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Funny thing is I actually knew about the "feature" and just how broken it is, Steve and I discussed it in SMACbox only a week ago covering its absurd applications. Would be quite fine if it was like artillery, yes, but flat damage that ends up killing units is just retarded. It also works regardless of terrain, unit type etc. Enemy fleet approaching? Send out a couple of throw-away Allahu akbar suicide jets and push the button. Enemy army? Just rush in with Allahu akbar throw-away troopers and push the button. Whatever units you encounter in the field, just send in some cheap trash and push the button. Suffice it to say I didn't expect to see such a game-breaking chump move being pulled.
Anyway, game goes on. Not like it changes much, outcome was clear 40 turns back. HQ still stands for now.
Yeah, I already knew about this stunt ages ago since the self-destruct sequence is one of those features that screams "I wonder what I can do with this button", but I think your bigger problem Grim, is that your builder game tends to be somewhat weak. Basically not enough formers and you usually have territory to spare for more colony pods. You should also not do silly things like build Tree Farms before Energy Banks in bases that have no forests and need neither the psych boost nor the ecodamage reduction. This kind of thing all adds up to you ultimately having worse tech speed, worse energy income, and worse production than other players. AO has an even worse builder game though, which is perplexing. He has all that open space as Morgan and everyone is ignoring him but he never spams bases. Right now there are so many players with more bases than him that a new base would quickly give him a ton of extra commerce too. He could also just pop boom with golden ages if he felt like it, but he isn't.
The horizon was ablaze. Clouds of ash, dust and even xenofungus covered much of the sky eastwards. Lance Corporal David Tanner wondered what lay ahead. Updates from command were sparse and mostly related to his immediate area, so he had to trust what the mark one eyeballs saw in the distance, and sometimes more up close.
Sparrow drone squadrons were frequent, some were observed crashing, sometimes even without any visible projectiles being fired at them. Private Ramesh said its mindworms or some other psionic witchcraft, supposedly the worms or University empaths could sense the actual team piloting the drones remotely and assault their minds telepathically. Tanner wasn’t convinced, could have been some secret egghead directed energy weapon in the invisible spectrum or focused so much no scatter made it to optical sensors.
He, Ramesh and three other in the squad he commanded were a new breed in the Peacekeeping forces. Not Peacekeepers but Peacebringers, trained to use their weapons and Morpheus pacification gas to assault heavily fortified positions. The gas itself made the boundary between a non-lethal weapon and chemical weapon of mass destruction quite hard to define. Besides the gas they were also outfitted with top of the line augmentations, the 3rd generation of combat and non-combat enhancement developed by the augmentation centres in the U.N. Colony on Chiron. Or the U.N. remnant as some called it, in the case of those accepting that humans on Earth and on its colonies on Mars and in the Belt, were likely all dead.
The fighting has been heavy, sparrow drones were observed going deep beyond the horizon. The fighting was intense for over 2 weeks now, and while he himself has not seen any action, they left what was called Staging Zone Prime a while ago, occasionally getting the orders to move further east.
What they encountered along their path were signs of battle, field hospitals, wreckage, pyres with burning worms and rumors. Tanner was done looking at the horizon and went back to camp. Their unit was stationed now in a larger although not very well fortified field outpost built along the so called “warpath” by one of the engineering corps, probably the 7th.
“I heard at the mobile canteen that they just blasted the sensor arrays,” Ramesh told them enthusiastically.
“That’s old news Ramesh, they bombed the bloody thing a week back,” Private Kettle dismissed him. “First they got the damn APC all happy camping around, then they flew Sparrows over and cratered the sensors with missiles. Old news ya muppet!”
“Kettle, you wanker, they said they leveled it with a long range barrage by field artillery.”
“I’m with Kettle on this one mate, artillery never hit a damn thing, no way that can be true!” Shadid said with confidence.
