AAR: How I learned to stop worrying and *usurp* the mindworm (Thinker Mod)

[pblur]

Well, I'm having enough fun with these to roll another... the last one was a bit anticlimactic because I effectively won before aircraft, and then just built-built-built to a transcendance victory while paying my opposition for peace whenever possible. Effective, fairly quick in real-world time, but not exactly exciting or dramatic. Maybe this game will be closer...

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 four games on Transcend difficulty (two in previous AARs) so far, but the game is (usually!) hard. Just how I like it!

I'm playing with the latest Develop build of Thinker (2/26/23).

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.


Well, I think this is my first time trying out my nerfed Aliens! I generally think Usurpers are notably weaker than Caretakers (+1 PLANET is really good!), but I still suspect that I have under-nerfed them, if anything.


First advantage of aliens; actual continent boundaries. It's not THAT powerful, since you can usually make it out decently well from the wireframe, but eh. I'll take it. Looks like my competition are mostly pretty warlike.


OK, turn 1 (er, turn 6 technically, I guess) free tech. WOOT WOOT

Industrial Base. Synthmetal, but more importantly it's a needed tech on the way to Industrial Automation.

I opt for maximum speed of second and third bases:


Nutrients are mostly kind of scarce around my bases aside from the one with a nutrient bonus, so I end up getting a couple formers before first colony pod explosion

Looks like my neighborhood is mostly clear. I've hit several alien artifacts, so I'll probably snag weather paradigm...


And I meet some 'Neighbors' courtesy of a dimensional gate!

I think I should whack this colony pod. Too good of an opportunity.


Colony pod ran off, but I can still potentially take their capital...

Yep!

Back home, I'm suffering for going formers instead of defensive scouts early...

[pblur]

Time for Xploration and Xpansion!


First off, I lose my scout rover in a fight it was favored to win. Oh well. Whacking a city this early is a BIG deal for his expansion rate, and should let me claim more of the island.


Plus, I have a small army of random troops on their way over without a dimensional gate boost. Maybe I can replicate my feat of a submissive University; that was very handy last game.


I have a few formers running around, so I decide it's time to rush the weather paradigm. I finish it in one turn with 3 alien artifacts and a cash infusion. Should REALLY pay dividends this early.


And my army is finally engaged with the enemy! Unfortunately, he managed to steal a scout patrol with a probe team, and I lost two units (including that scout patrol.) That really weakens my force, and I have to march back to the local monolith to heal up my last two units and try again.

Regardless of the outcome here, the harrassment making him build a ton of scout patrols is a big deal. Zak is not likely to be a big threat this game.


My intrepid troops sneak back across the fungus to strike at Relativity School...


While MY expansion is continuing at breakneck speed.


I get both troops next to the city. He has a single scout patrol in it. I should be able to wipe it with my much higher morale full-health rover, then take the city with my damage scout patrol.

Instead I lose a 7:5 odds fight with the rover (which, as we all know, is more like a 10:1 fight in practice), and finish off the scout patrol with my injured scout patrol. At least the city is empty, and size 1...

And then he moves a former into the city to defend it. Which is 5:6 odds against me... but I attack anyway. I won't get a better opportunity in the near future. Luckily I win, and equally luckily his base drops in size and vanishes!



He manages to catch my scout before it can retreat to heal. Oh well. Two cities, 5 scout patrols, a probe team and 2 formers destroyed. BIG impact for little investment.

Back home...


Yeah, 11 out of 13 bases are building colony pods. Game is good! As they say, the scout patrols fight them over there so we don't have to worry about them fighting us over here. Or something.

Human Genome Project may get swapped to Planetary Transit System when I finish researching:


Man, Aliens are OP. Directed research is broken.


Planetary Transit System would be stupidly OP right now, although the drone problems would be VERY real. Maybe I can greed out both HGP and PTS? But I don't really have a high production city now. I have 2 alien artifacts stockpiled, and 437 credits, which is easily enough to get either, but I might lose in a play for both.

[bvanevery]

Man, Aliens are OP. Directed research is broken.

