Santiago - Islands and Continents

Giftless

Warlord
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
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((Note: This is an Alien Crossfire mixed faction save game, one that makes for interesting challenge. A few of the A.I. are friendly tech-trader types, but most tend to get big and strong in their own unique way. It's also perfect for anyone who likes to expand their dry land and HATES sea pods creeping up to steal their territory.))

The Mission Year is 2216, and your Spartan faction has been fortunate enough to mature on an isolated, medium-sized landmass towards the North-central region of Planet. Though the land is well-forested and features a number of river basins, early Spartan commanders were dismayed to find little use for their land speeders beyond the soon-constructed village highways. Later, these same commanders found themselves embarking on a necessary foil-construction program, to secure vital colony sites on the strange Mesa and Crater Islands to the south. Beyond these, only silence at first, where were the others?

Driven by this need for contact in the following decades, most of Planet's seas were rapidly charted; however, not all the knowledge they brought was kind. The Spartans now have two Pact Sisters, but both are in near-death situations: the Gaians actively crushed by the Human Hive, and the Consciousness sooned to be squeezed out from Free Drone territory. These, however, are small disturbances in comparison to the threat posed by the Pirates faction, which is populous and charismatic enough to assume the Planetary Governor seat; all for the sake of forcing through a dreaded project to melt the icecaps. Needless to say, some of the old guard within Sparta Command are already sending Formers to the polar regions; fueling a conquest dream where metric tons of soil and rock are laid all the way to the Pirates' den!

The previous Spartan leader, though well-intentioned, suffered from the lingering effects of a mindworm attack and met their ultimate fate during a botched longevity treatment. You have assumed both their position and their field notes: some of which demonstrate sound policy; others, glaring weaknesses.

Shorthand rules/suggestions for those too busy to read:

- Run a population boom and choose your adversaries with care, don't try a premature assault or you might find yourself worn down over the long distances!
- Choose to embrace land or sea power, or possibly a mixture of the two.
- Do not use chopper or rotor units for the best challenge.
- Supply crawlers are okay, though it's up to you whether to make guarded bays for "safe" energy, or instead take the gutsy approach of pulling minerals from the polar strip.
- The exact victory conditions were forgotten by the previous commander, though you should be safe if geared towards conquest and/or transcend type victories.

Longhand flavors for everyone else:

Currently held Secret Projects: The Command Nexus, Weather Paradigm, and Virtual World.

Important: Though not an immediate military threat, the Free Drones should be considered a major competitor in the area of Project construction. Already they've hammered out a Merchant's Exchange, a Planetary Energy Grid, and a Citizen's Defense Force from just a few complexes; fortified in the side of a volcano of all things!

Formers are currently raising landbridges to increase Spartan continental power, connecting the colony sectors of "Sunny Mesa" and "Garland Crater" to unify with the northern militia cells.

Adequate base sites on the home continent are too few (only 12 bases in the faction, total)-- making the extension of Sparta's "reach" of primary importance. Given the strength of opposing factions on Planet, it may also be critical to increase police or infrastructure-- paving the way for a "population boom."

Mind your support costs, for they are the true bottleneck of state-of-the-art equipment.

Some cell commanders have advocated using Garland crater as future airbase, able to strike at Pirate installations from behind a barrier of dry land. One of the more fanciful plans even included getting a rover force to the Monsoon Jungle; if bases were somehow established at that location, then fully half of the Pirates' empire could be crippled by airstrikes.

Compounding this problem is that many of the survival cells have considered the chopper or rotor units of old Earth "dishonorable" to use in combat, suggesting that this will only be a needlejet, or possibly missile-driven, affair.

As for the reason why our laboratories are consumed by ethical questions--when the vehicles do not currently exist to bring them about--surely I will never know.

