Green --- the broken society?

[R-Tag]

Does anyone else find Green to be a bit too powerful? It's the all around great social option. If you're not Yang and you need to run Police State, Green helps out with the nasty effeciency. If you're Green, you allways have an allie with Diedrie. If you're green, you can enslave mind worms (although, it's my experience that the percentages are WAY off for mind worm capture.) If you're Green, you get awsome bonuses to fighting and defending against natives. If you're Green, you're efficiency rating is so insane you can pittle around with your social energy allocations with almost no penelty. If you're Green, the only person who will get angry about it is Morgan (and who takes his military seriously?) If you're Green, you've got such an insane effiency rating that you can make SO many bases that Free Market looks like a joke. Is it anyone elses experience that this is so? I think Free Market (and I *know* just how powerful it can be) is obsolete by mid-game because the planet penelty is so harsh that no matter what you do Mind Worms will swamp and destroy your bases. Please say it isn't so. I love free market......... DOWN WITH GREEN! hehe

[Sindai]

No. Look at the OTHER economy options. FM is probably the single most powerful SE choice pre-future societies, and planned gives you that absolutly vital boost to growth for pop booms, plus a nice imdustry boost. Every SE choice has it's right time for use, I'd say, offhand, that none of them are actually too powerful....

[shimmin]

I'm in agreement -- the most powerful deterrent against Green is that it prevents you from running FM. (Planned in my opinion is good for expansion mode and playing Yang, but I don't find it to be the monster FM in peacetime or Green in wartime can be.)

If you have worm troubles with FM, try hitting them in ways they can't fight back against. Namely, invest in artillery for base defense. Reducing the worms to 1 or 2 hit points before psi combat begins is among the best ways to ensure survival.

[Velociryx]

Marketeering....

My favorite topic!

When you run FM, you should look at EVERYTHING in terms of opportunity.

True, running Market wrecks your planet rating and invites worms, which you have no chance of capturing, but...

You can build Empath guys just like everybody else, and if you're running wealth, then marauding worms will not only provide you with a bit of extra cash in the form of planet pearls (further widening your cash lead over everybody else), but you'll get some badly needed morale upgrades out of it as well! (and as mentioned earlier, selective artillery placement can more than even the odds for your low morale attackers).

No one expects a Marketeer to field an army outside his borders, but it's actually VERY easy to do, and without punishment spheres! Bases without workers DO NOT RIOT, so it's a snap to send a few food crawlers over to base "X" (you know, the one right there near the coast, with just enough mineral outputs to crank out those upgradable clean Laser Needlejets in a single turn), convert all the citizens to specialists and go to town! Do the same thing with one of your coastal bases and you've got your navy situated in short order, and perhaps 1-2 bases in the interior to crank out ground-pounders. Punishment Spheres?! Nahhh...don't need 'em. So if you're running with 16-20 bases, you can field your army from 20-25% of your empire, allowing the remainder to relentlessly persue infrastructure (and, you might even wanna set up a base which exclusively produces probe teams, just to have 'em around). Since you're making clean units (easy to get to in the latter part of the early game), you don't have to worry about mineral support drains, which means you can just endlessly crank out troops to prepare for the day when....(fill in the blank with whatever faction is most likely to attack).

In the strat guide, I've mentioned that military units represent "potential energy," but by themselves, do nothing 'cept take up space on the board unless you go out and use them, and in SP, that is certainly the case, but in MP, there are many more options you can try once you have your "Marketeering Army" up and running. You might actually be able to turn your attack-capable troopers into an investment for you....

If someone is getting pasted? Why not hire a portion of your forces out? They send energy credits, you load up a few transports to head over to the trouble spot.

More aggressively, you could advertise and threaten. Call up...somebody...Cheesedong for instance, and tell him that you've got 15 X-Chaos Rovers and whatever else you have in the mix heading his way, courtesy of the Morganite Collection Company....now what was that about 500 EC's to call the attack off? Generally NOT a good idea to bluff here though...true, you might get some coin that way, but if they call you on it and you can't or don't back it up, it stops working for you rather quickly.

