Free Market???????????

tyler666 · May 13, 2001, 13:31

How the hell do you use FM I can't figure on how any one could survive on that SE, -5 planet (hope you got rid of that fungus

!) -3 police (May god have mercy on your facilities when you have to go to war

!) and -2 support (Honey maybye we should live and let live huh?

) anyway i forgot the + and maybe i screwed up the -'s but you get the idea correct me if im wrong and gimme the +'s please

Tyler Messer
"Keep your people's trade under control to survive"
[This message has been edited by tyler666 (edited May 13, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by tyler666 (edited May 13, 2001).]

Ned · May 13, 2001, 17:02

Tyler, You need the HGP plus a little psych to control drones. Stay out of the fungus, and build trance into your defenses. As a practical matter, you cannot go on the offensive in FM. However, when you have Tree Farms and Hybrid Forrests, it is easy to run Wealth + Green + GA to stay in that wonderous +2 econ while sending your units forth.

ED is not problem one you understand the ED formula. Check out the thread on "pollution."

Ned

buster · May 13, 2001, 17:47

SE choices are not a permanent thing. One rides a certain combination for a while to get a certain effect.

Free market for instance gives a huge boost to income and research. The problem is of course the police - and to some degree the planet rating.

Riots can be prevented by allocating psych. You will find that if you give 20% to psych (sometimes more is needed) you will still be researching faster and making more energy than if running planned with 0 psych.

If you have built some psych boosting facilities (theatres and research hosp) you will actually often find that with 20% psych your cities will often go golden age further boosting income.

What is a real pain is warfare and units outside territory and planes and choppers as these cause a lot of drones with -5 police. One solution is to build a punishment sphere in a city and set it as home base of all air units.

I often find myself switching from planned to FM with some inetrvals. At demo planned with a creche you can go pop booming due to growth hitting +6.
Then when its time to say build a bunch of complexes or you start hitting max population one switches to FM to get some research or income.

In war time it is usually unworkable to run FM so you run something else.

The factions have their differences. Some cannot easily get to +2 economy which takes most of the benefit out of running free market. Some have a minus growth which means you need a golden age to get pop booms (only works in SmacX). But generally this is how I ride it and used this way FM is a huge boost and if others use it and you don't - you will fall behind on this factor alone.

Earwicker · May 17, 2001, 10:28

As a typically Green player, one challenge I find with FM is the -30% attack against worms. That said, the loss of a few units is more than offset by the huge energy flow.

On the unhappiness side, calling home all your wandering explorers is a drawback as well, esp if you pop a pod to discover a rover (instant unhappiness in a nearby base). So it may take me a few turns to make the switch while I wait for my wanderers to get back home.

Drago Sinio · May 17, 2001, 11:21

I find that I dont need to use any psych allocation to control drones in FM, I just keep the base sizes small until I have the tech for the appropriate facilities or specialists.

Early game warfare under FM is just about impossible. Later on when I have the tech I usually build Punishment Spheres & Morale increasing facilities in about 5 bases and build/support my small army/navy/air from them. Then once I have clean reactors I gradually switch support to just one Punishment Sphere base and sell off the no longer needed Punishment spheres to increase lab points.

The other FM warfare option is to use Specialist Only bases to support your army once you have the abilities to use crawlers. This is a better option, though it takes more time and effort to set up.

Sometimes I crawl nutrients from one base to another to keep the sending base from growing and creating drones, while the recieiving Specialist Only base uses the nutrients to support a librarian or whatever. This is a good option if you like micro-managing.

If you dont like to deal with the details and would rather just go kill something, then Punishment Sphere Bases are much simpler to manage

.

Also when you have captured a nicely located mineral rich base in enemy territory, if you rush build a Punishment Sphere, its a quick solution that allows you to start using all that bases workers to build you some new military units, with out those annoying "newly captured base drones" messing with you.

Also you can build the PS first, then build research and drone control facilites slowly, if you want to use the base for research purposes rather than military. Then once you can control the drones with the other facilities, you remove the PS sphere.

I think many people dont take full advantage of the PS option, yet sometimes its by far the best way to go.
[This message has been edited by Drago Sinio (edited May 17, 2001).]

Misotu · May 17, 2001, 23:05

There are very good posts here which summarise most of what you need to know. I avoided FM for a long time, because I didn't care for the negative consequences. Big mistake - since I've learned to manage FM, my game has improved tremendously.

I don't have much experience with the momentum factions, but certainly the PKs and UoP benefit dramatically from a well-managed period in FM. Buster is correct, in that FM is to be used for periods, interspersed with other SE settings to achieve growth. If the game you play is typically about smashing heads, however, I doubt you'll ever grow to love FM

Earwicker · May 18, 2001, 10:14

quote:

Originally posted by Drago Sinio on 05-17-2001 11:21 AM
Also when you have captured a nicely located mineral rich base in enemy territory, if you rush build a Punishment Sphere, its a quick solution that allows you to start using all that bases workers to build you some new military units, with out those annoying "newly captured base drones" messing with you.
[This message has been edited by Drago Sinio (edited May 17, 2001).]

I love this idea and will have to try it out. However, I must add the caveat to make sure it's protected by Probes (or you're already safe with the HSA). The PS will halve resistance to mind control (esp bad if you're already on a probe penalty with Knowledge). Add to that the huuuuge cheat (excuse me: discount) the AI uses, and that could spell trouble.

