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(Note: The following is some sample calculations that may or may not be accurate. To the best of my knowledge, the following is adequate proof that crawlers rule. If there's something major I missed, please kindly point it out 
! Also, I do not pretend to be an expert on this topic. This is just my reasoning, and I'd love to hear constructive comments)
LOL, 4 different views within 15 minutes of each other, and within 45 minutes of the question!
This place is jumping...
Yes, in the mid/late game, an energy "focus" (as Vel calls it) is very important at your SSC (already defined) with (hopefully) Merchant Exchange, Supercollider, and Thoery of Everything. Even if you don't want to run Free Market, run Wealth and put Psych at 20-30%. With all your energy, this should be plenty to Golden Age at least your SSC, giving you the extra +1 energy (spending 20% of the energy on Psych to get a 25% increase in energy - from 4 to 5 for tidal harnesses, which I find much easier to manage than energy parks). This Golden Age makes it easy to pull off a population boom at the base as well, even if you're Yang/Morgan (although if you're Morgan, you might be running Free Market anyway, and then you don't need the Golden Age...if you go the other way and run Green, you can't pop-boom until Future Societies, period).
Early on, however, a Nutrient/Mineral focus is extremely productive. If you can crawl a lot of condensors, you can easily pop-boom up to size 14 (16 with Ascetic Virtues). 14 only takes 28 food, and if you have just 9 of the workers on forests (assume 5 as Engineers/Librarians/Technitions - if you have psych at just 10-20%, you can probably get away without Doctors/Empaths). Pre-tree farm even, you'll only need to crawl 4 condensers (condensers aren't even held back by Nutrient Restrictions, ever!). Then, you'll have 20 Minerals, at least 12 Energy (say only 8, taking into account inefficiency - I don't know the exact way it works, besides it depends on distance from your Headquarters - but 33% inefficiency seems reasonable enough for Democracy/Planned), 1 or 2 of those going to Psych. Then, 6 go to Labs/Economy. Then, you've got 5 specialists - that's at least 15 more points, times any lab/energy enhancing facilities, and you can easily get to around 45 (I think) more from that, for a total of 51. That's not bad (considering how I "assumed" you don't have any rivers/bonus resources nearby), and you can place bases very close together, as only 14 of the 20 squares are used (including crawlers).
This bonus is incredible once you get Engineers (I like to beeline to Fusion after getting Planetary Economics, and probe Synthetic Fossile Fuels/Air Power from Yang/Miriam), as instead of getting 45 from specialists, you get 25 raw, or at least 70 after adding facilities. Now that's getting nice.
After tree farms/hybrid forests, everything's just wonderful. Get the Ascetic Virtues!! OK, now back to the analysis. If you want to go even more specialist, you can have 2 of those 5 crawlers (assuming you built at least *1* more!) crawl Condensers, and the rest crawl mines. Now, you have 7 out of your 16 (you did get the Ascetic Virtues, right?) workers on hybrid forests. You'll have exactly 32 nutrients this way, and you'll have 24 minerals (by now, you should have had your first pop (be sure to get it before building lots of tree farms!), so you should be able to produce quite a few more minerals) and 14 energy (do what you want with it - you probably don't need much in psych). That leaves 9 Specialists. Pre-Fusion, that's 27 raw, or about 81 with facilities. Post-Fusion, that's 45 raw, and a lot modified with facilities! I would estimate about 130 or so (and a lot more if you build Fusion Labs!!)...that's not bad at all! Now you're using even less of the squares, with much more output!
Once you get Engineers, you might want to Golden Age for the +1 energy each square on Wealth. Make one of the specialists a worker (so you have 8 talents), and jack psych up as much as you want (100% isn't too much, as you're still getting about 50 labs and 50 economy each base from the Engineers). If you have Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests, Hologram Theaters (or Virtual World + Network Nodes), and Research Hospitals, you should be Golden Aging at most (if not all) bases. Once they're all getting 3 Energy per forest instead of 2, you can lower psych a bit - see how low you can go while maintaining all 8 talents.
