Always War(Apollo)-No Free Techs

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 102, Empire Report

Having 4 cities finally dropped me below -20 Unhealthiness.



The -10% to everything isn't bad, nor the -50% growth to outposts because they can be countered with Trade Convoys, but the -50% growth in cities sucks.
Whatever + you got in a city gets cut in half, slowing its growth rate tremendously.
All my cities will probably end up at 10 pop or less.


Got my 3 spies set up in the 3 biggest civs to keep tabs on their teching while I rob them.
I've learned not to put spies in cities that will be conquered because it cancels the spy mission and resets the city intrigue.
If you are stealing , it essentially sets a spy back 40 turns.

Spoiler :

With that in mind, of course the game does this:



Operative Extraction in Jimboomba (Polystralia).
That is the 2nd city I want to conquer in my upcoming war!
Bah, who needs a Free Spy anyway.
... ............. Maybe the Quest will pick another city when Jimboomba falls?


Got my 3rd affinity quest called "Occupational Hazard".
All I have to do is tech Alien Lifeforms and build 2 Alien Preserve Buildings.
Not only do those buildings give , but the building quest gives +5 to unit healing!
That would be huge if it applied to all units everywhere, or crap if only to units inside the city.
Will find out.

Spoiler :

Got the Autoplant building quest finally and pick the amazing +1 Trade Routes.

Spoiler :

Kavithan Protectorate built the game's first two wonders
Built both the Gene Vault and Ectogenesis Pod.


Didn't actually complete any techs this turnset.
Got most of Power Systems done and over half of Tactical Robotics.
In about 5 more turns I should have 8 Combat Rovers and then I'll finish Power Systems to upgrade them.
Tactical Robotics will hopefully be a game changer.
It unlocks the massively strong CNDR (38) unit, and I've got plenty of Firaxite to build them with.




Cidadela built Trade Convoy, Spy Agency, Combat Rover, Trade Convoy, and started a Colonist.
Santo Adriao built Trade Convoy, Worker, Recycler, Combat Rover, and started another Combat Rover.
Manoel built Trade Depot, Worker, Recycler, Combat Rover, and started another Combat Rover.
Dourado built Old Earth Monuments and started a Trade Depot.

Here are my cities as of turn 102:
All the unit maintenance is starting to hurt as I'm back to +0 Energy per turn again.

Spoiler :

Intel indicates Polystralia has 4 cities just like me, is ahead in tech, and is also Supremacy 2.
My Supremacy 3 Armors should be able to defeat his Gunners and Tacjets in theory.

Spoiler :

Polystralia


Me

Gonna send 1 Armor to the east to kill any new Alien Nests that spawn and chase around Explorers and Colonists.
Everyone else is swimming west towards Polystralia.

Spoiler :

Kraken! Okay, southwest...

 

[Folket]

Sounds like this could be interesting.

 

[xamlop]

And in case you can't remember the building quest rewards off the top of your head yet, GGMoyang has a nice Building Quest Guide.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=534847

Do you know there's a mod that gives this information ingame directly on the tech web ?

 

[Folket]

Yes, there is. Only mod I have installed.

Quest info for building tool tip.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Do you know there's a mod that gives this information ingame directly on the tech web ?

Thanks for the info Xamlop.
I got the list just about memorized now, but I'll keep that in mind if I grow weary of double checking on the forums.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 114, Combat Report

Franco-Iberia is pretty desperate for peace after losing 1 Explorer.
Guess they can't take the tension.

Spoiler :

Eastern Front
The two trapped/marooned/stranded Marines got a little bit of revenge for me.
Hello little PAC Worker!
Surprised by what you found on the other side of the hill?


Captured and then "Deleted".
Tooltip said I'd get 15 Energy for doing it in my territory, but with maintenance costs there was no point in waiting.

The Combat Rover I sent east found work right away.
Here I found my 6th Resource Pod shortly after he got upgraded to an Armor.



Amazingly, it contained the best possible reward, another Solar Collector.
And it just so happens that the one back home was on its very last turn!
Without this lucky find, I'd have been -11 Energy per turn until I wasted some time building Generators.

