Building infrastructure after Update 2.0

[gwillybj]

UnityScoutChopper said:
Hello all!
Now that I'm using Update 2.0 and paying correct infrastructure costs...

Is that the XP Compatibility Patch? If so, relevant to that, I have a small request for something that might help a lot of people and save repeated answers. Would someone who knows the exact answer post in the FAQ thread (The SMAC/X FAQ: COMMON QUESTIONS and their ANSWERS) the answers to some questions:[list=1][*]Which patch is "Update 2.0"?[*]Which game is it for: Alpha Centauri or Alien Crossfire?[*]What exactly is corrected, both (a) in general and (b) specific to infrastructure costs?[*]Does the correction apply to any specific difficulty level or levels?[/list=1]An itemized reply is not necessary, as long as all points are covered.
I put this request here because of Rules 1 and 3 of the FAQ thread:

1) You must post a common question.
3) You must also post the answer to it... don't post your question here.

[CEO Aaron]

HGP isn't a bad choice for fixing early drone problems, and if you're reliant on a Golden Age to Pop Boom, you'll need it later anyway. The problem is that to get it before you hit your first bureaucracy, you'll NEED an alien artifact, preferrably 2. If you're Lal or Domai, I wouldn't bother, get WP instead.

If you haven't hit the baselimit by the time you've got IA, however, you're doing something greviously wrong. You need to have a lot of bases to get the most out of Free Market.

I disagree about commons slowing you down, the trick is to only build them where you need them. If you've done your job right running FM, you should have Recycling Tanks in each base, and a good stockpile of ECs (a bit over 100 should do) banked up when you're ready to plant your base that will trigger the drone warning. Immediately after you plant your base, check your psych report on F4, and find out where your B-drones have cropped up. Change production and rush-build rec-commons in those bases only. If you can't afford to rush right away, get by with a doctor until you can.

[johndmuller]

If you don't want facilities and dont get the SP's then use specialists, just crawl some nuts to feed the doctors (ack!), if that's what it takes.

In general, it's mostly a matter of keeping the right balance between Nuts, Energy and Mins; once you get crawlers, you can pretty much have whichever you want, so I suppose that you are really about optimizing something or other rather than actually having real trouble.

I didn't see any references to the PTS in there - it can be kind of useful in the sort of game it sounds like you're playing.

[Curiosity]

Save games! Save games! It's much better than text.

I know what you mean about the upkeep biting. I never used to build the VW, even before I found out out about the bug. The 3 energy per turn never seemed much of a problem, somehow. It was a real shock when my first facility got sold off.

Anyway... I've recently started playing both aliens in a PBEM, and I've been finding FM pretty useless. Without wealth, it hardly does anything. By the time you get IA, you're already close to hitting the baselimit.

The best solution is definitely to build the HGP. It should be basically the first thing you do with your crawlers, IMO. Upgrade 4 to trance and you're there.

The only other decent option is to drop into planned and use police. That will, at least, keep you expanding.

Rec commons slow you down too much, even without the upkeep. Unless you absolutely have no other choice, I wouldn't build them until you're ready to pop-boom.

[Rubin]

I'd be interested in looking at your Caretaker game. Can you post it?

[UnityScoutChopper]

Hello all!

Now that I'm using Update 2.0 and paying correct infrastructure costs, I'm finding it hard to "do everything at once" like I'm used to when I don't have exceptionally favorable luck in gaining early-midgame income and artifacts. That is, first of all, getting RC's in place quick enough to get the WP and VW built quick enough to build population to at least drone size 4-5. Delaying the WP is meaning the arrival of an abundance of crawlable forests later, further delaying the VW. Delaying the VW is delaying growth, because I have always avoided building Hologram Theaters in favor of building the VW, but the delay in RC's is now causing a delay in building up enough crawlers for an early one-turn build. I have thus ended up with two games where I could even do a treefarm boom in theory, but haven't due to not having the VW (let alone the energy to rush-build NN's). I have also always avoided building energy banks in SMACX, preferring to build the PEG.

Maybe I am just being too picky about how I am building SP's...