Now consider no crawlers.
Pre-tree farm, you have maybe a Rainy-Rolling Farm/Solar Collector for 3/1/2 and the rest forest. You can get to a grand total of (dum dee dah!) size 4 without any nutrient bonuses/monoliths if you work the rest forests. So, you have 8 nutrients, 7 minerals, and 7 energy, for a grand total of 10 or so labs and 10 or so economy. Much worse than the 25/25 you had going for you with crawlers, not to mention that you're getting 1/3 the minerals this way.
Now consider that you have the same hybrid forest, except say that 12 out of the 16 are working. The rest as Engineers are getting you some 20 raw points of energy (50-60 modified). You're getting a few more minerals (26) and some spare food (+7). You're Golden Aging at 20% Psych (I'm being generous here), so you're getting 36 raw energy. Minus some inefficiency (let's use the same 33% from ealier), that's 24 raw. 20% Psych brings it down to about 19. That's another 50-60 raw, for a little less than the crawler method.
So you're saying that in the end it evens out? Well, for one thing, I've been harsh (I think) on my Crawler estimates and easy on my non-crawler estimates. And then there's TURN ADVANTAGE. The crawlers bases can get up to size 14 a good 10 years before Tree Farms. Plus 10 years to get Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests (generous) means that you're enjoying an extra 15 energy credits per turn and 15 labs per turn for 20 turns. Then there's the matter of having about 3 times as many minerals, making facilities and SP's easier to build, thus increasing your labs and energy even more. This turn advantage builds on itself - you get Hybrid Forests faster, can build them faster, get to Fusion faster, reap the benefits of Engineers faster....and so on and so on....
Um...that was a long essay, I didn't mean to write that much...!
EDIT: Hi knowhow2 - my "day came" with Zak on a tech stag/double blind game with 100+ crawlers - breakthroughs every 5 years at MY2200, all the latest (missed some early ones) SP's!
Z
! Also, I do not pretend to be an expert on this topic. This is just my reasoning, and I'd love to hear constructive comments)LOL, 4 different views within 15 minutes of each other, and within 45 minutes of the question
!This place is jumping...
Yes, in the mid/late game, an energy "focus" (as Vel calls it) is very important at your SSC (already defined) with (hopefully) Merchant Exchange, Supercollider, and Thoery of Everything. Even if you don't want to run Free Market, run Wealth and put Psych at 20-30%. With all your energy, this should be plenty to Golden Age at least your SSC, giving you the extra +1 energy (spending 20% of the energy on Psych to get a 25% increase in energy - from 4 to 5 for tidal harnesses, which I find much easier to manage than energy parks). This Golden Age makes it easy to pull off a population boom at the base as well, even if you're Yang/Morgan (although if you're Morgan, you might be running Free Market anyway, and then you don't need the Golden Age...if you go the other way and run Green, you can't pop-boom until Future Societies, period).
Early on, however, a Nutrient/Mineral focus is extremely productive. If you can crawl a lot of condensors, you can easily pop-boom up to size 14 (16 with Ascetic Virtues). 14 only takes 28 food, and if you have just 9 of the workers on forests (assume 5 as Engineers/Librarians/Technitions - if you have psych at just 10-20%, you can probably get away without Doctors/Empaths). Pre-tree farm even, you'll only need to crawl 4 condensers (condensers aren't even held back by Nutrient Restrictions, ever!). Then, you'll have 20 Minerals, at least 12 Energy (say only 8, taking into account inefficiency - I don't know the exact way it works, besides it depends on distance from your Headquarters - but 33% inefficiency seems reasonable enough for Democracy/Planned), 1 or 2 of those going to Psych. Then, 6 go to Labs/Economy. Then, you've got 5 specialists - that's at least 15 more points, times any lab/energy enhancing facilities, and you can easily get to around 45 (I think) more from that, for a total of 51. That's not bad (considering how I "assumed" you don't have any rivers/bonus resources nearby), and you can place bases very close together, as only 14 of the 20 squares are used (including crawlers).
