[BERT] AI Aggression, DOW, and Cramped Starts

[vorlon_mi]

A small rant from last night's game --
I like to choose different sponsors each game (Soyuz difficulty, standard sized planets, different biomes) and try to win with a different affinity victory than I've done before. Current game is trying to get a Promised Land victory with PAC / Daoming. Not a bad starting location -- riverside, but landlocked. KP landed south of me, about 10 or 12 hexes... a little closer than I prefer. She complained when I settled my 2nd city -- even though it was northwest and aquatic. My 3rd city was east, and a little south, near some firaxite and floatstone. KP complained a lot, dropped me to Sanctioned, and DOW the turn after. Building units to repel hers started to get boring -- her combat rovers were one-shotting my gunners, and I couldn't do much exploration. Soon the other AI -- Brasil, INTEGR, and NSA -- all decided to pile on. No one willing to be my friend.
OK, I said to myself, no forward settling this time. I went back to the turn 30 save and replayed, placing my 2nd and 3rd cities north, further away from KP. The dogpile and DOW still happened, just 30 or so turns later. Going back to the save and building more military, to deter them, didn't work. I noticed that KP was tending towards Supremacy, so in my re-tries I teched towards Supremacy instead of Purity. Still got dumped on.

Alright, spin up a new world with a different biome, still starting with PAC. Again with the close starting locations! ARC was northwest and Al Falah was a bit further away to the east. But Arshia started forward settling with aquatic cities. This time, I was more aggressive in building ships, since Tiangong was coastal. I've repelled an invasion from ARC, declared my own war twice on Al Falah to destroy an outpost (first time) and take two aquatic cities (second time). But I'm still getting multiple AIs declaring on me, not deterred at all.

In both of these games, I've beelined to Robotics so that I can get planes. Even level 1 planes can be very effective at repelling invaders, whether their combat rovers or cutters.

Questions:
- Is this consistent with your experience? Do the AI at Soyuz and Apollo difficulties tend to gang up on the human player in the first 100 turns?
- Is this related to the hidden AI tendencies of this game, why they might pursue different affinities from one game to the next? Perhaps I'm just unlucky, drawing some more aggressive neighbors in these last two games. I've often seen the AI beat up on each other, on the other side of the planet; today, I'm the target.
- Does the BERT AI act more aggressively when the starting locations of the original capitals are close? Is there a diplomatic penalty for settling expansion cities closer to their capitals than your own?

 

[legalizefreedom]

Maybe a few games, but generally not. The entire secret of keeping them from declaring on you is to build more units and get unit upgrades. But sometimes the cards are just against you that way.

 

[Darsnan]

Question: just curious, but why is there a BERT label on this thread? Is there really that much of a difference?

Anyways, got the opportunity to do some runs last night and this morning. Apollo difficulty, 82 Eridani/ Standard map. First game last night the AI (Brazilians) started 9 tiles from me. War started at turn 49, and they threw everything at me, and overwhelmed my defenses. This morning the Australians started about 15 tiles away, and war started around turn 85. I was barely scraping by against them (my HQ was continually getting knock down to zero strength, but I kept killing all his infantry and speeders so he couldn't take it). Then the NSA joined in against me, and that was it.

KP complained a lot, dropped me to Sanctioned, and DOW the turn after. Building units to repel hers started to get boring -- her combat rovers were one-shotting my gunners, and I couldn't do much exploration. Soon the other AI -- Brasil, INTEGR, and NSA -- all decided to pile on. No one willing to be my friend.
OK, I said to myself, no forward settling this time. I went back to the turn 30 save and replayed, placing my 2nd and 3rd cities north, further away from KP. The dogpile and DOW still happened, just 30 or so turns later. Going back to the save and building more military, to deter them, didn't work. I noticed that KP was tending towards Supremacy, so in my re-tries I teched towards Supremacy instead of Purity. Still got dumped on.

Questions:
- Is this consistent with your experience? Do the AI at Soyuz and Apollo difficulties tend to gang up on the human player in the first 100 turns?
- Is this related to the hidden AI tendencies of this game, why they might pursue different affinities from one game to the next? Perhaps I'm just unlucky, drawing some more aggressive neighbors in these last two games. I've often seen the AI beat up on each other, on the other side of the planet; today, I'm the target.
- Does the BERT AI act more aggressively when the starting locations of the original capitals are close? Is there a diplomatic penalty for settling expansion cities closer to their capitals than your own?

