What are the most useful strategies you have picked up here?

[Mongoose]

1) I don't know about the rivers...I think you might lose it by altering the elevation...you might not. Pholus Ridge loses its +1 Energy bonus if the elevation changes, wither by former action or by earthquake.

2) I always treaty rather than truce, if offered. Demand withdrawal is not operative with some truces, IIRC.

3) I left click on specialists...pops up a menu box where you can select which specialist you want it to be. The box has the additional benefot of being the only in-game place I know that documents the attiributes of each specialist type.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Jamski
The trick is actually to kill Miraim early when she has practically NO tech If your 2-2-2 rovers are up agaists 1-1-1(fanatic) units, them its an easy ride. Use the 4-3-2 rovers these upgrade to on a tougher oponent like Yang. Don't go after Yang early because of his free perimiter defences, making even 1-2-1 units indestructible until you get better weapons

-Jam

Actually with the requisite amount of probes and sabotage virusing him repeatedly even the vaunted perimeter defenses are overcome.

Which reminds me when in doubt there are usually three units I never mind producing during slow times

a) Formers -especially once equipped with clean reactors
b) Probe teams of all chassis flavors
c) crawlers of all chassis flavors (duhhh!!!)

[Frankychan]

Originally posted by Mr. President




I think we have sig material here!

I learned how to use crawlers from reading topics here, but I didn't like it so I stopped.

Rofl. Man......I just don't know what to say about you.


But Lal does suck

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Jamski
The trick is actually to kill Miraim early when she has practically NO tech If your 2-2-2 rovers are up agaists 1-1-1(fanatic) units, them its an easy ride. Use the 4-3-2 rovers these upgrade to on a tougher oponent like Yang. Don't go after Yang early because of his free perimiter defences, making even 1-2-1 units indestructible untill you get better weapons

-Jam

you were correct.

Yang wupped me.

I tried again, and santiago wupped me eventually, though at first it went well.

I have avoid building artillery, but i find the ai like to use artillery for stand off attacks. Id rush with rover (4-1-2) but hard when the target base is largely surrounded by fungus (dont yet have tech to move regular units quickly through fungus) I guess in such circumstances i should either send some artillery along for counter battery fire, or attack primarily with mindworms.


Also, my initial wars come a tad later than you are assuming, based on the unit stats above, perhaps cause im playing on huge map. I like building, but a smaller map and early war might ease beating the AI, given that the AI can never be all that good in war, and the SMAC AI seems pretty decent at expanding (well yeah they dont terraform well, but still not bad compared to the Civ2 AI)

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Jamski
The trick is actually to kill Miraim early when she has practically NO tech If your 2-2-2 rovers are up agaists 1-1-1(fanatic) units, them its an easy ride. Use the 4-3-2 rovers these upgrade to on a tougher oponent like Yang. Don't go after Yang early because of his free perimiter defences, making even 1-2-1 units indestructible untill you get better weapons

-Jam

You were right - yang wupped me.

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

You were right - yang wupped me.

Yang can be very tough early on. Plasma steel can be obtained with a paltry 3 techs, and it's directly on AI yang's beeline toward Air power. If you're trying to get rid of him, bring along plenty of probe teams to eliminate those pesky perimeter defenses.

With his innate industry bonuses, combined with extra support from his police politics, he can crank out a ton of attrition units, so unless I absolutely MUST tackle him head on, I prefer to simply ignore him until my tech advantage is secure.

Once you've pop-boomed (he can't), you'll be able to roll back over and win that war of attrition, preferably with a few extra weapon techs under your belt.

[TimeTraveler]

Here are a few things I learned about playing Alpha Centauri successfully.

1. When playing the University, like what I do all the time, The Human Genome Project and Virtual World will make your drone problems more relaxed than those of Lal.

2. My strategy for maximizing energy output in the midgame is to create diagonal rows on the terrain, which alternate between solar collector and echelon mirror. This generates an average of up to 4 energy per square, plus any bonuses induced by the elevation.

