Succession Game, Anyone?

[Zakharov VII]

The Democracy game's pretty slow (actually...very slow, but fun ), so I was wondering if anyone was interested in a succession game...

I'm not sure exactly what happened to me after that Zaky game (Transcendence in 2400...whew!), but now I'm ready to go again at this.

Anyone else interested? Faction/challenge (if any) up for discussion.

EDIT: Only thing not for discussion...is it's gotta be SMAC. I don't have Alien Crossfire, as much as I'd like it .

Z

[Fromage]

I propably could take Hive.

"Democracy game's" and "succession game". Could you tell me what those mean?

[johndmuller]

I've been itching to play a succession game where we can only build probes (including whatever additional stuff one cares to put on them). Other units can only be acquired "diplomatically" (except perhaps for a nominal number of formers, to add some extra interest, as in each succession participant can design/alter/rebuild one "personalized" forrmer as they wish; perhaps a minimal number of Colony pods could be built as well, but definitely no military, crawlers or upgrades of subverted units). Miriam has a bit of a probe advantage, but I imagine that any faction could do it given an inoffensive enough foreign policy and accomplished fifth columnists.

[Zakharov VII]

OK...In a democracy game, a whole bunch of people discuss/argue/debate on how to play the game, electing every month the Comissioner who will actually play and Directors who will advise (Director of Research, Terraforming & Colonization, etc). The Directors, once elected, poll "the people" - all democracy game participants - in order to make decisions. The focus is in the roleplaying, because the pace is terribly slow. We haven't begun the actual Alpha Centauri game yet (starting September 1st if our first Comissioner Crisler keeps his promise ), but once started, we'll have lots to discuss. Wait, we already have lots to discuss ! Anyways, it's a lot of fun, and you can participate as little or as much as you want. If you're interested, you can look at the AC Democracy Game forum.

Then...a succession game is a cooperative game, where we all work together as the same faction. One person starts the game, plays 20-30 years or so (to be agreed before beginning the game), then sends the save to the next person. Usually this process entails a lengthy post in the thread for the game about what's happened during the person's reign. It's not necessary, however, to post too much, though some (like me) njoy writting up the reports. So the file's handed off from person to person until everyone's had a turn, then it goes back to the starter. At some point, turns become signifigantly longer, and so eventually each person only plays about 10-20 turns at a time (the exact number agreed upon. At least in the one game I played in (that lasted 2400+, I believe), it's fun to be playing with an empire that, while you help to create it, is rather different from normal.

EDIT: Hey there jdm, here I was thinking it was bad being up past midnight . If it's OK with whatever other people we can draw, nothing-but-probes is fine with me (even more difficult than our NCC?). Any faction choice is fine, though it would seem most military advantages are fairly useless...that's either a good or a bad thing, depending just how hard we want to make this . Lal seems like a powerful choice here, since we'd probably have less, bigger bases than usual, with Former/Colony Pod restrictions. Pop booming/fairly easy +2 Economy don't hurt, especially since the only other faction like that has some serious probe problems .

Z

[Blake]

I'm in for this sucession game.
The personalised formers thing sounds cool.

As for colony pods, how about something like each player can found only one new base or somesuch? (the first player would be allowed to found the two starting bases).

I quite like probe teams so it could be interesting. Might be best to play on a 30-50% land map to ensure we have some neighbours. I personally like 30-50, high erosion, high rainfall (the AI likes it too). We might want to go easy on the worms, lest our personalised formers become the only thing stopping our colonists being carried away by the worms.

PK good choice of faction

[Zakharov VII]

Good, good...so in total (including me), we have 3 so far, 4 if Fromage is still interested...

I'll do just about whatever settings you want, and the 30-50% land sounds fun (unless we get stuck on an island ...).

So, then, if we're on Transcend we start with 2 Colony Pods, then each after the first builds 1? So 4 Bases, 5 if we get another person? Then 3 formers (one each, replacable I assume?) total? This'll be interesting .

Bases should have lots of time on their hands early on, with no colony pod production for 20 years or so...

So...we want Centauri Ecology, then Info/PlanNets? I doubt we'll be able to get Secrets first...

