Does Miriam suck?

[bvanevery]

No sooner said, than the Caretakers join an alliance with Domai to kill me.  Well now genetic plagues are certainly on the table.  But they've done such a good job beating up Morgan, who am I to weaken them just yet?

Ran into Lal getting a wounded ship home.  He wanted money.  What a loon!

Everybody in the game is at war with me now.

[bvanevery]

Popping an Artifact finally gives me Centauri Meditation.  I've started The Xenoempathy Dome.  With the acquisition of this long term ambition of mine, I no longer need an Explore focus.  I'm switching to Build because a rail line to invade Lal and then the Caretakers would be useful.  I might also like to raise a land bridge to Domai.  I've been working on it but it's been slow and diverted by resources rising out of the sea.

Next turn I'll complete The Longevity Vaccine with minerals, and The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm with cash. 

I've made a small mistake preparing my invasion fleet.  I'm not used to having fission units this long, and didn't realize my ships only carry 4 units.  I have enough ships and could make more rather quickly if need be, but my empty ships are en route to an eastern city and aren't there yet.  I've only got 1 ship in city, so I'm using it to ferry units to an intermediate island while the other ships catch up.

I found Yet Another Artifact in remote southern waters.  It will have to sail back to the western continent and then walk across to finally get to a base.  By the time it arrives in my home territory, hopefully I will have taken Free Drone Central.  If Domai hasn't cashed an Artifact there, then I won't need to build a new city for this Artifact.

[bvanevery]

Domai, you big dummy, you have to begin it before the turn that I finish it.

[bvanevery]

I have completed The Xenoempathy Dome.  I researched Orbital Spaceflight and my sea bases are working on Sky Hydroponics Labs.  My land bases have ceased military unit production and are working on fission Fungicidal Rover Formers exclusively.  Those tend to complete in 2 turns.  They will begin a massive road to Lal's city containing SPs.  Hopefully I will figure out Monopole Magnets soon and it'll become a rail.

My invasion fleet is in readiness, with my last Transport with military units catching up to the others.  Once they rendezvous, they will move to a patch of fungus midway to the target.  I currently occupy it with 2 worthless ships.  I haven't seen any plane activity so I think the risk of premature discovery is minimal.  Nevertheless I have 2 AA cruisers in the mix.

I can't remember how many units I'm bringing to the fight but it's "a lot".  I'm also bringing 4 artillery pieces as I expect Domai to have a pretty big stack of peons to wade through to take the base.  I haven't bothered with any kind of air force due to the distance involved.  Yes I could have engineered an air base or another city but I'm thinking there's no need.

Looking back at my older screenshots, Domai first declared war on me, and I began thinking about taking The Weather Paradigm, 40 years ago.  I completed The Cyborg Factory 16 years ago and started cranking out the Chaos units.  This is a pretty big operation.  I never got seriously started on a land bridge, I just didn't have the Formers to accomplish it.

[bvanevery]

My incoming force consists of 20 units, most of them offensive and Silksteel armored.  Last turn Domai sailed a Transport next to the fungal patch I was going to park on.  I sunk his Transport and decided to pick a different halfway point, lest I arouse suspicions.

I feel almost sad for Free Drone Central.  It is about to be the end of their world.  At least I'm not committing atrocities against them.

I've made 17 Fungicidal Rover Formers and have 2 more in production.  I don't need any more and have switched to Sky Hydroponics Labs.

[bvanevery]

Domai made my landing awfully easy for me.  He made Bunkers everywhere for me to conveniently walk into.  The AI is so stupid that way.  One of the first things I do upon conquering a territory, is pillage all the Bunkers the AI has made.  Although they do sometimes halt invading unit movement, for the most part they just represent strongholds for enemy troops.

My 1st Sky Hydroponics Lab has revealed the map.  My excess weak units, like Trance Synthmetal Garrisons, will load on Transports and attempt to pop pods in the north part of the map.  There are piles still to be plucked, but the question is whether enemy ship patrols are vicious enough to stop me.

The southern half of the map, I have picked clean.  The last 3 explorers are returning from Domai's southern continent.

[bvanevery]

I can't believe this guy.  Domai, the way extortion works, is you present a credible threat.  When you're about to be wiped out, is not the time.  I know the AI is stupid but good grief.  And what did he do as a followup?  He suicided a couple of hand armed garrison units against my bunkered stack.

Research breakthrough!  That's a substantial gain as I think I had 8 more turns of research to go.  And everyone's in a whole lot of trouble now, as this will enable me to go to Power without any penalty.  In addition I won't need Planned for growth anymore, so I can go Green.  With that gain in Efficiency, I could go Police State.

