Age of Wonders: Planetfall SG

[Bobchillingworth]

T41:

A bug offers to trade a minor Casus Belli it apparently has against us for 150 gold.  I tell it to buzz off.  The only good bug is a dead bug!

I purchase access to a bronze-level power plant from the Growth, providing loot I sell for 75 credits.  The power plant is at the teleport leading to Rebas or whoever, and will provide an early warning if he moves against us.  I also begin consolidating troops to potentially advance on the Syndicate.  

We have a lot of random units with mysterious go-to orders set.  Not sure what the grand plan is for them, and I can’t be bothered to check, so I redirect them per my own capricious whims.   

Also, lol @ Naryvink working 100% science:



I get setting cities up like this if we have a desperate need for science / energy, but I’m going to put citizens on food for now so that we can claim two more sectors.


IBT: Rebas declares on some other AI.  He also sends a small stack from the fog to poach Rostinev!  



Unfortunately our troops are just out of position to reinforce the city, so I’ll probably have to capture it back.  


T42:  

I move units to counter Rebas, otherwise not much occurs.  


IBT:

Rebas elects to retreat his stack from our territory, probably because our counter army is visible.  I would like to emphasize here that the tactical AI for Planetfall is remarkably good- the AI can and will use diversions to tie down your forces while sneaking commandos halfway across the world to poach your backlines.  It's excellent at coordinating its forces, and AI are quite capable of devouring each other and growing to runaway status.  Where it falls apart is in peaceful expansion, almost certainly due to a combination of two factors: first, it has no idea how to prioritize sector specializations and thus builds Ag Centers way too late and consequently stagnates at low pop, and second it spends cosmite about as quickly as it earns it, and therefore can't afford the escalating costs for Colonizers.  

Anyway, just a little aside.  Back to the game- one of our punk-ass opponents removes the production bonus spell I recast on our capital; guess we won’t be able to get it online any time soon.  


T43:

Not much occurs.  Civil tech set to Research Development 1.  


T44:

Research Development 1 arrives, tech set to Production Development 2.  

A small stack of barbarian bugs shows up to menace one of Fastopol’s two (!) Ag Centers.  We’ll probably lose it for a turn, then squash them.  

I defeat the units guarding the level-up pillar Nauf mentioned; our baby bettle evolves as a result:



Adorable.  


Also a different bug falsely denounces us:



Actually, its complaint might have merit, could be I've squashed a bug or too in my life.  (Also: "serious atrocities"?  As opposed to what, minor genocide?)

I declare on it, because everyone else is already at war with it, and frankly I find the idea of a bug that thinks offensive!  

We gain a large happiness boost for having a war with a “major Casus Belli”.  


IBT:

Yuri declares on Rebas.  

Barb bugs attack our Ag Center, as anticipated, but I’m able to kill them with the local militia.  


T45:

Dvar opponent Inessa says she(?) intends to declare on us.  Whatever.  


IBT: Many diplo proposals filter in:



Exciting!


T46:

Rebas will offer 100g for peace, which I’d normally take except he’s already at war with like everyone else and I’m about to march a large force against him.  Declined.  

Adam offers 6 cosmite for 40 energy; it’s a good deal, I accept.  

The bug I declared on says its “desperate for peace”, but apparently not desperate enough to pay for it.  

I’m stockpiling cash so we can produce another Colonizer.  


T47:

Explosive Payloads finally comes in.  I design two new units, a Bulwark and a Baron with rather powerful fire attacks.  The Bulwark is probably the better deal, as they have identical damage outputs.  IIRC one of the Voidtech mods lets us ignore cover entirely with ballistic attacks, and at that point I will concede that our units are indeed overpowered.  


IBT:

Inessa insults us.  


T48:

Yuri offers 38 Cosmite for us to give up our Casus Belli against him.  Done!

Inessa fabricated a Casus Belli against us via an op.  Ironically, this also gives us a legitimate full Casus Belli against her.  

I advance our armies on Rebas.  


And that’s it for my set- thoughts for MJW’s:

• I recommend eliminating Reba or otherwise conquering as much of him as you can before peacing out.  Vassalizing him probably isn’t worthwhile, since I think we’d be forced to declare on the rest of the world, but then again pretty much everyone is at war with everyone else already anyway.  

