specialist and city radius

[The diplomat]

In a game recently, I was playing as Lal. After I conquered Deirdre into submission, I noticed something about her bases. Well, she had built her bases close together and so their city radiuses were seriously overlapping. This meant that the bases would reach that point where extra pop automatically become specialist a lot sooner since there were less tiles to work. This got me thinking: is it a good idea to let the city radiuses overlap a little bit? I know that they should not overlap too much or you will starve your city of ressources, but is there an equilibrium point where it becomes beneficial?

My reasoning is that if a city overlaps a little bit but not too much, then the city will get specialist sooner and although the amount of ressources gathered will be less than a normal city, with the specialist it will overtake the normal city and end up producing more. Is this workable? If so, what is the "right" amount of overlap?

Another question that is related: what is the best strategy regarding specialist? I usually end up using them either to calm riots or only toward the end of the game when a city is working the entire city radius.
So, what is the best way to use them in the middle of the game. Are the middle specialist like the librarian, technician etc useful? In my games, I use the doc or the transcend but never the middle ones.

------------------
No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[big_canuk]

Check this out.

[RedFred]

Everyone has their own system for city spacing. Classic ICSers build a ton of cities close together. Some people prefer to overlap not at all. My spacing is fairly dependant on the type of game, and even the faction I am playing. Usually I will go with some overlap though. Closer cities for better defense and more economical use of scarce terrain and larger spacing if I plan to make extensive use of crawlers or if I face fungus-riddled land early on.

There is absolutely nothing to stop you from spacing wide and still using specialists however. So the idea that using overlap forces you to use more specialists early, should not be the main reason for going one way or the other.

Using either non-psych or not primarily psych specialists can help your game. But not make or break it. You can easily win on Transcend by only using only the psych guys. Last game I got engineers early on in a tech trade and they were often better than just working the land so I used them more than I usually do. Sometimes adding a non-psych specialist will be just enough to stave off the drone riots. And a low psych/high researching thinker is always a better choice than a doctor, and often, an empath if it will keep enough drones away.

[Lord Maxwell]

I usually build with an "Infantry defense model" that is it's three steps from every base to the next. Two diagonal and then a step sideways, creating a swastika out of five bases.

But lately Í've been building a core of about 10 bases using Ogies specialist base approach. 10 land bases around the freshwater sea makes for serious overlapping. (Count one base for ever 7 tiles of freshwater sea.) Have them build aquafarms and supply crawl in all the kelp-food.

Build two boreholes per base and set workers on those for minerals and some base energy income. Then shoot for 14 specialists to accompany those two workers...

[Skanderbeg]

Spacing bases closer together than 5 squares is a dangerous thing.
Singularity planet busters have a destruction radius of 4, so if You space Your bases closer together, one PB can destroy more than one bases. I once have destroyed 6 Morganite bases with one single buster.
If your bases are close-spaced, and Your enemy gets singularity before You get orbital defense pods and flechettes, You have a "problem".
So I try to space bases at least 5 squares from each other, unless forced to space them closer by geography or by strategic implications.

[Aredhran]

It's probably more efficient to destroy your enemy before he gets Singularity :P

[Skanderbeg]

quote: Originally posted by Aredhran on 01-29-2001 08:08 AM It's probably more efficient to destroy your enemy before he gets Singularity :P

That's true, of course.
But when You found Your second base in 2105 three squares away from Your first, can You be sure that You are able to destroy them all before the get singularity?

[The diplomat]

Thanks to all for posting in my thread!
I see we have an interesting discussion brewing.

Skanderbeg made an excellent point about planet busters. If your cities are too close then planet busters can destroy several cities at once. bad thing!!
Also, the AI seems very good at attacking non-combatants. In a war, the AI will probably destroy your helpless crawlers, formers and colony pods first.
So, it does seem to me that it is dangerous to rely too much on crawlers. It could end up being a wasteful strategy, if you have to rebuild crawlers every turn!
However, a specialist city can be extremelly beneficial.
It seems to me that it is better to put crawlers outside the city radius or is it better to put crawlers inside a city radius so as to get specialists sooner?

My usual strategy uses crawlers solely to build SP's. I wait for my cities to fill the entire city radius so that additional citizens become specialists, rather than use crawlers to make specialists. Of course, my strategy will only really kick in toward the end of the game since cities have to be pretty big already.

