06-07-2004 15:30									#1
	I&D - Faction Analysis - Sparta Remove this text

*Post to be edited according to discussions in thread*

Team Makeup
ChairmanSlick
DeathByTheSword
Dissident
GeneralTacticus
Googlie
Jamski
Kassiopeia
Maniac
Ogie Oglethorpe
Skanky Burns
Zeiter

	06-07-2004 15:32									#2
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[c/p job]Know thy enemy. If anyone's got info on any of the players here, now's the time to spill the dirt. The better we can predict their moves, the better we can move against them, and manipulate their actions to our own needs.[/c/p job]

GeneralTacticus: While not all that confident in his own individual skill, is a very proficient player, and quite familiar with playing the Morgan game. Likely to be unfamiliar with the playstyle of Sparta, but should adjust fairly quickly under Googlie's tuition. Knows every single strategy I have outside of my diplomatic manipulation.

	06-07-2004 20:35									#3
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I would like to caution that these forums will eventually be opened to everyone, so be nice.

Ogie is legendary, and Googlie sang his praises. His Builder's Primer on CGN is 30% responsible for any skill I might have (Vel's guide being another 30%). There have been some improvements to it, though. Is he satisfied using what he knew back in the good old days?

Googlie says he's "lousy." He's probably just being modest. He read all of Kody's stuff in the Hive forum. The question is whether he's worked to adopt any of that.

Can old dogs learn new tricks? Or are the old tricks enough?

	06-07-2004 21:57									#4
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Judging from the roster of names of this and the other factions, this is definitely looking like the team we need to watch out for. Luckily for us, I think we have an innately stronger faction, if we can buy ourselves the time to leverage that power into a military advantage.

	06-07-2004 22:02									#5
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I'm not so sure. With big_Canuk, Darsnan, Chaos Theory etc. on board, the Gaian's look to be stronger on paper. Plus with the set up of the map, we can be confident that we'll get some good breathing space before Sparta comes a calling.

To be fair though, all the teams look strong. We just need to make sure we're stronger.

	07-07-2004 03:20									#6
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I'd agree that this faction is the one to watch for. Unlikely to be manipulated easily in Diplo, likely to be able to predict our own moves with a high degree of precision, and with likely the most experienced PBEM players of Spartans (If not the most experienced PBEM players full stop) as part of their roster.

I have to wonder however if there might end up being infighting? While these guys aren't predisposed to it as, say, they might have been if Enigma_Nova had been allowed to join, some of them can get set in their ways, and I'd expect there to be some violent discussions over the best methods to use.

	07-07-2004 03:27									#7
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Forgive me, but the vets are Googlie, Jamski, Ogie and General Tacticus right? Perhaps Maniac also... now the Gaians have Darsnan, Hydro (Experienced, if not in PBEM), Chaos Theory (very experienced in TCP/IP) and big_canuk, who is buster rated at least.

I consider the Gaians to be the stronger team given the map and the likely hood that buster has made a jungle hive. The spartans always struggle against the hive, whilst the gaians can pop boom like nobody's business, even pre IndAuto.

What I'm saying is not that the spartans are weak, rather that all are strong in some aspects and we need to be careful of all our opponents. Lets not give some people too much respect, or even worse, too little.

	07-07-2004 06:56									#8
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Jamski pulled out of a PBEM I am playing after losing his copy of SMAX. Wether he has obtained a new copy, I don't know.

-- CTO #endgame

	07-07-2004 08:31									#9
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My impression of Jamski is that he is a decent player, but he talks more than he plays. I recall him being aprehensive to take up the role of turn- player when the old Hive turn- player(s) were out.

How well are these players going to magnify the strengths of the Spartans while mitigating the weaknesses?

	08-07-2004 09:17									#10
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From what I know of...

Jamski-Industrial knowhow. He crawls like nobody's business (in other words, he's good). Last time I played him he was pop-booming while I was still sitting on my hands. I don't know what direction he plays (EXPLORE, DISCOVER, CONQUER, BUILD) or if he even follows this pattern, but he's a good player.

Googlie-Legend. No personal experience except but heresay.

General Tacticus- I first met him in AC-Fiction. He's a pretty friendly guy, but from what i've heard of, he's pretty ruthless in multi-play. I don't have any firsthand XP on him but he should have our eye's on.

The rest I'm not too sure. I can try and gather more data on the rest of them, but I don't know if my investigation on them will bear any fruit....

	08-07-2004 10:21									#11
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Googlie was originally the pusher of our Morgan faction, and we haven't changed our early game strategy since he left our team (he originally advocated a faction, in which people owned bases, unit, and ECs and acted as traders, but that would prove infessible).

Jaminski had posted about having played Morgan many times, and would do Sparta for a change.

