Defending with Gaians

[JMO707]

Im trying to make a successful Gaian campaign in a huge map of planet, with slow research rate and all the victory conditions abilable. Thinker dificculty (firsth time on this one)

The problem is that doesnt matter how much I develop, how far is the adventage I get on the firsth 50 years, at the long term, any other faction just military overwhelm me.

I always make a pact with Pacekeepers because I like them, and they like me, but except for them, and specially Spartan Federation and Human Hive, I found my self pressured to give money and tech all the time under the danger of being wipped out.

Do you have any advice?

Is there any thread discussing Gaian strategies?, because I couldnt find anyone.

Thanks!

[Petek]

Here are three threads from the archives that discuss Gaian strategies:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=87828

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92250

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=93935

HTH

Petek

[Verrucosus]

This is a somewhat broad question, so it's difficult to give specific advice. Since you mention the Gaians specifically, I assume that you don't have the same problem with other factions.

In generic terms, the Gaian conventional military isn't much to be afraid of. They are pacifists who dislike going to war in the first place and start with a morale penalty. This puts you at a disadvantage against other factions, particularly those with military bonuses like the Spartans and the Believers.

I see three basic ways to deal with this weakness:

(1) Minimize it. Be careful to research military technologies as well as civilian ones. Set up one or two bases as military training centers with command centres, creches and one or two extra crawlers to develop a well-trained, well-equipped core army that won't be laughed off the stage by the Spartans. Use special abilities to counter the units your opponent seems particularly fond of.

(2) Asymetric Warfare. Specifically, use worms to attack low-morale and stacked units and probes to bribe single high-morale units as they approach. With your intrinsic +1 Planet rating you should be actively hunting worms right from the start and have a sizeable force after you have finished exploring your continent. Bring them home and station them in fungus squares (where they don't cost you support). Mind worms attack at a 3 : 2 advantage anyway and with a 30 % attack bonus from your planet rating (if you run Green), you should often come close to a 2 : 1 advantage. Avoid defending with worms because that will generally put you at a disadvantage. You should not risk your worms by attacking high-morale enemies. Those are best bribed by probe teams. This requires cash, but despite their hostility towards the free market, Gaians are not really bad at raising money. In the early days, an Isle of the Deep (you should capture one as soon as possible) can quickly retrieve 100s of energy credits from sea pods. Do not stockpile that money, but use it to hurry the production of base facilities, so that your economy becomes more efficient. When you have enough Energy Banks and Tree Farms in place, it's possible to raise a lot of bribe money very quickly by setting energy output to 100 %. (You can do this more easily than other factions because of your intrinsic efficiency bonus). Unfortunately, bribing does not work against the guy with the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm or Sister Miriam running Fundamentalism.

(3) Appeasement. When you are trying to gain an advantage through peaceful development, 50 turns won't give you enough of a lead to build on it in a war. Since Gaians are not military geniuses by nature, I'd wait until I have at least a two-level lead in military technology before committing to a conventional war. Until then, at least an uneasy peace can often be kept by mirroring aggressive neighbours' social choices. The problem here is that the social choices they like will put you at odds with the factions you want to ally with. A compromise would be to stay with the default choice in order to avoid angering anyone. Your faction will not develop as efficiently as it would if you could choose freely, but it will develop in peace.

How you mix these approaches and how you implement them in detail depends on the specific situation in your game.

I'm not aware of any specific Gaian military threads, but if there is one I'm sure someone will bring it up. (EDIT: I see Petek just did.)

Best regards and good luck,
Verrucosus

[Petek]

Verrucosus,

Nice post. That, along with reading the links that I supplied, inspired me to start a game with the Gaians.

I met the Spartans fairly early and the Colonel exorted small amounts of energy credits from me in exchange for peace. I'll extract my revenge in due course.

I'm two turns from Industrial Automation (MY is 2165). I also have no less than 11 AAs waiting to be cashed in for techs (thx to my worms). Should be sweet.

