really really weird

[Ned]

Fitz, I hear you on the design workshop. Taking total control has a lot of advantages and actually reduces the PIA micromanagement problem of fight the autodesigner.

I too see a reduced number of unit types. However, in recent games I have created a number of unit configurations of various costs. In this way, I can usually find a unit a particular base can build in just one or two turns without too many wasted minerals. I started doing this with crawlers after I abandoned the crawler upgrade trick, but have generally extended it to include all units.

Ned

[KrazyHorse]

I really don't play very much SMAC. What's the crawler upgrade trick?

[Ned]

KH, A crawler can be cashed for its full mineral value in building an SP or prototype. This is a holdover from CIV and the use of caravans for the same purpose. When building an SP, the AI will commonly have several adjacent bases build standard-configuration crawlers, which despite their reduced mineral costs for the AI, are cashed at around 33 minerals per crawler at the SP. The game designers assumed that the human player would do the same.

Now for the trick.

If you try to rush-build an SP, you will find that it costs 4 ec per mineral, double a normal facility's costs. However, it generally costs less than 2 ec to upgrade a crawler to a more expensive configuration. You may then cash that crawler for its full mineral value.

Effectively, this has lowered your rush build ec costs by 50%. It also permits virtually every SP to be built in the turn after you get the tech by building the SP in a base where you have just upgraded a sufficient number of crawlers to pay for the SP.

The SMAC AI already has been defanged vis-a-vis the CIV AI by a rule that it must wait one turn after it has a sufficient number of minerals to build an SP before it is actually built. During this hiatus, the human player is warned that the AI is close. The human can then rush build the SP.

So, as it is, the AI is severly handicapped in any SP race. But this crawler upgrade trick is the real coup de grace. The AI realy has no chance at all to get SPs if the human player has the necessary tech and at least one turn to build it.

So many SP players have voluntarily abandoned the technique. In MP games, it is one of the things that should be agreed upon before the game starts.

[KrazyHorse]

Ahhh...I'd never thought of using upgrades that way. Very clever.