Supply Crawler?

[Velociryx]

Hey Kaz....yep....I agree that in MP, especially on smaller maps, getting some well seasoned troopers in the field early can have a big impact....esp. if you happen to start on the same landmass as one of your opponents....I think I will experiment with the idea, but when I implement it, I will probably build it into the overall scheme of things thusly:
Thin expansion per my previous posts, and, as I begin to spread out, take one of my core bases (which can now no longer participate effectively in the continued expansion), and set him up to do military stuff exclusively....that will, in effect, be that base's "secret project." I'll see how that goes....

Oh, and, to continue the timeline I began earlier, last evening I played out the next fifty turns of the game, with results as follows:

2151: Base 12 Founded

2152: Tech Advance: Ethical Calc.\\Weather Paradigm and Genome Projects begun.

2158: Tech Advance: Gene Splicing

2161: Weather Paradigm and Genome Projects completed.\\ Planetary Transit System and Virtual World begun\\Base 13 Founded.

2165: Tech Advance: Ecological Engineering

2166: Virtual World begun at another base, with an eye toward switching to the Empath Guild as soon as I get the tech.

2167: Virtual World complete.\\Pact with Deirdre against the lizards.

2170: Planetary Transit System Complete\\Tech Advance: Environmental Economics\\Adding Deomcracy to the SE mix.

2172: Base 14 (final base for the continent) built\\Tech Advance: Centauri Empathy (switching project from VW to Empath Guild)\\Contact Svensgaard: Traded for Applied Physics

2174: Empath Guild complete

2175: Contact Roze. Traded for Progen. Psych. Got myself elected Governor.

2177: Yang declares vendetta (yawn).\\ Begin Prototype work for a Recon Rover and a Synthmetal Rover\\Tech Advance: Bioadaptive somethingorother....work begun on the Planetary Energy Grid

2181: Tech Advance: Doctrine Initiative

2182: Work begun on the Maritime Control Center

2186: Planetary Energy Grid complete\\Tech Advance - Doctrine Loyalty\\Work begun on Command Nexus

2190: Tech Advance: Intellectual Integrity.

2193: Martime Control Center completed.\\Work begun on the Citizen's Defense Force.

2195: Tech advance: Cyberethics\\Treefarms have been built everywhere by this point, so I'm switching to Planned to boom my bases bigger.

2196: Begin to cash in my previously built crawlers to make room for more workers and continued growth.

2198: Citizen's Defense Force Completed\\Work begun on the Planetary Datalinks

2199: After the sunspots activity, I contacted Deirdre and bought Field Modulation and High Energy Chemistry from her....goody! \\Began Prototyping a Plasma Rover

2200: Tech Advance: Planetary Economics\\Plasma Rover rolls off the line, with an eye toward upgrading my military across the board....I am researching Synthetic Fossil Fuels though, so I might make do for a few more turns, and do a weapon AND armor upgrade once Missile weapons have been prototyped....then I think it will be time to go have a little talk to Yang....\\called Roze up and traded techs to get Neural Grafting (she just finished building the Neural Amp....I like the project, but was not hurt by not getting it).\\Datalinks come online next turn.

Immediate goals: crop failures at one of my bases threaten to ram it back down to size five unless action is taken, so plans are in the works to rush build a hybrid forest there to offset the crop failure (and to that end, I will be switching back to Market next turn). That, upgrading my military to plasma\missile, and gearing up to enslave or elminiate Yang will be the main goals of the next segment (2200-2250).

Depending on how long the war with Yang takes (he's only got five bases, so I do not anticipate it being a drawn out affair....once I apply the full weight of my economy toward the creation of war materials, I expect it to be a short fight), other goals include finishing Hybrid Forests everywhere, building the Aesetic Virtues (and whatever other projects look interesting), booming all mainland bases up to size sixteen, and expanding into the sea.

I've also got my eye on a sizable landmass just south and east of my continent which appears to be empty, and pretty close, too....there are half a dozen formers already in position to begin raising land to it....

-=Vel=-

[Enigma]

Oh my, I am really sad I missed this whole thread. I was traveling almost the whole time, but now that I am back home I have an opportunity to talk with Vel himself.

First of all the part of your strategy that is drastically different than mine is the early crawlers. I almost never play UoP cause I think they are too easy against the comp, but when I play Morgan depending on map size I never get Industrial Automation before year 50- usually more like year 70. I build the HGP in my headquarters base or whatever base has significant bonuses after it has built its 3rd pod or so and I have hurried in rec commons and rec tanks. It takes forever but I usually start fairly early because I can crank out those pods fairly quickly, and here is how: (with Morgan)

I have a drastically different build queue for my first 3 new bases as Morgan. Since I have no where near the tech of the UoP I usually can't get centauri ecology AND SotHB.. so in a directed research game I usually shoot for biogenetics, social psych and SotHB although sometimes SotHB does not appear as a choice. But anyway I almost always get biogenetics fairly early, and hurry in recycling tanks into my 2nd base around year 5. For me this is much more effective than hurrying in formers for several reasons:

It gives me more energy which powers even more rush buying

The extra food is much the same as building a farm, it really speeds up base growth and to me my colony pods are produced when the base grows, base growth is the biggest factor.

