Minor Newb Questions

[Elok]

Hmm, nice to see I triggered a little waltz down memory lane here. Since you asked, I'm playing on the easiest difficulty level (since, like I said, I'm pretty daft at strategy games, though I enjoy them), with directed research. I had to sort of fumble my way through the tech tree, so I didn't get automation until relatively late...and yeah, I did get the Virtual World, and the HS Algorithm too, since that basically erased half my weakness. I decided on a Huge world, figuring that would give me more time to figure things out...gah. I'm like three hundred turns in and still haven't won. On my way to both economic and transcendent victories, but I need a few more years for either. Next game, I play average and...oh, Deirdre, I guess.

Right now I'm running Police State, Green, Knowledge, Cybernetic...the first two seem to cancel out each others' weaknesses nicely, leaving you with a minor growth penalty in exchange for a crap-ton of goodies. Killed Miriam and Yang (the latter basically forced me to kill him by planting bases against the border--is there any way to prevent such land theft?), Santiago butchered Morgan, I'm in the process of mopping up Santiago in a leisurely way while my twenty turns or so of energy-market-cornering gets done. I got lucky, so to speak, by starting right next to Miriam. I was able to kill her before she learned how to make probes. Anyway, I'm in that I-know-I've-won-but-I-have-to-mop-up patch that plagues the end of almost every civ game.

Also, is there some way to prevent the AI from inventing you twelve different soldiers every time you discover something, then helpfully asking you if you want to upgrade all your X to X+1 twelve times in a row without the option to say "No, dammit, go away?" Of course I don't want to hit Yes to All, I've given all my old units descriptive names that help me remember what they're good for. I turned off the preferences option that said automatically invent, but it doesn't seem to have done anything. It's still giving me Clean this and Artillery that. I'm not even sure what advantage attaches to having terraformers with improved reactors. Do they live for three more seconds while the enemy shoots away the extra health?

[Lord Avalon]

Killed Miriam and Yang (the latter basically forced me to kill him by planting bases against the border--is there any way to prevent such land theft?)

Pre-emptive strike (if you see a colony pod, kill it)? No, it's rather annoying when a neighbor builds right next to the border and moves it. So if you can, be first to build on the border and move it your way.

Also, is there some way to prevent the AI from inventing you twelve different soldiers every time you discover something, then helpfully asking you if you want to upgrade all your X to X+1 twelve times in a row without the option to say "No, dammit, go away?" Of course I don't want to hit Yes to All, I've given all my old units descriptive names that help me remember what they're good for. I turned off the preferences option that said automatically invent, but it doesn't seem to have done anything. It's still giving me Clean this and Artillery that.

Deselecting Design Units Automatically unfortunately only helps a bit; upgrade queries still come up. I'm not sure what the trigger is. I wonder if scient or kyrub can make those go away in the next patch.

I'm not even sure what advantage attaches to having terraformers with improved reactors. Do they live for three more seconds while the enemy shoots away the extra health?

Yes, better reactor gives more HP. Also reduced cost - you want to design your own, because you can put a little armor on (at least infantry chassis or sea formers) at no extra cost. Or you might want to upgrade to clean fusion fungicidal (or super, when available) formers. Usually I don't put more than fusion reactors on formers. Cost goes up again with quantum reactors, unless you're talking gravship formers. Then better reactors boost your flying range.

[Elok]

There are fan-made patches out there? Yay! Trampling Yang's land is much more fun when you're doing it with a "Heffalump" than when you're using a shard tank mark whatever...

[Lord Avalon]

scient's bug fix version is at civgaming.net: Unofficial SMAC/X Patches Version 1.0.

kyrub added changes to the AI: SMAC 444 (AI Experiment).

