Playing as Aliens

[Blake]

I decided to actually play a game through to Alien victory, playing as Marr.

Settings:
Large
70-90% water
High erosion
Arid

Double Blind (Altough aliens always directed...)

All SMAX factions except sven replaced by Yang.

Self imposed rules:
No capturing bases
No expanding from original continent. (or excessive use of raising terrain)
Friendly play, clean terraforming, no atrocities, nice to human factions in term of gifts.

Anyway I must say the game has been VERY fun so far, I hadn't REALLY got into a game of SMAX in a LONG time, all those lovely new unit pictures. God I love those alien foils. I want one!

Anyway I decided to follow the Fusion/Armour tech tree for a change.

And I had fun, was alone on my island (which included Garland crater), researched docflex early and met the good chairman, traded for Loyalty and switched to Police State.

I got the HGP, ME and switched to FM, soon after built PEG $$$'s rolling in. Let H'mniee have WP. H'mniee crushed poor Domai. I've always wanted a pet Domai so I liberated him, and he started in a giant patch of sea fungus on a little island. Atleast he was safe there. Eventually I sent some sea formers to help him out.

I tried to be nice to the human factions, shared a little of my tech and did some sea terraforming for them. H'mniee kept on making deals with the AI's to to make them vendetta me. But Marr has great patience with the Humans. They are so young and know not what they do.

One thing I did different to usual was research Silksteel quite early. I got the tech up to AMA and Cyberethics in a lucrative deal with Aki. Fusion came not much later and I built some 5-4-4*2 AAA, Marine units. God those units are beautifull. I also sent out Silksteel trawlers, they also very pleasing to the eye. And defend against locusts and sealurks.

Domai's greatest threat was Roze, but they established a lasting pact. I did some terraforming for Roze but she sunk my sea formers after a while.

Liberated D:AP and Orbital from Caretaker CyC Hive Alliance. Researched MMI and Bio-engineering myself. H'mniee was causing my trawlers grief at times so I built some S.gas chaos choppers to clean out hostile missile/jet stockpiles. My Silksteel ships were very nice, I used them to cover my probe teams, and sink transports. I also had (<8>)-1-1*2's scattered around my territory, to snipe any pesky units. I grabbed the two MMI SP's. Invaluable for my covert ops and to keep my peacekeeping airforce in top condition, not to mention my orbital operations. Also snatched up Neural Amp and Longlivity.

On the powergraph I was mostly tied with the Caretakers, the humans between 1/3 and 1/2 my power. No idea where little Cha Dawn buggered off to. Probably got eaten by worms. Hahah.

My island is a sight for sore eyes, covered in rolling forests, with busy supply crawlers working mines. Part of my island is still pristine fungus. My island is surronded by kelp beds and tidal harnasses. Further out my silksteel trawlers gather kelp to feed the hungry masses. The alien units are more curvy than human units. I like them. With silksteel they blend in nicely with green terraforming.

And while I admire my empire, and enjoy meddling in the afairs of human intruders, without ever causing them reason for undue alarm, and toy with my arch-rival H'mniee I dream of the day when the Progenitor starships come and destroy the unexpecting intruders. The intruders which thought the conqurer Marr was going mellow in his old age. And poor loyal Domai, this very minute I am preparing a island he can move too, what a waste it would be to destroy him. Prehaps I can find a place for him in my Godhood.

Anyway, playing Marr was a LOT more fun than I expected, especially the change of graphics. And although I was never in any fear of losing I quite enjoy a peacefull building game, which is hard when you are fighting for your life against Aliens. The alien advantages don't seem overpowering if you don't use them. And twice as fun playing in a way the Marr AI doesn't, going the peacefull builder route - even to the extent of using passive defense in favour of active. And those silksteel foils look REALLY nice

[Solver]

Sounds extremely interesting to me, I must admit! Can you please send me any saves from that game?
And, also read the thread "Why are the alien factions so weak" in this forum.

------------------
Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[knowhow2]

Hey there,

since you 've been in "my" forum (or thread as it seems to be the right word, I think)edt. I figure I should come see yours. They do look alike from a distance (well). Your idea for a game sounds about right(fun, whatever, d*mn it, after that v-guy posted the "I don't like when people use bad language"- message, I found myself constantly on my toes when it comes to language/spelling). One day I might even work out my fear and dislike for the alien factions so that also I could enjoy a game as Progenitor. Once again another of your game reports proved to be fun reading, thanx Blake.
[This message has been edited by knowhow2 (edited March 11, 2001).]

hey, what about me? i thought i had to retake english lessons....

[Blake]

Well, I finally *finished* the game.

Yang was the first to feel my wrath. He decided it would be cool to sink some of my trawlers. I had never had to do something so terrible before.
Yes, I... killed all of his garrisons in every single base!. Including that big fat juicy Planetbuster. After a show of just how effective my choppers are at killing plasma sentinels I left him to replace all his units.

H'mniee was also having fun blowing up my formers with missiles. Well I cleaned out her missile stockpiles every so often. And also killed her big fat planetbuster.

With Yang and H'mniee busy rebuilding things were nice for a while. I made a nice little sea based trawler park. Then I went and flattened my mines and replaced them with forests. My units carefully removed all of the roads, leaving a minimal network of magtubes connecting my fine cities.

I got Domai settled on his new island.

Then the others decided to resume bombing me, so I decided to resume killing there garrisons. Aki was wise enough to declare a truce (which she kept for rest of game, I was running Cyber). I also began operation "tick" building lots of drop troops named ticks with high armour and cloaking, they would destry forests and farms.

