Bases: Close Together Or Far Apart?

[Hydro]

I like to follow the three hex rule, but I will violate this flagrantly if I can place a colony near one or two Unity pods. In the early game getting an all-good pod pop is huge, especially if it finishes an expensive facility like a RT, NN, crèche, or research hospital, or you get a terrain special out of the deal. The only bad pop pops that I can recall getting is earthquake (which is horrible if you are in a special terrain like jungle or uranium flats, since that terrain is destroyed) or teleport unit (my terraformer is now 20 tiles away - ack!). I've also noticed that early pop Unity rovers tend independent, which is also great.

As usual, DD has a great point on non-pop booming factions needing bases closer together. I'll add that little gem to my Morgan strategy book!

Hydro

[buster]

I must be one of the only players around who follow no preconceived plan whatsoever.

I simply look over the territory for a good place to put a base and put it there. Preferably near some monolith or resource square.
Especially in early game it is important that the base have access to some high nutrient squares or it will stall very early.

Additionally strategic considerations - such as blocking off some access points count and I often leave gaps on places that will later be suited for crawler use.

Another factor is map size - on small ,aps lands are a precious commodity on large ones there is usually plenty. Likewise buildup will often be based on having very strongly defended bases at key access routes into my territory and so will often go a long way to get started on it and then fill in gaps later.

On small maps it is often vital to get there before your opponent so I will try to manuever to grab the land I want.

While I do see the point in the various schemes - I find the most workable being to fit ones planning to the territory rather than trying to make the territory fit into ones plan.

Maybe not great for writing a guideline but absolutely workable. After all there are no extra points for artistic value - it is just a matter of get big, strong and rich quick.

[Sarxis]

Unfortunately, I like my bases spread about 4 or 5 squares apart.

This is really kind of a nasty habit, since in the early game, close bases can have an advantage.

But I usually try for maximum coverage of the best tiles per each base.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

I space them four tiles apart. I allow some overlap, some empty space. Typically, I try to position major cities near resource clusters. (This varies from region to region; if I'm in the jungle, I tend to pack them closer together, and vice versa in drier areas.)

[T-hawk]

In regards to both terraforming and base placement, I look at each game as a unique tapestry to be woven, and circumstances can greatly differ. Work with the landscape, anticipating and flowing with needs.

Most often I'll build one condensor and one borehole per base, on the appropriate specials if available, and forest the rest. Before Tree Farms, usually I'll farm/solar rainy/rolling squares around the condensor. After Tree Farm and Sky Hydroponics construction, I'll put in a second borehole per base. I just about never mine rocky; it either gets bored or leveled.

In general, though, I'm a devoted Weather Paradigm fan. Note that WP can give you a real early game boost, as condensors in a square ignore the 2-nutrient restriction, and you can put off Gene Splicing for a good while if there are more pressing needs.

I space bases usually four squares with a little bit of overlap, and often three squares on the N-S or E-W diamond axis. I aim for every base to have twelve to fourteen available squares to work, to level them off at the Hab Complex limit. (and I adjust for Morgan and Lal.)

And I build HORDES of formers. I like to use Police State until my available land is filled, and with the support I have each base crank out three or four formers. I re-home formers as new bases are built. By the time I switch to Democracy, most of my bases are at size 3-6 and can absorb the support costs for 2-3 formers.

(I don't use crawlers or pop-booming unless playing something like speed transcend or OCC. I also don't play multiplayer - can't find the hours for a live game, and am often away from my computer for days at a time -- bad for PBEM.)

[Frankychan]

Aesthetics and Ying-Yang

Before I would pack my bases together but when my capitol was hit w/a PB, I said screw that. Wiped out 5 bases, each having 2 SP in them. Now, I plop my bases where ever I see valuable resources. I also establish bases to stop other factions from horning into my territory.

Nothing fancy, just plop 'em where I think they'll be the most effective.

[knowhow2]

I put bases where I have the most use of them. Near bonus resources, strategically important or just need another base close by the last.

If I plan to use all squares for each base (for example less than 14-17 bases in a Huge Map) then I put them far away from eachother. If I don't care then 1-2 square apart.

[Eddioboy]

AI helps with base locations, but...

...do they do a good job? When you get a new pod, sometimes it points somewhere and says, to quote Brigham Young, "this is the place!" As a non-expert player I must ask...are those usually good places to plop your city?

[Velociryx]

:: Sorry guy....I *just* saw this thread! Now, it's a question of tearing myself away from Civ3 long enough to log on and post!

