ACDG6: Operations

[Hydro]

To me tech parity means we are competative militarily and have the tech needed to grow. Our main limitation is lifting energy restrictions. Parity does not mean equal, only that we are not at a noticable disadvantage.

[vyeh]

Militarily, we could use tube mail (D3).

For growth, we could use tree farms.

Delan has 4 techs we do not have: secrets of the human brain, progenitor psych, zero point energy and graviton theory.

In our last few posts, we've already mentioned how useful the first three would be. The fourth gives both graviton gun and hovertank.

If they declared vendetta on us, we would have to use our superior production to overwhelm them. While we can compete militarily, we are significantly behind them in tech.

I think Mart can successfully argue that the tradeoff is worth it and that by pop booming, we will increase our productive capabilities and in the long term make up the research hit because of the extra energy per year created by increased population, but we should be clear that pop booming will delay zero point energy by a few years.

Our factional advantage is popbooming. If we can grow a majority of our bases to size 5, then we can have engineering specialists, which give 2 labs/year.

With vitro fertilization center (PTS), all of our bases will go to size 3. If we pop boom for 2 years, we can bring many of our bases to size 5. Then we switch back to +2 economy. Then we balance among building crawlers (which we will eventually use to build hologram theatres) and military units as needed to pursue our vendetta against the Cult.

We then switch out of unitary police state (zero point energy gives us two more political social models).

Once we turn the Cult into a submissive, we then take some of our forces and turn the Templar into a submissive or we go after the Ghost.

[vyeh]

We will build the vitro fertilization center next year.

By switching from private/protectionist to planned, we saved 60 minerals, which makes me feel a little bit better about the research hit. I only want to stay in planned two or three years to grow our jungle bases to size 5.

We are building colony pods in Genesis and Purini to take advantage of Mart's trick.

We are building 4 standard probe teams. Only 1 will be completed next year, so we can change our minds. Probe team objectives are:

(1) infiltration;
(2) tech theft; and
(3) credit theft.

We should expect that the Cult will have probe teams and that we will lose probe teams (even though we have +2 probe). In addition, successful missions mean the probe teams have to travel back to the theatre of operations. We will mitigate the travel time by building a road between Psi Consciousness and Phenotypi.

Our rover force will consist of:

(1) laser speeder prototype (currently guarding formers);
(2) laser rover prototype (currently garrisoning Cytosino; we're building a scout at Faralia to replace the laser rover prototype);
(3) resonance laser rover prototype (currently in production at Adonia).

We're building a resonance laser battery.

After we have infiltrated and can piece together a map of the Cult territory, we can figure out what additional units we need.

[Hydro]

Sounds good.

[vyeh]

We beat the Cult to vitro fertilization center (PTS). They switched to maritime control center.

Our laser speeder prototype proved useful when it defended formers from a mindworm.

Current (2157) power graph:

[vyeh]

I noticed that mindworms and spore launchers are only two rows.

What do you think about building biology labs (+1 lifecycle and +2 labs/year) and producing lots of native life units?

No support if they are in fungus.

Note that we have command center and, after prototyping, R-Laser squads and R-Laser infantry batteries are also 2 rows.

Do we get better native life units if we change our SE settings? (Does morale affect the lifecycle? Does planet have any effect on lifecycle?)

I'm thinking that we may want to switch to junta when we make contact.

Note that switching from plutocrat to junta is -2 to industry.

What do you think?

[Hydro]

Going native makes little sense if we're running Anthro since the -3 Planet (-45% psi) nullifies the attack bonus for land psi. If we want to stick with Anthro then our attack units should be conventional. Native units can be useful for defense when stationed in fungus, which makes them support free.

Morale SE bonus/penalties and command centers have no effect on Native life cycle. In fact, going Native and selecting Plutocrat (-2 Morale, +1 Eco, +1 industry) makes a lot of sense since the morale penalty is meaningless.

Junta makes sense if we're going Momentum, although the industry penalty is tough. Note that if we do switch from Plutocrat to Junta then we lose the +2 eco and +1 energy/tile. Remember that we need +3 eco in SE to make up for our -1 eco faction penalty.

[vyeh]

After the pop boom, should we consider switching out of anthro?

So it looks like we should stay with conventional units, since we have command center and that gives +2.

Should we go to junta after the pop boom?

[Hydro]

I don't think going Green is right for us. With Command Nexus we should consider Junta. My recollection is that the units constructed under Junta (but not existing units) get the morale increase, but I'm not sure since I rarely (never?) use it. I mostly play Green or Red SMAniaC.

If we are going to crush the Cult after the boom then Junta will help. High morale units are good at killing and defending against Native(we'll likely see some Cult natives), and can do a good job ripping through their defenses. Our probes will have higher morale too with CN, which is good.

Taking the Cult out now is good so the Cyborgs don't get whacked. They have relatively few bases.

Hydro

[vyeh]

If the Cult has native life units, we may want to consider switching out of anthropocentric. We lose 1 level of morale but gain 2 levels of planet.

[vyeh]

There is a great boil inside Psi Consensus.

We may have to switch out of anthropocentric to to increase our planet rating from -3 to -1.

[Hydro]

Other ways to even the score with psi: resonance artillery. A (6r)-1-1 is cheap. A (6r)-1-2 rover is more expensive by highly mobile. As I recall there isn't a hasty penalty for partial move and then artillery fire in SMAniaC, so the infantry artillery may be the way to go. A round of artillery can help soften up a base in any case, or take out a sensor net.

If we are going on a conquering splurge then Police/Private-Prot/Junta/Frontier may be the way to go. Plus, ditching Anthro will make the Cyborgs happier. Planned may be possible, but operating under -2 efficiency as we get more bases may be brutal, even if we'd get another Talent by ditching Private-Prot economics SE (-1 Talent, +2 eco, -1 industry, -1 support).

[vyeh]

We deliberately let Mendel Institute riot, so it would grow.

Current (2158) power graph:


We are now in the lead in population, territory and overall.

[Hydro]

I saw that Cult build MCC. That is very nice of them to build the SP for us!!

BTW, I've found the Nexus Translator (which the Cult has started constructing) is handy but not critical. Being able to cash unlimited artifacts is nice, and two free techs is good too. On a huge world while going Native you get lots of exploration, and lots of artifacts. I suspect it will be less useful on our smaller world, though. For us a few Net Notes will likely suffice.

Looks like our growth is starting to kick in with the Power Graph, for what that's worth.

[vyeh]

How can you say the two free techs are not critical given that we have sacrificed research for mineral production. If we steal the tech that allows the nexus translator, building the nexus translator will allow some of that mineral production to be turned into tech.

I have been building supply crawlers to help with the pop boom. (If I use a crawler to get 2 nutrients and the base grows by one, the new worker can replace the crawler.)

As we grow, our mineral production is dropping (each base has 4 workers and new citizens are becoming specialists; to support the growing nutrient requirements, we are moving workers from 1-2-1 forests and 2-2-1 jungle forests to 2-1-0 or 2-0-0 or 3-1-0 or 3-0-0 squares).

Our income and research rate is increasing as we add engineers (+1 credit/year, +2 labs/year).