My own fault?

[Analyst]

I love this game, but despite having read Vel's guides and applied it's techniques, I seem to be doing pretty poorly. I'm wondering if it's just my playing skill (which I suspect) or the way I configure the game.

Let me know if this setup is nearly certain death to Morgan the builder. I try to create games that don't slant in favor of any one faction.

Random map, standard-sized planet.
Ocean size, native life, etc. all down the middle.
Blind research (since some factions get directed as an ability).
Random enemies (normal personalities/agendas).
No pod scattering (excessive pod popping leads to unearned benefits, I think).
Do or die.
Highest difficulty.
The rest stays at default.

Essentially, I'm wondering if the builder playing style requires larger maps, or even huge-sized maps, to be viable. I'm not sure how my other settings could really harm the builder strategy, except that blind reasearch makes it tougher if the Borgs or aliens end up in the game. I do micromanage and look to maximize turn advantage.

The best I'm usually able to do is get to the mid game on par with the AI. Most often, I'm in a solid losing position by 2200. Even if I can hold my own into the mid game, I still can't seem to move really far ahead on the power scale. Even getting that far usually requires me to start on an isolated landmass or be very lucky in the first couple of skirmishes.

I could go on and on about the particulars, but that encapsulates it. I usually only have this tough a time on the highest difficulty; winning on the lower three levels is pretty much guaranteed. I use a Mac, if the code makes any difference.

[Skanderbeg]

Playing transcendent level and blind research, it is normal that You are behind the AI in midgame, because of the AI's production advantages.
There is one way to get back in the game and pass the AI, and that is the clever use of a big number of crawlers.
So, if You are not getting back in the game again, this leads me to the conclusion that You don't use crawlers in the right way.

[Misotu]

Agreed on the crawlers, especially for Morgan. One of the reasons why Morgan may not appear to do well if you take the power graph as your measure is population. This has a big impact on the graph - and Morgan suffers in this area with his lack of pop boom and crippling hab limits - unless you do some serious expansion.

Where you *should* be able to hold your own, especially in SMAX, is research/income. If you are really exploiting Morgan's energy advantages with crawlers and the appropriate facilities, you should be able to out-research the AI with little difficulty. The earlier point about AI productivity is well-made, but Morgan is the rush-build King ...

[johndmuller]

Analyst, I use pretty much the same sort of settings you describe and while I often am inconvenienced and put upon by the AI, I don't really feel seriously threatened most of the time; that's not to say that I'm #1, which I don't usually get to until well into the mid game, but I can see steady progress - its mostly a question of whether I'm satisfied with the rate of progress, particularly regarding how much trouble it will later be to catch up to whichever of the AI's are having a good day. I think the way some players get a big jump on the AI is through an early policy dedicated to expansion, building Colony pods (and I think also Formers) pretty much exclusively, with only a few military units as necessary to deal with who/whatever else pops up. This can be a risky strategy if you run into too many momentum players and/or worms, leading to a really weak and exposed position, but when you're able to get 8-12 bases going right away, you're in good shape. Personally, I don't like to just give up if I get too far behind (not to say that the early expansionists are bagging it if they get in trouble, but maybe.....) and I don't really enjoy fighting off Yang or Miriam for 50-100 years without a decent army, so I usually start off a little more conservatively, with a military unit for each base and a command center or two, not to mention some research facilities. The next step in the quick start strategy is to maximize population to the (need a) Hab Complex level, then probably another Colony pod - Population binge to the next (Hab Dome) limit. Somewhere along there is a period of virtually exclusive Former & Crawler production.

This general expansion blueprint leaves out building SP's (some of which are nice to get in the early game),base improvements and dealing with worms and/or the other factions. Presumably, you just work them in on the side somehow. I suppose that people really do some of each - fanatic expansion and foward thinking builder stuff - but the posts you see mostly are treatises on maximizing some particular thing; in my games, I usually end up dealing with intrusive neighbors before I get much of a chance to start up one of those preplanned expansion strategies. Once I get on a neighborhood watch program, it slows down expansion a lot, although you can always try expanding the other direction; strangely, it seems that expanding towards the AI often gets them to leave me alone, at least if it is one of the moderate factions.

