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

[Selrahc]

Beware, you who seek first and final principles, for you are trampling the garden of an angry God and he awaits you just beyond the last theorem.
Sister Miriam Godwinson, "But for the Grace of God"

I was underwhelmed at Miriam when I first read her description. Miriam in Alpha Centauri was the ultimate rush civ, with a sideline in probing. None of her bonuses really fit that mold here... but on playing a test game I can see where the power is now.

Miriam's Traits

• +20% attack against factions who don't share state religion.
  
• +20% strength against natives after choosing a state religion. These two bonuses are very handy, helping to cancel out tech disadvantage and negative planet rating. Of note here, religions are not unlocked by early game technology, and the only religious technology that has direct military applications is Memetics. Miriam is *not* a rush civ. She is a mid game war civ.
  
  
• +1 hammer from Psych Chaplains. You're probably going to be running a lot of psych chaplains due to a later point, but this is still ultimately a pretty minor bonus.
  
  
• +10% food. Solid bonus that is applicable right through the game. Means you need to keep sources of happy rolling in though, and makes tile micromanagement a bit of a chore to calculate.
  
• +50% espionage defence. People who try to spy on you will basically be wasting money. Especially in a game with University in it...
  
• +25% terraformer production. Good early game boost. It seems to me that I run with a lot less terraformers than I would workers though, so this isn't that great.
  
• +1 happy/base. Trivial boost, but helpful in the early game.
  
• -1 Planet/base. This is a negative that really can be a kick in the teeth for the believers. They start the game with a negative planet rating, without any sort of grace period from worm attacks. The believers start with Defence Logistics technology, which at least allows them to clear out fungus and use flamethrowers to fight worms on a more even footing. But triggering a mind worm boil early can heavily set back the early game.
  
• Can trigger cultural golden ages. This is the big one. The other advantages are nice, but nothing really game changing. This gives her a whole other direction of play.
  

Cultural golden ages define Miriams game. I'm not entirely clear on how it works, but the headlines are that psych(culture) is pooled on civilizational level, and once it hits a threshold the civ goes into a golden age. In my test game I've spent the entire period between T40 and T100 in a golden age, and probably can keep it going longer. Miriam focuses heavily on psych producing buildings(which oddly, includes a lot of military buildings like command centres) and civics. Fittingly enough, she synergizes fantastically with Fundamentalist(+50% psych, +exp for state religions, double bonus from state religion) and Terraforming (auto removes fungus based on culture) civics. Edenism is the best conceptual fit for her, but ultimately she would be a lot better off running Ascetic Virtues or Homo Superior.

She's a heavy threat if you're near her, and has a surprising amount of economic clout when you consider just how hopeless she was in Alpha Centauri. I'm hoping I can bribe Sareln into cooperation by sending him a few Missionaries.

[Selrahc]

Next on the list, Civics, Units or Lal. Preferences?

Also, the game had a crazy fast turn around this morning. Got back to me an hour and a half after I played it! Pod pop next turn, and I killed a mind worm with my scout.

[Mardoc]

Next on the list, Civics, Units or Lal. Preferences?

You might as well finish off the leader assessments with Lal.

If you've the time, I'd also be interested to see your thoughts on Morgan and Santiago, even though they won't affect this particular game.

[Selrahc]

Actually one more thing for Miriam. It's slightly counter intuitive, but there is one religion that comes early. Voice of Planet. If Miriam learns to hug mindworms, she can get her bonus for Religious Combat in play early, while also negating that crippling planet penalty. In the long run, she is going to be worse at that play style than any other faction... but I could potentially see a quick stint of the religion in the early game. Hmm.

[Selrahc]

The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons.
Commissioner Pravin Lal, "Report on Human Rights"

As in Alpha Centauri, Lal is a generalist builder who can be bent towards any strategy you choose. He's by far the simplest leader in terms of traits.

• +100% GP generation.
  
• +50% wonder production.
  
• +1 happiness from Hab Complex(renamed genejack factory)
  
• Double votes in planetary council.
  

