Base Space and Expansion

[Control Freak]

As many of you are aware I am new...please forgive me if this post has been made umpteen times before:

What is the "best" placement system for bases? I like 5 squares (perfectionist tendencies) but I notice the AI will place bases much much closer together.

I am aware of the efficiency penalties are increased the farther you are from your home base. But they seem not much of a hinderance (especially compared to civ 3's corruption!).

Also is there an optimum number of bases per map size that affect efficiency (like civ 3)?

One last question: How many bases do you usually expect to control and manage on a standard size map??? (and the answer to this question is not 'all your bases belong to us'!)

[Yxklyx]

For me it varies. In some games I like them close - in others far apart. For me, the main reason for placing them far apart is to stake claim to land - later I fill in the gaps. If I start on a small island I have to put them close together. The biggest factor relating to number of bases is bureaucracy drones. I believe at 0 efficiency on standard world size more than 6 bases will start generating more drones. I like to have about a dozen bases though I have won with as few as 8.

[Flubber]

Re: Base Space and Expansion

Originally posted by Control Freak
As many of you are aware I am new...please forgive me if this post has been made umpteen times before:

No problem thats what the board is for and the search feature seems not to work too well lately

[SIZE=1]
What is the "best" placement system for bases? I like 5 squares (perfectionist tendencies) but I notice the AI will place bases much much closer together.

Players vary on this. Many players like their bases to be within 3 squares for easier defence as a infantry defender can get from base to base on a single turn (with roads). personally, given that hab limits mean you will likely have 14 or less workers for most of the game I overlap a fair bit but I follow no set arrangement. It is terrain dependent. later game when you might go above 14 workers, I find that you assign them as specialists anyway and satellites can beused to support the population.

[SIZE=1]
I am aware of the efficiency penalties are increased the farther you are from your home base. But they seem not much of a hinderance (especially compared to civ 3's corruption!).

Nothing seems as bad as CIV3 corruption LOL but if you allow your efficiency to drop ( run police planned as anyone other thatn Yang and see the amount of efficiency losses) thr losses can be significant.

[SIZE=1]
Also is there an optimum number of bases per map size that affect efficiency (like civ 3)?

There is actually a rather involved formula I have seen explained pretty well in old threads that indicates the threshold number of bases for various settings before additional bureauracy drones are triggered. Every base you have beyond those limits will increase your drones in other bases in a predictable manner

[SIZE=1]
One last question: How many bases do you usually expect to control and manage on a standard size map??? (and the answer to this question is not 'all your bases belong to us'!)

Again that depends on faction and terrain. If I am Yang or Morgan you will see a lot of bases. I will essentially fill my original area. With others, I may space them a little wider and have fewer.

[mrdynamic]

Best placement, is not always available depending on the terrain. IMHO, the best placement would result in no overlap of possible worker squares. But, sometimes fungus prevent the best placement causing me to overlap or have unused squares between bases. In this case I would keep my bases closer and go with the overlap just because it makes defense easier if needed, but if it all arid rocks, then maybe Ill go further out. Once I was getting my but kicked playing as the Hive because I was being out produced. I doubled my number of bases, but could not expand outward, which in many cases caused the bases to have only 1 or 2 squares between them, but I did double my production, and moving from base to base was easier as my units were never left outside, netting them a HUGE defensive bonus until I could go on the offensive.

There are a optimum number of bases per map before your efficiency rating is affected. For tiny, 3 is the max, huge maps the optimum is 12 I think. This is not something you need to be concerned with however, more bases just means more drones... facilities, energy, SE, and specialists can be used to combat those, as well as moving your headquarters in the middle of your empire.

Mostly for number of bases I keep it between 10-20 bases depending on map size and expansion availability just because I like to micro manage. If I get more bases than I want by conquering I just give them to a slave along with some units, eventually they will fight the war for you.

[Shai-Hulud]

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.

It's true that most of the game cities stay under 14. Actually I have often reached the limit well before Habitation Dome. That's one reason I support fair colonization. Better to have many bases than to be stuck with few ones which can't grow any bigger. I'm sure that in many cases overlapping support squares by building a base every three squares is a good idea.

If I am Yang or Morgan you will see a lot of bases

That's interesting. I've always thought it's best to keep your empire small when playing Morgan. And to achieve Golden Age as early as possible, this is difficult if you get inefficiency drones. Although my last game with Morgan following this strategy was an utter failure.

