Base Number, Efficiency, Control, and Conquest

[Avenoct]

Question: If you consider these some of your priorities: control continent, max out expansion early, and possibly smush weak opponents early, how do you deal with efficiency/drone issue of having a ton of bases?

I've read Vel's guide, and a lot of these posts, and frankly, I don't see any real addressing of this question. Way back when mastering Civ I, or even the original Sim City when it was released, I realized that eventually a strategy game would come along that was enough harder than playing spades that is was more like Chess than like Civilization. I didn't realize till I finally bought Smac that here was a big step along that direction. Ok, back to the point....How do you actually apply the strategies referred to or implied in all the posts here...or do you take a different approach?

Strategies / Ideals I have read or inferred and might try to apply:

1. Ideal Base number is around (x + whatever number of extra drones you can deal with), where x is the number of bases you can have before extra drones (see datalinks) This of course Changes as you meddle with your SE settings.
2. Turn Advantage...read Vel's excellent explication of this.
3. Fastest Expansion is with one of the patterns below and base distance about 3 spaces between bases. (Actually that's confusing....I'm trying 'Base-space-space-Base'
4. Forest is easy and effective (See posts about this)

From my current game as Morgan on a standard random map :

I've eliminated my immediate neighbors the Believers as I know I can never trust them to be on my soil.
I've fostered wars between the farthest factions (who I pacted with..Zak and the Spartans) and my closest neighbors (Lal, that arse, and Yang, who I Know I'll have trouble from eventually. By the way, I believe that once Deirdre starts thinking about the Empath SP she will not trade tech along that tech branch.
I've bought my seat as planetary govorner.
I focused almost entirely on expansion in my FOP expenditure. My usual pattern is one of these:
A. Middling Expansion
1. Found new base
2. Produce Former if nowhere near fungus or enemy
3. Produce Col Pod
4. Garrison unit
5. Tanks
B. Safe Expansion
1. Found New Base
2. Garrison
3. Col Pod or Former, etc.
C. Wild Expansion
1. Found new base on nuts bonus square
2. Col Pod
3. Garrison
4. Former
5. Tanks

I rush buy everything, which once you figure out how to do near the end of production (3 turns to completion or so) is pretty much like having nice industry except that 70% or that nice energy intake is going to labs and I still have enough to do this.

The situation: I maxed out on bases in your survival type SE settings, which for Morgy are 10 bases on a standard map, but, I'd just had half of those produce pods, so, 15 bases and drones at all my nice new Coastal bases and the two I've kept from the Un-believers. But luckily, I'd been anxious to give the vote to the people for about 10 turns, but was waiting till all my military units (all three non-garrison units) were done mopping up the Believers. So I've gone Democratic (I've run Wealth since I got it). Ah, the pressure is off and the Drones are gone...but wait, what if I again have half my 15 bases make Pods? Then I'd Have to run Green, which, thankfully I researched as Deirdre wouldn't give it to me no matter what.

Interlude:
Dem-Green-Wealth is very nice for Morgan as he has the +2 econ needed for +1 energy per square. Ya don't have to face up to the police problems of Free Market, but Support is still an unpleasant but tolerable -3. Hard to have a big army with this, but when you get clean reactors.....! More importantly (and here is my biggest question in the form of a statement) you have +4 efficiency with this set. That's a bunch of bases before you get the Drone Problem, and better yet, you aren't wasting precious energy on the black hole of innefficiency.

Back to the Future of Morgans Continent..So I'm anxious to send some pods to the very green and somewhat bloody fields of the Mount Planet area. I'd then have 22 bases or so and be again knocking at the drone barrier. These bases would inhibit Deirdre's expansion here, and insure me that industrial base to easily win this game.

BUT

1. What if I want to run Fundy or Power for a quick war? What happens to efficiency? My thumb twitches on the nerve stapler...
2. I could just as easily Crawler this area and focus a bit more on infrastructure..after all I'm about to get those tree farms going.
3. What if I do run a war and win? I learned from my last game as Morgan that having 30+ bases (which I coincidentally just had to take away from the Believers who'd accidentally made a Merchant Exchange in thier turf) is a major pain!

