Minor Newb Questions

[Elok]

Hooray for GOG.com, I finally got this thing yesterday! Only SMAC, not SMAX, but it's a start. But I already have a couple of questions:

1. Unit stats. They look pretty similar to Civ2's, and I gather that weapon makes attack value, armor defense value, chassis is movement and reactor, for some reason, is health. But does it work the same way as Civ2, with the obvious exception of firepower? I.E., only the defense strength matters if the unit is on the receiving end of an attack, while only attack strength matters for the aggressor? The game said something to imply that, but I want to make sure, because it makes no sense that a heavily-armored defender with hand weapons could shrug off an equally-armored attacker with moderately powerful armament.

Maybe I'm getting this all wrong, but to cut the rambling short, should a designated defender/garrison unit have crap weapons to save costs, but fantastic armor and reactor? Along with psi-defense and/or non lethal methods, etc., of course...conversely, should a needlejet I intend to reserve for bombing runs against a foe with no air-attack capacity not bother with armor at all? Not that such a situation is super-likely, I'm just using the question as an example.

2. Does it eventually get easier to tell what kind of terrain underlies the fugly graphics? I can generally tell where the fungus is, and arid is sort of recognizable, but whenever I want to build a base I have to squint and guess, or else fumble with the novel interface to scan each square to tell whether it's rolling or flat, moist or rainy. I miss the bit in Civ2 where you could just summon the cursor and move it around at will.

3. Zak seems grossly overpowered. I tried playing as Lal (balance is good for beginners, I figured) and everyone seemed to shoot ahead of me by every metric. Playing as the nerds, on the other hand, my free NNs AND research boost let me tech up and wipe out my supposed drone problem before it started, plus I got a big boost on terraforming. I suppose it's just a matter of playing style and/or higher difficulty...

[Lord Avalon]

Hooray for GOG.com

Indeed.

But I already have a couple of questions:

RTFM. Srsly. No, really - it's a good manual with a lot of info. 248 pages! You might also want to check out Vel's SMAX Guide.

1. Unit stats. They look pretty similar to Civ2's, and I gather that weapon makes attack value, armor defense value, chassis is movement and reactor, for some reason, is health. But does it work the same way as Civ2, with the obvious exception of firepower? I.E., only the defense strength matters if the unit is on the receiving end of an attack, while only attack strength matters for the aggressor? The game said something to imply that, but I want to make sure, because it makes no sense that a heavily-armored defender with hand weapons could shrug off an equally-armored attacker with moderately powerful armament.

Yes, SMAC is like an advancement of Civ2. Generally, attackers use their attack strength, and defenders their defense strength. An exception is an artillery duel, where it's attack vs attack. Better reactors give more hit points and lower mineral costs. And game combat doesn't always make sense.

Maybe I'm getting this all wrong, but to cut the rambling short, should a designated defender/garrison unit have crap weapons to save costs, but fantastic armor and reactor? Along with psi-defense and/or non lethal methods, etc., of course...conversely, should a needlejet I intend to reserve for bombing runs against a foe with no air-attack capacity not bother with armor at all? Not that such a situation is super-likely, I'm just using the question as an example.

With the base reactor a sole base defender will likely have attack 1 and best armor. If you are in a situation where you have the energy (SMAC $$) and can't support a lot of units, you might upgrade some infantry to best/best. Better reactors will enable you to have the best armor and better weapons than just the basic with no additional cost - play around with unit design to see. Air units are expensive to armor, so it's quite likely you won't put any on.

2. Does it eventually get easier to tell what kind of terrain underlies the fugly graphics? I can generally tell where the fungus is, and arid is sort of recognizable, but whenever I want to build a base I have to squint and guess, or else fumble with the novel interface to scan each square to tell whether it's rolling or flat, moist or rainy. I miss the bit in Civ2 where you could just summon the cursor and move it around at will.

Yes, a rolling square has a few rocks in it, flat has none. Moist has some green splotches, rainy more and darker green splotches. Shift+right click on a square and check the status view at lower left: it'll tell you elevation, type of terrain, and what improvements are present, if any.