Overall my experience is that the AIs on Soyuz/ Apollo will attack you in the early game, and so while I'm researching Chemistry I'm building my initial army (infantry and Gunners). And as the game progresses the way I track if I have enough units to deal with the AIs (because they will dogpile you) is that I've got the red exclamation mark stating I'm being penalized for too many units.

D

 

[legalizefreedom]

The early game I don't usually have any issues with the AI.
Possible reasons:
1. I usually play on Soyuz on Huge maps. Apollo is too much of a cutthroat race for my taste.
2. I restart if an AI spawns on top of me or if multiple are too close in around me. I don't usually have to restart, but I'm not shy if I feel cramped.
3. I set Frenzied Aliens. This probably keeps them busy more than usual. My early game is dealing with aliens, so I assume the same for them.
4. As noted earlier for after early game, take all opportunities to level up affinity/units and have just enough of a standing army to make them reconsider. If a faction has a hard on for you, note their Fear and work to raise it.

 

[vorlon_mi]

@Darsnan I use the label just for completeness and clarity. One person who has responded to my threads still plays the base game without the expansion. I play Rising Tide exclusively, because I make regular use of aquatic cities and the revamped diplomacy system.
Perhaps I need to take a page from your book. My early game is usually focused on getting my first 3 cities set up, bumping up against the health constraints. When I get the free unit from building my second city, it is often used for exploring rather than combat.

@legalizefreedom Those reasons make sense. I always play on Standard maps, which increases my chance of a close neighbor. I'm not usually in the habit of restarting, but I may get there.

 

[statusquo]

Hej, i came back to BE after so many years, that im not even sure i palyed Rising Tide last time. Any way i was hyped for few days until i realised, the balance in many situations is not in a good place..
The AI is not very smart in my opinion, and it mostly bases on the bonuses comparing to the player, on apollo basically everything seems like twice easier for the AI..

On Soyuz and Apollo AI starts with two additional Combat Rovers and Engineering, so the "strenght" of the AI comparing to the player is massive, and there is no wonder they will lose
fear for you.. This one time i was still sitting on 1-2 basic marines and i was exploring near AI which was already hunting alien nest with 7 upgraded combat rovers, so i realised
that on small maps with close proximity, there is simply not possible to win.. Maybe if you can have one good defensive city on the hill, with ranger inside and behind, T2 marine fortified on the side
on the defensive terrain, so that he could not be flanked.. you could defend initial push.. But this is already taxing on your production, which basically means your health, research and income will suffer, so
you can do it on one front, but usually not two or three..
But there is fear and there is respect, and i find respect more viable. I had like 8 fear one time and my ally backstabbed me into war. The fear alone, doesn't made them loyal,so i do it only to temporary get benefits from
their tier 3 trade agreements, but i don't trust them.. The crucial part is to understand their character traits, and how they influence your relations, so that you can maintain good relations. Not rarely i was able to have good
living with AI that had 8 respect, and literally 0 fear.. Usually sending a trade route to them is very good sign of good intentions.. Otherwise, you dont rly have control, on what they like, so i usually end up in situations, that
they like me or not, and this should be taken into account, in planning future attack and defences..Like sometimes, they like your gold reserves, but without good income, it will take ages to satisfy them..

Any way, my conclusion was, that, if i want to have a challenging game on Apollo, i need to somehow not allow to AI to get to me too fast, so i can get my initial setups without being disturbed by putting everything behind,
to build an army.. So my lazy solution for this is to play on massive "82 Eridani e, An alien world of scarce water and wracked by tectonic forces." with some large lakes or small oceans.. So usually interaction with the AI starts, when you already
have production capabilities, to at least defend your self, and use your defenders advantage.. I dont like playing seas maps, since AI just spam boats, and the game become become "patrol/gun boat fiesta".. And because their speed on the
water is a lot better then units on land, they can swam you in the blink of an eye..

