Hehehehehehe
A strange game I'm doing right now.
Started off as Miriam [of course] in a huge world with abundant alien life on transcend difficulty. Bumped into a Gaian scout, but thought a war this early was too risky, as she could have her bases on the other side of the planet surrounded by fungus. So we traded, and became pact sisters instead.
And so began what would become the Lord Gaia's religion. The believers were going to play as builders, building with planet.
Many stories started forming, much as the formers did their work. For every base there were 2 formers and 3 soldiers, equipped with the best weapons science could provide [and as all research was directed towards weapons since infrastructure was unnecessary, they were deserving of the title 'best']. The midlands, large open expanses mostly free of the denser areas of fungus were quickly populated by the innumerable colony pods of the believers. Roads and forests were planted everywhere and grew as the people grew, and for the most part they were peaceful, replacing the casualties to the fungus removal missions with relative ease. And so the pods began moving outwards. Looking West, a single passage was present to the rest of the mainland, but it was covered in fungus and would take too long to settle, on account of the squirming death. Going North and Eastwards, the pioneers found a desert - clean of fungus! To avoid too great inefficiency I didn't expand beyond this desert Eastwards, where a land bridge led off into the darkness. However, the believers did expand further North beyond that, at the mighty mount planet. Fungus grew thicker the more North you went, colony pods and formers were always on edge and occasionally disappeared. That was nothing compared to what was happening South. A few bases close to the midlands were quite safe, and most of the ones that grew near the Western lake's coast were able to repopulate when the defenses were overrun by mindworm attacks. But all those frontier bases, the formers that strayed away from the bases to build roads into the wilderness and even the occasional patrol died under the most excruciating circumstances. Taming the southern lands was not a matter of removing the fungus, as to do so would require all the midlands' formers - and such a thing would be impossible. So colony pods would often try to brunt their way through fields of fungus to establish strong points where formers could then thrust roads from which soldiers could hunt the mindworm menace. It wasn't a perfect plan, but it kept the pace of the expanding higher than anyone else could compete with and it worked... Excepting for one unfortunate mission, on the Westernmost settling site which resided besides a giant mountain range absolutely covered in fungus. It took many pods and missile rovers to finally make it through the fungus just surrounding that monster. It was considered a given that nothing at this stage was even capable of going through the mountain itself.
Around this time Morgan was destroyed by the Spartans in what looked like a space Australia. The University were the strongest faction technologically, monetarily, for a time militarily [it was a tie between Believers, University and the Hive] and overall. The believers had the most territory on account of the bases being spread across the entire world like a thin layer of butter on bread, free of mold. The Hive had the most population, and strangely enough money too. During the first 300 years of the game the only sighting of the Hive was the destruction of a 200 year old unity scout in a leg of land that jutted outwards so far away and covered in fungus that even the neighbouring Gaians didn't settle it. The Hive were the bogeymen in the fungus.
But remember the land bridge from the desert? It led to space Australia. I didn't know at the time, but Zhakarov and Santiago had settled the same continent. Santiago was separated from reaching the midlands' land bridge because she didn't want to face down the barrels of what was at that time a superior army. Because I only saw what Santiago had given to my datalinks, I had assumed Santiago was isolated from religionland and so by extension Zhakarov was too. So imagine my surprise when a University rover shows up on the doorstep of one of the outer bases.
Zhakarov demands my research, I say his mother is larger than Nessus Prime and we must dissent, he declares vendetta, the rover is blown apart.
I send my own scouts down the bridge, to my surprise I find out that the land bridge has two paths leading into believer territory, one leading into the great desert, the other through a much shorter path, albeit covered by a believing base and xenofungus, and two more paths on the other end covered by several University bases.
My scouts attempt to take a city, but the resistance is too fierce for too few. When the scouts begin to see large troop movements, they pull back with the rovers assaulting the bases before retreating and the infantry units setting up on rocky high ground behind xenofungus, ready to make the University pay the blood toll to pass this bridge. What happens is my favourite siege so far in the entire game.