A few commanders have suggested an alternate plan for the Spartan faction, that of defending or "propping up" the useful Cybernetic faction. This would seem to go hand-in-hand with seizing the resource rich islands to the southwest, or possibly gaining a western foothold on the "Volcanic" continent. It's a pretty sentiment to look at on paper, before one considers the wasted resources of sending supply-lines across Nautilis threatened waters, all to potentially face numerous Free Drone troops on the ground. Even still, rumor has it there's a Borehole cluster to be found somewhere in the region... a landmark that would surely do better with a Spartan stronghold on top of it than otherwise.

Hmm, so is that our final choice then; to face hostile waters from the safety of an alien missile silo, or to garner planetary votes from a generation fed by alien bananas?
 

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After Action Report 1 *SPOILER*

It was no great surprise that the first two years of your "regime" would be as unpopular as they were, though even to you it was... unexpected; in terms of how deeply the problems ran in your proud, and seemingly backwards, people. With the election of Svensgaard abroad, many of your flotilla commanders were flabbergasted to have their fleets brought home and decommissioned. Then the order of "Stop screwing around with supply crawlers and get these Tree Farms built!"-- words you never imagined yourself saying, yet the figures did not lie. Many questioned your sanity as society was forced to restructure according to the "Planned" model, and Drone activity grew faster than the xenofungus blooms. Perhaps the worst of these policies was when armed squads were assigned to the Creches to enforce "breeding at gunpoint", but you could only resign yourself to their ultimate result. A hope that by riding the wave of discontent today, Sparta would have an improved fighting force for tomorrow.
 
After Action Report 2 *SPOILER*

The Good News:
After 23 years of strict internal development, many of the main Spartan camps have hit their Habitation limits. Malcontents have been molded into a strong scientific class from copious government grants. A primitive air force is underway at Garland Crater, and we are soon to be free of cash flow problems once the hybrid forests and empaths are in place.

The Bad News:
All rival factions on Planet have intepreted our quiet internal growth as a compete declaration of war. Domai and Roze have jumped on the bandwagon with Yang and Svensgaard, which in political terms puts Sparta in conflict with almost the entire globe! Six pirate warplanes have been spotted over Garland airspace, making the elimination of their refueling bases a top priority. Furthermore, a Free Drone transport was sighted along our northeast coast-- no hostile movements as of yet, but now may be our only chance to forge our defenses of iron to weather the coming storm.
 
After Action Report 3 *SPOILER*

The year is 2279, and the going is slow in the global war. Despite our previous efforts to ramp up our civic power, industry still lags and we're ill-suited for a unit "slugging match" with the other factions.

Surprisingly, we have adopted a mixed strategy on the front of war; first checking the advance of the Pirates, and then subjecting the conquered bases to the brain-grafts of Aki-Zeta's minions. This has provided us with a "buffer" ring of allied sea bases around Sparta's territory. In addition, we have wrestled the "Unity Crash Site" island from Svensgaard's clutches; giving us to the opportunity to send assault transports and marines deep into the center of his empire. As further boon, we have convinced the Data Angels--a long-time pact supporter of the Pirates--to break their ties and get on board with the winning team.

In the area of research, we gleefully await the Advanced Spaceflight tech; in order to match Shard weapons with our already discovered Probability Armor and Deep Pressure Hulls. Thus far the enemy has enjoyed a numerical superiority, yet if we can field massive air power launched from hidden fleets it is our thought that any defense can be stripped away. The only thing lacking then really will be blink marines to liquidate enemy SAM troops, but one can't have everything.
 
Game was ended by Ascent to Transcendence in M.Y. 2305, high score was 5712 (535%) despite the sloppy build/conquest strategy. Yang was dead at this point and I don't believe the Drones would last long under a simple marine / air strike / probe team rush. I left the save game at Pre-Voice of the planet in case someone wants to play it out or study for some reason. I really was surprised at how powerful Fort Legion became as an island base; perfect location too for an air field and a blink gate. Turned out though that it was never a major combat zone in actual play.
 

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