Base Space and Expansion

[Control Freak]

As many of you are aware I am new...please forgive me if this post has been made umpteen times before:

What is the "best" placement system for bases? I like 5 squares (perfectionist tendencies) but I notice the AI will place bases much much closer together.

I am aware of the efficiency penalties are increased the farther you are from your home base. But they seem not much of a hinderance (especially compared to civ 3's corruption!).

Also is there an optimum number of bases per map size that affect efficiency (like civ 3)?

One last question: How many bases do you usually expect to control and manage on a standard size map??? (and the answer to this question is not 'all your bases belong to us'!)

[Yxklyx]

For me it varies. In some games I like them close - in others far apart. For me, the main reason for placing them far apart is to stake claim to land - later I fill in the gaps. If I start on a small island I have to put them close together. The biggest factor relating to number of bases is bureaucracy drones. I believe at 0 efficiency on standard world size more than 6 bases will start generating more drones. I like to have about a dozen bases though I have won with as few as 8.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Control Freak
As many of you are aware I am new...please forgive me if this post has been made umpteen times before:

No problem thats what the board is for and the search feature seems not to work too well lately

[SIZE=1]
What is the "best" placement system for bases? I like 5 squares (perfectionist tendencies) but I notice the AI will place bases much much closer together.

Players vary on this. Many players like their bases to be within 3 squares for easier defence as a infantry defender can get from base to base on a single turn (with roads). personally, given that hab limits mean you will likely have 14 or less workers for most of the game I overlap a fair bit but I follow no set arrangement. It is terrain dependent. later game when you might go above 14 workers, I find that you assign them as specialists anyway and satellites can beused to support the population.

[SIZE=1]
I am aware of the efficiency penalties are increased the farther you are from your home base. But they seem not much of a hinderance (especially compared to civ 3's corruption!).

Nothing seems as bad as CIV3 corruption LOL but if you allow your efficiency to drop ( run police planned as anyone other thatn Yang and see the amount of efficiency losses) thr losses can be significant.

[SIZE=1]
Also is there an optimum number of bases per map size that affect efficiency (like civ 3)?

There is actually a rather involved formula I have seen explained pretty well in old threads that indicates the threshold number of bases for various settings before additional bureauracy drones are triggered. Every base you have beyond those limits will increase your drones in other bases in a predictable manner

[SIZE=1]
One last question: How many bases do you usually expect to control and manage on a standard size map??? (and the answer to this question is not 'all your bases belong to us'!)

Again that depends on faction and terrain. If I am Yang or Morgan you will see a lot of bases. I will essentially fill my original area. With others, I may space them a little wider and have fewer.

[mrdynamic]

Best placement, is not always available depending on the terrain. IMHO, the best placement would result in no overlap of possible worker squares. But, sometimes fungus prevent the best placement causing me to overlap or have unused squares between bases. In this case I would keep my bases closer and go with the overlap just because it makes defense easier if needed, but if it all arid rocks, then maybe Ill go further out. Once I was getting my but kicked playing as the Hive because I was being out produced. I doubled my number of bases, but could not expand outward, which in many cases caused the bases to have only 1 or 2 squares between them, but I did double my production, and moving from base to base was easier as my units were never left outside, netting them a HUGE defensive bonus until I could go on the offensive.

There are a optimum number of bases per map before your efficiency rating is affected. For tiny, 3 is the max, huge maps the optimum is 12 I think. This is not something you need to be concerned with however, more bases just means more drones... facilities, energy, SE, and specialists can be used to combat those, as well as moving your headquarters in the middle of your empire.

Mostly for number of bases I keep it between 10-20 bases depending on map size and expansion availability just because I like to micro manage. If I get more bases than I want by conquering I just give them to a slave along with some units, eventually they will fight the war for you.

[Shai-Hulud]

There certainly is advantages and disadvantages for any placing of bases. The closer they are - easier they are to defend? It's easier to move defensive units from one city to another but it's also a lot easier to do Blitzkrieg. From what I have experienced far flung empire is the best defense against invaison. It can incredibly tedious to take over a huge empire when bases are 5-6 squares from one another. I think such a tactic could be well exploited in MP game if someone would agree to play on a very large map.

It's true that most of the game cities stay under 14. Actually I have often reached the limit well before Habitation Dome. That's one reason I support fair colonization. Better to have many bases than to be stuck with few ones which can't grow any bigger. I'm sure that in many cases overlapping support squares by building a base every three squares is a good idea.