“Oi, what you ladies talkin’ about?” Tanner interrupted his subordinates. “Ramesh, you sure this thing is true, they got the second sensor array?”
“I swear on me mum, Sir, and I swear on Kettle being a humongous prick,” Ramesh replied.
“Can’t argue with that logic, Sir,” Shadid snidely added.
It was true what Kettle said earlier, field artillery failed to achieve any of their objectives back during Thunder Bottle. Jokes were that only the too blind and dull to become naval gunners volunteered to serve in field artillery, especially with their survivability rates, a big flat zero percent.
Still a part of him wished it was true. While the general strategic situation was classified, the little he knew of, the bare minimum necessary for him and his comrades to know so that they do not to fuck up what the headquarters wanted, included knowing the sensors arrays around Based University would make assault problematic but not impossible. As far as he knew nobody was anywhere near it yet, but they were not really informed of how far east they managed to push so far. Either because someone desk jockey forgot to approve some disclosure to his unit or because it was “strategically sensitive”.
Suddenly soldiers started gathering along the edges of the warpath, making way for something.
“Sir Lance Corporal, are we getting some new supplies?” Shadid asked. “Maybe a mark three battle pub for the camp, Sir?”
“You’ll drink when you’ll be on leave, Private.”
Just as they finished their exchange something zipped along the road. It was a very fast convoy, but it was not using rovers. No, these guys were travelling light. And those were... motorbikes? They looked different, not gear he was familiar with.
“Those are for real!” Ramesh shouted.
“Private, what do you mean?”
“Light recon hoverbikes,” Ramesh said with excitement, “a mate from 13th back in the previous camp told me a bloke his cousin’s mate knows was testing these things. Said they gonna build full blown tanks one day that float above the ground no matter the rocks or fungus. Just zoom across straight into the baddies.”
While extraordinary like most of the rubbish Ramesh picked up and uncritically took in while socializing, the convoy was strange. It was fast and unlike anything else he saw. The vehicles seem to hover, they were however almost a blur.
“Oi Ramesh, let’s say these gits are indeed on fancy flying bikes, what good will they do out east that we can’t?“ Kettle asked.
“Well Mr. Kettle, whatever it is headquarters deemed it was important enough to be kept a secret,” Tanner told the private. “I guess we’ll know soon enough, history changes greatly when even artillery can hit something, and when bikes float above the ground”.
***
The last two days might be called hell. Four hours ago Shadid triggered a booby trap hidden in some shrub; it ended up blowing off his left a leg. Fully in shock before bleeding to death, Shadid only kept repeating, “don’t let the surgeon cut off my bollocks, mate, don’t let the surgeon cut off my bollocks, mate”.
The day earlier someone shot Kettle right through the eye with an impact rifle from a high-rise two blocks and well above the line formed by the roofs of much closer and lower habitat complexes. His head had a comically large hole in the place of the eye he lost, it would have looked silly if it was not for the blood and brain spilling out of it.
Now Tanner just barely managed to get himself out of rubble from an overpass that collapsed next to him. If it had been above him he would be dead already. The city around them was a mess, it was under assault for at least 4 days before they got to the outskirts with their orders to go in. They were in for two day. Calling it a bloody hell did not do it justice, even outside of Based University, the scenery looked like a slaughterhouse. Piles of worms which came from at least ten large enemy boils were burning. Before the Peacebringers went in, the grunt Peacekeepers dealt with the worms and later with the enemy combat empaths.
The largest and meanest boils according to what Ramesh somehow learned, despite being under fire every nine out of ten minutes in the city, were lured out into the open by the mythical hoverbike light recon. Turns out they gave the bikes to empaths and they went in even before the sensors were destroyed. Command opted to send lighter troops in to take care of the worms, the hope was that if they perish at least the materiel lost will not be a huge loss. Next the heavier troops were sent in, when there was no other option to fight the remaining empaths and their worms. Some thought that after enough damage is done there will be an order to retreat and everybody will merrily sail into the sunset, without the Pele-armed grunts bleeding even a bit.