[JMO707]

Thanks a lot. I will start a new game as soon as a finish this post.

I didnt know the exactly use of the crawlers until today, when I learned from a webpage their capabilities =p

I will use that and your advices to see if I can work it out.

Haha, its nice to see activity in this game forums after 9 years of is release =p

[Hydro]

To build on previous posts, here are some other Gaian ideas:

Worm army and fungus trawling: Aggressively go worm hunting. If you get a few worm recruits your military rating will go way up, which will deter aggressive factions (for a while). Later you should go Green as soon as you can. You take a growth hit, but you’ll capture more worms and do better on worm attack and defense. You can switch to Planned for growth spurts, particularly after you have a few crèches built with democracy and can get +6 growth for a pop boom. As mentioned above, the Gaians are wonderful with IoDs. I like sending out a 1-1-4 foil to get worms, and then pair this foil with my IoDs. This way when the IoDs pop a sea Unity pod the foil does the attacking. This is good since conventional units have an advantage in worm capture, and if it dies the more valuable IoD can finish the hostile IoD off. If the hostile IoD has native cargo (spoor launchers, worms) you can get LOTS of energy. Sea fungus and land fungus crawling is absolutely critical for Gaian success in the early and mid game.

Pop boom: grow your way out of your resource problem with a pop boom. As mentioned above, if can population boom if you have surplus food, have democracy (+2 growth), planned economy (+2 growth), and build crèches (+2 growth). Population = resources in SMAC. You do need to be prepared for unrest, so at the minimum be prepared to build recreation commons. I like mini-pop booms that last a few turns. Having a lot of energy from worm destruction (which is easy for Gaians if they are aggressively worm trawling) helps rush build facilities.

Crank up research: with the native +2 Gaian efficiency you can slide research pretty high early in the game without terrible loss. This works just fine if you are getting lots of worm planetpearl energy from fungus trawling to fund any deficit. Once you go democracy (+2 efficiency) you have no meaningful penalty for your sliders, and can crank research up to 100% if you like. This is an underutilized Gaian advantage, and it is a powerful one.

Gaian ICS: high Gaian efficiency also means you can build more bases without bureaucracy drones. This means you can build a sprawling empire with more bases of support and higher base population, which is very good since as mentioned above population = resources. I view this as another key Gaian advantage.

Other notes: I like to be a sneaky Gaian. Load your IoDs with probes and infiltrate the other factions very early. If they are hostile then just steal tech from them. The probes are support free, and can also be used to pop Unity pods on land that are adjacent to the sea. If the pop has worms just retreat to the IoD and float away! The only downer is if there is an earthquake, since the raised land will kill your IoD. But overall this works great – lots of energy, free units, and artifacts.

Others may have more ideas. Gaians are fun!

Hydro

[JMO707]

Thanks Hydro, I will have that on mind.

Im getting a nice piece of the power-cake in the game I started. I suppouse than that is because I spare the contienent with Lal.

Ive noticed that the terraforming hasbeen always a priority on all my games, and that the reason for this is that Im more of the type - cities + improvements (thing that Im really trying to change).
The cuestion is that I have recently discovered that the risings on the altitude of terrain make some climatic changes happen around.

Do you use this knownledge for some kind of "aggresive terraforming"?
Would you isolate your self on an isle downing the terrain levels?

[Verrucosus]

Originally posted by Petek
That, along with reading the links that I supplied, inspired me to start a game with the Gaians.

I know what you mean. Forum questions (and detailed answers like Hydro's) have the same impact on me. If I hadn't just started a Civ2 game that will keep me busy for a while, I'd probably be playing the Gaians too at this moment ... well, maybe I'll go for a space race victory and then off to SMAC again.

Originally posted by JMO707
Do you use this knowledge for some kind of "aggressive terraforming"? Would you isolate yourself on an isle downing the terrain levels?

