The Clean Death of Us All - SMACX AI Growth mod version 1.52

[bvanevery]

Details beating up the transcendi

beating up the transcendi

MY 2397.  I certainly didn't expect the Cyborgs to finish the tech tree.  Their empire has been runted for quite some time.  Well maybe it's glorious cooperation with Morgan.  I might have to put on my roleplaying hat one last time.  It's been quite a lot of careening around between narrative concerns and just, oh good Lord, getting the game actually done.  Aki you're wearin' me out gal!

Details mother of all mothers

mother of all mothers

Citizens Against Progress be damned.  I think it's time to spend all my money on just killing everybody.  This is the most expensive boondoggle I can come up with.  It costs more than a Secret Project at the beginning of the game.  Is it a conceivable upgrade proposition now?

Details I'll take 3

I'll take 3

The problem with roleplaying made-up political lobbies like Citizens Against Progress, is it imposes a real time cost on me writing up an AAR.  I've spent a lot of time playing with one hand tied behind my back, as opposed to what I could actually do with all the money I've got.  Now maybe that makes for a more interesting AAR.  I dunno, one of you readers would have to actually tell me that.  For all I know, only Buster's Uncle is actually reading.  Now though, with other factions actually threatening to Transcend, it's time to switch gears and pull out all the stops.

Details goodbye freak ship

goodbye freak ship

I was never that impressed with the psi gravship design.  Maybe I wasn't fair to it.  I don't know about air units, but for ground units, I think the psi weapon is too cheap.  I plan to up its cost, along with my other mod changes, and do another AAR.  Maybe one with an excuse to test psi more?  Like as Deirdre.

Details eggs for a bunny rabbit

eggs for a bunny rabbit

Although I've got enough money to upgrade the vast majority of my gravships to BHGs, I don't really want to commit my cash to a hugely expensive weapons platform that's not field proven.  So this will be the last chunk of BHG gravships that I buy.  I think the rest are getting upgraded to some kind of Wave R-Bolt, as they're probably a lot cheaper.  They might do just fine in a lot of circumstances.

Details a bargain

a bargain

I didn't realize a lot of my gravships only had Quantum reactors on them.  In fact, did I just make another coffee mistake?  I rescind my confirmation and check again.  No, it's ok.  The Wave design has a Singularity reactor on it.  Soon we'll see if I should have been fighting with Wave ships.  Wave is expensive when designing a unit, so it's not an obvious decision.  But this upgrade was awfully cheap, only 60 credits per unit.

I know I've got the Nano Factory helping with that, but even 120 credits is nothing compared to absurdist BHG upgrades.  This almost feels like an upgrade exploit.  I guess we'll see.  I don't remember playing any game where I had a serious reason to bring out the BHGs.  I suppose it could be argued, including this one!  I had to deliberately hem and haw about winning to manufacture the circumstance where they might actually be needed.

[bvanevery]

Details cute little ECM unit

cute little ECM unit

First order of business is stealing the last tech and putting Aki back in her place again.  Although maybe it's a formality at this point and she's just gonna keep attacking every year.  Although it may look like I only have hovertank units in my home territory now, and that an ECM unit might be a good choice, this forgets about that Conventional Missile I held in reserve.  It didn't really have a good target, and now it does!

Details mopping up

mopping up

Almost all of my probe teams went abroad, for reasons that proved fruitless.  But I kept a couple of amphibious probe teams in reserve, in case Zhakarov acted up.

Details quieting Aki

quieting Aki

I'm not sure why we're gonna keep up with this pretense.  She calls me wimp.

[Buster's Uncle]

 

[bvanevery]

Cool, thanks for checking in on these final laps of the race!

Details works against the weak

works against the weak

Even a fairly wounded Wave R-Bolt gravship will smash up an AAA defender that only has a Fusion reactor.  In future games I don't think I'll be standing on roleplaying principle.  Abundant, properly armed gravships would have won this awhile ago, and honestly I had plenty of Empath citizens to keep my population in line.  Where's the democracy in that?  Just beam happy thoughts into the public...

Oh, and the "apparent" difficulty of the engagement, promoted my unit to Elite as well.

