Somebody please defend free market

[Simpson II]

If you don't know how to use FM then it will cause you serious trouble, but used in a timely manner it's excellent. For example, in a typical University game I would switch to planned early on, FM when my TFs are largely up, and green when I get fusion power.
Why? Before I settle my expansion down the growth and industry of panned is fantastic. My bases couldnt cope without police easiy, so I don't use FM. After TFs and a pop-boom to size 7 I would have the happiness facilities and a little psych, good mineral production from forests with low ecodamage, but low energy production under planned. FM nearly doubles my science production! Next stop is planetary economics, and I can often rush my first-round bases' HFs to completion a couple of turns after I discover the tech, so these can be finished by the end of the 80s. You will not get here that fast on a huge map in planned economics, not a chance. And HFs are the key to a boom to size 14/16 and lots of specialists.
So post-fusion, each base has a population of about 1/2 engineers, and dem-green with 100% labs gives virtually as much labs output as FM can (the labs output maxes at ~ 80% labs), while allowing my nice shiny new fusion-equiped troops to say Hi to anyone less prepared.
IMHO, this is a very solid strategy for a builder in Smac. If you don't like to play a builder game, don't run free market; but it has it's place. Just like Fundie

Golden ages don't give you the labs boost FM does; I've tried it extensively, and the expenditure is too much. I've even tried having lots of size 3 bases and the HG so that it's very easy to acheive GA, then putting out energy crawlers. It just doesn't work.


Oh yes, I should mention for those who haven't tried FM with Morgan, +3 econ acts as +4 and +4 acts as +5, that is +4 energy from the base square and huge commerce. It's definitely worth doing, though IMHO the morganites will still fade in Smac in the long run, as a couple of the tourney games have shown. Pop-booming is too important. I'd love to try him when I get SmaX, though!

[Fitz]

Let me describe a typical setup for me, and the potential gain/penalty for FM.

Huge planet, bases=to beaucracy. In other words, about 16. Each base has every facility, lots of crawlers, and masses of military. I usually can build a facility in 1/2 turns by the time I get to size 14, and that is typically with 0 eco-damage after tree farms and hybrid forests. My total military units is usually = to 1/3 of a bases mineral output (typically 20 or s0 with 60 output). Crawlers on every mine within base radii, and on boreholes (alternate minerals/energy to maintain 0 eco, means they're usually on energy) or condensors. Each base is typically half specialists, which means a golden age is garunteed in every base if I want it, with 10% or 0% on psych.

With this set up, I find the typical gain from swith to free market is about 20%. In other words, with about 1000 ec, I ge tto aroun 1200 ec. Not much gain. Balancing that is the drones, which usually cause the loss of a golden age, but not drone riots (not a big deal), unless I start sending out those military units. All of a sudden, there is the potential for up to 40 new drones to be counteracted. Next is the ecology. If I'm supporting 20 units, and carefully balancing mineral intake by crawlers on boreholes, I could find myself with two choices. Drop from 60 to 40 minerals (ie halve my mineral intake), or have eco-damage well into the double digits, in spite of TF/HF. In additions, you can expect your enemies to capitalize on you lack of ability to attack native units, and use psi military a lot.

Now, once I hit Police State/Power, the support goes away, and the mineral reduction is counteracted by those gained. Or I could go clean, but then I lose powerful military abilities (such a empath to hit those mind worms your opponents start defending with). But if I keep the Green, I can crank out typically 80 mins, which allows fun things like an army of max armor/weapon rovers with special abilities in 1-3 turns each, in addition to giving me a good native life form attacking force, which cannot go clean anyway.

Minerals are key to me, whereas energy is not. If I get enough minerals to build any facility or unit in 1-3 turns, I can use all my energy for research and upgrades. And rushing good units can be very expensive, although I agree facilities can be fairly cheap.


The only use I can see for free market might be if you were going insane builder style, and producing/using less than 1/3 of your minerals as the military units per base. Then it might be helpful.

EDIT: After re-reading all this, I just realized why I am not seeing any benefit and others are. The key point is the number of bases. I never break the beaucracy unless I have captured bases, which I give back if an AI surrenders, or disband to colony pods if a human to crank up my bases. Even with 30 or so bases (Demo/Green/Power), there is little benefit to +1 energy/square. If you ICS to close to 100 bases or more, it would be a very different matter.
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited October 10, 2000).]

[WhiteElephants]

Fitz, I'm curious which faction your using?

I'm also interested as to how long it takes you to get every city maximum size with every facility?

