Internal Planning Discussion

[Snowflake]

Since I'm relatively not very experienced with mid to late stage games I would like to have some discussion about the direction of our internal planning.

Currently our formers are still busy building boreholes and farm/condensors. Our bases are producing the necessary military forces for Death of Angels Operation, and more crawlers and formers.

I would like to know your opinion about whether we should build more facilities, such as treefarms. Also none of our bases are over size 7. Should we concentrate on faster growth over hub? Should we build the Long Vac SP? Should we direct some of our formers to raise land and connect our continent with the new conquered DA continent?

I would appreciate any suggestions and ideas.

[Kody]

I'll say I'm not very experienced in mid to late game stages either. However, here's my thoughts. I do expect that there might be holes.

Various Issues
* I think connecting our land to the data angels is a good idea, just don't accidentally destroy any monsoon jungle. Having the lands connected means better military security. It also allows for formers to start taking advantage of the monsoon jungle, and the rocky mineral bonuses there. (6 nutrients from farm/condensers on the monsoon jungle).

* In PBEM during solar activity I heard Googlie mention agreement with the pact mate to send probes and not vendetta so that certain techs can received by the Drones. Also unit prototypes can be given to the Hive to get AAA.

* So far I think Honghu and Rubin have a good decision making process on how to balance military and development. So just decide on the balancing as you normally do.

Development wise

* For the bases closer to our capital consider building more facilities. You need to consider where energy multipliers are worth the most. Tree Farms are nice for bases where you've got several workers on forests, or are gaining a fair amount of energy. Energy banks before Tree Farms in my opinion.

* I'm still wondering when our capital city will be made into the super science city. Rokossovky is nice, but still has that energy inefficiency, it's about time our capital city got some development.

*-2 drones from the longevity vaccine will allow for more workers and less facilities. * Longevity vaccine will help for creating new bases (without worrying about always building network node) and keeping conquered bases productive. This is useful when you want to build many smaller production bases at the outskirts. We may not want to build network nodes there as there may not be much energy available, and the outskirt bases will be more concentrating on building military.
* Longevity vaccine I see it especially useful in having lots of workers in newly conquered bases. That means more minerals in the newer bases and you can build military reinforcements closer to where the fighting is.


Growth plan
* I think main focus should be on building more bases, get more support, more minerals, and more stockpile energy. I count 5 easy base sites on our home continent, and while those are built, consider raising land to build more. Build the colony pods in the smaller bases, not the big ones.

* Perhaps make one base into an infinite colony pod creator with that golden age trick? That way you can support the constant colony pod creation without draining population from important bases. Or just use PTS booming where you have small bases continuously building colony pods, then replanting whenever they get uprooted.

* Secondary comes the clean formers. Start raising more land to the north, the east and the south, in all directions. Try to raise land from 2000m to 3000m range to maximise land and plant bases as you go along in the current ICS spacing. There's plenty of space, and the homeland is secure enough that you can consider discarding the base planning map and just raise land and expand outwards.

* You need to build boreholes while the land is at 0m to 1000m otherwise it gets difficult when it gets raised up. So you have teams of formers building boreholes + raising land.

* The next real base growth stage will be when satellites arrive. Condenser monsoon jungle and nutrient bonuses, but don't worry about condensers on normal squares until satellites come around or if there's a nutrient deficiency that might cause starvation in a size 3 base. Expand outwards until nutrient satellites then consider building the populations of each base larger. Children Creches, and recycling tanks should be all you might want for the newer bases (don't need network nodes with longevity vaccine).

* Nutrient Satellites could be appearing in about 10 years. That will make having larger bases easier, that's would be when I would consider building habitation complexes in our central bases. Also then I would consider boosting the nutrient output in the many outlying bases and get them to size 7 and specialist (+ some basic energy or research boosting facilities).

Summary and advantages on growth plan
Expand outwards with lots of colony pods and clean formers. This will increase our resources and support for making war. Land raise + borehole like crazy (need more formers to do that).

When you can build nutrient satellites consider building up the populations of existing bases and building extra facilities where it will be useful. With satellites it may be useful to build up 8-10 central cities to size 15 and build facilities.

The rest of the bases (in the short run) should stick mainly with basic facilities at size 7 as expanding outwards is more beneficial for us. Satellites and all those SPs we have make having many bases a good investment.