[Flubber]

Right now I'm running Police State, Green, Knowledge, Cybernetic...the first two seem to cancel out each others' weaknesses nicely, leaving you with a minor growth penalty in exchange for a crap-ton of goodies. Killed Miriam and Yang (the latter basically forced me to kill him by planting bases against the border--is there any way to prevent such land theft?), Santiago butchered Morgan, I'm in the process of mopping up Santiago in a leisurely way while my twenty turns or so of energy-market-cornering gets done. I got lucky, so to speak, by starting right next to Miriam. I was able to kill her before she learned how to make probes. Anyway, I'm in that I-know-I've-won-but-I-have-to-mop-up patch that plagues the end of almost every civ game.?

I am surprised you would ever be running police state so late in the game. Usually I have so many bases by then I want really really high efficiency (but on easy level the impacts of lower efficiency are much less IIRC)

By late game I usually find

support doesn't matter-- you have so many bases its almost irrelevant and you can make clean stuff anyway
POlice doesn't matter---I am running specialists everywhere anyway-- late game most of my bases may only have 4 or 5 guys actually working
Efficiency always matters- especially if I want to run say 90% labs
Higher industry or Econ always matters


OH and have you learned hiow to pop boom yet-- Whenever you can get a base to plus 6 growth it will increase by a population point each and every turn up to hab complex limits as long as there is some surplus food-- ITs a super powerful tool--You build the creches and then when you have enough food being crawled and then switch to Demo-Planned and watch your 15 size 2 and 3 bases become 15 - size sevens over 5 turns-- Then switch away into Green or FM for a worm army or an econ boost and enjoy-- Most factions can do this so growth penalties for some SE choices are largely irrelvant since if you miss some growth due to your choices, you can make it back so very quickly by planning a boom across multiple bases

The other beauty is that playing possum with the AI works very well-- The AI never realizes potential-- like that you now have say 25 size 2 bases with all kinds of infrastructure-- they never realize what you can be at all-- its part of what makes them so easy to beat-- you can be sitting their with mineral and energy output per turn of triple or quadruple any other faction, 5-10 artifacts uncashed and a faction with multiple bases poised for po boom and the AI still deals with based on the powergraphs which only seemed to measure tech you have, population you have, military you have etc etc. The fact that you have a hundred formers and a like number of crawlers seems to mean nothing to them

[Lord Avalon]

Remember, he's only playing Citizen, so doesn't have to play optimally. Even at the middle level of Talent, I found myself staying in Police State a long time and still having a lot of cash (if not Yang) and researching faster than the AI. I didn't have as many specialists as you talk about, but used Librarians/Thinkers where I could.

Pop booming is pretty advanced for him, I think. I don't really do it myself, playing at Librarian with the occasional foray into Thinker. I've read about it and probably ought to get better at it if I want to step up to Thinker, but just when I think I'm going to go into Democracy, somebody lands a couple units and declares vendetta when I won't give up (key technology). So I stay in Police State, because I'm being paranoid that they're going to land more troops, even though they may not follow up soon (if ever), and they're just being pissy and seething over the comm.

[Elok]

Yeah, I'll probably never get to the level where I'm micromanaging that way. I got extra support and police just to eliminate the hassle of coordinating army construction across, at the time I switched, something like fifteen cities, all of whom had greatly varying degrees of productivity ("all right, Pzschov Library, now it's your turn to build a single rover for the war effort...wait, where the hell are you? How many years will it take to move a rover from here to Santiago?"). Also, drones were getting to be a real pain in the arse in my bigger cities, even with every happiness improvement and wonder I snagged.

[Flubber]

Also, drones were getting to be a real pain in the arse in my bigger cities, even with every happiness improvement and wonder I snagged.

