Base Space and Expansion

[Yxklyx]

I think this is one of the big secrets of the game. I wish they'd release the source code...

[Adalbertus]

I do have a question about it though: there must be a huge planet damage rating caused by all the condensers/boreholes, no? How do you comp for this? Tree Farm and Hybrid Forest or something???

Here is an article with the revised ecodamage formula by some of the cracks of the forum (A somewhat wrong version is in the datalinks). In short: There is lots of ecodamage by condensors/boreholes, by there mere existence (which you can completely compensate by Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests; 50% each), and by mineral production. Second message: >Pops< are good.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Sik is on the money,

2 or 3 square spacing is a big help. Vel talks extensively regarding turn advantage. Keeping your bases close together adds to turn advantage in a number of ways. At 2 or 3 square spacing vs 5 square spacing this allows you at least 2 if not 3 turns of productive base production/energy gathering/ and nut gathering for growth per base. Whats more, you often need not send an escort unit with your colony pod as it is close to exisitng bases. How many times have you had a colony pod picked off by marauding worms before you were able to establish the base? Keeping the new bases close to the vest allows you to get a unit (preferably a speeder on a road as you can then attack the offending worm) out to a embattled base to prevent its razing by a worm. This then allows thin expansion capability (i.e. make and/or rush if energy reserves allow your first unit with the 10 free mins a former and/or facility such as rec tanks).

The thing about a perfectionist approach (5 square separation) is that you count on the ability to maximize the workable square sometime inthe future. That future tho' is a long way off (advent of hab domes). At that point tho' a number of other factors play very heavily that more than make up for the loss of workable squares. Probalbly most importantly, Specialists at that time of game are actually more beneficial in most cases than actual workers. Satellites for food augment the ability to grow bases upto and beyond hab limits (all the extra pop points end up becoming specialists). High food producing squares ala condensor/farm/soil enrichers allow huge populations (read specialists) especially when combined with sky farms as mentioned above. The downside of perfectionism is that you are potentially at more risk placing the bases, you have less available production through the game, you've lost lots of turn advantage, you run the risk of having less bases than the AI factions which if you are treatied and/or pacted with means you've lost valuable trade energy, and finally your bases are farther from headquarters typically meaning loss due to efficiency.

Trust me go with closer base spacing it will make a huge difference. The exact spacing is up to you and depends on your choice of faction etc. but in general for most cases going to say a 3 square spacing is a good if not optimal spacing.

Og

[Control Freak]

Ahh...my man Ogie!

It appears that all the time you spent toiling in the Federal Leagues not only pop. boomed your penalty minutes but expanded your wisdom so that you could share it with us rookies!

thx

[Yxklyx]

Ah yes. Pops ARE good!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Control Freak,

Ahh my good felloe Hoekey Fan (read best attempt at Canadien phonetical spelling)

By the by I am now more of AHL minor league Hoekey Fan vs Federal League fan. Go Phantoms!! Got to say minor league hoekey more than makes up for lack of talent and speed of the game with desire to get promoted to the bigs and thus plenty o' scraps. And as every true enthusiast knows hoekey is a game within a game (scraps included), similar to SMAC.

One small add that I missed in my earlier rambling, Minerals being the third leg of the equation. Min's are vital in the early game in order to expedite unit and facility builds. But mins start to become much less important throughout the game namely b/c energy dominates everything. Whats more relatively low min producing bases get augmented with so many different facility enhancements like gene jack, nessus mining sats, etc. that they still can be producing very hefty min totals even when the amount of sqaures actually worked is small. Add to this the superior borehole and/or rocky road mined and crawlered mins and you've got a very productive compact base.

So to summarize, a compact base design should give you a still good min total in the early game as you are only having say 3 - 5 pop point working per base during this time frame, more than enuff to allow all pop points to work squares. Later on a larger base may but up against available squares worked, but around that time you've got nice little facility enhancers that allow min totals to grow and whats more you've got those nice little specialists as well.

Enuff rambling

Time to drop the gloves on Yang,

Og

[vitamin j]

Thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I think the people advocating the three-square base placement are right, for all the reasons mentioned. However, I often place bases four squares apart, as long as each base has at least one other within three. This can get you a little more territory, and can give you a little more freedom to shift workers and crawlers around as the situation demands, especially once your population has grown a bit.

