Captured Alien Bases Don't Grow

[Hydro]

I’ve just seen something I’ve never seen before: captured alien bases that refuse to grow past size 1. In a SMAniaC game as Bree (which is a Red faction that is great fun!) I am at war with the Usurpers, and as I captured their bases they went to size 1 as expected. But then did not expand as their food bin filled and have remained at size 1. Forever.

Anyone else seen that before?

Hydro

[vyeh]

Is it single player? Do you have a save?

[Hydro]

Yup, SP. I do have a save but am not quite sure how to post in Apolyton 2.0.

[vyeh]

Hit the button post reply. Use the manage attachment button. Choose the zip file of your save. Then hit the upload button. Then you can hit submit reply.

[Maniac]

Are you running Empath social engineering, without something like Planned to offset the -2 Growth?

[Hydro]

vyeh - Ah! I was using the quick reply area. Thanks for the tip!

Maniac - I was using a pure RED strategy with the Bree: Green plus Empath, so I have -3 Growth (-1 for Bree and -2 for Empath). But who cares about -3 Growth when you have +90% Psi, hordes of MWs (captured and built for 2 rows of mins), and each fungus tile gets you 4 food, 2 mins, and 1 energy? Fungus blooms are my friend since it wipes out inconvienent forests I planted early for mins, and the mounds of Planet Pearls the MWs donate to my cause are great fun. It is 2203 and my formers spend their time now trying to replace forests with fungus. I'd like to build more boreholes, but those nasty forests just keep growing. But not for long - we will soon see a purely RED PLANET!

Hydro

[Maniac]

-3 Growth stops all population growth.

[Hydro]

Not quite. According to Datalinks it is nearly no growth. I guess I never really looked into what that means.

But, it does look like it is more of a severe penalty than I'd thought. I ran a few turns and apparently filling up your food bid only SOMETIMES allows growth to the next pop level. Eventually one of the Usurper bases did grow. Looking at my home bases they also only occasionally grew when their food bid was full.

Maybe I should run some more turns and keep track of the chances of growth to the next level under -3 Growth? After all, food accumulates normally. And when harvesting 15+ surplus food at a size 7 base your food bid fills up pretty fast even with -3 Growth.

Or I could simply ignore the issue and go to Fed Dem/Planned/Techno/Anthro + GA and pop boom.

Hydro

[Hydro]

Quick follow up. I ran 5 turns for my 30 bases from MY 2107 to 2212 (first year doesn't count) to see what bases grew when with -3 Growth. Every base that was size 2 or larger grew normally when its food bin was completely full. However, size 1 bases almost never grew when their food bin was full. I had only 1 of the captured size 1 bases grow since I started capturing Usurper bases ~25 years ago, but once it exceeded size 1 it grew normally.

Now, I wonder if this is what they meant by 'nearly no growth'? Or did they really mean that growth was slow since you have to accumulate 2 more columns of food before you get to the next size? Or maybe it is because the bases were captured.

[vyeh]

According to the manual,

Growth

-3 ZERO POPULATION GROWTH

According to the Datalinks

Growth

-3 NEAR-ZERO POPULATION GROWTH

Since +6 POPULATION BOOM acts irrespective of the box filling up, I surmise that -3 also acts irrespective of the box filling up, i.e. it doesn't automatically increase in population because the box is full.

If you're interested in researching the captured versus established bases, create a new base via colony pod and see if it will grow past size 1.

[Hydro]

I'd thought of that. I'll see what I can do!

[Hydro]

Oops. I have PTS, so all bases start at size 3. I'll have to get another game going...