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Cha Dawn: Playing in the fungus
I've been playing Cha Dawn in SP games recently, since he is regarded as being the weakest faction and I fancied a bit of a challenge. Anyway, after a few games, I've come to few tentative conclusions and I was wondering what other people thought.
After reading Velocyrix's strategy guide and few recent posts here, I at first tried a momentum-ish worm rush, backed up with the best rovers I could manage. Trouble was, I could never manage to capture enough worms (a good amount seemed to be 4-6 worms and 4 spore launchers) to make this more than a 50-50 strategy. Everything seemed to depend on who I started near to and on a couple of occassions my 'army' was left smashed on the battlefield. I did have some success (more down to lucky starts, I felt) although if you start on an island to yourself this approach is a tad doomed.
Anyway, never one to give up, I thought I'd try a much more builder-esque approach, which I found far more successful - although I'd still never pick him in any MP game I hoped to do well in. I thought I'd outline what I 'd been doing, to see what people thought.
I started by looing at his faction characteristics and trying to base an approach on them.
First the problems:
-1 Industry: Not a devastating problem, but it was going to be a pain
-1 Economy/Wealth Aversion: This is the killer. With inabilty to use Wealth, that crucial +2 Economy is impossible. Consequently, running Free Market would be a waste of time since +1 Econ gives a very marginal improvement (even compared to starting point of -1).
Now the positives:
+2 Planet: In the very early game mindworm capture allows for fast exploration and pod-popping, so you I haven't had to waste time building units for scouting. With this in mind I resolved to pop as many pods as I could, trade as many techs as possible (given that I would meet more factions) and choose only the best sites for bases by utilising superior knowledge of my surroundings.
After Industrial Automation and the lifting of mineral restrictions, I usually crawl minerals from mines as a priority (trying to snag as many SPs as possible, complete infrastructure and offset against any army support costs.) With other factions, I generally find that two mines with crawlers per base works well and no base has eco-damage above 10. However, with Cha Dawn and his +2 Planet I found I could support 3 mine/crawler combos for the same eco-damage. As the game progressed, it quickly became clear that, for the same eco-damage as I would normally accept, I could afford about 6 extra minerals per base (later on this typically came from boreholes). All in all, this completely offset the -1 Industry - in fact I would say it felt like I was running at closer to +1 Industry.
Mindworms count double for police duty: "What's the point of that?" I thought at first. After all, mindworms are for podpopping and kamikazing into Yang's perimeter defense, right? Actually, I found this an extremely useful ability for the Cha Dawn builder. Typically, with another faction, when I found a base, I rush build a former then build a cheap defensive unit. If the nutrient supply is average or better then building my recycling tanks next is risky because my third citizen (drone) may well arrive before my rec commons is done (since rush building is harder in the early game when money is tight.) Consequently, I often build a rec commons before recycling tanks - even more often if I've had the first efficiency warning. However, as Cha Dawn, not only can I forego my defensive unit (using a mindworm instead) but its double police duty means my first drone is actually the fourth citizen. Consequently, I could always manage to get up tanks and creche before I needed a recreation commons. This offset the -1 Industry even further, with the turn advantage of early tanks and the lack of expenditure on a defensive unit (at least until I could build the unit in one turn).
What's more, the mindworm police effect continues as the game progresses, meaning you need less psych-increasing specialists and can have them working instead (still using other specialists though, of course). When you get the free Brood Pits, it's even better, but by that time the game is normally already won (or lost).
Okay, you say, that's fine on the industry front, but -1 Economy and no Wealth SE choice is still a killer. And this true, you're just not going to have the wealth of the market lovers.
Since we're not going to run Free Market (since it has almost no benefits for Cha Dawn) that leaves Planned or Green. Green's growth penalty and efficiency bonus makes it more suitable for the latter half of the midgame. Normally I would use Planned in the early game, for faster growth, until I can sustain a switch a Free Market, using Planned again whenever I want to pop-boom. With Cha Dawn, I tried instead to stay in Planned through the entire period I would normally run Free Market until switching to Green became economically too tempting.
