Santiago vs. Random, 256x128, no supply pods

[bvanevery]

2382.  Deirdre broke our Pact.  No explanation, just tired of the sex I guess.  She's Magnanimous towards me, so I guess we'll be "Friends With Benefits" for awhile.

I just got Advanced Spaceflight.  I'm finally building a secret project that nobody else has, The Living Refinery.  I don't have a support problem, but more support can't hurt.  I've got weapons to fry everything, and nobody really worth fighting.  I still pick at Yang, using 4 old 8-1-1 fission reactor Marines.  Any troops that I build, are defensive mobile units to garrison captured bases with.  I just keep working on my infrastructure, and on sending crawlers to mines.  This is expensive under a Power regime, but having every unit be Elite is really useful for mobility.  I like having formers and crawlers that move at speed 3!

2383.  I've exceeded the Bureacracy limit for an Efficiency +4 empire.  38 bases!  With more to colonize and conquer.  Time to finally change to Knowledge?  Perhaps I should stop pushing out crawlers, build some of those Shard units, and wipe Yang out once and for all.  Yeah, sounds like a plan.

I finally infiltrated Aki.  I started worrying about infiltrating other factions 30 years ago.  All done with 1 cruiser probe team.

How to kill Yang?  I'm thinking, a Shard air force would be the most mobile way to dispose of him, and it would still be somewhat useful later.  Yang didn't garrison himself with AAA units because he never learned Advanced Military Algorithms.  Nor, surprisingly, has he ever stolen anything from me.  He could, if he was smarter.  During our land war he tried buckets to get stuff from me, but I defended myself well with a cadre of mostly Elite probe teams.

Yang has built a surprisingly large pile of Penetrators, that he never uses on anything.  They could wreak havoc if he had a brain.  Well if he had a brain, I wouldn't have conquered most of him already.  So, I'll need plenty of AAA units to keep 'em off.

Hm, he did subvert one of my 1-<3>-2 speeders once upon a time, and he did build 1 more of 'em.  Stuck in a sea base.  If the AI knew more about designing stuff, he could have AAA units.  But he doesn't.  Too bad for him.

I'll need more than just my 1 transport, to bring in my defensive units.  Probably won't need very many though.  It's a big lake but still only a lake.  Hm, once I conquer Yang, I can make a westward exit to the lake if I want.  Assuming he doesn't surrender.  1 base on an isthmus would do it.

I'll need a pile of planes.  I don't have Choppers and he's got lots of units to execute.  Although I suppose since he failed to build Tacticals, I can use temporary air cover and Marines as well.  Which allows more land bases to get in on the action, without having to build any new Aerospace Complexes.

The only Aerospace Complex in my majoring manufacturing center, is Sparta Command.  Unfortunately I started The Living Refinery there, because it is one of my highest output cities.  So, I'm sending all of the old "movement 2" elite supply crawlers to help finish the refinery.  The newer fusion elite "movement 3" crawlers, I will leave doing their work.  Sometimes it just feels good to clean out the old inventory.  Also, many of my bases are bigger now, with hybrid forests.  They may be more willing to work their local mines than previously.

Ok sounds like an invasion plan.  I'm still only going to spend my "finished" cities on it though.  Sparta Command still outputs 34 minerals even with most of the supply crawlers recalled.  I've got some other cities that are managing 35 and 38.  No eco-damage.

I wonder how buff my minerals are, compared to other factions?  Roze, I don't know, because I've never infiltrated her.  Domai is doing a piss poor job at Free Market, he's got drones from Choppers everywhere.  He's got 1 city with 15 minerals and the rest is crap, often 1 mineral remaining.  Deirdre has got 1 city producing 32 minerals, and a number of ~15 minerals cities.  Her productivity doesn't suck, but I outclass her. 

Aki is small and has 1 city with 15 minerals.  She's not doing a good job at Free Market, building some Penetrators that are making people upset.  Who the hell does she think she's fighting, Yang??  She isn't anywhere near Yang.  Dummy.  If I had more money I could buy some techs from her, but I don't.  It all goes into my infrastructure, and running a Power government, my infrastructure is expensive.

