Morgan

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2305

It's amazing what a small force properly assembled can accomplish. While the homefront is trying to get ahead of a staggering array of new buildings (Genejack Factories, Hybrid Forests, etc.) my small, elite (at -2 Morale at that!) forces have been pounding away.

A cruiser transport full of amphibs is item #1. An Aegis cruiser escort is item #2. Two fighters are item #3.

The Aegis & fighters escort the transport to the base. The amphibs attack. The Aegis conquers.

Remember how everyone loves choppers because of the multiple attack? A transport loaded with marines has that in spades. Meanwhile the cruiser is your occupying force: it can't attack more than once per turn, but it can conquer as many bases as it can get to! Lastly the fighter escort keeps this massive investment from going poosh! because of a lucky impact foil.*

My West Ruins force crushed the Pirates there, disembarked, and have already captured 2 Hive bases. Usually I give captured bases to Domai, but I wanted to build a chopper first.

My East Ruins force took on the other "arm" of the Pirates. When Svencer for Hire was down to 1 base of size 1 he tried to surrender. Nah, Punishment Sphere ...

I got some air support to the East force, and tackled the Usurpers next. I guess because I've been harassing their East coast almost continuously since the beginning of the game they didn't expect me in the West. I grabbed a coastal base very near the ex-Domai base loaded with SP's. I've been wanting it for 100 years, but just had too much else to do.

I have to be careful, because Progenitor battles tend to leave a lot of scorched earth. Normally that's what you want, but in this case I have to not only take the base, but hold it, and it stands near the heart of Usurper territory (it is also landlocked). Once again, however, I kept a Pirate base for myself to build a chopper close to the front. I'm doing the same with the base I captured from the Progenitors.

Homefront. South of my continent, the Sea of Mneismache, the Isle of Dexamenus, and the South Pole are packed with Unity pods. Games with the Progenitors will do that: their slaughterfests will leave big, uninhabited, unexplored holes in the map.

The "problem" is that I've cashed so many artifacts that I'm faced with a massive overhaul of my infrastructure, right when I'd like to be building choppers. The opposite problem of 10 turns ago (nothing to build) I'm running into the "Zakharov wall": runaway tech without the industry to match.

I'm an industrial giant, mind you, but this torrent of new techs has come all at once. It's a very extreme situation: Genejack Factories, Robotic Assembly Plants, Hybrid Forests, Clean Reactors, Super Formers, Hovertanks, Subsea Trunklines, and of course Choppers all became available within about 5 turns of each other! (Subsea Trunklines + Trawlers will take some of the pressure to produce minerals off the supply crawlers.)

I've got about 10000 credits' worth of unit upgrades to make, which The Nano Factory will cut to 5000, but that's still a lot of dough. So I've got a Clean Super Hover Former sitting in the unit designer but the lowly 100-year-old Fungicidal Former is what's sitting on the ground. Well, as long as I'm building The Nano Factory, I might as well wait, right?

* My naval tactics in games past had been to try to hide an armored but unescorted transport in fungus just within its movement range of an enemy base, then race in with the marines next turn. Not coincidentally that's how I met "The Lucky Impact Foil." It's one thing to lose a probe that way -- but a loaded transport!? Ouch!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Vi,

Now that's proper combined arms tactics!!! Air cover and amphibious landings. Yeah Baby!! Love your posts keep us informed.


------------------
"Just puttin on the foil coach" - Hansson Bros.

[Vi Vicdi]

Domai, my pact brother, built a sea base right off my coast, the worm. At least I have a supply of conquered Yang and Pirate bases to trade him for. Still it's a grave insult. There are a zillion places for him to build, yet he has chosen to rob from me!

It is in fact one of the major flaws of the game. The designers couldn't extend sea territory too aggresively because of blockading problems, but it should absolutely be a violation of treaty and an Act of War to build a base that robs another faction's base of usable terrain. No human player would stand for it from another human player in a multiplayer game!

