Bases: Close Together Or Far Apart?

[Sprayber]

I've been playing for almost two years now. Early I placed my bases far apart but now I notice that I have started packing them in closer together. So much so that I use the base grid thing a lot. Maybe becuase I'm playing Yang more often these days, but I really like having a lot of territory. I also find myself wanting to control vital chock points and such. So what do you think..

What have you guys found is the best way to place your bases. Vel, if you can tear yourself away from the OT for a few minutes, give me your two cents.

[vitamin j]

I've been thinking about this lately, too. I started out with a 3-space layout and I think it works well. I imagine the math FOP people will say that's the only way to go. But I've had good success with a 4-space layout as well, and in some ways I think it's better.

You claim more territory with fewer bases.
It takes longer to start racking up bureaucracy drones.
You have more flexibility in assigning workers and crawlers, since you're not so crowded.
Eco-damage can be spread out more, so two bases don't have to calculate the same borehole, for example.
If you have a high pop base, and you're going for golden age, you have to work at least half your people. If you don't have enough squares in your base radius, you may not be able to. (I know, I know, you'll just have to "settle" for specialists, but still...)
In the event of nuclear attack, or asteroid strike (ouch!), you'll lose less.
It looks cooler!

I know the 3(and 2)-spacers have most of the advantages, especially early on, but I think spreading out more can work as well.

This has been a public service announcement from vitamin j and your friendly neighborhood GREENS!

[WhiteElephants]

I used to be a rigid 3 spaces no more, no less, kind of guy, but lately I've loosened up a bit. If you intend to pop boom to larger sized bases I would recommend the looser approach, meaning sometimes four squares, but most often 3 on a diagnol if you can work them in.

The rigid three square method works just fine up until you boom past 7. I've found the problem isn't with finding nutrients to support the base, although this has happend, but with there being enough square to take minerals from. Once you've put down a tree farm and a hybrid you can really start pulling in some minerals, but the problem arises that there are no squares left to pull minerals from.

I by no means think that using specialists is any form of "settling" (I can't tell if Vitamin J was joking). I just find that having a healthy amount of minerals coming in really helps put up some of those more expensive projects and facilities -- off hand namely Hybrid Forests and Nanohospitals -- and some of the more expensive unit combinations -- super clean plasma fusion terraformers comes to mind.

Anyhow, not to say minerals are more important than energy. I just find a balance between the two an optimal strategy.

[yavoon]

I tend to go close together, I don't know 3 squares, but somewhere between 2 and 5. if I think I'm just cruising along by my lonesome. the problem comes when yer next to ppl, and ur not a warmonger, u need some territory to do yer thang w/. sometimes I'll go for huge tracts of land, and eventually backfill, or just race to choke points or valuable resource spots. it don't matter how minorly efficient u r, if ur opponent got the prime resource spots. course u could always go real close together and buildup a quick army to take him out. if u hate the idea of spreading out.

[Black Sunrise]

I stuff in as many bases as I can, as close as I can.

Indra

[DrSpike]

I think it depends on whether your expansion strategy is along ICS or perfectionist lines. 2-5 squares are all justifiable, as long as your long-term strategy is consistent with the method of expansion. 2 is often appropriate for ICS'ers, and 5 for perfectionist-aholilcs. From a practical viewpoint I prefer having at least one base 3 squares away for ease of reinforcement, but I don't like having all bases 3 apart for reasons mentioned in posts above. If 2 bases are 3 squares apart directly on the x-axis the overlap is only two squares, and placing another base 4 squares away on the y-axis (best is 3 directly vertically, one diagonally) with its own base(s) 3 squares away is a nice compromise that can be aimed for.

[Sikander]

I used to play a perfectionist base approach (no overlapping squares) when I first started, but it took so long to get rid of the hab limits that I realized it just wasn't necessary. Next I tried ICS-ing ala David Byron's Borg strategy, which worked fine. Then I figured out the value of specialists, and worked up my hollow stategy, where you line up bases on a coastline every other or every third square, just enough for them to get 10 workable squares. Then I used the interior land for a crawler park. This worked very well, and I still use it when I am placed on a continent with the right shape and size.