Spoiler :

After murdering a Wolf Beetle for 8 and a Franco-Iberian Explorer, he headed west again and an Alien Nest spawned with a few aliens.
Life is good for the lone hunter.

Those 2 stranded Marines being babysat by the Tacjets and Sea Dragon (4 14)?
They are probably stuck until Supremacy 6 upgrades them to units that can walk through a Tacjet bombardment to freedom.


Home Front
INTRUDER ALERT
What's this?
A Polystralia Gunboat motored up to my coast next to my city.
After firing on it, I swear it healed 20hp before pillaging my Plankton improvement.
Santo Adriao had just enough firepower to sink it the next turn.



The Gunners walking across the homeland desert westwards encountered a Siege Worm, and I noticed they could each shoot it for 1/8th of its life.
For 48 and completing a quest, surely I could take 4 turns to do it!
All went well as the Siege Worm wandered southeast until it died.



Unfortunately, it wandered right into the path of a Trade Convoy and killed it right before the end.

Yeahhhh!!! ...awww wtf QQ
...And miasma killed one of my 4 Workers too?
Cancel the BBQ!


Western Front (Main)
After upgrading to Armors mid-ocean, the invasion force landed on the western continent in force.
They were quickly met by 3 Combat Rovers (12)
The difference in tank warfare between Supremacy 3 and Supremacy 2 was quickly apparent!



The 5 Armors steadily pushed them back towards their capital as the last 2 Armors prepared to land.

Spoiler :

Polystralia parked their low hp Combat Rovers 2 tiles from their capital and dared me to kill them, taking capital fire the following turn.
I of course declined and proceeded to move between Polystralian cities to blow up Trade Convoys.

The air strikes and the outpost named Richport to the south stopped me.
I wasn't sure if the Tacjets took damage bombing my Armor, and I wasn't sure if the outpost would raze if I captured it.
So I looked it up.

Spoiler :

Tacjets DO take damage bombing me!
Sure enough, after 2 turns of withering fire they stopped shooting me for 3 turns to heal up.
They must have taken serious damage bombing units almost twice as strong as them.

After observing that the outpost had 10 defense, and that it had no offense at all, I decided to surround the outpost and capture it as soon as it turned into a city. (Still wasn't sure if it might autoraze, and I wanted the city there)
If I had wanted to raze Richport, 2 Armor attacks would have finished it off.



Notice the Major Tooltip Bug
The -20% penalty for crossing a river isn't applied to my strength at all.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13561092#post13561092

I also checked on the mechanics for Pillaging and Zone of Influence for 3 units.
Pillaging gives a small amount of Energy and a small boost in hp for the pillager!
Zone of Influence stops 3-move units cold.

Spoiler :

<-Siege of Richport->
On turn 110 Richport only had 3/6 tiles, yet on turn 112 Richport had 6/6 tiles and fired on one of my injured Armors almost killing it.
Did the AI buy a tile in Jimboomba 1SW of Richport to speed up outpost growth?!
Or can an Apollo AI gain 3 tiles in its outpost in 2 turns?



Regardless, the city only did around 23 damage once per turn to my Armors as I surrounded it.
A furious counterattack from the west using 2 Combat Rovers combined with a Richport volley almost killed another of my Armor again, but the +50hp promotion saved the day and the city quickly fell.

Spoiler :

And so I conquered my 1st AI city in Civ:Beyond Earth!
Immediately as the Armor moved into the city, it and the surrounding tiles were mine.
Richport couldn't fire on the enemy the turn of the switch, and it had half hp, but I could now heal +20hp inside its borders and +30hp per turn inside Richport itself.



And so turn 114 ends with 7 Armors, an Explorer, and 2 Artillery ready to heal and build up around my Richport.
The enemy is still Supremacy 2 with 2 Combat Rovers to the west, 2 Combat Rovers to the north, and 2 Tacjets with presumably almost full hp in the capital (Freeland).
Will attack the capital of Polystralia next turnset.

The grand total in loses this turnset for Polystralia was 3 Combat Rovers, 1 Trade Convoy, 1 Gunboat, and 1 city.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 114, Combat Report Continued

Blargh, a post can only have 30 images+emotes in it, so I'll have to put the overflow here.