Perhaps you're just trying too hard to stay in character, either your own or the one in the game; maybe you need to move more in the hybrid direction, loosen up and push back on the AI a bit. I usually get a big boost in the beginning of the game by trading with the AI, so I try to stay friendly, but sometimes I just want to kick Lal's two-faced butt, and it's not a bad way to get a bunch of bases. The AI puts up a good fight initially, which may have put you off attacking them, but usually they fold up once you break through the initial resistance - I guess they are not programmed to retreat/retrench/regroup very well, because once you get them on the run, the main problem is to have enough of your people to occupy their territory.

[bondetamp]

Have you tried Borg-style expansion? I think it is mentioned in Vel's guide, but basically it is based on the fact that two bases with one citizen each give you more than one base with two citizens. Build colony pods galore, ideally no base should ever have more than two citizens, and they should have two citizens for only a few rounds, until you get a new pod going. You put them close together, as it leaves more space, and you don't intend to work all twenty squares anyway. You then build a Forest square for each base in the beginning, and borehole after a while, when you have crawlers to bring you nutrients.

This strategy is a pain in the ass to micro manage, but it is an absolute killer. You should beat the AI in no time.

I used that strategy earlier, before I found that two hours rounds got a bit booring after a while.

------------------
-bondetamp
--
When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.
-- R. A. Lafferty

[Analyst]

Thanks everyone who's responded so far.

I think the crawler issue must be the main problem. Let me talk about that and ask a question related to them. These situations depend on using blind research, otherwise I can get to IA sooner if I haven't been invaded.

Sometimes when I get IA I'm facing an impending or ongoing invasion (if so, usually Yang, Miriam, or, less often, Santiago). This makes it hard to build crawlers since I usually end up with only 6-8 bases at that point, and I need all the troops I can get. Maybe one mistake I make in this area is always trying to push an invasion back to the surrender of the invading faction, and not yet having enough energy to use probes effectively by that time. (Or minerals to build a slew.) It's really hard to take enemy bases (esp. Yang's) without having much better units and/or probes. (like two 4-1-1s vs. one 1-2-1 behind a perim.) Plus, it virtually stalls infrastructure development for that much longer. I also have a bad tendancy to build too many best/best troops and get overrun by numbers.

If I'm not facing war, I'm usually faced with the same set of choices upon getting IA. They are: prototyping one or more new units, building one or two facilities in all bases empire-wide, building tons of crawlers, or building up a good-sized probe force. In my last game, this was my situation. And, as I usually tend to do as a nearly automatic reaction, I chose to prototype two or so units in that many bases and get all available facilities in the rest of my bases (esp. energy banks).

I added a couple of crawlers here and there, in bases where they took only about 4 turns to build. In short, I think I wrongly tried to do everything at once, and I often make that kind of error. I get too caught up in racing every other faction up the power chart and I don't pick a focus that will make it happen. I lose long-range planning in the heat of the moment.

What usually happens down the line is that I end up with some decent infrastructure in some bases, but only one or two crawlers at each base. I also haven't ended up expanding beyond the original 6-8 bases, and I only have at most two formers per base, because infrastructure eats up all my production time. My economy doesn't break out because I have too few energy crawlers and lots of maintenance, and my research is lagging (sometimes up to 15 turns/tech or so). I get a couple more techs and that much more infrastructure to build. I have very few probes and only about one troop per base, with very little or no navy. I'm waaay behind on the power curve and my potential is severly curtailed. I haven't been able to pop boom. Miriam and Yang have about 50 bases each with little or no infrastructure and there's almost nowhere to expand. Then they start rolling out those missile needlejets in enormous numbers and I just can't keep up. Sometimes I can wreak havoc for a while, but it's a losing battle in the long term.

In the last game, it was about 2200, and I had taken the data angels off my continent in a two-phase war that wasn't too draining. Everyone else was fighting each other, but I had about 100 years before there were only about 4 factions left - me, miriam, sven and aki. (maybe not sven). What I was worried about was Miriam or someone else starting to whack my crawlers with needlejets shortly after they were built en masse but before they were well guarded. This, as I suggested above, has happened many times before.

