Tweet
What sets the Morganites apart from other factions, for better or for worse? I'll try to examine this mathematically, and derive some strategies.
Very early game (until Industrial Economics):
Morgan has +1 econ, which amounts to +1 energy/base relative to a baseline faction. He has synthmetal prototyped, which allows for easier defense against a hostile neighbor. He gets 100 ECs, though has nothing appealing to buy until he researches a tech or two. Though he suffers -1 support, this won't matter unless he tries to support police, which is a bad idea since FM is coming up. In fact, FM can be had with just one tech, though it may be a worse choice than Biogenetics or Centauri Ecology, depending on terrain. Population limits are completely irrelevant, as is commerce.
Benefits: +1 energy/base, about half of which goes to research and half of which goes to econ. Each base should be size 1, and there should be 2-6 bases. Each worker will probably be harvesting 1 energy on average, given sparse forest coverage but the presence of rivers. Bases naturally produce 1 energy each at 0 econ, so +1 energy/base amounts to about a 33-50% increase, depending on the prevalence of rivers. Little if any should be lost to inefficiency.
100 extra ECs. Count this as 40-50 minerals. As soon as Morgan has something worthwhile to rush, he needs to rush it, or this advantage is squandered. Biogenetics is popular for Rec Tanks, but is off the IA beeline. Formers are always a possibility. 100 ECs will buy 5/8 of two Rec Tanks or 1/2 of four formers. A rec tank is worth a nutrient (difficult to quantify), a mineral, and an energy point (together worth 3 energy), each turn. Two extra formers mean that many more roads and forests to work and crawl in the near future.
Drawbacks: -1 support may cause some minerals to be lost, if any base is supporting both a former and a colony pod, or happens to be supporting a scout and another unit. Each lost mineral counts as about -2 energy, so +1 economy balances -1 support if half of Morgan's bases are supporting two units. Balancing out an advantage is bad, of course.
Early game (Industrial Economics through Centauri Empathy):
Why run Free Market? Planned is not an option, and Green requires several techs not on the way to IA, and so comes later. Police units each cost a mineral and Planet is still meek (until 2150, wild native life suffers large penalties when attacking bases). Even if you're at war already, you probably aren't in a position to attack. Why not claim the benefits of FM when the penalties hurt so little?
Relative to a baseline faction, Morgan still has +1 econ, but with Free Market and perhaps Wealth, the incremental gain of +1 econ is now +2 energy/base, some of which may be lost to inefficiency as bases spread out. Formers could now be produced en masse, if not for support problems. Crawlers can be manufactured to compensate, but trying to avoid paying support doesn't work as well anymore. Therefore, most bases will be paying at least a mineral of support, or faction-wide terraforming efficiency will be very low. Democracy will become an option eventually, but is a bad option unless your efficiency losses are substantial. Losing an additional mineral at every base hurts, and effectively having colony pods cost an extra 10 minerals hurts when you should be expanding most aggressively.
Benefits: +2 energy/base, one of which goes to research and the other of which goes to econ, though with slight efficiency losses.
Whatever you bought with your extra starting 100 ECs.
Commerce might start to bring in a few energy, depending on the friendliness of neighbors. They likely won't be getting anything at all from treaties or even pacts, so that might make them reluctant to engage in commerce.
Drawbacks: -1 mineral/base, relative to baseline factions. Unfortunately, this is worth about -2 ECs/base, leaving Morgan with +1 research/base and -1 EC/base. This trade is worthwhile, but much less potent than +1 research/base and +1 EC/base.
Difficulty dealing with mind worms in the open. If you can lure them to bases, even formers can defend against them just fine, but if an early scout patrol finds one in the field, it probably has 50-50 odds of winning an attack.
Drones. Coping with drones requires either a hefty investment of Psych, which would at the least negate the +2 energy/base advantage; doctors, which consume about a forest's worth of production (worth 6 energy); keeping your bases small and their number below the bureaucracy limit; or Rec Commons. Keeping your bases at size 1 and their count below the bureaucracy limit is only possible for a short time, unless your landmass is small or the map is particularly large. Eventually, either your bases will grow or your base count will grow, and drones will pop up even at size 1 bases. Rec Commons allow your bases to grow to size 2, regardless of bureaucracy. They only cost 1 EC/turn each, and are by far the cheapest way of dealing with drones early on. Alternatively, building the HGP may also be an option for drone control. It won't be cheap, but will provide lasting benefits, including the possibility of pop booms later.