I tried out the ole' Morgan money machine today and with a good starting location (standard size planet) I had nine bases by the mid 2180's and four of them were maxed in size (SMAX). The facilities they each had were net node, energy bank, rec commons, holo theatres, hab complex, and research hospital (no command centers). I was getting around 40 energy a turn, but the real kicker was I was getting a new tech every 3 turns and I hadn't lifted the energy restrictions just yet (aobut 3-6 turns away). Because of Wealth and Morgan's +1 econ I was netting +5 energy from base squares alone (+1 energy from recycling tanks and +2 energy from the +2 econ). When the restricions are lifted my solar collector squares will jump from +2 to +3's and some +4's until I plant a few echelon mirros then we're looking at 6's and 7's.

What I wonder is how long it is taking you to complete this massive military build up you are talking about and at the same time maintain the production of your facilities? Pumping out 60 minerals a turn sounds like it falls into the late stage of the game which in most cases would probably be too late. I also wonder what you possibly do with each of your cities supporting 20 some military units? War I hope.

I think you guys are using FM way too late in the game. 1000 energy per turn??? Cloning Vats??? Eudominia??? The game is already over at that point. The game should be in the palm of your hand by the time your making 200 energy per turn. You guys need to try running FM early when it increases your energy output form 20 to 35 (or something like that) and shaves a turn or two off your research time. Every turn you save yourself gets compounded again and again and in the long run makes you get the techs you need much, much faster than someone waiting around for them in anything but FM.

I my humble opinion you should run free market (or get +2 econ) whenever you can. Otherwise your falling behind slowly, but surely.

[mark13]

The way I see it, Free Market can be like taking a big risk. Although the increased energy output and the research bonuses are undeniable, there are certain factors you must consider before adopting the setting:

1) Is there a potential enemy in the vicinity? If there is, it may be a good idea to wait until you are certain you can defend yourself adequately.

2) How much fungus is there on this world? If there is a lot, you should really think twice before undertaking FM, that -3 Planet can be a bummer.

If, and only if, these factors comply, I will turn to FM. Otherwise, you don't have a chance of making it work. It is much better, in my view, to maintain your bases/units sufficiently than to leave them exposed and vulnerable.

[Kinjiru]

Just a couple of thoughts...

If you want to see how FM can be used effectively, you must first realize that using FM is entirely different from any other SE choice. You play style must completely change. To use FM effectively, you need to arrange your entire empire to do so, and you need to do so as quickly as possible. If you are willing to go all out, there will be very few people who can challenge you.

If you only go half-ass into it, or if you wait until you have your infrastructure built and you are all nice and comfortable, you will not gain anything from FM. Instead of generating thousands upon thousands of credits and getting a tech advance every turn, you will end up with a couple hundred credits in profit and massive drone problems.

[RedFred]

Fitz, I have a few comments on your style, which as you say does not currently maximize the benefits of FM. Not that I am claiming to be an expert by any means...

The first is boreholes. Building a ton of them is an easy way to get planet uppity. This effect will be magnified in FM. You use up far less former time with a mined roaded rocky square. And far less hassle from Planet. Four vs. six minerals is the tradeoff. Just make a few more mines and crawlers. In single play I am a firm believer of energy parks instead of crawlered boreholes. I maintain that I can get more energy more quickly that way. Finally if I do build a single borehole for a city it will be within the city radius and it is one of the last places that I will replace the worker with a crawler. The minus six energy or minus six minerals is a big hit.

Building energy parks will mean a departure from your closely-knit 16 cities idea. ICSing will help but it is not strictly required. All you need is to be able to spread out and surround some bare ground or bodies of water. This is also not strictly necessary but it sure cuts down on the irritating attacks from the AI on your crawlers and formers. High ground, pholus ridge or uranium flats will help your energy park along a bit but you have to make do with what you get. I prefer enclosed lakes or ocean bays because of the speed my formers can plant tidal harnesses. Water parks are even better in SMACX on account of the 0 maintenance cost Thermo Transducer.

Lots of military is not really the way to go with FM as they are going to cause you drone problems if they are out there doing something useful. But you don't totally have to black hole defence until P-spheres. Try to get both HGP and VW and keep building psych enhancing base improvements. With the occasional use of 'Elvises" you will generally be able to have a small number of units that can safely go outside the city. Consider "just in time" defence. Have your best armor and best weapon prototyped but until AI gets airpower you can get away with some 1-1-1s and 1-1-2s units in your non-frontier cities. With your cash flow you can upgrade when and where you need to. You only need a tiny fraction of the military you now carry if you have tech superiority. Build lots of probes and use them for land and sea exploration as well as probing.