Bases: Generally 3 apart, but I'm not a diehard stickler about it. If there's a juicy resource I just gotta get to, and (esp. early game, before I can terraform land up/down), sometimes the overall SHAPE of the continent simply dictates closer or further apart spacing.

One thing though, it DOES alter your defense scheme a bit, so if I've got my bases 3-apart, 'cept for these few over here, I'll station my rover prototypes in that "corner" of the empire to facilitate easier defense.

(thus, when I think of it, it would be entirely possible for someone to survey the map and get a general sense of where my units are....rovers are probably here, cos the bases are a bit further apart....that sorta thing)....hmmm...might have to switch things up a bit, just to keep folks guessing....

-=Vel=-

[knowhow2]

I'm little bit confused about the "square-apart" thing. Does 3-square-apart means that there are 3 squares between bases or 2 squares between bases?

[vitamin j]

knowhow: 2 squares between bases, so an infantry unit on a road can move from base to base each turn. I call it a 3-space layout 'cause of that: unit in base goes 1,2,3 it's in the next base. There's a cool thread that Vel started called Doctrine: Defense, I think, that goes into that stuff a little more.
I personally like a 4-space layout better myself (3 squares between bases), but in the MP games I'm in, I'm sticking mostly to the 3-space!

[MariOne]

Welll...
some of you know my answer...: it depends!

I admit I have never been a die-hard ICSer. It's not that I disagree with the strategy, it's that I hardly find the "time" (in the chess sense, how do you say it in english, "tempo"?) to strictly put it in practice.
I will definitely build the most bases I see fit, but often I let me limit by constraints others tend to ignore or overcome more easily.

For instance, in the early game, if I have a flatmoist and a rollingmoist tiles available in an eligible spot, I have to really make violence to myself to found the base on the rolling tile, laeving only the flat to be worked... I have to repeat myself "be confident, in 5-8 turns you'll have a forest there", but that doesn't come to me by "instinct".

For sure, I will not leave gaps if not unavoidable.
Bases every 4th tile (3 in-between) are more of a rarity to me.
And I have no problems to put bases 2 tiles apart (i.e. minimum distance), *especially* in the early game, and then again if I can have a surge of colonists produced while booming (= constant population - before I bother to spend buying habcomplexes) which will be used to pack the zones initially left less crowded (and to forceboom bases beyond hablimits).


But the main comment I wanted to add here, is that in the early game *fungus* and *rock* will heavily shape the disposition of your bases.
They would require 6-8 "formerturns" to be cleared, and that often is NOT justified/affordable considering the actual timing/opportunity of your first expansion.
So, strictly sticking to a given pattern is very "theoretical" and hard to go for in the first expansion.
Barring that you accept to delay it to stick to the pattern, which negates the founding concept of it (in terms of resources advantage, not in terms of territory and mobiled defense, I mean)

Aside:
indeed, there are many ICSers who are much more ICSers than me, so I might be wrong... but in the end,
once in a given continent *every single tile* is exploited either by a worker or by a crawler, having tight-packed grid bases, or "just" covering the territory, would NOT make all that difference, you'd be squeezing more or less the same, because after all the pool of resources you draw from to support your citizens/specialists would be the same, and if you can afford to support 12 citizens in two bases you can have them in a single base too getting the same number of workers and specialists, so...
The benefit of ICS, is during the transition to the stable situation. In the beginning (*transition* to a distant-to-come mature development and end of expansion) you are not constrained by space and a single base even willing can't use more than a few tiles around it, and thus the more bases you get the more resources you net, and the closer you pack them the sooner they begin producing and the shorter you support the colonists.

If you have to impose delays on your ICS expansion because you must wait for a fungal or rocky tile to be cleared to respect your rigid positioning pattern, you are contraddicting the purpose that is moving you.... IMHO
___

[Arnie1066]

I'm a bit of a war monger in mid game but in the early stages i try to get a trade aliance with everyone, so i place my bases quite far apart (nr resource or key points). that way by the time mid game gomes round and i'm asked to asist in the eradication of someone i can attack from multipule sides. Especially if i play an Aqautic faction.

[T-hawk]

Originally posted by MariOne
if you can afford to support 12 citizens in two bases you can have them in a single base too getting the same number of workers and specialists, so...

That's not always true, because of factors that operate on a per-base basis. Most notably Orbital resource providers, the happiness SPs (Human Genome, Longevity Vaccine), and also +Energy per base from high Economy ratings and being Planetary Governor. In those cases, 12 citizens in two bases will receive more benefit than those 12 citizens in a single base -- plus the latter had to build a Hab Complex and maintain it at 3 credits per turn.

