Terraforming for a Newbie

[FleetingPenguin]

In Velociryx's guide, he recommends the following terraforming strategy at each new base:

Rush build formers, then

1) If there is a mineral or energy resources square in the production radius of the base, put down a forest and road. Otherwise pick a flat square in the production radius of hte base and put down a forest and road.

2) If there is a nutrient resources square, put down a road and forest. Otherwise build a solar and farm on a rolling moist or rainy.

What should I do in the early game to maximize production after that? Vel recommends flattening all rocky squares and building forests on all (non-wet) flat squares, and possibly following the solar+farm strategy on rolling/wet squares. Cities really don't get that big early game, so would the opening two squares plus a few forests be a good terraforming strategy, or is there something better?

As the game progresses, what should I be doing with my formers? The only thing I can think of is making boreholes for my supply crawlers and other terraforming for the crawlers.

Are boreholes a good idea in the production radius of a city, or should I build them outside of a city and supply crawler them?

I'd really appreciate some help on mid and late game terraforming. Thanks!

[vyeh]

Re: Terraforming for a Newbie

Originally posted by FleetingPenguin
In Velociryx's guide, he recommends the following terraforming strategy at each new base:

Rush build formers, then

1) If there is a mineral or energy resources square in the production radius of the base, put down a forest and road. Otherwise pick a flat square in the production radius of hte base and put down a forest and road.

2) If there is a nutrient resources square, put down a road and forest. Otherwise build a solar and farm on a rolling moist or rainy.

What you build depends on the situation.

Basically, bases should grow and bonus squares should be exploited.

A base square produces two nutrients and will produce more:

(1) if there are recycling tanks (+1)
(2) if it is on a jungle square (+1)
(3) if it is on a bonus nutrient square (+2)

Forests produces one nutrient and will produce more:

(1) if it is on a jungle square (+1)
(2) if it is on a bonus nutrient square (+2)
(3) if there is a tree farm in the base (+1)
(4) if there is a hybrid forest in the base (+1)

Each population point requires 2 nutrients. Nutrient production over the required nutrients help the base grows. The more surplus nutrients, the faster the base grows.

Forests require 4 years to plant. Farms require 4 years to cultivate. Solar collectors require 4 - 8 years to build.

In the early game, a square can produce at most two nutrients, two minerals and two energy unless there is a bonus on that square.

Exploiting these bonus squares in the early game is a must.

If there is a rocky square with a bonus mineral, it can produce 7 minerals with a road and a mine; however it will produce no nutrients. A one population base working that square will have only enough nutrients to support the one worker; there will be no growth.

Building recycling tanks (which will be quick with the base producing 8 minerals a turn) will produce an additional nutrient; however every worker after that one has to produce two nutrients or the base will stop growing. This rules out forests. So you will be using rainy squares and cultivating farms on moist squares (and building solar collectors on them).

If your base is on a nutrient bonus or jungle, you can afford to have more forests for their mineral and energy production.

Originally posted by FleetingPenguin
What should I do in the early game to maximize production after that? Vel recommends flattening all rocky squares and building forests on all (non-wet) flat squares, and possibly following the solar+farm strategy on rolling/wet squares. Cities really don't get that big early game, so would the opening two squares plus a few forests be a good terraforming strategy, or is there something better?

I disagree with flattening rocky squares. A mine on a rocky square with a road produces 4 minerals.

After bonus squares, you should be looking for rolling squares and river squares and landmark bonus (e.g. jungle, canyon, volcano).

After you've built as many forests as your base can support and still grow, you're looking for 2-1-1 or better squares. A rainy rolling river square is 2-1-1. If you put a solar collector on it, you can make it a 2-1-2.

A moist rolling square is 1-1-0. A farm and solar collector will turn it into at least a 2-1-1 square.

One of the game's attractions is that there is no single terraforming path to victory.

Originally posted by FleetingPenguin
As the game progresses, what should I be doing with my formers? The only thing I can think of is making boreholes for my supply crawlers and other terraforming for the crawlers.

It is a waste to crawl a borehole. A borehole produces 6 minerals and 6 energy. If you crawl it, you can only harvest either minerals or energy.

Once you have gene splicing, you can balance off mines on rocky squares with farms on rainy squares.

Once you have crawlers, you can mine rocky squares.

If you can build tree farms, you can plant forests every where.

