The problem with the simulation-strategy genre is the games are all concept and no gameplay. They are like that satiric rpg where you gain experience by clicking a single button for hours, except there are ninety buttons, two-hundred stats, and graphs.
I think that's pretty ridiculous. Anyone who actually enjoys those games knows there is gameplay. There's a big difference between good players of Civilization or Alpha Centauri and bad ones, and the difference amounts to more than just being better at memorizing the buttons, and a game of that genre can be very riveting and exciting, just not fast-paced.
Here's an excerpt from a guide to strategies to Alpha Centauri (my apologies for the length of the excerpt). Can you really read that and say there's no gameplay? And note that that's just the military aspect of the game, there are many more aspects, war is a fraction of the gameplay involved in a good strategy game. For the rest of the article, it's here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/96102/2480Specifics: Fighting a Defensive War:
The overriding purpose of fighting a defensive action is to preserve your bases
and make sure they do not fall into enemy hands. Builders, you'll want to read
this. The best way to fight a defensive war is to be ready for it at any moment.
This means prototyping regularly and often. It means making sure that all your
bases have garrisons with the best available armor (and AAA capability, as soon
as you get it). It means making sure that your frontier bases have at least
twice the garrison strength of the bases in your interior, and it means making
damned sure you've got a core of attack-capable troops (probably the guys you
still have hanging around from weapons prototyping). It would also be helpful if
you had some artillery units handy, so as to shell damaged units until your
attackers can get in to finish them off.
To fight a defensive war, about all you need is up to date garrisons, a small
standing army, and some probe teams. If you have those things, your opponent
will need a truly large force to successfully invade.
When faced with an attacking army, here's what you do:
Look at how your enemy is approaching. Try to figure out which bases are most
threatened, and consolidate your defenses there.
Move probe teams up to take advantage of any misstep by your opponent. If you
can find a single unit in a square and subvert it, you've just made yourself
stronger and your opponent weaker, and time is on your side. Your opponent has
to bring reinforcements in from some distance, while yours are arriving right at
the scene of the battle.
Upgrade any formers you have in the area to armored variants and use them to
mess up his Zones of Control. This will stall his advance, and armored formers
in the forest or on rocky terrain are very hard to take out.
Fight from your bases as much as possible, or, barring that, make sure your best
attack-troops can end their turns back inside a base so as to decrease their
exposure.
Defend any Monoliths close to the battleground with the best garrison forces you
can get there, to deny your opponent that resource to heal damaged troops.
Use armored formers and crawlers to envelope or cut off a part of the enemy's
army. Once it's isolated, you can deal with the smaller elements of the force
one at a time, smashing one while the other tries to get through and rescue it.
This will take pressure off of your bases and give them more time to crank out
units.
Attrition is your friend, when you are fighting a defensive action. Your
reinforcements are close at hand, and it's likely that his are not. Grind your
opponent down slowly. Make every square he advances into a very expensive
proposition. If you make the advance expensive enough, he'll either give up and
go home, or you'll wipe out the entire army. Either way, he'll likely find
someone less-prepared to pick on, which is exactly what you want.
If it appears likely that you cannot hold a base, then burn it down. Adopt a
scorched earth policy and retreat back to the next line of your bases. Leave
your opponent nothing to work with. You can rebuild later, once the threat is
gone.
Take note of the composition of your enemy's army: Is he using lots of
artillery? If so, crank out the best attack rovers (no armor) you can get to the
field quickly, and wipe them out. Is he using lots of rovers? Great! Upgrade
your garrisons to Comm-Jammers and laugh at him as he tries in vain to take your
bases. Is he infantry-heavy? Again, build fast-attack rovers and meet him in the
field. (This is the main reason that Momentum Players get beaten. They tend to
focus on very narrow army construction....most often, they make LOTS of rovers
with little to no armor and the best weapons they can afford. That's okay, but
the first time they take their all-rover force into a prepared opponent's
territory will be the last they see of their much cherished army.)
Destroy anything that might be of value if it seems likely that your opponent
will take a given position. Deny him access to your bunkers, sensor arrays, and
even forests. Again, once he is gone, you can rebuild all that.
