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Kassiopeia
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Jyväskylä, Finland
Jul 2001
time: 07:34
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We now have our first foreign contact (which Zeiter quite cleverly predicted in that article for the next issue of The Phalanx, may I add), so it's time to devote a thread to foreign policy, I'd say.
What we know so far, quoting Maniac from Covert Ops thread:
17 population
They have at least the following technologies:
Industrial Base (they have synthmetal garrisons)
Doctrine Loyalty (starting tech & running Police State)
Planetary Networks (they're running Planned Economics)
Information Networks (prerequisite of PlaNets - or did they trade with the Angels or Morganites? )
If you look at the map thread, the closest Hiverian base isn't that far away. A few more bases and we will end up face to face with each other.
Our industrial structure is but a budding flower so far. We haven't got IndAuto yet, nor PlanNets if I am not mistaken, and our military advances leave much to be hoped for too. Yang on the other hand has his defence grids and Industrial Base.
Therefore my opinion is that war at this point of the game would not suit our goals. It would hamper our build-up and might be very costly with our technological inferiority. His being an AI has been covered by his early boost. Additionally, he has contact with the other humans, which means that they must be very close and could be asked by Yang to attack us.
The chance of them complying and hurrying to attack us is not something to be ignored, because we will be in a precarious situation with our, again, technological inferiority and our industry which is just getting started.
Hence, we should refrain from a vendetta yet. Maniac's decision to make a treaty was more than prudent in this sense. 
I'm at loss as to what the proper time for an attack would be: we need to be swift to prevent some one else getting all the loot and plunder, but we also have to be fairly certain that we can pull it off. I see conquest of the Hive as an important early-to-mid game goal that would put us at a huge advantage over the other players. I think that if we won't do it, someone else will: possibly the Gaians or the Angels. I don't see the Morganites doing it, with their police rating, until they can build punishment sphere bases.
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Zeiter
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Although the Morganites could mind control away a couple of Hive bases.
Perhaps when we get missle or choas weapons. Or when we get needlejets? But that is going to be a while.
Is there any chance of us getting the other faction's commlinks for free from Yang? Or would we even be willing to trade for them? It's really wierd, I would have thought that we'd be the first to contact another faction, with our rovers and gun foils. Maybe the others are closer to Yang than we are. In that case, having a strong Yang could be good, as it would keep the others on their toes.
That new map data is very interesting. It seems that what we thought was a bay is actually a navigable water passage into the eastern ocean, at least it seems to me. It's possible that that little spot of forested land is the only land passage between us and Yang. Add to that the fact that the approach to that isthmus is saturated in fungus, and we can already see that any land invasion of Yang's territory would be slow going. Thus, if we were to do an invasion later on, I would recommend an amphibious assault, with the transports leaving off from Gythium Harbor. It's only 7 transport foil turns to from Gythium Harbor to the nearest Hive base, and only 3 cruiser transport turns!
On the plus side: the Hive already has 3 of the prerequisite techs for IA. This means we could get to IA without having to resort to probing one of the human factions and getting everyone angry at us.
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Primus Pilus
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i think we should postpone any offensive ops until we get better weps tech. any comm links would be a good thing. suggest former(s) build some sensor nodes along our east and west coasts to spot any nefarious activity.
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Kassiopeia
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Jyväskylä, Finland
Jul 2001
time: 07:34
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I've studied the profiles of the Data Angel team members, trying to deduce who are the ones pulling the strings, and what sort of strings we should be plucking to gain their favour. This isn't too easy, since while lack of RP on their part means there's little tension, it also means we know absolutely nothing about them!
The biggest posters in the team are FlameFlash (active), Makahlua (active), GeoModder (active), Hercules (active), foolish_icarus (hasn't posted since Aug 1st), Trimethius and AdamTG02 (both idle since July 1st), mart7x5 (active),
Makahlua has posted the turns regularly as of late, apparently she is the turnplayer. I'd say she is the Datatech "Maniac".
GeoModder is an apt player on his own right, and probably advises heavily and plays the turns himself on a few occasions. His "counterpart" in our team would be Googlie, most likely.
Hercules plays the While We Are Waiting game, which to me suggests that he isn't such a great player - this is entirely inferred from the fact that I am the one playing our own WWAW. Hercules is a strange personality, btw: he feels oddly erratic every now and then, and makes strange conclusions - these observations made mostly with the Mafia game in OG.
These three are, IMHO, the core of the Angel team. The rest have very low postcounts and/or have been inactive for several weeks. The post count stats of their PF, IIRC, seem to verify this.
