how much does the +2 research do?

[WhiteElephants]

I wanted to elaborate on a few quotes.

Originally posted by Net Maverick
Sikander:

Your specialist strategy can out-produce a worker strategy, but only when you've reached the maximum amount of squares you can work AND your specialists are all transcendi. If one of these requirements are not fulfilled, the specialist base's energy production would be equal to the worker base at best. Try it out if you don't find this plausible.

Not true. In order to for a single worker to equal an early specialist it has to work a square producing +4 energy (kinda rare unless your running free market and the square is above +2000 meters or rests on a river above 1000 -- how many squres like this do you get per base?) On top of that I could always build a crawler to bring in the energy from that square freeing up yet another worker to work a more productive square.

Originally posted by Net Maverick

As for the drone control facilities...chances are that you have already constructed them before you convert your units to specialists, so the only advantage you would have is the extra income from the lack of maintenance costs...and this can be more than made up for with the worker base's higher mineral income. Even if you have not previously built drone control facilities, your advantage would be very minor.

The worker base wouldn't have any higher amount of minerals coming in because the specialist base built crawlers to compensate.

Originally posted by Net Maverick

Of course, when one utilizes a specialist strategy, one would not need to build tree-farms and/or hybrid forests. I cannot say from experience, but I believe that the resource advantage a worker base gains before the specialist base reaches maximum population would make up for the minerals spent on these two facilities.

I always build tree farms for the bonus to econ and psych thereby lowering the amount of psych facilities I need and at the same time increasing my energy output. And again, there is no resource advantage unless you mean the lab, and or, energy the specialist would be creating.

Originally posted by Net Maverick

One more thing I'll like to add...a specialist base would need to produce at least two crawlers to give it a mineral income of 10 or more, which would be two more extra crawlers for the worker base, meaning 12 extra energy average, and 28 extra in the best case.

Which would also mean the specialist base would have 2 more specialists. I don't know where your coming up with +12 to +28 energy. You'd have to crawler boreholes or have several rarities (Merchant Exchange, Free Market, +3000 meters, on top of a river square, solar mirror+echelon). In the case of the specialist you'd pull down +6 and only have to build crawlers for your troubles. I can believe +16 energy (Borehole+River+Free Market) from the workers at best. After that, you've lost me.

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by Ned
Sik, Sounds impressive. There are two problems: First, the Specialist base has a much greater investment than the non specialist base, considering the condensors and crawlers (and not considering that the average player will have virtually all forests by the time hybrid forests are in play). The other problem is commerce income. Correct me if I am wrong, but only raw energy, not energy from specialists, counts for commerce income.

Not much more of an investment (the crawlers) and the investment is refundable, so to speak. You really don't need condensor/farms to make this work either. How much energy do you really get per base from commerce? For Morgan running free market and wealth I've seen more than +10 total. In the early game I can see this as useful, but by mid game why bother? Besides you have to consider that your also generating commerce energy for whomever else your trading with.

Originally posted by Ned
I have never had a base size 45 since I began playing this game. However, I often have bases producing 200+ ec's per turn, a great deal of it from commerce.

I too have never had a base this large. I think a better example would have been around 14 population points. +200 energy is quite high. I assume this is after satellites and your probably crawlering in huge amounts as well.

Originally posted by Ned
The one advantage I see in the specialist approach is that specialist energy is not lost to waste. The disadvantages are cost, time to set up, lack of mineral production, and low commerce income.

I respectfully disagree. In fact you'd have to be able to work squres that produce more than +3 energy for every worker in the field to beat a specialist strategy and be very close to the HQ (if not the HQ) in order to not lose any to inefficency. To get that +3 average you'd need a sizeable energy park, which translates into more terraforming and more terraformers. Time and money, precisely the two things you claim a specialist base requires more of when, in fact, you only need more crawlers.

[curtadams]

The thing about specialists is that is is almost always more productive to work a square than be a specialist. Specialists have value pretty much only once all your squares are worked. It doesn't take much to support 14 people: 28 food = 1 base square + 8 hybridized forests. That's all the specialists you'll get until hab domes, and once you have hab domes the game is over in less than the 30 turns it takes to run pop up to 45. So while yes, all that food would be great to support specialists, you don't get to use it until the game's over, so you should develop squares to maximize min/energy production.

