Do you ever build and echelon mirror inside a base radius?

[wheathin]

Just curious. Boreholes and condensors make a lot of sense for a tile worked directly by the base. Farm-solar options are also nice in the high hills, but do you ever build echelon mirrors anywhere but in a park?

I ask because I almost never use them, and I rarely see them discussed outside of energy parks. So I'm wondering what other players use them for.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I build for a Super Science City.

[T-hawk]

If you're playing without the evil blight of crawlers, it certainly makes sense to put a couple in/around your best science base, but that's about it, really.

[Sikander]

I don't ever build echelon mirrors at all.

[DavidByron]

My usual strategy involves not building any. I'll see if I can raise up a thread about it. I think Vel said it was a strategy covered by what he called "Builder" but it was much more intense and had a very different feel. I think we ended up calling it "Borg" or something.

Basically you just build cities 2 squares apart (ie one square between them) don't bother building and base facilities except secret projects, and don't bother with military other than a few police - say one unit per two cities.

[Method]

i never use mirrors. i like to whenever possible play sea factions either pirates or custom (in a current game i just made some factions aquatic and made an all sea map. lost of bases. certain AI factions are too stupid to terraform though ) and even when i play land factions, my idea of an energy park consists of hundreds of tidal harnesses which with thermocline transducer are 5 energy. if playing a sea faction, after advanced eco engineering you don't even need to raise the sea floor.

[Scipio Centaurus]

Talking SP only:

No. I don't build EMs inside base production radii. Conversly, that's the only place I build Boreholes. Don't like crawling boreholes - seems too wasteful. Condensors; at least 1 in each base production radius, but more may be built outside base control, just to loosen up the arid landscape. Only speculation, but that might accelerate forest growth. If not, ces't le boise!

The EMs don't get built till I've raised a suitable piece of my empire for gathering max energy. One req for my energy parks is that they are outside base production zones.

- Scipio

[Blake]

As one which often plays without the 'evil blight of crawlers' I do use echlons on occasion... this is when playing a Rainy+low erosion map, and starting in a area with a lot of rainy+rolling+high altitude, if you get the WP it certaintely makes sense to build a crawlerless energy park, but only if the appropriate area is near the HQ.

A rainy+rolling+50%mix of EM, Solar in the following arrangment:
................
...ESESE...
...ESESE...
...ESESE...
................
increases energy by ~2.5 per tile, before altitude is considered. And if the terrain is on average 2000 thats another +3, for _average_ resources per tile of:
3-1-6 (farm)
4-1-6 (enrichers)
which beats the socks off forest.
(Note for nitpickers, playing crawlerless I work every tile, including the mirrors, thats why the average energy increase is +2.5, altough some solars produce +6 on basis of echlons, the ones on the edge only produce +4 or less, and the echlons themselves are +0, acting simply as solar panels, once all averaged out it comes out to about +2-2.5 energy per tile by including the mirrors)

Is the extra energy worth the tripled terraforming time?
Short answer: Yes.
Is it worth the extra micromangment?
Short answer: No
Long answer: Yes, if your a perfectionist which enjoys terraforming.

Usually such energy parks only turn up for me if I farmed a patch of land earlier to improve early game population growth, I rarely actually start an energy park from stratch in the midgame, altough my early one may expand, as bigger parks are more efficent.

[optimus2861]

Rarely. I don't play MP, as I tend to go through "stretches" of heavy SMAC/Civ for a couple weeks and then hardly playing at all for another couple. Doesn't suit MP well, I don't think. Besides, I like to win and all that .

When I go for energy parks I typically look for a sea that I can control, then start slapping down the tidal harnesses. Under FM they're four energy each with less terraforming time. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven in a recent Lal game where I started near a 12-15 square inland sea .

[Clear Skies]

Yes, I do occasionally. It's nice to get some extra energy - but I only usually build an EM on a square where a solar collector wouldn't produce significantly more by contrast. For example, if an EM would yield an extra 6 energy from the surrounding quares and itself, I'd usually build it, but if it only yielded an extra 2 or 3 energy I'd probably use those turns to build a solar collector and move on.

They can be useful though, when you want to squeeze the last joules of energy out of a square.