Roze vs. Random, Huge map, no supply pods

[bvanevery]

I've come to the conclusion that the 256x128 maps are a complete waste of my time, especially when I'm interrupted by other people's lives over and over again, instead of playing a game straight through.  Long distances to push units to get no results.  Screw that!  I'm dialing it back to a merely Huge map, which is 128x64.

Weak erosive forces and dense cloud cover, because I like them and it also seems to help the AIs thrive.  Average native life.  Transcend.  No supply pods except at landing sites, if that.  I find that supply pods are a crutch, you can run your whole economy off of them.  That's part of why the big maps got so boring, there was no reason to bother with all that distance if you aren't getting supply pods for the trouble.

Forgot to mention I've played most of these games with No Random Events.  I hate the egregious penalties that sometimes happen, like wiping out all your research, or most of your money, or the population in many of your cities.  The bonuses aren't remotely as good as the penalties are bad, so screw this un-fun play mechanic.  The only thing I miss is sunspots.  They provide an opportunity to do things that your allies would otherwise complain about.

7 random factions from the standard 14 including my own.  I draw Roze.  I don't check on who else is in the game, although I know there are no aliens because I don't get the alien landing message.  Just humans to beat up.

I start on an elongated north-south island that contains The Pholus Ridge for half of it.  Good supplies of nutrients.  A few turns in I remember that Roze starts the game with Planetary Networks and can do a Planned economy.  As soon as I've got the money, I do so.  As I've got several nutrient bonuses, I concentrate on whipping colony pods immediately, rather than making any Formers.  Basically get the island fully populated as fast as I can grow bases to size 2.

2127.  Svensgaard shows up on my land with a scout rover.  Grr!  I'm weak and can't handle a war right now, am I going to have to pay this guy off?  Fortunately he's not being a dick and we trade techs.  Taking Doctrine:Flexibility from him in exchange for Information Networks is a slam dunk.  I feel I have to trade Biogenetics for Applied Physics because I do not have a weapon, and he could turn on me at any time.  Hopefully I will simply outproduce him and get The Human Genome project done long before he or anyone else manages it.  He wants to trade Doctrine:Mobility for my Planetary Networks and there's no way I'm giving up that advantage.  As useful as rovers might be, he's a sea power and I've already been given ships.  That's mainly what I'll need to fight him if it comes to war; I can fake a land defense somehow.

I ask him for a bunch of comm links but he doesn't have any to offer before his patience with the conversation runs out.  Once I get my island settled I'll infiltrate him.  Deirdre, Yang, and Aki are in the game.  I think also Domai, can't remember the last one.  Oh well, back to early colonizing.  I will probably have my island settled before Svensgaard bugs me again.

2135.  Surprisingly, Svensgaard trades Industrial Base for my Progenitor Psych.  Hey whatever dude.  The attitude between us still isn't great, there can definitely be a war or a bullying.  I don't want him putting bases in my coastal waters either, so we may be fightin' soon.  Some time later, I'm wondering if he got Industrial Base from Domai, so I bug him again for contacts.  Nothing.  Must have picked it up on his own.

The other forgettable faction is Lal.

[bvanevery]

Time passes.  Other factions build all the secret projects, particularly Aki.  I can't do anything about it.  My island didn't come with mineral deposits, and it has taken a long time to put forests on it.  Plus I've been under threat of Svensgaard and had to prepare for that.  Eventually we do come to blows.  I steal all his techs, then mind control the base that was bugging me off my coast.  We declare a truce.  That will be policy with him: take a base to remind him who has power in my home waters.

2184.  Aki votes herself Governor with The Empath Guild and a lot of other people siding with her.  Surprisingly, I'm the #2 candidate but I can't even remotely touch her.  Turns out she's sitting on The Monsoon Jungle.  After talking and trading with other factions, I speak to Aki and she declares war on me.  Ok whatever!  I get my ally Deirdre to decalre war on her.  I have gone Fundamentalist and Green.  Hopefully my probe teams will give Aki fits.  I would rather be Free Market but I have Deirdre as an ally.  Time will tell what is worth doing.  Mind controlling stuff does require money.

Almost forgot that I allied with Domai.  Yang is against him but Yang is stunted, could have been a tiny island start.  Domai didn't insist that I go against Yang, although I'm sure we'll be at war eventually.  I'll recruit Domai to the crusade against Aki.

Lal is next to Deirdre and I'm about to infiltrate him.  Maybe he'll go to war with me.  He was seething even when I was Democratic.