Lack of units to attack natives? What about roads and rover units? You should have some vets or better from your pre-FM days but the Command Nexus or just a couple of command centres strategically spaced should help you out there. Plus, once you have no fear of worms you can crank up mineral production past the point of 0 eco-damage without too many worries. Didn't quite follow your comment on native-attacking force not being clean, but did you mean the one special ability before neural grafting? I tend to rely more on very experienced units than native attack bonus special addons.

Also your 20% gain in energy is really understating the value of FM. If you are getting 1000 energy without FM and 1200 with it, the net effect is much greater since maintenance costs haven't changed. So instead of getting (for example 800 maintenance) 200 net energy to play with each turn you'll be getting 400.

Playing FM takes a different mindset. You will become an expert at rush-building and rush upgrading. Granted that minerals are hugely important, but enough cash can offset any mineral advantage. As well, with a ton of energy coming in your research will become blindingly quick.

Whew! I hope that didn't sound too preachy. Fact is I play Green more often than FM because it is well... easier.

[Fitz]

To answer various comments:

Yes, I was thinking of FM in the later game. I find it even more pointless at any point before the raising of energy restrictions, when you don't even gain the benefit on half you worked squares, because they are already getting 2 energy anyway.

I use this strategy with almost all factions. I maintain the 1/3 minerals = army size throughout growth, and facility costs increase through out the game (for the most part), so the time to build them as they become available remains fairly constant. I would say my bases reach size 14 within 10 turns of tree farms, if not before that point. This is the first point (in the past) at which I would even consider switching to FM.

I will play a few games looking at the potential of using FM very early, and see if that makes a difference. I can see that it may make a huge difference in the early stages if you are setting yourself up right to capitalize on the extra energy (even small gains). You may gain yourself a convert.

Boreholes: I only place these outside of base radii, on any available square. If it can't borehole, I put farm/condensor for nuts. The reason I prefer boreholes to trying to create an energy park is I can switch between mins and energy at will, compensating for eco-damage. I have tried energy parks in the past, but found them not worth the time, if you take into account raising the land. In addition, they require large amounts of contiguos (sp?) land in strips, and my colonizing strategy rarely allows for this.

# of military units: If I have as many as 20, the mix might be:
defense: 3 garrisons (trance, AAA, & Other as needed), 1 Interceptor, 1 artilery (native or not).
offense: bomber, helicopter, 5 rovers, artillery, infantry, native. (substitute naval for rovers in coastal sea bases)
non-military: 5 formers of various types.
non-support (wasn't counting them before): 10-20 crawlers minimum, 1 probe defender minimum (probe on infantry), 2-3 probe teams (naval or speeder).

That means about half are defensive or non-combat. The combat units are either roving my empire or more commonly harrassing my enemies. If I was going hybrid (or military), I probably wouldn't build as many facilities and would build three times as many combat units (for a total of 40 supported units, or about 2/3 at that stage).

Obviously, I build this up as I go along. I usually try to maintain about equal offensive and defensive units (unless something comes along to change that), maybe a bit heavier on the formers.

Lack of units: You may have units, but they are attacking at -30%. That has made the difference 'tween life and death for my units more than once.

On the ec, when I said 1000 and 1200, I was talking about net gain, not before maintainance. You have to realize that it is an approximation based on hazy memories of games though.


[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited October 10, 2000).]

[Black Sunrise]

Hey guys, if you're worried about mineral production, you're doing something wrong. You should be making enough cash to rush-build about a quarter of your cities every turn. Never rush build from zero minerals, and don't worry about low mineral production. Money is all that counts there. Minerals are to get your production started so you can rush complete more cheaply.
And if you're using a borehole, why not put it in the city radius, rather than crawer it? You're wasting half the output of the borehole, and thats a lot of expenditure to be throwing away!
Black Sunrise

[WhiteElephants]

Think of the amount of forests squares you use per base and then think of them as 1/2/2 as opposed to 1/2/1. Even river squares won't need solar collectors to net you +2 energy. I agree with Fitz that the biggest difference comes after the restrictions are lifted, but those extra +1's can really help get you there. Think of it as a 100% increase in energy output from those square with only +1 energy in them as opposed to the 50% increase after restrictions are lifted when going from +2 energy to +3 energy.

Fitz, I still can't believe the amount of units you build! You might as well skip FM and go conquer the world with that much hardware laying around. Especially on the huge maps you play on. Why so many troops? In most my games I have a defender and a former or two and if it's by the ocean I may have a foil or two and maybe a foil former. If you maintain your 1/3 rule I guess it's about the same for both of us until you start getting into 20+ minerals. Try less units and more facilities if your going the FM route.