Without doubt, this meant I was taking a cash/research hit, but not much I could about that. Rather, I tried to take advantage of the choices as best I could. The big advantage is that any base with a creche is in a permanent state of pop-boom (rather than the limited time pop-booms I would normally use) so I've beeen trying to play to that by continuous expansion for as long as there are places for bases. The excellent early game mindworm scouting really pays off again here. Add to that the +1 Industry planned gives you and that -1 Industry seems more and more inconsquential. And the mindworm police effect make drones a bit less of a problem too.
When the time came to switch to Green, I was undoubtedly behind in tech for a typcial builder, but has bigger bases and more of them, with more infrastructure. Which meant, the income/research rate when changing to Green was higher than it would have been had I been running Free Market for most of the mid-game, making catching up that much easier and setting a solid foundation for a research rate superior to normal as the midgame progressed (although not quite of the standards of a Morgan, or Zak, better than, say, Lal or Roze).
As a last note on SE choices: Since Wealth is forbidden, Knowledge is the preferred builder choice. I don't know about other people, but unless I chance upon it by probing, Knowledge is often not available to me until after Doctrine:Air Power, Clean Reactors and MMI are gained.
However, in one game I played, the neighbours weren't giving me any trouble (I was pacted with Dierdre and had an island to myself as the core of my empire) so I decided to delay D:AP and go for Knowledge and the rest of that tech line first (which soon leads to Pre-Sentient Algorithms and Fusion Power). The +1 Efficency of Knowledge helped to offset the avaerage efficincy of Planned/Democracy and Fusion Labs were even more welcome than normal. (Plus I didn't have to upgrade my choppers to fusion power, the first chopper WAS fusion powered.)
"This is all well and good," I hear you cry, "but if you start next to Marr, you start next to Marr and all the double police effect in the world isn't going to save your sorry butt." True, perhaps, but I don't think you're in a worse military position than Morgan or Dierdre and you have a few tricks up your sleeve: Switching to Green for a while gives your mindworms a tremendous attack bonus that even offsets 3-res armour. And if you're running a Planned economy, then Marr might even be nice to you (I wouldn't count on it though).
And now the final, decisive test, would I play Cha Dawn in a MP game? Well, no, I probably, wouldn't, not if I had a free pick of factions. But, if I were forced, I probably try the same strategies I've mentioned. And since he's hardly ever played, no-one will really know quite what to expect!
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Goit (edited January 07, 2001).]</font>
After reading Velocyrix's strategy guide and few recent posts here, I at first tried a momentum-ish worm rush, backed up with the best rovers I could manage. Trouble was, I could never manage to capture enough worms (a good amount seemed to be 4-6 worms and 4 spore launchers) to make this more than a 50-50 strategy. Everything seemed to depend on who I started near to and on a couple of occassions my 'army' was left smashed on the battlefield. I did have some success (more down to lucky starts, I felt) although if you start on an island to yourself this approach is a tad doomed.
Anyway, never one to give up, I thought I'd try a much more builder-esque approach, which I found far more successful - although I'd still never pick him in any MP game I hoped to do well in. I thought I'd outline what I 'd been doing, to see what people thought.
I started by looing at his faction characteristics and trying to base an approach on them.
First the problems:
-1 Industry: Not a devastating problem, but it was going to be a pain
-1 Economy/Wealth Aversion: This is the killer. With inabilty to use Wealth, that crucial +2 Economy is impossible. Consequently, running Free Market would be a waste of time since +1 Econ gives a very marginal improvement (even compared to starting point of -1).
Now the positives:
+2 Planet: In the very early game mindworm capture allows for fast exploration and pod-popping, so you I haven't had to waste time building units for scouting. With this in mind I resolved to pop as many pods as I could, trade as many techs as possible (given that I would meet more factions) and choose only the best sites for bases by utilising superior knowledge of my surroundings.
After Industrial Automation and the lifting of mineral restrictions, I usually crawl minerals from mines as a priority (trying to snag as many SPs as possible, complete infrastructure and offset against any army support costs.) With other factions, I generally find that two mines with crawlers per base works well and no base has eco-damage above 10. However, with Cha Dawn and his +2 Planet I found I could support 3 mine/crawler combos for the same eco-damage. As the game progressed, it quickly became clear that, for the same eco-damage as I would normally accept, I could afford about 6 extra minerals per base (later on this typically came from boreholes). All in all, this completely offset the -1 Industry - in fact I would say it felt like I was running at closer to +1 Industry.
