My Current War

[Rift]

Here's the situation; I'm the Spartans, playing on huge map, multiplayer. My faction is currently under attack by Yang, Zakharov, Morgan, and Lal, all whom are human players. I've secured my home continent (the one with the monsoon jungle in the Map of Planet) with a variety of cruisers patroling the seas, rovers, mindworms, and infantry on land, needlejets soaring the skies, and the occasional chopper to sink a transport.
My opponents are attacking relentlessly, and although none of the attacks penetrated my defenses, it's slowly eating at it. I'm blowing my resources to just keep my defense standing...needless to say, I'm in no position to launch a counterattack. My only weapon is the fact that my opponents are not working together efficiently, each with his/her own goal in mind, instead of realizing they can do much more damage with coordinated battles.
The universal weapon is the chaos gun, and I'm making a beeline towards Advance Spaceflight, but I'm not certain that I'll be the first to get there. I also have a cruiser with a guerilla assault team onboard hidden in a patch of seafungus halfway across the world, and I plan to sneak the team into Zakharov's territory (since he's the one that's most likely to get AS before me) to cause some trouble and to draw his troops away from my continent long enough for me to build up my defenses. Any advice from you guys?

[Cybergod]

My advice against Zak:

probe-1-4(or 6 if you've got the tech) = sea probe!
or pack a heavy defence transport full of probes!!!

Also, I've found an exellent unit against air attacks (needlejets only though): (8)-1-2 (SAM Chaos Battery or something). If the airplane is still there in midair, this unit will bombard it and crash it down! Oh, I've got to send this on a special topic...

[cbn]

First of all, don't talk about your hidden force where your enemy might read it LOL. Or is there really no hidden force? -- hmmm.

Seriously though, it is rarely a good idea to war with 4 separate human players. My question is what did you do to get them all mad at you? It might be a case where they saw you as the biggest and therefore they had to take you down. This is a predictable reaction so my advice would have been to cultivate a friend many, many turns ago.

It sounds as if you are pretty strong but not strong enough to take them all on. So my advice is FIND AN ALLY or at least make peace with someone -- perhaps the second or third strongest of those attacking you. Show them how they will benefit from allying or at least stopping the attack . If they do not want to face the others openly, make a secret deal where they are still at "vendetta" with you but they stop attacking you and you stop attacking them. It might even make sense for them to allow the "greater powers" to batter themselves in a war of attrition while they marshall their strength. It sounds as if you can just eliminate one attacker you will be doing great since you are almost holding your own now. Note-- continue patrolling in the direction of your new "ally". You do not trust them but having less units attacking will be a major bonus.

Are your enemies allied or just separately POed at you?? Try to divide and conquer by framing other factions for probe actions. Give gifts, deal,barter, negotiate-- do anything but try to get 1 or 2 of those attackers off your back. If you can not and the attackers stay united against you, you will lose unless you are massively strong ( assuming 4 reasonable sized human controlled empires who want to kill you). If it were 4 AI it would be a different matter- but human controlled factions??

If you can break down the fearsome foursome you might be in a position to go on the offensive-- probes, choppes, drop units etc-- but as it stands you are in a heap of troubles.

[Rift]

Cybergod: I'm already at par with Zak in tech anyway, so probing for research would be quite useless. I'll try that unit of yours...thanks.

Cbn: Heh, none of my opponents visit this forum...at least I hope not. As for dividing them, it's a good idea, but I'm afraid it won't work, because these guys see it as a personal challenge to slaughter my faction...damn. After some manipulating, I have the two AIs on my side, but the anemic and feeble powers would hardly be useful. Bribing one of my human opponents with cash might work, since 3 of the 4 are blowing their energy conducting the war, but I've gathered enough energy to upgrade a large portion of my army to shard weapon, which could turn the tide of the war, and giving it away seems like a waste. What do you think?

[Cybergod]

Do NOT bribe the human player! Use your energy to upgrade your army! Those bloodthirsty maniacs are only there to kill you! No offence intended to the people who actually are them.

