Minor Newb Questions

[Lord Avalon]

Thanks for the tip, CEO Aaron, I'll have to try that. The builder in me likes putting down solar collectors and supply crawlers on energy specials, and hates the loss to inefficiency at bases far from HQ, so I figured why not just send it to HQ? And playing on huge maps, rather than go into conquer and win mode, I conquer and conolidate and (terrain permitting) oh here's an open area where I can build an energy farm.

[CEO Aaron]

Yeah, there are definite technology breakpoints for going with a nutrient/specialist strategy, and the type of micromanagement you do is different, but the seed investment is smaller and the eventual payoff is immensely bigger. The big breakpoints are: Fusion Power for Engineers (one specialist who produces 3 econ 2 labs), Orbital Spaceflight for Sky Hydroponics Labs and (Functionally halves nutrient requirements of your bases), and Super-Tensile Solids for Hab Domes (Uncaps base population for INSANE specialist counts).

If a Super Science Base still appeals to you, you can build a nutrient farm in lieu of an energy farm for your capital, and and pump it to the citizen limit (255?). Though techs are tallied, it's quite likely to waste a lot of that research income. Each base adds its lab total to the accumulated tally, and any leftovers (for that base) are discarded once a tech is completed, so if your capital is producing 1000 labs and you need 100 to finish the next future tech, the leftover 900 disappear into the ether.

[Elok]

Is there an easier or more boring way to win than diplomatic with Lal? [/largelyrhetoricalquestion]

[CEO Aaron]

Not really, no. Just grab the Empath Guild and pump your population. Of course, you'll still have holdouts, but it's giving the game a short-shrift, imo. Single player, I always win by Transcendence or Conquest.

Oh, one other piece of advice that hasn't been covered here: Never accept the surrender of an enemy faction that you share a continent with. I've had numerous episodes where I've accepted the Allegiance of an enemy AI, and after many, many turns, they stab me in the back. I think there's some glitch where the AI gets pissed off at you if you share a land border, and the reputation drop keeps functioning even after they've surrendered to you. Bottom line, push them off your main continent before you let them give up.

Oh, and related to that, don't speak to an enemy you're pruning off your landmass, if you expect to accept their allegiance later. Once you refuse their total surrender, they'll go into 'fight to the death' mode.

[Flubber]

Oh, one other piece of advice that hasn't been covered here: Never accept the surrender of an enemy faction that you share a continent with. I've had numerous episodes where I've accepted the Allegiance of an enemy AI, and after many, many turns, they stab me in the back. I think there's some glitch where the AI gets pissed off at you if you share a land border, and the reputation drop keeps functioning even after they've surrendered to you. Bottom line, push them off your main continent before you let them give up.

.

Here I'll disagree with you a bit . With a close vassal you can

1. Conquer them enough that they surrender

2. Immediately demand their good bases. My recollection is that an AI will often give you everything other than their HQ so doing this just after conquering their HQ is best.

3. Gift them some small bases scattered around the planet
a.to serve as helicopter landing points and
b. to lesson micromanagement of said bases
c. to eliminate losses of tech or money to capture or probe
d. To sometimes get trade

4. Also frequently gift your vassal tech-- my practice is to give or sell them each and every tech that any of the AI have and nothing that I solely own

With some semi-frequent and often self-serving gifts, I have generally had little problem keeping the slave nations as useful supporters. Sometimes the support is unwelcome like when they gift me 20 outdated and badly designed units that all darw support from one of my bases but even that gift can be useful if I can disband enough at a base for the their minerals. Its also nice when they build a base in a very useful position near an enemy of yours with whom THEY have peace. IT can be quite a shocker if suddenly you have that slave gifting you the base and the combination of their units and yours mean you have a super strong force in their midst

[Flubber]

Is there an easier or more boring way to win than diplomatic with Lal? [/largelyrhetoricalquestion]

Against the AI ?? NO--- although large map transcend with ZAK comes close

[CEO Aaron]

Here I'll disagree with you a bit . With a close vassal you can

I'm not trying to say that vassals aren't useful to have, I love having subservient AIs to trade with. That CEO in my name isn't just for show. My point is that in my experience, having your bases next to the vassal's bases will often result in the vassal betraying you. Also, unless you're at really horrific levels of inefficiency, or have truly eepic (Like Morgan with the Governorship) trade bonuses, a regular base is almost certainly going to produce more net income for your faction than what you'll get from trade from a base you give to the AI, especially if you use the nutrient-focused, specialist-driven strategy I recommend.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

CEO Aaron, Flubber, Elok et.al.

