The Great Wall Defense

[Scipio Centaurus]

SITREP: I'm playing Morgan on transcend difficulty against the original factions (SMAX). I have reached the midgame - Dem/FM/Wealth all the way - and have a nice carpet of crawlers nursing at the various terrain enhancements. Every faction is at vendetta with me, except the Peacekeepers... because I refuse to give up techs for truces in this game. Yang and Dierdre get frustrated by my ability to rush build SPs out from under them, and begin to send needlejests directly into the heart of my island corporatocracy, for the sole purpose of killing my crawlers.

After rebuilding (and re-losing) many crawlers, I finally resorted to the 'Great Wall' defense to prevent these incursions by my enemies. The Great Wall defense is just like it sounds - a defensive unit (I used mindworms) in every coastal land square along the invading forces' flight paths.

It worked! All invasions of my home turf came to a screeching halt as soon as I completed the 'Wall'. The AI wouldn't even attempt direct attacks on the coastal mindwoms in an attempt to break through. Basically, my enemies' aircraft and ships were left patrolling endlessly back and forth along my coastlines - easy prey for my Shard Rotors. Occaisionally an enemy ship would bombard a mindworm to little effect. Later in the game - after I developed Clean AAA Sentinels with 8-Res armor - I began substituting these for the coastal mindworm defenders. Never completed that project because the game ended.

The biggest problem I had with the coastal defense concept is with the global warming. From time-to-time the associated rising sea levels would wash one or two of my mindworm boils out to sea, leaving temporary gaps in the 'Wall'. BTW, if you don't attend to these gaps immediately, the AI will find them and send a couple of crawler sniping airwings into the interior of your homeland.

I wound up accumulating 35,000 EC (not enough to corner the energy market) without very much trouble and when Yang finally built the Voice of Planet, I initiated and paid cash (no crawlers!) for the Ascent on the very next turn. My earliest and easiest victory against the AI to date.

Has anybody tried anything similar to this? I am interested in hearing about any defensive strategies that anyone has tried in their games.

Can anybody think of ways to improve the Great Wall strategy?

[Avenoct]

I've never taken it to the extreme, but I've long suspected it would work. Even with a partial wall the AI will go around to get to the crawlers. I occassionally use this to run the AI noodles out of jetfuel or to advance my troops in safety. I call the whole thing the Carrot and the Horse because the AI will keep going for the crawlers which it can never reach (they get tucked back in the luring base or are sacrificed for a fresh new crawler the next turn). It's so bad I consider the whole AI tendency to go for formers and crawlers a bug. There is really nothing one can do to change this...grrr! Attack my Silksteel AAA SAM rover you moronic noodle!

-Smack

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Smack
...Even with a partial wall the AI will go around to get to the crawlers.

Exactly. I built the wall starting from the point where the NJs were initially coming in and expanded it along the coast in both directions. It took several turns and during those turns, the AI attempted to 'flank' the wall several times in order to get at the cream filling!

...I consider the whole AI tendency to go for formers and crawlers a bug. There is really nothing one can do to change this...grrr! Attack my Silksteel AAA SAM rover you moronic noodle!

I'm not so displeased with the AI effort to get to the infrastructure... that's pretty much what the Allies did in WWII. Bombed the he$$ out of every bridge and manufacturing facility they could fly over.

I think the real problem is the AI is not sophisticated enough to recognize that it can never reach the goodies unless it makes a successful breakthrough somewhere along the defensive line. Reaching that conclusion requires the ability to recognize the impossibility of reaching the goal by direct maneuver, the massing of substantial forces for an assault and the ability to identify an isolated point of 'weakness' along a line.

I know for a fact the AI can handle each of these requirements individually, so it just needs some coordination of the tasks.

I wonder if there is some simple tweak to the game rules that might force (allow) the AI to make such an assault?

Oh well, if we want to play accurate military simulations, there are much better games than SMAC available, right?

- Scipio

[Avenoct]

Exactly. I built the wall starting from the point where the NJs were initially coming in and expanded it along the coast in both directions. It took several turns and during those turns, the AI attempted to 'flank' the wall several times in order to get at the cream filling!

