Auto Terraforming?

[Emvepe]

I was just wondering what some of the veteran SMAC players though about auto terraforming. I like to have 3 formers for every base i have and set them all to auto.. Also if I do manual terraforming are there any special techniques or anything I could try??

[Mr. President]

Hoo boy. You're going to get an earful about the evils of automation in SMAC.

I tend to set my formers to automatic, and manage base production myself, simply because I really don't like micromanaging every tiny little detail.

[Pandemoniak]

i dont like micromanaging either but i just hate when my former put solars on my nice condensors

[Main_Brain]

2 Formers at bigger Bases..
1 to Autoimprove Base and the Second for Global Task (Fungusremoval,Roads..)

Anyone who manages all Formers has Waaaay to much Time on hand ;=)
You always have way more Formers than AttackUnits (me has) .. and If i'd manage them all *shudders*

[RedFred]

This question comes up often enough that it probably should be included in the sticky FAQ thread.

The great players of the game tend to be control freaks. So 'auto' anything is seldom used. As far as autoformers go, why condemn your self to the same level of decision making as the AI?

Autoformers will not only make idiotic decisions, but they will also preclude more imaginitive use of forming methods including energy parks and strategic use of terraform up and down.

Vel's strat guide brings up the important concept of turn advantage. Each and every decision you make that allows you to grow more quickly, build more quickly or even research more quickly and get ahead of everyone else is a key to winning.

Sure you can beat up on the AI with a lot of bad habits, but sooner or later the challenge of excelling at single player or playing other humans will be too interesting to ignore.

The hotkey commands will allow you to deal with your formers in the blink of an eye. The suggestion that people who manually form have way too much time on their hands doesn't seem reasonable; I spend more time on rush build decisions, what to build decisions and even diplomacy and troop movement in the typical turn.

[Method]

Originally posted by Main_Brain
Anyone who manages all Formers has Waaaay to much Time on hand

i'll only stop managing all my formers when i'm a few turns away from winning (especially conquest, i'll only move my attack units), and concentrate on getting victory as quickly as possible. i NEVER automate.


(anymore)

[Sargoth]

aoutomate is for newbs. (aa excluded)

[Emvepe]

So if i do manual terraforming what should I build???? Certain things on certain squares or does it matter and should I make lots of forests or just farms solars and stuff and what about boreholes and ... Ahhh its all confusing

[Method]

i mine all the rocky squares, and then crawl them. i'll build boreholes on the coasts, or on energy or mineral resource tiles. i'll put crawled condensors on all the nutrient resources, and lacking those, i'll just put them anywhere. the rest is forest. i never farm/solar anymore.

[Blake]

So if i do manual terraforming what should I build???? Certain things on certain squares or does it matter and should I make lots of forests or just farms solars and stuff and what about boreholes and ... Ahhh its all confusing

Forest'n'forget will do you very well. That means, plant forest in every tile, early in the game you should prefer not to plant it on rolling/rainy tiles but it wont really matter. So basically everywhere you can, plant forest (allow it to expand naturally over fungus).
There are two things you can do to rocky tiles: Level them, and plant forest, or mine+road+crawl. Both take about the same amount of former effort and it really comes down to personal taste (some like the look of a perfectely forested territory).

The key to success with Forest'n'forget is improving forest output by building treefarms and hybrid forests in bases. The really nice thing is once you've forested you really can forget, all future improvement is done in bases.

Personally I use a slight variation, I forest until I get to around level-5 techs, then start drilling boreholes with my spare former power. Then in the sea I build only kelp+tidal and upgrade the output with Aquafarm + Thermocline (SMAC only). This gives me lots of extra food for working more boreholes.

You will find that using forest'n'forget you get much better resource output, with a very acceptable level of micromanagment. In fact due to your improved resources the game will be won quicker, meaning ultimately less micromanagment.

[Emvepe]

So forests are better then farms???????????

[Blake]

That summarises it quite nicely.
Just remember to build tree farms as soon as possible to boost the food output and your away.

[Sikander]

Another way to terraform is to maximize your borehole density, which requires a rigid adherence to the pattern (boreholes can't be placed next to one another), and farm / condensor (and eventually) soil enricher all other tiles. This allows a tight base spacing with plenty of minerals and energy per base, and by using crawlers on your nutrient squares, plenty of specialists also. It is heavy on the former time though, and I don't do it until I have already put forests all over the place.

