I thought I had lost when...

The diplomat · July 12, 2001, 23:31

I am playing a SMACX game with the Cyborgs. I was at war with Yang as always and the war was not going too well. Our forces were roughly equal technologically but he had a lot more units than I did. After taking his HQ and another base, Yang counter-attacked and retook the bases. He marched up against my HQ where I was barely holding him back. Meanwhile, the Gaians declared vendetta on me too. She took one base by surprise before I was able to hold her back. However, now I was fighting on 2 separate fronts. As a result, the war was slowly tilting against me. I was losing ground and things were not looking good. As a matter of fact, things looked pretty desperate for me.

Then, out of the blue, the war turned around. It started when Deirdre called me up on the commlink and offered to return my base in exchange for a treaty of frienship. I promptly agreed. With only one remaining front, I could divert all my units to fight the Hive. Deirdre was also fighting Yang, and with our new treaty, she began transfering units to me for my defense. My pact brother Zhakarov traded organic lubricant, giving me the fusion laser. I now had a decisive weapon that was superior to anything Yang had. A few turns later I discovered airpower, giving me now a decisive advantage against my communistic foe. Furthermore, My pact brothers Zhakarov and Lal as well as Deirdre continued to transfer fresh units to me. It was not long until I had a veritable army of fusion speeders, fusion needlejets and missile infantry pushing back the Hive. I swiflty retook his HQ and his base, and continued to push deeper into Hive territory. I now have conquered five bases. The Hive only have 2 land bases and some sea bases left. The war is definitely in my favor. Victory is assured. But it was not always so. When I was fighting a war on two fronts, and losing bases on all sides, I thought it was all over.

Has anybody else had this situation of a game that was not going well, suddenly turn around? Or maybe the reverse, a game that was going well, suddenly turn sour?

D4everman · July 13, 2001, 02:56

Only once that I recall, when I was sandwiched between the Hive and the spartans. (as the Gaians) Details are hazy, this game was over a year ago....

Yang at least gave me breathing room, but Santiago came after me guns ablazin'. She kicked my ass hard too, with her rovers.
Actually, she caught me by complete suprise (I didn't know she was there, until my scout unit was right on top of Sparta command)

Yang decided to attack me to from the other side and I knew I had to finish one of these fronts fast. Yang took one base and Santiago was killing my units and formers. I managed to probe-steal one of her rovers, and mindworm Sparta Command to death. She quickly signed the treaty. It wasn't too hard to take Yang out of the picture after that. Incidentally Santiago and I had another skirmish later where she surrendered and became my submissive and later on BETRAYED me with a sneak attack!

Has anyone ever had that happen? A defeated and surrendered faction turning against you for no good reason except that they're jackasses? (Miriam pulled the same stunt in a way....in one game she would sign a blood truce then attack two turns or so later. She did this about three times so then I decided to kill her. When she begged for a surrender I laughed it off. Its too bad there wasn't an appropriate response like "No way, you backstabbing, lying red headed b***ch! Die! Die! Die!".

D4

Tokamak · July 13, 2001, 03:24

While not precisely a massive reversal of fate, I did have a very providential turn of events in my last game. One of my unescorted colony pods foolishly plowed through a fungus patch and ended up provoking a mind worm. I was fully expecting to lose the poor guy next turn.

Suddenly, Yang (with whom I was in Vendetta with), shows up with a rover and attacks the worm. He loses, despite the 3:2 odds and a morale advantage, and next turn, the badly injured worm dies when assaulting my pod!

Ken Hinds · July 13, 2001, 04:05

In a game the other day I had several troop transports finish their moves only to discover that they were next to IODs. I fully expected to have to start over building replacement transports and contents when surprisingly Zak blasted the IODs with convential missles. I was very surprised both because I didn't expect Zak to have the missles and because about 4 turns prior he had declared vendetta against me. He did this about 6 times for which I was very thankful.

