[BERT] New Lessons about War

vorlon_mi

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Last night, playing as KP on a massive fungal terran world. I was spreading out over my land mass, with a sizeable mountain range on my northern border, with lots of miasma tiles north of that. Nobody spawned close to me, since it is a massive world. ARC about 25 hexes to my northwest, Brasil about 20 hexes southeast across the ocean, and INTEGR a bit closer -- due east, across a narrow portion of the ocean.

Around turn 80, I'm moving an explorer around to the northeast, looking for expedition sites and avoiding the worms. So many worms this game! I've had lots of games with only 1 or 2, and I've seen 4 already. Lena has planted an outpost, Eintracht, on my landmass. Forward settled, sooner than I expected. I moved in two ranger/gunners and a soldier/marine and declared war.

I destroyed the outpost. Because I had not adopted the virtue on the Might tree where their outpost would be replaced with mine, I brought up a colonist and resettled the site; it was a pretty decent choice for a city.

First lesson learned: I didn't get any war score for destroying their outpost. I was accustomed to getting small war score for destroying enemy units, with more score for taking a city. I was surprised to get nothing for destroying an outpost. Since she hadn't sent any units with the colonist, I had no targets to shoot at. No reinforcements swam over, either. Ended with a white peace when she got tired of being at war.

Second lesson learned: Worms can attack cities. I've had worms pillage my improvements before, and I've lost units to worms if I leave them one hex away. On occasion, I've had a raptor bug or some other alien fling itself against my city -- but never a colossal alien. Granted, the aliens were all "red", super angry, because I had pillaged a few nests. But the worm destroyed my city that had replaced the INTEGR outpost.

I confess that I went back to an earlier save and made a few changes. I didn't pillage the same nests, so the worm stayed orange (not red). I purchased a rocket battery in the city before the worm arrived. And I moved my ranged units down ahead, pinging the worm with some damage before it got to the city. It died; I completed the quest; the city was not destroyed this time.

I will avoid angering the aliens to "red level" when worms are plentiful, in the future.
Do other players tend to adopt virtues from the Might tree frequently? This game I'm focusing on Industry, with a few useful Tier 1 virtues from Prosperity to get my empire going. And the extra Explorer expedition modules.
 
The types, number and strength of aliens are influenced by the biome.

I definitely plan to get down to the science bonus (3 virtues) if/when I'm going to go hostile on the aliens. I would estimate about 1 in 3 games I'm shooting for friendly aliens. It's certainly not the optimal move. Not having aliens to farm is a big setback to military levels and other bonuses in general. Not to mention the science and/or culture per kill depending on your choices.

Unless I'm looking for domination or a really military focused sponsor, that's all I'll pick in might for most of the game. Once I have my primary needs met elsewhere on the tree, I may get down to the bonuses for strategic resources and double resources as needed. I usually have big empires, so the need for resources isn't that great, but I do like to launch a lot of satellites, so... :cooool:
 
Two more instances of colossal aliens attacking my cities in last night's game. 1) A Kraken swam into (or spawned in?) a roughly squarish sea (about 9 x 9 hexes) bounded by land on 3 sides and ice on the north. Red, mighty angry. Didn't pillage, just whomped on my city and died. 2) Couple turns later, a Makara swims up to take a swipe at a smaller city and died. Also red.

This game (as NSA, standard sized Atlantean) has been a game of Beacons. Al Falah built one and ignited it on turn 249. I destroyed it on turn 250 :ar15: Polystralia (much smaller, after I took several of his cities) built one and ignited it on turn 299. I destroyed it on turn 300 :ar15:while completing my own and igniting it on the same turn. Al Falah started building another Beacon somewhere around turn 310-315, but even if she finishes, mine will make contact first.

Ranged attacks (air strikes or sub bombardments) can redline a Beacon, but at least one unit (like a floating tank) needs to hit it to destroy it.
 
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