Manifold Harmonics

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by Cosmic
Yeah Obstructor, thats mainly because I was playing that game only to test what Flubber said about scrap and rebuild Centauri Preserves to minimize pollution.

Now I know it works, I started another game with then again with other factions and the result was the same. And besides that, I like the Gaians, are one of my favourite factions!

/me points his sig

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Cosmic
I was playing that game only to test what Flubber said about scrap and rebuild Centauri Preserves to minimize pollution.

Of course it works-- and it feeds itself since if you have 20 bases with insane mineral production, its easy to rush 20 more facilities ( with the cash from scrapping perhaps even being more than any needed to rush the facilities) and then 20 more and 20 more.

You CAN get bases with hundered of minerals and no ecodamage. A separate question is why you would want to since IMHO ENERGY is the key to the later game. I've never seen the point of creating a 400 mineral base except to show you can do it

[Cosmic]

I agree, in later turns theres no reason to produce too many minerals. But if I have to produce 4 mineral in order to gain 5 energy, the tradeoff is ok with me!

[Santiago_Claus]

I like to prepare in advance for the switch to a fungus economy. I also scrap all Genejack Factories the turn before the MH is built.

Try to raise mineral production more-or-less evenly. That means plant fungus at bases that lack it, and delay adding fungus to bases that already have plenty, even if it means leaving a flat arid square fallow for a few turns. Make sure overlapping bases share territory equally.

Plant fungus on boreholes then use a military unit to destroy the borehole. Replace mines with fungus; that won't change net mineral output (and frees up a crawler). In general reassign mineral supply units for bases with damage exceeding around 15%.

At low altitudes your instinct will be to plant all fungus. Try a condenser / enricher on rolling river tiles instead, for a return of 6-1-2. Fungus IMO is a little weak in the food department. (Incidentally, I use worker-talents instead of crawlers post hab dome for Golden Ages, which too many specialists make impossible.)

Keep building Tree Farms + Hybrid Forests; superior to Preserves & Temples, they not only give you clean minerals but cash and psych as well.

Slowly ramp up production at all bases so as to maintain around 8% damage, just enough to trigger "mini-pops" that will increase the mineral cap without doing too much real damage. Scatter your formers and plant fungus evenly amongst bases to maintain this balance.

These tactics should keep damage to a minimum whilst allowing you to ramp up clean mineral production to accomodate MH's massive 4 minerals per square.

However ... you must also be prepared to defend yourself.

Depending on terrain every base should be within the move radius of certain key defenses: a res-empath-SAM ship, SAM artillery, a res-empath hovertank, and a res-empath-SAM jet. The ship is most important, as it has both artillery and direct attack. Artillery does mass damage to native life and wipes out anything stacked with a spore launcher, but if you're unlucky enough to get a stack of nothing but locusts your artillery had better be SAM. The jet, while useful against IoD's, is mainly to provide air cover to your ship -- or your base if it comes down to that.

If you do get excessive global warming ("excessive" being whatever would swamp the Manifold Nexus) you can cut the minimum delay between U.N. meetings, which allows more solar shading.

I do this anyway, just because the idea that the U.N. can only meet once every 20 years (10 if you're Kofi Annan) is ridiculous. Even Earth's gold-brick U.N. meets more than once every 10 years, if only because ambassadors couldn't survive that long without 5-star hotel room service.

[Flubber]

santaigo clause

A couple of things

1. why do you want more food or would want to work a 6-1-2 square?? In this late game era, I find food to be more than amply provided by satellites and by adding a few soil enrichers to any crawled condensor/farm combos. Shouldn't you be stressing energy at this time

2. For the same reason I don't understand the idea to scrap boreholes. Don't they remain as the best energy source in the game ( other than high altitude solars with echelon moirrors)

3. The idea to build temples or preserves is simply because they are cheaper than treefarms or hybrid forests PLUS you want to keep the effects of the TFs and HFs when doing a build and scrap strategy. Obviously any well developed base wants to have and keep the TFs and HFs.

4. I like your anti-worm forces-- of course if you have built a decent transportation system, you don't need huge numbers to have an effective anti-worm force

5. I still like using specialists and satellites to avoid the whole mess.

[Cosmic]

In the early turns of the game I usually plant forests, than I build tree farms and hybrid forests and use free marketing to get 3nutri/2min/3energ per square. I start to change everything to fungus usually after I have discovered Secrets of Alpha Centauri (about 70% of discovery techs researched, if I´m not wrong).