This makes me conclude that their team is rather efficient in that most decisions are carried out by a general consensus of a handful of people - I'd dare say their process is even faster than ours, by the virtue of there being so few of them.
This post is but a brief analysis - I intend to try to dig out some strategy threads and see just how engrossed in SMAC these people are. Makahlua's abilities, for example, are a complete mystery to me. Your opinions on this would be most appreciated.
Makahlua's personality, then, feels to me like the one that would be most recipient to a well articulated, rational and properly argumented suggestion of an alliance. I'd PM her once we gain contact and try to open up some kind of negotiations, and use some tricks I may have up my sleeves. I'd think a modest proposal of tech or map trade in the beginning would be in order, that's my excuse to contact them.
If all goes well and they are willing to interact with us, "due to the fact that our co-operation seems to be working fine" and other various reasons, I could then gently prod them with the pact idea.
Last edited by Kassiopeia on 05-08-2004 at 07:52
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Zeiter
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We could just build a base down by that mineral bonus near the fungal pass and use that as our chokepoint for now. I don't know if building further bases southward would be worth it. Except for the forested tiles, there isn't really any good land down there.
Here's an idea: Right before our first probe invasion of Yang, we can plant a base near those forest tiles (in his territory). Even though he'll declare war on us, he would have anyway in a few turns after we probe raped him. And here's the real beauty of the plan: not only do we get a nice, pre-terraformed, chokehold base, but we also get a very close launching pad for our probe invasions, because after the probe teams complete each mission, they will be sent back to that base. So here's how it would work:
*Build CP and transport
*Ferry CP to isthmus. Meanwhile, get first batch of probe teams ready
*Plant base. Yang declares war on us. We rush back to Gythium Harbor with our transport foil and load the probe teams onboard.
*We go probe rape Yang
*Probes are sent back to isthmus base
*We continue probe raping, each time only having to make a short trip with our transport.
The only problem I can see is: what if Yang sends laser infantry against the isthmus base? We'd definitely need a recon rover or two nearby, and we'd need to clear away the forest leading up to the isthmus base from the SW.
How does that sound?
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Kassiopeia
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Jyväskylä, Finland
Jul 2001
time: 07:34
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quote:
They role-played quite a bit in ACDGII - but whatever we do, the jdm/Herc and Maniac vibes won't be good (from the Doc Init/MCC incident last game) |
Care to elaborate? EDIT: I read up on it myself, an interesting affair.
So there could be personal friction between Herc and me/Maniac/and by the looks of it, possibly even you Googlie.
The Mafia game part was Hercules outright insulting my storytelling/gamekeeping without anything constructive to say, and then refusing to play the game when he thought he was being harassed - he felt that he ended up knocked out of the game a bit too often a bit too early.
quote:
Makahlua, FlameFlash, johndmuller and Hercules are all from the old PEACE team - you'll get some insights from their old private forum
JohnDMuller was the strongest player in that old team - and was the turnplayer for the initial turns before passing the mantle on to Makahlua.
She was somewhat of a PBEM newbie last game (put all her units on automatic, thus infuriating jdm in particular - eg often sailed right past seapods and the others would see it at the endturn.sav and raise hell) |
That would mean that she isn't probably exactly confident with her gaming abilities - while this does sound a bit underhanded, that could be a useful advantage. If the Angel team feels that they are hosed the moment they end up in a vendetta, a guarantee of security by us would be an excellent opportunity for them.
I will look at the PEACE forums. Thanks for the information.
Last edited by Kassiopeia on 05-08-2004 at 08:28
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Kassiopeia
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Jyväskylä, Finland
Jul 2001
time: 07:34
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HUMBA BUMPA!
*Ahem*
It's been noted that we may be looking at a Planetary Council meeting within the next few turns. This means that we'll have to hastily put together a working foreign policy for the next few Mission Decades: the first step of realising this policy shall, then, be our opening statements with our fellow factions at and after the PC meeting.
We have discussed alliance possibilities before, as is apparent in this thread - and I continue to think that the Angels would be a good choice for a pact. Feel free to convince me otherwise though - we can bring it to a poll if need be, but with the current levels of activity a consensus may suffice.
I will try to get up to speed on whatever I can deduce on their team composition and try to think of a decent way to make friends with their person in charge of diplomacy - as detailed, again, already in this thread.
What, however, shall be our stance with the others? This relies heavily on what our future strategy as a faction *is*. Foreign policy will be an extension of our future strategy, therefore I'd appreciate a succinct explanation of *what we want to do*.
Are we to engage in a war anytime soon, if so with whom; are we going for a builder strategy while conning the others into believing we are going for a pure momentum game; and so on and so on.
