Tips needed for playing Hive

Lazerus · February 10, 2003, 20:50

OK my main faction choice is yang since i like the high support (seeing these morgan and zak bases with no units guarding them freaks me out

!!!) and good industry/growth rate the hive gets. My start is decent enough (i think) since i head straight for crawlers and eco engineering to get all those rocky squares mined and fed back to bases.
I do normally just let growth get on with itself since at +30% with planned it doesn't need that much encouragement.
Getting 1 maybe 2 defensive unit at each base for the police value mainly and then atleast 2-3 formers i already do.
However reading about these advanced things such as induced pop booms and looking at the terraforming patterns of other people, forests everywhere and a few boreholes dotted about and such has got me thinking if this could improve my gameplay alot since i can kick the AI into touch fairly easy but have only had a couple of matches against humans where i have to really make friends to get dragged along tech wise but atleast my military then booms if i do need to fight, any tips for fighting people since i havent done that yet just sat around protecting (a peaceful yang

)

So could anybody who has a refined strategy please share a few tips since on large maps against other people i have to either wait until myself or another gets empath guild and in most games i see this is a no builder?

thanks

Main_Brain · February 11, 2003, 16:20

With his Growth and Industry Yang is a Fine builder.
A lil' harder as he lacks Energy but well.
an EnergyPark takes care of that :=)

sevencubed · February 11, 2003, 17:23

Apart from pumping out as many crawlers as you can, which you say you have done already, the only thing u have to do if you want to fight people is to use the industry rating in your favour. Usually the other factions should not be able to keep up with you when it comes to replenishing troops, so keep them coming...

And it should be amazingly easy since : you should choose Police state and get +2 support (more free troops) and no negative efficiency. Add Planned as you say and here is a total of +2 Industry and +3 growth. The real boost will come if you build the Cloning Vats which will eliminate the negatives of Power and Thought Control. Can you see the pattern? you have a total of +3 Industry, Infinite growth, +4 police, +4 morale, +2 probe, and +4 support! who cares about energy reserves and the rest of tech, i guess that with such ratings Yangs army should be HUGE so what is holding you from fighting others?

The only strategy you should look after is that which will get you to the Cloning Vats before the others do.

Xian · February 11, 2003, 17:36

Have one decent sized and industrial capacity base pump out nothing but colony pods and ship them everywhere. Youd be surprised how well this works on big maps, but you need doctrine flexibility to really work well

Gain control of the monsoon Jungle, or kill whoevers occupying it.

If you havent already, gain control of the Weather Paradigm and Cloning Vats

This is the only faction where you can build a military and have it sitting there doing nothing, in every other faction support and lack of Industry would kill you.

... You can use this standing army to your advantage and bully people for techs

Dont be afraid of choosing Green

Datajack Franit · February 11, 2003, 18:03

Playing as the Hive is too easy.. dull.. boooring

CEO Aaron · February 11, 2003, 18:30

Without Democracy or a big economy, pop booming is pretty much out of the question for you, so securing the planetary transit network is fairly critical for you, to be able to keep pace growth wise with other factions, as is, obviously, the Cloning Vats. Truth be told, however, you can't expect to beat the builders to this technology, so your best bet is to beeline for Planned, Police, grabbing doctrine Flexibility on the way, then beelining for Doctrine: Air Power. Get your foil probes out early, and find your enemies (all other factions are your enemy, btw), rape them for tech, then use your high industry and support to flood them with X-missile rovers.

Meanwhile, back at home, take all your stolen tech and build any and all morale improving improvements and wonders you can grab, but don't go nuts with psych facilities, you'll be building punishment spheres in all your cities.

As for beelining IA, stop thinking like a builder, start thinking like a virus. Each new base you build is 4 more units with free support, another pus-infested boil on the face of Planet.