Boreholes, condensors and echelon mirrors have their uses if you can build them.

Raising land out of the sea can give you more land to exploit.

Roads and mag tubes are vital for defense and getting crawlers to secret projects.

Originally posted by FleetingPenguin
Are boreholes a good idea in the production radius of a city, or should I build them outside of a city and supply crawler them?

They're a good idea as long as you have an ecological strategy.

Originally posted by FleetingPenguin
I'd really appreciate some help on mid and late game terraforming. Thanks!

Look at this article.

[FleetingPenguin]

What do you think of this terraforming strategy? It seems to balance the tedious micromanagement and the effectiveness nicely:

I have little doubt the "strongest" terraforming strategy is maximum density of boreholes, and every other tile farm+condensor.

However a nice comprimise to reduce MM is using mostly forest, then for every base add 1 farm+condensor (crawled) and one borehole. As former time allows add more boreholes and condensors, in approximately equal ratios.

[vyeh]

Terraforming doesn't occur in a vacuum. You also have to have an ecological strategy.

Forests actually reduce eco-damage.

If you go the "strongest" way, you have to build facilities to limit ecological damage. The "compromise" has the benefit of mitigating the damage caused by building condensors and boreholes.

Boreholes take 24 former turns. Forests take 4. If you can only build a limited number of formers, the "compromise" makes a lot of sense.

[CEO Aaron]

If you go the "strongest" way, you have to build facilities to limit ecological damage.

No you don't. You DO have to plan to cope with whatever eco-damage you create, and building facilities is one such way of coping, though hardly the only or best way.

To best manage your eco-damage, you need a brief understanding of how eco-damage is calculated. Without going into exhaustive detail, each faction has a number of minerals it can produce without causing eco-damage. This number is based on the game difficulty initially, and can be modified by events in game. Interestingly, your planet rating does NOT effect the clean mineral limit, but it does have a multiplicative effect on eco-damage caused.

This means that having a good planet rating can reduce eco-damage from a base, but if you're over your clean mineral limit, you can't eliminate it.

So what does change your clean mineral limit? Well, first let's look at what makes that limit go down: Atrocities. Anything that's contravened by the U.N. Charter will cause Planet to tighten your leash. So no nerve gas, no razing bases, and absolutely no planet busters. Though interestingly, if you can get the U.N. Charter repealed, these things will not affect your clean mineral limit.

So what raises your clean mineral limit? Well, only one thing, at first. The fungal pop. You know, when your eco-damage causes a fungal bloom near one of your bases? That's right, in order to get the planet to relax about polluting, you need to start polluting. Huh. Once you've gotten your first fungal pop, more fungal pops will also increment your clean minerals, but other acts can as well. Building all those eco-damage facilities will increment your clean mineral limit, and, entertainingly enough, scrapping them will NOT decrement it. That means that if you really are obsessed with maxing your mineral output and don't want to be drowned in worms, you don't have to build Centauri Preserves in every base, you can just keep building and scrapping one in just one base. Every time you do, you'll get the credits for scrapping the facility, and your clean mineral limit goes up by one.

So what's the best way to easily boost your clean minerals without devoting undue resources to it? Get a fungal pop before you start building tree farms. Crawl extra minerals to your highest output base if you have to, but make that Fungal Bloom happen. Then every time you build a tree farm, you get a free clean mineral with purchase. And every time you build a hybrid forest.

[vyeh]

CEO Aaron,

I think you've slid over the fact that eco-damage has two sources: terraforming and mineral production.

Boreholes and condensors produce a lot of terraforming eco-damage.

If you had the maximum density of boreholes and every other tile has a condensor (and a farm), that is a lot of eco-damage. If you don't build tree farms and hybrid forests, you would have to have a lot of fungal pops to cover the terraforming eco-damage before you even began to cover the eco-damage from mineral production.

Each fungal pop destroys a terraforming improvement. If every square is either a borehole or a condensor/farm combination, that is a lot of formers working to repair the damage caused by fungal pop.

After a certain number of pops (I've seen 2 mentioned), each pop generates a mindworm, which has to be dealt with or you're going to lose formers.

If you have too many pops in a given amount of time, the sea level will rise. Then you either lose terraformed land (including those boreholes and condensors) or you have to use formers to raise land.

