AAR: Surviving in a hostile world; Santiago takes on the Builders (Thinker Mod)

[pblur]

Well, let's fire up another game with similar settings to the last one.

Welcome to another After Action Report for Thinker mod! I've been playing SMAC and beating Transcend for many years, and recently installed Thinker AI. At first, it absolutely stomped me, even on Thinker difficulty, but I slowly figured out what I was doing wrong and, after a half dozen games on Thinker, started actually beating it. I've won three games on Transcend difficulty (one in a previous AAR) so far, but the game is hard. Just how I like it!

I'm playing with the latest Develop build of Thinker

Differences from default settings:

• New world builder disabled
  I don't love the pangaea-ness of the maps it made on my first few tries.
• Rare pods disabled
• Nessus Canyon enabled
• Buff to Planet Cult
  +4 Planet instead of +2.
• Nerf to Usurpers/Caretakers
  -1 INDUSTRY and no recycling tanks

Again, map is just Standard with middle-of-the-road choices for all customizations. Transcend difficulty, blind research, no Unity Survey. All factions randomized. I dropped Iron Man because it removes the turn-by-turn autosaves, which can be useful for going back and snagging screenshots for an AAR. That annoyed me a few times in my last AAR. I'll still be PLAYING as Iron Man, but you'll just have to trust me on that.

First, who do we roll but the Spartans!


Hmmm. Plenty of builders. Hive is usually aggressive, but not that good in Thinker AI. Lal is usually annoyingly hostile. Gaians tend to run away with the game.


Good starting location. Lots of rain! Probably settling my second city west-south-west 2 tiles.

Amazing luck for a first turn. Monolith resources early, plus an extra morale on my rover. I decide to go scout rover first instead of scout patrol. I have a pretty solid mineral output for turn 1, and the extra exploration and offense potential seems worth it.

Now... what should I research? There are three main things I'm considering here: Industrial Automation (the start of midgame efficiency), Impact Rovers (because early impact rovers on spartans would let me roll anyone in the area), and Centauri Ecology (because... well, it's the best first tech. You need formers, period, no matter your game plan.)

Let me check the trees:


Well, OK. Both need a Discover tech. And I've noticed that Centauri Ecology tends to show up fast regardless, so... I'll just do Discover and put off the decision. Maybe the unpredictable ones or my local neighborhood will make this decision for me.


More good luck! Two nearby monoliths.

On turn 3, I decide to do a very early rush on my Scout Rover. I went for the full payment; 3 minerals will roll over into a colony pod and get the snowball going fast.


And then on Turn 4:

Surprise RIVER?! Is someone so close they hit a hydrology pod that came to me? Sounds like this is very much an impact rover game. We'll see though.


W00t W00t! Always love an early tech, and this one was Centauri Ecology!

Hopefully this is Information Networks. That's what I need most from Discover. I'll set my next research to Conquer, hoping to roll up on impact weapons.


Nice fast early exploring, and I've hit three stat-boosting landmarks! I'd better spread fast to claim canyon and especially the monsoon jungle. Mysterious river remains mysterious.


Er, well, looks like I met my first opponent. Maybe they're the river-triggerers. They're on monsoon jungle, where I want to be.


Tricky choice. Do I provide them with laser rovers? Or formers?

I choose rovers. Honestly, I'm still a little scared at how well the Thinker AI uses formers. I can probably rush over here with my newly popped Battle Ogre, and take some of their cities before they hit impact anyhow.


Eh, no. You're on my list Aki-Zeta.


... my list of generous benefactors! Yeah, I'll take 150 credits. That's a crazy amount of snowball on turn 9. We can be friends. You take the jungle, I take the Canyon, K?


And next turn, I find Lal (who I've previously voted most annoyingly-hostile-for-no-evident-reason) in the middle of my Canyon.

No, thanks. I already have a much more generous benefactor, and you're standing right in front of my battle ogre.



Not bad for turn 13!

Final Map:


Current Tech (got biogenetics off of Lal):

Also really not bad on turn 13, for a faction that starts with one tech!