Flubber · February 11, 2003, 18:34

I find that the ICS (infinite city sprawl) works quite well for Yang-- I find the Cloning Vats to be a quite distant target and if Yang has a tech lead to get to it first, he likely is winning in any event. I aim for the Weather Paradigm and the PTS. The idea is to use better support to have a veritable HORDE of formers while police take care of unhappiness. I find I terraform mainly boreholes and condensor/farms with some forests ( I do this even before restrictions are lifted if the base has a forest of two to work .. The idea is to work 2-3 boreholes per base while you crawl the nutrients to keep the base fed. Base spacing is tight. A typical base may have a population of 4 with 3 citizens working boreholes and the 4th working or a doctor as necessary (If a doctor I will usually crawl more nutrients to grow to size 5 and use better specialists). Two crawled condensor farms keeps the population stable. Once this base is set up, you produce crawlers and formers to be used to improve a few super bases. About every 3rd or 4th one of the "regular" bases can be set up with morale enhancing facilities and will work at producing military units or probes.

About 3 or 4 main bases are chosen to be "super" bases in which you first crawl a lot of nutrients to grow , terraform forests to work, fill them with facilities for research and cash and then crawl and trawl energy like crazy. As cash and formers/crawlers become available, other bases get the "treatment". A creche and 12 excess crawled nuts can make for pretty fast growth.

Note on forests-- I generally love them but use them less as Yang. Usually I terraform forests until more advanced terraforming becomes available and work them only until restrictions start to lift.

IF I can accomplish this, Yang is a juggernaught . The main problems

1. getting to crawlers and the PTS as fast as good human opposition with better researching factions
2. Land and terrain issues-- If cramped on an island, it can take a while to get the necessary techs to get off that island and then it is that much longer to crawlers
3. Close neighbors and early fighting-- despite the possibilities for numerical advantage, Yang can be in trouble early due to a tech disadvantage

In a word, the problem is RESEARCH--The ECON rating hurts and the usual way to combat this is with the growth advantage so that size compensates for less enegy per base. I generally find that if Yang can find a way, any way to get the key techs, they can be pretty tough to beat.
BUt if Yang cannot get the WP or the PTS, it can be a long time to even get the ability to terraform well and the lack of the PTS ,means that the difficulty/impossibility of pop booming really really hurts

Just my 2 cents

CEO Aaron · February 11, 2003, 20:59

I've been thinking over my comments re: Yang's game, and I have some more thoughts to impart:

Specialists are your friend: Unaffected by economy or efficiency, you can pile these guys on to artifically crank your labs to pretty high levels, provided you can trawl nutrients to feed them. You still won't have that much cash to rush facilities, but your industry and support can make up for that somewhat.

Explore like mad: Since you're not going to be in Planned Economy for the duration of the game, you're free to scour the seas for Unity Pods. Start out with a transport foil, with an armed foil escort, but once you get the technology, scrap these in favor of IODs. Always grab your Unity pods with transports to maximise your Alien Artifacts. Those seaborne pods are loaded with cash, tech and free units, just too good to pass up. Most builders will be running FM/Demo, so odds are they won't be sparing too many explorers to search Planet for the riches that await you. Make sure you beat them to it.

Shake them all down: Even if you have no intention of launching a full-scale offensive, you can bluff many a human opponent into a few tech bribes, just to leave them alone. Most builders want to be left in peace to build, and will gladly send you packing with a tech or some energy credits.

Mongoose · February 11, 2003, 21:08

Quote:

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Shake them all down: Even if you have no intention of launching a full-scale offensive, you can bluff many a human opponent into a few tech bribes, just to leave them alone. Most builders want to be left in peace to build, and will gladly send you packing with a tech or some energy credits.

What MP crowd do you play in? Can I play, too?

I have NEVER seen any human player bribe a human controlled Hive to leave them alone. Prime reason being that you can't trust another human to take the bribe and leave. More likely, he takes the bribe and attacks you anyway, more vigorously than he might have done - thanks to the new tech and/or ec.

Flubber · February 11, 2003, 21:21

Shake me down

Never happen-- If I am in a hopeless position I would appeal to the other players for help which I might get if taking my bases would make you too strong-- we did this for mongoose when he came on in vets2 as a replacement in an awful position

If your assault is unstoppable, I would burn terraforming, bases, self destruct units etc all in an attempt to make your assault as unprofitable and costly as possible. If I burned my outer ring of bases you would have a delay in getting to the next ring in which I could at least attempt a defense. What you would NOT get is an extorted tech (you would have to steal them) and I might even give any advanced techs to your enemies just to spite you.