From there it seems to me a Democracy/Free Market is good...

Z

[Fromage]

Hmm, that sounds like... strange

Anyway, I could try this. It might be fun.

[johndmuller]

Staying alive is a reasonable goal in the beginning - our initial scout is going to be our only military unit for quite a while. The free morale boosts and the starting rover are good points for Santi.

We probably need to get Social Psych (Miriam's starting tech) reasonably early as we are not going to be able to keep building new bases and we will have to deal with drones before we have enough nuts to have specialists. That and the probe bonus are her plusses (aside from her winning personality).

Zak's starting tech (Info Nets) might be a good enough reason to choose him too - between that and his free tech, we might be able to get both Centauri Ecology and Planetary Nets with just one research cycle; that almost seems too easy.

Of course with Dee we get Centauri Ecology as our starting tech and the ability to capture MWs (assuming we get some before we lose our scout), which gives us an army independent of the dangerous game of probing them from our no doubt tougher-than-us neighbors.

Yangs prodigious production can really go to town making probes and without much else to build, he could build a lot of facilities pretty quickly too. Of course, the free perimeter defenses might help those (hopefully armored) probe garrisons defend a little better.

The way we will be playing (without much in the way of garrisons/police at least in the beginning) we almost might as well be Morgan and get his economic advantages as long as we are going to have many of his disadvantages. Money is pretty important in probe warfare.

I don't know what Lal has going for him here, although it always seems to me that he has an easier time being friends with the AI than most of the others. That could be totally wrong, it's just my subjective recollections. Otherwise, Biogenetics is nice, but of no direct help in the immediate short run except to boost the energy income a little.

On the negatives, Miriam's 10 year ban from research really slows her down in the early research dept. as does Yangs energy deficiency (unless there are a lot of monoliths and rivers nearby).

Needless to say, we have to make sure that someone else doesn't get the Hunter-Seeker.

As to actually making the selection, that depends on whether or not we want to make it difficult on purpose.

[Zakharov VII]

Fromage - glad you've decided to give it a try .

Looking back, what I said about the University is entiredly irrelevent. Ironicly, playing a game of all probes makes their -2 Probe negligable! It only increases enemy probe team success and makes it cheaper, but really, what is there for them to subvert? Definately not our probe teams, and we'll have plenty of probe team defenders at bases...only Formers and our subverted units, then, but that's only till HSA anyways (which we MUST get!!).

With the Spartans, the Rover is nice but the starting tech is worthless (except as a prerequisite for foil probes...). Police might actually be handy, since we can subvert some junky units for this purpose (not too many needed with so few bases...at least until we subvert some). Morale seems only useful early to keep our scout from dying...on the other hand, the Industry penalty isn't so bad with fewer, bigger bases...

Miriam also has one more indirect bonus - no one else is Miriam! Which means no one else is immune to probes, at least until Thought Control or in the disaster of missing HSA. Still...what are we going to do as we research so slowly? No Colony Pods for the first set, since the first person only gets the second starting pod, right? And only one Former (which we won't be able to build for fiftyzillion years). So what, we build Recreation Commons, lose money on upkeep from them, then probably have a few good turns of Stockpiling before we can build that Former (if it even comes within the first player's "term" ). Then it's a long wait for Network Nodes, then FINALLY Probes and we can get moving. If someone hasn't Ascended yet ...

With Zaky, it's tempting (almost) to take PlanNets before Ecology...just one Former shorter and we can immediately start Probe production (not that we'd have any money to make use of them, but more scouts...and eventual upgrades to Synthmetal Probe Teams?)...after all, if we get Ecology, we build the one Former and then have nothing to do until PlanNets rolls around . Maybe viable if we start near some Rainy/Rolling.

Deirdre....according to the way you stated the rules, it actually seems like we wouldn't be allowed captured Mindworms . But I guess that could be argued as "diplomatic," just dealing with Planet's terms rather than human interaction. The extra Worms would be extremely helpful, we just have to get lucky or be careful with our one "freebie" worm. I do like Free Market, though.

