Base building strategy?

[lbores]

I gather from the msgs herein, that plonking down a base 3 squares from an established base is good since SMAC doesn't work quite the same way as CivII.

But what about outliers? I think that plonking down a base or two further out in the boonies, helps establish territorial perimeters and keeps a possible rival from getting too close.

Question is this: how far out in the boonies? I guess it boils down to: how many bases should you have?

I never subscribed to the tendency amongst some CivII players to Build! Build! Build! But I did tend to fill up my isolated piece of real estate if for no other reason than to prevent encroachment. The only off-continent cities I owned were either seized or established as forward bases for aircraft/ships.

SMAC treats base numbers somewhat differently and penalizes you if your base total gets too big.

So ... question #2: what's the magic base number?

[KMadeleine]

I probably build more cities than you do. But I definitely advocate starting some outlier cities to stop opponents from getting more territory. A couple of games ago I started a city in the unity wreckage, terrible terrain until I built some forests, just to block the Pirates from using the land squares. They had three sea cities along the coast, and by placing one city on the continent I effectively cut the number of squares each of those cities could use in half.

[cbn]

Tha magic number depends mainly on

1. Map size
2. Efficiency rating
3, Playstyle (ICS vs perfectionist)

I only play SP and will rarely build more than 30 cities regardless of map size since I simply find it to be too much of a pain to administer them all. If your question is about when inefficiency kinks in to create drones, that appears to be basd on a formula reflrcting map size and the EFFICIECY rating.

As for base placement, I tend to the 3 squares away rationale but in the early stages each new base tends to go "outward". The hope is to grab as much territory as possible and fill in the interior later (more bases or a lot of "safe" area to crawler"

[lbores]

quote: Originally posted by cbn on 02-18-2001 12:14 PM a lot of "safe" area to crawler"

This brings up a point. In CivII, 'goody huts' within a city's radius were always good (i.e.: no barbarians, etc). Does this apply to pods within a city's immediate ZOC?

[Lord Maxwell]

Ibores: I think that the only thing that you are safe from when placed in city radius is fungal bloom. (Which can be a huge blessing, getting a bloom on a choke point can hurt real bad. It might easily take a pod 10 years to travel through the pink.)

You might be safe from earthquakes, but I am not certain. (I think so, but they are so rare it's hard to test. If you are safe from em then it's vital to only pop pods in city radius in the jungle and other landmarks, as earthquakes destroy landmarks.)

You can however get mindworms, but they tend to be fewer. (I don't think I have ever seen more than one worm come out of a pod, even after 2200 when 8 worm pods are common in the wild.)

[WhiteElephants]

Maybe I'm lazy, but I rarely (I'm not sure that I've ever) build bases just to deny my opponent area to place their bases. The only case I can think of is if I start relatively close to a landmark and want to secure that site for its bonuses. I usually play on a standard sized map which, in my opinion, affords plenty of area to place bases. The only time I've ever felt pressured is if a faction starts quite close to mine which ends up evolving into war anyways, so as soon as I have the might I conquer their bases thereby freeing up space and expanding my empire at the same time.