slow transporting

[bvanevery]

Comments and questions about the strategies I'm using in this game, are expected and encouraged.  Please make them in this thread.  As my AARs become longer and longer, I think that's the only way to keep this readable.  Don't worry about "interrupting".  I guarantee I can reestablish the flow with a massive wall of text and 5 screenshots if need be.

Details meetlal

meetlal

At least the island they gave me was so dinky that I got a slow transport on start.  1st turn I popped a monolith with my scout, so decided to found my capitol on the flat landing square I was given.  Happy for that as I didn't enjoy walking 5 squares before settling last game.  My other colonist I put on the boat.  It went to that tiny middle island.  Soon enough to the east island with some pods popped as well.  Even fished a few pods, relying on Isles being too weak to seriously harm me at the beginning.  Took a wound and had to heal up, but no loss because waiting for production to finish anyways.

Longer trip heading north.  Landed on the west end of what turned out to be Lal's island.  Walked right between his cities before meeting him!  The city north of my scout is empty.  However I allied with him, so there will be no walk-in.  He also traded me Planetary Networks for Doctrine:Mobility!!!  Well hey whatever knocks you out Lal.  If I get ahold of any minerals or food you're going to regret that.  As it stands though, I'm in no kind of shape to begin a Secret Projet, or even to make a Probe Team.  I did go Planned though.

My research focus has been Discover, Build because I already have a boat.  Experience has shown that if I'm very careful and take no risks, I can make it last quite awhile and settle a starting empire.  I have Biogenetics but don't want to get bogged down building Recycling Tanks prematurely.  Spread is more important right now.  The easternmost city is too feeble though, so building a Recycling Tank there is efficient.

There may be a large land mass to the west, southwest, and south of me.  Or it may be 3 islands, hard to tell.  The power charts seem to indicate that everyone's getting crummy starts.  I will have to scout it and make sure it's not the Caretaker's backyard.  That would be Bad.  Tends to result in feeble colonies being summarily killed.

[bvanevery]

Details landmass

landmass

Yes it is a large landmass.  Proven by stepping onto a dimensional gate!

Belatedly I realized I don't really have a choice about exploring vs. colonizing.  With a slow transport, I only get to bring one thing over to a new land.  The distance is way too far to bring anything but a colonist.  Just have to hope it survives long enough to get some scouting done.  In this case it did, but I still have a pod I couldn't get popped before I got teleported away.  Minerals are too low to support any more units out of that city right now.

Since transportation was limited, I started on Recycling Tanks.  Also rushed Rec Commons in my capitol, built a Recon Rover, then started on The Weather Paradigm.  My capitol may provide enough minerals to finish SPs, given that Monolith.  It's not a powerhouse but it'll have to do.

I accidentally brought a Former all the way to Lal's island.  I was tired and forgot I had loaded it before departing.  Guess I'll build a short road for Lal and bring it back.  Also slipped on the keyboard and accidentally moved it east when trying to do a screenshot of my dimensionally gated scout.  SNAFU!

Strangely got Doctrine:Flexibility even though my focus is Discover, Build.  Well I'm not knocking it, it's useful.  Went pod fishing off Lal's shore.  That eastern city's job is to produce transports for now, as it doesn't have enough food to produce colonists all that quickly.  I will carve out 2 more cities from the fungus on the western and eastern islands, then they're pretty much full.  Hope that big land mass isn't dangerous.  Don't know if I'll have to fret about where to put a new capitol, as I think someone has already been working on The Merchant Exchange.

[bvanevery]

Details miriam

miriam

Miriam shows up out of nowhere with a Recon Rover, right next to my city that has only a Scout.  Thankfully her attitude is Noncommittal.  She won't sign a Treaty because I'm "too powerful" blah blah blah.  Thatnkfully she gets right back in her Transport.  I hope she goes somewhere else and doesn't linger.

I talked to Lal to see if he wanted to buy Miriam's comm frequency.  Apparently not.  He wanted to borrow money.  I figured, I could use the extra income.

I guess Aki going Planned is good when interacting with some factions, because at the beginning she'll be apolitical for awhile.  So I can talk to Lal, Miriam, or Yang for a bit without immediately coming to blows.  Not so with the economic fixators, for whom my Planned economy drives them nuts.  And whether the Aliens actually like me or not is hit or miss.

I've managed to found a 2nd city on the mainland, at a good distance for a broad land claim.  Hope it lives long enough to strengthen.  Home cities shall mostly produce Rec Commons now, leaving colonial expansion to these distant footholds.  My food poor city on the eastern island has good timing for producing Sea Colonies.  I want to put one on that nutrient off the south coast of my western island.  Probably some along the mainland coast would be good too, south of my present capitol.  Perhaps the centrality of my empire will take shape.  I'm only 7 turns from completing The Weather Paradigm and that will help glue all of this together.

I'm a little annoyed that my lost Scout is popping Monoliths way farther away than I can likely use.  But he needs to pop pods and I can't control what he gets.  I'm thankful not to have run into any Aliens yet.  Do I get to have this land mass to myself??

[bvanevery]

Details [complaint or disagreeable woman]

[complaint or disagreeable woman]

You know, Miriam is a real #####.  See anything missing?

I suppose I could have ordered her to leave last turn, and have thereby triggered a war.  I wanted to believe that she'd leave.  After all, she lands, we negotiate, it's a Truce.  She doesn't attack then, when she jolly well could have, with exactly the same effect.  She gets back in her boat, I figure she's leaving.  I don't have a lot of experience with this.  I've been playing on Huge maps for a very long time, and it's just not typical for someone to show up with a Recon Rover this early.

Well now we're at war with Miriam.  Looks like Democratic Planned is in my future.  I hope that new settlement survives.  Right now it's a walk-in.  If Miriam is smart, she'll get back in her boat to do more damage.  If she's greedy, she'll move forwards 2 squares and be summarily killed by my own Recon Rover.  I don't have any armed navy yet.  I've rushed the production of some of my cities to get that underway.

Either I was mistaken about being 7 turns away from completing The Weather Paradigm, or it has taken on an extra Former as a support burden when my city was destroyed.  It's 15 turns now.  Glad I built that Recon Rover.  Seemed logical to have the capability for exploration, didn't really expect to need it for defense.

I fished an Artifact out of the water, right next to where this was going on.  It'll be in my capitol shortly.

I hope this resolves in my favor, as I find early games where someone is ####ing with me deep in my innards, to be really annoying.  Those kinds of wars put me way behind on anything I actually want to be doing in SMAC.  I hope this land mass is not occupied because I really don't need some other challenger now.

When it comes time to replace that city, I think I will put a sea base on that nutrient instead.  Better fit to city coverage.

[bvanevery]

Details monsoon

monsoon

#### YOU #####!!  Die like you should.

A tidal wave reveals her location.  We've got our work cut out for us.  This is really bad luck, to be started so close to an aggressive adversary, on perfect land.  What kind of crap start was I given by comparison?

[bvanevery]

Details linking

linking

The strategic picture was not remotely as bad as it first looked.  Yes Miriam got the Jungle and is rated quite powerful, but she didn't start there.  There's a lot of funny crinkly land in the way that has kept her from messing with me much at all.  I built a substantial navy and now I'm shelling the crap out of her shores.  Cities have all built Children's Creches and are starting on Network Nodes. 
I've been using up my Scouts and Recon Rovers popping pods.  I have not built any new wave of Transports though, so there are som pods sitting in the water, although at a distance.  Impact Foils and then Network Nodes were higher priority.

A number of SPs have gone by that I didn't have time to build, as I had to make sure Miriam couldn't threaten me.  Now I'm secure, have cash, and even an Artifact, but no SP to build at present.

I've met Morgan via a comm frequency from a pod.  He is Unsurpassed and has built a number of SPs.  He's snippy and won't do more than a Truce.  War is bound to follow.  Allying with Lal will keep me either politically neutral or Democratic, and hence in a Planned economy.  Even if I went Police State, I'd combine it with a Green economy that Morgan will still hate.

Lal got skunked trying to build The Virtual World.  He built The Command Nexus instead.  I wouldn't mind having that at some point, but right now this is more of a build, link, navy game anyways.  I suppose it's time to change my reserach focus.  I was doing Conquer but Explore would be more useful.  Like to get the Governorship.  I am definitely not going to out-Build Morgan.

I've linked my original islands into a single land mass.  I'm getting pretty near to linking the major southeastern land mass.  I don't think it's worth developing, the future is inevitably The Monsoon Jungle, but I want to be able to control whatever happens there with land units.  I'm also going to link that long island south of me, east of the land mass.  So then I'll pretty much have a substantial continent at my disposal.  Or Lal will, as I'm going to link him too.  After all those links, perhaps I'll land link to Miriam and we'll both take her out.

[bvanevery]

Details Unity

Unity

I found the Unity crash site at the extreme southwest end of the land mass.  Nobody had been there and I got all the goodies with 300 credits!  That puts me only 100 credits away from completing The Citizen's Defense Force.  Notice the yellow dot on the mini map revealing Morgan's position.  He's really far away from me.

I already knew where Zhakarov and Domai were, because I met the former, did a big tech exchange, and allied with him.  He's at war with Domai and got University Base trashed, but he subsequently trashed Free Drone Central and took back University Base.  I have not taken sides in their war and have not been asked to yet.  I tried to get Domai to beg off but he said it was Zhakarov who wanted the war, and I wasn't going to talk to Zhakarov again about it.  I don't really have a problem with Zhakarov destroying Domai, as Zhakarov is an ally that can work out in the long run.  If I want it to.  Domai tends to get pissy at some point and I'm tired of him cheating at his tech research, when I am a +2 Research faction and he's -2.

I keep trying to sell comm frequencies to Lal by contacting him, but he keeps not asking for them.  I guess he only cares if he thinks he can win an election.  The funny thing is, since I'm allied with him and have fewer votes than him, he could.  But his attitude towards me has been Noncommittal for quite awhile so maybe he doesn't trust how I'll vote.  Anyways I completed my land bridge to him and am building a road over it.  It will either help him invade Miriam, or help me invade him.

H'minee has started on The Empath Guild.  She and I are at peace as she likes my Planned economy.  She's touching the whole Zhakarov Domai war, but I don't know to what extent.  I think it's going to take awhile to work a Skimship Probe Team around to infiltrate her.  I've already infiltrated Zhakarov and Domai will shortly follow.

I keep shelling Miriam and she still has no answer for that.  I've also got Gatling gun capabilty now, courtesy of Zhakarov.  I've only built 1 artillery piece.  It is only going to sit around and wait, as it's not time to invade yet, or even to make new military units.  The old ones are profitably and cheaply doing their job, which is to limit her growth and ability to threaten me.  She tried to put some troops on an unarmored transport and I summarily sunk it before it even got underway.

I have Trance 3-Res Transports in the works, to pick up nearby sea pods.  Or far away sea pods.  I have no real opposition in the oceans right now.

I'll be settling some more bases soon, as some of my cities have finally hit size 5 and become unhappy with it.

[bvanevery]

Invading Miriam isn't easy.  For awhile I needed to gain a military advantage over her, but I finally got Advanced Military Algorithms from an Artifact.  Theoretically that would make me good to go, but in practice, I'm poor from not having built enough money saving SPs.  Also I haven't grown much because I've got -1 growth and no special ways to make anyone happy.  Never went Democratic because I've been at war this whole time and needed to keep units supported.