I don't think it is a viable strategy to forego building facilities to control eco-damage.

Finally, this thread is for a "newbie." My statement is that you have to build facilities to limit ecological damage. Your post discusses forcing ecological damage, then building facilities to raise the clean mineral limit.

I don't see support for the assertion that building facilities is hardly the best way.

(I never said that the facilities had to be built before the first fungal pop, only that if you go the strongest way you would have to build facilities.)

[CEO Aaron]

Admittedly, my personal terraforming strategy does not include total paving of all tiles with condensers and boreholes, however, I've never seen any evidence that the guidebook's assertion that Condensers produce extra eco damage is true. The only consistent indicator of eco-damage I've ever found to be accurate is the number of minerals produced, plain and simple.

I'm not disputing that forests are a bad terraforming pick, or that high-value terraforming doesn't have drawbacks, I'm merely pointing out that it's not only possible, but desirable, to manage your eco-damage without permanent investment into facilities whose sole benefit is the reduction of eco-damage.

I also refute the notion that there's such a thing as 'newbie strategy' that should be different from 'expert strategy'. There's only good strategy and bad strategy. Manipulation of the clean mineral limit by forcing a fungal pop is just better than failing to do so. Not forcing a fungal pop before building tree farms is essentially voluntarily forgoing an advantage of the structure for no better reason than inattention or ignorance.

After a certain number of pops (I've seen 2 mentioned), each pop generates a mindworm, which has to be dealt with or you're going to lose formers.

All the more reason to force your pops early and begin raising the clean mineral limit. As I point out in my post, eco-damage reducing facilities can only reduce the likelihood of that fungal pop, they cannot eliminate it by themselves.

If you have too many pops in a given amount of time, the sea level will rise. Then you either lose terraformed land (including those boreholes and condensors) or you have to use formers to raise land.

I don't know if this is true or not. What I DO know is that the sea-level increases is a function of total global eco-damage, across all factions, whereas fungal pops are limited to a single base. Properly managed, this can turn worm spawns into a resource, as every fungal pop effectively gives you a mountain of planet pearls, provided you have the forces available to harvest them.

This tactic of deliberately farming fungal pops has been discussed on these boards before, and while it's not without risks, it too can ironically provide more resources while raising your clean mineral limit across your bases.

But the most important factor to consider, to my mind, is how little clean minerals you actually need. It can be very satisfying to create a base which produces hundreds of minerals per turn, but it's very wasteful. Leftover minerals from the production of low-to-midgame units and facilities will simply vanish, unused, except for the 10 carryover minerals you get from fully finishing a project with excess minerals. That's a lot of waste.

The assiduous use of shell units which can be upgraded later with cash accentuates even more the relative lack of importance of deep investment into mineral production. Put simply, you don't need that many minerals.

So, coming back to the clean mineral strategy, a modest empire of 12 bases, each with a tree farm and a hybrid forest will raise your clean mineral limit from 12 to 36 per base. This is likely to be enough to sustain most specialist-heavy bases for quite some time. And in the endgame when you're getting piles of minerals from orbital satellites magnified by factories, then you have the excess production to be able to crank up clean minerals further by the repeated production and scrapping of Centauri Preserves.

[BlackCat]

No offense CEO Aaron, but before I found Poly I had no idea about "clean mins" - despite that I had no problem winning on ascend level.

Knowledgede of clean mins is not nessecary to act reasonably to win the game in standard setups.

Knowledge of clean mins is only nessecary in big maps or special setups.

[GooglyBoogly]

I've never seen any evidence that the guidebook's assertion that Condensers produce extra eco damage is true. The only consistent indicator of eco-damage I've ever found to be accurate is the number of minerals produced, plain and simple.

This is taken directly from the Revised Eco-Formula developed by Ned, Blake and Fitz
(It is used in my Datalinks update)

Eco-Damage = (DamageFactor * Perihelion * Techs * Life * Difficulty * Planet) / 300

Terraforming = ((2*# worked (not crawled) improvements other than kelp farms) + (# of unworked
improvements) + 8 * Boreholes + 6 * Echelon Mirrors + 4 * Condensors +1 if a Seabase - # of Forests) / 8
^Divide by 2 for presence of a Tree Farm and reduce to 0 for presence of a Hybrid Forest.

