Various tips

[timotheus4]

On social engineering:

I generally do what would be best for me diplomatically. If I want to befriend Lal, I'll be running democracy or frontier if Yang. If Morgan and Deidre are the most powerful on Chiron and in a position to pwn me, you can bet the Hunter Seeker Algorithm that I'm not running planned. (Oh yeah the HSA. Especially pre expansion that SP is made for the University. The Virtual World as well due to their netnodes in every base and problem with drones.)

If no one can crush me easily, for Yang it's a no brainer due to their Immunity, EFFIC value. Run Police/Planned. For values, it's a tossup, although I usually run Knowledge. One good thing to to can be run Fundy/Knowledge. You wind out with a +MORALE and a +EFFIC, the RESEARCH and PROBE values cancelling eachother out.

On market economies: Market can be the best if you use it properly. Think: +1 energy a square, times number of squares in a base, times number of bases, multiplied over turns -- that's tons of money and research and money to psych! It's like a free merchant exchange at every base! Unfortunately you have to balance that against a ---PLANET and a -----POLICE. One thing to do is to edit alpha.txt and tone down the minus effects. Otherwise, I reccommend only switching to market once you have hybrid forests down. I also reccomend running Police state/power to take the bite out. Furthermore it can be wise to allocate some of your newfound energy to Psych. 40-20-40 or even 30-40-30 can be good. You'll still be raking in the cash and research, and your citizens will be more content. Deidre can't run market and thus I consider her 'inferior'. Morgan doesn't have to run market - he can get +1 energy a square simply by running wealth. I usually run Morgan on Green/Police(or democracy)/Wealth so you can keep some more of your energy. If you plan to be a warmonger with Moygan this is not good though. Running market with the university can be especially dangerous because of their drone problem. It can be easier with Lal because of their talent bonus and also harder because he can't run police state. It is generally good to not have a big army if running market.

For the democracy/planned/creche popboom thing, I usually don't do it, or only do it for short amounts of time. I'd rather be running market/police. Although if you want a good mindworm army Green is good (run green with democracy and power and you'll only have a -2 industry to contend with). I usually run knowledge, though, because of the research kick. And with the HSA you can elimintate it's - effects.

More later.

-Timotheus, UberN00b to SMAC, but learning!

[Minute Mirage]

Originally posted by timotheus4
Running market with the university can be especially dangerous because of their drone problem.

I disagree. Once you've got bureaucracy drones in your bases, you're in the same position as most other factions, since the University doesn't get super drones from it's negative 'bonus'. Besides, the drones start only coming when you reach the size of four, so you can run FM just like anyone else before that. I usually switch to FM early when playing the University, certainly before 2120, but the exact time depends on my cash and various other conditions.

[Hippi]

so he was serious.

[timotheus4]

So I was. And I'll be back with more.

Although note, I was mistaken about Deidre unable to get +1 energy/square. A golden age in a base gives the equivalent of a +1 economy and +2 growth in that base, so you just need to jack up psych high enough. Many people don't realize the powers of a golden age; you can get more energy, and run pop boom without one of the democracy/creche/planned elements. IE Pop boom is possible for Yang and Morgan. Or another faction without a creche, or not running planned, or something.

[Minute Mirage]

The golden ages can indeed be extremely useful, but they are very dependant on the HGP, once you start getting b-drones. This makes the HGP an essential project for the factions that can't execute a standard pop boom.

[UnityScoutChopper]

Hello Timotheus,

Market+Police is like studying to become a doctor and then becoming a ditch digger. Don't go that way.

To put it more clearly: you are raising your energy production only to see the vast majority of it lost to your low efficiency rating... and STILL not significantly reducing your drone problems. (In fact, by reducing your cashflow, you have less energy to send to psych, so you may be increasing them). Sure you can fight a war with that, but you'd do better off running <foo> + planned or in certain special cases green. If you can just hold your horses a bit, you can get things like punishment spheres, brood pits, and/or the Ascetic Virtues to make wars fightable under FM. Or you can just use the "poor man's punishment sphere": a sacrificial size-1 base with one doctor and lots and lots of mineral crawlers. (If not for the risk of bases defecting, I could recommend skipping the doctor and the size-1 base, but... that could get really nasty.)

There's a lot more in what you wrote that I would contest (though there's a lot that is "common wisdom" that you seem to have realized on your own -- kudos), but "Police + FM" really sticks out.

USC

edit: foo fightin'

[UnityScoutChopper]

Adalbertus, did you not catch that it was an adaptation of an existing work? (I couldn't for the life of me write even that shabby excuse for German if I started from scratch.)

Hint: "Bedrohlichstrahl" was originally "Glitzerstrahl".

USC

[CEO Aaron]

USC is right, Market+Police is definitely like robbing peter to pay Paul. Market is terribly strong, but definitely for an exclusively introspective empire. It's best used early on, when the extra base square energy comprises a significant boost to your income. By the midgame, you should be able to boost energy with boreholes or crawlers, or good old-fashioned extortion.

