New player, advice needed.

[BlackCat]

Then I continue my expansion and rush to clean reactor so I can start making real war units.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Clean reactor won't give you "real war" units as in more powerful - just that they don't need support (wich of course means that numbers aren't limited by mineral production). "Real" war units IMHO starts with Missile units, but the real step forward are fusion reactors. Note: I don't mind clean - a fleet of clean missile fusion choppers are the wet dream of any warmonger/defender faction.

On the road to clean reactor I think you missed an interesting discovery - Industrial Automation. When I get that, I usually reserve 3-4 colonies (one of them HQ) for making secret projects (HQ) and crawlers.

Your long term planning sounds reasonable, but don't forget Orbital Power transmitters and Sky Hydroponics. Nessus stations should be handled with care because they really gan mess up your Eco damage, but that is a chapter of it's own.

Edit: Dang, totally forgot - Welcome to Poly and the realm of sleepless nights and "just one more turn"

[Morgan Everett]

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Clean reactor won't give you "real war" units as in more powerful - just that they don't need support (wich of course means that numbers aren't limited by mineral production). "Real" war units IMHO starts with Missile units, but the real step forward are fusion reactors. Note: I don't mind clean - a fleet of clean missile fusion choppers are the wet dream of any warmonger/defender faction.

On the road to clean reactor I think you missed an interesting discovery - Industrial Automation. When I get that, I usually reserve 3-4 colonies (one of them HQ) for making secret projects (HQ) and crawlers.

Your long term planning sounds reasonable, but don't forget Orbital Power transmitters and Sky Hydroponics. Nessus stations should be handled with care because they really gan mess up your Eco damage, but that is a chapter of it's own.

Edit: Dang, totally forgot - Welcome to Poly and the realm of sleepless nights and "just one more turn"

By 'real' I meant combat units as opposed to probe teams designed with armor 2 to serve as substitute. Sorry if I'm not always clear, as I've said before English is not my native language.

Clean reactor is a key technology for me because I'll have a -3 support, so basically it's whether I have clean reactor and I have combat units or I don't have clean reactor and then I don't make combat units, just probe teams.

[Morgan Everett]

If you want to churn out colony pods, I think you should go for Biogenetics & Recycling Tanks first, like I suggested above. You'll need the extra nutrient for growth, the mineral for producing pods & other stuff, and the energy for rushing builds. If you're going to build armored probe teams, use the infantry chassis, so they're cheaper. Unless the terrain is really bad, I put off Centauri Ecology a bit, as a base isn't going to grow to more than 2 while building colony pods.

Ah yes, you're correct.

I'll go for biogenetics first then free market.

[BlackCat]

Sorry if I'm not always clear, as I've said before English is not my native language.

Stop worrying about your english. You make perfect sense and are at least as good, if not better than me (I'm danish, so english isn't my native language either), so stop the excuses, we (or at least I) do understand you.

Clean reactor is a key technology for me because I'll have a -3 support, so basically it's whether I have clean reactor and I have combat units or I don't have clean reactor and then I don't make combat units, just probe teams.

This is the point that I missed and confused me (not your english). Though, there are other solutions to this until clan. A crawler on a forest makes two mins and thereby can support two units (hint: after moving a crawler onto a forest without a road, click on the unit and you can get it start crawling ressources immediately).

[551262]

Your English is fine. I reside among English-speaking people and you write better than probably 25% of the people I meet. (English, as I have remarked before, is a rather crude language.)

Re: Ruin Bastion: I thought I put a Children's Creche in one of the bases in that area, didn't help much. To me, I skip facilities that don't do me any good. For instance, I don't build Network Nodes in every base unless I have the Virtual World. Sometimes I don't even build them at all (probe teams supply all the tech I need). Children's Creches -- nah, skip them. Rec Commons - don't build them unless the base is 1) far away from HQ or 2) is going over size 7. And so on. A Builder typically has to stuff every base with nearly every kind of facility (Fusion Labs, ...) but a warmonger doesn't need to build such things because that's not his focus.

Re: Pirates: They already ARE potent. Some consider them a little too powerful. Indeed, they are unmatched on the water, but they tend to be somewhat precariously placed. First of all, water isn't as productive as land squares are, because minerals are in short supply. Yes the Pirates get +1 mineral on ocean shelf squares but that is limited to coastal areas or islands. Yes they can terraform in deep ocean but that doesn't show up until a bit later in the game and by that time it's kind of pointless because it's not something you should count on for your growth strategy. Look at the next image, and see if you can spot the ocean shelf squares...