Attacking a city has an amusing warning message that I quickly turned off.
Yes, I know how much they hurt.
Yes, I know that they probably heal +30hp per turn.

Spoiler :

After I captured Richport, the game gave me the choice to annex/puppet/raze/view the city.
Annex appeared to give an additional -5 unhealthiness penalty, but I didn't care and took direct control anyway.
Will have to look it up later to see if it is permanent or if it degrades over time or vanishes if you raze/gift away the city.




Strategic Overview
(Whole World, with clearer .png pictures)

Spoiler :

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 114, Empire Report

No idea how long I've had this, but my 4th affinity quest is just as impossible as my 2nd affinity quest.
It's called "Cultural Burden" and I see absolutely no way to complete it.



Evidently the quest requires for there to be less than 7 AI to trigger correctly.
Bug report can be found here.


Killed a Siege Worm near my empire to complete the quest "Worm Killing".



Darned thing managed to kill a Trade Convoy at the end.
I also lost a Worker by leaving it in the miasma 1 turn too many.

Spoiler :

Crashed Satellite that appeared just outside my city gave me 25% of Terraforming (192)
No building quests triggered sadly.

I achieved both Supremacy 3 and Supremacy 4 through teching!
This provided a massive military upgrade by turning Combat Rovers (12) into Armors (18).
Picked the +20% Flanking perk.

Spoiler :

It also turned Combat Missiles (12 ranged, 3 melee) into Artillery (20 ranged, 5 melee).
Picked the +30% vs. Cities perk.

Spoiler :

Love how the game calls them Tier 1 units.
Keeps things simple when units branch out to Purity/Supremacy/Harmony later.


Earned enough to gain my 8th Virtue.
Picked Military Industrial Complex for +15% for military units.
This should be a big help once I start mass producing CNDRs.

Spoiler :

Teched Power Systems, Tactical Robotics, and started Alien Lifeforms.
Once I complete that tech, I need only build 2 Alien Preserve Buildings to complete the affinity quest "Occupational Hazard" and reach Supremacy 5 whenever I wish.




Cidadela built Colonist, Trade Convoy, Observatory, and started on a Trade Convoy.
Santo Atriao built Combat Rover, Combat Rover, Combat Missile, Observatory, and started on a CNDR.
Manoel built Combat Rover, Combat Rover, Combat Missile, Laboratory, and started on a CNDR.
Dourado built Trade Depot, Laboratory, Trade Convoy, Recycler, and started on a CNDR.
Richport started to build Old Earth Monuments.

Here are my cities as of turn 114:
Notice I am negative Energy per turn due to my units costing 1.57 Energy per turn to maintain.
Also notice the Polystralian Gunboat I didn't notice before putting my Gunner into the ocean.
I'll take care of him somehow...

Spoiler :

Plan on using all 9 of my Firaxite to build an army of CNDR's (38 melee) and maybe 2 Gunboats.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 128, Combat Report

Peace offers got truly hysterical this time.

America was willing to give up Liberty.
France was willing to give up Prosperite.
China was willing to give up all their money.

Spoiler :

Eastern Front
Marines did good work capturing a Pan-Asian Cooperative Trade Convoy and later a Colonist.
Merely walking onto a Colonist captures it and turns it into a Worker.
Disbanded the Worker right away and healed up from the 3 Tacjet attacks each time.

Spoiler :

My lone Armor continued to impress by crunching aliens, capturing a nest, and taking over a Franco-Iberian outpost.
This is possible after selecting the Liberation Army virtue which makes any outpost you capture your own instead of razing it.
The game gave me no options when I took it.
As near as I can tell, I have to wait before it becomes a city before I can destroy it.
It costs me nothing to own while it is an outpost, and if an enemy takes it I think it will raze anyway, so the game mechanic makes sense.

Just as my 2 Marines are in sight of the PAC capital, my Armor is now in sight of the Franco-Iberian capital.

Spoiler :

Western Front (Main)
Things got real on turn 115.
Hutama of Polystralia reached Supremacy 3 and my tank advantage vanished!



