slow transporting

[bvanevery]

I have seized Miriam's upland cities, thereby pushing her into the water.  Still she does not surrender.  Lal managed to walk into 1 city up north.  I didn't attack it, I think an indigenous mindworm weakened it.  Well goody for Lal doing something even vaguely useful as an ally.

On this turn I also researched the tech necessary for The Universal Translator.  Morgan had already done so and was near to completing it.  I sacrificed many of the supply crawlers I had on Lal's territory to get it done in 1 turn, as well as a few other crawlers in the water and connected by rail.  Strictly speaking I moved more crawlers away from Lal than was necessary, if I had slowed down and thought about it.  But I do have spare capacity of my own in the southwest, and with all the Genejack Factories I've built, I'm not nearly in as much need of minerals as earlier in the game.  I figure Lal can knock himself out!

I've built 2 Marines to go after Miriam's sea bases with.  I hope she stops screwing around and surrenders like she should.  I don't want to build a bunch of Marines or ships right now.  I need to build Nanohospitals in my core cities to compete with Morgan on tech, and to keep more people happy so I can invade the Caretakers.

I had started to build Clean Super Destroyer Formers as well.  I have a new sea base in home waters somewhat contested by Lal, and I want that contest to end.  I also have the old Geothermal Shallows base that is growing faster than older Formers are providing kelp and mines.  Also when I make my jetties and earthquake land raising projects, I'll need more sea forming capacity than I've currently got.  But the need to build Nanohospitals has asserted itself as the priority, so that's it for more formers for now.

I've got enough Gas Wave Shard Rover units remaining to seriously cripple or possibly even destroy the Caretakers, given long enough.  It's only a question of how many I can afford to bring over and still keep my people happy.  I lost very few when fighting Miriam.  Only time it happened was going up against mindworms, and then, only my worst trained units that I forgot to make in a Command Center.  Acceptable losses!

No cropping this time as I want to show off the full width of my conquest of Miriam.

[bvanevery]

I am at a moment of ecological crisis.  I've gotten a warning about serious global warming ensuing.  Mindworms, I can handle.  But flooding would threaten all this hard work I've done manually terraforming the map, and I am the steward of the Monsoon Jungle.  I can't simply raise the land to keep it intact, as that ruins Jungle squares.  What to do?

The most obvious thing to do is change from a Free Market to a Planned economy, so that I'm not at -3 Planet anymore.  That will soon trigger a war with Morgan.  Do I want that?  Yes I think I can beat him in a straightforward military engagement, especially since I have Wave units.  I just acquired Hovertanks too, so he doesn't have anything over me.  But there's a role playing aspect to this, where this is not what I want.  Morgan likes me, we've been friendly for a long time.  I'm actually rated Unsurpassed now, which may only mean that we're tied, or that my lead over him is nominal.  I'd like to think I can win this game without having to exterminate him though.  Is that realistic?  At this point I honestly don't know, but I just don't feel it's time to sign his death warrant.

I want to sign the Caretakers' death warrant.  I've got 7 Gas Wave Shard rovers and 1 X Wave Shard rover inbound on a transport to him.  His population on the coast facing me is light, due to my previous destructions, and I do not expect resistance to my landfall.  I will probably press inland a good ways before his planes intervene and start destroying my rovers, which are not accompanied by any AAA units.  Don't really wish to afford the unhappiness.  As is, I've spread these 8 units across my 8 most populated cities that aren't assigned to other crucial tasks.  I suppose I could also make Brood Pits to raise police rating, if I really feel I need more units to do the job, but I doubt I do.  This task force can easily knock out any 1 city, and once in the door, they always drop to size 1.  So that makes Obliteration trivial.

I could accompany offensive units with plague spreading probe teams, but with all the Nanohospitals I needed to make, I haven't had time for that.  My logic is simple: throw at H'minee what I've already got.  I can do that for a fair time, using up only 8 units at a time.  Eventually I'll have Quantum power and then I'll be making completely new units.

I'm remembering that I almost own the UN Council, as I freed 2 imprisoned leaders.  I'm Governor and it would be hard for others to stop me from launching a Solar Shade.  Miriam might oppose me for spite, but Morgan and Lal would have to want to stop the Shade as well.  That seems unlikely, especially since Lal is my ally.  So this year I will propose the Shade, and that will buy some time.

Thing is, the flooding situation does have to be abated somehow, or else my experience is the Shade launch intervals aren't enough to turn back the tide.  The UN Council can only meet every 20 years on this, so if flood waters come faster than that, then coasts get destroyed.