At that point I change to Green and start to plant fungus, preparing all my bases for Secrets of the Manifolds that is near (at that time fungus give me about 2nutri/1min/2energ (3nutri with Deirdre, I love her ). Then in a few turns I have everything covered with fungus and lots and lots and lots and lots of energy flowing everywhere Definitely, nowadays, Green Economy is my prefered choice over Free Market. Better, FAR better.

[Trithemius]

Originally posted by Santiago_Clause
I do this anyway, just because the idea that the U.N. can only meet once every 20 years (10 if you're Kofi Annan) is ridiculous. Even Earth's gold-brick U.N. meets more than once every 10 years, if only because ambassadors couldn't survive that long without 5-star hotel room service.

The Planetary Council is way different to the real United Nations. I normally assume that the limit is for the invocation of an "Emergency Session", not for the regular business of the Planetary Council. That being said, I'd tend to shorten it somewhat (maybe even a 5 year interval for the factions that are not the chairperson/governer and 1 year interval for the faction that is the chairperson/governer).

Sorry, I just get picky about United Nations stuff.
*Trithemius is a nerd*

[Skanky Burns]

They can meet as often as they like, but can only achieve anything significant every 20 years. Kinda like the real UN.

[Trithemius]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
They can meet as often as they like, but can only achieve anything significant every 20 years. Kinda like the real UN.

Harsh, but arguably fair. :P

[Santiago_Claus]

@SB: ROFL!

@Flubber:

1. You've nailed me there. I don't build enough food sats.

2. Fungus with MH is better than Boreholes, even given plenty of food sats. Ignoring minerals, 3-5 seems to me better than 0-7.

3. I don't SCRAP tree farms and hybrid forests, I just build them before building preserves, even at bases w/o access to forests. Clean-mineral-increasing facilities that pay me money are superior to clean-mineral-increasing facilities that cost me money.

4. Mag tubes extend "movement radius" quite effectively -- on a single continent. Just don't get complacent about islands and sea bases.

5. If you've built the Vats, every scrap of food means more people and thus eventually more specialists, and workers + crawlers will always bring in more food than specialists + crawlers, but I can't be one to talk since I've already admitted to not building enough hydro sats.

At bases without a lot of commerce income Transcendi are almost always a better deal than workers for energy and research, and minerals we've already decided are in over-abundance, so it really comes down to the food and Golden Ages that workers can generate. I believe they're worth it, and will work every square, trusting the Vats to eventually pack in enough Transcendi from all that food to make up the difference.

Larger population also results in a higher score. Did I mention I don't build enough hydro sats? * whistles *

[Cosmic]

I like to build a lot of Hydro Sats and Energy Transmiters, but I never liked to build mineral sats (forget the name). But with all that scrap and rebuild of Centauri Preserves (Ohh I`m really enjoying the results of that) I´ll try build some of then in my next game. I´ll also try to build some Nanoreplicators and Genejack Factories only to see how far mineral production may reach in fungus economies

[livid imp]

Originally posted by Cosmic
I like to build a lot of Hydro Sats and Energy Transmiters

Correct me if I am wrong, but don't cities cap out the amount of sat nuts/mins/energy at their pop number? So in other words, 14 of each sat is the cap until hab domes.

[Cosmic]

Yes Imp, thats correct. Each energy transmitter, for example, give +1 energy per base until you reach base size limit. So, lets say you have 10 cities of any size (beyound 2 of course) and build two energy transmitters. You have a total of +20 energy in total for only two sattellites. Good business eh?

If you have 30 sats and your bases go only to size 14, so each of then will support eactly +14 energy, and you´re losing +16 per base!

The same apply for nutrients and mineral sats (but I dont like to build mining stations )

[Santiago_Claus]

Hydro sats push the energy sat limits out indirectly: by doubling the potential size of the base, and with the Vats realizing that potential very quickly, they in turn double the number of energy sats that the base can utilize.

Next time I play ACX I'll build a ton of 'em ...

What's that maximum base size again? Was it 127 or 255?

[Cosmic]

I like the combo Hydro Sat + Cloning Vats, my favourite one! It helps very much to develop new bases too.

If I´m not wrong, the base limit is 255 (but you have to apply the last patch, otherwise it is 127 or something around that)