Yang, prodigious, schmodigious. Maybe I just don't like him (he's ALWAYS on my nearest border, looking to pick a fight), but with so little to build (fewer units, bigger bases should have no problem building facilities/SPs), it doesn't seem to help much. And that +1 Growth is laughable considering the un-pop-booming-ness.

The only problem with Morgan is base size....until we get Automation, we'll have 4-5 size 4 bases ...then our population will cap out at 5 size 11's (until we can subvert some bases/colony pods), if we can get it that high fast enough without population booming.

And Lal. I really do like playing PK, but the extra people in base and extra talents seem really helpful. Double votes gives us a good chance for Governer, since it doesn't seem like even with subverting bases that we'll ever be too populated.

Let's just choose something and get started. The only ones I think would be killer (as in, killing us off ) are Miriam (terribly slow start) and Yang (tough Economy - crippling to get +2 Economy with FM, Wealth, and a GA...and no pop booming). Tough but possible seem Santy (early Morale/Exploration bonus, though we'll be busy Stockpiling), Deirdre (no help except from Mindworms, no FM), and Morgan (small bases, no pop booming), and easiest (but shouldn't be easy with this challenge) seem University and Peacekeeper.

If for some reason I'm not around and you need to get started, you bunch can decide the faction without me and start the game. My e-mail address is zakharov@care2.com if you need to send a file...

Z

[Blake]

Morgans actually a good choice IMO because probe actions require money and morgan is good at making money, and the support penalty wouldn't matter one bit. The smaller size would be a bit of a bother, altough not too much. And the 100 starting credits will be invaluable seeing as we cant rely on cheap police for drone control.

In this game we will have no shortage of things to spend money on, rec commons for growth, mind controlling, unit upgrades etc.

So Morgan is an excellent choice.
Lal is also a good choice, being able to get size 2 bases without rec commons in place (assuming we play on trascend, please be transcend)
Well, university is always good .

Most ideological IMO is morgan, not wanting to spend any money on a military and instead using covert ops.

So my preference would be Morgan, but I'll happily play any faction, even the believers .

I'd say it's almost a given that we will be running Free Market most of the time, there is just no reason not to, we cant attack native life or use police and probes outside of territory dont cause drones, so IndEcon is a good target, with morgan starting just one tech from it (maybe research IndEcon first and switch to FM for uber income and research... the lack of formers wouldn't matter with base squares pumping out something like 6 energy)

Oh well, just my ramblings on the matter. Take them or leave them....

[Zakharov VII]

That sounds good, you've convinced me (and yes, I think we're doing Transcend). Let's be Morgan, unless others terribly disagree.

So, since we can't begin now, I want to get a few things straight...

GAME TYPE

Standard (or bigger? smaller?) Map, 30-50% land, High Erosion, High Rainfall, Rare Native Life.

All victory conditions on, Cooperative on?, Do or Die on, I guess?, Look First on?, no blind/tech stag/extra-agressive (imagine that ), no bell curve...did I miss anything important?

We are the Morganites (better name?) on Transcend difficulty

CHALLENGE

Only Probes can be built (designed in any way, with any chassis/armor/reactor/abilities), with the exception of one Former per player, to be upgraded (and replaced?) whenever desired. Sea Formers are counted in this figure (?). Also, each player not counting the first may build 1 Colony Pod. The first may only use the 2 starting pods. The starting Scout and all popped/subverted units may be kept, but never upgraded. All subverted Formers may be used, but once again not upgraded. Colony pods, if subverted, can be used to found new bases (?), and any mind controlled bases may be kept. Crawlers, if subverted, may be rehomed and used (?)...and cashed in on SPs, but would we be that crazy??...but it's not likely we'll get many, if any.

There aren't many exploits to discuss...retro engineering is a no (just my guess??), though it seems only useful to make Rover Formers early on.

And one IMPORTANT note to discuss...it has been mentioned somewhere that if you put a heavily armored Probe Team next to an enemy base, the enemy will spend ALL the units in the base trying to kill that Probe Team. A good old Fusion Silksteel Probe Team could clear out a base full of 1-4-1s. Obviously an exploit we should avoid, as it would defeat much of the challenge. Sometimes it may be unavoidable to place an armored probe team next to a base (for mind controlling next turn), but I think we should attempt to avoid a situation like this (for example, by leaving the Probe Team one space away).