All of my core, most damaging cities already have Hybrid Forests.  Some also have Centauri Preserves but not all.  I can build more of those, if it helps.  I can also plant more trees on land I own if it helps.  I need to go up a learning curve about what exactly affects the eco-damage equation.  I already built The Pholus Mutagen and I would have thought that would help me a great deal.  I do not have Temples of Planet available to me, and my ongoing Discover, Conquer focus, I'm unlikely to get it.  I think Domai is sitting on The Manifold Nexus and I can't colonize it, but I could be mistaken as to how far he's spread.

Now, uh, in the immediate crisis what have I been building?  Robotic Assembly Plants.  None are finished yet, but I'm putting them on top of Genejack Factories.  Yeah that's gasoline on the fire.  But you know, I can think of some uses for very expensive units or production capabilities.  I want to be able to settle Morgan's hash at will if it comes to it.

1000x800 image crop this time.  Hrm, it didn't inline nicely, oh well.  Notice the stacked mindworms, and the Empath Shard unit that will take out the main stack.  It's sitting on a rail.  I can bring other "anti-mindworm reserve" units by rail, no problem.  Like the Elite Scouts!  Yep got 2 of those, sitting around waiting for something to do.  And some leftover R-Lasers.  I've had trouble from this city before.  It's not the 1st time, but it's been quite some time.  I wonder what tipping point was reached?

Could it be that Morgan is producing the majority of the eco-damage now, and not myself?  To be honest I thought most of my cities were producing 0 damage.  Guess I'd better take a peek.

Update: boy I sure made a lot of credits killing those mindworms!  I think I got 800 from it.  It took 250 worth of bribes on the Council to get my way about the Solar shade.  Lal voted with me, Morgan and Miriam against me.  My submissives also voted against, and they showed their gratitude by being awfully cheap to buy in the scheme of things.  Glad I had the foresight to realize I might have to bribe them, and waited until after the Council meeting to spend my mindworm money.  I'm still walking away with a 500+ credit profit for a mindworm incursion.

None of my cities produce eco-damage.  I could swear that the city that "popped" used to, but it's fine now.  I'll read up on whether Centauri Preserves help my cause, but I won't be going through heroics over this.

[bvanevery]

Eeuuugh.  My eco-hand is being forced way faster than I wanted.  Only a few turns later, some of my Robotic cities are doing eco-damage in excess of 100.  That's even with discovering Cybernetic society and improving my Planet rating to -1.  Aside from the mindworms, which really just make me money at this point, oceans are going to rise by 300 feet.  It'll be awhile before we can launch another Solar Shade.  I've started on Pressure Domes in endangered cities, and spare Formers are raising land in places.  I'm building Centauri Preserves in big cities where I hadn't previously, but I don't know that it's going to be enough.

Morgan, as it turns out, doesn't like me anymore.  He's Obstinate.  He's also discovered Quantum power which is a bit threatening, both militarily and for research.  How much harder am I willing to try to keep the peace with him?  On the other hand, my Democratic Free Market Knowledge Cybernetic society has a +7 Efficiency rating.  It seemed to make citizens happy that previously weren't.  If I go Planned I'm back to +5.  If I go Green I'm up to +9; I don't know if that helps more or not.  I'd be at +4 Planet which I'd like to think would stop the eco-damage.  But I also will be at -1 Growth, which isn't fun when Morgan has The Cloning Vats.  Either Planned or Green pisses of Morgan.  If I go Simple I lose a Longevity Vaccine bonus.  Urgh, what to do?

I completed The Network Backbone in my capitol, within 2 turns of obtaining the tech.  That's a positive step in the tech race.

900x800 crop.  Does it inline?  Nope.  Looks like 800x800 is the limit for kewl clicky inline.  Even then, it doesn't display full resolution until you click on it.  It does open up noticeably faster though, like instantly, instead of waiting for some window to spawn.

[bvanevery]

I made a lot of money from those big stacks of mindworms attacking me.  I was almost sad when I built enough tree farms, hybrid forests, and centauri preserves to end the eco-damage.  I never really got around to studying anything fancy about how to do it either.  I'm still Free Market and not at war with Morgan yet.  He's Noncommittal and rated slightly better than me now.