Lately I have been experimenting with maximizing my land production (as has Blake who has posted a lot of worthwhile material here). My latest game I have used a base every two squares on the diagonal spacing. On the corners (NSEW) of each base go boreholes, and on the other sides of the base condensor / farms. Each interior base ends up with 2 boreholes (total 14 mins w/recycling tanks), and 5 condensor / farms for a total 23 nuts, enough for 12 population. I crawl the nut squares, so that I end up with 10 specialists. Energy production isn't bad, with each base producing 14 raw energy, and 30 energy from Librarian era specialists. The above settings assume no specials and 0 economy rating, which allows me to run a perpetual pop boom if I like. With only two workers per base I can build a lot of bases without having to worry about drones or drone control facilities. With the HGP and VW I don't have to do anything at all about drones in fact.

By the mid to late game these small bases really kick out the production. With soil enrichers my nut production climbs to 33, which is enough to support a size of 16, or 5 more specialists. that makes a total of 15 specialists (w/engineers a total of 30 labs and 45 econ each base not including the 14 raw energy). With satellites the production is huge. Max base size doubles to 33, and another 33 raw energy and 33 raw minerals come into play.

The main advantage of close spacing is Vel's turn advantage paradigm. It is so much quicker to get bases into production if they are close together. Packing bases and maximizing production also allows you to stay competitive even if you don't have much terrain to call your own, and of course you are in a much better position to defend yourself if you are attacked, as you will have a lot more build queues and units defending a smaller area. Finally you can terraform your area more quickly as each former needs to build fewer roads, remove less fungus etc., which means that your bases get into production more quickly, and formers from finished bases move out to the frontier and keep the expansion momentum rolling.

[yavoon]

in reference to the guy putting bases 2 apart. wut do u about early territory? do u play on maps where ur usually the solo guy on a continent? don't ppl encrooach on all your valuable resources. u can surely build lotsa bses early, but its not endless.

I think if I wnted to do that, I might backfill, cuz in lotsa games I'm fighting to gain as much territory, and therefore access to good resources as possible. but again, if u play solo on ur own continent in 80% of ur games, of if at most ther'es one other faction, then this isn't as big of a deal.

also how high do u go? do u go higher than most ppl cuz of ur packing? how bad are b. drones up there? I don't know formula, but over 30 I think it might get a lil wicked.

[Xian]

AS the hive i place bases far, FAR apart when im playing on large maps, and around middle-late game i "fill in the gaps"

small maps are a big problem for my style of play

[Sikander]

Originally posted by yavoon
in reference to the guy putting bases 2 apart. wut do u about early territory? do u play on maps where ur usually the solo guy on a continent? don't ppl encrooach on all your valuable resources. u can surely build lotsa bses early, but its not endless.

I think if I wnted to do that, I might backfill, cuz in lotsa games I'm fighting to gain as much territory, and therefore access to good resources as possible. but again, if u play solo on ur own continent in 80% of ur games, of if at most ther'es one other faction, then this isn't as big of a deal.

also how high do u go? do u go higher than most ppl cuz of ur packing? how bad are b. drones up there? I don't know formula, but over 30 I think it might get a lil wicked.

The only time it feels crowded is in the early game where I am crawling forests for minerals. Even so there is usually plenty of room on the periphery to plant forests for my crawlers, and once I have the WP and the HGP I can use those roads to build new bases. I usually wait until restrictions are lifted to really push my expansion beyond the bureacracy limit, when my base areas have sufficient productivity to relinquish their sprawled crawlers, which frees that area for expansion.

I play huge maps, so there is almost always plenty of room. I prefer a medium sized continent, as there is less chance of running into anyone else based there, and I can always raise land if I run out of room. I do backfill sometimes when I space 3 on the diagonal, then use those empty squares that that pattern leaves to place new bases. I use that one often when playing Lal.

As for drones, they really aren't too much of a problem. With only two workers I only need so much drone control in every base, and the HGP and VW seem to take care of most of my troubles fairly easily. Since I have 10+ specialists with which to snuff out the red guys it really isn't much of an issue, and by taking care of business on the local level I never have to waste a joule on psych. I don't like captured bases, and in most cases will turn the population into specialists, sell off the improvements and starve / build colony pods until the base is gone.

For defense this placement is really good. It is so jam-packed with bases and crawlers that even if I have neglected my defenses an AI attacker is really unlikely to make much headway. Plus every base is in reach of three others w/ infantry in one turn, and a lot more bases with probes and speeders. I use probes in the early game for defense, and just buy enemy attackers, which allows me to build the same stuff without deviating from my builder tech focus. By the time I get fusion and aircraft of course, no one can approach my area, as my copters patrol the approaches and my fighters take care of any intruders from the sky.