EARLY STRATEGY IDEAS

Assuming Morgan, we choose Industrial Economics as the first tech, spending as long as we want choosing base sites (or maybe founding one base quickly near some good minerals/monolith, for an immediate start on ME!). Bases should be kept at size 1, since size 2 brings a drone only fixable by our Independant Scout who should be busy, well, scouting...or if we're serious about that early SP (change it to HGP, most likely...seems like we'd need it), maybe we'll wait on scouting till Probes come along? If there are Rainy squares/a monolith, it's OK because the new citizen can become a Doctor. We probably want one base like this so the next player can build a Colony Pod there immediately. At IE we change to FM and start Energy Banks, I guess, then get Centauri Ecology (? That reminds me, what if we get CE after the first "term" is up?). I say we forget the WP, since with so few Formers and minimal nuts needed early (low base size and difficult drone handling) a good old forest may serve us well (not very Morgan-like). From there we have difficult decisions...Psyche for the desparately needed Drone help, or InfoNets to move us towards Probes and give us something to work on in the meantime?

Z

[johndmuller]

I'm willing to go with Morgan, much as I like the idea of Miriam. Getting rid of Miriam herself, if it comes to that will be a little tricky, but I suppose we can find a pactmate (we better find one if we expect to get anywhere) who isn't afraid of her and we don't necessarily need to kill her off anyway.

To make it easier to remember which is your personally designed former, we could each design a separate one in the design workshop and name it after ourselves or in some other distinctive fashion. The same for the bases, name one after yourself or your favorite entrepreneur near-namesake (like JohnDRockefeller in my case) or idol, in case we want to give one away or depopulate it to start a new base somewhere else (we could leave Morgan Industries alone and let player #1 be responsible for any future dealings with base #2). I don't know that we'd really want to do that, but I thought we might want a sea base (in a good spot - not the kind of location the AI picks), for whatever reason. I don't want to get too carried away with this base ownership thing though - it might actually be better for whomever is CEO to either build or not build our additional bases whenever they think the time is right, even if we don't each get to build one and to discuss any base deconstruction rather than try to do it to a specific base during your own turn window (I would be prone to vote for this CEO discretion on build / consultation on dispose rather than the individual control thing for bases; I think we can afford the luxury for the personal formers however.

I'd like to suggest the following turn structure:
-First round of turns - 20 yrs for 1st 2 players, 15 yrs for remaining players;
-Second round of turns - 10 or 15 years at player's option;
-Third and subsequent rounds - 10 years or less.
At some point even 5 years will take a good while to play, so we may wish to reduce it to 5 or less when it gets complicated. I think that the downside to succession games is the hurry up and wait syndrome, where there seems to be pressure to play the turn quickly (since everyone is waiting for you) even if it arrives at an inconvenient time RL-wise.

I'm not sure we figured out the tech path we want to follow, but we can just leave it to the CEOs to deal with.

How about if Zak VII just arbitrarily decrees the turn order, since he seems to have been the original instigator (I'm willing to decree it if he doesn't want to).

My email address, BTW, is John's email address or as a backup, John's alternate email address.

[Zakharov VII]

Come up with the turn order?? Me?? Why don't you go ahead and figure that out, jdm (or do you prefer John?). It would degenerate into some random coin/dice tossing if I did it...

Maybe you can start the game yourself (I'd prefer not to ) since you'd be around when the turn order is determined (obviously).

I guess I'll go ahead and do it tonight (when I have more time) if jdm hasn't gotten around yet.

EDIT: The turnschedule looks good

Z

[johndmuller]

OK, I'm starting the game - I'm also taking the first turn. Assuming I finish the turn shortly, the turn order will be:
CEO JD "Diamond" Muller
CEO Zak VII
CEO Blake
CEO Fromage
CEO WhoeverElseSignsUpInTime
If for some reason it takes me 6 or 7 hours to finish the turn, I'll probably send it to Blake instead as he will be awake then. If anyone has a better turn order, feel free to suggest it. I will be posting the turn in a new thread here as well as sending it to the next CEO. I have this for Blake's email address, but it may be out of date; Blake, please post of send me you current address. Ditto Fromage. Others: Still time to sign up.

