Basic terraforming ?

[SativaX]

Ive been playing for a good month now and im STIll wondering if i do this right ?

rolling-moist = road solar farm
flat-moist = road forest
rolling rocky = road mine farm ?


im also unsure about what is best to place in jungle tiles, so i usually go green and forest/road it.

Basically please put your toughts on what goes where in terraforming.


thanks

[Sarxis]

All I know is: lots of Forests later on in the game. Unless you are going the Gaians; they seem to like fungus.

Flat and moist you are putting forests? I'd probably put roads and farms on at least some of those.

[Blake]

Generally the best growth and production is achieved by ensuring that each base has a 2+ food tile, and foresting everything else. If you can afford rec tanks (ie Morgan) you don't even need the 2 food. The idea is a base wont be size 2 for long before building a colony pod. In the early game horizontal expansion is far faster than vertical expansion.

Once you have enough bases (prehaps when you hit the b-drone limit) you can start investing in infrastrutcture like rec commons and netnodes.

Once you get Enviromental Economics you can either forest everything and use treefarms/hybrid forests, or pave the forest over with advanced terraforming... altough either way you'll build treefarms.

[Jamski]

rolling-moist = road solar farm
flat-moist = road forest
rolling rocky = road mine farm ?

Slow, and inefficeient.

• Any Rocky - mine and road - use crawler to convey 4 minerals.
• Any nutrient bonus - farm, condensor, soil imp. - use crawler to convey 7+ minerals
• As many boreholes as you can fit in (they can't be next to each other)
• Forest everything else - get Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests to get 3-3-3 from these squares.
• Before Treefarm tech, a farm+condensor combo on any flat square can be crawled for 4 minerals to keep your people fed untill the forests start producing 2 nutrients
• In general - crawlers on specialised squares, workers on mixed squares.
• Solar panels should be placed ONLY on high ground, with NO other inprovements and crawlered for energy. Don't try and mix with a farm - a forest is just as good, if not better, and much cheaper.

Nowhere NEAR perfect, but it will beat the AI on Transcend Against a human it can help to make all specialised squares and crawl everything so the whole population become specialists.

Priorites :

• Early game - some nutrients needed to get to size two. On Transend for a fast expansion a monolith is the ideal 2-2-2. Only t-form as many tiles as a base needs early on. Get formers built and lay a road network to your planned base sites. Set up some forests and maybe 1 or two farms.
• Early mid game - once you get Ind Auto you should have moved to a mineral focus. Get crawlers out on forests for 2 minerals each, and get all your bases productive. Prepare for pop-booming with farm-condesors-crawlers and forest-treefarms. Boom.
• Mid-late-game - Hybrid forests, finish boreholing every corner, and get energy crawled to your best science bases.
• Late game - Energy is king. Just buy or upgrade everything. Most food comes from satellites.

I hope that helps a bit.

-Jam

[SativaX]

It definately helps hehe

i already had a couple steps good but you put it a bit clearer than the other sites i read about tforming !

i guess ill be ready for some changes on my game

thanks much

[Blake]

By the way, while boreholing everything that moves (or doesn't, in this case) is great and all, it's not really nessecary for any faction that can run Free Market - for them simple pure forest suffices, the ability to pop-boom also helps to quickly use the forest tiles. (for non-pop boomers a few codensors and boreholes will do great things)

For Yang and Dee boreholes are useful to boost energy production to levels on par with Free Marketeers. Drill to Aquifer is also an extremely useful terraforming to get a bit of extra energy, rivers are kind of a poor-mans +2 Econ in the early game.

By far the most interesting faction for terraforming is The Hive, an inability to run Free Market or Pop Boom means you really have to get the most out of your terraforming, and The Hive can afford to build LOTS of formers.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Jamski


Slow, and inefficeient.

• Any Rocky - mine and road - use crawler to convey 4 minerals.
• Any nutrient bonus - farm, condensor, soil imp. - use crawler to convey 7+ minerals
• As many boreholes as you can fit in (they can't be next to each other)
• Forest everything else - get Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests to get 3-3-3 from these squares.
• Before Treefarm tech, a farm+condensor combo on any flat square can be crawled for 4 minerals to keep your people fed untill the forests start producing 2 nutrients
• In general - crawlers on specialised squares, workers on mixed squares.
• Solar panels should be placed ONLY on high ground, with NO other inprovements and crawlered for energy. Don't try and mix with a farm - a forest is just as good, if not better, and much cheaper.