[Ned]

In a normal game, I generally have commerce income at +30 per pact bro by mid game. I usually have two, but by late game, I generally have all but the final victim as pact bros, 5 pacts total, each generating around 35-40 commerce income per. I often have income in the range of +10,000 by the end of the game, and I usually run only between 18-35 main bases. That averages more than 200 ec's per turn.

And yes, I intensively crawl energy from plateaus or from tidal harnesses. In fact, I generally have my science base do nothing but building crawlers or trawlers (or facilities, or science SPs) the whole game. They never build a garrison or former or any kind unit.

What I try to do instead is build up massive mineral production, 200+ per base. I then build facilities, SPs and units in no time at all. Plus I have massive income which I can redirect to research. For example, I can generally build late game SPs in two or three turns with no rushes or crawler support and at the same time research two techs per turn.

I admit that a lot of this is caused by specialists after HAB Domes. But even before I research that tech, I often continuously pod boom my science base so that it reaches size 23+.

I have tried converting a lot of my workers to specialists. I see, however, an overall drop in performance - I see a reduction in commerce income, a reduction in mineral production and an overall reduction in either research or labs, depending on the setting of the specialists.

I am not convinced.

Ned

[WhiteElephants]

Let me ask you this then -- What year do you usually transcend?

[WhiteElephants]

Here's where I'm failing to see your points. You claim that using specialists is inefficent because they're not as productive as working a square. So, what I'm hearing is that on average your bases have an abundance of squares (more than 5? more than 10?) that offer you +3 energy in the early game(librarians/technicians), +5 energy in the mid game (engineers), and, +6 in the late game (transcendi). This I find difficult to believe. Even running a +2 econ the only squares with this kind of energy would be your mountain top retreats or energy farms. I would even go so far as to say the only efficent squares to actually put a worker on are few and far between -- boreholes come to mind.

Ned, I can't fathom why you'd build a base that produces 200 + minerals. What do you do with it? I would think if you built anything besides a secret project you'd be losing arm loads of minerals and stockpile energy is a waste.

Ned, you've even said it yourself, "I often have income in the range of +10,000 by the end of the game". Why? What good is a high income with nothing to spend it on? Why not switch to specialist that increase labs and get the game over with already?

"I have tried converting a lot of my workers to specialists. I see, however, an overall drop in performance - I see a reduction in commerce income, a reduction in mineral production and an overall reduction in either research or labs, depending on the setting of the specialists."

You can't have a reduction in labs OR research, they're both the same, so I'm assuming you meant income, which sounds like it could use a reduction.

Honestly, using specialists you wouldn't have time to amass +200 minerals and +10,000 income. There just wouldn't be enough time because the game would be over.

[Sikander]

Paul,

"The biggest problem I see with Sikander's example are the populations of his bases. Hab domes come very late in the game, so it would be more realistic to use a maximum population of 18 (PK + AV) or less for your example."

You are quite correct about the hab limits. The example was for comparison purposes. In a real game I build my bases closer together, in some cases my bases only have ten squares which are workable (two of these would be boreholes). I pod boom a little, so these bases end up over 20 population well before hab domes. One nice thing about building bases close together is that it generates a significant turn advantage in the early game, which means that I can pop boom earlier.


Ned,

Sik, Sounds impressive. There are two problems: First, the Specialist base has a much greater investment than the non specialist base, considering the condensors and crawlers (and not considering that the average player will have virtually all forests by the time hybrid forests are in play). The other problem is commerce income. Correct me if I am wrong, but only raw energy, not energy from specialists, counts for commerce income.

Yes it's true that my commerce is not very good in comparison. I do produce some raw energy by working boreholes (2-5 per base depending on my spacing), and Tidal / Kelp squares. Like White Elephants I actually use a specialist heavy system rather than a pure specialist system.
In my own defense I don't get all that much commerce income even in games where I am pulling in a lot of raw energy. I'm sure it has something to do with my playing style, in that I don't take a lot of crap from the AI factions, and get so far ahead of them that they all declare vendetta on me a vast majority of the time. I'm ok with this, as it makes defending myself easier in a way. I just shoot anything that isn't my color, and I don't have to pay all that much attention to the AI. I tend to prefer defending my continent to conquering theirs, though if they are close there isn't much I can do but take them out. If at all possible I wait until MMI / Fusion to conquer. Fortunately I have all the money I will ever need once Fusion is researched, so I don't really worry about re-making my bases to maximize commerce.

