New player, advice needed.

[Kirov]

Wow, thanks a lot for your inspiring answers.

I think I'm going to stick to the Morganites, they really are my favorite faction.

I'll get at least a +4 to ECONOMY and as much EFFICIENCY as possible.

Could someone explain me if I need an armed unit to defend a base? Or can I just equip my troops solely for defense as in 1-4 instead of 4-4 as I've been doing until now?

Morganites are actually one of the toughest factions to play, so you've taken up quite a challenge. They have different openings than others (CEO Aaron says you should go for Biogenetics and rushbuild RecTanks), and their penalties can be crippling in combat and vertical growth. To counter that, you may want to garrison at your bases probe units with Armor 2. Such a combo defends like a regular unit in normal combat, PSI combat and probe team combat, all at no support.

As for the vertical limit, simply build as many bases as you can. The sky is the limit here, you can't overdo things until you are prepared for subsuquent bureaucracy limits (additional drones which come when you have a lot of bases).

Mistakes made as Morgan can be much more painful than with other factions, but I still love his potential. One of his great advantages is flexibility with SE choices - you can choose from PS/Demo/Fundie and then FM/Green (usually most factions have their preferred peacetime and wartime settings and tend to stick to them). But you must remember you're very vulnerable for quite a long time.

Google also some older posts by CEO Aaron, his advice is very useful.

[Morgan Everett]

To me it seems that Morganites may be the best builders but also the weakest fighters.

However, it really is the faction I have the most fun playing with.. so I need to find a way to make their units fit for battle.

Someone mentioned building Biogenetics and recycling tanks ASAP... Hum, what?!

Should I not first get terraforming and probing technologies then rush to clean reactors? RecTanks take a long time to build, time that could be spent on terraforming and production of probe units with Armor 2. So what's the point?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Rec tanks pay for themselves fast in faster production afterwards with the extra mineral a turn. I always make a former first, because yes, forming pays off faster.

[551262]

The thing with recycling tanks goes towards a critical concept called turn advantage. Vel's Guide mentions how it works when he talks about rush-building formers, which you should always do (in the early game of course). Here's how the first 10 or 15 moves work for me (Sparta):

1.) Because I start with flexible starting locations option, I may have to move a or both (sometimes I get just one, pffft) colony pods to a good location nearby. No more than three squares away. Build the first base, send the scout rover with the 2nd (if there is a 2nd) colony pod and place that base oh, 3-5 squares away from the home base again, in optimal locations.
2.) Direct Research towards Centauri Ecology. Once the scout patrols have been built, set their build queues to colony pod. Send the rover out to pop pods nearby. Don't get too carried away -- you have to protect your first two formers that come out the door, as they are *critical*.
3.) Once you get CE, change the build queues to Formers. As soon as they've tallied more than 10 minerals, rush build them.
4.) Use the rover to protect the formers from possible mind worms. Okay a Spartan former might be able take a Larval Mass mindworm with the intrinsic -50% PSI penalty (early game mind worms are given a penalty, could be -25%) alone but it's not worth the risk. Build a road between the two bases, if only one base just skip to #5.
5.) On a flat or any arid square near the base, build a sensor.Then build a forest. Flat + river is best because you get 1-2-2 out of that, so your research will benefit more. Set your base to extract resources from the square. Your build queues should be building this combination: Former, scout patrol, colony pod, Former, scout patrol, colony pod, Former, ...
6.) Get the home base former to work any immediately accessible resource bonus squares, if in doubt go for nutrient ones first -- they help your base get bigger.

RE: Morgan: Don't get carried away too much by that +4 Economy deal. That only really brings in the cash by the truckload if you've got treaties with just about everybody and you're Planetary Governor. Treaties -- well, your Free Market choice isn't liked by everybody, one or two factions won't care but the rest will. Usually if you run Frontier - Simple - Survival - None then nobody will be bothered too much by you but expect the Santiagos, Yangs and Believers to be irritated slightly.

After the +1 energy bonus every square, the rest should be considered a bonus. You can get +2 Econ alone just by being unmodified, but running Democratic - Green - Wealth is fine in the late-middle game when you've whipped up your empire into something that can be respectable is perfectly fine. Your military won't have terrible morale, your bases won't have as many rioting problems, and you can POLLUTE more. (Any positive benefits to your Planet rating increases your mineral tolerance, so you can effectively bring in more minerals per turn, which is obviously beneficial.)

RE: Rec tanks: oh yes. You mentioned terraforming, but that has nothing to do with your build queues except building a former. Because Morgan needs Hab Complexes to exceed size four you only need to work on four or five squares each base and then move on to other areas of future expansion until you fix the Hab Complex problem. That can easily be accomplished with one former alone, two if you've got nothing else to do, or you could prep for your pop boom by building your condensors and what not. But consider that the base grows usually somewhat slowly, unless you've nabbed a rainy+rolling+nutrient bonus square, in which case you'd have 5 nutrients coming in the door, which isn't to be sneered at in the early game. And that base is best left to do nothing but churn out colony pods by the dozens.