3. In the early game, when you have yet to fight an offensive war and have yet to see major ecodamage, Free Market Economics isn't nearly as bad as it may seem.

4. When you have all the technology there is, as well as the Telepathic Matrix, the Engineer Specialist will be worth more to you than the Transcend Specialist, by 1 energy credit per turn per specialist.

5. I find it quite enjoyable to have a horde of 300 or so Clean Singularity SuperFormers of Rover chassis or faster turn just about anything into whatever my perfect terrain model is at the time.

6. No one seems to want to get around to researching Photon/Wave Mechanics until there isn't much else available. This makes offensive units, like those with plasma shards, very valuable, and commonly built.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Yang can be cracked early as follows:

Probe teams to take out perimter defenses and to garrison bases to prevent counter subversion

Infantry transports

Infantry best weapon loaded on transports. The extra 25% attack is invaluable.

Arty is also helpful in order to soften up the target and prevent heals in base.

Infantry transports are great in order to navigate otherwise impassible terrains such as rocky or fungus square that otherwise halt your move. The loaded unit can still attack and the transport if properly armored provides adequate defense to prevent coutner attack. Especiallly if the arty has been doing its job at softening the base.

[lord of the mark]

i tried another thinker game as U of P, this time at war with Santiago. made some tactical success, then forces back - the key spartan city near the frontier i was trying to take, was back behind a bunch of fungus. this slowed my attackers, who kept getting smashed by spartan artillery batteries standing off.

what i should have done instead - build some artillery of my own, to duel with theirs, and give the direct fire units a chance to close. Or - bring in a lot of formers and kill the fungus - even if i lose a lot of formers in the process. Or - stop trying to attack with conventional units - build lots of mindworms and attack with them.

In any case i quite after santiago took 2 of my bases.

started another game as the Hive (still on thinker) perhaps this will be a bit easier.

Ive ended up (i think) on the l shaped continent (huge map of planet) with lal to my south, and nobody to my north. Ive expanded rapidly, to point where im 1 or 2 in power. and giving zhakarov a run for his money on tech. Ive built WP and command nexus. Im pushing my frontier with Lal by building bases. His UN HQ is close to the frontier. Now building up army, will then try to provoke him to war.

[Mongoose]

A former turn that the former is bombarded doesn't count toward accomplishing the terraforming. If you want to terraform in the face of enemy artillery, you have to take enough formers to do the job in a single turn. Alternately, stack several of your own artillery pieces with the former(s). Remember, though, that losing an artillery duel in the open results in collateral damage to whatever forces you have stacked with the artillery unit just destroyed.

[CEO Aaron]

LoTM, it seems to me like you're breaking yourself trying to wipe out momentum factions with something approaching technological parity. By all means, capture what bases of theirs are convenient, but if you find yourself getting bogged down in a prolonged conflict, you're going to waste tons of turn-advantage building attrition units.

Your best bet is station a strong enough garrison to discourage all but a full-scale assault, then proceed to build your empire. Once you have air power their defensive terrain isn't nearly so useful.

If you MUST take the base, here's an idea: Move a couple formers to the front, but outside the base's artillery range. Plant forests. Wait for said forests to spread into the adjacent fungus tiles, then use an artillery piece of your own to destroy them, once the fungus has been removed. Now your rovers can roll in unimpeded. Admittedly this strategy requires patience, but will save you many turns of wasted builds on attrition units.

That trick won't work if the fungus tiles are on rocky terrain. However, rocky-fungus tiles are like pre-made little bunkers. Build 3 or 4 best armor infantry with com-jammers, then move them all on to the rocky/fungus tile at once, along with your rover force and a couple of probe teams. Unless Santiago has a TON of artillery, your garrisons should be able to preserve your rovers in relatively good condition for their assault.