The first rovers arrive and enter the pass. Unable to retreat once caught in the difficult terrain, the trap is sprung and they are destroyed. The rovers stop for a short while, and reappear supported by infantry. They make ground, but it is costing them much more than it is for me. The blockades grow idle as Zhakarov's troops vanish yet again. Artillery bombardments begin landing on the entrenched troops. Deciding that the death of the units holding their ground was not worth the possible extra delay against Zhakarov's troops, I began pulling them back. A total of 8 infantry with 2 obsolete laser infantry and 6 missile infantry, supplemented by one missile speeder and a former, stacked in one base in the impasse. Not bad.
And then the siege begins.
14 of Zhakarov's rovers show up two tiles away from the city, spreading themselves around the city like a pincer. I was a bit puzzled as to why they didn't attempt an assault, until they started bombarding.
Zhakarov brought 14 heavy artillery units to the fight. A few of his rovers poked at the beleaguered defenders but were ultimately all destroyed. The blockade at the bridge had bought enough time to finish the roads that let fresh reinforcements stream in, ensuring an average level of strength that kept Zhakarov from simply advancing forward. Tired fanatics are still fanatics after all.
All of these reinforcements weren't actually coming from building queues of the bases, so it never actually hurt the industry of the believers at all. As for Zhakarov, I suspected once his army was defeated it was gone for good. And the believers funnily enough had better weapons, using missile technology while Zhakarov was still using gatling lasers. All it would take is for something to be able to reach the fast artillery and punch through the defences. Besides the occasional skirmish, only one notable confrontation occurred. The former was moved out of the base deliberately, to test the artillery line. Some of the rovers redirected their fire to the former and the infantry in the line moved to finish it off. This left the right flank lightly guarded, and a rover swung out killing an artillery unit before it too was destroyed by a second redirected barrage.
While the siege continued for years, Zhakarov looked for a way through. University gatling squads trecked through the fungus to be met with a barrage of missiles or get abducted by probes. Similarly believing scouts and raiding parties were met by raking laser fire on the other side.
Intending to break the siege I queued up a rover in almost every base. By the time the first 5 I intended to use were in place on the base by mount planet, a contingent of mostly laser infantry with two missile units had successfully made their way through the narrow pass. Two gatling soldiers were caught on the road to the siege where they were gunned down. The enemy base was surrounded and the defences overwhelmed. What Zhakarov intended to do next I will never know, because this is when I forced him to retreat his army to oblivion. The missile rovers, unscarred by artillery fire attacked the left flank of the University line. At the signal, all of the infantry in the base too sprung out and attacked the line. Even while attacking at reduced strength, the now isolated army was at a loss. The line was so wrecked that only two rovers out of a force of over 20 were able to get through the rocky-fungus strewn terrain, and they were destroyed by rovers no less than one round later. This army poured into the various bases of the University in obscene numbers, strategy giving way to a mad dash to take all of Zhakarov's bases, recycling all of his network nodes for energy to fund operations.
Although the University employed probes against the attackers with good success and managed to blunt the offensive in North space Australia, when the reinforcements arrived resistance was swept away and Zhakarov conceded a submissive pact. This would not be the end of conflict, as during this time many of the reinforcements had been mustering in the furthermost South Western corners of Believer territory. It was neither Miriam nor Zhakarov that emerged the ultimate victor of that conflict, but in actuality Provin Lal established himself most influential overall. At some point Provin Lal had got into a kerfluffle with Deidre, and as I was in a pact with both I had to pick a side. I picked the one that helped me the most, but I guess I also picked the one least able to end my faction. Although Lal was more powerful at the time, his entire base complex was on the other side of Fungus mountain. I cannot be certain that he never sent an army through to invade my lands, as I did once have to eliminate a sole injured Peacekeeper sentinel. But I can be certain that most of the troops he sent through would have been met with many mindworms! Indeed, when the Southern forces mobilized the greater conflict was with the native fauna, not any soldier. Perhaps it was because most of his forces were fighting a losing battle up North against a Believer/Gaian host, but for whatever reason all of his bases soon fell when he had to fight a war on three fronts. The entirety of the UN province was split between the Believer south, the Gaian North and the fungoid reach.