Random note in SP: A good way to pick up LOTS of useful stuff from Pact Brothers and sisters (and this works regardless of SE setting....I'm just doing the stream-of-consciousness thing here), is to leave one of your bases that borders theirs either undefended, armored probe defended, or very lightly defended, which will invariably prompt them to keep gifting you units to help with your defense. Most times, these units border on the silly, they're so obsolete ("....here you go Mr. Morgan-who-has-shard-troopers....have a few 1-2-4's to help with your defense..."), but if they have good morale, they can always be upgraded to a clean-whatever and preserved, and if nothing else, they can be scrapped to help rush whatever you happen to be working on infrastructure-wise. Point is though, whether you keep them or scrap them, get them away from your border base, and next turn, just like clockwork, here comes your AI Pactmate, with a few more units to give you....Merry Christmas from your Pactmates!

It's all about creating opportunity....

PS: I did a lot of testing in various stages of my games, and I've never seen an instance where Dem/Green with Labs or Cash set at 100% could out cash or tech Dem/Market at 70%....the money's just not there for the greenies, despite the better effie ratings....

-=Vel=-
[This message has been edited by Velociryx (edited January 18, 2001).]

[Hydro]

Vel,

How about Dem/Green/Wealth golden (20%psych and, say, 60% or 70% lab)? That gets the benchmark +2 eco (+1 energy/sq)? Other bonuses: you have no military restrictions, can easily hold your own against MWs. In a medium to large empire in mid to late game the extra efficiency would multiply existing energy, offsetting the bump that Dem/FM/Wealth might get.

I'll dig back into a couple of old games to test which seems to be better (I seldom play much past mid game anymore).

Hydro

[Skanderbeg]

The main feature of planet rating is that little difference between 0 and +1, +1 (or more) allowing You to catch mindworms. Remember, there's that nice landmark called the Manifold nexus!
It's allways my strategy to found a base there if possible, and if it's situated on the other side of planet. Posessing the nexus allows you "to run Green and Planned at same time" for some faction, or be greener than green!


And Vel!
Very good statement about the advantages of FM (the thing I can't deal with...)

But, why the hell do all people beat on the poor Cha Dawn?

quote: Originally posted by Velociryx on 01-18-2001 09:54 PM Marketeering.... More aggressively, you could advertise and threaten. Call up...somebody...Cheesedong for instance, and tell him that you've got 15 X-Chaos Rovers and whatever else you have in the mix heading his way, courtesy of the Morganite Collection Company....now what was that about 500 EC's to call the attack off? -=Vel=- [This message has been edited by Velociryx (edited January 18, 2001).]

Yesterday, I finished my Cha Dawn game. Conquer victory in 2393, but I would have transcendented only a few turns later, building of Voice of Planet had begon in 2391. And yes, Morgan was in that game, and he threatend me by trying to build a PB. He didn't survive long enough to see Marr's worst nightmare come true:
A dozen of 30nerve+soporific gas-8res-gravships using his empire as a playground ;-)

Pink rules!
[This message has been edited by Skanderbeg (edited January 19, 2001).]

[Martin Schmidt]

Why Chaw Dawn is so weak , because you may have all the advantages whith less penalties if you play Deirdree instead .

[Velociryx]

Good point 'bout a Green/Dem GA, Hydro, and you're quite right, that would get you the Econ bump, which would raise Green's energy by a good bit.

The only problems I see with it vs. a Market stance are two:

First, to pull it off empire-wide, you'd prolly need something closer to 40% psych allocation, and even then, your newer, less developed bases may or may not get thrown into a golden age. Of course, the lion's share of your money from this would come from your biggest and best-developed bases, so the fact that your "fringe bases" missed out on the GA may not be such a big concern.