3. Zak seems grossly overpowered. I tried playing as Lal (balance is good for beginners, I figured) and everyone seemed to shoot ahead of me by every metric. Playing as the nerds, on the other hand, my free NNs AND research boost let me tech up and wipe out my supposed drone problem before it started, plus I got a big boost on terraforming. I suppose it's just a matter of playing style and/or higher difficulty...

I don't think Zak is "grossly overpowered," but having the free tech and free network nodes helps boost research. Drone problems will happen at lower pop at higher difficulties, so you might try moving up when you play Zak again.

[Elok]

I actually did read the manual. Most of it, anyway--the questions I asked were about parts the manual didn't explain super-clearly. I also found Vel's guide on gameFAQs, though it looks to be more for strategy than basic bits of info like this. Thanks for responding!

[Flubber]

Garrisons

1. In the pre-airpower era, I recommend usually garrisoning with with 1--1-1 scouts for the most part-- For much of this time defenders best armour is a 3 while attackers often have immpact weapons. But then again I was always a proponent of active defense where you build some best-1-1 rovers and you have enough of a road system to hit them hard on their way in

In the airpower era where you may need guards more , my guys were often designed AA units with best armour and reactor. With an aerocomplex they did quite well.

But always ensure you toy with the design since with higher level armours you may find you can build an upgraded weapon on a unit for "free"--- generally though, best-best-best units are often a luxury that cost way too much when compared with the cost of "lesser" units


I found in most of my games my garrisons would start as simple 1-1-1 guys since they do as well against worms as anyone (assuming no empath or trance yet). Later many would get upgraded to 1 or police units or evenn high value attackers depending on the need

PLaying against the AI though I seldom garrisoned very much-- The goal is to be out there and killing their units on the way in. The AI attacks stupidly and particularly in the ground era it is fairly easy to set up a kill zone (think about a road, ideally on rocky terrain so it will cost an enemy all his movement to get on it. Your rovers can move up a tile, shoot and then move back a tile. In the most perfect situation you would even have a monolith to heal your guys. If you took care of your guys it was usually pretty easy to get some elite rovers spun up. Even two of these can massacre dozens of enemy AI units as they just keep coming and coming down the same routes

[Lord Avalon]

As Flubber says, scouts or trance scouts will be most of your garrisons. In fact if no one goes vendetta on you, the only more heavily armored garrisons might be your prototypes. (It is a good idea to build a prototype as soon as you can, and armor is cheap on infantry.) Unarmored rovers with best weapons will be your most active units, either in mobile defense or on the attack. Infantry are just so slow.

I usually play huge maps and fall on the hybrid/builder side of things, so I build very few attack infantry - a handful of marines and later drop troops, mostly. (I do like me some clean chaos amphibious rovers.) Although if you're Miriam on a small map, I imagine you'd send out a horde of impact infantry.

Hint: it is useless to put trance on a noncombat unit, but putting armor on makes it a combat unit, as in trance synthmetal transport. And you'll want to create an armored transport (even before trance) if you have any unity foils (move 2, cargo 1), because those don't upgrade to your basic unarmored transport foil (move 3, cargo 2) but do if there's armor.

[Elok]

I'm generally a pretty crappy TBS player. Right now I'm giving Zak a hand with my "Rent-a-cops" unit. Hand weapons, good armor which probably isn't necessary, double police power and clean reactor. I've got enough police bonuses that I think that adds up to four drones suppressed for one cheap unit which requires no support. And that's about the cleverest thing I've done, sadly. Oh well, I'll get better.

[Flubber]

I'm generally a pretty crappy TBS player. Right now I'm giving Zak a hand with my "Rent-a-cops" unit. Hand weapons, good armor which probably isn't necessary, double police power and clean reactor. I've got enough police bonuses that I think that adds up to four drones suppressed for one cheap unit which requires no support. And that's about the cleverest thing I've done, sadly. Oh well, I'll get better.