It can easily be shown that some worked Improvements DO cause eco damage seperately from Mineral damage by creating a base (with enough population to work the tiles too) that is entierly surrounded by soil-enriched condendors (or echelon mirrors). Be careful that the base does not contain a Tree Farm, Nor a Hybrid forest. If all the tiles are worked there will be significant Eco-Damage generated, even though there is 0 mineral production, stop working some of the tiles and the eco-damage is reduced.

[GooglyBoogly]

Double post

[vyeh]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
I've never seen any evidence that the guidebook's assertion that Condensers produce extra eco damage is true. The only consistent indicator of eco-damage I've ever found to be accurate is the number of minerals produced, plain and simple.

I can provide an example showing the impact of terraforming improvements on Eco-Damage for boreholes.

In ACDG5, we built two boreholes within the base radius of Big Rock Candy Mountain, which did not have a tree farm. When it produced 14 minerals at the end of 2178, it had an eco-damage of 1.

Suez had no tree farm and one borehole within its base radius. When it produced 16 minerals (I used the Constantinople supply 1 sq. S of it to convoy a mineral from Constantinople to Suez and I re-homed the Gateway supply 2 sq. N of it to Suez and crawled 2 minerals from the square 1 sq. N of it) at the end of 2178, it had an eco-damage of 1.

Drydock had no tree farm and no boreholes. When it produced 18 minerals at the end of 2178, it had an eco-damage of 1.

The revised formula stated by GooglyBoogly incorporates the Ecology (Advanced) entry in the datalinks. Since Ned, Blake and Fitz also advocated the strategy of forcing a fungal pop before building tree farms, hybrid forests, etc. and I know that boreholes do cause extra eco-damage, that is enough evidence for me to conclude that condensors produce extra eco-damage until someone posts a save showing that they do not.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
I'm merely pointing out that it's not only possible, but desirable, to manage your eco-damage without permanent investment into facilities whose sole benefit is the reduction of eco-damage.

My assertion was that one would have to build facilities to limit eco-damage if one pursued the "strongest" terraforming strategy. I never said you had to keep the facilities. If your use of the word "permanent" implies building and scrapping, then you haven't refuted my assertion that you would have to build facilities to limit ecological damage (which includes tree farms, hybrid forests, centauri preserves and temples of planet).

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
I also refute the notion that there's such a thing as 'newbie strategy' that should be different from 'expert strategy'.

I never used the phrase 'newbie strategy.' You may not have intended it, but your use of quotes may suggest to a third party that I said it.

What I did say was that the thread was for a "newbie" (look at the title).

I'm sure you don't like it when someone (inadvertently) misstates your position.

The point of mentioning that the thread was for a newbie was that when the poster (in post #3) asked about Vel's "nice compromise" versus the "strongest" terraforming strategy, he wanted an answer he could appreciate. Too much detail confuses the issue.

I stated that if you go the "strongest" way, you have to build facilities to limit ecological damage and that forests mitigate the damage caused by building condensors and boreholes. Both of these statements derive from the Revised Eco-Formula GooglyBoogly stated.

The Eco-Formula shows that boreholes and condensors add additional terraforming eco-damage. It states that tree farms reduce terraforming eco-damage by half and both tree farms and hybrid forests eliminate eco-damage.

Finally, the eco-damage formula shows that forests reduce eco-damage.

If the question had come from an expert, I would have provided a link to The Column:#175 SMACX Eco-damage formula revised!

If I provided that link to a newbie without saying more, the newbie might have missed the points that boreholes and condensors require tree farms and hybrid forests to control and that forests mitigate the terraforming effects of boreholes and condensors.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
There's only good strategy and bad strategy.

I disagree on that. There is best strategy, better strategy, good strategy, neutral strategy, bad strategy, worse strategy and worst strategy. In other words, strategy falls along a continuum. The value of a particular strategy is dependent on the game situation.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Manipulation of the clean mineral limit by forcing a fungal pop is just better than failing to do so.

Personally, I'm in favor of forcing a fungal pop. In ACDG5, we spent a lot of time waiting for Drydock to have a fungal pop. I chose Drydock because the only terraforming improvement it had were roads. When we finally had a fungal pop, it smeared a monolith with a road. The road still functioned so we didn't have to use a former at the time to remove fungus (we had to remove the fungus later when we wanted to build a mag tube).