Nic's discussion about bowing to the worm god is a legitimate concern. Lal could definitely take up worm farming in his free time. His GP generation can be turned to generation of Transcends, which might let him keep up with the Gaians in the planet race. His wonder production can get him building some of the key early planet friendly wonders like the Chiron Preserve (+1 point added directly to empire rating, as well as generating Transcend GPPs)

In general though, I would say Lal wants to focus on generating GPs to put him ahead in the tech race. Lightbulb technology to get to technologies first, then use your trait to build powerful secret projects. If Lal manages to build the Planetary Council, it adds another +100% GPP generation, while democracy and rejuvenation tanks add another +50%. Eventually the cascade of Great People will slow to a trickle, but by then it would be hoped that a firm lead has been established.

The council vote seems to be marginal in a game of humans, since people can opt out of the council to avoid many of its edicts. Being part of the council gives a heavy boost to foreign trade route yield amongst council members, but I would give it up in a heartbeat if it meant I had to allow Nic to start pushing my civics or wars. It can have a lot of effect on the Flowering Counter though, even without every civ signed up. Either reducing it by introducing oxygen condensers or increasing it through affinity gene treatments. A council leader committed to pushing an eco agenda one way or the other could really impact the direction of the Planet.

[Selrahc]

Pop the pod pop the pod poppodpoppodpop.

WHAT DO I WIN?!

Energy.
Meh.

Alright Igor, get over to the other pod, then come back to base. We don't want to get killed by...

Mindworms.

Go crunch underfoot real nice. I think my lab assistant managed to best them by having an easily removable brain. You can't plague what isn't there.

Let's look at the combat logs.

Blah. No combat logs. Is that just a general feature of modded play? I miss combat logs.

Discourse on Psi Combat-

Mindworm combat works in much the same way it did in Alpha Centauri. All units have a Psi attack of 3 and a Psi defence of 2. Planet rating provides modifiers to Psi combat, as do regular promotions. You always want to be attacking in Psi combat, so mobility and first strike advantage are big things. Although terrain defensive modifiers *do* apply in Planetfall, so it can be hard for Psi attackers to break into bases without good promotions.

One of the nicer perks of the Gaians(never actually did a full write up on the faction) is that they automatically get a +1 to Psi defence. I.E, they'll be defending with the same strength as they attack. It's a little bit academic, since they generally won't piss off mind worms enough to encounter them in large numbers, but it's yet another reason why trying to out green the Gaians is a bad idea.


There is a late game infantry unit called the Psion. Useful mainly because it's a psychic unit which doesn't rely on having a high planet rating, and which can take advantage of special ability slots. I may be picking some up eventually....

Meanwhile back at the base....

Formers work on improving the Monlith. Once that tile gets done I'll have a fairly sweet 2-2-2 tile to work instead of the 2-0-0 I'm currently on. Get the Colony Pod out, then start on Unity Library. Hopefully get it finished within a few turns of the Datajack pop.

Hmm. That base screen doesn't look right. Why can't I work the monolith?

Base yield 1-1-1, +1-1-1 with field lab, Requires Archaeology. What? To work at all? I thought that was to enable it as a happy resource? Fuuuuuuu....

I am not a happy Provost.

[Selrahc]

While I ruminate over my direction, anybody got a choice for my next analysis? Units, Civics or Morgan.

[Mardoc]

While I ruminate over my direction, anybody got a choice for my next analysis? Units, Civics or Morgan.

I'm most interested in hearing about units. It'd be nice to get some perspective on your Memetics strategy, what it's up against.

[Selrahc]

In the time since my last report, I've killed some worms and popped some pods. I've found a lot of energy credits, but nothing awesome.


My prediction about lucky schmucks getting distracted by shiny baubles is coming true.

[strike]Unity Mining Laser[/strike] Peacekeepers.
[strike]Unity Cryobay[/strike] Hive.
[strike]Unity Observation Deck[/strike] Gaians.

So just the Unity Reactor and Unity Hydroponics left to distract people from the real prize.