Thinking of drones riots reminds me of another great difference between SMAC and Civ2 (in SMAC's advantage): no government collapse from drone riots. Imagine if your FM/Demo energy-making machine would shut down entirely every time a captured base rioted (as in warring under "democracy"). Big drag. Big improvement!

Misotu · May 19, 2001, 02:28

Oh yes, I had forgotten about the government collapse thing in Civ. You're right - major improvement

Morganstern · May 22, 2001, 13:05

I'm interested in the reference to using Punishment Sphere in one of the bases with the FM SE choice. What, if any, is the downside to this? Is there any loss of diplomatic points or game rating?

Drago Sinio · May 22, 2001, 14:37

The penalty for a Punishment Sphere is that you lose half your research points for the base.

In effect, a punishment sphere cuts research, but increases production at that base. (because you can put all your workers on productive squares)

Provost Harrison · May 22, 2001, 14:46

Well the advantage is that you have more energy that can be used to control drones if necessary. As has been said, use it sparingly in the right situations when all your units are at home and you are using peacetime to race on up the tech tree or raise a bit of hard-needed cash.

Drago Sinio · May 22, 2001, 18:57

Actually Punishment Spheres can be used in every base if you want. The actual end result of the penalty is not quite as bad as it first appears.

#1 You get a little more energy to start with, since all your workers are producing some.

#2 You can maybe set your research a little higher, and you certainly wont need any pysch, since you dont need to support any drone control facilities.

#3 Since you dont need to build any drone control facilities, and your workers are more productive, you can build labs a bit earlier than you otherwise might.

#4 You can send little military incursions to harrass and slow down enemy research. Since there are no drone issues, your troops can go anywhere they damn please. And the enemy will be hard pressed to do much research, if you keep smashing their bases.

#5 And the best thing is you will never, ever, get another one of those annoying "Drone Riot" messages.

It might not be the best choice, but its plenty good enough to beat the AI. If you have plenty of good size bases, and build some lab facilities in every one, you will still be able to pull in a tech every third turn or so . In fact it could even lead to a more interesting game, since you might not get quite so far ahead of the AI.

I have tried this many times with the Spartans, and they do pretty well with it.

The Commodore · May 22, 2001, 20:18

Ah yes. The three factions I'll use FM with are the 'Borgs, the Spartans, and PK.

As I was jumping up and down about in another thread, the 'Borgs in Demo/FM/Power can wage war, (-3 Police. No riots!), as well as grow well and churn out tech.

The Spartans will have a better time of it, with their good police helping the -5.

Likewise, Lal's folk are happier normally.

BTW: where can I put in a avatar? I have this great CivIII guy...

icevic · May 22, 2001, 20:20

After reading this post, I switched from Green to FM and fell in love with it! My income doubled while my research was cut from 4 two three years. It is true that I have to allocate Pysch to 20% to control the drones (I am playing as UoP so one extra drone per four citizens

image the fun!) but with that setting I can eliminate almost all of the drones and some of my bases are reaching Golden Age more often. I always build a police garrison in each of the city as the default defender and drone controller. It helps but not by much.

Vic

Ned · May 22, 2001, 23:17

Icevic, If you have Demo + Children Creche + GA, most factions will pop boom. However, unless you want to pop boom, try Demo, Green, Wealth + GA. With the added efficiency of Green, the money is the same as FM due to the fact that Weath and GA add to produce a +2 economy. However, there is virtually no downside to this SE. It permits you to conduct a pod popping strategy, which is another moneymaker. The combination is unbeatable. Ned

icevic · May 22, 2001, 23:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned
Icevic, If you have Demo + Children Creche + GA, most factions will pop boom. However, unless you want to pop boom, try Demo, Green, Wealth + GA. With the added efficiency of Green, the money is the same as FM due to the fact that Weath and GA add to produce a +2 economy. However, there is virtually no downside to this SE. It permits you to conduct a pod popping strategy, which is another moneymaker. The combination is unbeatable. Ned

Wait, what about the morale penalty with wealth? I still want to be able to defend my cities (including the huge chuck of territory I bite off from Yang)

sounds really good!

Vic

Sikander · May 23, 2001, 02:57

Icevic,

Sometimes I will build a native war machine while running wealth, as the native life forms are not effected by morale (but rather life cycle bonuses). While running Ned's suggested Demo/Green/Wealth your worms will receive a nice combat bonus on the attack from your high planet rating as well.

Another useful unit for either FM and / or Wealth are armored probe teams. Again, these guys suffer no morale penalties from wealth (though they do suffer somewhat from Knowledge) and can rove far and wide under FM. I usually build vanilla 1-1-1 probe teams to defend my bases early on from enemy probes, and these guys can be upgraded to armored variants if necessary. To build a APT from scratch costs the same as building a rover (autodesigned) probe, and they can offer quite a few advantages:

1) They will defend better than equivalent military units built under Wealth.
2) They are clean.
3) They have a powerful attack in the form of their probe ability.
4) They can be stationed anywhere you want while you run FM without creating drones.

Ned · May 23, 2001, 11:42

Sure, Units suffer a morale penalty, which make building "trained" units imperative. However, the moral penaty "disappears" when one gets "Thought Control." With the money just as good as FM, with Green and the pod popping you can now do, Demo, Green, Wealth + GA is perferrable to FM.

BTW, With FM, you get the money without a morale penalty, however, you cannot fight an offensive war, can you?

Ned