Now if we could only funnel those noodles into an airborne tar-pit of sorts...cream filling heheh.

I'm not so displeased with the AI effort to get to the infrastructure... that's pretty much what the Allies did in WWII. Bombed the he$$ out of every bridge and manufacturing facility they could fly over.

True, but we didn't have to fly out of Britain, around Japan, and THEN to Germany like the AI might try to do...and on a more serious note, that aspect of the allied 'grand strategy' has been hotly debated ever since both in the magnitude and quality of it's effect.

-S-

[Ned]

Scipio, Cloaking the crawlers also works. But that is a late game strategy.

It might be interesting to move the cloak ability to earlier in the game.

Alternatively, it might be very interesting to move the copter unit to the same tech as the cloak!

Ned

[Scipio Centaurus]

Ned, are you sure about the cloaking? Seems like I had a similar problem with Miriam sending penetrators into my territory after crawlers a few games back, and I did design and build cloaked crawlers.

But I distinctly remember that Miriam flew her NJs into my turf anyway and once one of her NJs was adjacent to any of my cloaked crawlers the NJ would 'spot' the crawler and promptly destroy it. Maybe I was making some fundamental mistake in the way I deployed the units, but I got the distinct impression that Miriam 'knew' I had crawlers even if she couldn't say exactly where they were until she was on top of them.

Not sure I follow the comment about moving copters to the same place as cloaking? Wouldn't needlejests have to be moved as well?

- Scipio

[Sikander]

I do this all the time. It is part of a larger 'hollow' strategy I like to use. Given a decent roundish continent, I place my bases along the coast. I space them either every other square or every third square so as to give each base about 10 workable squares. When I am finished my continent is surrounded with bases, and if it is large enough there is an empty area (hence the hollow strategy) which I crawl extensively. In every non-base coastal square a crawler or an armored infantry probe team goes. This quickly eliminates the chance of a pre-marine landing on my continent. As time marches on I upgrade my defenders. I just don't leave any way for an attacker to bust into my soft and chewy center except through attrition. This isn't all that easy to accomplish, because every base is sited on a sensor, and I usually have interceptors in each base, which means that it may take some time just to wear down my interceptor force. All in all it is more than enough defense against the AI, even if all of them gang up on me.

[Ned]

On cloaking, the one time I had the problem of a hostile neighbor going after my crawlers, cloaking did seem to work. I also cloaked formers and sea formers. This ended my problem of AI picking everything off in a war of attrition.

It does seem to work. However, any unit can still see a cloaked unit if it tries to move into its square. I suspect this is why some of your crawlers are picked off.

As to the other comment, we have had the discussion on how to limit the copter's capability so as to level the playing field with the AI. The copter is the most powerful weapon in the game with its good range and multiple attack capability. The solution most often suggested is simple to limit its range. I suggest moving it to much later in the tech tree. I now see that moving it to the same tech as one gets the cloaking ability might be just right.

Another possiblity may also be to move the grav ship to MMI.

Actually, I am going to modify my alpahax.txt right now.

Ned

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Sikander
I do this all the time. It is part of a larger 'hollow' strategy I like to use. Given a decent roundish continent, I place my bases along the coast. I space them either every other square or every third square so as to give each base about 10 workable squares. When I am finished my continent is surrounded with bases, and if it is large enough there is an empty area (hence the hollow strategy) which I crawl extensively.

Sounds like what I would do except I would have fewer coastal bases and I would have some inland bases. There were about 8 to 10 open coastal tiles between each of my coastal bases in the game in question. I did have bases 1 or 2 squares removed from the coastline about midway between each pair of port bases.

...In every non-base coastal square a crawler or an armored infantry probe team goes. This quickly eliminates the chance of a pre-marine landing on my continent. As time marches on I upgrade my defenders. I just don't leave any way for an attacker to bust into my soft and chewy center except through attrition. This isn't all that easy to accomplish, because every base is sited on a sensor, and I usually have interceptors in each base, which means that it may take some time just to wear down my interceptor force. All in all it is more than enough defense against the AI, even if all of them gang up on me.