[Blake]

That e-mail address is fine, and I'm awake

[johndmuller]

I have started the game and the thread is at this link .

[Zakharov VII]

We have begun!!

Shall we try to keep the other thread for story/turn report, and this for the out-of-character discussion?

And I'll be awake for at least 6 more hours ...

Z

Hmph...I must be going blind. I thought this was post 25600, which was fun (2^(5x2)x5^2), but it's only 24600. Oh well.

[Zakharov VII]

(I'm re-replying rather than editing so it's clear I'm here )

I'm having dinner then I'm going to play some cards with the family, so It'll be 1-2 hours before I can play my turn. If anyone else is around, download the game and play it (other thread)! Make a post here so we're kept informed, of course.

Z

[Zakharov VII]

Here I go!

Z

[Zakharov VII]

I hate to post 4 times in a row, but I just wanted to say a few things out of character.

One, if it's a pain to read my long turn reports (just under 15000 characters, according to the length checker thing) I can post a shortened version. But I had fun writing it.

Two...I only make them that long because I like it. No need to write for forever if it's not fun.

Three, someone's downloaded the save, and I don't know who it is, so I'll send the turn to you through e-mail, Blake, anyways.

Z

[Blake]

heh, I like reading and writing long turn reports.

[Zakharov VII]

Just to kill the suspense, that's me downloading the file, Blake...it "reads" like you've done a great job so I want to see

Then I'm off to bed, I (almost) promise you won't hear from me till tomorrow !

Z

[Zakharov VII]

I'll be out till tonight...

Just warning you in case JDM plays fast .

Z

[Zakharov VII]

Some OOC discussion...

Could it be possible that we WANT to stay at war with Santi and the Hive? They are supplying us with military units, after all....

Also, if possible, I think we should try to keep Lal alive, so that if we desparately need more bases, we can betray him and subvert his bases. Sounds evil, but unless Zak has very few bases (or we can conquor the HSA), we're going to need whatever we can get to keep up on research.

If we can spare the production, the Empath Guild will let us get in touch. If we can somehow get on Zak's good side, he may well trade us PSA now that the HSA's gone. Fusion Power should help our Defenders/Guards.

If he's fairly close, there's a possibility that with the Spartan Gatling thing and that Hive Missile Artillery (and some Plas-Defender NTs for defense) we may well be able to capture the HSA. We won't be getting into his Datalinks so we need the Empath Guild more than ever to know what base we're after. If Deirdre's on the same continent but she won't cooperate, we might just quietly peek at her map so we know where that base is.

Of course, as I said, he'd have to be fairly close (or, is it possible with minimum land percentage that 6 of us can be on the same continent??), since...well...we'd be land-bridging too him . Unless, of course, we go to war with Deirdre and pray she sends a Transport full of troops . Kill the troops, raid the boat. Sounds fun. Speaking of sea subversion...I completely forgot about the Plas-Trance F-Probe in ZVII Center....

Of course...it'd be a suicide mission for whatever non-probes we send, because probes are last priority defenders...and so the military units would have to "camp out."

If Zak's really getting ahead on research...we can start framing him against whomever we're at war with

Z

[Blake]

we want to be at war with the spartans because they give us moderate quality military units cheaply. The Hive HQ is MUCH too close to give good deals on mind controlling so he would be much better in our pocket. We also desperately need a buffer against the Believers and if Yang is busily attacking us he'll fall very easily to the Believers... ofcourse I doubt Yang would want any sort of treaty/pact now so it's a pretty moot point.

What would really help is mind controlling a base full of aircraft, it's something to watch out for on the spartan front, and keep a large buffer of cash (around 500) for such an occurance. Also Miriam occasionally drops out of fundie, this is also something to watch for because with her sprawling empire mindcontrolling will be tolerably cheap when she does drop out of fundie...

We may also have to consider going Knowledge to get on Zak's good side, green to get on Dee's good side, or even fundie to get on Miriams good side! Our empire hardly benefits from Democracy (too small and not much growth) so do keep fundie in mind as an option.