The extra mineral helps support a defense, which as Morgan you really need due to the support penalty.

PLUS in a recycling tanks vs former comparison the recycling tanks affect your base for 4-5 extra turns since you have to move the former and then it takes a while for the terraforming to come in.


Anyway this gives me very good expansion. I usually rely almost entirely on unity rovers or the like for defense. In the early game my production consists almost entirely of formers, tanks, and pods. I try cram in as many bases as possible before my neighbors get mad.

I usually have only 1 unit per 2-3 bases, and because of this my bases have no police and riot at size 2. I keep my population as low as possible, only my first 2 bases are larger and they have recreation commons for when they grow to size 3.

My SP priority is generally- HGP, WP, Empath guild, Command nexus and PTS in that order.

The HGP helps my expand as fast as possible, which is a major priority. As Morgan in the midgame I have tons of cash and if I have only a small number of bases nowhere to spend it. But if I have 20-30 bases I build a crawler or two and hurry in tree farms.

But again I noticed your strategy calls for really early crawler building. I usually would rather build another pod than a crawler. Once I get the HGP I still frequently have size 2 bases that riot, and one my expansion is really crankin' I have size 1 drone bases. I just hurry in a recreation commons or ignore it, that base is still giving me 6 energy or so when I am FM/Wealth.

Rather than build many crawlers and use them to increase per turn minerals I usually just build a crawler or two at non SP bases, and from then on upgrade my crawlers to trance synthemetal. 90 credits to gain 60 minerals, not a bad ratio at all. A few of these help me to get the PTS. I almost always miss the WP and the empath guild, and I usually opt for the command nexus after those 2 are gone.

As far as SMAX is concerned the planetary energy grid is great, especially since none of the AI's seem to eager to get it. This really increases my energy over all, plus I gain a lot of energy by disbanding existing banks, plus it saves a lot of time in expansion.

Once I get eco engineering I make a lot more crawlers. A crawler on a mined rocky square gives me 4.. which is 2x better than anything pre eco engineering. It is especially troublesome having only 5 or 6 squares to harvest from in each base radius, it makes having the WP essential to speed terraforming.

Generally my build order for bases beyond my first 10 is- Rec tanks, formers, rec commons, creche or crawler, tree farm. Once I have 15 tree farms installed hybrid forests are no challenge whatsoever to hurry in.

My goal in having so many bases is to make my exponential growth period to last as long as possible. If I made only 10 bases my exponential growth would be the short period where I am hurrying in tree farms and hybrid forests. After that I have a lot of cash and nowhere to spend it on. By having a constant pool of what I call "raw energy"-

that is bases that do not have many facilities and would have a better gain to cost ratio than building very advanced facilities in older bases- I can have exponential growth for a longer period of time.

I have saves for my ideal version of this kind of development. I had a lot of land, which is rather rare, so I really had no problem building 25 bases. I was very lucky and had the WP and had 40 minerals or so in my HQ by 120. 120 was a kind of a landmark year, I had an income of 500 which is much much more than I had gotten in most previous games. At that point it makes no difference what I do, but just for the heck of it I build an energy park to see what it can do. I ended up transcending around year 2265, which for a newbie isn't bad at all. At 20% econ and 80% labs I had 3000 credits or so. I had so many formers (130) that each turn became incredibly tedious... still an exercise in showing how pathetic the AI can be. The AI never got above missle/plasma.

I usually prefer a map with midlevel rockiness because mines really help develop my infrastructure.

As far as military is concerned I have one major thought- either be completely pacifistic or very aggresive. Sometimes this turns games into more hybrid style. If there is someone on my continent I will just crank out 10 impact rovers- get them close to the edge of my territory- switch to fundy/simple/simple, and crush him. Then I will disband every military unit and ignore defense for a while. Part of this is due to my Morganite/democracy tendencies which is necesary to keep inefficiency drones low, the other part is that the AI is quite incompetent at launching naval assaults.


Anyway any tips Vel?

Back to the crawler thread, people here have said that a gas attacker should be easily vanquished by a SAM defender, but this is not the case. The +100% sam bonus only applies when attacking, when a unit scrambles (the only way to defend against gas choppers in this case) it defends with it's weapons against the enemy weapons, no sam modifier is applied. Unless the chopper takes a lot of damage from long distance travel the gas bonus should knock the defender out of the sky.

Garrisons still rule though. I once was pleasantly surprised when the AI-Yang actually offered a kind of resistance to a late game invasion by me. He had 20 fusion jets stockpiled and actually kamikazied several to take back a base. Plus a barrage of conventional missles wherever I tried to keep a PB in a base for 1 turn. Eventually I hurried in every defense modifier known to man, with results as follows:
I had an elite AAA probability garrison in a base with aerospace complex, tachyon field, geostationary defense pod, sensor, and of course the inherent base defense bonus. It's overall defense power was 56.25, it took several conventional missles to destroy each garrison!