2203.  I'm trying to invade Aki.  What this means in practice, is I keep hitting 1 of her coastal cities with skimship probe teams.  I've almost destroyed everything she's got in there, except for the secret projects.  Meanwhile I just don't seem to have the productivity to crank out a real military.  Since I've got Industrial Automation now, I suppose I can send out supply crawlers and work mines, although I don't have Ecological Engineering yet to get a full minerals benefit.  My Formers also haven't gotten around to making any mines.  They're still farming.  I'm trying to just make a bunch of impact rovers and invade anyways, but I'm having my doubts that I will pull this off before technology moves on again.  At least on the positive side, it's going to be hard for anyone to take probe team actions against me, and I can continue to smash up enemy cities to soften them up.  I'm not really familiar with probe team heavy tactics, this is somewhat new to me.  As I'm Fundamentalist I've got the best probe teams that can be had, absent specialized facilities that come later in the game.

Lal is at war with me but he's all but dead, and has both the Pirates and Deidre in the way of getting to me.  Similarly, Yang is at war due to my Fundamentalism but who cares?  He's weak and far away, on some supercontinent on Aki's underside.  Domai opposes him on land.

If I take out Aki I can't imagine anything other than me winning the game.  She's the super-dominant power sitting on The Monsoon Jungle.  She does a surprisingly bad job garrisoning her bases.  I wonder if she's cheating?  Like she knows what ships I have and where my units are, so she'll just magically make defensive units appear at the last minute.

[bvanevery]

For many years I waged a campaign of sabotage on one of Aki's coastal cities, that contains The Command Nexus and The Human Genome Project.  I discovered the hard way that this is a complete waste of time.  If a faction has The Citizen's Defense Force, you cannot destroy their Perimeter Defense with a probe team.  Annoying.

I switched instead to a campaign of draining Aki's energy reserves, since I had all these unopposed skimship probe teams, and still do.  I piled up quite a lot of money and made her poorer, although at my rate of theft I haven't managed to bankrupt her.  I also started working on a secret project in anticipation of stealing something better and completing a desirable secret project with all my cash.

2213.  I research Ecological Engineering, removing my objections to a Supply Crawler based economy.  I start working on 1 crawler per city to increase my minerals.  Formers have almost finished farming and start working on mines.

2214.  Aki starts The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  But it'll take her 34 turns, and it's at Alpha Prime, a coastal city that's vulnerable to my probe teams.  I don't worry, as I can probably disrupt her with my fleet of skimship probe teams if I need to.  I get some land probe teams on some transports, that are finally starting to become available, and plan to steal Pre-Sentient Algorithms from her somewhere inland.

2218.  My transports make it to target and steal Pre-Sentient Algorithms.  I get free Covert Ops Centers everywhere!  Although, right now I have no intention of making new probe teams and they're all Elite anyways.  I suppose it'll be useful someday when I'm no longer Fundamentalist.  I spend 1020 credits to finish The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm next turn.

2219.  I complete The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  I'd also like to complete The Ascetic Virtues, as I could use the police boost.  Aki has started on The Maritime Control Center but she's the only one with the tech.  I'll steal it shortly and probably her production sucks.  Whereas Deirdre is also working on The Ascetic Virtues and will complete it in 13 turns.  Not sure if I can beat her to it, but I will try.  I don't really want to use the supply crawlers I've got working the mines, as the primary mission is to invade Aki.  Once I've done that, if someday I decide I want to make Deirdre toast and take her secret projects, I can always go Free Market to piss her off.


2224.  Domai ditches me.  My rough neural implant sex is too rough for him.

I start building up on a different city than originally intended.  It's inland, but has a river leading straight to it.  It's on the periphery on Aki's empire and is more vulnerable.  It also contains The Citizen's Defense Force, which would be useful to take away from her.

2227.  I take that city containing The Citizen's Defense Force and only lose a 4-1-1 impact squad doing so.  She only managed to have 2 units defending it.  Guess the AI isn't so bright.  Granted, she never did complete roads to this city.  I also sabotage Aki's production of The Ascetic Virtues in another city.  Deirdre is still working on it though and threatening to complete it in 3 turns.  So I use 3 supply crawlers and cash to finish it up.

2228.  I complete The Ascetic Virtues.  Deirdre is now certain to finish The Maritime Control Center next turn.  At least Svensgaard won't get it; he was working on it too.  Lots of people including Domai are working on The Planetary Datalinks and the Data Angels certainly don't need that, so I go back to producing military units.  Now the thing will be bringing more units to other cities on Aki's coast, and moving my army down from the city I took.  If Aki had brains she could make things difficult for me, but she may not.  It might end up being an easy conquest.

[bvanevery]

In real life I'm travelling now, and usually away from wifi, so not as easy to provide details about what's happening.

Aki's research rate is somewhat disquieting.  Only somewhat because I can pretty much steal whatever she researches, but it tends to change the parameters of combat.  For instance she researched Fusion Power.  Now that pile of impact infantry I slowly shipped over to that 1 city I took, is obsolescent.  It's not completely obsolete because my troops are better trained than hers.  Also certain matchups, like my impact speeder vs. her artillery, results in her quick death even though mine are fission units.  I'm also good at choosing terrain for her to die on.

