Group AAR #2: Fight for the Future

[ete]

MY 2243



Implementing Super Formers would cost more than we can afford right now. I'll avoid hurrying other developments in order to save for the upgrade.

MY 2244




While the offer is interesting, I can't help but feel the techs I have are more important. MMI gives two SPs, and AEE doubles former power.. It's a tough call, and I'd probably do AEE for Prob Mech, but not any of the deals offered.



Excellent, the state-of-the-art unit, the first copter on planet equipped with by far the most powerful weapon anywhere is ready to take on the Bree air force, it could win almost singlehandedly.



It's a major investment, but we need mines operational soon to provide for all these crawlers.







Whatever the Bree are, they are not very able to accept that this is a futile war on their part. Take another base.





At least they know when to call a ceasefire.

MY 2245



On reflection, it probably would have been worth pursuing tech trades with the drones, so that we could develop together more efficiently.. but, alas, too late, we have duplicated one of their discoveries.



Out of the options, Chaos weapons are strictly inferior to our current best, and Proton Wall could be traded from the drones, so we'll develop retroviral engineering.



I have been invited to attend the founding of the first Satori base since they lost the war of the jungle.

I think she's learned to respect our values in the nine years since then, or at least pay homage to them, based on her speech and our many conversations.

Atsumi: We are gathered here beneath Turing mountain to announce a new home for our people: Satori Legacy. Here on this land which Federov has given us permission to settle, we will reestablish ourselves and focus on our true calling: Trading.

We are no longer a great empire, but we have our lives, our honor, and great opportunity working with the finest minds on Planet to develop new technology and improve the lives of not just our own people, but those across Planet. By uniting our societies we create mutual prosperity, and so we shall continue.

[ete]

Just a question, I left (Drones) two transport foils with probe teams on sea.
Did AI use them/unloaded/probed anything? And you got a message in-game about it, or just saw it on map?

I did not get any messages or see Drone probes, no. There have been a few Bree, Satori, and Creche probes wondering about my territory though, so I may have missed them.

[ete]

MY 2246



The prototype Shard Lifter is still in position after last turn's attack. Hitting the Bree airforce again would be much more fuel-efficient than turning back to fight another day, so I intentionally anger them.



It was a massacre. Eight units of needlejets destroyed in a matter of hours, and not a single Technocrat unit lost, with the badly damaged Lifter landing for repairs in the newly captured Bree base.



No wonder she wishes for peace.

[ete]

Will finish my turn tomorrow.

[Mart]

I did not get any messages or see Drone probes, no. There have been a few Bree, Satori, and Creche probes wondering about my territory though, so I may have missed them.

I think it is Drone AI, that does not know what to do with them Domai, that sends these spies to waste their time on sunny beaches, together with foil crews...

[ete]

MY 2247

Technocrat core planning meeting - The Drones

Federov: Though our methods and philosophies are in many ways almost polar opposites, I believe in the long term as technology automates more and more of heavy industry Domai's vision of giving the people a happy and productive life can be incorporated into our own. The question is, with his currently very significant army and minimal research facilities, does he intend to allow this to happen or will he only be content with his ideology dominant?

We have been at peace for many decades now and trade between us has generated great prosperity, but I worry he will grow impatient and fearful of our progress, and attempt to conquer us. We have several proposals for how to deal with or avert this threat, General Harrison, if you would begin?

General Harrison: In numbers, we're lagging behind dramatically. If I had the budget requested in previous meetings or at least we had not disbanded so many of the AI created units our massive technological lead may have been enough for a first strike to be effective, but as things stand we cannot mount an effective offensive.



Our air force is likely at least an equal of theirs, but on the ground we would be hopelessly outmatched.

If we were to fight a defensive war our initial air superiority would likely not be sufficient to halt their advance due to their immense standing army, but we would be able to slow them to a crawl. However, reports on their factories indicate that with under five years of focused effort they could develop enough of an air force to take the skies back from us, despite our technological edge.

Federov: The reasons for infrastructure investment are sound, our first priority must be improving the conditions for humanity, and a first strike would make me personally uncomfortable with. The drones do represent a potential threat to our future, but they are merely misguided and have so far been very reliable allies.