So, here are the questions. It seems I could substantially revise that post-IA non-strategy. If I built at least six crawlers (24 game years or so, not taking into account reduced build times for the later crawlers or rush builds), I could knock out the crawlers and about three facilities in each base within the 100 year cycle and be in a good position for cash, research and significantly upsizing the military. When I say six crawlers, I'm looking at that as a minimum, with 12-24 being a better target, since I prefer all-specialist cities. Also, with 12-24 crawlers, I can afford to lose some to needlejets, which will have to work for quite some time to make really threatning headway. Plus, crawlers don't need support, which is nice before clean reactors. So, is that a better way to use the crawlers? It would seem to be, if you're not being invaded right at the beginning of the process.

Also, can needlejets be subverted by a SAM probe? I've never tested that, and don't even know if you can make a SAM probe, but that would certainly help.

[Sikander]

Analyst,

If you can build crawlers, then they should be your priority ahead of infrastructure. Use them to get minerals. Every base should produce at 15 minerals. If a base is lagging, then build it's crawlers at a base which has finished it's own crawlers. Once all of your bases are producing a decent amount of minerals infrastructure and military units should go much more quickly. If you have cash and are in a war, consider building trained 'vanilla' units (ie 1-1-1 trained) and then upgrading them to whatever you need. This can be a real time saver, plus you get to keep the morale bonus even though you upgrade the unit to something which no longer has high morale taking up a slot.

ICS may be a good strategy to try. You will maximize your land use quickly, and your military power will be much improved. Once a war has started all of those little bases can crank out those vanilla units very quickly, and in large numbers. This strategy fits Morgan very well for a couple of reasons. First he already has that hab limitation problem, as well as difficulty pop-booming. Second, Morgan really cranks out a lot of energy in the base square, and a lot of base squares means a huge amount of production. Finally, you won't need to garrison your central bases very much if at all, because your outer ring of bases will present a very difficult barrier being so close to one another. One final technique which can be used is to switch from ICS to a more perfectionist style as sufficient facilites become available to make a perfectionist base outperform (say 4) ICS bases. Simply build colony pods in some bases until the bases are removed, and use those pods to pod boom the base that remains, all the while building up the infrastructure of the final base to multiply the production of energy.

[mark13]

I had often wondered about early/mid game strategy, but the one outlined above can very often be a killer. Playing on a standard map, you will typically get encountered by one or more hostile Ai factions - bribe them off, and get building. It will be a matter of time until you catch up, and eventaully overrun/outresearch them.

Sikander has pretty much outlined the basic crawler strategy, once you have hit IA - these should then be used to build as many SPs as you know how, in your main bases. I am a very perfectionist player, so I typically stop expanding at 15 bases or so - on a standard map, this is ideal. You should find yourself (with the help of upgrades) getting at least 3 of the early 5 SPs - once you have hit restrictions, pop boom to size 7/9 (depending on faction) and go for D:AP. You are then in pole position already to take the rest of the game, and given the AI incompetence in the mid-game, will find it a breeze.

[Iskandar Reza]

I tried the crawler strat with the pirates, got most of my crawlers sunk by a sealurk on a kill-frenzy or Marr and his needlejets (damned alien, always get needlejets first)

The needlejets from marr wasn't tough to beat back, steal DAP from him and gas the bases closest to me. The minute a new base get's built close enough, gas it again (till it disappear's, of course)

It's those worms and sealurks. And don't get me started on 3-res skimship supplies. They're expensive, mineral-wise and energy-wise.

[WhiteElephants]

Analyst -- I sounds, to me, like your not expanding enough initially. I think you should consider building 10-12 bases as opposed to only 6-8. I know it doesn't sound like much more, but really its another 50%-100%. Consider those percentages of minerals and energy add to what you already are making and it adds up fast.
I don't often play Morgan, but it would seem fairly easy to contain his drones because of his population limits. It would seem a rec common or holo theatre would take care of that problem for some time, until you build hab complexs.
12-24 crawlers seems like an overkill to me, but like I said I don't often play Morgan. I'm not sure you'd have enough squares to harvest with that many crawlers and some square are just better worked by a worker.
You should also consider using wealth for the +2 econ when you get IA, as opposed to dealing with the draw backs of FM. Good Luck.

