Exploitation of Resource Bonus Tiles

[Scipio Centaurus]

Great back and forth guys. Even kept it civil.

Thanks for the good info. I am digesting it slowly, but in fact, I don't think I'm too far off the 'norm' in my terraforming tactics. I'm always looking for new ideas.

- Scipio

[yavoon]

ur riding pretty high on ur animated horse mari, careful lest u fall off it.


=]

[johndmuller]

Blake, in the No Crawler game the CEO that is usurping your name said this:

Because we have sky labs all future terraforming will be either boreholes or forest

Not that its such a bad policy, but since we are nit picking here, don't you do better with at least some Condensors?

--First, in the extreme, with a nut-special farm enricher condensor, don't you get about 9 or 10 nuts (I'm not sure how the jungle figures in here)? - plus maybe a min and/or energy if your on a rolling/river; That's at least as many, if not more FOPS than you can get with a forested nut-special.

--Second, there is some limit to your population without crawlers since you can get no more than 1 nut per pop from orbit (by my calc you max out at pop=59 if you have 20 tiles producing 3 nuts each plus sats). It seems that your pop could be twice as high with farm/enricher/condensors. Extra specialists = extra econ and labs out the wazoo.

--I think that the more Boreholes you have, the more Condensors not only help you out, but may even become necessary just to feed the rest of the pops. Each Borehole costs you several specialists and cuts so cuts down on your max population.

--If you really needed the extra mins from the forests, you could instead have some mining sats - even if they got chronically zapped by random events, with the extra population, you would only have to average one or two live sats to equal the mins you would have gotten from the forests.

Of course, this is operating on a theoretical plane, especially compared to MP expectations, but Condensors offer other benefits such as faster pop growth (which is expeciallyl relevant with SMAC/Morgan's problem w/r pop booming).

[Avenoct]

I want to see an MP game between Blake and MariOne , though the advantage goes to MariOne for the MP experience. I love it when the heavyweights come out to play, and I do think of you two as heavyweights. Great discussion. Every time I think I have 'the perfect strategy' for Smac I realize there are many ways to skin the worm....

And hey, MariOne, I'd wanted to ask you about your 'mod' opinions before, and now have them. Of course I disagree fundamentally (being the guy who spawned Aldebaran), in that any enhancement to the game is a strategy in and of itself. But I do agree that once you travel down that road it's harder to discuss your experience with the larger community.

I crawler the heck out of forests by the way, which may seem disturbing Blake, but it's darned effective.

I've not really understood why you use so few crawlers Scipio? I attempt to max out at 16-18 minerals/base, at every base until a few pops which usually occur around Tree Farms (wow, how convenient!), then it's a process of moving those crawlers from minerals (forest) to the energy parks to allow more base squares for burgeoning populations. But hey, that's just me.

-Smack

[vitamin j]

I was going to suggest the same thing... I don't have much MP experience - practically none at this point, though I am in a couple games. I volunteer as the cannon-fodder! What do you say guys? MariOne, Blake, myself, and... Who else? Somebody could mod/chmn. Well, just a suggestion. I'll sit down now.

vitamin j

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Avenoct
I've not really understood why you use so few crawlers Scipio?

In my latest game I am actually checking bases frequently to see when new forest tiles become available, and when they do I'm optimizing by adding an additional crawler. Since I also terraform coastal tiles, I get to shift workers offshore and add even more crawlers now. The biggest problem for me is the constant foolin' around in the base displays is much more effort than I care to really devote to the game. You'll never see me breakin' any world records for transcend victory in fewest game years, nor do I really care...

I myself wonder why you never seem to get around to forming the adjacent ocean tiles near bases? That seems vital to me, especially sans crawlers.

I attempt to max out at 16-18 minerals/base, at every base until a few pops which usually occur around Tree Farms (wow, how convenient!), then it's a process of moving those crawlers from minerals (forest) to the energy parks to allow more base squares for burgeoning populations. But hey, that's just me.

See what happens to that schedule when you play using blind research!

- Scipio

[MariOne]

I'm a heavyweight only in the sense that I weigh just above 100kg for 6"...
In actual gaming terms, I don't dare to rate myself more than a very skilled loser...

I have to decline starting more pbems alas, I alread had to bow out from defending ACOL in the Forum Wars Googlie organised...
I drop by here from time to time, and it's not to be excluded that in a few months I might refer to Apolyton multiplaying to diversify my experience. (my first game will have to be against Misotu, if she'll still be around)


A couple of info to provide for jdm.