That Combat Missile was going to be big trouble for Richport, but I couldn't reach it with 4 Armors crowding in on me from the west+northwest.

Bought a tile for 90 Energy for my most wounded Armor to stand in, moved the Explorer into the ocean to get out of the way, and finally moved some units around to make room for the landing Artillery.

Then I counterattacked.
Hutama counterattacked harder.

By turn 117, Hutama was clearly moving in reinforcements faster than me.
The constant Tacjet (4) attacks and other ranged attacks kept Richport near 0hp.
Jimboomba and the capital Freeland were both precisely 4 tiles from Richport.

After losing 2 Armor from constant attacks, I sent 1 Armor up north to Zone of Influence a circling attack against my Artillery and sent my highest hp Armor (of 5) into Richport to defend the city directly.



Ya, that was a mistake.
Units in a city might up the city by 5 or 10, but they don't do squat defending it.
When Richport reached 0hp against an Armor attack, it was captured and my 100 hp Armor inside it simply vanished.

Facing 8 Armor, 2 Gunners, and who knows how many Tacjets, I now had 4 Armor and 2 Artillery.
So, I did the only reasonable thing, and furiously counter attacked.
Let's look at the power of Artillery against Armor in water and against cities.

Spoiler :

That's right, Artillery can 1 shot Armor if the latter is swimming.
And erasing an Armor taking back Richport after blasting the city with Artillery was also very, very fun.

Hutama still had too many forces for me to keep Richport.
He took it back again, and then so did I.

I couldn't keep trading Armors with him, so this last time I chose to Raze Richport.

Spoiler :

It got a nice little fire icon and everything, but the 1 turn it took to burn to the ground was too long.
Hutama took it back for good before it could vanish.

After losing all 7 Armor and 1 of the 2 Artillery by turn 120, I took one final shot before retreating back into the ocean and heading back up the coast with my 3 fresh Gunners.



I was really impressed by the Artillery, but the one that died to an Armor attack took 100dmg and only gave back 5.
Much like Gunners, they are really fragile against Melee units!


Elsewhere in the war against Polystralia, the naval battle did not go well.
AI Gunboats multiplied like rabbits and crowded the CNDR's swimming up to join what was left of the invasion.
Amazingly, they didn't shoot my embarked units!
However, they happily shot my units on land and other naval units.
Units like my 2 Cruisers.

My Cruiser could 1 shot a Gunboat (or do 97/100 dmg once), but 2 Gunboats could also 1 shot a Cruiser too.
I ended up killing 2 Gunboats and damaging 1 Gunboat to 3hp before both my Cruisers died, so I lost the naval war.
He had too many ships.

Spoiler :

I can't do anything about it either until I can put some Gunners on my coastline and make a few Tacjets to go out and shoot Gunboats constantly.
Only then should I build more expensive Cruisers.(200)

The only reason this war is still going is because the Gunboat swarm refused to shoot up my CNDRs.
So! Let the war continue, even more deadly than before.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 128, Combat Report Continued

One lone Marine chose to die fighting on a hilltop rather than be shot down by Tacjets in the ocean.
His sacrifice kept me from being pushed into the ocean as my Artillery continued to 1 shot enemy Armors trying to sail around.

Spoiler :

Turn 123


Turn 124

Then the CNDRs(38) arrived and immediately the war momentum changed.
Every Tacjet that attacked a CNDR is a Tacjet that died.

Spoiler :

As I'm unloading the last of my reinforcements onto shore, a Siege Worm moves right into the middle of my army and suddenly I can only move 1 tile per turn.
But now that I got such strong units, I decided to kill it.



One CNDR got the crap beat out of it, but a promo healed him up, and this time I decided to go straight for Hutama's capital. (Freeland)
Should have 4 CNDRs, 3 Gunners, and 1 Artillery against whatever he can muster.
And more CNDRs are coming.



The final tally was this turnset on the Western Front was:
Killed: 3 Gunboats, 9 Armors, 1 Combat Missile, 1 Gunner, 4 Tacjets
Lost: 7 Armor, 1 Artillery, 1 Marine, 2 Cruisers

Nothing I had could scratch the Trade Vessels.
Perhaps only naval units can destroy them?