Stumbled across this thread. Wow great blast from the past seeing the old Sikander builder thread. I have forgotten almost all that stuff but do recall people(specialists) were a far more potent source of research and energy than were crawling raw energy back. A crawler set on a condensor farm got something like 6 nuts supporting 3 pop points before hydro sats made it 6 pop points. That was a lot more equivalent energy points (top ended at 36 equivalent energy/crawler with all transcendi specialists) depending your choice of specialist vs. a crawler bringing back energy from either boreholes or solar array farms. Plus specialists never suffered from efficiency losses if the base was far flung fromthe capital. Memory serves it was one means to capture enemy bases turn them all into specialists (who cares if they starved) so they couldn't riot and you got some productive efective energy from it. It seemed a more humane alternative than eradicating the useless base or nerve stapling it.


Wonder where Sikander went off to? He was a good egg.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Now that I have upgraded all my computers to Vista and or WIN7, I wonder if I can still reinstall and play SMAC/SMAX?

Any suggestions?

Too bad they never ported to IoS, would be perfect for my IPad.

OMG - Nevermind I just went to GOG.com looks like I get SMAC afterall. Sweet.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Ohh just rememebred a small bit of arcana from th recesses of my memory. When setting down new colonies, obviously build roads to get turn advantage in placement of pods but also look to putting a sensor down on the square you plan to make your new colony upon. Sensor defensive bonus will apply to the unit wihtin. Two reasons it can give you fair warning to the poppping up of worms and make you likely to be able to withsatnd the attacks Specially if the unit is upgraded into a trance configuration.

[CEO Aaron]

Not just sensors can go there, though I'd agree they're probably the best and most flexible pick. You can also drop any terraforming which affects tiles outside it: Echelon mirrors or Condensers.

Yah, I may play with getting SMAX to run on my Win7 setup. Talking up SMAX on 'poly definitely gets me in a nostalgic mood.

[Lord Avalon]

I'm playing a Lib level game as Yang. Previously I'd be energy poor with him, but I've been crawling nuts and alternating librarians and techs with extra pop (like when there weren't enough good/developed squares to work), and damn! I'm upgrading units like Morgan! Also previously I'd miss out on a few early Special Projects due to poor funding for research and them not being on my main research path (or not as important as other ones), but this game I managed to build them all, even when someone started one for which I hadn't discovered the tech.

I also discovered that a base has to reach pop 5 before specialists other than doctor are available.

Per Vel's guide, I had been building bases mostly three squares apart, and when bases get larger, this leads to pop becoming specialists because not all squares are available to work. But I do need to check and change them from doctors/empaths where I can.

Guess I'm going to have to try more games at Thinker.

[Elok]

All right, I've now won one of every type of victory except economic. I'll save that for when I try Morgan. Is there any particular strategy Santiago lends herself to? I'm sure she has some use, but she looks like a sort of half-assed Miriam. If I'm going to play a psycho, I'd rather be a psycho with a ton of meh soldiers than one with a few expensive ones. I just played Yang, and that industry bonus is awesome for rushing out of the gate. I hate to think of how the reverse must be--that's why I'm going to try her sixth, right before--yuk--Miriam. Is that her appeal? Not as good at aggression as Miriam, but not stuck in the stone-age?

[Lord Avalon]

I think Santiago and Miriam tend towards the momentum side of playing, probably on a standard map or smaller. I prefer Santiago because you start with Doctrine: Mobility (free rover - I prefer driving to my invasion to walking), +2 Morale, free prototypes, and don't have a research penalty. (Also, I have more of an aversion to the religious fanatic than the survivalist.)