Army alone is not a perfect solution any way, because once AI hit affinity breakpoint, your army becomes twice weaker then theirs, so the absolute key is to keep and eye on the AI affinities levels, to understand when they would attack you..
And they would attack you, most probably, when their might become much higher then your, which usually happen just after they affinity upgrades kick in.. But in this situation, their units probably 1-shot yours, since their strength will be twice higher..
The way upgrades works, which is in my opinion a big flaw, that when you reach affinity, all your units become upgraded, and you can only produce the better version, which is like 80-90% more expensive, then their un-upgraded version, so if you sleep trough this moment, you will get twice less units for the same effort.. Also, the way Affinity upgrades kick in, is that usually first for Soldier, then next level Ranger, then, Armour line, and then Artillery.. So if you are behind, your best
bet is to defend using marines, which also take advantage from terrain defence bonuses, and can fortify.. So T2 marines ST14, can defend T2 ST18 Rovers, T3 ST24 marines can defend vs T3 ST28 Rovers..
The big problem starts when you need to defend with lower tier unit, which you should never do.. But you have to some how slow down your opponent, until you catch up with affinity..
That is why defensive positions are important, like Fortify behind rivers, which gives you defence advantage, due to their "attack over river" debuff.. Placing cities on the hill, i believe gives u some city strength, but more importantly, it allows
you to hit targets, that cant see you but you can hit them. Hills, forests, rivers slow your enemies down, giving you more time, to damage units with your city and ranger, also helps you with positioning of your marines, which you should
not allow to flank them, which kinda counters your fortification bonus.. That is why i like to not "chop down" forest in my front lines cities it makes their units to crowd themselves before your city and makes retreat of damaged units basically
impossible, giving you a win.. Each unit killed during assault is a win..
Also, strenght of the cities in BE is kinda weak, so defensive buildings are very important. Rocket Battery and Defensive Perimeter are one of my priorities at the beginning..

Going back to affinity.. my conclusion is that research alone is not enough to keep you alive trough early game in Apollo. So affinity quest should be a priority, also any Progenitor and Alien Ruins are a prio, since they have a 33-50% chance to give
u Affinity.. and T2 marine upgrade, is absolute gamechanger vs ST18 rovers. That is why im initially leaving Old World excavation sites during first explorer scouting, since they will not give me unit upgrades..

The next issue i see is your army supply.. you get initial 5 on apollo plus 2 per city and 1 per 2 citizens, so if your colony is small, then even if you reach your max supply, AI can still treat you as a weakling.. Also, you get 1 science for every
citizen in the city.. So bigger cities are more supply, and more science, so faster affinities.. But then again, if you waste army supply for workers and orbitals, it can make you vulnerable, by not having possibility to make more army..
So everything early game, kinda snowballs it self..
My rule of thumb is that you could estimate opponents army with same formula that apply to your army supply.. And since on Apollo everything is twice easier on AI, i wouldn't count too much, they are fare away, from their cap
Also i realised, that there are AI, that i have like 5-6 fear with, while at same time i have 0-1 with the others.. which means, AI compares your army with theirs.. so on this criteria, you can judge, who is overall strong and who is not..
Also basing on this, and basing on map layout you could kinda predict, who will have problem with whom, and where wars will be..
Unfortunately late game, same Affinity upgrades also works for AI, that is why i often observed, that some AI will conquer literally all the cities of other AI in a matter of few turns.. This poses a big treat for your future, because, they gain tons
of production and military supply, which will flood you in the future..

But going back to your questions.. Imo on Apollo, there is no clear to know, if you survive initial game, mainly because of AI get Rovers+Engineering, much more researches, which allow them, to focus on the other researches that give them
affinity progress much faster.. Not to mention, their increase number of explorers also give them more possibilities, to increase affinity even faster.. Not rarely i was like 0-0-2 and they were already like 3-3-4..
On the beginning, its numbers games, you need to do a lot of your initial setups.. Like first colonies, workers, first science/health/production/energy buildings..
That is why imo, game kinda stabilises when you reach T4 marines, which, if you spam them, you should usually defend against everything.. But before that.. Its Rly hard, to impossible imo..
There are cases, that you usually would need to have "perfect start" to survive.. That is why i was sometimes was helping myself by save/load while excavating progenitors or alien ruins, for this crucial affinity

But.. why i did write so much .. well because i realise, that with few tweaks this game could be truly amazing..There are few concepts and solutions i really loved..
Like progenitors wonders are so amazing, that they are game changers, would be nice to be able to unlock them later from some Tier4 tech.. better late then ever..
Simple quality of life stuff, like not seeing your army supply near your resources list.. Or no demographics, like in the civ..
Also when your unit is upgraded for free, and you get so much value for nothing basically.. Would be nice to put your unit in the city and hit "modernise" button, to spend production instead of money to upgrade it..
Also, giving AI those researches+military tech on the beginning of the game is just silly.. Would be more balance if AI on top of lesser costs, would have some "diminishing additional buffs" to help them with their starts, so
that they would not flood you with next era units, when you start near them on smaller maps..