Details big test

big test

This is the 1st firing of the expensive BHG gravships.  It will probably go well, but it's only a Quantum defender.  I've pretty much run out of drop hovertanks to take out the hordes of puny mindworm spam in various places.  Psi tanks actually hold up rather poorly after orbital insertion and I've lost at least 2 to mindworm base defenders, maybe more.  I won't make any more of those and need to come up with a different 80 minerals design.

Details door buster

door buster

I have enough Psi Gates now, that I probably don't need all my units to be Drop capable.

Details casual genocide

casual genocide

The last of the hated horse-faces have been inconsequentially put to death.

Details wavering

wavering

This is all that's left of the southern portion of Cha Dawn's empire.  Next year it'll probably be united with my occupation to the north and everything from north to south, swept out.  Cha Dawn still has a large land to the west, but it is sparsely populated with not much of a rail system.  Such a hinterland is unimportant.  Even the Cyborgs are a better target than that.

Details Morganic south

Morganic south

2 of these cities contain Morgan's last secret projects.  I don't expect them to last next year either.  The Citizens' Defense Force, in particular, will finally go down.  That will allow my probe teams to destroy his Perimeter Defenses, if I so choose.  I actually have Blink Displacer technology available to me now, as in my mod it's at the very end of the tech tree.  However it is expensive and probably unnecessary.

Details knock yourself out Aki

knock yourself out Aki

The Cyborgs could in principle complete the Voice of Planet, but in practice it will never happen.  I don't think she can resist attacking me again, and obviously, this will be the 1st thing on my list to make her back off.  Earlier I imagined doing some big roleplay about how awful Transcendence is, when someone finally got to this point.  But this is one whopper of an After Action Report and I really just want it over.  Suffice it to say, Lal would rather just own Planet as its leading democrat.

Details resonant thought

resonant thought

I'll probably buy the Telepathic Matrix in a few years for a big wad of cash.  I really don't need to prevent people from rioting, they're all pretty much fine.  The big cities have so many Transcendi as to be self-sustaining.  The smaller, newly conquered cities, I really don't mind making some nice stuff for them.  I don't need any kind of overwhelming number of units to finish this up, my current production is fine.  I blew half my money on the BHG upgrades and they're pretty much good for task.  I haven't really taken on a Singularity defender yet, but even if I lost gravships, I have a wave of BHG and Singularity Infantry that will be completed soon.  That will surely be enough to stomp the northeastern portion of Morgan's empire.

[bvanevery]

Details give me some credit

give me some credit

I just realized my income is now so high, I can afford to pay those ridiculous prices on base takeovers.  I definitely don't have anything else I could possibly do with the money.  I don't remember it being quite this high before.  Maybe it's a Transcendi effect.

Details not so bad

not so bad

I mean, what does the Telepathic Matrix even cost, if you've got enough minerals into it?  I think you only need 4 lines of minerals to overcome the rush penalty, so next year, I'll find out.  It's probably gonna be cheaper than this!  But money just doesn't matter anymore.

Details gouge me so

gouge me so

I don't know if I find this convenient, or completely silly.  It's certainly incredibly wasteful.

Details why coitanly

why coitanly

The 3 bases are The Three Stooges.  Cha Dawn's mindworm comedy.

Details upgrade fantasy

upgrade fantasy

I'm doing so well that I'm actually running out of garrison units.  The AAA Fusion units I've captured could stand to become something more immediately useful.  This is my design for something that can clobber the mindworms generally wandering around the bases.  I do mind control some of them when I take a base, but for some reason, not necessarily all.  Plus they're just such a swarm everywhere.

Details weirdly orphaned design

weirdly orphaned design

I'm not sure why, but that upgrade only affected 1 of my AAA Photon Fusion garrisons.  I have 3 remaining, and they have no unit design associated with them now.  I've used them as glorified Scouts against some mindworms.  If they die they die.

[bvanevery]

Details flying Santini

flying Santini

MY 2398.  It is the Aerospace Complexes, not the Perimeter Defenses, that are now a barrier to my BHG gravships.  I can use probe teams to destroy them.  It's a pity that almost all of them left the region.  Fortunately this one succeeds at its mission, although it dies.

Details winded

winded

I overestimated the endurance of my BHG gravships.  They were too wounded to take much of anything.

Details downloaded

downloaded

However I was able to blow out the Cyborg homeland, because a fair number of the gravships I upgraded to BHG, were in this region.  Also Aki had mostly not made AAA defenders.

