help with social engeneering

[Gothar]

I am new at alpha centauri and need some help. I got some pack from the store which had the original plus alien crossfirein it. I played the original a bit with the uni and won a game by conquering. But i'd like to play crossfire with cybernetics.

I get the following social modifiers to start with
+2 efficency, -1 growth, +2 research

I plan to use Democratic
+2 efficency, +2 growth, -2 support

I wanna go green to get mindworms
+2 efficency, +2 planet, -2 growth

I wanna go knowledge to further improve research
+1 efficency, -2 probe, +2 research

I most definetly wanna go cybernetic since i get no negative effects
+2 efficency, +2 planet, +2 research

This gives me a massive + 9 efficency and + 6 research and +4 planet but it also has -1 growth, -2 support, -2 probe.

Is this good - will i be able to transcend with it or is growth and support more useful then efficency and research. Thanks

[Sikander]

Gothar,

Probably you will already have the game won or nearly so by the time you get to cybernetic. There are many SE combinations (too many to be exhaustive about in a reply), and many of them are useful or at least workable. To get the most out of them, consider a couple of factors:

1) When will I have the tech to use a particular setting, and what will my needs be by that time?

2) Which settings will accentuate my strengths or minimize my deficiencies?

Support is important early on (before clean technology) if you plan on building a lot of units per base.

Morale can give you a qualitative edge over your opponents, and can be particularly important for psi-combat.

Economy (especially +2 or better) can have a huge impact upon the amount of energy you produce.

Efficiency determines how much of that energy you keep, and also how many drones your bases produce.

Planet determines how much pollution you produce for a given mineral output, and also effects your combat chances with native lifeforms.

Growth is pretty self explanetary, but keep in mind if you manage to get +6 growth, your bases will grow 1 population per turn as long as you have at least 2 extra food.

Now keep in mind that all of these factors are modified to some extent by faction bonuses, facilities, special projects etc. All of this complexity is daunting as hell at first (or in my case after quite a few games when I began to realize that I was not really mastering the game, but adding more techniques to play it) but this is what makes this game so great. There are so many ways to play it, and play it well.

If you haven't seen it already, I suggest having a look at Vel's strategy guide. (Look for the topic 'Signed, Sealed, and Delivered') It is a fairly comprehensive guide to the game, and it contains useful tips for playing each faction. You may also want to peruse some of the threads here (be selective, there are a million of them) as there are some truly excellent players who are (or have) posting excellent strategies. Welcome to what may well become an obsession.

[VoodooChild]

There are two schools of thought that I have seen when it comes to SE choices, Roleplayers and Opprotunists. Roleplayers like to use SE choices that fit the faction and keep those settings all game long. Opprotunists like to taylor their SE choice to what will work best at the moment. I am an opprotunist, but you should determine what style you prefer and also what kind of player your wish to be (builder/hybird/momentum) before deciding what SE choices are for you.

Reguardless, there some things you should know about SE choices. Each category of effects (Population) usually have more than one impact on your soceity. Efficency for example will reduce the inefficency of your bases, allow you to buld more bases free of drone problems, and allow you to manipulate your energy allocations with less penelties. There are also caps to some of these effects. At a +4 Efficency there are no penelties for extreme allocations, so you could have 100% energy / 0% luxury / 0% science if you wanted. Now a +5 or higher Efficency will help reduce your bases inefficency and drone limits, but unless your empire is huge there will be better things you can do with your SE choices.

When playing the Consciousness, I find that -1 pop to be quite harmful to my early expansion efforts, so I like to turn that around as quickly as posible. Planned is the answer that works for me. The net effect is +1 Pop, 0 Eff, + 1 Indus, +2 Tech. This option is great for me untill I start to have significant inefficency problems.

I usually don't switch to Democracy until I am done with my expansion (to keep those 10 startup minerals), but then again I am a builder. If not running Planned, you could run Police State and produce lots of units to go forth and capture bases to make use of one of your other special abilities.

With a tech faction such as the Consciousness, I am not a big fan of running Green. You should have a lead on most other factions when it comes to tech, and will have better weapons, armor, and special abilities to create your army. Why ignore all those advantages to go hunt worms? I instead like to increase my Industry (build stuff quickly) or Economy (pay to rush stuff quickly) to make use of my tech advantage. Wealth will do a little of both and is nice to run until you get Knowledge.

There is a lot of interesting variations that can come from Factions and different SE choices. This is one of the reasons why I find AC to be so much more richer than its Civ counterparts. My advice to you is to play the game, try new stuff out, and learn from what works and what doesn't. Also keep in mind that if something doesn't work for you, it may have been when you ran that option that messed up your game instead of "this choice sucks" Even Fuddy has its uses.

happy gaming

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Gothar,

A couple rules of thumb re: Se choices. Law of diminishing returns

For the most part each SE choice has a magic value that brings in huge beneifts. Typically going higher than that gives diminishing returns (with some caveats depending on your play style)

That being said to my mind the magic thresholds are as follows, anything more than these you may want to consider another SE choice to bolster otherwise lagging attributes:

Growth - +6 Pop Boom as discussed by Sik Cloning vats (SP) make this irrelevant

Efficiency - +4 Paradigm Efficiency - Allows no penalty in allocation of energy between lab/econ. Can be huge when your racing up the tech tree to slam all energy towards labs

Support - +4 (I think) - Allows support of 4 units or base size whichever is greater. Typically support is only critical pre-clean reactors. After clean this becomes a non issue

Police +3 - 3 units can be used as police units (each eliminate a drone) and police effect doubled meaning 6 drones eliminated by 3 standard garrison units. If units are equipped with non lethal methods then effect can be astonishing and huge bases can be had without any drone quelling facilities. OTOH builder factions by default will have built as many facilities as possible making police a non-issue.

