Thinking about Pirates

[bvanevery]

Details it's not better

it's not better

It's as I feared.  To the northwest is deep ocean, which is not immediately useful to the Pirates in any way.  Even when they finally do gain Advanced Ecological Engineering and can work the Ocean squares, only Ocean Shelf yields the bonus +1 mineral.  If you get into a catastrophic global flooding scenario, it does actually impact the Pirates.  Ocean Shelf turns into Ocean and then Deep Ocean.  You're losing minerals, and I'm pretty sure they can't work Deep Ocean, they have to raise it.

So from a "make a perfect circle" standpoint, this is not a great starting location.  My radius of expansion is limited.  I don't know about Thinker's world generation, but The Will To Power takes the "out" of making a lot more shallow water available.  I didn't.  You usually get the mix of shallow and deep like a real ocean, which means that all ocean is definitely not created equal.

Details settle down Beavis

settle down Beavis

Foils move 5 in my mod, and Cruisers move 8, so I can knock off 1 more black square before taking what's been handed to me.  I don't see the potential to do any better.  I might also have to accept "smallpox" in a tight area with few resource specials, if I want to retain perfect circle-ism and not be dragged into dependence on the coast.  Do I need to focus on getting violent with the coast?  In my last game, I found myself pretty much utterly unable to focus on violence at all.  Just getting the empire going was this massive struggle, and I had all the shallow ocean I could ask for to do it.  Of course this time we're using my tech tree, not stock, so it might be easier.  I don't exactly give away Doctrine: Initiative though.

Details feed me Seymour

feed me Seymour

I'm thinking that staying away from the coast is unrealistic in this location.  I just don't have the room.  Resource specials are going to be where they are.

[bvanevery]

Details fighting circumstance

fighting circumstance

MY 2102.  Most games playing my mod, I would just stick with the faction's default research priorities forever.  That's part of how I test whether their usual path through the tech tree, actually works.  But this game I'm not trying to test my own work.  I'm trying to beat Thinker.  Is this research path optimal for beating up an AI, that is way more aggressive about colonization and terraforming, than the stock binary?

Details expect violence

expect violence

Adaptive Doctrine is a pure Conquer tech in my mod.    Doctrine: Initiative is primarily Conquer but cross-listed with Explore.  In terms of more immediate needs, Social Psych is primarily Explore and secondarily Build.  I don't have to worry about Democratic quite so much, because my Pirates don't have -1 EFFIC or -1 GROWTH.  Nobody gets to grow like crazy either for the most part, as only Fundamentalist gives an early GROWTH bonus.  Non-Lethal Methods is also available earlier in my mod, so even if I freakishly never got Rec Commons for awhile, there's a way to survive it.

Maybe I'll end up missing something here, or regretting it, because this is not the usual way I do things.  But I'm not going through a repeat of Lal stomping a bunch of my coastal settlements.  Probe teams in my mod are Conquer techs too.

Details standard completion scumming

standard completion scumming

In my mod, Clean Reactors are available from the start of the game.  This is the best kind of free unit to get immediately, so that I can find some Artifacts in the water.  And also, to get a few Scouts onto land.

Immediate Clean Reactors are a great thing with the stock binary.  It solves all kinds of problems with early AI performance.  In the hands of Thinker though, it could utterly kill me.  We'll see!  Notice that in my SE table, you can't get SUPPORT bonuses, except for Socialist.  That's the only way.  2 factions have a SUPPORT bonus, the Believers and the Morganites.  That's it.  Somewhere down the line, you could build The Living Refinery.  You'll already be in space by then.  I couldn't abide putting it earlier, because the video for it shows asteroid colonization.  So, it occurs at a fairly useless point in the game.  Nobody cares about SUPPORT when you've got big belching minerals factories.

I have to design this unit because in the stock binary, if I were to predefine it, the AI would totally obsess all over it.  It would very much ruin early Pirate productivity, when the AI is playing it.  A bit later on, when Plasma and 3-Pulse armor become available, I do predefine Clean versions of those armored transports.  That way when the Pirate AI obsesses, at least its obsession has clean reactors that have some defensive armor value.  It can thus be a nuisance to get through the Pirates early on, which in turn can allow them to survive longer and become a real threat later.

By contrast, I don't know what Thinker is going to do with such capabilities, or if it even has such problems.  Stock binary factions will settle the water, when handed the ships to do so, such as in my mod.  The Alien factions moreso than the humans, but the humans will do it.  Stock binary sea bases are typically not very good though.

