How do you handle the late game mindworm explosion?

[The diplomat]

In most of my games, Planet goes absolutely postal on me. I probably get 50-60 demon boil mindworms that just tear through my cities.

What's some of the best strategies to fight it?

[Chaos Theory]

1) Win before that can happen

2) Make a few 1-<3r>t-1 units to defend against native life

3) Make SAM/empath artillery to cripple/kill the mindworms before
they can attack you, since you get to attack first except in TCP/IP mode

4) Make empath copters to attack stray mindworms if a pop happens too distant from your sentinels and artillery, but keep in mind each can't go through more than 3 or 4 mindworms.

Also, by the time planet gets this pissy, you should be the victim of locusts, not ordinary mindworms

[Adalbertus]

Don't transcend.

Same answer, more seriously:
It looks like you have been building the Voice of Planet SP. After that, you'll get automatically widespread fungal blooms.
It fits into the storyline in that (in the course of the interludes) fungus is becoming more and more sentient. Usually, at the time, planet achieves full sentience, an ecologic breakdown occurs. What you are doing with the Voice of Planet is to transfer all knowledge of humanity just in the rigit moment (what a good luck, err, trigger) to planet thus interrupting the "tragic cycle".

I like the SMAC storyline

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
1) Win before that can happen

Well, I like to go for Transcendance.

2) Make a few 1-<3r>t-1 units to defend against native life
3) Make SAM/empath artillery to cripple/kill the mindworms before
they can attack you, since you get to attack first except in TCP/IP mode
4) Make empath copters to attack stray mindworms if a pop happens too distant from your sentinels and artillery, but keep in mind each can't go through more than 3 or 4 mindworms.

I do that. I am usually fairly successful at wiping out mindworms before they hit. So, I do rack up some nice cash from it all.

Also, by the time planet gets this pissy, you should be the victim of locusts, not ordinary mindworms

I get locusts too. But usually, my AAA units can defend against them fairly well.

[Adalbertus]

In case you didn't build VoP:
Follow Chaos Theory, and you can prepare against it by first provoking the first fungal bloom, and then

1. provoke more "controlled" fungal blooms
2. build Tree Farms
3. build Hybrid Forests
4. build Centauri Preserves
5. build Temples of Planet

Each single of these 1.-5. increases your free minerals per base by one. You'll find this better explained when you look for eco-damage formula.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
Don't transcend.

Same answer, more seriously:
It looks like you have been building the Voice of Planet SP. After that, you'll get automatically widespread fungal blooms.

Yeah, I usually build the Voice of Planet. And of course, Planet went berserk on me. I just toughted it out, for the 7-8 turns it took to rush Trascendance and win.

[Maniac]

AFAIK the fungus growth after you build the Voice of Planet is dependent on the ecological damage you're causing. If you don't have any eco-damage, you won't have any fungal blooms with mind worms.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Maniac
AFAIK the fungus growth after you build the Voice of Planet is dependent on the ecological damage you're causing. If you don't have any eco-damage, you won't have any fungal blooms with mind worms.

I guess I was just being sloppy. My cities had about 80 ecodamage. Ouch!

[Curiosity]

Originally posted by The diplomat
Yeah, I usually build the Voice of Planet. And of course, Planet went berserk on me. I just toughted it out, for the 7-8 turns it took to rush Trascendance and win.

Never build the Voice until you can build the Ascent the next turn. If you upgrade crawlers, then it only costs ~1400 EC, so it's not too hard to do.

[Certhas]

High planet rating also helps. I don't get my cities down to zero pollution but the mindworms then are static and don't attack. Also attacking them first before they get the chance to strike, not with a chopper, but with a land unit takes out the entire stack of mindowrms for a quick and easy 1000+ cash.

[Mead]

Re: How do you handle the late game mindworm explosion?

Originally posted by The diplomat
In most of my games, Planet goes absolutely postal on me. I probably get 50-60 demon boil mindworms that just tear through my cities.

What's some of the best strategies to fight it?

I used to encounter this problem a lot before I read about clean minerals in these forums.

I learned how to turn those pop booms into a sizable cash cow.


SOLUTION
When you get near the end of the game build a number of (at least 10) drop artillery units before you get the Pops. Usually, I was in the Shard era when I built them. I used them as an anti-mindworm pop fire brigade.

