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  • #31
    Originally posted by 551262 View Post
    Even the Pirates can benefit from a good landmass to help build up a good set of core bases for SSCs/military production houses. Practically I found the Pirates to be practically worthless because 1) they need a large oceanic map (70-90% ocean coverage), 2) once people start getting needlejets and choppers then the advantage of naval power is diminished slightly, 3) you have to beeline for destroyers (Doctrine: Initiative) because they're the real powerhouses, 4) land squares are much more productive (boreholes). Although you're immune to the chop & drop tactic, since air drops cannot be made into the sea. But pit a real good player with some solid landmass versus a real good player of the Pirates sticking to the "dream of oceanic conquest" and the landmass player will come out on top more often than not. Sure the Pirates are kind of overpowered, depending on how you look at it, but elite Spartan attack foils and marines can give you a run for your money, the Hive might overwhelm you with production power (or Domai), or the Believers if they got past their initial tech stag then they can blow the Pirates out of the water.
    Pirates have an above average chance of being able to scout out and make first claim on the Monsoon Jungle (By far and away the best starting location ofr any faction) given their scouting craft. Furthermore tech flexibility is a veritable boon for turn advantage. One or two infantry platform tranpsorts allows you to move a former, pod, crawler (what have you) one space and begin forming, form a new base, move a crawler an additional space and crawl wihtout losing a turn due to unit movement. I would agree Pirates are best suited getting their land bases in order post haste for mineral productions and then are well suited to moving back into the ocean in mid to late game stages.
    "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

    “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Terraformer View Post
      These are lvl one population cities. Something is fixing the problem in some of the cities, but I'm not really sure what. I'm conquering the aliens if that info helps any.
      Its the alien bases if I recall correctly.
      "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

      “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

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      • #33
        Is it worth it to turn these conquered alien bases into specialist bases? It seems to be taking a very long time to get any benefit from them. Right now i'm focusing on mineral and nutrient production since the inefficency is so high. I have them all punished for now so i don't have to worry about drones in them. I'm not building any lab facilities in them yet- the terraforming takes forever. Maybe i should have just keep the bases that I took on the monsoon jungle and starved/evac'd the rest. I have the cloning vats now so they are growing good- i'm just w8ting to get the tech for hab domes.

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        • #34
          I'm a big fan of resettlement, it's the perfectionist in me. I bring out a supply crawler to speed evacuation (by providing mineral support), then scrap all the base facilities and crank out colony pods. If you're the impatient type, however, you can just hit 'B' and wipe the base out entirely. Apparently the Aliens aren't covered by the U.N. Charter. Sucks to be them.
          Last edited by CEO Aaron; July 15, 2013, 12:29.

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          • #35
            I read that somewhere that aliens were'n't covered. So I nuked one of their bases last game. All the factions declared war on me-even my conquered allies.

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            • #36
              Really? That's quite odd, but Planetbusters may be a separate thing, on account of the raw damage to Planet you're inflicting. Try saving your game and razing one of their bases.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by CEO Aaron View Post
                Really? That's quite odd, but Planetbusters may be a separate thing, on account of the raw damage to Planet you're inflicting. Try saving your game and razing one of their bases.
                That's correct. According to the SMAX manual

                Using atrocities against the aliens causes no extra diplomatic penalty, except for Planet Busters,
                still considered a global atrocity for the environmental damage caused.
                "The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
                -- Kosh

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                • #38
                  Oh, yeah, how about that? My SMAX manual is gone to who knows where.

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                  • #39
                    I have a copy on PDF if you want it, although you can probably find it on google. Unless you're talking about the paper version...

                    While we're at terraforming, here's a few landmarks that I thought I'd mention:

                    • Freshwater Sea (+1N): Close by, use it either to churn out colony pods or better, SSC. Far away, ignore it.
                    • Garland Crater (+1M): Close by, fight for it and use it to help grab early SPs. Far away, ignore it. Unlike the AI I put just one base in the centre.
                    • Geothermal Shallows (+1E): Close by, crawl it. Far away, depends on the situation. If it's close to enemy territory, I'd ignore it. Isolated...probably not worth the effort to guard the crawlers. Don't bother plopping a base here especially if it's far away.
                    • Monsoon Jungle (+1N): Close by, fight to the death for it. Far away, it's up to you, but it may not be worth it. For some reason or another the Hive seems to have a good possibility of starting near here and can grow like a disease. Pro tip: Beat him before he beats you.
                    • Mount Planet (+1M & +1E): Crawl it. Far away, forget about it. If the nine squares surrounding the mouth are rocky, mine + road: if not, solar collector + drill a river and crawl it. Could put a mirror underneath, depending on if you're using it as part of base squares or not.
                    • New Sargasso: I like to try to beat the AI to find it to pop pods. Also rather risky...
                    • Pholus Ridge (+1E): If it's convenient, I put bases on alternating sides of the ridge to get a energy boost. Far away, just ignore it. You'll loose most of the energy to inefficiency anyways.
                    • Sunny Mesa: Ehhh.
                    • The Ruins: Good for warmongers and peace builders to help boost unit morale, if it's close by it's great to help with early SPs and what not. If not don't worry about it.
                    • Uranium Flats (+1E): If close by, it'd be great to build the Merchant Exchange here as well. Assuming Tree Farms, you'd get 2-2-3 every square, not bad, with Hybrid Forests, 3-2-4, add rivers and +2 Economy on the SE table (3-2-5 if you don't have +2 Econ) and you're looking at 3-2-6 (and 3-2-8 if you get a energy bonus square). Pretty good, if you use boreholes then you're still looking at 0-6-9 if you have the ME here. Otherwise, not worth your time.
                    • Borehole Cluster: Good in the early game, but you'll still have to unlock the restrictions to use them. I guess if you didn't nab the Weather Paradigm then it beats waiting 24 turns but still...if you adopt the Condensor+BoreHole strategy then you'll want the WP anyways.
                    • Fossil Ridge (+1M, SMACX): Good for the Pirates to track down, but land is still more profitable. Otherwise, don't bother. You could crawl it if you were close by though.
                    • Manifold Nexus (+1 Planet, SMACX): I would think if you were running Free Market this would help, or at least help you raise your ecodamage limit a bit. I don't play SMAC-X often (only a couple of times) so I wouldn't know for sure.
                    • Unity Wreckage (Nothing SMAC, +1E SMACX): I'm not sure on this one. Probably not worth fighting over, like the Monsoon Jungle is.


