Usefullness of Road Systems in SMAC

[Ken Hinds]

Do most of you still build road/mag tube systems in SMAC? And are they truely useful? Since roads only effect production in mined squares that is about the only place that I build them any more. I also get beat up by the AI, perhaps this is part of the reason.

Is there any economic advantage to have a good road system?

Ken

[Sprayber]

Sure

They are useful to me when I come to take your bases. It is so kind for the AI to build a nice road system for my troops. They greatly appreciate not having to slug through the fungus and forests.

[Thantos]

Road Networks economic value tends to be indirect rather than direct and to be honest with you I cant remember off the top of my head what type of terraformed squares it adds value to and what types it does not.

However I can tell you that when it comes to generating turn advantage over your enemy their are few things better than an extensive road network for it. Especially when it comes time to respond to a crisis situation.

[Tokamak]

Roads are mostly useful for defensive purposes. In that regard, they are invaluable.

Here's an example of a good road system being helpful...

In my current game, Miriam, Yang, and Santaigo are all tag-teaming me. They are the three highest on the power graph, while I am the lowest (I'm playing SMAC Down ). I cannot afford any more than the minimal losses. I must make Miriam pay a disproportionate cost for every tile she occupies.

I have a system of wooded bunkers covering my roads. I place defensive units there. Every turn, I withdraw the damaged unuts back to the city for repairs, while fresh units are drawn out to replace them. Miriam must always face fresh units, whereas I am fighting remanants. As a bonus, the high survival rate of my men means that their average morale is very high!

Without the road system, it would take several turns to switch out the units. That's too long.

More commonly, roads allow you to quickly shuttle garrisons from your interior bases to fringe bases that are under attack. Your opponent basically has to defeat most of your empire to take even a single base!

[death_head]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that a road running through a mine gives you one extra mineral per turn.

[Thantos]

And that defensive value is increased massively once mag tubes are layed down as you can redoploy your entire army in a single turn along your mag tube lines.

The concern of course is that an attacker with either sufficient mass or velocity will be able to use your own roads against you. To counter that effect requires a number of defensive measures on your part when laying down the mag lines.

1) Make sure the road line is illuminated, and their is litterally no place for an opponent to sneak an army onto your roads. Closely packed cities and sensors can help with this, but since any city or terraforming project is visible once you have his visible they are likely to be targets as well. Instead consider using crawler with deep radar spaced two squares off the road crawling a forrest instead.

2)Cant remember if this is correct or not as it has been a while since I have been airdropped but I think that Airbases with an interceptor located their can prevent airdrops within 2 squares of their reach. In any event consider building airbases near solar parks for when planet gets irate with you

3) Build a bunker 1 square off of the roads in rocky or forrest squares (with of course a sensor backing it up) force the attacker to burn both his velocity and mass fighting penny pocket fights while being unable to use the full mobility of roads to his advantage

4) Be prepared to destroy your roads at critical points as your defense becomes stressed during the conflict.

5) If you have the former core to do it consider taking very scenic routes during your mag tube construction. This would allow you to control exactly what kind of terrain you are willing to fight on and can really negatively effect their ability to bring airpower to the fight.

[Sprayber]

Just don't build a road in every square like the AI tends to do. Otherwise you'll have enemy forces coming in from all sides.

[Thantos]

True but do be sure you got a couple different ways to get to your core cities so he cant easily isolate them.

[Avenoct]

And of course, Crawlers like roads too...especially moving them out of your core towarad the fringes as you grow too big to use them or want to switch them off to a frontier base to help it.

That said, I wish there was a tech to allow 2 movement in trees..a sort of compromise.

I've not really done much of this, but some swear they destroy all their terraforming and plant fungus everywhere in the late game. This is especially good if you: have the XE dome, are the Gaians, or use mostly psi-units for your army. Late game fungus use by the gaians is pretty good...3-2-3? can't remember. Otherwise, I'd never have a lack of roads except in the case of a hasty and nasty retreat (slash and burn).

-Smack

[death_head]

I think Deidre gets 3-2-2...Cha Dawn is unstoppable late game when the PlanetBlight kicks in though...plenty of worms to capture, and roads all over the place