Strategic Overview Turn 128

Spoiler :

Notice my Eastern Front Armor has found a 2nd seemingly defenseless Franco-Iberian outpost to capture.
1W of it should be perfect to heal up from the Tacjet attack from the capital.

Also notice the Tacjet bug in the last screenshot.
While it is nice to see how many Tacjets are in a city, it is giving away undiscovered city locations for free!
Bug Report is here.

And if you really squint, you can see my northmost Gunner is in mortal danger from an even more northern enemy Armor, so I'll pray it continues to escort that Colonist.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 128, Empire Report

My spies finally made an impact.
All 3 successfully stole a combined 750 Energy.
Since they all got promoted to Special Agents, they should be able to steal twice as much now.
Only 2 out of 3 produced enough intrigue to advance to stealing this turnset.
The other spy will have to steal Energy one more time.

The massive boost in funds allowed me to purchase 2 Alien Preserves in my cities to complete an Affinity quest called "Occupational Hazard".



This saved me from having to pause building CNDRs to complete the quest.
Once completed, the quest granted me enough XP to reach Supremacy 5
This upgraded my 2 Gunboats into 2 Destroyers.
Chose the +20% vs. land unit perk to terrorize enemy coastlines later, but it turned out that I was overoptimistic about Destroyers overpowering Gunboats so I'll have to wait to see the effect.

Spoiler :

Slavic Federation built both the Stellar Codex and Panopticon.

Got the building quest to pop for Observatories.
Picked +2 for naval units because it is so good!
It certainly boosted my Destroyers range, but it didn't affect my embarked units at all.

Spoiler :

Gained enough to earn my 9th Virtue.
Picked Liberation Army. (Automatically place an outpost whenever I conquer an enemy outpost)
This triggered the Tier 1 synergy bonus which allowed me to pick one Virtue for free.
So for my 10th Virtue I picked Standardized Architecture. (+25% for buildings already built in the capital)

Spoiler :

Teched Alien Lifeforms and started on Communications.
Tac Net Satellites are very strong(80) while costing no strategic resources, and the 2 buildings it unlocks both offer a Free Spy as a building reward.
Next techs will probably be Ecology and Ballistics for defense if I can conquer a bunch of Polystralian cities.




Cidadela built Trade Convoy, CNDR, CNDR, and started on a CNDR. (Alien Preserve was purchased)
Santo Adriao built CNDR, Gunboat, CNDR, and started on an Observatory. (Alien Preserve was purchased)
Manoel built CNDR, Gunboat, and started on a CNDR.
Dourado built CNDR, CNDR, Alien Preserve, and started on a Gunner.
Boa Esperanca built Old Earth Monuments and started on a Laboratory.

Here are my cities as of turn 128:

Spoiler :

Santo Adriao is under heavy naval blockade.
It's not having a very big impact thankfully.

 

[Prophet Skeram]

Really liking this so far, keep going. If you haven't done it, try to get an Ultrasonic Fence as soon as possible to get the "aliens don't attack your traderoutes" upgrade. It's obviously less useful for internal traderoutes, but it's still pretty good.

Alien Biology is also a very strong tech to get rid of annoying spots of miasma and allow your workers to do their jobs properly. But I understand that teching in that direction might be a stretch because you need to keep your Supremacy levels up.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Really liking this so far, keep going. If you haven't done it, try to get an Ultrasonic Fence as soon as possible to get the "aliens don't attack your traderoutes" upgrade. It's obviously less useful for internal traderoutes, but it's still pretty good.

Alien Biology is also a very strong tech to get rid of annoying spots of miasma and allow your workers to do their jobs properly. But I understand that teching in that direction might be a stretch because you need to keep your Supremacy levels up.

Thanks for the feedback Prophet Skeram.

If I manage to capture a few Polystralian cities, I should tech that soon and build an Ultrasonic Fence ya.
Unlike my island, the main continent isn't alien free and I'm sure they'd gobble up a brand new set of trade routes for breakfast when I wasn't looking.

