ACDG6: Operations

[Hydro]

So be it. 10 mins is a small price to pay. So far we've been very fortunate.

[Mart]

I would overpay at least 2 minerals - for safety.
As long as we do not exceed these 8 production, they will show up for the next building item. The reason is that in case of a mindworm or even two entering our worker tiles, or loosing a crawler to mw attack we will still be able to finish CN next turn. Otherwise any event decreasing production below 8 will end in loosing this SP

[vyeh]

We will have the command nexus next year.

We lost several river squares around Darwin. The river now flows down the thermal borehole.

I didn't believe it, but we got another radar rover supply. The elite Genesis probe also discovered an alien artifact.

My plan for the probe to hop back onto the transport foil and for the transport foil to move was thwarted by the fact that the alien artifact can't move. Instead, we offloaded the scout to protect the alien artifact against mindworms.

It is pretty clear that the Consciousness will get a secret project.

I like planetary energy grid (for the extra credits) and the vitro fertilization center (PTS; for making our size 1 and 2 bases into size 3 and for making future new bases size 3 as well as the extra talent). They are equal.

I think supercollider and echelon mirror park have some utility, although maybe we should consider building more colony pods and formers with those minerals.

Polymorphic def system is nice, but perimeter defenses are cheap and don't have any maintenance.

Good point about safety. I'll keep it in mind the next time (it took several times before Apolyton would upload the save file). In any case, Mutatio and its supply crawler are not next to any fungus. (Remember, Mutatio was established at the heart of a forestation pod and the forest has had almost the whole game to spread.)

[vyeh]

We built the command nexus.

We got warnings that both Cybernetic and Cult were close to building the command nexus.

Cybernetic is now building polymorphic defense center and Cult is now building the vitro fertilization center.

I think we should focus on the vitro fertilization center and the planetary energy grid. (The Cult may not have the prerequisite to build the planetary energy grid.)

[Hydro]

PEG first, then PTS. If we can get both then great, and the radar foil will certainly help. I have to say our Pod Lotto has been unnaterally lucky. I'm not impressed by Supercollider and especially not ME.

We should consider getting some fast reaction forces (I like armored defensive rovers and a few attack rovers) up and maybe a few defensive probes. The CN makes this attractive, as does our Police State SE.

I'm not sure I'm all that keen on more bases (even if PTS makes this attractive). Unless we plan on subjugating the Templar and giving them the bases? A war against the Templar should be no cost and short. Taking out the Ghost land base adn sea bases might take a bit more planning but has bigger tech payoffs.

[vyeh]

PTS also gives us one more talent for size 3 bases and below.

I was thinking that Aurora could eventually become our science city. Since it is next to an enclosed sea, we could build tidal harnesses and plant trawlers (after we have fusion).

Should we consider moving our HQ to Cytosino?

Why armored defensive rovers?

Defensive probes in the sea bases and Phenotypi. Anywhere else?

I like to use bases to push territorial boundaries. Expansion into the Uranium Flats would give us access to energy.

Another possible target is the Cult (especially if they pick up a secret project). We're already in a vendetta with them.

Sea units are expensive until we achieve fusion power.

Taking out the Templar will gain us 2 bases on an island.

How about this?

After we've finished building as many secret projects as we can, we go after the Templar, then the Cult. This will give us a chance to build up our land forces

After that, we can evaluate whether we want to go after the Ghost.

[Hydro]

Armored rovers are relatively cheap and can cover multiple bases. In combination with a core of attack rovers they can act as defense, or make a nice offense compliment to attack rovers.

Templar and Cult are small and with a bit of planning shouldn't be hard to take out. I still like the land bridge idea for the Templar since that gives them room to expand and become a worthy vassel. We can even gift them a few PTS-grown bases to bump their size and our energy.

[vyeh]

Is it really worthwhile to have a vassal? (Additional bases really don't affect us in stability.)