This is my dilemma every single game, and seems to just be happening more quickly now that I'm running with very tight intra-base structure.

Possible solutions:
1. Stop expanding. Just 'tighten up' what I have already. In the event of taking over enemy bases either starve them and pod them or just 'b' the base.
2. Continue expanding. Deal with the drones as, or before they occur. Lots of Rec Commons to accompany my HGP and VW special projects, lots of specialists, even before I have empaths, let alone Transcends.
3. Something I'm missing?

So, what do you do? I'm facing this problem of expansion on a standard map! I really enjoy the tight base structure, it seems great so far, but this is a big continent with 4 factions on it directly. Clearly I could put 40+ bases on this continent if I bludgeon Yang and Deirdre. That's just too many, or is it? Further, once you do reach your max bases, how do you deal with the enemies' constant expansion? The idea of a huge map with Miriam coating my coast with 30 or so sea bases gives me nightmares. How do you quickly rid yourself of pesky seabases? Blather Blather...someone help!

To wrap up:
Expansion is a problem at some point.
Taking over enemy bases without pissing off your pact-mates by killing off the civilians is a pain.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Smack,

Try this.

Rather than eliminate a given faction. Crush them and make them submit.

Once you have a vassal faction go about your conquering as you see fit. Every base you capture that holds no clear advantage to your strategic goals (i.e drone issues become a bigger pain then worth dealing with) gift to your vassal faction. In fact during your conquest of the vassal faction you may wish to gift back those bases you had to take. Normally gifting techs and bases will keep them in tow the entire game.

Benefits are:

1) If your vassal is not at war with enemy faction the base is the perfect safe haven for your field units.

2) The number of bases your vassal faction will approach the number of bases you have making the perfect 1 to 1 in order to maximize trade energy for your advanced highly infrastructured (say lab and econ multipliers). Your vassal will have to deal with the drone issues.

3) It may actually aid your vasssal in tech discovery rate and hence yourself. This assumes you are of course gifting your vassal so that every tech he/she discovers is a new one for yourself. In transcend games the AI factions including you vassal gain tremendous advantages with respect to research point required to gain next tech, increased growth rates, increased industry rating etc. By placing these bases in the hand of your trusted ally you gain advantage. In this case the energy converted to research points by your vassal thu requiring less research point than you yourself would normally need for the next tech. Side benny is the aforementioned trade energy income.

4) Finally if your vassal goes to war 'gainst the other faction by sandwitching a vassal base between two of your bases as he moves his forces to the front and moves back into your territory, more often than not he'll gift you units. Since he gets bonusses for industry, as previously mentioned, you can get an almost endless supply of these cheap units to do with as you see fit. Disband, upgrade or use as fodder in you campaign.

[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited April 26, 2001).]

[Avenoct]

Thanks Ogie, this is a good start and adds a factor to the mix which I did not include for simplicity, but it's really a huge part of managing a vast empire in Smac, namely, Vassal States. Your last two tips are new to me and seem quite useful. I'll add a couple more things I've done with my vassals as a new player.

Also, I'll just restate my biggest question. How do you deal with your own empire's expansion, namely encroaching and passing the drone barrier?

Vassals in the Sandbox
A. You Can't Buy Love
1. Annex a Vassal state as trade/tech engine
2. Hack off a limb of a large remaining faction. This 'limb' of bases might have 2-6 bases and be relatively distant from the enemy core.
3. Cede the first base to one of your Vassals' enemies, perhaps risking them asking you to attack your vassal.
4. Cede the second back to the big enemy you took it from, perhaps quelling a counterattack
5. Cede the remaining bases to your Vassal. Benefits should be clear.
B. The Fomenting Machine
1. If you are either really unpopular or really popular, this seems to work wonders, buying you time to build while the others hack each other to bits.
2. Cede a base you've just taken to each other faction that you can, and the farthest base from your enemy's HQ back to him/her. Even better, don't bother taking the last and farthest base (I think the AI values a 'new' base differently than one that somehow survived your pruning). It's great fun to watch enemies duke it out while the 'host' tries to cross over this turf to his old turf.

I know the answer to my question is: It depends.

Maybe I can break down my question in to several more specific questions.

