I admit, I'm a sprawler

[Sarxis]

I can't help it. Even though I try to pack my initial bases in tight, I tend to have the most landmass in every game I play. Maybe I need to play as Yang and try a compact aproach.

[Alex]

I used to be a sprawler too, but then I played as Yang... oh the delights of a cluttered landmass!

[Main_Brain]

I tend to CREATE the biggest Landmass ;=)
Nothing like the WP and some Formers :=)
ICS is not Evil

[Asmodean]

In my current game, as in all my games, I sprawl to my hearts content. Count me in on the sprawling team

Asmodean

[Alinestra Covelia]

Only recently I began to play the Hive in the archetypical despot way. Cluttered bases three, sometimes two, squares apart, repealing the Charter and nerve stapling, declaring war on neighbors and pummelling them into Planet Busted submission...

It makes a change from the Benign Dictator motif and is plenty good fun to boot.

[gwillybj]

Just having a little fun here:

Fly away! Disperse! Spread abroad! Cast thy seed upon the winds!

Further, God blessed them and God said to them: Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it. (Genesis 1:28)

Heed thou a warning, those who cluster!

They now said: Come on! Let us build ourselves a city and also a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a celebrated name for ourselves, for fear we may be scattered over all the surface of the earth.
Accordingly God scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth, and they gradually left off building the city. That is why its name was called Babel, because there God had confused the language of all the earth, and God had scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth. (Genesis 11:4-9)

My head hurts a lot today.

[Xian]

Im weird, i play a paecful fun loving yang or domai with sprawling builder style

What are the advantages of cluttered bases? I HATE it when bases have overlapping resource tiles!

I just learned how to use crawlers and oh my god

[Gibsie]

What's wrong with sprawling?

[Hendrik]

Spreading your bases apart may be more fun, but except in some extreme cases it is far from ideal.

Normally packing your bases in tight (2 square spacing works for me under almost any situation) has many benefits. You gain a lot of terraforming efficiency, putting your formers in gangs nets you terraforming time, and having to terraform fewer roads/sensor arrays means you formers spend more time making tile improvements that net you factors of production.

A smaller, less spread out empire that is productively dense is much easier to defend than a sprawl. 2 square spacing means an infantry unit can move between 2 cities in one turn, or a rover between 3 cities in one turn.

Since each city is closer to your empire, efficiency gains tend to outbalance the fact that each city will be producing less energy (not all the time!)

Since each city is much closer together, your colony pods will spend less time roving around and more time being productive as cities. This means your empire will be up and running much faster.

Basically packing your cities tight generates turn advantage, which can be used in multiple ways. It doesn't matter if your opponnent has a marginally better midgame, if you reach your *slightly* less optimal midgame 20 years earlier than him. Having secret projects etc. earlier can make your cities more productive in the long run anyways, and being ahead on tech and build queues because of turn advantage means that your cities will very rarely be less productive than a non packer during a given year.

I basically have gotten used to using multiple approaches to gain productivity. Extra population not working tiles is usually a *good* thing. Specialists are extremely useful.

Yang and Morgan tend to be ICSers much more than other factions because of their difficulty at pop booming, but I still pack in my cities as other factions. Extra pop just means more specialists...

If you want to see some extreme city packing check out Sikander's style in the thread he posted, he spaces them one apart vertically and two apart on the diagonal, each base only has 7 workable squares in the middle. Each of his individual cities is actually MORE productive than any comparable strategy in terms of lab and energy output than almost any other strategy at certain tech levels.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Main_Brain
I tend to CREATE the biggest Landmass ;=)
Nothing like the WP and some Formers :=)
ICS is not Evil

Lol, a man after my play style ... My current game, I have these inconvenient islands on the map, so I'm using my Clean Fungicidal Fusion Rover Formers to connect them all up so I can build the maglev network from hell. Someone's attacking me there? I'll just move all my units from waaaaaaaay over there and BOOM!

[Jac de Molay]

I like to sprawl, but I also like to have a well-defined, distinct continent that is separate from other factions. I will even terraform down to achieve this desired effect, especially if Yang or Miriam is around.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Re: Just having a little fun here:

Originally posted by gwillybj
Fly away! Disperse! Spread abroad! Cast thy seed upon the winds!

Funny, I thought God specifically frowned on masturbation.

I wonder what thoughts Sister Miriam has on the matter.

She doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would have much of a choice, if you catch my drift.

[CEO Aaron]

I used to be a consumate sprawler, I didn't want any overlap space between my bases, period. After perusing Sik's ultimate builders game, however, I am working to pack my bases in tighter. I'm currently using a 3 square grid to lay my bases out, and its working quite well. Many others have already pointed out the merits of tighter base spacing, so I won't go into that here. The one difference I _have_ noticed in my play style is I'm much more aggressive about creating landfill to accomodate new city sites.

[Sarxis]

The other consideration is the inefficiency from excessive numbers of bases. I tend to not have a huge problem with that, because my bases capitalise on their unshared land.

Only recently I began to play the Hive in the archetypical despot way. Cluttered bases three, sometimes two, squares apart, repealing the Charter and nerve stapling, declaring war on neighbors and pummelling them into Planet Busted submission...

It makes a change from the Benign Dictator motif and is plenty good fun to boot.

Thing is, a real life Yang wouldn't think of that as being tyrannical.

[Fido Dido]

Originally posted by star mouse


Lol, a man after my play style ... My current game, I have these inconvenient islands on the map, so I'm using my Clean Fungicidal Fusion Rover Formers to connect them all up so I can build the maglev network from hell. Someone's attacking me there? I'll just move all my units from waaaaaaaay over there and BOOM!

Heh heh, just like me then.. I once made a maglev tube that circumvented the entire map... Of course that meant lots of terraformers working both ways to raise the land, and plant sensors..