[This message has been edited by Enigma (edited April 01, 2000).]

[Velociryx]

Hey Enigma! Just ventured back this way and read your postings....I'm gonna give your expansion method a go (and besides, I dearly LOVE playing Morgan....'tis a good excuse to fire up the big-yellow-mulch-machine) and see how it works for me....will write back later with the results!
-=Vel=-

[Enigma]

Thanks Vel. Well like I said I tried your strategy and it was alarmingly more powerful than anything I have done with Morgan. My strat is just a shabby excuse for a strat, although it seems to work well for Morgan..

I have heard from several people about the 5 on a dice approach, of which you are an advocate. Could you possibly send me a save file where this actually made a difference before year 150? It has potential but just seems awfully ackward in the early game.
[This message has been edited by Enigma (edited April 07, 2000).]

[Adam_Smith]

Damn, Ya'll post some BIG posts

[Velociryx]

Hey guy....and you're absolutely right...it really IS awkward in the early game...the strategy doesn't truly hit stride 'til the bases on the fringe have hybrid forests in place (and thus, a whole MESS of excess food), but that that point, you get a monster science base (max size, all thinkers), and a "punishment sphere" base, in the sense that, with no workers, even if you are running market, troops assigned to this base (clean, of course) won't cause the base to riot. Sadly, the investment for this setup is pretty steep, which is the downside of the plan...the upshot though, is that when you reach the transcendent veil and are ready to build the last two projects in the game, you can re-work your base production, and get the last two projects essentially for free, having already dumped the mineral production into enough crawlers to finish it in a single turn by mass-disbanding them.

I don't know that I have any of the old test games anymore, but I'll start another with that approach and send it along. Any faction preference? (Morgan, perhaps? ) And, do you want an every fifty year save, or just the 150 mark?
-=Vel=-

[Enigma]

Sure every 50 years sounds fine. I have heard you say that you crawler food from your other cities to the main thinker city in each 5, couldn't that take 1000's of minerals just to make a small number of them?

[bondetamp]

I've never understood the advantage of using crawlers to ship nuts from one base to another. Wouldn't it be far more efficient to build a farm+condenser on a spot and use a crawler to harvest four nutrients from it?

I mean, by using crawlers to ship from one city to another, you only get *one* nutrient. And you even take a nutrient away from another base!

[Velociryx]

Hey Bond....and you're quite right....there ARE more efficient ways of achieving the same end, but....it SP, me and the group I play with frequently are always trying to come up with new and inventive uses for various units....now, it's true that this particular plan doesn't look very efficient on the surface of it, but the real advantage is not in the act of crawling the food itself....the real goods come at the end of the game (when you can build several late game projects on the strength of crawlers alone--that you've presumedly built at a discount). Another advantage is that you've got a base which can be made all but immune to attack (should anything slip through the bases surrounding it), as each of the crawlers sitting inside can be armored up to defend (and, when cashed in, you get the full value for them, which makes spending the money on their armor a good investment, at least in the sense that you will (eventually) get it all back, plus the security in the meantime). As to pure efficiency though, you're right....it's not....and not something I'd use in an MP environment, but....kinda cool to mess with

-=Vel=-

[bondetamp]

Hullo, Vel!

Hmmm, I suppose building some extra units could solve the defence issue. I mean, saving minerals by not building military doesn't sound all that spiff, when you at the same time is loosing 5-7 minerals every round by keeping your crawler indoors. And, as you can get half the mineral cost back, and the military units can be equipped with guns to go into a more active defence, I think the cost is reasonable. Another thing is that I allways try to avoid upgrading the reactors on my armoured crawlers, as this usually makes them cheaper, mineral vice, and therefore less efficient as food for the SPs.
As for being ready available for building SPs, I think using roads and tubes could solve this. Besides, there is no reason to place them /far/ from the city. With a reasonable infrastructure, it shouldn't matter all that much whether the crawler is inside the base or somewhere on the other side of the continent.

Lately I have started to make more active use of my crawlers. The only terrains I usually work with citizens are boreholes. Farm + condenser gives four nuts from the very start (i.e. when you finish WP) and nothing else. Crawlers on these and extra librarians in the base give food for the brain as well as for the stomach. An extreme version of this philosophy can be found in the tread ‘specialist cities’ or http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum31/H...ml?date=16:09, as we call it. I find that by building boreholes within the base radius, and mines, farms and solar collectors wherever I can fit one (energy parks some where, farms between the boreholes and mines wherever, and using as many crawlers I can, I have good income, no drone riots, good defence (as the enemy is swamped by crawlers between each base) and ready access to those SP minerals.

All though I see, to a degree what you are aiming at, I can honestly not understand any reason for using this tactics. Maybe if the continent is full, so you have no more room for crawlers, but even then it’s only a short term plan, as it is always possible to expand your empire.



-b

[Sikander]

Here's an oldie, but a goodie thread which veers into a discussion on thin expansion techniques: < bump^>