I just obtained a whole bunch of Secrets Of... stuff, due to a string of first discovery bonuses.  I'm working on 3 projects including Secrets of the Manifolds.  Once that's completed I'm under decision pressure with Morgan again.  I'd benefit a great deal from fungus squares if I raise my Planet rating.  However I have almost no fungus in my empire and no plan to expand it substantially.  The Caretakers simply need to be killed, I won't be occuping their cities.  I still haven't done anything about Miriam's sea bases although 1 is finally about to fall, from the 2 Marines that have been hitting it over and over again.

My shard rovers I sent against the Caretakers got mostly wiped out.  I had to dodge a bunch of patrolling planes to make landfall.  I destroyed 2 cities and then her air force summarily executed 6 out of 8 of my guys.  2 made it to safety in the boat to inflict more mayhem elsewhere.  H'minee is not displaying quite the level of weakness she previously did.  If I don't want to just throw away my units, I'll need to go in with air defense.  However that doubles the misery of my citizens, so maybe I'll just use suicide units.  Hmm or maybe I could divide the labor: some "big guns" to break down the good defenders, and little guns with more armor to clean up the rest.

Behold the 800x800 inlining.  That's the only size worth cropping to.  Otherwise might as well submit it uncropped at 1440x900, as it'll require a slower popup window anyways.

[bvanevery]

Morgan has begun Habitation Domes and The Space Elevator.  I'm more worried about the former than the latter.  I've not generally found orbital insertion warfare to be practical.  I prefer massive land bridges and mag tube lines, as those cannot be halted by aerospace complexes.  I suppose letting Morgan get bigger cities, is a logical consequence of letting the Builder do the building and me sticking to Discover, Conquer.

In some sense it has paid off.  I just leapfrogged his Quantum engines, I have Singularity engines now.  I can make Orbital Defense Pods and he can't, although I haven't made any yet.  Thus militarily, I outclass him.  Morgan is merely Obstinate towards me and I've remained a Free Market, so I don't think he's going to be inclined towards war for now.  Even if he is, a buildup of Trance ECM Fusion Singularity Hovertanks should intimidate him.  They only cost me 60 minerals apiece!  My "big" cities chuck those out in 1 turn, it's merely my new garrison unit.

I don't seem to have extra cash lying around, so I'm still waiting for my 3 Secret Projects to complete.  I need to check on whether supply crawlers with Singularity engines actually deliver more minerals to a project, or if it's wasted.  But for now, new intimidating garrison units are a higher priority anyways.

I'm thinking that keeping the peace with Morgan and wiping out the Caretakers is more valuable than some resource bonuses in fungus squares.  So I am building the Manifold Harmonics mainly to block others from using it, and in case I change my mind someday.

Designing units to destroy the Caretakers is now going to be rather trivial.  I will also send in kickass Nethack Terminus enhanced probe teams this time.

I've determined that any image with a dimension larger than 1200 is downscaled by the website, so I've cropped this to 1200x900.  Otherwise a 1440x900 source image will turn into 1200x750.  So, 1200x900 and 800x800 are the 2 sizes worth attaching.

[bvanevery]

Morgan completed more Secret Projects including The Space Elevator.  I researched gravity something, so I can do orbital insertions now as well.  I don't see a need for orbital insertion warfare, but once upon a time I did write up a treatise on the Trance Drop Scout.  There's actually some faraway land rich with pods, and I have some cities with not much better to do now, so I think I'll make some kind of pod popping drop unit.  Mabye I can get a few Artifacts home before all the tech is researched.

I made 2 different kinds of X Shard Neutronium Singularity Hovertanks.  One with AAA and one with Wave.  So the Waves attack first and the AAAs attack second.  They both move together at the same time for AAA cover.  I've only made 2 pairs of these units and they are completely decimating H'minee.  I got interrupted by the need to produce Quantum labs, which I discovered on my own.  Morgan has had them for awhile.  Subsequently I also discovered better offensive weapons, but I haven't produced any yet.

To add insult to injury, I've bridged from her continent's eastern coast, to my continent's western coast, with a Singularity Tectonic Missile detonated on her lands.  It had an effective radius of 3 squares, so I was able to nicely touch my land without changing oceanic topology or ruining any resource bonuses.  How Green and conscientious of me!  I will send junky formers that way to build a rail.  If those 4 units don't finish H'minee off for some reason, I'll deliver the coup de grace by rail.

Hmm, I wonder if I can make a drop hovertank probe team?  Then I could drop plagues on H'minee, and my surviving teams would come immediately home!  Neat.  Gotta try that.

