Sikander's Builder Game

[Sikander]

Originally posted by TKG
sik: you....are.....GOD!!!!

_{i imagine a lot of people are that good, like whoever it was transcended in 2170's (korn has the record?), but they don't post logs of their games}

I know there are plenty of people who are better than I am at this game, but I've been around these forums for a while and my game has improved considerably because of that. I'm not claiming anything by way of being a great player. My initial question was really "Is the University simply better than Morgan?". The way I play this seems to be the case. I seem to lag behind 20 years at least playing Morgan under similar builder conditions. Hendrik seems to have better luck with Morgan (or more likely a better Morgan game) than the University, so I wanted to see what the difference was. Hopefully Hendrik can post a synopsis of his Morgan style so I can see what he does when given the opportunity to build build build.

[Sikander]

Arghh! I've downloaded some sav files, but they show up as php files. How do I change the file type in XP? I'll keep slogging away at it, but if anyone knows throw me a bone please. It used to be so simple.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I was taken aback when I saw Hendrik's game progression. Up to the next to last save all looked in line with what I was expecting and then boom in MY2213 he had all his bases at max size and was raking in 1000+ energy credits and was at tech rate of 1 every 2 turns. It took me awhile to realize what he accomplished was a golden age pop boom. Yowza Morgie really took off in less than 20 years.

My UoP game I ran into some serious set backs. I used Siks starting point and game but was na-so fortunate as to get any freebie techs in the IA beeline. I got a comm link to Lal and made the mistake of trading centauri ecology for Biogenetics. As a consequence I didn't get IA until My2125 ish. As a consequence I just missed out on HGP. Arrg it made GA pop booming almost nigh impossible. To make matters worse despite the fact that I got Biogenetics I still wasn't first to SotHB either.

I failed twice to be elected planetary gov and missed out on Empath Guild.

At My2204 I was 3 turns from Fusion and still had yet to get Hybrid Farms.

Since I knew GA pop booming was a prob I instead decide to sprawl whilein FM/wealth. I developed inner core bases but that was about it. Without clean my former crews weren't yet able to completely t-form to my hearts content.

Ahhh such is life. In this one I give the nod to Hendrik as either a better played game or use of a better builder faction.

I need to go back and look in more detail as to what Hendrik accomplished as I would like to understand his trade energy and how much allocation he used in order to GA pop boom.

Hendrik any insight?

[Hendrik]

Trade energy played a fairly minor role in this game. I basically had my empire set up to maximize trade energy, but I only ever pacted with Miriam, and treatied with Lal and Zack. I got the message a few turns back that the UofP and the Gaians decided to join forces against me, and now Lal is doing the same.

The key to golden age pop boom in my opinion is INFRASTRUCTURE. I had research hospitals, tree farms, and holo theaters (net nodes because of VW) in every base. I was able to keep my bases in a continuous golden age until they reached size 10- at which point they either needed an empath or a hybrid forest.

A simple 40/20/40 GA boom was all I needed due to my vast infrastructure.

Also I had one or more borehole per base by the time they were reaching the large sizes, the extra energy makes a difference.

As far as starting points I will be brutally frank- Morgan is nowhere near as versatile as Zack in terms of starting points. Zack can beeline to impact rovers and do a super early rover rush if he starts right next to another faction, Morgan is much slower. Zack can make do with a small(er) number of bases, with Morgan you need to sprawl.

I made the empath guild a top priority, I got it even before tree farms. That and the PTS made getting elected governor easy.

Here is the last few turns of me during GA pop boom. I forgot to turn random events off and there was a solar flare at one point, the extra energy helped hurry the hybrid forests along, but I would have been no more than 1 turn behind if the event didn't happen.

I saved up energy while researching fusion, and I was able to rush buy a fusion lab into 18 or so bases on the turn I got fusion. That is in one of these saves.

[Hendrik]

Sik as far as them showing up as PHP files, as far as I know, it shouldn't matter...? In order to change what opens a file rightclick->open with->choose program and then check the "always use this program" button.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Hendrik

Very good points on Infrastructure. My Zak game was very sparse on infrastructure due to my gaffs in the early part of the game. I also did not get my preferred number of formers in order to stay ahead of the curve wrt boreholes.

On a separate tact, I noticed you prefereed 3 square spacing for bases as opposed to 2 square spacing. i normally go with a 2 square spacing for Morgan as it allows quicker colony set up and hence quicker energy return.

Thoughts?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Hendrik
Sik as far as them showing up as PHP files, as far as I know, it shouldn't matter...? In order to change what opens a file rightclick->open with->choose program and then check the "always use this program" button.

I tried that. It seems that the files are named xxxx.sav, but they also have a type (php), so that they are in reality 'xxxx.sav.php'. Renaming them doesn't change the final file extension, and SMAX doesn't recognize them because it sees the php extension that is invisible to me in the explorer screen. Yikes. I'll give it another go when I'm home tomorrow, I'm looking forward to seeing those games.

[Sikander]

I just tried it on my laptop here at work, and by changing the setting on the download window I managed to rid myself of that nasty php file extension. This should work at home also, where my copy of SMAX is ready to go. I'll get back with you tomorrow. Thanks.

[Hendrik]

I am going on vacation for a while, I am not certain whether or not I will have internet access whilst gone, although I am bringing my laptop.

I transcended at year 2236, I probably could have done it faster but got tired of moving formers around the last couple of turns and just hit "turn complete".