I feel this behaviour mimics real world in which one would do everything possible to hurt a conqueror.

AS to your other points

1. I agree that specialists are great but it is tough to get a lot of them when pop booming is either hard/unavailable

2. Explore-- yes yes yes -- explore like mad and I would add that you should send probeships everywhere and steal tech rather than extort it-- Yes a theft might peeve the victim but start with the AI and with humans the reality is that if they are not pacted with you forever, they are only a potential enemy anyway. I also like stealing energy from AI rich factions-- they sometimes have thousands stockpiled.

Mongoose · February 12, 2003, 01:23

Hmmm...speaking of Vets2...turn?

Flubber · February 12, 2003, 03:36

tomorrow for vets 2-- I post sometimes from work where playing is impossible-- and I cannot play any turns on Tuesaday the way my schedule is

CEO Aaron · February 12, 2003, 03:42

I don't see how giving away a non-weapon tech to a human controlled faction is necessarily suicide. Sure, if I gave you Non-Linear Math, sure I deserve the horrible violation you have in store for me, but there are plenty of techs whose use encourage an immediate investment into infrastructure, and if you're building facilities, you're not building units.

If you're the kind of sleazy backstabbing git who can't just take his free cookie and bother someone else, then I will certainly never give you tech to go away again. If going back on your word is commonplace in the multiplayer games you're in, no you certainly _CAN'T_ play in any games I'm in.

Datajack Franit · February 12, 2003, 05:18

This is a stupid question

but where are you playing multiplayer games?

Lazerus · February 12, 2003, 08:23

yeah i remember when i tried the no former game and had every square crawled and all my people working as specialists i acheived far better results then i expected to.
In most of my recent games where the map has been standard or smaller i've considered the PTS a second rate project really since with my growth rating most bases are size 3 already and instantly concentrate on crawlers. I remember playing huge maps against the comps where this project was a goldmine literally doubling my pop every few turns (finished the game with around 3700+).
About super bases normally i switch my third base to getting recycling tanks and formers earliest and when i've got ability to build crawlers that base shoots up then i make sure my capital gets up aswell since i do crawl energy to this later. Just played a game against the comp trying to make use of an energy park, it worked fairly well since i only had third of the bases i noramlly had. Prefer size though since mineral production is higher and i've got more perimeter defenses lying about.

Xian · February 12, 2003, 17:45

Can someone please go over how to make a specialized base i.e. an energy park?

CEO Aaron · February 12, 2003, 19:05

Well, when most folks talk about a _specialist_ base, they mean crawling nutrients to feed your citizens, who wind up being converted to scientists and thinkers and such. The advantage of such a ploy is that the specialist citizens do not contribute to your drone population, and the labs/psych/econ they generate is immune to waste due to bad efficiency ratings.

However, it sounds like you're asking how you create a Super Science City, or other energy-park fed dynamo. The process for this is fairly simple. You need a small army of formers and supply crawlers to start. Get yourself a wide open piece of land, and start planing solar collectors and eschelon mirrors, then start crawling the squares for energy. Obviously, the crawlers must be homed in your Super Science City for maximum benefit. To really get the best results, have the following wonders all built in your SSC:

Merchant Exchange: +1 energy per square counts for crawled squares too!

Longevity Vaccine: Not useful for more labs, but if you run Free Market, the +50% econ will net you a ton of cash.

Supercollider: +100% labs for this base. Duh.

Theory of Everything: See Supercollider.

Network Backbone: Still more labs, this time for Commerce and Network Nodes of every base on Planet.

Space Elevator: Doubles Energy Reserves at this base for HUGE cash!

With all of these projects built, and of course all the usual tech and econ base facilities, the energy you crawl will be multiplied many times.

