Faction specific Secret Projects

[kt_butts]

I've been thinking recently that in Multiplayer games building Secret Projects has extra importence. Aside fromthe benefits you get from the project itself, you also deny your opponent benefits that might have significant impact on their game. For example, when playing as the spartans you have few problems with drones do the police bonus (combine that with police state and your all set). However, if your opponent is the University, grabbing the HGP and VW will force him to spend a great deal of time and resources building Rec Centers, and Holo Theaters. In short, you have the small benefit of controlling your own drones, but the large benefit of disrupting your opponents production agenda. As such, here is my thinking as to which SP's are of large importance to certain factions. I've concentrated mainly on the early SP's since they have the most noticeable effect and most games have already been decided by the time later SP's are available (Dream Twister, Self Aware City)

Gaians - the Planetary Transit (overcome growth penalties), the Neural Amplifier (overcome morale penalties)

Hive - the Merchant exchange (the -2 economy is such a crusher)

University - HGP/VW (Drones)

Spartans - Command Nexus/Citizens Defense (any Project that automatically generates base improvements, especially military ones, really offsets the -2 production)

Morgan - Nothing comes to mind. Any assistance would be valued

Believers - The Planetary datalinks (obvious)

Peacekeepers - The Empath Guild (Lal has no real disadvantages to overcome, but the empath guild makes him almost unstoppable in the race for Planetary Govenor and potentially diplomatic victory)

Data Angels - The Empath Guild (For Roze, the power of this project is in the automatic datalink infiltration. Once that happens, she has a free Planetary Datalink, allowing her to use fundamentalism and keep up her research)

Drones - Similiar to Morgan, I have few ideas. The Planetary Datalink is important, but I feel I'm missing something

Pirates - Weather Paradigm (terraforming at sea takes longer than on land, also the ability to raise the sea floor is essential)

Cybernetic Conciousness - Nothing comes to mind. As per above, input would be great.

Cult of Planet - The Neural Amplifier

Aliens (Usurpers/Caretakers) - They have such a huge advantage I can't think of anything that would be significant, unless someone makes a mod SP to cancel out Nerve Gas (better than Raid).

[RedFred]

Regarding the Gaians, I often persue a Green agenda with them. That can cause very green units, so something like the Command Centre is extra useful.

For either the Gaians or the Cult, planet-friendly SPs like the Cyborg Factory, Pholus Mutagen, Manifold and Xeno dome are great.

The Hive seems to me to be a faction that isn't too dependant on any one SP. You will still have a pretty crappy economy with the ME, maybe go for the Planetary Energy Grid instead. I think a high energy faction would do better with either SP though, like Morgan.

Try to deny the University the other SP that works off of nodes, the Longevity Vaccine, I think it is.

I am not a big Spartan player, but I agree that "free base improvement" SPs are great for Santiago.

If I am playing Morgan, and increasingly Roze, running FM seems to be a natural. So the HGP and VW -always important- are even more important to control drones. Probe friendly SPs help, although the Nethack is not so hot because it comes so late in the game.

You are right about denying Miriam tech being important. How about the Universal Translator and the two research enhancing ones?

Same with the Drones. They may try to overcome research deficiencies with the Supercollider or Theory of Everything.

The Maritime Control Centre is a natural for the Pirates. [edit: Even though you already get the free Naval Yards, the extra movement helps.]

CC's have the biggest growth problem of any faction in the game. Anything like PT, WP(fast farms and kelp) or the Vats help.


[This message has been edited by RedFred (edited September 13, 2000).]

[VoodooChild]

While I agree that the denial factor is important to consider in ANY game, the early SPs are hard to deny from other factions since you are spending so much to get the ones that will most benefit yourself.

But that being said here are some deviations to what you stated when I play the different factions.

On a personal note, I rarely go after the Planetary Transit System based on the 3 pop advantage since it usually comes along after I have reached my base limit, but do consider it for the -1 drone advantage which is useful to different factions

Gaians - Anything dealing with fungus or natives

University VW a must since I have NN already, HPG and PTS also good

Morgan - ME energy, engergy, and more energy! Also any former you have working energy in the field will grant an extra point!