 

[War-mongering_Child]

I've found that on Apollo, the only way to deal with this is build an army in at least 3 cities as soon as they are founded. Even then the wars will likely come, so hopefully you have a good enough playstyle to keep up the pace against the AI. It's over if they get their tier 3 upgrades when you're still getting only t1 upgrades.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Like you, I don't like getting rushed by the AI while I'm still building up my first 2-3 cities. The first step I take is sticking to Soyuz difficulty, rather than Apollo. Playing on a larger world can mean that you get a little more space, with a few more turns before they get to you. If another AI is closer to an aggressive AI, perhaps they will invade them first.

I've also tried to make trade agreements, even get to "Cooperating" relationship with an AI that is high up the score list. That seems to reduce their hostility, a bit. I've seen the AI start to form groupings, where 2 or 3 are mutually Cooperating. If I can jump into that "club", I may be able to have a few more turns of peace.

Agree with your comment above about tier 3 upgrades -- once the tanks can hover, none of your cities are safe.

 

[Tiberiu]

Apollo is not so scary anymore and becomes actually easy after you understand how AI operates. Even with the crazy bonuses it gets, Apollo AI only mimics intelligence or good gameplay. I have seen civs get wiped out by Aliens, there is like 10% chance it will happen if there are strong biome aliens.

Yes they get Rovers but they waste them quickly by attacking aliens or just move into miasma.
Yes, they get free techs and tech faster but their path is useless, they tech a lot of un-necessary things so they are effectively behind you in tech race for victory at all times.
They do have explorers but after the first 10-20 turns, they tend to ignore dig sites, so they just pass the dig sites that are just a few tiles away.
They are not good at using aquatic cities, wasting tons of time early to move them instead of spamming sea units.
They suck at getting artifacts, unlike a human, who can get the crazy combinations almost every game. (sky chitin, etc).
They suck at defending their Planetary Wonder so you can destroy it if you must.

This said, you still need to play right in order to offset the forces you're up against, but there are always 2-3 strategies available, regardless of the start of any Standard sized map on any planet and any biome.
If you want an easier than normal game on Apollo, just play it on Massive, for tech/ virtue discounts.
For easiest game play Chungsu/ North Sea Alliance which can start in water, getting big advantages.

Of course you need to pick good seeding otherwise it will be harder. Here are the options:

Seeding:
Colonists: Only Artists and Pioneers are the good ones, the others are not as good.
Cargo: Laboratory or Cryotome are the only good ones. Taking a free worker is not at good as it seems.
Spacecraft: Electromagnetic sensor is the best one, the others are weaker. Tectonic Scanner is ok.

For a good start, build 10-15 explorers and just dig your way to victory. After you dug all the sites, time to attack aliens comes and you get some alien artifacts, + powerful artifact combos.
This way you get affinity, units, techs, policies, without even needing yields or other cities except your capital and maybe free Prosperity colonist.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Apollo is not necessarily scary, it's just a race / hassle. You basically have to start your end game at the mid game. You have to be thinking of your victory condition from the beginning.

Soyez fits my pace much better. I'm not into being rushed by a game. I'm there for the experience, not the victory screen. I like to give the game a chance to come to me (affinity, victory condition, etc.) such that I adjust my strategy to fit on the fly.

 

[Tiberiu]

Apollo is not necessarily scary, it's just a race / hassle. You basically have to start your end game at the mid game. You have to be thinking of your victory condition from the beginning.

Soyez fits my pace much better. I'm not into being rushed by a game. I'm there for the experience, not the victory screen. I like to give the game a chance to come to me (affinity, victory condition, etc.) such that I adjust my strategy to fit on the fly.

