The Chartroom: General Strategy and Tactics

[johndmuller]

Well Maties, this here is the smoke filled room where we hash out our plans to collect those pieces of eight that we feel compelled to bury on deserted islands all over the universe.

For example, methinks that it's a good idea to plant our sea bases such that there is nearly always at least one min/energy/nut bonus tile in the base radius. Being adjacent to one of those 1-tile islands is good too; later on it could become a Borehole and a place for a drop unit to land so it could drop into the base. Getting a foothold on a continent or two might be an early priority, before the continents are all officially part of the landlubbers territory when building a colony would be a belligerent act.

[Makahlua]

Very true to the early grab for a small isle - I've found early land settling with the Pirates to be valuable; the land bases can take on special projects while the sea bases keep piling up energy/research. The way the bonus tiles fall we can usually get 2-4, with only a few bases with 1 or none(but if the none are against land that's not so bad!) And we need some place safe to bury those treasure chests

On the research front - are we beelining for Secrets/Human Brain and the possible free tech? It -is- possible to win it against the UoP; I've done so about 50/50 - better odds when I don't land in the Great Marine Rift (or random world equivalent). I usually go Social Psych-Bioengineering-SotHB-Ethical Calc, then CentauriEco-InfoNets-PlanetNets (that is if by that point we don't have enough credits to buy CentEco & PlanetNets - we need formers and probes!) BioE is less urgent early for the pirates; our pressure domes act as rec tanks!

What will our stance to other factions be? Peaceful to the humans at furst, I would think, but would we remain neutral to the AI so we can probe? Come to think of it, it doesn't matter with the AI - the first probe will get us in a war (even if its only diplomatic)

Now If only we had the map to plot colonies...

[Hercules]

I am interested in the beeline for Secrets tactic. Are you sure about those odds. But I always like to get probes as early as possible.

I think we can be sure the UoP will also beeline for Ind Auto.

No question that our stance is peaceful for the early years. If we don't lose our sloop to an IOD we're likely to be the first to make contact with other factions.

Getting a foothold on a continent or two is also a sound strategy and I like the I tile island approach and boreholes.
You can bury your treasure if you want to. I prefer a sea water cave.

[Makahlua]

Thinking about it I'm not sure if that will still apply at Transcend (I've been playing Librarian lately ) but Secrets is good to have simply for trance defense against those worms!

*goes to look at the save*

[johndmuller]

I've never made to much of a study of bee-lines, so I don't know if there is any inherent Pirate advantage in research offerings coming into play here, but barring that, I would think that our chances of getting SoHB first would be kind of slim, what with the University's free tech and NetNodes and the Borg's research bonus, not to mention Miriam starting out with one of the prereqs and likely a running start on the energy/labs production. If either one of our EggHead fellow humans wanted to go that way, I doubt we could beat them. It's going to be a while before we are able to do any terraforming at all, so unless there are a lot of handy energy specials waiting for us, our research will be kind of slow. Since we are starting with 2 techs, our research costs (currently listed at 35 , will be noticibly higher than those with only 1 tech, which will aslo slow us down. I guess that if we were to go for SoHB, we would in effect be betting that the others would all go for Centauri Empathy and would waste their first research on that.

I am pretty sure that the bee llines are not necessarily the same for each faction. I believe that the game mechanics choose research offerings to withhold (i.e. techs that you have the prereqs to research but are not offered) on a strict rotation: each tech is offered for two turns and withheld 1 turn and that each tech is assigned to one of three groups of techs; one of these groups is withheld each turn, rotating through the groups each time you choose, so that you can be confident that a tech will not be withheld twice in a row. There are a two wrinkles in this schema: (1) the rotation advances when you acquire techs by other means, like trading, stealing or pod popping, so if you get 2 techs on the side between research, you will have the same group of techs withheld; and (2) that there is always at least one tech offered and that it is also predetermined in some fashion (perhaps depending on your faction's research preferences or some such); whatever this sequence of 'wild card' techs is, it will lead to a particular tech being exempt from the withholding rotation and so always offered until you research it, at which point another tech will become the wild card. I don't know all the details of this theory, and it does have a few skeptics, but I have been keeping track (albeit imperfectly) of tech offerings in PBEMs for quite a while now and have not seen any evidence to refute it. To the extent that I am able, I will try to keep track in this game too and share whatever insight and suggestions devolve from it. (pardon the ramble if you are already true believers and I have been preaching to the choir).

In addition to SoHB or just going for CentEmpathy, we could consider going for techs that will be unlikely to be researched by others, thus guaranteeing us trade goods and relying on those trades to get the 'normal' techs. This strategy has some risk associated with it, particularly if we turn out to be unable to get any essential techs that way, but as long as we have ships out there (if we lose our initial ship, we are in trouble and I at least, will be cursing Googlie for dropping out our spare), we should be in a position to make a lot of early trades (we may want to consider not trading others' commlinks too readily, keeping a trade monopoly as long as possible), and the risk is probably not too bad.

I'm incllined to vote for CentEmpathy, but I'm not adamantly opposed to one of the other approaches.

[Hercules]

I recently played a game thinking I would meet other players and trade to get Cent Emp. Unfortunately it didn't happen and I wasted years waiting to discover it, never mind lost production. Cent Emp, with our Doc Flex gives us Sea former making ability, which while a bit longer to produce, would allow us to exploit the sea unhindered for a good few years.

On the other hand Soc Psych is a pretty handy tech.

Just noted Flame will be joining us soon. Allow him to get up to speed and then maybe a quick poll if no clear first tech choice.

[FlameFlash]

Terraforming needs to be a top priority first... then move on to something else.

I like the idea of after Cent Emp go Aquafarm and aim for 3res armor... I usually can get it rather quickly and it generally will give us an edge over the other human factions who won't be aiming for military tech so soon.

From there Ind. Auto is always good, because unlike our landlubber friends, we get supply foils which can act as both early warning systems and boosts to energy and research (after building, detour them to our headquarters.)

There's my initial input...

[Hercules]

OK given the first chance we research Cent Emp first. I think that would get the aye aye Cap'n.

[Makahlua]

You know, I keep forgetting - no Empath Guild this game! We won't need Green so urgently either - it's Planned (along with Demo) we need to help further offset our -Growth & Efficiency

[Googlie]

[Makahlua]

Your link had an odd break in it, but here it is :

Vel's guide

[FlameFlash]

So first Cent Emp then?

One Secret Project we should really aim for is whatever one it is that gives us bases with 3 starting pop... it'll greatly help against that -1 growth... later the cloning vats should be a priority...

[Makahlua]

CentEmp, followed by IndAuto for the Planetary Transit System - and IndAuto is good for lots of things Are there any other SP's we need early - knowing that -everyone- will be trying for them?

We do need Demo/Planned for good growth, but maybe we should also run Demo/Green for a bit while still pod-popping and gather a few IoD's? Once grown, they are great transports and especially if Independent, can do a good chunk of exploring -without- getting caught in fungus (and probably have a unit or two handy for grabbing land pods!) Green's still not -urgent- tho, just a thought for when it's handy

[foolish_icarus]

I suggest Adaptive economics. Aside from the energy grid, we'd also get technologies for thermocline, aquafarm, merchant X, free market, and be at a convenient location for going after the either the techs that get rid of the production restrictions or ind automation. These are also fairly good techs to trade with. Do the other factions also start with 3 colony pods?

[Hercules]

Adaptive Ec which I like, is a B3 Tech and we're some way from that. Combined with tidal harnesses, it can be a massive energy source and if harvested with trawlers, and additional early warning sytem.

Yes I believe all start with 3 colony pods. See Game parameters thread in general forum.