As has been agreed before, I will act as the main functionary of our foreign relations. Official negotiations and statements will be directed through and to me, and if necessary or desired, also written by me. In negotiations, of course, we can also bring in our actual strategists, namely Googlie and Maniac.
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Maniac
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Gent, Belgium
Jul 1999
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kassiopeia
What, however, shall be our stance with the others? This relies heavily on what our future strategy as a faction *is*. Foreign policy will be an extension of our future strategy, therefore I'd appreciate a succinct explanation of *what we want to do*.
Are we to engage in a war anytime soon, if so with whom; are we going for a builder strategy while conning the others into believing we are going for a pure momentum game; and so on and so on. |
I don't pretend to speak for everyone, but here's my view for the current 'domestic' (ie not human-faction-related) strategy, upon which the actions of the latest few turns have been based.
We know we are technologically rather far behind the boosted AI factions. The Hive has the following techs we don't have: ProgPsych, IndBase, IndEcon, IndEcon, DocLoy, Biogen, PolySoft. We don't have Zak and Lal infiltrated, but we can deduce they have at least the following techs we don't have: Biogen, SotHB, SocPsych, EthCalc, Gene Splicing. When you have a look at the tech chart, you'll see that this means that there isn't any tech to research that isn't already owned by Zak/Lal or Yang.
Therefore there is little point in doing much research ourselves, and we've put labs spending to a mere 30%. Instead we are now preparing for a probe rape and conquest of an AI faction. We could go for either the Hive or the University (not yet located but almost certainly to our immediate east). Personally I'd prefer to go after Zakharov as they'll be a much softer target (no perimeter defences).
One tech though that AFAIK Zak/Lal doesn't have is Industrial Automation. Despite that we can't run Wealth SE Values, it's still valuable because of supply crawlers. So that's a tech we'd need to get from the Angels or Morganites I guess.
quote:
We have discussed alliance possibilities before, as is apparent in this thread - and I continue to think that the Angels would be a good choice for a pact. Feel free to convince me otherwise though - we can bring it to a poll if need be, but with the current levels of activity a consensus may suffice. |
Spartans and Angels could make a great team: imagine us banding together against one of the other teams: they probe rape them and we follow with an invasion. 
One thing to keep in mind though when we would negotiate a pact with the Angels or Morganites is that they could gain more advantage out of such an agreement.
The reason for the Morganites is simple: they most likely have a much higher energy production than us and thus would gain much more commerce from a pact or even a simple treaty.
The bigger advantage for the Angels is related to their TECHSHARE ability. With this they gain any tech known to 3 other factions with whom the Angels have infiltration => that includes a pact. This would mean that if we are pacted with the Angels and would probe rape the UoP or the Hive, they could too gain all those techs for free.
Whether we should care about them getting a bigger advantage is of course another question.
quote:
In negotiations, of course, we can also bring in our actual strategists, namely Googlie and Maniac. |
Don't forget Zeiter!
Anyway, whatever happens, in case we would negotiate with the Angels to get IndAut, I am definitely *NOT* the right person to perform diplomacy with them. It could bring back too many bad memories for them. 
Last edited by Maniac on 21-09-2004 at 01:16
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Zeiter
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quote:
Foreign policy will be an extension of our future strategy, therefore I'd appreciate a succinct explanation of *what we want to do*. |
As I see it, there are two methods of building:
1. Labs/SP building
2. Industrial infrastructure building
We will never be able to compete with the Morganites (or the other two either) in Labs/SP building. Therefore, I suggest we concentrate on industrial infrastructure building. Basically, this means a heavy focus on econ and mineral production, as well as growth, which helps both the previous two. The idea is that, as long as we can keep tech parity (meaning, weapon parity) through probe raping operations, if we have superior energy credit and mineral production, and superior military morale, we will be in a prime position for global domination. As we conquer Zakland and Peaceland, and eventually Hiveland, our industrial production will swell even further. I believe that a vastly SP superior Morganite rival will stand no chance against our immense superiority in industrial production and morale (assuming we can keep close to tech parity).
In fact, I almost feel tempted to advocate a complete abandonment of labs production in order to fully direct our resources towards industrial infrastructure building. I see a steady program of tech rape as being perfectly sufficient for our technology needs.
So, what am I specifically advocating?