[RedFred]

Personal playing style has such a huge impact that there is no "right" answer to base density or total number of bases.

mrdynamic talks about the first efficiency warning. There are several stages of inefficiency for which you will receive a warning. (and some random drones) All stages are easily combatted by SE changes or base improvements like CCs. Sage advice from Vel's guide is to expand in waves. Each wave should take you just short of the next increase in inefficiency.

I used to operate with no overlap in my base production radii, but now I am less likely to. Crawlers and sats can increase your three inputs and besides, how many turns do you play after hab dome tech? On regular sized worlds you should easily be able to transcend with fewer than ten turns after you receive that tech.

My advice is don't be too rigid. Just go around big fungal areas or unproductive tiles in the early game. You can always go back and fill in or build energy parks there later. If playing against the AI, coastal bases and bases near your borders are the way to start expanding. You can fill in areas that you have encircled later. You want to be sure that you can secure enough space in the early game.

[Shai-Hulud]

There are several stages of inefficiency for which you will receive a warning. (and some random drones

After certain stage(third warning I believe?) you receive one(1) drone to each of your bases. So expansion between this point is really costy. Big empires an less flexible and harder to manage which causes inefficiency because of the player itself. The bigger you become, less interested you are of optimalization and micromanagement. This is the human factor in big empires. Still, in most cases it's worth to expand if you know how to make most of it.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Shai-Hulud


That's interesting. I've always thought it's best to keep your empire small when playing Morgan. And to achieve Golden Age as early as possible, this is difficult if you get inefficiency drones. Although my last game with Morgan following this strategy was an utter failure.

Well with Morgan I see several things that argue in favour of a lot of bases

1. Low hab limits-- how else can you grow
2. Poor support
3. Abundent energy such that you are more likely able to use psych allocation
4. Higher energy in the base square from running +3 Econ

So I see them as perfect for a many base strategy

[Flubber]

I generally favor 3 square placing, generally in a diagonal direction. That yields a 2 square overlap with each adjacent base so if you followed this dogmatically you would have 8 overlap squares and 12 lone squares . I usually will overlap a little more than this rather than less.


For most of the game you not be able to use all your base squares anyway and even in the endgame, the non-overlapper can have 20 workers working away to my dozen or so with specialists. The high end specialists are so good that I often chose to use them even if there are available base squares.

[Fitz]

Yeah flubber, I use 3 diagonally more often than not as well. I find it works great for defense, so long as you are willing to destroy your own roads in the event of a blitzkreig attack. It also allows more bases per available area.

I generally find it keeps me under the second warning for the base limit for Demo/Green on both a standard planet transcend level (24) and a huge planet transdend level (38) until late in the game when I've conquered many enemy bases. That means each base has no more than two beauracracy drones, which I can handle.

Expanding too much means using more troops to cover fewer bases (or more territory for the same number of bases). This puts a bigger strain on your production lines, although the resources the attacker needs to expend may increase too, since they can't send a single army from one direction and expect to take all of your bases before you get reinforcements constructed. But overall, I think as spacing increases, defensive needs increase faster than offensive needs, because while you may be safe against being completely conquered, you will find it harder (and slower) to counterattack and take the bases/terrory you lose to a raid (as opposed to invasion).

[Shai-Hulud]

I've actually thought about trying Morgan with more expansive strategy. It's an interesting faction from my point of view and I'm trying to make it work for me. I find it pretty hard to play, and it demands different approach than most factions I've played.

I had a rather interesting and support draining situation in one MP game, long time ago. I was playing custom faction, but balanced one. My social setting were highly in support of military, police and security. At one point of the game I was seriously threatened by Usurpers and Pirates and I decided to start full fledged construction of military units. After a century or two I was huge(50+ bases) military might with many times bigger army than those of others combined. I was planetary governor, having Police State and Planned(with IMMUNITY to efficiency). I was caught in "a world war" and had to protect my huge empire with eight different military bases full of units just to keep others from taking advantage of my planet-wide empire. And I was waging a costy war on the other side of the planet, far behind in tech and economy. Inefficiency drained most of my energy and my army took a lot of support despite the social settings.

I never saw the end of it. But it was one of my most memorable SMAX experiences. I've always thought whether I would have won or not. I was way up in the graphs but when humans involved - you can never tell.

So I think we're both right. In that game I was invinsible but it took a lot of effort to keep that huge empire covered and invaison became very hard because of the transportation of units. My defense was expensive but good and my offense was expensive....and not so good.