Remember: Turn Advantage. Every turn I have a recycling tanks my base gets better than someone else's in equivalent conditions who does not have one. The base grows faster, the stuff gets build faster, and +1 energy means a slightly faster research rate. Multiply that by the number of turns and you've seen why.

You should play Lal for a couple of games. Don't go for a diplomatic victory -- that is easy.

P.S. Don't bother with clean reactors until the later game. They don't matter unless you've got a murderous Support rating, or you're going to field an unholy number of units that would make Miriam's cheeks turn a brilliant red. By the time that Clean Reactors become a part of your unit factors it should be about M.Y. 2300 or 2350, depending on the map size, and your might should be such that either nobody will bother you or they should be scared off with a handful of needlejets and a "drop-off" as I call it of some slightly outdated rovers and infantry to give him something to think about (I'm looking at you, Yang). Send some probe teams along to, two fusion cruiser transports (Don't send them unprotected!!), one packed with 13-4-1*2 linebackers and some 13-1-2*2 SAM rovers plus at least one 1-4-1*2 AAA ECM garrison, and the other with 8 probe teams.

P.P.S. When you look at the unit special abilities screen, you'll see some cost 1 (like SAM, AAA, Police, ECM, ...), some cost 2 (like Clean Reactor) and so on. A cost of 1 means the unit costs 25% more than a unit without that ability: so something that is 100 minerals will now be 125. A cost of 2 means the unit will cost 50% more than a unit without it, so now it'd cost 150. Some are free in certain arrangements...

[Lord Avalon]

Here's a tech path for Morgan (I forget the source), assuming I'm unmolested:

• research Biogenetics
• start building Merch Exchange, same with 2nd base
• when Biogen is discovered, switch both to Recycling Tanks
• research Industrial Economics (for switch to Free Market)
• research Info Networks
• Centauri Ecology
• Planetary Networks
• Industrial Automation - switch to Wealth
• Social Psych
• Secrets of the Human Brain
• Ethical Calculus
• Gene Splicing
• Ecological Engineering
• Doctrine: Mobility
• Doctrine: Loyalty
• Intellectual Integrity
• Adaptive Economics
• Planetary Economics
• Neural Grafting
• Bioengineering
• Environmental Economics

If you need to fight, then obviously weapon techs can take priority (also Doctrine techs for mobility, navy). Trading and popping tech from pods can change the order.

Personally, I like clean reactors - how else are you going to have dozens of formers? Clean also goes on armored garrison infantry, clean police scouts, and clean transport ships. That means support can go to your offensive untis, which would take longer to build if clean. If you have the cash, you could always upgrade them to clean later when you switch from conquer mode to consolidation mode.

[Morgan Everett]

A +4 Economy bonus not only adds +2 energy per base from a +3 economy status but it also boosts your research, right?

The more energy produced per base the faster breakthroughs are made, right?

[Kirov]

A +4 Economy bonus not only adds +2 energy per base from a +3 economy status but it also boosts your research, right?

The more energy produced per base the faster breakthroughs are made, right?

Energy produced by bases is allocated to cash, labs and psych (if any), in accordance with the slider you see on the SE screen. The magical, much wanted effect of ECONOMY comes at +2, when you get additional energy per square. Higher ECONOMY can be nice and is recommended for Morgan in peace time, but you shouldn't sweat it to get there. Note that the description of ECONOMY is wrong - higher levels give like +2 additional energy per base tile.

[Morgan Everett]

Energy produced by bases is allocated to cash, labs and psych (if any), in accordance with the slider you see on the SE screen. The magical, much wanted effect of ECONOMY comes at +2, when you get additional energy per square. Higher ECONOMY can be nice and is recommended for Morgan in peace time, but you shouldn't sweat it to get there. Note that the description of ECONOMY is wrong - higher levels give like +2 additional energy per base tile.

What do you mean by 'the description of ECONOMY is wrong'?

Are you implying the following is incorrect:

• -3, -2 energy each base
• -2, -1 energy each base
• -1, -1 energy at HQ base
• 0, Standard energy rates
• 1, +1 energy each base
• 2, +1 energy each square!
• 3, +1 energy/sq; +2 energy/base +1 commerce rating!!
• 4, +1 energy/sq; +4 energy/base; +2 commerce!!!
• 5, +1 energy/sq; +4 energy/base; +3 commerce
• 6, +1 energy/sq; +4 energy/base; +3 commerce

?

Admittedly, +4 might be unnecessary. However, I can't see myself going any less than +3 because +2 energy per base seems very interesting considering the huge amount of bases I'll have to make in order to compensate the growth restriction Morganites suffer whenever a base reaches the fourth level of population.