[gwillybj]

The only automated terraforming I ever found the least bit useful was fungus removal, but I stopped using it because, instead of clearing one patch and moving to an adjacent patch, they ran around all over the place, sometimes even through one fungus patch to go to some other. Now I run the whole show. I can't work, so I have plenty of time. Unless, of course, they fix my brain - or it explodes.

[Emvepe]

Originally posted by Sikander
Another way to terraform is to maximize your borehole density, which requires a rigid adherence to the pattern (boreholes can't be placed next to one another), and farm / condensor (and eventually) soil enricher all other tiles. This allows a tight base spacing with plenty of minerals and energy per base, and by using crawlers on your nutrient squares, plenty of specialists also. It is heavy on the former time though, and I don't do it until I have already put forests all over the place.

Could you set up a few bases this way and make a save file so I can see exactly what you mean and/or post some screenshots? This would help me alot and I would praise the ground you walked on!! =]

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Emvepe


Could you set up a few bases this way and make a save file so I can see exactly what you mean and/or post some screenshots? This would help me alot and I would praise the ground you walked on!! =]

That's not necessary, though appreciated. I'm at work right now, so it will have to wait until I get home. The borehole pattern is pretty simple really. Select a row of tiles (it should be a row which goes NW to SE or SW to NE, ie not a diagonal row). Every other tile in this row should contain a borehole. To select the next row, simply choose a parallel row two away (ie skip a row). The boreholes should make a nice offest grid pattern.

Now all you have to do is decide on a base placement strategy, or just place your bases where convenient. All or most non-base, non-borehole tiles should be farmed / condesored / soil enriched as necessary. If you are using a very tight base spacing design then you should be sure to maximize your nut production this way. For instance:

I place bases two squares apart along the diagonal axis so that each base has 8 tiles assigned to it. One is for the base itself, two are boreholes and five are farm / condensors / soil enrichers. This gives the base 33 nutrients (enough for 16 population, which is the maximum for most factions for most of the game), 14 minerals and 14 energy. I crawl the 5 farm squares, while I work the two boreholes. This gives me 14 specialists per base, which is quite lucrative, especially since each base only costs me 8 squares.

If you are inclined to be a little looser with your bases then perhaps a more popular bases 3 tiles apart strategy is better for you. In this instance you could forego a few or quite a few of the nutrient heavy squares for forests or mines etc.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Ahh the age old t-forming issue. Strictly speaking forest and forget works, but depending on game set up you can do better. Consdier a blind tech stag game. In that situation the player who nabs the Weather paradigm SP is much better served by building a healthy number of condensor farms as it will allow an early pop boom with nuts to support it. In worst case situations you could be talking 150 + years until advent of planetary econ (thus allowing tree farms). As soon as WP is finished you can build the condensor farms (say 2150 ish) and switch to Demo/Planned/creches (for those factions that allow a pop boom either). By assigning workers to librarians/technicians you are able to complete a first boom at least to hab complex limits and upon advent of Industrial Auto use of crawlers to go up to Hab dome limits.

So as with every answer in this forum about this game it depends.

By the by this allows you to capitalize on the fact that condensor farms combos allow 4 nuts (w/o specials) pre restriction lifting (gene splice)

[Emvepe]

Originally posted by Sikander


That's not necessary, though appreciated. I'm at work right now, so it will have to wait until I get home. The borehole pattern is pretty simple really. Select a row of tiles (it should be a row which goes NW to SE or SW to NE, ie not a diagonal row). Every other tile in this row should contain a borehole. To select the next row, simply choose a parallel row two away (ie skip a row). The boreholes should make a nice offest grid pattern.

Now all you have to do is decide on a base placement strategy, or just place your bases where convenient. All or most non-base, non-borehole tiles should be farmed / condesored / soil enriched as necessary. If you are using a very tight base spacing design then you should be sure to maximize your nut production this way. For instance:

I place bases two squares apart along the diagonal axis so that each base has 8 tiles assigned to it. One is for the base itself, two are boreholes and five are farm / condensors / soil enrichers. This gives the base 33 nutrients (enough for 16 population, which is the maximum for most factions for most of the game), 14 minerals and 14 energy. I crawl the 5 farm squares, while I work the two boreholes. This gives me 14 specialists per base, which is quite lucrative, especially since each base only costs me 8 squares.

