Diplomatic Victory for Bloodland

[Maerchen]

Diplomatic Victory for Bloodland on Vonono IV

Heya, Maerchen here. I have had fun reading and learning from these AARs so I decided to do one by myself.

TL;DR: Use of Plea of Friendship, Propose Peace, Offer Protection, Offer Client, Unification and Annexation on the minors from a mere cap III foreign affairs director with Propaganda Assistant and Medal of Merit lead to a peaceful coexistence with 4 major regimes and ultimately to a victory without a lot of combat.

Played stratagems are marked like this.

I played this game on 1.05 beta 13 with naked hard start no council and slow research speed, with a focus on airforces as I wanted to dabble with that for the first time.

My initial government decisions were meritocracy – commerce – mind.

Bloodland starts out on a blue heavy forest on this strange, oxygen deprived planet, Vonono IV, orbiting a white star at 6 AE with an air pressure and gravity of 0.3 compared to Terra. The planet had a lot of dissolution accidents with nuclear reactor mishaps and a bit of alien life forms, spiders and AI sentinels. No rain, and no lakes.

Initial Council board member and new member of the senate became a good CAP IV junior, the supreme commander just icing the cake at cap V.


Bloodlands first encounters Ripplemark, a farming minor to the south. Its capital Rippletown 1600 km (8hx) south of Deepspring, our capital, bordering Bordard Pax, a republican major SW of it.

Contacted by rebels who are dissatified with the border friction with Bordard Pax, we get an offer to incite rebellion for a mere 250 credits. Bloodmark sells everything in stock off to get those credits, as even if we do not get to grab Rippletown the additional militia forces will come in good use. Bloodland officials bribe the rebels, move in striking distance to the capital with three regular infantry units, declares the war and ends its turn.

This has never happened before in my SE experience, but the rebels spawn in Rippletown after Bordard Pax had attacked in its turn and take the city in a Coup d’État, making it a regular zone with 100% happiness instantly. Bloodland manages to establish a border to Bordard Pax two hexes away from their capital Bordard, which in turn made it very easy to control relations over the time.

After now heading south we cut off Bordard Pax as we reach the south pole.and meet Poitmont Pax, another republican major who tried to sneak east. Having cut off both majors in the west, Bloodland now moves north, west and east and expands its borders. The interior director supplies us with promising Junior and Talented recruits of capacity 3-5 who in turn find their place as economic, military and model research councils, while the Supreme council supplies us with a steady flow of intel on the surrounding minors, mostly wild lands and monsters.

In the east Gottborn zone is discovered, ruled by theocratic blackmailers, just not yet hostile to us.

As foreign council is established, thanks to the foreign affairs leader with a Medal of Merit (+10 Cha skills) and a Propaganda Assistant(CHA +10 attribute), Bloodland takes advantage of a crude blackmail attempt, pays off the bribe with 400 credits, gains 10 relation from this and with the assistance of a Shadow Diplomat we wrestle a Non-Aggression Pact out of this, making the theocracy quiet docile.

The same happened to all major regimes, and with Lozeridor in the far east as well, the last republican major on this planet. Bloodland made sure all were happy with trade agreements while eying their expansion and cutting it off when possible. This made Deepspring zone the biggest problem itself, as there were no minor neighbors nearby, stretching the adminstration to a late game 90% admin strain penalty with assets far far away. Bloodland had really big problems getting access to resources early on, the only ice mine with only 60k in it, and IP was scarce, too, so the expansion depended a lot on moving into the unknown and then retreating to supply chains until the first industry was established, which took a very long time.

Bloodland diplomacy thrived as we got diplomatic control over six of seven minor regimes, as we Offer Protection, Unification and Annexation them over time.

We were lucky with the Mainframe AI in our capitals secret chamber, our governor managed to get VTOL engine and payload optimization discovery from it before it shut down. Several Ancient Archives were helpful too, giving us full discovery and research of Helicopter engines, Metal Soil filtration, Cluster Bombs, Volcanic energy tapping, and Laser Rifles.

Bloodland generated most of the required fate points via Militia Loss of Faith, a 2FP generating strat card for zones. Our senate wasn't shy of using Paranoia and Desease, too, as they have some synergy, generating unrest and fear and somewhat cancelling themselves out a bit. Those came in play early as Bloodland was single zone country.

