Help a Newbie Out... Managing your growing Empire

[CygnusZ]

Towards the middle of the game as my Empire starts to expand and grow strong, I notice that the amount of details which I am put in charge of becomes un-managable. I simply cannot keep track of all the little details constantly which tends to bog me down. Have other people run into this problem, and what can generally be done to allow the player to organize his efforts so things don't become unmanagable?

So, if anyone could bless me with some advice on how I could better stay in control of the game as the Empire becomes rather large I would be very appreciative.

Thank you,
CZ

[Kassiopeia]

There is the possibility of Governors and automated Formers, but some players (like me) absolutely hate them, whereas some love them. Governors can be quite reasonable, and if you have an updated version they won't even build Punishment Spheres in their own.
What comes to automated Terraformers, it's quite hidious since you can't make them a spesific automated task except making lots of road or removing fungus all the time. There is no "auto-Boreholes" or "auto-Forests", and even in that case the improvements would spring up in some most uncomfortable locations.
The downside of keeping your empire all to yourself is that you will have sort tons of micromanagement and end up with turn lasting over ten minutes...

But, a technique even I use is build ques! If you stack up some improvements in, you won't have to bother with the base for many turns. Try that at first, unless you already have of course.

[Flubber]

There are options to allow base governors to control bases or to set terraformers on automatic but I never use these. I am a micromanager and part of the challenge is squeezing out every bit I can from my empire. Some things you can do

1. use the build queue to set up the next several facilities/ units to be built in acertain base

2. Set military units to patrol or use the Goto function for longer trips

3. use custom base names-- Before i did this I would often (when using the F4 screen) have to go to a map to see where a certain base was located- Instead I name the bases ( an rename them if needed) to reflect either their location or function, This is helpful since the basename locates the base for me in a second and just by looking at F4 screen I can relate what neighboring bases are building. "oh a neighboring base is building an interceptor, I can build something else"


generally I find that automating functions results in the computer doing things badly on your behalf. generally you have to play attention to all your bases if you want to maximize cash and resources

[Ironwood]

I agree with the others: build queues are very good. Once you have a good idea of which order you want to build things in, you can pretty much just automatically do the standard queue, and not worry about it any longer than that particular turn.

The only cities I worry about from that point forward are the ones on the border, and near especially large fungus clusters. I make sure to remember when I see a potential threat, and only intervene then.

However, when at war, I use governors. I hate having to worry about what military units I'm going to produce, where to put them, which ones to send to the front, which ones to leave behind, etc. When I actually have a hostile nearby faction, I begin shifting the entire empire to war, leaving one city to continue the wonder race (if I can afford it), setting any city that runs out it's queue (which is usually only three or four buildings worth) to conquer. I just take what they make, send them to the front, and not worry about it. The only time I intervene in wartime production is when I really need a navy or an air force, and the governers aren't forthcoming.

I prosecute this war until I get a complete and total surrender, or until I reach a point where it won't be easy to continue on for either side. (In the age of air power, absolute hegemony is a must, since it is easy for either side to continue in most circumstances.)

Hope this helps!

[RedFred]

The thing that seperates a good SMACer from a great one is attention to detail. It seems that all the best players are intense micromanagers. So, contrary to some of the others above, my advice is just get used to it all. Use of auto anything will not help your game.

After a couple of dozen games are under your belt, you will find that a lot more of your build and terraform decisions will be routine. But if you are more interested in having a fun game than trying to become a top player, there are a couple of things you could try:

If you do want to limit the amount of time you spend playing each turn, one good way is to set an upper limit on the number of bases that you will build. One of the reason One City Challenge games are so much fun is that they are so quick to play. But you don't have to go that far. Just set an upper limit of bases before you start, be it a dozen or two.

Another thing to consider is the use of forest as the preferred terraform option. Throw in an occasional rocky mine, wet rolling farm with solar, and borehole, but go primarily with forest. This will not hamper your game too much if you are not a specialist intensive style player.

If you are involved in a war you can always gift your captured cities to a friend or pactmate. This will save you the hassle of administrating a crappy, low infrastructure, poor location base and it will also make your pal who receives such a city very happy.

[CygnusZ]

Well, I don't really queue up, but you guys are right. I gave it a shot and it helped me manage the empire a bit. I too detest the concept of using automated anything,

A few questions then. Firstly, if somebody could give me reccomendations for what a good initial queuing order is.

I've been using a basic stratedgy as far as building up my resource base. I'll tend to first concentrate like hell on getting "The Weather Paradigm" and then build a borehole to support the Energy/Mineral interests of the base. Then I try to build all my bases near water and support the nutrutional/energy needs of the base with sea kelp/solar tidal harness. Is there a more efficent manner of resource buildling that I should consider?

