What are the most useful strategies you have picked up here?

[lord of the mark]

why am i attacking early so much?

1. well one is just to get better aquainted with combat in this game.

2. In some cases im hemmed in, and have trouble expanding as much as i would like

3. Im perhaps overcompensating, trying to avoid bad habits on lower levels of civ2. In civ2 one could win on lower levels fairly easily with peaceful strategies. Once you got to Deity, you tended to get in trouble if you werent prepared to attack at least some of the AI's early. Granted it was still possible to win deity peacefully, but generally harder (leaving aside special cases like OCC)

I would have thought that SMAC, a later game would have an AI even less inclined to lose a peaceful building race. I'd heard that SMAC AI was generally easier to beat, not being up to the complexity of the game. But I assumed that would show up most in combat.

Was I wrong? Is the SMAC AI relatively good at combat, but poor at peaceful building, compared to the Civ2 AI? Or is it just that the game is designed to make attacks difficult without a tech edge??

And a number of people have spoken of a "builder" strat. In civ2 there was a distinction made between "expansionists" and "perfectionists". When you say build my empire, do you mean expand with new bases, or build up a limited number of bases (which of course has implications for early war, if im hemmed in) ?

[Jamski]

In SMAC everything has implications. You can be expansionist or perfectionist, and make both work. You can be offensive, or defensive, or any kind of crazy hybrid. 5 bases can be stronger than 25 bases, or weaker than 1 base. It all depends what you're playing.

-Jam

[Flubber]

I never attack the AI unless I know that I can win-- As for the AI skills, I find that the AI is better at tactical combat than it is at long range strategic planning needed to compete with a human in building an empire

. . .. and when we say "go builder" we simply mean that you aren't out conquering but our building infrastructure. There are a number of good ways to do this and you will hear people argue the merits of ICS or having a small number of perfectionist bases. The use of crawlers to bring in resources means that a huge number of bases is not required to continue to grow

[Sikander]

If I have to take on Yang in the early game, I prefer to do so with mindworms making the early assaults on his bases. They don't seem all that concerned with the perimiter defense.

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I would have thought that SMAC, a later game would have an AI even less inclined to lose a peaceful building race. I'd heard that SMAC AI was generally easier to beat, not being up to the complexity of the game. But I assumed that would show up most in combat.

Was I wrong? Is the SMAC AI relatively good at combat, but poor at peaceful building, compared to the Civ2 AI? Or is it just that the game is designed to make attacks difficult without a tech edge??

The thing that makes early game combat in SMAC different is the _substantial_ effects of innate faction bonuses. Certainly a successful early campaign can do wonders for your empire, but the likelyhood of being able to beat Yang in a ground war early without a substantial technological edge is, in my opinion, extremely low.

Later in the game, playing a builder faction, _your_ bonuses become more pronounced, which is why you want to postpone any protracted invasion til then. This is especially true against the AI, whose ruinously bad terraforming leaves it stagnating in the face of an exponentially expanding human opponent.

Now if the situation were reversed, and it was you as Yang versus the AI as Zak, I can't encourage you enough to press your advantages early. My point is that you need to make the most of the relative strengths and weaknesses of your faction. Make them play your game, don't play theirs.

This principle remains true in a multiplayer context. A human opponent should be more aggressive than the AI, but the relative strengths and weaknesses of your respective factions remain unchanged.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I see a good bit of aprehension in dealing with Yang in the early game.

If you define early as on or around impact weapons, I don't have difficulties typically.

True an early war puts you at a decided disadvantage in the early SP race and also allows others to race to an early tech lead, but for shear ability to withstand a hive onslaught and then go aconquering yourself, I don't see the fuss.

All one needs is Impact and Flexibility. Key is don't fall into the trap of impact rovers. You'll chew up your 3 row mineral rovers against his bases. Instead keep with the down and dirty 4-1-1 transported to the point of attack via land transport. If on a road and fractional movement points remain for the transport, load the unit up after it is done attacking and retreat to prevent counter attack from the AI base.

Of course make sure you have 2-3 probe teams to bring down the perimeters and then act as a garrison to preent hiverian probe from reversing your offensive through an untimely subversion.

Try it. It makes cracking the hive, or other early momentum factions a proverbial piece of cake.

[CEO Aaron]

Land transports can indeed be viable, but it's very support intensive, and as you pointed out, you're going to be giving up early SPs to a third party, even if you win. My point is, and always has been, that the best way to deal with a momentum faction is to stymie their attacks with as little force as possible, and leave them in the stone age.

[Adalbertus]

Just to twist the topic around: I was used to play with the "reload" cheat but tried to restrict this lately. But what made me to revert to old habits was the pod lottery. I simply see it unfair if a lonely (or even two) unit(s) arrive at a pod and - lo - you encounter eight mind worms. No problem playing Dee, 'cause I usually send worms out myself, but otherwise, what do you do? Eat the loss? Reload? Do you have some tricks (switching temporarily to Green to get some worms)?

In Civ2 during the last two games I played, I got the impression that the probability of barbarians is much reduced if you enter a hut with a move 2 unit on the beginning of a turn (never tried it before). Is this true, and is there something similar in SMACX?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Placing a base next to a pod prior to popping it almost always results ina postivie outcome save the earthquake outcome.

As for land transports being support heavy, not necessarily. a sprinkling of 2-3 is all that is normally required. In the long run during an early conquest the savings is significant verses losses one would encounter using speeders.

[Jac de Molay]

Just to twist the topic around: I was used to play with the "reload" cheat but tried to restrict this lately. But what made me to revert to old habits was the pod lottery. I simply see it unfair if a lonely (or even two) unit(s) arrive at a pod and - lo - you encounter eight mind worms.

It's not the worms that bother me, it's the fungus bloom when your two squares from a nearby base, and sitting on a nice piece of real estate.

But I found out the very thing that O.O. said about pods in base radii recently, and build bases first.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron


The thing that makes early game combat in SMAC different is the _substantial_ effects of innate faction bonuses. Certainly a successful early campaign can do wonders for your empire, but the likelyhood of being able to beat Yang in a ground war early without a substantial technological edge is, in my opinion, extremely low.

Later in the game, playing a builder faction, _your_ bonuses become more pronounced, which is why you want to postpone any protracted invasion til then. This is especially true against the AI, whose ruinously bad terraforming leaves it stagnating in the face of an exponentially expanding human opponent.

Now if the situation were reversed, and it was you as Yang versus the AI as Zak, I can't encourage you enough to press your advantages early. My point is that you need to make the most of the relative strengths and weaknesses of your faction. Make them play your game, don't play theirs.

.

interestiing point - ive been focusing on learning game specific features like combat tactics, forming, crawlers, etc while not focusing on faction strategies - that worked at librarian level, but at seem that even at thinker level it no longer works well - i need to begin focusing more on the right grand strategy for the faction im playing.

[Flare]

Yes. The grand stratagy makes a difference. Thinking several turns ahead is very good, but also being able to put everything into play for a long term approach is an art form. That applies to ALL factions, not just the builder factions. ~WEG~ After all, it is just as important on the why as it is to the how, where & when.