Green --- the broken society?

[Sindai]

quote: After a certian point in the game, it simply becomes uneconomical (no pun intended) to continue with FM. Fungus begins destroy all of your terraforming improvements (no matter how many eco-friendly facilities you've built and dispite what the manual says about Hybrid Forest/Tree Farm.)

Umm....no it doesn't. You're completely wrong about this. As Shimmin said, you just need to learn how to control your ecodamage.

I very seldom, if ever, have ecodamage problems with FM unless I'm also planet busting people at the time....

[WhiteElephants]

I thought I'd take a second to point out a couple misconceptions on Green and mindworms. First, your percentage to capture them decreases as you capture more. Therefore a huge captured army of mindworms is rare, though I've seen it happen. From what I understand your percentage decreases 10% with each capture (and maybe even built mindworm), but it never decreases below 10%. Second, the bonus from a positive planet rating only takes effect when you are the attacker. Meaning that it you have a +3 planet (+30%) and your opponent has a -3 planet (-30%) you don't effectively get a +60% when you attack him, only a +30%. When he goes to attack you he would then get a -30% which would be enough of a negative to even the 3-2 odds you get from psi combat. In all the benefits of Green concerning mindworms are marginal in my humble opinion. To say Green is overpowered and that you intend to "fix" the game is ludicrous as well. Concerning the social engineering choices most experienced player would tell you that they are pretty well balanced and that there are times and places for each choice you have available to you. I my experience I don't often choose Green until quite late in the game and sometimes never. I often transcend while in a state of pop boom that I can't achieve, without tinkering beyond my patience to get golden ages, in Green.

[Hydro]

I picked out a later mid game example with Zak in 2265:

13 bases, all size 14; all improvements up to fusion lab (building in almost all bases)
Diplomacy: pact with Santiago and Morgan; treaty with Domai; vendetta with Dee, Sven, and Lal

Dem/Green/Wealth GA (10%eco/20%psi/70%lab)
Lab 1956 (tech in 2 turns), income -109/yr (trade easily makes up for this loss)

Dem/FM/Wealth GA (10%eco/20%psi/70%lab; low +2 efficiency means massive loss in energy production and in allocation penalties)
Lab 1572 (tech in 3 turns), income -4/yr

Dem/FM/Knowledge GA (10%eco/20%psi/70%lab)
Lab 1932 (tech in 2 turns), income 36

In this instance FM doesn't do much good and D/G/W is the clear winner. Now, since I play double blind I did not have Enviro Eco and Planetary Eco until very late. Until I got these and built tree farms and hybrid forest FM served me well since it gave my energy production a real kick in the butt. However, after all the facilities were built the efficiency really kicked in and my ability to go GA blossomed. Key was Hybrid Forest for energy, and the psi bump it and Tree Farms gave. Since I play double blind Enviro Eco and Planetary Eco can be very elusive (and they were in this case - I just finished hybrid forests in my cities and recently got fusion power as my energy/tech rate took off).

By 2295 I had 37 bases (remember all those vendettas?) and am at war with everyone but loyal Santiago and Morgan:

D/G/W/C; GA; Income 109, Lab 5897 (1/turn)
D/FM/W/C; drone problems*; Income 170, Lab 6246 (1/turn)
D/FM/Kn/C; drone problems*; Income 181, Lab 5923 (1/turn)

* The drone problems were due to military units that are busting some heads, and if disbanded would probably go to GA.

So, FM and Green/Wealth/GA seem very similar to me. Maybe the vaunted Vel and other free marketers have some other tricks I am not familiar with.

Hydro

[Sikander]

I agree with ZsoZso that Green has the advantage with Labs, which are what I am most concerned with. FM seems like a worthy early game choice, but I can't see it's advantage once my specialist cities are up and running (early in the second century playing directed research). Since I am only working a few squares in each city, and using crawlers for the rest of my production, the benefit of +1 energy per square only yields me about 5-6 energy per base. My income is just fine, since every mature base has 10-11 Engineers.

Conversely, Green gives me efficiency, which I can use to good effect by building more bases and allocating 100% to labs. Micromanagement is nil, since I only have 5 or so workers at each base to worry about, and high efficiency means that there are few to no drone surprises.