Oh yeah, and how is research rate determined? Does the first lab take X amount of energy and each cumilitaive technology take X+1? It doesn't seem like the different technologies require different amounts of lab output, but rather each technology needs a cumulatively greater amount.

Thanks for answering these questions.

[Flubber]

Although I suggested build queues I do not know about any particular order since I rarely use them.

As for terraforming , there are alot of different approaches. Some people focus on energy from the start while others are more concerned with minerals or nuts. For me, how I terraform is largely dependent on whether or not crawlers are available since once they are, you are often terraforming to maximize one resource rather than trying to get a balance. Early I focus on nuts on the theory that faster growth allows more bases sooner.

Research cost

The cost of a given tech is determined at the time you START researching that tech. The cost is mostly determined by the number of techs you already have but is also influenced by the tech levels of others. I have never been able to determine the actual cost formula but have come to accept that if I trade for a bunch of techs then my current research will be unaffected but my NEXT tech will be a heck of a lot more costly.

The specific tech you are researching ( and its tech level are IRRELEVANT) to the tech cost. Centauri ecology will cost a heck of a lot more as your sixth tech than as your first. If at a given point you are given the choice of a Level 6 tech and a Level 1 tech, they will both cost exactly the same to research at that time. I cannot ever recall seeing any significant drop in tech cost since it seems ALMOST always that a tech is significantly more expenseive than the tech researched before it.

[Blake]

To be honest I usually quit before getting into the later stages of the game. Once the human player gets to fusion and orbital spaceflight it is very hard to loose against the AI. (unless you are well behind).
I have however played several games to completion, including one for every victory (including Economic and Progie 'ET Phone home').

One thing which can help is to stop bothering with crawlers once you get a few Orbitals, with a raft of Sky Hydroponic Labs up you'll have enough population to work everything, with population to spare for Specialists. Crawlers would still enhance your resource output slighty, but it's just not worth the MM.
You can even start cashing in all your crawlers for SP's, that way the AI cant kill them.

[CygnusZ]

Supply Crawlers? I thought they were kind of worthless since you could get much more bang for the buck just using the resources within your production radius. Did I miss something? I saw in another thread that someone said supply crawler's gave people a huge edge...

[Zakharov VII]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
Supply Crawlers? I thought they were kind of worthless since you could get much more bang for the buck just using the resources within your production radius. Did I miss something? I saw in another thread that someone said supply crawler's gave people a huge edge...

They do give humans a huge edge !

Imagine - size 3 base, 3 crawlers. If working forests in the production radius (assume pre-tree farm), you've got 6 nutrients (3 forests, 3 from recycling tanks base) and 8 minerals (don't worry about energy right now). This base isn't growing. Now, if you have mineral restrictions raised, you can crawl 1 farm/condensor (4 nutrients), and 2 rocky mines (8 more minerals). Now you've got 10 nutrients (growing FAST - 4 surplus nutrients!), and 16 minerals - about the max you can get before serious eco-damage in the early game. Now, with crawlers, you can build everything twice as fast (16 minerals instead of 8), and you're growing really fast (+4 is A LOT for growth, and if you're pop-booming you can get to size 6 just working forests in the radius for a total of 13 nutrients and 22 minerals. That's more minerals than early-game eco-damage can handle, so move one of the crawlers to a condenser, and you can get 3 more people, etc, etc...)

So, basically, with crawlers you can get your bases up to maximum production really quickly, and continuously grow it even when the workers themselves are not producing enough nutrients. This should see you grabbing the rest of the SP's, getting lots more labs/EC's (easier to build facilities!), and having sky-high population (easily win governership!).

One advanced application of crawlers is an all-specialist base. These are especially useful when running Free Market during war time. Take a size 5+ base, crawl enough nutrients and minerals to sustain itself (3-4 crawlers on nutrients, 2-3 on minerals). Now, just make everyone in the base Librarians/Technitions/Engineers. No drones! Why? Because only workers can be drones, and you have no workers!

Now, re-home all your military units to this base, and use them wherever you want. Under Free Market, you'd normally get 2 drones per unit out of the base, but you can't get any with an all-specialist base!

So, crawlers are very useful

[Flubber]

Supply crawlers are HUGE.

In the base radius, it is often good to use a worker to get all three types of production BUT many players will terraform to maximize a single type of resource and then crawl it bask to the base. The worker can become a specialist bringing in additional economy or labs. Many players advocate crawlering nutrients early to grow a city fast and get more pods out there.

