Santiago Hybrid Strategy

Giftless

Warlord
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
111
Hey all, it's been awhile since I've played SMAX and I'm trying to comprehend a FAQ which labeled the Spartans as a good mix of Rush Attack and Builder play-styles. So far I'm working from a Transcend game with Twelve bases on an isolated northern continent, but with two very weak Pact allies (Consciousness and the Gaians). Here are my current observations:

- Building Boreholes and Mines near the rocky, polar regions makes a good bit of sense since crawling minerals helps to "undo" the Spartans industry penalty.
- I'm not sure if the Spartan's morale bonus is that great beyond the early game, right now with all the moral-boosting Wonders I'm churning out elite troops. It seems like there's no point in picking Power as a social choice (though I gotta admit the extra -2 to industry is an intriguing penalty)
- The free prototyping strikes me as a nice perk, though I'm still trying to figure out whether it's better to use clean reactors or leave them off to build my units faster. Currently I'm in a war with the Drones to the east who have Hunter Seeker and have repulsed my attacks three times, despite the fact that they are bleeding more troops than me each time. It's almost as if I need carrier decks and legions of suicide rotors just to strip the eight SAM needlejets they have per city :rolleyes:
 
Hey Giftless!

Just out of curiosity, which FAQ have you been reading? Is it Vel's strategy guide (which has a section on playing the Spartans as a hybrid), or something else?

Running Power with the Spartans generally doesn't seem like a good idea because of the additional Industry hit, especially if your troops already are Elite. Remember, though, that after building the Cloning Vats, you can run Power with no penalty.

The conventional wisdom is to place clean reactors on garrison units and formers, but not on front-line troops. The clean garrisons and formers should last long enough to make up for the additional time it takes to build them, but the same may not be true for "cannon fodder."
 
Hey Giftless!

Just out of curiosity, which FAQ have you been reading? Is it Vel's strategy guide (which has a section on playing the Spartans as a hybrid), or something else?

Running Power with the Spartans generally doesn't seem like a good idea because of the additional Industry hit, especially if your troops already are Elite. Remember, though, that after building the Cloning Vats, you can run Power with no penalty.

The conventional wisdom is to place clean reactors on garrison units and formers, but not on front-line troops. The clean garrisons and formers should last long enough to make up for the additional time it takes to build them, but the same may not be true for "cannon fodder."

Yes it is Vel's guide I believe, his writing on rush purchases and turn advantage have helped me with a number of Civilization-style games.

Indeed, I've found that clean reactors work great for the low cost "police" units, though I'm still trying to figure out a lot of the relative costs of the early game (i.e. that Sea Formers take longer to build than Land Formers, that Police State seems pretty good for off-setting support costs which can act as an industry penalty in itself, etc). Your thoughts on the fodder / front line troops makes a lot of sense for the middle game I've noticed, as a clean reactor on a more complicated unit can amount to 30-40 minerals down the drain.

Actually I've started a new game too where I'm trying a pop boom earlier, at about 80 turns in with 11-12 bases. I think in my last game, even though I was up to Hybrid Forests I found myself wasting a lot of resources on unnecessary military conflicts, and this kept me from expanding smoothly to the 18 or 24 mark for my faction size.
 
Man, Transcend is harsh on the Spartans; I just noticed how the A.I. gets a 20% discount on production costs. That's like a 30% difference without taking Social Engineering into account. I've been fighting the Gaians overseas and it's like I just keep killing their units over and over again with helicopters; not even conquering their bases but to keep them "pruned."
 
Industry and Support penalties are the worst to play with.
 
Industry and Support penalties are the worst to play with.

The funny thing is that I'm good on energy and can rush build all my infrastructure. I can upgrade floods of silksteel armor troops. The trouble is I missed out on the Hunter Seeker Algorithm and need probe-backing for every little ground unit I field :cry: While running Knowledge :lol: On the bright side I do have the Believers as Pact Pets who can be given bases to create that ever desirable anti-probe beachhead.
 
Does the AI probe steal your units? I never really noticed that much, but maybe because I always built the hunter seeker.
 
Does the AI probe steal your units? I never really noticed that much, but maybe because I always built the hunter seeker.

The A.I. probe teams are actually even more dangerous than that; not only can they turn units, but if I've just conquered a base and they probe it back--they can grab up my surrounding units too (even if the base does not support them).

This means that it's not safe for me to pound a base with helicopters or needlejets and occupy it with ground troops in the same turn. Strangely enough, under these conditions it seems like a better strategy to hit the A.I. with air strikes in their rear / resupply bases. It's really amazing how losing one wonder could change my game so much.

Right now I'm bringing up probe-resistant infantry with double-stacked defender probes-- we'll see how that goes.
 
Consider also armored probe units with your invasion forces. The AI will attack with artillery before probe attacking a base. Unarmoured probe units defending are reduced to 10% by the bombardment are killed in 1 round of probe to probe combat.
 
Consider also armored probe units with your invasion forces. The AI will attack with artillery before probe attacking a base. Unarmoured probe units defending are reduced to 10% by the bombardment are killed in 1 round of probe to probe combat.

