Terraforming.

[g_storrow]

Does it matter what order you build the improvements on a square? Does building a mine when you have farms get rid off some of the nutrients? I know it does in the sea but can't work it out on land espiacally when there is jungle there. DO you get less minerals from a mine when there is a farm/.soil enricher. SOmetimes the soil enrichers don't seem to add extra nutrients on certain squares or is this an order in which they are built.

Also I never raise or lower land should i be doing?

What are all the abbreviations like SE etc mean.

Thanks
George

[Darius]

Building a mine reduces the nutrients in that square by one, but will not reduce it all the way to zero. I'm not sure if it also works the other way around (if a farm reduces the minerals). There's a decent table in the back of the manual. The order of the improvements does not matter.

SE means social engineering. There are several threads out there listing abbreviations. Try searching for "abbreviation".

[Purple]

A related question: is there an optimum (in terms of time required) sequence for development of a given square? In other words, does it take longer to build a road in a square that has a forest than in an undeveloped square?

Regarding raising and lowering, it depends on your style and what you want to accomplish. I tend to play on water planets, but I like to raise land to create isthmuses. This can have unfortunate effects on your past terraforming, as it may change the climate unfavorably.

However, such a climate change may be a good tactic to use against an enemy: raise land to create droughty conditions on an enemy's territory east of the raised area.

Also, some players like to move a protected sea former next to enemies and lower the coastlines, drowning their cities.

[WhiteElephants]

Purple -- I can't say this is an optimal strategy or not, but I think most people like to have a former, or two, out "ahead" of the rest whose purpose is to build roads to the next base location. That way the other formers can quickly catch up to the group that is ahead by using the roads and the new colony pods can race to the next base location. This can also function as a way to quickly move defensive/offensive units through your empire.

It only takes a former one turn to build a road on a "flat" square. If you have it worked out right and enough flat squares to your destination, you can "leap frog" your formers to quickly build the road. This would be even more effective if you used rover formers as this would allow you to build two tiles of road per turn with two formers.

I think most people tend to raise land in order to put Echelon Mirrors and Solar Collectors on the raised mountains. As the height passes 1000 meters, 2000 meters, and 3000 meters you gain a +1 to your solar collectors energy intake. So, at three thousand meters you should be collecting +4 energy per solar collector. Throw in a few echelon mirrors and you'll be rolling in the dough. For more info on this do a search for "energy park" and you should come up with some helpful posts.

Hope this helps.

[Avenoct]

I see raise/lower at the same level as drill-to-aquifer. They are vastly good things to do, but are at the end of the list of necessities. White Elephants shows the importance of 'Road First' terraforming. This is the only case I know where the order of terraforming is important. The key is to get some formers out ahead to prep an area.

Things to Prep:
Build a road network to every square you are going to terraform (unless you are going all trees)
Put a sensor on a future base site
change rocky to rolling, then road. Now any forming can be done
seed forest around your empire, or kelp around your sea as these things grow

etc..

raising the land is a great technique in the mid-game to expand your empire, blot out annoying ponds, control the flow of future rivers, make landbridges, and generally give each and every city the maximum land squares in its base radius.

-Smack

[g_storrow]

Regarding the resources on a certain square a had a flat low piece of land with an energy resource. I put a farm then a soil enricher then a solar collector. It only then had 1 nutrient and 3 energy this doesn't seem right to me.
Does this raising land and the east of the new raised land gets a drought work. I have heard it mentioned a few times but some people seem sceptical.