Believers - will also include Command Nexus to furthur exploit the combat advantage

Data Angels - I have to disagree with EG for them. As the angels I like to get out and meet people, pass along comm channels, and get people talking to help my tech share along. I know that this will happen anyway with EG, but doing it myself gives me a added measure of control. Also since fundy is so hated by almost everyone, I don't find it all that practical to use just to exploit my other advantages.

[Garth Vader]

Merchant Exchange isn't that important for the Hive. I prefer to get SP's that give free fac's, like VW, Command Nexus, MCC. The savings on maintance will be worth more than the Merchant exchange, and not having to build the buildings is great. Although I would suggest that for any faction.

[This message has been edited by Garth Vader (edited September 13, 2000).]

[Simpson II]

Hmm, my comments on the SPs first:

Gaians - the Planetary Transit (overcome growth penalties), the Neural Amplifier (overcome morale penalties)
- The Gaian's growth is fine if you don't run green all of the time. PTS still works well, thanks to the nutrients they get from fungus. The Neural Amp gives them a great navy, so thumbs up.

Hive - the Merchant exchange (the -2 economy is such a crusher)
- I would disagree.. IMHO, firstly they want the Weather Paradigm, because it taks ages for them to get to Eco. Engineering, and WP really helps prior to that. Secondly the PTS, to offset their lack of pop-booming. With police units bureaucracy doesn't mean much, so they can just ICS to a highr population. In fairy-land, Ascetic Values and the Cloning Vats, but you'll be very lucky in MP.

University - HGP/VW (Drones)
- Agreed. But thay're easily done without.

Spartans - Command Nexus/Citizens Defense (any Project that automatically generates base improvements, especially military ones, really offsets the -2 production)
- -1 industry, please! But yes, IMHO dead on with the SPs. A charge by the Spartans with a few energy credits and those SPs behind them is a sight to behold.

Morgan - Nothing comes to mind. Any assistance would be valued
- PTS & Human Genome. The PTS offsets the dificulty of pop-booming, and the HG allows GA even with lots of drones from bureaucracy.

Believers - The Planetary datalinks (obvious)
- In fairy land. WP is more practical, for the same reasons as the Hive.

Peacekeepers - The Empath Guild (Lal has no real disadvantages to overcome, but the empath guild makes him almost unstoppable in the race for Planetary Govenor and potentially diplomatic victory)
- Agreed. Also HG is nice, sending his size 3/4 bases into a GA automatically with a commons, providing you don't play ultra-expansionist. On librarian level this is amazing (I got dropped into a librarian game in ACT, OK? I just wanted to know what it was like before I started..)

I don't have X, so I can't really comment on the rest.

I'm not sure to what extent denial is important in MP. I used to play MP civ a lot, and come out ahead by building the right wonders for my situation, while my friends tried to build the lot.. I'm not sure that lacking any given SP will have quite that dramatic an effect on the game, other than perhaps HG for Morgan in SmacX. I'd be more interested in making sure I got the right ones for me. Denial cuts both ways, after all.. your opponent is left with a mostly-built SP sitting there waiting for something to come along.

[kt_butts]

The reason I put the ME for Yang is that he needs to build so carefully. Since his energy production is low, the maintenance costs really eat in to his economy. For example, if Yang has a population 3 city with a Recyc Tank, and three forests, his energy production is 4. Assuming he keeps his energy breakdown at 50/50 science/economy, that gives him 2 of each. An energy bank increases that to 3, but costs 1 in maintenance (break even). If he builds a Net node, he gets a measely +1 lab along with a -1 economy (maintenance). All in all, the base produces 3 labs and 1 energy. If you rerun the same numbers with the ME, you have an energy production of 7. After you build your Ener. Bank and Net Node, you have 6 labs and 3 credits.
As for SP's that provide free base facilities, I think they are of small value to Yang. With his production bonus (+20% when running palnned), he creates his own turn advantage by producing them base by base. Also, I can't think of many facility providing SP's that Yang would be interested in. For example:

The Command Nexus: How many Command Centers does anyone really need? One or two bases can create all the military units and then switch the support afterwards.