I had a unit called "Mall Cop" which was usually 1-1-1 clean police. ON many of my interior bases , that was all they ever needed. generally I was never much about defending-- worms have a 3-2 advantage if they attack you (assuming equal morale/lifecycle) and my recollection was that trance just made the odds equal. So my strategy near fungus was more about trying to have sensors and see them coming-- even a couple of high morale 1-1-2 rovers could be excellent for worm hunting (or capturing a worm almost made worms


Shipping-- I rarely armored my transports. Instead I would be more likely to try to send a transport with an escort. I found that an armored transport would likely take so much damage even from one attack that it either had to sit and heal or move when one more hit kills it. If I was pod popping I much preferred to have my foil take the hit and have the transport have a much better chance of surviving. If could time most of my sea exploration with a stint in green, I could capture some IoDs and have a small fleet going

Oh and here's a little trick if you are running green. Return a worm to the wild at an opportune moment (its badly damaged for instance) for the easy kill and the energy . Running with cha or dee you would often get 10 captured units and then even though I don't recall if the manual says it anywhere the chances of capture went way down. So if going to sea with a positive planet rating, kill most of your worms for the energy and then enjoy a much better capture rate with your ships-- and once you have IoDs you will never want to go back to transports since IoDs move effortlessly through the fungus

So Dee or Cha send a warship and capture your transport fleet of Iods -- Anyone else I would send warships to escort transports. The reality though is survivability at sea early can be hard. Your ships are slow and no matter what you do, if you pop a pod and 4-5 wildlife emerge, your nearby ships are likely dead

[Lord Avalon]

"Mall cop." Yes, clean police scouts are very useful. I build many.

The earliest transports I build probably aren't armored (certainly the first isn't, because I want to build that prototype ASAP), but while they're slow, unity foils are even slower and can carry only one thing, so I want to upgrade those. Also if I put trance on, it's also going to need armor.

While scouting the sea around your continent is quicker with a gun foil, if you have a low Police rating, military units outside your borders cause drones, so you might want to scout with transports. And later probe foils.

Flubber's right, the sea can be quite hazardous. But if you're stuck on a small continent, you have to cross the sea to find a place to expand.

@Elok - beelining Industrial Automation is important (if you're not on the warpath) for Wealth and supply crawlers, which send resources (especially minerals) back to base and speed up Secret Projects (much more so than disbanding scouts and probe teams). If you're Zak, Virtual World is a must have, as Network Nodes become free Hologram Theaters, and hey, you already have Network Nodes.

[Flubber]

Lord Avalon is correct-- the key and only early strategy for best play is that (except for probably the very smallest maps where you need weapons and rovers earlier) you need to get to Industrial Automation-- The only permissible deviation for building id to grab centauri ecology to get your formers working.


Zak-- everyone understands that he can be very powerful and some actually see him as overpowered. I never did really. He does have some huge early advantages and is very intuitive to play. But a research advanatage can easily be equalled in multi-player by two lesser researchers that are willing to trade and if research is equalized by probing or trade, then it comes down to how much Zak has translated his early advantage in reseaerch and getting crawlers first into infrastructure and special projects

I know Elok is only playing SMAC right now but another faction that many saw as very very powerful was the Drones with a research penalty and their industry bonus-- I played them with great success aganst the computer and even in multiplayer-- you would look so far back on the powergraph that no one fears you and trading tech is easy -- Against AI you would trade a bit and then plan a probe rape to vault yourself up. Against humans it would usually be a case where you would cooperate with the others against a leader. In either case though a Drone faction at anywhere near tech parity is awesomely powerful. People never knew what hit them. The Drones were harder to play no doubt but I saw enough games where a pretty decent human playing Zak got whipped to underestimate them.

