Smothering The Enemy - SMACX AI Growth mod

[bvanevery]

Details I plan to be green

I plan to be green

MY 2331.  I finally got enough garrison units onto the Manifold Nexus, and Formers to remove the fungus where I wanted to settle, and dropped a colony pod on it.  The Consciousness never knew what hit them!  This allowed me to switch to a Planned economy and still have +3 PLANET.  I make an obnoxious amount of money per turn even now.  All I really need to do is get a probe team over there and start buying cities with Secret Projects in them.

I had mindworms from hell this year.  That's pretty much why I have 5000 credits.  I beat them off with Police Scouts, Recon Rovers, and a few unleveled mindworms.  I captured a huge stack of them a few years ago, there must have been 20 juveniles.  I spread them out, 1 per base as a garrison unit.

It's after 2 AM and I'm going to bed!

[bvanevery]

Details do not kill me

do not kill me

MY 2334.  The Consciousness assaults my city with a mere strength 8 Chaos gun and kills one of my extremely expensive to manufacture Neutronium garrisons.  This is out of whack.  I know that they get a 25% attack bonus for infantry against a city, but that would only make it an effective strength 10 gun against strength 8 armor.  Both of our units were Commando strength so there's no Morale difference.  I don't think they should be prevailing in this encounter 60% wounded, I think they should be 90% wounded or dead, maybe inflicting 50%..70% wounds on the defender.

This is going to trigger a readjustment of the capabilities and costs of weapons and armor.  Many people have commented over the years that armor isn't worth anything.  Maybe I didn't notice it much in the past, because I wouldn't be spending any time using late game units. Now in this mod I do, and they cost buckets to manufacture, due to the Fission engine most of the game.  It's gotta change.

Details orbital spam

orbital spam

I am deeply unhappy about the number of Orbital Defense Pods the Consciousness and the Pirates put into orbit every year.  It's spam.  It ties up 95% of my cities making my own ODPs just so I can destroy them.  The combat odds in orbital warfare seem pretty bad, with attackers seeming to lose many more ODPs than defenders.  Basically the computer is being rewarded for not ever getting bored with this.  I want to make the game reach a sandbox steady state, but this is *not* it.  I am not going to play a game where I have to babysit spam constantly.  When the AI spams terrestrial units, usually I can just ignore them, because they'll mill around on the map somewhere unimportant.  Not so with orbitals.  I have to prune them, or else they'll eventually build up and overwhelm my ODPs.  If they do that, they can nuke me.

That's weird... having complained, I destroyed all enemy forces and only lost 1 ODP.  I wonder if odds are determined by how many ODPs you have vs. the enemy?  I will keep making massive numbers of ODPs for now.  I still don't like having to do this babysitting every turn, even if I win easily.

The obvious "victory" solution is to intervene on the ground.  But if I want to sandbox, how is that any different from just conquering someone outright?  I could probe team their factories into oblivion, so that it takes them forever to produce ODPs.  I could carpet their civs with fungus, which will keep them poor on minerals until they discover advanced technologies.  But there's a point at which this is not "steady state" stuff, this is conquest.  Maybe it is not possible to make "spawning AIs" reach a steady state.  There has to be a way for them to destroy their own outputs, and all they seem to do right now is put their outputs into space, where I have to destroy them.

Details send in the Marines

send in the Marines

Parrot Landing contains the Weather Paradigm.  Last year, I landed a Marine Probe Team in a patch of fungus next to it.  I was not detected, so now I'm ready to buy.  I have 10,000 surplus credits, mostly from killing epic mindworm spawns.  For the low low price of 1539 credits, the city is mine.  This demonstrates that the economic vs. military balance of the late game is seriously out of whack.  Their capitol, Safe Haven, is not that far away and I'm getting off awfully cheap.  Meanwhile a military solution would take gobs of production and units to get done.

[bvanevery]

Details pops and floods

pops and floods

MY 2335.  I don't know why Planet is so pissed at me.  I'm doing almost no eco-damage and I'm at +3 PLANET.  Seems unfair.  I think I'd look at toning down the eco-damage model if I could.  Not sure I can though.  Yitzi's patch offers those capabilities I think, but it's not worth it to me to require that patch just for that.  Having my mod work with the official game binary is a major selling point IMO, and more likely to get players interested in trying mods.