Meanwhile Morgan sailed by my west coast, enacted the "try to talk to you 3 times" bug, and went on his merry way.  We still have a Treaty.  I thought his action was threatening though, so now I'm building Tachyon Fields everywhere instead of more labs.  My core cities all had them long ago, in preparation for being attacked by mindworms.  But the cities I took from Miriam, mostly didn't get them, and have taken a very long time to grow anyways.

[bvanevery]

Morgan has begun the Voice of Planet.  That means conquering the Caretakers will momentarily be obsolete.  Instead my civilization will rush the Ascent to Transcendence at the last minute and win the game.  I don't see any likely problem with that, as I think the AI is very stupid about completing projects on time, and I have enormous industrial capacity.  I just installed the Singularity whatever that gives me a Quantum Cruncher whatever in every base.  So I've got like 80 minerals cities now.  I'll just stock up on supply crawlers for a few turns, then massively win the game.

Yeah, the picture says it's 5 turns to the end of the game.  It feels weird, because I haven't been in control of this game for a long time.  I've been following the computer's lead.  What was this all for?  Was it about learning how to narrate a game, with pictures?  If it's about "crushing enemies efficiently", well I think I proved that I did not get the job done.  I always allowed something else to intervene as a higher priority.

If I had spent a lot more time crushing the Caretakers, and a lot less time leveling up my cities to compete with Morgan, would I have lost this game?  Or can one pretty much always win, as long as one has a rail network and enough supply crawlers?  The total capacity of an empire merely has to be "big enough" to rush Ascendance faster than the AI does it.  I guess we'll see in a few turns how easy or difficult that is to do.

Of course, if I had just invaded Morgan, then a conquest victory would be inevitable.  But I thought a Diplomatic victory is shorter than that, which requires destroying the Caretakers.  I guess one doesn't always get to choose the course of action, if one intends to follow the shortest paths.

I just finally got Hab Domes as well.  I could drop probe teams on Morgan's project and frame the Believers.  But I think I'm willing to have this game end now.  For the next game, I just need to consider in what ways I've been completely wasting my time.

[bvanevery]

You know?  This isn't interesting.  I'm quitting.  What is the point of wasting time on 5 more turns when the outcome is certain?  I have the industrial capacity to rush Ascendance.  I also have the military to destroy Morgan with drop troops if I wish.  Sabotaging his projects with probe teams is a little harder, takes a few turns because he has aerospace complexes in every city from The Cloudbase Academy.  But what's he going to do against a Singularity hovertank with a size 30 gun?  Nothing.

Here's a screenshot of the final state of the world, at the time I got bored with it.  A major trigger of the boredom, is I was going to have to replay my last turn.  I forgot to save the game because I was focusing on screen capture.  I've done that several times and it's annoying.  I'm playing a Good Old Games version that has locked the ability to task switch, I think for stability reasons.  So I have to completely quit the game to get an image into a paint program, and at times that's error prone.  Like when I'm tired.  Of this game.

Ok so I admit I'm kind of ticked off that the game decided not to let me play the game anymore.  Unless I was willing to crush Morgan.  Which I could have done eons ago instead of spending all this time keeping up with him.  Which doesn't get me anything except the right to have the AI stop me from playing the game.

[bvanevery]

EPILOGUE:

I won this game.  I did not engage in the formal exercise of actually hitting the buttons for 5 more turns, because it was too damn boring, and also totally unsatisfying to have the AI dictate the terms of the game's end.  AIs will not be allowed to prosper like this in the future.

[Geo]

Trying a 1200x800 image now.

 

[bvanevery]

Screenshots clearly help the work.  They can also become a crutch though.  It's easy to bang out yet another screenshot and only a few words to accompany it.  When I see that in other people's AARs, I find my eyes glazing over the text, just going from screen to screen until something "interesting" appears.  I'll probably find that out about some of my own work too, when I review it.  I don't think my older "walls of text" work, but there needs to be a balance between screens and text.  Lest it become "visual mush".

Reviewing my own work, I'm satisfied that I included enough details, to actually be able to remember and visualize the games as I played them.  On the other hand, I suspect a "less committed" viewer probably doesn't care about quite as many details as I've included in the text portions.  In the future I will try restricting myself to a pargraph or two per image, and try to focus on what really counts.  Not just what's vaguely interesting and locally relieved my turn-by-turn boredom for a moment.

Maybe I will narrate with more of a Roleplay flavor, to make the text more interesting.

I will also have to decide the venue where I present such work.  Because although I may not be done with writing AARs about SMAC, I may be done with writing AARs here.