ete's AAR: Powergaming - coming August 2013

[ete]

It's attached to the OP of this thread: http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=3981.0

Also.. it's significantly weaker than I want it to be. It keeps getting beaten by Marr with his best bonus (+25% attack) quadrupled. I'll probably give it some Psi bonus.

[ete]

Did a bit more on this today, ran another test with boosted Annihliators to turn ~2250. Usurpers got lucky and took their HQ with both the psi projects.

[ete]

Oh crap. Just played a game with the Annihiliators having their bonus fully. The constant pop boom hive held on for a little while, but when they fell the techsteal kicked in and the Annihliators just.. blew every other faction out of the water. The CC and Angels were last to go and the nukes were flying (Roze hit the Annihilator's main project base, but got hit by two nukes in return). By the end (2260), the Annihilators had control of everything and were pumping satellites. But seeing their air power against Roze scared me, lol. Maybe they don't need to start with the Manifold Harmonics and both Psi projects as well as being boosted a lot.

[Green1]

Oh crap. Just played a game with the Annihiliators having their bonus fully. The constant pop boom hive held on for a little while, but when they fell the techsteal kicked in and the Annihliators just.. blew every other faction out of the water. The CC and Angels were last to go and the nukes were flying (Roze hit the Annihilator's main project base, but got hit by two nukes in return). By the end (2260), the Annihilators had control of everything and were pumping satellites. But seeing their air power against Roze scared me, lol. Maybe they don't need to start with the Manifold Harmonics and both Psi projects as well as being boosted a lot.

lol

sounds evil!

[JarlWolf]

The Comrades do me proud.

Also, are you in need of another faction for your AAR? I have an idea of who could go in, and a very story friendly one: I just need a bit of time to complete it.

[Green1]

Give em all a nuke or two to start 

[JarlWolf]

Give em all a nuke or two to start 

The AAR would be over in just a few turns then.

[ete]

The Comrades do me proud.

Also, are you in need of another faction for your AAR? I have an idea of who could go in, and a very story friendly one: I just need a bit of time to complete it.

I'm kinda doubting my ability to win with a faction which is terrible at building like the AntiMind (-3 Industry and no min bonus, ewww) and the me slot is the only maybe available one. But on the other hand, if I don't have the earlygame power of the AntiMind I am just going to be killed right away by these monsters.

Interestingly, the Technos generally lead the powergraph for some time. That's what you get for starting with like 8 colony pods and a load of formers on a fully mag tubed large monsoon jungle with a builder faction.

Damn.

And yea, the Comrades have an excellent chokepoint with a good productive area behind it, plus I gave them all insta-elite.

[Sigma]

The Comrades do me proud.

Also, are you in need of another faction for your AAR? I have an idea of who could go in, and a very story friendly one: I just need a bit of time to complete it.

I'm kinda doubting my ability to win with a faction which is terrible at building like the AntiMind (-3 Industry and no min bonus, ewww) and the me slot is the only maybe available one. But on the other hand, if I don't have the earlygame power of the AntiMind I am just going to be killed right away by these monsters.

Interestingly, the Technos generally lead the powergraph for some time. That's what you get for starting with like 8 colony pods and a load of formers on a fully mag tubed large monsoon jungle with a builder faction.

Damn.

And yea, the Comrades have an excellent chokepoint with a good productive area behind it, plus I gave them all insta-elite.

I assume that when the fangs come out they fold without much resistance though?

[ete]

They've taken bases from the Annihilators in some test runs, and reclaimed bases that the Annihilators took, and they seem to at least hold their own against +100% offense usurpers. They've not actually won a simulation yet, but they do provide a lot of tech for Roze and via her the other humans which is the plan, distract Marr from the CC for some time, and build an empire.

[Sigma]

Well then I'm pretty proud of my boys!

[ete]

Okay, did another 5-6 runthrough tests today tweaking each time. I'm mostly happy with how terrifyingly scary my opponents are, and I've done some things like remove yang's CV and give him +6 Growth instead so I can't go rush him and steal the CV. The Annihilators still win every game, and every other faction is absurdly powerful in their own unique ways, with the strongest factions positioned so they are attacked from all sides. Yay.

In one game the Technos rushed the Annihilators and could have actually killed them if not for yang turning it into a three way battle.

Speaking of Yang, as well as the constant pop boom, I've given him one very well kitted out base (hab complex, punishment sphere, defenses) with a 13 nutrient square next to it. Weeeeee.

The Angels got more CPs and the CBA at the start (not useful right away, but they get air and need it to hold off the Annihilators), plus as before get any tech any other faction gets.

CC pretty much just have a nice starting location and more Morale.

Technos lost a few CPs to slow their insane initial burst, but improved their position.

Oh and the Usurpers start with one of each Battle Ogre (Elite of course). One of which has a string disruptor+stasis field+two good abilities. The last can't move it for the first 60 turns, but that's still a serious unit for turn 60. And the others come in on turns 10 and 30 with 6/12 weapons respectively.

All of them had their strategies tweaked. Looking forward to this.

Not sure when I'm going to have time to actually play this through though, I'm suddenly fairly busy for a while..

[JarlWolf]

As a person who is currently engaged in an AAR, I can tell you that is tough work keeping it updated at a consistent basis. The way I treat it now is every once in a bit I update it, and when I do update it, it's larger updates with lots of content for people to explore. Sort of like a "Weekly" episode style thing. No set dates but you can generally expect a new post once a week or so.

Though it also depends on what type of AAR you are thinking of: If you are just screencapping and describing the situation in strategical player thought, it shouldn't be as hard as screencapping and then writing a story out of it.

[Buster's Uncle]

Keeping it fairly regular and not too far between installments really matters...

[ete]

I don't plan to go to anything like the detail you're doing for your AAR, and will try to focus mostly on strategy with some backstory told about the landscape as I come across it. If I make a post with a few screenshots every 5-20 turns (depending on how much happens), use the new trick I found to make multiple screenshots without exiting the game, and mostly let the screenshots do the talking.. I'd estimate making an AAR would double or triple my play time. I can normally finish a large Transcend game in a day to a day and a half, though this is an extreme game and may take considerably longer unless I get crushed. And.. I'd quite like to try and do this fast, especially considering I'll likely be leaving the internet for most of a year in October.

Basically, I'm planning to get it done in quite a short time compared to most AARs, either win or lose. The plan may not work at all.

@BU: Regular.. is not something I can offer. It's going to be bursts, I'm not able to be around my computer consistently. I could write a lot of posts in a day and someone else could post them over a week while I'm away?