Game Discussion - Turn 2101 onwards

[Kody]

Here's your first 9 squares so you can start some discussion.

[Vander]

I like it there.


Unless we want to move our HQ to the river square, lower left.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Ok some initial observations.

Lots of Lush terrain so we will have no problem with Nuts. Importance of Tanks reduced.

Elevation almost 1000m in starting tile which is a vally, the surounding tiles are likly over 1000 meaning solar panels can potentialy be usefull on some of that terrain. Also the Sea is probably quite far away reducing the importance of Early Doc Flex and slowing down contact with other factions and commerce

We start near the Pole which means we have less worry of a 2 front war at some point later in the game. We should expand southward and then backfill northward. Land Grabing can realy pay off.

First move pop the Pod with the scout before founding the base. Then move the other colony Pod southward along the river. Vander sugjests placing first base ON the river which would give us +1 energy, this seems reasonable to me but much will depend on what kind of bonus (if any) we find in the Pod. If its a monolith I say found ware we are for quick start. If its a Min or Eng then I think we should build ON that bonus. A nut though I would not build on as its better to crawl them or forest them.

[Chaunk]

First order I should say would be to move a CP South West. then we can see if there are other rainy rolling squares around. It may be better to move all the units SW onto that square and pop the pod after founding a base next turn.

Also, founding a base on a min bonus wouldn't help overly as we would not grow fast enough to use the extra min. (Growth would be in 11 turns, CP in 8 turns.) Instead, we'd then want to found on the SW square and work the min bonus (eventually to borehole it). An energy bonus will never give more than +2 energy so it'd be worth founding on.

I say definatly found on the river. Both initial bases if possible. That +1 energy is a huge +2 labs at this stage, which is a massive bonus to pass up.

Note that the fungus attatches to the square NW of it, but not to any other, so there's more fungus there, but how much we won't know yet. Also, SMAX makes the rain fall on the west of mountains, yet the square North West of our start is rainy and on the east of a hill (or possibly a ridge). This indicates there's probably a larger hill to the east of our location. It's hard to tell whats what though on the image as Kody has edited out many of the contour lines (Note the mismatched lines at the bottom of the map and the top. Also the blackness on the right). If we have nearby sea then it's probably to the south east following the direction of the river.

Looking at the power graph, Yang probably has one or two bases pre founded whilst Zak and the PK's don't have any. It'll be interesting to see if Zak and Lal exchange techs before they've discovered techs. I've played games where the ai has stupidly done this before, and lost much time in researching at too slow a rate for the tech cost.

Also note how Morgan has been started with 100 e.c. (90 bonus ec) instead of 110 ec (100 bonus ec) as it should be

Almost makes me want to ask for a restart

[Impaler[WrG]]

Actualy my guess is that the sea lies to the South East as the South West seems to be higher in elivation and would likly be the headwaters of the river.

Oh by the way someone should sugjest a name for that River.

[Chaunk]

Originally posted by Chaunk
If we have nearby sea then it's probably to the south east following the direction of the river.

I thought I said that

[Impaler[WrG]]

Opps I got confused over that reference to move the CP to the SW must have gumbled it up. If we are interested in moving towards the Sea then we should move one CP down the river and found one base ON the river just to the SW of our start locations unless we find a nice bonus to build on (like energy) under that Pod.

[Chaunk]

I think we should move a CP to the SW first. Without knowing where the river goes to in the SW, it's hard to know if we could found a base there.

The SW square is rolling rainy river also, meaning 2-1-1 (2-1-2 with FM) so I'm loathe to found a base on it, thinking about it more clearly. Founding S means the other CP would have to travel a fair way to get to an acceptable base site. Move SW with a CP, then reassess, hopefully knowing that the river continues SW for a couple more squares.

[Kody]

It's hard to tell whats what though on the image as Kody has edited out many of the contour lines (Note the mismatched lines at the bottom of the map and the top. Also the blackness on the right).

Limit of 800 width picture attachments so I shuffled things over to the left. You guys need to know that because you'll be posting screenshots too.

Nice analysis Chaunk, only one who used all the information I posted.

[jtsisyoda]

I'm ok founding the first two bases very near each other if it means two river bases. The other bases can be spread out just a bit more to give them enough squares, but that can come later. Now we need to maximize energy.

I suggest one CP SW, then Scout pops pod. If we have two decent base sites on the river, go for it. Otherwise, we could send the second CP North. That way we can stil found two bases on the second turn.

As for not being able to use a possible mineral bonus... I disagree. We can always push Cent Eco up and build a couple extra formers (CP's still have precedence, though). And as our Hyper Mini Game shows, Scouts do lose to MW's once in a while, so we could also have an extra scout or two.