Second thing though, is that the GA effect is base specific, requiring a hellish amount of micromanagement to keep it going reliably. I get into the whole micromanagement thing, but I have to admit, the few times I've engineered a Morgan Pop-Boom by using the same technique, I've found it...well, tiresome.

I think though, that if you set a specific goal in your mind...say for instance, that you've got an empire of 20 bases, twelve of which could be considered "highly developed," you could go for a GA in those 12 bases and rake in a tremendous windfall that way. By limiting your focus, you could afford a lesser psych allocation, which would mean more money in your pocket each turn (or more energy in your labs), and that, combined with your better effie might put you on par, or perhaps even slightly ahead of a Dem/Market person.....I've not tested it at that level, so I couldn't say for sure, but my instinct says you'd still be making less....however, the gap would definately be a great deal narrower.

And Skanderbeg... Was just using him as an example....nothing tooooo personal against the cheesey wonder....I actually have fun playing him, but I'd hate to be in a hotseat or mp game, looking at the possibility of running into a human controlled Zak, Yang, or Domai! OUCH!

-=Vel=-

[mark13]

Vel,

Couple of points on your Dem/Green pop boom....

What I often find myself doing (and this works just fine for any other faction w/o econ penalties) is running Dem/Green/Wealth, cranking up the psych to 40% for a turn, and watch the GAs come flooding in. However, because of all that extra energy you are accumulating, if you then switch back to 20% the next turn, the GAs should hold, leaving you to think about military concerns whilst raking in the +2 energy at the vast majority of your bases!

What's more, if you run FM, you can pop boom at the same time (assuming SMACX) - the +2 from Demo, +2 from Creche and +2 from the GA should be enough to send you into a pop boom - whilst at +4 energy!

You don't have to play Morgan for this to work, of course, but he would send the economy to +5....
[This message has been edited by mark13 (edited January 19, 2001).]

[zsozso]

Just one note about Green:
I found in many of my games (including the PBEM against you Vel, when we builder-raced on Aredhran's map), that running Green with 100% research allocation gives you faster research rate than you could possibly manage with FM (with any allocation %) - counting the fact that you also have to balance drones and such (which takes less cost/effort when running Green). So, Green may not be the best cash-cow, but I found it to be THE best option if you want to run crazy full-blown research. E.g. in my fast-transcend games I run Green from as soon as I got it till the end of the game. Not to mention the free (build & support too) defensive/police/pod-lotto units you can capture.

Zsozso - the green player

[Velociryx]

Brother Zso! You'll get no argument from me 'bout that game...LOL...you were DEFINATELY out-teching me, but I think in that instance, the reason Green served you so well was because of your HUGE population compared to mine (::as he mumbles something about 'bout getting beaten to the PTS:: ) Sitting where I was, trying to get to the point where I could do a pop-boom and at least be in the general neighborhood of your overall population, I could keep pace with your research rate under FM, but I couldn't pass you. I looked at Green as a possibility, but I was so desperate for cash to rush my TF's that the crunch just hurt too much to handle.

THAT was a spanking and a half tho....and btw, to borrow a line from Travathian....you're a punk, Zso! LOL...but I have to say, that was the most fun losing I ever had!

-=Vel=-

[DogberryMan]

It has been my experience that running planed early can be useful to quickly increase your population (I mean real early before Hab Complex), but after that I almost always run green. I like the increased efficiency and when you combine that with the fact that I usually play Morgan…well with him you can run wealth (which comes pretty early in the game) and still get the +2 economy. To me anything more than +2 is wasting a bonus in some other area, like efficiency, which allows you to build more bases farther from your capital. Of course none of this is applicable with other factions, but that’s why I like Morgan (if he just didn’t have that dang -2 population limit). Also I find that the increased energy from the +2 economy is in many ways more useful than say Zak’s +2 research. I know that the research gives him a big jump on the techs early on, but Morgan’s +2 economy can easily compete later. (i.e. tech advance every 4 turns. That may seem slow to you guys, but I can never get better than that with Zak either). The other advantage of the +2 economy is that it is more flexible because it gives you raw energy that can then be allocated to research, economy, or luxuries.