If starting out I think Zak is a great chouice to learn how to whip the AI. Then Lal ( getting governorship so easy is so huge) and then Dee and try to learn to play with no FM and also learn the Green game. The Hive are immensely strong and worth a try as they are probably the best at shifting from building to conquest. Morgan-- oooh late in my Smax playing time I was really coming to love Morgan-- I never thought I was great with him but the power and cash that can come with them just from running wealth or from the FM wealth combination-- wow

The weak sisters of the original 7 are often cited as the believers and Spartans and they are far weaker on a larger or huge map. I have never seen either be regularly competitive on any of the larger maps favored in multiplayer games (or in particular in the no AI games we often created. To succeed they usually seemed to need smaller maps or adjacent AI so that their early military advantages could be telling-- I quite enjoyed kicking AI butt as the Spartans on the smaller maps but on the larger maps, all of the others coulld generally withstand the onslaught or crush it with better tech military or just greater numbers.

[Lord Avalon]

Elok, are you doing directed research? I guess I've assumed that, advising you to beeline, which you can't in blind research. Also, what difficulty are you playing at?

Re: the Human Hive. One thing I learned in Vel's guide that wasn't in the manual is that the Hive is "immune to inefficiency." I didn't notice this while playing either. Basically, you never go below 0 Efficiency. Yang already has +1 Growth, +1 Industry, and by selecting Planned gets +2 Growth, +1 Industry, while ignoring the -2 Efficiency. Also Police State: what -2 Efficiency? Of course his -2 Economy sucks, so you must build many bases (what efficiency penalty for too many bases?).

Edit: Morgan is tough for a beginner, but yes, having tons of energy is awesome. You can rush build to your heart's content.

[Flubber]

Elok, are you doing directed research? I guess I've assumed that, advising you to beeline, which you can't in blind research. Also, what difficulty are you playing at?

Re: the Human Hive. One thing I learned in Vel's guide that wasn't in the manual is that the Hive is "immune to inefficiency." I didn't notice this while playing either. Basically, you never go below 0 Efficiency. Yang already has +1 Growth, +1 Industry, and by selecting Planned gets +2 Growth, +1 Industry, while ignoring the -2 Efficiency. Also Police State: what -2 Efficiency? Of course his -2 Economy sucks, so you must build many bases (what efficiency penalty for too many bases?).

Exactly--- you end up with high support and high industry so you build awesome numbers of formers and terraform the world. Two formers and two poilce units per base and then just use that higher than average growth to pump out the pods

The downside is that 0 efficiency is stilly pretty sucky for sliding to 80 -100% research or things like that. It was always interesting to play with the Hive if you ever went out of Police state planned-- Sometimes I seem to recall short stints in green to capture some IoDs but generally any efficiency gains were essentially wasted

It was interesting how strong they could be when both +2Econ and the joys of a population boom were very hard to reach

[Flubber]

Oh and I always assume directed research

Blind is fun for a change but it often takes you so fasr from what is optimum for your situation, that speaking of best play and strategy often becomes moot as you simply adapt to your situation with whatever tech you can garner

[Flubber]

Edit: Morgan is tough for a beginner, but yes, having tons of energy is awesome. You can rush build to your heart's content.

Yup-- I had so very much money and probes were my friend. It was funny how often I would use a probe to steal a key unit in an invasion group-- and just self destruct it to cause havoc on nearby stacks of units--One probe and a couple of rovers and suddenly the massive invasion was in shambles

But I always loved the probe game-- My favorite was in a multiplayer where I stole an opponents key military staging area despite his two probe defenders (cost me three probeships to kill his two probes and then find out it was something like 3300 energy. It was a shock to him when suddenly he sees his former base sitting their with his 8 or 10 top flight military units and a few more I brought over

I recall when people tried a modification where the AI could earn interest on its cash( attempt to strengthen AI)-- This caused the AI to get crushed as humans just stole cash repeatedly and then rushed units.As a human player it was like a limitless supply

[Lord Avalon]

Well, Planetary Networks gives you Librarians as well as Planned, so you can make research bases.

I hate it when you play Blind Research, and you get vendetta'd before your idiot scientists have even discovered frickin' lasers!