Flubber · February 12, 2003, 20:53

JUst one addition to CEO Aaron's very good explainantion of a SSC . . . I often like to make my SSC a port somewhere within my empire. While you cannot get as much energy per square from sea tiles as you can from land tiles ( with high altitude, echelons and solar collectors) you do get a great return on invested former time since all you need build are tidal harnesses.

CEO Aaron · February 12, 2003, 21:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Flubber
JUst one addition to CEO Aaron's very good explainantion of a SSC . . . I often like to make my SSC a port somewhere within my empire. While you cannot get as much energy per square from sea tiles as you can from land tiles ( with high altitude, echelons and solar collectors) you do get a great return on invested former time since all you need build are tidal harnesses.

A very good point, with the following caveat: Remember that while your former time will be shorter, tidal parks are much harder to defend than a land-based park, and your trawler fleet will cost considerably more minerals to deploy than a land-based fleet. Tidal parks do have other useful strategic advantages, however. Having a fleet of trawlers surrounding your coastline will make it very difficulty for invaders to approach undetected, especially if you spend the extra resources to equip them with deep radar.

Another energy harvesting option worth mentioning is, if you have easy access to the poles and a horde of formers, is to pokadot the polar caps with boreholes, and send crawlers to those. The boreholes are more expensive in terms of former time, but few players will be looking for them, allowing you to crawl them with relative impunity. The poles are often rife with rocky terrain, so I usually mine the alternating squares, and send off crawlers to harvest those minerals as well.

Ogie Oglethorpe · February 13, 2003, 11:07

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the PTS pod factory/ booming gambit for Yang.

It goes like this,

Ingredients - minimum of 2 crawlers
- 1 colony pod
- 2 unworked boreholes
- PTS special project

Directions:

Take colony pod and establish base near two unworked boreholes. Rehome crawlers to newly esablished base and set to convey mineral resources of borehole to new base. Set Base production to colony pods. A new colony pod should be produced every a minimum of every 2 turns.

Take colony pods and send them either to A) established bases and hit B to add a population point to the target base or B) send them out for further new base sites.

On turn 5 or 6, ie. the third colony pod you be asked if you want to disband the base. Do so. Take new colony pod and repeat the process. Rehome crawlers, reset productions to colony pods etc.

Rinse and repeat.

If you choose A) choose to establsih a SSC and use new population points to fuel specialists. Note by adding population points in this matter one does not need consider hab complexes or hab domes to achieve large populations. Also note: amount of useful specialists (i.e. specialists whose main function is to NOT reduce drones in another words any specialist other than doctors, empaths, and transcendi) is capped. IIRC it can not be more than 18-20, any more than this and the specialists are doctors, empaths, or transcendi (if transcendi who cares as they are the best specialist anyway)

Lazerus · February 13, 2003, 11:12

what about creating a man-made lake near the centre of your territory if theres already water there to have 1 base working the land squares for energy and a second science base trawling the seas ??
I suppose it would be harder work and prob not worth it in my opinion since just having the sea park near a base with a few good interceptors and then some needles for checking to see if theres any ships would be better. If the enemy wants to keep kamikazing ships to get rid of 1 trawler then he'd be losing far more minerals.
So would it be wise to have all my inner ring bases get enough nutrients to support them and switch all people to engineers or thinkers (would have to buy facs) and have all outer ring bases crawl minerals to keep expanding military wise ?

Capt Dizle · February 13, 2003, 12:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the PTS pod factory/ booming gambit for Yang.

It goes like this,

Ingredients - minimum of 2 crawlers
- 1 colony pod
- 2 unworked boreholes
- PTS special project

Directions:

Take colony pod and establish base near two unworked boreholes. Rehome crawlers to newly esablished base and set to convey mineral resources of borehole to new base. Set Base production to colony pods. A new colony pod should be produced every a minimum of every 2 turns.

Take colony pods and send them either to A) established bases and hit B to add a population point to the target base or B) send them out for further new base sites.

On turn 5 or 6, ie. the third colony pod you be asked if you want to disband the base. Do so. Take new colony pod and repeat the process. Rehome crawlers, reset productions to colony pods etc.

Rinse and repeat.