Early-mid game (Centauri Empathy through Environmental Economics):
Now that Green is an option, it's worth careful consideration.
Benefits of FM relative to Green: +4 energy/base, 17% faster population growth
Benefits of Green relative to FM: reduced efficiency losses, chance of native life capture, ability to use police, ability to field offensive units, with Democracy ability to move Labs/Econ sliders with impunity
As described in the Early game, Morgan doesn't have much going for him if he just runs FM/Wealth. It's when he runs Green/Wealth that he stands to benefit from his +1 Econ. Instead of merely adding +2/base, it now adds +1/worker, subject to energy restrictions. No other faction can capture native life and have +2 total Econ this early (or at all, short of Golden Ages or Eudaimonia). Of those that can't reach +2 Econ anyway, Deirdre and Cha Dawn can already capture native life and Yang benefits much more from Planned. Thus, Morgan stands to uniquely benefit from Green.
Although police units are costly to support, some independent units may be left over from early pod popping, and captured worms or spore launchers can be used as well. Eventually, with Bio-Engineering, police will become free to support. Remember that even non-independent worms are considered clean when in fungus.
Morgan will probably be near or at the forefront of technology, but even so, worms are useful skirmishers in either an offensive or defensive land war, and are excellent explorers. Opponents will probably have uncleared fungus in their lands, possibly with paths leading directly to key cities. Exploration will yield additional commlinks, with potential technology trade and commerce.
If expansion has stalled, under Green it can resume, since bureacracy limits are about 50% higher under +2 effic, compared to +0 effic. Far-flung bases will lose less energy to inefficiency, and even the random native life will tend to ignore your cities. Worm hunting will also make up some of the lost energy, as ECs, and pod popping can resume on land and begin at sea, with little fear of the results of each pod.
If you built the Weather Paradigm and lots of condensor-farms, the lowered population limit may be a problem, but probably is irrelevant.
Very early game (until Industrial Economics):
Morgan has +1 econ, which amounts to +1 energy/base relative to a baseline faction. He has synthmetal prototyped, which allows for easier defense against a hostile neighbor. He gets 100 ECs, though has nothing appealing to buy until he researches a tech or two. Though he suffers -1 support, this won't matter unless he tries to support police, which is a bad idea since FM is coming up. In fact, FM can be had with just one tech, though it may be a worse choice than Biogenetics or Centauri Ecology, depending on terrain. Population limits are completely irrelevant, as is commerce.
Benefits: +1 energy/base, about half of which goes to research and half of which goes to econ. Each base should be size 1, and there should be 2-6 bases. Each worker will probably be harvesting 1 energy on average, given sparse forest coverage but the presence of rivers. Bases naturally produce 1 energy each at 0 econ, so +1 energy/base amounts to about a 33-50% increase, depending on the prevalence of rivers. Little if any should be lost to inefficiency.
100 extra ECs. Count this as 40-50 minerals. As soon as Morgan has something worthwhile to rush, he needs to rush it, or this advantage is squandered. Biogenetics is popular for Rec Tanks, but is off the IA beeline. Formers are always a possibility. 100 ECs will buy 5/8 of two Rec Tanks or 1/2 of four formers. A rec tank is worth a nutrient (difficult to quantify), a mineral, and an energy point (together worth 3 energy), each turn. Two extra formers mean that many more roads and forests to work and crawl in the near future.
Drawbacks: -1 support may cause some minerals to be lost, if any base is supporting both a former and a colony pod, or happens to be supporting a scout and another unit. Each lost mineral counts as about -2 energy, so +1 economy balances -1 support if half of Morgan's bases are supporting two units. Balancing out an advantage is bad, of course.
Early game (Industrial Economics through Centauri Empathy):
Why run Free Market? Planned is not an option, and Green requires several techs not on the way to IA, and so comes later. Police units each cost a mineral and Planet is still meek (until 2150, wild native life suffers large penalties when attacking bases). Even if you're at war already, you probably aren't in a position to attack. Why not claim the benefits of FM when the penalties hurt so little?
