Santiago the Builder

[bvanevery]

My 2nd probe team succeeded, but not at stealing the tech I was expecting.  I got Centauri Empathy, which Lal didn't even have the turn before.  I didn't think to check whether he'd learn something new.  That said, nobody's been offering to sell it cheap, so I might as well steal it.  I successfully framed Miriam again.  I considered framing Deirdre, but I'd like to keep her in a Truce with me for now.  When it's time to steal from Deirdre then I'll worry about pissing off Deirdre.

I have to bring Transports back to my coast to pick up Elite probe teams to steal from Lal again.  It will take a number of turns.  I hope he doesn't declare war before I can retire from Fundamentalism.

The northeast enclave I discovered earlier may be the Consciousness, not the Gaians.  Looks more like their border color in the water.  The Gaians must be somewhat nearby though, to have that much sea lane traffic.

[bvanevery]

Nope, the colors just look similar in the water.  I've found Gaia's Landing.  She's close enough to invade, if I decide to do that.

Crap, Lal is rushing The Planetary Datalinks.  Maybe I don't retire from Fundamentalism because I'll need to invade him?

I notice that Lal is also sitting on The Garland Crater, although I can't tell how much he's developed it.

I think I'm about to lose both of my Transports in the region because I wanted 2 pods.  They both sprung Isles.

[bvanevery]

Um, yep.  Sunk.

I find Zhakarov's home waters.  He's pretty darned far away to the southwest, past Lal's continent.  Pretty impossible to invade.  Zhakarov offers a Pact without any strings attached, but I decline.  I'm focusing on Conquer now and expect I'll go for Power soon enough.  Then Zhakarov will hate me.  For now though, he sells me Cyberethics for 100 credits.

Now the only thing I need to steal from Lal is his map.  Can I live without it?  In that case I can retire from Fundamentalism now.  Yeah, a map is not a critical thing.  Switching to Democratic.  I'm such a weasel!  I just happened to have finished founding 3 new cities too.  Good timing, I got my free minerals already.

Deirdre is down to Ambivalent now.  Will I go Green?  It would be terribly politic of me.  Or is the term Economic?

[bvanevery]

As I'm done stealing, I go for Knowledge.  I've infiltrated Zhakarov.

Roze contacted me.  She offered Adaptive Economics in exchange for something.  I traded her Secrets of the Human Brain, i.e. old news.  I'm 1 turn away from finishing my own research, so that was a good trade.

Witness my 3 shiny new bases.  My garrison units approach on foot.  I've got a slow transport in the sea base.

Next turn I imagine I'll go Green and try to settle things with Deirdre.  I'm not exactly sure why.  I think because I consider fighting Lal to be more important, if it comes to it.  After all he's sitting on the Monsoon Jungle and she's not.  Meanwhile, Miriam is at war with lots of people, including Deirdre.  Sort of a "gang up" mentality.  Miriam actually took one of Deirdre's bases.  Ordinarily I'd expect Deirdre to take it back with a probe team, but this is Miriam we're talking about.  Probably not an option.  So maybe I don't really need to fight Deirdre on that basis alone.  Miriam might be keeping her busy.

Well I can rationalize it any way I want.  I'm not really sure what I'm doing.  I don't even know if I can complete The Planetary Transit System before Lal does.  I hope the next tech I get is good.

[bvanevery]

Would you take this tempting offer?  Consider that she's making it by putting a laser skimship next to my unarmed transport.  I just went Democratic.  I think she's about to declare war and sink me.  So my answer is "no".

I made a mistake.  That's an impact ship.  Yes she declared war and sank me.

I made another mistake though.  I just researched High Energy Chemistry, after we got done talking.  I'd wondered why that hadn't come up with anyone, but I forgot about it for awhile.  So all my quintillion hours of research, have just gone for something stupid.  26 years to my next breakthrough, because I haven't built crap in the way of Network Nodes.

I may have tech parity anyways from all the trading I've been doing.  In which case I could pop my Artifacts.  Problem is I think others have a superior research rate to me.  So I'd pop 'em, but then others would research the same stuff that I could have stolen.  So maybe it's time to turtle up and build some Network Nodes.

I go Green and contact Deirdre.  Her attitude is Ambivalent.  She asks me for Nonlinear Mathematics.  I guess she's not "all that" and Miriam really is going to trash her.  I'll stay out of it then.  She won't sign a Treaty, says I'm too powerful.  Whatever, you Nature Looney.  You'd think some perfectly good firearms would be of use to you right about now....

