Yang is powerful!

[Snowflake]

What is Zerg military tactics?

[jtsisyoda]

The Zerglings are from Starcraft. Their units are inexpensive, so they just make a lot of them. Quantity instead of quality (tech).

[johndmuller]

The Hive's reputation is probably based on the ability of the AI to play a pretty decent game with them, so most of us remember getting our butts kicked or at least getting a really good scare by Yang early in our SMAC careers.

It would probably be useful information if we knew what it is about Yang that the AI is able to exploit when it is rather pitiful with many of the factions; then we could modify some of the others in a similar fashion to make them more competitive too.

[Blake]

Um, I think someone already explained why Yang AI is strong. Yang cant exploit pop boom, +2 econ. AI cant either. You'll often find an AI running FM and trying to go to war, with drones/doctors totally crippling their production, it's sad.

Yang has no real negatives other than the -2 econ, which doesn't really actively hurt - unlike say, FM drones, or bad support - the AI cant commit suicide with -2 econ.

I made quite a lot of variants of super power AI's, the main things I did was greatly boosting police for them (usually +2 or +3, or immunity FM) so they couldn't easily commit suicide with FM. Then I gave them either some + support, or free clean reactors, so they couldn't commit sucicide by using all their minerals on support.

If you put the AI in a position where it is unable to kill itself, then it actually does quite well. The only original factions that have trouble killing themselves are the Hive (with good police and support and the BUILD priority) and the Gaians (with the inability to run FM, and non-agressive meaning less units built).

[CEO Aaron]

I always found that the AI couldn't screw up Miriam too badly. Big support and nice attack bonuses conspire to keep her threatening, and the AI is never shy about sharing tech, especially once you secure a good lead.

[timotheus4]

Yang can do +2 econ or he can do pop boom. Run fm/wealth/golden age or planned/creche/golden age

[Frankychan]

Bah! You guys have ruined this thread with anti-Yang dissent!

[gopher]

Yang is a monster if played right. Sure, he can't pop boom very well (as stated above, needs GA and Creche), but that incefficency cap and industry means he has a shot.
Keys for a Yang Victory:

1) Some type of ICS. Perhaps not a complete ICS strategy, but one that relies on a bunch of bases very close to another. Use that perimiter defence well.

2) Offence. You have an energy problem. Therfore, you will probably be behind a generation in tech. Also, rush building may be a problem. Solutions? Use your industry advantage. Crank out units to go to war. Crank out probes to steal techs and credits.

CRANK OUT SUPPLY CRAWLERS! Its your decision to make them either pump out energy or minerals. If your not on offence, your on defence. Make the enemy use their energy advantage in countering your moves. Plus, that energy will not help them that much if you have probes with your army.

3) Drones. With Hive, Police state is a given (you really DONT want to magnify the enemy's tech lead with Fundy, do ya? Besides, the +2 morale is not worth being 2 generations behind). Also, with that industry lead, and a probable emphasis on minerals, you can produce a lot, and have great support. That means defenders (111) with police/riot training. No more worries of drones, no more need for energy into making citizens happy (unless you go for GA).

[Flubber]

Originally posted by timotheus4
Yang can do +2 econ or he can do pop boom. Run fm/wealth/golden age or planned/creche/golden age

My statement was they cannot do those things easily --The effort required to get Yang into a pop boom is considerable and even then, you may not be able to maintain a boom in a given base for very long. I usually just ICS and live with the inherent +3 growth that comes with staying in Planned.

I have NEVER gone FM with Yang-- +1 Econ was never enough for what I was giving up. The effort in psych allocation, specialists or facilities ( when foregoing the high police rating) to attain golden ages in a significant number of bases just is not worth it IMHO.

So while timotheus is technically correct in his statement of the obvious, that these things are possible, I find that the HIve is a very difficult faction to get a Golden age in a significant number of bases. The energy deficet is HUGE in this effort and many bases just don't have enough energy to get to a GA even at 100% psych allocation.

[Blake]

It's not too hard to get the Hive into GA for some central bases, the important thing is to have a couple of boreholes per base for the energy and probably tree farms. Such bases go into GA quite effortlessly (~30% physch), especially with all the police to supress drones.

You dont need the outlying bases to GA anyway, they serve more as a barrier and unit producers and probably wont have the infrastructure to grow much.

Ofcourse the only purpose of the GA is pop-boom.

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by Blake
Ofcourse the only purpose of the GA is pop-boom.

Add Free Market (under police state and you have +2 economy with Hive )

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Blake
It's not too hard to get the Hive into GA for some central bases, the important thing is to have a couple of boreholes per base for the energy and probably tree farms. Such bases go into GA quite effortlessly (~30% physch), especially with all the police to supress drones.

You dont need the outlying bases to GA anyway, they serve more as a barrier and unit producers and probably wont have the infrastructure to grow much.

Ofcourse the only purpose of the GA is pop-boom.

I agree with all that you say but for me, if you are talking treefarms, you are later than I like to boom and I find it painful to go even 30% psych for an entire empire to just get a handful of booming bases. It can be worth it sometimes but I usually find it better to use that 30% rushing yet another former, crawler or colony pod.

I agree that the only purpose would be pop-boom since it makes no sense to lose even 30% of your total energy to psych even for the benefit of an extra energy per tile in FM/wealth ( unless of course you are EXTREMELY energy deprived in which case getting to a GA is a problem). The math would never seem to work out plus you get issues from loss of police and a low Planet rating.

Again I am not saying a pop-boom is impossible for the HIve. But I contrast it with the ease with which some others boom. For most factions it is a natural step to time a switch to planned with a rush of a number of major facilities. If you stockpile a little cash, the reduced rush costs can pay for the switch costs and even some of the lost income from time in Planned. The boom is almost painless.

With the HIve, my dream situation is to snag the PTS and then just "boom" by founding base after base. But this can be difficult to acquire and almost impossible if one of the research factions wants it.

[Enigma_Nova]

Police can't do much to help you GA:
Psych is the first thing that gets applied to a base, before anything else.
So... Psych has to:
1. Eat up your b-drones
2. Turn half your drones into talents
Your police are going to:
3. Turn the rest of the drones into workers.

If you're going ICS then you'll have a -lot- of b-drones. Even if you're not, you'll still need to turn half your drones into talents.
If you're not, you'll have workers to work the squares...
Police + Planned + Creche + Boom - not entirely painless, but it could take some effort.

Getting the HGP is a must for pop-booming under GA. Unfortunately Aki knows this as well, and you'll still be in the tech basement while she snags it.

[timotheus4]

Originally posted by Blake
and probably tree farms

You mean hybrid forests. TF gets +1 nut in a forest square; HF gets +1 nut and +1 energy, both put together give you +2 nut and +1 energy, which with the resources from unmodified forests gets you 3-2-2 unless you have a condensor in the square as well, in which I think you'd get 8-2-2.

[Blake]

Nah I meant TF's, for the +50% physch and 2 food per forest tile, the boreholes provide the energy required, and the (possibly crawled) consdensors make up for the foodless boreholes. I'm talking about having the boreholes/condensors built before env.eco, then throwing up treefarms and immediately going into a GA.

Yang cant afford to get HF's anyway, those suckers take forever to build, freemarketeers can just buy them for a reasonable price, but by the time Yang can afford to install them in mass it'll be a very late pop-boom. What Yang can afford is heaps of formers, which is why I prefer to go TF's and a mix of boreholes/condensors and forests for most the game.