Nevertheless, I can't emphasize enough that if you're not going to win a war quickly, don't bother. Just contain them and continue to grow. As a builder, time is on your side.

[Jamski]

As a builder, just hold, hold, hold some more, hold, get airpower, get copters get drop-pods get on the attack THEN.

-Jam

[Flare]

In a Builer's case, the best offense is a Good defense. Or having enough money & probe teams to subvert your way to dominance!

[Snowflake]

Or just build everything and then transcend. I normally don't become offensive unless somebody is too close to me so that it hinders the development of my empire.

[Flare]

~Grins~ Yes, that way is preferable, HongHu. However, the AI always tries to mess you up. Also, in MP you can't be that passive, because someone will be targeting you ASAP.

[lord of the mark]

why am i attacking early so much?

1. well one is just to get better aquainted with combat in this game.

2. In some cases im hemmed in, and have trouble expanding as much as i would like

3. Im perhaps overcompensating, trying to avoid bad habits on lower levels of civ2. In civ2 one could win on lower levels fairly easily with peaceful strategies. Once you got to Deity, you tended to get in trouble if you werent prepared to attack at least some of the AI's early. Granted it was still possible to win deity peacefully, but generally harder (leaving aside special cases like OCC)

I would have thought that SMAC, a later game would have an AI even less inclined to lose a peaceful building race. I'd heard that SMAC AI was generally easier to beat, not being up to the complexity of the game. But I assumed that would show up most in combat.

Was I wrong? Is the SMAC AI relatively good at combat, but poor at peaceful building, compared to the Civ2 AI? Or is it just that the game is designed to make attacks difficult without a tech edge??

And a number of people have spoken of a "builder" strat. In civ2 there was a distinction made between "expansionists" and "perfectionists". When you say build my empire, do you mean expand with new bases, or build up a limited number of bases (which of course has implications for early war, if im hemmed in) ?

[Jamski]

In SMAC everything has implications. You can be expansionist or perfectionist, and make both work. You can be offensive, or defensive, or any kind of crazy hybrid. 5 bases can be stronger than 25 bases, or weaker than 1 base. It all depends what you're playing.

-Jam

[Flubber]

I never attack the AI unless I know that I can win-- As for the AI skills, I find that the AI is better at tactical combat than it is at long range strategic planning needed to compete with a human in building an empire

. . .. and when we say "go builder" we simply mean that you aren't out conquering but our building infrastructure. There are a number of good ways to do this and you will hear people argue the merits of ICS or having a small number of perfectionist bases. The use of crawlers to bring in resources means that a huge number of bases is not required to continue to grow

[Sikander]

If I have to take on Yang in the early game, I prefer to do so with mindworms making the early assaults on his bases. They don't seem all that concerned with the perimiter defense.

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I would have thought that SMAC, a later game would have an AI even less inclined to lose a peaceful building race. I'd heard that SMAC AI was generally easier to beat, not being up to the complexity of the game. But I assumed that would show up most in combat.

Was I wrong? Is the SMAC AI relatively good at combat, but poor at peaceful building, compared to the Civ2 AI? Or is it just that the game is designed to make attacks difficult without a tech edge??

The thing that makes early game combat in SMAC different is the _substantial_ effects of innate faction bonuses. Certainly a successful early campaign can do wonders for your empire, but the likelyhood of being able to beat Yang in a ground war early without a substantial technological edge is, in my opinion, extremely low.

Later in the game, playing a builder faction, _your_ bonuses become more pronounced, which is why you want to postpone any protracted invasion til then. This is especially true against the AI, whose ruinously bad terraforming leaves it stagnating in the face of an exponentially expanding human opponent.

Now if the situation were reversed, and it was you as Yang versus the AI as Zak, I can't encourage you enough to press your advantages early. My point is that you need to make the most of the relative strengths and weaknesses of your faction. Make them play your game, don't play theirs.