[551262]

^ That's the point. With Morgan, you expand horizontally until you've established your borders to your liking. Then you buckle down and build up.

Because of the additional energy per base, it is advantageous for Morgan to build more bases than most factions. As for the other factions and stuff like ICS, Yang benefits because of his free perimeter defenses can make a rather stiff bulwark, Lal benefits for his silly elections, and everybody else is just standard growth model.

The *only* time I even bother with the Planetary Transit System SP is when I'm playing as Lal, for the obvious rapid expansion and election reasons. I don't play Morgan, he's not my style and is too difficult to get in the groove for him to get really dangerous. Also his military powers are dismal until the late game when people are flirting with quantum lasers and above.

Still, if you're going as Morgan, remember two additional things: 1) Specialists are extremely useful, and 2) efficiency losses can negate additional expansion gains caused by supplemental energy input. Permit me then, to explain:

Here's a map I did sometime last year to experiment with specialist SSC concepts. (Also, to determine if multiple specialist centres are better than just one or two. Answer: No. But they're less vulnerable to nukes.) This is the core of the empire:



The base SSC: Energy Directive is the heart of the system, and I've made it my HQ to minimize efficiency losses. All those trawlers are (well, almost all of them) are pulling in nutrients to feed the base Energy Directive and the one just to the northeast just like it: the energy comes from nearby squares and the Geothermal Shallows. (The Freshwater Sea grants +1 nutrients every square, so I'm getting 4 nutrients per trawler.)

The farther the base is from your HQ, the more inefficiency you get for that base, and this means two things: less energy going into your coffers and more drones.

The base, with and without the crawling of the Geothermal Shallows:


Now, lets move away a couple of squares (about 10) to a typical base:



Not too bad. Inefficiency losses, shown in the ENERGY bar, are not worth fussing about. But lets move far away...



...to up here:



OOh dear. All input energy is lost because of inefficency. There are two ways of dealing with this problem, and the drones.

First, use specialists. In the early-mid game, all you can use to speed your labs is to use Librarians. To kick more cash into your pocket, you have to use Technicians. Balance your assignments of each according to your requirements. But to really get specialists going you need Engineers, which come with Fusion Power, then eventually, transcends.

Switching a citizen to a specialist usually means you can't get as much food input, and this is because food is usually brought in along with something else like minerals or energy, or both. So what you do is use crawlers to make up for the difference. The usual strategy is farm+condensor, which are usually planted on useless squares like arid flat ones. (Or, boreholes.) Toss a crawler on it, haul in the 4 nutrients per turn and you can feed two specialists without harming your growth.

Specialists can't be drones, but the farther away from the HQ the base is, you'll have more drones per base, so you might still have to feed a Doctor to help with psych, or an Empath. Because I usually play as Sparta I don't worry about building rec commons unless the base is going over size 7, which for me is not always part of my strategy (more hassle at home when I like to be causing hassle to the enemy). Everybody else except Yang who uses Police and has a dismal economy (in fact, don't even worry about your economy as Yang, focus on labs instead, or just dump it all into psych and get your needs from everybody else with probe teams) usually builds rec commons and the usual psych facilities -- the bigger the base gets, the more the drone problem manifests itself.

Specialists' input into your labs or economy is not subject to inefficient. Your base could be on the other side of the globe and still be dumping labs and economy into your central coffers. The point is that if I had directed the whole teeming mass of supply crawlers pulling 200+ energy from the Geothermal Shallows area into the Ruin Bastion base, I would be wasting probably all of it rather than assigning them to dump their gain into the HQ base or a base near the HQ.

CEO Aaron is are Morganite at heart, and perhaps he can supply additional input. But I will repeat as I said earlier, new players should NOT play Morgan. I would direct new players to Lal, he's pretty flexible, or Santiago, she's easy to play and a police rating gives you some leeway in dealing with drones while still being able to play as a pretty good Hybrid and ...well, not a builder though. But it will give you some practice in the principles of warfare, which you *MUST* be well versed in as a Morganite because Morganites usually skimp on military units at home for Support reasons and the chronic drone problems caused by Free Market in warfare for units warring outside of their base(s) (in this case, two drones for each military unit away from the home base).

[Morgan Everett]

Wow, that was useful! Thanks a lot for your input!

You made your point. Who else should I begin playing with?

You mentioned Lal and Santiago but I really can't stand them.. Is it possible for me to get started with the Free Drones?

According to what others have said, with the Free Drones I'll HAVE TO be a warmonger in order to offset my research penalty. Being warlike is what you advised.

[551262]

You are free to start off any way you feel comfortable.

But you'll have a harder time with ... the more specialized factions, like Morgan, Roze, Fungboy (actually, he doesn't have a lot going for him, or against him, so he's mostly average), the Nautilus Pirates, and yes Domai.

