Amazing energy production with solar flares

[Adam_Smith]

Wow! 353 energy form my HQ with solar flares. I don't know if that is a record for me, but I'm amazed by it. maybe some of you have gotten more form energy parks. I don't really have an energy park, but I'm using some crawlers. What is the most that you guys have gotten from a base in one turn?

[Googlie]

My current game, playing the Believers as builders, I'm developing one base as my science city (Supercollider there, all the labs so far (just turned 2400) and being fed by 24 crawlers from an energy park and about 12 sea crawlers from tidal harnesses.

At 30/10/60 it's producing about 900 lab points from its energy. On a solar flare it went to over 2800 with almost every one of the 36 crawlers reporting 8+ energy. Awesome.

I ewas on a five turn tech scale with three years left, and that boosted me to a tech the next turn, then one after two years before dropping back to the five. (I have six other bases with over 300 labs per turn that went to almost 1000 each with the flare)

It's actually one of my more enjoyable games, as Yang, me, Domai and Svengaard are nip and tuck for strongest faction, with sparta a poor fifth, followed by the insanely weak usurpers and caretakers.

I'm running Dem/Green/Power/simple (could go thought control, but would lose support), and Corazon and Svengaard love me being power, and Domai loves me being dem (altho I warred with him for 100 years, he sued for peace when I captured one of his bases).

He beat me to the Theory of Everything, though :O

The Hive has been beating the crap out of the Usurpers - I'm Planetary Governor so i visited their bases to see why they had a couple with no defenders that Yang just swept into - Courage to Question - on the same landmass - had five garrison troops, four needles, four copters and a rover, and yet the AI left two nearby (four and five tiles away, road connected)bases empty.

Why?

Googlie

[Basil]

Courage: To Question is their capital, of course. That may be part of it. But I've noticed that the AI in general likes to park all or many of its penetrators in the same base at any given time (and ditto for missiles). I don't have any actual knowledge, but it seems reasonable that the AI uses the same algorithm (for determining the best location for parking penetrators) for all of its penetrators, and if the location of already-moved penetrators isn't a parameter of that algorithm then it's likely to get the same answer for each penetrator.

That may explain the copters too. But the garrison troops thing is wierd. The AI is normally religious about keeping one garrison troop in each base. I don't know.

[Adam_Smith]

Googlie,

You have won that game easily. Trust me.

Question. Demo/Green/Power is strange. You have +2 support. +4 support is the magic number. Domai will allow Fundamentalism. He actually has an adversion to Green. Who is leading in tech? If it's you then you don't need to be. If it is someone else just get your tech from them. Your SE settings are just weird to me. Demo does not go well with Power for Believers I think.

[Googlie]

Right now (2410)Domai has the tech lead (only for the last 20 or so years since he got the ToE - I had it for about 150 years prior)

Hive has the military lead and Svensgaard has the pop lead, with Santiago having the wealth (almost all five human factions are equal)

I have Demo/Green/Power almost as defaults rather than choices

Fundy kills my research; FM get's Planet's back up (I have gone from 2101 to 2410 with nary a red ecological warning - positive or neutral throughout the game); wealth creates oodles of drones; I've never played planned well (if at all - I can't remember the last time i ever was planned).

I looked at Thought Control and Cyberethics, but decided to stay simple for the 4th choice until Eudomaia became available.

So while the D/G/P combo doesn't max out on the wealth, or the research, it seems to have fewer negatives than any other combo, and produces decent wealth, research and industry without getting Planet riled.

(btw, Domai went from Treaty to venbdetta in one move against me - I always thought they went thru the treaty breakup first)

Googlie

[Adam_Smith]

D/G/P is giving efficiency, planet and morale. not research, industry and wealth. Wealth does not cause drones. At least is does not cause more drones than Power.

F/G/P will give you +3 morale, +4 support, +1 planet, +3 probe. Take it from an old Miriam player. Use this and kick Domai's ars.