------------------
"Are you good men and true?" Much Ado About Nothing, Act III, Scene III

[R-Tag]

Don't get me wrong, I love FM, I wish I could actually beat the game with it, but I'm still having tremendous difficulty with happyness, fungus, and worms.

After a certian point in the game, it simply becomes uneconomical (no pun intended) to continue with FM. Fungus begins destroy all of your terraforming improvements (no matter how many eco-friendly facilities you've built and dispite what the manual says about Hybrid Forest/Tree Farm.) Not to mention, even if you do have a lot of artillery to pound the worms to death, they STILL show up en mass every turn. There's no way you can fight them off. Once my main base was surrounded with what I suspect was more than 100 worms. Nothing I could do would keep them at bay. They destroyed my top 3 bases, and I was powerless to stop it.

So, I learned my lesson. Green is the only really worth while SE choice as far as the economy goes. Planed has it's advantages too, but Green is by far the most powerful, unfortunatly.

For example: if you're a Police State/ FM then you only really lose money because the police modifier is SO tremendous for FM that PS doesn't even begin to make up for it. Of course, you shouldn't really use FM in war time... but I digress. Oh, yes, my point is that... well I think I'm just going to try and fix the game again.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Since most of the talk of comparison of green to FM revolves around later game situations, I'll throw this out for consideration.

Demo/Green/Wealth GA is very easily achievable in late game stage without psych allocation at all (or at least very little). Transcendi the best all purpose energy specialist equivalent of 6 useful (2 econ and 4 labs) and 2 psych energy. These babies allow green to become more preferential. Onthe flip side is that you want to make as many of them as possible as quickly as possible. The -2 growth of green is a bit of an issue especially if you don't have vats. A base specialized at 50% workers turned talents from 50% transcendi will be churning out the moola and research and is well suited to crawler/trawler in energy from outside the base with the +2 econ. Couple it with ability to slam research to 100% (and ongoing energy coming in from transcendi) w/o penalty, a polluter base to attract some worms for harvesting for more moola. Need I say more, green starts looking pretty good.

OTOH if you've played a good early conquering game and have some submissives (I assume at this point you normally would be so powerful that others would refuse to be pacted with you) the higher (i.e greater thean +2) econs rock with respect to trade energy.

It is my feeling though at this point in the game the best approach is energy tho' through population aka transcendi. Maybe an arguement for Demo/planned pre-eudi and sans cloning vats i.e. anything that creates a perpetual pop boom.

Og

[shimmin]

R-Tag:

I've not had that degree of worm troubles in any of my games, regardless of SE choices. It sounds to me like your playstyle generates zounds more ecodamage than mine.

Perhaps you're producing more minerals than you really need. An energy focused economy, on the other hand, is more flexible (minerals are at one base, energy is everywhere) and when well-developed, can compensate for lower mineral production through rushbuying and especially upgrading.

If the ecodamage is mostly terraforming-related, consider moving the big ecodamage no-no's (energy parks, ag districts, borehole clusters; the stuff you'll be working with crawlers anyway) out of the base production radius. Moyo-style base placement is really good at this.

[Sindai]

quote: After a certian point in the game, it simply becomes uneconomical (no pun intended) to continue with FM. Fungus begins destroy all of your terraforming improvements (no matter how many eco-friendly facilities you've built and dispite what the manual says about Hybrid Forest/Tree Farm.)

Umm....no it doesn't. You're completely wrong about this. As Shimmin said, you just need to learn how to control your ecodamage.

I very seldom, if ever, have ecodamage problems with FM unless I'm also planet busting people at the time....