I'm curious to hear what actions you would take to compensate for the rising sea levels caused by global warming? Both, the mild case where coastal tiles are 'washed' clean of terrain enhancements and units... and the more severe case where coastal tiles are actually submerged.

The wall of perimeter sentries is the most powerful defense I have seen to date... by the end of the game in question Every other faction was in a state of vendetta against me. At various times, up to 4 factions had agreed to combine forces with one another to attack me, and their military units would all congregate off of a narrow peninsula of my island trying to find some way to breakthrough. My Shard Rotors had a field day! Except for Yang's fusion transports... for some reason my Shard Rotors went down by the droves trying to sink those?!

The final nail in the AI's coffin was when I got level 8 armor. Then even the conventional missiles started bouncing off the sentries in my more exposed seabases.

- Scipio

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Ned
...It [cloaking] does seem to work. However, any unit can still see a cloaked unit if it tries to move into its square. I suspect this is why some of your crawlers are picked off.

Yes. I think I see my mistake now. I was upgrading the crawlers one at a time starting with the crawlers closest to my enemy. This allowed her to fly her penetrators in targeting my uncloaked crawlers on the far side of my territory, and of course her NJs would then 'stumble' across my frontline cloaked crawlers and take them out. The best solution may be to just upgrade everything to cloaked all at once, or else start cloaking the rear units first and work your way forward. Then swap cloaked crawlers with uncloaked frontline crawlers as quickly as possible.

As to the other comment, we have had the discussion on how to limit the copter's capability so as to level the playing field with the AI. The copter is the most powerful weapon in the game with its good range and multiple attack capability...

OK. I thought you were making the copter comment in reference to the defensive strategy.

Yes, I agree that the copter unit is way overpowered compared to NJs, but there is no law saying the AI cannot use it to the same effect that any human can use it.

I have only seen the AI make efficient use of copters once. Yang had built about 30 Chaos/Shard copters and another faction PBd one of his bases. From that moment on, Yang sent his copters out in swarms, scouring the enemy countryside (and oceanside!) of every enemy combat and non-combat unit he came across. Then he did the same thing with the enemy's bases and seabases, cleaning out every single garrison unit! He did this in reasonable (not perfect) coordination with his naval and drop units moving in and capturing empty bases - making that the only time I have seen the AI come close to conducting a 'chop and drop' blitzkrieg style campaign of conquest. Yang's copters made multiple attacks in the same turn with the copters frequently moving off to strike additional targets if movement points were available.

It was an awesome (and perhaps once in a lifetime) display of military prowess from the AI!

- Scipio

[Googlie]

IMHO the AI is not so dumb. That's exactly what Tau Ceti and Misotu have combined to do to big_canuk and me in OKF3. b_c (Hive) has a huge industrial infrastructure with over 100 crawlers, and I (Borgs) have the tech lead with a great research rate supplied by a crawling energy park. They took out 20 of his crawlers, and 7 of mine, immediately reducing us to near parity with their alliance.

Sure they are suicide choppers, but the cost/reward ratio is huge, not just in damage, but in lost minerals/research

So the AI is not really so dumb ....

Googlie

[Lefty Scaevola]

I saw someone post once that the "rabbit hunting" AI, while attacking crawlers and formers and not combat units, will attack armored AAA crawlers and formers, and that you could put these out front to bushwhack his marauding aircraft. Does anyone here have experience to confirm or deny this?.

[freshman]

IMHO the best and cheapest defence is good diplomacy. If you want Gians to be your friends, switch away from FM to Green. Your Wealth setting is sufficient to pull in +1 energy / square with Morgan. Heck, you can even just run a GA and switch from Wealth to Knowledge if you want to make friends with Zak and still pull in +1 energy/square. To illustrate the power of this strategy, try forcing yourself to use diplomacy as your only means of defence by playing OCC. BTW, it is not easy. Some of your crawlers will still get attacked, gauranteed. But usually they talk to you after attacking you, so that they can make demands on you after just demonstrating their awesome power. Give in. Be pacifist. Spend your minerals on SPs and improvements instead of defence. When playing the AI, you can sure use diplomacy more effectively than playing against a human! So take advantage of it!

