Inventing the Usurpers

[Mr. President]

Question for some of the professional social engineers out there. What configuration do you prefer for the Usurpers and why? (Assuming you've played as and/or care what the Usurpers do.) I've tried Police State / Green / Knowledge, Police State / Green / Power, and Fundamentalist / Green / Power. None of these really worked terribly well. I prefer to play builder style, but didn't want to use Free Market because of the intrinsic -1 Planet.

[Googlie]

big_canuck is the alien expert, having never lost a game as them.

I prefer Planned as a choice for both the U's and the C's - you gotta get those base facilities and SPs a-building for the energy boosts, and the +2 Ind of Planned/Wealth helps immensely. Police is the "least worst" (to paraphrase Rumsfeld) of the Simple/Polioce/Fundy choices, in my opinion.

So I gravitate to Police/Planned/Wealth as either, and if the U's try like crazy to find the Manifold Nexus to cancel out the -1 Planet rating you start with (and it's amazing how often a computer-generated start will place the U's in proximity to that goodie)

G.

[big_canuk]

Police/planned is a killer on efficiency. You can do it but you must use all specialists in most bases, and crawl/trawl lots of energy to your HQ. I find Simple/planned more manageable, in many circumstances, sometimes alternated with police green. Police/FM also works, especially with the AV. Of course, fundy becomes a much more appealing wartime option.

I am really not a Usurper expert. The lack of Dem, really cramps my style (unless playing the Hive, of course). I think they are hard to play as a builder, and must be geared more toward a momentum faction. Then police/planned may be the way to go(just make sure you crawl nuts and mins, and use lots of specialists)