Your favourite faction(s).

[Mensonge]

You believe the pirates are awesome? I only saw you asking for others to prove they were not weak, and it didn't seem like you were convinced back then. What changed your mind? Care to fill me in?

Also, is it true all pirates base come with a free pressure dome and therefore a free recycling tank?

[CEO Aaron]

You believe the pirates are awesome? I only saw you asking for others to prove they were not weak, and it didn't seem like you were convinced back then. What changed your mind? Care to fill me in?

Also, is it true all pirates base come with a free pressure dome and therefore a free recycling tank?

No, that's just sea-bases, and it's not a faction feature, it's just a result of building a sea-colony pod, which is paid for when you build it. Colony pod: 3 rows. Sea colony pod: 7 rows.

Yes, I used to feel they were soft, mainly because of the extra price you pay for pods and foils to staff your empire, and the problem that there are no roads at sea. But then I saw what people could do with them in games, and I changed my mind. Basically, I over-valued the early turn advantage you could get by founding early bases, back then. Also, I've had time to rethink my position on the 'ideal' empire. The long and short of it is this: Never stop adding bases, never quit growing. The real potential of your position is how much territory you can control, because the maximum military output of any faction is 1 unit per base per turn. So, when Sven gets uncontested control of vast swaths of oceans and islands that most factions would find of questionable worth, yeah, that's a huge advantage.

[Mensonge]

Isn't that also a matter of how powerful your bases are?

Until near the end of your game, having a lot of sea bases seems a fool's gambit. They're not as productive and rewarding as land bases and they're harder to build. Until you can boost up your production by exploiting space resources ( I don't remember the name of the technology ) it's probably better for the pirates to remain on land, as for any other faction.

And by remaining on land, you won't expand as fast as the Free Drones for instance.. And when you do meet the Free Drones on the sea, they might exceed by way of raw power any natural advantage you had on the sea to begin with..

The point is, if your intent is to pop bases continuously, you'll be better off with Yang or the Free Drones and not the Pirates..

[CEO Aaron]

Isn't that also a matter of how powerful your bases are?

Certainly, but my point is that no matter HOW powerful your bases are, the most any base will EVER build is one unit per turn. Yes, a more productive base will can produce a bigger unit, but they can still produce only one of them, and if you use a strategy of upgrading shell units with energy credits, you don't need a ton of mineral production in every base.

Until near the end of your game, having a lot of sea bases seems a fool's gambit. They're not as productive and rewarding as land bases and they're harder to build. Until you can boost up your production by exploiting space resources ( I don't remember the name of the technology ) it's probably better for the pirates to remain on land, as for any other faction.

For other factions, that's true, but Sven's free mineral from every shelf square makes their sea bases completely competitive with land bases. But you don't need a sea base to exploit these sea squares, you just need some shelf tiles next to your bases.

And by remaining on land, you won't expand as fast as the Free Drones for instance.. And when you do meet the Free Drones on the sea, they might exceed by way of raw power any natural advantage you had on the sea to begin with..

Nutrients and space are more important in the intermediate to long game than minerals, and Sven gets those in spades. Prior to uncapping nutrient restrictions, the Pirates shelf squares can collect 2 nuts, 1 mineral and 2 energy, and those figures rise when you do uncap, with no necessary investment into tree farms. Yes, they'll take more terraforming than trees, but like trees, kelp spreads by itself, giving you scads of extra nutrients, clearing fungus and freeing up your formers to plant tidal harnesses. Also, with Domai's research penalties, who do you think is likely to unlock Tree Farms first?

The point is, if your intent is to pop bases continuously, you'll be better off with Yang or the Free Drones and not the Pirates..

In point of fact, there isn't any faction which can't leverage a nutrient-centric strategy, some just do it better than others. Yang and Domai's strength is that they spread more easily, but get lower returns from each base (Yang gets less econ, Domai, less tech). Sven doesn't quite spread as fast, but is going to get more yield from the bases he does build. And by your own admission, for other factions, sea bases are of questionable worth. For Sven, they're really quite solid. And most maps have lots of shallow water with little fiddly islands where you can drop stuff like boreholes and forests to bolster mineral income.