A great wall defense seems difficult to maintain and plug. It is proportional to the circumferance of your sprawl - fine for 1 city and 1 farm, but not so hot for an empire of 10+ cities, 2,3 farms. That's a lot of minerals used for units which may never get attacked.

Just an opinion from a freshman, who has only played 2 games.

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Googlie
IMHO the AI is not so dumb. That's exactly what Tau Ceti and Misotu have combined to do to big_canuk and me in OKF3. b_c (Hive) has a huge industrial infrastructure with over 100 crawlers, and I (Borgs) have the tech lead with a great research rate supplied by a crawling energy park. They took out 20 of his crawlers, and 7 of mine, immediately reducing us to near parity with their alliance.

So there you have it... now all you and big-canuck have to do is put up a wall of mindworms and there is no way Misotu and Tau Ceti can touch your crawlers!

- Scipio

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by freshman
IMHO the best and cheapest defence is good diplomacy...

But what happens when 3 or 4 factions with conflicting ideology are all within airstrike range of your homeland - as was the case in the game in question? Diplomacy can be very tricky in those circumstances. BTW, I think I can scrounge up the final turn SAV file if anyone wants to take a gander. Send an inquiry to brperry@pacbell.net

...To illustrate the power of this strategy, try forcing yourself to use diplomacy as your only means of defence by playing OCC.

That would be a very interesting challenge game! You should lay out the ground rules and set it up.

...A great wall defense seems difficult to maintain and plug.

Surprisingly easy, since I had a number of bases producing double-digit minerals by the time I thought of building it. Such a city can build a MW in 4-6 turns w/o even rushing. I set all of my threatened coastal bases along the invasion front producing a couple of MWs each, and had a couple of larger interior bases rush building infinite MWs till the gaps were all plugged. Took less than 10 years.

Maintenance was never a serious problem. As indicated, the AI never assaulted the MWs at all. There were a few minor naval artillery bombardments but after my Shard Rotors dealt with those attackers, the MWs on station healed up quite nicely.

BTW, I don't believe the MWs cost me any ECs for maintenance... I could be wrong about that, but even if they did, I never missed the ECs. If you get clean technology fairly early, that is another way to go, but I think most players will get to MW capability long before they get Clean. There is also some SP (Nanotechnology?) that allows units to heal completely in the field. That one could be useful if you prefer a human-based defensive wall.

Of course, I did eventually put in bunkers on all coastal squares, but superformers handled that in no time at all.

Just keep a few spare defenders in reserve to plug those occaissional gaps caused by coastal flooding and then ignore the wall and go to work building your infrastructure!

It [the defensive wall] is proportional to the circumferance of your sprawl - fine for 1 city and 1 farm, but not so hot for an empire of 10+ cities, 2,3 farms. That's a lot of minerals used for units which may never get attacked.

I had control of a mid-sized island with 16 land bases (all wound up at size 10+).

In fact, I never actually built the perimeter defenses all the way around the island. The 'backside' of the island was never really threatened by any faction, so I didn't bother to defend it.

The savings in ECs from crawlers that weren't lost to enemy sniping and the replacement crawlers that never had to be built more than compensate for any expense in putting together the wall, IMHO.

...Just an opinion from a freshman, who has only played 2 games.

All opinions are welcome!

- Scipio

[WhiteElephants]

Hmmm... I guess I'm just wondering why you didn't attack the AI and dispense with this "Atlantic Wall" tomfoolery?

I guess that in my experience I tend to only be defensive for about the first 50 years or so. The time I tend to get more offensive is when I have the capacity to build impact rovers. At the discovery of Airpower and MMI my aggressiveness increases dramatically. If I have AI enemies within range of my core bases I move to expand my borders by taking those cities in range.

Just off the top of my head you could probably build 2-3 choppers for the price of one mindworm, the same would go for AAA infantry. Not only that, you could build a trained 1-1-1 scout infantry and upgrade just as you could with the choppers. I guess what I'm getting at is that it seems counter intuitive to put so many resources into being prepared to be attacked when you could be putting those resources into staging an attack of your own.

[Scipio Centaurus]

WE, Your last name wouldn't be Bush, by any chance, would it?