Miasma Repulsors might be enough for me to avoid Alien Biology since I have so few Workers.


@Folket below; I don't think I'll have time to get it this game.
Maybe next time I'll try Always War Harmony.

 

[Folket]

I get immunity to miasma for workers every game.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 142, Combat Report

The Peace Treaty offers stopped going up in price, so I've started to tune them out.


I want to dedicate this turnset to the lone Explorer.
Shunned, useless, alive without purpose, he had nowhere safe left to go without an AI or alien chopping his head off.

So the Explorer was told to swim north into the ocean.
Sure, a Sea Dragon might have ate him for lunch, but scrolling around seemed to indicate there was some room up there for more land.

He hit the jackpot!



A nice city spot that would turn out to have 3 Petroleum sources AND a Progenitor Ruin.
Since I called the Progenitor Ruin a jackpot, I'm sure you know what the excavation revealed.

+1 Free Affinity Level

Spoiler :

Maybe I should build another Explorer.
Didn't know good stuff could stay laying around until turn 140.


Eastern Front
Growing restless, my eastmost Marine charged into PAC territory to murder another Colonist.



The response was brutal, and the Marine retreated with 4hp left after disposing of the Worker the Colonist turned into.
Then he was pursued by a PAC Armor.

Many turns ago, a Slavic Gunboat had rid the world of that Sea Dragon pinning them both in, so the injured Marine swam north for his life.
He didn't make it far.

Spoiler :

Farther toward the south, my Armor attempted to take a 2nd Franco-Iberian outpost.
He quickly discovered that an outpost's builds at it becomes more developed.
2 tiles had a of 10
3 tiles got 12.
4 tiles got 14.
5 tiles got 16.
6 tiles turned into a city with roughly 20 that would bombard any enemy within 2 tiles.

Thankfully, an outpost doesn't get Zone of Influence, so he was able to quickly withdraw when it became apparent that the outpost would survive.



After withdrawing, he lurked around a few turns and was able to kill another Franco-Iberian Colonist trying to sneak through.

Spoiler :

My handful of troops are doing such a great job bottling up PAC and Franco-Iberia, I'm very tempted to open up a 2nd front.


Western Front (Main)
Hutama got quite the shock at his Victory_for_Richport celebration when he looked out his Freeland window.

Spoiler :

Yes, CNDRs(38) are monsters when there are more than two, and I had four of them.

As I advanced towards Freeland, Hutama of Polystralia threw everything he had at my southmost CNDR once it walked onto some floodplains(-10% defense).
It died.
I kept forgetting that crossing rivers doesn't actually give an attack penalty.



And that ended up being Hutama's last gasp.
With Tacjets injured and his main army ruined in the brutal Armor warfare around Richport, he only managed one more kill by focusing on my injured Gunner.
The rest of the campaign was a massacre of quickly annexed cities.

Here my Artillery demonstrated that even when a unit increases city by 5 or more by fortifying inside, it doesn't actually increase its defensive power.
The little icon above Freeland says 31, but when guns were firing at it, I saw it as 23.85

Spoiler :

Affinity 4 units completely dwarf regular units, most especially with flanking bonuses and +10% to melee.

Spoiler :

With multiple ranged and multiple CNDR's, Freeland quickly fell and was free no more on turn 131.
Chose to Annex it rather than Puppet it because I don't care how unhealthy I get, and I wanted direct control.



Check out all the buildings it had!

Spoiler :

I quickly learned that captured cities don't produce crap.
No culture, no energy, no production.
Game calls it Martial Law.
Basically, the captured city is useless for 2 or 3 turns plus 1 turn for each population.
With 13 pop, I'd have to wait until turn 147 for Freeland to be my biggest asset.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 142, Combat Report Continued

With reinforcements landing, I continued the attack southwards pressing towards Richport.
Richport quickly fell on turn 133, and I began to realize that there were no further major counter attacks coming.
Hutama was exhausted.

Spoiler :

This short battle proved that a unit inside a city does give a +5 defensive bonus to the city, but only against melee units.
So ranged units are more powerful than I thought since the AI seems to put a Combat Missile in each city.