Nowhere NEAR perfect, but it will beat the AI on Transcend Against a human it can help to make all specialised squares and crawl everything so the whole population become specialists.

-Jam

Do I understand you correctly in that you can crawl in your own city radius? I thought you could only crawl on squares that are not in any city radius. If what you're suggesting is possible than I've been playing wrong since the very beginning!

[swillwater]

Originally posted by Blake
By the way, while boreholing everything that moves (or doesn't, in this case) is great and all, it's not really nessecary for any faction that can run Free Market - for them simple pure forest suffices, the ability to pop-boom also helps to quickly use the forest tiles. (for non-pop boomers a few codensors and boreholes will do great things)

For Yang and Dee boreholes are useful to boost energy production to levels on par with Free Marketeers. Drill to Aquifer is also an extremely useful terraforming to get a bit of extra energy, rivers are kind of a poor-mans +2 Econ in the early game.

By far the most interesting faction for terraforming is The Hive, an inability to run Free Market or Pop Boom means you really have to get the most out of your terraforming, and The Hive can afford to build LOTS of formers.

Why not run Free Market with the Hive?

[swillwater]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster


Do I understand you correctly in that you can crawl in your own city radius? I thought you could only crawl on squares that are not in any city radius. If what you're suggesting is possible than I've been playing wrong since the very beginning!

Not necessarily. If you've been winning, then it seems to me that you have been playing correctly. As is being discussed in another thread, it is quite possible to win on Transcend without ever building a supply crawler- or pop booming- or running free market.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by swillwater


Why not run Free Market with the Hive?

Because

1. you do not get to a +2 ECON rating which gives an extra energy per TILE and which isusually the reason for eating the police and planet penalties

2. Why ever leave planned?? The HIve is difficult to pop-boom and PLanned gives growth and industry with NO PENALTY whatsoever

I may be rigid but when I play the Hive they stay in POlice/ Planned almost always- Drone control is accomplished mainly with POlice so FM is just not feasible

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster


Do I understand you correctly in that you can crawl in your own city radius? I thought you could only crawl on squares that are not in any city radius. If what you're suggesting is possible than I've been playing wrong since the very beginning!

You can crawl any tile that does not have a base on it-- If is is currently being worked by a citizen, just go into the base and work another tile or make a specialist before assigning the crawler to it

[Flubber]

Originally posted by swillwater


Not necessarily. If you've been winning, then it seems to me that you have been playing correctly. As is being discussed in another thread, it is quite possible to win on Transcend without ever building a supply crawler- or pop booming- or running free market.

You are kidding right??? Beating the inept AI can be accomplished while still playing this game very very badly. PLaying without crawlers or FM are usually either roleplaying choices or handicaps that players choose to place on themselves to make the game more challenging.

I won the game once without building or retaining a base ( the nomad challenge)-- I would hardly call it an example of best play

Sorry -- I don't mean to sound harsh. . . and I would agree that there are often multiple good ways to play this game-- BUT a player employing crawlers but never in his base radii is making an error ( if not doing it as a handicap)

[Bella Hella]

i guess i employ the "standard" strategy...

my early terraforming just includes a farm or 2 per base (or not, depending on whether there's a monolith or nutrient bonus). i buid these in rolling/moist squares and add a solar collecter* so i can get all 3 types of resources from that square. then a road network, foresting as i go, plus roads to new base sites. this is nice and fast, and the forest expands on its own, of course. once that's done, i concentrate on building mines in all rocky squares, removing fungus if necessary. i've found that i don't even need that many terraformers for this, and don't need to build them at every base. this frees up production for units or facilities. once my crawlers are out gathering minerals on those rocky squares, i can build more formers if i need to (for boreholes). other than boreholes, i don't usually bother with advanced terraforming. i just don't like having to keep track of it all, and forests are so easy and productive.

don't know if this is the best way to terraform, but it works well for me.