Beeline Nonlinear Math, crank out 4 Impact Rovers and go conquer your neighbor for fun and profit. If your neighbor is Yang, you might need a few more. Of course you've built Command Centers to boost your troops, right? And when you get to Police State, that'll boost your Support.

"Not as good at aggression as Miriam..." Well, at the start, not quite, but Doctrine: Mobility also lets you build Command Centers, so add that to your Morale bonus, and you churn out Hardened troops (Veteran on defense).

If you want, you could turn on Spoils of War to steal a tech when you conquer a base.

Yang's Industry and Growth boni are nice, as well as the lack of Efficiency penalty. Also switching to Police State as soon as you have the EC means more free units: a garrison, couple formers, and still room for a colony pod. And Planned means more Industry and Growth.

[CEO Aaron]

Santiago is, in my opinion, best played with a hybrid style of play. Pure momentum, she's outclassed by the superior production capability of Yang and the sheer numbers which can be fielded by Miriam. Even Zakarov makes a better momentum faction than Santiago, since they can reach Impact Rovers earlier and build them faster.

What's Santiago's secret weapon? Police rating. If any faction is excellently suited to go in a specialist-heavy, nutrient heavy strategy, it's the Spartans. Run Planned/Democracy and pile on as much nutrient production as you can. A pair of 1/1/1 police infantry cost two paltry rows of minerals, and can keep 4 drones quelled and working. That and a recreation commons will keep 6 population in workers picking fruit to feed your pile of specialists. Once you pick up clean reactor, they don't even cost upkeep. You'll be able to maintain a permanent population boom and spread 7 population bases all over the map without a care about efficiency. Staying out of Free Market lets you explore the map unhindered, where you can clean up on colony pods and escort your probe foils over the seas to clean out the enemy databanks or tech and credits. You can trade techs as well as swipe them, and being the most aggressive explorer will often let you clean up on techs as you act as a broker across Chiron.

When you're ready to start curbstomping your neighbors, switch into Fundamentalism/Planned/Knowledge, and rock your elite units. Liberal use of artillery is highly recommended. A 6/1/1 artillery is a mere 2 rows, and can delivery a savage pounding to your opponents. Your units are comparatively expensive, so take every opportunity to soften up your foes so you can minimize losses. Getting bogged down in an attrition war does not play to the Spartan strengths. Obviously the Command Nexus is a fabulous grab for you, as is the Citizens' Defence Force. Later, the Cloning Vats lets you Run Demo/Green/Knowledge for paradigm efficiency. The Ascetic Virtues is another great pick, as it beefs up your police rating even more, letting you garrison yet another 1/1/1 clean police.

One last thing: Do NOT run Police State, unless you're Yang, who can run it without drawbacks. Police State has what I refer to as the cocaine effect. At first, it feels great, later, you can't quit using it, and finally, it kills you.

[Lord Avalon]

Appreciate the info, CEO Aaron. It seems to me that at medium to lower difficulties, being in Police State, while maybe not optimal, isn't a killer (although it may well encourage a bad habit that would be a killer at higher difficulties). If you have a weak neighbor, couldn't you go momentum in police state and take them out for elbow room, then follow the plan you've outlined?

[CEO Aaron]

My problem with Police is fourfold:

1) The value of Support is really overrated. Being a long-time Morgan player, I've come to realize just how marginal support is as a SE value. Scraping up 2 extra minerals per turn, per base just doesn't add up to much. For Sparta, especially, building that many units for very long is a crummy decision. Sure, gear up for a big war, but the trick is, wars done right should be short and sharp, and after they're done, you disband most of your forces to get put those minerals back to work on building your economy.

2) The value of Police is fantasic, but the problem is that once you need that extra police rating to keep your population in line, you're kind of stuck with it, or you wind up with rioting or starvation if you want to switch to something else.