It took a decade or two but eventually there was nar a base left on planet with garrisons left in it. My choppers chopped up every new garrison. My mighty hovertanks scurried around wrecking H'mniees terraforming. Eventually Domai clued on to what was happening and captured a Caretaker base. So I gifted him a big bunch of drop hovertanks and he started capturing cities like crazy.

I got gravship quite a lot earlier than I could win so I sent out my skybases on garrison killing duty, and terraforming bombing. Poor Roze kept complaining about how my police state was going against everything the mission orginally stood for. Lucky for her I forgot my orginal mission was to kill everything which moved. However I did kill all her garrisons, and once my "ticks" where done in Caretaker territory they started chewing up Data Angel territory.

Bad thing: Sea level rises fragmented the land masses. I couldn't stand to deform the shape of my island so I just built pressure domes. Altough the crater got washed out so I turned it into a mountain.

H'mniee had stable pacts with Roze and Aki. Not to be left out I eventually got a truce with Yang and made him make friends with Domai.

By the time I could build sub space generators Domai had captured half of planet, only Aki's territory hadn't been atleast partially captured.

I purchased a subspace generator in my bases over two turns. This only cost about 10K, leaving me with 20K in the bank. I was told I had won. Final score 315%.

I'm going to have a hell of a time explaining why an intruder has more of planet than me... and why he is totting elite Quantum Gravships and tanks. And even harder, why he shouldn't be eradicated. "Oh great Progenitor OverLord, PLEEEASSE can I keep Domai, PLEEASSSE."

In all the game I only captured two bases, one a sea base I captured because it was annoying me, then left empty for H'mniee to take back (took her two decades).

The other a gravship with auto-move orders ran into an emptied DA base, capturing it. Annoyed I gave it to Domai, and soon later Domai declared war on Roze. I did however destroy size 1 bases with ships/gravships whenever possible.

My reputation was Noble at the end.

[knowhow2]

Splendid, just splendid. Great reading and great game. So how does it feel to you win with "the back up" instead of the regular "killed-em-all" or AtT?

[Blake]

Well, I suspect it's a cheap victory. Once you've got the tech each generator is a facility, that means it is cheap to rushbuy. Comes out to about 1K each with standard industry, so if the alien has a 6K bankroll they can build the entire setup in one turn. However the game doesn't end until the turn after, so prehaps a planetbuster strike could stop the alien victory. The book of planet is quite interesting actually. Poor Marr never does achieve godhood with the "back up" victory

It really was quite boring near the end, part of the reason I converted my empire into forest was to do away with supply crawlers. Gave my enemies less to bomb anyway. If it wasn't for Domai I think I would have gone nuts with my self imposed rule of not capturing bases. It's always nice to have an ally, even if you don't get commerce. Near the end of the game Aki would always talk to me and never complained, but I couldn't even extract a truce from her (No diplomatic stance).

I admit that I could have captured the entire Caretaker continent in one turn if I wanted. I had half a dozen elite hovertanks cruising around chewing up the forests. I did gain some usful insights on armour, following the armour tech tree could be quite effective. One intersting side effect of not capturing bases was I got stuck in a game long war, got to use all those lovely gravships and max/max hovertanks. I'm also now a firm believer in the value of Police State, Free Market, Knowledge for small empires. I was really raking it in.

A nice thing about the aliens is you can afford to take it easy. You can play however you want, rather than your play being dictated by stronger factions. It's a nice change (and you get new graphics ). It probably ranks as my second most peacefull game ever, most peacefull being a diplomacy challenge (no military units used). Just a pity the damn racist humans wouldn't ally to me. And they wouldn't let me attend council. Could really have done with a solar shade.

Heres a challenge: Get a pact with all human factions as an alien. Every time a faction gets eradicated liberate the leader. Continue until everyone has been eradicated atleast once.
And I wonder what happens if marr rescues H'mniee....

[Horus]

Great reading! This weird story deserves to be described in some kind of short story (more in character so to speak).

[senatus]

quote: Originally posted by Blake on 03-13-2001 04:57 AM skybases on garrison killing duty, and terraforming bombing. Poor Roze kept complaining about how my police state was going against everything the mission orginally stood for. Lucky for her I forgot my orginal mission was to kill everything which moved.

Bwa-ha-ha! Making fun of the programming was a nice touch. Thanks, Blake; the whole report was a great laugh to read.

[Blake]

What DOES happen when Marr rescues H'minee?
They pact

But whenever you call her on Commlink you still get the usual alien diplomacy message "When next we meet I'll be tearing your mannibles out with pincers" or whatever. Altough it does show pact in the faction profiles. You can't do any diplomacy. But you can have units on the same tiles, and in her bases and so on.

And I just had a most brilliant idea on why submissive Aliens are good. Let's say you have a pet Marr and some pet humans. You decide your enemy Lal needs a good ol planet bustering for his crimes against humanity. Your pet humans declare vendetta, BUT Marr wont Also the Aliens are rather effective against native life attacks.
So they may be more reliable to gift bases too if your atrocity inclined (you wont have any trade income NEway, but the alien still gets the energy grid). However both aliens are also natural backstabbers (it's programmed into the personalities), and would be hard to re-subdue if they break away.

What does happen if Marr rescues H'minee?

Edit: Slight spelling error. Wouldn't want anyone to complain.
[This message has been edited by It'sLikeThat (edited March 14, 2001).]

[Locus]

Thanks for the post. I am going to try playing a Progenitor faction in my next game builder style. I am curious to see all the Alien version of units, etc.

------------------
Brother Locus of the Peacekeepers