Details seeing is believing

seeing is believing

It should be noted that all Unity units are gifted with Deep Radar.  This makes them more worthwhile to obtain from pod popping.  There are no Slow Transports either, they move at full speed.  Even Battle Ogres have Deep Radar, so that they can actually be useful for scouting when tromping around.  They do not have a good main gun though.  My R-Lasers are nerfed to strength 3.  That's still useful for early killing of formers, speeders, mindworms, and transports though.  Frankly, I think Battle Ogres are more useful as an early free Non-Lethal Methods unit.  I tend to keep them home.

[bvanevery]

Details prepare for support

prepare for support

MY 2104.  I didn't manage to get a completion event for a Clean Transport.  But I did fish up plenty of money, whereby I can rush a regular Transport.  It's time to change production, before the 10+ minerals deadline.  I keep forgetting whether Thinker has a penalty for unit completion with less than 10 minerals.

[bvanevery]

Details spreading

spreading

MY 2107.  It should be noted that basic Colony Pods and Sea Colony Pods have free Clean Reactors on them.  They do not cost SUPPORT.  Again, this is to help the stock AI.  Hope Thinker doesn't kill me for it.

[bvanevery]

Details talk to me green tree

talk to me green tree

MY 2108.  I fish up the Gaians.   

Details up there

up there

We trade techs, maps, and sign a Treaty.  Although Solicitous, she does not want my Pact of convenience.  The AI clearly hasn't pulled off any miracles by this early stage.

[bvanevery]

Details choices choices

choices choices

MY 2110.  I'm rich, and could spend the money to complete 1 of these, but I just don't want to.  I want completion scumming to pay off.

[bvanevery]

Details jump onto land

jump onto land

MY 2112.  This is the classic technique for getting a coastal supply pod without having to deal with fungus or rocks.  It will allow you to evade mindworms easily if they pop.  The downside is the stock binary knows about this trick and sometimes punishes you with an earthquake, destroying your Transport.  For this reason, I will pop non-fungal non-rocky pods without using this trick.  Just drop the unit off, move the Transport away, wait until next turn to pop.  I will also do the more cautious approach if the Transport is far out to sea and not easily replaced.  Here I am in home waters and it's the beginning of the game though.  I do not want the extra SUPPORT for even 1 Scout, so I use what I've got, with the tricks I can do.

Details vindication

vindication

This is my 2nd Artifact.  It occurs to me... if I'm not using Thinker's map generation, does that mean I've got stock binary levels of supply pods to pop?  Or does Thinker do that pass after a map is generated?

Details stay on point

stay on point

I always guard my Artifacts after I get them, lest some interloping faction I don't know about, steal them from me.  The stock AI does not guard its Artifacts and it's kind of pathetic taking them away.  The impact on my own play, is that it can take a very long time to march an exploration unit back with the Artifact.  So I lose exploring opportunity.  But, Artifacts are fairly precious and worth protecting IMO.  It's a non-issue this time as I'll be inconvenienced for all of 1 turn.

Details why not prosper

why not prosper

Tech trades are no big deal at the beginning in my mod, because Tier 1 and Tier 2 don't contain any Secret Projects.  Tiering of techs is very strict and regimented in my mod.  Every tech except for the very very end of the tech tree has 2 prerequisites, and each tech in a tier tries to be balanced as far as feeding an equal number of subsequent techs.

Deirdre in my mod is a research powerhouse and likely to continue to have techs to trade.  She gets free Biology Labs in every base.  So you see, I'm not the only faction with more bonuses compared to vanilla.

Details I'm not very trusting

I'm not very trusting

In my mod, I'm not starting with a GROWTH penalty, and there are no penalties for going Green.  So the odds of me going Green and being diplomatically compatible with Deirdre, are reasonably good.  However, she's also near enough as a neighbor, that she could end up encroaching on the coast.  Particularly with Thinker's spammy pushiness in this regard, I don't feel comfortable assuming she's going to be a friend.  These loans are often just not a good deal, when taking a risk over 100 years of the faction screwing you out of payments.

And it's not like I'm going to need the money.  Even in a Thinker generated world, I fished lots of money out of the oceans just fine, without any real challenge from the AI for the oceanic proceeds.  Granted, I was quite isolated by water that previous game, and it doesn't have to be true this time.

[bvanevery]

Details goodbye my brave explorers

goodbye my brave explorers

MY 2115.  Yes it was the Sargasso.  No you don't have to survive that.  At least it'll be easy to make new Transports from my home bases.

[bvanevery]

Details guess it's time

guess it's time

MY 2118.  Haven't really been nailing the completion events like usual.  My Unity Gun Foil has run out of places to search up north and must head farther out to sea.  Similarly for my Transport down south.  Although I could push through some southern fungus, it might not go anywhere, and getting the pods out of the Sargasso is a higher priority.  Only my Unity Rover is offering good completion prospects.  Meanwhile I'm not utilizing 1 of my SUPPORT slots.