[Mensonge]

In your mouth, it makes sense.

Imagine a sea base right next to the shore, if you raise the level of the land right next to that sea base with a terraformer does this destroy the sea base the same way a land base is destroyed if you decrease the level of the land it's on, provided it doesn't have pressure dome? Or does it just become a land base?

Also, according to you, should kelp be best combined with tidal harness or a mining platform? Are there any losses with these combinations?

[CEO Aaron]

Imagine a sea base right next to the shore, if you raise the level of the land right next to that sea base with a terraformer does this destroy the sea base the same way a land base is destroyed if you decrease the level of the land it's on, provided it doesn't have pressure dome? Or does it just become a land base?

It just becomes a land base with a pressure dome.

Also, according to you, should kelp be best combined with tidal harness or a mining platform? Are there any losses with these combinations?

Tidal Harness. Mining platforms are only of use in bases with NO minerals in range, and with Sven, that's never a problem, since you get one free mineral per square. Worst case, a seven population (pre-hab) base will produce 8 minerals. That's enough to pay for your support (garrison, a couple formers and a transport or armed foil), and still have enough leftover to lay the 10 mineral foundation on most construction in two turns (running Demo, you'll have one free mineral to support, that leaves 3 to pay for guys, the rest go into your build queue). Mining platforms take tree times as much former time to build, reduces your overall revenue (sorry, one mineral is not worth as much as three energy and one nutrient, period), and the subsea trunkline improvement which is meant to boost their production is punitively expensive in terms of initial construction cost and upkeep. Then there's the issue of how much more easily you can multiply your energy and lab income, in comparison to minerals. Finally, energy credits are fungible. They can be spent in other bases, once you've finished your base infrastructure in your initial base. You can do the same with minerals using more lossy methods (building/disbanding units, since stockpiling energy is awful), and once you're above the population threshold, you're going to be building net nodes and banks anyway, because you'll have ample labs and credits to amplify.

Once you get satellites, mining platforms become an even crummier deal, since the nutrients you collect will feed people, which will get you your satellite nutrients, minerals and energy. Bottom line, if you have a water base and you need minerals, consider crawling/ferrying them instead of building sub-optimal terrain improvements. The ONLY circumstance I would build a mining platform is to park on a sea mineral bonus square which is so far removed from the rest of my holdings that it's not worth building a base on/by (ie: surrounded by deep water), and crawl it back to another base.

[Mensonge]

I've tried to play the Pirates a bit, I'm kinda disappointed..

I can't find their strength. You said you changed your mind about them, recognized some really good point about them, could you explain those to me or at least copy/paste what you said previously? I've made some research about your posts, I didn't find anything.

Thanks!

( Anyone is welcome to comment on the Pirates. )

Also, is it me or naval combat units are naturally weak? Doesn't that defy the whole point of having naval advantages if you end up mass procuding aircrafts?

[CEO Aaron]

I've tried to play the Pirates a bit, I'm kinda disappointed..

I can't find their strength. You said you changed your mind about them, recognized some really good point about them, could you explain those to me or at least copy/paste what you said previously? I've made some research about your posts, I didn't find anything.

Well, let's attack it this way: what is the faction you're best at? Based on prior conversations, you've expressed a preference for the Drones, would you say they're your strongest faction? What's your playstyle? Are you a builder, momentum player, or hybrid? What's your usual beeline? Do you rush toward weapon techs, free market or go toward unlocking your resource caps? The more I understand about your current playstyle preferences, the more I can help inform your Pirate play.

Also, is it me or naval combat units are naturally weak? Doesn't that defy the whole point of having naval advantages if you end up mass procuding aircrafts?