They were proven wrong at least 6 days ago when the first Peacebringers were called to go in. At that point almost all regular peacekeepers were engaged in combat and apparently the enemy psionic forces were routed, making Morpheus gas a go for use. Explosions shook the outer city blocks. Buildings crumbled, men screamed and high-rises turned into torches. Thick black smoke blocked the sun turning night into almost day. The haze obscured vision in places where the smoke was brought down by Chiron’s slightly higher than 1 g gravity to ground level.
While the two days have been hell, progress was considerable. A day more, maybe two, and possibly the city would be pacified and ready for controlled demolition, including the most desirable of all goals, the destruction of the Cybercorps’ cybernetics factory and the obliteration of the Weather Paradigm. There was also some xenotranslation mainframe in the city, but headquarters kept forgetting it is there since it probably was not strategically relevant.
Days later when it happened it was a sight truly to behold. A fireball and thud so loud and beautiful it almost made him cry. The city was dead, however reports were coming in regarding a counter attack. Orders were to fall back to the fortifications left behind by the eggheads just west of the city, from which all assaults on the city itself were launched. However at the back of Tanner’s head a thought circled, nagging him restlessly. Those bunkers didn’t help the eggheads survive a few years back, why should they help me?
***
In the shadow of Pravin Lal’s Pinnacle the dust is just starting to settle. A battle unlike any seen in Planet’s history, and perhaps even in human history, has come to an end. According to anonymous sources in Peacekeeping Command, the combined might of naval, aerial and ground forces of the Peacekeeping Forces has obliterated the University army almost down to a single man and mindworm larva. The battle for what was once called Otkrieta Lab and what was until yesterday the capital of the University of Planet, is over.
Peacekeeping Command is reluctant to claim that the enemy is crushed and close to collapsing, with our troops safe to liberate more oppressed peoples, a reasonable conservative approach considering Zakharov’s prior plots. Their laconic press releases speak of course of the success of phase I of Operation Chet Donnelly, but the nature of phase II and its execution is very much a mystery. For all we know there might not be a phase II, and this is all a deception to gain some kind of strategic advantage over the commanders behind the despotic terror forces of Zakharov.
It is however without a doubt that the loss of two major facilities, the Cyborg Factory and the Weather Paradigm, which formed the backbone of the University war machine, is a major blow to the enemy war effort. With two major armies clashing even if they fully obliterated each other, the economic damage inflicted on the University combined with no losses on the side of U.N. production potential, and with the economic superiority of the U.N. colony, spells a very difficult future for Zakharov’s regime in the coming years despite any possible losses on the U.N. side during this invasion.
Is the war close to ending? While everybody in Atlantica hopes so, one needs to take heed as this war has already proven that progress is not easy to make. This has been John Tilter for CBC Planet News.
The TURN is 130, after months of plotting one of my plans to take out the most important University Base was possible to attempt. I had two as a backup but those would take much longer to set in motion, while a good chance to do this one, actually my plan A, appeared now. B and C were more complicated, but less likely to become obsolete.
The Cyborg Factory is dead as well as the Weather Paradigm, gassed into oblivion. Destroyed along with it the bulk of egghead forces, almost all mind worms, almost all probe teams, two out four remaining APCs, missile artillery units and missile infantry. Kalin had roughly around 20 psi defence units (either worms or defenders with psi armor) at the base as designated defenders, plus some counter attack forces and probes that were meant to mop up if I brought not enough units to kill everything before he could counter attack. Which meant I need raw numbers to kill all that psi crap in one turn, and hopefully win enough fights to have at least 3 nerve gas units still left to kill whatever non psi-units became exposed in the base, allowing me to destroy it via population damage from the gas. Worst case scenario I hoped to just use all the cheaper units on my side to kill his more expensive psi units and come ahead in minerals sunk (and to be lost in counter attack) vs mineral damage inflicted. Gas units would be held back waiting for a better day due to being more expensive to replace, especially when rushing production with energy.