If I am Yang or Morgan you will see a lot of bases

That's interesting. I've always thought it's best to keep your empire small when playing Morgan. And to achieve Golden Age as early as possible, this is difficult if you get inefficiency drones. Although my last game with Morgan following this strategy was an utter failure.

[RedFred]

Personal playing style has such a huge impact that there is no "right" answer to base density or total number of bases.

mrdynamic talks about the first efficiency warning. There are several stages of inefficiency for which you will receive a warning. (and some random drones) All stages are easily combatted by SE changes or base improvements like CCs. Sage advice from Vel's guide is to expand in waves. Each wave should take you just short of the next increase in inefficiency.

I used to operate with no overlap in my base production radii, but now I am less likely to. Crawlers and sats can increase your three inputs and besides, how many turns do you play after hab dome tech? On regular sized worlds you should easily be able to transcend with fewer than ten turns after you receive that tech.

My advice is don't be too rigid. Just go around big fungal areas or unproductive tiles in the early game. You can always go back and fill in or build energy parks there later. If playing against the AI, coastal bases and bases near your borders are the way to start expanding. You can fill in areas that you have encircled later. You want to be sure that you can secure enough space in the early game.

[Shai-Hulud]

There are several stages of inefficiency for which you will receive a warning. (and some random drones

After certain stage(third warning I believe?) you receive one(1) drone to each of your bases. So expansion between this point is really costy. Big empires an less flexible and harder to manage which causes inefficiency because of the player itself. The bigger you become, less interested you are of optimalization and micromanagement. This is the human factor in big empires. Still, in most cases it's worth to expand if you know how to make most of it.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Shai-Hulud


That's interesting. I've always thought it's best to keep your empire small when playing Morgan. And to achieve Golden Age as early as possible, this is difficult if you get inefficiency drones. Although my last game with Morgan following this strategy was an utter failure.

Well with Morgan I see several things that argue in favour of a lot of bases

1. Low hab limits-- how else can you grow
2. Poor support
3. Abundent energy such that you are more likely able to use psych allocation
4. Higher energy in the base square from running +3 Econ

So I see them as perfect for a many base strategy

[Flubber]

I generally favor 3 square placing, generally in a diagonal direction. That yields a 2 square overlap with each adjacent base so if you followed this dogmatically you would have 8 overlap squares and 12 lone squares . I usually will overlap a little more than this rather than less.


For most of the game you not be able to use all your base squares anyway and even in the endgame, the non-overlapper can have 20 workers working away to my dozen or so with specialists. The high end specialists are so good that I often chose to use them even if there are available base squares.

[Fitz]

Yeah flubber, I use 3 diagonally more often than not as well. I find it works great for defense, so long as you are willing to destroy your own roads in the event of a blitzkreig attack. It also allows more bases per available area.

I generally find it keeps me under the second warning for the base limit for Demo/Green on both a standard planet transcend level (24) and a huge planet transdend level (38) until late in the game when I've conquered many enemy bases. That means each base has no more than two beauracracy drones, which I can handle.

Expanding too much means using more troops to cover fewer bases (or more territory for the same number of bases). This puts a bigger strain on your production lines, although the resources the attacker needs to expend may increase too, since they can't send a single army from one direction and expect to take all of your bases before you get reinforcements constructed. But overall, I think as spacing increases, defensive needs increase faster than offensive needs, because while you may be safe against being completely conquered, you will find it harder (and slower) to counterattack and take the bases/terrory you lose to a raid (as opposed to invasion).

[Shai-Hulud]

I've actually thought about trying Morgan with more expansive strategy. It's an interesting faction from my point of view and I'm trying to make it work for me. I find it pretty hard to play, and it demands different approach than most factions I've played.

I had a rather interesting and support draining situation in one MP game, long time ago. I was playing custom faction, but balanced one. My social setting were highly in support of military, police and security. At one point of the game I was seriously threatened by Usurpers and Pirates and I decided to start full fledged construction of military units. After a century or two I was huge(50+ bases) military might with many times bigger army than those of others combined. I was planetary governor, having Police State and Planned(with IMMUNITY to efficiency). I was caught in "a world war" and had to protect my huge empire with eight different military bases full of units just to keep others from taking advantage of my planet-wide empire. And I was waging a costy war on the other side of the planet, far behind in tech and economy. Inefficiency drained most of my energy and my army took a lot of support despite the social settings.