I did not want a fungal pop in one of the bases that had a borehole. It would have been painful to lose a borehole.

Edit: Nims has correctly pointed out that a fungal pop does not affect a borehole. It still would have been painful (although not as much) to uncover a farm or uncover and rebuild a mine or forest.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Not forcing a fungal pop before building tree farms is essentially voluntarily forgoing an advantage of the structure for no better reason than inattention or ignorance.

I disagree. In ACDG5, we had a situation (with three crawlers supplied by the CMN) where we could jack up the mineral production of one base early so we were able to force a fungal pop well before we could build tree farms. And it seems when you want a pop, it takes a long time to get one ...

Tree farms also increase economy and nutrients in addition to reducing ecological damage caused by terraforming and raising the clean mineral limit.

If a tree farm would allow a base to become much more productive (because several workers could move from 2-1-1 and 2-0-1 squares to 2-2-1 forest squares) I could see situations where I wouldn't wait for a fungal pop before building the tree farm. (I usually end up building so many tree farms by the end of the game that my clean mineral limit is much higher than the production of any of my bases.)

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
All the more reason to force your pops early and begin raising the clean mineral limit.

Since I disagree with the premise that there is no better reason than inattention or ignorance, I can't agree that there is more reason.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
As I point out in my post, eco-damage reducing facilities can only reduce the likelihood of that fungal pop, they cannot eliminate it by themselves.

We may have an issue of definition here. When you talk about "eco-damage reducing facilities," are you including tree farms and hybrid forests?

If so, I disagree. Tree farms and hybrid forest together eliminate the eco-damage caused by terraforming (as opposed to mineral producton). In the example from ACDG5, they would permit Big Rock Candy Mountain to produce 17 minerals without eco-damage. Without them, Big Rock Candy Mountain can only produce 13 minerals without eco-damage. So tree farms and hybrid forest do eliminate fungal pop for 14-17 minerals of production.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Properly managed, this can turn worm spawns into a resource, as every fungal pop effectively gives you a mountain of planet pearls, provided you have the forces available to harvest them.

Assuming you can keep the sea levels from rising or you could be spending those credits and more raising land.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
The assiduous use of shell units which can be upgraded later with cash accentuates even more the relative lack of importance of deep investment into mineral production. Put simply, you don't need that many minerals.

This may depend on the faction you're playing. Morgan gets a lot of cash. I suspect that the Hive, with its -2 economy and its aversion to democracy, requires a greater focus on minerals although this may be undercut by its +1 industry.

[Nims]

I did not want a fungal pop in one of the bases that had a borehole. It would have been painful to lose a borehole.

Boreholes won't be destroyed by a fungal pop and they are fully functional after one even with fungus on the field.

[vyeh]

Nims right.

I used the scenario editor and found:

(1) fungus overrides forest. So if a forest had been smeared, it would have taken 6 basic former turns to remove the fungus and 4 turns to plant a forest.

(2) fungus overrides mines. So if a mine had been smeared, it would have taken 6 basic former turns to remove the fungus and 8 turns to mine.

(3) farms and solar collectors still exist after fungus, but do not function. So if a farm and/or solar collector had been smeared, it would have taken 6 basic former turns to remove the fungus.

(4) boreholes still exist after fungus and function.

(5) condensors still exist after fungus, but only function on adjoining squares (they still raise the moisture level but there is no nutrient output on the condensor square). So if a condensor is smeared and you want nutrients from the condensor square, it will take 6 basic former turns to remove the fungus.

(6) echelon mirrors still exist after fungus, but only functions on adjoining squares (they add one energy to an adjacent solar collector but there is no energy output on the echelon mirror square). So if an echelon mirror is smeared and you want energy from the echelon mirror square, it will take 6 basic former turns to remove the fungus.

(7) roads still exist after fungus and function.

So it still made sense to try for the fungal pop at Drydock which had only roads and monoliths and avoid eco-damage at the other bases, which had farms, solar collectors and mines in addition to the boreholes.

Note that I have edited post #11 above.

[CEO Aaron]

I can provide an example showing the impact of terraforming improvements on Eco-Damage for boreholes.

Well, you've got me, I now know something I didn't know before. Moral: Keep some forests around to offset your boreholes.

I never used the phrase 'newbie strategy.' You may not have intended it, but your use of quotes may suggest to a third party that I said it.