General Harrison: Yes, sir. I must however strongly recommend creating a nuclear deterrent to discourage them from launching a preemptive strike on us. If housed at Ares Revenge it could strike directly at the heart of their territory within hours of drone forces engaging us on other fronts, or in one of the ex-Satori headquarters for extra safety at the cost of longer response times.

Federov: Noted. I'll put together a committee to do a cost-benefit analysis, including the fact that the Drones themselves appear to be working towards nuclear weapons. I am not prepared to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike, and nuclear weapons will remain outside the military chain of command. Next we have a report from the Terraformer's Working Group, Janet?

Janet: With the formers assigned to Operation Quagmire at the last meeting we've made some progress on both of the identified locations for artificial fungal barriers, designed to slow any possible attack by the Drones and give us time to prepare. The western fungal barrier is several squares deep in places, and we've bombed out several key roads to force any troops passing through to clear new paths through the dense forests of the region.



The mid-eastern barrier is less close to completion, but we have brought in a group of colonists to build a fortified early warning station.



The natural eastern fungal/forest barrier is expected to be sufficient to discourage attack from that angle, but it is worth considering since several high value targets (including the Command Nexus, Xenoempathy Dome, and Virtual World) are relatively close to that land-bridge, unlike with the other two where the first bases in the firing line would be relatively unimportant outlying colonies.



Federov: Very good. Keep it up, we have plenty of formers available to continue, and it's an entirely non-threatening way to make ourselves safer. Last I have an update on the Secret Projects we've been developing with new technology.

The Cloudbase Academy is nearing completion here in Singularity's Seed, while the Cyborg Factory and Living Refinery are lagging behind. We expect that by investing the large numbers of crawlers in our core territory in these projects we will be able to complete at least two of them before I must retire again, and hope to have all three ready. Shuffling the crawlers closer to bases and delaying cashing in to optimize mineral production has been taking up a majority of my attention recently.






Federov: So, we'll pursue our policy of peaceful watchfulness. No first strike, but make preparations to make war unappealing to them with physical barriers and possibly nuclear deterrents, while we continue our technological and project development. The military budget will increase, but not dramatically, and will be focused on defensive and air units.

[ete]

MY 2248

General Harrison: It's time to clean up this bay and take the last three

Bree outposts. They're in our waters, which is sufficient cause for us to ask them to withdraw or face the consequences. With their airforce crushed in the battle of Genus and the recent increase in millitary allocation we have total air superiority, and naval units in place to capture bases once they're bombed to the ground.









Harrison: "Mission successful. Zero units lost, the bay is ours, and Bre Ata has called a ceasefire."
Federov: "Excellent. Let's get some formers out there and begin development."

MY 2249



A morally questionable technological advance.. but one with great potential to even the odds against the Drone's industrial might. Widespread implementation of Genejack Factories on hold pending ethics committee review, small scale tests being conducted.



Ah.. the technology just on the horizon has the potential to be a gamechanger. Shame the custodian AI will be in change by the time the chance to make use of it comes..



Large numbers of crawlers are ready to be cached in. The plan is to complete the Cloudbase Academy this year, and both the others the year after. In a change of plans, both the other secret projects were hurried at great cost (a request was made to both the Satori and Creche for assistance), in order to assure they are completed not cancelled by the AI.

I should have a number of crawlers left over, to be used by the custodian AI.

[ete]

MY 2250

 I am proud to announce three new secret projects!




A new major training facility for air units! From here on our primary military investment will be in aircraft. It will also provide a buffer against air attacks on bases and drop pods.




A self-organizing factory to support our units in the field!




And a factory to give easy access to human upgrades! Cybernetic improvements amplify human ability, making them freely available to all very fitting with our vision for the future.


I must return to cryosleep soon, but before I do, a final look at various metrics and overviews:




Still plenty of Crawlers remain, and many formers. The jungle development is coming along nicely.



Our recent burst of military investment has given us a considerable air force. Interestingly, the Drones have created almost fifty units of air transports..



We've taken the technological lead after Domai's burst of AAs gave his researchers an advantage, and are teching almost ten times as fast as them.




I give orders to the custodian AI to focus on air units, not to engage any current allies unless severely provoked, and send a last diplomatic cable to the Creche.