One other thing: I would NOT put a base on a land nutrient bonus. By doing so you limit the max bonus nuts you will ever receive from that square to 2. Reserve it for a farm/condenser/soil enricher, and you'll get extra nuts in the long run.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by vitamin j
Thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I would NOT put a base on a land nutrient bonus. By doing so you limit the max bonus nuts you will ever receive from that square to 2. Reserve it for a farm/condenser/soil enricher, and you'll get extra nuts in the long run.

I agree that you will get more nuts from that square in the long run with that approach. But in the early game I am trying to get pods out as fast as possible and plunking the base on the nut special seems to work really well. The one worker gets some minerals coming in so that pods can be churned out as quickly as possible. I tend to think this approach leads to faster base creation and more bases quicker

[Shai-Hulud]

Very good points about placing of bases. You've convinced me.

But in the early game I am trying to get pods out as fast as possible and plunking the base on the nut special seems to work really well

I agree on this one. The early game is naturally very crucial for the success. Unless your opponents are smart you can often tell whether you're going to win after a century or two. I would go for the early bonus and mazimize my chances to grab the early projects and expand as fast as possible...after all it seems that those who accomplish first projects often build the last ones too.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Shai-Hulud
I think I mentioned that big empire takes more time to conquer and I hold on to that. In any case, there are no single "key to defense", only strategies and none are superior from where I'm standing. Can't even remember when I've been beaten by AI. They have no strategy so you can really beat them hands down whether you have 10 or 50 bases.

Sorry, I meant to copy the quote but I forgot to do so before I had already written the expansion stuff. Here's the quote that set me off:

"There certainly is advantages and disadvantages for any placing of bases. The closer they are - easier they are to defend? It's easier to move defensive units from one city to another but it's also a lot easier to do Blitzkrieg. From what I have experienced far flung empire is the best defense against invaison. It can incredibly tedious to take over a huge empire when bases are 5-6 squares from one another. I think such a tactic could be well exploited in MP game if someone would agree to play on a very large map. "

My point is that it's extraordinarily difficult to blitz a human player who has all of his units within a turn or two of the point of attack, and can rapidly reinforce himself with his entire productive capacity also within a turn or two of the point of attack. Concentration is an advantage to the defense as well as the offense, and having your bases tightly packed together means that you will have a significant and sustainable numbers advantage at the point of attack.

There are two basic elements to the Civ type combat system. The first is that it is based upon attrition (ie numbers are important). The second is technology being the single most critical aspect in determining success in any individual combat. Packing bases close together gives you an advantage in both of these ways. Firstly you will be able to gather larger numbers in a sustainable manner due to the fact that both your existing forces and your centers of production are already concentrated. Secondly, by building your empire quickly via the turn advantage gained by close spacing (see Ogie's post) you will tend to have a higher tech level than someone who spreads himself further afield, because your bases started producing earlier.

Someone who has his bases spread out is a much easier target. Your attacking force can hit a single base and overwhelm it's defenses while his reinforcements arrive a few at a time, and perhaps none in the critical first turn or two after you have made your presence known.

The relative advantage of close spacing is diminished but not negated by the advent of airpower. Airpower's main advantage is the ability to concentrate quickly. Nonetheless, a closely spaced empire has an advantage in air defense because fighters in bases close to one another can mutually support each other. Of course the best defense is a good offense when it comes to airpower, and here too there is an advantage to close spacing, because a closely spaced empire will have more bases within range of the enemy than a loosely spaced empire. This means that for basing purposes I can spread my air units among several bases making them harder to attack and eliminate when they are on the ground, but I can concentrate them to attack the fewer enemy bases that are within range. This means that I will have more attacks against relatively helpless choppers which are on the ground at the enemy base, because I will have to eliminate fewer AAA garrisons and fighters than my opponent.