Do you ignore the 'limit' of bases you can have without extra drones, exceed it somewhat, or only just stop expanding at that point?

If your exceed the drone barrier, how far to you go?

If you stay limited in size, how do you keep pesky factions from inhabiting 'your' continent?

Additionally, do you give your submissives all your research, do they revolt on you? I've never had one turn on me, but I keep them well fed.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Smack,

Good post! Very Inciteful.

Let me take a stab at your questions. Of course the answer is it depends but let me give you my thoughts on what it depends on.

Q1.Do you ignore the 'limit' of bases you can have without extra drones, exceed it somewhat, or only just stop expanding at that point?

A1. Normally I ignore beuaracracy warnings to a point. I'll ignore the warnings if I have the ability to deal with the drone issues. Namely, Do I have a faction well suited to dealing with drone issues, such as Hive running Police State and Nonlethal methods cops, or Lal running Demo/planned whilst having HGP and/or longevity vaccine. So once I know I'm set with a faction and/or critical SP's that allow me to continue expansion unfettered by drone issues, it's normally time for expansiononce again. At some point normally dictated by the technology I have discovered I consider new base formation wasteful and look to conquer instead. Again depending on the faction. Normally however this coincides with Chaos/fusion and minimally D:AP but preferably MMI. Earlier conquering is fun and sometimes necessitated especially to secure you continent but for intercontinental warfare I normally stick with the above.

Q2.If your exceed the drone barrier, how far to you go?

A2. ASk yourself what are you really trying to accomplish. First goal is to secure a homeland free from other factional problems. Normally this means secure a continent as the AI is woeful at doing invasion/incursions. This can be accomplioshed by any number of means. THrough colonization, however if too large this may make you dropne issue that much more prevalent, by careful divying up your continent with a vassal state if the continent is large. What you really are attempting to accomplish is homeland security. If you do decide to share a continent make sure its a well fed vassal you can trust.

Typically on a large planet I look to finish bases around 30 ish. SOmetimes going as large as 50+ sometimes only 20 or so. Depends on number of vassals and my strategic objectives.

Finally, you really need to take stock of just how welloff you are with respect to drone quelling and/or what type of energy reserves you have inorder to rush build psych enhancing facilities.

Q3. If you stay limited in size, how do you keep pesky factions from inhabiting 'your' continent?

A3. Active patroling by sea and air forces. Don't be afraid to subvert enemy forces on your soil/ocean via probe teams. Probe teams are a god send.

Q4.Additionally, do you give your submissives all your research, do they revolt on you? I've never had one turn on me, but I keep them well fed.

A4. I normally gift them every tech I have and every time I discover a tech gift them that as well. I want to make sure every time they discover a tech that it will be a new one for me as well. Also by gifting them conquered bases the vassal faction is almost always exceedingly grateful and stays a loyal subject. Only on a few occasions have I had the AI rebel on me. Yang and Lal spring to mind. But IIRC I wasn't feeding either of them well at the time so perhaps had I kept them well fed with bases and techs they wouldn't have Benedict Arnolded on me. I also believe that the chance for a vassal to turncoat on you has much to do with your reputation. I tend to stay noble and keep the atrocities to a minimum.

[Velociryx]

Good ideas here, and Og is quite right....a submissive faction can be a great trading partner, spiking the energy recieved via the global economy through the roof as you give new bases to your trading partner(s).

Drones are really a non-issue by the middle game, however, thanks to the magic of specialists and specialists bases. If you're expanding like mad, either because you're founding new bases or because you're kicking someone's teeth in, and drones are starting to creep into the mix, build a few more crawlers for food, make a specialist or two and watch the drones disappear.

Also, if you're going to make a big push into an enemy's territory, do either one of two things:

1) Have enough cash on hand to buy outright a drone control facility for each base as you conquer it....not only does it make you look like Mr. Nice guy, but it generally works pretty well to keep the newly conquered population happy (Note: in some rare cases--especially with really big bases you've just conquered--you may have to let a newly taken base lose a point of population or two in order maintain order via rushed drone control facilities and a sprinkling of specialists, but...such is the price of war at times, yes?)