[Ned]

AdamSmith, I once had a game where I was getting over 10,000 labs per turn from only 15 bases. My top base produced nearly 3000 labs by its lonesome. Many cities, including the top city, had a number of sea crawlers pulling in energy. I was running 10-20-70, Demo, FM, Wealth, Cyber. But the most significant contribution to this lab output was commerce income. I had SIX pact brothers. Commerce income at my top city was about 40+ per pact brother. Of course, I had also researched a number of the commerce boosting techs, I had the treaty, and all my cities were in GA, etc., so that my effective commerce rating was 15, I believe.

Now, the natural question is how one can have six pact brothers without the game being over. There seems to be an interesting rule that cooperative victory can be achieved with no more than two (I believe) other factions. Regardless, I had conquered only two factions and pacted with the rest. This is not sufficient to win. And, to top that, I did not have MMI so that I could make the proposal to become supreme leader.

[Googlie]

A_S:

My problem with Fundy in this case is the research penalty.

With D/G/P right now I'm getting 4556 lab points per turn (with 16,300 needed per tech advance). Adding Cybernetic to the mix raises me to 5226 per turn.

At F/G/P I drop to 2754 per turn.

The probe bonus doesn't help much vs Domai, 'cos he's got the HSA (Plus I'm playing on a 960 x 900 map and, of course, Drones are 1/2 planet away - or about 15 turns to reach them by sea or 10 with locusts.

However, now that I can add Cybernetic to the mix, I get +6 efficiency, 0 research penalty, +4 Planet (I sent a copter colony pod four moves to a landmass with the Manifold Nexus and founded a base there), with the only negative being -3 Police.

With Power, I'm pacted with my two nearest neighbors (Sparta and Svensgaard). With dem I've been vendetta with the Hive for 200 years, but the action has all been around his bases (I've harrassed him with foil probes) - and he's fighting both the Caretakers and the Usurpers as well.

So it's a research battle with Domai, unless I prep for and mount a massive armada and take him by sea (Used to love doing that in Civ II) ... but these 80 missiles he has.....(but 65 of them sitting in one base - planetbuster time?)

(On the negative side, I have one measly AA en route for a scientific breakthru - Domai has, count 'em, 12 - but they are dispersed among nine bases)

Q? - doews the AI make use of the tech upgrades from AA's - or does it horde them for fast SP's or transcendence?

Quite the most challenging game against the AI I've played for some time.

Googlie


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited June 23, 2000).]

[Adam_Smith]

Ned,

The coop victory option must be selected. Did you select it?

Googlie,

I see. Yes, those are good choices then. I think you should catch up with him. Keep expanding. I suggest a pop boom too. Then you can go back to green when you are done.

[Ned]

AdamSmith, You may want to read the Datalinks on cooperative victory. Just getting all the factions pacted is not enough. You actually have to have a certain number of conquests/submissives. I don't remember the precise number. Ned

[Ned]

Adam, I just finished a game where I had three pact brothers. I was running Demo, Green, Knowledge, Eudaimia and 4-2-4. All bases were size 18 and in GA. My submissive, Deidre, was running similar setings. (I kept her up-to-date in technology.) The other two pact brothers were Zak and Morgan. Morgan was running Demo, FM, Knowledge.

My top base was getting 48 energy per turn from the Gains and 46 per turn from Morgan.

That base also had the Supercollider and the SP that gives labs for Network Nodes. The base was giving me nearly 1000 Labs per turn.

What I am suggesting that commerce income is just as important as building energy farms, etc. 900 Labs per turn - every turn - is a goal that can be achieved.

[Googlie]

Ned:

My best single base lab output (as yang) was 2557 lab points per turn - that was a 44 pop base with 40 transcendii. Total lab per turn was over 31,000

Current (Miriam) game my best to date is 1176 per turn, with only the Supercollider as an SP - mainly crawled in from sea harnesses and an energy park. Pop is 21 with 14 transcendii (Until I get the nutrients up via crawlers or hydroponics to turn more into transcendii) - and that's at 20/10/70 allocation, running Fundy/green/Power/Cybernetic (A_S - you are right - fundy with the others is an awesome combo, with only a -2 research to counter, which is manageable)

Googlie

[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited June 24, 2000).]