[Shai-Hulud]

I have to say that you state your arguments well Sikander. Having thought of this I do agree with all your points but I still wouldn't rule out "far flung empires". First of all, having a big empire does not necessarily mean it's less developed or even has smaller bases than a tightly packed faction. Big empire has a lot more of everything, except flexibility, which can be crucial in the initial attack. I think there are certain advantages in any style of base spacing. I personally prefer to place them closer together and create a core of production, science and economy but still use some resources to keep expanding later in the game if my social settings allow within reason. I believe that in all situations a big empire is, in the end, more powerful than "a tight one". It can be incredibly hard to invade a human player with few bases tied together, but once your forces have broken the first line of defense...there is rarely another one. A large empire can deal with some loses, few bases are not big deal. And while defence is geographically more difficult, it's not necessarily more difficult in general. You just start churning out military units and enjoy from the fact that you probably have a lot of chances to assault smaller factions, from several directions. Not to mentions possibilities with ICBMs.

I think this interesting discussion is getting confusing Perhaps to make things simple:

1. I agree with the fact that 5-6 squares spacing is not optimal in general manner

2. Equally sized empires, with another one far flung and another one tightly built will both have certain advantages.

3. It's definitely harder to success at the initial assault against tightly built faction

4. Big empires are oftenly more powerful than smaller, tightly built ones, and have a lot more options

5. In the end it all comes down to the player itself

[vitamin j]

WRT the nut bonus thing, I agree there are a few benefits to putting a base on one:

*If it's on a flat square, and you have no formers (not very likely), you won't get any mins from working the square, until you can put a forest on it.

*If your first citizen is a drone, you can make a doctor and still have fair nutrient production. It should be noted here, though that if for some reason you want slower growth in that base, there's no way to "un-work" those bonus nuts.

*If you come under attack, your enemy cannot occupy the square thereby depriving you of the extra nuts. Here I'd just say that if this is a continual problem for you, it'll probably be over soon...

I don't accept that there are any other real advantages, besides a miniscule turn advantage you may gain until the square is forested. The very real disadvantage is that a farm/condenser/enricher on such a square would have netted you +50% (or more?) bonus nuts in the long run.

[Adalbertus]

I just noticed one thing especially for a two in diagonal spacing of bases. There is only one in eight squares which is not adjacent to a base. This means, in most cases, the defender can attack directly from a city thus saving the turn for going home to repair. Moreover, on a counterattack, it is ideally a strong and healthy defender and not the weakened attack unit who has to defend. I didn't notice that, but now I will go to even tighter stacking.

Scheme:

X0B0X0B0X
000000000
B0X0B0X0B
000000000
X0B0X0B0X

B - Base, 0 - adjacent to Base, X - not adjacent

Equally sized empires, with another one far flung and another one tightly built will both have certain advantages.

Certainly, but I think the point is turn advantage. When you move your first colony pod two instead of three squares, it will net you after 150 years the production of nearly half of your empire. All the production which comes from the spinoffs of this base will come one turn earlier. This is the bottom line of turn advantage, not two food, two energy and one mineral you gain in this one turn. And this is the same with rush-buying. In addition to the fact that money you don't spend is worth nothing. (Unfortunately, in Vel's guide this long-term payoff is not well explained.)
Edit: Just forgot the bottom line: The far flung empire is likely to be the smaller because of the heavy loss of turn advantage, which (5 instead of 2 squares) amounts to roughly 6 full turns (if I calculated right), not to count for the Former time lost and probably more difficulties in defense, arising from turn disadvantage.

[RedFred]

[In response to vitamin j]
In the long run we are all dead, as my old Economics prof liked to say.

In the early game I don't mind too much if my base is right on top of a nutrient bonus. That plus two food makes for an excellent colony pod producing city.

By the time you build your farm, condenser and enricher you are likely in midgame. By then you should have lots of great options to feed your workers. Particularly if it is a costal base.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Adalbertus,

Very good point on turn advantage. We/I tend to explain these things in terms of 2 turns/base for given resources but the real benny is it is an effect over the entire course of the game not a one time event.

This is the crux of the absolute need for early game expansion efficiency. It is the most crucial part of the game. Any turn advantage via immediate base placement, thin expansion paradigms, rush builds etc. accelerate your game play tremendously and really is the heart of why humans play the game better than the AI.

Og

Edit: regarding your cross posted edit; You and I are of the exact same mind on the size of empire vis-a-vis gained/lost turn advantage and that was exactly what I attempted to explain in my first post.