She built 1 Gatling Destroyer and that interrupted my stealing of her funds.  Eventually I did bribe it, using one of my old transports as bait / a screening ship.  I have 2 empty transports stretched across a bay to block her in, backed by 2 foil probe teams, which will be further backed by the stolen destroyer once it heals up.

Belatedly I realized that The Ascetic Virtues doesn't do Roze so much good.  She starts out with -1 Police, so now I'm at 0 and can still only use 1 police unit.  I can nerve staple whereas I couldn't before, but I hardly ever do that anyways, so not much of a win.  I've got an overabundant crop of police units which will be useful when they ever make it to invaded cities.

I have been building a pile of Gatling Marines and a Fusion Cruiser Transport to move them to target.  Those are now ready and en route.  I'm starting to project the old fission infantry units out of my captured city, I'm hoping as a distraction.  If not, we will hit the city containing The Human Genome Project and The Command Nexus by both land and sea at the same time.  There have been times when that city was really poorly garrisoned.  Unfortunately that is not now.  One year she wasted a bunch of units trying to go after my city.  Wish she'd try that again.  Maybe I shouldn't have taken the rocky highlands around that city after all.  It's good defensive terrain, but changing AI behavior can be more valuable than the terrain.

We are in the R-Laser era now so I've got R-Laser Marines coming next.  I've decided not to worry about Aki building The Neural Amplifier, in favor of chucking out more R-Laser Marines.  I think once I take the current target city, her capitol will fall quickly afterwards.  Then it's only a matter of time before I destroy her entire empire, just going road to road, poring my Fundamentalist units into every crevice.  The probe teams should also have a field day draining her bank account.  That hasn't happened over land because the city I took doesn't have roads or substantial terraforming. 

I'm starting to move some colony pods over to the peninsula where I took Aki's city.  The Ruins are there, and also room for maybe 3 other cities besides.  It's not so much needing more cities, as it would be quicker to resupply if I had a road built straight into her empire, instead of all this water stuff.  It's taking awhile because I only just got my 1st Fusion Cruiser Transport built.

Domai and Deirdre went to war.  They're on opposite sides of the map and have no way to reach each other, so it hardly matters.  Can't remember if Deirdre has roped me into that war yet or not.  I don't care.  Lal and I have been at war forever and I've had no reason to care about that either.  Once he landed a couple of scout rovers on me and I killed them.  It caused me to retain 2 impact rovers as a home guard.

[bvanevery]

I could not break Aki's defense.  She'd make bold sorties towards the city I took from her.  I'd have to divert my marines to attacking her advancing land forces, and I'd wipe out piles of her units.  But then she'd just replenish again from her vast empire.  Her tech would just keep going up and up.  I'd steal it, but that doesn't mean I could produce weapons fast enough to punch through it.  I was a scrappy modestly sized island to her gigantic Monsoon Jungle driven  empire.  Pretty asymmetrical.

The last straw came when I saw she had built Silksteel sentinels, making my job of punching through even harder.  Oh and I didn't have much anymore between her and the city I took from her, just a few mindworms.  I quit.  The game may have been tenable, but it would have been a really painful slog to make it go my way.  I get bored and the computer doesn't.  Easier to start a new game and not make the same strategic mistakes.

What were those?  Never-ending Fundamentalism and not expanding beyond my original island.  I did at least get my minerals taken care of with supply crawlers and mines.  Maxed the island actually.

It always seemed like Aki's city was just over there for the taking.  I just needed to do this one little thing, keeping to pattern, staying on target, to make all work.  But that was not so.  The distances involved were larger than I wanted to believe.  Actually being Green to please Deirdre may have been as much a mistake as anything else, it really hurt my growth.  Maybe shoulda been more ruthless and knocked her off first, then gone after Aki.  Maybe shoulda just nipped at Aki's periphery and gradually strangled her, instead of trying to stick that big knife right in her seemingly exposed heart.

I started a new game.  Drew Santiago on a mostly land map, which hasn't been the norm lately.  Don't think I'll do an AAR as I'm traveling and it's too difficult to synch the reportage.  The game is almost exactly the opposite, with myself rapidly becoming the land superpower.  I started on top of The Uranium Flats and managed to get The Merchant Exchange built on them.  The Borehole Cluster was somewhat nearby and I claimed it.  Found The Monsoon Jungle a bit farther than that, and managed to get 1 city into it, before bureaucracy set in and I had to deal with my efficiency.  I went Democratic and am now filling out the cities I've made already.  Unfortunately Marr turned out to be in the rest of the jungle.  Strangely he's not that powerful though.  Currently I'm at peace with everyone except Svensgaard, and I'm not sure there's any water passage from my coast to his area.  I'm still looking for that.  So it's a bit of a Builder game, for now.  First person who gets uppity dies.