The test games I've played have been with Miriam and with (don't laugh, I hardly ever play these guys but since I hardly play them, I took them for a spin now) the Usurpers and Caretakers. I find the latter two almost more energy-starved than humans, since they can't benefit from trade or the governorship, and can have trouble hitting up humans for loans or selling techs.

In my first, Miriam game, I had the monsoon jungle to myself, but had major trouble taking advantage of it due to being on an extremely jaggy large island (the largest mass in an archipelago that, to make matters worse, contained a good part of the Jungle). The chart showed me running away with the game, I was crawling heavily, but the jagginess made it hard to concentrate my crawlers in one turn. In the phase where I quit, the power chart showed me as beginning to run away with the game, but in reality I felt weak. Everyone except my pactmate Aki and per-HAPS my enemy Santiago was too far away to vassalize easily without leaving FM. Despite my good tech rate, I was rapidly slipping to the Gaians due to having sold her tech early in the game to keep buying RC's fast enough to expand under FM without going doctor-crazy. We're currently at peace, and I dread the consequences of going to war just to probe her (and the huge travel time through the archipelago out to the southern powers makes even probing the unpleasantly tech-advanced Hive, who I'll doubtlessly be forced to fight sooner, a tough call). When I return to that game, I probably face a late-game showndown against a high-tech Deirdre with (already) the Xenoempathy dome and the WP, which she snagged :-(.

In my Usurpers game, I actually wasn't doing too bad overall -- had oodles of bases and crawlers, but kept waiting for that one-turn VW build, so was paying toward the end up to 40% for psych so I could keep at least some bases droneless at size 3 by crawing forests for 2 energy a pop. Probably not a good idea, but I'd never done it before so I thought I'd test it out. Overall, I really was, despite my paranoia, running away with the game, having vassalized, though unfortunately also eradicated, the Gaians and Morganites early on). But I just hated having such small bases. I also couldn't decide how to handle an invasion of the large island right next to my huge continent where Santiago had landed after H'minee eradicated her (eradication MANIA that game!)... while it certainly promised great benefits, I hated the thought of doing it under FM without the acceleration provided by missile tech; meanwhile, without my old standby Demo/Planned and not yet having Green to use as part of a viable non-FM, non-Demo alternative, I didn't just want to throw impact units at the "problem". I also was dreading the decision between Fundy and Police (not that I had Police yet) and above all I was constantly researching techs I wanted NOW, like the restriction lifters, the missile branch, and Fundy and Police themselves.

I think my insanely fast expansion in this game was part of my cashflow problems -- when you're building a rec commons or two every turn to get newfounded bases off to the right start, it really eats up the energy.

Curious as to how the Caretakers would fare, I played them most recently... got handed a large but insanely jaggy continent with a snippet of jungle, a ridiculously close Aki, whom I quickly bullied for a tech and a base and then vassalized but also eradicated, the Pirates right next to the Monsoon Jungle and me (as yusual... sigh) and the Usurpers with a nice chunk of prime real estate on the other side of a strait. Once again the land-poor home area and overall jaggedness of the starting portion is slowing my artifact finds and crawler builds and thus my WP build; meanwhile I am running simple/planned/wealth and am so far able to reach size three. A lot may change soon - a bay to the SW of the Usurper subcontinent contains the Sargasso sea, and I have a

UNITY SCOUT CHOPPER OH YEAH

to defend the transport foil that is down there busily mining for artifacts, and to the W of that there are for some reason 4-5 huge fungal towers just waiting to make me money (which are a major reason why I'm not running FM yet).

The Usurpers are so far bottled in, AFAICT, by their own hesitation to approach my probe team and 3r garrison at a key bottleneck, which is dumb but I'm not complaining, and I am starting to mine them for techs, while playing the dangerous game of colonizing their NE shore due to absence of other easily-reachable base sites for my core bases. I'm trying to decide whether to tackle the Pirates or the Usurpers first -- the former I could probably do without ever generating pacifism drones if I use missile foils; the latter would let me avoid fighting on two fronts and put an end to a war that can only end one way, but would be hard to fight under FM.

But above all... slower to WP (don't have it yet IIRC, it was a 5 a.m. bedtime game...), slower to VW, slower to decent base sizes and of course tech than I'd like.

Thoughts? I can attach any or all save files on request.

USC