As a matter of principle, I make it a habit to not attempt to conquer my trading partners - no matter how imbecilically they may behave themselves. There are few excuses for a confirmed builder/free marketeer such as myself to ever get caught up in the emotional baggage that the all consuming, ever conquering mentality brings with it.

I usually find it quite sufficient to simply repel enemy attacks to the limits of my own territory and then return to building.

I suppose if a faction were to use atrocities against me, then I would probably attempt to remove them from the face of Planet, but I can't see wasting my FM/Wealth ECs fighting extended conventional wars. That strikes me as the last refuge of the builder who has run out of good ideas.

A matter of taste, I suppose...

- Scipio

[Avenoct]

Playing for the jugular I'd have to agree with WE, but, that's also a stylistic concern. Still, you'll see there are quite a few of us that aren't really discussing the strategy of how to beat the AI, and I think this thread fits in this amorphous second category of strategy. We are instead discussing the strategy of getting the most enjoyment out of a game by playing backwards, forwards, upside down or blindfolded.

Now, certainly there is a real argument between the building types and the conquering types on what is the 'best' strategy for achieving #1: Winning the Game. But once you've done this from variously difficult positions it's time to discuss #2: Making and playing the perfect game.

What's a perfect game? I think fondly of all those games where I just never quite got to the point where I knew I was going to win until the actual turn that I won (or lost!). I'm thinking of games where I was so far behind it all seemed futile, but then clawed my way back to surviving, or those games in which 20 PB's were tossed and it was a whole new ballgame, or those games....

-Smack

[Method]

Originally posted by Scipio Centaurus
Has anybody tried anything similar to this? I am interested in hearing about any defensive strategies that anyone has tried in their games.

Can anybody think of ways to improve the Great Wall strategy?

well you are for sure not the first to do this. i thought it up back in the day of Civ II. i'd get about 5 size 50 base uh i mean city producing about 300 shields and surrounded the outside with Mech. Inf. of course i was running fundy at the time so only every unit after the 10th requires support IIRC. and to top it all off, i was like 10 years old at the time! ha ha ha! usually played on all land or mostly land maps though. works better that way. (of course when you're 10, you just play on chieftain with no spaceships and conquer everyone because you're on cheat mode)

never succesfully attempted something like this in smac though. i just guard my bases with 2 trance 3res or trance 3pulse and the AI just doesn't attack me. in fact, i have never lost an interior base, and the only time in recent history i can think of that i even lost any base was unguarded size 2 colony that i founded right next to santiago. BTW i play librarian.

[Scipio Centaurus]

[Irreverant]

- Scipio

[WhiteElephants]

As a matter of principle, I make it a habit to not attempt to conquer my trading partners - no matter how imbecilically they may behave themselves. There are few excuses for a confirmed builder/free marketeer such as myself to ever get caught up in the emotional baggage that the all consuming, ever conquering mentality brings with it.

Emotional baggae? Bah! Sounds to me like your caught up with the emotional baggage of worrying about the emotional baggage an all out assault on your enemy might bring. Believe me, it's relatively painless when executed correctly, otherwise, you're right. You get caught up in a long protracted war. And I used to think I was the builder type. How times change.

To answer your original question then I would have to say no, I've never built the "Great Wall" defense.

[Avenoct]

[Irrelevant]

-Smack

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by TKG
...never succesfully attempted something like this [the Great Wall defense] in smac though. i just guard my bases with 2 trance 3res or trance 3pulse and the AI just doesn't attack me. in fact, i have never lost an interior base, and the only time in recent history i can think of that i even lost any base was unguarded size 2 colony that i founded right next to santiago. BTW i play librarian.

Sorry I digressed in response to the note about your adolescent activities...

I actually contemplated that the wall defense was to protect crawlers left out in the open w/o sentry protection. Like you, I almost never lose interior bases to combat action. I did lose a couple to revolts when I was first learning how to manage drones under FM... and the AI will occaisionally snatch one of my outposts in sneak attacks.

But the wall is really only pertinent to the defense of crawlers and formers. Do you use a lot of crawlers when you play?

