how much does the +2 research do?

[DrFaustus]

To all of you critiquing Sik's methods, I suggest you give said methods a test run. Try it out and see.

I tried it with the Hive as an all-specialist society and kicked the living **** out of the AI on transcend. I can do that with more normal methods, too, but with the all-specialst method I achieved this many years sooner than normal. And I wasn't using the extremely fine timing and tricks he recommends, but a much cruder version of the whole affair.

The biggest drawback is - as Vel mentions - the sheer PIA factor of it all. Turns take forever. And it seems like you're just endlessly terraforming and terraforming all over the place.

The biggest advantages for me personally as a player were that my empire was hyper-efficient (compared to the usual mess), I transcended much earlier, and by making all my crawlers *trance* as soon as possible, with zillions of ****ing crawlers everywhere, my continent is invunerable to worms, and a real PIA to attack. Assuming SP, of course.

Try it sometime, you'll like it.

I recommend that Sik post a game or two of his showing this style at various points in the game. It looks very different than the average game.

[Ned]

Sik, What I meant to say is that Police-Planned may be a viable SE choice for any faction, not just Yang. If efficiency is irrelevant b/c all energy is coming from specialists, then SE setting that increase support and industry should be favored over SE settings that add efficiency or economy. Ned

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ned
Sik, What I meant to say is that Police-Planned may be a viable SE choice for any faction, not just Yang. If efficiency is irrelevant b/c all energy is coming from specialists, then SE setting that increase support and industry should be favored over SE settings that add efficiency or economy. Ned

Ned,

You are correct about this, though I admit that I have only recently (yesterday) begun testing the viability of a 'pure' specialist approach. Previously I had sought to maximize my output per square. Boreholes are superior to anything else until at least Fusion, when engineers can produce more (condensor / farm / soi enricher = 6 nuts, crawled, so that the output is 3 engineers = 15 energy). Shelf squares max out at 4 nuts, with a bonus of 4 energy as well with a tidal harness. Since early sea crawlers are pricey I tend to work these squares also. Thus I tend to only work squares which give me a good raw energy output in addition to good nuts or mins. This gives me at least some commerce income, though nothing to write home about. It also gives me some drone potential, as perhaps as many as 7-8 squares are being worked in some bases. Thus I have used high effic. setting to reduce bureacracy drones in the midgame, as well as using the paradigm economy to shuttle all of my raw energy into labs.

I am testing out a 'pure' or more pure specialist strategy right now. The spacing is a simple grid, where every base commands a 3 x 3 block of 9 squares. Obviously the center square contains the base itself, and the other 8 squares are broken down as follows:

If I want to go with a 'pure' specialist strategy, I will crawl all rocky squares after they are mined and roaded. (let's say for the purpose of argument that there are an average of two per base) If I am willing to work two squares, then instead I will drill two boreholes. All the other squares will be farms / condensors, producing 4 nuts each before soil enrichers. The output of these bases will be as follows:

Minerals = 2 for the base square + 8 (no worker base) or 12 (two borehole base) = 10, 14 respectively.

Nuts = 3 for the base square, + 24 for the condensor farms = 27

Energy = (x) for the base square + 0 for the all specialist base, or 12 if I work two boreholes. In addition I will recieve the output of the specialists = 13 librarians for the all specialist base = 39 energy early, and 11 specialists where the two boreholes are worked, yielding 33 additional energy.

Totals for the two borehole base = 14 mins, 27 nuts, and 45 energy (+whatever the base square produces in energy).

Totals for the all specialist base = 10 mins, 27 nuts and 39 energy + base energy.

Both are pretty productive considering that they only use 9 squares. In the early game the hybrid base produces more, though these bases will probably need some drone control to keep those boreholes in production. The all specialist base will never need any drone controls once you get it going, and can run under any conditions without drone troubles of any sort, and without losing a single joule of energy to inefficiency, except for the base square production. Due to fairly anemic mineral production, both bases are good candidates for Genejack Factories.

You can run whatever SE choices you like here, without materially effecting your output. However it should be noted that you will need to pop boom either constantly, or at regular intervals to bring up your populations as you expand. Until you can build the Cloning Vats you will thus be stuck running Demo / Planned a good deal of the time. Planned is no trouble at all, since it's only weakness is efficiency. Democracy however tends to be pretty costly in terms of minerals should you be using unclean units in profusion. It is certainly tempting to use Police State when you can for all those free units. Perhaps a shift from Police State / Planned / Knowledge or Wealth when you are not booming to Democracy / Planned / Power when you are booming would work well.