[Buster's Uncle]

[pblur]

On to further demonstrations of the merits of preparedness and starting-with-rovers-ness when it comes to surviving on a strange Planet!

First, I think I'm going to start a REALLY early secret project. My HQ has a lot of production:


Once I get a mine on that mineral bonus, get to size 2, and work that monolith, I'll be at 8 minerals per turn. That's just a LOT in the early game. Plus I have 2 alien artifacts. I have the Weather Paradigm and the Human Genome Project available, but WP is obviously stronger in my opinion. Advanced terraforming is only kind of OK before resource cap unlocks, but fast terraforming will always be great.


Aki-Zeta is demonstrating the merits of starting on the jungle... but otherwise I'm doing really well. Good tech, good expansion, and I still have lots of room to expand.

But then Lal, my loyalsubmissive pactmate declares on the university. Who are really very close to my battle ogre and 2 laser rovers... I guess it's time to march on Zak! He's my nearest competitor on the power charts, but I haven't seen any synthmetal yet. Even if he has 1-2, an undamaged battle ogre will handle that just fine. I try to bribe Aki-Zeta to declare on him too, but no luck.


Getting in position. Just as I do, Lal makes peace with him. WTF loyal pactmate!? Fine. I call up Lal and pay him Doctrine: Flexibility to redeclare on Zak. Zak takes umbrage to me siccing Lal on him, and declares on me. RIP.


Weather Paradigm is ready to hurry. Record time, really, and noone has started any other secret projects yet. Might as well move on to Human Genome Project. I know Zak has the tech for the Virtual World, so I can fall back to that if needed.


Zak's first base had a probe team, a scout patrol, and a unity chopper in it. Very easy kill.


Tough choice... I don't know how tough Zak's empire will be, and I don't want to overcommit. And Planetary Networks is a tech I really need. ...but he could be ready to offer a submissive pact too. I'm probably massively higher on the military strength charts than he is.


Whew, glad I said no to the single tech. Another submissive pact, this one on turn 33. The game is REALLY balling out of control. I don't think this one will be a nailbiter like the Pirates.

Final Map:


Current Tech tree (researching an Explore tech ATM; has to be Ethical Calculus):


I'm a LITTLE tempted to swing north and try to knock out Aki-Zeta... but really, I don't need to. And it's entirely possible that she has impact rovers, which I don't. Hard call.

[pblur]

Once more into the breach. I call up Aki-Zeta, and she 'cautions' me that she has 2-1-2 Recon Rovers rolling off the assembly lines. OK then. Time to march north!



Still looks like a bunch of scout patrols. Perfect for recon rover spam.






Yeah, not much to say about that. No real defenses to speak of. Careful tactics so my rovers don't get stolen, and I just push her back till she surrenders. And that 104 energy credits?

Yep, that's enough to finish the Human Genome Project. 2 great early SPs in the bag, and NONE off the table yet. Multiple ships in the water exploring, and I should easily get governor with THREE submissive pacts... In fact, if I'm governor, I should just get whatever I want passed through the council, now that I think about it.

Game is so damn close to won. And it's only turn 47.

Final Map:


Just met Hive, and he's kind of grumpy about me having broken two treaties. Fair enough. Won't trade techs because Command Nexus, though he hasn't started building it yet.

[bvanevery]

Hmm.  So far looks like an early close quarters stomp, against factions that don't seem to have any offensive or defensive preparedness.  My recollection is that Thinker didn't mod the factions, so you're running around with ++MORALE ?  Kinda deadly against factions that don't have anything to answer back with militarily.

Well maybe some more distant enemy will finally give you some trouble.

[pblur]

Yep, spartans have ++MORALE, +POLICE, -INDUSTRY and free prototyping. ++MORALE gets you +1 morale (+2 defense), which is pretty nice for overcoming minor defensive bonuses like sensors, bases, rocky/fungus, etc.

[bvanevery]

And Fundamentalist is available early in vanilla, giving you another +MORALE, making the Spartans pretty overpowered.  Generally I thought of them as the easiest faction to win a game with.

[pblur]

All right, time for a transition to building! Why, you may ask? Well, a bit of exploration reveals...



