Thinking about Pirates

[bvanevery]

Details and finally some Aliens

and finally some Aliens

MY 2168.  I bet they suck.

Details jeeeeerrrks

jeeeeerrrks

Well at least I know where my Skimship Probe Teams are going!

Lal didn't want to buy their comm frequency.  I can't blame him.  Roze and Santiago still won't speak to me.

Details don't fear the mindworms

don't fear the mindworms

All of my surviving exploration units are actually Independent.  I also just run away from mindworms whenever I encounter them.  Let's see if I can get an earlier jump on Free Market!  My only intervention plan at present is Skimship Probe Teams, as I'm rather far away from everybody.

Oops, I had 1 Gun Foil out that's not Independent.  Since that's annoying, and it'll probably die sometime, I revert to my saved game.

[bvanevery]

Details I like Lal

I like Lal

MY 2170 to 2171 interturn.  Now we're one big happy human family!

Here's the story, of a man named Lally.  Who was bringing up 3 very lovely girls.  All of them had different hair, like their mothers.  The youngest one in curls.

Here's the story, of a man named Svensgaard.  Who was doin' it in a Children's Creche of his own...

'TILL THE ONE DAY WHEN THIS MIRIAM BLEW HIS HEAD OFF!!!
 
And we knew that it was much more than a hunch!
That this group, would kill a bunch of Aliens.
That's the way we all became the Lally Bunch
THE LAL-LY BUNCH
THE LALLY BUNCH
That's the way... we be-came the Lal-ly Bunch!
 

[bvanevery]

Details goodbye gun foil

goodbye gun foil

MY 2171.  After a very long odyssey to the far corner of the map, at 20% wounds the whole time, the SUPPORTED gun ship finally succumbed to an Isle emerging from a fungally ridden supply pod.  It was nice knowin' ya.

Details my song wasn't wrong

my song wasn't wrong

I go through the motions of speaking to Marsha Lally Miriam the expectant nuke tosser.

Details racial unity!

racial unity!

I'm surprised as a good little Democrat that we actually have something we can agree upon.  Lal is already at war with the Usurpers and simply hasn't pestered me about it yet.  This is a no brainer.

Details gimme stuff, ally

gimme stuff, ally

I mean, you might start liking me better.

Details buying stuff

buying stuff

Hmm, that's probably enough armament to chemically wipe the Aliens out.  If they were anywhere near me, particularly if I saw some sea bases and ships in the water, I'd probably do it.  But right now, logistically there's no profit in it at all.  How will I fight such a long range war against 2 Aliens?

Details the flash point

the flash point

They'll be at war eventually.  But, it's nowhere near me.  Big chunk of land in the way to the northeast of their border.

Details logistically improbable

logistically improbable

I'm not likely to ever have any meaningful impact on the Usurpers at all.  It will probably be Miriam's gig, and she will probably wipe them out.

Details fair stretch

fair stretch

The Caretakers are probably occupying a lot of this black region, and it's between both ends of my empire.  I could probably wipe them out.  Would take a lot of shipping.

Details southern squabblers

southern squabblers

The Spartans and the Data Angels will probably keep each other in check for awhile, if they are still at war and remain so.  The Spartans will eventually get tired of my neutrality and make war on me.  But, by then I don't think they'll have anything effective they can do to me.  Bet I have naval and air power by then.  Even if I don't, they have a lot of surface area I can steal from, and can't hit me with planes.  I've learned from previous games that once I've got Adaptive Doctrine, I don't have to fear anyone's interloping ships.  I'll just board them, even if I lose a Sea Former or two.

Details Lal's continent

Lal's continent

Although Lal could conceivably get into it with the Caretakers, I bet he doesn't.  They just don't have a land interface.  He will expand into this wide open continent, with only Miriam to hold him back.  The question is, when they start fighting, will she be able to do so?  And I don't want her tromping Lal too much, because then she'd just become the game's nukeing monster.  Definitely a balancing act to perform here.  At least if Lal, Miriam, and Marr start tossing nukes, they probably won't hit me.

Yeah.  All things considered, totally wiping out the Caretakers sounds like a reasonable preliminary plan.

Details make mo money

make mo money

But for now, I think Free Market is best.  Need to build up my military capabilities.  Adjusting my budget to 40-20-40 keeps people happy.

[bvanevery]

Details didn't expect this

didn't expect this

MY 2173.  I thought I had the oceans to myself.  I have a nation of untrained Scouts.  My few Gun Foils, they're off exploring.  I have no answer for this.  I hope it doesn't do something disastrous.