Details clipped

clipped

The Cult has been vanquished from north to south, but one of the land bridges sunk.  Obviously I haven't been relying on it, with all the drop troops, nor do I have enough Formers to put a rail in there anyways.  The game plays quite differently ever since I made mag tubes more expensive.  Previously by this point in the game, I'd have rails touching everything.  Now even a single broken rail is highly disruptive.

Details spend da money

spend da money

I've moved everything that can shoot well, so now it's time to buy. 

Details so cheep

so cheep

I forgot all about the Telepathic Matrix.  I just want Aki off of my peninsula.  I don't have enough money now to complete it.  It would cost around 5k.

[bvanevery]

Details drubbing

drubbing

MY 2399.  One problem with administering a big empire, is you're not likely to have built enough Sensor Arrays while in the middle of conquest.  I totally missed a few of these mindworms.  In fact I even found another one while typing this up.  I don't think they trashed any of my city facilities, but they did trash my defender.  It's a good thing I otherwise swept the Cyborgs out of the region, or they might have gotten a walk-in.

Details overloaded commands

overloaded commands

It's quite unfortunate that 'L' is the preferred command for "wait for my unit is fully healed up before telling me about it again".  It's also how you load a transport.  Consequently, my big plan to ride a Singularity Infantry up to the side of this base was foiled, because I'd accidentally loaded a wounded unit into it.  Nothing to do but park and use it as covering armor I suppose.

Details continental kick

continental kick

I took a vast swath of Cultist territory, because it was closest to my gravships.  Many of them were wounded and the Cult is really the only one weak enough to kick around.  Frequently I'd take a base and then fly in a wounded gravship to heal it up, often successfully using the right click "Activate Unit" trick from the captured base screen, to continue its movement.  After taking the base, I'd bring wounded drop hovertanks to clean up mindworms surrounding the base.  Sometimes they died, but most of them lived.  I think performance when wounded, proved that R-Lasers and Empath are the way to go with the lower cost designs.  Also that Empath is too powerful for its price, so in the future in my mod I'll be knocking it down to a +25% bonus.

Details pay for brain

pay for brain

This year I remember to buy the Telepathic Matrix.  It costs me less than 1 year's income!  The rest of my money, probably will get spent on various facility upgrades.  The Cyborgs are down to sea bases, and I don't particularly feel a need to own those.  I trashed the Cult so easily this year with understrength units, and even wiped out a lot of their mindworm spam, that I don't feel any need to buy the rest of their bases.  I can't buy Morganic bases.

[bvanevery]

Details don't fear the mindworm

don't fear the mindworm

MY 2400.  I sure missed this one last year.  Another lack of Sensor Arrays problem.  But I'm hardly going to spend my time terraforming the entire map at this point in the game.  Geosynchronous Satellites can help with this sort of thing maybe?  But there are still a lot of facilities to build, even with the Telepathic Matrix, so I get to it when I get to it.

Details carry me

carry me

Here's the 'truck' in action.  Moves up next to the base and provides armored cover, while unmoved passenger gets ready to fire away.

Details weakening

weakening

I previously peppered the defenders with some drop artillery, although that piece has actually been sitting around healing up for awhile.  Hopefully by weakening the mindworms, they won't be selected as defenders.  If they are, then my plan is undone and big weapons won't be worth much.  Everything would need to become an Empath unit in that case.

Details close combat

close combat

My artillery barrage worked!  Although I wonder if it would work as well if I didn't have the Dream Twister.  Unfortunately this is going to be a suicide mission.  But shooting at heavily armored defenders is exactly the task this unit was designed for.  Albeit a bit cheaply, as I didn't want to wait around for a Black Hole Gun.  I need to take out this base to get to the Citizens' Defense Force, which is at the next base down the road.  After that, I'll be able to smash up Perimeter Defenses with probe teams.  Of course by then, the game may be over.

Details damage assessment

damage assessment

That was a pretty good blasting.  It did all it could without actually winning.  I'd say any old gravship should be able to mop up now.  I wonder if a 10% Singularity defender would still select against an R-Laser?

Details psi twombly

psi twombly

I had one of the few remaining psi tanks ready to go, so I clear out the mindworms with it.  Even with only 2/3rds moves remaining, it also takes out the nearly dead AAA unit.