Whatever works for any of us to have the most fun is surely the best setting! I am not judging anybody for that matter. I do agree that the game tends to be too rushed on Apollo, and there are many Wonders / Units / Techs that will never see the light of day in a game because there is simply no time to actually employ them. This is something that shows that things were not well optimized in the game. I am firmly convinced that the game would have felt better if Planetary Wonders would have required maximum affinity. This way, more paths for tech web would be available, more diverse units could be employed, more Wonders would get built and used, and there would be less of a hurry.

I respect your opinion but I disagree that you must plan your victory condition from the beginning. That is because you never know in any game what the Affinity quests, or dig rewards, or even artifact combinations - will be. Even rival colonies change the game a bit in the way we can play (for example having ARC in the game can help you by allowing faster spies)...

I tend to go for Supremacy like 80% of the times, so 4 games out of 5, that is because if I get to choose an affinity for free, I will take Supremacy, however if by chance I get Purity XP or Harmony XP from an Alien Skeleton or whatver other source, I could change to another plan.

Going for Domination victory based on the very powerful hybrid units is also a good option.
What I do like about the game is that the Virtues are pretty cool to use and they are all useful in some way.

Soyez fits my pace much better.

I agree Soyuz can be more fun than Apollo because colonies don't start with 1-1-1, which creates an imbalance that is not fair for the player. Sometimes I like to play Soyuz and handicap myself with self imposed restrictions ( like, having to grow all affinities, not just one, and this has its own fun)

 

[vorlon_mi]

When I start a Soyuz game, I usually have a victory condition in mind. Right now, I'm trying to go through and win with each faction, winning each victory type. I have lots of Transcendence victories and quite a few Supremacy victories. Even though I might be planning for a Purity victory (to complete the set), the surrounding terrain matters. I need to space my cities further apart, or have sufficient empty land, to leave room for the Earthling settlers. I might need to switch my plan, if my starting land doesn't have enough room.

Contact victories are harder to predict. I rarely build as many explorers as @Tiberiu so I'm rolling the dice to get that first part of the Signal. If I do get it from a Progenitor ruin, I will beeline to build the Transcendental Equation. If I don't, I pursue one of the other affinities until I can get it. Contact becomes a backup victory condition.

The progress of the AI seems really inconsistent, from game to game. Sometimes, a faction will have good fertile land and expand to 4 or 5 cities quickly. In the next game, the same AI leader will only build 3 cities and sit there, plunking along. Makes it hard to predict who will be a threat.

 

[War-mongering_Child]

Apollo is not so scary anymore and becomes actually easy after you understand how AI operates. Even with the crazy bonuses it gets, Apollo AI only mimics intelligence or good gameplay. I have seen civs get wiped out by Aliens, there is like 10% chance it will happen if there are strong biome aliens.

Yes they get Rovers but they waste them quickly by attacking aliens or just move into miasma.
Yes, they get free techs and tech faster but their path is useless, they tech a lot of un-necessary things so they are effectively behind you in tech race for victory at all times.
They do have explorers but after the first 10-20 turns, they tend to ignore dig sites, so they just pass the dig sites that are just a few tiles away.
They are not good at using aquatic cities, wasting tons of time early to move them instead of spamming sea units.
They suck at getting artifacts, unlike a human, who can get the crazy combinations almost every game. (sky chitin, etc).
They suck at defending their Planetary Wonder so you can destroy it if you must.

This said, you still need to play right in order to offset the forces you're up against, but there are always 2-3 strategies available, regardless of the start of any Standard sized map on any planet and any biome.
If you want an easier than normal game on Apollo, just play it on Massive, for tech/ virtue discounts.
For easiest game play Chungsu/ North Sea Alliance which can start in water, getting big advantages.

Of course you need to pick good seeding otherwise it will be harder. Here are the options:

Seeding:
Colonists: Only Artists and Pioneers are the good ones, the others are not as good.
Cargo: Laboratory or Cryotome are the only good ones. Taking a free worker is not at good as it seems.
Spacecraft: Electromagnetic sensor is the best one, the others are weaker. Tectonic Scanner is ok.

For a good start, build 10-15 explorers and just dig your way to victory. After you dug all the sites, time to attack aliens comes and you get some alien artifacts, + powerful artifact combos.
This way you get affinity, units, techs, policies, without even needing yields or other cities except your capital and maybe free Prosperity colonist.

