How practic is it to fight only using native life?

[VitalyB]

I played as the fungus boy in SMACX that has giant bonuses for native life, however, I found that during the fight my naval/aerial/regular worms are SO weak... It was cheaper eventually in the middle of the battle to switch production to advanced hi-tech military units and win the combat with them.

My worms started in Boil status (+3 it is), had +30%-+40% Planet bonus and yet couldn't be compared to regular units. So what's wrong? Should I use the worms in some special way or maybe not use them at all?

[Flubber]

Native life alone is often not practical. Its pretty simple really. The mindworm has 3 to 2 odds which go to equal odds with a defender with trance. Then for advantage you have planet rating and morale against any defensive modifiers and morale. So you might have at most a 50% adavantage and usually less.

A worm will likely win a given attack but get the stuffing knocked out of it as well and be unable to successfully press other attacks. The defender only needs to build 1-1t-1 units to defend on pretty equal terms and a 1e-1-1 will kill any mindworm going. Additionally, worms are VERY vulnerable to artillery bombardment-- If you stack worms, one artillery shot will do substantial damage to them all so worms are better unstacked

As fungboy I consider the worms to be a valuable arm of my armed forces but only one arm. Choppers are the strongest unit in the game so if you are advanced enough tech wise, Use them.

I use worms as disposable units. They can be very effective to wear down a defender and always remember that as Cha these are free and replaceable units. I am not advocating carelessness but losing a few worms is not a big deal as it increases the chance of future captures of more. A war of attrition can sometimes work in your favour

So use worms yes-- but they are really a one-trick unit so remember to bring along some high weapon units. Its really a matter of mineral cost-- If you bring along no conventional forces, a smart enemy will have you expend your worms killing cheap scouts. Bring a couple of even impact rovers and enjoy attacks on those scouts at 4-1 odds, taking little damage.

[Nakar Gabab]

Locusts can be good for swiping distant cities when the choppers are done whittling them down...

[Cybergod]

Let me just stress the importance of these two, practically life-saving secret projects:

* Neural Amplifier
* Dream Twister

Even if you don't plan using worms as your main weapon, these projects can be life saving when you have BIG bases with loads of eco-damage and you've got locusts roaming around everywhere...

[Flubber]

I have gone for those SPs as Cha but I would generally not go for them as an anti-eco-locust measure. Might be a playstyle difference but I find that by the time that I am running the big eco-damage such that locusts are prevalent, it is just as easy to have a few SAM artillery rovers around . One shot can knock the stuffing out of the locusts (I've seen 90% damage and I seem to recall worms or locusts being killed by subsequent arty shots but I could be wrong on that) and then its an easy matter for an empath chopper to take out the rest. I think I have always gotten the first shot -- Do eco-natves ever show up and attack without the player getting first crack at them?? With roads linking you up, it does not require that many units to cover all the polluting bases

With this strat, I would hope not to need the Neural amplifier since the masses of locusts that can come could be trouble for even 3rt defenders with the NA just through sheer force of numbers or just start killing your crawlers for that matter. I like to hit the worms first (Dream twister can be handy for that) but my first attack is almost always with the artillery

[knowhow2]

I recall reading about "The Great Green War Machine" by Ned in some thread.

The Ultimate Way to use native lifeforms as weapon.
Demon Boil +50%
Native Bonus 3 to 2
Dream Twister +50%
Green +20%
Cybernetic +20%
Manifold Nexus +10%

Fungboy +20%
Gaians +10%

= Victorious at Every Single Battle against Anything at Full Strength.

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by VitalyB
I played as the fungus boy in SMACX that has giant bonuses for native life, however, I found that during the fight my naval/aerial/regular worms are SO weak...........My worms started in Boil status (+3 it is), had +30%-+40% Planet bonus and yet couldn't be compared to regular units. So what's wrong? Should I use the worms in some special way or maybe not use them at all?

