Factional Strategies

[Simpson II]

There is a lot of excellent general strategy advice on the forum, but what about faction-by-faction stratagems? We all tend to favour one or two factions, for myself for example it would be Deirdre and Santiago at the top. What can you do with your Chosen Ones which would be difficult - or even impossible - with anyone else? There must be a whole range of nuances that the majority of people miss about a given faction.

[death_head]

I don't know what you do, but here is my new favorite strategy with Santiago, and I believe it only works well with a faction that has good police, support, and morale.
Santiago's high morale makes her units harder to beat. She also starts off right away with mobility, so this works on a large planet. My strategy is to research applied physics for the laser right off, concentrate everything on research within reason, meanwhile trying to up your mineral prod. (make up for -1 industry). Then, you must get lots of speeders and go make war and capture a ton of bases. If you do spoils of war you can get extra tech, hopefully Loyalty as then you can do a police state. Back at home, your bases can continue growing, and you don't need to worry as much with the "Less Drone" Facilities as you will have +1 and then +3 police. The person who can come closest to doing this strategy well is Miriam (+25% attack instead of better morale) but her -2 research makes it hard to get the Laser fast. So I guess only Santiago can do that.)

I have also found that Sinder Roze (obviously) has a strategy no one else can really use. That strategy is this. Roze can build up her bases at home so they're very good. She can simply use probes to "adjust" her enemies to make them weaker. If someone is coming with a big army (a military faction such as Santiago, Svensgard, Cult, etc.), you don't need to build a big defense. Just capture a couple of the front units near your sensors and they will have to destroy them first, which will damage them to and make their assault a lot less dangerous. If someone like Yang or Drones has a huge empire, start destroying their facilities. This will give you an edge on their industry, and will make them easier to destroy. If you are facing a rich faction like Morgan, steal his money. These three strategies put together work very well for Roze, and her probes are unstoppable when she uses fundamentalist politics (probes reach elite extremely fast, (odds for most ops are 100%,93%) You don't need to worry about research. Just steal their tech and stay in the game. Tech parity makes no difference when you wreck their base facilities and take their units.
Anyhow, those are my strategies for two factions anyhow, they usually work but I dunno maybe they're not that good.

------------------
Carved upon my stone-
my body lie
but still I roam.
-Metallica

[Simpson II]

Planet : A Survivalist's Guide

By Simpson II

Heh, sorry, I couldn't resist that one. This is my answer to my own question, regarding the Spartans. I wasn't sure whether to post this or not, since I'm in a PBEM game using the Spartans and I don't really want the other players to know what's happening, so if you're one of them, close your eyes for a bit .

The Spartans are widely - and in my view unfairly - considered the weakest of the original seven factions, good only for fast-conquest through impact rovers. This works, but on a huge map or a small, isolated island you quickly run out of steam.

However, there are a few more dimensions to the Spartans.

The first is that of early-game elite troops. Yes, you've probably had them before, I know, especially as the Spartans . Attacking relentlessly will give you a few by the time the enemies' back is broken. But what if you could get them early, early enough for an initial rush? Consider what it takes to get to elite troops. Units start out green, and progress through 5 morale upgrades. Two can be provided by a Command Centre, something the Spartans can build right at the start. A monolith provides a further one. The only Morale-enhancing SE choice available in the early game is Fundamentalism, though it provides a rather miserable +1. There, for everyone else, it stops until AMA or neural grafting. But the Spartans, with these three things, get Elite troops, and that magical extra move. Get Command Centres, Rec. commons and Rec. tanks up early, and you are ready to roll (or, as I would do it, walk.)
A 22-mineral 4-1-infantry unit becomes the equivalent of a 50-mineral 6-1-rover for a faction with 'average' morale (read - an unusually well prepared builder), and you get +25% attack versus a base - equivalent to the Believers' attack bonus where you really need it. More, it's not subject to the defensive bonuses given by comm jammers. What were you saying about -1 industry? An elite 4-3-infantry unit costs you 55 minerals, and deployed correctly will scare the hell out of someone who has to reply with impact weapons themselves. The AI simply folds.
In fact you can do this on a very limited scale without entering Fundie. Prototype synthmetal, lasers, impact weapons and plasma armour on different units for the +1 morale, upgrage to 4-3 and your little attack-party of four will do serious damage to those unprepared. These troops are probably best used either defensively or as a mere harassment, though, since they can't be replaced easily. A momentum player who sees Elite 4-3-infantry when he arrives will think twice, probably before offering a Pact (well, I would anyway.) The AI will nicely allow you to kill all of it's troops and beg for peace.