                    Do note that raising or lowering terrain like the Monsoon Jungle or the Uranium Flats can wipe the "bonus" off the squares. Oops.
                    Last edited by 551262; July 16, 2013, 22:35.

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by 551262 View Post
                      Do note that raising or lowering terrain like the Monsoon Jungle or the Uranium Flats can wipe the "bonus" off the squares. Oops.
                      I believe that applies to all the landmark bonuses.
                      AC2- the most active SMAC(X) community on the web.
                      JKStudio - Masks and other Art

                      No pasarán

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                      • #41
                        I tried terraforming the fossil ridge one game and I think the bonuses disappeared. Does planting fungus do the same?

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                        • #42
                          Probably so. Fungus negates all square bonuses (mineral, energy or nutrient), ignores river bonuses (+1 E), doesn't work with elevation (more energy at higher elevations as for solar collectors). The only two things I know of that "override fungus" are monoliths (2-2-2) and boreholes.

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                          • #43
                            The fungus doesn't erase the bonuses, of course - it just overrides/replaces/covers them with fungus qualities for as long as fungus is there. Remove the fungus, and the terrain bonus is still there.
                            AC2- the most active SMAC(X) community on the web.
                            JKStudio - Masks and other Art

                            No pasarán

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                            • #44
                              Continuing on the theme of Spartan faction society models...

                              Certainly, Lady Sparta is flexible, if only just.

                              This one yields a proper Pop Boom. (For all these photos, I've got the Ascetic Virtues, Living Refinery, Cloning Vats and Network Backbone SPs.) No real negatives, though.


                              Here's that one for that lovely +4 Support. The only problem is that it comes rather late. Assuming a base size of 25, with 5 garrison (two 1-1-1 Police Clean, one 1-8-1*2 AAA ECM, one 1-1-2*2 Empath Trance rover, one 13-1-1*2 SAM rover and two 13-1-9*2 SAM Deep Radar Shard Rotors), you have twenty units you can support for FREE, multiplied by the number of production bases like that. If you have 12 of them, then you can support 240 units for free and they're still Elite, you have +4 Planet, which is a license to pollute if you need to, and a nice healthy efficiency rating. Can't sneeze at this one that much, other than the -2 Growth, which doesn't bother me since the pop boom is over and every base has a children's creche in it anyways.



                              Maybe Green would be better?


                              The next two are what I usually use: Fundy / Planned / Knowledge. Gives you elite troops without too much effort, but I suppose if the game lasted long enough, I might like that first one I showed with the +4 support.



                              Your thoughts, CEO?

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                              • #45
                                First of all, I can't read/view your attachments. Second, as I said before, I'm not particularly impressed with making sacrifices to get +Support. The Living Refinery is all right, but Police State and Power aren't worth giving up the alternatives for anyone except possibly Yang. The Cloning Vats removes the industry hit from Power, but that brings up the other drawback of ultra-high support: You have to build units to fill it up. If you've got a standing 240 unit army and only 12 bases, you're not being aggressive enough, especially with Sparta. Sparta's +1 Police rating means there is NO upper limit on the number of bases you can support. This is HUGE. Infinite City Sprawl should be your goal. My Spartan early tech picks are Centauri Ecology for the obligatory formers, biogenics for Recycling Tanks. They are immensely useful in an empire with a large number of bases, and rapidly accelerate thin expansion. Then I beeline directly for Intellectual Integrity, which gives access to non-lethal methods. Access to 1/1/1 police means you can expand FOREVER, creating a sprawling empire of bases, until all available lands are consumed. If you're in a secure position, you can follow this up with a beeline toward tree farms to unlock harvest caps, or if you're close to rivals, grab planetary networks to probe away tech and start on a military campaign to secure your borders. For SE choices, I get in Democracy/Planned/Knowledge when I unlock them, and stay there. If I'm REALLY in a pitched battle, I can swap for Fundamentalism for a brief time, but it's rarely necessary.

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