Finally, this thread is for a "newbie."

Well, I'm sure I don't know what you mean when you type, I can only go by what you've typed. However, dismissing strategic advice because it's 'too complicated' is, to my mind, condescending. Let the OP tell me if he's not smart enough to understand the game mechanics I'm describing, don't dismiss it on his behalf, please.

I'm sure you don't like it when someone (inadvertently) misstates your position.

Certainly not, so let me clarify mine. I jumped in this thread for one reason: The clean mineral limit was not mentioned, nor was the importance of forcing and early fungal pop. To me, these are critically important aspects of managing your mineral economy without being crushed under the strangling weight of trying to cope with the default eco-damage limit. I can easily see a scenario where a new player will try to avoid eco-damage at all costs, crippling their mineral production and wasting tons of resources on useless pollution management facilities like the Centauri Preserves, without ever realizing they're not actually doing anything useful.

I disagree on that. There is best strategy, better strategy, good strategy, neutral strategy, bad strategy, worse strategy and worst strategy. In other words, strategy falls along a continuum. The value of a particular strategy is dependent on the game situation.

/facepalm

You're totally missing my point here. The good vs. bad strategy comment was made in contrast to newbie vs. expert strategy, not versus some theoretical and as yet undiscussed 'strategic quality spectrum'. Let me put this another way:

Don't distill, dumb down, edit, abridge or otherwise truncate the game mechanics for anyone expressing the desire to understand the game they're playing. The difference between a newbie and an expert is their understanding of the game mechanics, and I doubt anyone would ask a question of experts in hopes of remaining a newbie. In short, don't be patronizing.

Personally, I'm in favor of forcing a fungal pop.

I usually end up building so many tree farms by the end of the game that my clean mineral limit is much higher than the production of any of my bases.

It makes me crazy that you can write a huge post picking my post apart, and yet still endorse the strategy and conclusions that I recommend. Which is:

Force a fungal pop before you build tree farms.
Build lots of tree farms and hybrid forests.
Enjoy a milk-bone in a eco-damage-free empire.

This may depend on the faction you're playing. Morgan gets a lot of cash. I suspect that the Hive, with its -2 economy and its aversion to democracy, requires a greater focus on minerals although this may be undercut by its +1 industry.

Not really, if you're properly using your growth rating to rise in population, and then using specialists to deliver your credits and labs.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Moral: Keep some forests around to offset your boreholes.

At least until you have tree farms and hybrid forests. Then the forests can go.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Well, I'm sure I don't know what you mean when you type, I can only go by what you've typed.

And I never typed 'newbie strategy!' I carefully stated that I never used the phrase 'newbie strategy' and that your use of quotes may suggest to a third party that I said it.

I did not say that was not my meaning.

Your phrase, "I'm sure I don't know what you mean when you type, I can only go by what you've typed," turns around by 180 degrees what I said.

My statement is that I only typed 'newbie,' I did not mention 'strategy' and certainly no mention of 'newbie strategy' versus 'expert strategy.'

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
However, dismissing strategic advice because it's 'too complicated' is, to my mind, condescending.

Let's start with the basic. The OP did not ask explicitly asked for advice. He asked for an opinion of a statement Vel made.

I stated:

(1) terraforming has to be evaluated along with an ecological strategy;

(2) forests reduce eco-damage;

(3) if you build the maximum density of boreholes and every other square is a farm/condensor combination, you would need to build facilities to limit ecological damage;

(4) having forests while you build boreholes and farm/condensors mitigates damage; and

(5) boreholes take 24 former turns and forests take 4 turns.

I believe all my statements are completely accurate. I did not 'dismiss strategic advice' because it was 'too complicated.'

In your post (number 5), you quoted my fourth assertion and stated:

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
No you don't. You DO have to plan to cope with whatever eco-damage you create, and building facilities is one such way of coping, though hardly the only or best way.

and then you ended with this prescription:

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
So what's the best way to easily boost your clean minerals without devoting undue resources to it? Get a fungal pop before you start building tree farms. Crawl extra minerals to your highest output base if you have to, but make that Fungal Bloom happen. Then every time you build a tree farm, you get a free clean mineral with purchase. And every time you build a hybrid forest.

Your words seem to say that the 'best way' to raise the clean mineral limit

(1) force a fungal pop; and

(2) then build tree farms and hybrid forests.

