Forest - The Best Terraform

[Method]

my terraforming goes as follows:
borehole rocky squares
if the base has not may rainy squares condensor
rainy-farm solar collecter and mirrors everywhere
moist and arid-forest
sea-kelp and harness
the only time i would use all forest is in the middle of great dunes, and even then there's bound to be some boreholes and enought water for some decent nut and energy production.

the only problem i find with specialists is that if you use too many it reduces your commerce too much therefore reducing your econ and labs more than it would if you didn't use specialists.

[n.c.]

Interesting points. I should have admitted up-front that I have never tried anything but the tree stragey. It's so darn easy. So, take into account that rather significant ignorance.

-"How many Crawlers can one build in the same time it takes to build a TF or HF?"
Probably four or five? ButI'm building those two improvements anyway.

-"there is a 'faction wide' effect of these facilities"
I did not know that! Very cool. Is that feature at all documented?

-"Good to see you are still around."
Same to you. I miss typing Fritz on OT.

-"crawlering out of radius boreholes"
I realize that you are losing half, but you do get the nice toggle option. (And you only get one resource for any crawlered square.) For example, don't you hate it when you do a partial purchase and miscalculate by just a mineral or two? Just switch a crawler for one turn. Of course, there is also the abilty to do a serious rush-build. If you have your cities and boreholes on a mag-tube network, you can really get creative.

I do put in tidal harnesses with enout ocean squares, but what you are describing sounds like an in-base terraform (since improvements like inducers only work in-radius, right?). So, I'm not sure that is an either-or choice.

-"three boreholes as that too involves considerable terraforming time"
Yes, but what else do my formers have to do once the roads are in? Building forests takes no time, and some happen all by themselves (another attribute). I have one per base after building the WP, then another a bit later. The third one only comes in after the HF, which again I build anyway.

-"I didn't think you harsh at all."
Glad to hear it, but I'm being way over-mellow for this on-topic thread!

-"if you build a HF . . . that point is kind of moot."
Not really. My point was that people tend to crank up production and get eco damage that way. Not only do trees mitigate that (I think?), but if they get fungused it's not a big deal.

Anyway, I'm just yammering.

[Ned]

n.c., On Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests, the "construction" of these after the first pop, as well the construction of Centauri Preserves and Temples of the Planet, add to so-called "clean minerals," and undocumented effect. "Clean Minerals" are the number of minerals, less terraforming damage, you can produce at a base before ED. Each one of these facilities you construct increases clean minerals. The faction wide effect comes into play by virtue of the fact that clean minerals is applicable to every base in the faction.

For example, you start with 16 clean minerals. The first pop raises this to 17. You then construct 10 Tree Farms, 10 Hybrid Forests and 10 Centauri Preserves, selling the latter immediately to game 50 ec. You have 17 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 47 clean minerals. But you say, the number really should be 37 since we sold all our Centauri Preserves. Not so. It is "building" them that counts, not having them. Thus, build, sell, build those CP's to increase clean minerals. You will need the extra clean minerals as you add factory upon factory.

It is clear that the AI does not understand the above. It will build a Tree Farm only if it has forests, and it seldom terraform's forests. Sven is particularly obtuse about this. So to get the AI to build these facilities, Blake made the suggestion to add BUILD to an AI's interests and then also preseed your map with forests. The AI, even Sven, will then construct Tree Farms, etc., which makes it a stronger opponent, and also helps reduce AI global warming events.

[Sikander]

The 'bootstrapping' technique of crawling forests in the early game is very powerful. You can have 15+ mins in all of your bases very early in the game, which has wonderful consequences for your early SPs and facilities etc. With Zak you can get IA very early, with others like Morgan and Lal pretty early, and even with Yang early enough to really pump up your industry before your population can do the job.

As for defending your crawlers, in single player mode I don't find this to be a problem. Playing against humans I imagine that it is more of a problem, but you should still use crawlers if the threat is not immediate. You can armor your perimiter crawlers, which will help. Many players use crawlers as border wardens to give an early warning of an enemy approach. Instead of a military unit eating minerals, or even an armored probe team which has a one time cost, a crawler can pay for itself and even turn a profit while it observes an approach route toward your empire.