2) Time your wars to coincide with sunspot activities, so you can nerve-staple as you go without worrying about any sort of retribution....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

PS:

Two additional points to ponder-

1) A base composed of all specialists (psych producing or not) will not riot, even if you're running FM and have troops from that base outside your borders, making an all specialist base a much better alternative than a Punishment Sphere base....that was a good idea, but there are so many better alternatives that I'd be surprised if anybody uses them (spheres) much at all.

2) If you're going to make heavy use of specialists, then you need to decide that sooner, rather than later, so you can tailor your terraforming around that decision....with a heavy emphasis on nutrients.

-=Vel=-

[Earwicker]

quote: Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe on 04-27-2001 09:06 AM A4. I normally gift them every tech I have and every time I discover a tech gift them that as well. I want to make sure every time they discover a tech that it will be a new one for me as well. Also by gifting them conquered bases the vassal faction is almost always exceedingly grateful and stays a loyal subject. Only on a few occasions have I had the AI rebel on me. Yang and Lal spring to mind. But IIRC I wasn't feeding either of them well at the time so perhaps had I kept them well fed with bases and techs they wouldn't have Benedict Arnolded on me. I also believe that the chance for a vassal to turncoat on you has much to do with your reputation. I tend to stay noble and keep the atrocities to a minimum.

The main consideration that has prevented me from gifting techs to my vassals is Tech Trading. If I gift Fusion power to my Pet Zak (to keep his labs strong), I don't trust him not to turn around and trade it to Yang or Marr. Or, worse, I've had instances where Miriam will frames me for a probe action against an ally -- resulting in a vendetta against said Ally, who is armed with tough units using MY tech. All this after already crushing him once! No thanks -- I gift them bases and a little cash, never tech. Maybe if he'd ask for purely defensive tech, I'd agree. But the heck if I'm giving away Orbital Space Flight!

[Ned]

Earwicker, I partially agree with you, but with a twist. Assume you have the tech lead. Gifting all your tech to a submissive keeps the submissive ahead as well. Everything discovered by everyone else is already known to the submissive. So "trading" will take place, albeit, the submissive may take cash instead.

The problem I have is when you do not have the Datalinks. If you keep your submissive up-to-date, you have two factions that know the tech. If the submissive sells or trades the tech to anyone, the faction with the Datalinks will now know it too. This is a problem.

So, if I do not have the Datalinks, I usually try to give the submissive technology that the faction that does have the Links already has. For example, Fusion Power. If the faction with the Links does not have it, I do not give it to the submissive. And vis-a-versa if the faction with the links has it.

As to base expansion, I find I can win the game quite easily by stopping just a few cities beyond the first bureaucracy warning level. There is a significant penalty for playing the game like a CIV game and multiplying bases endlessly. What you do is employ crawlers to boost power and "pod" to increase your planetary council votes. Ten - sixteen size 22 bases in the mid game are quite powerful.

[Avenoct]

Thanks!

I am really amazed and grateful for the thoughtful responses to this pop/drone/efficiency question. It seems that all those that write here are not only excellent at clearly describing their thoughts but are masters of the material, namely, Smac. So, thanks. I think Vel's Specialist only base is a great idea for making war under FM. Well, back to the front!
-Smack

[Iskandar Reza]

You might want to conquer and submit the faction with Datalinks, if you didn't get it. That SP is annoying in the hands of the AI. They become arrogant if they have it. Extra tech bonus. Kind of like civ's Alexandria Library.

[Skanderbeg]

I don't care much for bureaucracy warnings, and up sometimes with more than 100 bases on a huge map. My record is 156 bases in a game with Morgan

For my opinion, You couldn't have to much bases.

It is true that You get drones with this high number of bases, and You need specialists to quell those drones. But from the moment You can have Empaths, each drone-quelling specialist on each of Your numerous bases will give You precious research points.
For this approach with a lot of bases, it is important to have a lot of hydrolabs (and solar energy transmitters). They allow You to turn workers to specialists without food problems. A satellite is the more efficient, the more bases You have (even if You loose a part of the energy of a solar energy transmitter by inefficiency).

Another thing is if You play for score. Population is an important part of Your score, so for a high score You need a huge number of bases.