The benefit of ICS, is during the transition to the stable situation. In the beginning (*transition* to a distant-to-come mature development and end of expansion) you are not constrained by space and a single base even willing can't use more than a few tiles around it, and thus the more bases you get the more resources you net, and the closer you pack them the sooner they begin producing and the shorter you support the colonists.

ICS is not just a more effective transition; it's also a superior stable state. ICS gives you amazing bang for the buck on Orbital improvements.

[MariOne]

Hmmm... T-Hawk, I said I was no expert in ICS "Practice", but I can still pretty much grab the concepts...

I see your points, and I don't see them yet as making all that difference *once in a stable state*.

At that stage, drones should not be a big issue for you. So I don't figure that having an extra talent fromg HGP in an half-sized base is %lly significant. Maybe I'm wrong... of course having to allocate an extra 10% in psych is a sizeable effect.... Or having to use an empath instead of an engineer... But having almost all specialists in each base this would not happen.

+energy x Base? Is that 1 or 2 more RAW energy you'd get for your second base, compared to the potential output there? That should be really negligible, or you're not doing very well ;^)

About the Hab Complex
- I was just givig those numbers as pretext, as example.
More likely also an ICS Base will have to use a Hab Complex to develop its full potential
- I always lived under the impression that a Habcomplex costed 2 to maintain and not 3...?
- you don't need to build Hab facilites to get pas hab limits (I was indeed objecting it when I first discovered it, but a thread here in Apolyton with very experienced and authoritative players like Misotu and JAM convinced me that I was wrong and that it's legal!)
- more, you don't need to KEEP Hab facilities once you reached your stable state population
___
Last but not least, Orbital bang for the bucks.
With tight ICS each base gets 3 tiles to live on (be it with workers or crawlers is not relevant to the purpose of this discussion, but let's make'em crawlers), plus the basetile itself.
You get 3 food from the basetile. You must use one of the 3 tiles for a BoreHole. You are left with 2 tiles for Farm-Condensers (4 food) to be crawled. With those 11 food and 11 Hydroponics you can maintain 11 citizens, 10 of them will be specialists (imagining to use crawlers).
Imagine to renounce to the second base, and use its 4 tiles for the first one.
You cannot have more boreholes, you'll work two with one base instead of one per base with two bases.
You'll have a food tile in place of the second basetile: 5 x 4 = 20 food, +3 in the basetile. This makes 23 foods = 23 citizens (with 23 Hydroponics), 21 of them specialists.

So, with an 8-tile room you can maintain 2 11-sized bases equal to 22 citizens/20 specialists, or one 23-sized base equal to 23citizens/21 specialists.
You are getting MORE thanks to orbitals with 1 base than with two bases, living off the same number of land tiles.

I left off Enrichers, if you factor them in, a Farm-Enricher-Condenser tile yelds 6 foods instead of 4.

This makes 2x15=30citizens/28 specialists, compared with 33citizens/31specialists, and the convenience of the single base over the two half-bases becomes bigger.
This mainly comes from the fact that you can get more food from an improved tile than from a basetile, and with satellites 1 food from land means 1 citizen.

You also will have to spend the HALF for facilities *building* AND *maintenance* while reaping the same benefits anyway.
Not considering the much lower bureaucracy, which is tho irrelevant with 1-2 workers per base (on the BHs).

The ONLY downside of having 1 base in place of 2 *at stable state* is evident: you need to build much more Hydroponics!
12 more not using Enrichers, 18 more if using them!!!
And the same with Miing and Energy satellites.

So, even when you BEGIN to build your Orbitals, I admit that you have again an impressive advantage with many small bases, as more citizens would activate each satellite at the beginning. But this is once more a TRANSITIONAL advantage surge due to the deployment of the new orbital tech.
At *Orbital Stable State* tho, the above analysis holds.

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Of course this is all just theory, but this theory tells me that ICS is even a slightly *inferior* _stable_state_ with regard to resources and economy, the only interrogative being if this advantage and the big spare on facilities may justify the bigger investment on satellites.
The huge advantage of ICS still seems to me lying in the transitional nature of it.
The point is not the packing, but getting the most bases the fastest possible, the packing is just the consequence of it.
But in that light, getting a base down in an avaiable spot has the absolute precedence over geometry: you can't wait for fungus or rocky tiles to be cleared, you must use your colonists asap where possible.

____

The advantage of ICS as a stable state is totally *logistics*, and this is a completely different issue...