If your enemy brings a colony pod with him, do everything you can to take it out
before he builds a base. If it's too late to prevent that, try and slip an
armored probe team in to subvert it, or, use a foil probe team, as the base will
often be coastal, and therefore vulnerable to that.
Build one or two transports and drop off some sturdy defenders (and one or two
decent attackers) behind your enemy. This will give him something else to focus
on besides the bases you're trying to defend, and, if he doesn't focus on them,
it will give you a new direction from which to strike. Either way, it will help
your cause. Put probe teams in all your bases, and more than one in your exposed
bases. Count on your opponent trying to infiltrate you, and if he does, he'll
have to contend with one or more probe teams first. Do not make that an easy
thing for him, and if you have technological superiority, you will want to
preserve that at all costs. Probe teams can do that for you.
One final note about fighting a defensive war is this: Best of all is if you can
stop your opponent before he even lands his troops. To that end, when you get
missile techs, build a few and put them on your borders in "patrol mode." Any
unfriendly ships come toward your territory, the missiles will take them out,
saving you a whole lot of time and trouble.
Fighting an Offensive War:
If you want to take the fight to your opponent, there are several things you can
do to make your life easier. First, and by far most important, is to infiltrate
his datalinks (assuming you're not planetary governor). You need to know what
kind of defenses your opponent has at the ready, and what's in his production
queues. Information is the most powerful weapon you have.
When preparing to fight, you need to make sure you don't bite off more than you
can chew. Start small. Select one, maybe two objectives and bring sufficient
force to secure those objectives.
The most important thing you will need in order to fight an extended action on
someone else's soil (outside of an army, of course) is a base of operation. That
could be a coastal monolith, or perhaps an isolated base. Either way, before you
proceed with a general invasion, you will want to make sure you have a place to
bring your battered forces to get them combat ready again.
Your best bet is to subvert one of your opponent's small border outposts and use
that as your staging point. You take the base without fighting, you preserve
that base's garrison, and you give yourself a staging ground.
Second best is to bring a colony pod with you when you land the attack force.
Just be sure your army contains some covert operatives, so your newly founded
base does not get subverted out from under you!
Last, would be to make use of a Monolith in the area as your staging ground. If
you can take one easily, it gives you a place to repair your units quickly, but
it still does not solve the reinforcement problem if things get dicey. Still,
it's better than nothing, and if it's what you have to work with, then it's what
you have to work with.
Construct a well-balanced attack force. Mix it up to confuse your opponent.
Don't rely exclusively on infantry or rovers, because there's an easy counter to
that. A mixed force is significantly harder to defend against.
Make sure you have enough cash to support the war. Nothing is worse than going
off to fight only to find out you can't support your army with covert ops
because you're strapped for cash. You must balance your rush building program
with saving cash if you know you will be going to war soon, because it's an
expensive proposition. You need funds to rush build garrison troops in conquered
bases, and rebuild infrastructure (especially anti-drone facilities). You'll
also need funds for troop subversions and such, so make sure you have the
bankroll to support your war effort (I'd recommend at least 1500 energy credits
per base on your "hit list.")
Create a diversion. If your plan is to take two coastal bases on the eastern
side of your enemy's empire, then start your war by subverting a base on the
western side to get his army off balance (or, land some troops on the western
side to start making trouble). If you're really devious, create a number of
diversions so that your opponent will pull himself apart trying to deal with the
various threats you've created (additionally, the more diversions you set up,
the more difficult it will be for your opponent to discern your true objective).
Make use of artillery to take out sensor arrays and to hammer beleaguered
defenders in the base you're after. Never give your enemy the chance to rest his
troops. If your goal is conquest, do as little damage to the infrastructure as
you can get away with. If your goal is to simply hurt your opponent for some
larger purpose (i.e., an ally of yours is on the way with the real invasion
force), then do as much damage as you can before your forces get whacked.
If you're not at technological parity, use your probe teams to get you there. If
you already are, use them (your probe teams) to stall his production or destroy
infrastructure. Anything to give you an edge.