[Lord Avalon]

Yup-- I had so very much money and probes were my friend. It was funny how often I would use a probe to steal a key unit in an invasion group-- and just self destruct it to cause havoc on nearby stacks of units--One probe and a couple of rovers and suddenly the massive invasion was in shambles

But I always loved the probe game-- My favorite was in a multiplayer where I stole an opponents key military staging area despite his two probe defenders (cost me three probeships to kill his two probes and then find out it was something like 3300 energy. It was a shock to him when suddenly he sees his former base sitting their with his 8 or 10 top flight military units and a few more I brought over

Hee hee. Nice base, I think I'll buy it.

[Elok]

Hmm, nice to see I triggered a little waltz down memory lane here. Since you asked, I'm playing on the easiest difficulty level (since, like I said, I'm pretty daft at strategy games, though I enjoy them), with directed research. I had to sort of fumble my way through the tech tree, so I didn't get automation until relatively late...and yeah, I did get the Virtual World, and the HS Algorithm too, since that basically erased half my weakness. I decided on a Huge world, figuring that would give me more time to figure things out...gah. I'm like three hundred turns in and still haven't won. On my way to both economic and transcendent victories, but I need a few more years for either. Next game, I play average and...oh, Deirdre, I guess.

Right now I'm running Police State, Green, Knowledge, Cybernetic...the first two seem to cancel out each others' weaknesses nicely, leaving you with a minor growth penalty in exchange for a crap-ton of goodies. Killed Miriam and Yang (the latter basically forced me to kill him by planting bases against the border--is there any way to prevent such land theft?), Santiago butchered Morgan, I'm in the process of mopping up Santiago in a leisurely way while my twenty turns or so of energy-market-cornering gets done. I got lucky, so to speak, by starting right next to Miriam. I was able to kill her before she learned how to make probes. Anyway, I'm in that I-know-I've-won-but-I-have-to-mop-up patch that plagues the end of almost every civ game.

Also, is there some way to prevent the AI from inventing you twelve different soldiers every time you discover something, then helpfully asking you if you want to upgrade all your X to X+1 twelve times in a row without the option to say "No, dammit, go away?" Of course I don't want to hit Yes to All, I've given all my old units descriptive names that help me remember what they're good for. I turned off the preferences option that said automatically invent, but it doesn't seem to have done anything. It's still giving me Clean this and Artillery that. I'm not even sure what advantage attaches to having terraformers with improved reactors. Do they live for three more seconds while the enemy shoots away the extra health?

[Lord Avalon]

Killed Miriam and Yang (the latter basically forced me to kill him by planting bases against the border--is there any way to prevent such land theft?)

Pre-emptive strike (if you see a colony pod, kill it)? No, it's rather annoying when a neighbor builds right next to the border and moves it. So if you can, be first to build on the border and move it your way.

Also, is there some way to prevent the AI from inventing you twelve different soldiers every time you discover something, then helpfully asking you if you want to upgrade all your X to X+1 twelve times in a row without the option to say "No, dammit, go away?" Of course I don't want to hit Yes to All, I've given all my old units descriptive names that help me remember what they're good for. I turned off the preferences option that said automatically invent, but it doesn't seem to have done anything. It's still giving me Clean this and Artillery that.

Deselecting Design Units Automatically unfortunately only helps a bit; upgrade queries still come up. I'm not sure what the trigger is. I wonder if scient or kyrub can make those go away in the next patch.

I'm not even sure what advantage attaches to having terraformers with improved reactors. Do they live for three more seconds while the enemy shoots away the extra health?

Yes, better reactor gives more HP. Also reduced cost - you want to design your own, because you can put a little armor on (at least infantry chassis or sea formers) at no extra cost. Or you might want to upgrade to clean fusion fungicidal (or super, when available) formers. Usually I don't put more than fusion reactors on formers. Cost goes up again with quantum reactors, unless you're talking gravship formers. Then better reactors boost your flying range.

[Elok]

There are fan-made patches out there? Yay! Trampling Yang's land is much more fun when you're doing it with a "Heffalump" than when you're using a shard tank mark whatever...