[bvanevery]

Details I hate this

I hate this

MY 2174.  If this keeps up in force, I will quit, and not bother with any further Pirate testing.  It's totally obnoxious to have one's cities ruined like this.  Worse with an Alien involved is that they'll depopulate.

I often get the feeling that it doesn't cost the AI that much money to do this to me either.  In various games, including my own mod, I've spent a lot of time checking on that.  If I thought it was prohibitively expensive for the AI to do it, and that this was just an extremely irritating harassment that they can't keep up, well then I might not mind it so much.  But having to build lots of probe teams when you thought you were geographically isolated, is an exceedingly, exceedingly tedious game.

I'm well aware of even the stock binary's obsessions with taking over sea bases, if you enable foil probe teams.  My mod does so.  I used to play on what I've defined as Enormous maps, which are larger than Huge.  'Enormous' is the largest map with a correct aspect ratio, that one can guarantee the stock binary's faction placement algorithm won't be buggy.    Like won't leave you or another faction on a size 1 island.  Even on a map that big, the AI would obsess about sending a foil probe all the way across the map to take your city over.   You could exploit that to gain infiltration and a tech, before liberating your city.  But it's still annoying, and you'll never do it yourself as a human, because it's so tedious to push a ship that far.

Sea base mind control obsessions are bad enough, that I wouldn't have considered a Pirate empire of this size, viable under my mod.  That said, I've also toned down this sort of thing quite a bit.  Mind control costs double in my mod.  That means in practice, there's a certain radius from your capitol where they really can't get away with this, and it's seriously expensive if they do try to take something.  So it's not likely to be anyone's habit.  The AI might blow their life savings on a deeply irritating move, but you won't be dealing with it much overall.

In Thinker though, if I don't have a reasonably large physical space to command, I know I'm going to be dead later.  I seriously dislike the need to "get things off the ground, up and running", when the AI seems to have such tremendous advantages over me in this regard.  The odd thing is my earliest colonization spread actually seemed to be better than that of the AIs I could see.  That said, Miriam is clearly "Thinker monstrous" and I just don't happen to be near her.

If Infinite City Sprawl means AI opponents can just radiate probe teams non-stop, then I'm done.  Won't necessarily conclude that Thinker is broken, but that the original game is broken and Thinker exploits it.  I've modded for 3.5+ years to not have to deal with this kind of garbage.

I think there's a very minimal set of binary improvements I'd really like to have, and pretty much top of that list, is overhauling probe team rules.  Back in the day, it was responsible for 50% of my rage quits against the game.  Ultimately leading me to destroy 2 paid copies of SMAC, in more ancient times.  A love hate relationship, and an awful lot of it was about probe teams.  And they weren't even foil probe teams!

[bvanevery]

Details Miriam gets trashed

Miriam gets trashed

MY 2175.  Meanwhile, Miriam loses another city in the vicinity of the Garland Crater.  Don't call me that sad!  Maybe her getting trashed out of the game, will be a good thing.  The Usurpers would become scary, but they'll probably nuke Lal first.  Everyone can agree to use chemical weapons on Aliens so cleaning up that mess might not be so bad.  Great theory.  Let me know if it has any relevance at all in the end.   

Details chatty Roze

chatty Roze

She's had nothing to say for all this time.  Why is she suddenly bugging me on the inter-turn?

Details a Truce is a Truce

a Truce is a Truce

More carping about Sparta.  I don't care, and I've got my own problems.  If you wanted more concern, you could have kept your comm open previously.  Won't trade a tech, won't sign a Treaty.  She buggers off.

[bvanevery]

Details what you got

what you got

MY 2176.  Surprisingly, she has very little.  Field Modulation and Gene Splicing.  I guess Directed Research ain't so much, at least not for the Caretakers.  I've noticed in other games that the Usurpers seem to do a lot better than the Caretakers.  I think it's because they're more aggressive and munge all kinds of territory.  Still, Aliens are known for their intermediate tech stagnation.  I don't even force mine to be Planned.  I do have my Caretakers as Socialist, but my Socialist is +2 JUSTICE, not -2 EFFIC.  They do get -1 ECONOMY though.

[bvanevery]

Details might be new this year

might be new this year

MY 2177.  I thought I only saw 2 techs I didn't have.  Maybe I was sloppy.  Well, slightly more to steal then.

Details I dunno

I dunno

I'm making Synth Laser Skimships but I wouldn't exactly call it an invasion force.  Kinda need more intel.

