Specialist cities

[Adam_Smith]

Wow! I always put those things on rocky areas. That is what I what I was doing wrong. I thought you guys where talking about the spaces around the condensor. I learn something. cool. thanx

[Tau Ceti]

All right, this formula should explain how many nutrients you get from a square. It has been tested, but only on rainy squares, as there are quite a lot of combinations.

Nutrients =

Square raininess
+ 1 farm
+ 1 soil enricher
+ 2 nutrient special (+ 3 if enricher present)
+ 1 jungle (+ 2 if both farm and enricher present)
* 1.5 condenser (rounding fractions down)

[bondetamp]

But why should you use workers on nutrient squares? Surely Moonson Jungle can be exploited more efficient by an army of crawlers. Then you can free those four workers (or what ever number suits your whim) to work on boreholes, where workers are as efficient as *two* crawlers.

Or have I missed something essential here?

[YT]

Placing enough boreholes outside of base radius can cause potentially severe problems. Be prepared for Global warming and sea level rises. On the other hand, if you are confident you can handle that, or it is part of your strategy, that's fine.

Similar with the polution/mind worm reaping. Just be sure you have enough forces to handle the results. I have frequently had enough mind worms appear from one fungal bloom that I lose a base (if I am unprepared for it). You might also want to consider limited pollution. Put lots of Boreholes in the radius of one base, don't build Tree Farm of Hybrid Forest, and run Green to keep the rest of your empire peachy. Then all the fungal blooms will occur in one location, and you can concentrate forces there to reap the rewards.

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Yours Truly

[Misotu]

Hi YT

I usually build boreholes *outside* the base radius and harvest them with crawlers because they don't cause pollution in that position. If you build them within the city radius, then the problems you describe do manifest themselves.

- Mis

[shimmin]

I habitually place boreholes outside the base production radius, where they don't tick Planet off. I usually have mine-crawlers bringing in minerals up to the point where further minerals would result in the wrath of Planet, so only the energy is useful from the boreholes anyway.

I have toyed with running a worm-based economy -- I pollute, worms come, I kill the worms for morale and profit, leaving me free to indulge in horrific deficit spending. Anyone successfully pull this off? What are the major pitfalls? If running Green, is it possible to irritate planet into sending you a continuous stream of free recruits?

[MichaeltheGreat]

shimmin - wormrape worms from atrocities or planetplundering aren't controllable, but if you are Green, you can do something even better - massive amounts more industry, and a PB or two, without significant planet problems. I don't care about worms - I have empath scout rovers and choppers for them, but I do care about several turns of former time worth of improvements getting blown away by fungal blooms.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Bondetamp,

You've hit the nail on the head. It is essential in this strategy to use crawlers for nuts. Putting a worker there is a waste and actually becomes detrimental with respect to drone generation and city growth as a result.

In my opinion, use of crawler vs. worker needs to be looked at for every sqaure and purpose. Crawlers are great when a single resource is being harvested (i.e. a 13 nutrient square 0 mins 0 energy or 4 mins from a road and mine) why waste a worker when that worker can be designated a specialist that will return the equivalent of 3-6 useful energy points depending on the type of specialist employed (3-librarian & thinker, 5 engineer, 6 transcendi, I neglected the effect of psych contributions). If by working that square you can come up with a combination of minerals and energy that equal the contribution from the specialists then it may make sense to have workers on the square not crawlers. (Certainly that is the case with boreholes netting 12 resource points. By putting a crawler on it you only get half the amount be it mins or energy. Because you only get half the benefit, in my book it is wasteful terraforming to put boreholes outside the city radius and crawler back. I always look to put as many boreholes as I can without extreme eco damage and work them hence my dillemna of having my cake and eating it too.) One always has to remember the efficiency loss though, if the mins and energy by working the square equals the output of a specialist then a specialist wins (again, in my book) b/c of its immunity to efficiency loss, no drone issues etc.

[YT]

Mis: I was specifically talking about Borehole outside base radii. Inside the base radii, you have to worry about base specific eco-damage, that can cause fungal blooms. But outside the base radii, you still get general Global eco-damage, the most noticible effect of which is sea level rising. So, if you place lots of Boreholes (and other enhancements) outside your base radii, you had still better be prepared for the sea level to rise. Or, as I said, you can be counting on it to happen and incorporate it into your stratagy.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

YT et al.

You raise points of eco damage while workers are working squares within city limits (and this also holds true for crawlers harvesting resources within city limits). My asusmption here is that sooner or later you'll build Hybrid farms for these borehole rich cities and thereby eliminate any ecodamage from working terraformed improvements within city limits. This of course does not eliminate eco damage from excess minerals however.

You'll want both tree farms and hybrid facilities if only to add 50% each for econ outputs of these cities when and if you make your specialists engineers not to mention the reduced enviro impact.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Unintentional Double Post


[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited March 10, 2000).]

[WhiteElephants]

When using all these crawlers to transport resources back to your bases is there any ways of proctecting them that any of you have come up with besides tactical needlejets? I was thinking AAA garisons positioned with the crawlers, but that might become quite expensive. It would be nice to armour the crawlers and give them AAA, but that too would become expensive. My experience has taught me that the AI uses air power very poorly so this question is directed more toward multiplayer games.

[bondetamp]

wouldn't an airbase with a couple of interceptors do the trick?
[This message has been edited by bondetamp (edited March 12, 2000).]

[Adam_Smith]

White Elephant,

Human player would probably not bother with taking out a supply crawler if it were defended in some way. The reason is that it wouldn't be worth it. That is the answer to the other question. They aren't worth defending. Just build another one if you need to.

[Sikander]

Bondetamp,

I don't believe that you can add AAA to a crawler, as it's cargo uses up the unit's gun slot. I do add deep radar (cost o) when available to my sea crawlers, then quickly post them as lookouts (and eventually a sea wall). If I have a high production city which can produce an armored crawler in the same number of turns as an unarmored one, I will do it. Otherwise, the economic cost is too great. I'd rather build a military unit to patrol / react.