[Cybergod]

You've got Orbital Space Flight right? Are the atrocity restrictions lifted (repeal UN. Charter)? Then what are waiting for? Nuke 'em!

[cbn]

Outsiders are really in a poor position to help you with tactics given the limited information we have. If the cash you have and the resources you have are greater than the other 4 combined, I say go ahead, upgrade your weapons and kill them all.

My question is why they all see it as their goal to kill you. AI allies are often useless so could you not convince one of the weaker human controlled factions to your side. For example you should be able to convince the third strongest to leave you alone if you promise to leave them alone. Convince them to simply unofficially truce with you. Do they all really trust each other?

I'm just thinking that if I were one of the people attacking you, I would love the opportunity to build my forces while everyone else battered each other senseless. There's nothing better than letting the others deplete their forces in the type of war of attrition you describe. The second or third strongest could be convinced of their own vulnerability if they throw everything at you. You could even hint that the strongest attacker seems to be holding reserves (its likely true if they are smart) and letting the others bear the brunt of the war. You could try to convince your strongest rival that he is the next likely candidate for a gang attack. With a lot of diplomacy you might get two or more of the attackers in a situation where they are only half-heartedly attacking you. I would then build up my forces,go for the throat of your strongest rival and unmercifully attack.

This advice is premised on the idea that you are just not quite able to beat all the other humans combined and that if just one of them stopped attacking it might be enough for you to move from defending to the offensive

[Rift]

Cbn: I think the reason they're all attacking me is that we're playing a multiplayer tournament, and I won 9 out of ten games...so like I said, I believe that they see it as a challenge to knock me off the peg. Oh yeah, by the way, I've made some progress in the game...my assault force has taken Zak's baddest base...and it also happens to be his HQ The only downside is that my opponent is going to send an army to take it back, and it's evident that my 8 soldiers cannot hope to hold the base, which is why I'll have to raze it to the ground.
Cybergod: PBs are not an option, because one of the rules in this tourny is that no atrocities, other than obliterating a base, is allowed, because then the losing faction would nuke everyone else, and they'll nuke back, and soon a 30% water planet would become a 90% water planet.

[The Commodore]

Awww...but Nukes are SO FUN! (Don't worry, cbn, I'm careful with colateral damage). Personaly, I'd go against Miriam next. What are the SPs here? It would make a difference.

Lucky dog...I'm in games with people who read these forums. Can't ask for help like that, and I could use it in my Cyborg game.

[cbn]

Ah commodore-- I'm assuming that you are talking about AXT 043-- I won't listen if you spill your problems, honest. Seriously though 2120 is pretty early so whatever problems you have will probably work out. Note to self-- commodore likes nukes, watch him.

Rift

If you can beat 4 human players who from day one see it as their sole and only goal to kill you, I will have to salute you and refrain from giving any further advice. Thankfully they have not been cooperating with each other fully or you would have been left in the technological dust . I'm glad that things are working out but still stick by the idea that multi-front wars are GENERALLY not a good idea.

[Rift]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I actually have a chance of winning the war now...a not very large one, but it's a start. What happened? Well, after long hours of infiltration and guess work, I figured out where my opponents are going to launch their main attack. It's on the side of the dunes, since that's my Archille's heel...the area where my defense is the weakest; an very smart choice. Then again, maybe not so smart, since there's a thick patch of fungus there, and I controlled the Xenoempathy Dome. There are also several monoliths that I could use for healing my troops. So I hid a large portion of my army there, awaiting the attack that I know would come. Sure enough, transports began coming in, escorted by Chaos Cruisers with AAA and Trance ability...about the best protection a unit can have. I sent out a few choppers and cruisers to test their defenses, and they all went down burning. So I waited until they landed their units. The front line was obliterated by a mass missile attack, and the back line damaged by sea bombing. I sent in a few probes, and subverted units wrecked chaos in the once organized attack force. Then my units showed themselves, half on the left, half on the right, effectively trapping the oncoming army. The attack force was destroyed. I can't say I'm positive that I'll win, because my own troops took a pretty hard impact, but at least I have a chance. Again, thanks for all your help.