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Author Topic:   Conventional and Psi Warfare

Veracitas posted 05-29-99 11:23 AM ET
I have been wondering as to what people think about Conventional warfare as opposed to Psi warfare. I have heard many arguments that, in the late game, psi warfare is all that counts. In most of my games, I have usually established complete dominance by the time I get to Locusts. Even still, what advantages do locusts have over, say, choppers? I remember that, at one point, I was fighting Miriam, and I had quickly conquered much of her territory, at the expense of sparse defence of the conquered bases. However, one of my carriers spotted a mass movement of needlejets--almost ten--to one of her bases. These needlejets could easily have wreaked havoc on my forces, yet all I had to do was send in one chopper and I destroyed them all.
So, I am anxious to hear some other arguments.
laurens posted 05-29-99 11:49 AM ET
Well, you certainly can't say that either psi or conventional warfare rules in mid/endgame.
Psi defence is certainly one of the best defenses in the late game (after you researched Eudaimonia), for you can just outfit it to any unit - even the non combat ones, which means that even a mighty strong unit would sustain some damage before bringing the psi def unit down. But it has one terrible weakness - against missiles.
Essential project to own: Neural Amplifier (which happens to be my favourite too ).
Conventional offensive capabilities would prove more lethal, and unless you own the Dream Twister, psi attack has lower chances of successes due to the accumulation of enemy base defenses+morale+etc...
That is, if your game doesn't support strong morale modifications - be it from secret projects, social eng choices, playing psi is suicidal.
MichaeltheGreat posted 05-29-99 04:15 PM ET
I agree with laurens for the most part, and I find mind worms useful for observation and holding remote areas I don't want an enemy to use. I like Isles of the Deep since they are fighting transports. I never build any, just rely on captures when I have a green economy.
Ultimately, I use conventional warfare only -the combination of land, sea, air and missile units is just too versatile and too deadly - mindworms can be annoying to defend against, but in terms of speed and totality of shredding an enemy, I just don't find them as effective. I go for stuff like seriously armed cloaked hovertanks, and infiltrate an enemy's territory before the war starts, then bring up cloaked carriers and transports, - it's a lot of fun, albeit expensive to build.
Cyggy posted 05-29-99 04:59 PM ET
As with any tactic, pick the one which suits the way you play.
There are several posts here on why conventional warfare is better then native life warfare. I disagree; native life warfare suits my tastes much better then conventional. Here are my reasons:
1. Native life never needs (Potentially expensive) upgrades.
2. There are as many moral upgrades for native life as conventional.
3. Native life regards all units as having 10 hit points, so the conventional upgrades that give you 20, 30, and 40 hit points are worthless against them.
4. I can mass produce mind worms creating new units in 1, 2, or 3 turns depeneding on the base. How long/how many minerials does it take to produce those hover tanks?
These are just a few advantages, there are more (someone will eventually post them).
Ohhh....almost forgot the most important advantage:
With native life I don't have to remember what special abilitites I attach to a new unit (AAA, ECM, trance, whatever). It used to drive me nuts when a stack of my best units would get wiped out because I forgot to put an AAA unit amongst them. Also, my limited intelect has trouble remembering which type of unit/ability is best against which other type, and I hate constatntly looking at the charts in the book. With my mass-produced worms/locusts/floating thingies(?) I am always sure of what I have and what it can do.

My $.02
Cyggy
laurens posted 05-29-99 08:07 PM ET
Cyggy:
Your mail is an interesting and fun one. However, I think the problem is that you might not have wanted to open up your knowlegdge of the game scope, certainly not with intellect or similar factors.
Take the time to experiment new unit designs, and at the same time you might come up with some interesting (devious?) ideas of winning the game. Trust me! That's going to be fun
Oh ya, take a look at the tech chart they gave it to you... it definitely doesn't want you to know about 'Centauri xxx' tech advances only...

A thought
MichaeltheGreat posted 05-29-99 10:15 PM ET
Cyggy:
The downsides to native life as an attacker are manyfold, depending on what level of play, and whether you are playing as a solo player or in multiplayer against humans.
1 - They're slow - the only way they can move fast is in fungus and on roads - in my territory, I clear and improve all fungus anywhere near my cities, and my roads are all set up on interior lines, so an enemy has to fight his way into my road net.