"The one advantage I see in the specialist approach is that specialist energy is not lost to waste. The disadvantages are cost, time to set up, lack of mineral production, and low commerce income."

That advantage is actually greater than it may seem at first glance. It allows me to run SE settings which normally would be terrible, especially low efficiency settings. For instance I end up running Planned a lot more than most people do in order to keep pop booming. Sure I lose raw energy, but I'm gaining specialists the whole time. In a normal game I am usually pop booming (Demo / Planned / Wealth) at the turn of the first century, and pulling down 1 tech every other turn.

The other advantage is that I don't have any trouble laying down a large number of bases. I can get right to work without worrying about bureacracy drones because my psych to worker ratio is very good, and it's easy to adjust whenever necessary.

As for mineral production, I get from 15+ (early) to 30+ minerals (mid game). While this doesn't come close to your 200 minerals, it is really quite sufficient, allowing me a crawler every 1-2 turns.

The costs are where perhaps this strategy can be cumbersome. I need formers aplenty. I build one at every base to start, and another as soon as the base has raised it's mineral output to the max. I shoot for clean reactors fairly early (Beelines = Crawlers, SotHB, Restrictions, and Clean respectively) and once I have them every base cranks out at least 3 new formers, and sometimes more. This fairly small investment in building time allows me to transform my terrain at a good clip. There is an opportunity cost to researching clean reactors as well, but I think it is worthwhile both for the formers and the increased defense capability you get with a larger army.


Curtadams,

"The thing about specialists is that is is almost always more productive to work a square than be a specialist. Specialists have value pretty much only once all your squares are worked. It doesn't take much to support 14 people: 28 food = 1 base square + 8 hybridized forests. That's all the specialists you'll get until hab domes, and once you have hab domes the game is over in less than the 30 turns it takes to run pop up to 45. So while yes, all that food would be great to support specialists, you don't get to use it until the game's over, so you should develop squares to maximize min/energy production."

I wouldn't argue that working a square in most cases yields more total FOP than crawling it (though when they are equal there is no reason not to crawl the square and create a specialist). It's just that some FOP are more valuable than others, and energy is the most valuable of all. Energy is what specialists make par excellence. In your example above your 8 hybrid forest squares produce 24 raw energy (with +2 economy), 16 minerals and 8 spare nutrients (equal to 4 specialists producing 3-5 energy apeice) .

The same 8 forest squares replaced with 2 boreholes, a crawled mine and 5 crawled condensor / farms would produce 14 raw energy (with +2 econ), 16 minerals, and 20 spare nutrients (equal to 10 specialists at 3-5 energy each). Even in the worst case scenario of Librarians the specialist base produces 44 total energy compared to the forest's 36. That's a fairly significant advantage early on, and specialists improve over time, whereas the hybrid forest is the top of the line in forest producion.

Yes the example of 45 pop was perhaps unfortunate, as I don't space my bases in such a way that I can even work all twenty squares, usually in fact only ten to fifteen. I pop boom them to 14 or 16 (with the Ascetic Virtues) and then Pod Boom* them from there up to their current nutrient level. Thus my fully developed bases average a little over twenty population before soil enrichers.


*(If you are wondering what a Pod Boom is, it is when you build a colony pod at one base, move it into another base and hit the 'b' key. The pod disappears, and the receiving base raises it's population by one point, regardless of any hab limitations. During a pop boom you can crank out colony pods every turn from half of your bases and use them to build up the other half of your bases. Because of the pop boom you lose no population in the base building the pod.)

[Ned]

I typically play on larger maps, normally 180x120, but at times 256 x 256. This slow research considerably. Also, I rarely transcend, but achieve a dipliomatic victory or conquest victory depending. But, given the above, I can transcend by 2350. If this can be scaled to other size maps, we can compare notes.

As to labs, I have posted here before that I don't normally boost labs vis-a-vis energy. I use production to build facilities and spend all the money every turn upgrading or rushing.

You ask, what does a 200 mineral base do? It produces facilities, SPs and units in two turns without a rush. Facilities boost energy, labs and minerals. The whole thing is exponential. By the end of the game, production is outrageous.

Sik, The one thing I had not considered is that other SE choices now make sense. With energy and labs coming from specialists, Police - Planned may be viable.

I'll have to think on that.

