Third time's the charm - Mardoc plays the Pirates [SPOILER]

[HidingKneel]

I think you definitely want to be on Sian's good side for now. If the forced peace expires, he can do you a lot of damage with just his one sub, let alone any other naval units he decides to build.

[Mardoc]

I think you definitely want to be on Sian's good side for now. If the forced peace expires, he can do you a lot of damage with just his one sub, let alone any other naval units he decides to build.

Looks like we may have achieved that. Got our settlement agreement, like so:


Not much different than my original goal; we've got the oil and energy bonus and the whole of the western trench. Gave up a bunch in the east, true, but we wouldn't have settled that far for a while yet anyway.

Edit: And, equally importantly, Sian's pushes are all for tiles he can work from land!

Also, yes, I take your hint regardless. Swapped the capital to a gun foil - even if it upgrades to a sub, we'll want the unit. I think we will want, soon, to try to clear out the blockading Isle from between Sian and us, but done carefully that will only improve our navy. I'm going to wait until we have the south nailed down a little more, and then send up at least two boats, possibly three, to make sure we win on the first attempt.

Turned tech back on this turn; Pressure Dome looks to be an 7-turn tech, after the overflow we'll earn this turn. Although we'll run out of cash before that if we don't stockpile energy somewhere; it can wait a couple turns though, to make our military slightly less embarrassing first.

And we have one more wait or no wait question: our Great Doctor is in at the end of turn. I'll be bulbing Memetics with him. Do we swap to Knowledge immediately?

It'd be worth 7 bpt from the specialists alone, and another 7-8 per turn from the 10% bonus on top of our current 100% rate. Which would take 100% science from 69 bpt to 83. Which would cut a full turn off the time to Pressure Dome, neatly paying for the turn of anarchy. Well, not paying back the hammers and growth, but eventually it'll be worth it.

So next turn is destined to be rather boring, I fear .

[HidingKneel]

You've got no other civic swaps on the horizon, right? Or golden age? I say make the swap now. It'll be a turn of anarchy whenever you do it, so might as well start accruing the benefits now.

[Mardoc]

You've got no other civic swaps on the horizon, right? Or golden age? I say make the swap now. It'll be a turn of anarchy whenever you do it, so might as well start accruing the benefits now.

Right, this is probably the last civic swap we'll do this game. I think we'll stick with Police State/Planned/Knowledge/Biodomed/Non-Member until the end. Or at least until the situation has changed greatly. I can imagine circumstances where we might want to swap to Hybrid, or maybe in the very long run, to Autarky. But neither is worth it anytime soon!

Golden Age - well, if we didn't bulb Memetics, then we could use the Doctor for that instead, but then we wouldn't have the civic to revolt into. I'm sure we'll want to use golden ages eventually, but I think at the moment bulbing pays better.

[Mardoc]

Finally had a chance to test pillaging bases. Turns out to be worth 40+city size*4 energy, per pillage. You can only pillage once/turn, no matter how many units you have to do the work, and you seem to have to be in the city for a turn or two before you can start pillaging. Scavenger doesn't seem to affect this value, I get the same pillaging as Spartans as I do as Pirates.

But that means for example that a size 5 city, pillaged into oblivion, would be worth 60+56+52+48+44 energy, or 260 total! That's something like a whole tech. Which we can also get directly:

And, the beaker thing is very real, but uncontrolled. We gain the same number of beakers by pillaging as we gain energy - but only in a tech that the pillaged foe has and we do not. If there's more than one, I haven't figured out how it's determined exactly. I think it's random. If there's none, then we only gain the energy. Somewhat less useful as log as we stay #1 in GNP

So - what's this mean? Pillaging bases to nothing is extremely profitable. But it can't be done hit-and-run like I was earlier hoping. Taking 5+ turns to pillage a base means that we have to have firm control to pillage for profit, not just temporary local superiority.

It also means that if we want maximum profit, we need to be targetting people who are ahead of us - at least in one area. Which I expect to be...difficult.

[Bigger]

can you pillage your own base?

ok, silly question, but I assume you must capture an enemy base to pillage it? Is time you must pillage by, before it becomes yours and can't be pillaged?

(if you remember, in AC, after you controlled a base for 40 turns or so the graphic would change from the faction you conquered it to your faction - which meant the AI would no longer resent you. And if you, say, nerve stapled it, it would be on your own people instead of your enemies people, so he wouldnt hate you for it).

[Mardoc]

ok, silly question, but I assume you must capture an enemy base to pillage it? Is time you must pillage by, before it becomes yours and can't be pillaged?

It's got to be still in revolt. Pillaging adds one turn to the revolt time, in addition to -1 pop and + cash. I think you can't pillage bases that are rioting, just bases in revolt from conquest, but I admit I haven't tested in that detail.

Played the turn, which turned out to be just as boring as predicted: moved a couple units, bulbed Memetics, revolted into Knowledge. Which resulted in a higher tech rate than I expected - Pressure Dome is now only 5 turns away.