-- BUild 2-3 crawlers per city that focus on food
-- have 2-5 ( depending on wonders, facilities and faction chosen) guys that actually work and turn the rest of the guys into specialists ( Librarians early and moving through to transcendii at the end

I have not been around these forums much lately but I played this game a lot-- believe me it works

Oh and I play on Transcend always-- so drone problems are something you need to be ready for by the second population point in many bases (sometimes even the first)

[Flubber]

Yeah, I'll probably never get to the level where I'm micromanaging that way. I got extra support and police just to eliminate the hassle of coordinating army construction across, at the time I switched, something like fifteen cities, all of whom had greatly varying degrees of productivity ("all right, Pzschov Library, now it's your turn to build a single rover for the war effort...wait, where the hell are you? How many years will it take to move a rover from here to Santiago?"). Also, drones were getting to be a real pain in the arse in my bigger cities, even with every happiness improvement and wonder I snagged.

When I had a lot of bases (saw 30+) I would sometimes name them in geographic or functional groups by just adding a couple of letters at the beginning. So bases that begin with AA whatever are frontier bases on one continent -- BB might be my scattered island bases CC could be one homeland continent (say somewhat at risk ) and DD might be another (totally safe-- ie I have it ringed with bases or scoutships or sensor trawlers and would see anyone coming)-- I found such groupings helpful if they were being displayed alphabetically and it made it easier to implement planning

XX might be a grouping where one base is fitted out with every research enhancing facility and it has 2-4 bases which have none and I never want them to grow-- You set them up to crawl 20 minerals and pump out a crawler a turn which you then send to the science base to be rehomed and then sent out to crawl energy in your energy park (mirrors and solars)--

[Elok]

So, the secret to effective play is massive crawler spam? I've used a couple of them, and they do seem nice...they don't require support, do they?

Also, how often should I be doing eco-atrocities like boreholes and condensers and such? I took advantage of the borehole cluster when I found it (it would have been better, in hindsight, if I'd used crawlers instead of putting a base there), but didn't build any myself for fear of triggering massive fungal blooms that would destroy the blessed things anyway, plus spewing tons of mind-maggots. Then I saw Deirdre, of all people, had condensers all over her territory. I surmise that a high Planet rating may perhaps let you get away with more of those shenanigans...

[Flubber]

So, the secret to effective play is massive crawler spam? I've used a couple of them, and they do seem nice...they don't require support, do they?

Also, how often should I be doing eco-atrocities like boreholes and condensers and such? I took advantage of the borehole cluster when I found it (it would have been better, in hindsight, if I'd used crawlers instead of putting a base there), but didn't build any myself for fear of triggering massive fungal blooms that would destroy the blessed things anyway, plus spewing tons of mind-maggots. Then I saw Deirdre, of all people, had condensers all over her territory. I surmise that a high Planet rating may perhaps let you get away with more of those shenanigans...

1. Crawlers are the key to most effective play-- Good players can routinely beat the AI on transcend level only ever building a single base using these (OCC -- One city Challenges)

2. I often used crawlers differently at different bases-- One base would crawl lots of minerals and then get the morale enhancing facilities and be a war factory ( If I wanted to be in free market I could turn the whole population of this base to specialist and starve it down to size one and it didn't matter) Other bases would crawl some food early to grow and then energy later

3. Crawlers require no support

4. Do not fear boreholes or condensors-- planet doesn't really mind-- What planet minds most is higher levels of mineral production in a base-- Once a base hits a certain level theres a chance that a tile could pop into fungus and gave worms show up-- Advanced players used this feature by creating "Wormtrap bases" with high mineral counts and a couple of artillery units and then some empath rovers--- I tried it a couple of times and collecting hundreds of energy credits a turn from this was quite useful-- Artillery would quickly bring the stack down to 50% health and 2-3 attacks from rovers could kill 10 worms. In the REALLY late game with the right projects, fungus can be very productive so fixing the damage wasn't a big deal (and besides most of the offending production was outside the city's radius anyway)-- Planet gets really really mad if you commit atrocities like the Planet Buster or nerve gas-- Do that and you could see worms popping up everywhere

4.Don't crawl boreholes usually-- IT has two really good production --6 mineral and 6 energy and crawlers only have one-- Generally you can work forest, rolling rainy tiles and boreholes-- You crawl mines on rocky tiles, condensors and farms for nutrients and solars for energy on higher elevation tiles