[bvanevery]

Details where to Mac

where to Mac

MY 2120.  I wonder if that's a Scottish cab driver thing.  I'm not all that clear on good options for settlement.  The Sargasso will probably be good soon, but it's not now.

Details payout

payout

Next year I'll be popping a pod to the distant northwest.  It could result in a completion event here.  48 credits is not an amount of money to get excited about, so I rush it.

[bvanevery]

Details new unit to scum

new unit to scum

MY .  The relevant base went back down to size 1, so I can't complete a Clean Sea Colony Pod here anymore.  Need something else to complete.  "A" is for armored.  In principle, I could cash such a unit in for more minerals.  In practice, I never do so.  I know it's an exploit and I'm not that big on pushing such exploits to the hilt.  I nevertheless will tend to design the most expensive units possible to completion scum.  I'm not bothering with Armored Sea Colony Pods because I know I'll just settle them anyways and not cash them in, so what's the point.  Worth mentioning though.

Details order of operations

order of operations

I wait until other units have been moved, and any completion events have happened, before settling new bases.  A new base is going to get a free Scout already completed.  There is no sense in getting a completion event on top of that.  A new base blocks the completions of old bases, because they're not the nearest base anymore.  So I always give old bases their "last shot" to get a completion in a certain direction.

[bvanevery]

Details 25 percent discount

25 percent discount

The new tech diplomacy pricing code is broken in this configuration.  Never ever have I seen a tech be sold for 75 credits in the stock binary.  Or Thinker 3.0, or WTP.  Should be verified whether this occurs in straight Thinker 3.1 with default Thinker.ini settings.  I'm not going to do that right now, as I'm in the middle of a game.

My dialog path was "Some of my valuable research data, perhaps?"  I didn't explicitly ask to pay credits.

Since I don't yet know what I'm in for, as far as the Thinker AI giving me some kind of firestorm in another area, I'm going to take advantage of this.

Got saves from before and after the interaction.

[bvanevery]

Details hi

hi

MY 2123.  I fish Santiago.

Details bye

bye

First you have to get near me.

Deirdre did not want Santiago's comm frequency, nor did she want a Pact.  I was hoping to use her to scum Santiago's map.  It's probably not that important though.  Especially in Thinker's faction placement settings, you don't have to worry about anyone being so close as to be breathing down your neck initially.  Except again, does the use of my own map generator, imply my own faction placement algorithm?  Hope those are different stages of the pipeline.

[bvanevery]

Details stock binary hackaround

stock binary hackaround

MY 2124.  I actually have to design my own "Sea Former without a Clean Reactor" unit.  It's because of a problem in the stock binary.  It's supposed to design a Sea Former dynamically, but sometimes with the Pirate AI, it doesn't.  I have provided Clean Sea Formers as a backup unit design, in the event that it doesn't design a plain Sea Formers.  It's also better for the AI's SUPPORT anyways.   If I provided Sea Formers as a predefined unit, it would just lead to redundancies in most people's unit selections.  It also uses up a slot in predefined units table, and the game gets into problems if there are too many of them.

Details easily worked around

easily worked around

Various picky things to do like this with the stock binary, that wouldn't apply to Thinker.  This is why I'll leave any "integration" work to someone else who really wants to carve out a name for themselves, as "The Great Integrator".  I'm going to stick with the stock binary and all its quirks.

[bvanevery]

Details the payoff of militancy

the payoff of militancy

MY 2125.  Applied Physics is a Tier 2 tech in my mod.  If you're not focused on Conquer, you don't get it so fast.  This is to prevent factions from Recon Rover rushing each other.  The other defense is Synth armor, and even Plasma armor, are given without any need for prototyping.  Weapons, you still have to do so.  Early defense is very much favored in my mod.  Still if you are not careful, if you press your luck and start out somewhat near Santiago, she will kill you.  Recon Rover rush may not work against AIs in my mod, but it definitely still works when an AI does it to a human player, who is not being careful.

I've now got the minimum necessary to wipe out bases, aside from simple Obliteration of course.  I believe in allowing chemicals early and often.  After all, the price you pay when Planet sweeps in to take vengeance on your illegal activities, is horrific!  Like you won't survive unless you premeditatedly prepared for the debacle horrific.  I've got plenty of After Action Reports on that sort of thing.  Have survived a few of them.

Legalization requires E2 Ethical Calculus, knowing all the other factions, majority consent, and no veto.  We're not there yet.  We may never be.  In previous Thinker games, never once did they go for it.  Whereas with stock binary, it's pretty random.  Sometimes they're into it, other times they're not.

Details the prolific pop

the prolific pop

It's a rare game where the Sargasso doesn't soon turn to kelp, but I suppose it's been known to happen.