I never saw the end of it. But it was one of my most memorable SMAX experiences. I've always thought whether I would have won or not. I was way up in the graphs but when humans involved - you can never tell.

So I think we're both right. In that game I was invinsible but it took a lot of effort to keep that huge empire covered and invaison became very hard because of the transportation of units. My defense was expensive but good and my offense was expensive....and not so good.

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by Control Freak
What is the "best" placement system for bases? I like 5 squares (perfectionist tendencies) but I notice the AI will place bases much much closer together.

I play a three square apart game, but another effective way to play is to play toward eventually building Hybrid Forests and monopolizing on that facility by having a good amount of forest squares to work. I usually reserve this approach for the bases I conquer because setting down bases three squares apart can kick start your empire fast enough to run over the other players early.

One last question: How many bases do you usually expect to control and manage on a standard size map??? (and the answer to this question is not 'all your bases belong to us'!)

Optimally I would colonize over a dozen bases on my own, but eventually you reach a point where the cost of building a colony pod, finding a place to put it, and "growing" it to a respectable size exceeds the cost of simply conquering a neighbors base. A lot of this depends on the maps geography. Obviously it is going to be far more costly to build several troop transports and several units to take a puny base across the ocean from you unless you've got drop units readily available. But if you start on the same continent as another player I would alter my plans to eventually include their bases as my own. Being the aggressor in this game pays dividends too large to ignore. I believe Friaxis recognized this a took steps to quash this single minded agressor approach to CIV3 by increasing bueracracy and war weariness. So, I think the answer really is all the bases on the map is the amount I intend to manage given that increasing my amount of bases increases my energy output and production allowing me to again increase my amount of bases which in turn gives me more energy and production to manage more bases and so on. In simpler terms the drawbacks to owning more bases are exceeded by the benefits.

[Sikander]

Depending upon what settings and faction you are playing there are a lot of viable base placement strategies. I often use the "Three on the Diagonal" spacing. In my last two SP games (played on Dilithium Dad's Ultimate Builder Map, which is a modified huge Map of Planet, and playing the University with directed research) I used a "Two on the diagonal" placement. That's right, my bases had one intervening diagonal square between themselves and four other bases.

The terrain around each base was terraformed uniformly. Each diagonal square (at the corners of the base square) was a borehole, and all other squares were condensor / farms (and later soil enrichers). Each base had only two workers, each of them on a borehole, while all the condensor / farm squares were worked with crawlers. The total production (with condensor farms and no specials) was:

Minerals 14 (with recycling tanks)
Nuts = 23 (with tanks)
Energy = 14 (with tanks and econ of 0 or less)
Specialists = 10 or 11, and 15 or 16 when soil enrichers become available.

This is about as good a productivity as I can imagine given the space (and hab limits). It works on a very small piece of land, and has almost unlimited expansion capacity due to the fact that each base only has two workers. It sets up very quickly (you only need to move your colony pods a couple of squares). I make it my business to snag the WP to increase the speed of the terraforming, and the HGP to eliminate drone problems.

--

To the poster who claimed that spreading out was a key to defense, I have to say poppycock. It may help you survive an onslaught by making your opponent move further to eliminate your far flung bases, but there are far more reasons why it is advantageous to be concentrated. Why merely survive when you can thrive? By spreading out you place your bases closer to your enemy and further from your sources of mutual support. Let him come to your tightly woven web of destruction and eat fire. Don't give him an easy isolated base to take out with his expeditionary force. It's too easy to turn it into an air and repair base from which he will have an easier time making headway into the rest of your empire. This is one of the mistakes the AI likes to make, and one of the reasons why it's so easy to wipe them off the face of the planet with just a few units.

A far flung empire is easy to defeat in detail. Anyone coming into my dense mass of bases has to defeat my entire army before making any headway, and while my units are rolling off my (numerous) assembly lines and into battle, his new units are just beginning the lengthy journey to the front. I have never been overwhelmed by an AI opponent in this manner, because they cannot sustain the unbroken stream of units necessary to overwhelm my production without running into support limits, and thus lower productivity. Instead they send waves of units, which may cause an initial panic, but are destroyed within a turn or two. If I find my response was lacking I build up a little in anticipation of the next wave. If not, then I go back to producing facilities which will give me the tech lead in the long run, and an easy chop and drop counterstrike when the time is ripe.

[Shai-Hulud]

I'm going to test that base building strategy Sikander. I've tried similar, though not so extreme, approach and I've had good experiences of it.