...By the time all those deep ocean squares get terraformed with Super Sea Formers (Plus the Weather Paradigm) I could have invaded three empires. Not to mention you need to build Subsea Trunklines for every base, which grants +1 minerals to mining platforms only (although I believe it does help ocean shelf squares) which happens so late in the game it's not worth going after, versus just conquering.

As for water combat, it's fine but once needlejets show up and conventional missiles start getting thrown around then fancy cruisers and megafoils are slated to the back seat. Also the Pirate advantage works best in 70-90% ocean maps like the one above, which are not fun for everybody else...so good luck convincing some ordinary MP players that you'd like to...suit the map to a Pirate's purpose...

Pirates aren't necessarily warmongers, they're more of a hybrid faction. The other factions like Sparta, probably Believers if they were up to par tech-wise, Yang, and Domai if he's not left behind in the rat race could give the Pirates a run for their money in water combat.

Honest, as a Spartan player, I could gun hard for the Maritime Control Center and the Cyborg Factory, and thus have elite cruisers and foils, so I could kick him out of the water in his own game, if not I'd make him earn his position the hard way. In case you were unaware it is possible sink a vessel with land-based artillery too (works best on mediocre unarmored transport foils). Besides most of those water bases you see in the above image are practically just warning outposts -- every seasoned player knows the extreme danger of sea bases and coastal bases to marine infantry -- an elite cruiser transport with the MCC SP has 8 moves IIRC -- stuff a fusion cruiser transport with 8 elite marines (like 13-1-1*2 Amphibious) and you can make short work of the Pirates' bases.

Re: Your Morgan faction social engineering settings:

A Morganite oft-times has to change his SE settings to suit the case at hand. For instance, if he expects that in the near future he will need a lot of cash, he'll run Wealth, and then after his priorities have been accomplished, switch to Knowledge to boost labs. Never run Police State unless you are Yang. Remember:

Your Morganites go Green once you get Wealth on a case-by-case basis? Obviously if you're running specialists, which I believe is not only easier (takes less effort and time) than monster terraforming (energy parks and boreholes all over the place), then I would think that yes efficiency is quite useful and you don't have the chronic Police problems as per Free Market.

Yep. It's an easy check, just go in to the SE screen ('e' iirc), and switch from FM to Green, and compare your income and research rates. If you can match the income of FM with Green (not very hard if you've got a lot of bases), switch. You'll get the benefit of your police garrisons again, if you got the Longevity Vaccine you'll get some free drone quelling, and depending on your Psych output, you may even trip a base or two into a Golden Age. Especially because Morgan has +1 econ base, which, when combined with Wealth (always, always, ALWAYS run Wealth as Morgan), gives you the magic +1 energy per worked tile benefit. If you need to go to war with Morgan, make sure you've built Creches everywhere and go Fundy/Green/Wealth and you'll have a perfectly viable war footing. A children's creche can offset the morale penalty from being at -1 Morale SE, but not -2 or higher (halves the benefit from training structures like command centers).

I don't call myself the CEO for nothing.

Eudamonia comes very late in the game that it's not worth too much consideration in your early-game planning.

Re: Early game terraforming:

If you start a base near a rainy + rolling square, just plop a solar collector on it and move on. Don't put a Farm on it until you get Gene Splicing. I usually ignore rainy + flat squares (gives you 2-0-1 or 2-0-2 in the early game, max) versus moist + rolling (2-1-1 or 2-1-2). The sooner you get terraforming set up for the base the better, again for Turn Advantage. I would also second the Biogenetics first. You'll need it because the early game restrictions are pretty tough.

Re: Synthmetal probe teams: those won't last long under a impact rover rush, just so you know. If you expect attacks along a particular front line, you'll need to get plasma steel armour and perimeter defenses -- a 1-3-1 behind a PD and sensor with a less than crummy morale rating is a pretty tough cookie for a Yangese impact rover. An elite Spartan rover could probably knock it out but I'd simply destroy the sensor and attack the base with some 4-3-1 impact infantry. You'll also want impact rovers of your own.

Yang can be a formidable opponent to a Morganite in the early game. All he has to do is pop a base in a threatening area (along with some resource bonus squares), some plasma sentinels and impact rovers, and you'll be wrangling with him for quite some time.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Everyone's English is more than good enough, for what a native-speaker's opinion is worth.

(We've got an Italian at AC2 who's another story, but we manage with him... )

[Morgan Everett]

Re: Pirates: They already ARE potent. Some consider them a little too powerful. Indeed, they are unmatched on the water, but they tend to be somewhat precariously placed. First of all, water isn't as productive as land squares are, because minerals are in short supply. Yes the Pirates get +1 mineral on ocean shelf squares but that is limited to coastal areas or islands. Yes they can terraform in deep ocean but that doesn't show up until a bit later in the game and by that time it's kind of pointless because it's not something you should count on for your growth strategy. Look at the next image, and see if you can spot the ocean shelf squares...