Back at Freeland, the AI bombed the city with Tacjets every turn to keep it near 0hp, but my CNDR guarded the approached.
I knew not to keep units inside cities anymore.

Spoiler :

The Gunboat menace back at the home island gradually died out.
Hutama finally got it into his head to shoot my embarked CNDRs for 33hp, but it was my 8th and 9th CNDR taking hits.
It was too little, too late.
The rest were already climbing onto his shores.
Here my shore Gunner finishes what the city batteries started.



My lone Needlejet barely got a chance to shoot anything, so I decided to move it up to the frontlines in Freeland.
Stationed in Manoel, it could only rebase to cities that glowed blue.
I quickly found out that rebasing aircraft in this game has a short range!
The Needlejet wouldn't move to Hutama's continent.



Guess I need Carriers before I can move around Tacjets between continents?


After a short pause to heal, fresh CNDR reinforcements arrived at the western front.
1 joined the push south towards Jimboomba.
The other 2 joined the push to the hidden city northwest from Freeland.

Jimboomba had only token resistance.
A pair of Gunboats gleefully fired upon my CNDR's, but they only took minor damage.
Jimboomba was surrounded and fell on turn 137.

Spoiler :

Maeve was annexed on turn 140 in 2 hits.
Watching 3 Tacjets die defending a runt city was very satisfying.

Spoiler :

By far the biggest battle after Freeland was Rangi.
It had built a Rocket Battery and had an impressive 47!
Rangi was also boxed in by the ocean and a large canyon, so I had trouble surrounding it.
Check out the beating it took:

Spoiler :

It survived with a few hp and I had to conquer Rangi the following turn on turn 142.



Finally, another runt city named Harta fell on turn 142.

Spoiler :

These 6 cities were everything Hutama had except for 1 more city. (According to his score)
I wasn't sure where it was, but once again I appeared to be on an another island, and there was a Colonist seen headed into the far northeast right before the Armor war started.
2 CNDR's started to move up that way to finish off Hutama as the turnset ended.

The final tally was this turnset on the Western Front was:
Killed: 6 Gunboats, 1 Armor, 4 Combat Missiles, 1 Gunner, 6 Tacjets, 1 Marine, 4 Workers, and 3 Trade Convoys.
Lost: 1 CNDR and 1 Gunner


Strategic Overview Turn 142

Spoiler :

Now that I'm Supremacy 6, I can see all the Firaxite in the world with my satellite overview, AND I also get satellite coverage on and around them too.
That means those AI cities next to Firaxite might have an Orbital Laser in their future when one of my land units gets near it hehe.

Notice the Franco-Iberian Colonist trying to sneak by my outpost while my Armor is up trying to kill an Alien Nest.
He's totally toast unless a military escort shows up.

That last screenshot also has a potential gold mine for me.
The Firaxite approximately 4SW of the Franco-Iberian capital Le Coeur has 8 resources in it, not the usual 2 or 3!
If I can get ahold of it...

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 142, Empire Report

Spies did some great work.
2 of them both succeeded in their steal missions.
The 1 trying to steal Energy failed, but the AI city got enough intrigue in it somehow, so he graduated to also stealing
Here are their reports on the world's 3 most powerful civs as of turn 142:

Spoiler :

That's some really good stuff to know!
Slavs are building their 3rd military wonder (Precog Project) and have their capital sitting on the coastline.
African Union have a Xenoswarm 34 unit near their capital and are building the wonder Drone Sphere.

Here are the civ scores as of turn 142:
The Slavic Federation at Supremacy 5 and the African Union at Purity 6 are the main competition.

Spoiler :

Got my 5th Affinity quest called "Ancillary Adams"
This time it's merely almost impossible by demanding I cut down all my forests near ALL my cities.



My spy questline "Operative Extraction" failed when I conquered Pamboomba.
Guess I won't be getting that Free Spy.