Well, they're very mobile units, so you're going to pay a lot of resources for what you get. But for weakness, they're no more or less weak than a comparable land unit, and they do get a 50% discount on armor and another 50% discount on total cost, so you're basically paying rover prices for double the rover's mobility. Add in the fact that you get bombard for free, and they're very fast, flexible and cost-effective.

Here's the important thing: You'll want to have both. Air units are still shackled to bases or carriers, so there's places they can't go. Air units also can't capture ANYTHING, so if you're going to be trying to take a sea base, you're going to have to put a hull in the water. Air units also aren't great at defending. They can block ground/sea units from entering a square, but if your opponent has an air-superiority force of their own, your combat air patrol will get swiftly killed, and losing air units is an expensive proposition compared to losing naval units. The cheapest naval unit you can build is 2 rows (2/2 foil), the cheapest air unit is 4 rows (4/1 noodle), if I recall correctly, so an attrition war composed entirely of air units is going to get quite costly compared to one with some naval units. Finally, AAA/best on a boat is an AMAZINGLY tough unit to dislodge with air power.

[Mensonge]

I play Morgan the best among all factions, and I've played almost all of them.

I definitely believe The Drones and Morgan are the or my most powerful factions. Now, I like the Pirates for ideological reasons ( their neutrality ) but they seem plagued with inferior development at see.

About my playstyle, I'm a builder.

For the tech tree, I went with the pirates for : Social Psych ( Recreation commons ) then Centauri Ecology ( formers ) then Industrial Base then Industrial Economics ( Free Market ) then Ethical Calculus ( Democracy ).

About naval units, you seem to think they're as powerful as land units. Are you sure? I seem to remember land units had a certain bonus defending a base (25%?), even a sea base, while naval units get a penalty for defending a base.

Thanks for your precious help, again.

[CEO Aaron]

I play Morgan the best among all factions, and I've played almost all of them.

I definitely believe The Drones and Morgan are the or my most powerful factions. Now, I like the Pirates for ideological reasons ( their neutrality ) but they seem plagued with inferior development at see.

About my playstyle, I'm a builder.

Okay, so while the Pirates can eventually be a spectacular faction and build robustly, they do not suit an immediate jump into builder-style play. They're more of a hybrid faction, in terms of their approach to the game, in my opinion.

For the tech tree, I went with the pirates for : Social Psych ( Recreation commons ) then Centauri Ecology ( formers ) then Industrial Base then Industrial Economics ( Free Market ) then Ethical Calculus ( Democracy ).

Okay, first of all, NO faction needs Social Psych as tech #1, period. Yes, I know Miriam gets it automatically. That's punishment from God. You don't want to quell drones with a rec-center until later in the early game. In the very first turns, you handle your drones by shipping them off to a new base site, or by putting a scout boot in their teeth. Second, if your plan is early exploitation of Free Market, yeah, that's not going to work so hot on a boat, because trees don't grow on water. The core of the early FM strategy is leveraging forests to grab that 1/2/2 income on your forest squares.

So, use a nutrient-centric strategy early on. You'll be getting 2/1/2 squares from planting Kelp and tidal harnesses, rather than 1/2/2 squares from forests. This has important consquences. Your population is going to grow more, so you have to have plans to efficiently handle the growth. It also means that you don't actually get as much benefit from FM, because you get 2 energy for each tidal out of the box. So, go Planned, and leverage the additional benefits that gets you: More growth, more industry, and most importantly, no crippling police penalty.

Expand, expand, expand. Your benefits at sea give you a unique ability to claim territory that most rivals won't even bother to colonize. Use it! Most rivals won't even be able to REACH your empire until the midgame, the only thing you need to worry about, defense-wise, is the worms. Your first tech beeline should be for Intellectual Integrity. Why? Because as long as you're not going to be running Free Market, and you don't need to defend against attacks, you might as well put those 1/1/1 scouts to use by giving them non-lethal methods. You'll also want Childrens' Creches to boost your growth rate, and you'll want to grab Gene Splicing for uncapping your nutrient income. That unlocks towards Synthentic Fossil Fuels if you find yourself in need of weaponry, or if you're not currently mixing it up with your neighbors, you can start plugging away towards Fusion Power, and the mighty Engineer.