[Serapis]

Vi Vicdi,

Can you post saved games of your epic struggle so the rest of us can ooggle your conquests?

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2312 (the last MY was 2308, not 2305)

Wow, the Usurpers unloaded on me big time, and with the v2 patch artillery actually does damage!

The flow of alien artifacts is endless. (Yes, this is relevant to the previous paragraph.) I checked my command nexus to ungarrison my Guards (more on that later) and noticed I have 4 in the pipeline! For every one I cash in I seem to find another.

Anyway, one of the techs I have cashed was for "carrier deck" & "repair bay", so I moved my choppers offshore for repairs out of range of Usurper artillery. I rush-built a Perim & Tach field at Free Drone Central (the big SP base the Usurpers are feverishly trying to recapture) but my defenders were wiped out -- a lone fighter is all that's left.

I rush-built an AAA jump infantry garrison which will arrive next turn, allowing that Tachyon Field to do some good. I've researched level 8 armor but not prototyped it, so my defenders are still 6's. FDC, however, has a Skunkworks! Hah!

The "defense" of Free Drone Central has been to patrol with the choppers from the Transport. With the Nano Factory online (yay!), the Repair Bay in the Trn, and 2 choppers so one can rejuvenate while the other fights, it looks like I'll hold out.

My Eastern Army, however, is decimated.

The Western Army (now just The Army ) is plowing through Yang like he isn't there.

My first few chopper flights were against Miriam. I was on the defensive in those days and she had a pact w/ the Usurpers and a bunch of firebases in my territory for both of them to launch from. At one point there were so many bombers at one of her bases that I had to leave a chopper there -- it had exhausted all its attacks, and there were still endless bombers. Another chopper did the same thing, unloading everything it had, and cut it down to half a dozen. Next turn I lost half a dozen supply crawlers, but because I took her bases next turn (with choppers you don't stay on the defensive for long) they all ran out of fuel and crashed. Hah!

Hmm, so that explains what The Navy has been up to. (Choppers attack; Aegis cruisers conquer. No fighter cover this time around.)

That distractionary force on the Usurpers' east coast is on the march, but it hasn't gotten very far because my ground units there are mostly defensive and the choppers that started kicking up some dust there I had to divert northwest to assist against Miriam. At least my "diversionary force" has fighter cover! They may march slowly, but what they take they won't yield back! Manifold Nexus is mine for keeps.

Homefront: Working on Pholus Mutagen & Network Backbone. Nano Factory complete. All formers upgraded. Energy park outgrew crawler supply for the first time in its life. Diverted a few mineral crawlers to energy. 2 turns/tech; SE = Democracy / Green / Wealth / Cybernetic.

The Guards: A failed unit, an armored infantry probe team. I built a bunch to guard my bases but never needed them, so I've un-garrisoned them en masse and I'm throwing them against the Usurpers in a massive genetic-plague-inducing wave. That'll show 'em. (Actually I'm sending 8 against the Usurpers, and the rest I'm going to disband at bases that need minerals.) A good little unit, under the right circumstances. A waste of resources under mine.

Conquered Colonies: I've been good and not razed any human bases, and I can't give away a base that's right off my coast, so between the Pirates and Miriam I've amassed quite a few colony pods over the years. After building way more colonies than I really wanted I've sent the rest to bases that have hit their max population. So far I've built 2 bases up to 21 (Morgan Industries & Worlds Within Worlds) and I'm working on a third (Morgan Pharmaceuticals.)

[Vi Vicdi]

As a matter of fact from 2295 thru 2308 I made a zip file to send to the Firaxis team so they could fix the "crawler crash" bug.

Any of my saves are yours to ogle if you wish. Just tell me where to put 'em ...

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2315

Putting the East / West squeeze on Usurpers. Made it down to Freshwater Sea against Yang. Bad SE w/ Domai but I give him bases to compensate, so we're still Pacted.

Moving some Locusts in against Miriam's land territory. (A chopper is already there.)