I am eager to learn more about viable and interesting midgame specialist strategies.



------------------
No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[Skanderbeg]

quote: Originally posted by The diplomat on 01-29-2001 08:32 AM So, it does seem to me that it is dangerous to rely too much on crawlers. It could end up being a wasteful strategy, if you have to rebuild crawlers every turn! My usual strategy uses crawlers solely to build SP's.

Crawlers are good for more than building SP's.

Even if You loose one by an attack, this is better then the enemy has attacked Your bases. Strike back in the next turn with a unit built by the minerals harvested by the crawler, and losses are a fashionable needlejet or rover against the cheap crawler.
You make the better deal and in long terms will win the war.

But normally, I build my empire so big that my crawlers are safe at least in the inner core of my empire, and I can use them for harvesting FOPs.
If I get the WP, I like to terraform inland seas with a science sea bases and a lot of trawlers (the swimming form of a crawler) harvesting energy, which gives you a lot of research.
A thing very important for my strategie are armoured rover-crawlers. I use them as a movable savings-bank for rush-building SP's, especially the Ascendance to Transcence. I allways try to build so much of them that I can build the AtT in one turn.

[This message has been edited by Skanderbeg (edited January 29, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Skanderbeg (edited January 29, 2001).]

[cbn]

Specialists can be of great advantage long before your city is working all its squares. In my current game as Deidre (double-blind, transcend, random map) I have 5 cities that share these characteristics: (I have 27 other cities much less developed)

1. All are as big as they can get pre-hab dome since I trawled nutrients early
2. Each has enough crawled minerals to build a sea crawler a turn.
3. Once they hit max pop (for now) each of the crawlers that was crawling nuts switched to energy and most workers that weren't already specialists, became specialists (librarians).
4. At most, each of these cities has 2 to 4 workers actually working now and that will get reduced again when the Cloudbase academy comes online and I can get full effect of the food satellites. I do always leave a worker on any borehole inside a city radius.


These 5 cities are kicking butt science-wise as they all have fusion labs, thermocline, biology, energy bank etc. The many-librarian approach leads to an impressive kick in science output. Toy with it sometime, the boost is impressive. These cities will continue to produce crawlers except when a new science facility becomes available and then its a 1 turn rush build and back to the crawlers.

Others are much better at stating the theory and practice of specialist cities but I must confess that I am hooked. As for city radius, the simple fact is that when using crawlers or satellites the city radius becomes unimportant.

How does this impact on city spacing? I generally spread my cities out early to try to grab up territory, choke points , special resources etc. Overlap does not generally bother me much and my cities generally overlap a little. But I likewise do not worry about the strip of "unused" land. Any area outside a city radius is equally good for crawlering as land inside.

I admit that I had an early phobia about crawling inside the radii. If you crawl one resource aren't you wasting the others?? While some resources go "unused" you end up better off in the long run by utilizing the best resource only from a larger number of tiles and them adding the research effects of specialists. This affects terraforming since you are less likely to want multi-purpose things like forest.
I found it interesting how different these 5 bases are from the rest of my bases. All the rest are getting carpetted by forest while these guys are mainly farms and mines with a solar on the energy specials.

[cbn]

Double-post. Sorry.
[This message has been edited by cbn (edited January 29, 2001).]

[WhiteElephants]

I was wondering the same thing Fitz...

I have no problem with bases three squares apart. You never end up using all the squares until you should be changing your pop to specialists anyways. Sure, on the one hand someone might have a singularity PB to blast me away, but 1) they have to get in range 2) they have to wipe out my ODP's 3) if I don't have ODP's by the time they have singularity PB's I might as well throw in the towel anyways.

[The diplomat]

quote: Originally posted by Fitz on 01-29-2001 12:17 PM The way you phrased this question, it sounds like you are unaware that you can change workers to specialists anytime that you want to. All you have to do is click on the worker icon, or the tile being worked, from inside the base screen. Then you get a pop-up letting you select a specialist. If you missed this, did you also miss that you can rearrange the tiles being worked? If so, try drag and drop from one tile to another in the base screen.

Actually I do know how to change workers to specialists and how to switch which tile is being worked. I am not THAT inexperienced

What I meant is that I purposely wait until the city radius is full before using specialist. I started this thread to learn more advanced strategies involving using specialists before that.



