Tectonic payload and Morganite advice

[Lord Avalon]

Morgan's all about the energy, and if energy is good, MOAR energy is better, right? So Free Market, absolutely!

I suppose perhaps Green, if you're at war, but otherwise, Green is antigrowth. Economy 2 is only +1 energy per square, but Economy 4 is that and +2 energy per base and +2 commerce.

Screw the planet, you've got lots of clean formers to clear out the fungus. With all the energy you can rush drone-pacifying buildings. Maybe up the psych slider. And you're crawling nutrients to support specialists - some of them can be doctors/empaths when needed. Probe teams/ships can explore without causing unhappiness, as can transports.

[Elok]

Elok, didn't you claim that you had read the Datalinks - Advanced Concepts ? It's explicitly stated that improvements has an effect.

Yes, but I was told here (by CEO Aaron, IIRC) that this is incorrect, and only production itself has an effect. Perhaps I misunderstood him.

Honestly, I haven't a clue wether FM is good or not - there are schools here that claims it's the magic wand, but I really haven't figured out why - to me it's disastrous

Yeah, I'm going to steer clear of it, I think. Or maybe just try it for a little while after I've finished off Miriam/Santiago.

EDIT to reply to Avalon: Given his strict hab limits, I'm not seeing green's anti-growth policy as a huge liability for Morgan. Now that I have ascetic virtues I'll be able to boom to, what, 9 before I have to stop for the long lag until super tensile solids become available? And isn't the extra commerce just going to be eaten by inefficiency at far bases?

[BlackCat]

Now that I have ascetic virtues I'll be able to boom to, what, 9 before I have to stop for the long lag until super tensile solids become available?

Uhmn, why don't you build small huts to get you past the 7/9 limit first ?

[Elok]

What's a small hut?

[BlackCat]

Hab complex, the one that lets you grow from 7 to 14.

[Elok]

He can get to 14 without domes? Huh. I figured it would be smaller than that--didn't do the math, shame on me.

[Lord Avalon]

Given his strict hab limits, I'm not seeing green's anti-growth policy as a huge liability for Morgan. Now that I have ascetic virtues I'll be able to boom to, what, 9 before I have to stop for the long lag until super tensile solids become available? And isn't the extra commerce just going to be eaten by inefficiency at far bases?

When I play Morgan, Free Market is the first SE option I come across, and I switch into it immediately. Centauri Empathy is a bit off the beaten path, as I want to get to Industrial Automation, then lift restrictions, then get to Bioengineering for clean reactors. If I slow my base growth, it's because I'm turning out colony pods or putting workers on forests, not because of a negative Growth rating. Oh, and not shifting to Democracy soon enough.

I thought Morgan's pre-Hab Dome limit was 11, but I want to get there sooner rather than later.

If you're not in Police State, when you need to counter its Efficiency penalty with Green's bonus, then you're making more energy per turn in Free Market. (Or so I found on a huge map.) And Democracy has its own Efficiency bonus, so having more from Green doesn't do as much as Free Market's Economy bonus.

[Hagen0]

Morgan's population limit after hab complexes is indeed 11 (13 with Ascetic virtues).

I used to think that Free Market was not worth the hassle. But after trying it a few times I can confidently say that for Morgan it is clearly superior to the alternatives in the early game. With FM and Wealth, you get +1 energy per base and a additional +4 energy per base. Due to this, Morgan makes obscene amounts of cash. As Lord Avalon mentioned, it is a good idea to invest that money into buying Rectanks. Each base square, will then give you 3/2/7 at least.

Try to get the the Humane Genome Project. It is a key project for Morgan, as it solves your early drone issues and allows you to GA-popboom without problem. Other useful projects are the Planetary Transit System and the Planetary Energy Grid.

To get around the -1 support it is important not to build superfluent units. In particular, do not build any garrison units. Get a rover or two and maybe one or two armored probeteams at key points. That's sufficient for the early game. If you have a worm pop defend your cities with a former. In this special case (former defending a base against native worms), their defensive strength is exactly equal to that of a garrison unit. Moreover, native worms have a large (50%) combat penalty when attacking bases prior to turn 50. These two facts are suprinsingly little known, although they are extremely important. (Foregoing garrisons doesn't work if you start in the middle of fungus field. But Morgan simply isn't very strong in high fungus games.)

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I've forgotten where I found this, so unfortunately can't provide proper credit.

I'm guessing you sourced it from here. Been a long time ago since I wrote that up. I forget almost all of it.

http://www.civgaming.net/wiki/index....er:_Early_Game

Also this write up explains why FM is especially important for Morgan in the early pre-restriction lifted game as the base squares are not impacted via resource restrictions. It is important ot note that as of the writing of that article, GA pop booming was not fixed and Morgan was incapable of pop booming without cloning vats.

Random thoughts: Morgan needs trade in order to shine. If you can get pact mates via consensual or submissive trade partnering it makes Morgan far more fearsome. The whole idea of submissive pact mates and gifting bases to pact mates in order to match up an equal amount of bases to your bases to maximize trade energy output is an important concept. You likewise want to ensure you are gifting submissives technology so that they a have a chance of discovering something unique and of value to you as well.

[Lord Avalon]

Then I thank you very much, Ogie.

[BlackCat]

Morgan needs trade in order to shine. If you can get pact mates via consensual or submissive trade partnering it makes Morgan far more fearsome

That may be why I can't get FM to work - I have problems making friends

[rod87]

Random thoughts: Morgan needs trade in order to shine. If you can get pact mates via consensual or submissive trade partnering it makes Morgan far more fearsome. The whole idea of submissive pact mates and gifting bases to pact mates in order to match up an equal amount of bases to your bases to maximize trade energy output is an important concept. You likewise want to ensure you are gifting submissives technology so that they a have a chance of discovering something unique and of value to you as well.

So in terms of trade, with FM it's actually better for Morgan to have 'vassals' so to speak rather than just conquer every single city?

I guess it would make sense with the 'Don't kill your customers' policy.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Yes exactly. A vassal submissive is very powerful. They provide much raw trade energy you can usually count on a number of techs from them outside your tech beeline. The more you empower them the more you get. Gifting far flung captured bases to a submissive keeps them happy and works to your benefit.

[CEO Aaron]

Yeah, the reason Morgan profits so much from trade is that his high econ gives HUGE bonuses to trade income. Other technology advances later in the build tree also boost trade income, and if you can swing a global trade pact and hold the planetary governorship, the multipliers become positively insane.

There is a point at which, if your empire becomes large enough, you'll be better off running Green than Free Market, and of course conquering your neighbors in FM is really not practical without an entirely clean military homed to a single base with a Punishment Sphere (which also isn't really practical. Just switch to Fundy/Green/Wealth and end the war fast).

How can you subvert resource limits as Morgan? Don't bother! Sure, make clean garrisons and formers, but for the rest, just suck up the extra mineral upkeep and make up that loss with ENERGY. Money solves all production problems so long as you can rake in enough minerals to keep 10 reserved for production each turn. Why is 10 the magic number? Because that way you can rush something out every turn with cash, without paying huge surcharges for insufficient progress.

Another trick to get the most out of your cash is to use shell units. Don't build a best/1/2 rover with minerals, it's far cheaper to finish a 2/1/2 rover and upgrade it with money to a best weapon. The comparative discount for upgrading gets even better once you get Fusion Power.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Shell out trained units whenever possible for upgrade.