If you choose A) choose to establsih a SSC and use new population points to fuel specialists. Note by adding population points in this matter one does not need consider hab complexes or hab domes to achieve large populations. Also note: amount of useful specialists (i.e. specialists whose main function is to NOT reduce drones in another words any specialist other than doctors, empaths, and transcendi) is capped. IIRC it can not be more than 18-20, any more than this and the specialists are doctors, empaths, or transcendi (if transcendi who cares as they are the best specialist anyway)

What a waste of borehole energy!

Find a mineral special on rocks and a nearby rocky square and use those instead. Thats 11 mins crawled to 12 but it won't really affect your production and its cheaper on former time.

And you are going to need to the former time to build condensers to feed all those specialists.

Flubber · February 13, 2003, 12:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the PTS pod factory/ booming gambit for Yang.

While I did stress the PTS as a great project for Yang, you are correct in that I did not go on to explain this tactic. I have always liked it for founding new bases and continuing to sprawl. I may have to try it for pushing the hab limits.

RE sea parks

Since they can go anywhere there is shallow water, I will have the bulk of my trawlers in areas that are more "safe" suchas small seas bounded by land I control. Other than interior areas, I tend to spread the trawlers out to make plinking them more difficult. I will always have a goodly number sent out there specifically as sentries ( the offshore radar platform). When I am being very diligent I even go to each of them individually each turn so that they can do a little patrol before returning to a good (terraformed) tile. Sometimes I will use them as totally dispensible scouts-- when the information they can give me is more valuable than their mineral cost (I do prefer probeships for the scouting role but a trawler causes less offense)

I really like their role as sentries. In the Battle of the Manifold 7 game I established relative peace with a neighbor conditioned on the agreement that neither of us bring military within "striking distance" of the other. Our empires are are about 12-14 tiles apart across the ocean. I have placed numerous trawlers about 4-6 tiles off his coast as an early warning system. They don't gather huge resources there (2 food each IIRC) but they are support-free, are no threat to the other player and provide a great sensor net

KrysiasKrusader · February 13, 2003, 13:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Mongoose

I have NEVER seen any human player bribe a human controlled Hive to leave them alone.

I have not only seen this... But have done this... And not only with the Hive...

Quote:

Prime reason being that you can't trust another human to take the bribe and leave.

No you can't. This is a major disadvantage of dealing with another human: He is ultimately trying to do the same thing as you are to him - win the game.

However, short to long term agreements can and are made. "Most" of the people that I have dealt with, have been honorable.

Quote:

More likely, he takes the bribe and attacks you anyway, more vigorously than he might have done - thanks to the new tech and/or ec.

A delicate decision to make. Your reputation will precede you in future games (with the same opponents any way).

Ogie Oglethorpe · February 13, 2003, 21:31

Quote:

Originally posted by jimmytrick

What a waste of borehole energy!

Find a mineral special on rocks and a nearby rocky square and use those instead. Thats 11 mins crawled to 12 but it won't really affect your production and its cheaper on former time.

And you are going to need to the former time to build condensers to feed all those specialists.

Point taken.

I stand corrected. Aaah for the rocky min special!!!

But just rememebre the key is to make sure that said rocky roaded min special mine and rocky roaded mine are in close enough proximity to each other and to the colony pod factory base so they can be taken to base rehomed and then back onto the appropriate square when the base is respawned. (Or one could assist using a land transport I suppose)

Lazerus · February 13, 2003, 21:59

I like the sound of that

gonna have to try it once i've got a nice road link to the middle of nowhere or wherever those minerals are

Lazerus · February 14, 2003, 08:29

About being bribed :
I've only played in 2 ip games and im still early on in the pbem so im not experienced in dealing with people yet but rather then military threats it seems to easiest way to extort other people is simply to let them bid for your vote in council elections. Since without luck i haven't been able to keep pace with the election count of a good Lal player yet (and im abit behind on tech so i can't bribe my own campaign) so if theres a tech rich morgan or zak whos trying to get it aswell then yangs large pop makes him a better choice to bribe then say deirdre (i remember getting something like 4-5 techs in total and if he wants continued support could always ask for a continuous flow

)