2. If they are not in fungus or on roads, they can't move and attack in the same turn - my elite hovertanks have four movement points, and since they are cloaked, they can get right up on somebody before they know it - and if they use 1 or 2 movement points, they can attack 2 or three times, even with some damage - use half a dozen hovertanks that way, and you can splatter an enemy faction in short order. Against a well organized and prepared defender, mindworms can get splattered so badly its not funny - they have a hard time moving and dispersing, and the only time I build artillery is if I'm fighting someone who likes to use mindworms - so after my artillery and any available ships work them over, they are half damaged or more, and in no shape to fight anything - then I send cheap units out to slaughter them.
3. Upgrades aren't that expensive - if you don't upgrade everything, just your most important stuff.
4. Build carriers or airfields so you can deploy fighters with your ground forces - that way, only a SAM capable unit can go after your stack, and it fights the best defender - also an enemy SAM fighter has a 50% penalty in ground attack, so fighter cover and ground troops mutually protect each other.
5. Don't stack stuff excessively - dispersal and movement are one of the cardinal rules of warfare.
6. You don't have to build a fancy hovertank - they are obscenely expensive in resources if you do. Build a 1/1/3 scout hover tank with high morale, and at some place with a bioenhancement sphere and command center - then get those units to an alien obelisk, so they get a further boost in experience level. Then pay money to upgrade those units to a high tech hovertank, with deep radar and cloaking device special abilities.
7. Remember, it ain't how many you build, it's how you use them - I'll take a fair number of high quality mobile weapons platforms over mediocre slow movers anyday.
8. In the open, mobile forces can withdraw from your mind worms, so after trading damages, the mobile forces retreat, if they need to, and then my second line of mobile units charges in.
Just some ideas...
Rackam posted 05-30-99 06:59 AM ET
With The Dream Twister and The Neural Amplifier, I am able to build Psi (psi armour and weapon) anti-grav bombers. Anything (excluding fighters, but these can be dealt with with a Psi fighter) they encounter in the open is an easy kill. They do take damage against bases but I hardly ever attack bases directly anyway, I just clear away improvements and wait.
~Rackam
Matt Fox posted 05-31-99 02:08 PM ET
Mind worms are very useful for extended campaigns. Conventional units get damaged and only field repair to 20%(?) Mind worms on fungus squares can repair fully. Mind worms rule the fungus. They can hide in it, popping out to attack, then retreat back into the fungus to repair. And if there are no enemy units around, they can find rogue mind worms and either capture them or take them out for cash. Killing one mind worm a turn can support a lot of infrastructure, or buy 20-25 production at a developing base.
Igor posted 06-01-99 03:30 AM ET
To MichaeltheGreat. Hey, when you have hovertanks, Locuts is also availible. And they have 3:2 bonus when attack. With neural amlifier and/or dream twister psi warfare not so bad as you think.
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-01-99 11:12 AM ET
It would be interesting to create a scenario with only two human players, with symetric accelerated starts in terms of cities and tech, etc., and one player uses strictly psi warfare, (maybe allow conventional garrison units in cities), while the other uses strictly conventional warfare, to see which is more effective in a pure, straight up confrontation.
Anybody interested in a PBEM? Transcend level, small map.
High Priest posted 06-01-99 10:12 PM ET
Soooo...
I guess thats how my Singularity needlejets were eaten by those damn Damon Boils
At any rate, it seems you guys have left out a VERY important factor, you can't have clean worms. You can only capture so many, and in the late game I wouldn't rely on captured worms, you gotta really field those units. Much more preferable to the psi lovers are conventional unites with psi armor and attack. With Dream Twister, you can slaughter the enemy with a carrier full of psi/psi/copters, with the empath song and elite status. Of course, preferably with Clean reactors. Locusts are no match against this combo.
Another thing you fail to mention about clean reactors, is that you can hoard armies. In times of peace keep a few bases churning out units that are already monolithed and laundered. This strategy lets you have a very strong standing army in peace time, and not have to rely on quickly building up an army on the spot. You can even send them worm hunting, and have them assigned to transports. Can't do this with natives without messing up your industry.
High Priest
Plato90s posted 06-01-99 10:50 PM ET
You don't need to build Clean worms. As long as the native lifeforms are sitting in a fungus square, they require no maintenance.
So build a Mag-Rail to a fungus square and you can park entire armies of MindWorms and Locusts of Chiron there maintenance free.