In my current game I have about 30 bases, and I'm adding about two a turn. I'm busy blowing away a massive Santiago who is on my continent (Huge Map of the Planet btw), so one of those is usually a captured base, and another I am building. I am pre-terraforming the new bases that I am building, which shows you how many superformers I have.

[yavoon]

oh u play on huge maps. thats all u needed to say holmes. not much fighting over territory on those things. but since u did write all that, u stay at 6, oh wait huge map so...12? bases until u get the tree farm tech? holy nutcrap. thats a longass time, I play on standard map, and I blow right by 12 before I even get gene splicing. well maybe thats not fair, I atleast goto 12, which is past standard beaurocracy limit.

[Scipio Centaurus]

I tried some new ideas in my most recent game - I haven't quite finished playing the game, but I expect to win by transcendance.

I ICSed [averaging 4 tiles from base to base] over my landmass. This is my usual expansion technique. Then after I had finished ICSing, I abandoned my interior bases by setting them on infinite rushed CP production with all workers converted to specialists. The resulting CPs went to pop-boom the smallest bases along the coastline [I didn't violate base size restrictions]. The end result was a tranposition from a straight ICS strategy into Sikander's 'hollow' strategy. As soon as the interior bases were cleared out, the formers went to work raising land for the interior energy park. If I had it to do over I would put less effort into building up those interior bases, but I did not come up with the idea to abandon them until many years into the game.

I also used the Great Wall defense, but this time instead of trying to wall off the entire landmass, I just put a wall of mindworms around the minimal land area of the energy park. Isn't it amazing how needljests, choppers, missiles and locusts can't get enough altitude to fly over those mindworm boils? I defended the exterior portions of the island with tactical aircraft, SAM rovers and marines.

I also made use of airbases for the first time. I put in an airbase every 3rd tile around the perimeter of the energy park and parked a shard tactical chooper in each airbase on sentry duty.

The energy park has never been touched in this game. Wasted my time putting res-3 armor on the crawlers.

- Scipio

[Blake]

I use a spacing wherby bases are 2 or 3 tiles apart, but never within the production radius of another base, often I use a base placment pattern as to maximise the density of boreholes, the simplist is thinking of the map as a chess board, only founding bases on the 'black' tiles. Then you have two choices of orientation for the boreholes on the 'white' tiles. With base grid on it is very easy to see where new bases should be founded to continue the black/white pattern.

Altough if territory is extremely limited I dont hesitate to pack in bases really close, because close packing is by far the best for military.

[NorthSwordsman]

I tend to pack them in as much as possible. I used to stay with a 4 square between rule, but found a good many squares going unused, forcing me to divert crawlers from a "Crawler Wall" defense just to be able to farm them.

You have more squares than you do workers until hab domes, anyhow... not to mention, you don't get the benefits those wonderful specialists bring. I had problems winning MP games because I didn't use the 2 square rule. After I adopted that, I tend to win more than I lose.

The blasted Hab Domes don't come until too late. By then, Hydro Labs take care of the problem when you use them in connection with Tree Farms and Hybrid TF's. Between those and condensors, there really isn't any reason to have more than 2 squares between bases, imho.

More cities, more drones, so what? If you play your game right, you get the VW or HGP and use specialists you get from all those worked spaces being used up... what drone problem? Even if you do have problems... there is more than one way to take care of that.

Test it for yourself in some MP's and compare it with other Mp's. You will find Vel's strat of Doctrineefense works better than most strats will.

Just my three cents (inflation. )

[DilithiumDad]

One key factor no one has mentioned is distance from HQ. I want my HQ to be as big as possible (especially The Hive) so it gets a little breathing room. It is also the first base to get recycling tanks, tree and hybrid forests and gets the most intensive terraforming for nutrients. The first ring of bases will be tightly packed, because they are founded early when I am pushing for turn advantage and because of ICS advantages. By the second or third ring of bases, they are spaced futher apart because I am being more perfectionistic about choosing base sites and less interested in base sites that need lots of fungus clearing, and I probably have the PTS and need to have a +2 nutrient square right off the bat. I am fussier about the location of my 20th base than my 2nd because each new base brings B-drones and loses much of its early energy production to inefficiency. Remember that energy falls off with distance from HQ, so a base in Uranium Flats 30 tiles from your HQ nets you less energy than a base in the Great Dunes 10 tiles from your HQ.

Other key factors are faction (non-pop-booming factions mandate closer spacing, whereas PK bases need elbow room), and map size (you can spread out more easily on a Huge map).