However, yes, commerce income is a major part of my game. It is also a major part of the game's score. I typically have a much larger score here than for population.

Ned

[curtadams]

I wouldn't argue that working a square in most cases yields more total FOP than
crawling it (though when they are equal there is no reason not to crawl the
square and create a specialist). It's just that some FOP are more valuable than
others, and energy is the most valuable of all. Energy is what specialists make par
excellence. In your example above your 8 hybrid forest squares produce 24 raw
energy (with +2 economy), 16 minerals and 8 spare nutrients (equal to 4
specialists producing 3-5 energy apeice) .

The same 8 forest squares replaced with 2 boreholes, a crawled mine and 5
crawled condensor / farms would produce 14 raw energy (with +2 econ), 16
minerals, and 20 spare nutrients (equal to 10 specialists at 3-5 energy each).
Even in the worst case scenario of Librarians the specialist base produces 44 total
energy compared to the forest's 36. That's a fairly significant advantage early on,
and specialists improve over time, whereas the hybrid forest is the top of the line
in forest producion.

But you don't get any more librarians! The forest is already supporting the maximum you'll fit in the city. All you've done is spend a great deal of terraforming effort to reduce your energy output. If you're talking about adding crawlers, well of course city+crawlers outproduces city alone. But that's not a relevant comparison. I will vastly outproduce you by assigning all those
extra crawlers to high-energy squares. Again, you don't gain from the specialists until you're out of usable squares - in this case squares for the crawlers.

If you have no need for minerals, then specialists often are a better deal. But that's another one of those things that doesn't happen to me until the game is won. At that point I'm just trying to speed up my turns - I'm not going to rejigger for more (or fewer) specialists, because what I have will "next turn" me to victory in a trice. They are useful if you're playing ecofriendly.

[Net Maverick]

Sikander:

Sorry about the delay. I spent all this time trying to think up new arguments that would prove that a worker strategy can crush a specialist strategy...and I came up empty . I realized that I was missing two key points in your specialist strategy:
1) Soil Enrichers
2) Extra Terrain Squares
I found that the true power of the specialist strategy lies in number two. A specialist base, when utilizing its crawlers, only needs to work half the squares that a worker base works. The only way a worker strategy can out-produce a specialist one is to build an amount of crawlers equivalent to the number of crawlers the specialist base uses to harvest nutrients. This means that the worker base would be using 3x the number of squares that a specialist base needs to use. Once the two bases begin to run out of squares to work, the specialist base would clearly have the advantage. The basic equation would be:
All Worker Base:
PL x 4 + PL/6 x 6
All Specialist Base:
PL x 5 + (PL/2 +PL/6) x 6
So I've learned that whenever there is a square limit (which is always), the specialist base will out-produce the worker base as soon as the worker base hits that limit. The real task is to strike a balance...a worker base would out-produce a specialist base before that limit is reached, so you might lost too much energy if you convert your bases to specialist models too early.

Concerning your specialist example...it's really a mix between workers and specialists. If it were all specialists and crawlers, than the energy income would be more towards 300, but the base would produce 0 minerals....this was what I meant when I said a pure worker base would have a much higher mineral income than a pure specialist base.

One more thought...pop booming would be slower with the specialist base than the worker. It takes 3 turns or more to rush-build a crawler, move it to a square, and commence nutrient harvestation. Meaning that for every 3 turns, you'll have to wait one or more turns before your pop can grow again.

[WhiteElephants]

Curtadams -- The facts are you don't have an infinite amount of tiles to work and crawler. Your bound to run out, so to say your just going to use the extra crawlers to bring in more energy is ridiculous. Sure you can do this for a base or two, but sooner than later your going to start cutting into the production tiles of neighboring bases.

And yes, in Sik's example you do get MORE librarians because the population isn't being used to work the tiles, crawlers are. Again, using population to work squares is highly inefficent.

Ned -- I still don't see the relevance of a +200 mineral base. You'd have to be able to build a facility, or special project nearly every turn. I don't have bases with that kind of mineral production and I run out of things to build. Besides, there are only about a half dozen facilities that cost more than 200 mins to build, the other ones you build you'd be losing minerals on because only 10 carry over.

Most the time I play on standard maps as that is the size typically used in MP games. I haven't had the patience to finish a SP game in over a year as I become thouroughly bored after the first 100 turns. How you manage to stay at peace with the AI is beyond me (Submissives). Like Sik said, after 100 turns I'm so far ahead every AI is seething.

