Super Science City...should you allways try to build one?

[CEO Aaron]

I'm not a fan of the SCC approach, for a number of reasons.

#1: Like Frankychan, putting all my research eggs in one basket is abhorrent to me.

#2: In order to get the most from your SCC earlier on, you'll be terraforming an energy farm, which is, imo, not a very efficient use of terraformer time. More bases will almost invariably suit your faction better, especially later in the game when cloning vats and nutrient satellites can rachet up your population very swiftly. Besides, energy farms can be a great defensive liability.

#3: Tech advances are truncated on a per-base basis. This means that if you need 35 labs to complete a tech this turn, and your SCC is about to contribute 1000, you'll lose the 965 leftover labs. There are tricks you can learn to figure out where in the base order your base will be, and act accordingly, but that detail in accounting makes my head itch. Better to make each base produce labs efficiently for the its size.

#4: Tech is the most ephemeral advantage in the game. Unit techs can be reverse-engingeered, and other techs can be probed away. Now a bad tech rate can be a hamstring, especially before probes, but IMO you're far better off keeping tech parity with your competition while focusing on minerals to outbuild them.

[livid imp]

Originally posted by BlackCat
I don't like coastal placement of core bases so I prefer to terraform up to above 3000 m. That gives +5 energy with ME.

Silly Cat,

Tidal Harness +3 energy
Thermocline Transducer +1 energy
Merchant Exchange +1 energy
Free Market +1 energy

=6 energy

And all you have to teraform are the Harnesses. No raising the land or building E-mirrors. And once you get fusion, trawlers cost the same as crawlers.

[BlackCat]

I never go FM, don't build E-mirrors, don't crawl very much, and I prefer noncoastal core bases.

Might be a silly Cat, but rather that than a silly imp

[binTravkin]

Tidal Harness +3 energy
Thermocline Transducer +1 energy
Merchant Exchange +1 energy
Free Market +1 energy

This is the most easy combo to achieve.
ME is easy to grab, WP is not a hardball too (for fast terraform)
Only the FM could be a prob for some facs (like Hive), but they usually compensate in crawler count..

[Nabvrimn]

For a defensable SSC why not make it a sea city with a dike around it? You may not be able to get the ME into it this way, but you should be able to get the others if you have a causeway from the dike to the city and a transport in the city to get crawlers in to help with SP construction. The city would be vulnerable only to marines and air power, and removing the causeway after all the SPs are built would render it vulnerable only to air units.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Nabvrimn
For a defensable SSC why not make it a sea city with a dike around it? You may not be able to get the ME into it this way, but you should be able to get the others if you have a causeway from the dike to the city and a transport in the city to get crawlers in to help with SP construction. The city would be vulnerable only to marines and air power, and removing the causeway after all the SPs are built would render it vulnerable only to air units.

I don't terraform a **** but I will terraform a lot of land upward to create an energy park which has the effect of making it a longer route for amphibious assaults against me. If I am close to a pole, I might even join my island onto that pole and foreclose ships coming in that direction.

It all depends on ther map anyway. On many maps, I can find some chokepoints that if monitored give ample notice of potential attackers. In an ideal situation, you might send a trawler to monitor the spot. Even if it gets killed, it serves a purpose.

The easiest protection for a SSC in the early days is to be a land base and simply to crawl all of its nearby coastal tiles. Pre airpower and amphibious assault, your base cannot be attacked at all

[Dis]

do you guys not build coastal bases?

I feel naked without them. I have to have them. How else can I build a navy?

super science city is a no go in my current game. morgan is out-researching me and took all the science projects. . and they have hunter-seeker. so stealing tech is not an option.

[joncnunn]

On my map settings, most of the bases I found are coastal.

It's just that many of them will become uncoastal later.

[Commy]

Ultimately, the city with the supercollider and the theory of everything generally produces the most raw energy...but I don't crawl for it cause I don't use crawlers, and I don't exactly strive to improve it...so I don't use an SCC, more or less each base produces what it can...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Dissident
do you guys not build coastal bases?

I feel naked without them. I have to have them. How else can I build a navy?