Although the Spartans were allies to the Believers, I did not trust them well enough. They were also attacking Zhakarov [funnily enough, she refused to do so when he had an army] and was quite upset that I gave him the advanced weapons that allowed him to push her armies back.
All of the Gaian forces and Believing forces suddenly turned their attention to the colonel chipping her way at one of my bases. The Spartan forces were thrown back by the ferocity of the believers, but a war in space Australia was a dangerous thing indeed. The roads were either non-existent or frequently ambushed by mindworms, and the believers strongpoint from which every Spartan base could be attacked had to be reached through a literal field of fungus. Many on both sides died to the natives, or had to return to base injured. The military advantage went with the Believers however, who repelled every attack, acquired quite the mindworm following [green economics & the Nexus, captured from the Spartans] and the veritable hordes of AAA shard marines were picked apart by fusion needlejets one by one until they were too few to stop any soldiers from walking into their precious bases. Cruisers and foils blew apart the few roads that existed, isolating every base and leaving them open to landing parties from sea.
Santiago started getting desperate, becoming fundamentalist to employ probes and try to gain the technology to defeat the invading army.
She surrendered when a train of 30 more infantry finally showed up at the vanguard of many road building formers.
I got all of the factions to make friendly treaties - all except for Sheng-Ji Yang. He refused to join this coalition, and no one knew where he was still despite the entirety of the magacontinent being mapped out.
Then it gets really fun. Since the entirety of the Believer's economy rested on trees, although it resulted in a rather reduced frequency of planet annihilation, it made the growth of the invidivdual base slow.
Until tree farms, hybrid farms and space happens.
The Believers still hold the monopoly on space somehow, now with over 80 satellites and increasing. All labs energy went to economy, resulting in thousands of energy accumulating in short time. Bases that were once restricted to 2-4 population suddenly boomed to averages of 12-14. Where once all that existed were rec. commons and recycling tanks, now almost every facility is in every base, barring of course the punishment sphere and the labs facilities. And with all of these civilians, every single city is a paradigm of ecology - putting Deidre's cities to shame, as not all of them are at 0 ecology damage.
With the satellites came the ability to locate Yang's island.
And so began the fun ways of planning how to take the fight to Yang's island. Multiple formers with AAA guard detachments set out to build roads through the fungus wastes to that a forward base could be built from which the island could be invaded. So far, only one such former has survived, alongside an AAA infantry and rover guard. The hive still sends units through the fungus for some strange reason, perhaps to use the monoliths and the mindworms are still as damaging as ever
Built 5 transport planes and a single transport copter. A bit disappointed by their performance, they can only carry one unit and that unit has to disembark on a base, no aerial assaults possible. Discontinued them, as although they are effective base to base troop ferries, they still require a forward base to operate and wouldn't be worth the cost were they not free. Will investigate whether or not aircraft carriers can hold transport aircraft with troops in them if the chance presents itself, but if Zhakarov can't research it no one can.
So instead what's going to happen is that while the Hive is trying to reclaim the bases Deidre's just nicked from them, an assault on their isolated coastal bases by 30 or so shard marines is going to take place. If they respond to this, it'll draw the heat away from Deidre and make way for the master plan:
First, more drop-pod equipped probes and shard infantry than you can count with your eyelashes show up at the closest friendly base to the Hive. From there a colony-copter [or several] fly over the channel and construct bases within Hive territory. From there, air drops everywhere. Normal helicopters with air superiority provide cover while the transport planes deliver marines across.
I've just experienced the joy of eco-architect Miriam, deliver of colony-copter justice. I realize there is a reason why the believer's get a -1 planet, they're terrifying when they don't have to worry much about fending off planet.
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Topic: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread (Read 47149 times)