But that's still in the early game. OK, forget that strategy for now. Consider this. Keep a small empire, and go in for a 'perfectionist' base style. Most of the time you will run Dem-Free market, which with an early pop-boom to size seven (fewer pods = more infrastructure) will put you on a par with the serious builder factions, tech wise, in the early mid-game. You need tree farms, AMA, Intellectual Integrity and Missile weapons as soon as possible. Ignore lifting the restrictions on minerals and energy if neccesary, and it probably will be. Probes will allow you to catch up later.
Now, get three police units, a tree farm and a hab complex in each city (you should have the habs, at least, before you have all of the techs anyway.) Boom to size 14 cities with psych way up (nerve staple as expedient), then go to police-state/power, with green economics if you have them, otherwise simple.
Thanks to the Spartan Police bonus your three police units can keep up to 12 citizens happy, so no psych needed and everyone is working a nice forest square for 28 minerals/base/turn. All of your ground troops are elite without the need for a monolith upgrade. And, in spite of the -3 industry, you can produce your army faster than under survival values, because you can support up to 14 units/base without support costs! That effectively gives you clean reactors, for roughly the same price as the actual SA. This means the potential for a tremendously large force, capable of disemboweling an entire empire at a stroke. Go the single step to Air Power, use an AAA cruiser/needlejet stack to protect your transports, probe for fusion power when possible and you are close to unstopable, especially if you are prepared to use nerve gas troops.
The most useful wonder for this is the Citizens' Defence Force. Your occupying Elite plasma troops then get a defense of just over 14 if you left the sensor intact. A comm-jammer / AAA troop or two slams the door on anything but elite infantry, given that you can undoubtedly blow away any unit standing next to a base you occupy. The next nice thing is The Command Nexus, but it can certainly be neglected since you have relatively few main bases and are relying on enough troops to do the thing in one blow. Other than that I pursue a low wonder strategy, The Empath Guild is the only one to break a sweat over. Get it and you will, quite likely, be able to elect yourself governor after pop-booming (oh yes, and the Cloudbase academy from what I hear of SmacX, but I'm strictly a Smac 4 man. Sounds very, very cool though.)

And, finally, you don't have to attack. -1 industry is bad, but your police bonus will stand you in good stead, whether you use it to expand more freely pre - Rec Commons, or to send out a unit or two to force someone else out of market while you stay in it.

You have, in short, options, and the ability to force the game to your preference merely by the threat of what you can do. And in the ever-changing world that is Smac, that is one of the greatest bonuses of all.

Well, Probably. IMHO.

S2
[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited July 26, 2000).]

[joer]

Hmmm...for some reason, I get the feeling that the Spartans aren't well suited for such builder strategies, compared to the other factions. And the difference should show in MP.

Maybe it depends largely on the starting positions, but if the Spartans wait for their attack until they have pop boomed their bases to the maximum and got SFF, Intellectual Integrity and Adv. Mil. Alg., a fast Peacekeeper or University-player should be able to outbuild- and outtech them and simply arrives at D:AP a good number of turns before the Spartans. And once they got planes and you don't, your elite infrantry-somethings will just be sitting ducks.

Despite police bonus, I think Lal's chances of pop booming fast are much better and Zak's fast research, as well as their ability to use the VW to quell early drone problems give them quite an edge in the builder race. Not to mention that Spartans are struck with a horrible -1 industry.

And my guess is still that Santiago beeling for Adv. Mil. Alg. is coming too late to stop Zak from getting needlejets.

But, then again, I've never seen the Spartans in builder-action in an MP game.
-joer.

[joer]

Since I bragged already about how cool the University can be, I might as well post my step-by-step builder approach for him. That assumes that I will take this road if the AI (or the other player) lets me get away with it.