I can kill the mindworms no problem.  In fact it makes me piles of money.  It's the flooding that's getting really old.  I've hand terraformed everything in my empire.  There are rivers that keep shifting and wiping everything out.  I don't like it at all.

When did I last call a Planetary Council?  In another game I came to realize that if you're the Governor, you can call a Council every 10 years.  If you're not the Governer, every 20.  So for launching solar shades, better darned well be the Governor!  Consider that means as an Alien, you couldn't even do it.  Anyways, last Council was 2230 so I can't even do it yet.  With my luck I'll find out that I can't do that same action for another 20 years.  We'll see in 2240, if the world is still in one piece.

Details energy and orbitals

energy and orbitals

I seize Crow's Nest with a probe team.  It contains the Planetary Energy Grid.  Now I have all the Pirate Secret Projects.  Onwards to the Consciousness.

I am fed up with Orbital Defense Pod spam.  I will not lift another finger for it!  I'm embarking on a draconian solution: piles of Fungal Missiles.  I finally discovered Fusion Power so my blast radius is a bit larger.  Next year, a lot of the Consciousness is going pink.

[bvanevery]

Details before 1 turn of fungal missiles

before 1 turn of fungal missiles

All of the Consciousness' Secret Projects are contained in 4 cities in the center of their empire.  My plan is to buy 6 cities including those, making a contiguous pocket with the Manifold Nexus, and cover the rest in fungus.

Details anti missile spam

anti missile spam

Hmm didn't realize they could defend themselves.  No matter, I've got piles of these things.

Details sacrificing for the lesser good

sacrificing for the lesser good

In fact, if they have to lose an ODP every time I launch, this is a complete mouseclick win over bothering with the Orbital Attack interface.  Well except for the amount of futzing I did to fly the missile over there.

Details devastation of Alpha Prime

devastation of Alpha Prime

Notice that each of the 5 missile impacts has raised a fungal tower.  I'm not sure if the mindworms were already there.  Any more missiles hurled would actually improve the land around Alpha Prime.  I wonder why they've been so slack at terraforming?

Details Drones before impact

Drones before impact

The Drones declared war on me this turn, so they're going to get the same treatment.  I will take Freidman's Park with a probe team as it contains the Longevity Vaccine.  I'll plow the rest under with fungus.  Unfortunately they had 3 ODPs.  I used the Orbital Attack UI to destroy them, losing 9 ODPs just to kill 3 of theirs.  If I didn't have the Space Elevator, that would not be a good trade at all.

Details Drones after fungal attacks

Drones after fungal attacks

[Geo]

Did you use fission fungal missiles? Because I'd expected to see the land around those bases all pink after a bombardment of those.

[bvanevery]

Yeah the 1st wave was Fission.  I've jumped to Singularity in like 2 turns though, partly from finally bringing back 2 Artifacts by orbital uplift.

Details I knew you would see it my way

I knew you would see it my way

MY 2338.  Buying the last of the Consciousness bases containing Secret Projects, finally triggers a Truce.  Of course she could surprise attack me next turn, but it won't matter.  Thanks to my modding skills I have strength 20 Antimatter Plate armor!  And that's just what I've deployed, I have strength 30 Singularity Shield armor available as well.  My weapons, armor, and costs are still a mess as I try to figure out how to make a sensible progression out of all of this.  I'm tempted to take Quantum and Singularity engines out of the game entirely.

Details Drones are almost mushrooms

Drones are almost mushrooms

I've devastated the island that Freidman's Park sits next to.  It contains the last Secret Project, the Longevity Vaccine.  Singularity fungal missiles give a pretty good fungus spread and this project has rapidly come to conclusion.  Problem is, I still haven't figured out how to get a probe team over there to take the base.  Orbital drop pods aren't helpful against distant sea bases because you can't drop anything on water.  The island is too small and cramped to drop a Marine probe team in there, as the Sensor Arrays will spot me.  I could take a nearby land base, then a sea base, but I'd rather not.  At this point I want to keep my civilization "clean of foreign influence".

