For I Have Tasted the Fruit: The private logs of Academician Zakharov

[Brian Shanahan]

I think ith time for the Thurvivalisth.

Firtht ith should be it'th. Keep up your lithping Igor!

On the choice prethented, the one which carrieth the most ethetheth winth.

[Selrahc]

Man has killed man from the beginning of time, and each new frontier has brought new ways and new places to die. Why should the future be different? Col. Corazon Santiago "Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

One of the weaker leaders, but certainly not entirely without merit. Santiago has a slight edge in combat, but more importantly is the only leader who can pretty much ignore the happy cap all game long.

• +1 happiness from each military unit stationed at base.
  This is the big, and only, economic boon. Hereditary rule as a civ trait rather than a civic... I'll be discussing implications below. But it is definitely solid.
  
• +100% great general emergence
  Even with +100% you are never going to be swimming in great generals. I've always found that I managed to gain enough to equip a few heavy production bases with GG's just through regular play, so I'm not sure I see it as too big an advantage that the Spartans get to add one to military cranks #4,5 & 6.
  
• Conscripts start with regular ability slots.
  Semi useful... As with regular civ I would be more likely to draft in my clone armies in a high food place rather than a high production place. And those are the kind of areas where I probably haven't invested in military infrastructure. But special ability slots *are* good, so getting them on conscripts is handy.
  
• Free Commando promotion
  Commando gives a grab bag of minor bonuses, most significant of which is +10% withdraw. Combine it with Flanking Promos and special abilities possibly... but really this isn't a terribly useful promo.
  
• More isolated starting position.
  I get the feeling this was supposed to be quite a big deal, in the AI centric games Maniac has designed towards. Combined with an exploration based starting tech, the Spartans are intended as a pod popper faction. I don't think that entirely works however, since pods are far too random to rely on. In MP games, this trait is probably going to be inconsequential as starts are prerolled and pods are disabled.
  

The happiness bonus. That's the key to the civ. In my test games, I find it pushes me towards a very planet unhappy gameplay style. Stockpile energy takes care of unit maintenance very nicely, so there isn't a huge cost associated with going for giant cities. I've found that the Spartans can run a monstrous mid/late-game economy through the use of terraforming's powerful farms, with a shift over to biodomed for max tile yield once the city has been grown to a big enough size. With large costs for hydroponics maintenance, and costs for the armies that keep the super cities happy, it will be an expensive civilization to run. But running size 20+ cities on mostly solar collectors and mines without worrying about food at all? That generates a frighteningly powerful economy. I would say powerful farms, cheap troops and biodomed are the key to making the Spartan economy a thing to be feared.

Update on game state is coming tomorrow/whenever the next save comes.

[Iskender]

Hey Selrahc. Kudos for those reviews. I find them insightful enough not to bother myself with playtesting some factions myself (Gaians, bleh). Any chance of covering expansion leaders as well?

With large costs for hydroponics maintenance, and costs for the armies that keep the super cities happy, it will be an expensive civilization to run.

What is hydroponics maintenance?

[Selrahc]

Hey Selrahc. Kudos for those reviews. I find them insightful enough not to bother myself with playtesting some factions myself (Gaians, bleh). Any chance of covering expansion leaders as well?

Thanks. I'm planning on doing expansion leaders eventually. Less experience with them overall though.

What is hydroponics maintenance?

In Planetfall, bases never starve. Instead they pay Hydroponics maintenance of 1 credit/point of food needed to feed the population. So if you bring your population up to unsustainable heights, then crash the food intake you will end up paying a lot of hydroponics maintenance. However, with Stockpile Energy being a 200% efficiency build, every 4 hammer rocky arid mine is worth 8 nutrients of hydroponics maintenance.

Without Biodomed civic, entering Hydroponics maintenance also carries a revolt risk. Biodomed is necessary to avoid losing your jacked up super cities to revolution.

[Iskender]

One hammer for 2 foods, this is cool (also quite imba).

[Maniac]

You pay two credits per food. So it's 1 hammer = 1 food.

Before you build a Fusion Reactor, that is...

[Selrahc]

You pay two credits per food.

Hmm? Mayhaps I was doing it after I'd gotten a wave of Nuclear reactors built... I certainly remember it as being 1 credit per food point.

Guess I'll have to check my saves again. This is my planned development path for my economy, so I'm in favour of getting the details right.

[Selrahc]

Executive summary: I have been in the process of reconfiguring my economy from a short term rush civ, to a builder. This has put me a little way behind, since I essentially built the army and then didn't use it to grab cities.. never a great economic strategy. I'm behind in cities, I'm behind in demographics, I'm behind in formers and I'm behind in exploration... but I do have workable land. I'm also keeping up in technology most vigorously and my GNP is not bad at all. The army that I built to hit Nic is currently engaged in all out war with the Mindworms, while I still have a positive planet rating. I've popped a few more pods to generally lacklustre results. I've got enough credits to fuel a lot of deficit research though!

I'm attempting to build my way back into this game. If Nic actually stays true to his cooperation pledge, I ought to be able to do so in fairly short order.

[Selrahc]

So, we're meeting new people.

Opportunities for exciting trade. I've given Bob my (disgusting) +Planet radiotropic fungus in return for some good old Alien DNA. Like mother used to make. That's helping out my health issues a little.

The far more important question... how do I stand in SCIENCE?!!


Not too bad. Way in the lead of Nic, who really does seem to be going for all out war with his giant credit reserves. Dead even with Bob. I've got Planetary Networks, which he doesn't. But he has the Voice of Planet tech. I'm not sure if he has Memetics as well.. if he doesn't I'm actually in the lead. Particularly since I've got a Datajack prancing around exploring, ready to bulb what looks like will be half of Nanominituarization once I knock out Social Psych.

Very interesting is that none of them have Holographics, so nobody else knows opponents techs yet.

[Maniac]

These are the flavors of Nanominiaturization. So I believe the tech can only be bulbed by a Tycoon or Chief Engineer.

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