Passive Aggressive Tactics - SMACX AI Growth mod version 1.46

[bvanevery]

It has taken 2 aborted After Action Reports, to identify the commonality of approach.  I have been after "odd" ways of fighting enemies.  Dusty corners of the game that are not simply the straightforward use of force.  I've surrounded like an amoeba.  I've imagined smothering with units to achieve starvation, although I didn't get around to doing it.  I've wondered at the benefit of a Fungal Missile, spreading unwanted stalks.  A technique I've never used, is releasing mindworms into the wild, to avoid culpability for their damage. Dirty tricks during sunspots.  And can terraforming be used as a weapon?  If you have frenemies, how many different ways can you control them?  Do they even know or understand that they are being controlled?

Details mission control

mission control

Huge map, 30%..50% land mass, average settings, Transcend difficulty.  Random factions, I draw the Caretakers.  I am on a 3 continent world closely resembling a Pangaea.  On such land masses, experience shows that I can expect to have neighbors breathing down my neck almost immediately.  It is best that I get settled right away and start producing units.

Details hello ugly

hello ugly

No Usurpers in this game, I'm only dealing with the humans.  No Pirates, so no particular issues with the oceans.  A mindworm sweep with the Caretakers is pretty much a cakewalk.  Lots of money, lots of quick development of needful things.  I will want to make physical contact with neighbors, even if distant, in order to mess with them.

[bvanevery]

Details walking the fungus

walking the fungus

Mission Year 2109.  I capture my first mindworm larva.  Factions that start the game with +1 PLANET or higher, are scripted to automatically capture the first indigenous life form they encounter.  The same will be true of the first Spore Launcher I encounter.  You're guaranteed to get 1 mindworm and 1 spore launcher.  I'm not sure if Isles of the Deep are similarly guaranteed, but it's certainly likely to happen if I get a ship in the water.  I didn't make that my 1st priority though.  I prefer Recycling Tanks, as it's really easy to get those completed if you're doing all this mindworm sweeping.

Details crash site

crash site

MY 2111.  I have discovered the USS Unity.  Soon I will know, from the bridge manifest, the locations of every faction crash site on Planet.  There will also be a Unity Lifter available, a scouting copter transport with extremely long range.  With it I will rapidly discover huge portions of the map.

Details guaranteed spore

guaranteed spore

MY 2112.  I've got my guaranteed mindworm and spore launcher.  That doesn't mean it'll stop there.  Far from it, you'd be surprised just how many units you can amass with a +1 PLANET rating.  But from now on, captures will be a gamble.

Details humans revealed

humans revealed

MY 2113.  The Spartans are straight south of me, uncomfortably close.  The aggressive way to deal with them, would be to end them immediately.  The passive aggressive way, would be to avoid learning E1 Social Psych for as long as possible.  The Aliens have the option of doing that, and it takes the humans a very long time to learn E3 Progenitor Psych in my mod.  Theoretically, this particular set of factions might never learn it.  The Believers and the Free Drones are the only ones with Explore as part of their research foci.  And they are hybrid researchers, with Explore Conquer and Explore Build Conquer respectively.  Which means they won't easily climb up the Explore part of the tech tree.  So I can talk to the humans whenever I jolly well please.

As I found in my last AAR, a major consequence of diplomatic silence, is I can steal techs with nobody getting mad at me.  I need to beeline for probe teams!

Details lifter sweep

lifter sweep

MY 2117.  My aerial scouting reaches near omniscience.  I suppose that surrounding an enemy with your own cities is very passive aggressive.  I'll be sure to do that.

[bvanevery]

Details raising hell

raising hell

MY 2120.  I think I ruined the Pholus Ridge.  The inland lake is a little smaller.

Details Spartan contact

Spartan contact

MY 2125.  I've been trying to avoid meeting them, but my Scout blundered into one of their Colony Pods.

[bvanevery]

Details massive rushes

massive rushes

MY 2130.  This year I had so much cash from popping pods, that I rushed 4 new Formers.  3 of them Clean.  I should soon have a good road network to bring my nonsense to the Spartans.

[bvanevery]

Details distant neighbor

distant neighbor

MY 2132.  The Cyborgs are on the same continent, but very far to the east.  I won't be in physical contact with them until I've got rails and a lot of Formers.  The Spartans are my own near neighbor.  Aside from them, I'm going to have to think up ways to be passive aggressive at great distances.

[bvanevery]

Details first Isle

first Isle

MY 2140.  Capturing a 1st Isle is not guaranteed like the land units.  I've had plenty of battles already, and I even lost one ship.  Now finally I do have something to scour the oceans and poles with.  Sadly it has capacity 1, so I think 1 of these mindworms will be dead next year.

Details shipping

shipping

MY 2141.  I'm able to dump 1 mindworm on shore and come back next to the 2nd mindworm.  Surprisingly, the 2nd mindworm is able to move 1 space onto my Isle.  I do lose a Clean Synth Foil up north trying to capture and then kill another Isle.  At least I'll be able to attack it with my hatchling Isle and get it bigger.  That will increase its cargo space to 2 passengers.