The reality is that in the early game, a crawler bringing in an extra few nutrients, minerals or energy can be the most valuable thing to build. Read some of the threads on SSC ( Super Science City) and you can see how powerful crawlers can be when the resources they bring in ( mainly energy) is harnessed through the multiplicative effects of a well developed base.

Also you mention the base radius. . . The reality is that the pop of a base is not large enough to utilize all the base squares for a long long time. Sick crawlers on mines (investment 60 minerals and some former time) and enjoy the benefits of 8 additional minerals per turn.

All I can say is use crawlers-- you will be glad you did.

[bondetamp]

The good things about suply crawlers are that they can be used to harvest a square anywhere on the map, and that a base can have as many as you want. If you've got a base with Merchant Exchange, and you're running freemarket, this gives you two extra energy per square. This is also true for any crawlers based in that base, so with a bunch of crawlers, say 50 or more, you can get an insane amount of energy every turn.

The thing to remember, though, is that a crawler can only harvest one kind of resource at the time, so it makes sense to maximize one resource on each tile that you plan to crawl. A mine and road on a rocky square gives you 4 minerals and nothing else. A bad deal for a worker, but a splendid deal for a crawler. A farm+soil enricher+condenser on a rainy square in the jungle with a nutrient special ()on it will net you 13 (!) nuts each turn. a crawler on one of those can feed a base working nothing but forests until Hab Domes. An average solar collector in an energy park (rows of solar colectors and echellonion mirrors next to each others on ground raised to max) can give 10 energy (plus 2 if Merchant Exchange and +2 Economy ) and crawlers on these, all homed in to one base with all science and economy facilities, can give you tech lead in no time.

Crawlers are obscenely good, and one of the main reasons why the AI can't compete against a dedicated player.

[bondetamp]

Damn you all and your fast typing!

[Blake]

Another thought on the direct benefit of crawlers:
Imagine a Rolling/Rainy + farm tile. 3 nuts 1 mineral.
If you crawl the 3 nuts you lose 1 mineral...

But you could instead work an extra forest tile, for a net benefit of +1 nut, +1 mineral, +1 energy. (Thats the same as rec tanks, which cost 1 row more than a crawler).

If you crawl nuts from a flat+farm tile, or minerals from a rocky+mine, you lose NOTHING. (unless running FM, in which case you lose 1 energy, but a Libarian/Techie brings in 3 energy).

Best of all, a crawler can never be a 'bad' investment, because it can be cashed in for it's FULL value to hurry Prototype or SP construction.

[knowhow2]

Wow the joy of discover the crawlers for the first time--------- it was like having a wet dream. My goodness, the crawlers totally will change everything.... EVERYTHING. Suddenly research takes 3 years instead of 6-7 years, buidling a SP takes 2 years instead of 15-20 years. Oh the joy the easiness........

Nowadays the crawlers are just too easy. Almost take some of the fun away. But it's hard to NOT use them especially if you opponent use them. However I STRONGLY recommened them. You truly never know the game unless you once fully used the crawlers to its extreme. When that day comes, you'll sit there and give this advice (or any other advice from people above) to someone new.

[Zakharov VII]

(Note: The following is some sample calculations that may or may not be accurate. To the best of my knowledge, the following is adequate proof that crawlers rule. If there's something major I missed, please kindly point it out ! Also, I do not pretend to be an expert on this topic. This is just my reasoning, and I'd love to hear constructive comments)

LOL, 4 different views within 15 minutes of each other, and within 45 minutes of the question !

This place is jumping...

Yes, in the mid/late game, an energy "focus" (as Vel calls it) is very important at your SSC (already defined) with (hopefully) Merchant Exchange, Supercollider, and Thoery of Everything. Even if you don't want to run Free Market, run Wealth and put Psych at 20-30%. With all your energy, this should be plenty to Golden Age at least your SSC, giving you the extra +1 energy (spending 20% of the energy on Psych to get a 25% increase in energy - from 4 to 5 for tidal harnesses, which I find much easier to manage than energy parks). This Golden Age makes it easy to pull off a population boom at the base as well, even if you're Yang/Morgan (although if you're Morgan, you might be running Free Market anyway, and then you don't need the Golden Age...if you go the other way and run Green, you can't pop-boom until Future Societies, period).