The weakest point IMO in using the Specialist ICS approach is that your bases will produce fairly few minerals. On the other hand, there are a number of advantages which may not be obvious at first glance. Firstly, though this is a terraforming intensive process, you will have a very good ratio of bases to terraformed squares. Thus you will completely finish a base's production zone fairly quicky, and free up it's formers to help bases nearer the frontier. This will create a critical mass at some point, where you are adding bases at a rapid rate where their terraforming is already well underway or completed.

Another weak point in this approach is that by utilizing only nine of the twenty one squares a base can normally use you will have fairly high overheads in terms of facilities. You would want to make every free facility SP a priority, as well as choosing what facilities to build carefully. I would think that hybrid forests would be uneconomical for quite a while. You would also tend to forego recreation commons (for the pure specialist strategy at least), hologram theatres, and other facilities like the hospitals which provide a small boost to labs at a high cost in minerals. Your overall productivity will be lower in the long run in comparison to placing your bases further apart (due to the increased ovehead and the higher proportion of base squares), but the advantages lie in being able to quickly get a large area into production without having to pod boom at all.

Militarily this strategy seems to have a lot going for it. You will have an enormous number of bases which will give you two advantages straight away. First you will have a lot of free units with your support rating at +2 to -2, and a truly sick number if your support is +4. Secondly, you will also have a large number of build queues. Even with fairly low minerals you should be able to produce trained shell units in one to two turns at every base. You should also be able to produce at least 50 econ per base before fusion, and over 100 afterward. Thus you could fight a war of attrition with the best of them by building trained shells and upgrading them as you go.

Everything I have written has been about the early and early midgames. When you get satelites, soil enrichers, hab domes, the sky is no longer the limit. Soil enrichers would increase the number of nuts from 27 to 39, though you will have to pod boom to take full advantage before hab domes. Satelites are also a killer bonus, and you will get that economy of scale advantage from having a lot of bases. With hab domes and a full range of satelites your bases would produce:

39 nuts = 19 pop = (+19 energy) + (+19 mins) + (19 nuts)
20 nuts = +10 pop = (+10 energy) + (+10 mins) + (10 nuts)
10 nuts = +5 pop = (+5 energy) + (+5 mins) + (+5 nuts)
5 nuts = +2 pop = (+2 energy) + (+2 mins) + (+2 nuts)
3 nuts = +1 pop = (+1 energy) + (+1 mins) + (+1 nuts)
2 nuts = +1 pop = (+1 energy) + (+1 mins) + (+1 nuts)
==========================================

Totals

Mins = 10 from all specialist base + 38 = 48
Energy = 38 raw energy + 38 specialists = 228 total energy w / Engineers (more with Transcendi) + whatever the base square provides.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Damn Damn Damn,

The coolest topics get discussed when your not lookin' and away. WE and Sik I commend you on your defense of the specialist approach well said my friends. The point you make that other seem not to be hearing is the gradualness of the conversion to specialists.

I have played specialists and non specialsit approaches with most every faction. I must say I love the approach. However, it does bear repeating as others have said (Vel and Misotu). It really is a flexible approach and inthe end it all depends. Specialization to me at least really becomes a mid game gambit. Gearing up for specialization and the intensive t-forming involved depends on a few key factors.

a. Do I have the WP sp
b. How close am I to fusion (engineers)
c. Am I in immediate harms way from marauding needlejets and/or choppers. etc.
d. Am I relying heavily on trade energy?
(e. Optional Am I close to having super formers?)

If the answers are yes. yes, no and no respectively then gearing up for conversion to heavy specialization is a good choice and should be targeted to coincide with discovery of fusion. Until then trees are about as good as the spercialists you have available to you at that time. Not quite but close enuff.

Hey guys I'm back and completely bummed I missed out on this discussion. Rave on my my freinds and let the engineers show you the way.

[Ned]

Ogie, I have come to agree. I now constantly terraform with the objective of ending up with only crawled condensor/farm/enricher combo's crawled mines, and workers on boreholes and tidal harnesses. This combo generates very high energy, labs and minerals, but less commerce income. Power, Fundy and Police State are all now reasonable SE choices. Ned

[Sealurk]

Getting back to the topic, the +2 research does a lot. If you can get the jump in research, you can expand faster than anyone else, because you can get the advantages before anyone else. In my opinion, research is the most important SE area, probably followed by effic and support