Details money money money

money money money

I heal a BHG gravship and continue its movement with the right click Activate Unit exploit.  Well, is it an exploit?  Who says I should have to terminate my movement just because I landed in a base anyways?  I think I'll call it a workaround.

[bvanevery]

Details now you die quickly

now you die quickly

A fully healed BHG Empath Wave gravship can make short work of 1 AAA Singularity defender, even if that's all it's gonna be able to do.  Actually I only took 30% wounds from that.

Details let the probings begin

let the probings begin

Once again I'm able to heal a BHG gravship, although this time for whatever reason, it fails to continue its movement.  With the ability to destroy a Perimeter Defense, Morgan will have a much more difficult time resisting me.

Details another suicide run

another suicide run

I continue the debacle of last year's bad Drop Transport movement.  It did actually do its job as covering armor though, taking 70% wounds against a mindworm assault.  Surprisingly, the Singularity Infantry prevails in its battle, although the defender was only a Quantum unit.  I heal another BHG gravship but again can't continue it's movement.  I'm starting to suspect that if I enter the base using a mouse drag command, the unit gets a 'G' designation on it and that stops the right click trick from working.  So I might have to enter the base with a keystroke.

Details look at the mindworm spam

look at the mindworm spam

I switch theaters as it's becoming difficult to find drop hovertanks for the mindworm cleanups.  I take 1 more Cultist base but this might be the limit of what I can manage this year.  I'm able to successfully heal a BHG gravship and continue its movement by approaching the base using a cursor key instead of a mouse drag, then immediately when the captured base screen pops up, right clicking to Activate Unit.  I don't need BHG gravships to wipe out Cha Dawn, so they will fly north without engaging with anything, to go deal with Morgan.

[bvanevery]

Details probably will lose this movement

probably will lose this movement

Just because I could knock out a Perimeter Defense or Aerospace Complex with a probe team, doesn't mean I actually have one in theater available to do it.  Probe teams don't count as combat units when doing orbital insertion, they just stop their movement.  Thus, I've never bothered to build drop probe teams, as they aren't really any better than ground teams anyways.  Constantly repositioning probe teams for possible ground assaults is a chore, so I haven't done it.  I certainly had no incentive to do it before I took the Citizens' Defense Force, and that only happened this year.  This is a very long AAR with multiple days put into it, so it's not like I remember "prepare to take the CDF" as an imperative when I start playing again.

This base had an Aerospace Complex, preventing me from dropping various ground troops on it to heal it.  I also made the mistake of trying to drop a badly wounded hovertank nearby and drive it in, forgetting that badly wounded means only 1 movement left.  So, I brought this gravship up from pretty far to the south, to get some healing.  Along the way various impediments distorted its movement.  By the time it arrived, it had to approach on a diagonal with a mouse click drag in order to complete the mission.  When arriving in base, this is why you see a 'G' displayed on the unit.

I predict that right click to get the menu, and then Activate Unit, is not gonna work this time.  Yep, didn't work.  I think that 'G' has gotta get set to blank '-' no order, for it to work.  And that may not be possible.

[Vidsek]

It's a bit belated (sorry), but here's evidence *someone* has been following and enjoying this AAR

Tedious as it might be for you, the end-game play is particularly interesting since so few games last that long or are continued once that reach that point.

[bvanevery]

Cool, thanks for patronage!  I think that makes us a quorum.

Yeah I don't remember actually having to try to do anything, this late in the game.  Granted, I roleplayed to arrive at this circumstance.  And granted, I categorically refuse to Transcend in this game, except for roleplaying someone who's lost their mind.  Planet should die.  If I were ever to rewrite this game, and that's unlikely, I'd have the option to kil dis ting ded.  Morgan would do it, Zhakarov would do it, Santiago would do it....

Well, the fact that I actually had to try in some respects, says that I did more or less balance a lot of the weapons and armor.  12-Res is pretty tough armor.  I'm not sure the AI is ever realistically going to get the chance to use anything more powerful than that though.  I wonder what the AIs do if actually allowed to continue?  They've proven that they're capable of finishing the tech tree by MY 2400, and I've seen that demonstrated in other games as well.  Less clear to me, how long it takes them to Transcend, and if they are capable of advanced warfare.  I could turn off Transcend victory, extend the year limit, and run an AI vs. AI game.  See what happens.