I found out that all the buildings I got for free conquering AI cities trigger Building Quests!
This meant I didn't have to tech Ecology or build any Ultrasonic Fence since I already had one.
Ended up triggering 4 building quests this turnset.
Clinic gave +15 city hp.
Launch Complex gave +10% for orbital units.
Repair Facility gave +5% for military units.
Alien Preserve gave +5hp healing per turn to all units.
That's so good for me! (+15hp per turn in neutral/+25hp per turn in friendly territory now)



Thanks to my Progenitor Ruin excavation, I reached Supremacy 6 this turnset.

Spoiler :

This allowed my to upgrade my Marine (14) into a Disciple (24)
Picked the +20% when next to a friendly unit perk.
It also allowed me to upgrade my Tacjet (10 4) into a Needlejet (16 5)
Picked the +15% vs. land and sea unit perk.

Spoiler :

Didn't earn enough culture to gain any virtues.

Teched Communications and started on Cognition. (Both spies steals accelerated Cognition)
Found out I didn't need Ecology or Ballistics, so I went with a tech that unlocked Academies and 2 good buildings.

 

[Prophet Skeram]

Did you annex or puppet Freeland, couldn't quite make it out on the screen (but I think I didn't see the puppet icon) ?

I've you've played CiV (which I assume), pro tip: Don't assume that puppeting and annexing will work exactly the same in Beyond Earth, it doesn't !

If you puppet a city first and annex it later, you will still get the full civil unrest (minus health penalty) that you would have gotten if you had annexed it immediately and you will get the full martial law penalty again (I learned this the hard way).

Basically, you want to annex all cities that you conquer (and don't wish to trade away or burn to the ground) if your health allows it since you don't need court houses and the annexed city becomes a "normal" city after the civil unrest has subsided.

 

[Kaitzilla]

T142, Empire Report Continued

Cidadela built CNDR, Worker, Repair Facility, and started a Command Center.
Santo Adriao built CNDR, CNDR, Tacnet Hub Satellite, and started a Colonist.
Manoel built Observatory, Tacjet, Gunner, and started a Colonist.
Dourado built Gunner, Worker, Trade Convoy, Feedsite Hub, and started an Autoplant.
Boa Esperanca built Laboratory, Worker, Worker, Trade Convoy, Colonist, and started a Recycler.

Richport built Old Earth Monuments and started a Trade Depot.
Freeland is under Martial Law until turn 147.
Jimboomba is under Martial Law until turn 148.
Rangi is under Martial Law until turn 152.
Maeva is under Martial Law until turn 147.
Harta is under Martial Law until turn 148.

Here are my cities as of turn 142:

Spoiler :

Hopefully the building quest triggers next turnset on the Command Center and Feedsite Hub buildings for +1 Free Spy.

Plan on focusing on vastly increasing the size of my empire by spamming cities and Trade Convoys.

I also plan on splitting my main army into 3 groups.
2 CNDR's will finish off Hutama and then swim to the eastern front to engage the PAC city north of the Valley of Doom&#8482;. Will be joined by my stranded Disciple if he's still alive.
4 CNDR's will team up with 2 Gunners and 1 Artillery to swim northwest to smash the American Reclamation Corporation (ARC) to pieces.
3 CNDR's will team up with my last 2 Gunners to swim southwest to claim the vast expanse of Firaxite and murder any eastward expansion by Kavithan Protectorate.

My goal is to grow large enough to take on the whole world at the same time, while keeping all the AI from expanding either east or west.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Did you annex or puppet Freeland, couldn't quite make it out on the screen (but I think I didn't see the puppet icon) ?

I've you've played CiV (which I assume), pro tip: Don't assume that puppeting and annexing will work exactly the same in Beyond Earth, it doesn't !

If you puppet a city first and annex it later, you will still get the full civil unrest (minus health penalty) that you would have gotten if you had annexed it immediately and you will get the full martial law penalty again (I learned this the hard way).

Basically, you want to annex all cities that you conquer (and don't wish to trade away or burn to the ground) if your health allows it since you don't need court houses and the annexed city becomes a "normal" city after the civil unrest has subsided.

Thanks for the tip Prophet Skeram!

Ya, I Annexed every city I captured.
Do you happen to know the benefits to Puppeting over Annexing?
If all it is is more health, I don't see why anyone would ever Puppet.