Tech Stag ???

[SamIAm]

Do you play with Tech Stag on?

I usually play builder style with Tech Stag on. It seems that Tech Stag should help a builder for several reasons:

1. More time to build before momentum players make contact and get advanced weapons (Impact)

2. Better able to keep up with infrastructure options (i.e. tech does not get ahead of production.)

3. Hurts low-research, momentum players even more

However, it does delay the builder techs too like Industrial Auto., and the restriction lifters. I have several questions:

- Does it really help the builder? (It takes about 75-100 years to get Ind. Auto.)

- What, if any, changes should be made to the overall strategy (Research Path, Expansion, Timing) because of Tech Stag? (Every research decision is a big deal!)

Being relatively inexperienced I would appreciate any advice/opinions/comments.

Thanks in advance.

- SamIAm

[Velociryx]

If you're playing with techstag on, then your overall strategy need not change much, but every phase of the game will be drawn out further.

In the early goings, think expansion with a vengeance. Forget about the drone warnings and learn to control them well. You need lots of bases (tightly packed, at that), to rake in sufficient energy so you can get to industrial auto. in a reasonable amount of time. For this reason alone, tech stag sees its least effect on Morgan, as he can get amazing amounts of energy out of his base squares, which does nice things for his research times.

Once you get to Industrial Auto, stop expanding and go pure vertical investment. Make each one of your bases into an energy producing hound. Energy parks and LOTS of tidal harnesses should be high on your list of terraforming if you're playing techstag, as these will go a long way toward getting your research rates back to something resembling what you're used to under a "normal" game.

Also, save your alien artifacts! With the tech costs so much higher, don't cash them in early hoping for a critical tech....More often than not, you won't get what you're looking for, and your infrastructure-poor early game cities will have that much harder a time getting to your NEXT tech. Much better to hoard them until you've got a better infrastructure in place so when the tech cost spikes up from cashing them in, it doesn't hurt quite so much.

Other than a much higher focus on energy though, and significantly longer expansion phase, the overall strategy is about the same, just....in slow motion, which DOES give you a lot more time to do advanced terraforming and so forth. Early game, you'll probably finish building everything you CAN build and have several turns where there's not much you can do except build more colony pods anyway (you're mineral poor in the early game, so building hordes of crawlers is less effective, as you lack the mineral base to support them, which lends itself to continued expansion in any case).

Also (believe it or not!) do not discount the Believers as a viable research faction in a techstag game! Their native support bonus means they CAN build a lot of terraformers, and that they'll have a lot of time to use them. True, it takes you a long time to get going, but a couple of well-designed energy parks can go far in un-doing their native 20% research penalty, and their support bonus does amazing things where terraforming efforts are concerned!

Fans of Miriam's faction will know exactly what I'm talking about, since they pretty much play every game with a "tech-stag" like effect....the difference here is, the rest of the world now suffers under that very same effect.

-=Vel=-

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Also, save your alien artifacts! With the tech costs so much higher, don't cash them in early hoping for a critical tech....More often than not, you won't get what you're looking for, and your infrastructure-poor early game cities will have that much harder a time getting to your NEXT tech. Much better to hoard them until you've got a better infrastructure in place so when the tech cost spikes up from cashing them in, it doesn't hurt quite so much.

I think this is a good point; when I first read it, I said to myself 'Of Course!', the escalating cost of techs - save them for when they are really expensive. On the other hand, it may turn out that sitting on them is more like stuffing cash in a mattress than buying and holding in the stock market.

An economic analysis would probably say 'It depends...'; all that time you don't have (whatever) tech translates into some (multiplied) time you don't have (some other) tech down the road that depends on (whatever) tech you didn't get when you could have and etc on down the road - at least one of them might be make or break. You're trading it off against the increasing tech cost, but what if the (whatever) early tech lets you build a research facility or removes a production restriction - wouldn't that also have an escalating effect too?

. . . so building hordes of crawlers is less effective, as you lack the mineral base to support them, which lends itself to continued expansion in any case).

I assume you mean formers here. Crawlers would be nice to have, the problem would be that the Ind Auto tech would take longer to get.


I thought I read somewhere or thought somewhen that the Tech Stag was a further disadvantage to the AI, probably because the AI is really bad at terraforming and we hopefully are not, so the extra time Vel alludes to would be to the human players advantage. I wonder though if you might see Yang coming over the hill with a horde of SlingShot men against your lone PeaShooter.