I already know from shoutboxing that Kalin nuked my forces left after the assault on top of one of his bunkers, with some hastily upgraded with lucky worm-loot to missile troops defenders, but that is not a huge issue. I fully expected to lose the units through a possible kamikaze sandpeople strike of his, although at some cost to Kalin which from my side seems like another win since it saved me the trouble of having to kill the units myself. I'll just replace my units, he lost significantly more minerals in units killed by me alone anyway, without considering the base, its facilities and the projects.
Anyway this is what egghead numbers looked like after the deed was done:
Had to build a road, but just 2 tiles, helped that Kalin couldn’t kill that one road tile I built during Thunderbottle. Used a copter to destroy the forest on the fortress tile directly west of Based Uni, then it took just one former to build the last road peace since it was “flat”(rockiness rating) under the forest. The other tile was "rolling" so it took 2 formers to build it on the same turn.
And a nice 3 tile road straight to Based Uni is done. During Thunderbottle I actually screwed up and built a road on the wrong tile, but managed to work around it with a probe team bypass zones of control (probes ignore ZOCs, units can move despite ZOCs if the destination tile already has your units there). The shape of the terrain made it difficult to figure out which tiles were exactly on the only 3 tile path from the coast tile to Based Uni, hence the fuck up then. But this time I paid extra attention to moving my formers, so all went according to plan with the 3 elite terraformers I had.
Got a bit lucky with the first few attacks, did them before I opted to kill the two sensors next to the base, luckily empath song elite units at +2 planet were enough to kill demon boils at +3 planet and sensors. Hoped that the scouts with grav struts would have one more attack on them after winning a fight, due to using one move to get to the front and another on the attack, but they always ended up too damaged and ran out of moves. Could have used regular scouts, which are clean in this mod and don’t tax support, although no empath song would make the odds risky. Also grav struts were a backup if the copters couldn’t kill the forest, due to having a move cost of 1 into all tiles.
Also I had some luck with artillery, the artillery barrage worked on the first try and killed one sensor, during Thunderbottle my 3 elite artillery units failed to kill the same sensor and did jack shit just wasting moves.
The other sensor was stacked with APCs I think, choppers killed it or it was missile infantry, and one last chopper managed to succeed in destroying the sensor, that also was RNG dependent like the bombardment. Only ground units standing on a tile are guaranteed to kill the improvement on it.
The sensors were next to each other and west of the base which wasn’t a good move as far as the defense bonus was concerned, since they were possible to reach or bombard with artillery from the direction of my attack. Good from scouting perspective though, as they covered fungus I could use to sneak around.
Up until the last moment I wasn’t sure if I should commit and go all-in or just use the cheap elite scouts to kill the bloated large worm boils and then bail, the main problem was if I had enough units to kill all the worms and psi armor defenders allowing my nerve gas troops to actually use gas in combat and kill the base’s population. One factor why I did go ahead with it now, was that possibly the 3 worms Kalin sent into the fungus were moved out of Based Uni meaning I had to use at least 3 less units against the base (only two are shown on the gas screenshots as I killed one before it). If that indeed is what has happened, using my worms as unintended bait was a smart choice, my 2 boils were useless against the base as they were too small anyway, but I had some absurd thought they might help with that somehow.
I also managed to ship 4 more units than originally planned (1 grav empath scout, 2 elite scouts and one elite missile trooper) to the front line with a transport chain, just barely. Good thing last turn I paid close attention to positioning my transports and places some APCs in land in the right spots for it last turn.
With those reinforcements this gave me a decent margin in numbers for the psi combat against all the designated defenders, although in the end I think I lost only 2 fights against the psi units and didn’t need to use any of my gas troops to kill a psi unit, so I had more chances to use actually gas in combat (nerve gas cannot be used in psi combat, which is why Kalin stacked a lot of worms there plus psi defenders). This also meant I had enough troops to just attack and inflict collateral on the stack left behind the base, which ended up killing...