Details sneaky technique

sneaky technique

The answer is to use the 1 Fission Tectonic Missile that I built in the game to make a land bridge.  Now I have enough space to sneak up on the sea base.  The irony is I just put that fungal tower in the way myself, when I thought it might be good to create fungus to give me an on-island way to sneak up.  I forgot that the site of impact creates a fungal tower.  So now I have to blast it next turn with my own drop troops.  I'm surprised that I was able to move after I dropped, I still don't understand how the rules work for combat units.  I could swear that when I only had the Space Elevator, I couldn't move after I dropped.  Maybe it's a Graviton thing, when you get to be able to do orbital insertions without the Space Elevator.

[bvanevery]

Details smothering Meergard

smothering Meergard

I had to sacrifice a lot of missiles to wear out the Pirates' ODP screen, but I have a lot of missiles.  Almost my entire empire produces them now.  Nothing else really to do, just smother and wait to research the last tech in the tree.  The fungal attacks are especially effective against the Pirates because they haven't yet researched the techs that give you minerals on a fungus square.  Meergard is out of action.  It remains to be seen how long I'll want to keep doing this, as it's a lot of mouseclicks to spend on a city.  It is, however, satisfying to see a city go down like this, and also to wear out their ODPs without great tedium on my part.  I think 1:1 exchange with missiles is much better than 3:1 I was getting attacking with ODPs.

1 of my missiles asked me "Do you want to keep moving?" right as I arrived on site.  It's not easy to tell but there are lots of mindworms on the water where I detonated the missiles.  Can't tell if there are any fungal stalks, maybe not.  These create a physical barrier to more missiles moving in, and the pathfinding of the missiles can get confused.  When I answered "YES" to the question, the missile moved rapidly back and forth between 2 squares, expending all of its movement!  It's not a crisis, as if it doesn't get shot down I can still use it somewhere else next turn, and it's cheap for me now anyways.  But if it were earlier in the game and expensive to produce, I'd be irritated.  The moral is you need to be careful when moving your fungal missiles.

Followup attacks with this turn's missile output, put a 2nd Pirate city out of commission, and all but smothered a 3rd.

[bvanevery]

Details how may I smother thee let me count the ways

how may I smother thee let me count the ways

Do fungal bursts work on deep ocean?  I want to bring the Pirate capitol, Safe Haven, to heel.  It's a pathetic enclave, is totally undeveloped, has hardly any minerals or food.  Still it can be worse!  The AI is stupid enough for not looking for a better site at the beginning of the game, nor for ever relocating the Headquarters.  It should be punished further, and I just want to know if I can actually make it worse for them.

Yes, at their current tech level, it's making it worse.  No resources coming from the tiles at all.  Can I destroy a Pirate sea base with enough fungus around it?  Maybe.

Also interesting, is I think it's converting deep ocean to shelf, without having to do any real terraforming work, and seemingly no Planet unfriendliness!  If true this is an excellent discovery, a side effect worth using much earlier in the game.  Next test commencing.  Yes, a fungal missile converts deep ocean to shelf.  That's a powerful capability!

I'm not sure that a Singularity engine on a fungal missile does any more damage than a Fission engine though.  I'm often only seeing 1 or 2 squares of fungus.  Sometimes it's 4; it seems random.  Something to keep in mind, that the cheapest missile is where it's at.  I haven't looked into the costs because my current mod settings have rendered them trivial, below what almost all of my cities can produce in 1 turn.

Details a capital clod of fungus

a capital clod of fungus

At least as of this turn, I've suppressed all resource gathering.  Maybe they'll shift their squares next turn, or maybe there's nothing to work.  I can't exactly tell.

Details it can harm and heal

it can harm and heal

The Longevity Vaccine is mine.  I also dropped some Behemoths with strength 30 armor while I was at it.  They make a delicious sound when they vaporize entire stacks of units at once.  I used the fungal missile "convert to shelf" trick to turn 2 nonproductive deep ocean squares into usable fungus.  I couldn't get it to work with a 3rd because I have to drop it 1 square away, to keep from harming my kelp square improvements.  The randomness just didn't work out this turn.  I'll try again later.