Electromagnetic Sensor is way over powered in my opinion so I don't use it anymore. But yeh, I would agree with you that Apollo victories, especially on Domination only, are very easy now if you have the right strategy. I found Hutama/ARC to be the strongest because I play in a way that rushes to highest rover+plane+aquilon upgrades with phasal teleporters. I am interested in how you said Chunsu or NSA are good because they can start in the water, I have always despised water cities because the AI just swarms them. I will try your 15 explorer strategy now and see how I go.

 

[War-mongering_Child]

When I start a Soyuz game, I usually have a victory condition in mind. Right now, I'm trying to go through and win with each faction, winning each victory type. I have lots of Transcendence victories and quite a few Supremacy victories. Even though I might be planning for a Purity victory (to complete the set), the surrounding terrain matters. I need to space my cities further apart, or have sufficient empty land, to leave room for the Earthling settlers. I might need to switch my plan, if my starting land doesn't have enough room.

Contact victories are harder to predict. I rarely build as many explorers as @Tiberiu so I'm rolling the dice to get that first part of the Signal. If I do get it from a Progenitor ruin, I will beeline to build the Transcendental Equation. If I don't, I pursue one of the other affinities until I can get it. Contact becomes a backup victory condition.

The progress of the AI seems really inconsistent, from game to game. Sometimes, a faction will have good fertile land and expand to 4 or 5 cities quickly. In the next game, the same AI leader will only build 3 cities and sit there, plunking along. Makes it hard to predict who will be a threat.

I too am trying each faction but on Apollo. Some are definitely harder than others!

 

[War-mongering_Child]

Apollo is not so scary anymore and becomes actually easy after you understand how AI operates. Even with the crazy bonuses it gets, Apollo AI only mimics intelligence or good gameplay. I have seen civs get wiped out by Aliens, there is like 10% chance it will happen if there are strong biome aliens.

Yes they get Rovers but they waste them quickly by attacking aliens or just move into miasma.
Yes, they get free techs and tech faster but their path is useless, they tech a lot of un-necessary things so they are effectively behind you in tech race for victory at all times.
They do have explorers but after the first 10-20 turns, they tend to ignore dig sites, so they just pass the dig sites that are just a few tiles away.
They are not good at using aquatic cities, wasting tons of time early to move them instead of spamming sea units.
They suck at getting artifacts, unlike a human, who can get the crazy combinations almost every game. (sky chitin, etc).
They suck at defending their Planetary Wonder so you can destroy it if you must.

This said, you still need to play right in order to offset the forces you're up against, but there are always 2-3 strategies available, regardless of the start of any Standard sized map on any planet and any biome.
If you want an easier than normal game on Apollo, just play it on Massive, for tech/ virtue discounts.
For easiest game play Chungsu/ North Sea Alliance which can start in water, getting big advantages.

Of course you need to pick good seeding otherwise it will be harder. Here are the options:

Seeding:
Colonists: Only Artists and Pioneers are the good ones, the others are not as good.
Cargo: Laboratory or Cryotome are the only good ones. Taking a free worker is not at good as it seems.
Spacecraft: Electromagnetic sensor is the best one, the others are weaker. Tectonic Scanner is ok.

For a good start, build 10-15 explorers and just dig your way to victory. After you dug all the sites, time to attack aliens comes and you get some alien artifacts, + powerful artifact combos.
This way you get affinity, units, techs, policies, without even needing yields or other cities except your capital and maybe free Prosperity colonist.

Okay I tried this again, and I remember why I don't do it. So OP, turn 87 and I am 12 supremecy already lol

 

[Tiberiu]

Electromagnetic Sensor is way over powered in my opinion so I don't use it anymore. But yeh, I would agree with you that Apollo victories, especially on Domination only, are very easy now if you have the right strategy. I found Hutama/ARC to be the strongest because I play in a way that rushes to highest rover+plane+aquilon upgrades with phasal teleporters. I am interested in how you said Chunsu or NSA are good because they can start in the water, I have always despised water cities because the AI just swarms them. I will try your 15 explorer strategy now and see how I go.

That is understandable, yeah.

