ACDG6: The Genesis Project

[Maniac]

For ease of popbooming, besides PolySoft, we should have one good food-producing tech.

Two options are:

1) Gene Splicing: lifts the nutrient limit, allows 3-nut rainy farms and 3-nut kelp. Gene Splicing also leads to Retroviral Geneering, which enables the Longevity Vaccine (but the other goodies are minor). That SP is useful for popbooming too of course.

2) Ecological Engineering: allows condensers, which by default bypass the nutrient limit. Requires Renewable Energy.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Mart in the organization thread
Still, B-line to crawlers can give us faster secret project building. I would do that.

Secret projects, start building maybe after we have several bases and while some make crawlers, other would continue colony pods, formers and scouts.

Crawlers require industrial automation, which requires industrial base and polymorphic software. Industrial base requires renewable energy sources.

Now that we have the exowomb, we should see if Delan will trade another tech with us. He started with centauri hydrology and information networks. Maybe he has discovered a tech.

If we are interested in condensors, how about pursuing the weather paradigm?

Well, it looks like there is a consensus so far on polymorphic software.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by vyeh
If we are interested in condensors, how about pursuing the weather paradigm?

Good point. Go IndAut!

[Hydro]

A base by the new forested and nutrient area will be an early industrial powerhouse. If you get a base there it can start a SP early (after a rush former and scout) and crank them out!! Getting WP and HGP early would be a huge boon. The only problem is that you may grow faster then you can keep order (the free starting talent will help here).

Remeber that Genesis has -1 support that you only get 1 free unit, which is a real problem for early mineral poor bases. Until you grow to size 2 at least it can kill your industry unless you have lots of energy to backfill (which Genesis does not have). So, with that in mind if you want a base to crank out SPs then only have its support free unit and don't construct another.

Hydro

[Hydro]

(Moved from Turn Posting thread)

You're brave investigating the pod, especially without a defender at your capital. An early MW pod can be a disaster.

I generally establish bases by my pods to ensure I get a good or at least neutral results.

Regardless, you've got some great territory for early expansion. I'd queue up a pod next to take advantage of the nutrient and forested area.

Hydro

[vyeh]

If we switch Purini to a colony pod before it finishes the scout currently in production, it would take only 5 years to produce.

A base by the new forested and nutrient area will also be an early energy powerhouse.

[vyeh]

We will discover polymorphic software at the beginning of 2115.

Our tech choices will be:

the fission reactor (speeders)
renewable energy sources (solar collectors)
social psych (recreation commons)
gene splicing (lifts nutrient restriction).

What should we build?

We've established Mutatio. Should it build the weather paradigm?

[Maniac]

Definitely not! I think we should only rush secret projects with credits, alien artifacts or crawlers.
For that reason I would suggest Renewable Energy next.

I'd favour some gun foils btw. When done right, pod popping can supply more than half of your empire's minerals and energy.

"Done right" means:
1) before popping a pod setting the production of the nearest base to the most expensive non-SP item available. This means a sea colony pod in our coastal bases. Can't say by heart what it is for land bases.
2) never attack IoDs
2) never ever pop a sea unity pod when you don't have full movement points remaining. There's like a 40% chance that IoDs will appear out of sea unity pods. Having 100% chance your gun foil remains alive to pop other pods is much more valuable than a usually 50% chance you can get some energy credits from defeating an IoD. So if you encounter a pod while you for instance have three movement points left, do NOT pop it. Just explore around the pod a bit, or simply skip the turn. Wait until next turn to pop it. If you get an IoD from a pod, run away as far away as possible. IoDs have the tendency to move to the nearest landmass, so you should run away away from land.

[Maniac]

An energy credit pod might also be the fastest way to get the credits for social engineering changes.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Maniac
Definitely not! I think we should only rush secret projects with credits, alien artifacts or crawlers.
For that reason I would suggest Renewable Energy next.

I'd favour some gun foils btw. When done right, pod popping can supply more than half of your empire's minerals and energy.

If I understand correctly, you're saying:

(1) Mutatio should not build a weather paradigm.

(2) Renewable Energy is our next choice.

(3) Either Purini or Genesis or both should build gun foils.

[vyeh]

Our might is wanting:


Should we consider the fission reactor (speeder, command center, artillery, leads to high intensity lasers)?

[vyeh]

I think it would be premature to build secret projects at Mutatio until we've built a recreation commons there. Until Mutatio can expand beyond two workers, its mineral production rate will be limited.

[Hydro]

Remember that in SMAniaC that foils have a base move of 5 instead of 4. This is important since you can get away from an IoD (at least a few tiles). Be VERY careful in fungus. I don't recall off hand if there is an additional movement penalty when popping a sea pod on fungus.

Also, sea pods will dissappear very quickly with 2 aquatic factions so if you want to get them start early. The AI is generally pretty idiotic for sea pods, so they'll lose a number of units and sea bases with a bit of luck (for us).

As I generally play Red or Green factions in SMAniac, sea foils are very high on my list. In that case I run an IoD with a gun or empath gun foil and collect all the goodies with very few losses. By the time I'm done I have at least a half dozen IoDs, too.

If you have a negative Planet rating (with default Frontier or Anthro Society SE) then running away from an IoD is the only real option. That changes when you get Empath (Centauri Empathy), which is very cheap on a 1-1-5 or 2-1-5 foil.

Hydro

[vyeh]

When you pop an IoD in a sea pod, you lose an additional movement point.

In ACDG5, if the IoD was in fungus, I'd use 3 + 1 movement points when my gun foil popped a IoD. The extra movement point means that now the gun foil would have a movement point remaining if it had 5 movement points before popping the pod.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Hydro in operations
IoDs, MWs, and spoor launchers assume a Red (Bree, Cult) or Green (Gaians) approach and focusing on Planet/Explore techs. Native units are much more viable in SMAniaC due to lower cost and support issues (free in Fungus). But, that means we’re not pursuing more conventional techs, and the Red techs are of little use if our Planet rating is negative.

So, I we need to decide now – Red/Green or conventional tech? We can mix and match, of course, but that mix is determined by our objectives. At this point my opinion is that the Red techs aren’t of much use for our military/defenders since our Psi/Planet is likely to be zero or negative.

Our planet rating can change, particularly if we go green. Because of our faction support penalty, free support is an important consideration.

Once we can grow our bases, we can develop advantages in both mineral production, income and tech. The question is whether going red/green allows us to research the techs that allow us to grow our bases faster than if we research conventional techs.