ALPHA 48C Military Post: Stochasic Goblins

Links to:

• Current Threat Analysis v48-C
• Intimidating Bandits v48-C

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This is primarily about the Fishpeople Raiders, as you have options to deal with bandits and foreign nations, see the Current Threat Analysis for more details.

So I remembered a while back that other factions (eg: fish people, bandits) were not supposed to be goblins only dealt with by shooting them. Now, be it hostile parties spawning (in particular fishpeople raiders or hostile foreign nations) to RNG just causing violence to suddenly occur (colonists have a bit of free will and can cause a conflict to suddenly start, mostly with wandering fishpeople). At that point, you can only deal with the hostile entities by Purging them with Superior Firepower. Though you may survive if they just leave instead of finishing the job.

Thus they would seem to be stochasic goblins. You may or may not end up with no choice but to shoot them. As a result, you have to have the ability to shoot them or dodge via diplomacy.

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Depending on loadout, there is a kink in your cost of military strength. If you start off with 3 spare pistols then you can put 3 people into your starting NCO group and that gets you 4 guys with guns. However, if you do not have those guns, or if you need to build up more, then currently you have to go into some production chains to get guns.

 

I have found that setting your policies to "kill all fishpeople" and "kill all bandits" seem to mostly nullify their threat and thus paradoxically seems to let you get away with a smaller military. So long as you let them come to you, anyway.

 

Since it seems bandits and fishpeople can come on the map and hang around (they don't starve etc unlike you) they can rapidly scale up their threat whereas it costs the player to maintain military.

So it would seem that as early as you can, it makes sense to start nipping them in the bud as it were... which was one potential strategy.

 

It's worth considering that new encampments of bandits and fishpeople will continue to spawn fresh through the play session (and they may attack each other), so an early policy of hostility may not necessarily cull their numbers, long-term.

 

We seem to be working the calculus differently, as it's also possible that all the bandits gang up in that event to attack you at once, then you'll get it good from them.

Working from the back it seems logical to take your losses as early as you can afford them when they are small. You can keep killing them as your new workers spawn.

The difference is if you have extra people and use them now rather than waiting until you're forced to, you don't have to feed them inbetween.

I'm trying to work out exactly what scales (you need more farmers and cooks with more population), as it seems at some point you should have people to spare past a certain critical size. There's also having to repair modules of course...

 

If you use the foreign office to "demand tribute" the bandits that give you goods will become allied to you, and will fight anything that's hostile to you. You can use them as a kind of defense.

 

I usually start with the "military" starting package so that I can have extra weapons and mines (can be really useful in some situations, if well placed), so I'm quite safe on that side. I have to say that guns are only a starting problems, during the game you can easily get more weapons from the raiding parties, making the crafting sort of unnecessary. I think I'm pretty lucky because, though I often get games where I have a lot of badit camps (and often they are next to one another, so a military mission would end up attacking not one camp, but two or three because of proximity), I've never ended up confronting huge raids, or, at least, not bigger than 5-6 bandits (and at that point I had two full military squads, so it was not really a big trouble). Moreover, in recent games allied or neutral military often attack bandit camps, greatly reducing their threat-level, if not killing completely one or two bandit factions. Fishpeople can also help... In my recent experience fishpeople are the most frequent cause of bandit-faction extermination...

P.S.

HAPPY NEW GEAR!

 

Actually it occurred to me... can you make a wall (building 1 square thick) all around your colony and then just remove all the access doors when under threat...


Also, your military (if being attacked) has a pretty nice advantage. Your non-fighting colonists can soak up damage.


First try:
Attacked by bandits (hostile)
Attacked by bandits (let them steal our stuff)
Attacked by fishpeople (colonist provoked them)
Attacked by bandits (hostile)

Yes, I was thinking that too.



Kate Tingasket survived the fishpeople and was later healed of her two afflictions. She went on to lead a massed sword charge against bandits. It succeeded. I stopped there.

You'd be hard pressed to make this stuff up. Just noticed this occurred before the healing (Kate was the first one to be treated in the colony)



Hmm, wonder if 10+ mix of redcoats and militia with only 1 pistol can beat like 4... 5...6? bandits.