That I'm on my own island. Time to go meet the pacifists to the north, and try to get on an efficient scaling course.

Note that there's definitely an argument here that I made a mistake in my research focus to date. I've been running hard for Industrial Automation, in anticipation of needing to do a mid-game efficiency transition. It's quite possible that, with the silly start I've had, that I should have actually just went for impact->Air power. I already got Doctrine Flexibility early, and if I had impact weapons I could probably transition to cranking out impact rovers, probe teams and transports, and just start conquering morgan/diedre.

But I'm really a builder at heart, so I went for supplies in spite of my aggressive start. This should work fine as well.

Well, I meet up with Deidre, and she offers to sell me Morgan's commlink. I decline, because I'm 2 turns from getting a ship to his capital anyhow, and she declares war on me. Really? I thought you liked PEACE?

And Morgan conveniently provides me with a map of 'Deidre's territory' (ie, all the land on their shared continent):


And he refuses to trade techs too. Something about being twice the score of everyone else and having a mildly bad reputation. Still, I get a treaty of friendship. And now that I have all the commlinks, I can call a Council! I'm fine with that. Ordinarily I put this off as long as possible because I want to play tech merchant, but noone's playing that game anyhow. I might as well finally start getting commerce!



Which gives me a lot of bases like this. BIG improvement in the early game. I also unlock free market, and take some more advice from that Psych Allocation thread...



That comes close to matching Morgan's tech rate, who's current tech rate leader. Nice. Unfortunately it makes drones AWFUL. I keep tolerating it just long enough to finish my current build tech, which is Industrial Automation as I hoped. Then I nuke my tech rate in favor of Economy and start rushing Recreation Commons all over the place. Whew, SO much better. I also swap to Democratic as soon as I can afford to in here.


And save up to rush the Virtual World, so I can effectively manage populations without Hologram Theatres. Now to rush Creches, Recreation Commons and Network Nodes everywhere.

Final Map:


My submissive pacts are expanding into the sea, and I'm playing 'give them relevant techs when they're close to finishing one' to keep benefiting from their research. I've also started with populating the geothermal shallows, and bought a truce with Diedre for safety. No need to worry about sea bases getting sniped.

Current SE:


I'm still in second place on tech rate, though morgan is about twice mine. Not bad for 30% LABS allocation!

Current techs:


Edit:
Also, amusingly, if I had the tech for diplo victory, I could just about win right now:

[pblur]

And Fundamentalist is available early in vanilla, giving you another +MORALE, making the Spartans pretty overpowered.  Generally I thought of them as the easiest faction to win a game with.

This might be partially a difference in playstyles, but on Standard and larger maps I'd rather have a proper builder faction like University or Deidre. Especially on the Huge maps I know you prefer, there's no way I'd take Santiago over any of the builders; odds are good that I'll have 20 bases with network nodes as Zak before Santiago gets to really use ++MORALE. +1 morale just isn't going to beat 'having fusion reactors + air power'. That's true in Thinker, where fusion reactors are merely very good, but ridiculously true in vanilla.

[DrazharLn]

I think you're gonna win

[Buster's Uncle]

Ditto.  This one looks as easy as it gets, with that strong/lucky start.

[pblur]

All right, brief update. I'm still running free market, toggling to planned occaisionally for free popboom turns. Very basic really. Slowly getting all the infrastructure I want.

I got really lucky on my 'beelining' for cap removals:


Morgan has had better tech rate than me for a while, so he's gotten most of the secret projects since last post. Planetary Energy grid, Ascetic Virtues and Planetary Transit System. I got the global trade pact passed, which, with 3 reasonably successful pact partners is really good for me.

I finally managed to get an important special project tech first, with Pre-Sentient Algorithms. I rushed Hunter-Seeker, and I'm now probe team-immune. Just in time too, as Yang called me up and declared war with no bribery option. Hopefully that's not too much of a problem. He basically has to sail through Lal's sea empire to get to me, and Lal is at war with him too.

Current Secret Projects:


I just got Doctrine Air Power, and now I'm trying to focus Mind/Machine interface. I'll happily rush both cloudbase and cyborg factory for instant elite aircraft.