Ogie as far as base spacing I must say I really have not experimented with 2 square spacing much. But basically every square in my empire is in use by year 70-90, being either crawlered or harvested. If I went with the 2 square spacing I would be done with expansion by year 40-60. Basically I don't think 30 turns of advantage is worth the later cost of dealing with the tight base spacing.

As an aside this game required brutal amounts of micromanagement before I installed hybrid forests. It took a huge amount of tinkering to ensure each base growed each turn, I had to shuffle around supply crawlers and squares worked each turn.

I played with random events on (forgot to turn it off) and got two solar flares, one of them benefitted me a lot, the other killed off my 13 power sats, so it really had no net effect.

Here is the 2235 save right before I build the ascent.

[Hendrik]

Ogie and Sik, do you have any advice on how to improve my game? I was playing under some pretty optimal conditions for Morganites, but this is usually the method I use. What is the fastest anyone has transcended "builder style" on a huge map? I don't find the HOF useful because it doesn't explain the technique used to attain victory.

Ogie how differently do your morganite games with 2 city square spacing go? I would imagine you would have loads of tech and cash if you expanded as rapidly as possible. Only cincher is building the HGP, when I am under less than optimal conditions (IE a neighbor that must be defended against or killed) it really hurts my tech rate (especially not getting industrial economics early). How punishing are the drones with 2 square spacing, do you still run FM/wealth?

[Sikander]

Hendrik,

A very impressive game. It looks a lot like Blake's forest and borehole terraforming, and you really hit your stride with that pop boom.

As for suggesting improvements, I don't think I am in any position to do so. You really pushed the thin expansion paradigm to it's logical limits AFAIC, very rapid and you managed to keep up with your terraforming and infrastructure as well. Granted that you had a good chunk of land to work with, but still your game was very impressive to me.

I have always wondered about the fast Transcend on a huge map without conquest. All the games I have seen described have occured on smaller maps, standard being the largest. I think I could put together a Transcend by building only by 2250 with my current style, and if I were willing to take more risks perhaps a good deal sooner. I have a lot of habits that aren't geared at all to fast Transcends, and with some thought I think I could get my time down to a respectable level.

As for 2x spacing, I think it is a good system for Morgan. You have 7 workable squares, which means that you can easily boom up to your max population with GA. You could stick with all forest, which would give you 24 food total (with HF), enough for 12 pop, or you could add in some extra food via condensor / farms / soil enrichers, and lay in a borehole or two to replace that lost energy and mins if you wanted. You wouldn't need to go all out for nuts as I do, and could therefore bring in more energy and mins. You would have to wait for sky farms to max out your pop in some cases, but that isn't too long of a wait given how late your pop boom was in this game. Where you would really lose out would be commerce, though I find it hard to get much commerce without subduing my enemies anyway, especially after I take the lead.

[Archaic]

Well, let's see how I compare to the big guys. I used Sikander's 2101 save and took everything from there.

2175
I've claimed the HGP, WP, EG, VW & PTS, with the LV and PEG looking safely mine once I begin work. Gaians claimed both the ME and CN, and it'll be a race between me and them for the CDF.
I've been in a Demo/FM/Wealth + 20% Psych GA Boom for quite some time now, and with every base size 3 or higher in GA (Thank you PTS), my economy's doing wonderfully.
My terraforming's a bit haphazard, however the compass point boreholeing is going fine, and I'm just about to begin raising land to connect my western edge with Morgan so those currently coastal bases can be more productive.
Bio-engineering arrived this turn, so I'm currently saving up to convert all my formers to Clean, and am expecting quite an industrial boost from those extra minerals. It'll also finally let me build some defenders.

[Hendrik]

Very nice! Your lab output is 50% higher than mine at that year, which puts you about 6 years ahead of my strat at that year. When do you think you would transcend with this strat?

[CEO Aaron]

My compliments, Sik and Hendrik, on a very enlightening thread, its given me lots of food for thought on ways to improve my game. I especially like Sik's initial production of 2 formers in each of his starting bases, to generate early turn advantage via the formation of roads and sensors in new base sites. What are your thoughts on trying this with Morgan, eating the early minerals hit, due to their innate support penalties?

It seems to me that in a multiplayer environment, Sik's build could backfire rather egregiously in a more competitive multiplayer environment. Losing the rush to Virtual World and HGP could have dire consequences to the speed and efficiency of your build. Are there any ways you'd modify this build when playing in PBEM?

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Hendrik
Very nice! Your lab output is 50% higher than mine at that year, which puts you about 6 years ahead of my strat at that year. When do you think you would transcend with this strat?

I'm honestly not sure. I've never actually played a game through to completion on Trancend before to be honest. Really, it'd depend how long a war with the Gaians and Believers dragged out. I could just go defensive and wear their attacks as long as I liked, but I'd rather go killing for the submissive pactmates and commerce income.

My playing style has been dense ICS for about 9 months now, but this is my first time going ultra thin expansion. Not building all those garrisons has certainly speeded up my game. Then again, it's not like one can go ultra thin in a MP game usually, as Aaron pointed out. In MP I'd probably swap one former in each base for a garrison unit, and try to get to clean before 2160. Once I'm there, it's back to 2 formers a base, and for all new bases, clean garrisons would be produced by nearby already established bases if possible. Otherwise, not much change. Demo/FM/Wealth +20% Psych is pure gold.