- Scipio

[Drago Sinio]

Another option for a protected energy park, is to use one borehole per base, inside the base radius, to crawl energy back to the science base. Then your base air defense will automatically scramble to protect any attack on your crawlers. Also you can armour the crawlers, which means the attacker needs to attack twice to kill your crawler, since the armoured crawler will survive the first attack, even if your interceptor loses the battle. And if your bases are close enough to gether that you can locate the borehole where it can be defended by two bases interceptors, that s even more protection.

This also gives you the flexibilty to take the crawler off the borehole for a few turns, and use the borehole to boost the base mineral count if you are building something important in that particular base at the time, also you have the option of boosting your science base's mineral production by switching the crawler from energy to mineral production if you need to rush something at the science base.

[Blake]

I never conquer my trading partners, war is much too uncivilised for a pacifist builder such as myself .

However I am a little partial to vaporising every faction which ever annoyed me just before AtT
mmmm singularity planetbusters.

Btw, my solution to the "soft chewy centre" problem is not using crawlers at all, this is a remarkably effective method to prevent the AI from sniping my crawlers.
Most of my terraforming is done before D:AP, and once fusion arrives I armour my remaining formers (plasma or silksteel), and escort them with AAA rovers when they are working close to enemy bases.

[NorthSwordsman]

Originally posted by Smack

Now if we could only funnel those noodles into an airborne tar-pit of sorts...cream filling heheh.

I think we can! What's to stop someone from building a "pocket" with crawlers and then sticking a couple of locusts or SAM troops in the pocket in bunkers? FLY TRAP! If you have them defended with some high armor AAA troops equipped with SAM ability or a combo thereof, wouldn't that do the job?

[Scipio Centaurus]

Heh! heh!

Thought I would give Morgan another go [SMAX/Transcend/original factions], but this time I took blind research. It was more than 100 years before the game gave up IndAuto to me! Worse... I only got 1 of the 3 resource restriction lifting techs in the meantime and Lal snatched the WP, so I fell way behind on boreholes and condensors, let alone raising land for an energy park. It's MY 2393 right now and I'm at Shard/Fusion, but I still don't have MMI?!

I've been running double blind since IndAuto. It wouldn't be so bad, but the AI factions don't seem to suffer the same lack of direction that my own researchers labor under. They all had DocAP long before I did, and of course would not trade it to me.

I did manage to get 1 secret project, but that went up in a radioactive cloud when Zakharov PBd my HQ for no reason whatsoever.

I was gonna get even, but it would have take me 45 years just to build my own PB... so I tossed up my patented mindworm wall instead. Worked like a charm again. All airborne attacks and invasions terminated upon completion.

Unfortunately I'm too far behind schedule on boreholes and condensors. The UoP is the only faction worth stealing techs from in this game, and Zak's got the HSA... I did manage to infiltrate him before he got it, though.

We'll have to see if Zak is foolish enough to actually build the Voice of Planet, because I think that and a steady diet of upgraded crawlers into my Ascent SP, is the only way I'm gonna win this one. No way I'm gonna accumulate 35,000 EC like last time.

- Scipio

[Ned]

Scipio, Welcome to the world of double-blind. It really makes the game a nail-biter, doesn't it? Ned

[Zakharov VII]

Speaking of double blind, what's a good trascendence time to shoot for playing double blind (tech stag, SMAC, transcend)? I think I'm doing pretty well but I'd like to know for sure ...I was University, so I could count on trading Morgan for the build techs (Industrial Automation much later than I would have liked from him, but better then than when the game decides to give it to me!). But I'm getting off topic, if anyone is REALLY interested in my double blind/tech stag experience, I can start a new thread.

About the Great Wall defense (back on topic ), since I usually build a lot of crawlers, I do a variation of the Great Wall with the crawlers. Since I have so many crawlers, in many places it's a double/triple thick Great Wall. The only problem is crawlers are so weak. However, since crawlers can take their turn and THEN crawl resources, you can upgrade the ones in danger to something nice (best armor, trance/ECM whatever depending on circumstance) on their turn, and then resume crawlering. Even if it doesn't kill the enemy, this usually gives me enough time (and weakens the enemy considerably) to bring in one of my rovers to deal with the threat.

Z