VitalyB, if you have not yet installed all the patches, your worms might be at an unnecessary disadvantage when fighting units with fusion or greater reactors. The hitpoints only go up to 10 in native life units, whereas fusion starts at 20, quantum at 30, etc. I understand that at some (unknown to me) patch level, an adjustment was made to the combat routines when native life was involved, that resulted in native life giving and taking damage somehow irrespective of reactor type. It took me a while to subscribe to this new outlook, persisting in thinking that my hard won Demon Boils were too easilyl getting wacked, but I now (more or less) believe it - I think that Morale and Planet rating and the presence of Fungus in the vicinity are frequently underestimated determinents of victory - and of course all those other things that KnowHow2 mentioned above some of which you may just happen to get as the game goes on without much thinking about it. As to the morale, taking care to build your native life in bases with the right facilities (which I believe includes BioEnhancement centers), visiting monoliths and maybe taking a walk in the fungus to hopefully get in some target practice (to raise morale and money too) all can help get you strong morale ratings.

[Flubber]

Lets look and see how the defender can fare

Demon Boil +50% equalled out by an elite defender
Native Bonus 3 to 2 equalized by the 50% of trance
Dream Twister +50% could be equalled out by neural amplifirer

So at this stage they should have an equal chance of winning the battle

Green +20%
Cybernetic +20%
Manifold Nexus +10%

Fungboy +20%
Gaians +10%


So the attacker would have at best a 60% advantage ( more if the defender does not have the NA) but thats before you give the
defender the benefit of resonance armour and any other possible defensive modifiers like sensors, in-base or facilities (I don't recall which ones apply to psi and whether the %s are additive or multiplicitive but you get the idea). Bottom line is that it is a unit that will usually win if it gets to attack first against the likely defenses against it but it is not necessarily as overwhelming as it first appears



I like native life and I do try to add it to my attack forces but alone . . . the ground units are relatively slow, IODs get mauled by arty bombardment and the locusts (while supergood as a base occupier) seem to be useless when attacking either AA units or any base with an aerocomplex. An opponent can build cheap defenders and attackers to deal with them.

ON the plus side
The good point for native life is that they ignore reactor level and can be somewhat of an equalizer when behind in tech. They are wonderful as lone scouts in unexplored areas, unbribable and whipping through the fungus. I love it when a worm takes out an opponents expensive best-best allowing the conventional units to chew up the weaker defenders.

Generally I am a believer in integrated war in the game. No matter the unit, if you only attack with one type, there will be opportunities for an opponent to defend.

[Flubber]

Lets look and see how the defender can fare

Demon Boil +50% equalled out by an elite defender
Native Bonus 3 to 2 equalized by the 50% of trance
Dream Twister +50% could be equalled out by neural amplifirer

So at this stage they should have an equal chance of winning the battle

Green +20%
Cybernetic +20%
Manifold Nexus +10%

Fungboy +20%
Gaians +10%


So the attacker would have at best a 60% advantage ( more if the defender does not have the NA) but thats before you give the
defender the benefit of resonance armour and any other possible defensive modifiers like sensors, in-base or facilities (I don't recall which ones apply to psi and whether the %s are additive or multiplicitive but you get the idea). Bottom line is that it is a unit that will usually win if it gets to attack first against the likely defenses against it but it is not necessarily as overwhelming as it first appears



I like native life and I do try to add it to my attack forces but alone . . . the ground units are relatively slow, IODs get mauled by arty bombardment and the locusts (while supergood as a base occupier) seem to be useless when attacking either AA units or any base with an aerocomplex. An opponent can build cheap defenders and attackers to deal with them.

ON the plus side
The good point for native life is that they ignore reactor level and can be somewhat of an equalizer when behind in tech. They are wonderful as lone scouts in unexplored areas, unbribable and whipping through the fungus. I love it when a worm takes out an opponents expensive best-best allowing the conventional units to chew up the weaker defenders.

Generally I am a believer in integrated war in the game. No matter the unit, if you only attack with one type, there will be opportunities for an opponent to defend.

[RedFred]

The worm rush can be devistatingly effective in the early game. Firaxis had to re-jig the SMAC demo because it was initially going to be even more of an advantage.

Go early, go hard. The idea is to hit the defenders before they have trance, arty or all that other stuff. You can build up an overwhelming advantage in the first fifty years playing Cha Dawn. You should be able to defeat or subjugate at least one AI faction quickly if you play on regular sized worlds.