Bob is having a hell of a lot of luck with pods, he has popped boats, supply trawlers, all sorts of techs, rovers... He's way in the lead at the moment. I'm hoping my Library gambit can pull me back into the running. His Unity Observation Deck was chosen in favour of the Library, but I can't really fault him for that. He's used it to fuel even more rampant pod popping, as well as finding all of our start locations. I'm most reassured by the fact that he is located on an island, so he won't be able to pull early aggression. Sea battles loom in Planets futures though.. so I'd better try and find what makes a good centrepiece for sea attacks.

Nicolae and Mist are close to each other and trading early aggression. Sareln is fighting mindworms in prodigious numbers... and so am I. In my case, I've been pushing out of borders. Sareln is apparently already being invaded. Ouch.

As far as the gameplan... I abandoned progress on the Colony Pod and have pushed straight for the Library. Library library library library.

So, I completed a rocky mine, and have been working on it full pelt. Just finished Xenobilogy as well and boom! 2 lots of grenade fruit. My capital location is looking exponentially better right now. The grenade fruit will be 4/1/0 tiles soon, and I'm also allowed to work the Monolith and Radiotropic Funguses! That... that actually looks like a decent city.



I'm 8 turns from the Library(because in two turns when I pop a Datajack, I'll be adding a technician to help things). And feeling very very trepidatious. If I lose this wonder, my early game goes up in smoke entirely.




Unity Pods are a very stressful thing to face. I've literally gone straight for the Library. There is very little I could have done to speed it up, but I might still lose it, not because of someone else aiming for it and pursuing it more effectively, but because Bob has an Ocean Supply Trawler hanging around. It's horrible, because in FFH and BTS at least if an opponent has good hut luck it doesn't actively screw you. It passively screws you, giving them more tools to work with to kill you, but its something that you won't have to face until many turns later. If Bob supply trawlers the wonder, then everything I have done so far was a complete waste of time. Not fun at all. Similarly though, I think I'd be equally pissed if someone ran Unity Choppers at me that they'd lucked out of a pod. Units you get for free should not be able to easily eliminate starting troops. I don't think I'd play a MP game with unity pods again.

[Selrahc]

[SIZE="3"]Alpha Centauri needs YOU!: The Armed Forces of Chiron[/SIZE]

Rather than give a somewhat unfocussed account of every military unit in the game, I'm going to be keeping this focussed on units I'd categorize as early/mid game.

The earliest unit is the ubiquitous Scout Patrol. The Scout Patrol will probably be the main military unit built for much of the game. With the hyper powerful "Stockpile Energy" command and the low upgrade costs, it looks to me to be a lot more efficient to build units as scout patrols, then upgrade them to whatever is needed. Scout Patrols can upgrade along the Infantry and Flamethrower lines.


Infantry units are the bread and butter units, that most military forces will probably be made from. With S3 Impact Troopers being available early, and two decent mid game S4 units. Pressure Domes unlocks Marines, a good tech path for those who focus on sea strength. Marines start with amphibious, which can be incredibly useful. In Planetfall your own units can always travel on water inside your own cultural borders, but suffer a penalty if attacking from water. Marines ignore that, so can be used in aggressive moves against shoreside foes while retreating to the safety of the waves. The other S4 infantry option is Genites, unlocked at memetics. Genites have march as standard, which is going to be more useful for a landbased empire. Both powerful infantry technologies come along lines that are also useful economically, with marines being based along the "aqua" line, while genites are at a fairly key research boosting tech. This is the main reason that Infantry will be the first port of call, it takes more of a concerted effort to enable Native Units, powerful Flamethrowers and Vanguards. Later on, S7 Invetro's and S6 Drop Troopers are available, but probably not until the closing stages of the game.

Very late game infantry units include Cyborgs, Mobile Infantry, Psions and Battlemechs.