First tech I chose extra is Centauri Ecology, so I can terraform fast. Next is Planetary networks, to jump into planned economics asap. This gives me quite an advantage over slower research factions: +1 ind and +2 growth about 10-20 turns earlier, at virtually no cost (-2 eff can be ignored at the start).

Next comes biogenetics and social psych., to build my basic infrastructure. My first goal is to establish 7-10 bases asap, then bother about rec commons and tanks next. The next beeline is to Ind. Auto, while I already start to build the VW for early drone control, using all artifacts I get to further the project. Once I got Ind. Auto, I switch to Wealth and start neglecting infrastructure in favor of crawlers -- everything to finish up the VW as soon as possible. If I get it early, I can neglect building rec commons in my new bases for a while. I even spend all my cash on crawler upgrades.

The next tech I need is intellectual integrity, to switch to demo. If I am still in planned when chosing demo (and rushing one or two CCs), I can even pop boom a little. I pay attention that most of my initial bases have been built before switching to demo.

After the VW is built, I can freely switch to FM. Demo+FM+Wealth gives me quite a bit of money early on, enough to build most of the infrastructure I need in place: rec tanks, commons and CC's in every city. That's a requirement for effectively pop booming to size 6 or 7 in the next planned phase. If there's enough nuts lying around. Forests are nice at the start, but they do slow pop booming potential down until I get treefarms.

Once I got the initial SE/builder techs done, I choose gene splicing, which is a great help for pop booming (rainy squares + farm yielding one more nuts).
Expansion has a bit slowed by then, but might still be ongoing. Just a bit, to push the borders.
After gene splicing comes the big question: Should I go on the path of war or peace?
While researching the next techs, I build up on crawlers and do any neglected prototyping, but my defenses remain slim.

Path of peace: go for ecotech and planetary economics to get more energy and reach the next techs faster. Build up on treefarms. Then continue on the path of war.

Path of war: Steal/trade as many of the three following techs as possible from the AI: Applied physics, high energy chemistry, doctrine: mobility and doctrine: flex. Two of the four should be feasible. Research the rest, then go for SFF, and finally, the crown: D:AP. Once I'm there, I switch to planned, pop boom as far as I can (should have a few hab complexes built) and strike a few prototypes of missile jets at once with the crawlers I got lying around. Then is time for offensive upon the next hapless enemy. I might even use nervegas jets, in case I really want to go for the kill. Simularly, if I don't really have anything to do, I sometimes even wait until I researched Neural Grafting + MMI to do the chopper kill.

Techs researched (not counting 2 techs to start with):

Path of war without Ecotech and planetary eco until D:AP: 14
Ecotech and Planetary Eco: +2
Neural networks and MMI: +2

The big trick is to not bother with any techs that do not lie on this path, even if the AI offers it to me. Because it increases my tech cost and makes getting there much harder. Doctrine loyalty and nonlinear mathematics /can/ be ignored if I have enough breathing space at the start. And once the age of airpower starts, they don't buy much anyways.

Once again, this is under the big /if/ I don't get bothered at all and I can freely expand. However, in such a case, I strongly suspect Santiago will not have reached Adv. Mil. Algorithms (especially in ACX, where she has to research Adaptive Doctrine as well) and 4-3-1 elite units will not hold against green 6x-1-8 needlejets.

However...her probes are a totally different thing.

-joer.

[This message has been edited by joer (edited July 27, 2000).]

[Simpson II]

Well, I've spent quite a while thinking about joer's comments, and playing some games with the University and the Spartans, and joer, you are dead right. The Uni can get X6 needlejets before the Spartans - or anyone else - can mount a real defence, unless they sacrifice everything to do so. X6 jets even beat even-moraled AAA plasma troops in a base if you can bomb away the sensor.

So to defend against the Uni, you must;

1) Kill them in the impact-rover era;

2) Get AAA and high-morale troops at all costs, along an unproductive tech path, while they pick up juicy techs like gene splicing, biogenetics etc., thus gifting them the middle game;

3) Probe away D:AP or it's prereqs and straffe them back, while building lots and lots of interceptors.