I think this is my last post. Sik and I have given numbers and examples and all I'm hearing is, "A worker on a square is better," without any evidence to back this up. Good Luck All.


Edit: Net Mav -- If you build crawlers for minerals first, by the time you get to crawlers for nutrients you should be able to produce one just about every turn. Also, the rate at which a base runs out of squares to work depends on the spaces between them and the amount of crawlers used in the production radius. The faster you fill up those tiles with crawlers, the faster you run out of tiles to work and get to those specialists.

[Fitz]

You guys just keep going, don't you? I'm impressed.

Having read this whole thread, I can only say it looks like the specialist approach works great, but only if you are ahead of the game. For example, in Siks pop-booming approach, you need those crawlers on the nut squares several turns in advance, because it will take several turns to produce and move one.

WE, the main difference seems to be that you are used to playing in a MP game. I've tried the specialist approach in an long SP game on a huge map, and in some LAN games on huge maps, and it doesn't cut it if you don't win early. You will be overwhelmed by someone who has a massive insustrial base (minerals & facilities) and raw energy income.

It happened to me in the LAN game (no transcend allowed), and I struggled to the end in the SP game (I didn't plan ahead enough). If you can wrap it up early (continent to yourself and good defenses) you might be able to transcend before anyone gets to you. Otherwise, 60 minerals/turn allows a very good unit coming out every turn, with a small fraction of money put to upgrading it compared to the shell you can produce for 10-15. Next thing you know, a force 3-5 times yours is massacring you, with the same number of bases & energy, but a hell of a lot more minerals to make cheaper replacements.

Both of those games went in very far, and you are wrong about facilities. Even with 60 minerals, a lot of them take several turns to build. I find that I start running out of facilities too, but the cash can easily be directed to upgrading units, or saved to rush/upgrade when you get the next tech in 1-2 turns.


One last point. The PIA factor of switching from labs to econ with the specialist approach pre-fusion is huge. You can't just change your SE bar over from one to the other, you have to go into each base and change every specialist to another kind.

Edit: Sik, was it you that advocated circling a continent with bases two squares apart? I tried it the other day, and it worked great! Kuodos to you.

[Net Maverick]

WhiteElephants:

But it would take 1 turn to build the crawler, 1-2 turns to get it in place, and 1 turn to issue the convoy nutrients order. Meaning that if the FOP is more than 1 square away, you lose one turn of pop. boom. Of course, this problem can be easily remedied by building the crawler ahead of time . Oh yeah, I forgot to add my thanks to you and Sikander in my earlier post...I've been struggling with my newly acquired expansion method due to a limited amount of squares to work with, and the specialist approach is the perfect solution. Prior to this exchange, I have always assumed that a specialist strategy was useless and inefficient...guess I still have alot to learn...

One more thing, Sikander and WE...it seems that both of you die-hard specialist users begin with workers, and convert to specialists later in the game. I need to make an inquiry: is it easy to make the transition from worker to specialist? Or does one need to practice to do it efficiently? Also...do you plant forests from the beginning? Or do you build farms first? Or perhaps a mixture of both?

[Misotu]

I think that the debate here simply illustrates how flexible the game is. There is no right and wrong approach - personally I tend to adjust the balance between workers and specialists on a base-by-base basis, because there are so many contributing factors.

It is also true that MP games are *very* different to SP. To be honest, you can take pretty much any approach in SP and still beat the AI. After all, if you can beat the AI in a one city challenge, that pretty much says it all really.

The larger the map, the more important a mineral strategy might prove to be, in the sense that no-one can transcend so very quickly. So military strength becomes far more critical and it is true that minerals are very important if you want to build very advanced, very expensive offensive units. It is interesting to note, however, that upgrading scouts to very advanced defenders is really not that expensive. It is also true that bases producing very large numbers of minerals will experience huge waste unless they are continuously producing very expensive items.

MP games, however, are rarely played on very large maps because they would take so long to complete under those circumstances.