If you get tired of cakewalks, how about playing on a larger map?  So that the AI factions actually have time to dig in and provide resistance.  Instead of just being summarily bushwhacked in your close quarters battle.  Awfully easy to stomp the AIs when they really have no idea how to win an early game rockfight.  I haven't kept up with Thinker's development but the core strength of its AI was hyper aggressive terraforming with thermal boreholes, condensers, and supply crawlers.  Not combat, let alone early close quarters combat.  It takes awhile to get the inexorable supply crawler machines rolling.  Except if an AI faction completes the Weather Paradigm, in which case that 1 faction will get started quite a bit earlier.

[pblur]

Well, I don't know if you've looked back at the first AAR thread I did here, but I lost my first game to an early game attack, and then had a pretty close game for my second. My third was a stomp, admittedly. This one looks like I'm winning so far, but we'll see as I get farther in. It's not close to as stompy as game 3 was.

So far as large maps go, I find them intolerably tedious in the lategame. I end up with a TON of cities, and there's too much micro. Eventually maybe I'll start using governors to mitigate that...

I'm somewhat considering nerfing the aliens a bit more. Directed research is so strong. They probably don't need 5 starting techs. OTOH, energy grid is weaker than commerce...

[pblur]

All right, time for more usurpation and exploitation!

I left last post wondering about whether to go for the Human Genome Project, The Planetary Transit Network, or both. I had enough rush resources to guarantee one, and people were already starting on HGP.

I realized when I came back that if I want to try for both, the right play is to rush HGP NOW. That way, I prevent anyone who's working on HGP and hasn't yet researched Industrial Automation from shifting those minerals into PTN. So I do that, and then save up and hurry PTN as soon as I can, including cashing in a newly minted supply crawler. (Note that Thinker fixes the cheap upgrade exploits for crawlers, at least pre-Nano-Factory. I'm not sure, you might be able to get a benefit with Nano Factory. And it also makes base crawlers more expensive in minerals.)


Here's my new population, now massively unhappy about all their new neighbors! You can see I'm beginning to butt up against the university. They're making a lot of war preparations, including a ton of probes stockpiled. Fortunately, their probe rating really sucks. No Fundamentalist and --PROBE means my probe actions will have boosted success rates and I can buy their bases for cheap. So... time to split the difference between 'lots of supply crawlers working lots of extra tiles' and 'let's not lose this war before we start it.'

It's a bit interesting that --PROBE doesn't hurt his probe offensive capabilities at all.


OK, this is a tough choice. Mineral unlock, or ships? Or the planetary energy grid; I LOVE that secret project... even if it's not *quite* top tier in my estimation, it smooths out so much of the game.

This choice is made all the tougher by thinker making tech cost vary by tier. Ecological Engineering is MUCH more expensive than Doctrine: Flexibility.

I go for Ecological Engineering. I'm not 100% sure this is the right choice.


Next up, I unlock wealth, and realize that I REALLY don't have any explorers left. I'm not bothering to explore the poles at the moment (it's a bad payoff for a -Planet faction IMO.) Time to roll out the Free Market + Wealth combo!

Come to think of it though... I'm a progenitor. I don't DO commerce. Does commerce rating help me at all? Is +3 Econ any better than +2?

This is still obviously worth it until war starts for the +Industry, of course.

Speaking of war, my blood truce with the University expired, and I declined to give them Industrial Automation to refresh it. They just let it lapse, no Vendetta, but then start spamming probe teams at me to steal all my techs. I don't have enough probe teams ready and to the front lines yet! My mineral output in most of my empire is still early game trash, and the ones beginning to come into boreholes+supplies midgame responsiveness are doing that because they haven't been making probe teams for the last 10 turns.

Quick note by the way, for anyone who might not be aware of this optimization. Default probe teams are 0/1/2, and cost 3 rows. If you make one in the workshop that is 0/1/1 (infantry chassis), it's only 2 rows. Very handy for probe team defenders. (And if you play against Thinker AI, you WILL learn to do a proper probe team defense, or you will lose horribly.)

