A civ vet explores Alpha Centauri (SMAC)

[haphazard1]

I will interrupt the ongoing debate with a game update..

Sunspot activity finally returned to normal, bringing offiicial contact with CEO Morgan. Now having contact with all the faction leaders, I convened the council and used my vote advantage to elect myself plantary governor. I have about 40% of the total votes myself, and Lady Diedre also cast her 15% or so for me. I guess she just dislikes Yang that much.

I now have infiltration on everyone, which is certainly a nice perk. Plus more trade income -- I am picking up a fair bit of energy from trade at this point.

Miriam also went crazy and declared vendetta, so I am rather belatedly pushing more military builds. The Believers have been scattering colony pods all over the place, mostly by sea, so they have a lot of potential support for units even though most of those bases are quite small. Maybe I can claim some territory? Of course, that assumes I can avoid being wiped out for having only flimsy cardboard cutouts rather than a real military. Will have to do something about that....

[TheHumanHydra]

Wonder if we need another thread for the philosophical discussion tripped by this thread.  
Having a hard time sorting through game, and philosophy posts.

I think that might be a good idea.  What do haphazard, T-hawk, Bacchus, and Gavagai think?

Also, haphazard, the game state sounds interesting. Is it possible to have a picture of the battle area?

[haphazard1]

I don't mind the ongoing discussion. It is interesting, and keeps things active between updates. But if it could be split off, that might make it easier for everyone to follow what they are interested in.

I will grab some screenshots of the current state of things for my next update. It may be a day or two, as my turns have just come up in the Toku SG. I have some fighting with Rome, Inca, and the barbs to do.

[T-hawk]

I split out the philosophy to an Off-Topic thread, since that's probably for the best overall. It was actually pretty well separated between game and discussion posts.

[haphazard1]

Thanks, T-hawk! Should make it easier for people to follow the different discussions.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks for doing that work, T-hawk.

[Bacchus]

Been able to return to this game, haphazard?

[haphazard1]

Not yet, unfortunately. Life has gotten rather busy of late. I am planning to get back to it, though.

[haphazard1]

An update! Sorry for the long delay, but I have been busy packng everything I own into boxes for my upcoming move. I needed a break, so some SMAC turns got played.

To quickly recap the state of events on Planet, I had recently finally found Morgan in the remote south. With contact info for all the leaders now obtained, I used my population edge and Peacekeeper faction advantage to vote myself planetary governor for the automatic infiltration and trade income. Sister Miriam apparently was upset by this, as she declared vendetta on me shortly afterwards. Since my military was mostly non-existent other than basic worm fighting units, this presented a bit of a problem.

Fortunately I had a strong economy and cash flow, plus a tech advantage over Miriam, so I started turning some of that energy stockpile into military units. I had seen trouble coming and had some prototypes nearly ready, so the situation was perhaps not quite as bad as it might have seemed.

A quick look at the conflict zone on my western border, where the Believers had been dropping sea bases:

Walks on Water was my initial target. A pair of my new missile skimships crushed the defending plasma infantry, and the base was mine. An additional upgraded skimship joined my task force and I quickly conquered Loaves and Fishes as well. Attacks against the Believers' land bases would take a bit longer to arrange, but some missile rovers and other units were gathering in preparation for ferrying over to the western land mass.

While this was happening, I was contacted by a seething Chairman Yang who is very unhappy about my Demcoratic social choices. He boasted of his new missile needle jets which are worrying. I have recently completed research on Doctrine Air Power myself and am prototyping a missile needlejet of my own; hopefully I can finish dealing with the Believers before I have to fight the leading in military power Hive.

Also happening (life on Planet is getting exciting lately), the Spartans have been conquering the Morganites in the far south. I have been in vendetta with Santiago for a long time (since we first met, in fact), but they are on the other end of Planet and I have not seen any sign of units from them. My scouting ships have spotted stacks of Spartan units moving, however, and a couple turns ago I got an announcement that the Morganites have been exterminated by Sparta. Goodbye, CEO Morgan, enjoy your life in Sanitago's interrogation chamber.

On the domestic front I am getting my first bore holes completed. From T-Hawk's thread I have realized I have far too few formers, so I am starting to expand my work force to accelerate tile development. Eco damage levels are starting to creep up, so I am also preparing some anti-worm rovers for defense against the inevitable native life outbursts to come.

[T-hawk]

The most important part of your post there is the screenshot.  I hadn't realized SMAC could run at greater than 1024x768 resolution, I'd heard mention of it but thought it was some aftermarket patch hack.  But then I searched and found that it's just an .ini file setting.  Now my own game looks much better.

Why are those bases building energy banks?  I'd guess those bases are making about 12 energy, of which 50% is economy slider so 6, of which the energy bank adds 50% which is 3, which minus its maintenance of 1 is a net gain of 2.  2 energy buys 1 mineral, so against the 80-mineral cost of the bank, that's an 80-turn horizon to payback. That's far too long, the benchmark in SMAC is on the order of 10 to 15 turns, because that's what colony pods and formers and crawlers do.

This is the sort of area where SMAC is not intuitive; you must understand the underlying numbers to make good decisions.  "I want more energy so build a bank" is a fallacy.  You know what makes more than 2 economy for less than 80 minerals?  More colony pods.  Or formers to make boreholes.  (I've covered this in general and in my game, but just saying again here.)

Also, why is the missile skimship being built in UN Information Agency?  The action against the Believers is on the far side of that landmass, the boat will take ten turns to get there.  UN Planning Authority should be building combat boats and not a command center for land units. (I assume that screenshot is a bit old since you said you conquered stuff since then.)

I think you're well outside range of any of Yang's needlejets, unless he plants a sea base off your border somewhere or manages to conquer somebody closer to you. But don't assume the Believers will have bad tech forever; the AI does know how to use probes and may manage to steal Air Power or something else scary from Yang.