find another faction with a gun foil, you can harras them, destroying their improvements, effectively slowing down their progress.
Police State is a one way trip - I like the analogy someone made with cocaine, since once you have switched to Police State, it's very difficult to quit (both at game level, and as a general habit, though only the former applies to the discussion). Early Police isn't that great; sure, with Santiago you can quell up to six drones (nine with NLM) but what good is that if your largest base is size three? The support bonus is no that great either, since Spartans rely on fewer, better trained units (because of their morale penalty and morale bonus). And the Efficiency penalty kills your vital early research, and generates almost as much trouble with the drones the extra police relieve. That being said, I think that Loyalty is not that a bad pick, but for different reasons - first, because it's in the way towards Intellectual Integrity (thought I'd rather research Social Psyche / Ethical Calculus first), and secondly, the Command Nexus is a great project for the Spartans. I think I'm a bit lone in this one, but I like to put it this way; because of their industry problems, any project that gives free facilities per base is comparatively better for Sparta, and the morale bonus this little devious thing gives, combined with Spartan innate bouns, almost guarantees you having the upper hand one on one.

[Straybow]

I vote banana, 'cause I've never figgered out how to play Sparta well.

[Senethro]

My conclusion is that there is not a way to play Sparta well, at least solo without conquest. You will always be behind other players.

The primary reason for this is the industry penalty, the inability to Wealth, and the insignificance of morale when compared to having hordes of units.


If you want a reasonable chance of a Spartan win vs. humans is at least 3 other players on a map of Standard or less and a little bit of luck. The main unique thing that happens to Sparta is "unit snowballing". By 2120 you can have 6 rovers (2 built and 4 popped). You must then send them all to your nearest opponent (2 groups of 2, 2 podstealers). Your objective is to capture bases if he has insufficient scouts or to continuously destroy formers and crawlers until you've researched Nonlinear Mathematics (say, in 20 turns or so if you get Planned Networks first). Laser weapons would also work and are cheap to upgrade in the field (20ecs) as long as he doens't make synthmetal.


If you have an ally helping you then suddenly Sparta becomes more interesting. Sparta can raise unit morale to Elite more easily. The early game ways of raising morale are as follows: Command Centre, Monolith, the prototyped unit, Morale upgrade special ability, Fundamentalism.

I am hoping soon to test the efficacy of a Spartan mixed arms assault consisting of elite Spartan Impact rovers and Plasma rovers against everything up to missile needlejets in a heavily terraformed environment. I'll try to give a report.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Senethro
My conclusion is that there is not a way to play Sparta well, at least solo without conquest. You will always be behind other players.

The primary reason for this is the industry penalty, the inability to Wealth, and the insignificance of morale when compared to having hordes of units.


If you want a reasonable chance of a Spartan win vs. humans is at least 3 other players on a map of Standard or less and a little bit of luck. The main unique thing that happens to Sparta is "unit snowballing". By 2120 you can have 6 rovers (2 built and 4 popped). You must then send them all to your nearest opponent (2 groups of 2, 2 podstealers). Your objective is to capture bases if he has insufficient scouts or to continuously destroy formers and crawlers until you've researched Nonlinear Mathematics (say, in 20 turns or so if you get Planned Networks first). Laser weapons would also work and are cheap to upgrade in the field (20ecs) as long as he doens't make synthmetal.


If you have an ally helping you then suddenly Sparta becomes more interesting. Sparta can raise unit morale to Elite more easily. The early game ways of raising morale are as follows: Command Centre, Monolith, the prototyped unit, Morale upgrade special ability, Fundamentalism.

I am hoping soon to test the efficacy of a Spartan mixed arms assault consisting of elite Spartan Impact rovers and Plasma rovers against everything up to missile needlejets in a heavily terraformed environment. I'll try to give a report.

very nice description but I keep telling you , you better not try to brng those rovers into my heavily terraformed environment

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Senethro
My conclusion is that there is not a way to play Sparta well, at least solo without conquest. You will always be behind other players.

The primary reason for this is the industry penalty, the inability to Wealth, and the insignificance of morale when compared to having hordes of units.

I always thought that the Spartans need to subjugate someone in order to take full adantage of their abilities. In most cases it is best if there are some AI in the game since a Spartan player can most easily roll an AI. Sometimes that benefit is enough to compete very well.

I feel that the cult has similar issues (just worse) but I did have a cult PBEM where I managed to get the tech lead (admittedly not against the best opposition). Basically a fairly well developed AI was my neighbor and the mindworm army annexed several of his bases without really slowing down my building of my main empire

[Senethro]

But in that situation the AIs become like the creeps from Warcraft 3. A third resource that is there to be mined as heavily as you can.
Its also a resource that is difficult to quantify and present to each human player equally fairly.

[Lazerus]

I'm inherently unlucky with pods so i just go for IA and never play them in a PBEM

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Senethro
But in that situation the AIs become like the creeps from Warcraft 3. A third resource that is there to be mined as heavily as you can.
Its also a resource that is difficult to quantify and present to each human player equally fairly.

I agree completely. The AI factions can really unbalance a game. But not having them means that a good rusher like the Spartans loses one of their bigger advantages

[Kirov]

I voted banana as I think the poll oversimplifies Spartan strategies - I'm not sure if CEO Aaron really tested all of them (for example, running for Police State is IMHO pure suicide for Santiago).

Maybe Spartans are a bit weak, but not at all that weak as considered by most players - the funny loop is that people view them as poor, so don't play them, and don't develop any good strategies. You either try to play them in purely builder style (which is wrong) OR try to conquer the world with NLM (even more wrong). Think about it - the last thread on "Uni/Hive/whoever opening strategies" was probably closed in 1999. Only Santiago, Sven and Cha Dawn are still tabula rasa for most players.

Recently I've spent some time playing Santiago with various opening strategies and came to 2 conclusions:

1) the supposed industry hit is irrelevant - people who claim it's a problem have simply never played Spartans. NL farming and early pod popping (even if only the land ones) provide enough cash for instabuilds to make Morgan green with envy.

2) the only problem of Spartan is slow research - you need NLM and D:Init as fast as possible. Especially that the best preys of Santiago are of course Uni, Morgan, Gaians etc.

These led me to think that unless there is a faction just 20 tiles away from you, Free Market is A MUST for good Spartan opening strategy. Not only you can leave your land with less drone hit (only 1 drone per unit), but Santiago is the only faction who can run FM and still have positive odds against Mind Worms. Setting FM and sending 3 rovers to roam through fungus allow Santiago to quickly get D:FLex or maybe even D:Ini, find the enemy while doing NLM, and then attack. Without FM you have to wait like 15 turns for NLM.

I could write more about Santiago, but don't have enough time at the moment. However I'd really like to work with someone on Spartan openings and cut their bad reputation spread mostly by people who have never bothered to actually work with that faction.

[Maniac]

In unmodded SMAC I'd say the best way to solve the Spartan tech problem is steal from your neighbours. And not run FM by which you lose your biggest advantage: +1 Police!

[dmm1285]

If monoliths affected formers, I thiink they would be a little more intersting, have elite formers could help with some of their other shortcomings