Combining FM with the efficiency hit from Police will aggravate your already tenuous drone problems, meaning your extra income will mostly be diverted to psych, not to mention the large amounts of energy that will bleed away from inefficiency. A better plan is to use FM when you're largely at peace, switching to Planned or Green when you want to take a warlike stance.

[timotheus4]

Hmm. Maybe.

Terraforming guide coming as soon as I can.

[Hippi]

Can't wait much longer

[UnityScoutChopper]

OK, one more short note -- sorry for giving this in drabs and drabs...

Power is even more unpopular among forumgoers than police (which at least has a faction, the Hive, that outright demands it). In return for extra support (which you could imitate by increasing mineral output) and extra morale (which, unless your morale is high to start with, you can mostly imitate just by letting your newest troops start by fighting easy battles), you slow down your production of EVERYTHING. Now that's in comparison to a null setting. In practice, it is in competition with Wealth (give up the easiest-to-attain morale levels in return for extra energy and faster construction) and Knowledge (make probe costs for and against you less favorable in return for extra energy and better return on science energy). In comparison with these, it's even worse--e.g. a 33% (twelve ninths) increase in build costs compared to Wealth.

USC

[ErikM]

Police+FM is rather exotic combo, I agree, but it may be occasionally useful in the early game in two cases:

Morgan - police state offsets his support penalty
Aki Zeta - gets 0 efficency at this combo due to her inherent +2 efficiency.

It does not happen very often since Doc:Loyalty is not a beeline tech and in later stages of the game Dem/FM is definitely superior. But, if either Morgan/Aki happen to land close to Yang and succeed in trading for Doc:Loyalty, early Police State/FM may be useful.

Power otoh has very few redeeming qualities.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Hippi
Can't wait much longer

Hippi, please!

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by ErikM
Police+FM is rather exotic combo, I agree, but it may be occasionally useful in the early game in two cases:

Morgan - police state offsets his support penalty

As one of the resident Morgan freaks here, I'm comfortable with saying that using Police to offset your support penalty just isn't worth it. In the early game, you should be able to rush-buy recycling tanks for your early bases, effectively offsetting your support penalty while giving you free nuts and energy. By the midgame, a mineral crawler or two will easily take care of the support requirements, and throughout, the extra energy will also help carry your facility production, using rush buying to complete stuff.

Early on when I was less good at Morgan, I'd jump into Police/Green/Wealth, thinking that the extra support would make it easier to field a large army while green would offset some of my horrid efficiency woes. Later I discovered that when Morgan really wants to conquer, the proper SE settings are Fundy/Green/Wealth.

Fundy's extra morale reduces the morale hit from Wealth by one, making its effects _entirely_ reversible by having Creches everwhere, something I have already. Fundy's probe bonus makes my probe dollars last longer, meaning I can subvert more units and bases, as well have a higher success rate for stealing techs, credits and sabotaging facilities. Wealth's econ and industry bonuses ensure I continue to get +1 energy per square, and reduces the cost of troops, which will be commando once I have Bio-Centers and the appropriate Morale-enhancing facilities. One trip to a Monolith, and any ground troops I build will be elite. Green's extra efficiency let's me conquer a few enemy bases without undue drone impact at home, gives a nice bonus on PSI combat, and gives a capture bonus for wildlife, but the most important factor is that it doesn't prevent me from fielding my armies.

Aki Zeta - gets 0 efficency at this combo due to her inherent +2 efficiency.

Now I have to admit, this is something I had never considered. Most of the time, however, I'll want the industry and growth bonus from Planned before I'll care about the support from Police. The biggest deal from having police is that in order to use it to it's fullest, you are _committed_ to build lots of units, in order to get the fullest effect from your police rating. If you're using Police state, and building rec commons and holo-theatres anyway, you had better have a positively vast population, in which case you'd probably be better off running Green for the efficiency anyway.

Power otoh has very few redeeming qualities.

Now this is certainly one thing we both agree on. If there's one thing the designers of this game flubbed, it was underestimating the power of the Industry rating.

[ErikM]

I don't think of FM+police as a wartime option; rather it is a compromise builder option in the early game.

Morgan + Police state = +1 support, meaning 3 free units - one defender and two formers - per base. Think of a start somewhere in the dunes or heavy fungus areas where early IA won't gain you all that much due to lack of terraformed squares to crawl. The bottleneck in such a case is insufficient terraforming capacity and extra formers will help there.

Later on after your crawlers actually have something to crawl you can switch to Dem and even disband some excess formers towards crawlers if support is a problem.

Another benefit of Police+FM setting is that you get -3 police, which allows you to have one exploring unit per base without causing pacifism. That would most likely be some gun foil to find the others which you can simply disband when Police State has outlived its usefulness.

I wouldn't use Police+FM even with Morgan and Aki after 40s. But in the very early game, say 2110 to 2130s, while your empire is still relatively small to suffer much from inefficiency, it may be worthwhile.

Then again, it can only happen during this timeframe if Yang is nearby. In which case running Police State also serves an extra purpose of keeping him friendly. But it is a relatively unlikely start and in most games by the time you get Doc:Loyalty, Police State is already obsolete.