Details what does my base cost

what does my base cost

I guess they're not Fundamentalist.  Hm, Democratic Planned.

[bvanevery]

Details silly settlement

silly settlement

MY 2178.  I don't think settling a base with your Sea Escape Pod is much of an idea.  It just gives me an easy way to steal another tech, before killing the base.  Granted, I don't actually have a ship that can attack it immediately this turn, and the AI may know that from cheating.  But it still seems pretty dumb.  If I were in their shoes, I would run like hell to try to lead units away.  I'd just accept that my death was inevitable and that's all I could do with the unit, is distract the enemy ever so briefly.  Better than handing over another tech, or my map.

Details doubly foolish

doubly foolish

Actually because the AI is Democratic and has -2 SUPPORT, this is going to be a sail-in next year.  There was no point to this maneuver at all.  It gave me Field Modulation.

Details subtlety of Free Market defense

subtlety of Free Market defense

I forgot that putting my ship right next to their newly founded base, is in their waters, not mine.  So now I've got unhappy people for a turn.  I'll try to be more cognizant next time.

Details to put them right

to put them right

Making everyone a Medic was all I could do.  With this sort of thing, I definitely don't feel like a great and powerful empire yet.

[bvanevery]

Details successful defense

successful defense

MY 2179.  I correctly anticipated that the AI would come around the land and through the fungus at the same place again, and try the same shenanigans.  I put the one skimship probe team available at the correct place.  And I have the Laser Foil to blow the enemy probe team out of the water.

Details no armor

no armor

In the other direction, there's the problem of a ship with a bigger gun coming through.  It's no problem once my Synth Laser Foils are in striking range, but I have to make sure that these ships don't get first strike on my bases.  That's a bit of a problem when you can't put your navy out to sea, in territory you don't control.  I think Call To Power 2 had sea buoys that would extend your territorial influence?

Details not worth paying for

not worth paying for

It would actually be cost effective to buy this enemy ship.  But then it would probably be Homed to one of my nearby bases, and would make my citizens unhappy.  Not worth it.  I will retreat and take this ship out when it gets into my own territory.  I suppose there could be a problem of distance transition, where I will still make people unhappy with my own ship just barely outside my waters.  It's a problem.  This is why I built a Copter in one of my games, because it could return to base the same turn after striking.

Details ok come whichever

ok come whichever

If the AI is straightforward "beeline dumb", it will arrive in my waters before it can attack my bases.  So it will be summarily killed.  I've positioned my probe teams to see where it goes.  If I don't see it, then I'll assume it tried to be tricky going into the fungal patch, or started acting weird and didn't beeline.  In those cases, I'll retreat further.

[bvanevery]

Details plan is working

plan is working

MY 2180.  It dies next year.

Details AI rut

AI rut

This is how you "profit" in most 4X games.  AIs tend to do very predictable things when pathfinding over terrain.  You identify their recurrent route of movement, or pattern, such as "going 2 squares forward" and having to start or stop on Rocky terrain or something.  Soon enough you find the area of weakness, the "kill zone", that the AI is going to walk through over and over again.  You camp your defense on the edge of such a zone, and you kill stacks as they come.

An AI that slightly randomized their movement, even at the expense of strict speed to target, would be more effective.  On the other hand, it's fun for the human player to kill the AI because its movement is stupid.  So I'm not sure how high a priority such an AI improvement is.

Details hook me up Lal

hook me up Lal

I might be getting a free ship next year!

[bvanevery]

Details don't die, scum!

don't die, scum!

MY 2181.  More stuff to blast the enemy.  Does this mean I've successfully prototyped my Impact weapons?

Details thou shalt prototype

thou shalt prototype

Nope.  Guess I cough something up somewhere.  I'm kinda busy trying to make this growing population happy.

[bvanevery]

Details more interloping

more interloping

MY 2182.  Free probe team next year?  My 2183.  No, it died.

[bvanevery]

Details that's nuts

that's nuts

MY 2190.  One Democrat fighting another.  Joy.  Against Miriam, I could understand.  You are allowing yourself to get pointlessly distracted.  He says both Roze and Miriam are at fault for their wars.

[bvanevery]

Details weirdo

weirdo

Roze bothers me again.  I say, hey gal.  Like, knock off.  Aliens and stuff.  She don' say groovy.  She say, So Be It!

Details which kind of alien

which kind of alien

Surprisingly, with this boost, I can finish the Planetary Energy Grid!