All-ocean empire possible with pirates?

[Kinniken]

Hi, I'm getting SMAX soon... I was wondering, in SMAC while sea bases were cool, they never replaced good land cities (ie, it was not possble to develop a strong empire only at sea).
Is it possible in SMAX with the pirates? I heard that additional buildings improving sea yields have been added, and the pirates get a sea production bonus. Is it enough to make a sea-based empire possible?

TIA,

Kinniken

[spartak]

Yep!

[Static Universe]

The free Naval Yards after Doc:Init and the free Marine Detachment ability after Adaptive Doctrine really put them over the top.

[Archaic]

Played by a human, they can really become research kings surpringly enough, simply from all that Nut and Energy yield, but for sheer production strength, they just can't match a land-based faction.

[Flubber]

I agree with archaic but do find they do well when they go ashore. I have played singlr player games quite successfully with them with only seabases but I did terraform boreholes on adjacent islands. Terraforming adjacent continents for use is good but ONLY until someone else colonizes the land

[Major Guz]

The +1 mineral in coastal shelf squares is also nice, particularly in the early game (to offset the more expensive sea colony pods and sea formers).
SMAX also offers aquafarms (+1 nutrient in kelp farm squars), Thermocline Transducers (+1 energy in tidal harness squares) and one other improvement (+1 mineral in mined square at sea).
The aquafarms are nice to make for more specialists.

B.T.W. For trawlering purposes (Sea resource convoy): A base which trawls energy that has a thermocline transducer gets the +1 energy, even if the trawled square is outside the city production radius. Same goes for nutrients (in combo with aquafarm) and minerals (combined with the thing I could'nt come up with).

P.S. Watch out for the sealurks (new native unit type in SMAX, sort of IoD with submarine ability, besides, SL are capable of attacking coastal cities).

[Xian]

Yes, in addition the smax add on adds new facilities for ALL three types of resources in sea squares so ANY faction can succed in the water with proper growth and Industry bonuses, such as the hive, drones and even morgan with good base placement

[Mongoose]

Turn advantage is the biggest problem the Pirates face in the early game. It is not, IMO, be cause of the increased cost of sea colony pods over their land counterparts...the seven rows for a sea CP are the same as the three for a land CP and four more for a recycling tank. The biggest problem is that seaformers cost four rows. Additionally, energy is not available from quick improvements like forests...some tidal harnesses cost eight former turns, for only two energy/turn before restrictions are lifted.

Some land terraforming is essential in the eary game, if you are ot blessed with start that contains several mineral special sea tiles. (and a couple of energy specials, too!) A pitfall with that is some land based faction placing a new base too close to your terrafoming and removing it from your ability to work it...This in turn requires at least selective base placement on land, to hold the territory including the terrain improvements your sea bases are using.

By the mid game, any dependence on the land can be done away with at need...you should have a sizeable corps of seaformers, the ability to build subsea trunklines to enhance sea mines' output and all resource restrictions lifted. Once Fusion Power and Advanced Ecological Engineering are discovered, you can build a productive base anywhere, at reasonable cost.

[Static Universe]

I find these problems are lessened by the fact that the Pirates can scout out unoccupied islands or territory fairly early (depending on the map), making the transition to good land tiles easier. I frequently find The Ruins as a 25 tile island, and this is always good to get.

Plus they can scout some very good places to build sea bases, without the necessity of having to connect them with road as on land. They can find terrain specials and exploit them quicker than land based factions.

(Edit: changed the word "with" to "without".

[Main_Brain]

Sea bases grow like Weed :=)

[Mr. Harley]

Playing solo only, I have found the Pirates do awesome on a map with high erosive forces. The mixed land/sea areas work to their advantage, because of the extra mineral they get in shallow areas. Plus, the AI is terrible at mixed ocean/land base terraforming. With minimal work, your headquarters will have all 4 nutrient, 4 energy, and 1 mineral per citizen before you reach midgame. Plus any resources!

The pirates best move is to found their headquarters near an ocean energy resource at a minimum (they can sometimes start the base with three resources if they are lucky!), with some land areas for forests and boreholes. They then build land colony pods early in the game, with an occasional sea colony pods made using pod lotto.

The cost of sea formers isn't too serious, especially because you should be popping resource pods in the ocean much faster than a land-based faction can. Keep you foil handy for IOD's, one foil to two transports, and you get the "rush-build" pod enough times to build plenty of trance armored sea formers and some sea colony pods. Plus, as soon as you can go green for a few turns, and catch a bunch of IOD's with one or two worms/spore launchers aboard.

I am just starting PBEM, and I suspect Mongoose's point will be valid concerning turn advantage both for sea colony pods and sea formers. That's why I recommend a coastal strategy. Once you have the requisite techs, your headquarters should crank out more energy than even Morgan until the point when energy parks start getting built. This can give you a very strong advantage later in the early game into the midgame.

The only problem I can see is foil/cruiser probe teams, and the lack of ZOC at sea making defence tough against humans. From my reading on the forums, I suspect Radar Trawlers and Fighters are a must.

[Kinniken]

Well, I'm not getting SMAX in the end....

The shop I wanted to buy it from told me that in the end they could not find a copy.
The only remaining place where I can buy the mac SMAX is on Aspyr's website, where it cost 5$. Problem is, shipping costs to Europe are 20$ (cheapest...)! So I'm not buying it.
Is there anyway to modify SMAC to make sea-based empires viable? If not, I'll just stick to land-based factions for the moment.

[Kataphraktoi]

you can download it from underdogs for free legally...just get it there if u cant find it otherwise

[Kinniken]

They only propose the PC version. And BTW, this is illegal
SMAX was released in 1999 AFAIK, so it's certainly not abandonware

[Major Guz]

I am in general against piracy of such fine games I don't see any objections as long as the rightful owner does not support or offer the game anymore. In fact on their homepage firaxis has this statement on the Alpha Centauri section that says "Alien Crossfire Expansion Pack for Alpha Centauri for PC is no longer available." Thus making SMAX for PC abandonware.


As an example, I was looking for a flying game (Hardwar) and I could not find it and still I managed to find a store in the US (I live in The Netherlands as you can see beside my avatar) so the game cost me $5 and Shipment $15, but it was most definitely worth it (Imagine it the other way around if that makes you feel better: Game=$15, shipment=$5, then it doesn't look expensive anymore).

So in short: I have also acquired my copy of SMAX through the internet (it was from a company in Europe though), but if I did not own the game and was given the opportunity to buy it for $25 (whether it was $5 for the game and $20 for shipment or any other way, just total =$25) I would definitely take it.

I personally find SMAX so much entertaining and a very adequate add-on to the original SMAX, that I would advise you to buy the game after all, you will not regret it. (That's just my two (euro)cents).

Anyway, it's your call and I wish you the best in making the right decision in this dilemma

EDIT: Oversaw the smiley after the word ïllegal in the previous post