I suspect that Zak will be an ass to us no matter what so a Fundie/Green/Wealth may be worthwhile for the improved diplomatic relationships (and captured mindworms!)

[Zakharov VII]

Do you think capturing the HSA is feasable? If Z and Dee are on a continent together, we can most likely get a map from her, then the Empath Guild will do the rest...I think EG's pretty important at this stage?

Z

[Blake]

We will probably require to capture another players army (or good chunk of) to achieve it, and yes, I think it's possible.

[Fromage]

I didn't know that there are discussion in this thread too.

Anyway, we don't need EG anymore. In 2225 we have contacted everyone.

Zak was angry, but we have treaty nowadays. He isn't a problem.

We lost pretty much energy before I changed to Democracy, so Free market-Democracy-wealth is my option. We get a lot of energy and good growth. Soon we got 6 very large cities and they will give us enough evergy and research to do anything. Hybrid forests are on the way and after that we will get more energy that you can even dream. Our capital will produce alone almost 100 energy. If we build some research secret project there, we will get new techs almost every turn

[Zakharov VII]

I'm so glad CEO Blake was able to do such a great job!!

I was so worried that Miriam would come after us right after my turn, but Blake's done great (I downloaded, by the way)!!!

Beware - both Santi and Miriam are cooking up a Planet Buster - Miriam's Fusion, Santi's Fission. I'm not sure how "aware" the AI is, but I'm worried Miriam will have no qualms about Planet Busting Oul (she's at Vendetta with everyone), taking down practically our whole military. At least, then, the land bridge would be sunk .

And beware of Labor Network!! Miriam has half a million (well, not half, but nearly one hundred-thousanth of a million) noodles there, enough to make some serious spaghetti sauce out of our pretty orange and red probes. IIRC, Perimeter Defenses won't help against air strikes.

We're 4 techs away from Digital Sentience - MMI, Nanominiaturization, Industrial Nanorobotics, and then Digital Sentience. As (I hope ) you all know, that brings Cybernetic...and I'd never ever be more pleased to see that Probe bonus (though it is rather pointless, because with ANOTHER increase probe team base morale that I'm sure must come with Digital Sentience, we must be near Elite without +Probe). Then we can go to Democracy (with such high support costs at our military bases, -1 mineral won't make a difference) and get our 20% research back. Or, we can stick around Fundy for the Morale and let Cybernetic bump up our research.

In any case, it seems that's a worthy tech goal, we can pick up Hovertanks (4 movement on our Elite Probes!) and Drop Pods (though Probe Teams can't move the same turn as the drop ...) along the way. If Zak's not stubborn, we can get Unified Field Theory from him, get Frictionless, and stop by at Quantum!

It may be better to get to Matter Compression for a spledid jump from 6 armor (we're getting Probability Mechanics soon) to 8, but these decisions are for the next CEOs to decide.

Then, a tiny details...we've built enough new Tree Farms/Hybrid Forests that Morgan Industries can change from 3-0-5 sea tiles to 3-2-4 forest tiles without pollution, if so desired by our next CEO.

EDIT: I'm amazed how quickly we're moving - as of, well, before this morning, we were at 2230, then now tonight we're at 2270 !! Fairly long turns, too, with wars at both ends.

I'm not sure how heavy the action was with CEO Blake, but it seems (from the turn report) that Miriam's cooled down a tad but Santi's caused more trouble. In my notes that I may type up into a real report sometime, I have the following (adding a few words to make it somewhat readable):

43 - Ack, 9 Believer units move in (stacks of 2, 2, 4 and 1), kill probe and our 5-3-1. Subvert 6-2-2 (1 stack) kill 5-3-1 (in a 2 stack) with it, subvert other 5-3-1

44 - Uh Oh - 6-2-2 and 2x5-3-1 in a stack of 3 and 5x5-3-1 stack. Kill 5-3-1s in smaller stack, subvert 6-2-2, subvert a solo Elite 5-3-1 uncovered by moving in, unfortunately downgrades to Commando (because we're on Wealth??). Kill off 5x5-3-1 with 3 attacks and colateral damage, move probe in to "nullify" ZoC (we uncovered another stack when moving closer, and I didn't want to leave the safety of the monolith so it was ignored. I don't have in my notes what it was) so 5-3-1 can come to its new home, move probe back safe, switch off Wealth (I wonder why!)