[Hydro]

You get Pact energy, which counts up if your vassel has a decent number of modest sized bases AND your commerce rating is good. Plus, building some land to the SE and placing 3 or more colonies (that go to size 3 with PTS) and gifting them to the Templar makes them worthwhile. Assuming the bases don't starve, however. The area the SE looks pretty arid.

Not sure what you mean by the stability comment.

[vyeh]

I simply meant that more bases will not add force us to turn existing workers into doctors or take other steps to combat drones.

These are my thoughts:

(1) Race for PEG and PTS. We can build PEG next year. Although I like the minerals the crawlers are providing, the free energy banks will immediately produce extra income.

(2) After PTS, start building an invasion force for Templar. I would guess that we would want 2 transport foils, 1 jumpsuit infantry, 3 probes (1 standard and 2 infantry; surviving probes can always be used defensively), 2 resonance laser rovers.

(3) We consider the following strategic bases (this may change as other factions establish bases):
(a) (51, 35) 3 sq. NW of Phenotypi pushes the territorial boundaries and is way station along road to Psi Consciousness and Cult territory;
(b) (51, 29) 4 sq. NE of Psi Consciousness (1 square jungle island; might push land boundaries; sea nutrient; large potential for energy base);
(c) (6, 42) 5 sq. SE of Uracil (access to inland sea and Unity sea pod; jump off for attack on eastern Ghost sea bases);
(d) (8, 28) 2 sq. SW of Neptune Deeps (near mineral bonus and along road to future land bridge to Templar);
(e) (48, 16) 3 sq. NE of Mycenae (monolith; edge of Uranium Flats);
(f) (43, 13) N by NE of Cromlech (Uranium Flats); and
(g) territory around Mount Planet (51, 29).

(4) Take invasion force for Templar, augment with formers, probe teams, rovers, infantry and land transports and conquer Cult.

(5) Depending on situation, go after Ghost after augmenting our military forces with naval units.

The advantage of going after Templar and Cult while maintaining truce with Ghost is that we get a chance to get promoted units.

I don't mind vassals, but I'm not convinced that gifting them bases is the best use of our resources. (I like the additional vote on the planetary council, but I think we can get more income from owning and managing a base than from the pact income from the base in the hands of a vassal.)

While there have been calls for 2 formers per base, consider whether the second former should be a fungicidal former. In SMAniaC, it takes a regular former 10 years to clear fungus. The weather paradigm does not increase the rate. Fungicical formers would take only 5 years.

We should also think about what we would need to eliminate that fungal tower in the middle of the jungle. Plenty of artillery and monolith enhanced boosted metabolism (Retroviral Geneering) scouts.

[Mart]

Vassal faction is also good for all votings where one faction gets one vote. There are few of such proposals.

We can always find space for additional bases, but once we conquer Templars and they will not restart, we loose all such benefits - additional pact commerce, voting, some gain in efficiency (there is always some, cause they have hq localized in their territory). I would turn Templars into our vassal faction.

[Hydro]

Fungicidal formers are a good idea. Clearing the nasty fungal tower from the Jungle will take a while but will be worth it. Too bad we don't have empath, but they will give our artillery a little target practice.

[vyeh]

Fine. We'll go to the Templar island, take one of their bases and accept surrender. At that point, we can decide whether to give them back the base we just conquered. If that is our plan, we can forego the probe teams since the Templar will give us all of their tech as part of surrender. Later we can discuss whether we're going to create additional bases for them.

At least our artillery don't take any risk in bombarding a fungal tower from 2 squares away. The Atlantean missile foil has been bombarding the fungal tower 3 sq. S of Goldensun. Does a fungal tower recover hit points between turns even though it is not getting rest? If so, we'll have to have a lot of high morale artillery to soften up the fungal tower.

Another way to weaken a fungal tower is to remove the fungus around it, but it will require many fungicidal formers acting simultaneously since the fungus regenerates.

[Mart]

Lower morale also gives less EC with planetpearls. Damaging FT does not do that, iirc.

[vyeh]

Current (2154) power graph: