Miriam makes me shiver

[bvanevery]

The war begins, of all things via the strange complaint about the Spartans.  Why are Miriam and Santiago at war?  I guess they're close enough to do it, but in their limited circumstances it doesn't seem practical for either of them.  Santiago is a small ways southeast of us.  She has 3 cities on a large S-shaped island with a nasty isthmus of fungus cutting her off from access to the rest of it.  She was placed on top of the Unity crash site so has gotten intelligence on where other factions are.  I'm only seeing Safe Haven, which is very far directly south of me.  As far as one can get.  I don't see Cha Dawn but then she didn't crash on the Unity anyways, in fact I think she is made to start 3 turns later like the Caretakers do?  Or it could be that one just doesn't get full disclosure unless the Unity is discovered later, and Santiago discovered it immediately.

Anyways, I contact Miriam because she has the temerity to move 2 units onto my land.  I tell her to bugger off!  Sensibly, she does.  She complains about me being in a Truce with Sparta, that she won't tolerate it.  I figure hmm, what's up with that?  Haven't talked to Santiago in awhile, so I do so.  She offers a Treaty.  I propose an alliance, but she says she'll agree only if I go to war with Miriam.  Hell yeah!  And because Miriam and I didn't have a Treaty, and this is a legit political exchange, I get to keep my Noble rating.  Mission Accomplished.

When I settled my last sea base, I got the Bureaucracy warning.  So this is a better idea than doing more settlement while under a Police State.  I need to conquer Miriam, then switch to Planned and grow my cities.

Belatedly I realized I forgot to ask Santiago for other comm freqencies.  She asks for war with the Pirates while she's at it.  I figure sure, why not, they can't even scratch me where they are.  They'll scratch her first anyways.  Also got the Caretakers comm frequency.  Let's see what they have to say.  Eh, H'minee declares war.  Screw her.  I learn she has Missiles though.  If I had any idea where she was, I'd go steal them.

Pictured are my troop movements to the front.  I think I will try hiding behind my tree line for a bit.  See if Miriam will poke her nose forwards to be summarily destroyed.  If she succeeds in destroying forests, then I'll attack through those with Impact Rovers.

Now, this is a Yitzi game.  It's clear from looking inside Miriam's cities, that Yitzi doesn't solve the problem of an AI grossly overproducing units that have no military value.  She's got garrison units out the wazoo.  New Jerusalem is reduced to No Minerals.  She also hasn't built a single Impact Rover, despite having the capability.  I am now less inclined to wait and more inclined to blitz with Rovers, but we'll see what she actually does when I hit Turn Done.  I also need all my troops to come to the front anyways.

For her 1st move, she sends two 2-1-2's onto the forest and dies.  It looks like she wants to suicide her Battle Ogre next turn.  I mass on the rock north of Blessed Savior, bringing up 3 rovers, 2 artillery, and 1 infantry.

For her 2nd move, her Battle Ogre moves forwards to die.  I can't quite kill it with a 4-1-1 and lose it, but the Ogre is all but dead.  I trivially eliminate it with a 4-3-1, although surprisingly, even that leaves it half wounded.  I still have a fresh 4-3-1 in that same forest square, waiting for any more suicides.  I remove the artillery and redeploy it to the rock.  The big stack moves 1 square forwards and the artillery starts shelling Blessed Savior 2 squares away.  Shouldn't be any problem as she didn't build 4-1-2's.

[bvanevery]

Ok, where did she get the Impact Rovers from?  I guess I didn't methodically look at the Support of all her cities, but she sure didn't have those in her cities.  A deliberate ruse perhaps, or a way of avoiding artillery fire.  She's damaged my stack.  I will kill her units no problem, but this is annoying.  I probably better sound the retreat and not attack Blessed Savior just yet.  I will continue shelling it though, thinking that she doesn't have an Rovers to follow up with.

Can you tell I don't actually respect her and am not being all that careful at 1:40 AM?

I did recently reseach Pulse armor and will have some of those coming "soon".  I had hoped the conquest would be over by the time they arrived, and that they were just going to be my latest garrison unit.  They might actually be needed in the field.

Wow, I didn't expect to lose a 4-3-1 when attacking a 4-2-2.  I guess forests provide good cover.  On my followup attack she disengaged.  My 4-3-1 corps isn't doing so good.  2 dead, 2 half-wounded, only 1 full strength.  She has bought herself time.  But unless she can also buy minerals I say she's ultimately done for.

I got Cha Dawn's commlink out of a floating pod.  She allied with me in exchange for war against Marr.  Why not, he'd probably declare war on me anyways.  She also asked for a loan but I declined.  I know I will go Planned and that will piss her off.

Cha Dawn is on the diagonal opposite side of the board, as far away from me as she can be.  Marr is to her east and only1 city is revealed.  H'minee is to her west and shows 2 cities revealed.  Svensgaard is substantially to the east of Marr; they are all on the same southernmost latitude.  That explains why it has taken so long to contact them.

If I hold an election, it'll be split 3 ways between myself, Svensgaard, and Miriam.  As I have 2 allies, I think I can win it.  Yep, my allies have 38 votes between them, so that should settle it.  Hope they don't pull any goofy stunts.  Here goes.  Actually Miriam didn't qualify for the ballot, so I won easily.  I tried to sell Cha Dawn's comm frequency to Santiago before the election, but she didn't bite.  Instead she asked for a loan and I gave it to her.

[bvanevery]

This ain't no blitz.  Why are Miriam's units doing so well defensively?  My units die freqently against her.  I'm trained, she's trained, neither one of us is Fundamentalist, so what gives?  Her city terrain is flat and not particularly higher than the ground I'm attacking from.  I hope Yitzi didn't jack the defense of everybody, because if it did, that's damn annoying.  It would make games take much longer to play than they're supposed to.  I've lost nearly all of my original units and will be relying on a combo of 1-3tp-1 and 4-1-1 to take her out.

It's 2:30 AM, why am I not winning?

[bvanevery]

I have taken The Weather Paradigm at The Word of God.  Miriam won't surrender, so New Jerusalem is next.  I think she's having a less easy time defending against me now, because some of my troops are more experienced.

I've started on The Citizen's Defense Force and have no competition for it.

Svensgaard has shown up with a sea colony pod all the way up here.  I've got a wounded ship parked next to his pod, which for some reason is not moving.  Eventually I will heal up enough to kill it.  I'm making skimship probe teams to steal from him becasue he's got Bioadaptive Resonance.  I'm also making a few armed ships to take over sea bases, whether his or Miriam's.

[bvanevery]

I seize New Jerusalem.  Miriam won't surrender.  On land, Godwinson's Hope is next.  I've also been shelling He Walked On Water and have ships to take it over.  The Pirates show up sometimes and I destroy them with artillery and ships in my 2 southern ports.

I've completed The Citizen's Defense Force.  I haven't built any Police units as under a Police State, regular units have been sufficient to keep everyone in line.  I anticipate that I'll transition to Democratic Planned once I've cleared Miriam from my "core".  She has a number of southward sea bases, so may not feel like surrendering once I push her into the water.  A naval war is a different way of doing things, if only because the Pirates are involved in it.  I'm not sure a big naval buildup is in my interest, given how easy it has been to destroy Svensgaard's ships from shore so far.

By the time I got a Skimship Probe Team down to steal from Svensgaard, my allies had acquired the 2 techs he had anyways.  I traded them cheap techs, so now if I steal from Svensgaard, I'll get his map.  That's not valueless as there's an awfully big black area around Safe Haven on the minimap.  However someone's got a ship lurking just south of my Skimship Probe Team.  I didn't want to pay money to bribe it, so I had to retreat.

I have a number of Transports fishing for pods, and I've brought home a number of Artifacts.  Don't think I'll pop them just yet, as I know one of the Aliens has Missile technology.  I'd like to steal it, but maybe they're too far away for that to be practical.  I've continued with my Build focus.  I've only built 1 Energy Bank in my capitol as I'd like to get The Planetary Energy Grid.  Seems quite doable as nobody's been building SPs lately but myself.

I'm probably doing pretty well, but soon I'm going to have to consider the problems of long range war.

I've been raising the land around bases near my capitol, to increase its profitability.  Cheaply getting rid of ocean squares and so forth.

[bvanevery]

I finally stole the Pirates' world map, so now I know what their lair looks like.

I find that my impact ships don't do a good job against Miriam's garrison forces in the water.  I either have to make new ships or blow it off until some other time.  Not sure what I will do as I have a lot of land combat forces and no land enemy to throw them at.  Democratic Free Market?

I think it's time to pop Artifacts.  I have tech supremacy over all the humans.  One of the Aliens has missiles, but it is too tedious to send a probe team all the way down there to steal it.  Maybe I will get a tech which makes my next direction clear to me.

I have 4 Artifacts in my home territory, all sitting in my "big minerals" city.  Popping the 1st got me Synthetic Fossil Fuels, so now I have missiles too.  The other 3 need to move to other cities to cash them in, so I have to wait until next turn.

Next turn I got Adaptive Economics, Doctrine:Air Power, and Advanced Military Algorithms.  That'll do!  I'll finish Miriam with planes.

I've decided to go Democratic Planned and disband all the land combat units that didn't get much experience, didn't have useful abilities like Trance Pulse, etc.

[bvanevery]

I researched Environmental Economics, so now I'm building desperately needed Tree Farms.  My whole island is practically forest.

My untrained Impact Penetrator died when trying to attack Miriam's sea base.  Not sure what I expected.  I don't consider it any kind of loss though, as I won't have to pay suppot minerals for it.  I'll make something better, in an Aerospace Complex when I decide which city is going to be responsible for that.

Here is the world map.  I'm the big clump up north.

I am doubting that the Caretakers, the Usurpers, and the Cult of Planet can ever do anything about me.  One of the Aliens might become powerful if they defeat the other, but in other games I haven't seen them perform competent naval invasions.  It is far more likely they'll skirmish indefinitely, although the Cultists might take a beating between them.  I think the only threat they can present, is building SPs before I do.  If I'm sufficiently ahead in tech that won't happen, so that argues for switching to Democratic Free Market Knowledge at some point.

The Spartans are currently my ally.  They are behind other factions because they had a cramped start.  So, when I go Knowledge they may turn on me, but I think their military threat value is low.  They probably won't manage to research or build SPs or do anything that really threatens my control of the game.

The Pirates are capable of developing a real civilization if they're left alone.  They have all these bonus sea minerals to exploit, coupled with abundant food.  Energy is also easy for them if they want it.  My experience playing the Pirates is they're a good Builder faction, and the AI seems to know this as well.  However it is tedious to knock out the Pirates as it's a long range war.  Their bases also aren't worth anything to me, as I don't get mineral bonuses from the sea.  So I guess I need to stay ahead of them and knock them down as needed.  They cannot be allowed to become powerful the way Morgan was in the other game.

[bvanevery]

I have discoverd the Manifold Nexus.  I'm surprised it went undiscovered for so long.  I've passed by its location many times, but it was blacked out.  Fishing for pods didn't cause me to venture closer to the small island.  Well, now I know.  It's not terribly important as I'm starting to build Hybrid Forests and have no eco-damage whatsoever.  But if I go Free Market, things could change, and it doesn't hurt to have a free +1 Planet anyways.  Also need to keep the Aliens from getting it, because they get a research bonus from it.  So I'll get a colonist over there in due course.

The disposition of the other players hasn't changed very much.  Cha Dawn ended our Pact.  Miriam sometimes puts some units on my island and I kill them.  Svensgaard sometimes shoots at me with his ship and my artillery fends him off.  I've raised land to thicken my island and nearly have a bridge to the western island.

I've made a lot of Secret Projects.  Currently I'm working on The Ascetic Virtues and The Supercollider.  I'm pleased that in this game I've mostly kept control of the SPs.  One thing I'm doing differently is pursuing Knowledge instead of Wealth.  Sure I can build things faster once I get them with Wealth, but experience has show it's more important to get them before others do.

Speaking of which, perhaps I should change from Build focus to Explore, Conquer focus now.  I'd like to prevent anyone else from getting The Maritime Control Center, and having The Cloudbase Academy can be handy too.  On the Build tech tree, the likely thing I'd get next is Superformers, but I don't really need them.  Because I haven't expanded anymore, my existing Formers have pretty much had time to terraform everything.  Plus I have The Weather Paradigm anyways, so I'm not slow at it.

BTW, at this point in the game I see no evidence that Yitzi has improved the play of the AIs in any way at all.  I'm kicking their butts.  Maybe they don't understand Huge maps.  Maybe they don't know how to deal with water.  Although, that's not true of the Pirates in an ordinary game of SMACX.  Given long enough, they can start to dominate because of their advantages on water.  Well, maybe I've been really efficient this game compared to the AIs, so I'm just doing everything faster / better than they are.  Time will tell.

But for instance, Svensgaard has had Doctrine:Air Power for some time now, and I've not seen a single plane.  Fine; not like I want to be bothered by air raids, and have to stop my building programmes to deal with it.  But it makes me wonder about his competence.

[bvanevery]

The Caretakers showed up on my lands with an Empath Scout Rover.  I was about to bribe it when we had a talk.  I agreed to a Truce and demanded that she leave my lands.  She complied.

I'm still allied with the Spartans but it won't last.  I refused to join a war against the Cultists and told Santiago to make peace.  She did.

Miriam has a Treaty with the Spartans and a Truce with the Cultists.  She's at war with the Pirates, the Caretakers, and myself.  She's never met the Usurpers.  I've refrained from making peace with Miriam because I might someday want to take over her sea bases that are near to my coast.  Also she's been allied with other factions in the past, and I don't want the "enemy planes in an unassailable base" problem.  If she makes friends who want to attack me, I want to be able to take over her cities.

Miriam has planes but she hasn't tried to use any on me.  I'm finally building fusion powered Silksteel Gatling Police.  I've had the capability for quite awhile, but no need.  Now my populations are getting high enough to justify police units, and I have The Ascetic Virtues.  So, I can use 2 units as police.

I've bridged my main island and the west island.  I've settled the Manifold Nexus.  I'm raising land east of my capitol to put an economically valuable city there, and to turn the ocean south of that sea base into shallows.

I'm building a Fusion weapon prototype and I've also got Orbital Spaceflight.  I haven't launched a satellite yet, or even built an Aerospace Complex.  My Transports still manually explore the oceans, pushing back the black.  I don't think there are any more pods in the water anymore.  I should probably put some probe teams on the boats and pop pods on land.

[bvanevery]

Miriam finally got around to strafing one of my Super Formers.  I've only built 1 Aerospace Complex, just north of that sea base I've taken from her.  I've only built Penetrators so far, as I expect to have a Planned economy until my cities are size 16, so didn't care about Free Market unhappiness penalties.  One of my Penetrators is about to sink Svensgaard's wounded transport.

Right now I'm building an Orbital Power Transmitter, since my plan is to take sea bases that are touching my lands.  I really think my 2 Shard Penetrators are probably enough for that.  I've made some amphibious garrison units, but I keep having to make new models because I keep getting new armor techs.  I've got Probability capability now but haven't prototyped it yet.  I've never built a Skunkworks, too many changes coming too fast and I couldn't commit to a city to put it in.  One of these days I'll make a nuke, but I see no rush.

I keep building Secret Projects without challenge.  Next turn I will complete The Living Refinery.  I'm building Tachyon Fields around most of my bases for lack of anything important to do.

I'm still working on raising land east of my capitol.  I haven't settled it yet.  I built a fair number of Super Formers in various places because I was stalling on committing to a bunch of military expenditures.  I really don't need to do much, just take a few bases here and there.  I've got 2 cities where people are now becoming unhappy, but as these are still local problems I don't want to raise my taxes yet.  My budget is currently 40-10-50.  So I'm making colonists to fill in various gaps in my empire.

[bvanevery]

Surprisingly, the Believers attacked the sea base I took from them and wiped out my garrison unit.  Then their allies the Pirates seized the base as a walk-in.  So now it's a Pirate base.  If I seize it again, will I have liberated it?  Will I not have to pay the Captured Base unhappiness penalty anymore?

I need Neural Grafting.  I've been researching Conquer only for a very long time, but I haven't gotten that particular tech.  I can't complain too hard though, as I just got the tech for The Theory of Everything.  I'm building that in my capitol.

I've got Monopole Magnets now, thanks to 2 Artifacts I popped, but I haven't begun working on rails yet.

I have finally infiltrated the Alien factions.

[bvanevery]

Eventually, the Pirates left this sea base empty for some reason.  They're still allied with the Believers.  Did the Caretakers hit him with a missile?  They do control the interior of the Monsoon Jungle, on an island south of this base.  The Believers and the Pirates both have bases around its coast.  The Believers used to control the interior but the Caretakers took over.

Well, whatever the reason, I'm walking in with a Marine.  Earlier I took that other Believer base touching the southern point of land.

I'm building a buch of Secret Projects including The Cyborg Factory.  Yep finally got my conquer techs.  I've switched to Build, hoping to pick up The Longevity Vaccine.

I still haven't started on rails.  I thought Soil Enrichers should be a higher priority.  I've filled in a lot of blank spots on my land masses.  I'm still raising land east of my capitol and putting cities out there.

[bvanevery]

I've signed a Truce with the Believers.  Some time ago I filled in the interior of the western island.  Now rails and Formers are arriving in force and I don't need them being shot at.  Miriam may not have the planes anyways, but I have no desire to take the bases touching the island.  I've done lots of city improvements elsewhere and these are not important cities to have.  I've got enough room for my inland bases because they have the land claim, thereby getting all the land resources to themselvse.  If I took Miriam's bases, I'd actually have to share the land between my land and sea bases.  Better to leave her in poverty in the water.

I offered Svensgaard a Truce, but he's all wound up and wouldn't take it.  I guess he needs to get his ass kicked to see sense.  I'm not really motivated to do that right now, as he's not bothering me with any units and I've got internal stuff to deal with.

Santiago has been at war with me for some time, but we haven't had any actual conflict.  Presumably she just hates my Knowledge.  For sake of form I dialed her up just now, but she wanted money so I told her to stuff it.  Needs her ass kicked.

Cha Dawn sunk one of my Transports a long time ago, but otherwise we haven't been fighting.  Tried to dial her up just now, but she won't talk to me.

Dialed up Marr.  Thought his attitude was Noncommittal but when the screen popped up he was Seething.  He promised my death.  The last time I even saw a unit of his was eons ago.

H'minee and I have a Truce, but now her attitude is listed as Seething.  I could swear it was Noncommittal same as Marr.  Whatever.  I'm not contacting her.

Many of my cities are to the point of being unhappy now.  To deal with it, I make hovertank colonists and send them to the more recently built cities, that don't have much population yet.  In 2 turns I'll complete The Longevity Vaccine in my capitol.  Then my cities will grow a bit more, as 2 drones will become happy under my Planned economy.  My tax rate is still 40-10-50.  If I didn't have that SP about to complete, it would be time to raise the Psych.

I'm building Robotic Assembly Plants everywhere.  I'm not going to bother with Genejack Factories as I don't need the unhappiness.  I've actually switched my research focus to Explore in order to pick up The Pholus Mutagen.  I currently don't have any eco-damage at all, but I haven't finished any of those Plants yet either.  As I have a +1 Planet rating thanks to the Manifold Nexus, I may not have any problem.  I also recently captured my 1st Mindworm while exploring.

I'm wondering what the point of this game is.  To demonstrate maximal optimization of a Builder oriented empire?  I'm doing that "fixate on a perfect circle from your capitol" routine.  I'm losing interest in founding new cities or leveling them up.  Feels like I've been there, done that for many hours now.  The long spells of waiting for Build stuff to complete, also aren't visually interesting.  They don't tend to trigger narrative comments on my part.  I could do another screenshot of all the Secret Projects I've built, but why bother?

[bvanevery]

The next morning I wake up and don't even feel like playing this game.  That's definitely saying something.  I don't think I'm quite ready to abandon it, especially given all this work I've put into a writeup.  But clearly I'm bored and something is wrong.  I need to find another direction for this game.

I thought about starting another game where the Pirates roleplay an extreme phobia of land.  So they do everything in their power to turn the world into water.  I've played "flood the planet" games before, from a game mechanical standpoint.  Tactically, it doesn't amount to much, as the AIs just build Pressure Domes to compensate.  Flooding degrades other players' empires, but it doesn't destroy them, which was the hope.  A roleplaying orientation is different though.  I'd do everything because I hate land.

I just can't do nukes and flooding in a game I've spent meticulously hand-crafting all of my land tiles though.  I built a lot of the land in this game.  I'm still at it, my land raising projects are not quite done.

I do imagine building a full complement of Sky Hydroponics Labs and Orbital Power Transmitters, now that I've completed The Cloudbase Academy.  I've tended to forget about that in other games.  In a recent game, I finally realized that you only need as many satellites as your maximum city growth size.  Cities can't utilize any more than that.  So 16 of each and I'd be good to go.  Shouldn't be any problem to belt out, given that I'm working on Robotic Assembly Plants everywhere now.

Ok, I guess that's a direction.  But I'm still suffering boredom from what I did yesterday, and need that to clear out of my system for a bit.  I will wait until I more naturally need a "SMAC fix".

[bvanevery]

I finally finished the land raising to the east of my capitol.  I had wanted to turn deep ocean into shallows around my sea bases, but resource bonuses kept coming up when I raised land.  These caused me to steer the land farther away.  Ultimately I created shallows the expensive way, by raising them 1 square at a time with sea formers.  The problem isn't valueless however because I founded 4 new cities fairly close to my capitol.  2 of them are midsize because they've been the primary recipients of excess colonists from cities where people are unhappy.

Now that I've got The Longevity Vaccine I may have less intensity of unhappiness for awhile.  Orbital Power Transmitters may eventually provide enough money that unhappiness stops happening in my biggest cities as well.  Eventually many of my cities will have been conquered so long ago, that I'm no longer paying the Captured Base penalty.  However it happens, I will eventually pump all my cities to size 16.  I'll consider making new ones, at the next radius from my capitol, but it is again a lot of ocean raising work.  I may also get to a point where food from Sky Hydroponics Laps causes bases to hit size 16 every turn, thus I could spend all my time spewing out colonists and nothing else.  At that point it's simply a choice about that vs. other things I could build, as there is no inherent efficiency in "waiting to grow".

I intend to put rails along the northern pole.  Unfortunately that can be a Quixotic project, because if anything changes about the global temperature, those squares are only 10 m above sea level.  They will all summarily sink.  I'm not causing any eco-damage right now, and even if I started to, I haven't built Centauri Preserves yet.  I'm also trying to discover The Pholus Mutagen.  Over the long haul though, someone else could start doing eco-damage.  I don't currently have the votes to force the launching of a Solar Shade, as I haven't conquered anyone to make them my slave.  Also a Solar Shade can only be launched every 20 years, and flooding can come faster than that.

So I wonder how I'll deal with some faction's errant industry.  Fungal missiles?  I've never done a massive fungal missile campaign before.  I've experimented with it tactically in some games, and I seem to recall that ocean coverage was not good with these things.  On land, it's good to combine with The Xenoempathy Dome as a way to rapidly move through a wilderness to get to an enemy.