45 - One of our 5-3-1 and probe dies, we kill a 4 stack of 3x5-3-1 and a 6-2-2, unfortunately the 6-2-2 was killed in colateral damage

46 - Miriam gets an Elite near us, kills one of ours, 6 units colateral damage. We subvert 2 5-3-1 and kill 5x5-3-1.

In 47 it looked like she retreated ("only" 2 5-3-1 to mop up), but in 48 she came back Fundyfied. Then there were 4-5 units a turn coming (I stopped reporting on all these gory details, rather tedious), killing off about one probe per turn (multiple bases were feeding Oul so it could afford to send out probes to draw fire and weaken). When things got adjacent to the base, they were killed off, though those annoying Elite Infantry (Elite Rovers were worse) got close to attack in the same turn, and sometimes Miriam got lucky with them. The the damaged units (from attacking Probe Teams) would retreat and a new wave sent next year.

A much simpler way to say all this is just to look at the numbers. At the end of CEO JDM's term, Miriam had 33 Gatling Plasma Infantry (5-3-1) active, 0 in production, 2 lost. 15 years later, at the end of my term, Miriam had 6 active, 0 in production, and 22 lost. Yang certainly didn't kill many of the 20 Miriam lost that term . Wait...now I count 22 5-3-1s lost/subverted above (first count I missed my comment about "only" 2 5-3-1s to clean up)...subversions are not included! I did a quick test, confirming this. After a subversion, the number active decreases but the number lost stays the same.

That means that the I subverted at least 7 Gatling Plasma Infantry, as Miriam had 35 total (active and lost) at 2240 and only 28 total (mostly lost) at 2255. If she built more, I subverted more .

Of all her units, she had 98 active, 20 in production, and 31 lost at '55. By 70, that was 99-20-66, 35 more kills (who knows how many subversions). CEO Blake did great, leaving her with 106-14-97, 31 more kills.

Z

[Blake]

Miriam sure did come after me and with force! I couldn't subvert a single one because the wench remained in fundie the entire time, so I just crushed her armies, mostly by confusing the heck out of them, using such tatics as:

Putting an elite 0-5-1 in the fungus next to the base, 90% of the time her elite missile units would go after the probe, and die, I had to keep swapping probes as they got damamged...

If things get too hot, I stuck a needlejet on the 1 tile landbridge, this forces all the reinforcments to turn around and go home, and I can deal with those next to the base. I then remove the ZoC blocking needle and allow some more units to flow in, thus I killed her units at my pace.

A few times she did get to attack the base, once the defender won and otherwise I just had to bring in some of the "Spartan Army Surplus" units to replace the losses and increase the pool of counter-attackers. I had to sacrifice the odd unit to dislodge miriams infantry from the fungus patch.

And altough Santiago was active she was hardly dangerous, hence the "Spartan army surplus" name , after the strategic retreat every unit she sent through either suicided against a probe, got needled, or mind controlled.
Miriam was much more dangerous, a slipup with my ZoC defense and the base could easily have been lost - one of the reasons why I played 5 extra turns, my skills at beating overwhemling streams of AI military units have been honed in various CGN challenges and I wanted to get some more durable defense in place, the defense situation around 2265 was just so fragile, but with fusion noodles the plasma units are easy picking.

We will soon have tachyeon defense, that provides +100% vs land and air, which will provide a much needed boost seeing we cant upgrade our military with AAA and COMM, altough I aquired a ECM unit or two from Santiago. I imagine that the tachy defense will spell the end of the Believer threat because her missile units wont stand a chance - we could even use our armoured formers to garrison bases, veteran 6 armour former+creche, +50% morale , x1.25x1.25 base/sensor, x3 from Perimeter+Tachy = 7x defense, with 6 armour thats 42 defense!, with 3 armour 21 defense.

Miriams attackers are 6*1.5*1.25*1.25 = 14, by my count a former will be able to beat off about 3 elite infantry, a plasma unit should reliably beat 1, but sometimes die to the second.