As Domai surrounded his capitol with all these nice bunkers, I am going to try a "flank and constrict" strategy.  The goal would be to preserve surrounding lands intact once I make the conquest.  The enemy tends to rush forwards and pillage, which is annoying when trying to sustain a conquered city.

I completed a Conventional Missile prototype and have begun working on a nuke.

[bvanevery]

I am chagrined to find that my ECM Silksteel units will not stand up to an Elite R-laser speeder.  I need less expensive units on my picket.  Losing something armed with a Chaos gun isn't fun.  Maybe the constriction approach isn't as good an idea as I thought.  I am taking a more direct approach, massing a bunch of units on a rock next to the city.

You know, I have to admit.  If I lost the battle for Free Drone Central, I would quit this game.  Yes, of course I will win the game, if I continue to play it.  But I saved up a long time to take over this city.  If 20 expensive units is not even enough, then I'd rather play a new game where I don't waste my time doing that.  I think I'm beginning to feel the mouseclick and writeup fatigue.  This is a pretty long AAR, at least in terms of web pages consumed.  It may not be longer that some of my older pictureless text writeups, but it's still plenty long and among the longest I've written.

If this offensive doesn't work, then I suppose the "correct" offensive would have been an air campaign with Copters.  Assuming of course that I build a forward air base.

This game hasn't proven whether Miriam sucks or not.  It does prove that if the AI gets bogged down in something completely stupid, the human can come back from an abysmal beginning and prevail.  I'd say regardless of faction.

[bvanevery]

Morgan Entertainment goes down.

No counterattack to my offensive positioning, so perhaps this campaign is within my control after all.  Artillery seems to have done its job.  I start destroying units in his city.  Some of my attackers do very well and take few wounds.  Others take quite a lot of wounds.  It is becoming clear that I'll need every gun I can spare to rapidly reduce this city, so I pull all my Chaos units onto the rock.  I leave the ECM Silksteel Police units to guard the artillery against any more Elite R-Laser Speeders.

I was worried that the game was going to make me look like an idiot, for coming up with what I thought was a sensible plan.  It looks like the plan is working as originally intended.  Fission units don't have to suck.

Resources rising out of the sea, and the Geothermal Shallows, got in the way of my land bridge.  I have transferred a large pile of Formers to the intermediate island, to raise land from that direction and avoid the resources.

[bvanevery]

Free Drone Central is mine.  They're never getting it back.  I'll be parked on The Weather Paradigm forever.  Now I suppose their pillaging will begin.

[bvanevery]

I complete The Cloning Vats and choose Power.

I haven't completed any kind of road to Lal's city.  In fact I've merely made a road most of the way to the Manifold Nexus.  Without Monopole Magnets, everything takes quite a bit longer.  I don't see a point in making new military units until I have a road.  And if I have a road and no rails, I'd like them to be Fusion Powered units.  I will have 16 Sky Hydroponics Labs imminently, after which there is no further benefit until I get Hab Domes.  Consequently, my bases are starting to produce more Fungicidal Rover Formers, for lack of anything else to build.

I pop Yet Another Artifact and will need yet another city, beyond even Free Drone Central.  I suppose I could conquer one of the cities on the way to Free Drone Central and shorten my land bridge that way.  On the other hand aesthetically and economically, I don't desire those cities, and I have several prepared sites in my home territory.  So I think I'll make my own city.

[bvanevery]

I'm now Democratic Green Power.  The extra Efficiency allows me to shift more of my budget into research.  I think that's my most important bottleneck right now, as I need either Fusion Power or Monopole Magnets to wage my war against Lal.  Ideally I'd like both.

I don't actually need to take Domai's other cities.  I would prefer to destroy them, but I don't want Atrocity penalties for doing so.  My sea bases have nothing important to do, and it's extra mouseclicks to send units onto land.  So I'm going to make Gas Chaos Choppers and blow the crap out of Domai's units.  I suppose I could also sabotatge his cities.

Well, unless he wants to sign a Truce, which would be convenient.  Is he willing?  Point is moot, we're in sunspots.

[bvanevery]

I earthquaked one of Lal's sea bases.  Whatever.  Can I get that pod without getting killed?  If I popped an Artifact, would I make it home safely?

I just did a 3 ship sealift to get an Artifact far away from Lal and Santiago, although I still have to cross Domai's waters to get to Free Drone Central to cash it in.  As well as a bit of my own land around that city.  But, my defenders on open ground have been holding.  Domai has this curious habit of suiciding hand weaponed troops against them.  What is he thinking?  I wonder if that behavior counts as a bug.

[bvanevery]

Morgan has lost 2 bases in the past 2 turns.

[bvanevery]

Well he didn't kill my scout rover, but he did pop the pod before I could get to it safely.  Fortunately it doesn't look like it was terribly valuable to him.  I could have popped it the turn before if I'd been willing to risk a mindworm in the face.