Hunt in packs when possible. Move and fire your spore launchers first. Go Green ASAP for more army and cash. Use the fungal roads to your advantage. Attack from fungus when possible. Use your ability to 100% heal in fungus when there aren't any monoliths around. Attacking, not defending, is even more important with worms than with non-native units. Always stay on the move. Look for opportunities to gain cash and experience or an army addition with battles with Planet's natives.

After fifty to one hundred years you should move to move to a more balanced attack.

[Ned]

On that Great Green War Machine thread, I believe my point was that one could run Wealth + GA for all the material bonuses it gives and still produce Demon Boils. Wealth's negative morale does not seem to adversely affect Native's lifecyles. So Demon Boils + Green + NA and the Dream Twister are a very potent combination. I have actually won games using only Natives.

What stalls a Green offensive is not so much Trance, but AAA and Airbases. Each adds 100% to the defense againsts Locusts. Mindworms, IMHO, are too slow and have to be transported to the scene of the action, while Locusts and airpower can usually get there without assistance.

Recently I find my offensives rely primarily on airpower in combination with Locusts. The conventional units attack the enemy while the Locusts provide very effective aircover. A Demon Locust can normally win one or two battles with enemy interceptors, more if the enemy remains in Free Market or you have the NA. When the Needlejets clear out the enemy base, the Locusts move in.

I also like using Sealurks as naval forces, but on automatic. These forces are substantially invulnerable to conventional attacks, which cannot be said of other naval vessels, and normally kill an attacker. The beauty of it is, Sealurks are relatively inexpensive, especially with Brood Pits.

Ned

[vitamin j]

Nobody mentioned the fact that worms can move and attack in the same turn without penalty, which can be a huge tactical advantage, esp. for base assault. They can soften things up for your conventional forces. And if you're behind in tech, you may not have anything else that will give you the same odds. They make good guerilla fighters if there are any large patches of fungus around - echo whoever mentioned their healing ability. So, yeah, they're expensive and not that great, but they do have some nice advantages.

[fluffy]

I think the native resistance to bribery one of the most powerful abilities of the natives - especially as the AI seems to get very low prices on buying up your units

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by vitamin j
Nobody mentioned the fact that worms can move and attack in the same turn without penalty, which can be a huge tactical advantage, esp. for base assault.

Is that really true all the time, or only when attacking other native life (or some other similar restriction)? IIRC, I once had that same thought only to be brought back to earth somehow.

[vitamin j]

As long as they're moving in fungus or on a road ( or with the Xenoempathy Dome any combination ), basically they can move two squares and attack w/out penalty.

[Black Sunrise]

Two best things about native life:
1) can't be nerve gassed (have at least 1 in every city when playing MP to protect against nerve choppers).
2) can be behind on tech, and still have a fighting chance. Focus all energy on cash, no research and rush rush rush build. Don't need research, since native life puts you at a (rough) parity.


I finally found a use for captured spore launchers, which, in my opinion, suck. They don't do enough damage to be worth anything at all, and since they can't win fights (except with other arty) they don't become demon boils (therefore sucking as garrison units). Even worse, since the more captured life forms you have the less likely you are to capture new life, when you have them you can't catch more worms to send against your enemies). This is what you do: Release them into the wild, kill them with your mindworms. Now you get money, by winning a fight, your mindworms get trained, and you have better chances of catching more worms!
A total win situation!

Indra
Black Sunrise

[knowhow2]

my experience is that Spore Launcher don't have the 3 against 2 disadvantage against aircraft when in defense. Could be mighty useful in base with aerspace complex (since enemy aircraft with best weapon would go through aeo complex and AAA armour in most cases.

[Lefty Scaevola]

The locust has several advatages. It is strong offesively against both ground and air targets, it is strong defensively (inportant in smac-z where is costs too much to armor air units) and it can take bases, it can hover indefinately and needs no no maitainece if over a fungus square (you can actually build and anti air wall with them to keep out rabbit hunting pennetrators). Its main disadvantage is that it is slow. I like to use that as air defense or to provide defense value to unarmored penetrators.

[Black Sunrise]

Huh?
Why would you armor an air unit?

And the big advantage of a locust is it can be used to capture cities.