You can harm other factions by raising or lowering terrain. However, I think it's considered an act of war, so you will need to spend resources not just on the terraforming actions themselves, but on protecting your formers as well. Generally it's easier to pillage terrain improvements than to change the underlying terrain and capturing a base is usually more beneficial than drowning it. That said, there are moments when it can be useful.

I remember a game where I played Morgan and was attacked very early by Miriam who sent unit after unit with impact weapons over a narrow land bridge. I had no military technology worth talking about and my probes were useless against her. I managed to sink the land bridge and she was stuck because she had no Doctrine Flexibility. By the time she got it, I had infiltrated her and a few skimships in place to sink her transports leaving port. I think I somehow lost that game to Zakharov, but the land bridge thing was cool ... ah, the good old days!

Anyway, keep experimenting like this. I see you have just discovered the magic of supply crawlers, but don't let them keep you from enjoying the rest of the game. There is so much to try out and, if you like the atmosphere at all, you'll soon see why SMAC still has a lot of fans after all these years.

Verrucosus

[CEO Aaron]

Gaians really excel at thin expansion. A little worm hunting provides free garrisons, your starting tech gives you a jump on former production, and the nutrient bonus from fungus means that no spot is too poor to build a base on.

Having lots of bases really helps make up for the Gaians' lack of economy and support, in comparison to the more militant factions.

Also, just because you're not playing a militant faction yourself doesn't mean you can't get aggressive. When you encounter any rival faction, you should have a plan to deal with them? Do they favor compatible SE choices, so you can deal with them diplomatically? Are they hemming in your expansion with your unsightly bases? Are they likely to cause trouble down the road? In general, I do my best to cripple or utterly expunge rival factions that share my continent, or at least push them back to a defensible choke point before accepting a truce. The bottom line here is make sure you're taking your game to the enemy, rather than letting them take theirs to you.

One other thing worth mentioning: Creches. As long as you steer clear of wealth, the Children's Creche can allow you to basically ignore your negative morale modifiers.

[Hydro]

If you’re lucky and get a bunch of worms early you can have a top military ranking. One of my favorite tactics is to extort a likely hostile faction (Hive, Believers, Spartans, Morgan) from them early ‘Or Else’. Getting one of their first three or so bases is a huge strategic benefit since it gains you territory, builds your long term production base, and denies your likely enemy the chance to hem you in. It doesn’t always work, but when it does you’ve crippled your opponent.

Also, worms have no support when they’re in fungus, so you can really save on support costs even if they are assigned to a base when they are captured. Worms captured far from any base are completely support free. One huge boon is to capture a loaded IoD, which you can drop off at a nearby unoccupied (or occupied!) landmass to troll for worms, explore, or create general havoc. Hehe.

I’ll differ from the CEO on Wealth. As a Gaian I like but don’t need high morale units early in the game since, hopefully, much of my power is in worms. I value the ability to build more quickly and the economy boost of Wealth, especially since the Gaians can’t go FM and can have economy problems (e.g. – low research rate, even when spending most of my energy on research). When you combine judicious use of Planned and Wealth you can build facilities and support units (colony pods, transports, supply crawlers) pretty cheaply, and with the infusion of lots of planetpearl energy you can rush build facilities to get a very respectable infrastructure. As the Gaian empire grows I like Knowledge for the efficiency boost (allowing even more bases without a bureaucracy penalty) and by that time I’m switching to a conventional army anyway so I don’t want the morale penalty of Wealth.

What about using your worm army aggressively? It may work against a weak faction, but you’ll need fungus or maybe roads since worms have a move of 1 and they’re sitting ducks unless you attack the turn you move. Fungus is great since the worms repair, and if you can hide in a nice big patch it is hard for the bad guys to get you. Rember that you get a +50% attack bonus (or is it +100%?) in addition to the normal 50% psi bonus for attacking in fungus. Don’t count on hiding in fungus, though, since the AI ‘knows’ where you are and will make a B-line to attack you if they can. By mid or late game resonance armor and trance largely nullify a psi attack unless you are Green, and even then it’s dicey. I like worms if I get Neural Amplifier for defense in mid and even late game, and especially for IoDs since there is no psi attack bonus at sea. It’s fun to see endless Hivean attack foils get munched trying to attack my IoDs. Likewise, its satisfying to eliminate the nasty foils or transports if they venture into sea fungus. IoD says: “BURP!”

