Does anybody ban themselves from crawlers in SP?

[MattyBoy]

I have just started to try this as a means of making the game more interesting.
Does anybody else use it?

[Wiglaf]

I NEVER use crawlers. Nasty little buggers, make the thing WAYY to easy after a while.

Don't get me wrong - in the beginning, they're fine. But after a while, in SP, they come too much of a bonus against the AI. In MP, though, different story.

[yavoon]

I use to, but I became weak. I really think crawlers add cool strategy to smac. and sicne I win w/ or w/o crawlers, and play casual challenge games all the time. I now either have a 1 crawler/base or 2 crawler/base rule.

[Basilisk]

I have never used crawlers... I don't know why. None of my friends use them either so it doesn't impact the MP games too much.
BTW, how do you actually use them? This is probably why I never use them as I am not sure how they work....

[Blake]

I really like crawlers, as a gameplay concept.
But I now forbid myself from using them, mainly because they disbalance virtually every aspect of the game.

As to how to use them - the best application for the casual crawlerer is to just put them on any tile which produces only one resource, the best examples being mines and condensors. The other use is cashing them in to hurry SP's and prototypes.

[aaglo]

Previously I used the crawlers only to speed up the construction of Secret Projects (and occasionally prototypes). Then I got some good advices for other uses of crawlers from this forum (Thanks guys, you've been a great help). And finally I won a OCC game (all the previous OCC's I played without crawling - it is next to impossible).

Sometimes I build an energy park, and mine all the leftover (not in city radius) rocky squares for crawling. It gives a great boost - In SP the boost is often too great, so I would like to "unlearn" the use of crawlers

[Fitz]

I limit myself to mines within the base resource radii. It gets you rolling in the beginning of the game. However, since I usually play agressive opponents and lots of fungus on transcend, and with blind research, it helps some. I'm not a master player who can do things like the One City Challenge.

Interestingly enough, if you are on Blind research and choose build as your priority, you get tree farms fast and crawlers slow. So I tend to do that to delay the advantage.

To use a crawler: Move the crawler to any square you want to get a single resourse from (nuts, mins or energy) and hit the O key. That pops up a menu that asks which of the three you want to crawl (and how much that square provides). Caveats: The square cannot be worked by a base worker, and only one crawler per square can crawl it. Obviously, if the square is not near a base, the first part is less important.

Examples: Base has a mine with a road on a rocky square. You can use a worker to get the four minerals, or put a crawler on it and get all 4 minerals (for the crawlers home base) plus put the worker on another square.

Base has a borehole, but when you move a worker onto it, growth becomes stagnant. Put a crawler on it and get 6 minerals or 6 energy for the crawlers home base.

A nutrient special is outside the resource radii of your bases by one square. You have terraformed a condensor and farm on it. The square is rainy and rolling (thus with improvements provides 7 nutrients and 1 mineral). Send a crawler to it, and it returns 7 nutrients or 1 mineral to the crawlers home base.

Other crawler uses:

Convoy resources. Move the crawler from it's home base to another base. A menu pops up (hit the O key if it does not) asking if you want to move a single point of one resource from the home base to the one it is currently in. Not used much because it is only a single point. Better to rehome the crawler (Ctrl-H) and send it to a square to harvest 2+ of that resource.

Disband for full minerals: Most units only disband to add half their mineral value to the build the base they disbanded in was working on. However, in two circumstances, crawlers can disband to add their full mineral value to build. If the base is building a Secret Project or a Prototype, the crawler adds full value. Used frequently by most players. Effectively, you transfer from one base to the other minerals, in groups of 30 (more if the crawler is worth more, with armor etc). So you can use as many bases as you want to work on that Secret Project.

[Basilisk]

Wow, cool. I might have to start using them! Thanks for all your help guys.

[Mizaq]

i've had upwards of 25 crawlers at one time waiting for me to discover a tech so i can speed build a wonder. it's the way to spiral up exponentially in the end game.

[MattyBoy]

Glad to see there are others out there.

Fitz said...

Interestingly enough, if you are on Blind research and choose build as your priority, you get tree farms fast and
crawlers slow. So I tend to do that to delay the advantage.

That's interesting. I play blind, too and I was always amazed how long Ind Auto took to turn up when trying to rush to it.

[gwillybj]

Iron Horses

I build crawlers freely with nary a twinge of conscience because I use them strictly for their intended purpose: ferrying resources.
On mines inside base radius only until the base has a worker on every non-mine square.
On mines outside base radius.
On any resource bonus not being worked.
The same at sea as on land. Trawlers on mining platforms and resource bonuses.
I never "cash them in" for projects or prototypes.
If the time comes to vacate a square for a worker, I move the crawler to another square, homing it to the nearsest base.
If a crawler truly has no use, it is simply disbanded in its home base, like any other unit that has served its purpose and needs to retire .
Sometimes, though, it is fun to send a crawler trundling off into another faction's territory just to see the reaction -- or crashing around in fungus just to stir things up .

[Basilisk]

I rarely see the computer using Crawlers... but I did in my last game. My ally (Deirdre) sent about four of them over in a transport and started working bonus resources INSIDE my base radii that my workers had not reached yet! I was not happy!

I ahve begun to use them now, i find that they are a great help for that base bordering an enemy, to speed up0 the production of military units, and, of course, help support them. Haven't used them to speed build wonders yet thought.

[wheathin]

I play with a self-imposed limit of two harvesting crawlers per base, and these are almost always within the base-radius.

But I allow for unlimited builds for SP cash-ins. When I get a few good bases, I design a number of different configurations of crawlers to minimize waste and speed building. Especially for SP speedbuilding, I find that rover-crawlers are cool and air-crawlers more so.

[RedFred]

Just a word of caution for those who would restrict the use of crawlers or pop booming in SP...

I am a long time SP player who has started playing a little MP this year. All the self-imposed restrictions that I used to make SP interesting became so deeply ingrained that I have trouble breaking them in MP. I didn't allow myself to pop boom or use some of the advanced terraforming options in SP. As well, I played double blind.

Now I have trouble forcing myself to build a borehole in MP. As wll, I am not as good at tech beelines as most of the other players.

So now when I play SP I am trying to use every legal option available to me to Transcend quickly.

[bondetamp]

I'm one of those vile subhumans who upgrade the crawlers to help build SPs. I use them freely and indiscriminatley. I still have fun playing, though, so I guess it's alright.