The quicker you can secure your objectives, the better off you will be. You
don't have a ready supply of reinforcements (unless you've planned very far
ahead), and even if you do, your opponent can get reinforcements more quickly
than you can, so win your initial battles quickly, then drop to a defensive
stance to protect your newly acquired holdings. Once you are entrenched on your
opponent's land, you are MUCH harder to deal with than if you're simply a
marauding force.
Never miss an opportunity to subvert enemy troops, formers, crawlers, or
whathaveyou. Every unit you subvert can be put to some kind of use (even if all
you do is upgrade the former to an armored variant and use it to make sure your
units are at least double-stacked).
To Psi, or not to Psi?:
Lots of people love the mindworms, and I have to admit, I'm a pretty big fan of
them, but there's a time and a place for their use.
Specifically, if you know your opponent has a negative planet rating (which you
can keep track of after you've infiltrated his datalinks), by all means, bring
out the worms. Likewise, if you are weaker in technology than your opponent,
switch to Green and go with a worm-force. But, if you have technological
superiority, you're probably better off making use of it than using native life
forms. Still, adding a few worms to your attack force (for balance sake) is
probably not a bad idea, just don't go overboard unless you know it will net you
a big advantage (like if your opponent is fighting on the defensive and
maintaining his Market Economy, or again, if you're down in the tech race).
Advanced Combat Tips and Strategies:
Combat is the epitome of chaos and unpredictability. When armies clash, even if
differences in technology make it clear from the outset who the eventual victor
will be, there is absolutely no accounting or predicting what will occur between
here and there. If you think you can predict the subtle nuances, ebbs and flows
of a combat situation with any degree of certainty at all, my recommendation
would be to open up your own psychic hotline.
Having said that, let me stress from the beginning that this article will not
even attempt to cover every conceivable combat situation you might find yourself
in. Simply put, I'm not that good. Not even close. What I **DO** hope to
accomplish with the writing of this article is to stretch your mind a bit. To
perhaps change the way you look at both tactical and strategic situations and
provide some tools for judging the overall effects of choices made by both you
and your opponent. If these tools are applied correctly, then you need not worry
if you encounter an unexpected situation in combat, as you will feel more than
comfortable improvising your way out of it.
Early on in the Strategy Guide, we touched on the first two principles of battle
are:
Know Thyself, And Know Thine Enemy
That is the foundation for what lies ahead, and you can rely on those principles
with absolute certainty. If you do not know yourself, you have no way of
assessing your own capabilities, and if you do not know your enemy, you have no
way of understanding what you are up against. If you have neither of these, how
can you hope to fight a war?
If you're fairly new to the game of warfare, you might ask: "How exactly, do you
"know yourself?"" Specifically, you should know things such as:
How big is your army, including garrison forces?
If you were to launch an attack right now, this turn, how many units would you
have available, and what would they be?
Do you have a means of getting your forces to an enemy's homeland (transports,
landbridge, psi-gates, drops, or some combination of all of the above)
How many bases can you afford to commit to the war effort to replace lost
troops?
How long can you afford to fight a war?
What is my level of technology, relative to my opponent?
How many total bases do I have, relative to my opponent?
What are you hoping to accomplish by entering into this war?
If you cannot answer at least these questions, then you're probably not yet
ready to fight, and if you DO fight, you will likely be fighting an uphill
battle.
Likewise, initiates to the arts of war might ask "How exactly, do you know your
enemy?" And I would say, specifically, you should know or do these things at a
minimum:
INFILTRATE YOUR OPPONENT!!! (Nothing is more important than this!)
How many bases does my enemy have? Is it more bases than I have?
How large of an army can my opponent bring to bear on me? If he is attacking,
how will they be arriving (drop, psi-gate, transport, as above), if he is
defending, how good is his infrastructure?
How long can my opponent afford to fight a war?
What is my opponent hoping to accomplish by going to war with me, or, how will
my opponent likely react to my attack? (is he likely to hit back hard, or does
he have a tendency to shrivel up and surrender quickly)
Again, if you can't answer all of these questions at a minimum (and there are
plenty of others), then you're not ready yet.
Developer
