Capturing Fungal Towers

Closey · March 24, 2001, 19:19

Managed to actually capture a fungal tower today.

Haven't been able to before, and I don't really think it's supposed to be possible.

I had some eco-damage in one of my cities and so I got some new fungus. From one of them a few worms and a tower emerged. When I sent one of my worms to fight them back, one of the new worms acted as defender.. And I captured the entire heap, including the tower.

But, the next turn the tower was back to a wild unit again. (With my new worms standing on the same place.) So I guess the game doesn't allow you to control them at all. Got me all excited tho. Well, at least until the next turn that is.

Thantos · March 24, 2001, 20:22

Just when you think that you have seen everything in smacx

knowhow2 · March 25, 2001, 19:02

closey,

did you really capture the tower or did you just capture the mindowrms in the tower square? because this also happened to me once. I captured a mindworm in a tower but the tower itself never "turn colour" so I figure I never did capture the tower, just the mindworm in it. It you leave the mindworm in it, the tower won't produce any new mindworms. Just a tip.

Closey · March 26, 2001, 02:40

Hmm, I'm pretty sure the tower changed from red to green. Can't check right now since I'm at work though. I'll check when I get home and confirm it then, ok?

fluffy · March 26, 2001, 07:17

It has happened to me too - the tower did change colour when it was captured, along with the worms, but by the next term had reverted to red...

cbn · March 26, 2001, 10:15

Towers are the weirdest form of alien life. I have never captured one but I have had them sprout in fungus that appeared underneath a working former. I moved the former off the square and killed the tower with an empath unit but I always wondered if I could have terraformed it away or if I should have tried killing it without moving the former. If it happens again I must remember to save the game and experiment.

Closey · March 26, 2001, 10:44

Yeah, in one of my latest game they tended to pop up under a working crawler. Happened lots of times too. Probably because that town was producing a lot of eco-damage and was pretty much surrounded by crawlers, but it still looked odd.

Blake · March 26, 2001, 17:29

Being a big fan of ecodamage and worm farming I've noticed some stuff about eco-damage induced fungal towers:

They can appear under a stack of units.
If some of the units are formers, and you terraform away the fungus, the tower remains, next turn the tile has reverted to fungus, and any improvment destroyed (more damaging than the original pop).
When attacking a tower with units stacked under it, the unit with strongest defense defends. Regardless of owner. For example if your nifty 3r Former is under a funal tower and you order your lowly empath scout rover to attack guess who defends.. that's right, your former. (Even more embarrasing when your not so lowly 8r Rover former defends....)

If the tower has the highest defensive value then it defends per normal, however all of your units take collateral damage, if your units under it are non combat they are destroyed. (non combat = crawler, probe NOT formers, transports)

So when a fungal tower Pop's up on my units I usually move all my units out and kill the tower, then move them back to clear the fungus. If I don't have Xenoempathy dome and the tile doesn't have roads I'll leave my formers under it, and kill the tower. My formers take damage, but it saves time moving. If you have armoured units under the Tower you must move them out.