[WhiteElephants]

I thought I'd take a second to point out a couple misconceptions on Green and mindworms. First, your percentage to capture them decreases as you capture more. Therefore a huge captured army of mindworms is rare, though I've seen it happen. From what I understand your percentage decreases 10% with each capture (and maybe even built mindworm), but it never decreases below 10%. Second, the bonus from a positive planet rating only takes effect when you are the attacker. Meaning that it you have a +3 planet (+30%) and your opponent has a -3 planet (-30%) you don't effectively get a +60% when you attack him, only a +30%. When he goes to attack you he would then get a -30% which would be enough of a negative to even the 3-2 odds you get from psi combat. In all the benefits of Green concerning mindworms are marginal in my humble opinion. To say Green is overpowered and that you intend to "fix" the game is ludicrous as well. Concerning the social engineering choices most experienced player would tell you that they are pretty well balanced and that there are times and places for each choice you have available to you. I my experience I don't often choose Green until quite late in the game and sometimes never. I often transcend while in a state of pop boom that I can't achieve, without tinkering beyond my patience to get golden ages, in Green.

[Hydro]

I picked out a later mid game example with Zak in 2265:

13 bases, all size 14; all improvements up to fusion lab (building in almost all bases)
Diplomacy: pact with Santiago and Morgan; treaty with Domai; vendetta with Dee, Sven, and Lal

Dem/Green/Wealth GA (10%eco/20%psi/70%lab)
Lab 1956 (tech in 2 turns), income -109/yr (trade easily makes up for this loss)

Dem/FM/Wealth GA (10%eco/20%psi/70%lab; low +2 efficiency means massive loss in energy production and in allocation penalties)
Lab 1572 (tech in 3 turns), income -4/yr

Dem/FM/Knowledge GA (10%eco/20%psi/70%lab)
Lab 1932 (tech in 2 turns), income 36

In this instance FM doesn't do much good and D/G/W is the clear winner. Now, since I play double blind I did not have Enviro Eco and Planetary Eco until very late. Until I got these and built tree farms and hybrid forest FM served me well since it gave my energy production a real kick in the butt. However, after all the facilities were built the efficiency really kicked in and my ability to go GA blossomed. Key was Hybrid Forest for energy, and the psi bump it and Tree Farms gave. Since I play double blind Enviro Eco and Planetary Eco can be very elusive (and they were in this case - I just finished hybrid forests in my cities and recently got fusion power as my energy/tech rate took off).

By 2295 I had 37 bases (remember all those vendettas?) and am at war with everyone but loyal Santiago and Morgan:

D/G/W/C; GA; Income 109, Lab 5897 (1/turn)
D/FM/W/C; drone problems*; Income 170, Lab 6246 (1/turn)
D/FM/Kn/C; drone problems*; Income 181, Lab 5923 (1/turn)

* The drone problems were due to military units that are busting some heads, and if disbanded would probably go to GA.

So, FM and Green/Wealth/GA seem very similar to me. Maybe the vaunted Vel and other free marketers have some other tricks I am not familiar with.

Hydro

[Sikander]

I agree with ZsoZso that Green has the advantage with Labs, which are what I am most concerned with. FM seems like a worthy early game choice, but I can't see it's advantage once my specialist cities are up and running (early in the second century playing directed research). Since I am only working a few squares in each city, and using crawlers for the rest of my production, the benefit of +1 energy per square only yields me about 5-6 energy per base. My income is just fine, since every mature base has 10-11 Engineers.

Conversely, Green gives me efficiency, which I can use to good effect by building more bases and allocating 100% to labs. Micromanagement is nil, since I only have 5 or so workers at each base to worry about, and high efficiency means that there are few to no drone surprises.

I run planned until my first wave bases are maxed (14 or 16), then I switch to green and stay there. Once my infrastructure is complete in my core bases (and the SP race is settled to my benefit) I switch from Wealth to Knowledge for the morale and efficiency (and of course research). Now I am kicking out beaucoup labs without energy parks, and can rapidly build a powerful high tech military by building vanilla trained units in one turn, and upgrading them the next. In two turns I have a wave of clean, powerful forces, all of whom are elite, and all of which can be replaced or augmented at the rate of 1 per base per turn.