...14 units, mostly defensive probe teams.
Of course Kalin is not exactly happy with me going kamikaze on him a few turns back, which enabled this attack just now. I’m on the side that it is 100% legit obviously, besides the personal bias it is because the alternative is spamming clean scouts and doomstacking them in bunkers to stall attacking forces by soaking attacks which is probably more worse, definitely more anticlimatic.
If it worked against units in bases it would be a different story. Also it is only worth it in the case of bunkers, as in all other cases direct attacks are simply better from a resources spent perspective due to collateral damage from them being able to kill units. After all, direct attacks don’t kill your units when they’re done inflicting damage to the enemy, so thecnically you can use them next turn, while reactor overload guarantees the minerals are lost and gone forever.
That and honestly he could have just spaced the bunkers apart differently, not like zones of control would slow me down anyway, since I would just use a probe or chopper which ignore ZOCs to get to the tile first and next move a ground unit there. ZOCs are also ignored if your unit is already on the destination tile. Actually did that during the kamikaze run with a probe.
I will admit however that it is broken that a unit without any moves left can still be ordered to self-destruct with reactor overload and do damage.
Couldn't beat me in time for Kurgan 2.0 despite your massive advantage so you used a nigger exploit that turns the game into retardoland. Yeah we didn't have a rule against it yet but it was a faggot move.
Couldn't beat me in time for Kurgan 2.0 despite your massive advantage so you used a nigger exploit that turns the game into retardoland. Yeah we didn't have a rule against it yet but it was a faggot move.
Or maybe, after 3 games of non-stop total war (with one very short total war in game 2) where either you or merc drag me into it, I just want to build pretty little bases in peace and LARP Utopia a bit for a change.
Whether the metagame is more retardo with doomstacks in bunkers or GLA-LARP is debatable. I could have as well put down a bunker next to yours, with a billion designated defender scouts to soak any counterstrike after landing, plus some artillery to soak a few barrages, and kill those dudes in your maginot line across 2-3 turns, if it was banned or not a mechanic or I was simply still ignorant of self-destruction's capabiltiies. If enough of my units would survive to perform two attacks I would be more or less in the same position as far as damage inflicted is concerned, possibly some of your dudes would die while assaulting my bunker.
I assumed you knew and thus assumed you would have no remorse in using self-destruction against me and played as such. Considering all the other stunts you pulled in the past against me, such as needlejet stack protection and mass upgrades through the designer to avoid losing turn on units, that was what I expected. Seems I am not an expert on what is considered a dick move in drunkswede PBEM culture and what is bro-approved but whatever.
As far as I'm concerned kamikazi is not against the rules and a legitimate strategy this game, although it will result in stupid shit and we will have to discuss whether we want a rules change afterwards.
As far as I'm concerned kamikazi is not against the rules and a legitimate strategy this game, although it will result in stupid shit and we will have to discuss whether we want a rules change afterwards.
We can ban it next game, I honestly don't mind. I'll go with the bro consensus, as long as it is made clear what it is before the game.
We also need to do something about marine detachment, since stack capture is retarded especially that it works with long range fire (nobody used it like that yet, but yeah). That's the only other unaddressed prosper-tier feature.
Lastly I think there is too much of a tech gap between the weather paradigm which gives land raising/lowering and the actual tech, with also the land raising tech being on a different tech path from the paradigm (resonance>colonial aviation>magnetic acceleration - military techs!). This results in the paradigm giving even more of a ridiculous advantage to whoever gets it, apart from the terraforming bonus, just when the supertile improvements finally come into play. From my side either make the paradigm later, or move the land raising to the same tech path but one tech later, or whatever. Paradigm is one of the few economics projects that pay for themselves fast.