Cha Dawn is a sad little goon.  Parking sea bases around The Monsoon Jungle hasn't helped him much.  Nor, as it turns out, did I need the nutrients over there.  The original idea was to make the flat rainy jungles into forests, as they produce like you've already got a tree farm.  Good idea earlier in the game, but later, I've got tree farms and hybrid forests.  Logistically, she also didn't turn out to be important to invade.  The other potential target from The Monsoon Jungle was Domai, and he turned out to be an ally.

I never got down to The Manifold Nexus, come to think of it.  I built one new colony next to my new capitol, then got the Bureaucracy warning.  So now it's the big war to finish Yang.  Then switch from Power to Knowledge, then do colonizing.

Anyways I am King Queen of the Minerals.

[bvanevery]

2388.  My original 4 elite Chaos Marines are doing all the killing so far.  Hey if they pull up right next to a base, either on land or water, they get 2 strikes each.  It's a slaughter.  The 1st Gas Shard Penetrator is en route.  They're expensive; I cough them out every 2 turns.  I don't know how much action they're really going to see, but they're a horrible weapon that can take down probably anything in the game.  Nice to have a few around.

I've got garrisons galore now, and 3 transports to move them around.  That should be plenty.  The increased mobility is allowing the Marines to better do their job.  I had to forego the capture of a base this turn, for lack of sufficient transport to bring a defensive unit into the captured base.  Problem will be solved next year.  His bases are also close enough on water, that this may turn into a blitz.  I'll be limited by the rate at which my Chaos Marines heal up.  Of course if I field a few Shard Marines, I won't have that problem.  They'll probably execute stuff without even noticing they fired their guns.  But I'm not going to make any Shard Marines for now, as they have no other use than this campaign.  Maybe my Gas Shard Penetrators will pick up the slack.  They could do the heavy lifting of wiping out the defensive units, then my Marines execute the air force and transports.

I researched Silksteel Alloys.  Other factions have had it for awhile, and researching it myself is a bit wasteful.  But I didn't have to push cruiser probe teams around to get it.  I've got 1 headed towards Roze now.  Ironically, the 1st thing I'll do is infiltrate her.  If my probe team dies after the mission, I'd at least like to be able to assess her defenses the next time I come at her.  At the present rate I'm not going to get the Governorship.  Deirdre seems to be in a full time peaceful colonization mode, and always maintains a voting advantage over me.  I have more population than her, but since she has The Empath Guild, she stays ahead.  Maybe further conquests will finally shift this in my favor, such as conquering Roze, but that will also be awhile.

Cha Dawn finally signed a treaty with me.  I was about to probe team the 3 units she had in my territory.  First thing I did after she signed, is tell her to get the @#$! off my land!  She complied.  Smart of her; I've pretty much had it with her bothering me.

I built The Living Refinery a few turns ago.  After the conquest, when I change from Power to Knowledge, I won't notice any support problem really.  Plus I am Queen of the Minerals.

Wait a minute.  I'm a Democracy, and am going to stay that way for efficiency and population reasons.  I am
President of the Minerals.

Isn't it odd that I have people voting for more and more of this s**t?  "We want to kill Yang some more please."  Fine, we're not a bunch of hippies.  We're a pile of right wing nut jobs.  I wouldn't say we were God-fearing; I'd say back when we were Fundamentalist, we were like a Prepper cult.  Well I guess killing Yang has had zero consequences for us, for a very long time.  At some point this would seem severely unkind to keep doing this.  Historical rationales are "They attacked us!"  "They will steal from us!"  "They'll never surrender!"  I think those last 2 are the reasons I keep going.  Well and they're on reasonably good water right next to my capitol, which I built out of one of their conquered cities.  The very first one I conquered, as it turned out.

Hey, I feel a renaming coming on!  "Labor Network", what kind of crap name is that?  Could rename it
"Yang Sucks"
but will it hold the same cache 200 years from now?  How about the more generalized
"F**k You!"
If any other factions are wondering why anyone in their right (wing) mind would name it that, I'll trot out the historic object lesson of what happens when you cross the Spartans.  I'll have to meditate on this awhile.  After I'm done with the fits of laughing.

[bvanevery]

You know I've never really done a serious pile of renamings before.  Maybe 1 base, once in a great many moons.  I think it's time to let Yang know that he's about to be erased from history, if he doesn't get with the program and surrender.  I think in keeping with Spartan Character, I will rename bases in accord with a soldier's sense of humor.

