Running Free Market

[Commy]

Since I appear to be getting lazier the more I play SMAC, I have resorted to a completely lazy state of having all my formers automate planting fungus and building magtubes...

If I play the Cyborgs with Demo, Green, Knowledge, and Cybernetic, I end up with +4 planet. If I build the Manifold Harmonics, I get an easy 3 nutrients per square...

No more condensors and echelon mirros and boreholes, no, I don't waste the time...fungus can't be destroyed by the enemy, it gives the best overall average of the resources, especially with the Harmonics, and it is just one "improvement", fungus...

So far it is working good, not having to fight the worms to maintain an economy...works nice really...

And no minus police either, being the cyborgs, so now I can just screw probe teams and and build fungal missiles and let the worms kill my oponents...

And the +6 research and +9 efficiency is kicking...

[Dis]

interesting. but it takes a while to get all you can out of fungus right?

I still like forests, they look prettier. . But that takes time to get value as well (need hybrid forest etc)

[Mead]

I too avoided FM until recently.

Now, especially with Morgan I see the benefits of FM are great, particuarly in the early game.

The energy boost means an large increase, not only in the cash flow but also tech (a protion of your income goes to tech, right?).

If you are going to run FM/wealth work hard to get HGP tp allow your bases to grow to size two without doctors (the talent balances off the drone); get the PTS (it gets rids of a drone in small bases); be prepped to use some psych allocation; and in the mid game start thinking about drone control facilities (the LV would help too).

As I heard CEO Aaron remark once, you don't go to war in FM, you, get out of FM for the duration of the war.

For the times you are not in an outright war but want aircraft or combat untis that will wander beyond the confines of your territory you can use a punishment equipped base, or as Flubber suggests a base full of specialists that has its reasources crawled to it (or a small, sized one, base with SPs that control drones, even these will need crawled mins if you have a lot of A/C based there).

Mead

[CEO Aaron]

My ears are burning, it's the strangest thing.

As one of the principal evangelists of the power of the market, I'm glad to see that there are some players giving it a try. It does require making substantial changes to early gameplay, however the benefits are undeniable. Bear in mind, however, that its benefits are stronger the earlier you can safely invoke it.

Yes, offensive war is highly impractical in market, but defending your territory is really quite simple. As others have noted, probe morale is calculated independently of your Morale SE factor, and of course as probes are non-military, they also function as ideal scouts. Armored probes are of particular use to Morgan, with his early limited support capability, but it's worth remembering that when choosing a defender in a base, a probe, even an armored one, will be selected last after all true military units, so position your units accordingly.

As to the automatic drones due to the maintenance of air power, remember that interceptors do not trigger drones, so it's quite possible to maintain a good defensive air corps without resorting to re-homing, punishment spheres, or other gymnastics. In addition, your cash and tech will often translate into superior weaponry, so you may still be able to use your interceptors in a ground effect role, in spite of the penalties.

If I had to indentify the single drawback of running FM, it's not the adverse effects upon your military endeavors. As Mead points out, I recommend switching out of FM as soon as your troops are ready to cross the border. The big problem is the way running early FM complicates your drone defence. You can no longer rely on cash from planetpearls, and in fact you may find that pre-trance (a critical ability for a dedicated marketeer), a lucky worm or two can wreak untold havok if you've badly positioned your defenders. Use of sensors (I like to plant them under my perimeter bases, it's never worth delaying your early bases for a sensor) can also swing the odds of a untimely drone encounter into your favor.

The drone-control aspect of FM is probably the least significant aspect of the SE choice, as the resource advantage of extra cash more than makes up for a couple of doctors, so long as you are vigilant. In the early, unterraformed phase of the game, a base with one worker, one doctor and a recycling tanks (running Market) will easily outproduce a 2-worker base without tanks (running planned). Snapping up HGP before the bureaucracy limit is passed will certainly ease your expansion-pains, but even if you miss it, you can still plunk down a colony and immediately rush-buy a rec-commons, then proceed to tanks, formers and garrisons.

Let me sum up by recommending a review of Vel's guide on turn-advantage and the power of economy:

http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/alpha_centauri_b.txt

If you haven't read this yet, you're missing out on some really profound insights into powerful strategies that will improve your play drastically.

[Mart]

The link does not allow to enter like that. They restrict access by that way. Any other possibility to view that page?

[CEO Aaron]

Whoops. Yeah, you can find it, just use the game search, find Alpha Centauri, and look under FAQs, it's the first one. Be sure and pick the PC version.

[Flubber]

I have had suprisingly little problem running offensive wars in FM-- as you say, you don't need punishment spheres-- you just build a base and focus it on military from the start and live with the fact that its only citizen will be a doctor-- If you build two of these bases, you have military sufficient for all but the largest scale forces

[Mead]

I can't recall the last time I built a punishment square.


Usually, I would make most if not all the citizens specialists and crawl the reasources (OK, I admit it might be tempted to stave them down to an 'appropriate' size to keep them from rioting).

You can handle a small minor war while still running FM, but if you are conducting an all out offensive operation using units from many bases to take over an opponent, the PIA factor, if nothing else, favours going out of FM while you wage the major war.


Mead

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Mead



Usually, I would make most if not all the citizens specialists and crawl the reasources (OK, I admit it might be tempted to stave them down to an 'appropriate' size to keep them from rioting).

That is the way it works for me-- The base stays at whatever population level it can maintain with all the citizens as specialists-- Often that means it is in a cycle of grow then starve but I don't care since all it does is crawl minerals.

Originally posted by Mead




You can handle a small minor war while still running FM, but if you are conducting an all out offensive operation using units from many bases to take over an opponent, the PIA factor, if nothing else, favours going out of FM while you wage the major war.


Mead

I agree although if you can have say 2-3 military bases, each producing between 20 to 30 minerals, it is really easy to have a substantial force and keep a steady stream of replacements coming. Remember that other bases can provide all your probes and any interceptors plus any follow on garrisons who just occupy territory that is now yours. Realistically the specialist bases can focus on your airforce and a few ground troops


The biggest problem I find with attacking in FM is if an opponent has worms ( particularly dee or the cult) but having arty about will solve that for the most part