ACDG6: Operations

[vyeh]

The Consciousness attacked the Angels.

A laser speeder destroyed our scout at Faralia and then mounted a hasty attack on our battle ogre. The battle ogre was 50% damaged.

Where did that laser speeder come from? After Sands of Time prototyped a laser battery, the laser speeder only required 36 minerals and Adonia comes after Sands of Time.

Our strategy of using the scout as a designated defender paid off.

We probably should hurry a scout at Faralia.

[Hydro]

Earthquakes can occur even inside a base radius. At least I remember this occuring to me.

Yup. But if it is going to happen it will occur whether we pop the pod or not. It would be a crying shame since much of the Jungle would be destroyed. The earthquake that rose the Ghost base out of the sea only destroyed a few tiles.

[Hydro]

A laser speeder destroyed our scout at Faralia and then mounted a hasty attack on our battle ogre. The battle ogre was 50% damaged.

The scout designated defender did help, but it looks like we were relying too much on the BO.

The attacks will keep coming, so we need to put everything into offense and defense. If the Templar are in total war with military tech and we aren't then we are sunk.

[vyeh]

We only relied on the ogre to distract attention from Cytosino. So far, it has succeeded in seizing and holding Faralia. If we can keep the battle around Faralia, we've already met our objectives.

At this point, we're rushing a probe team and a scout to Faralia. That probe team and the other probe team will steal tech. We will get field modulation and lasers. Then we can hurry a prototype at Mutatio.

Once we've prototyped, we can upgrade the scouts at Faralia. The Templars are still limited in credits. Right now, we have 6 bases (including a captured base) and the Templars have 4.

[vyeh]

Both probe teams are ready to steal tech from the Templars next year. The Templars have 2 techs that we don't have: high intensity lasers and field modulation.

Faralia is building a scout next year to replace the one that was lost.

Mutatio is building a probe team. We expect one or both of the probe teams to be lost next year.

Once we get high intensity lasers, Cytosino will hurry a laser rover, which will be enough to take Aurora.

[Hydro]

Sounds good. Nopefully there will be no mishaps.

[Mart]

We definitely do not have enough formers. I would propose more direction towards:
- more bases, more formers.
- potentially drone problem solved with assigning psych, more bases will repay the cost
- more formers doing energy tiles: rushing, psych, research
- optionally we can have more bases with size around 2 - would be like ICS thing, the talent will help with drones and even no psych may be needed.

My feeling is we are a bit behind with development of our territory.

[vyeh]

Hydro, what do you think about Mart's direction?

We are passed the bureaucracy limit. Cytosino's first citizen is a worker, not a talent. As we establish or conquer more bases, we will see the first citizen of other bases turn from talents to workers. This is why Genesis and Purini are working on recreation commons. Faralia's first citizen also starts out as a worker and not a citizen (because it is a conquered base).

Uracil has 4 citizens and a recreation commons. To grow further, it would need a hologram theatre.

Eventually, we will not be able to have a size 2 base without either a recreation commons or doctor.

We have 57 credits and an income of 9 credits per year. We want to do the following:
(1) prototype a laser unit after we've stolen high intensity lasers and
(2) build recreation commons at Purini (otherwise, we'll have either a drone riot or starvation if we conquer another base).

We are behind on our development because we ran into the Templars who immediately declared vendetta. We've been building scouts and probe teams and accumulating minerals toward a laser prototype instead of building formers.

[Hydro]

At this point we're stuck with our Templar war. I'm afraid that if we spend much on infrastructure or formers we'll start losing bases if the Templar goes Total War and starts throwing streams of laser infantry and rovers at us. If we can, staying on the offensive and prying his vulnerable bases out of her claws may be our best bet. If we get the Templar to three bases she is at the edge of no return, and at two she’s more or less dead – we’ll have an almost unstoppable production advantage.

So while I completely agree we need more formers I think we need a military more. Plus, we were very fortunate to get a hydroponics pod and forests early, and the Jungle speaks for itself. In short, we can get away with less terraforming than otherwise. We are suffering from minimal roads, and it is a good thing our formers have spent most of their time building what we have.