I came to a point where suddenly I was at -13 credits/turn!  And not many credits left to stop the plunge.  I changed to Wealth; then I had 36 credits left and -6 credits/turn.  I killed a Mindworm so fortunately that put me over the threshold of being able to afford a societal change.  The turn I took this picture, I went Free Market because I must have more money.  That's really annoying because I was just about to launch my invasion plan with Gas R-Laser Rovers.  It might still work, but I may have to fight defensively for a bit and thin out the horde of units Miriam is going to march towards me.

This is where I'm going to make the bridge, just northwest of my capitol.  I'll raise 2 squares straight north of that northernmost point that I recently created.  I had my sea bases build a bunch of extra Formers at one point because I didn't really need a navy at the time.  Now all but 1 of my ships have gotten a bit killed so I need to make a new one.  Although I hope I can preoccupy Miriam with a land invasion.

I tried to send 2 Skimship Probe Teams up Morgan's way, since I was finally able to see one of his cities on the map.  H'minee eliminated Zhakarov and then I made peace with her.  Then she backstabbed me and killed both probes in 2 turns!  One with a sealurk.  I never got anywhere near to Morgan, only about halfway.  Well that's that, I refrained from even trying for a long time because it looked like it would be so boring and dangerous to try it.

Power distribution is fairly even between 4 of us.  I managed to insta-build The Empath Guild and prevent H'minee from doing it, but I didn't have the votes to win the Governorship.  So I didn't hold an election.  Miriam's just got too many people by brute force.  I'm going to have to cut her down and take a chunk of her cities to win the Governorship.

I wouldn't mind making peace with Morgan, seeing as how I'm Free Market now, but he's not speaking to me.  Nor is he sending any units my way to interact with me, so I can expect the cold shoulder for quite a long time.

I'm trying the attachment style of including a screenshot, since this image was unusually large for inexplicable reasons and the website refused it.  I've tried cropping it to 1200 pixels wide to see if that makes a difference as to scaling.

[bvanevery]

My stupid ally Lal put a !#$!@#! sea base in the way of my land bridge.  Next turn I have to put a land city right at the northern point, to claim a few of the surrounding sea squares.  Then I can raise a bridge without breaking our Treaty, and without ruining the nearby nutrients.  It's going to be a solid bridge that ships can't sail through, and that bugs me.  Maybe someday I'll fix it later with sea units but I bet it never gets done.  I considered making a sea base and then raising it, so that I'd control the bottleneck with a city, but it would have taken longer.  Especially, I would have had to clear fungus to pull it off, making such an operation dangerous.  Better to just get on with it and accept that my terrain aesthetics aren't perfect.

Morgan finally became willing to talk to me.  So willing, that we became allies!  We traded a lot of tech although he was cagey about trading it all.  Kept stalling me with "What a pleasant chat we've had!" and then finally wouldn't even take money for his techs.  I think he'll loosen up once he's finished The Ascetic Virtues.

For my part, a surge in research got me Pre-Sentient Algorithms.  I was working on The Maritime Control Center but switched to The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  I've completed it, so that will be very helpful in the battle with Miriam.  Still working on the MCC but it won't be too long.  I'm also working on piles of Tree Farms since pretty much all my land is a forest carpet by now.  I've had growth problems and that will solve it.  As will Democratic Free Market Wealth.  Once the important infrastructure stuff is done I'll switch to Power and start invading.  Although I've noticed that techs and SPs have a way of continuing to come and continuing to distract me from invasions.

I will have my Scouts home pretty soon with an Artifact.  That will make citizens in certain cities happier.  One Scout became Elite.

Forgot to mention that with Morgan's change of heart, I eventually realized that voting me for Governor wasn't a problem anymore.  So I am.

[bvanevery]

I have made no progress invading the Believers.  Their technology is primitive but they have lots of bodies in the way.  I've been far more interested in building infrastructure, seeing as how my ally Morgan is outstripping me in technology and Secret Project completion.  Mostly I just endeavored to wear out my existing fission units at Miriam's expense.  I've garrisoned everything with ECM Trance Silksteel fusion units meanwhile.  I'm now starting to produce Gas Chaos Speeders, and I just bought Organic Superlubricant from Morgan so weapons will be getting even worse for Miriam.  I'm surprised that she was able to kill my Silksteel units.  I guess that's the problem with Wealth, I'm too wimpy.  I'm almost done with infrastructure I want to build, so then I'll go Power and I imagine she's toast.

I had a Truce with the Caretakers but again they backstabbed me.  At least this time it was harmless.  It got Morgan to declare war on them though.

I've got Retroviral Engineering and could build Genejack Factories now, but I don't think I can spare the happiness presently under a Free Market economy while making war.  I also don't have a strict need for that much productivity increase.  I'm not sure what my eco-damage numbers look like since I went Free Market.  I can probably handle a lot with all the Tree Farms I've built, but why goose the damage?  Instead I am sending out Fusion Speeder Supplies from some cities and parking them on various Mines that cities aren't using, like minerals deposits I don't want to settle right now.  At least I could commit genetic atrocities against the Caretakers if I wanted to bother.  No reason to presently, they're not near me.

It's 3:30 AM waiting for stuff to happen in this game.  Well, I still find myself interested in it, but I don't want to play anymore tonight.  Tomorrow is another day.

[bvanevery]

I have continued with Democratic Free Market Wealth.  I haven't made new offensive units since the Gas Chaos Speeder era, even though I've had Shard weapons available.  Just 1 Shard Battery, that's it.  For garrison units, I've been pushing Trance ECM Probability units to the front.  Only my capitol makes them, as it finished infrastructure projects awhile ago.  All the rest of my cities have been working on infrastructure.

I've taken 4 of Miriam's cities.  She got planes recently but hasn't been using them, and I managed to wipe out several that were sitting in a base when I conquered it.  I have gradually disbanded my fission units in cities I've conquered, to make it possible to immediately build Recreation Commons etc.  After all I'm paying minerals on them every turn, and it doesn't really make much sense that I kept them as long as I did.  For a time I thought maybe I'd go back to a society that can use Police units, or that Miriam would be intimidated by such a large stack of units.  Eventually as my Fusion garrison production got underway, these were no longer concerns.

This turn I finished a Fusion nuke.  I have no plan to use it, I just wanted to be able to make nukes.  When we get to the Quantum era, I can't remember if I need to learn how to make nukes all over again or not.  Sometimes it seems like I forgot how to do it.  Maybe I ran out of unit design slots?  Or maybe it's because I didn't have a nuke around when I made the discovery.  For now I'm keeping the nuke in a size 14 city, so that the unhappy citizens will not interfere as much with further growth.  That city is going to spawn Cruiser Colony Pods and thicken the core of my empire around my capitol.

Most of my tech I've bought from Morgan.  He's substantially ahead of all of us, and building SPs long before I can do anything about it.   I did manage to build The Pholus Mutagen on my own, which for some reason I got even though my focus is Discover, Conquer.  Morgan is still my Magnanimous ally and he's selling me tech just fine when he's not building SPs.  I finally got caught up with him on tech as he lowered his price on a few things.  In 2 turns I get a new tech and I've also got an Artifact almost home.

This turn I got Super Former capability from Morgan, but nobody knows Monopole Magnets yet, so I don't really have a use for them.  I'm pushing ancient land Formers slowly up north, to work on conquered territory.  I've also got a contingent to the far southwest making more Mines.  I've sent most of my supply crawlers to Lal's land though, since he generously made all these Mines that he's not actually using.  I'm glad that ally is actually good for something, as he sure sucks at combat.

Once I had some better armored Cruiser Transports, I put my old probe teams on them and sent them in H'minee's direction to wipe out her cities with genetic plagues.  I took 1 speeder along to actually do the wiping out, so I've only got 1 unit that creates unhappiness.  I've reduced all of her coastal cities facing me to size 1, and I've destroyed 2 cities completely.  I had 6 teams to start with and have lost a number of them, but some have trained up and are waiting back home as Elite units.  Those will help me penetrate farther inland without risk.  I've also got 1 Cruiser Probe Team going after her sea bases, but no ship to follow up with.  I suppose I could spare 1 ship for that task and accept the unhappiness.  Perhaps I'll just reallocate my existing fission ships and use them up, so that my sea units have only 1 unit making them unhappy.  But maybe I'll only take out 1 ship at a time until either it dies or a base gets to size 14, as I'd rather keep my growth rate elevated by excessive happiness.

This game can be a Conquest victory if Miriam surrenders and then I wipe out the Caretakers.  If Morgan breaks our Pact then, it could still be a Diplomatic victory.  Morgan's population is a bit intimidating as right now I think he's got more votes than I do, and I've got The Empath Guild.  However I've got Lal as my ally and he has 2x votes as well, so between us I'm still the Governor.  Long as Lal stays happy with me, and there doesn't seem to be a reason for him to get cross.  Anyways making some more sea bases in my core, and of course conquering Miriam's Monsoon Jungle, can definitely put the demographics in my favor.

I'm tying a new image cropping format.  I theorize that this site limits images to 750 pixels high, but doesn't care about 1440 pixels width.  Well, that didn't work.

[bvanevery]

This year Morgan ended our Pact.  He's still Magnanimous towards me so I guess the breakup sex is good.  I'm doubting an enemy probe team got to him to frame me, so I think he's just threatened by me catching up to him.  He's still more powerful on the graph, but I've now slightly surpassed him in tech.  I obtained Monopole Magnets and whatever it is that gives you a carrier deck.  I'm starting to build mag tubes but it's a low effort project for now.

I've taken a 5th city from Miriam.  I am all but unstoppable against her, although surprisingly she can actually destroy one of my ECM Trance Probability garrisons on open ground if she really tries.  She doesn't try all that hard now and I sense that her production is starting to dissipate.  Big stacks just don't show up to bother me anymore, it's by ones.  I have not built any new offensive units.  Out of an abundance of caution I've begun deploying defensive Tacticals, but I've seen no further air force out of her at all.

When it came time to infect the Caretaker capitol with a plague, I was amused to see the option of freeing captured faction leaders.  So I freed Zhakarov and now he's my puppet.  He's got this tiny island southeast of the Caretakers.  That's a really cruel place to put him, considering all the good open land available in the world, but it is what it is.  He'd be quite vulnerable if the plagues weren't so effective.  Domai is still held prisoner, so I've got another ship of inbound Elite probe teams coming to free him.  I figure these are free votes on the UN Council if I want to force my will about something.

I've completed Hybrid Forests everywhere that should have them.  I'm building Genejack Factories in my cities that are approaching the max size of 14.  The truth is the conquest of Miriam is going rather slowly and I can see the extra productivity as potentially useful.  I also think I have nothing to fear about eco-damage, even under a Free Market economy.  I need to get Miriam finished off so I can wipe out the Caretakers.  Although, I suppose a few X units might do it, if I have happiness to spare.

Trying a new image size: 1200x750 or less.  Well that's still not full size, hence diminished quality.  Time to get out a ruler and figure out what the webpage limit really is.  On my screen it looks like 6.5" is the max width.  My screen is 12" wide and has 1440 pixels across.  So that's 1440 x (6.5 / 12) = 780 pixels wide.  Maybe I can crop to 800x800 pixels?

[bvanevery]

Not bothering to show the war with Miriam because it's not interesting.  I gradually take cities.  To be honest that part of the game is getting pretty boring.  I think it's only the tech race with Morgan that keeps me interested in what's going on.  She's got some Chaos weapons and flies the occasional plane around, which I shoot down.  She's still only got fission units, so I've never built new offensive units and still keep at her with the old Gas Chaos Rover weapons.  Maybe I lost 1 in all this time.  Lal occasionally hands me an offensive fission unit as well.

I have a partial mag tube line, which I used to complete The Theory of Everything before Morgan.  I brought back a lot of crawlers from the western mines and cashed them in, using the tip of the rail to get most of them into my capitol in 1 turn.  I didn't bring the ones from Lal's territory because I didn't need them, and because I probably wouldn't get those mines back if I removed the crawlers. 

Morgan still jumps ahead of me with tech and SPs.  For instance, he is about to complete The Cloning Vats.  He's still Solicitous towards me.  Hoping to compete economically with him, I had us all sign a Global Trade Pact.  I have more Pacts than he does; in fact, he doesn't even have diplomatic relations with the restarted factions.  I looked briefly at the Commerce formula in the Help files but didn't make a big effort to understand its implications.  For now I'd like to believe the Global Trade Pact helps me more than him.

The infrastructure building in my primary cities is pretty much finished.  Consequently, this turn I changed to Democratic Free Market Knowledge and adjusted my budget to 30-30-40 to better compete with Morgan on tech.  My military units will also benefit from the lack of a morale penalty, but they were already creaming Miriam as it was.  Maybe it'll change my defensive units on open ground from attackable to invulnerable.  Although Miriam's core cities are so close to each other that I don't need to stand on open ground all that much.

The Genejack Factories caused enough eco-damage to trigger Mindworm attacks.  My 800x800 pixel crop doesn't do a good job of showing it, but there are Mindworm remnants on the lower left and upper right side of the image.  I built Centauri Preserves in a number of places to try to lessen the damage.  I built Tachyon Fields in all my core cities to help resist any attacks that do come.  I have not added more garrison units anywhere because I do have higher priorities.  I got lucky with a big stack of Mindworms, I happened to have a custom built Empath R-Laser infantry unit that I used to chop down a stalk earlier.  It killed all but 1 of the Mindworms as there was a big stack on 1 square, and a single unit on another square.  I only had that 1 unit to intervene with, since I don't have a full rail system yet.  I sent an Elite Scout unit into the area to finally clean it up, but it hasn't arrived yet.

That's how one-sided my fighting has been: no real need to worry about garrisoning more than 1 unit in cities.  Only eco-damage has changed the status quo, and I think I've about got that under control now.

Morgan is doing so well because he's as far away from me as anyone could be, has lots of land, and no competitors.  The Caretakers are quite weak and haven't made good use of their abundant land.

I finally destroyed another Caretaker coastal city, using the probe team + 1 Gas Chaos Rover technique.  I'm moving in on another one, although it takes several turns to perform such low-intensity operations.  Hey it keeps people happy to do it this way, and I don't want a full war with Morgan right now.  I'm finally building a tiny navy, just 1 battleship per size 14 sea base.  I will use the probe teams and battleships to obliterate Caretaker sea bases.

Let's see if 800x800 results in a full image display.  Hmm, only if you click on it.  At this point I'm calling it a conspiracy against quality.  It does inline more nicely when you click on it though.  I could probably go a bit wider, not sure how much taller.

[bvanevery]

I found myself with a surplus of defensive garrison units, so I finally built more offensive units to push the war against Miriam along.  I made  a wave of Gas Wave Shard Rovers, which can surely annihilate anything in the game instantly, let alone Miriam's old fission units.  She did get ECM capability somewhere along the way so the Wave fizzling is mildly useful.  That said, the old Trained Gas Chaos Rovers did a pretty good job against everything as well.  I just didn't have enough of them to make rapid progress.

I have enough surplus Clean Super Formers now, that I can use the tactic of building a rail right up to a city in 1 turn.  Helps that the cities are all so close together.  I also don't need to build infrastructure in my core cities anymore, they all have Genejack Factories and can just chuck out units.  All this extra productivity has put me firmly in control of the Monsoon Jungle, save for a few squares.  I expect Miriam to fall rather quickly now.  If she surrenders, fine, if not, well I guess she'll be eradicated.  You can never tell what these religious nutjobs will do.