	08-07-2004 20:58									#12
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I had extensive experience with Maniac in the previous ACDG, he is a good organizer but I noticed a few downsides.

The highly agressive war against the Pirates was mostly masterminded by Drouge with some assistance from Maniac, then Maniac and I performed most of the exicution of the build up and invasion, making modifications along the way as needed.

I felt Maniac sifened too many resorces towards military production which weakened our Build game, he also insisted on the Building of the Nural Grafter for a pie in the sky worm based army. We then went to the trouble to build a scout in every concored Pirate base when we were in FM which wasted about 4 turns across 12 bases. I think this poor internal build game characterizes Maniac and was compounded by Drouge's agressivness. Much may depend on how much power Maniac holds in the Spartan ranks.

	09-07-2004 04:19									#13
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With Googlie and Jamski in that team, I don't think it very likely that Maniac is going to have much sway. At least not enough to hurt the team.

	09-07-2004 04:27									#14
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It may depend on exactly what he ends up in charge of, if anything at all.

	09-07-2004 17:48									#15
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I'm not sure that Googlie will take that active a role in the strategy and playing of the team. Because he rates himself poorly in PBEM (Not really surprising, he's played with the best, b_c, mis, buster et al. so he'll have been hammered a fair few times which always dents the confidence) he won't push his opinion. If you look at his posts from our old Morgan forum, he rarely commented on strategy, more on roleplay. He prefers playing the Spartans I think, so he may have more to say there, but I don't think he'll play a big role.

Jamski may still be too busy with NeverWinter Nights to play that big a role in the team. It'll be interesting to see who they move into key positions.

	09-07-2004 19:51									#16
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The real issue is what will Sparta's Initial plan be. I think all the teams are smart enough to deduce the Hive is in the middle and the Uni/PK's are on an Island. Sparta has 3 Choices.

1 - Attempt to Concour the beefed up Hive and dominate the Center of the map then pick off the remaining Human factions one by one. (they might alie with a human faction temporarily to get this done)

2 - Ignore the Hive and make a Navel Invasion of the PK/Uni Landmass and turn it into a massive AirCraft Carrier fromwhich to launch attacks on the main continent.

3 - Make a Navel Strike or perhaps become friendly with the Hive and peacefully move through the center to another Human Faction and try to take them out first.

We should have some contingency plan for each of these senarios. The last possibility that the Spartans go Hybrid or Builder hardly needs to be adressed because we would cream them at that (so would every other faction for that matter).

	09-07-2004 21:09									#17
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I suspect all three of the other factions will make heavy use of Dem/Planned. Sparta is the probably the only faction that won't be in Wealth as well. They would all be in constant pop-boom mode. In that sense, Sparta only has to pay five to ten more minerals for a creche than everybody else. OTOH, they only have to build two scouts to control two drones. Compare that to our rec com, which costs twice as much as two scouts, and they are ahead as far as mineral requirements. That doesn't include support, but one more population will give them at least one more mineral, so that's not a problem for them. Their higher population might not make up for our insane FM energy, but with enough specialists, they can remain competitive. With Planned, they could also send some ships to bombard us at the same time.

	11-07-2004 18:09									#18
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Just how good can we rate the Spartans at offensive and defensive warfare? I'd be inclined to think they have rather traditional offensive strategies (Chop/Drop, etc), but how would they respond to those same strategies being employed in reverse?

	12-07-2004 02:45									#19
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I thought coppers weren't allowed to attack bases in this ACDG... Or am i just crazy?

	12-07-2004 04:46									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Scorpi40000 I thought coppers weren't allowed to attack bases in this ACDG... Or am i just crazy?

You are correct.

I remember that, under the rules of this ACDG, choppers cannot attack bases.

I have been wondering how that will affect the game. My thoughts are that it will slow down the speed of offensives.

Choppers will still be permitted to attack units in the open, so I suspect they will be useful for defense against 'mass' attacks. Choppers will also still be useful for destroying formers and crawlers.

The modified version of "chop n' drop" will probably include large numbers of needlejets and drop units.


Mead


PS
I am assuming that the AI choppers will still be permitted to attack bases, correct? How would you modify the AI to not attack bases with choppers? Although the AI seldom does a successful "chop n' drop" offense.

	12-07-2004 05:13									#21
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Doesn't this play to our advantage? We wont be playing the offense too often right?

	12-07-2004 07:09									#22
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Actually, with our superior research, we'll probably get to MMI first. It probably hurts us. Usually, the best way to win this game is to build until you can chop & drop, then go nuts.

I made a separate thread on military particulars for this game, so we don't get too far off topic here. http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...threadid=118600

	12-07-2004 15:27									#23
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But then we will also get D:AP first right? But is that too soon to begin an offensive?

	12-07-2004 19:26									#24
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I'll respond in the other thread.