One 1/1/1 police plus one rec commons gives you 4 workers to collect nuts. With uncapped nutrient income and your pressure dome, that's 15 food per base. Conveniently, that's exactly enough to support 7 citizens, so your other 3 guys will be specialists, providing either cash or labs, or later, both.

About naval units, you seem to think they're as powerful as land units. Are you sure? I seem to remember land units had a certain bonus defending a base (25%?), even a sea base, while naval units get a penalty for defending a base.

Water doesn't have much in the way of terrain, it's true, and you'll still want infantry to defend your bases, because ships in port don't fight too well, to say nothing of infantry being cheaper. But a ship in open water is no better or worse than an infantry unit in open terrain. But if you're doing your job right (scouting and reacting intelligently), you won't be fighting enemies on your doorstep. You'll meet them in open water with your superior navy, which can capture enemy ships for free.

[Mensonge]

So basically you think I should give up Free Market for Democracy and Planned? That I should focus on a nutrient strategy, replicating tidal harnesses and kelp everywhere while taking advantage of the pirates' +1 mineral bonus?

Growing fast, I would have more workers to work energy tiles, and have specialists benefit me?

But I don't understand why forests are the core of a FM strategy, having a +2 Economy simply gives you a bonus for every tile to work, what does that have to do forests?

I picked Social Psych first because it allowed me to then pick centauri ecology and then industrial base and free market, for some reason, depending on my first choice, some tech options disappear to be available only later. I'll admit I never really understood how the tech tree worked, even after taking a look at the tech tree poster.. Why? Because until recently, I used to play with blind research.

If you want me to rush to Ethical Calculus, I can have it as a second tech. First social Psych, then Ethical Calculus. If I go first with centauri ecology, I don't have Ethical Calculus available as a second choice. For some reason, researching Social Psych first unlocks all the technologies that matter to me!



Do you know the exact penalty if a ship defends a base?

[CEO Aaron]

So basically you think I should give up Free Market for Democracy and Planned? That I should focus on a nutrient strategy, replicating tidal harnesses and kelp everywhere while taking advantage of the pirates' +1 mineral bonus?

I don't think you should completely give up Free Market, but running it should not be an early priority. The beauty of kelp is that, like forests, they spread on their own, so you get to benefit from lots of free tile improvements. Also, there's no roads at sea, and your sea formers are pretty fast, so you should be able to slap down tidal harnesses in every kelp square with little difficulty.

Growing fast, I would have more workers to work energy tiles, and have specialists benefit me?

Yes.

But I don't understand why forests are the core of a FM strategy, having a +2 Economy simply gives you a bonus for every tile to work, what does that have to do forests?

Early-game resource mechanics. Before you research the lynchpin techs that uncap your per-tile resource collection (Gene Splicing, Ecological Engineering, and Environmental Economics), the most resources a tile can produce (barring resource special bonuses) is 2/2/2. If you're paying your guy to work a tile, you WANT the most out of that tile you can. On land, forests plus free market get you 1/2/2, which is very, very good. Free Market also gives bonus energy in the base square at higher economy levels, that also is quite good. But a base with a recycling tanks working 3 forest tiles is going to cap out its population at 3. It will be a very productive base, because it's getting 8 minerals per turn, but you don't have the nutrients to expand as fast.

I picked Social Psych first because it allowed me to then pick centauri ecology and then industrial base and free market, for some reason, depending on my first choice, some tech options disappear to be available only later. I'll admit I never really understood how the tech tree worked, even after taking a look at the tech tree poster.. Why? Because until recently, I used to play with blind research.