Wonder how Lal feels about all of this?  Brring, Brring!  Hey Lal,  mother@#$!er  mother@#$!er    !!!  This guy doesn't have Nonlinear Mathematics either??  What kind of show are you running here?!  I traded that from Miram back in the what, stone ages?  Boy you people are stupid.  I hope Miriam swallows the whole lot of you.  She won't be touching me.  Lal won't sign a Treaty either, says I'm too powerful. @#!@ him.

I think my next move will be to infiltrate Deirdre.

Maybe it's also time to build a Coalition of the Willing with the lesser players.  Roze, how 'bout it?  They sign a Pact, which reveals Roze's, Deirdre's, and Lal's maps.  That was helpful.  Roze is not at war with anybody, so that alliance will merely make me some money for now.

Heck Zhakarov can make me money too.  How 'bout it?  Oh you little !!##, now you don't want it.  Just a turn ago you did.  What a weenie!  Fine, I'll go Power and kill you someday.

Aki Zeta-5, wassup?  And where the hell are you anyways?  She joins.  She's got this island to the west of me, which I never made it to.  She also reveals Zhakarov's map while she's at it.  Now I know everyone's layout.  She's at war with the Believers, so no new enemies.

Crap, Lal finishes The Planetary Transit System in 4 turns.  I'm not even remotely close.  I'd need the equivalent of 5 Artifacts to rush it, and I've only got 3.  They also aren't all positioned in the city, as I didn't expect to use them.  Thought I'd have enough Supply Crawlers by now, but my output has been lackluster.  Even if I had 5 Artifacts, I wouldn't use them on this SP.

So what was all this kerfuffle for 3 hours for?  I'm not going to get a single one of the Builder SPs that I tried to intervene on.  I might have more tech than I otherwise would.  However, I might have simply bought the tech cheap, after the SPs were all completed.  That's what happened with several of them anyways.

Am I wasting my time?  What am I trying to do in this game?  Well, at least I've got full map intelligence now.  That's new.  I'll have to contemplate it.  Also I have a full understanding of the political relationships and I didn't have much information before.

Well I'm looking at the map and thinking it's either time to quit, or to invade Lal.  The irony is that Lal didn't get The Virtual World or The Planetary Energy Grid, the 2 really powerful SPs that I would like to have.  Invading Lal isn't going to get me those.  But I can't see letting Lal sit around getting more and more powerful on such good land.  He'll get new techs, he'll build them way too fast like he just did, and I'll never catch him.  I might match him but not catch him.  It'll be like that Morgan game where he gets 3/4 of the stuff.  Screw that.  Either quit, or accept that I have to be militaristic and do what must be done.

I don't think I could have launched a military campaign much sooner than now, as I've only recently gotten all my bases garrisoned.  Not counting the 3 new bases I'm still garrisoning.  My productivity is also not that great.  Acceptable but not great.  So I think it's time to work on a land bridge.  I've had The Weather Paradigm all this time, I just haven't made use of the capability.  In general, I have not worked my land as much as I need to.  I've got cities without enough food for growth.

In general I'm living up to the faction restrictions that Santiago actually has.

And you know, Lal started on the Monsoon Jungle.  3 Jungle squares are within the base radius of UN Headquarters!  If that isn't a "prize start" I don't know what is.

Hmm, you know what else argues for invasion?  He's got an awful lot of 1-2-1 garrison units.  He's got a few 1-3p-1 units as well, and walls from The Citizen's Defense Force, so I definitely can't rover him.  But if only I could get the units to him fast enough, he's pretty weak.  The problem is, I can't get the units to him fast enough.  Oh well, I'll start doing what I can to lay the groundwork.

[bvanevery]

Deirdre started and then quickly finished The Ascetic Virtues, another Builder SP I would like to have.  I tried contacting her afterwards to see if she'd trade.  Now she's Magnanimous towards me, and she did sign a Treaty, but she won't do a Pact.  You'd think with the Believers having taken over Fallow Time, which is next to Gaia's Landing and also controls The Manifold Nexus, she'd be a little more interested in help.  Deirdre has done nothing about it since forever, even though she's at war with Miriam.  Anyways, Deirdre was so interested in my extensive world map that she was willing to trade Planetary Economics for it.

Since I have 2 Treaties and 2 Pacts, I'm going to see if I can get a Global Trade Pact.  It would have happened easily, except for Lal's Executive Veto.  Yeah, it was sort of the point that I had more trade relations than him.  More reason to take him over.

Miriam is attempting to shell the coastal city nearest to her.  It's useless.  My artillery just keeps beating up her ships.  I don't do anything.  By sitting still, I'm healing faster than she's wounding me.  Very good trade.