SMAC is a pretty intimidating game, in terms of depth, micromanagement, and just a lot to learn and do right. The idea is get comfortable with a versatile faction rather than a specialist when you're a new player. Besides, as I mentioned before, to be a really good specialist player (i.e. dedicated Zak, Morgan, ...) you have to have a good understanding of other principles like warfare, because they are threats to your growth and prosperence.

It's also good to have a good understanding of the finer aspects of the other factions pluses and minuses -- this can be advantegous in the longer run. For instance, Yang has a terrible economy, and is usually just about broke. So he compensates by stealing energy credits from other players with probe teams or bullying. Both are viable tactics and he's well suited to the latter element. You can keep a foot on him by hampering his tech advances (knocking out prominent researchers) and other ways.

[Morgan Everett]

I understand.

I like the Pirates a lot, I like Domai, I love Morgan and I also like the University Of Planet.

I don't like to play Gaya's stepdaughters but they are my favorite ally in the game.

I hate the Hive although it's the most interest AI to face, I dislike the Caretakers and the Usurpers ( cheated, cheap factions to me ), the Peacekeeping Forces ( talking about bureaucratic bull**** and hypocritical ideals... ), the Spartans, The Cult, the Cybernetic Consciousness ( another cheated, cheap faction to me ), the Angels and Miriam ( oh GOD I HATE her soooo much, worst faction ever to me ).




I think my favorite faction would have been the Pirates if they had been more potent. According to the SMAX wiki they are considered a powerhouse, but I fail to see why. It would seem logical to me that a faction whose interests are 'conquer and explore' would inherit from a MORALE or PROBE bonus. Instead, they have a EFFICIENCY and GROWTH penalty.

I see the logic between these penalties BUT Pirates are warmongers by heart, where's that transpired?

Ok, they have naval yard and marine detachment that doesn't seem enough to rival with Spartans especially on the ground.

Nevertheless, they remain a cool faction but probably overrated.. Consequently, Morganites are my fav.

So what faction do you suggest I pick amongst those I like?

[BlackCat]

OOh dear. All input energy is lost because of inefficency. There are two ways of dealing with this problem, and the drones.

Just for fun - try putting a Childrens Creeche into that base.

[Morgan Everett]

Ok, after some thinking I've decided to stick with the Morganites. Here's how I intend to proceed:

The original SE are +1 to ECONOMY and -1 to SUPPORT.

In the end, I'll have without future societies:

+2 RESEARCH
+3 ECONOMY
+3 EFFICIENCY
+2 GROWTH
-3 SUPPORT
-3 PLANET
-5 POLICE
-2 PROBE

I intend to use those society models:

Politics => Democratic : +2 EFFICIENCY
+2 GROWTH
-2 SUPPORT

Economics => Free Market :+2 ECONOMY
-3 PLANET
-5 POLICE

Values => Knowledge : +2 RESEARCH
+1 EFFICIENCY
-2 PROBE

In time of peace I'll take Eudaimonic ( so I get a +5 to ECONOMY which, with +3 to EFFICIENCY should mean very little losses +2 to INDUSTRY and another +2 to GROWTH so I get +4 to GROWTH ) and in time of war I'll take THOUGHT CONTROL.

With these basic settings without future societies, I have a stable faction capable of researching fast, of producing lots of energy and yet NOT lose them ( +3 TO EFFICIENCY should be enough, right? ) but sensible to probe.

However, in times of war, I can also go 'thought control' which will give me a +2 to MORALE and bring back my probe status to 0. A +2 in POLICE bringing it back to -3 will also help a little I guess. In times of peace, I'm even more rich and powerful with Eudaimonic.



My strategy in the beginning of the game will be:

- Before I get my second breakthrough, build as many colony pods as possible and expand.
- First breakthrough should be Free market, so I can get more energy to accelerate my labs and allow me to rush. This will give me +3 to economy, +2 energy per base and 1 energy per tile, enhanced by the fact that I made lots of colony pods.
- Then I complete the research for formers and I make one former per base so I don't cross the minerals limit and start the secret project given by the technology so I can start preparing boreholes.
- Third I go with Biogenetics and use my +100 start cash and the remaining to implement recycling tanks in my bases.
- Then Planetary Network should be mine so I can build two Probe Teams with Armor 2 per base.

Then I continue my expansion and rush to clean reactor so I can start making real war units.

What do you think about this strategy?

[Lord Avalon]

If you want to churn out colony pods, I think you should go for Biogenetics & Recycling Tanks first, like I suggested above. You'll need the extra nutrient for growth, the mineral for producing pods & other stuff, and the energy for rushing builds. If you're going to build armored probe teams, use the infantry chassis, so they're cheaper. Unless the terrain is really bad, I put off Centauri Ecology a bit, as a base isn't going to grow to more than 2 while building colony pods.