I was intrigued by certain strategy guides that suggested making a beeline to get Free Market at the beginning of the game, and switching immediately, then beeline to get Wealth/Crawlers. I thought they must not be thinking of a transcendence game, until they said specifically that the second population unit would have to become a doctor, and not to build more than six (map size dependent) bases at first to avoid bureaucracy drones. Their point was that the energy gain would more than make up for the loss of worker. Also, the drone penalty for moving past the faction boundaries made exploration impossible.
Now my usually strategy was to beeline to police state with most factions, switching to free market only when I have I have finished by initial exploratory phase, and have some secret projects to help with done control. With Police State, the +2 support helps for scouts (to pop pods), police, and terraformers, and the +2 police helps me to expand beyond 6 bases by making sure that I have two police in each city. (The same thing could be done with recreation commons, but it is twice as expensive to build, and costs support each turn. Plus, I like to keep a or two defender in the city anyway to protect against worms.) I also like to send out explorers in every direction to try to pop the pods and get the goddies before my competitors can, and support/police helps with this.
Anyway, I decided to run a test for 40 turns with each. So I started a game with Morgan, and beginning with the exact same starting position, I tried both paths. I pick Morgan since I figured he would be strongest with the Free Market/Wealth beeline, and wanted to make sure I was giving Free Market a fair shake. I also build very few defenders at first with free market, to minimize the support problems, again to try to give Free Market a fair chance. This lack of defenders made me very nervous, but I did not want to handicap Free Market with the support for more defenders at first.
My biggest problem with the Free Market path turned out to be mind worms. Normally, the early mind worms are no problem, because they are just hatchlings. I experienced several occasions during the first 40 turns with Free Market/Wealth, where mind worms attacked. With the first base, I had a defender already in it, so I first tried attacking with my defender as I usually do, but instead of having the typical 3-2 odds (which nearly always win), my attack strength was only 1.57 against a defense strength of 1.75, and I lost. I tried 5 replays of this battle before the mind worm lost, so I don't think losing was a fluke. I also tried a strategy when I sat tight. Oddly enough, I usually won on defense, partially because of the 25% base bonus, but mainly because the mind worm attack strength was inexplicably only 1.12. [I wonder is this is a bug, since the mind worm showed a PSI of 3, and a -25% hatchling penalty. On open ground, these mind worms attack at a power of 2.25.] Anyway, when I replayed and sat tight (instead of attacking), I won. On the second attack, I had not yet built a defender. (Against, I was trying to minimize support costs.) Luckily, the base was size 2, so instead of losing the whole base, I lost 1 (worthless) population, and a valuable recycling tank. I went back to an earlier save, and this time built a defender right after my recycling tank.
On open ground, encountering a mind worm was always a losing situation. If I attacked, I lost. If I tried to run away, the mind worm caught up and killed the unit easily. In one case, I was escorting a colony pod. I decided in this case to save and reload until I won the attack, which took about 5 tries. In short, if I had not reloaded at all, Free Market would not have fared nearly as well as shown, since I would have lost 2 recyling tanks, 1 colony pod, and 3 scouts to mind worms. As it was, I reloaded to avoid any loses, and even gained some energy gains from the kills, which realistically, I had very little chance of winning those battles. I found the need to reload rather frustrating, since I normally play iron man, but I was making saves nearly every turn to document this experiment, and I wanted to do everything possible not to bias against Free Market.
There were even more attacks with my Police State experiment, probably because I had more bases and was occupying more ground. But these attacks were not a problem. For some reason, the mind worms never seem to ambush a base; they always stop next to it. So my defenders had little problem killing the mind worms at 3-2 odds. Similarly, mind worms would typically appear as I tried to move into fungus, putting my unit on the attack for easy kills. My only loss to mind worms was popping one pod infested with 3 mind worms, which subsequently killed by explorer. I never felt the need to save/reload with Police State.
My other problem was that University was nearby. With my Free Market experiment, when I encountered University, I only had a total of two scouts. I gave up two techs to get a blood truce with University. They would not offer a treaty, nor would they trade or sell any tech. With Police, they demanded 50 energy credits. (I thought this was odd; that University always preferred tech, but maybe I did not have anything they wanted.) I refused, and they declared a Vendetta. I was not too worried. I killed the 2-1-2 rover that found my scout; by this time, my scout had gained 3 levels of morale due to worms and monolith, so this was not a surprising outcome. (It first retreated with 50% damage to my 10%, then I pinned it in with my ZOC and finished it off.) I wiped out two University probes heading my way, and one colony pod. By turn 33, I had a dozen scouts built, many of which had decent morale, and University offered to end the Vendetta, and even gave a treaty of friendship. They still would not trade or sell any tech, nor would they accept a pact. Anyway, I was much happier with my Police results, since I cost University 110 minerals worth of units, did not lose a thing, and did not give up any tech.