The Citizen's Defense: For obvious reasons

The Virtual World: The free holo-theater still requires maintenance on a network node. Also, Yang has few problems with drones since he usually runs Police State.

The Maritime Academy: It's nice, but who really utilizes this? I'd love to have a good naval game, but I still haven't figured out how to make it practical. Also, how many bases do you really have producing ships at any one time?

The Cloudbase Accademy: This one is fantastic, but it's fantastic for everybody! I really couldn't call this a must have for Yang specifically.

The Planetary Energy Grid: No doubt, this would be great for Yang. However, it only alleviates his cash flow. Science is still pretty dismal.

[WhiteElephants]

In the few MP games I've been in everybody seems to shoot for the Command Nexus. I suppose it is universaly helpful I just thought some people would go for other projects. And why is it that games don't last much past 150 years (at least that's what I hear) in MP anyhow?

[kt_butts]

Why is the WP so important? You're right that it takes time to get to ecological engineering, but so what? The WP doesn't lift any resource restrictions, so you're still stuck with getting no more than 2 resources from a given square. With that in mind why would you build condensors, echelon mirror, or boreholes early? For that matter are boreholes ever worth the time it takes to make them and the ecological damage they cause? Also, I've never seen an enemy borehole that I didn't destroy. They're such golden targets
Don't get me wrong, I think halving the time it takes to terraform is great. However, from what I've read here, everyone over-values the WP.

[WhiteElephants]

Well, I put condensors with a farm on a special nutrient square and net 7 nutrients pre restriction lifting which can be quite a boon, what I'm taliking about it the ability to pop boom up to size 14 very early in the game with rec. commons, a holo theater, and a children's creche. You can also begin to terraform up or down upon the completion of the WP and I think what is great about being able to put down boreholes and condensors and echelon mirrors is that you don't have to wait around for the tech to build them so when you lift the restrictions you jump right into business which in itself is a way to gain turn advantage besides the obvious turns gain when terraforming time is halved.

Regarding borehole eco damage, upon the construction of hybrid forests terraform eco damage is completely negated so the only eco damage you need to worry about for a single base is eco damage from mineral output. I think if you have the WP and a handfull of formers it doesn't take too long to throw down a few boreholes and a thing to do to protect that investment would be to place a bunker in the same square (if you can?) with a sensor near by and a few AAA defenders in the bunker. +6 minerals and +6 energy is nothing to just forget about. I think if you take those numbers and put them through facilities like net nodes, energy banks, tree farms, hybrid forests, research hospitals, and even a genejack factory they really grow as opposed to the two minerals and two energy you'd get for just having a forest along the sea shore instead of a borehole.

I think that your right about the WP being a waste of time and minerals to build, but only if you don't intend to use some on the more time intensive terraform options.

[Basil]

Here's a couple more matches people haven't mentioned:

Morgan: Ascetic Virtues. Not only does it increase his population limit from 4 to 6 (MUCH better than from 7 to 9), it also gives him +1 police (reducing his drone penalty for military activity when under free market from 2 drones/unit to 1 drone/unit). Huge.

Zakharov: Hunter-Seeker Algorythm. Need I say more?

Conquer factions: The Command Nexus. Yes, it costs as much as 5 command centres. But, not only can you use every command centre you can get (compared to a builder faction which only needs a few), it also gives you a free command centre in every base you capture. So your troops just rest one turn, and then they are completely restored and ready to resume the fight.

This is particularly useful for the Hive, the Believers, the Spartans, and the Usurpers.

Marr: The Cloning Vats. OK, I know *everyone* wants the Cloning Vats. But most factions can pop boom without them, and as a builder I rarely run Power or Thought Control even with the Vats. Marr can't pop boom, and by late midgame he's probably got a lot of scattered bases from his early conquests, so he needs efficiency badly - no Planned, he can't run Democracy, he'd like to run Green, so his average base (with Spawning Grounds, sorry, I mean Childrens' Creche is at just +1 Growth. Further, he can't win an economic race against a human-controlled builder faction - he seems strong when you just look at his military advantages, but he gets none of the economic benefits of Morgan, Zakharov, Domai, or even Deirdre, so he's got to make use of his military advantage even in mid-game, and that means SE choices like Power and Thought Control. So the Vats solve two major problems at once.

