ete's mini AAR thread (or how ete accidentally did an AAR with lots of pictures)

[ete]

I'm not going to report every tech and minor SP from here on, more stuff's happening. Will switch to reports every few years.



No, let's have war mirriam. Chaos is on the way.


When I get this, one from Tree Farms, two from Hybrid Forests.


Last Annihilator base. Full to the brim with mid level defenders. Let's wait till next turn when I can hit you with level 8 weapons .

[ete]

nnnnope.


Took it down to only a few defenders, then


No more Annihilators! That was.. disappointingly easy honestly. I think the AI screwed up in a few major ways. Not attacking me early, not making anything like enough bases, not teraforming at all (though they can kinda get away with that since fungus gives 3 min/1 nut for them), and only building defensive units.

25 turns, despite some major distractions.

[ete]

Let's take a moment to do a quick review of the state of each faction.


Exterminatus: Not really sure, but not dead despite being next to mirriam. Probably not doing great though.


AntiMind: Expansive empire, some forests from my seeding.


CCs: Never made a second base. Unsurprisingly are doing badly because of it. They have loads of good places for bases too with all that forest...


Mirriam: Decent forming, plenty of bases, plenty of forests from seeding.


Me: Here comes the energy!

[ete]

AntiMind is becoming more of an issue, designing some anti psi rovers.

[ete]

That base as too isolated and low on defenders to handle the AntiMind! Ah well, back to more defensible locations.

[ete]

The Ascetic Virtues has one of my favorite quotes from SMAC, because it came from the leader I otherwise least agree with (other than mirriam), and helped me understand why that form of philosophy is appealing. I still think Yang's a monster, and freedom is vital, but I do actually agree with many parts of his moral foundation.

Learn to overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone, for they warp the matrix through which we perceive the world. Extend your awareness outward, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self of group and the self of humanity. The goals of the group and the greater race are transcendent, and to embrace them is to achieve enlightenment.

It's also a very handy project. Just as my sea bases were getting a little big, I can now control 9 drones (would be 12 if doubling police power was correct) with three cheap 1/1 police, who all get supported for free (plus a sea former), while any other faction would be struggling with drone control facils and psych costs.

[ete]

Took a base with a couple of, at this point, fairly unimportant SPs. Only one impact rover down on my side, 8 units down on hers in the last couple turns. And keeping bases well stocked with probes this time .

[ete]

As much as we may complain about the AI's other major faults, like it's deeply flawed build prioritization (not enough facils, not enough rovers, waaay too many defenders, not enough probes, almost no crawlers, often not enough colony pods) and lack of teraforming, I personally find the greatest weakness is it's absolute lack of tactical ability. It makes even battles when you're outnumbered 5:1 not just winnable, but almost certain once you've got decent weapons, rovers, and selected the right places to fight.

Anyway, Mirriam's dying fast. Monolith OP.

[ete]

naaaa


I think this war is going fine.

[ete]

Some fighting.


Some base taking.

I think I'll call it when mirriam and the exterminatus are decimated, and antimind is at least losing a few bases/clearly not making progress against me.

[ete]

Few more bases in nice places getting developed.


The couple of mirriam bases I left between the antimind and where I attacked as a buffer are getting worn down, which is fine and not surprising now they're getting zero support.

[ete]

Did a fun trick to take this base. It's got no roads leading to it, and all squares are forested or fungus, and it's defender was an impact/plasma infantry. I had only one rover in the area, and it was two turns from building a second impact/plasma infantry. I put a probe team next to the base and moved the rover to a different next to base square, luring the AI to hit the probe (AI are so predictable when you've played a lot, they will _always_ hit your probes if they can), letting my chaos rover kill the defender then take the base directly before the new defender could be built.

[ete]

Found the nexus! Nobody's claimed it yet.


wow, no less than five techs I'm missing... I'm going to have to probe these guys.

[ete]

There we go . The war effort will suffer a bit while I switch almost my entire productive power towards tree farms, but Mirriam has only sea bases and one heavily besieged by the antimind on land and the Exterminatus has only one base I can see. Antimind is not hitting me yet so this is a great time . Better yet, energy restrictions lifted=massive boost to seabase energy, my two size 15 bases are now getting 4 energy per square, and the others building up get major boosts too. Tech time!


It's not optimal over air, but I really like not having to deal with probes and keep probe defenses up. And air war is kinda boring/oversimiplified anyway, plus, like many things.. AI's not great at it, so worth avoiding where possible.

[ete]

Wiped out a minor AntiMind base.


Missed out on a SP which would've been nice, but far from vital, and would have been hard to make at sea where I wanted it.


It's so convenient that AI places so many sea bases on the coast. Makes them easy to take with amphibious rovers, much cheaper and quicker than building actual sea units.