If you are inclined to be a little looser with your bases then perhaps a more popular bases 3 tiles apart strategy is better for you. In this instance you could forego a few or quite a few of the nutrient heavy squares for forests or mines etc.

Im still not too sure how to do this :/

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Emvepe
So forests are better then farms???????????

forests provide excellent resources of all 3 types for minimal ( and self-replicatiing) terraforming. The knock on forests is that they only produce 1 nut until you get tree farms

crawled farms and specialists can be very effective as well, particularly in fringe bases if developing a huge empire-- ie one where a LOT is lost to inneficiency ( so the energy from worked squares is almost negligible on the fringes) and drones are a huge problem . With larger empires I often find it is simpler to crawl nuts and mins, forget drone control facilities and make specialists. With this type of base, a forest is a poor choice-- I remember seeing a detailed argument when people tried to come up with mathematical explanations for the best use of former time but there seemed to be too many variables for a conclusive answer

Also don't forget the idea of purpose built bases. Some of my bases may be designed never to grow. It might be a base that will crawl nothing but minerals and then start pumping out military-- the terraforming for this base will again not include forests

Don't get me wrong though . . . the majority of my bases will have several forested squares and in some cases, an unbroken forestation project. For most bases, forests are simply an excellent terraforming choice

[Sikander]

Forests rule especially early in the game when you are restricted to 2 of each FOP on non-special squares. I always start with forests and upgrade as I can use the more intensive productivity of other types of squares.

[Emvepe]

Just finished my fourth game and I think I've basically figured out the whole terraforming thing. Mainly I used forests but I also tried some boreholes and stuff too. By 2340 all the enemies were either dead or had 1 base :P After all other factions were no longer a threat I built up to transendance and finished with most of my cities in the 40 - 50 population range. Score was 72xx, I rock!!!

[Main_Brain]

Well Myself i find controlling all my Terraformers inda boring.. I only manage Special tasks (Raise Landbrige, split the sea etc.) and seldom mirkomanage my Formers.
Of course it would be more efficent to manage them but I just dont find my Fun in it. I just build more Formers to compensate but every1 should become happy in his Fassion.

[Joel Velasco]

While I agree Tree Farms are an excellent long term terra forming choice, it is not without its draw backs:

IMHO, early colonization is essential. To that end, I will always frame my terra forming to increase a base from pop 1 to pop 2 before a colony pod is produced. Otherwise, minerals are wasted holding the completion of the colony pod. So my first former duty is to create a 2-1-1 tile as quickly as possible. If a flat nutrient resource is nearby I will forest, but otherwise a farm/collector is on the way. Unless my first tile is a monolith or a mineral resource, I will almost always place a forest in a second tile. After that, the former will start to build roads in the direction of the new site and if time permits, place a sensor on the future base tile.

Once a base ceases to crank colony pods, I start to look at my empire needs and terra form particular bases to meet those needs.

Bases near the capital (or nearby where I will relocate the capital to) will focus on population growth, but at a rate in which I will have enough minerals and or credits to create drone control items. Generally this means alternating collector/farm tiles with forest tiles. (At this stage of growth nuts aren't a must, and I will build a collector before a farm in the same tile). As the base nears its maximum happiness threshold, I will rearrange its workers onto forests for zero growth or +1 nut per turn growth if I have another drone control project or research goal near completion.

Other bases will be dedicated to building the early Secret Projects. These bases will generally get nothing but forests to zero growth after recyc.tanks, police, and rec.common are in place. The actual number of new forests needed will vary depending on any police rating and or drone/talent faction bonuses you receive. The same can be said for my command center base, but it can be kept away from riots with +1 or even +2 nuts per turn growth.

In conclusion: While its nice to dream of the day when bore holes, mirrors, and condensers fill the landscape, the terra forming choices you make in the first 100 turns will greatly enhance or stagnate your empire throughout the game. Also while forests are the best early game terrain type, you must balance these with sufficient growth potential. Every game is different, and there is no one way to succeed, so try different styles, find the one that best suits you and have fun.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Main_Brain

Of course it would be more efficent to manage them but I just dont find my Fun in it. I just build more Formers to compensate but every1 should become happy in his Fassion.