This principle remains true in a multiplayer context. A human opponent should be more aggressive than the AI, but the relative strengths and weaknesses of your respective factions remain unchanged.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I see a good bit of aprehension in dealing with Yang in the early game.

If you define early as on or around impact weapons, I don't have difficulties typically.

True an early war puts you at a decided disadvantage in the early SP race and also allows others to race to an early tech lead, but for shear ability to withstand a hive onslaught and then go aconquering yourself, I don't see the fuss.

All one needs is Impact and Flexibility. Key is don't fall into the trap of impact rovers. You'll chew up your 3 row mineral rovers against his bases. Instead keep with the down and dirty 4-1-1 transported to the point of attack via land transport. If on a road and fractional movement points remain for the transport, load the unit up after it is done attacking and retreat to prevent counter attack from the AI base.

Of course make sure you have 2-3 probe teams to bring down the perimeters and then act as a garrison to preent hiverian probe from reversing your offensive through an untimely subversion.

Try it. It makes cracking the hive, or other early momentum factions a proverbial piece of cake.

[CEO Aaron]

Land transports can indeed be viable, but it's very support intensive, and as you pointed out, you're going to be giving up early SPs to a third party, even if you win. My point is, and always has been, that the best way to deal with a momentum faction is to stymie their attacks with as little force as possible, and leave them in the stone age.

[Adalbertus]

Just to twist the topic around: I was used to play with the "reload" cheat but tried to restrict this lately. But what made me to revert to old habits was the pod lottery. I simply see it unfair if a lonely (or even two) unit(s) arrive at a pod and - lo - you encounter eight mind worms. No problem playing Dee, 'cause I usually send worms out myself, but otherwise, what do you do? Eat the loss? Reload? Do you have some tricks (switching temporarily to Green to get some worms)?

In Civ2 during the last two games I played, I got the impression that the probability of barbarians is much reduced if you enter a hut with a move 2 unit on the beginning of a turn (never tried it before). Is this true, and is there something similar in SMACX?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Placing a base next to a pod prior to popping it almost always results ina postivie outcome save the earthquake outcome.

As for land transports being support heavy, not necessarily. a sprinkling of 2-3 is all that is normally required. In the long run during an early conquest the savings is significant verses losses one would encounter using speeders.

[Jac de Molay]

Just to twist the topic around: I was used to play with the "reload" cheat but tried to restrict this lately. But what made me to revert to old habits was the pod lottery. I simply see it unfair if a lonely (or even two) unit(s) arrive at a pod and - lo - you encounter eight mind worms.

It's not the worms that bother me, it's the fungus bloom when your two squares from a nearby base, and sitting on a nice piece of real estate.

But I found out the very thing that O.O. said about pods in base radii recently, and build bases first.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron


The thing that makes early game combat in SMAC different is the _substantial_ effects of innate faction bonuses. Certainly a successful early campaign can do wonders for your empire, but the likelyhood of being able to beat Yang in a ground war early without a substantial technological edge is, in my opinion, extremely low.

Later in the game, playing a builder faction, _your_ bonuses become more pronounced, which is why you want to postpone any protracted invasion til then. This is especially true against the AI, whose ruinously bad terraforming leaves it stagnating in the face of an exponentially expanding human opponent.

Now if the situation were reversed, and it was you as Yang versus the AI as Zak, I can't encourage you enough to press your advantages early. My point is that you need to make the most of the relative strengths and weaknesses of your faction. Make them play your game, don't play theirs.

.

interestiing point - ive been focusing on learning game specific features like combat tactics, forming, crawlers, etc while not focusing on faction strategies - that worked at librarian level, but at seem that even at thinker level it no longer works well - i need to begin focusing more on the right grand strategy for the faction im playing.

[Flare]

Yes. The grand stratagy makes a difference. Thinking several turns ahead is very good, but also being able to put everything into play for a long term approach is an art form. That applies to ALL factions, not just the builder factions. ~WEG~ After all, it is just as important on the why as it is to the how, where & when.