To the poster who claimed that spreading out was a key to defense, I have to say poppycock.

I don't think anyone said that. If did, you could quote that statement. I think I mentioned that big empire takes more time to conquer and I hold on to that. In any case, there are no single "key to defense", only strategies and none are superior from where I'm standing. Can't even remember when I've been beaten by AI. They have no strategy so you can really beat them hands down whether you have 10 or 50 bases.

[Control Freak]

Sikander - thanks for the detailed expansion notes, I'll give it a try and see what I like best.

I do have a question about it though: there must be a huge planet damage rating caused by all the condensers/boreholes, no? How do you comp for this? Tree Farm and Hybrid Forest or something???

[Yxklyx]

I think this is one of the big secrets of the game. I wish they'd release the source code...

[Adalbertus]

I do have a question about it though: there must be a huge planet damage rating caused by all the condensers/boreholes, no? How do you comp for this? Tree Farm and Hybrid Forest or something???

Here is an article with the revised ecodamage formula by some of the cracks of the forum (A somewhat wrong version is in the datalinks). In short: There is lots of ecodamage by condensors/boreholes, by there mere existence (which you can completely compensate by Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests; 50% each), and by mineral production. Second message: >Pops< are good.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Sik is on the money,

2 or 3 square spacing is a big help. Vel talks extensively regarding turn advantage. Keeping your bases close together adds to turn advantage in a number of ways. At 2 or 3 square spacing vs 5 square spacing this allows you at least 2 if not 3 turns of productive base production/energy gathering/ and nut gathering for growth per base. Whats more, you often need not send an escort unit with your colony pod as it is close to exisitng bases. How many times have you had a colony pod picked off by marauding worms before you were able to establish the base? Keeping the new bases close to the vest allows you to get a unit (preferably a speeder on a road as you can then attack the offending worm) out to a embattled base to prevent its razing by a worm. This then allows thin expansion capability (i.e. make and/or rush if energy reserves allow your first unit with the 10 free mins a former and/or facility such as rec tanks).

The thing about a perfectionist approach (5 square separation) is that you count on the ability to maximize the workable square sometime inthe future. That future tho' is a long way off (advent of hab domes). At that point tho' a number of other factors play very heavily that more than make up for the loss of workable squares. Probalbly most importantly, Specialists at that time of game are actually more beneficial in most cases than actual workers. Satellites for food augment the ability to grow bases upto and beyond hab limits (all the extra pop points end up becoming specialists). High food producing squares ala condensor/farm/soil enrichers allow huge populations (read specialists) especially when combined with sky farms as mentioned above. The downside of perfectionism is that you are potentially at more risk placing the bases, you have less available production through the game, you've lost lots of turn advantage, you run the risk of having less bases than the AI factions which if you are treatied and/or pacted with means you've lost valuable trade energy, and finally your bases are farther from headquarters typically meaning loss due to efficiency.

Trust me go with closer base spacing it will make a huge difference. The exact spacing is up to you and depends on your choice of faction etc. but in general for most cases going to say a 3 square spacing is a good if not optimal spacing.

Og

[Control Freak]

Ahh...my man Ogie!

It appears that all the time you spent toiling in the Federal Leagues not only pop. boomed your penalty minutes but expanded your wisdom so that you could share it with us rookies!

thx

[Yxklyx]

Ah yes. Pops ARE good!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Control Freak,

Ahh my good felloe Hoekey Fan (read best attempt at Canadien phonetical spelling)

By the by I am now more of AHL minor league Hoekey Fan vs Federal League fan. Go Phantoms!! Got to say minor league hoekey more than makes up for lack of talent and speed of the game with desire to get promoted to the bigs and thus plenty o' scraps. And as every true enthusiast knows hoekey is a game within a game (scraps included), similar to SMAC.

One small add that I missed in my earlier rambling, Minerals being the third leg of the equation. Min's are vital in the early game in order to expedite unit and facility builds. But mins start to become much less important throughout the game namely b/c energy dominates everything. Whats more relatively low min producing bases get augmented with so many different facility enhancements like gene jack, nessus mining sats, etc. that they still can be producing very hefty min totals even when the amount of sqaures actually worked is small. Add to this the superior borehole and/or rocky road mined and crawlered mins and you've got a very productive compact base.