But those are subjects for the next game preparations anyway and this one is not yet over.
Elegy, is it possible to remove artifacts as a unit from the game the same way you removed spore launchers? We were wondering how you did it. Kalin used a workaround by making a scenario for that this game, but that lead to a few issues, including the difficulty level screw up. Ideally we would just nerf the odds of getting artifacts with a sea transport from pods, but that is not possible without exe haxxing I think.
You mean Spartan rush to transport foil tech to fish artifacts? I mean I get the idea, but it leads to snowballing as the odds are too good, especially with early game universal translator (same tech as planned) that the mod adds. Last game for example Merc could have been 100 turns ahead in tech with all the artifacts he fished out and put into projects as Believers. He was less ahead (but still tens of turns) in tech only because he spent 6 artifacts to get the citizen's defence force and those free perimeters. I would have just cashed them in (maybe all but 2 or 3 to rush the project), maybe he ran out of nodes or just felt like taking that project for himself or to deny it from me, I dunno.
We were discussing giving Sparta POWER immunity before this game to beef them up since -3 industry is just plain awful, although together with bringing their morale down to +2 as the discussion started if the +3 morale they get currently in the mod is not too much. Maybe they should just get more police to help their builder game with cheap drone control, or negative police/pacifism immunity so that they could run market more easily. Their main problem is their unique power which should be an advantage, free prototypes, is plain shit and the worst out of the factions (SMAX factions do not exist, obviously).
Yang gets negative inefficiency immunity (or penalty reduction in this mod?) on top of free perimeters, Zakharov gets one extra tech and free nodes, Lal gets free talents and +2 base size cap, Miriam gets a unique attack multiplier that stacks with other multipliers, Morgan gets extra commerce energy (even if AI diplo makes it useless) plus cash (not in this mod), and while the Gaian +1 food in fungus is not spectacular, it can save you some terraforming effort before a pop-boom. Even ignoring the existence of the skunkworks and even ignoring the other things you can do to build prototypes faster/at a lower cost (cheapest design and unit scrapping in base), this power kicks in in so few situations it is simply irrelevant regardless of play-style.
Is there some way you can remove industry penalty when building units only?
I can understand Spartan struggling with infrastructure but military manufacturing should not be an issue.
Either way we're all bros here and I did use the nigger move right back at you to wipe out your army. HQ would of course have fallen anyway but it would have taken you more effort and extra turns which was what I wanted to engineer. Self-destruction takes zero skill and using it like this cannot be compared to the needlejet blocking that was only ever used to wipe out that turn-staller Slowzil (although sure, you didn't get that at the time).
I would strongly recommend banning self-destruct from here on because you haven't even seen it at its worst yet, remember reactor type and weapon strength up to 10 increases the damage so with fusion reactors all you need is two bio shard units or three plasma gun units and you can wipe out everything the enemy can ever throw at you, air, sea, armour or terrain, nothing matters. Just a handful of throw-away units and they're gone. Now factor in the use of hover tanks, long-range needlejets, drop pods and the Space Elevator. Retardoland man!
Kalin, do you want it banned already this game from now on or just next game,? Not sure which exactly you mean. I'm up for either but I just need clear info on what is the gentlemens' agreement on the issue for now and avoid chaos.
How long it would take me to take your HQ without both the option of using it on my side and the threat of self-destruction from your side is grounds for lots of speculation and what-ifs. I would definitely play differently and prepared for TURNS forces for some-kind of bunker crawl towards the HQ like you did last game against me. Too many variables to say if it would take me longer or faster, lots of options I dismissed precisely because I feared getting kamikaze'd first.
I'm sceptical as to how often two orbital drop or needlejet sandpeople-LARPers would be able to encounter units clustered around enough to inflict more damage than it cost to build and kill themselves. I can however see how fucking annoying that would be regardless of its actual effectiveness, especially considering the interceptor-blanketing I did last game when Merc was getting his Space Elevator, so point taken on the retardoland.