[Bob Morane]

g_storrow, it is possible to have only 1 nut and 3 energy from a tile with farm-solar and energy bonus, but this should mean the tile is arid and nearly at sea level.
You ave to be careful where you build a certain terraform.
As said in the terraforming tour (i suggest you have a look at it if not already done) the more green a square is, the more rainy, a square completely green is rainy and will give you 2 nut, a squre with green dots is humid and will give you 1 nut, a brown square is arid and provide no nut. The farm add 1 to the nut output of a square, thus if you put a farm on an arid square, you'll get only 1 nut from the square.
Energy is provided by altitude (as said previously), and if your tile is too low, u'll get no energy at all (even with a collector), but then, the energy bonus could provide you with a +3 energy (or is it +2??), usually, the game will tell u when a solar collector will produce no energy, but perhaps an energy bonus will confuse it.
You really need to be carefull when terraforming, as "normal" terraforming (mines, farms and solars) are not right for every tile. Esp., on arid, flat and low elevation tiles, the only terraformings worthy to do are forests and boreholes. You should always build farms only on rainy tiles (unless u plan to put a condeser nearby), solar on high elevation tiles (or on the tiles where u have farms, as they will not reduce your nut production), mines on rocky squares (with a road to give u max mineral) and forests everywhere else. Also, when u get the tech for max mineral an energy, build a few boreholes and replace your mines with forests (u should have tree farms and hybrid forests by this time, u will have to level rocky tiles).
Hope this help, it is the way i terraform, and i think it works pretty well.

[g_storrow]

But I thought having put a farm and a soil enricher on they both counts as one so that wil make it two. Are a farm and a soil enricher any different? I thought they were combined but are they not?

[Bob Morane]

I don't fully understand what u ask.
Farms and soil enrichers are different terraformings, u will not plant both at a time even if u have the technology for enrichers (or the WP). U must first build a farm, and then build an enricher (i think they have both the same shortuct, but this does not mean u build them simultaneously) u can only build an enricher on a tile where u already have a farm. So if u didn't build them both, u only have a farm.
I'm not completely sure, perhaps u can build enrichers even if u don't have a farm, but in wich case, u only have an enricher that gives u +1 nut, u never build both with a single command.
Hope i have answered your question.

[Mr. Strange]

It's not quite what's been asked, but I'll point out something interesting here: the order of terraforms matters a great deal if you harvest from fungus squares.

If you have a square with a solar collector- and you plant fungus there, the solar collector will be destroyed and replaced with fungus.

However, if you have a farm and solar collector on the square, the farm will be destroyed- leaving you with a solar collector on the fungus.

Likewise, you can build a solar collector on fungus.

So if you want fungus (late game only, or gaians, with their +1 nut) it's worth it to throw down a farm before putting the fungus down, to preserve any other terraforming.

If anyone has done any research into this, I'd like to hear the results.

--Mr. Strange

[Darius]

Originally posted by g_storrow
Are a farm and a soil enricher any different? I thought they were combined but are they not?

Think of it this way: First you build a farm, which gives you +1 nutrient on that square. After the farm is built, you add a soil enricher. You then get +2 nutrients on that square.

[Darius]

Originally posted by Bob Morane
You should always build farms only on rainy tiles ..., solar on high elevation tiles ..., mines on rocky squares ... and forests everywhere else.

You can't make sweeping generalizations like this. Rainy tiles are quite rare, and on an arid world almost nonexistent. Likewise, you may have a low-elevation continent to deal with. Does that mean you should not build farms or solar collectors? No. You have to work with what you are given and make compromises. One combination that many people like is to place a farm and a solar collector on a moist (medium rainfall), rolling (medium rockiness) tile. This will give you 2 nutrients, 1 mineral, and 1-4 energy depending on the elevation. (And yes, you do get energy from a low elevation square with a solar collector.)

Darius

[bobyk464]

Rep to Mr. Strange:

Yes, I've seen otherwise incompatible tile improvements occupying the same square. For instance, constructing a condenser on a forest square will destroy the forest, and planting forest in a square will destroy a condenser. However, I've seen forest naturally expand into a square which contains a condenser (condenser only - not condenser & farm), and leave the condenser intact.

[RedFred]

My reply to the 1 nut, three energy question is also that the square must have become arid. To double check, opposite click your mouse on the square in question for more details.