I run planned until my first wave bases are maxed (14 or 16), then I switch to green and stay there. Once my infrastructure is complete in my core bases (and the SP race is settled to my benefit) I switch from Wealth to Knowledge for the morale and efficiency (and of course research). Now I am kicking out beaucoup labs without energy parks, and can rapidly build a powerful high tech military by building vanilla trained units in one turn, and upgrading them the next. In two turns I have a wave of clean, powerful forces, all of whom are elite, and all of which can be replaced or augmented at the rate of 1 per base per turn.

If for some reason I failed to get the Cloning Vats, I would of course have to resort to other means to get a pop boom in my subsequent bases, and these other means would mean a switch from green at any point before the late game (and the future SE choice which kicks growth). Playing a growth inhibited faction like the Pirates requires a different set of priorities. They can really use the efficiency of Green, but for my first wave of bases it is imperative to GA pop boom. Later on this is tougher, and sometimes I just let subsequent bases ride the wave of enormous food production to populate. The Pirates need the HGP and the Cloning Vats badly.

[Misotu]

Just briefly, I find FM/Wealth to be a good option early mid-game, but after that, like zsozso, I find Green/Knowledge blows it away. I generally play the PKs, and I need the efficiency bonuses of Dem/Green/Know to enable me to run a serious skew on research. Anything up to 100% labs, with no penalties. On my games there is no question that Green/Knowledge is *the* way to go if you want all-out research. Plus of course it's so much easier to get equipped militarily once you have air power if you stay out of FM.

[DilithiumDad]

Vel, you're wrong about FM beating Green in late-mid and late game. I use planned early, FM for the majority of the game, then Green for the middle to end. Factors that favor Green are
1. Having lots of bases at a large distance from your HQ that generate lots of energy (Borehole cluster on the opposite end of the planet, for example),
2. Having lots of specialists becuase you are getting nutrients from sky hydroponics and thus have fewer squares in production to get the +1 energy per square
3. Having bases with excessive mineral production causing eco-damage, where going Green could reduce ecodamage from 10 to 1 or 2.
4. Having the tech to get nutrients/energy/mineral from fungus, which is impossible in FM.


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Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

So in summary, what I am hearing from most folks is something like:


Early game expansion - Normally planned until beuaracracy warning (I myself prefer FM to expedite the run to IA and restriction lifting)
Mid early game - FM/wealth until infrastructure builds allow a pop boom
Early mid game - Demo/planned/wealth w/ creches for pop boom (advent of airpower)
Mid game - Demo/green W/ wealth or Knowledge

Late game (Transcendi avaialable) - w/o cloning vats Demo/planned creches or Demo/planned/eudi for pop boom w/o need for creches.


Thoughts?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

As I continue to ponder the question of is Green overpowered as a societal choice, I began again to think of the phases of the game as outlined above.

It occurs to me that Green become preferential prehab domes, where in one is attempting expansion horizontally as it is assumed most bases are maxed out to hab complex limits. Green is great for this purpose as it allows better eff. and ability to war and conquer.

However, once hab domes are in existance the race to vertical population growth begins again. Now then green holds a serious draw back, namely -2 growth. Asssuming you've missed out on the Cloning vats SP then population explosion can not normally occur with any standard SMAC/SMACX faction whilst running green. Ex: Demo/Green/Eudi w creches allows a total of +4 growth. The only means to explode your population is to have a GA. Population explosion is of course critical in that they normally are specialists with great energy returns. However GAs are only allowed while half of your total population are workers turned talents. Realistically speaking then the best you could hope for would be a size 40 base allowing 20 workers turned talent. This of course assumes you've set up base spacing to allow a full 20 worked squares. During the pop boom of course one needs to forgo overspecialization (i.e greater than 50% of the popualtion as specialsits) which in of itself is an opportunity lost. As most people prefer tighter spaced bases tho base sizes are most likely maxed out at around 24 - 26 with 13 talents/13 specialists.

To my mind at this point you probably are better served Demo/planned/Knowledge/Eudi to ensure a perpetual boom even w/o creches or of course capture the vats SP , failing that Demo/planned/Wealth/Cyber and build the creches in newly founded bases as it assumed your core bases already have creches.

So in summary IMHO, green is a wonderful mid late game societal choice but no more overpowering than either of the other choices. FM may lose its luster as the game progresses but one can make the arguement that even planned can be very effective in the late game.

Og