Labor Network, the capitol, and 1st Hive city I conquered ->
Sparta Center
Didn't go jokey for that.  To honor Sparta Command, and historically distinguish the two.

I'm realizing that cities that were captured so long ago, that Yang doesn't have malcontents in them anymore, now have Spartan base artwork for them.  So Sparta Center doesn't look like some dumbass Hive base.  This is good; it imparts some policy to what I'll rename and what I won't.  Or the style of the renaming.

Seat of Proper Thought, 2nd city conquered ->
Santiagograd
Yeah she's Hispanic.  But she really likes how Stalin did things, and we were full on Fundamentalist at the time.

The Leader's Horde, 3rd city conquered, defense point for a huge time because of difficulty making any further advance ->
Point Defense

Communal Nexus, 4th city conquered after a long stall, because of so many troops Yang was throwing at us ->
Clonetown

After that broke, the campaign got way easier and opened up more.  Names reflect soldiers having a good time:
Easy Peasy
Carrot Juice
Probe Hill
Pretty Beach
Pina Colada
Hot Tamale
Laborer's Throng --> Laborer's Thong, another beach resort
Virgin Soil - Gaian base that Hive captured, then we captured.  It's our northeasternmost city.  Sounds like a beach resort to me!
2 cities in the north that weren't great places, that we just sat on for awhile -->
USA
France
Fellowship City --> Sin City
The Hive, we left alone.  Shouldn't erase too much history.  Need all the soldiers to know the struggle.
Unification Cavern, a shoreline right next to The Hive --> She Said
Chairman's Burrow, home of The Command Nexus -->
The Academy
An important water passage city between those two -->
Clashing Rocks
Last seaport on the peninsula at the core of Yang's empire -->
Yang's End

The rest of the cities are recently captured and still look like Hive bases.  So I'm not renaming them now.

[bvanevery]

2395.  Got Monopole Magnets, yay!  Not bad for not researching Build techs at all.  I don't think anyone else has it.  I'm about to finally infiltrate Roze, then I'll know for sure.

Yang continues to die.  He really should surrender.  I'm finding that more than any other unit, Police units are in high demand.  But now that I need to build mag tubes for my giant empire, everyone will have to make do with the Police I've already built.

I've got cities with as high as 55 minerals and no eco-damage.  Gotta be all those tree farms and hybrid forests.

I'm starting to round off my empire with some land colonies.  Need to fill in the gaps and prevent encroachment.

2401.  Yang finally surrenders with 4 sea bases remaining.  The last base that I mounted an offensive from, I rename
Surrender
So it only takes 300 years to find and beat up your nearest neighbor!  Gawd aren't 256x128 maps great.

I changed from Power to Knowledge immediately upon his surrender.  I ended up with a handful of Gas Shard Penetrators.  I lost 1 Chaos Marine on the very last day of fighting.  What bad luck!  That defensive unit wasn't anything special.

Focus now is on building mag tubes, and putting land colonies in various places to protect my claims on the continent.  I need to get a colony up to that isthmus to open up the lake, so that I'll have a westwards outlet for probing Roze.  Disappointingly, when I infiltrated her my cruiser probe team came back to the lake and got stuck there!

I did a rash of renaming after Yang surrenderd.  He had a lot of "dick" names for his bases, and the people I liberated from his oppression were tired of hearing about him.  So with few exceptions, they got rewrites like "Pleasant Town" instead of that "I am the big badass leader and you're a crawling peon" shiite he was so fond of.  I also started renaming any new bases of my own that were excessively militant.  We have things to do other than yabber on about guns 'n' ammo now.  New bases have more of "settle the West" feeling to them, rather than militant indoctrination.  For instance, a town with 2 mineral deposits next to it, I aptly named "Minerals".  The northernmost forest town got named "Ponderosa".  I also occasionally honor Earth places, such as "Tulalip" and "Benin".

2409.  With the change to Knowledge I had piles more cash.  I used it to buy techs from allies.  Now I'll need to steal from Roze to get fully caught up.  It's just as tedious a logistical proposition as ever.  Colonies are working their way around the edge of the lake, but it's slow.  The isthmus that would open up the lake to the west is rather far away from my center.  I've got a mag tube built from Sparta Command to Sparta Center, my capitol, but the rest of the vast empire is still roads.  The need to put a perimter of cities around the lake, is causing me to build yet more roads, and to develop the land.  No mag tubes.

