Pollution problem

[Ferdi]

I would like to know if it is possible to eliminate totaly pollution caused by mineral production.
In the middle of a game I only use few squares in a base to avoid this problem (I usualy plant forests everywhere + hybrid forest).
What's the maximal mineral production you can reach without any pollution. It seems that 45, 50 is a limit.
Where I am wrong? Please help me!!

[Drago Sinio]

I dont know what the limit is, but I don't think you can completely eliminate eco damage. You can increase the number of minerals produced without eco damage by adjusting your SE choices, terraforming decisions, and with facilities. Hybrid forests and Centauri Preserves for example reduce eco damage, as does selecting a faction and SE choice with a high Planet rating. Gaians running green can produce a lot more minerals without any damage than Morgan running Free Market for example. And extreme terraforming, i.e. boreholes, condensers, and the like also cause ecodamage . The most eco-friendly terraforming option is to plant forests everywhere.
[This message has been edited by Drago Sinio (edited June 12, 2000).]

[Lord Maxwell]

Playing as gaians, having all eco damage reducing facilities and secret projects, as well as as high a green rating as possible lets you have a mineral production of 110-120 at the time of the first transcendent thought tech. The Cult might be able to push it another 10-20 if you have smac-x.

I rarely get bases past 60-80 when running gaians, and rarely past 40ish with anyone able to run fm. (as it kinda grinds to a halt around there)
Off course, with yang or santiago I often run well into the red, having lot of empath troops to mop up any infestations and get cash from it... (As running fm it pretty pointless as yang, and as santiago you can make more money on green and using your high morale to kill natives...

[Ferdi]

Thank you for your help,

A question come to my mind about the waste of productive squares from the middle of a game. As soon I discover hybrid forest I can't use all available squares within city radius without big levels of pollution. So, my question is, should I build my new cities in order to overlap them as much as possible or continue to keep 21 squares for each city?

[shimmin]

Ferdi:

General consensus around here is that there is nothing wrong with city overlap. Many even encourage it. Some have based rather fearsome strategies on pursuing overlap.

Basically, by the time you have bases that can use all 21 of those squares, the game's already been won or lost. Since using time wisely is the key to winning the game, try to get as many squares working for you as quickly as possible. The gains you take now will exceed the limits to city development in the distant future. This applies whether or not you follow an ICS strategy. You can always make a superbase later by giving one base all the squares it can use at the expense of its neighbors and/or heavy crawler usage.

In short, there is nothing sacred about base radii. Feel free to trample on them.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Ferdi,

Along with what Shimmin decribes, you'll be asking yourself "If I don't allow all those squares to be worked what do I do with the excess population? I can't set them to work so they are wasted right?"

Many times excess population is a great thing as these extra bodies that have no place to work can intead be set to specialist activities and in a sense provide resources in terms of equivalent energy. This equivalent energy may be better in terms of raw resources then actually working a square in many cases. Take for example an engineer that contribute 2 research and 3 econ (equivalent to sourcing 5 raw energy points). Thats a pretty good resource/energy haul for a single population point.

In a nutshell I am simply echoing Shimmin's comments that although you've not worked per city the 21 squares you still are getting great resource returns from even those inactive/non working citizens although at face value it may not appear so. It does require judicious manipulationof your populace tho' in order to establish the kinds of specialsists you wish to use. The default specialists are almost always incorrect and least useful to you as those default specialists are typically doctors then empaths (both of which produce the least meaningful equivalent energy).

[Enigma]

Ogie is right, specialists are incredibly important in changing the energy value of a base. A base that is relatively useless but has a lot of food can be turned into a specialist base and net your empire a ton of cash. Really there is very little reason NOT to ICS unless perhaps you are Lal. Space your cities 3 squares apart. This also allows your infantry to move from city to city, and your rovers to move to cities far away. This allows for more efficient terraforming, faster expansion, is easier to defend, and should help your population. Again if your faction has a big pop boom focus then ICS is not as important, but then again extra population without squares to work on becomes specialists which are very very valuable in the midgame.

I like ICS a lot partially because I play Morgan a lot and can't pop boom, but it works well for any faction.

[Ferdi]

Thanks a lot! ICS (I don't like the principle but...) seems to be a very good solution to solve my problem (and many others).
I am going to try that...

[Ned]

Ferdi, More than anything else, I find that building farms and solar collectors rather than forests causes ecodamage. The ecodamage formula adds farms and collectors but subtracts forests.

What I do is build farms and solars collectors ONLY on rainy rolling scquares. If there are a lot of these squares in the local area, I build no more than two farms. Everthing else is a forest or a mine. Later, after Hybrid Forests, I redo the farms to forests.

I also try to build my cities with as little overlap as possible. I sometimes build them farther apart than that. Why? This leads to fewer, but more powerful cities. When one gets Industrial Automation, start building nothing but crawlers to work the terrain. You can easily adjust what they transport to base to control ecodamage. Transport minerals originally, but when you begin to get ecodamage, set the crawlers to transport energy or food.