5. If you find the borehole cluster, stick a base right in there -- get a rec commons etc etc for drone control and then use crawlers for food to support the 3 workers you need to work all three boreholes-- With 18 minerals coming in you can quickly get some research facilities built to help that energy coming in

6. Tip for mid to later game-- crawler ships with extra radar are a key unit-- They get cheap once you outfit them with the fusion reactors. If you have had a couple of sea formers out there you can get these guys on tidal harnesses for energy-- So they bring in energy while monitoring the approaches to your lands-- The beauty is that you can move them around each and every turn if you want and as long as they end their turn on a resource and you set them to collecting again, you get the resource. These early sentries were often the key to my defensive schemes post fusion-- You may lose some to an IOD from time to time but its well worth it IMHO

Note I allways play with the Fog of war feature ON so I am constantly reminded of the tiles that I am actively monitoring

7. Last tip-- Militarily self-destruct is a strong tactic-- It takes hit points half the weapon value of the destructing unit multiplied by its reactor value so if you destruct a 10-1-1*2 unit you kill each and every fission unit in adjacent squares and bring every fusion unit to half health. IF someone attacks with huge stacks of units you can decimate them with just a few units. Even in the earlier game a self destruct can be usefull-- Imagine the AI is attacking and in front of you is a two stacks of 3 units --6-3-12 or 4-3-2s and the like-- Your 6-1-2 attacks and kills one unit with collateral damage of 20% to the other two and lacking enough movement to retreat effectively, you self destruct hitting all 5 remaining units with 3 more points of damage

[Lord Avalon]

Low rocky terrain (<1000m) within a base radius is where you build boreholes. Not right away, of course - you need at least Ecological Engineering to lift the mineral restriction to make it worthwhile. Hopefully you've already built Weather Paradigm to speed up formers, then put two formers on the job, if you can.

Early on crawl minerals from 1) a mined bonus on rocky terrain (if it's in your base radius and not rocky, you might put a forest or if at elevation a solar collector) or 2) forests within the base radius and later outside. When you've lifted mineral restriction you can crawl from mines on rocky terrain in and out of base radii.

Fungal pops are actually good, in a sense. Vel's guide says there's a limit of 16 clean minerals (12 during perihelion). Above that you have the risk of eco damage. But each pop increases your clean mineral limit by one. So do try to get a pop before you build tree farms.

Flat square are a good candidate to forest, especially if arid, but once you have Weather Paradigm, build a farm then a condenser on them and crawl nutrients.

Crawl energy to your headquarters (no loss to ineffieciency): from bonuses anywhere (even within another base's radius, if further away, and they don't need the square) and high terrain within your borders*. Use supply trawlers, too, if it's a port. If not a port, send the energy to a port close to HQ.

*If you have an area of high terrain within your borders (that's not dense with bases), consider building a solar farm. You have rows of solar collectors alternating with rows of echelon mirrors. Then drill to aquifer to create rivers. You can raise terrain, too. Send the energy to HQ. Build your lab-type SPs there, too. and

[Elok]

Thanks for all the tips! I'll probably only remember half of them next time, but from you two and what I learned from this game the next should go a lot smoother (finally won a transcendence victory, making partial payments and throwing endless crawlers in to beat my own economic victory to the punch). I think I'll take a little break before trying again, and next time will definitely not be a "huge" world.

[Lord Avalon]

Glad to help. Ask questions when you have them; I'll do my best to answer.

[CEO Aaron]

The biggest map I recommend playing on is 'Large', otherwise the AI is likely to lag far behind you in tech before you make contact, if you're remotely organized about your building prerogatives.

One piece of advice given here I'll disagree with is 'crawl energy to your HQ'. This is not the most efficient use of your tiles, by far. Far better to harvest nutrients to support specialists who provide research and cash.

Read this thread: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7...s-Builder-Game