Mr. Strange has made some interesting comments on terraforming order. Nevertheless, once you have the tech you can make improvements directly to fungus tiles. Also, in general, the order of improving a square will rarely have an impact in the final result. Build what you need the most, first.

WRT the 'roads everywhere' idea, many players do not follow this strategy. Defensive considerations are important, especially near the coast and your borders. In SP, I like single connecting roads between cities, if only because it makes everything look prettier. You really only need roads for your mines on rocky squares.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Darius


Think of it this way: First you build a farm, which gives you +1 nutrient on that square. After the farm is built, you add a soil enricher. You then get +2 nutrients on that square.

You get no additional benefit from a soil enricher on an arid square. Arid+farm+soil enricher just yealds one nutrient

[Bob Morane]

Originally posted by Darius
You can't make sweeping generalizations like this. Rainy tiles are quite rare, and on an arid world almost nonexistent. Likewise, you may have a low-elevation continent to deal with. Does that mean you should not build farms or solar collectors? No. You have to work with what you are given and make compromises.
Darius

Looks like i played too many games with dense cloud cover lately
You're right of course. I was not very clear that day. Yes i do build farms and solars on non optimal tiles quite often. In fact i build the farm-solar combination on any tile that is suitable either for farms or solars. Also, the forest everywhere technique i use often is efficient only if u have the prereq tech for tree farms (better with hybrid forests), but i usually try to rush for those techs if i'm not in war.
However, one terraforming i really find quite useless is the mine. Really, mines should be built only on rocky squares, as they would otherwise give u only 2 minerals (on rolling), which is the production of forests. And forests give u food and energy. Plus if u really want lots of minerals, put a few boreholes, they will give u plenty of energy too.

[Blake]

Something else concerning order, pre cent.psi you can build a bunker than plant fungus on the bunker, and you get a bunker with fungus under it. This has a couple of benefits: +50% defense vs air. Quick heal for native units. You also give attacking natives +50% attack though. Defense vs air a rocky tile is just as good as a fungus tile.

Another nice thing to do is plant fungus on your boreholes, this makes it impossible for fungus to 'pop' on the borehole (fungus towers can 'pop' up where military units are stationed), and gives +50% defense for units defending the borehole - fungus boreholes make great stations for worms. Note that boreholes work on fungus, unlike every other 'productive' terraforming.

[Purple]

Speaking of boreholes, I've noticed that an earthquake near a borehole changed the appearance of the borehole on the quake side. I assumed this indicated damage, but I didn't check to see if the production had changed. Does anyone know? Raising the land nearby would probably have the same effect.

[Blake]

Ah, raising land and boreholes, that introduces a few more fascinating borehole facts:

If you lower any tiles once you can then build a borehole on it. This is because tiles can never be more than one elevation higher than neighbours, so once it has been lowered it must be the same height or lower than all neighbouring tiles. This works really really well, and I've used it to pave my territory with boreholes, even pre-planning city sites so to be able to fit a maximum density of boreholes. Mind you, I dont do this anymore!

Raising terrain will never destroy boreholes, so after lowering and drilling a square of 4 boreholes raise the tile at the centre of the four boreholes to 3000+, and you can have well elevated land covered with boreholes, this has obvious merits if you want to drown the world with Ecodamage

If you have to lower every borehole square, and raise the centre of every 4 boreholes from <999 to 3000+ it only costs twice that of the boreholes themselves. The terraforming cost of raising/lowering terrain is trivial for the WP faction, or once you have Clean / Super.

In land scarse challenges such as UBC (or when double blind research) grabbing the WP and raising terrain so you can expand is a very solid strategy. This can be done very early in the game too. Finally, if your troops get sea sick, just get your formers to raise a landbridge to the enemy territory, large scale raises such as that tend to be a bit tedious before super reactors and magtubes, especially when raising a land bridge halfway around the world, which I once did.