So without further rambling, here are the results at turn 40 for each:
Free Market
172 energy
6 bases each with recycling tanks
3 formers
3 crawlers
no explorers
no alien artifacts
Bases:
1/4//8
1/3/8
2/3/8
1/3/8
0/3/8
1/3/9
TOTAL: 6/19/49
Total support: -2
Police
51 energy
8 bases each with recycling tanks
4 formers
1 colony pod
4 explorers
3 alien artifacts
Bases:
3/4/5
2/4/3
0/6/3
5/2/3
2/4/3
2/4/3
2/4/4
3/4/5
TOTAL: 19/32/29
Total Support: -2
I am currently moving a colony pod to outflank University and cut off their avenue of expansion. (With Free Market, I have 2 fewer bases [soon to be 3], and cannot cut off the University expansion to the north.)
To contrast the two TOTALS, Free Market currently has 20 more energy per turn total, and Police currently has 13 more minerals per turn. Since a lot of the energy is turned into production at 2 energy for 1 mineral, I consider the two positions comparable. Free Market is gain technology somewhat faster (10 more research per turn), and I was planning to move to Police state to help with support. I feel that I need more formers to build forests, but I don't want to get overburdened by support; otherwise, the crawlers currently only bring in one mineral each.
Although both positions will be helped by terraforming, the Free Market bases max out with working 1 forest each and zero growth, until they spring for a recreation commons. The Police bases can work 2 forests each and continue to grow, needing a 3rd police (or rec commons) at size 3 to work 3 forests. And I will be expanding from 8 to 12 bases in the next 12 turns or so.
---------------------------------
Looking to the future, I personally am much happier with the Police position. I plan to continue expanding bases, terraforming, and popping pods, at least for the next little while. I currently have my best base working on the Human Genome SP. I might even cash 1 or 2 AA to hurry this along. Once this is done, I should be able to switch to FM, building a few rec commons as needed. I also have to decide if I want to keep my treaty with University, or if I want to bleed them dry with drones.
With the Free Market position, have been unused to moving to Free Market so early, I am not sure where to go from here. For example, when do I continue expanding? Do I go for the Human Genome SP first? Do I keep my bases stagnant at size two and just rely on supply crawlers, or do I build rec centers so that I can work more land? Once I get Police State, I intend to build a lot more formers, but should I build more before then, since I will pay 1 mineral support for every one I build? Of course, my crawlers would be a lot more effective if I had more forest to work.
Anyway, comments and suggestions welcome, both for the first 40 turns, and how you think the next 40 turns should be played for a fair comparision between the two approaches.
Now my usually strategy was to beeline to police state with most factions, switching to free market only when I have I have finished by initial exploratory phase, and have some secret projects to help with done control. With Police State, the +2 support helps for scouts (to pop pods), police, and terraformers, and the +2 police helps me to expand beyond 6 bases by making sure that I have two police in each city. (The same thing could be done with recreation commons, but it is twice as expensive to build, and costs support each turn. Plus, I like to keep a or two defender in the city anyway to protect against worms.) I also like to send out explorers in every direction to try to pop the pods and get the goddies before my competitors can, and support/police helps with this.
Anyway, I decided to run a test for 40 turns with each. So I started a game with Morgan, and beginning with the exact same starting position, I tried both paths. I pick Morgan since I figured he would be strongest with the Free Market/Wealth beeline, and wanted to make sure I was giving Free Market a fair shake. I also build very few defenders at first with free market, to minimize the support problems, again to try to give Free Market a fair chance. This lack of defenders made me very nervous, but I did not want to handicap Free Market with the support for more defenders at first.
My biggest problem with the Free Market path turned out to be mind worms. Normally, the early mind worms are no problem, because they are just hatchlings. I experienced several occasions during the first 40 turns with Free Market/Wealth, where mind worms attacked. With the first base, I had a defender already in it, so I first tried attacking with my defender as I usually do, but instead of having the typical 3-2 odds (which nearly always win), my attack strength was only 1.57 against a defense strength of 1.75, and I lost. I tried 5 replays of this battle before the mind worm lost, so I don't think losing was a fluke. I also tried a strategy when I sat tight. Oddly enough, I usually won on defense, partially because of the 25% base bonus, but mainly because the mind worm attack strength was inexplicably only 1.12. [I wonder is this is a bug, since the mind worm showed a PSI of 3, and a -25% hatchling penalty. On open ground, these mind worms attack at a power of 2.25.] Anyway, when I replayed and sat tight (instead of attacking), I won. On the second attack, I had not yet built a defender. (Against, I was trying to minimize support costs.) Luckily, the base was size 2, so instead of losing the whole base, I lost 1 (worthless) population, and a valuable recycling tank. I went back to an earlier save, and this time built a defender right after my recycling tank.
