Empire of the Punished?

[Walt]

A post in the off-topic forum brought this idea to mind: someone mentioned he had no use for the cure for cancer b/c he ran a fundamentalist regime. Nice joke. The SMAC equivalent, at least regarding lack of happiness/sadness, would be punishment spheres.

So: anyone ever try a game with Punishment Spheres in /every/ base? Or at least with Punishment Spheres as the preferred method of drone control?

Inquiring minds want to know. I think, for kicks, I'll give this a whirl and see what happens... Probably as Yang... *grin*

Walt

[Skanderbeg]

As I have to confess, I am a real plague to my enemies, but I care for my own people and keep them happy with recreation commons and holotheathers
I have played SMAC for a very long time and a huge number of games, but I have NEVER build a single punishment sphere, no genejack factory, and I can remember only one single nerve stapling
But in my current game with me playing the Hive , just a few turns ago,
guess what happend: The Peoples Liberation Army of the good Chairman conquered my enemies size 10 base with the Merchant's Exchange in it
And what happend: This ME bases produces a lot of energy, but every single energy, and because of this every single research point, is lost to inefficiency!
But Yang would not be Yang, if he hadn't the appropriate solution for it
I will build a punishment sphere in the ME base!
So I can turn all the doctors to workers and let them harvest me minerals and more energy, and perhaps some will not be lost due to inefficiency

[Fitz]

Or you could relocate your headquarters to that base.

[knowhow2]

in the beginning when I was just a kid.... hehe, I used Punishmentsphere a lot and I actually think I had one game with all my bases with it. No need to say that I didn't win that one with AtT.

[Blake]

I think basically the other forms of drone control are more appealing than the PS, it is hard to justify building a PS and losing 50% of your labs, especially if you have the HGP.

I've toyed a little with using a PS base under FM, it's actually nice, I like to focus on about 10-15 well developed bases, this means that effic is not an issue, I would lose masses of cash by running Green (often 30%-50% of net profit). Instead I build a PS in one of my less developed bases and home all my troops there (clean or not). This base gets turned into a cash centre too (ie minimal lab enhancers), which makes me feel a little better about losing the 50% labs. Eventually when I literally have more income than I can spend I switch to green, crank labs and trash any PS's I've built (one or possibly 2 at most).

A very effective anti-drone/quick cash tatic I've found is in the early game (non-PK, Drone, Gaian, Angel) is to build my core of a dozen bases or so, FM is a great booster, but normally you need to wait for Rec Commons/HGP. Instead I nerve staple EVERY base, _then_ switch to FM. Avoiding the "can't staple under negative police" penalty. Thus I get 10 years of free market income with none of the drone worries, and this cash comes a good deal earlier than if you had waited for rec commons. If you havn't got your rec commons up by the end of 10 years switch to simple and get stapling again, switch back to FM and enjoy another 10 years of cashfull bliss.

At this stage drones start building immunity so get those rec commons built. You lose out on all commerce income until the end of time, but the boost to your economy will mean you should be so powefull that you wont be able to get any allies anyway. I don't always use this strategy, but when I have it results in a huge turn advantage. When you figure in rec commons upkeep for 10 bases for 20 years, and probably about 5 doctors turned into forest workers (netting 5 resource per turn) for 15 turns, your talking about 500 free FoP's, and very early in the game. The other great thing is you can build as many bases as you like, keep them at size 1 or 2 then do the mass staple+FM trick. Build rec commons in every base with the income, 20 years later you'll come out a lot better off.

Another strategy worth trying on very wet maps (or jungle) would be to staple bases then pop-boom it up to an extreme size, not sure what a huge base with no real resource production would be good for, prehaps winning a vote, or turned into specialists & starving.

[Ned]

Hey Blake, Good idea (nerve stapling) on how to run FM early without Rec. Commons or other methods of drone reduction. However, I must disagree with you on FM later in the game. You can run Green + Wealth + GA to get to +2 economy with the same or better income potential as FM. See the separate thread on this topic. Thus Punishment Spheres should never be necessary to enjoy high incomes, a +2 economy and wage aggressive wars at the same time. Ned

[xeno7667]

Who cares about research? Miriam running fundy...
So she is a punishment sphere lover

[Earwicker]

I recently built a punishment sphere just to hear the quote and witness the effect. My curiosity thus satisfied, I sold it -- the idea of spheres and genejacks make me a little uneasy. (say it again: it's only a game . . .)

[Skanderbeg]

quote: Originally posted by Fitz on 04-04-2001 01:17 PM Or you could relocate your headquarters to that base.

No good idea to change the headquater. My actual headquarter was equipped with all science enhancements, the supercollider and the theory of everything.
And me (Yang) was thinking the inhabitants of the conquered base could need a little morale enhancement

Addition: This strategy had worked. The ME base is now producing a few energy, which means also with reduction of 50% a few research points.
I call it "Research by Punishment", hehe
[This message has been edited by Skanderbeg (edited April 09, 2001).]

[Clear Skies]

I rarely use Punishment Spheres, and if I do it's as a last resort.
I had a game recently where I was playing as the ubiquitous Aki Zeta-5, and for some reason I chose a research path which gave me the Cloning Vats but with the Telepathic Matrix further out of reach than it should've been. Hellooooo drones galore. I had the VW, so Network Nodes did their brilliant double duty, but even with Recreation Commons, Network Nodes and all the other Psych-boosting facilities I could build at the time I still had drone riots in two bases. I wasn't about to go Empathising, as it would've meant losing too many nutrients, so I built two Punishment Spheres.
Well, they kept my bases well subdued, but next thing I know I've discovered the Will to Power and built whichever of the SPs it is that eliminates the downside. So I start running that. Next thing I know, all my police abilities have been doubled, so all I needed to do was build some clean scout patrols in the problem bases and the problem evaporated, so I sold off the spheres.
That's my only brush with the Spheres. The concept really scares me.

[It'sLikeThat]

quote: Originally posted by SMAC Fanatic on 04-07-2001 03:45 PM I rarely use Punishment Spheres, and if I do it's as a last resort. I had a game recently where I was playing as the ubiquitous Aki Zeta-5, and for some reason I chose a research path which gave me the Cloning Vats but with the Telepathic Matrix further out of reach than it should've been. Hellooooo drones galore. I had the VW, so Network Nodes did their brilliant double duty, but even with Recreation Commons, Network Nodes and all the other Psych-boosting facilities I could build at the time I still had drone riots in two bases. I wasn't about to go Empathising, as it would've meant losing too many nutrients, so I built two Punishment Spheres. ....

Try setting psyche up to 20%. There shouldn't be any problem with Aki, since she doesn't have any drone probs. and turn some of your workers into empaths or trancendi. You won't regret it once you see the +2econ from GA. That alone practically perpetuates the GA, since there's more cash, hence more routed to psyche allocation.

[Rift]

I did a little experiment awhile back, and it consisted of building a Punishment Sphere in every single one of my bases. So after completing this little project, I went and checked on on laboratory status, and compared it with the other factions...turned out I was competing for last with Miriam