Planet +3 - Maxes out chance to capture native life. Also maxes out effect of fungus production w/ Manifold Harmonics SP. Additional planet rating only effects PSI combat. Choice of T-forming and trance/empath abilities for units make this somewhat less valuable.

Research - No real optimal, the higher the better

Probe +4 - Immune to subversion. Hunter Seeker SP makes this a nonissue.

Industry - No real optimal the higher the better

Econ + 2 - Allows each square +1 energy. Higher econs are important if you are counting on pact mates for trade energy income but typically threshold is +2.

So knowing these, you need to ask yourself what style do you intend to play.

Conquering factions tend to shoot for good support, Police, and probe (perhaps industry and/or planet)

Building factions tend to optimize Econ, Research, Growth, and efficiency.

I'm sure I'm missing something but, hope this helps

Og

[mark13]

A couple of corrections to Og's thread:

The probe threshold is +3 not +4 - this is only really an issue pre-HSA.

Just a quick nitpick on the police rating - any +4 rating with non-lethal methods quells three drones, not the four advaertised. This is because the non-lethal method doesn't actually double the police effect, it allows you 1 more drone quelled.

Growth - you don't generally go for a straight +6 - +4 with a Children's Creche will do the trick, as +6 isn't possible w/o future society models.

A couple of models to remember if you want to achieve certain effects:

Pop booming - Demo/planned/CC - also, make sure you have enough drone-quelling facilities to compensate for the inevitable extra drones. Also, make sure you ahve at leats 2 surplus food - a base will not grow if only one surplus is available. Unfortunately, you cannot do this as the Consciousness unless you ahve a Golden Age also - that is one of their main factional disadvatages.

Efficiency (allows any level of Econ/Psych/Labs ratio without penalty) - Demo/Green - Demo/Green/Knowledge if you are playing as the PKs, to compensate for the -1 effic.

A small piece of advise though - do not switch to demo unless you are sure you can handle the extra support costs. Afer that, always run demo. The extra +2 growth is sooo useful, and you will need the +2 efficiency if you are to run a big empire.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

M13,

Thanks, I knew going from memory I would have missed something and/or messed it up.

Good nit pick on the nonlethal methods as well.

Og

[Gothar]

Thanks for all the help guys. I am doing pretty well. But the usupers are giving me a real headache. They have lots of bases a won't make peace with me. Any suggestions on how to deal with annoying enemy factions. I destroy a whole lot of units and new ones come next turn.

[Aredhran]

Against the aliens ? Two words: nerve gas ::evil grin::

[mark13]

Personally, I normally self-impose a nerve gas restriction on myself in SP games - it makes dealing with them far too easy, IMO....

Still, getting back on-topic, I love social engineering, it is one of the things which makes this game truly great. But has anyone ever found a use for Police State outside of playing the Hive? It seems that the efficiency penalty hurts too much to bother with it - and the bonuses aren't exactly game-winning. The police bonus you shouldn't have to bother with anyway - and the support penalty becomes a non-issue unless you have a truly large army....

Mark13

[Provost Harrison]

Only for short periods of time, for example when fighting a war early in the game and you really need that psych advantage. But even then it's value probably isn't too great...

[Garth Vader]

I use Police state with Morgan, Gaians, UoP, Hive, I don't use it with the Believers, and I don't play anybody else much.

I like to have a garrison, 2 formers, and a military unit from each base. Without +2 support I would be paying an extra 2 minerals each turn, even if a base was making 10 minerals, which in early game it wouldn't be, that would be the same as -2 industry.

I run green/wealth with Morgan. Green/knowledge with gaians/UoP. That offsets the effeciency problem with them.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Police state/FM is a nice combo for the spartans allowing warring and energy production. Albeit a compromise on both of the SE choices best traits (inefficency ruins some of the other wise great energy from FM, and use of FM means no police units but does allow armed forces outside of you territory.) it allows switches back to Demo for a mere 40 energy and then back to Police when you need to go back to war.

[Gothar]

Yay i did it. I transcended at my 2411. I had built or captured every sp on planet and had my allocation on 80% ecconomy. 20% research was making 1997 energy a turn with every base except the one building the ascent. And was getting a discovery every 2 turns. I had research trancsended thought 4 times and was using democratic/ free market/ knowledge/ cybernetic and playing as the concious. Next time i'll try it on a harder difficulty rating. At one stage i had 777 council votes at had a brotherhood pact with two other factions. I probley could have got the diplomatic victory but though It would be better to transcend.

[mark13]

Congrats on your victory, Gothar, the first one is always the most satisfying....

Garth, Ogie, PH:
It is an interesting opint about PS/FM - I had never considered it before, to be honest. I would have reservations about the appalling inefficiency - it is only really an option if you have a small empire/playing on a humungous map, IMO. As such, wouldn't drones be a problem? The -2 efficiency would create god knows how many bureaucracy drones, and with no police as well - I shudder to think...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

M13,

Yes the efficiency is a killer. This gets offset somewhat by going PS/FM/Knowledge for a minus 1 eff. Knowledge is a natural for Spartans as the alternative is power (eek the industry hit) or nothing.

As I said before its kind of a compromise but has it's place at times.

Og