Relative to a baseline faction, Morgan still has +1 econ, but with Free Market and perhaps Wealth, the incremental gain of +1 econ is now +2 energy/base, some of which may be lost to inefficiency as bases spread out. Formers could now be produced en masse, if not for support problems. Crawlers can be manufactured to compensate, but trying to avoid paying support doesn't work as well anymore. Therefore, most bases will be paying at least a mineral of support, or faction-wide terraforming efficiency will be very low. Democracy will become an option eventually, but is a bad option unless your efficiency losses are substantial. Losing an additional mineral at every base hurts, and effectively having colony pods cost an extra 10 minerals hurts when you should be expanding most aggressively.
Benefits: +2 energy/base, one of which goes to research and the other of which goes to econ, though with slight efficiency losses.
Whatever you bought with your extra starting 100 ECs.
Commerce might start to bring in a few energy, depending on the friendliness of neighbors. They likely won't be getting anything at all from treaties or even pacts, so that might make them reluctant to engage in commerce.
Drawbacks: -1 mineral/base, relative to baseline factions. Unfortunately, this is worth about -2 ECs/base, leaving Morgan with +1 research/base and -1 EC/base. This trade is worthwhile, but much less potent than +1 research/base and +1 EC/base.
Difficulty dealing with mind worms in the open. If you can lure them to bases, even formers can defend against them just fine, but if an early scout patrol finds one in the field, it probably has 50-50 odds of winning an attack.
Drones. Coping with drones requires either a hefty investment of Psych, which would at the least negate the +2 energy/base advantage; doctors, which consume about a forest's worth of production (worth 6 energy); keeping your bases small and their number below the bureaucracy limit; or Rec Commons. Keeping your bases at size 1 and their count below the bureaucracy limit is only possible for a short time, unless your landmass is small or the map is particularly large. Eventually, either your bases will grow or your base count will grow, and drones will pop up even at size 1 bases. Rec Commons allow your bases to grow to size 2, regardless of bureaucracy. They only cost 1 EC/turn each, and are by far the cheapest way of dealing with drones early on. Alternatively, building the HGP may also be an option for drone control. It won't be cheap, but will provide lasting benefits, including the possibility of pop booms later.
Early-mid game (Centauri Empathy through Environmental Economics):
Now that Green is an option, it's worth careful consideration.
Benefits of FM relative to Green: +4 energy/base, 17% faster population growth
Benefits of Green relative to FM: reduced efficiency losses, chance of native life capture, ability to use police, ability to field offensive units, with Democracy ability to move Labs/Econ sliders with impunity
As described in the Early game, Morgan doesn't have much going for him if he just runs FM/Wealth. It's when he runs Green/Wealth that he stands to benefit from his +1 Econ. Instead of merely adding +2/base, it now adds +1/worker, subject to energy restrictions. No other faction can capture native life and have +2 total Econ this early (or at all, short of Golden Ages or Eudaimonia). Of those that can't reach +2 Econ anyway, Deirdre and Cha Dawn can already capture native life and Yang benefits much more from Planned. Thus, Morgan stands to uniquely benefit from Green.
Although police units are costly to support, some independent units may be left over from early pod popping, and captured worms or spore launchers can be used as well. Eventually, with Bio-Engineering, police will become free to support. Remember that even non-independent worms are considered clean when in fungus.
Morgan will probably be near or at the forefront of technology, but even so, worms are useful skirmishers in either an offensive or defensive land war, and are excellent explorers. Opponents will probably have uncleared fungus in their lands, possibly with paths leading directly to key cities. Exploration will yield additional commlinks, with potential technology trade and commerce.
If expansion has stalled, under Green it can resume, since bureacracy limits are about 50% higher under +2 effic, compared to +0 effic. Far-flung bases will lose less energy to inefficiency, and even the random native life will tend to ignore your cities. Worm hunting will also make up some of the lost energy, as ECs, and pod popping can resume on land and begin at sea, with little fear of the results of each pod.
If you built the Weather Paradigm and lots of condensor-farms, the lowered population limit may be a problem, but probably is irrelevant.
Comment