[jtsisyoda]

Hypothetical numbers
base square 2/1
worker 2/1

That's 2/2 net
grow in 11, CP in 12
grow in another 11, CP in another 12
minimum total 24 turns for two CP's

RT:

say 4 turns until RT's...
net 3/3
grow in 9, CP in 10
grow in another 8, CP in another 9
minimum total 19 turns for two CP's

This is FIVE turns better for our fifth and sixth bases. We'll be running FM by then, and that's at least 2 mins and 5 energy per base, totalling 20 mins and 50 energy we gain by building RT's ASAP. They pay for themselves too quickly, especially with our kick-butt base squares.

say 6 turns until RT's as a conservative estimate...
net 3/3
grow in 10, CP in 11
grow in another 8, CP in another 9
total 20 turns for two CP's

With RT's, you're not rushing the CP's much-- they finish right about on time, so you can save up cash again to rush formers or the next two RT's.

The first six bases are by far the most important for turn advantage. The sooner we get them, the sooner we get IA and the sooner we get HGP, etc.

If we go FM early without RT's, we'll have so much cash we won't be able to spend it. All the cash in the world doesn't make you grow to size two faster, unless you build an RT with it. Cash isn't turn advantage by itself-- only when spent. Granted, early FM does give a research boon as well. I don't mind waiting a few turns for FM, missing out on some early energy, if it means the next bases can take advantage of FM sooner.

So, I advocate Biogen (build ME SP temporarily), Ind Econ, IA, with Cent Eco spliced in wherever our science officer says it will not delay IA.

[AndiD]

Depending on how the scenario was set up (tech trade happened or not), tech might look like this:
(Who knows about that set-up? buster?)

A) No tech trade happened
(like it was in the ACDG3-WaitingGame)

Resarch path might be:

1) Biogen, InfNet, IndEcon, CentEcol, PlanNet, IA (early RTs)

2) Biogen, InfNet, IndEcon, PlanNet, IA, CentEcol (early RTs with IA before CentEcol)

3) CentEcol, InfNet, IndEcon, PlanNet, IA (direct beeline to IA)

4) IndEcon, InfNet, CentEcol, PlanNet, IA (FM first, again direct beeline to IA)

The 2nd tech is either Doc:Mob, InfNet or SocPsych.


B) Tech trade happened

1) InfNet, IndEcon, CentEcol, PlanNet, IA

2) InfNet, CentEcol, IndEcon, PlanNet, IA

Biogen as 2nd tech would not make sense in this case, right?

The 1st tech is either Doc:Mob, InfNet or SocPsych


I did not check Flex-before-IA.


Sidenote: Wouldn't it be Morganite to name rivers like "Richness River", "Wealth water", "Credit Source", ...?

[Kody]

I'll check through the game tonight and look up the inital tech choices.

All factions will recieve the same help though.

Edit: nobody seems interested so I'll save myself the bother.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I like "Credit Source" river so lets put down a land mark to that effect.

To Drouge: will the Mods police the use of the games limited Landmarks? Should we be lockin our share of the landmarks imediatly? What is our share? I belive 64 is the max but natural landmarks count against that so (64- Naturals)/4 = Team share?

AndiD: I am asuming that all senarios start with the factions unflaged for tec trading. And dont forget to take our position in the turn order into account as well.

I like Recycling tanks but agree that IA is important, Centauri Ecology is also one of my favorites so be shure to get that before too much of a delay. Of the 4 paths you point out I like 1 and 4 with 4 my favorite. The isshue is what end up beeing the higest energy and thus Labs producer early Tanks or Early FreeMarket.

Senario 2 looks bad because Cent-Ecology comes so late, you will have crawlers with nothing good to crawl and no forests for base workers for a LONG time meaning poor mineral income. In 3 the Centauri Ecology is coming so soon your probly not able to use it because your making pure Pods.

[Chaunk]

In any beeline, InfNetworks is the second tech. Hence, IndEcon->InfNet->Biogen->CentEcol (Planetary Networks & IndAuto are always possible here with those four first techs.)

Hence my prefered beeline is:
Biogen->InfNet->CentEcol->IndEcon->PlanNet->IndAuto.

If we found our first two bases on rivers, and buy the rectanks, then we should be able to get to CentEcol by the time we found bases 3 & 4. Those bases then produce formers (which are re-homed to other bases as support needs), and bases 1&2 continue with CPs - produced faster due to rectanks. By early 2120's we should be able to have 6 bases (B-drone limit), and six formers. Idealy, we'd be able to use the 10 mins from bases 5 & 6 to make crawlers, but that might not be possible.

We would likely be behind in pop, but hopefully we'd be in an ideal position to grab the HGP very shortly after we built our 5th and 6th bases. And from there, we'd expand to the limits of territory/conflict.

Kody: I'd very much appriciate you checking out what techs are available to start off with. Apologies for not saying so earlier, I presumed you were doing so when I saw your post. I now realise this was not the case.

jtsisyoda Good analysis on the rectanks. You've won me over, so long as we ensure we keep 40e.c.s (or can get them in short order) for FM.