Interesting, do you happen to know if reactor size plays a factor in the Hit Points of defending probes? I haven't seen too much artillery in the field so far, or mindworms for that matter-- strangely enough these Gaians just keep rushing me with groups of 3-4 vanilla Probe Teams.

I should be in better shape now though, since I'm running Power and Cybernetic with Cloning Vats and Network Backbone. No more Probe penalties from Knowledge. I've finally got one toehold base in their territory with three Probes + six other units. The only thing left to do is to build some Orbital Defense Pods to ward off the Planet Buster threat.
 
Strange im using yitzi's patch and the AI probe teams literally ignore my units and walk around them to go for my bases. Then when they realise that there are probe teams in those bases, they sit outside the base and do nothing...
 
Strange im using yitzi's patch and the AI probe teams literally ignore my units and walk around them to go for my bases. Then when they realise that there are probe teams in those bases, they sit outside the base and do nothing...

Occasionally I see the same thing where enemy probe teams do the salsa dance right outside my bases, maybe it has something to do with them lacking the funds for a mind control? (Or maybe they calculate that their intended action is too difficult and abort?)

:king: The Gaians are toast btw, waves of probe defenders plus soporific gas choppers did the trick.
 
Na its that the bases have defending probe teams, and their morale level isnt high enough to win so they just camp outside.
 
Hey all, it's been awhile since I've played SMAX and I'm trying to comprehend a FAQ which labeled the Spartans as a good mix of Rush Attack and Builder play-styles. So far I'm working from a Transcend game with Twelve bases on an isolated northern continent, but with two very weak Pact allies (Consciousness and the Gaians). Here are my current observations:

- Building Boreholes and Mines near the rocky, polar regions makes a good bit of sense since crawling minerals helps to "undo" the Spartans industry penalty.
- I'm not sure if the Spartan's morale bonus is that great beyond the early game, right now with all the moral-boosting Wonders I'm churning out elite troops. It seems like there's no point in picking Power as a social choice (though I gotta admit the extra -2 to industry is an intriguing penalty)
- The free prototyping strikes me as a nice perk, though I'm still trying to figure out whether it's better to use clean reactors or leave them off to build my units faster. Currently I'm in a war with the Drones to the east who have Hunter Seeker and have repulsed my attacks three times, despite the fact that they are bleeding more troops than me each time. It's almost as if I need carrier decks and legions of suicide rotors just to strip the eight SAM needlejets they have per city :rolleyes:

Particularly for the Spartans and any faction that favores aggressive early action I always lay down a 'hive' of bases exactly two spaces apart. I do this taking into account where fungus prevents me because I will either develop those squares or fill them with another base later. This grid lets you place boreholes everywhere next to bases at max efficiency in placement and lets you get the most out of your play in the early game to offset the opponents free difficulty advantages.

Further, the ability to produce from many bases early in the game is crucial and allows you to aggressively attack close neighbors and force a submission or outright defeat before they can force you to waste many resources or much time. When satellites become available all resource problems from tight spacing disappear and your pop will explode with or without cloning vats. With crawlers and spaces not used for base production can still be used to further amp production. Only problem with strat is that the drone problems keep getting worse. These aren't tough to handle with caution, psych and the Virtual World. (F!@# Free Market though)

Finally, with all the centauri preserves that will inevitably be built you will gain total protection from eco damage thanks to the clean minerals cap going crazy high.

Also, I would curse myself hard for dropping the ball on Hunter-Seeker that makes the game rough when the AI is clever enough with probe teams.
 
Particularly for the Spartans and any faction that favores aggressive early action I always lay down a 'hive' of bases exactly two spaces apart. I do this taking into account where fungus prevents me because I will either develop those squares or fill them with another base later. This grid lets you place boreholes everywhere next to bases at max efficiency in placement and lets you get the most out of your play in the early game to offset the opponents free difficulty advantages.

Further, the ability to produce from many bases early in the game is crucial and allows you to aggressively attack close neighbors and force a submission or outright defeat before they can force you to waste many resources or much time. When satellites become available all resource problems from tight spacing disappear and your pop will explode with or without cloning vats. With crawlers and spaces not used for base production can still be used to further amp production. Only problem with strat is that the drone problems keep getting worse. These aren't tough to handle with caution, psych and the Virtual World. (F!@# Free Market though)

Finally, with all the centauri preserves that will inevitably be built you will gain total protection from eco damage thanks to the clean minerals cap going crazy high.

Also, I would curse myself hard for dropping the ball on Hunter-Seeker that makes the game rough when the AI is clever enough with probe teams.

Interesting strategy, I notice though at certain phases of the game I start to get permanent drones (around the thresholds of 12 and 20 bases) which only appear to go away when I unlock the various social engineering efficiency boosts. I can see your point with the extra production helping out in an early land war; though in most cases I'll end up with one or two close neighbors and then an "ocean barrier" holding back the rest. In this case I might have one early conquest and then go turtle for a while, focusing primarily on tech and infrastructure.
 
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