"--First, in the extreme, with a nut-special farm enricher condensor, don't you get about 9 or 10 nuts (I'm not sure how the jungle figures in here)?"

rainy+Nut+Farm = 5
+Enricher = 7 (5*1.5 = 5+2.5 = 7.5)
+Condenser = 10 (7*1.5 = 7+3.5 = 10.5)

Jungle+rainy+Nut+Farm = 6
+Enricher = 9 (6*1.5 = 6+3 = 9)
+Condenser = 13 (9*1.5 = 9+4.5 = 13.5)

(you would actually reverse the order in which you apply Enrichers and Condensers, because usually EcoEng comes way before AdvEcoEng. Their effect on the tile where you build them it's tho the same, thus you can swap them in the computation)


"--Second, there is some limit to your population without crawlers since you can get no more than 1 nut per pop from orbit (by my calc you max out at pop=59 if you have 20 tiles producing 3 nuts each plus sats). It seems that your pop could be twice as high with farm/enricher/condensors."

I saw many there calc the pop supported with satellite in the procedural way, that is adding the extra pop allowed by adding the satellites and reiterating.
To determine the population that can be supported in stable conditions, it's much simpler.

A citizen eats 2 foods.
A citizen is able to bring down 1 food from a satellite.
This means that when you have enough available food satellites (and aerospace requirements met in the base of course), you only need to bring in 1 nutrient from the surface to sustain a citizen, he will bring the second food he needs down from the skies on his own.

So, if in a base you can have 20 forest tiles plus the recycled basetile, you can in theory collect 21*3 = 63 nutrients from the ground (assuming Hybrid Forest, no NutBonus, all workers, no specialist and no crawler for the base).
This allows you to sustain a 63 size base.
Nuts needed 63*2 =126
Nuts collected 63
Nuts from satellites 63.

Of course this all is pretty hard to apply in practice.
Because there is a lot to be played before you can get to Orbital. The game can be pretty much decided when you get there.
When you get there, if you spend your time just to build satellites you must be sure that someone is not coming at you...
And anyway, there is a looong time before you also get to STS.
So, even if you managed to launch 63 (!) satellites, to actually get all that populatpon you must be force booming like crazy, and also here you should ensure to be pretty undisturbed to produce the ~50 colony pods to force a *single* base to size 63.

Once you get to STS, first you'd better sceure the Elevator to yourself or to an ally. Then if you're not few turns away from transcendence at that point, that probably means you're in a hi-tech war and you have little time for such things...

Just for the records, a rainy+farm+enricher+condenser tile yields 6 food. Not considering bonuses, and as the basetile remains at 3 anyway, you can have 20*6+3=123 collected nutrients, thus 123-sized bases.
(LOL, even with constant pop booming, without adding pods in the bases and having built HabDomes in all your bases, that would require >100 turns of booming! You'd really have to *avoid* victory, to let all that time pass after STS!!!)

[Blake]

I guess I should explain my logic behind limited Condensors once you get Orbitals.

***note*** this is very particular to the NCC-02 succession game, in which we are not using crawlers, we are Morgan, have the AV, plenty of former power, have orbitals, will have Adv.Eco.Eng very soon.

Essentially, in NNC-02 we have a lot more land than we will have workers, for a long time (only Miriams peninsula will come close to being overcrowded). Once a base gets to size 13 it stays there. At this stage any excess nuts at size 13 are useless...
With all the sky hydro labs I threw up (then a few more, to bring them up to 13) a base only needs 13 nuts, 3 is supplied by the base square. That leaves 10 to be harvested.
Which can be supplied by 4 forest tiles (with a HF)
Or 3 forest tiles and a nut bonus.
Or two Farm+Enricher+Condensor
Or One(!) Nut+Farm+Condensor+Enricher.

Each base has exactly 3 tiles to work when ICS'ing. And we are nowhere near that density.

What exactly do we plan to do with the REST of the land? The first thing is to drill boreholes at near maximum density. Why? A borehole produces 6-6. In fact a borehole can be considered as a specialist which produces 6 minerals, 6 energy (that is way better than 5 energy). But with the additional requirments of 1 land tile, and 1 drone.
So, until we run out of boreholes no specialists should be assigned. (except for drone control).

Next, it comes to the choice of condensors, or forests. Well, we only need two(!) condensors to feed the entire base, and most bases already have two, so just enrich them. Building more would ONLY give an advantage while the bases are still growing, but while growing they wouldn't give any REAL resources, unlike the forest which atleast gives some.

And ofcourse, forests are WAY cheaper to terraform.

So anyway, there is very little reason to have more than 2 condensors per base. Once a base has 2, the best thing to do is get it working more boreholes, and while it is still growing any population working neither should be put to work on a forest, to keep the growth&production up.

Once a base reaches size 13 it's workers should be optimised... until there is a minimum of growth. Firstly, every borehole gets a worker. For arguments sake we'll say it gets 3 boreholes, leaving 10 population.
Then you can either go for 4 forests + 6 specialists, or 2 condensors + 8 specialists, or a combination of the above.

A forest produces 2 minerals, 3 energy usable resources, this is about the same resource value as a typical specialist, all things considered, like facility multipliers, ineffeciency etc... so really, when you have the choice between a Condensor+Enricher&Engineer, or Forest, they are about equal. If the base is producing expensive units or SP's, forests are favourable. If the base is only usfull for it's money, specialists are favourable.