...By the time all those deep ocean squares get terraformed with Super Sea Formers (Plus the Weather Paradigm) I could have invaded three empires. Not to mention you need to build Subsea Trunklines for every base, which grants +1 minerals to mining platforms only (although I believe it does help ocean shelf squares) which happens so late in the game it's not worth going after, versus just conquering.

As for water combat, it's fine but once needlejets show up and conventional missiles start getting thrown around then fancy cruisers and megafoils are slated to the back seat. Also the Pirate advantage works best in 70-90% ocean maps like the one above, which are not fun for everybody else...so good luck convincing some ordinary MP players that you'd like to...suit the map to a Pirate's purpose...

Pirates aren't necessarily warmongers, they're more of a hybrid faction. The other factions like Sparta, probably Believers if they were up to par tech-wise, Yang, and Domai if he's not left behind in the rat race could give the Pirates a run for their money in water combat.

Honest, as a Spartan player, I could gun hard for the Maritime Control Center and the Cyborg Factory, and thus have elite cruisers and foils, so I could kick him out of the water in his own game, if not I'd make him earn his position the hard way. In case you were unaware it is possible sink a vessel with land-based artillery too (works best on mediocre unarmored transport foils). Besides most of those water bases you see in the above image are practically just warning outposts -- every seasoned player knows the extreme danger of sea bases and coastal bases to marine infantry -- an elite cruiser transport with the MCC SP has 8 moves IIRC -- stuff a fusion cruiser transport with 8 elite marines (like 13-1-1*2 Amphibious) and you can make short work of the Pirates' bases.

Re: Your Morgan faction social engineering settings:




Re: Early game terraforming:

If you start a base near a rainy + rolling square, just plop a solar collector on it and move on. Don't put a Farm on it until you get Gene Splicing. I usually ignore rainy + flat squares (gives you 2-0-1 or 2-0-2 in the early game, max) versus moist + rolling (2-1-1 or 2-1-2). The sooner you get terraforming set up for the base the better, again for Turn Advantage. I would also second the Biogenetics first. You'll need it because the early game restrictions are pretty tough.

Re: Synthmetal probe teams: those won't last long under a impact rover rush, just so you know. If you expect attacks along a particular front line, you'll need to get plasma steel armour and perimeter defenses -- a 1-3-1 behind a PD and sensor with a less than crummy morale rating is a pretty tough cookie for a Yangese impact rover. An elite Spartan rover could probably knock it out but I'd simply destroy the sensor and attack the base with some 4-3-1 impact infantry. You'll also want impact rovers of your own.

Yang can be a formidable opponent to a Morganite in the early game. All he has to do is pop a base in a threatening area (along with some resource bonus squares), some plasma sentinels and impact rovers, and you'll be wrangling with him for quite some time.

RE: Pirates. You claim they are powerful, yet all you've said is pretty much against them. I agree with what you say though, farming the sea is more expensive, sea bases are vulnerable, sea bases lack minerals, and so on.

But that doesn't really answer my question, does it? Why are they considered overpowered? Just because they start up in the sea? I really can't accept that a faction with as an agenda 'to burn and pillage' does not even get a +1 to MORALE or at least probe, to me that's bull****.

RE: Terraforming. Ok, I forgot the difference between rainy and moist and I didn't understand much of what you said, sorry... I'll browse the SMAC wikipedia to get more insight.

Just, simply put, I intend to build thermal boreholes kinda everywhere and avoid crawlers because I can't defend them in the first part of the game as I don't have real ( ) war units. But I wonder what I should build on the other tiles..

Forests seem nice, they reduce ( I think ) the ecological damage which will be mandatory considering my overwhelming thermal boreholes but they don't bring much nutrients.. So should I have like... One tile for thermal boreholes, one time for forest and tile for farm and solars?

Or maybe my +2 in growth will compensate my low nutrients if I just make forests and thermal boreholes?

Help me out, I'm a noob at terraforming.

[Morgan Everett]

And thanks for your support regarding my English. My abilities are not self-obvious for someone like me who never actually gets to talk with a native speaker. I usually read and read and read more English or listen, no more.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Good grammar, which is the toughest part - I doubt I'd have spotted you as not a native speaker if you hadn't said.

[Morgan Everett]

Good grammar, which is the toughest part - I doubt I'd have spotted you as not a native speaker if you hadn't said.

My main problem is vocabulary.. It's a nightmare. I do have a basic knowledge but upon getting focused on a more specific subject I really have a hard time finding words.

