Giving Planet a Facial

[Christantine The Great]

Did anyone ever completely kill off all of the fungus or atleast come close to? I cleaned almost all of the really big continent with Garland Crater. I was preparing for a former invasion of the continent to the west but never finished it. I found that surrounding an area with forests usually does the job well but making an underground tap on top of the ridge in the middle and planting forests on or near the river does well too.

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The Viking Archives

[Misotu]

Forest also seems to expand faster downhill, so that's something to bear in mind.

I've never killed off all the fungus - at some point in the game, I often want the fungus esp if I'm playing Gaians or have the Manifold Harmonics thingy ...

[Black Sunrise]

I was curious, so ran a test game.
Gaians, manifold harmonics, temple of planet.
Late in the game, my fungus squares were producing a huge amount of resources, more than my Tree farms, especially when you consider my food productions was (from memory) 4, not 3, so I had much much larger cities. I saturated the continent in cities, very close together, and they still wound up huge because of the extra food.
As I said, it was a fun test game.
Interesting things: special resource squares no longer matter, because fungus overrides special resource. Maybe just de-fungus those?
Environmental damage is HUGE, build temples and preserves and nanos EVERYWHERE, because cities with only a couple squares to work still had big big big mineral production.
PSI gates and empath choppers and grav ships became really valuable, for containment of worm outbreaks (one every turn, somewhere on the planet)
Basically I painted the whole world red.
Black Sunrise

[Misotu]

By the time you're wanting to contain mind worm outbreaks, ground units are the thing because they will take out every native life form on the square, whereas air units don't.

I tend to go for clean empath tanks with best weapon. They really sort the problem

But yes, I paint the world red. The fungus squares are generating something like 5-3-3 ... why would you care about specials?

[Black Sunrise]

Well, I have problems sometimes with sea levels rising. Fungus seems to produce huge mineral outputs early for me, too eary for me to have the time to have built preserve/temple/nano, so i get sea levels rising.
Then I have to wipe out the kelp, it keeps trying to spread. Air power! If all your cities are really close, empath choppers, 1 per city, and 1 ground defence unit per city, means I can swarm an outbreak with 10-20 choppers.
Black Sunrise

PS, I LOVE gravships. Wish they came early.

pps, am working on a custom faction with psi gates in each base, and a bunch of slight disadvantages. It seems powerful, but fun. Anybody have any thoughts? I'm giving them Morgans priorities, because it makes FM safe/easier.

[Solver]

I love when some fungus is present, but outside my bases. That's because I love Deirdre and I con go to fungus, find MindWorms and then capture them. So, I always keep some fungus but usually clear them off my bases.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[RedFred]

I've never bothered to clear out every last bit of fungus, but it shouldn't be too hard to do.

The utility of fungus in the late game depends on how the game is progressing. If you are getting multiple techs per turn towards the end, the period of resource superiority of the fungus over hybrid trees is so small as to make the Manifold Harmonics SP almost useless.

[Misotu]

This is true, Red Fred, although I did actually have an MP game where Transcend was not an option ... and the Manifold Harmonics *really* came into its own

[Mech Assassin]

The Best Fungus producion, I've had was 4-4-5, I think... I was playing The Cult of Planet, so as you already see it was SMAX game. If mind worms become a problem, unit with resonance weapon, resonance armor, empath and trance abd *4 reactor should solve the problem. Also if you're playing Cult and have Green and Cybernetics and Temple, you get +70% psi combat bonus... Killing, huh?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I had a few tries on the SMAC map of Planet Earth (ie this one) and that had no fungus squares on it. Nor did any appear later, no matter how badly I polluted Planet.

Maybe it's truly possible to eliminate every last square of fungus... and theoretically, if you do, the Transcendant Victory should be forever closed from your faction...!

[Didymus]

quote: Originally posted by RedFred on 10-09-2000 02:18 AM The utility of fungus in the late game depends on how the game is progressing. If you are getting multiple techs per turn towards the end, the period of resource superiority of the fungus over hybrid trees is so small as to make the Manifold Harmonics SP almost useless.

The best use I got of Manifold Harmonics was when I had a late-game fight on my hands. I could take those $h***y Spartan bases and the harmonics would make them productive instantly. Late-game fighting is rarely a big issue, of course, but it helps pump up your score with TeleMat and Vats.

[RedFred]

...and don't forget the movie, which is always a fun reason for building any SP.

I am intrigued by AC's comment about wiping out all the fungus and finding that it wouldn't regenerate despite polluting. Makes sense. Extinction. I might have to try doing it to see for myself.

[mark13]

Yeah, I was playing an OCC on the Earth map, and my one base, towards the end of the game, was producing 300+ minerals/turn, and eco-damage was at 150. But, alas, the inevitable fungus did not materialise.....

Oh yeah, and I transcended 5 turns later

[Alinestra Covelia]

Whoops! Sorry. I don't have anything new to say - I just warped into this thread again after following a 'specialist search engine' search for the META tag "Facial".

Actually, I jest. How about fungal missiles? If you let one of those rip in a fungusless Planet, does the PlanetMind come Back With A Vengeance and pollution continue as normal?

[Qualicide]

quote: Originally posted by Mech Assassin on 10-14-2000 04:58 AM unit with resonance weapon, resonance armor, empath and trance abd *4 reactor?

reacter level doesnt matter in PSI combat, so fission is the same as singularity or whatever, havnt gotten that high for a while

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http://thangorodrim.angband.org/angband.html (alright meybe i didnt make it)

[Black Sunrise]

Ok, that test game I was running? My capital is currently producing 448 minerals per turn, no eco damage.
Hah.
And no, I'm not building a space device. That's 448 building a tach field.
I could probably jack that up with crawlers, just to see how high I could go.....
hmm, will be posting follow up in a couple turns...
Black Sunrise

[Lefty Scaevola]

. In a smac game playing Santiago I exterminated all fungus. I build pressure domes at all non sea bases, stocked them up with elite trance scouts and PLANET BUSTERS. I obliterated all landmass other than my own with Singularity planet busters, leaving only a few small sea bases for the AIs. Next few turns I used fission & fussion PBs on the fungus blooms and IoD + MW + LoCh flotillas that appeared. After 8 turns of heading toward an about 9,000 meter sea level rise all squares were ocean trench with no fungus (Chiron must have some HUGE ice caps). My bases had to be supplied from orbits of course, but I have deafeated Planet in term a militerist could understand.
[This message has been edited by Lefty Scaevola (edited November 04, 2000).]

[Misotu]

Chilling. Absolutely chilling.

Have you no pity for the poor little tentacled things, Lefty?

[Lefty Scaevola]

. When playing Saint James, no I don't. I have an easy facility for adopting a different perssonna for each game. My favorite game style is long game researcher/builder/transendence, my favorite faction the Cyborgs, with both research & efficiancy bonuses.

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Gauis Mucius Scaevola
older richer & wiser than you