[bvanevery]

Details interrupted for a turn

interrupted for a turn

MY 2340.  So we all get reset this turn.  Fine, I'll stop strategic bombing everyone with fungus and make some more satellites.  Whatever.  I clearly don't care.  It has one benefit: all of my fungal missiles will get through this turn.

I need this game to further fuel my imagination somehow.  I can buy anything, I can destroy anything.  I had originally thought I was going to do the smothering with Formers, not fungal missiles.  I had imagined raising land or some such.  The orbital spam dynamic has disrupted whatever my game plan was.  Maybe all the strategic bombing will cause it to abate.  But it had better abate soon, otherwise I think I'll just push the "I win" button.  My out-of-game agenda is to figure out how to balance weapons, armors, costs, and engines, and I could stand to do another test game about that.

Details kill the sentient

kill the sentient

Goody.  Don't need Cybernetic anymore.  Fungal minerals are now maxed.  And I'll be finishing the Singularity Inductor next turn, giving me a free Quantum Converter in every base.  What could possibly go wrong?  This is the year that I'm going to try to propose to launch another solar shade.  Seems I last thought about doing that an awfully long time ago, but it's only been a few turns.

Details choke it harder

choke it harder

Seems that only complete fungus coverage will suppress the Pirate capitol.  This is a vanity project on my part.  I want Svensgaard to really suffer in his home enclave.

Details that is better

that is better

Heh, clear that!  Too bad the Pirate AI doesn't evaluate this as getting its ass kicked.  I'd take a Truce but they aren't even talking.

Details a victim of my own success

a victim of my own success

I have launched so many missiles at this city, that I can't even get to the last square producing food.  There are so many mindworms in the way.  I wonder if they all just sink?  Can I make a Sea Fungal Tower?  That would be a good improvement, although I don't think there are any genuinely amphibious units in the game.  Checking... yes, I can make a Sea Fungal Tower.  I don't know if I can get the game to create them when fungal missiles hit water though.  Worth a try.

New strategy: any city building Orbital Defense Pods, gets smothered hard.  A further refinement would be to start building Conventional Missiles to blow apart the Formers trying to un-fungus things.  Maybe if I'm more selective about my targets, I can get ahead of the orbital spamming and end it.  Then my system might reach a steady state.  Previously I was tending to smother the bases closest to my own.  That isn't a bad idea, but this is more strategic.

Details good to be Governor

good to be Governor

So it's possible to Increase Solar Shade every 10 years.  Gonna need it!  Next year I complete the Singularity Inductor.  I could start selling off my factories, starting with the Genejacks, but part of me thinks I shouldn't have to bend to the absurd anti-minerals rules.  I mean, there are enough factory facilities to destroy Planet many times over, and I only built through Robotic Assembly Plants.  What is the point of having so much manufacturing capacity available?  In the standard game, you can't get those factories without also getting the tech for Fusion engines, Quantum engines, etc.  It's just not needed.  Well, more modding conundrums to contemplate.

Did the original developers want to create factories so powerful, that you eventually don't have to do any terrain improvements at all?  That would essentially seem to be, faclities so you can stop playing the game.

[bvanevery]

Details bring me back my fungus

bring me back my fungus

The apparent conversion of ocean deep to ocean shelf by a fungal missile impact, may only be a temporary overlay.  I'll need to look at other sites to see what happened to the fungus I sent them.

Details what the map says

what the map says

This is not exactly the same issue, but the map says one thing about what's been plowed over with fungus...

Details what the city menu says

what the city menu says

...and the city popup menu says something else.  I hope those square improvements in the city menu are phantoms.  Since the city is starving and has no minerals, it could just be a display error.

I was mistaken to fly a missile here anyways, as the square the missile is on is an Ocean square.

Details Pirate bastards

Pirate bastards

What happened?  You saw the previous screenshots, I had this whole base completely covered in fungus.  It took multiple turns to do it too, so fungus doesn't just automatically disappear in Ocean or Ocean Trench squares.  Maybe increasing the Solar Shade did it.  I didn't think that was going to be greater than the global warming taking place though.  Maybe that doesn't even matter, maybe it's the computational act of forcing an update to the simulation.  Whatever.  For now, I will leave Safe Haven alone, since it was a bit missile intensive to completely cover it.  Later I will cover it up again and see if it sticks.  I'd also like to get some sense of whether seas are rising or falling now.