I've got a lot of Genejack Factories now.  I build 'em after everything else is done, most especially including hybrid forests.  My threshold for doing no eco-damage is about 60 minerals.  I've got a good number of bases that can crank that high now.  Those bases that could do even more production, because of all the crawlers they had, I reassigned the crawlers to less productive bases.

Cha Dawn surprise attacked me again.  It might have been an accident, she ran into one of my mindworms sitting next to The Manifold Nexus.  My allies Domai and Aki of course immediately declared war, creating an international momentum / inertia for dealing with Cha Dawn.  I'm building a navy and am going to take all of Cha's bases surrounding The Monsoon Jungle.  I'm also going to colonize the interior of the jungle, since I've got plenty of size 14 cities that need to blow off excess population.  I would have liked to colonize The Manifold Nexus, but getting there requires me to travel through Cha's territory.  Not a great proposition now.  Whereas The Monsoon Jungle is straight west of me, and provides an ok staging area for sending fleets against Roze.

I don't know if I'll really fight Roze.  I need to steal her techs to get caught up, but otherwise, we're both democracies.  Sure she's got lotsa valuable secret projects, but can't we all just get along?  On the other hand if I don't fight her, I'll never have a jolly good orbital drop combat campaign.

I don't know if I should be worried about the other factions or not.  Gaia is claimed to be my equal, and she's building The Cloning Vats.  Domai is not considered "worthy" on the graph, he's a distant 3rd, but he's also building The Cloning Vats.  I don't really want them.  They make empire management a pain, all that population pressure.

[bvanevery]

I got up a little early this morning, without quite enough sleep last night.  I put my head down to take a nap, late this rainy afternoon.  And it flooded into my mind, that I don't care about this game anymore.  I sorta cared about defeating Yang, but it was a 200 year boring slog for the most part.  I did it because I think I've rarely done an empire that big before.  Can't say I never have, but that was a big one, and certainly the biggest recent one.  I honestly would not have been playing the game any more, if I were not doing this AAR.  The writing has kept me motivated, lest someone read it... and yet, there's a very good chance nobody's reading this anyways!  That makes the game about whether I am enjoying it, not whether I've benchmarked my progress for posterity.

Yes I could learn the nuances of orbital combat with Roze.  But I could also start a new game, and get to that tech in less real world time, than I did in this game.  Probably with more of an advantage over other factions, and less pain for the trouble.  My long war with Yang had some benefits, like having Elite Formers and Crawlers moving much faster than usual, but it hindsight it was also really detrimental to my economy.

I'm happy to have learned how tree farms and hybrid forests gradually increase the allowed minerals output for all cities.  I proved that I can crawl cities to awfully high minerals outputs, without needing any factory technologies.  But I also discovered that a Genejack Factory takes your city from 40 to 60 minerals, cutting out a lot of wait time sending Formers out, and sending Crawlers out to those mines.  My way was good, better than anything the AI will ever do, but one can do much better.

I had "spearhead" units which could execute the enemy very early on.  The reason Yang didn't fall a lot sooner, is I dawdled with city improvements, and didn't build garrison units to hold and pacify the cities I could easily take.  Police units turn out to be the most valuable garrison units.  I was worried about AAA, but the AI hardly ever attacked me, for the amount of expensive AAA units I produced.  Some AAA units are necessary in the field to keep the planes off, for standing on the shores executing the enemy with Marines, for instance.  But it's really not necessary to garrison most cities with AAA units.  The AI isn't that smart about using its planes.

I'm ambivalent about pushing probe teams to far flung enemies.  I never got around to it this game.  It did hurt me, but do I really like bothering with this?  No, not really.

My recent games have focused on 2 questions: "How do I crank out a lot of minerals?" and "How do I handle long distance logistics?"  I thnk I've explored those questions enough now.  The remaining question, on a 256x128 map, is "How do I manage to enjoy these big games enough, that I keep playing them, and don't quit long before I've officially won?"  What makes a big map pleasant to play on, instead of a chore?

So I'll probably start another one, with that question in mind.  Try to have a "fun" game.  First I need to reset my brain and stare into the infinite about other life matters though.  I've spent an awful lot of my real life on this 1 game.