• You may want to declare on the Dvar leader though, so we can get another free happiness boost w/ our Casus Belli.  

• The bug leader will peace out at any time, but also can’t actually reach us as best I can discern, so no rush.  

• I don’t think we need much more tech to win, especially on the military side.  We only have three ground units and a boat left to unlock, plus the Voidtech fliers, and I’m not particularly impressed with any of them (granted, I’m obviously underestimating every Dvar unit at this point, but still I’m convinced our post-Baron T3 units are awful).  I don’t care much for the Baron either tbh, but that’s probably because I’m too used to playing Syndicate and being able to ignore armor altogether.  Did I mention yet how much I love the Syndicate?  

[MJW (ya that one)]

Yep, this is the tipping point I was talking about earlier. The AI will no longer be able to deal with stack-splitting. I don't care about the rest of the tech tree as the game is over. Bulwarks are good enough to reach this point because it's easy to bait the AI to attack you. So they get to double-move. Vanguard can do this with their tier 1 infantry too and have enough other stuff to prop them up (they need help because they are only tier one). You just have to have one good unit in this game to win; it's just less obvious for Dvar and Vanguard. This is why I'm not engaged in this game, or age of wonders in general. Probably won't play another age of wonders sg game.

Clearly not enough time for Autonoms…

Turns really don't count for much anymore. I suggest we increase the turn count by 2 from now one. Naufragar plays 10, bob plays 12 and then keep going like this. I should play 8 as the first 8 turns are very important. Motivation; fewer turnsets-->faster finish

Should we go for conquest or doomsday? I have to kill the syndicate leader anyway because bob committed us so I don't need help for my turnset but we need to choose later.

[MJW (ya that one)]

this is mean by tipping point. Stack splitting ! This is why dvar's units doesn't matter. All they need is Bulwark to reach this point. I'm sure I won't play sg game for this game again. This will be the last important turn set so I really like the 8-10-12-14 plan. Will finish later.



https://www.dropbox.com/s/ttk5sioojjyzfs...g.png?dl=0

[Bobchillingworth]

I'm fine increasing the set lengths, if Nauf is.


You're correct that our victory is almost assured, now that we can produce super units the AI can't handle, but I do kind of like the romp-around-crush-everyone phase too; sort of like a reward for having survived long enough to get to it (though in this game the AI have been so obsessed with fighting everyone they haven't been able to send much our way).

[Brian Shanahan]

So our +1 armor building is producing armored bees. Armored bees!

Bees. My god.

[Bobchillingworth]

[naufragar]

I'm fine increasing the set lengths, if Nauf is.  


You're correct that our victory is almost assured, now that we can produce super units the AI can't handle, but I do kind of like the romp-around-crush-everyone phase too; sort of like a reward for having survived long enough to get to it (though in this game the AI have been so obsessed with fighting everyone they haven't been able to send much our way).

I'm fine with longer sets.

There are different settings we could have used for a more intense early game. Land maps are easier for the AI to expand on, I think, and smaller maps have less logistical difficulties for the AI attacking the humans. That said, I'm with you, Bob. The flow of a game in Planetfall (and AOW3) for me was always stomping around with late-game units as a reward for surviving a brutal early game.

[MJW (ya that one)]

done!

We now have access to syndicate tech tree, but we cannot use their units because I migrated the cities.
I got declared by a lot of people but they are stuck with at least 2 other wars so I'm ignoring them because they are very unlikely to attack us.
Just killed syndicate leader by mercilessly splitting their stacks. They had around 8 full stacks while we only had 3 at the start (became 4 when I brought over the leader the took out the last marauder camp).
If I'm right you are now supposed to hand to save off to Bob at end of turn 66 or start of turn 67.
Nothing else to report.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dkm1q2yfap6krs...3.ASG?dl=0

[MJW (ya that one)]

naufragar, where are art thou naufragar?

[MJW (ya that one)]

amusedly it's time over at turn 150 so I can give you the remaining turn times:

naufragar 67 (play until start of this turn)
bob 79
mjw 93
naufragar 109
bob 127
mjw 142 (shorted by 5 turns so every turnset is at least 8 turns)
naufragar 150