I do build coastal bases and my SSC is usually a coastal base since I like the ready energy from the sea. I just like terraforming a nearby land park that can serve as a bulwark against attack and limit the number of directions from which an attack may come

Originally posted by Dissident
super science city is a no go in my current game. morgan is out-researching me and took all the science projects. . and they have hunter-seeker. so stealing tech is not an option.

So go capture the HSA

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dissident
do you guys not build coastal bases?

I feel naked without them. I have to have them. How else can I build a navy?

Surely, but they pretty fast becomes land bases. I Preserve one or two bases as coastal, but navy isn't that crucial after Air. Actually I have a couple of times experienced that my naval/coastal bases became land bases due to interior land raise

super science city is a no go in my current game. morgan is out-researching me and took all the science projects. . and they have hunter-seeker. so stealing tech is not an option.

As Flubber says : get it Or maybe reconcider your beeline.

[Dis]

I have finished my game- transcend victory btw. But I never did get the tech lead.

Morgan with the expand preference did pretty good. He didn't start near any natural landmarks such as monsoon jungle. I still can't figure out how he out-researched me so much. I had the highest population through pop booms. Most of my cities were maxed out at the hab dome limits.

Just for the hell of it I planet bustered 3 of his cities- including the one with hunter seeker algorithm. though I didn't need it at that point because I could use the logarithmic enhancement- and I did to steal tech (that's what started the war). I didn't have enough range to planet buster his city with the telepathic matrix. I hate it when I can't get telepathic matrix. But it turns out I don't need it. Perhaps that SP is overrated.

In response he planet bustered 1 of my cities- the one with most of my SP's in it (cloning vats, human genome, empath guild). He didn't nuke any other cities. I was kind of pissed because I was using techniques I read about here (using units to block), but I think a couple of units disappeared due to rising waters (because of the morganites), and I didn't notice a break in my chain of units.

But it was a fun game, I guess there was still little chance of me losing. As the AI doesn't seem capable of building the ascent to transcendence in a timely fashion. I built all the factories and mineral improvements in my best mineral city, built the bulk matter transmitter, and then used that city to build the ascent. I also used alot of crawlers (standard ones- not armored).

[Senethro]

Dissident: I'm always interested to see the Morgans do well. My friend tells me of this time a Monsoon Jungle Morgan AI he played against got a economic victory by 2225 but unfortunately he didn't keep a save.

Any chance you could email me few save games, maybe one around transcendance time, 2100 and 2200?

senethro at gmail dot com

[Dis]

I'll send a save. As I said, even though they built Voice of Planet long before I was even able to, they weren't a serious threat. looking back at their save, I can't find a city of their that is building ascent to transcendence. They built voice of planet but didn't bother building ascent.

I think the problem with the morganites, that despite their research my war with them has put a cramp in their style. My last unit was destroyed (so you won't be able to see it), but I had only like 3 drop shard units in their territory wrecking havoc. I didn't have enough strength to attack their units directly, instead I just destroyed terrain enhancements with them and several needlejets. Even though they could build better units than I can- they built native life!!!! . stupid. My little exursion into their closest cities (you'll see them on the save game) caused them to switch from building a planet buster to mind worms. My war started when I used a probe with logarithmic enchancement to try to catch up in tech. I'm almost always caught stealing tech.

and I wasn't interested in a major war (I'm not much into conquering everything), that's why I didn't switch from build mode to conquer mode. I just sent a few units in to wrech havoc, and that they did.

It was also my first game putting cities close together (though they aren't that close as you will see). after reading the other thread about optimum city placement. I seemed to do better with perfectionist cities. oh well.

[Senethro]

I see what the CPU did, they saw you as a threat and all pacted against you. Their main cities might be making 4 x 18 energy each from commerce. The dual morganites were probably receiving the most benefit from this.

I'm also more used to wet worlds, your arid Chiron has encouraged the CPU to plant forests which perhaps makes for a better endgame with tree farms installed. This, while making for an overall smaller population seems to have yielded more energy, the driving force behind research. They tend to farm/solar collector in wetter climes.

As for the CPUs ability to keep up with you in tech, the Angels had a lot of infiltration through pacts, someone had the PDL, CPUs above librarian have cheaper research costs and pacting encourages techsharing. Unusual, but not impossible.