Morgan is still rated better than I am, still builds SPs before I can get to them, and has built a number of Sky Hydroponics Labs.  With both The Cloudbase Academy and The Cloning Vats, his population has surged.  I'm not automatically intimidated by that though, because I've got massive food reserves of my own with no fancy space based technology to accomplish it.  You can get a lot done with ocean supply crawlers in non-threatening conditions.  The only thing that would really put Morgan over the top is if he got Hab Domes.  I'd like to think that's still a ways out yet.

My small, unhappy navy is gradually cleaning out Caretaker sea bases.  Most of those are in the vicinity of Morgan, so in a sense I'm doing him a favor.  In another sense it's an important step towards Diplomatic Victory.  I finally lost my last land based probe team from the ancient days.  Also lost that 1 Trained Gas Chaos Rover that I was bothering them with on land.  It failed to take out a low ranked mindworm.  Ok whatever, that unit was ancient and built in my Wealth period.  When I finally come for the Caretakers on land, it'll be to wipe them out for good.  I haven't built a single X unit this game, relying instead on genetic plagues to do the weakening.  Whatever I have left after bringing Miriam to heel, will be more than enough to wipe out the Caretakers I figure, as long as I build new probe teams.

I want to start some sea base projects close to my capitol.  Lal has encroached some on the water near my capitol, so I want to put a base in deep water to assert my rights to the region.  It will be in range of a number of kelp squares that nobody's utilizing.  I figure at this point I can produce the sea units necessary to raise the ocean there, to make it farmable.  I also want to build some jetties off of my land, to cheaply elevate some deep oceans to the south and east.  I've got sea bases in those areas already but they've got deep ocean squares that someday I'd like to be shallow.  Like when I finally get Hab Domes.  Meanwhile in the south, I could use a couple more land bases on the proposed jetties, as they'll be relatively close to my capitol.

I want to build close to a perfect circle from my capitol, given that I'm in such stiff economic condition with Morgan.  Farther away, I don't need to worry about the shape so much, as I've currently got +5 Efficiency.  I've got a pile of Miriam's conquered cities, whose economic productivity is reasonably good, compared to games where I've played Yang with 0 Efficiency.  If I ever choose to go to war with Morgan, then it's likely I'll go Planned and my efficiency will drop a little.  But at that point I'll be relying on my military output anyways, not economy and research.  +3 Efficiency is still pretty good though, and that's not counting any conceivable Advanced Society.

Trying a 900x900 image this time.  I'm cropping a 1440x900 screenshot anyways, so that's the max height quality I can get.  How does it inline?  Well, it feels a need to use a blowup window, and to scale it to 76%.  That's not inlining.  I'm guessing 800 is the max height before a blowup window is triggered, at least in my browser at my screen resolution.

[bvanevery]

Miriam's lower grouping of land cities is now mine.  That didn't take long.  I definitely don't need more offensive units.  I'm currently limited by the speed at which I can build rails.  All of my sea bases that touch land are building Clean Super Formers.  They all have transports in them so that I can just jump onto land with ordinary units.

I've got 1 "finished" sea base that doesn't touch land.  It just started working on a tectonic missile.  I've got a land city with a Skunkworks.  It's working on the prototype, so they'll both get done at the same time.  This will make my ocean filling operations somewhat quicker, although I think the earthquake explodes with a radius of 3, which is too clumsy.  I'll need to build a small jetty to where I actually want the things to go off.

I've wiped more of H'minee's sea bases, but now she's opposing me with a Sealurk.  She might take out 1 of my ships with that.  Her air cover is increasing as I get closer to untouched cities, but I haven't been sunk by anything yet.  Her setup far away from me, is stronger than her coast that's close to me.  Although, she is to blame one way or another, because I did destroy her capitol.

I think my tectonic missile tech is something Morgan doesn't have.  I've also had Neutronium armor for some time now.  Our tech paths are diverging.  Once upon a time I resolved not to try to out-build the Builder.

Trying a 1200x800 image now.