HELP! Yang out of funds...

[SPasmofiT]

Hi!
How do I stop the Hive running out of energy credits? (which leads to the distruction of base facilities)

I run (Police State | Free Market | Wealth | Economy 60%) and I still get a -10 energy each turn... This is impossible!

So... how can I keep my buildings and play with the Hive?

[SPasmofiT]

yeah...
and I also have quite a few bases, and a lot of forests, solar pannels and most bases are on AUTO !!!

[Iskandar Reza]

first, don't run auto.....

[Walt]

As was pointed out in another recent thread, Yang can make a lot of money by relying on troops for drone control and not spending the money on facilities that other factions would find indispensable.

Booming his population, or forcing the fastest possible growth to size 7 bases is critical for Yang.

Moreover, he can do so easily by running Police/Planned/Wealth. Get the WP, build boreholes like crazy (minimum of two per base) and go for Golden Age. In any case, Yang's high growth modifier will allow fast population growth even in the absence of a boom. Drones can be controlled with troops.

Build horizontally (more bases) rather than vertically (bigger bases, i.e. hab complexes) until you run out of room.

When you've expanded satisfactorily, spend time improving your bases (or, I suppose, if you're more of a momentum player, start conquering). Tree farms will be key to control eco damage in bases with an abundance of minerals and two or more boreholes, and will provide the extra energy you're looking for.

Ultimately, Free Market isn't the way to go for Yang, because even with +2 Economy modifier, Yang doesn't reach the coveted +2 Economy rating that provides 1 extra energy per square. So run Planned instead and reap the rewards of the Industry and Growth bonuses.

Walt

[Blake]

Nothing much too add, other than a step-by-step "how to" for recovering. It does involve some micro-managment, but if you can't cope with a little MM you shouldn't be playing SMAC

The main reason you have run out of cash is auto. Your fool goveners have thoughtfully built lots of high upkeep facilities. Show your gratitude by firing them.

To recover do the following:
Turn off gov's.
Switch to planned. You can now use police. This means you will have more workers in the field, and no need for holo theatres.
Scrap all facilities except for ones such as:
rec tanks, rec commons, energy bank, network node, tree farm.
Especially scrap:
Holo theatre, Research hospital. - if you have any of these, scrap them!

By now you should be breaking even, at least. But to make a profit:

In bases size 5 or larger turn as much population as possible into technicians or libarians. Build some crawlers and have them crawl nutrients from rainy tiles. If you don't have bases of size 5 crawl food.

For cities which are having drone problems remember you can use 3 police units per base, if you have Int.Integrity build 1-1-1 Non-lethal units, otherwise just build scout patrols for drone control.

Turn those formers off auto-terraform and get them planting lots of forest. I don't know what sort of tech you are at, but you have crawlers so terraform some tiles to produce decent nutrients and crawl them, the ultimate nutrient tile is farm+condensor tile. Plain rainy tiles, or moist+farm produce half as much, and each crawled allows one extra specialist, or two extra forest tiles worked.

Now go read "non-lethal methods and yang" and try some of those techniques to really get your economy rolling. Don't bother with pop-booming, but do try to build some boreholes and do crawl food and do use specialists. Then you should have energy to spare.

[Skanderbeg]

Build some empath units and produce ecodamage. Planet pearls can give Yang a nice income.

[Jokka das Trevas]

And, if you're running yang on SMACX, be sure to build the planetary energy grid!
Build the merchant's exchange in the city that is nearest the main energy production cities, and turn it your HQ. Use supply crawlers to collect even more energy to this city!

And never mind doing FM+wealth with yang unless you got empath units(as one said above) to collect the planetpearls... The addition to economy doesn't make THAT difference to him(unless you get at least +2 effic)

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Long live THE HIVE!

[Killjoy]

Try to build atleast one borehole in atleast 15-20 of your base radii, and a few others in key terrain tiles—crawler the energy. In the highest elevation of your empire build an ecelon mirror and crawler the energy from it and the six solar condensors you build around it.

Use specialists in your larger bases, specifically engineers (and libraians once you've pulled in enough energy to stabalize your economy).

Build tons of crawlers and send them out everywhere within—and along the edges of your borders—and crawler in energy wherever you can get.

And Probe you enemies and steal their energy reserves.

The trick to the Hive is not to OVER-expand and go bankrupt early on. The key to the Hive is an early focus on energy production, stay in Police State/Planned/Wealth, tons of formers (ie. 2-3/base), tons of crawlers, and probe teams.

Good luck.

[Earwicker]

quote: Originally posted by Blake on 04-15-2001 04:54 AM To recover do the following: Turn off gov's. Switch to planned. You can now use police. This means you will have more workers in the field, and no need for holo theatres. Scrap all facilities except for ones such as: rec tanks, rec commons, energy bank, network node, tree farm. Especially scrap: Holo theatre, Research hospital. - if you have any of these, scrap them! Now go read "non-lethal methods and yang" and try some of those techniques to really get your economy rolling. Don't bother with pop-booming, but do try to build some boreholes and do crawl food and do use specialists. Then you should have energy to spare.

Also, keep your children's creches for their growth benefits. Coupled with planned and Yang's initial growth bonus, this gives quite a boost to get those bases up to a profitable size!

On another note (another reason not to go FM): Yang's industry bonus + Planned + Wealth makes his industry a killer. No wonder it quickly will get you into upkeep trouble when those Research Hospitals are so invitingly quick to build. Resist the temptation.