[Garth Vader]

How could you not like boreholes? I usually have one in each city radius and one for each city outside the radius with a crawler. By the end of the first century almost all of my cities are hauling between 20-30 industry. Once I get that set up, since I am usually playing the Hive in PS/Planned/Wealth I can build everything, and fast.

[WhiteElephants]

O I completely agree with you Ogie -- in fact I always try to build the Weather Paradigm first, regardless of settings, so I might be one of those WP fanatics kt was refering to. Simpson II has turned me into a fan of raising mountian ranges for energy gathering. With the WP it significantly reduces the amount of time needed to raise that ridge and allows me to condensor/farm a nutrient special resource I mentioned above to turn workers into specialists. I also enjoy the reduced time it takes me to mine and road a rocky square. Though I can't say I've ever put down a condensor and farm just to get the +4 nutrients... I'll have to think about that one. What I was telling kt was that it is a over rated project if you're not going to build the more time consuming terraforms i.e. boreholes, condesors, echelon mirrors, raise/lower land.

[Simpson II]

kt_butts,

Yes, to chime in with Ogie and WE, the WP is great if you have a tech problem, or if you intend to do complex stuff. As Miriam in tech-stag, put a borehole over every energy resource and a condensor + farm over every nutrient one. These will be prized squares for a very long time! I don't build it with Zak for example, but it is tremendouly useful in the right circumstances.

ME is normally quite a small boost in energy, existing in only one base. The Chairman is IMHO best played ultra-expansionist, so therefore that base will make a fairly trivial difference. Yang just isn't going to be building many facilities, instead focusing on units. The only 'builder' facilities I would want in most bases are bio-labs and tanks.
With regard to the Command Nexus, you will not be building all of your military units in one or two bases with Yang in a MP game, you'll be building huge numbers of units to try to crush the opposition. A builder strategy with Yang is fun, but long-term it is not viable unless the only other human is Miriam. Zak can transcend before you get shard weaponry working, unless you force him to fight early on.

The Maritime Control Centre is great when playing Deirdre. Capture 10 IoDs, build this and the Neural Amplifier, and rule the waves. Furthermore, a fast navy is always important. It allows your probe-foils and transports to swoop down from outside an opponent's sphere of vision (usually extended with aircraft or their own navy) and do nasty things to them unawares.

By the way, the WP only cuts terraform-time by 1/3, not 1/2.

Ogie,

I didn't know that condensors relieve nutrient restrictions! I'm a bigger fan of WP now.. 2 crawlers, 2 condensors/farms and wahay, up we go to size 14! It's even more fantasic for Yang, who needs the nutrients badly to compete in growth. Very, very interesting.

[kt_butts]

I see your point. Normally my terrafoming consists of forests, kelp/tidal harnesses, and mines/roads on rocky squares with supply crawlers. I've never tried to build a borehole on a mineral bonus. If you do prior to Enviromental Economics, is the energy barrier circumvented? For example, does it come out as 8 min/6 energy or is it only 8/2?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Kt-butts and White elephant

Condensor farm combos (assuming condensors turn terrain to rainy) is the only instance I am aware of (aside from specials) that allows exceedance of resource limits. What this means is that pre-Genesplice if you are capable of building them(i.e. own WP) you can build condensor farms and return 4 nutrients per square.

Now in many game instances this isn't a huge deal as by the time you build WP and plop down some condensors with limitted former resources you may have already gotten past eco-engineering and perhaps even to energy resource lifting. But imagine a game where you are playing a research or energy limitted faction (i.e. Miriam, Domai, or Yang) and decided to play tech stag and blind research to boot. The time it takes you to get additional resources may be quite some time in the coming. WP would allow you to build high population cities ASAP (along the lines of WE's point) but doesn't necessitate finding nutrient resource squares. To my way of thinking WP depending on game settings may be the most important single SP to get.

Find a way to get clean reactors for former after former build and you can transform your entire empire into a huge populace quite early in the game.

I'll bump a topic discussing specialist cities that descibes one aspect of this in addition to others.