[bvanevery]

Details inadequate

inadequate

MY 2143.  I actually lost both of my battles with the Isles, so now I have nothing.

[bvanevery]

Details recon

recon

MY 2144.  I sweep the Drones' pathetic little island.  They're going to have a hard time.  Their whole existence is passive aggressive, I hardly think I need to do anything about them.  If I had resources to burn, I could block up their ports with Clean Foils.  That might be a good tactic to use on someone more important.  Someone who will only sign a Truce.

[bvanevery]

Details crowd control

crowd control

MY 2145.  I'm making untrained Synth Police in most cities because I'm growing faster than I'm able to spread.  I haven't had time to make Command Centers yet.

[bvanevery]

Details got another

got another

MY 2149.  I have an Isle again, and 1 mindworm and 1 spore launcher to go with it.

[bvanevery]

Details trifling

trifling

MY 2150.  I infiltrate the Data Angels.  I could steal from them, but I think I still won't be talking for awhile.  I have more Skimship Probe Teams in production.  This one dies though.  Surprisingly, the Data Angels have much less technology than I do.  They seem to have most of a supercontinent to themselves.  Wonder what their problem is?

[bvanevery]

Details the feeble

the feeble

MY 2152.  I infiltrate the Spartans.  They suck.  They don't have any techs worth speaking of.  My team actually survived the mission, so I'll send it on a long journey to the Cyborgs.

Details spartapests

spartapests

MY 2159.  Somehow a mindworm larva has been stirred up.  It wasn't my doing.  The Spartans had a Colonist here last turn.  I think it must have retreated.  Can I herd this larva towards the Spartan bases sitting next to the fungus?  I am not pleased that they spammed a bunch of new bases in this region.  It interfered with the ideal settlement of one of my border cities, to utilize a nutrient resource.  That's no crisis, it just makes me feel really snippy about the Spartans.  I'm rapidly approaching "full" land utilization in my portion of the continent.  Passive aggressive is not about taking things over, let alone invading someone as helpless as the Spartans have turned out to be.  Soon I will need to think about "what to do next".  I'm trying to beeline for Monopole Magnets so that I can connect everything with rails.

Details tolerance

tolerance

MY 2160.  Something got killed.  Maybe that Colonist I saw earlier.  There's no helping moving next to the Spartan base if I want to herd the mindworm.  Gotta protect it from the Spartan units that want to kill it.  Hope this doesn't start a war.  Not that I can't win it, it would be all to easy.  It just interferes with my passive aggressive tactics!  I've got a Plasma unit prototype being worked on though, and plenty of Command Centers.  So I can certainly make the Spartan's life very, very hard if they bother me.  I'd rather put my effort into someone all the way across the map, who can grow into an actual threat.  The Spartans, they started too close to me, guaranteeing their puppet / subservient status.

[bvanevery]

Details lifting

lifting

MY 2162.  I've explored everything in 3 compass directions to the limit of my considerable range.  Only the South remains, and the Spartans are somewhat in the way of that.  Not for much longer, as they never settled the land west of Sparta Command.  I'm about to grab it.  I tend to forget that a Unity Lifter is also useful for moving colonists around in one's home territory before rails are available.  I bring it in from afar, to a city that has 1 Colonist and 1 Scout.  It's got 4 moves remaining so I can at least get it farther down the road than it would be able to do on foot.  Air units can only load and unload in cities, so they're of no use pushing into the hinterlands, but they can certainly bring Colonists to a point of departure in a hurry.

Details unlucky

unlucky

Deep in their own territory, the Cyborgs don't count for my Scout Rover wandering around.  They lose an Artifact because of it.  I generally maintain my territorial boundaries, and I escort Artifacts when they're outside my territory, so that this doesn't happen to me.  Stealing Artifacts definitely counts as passive aggressive!  I should have a point system for all the various kinds of dick moves I can make.  What would my final Passive Aggressive score be?

[bvanevery]

Details runt

runt

MY 2163.  I infiltrate the Free Drones.  They have 2 techs I don't have, including the valuable E2 Centauri Empathy.  I'll be paying them a return visit.

[bvanevery]

Details long spy

long spy

MY 2165.  I infilrate the Cyborgs.  It's not actually that far away by boat.  I just like to think of myself as performing heroics to get the job done.  As one might expect from a RESEARCH oriented faction, they have a few things worth stealing.  I'll be back.

Details so what are the rules

so what are the rules

MY 2166.  I'm about to steal from Domai but I get this message.  Looking at our relationships, I see we have a Truce.  Why?  I've never spoken to him.  This is kind of a bug.  I did see one of his Scouts on my own territory last year.  I wonder if that has something to do with it.  In the last game I played though, I did end up with a Truce with someone I hadn't talked to either.  So I say bug.

Details surrounding Sparta

surrounding Sparta

What will Santiago put up with?