Mindworms count double for police duty: "What's the point of that?" I thought at first. After all, mindworms are for podpopping and kamikazing into Yang's perimeter defense, right? Actually, I found this an extremely useful ability for the Cha Dawn builder. Typically, with another faction, when I found a base, I rush build a former then build a cheap defensive unit. If the nutrient supply is average or better then building my recycling tanks next is risky because my third citizen (drone) may well arrive before my rec commons is done (since rush building is harder in the early game when money is tight.) Consequently, I often build a rec commons before recycling tanks - even more often if I've had the first efficiency warning. However, as Cha Dawn, not only can I forego my defensive unit (using a mindworm instead) but its double police duty means my first drone is actually the fourth citizen. Consequently, I could always manage to get up tanks and creche before I needed a recreation commons. This offset the -1 Industry even further, with the turn advantage of early tanks and the lack of expenditure on a defensive unit (at least until I could build the unit in one turn).
What's more, the mindworm police effect continues as the game progresses, meaning you need less psych-increasing specialists and can have them working instead (still using other specialists though, of course). When you get the free Brood Pits, it's even better, but by that time the game is normally already won (or lost).
Okay, you say, that's fine on the industry front, but -1 Economy and no Wealth SE choice is still a killer. And this true, you're just not going to have the wealth of the market lovers.
Since we're not going to run Free Market (since it has almost no benefits for Cha Dawn) that leaves Planned or Green. Green's growth penalty and efficiency bonus makes it more suitable for the latter half of the midgame. Normally I would use Planned in the early game, for faster growth, until I can sustain a switch a Free Market, using Planned again whenever I want to pop-boom. With Cha Dawn, I tried instead to stay in Planned through the entire period I would normally run Free Market until switching to Green became economically too tempting.
Without doubt, this meant I was taking a cash/research hit, but not much I could about that. Rather, I tried to take advantage of the choices as best I could. The big advantage is that any base with a creche is in a permanent state of pop-boom (rather than the limited time pop-booms I would normally use) so I've beeen trying to play to that by continuous expansion for as long as there are places for bases. The excellent early game mindworm scouting really pays off again here. Add to that the +1 Industry planned gives you and that -1 Industry seems more and more inconsquential. And the mindworm police effect make drones a bit less of a problem too.
When the time came to switch to Green, I was undoubtedly behind in tech for a typcial builder, but has bigger bases and more of them, with more infrastructure. Which meant, the income/research rate when changing to Green was higher than it would have been had I been running Free Market for most of the mid-game, making catching up that much easier and setting a solid foundation for a research rate superior to normal as the midgame progressed (although not quite of the standards of a Morgan, or Zak, better than, say, Lal or Roze).
As a last note on SE choices: Since Wealth is forbidden, Knowledge is the preferred builder choice. I don't know about other people, but unless I chance upon it by probing, Knowledge is often not available to me until after Doctrine:Air Power, Clean Reactors and MMI are gained.
However, in one game I played, the neighbours weren't giving me any trouble (I was pacted with Dierdre and had an island to myself as the core of my empire) so I decided to delay D:AP and go for Knowledge and the rest of that tech line first (which soon leads to Pre-Sentient Algorithms and Fusion Power). The +1 Efficency of Knowledge helped to offset the avaerage efficincy of Planned/Democracy and Fusion Labs were even more welcome than normal. (Plus I didn't have to upgrade my choppers to fusion power, the first chopper WAS fusion powered.)
"This is all well and good," I hear you cry, "but if you start next to Marr, you start next to Marr and all the double police effect in the world isn't going to save your sorry butt." True, perhaps, but I don't think you're in a worse military position than Morgan or Dierdre and you have a few tricks up your sleeve: Switching to Green for a while gives your mindworms a tremendous attack bonus that even offsets 3-res armour. And if you're running a Planned economy, then Marr might even be nice to you (I wouldn't count on it though).
And now the final, decisive test, would I play Cha Dawn in a MP game? Well, no, I probably, wouldn't, not if I had a free pick of factions. But, if I were forced, I probably try the same strategies I've mentioned. And since he's hardly ever played, no-one will really know quite what to expect!
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Goit (edited January 07, 2001).]</font>
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