This does not seem to support your initial assertion that 'building facilities is ... hardly the ... best way' since your 'best way' explicitly prescribes building tree farms and hybrid forests.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Let the OP tell me if he's not smart enough to understand the game mechanics I'm describing, don't dismiss it on his behalf, please.

Once again, you're misstating my position. I'm defending my original assertion that if you build boreholes and condensors, you have to build facilities to limit ecological damage. That statement is absolutely true. (The strategy of forcing a fungal pop is to delay building facilities in order to have ecological damage.)

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Certainly not, so let me clarify mine. I jumped in this thread for one reason: The clean mineral limit was not mentioned, nor was the importance of forcing and early fungal pop.

The original question asked for an opinion on 'strongest' terraforming versus a 'compromise' terraforming in a statement Vel made.

With a base with enough crawlers or population, you can hit the clean mineral limit in both (in a forest only base, 9 forest squares crawled for minerals or worked will get you at the clean mineral limit pre fungal pop).

So the clean mineral limit is only relevant to the discussion of 'strongest' versus 'compromise' in that you would have to worry about the clean mineral limit a little earlier in the 'strongest' terraforming case.

My comment on the 'strongest' versus 'compromise' basically addressed the issue of the mitigating effects of forests. If you go the 'compromise' route, you can put off building ecological controlling facilities (tree farms and hybrid forests) for a little longer than if you go straight to boreholes and farm/condensor combinations.

If the question had sought advice on limiting ecological damage, then the clean mineral limit and the importance of forcing a pop would have been central to an answer; however, as I interpreted the question, it was comparing two terraforming strategies. And my answer focused on the difference between the two strategies: whether to build forests first or to go directly to boreholes and farm/condensor combinations.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
To me, these are critically important aspects of managing your mineral economy without being crushed under the strangling weight of trying to cope with the default eco-damage limit. I can easily see a scenario where a new player will try to avoid eco-damage at all costs, crippling their mineral production and wasting tons of resources on useless pollution management facilities like the Centauri Preserves, without ever realizing they're not actually doing anything useful.

Once again, the original question was about the desirability of building forests first; it wasn't about eco-damage.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Don't distill, dumb down, edit, abridge or otherwise truncate the game mechanics for anyone expressing the desire to understand the game they're playing.

This is the original question:

Originally posted by FleetingPenguin
What do you think of this terraforming strategy? It seems to balance the tedious micromanagement and the effectiveness nicely:
"I have little doubt the "strongest" terraforming strategy is maximum density of boreholes, and every other tile farm+condensor.

However a nice comprimise to reduce MM is using mostly forest, then for every base add 1 farm+condensor (crawled) and one borehole. As former time allows add more boreholes and condensors, in approximately equal ratios."

This was the third post. In the first post, the OP asked for terraforming (not ecological management) suggestions.

In the second post, I discussed terraforming options.

In context, the OP wanted to discuss the pros and cons of the 'compromise' terraforming strategy.

While I believe that distillation is important in communication, I doubt that any third party would say that I 'dumb down' the game mechanics.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
The difference between a newbie and an expert is their understanding of the game mechanics, and I doubt anyone would ask a question of experts in hopes of remaining a newbie. In short, don't be patronizing.

I doubt any third-party looking at my response to FleetingPenguin would say that I have been patronizing.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
It makes me crazy that you can write a huge post picking my post apart, and yet still endorse the strategy and conclusions that I recommend. Which is:

Force a fungal pop before you build tree farms.
Build lots of tree farms and hybrid forests.
Enjoy a milk-bone in a eco-damage-free empire.

You're misstating my position. I said (as you quoted), "Personally I'm in favor of forcing a fungal pop," and "I usually end up building so many tree farms by the end of the game that my clean mineral limit is much higher than the production of any of my bases."

I did not endorse 'force a fungal pop before you build tree farms."

Because my clean mineral limit at the end of a game is much higher than the production of any of my bases, I'm willing to build a tree farm before my first fungal pop if there are good reasons (being able to move a lot of workers from 2-1-1 and 2-0-1 squares to 2-2-1 forest squares, thus increasing production or because I've run out of farm squares).

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Not really, if you're properly using your growth rating to rise in population, and then using specialists to deliver your credits and labs.

You can use specialist to generate cash once you get to size 5.