3) For a War SE choice, for Sparta, Fundamentalism simply dominates Police state. Support is great for Yang who can field huge numbers of units with his great industry, but Sparta is about quality, not quantity, and with Fundy + Command Center, your land units are Commando out of the box, and one Monolith Visit from Elite. And Elite is where the magic happens. It lets you field 2 row infantry which can fight better than 3 row rovers. Plus fundy is quit nice for draining your enemy's coffers and using the money to bribe his troops and steal his tech.

4) Most importantly, you're missing out on the growth from Democracy. The opportunity cost of Police state is that you're not running Democracy, which is, IMO, the single best SE choice in the game. The efficiency isn't that wild, but the +2 growth is HUGE, and when combined with +2 from planned and +2 from creches, you'll increase in population every turn until you can't feed any more citizens or reach hab limits.

Yes, by all means, crush your neighbors, and do so with the best means at your disposal. For Sparta, IMO, that means is a command center, fundamentalism, and a monolith, at which point you can run rings around your opponent with 3 move recon rovers and 2 move infantry. With cagey scouting you should be able to demolish much larger forces with minimal casualties.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

3) For a War SE choice, for Sparta, Fundamentalism simply dominates Police state. Support is great for Yang who can field huge numbers of units with his great industry, but Sparta is about quality, not quantity, and with Fundy + Command Center, your land units are Commando out of the box, and one Monolith Visit from Elite. And Elite is where the magic happens. It lets you field 2 row infantry which can fight better than 3 row rovers. Plus fundy is quit nice for draining your enemy's coffers and using the money to bribe his troops and steal his tech.

Yep. Sparta rocks when churning out best weapon-1-1 infantry elites. They have two movement points get a bonus on attack against bases where rovers do not. Arty and a small amount of infantry based transports to aid in their ability to strike from 3 movment points out seemed to work well for me in the past. Obviously the elite rating makes them a psi combat threat to boot.

It was a perfect means to offset the substantial industry penalty effect by creating the cheaper but elite infantry units.

[Elok]

Wow. I, uh, see what you mean about Dem + Planning now. Pity I had to try it with Deirdre and her meh discontent suppression. I'm too lazy to micromanage specialists, so I just pumped up the psych rating by one to stop the riots. But I can't help but wonder if maybe Lal would be better for pop booming than Santiago. I mean, it *is* nearly impossible to get his cities to riot...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Wow. I, uh, see what you mean about Dem + Planning now. Pity I had to try it with Deirdre and her meh discontent suppression. I'm too lazy to micromanage specialists, so I just pumped up the psych rating by one to stop the riots. But I can't help but wonder if maybe Lal would be better for pop booming than Santiago. I mean, it *is* nearly impossible to get his cities to riot...

You will find every faction has their own unique strength and weaknesses. Lal's faction is THE monster when it comes to pop booming. In addition to his inherent population happiness his base population maximimums are inherently bigger before hab complexes and domes then other factions. In a word he is meant for pop booming. His inherent hit on energy innefficiency is moot if one goes with specialists. Get him to boom up in population and in a few turns he goes from also ran to dominant power. The key is to try to time it all in one fell swoop so that amximum of bases are booming all at the same time.

[rod87]

How much, on average, is it required to move up the Psych slider to get to pop booms? 20%? 50%? All the way up? Especially when playing one of the factions which cannot run Dem or Planned, like Yang, or if they're just not available due to the situation.

[Elok]

I don't know that you could give a meaningful average for all or even most situations, due to the sheer number of variables. Look at Morgan and Yang, the two players who absolutely can't do Dem/Plan/Creche. Morgan, if he's doing Wealth, has a huge wad of raw energy coming in, so a pretty small percentage will do. It might be awkward with his pop limits, but the percentage would be low. Yang would need a higher %, assuming he could afford it with his mediocre cash flow. As for other players, Zak would need a higher percentage still, to neutralize his drones, since a city with drones can't do GA and subsequently can't pop boom that way. Lal, assuming you didn't want to do Dem/Plan for some reason, would be substantially lower due to his default talents. Deirdre? Crummy police, I'm going to guess higher than Yang (assuming equal SE, which isn't necessarily the case) but lower than Zak. Santiago? Excellent police, so a lower number. And so on. But then, I'm a newb. Honestly, I'd just raise it by 10% increments until you achieve the desired result.

