Information should be free and all that [Data Angel spoilers]

[Maniac]

On second thought, if he sets off with his transports this turn, there's no way I can gather enough ships to sink them. Of course I'll still need the foils to prevent him from invading my escape island.

[Maniac]

MY 2199:

I've discovered the Garland Crater. A base next to that will prove handy to build up a navy to resist attempts to conquer my refugee island.

[Maniac]

Something else I noticed. Mardoc's power graph has started to incline more. Might he be planning to attack Sareln in the east after Sareln's declared war on me again?

Short term I could profit from that by regaining lost territory. Long term Mardoc would probably just roll over me after he's finished with Sareln.

[Maniac]

I used my Datajack to add 2000 espionage points to the Hive, more than I'll ever use probably. I then stole Pressure Dome, and upgraded my impact troopers to marines.

I researched Social Psych this turn from the couple labs I get from my network nodes and librarian specialists. Next target will be Centauri Meditation in 17 turns.

Unfortunately Mardoc switched to the Voice of Planet. As a consequence we no longer share the same state religion (ie, none...), and we don't get the trade route bonus from that anymore. Now I only get 2 credits from a trade route with him.

I signed open borders with Yang last turn. Changing to police state made him pleased with me. I can only hope his state religion, the Ascetic Virtues, spreads to me as a consequence. Then I can switch to that and use Yang as a partner to get 3-credit trade routes.

This turn I split my espionage points between Sian (to see his research projects) and Mardoc (to gain visibility on his base next turn). Both Mardoc and Sian are researching Psionics. Personally I've always found that one of the less attractive techs. I wonder what their reasons are.

On the screenshot you can see the Mexican standoff between me and Sareln. I have 10 Marines, 14 Siege tanks and 4 Choppers. To the left you can see his forces in Angel Falls.




Why I'm not concentrating forces on the obvious target Gargopoli? It is on a terrible location to defend. It's lowland surrounding by highland. If I placed all my tanks in the city and Sareln would move his forces to the mountain pass EE of the city, I'd be forced to attack uphill.

At my current location, should Sareln move units adjacent to me, I can attack with my first move and withdraw over the sea with my second move, thus preventing a counterattack. I'm still outnumbered, so I can't just rely on brute force to defend myself.

If Sareln declares war, but stays two tiles away, I'm willing to sacrifice my stack of siege tanks to weaken his force, even if numerically I lose more units. My military strategy relies on naval and amphibious power, and siege tanks are rather useless for that. Most important now is I don't lose my Marines and Choppers.

[Maniac]

Well, that sucks. Sareln will get subs too if I steal Doctrine:Initiative from Yang. Goodbye to my window of naval superiority.

[Maniac]

By hurrying a chopper and because of hammer overflow, I was able to build a chopper and two marines in a single turn in Gargopoli. The result is I now have exactly the same force composition around the base as Sareln is marching against me: 6 infantry, 5 choppers, 14 siege tanks.* :D However while Sareln has already used most of his special ability slots for non-strength bonus goodies (such as an extra move, extra collateral, extra base bombardment), pretty much all my forces can still pick their special ability. This can give me +25% strength versus a chosen unitcombattype.

(*) I hope Sareln doesn't have another surprise convoy of filled transports in the northern waters.

Those six marines on the coast I marched towards Angel Falls. Though as I write this I realize they could have made it back to Gargopoli in time. They would have been able to move multiple plots along the river. This may in fact cost me the base.

I stationed all my choppers and siege tanks a tile south of Gargopoli. In my own territory I'm allowed to move between a base tile and a ridge, even if the base tile is lowland. This means I have flexibility: next turn I can still move into Gargopoli, or I can give up the base and a make a wild dash east to Angel Falls.

I stole Doctrine: Initiative from Yang this turn, and upgraded my gun foils to submarines. But not before I promoted a gun foil with precision and sank Sareln's damaged gun foil (which had sunk my scouting foil last turn).

Sareln's fleet is now in a bad position. He doesn't have enough movement points to make it back to his territory and upgrade himself to subs. So if he tries that I will sink his ships. He could retreat to a fungal patch, but then I'll proceed to blockade his waters. That will slow down his marine reinforcements, as land units can't move over blockaded waters.

I don't really know what to do with my probe teams now. Perhaps I can Centauri Meditation from Angel Falls. But I know Sareln built a probe team a while ago. No idea where that is right now. Hopefully not moving towards Angel Falls as we speak.




I fired up an endturn save again to make a screenshot of my new lands.

While Sareln is spending all his resources on the military, Safe House City has completed another colony pod. Three food bonus resources in its radius makes it a perfect colony pod pump. I intend to found a base on that flat polar plot on the island's west. It has a monolith resource and lots of fungus nearby. For my next unit I'll build a sea colony pod. Sareln's siege tanks and genites are pretty much useless against sea bases. Thus we start with a blank slate should he try to pursue me to extinction.

[Maniac]

Sareln made a big mistake if he moved his entire force on the fungus. His Genites are the only units which can benefit from the defense bonus. The majority of his force, his choppers and siege tanks, can't. I've already created a simulation for that scenario. While I will take more losses than Sareln attacking his genites, my siege tanks promoted with +25% vs artillery have a 75% chance of victory versus his siege tanks already promoted with for this battle useless stuff. I will come ahead with a few units.

[Maniac]

MY 2203 Report:

This is the aftermath of the Battle for Gargopoli:




I got two great generals from the battle. One I've used for an Army Academy in Gargopoli (+1 spec ab slot for infantry, flamethrowers and artillery). The other will found a Naval Academy in Ergonomia. Together with the Naval Yard I started building that'll give me 3-spec ab submarines and 2-spec ab transports.

Those two Marines next to Angel Falls I have promoted with the unique Angel Spectre promotion, making me invisible and allowing me to attack the weakest unit in a stack. Hopefully that'll allow me to pick off some extra units from Sareln's presumably retreating stack.

In other news, that Hivean Ascetic seems to be heading my way. Hurray!

[Maniac]

[*]Can pick the Spectre spec ab: covert ops invisibility and target weakest unit. Only available to the Infantry unitcombattype. These can perform two functions.

• ...
  
• Combat units obviously. The targetweakestunit ability has great synergy with collateral damage dealing units. And due to their invisibility I can perform surprise attacks. However, to avoid abuse like is possible in Fall from Heaven with the Shadow, in Planetfall invisible units become visible for a turn after they've attacked someone. So I can't just send one in enemy territory and wreak havoc.

This is wrong. Spectres remain visible after performing an attack. IIRC the reason is Spectres can only occur in small numbers, limited by your probe team slots, so don't need to be countered as easy as Stealth units, which can be built in infinite numbers.

[Maniac]

Another thing we've learned because of the battle: the demographics score of the faction with the most soldiers hasn't decreased, so I guess that means Sparta has the biggest army, and the Consciousness is only #2.