Ensure you have good sensor support near your bases. Actively patrol the surrounding area.

Garrison your big (polluting) bases with chopper and rover units. Ensure you have enough AAA units there to protect against the locusts.

It is nice to have some units just outside the big bases since I do not think the worms will appear in a square that is occupied.


WHEN A BIG POP HAPPENS

RECON
Use your sensors and launch a chopper (or needlejet) to find out the layout of the worm pop. Find out where the worms are. Usually, there will be worms on three squares (1 on one square, 1 or 2 worms on another, and 7 to 14 or more on another square; this is the square you need to kill first).

DROP IN ARTILLARY
If you do not already have artillery in the base drop some in. This is very easy to do if you have orbital insertion. Even if you do not, you should, if well prepared, have drop artillery within 8 squares.

Your drop units do not suffer the 20% damage because they are dropping into a base.

Your drop units artillery fire is still effective (regardless of the normal 50% energy penalty drop units face if they attack in the same turn they attack). NOTE - Dropping other units into a threatened base to strengthen the defenses is an understandable option if you are not able to kill the worms that turn, BUT if you attack with these non-artillery units in the same turn they drop they will suffer the 50% energy penalty and may well die.

You cannot drop units into sea squares but usually my biggest polluters were on land. If your biggest polluters are in sea bases, then ensue you have good artillery there already or naval support within range.

USE THE ARTILLARY
Hit the big mind worm square first.
Usually, after two or perhaps three volleys, all the worms will have lost ~90% of their energy.

MOP UP
After you weaken the worms use a rover or chopper to kill the worms. You cannot capture the worms with air power, but usually if you under such large mindworm attacks because of pollution, I do not think if you could capture them anyway. In any event, you need a positive planet rating to have a chance at capturing worms anyway.

I have noticed that I am more likely to required to make multiple attacks if I am using airpower, whereas if I use a land unit to attack the weakened mindworms, they usually all die with one attack.

After you kill the big stack of worms, the worms on the other squares will gain a life cycle (assuming they are not at Demon already). This will make the other worms a little harder to kill if you do not have enough artillery to weaken them before you attack. Although it is better to have to kill one or two bigger full-strength mindworms, than 14 or more bigger full-strength mindworms.

A FEW MORE NOTES:
Dream Twister (+50% PSI attack) and Neural Amp (+50% PSI defense) as well as good Social Engineering (Green +20% PSI attack) and (Cybernetic +20% PSI attack) come in handy.

Do not forget about empathy and trance units.

Once you learn to deal with those huge mind worm pops, you start seeing messages such as (1200 ec recovered from planet pearls). If you do not deal with those pops well, then the worms and locusts will end up cutting through your defenders and start killing your populace.

Since I learned about clean minerals I have not had to deal with mindworm pops. I usually build a huge number of tree farms, hybrid forests, and centuri preserves so that it does not affect my game (I kind of consider it an ecology tax that gives some other benefits as well).

It's not the mindworm pops that bug me about ecological damage. It is having to deal with all that global warming effects. REALLY, JUST HOW BIG ARE THOSE POLAR ICE CAPS? I mean they must be huge if their melting could raise the sea levels as much as they do. It is really annoying dealing with the rising water; 1000+ meter sea level rises are just too much.

A FEW THINGS I DO NOT KNOW

Is a higher rated artillery weapon more effective against worms than a lower rated one?

Does PSI amour work? If so, how well?




Mead

[The Vagabond]

But IIRC, upon the completion of VoP, no more wild mindworms, locusts, etc. are encountered. Sure, Fungus speads like crazy, but there are no more "animals". Do you still encounter mindworms, etc. after VoP is fully operational?

[BustaMike]

Curiosity said it. I'll repeat it. Don't build the thing until you have enough crawlers stockpiled to transcend on the next turn.

[gwillybj]

Take crawlers out of the equation.
Now how do you handle the late game mindworm explosion?

[HeymlicH]

Originally posted by gwillybj
Take crawlers out of the equation.
Now how do you handle the late game mindworm explosion?

I never use crawlers (disabled them in the alpha.txt). I handle that with energy, as I buy all of the later SP's.
Transcendency only costs about 20k, and at that time u should have plenty ...