I don't know the precise mechanics of how the research choices are generated, but what I DO know is that getting Centauri Ecology is priority one. The only, ONLY faction for which this is debatable is Morgan, who can sometimes bust out of the gate faster by getting Biogenics, so they can crash build recycling tanks for a big burst of early growth and resources. But in every other case, if you're postponing CE, you're crippling your development. The ability to start with CE is one of the core strengths of the University and Gaians.

If you want me to rush to Ethical Calculus, I can have it as a second tech. First social Psych, then Ethical Calculus. If I go first with centauri ecology, I don't have Ethical Calculus available as a second choice. For some reason, researching Social Psych first unlocks all the technologies that matter to me!

Get CE first. What's the point of getting a 20% boost to growth if you have zero bonus nutrients? Also, don't be in that huge a hurry to jump into Democracy. Yes, the growth is nice, but in the very early stages when you should be spreading like a weed, you'll want the extra 10 minerals per base, and the +1 support. Only once you've hit the second bureaucracy limit should you switch to Democracy. By that time, you should have enough core infrastructure to start subsidizing your expansion efforts with extra formers and garrisons. Also, grabbing Biogenics as a filler tech is always a solid bet, when the choice algorithm doesn't get you something you're beelining for.

Do you know the exact penalty if a ship defends a base?

Yes, I do.

[Mensonge]

Ok, let's do this:

If my first tech choice is CE, then once I get it four options are available to me:

Applied Physics or Biogenetics or Information Networks or Progenitor Psych.

Which one should I pick?

I was thinking about getting Information Networks, then Planetary Networks so I can have probes to defend my bases without support penalties.

That way I can also get planned as you suggested. The only problem is that I'll have -3 efficiency...!

Isn't that a suicide strategy?

[CEO Aaron]

I would pick Biogenics. It's a pre-requisite of gene splicing (unlocks 3+ nutrients per tile), and it gives you recycling tanks, a stellar facility. I wouldn't bother trying to grab the HGP unless you're able to pick up 3 alien artifacts to rush the construction. Otherwise, the 200 mineral setback to your base development won't be worth the delay. Also, I wouldn't bother with defensive probes. They're fine if you're running Free Market, but if you have a non-negative police rating, you want the drone quelling capability of a traditional garrison unit. In fact, you're relying on getting early access to non-lethal methods to get 1/1/1 police to quell 2 drones for 1 upkeep.

Negative efficiency isn't great, but it's hardly suicide. When your empire is still small, it barely has an effect. When it gets bigger, sure, inefficiency can start to hamper your income, and complicate your drone management, but, as it turns out, not by much. Because nutrients and specialists are IMMUNE to efficiency. So you'll lose a couple of minerals from very far flung bases, and your energy income in remote areas will start to get siphoned off due to corruption. The solution? Creches, Democracy and Knowledge. That will give your bases a net +2 efficiency rating, good enough to support a fairly far-flung empire. But always remember, Doctors, Technicians and Librarians don't get robbed.

The biggest effect of efficiency is the creation of drones and super-drones, but this is one of the advantages of police over psych as a method of drone management: Your jackbooted thugs don't care how unhappy the faces they're stomping on are, whereas super-drones take double the psych expenditure to quell as normal drones. This is why paying attention to the bureaucracy limit is so important.

[Mensonge]

Damn it.. Tech choices are a pain in the neck. If I choose biogenetics, techs to get planned and democracy are taken away. Based on what you say, I should get planned as soon as possible to get the industry bonus and the growth bonus. Then, once I cross the second bureaucracy limit, I should switch to Democracy.

So, taking into account the fact that I'll be spreading like weeds, I think my best bee line would be :

CE -> Information Networks -> Planetary Networks ( Switching to Planned ) -> Social Psych ( I can start having big bases ) -> Ethical Calculus ( Switching to Democracy ) -> Biogenetics.

What do you think?

Also, why is HGP not important to you? Isn't that a great SP? Talents stop drones, right? Having the HGP is a little like having Social Psych, it neutralizes one drone, right? Why do I find this extremely useful when playing in the hardest difficulty setting a base with 2 population starts rioting asap with HGP or Social Psych?