FM and Transcend/Huge?

[UnityScoutChopper]

I've read a lot of posts by FM lovers over the years here, but I've never figured out how anyone manages to run FM while on Transcend. Unless you have some sort of special anti-drone tool (Lal, Domai, HGP... and that's it!), you can't reach size 2 on Transcend (or size 1 after bureacracy kicks in!) without a doctor! How do you Transcend/FM players deal with that? Or do you just wait until you're rolling in cash?

USC

[Lazerus]

Raising psych / rush buying a rec commons at a guess.

[Jamski]

Exactly like Laz says.
Our last IP game I was running 20-20-60 the whole time, right from the start, and changed to FM as soom as possible. You don't actually slow the science rate, as you're reducing the loss to inefficinecy. Later in the game I often change to 10-30-60. FM = more energy = more psych. I also get rec-commons fairly early, and then either the VW or build all those hologram theatres.

That's when I'm not playing Yang, and just building 2 police units in every base.

-Jam

[CEO Aaron]

Free Market's attendant vast amounts of income make the research/purchase of drone reducing facilities fairly casual. In addition, you can typically keep most of your bases in Golden Age one your drone reduction facilities are in place, with only a moderate psych allocation. The two problems with running FM early is the way it tends to complicate your drone defense (get trance, pronto), and the fact that it makes you turtle.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

To clarify what CEO Aaron says, FM does not impact your defensive capabilities vis-a-vis native life combat. It merely makes your ability to pre-emptively attack marauding natives and harvest the pearls a much tougher proposition.

Planet rating bonus/panalty only applies to the attacking unit. Therefor a unit with a minus -3 planet rating associated with a FM SE setting defends the same as a +2 planet rating associated with a Green SE setting. Only if the unit was attacking a native would the planet rating come into play (in either a straightforward combat resoution or as a cpature attempt if positive) .

As for turtling, CEO A is on the money to my mind this is the biggest drawback bar none of FM. Drone management otherwise is not a big deal as described by others, it simply takes some getting used to and some micromanagement to understand when your second pop point is about to be added. Doctor the citizen or rush the rec commons the turn just prior to rolling over to size 2.

[UnityScoutChopper]

Dunno... I thin expand and pod-pop, and I really really like doing these things; maybe that's why I just feel way too restricted in FM. Incidentally, I tried FM a couple of times again recently just to make sure I knew more about what I was saying, and still found the amount of psych needed just to get my bases to size 2 (for a colony pod) without building an RC outrageous. What am supposed to do, micromanage them so they only reach size 2 for a single turn and have a doctor on that turn? Too much micromanagement to be fun for me, if that's the case.

I keep getting the feeling that people compare FM to Simple, rather than to Planned, and think about its role in PBEM (which I suppose is not usually played on Transcend... right?), rather than in SP (which is what I have in mind). I'm sure I'm partially or wholly wrong on those thoughts, but they just keep bugging me.

All that said, I'm looking forward to going Demo/FM/Knowledge, despite the painful industry loss relative to D/F/W, for experiment's sake and to avoid hardening of the attitudes. That is, to going D/F/K *once I stop starting new games every evening.* I love the smell of fresh-roasted Planet too much, somehow - no matter what the states (not losing in the least) of the many games I have in my save list.

By the way, I know very well about Planet rating affecting only offense - heck, I've been playing since patch 3. But I don't CARE if I have defense unaffected - it's the offense that kills worms (until Trance - and considering people's love of IA beelines and the occasional "SotHB is a diversion" posts, where are people getting Trance from?) and makes planetpearls - often more than the FMer would be getting from FM.

Well, I'm trying to avoid hardening of the attitudes, but I'll just have to create better conditions for thin expansion, exploration, and pod-popping under FM for myself, 'cuz I'm not about to give any of those up. And I'll probably still play predominantly > planned > demo or > demo >planned, as they really do seem to work for me the best.

[Jamski]

Planned is fine if you don't want to research anything.

-Jam

[Mongoose]

Most pbem's are played at Transcend level.

Depending on Psych to deal with the second citizen is foolish. (indeed, the first citizen s frequently a drone once you pass the first b-drone threshold.) As you have found, the level required is prohibitive, if it exists at all. Setting it that high totally obviates the beneifts of going to FM in the first place. Rushing a rec commons is the key....keep the first citizen as a doctor until you can do so, at need. If you avoid Democracy until your first wave of bases are put down, a rec commons can be rushed for 56 ec (assuming youn can get two minerals out of the base) prior to IA and WEALTH, 48 ec afterwards. (CEO would probably counsel rushing the recycling tank first at that price, then rushing the rec commons a few turns later, after you have accumulated 10 mins in the production box by normal production or by rush buying the remainder of the first 10 mins at 4 ec/min.)

Energy is the reason to go FM. Use the energy to leverage time and minerals.

To really improve your game, turn podlotto off. Have you no shame? Do your own research!

[CEO Aaron]

Mongoose is right, I do recommend rush-building your tanks first while you're running FM, then rush building a former, then perhaps your commons or a garrison.

LoTM, your concerns about being unable to harvest pods are valid, however my experiences with the pod lottery at higher difficulty levels are almost uniformly negative. Why give up cash and tech and faster growth for a chance to get extra mindworms eating my head, or a new fungal bloom? Also, all the units I send off to pop pods wind up being hopelessly out of position to defend against those early wandering IOD's and worms.

Early on, psych is not the answer to drones, doctors are the way to go. With good econ and tanks, your base square is where the vast bulk of your FOPS are coming from, so taking a citizen off a square producing 2 nuts and a food for a few turns isn't so bad. Keeping an eye on the growth of your bases is something you have to do running ANY SE choice.