[WhiteElephants]

Re: Base Space and Expansion

Originally posted by Control Freak
What is the "best" placement system for bases? I like 5 squares (perfectionist tendencies) but I notice the AI will place bases much much closer together.

I play a three square apart game, but another effective way to play is to play toward eventually building Hybrid Forests and monopolizing on that facility by having a good amount of forest squares to work. I usually reserve this approach for the bases I conquer because setting down bases three squares apart can kick start your empire fast enough to run over the other players early.

One last question: How many bases do you usually expect to control and manage on a standard size map??? (and the answer to this question is not 'all your bases belong to us'!)

Optimally I would colonize over a dozen bases on my own, but eventually you reach a point where the cost of building a colony pod, finding a place to put it, and "growing" it to a respectable size exceeds the cost of simply conquering a neighbors base. A lot of this depends on the maps geography. Obviously it is going to be far more costly to build several troop transports and several units to take a puny base across the ocean from you unless you've got drop units readily available. But if you start on the same continent as another player I would alter my plans to eventually include their bases as my own. Being the aggressor in this game pays dividends too large to ignore. I believe Friaxis recognized this a took steps to quash this single minded agressor approach to CIV3 by increasing bueracracy and war weariness. So, I think the answer really is all the bases on the map is the amount I intend to manage given that increasing my amount of bases increases my energy output and production allowing me to again increase my amount of bases which in turn gives me more energy and production to manage more bases and so on. In simpler terms the drawbacks to owning more bases are exceeded by the benefits.

[Sikander]

Depending upon what settings and faction you are playing there are a lot of viable base placement strategies. I often use the "Three on the Diagonal" spacing. In my last two SP games (played on Dilithium Dad's Ultimate Builder Map, which is a modified huge Map of Planet, and playing the University with directed research) I used a "Two on the diagonal" placement. That's right, my bases had one intervening diagonal square between themselves and four other bases.

The terrain around each base was terraformed uniformly. Each diagonal square (at the corners of the base square) was a borehole, and all other squares were condensor / farms (and later soil enrichers). Each base had only two workers, each of them on a borehole, while all the condensor / farm squares were worked with crawlers. The total production (with condensor farms and no specials) was:

Minerals 14 (with recycling tanks)
Nuts = 23 (with tanks)
Energy = 14 (with tanks and econ of 0 or less)
Specialists = 10 or 11, and 15 or 16 when soil enrichers become available.

This is about as good a productivity as I can imagine given the space (and hab limits). It works on a very small piece of land, and has almost unlimited expansion capacity due to the fact that each base only has two workers. It sets up very quickly (you only need to move your colony pods a couple of squares). I make it my business to snag the WP to increase the speed of the terraforming, and the HGP to eliminate drone problems.

--

To the poster who claimed that spreading out was a key to defense, I have to say poppycock. It may help you survive an onslaught by making your opponent move further to eliminate your far flung bases, but there are far more reasons why it is advantageous to be concentrated. Why merely survive when you can thrive? By spreading out you place your bases closer to your enemy and further from your sources of mutual support. Let him come to your tightly woven web of destruction and eat fire. Don't give him an easy isolated base to take out with his expeditionary force. It's too easy to turn it into an air and repair base from which he will have an easier time making headway into the rest of your empire. This is one of the mistakes the AI likes to make, and one of the reasons why it's so easy to wipe them off the face of the planet with just a few units.

A far flung empire is easy to defeat in detail. Anyone coming into my dense mass of bases has to defeat my entire army before making any headway, and while my units are rolling off my (numerous) assembly lines and into battle, his new units are just beginning the lengthy journey to the front. I have never been overwhelmed by an AI opponent in this manner, because they cannot sustain the unbroken stream of units necessary to overwhelm my production without running into support limits, and thus lower productivity. Instead they send waves of units, which may cause an initial panic, but are destroyed within a turn or two. If I find my response was lacking I build up a little in anticipation of the next wave. If not, then I go back to producing facilities which will give me the tech lead in the long run, and an easy chop and drop counterstrike when the time is ripe.

[Shai-Hulud]

I'm going to test that base building strategy Sikander. I've tried similar, though not so extreme, approach and I've had good experiences of it.

To the poster who claimed that spreading out was a key to defense, I have to say poppycock.

I don't think anyone said that. If did, you could quote that statement. 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.

[Control Freak]

Learning lots but another question...

Sikander - thanks for the detailed expansion notes, I'll give it a try and see what I like best.

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???