Early on, however, a Nutrient/Mineral focus is extremely productive. If you can crawl a lot of condensors, you can easily pop-boom up to size 14 (16 with Ascetic Virtues). 14 only takes 28 food, and if you have just 9 of the workers on forests (assume 5 as Engineers/Librarians/Technitions - if you have psych at just 10-20%, you can probably get away without Doctors/Empaths). Pre-tree farm even, you'll only need to crawl 4 condensers (condensers aren't even held back by Nutrient Restrictions, ever!). Then, you'll have 20 Minerals, at least 12 Energy (say only 8, taking into account inefficiency - I don't know the exact way it works, besides it depends on distance from your Headquarters - but 33% inefficiency seems reasonable enough for Democracy/Planned), 1 or 2 of those going to Psych. Then, 6 go to Labs/Economy. Then, you've got 5 specialists - that's at least 15 more points, times any lab/energy enhancing facilities, and you can easily get to around 45 (I think) more from that, for a total of 51. That's not bad (considering how I "assumed" you don't have any rivers/bonus resources nearby), and you can place bases very close together, as only 14 of the 20 squares are used (including crawlers).

This bonus is incredible once you get Engineers (I like to beeline to Fusion after getting Planetary Economics, and probe Synthetic Fossile Fuels/Air Power from Yang/Miriam), as instead of getting 45 from specialists, you get 25 raw, or at least 70 after adding facilities. Now that's getting nice .

After tree farms/hybrid forests, everything's just wonderful. Get the Ascetic Virtues!! OK, now back to the analysis . If you want to go even more specialist, you can have 2 of those 5 crawlers (assuming you built at least *1* more!) crawl Condensers, and the rest crawl mines. Now, you have 7 out of your 16 (you did get the Ascetic Virtues, right?) workers on hybrid forests. You'll have exactly 32 nutrients this way, and you'll have 24 minerals (by now, you should have had your first pop (be sure to get it before building lots of tree farms!), so you should be able to produce quite a few more minerals) and 14 energy (do what you want with it - you probably don't need much in psych). That leaves 9 Specialists. Pre-Fusion, that's 27 raw, or about 81 with facilities. Post-Fusion, that's 45 raw, and a lot modified with facilities! I would estimate about 130 or so (and a lot more if you build Fusion Labs!!)...that's not bad at all! Now you're using even less of the squares, with much more output!

Once you get Engineers, you might want to Golden Age for the +1 energy each square on Wealth. Make one of the specialists a worker (so you have 8 talents), and jack psych up as much as you want (100% isn't too much, as you're still getting about 50 labs and 50 economy each base from the Engineers). If you have Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests, Hologram Theaters (or Virtual World + Network Nodes), and Research Hospitals, you should be Golden Aging at most (if not all) bases. Once they're all getting 3 Energy per forest instead of 2, you can lower psych a bit - see how low you can go while maintaining all 8 talents.

Now consider no crawlers.

Pre-tree farm, you have maybe a Rainy-Rolling Farm/Solar Collector for 3/1/2 and the rest forest. You can get to a grand total of (dum dee dah!) size 4 without any nutrient bonuses/monoliths if you work the rest forests. So, you have 8 nutrients, 7 minerals, and 7 energy, for a grand total of 10 or so labs and 10 or so economy. Much worse than the 25/25 you had going for you with crawlers, not to mention that you're getting 1/3 the minerals this way.

Now consider that you have the same hybrid forest, except say that 12 out of the 16 are working. The rest as Engineers are getting you some 20 raw points of energy (50-60 modified). You're getting a few more minerals (26) and some spare food (+7). You're Golden Aging at 20% Psych (I'm being generous here ), so you're getting 36 raw energy. Minus some inefficiency (let's use the same 33% from ealier), that's 24 raw. 20% Psych brings it down to about 19. That's another 50-60 raw, for a little less than the crawler method.

So you're saying that in the end it evens out? Well, for one thing, I've been harsh (I think) on my Crawler estimates and easy on my non-crawler estimates. And then there's TURN ADVANTAGE. The crawlers bases can get up to size 14 a good 10 years before Tree Farms. Plus 10 years to get Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests (generous) means that you're enjoying an extra 15 energy credits per turn and 15 labs per turn for 20 turns. Then there's the matter of having about 3 times as many minerals, making facilities and SP's easier to build, thus increasing your labs and energy even more. This turn advantage builds on itself - you get Hybrid Forests faster, can build them faster, get to Fusion faster, reap the benefits of Engineers faster....and so on and so on....

Um...that was a long essay, I didn't mean to write that much...!

EDIT: Hi knowhow2 - my "day came" with Zak on a tech stag/double blind game with 100+ crawlers - breakthroughs every 5 years at MY2200, all the latest (missed some early ones) SP's!