If for some reason I failed to get the Cloning Vats, I would of course have to resort to other means to get a pop boom in my subsequent bases, and these other means would mean a switch from green at any point before the late game (and the future SE choice which kicks growth). Playing a growth inhibited faction like the Pirates requires a different set of priorities. They can really use the efficiency of Green, but for my first wave of bases it is imperative to GA pop boom. Later on this is tougher, and sometimes I just let subsequent bases ride the wave of enormous food production to populate. The Pirates need the HGP and the Cloning Vats badly.

[Misotu]

Just briefly, I find FM/Wealth to be a good option early mid-game, but after that, like zsozso, I find Green/Knowledge blows it away. I generally play the PKs, and I need the efficiency bonuses of Dem/Green/Know to enable me to run a serious skew on research. Anything up to 100% labs, with no penalties. On my games there is no question that Green/Knowledge is *the* way to go if you want all-out research. Plus of course it's so much easier to get equipped militarily once you have air power if you stay out of FM.

[DilithiumDad]

Vel, you're wrong about FM beating Green in late-mid and late game. I use planned early, FM for the majority of the game, then Green for the middle to end. Factors that favor Green are
1. Having lots of bases at a large distance from your HQ that generate lots of energy (Borehole cluster on the opposite end of the planet, for example),
2. Having lots of specialists becuase you are getting nutrients from sky hydroponics and thus have fewer squares in production to get the +1 energy per square
3. Having bases with excessive mineral production causing eco-damage, where going Green could reduce ecodamage from 10 to 1 or 2.
4. Having the tech to get nutrients/energy/mineral from fungus, which is impossible in FM.


------------------
Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

So in summary, what I am hearing from most folks is something like:


Early game expansion - Normally planned until beuaracracy warning (I myself prefer FM to expedite the run to IA and restriction lifting)
Mid early game - FM/wealth until infrastructure builds allow a pop boom
Early mid game - Demo/planned/wealth w/ creches for pop boom (advent of airpower)
Mid game - Demo/green W/ wealth or Knowledge

Late game (Transcendi avaialable) - w/o cloning vats Demo/planned creches or Demo/planned/eudi for pop boom w/o need for creches.


Thoughts?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

As I continue to ponder the question of is Green overpowered as a societal choice, I began again to think of the phases of the game as outlined above.

It occurs to me that Green become preferential prehab domes, where in one is attempting expansion horizontally as it is assumed most bases are maxed out to hab complex limits. Green is great for this purpose as it allows better eff. and ability to war and conquer.

However, once hab domes are in existance the race to vertical population growth begins again. Now then green holds a serious draw back, namely -2 growth. Asssuming you've missed out on the Cloning vats SP then population explosion can not normally occur with any standard SMAC/SMACX faction whilst running green. Ex: Demo/Green/Eudi w creches allows a total of +4 growth. The only means to explode your population is to have a GA. Population explosion is of course critical in that they normally are specialists with great energy returns. However GAs are only allowed while half of your total population are workers turned talents. Realistically speaking then the best you could hope for would be a size 40 base allowing 20 workers turned talent. This of course assumes you've set up base spacing to allow a full 20 worked squares. During the pop boom of course one needs to forgo overspecialization (i.e greater than 50% of the popualtion as specialsits) which in of itself is an opportunity lost. As most people prefer tighter spaced bases tho base sizes are most likely maxed out at around 24 - 26 with 13 talents/13 specialists.

To my mind at this point you probably are better served Demo/planned/Knowledge/Eudi to ensure a perpetual boom even w/o creches or of course capture the vats SP , failing that Demo/planned/Wealth/Cyber and build the creches in newly founded bases as it assumed your core bases already have creches.

So in summary IMHO, green is a wonderful mid late game societal choice but no more overpowering than either of the other choices. FM may lose its luster as the game progresses but one can make the arguement that even planned can be very effective in the late game.

Og