Also, whenever I read you guys I find words I'm unfamiliar wit.. Basically, I have to look up around one to ten words per big post.

Almost every time it's a synonym of a word I already know and I always have the same reaction... 'GEEZ, how many synonyms can there be for ONE word?!' Lmao.

English is much more rich and complex than most people assume. It's a wonderful language.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

It's confusing to learn, but all the synonyms/loan words from other languages make it a good literary language... You can be very expressive and not repeat the same terms often. The synonyms also tend to provide shades of meaning.

[Morgan Everett]

It's confusing to learn, but all the synonyms/loan words from other languages make it a good literary language... You can be very expressive and not repeat the same terms often. The synonyms also tend to provide shades of meaning.

In comparison, the French language has a much more complex grammar that even natives barely wield. On the other hand, we tend to use less synonyms than in English.

Also, orally speaking English is very hard to get around for a stranger, especially for a frenchie like me.

Going back on topic, do you think some factions are cheap, cheated, and therefore should be removed or changed?

[551262]

English is not a good oral language, it doesn't "sound" pleasing like some other languages are.

Reading contemporary English literature is a good start, I suppose. Owing to an excess of time in an unconventional fashion I've read the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes, White Fang by Jack London, and 20000 Leagues under the Sea. I'd say that besides the omnipresent theme of murder or other horrors, the Sherlock Holmes stories are actually fairly good without an overload of obscure vocabulary nobody really uses. (I read it on my iPad, so I just had to double-tap a word to look it up in the built-in dictionary of iBooks. It does help to know the currency system a bit: 12 pence made a shilling, 20 shillings in a pound, a guinea is 1 pound 1 shilling, and a sovereign is a one pound gold coin.)

Back on topic, if you've played the Pirates a bit, you'll see they are a little overpowered. There are a couple of wrong ways to play them though. Re-read Vel's words on the faction, then play him for awhile.

A faction's profile and agenda are just words, nothing else. "Pillage and burn" doesn't mean anything other than just to help build up the profile of the faction. Don't take that too seriously.

Re: Crawlers: http://www.civgaming.net/smac/acad_crawlers.shtml

Protecting them is easy. Don't stick them in hotly contested areas. If they are being targeted by needlejets, then you need to fix that problem by gaining air superiority. A rocky square with a road on it, granting 4 minerals, is easily guarded by a 1-4-1*2 AAA ECM defensive unit, and I think you can put a bunker on that too, or at least a sensor. Boreholes are fine too but they really ramp up your ecodamage - can be good, and bad.

Re: Forests -- they are good, as stated here. I go with all forests and boreholes as needed, usually two per base. Because I'm an easy going player, forests are practical in many areas -- set and forget for all I'm concerned. They do produce 2-2-1 (2-2-2 if a river) with Tree Farms, and 3-2-2 (3-2-3 for river squares) for Hybrid Forests. I *LOVE* forests inside the Garland Crater once mineral restrictions get unlocked -- I can easily get 2-3-3 without much difficulty, so it's a natural place for cranking out SPs. When I first plop a base down in the GC, the first thing I do is build a sensor and forest, then farm+solar all the moist inner squares, so I get 2-2-1, pretty good in the early game. Later game, they look like natural nuke targets:



Even better, is when you get two of them (see the entire thread): http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/2...TEROID-STRIKE!

Seriously though, the Pirates have a good chance at nabbing the Monsoon Jungle, which is HUGE for *ANY* faction. May not look like much but just terraform the rolling and flat squares with forest -- instant 2-2-1 in the early game, which beats any farm/solar combination you can think of. Never make farm + mine combos like the AI does -- a forest does just as good and only need 4 turns to make.

Re: Growth: Growth is the result of two things: Nutrients, and your Growth SE scale. See that image I showed above? In the upper left corner is your Growth scale. The more nutrients you haul in per turn, the faster that scale gets filled up. The higher your Growth number on the SE table, the smaller the scale is. Remember that the larger the base grows, the slower it grows because the scale gets bigger.

[Morgan Everett]

Heck, I didn't know forests were THAT good.

I didn't realize they could be upgraded with Tree Farms and Hybrid Forest.

I used to make farms and mines like a noob.. Thanks for the intel.




By the way, I've got this crash that often occurs after some time.. Usually during an air attack by one of the other factions my computer starts freezing and I'm forced to quit. It happens only on a precise year and it seems to happen sooner or later in any of my plays.. It looks as if the computer is losing it because there are too many units to manage....

What am I supposed to do?

[BlackCat]

Sounds like you have this problem.

If you want to know a little about bugs in the game, then try to read this.