Is there some way you can remove industry penalty when building units only?
I can understand Spartan struggling with infrastructure but military manufacturing should not be an issue.
I think it'd be better for this game if it was banned right on the spot before it gets any worse, but it's up to you guys of course.
(As for Sparta, I thought we actually gave them both +3 MORALE and power impunity in the end which means easy elites and +2 SUPPORT in Power which offsets the starting INDUSTRY hit. Gravy has built a powerful faction and I don't think the faction is weak anymore.)
Are we banning self-destruction already this game effective immediately or not? From my side and Kalin's it's a clear yes, but it would be good to have clear consensus to avoid any misunderstandings and accusations of shamefur dishorobale actions before the game is done.
That's already a majority. I'm personally more neutral on the subject, but it is stupid that kamikazi makes suicide needlejets (very classic kamikazi, that) much better missiles than conventional missiles will ever be, plus you can extend their range with fuel cells. With a 10 attack fusion needlejet, a single needlejet self-destruct will take multiple adjacent stacks of hydrogen power units from 100% to 0, and with 2 needlejets it'll kill fusion power stacks. It also means that the bunker crawl gets turned into a colony pod base crawl instead, encouraging ICS for tactical reasons.
Ban it. There there might need to be discussion about bunker crawl too, if terrorist chest bombs are the only decent counter.
For Sparta, I'm pretty sure we did end up with 3 MORALE and power impunity. I've done alright with that. A better player would likely do better. But I've noticed those bonuses overlap. A lot. A point in SUPPORT would be more helpful than that third point in MORALE and still fit the survivalist theme without being overpowering.
You mean Spartan rush to transport foil tech to fish artifacts? I mean I get the idea, but it leads to snowballing as the odds are too good, especially with early game universal translator (same tech as planned) that the mod adds. Last game for example Merc could have been 100 turns ahead in tech with all the artifacts he fished out and put into projects as Believers. He was less ahead (but still tens of turns) in tech only because he spent 6 artifacts to get the citizen's defence force and those free perimeters. I would have just cashed them in (maybe all but 2 or 3 to rush the project), maybe he ran out of nodes or just felt like taking that project for himself or to deny it from me, I dunno.
Yeah that's what I did last game. I basically dicked around all game and had zero tech speed, leaning on lots of podding and Universal Translator to stay in the tech race. Of course I also let Kalin just probe everything from under me without exactly giving a fuck, so that tech dominance didn't last, but it was plain that if I bothered to secure myself against probe teams and scouted a bit more aggressively, I would've technologically outpaced everyone last game despite having basically no economy and no tech speed.
For Sparta, I'm pretty sure we did end up with 3 MORALE and power impunity. I've done alright with that. A better player would likely do better. But I've noticed those bonuses overlap. A lot. A point in SUPPORT would be more helpful than that third point in MORALE and still fit the survivalist theme without being overpowering.
An extra point of SUPPORT actually is somewhat overpowering. 1 point of SUPPORT is the only thing that makes Believers good builders with their tech handicap and the resulting terraformer army pays off too. You give Spartans +1 SUPPORT and every Spartan player will sit in Police State forever (except when pop booming) because now he has +3 POLICE and +3 SUPPORT doing it. Suddenly you will notice that Spartans have too good of a builder game because they can sit there, fortify all their bases, and crank out terraformers everywhere without any penalties. Police State has already become a lot more powerful for Spartans in mod thanks to everyone having clean scout patrols, giving Spartans very cheap support-free drone suppression.
I'd sooner suggest bringing everyone but Spartans down to 1 extra terraformer (which also solves the issue with Believers faction file not being able to handle 2 terraformers).
Retardoland or not it sure makes for a memorable game. For me. I always suspected that Lal is brown for a reason. So, I say, this time go full inshallah!
*furiously flipping through pages of non-consensual pwn*