 

Maintaining peaceful relations with the bandits and fishpeople can have positive dividends, as well. The fishpeople occasionally grace you with mysterious cubes of meat, bushels of bones (useful as fertilizer), baskets of scrap iron (can be used in place of iron ingots), and best of all bushels of sand (which is necessary for making glass, and is otherwise very difficult to obtain).

Interaction with the bandits is more complicated, but you can also extract tribute from the bandits, and bribe them to defend your colony through the foreign office. Or firebomb their camps and steal their weapons for yourself, of course.

 

Has fertilizer been implemented?

 

You can (could?) get bushels of sand in sufficient quantities from mine shafts.

 

Oddly, I have two basklets of scrap iron, but I couldn't seem to use them to make a pistol that needed an iron ingot.

 

You have to smelt them: if not changed, they act as an equivalent for hematite ore... (It's also kind of logical if you think about it...)

 

I duno. I had a major bandit raid with a single half strength millta squad in some games and in others it never occurs even with 3 or 4 full squads of trained redcoats fully equiped with muskets.

 

Yeah I thought so!

But no, I had scrap iron, coal, charcoal and an order to smelt iron ingots. Nothing... Was something broken? Anyway I just went out and got enough hematite ore to make a pistol for everyone.

Actually, I wonder if it's because the bandit event does some sort of check and the game doesn't send them in if the 5-man group will encounter 15 armed redcoats...

 

If that's the case I would be disappointed. (Also, I was referring to the large scale multiple bands working together events).
That would make it so the game never makes any interesting moves when you are strong and only attacks when you will take heavy early damage.

Actually I think the game (currently) has some general weaknesses in the difficulty curve. Sure, its easy to fall over early on, but at some point I always stop caring about raids and cultists, I simply have too many options and they don't have the teeth to oppose me, regardless of diplomatic stance. In the end they end up more a threat to each other as the map gets more populated.

Foreign powers would be a potential help there, but in most colonies hostile foreign groups simply never appear. (to the point I really had trouble remembering their typical equipment / numbers), and I think you would still have problems with the bandits / fishmen as 1st line of defence approach.

 

For those it makes sense that your general bandit faction standing would be important. So if bandits love you, it seems unlike they would all get together to kill you, let's say there are other colonies they can kill (you know, the failed nameless colonies referenced when you get immigration events)

Yeah that's what I was thinking of as Stochastic Goblins, basically your only choice is to have the guns and be able to shoot them.

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Before the foreign office I think bandits could always just attack when they wanted.

Before certain changes, other nations' armies always went through your colony. Since that has changed, even if you get the hostile ones, they probably will miss your colony. It seems they come in groups of 6 though, so you probably would be able to kill them with 2 decently armed squads.

Bandits, all foreign nations, and fishpeople all hate and kill one another on sight. Ironically if you have tons of bandits (Friendly) and fishpeople (Friendship) cluttering the map, they provide a type of shield to your colony since an actual hostile army might run into them before hitting you.


Right now it seems to me that:
1. Bandits (probably most important threat) - Diplomacy neuters them. In fact you can apparently farm their drops/tents.
2. Foreign armies (only if hostile) - Not any more threatening than bandits (bandits also have size 6 groups) but likely to just miss your colony.
3. Fishpeople - A lot of them will be peaceful if you always click on Friendship options. Game does spawn raiders (up to 6 I think) but they are pretty weak, most are melee and maybe they have a (spine) gun or (urchin) grenade. Possibly the most important early threat, 5 redcoats with pistols should be enough to kill them I think.

 

A setup I liked using was:
Overseer: Jezeel Rifle (range 18)
4 Soldiers: Carbine (range 14)

My guess is other things equal, the overseer stops further from the enemy to shoot, while the other soldiers need to close a bit more.


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Well, I witnessed a trader/fishpeople fight in my fields. While an urchin grenade thrown injured my colonists, thankfully no one in my colony responded (well, we would have wiped out both sides) afterwards we buried all the corpses..

However, what is really amusing is my wheat plants were unaffected by the explosion.

 

Heh, soon we will end up rolling dice on a bandit fight no matter what. Nothing like a good old arrival process for a Sudden Military Strength Check. With guns.

Will keep this space updated once the new goblins hit us (probably first on an experimental).

 

I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill 'em all.