[ete]

My diplomatic orders: No tech trading of any kind, I won't attack (set via scenario editor), if there is a war I will not accept or call for a ceasefire except at the start of your turn before any military unit has moved. In the event of a war, I'll request the aid of all three of my other pact brothers, who should almost certainly agree to help in order to avoid their territory being used as a staging ground (also have specifically requested no nuclear weapons be allowed on any of my allies land, BlueFlux can decide whether to accept this request, Atsumi is surrendered and should be assumed to accept).

I do not intend to initiate bloodshed, the drones have been long standing allies, but I am prepared if it comes to war.


Also, turns in this game take a /long/ time. I'm trying to maximally optimize all my crawler placements, formers, and build orders, and I have a lot of bases now.. But it's good to finally have a worthwhile reason to optimize. Usually by this point I've left the AI far behind, whereas the Drones are still pretty close.

On to you, Mart.

[Mart]

LOL, in cases like this, the AI should be called ANI (Artificial Non-Intelligence).
I admit, it was me, who set certain strategy parameters, and made those unit designs, but what the heck... I forgot to remove CR-152 from the workshop. I would have use for maybe 2-3 such units in selected map locations.
So after 15 turns of ANI rule, there is 47 of them!!! DOMAI!!!

That is not all. Land transports are usefull, they really can serve as defenders alone, like the one 0-5+t-1*2.
There is though one thing. They cannot enter sea transports. And where Domai makes them? In a sea base, that has no land nearby. I have 5 of these in such a base. Now, in order to get some of them out, I will need to rise terrain...

That is not all. It's good to have some probe cruisers. But why are they parked in the inland sea, that is whole in my possession, and in a base far away from the canal base where they can get out to a mission area? I will have to loose so many turns.

==========

We can keep Pact, we have our own parts of the planet. I am in disadvantage to pursue transcendence, but we might go this direction.

[Flux]

I won't have nukes for now if that's what Federov wants.

[ete]

LOL, in cases like this, the AI should be called ANI (Artificial Non-Intelligence).
I admit, it was me, who set certain strategy parameters, and made those unit designs, but what the heck... I forgot to remove CR-152 from the workshop. I would have use for maybe 2-3 such units in selected map locations.
So after 15 turns of ANI rule, there is 47 of them!!! DOMAI!!!

That is not all. Land transports are usefull, they really can serve as defenders alone, like the one 0-5+t-1*2.
There is though one thing. They cannot enter sea transports. And where Domai makes them? In a sea base, that has no land nearby. I have 5 of these in such a base. Now, in order to get some of them out, I will need to rise terrain...

Yea... I feel like the possibly the biggest AI weakness comes from producing way, way, way too many useless units. Especially transports, but also defensive units and infantry sometimes.

At least you can disband them to make facilities or useful things.

That is not all. It's good to have some probe cruisers. But why are they parked in the inland sea, that is whole in my possession, and in a base far away from the canal base where they can get out to a mission area? I will have to loose so many turns.

Ouch, maybe you could make a new canal base? Or I guess getting to the Bree would be hard..

We can keep Pact, we have our own parts of the planet. I am in disadvantage to pursue transcendence, but we might go this direction.

Okay. I do intend to transcend, but there's a chance the AI will build the VoP while I'm away, allowing you to jump in. I'm not sure if it'd be okay to leave instructions to not build the VoP or how to do that, but it's probably your best hope.

I won't have nukes for now if that's what Federov wants.

Cool, I am a bit paranoid, but it's in-character and nukes are scary. One on Singularity's Seed would cut my research by 230/turn, more than every other faction on Planet combined.

[Flux]

I don't think I'll be rejoining for the rest of the AAR.
That's unlikely to change.

[ete]

Okay, I doubt it'll last too many more turns. At the rate I'm teching transcendence is in sight.

Think you'll want to be part of the next, which will probably start in january?

[Mart]

MY 2250
A lot to do... Disbanding many CR-152 air transports.
Meanwhile, let us make some diplomacy


MY 2251
Running Democratic/Planned/Knowledge



And finally, Free Drones are the first to do it.


MY 2252
Technocrats and Bree sign Treaty agreement (from previous Truce).
Bree now researches Mind/Machine Interface, and a probe team is in place...