Hydro

[CEO Aaron]

Far be it from me to imply that the Wealth SE isn't worth running, I merely meant that Creches won't negate all your negative morale modifiers if you're at more than the base -1 morale setting, in which case your morale-improving facilities like Command Centers or Aerospace Complexes will only provide half their benefit.

Wealth is certainly an excellent deal economically, but I wouldn't run it when you're building troops for a serious conflict, unless you have an enormous tech advantage, unlikely for Dierdre.

Native life can certainly bypass your morale issues, but in the early game, captured native life tends to be of the small and innocuous variety, and will take time to grow up into the demon boils that strike terror into your enemies. Also, all it takes are a couple trance and empath units to cut down your worms in huge swaths, and these aren't difficult or out of the way techs to obtain. Which is not to say that the worm rush can't be of use to a Gaian player, but I find its window is pretty small. What your worms CAN do for you is supplement your spot on the powergraph at no actual cost, as well as feeding your EC reserves through collection of planetpearls for all your unsuccessful capture attempts.

[Hydro]

Master CEO,

You are quite right that the window is pretty small, and that conditions need to be right to effectively use native life forms. Common defenses (trance, resonance armor) are pretty cheap to free (1-1t-1 for 1 row of minerals), and deadly to all but the most determined psi attack. This is particularly true against a human opponent since the AI doesn't seem to use trance very often. Trance, resonance, and sensor will all but eliminate multiple worms.

As to native life attack, a medium size boil will do nicely in most cases when combined with a good Planet rating (+30%). Medium boils aren't hard to get with a bit of trolling and your one-time upgrade in a monolith. I like saving the native morale upgrade at a monolith until late in the life of a native unit since later upgrades are harder to get.

As I mentioned, I like wealth early and knowledge in mid and late game. Knowledge works well with the buildup of a good tech military as long as you have good probe defense (and you'd better!).

Hydro

[JMO707]

I have desisted in that game =(

The Pacekeepers, my allies and continent parters, became really annoying at the late game. Cancell our pact, push me to give them knowledge, and ultimately ask me for 1600 credits or...

Plus the Hive constant attack from a rogue base in the proximites of Gaia's Landing and the Spartans destroying every attemp I made to conquest the Hive bases on the other side of the planet. I just wasnt able to keep the ritm.

Now, I started a game on SMACX!, I never played it before

[Flubber]

Great thread gang.

I think the biggest key for JM0707 was he says he just learned of the power of crawlers. If you exploit that correctly, you will quickly learn to grow every faction to be biog and strong enough to resist any AI attack

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Hydro
Master CEO,

You are quite right that the window is pretty small, and that conditions need to be right to effectively use native life forms. Common defenses (trance, resonance armor) are pretty cheap to free (1-1t-1 for 1 row of minerals), and deadly to all but the most determined psi attack. This is particularly true against a human opponent since the AI doesn't seem to use trance very often. Trance, resonance, and sensor will all but eliminate multiple worms.

As to native life attack, a medium size boil will do nicely in most cases when combined with a good Planet rating (+30%). Medium boils aren't hard to get with a bit of trolling and your one-time upgrade in a monolith. I like saving the native morale upgrade at a monolith until late in the life of a native unit since later upgrades are harder to get.

As I mentioned, I like wealth early and knowledge in mid and late game. Knowledge works well with the buildup of a good tech military as long as you have good probe defense (and you'd better!).

Hydro

Exactly. My biggest problem with natives is that they are so darn slow and an enemy can defend against them so cheaply. Its pretty easy to have even the weakest bases pump out 1-1-1 or 1-1t-1s every turn to be cannon fodder