The other possible option for Scout Patrols is to upgrade them to Flamethrower units. Flamethrowers have a rougher upgrade path than infantry units, because the technologies in their intermediate units are less essential. Theoretically, the upgrade path goes Flamethrower->Plasma Thrower->Hyperian. But the Plasma Thrower is unlocked at a technology just as expensive as that which unlocks Genites or Marines, but with nowhere near the wide ranging economic benefits. Plasma Throwers are S4 units with a +25% against infantry at a technology which unlocks an additional anti-infantry special ability. Going for Plasma Throwers is basically an all in though, you take an economically worthless technology in order to gain a short term battlefield edge against infantry units unlocked by *very* economically worthwhile technologies. Better make the most of that combat edge! Hyperians are a unit which heralds the end of the Mid game. They're unlocked by the 2000 beaker Bioreactor technology, a technology that will be vital to anyone with an economy based around Kelp Farms or Fungus/Forests. As a S5 unit with +25% against infantry, they'll be pretty dominant unless they go up against the Invetro or Drop Troopers that may be showing up at the same time...

The only late game Flamethrower is the Helion, a S7 unit with some bonuses against infantry.



Flamethrowers and Infantry units are ultimately very similar. Representing a more distinct military branch, somebody could focus on Vanguard troops. Vanguard units are the "Cavalry" of the Chironic battlefield, being a generic term encompassing all of the fast land units in the game, from gravtanks to helicopters. In practical terms though, there are only 3 Vanguard units that will be relevant in the early and midgame. The Rover is a S2 unit which I find in terms of field use mostly unsuitable for anything but a mobile worm defence and early exploration. It is unlocked early however and serves the same upgrade path function as scout patrols for later vanguard units. The next vanguard unit unlocked is the much more formidable Chopper, unlocked at Factionalism. The main selling point of the S3 Chopper is that it has 2 moves, and can fly over the top of ridges, giving it a great mobility advantage. Its strength is very lacklustre though. The last Vanguard unit that might see some play is the Rotor, an upgraded Chopper with S5 and higher move. Unlocked at the 2000 beaker Air Power technology, the Rotor will join the Hyperian as one of those units that will start to see use at the beginning of the late game.

Vanguard units get very weird in the late game, with flying transport units like cloudbases and powerful gravity propelled tanks. The ultimate Vanguard is the S30 M8 Leviathan .




Running in support to all of these will be the artillery units. The S3 Siege Tank is unlocked very early, and is a multi-move unit which can do up to 50% collateral damage. Scary stuff, and I think we all know how useful it can be. Even scarier, once Air Power is researched the Artillery can attack at *range*, not even putting themself at risk. As Zakharov, I have a slight advantage in the Artillery department, getting Field Repair on all of my Artillery units. As far as upgrades go... the S5 Mass Driver and the first true aircraft will both be coming into play around the same time, and probably both a *little* too late for this game. Potentially either or both could be in play late game though.

Air units basically take over the role of artillery in the late game, but Behemoth heavy artillery will be available as well putting in a brave showing.



The last important early game human unit is the bunker. Formers can be transformed into S4 immobile bunkers, which provide a powerful defence. I've mainly had cause to use bunkers as emergency defensive units. As the game progresses and later techs are researched bunkers get an upgrade to more powerful units (Bunker II and Bunker III).

They double as +1 food tile improvements, which can connect resources. I probably need to look more into bunkers.


Finally we have the truly weird option, native troops. Dependent on planet rating to train, these units get a lot of their power from attacking through and on Xenofungus. The beakers required to unlocked them (At centauri meditation) is equivalent to that needed for Marines or Genites. But they will stay relevant throughout the game, and in homelands seeded well with fungus, they will make a territory very costly to invade. Of course we all know that the best answer to a worm or a worm lover is to kill it with fire....

Later on in the game Locusts of Chiron will become available as a more mobile form of mind worm. That's very late game though...


That should be a quite good guide for the foreseeable future of the land forces of Chiron. It's missing a quite important piece of the picture though. Special Abilities. These can be very important to the usage of units. But I'll save them for another time....



What should I cover next? Civics, Morgan or Corporations?