I give very rarely away bases (mine is mine ), only sometimes to save an ally which is in danger to loose the last base.

[knowhow2]

I'm currently playing a SP game as the Hive on the HUGE map of planet. Starting on the left continent I soon realise that Hive best strategy were to expand. So I expand from the south and up north. Met Zak after awhile and kick him off the island. After which I concentrated on expanding and colonizing the entire continent. At the same time I 'm using the "trade-cities-with-AI"-tactic. Totally messing their continents up. I trade myself onto the small northern continent with the Drones and expand a bit with a few bases. Later I would raise land so this continent connect to the large right one. In the meantime I kept expanding and raising land tryin to reach the centre continent with Santiago (whom just capture my ally Dee) from the south and from the west (my east). I had already before the final landing traded myself to a base on that continent. So when I finally connected landwise I attacked with my 70 chaosspeeders (who happens to be the strongest weapon at the moment on the planet) and my 40 probes. It took me about 8 turns to control about half of that continent. So not wanting to waste more troops on fighting Santiago I gave her some tech to get a truce. I after that I traded my bases on Drone continent for her bases on her continent. With combination for both trades and probing and some warfare I finally at year 2230 got the entire continent from Santiago. She is now on Drone island and in war with Domai. I also managed to connect this island to the left continent with Marr on before I totally got off it (by giving away the last 2 bases to Santiago and Lal- who first got kicked off the continent with Marr and then captured by Domai).
My final plan is to let Domai and Marr attack eachother while I nervegas Marr fom the other front to death using my killalots (needlejets with nervegas).

,,,,,,
It's annoying how little money Hive gets. Less than 300 creds a year despite over 65 bases.


[This message has been edited by knowhow2 (edited May 02, 2001).]

[johndmuller]

Cash is another one of those things that seem to reach a crisis point and then recede into the background as the game goes on. It seems that once Fusion Labs come out, I don't feel strapped again (although I don't usually feel so excessively rich that I can't spend most of my ec's each turn.

In the case of Yang, his efficiency doesn't go below zero (perhaps only in games with high enough difficulty?), which lets you run Police State / Planned without penalty, which gives you quite a bit of good stuff which could ease your cash crunch indirectly.

My strategy seems to have gone through phases as to what commodity I emphasized. First it was mins, to be able to build stuff; then it was energy, to deal with this cash crunch you describe. Now, I'm more into nuts, although I do think about energy a lot though since its nice to spend it. I usually crawl rocky mines, wet nut squares and a kelp bed or two and use extra nuts to support a few specialists. If your mins are taken care of (10-15 in the early game) with crawlers and forests, and you have some kelp/solar going on, you are in business. Sometimes I crawl energy, but usually not unless I've got a good safe location and some extra terraforming capacity sitting around (i.e. rarely). However, I do try to crawl some energy to my HQ, especially if I've got a safe enough sea area or a high altitude energy bonus; the trawlers also give you the ability to choke up any straits and to get a little early warning of dangerous activity.

I prioritize the energy facilities, especially Fusion Labs; I've already built the Energy Banks too, but I find it hard to build them as early as I could in a new base as the alternatives often seem more urgent. Assuming you are crawling some energy to your HQ, you want to multiply that as much as possible.

If you have at least one prosperous trading partner, it helps youra financial situation a reasonable amount, but I usually don't notice that contribution until its gone. You don't want to be too dependent on trade, because sooner or later, you will probably have a vendetta with any good trading partner and thats when you most want to be able to afford to rush build stuff.

Stealing money can be quite lucrative as well as a way of upgrading your drones' morale; it helps make up a little for the extra costs of making war.

[Ned]

Commerce income, in addition to population, is a important part of your score. It is also an important ingredient in increasing cash. Keeping large numbers of bases can actually kill you cash-wise. If bases are located more than 20 tiles from home, losses due to distances will take virtually all your income. Any improvements you add will then be a cash drain.

Solve this problem and boost income by giving "remote" bases to submissives or weak pact brothers or sisters. You not only will eliminate the cash drain issue, but you will dramatically increase your income through commerce. A real win-win proposition.

Specialists, IMHO, in remote bases do not produce more cash or labs than this approach.