On open ground, encountering a mind worm was always a losing situation. If I attacked, I lost. If I tried to run away, the mind worm caught up and killed the unit easily. In one case, I was escorting a colony pod. I decided in this case to save and reload until I won the attack, which took about 5 tries. In short, if I had not reloaded at all, Free Market would not have fared nearly as well as shown, since I would have lost 2 recyling tanks, 1 colony pod, and 3 scouts to mind worms. As it was, I reloaded to avoid any loses, and even gained some energy gains from the kills, which realistically, I had very little chance of winning those battles. I found the need to reload rather frustrating, since I normally play iron man, but I was making saves nearly every turn to document this experiment, and I wanted to do everything possible not to bias against Free Market.
There were even more attacks with my Police State experiment, probably because I had more bases and was occupying more ground. But these attacks were not a problem. For some reason, the mind worms never seem to ambush a base; they always stop next to it. So my defenders had little problem killing the mind worms at 3-2 odds. Similarly, mind worms would typically appear as I tried to move into fungus, putting my unit on the attack for easy kills. My only loss to mind worms was popping one pod infested with 3 mind worms, which subsequently killed by explorer. I never felt the need to save/reload with Police State.
My other problem was that University was nearby. With my Free Market experiment, when I encountered University, I only had a total of two scouts. I gave up two techs to get a blood truce with University. They would not offer a treaty, nor would they trade or sell any tech. With Police, they demanded 50 energy credits. (I thought this was odd; that University always preferred tech, but maybe I did not have anything they wanted.) I refused, and they declared a Vendetta. I was not too worried. I killed the 2-1-2 rover that found my scout; by this time, my scout had gained 3 levels of morale due to worms and monolith, so this was not a surprising outcome. (It first retreated with 50% damage to my 10%, then I pinned it in with my ZOC and finished it off.) I wiped out two University probes heading my way, and one colony pod. By turn 33, I had a dozen scouts built, many of which had decent morale, and University offered to end the Vendetta, and even gave a treaty of friendship. They still would not trade or sell any tech, nor would they accept a pact. Anyway, I was much happier with my Police results, since I cost University 110 minerals worth of units, did not lose a thing, and did not give up any tech.
So without further rambling, here are the results at turn 40 for each:
Free Market
172 energy
6 bases each with recycling tanks
3 formers
3 crawlers
no explorers
no alien artifacts
Bases:
1/4//8
1/3/8
2/3/8
1/3/8
0/3/8
1/3/9
TOTAL: 6/19/49
Total support: -2
Police
51 energy
8 bases each with recycling tanks
4 formers
1 colony pod
4 explorers
3 alien artifacts
Bases:
3/4/5
2/4/3
0/6/3
5/2/3
2/4/3
2/4/3
2/4/4
3/4/5
TOTAL: 19/32/29
Total Support: -2
I am currently moving a colony pod to outflank University and cut off their avenue of expansion. (With Free Market, I have 2 fewer bases [soon to be 3], and cannot cut off the University expansion to the north.)
To contrast the two TOTALS, Free Market currently has 20 more energy per turn total, and Police currently has 13 more minerals per turn. Since a lot of the energy is turned into production at 2 energy for 1 mineral, I consider the two positions comparable. Free Market is gain technology somewhat faster (10 more research per turn), and I was planning to move to Police state to help with support. I feel that I need more formers to build forests, but I don't want to get overburdened by support; otherwise, the crawlers currently only bring in one mineral each.
Although both positions will be helped by terraforming, the Free Market bases max out with working 1 forest each and zero growth, until they spring for a recreation commons. The Police bases can work 2 forests each and continue to grow, needing a 3rd police (or rec commons) at size 3 to work 3 forests. And I will be expanding from 8 to 12 bases in the next 12 turns or so.
---------------------------------
Looking to the future, I personally am much happier with the Police position. I plan to continue expanding bases, terraforming, and popping pods, at least for the next little while. I currently have my best base working on the Human Genome SP. I might even cash 1 or 2 AA to hurry this along. Once this is done, I should be able to switch to FM, building a few rec commons as needed. I also have to decide if I want to keep my treaty with University, or if I want to bleed them dry with drones.
With the Free Market position, have been unused to moving to Free Market so early, I am not sure where to go from here. For example, when do I continue expanding? Do I go for the Human Genome SP first? Do I keep my bases stagnant at size two and just rely on supply crawlers, or do I build rec centers so that I can work more land? Once I get Police State, I intend to build a lot more formers, but should I build more before then, since I will pay 1 mineral support for every one I build? Of course, my crawlers would be a lot more effective if I had more forest to work.
Anyway, comments and suggestions welcome, both for the first 40 turns, and how you think the next 40 turns should be played for a fair comparision between the two approaches.
Comment