I've infiltrated Aki Zeta-5.  That wasn't hard as she's a near neighbor.  The bigger trick is getting over to Roze, which has taken me near to Miriam's waters.  I think I'm past the danger though.  Just in case I've got another skimship probe team coming from a different direction.  I don't have anything heading to Deirdre yet.  I've got another skimship probe team quite far away, south of Lal, that is on pod popping duty now.  That's what I'll continue to do with them until there's something to steal somewhere.

Oooh, good to check the status of allies.  Zhakarov has researched Advanced Military Algorithms.  I trade him High Energy Chemistry for it.  I'm not going Power yet.  I want my land bridge to Lal finished first.

Clearly I was correct about not popping my Artifacts just yet.  I've got 4.  I'm building 3 more Network Nodes, in cities nearest my capitol, for when I want to finally cash them.

[bvanevery]

Both Zhakarov and Deirdre have started The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  This is not good.  If Zhakarov gets it, it's no tragedy, merely inconvenient that I won't have it.  But Deirdre is likely to get it very quickly, based on the rate at which she's been completing SPs.  Also bad is that if I get it, Lal's going to get it through the Planetary Datalinks.  On the other hand, Lal could research it himself, and then I could steal it from him.  It may start a war prematurely, but I'd rather have that SP.  I'm bringing the Supply Crawlers I didn't use, back to the vicinity of the base which is still working on a copy of The Planetary Transit System.  Between those and cash, I do have enough to instantly finish a SP.

Roze is now Ambivalent towards me.  There's a chance that when my Skimship Probe Team shows up to infiltrate her, that she may dump our alliance.  Which could send that unit home.  Fortunately, I have 2 en route to her from different directions.  She doesn't have anything, I just want her infiltrated.

If I'm going to steal from Lal, it may be best to go Fundamentalist before I do so.  If I don't try to frame someone else, then war is certain.  I'd be changing just to fight him, and to keep my bases and units from being subverted.  Whereas if I change beforehand, there's a possibility that I can avoid war until the time of my choosing.

But first, let's see if he learns the tech.

A similar logic applies to stealing from Deirdre.  Problem is I've never gotten any probe teams anywhere near her.  She will probably finish before I can even manage it.

[bvanevery]

Zhakarov stopped building the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  I wonder why?  He's not at war with anybody.  I decided to talk to him, just on the weird chance he wants to let go of that technology.  No he doesn't, but I forgot we weren't in a Pact.  So we swore one.  He's also in a Pact with Deirdre.

My bridge to Lal has produced an energy resource, which I don't want to ruin.  So that's a delay in construction.  The diversion will make a good place for a new city next to my capitol though.  I don't have any special economic or research SP in there, but if I invade Lal as planned, my existing capitol will be fairly close to the center of my empire.  Or else a new city will be, closer to Lal.

Feels like governing from Panama though.

Hm, next turn Zhakarov is building it again.  I think the AI gets to fiddle the continuity of SPs in ways that we humans don't get to.  Either that or he really did start, stop, and start for some goofy reason.

[bvanevery]

Lal has started working on The Maritime Control Center.  That's not critical for me to get, as I'm building a land bridge.  In fact, I could let him finish it for me.

Miriam landed 2 garrison units on my shores.  If they pillage a forest I'm hardly worried about it.  The irony is I've never built offensive units!  First there were Scouts, then 1-3pt-1 from the Command Nexus, then a couple of artillery pieces, then a whole bunch of probe teams.  I've got all my old cities covered with those now.  Never needed offensive units because nobody ever came here or looked like they were going to come here.  Also I had hoped that I might have a better weapon than Impact by now.  Well, whatever.  Making some weapons.

Up north I captured a mindworm.  I forgot that I'm Green and can do that.  If I had any extra productivity, I could put ships in the water and try to capture something.  But I don't.

[bvanevery]

I've researched Synthetic Fossil Fuels.  So now I have something that others don't: bigger guns.  I'm starting work on 6-3-1 units, and I'm adding another Former to bridge duty.  I'm not going to make Fungicidal Formers though, because I am Green and could be capturing mindworms I run into.

I killed Miriam's better armored unit with a 4-1-1.  Her lesser armored unit is nearly dead, but could still move around and make trouble, so I've sent a Scout to block it off from my Formers.

Lal is Noncommittal.  Just for laughs I offered him a Treaty.  He didn't take it.  Usual crap about me being too powerful.  Dude, you're Unsurpassed.  Oh well, I will continue with the plan to kill you.

[bvanevery]

I'm quite surprised that my buddy Zhakarov completed The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  I guess Deirde isn't as prolific as I thought.  This is a somewhat good result as I'm more likely to want to steal from or take over Deirdre than Zhakarov.