[bvanevery]

Details truck exploit

truck exploit

Singularity Infantry work well against a 12-Res Singularity defender.  There used to be one standing on that patch of empty ground.  The heavy drop hovertank transport worked great, just rolled my unit right out to where it could shoot.  But putting it back onto the truck was a bit more of a challenge.  Clicking on the unit itself doesn't get you anywhere, you can't give it any commands after it's moved.

Details base command

base command

Here's the exploit or workaround, whatever you want to call it.  You can give commands to a unit from its home base.  You just right click on its image in the SUPPORT window and give it orders.  I told it to Load.  Hey presto, it's on the ground transport now.  Hmm, I wonder if this could be exploited for air transport?  You're only supposed to be able to do that in cities.

Details retreat step

retreat step

Note that a hovertank transport gets a movement penalty compared to a regular hovertank, so it only gets 2 moves.  That's still enough to step 1 square out of a base, unload unarmored infantry, attack with infantry, use the base command workaround to Load the infantry, and retreat with it back into the base.  This preserves drop capability for next turn.

Is it overpowered?  I'm not sure.  I'd have to try to make use of it earlier in the game, and see if it's a big advantage compared to its cost.  It does avoid ECM penalties, and the survivability should be better if the transport is armored.

[bvanevery]

Details gated address

gated address

I drove overland to get to this base, only to realize it had a probe team defender.  I brought in another probe team through a Psi Gate, only to realize it wasn't on the rail system and it arrived with 2/3rds movement.  I attacked anyways, and the Nethack Terminus and Telepathic Matrix are awesome enough, to blow up an enemy probe team anyways.  And thus I was able to take out the Perimeter Defense.

Details flimsy scientists

flimsy scientists

The irony of all these drop ships is I've already vanquished all the Morganic stuff that matters.  The most immediate Morganic objectives are adjacent by rail.  I'm lacking artillery to beat up mindworm defenders with.  So I pick on an easier target.  The University got uppity with me this year, who knows why.  Easily conquered, he signs my Truce.  I wonder if they'll be just like everyone else and never make peace?

Details buyout

buyout

I have almost no unwounded anti-mindworm units left, so it's time for money.  I had 1 hovertank probe team in the area, but it did not have enough moves to get to this base without assistance.  I had to wastefully use a gravship to blow up a Former that was in the way.  I could have just wiped out the AAA defense with that, if only I had anti-mindworm units.  I don't think I even have another gravship with sufficient health at this point.  Then the probe team had to take out 2 cruiser probe teams in the base.  Its movement expended, I'll have to bring another team in.

Details oh come on man

oh come on man

I'll pay it this time, but I could probably upgrade to some absurdly spiffy units for that kind of money.

Details SURRENDER!

SURRENDER!

Ha ha!  Who knew that would be the threshold?  I sure hope they can't betray me for this.  I'm going to assume they can't, that the game isn't that malevolent.  I suppose our ideological compatibility allows for the surrender, although I'm not sure that's required.  If it helps though, then it would be good to go after Zhakarov next.  Assuming he's the same kind of backstabber as everyone else.

[bvanevery]

Details uplifting

uplifting

If Zhakarov betrays me, then I'm going to lift his bases onto land so they're easier for my existing forces to conquer.  I can't see bothering to make a navy or Marines at this point.  They would be slow, and I've only got 1 more year to play before my Supreme Leader vote.  I've prepositioned my existing Singularity Tectonic Missile to hit somewhere in Zak's core territory, and I've got 2 more coming next year from my biggest whoppingest cities.

Details reconnecting

reconnecting

I can get these 3 cities out of the water with 1 missile.  2 of my cities would no longer be coastal bases, but 2 of Zhakarov's cities would become coastal bases.  I position my overpowered drop troops in 3 nearby cities.  They were meant to fight Morgan, but getting Zhakarov to surrender is slightly more valuable, or at least entertaining.

Details display error

display error

OMG!    When I gated my Singularity Hovertank Probe Team into this base, it was the only unit displayed.  I freaked!  Where did my expensive new units go??  Well scrolling around and coming back to it, it started displaying correctly again.  I was worried that I'd found some kind of nasty Psi Gate bug.  It's a bug, for sure, but I hope it's harmless.