Absorbing the 5 Templar bases (getting our base total to 10) will cause huge unrest. Keep in mind that we are on a smaller world, and we get B-drones at our 5th base at our current efficiency (zero with Unitary Dem/Planned/Technocrat/Anthro; Planned gives us -1 and Technocrat +1, equaling zero). Our captured bases will be prone to riots, too – causing more problems. My opinion is that we need to seriously think about getting our efficiency up as we finish our war (hopefully!) with the Templar to minimize the damage of drones, otherwise our size 2 bases will start to riot - at which point they become one step from useless. I’d love to Go Green, but we don’t have that tech. Changing SE costs energy, which we are desperately short of. **sigh** All of the SMAniaC high efficiency and high economy SE choices have real penalties.

Also, psych may help but we don’t have much energy and without rec commons they aren’t that helpful. In short, our infrastructure is so poor that it may be of limited use. Again, our low efficiency will punish us for wildly changing our Research/Psych/Energy allocation. I think it’s useful to see what a 10% or 20% allocation will give us, though.

The early war with the Templar is both a blessing and a curse. It is good since if the Templar had gotten established in the Jungle they would have gotten bigger than us by far, and picking them off is easier now. But, we lose critical years of internal development with an early war since we are forced to play Momentum. The Genesis faction is more suited (in my opinion) to a hybrid or perhaps builder due to the free crèche.

There are no easy choices. And that I suppose is the point!

Hydro

[Hydro]

double post

[vyeh]

I tried out various levels of psych. First, I turned the doctors at Genesis, Purini and Faralia into workers.

Pysch (%): Drone Riots; Golden Age; Income (credits); Research Rate (years)

0: Genesis, Purini, Faralia; -; 9; 8
40: Genesis, Faralia; -; 5; 15
60: Faralia; Mutatio, Uracil; 2; 18
80: -; Mutatio, Uracil; -1; 40

[vyeh]

Except for a forest on the bonus nutrient river square, all the formers have done is build roads until this year when one of the formers started building a mine on a bonus mineral rocky square. We can address the minimal roads. We're currently building formers at Uracil. Let's build formers at Mutatio once the probe team is produced next year. After they have built roads for our military roads, they can build farms, mines and solar collectors.

Inefficiency doesn't affect psych allocation. It only affects an imbalance between labs and economy. In other words, you can have 80% psych, 10% labs, 10% economy at any level of inefficiency without penalty.

10% or 20% psych gives us the same results as 0% psych.

Although we were forced into momentum, we are already in a pop boom, so we've taken full advantage of the free hatchery (children's creche). This early vendetta has given us the chance to pick up some military techs. And if we acquire two bases with our military units, that is the same as building 2 colony pods.

[Hydro]

Looks like we take a huge research hit with almost any psych allocation. I'm sure we'd get more and the penalty would be less severe if we had more energy, efficiency, and facilities to magnify the energy spent.

Heck, we might be better off going Unitary Police State (Militatry Doctrine, C2) so we get drone control with garrisons. Datajack will hate us, and the -3 research is painful. I wonder if we lose more research than we gain by not having to have all our citizens be doctors and/or energy to psych? We may have such huge drone problems when we (hopefully) get all the Templar bases that PS will look pretty good.

In fact, PS/Planned/Techno/Anthro might give the stability we need to build key RCs. Otherwise we may just melt down into riots and struggle to get basic RCs up. It's worth a look after the Templar are put down.

[vyeh]

Note that I edited a double post.

We can always let a base starve. When we've built the recreation commons, it will regain the population in one turn because we're in a pop boom.

[Mart]

We do not have to change our economy/infrastructure direction immediately, but I think we should plan more new bases and build formers as soon as possible.
I would not be afraid bureaucracy drones, psych may help and yes, police too if we change society choices.
Soon we will need more energy and we do need formers to develop terrain for that. We should place them somewhere in high priority, maybe not the highest at the moment.
More bases will help - production centers - it's bottleneck in smac.