[Lord Avalon]

scient's bug fix version is at civgaming.net: Unofficial SMAC/X Patches Version 1.0.

kyrub added changes to the AI: SMAC 444 (AI Experiment).

[Flubber]

Right now I'm running Police State, Green, Knowledge, Cybernetic...the first two seem to cancel out each others' weaknesses nicely, leaving you with a minor growth penalty in exchange for a crap-ton of goodies. Killed Miriam and Yang (the latter basically forced me to kill him by planting bases against the border--is there any way to prevent such land theft?), Santiago butchered Morgan, I'm in the process of mopping up Santiago in a leisurely way while my twenty turns or so of energy-market-cornering gets done. I got lucky, so to speak, by starting right next to Miriam. I was able to kill her before she learned how to make probes. Anyway, I'm in that I-know-I've-won-but-I-have-to-mop-up patch that plagues the end of almost every civ game.?

I am surprised you would ever be running police state so late in the game. Usually I have so many bases by then I want really really high efficiency (but on easy level the impacts of lower efficiency are much less IIRC)

By late game I usually find

support doesn't matter-- you have so many bases its almost irrelevant and you can make clean stuff anyway
POlice doesn't matter---I am running specialists everywhere anyway-- late game most of my bases may only have 4 or 5 guys actually working
Efficiency always matters- especially if I want to run say 90% labs
Higher industry or Econ always matters


OH and have you learned hiow to pop boom yet-- Whenever you can get a base to plus 6 growth it will increase by a population point each and every turn up to hab complex limits as long as there is some surplus food-- ITs a super powerful tool--You build the creches and then when you have enough food being crawled and then switch to Demo-Planned and watch your 15 size 2 and 3 bases become 15 - size sevens over 5 turns-- Then switch away into Green or FM for a worm army or an econ boost and enjoy-- Most factions can do this so growth penalties for some SE choices are largely irrelvant since if you miss some growth due to your choices, you can make it back so very quickly by planning a boom across multiple bases

The other beauty is that playing possum with the AI works very well-- The AI never realizes potential-- like that you now have say 25 size 2 bases with all kinds of infrastructure-- they never realize what you can be at all-- its part of what makes them so easy to beat-- you can be sitting their with mineral and energy output per turn of triple or quadruple any other faction, 5-10 artifacts uncashed and a faction with multiple bases poised for po boom and the AI still deals with based on the powergraphs which only seemed to measure tech you have, population you have, military you have etc etc. The fact that you have a hundred formers and a like number of crawlers seems to mean nothing to them

[Lord Avalon]

Remember, he's only playing Citizen, so doesn't have to play optimally. Even at the middle level of Talent, I found myself staying in Police State a long time and still having a lot of cash (if not Yang) and researching faster than the AI. I didn't have as many specialists as you talk about, but used Librarians/Thinkers where I could.

Pop booming is pretty advanced for him, I think. I don't really do it myself, playing at Librarian with the occasional foray into Thinker. I've read about it and probably ought to get better at it if I want to step up to Thinker, but just when I think I'm going to go into Democracy, somebody lands a couple units and declares vendetta when I won't give up (key technology). So I stay in Police State, because I'm being paranoid that they're going to land more troops, even though they may not follow up soon (if ever), and they're just being pissy and seething over the comm.

[Elok]

Yeah, I'll probably never get to the level where I'm micromanaging that way. I got extra support and police just to eliminate the hassle of coordinating army construction across, at the time I switched, something like fifteen cities, all of whom had greatly varying degrees of productivity ("all right, Pzschov Library, now it's your turn to build a single rover for the war effort...wait, where the hell are you? How many years will it take to move a rover from here to Santiago?"). Also, drones were getting to be a real pain in the arse in my bigger cities, even with every happiness improvement and wonder I snagged.

[Flubber]

Also, drones were getting to be a real pain in the arse in my bigger cities, even with every happiness improvement and wonder I snagged.