Mass genetic plagues have wiped out about 15 Usurper citizens total, but on balance I'd rather have more Choppers.

Pods are everywhere. Got Super-Tensile Solids, Frictionless Surfaces, and Centauri Psi. I wish I'd gone trawling for pods 50 years ago!

Expecting win by conquest soon.
[This message has been edited by Vi Vicdi (edited January 12, 2000).]

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2317

Will I Transcend instead? Got Secrets of AC & Quantum somethingorother (level 16 wpn). I've also got two more artifacts en route.

One turn to Vats; Space Elevator soon after.

Took 2 of Miriam's land bases, while the locusts are still en route. Locusts are fast; magrails are faster. I got a rover onto a transport and into her territory well before the bugs could make it.

The Usurpers are hurting, but they had two major territorial holdings, the secondary one being Domai's old stomping grounds in the Uranium Flats. My East / West attack sort of skipped the Northwest ...

Captured The Planetary Datalinks (oh joy).

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2320

I've got the Vats, making Colony Pods much less desirable. But I've gone this far without human atrocities, so what the heck?

Oh yeah, I'm depopulating and pod-booming because sunspot activity prevents me from giving them to Domai. (Pod-booming is useless once you've Hab Domes + Cloning Vats!)

Transcend or Conquer? I've got yet more Artifacts on the way, and my research is very strong ("officially" 2 techs per turn but very, very close to 1 -- with my economy set to 40% labs!)

Currently building Teletubby Matrix, The Manifold Harmonics (makes Cybernetic more valuable, doesn't it?), and The Dream Twister.

With Quantum Reactors and the "Graviton Gun" (lvl 20) my choppers are able to fully exhaust themselves now -- continuous attack to the limit of their movement. (They've got those Fuel Cell thingys, too!) The only thing that slows 'em down are native lifeforms. However, I've lost at least three to my own impatience, back in the Plasma Shard days, by attacking unto death. That leaves me with 4.

I'm doing a number on Yang w/ no air at all, thanks to "grav struts" on my infantry.

The "Chopduster" is another lesson. At the "if you can get to it, you can have it" stage the Locust's inability both to use magrails and to conquer more than 1 base per turn is telling. A rover, however, can airdrop in* in 1 turn and conquer as many bases as it can get to the next. The cruiser, while not able to get on-station any faster, is, as I pointed out before, capable of conquering as many bases as it can get to. At sea, as on land, the Locust can take only 1!

The [locust-based] Chopduster is a mid-game strategy, if you get techs in a certain order, but is outclassed by the late-game techs. [Note that Gravships, while faster, suffer from the same 1-conquer-per-turn handicap as Locusts!]

So to the guy whose "Chop-Drop" I criticized as being less flexible than the Chopduster -- so what? I apologize! Chop-Drop with a grav-strutted Hovertank leaves locusts in the [chop]dust! You still need a cruiser -- use the money you saved not having to build all those locusts!

My biggest mistake of the game, before I forget, was not going for the Unity pods sooner. Second biggest was insufficient air cover, but of course I learned that particular lesson during this game, so the criticism applies only during the pre-MMI, post-Air period.

* I don't actually put drop pods on rovers because they're too expensive. I prefer using either a drop transport or the plain old ocean kind. With magrails and dock-loading (and dock-unloading if you can get it) you're still way-outpacing the locusts. Dock-loading and unloading taken together can even outpace Drop Pods!

[David Byron]

[quote]Originally posted by Vi Vicdi on 01-18-2000 10:27 PM
Pod-booming is useless once you've Hab Domes + Cloning Vats!)[quote]

If you want to exceed the food supply limit you will need pod booming.

[Vi Vicdi]

Hab Domes remove restrictions on population.

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2321

I eliminated the Usurpers, thanks to helicopters + fast ground forces which, as I mentioned before, are superior to copters + Locusts because ground units can take more than 1 base per turn.