So to summarize, a compact base design should give you a still good min total in the early game as you are only having say 3 - 5 pop point working per base during this time frame, more than enuff to allow all pop points to work squares. Later on a larger base may but up against available squares worked, but around that time you've got nice little facility enhancers that allow min totals to grow and whats more you've got those nice little specialists as well.

Enuff rambling

Time to drop the gloves on Yang,

Og

[vitamin j]

Thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I think the people advocating the three-square base placement are right, for all the reasons mentioned. However, I often place bases four squares apart, as long as each base has at least one other within three. This can get you a little more territory, and can give you a little more freedom to shift workers and crawlers around as the situation demands, especially once your population has grown a bit.

One other thing: I would NOT put a base on a land nutrient bonus. By doing so you limit the max bonus nuts you will ever receive from that square to 2. Reserve it for a farm/condenser/soil enricher, and you'll get extra nuts in the long run.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by vitamin j
Thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I would NOT put a base on a land nutrient bonus. By doing so you limit the max bonus nuts you will ever receive from that square to 2. Reserve it for a farm/condenser/soil enricher, and you'll get extra nuts in the long run.

I agree that you will get more nuts from that square in the long run with that approach. But in the early game I am trying to get pods out as fast as possible and plunking the base on the nut special seems to work really well. The one worker gets some minerals coming in so that pods can be churned out as quickly as possible. I tend to think this approach leads to faster base creation and more bases quicker

[Shai-Hulud]

Very good points about placing of bases. You've convinced me.

But in the early game I am trying to get pods out as fast as possible and plunking the base on the nut special seems to work really well

I agree on this one. The early game is naturally very crucial for the success. Unless your opponents are smart you can often tell whether you're going to win after a century or two. I would go for the early bonus and mazimize my chances to grab the early projects and expand as fast as possible...after all it seems that those who accomplish first projects often build the last ones too.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Shai-Hulud
I think I mentioned that big empire takes more time to conquer and I hold on to that. In any case, there are no single "key to defense", only strategies and none are superior from where I'm standing. Can't even remember when I've been beaten by AI. They have no strategy so you can really beat them hands down whether you have 10 or 50 bases.

Sorry, I meant to copy the quote but I forgot to do so before I had already written the expansion stuff. Here's the quote that set me off:

"There certainly is advantages and disadvantages for any placing of bases. The closer they are - easier they are to defend? It's easier to move defensive units from one city to another but it's also a lot easier to do Blitzkrieg. From what I have experienced far flung empire is the best defense against invaison. It can incredibly tedious to take over a huge empire when bases are 5-6 squares from one another. I think such a tactic could be well exploited in MP game if someone would agree to play on a very large map. "

My point is that it's extraordinarily difficult to blitz a human player who has all of his units within a turn or two of the point of attack, and can rapidly reinforce himself with his entire productive capacity also within a turn or two of the point of attack. Concentration is an advantage to the defense as well as the offense, and having your bases tightly packed together means that you will have a significant and sustainable numbers advantage at the point of attack.

There are two basic elements to the Civ type combat system. The first is that it is based upon attrition (ie numbers are important). The second is technology being the single most critical aspect in determining success in any individual combat. Packing bases close together gives you an advantage in both of these ways. Firstly you will be able to gather larger numbers in a sustainable manner due to the fact that both your existing forces and your centers of production are already concentrated. Secondly, by building your empire quickly via the turn advantage gained by close spacing (see Ogie's post) you will tend to have a higher tech level than someone who spreads himself further afield, because your bases started producing earlier.

Someone who has his bases spread out is a much easier target. Your attacking force can hit a single base and overwhelm it's defenses while his reinforcements arrive a few at a time, and perhaps none in the critical first turn or two after you have made your presence known.

The relative advantage of close spacing is diminished but not negated by the advent of airpower. Airpower's main advantage is the ability to concentrate quickly. Nonetheless, a closely spaced empire has an advantage in air defense because fighters in bases close to one another can mutually support each other. Of course the best defense is a good offense when it comes to airpower, and here too there is an advantage to close spacing, because a closely spaced empire will have more bases within range of the enemy than a loosely spaced empire. This means that for basing purposes I can spread my air units among several bases making them harder to attack and eliminate when they are on the ground, but I can concentrate them to attack the fewer enemy bases that are within range. This means that I will have more attacks against relatively helpless choppers which are on the ground at the enemy base, because I will have to eliminate fewer AAA garrisons and fighters than my opponent.