Building more formers is hardly a compensation, because atleast 50% of the terraforming is effectively useless, these are montronsities like farm+solar on arid/flat producing something awful like 1-0-2, farm+mine on rainy+flat producing 2-1-0. These also take a lot of former time! So the end conclusion is you have required twice as many formers, which have done less than half the usable work!

As an example in case, (regarding turn advantage) I decided to play a quick test using automated formers. At a new base there were some tiles:
A flat/moist with a nut special.
A rolling/moist.
The former proceeded to road + farm+solar the rolling moist, giving +1 nut and +1 energy at the cost of 12 former turns. It then (remarkably) went and road+forested the nut, for +2 minerals and +1 energy at the cost of 5 former turns.

Another base (the HQ, in fact) had some interesting tiles, a flat/moist min special + river. But the AI proceeded to lay 5 farms, 3 solars, 15 roads, 2 mines, 2 sensors, 6 forests and clear 4 OTHER fungal tiles before getting around to clearing+foresting the mineral special which would shave several turns off an early secret project! And the immediate expenditure on this single tile would have provided more benefit than all the other terraforming combined! The AI spent a whopping 180 former turns to achieve about the same benefit as I could of with 11 former turns.

So the Automated formers can easily be working at maybe 10% the effeciency of a skilled human operated former, we are talking enough turn advantage to transcend a hundred years earlier! Probably 200 years earlier in the hands of a skilled player!

The 100-200 extra turns spent playing thanks to the automated formers will almost certaintely outweight the micromanagment that would be required to manage a smaller number of formers effeciently.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I would swear that the factions on planet each choose the stupidest 10% of their populations to run the formers, those auto former are just the dumbest things.

"Sorry, if your IQ is over 50, you are overqualified for the Terraforming Corps."

[Joel Velasco]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
I would swear that the factions on planet each choose the stupidest 10% of their populations to run the formers, those auto former are just the dumbest things.

The appeal must be that formers are big and shiny

[Main_Brain]

I only control the BoreHoler's cause the AI doesnt seem to use the WP by itself
Later in teh Game i tend to upgrade my old NonRoverFormers to SuperClean(+Armor) in my current game I had 142 such SlomoFo's and alone the task of automatingthem all to different taks took its time :P

@Blake: Well at some point in the Game (when Super comes availible, WP, that other SP which speeds up fungus planting/removing fungicidal tans etc.) many tasks are achieved in a single turn. in the Beginning when Task take alot of time (relativly) to form things but later micromanaging your Formers must become an unerving task? .. at least for me


Mines&Boreholes everywhere let the Hydro's feed the Ppl.

[The Mad Monk]

I never automate formers now; it seems every time I did, I would end up with the formers creating more work than they saved. The sole exception was a few sea formers that I would set to auto fungus removal, but that was it.

[Elixirred]

I automate sea formers just because I'm lazy, and I figure whatever they end up doing is better than NOT having them at all.
I concentrate mainly on my land formers. I always micromange land formers.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Joel Velasco

The appeal must be that formers are big and shiny

"What does THIS button do" {lays road}
"What does THIS button do" {cultivates farm}
"I'm bored, lets go for a drive through the xeno fungus".... "Arggg! mindworms..."
Yes.... I can just imagine that.

But speaking of big and shiny, I name the super-clean infantry former "Super Shiny Formers"
I usually call the armoured fusion formers "War formers"

@Blake: Well at some point in the Game (when Super comes availible, WP, that other SP which speeds up fungus planting/removing fungicidal tans etc.) many tasks are achieved in a single turn. in the Beginning when Task take alot of time (relativly) to form things but later micromanaging your Formers must become an unerving task? .. at least for me

The problem is, at that stage of the game either:
I have completed all my foresting, and so am only drilling boreholes.
Or I am using an intensive terraform so needing to build condensors everywhere.
Or I am going on the offensive raising land bridges and/or laying magtubes, possibly in enemy territory.

Automation can handle none of those tasks (okay, it may be able to handle "tube to" but not if the tube is being built at the same time as the landbridge, or if the tube is in enemy territory, automated formers are chickensh*t after all)