[bvanevery]

Details Roze was right

Roze was right

I realized I can burn money like it's paper, or barrels of oil, so there's no reason to wait multiple turns to shift to a new societal engineering model.  I'm keeping my PLANET rating because it runs the Manifold Harmonics.  I'm keeping my SUPPORT rating just 'cuz it amuses me to have such large cities that can support so many units without needing Clean Reactors.  I don't need RESEARCH anymore.  I don't know if I'll ever buy another unit or base, but if I do, I prefer Dos Equis I want 'em cheap.  Money is no object but Thought Control is the only way to improve PROBE in my mod.  Might as well try it out.  The MORALE boost is amusing on top of already ridiculously overpowered weapons.  "Did I feel a fly land on me?"  If I were just 1 point more Efficient, I wouldn't have to waste money on a 40-30-30 Labs budget, but there's not a way to do it and keep the bennies I want.  All of these shenanigans make me a little heavier handed on POLICE than I need.  Which doesn't matter because I built the Telepathic Matrix awhile ago.  My citizens might look a bit happier until they make the nutrient transition to a fat and happy, full Transcendii society.  Although that's a misnomer, as we never will.

Details smothering mark II

smothering mark II

I've decided that I'm done pushing fungal missiles across the map.  There are way too many units in the way and I keep having to steer around all sorts of obstructions manually to get to target.  It has gotten old.  We're going full bore drop Formers instead.  These at least will not need a flight path to get to target, I can just drop them.  Their limitation is I can't drop them into the sea.  Fungal missiles do have an advantage that way, but it's not presently worth the mouseclicks to me.

Bases that need local improvements, make Cloaked Formers or Cruiser Formers instead.  Cloaks are useful for smothering enemy territory as they can ignore Zones of Control.  Compare Partisans in Civ II.  This is a variant on the strategy of Pillaging.  One thing nice about planting fungus is it's not considered a hostile move, unlike Pillaging.  I think that's a bit of an exploit, but I'm willing to do it to someone I'm under a Truce with.  After all, you can sit on top of a square in Truce territory and deny the enemy the use of the resource, so why not cover it with fungus and move on?  Seems fair.  You want me to stop terraforming harmfully?  Sign a treaty.

My Cruiser Formers are actually equipped with Drop Pods.  No you can't drop them into the sea, I checked, but you can drop them in a coastal land base.  Then you can sail out to wherever you need to go.  It's basically more convenient than the bottleneck of a Psi Gate, and also available earlier in the game with only the Space Elevator.  This is all because I allow Drop Pods on sea units in my mod.  It's only useful in a few situations, but strategic redeployment of a fleet of Formers is useful.  It means you don't have to build the darned things everywhere, you can shuffle them as you complete areas.

All these Formers are also sporting Singularity Shield armor.  Defense 30, not to mention the hit point benefit of a Singularity engine.  I think mindworms might still be able to damage them but nothing else will.  We'll see.

Let the rain of Former terror begin!  Double pun intended.  Let the reign of formal terror begin!

[bvanevery]

Details a modern rifle for every man

a modern rifle for every man

I spent a long time, possibly an hour, upgrading almost all of my units to modern Singularity designs.  I kept old 1-1-1, 2-1-2, and 1-2-1 units to fight mindworms, because it amuses me that they work just fine for that.  I now have a nearly invulnerable standing force that can destroy anything I really want to.  Much of it is highly mobile, able to go anywhere on Planet.  Those which are not, mainly some Behemoths, are already in place in theater.  I have no need to capture any new cities, only to smother anything bothering me.  The one kind of unit I don't have is Gravship anything.  I've wondered if I can terraform with them.  I don't remember Needlejet terraforming actually working.  I will experiment once I get my rain of terrorformers underway.