-- BUild 2-3 crawlers per city that focus on food
-- have 2-5 ( depending on wonders, facilities and faction chosen) guys that actually work and turn the rest of the guys into specialists ( Librarians early and moving through to transcendii at the end

I have not been around these forums much lately but I played this game a lot-- believe me it works

Oh and I play on Transcend always-- so drone problems are something you need to be ready for by the second population point in many bases (sometimes even the first)

[Flubber]

Yeah, I'll probably never get to the level where I'm micromanaging that way. I got extra support and police just to eliminate the hassle of coordinating army construction across, at the time I switched, something like fifteen cities, all of whom had greatly varying degrees of productivity ("all right, Pzschov Library, now it's your turn to build a single rover for the war effort...wait, where the hell are you? How many years will it take to move a rover from here to Santiago?"). Also, drones were getting to be a real pain in the arse in my bigger cities, even with every happiness improvement and wonder I snagged.

When I had a lot of bases (saw 30+) I would sometimes name them in geographic or functional groups by just adding a couple of letters at the beginning. So bases that begin with AA whatever are frontier bases on one continent -- BB might be my scattered island bases CC could be one homeland continent (say somewhat at risk ) and DD might be another (totally safe-- ie I have it ringed with bases or scoutships or sensor trawlers and would see anyone coming)-- I found such groupings helpful if they were being displayed alphabetically and it made it easier to implement planning

XX might be a grouping where one base is fitted out with every research enhancing facility and it has 2-4 bases which have none and I never want them to grow-- You set them up to crawl 20 minerals and pump out a crawler a turn which you then send to the science base to be rehomed and then sent out to crawl energy in your energy park (mirrors and solars)--

[Elok]

So, the secret to effective play is massive crawler spam? I've used a couple of them, and they do seem nice...they don't require support, do they?

Also, how often should I be doing eco-atrocities like boreholes and condensers and such? I took advantage of the borehole cluster when I found it (it would have been better, in hindsight, if I'd used crawlers instead of putting a base there), but didn't build any myself for fear of triggering massive fungal blooms that would destroy the blessed things anyway, plus spewing tons of mind-maggots. Then I saw Deirdre, of all people, had condensers all over her territory. I surmise that a high Planet rating may perhaps let you get away with more of those shenanigans...

[Flubber]

So, the secret to effective play is massive crawler spam? I've used a couple of them, and they do seem nice...they don't require support, do they?

Also, how often should I be doing eco-atrocities like boreholes and condensers and such? I took advantage of the borehole cluster when I found it (it would have been better, in hindsight, if I'd used crawlers instead of putting a base there), but didn't build any myself for fear of triggering massive fungal blooms that would destroy the blessed things anyway, plus spewing tons of mind-maggots. Then I saw Deirdre, of all people, had condensers all over her territory. I surmise that a high Planet rating may perhaps let you get away with more of those shenanigans...

1. Crawlers are the key to most effective play-- Good players can routinely beat the AI on transcend level only ever building a single base using these (OCC -- One city Challenges)

2. I often used crawlers differently at different bases-- One base would crawl lots of minerals and then get the morale enhancing facilities and be a war factory ( If I wanted to be in free market I could turn the whole population of this base to specialist and starve it down to size one and it didn't matter) Other bases would crawl some food early to grow and then energy later

3. Crawlers require no support

4. Do not fear boreholes or condensors-- planet doesn't really mind-- What planet minds most is higher levels of mineral production in a base-- Once a base hits a certain level theres a chance that a tile could pop into fungus and gave worms show up-- Advanced players used this feature by creating "Wormtrap bases" with high mineral counts and a couple of artillery units and then some empath rovers--- I tried it a couple of times and collecting hundreds of energy credits a turn from this was quite useful-- Artillery would quickly bring the stack down to 50% health and 2-3 attacks from rovers could kill 10 worms. In the REALLY late game with the right projects, fungus can be very productive so fixing the damage wasn't a big deal (and besides most of the offending production was outside the city's radius anyway)-- Planet gets really really mad if you commit atrocities like the Planet Buster or nerve gas-- Do that and you could see worms popping up everywhere

