Newbie nerve stapling question

[big_canuk]

I have had a different experience than MariO.

I have stapled quite a lot over a period of about 30 years in 2 different games, and have not seen my clean minerals reduced. I am now at the point of having to use rec comms and specialists because the stapling in no longer effective. But mins are not or hardly effective.

In one game I have maybe 15 bases, in the other maybe 30. game 1 is dem(only recently) planned, wealth, game 2 is same and has been for a while. The reason I mention it, is maybe SE settings, or police level has an effect.

I have seen MariO's warning previously, so have been watching these games closely to see if/when the reduction in clean minerals, and the sea level raises take effect.

SMAniaC: I have never seen gassing aliens reduce clean minerals, or produce ED
bc

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Blake
Nerve stapling sure can. One dirty trick I like is in the very early game, when I have just got Social Pysch and Ind.Econ (but before getting any rec commons) is to staple all my bases and immediately switch to FM, then complete the commons as the ten years runs out.

A handy little boost

Also if an enemy really pisses you off capture one of their bases and staple it. Then they'll have a reason to be pissed off. (how does this help you? Dunno, but it's sure satisfying )

I can think off a evil strategy which involves researching to AMA then stapling everyone and switching to Freemarket and buying punishment spheres everywhere with the cash. Then switch to fundie and go on the warpath with military and probes and heaps'o'cash from FM. It'd work even better if you timed to complete a pop-boom just before doing the stapling/switch, or prehaps stapled before the pop-boom and complete the PS's at the end of the 10 years, that'd allow all the workers to be out gathering nuts and nothing would slow down the boom.

I doubt this strategies are terribly strong compared to specialists, but they are a bit of fun, and involve barely no micromanagment and a (un)healthly amount of evil laughing :

Blake,

Did you staple pre onset of drones. I was not aware this was possible. If so this makes a pretty strong opening gambit for a builder/turtle. No more worrying about oscillating and doctoring between size 1-2 and popping a colony pod out ASAP. As a turtle the negative trade effects are meaningless.


Interesting

Og

[Blake]

Sure did.

With respect to clean minerals, it seems that the effect is MUCH worse when you are at war with everyone. Like planet only punishes you if you aren't being punished by sanctions.... or something. It's weird, anyway.

[big_canuk]

Hmmm.. Both those games I am at war with everyone. I had the same "Well, nothing to loose" attitude as MoSe. I am mostly stapling before the riot. I check the F4 screen, and staple any bases that will riot the next turn. Does that make a difference, maybe?

bc

[big_canuk]

Originally posted by Blake
Nerve stapling sure can. One dirty trick I like is in the very early game, when I have just got Social Pysch and Ind.Econ (but before getting any rec commons) is to staple all my bases and immediately switch to FM, then complete the commons as the ten years runs out.

...

Blake. It would be more than 10 years I think. Don't you get 10 years of sanctions for *each* nerve stapling at *each* base?

The strategy might not be so great if you intended to have any friends soon.

bc

[Blake]

nono, the ten years is the time the drones are under control. You'll have as many decades of santions as you stapled bases, but if you do it early, say 2130, and have 5 bases, you would be back in commerce by 2180. On huge maps and playing isolationist style it is quite possible you wouldn't have had much commerce by then anyway.

[Patashu]

I've found that if you do enough artrocities, the santion period starts to increase by jumps bigger then 10. I think...

[MariOne]

Yeah, the default pattern is that the first stapled base deals you 10 years sanctions, the second base 20 *more* years, the 3rd 30 *more* years...
So after you stapled the 2nd base, you'll have *30* overall years (10+20), and not just 20, after the 3rd, yo'd have 60, after the 4th you'd have 100, after the 5th you'd have 150.

Thus, Blake's statement that if you staple 5 bases in 2130 you'll be back into commerce in 2180 should not be correct.
It should not be 10yrs * 5 bases = 50yrs.
It should be 10yrs + 20yrs + 30yrs + 40 yrs + 50 yrs = 150yrs.

I admit that I too got the impression that the years sanctions added do NOT strictly follow that pattern.
In that game I now have 1350ish years sacntions.
According to that pattern, the 16th stapling would have brought the overall total to 1360.

I think tho that my last stapling occurred earlier than 10 years before. Besides, while I recall being inflicted 120-130 years sancrtions, I don't recall the 160 warning...

Anyway, it must be because I didin't keep an exact record of my observations, I could easily be wrong or just not recall the details.

The general pattern should be the one I described, tho.

Of course the years increase counter is cumulative with all the other kind of atrocities you commit.
ANY atrocity will make your next extra sanction period bigger by 10 years.

___

b_c, I'll recheck in the earlier turns of that game, but definitely, after many staplings, I had EcoDamage in all my bases, and to bring it down to zero I had to take out workers from minerals till my production was down to 2-3 minerals.
In theory (offhand), each Atrocity shold count as 5 minerals produced in any base.
Pre-EDpops, your Clean Minerals Threshold shold be 16.
This means that after the 3rd Atrocity you should be "virtually" already producing 15 minerals in every base, with respect to ED, and thus you'd have left only 1 clean Mineral in any base...
Too bad I didn't keep track of EDpops in that game.

If that's the effect tho, it should be easy to reproduce starting a normal game, getting quick to 4 bases and begin stapling them all.
If it's not confirmed, the ED formula Atrocity Factor should be revised.

[Adalbertus]

So the ED punishment for nerve stapling and planet bustering is the same???
OK, I can imagine that stapling somewhat increases ED, because stapled citizens are inherently unwilling to cooperate in environmental efforts. But to equate this to a quasi-nuclear fallout (whatever this is), seems to be a bit harsh.

[Xian]

Originally posted by aaglo
A funny thing just accured to me... I've never ever used nerve-stapling in my games...

[big_canuk]

For the ecodamage formula, the way I understand it is that a Planet Buster is 5 clean mins.

X-gassing is 1 clean min each time. I am not sure it is *every* time, but it is close.

MariO, thinks that Nerve Stapling is equivelent to x-gas, not PBs, I think.

Here is where my experience differs. In both those games, I have stapled many times, and my clean mins seems not to be affected (yet).

Maybe it has to do with >pops
Maybe some factions are immune??

Maybe certain games, ie scenarios, are immune(that would be a bug)??

I might as well spill the beans. My two games are manifold 6, a game with 5 human aliens, and no computer factions, and the May-June CGN challenge, a scenario, where 2 blocks of 3 ais each, both consider me an atrocity committer anyway.

How could those games be different?

bc

[Maniac]

Boohoo! I can't gas the aliens any longer!

[big_canuk]

Nah, I'm sure, at least in SP, that X-gassing the aliens has no effect. In fact I am in a MP game (OCC on acol), where I have gassed them maybe 10 times already, with no effect.

bc

[Mongoose]

I'm rather sure that gassing Aliens has no effect other than combat and your relationship with them.

As I see it, the game treats nothing done to the other species as an atrocity...for ecodamage, clean minerals, sanctions, etc. Of course, the victim DOES consider it an atrocity.

Committing an atrocity as a Progenitor faction results in the breakdown of your energy grid for a period of time that appears to match the sanctions levied for human committed atrocities.

Probe introduction of germ agents is a nice way to soften up those hard to crack Caretaker bases.

[Blake]

I'm under the impression that as a proggie, only nervestapling causes your grid to shutdown?