Ken

Method · July 13, 2001, 08:19

how about this. i pacted early with morgan, but then he un-pacted because i was running knowlege(he was for wealth random agendas) then he calls me up for a pact again a few turns later and un-pacts again in a few turns. this happened several times(and it pissed me off because when i asked for his tech data for some of mine he offered to sell his to me for like $500) any-who, later i pacted with santiago against lal and then she "insisted i honour our pact and declare war on morgan". so i did(santiago was huge!) a few turns later i call up morgan for a truce and surrenders to me. i hadn't even attacked him once, and he had about 50 missle jets outside of occupied university territory.

Earwicker · July 13, 2001, 08:58

Quote:

Originally posted by D4everman
...Incidentally Santiago and I had another skirmish later where she surrendered and became my submissive and later on BETRAYED me with a sneak attack!

Has anyone ever had that happen? A defeated and surrendered faction turning against you for no good reason except that they're jackasses? ...

I once had a conquered and submissive Zak turn on me after Miriam set me up with her probe team.

Luckily I had a few shard choppers stationed right next to his bases to change his mind and get him to submit again.

For this reason (and having seen mention numerous times of fickle submissives), I never share all techs with submissives. I give them bases, superformers, the occasional 3r clean defender, and select techs like Fusion power. I know it means I don't often get new techs from them. I can live with that, as long as I never have to fight through probability defenders to recapture those bases. To me, the chief advantage of a submissive (or multiple submissives, if I can get them), is the extra commerce energy. To maximize this, I try to make sure they have almost as many bases as I do, and when on the warpath will give them many of the newly-captured bases.

death_head · July 13, 2001, 10:45

Lately I've dealt with submissives by building a bunch of demon boils with my advanced bases and then releasing them into the wild right next to that submissive Miriam...

I know she's going to attack me soon anyway, so I gotta have my fun first.

Avenoct · July 13, 2001, 11:49

In this I like the Diplomacy engine. If you are losing a war, you fall down the power charts and factions have less interest in bringing you down, so the more you lose, the easier it is to make friends. Obversely, if you are winning a war, other factions might just decide it's time to gang up on you as you are probably Pinging their Diplomacy-detector: Faction A is too powerful! Attack!

As to submissives, especially on the harder settings, they are variously eager to betray you. If you keep them happy (feed tech, bases, to some degreee? units?), check their attitude toward you in the 'faction-profile', they most likely won't rebel, ever. It's easy to start a war with them if you want to, just probe them, but it's vastly more fun to let them get increasingly annoyed with you and then declare war.

As to tech with submissives, this is, like Earwicker said, a touchy point. Advantages and disadvantages. Often you can force a submissive to research a tech you don't have by giving it the tech its researching. This has the effect of doubling your research queues. Secondly, most factions really up their disposition toward you with tech gifts, ie, was noncommital, now is solicitous..thus its a good way to feed a submissive. On the other hand, if your submissive has contact, trade or treaties with other factions, they are quite likely to broker off the tech you just gave them. Very annoying. The only thing I've been able to do to absolutely prevent that is influence my submissives into states of war with all the remaining factions, which isn't easy. If you are probe-heavy here's a good trick: On the turn that you finally pacify and make your Vassal submit, check their diplomacy in your infiltrator report. If they have treaties with any factions, immediately launch a probe action against that faction and try to convince them your submissive is responsible. If it works they declare war on your submissive..this prevents tech trading. If it fails, you immediately re-take your submissive and hopefully convince them later to join the war on your side. There are other variations of that, but it's always a gamble, which adds a lot to the game.

Smack

Kassiopeia · July 13, 2001, 19:29

I once had this sure-win situation with Yang. Deirdre, Zak and Lal had all allied (submissed) to me, and The four of us had knocked out Santiago and Morgan.
So, Miriam left. My transports loaded with Plasma Shard units and carriers with needlejets were on their way, when suddenly Deirdre and Lal declared war on me! Lal's navy whomped my transports while as the Gaian Mindworms were succesfully obliterating one of my fronts.
I was utterly sure to win with three submissive pact bro's 'n sisters and an owerwhelming military - I was Yang, after all -. But, Miriam and my old friends got me when my guard was hopelessly down. I did survive the onslaugt, but I lost by diplomatic victory; Miriam elected herself, with Empath Guild and Clinical Imm., as Supreme Leader. I of course objected. Result; life in punishment sphere.
So this is like vice versa; an almost certain victory turns out to be a loss.