I stupidly blundered into a spore launcher defending one of Miriam's bases and lost a helicopter. That will slow me down a little. She's got maybe 3 bases left. She fell very quickly because she is cramped into some small geography: the Isle of Desmondia.

Yang, on the other hand, has had the whole huge continent that stretches from The Ruins down to Freshwater Sea and across to Mount Planet all by himself, and he sprawled his bases accordingly. I cannot take as many bases per turn from him as spread out as he is.

Yang is also the unfortunate victim of my pod-popping. Naturally you accumulate a lot of riff-raff while exploring: mindworms, spore launchers, Isles of the Deep, etc. I sort of offloaded some of the overflow onto Yang's southwestern coast, and because of my Green, Cybernetic, Manifold Nexus-boosted 50% planet rating, they're really doing great. They're even doing well attacking bases!

The anti-Usurper forces, including lots of air, I have diverted to Yang, but in the upside-down world of the late game, it takes the air a lot longer to get there than the infantry!

I also keep cashing artifacts. I've got probably 6 SP's to build, and nanoreplicators. This close to the end the SP's are solely for score, but of course switching them to VoP & Ascent wouldn't be so bad ...

Lastly, another lesson, about the Subsea Trunkline: it isn't worth the price unless you're going to take at least 4 minerals per turn from it (at a minimum.) If you consider the price/performance ratio vs. supply crawlers you really need a good reason to build a Trunkline. Unfortunately before I figured this out I went kind of crazy building them.

For sea bases or mostly-sea bases they are really great, because your land can fill up with crawlers in a hurry mining multi-megatons of minerals for sea bases. The bottom line for trunklines is that, so long as some crawlers are harvesting minerals from forests, every 2 trawlers will free up 3 crawlers, which can then be set to harvesting energy, reassigned to more-needy bases, etc.; however, the Trunkline also costs twice as much as a crawler. Keep the cost in mind, especially compared to the cost of another supply unit.

I'm guessing the victory type will be Conquest, simply because Miriam and Yang are all that's left, and they're pretty low-tech.

Research is back up to 50%. What the heck? Transcending requires tech, right?
[This message has been edited by Vi Vicdi (edited January 21, 2000).]

[Vi Vicdi]

MY 2323

Well, I just captured both Miriam & Yang's last bases, and guess what? No victory. I should've read the instructions more closely; co-op victory is "off", and I gave a bunch of bases to Domai.

I just don't have the heart to kill him, so I set the economic victory in motion (for a measly 1000 credits!) but I will Transcend long before 2343. I think I'm 2 techs away, and I've still got yet another artifact to cash in, so I am, if you will pardon, on the Threshold of Transcendance.

I spent the extra 400 bucks necessary to complete The Singularity Inductor. It was either that or 500 per base to rush-build Nanofactories, so I figured even at 4 bucks per mineral the SI was worth it. (I didn't use crawlers because they're all out harvesting, and queue-turns are more valuable than energy credits at this stage of the game.)

I also reassigned all mineral crawlers from forest (@2/sq) to fungus (@3/sq). Drop pods on crawlers really rock. They're a little more expensive, but since a base can only build 1 item per turn anyway the added expense is irrelevant.

Lastly, I've decided since fungus is so valuable now and Teletubby Matrix is but 3 turns away I'll go ahead and keep a few conquered bases, and suffer the added management burdens for the last few turns of the game. What the heck? I'm feeling generous ...

[Vi Vicdi]

TRANSCENDANCE!
MY 2327

Secret Projects 825
Technologies 125
Energy Reserves 14903
Population 1055
Difficulty Transcend
Iron Man +100%
Alpha Centauri Score 7708 (722%)

Factions eradicated: Caretakers, Pirates, Usupers, Believers, Hive.

Pact Brothers: Drones.

I have completed the Morgan Challenge. If anyone wants to see any save files let me know and I'll email 'em to you.

Great game, Meister Flo!

excellent job, Vi Vicdi !
Especially your handling of H'minnee impresses. Hopefully Fist and i will resume our games at some point to run up for 2nd place.