* should i bother with the solar collecter in the early game?

[Cookie Monster]

This is new to me and I've had both SMAC and SMAX since the day they came out. The ability to crawl in your own city radius in a tile that is not currently being worked was something I was unaware of. Although I win games (on librarian level) more often than not with this knowledge I am going to play the next difficulty level higher.

Flubber:

Indeed I was erroring in that I played with crawlers outside my city radii.

swillwater:

Yes I like I said above I win games but am interested in trying out this strategy for myself. I agree with you in that I was playing correctly but employing crawlers in an inefficient fashion.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster
Flubber:

Indeed I was erroring in that I played with crawlers outside my city radii.

swillwater:

.

Just to be clear-- it is NOT an error to use crawlers outside a base radii--most crawlers will end up outside the base radii. But in the earlier parts of the game it is easier and safer to have crawlers closer to your bases.

Oh and a crawler should be collectting a resource on EVERY turn it is in existence. Even if its headed to help build an SP, you can go to it and have it collect a resource even if it is only 2 minerals while on a forest

[Minute Mirage]

I use the standard style of terraforming in the early game:

- first priority: A 2+ nut square for every base, unless the base isn't going to build a colony pod quickly. Even then, every base should get a 2+ nut square sooner or later, especially if I'm planning on building the PTS.

- second priority: Roading to new base sites.

- third priority: Forest, forest, forest. I might plant a forest even before roading, if I'm not planning on using FM right from the start.

I don't usually have time to build sensors under bases in the beginning, but since there's often a pause after the first round of expansion, I might want to build the sensors for the second round of bases. Besides, these bases are likely to need those sensors more, since they might already be close to an enemy.

After foresting, it's usually time to aim for a pop boom, which more often than not requires some condensor/farms.

[swillwater]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Flubber



>You are kidding right??? Beating the inept AI can be accomplished while still playing this game very very badly.

Which I probably do... Certainly a lot of you guys would kick my arse if I ever got involved with multiplayer.

>PLaying without crawlers or FM are usually either roleplaying choices or handicaps that players choose to place on themselves to make the game more challenging.

Probably a sign of my own ineptness that I consider the game more of a challenge when I use free market...

>I won the game once without building or retaining a base ( the nomad challenge)-- I would hardly call it an example of best play

Who with and what difficulty level?

>Sorry -- I don't mean to sound harsh. . . and I would agree that there are often multiple good ways to play this game-- BUT a player employing crawlers but never in his base radii is making an error ( if not doing it as a handicap)

that is true.

[Blake]

By the way you should always play on Thinker or Transcend difficulty, I always have . The drone problems greatly encourage good expansion techniques and attention to detail that will greatly improve your game.

Also learning to use Free Market is a must, for the Peacekeepers its easy even on transcend, and it's a joy to run FM and Wealth together with Morgan.

[Flubber]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by swillwater

Originally posted by Flubber

>I won the game once without building or retaining a base ( the nomad challenge)-- I would hardly call it an example of best play

Who with and what difficulty level?

>

The cult, transcend difficulty on a tiny random map. Its actually not all that hard a challenge but you need some luck as all the factions have to be accessible by land OR you have to get a boat from a pod pop.

Its really only possible with the cult or deidre.

[swillwater]

Originally posted by Blake
By the way you should always play on Thinker or Transcend difficulty, I always have . The drone problems greatly encourage good expansion techniques and attention to detail that will greatly improve your game.

Also learning to use Free Market is a must, for the Peacekeepers its easy even on transcend, and it's a joy to run FM and Wealth together with Morgan.

Not quite sure who you're responding to here; I do play on those difficulty levels and can win fairly consistently on those difficulty levels with most of the factions, and have won with all the original factions on transcend.
I Did not use free market at any time the PC.

About supply crawlers- I just made a concerted attempt to use them properly, and I have to admit that they were a big help, and they really helped to make a planned economy and the power social choice much more desirable (I was playing Spartans)

[:) Smiley]

When the map is filled, it makes plenty of sense to crawl in the burbs.