1. We switch to Police State some time in the near future as drone control and support help becomes necessary, possibly staying in planned too, or maybe not, depending on perceived benefits/drawbacks. PS is almost perfectly suited for the Spartans. Each scout will instantly become a rec commons, and our total mineral production will immediately jump due to lower support costs. The idea is that, the more productive citizens we have, the better our industrial production, the better our growth, and the better our econ will be. This will enable us to
A. build more facilities, formers, improvements, domestic infrastructure, etc.
B. build more military units, thus giving us more industrial bases in foreign lands.
This must be said: even though the military is a prominent component of this plan, the plan is not conquer oriented, at least initially. The focus on outright military production and a pure conquer strategy will come later, after we've built our massive industrial base first. The role of the military of this initial phase will be to supplement our infrastructure-building efforts by capturing foreign (AI) industrial centers. Thus, during the first phase of this plan we'll be building a mix of rec commons, children's creches, probe teams, police scouts, recycling tanks, command centers, formers, SP's (if we can snag them), crawlers (lots and lots of crawlers, I hope. We'll use all of our police scouts to help combat the pops and push the clean min limit up.), offensive rovers, and transports.
If I had to make an analogy for this plan, I'd have to say, think USSR under Stalin. We want to create a massive industrial infranstructure which we will use in the final phase of our global domination to overwhelm our human opponents with masses of equal tech, high morale troops. Even with overwhelming Secret Project disadvantages, our armies will crush our enemies. If we are clever in our deployment of our final armageddon invasion, we'll even snag a few of their SP cities before they even know what has hit them.
With this plan in mind, I would favor allying with the Gaians, believe it or not!!!  Here are the reasons:
1. The Gaians are now relatively strong. Instead of being a liability as they might have been before, they will now be an asset.
2. They will be one of the weakest militarily. Thus, I'd rather face them for the final conflict than a more competitive military power.
3. The Morganites and Data Angels will have the majority of the SPs, will they not? Thus, I'd like to take them out first before they get too strong.
Also, we need to decide who we will support for governor. We'll have a choice between Yang and Zak. I don't know if it will make that much of a difference, but maybe if we vote for Yang he will be more friendly to us?
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Googlie
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Commanding Officer, CRYPTEIA
Apr 1999
time: 21:34
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Mulling over things last week from the 5000 miles perspective (in a vacuum, too, without the map) my thoughts were:
Change to Police as soon as we can get Doc Loyalty, and pact with the Hive, riding them towards a conquest victory, then parting company and taking them out before game's end. This would entail:
- getting them elected Governor so that we get second-hand infiltration through them on everyone else(while still maintaining our intent of infiltrating everyone)
- joining in their fight with the Gaians
- spurring them to a fight against Zak, that we'll join, and win, and with the PK's as well, before any of the other 3 teams get to these 2 weaker factions
- take out Morgan after we have become engorged with the UoP and PK bases/infrastructure
- by this time the Angels will be suing for submissive terms
And we don't need to research/probe Ind Auto - we could always mind control a crawler and whisk it off on a trannie - we'd then be able to reverse engineer from it)
Of course, the above represents a very "go-it-alone" posture, prolly spawned from my being out of the loop for so long 
G
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KrysiasKrusader
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Commander of Corazon's Own Elite Guard
Apr 2002
time: 00:34
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Allright...
Here's the trick (game strategy) I use in serious multi-player PBEM's...
Get to be the largest sized faction in the game.
Not the strongest (military power).
Not the most technologically advanced.
Not the wealthiest (energy credits).
Although, I don't dispute for one second, that any of the other three can, and are vital at certain points; they are not what can virtually gaurantee you a win.
Getting there can be done several ways. And it does entail the use of; technology, energy, military, covert operations, and diplomacy (<- this one is the second most important method to use). But my MAIN FOCUS is always, always, always striving to become a gigantic empire.
Once your so big (many bases and population), you can swing your faction in any direction you deem most appropriate. Meaning; constructing infrastructure, military production, energy (both credits and allocating it), labs output, et al.
Yeah, I know what your thinking. A big empire can fall to a smaller technoligically superiore one which has better quality military.
Wrong!
Not if played properly. Sure, the smaller can maybe chip away and take a few bases, but then once the slumbering giant has been awaken - your gonna be a morcel for its appetite. Maybe not tommorrow - but your days are numbered.
What if the rest of the factions gang up on you?
If you've played your cards correctly, it's too late. You just stomp on them one at a time. Or two at a time if your really big. Or all at once if your gigantic. Heck - just hold them off and transcende even (!).
To quote someone I consider as an excellent player, buster (who I've played with and against):
"As far as I am concerned nothing beats being really big except maybe being enormous. "
As for myself; I've never lost a game using this general approach.
Krysia's Krusader
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02-08-2004 21:46
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