Early Terraforming/Build order questions

[Kataphraktoi]

Originally posted by #endgame

Most people who say that tend to write really well. You are no exception.

If you care enough to ask,you care enough to do it better than normal in the first place. if those people didnt ask about it,their english is good enough to fool me into thinking they are native. my .02$

I was scared. I have never before seen the AI actually reacting to what I did. My air fleet was quite useless, even when I upgraded some of them to Chaos Gun. I had to switch and build Rovers

dont build choppers if your facing equal tech and AAA,just needlejets. they have indirect uses that remain useful even when they cannot directly attack. if you always have 1 needle end its turn over your attack stack,you can walk right up to the city with 6-1-2 units say and take it with no opposition. killing all the AI formers and blocking the roads is worthwhile also not to mention all the army units the AI has walking about. and dont forget to build interceptors-they can completely shield your crawlers from harm if near a base.

I think Zak's NetNodes are a HUGE bonus, add the Virtual World and Rec Commons and a small Psych Allocation and Zak's drone problems are no problems any longer

right on the mark those normally expensive holotheaters also cost nothing,and make a 10% psych for drone control allocation much more useful by bumping that 10% by 50%.

I don't think giving you crawlers armour will help that much - they will either be killed by the first or the second attack - at least you kneed to upgrade engine too.

personally i would never armour crawlers,as the cost spent on offensive units is much better that a passive unit sitting there.even on chokepoints,i feel a active offence is better than waiting for an attack.

[Sikander]

As others have stated, your english skills are admirable.

You may want to shoot for fusion power, as it gives you a very strong 2:1 advantage in combat, which should put you back into a dominant position vs the AI. Another advantage of fusion is that you can build an armored supply cralwer for the same price as an unarmored crawler, or an unarmored rover crawler for the same price if you prefer it. That, and you can turn all of your specialists into engineers who bring in 2 labs & 3 ecs a turn. It also leads to advanced ecological engineering (iirc) which gives you the superformer ability (doubles forming speed) and the ability to build soil enrichers.