He ends up stealing all of my tech before I can do anything about it, and has begun stockpiling units in his front cities. I finally get a speeder probe team to the front lines and decide to infiltrate. Next turn, I steal the one of his frontline cities that doesn't have a probe team:



Yay for an army I don't have to build! Helpful since I don't even have impact weapons yet, and I steal some!

Also, I managed to steal the adjacent stack of 5 formers with the city. That's a really nice boost to my scaling on this end of the island, though I have to disband a scout patrol to avoid immediately losing one to negative support. I don't fully understand how it decides what nearby units come with a base when you steal it.


All right, moving on the next city. He has a probe team in there, but I manage to kill it with a couple of my own and then buy THIS city too.

Zak decides it's time to make peace:

I accept, because I'm pretty confident I'm scaling a lot harder than him, AND I keep getting notifications that he's taking sea bases off of Miriam (who is the current power leader.) I'd like him undistracted and able to focus on that fight.

And then he immediately declares Vendetta again as soon as the base screen on my newly captured base pops up. 

Well, that's a bug. I reported it to Induktio; sounds like it's a vanilla bug, not Thinker-related.

Fine though. I didn't spend the time to steal all of HIS techs yet. Let's move on the next base.

I got all his techs, another base, and he peaces out again. No immediate vendetta.

On the very next turn


Damn it Zak! Just let me borehole in PEACE!

[pblur]

The cold war with the University.

I end up retreating from Zoloth-Gold with most of my troops. I just don't have quite enough troops to hold it, and I don't have enough energy credits to fix that problem right now. Oh well. Zak lands a few troops on the far side of my empire, I wipe them out, and he offers blood truce again. Fine. Then he breaks it the next turn. What the actual [fuddle-duddle] Zak?

Still, I don't care much. It's hard for me to take his bases, since he has Citizen's Defense Force, and 3r defenders against my impact troops, but it doesn't matter too much. At one point he leaves Zoloth-Gold without a probe team, and that's my shot. I steal the base for cheap and steal a couple cheap techs.

He calls for a truce and a treaty of friendship again.

I bet you can't guess what happens next.


The very next turn. Again. Is this a bug? Why is he asking for truce, just to immediately break it? Confusing...

Still, whatever. My troops are still deployed, and I know better than to shift Social Engineering as soon as peace shows up. Time to Steal Techs. Research Institute is 3 tiles away from Zoloth-Gold, along a road. I'm very slowly researching Chaos Guns, which will allow me to be offensively potent again, but most of my energy is going into economy. At this point I have 8 bases making probe teams, so I just spam them at him. He's getting techs way faster than he can research them (presumably from trading or probe teams), AND he's probably the fastest research around. Still, not a problem. He has -2 PROBE. I have way more probe teams than he does. All his research will be mine.

I get tons. Cyberethics, Intellectual Integrity, Synthetic Fossil Fuels, Doctrine: Air Power, Neural Grafting... He's working on pre-sentient algorithms when he lands 4 transports full of troops in my weakly defended rear. I scramble for a response, but he manages to wipe a small city out entirely with no losses... and then sues for a Truce. Well, we know how this ends...



 
But I start thinking more carefully, and realize that THIS war is actually good for me. Sure, I'm very slowly working on Mind/Machine Interface, a critical tech which noone else I've seen seems to be working on. But I can't let Zak get Pre-Sentient Algorithms and the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm! That will break our current, very profitable detente!

I steal Pre-sentient Algorithms the turn he finishes it, and immediately rush it with some of the 50ish supply crawlers I have harvesting tiles.



Finally, I switch into Knowledge/Fundamentalist (since I'm not really researching, but would love +MORALE +EFFIC.) When he sues for peace a couple turns later, it actually sticks. I guess Knowledge is the magic. However, he still has like 6 troops in my backlines, not doing anything. I figure I'll do him a favor and kick them out, but when I Demand Withdrawal he declares Vendetta. Again.

Fine. Fine. You want war? Needlejet time. As usual, I don't really build interceptors early, so I start losing a few to his interceptors, but it's fine. I catch up on his tech and capture Research Institute. He sues for peace. 

...

Fine.