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Author	Topic: Conventional and Psi Warfare
Veracitas	posted 05-29-99 11:23 AM ET I have been wondering as to what people think about Conventional warfare as opposed to Psi warfare. I have heard many arguments that, in the late game, psi warfare is all that counts. In most of my games, I have usually established complete dominance by the time I get to Locusts. Even still, what advantages do locusts have over, say, choppers? I remember that, at one point, I was fighting Miriam, and I had quickly conquered much of her territory, at the expense of sparse defence of the conquered bases. However, one of my carriers spotted a mass movement of needlejets--almost ten--to one of her bases. These needlejets could easily have wreaked havoc on my forces, yet all I had to do was send in one chopper and I destroyed them all. So, I am anxious to hear some other arguments.
laurens	posted 05-29-99 11:49 AM ET Well, you certainly can't say that either psi or conventional warfare rules in mid/endgame. Psi defence is certainly one of the best defenses in the late game (after you researched Eudaimonia), for you can just outfit it to any unit - even the non combat ones, which means that even a mighty strong unit would sustain some damage before bringing the psi def unit down. But it has one terrible weakness - against missiles. Essential project to own: Neural Amplifier (which happens to be my favourite too ). Conventional offensive capabilities would prove more lethal, and unless you own the Dream Twister, psi attack has lower chances of successes due to the accumulation of enemy base defenses+morale+etc... That is, if your game doesn't support strong morale modifications - be it from secret projects, social eng choices, playing psi is suicidal.
MichaeltheGreat	posted 05-29-99 04:15 PM ET I agree with laurens for the most part, and I find mind worms useful for observation and holding remote areas I don't want an enemy to use. I like Isles of the Deep since they are fighting transports. I never build any, just rely on captures when I have a green economy. Ultimately, I use conventional warfare only -the combination of land, sea, air and missile units is just too versatile and too deadly - mindworms can be annoying to defend against, but in terms of speed and totality of shredding an enemy, I just don't find them as effective. I go for stuff like seriously armed cloaked hovertanks, and infiltrate an enemy's territory before the war starts, then bring up cloaked carriers and transports, - it's a lot of fun, albeit expensive to build.
Cyggy	posted 05-29-99 04:59 PM ET As with any tactic, pick the one which suits the way you play. There are several posts here on why conventional warfare is better then native life warfare. I disagree; native life warfare suits my tastes much better then conventional. Here are my reasons: 1. Native life never needs (Potentially expensive) upgrades. 2. There are as many moral upgrades for native life as conventional. 3. Native life regards all units as having 10 hit points, so the conventional upgrades that give you 20, 30, and 40 hit points are worthless against them. 4. I can mass produce mind worms creating new units in 1, 2, or 3 turns depeneding on the base. How long/how many minerials does it take to produce those hover tanks? These are just a few advantages, there are more (someone will eventually post them). Ohhh....almost forgot the most important advantage: With native life I don't have to remember what special abilitites I attach to a new unit (AAA, ECM, trance, whatever). It used to drive me nuts when a stack of my best units would get wiped out because I forgot to put an AAA unit amongst them. Also, my limited intelect has trouble remembering which type of unit/ability is best against which other type, and I hate constatntly looking at the charts in the book. With my mass-produced worms/locusts/floating thingies(?) I am always sure of what I have and what it can do. My $.02 Cyggy
laurens	posted 05-29-99 08:07 PM ET Cyggy: Your mail is an interesting and fun one. However, I think the problem is that you might not have wanted to open up your knowlegdge of the game scope, certainly not with intellect or similar factors. Take the time to experiment new unit designs, and at the same time you might come up with some interesting (devious?) ideas of winning the game. Trust me! That's going to be fun Oh ya, take a look at the tech chart they gave it to you... it definitely doesn't want you to know about 'Centauri xxx' tech advances only... A thought