Which is the end of our current tech plan. What's next?

Well, first up: I think Marines, Subs, Transports, and Bunkers ought to be enough to hold our land against just about anything we're likely to face, for a long time. Possible exception of Isles of the Deep - but we're started on that as well.

It's not enough to go conquering with, not really. I think I know what I want for conquest - air power. It's fairly easy to get Planes mounted onboard ship, just need the Mass Drivers tech which is nearly en route to the airforce anyway. What does air power grant? Huge amounts of recon, and controllable focusable collateral. Combine that with the mobility of transports, and we ought to be dominant.

But, not yet. First, airpower is a long ways up the tree still. Second, there's so much open sea to grab, and 80 hammers for a colony pod is much less than the army we'd need to seriously consider taking land from a human foe; possibly even less than what it'd take to roll over an AI.

Therefore, what we want next is economy. I'd like to stick with a REX-focused economy, at least for now, which means we don't want to unlock buildings, we want to unlock resources, and trade, and similar bonuses. Things that don't cost hammers to use.

What fits? Well, take a look at the tree:


Ignoring all the buildings and most of the units and special abilities granted, on the premise that we wouldn't be using them right now anyway...

From the top: one of the major exceptions. Centauri Empathy would allow us to build our own Isles rather than relying totally on capture. Equally important, it would let us put Empath Song onto our captured Isles, and use something to go worm hunting that actually has decent odds, all the time. I had been intending to bulb this, but our first Transcend is due in something like 36 turns. I don't want to wait that long.

Moving down the column, we hit Retroviral Engineering, which would give us access to our Rare Ocean DNA. And theoretically Grenade Fruits, but we haven't spotted any of those yet. Planetary Networks gives Crystals, for happiness. High Energy Chemistry unlocks the health of our Helium-3.

Next column, Psionics would be quite handy as well. Unlocking the Brilliance and Planet pearls for an instant +2 Planet in all our bases, plus something to trade. Cloning and Nanominiaturization don't do anything for us yet. Magnetic Propulsion unlocks Tidal Harnesses, to really kick our energy production into high gear. It's also the enabling tech for Biodomed to grant all our trained units Stealth. Doctrine Air Power boosts all our Sea Mills by 1 energy. Biofuel grants us Methane Ice (health), and one of the few buildings worth considering, the Bioreactor for more energy from Kelp.

So, with a goal of unlocking a bunch of resources, what's the priority? Right now, as soon as the formers catch up, we'll have resources for net +2 Happy, +2 Planet, and +4 Health. I think we should balance the unlocks, therefore. I'm thinking SuperConductor for open borders and as a prereq, followed by Centauri Empathy, Planetary Networks, and High Energy Chemistry. That'll add another happy and health to our cities, along with native life options.

Then we follow up with boosting our Planet Rating, at Psionics, come back to Retroviral Engineering for the DNA, then Biofuel, and finally Magnetic Propulsion. Then we reevaluate.

We're continuing to skip Social Psych, Holographics, which unlock some nice +Happy buildings, primarily because we still want colony pods instead. And to skip the Terraforming line, which helps with feeding land bases. IF we do hit a wall, and need to stop the REX, these are worth reconsidering.

So all in all, here's the current tech plan:

1. Pressure Dome
   
2. Superconductor
   
3. Centauri Empathy
   
4. Planetary Networks
   
5. High Energy Chemistry
   
6. Psionics
   
7. Retroviral Engineering
   
8. Biofuel
   
9. Magnetic Propulsion
   

Or, at least, my brainstormed version of one. On balance, I think I may be putting too much emphasis on health and not enough on Planet and happiness; perhaps we can afford to drop High Energy Chemistry or Retroviral Engineering from the list. OTOH, both of those unlock multiple copies, and we're still on good terms with the world; they can be traded away for things we want more.

Anyway, I await your criticism, gentlemen .

[Bigger]

aw. Environmental Economics was easily my favorite tech in AC, so useful for the economy. I'm guessing its not as important here, esp on the ocean.

Sounds like you've got a great plan, though. You need more knowledgeable ded-lurkers, I think, to get solid criticism.

[Mardoc]

I'm guessing its not as important here, esp on the ocean.

The ocean part is the main bit, I think. It enables planting forests, getting better yield from jungles, farms spreading Irrigation, and the Centauri Preserve wonder. All useful stuff on land, means hardly anything on the ocean.

Sounds like you've got a great plan, though. You need more knowledgeable ded-lurkers, I think, to get solid criticism.

Eh. I'm sure you'll be useful once we're out of the Us vs. Game portion, and move on to fighting people. Plus, it's already handy to have to explain my thinking. Trying to explain myself forces me to organize my thoughts. It's not like I really know what I'm doing here either, but I pretend well .

[Ichabod]

Regarding the thread title, I'd say that the second time was already the charm for Mardoc and the Pirates. :neenernee