[bvanevery]

Details Roze is evil but so am I

Roze is evil but so am I

I love hearing Roze spout off about how great it is to be under the thumb of 1 ruler.  We sign a Pact.  She has 2 cities left.  I'm going to put a fungus buffer between her and the Cultists.  Fungus actually helps the Cultists fight, but I'm guessing their tech level isn't high enough to eat it.  I might actually just leave the Drop Formers there as a physical barrier to movement while I'm at it.

Details playing Pac Man

playing Pac Man

I'm realizing it doesn't really matter what I drop at this point.  Things take me either 1 or 2 turns to build.  If I want to collect pods for instance, it can be anything.  I'm going to spend the same number of mouseclicks on dropping regardless.  I would probably get the job done faster, if I cared about that, designing a cheap modern recon unit.  Something that any city can produce in 1 turn.  I think my cities vary in output from 30 to 120 minerals.  I have no reason to build any more factories.

Actually upon reviewing my cities, I think I'll just make a few Cloaked Psi Tanks.  I've hardly ever used the Psi Attack weapon and I'm curious how well a psi attack, psi defense hovertank will hold up against popped mindworms.  These tanks will take some cities 2 turns to produce, but I could just produce them in my most minerals heavy cities, cutting it down to 1 turn.  A side effect of that, is my cities most likely to be hit by mindworms, will have the appropriat anti-mindworm weapon always in production and available.

[bvanevery]

Details what a piece of junk

what a piece of junk

The Psi Attack weapon does not perform particularly well against mindworms.  I took 40% wounds using it to attack, with an Elite unit no less.  Oh good grief, a 2nd such unit took 80% wounds attacking.  I will try a conventional weapon with an Empath Song and an R-Bolt to really stack the deck.  Maybe that's why they added R-Bolts, maybe they realized that the Psi weapon doesn't basically work.

Grav Formers do work!  However land and sea units have a major advantage: with a Singularity engine they can be cheaply armored.  Grav units by comparison are ridiculously expensive to put armor on them.  I could change that, but I need to figure out how armor and chassis cost actually works for air units.

I'm quite shocked that a simple Spore Launcher attacked and destroyed one of my Singularity Artillery pieces.  Psi attacks are a vulnerability no matter the tech level.

Dropping Formers has its own kind of tedium compared to pushing missiles around.  You don't know who's got an Aerospace Complex and who doesn't.  If you drop on an AC or next to an unseen unit, you get the "can't drop" dialog and are recentered on your active unit.  Then you have to scroll back to target all over again.  I don't think there's any solution for this.  If you click on a city to see what it's got, once you exit the UI recenters over the active unit, and you have to scroll again.   This gets real old real fast.  Maybe the "Don't center on units with orders" option can eliminate the base inspection problem, but it can't eliminate the hidden unit problem, so some tedium will never go away.  My compromise is just to drop the Former on some land away from where I want to cause trouble, then move in next turn.  I think it's all going to get pretty old pretty soon, and then I'm not sure what I'll do.  Declare victory?

[bvanevery]

I kicked version 1.14 of my mod out the door.  Some of the changes didn't get playtested before I did that.  Some of those, I justify because I'm actually returning to how the game originally was.  Others, well I hope for the best and that people other than myself will playtest them.  I only accumulated a steady tricke of very minor setting tweaks, until I got to the Fusion / Quantum / Singularity era and realized that huge jump just isn't any good.  I could either take them out of the game, or spread them out like the original game did.  I chose the latter.

I now have a strong incentive to start a new game to test the major changes I didn't expect I'd be making in 1.14.  I'm also not feeling any love for these Drop Formers at all.  Too many mouseclicks.  I think I'd rather build railheads, tedious as that can get.  I don't know exactly what I would actually do, with a clean slate, but I know I feel no point in doing anything now.  Nobody can touch me; they're in a steady state in the hand wavy sense that everyone is "thoroughly suppressed".  I did keep the strength 30 Singularity Shields for 1.14.  I could put blocks and blocks of that stuff down on the map now, but why bother?

Details where the sunspots do not shine

where the sunspots do not shine

Ah crap, for the love of...?  I can't hit the I win button.  Grr, well, what are my options?  Damned if I'm gonna Transcend.  Economic Victory takes 20 turns, sunspots will have lifted before then.  Well since I have no enthusiasm right now, I'm gonna back seat this until I decide what to do.