Combination of Specialists:
The best way (IMO) is using thinkers until drones are taken care of, then assigning the rest as Engineers.

In still-growing bases, use empaths in favour of thinkers, because the base is growing we want every available citizen out working the forests (or farms), thinkers&engineers dont help growth at all. If we could pop-boom then this wouldn't be an issue - just assign specialists until there is the two excess nuts needed for 'boom'.


Finally. When we get to habdomes our economic power will be tremendous, further optimisation would just be overkill, and a waste of time. Better to build the Space Elevator and just kill everyone else

And that my friends, answers why all future terraforming will be either boreholes or forest

[big_canuk]

Originally posted by Blake

Combination of Specialists:
The best way (IMO) is using thinkers until drones are taken care of, then assigning the rest as Engineers.

Well.... Yes and No.

From a strict # of FOP point of view, an empath plus an engineer, tops 2 thinkers, for the same 2 psych.

2 thinkers = 6 labs
1 eng + 1 empath = 2 labs + 5 econ.

Now, you also need to look at base facilities to optimize output. Bases with EB, TF, and HFs, get eng + empath.

Bases with NN, RH, get thinkers. SCC with SC and ToE get thinkers.

You can always tinker a bit with these on the turn you will get a breakthrough, to make sure you get it and don't just miss, loosing a lot of rps, due to no carryforward from the base that makes the discovery.

I will also assign either librarians, or techies, prior to MMI, based on whether the base is a energy, or labs facilities base. Even after MMI, I will sometimes use some techies if my psych requirements are met.

It is much more efficient leaving SE at 50/50, and managing varying labs/ec requirements with speciallists. (OK, micromanagement PIA issues aside.)

[DilithiumDad]

Energy parks are occasionally seen in multiplayer, but they are usually a mistake. I just experienced an example in Builder-Momentum Team Challenge 2 (I'm the U of P builder). I built a lovely energy park on Sunny Mesa and was crawlering the energy back to my Merchant Exchange base 20 tiles away. I thought my park was safe because Colonel Buster would have to get past my partner Chairman Leahcim's forces to reach the mesa. Well, of course, the energy park was just too good a target and for the cost of two choppers Colonel Buster wiped out my echelon mirror and all my crawlers and sent two bases into severe drone riots for lack of psych energy, as well considerably slowing my research. So energy parks are just too vulnerable in multiplayer!

[Scipio Centaurus]

Try placing some airbases [that's right, I said airbases!] every 4th tile around the perimeter of your energy park and place a tactical chopper [more than 1 if possible] in each airbase on alert [SHIFT+L]. The choppers will scramble to intercept incoming airborne units that get too close to the airbases. Of course it is possible that these air defenders could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, but I know of no reliable defense against numbers.

Another, cheaper [as in possibly cheating] defense is a solid ring of mindworms - stacked several high if you can afford it. For some bizzare reason, no airborne unit can pass over top of a ground unit, so a solid wall of MWs requires an attacker to commit time and forces to forcing a breakthrough at some point along the MW wall. A stack of MWs are tough defenders, unless you hit 'em with expensive empath units.

- Scipio

[Avenoct]

I myself wonder why you never seem to get around to forming the adjacent ocean tiles near bases? That seems vital to me, especially sans crawlers.

O.k. sans crawlers, I'd have to agree to some extent..maybe. But I don't ordinarily EVER terraform the ocean if I can help it. The reasons:

1. Sea Formers are too expensive!

2. Sea Formers are harder to protect, especially in FM.

3. Sea Forming is, including the general cost of sea-formers and their escorts, about 1.5 times the cost per FOP of land forming. (I'm making an educated guess..havn't done the maths). This is doubly true of Sea-crawlers.

4. I prefer to raise the land of my continent to create a buffer against the ravages of marines, rising oceans, etc. Sea-forming is wiped out by this. I can borehole my coastline, then raise the whole line and consider solar as inner-rings get to high altitudes. With condensers, boreholes, and forest, natural raininess isn't an issue (unlike farm-solar), so raise-land is somewhat of an advantage if solar is a consideration (small energy-parks, what-haveyou).

-Smack

[Blake]

SMAC:
Kelp+tidal = 3-0-3 (for 8-12 former turns)
Hybrid forest = 3-2-2 (4 former turns, + raise land (about 1-3 turns/tile)
Quite enuff said.

SMAX:
Kelp+Tidal = 4-0-4
Which is looking quite a bit better...


In SMAC what I usually do is only plant kelp (and the odd tidal, on energy resources) to improve growth before TFs/HFs, kelp expands by itself anyway(clearing sea fungus) then when I raise land all the kelp gets destroyed and forest is planted.

In SMAX I tend to take the Aquafarm + Thermocline option, because 4-0-4 is better than forest 3-2-2.

[knowhow2]

yup

[Drone Riot]

never put boreholes in city radius.. this causes eco damage.
always put boreholes outside citys and crawl them.
Unless of course you like mind worm battles.