[Shai-Hulud]

I have to say that you state your arguments well Sikander. Having thought of this I do agree with all your points but I still wouldn't rule out "far flung empires". First of all, having a big empire does not necessarily mean it's less developed or even has smaller bases than a tightly packed faction. Big empire has a lot more of everything, except flexibility, which can be crucial in the initial attack. I think there are certain advantages in any style of base spacing. I personally prefer to place them closer together and create a core of production, science and economy but still use some resources to keep expanding later in the game if my social settings allow within reason. I believe that in all situations a big empire is, in the end, more powerful than "a tight one". It can be incredibly hard to invade a human player with few bases tied together, but once your forces have broken the first line of defense...there is rarely another one. A large empire can deal with some loses, few bases are not big deal. And while defence is geographically more difficult, it's not necessarily more difficult in general. You just start churning out military units and enjoy from the fact that you probably have a lot of chances to assault smaller factions, from several directions. Not to mentions possibilities with ICBMs.

I think this interesting discussion is getting confusing Perhaps to make things simple:

1. I agree with the fact that 5-6 squares spacing is not optimal in general manner

2. Equally sized empires, with another one far flung and another one tightly built will both have certain advantages.

3. It's definitely harder to success at the initial assault against tightly built faction

4. Big empires are oftenly more powerful than smaller, tightly built ones, and have a lot more options

5. In the end it all comes down to the player itself

[vitamin j]

WRT the nut bonus thing, I agree there are a few benefits to putting a base on one:

*If it's on a flat square, and you have no formers (not very likely), you won't get any mins from working the square, until you can put a forest on it.

*If your first citizen is a drone, you can make a doctor and still have fair nutrient production. It should be noted here, though that if for some reason you want slower growth in that base, there's no way to "un-work" those bonus nuts.

*If you come under attack, your enemy cannot occupy the square thereby depriving you of the extra nuts. Here I'd just say that if this is a continual problem for you, it'll probably be over soon...

I don't accept that there are any other real advantages, besides a miniscule turn advantage you may gain until the square is forested. The very real disadvantage is that a farm/condenser/enricher on such a square would have netted you +50% (or more?) bonus nuts in the long run.

[Adalbertus]

I just noticed one thing especially for a two in diagonal spacing of bases. There is only one in eight squares which is not adjacent to a base. This means, in most cases, the defender can attack directly from a city thus saving the turn for going home to repair. Moreover, on a counterattack, it is ideally a strong and healthy defender and not the weakened attack unit who has to defend. I didn't notice that, but now I will go to even tighter stacking.

Scheme:

X0B0X0B0X
000000000
B0X0B0X0B
000000000
X0B0X0B0X

B - Base, 0 - adjacent to Base, X - not adjacent

Equally sized empires, with another one far flung and another one tightly built will both have certain advantages.

Certainly, but I think the point is turn advantage. When you move your first colony pod two instead of three squares, it will net you after 150 years the production of nearly half of your empire. All the production which comes from the spinoffs of this base will come one turn earlier. This is the bottom line of turn advantage, not two food, two energy and one mineral you gain in this one turn. And this is the same with rush-buying. In addition to the fact that money you don't spend is worth nothing. (Unfortunately, in Vel's guide this long-term payoff is not well explained.)
Edit: Just forgot the bottom line: The far flung empire is likely to be the smaller because of the heavy loss of turn advantage, which (5 instead of 2 squares) amounts to roughly 6 full turns (if I calculated right), not to count for the Former time lost and probably more difficulties in defense, arising from turn disadvantage.

[RedFred]

[In response to vitamin j]
In the long run we are all dead, as my old Economics prof liked to say.

In the early game I don't mind too much if my base is right on top of a nutrient bonus. That plus two food makes for an excellent colony pod producing city.

By the time you build your farm, condenser and enricher you are likely in midgame. By then you should have lots of great options to feed your workers. Particularly if it is a costal base.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Adalbertus,

Very good point on turn advantage. We/I tend to explain these things in terms of 2 turns/base for given resources but the real benny is it is an effect over the entire course of the game not a one time event.

This is the crux of the absolute need for early game expansion efficiency. It is the most crucial part of the game. Any turn advantage via immediate base placement, thin expansion paradigms, rush builds etc. accelerate your game play tremendously and really is the heart of why humans play the game better than the AI.

Og

Edit: regarding your cross posted edit; You and I are of the exact same mind on the size of empire vis-a-vis gained/lost turn advantage and that was exactly what I attempted to explain in my first post.