Put the cities own workers at the perimeter and keep the crawler's close to base or on roads. This is important for another strategy - the crawler upgrade "cheat" that permits one to build an SP in one turn.

Let's say for example that you know that in the next turn you will get the tech to build an SP. In this turn you pick a base - rotate them to avoid buildup of SP's in one city - and upgrade two or three crawlers to a very expensive configuration. In the turn you get the SP, move them into the city to build the SP by using the crawler's minerals. Then set that city to rebuilding the crawlers you just used.

Later in the game, after you have Habitation Domes, your cities will grow to occupy all squares in the base area. This is when you need to move the crawlers to those open spaces between the cities to obtain additional resources. Alternatively, move them inside the next base you intend for the next SP and wait to upgrade them.

In general, crawlers are essential to maximizing production and controlling ecodamage. They are also critical for building SP's.

Also, I have been able to run FM an produce 100+ minerals per base without ecodamage. The trick seems to be building eco-reduction facilities and not building factories. I find that factories, more than anything else, cause the ecodamage. Avoid them.

[wneubert]

As I was reading this I was sure I had MANY more minerals than what was mentioned here so I looked up some old saves. I didn't do an exaustive search of my old games, but I t least found a "Pirates" save where I had 564 minerals in one city without pollution (many cities are over 500 and most are over 200). I can still get eco damage so it has not become "unlimited", but almost.

I put the save online at http://web.raex.com/~wneubert. Please note that this is an early game for me, and the first time I ever played the Pirates. Keep that in mind if you want to critique my play decisions.

[This message has been edited by wneubert (edited August 03, 2000).]

[Ishamael]

546!!! Was that transcend, you said it was early?!?

Also, does anyone know if discovering technologies like Centauri Empathy effects ecodamage? I wasn't able to get more than 16 minerals per base w/out eco damage, but gradually it changed. The limit went up for all bases, but the only things I remember happening were discovering Cent. E., tree farms (which I know help eco, but I didn't think it effected mineral count directly, and most of my bases were almost all forest anyways), and base growth, which did not happen at all bases. One of my best mineral bases for awhile was size 3 (tech race so pressing I couldn't even pause to pop boom).

[RedFred]

564 minerals with no ecodamage!!! I don't think you need to worry about people critizing your gameplay wneubert.

Seems like both the pro-ICS and the anti-ICS camps hae spoken. I am somewhere inbetween. I just slap cities down where there is a good spot. Sometimes that will mean a lot of overlap and sometimes none at all. For example, I'll just ignore fungal bloom areas in the early game and go around them. If I have a big uncontested area to expand to I'll space wider and prioritise the coastal cities. If I am cramped and prefer not to attack my neighbours I'll space the cities much more tightly.

Back to topic, one thing that was implied, but not explicitly stated, is that eco-damage is also tech-tree related. The further along you are, the less damage you will experience. Lord Maxwell has stated that he is able to achieve 120 minerals prior to transcendant thought #1; that to me seems like an excellent target to aim for.

[wneubert]

When I said it was early, I meant it was on of my first SMACX games (I had played SMAC before when it first came out). I checked and due to the fact it was one of my first tries, the game was "thinker" (normally I only play "transcend").

I also counted the cities, and there are 17 with over 500 minerals (and 2 with 490). I really can't figure out how there could even be that many (Merchantman Run with 564 minerals has NO mineral Crawlers)

I have all the SP's (some were probably captured by conquest) and 64 "trancendent thought". The minerals started to explode after the Manifold Harmonics SP (plus some mineral satellites).

I checked an earlier save (2370 vs 2388) when I just reached trancendent thought and my cities could have 112 minerals with no eco-damage. I'm not sure whether this is due to tech or that all my cities didn't have Centauri Preserves and Temple of the Planets yet. Later, at 2388, there are a million cities and almost all of them have both. I'm pretty sure that it is how many preserves/temples you have total that determines how many minerals you can get without damage. My planet rating is 5.

[Adam_Smith]

quote: Originally posted by wneubert on 08-04-2000 05:43 AM I'm pretty sure that it is how many preserves/temples you have total that determines how many minerals you can get without damage.

That's exactly right on. So the mineral limit is highly dependent on how many bases you have.

[Googlie]

wneubert:

I downloaded your .sav.

Impressive. The 564 minerals base (actually could be 612 if you transferred two transcendii to the two renmaining unworked shelf fungus squares - however that would shoot your eco damage from it's current 0 to 38!!) is producing an orbital, so mineral production is doubled as long as the orbital is in production, so the real total is 282 minerals. Still impressive, though.

The key is being the Pirates (+1 mineral per ocean shelf square) and having the SP Manifold Harmonics with a +1 minerals for planet rating of 2 or better (you are 5).

Then you have 33 nessus mining stations. It's a size 32 base, so the minerals bonus is 32 for that base.

Add in the three cumulative base minerals enhancements (Q Convertor,Robotic Assembly and Genejack Fac) and you have every sea base square at 4 minerals, and your 32 orbitals are worth 108 (x1.5 three times)

Voila.

Impressive

Googlie


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited August 04, 2000).]