Final Map:


Annnd, the next turn I get Orbital Spaceflight and Fusion Power (FP from Lal.) NICE. Time to roll out infinite food.

[pblur]

All right, let's keep building and ignore Yang. He's across the ocean; what can he do?! (Warning: A shortage of blow-by-blow pictures this time. The bug that keeps me from alt-tabbing after the game displays a video is really annoying when you get rolling.)

Well, not much by himself. Occasionally sail a transport with two units across and land them in a predictable location, where I can bribe them and add them to my sparse set of defenders without taking time away from my build-up. I'm also buying two sky hydroponics labs per turn, while having enough econ in LABS to keep me the tech rate leader.

Then Deidre and Yang apparently have a conference. They start out with a Treaty.

I get a notification that they've agreed to join forces against me.
Then that they've broken their treaty.
Then that Yang has declared Vendetta on the Gaians.
Then that they've agreed to join forces against me.

Well then. Glad I didn't have to clean up the room after THAT conference! Regardless of their drama, the Gaians have agreed to war me. On a hunch, I call up Morgan who has recently broken off his Pact with the Gaians. He's happy to pact up with me! I've been running free market for a while. Guess it made him happy. Yay more commerce.

Then he declares on the Gaians too, which probably really helps me. I do rush a couple chaos skimships in my little formation of cities in the geothermal shallows (which are between my mainland and the Gaians.) I also swap a bunch of sea bases to building cruiser probes, and I build a couple aircraft interceptors. (Non-interceptor aircraft cause pacifism drones no matter where they are. Interceptor aircraft follow the normal rules.) Interceptors are strong enough to swat the occaisional non-AAA transport, no problem.

The Gaians do send a few transports and 1/2/4 ships (just why??) to harrass me. I kill most of them. They send a couple 6r/4/6 cruisers, and I steal them with probes for very cheap, and use them to conquer one of their bases. Fairly chill border skirmish.

While I'm doing that, I'm trying to get Mind/Machine Interface for Cloudbase, but no luck. Instead I hit Advanced Spacecraft... and decide that's good enough that I need to stop teching. I go 70/30/0, and start getting 1300 credits per turn. I just rushed a bunch of aerospace complexes for hydroponics labs. Now I start building 8 power transmitters at the same time, and I'm rushing 6 per turn. Next turn I get Retroviral Engineering from my network of enforced-relevant-tech-shared submissive allies, and swap to genejacks in all of those cities in between power transmitters, rushing those in a tunr whenever I can too. This has some nasty ecodamage consequences in some bases, but I narrowly manage to avoid losing any bases to stacks of 15 mind worms at -3 planet, and I keep trucking on buying as many transmitters as I can. In the mean time, I rush Living Refinery.



As soon as I get my satellites up, I snag Mind/Machine Interface off of one of my allies, and rush Cloudbase. The next turn I get Biomachinery from one of them, and rush the Cloning Vats (because Morgan and Diedre have been working on it for a few turns already.) Then I rush Cyborg Factory.


Then I stay on econ for two more turns to buy hab complexes in almost every city I have... and line up all my friends to vote for me for supreme leader. Two of them demand a nickel or so to vote for me:

I'm not ready to call a vote yet:

But I'm hoping I get there. This game has lost most of the tension that could make it interesting. I have more than double morgan's tech rate, all the good midgame special projects, and tech rate scales everything in this game. Honestly, I may declare victory if I get sufficiently far ahead in tech or something instead of grinding to a win screen; I'm open to feedback on what would be most satisfying for the audience.

Final map:


Current Tech:

[pblur]

Trivia question. How does one go about doing this?

[Buster's Uncle]

[Furrows brow]

I think that can only happen when there's been a buggy pact-break/vendetta thing and one of those units is in the same square as the new enemy, usually in a base that's failed to vacate the newly-enemy units.  -Otherwise one buggily sharing a square with non-captured native life, possibly was sitting where a fungal pop happened... 

Or once in a long while, you can capture a fungal tower, and those revert the next turn.  -And this can happen to the capturing unit still sitting there.


Was that the question?