I'm also surprised that Zhakarov won't trade or sell me any tech.  Deirdre wants 475 credits for it, which is not worth it to me.  I'll steal it from Lal when he gets it.  Deirdre is also at war with Roze, my ally.  I asked Deirdre to stop, but she says Roze is the one who must do that.

Hmm, I didn't want to talk to Roze, but her attitude is listed as Cooperative and she's got Ecological Engineering.  So let's talk.  Wassup girlfriend?!?  I made the trade, and got her to sign a Treaty with the Gaians.

Can I entice Deirde with Ecological Engineering?  Nope.  And she's the only faction I haven't infiltrated.  I'm finally working on a Skimship Probe Team to fix that.  Just remembered I need to add deep radar to that.

Now I have the conundrum of only The Maritime Control Center being available though.  My bridge is not finished and I'm not ready to invade yet, although it will be soon.  Lal will complete his SP in 13 turns.  I will complete mine in 6.  I need to slow mine down and "park it", because I think letting Lal build the MCC and taking it over, is the better plan.  So I will support units from that base, thereby lowering its minerals output.  In 12 years I get another tech, so maybe I'll get The Neural Amplifier or something.  Or maybe Lal will develop something more worth stealing.

[bvanevery]

Zhakarov is not trading me techs anymore.  He's researched Superconductor.  Fortunately Deirdre dropped the price on Pre-Sentient Algorithms to 250 credits, so I bought that.  Oddly, they are allied.  I can't get Deirdre to ally with me though.

Miriam has researched Bioadaptive Resonance.  I'm creating a new round of Skimship Probe Teams to go steal it, and to finally infiltrate Deirdre.

My bridge to Lal is nearly finished.  I need to put a city at the end of it though.  A colony pod won't be ready for 5 turns.  It's coming from my capitol, which is a bit minerals poor.  Meanwhile my Formers will work the squares to make ready for the city.

[bvanevery]

Lal completes The Maritime Control Center.  Deirdre is starting the Xenoempathy Dome.  That pretty much settles it for me.  I can't keep up with these two ping-ponging back and forth getting different SPs.  It's time to steal from Deirdre, and to invade Lal.  I'm going Fundamentalist.  One of my Skimship Probe Teams is about to be finished and this will hopefully make it Elite?  Maybe not, but I'll work with what I've got.  I want my SP copy to actually be something, and I'm tired of Deirdre getting all the good stuff.

Oh crap, just realized I've also got Knowledge.  That won't make an Elite probe team.  I'll need to switch to Power as well.  Well I'm tired of Zhakarov anyways.  Looks like all my alliances are going to go belly up.  Unless of course I beat Lal so quickly that they don't object.  I don't see much chance of that.  Maybe I can keep Treaties though.

Next turn I'm Fundamentalist Green Power.  This added substantially to the cost of my SP.  I do have plenty of supply crawlers and cash to finish it instantly, but I'm surprised I need to do it.  Skimship Probe Teams take longer to complete as well.  The rest, which will presumably be Elite, will be available in 3 turns.  The 1st one is going to steal Bioadaptive Resonance from Miriam, and if it survives, Doctrine:Initiative from Lal.

All of my 6-3-1 units have gone Elite, which is friggin' great!

Next turn, I stole Bioadaptive Resonance.  That promoted my Skimship Probe Team to Elite.  I will send it to Deirdre.

Next turn, 3 more Commando teams become available to me.

[bvanevery]

Just as I'm about to complete my land bridge, Lal suddenly wants to talk.  Whaddya think he's gonna say??

Hey, Lal!    mother!@##er  mother!##!er    !!

Surprisingly, he only wanted a tech trade, and to sternly warn me about the errors of being Fundamentalist.  Well, uh, thanks for sharing.  And for letting me know you have more tech to steal.

You know we've never actually had a formal Truce?  It's been informal this whole time.

I've infiltrated Deirdre.  Hmm, she's researched Environmental Economics as well.  Will she sell it cheap?  Does anyone else have it?  Roze does, but I don't want to talk to her.  So does Lal.  And Zhakarov.  I so need to invade all these people, this is ridiculous.  Who titled this stupid After Action Report anyways.  Santiago a builder?  Hah!

Well hey, Deirdre sold me Environmental Economics for 100 credits.  It's gonna hurt if the heist of Centauri Meditation goes bad.  Next turn we'll see.

[bvanevery]

And here we are, connected at last.  I suppose I don't have to declare war immediately.  I can make some roads into Lal's territory!

Carefully checking Deirdre's tech before the deed, she only has Centauri Meditation to steal.  Here goes nothing, and I promise not to save scum this one.

Hot dang.  Centauri Meditation stolen, Miriam framed!  They were at peace too.  Mission Accomplished!

I spend 1 supply crawler and 24 credits to rush The Xenoempathy Dome.