I think that water start is good because you can build boats and they move fast on the map, picking up a lot of resource pods. The downside is having a lower amount of explorers to dig... but the important, contested dig sites can after some time be stationed by a naval unit until you can bring an explorer. Building boats quickly has the advantage that once you lvl up the affinity you will have a lot of powerful naval units and can control the sea.
Another way to use a lot of boats after they have finished scouting for resource pods is to simply station them on Alien Nests, until you are ready to start attacking them. Then, in that turn, you can pillage a lot of nests for the rewards and hopefully a lot of artifacts. It can be pretty annoying to have to deal with aliens moving into your terrain, on water, though.

 

[Darsnan]

Of course you need to pick good seeding otherwise it will be harder. Here are the options:

Seeding:
Colonists: Only Artists and Pioneers are the good ones, the others are not as good.
Cargo: Laboratory or Cryotome are the only good ones. Taking a free worker is not at good as it seems.
Spacecraft: Electromagnetic sensor is the best one, the others are weaker. Tectonic Scanner is ok.

For a good start, build 10-15 explorers and just dig your way to victory. After you dug all the sites, time to attack aliens comes and you get some alien artifacts, + powerful artifact combos.
This way you get affinity, units, techs, policies, without even needing yields or other cities except your capital and maybe free Prosperity colonist.

Hi Tiberiu,

I'm not seeing the Pioneer, Cryotome, nor Electromagnetic Sensors when I pull up the options (BE nor BERT): are these part of a mod?


D

 

[Tiberiu]

Hi Tiberiu,

I'm not seeing the Pioneer, Cryotome, nor Electromagnetic Sensors when I pull up the options (BE nor BERT): are these part of a mod?


D

They are part of an official DLC that you can aquire if you play Sid Meyer Starships.

You can read more about this here: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Unlockables_(CivBE_and_Starships)

 

[Tiberiu]

I am interested in how you said Chunsu or NSA are good because they can start in the water, I have always despised water cities because the AI just swarms them. I will try your 15 explorer strategy now and see how I go.

Here is a game with Chungsu that I am playing, started it recently and continued it after this discussion took place. I think it is fun to share. edit : It ended with turn 143 Domination Victory (took 43 turns to conquer all capitals from the first war)

The map is Apollo Standard size Arid Terran planet. It is with Un-staggered start (better experience and harder gameplay imho than the more "standard" staggered start that allows you to pick up a lot of extra pods/digs)

Core of the employed strategy was:

Virtues: Prosperity 5, then everything in Might (avoiding the Alien-based perks as they aren't needed)
Tech Path: Computing and Communications (Communication is needed for Command Center and Feedsite hub)
Army: 4 melee boats asap for pod collection followed by mass explorers to dig the important sites. 1 ranged boat built to have in case of an attack. Until ~ turn 80 I was forced to play with -70% production for lack of supply, this is perfectly acceptable.
Artifact approach: I used production artifacts with priority (either alone or in combination) in order to finish Spy Agency faster, together with a few dig sites that yield production. After this I just stockpiled them until I got what I wanted.
Alien approach: Ignored them until pods were collected, then all Alien Nests were Stood Upon peacefully by all available units until all important dig excavations were completed.
Affinity approach: Any free affinity goes into Supremacy, the other preffered affinity is Purity and Harmony comes later from Spoils of War techs taken from the other factions.

Starting turn ~ 100 I have attacked my neighbor PAC and wiped them out in a few turns with 4 Barons and 1 Countess. (the early boats that got upgraded).

Turn 110 just wiping out the NSA which was supposed to be the main threat on water. But they are defending vs Countess ( 62 power ) with Cruisers (24 power)....

To make things stupidly easy I created Tidal Navigation for 100% defense vs ranged attacks so I am taking single digit damage from everything. I also have Sky Chitin which is good for my 2 Alien Drones even though I don't have any other air units.

a few screens:

Main empire:

Spoiler :

Diplomacy Screen:

Spoiler :

Toying with NSA:

Spoiler :

Artifact overview:

Spoiler :

 

[legalizefreedom]

Okay I tried this again, and I remember why I don't do it. So OP, turn 87 and I am 12 supremecy already lol

May I suggest the Awesome Pods mod (it's the only one I use). Among other nice fixes, it locks the Progen ruins behind an early quest that every faction has to do to get access. That way you don't ruin your progression/game like this.

I mean you still might if you get lucky, but this slows it a bit.