[Earwicker]

I agree that SL's are the least useful of native lifeforms, but not completely useless. I never build them but don't mind grabbing freebies. Send them over to visit your enemies and bombard terrain improvements. Sure, maybe they'll get killed: but better a free SL than a valuable shard rover.

They can't be Demons? I'm certain I've pumped some of these guys up that high. They go trolling for pods and worms with the rest of my worm army and get to attack all the wild SL's I find.

Not that a demon boil SL does any noticable damage to non-native life . . .

Red is 100% right about the way to exploit Cha's +2 planet. Early in the game, probably only the Spartans will be any match for your worm rush, and even they'll have trouble. The beautiful thing is that you can have your bases merrily producing anything they want (CP's, formers, probes, and SP's) while the war machine cranks along in the fungus fields. The advantage dries up quickly, so go for it!

[Enigma]

Here is yet another numeric comparison-
+7 Ecology SE (70%)
Demon Boil (50%)
Dream Twister(50%)
Base number- 3 (effectively 50%)

Optimal defender
Elite + Children's Creche (75%) (yes this does happen)
Trance (50%)
3 Res Armor (25%)
Base bonus (25%)
Sensor bonus (25%)

I realize this is a crude comparison, but I am not exactly sure how the game calculates defense/offense, some values are calculated using starting value, other values accumulate...

But sheer addings brings the total to 220% vs 200%- and that is with EVERY POSSIBLE bonus for the person on the offense, +7 ecology SE is Cha green/cyber with Manifold Nexus- generally unlikely.

Native life is its best on the high seas- the 1:1 ratio is awesome, and native life has a big advantage. It can heal in fungus, it costs nothing when captured (ships can be EXPENSIVE- especially before fusion), it can survive being attacked (Not possible otherwise without BIG tech advantage- silksteel vs impact or whatever), IoDs can transport units, and can pop pods and recieve alien artifacts.

The other big deal is that they are invulnerable to nerve gas. Overall native life is much better for defending bases with low infrastructure than for attacking.

But on the ground native life is pretty sucky in my opinion. If you remove the dream twister and the ludicrous +7 ecology SE then the green attacker is at a big disadvantage, and remember both of these come late in the game. Demon boils are hard to get because the lifecycle facilities only give +1 lifecycle each, and mind worms are very expensive until brood pits.

The function of native life in an MP game is to prevent your opponent from running FM, this is very good as Morgan can run Green/Wealth and get +2 econ

I would have liked to have seen native life better implemented, it simply takes way too much damage against conventional units. Maybe if hit points were implemented differently, as in mind worms either win a battle without HP loss or lose... it would require a lot of game rebalancing but it would increase the use of native life.

[T-hawk]

Doesn't the defender also get a Planet SE bonus? And you forgot Neural Amplifier.

And every combat factor in the game multiplies, with the absolute only exception being: Perimeter/Naval/Aerospace supersede the Base +25% and provide +100%; and Tachyon Field improves a PD/NY/AC to be +200% (None of which applies to psi combat.)

So your numbers would be:
Attacker: 3 * 1.7 * 1.5 * 1.5 = 11.475
Defender: 2 * 1.75 * 1.5 * 1.25 * 1.25 * 1.25 = 10.254.
But add Planet SE for Gaia/Green/Cyber * 1.5 and Neural Amplifier * 1.5 and the defender has strength of 23.072, more than twice the attacker.

[big_canuk]

The defender is not affected by planet SE. That is why Morgan running FM early is way better to defend with trance infantry in base, than to go out an attack them. (Unless you have a *very* high morale rover (maybe with empath) especially for the purpose to get the planet pearls)

[Fan-Anf]

Mind Worms are one of best land war "machines"... Why? Becouse if they do 1/3 move or 2/3 move, they still have a 100% of atack. I means that we have a mind rover.... :>

Atacking bases with only mindworms is very stupid. If we play in SMACSingle, only Believers are using sometimes "advanced" units as transce or empath. But If we play multi with a friend, he'll build many of transce and empath units.

If we plan to atack some nation with mindworms in single, I propose Univeristy, Morganities...

With other factions we must build a high technology war machines. I propose 4 up to date rovers, and if we have some aircrafts. This technique is I think the best in first turns of midgame.