As I'm swapping through production, I notice that I have the option of building the Planetary Energy Grid. Wait what? I know I just stole that tech 10 turns ago, but we're 145 turns into the game. How did noone build that??



Oh right, it's because they're all fighting to the death. Suckers.

Fine. I set up a very internal city for building wonders (hopefully out of range of a lot of planet busters) and build the planetary energy grid. I also start building supply crawlers in a few cities for when Mind/Machine Interface is done. One major concern is that the Believers have just researched Orbital Spaceflight. That's a key snowball tech... I switch to a heavy focus on labs. Got to get moving. Hopefully the University successfully trades for that where I can't.

All of a sudden:

My top techs:


Zak has Orbital Spaceflight and Organic Superlube, and is working on Advanced Spaceflight. I'm going to need to go to war with him soon. I want to start rolling out Sky Hydroponics Labs as soon as I finish Cloudbase Academy. As soon as I finish Mind/Machine interface, I swap from labs to energy credits: 

Especially with the Planetary Energy Grid running, my economy is quite solid. I'll burn through it FAST rushing satellites though.


Well, time to try repeating that free-vendetta trick. I demand he withdraw his troops.

Oh yes we shall Zak. Yes we shall. I take a look around for his interceptors, and realize he has them off fighting miriam or svensgaard somewhere. Oh yes. Time to really own him. First, of course, I steal Orbital Spaceflight and Organic Superlube.


Then I just deploy my entire airforce, and empty his 4 nearest cities. And then I capture them all that turn.




OH yes. I mean, Planetary datalinks is mostly useless. I don't want to be that far behind. But Command Nexus is always solid. Fast healing FTW!


Yes Zak, please go finish researching advanced spaceflight for me. Thank you for building my new secret projects for me...

Zak retains a few coastal resorts:


I'm... kind of owning on the secret project front:


At least unless I get nuked. Let me make a note to give Miriam whatever the heck she wants.

She's really snowballing off of capturing everyone else's cities at this point. Amusingly, the Council hasn't even been called once this game; Zak doesn't have the Drone's comm frequency. I guess everyone is so busy at war that it's kind of useless? IDK.

I do have more than twice her tech rate, when I'm actually teching. Though right now I'm saving coins for satellites still.

Final Map:

Final Tech Tree:

[Buster's Uncle]

 

[pblur]

I believe Miriam may be out of control.

I get my first satellite up, and get my first view of the whole map:

Yeah. That's a lot of orange, and all of her competitors are comparatively pathetic. Looks like Miriam is definitely the Big Bad this game, and she's close to consolidating her position. Vendetta on me is going to follow fairly quickly from there, and I'll have no more peace the rest of the game.

On the plus side, I'm WAY up on things like Secret Projects and general infrastructure (she still hasn't built a single satellite...), and for once I'm not vulnerable to bigger-AI getting a diplo victory. Plus, it's Miriam. Bad tech rate is her thing.

After a couple of turns of rushing satellites, I have 7 Hydroponics Labs. Plenty for my puny not-able-to-pop-boom bases. And then I get sunspots, which is basically 20 turns of free peace.


Just in time, as Miriam somehow raises a giant, wide land bridge between out continents. I'm confused about how this happened. Maybe a lucky earthquake pod? Either way, this means Miriam will war me shortly after sunspots leave. Time for some AAA plasma sentinels and perimeter defenses in the adjacent cities, and some general-purpose upgrades to defenders across that front. Maybe build a ship or two and some more interceptors in random bases around that side. I should be able to get by with that level of prep without REALLY going all in on this yet.

I finish up researching Advanced Spaceflight, and immediately switch to heavy energy credits until I get 8 power transmitters out, and The Living Refinery. I then crank up the labs, and start picking up the cheap, early game special project techs that I've been overlooking, like Doc:Initiative. All of a sudden, I have tons of special projects to work on. And Miriam actually starts building some! I beat her to all of them except Supercollider... which for some reason doesn't give me a one turn warning like usual.

Finally the sunspots break, and Miriam declares war.

Turn 1 of the war; 9 believer bases emptied of their defenders by aircraft. One wiped out by the only speeder I'd thought to build. In retrospect, I needed to build some drop troops to actually conquer cities.

