Well it is a GG from GG, Hive went sudoku on its turn, guess I really got the element of surprise.
Even if AO wants to fight to the last with his 6 or something bases we might as well start the new game now as it will not take much longer, as GG didn't kill anything so I can just send the Kurgan task force against AO in 4-6 turns to purge him. Can't call the supreme leader vote as I did not steal the tech that allows it and did not even infiltrate the Hive last turn for that matter
Would take longer to tech to it than purging AO as you will see below.
Usury is setting up a new game with an update to his mod we used here. I called dibs on Lal, since he always sucked except the game where Brozil played him. But there I saw how good he was getting so I stole his clay and good bases since he was next to me and would just overtake me eventually.
Want to make the UN great again in any case.
I will post a proper victory update later but for now here's a sneak peek of the forces I had (more details and full Hive vs Uni military stats in the victory update) and some comments:
3 Ariane Class AAA Submarine Cruiser Transports, all but one elite (some bug fails to add morale to units built before a switch to power) they were actually upgraded hastily a turn earlier from Soyuz class, Saturn V class and Falcon 9 class transports. Did a mass upgrade via the unit designer.
2 loaded to the brim with 8-2 fusion infantry with nerve gas plus a few 6 defence AAA defenders and the revolutionary AAA psi defence trooper design which I invented for the initial defence of myself and Brozil against gas (they wreck nerve gas jets/copters on defence, always 2:1 odds for them before planet/morale and prevent gas deployment as it is not allowed in Psi combat, so no pop damage!)
Only one of these transports had to in the end attack the elevator and only 2 troopers had to do it, still had 3 or 4 spare on the same transport.
The other transport would finish the job if needed, 6 or 7 more gas troopers, including only one marine, and defenders. In the end I sent it south to later go west after the Hive capital itself as the elevator went down more easily than expected. Would have mass upgraded troopers to marines now on turn 152 if the Hive was still around.
Last transport was full of probes, 5 of them, 2 died attacking the single elite fusion probe GG had at the elevator. First to actually probe went for random sabotage, usually this prioritize defence facilities in my experience but this time it took out the local crèche, went in again with random sabotage and this took down the perimeter. Last probe introduced a gene plague but it did jack shit to the units inside of the base because of the research hospital there, it did reduce the pop. I didn't get infiltration, if I knew that the gene plague would do shit I would go for that.
3 Pioneer Class missile cruisers with SAM/radar and fusion, one sank GGs boat blocking the one tile entrance to the bay. The two other tried to barrage the base to damage the troops inside but got cockblocked by Hive artillery. What surprised me was how good Hive artillery was on defence, did almost no damage to it. This just like the gene plague also failed to damage the defenders enough, if I didn't sabotage the perimeter I guess I would just brute force gas the base until it died losing a bunch of troops.
A Unity Class 8-6 elite fusion radar/AAA cruiser. It babysat the Maritime Institute mostly, earlier it guarded my last isle of the deep (only built two) when it was 90% damage after gaining an artefact when it was healing (even earlier it aided Fedora Tyrant and retreaded after shameful defeat of the ground troops). The isle itself sent my probes to Morgan that got caught by him, ever since then it just popped pods near the crater isle, south-west of the geothermal sea. Mostly though it popped isles which it killed barely surviving and spent 3-4 turns on repairing, at this point it was still 4 turns away from actually getting the artefact to a network node.
Lastly there were two BFR class Submarine Carriers with 6 defence (AAA I think would be better than sub for them, also the interface has issues accepting the design but after some button mashing it seem to work, could be a bug), each could carry 8 jets total but I did not have the time to fill them with that many. They are in the far right where the "L" loaded jets can be seen.
They got half filled so had 8 total on those two, mostly gas jets with 2 regular ones I upgraded last turn after the attack to gas via the designer (either there or on the 3rd carrier which was heading to purge Morgan). In fact when Kalin sudoku'd his corporate empire they were collecting planes off my shore and had to be rushed to aid the operation at all. Originally they were supposed to do a first strike on Manufacturing Warrens paving the way for ground troops, brute force through AAA if needed (there was no aerospace complex there).
In the end the jets were just barely in range to attack Factory Maze as I had to take the long way around to avoid deportation when the pact broke. Lost one jet, because it landed on the carrier the turn before and did not refuel to full yet (probably it landed on fumes originally). Still an improvement over not knowing how the fuck carriers work and crashing all my air units in prior games when trying them out.
All in all this represented between 50 to 60% of my offensive forces. The rest was mostly supposed to go after Morgan and the minority was stationed around my turf to counter orbital insertions should Yang break pact first and attack.
Power graph on the turn of the attack:
GG didn't fall behind me because of the war, for a long time when I was building units just after the second gaian war broke out he was focusing on facilities etc. I think the issue was it was easier for me to grow despite the war and I knew how to catch up. Also I really said fuck it to most facilities and just relied on psych budget (stapling before it) and built the bare essentials to grow more, GG meanwhile built a lot of those and eclipsed me in lab output. If it wasn't for pod popping with 9 movement cruisers that ignore fungus due to the xenodome and the artefacts they found my tech would be a joke, such was the price of war.
(read: purging corporate zealots) soon.
It will be quite ironic if we pull this off, considering Brozil got conquered first and restarted, only to get attacked again and reduced to two bases 