For the size 7 bases I can see a lot of potential especially if we get the longevity vaccine. Basically, armored garrison -1drone, HGP -1drone, longevity -2drones, and then either pick a network node or a police unit. This allows for all the workers to be used without riots. For facilities in the size 7 bases I see two stages, stage 1(Children's Creche, recycling tank), stage 2 (network node, energy bank). With satellites, we could get away with having 2 boreholes and all the rest of the workers on forests without having to build any condensers.

It means if the base needs to build something fast we can unset all specialists and churn out military or formers or whatever we need. If we need energy or labs we set specialists. Also we can support 4 units in each of these bases.

PS: I noticed you lowered the mineral at (24,24) one too many times.

[Kody]

Try to raise land from 2000m to 3000m range

Try to raise land from the 2000m-3000m range upwards to the 3000m-3500m

You need to build boreholes while the land is at 0m to 1000m

While the land is at 0m-1000m when you have 1000m-2000m land then it gets more difficult to start boreholes.

[Snowflake]

Thanks Kody for the indepth discussion.

Re treefarm I think I concur your opinion. In large bases we currently use lots of specialist and also we do not have lots ecodamage yet so they appear not in an urgent need. I will look into energy bank for the central large bases.

Re SP I am convinced that Long Vac is indeed a valuable addition to us. Especially for the new outside bases where we may not build a network node at all. I will look into plans to build it in the next couple turns.

Re pod factory. Will look into it. However that means we would need place to set up new bases. Rubin has indicated the Bones island is not suitable for new territory so that would mean raise more lands after the few potential inland base sites are exhausted. This means heavy terraforming and lots of clean formers.

Re capital city into super science city. I will look into it. I understand this would involve rehoming the energy park crawlers once the facility is in place?

Re AAA prototype exchange. I do not know if it is allowed to exchange prototype since presumely all communication is interrupted, although it could be stipulated that the Drones would already know our desire of getting such units so they do not need us telling them to do so. However the main thing I wanted is the AMA tech for the BioMachinary which I believe we can't get until the end of the sunspot activity.

Re borehole building. When you say build boreholes when the land is at 1-1000m is that because after you raise the land you'll be having a little hill with the squares around this square to be at a lower altitude? I'll need to look at (24,24). Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing.

[Kody]

Thanks Kody for the indepth discussion.

It's no problem

Re pod factory. Will look into it. However that means we would need place to set up new bases. Rubin has indicated the Bones island is not suitable for new territory so that would mean raise more lands after the few potential inland base sites are exhausted. This means heavy terraforming and lots of clean formers.

Yep landraising time. When raising land to 3500m you will often get an extra 9 squares per land raise if you're raising vertically or horizontally (north south east west). If you're raising land diagonally into sea (north-east, north-east, south-west, south-east), you can sometimes get as much as 15 squares per land raise. Our base packing scheme is 9 squares per city.

Re capital city into super science city. I will look into it. I understand this would involve rehoming the energy park crawlers once the facility is in place?

Yep once the captial has the facilities you would start using crawlers from the captial instead.

Re AAA prototype exchange. I do not know if it is allowed to exchange prototype since presumely all communication is interrupted, although it could be stipulated that the Drones would already know our desire of getting such units so they do not need us telling them to do so. However the main thing I wanted is the AMA tech for the BioMachinary which I believe we can't get until the end of the sunspot activity.

I remember Googlie saying in PBEMs they can still communicate an agreement to not vendetta on probes during sunspots. However, I'm not sure what the rules are since the cycon raised some complaint, but never seemed to formalise it.

Re borehole building. When you say build boreholes when the land is at 1-1000m is that because after you raise the land you'll be having a little hill with the squares around this square to be at a lower altitude? I'll need to look at (24,24). Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing.

It's okay, the hive is safe now so I'm not worried about every single mineral and EC now. Also what I was trying to save isn't here anymore.

Looking at the game now, it's like wow so many minerals and ECs to play with. Although it seems that we don't have enough formers... then again I was aiming for 3 formers per base while I was playing.

[Mead]

I'm still not seeing the map but offer the following observations.

1. Obtaining LV should be a priority.

2. As we wind up securing the DA territory we should prepare for a large base boom. PTS plus LV should make a rapid increase in bases worthwhile for us.

3. How soon are we to fusion? Once we get there needlejet CPs should be very cheap. Once fusion becomes available we should rush to populate the world with them.

4. Will we really need 20-30 (more?) probe units? Do we need to protect all our bases, or just the vulnerable ones (with a small reserve of course)? Are we really that threatened that we need that many (more?) probes?

5. Have we infiltrated CyCon yet?

I agree with Kody that we should go for as many bases as reasonable possible.

It sounds like you all are doing a great job.

Mead