ET Phone Home - SMACX AI Growth mod 1.19

[bvanevery]

You know last I looked, the Aliens use the same farms as anyone else.  Are we really to believe that when they conquer, they instantly run out and start farming completely different stuff?  Farming isn't a 100 year tech either.  White colonists picked up new farming techniques within 1 year of landing in the New World.  I think this Alien lore about their diet is a hand wave, not really expressed as a game mechanic.  If they really had to eat different food, they'd have an "Alien farm, Alien kelp farm, Alien tree farm, Alien hybrid forest."  You don't take over someone's Sky Hydroponics Lab so they're off the hook there.

[Geo]

Since a conquered base starts from pop 1 again, its not unreasonable to assume the farms are replanted with their own foodstuff. By the time population catches up with crops they're up and running again.

[bvanevery]

But that makes they cannot eat each other's food the lamest excuse in the world!  You could literally plant crops side by side for humans and Aliens.  Or if they're toxic to each other, human crops in one field and Alien crops in another.  They just don't want to.  They're like some kind of twisted Illegal Alien politics or something, with chemical weapons on the crops.

One thing the game doesn't really talk about, is whether "farm" means plants, or if animals are included too.  Only Svensgaard talks about harvesting animal protein from the sea.  The "calorie rich sporefish".

[Geo]

'Farm' is a pretty generic term. I can see the Gaians having a mostly plant-based food cycle, while the Morganic farms are more like ranches and pastures (and the Alien 'farms' slimie and yucky).

[bvanevery]

But one thing is clear: they're all depending on organic soil as Earthlings understand it to be.  It might have actually been more interesting, if the Aliens used a lot more fungus in their diet.  That, can actually be implemented fairly easily.  The problem is making farms less nutritious for them.  But the bigger problem is, the game's lore doesn't exactly fit this.  They wouldn't be having interludes about being afraid of fungal stalks, if that was something that grew food for them.

Morganic ranch, lol.  Morgan eats steak!

[bvanevery]

Details insatiable desire to clean oceans

insatiable desire to clean oceans

MY 2275.  What a silly thing to steal before I slam the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm door in Roze's face.  This very turn, I suppose it's her last chance.  You know what?  I'm gonna let her have the Cruiser Former!  Knock yourself out Roze!  Let's see if she's bright enough to turn it into any other kind of unit.  The AI may not be.  Even so, she can't be all that far off from gaining Fusion Power herself.  This is just a totally boring annoying dick move on her part.

Details Aliens are magnanimous to the poor

Aliens are magnanimous to the poor

Well, Caretakers are.  We take care of things.  Really, we do.  We care.

Details just a better person than Roze

just a better person than Roze

This is why I really don't care.  I'm building a fleet to go storm the Usurpers, before they get a bunch of nukes.  Hovertanks in 5 years.

[bvanevery]

Details Mutual Assured Destruction

Mutual Assured Destruction

MY 2279.  I believe I'm the 1st Planet Busting power in the game.  Let me check on that.  Yep!  Marr and Morgan are both working on it.  Nobody else is.  I assume the Cyborgs are too weak to be pursuing such.  I've never infiltrated them, as they now inhabit a large inland sea and there's no ocean access to them.  I could get fancy with a Drop Cruiser Probe, but it's not worth the fleet preparation time.  Onwards to the Usurpers!

I station my nuke in a city that has no Secret Projects.  So if anyone uses their nuke to take out mine, they won't get anything else.

I'm rockin' with the money.  242 credits per year.  2 years until hovertanks.  I'm making a first wave of mindworms to go bother the Usurpers with.

[bvanevery]

Details tweaking Svensgaard

tweaking Svensgaard

MY 2281.  I switch to Power so that my hovertanks will be tough.  Onwards to Advanced Spaceflight, so that I can build a nuke screen against Morgan.

[bvanevery]

Details befriending Miriam

befriending Miriam

MY 2282.  I switch to Fundamentalist to make my hovertanks even tougher, and to get my POLICE rating up so that I don't have to worry about how many units I'm sending from whatever city.  I've done even better than that: now I can use non-lethal Police units and quiet some of my peeps!  The hit on my economy is not as bad as I thought it would be.

[bvanevery]

Details tweaking Morgan

tweaking Morgan

MY 2283.  I decide to fight like a Caretaker instead of count coins like a Morganite.  Surprisingly, going Green only costs me 3 credits per year.  -1 energy at HQ is not a big deal.  I might have liked to grow, but I'll be growing plenty by conquering Usurper bases.  That's part of the point: they won't depopulate the way human bases do.  This will extend my Alien Energy Grid, what we Aliens get instead of Commerce.  Even if those cities don't do anything else, it should make me a lot of money to have so many of them.

Details prepare to blitzkrieg

prepare to blitzkrieg

I complete my 1st Elite hovertank and load it on a Transport with other stuff to bother Marr with.  I have 3 AAA Silksteel Missile ships shelling 3 of his coastal cities, distracting and covering for my approach.  Svensgaard has a minor naval presence in the region but we're not at war.

I forgot to mention that hovertanks come much earlier in my mod.  I think it's pointless to have "interesting" capabilities at the end of the tech tree, as they will rarely get used before the game ends.

[bvanevery]

Details fanatic expenditure

fanatic expenditure

MY 2286.  Miriam volunteers to sign a Treaty with me, citing my religious fervor and gross superiority.  I acquiesce.  How am I to argue with a Church that has 1 credit to its name?

[bvanevery]

Details sea pest

sea pest

MY 2290.  Svensgaard gets snippy!  I suppose I'll need to take another one of his cities to get him to shut up.

Details two front war

two front war

The combo of mindworms and hovertanks is effective against the Usurpers, but they are spamming with garrison units faster than I am resupplying.

[bvanevery]

Details Im a high flyin fool

Im a high flyin fool

MY 2295.  I complete the Cloudbase Academy, which in my mod is given by Advanced Spaceflight and it costs 500.  This will soon be the end of Svensgaard's Needlejet depradations, and I will build a screen against Morganite nukes.

Details bigger better guns

bigger better guns

Many factions are Fundamentalist nowadays.  Most importantly the Morganites, my only real competition for research.  Having achieved tech parity with all the factions, I start cashing Artifacts.  I've seized a number of Artifacts from the Usurpers in addition to my own, so I have a lot to go through.

Details what is a warmonger to do

what is a warmonger to do

I now have a whole pile of Secret Projects to build, which will dampen my war effort for a bit.  That's ok though, because it's really only a stall against the Pirates.  I've managed to deploy a large number of hovertanks against the Usurpers, enough to take and hold the eastern half of his empire.

Details decisions decisions

decisions decisions

I obtain Digital Sentience, Eudaimonia, and Homo Superior, which in my mod make Cybernetic, Eudaimonic, and Thought Control available.  Now I need to figure out how to reorganize my society.  Surprisingly I'll only lose 15 credits / year with Thought Control, so that's what I do.

[bvanevery]

Details persuasion by fungal tendril

persuasion by fungal tendril

MY 2296.  I realized that I have a fungal highway leading straight to the city that Marr is building his nuke in.  For the sacrifice of a few hovertanks, I dissuade him from further production.  If I had had some probe teams on hand, I could have done it by sabotage, but I didn't notice this highway earlier when planning my assaults.

[bvanevery]

Details rend thee low in the gabberwarts

rend thee low in the gabberwarts

MY 2298.  I seize the Manifold Nexus, raising my PLANET rating to +3 and cancelling out my RESEARCH penalty from Fundamentalism.