Z

[CygnusZ]

Yes.. I think I see. I was thinking about this sort of thing in terms of Civilization (I've only really played Civ1) where you either have a worker or a talent. I wasn't really calculating in that the

specialized jobs + supplier single resource = Greater Net Resource

For example, if I have a tile that produces 4 Nuts and 2 Energy I would be better just putting a supply crawler on it to get the Nuts and use the worker I would have used on that tile to give myself a nice bonus to labs/economy/psych.

I actually started messing around with this a little bit. This is probably a fairly obnoxious quesiton.. but is it possible to a tech advance every turn? No matter how much I boost my scientific output it seems to stagante at 2 turns/tech. Yeah, I know that's short, just curious if it can be done...

Even in terms of those nice +4 Nut +3 Energy places in the sea, I could just send out a sea-crawler (does this exsist?) and crawl in the energy and then give myself double energy with a specialized worker or I could haul in the Nuts and give myself specialized energy use.

Think I got it.. so then the best idea for building up my techs should be (builder style):

Gene Splicing
Enviormental Economics
Whathever technololgy it is that lets you get more than +3/square
Industrial Automation
Fusion Power

Not very good for military I guess...

[Sikander]

A good series of tech beelines for a crawler oriented builder would be:

1) Industrial Automation (allows crawlers and wealth)
2) Secrets of the Human Brain (allows trance)
3) Restriction lifting techs (allows more than 2 production of Nuts, Mins and Energy respectively in a tile, and the last also gives you treefarms)
4) Clean technology (can't remember the tech name, but clean reactors are great to create huge armies of formers to terraform yor continent, or even expand it by raising land)
5) Fusion (you get the fusion reactor, which doubles the hit points of your units built or retrofitted with it and you also get the Engineer type specialist (produces 5 FOP) and the fusion lab which gives a base +50% labs and econ).

Of course circumstances may force a deviation or two from these beelines, but you will find that these are all key techs in the early and mid game to unlock your production potential.

[Zakharov VII]

Clean Reactors come with Bio-Engineering (Pre-req's Gene Splicing and Neural Grafting, I think)

And YES, there are sea crawlers, but you have to design them yourself! Just use a foil/cruiser chassis, and put on the Supply Transport as the weapon/equipment. Don't worry about putting clean reactors on supply units - they're clean anyway (I don't know why it lets you still use them)

I also like to deviate for Centauti Empathy after getting Automation (GREAT tech even if you don't want to use crawlers!) for the Empath Guild, which is very helpful because you might just be able to trade for some useful techs that aren't on your beeline. Also, being Planetary Governer helps a lot early on, because in the early game you'll get almost no commerce (maybe +1 per base per pact) - the +1 from being Governer brings that to +1 per treaty and +2 per pact!

Z

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
I actually started messing around with this a little bit. This is probably a fairly obnoxious quesiton.. but is it possible to a tech advance every turn? No matter how much I boost my scientific output it seems to stagante at 2 turns/tech. Yeah, I know that's short, just curious if it can be done...

Yes. It is even possible to get more than one tech a turn, which make the end game quite brief. There's no longer a need to slog it out with your 20-8-8 gravships when you can skip up to Transcendence in a dozen turns or so, build the voice of planet, fire up for the ascent, and call it a day.

[Flubber]

Yes a tech a turn is VERY possible and is most easily achieved by crawlering energy to a super science base or bases. Remember that it is almost always better to have your lesser bases build crawlers to be re-homed to a developed base than to have those bases try to build all that infrastructure themselves as well.

[knowhow2]

Originally posted by Zakharov VII
And YES, there are sea crawlers, but you have to design them yourself! Just use a foil/cruiser chassis, and put on the Supply Transport as the weapon/equipment. Don't worry about putting clean reactors on supply units - they're clean anyway (I don't know why it lets you still use them)
Z

I think the clean ability costs 2 for crawlers so it's great for upgrading crawlers for cashing in (SPs or prototypes), put not BEST armour but MOST expensive armour plus most expensive ability/abilities (depends on if you have NG tech or not), upgrade the default crawler and cash in (in comparison much more cost-effective)

[bobyk464]

Sea crawlers can rake in terrific amounts of energy. Send sea formers to build tidal harnesses on special energy resource squares anywhere on the globe. With the right combination of SE choices and a Thermocline gizmo in the base, a sea crawler can harvest 8 energy per turn from a square like this. If the location of the energy resource is way out of everyone's path, the crawler can survive the whole game unmolested.

How to armor these and whether or not to upgrade them is debatable. I usually don't upgrade them once they're in place and harvesting. I'll let them sit until destroyed, and then replace them as necessary with newer versions that have better reactors and armor. Adding Trance and Deep Radar can be useful, too, depending upon the situation. The AI never thinks to destroy the tidal harness, so you don't have to go back and build that again.