((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?
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?