[CEO Aaron]

How much, on average, is it required to move up the Psych slider to get to pop booms? 20%? 50%? All the way up? Especially when playing one of the factions which cannot run Dem or Planned, like Yang, or if they're just not available due to the situation.

An 'average' isn't really a helpful figure, it's completely different for each faction. Let me just explain the mechanic, it's not that tricky, actually. Your bases all enter population boom when they get to 6 on the 'growth' axis of the social engineering slider. How do you get there? Well, there's four ways to get a growth bonus:

1) Build a children's creche. As it turns out, free child care really makes it easier for your citizens to squirt out babies. Every faction has access to this.
2) Run Democracy. Who knew that getting to vote and getting laid were interconnected? Well, at any rate, only Yang is forbidden to run Democracy, every other faction has this option open to them.
3) Run Planned Economy. Apparently in addition to state run businesses, your faction puts up some state-run baby mills. I guess as assembly line jobs go, you could do worse than making infants. Morgan is forbidden to run a Planned Economy, so no for-profit baby mills.
4) Get a golden age. This is a per-base phenomenon which occurs when a base gets at least 2 happy citizens, and happy citizens comprise over half the populace. In effect, you'll have to spend psych, use the Human Genome Project, be the U.N., or some combination of them all to get this to occur.

So, basically, if you're not Morgan or Yang, you can pop boom out of the box just by building creches, then going planned/demo. For the xpack, I think one of the Alien Factions can't run Demo (Usurpers?), and another (Sven) gets a native -1 growth penalty. Those factions will all have to mess with getting golden ages to push them over the magic number 6. How much psych it takes you to get there depends on a) Whether you have other sources of happiness (HGP), how many un-quelled drones you have sucking up loose psych, how much energy production you have in any given base, and how many doctors or other psych granting specialists you have keeping your populace healthy and happy.

My general advice is this: Don't mess with golden ages if you don't have to, ie: You're not playing one of the accursed four. If you ARE playing one of them, plan your golden ages carefully for short stints. Expect to have a large nutrient bonus ready in all your bases, and be ready to use lots of specialists to keep your people happy and crawlers to keep them fed, as well as psych facilities to maximize the effects of your psych. In general, try to have tree farms, hologram theatres and recreation commons built at the very least, research hospitals are good too. Of course, HGP and Ascetic Virtues are winners as well. Once you get your main bases capped, (like the first 6-10 you founded), go back to normal psych levels and return your specialists to researching science or money. Then you can prep for the next tier of bases, and repeat another 6 or so turns of golden age tuned for THEM to reach their hab limits. Doing it that way, you don't blow too much of your resources down the psych hole for no real gain.

A well executed pop boom is the cornerstone of nearly every transcend-level builder strategy. Learn to do it carefully and well, and you'll destroy lesser players who haven't mastered the technique, and of course run rings around the weak-sauce AI.

[rod87]

Very nice! I guess it's actually quite difficult to say an approximate percentage, since situations vary wildly.

But it's true, I actually had in mind Morgan more than others, since he is one of the 'accursed five' (I think Aki-Zeta also has a -1 growth), and as such, one of the ones who need the most the help in Psych investment. I've recently accomodated myself to playing him, especially after seing the power of having lots of energy, being able to research in late game about one and a half technologies per turn. Totally insane.

And it's true what you said about energy in the 'Tectonic payload and Morganite advice' thread, it can provide a very useful alternative to minerals in some cases, especially considering that high amounts of energy per turn don't cause as much eco-damage as an equivalent amount of minerals per turn.

Next time I'll try it, once I have lifted population limits. Extra energy per square plus an insane amount of population working those tiles (even more if using energy parks) and supply crawlers bringing in sea energy should even cause glitches :P

[Lord Avalon]

/pulls out Vel's SMAX Guide, confirms:

• -1 Growth for Aki Zeta-5 and Svensgaard
• Usurpers' aversion to Democracy (they do have +1 Growth)

[CEO Aaron]

But it's true, I actually had in mind Morgan more than others, since he is one of the 'accursed five' (I think Aki-Zeta also has a -1 growth), and as such, one of the ones who need the most the help in Psych investment. I've recently accomodated myself to playing him, especially after seing the power of having lots of energy, being able to research in late game about one and a half technologies per turn. Totally insane.