4.Don't crawl boreholes usually-- IT has two really good production --6 mineral and 6 energy and crawlers only have one-- Generally you can work forest, rolling rainy tiles and boreholes-- You crawl mines on rocky tiles, condensors and farms for nutrients and solars for energy on higher elevation tiles

5. If you find the borehole cluster, stick a base right in there -- get a rec commons etc etc for drone control and then use crawlers for food to support the 3 workers you need to work all three boreholes-- With 18 minerals coming in you can quickly get some research facilities built to help that energy coming in

6. Tip for mid to later game-- crawler ships with extra radar are a key unit-- They get cheap once you outfit them with the fusion reactors. If you have had a couple of sea formers out there you can get these guys on tidal harnesses for energy-- So they bring in energy while monitoring the approaches to your lands-- The beauty is that you can move them around each and every turn if you want and as long as they end their turn on a resource and you set them to collecting again, you get the resource. These early sentries were often the key to my defensive schemes post fusion-- You may lose some to an IOD from time to time but its well worth it IMHO

Note I allways play with the Fog of war feature ON so I am constantly reminded of the tiles that I am actively monitoring

7. Last tip-- Militarily self-destruct is a strong tactic-- It takes hit points half the weapon value of the destructing unit multiplied by its reactor value so if you destruct a 10-1-1*2 unit you kill each and every fission unit in adjacent squares and bring every fusion unit to half health. IF someone attacks with huge stacks of units you can decimate them with just a few units. Even in the earlier game a self destruct can be usefull-- Imagine the AI is attacking and in front of you is a two stacks of 3 units --6-3-12 or 4-3-2s and the like-- Your 6-1-2 attacks and kills one unit with collateral damage of 20% to the other two and lacking enough movement to retreat effectively, you self destruct hitting all 5 remaining units with 3 more points of damage

[Lord Avalon]

Low rocky terrain (<1000m) within a base radius is where you build boreholes. Not right away, of course - you need at least Ecological Engineering to lift the mineral restriction to make it worthwhile. Hopefully you've already built Weather Paradigm to speed up formers, then put two formers on the job, if you can.

Early on crawl minerals from 1) a mined bonus on rocky terrain (if it's in your base radius and not rocky, you might put a forest or if at elevation a solar collector) or 2) forests within the base radius and later outside. When you've lifted mineral restriction you can crawl from mines on rocky terrain in and out of base radii.

Fungal pops are actually good, in a sense. Vel's guide says there's a limit of 16 clean minerals (12 during perihelion). Above that you have the risk of eco damage. But each pop increases your clean mineral limit by one. So do try to get a pop before you build tree farms.

Flat square are a good candidate to forest, especially if arid, but once you have Weather Paradigm, build a farm then a condenser on them and crawl nutrients.

Crawl energy to your headquarters (no loss to ineffieciency): from bonuses anywhere (even within another base's radius, if further away, and they don't need the square) and high terrain within your borders*. Use supply trawlers, too, if it's a port. If not a port, send the energy to a port close to HQ.

*If you have an area of high terrain within your borders (that's not dense with bases), consider building a solar farm. You have rows of solar collectors alternating with rows of echelon mirrors. Then drill to aquifer to create rivers. You can raise terrain, too. Send the energy to HQ. Build your lab-type SPs there, too. and

[Elok]

Thanks for all the tips! I'll probably only remember half of them next time, but from you two and what I learned from this game the next should go a lot smoother (finally won a transcendence victory, making partial payments and throwing endless crawlers in to beat my own economic victory to the punch). I think I'll take a little break before trying again, and next time will definitely not be a "huge" world.

[Lord Avalon]

Glad to help. Ask questions when you have them; I'll do my best to answer.

[CEO Aaron]

The biggest map I recommend playing on is 'Large', otherwise the AI is likely to lag far behind you in tech before you make contact, if you're remotely organized about your building prerogatives.

One piece of advice given here I'll disagree with is 'crawl energy to your HQ'. This is not the most efficient use of your tiles, by far. Far better to harvest nutrients to support specialists who provide research and cash.

Read this thread: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7...s-Builder-Game