3) is the only viable thing in many situations - which makes the entire early game a rush to Air Power, since if Lal or Santiago or whoever gets Air Power first instead, you are no better off. Either that or the game is an impact-momentum bloodfest.

This is, IMHO, silly,. It's the definition of unbalanced. But I believe it's true. The only balancing factor seems to be playing on a huge map, which should not be the only place where the game is playable. Maybe 6 human players could gang up on the first person to use gas needlejets, but how many MP games have seven people?

Any comments?

[Adam_Smith]

That's funny. I thought it is the Spartan players who are always trying to hit you with gas. kaz was building some gas bombers to hit me in Spartan-Drones, but then when he saw how many fighters I responded with... well he hasn't sent a turn in quite some time. I was going to let him gas me again too. He gassed me three times with rovers in that game. After that his graph went flat because of the sanctions against him. My graph went straight up and I continued to dominate.

[Beör]

Hi there
I have been lurking around for a while, being a newbie - BTW I just love this game!

I tend to agree with Simpson II that the police rating of the Spartans running PS following a pop boom to 14 in key bases is a thing to concidder. The ability to control 3 drones with cheap 1-1-1 police units foregoes the necessity to invest in expensive drone control facilities. This is of course most important when playing transcend.

[Enigma]

Allright- I will post Morganites first.. then others may follow.

Right when they land on planet the Morganites start with +100 credits, meaning 110 energy.

I send my colo pod just outside of the red production radius- 3 squares away, and found my first base. My first base will start to produce something with a very high mineral cost.. the merchant exchange or whatever.. doesnt matter. My second base does the same.

My first tech is ALWAYS biogenetics. Once I get it I will switch production to rec tanks in both bases. It costs 60 credits to hurry rec tanks completely in a base that has completed 10 minerals already. By year 5 or 6 when I get biogenetics (standard planet) I should have enough energy to hurry recycling tanks in both bases.

There you go- Morgan's economy is already at a much bigger advantage than everyone elses. Your base squares are producing 4 energy at your HQ and 3 energy at your 2nd base- you should have an income of 3-5 energy before year 10. Those super early recycling tanks allow the Morganites to overcome their support penalty, amplify their energy, and grow faster without planned.

My second tech is almost always industrial economics. I start saving up 40 credits for the switch to FM.

Meanwhile just crank out the colony pods and ICS space your cities. I might make an extra scout here or there but generally thin expansion is my sole goal as early game Morgan.

Switch to FM ASAP! Now your income is the best on the planet, and your research is right behind Zackharov. Hopefully if you get extra creds from unity pods or have monoliths you will have enough cash to hurry recycling tanks in your 2nd 2 bases.

By now you will know if you are very close to neighbors. I play a lot on standard maps and starting 6 squares away from Santiago. If I am in danger of attack I will garrison a scout patrol and keep 30 extra credits in the bank. Upgrade to synthemetal if necessary. I try to bribe any potential attacker.. Morgan is almost always toast before industrial auto.

Next techs to research- if you started with a lot of rivers or in the uranium flats or whatever then beeline for SotHB. Even with average starts on standard size planets I am usually only 1-2 years behind Zackharov. But anyways social psych is great for quelling drones in FM... that is usually my next tech. Shoot for SotHB if you are confident- otherwise it can be delayed a bit.

Cent eco is the next tech if you do not feel like SotHB beeline.

Then just beeline for Industrial auto. Once you get industrial auto switch to wealth- now your energy shoots up again. Your base squares should bring in 6-8 energy. All that ICSing is paying off big time. Spend your energy on hurrying in crawlers. Usually I have 1-2 formers per base before industrial auto, so all of my bases are heavily forested. Crank out crawlers, send them to HQ, build more crawlers, build human genome project or whatever.

After that my strategy kinda forks. If I am next to juicy targets I will switch to green and attack, probe buying cities as necessary. I can take out most AI factions by year 100. Green is great- 100% econ will allow you to finish those last few important facilities and probe buy your way into a dominant position. I don't fight with Yang, mainly this is incase a rival builder is close by begging to be attacked.

I switch to green no matter what by year 80-100. For war 100% econ, otherwise normally I go with 90% labs, rush buy!

Aach not a great strat guide but it works well enough for me.