In a current MP game (in SMAC, so the energy levels are far lower than they would be in SMAX) I am producing 1100+ energy/turn while maintaining my research rate at under 2 turns/tech. I can alter this so that I'm doing well over 2000 econ per turn. Alternatively, I can fix it so that I get a tech/turn. This is with just 11 decent bases. The mission year is only around 2180. My best mineral base produces 16 mins, and that's more than enough. This turn, I rushed 2 SPs (from a 0 start position), 5 energy sats and assorted units/hefty base facilities, plus upgrading a few scouts to AAA/probability garrisons for my expanding empire.

In terms of defending myself, I already have AAA/probability/creche/sensor/perimeter/aerospace and tachyons are, of course, available if my infiltrator data indicates that I should put those in. I could do that, empire-wide, in 2 turns. Alternatively, of course, with a flick of my SE settings, I can be at antimatter before the opposition can say "tanks", much less research them Shard vs chaos. Probability vs silksteel. The Nanofactory means that you can upgrade scouts to AAA/antimatter for something like 50 energy - definitely under 100, can't remember exactly - so new garrisons are hardly a problem if you take that SP.

And if I needed minerals? Well, I would probably still pursue energy, race up the tech tree, and get all those luverly mins from non-polluting Nessus mining stations. No Centauri Preserves necessary, thank you very much. Think it can't be done? You'd be wrong.

Having said that, I've never built more than 2 or 3 Nessus stations in an MP game. I have, however, built well over 20 energy sats and rather a lot of food sats.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. But it is simply not true to say that a mineral focus will necessarily beat an energy focus. By the same token, I doubt either a worker or a specialist strategy would tend to beat a hybrid approach. Both have their place.

Minerals are very nice, but they have their limitations when they have to tackle, for example, a well-energised UoP or PK with the Hunter-Seeker, running FM +Wealth/Knowledge and making good use of crawlers/specialists/satellites in MP SMAC. That's for sure.

[Sikander]

Ned,

"Sik, The one thing I had not considered is that other SE choices now make sense. With energy and labs coming from specialists, Police - Planned may be viable."

This stategy is a real boon for Yang (as Blake pointed out). He loves Police / Planned, and the 4 units supported per base allows him to create a large former army very early. His crappy -1 econ is negated for the most part by relying on specialists for energy. The only tricky part for Yang is pop booming without democracy, which requires a GA, and no more than 1/2 of his population as specialists (and plenty of happiness infrastructure to boot). Fortunately even without a pop boom Yang's growth is really good, and a judicious use of GA (use specialists to create psych as it is not lost to inefficiency and can be adjusted on a base by base basis (as always all apologies for the aliteration ), can really give him a boost.


Curtadams,

"But you don't get any more librarians! The forest is already supporting the maximum you'll fit in the city. All you've done is spend a great deal of terraforming effort to reduce your energy output. If you're talking about adding crawlers, well of course city+crawlers outproduces city alone. But that's not a relevant comparison. I will vastly outproduce you by assigning all those extra crawlers to high-energy squares. Again, you don't gain from the specialists until you're out of usable squares - in this case squares for the crawlers."

But I do get more librarians, which is why my base outproduces yours though they are equal in area and population. My raw energy is lower, but my total energy is higher. What this means in practice is that due to inefficiency (exception: HQ) my base actually produces more than the numbers in the example indicate, or rather that yours produces less to the extent that you rely on raw energy. It costs me 6 crawlers (6-8 turns production) and some former time to get there.

And yes, you can outproduce me by utilizing more squares. However I would just build more bases on those extra squares (I don't have to worry about efficiency or bureacracy to any great extent). In the end in the same amount of space I will have more bases producing more energy because my per square productivity is greater. This productivity comes at a cost in terraforming, and to a much lesser extent in crawlers.

Were you to build an energy park rather than expanding with bases you would be forced to do significant terraforming yourself to get 6+ energy per square which would (nearly) equal the energy output of the two librarians that any land square can produce with appropriate forming very early in the game. You would have some turn advantage because it would take me some time to build facilities in the new bases, but in the long run I would produce more gross minerals, and have more build queues, both of which are advantageous to the military economy. Additionally, by having more bases I will be able to take advantage of economies of scale for satelites (more bases means more productivity for every satelite produced).


Net Maverick,

"So I've learned that whenever there is a square limit (which is always), the specialist base will out-produce the worker base as soon as the worker base hits that limit. The real task is to strike a balance...a worker base would out-produce a specialist base before that limit is reached, so you might lost too much energy if you convert your bases to specialist models too early."