I still wonder when (2200? 2250? 2300?) you get tree farms?

[Simpson II]

quote: Originally posted by Fitz on 10-10-2000 07:49 PM # of military units: If I have as many as 20, the mix might be: defense: 3 garrisons (trance, AAA, & Other as needed), 1 Interceptor, 1 artilery (native or not). offense: bomber, helicopter, 5 rovers, artillery, infantry, native. (substitute naval for rovers in coastal sea bases) non-military: 5 formers of various types. non-support (wasn't counting them before): 10-20 crawlers minimum, 1 probe defender minimum (probe on infantry), 2-3 probe teams (naval or speeder).

To chime in with WE: HUH?? Are you saying you build this in one base? That sounds like the army of my entire empire, lol! I mean, I've taken out largish factions with lesser forces. I just can't imagine needing that, even as a hybrid rather than builder. Those units surely aren't doing anything for you, I would guess perhaps 10% ever see action unless you go out and conquer. Even in MP I've never seen someone build a standing army like that.. in fact I've seen someone defend successfully with only scout infantry for the first 80 years (OK, he had some luck too!) Seriously, what do you build when you want to go to war?
Certainly you don't need to worry about MW attacks... you chould be able to throw masses of units at them until they go away. If you prefer not to, you should be able to defend perfectly well.
I'd really like to hear how you do without so many units. I suspect it will improve your game a heck of a lot.

Also, you say you use the same strategy with each of the factions. That's probably not a good thing. The factions really are very different; play my university strategy with the PKs and you will have severe trouble. FM before TFs is important for most factions in builder mode, it's just that the Uni can get there so fast that there's no real time. With PKs a really early FM is quite productive.

What do you mean when you say it's easy to get a GA with half your people as specialists? Do you mean you use only thinkers? If so, when changing to look at what FM does, change virtually all of your thinkers to engineers and adjust your energy balance. You're giving up 2 enegy per specialist right away trying to get to a GA, and then getting 1 energy a square for the other half of your population in return. Or are you putting most of those crawlers on boreholes extracting energy and then putting it into psych? I think it's still a net loss, unless Smax has some amazing psych-enhancing facility that I don't know about.

Like WE, I'd very much like to know when you get to some landmark techs. Winning the game is largely about temo. Research a little quicker, attack a little sooner, and your opponent will be forced out of the game. I know, I've been there when someone did it to me! Your strategy sounds like a slow, slow process.


----------------
S2, insane builder.
[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited October 11, 2000).]

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I'm jumping in here way late and apologies as I probably haven't read in detail every post. A few comments:

Use of FM is a extreme boon once paired with Wealth pre-tree farm days. Once one expands to first beuracracy warning and the extent of your first ring of cities has been established approximatley half of your bases will be churning out crawlers the other half on base facilities and/or SP builds.

The energy one gains by running +3 econ is tremendous and pays off big in terms of rush build and crawler upgrade for SP builds. Couple that with shorter tech lead times. It way outperforms planned (even with it's +1 Industry) for purposes of building especially if all bases are already primed via crawlers to be at the magic 10+ mineral output level.

Now the reason is simple in these embryonic pre-pop boom bases (say mostly size 2 and 3) the majority of energy comes from the base square. Say as an example you have 6 such bases all with 3 forest squares worked and a recycle center. Under 0 econ one can normally expect about 5 energy per base times 6 bases for a grand total of 30 energy minus eff. etc. Contrast that to +3 econ and you have 11? energy per base times 6 bases for a grand total of 66 minus eff. You've effectively cut your research times in at least half at the most critical juncture (the early game to allow momemtum build) and have energy inhand to do rush builds.


The big down side I see for FM is that when running it most effectively (the early game) the player almost has to by default internalize his efforts at a time when it is most important to get out and see the world meet new factions (victims) build pacts, trade techs, etc. while the other factions are still relatively friendly/gullible.

[RedFred]

Black Sunrise, I've just reread this thread, scratching my head at Fitz's unusual gameplay style, and something you said earlier kind of leapt out at me:

quote: Originally posted by Black Sunrise on 10-10-2000 01:37 AMCaptital has Merchant Exchange, next to capital is another city with high mineral output. I also try for Planetary Energy Grid.

I'd suggest that you go the other way around. PEG is almost always better than ME unless you are a One City Challenge fan. I'd even argue that ME is the least valuable of all the very early SPs.

All you ever get out of ME is a max of one energy per worker in one city. Assuming you aren't Morgan or PK and you don't get the +2 pop SP (Ascetic Virtues) you will be stuck at +7 energy or +14 energy tops for most of the game. That equals one or two crawlers to your energy park.