Psych only begins to be useful once you have some base facilities to magnify your allocation. Network Nodes + VW/Hologram Theatres, Research Hospitals, Tree Farms are all such facilities, and if you're running FM, you'll be building them all, asap. Once you've done so, you can allocate 20% psych, kick your bases into Golden Age, and actually collect more research and cash than if you'd stayed at 50/50/0.

Any and all of the veteran posters here will tell you that rushing production give great dividends in terms of turn advantage, and running FM gives you the kind of cash that will let you rush build almost everything.

[Flubber]

I go back and forth between Planned and FM as my early choice, the amount of time in each depending on the faction. For example, The drones are a great faction to go FM early . . . Lately I have been playing the data angels and you start with the ability to go planned. So I almost always do. In the very early game the innefficiency is almost irrelevant and both the growth and industry are a great kick start. In fact, in one game, I am just now, in the 2130s planning to move to FM ( rec commons in place pretty much everywhere) but then there is the dilemma of whether you want the pop-boom now or later.

IMHO, all good players will spend some time in FM in peacetime ( with MOST factions). Personally I switch SE settings somewhat frequently. You know, spend 5 or 8 years in FM gathering cash and tech points and then switch to planned to complete the SP you had been cashing crawlers for . . . If you time it right, you should have a bunch of bases ready to pop-boom so you stay in planned for a while ( you lived with the lessened energy now to get the increased population).

Once boomed, the lure of planned is much less and the inefficiency hurts a lot more. Late game, green becomes a very good choice. With larger empires, the high efficiency is a huge factor and its great when a mindworm pop is just so much more free cash. I have seen many occasions where green netted more energy and research that FM in the late game. The inneficiency loss in FM actually can excede the additional energy per square

[CEO Aaron]

Being fond of keeping my bases in perpetual golden age, I rarely find myself suffering from too much lost energy to inefficiency. Of course, if you can stay in green and keep your bases in GA and run wealth, you get the best of both worlds (2 energy per square as well as +4 efficency, +6 if you run Democracy). Also, if your base concentration is high, you'll be relying heavily on specialists, making efficiency irrelevant. At that point you're using your high economy to increase your trade income.

[johndmuller]

USC, it's mostly a matter of accepting that you've gotta deal with the drones pretty much right away, the very first citizen, in fact, once you get the first half dozen or so bases over with. So you're gonna have to have a Rec Comm pretty early on, and perhaps an early Holo or RHosp too (and a PDQ HabComplex too if you're Morgan) - if you just get over it, you'll find it isn't too bad; after all, you're gonna have plenty of money (you'll more than likely be running wealth while your at it).

Sometimes, it helps to be a bit more deliberate - as in pre-terraforming and/or having crawlers available to be turned over to the new base for food and/or mins (to feed your doctor and keep up some growth while you're building the facilities, and to make it a little less objectionable to rush those first 10 mins. For example, if you are already crawling mins from forests or mines just outside your developed territory, you can have one or more crawlers ready to go as early as the same turn the base is built.

Getting along without many military units is another interesting aspect of FM; since you can't use police, there's no particular point building a lot of garrisons, you can experience living dangerously. Although they are a bit expensive, if you base your defense around armored infantry probes (which require no support) and/or native life units such as MW's, they are not particularly penalized by the FM/Wealth planet/morale hits, and so you can still get a decent defense. Armored probes still die if stacked with defeated units, so they are for solo defenders. Note also that Creches will undo one level of those morale deductions in addition to their other benefits (another fac to build early, especially if you need them to pop boom).

[TimeTraveler]

I guess one possible late-game strategy to using Free Market at Transcend level is to also use Police State and Thought Control, which will rise the police rating to -1, allowing the use of police. However, a faction unable to use both Police State and Thought Control, or has a standard police rating of -1 or worse will be unable to use this strategy.

[CEO Aaron]

Police and Free Market do not make good bedfellows, your inefficiency will eat virtually all the extra income, leaving you with a suck planet rating and mediocre police. A better answer is the Ascetic Virtues and Brood pits, making your police rating a very managable -2. You won't be able to quell drones with your troops, but you don't get any uppity peaceniks when you send your choppers off to deal with Yang and Mimi either.

Once I've got that under my belt, I stick my other SE choices in Wealth and Fundy, and rake in the cash while emancipating oppressed markets abroad. My tech rate is better than what it would be running Police, and I've got fewer efficiency drones to boot. And of course my creches take care of the negative effects of my net -1 morale.

The one drawback of this SE setup is that you'll piss off virtually every faction under Alpha Centauri A. Lal doesn't like you because you're not Democratic, Yang doesn't like you because you're not autocratic, Deedee hates your guts because you're not a treehugging sap, and both Zak and Santiago will endlessly whine about your soft, decadent underbelly. In fact, the only faction that will take a shine to you at all is Miriam, who will hate you anyway because you have all this tech you won't share with her.

Of course, I'm in the habit of solving my popularity problems by conquering myself a few friends, at which point the merits of having +3-4 econ and the Planetary Governorship make themselves blissfully apparent.

[Mongoose]

Ah, CEO...I love talk like that! Music to these capitalist ears!

Personally, I rarely use Fundy unless I need to make nice to Mim or I am in a war for survival. If I have any leeway at all, I prefer to stay in Democracy, upgrade trained shells to clean whatever, set Psych at 10% and have at it. If I don't have much commerce, I'll change from Wealth to Knowledge. If I wait to go on the offensive 'til my infrastructure is pretty well set in a core of 12 - 18 bases, I'll have so much energy that the difference in rushbuilding an item at even Industry vs. +1 industry is inconsequential.