MichaeltheGreat	posted 05-29-99 10:15 PM ET Cyggy: The downsides to native life as an attacker are manyfold, depending on what level of play, and whether you are playing as a solo player or in multiplayer against humans. 1 - They're slow - the only way they can move fast is in fungus and on roads - in my territory, I clear and improve all fungus anywhere near my cities, and my roads are all set up on interior lines, so an enemy has to fight his way into my road net. 2. If they are not in fungus or on roads, they can't move and attack in the same turn - my elite hovertanks have four movement points, and since they are cloaked, they can get right up on somebody before they know it - and if they use 1 or 2 movement points, they can attack 2 or three times, even with some damage - use half a dozen hovertanks that way, and you can splatter an enemy faction in short order. Against a well organized and prepared defender, mindworms can get splattered so badly its not funny - they have a hard time moving and dispersing, and the only time I build artillery is if I'm fighting someone who likes to use mindworms - so after my artillery and any available ships work them over, they are half damaged or more, and in no shape to fight anything - then I send cheap units out to slaughter them. 3. Upgrades aren't that expensive - if you don't upgrade everything, just your most important stuff. 4. Build carriers or airfields so you can deploy fighters with your ground forces - that way, only a SAM capable unit can go after your stack, and it fights the best defender - also an enemy SAM fighter has a 50% penalty in ground attack, so fighter cover and ground troops mutually protect each other. 5. Don't stack stuff excessively - dispersal and movement are one of the cardinal rules of warfare. 6. You don't have to build a fancy hovertank - they are obscenely expensive in resources if you do. Build a 1/1/3 scout hover tank with high morale, and at some place with a bioenhancement sphere and command center - then get those units to an alien obelisk, so they get a further boost in experience level. Then pay money to upgrade those units to a high tech hovertank, with deep radar and cloaking device special abilities. 7. Remember, it ain't how many you build, it's how you use them - I'll take a fair number of high quality mobile weapons platforms over mediocre slow movers anyday. 8. In the open, mobile forces can withdraw from your mind worms, so after trading damages, the mobile forces retreat, if they need to, and then my second line of mobile units charges in. Just some ideas...
Rackam	posted 05-30-99 06:59 AM ET With The Dream Twister and The Neural Amplifier, I am able to build Psi (psi armour and weapon) anti-grav bombers. Anything (excluding fighters, but these can be dealt with with a Psi fighter) they encounter in the open is an easy kill. They do take damage against bases but I hardly ever attack bases directly anyway, I just clear away improvements and wait. ~Rackam
Matt Fox	posted 05-31-99 02:08 PM ET Mind worms are very useful for extended campaigns. Conventional units get damaged and only field repair to 20%(?) Mind worms on fungus squares can repair fully. Mind worms rule the fungus. They can hide in it, popping out to attack, then retreat back into the fungus to repair. And if there are no enemy units around, they can find rogue mind worms and either capture them or take them out for cash. Killing one mind worm a turn can support a lot of infrastructure, or buy 20-25 production at a developing base.
Igor	posted 06-01-99 03:30 AM ET To MichaeltheGreat. Hey, when you have hovertanks, Locuts is also availible. And they have 3:2 bonus when attack. With neural amlifier and/or dream twister psi warfare not so bad as you think.
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-01-99 11:12 AM ET It would be interesting to create a scenario with only two human players, with symetric accelerated starts in terms of cities and tech, etc., and one player uses strictly psi warfare, (maybe allow conventional garrison units in cities), while the other uses strictly conventional warfare, to see which is more effective in a pure, straight up confrontation. Anybody interested in a PBEM? Transcend level, small map.
High Priest	posted 06-01-99 10:12 PM ET Soooo... I guess thats how my Singularity needlejets were eaten by those damn Damon Boils At any rate, it seems you guys have left out a VERY important factor, you can't have clean worms. You can only capture so many, and in the late game I wouldn't rely on captured worms, you gotta really field those units. Much more preferable to the psi lovers are conventional unites with psi armor and attack. With Dream Twister, you can slaughter the enemy with a carrier full of psi/psi/copters, with the empath song and elite status. Of course, preferably with Clean reactors. Locusts are no match against this combo. Another thing you fail to mention about clean reactors, is that you can hoard armies. In times of peace keep a few bases churning out units that are already monolithed and laundered. This strategy lets you have a very strong standing army in peace time, and not have to rely on quickly building up an army on the spot. You can even send them worm hunting, and have them assigned to transports. Can't do this with natives without messing up your industry. High Priest
Plato90s	posted 06-01-99 10:50 PM ET You don't need to build Clean worms. As long as the native lifeforms are sitting in a fungus square, they require no maintenance. So build a Mag-Rail to a fungus square and you can park entire armies of MindWorms and Locusts of Chiron there maintenance free.