This bonus is incredible once you get Engineers (I like to beeline to Fusion after getting Planetary Economics, and probe Synthetic Fossile Fuels/Air Power from Yang/Miriam), as instead of getting 45 from specialists, you get 25 raw, or at least 70 after adding facilities. Now that's getting nice
.After tree farms/hybrid forests, everything's just wonderful. Get the Ascetic Virtues!! OK, now back to the analysis
. If you want to go even more specialist, you can have 2 of those 5 crawlers (assuming you built at least *1* more!) crawl Condensers, and the rest crawl mines. Now, you have 7 out of your 16 (you did get the Ascetic Virtues, right?) workers on hybrid forests. You'll have exactly 32 nutrients this way, and you'll have 24 minerals (by now, you should have had your first pop (be sure to get it before building lots of tree farms!), so you should be able to produce quite a few more minerals) and 14 energy (do what you want with it - you probably don't need much in psych). That leaves 9 Specialists. Pre-Fusion, that's 27 raw, or about 81 with facilities. Post-Fusion, that's 45 raw, and a lot modified with facilities! I would estimate about 130 or so (and a lot more if you build Fusion Labs!!)...that's not bad at all! Now you're using even less of the squares, with much more output!Once you get Engineers, you might want to Golden Age for the +1 energy each square on Wealth. Make one of the specialists a worker (so you have 8 talents), and jack psych up as much as you want (100% isn't too much, as you're still getting about 50 labs and 50 economy each base from the Engineers). If you have Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests, Hologram Theaters (or Virtual World + Network Nodes), and Research Hospitals, you should be Golden Aging at most (if not all) bases. Once they're all getting 3 Energy per forest instead of 2, you can lower psych a bit - see how low you can go while maintaining all 8 talents.
Now consider no crawlers.
Pre-tree farm, you have maybe a Rainy-Rolling Farm/Solar Collector for 3/1/2 and the rest forest. You can get to a grand total of (dum dee dah!) size 4 without any nutrient bonuses/monoliths if you work the rest forests. So, you have 8 nutrients, 7 minerals, and 7 energy, for a grand total of 10 or so labs and 10 or so economy. Much worse than the 25/25 you had going for you with crawlers, not to mention that you're getting 1/3 the minerals this way.
Now consider that you have the same hybrid forest, except say that 12 out of the 16 are working. The rest as Engineers are getting you some 20 raw points of energy (50-60 modified). You're getting a few more minerals (26) and some spare food (+7). You're Golden Aging at 20% Psych (I'm being generous here
), so you're getting 36 raw energy. Minus some inefficiency (let's use the same 33% from ealier), that's 24 raw. 20% Psych brings it down to about 19. That's another 50-60 raw, for a little less than the crawler method.So you're saying that in the end it evens out? Well, for one thing, I've been harsh (I think) on my Crawler estimates and easy on my non-crawler estimates. And then there's TURN ADVANTAGE. The crawlers bases can get up to size 14 a good 10 years before Tree Farms. Plus 10 years to get Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests (generous) means that you're enjoying an extra 15 energy credits per turn and 15 labs per turn for 20 turns. Then there's the matter of having about 3 times as many minerals, making facilities and SP's easier to build, thus increasing your labs and energy even more. This turn advantage builds on itself - you get Hybrid Forests faster, can build them faster, get to Fusion faster, reap the benefits of Engineers faster....and so on and so on....
Um...that was a long essay, I didn't mean to write that much...!
EDIT: Hi knowhow2
- my "day came" with Zak on a tech stag/double blind game with 100+ crawlers - breakthroughs every 5 years at MY2200, all the latest (missed some early ones) SP's!Z
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