Yes, I had forgotten Aki, so it is indeed the 'Accursed Five'.

And it's true what you said about energy in the 'Tectonic payload and Morganite advice' thread, it can provide a very useful alternative to minerals in some cases, especially considering that high amounts of energy per turn don't cause as much eco-damage as an equivalent amount of minerals per turn.

Exactly! Now of course energy has to be split between labs and credits, but you get magnifications facilities for energy much, much earlier than you do for credits. Between Energy Banks, Tree Farms and Fusion Labs, you're getting +150% the credits you harvest to energy, as compared to Genejack Factories which magnify your minerals by only 50%. And Tree Farms also boost your food harvest from forest tiles, boost psych output and partically negate the eco-damage caused by terraforming, and fusion labs also give you 50% more labs. What do Genejack factories do? Give you another drone and likely some eco-damage to cope with.

In truth, I wind up getting both, eventually, but as Morgan energy comes first.

Next time I'll try it, once I have lifted population limits. Extra energy per square plus an insane amount of population working those tiles (even more if using energy parks) and supply crawlers bringing in sea energy should even cause glitches :P

I actually don't really bother crawling for extra energy(unless there's an energy special on the tile), on the undertaking that I'd rather use the money on acquiring more territory, which I can settle myself or grant to a submissive. My typical Morgan build has me working forests primarily, crawling a farm or two per base to cap my post-hab complex population. With only a recyling tank and one crawler working a 2 nut farm, you can get an 11 pop base working only 6 forest tiles, with 5 specialists. That's puts you at the pop cap, and gives you 12 energy plus the base square before inefficiency (if you're running FM or Wealth). Keeping 6 workers per base quelled is pretty simple, just Commons, Holo (ideally, Net-Node with VW) and a bit of psych, doctor or a SP (HGP really helps, since one happy citizen counteracts one drone, keeping everyone working. Also, past your base efficiency threshold, you'll need the HGP with Morgan or you'll NEVER be able to reach Golden Ages. It's a game glitch.)

Once you've got Tree Farms drill a borehole at each base and rake in the minerals and energy. From here on out, you can pursue whatever strategy you wish, it will be a long time, even at 1 tech per turn, to unlock hab domes. I typically try and grab Fusion and build labs to further cement my income, converting all my extra specialists to engineers for 3 econ and 2 labs each. With Banks, Fusion Labs, Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests, I'm getting my credit income tripled, leaving me awash in cash. At that point you can crank out supply crawlers once per turn and crashbuild SPs til the cows come home, or just crank out a huge army, switch to Fundy/Green/Wealth and whomp the tar out of anyone you choose.

[Petek]

Really great stuff, CEO Aaron. You should write a Morgan strategy guide.

[Hagen0]

Also, past your base efficiency threshold, you'll need the HGP with Morgan or you'll NEVER be able to reach Golden Ages. It's a game glitch.)

I'm pretty sure this is working as intended, although I don't understand the reasoning behind it.

It is possible (but expensive) to go around this problem by building a colony pod whenever your base has odd population size, growing one turn and then readding the pod. This will only work as long as you are below twice the effiency treshold.

Golden age pop booms also only work in bases with size >=3, another problem.

[jez9999]

I had a unit called "Mall Cop" which was usually 1-1-1 clean police.

The trouble is that you're using 2 special abilities there, which requires neural grafting - takes quite a long time to get that. I usually just have a unit with Non-Lethal methods.

And "Mall Cop"? They get fat eating donuts. This guy is putting down rebelling drones with TWICE the effectiveness of normal police - I call mine Judge Dredd.

[Lord Avalon]

It's not that much trouble - Neural Grafting is on the beeline to Bio-Engineering.