On turn 2 of the war, I capture one of her sea bases, and she offers peace in exchange for it back. That's a pretty good deal as a Progenitor, because she gets a size 1 crap city back.

I unlock genejack factories, and start deploying them everywhere. Mineral production is finally getting really comfortable in a lot of cities; should mean I can reduce how often I switch back to massive energy credit mode.


All right, unlocked the best secret project for a faction that can't popboom! That's going to scale me to the freaking moon.


Svensgaard noncommitally declares war on me when I won't give him Advanced Spaceflight. I don't want Miriam getting it any sooner than necessary...

Wait a second dude. You have seven bases, and are currently getting mopped up by miriam. What the hell are you doing trying to extrort the 2nd-most-powerful faction?

Ah well.

Yessssss

Now, on the University side of the world...

Miriam is getting a foothold on my island by conquering him. I don't really like that, so I ask him to evacuate his troops from my territory (I have no idea why he has troops in my territory) and he kindly declares war on me (I have no idea why someone in his position would declare war on me.)
I conquer both of his land bases and 2 of his sea bases before he offers a submissive pact. I accept... and only then realize it was probably the wrong call, since it means Miriam gets more cities. Oh well. I don't have much more need of reputation this game. I'm under no illusions about being able to maintain peace with Miriam. I just hope I'm scaled well enough to handle the resources of a thinker-AI with a world of resources behind it.

Recent secret projects are really good for me:


Academy Archives with the Citizen's Defense Force is one of the former-university bases on my continent, and will quickly be claimed in the next Miriam war.

Final Map:


I picked up quite a few bases from Svensgaard and Zakh.

[pblur]

Let's prepare for the Miriam war!

First off, I scoop up the corpses of Zak and Svensgaard. Now that I have cloning vats, conquering humans is actually profitable, and I'll rapidly get large cities from these sea bases. Even if they're crap production, it's both more energy and ablative armor when Miriam comes after me. Especially if I get a few defenders built.


Sure, I'll buy a few more turns of peace for the low, low price of screwing up my reputation a bit more. Miriam doesn't CARE about reputation in the mid/late game.


Yeah... my peaceful building is coming close to an end. The heretical Caretakers are down to a single base, so it's really just Miriam and I on planet:


Fortunately, I've hit Self-Aware Machines... if miriam gives me a few more turns, I'll be effectively immune to planet busters AND have really solid production everywhere.

Actually, looking at Miriam's tech rate:

This game is effectively over. I have more than 15x her tech rate, and I'm actually population leader now. Once I get 4 Orbital Defense Pods built, she has no comeback potential. I might as well rush for a progenitor victory. I currently have 42/54 bases building Robotic Assembly Plants too. Once I get those Nessus Mining stations up, I won't have a city under 40 minerals per turn.


Three turns after unlocking self-aware machines. That's a massive boost in power. I have to rush a few more centauri preserves and hybrid forests to get my highest mineral bases ecodamage-free, but not too many. I have several 100 mineral bases now. It's worth noting that Miriam has really done a terrible job getting satellites built here. She's had Advanced Spaceflight for 50+ turns. Anyhow, time to go all out on labs and beeline Singularity Mechanics.


That was surprisingly fast. Maybe 10 turns total to get all the prereqs, averaging 2 turns per tech or so. Then the Secrets of Creation got me the most expensive one, Singularity Mechanics, for free.

Two turns later, the game was won. Miriam never even got around to declaring on me.

[Buster's Uncle]

Subspace whatsits victory played out, or you mean she's got no chance?

[pblur]

Yeah, I did the progenitor victory with the 6 subspace relays. Those are unlocked by Singularity Mechanics, which is why I beelined it so hard. It's a much cheaper tech-win than transcendance.

[Induktio]

Hmm... AI not building satellites for such a long of a time sounds like a bug if they indeed had the tech for that time. It seems something might be interfering with the build selection stuff. Normally they should build them much sooner I guess. AI shouldn't be that distracted with the other vendettas since it was already stomping the smaller AIs, so it could concentrate more on infrastructure building. So not sure about that.