It doesn't take too many cities for the reduction in Energy Grid maintenance costs to exceed that gain, even before you factor in the main effect of the PEG which will net you positive cash in even a mundane city.

[Misotu]

quote: Originally posted by Fitz on 10-10-2000 01:13 PM The key point is the number of bases ... even with 30 or so bases (Demo/Green/Power), there is little benefit to +1 energy/square. If you ICS to close to 100 bases or more, it would be a very different matter.

You really don't need 100 bases or more for FM to make a difference I'm not very good at abstract theory, so I thought I'd take a look at a few real games to see why I'm convinced about FM (even though I hate running it). Two tiny games, one massive one.

Sample mid-game: Pirates, MY2164, 13 bases
Dem/FM/Wealth: Econ 249, Labs 354
Dem/Plan/Wealth: 153, 254
Dem/Green/Wealth: 164, 269

So in this game, running FM hikes economy by 60%, labs by 40% (roughly). Makes a huge difference in terms of tech and rush-buying power. Of course, the +1 industry of planned means that my money will buy more, but I'm still much better off economically running FM, even before I look at the tech.

Sample late-game: Consciousness, MY2192, 14 bases
Dem/FM/Wealth: Econ 702, Labs 1365
Dem/Plan/Wealth: 622, 1238
Dem/Green/Wealth: 644, 1258

Now here, the difference is not so marked and in fact I was not running FM by this point because it was not the best choice (given four possible SE line settings). The game was much further advanced - in fact, this was the year I built the Ascent so it's about as advanced as you can get The main factors here are:

Fungus - with all my tech, fungus was producing 2,2,3. Run FM, and it produces nothing at all. Bad decision, I was making good use of the fungus.

Specialists - with my sky hydroponics, around half of my citizens were transcendi so FM just doesn't have the impact, since not many city squares were actually being worked.

In this game, I had actually been running Dem/Planned/Wealth/Eud for a very late pop-boom and ultra-cheap builds.

One final example: Travathian's Challenge, a tech stag, blind, minimum land game for masochists

Sample late-game, huge map, many cities: Believers, MY2475 (aargh!), 112 bases (aargh!).

Dem/FM/Wealth: 12,867 econ, 17,705 labs
Dem/Plan/Wealth: 12,797, 17,778
Dem/Green/Wealth: 16,064, 21,154

And here, of course, the factors are fungus and specialists again, but with the added complication of the Manifold Harmonics project. Green SE boosts fungus production massively, and in this case Green is a must.

So by the late builder game, the benefits of FM are much reduced and there are so many other excellent SE combos from which to choose. But earlier in the game the benefits are substantial, as my Pirates example demonstrates.

I think what I'm trying to say is that particular SE settings produce massively different results from game to game. It's important to be flexible and understand how to play them all (she says, freely admitting that she hates FM ) if you're going to be able to get the best out of every situation. So don't rule out FM - it's an extraordinarily powerful early/mid-game SE setting.
[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited October 11, 2000).]

[Black Sunrise]

quote: Originally posted by RedFred on 10-11-2000 05:25 PM Black Sunrise, I've just reread this thread, scratching my head at Fitz's unusual gameplay style, and something you said earlier kind of leapt out at me: I'd suggest that you go the other way around. PEG is almost always better than ME unless you are a One City Challenge fan. I'd even argue that ME is the least valuable of all the very early SPs. All you ever get out of ME is a max of one energy per worker in one city. Assuming you aren't Morgan or PK and you don't get the +2 pop SP (Ascetic Virtues) you will be stuck at +7 energy or +14 energy tops for most of the game. That equals one or two crawlers to your energy park.

Oh, you aren't using it properly then! It is also +1 energy to every energy crawler who considers that base home! Since every single one of my crawlers considers my main base home, that is an extra +30 - +100 enerrgy per turn, and that city thends to be on stockpile energy with PEG, so its more like +38 - +125 energy, run through labs and energy grids and everything else.
Plus, no ineffeciency, and possibly more trade(? not sure about that).

Your second base makes the crawlers, a couple produce minerals so that city makes a crawler per turn, then every crawler after that goes to the capital, set as home, then go out and gather energy for their new home, the capital.
Moral of the story, get both ME and PEG. Especially when playing FM, builder-style. Will give you the energy to fuel your edge in technology and cash-flow.
Black Sunrise

[RedFred]

Ha! Thanks for pointing out the weak link in my analysis, Black Sunrise. Good point about the crawlers. I still like PEG better, but that could be because I have multiple science cities.