Also recently in a game I ended up fighting Miriam by year 50.. she was very close but was busy fighting Deidre before this time. Luckily I had the important weapons techs researched. I was fighting a pretty easy war- my plasma garrisons tromped her laser wielding zealots. But I knew that she would get impact eventually- so I beelined for Silksteel. For maybe 5-10 years the fighting was really rough- she got impact. I allocated my labs a little higher and tightened my belt for a fight. Finally I got silksteel- Made a few selective upgrades and gradually replaced my forces. Meanwhile I had been power expanding in the directions away from Miriam- my cash flow and research were both top notch. I researched clean reactors- saving tons of support costs for formers. I also nabbed the command nexus around year 70-80- all the AI's seemed to ignore it.

Pretty soon Yang had carved a path through Zackharov's territory to me on my North, fortunatley my silksteel armor held up with no casualties against his impact. It seems all the researchers were killed this game- Miriam was in 2nd place- so the momentum Ai's had very wimpy weapons techs.

Santiago was also starting to attack from my SE with Gatling troops- this time I went mainly with an impact rover defense cause she was using infantry and there was a lot of open terrain.

Eventually Zackharov became a tempting target- one of his cities had both the hunter seeker AND the Virtual world. I switched to green and started buying Yangs troops and cities- bringing in tons of garrisons as well and a few impact rovers. Zack fell pretty quickly- minimum casualties on my side. My huge mobile force started working its way toward Yang in the North and he surrendered after taking only 1 city.

Meanwhile Miriam's attacks seem to have almost stopped- and Zack kindly gifted me chaos weapon techs. One of my defensive rovers was elite- I opted for an expensive 240 credit upgrade to 8-4-2, with a useful mixture of impact rovers, chaos rovers, and tons of garrisons that proved very useful as a backbone. She fell very quickly and to make matters even worse for her Zack gave me fusion right as she started her counterattack- I routed her remaining cities.

Simultaneously I upgraded a few troops that were defending against Santiago and began trouncing her.

One of the most fun games I have had with Morgan in a while. The war against Miriam was really tough for a few years before I got silksteel and her high morale troops with the 25% bonus were killing my plasma troops in their rocky emplacements. But as both bunkers and silksteel came in her attacks were made futile.

Sometimes it is a lot more rewarding to go the route of payback rather than just transcending.

The lessons I learned-
1. Silksteel troops in rocky emplacements are hard to beat.

2. Keep on expanding- even when in a war.

3. A paradigm economy is very useful- energy allocation is VERY important.

If I had stayed with 50/50 while she had impact weapons I might have lost a city or two before silksteel came in. And going 100% econ allowed me to instantly buy an attack force and beat Zack while not having to divert my defense line to the west against miriam.

Interesting map too- everyone was on the same continent. I was bordered at one time by every faction but Deidre.

[Adam_Smith]

Great strategy Enigma! You really work Morgan's strengths and limit the effects of his weaknesses. You are a great Morgan player too.

Interesting strategy researching better armor instead of better weapons against Miriam. I tend to forget about the armor pretty much and just go for production and maybe weapons to beat her. That brings up another point. You say you expand during war. I prefer to win the war quickly and then get back to expansion. If I'm Domai I may do a little of both though. Maybe your "Silksteel on the Mountain" startegy fits in with your "Expansion and War" startegy though.

Keep on keepin' on

[stuntman19]

Enigma, nice strategy for Morgan, using his money and research capabilities well. I have not played Morgan much because I've always perceived him being so week in military. My bad, it seems you developed an effective military with him.

My grandfather use to tell me "remember the golden rule" = "the one with the gold makes the rules". Seems to apply here.

[Simpson II]

Enigma, very interesting! I've been reading up on Morgan, since I've just gotten involved in a Smac MP game with him (yes, no pop-booming!) so this is really useful. I'd never realized just how much energy you get from the base square with +3/4 economy.

I have to admit I'm doubtful about the value of armored troops on rocky terrain vs a human - a block is trivial to pass with probes or aircraft, so I might keep to the impact defence.


Overall, though, very nice. Morgan with alien life.. wierd idea. I like it!
[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited August 16, 2000).]