Yes, specialists are more space efficient, while workers are more time efficient. I think this is the crux of the issue. I start out my first round of bases using workers in a forest economy. My first crawlers are all set to crawl minerals until I reach my desired level of mineral production. As my former numbers grow (and perhaps their productivity with the WP) I start to convert squares to those more conducive to crawling (ie rocky into road / mines, or rolling into condensor / farms) or more productive squares (boreholes). It is a gradual switch which moves at the pace of the terraforming. My productivity is always going up. As crawlable squares are produced and crawled, I move one or more workers to the specialist queue. Eventually there are no empty squares in the base radius, just a nice surplus of nuts being crawled in.

Btw, just so this is clear I use my crawlers for the most part within the base production radius. The reason is it is quicker, the crawlers add a layer of protection to the base, and should one or more of them be destroyed, I can always work a square manually until a replacement crawler is produced. Plus it makes land allocation easier to manage.

"Concerning your specialist example...it's really a mix between workers and specialists. If it were all specialists and crawlers, than the energy income would be more towards 300, but the base would produce 0 minerals....this was what I meant when I said a pure worker base would have a much higher mineral income than a pure specialist base."

I see what you mean, though I make a point of crawling in minerals first and foremost until even size one bases are producing 15-30 mins. I build a lot of boreholes eventually, from 2-5 per base (depends on spacing), which account for about half of my worked squares.

"One more thought...pop booming would be slower with the specialist base than the worker. It takes 3 turns or more to rush-build a crawler, move it to a square, and commence nutrient harvestation. Meaning that for every 3 turns, you'll have to wait one or more turns before your pop can grow again."

Not necessarily. Crawlers cost 30 mins, 27 with +1 industry and 24 with +2. They take at most 2 turns to crank out from a mature base, and I can place them the same turn because I do my terraforming within the base radius (and build plenty of roads). Assuming that I have plenty of condensor / farms to place the crawlers on, I will not lag in the pop boom, as a crawler every other turn crawling 4 nuts will keep up.

Again it's not the crawlers that I'm waiting for, but the terraforming. Because forests are quick and to some extent self propogating a worker base can be terraformed a good deal more quickly than a specialist base. But just as I increase the productivity of my bases through facilities over time, I also increase the productivity of my land by terraforming over time. The two factors are in fact very complementary.

As for learning how to do this, it's not too hard. Check out Vel's guide regarding thin expansion. I do pretty much what it says in there. I take Centauri Ecology as my first tech, and where possible build formers before garrisons at new bases. If a base has a square that produces two or more food fine, otherwise I build them one. Everything else is forest. When crawlers are available I start cranking them out and placing them on forests for the mins. Once I am up to snuff in minerals I build another former, and then get to work on infrastructure while my formers begin to trasform my land slowly. As it is possible I replace workers with crawlers. I try to get an early pop boom in for my core bases in the second half of the 1st century, and I usually have another extended pop boom toward the later part of the first century to push every base up to the max population.


Fitz,

"Sik, was it you that advocated circling a continent with bases two squares apart? I tried it the other day, and it worked great! Kuodos to you."

Yep, I used to call it the hollow placement strategy when I hit upon it about a year (or a little more) ago. I started by myself on a large roundish continent, and wanted to stake my claim to the whole thing by surrounding all the space in the center. Now I call it the lager strategy in honor of the pioneers, Boers and Bohemians who circled the wagons to defend themselves.

The idea has several really important benefits. The first one is that it is really an effective defense against AI intrusion. With almost every other coast square a base with a garrison, it takes almost no effort to cover the other intervening squares with a crawler, armored probe team or whatever. That should keep you safe until at least airpower. What you end up with then is a huge protected area surrounded by all of your bases, which is perfect for an energy / mineral / nutrient park.

As warfare becomes more advanced the high concentration of bases along the coast has some important ramifications. Air power can be dispersed between bases (to limit damage from multiple airstrikes on the same base) and yet remains very concentrated for defensive purposes. To get to 'the soft underbelly' of your crawler park the enemy must crack a very tough outer shell, which can be beefed up with clean AAA defenders for very little cost.

Offensively concentration also yields an advantage. If one base is in range of an enemy base it is likely that several others are as well. Obviously you are maximizing your naval potential as well as every base can produce ships. Anyway, you are the first person who has tried it besides me that I know of. I'm glad you like it, and thanks for the recognition.