Midgame, around turn 50: As Bloodland just had discovered, modelled and operationalized light tanks, containing the major regimes and establishing road access to our northern protectorates, Poitmont Pax invaded one of our vassals, making him a regular zone instantly. In the west. Like, far west.

Our tanks some 10 hexes away from establishing border and getting supply there, spiders in the way and no supply, Bloodland senate and made a secondary SHQ with a cap V commander in the cut-off zone without knowing how to use it.

If there is a guide out how, when and where to establish a 2nd SHQ, please give me a message in this thread.

Bloodland adminstration now watched around 20k militia troops wither and die until the last hundreds were in supply as the neighboring minor was annexed and a road connection through the heavy forests of Vonono IV finally was established and the spiders were defeated.

While expanding, Bloodland used Send Spy to get intel on far away minors, and after establishing recon 1 on them, Proposed Peace while not having established borders with them. That lead to auto-successes on slavers, cityless nomads, hostile AI and arachnids.

Bloodland now had successfully taken over all remaining minors and established non-aggression pacts with all but Bordard Pax, as victory score reached 47 %. The Airforce consisted of fighter-bomber attack helicopters with medium rockets and 8 hex OP range and 297/664 soft/hard attack.

It took Bloodland some 10 turns to redirect their tanks to the capital, replenish them with new models and upgrade it to a light tank corps, but in the meantime the foreign affairs did their job and reduced the relation to them to 55 via Expel Diplomats, Provocation and Limit trade, enough to start a war. After two turns, there was no Bordard Pax territory no more, and Bloodland ruled the planet, victory was ours!


TIL and questions:


Airforce is brutal effective
You can look up the air commands when right-clicking an air unit.
The Send Spy/Propose Peace combo is the best pest control in my book. Vic might want to change that.
Foreign affairs council is very effective in gaining minors.
Do not Annex/unite until a road connection is established
Check your governors regularly, as when you call them you can get progress in event chains like Mainframe AI, Courtesan, retired general, etc.
Mainframe AI is a very good event chain, if you can get a good oratory governor.
Your Interior council director can generate excess 2FP via Mission Impossible, a leadership 150+ skill roll. So CHA is important for your interior as well as her main stat, INT.
Check your zone borders regularly and paint them to minimize admin strain.

How do you use 2nd SHQ?
How do I add pictures?
Is there any way to copy/paste the texts of SE if someone incapable of posting pics is doing AARs?




Thank you for reading, thank you Vic for this amazing game!

[Soar_Slitherine]

ORIGINAL: Maerchen
This made Deepspring zone the biggest problem itself, as there were no minor neighbors nearby, stretching the adminstration to a late game 90% admin strain penalty with assets far far away.

Are you aware that you can found new zones yourself to reduce admin strain? There's a checkbox in the top right corner when ordering a new asset to be build, or you can use the 'New Zone' button in the right-side bar on an existing asset.

While expanding, Bloodland used Send Spy to get intel on far away minors, and after establishing recon 1 on them, Proposed Peace while not having established borders with them. That lead to auto-successes on slavers, cityless nomads, hostile AI and arachnids.

You may want to report that one as a bug.

[Maerchen]

I founded one city exactly for that reason. My colonists were just so slow streaming in into it that I wasn't eager to found a second one.

I think I did report it sometime ago.

[WCG]

That's very interesting. Unfortunately, as I said on Steam, I have no idea how to make a second SHQ. (I know it can be done. I just couldn't figure it out when I needed to do it myself, some months ago.)

I like to found new cities, though - mostly for role-playing purposes. And if you've got logistics, you can easily send colonists to your new cities, so they can grow just about as quickly as you want them to grow (at the expense of the population in other cities, of course, but you can choose which cities will recruit colonists just as you can which cities will supply military recruits).

Bill

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: WCG

That's very interesting. Unfortunately, as I said on Steam, I have no idea how to make a second SHQ. (I know it can be done. I just couldn't figure it out when I needed to do it myself, some months ago.)

Using Raise Formation you can choose "New SHQ"

[Maerchen]

I did form a 2nd SHQ, but wasn't able to figure out how and that I had to supply it with something or transfer stuff from the 1st.