[Ned]

I haven't read through this post yet, but generally its a horse race with the AI until one either pop booms or pod booms. Since Morgan cannot run Planned, he pop booms by using GA instead - in combo with Demo and Childrens Creche's). Pod booms are also a vialble strategy by building colony pods in a city in GA, moving them to another city, and then adding them to the second city's population using "B".


I can hardly imagine Morgan being cash poor. At a minimum, Morgan should be running "Weatlth' which gives him +2 Economy.

Ned

[MariOne]

Same Analyst from the TIC owo threads, or just same ID?

[Misotu]

Well, I'm obviously not in tune with the majority vote here, so feel free to ignore me But Morgan is about energy, not minerals. My approach would be maximising energy. Sod the minerals, as long as you have a reasonable number per base. For a size 4 base, pre-hab limit, that would be 8-10. I can't imagine why you'd want more as Morgan - you simply need to facilitate rush-builds. Your strength is energy, pouring through facilities - maximise it.

[Blake]

Morgan the Alien Slayer

This is a strategy I used succesfully to defeat booger when she chose my continent as her landing site.

Anyway, her battle ogre came knocking at 2110, I decided to actually try fighting, rather than restarting .

The foremost problem was the battleogre, I could buy booger off for only so long, aliens are backstabbers so I knew I would have to kill booger sooner rather than later, or become an alien snack. I recalled the best way to lose an ogre was to a hatchtling mindworm, so researched to SotB, then Cent.Empthay (I was buying off booger while doing this research). I switched to green and rushbuyed a mindworm, which gobbled boogers ogre. Seeing this was a rare native life map I had no chance of free worms. By this stage the forest I had planted had spread over most of my territory anyway (which would have made laser weapons almost completely ineffective against the ogre), a patch of fungus remained in the "bottleneck" between my and boogers bases, the bottleneck happened to be mt planet (my territory was half of mt Planet). Anyway my mindworm army slowly grew and they contined to eat any units which strayed into my territory, this wasn't easy because of 3-res defense and I had to kill any sensor which booger built nearby, the odds were barely in my favour anyway. I could not attack her bases, but I could defend myself.

I eventutally researched to Plan.Nets and gleefully set my probes upon booger, sucking her dry of tech. I switched to fundie at this stage, as I had nothing to lose. I noticed that Resonance fields+Cent.Empathy = Bioadaptive resonance = 6res laser so that was my next research goal, it was pitifully slow research, I continued to build up, bio-labs came in particully usfull.

Also about this time I made contact with a Human faction, the Cult. They even offered me a treaty.

With the 6res laser and +1 morale from fundie it was time to take the war to booger, the forest had spread everywhere, (I even planted some fungus to support my mindworms). The forest meant my 3-res troops had 4.5 defense, they could sit outside boogers base and she couldn't touch them, they could also walk around destroying roads and sensors with complete impunity. Boogers bases fell quite quickly to my 6r-1-1 infantry, I just walked them up to her bases under the cover of 1-3r-1 infantry. I captured all of mt Planet to myself, and continued into her territory, eventually also taking her HQ (boy it felt good to have that alien beg for truce).

About this time I finally made it to IA, ran wealth to get +2 econ. Booger was still alive, but she couldn't threaten me anymore. Better still I had most of her bases, with the free rec-tanks. The alien threat neutralised it was time for democracy. Once I had tree farms I even switched to FM and GA pop-boomed, which was hard seeing I lacked both the HGP and VW. After the pop-boom I was the most powerfull faction, so I stopped playing, after all as well as the cash of +2 econ I had a veteran army, much of it native and immune to the negative morale of wealth.

Anyway, the moral of the story is you can suceed as morgan even under the most adverse conditions, and if you find yourself trapped between an alien and a hard (or wet) place a beeline to mindworms could just win the game.

[Analyst]

MariOne,
Different Analyst.

Everyone else,
Thanks again for the replies. Even if some of this advice doesn't address the specific midgame problems I raised, the strategies are still useful.

I came up with an expansion paradigm I think is a little different than most, and I've been testing it out. When I get back in town I may start a new thread about it. While I admit I'm still absorbing the deeper intricacies of the game, I think this idea may have potential.

It seems most people like having about 6-12 crawlers per base. Am I gathering that info from the posts correctly?

Also, just to reask this question - does it take a SAM probe to subvert a needlejet? Can you even make SAM probes?