Anyways, Vi Vicdi is the Winner of the Morgan challenge. Congratulations

[Vi Vicdi]

Thanks! I guess it's on to the UBC. Just what I need, some cross between Sun Yung Moon and King Tut wielding nuclear weapons and replicating a zillion copies of himself in the Cloning Vats. "One Cha Dawn goes in ... one hundred Cha Dawns come out ..." I think I'm gonna be sick ...

[Misotu]

Thought I'd play a few turns of this tonight and see how it looked. And a few turns was more than enough to remember why I never go for Morgan. That horrible support rating ... :-)

Let's just say that the Caretakers walked all over me. I'm not sure what the native life form setting is for this game, but my cities and units were attacked by wild worms pretty much every other turn. And they weren't turning up singly, either. Roving bands of pre-boil thingys :-)

Thought I was in with a chance when my very first pod threw up a battle ogre. But it promptly vaporised under attack from a puny little Caretaker mindworm. Unexpected, to say the least ...

Anyway, I managed to repulse the first few Caretaker attacks with no lasers, just synthmetal sentinels and sensors. I even put a former in the way at one point, just to slow them down.

When the main attack group arrived in 2170, I subverted a synthmetal impact rover and a 3-res impact laser squad, then rush-built a 4-3r squad of my own and upgraded my synthmetal garrison but ... with FIVE impact infantry, two synthmetal impact rovers and a spore launcher all at commando or above, the Caretakers pretty much walked it ...

So it's ignominious defeat in 2174. Time for a new approach, I think ...

:-)

- Mis

[Vi Vicdi]

There are two ways of beating me: one is by winning the first game (I was annihilated shortly into my first) and the other is by winning your second sooner than I did (which should be fairly easy).

Good luck!

[TigToad]

I consider Morgan to be my favorite faction, and one of _my_ best ones to play... so I'd be honored to try this challenge... see I can't hack it. Daniel-Tig (I put in a request for the file via email).

[Capt Dizle]

bump

[Aredhran]

Have you tried this one JT ? That was my very first SMAC defeat... Completely underestimated the power of the Caretakers in the jungle.

Great game. Never got around to finishing my second try though

Aredhran

[Capt Dizle]

No, I don't think I did. I have just reinstalled and I bumped this hoping someone might send me the start file.

Do you have it Red?

[Googlie]

If anyone has it, e-mail it me and I'll hang it too on the Spartan Chronicles website - I'm sure a lot of the newer players would like to have a go.

I know I would - I missed the original

G.

[mark13]

quote: I'm sure a lot of the newer players would like to have a go.

Yep, I certainly would....

[Zonk]

Thanks for keeping the newbies in mind, guys (and girls) we appreciate it!

[Googlie]

Nobody responded with a copy of last years starting map so I started a new one - it's posted under the thread "Morgan2000 Challenge"

It's prolly a tougher game than last year's 'cos I made planet more inhospitable (less erosion, so fewer minerals, sparse rainfall, so fewer forests, and abundant native life so oodles of wormies and spores).

Nasty AI (although in my restarted game I'm now pacted with Yang - altho I think he had to offer it to extricate a rover of his from a chokepoint I was controlling. I'll post my first 50 years tomorrow.

Googlie

[Aredhran]

I still have it. I'll e-mail it tonight to you JT and Googlie.

Should anybody else want it, post here or send me a message.

Aredhran

[Googlie]

'Red, that's great.

I'll replace the newly created one with the original - that way players who have followed the thread can see how they compare to the "greats".

Googlie

[Googlie]

Flo's original Morgan game now up on the Spartan Chronicles site:

http://clik.to/sparta

Go to "Fall Challenges" page, (last page). It's the second download (after the Fall 00 Peacekeeper challenge)

Report your progress in the reconstituted Morgan2000 Challenge thread.

http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum31/HTML/000610.html?4

Googlie


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited November 17, 2000).]

[Aredhran]

Just send you the save. Have fun.