------------------
No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[bondetamp]

These days I just can't muster the energy required to utilize any single minded strategy. I think my idea in the other thread is a sound one, but it is a lot of work. Lately I've just built 20 or 30 bases and run from there. But I do use specialists in at least a couple of bases. These have one, two or three boreholes where I've got regular citizens working. If I want the base to have really good production, I crawl in minerals from rocky squares as well. Generally there's not really any point in doing this, unless building a science- or economy-wonder. I have food crawled in from fully formed (farm+condenser and eventually soil-enricher) squares and energy trawled in from from that spot of 'bubly' sea thing. The workers that are not hard at work on boreholes are used as specialists. Even with just a few bases like this, the science- and economy-rating skyrocket.

------------------
-bondetamp
--
When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.
-- R. A. Lafferty

[Sikander]

Anyone surprised that I'm posting to a specialist city thread?

Specialist cities can be extremely powerful, especially for the right faction. I've been tinkering with them for almost a year now, and playing the University I've had some really excellent games. In fact, if I start alone on a medium continent there is nothing that seems capable of keeping me from running away with the game.

I build my bases 2 or 3 squares apart along the coastline. I strive to have every base with at least 10 workable squares (not including those used by other bases). Terraforming is simple. Rocky squares get roads and mines, coastal squares get boreholes, and everything else gets condensor / farms / soil enrichers when available. I develop the areas within the production radius of the base first, and when I get crawlers I replace workers. This way if I lose a crawler, it can be quickly replaced by a worker.

The only squares I work are boreholes and shelf / kelp / tidal harnesses. Everything else gets a crawler. Most bases end up with 5 or less workers, and 11 or more specialists. The empty interior of the continent is used to crawl in additional minerals and food as necessary. These bases are enormously productive, and I can get a lot of them on a given piece of territory.

To those who are afraid that they are wasting something by not working a square within their production radius, let's have a look at that calculation.

For mines and farm / condensors, each of these squares produces 4 Factors of Production (FOP) of the same type, and are ideal candidates for crawlers. For an investment of 1 to 2 turns of mineral production from the home base, you get a specialist which returns 3 to 6 energy FOP every turn. That's a damn good investment, especially considering that those energy FOPs are multiplied +100% to +250% by facilities. Let's take a look at some other terrain which is less crawler friendly.

Farm / Solar: Produces 3 (assuming rainy) food and lets be generous and say that it also produces 4 other FOP (minerals and energy). That's 7 FOP, and you can't effectively harvest more than half with a crawler. True enough, but if you consider that you are using one of your precious population points (pre-had domes and pre-cloning vats anyway), why not just build another crawler and and have your cake and eat it too? Produce 4 FOP on the square, crawl it, and add the 3 to X production of the specialist to the total. Your profit appears in the lack of energy lost to inefficiency, and the fact that you needn't deal with another drone. By the midgame there is no non-special square which produces more than a farm / condensor / soil enricher, and by the late game there is no square which even approaches it's productivity.

Yes you could send that crawler off into the wilderness to bring in other resources, and you might even be able to show a slight profit over specializing the worker back home. Since Engineers provide 5 FOP without any loss to inefficiency, only an energy park or a borehole stands a chance of equaling or surpassing their productivity, and both come with a significant terraforming cost, as well as sometimes being more difficult to defend, and it takes more time to terraform and place the crawler in the first place, which loses you turn advantage.

Placing the crawlers within your base's production radius gives you the following advantages:

1) Crawlers take advantage of your pre-crawler terraforming, getting them into action sooner, and effectively allowng you to pop-boom through the production of crawlers until your base has replaced every replacable worker.

2) A symbiotic defense relationship develops between your bases and their military forces, and your crawlers. I road every square I can to facilitate former, crawler and military movement through my productive areas. With almost every square covered with a crawler (and most of the rest with an armored probe team) this means that I have roads, and the enemy must slog through an interminable nest of interlocking ZOCs. Even his probes will often face a solid wall.

3) Keeping your early crawlers close to home gives you some flexibility, as you can divert some to rush an SP and temporarily replace the crawlers with workers if necessary. You can also shift crawlers three squares on roads, in effect moving a crawler from the production line to the frontier in one turn without giving up any production.

The most advantageous thing about this technique is most definitely the turn advantage. I can in effect (ie production) more than double the population of my bases by replacing the workers with crawlers, and even taking advantage of squares which are not worked yet due to a low population.