developing bad habits on librarian level?

[lord of the mark]

I played some more last night, my game referred to in an earlier thread (univeristy, on Librarian level)

I see myself getting into the same bad habits i developed playing civ2 on king level - Building lots of improvements early, while still expanding.

I assume that as in civ 2 to win on higher levels i will have to expand in more disciplined fashioned, building mainly colonies, or keep to a small number of perfectionist cities.

OTOH in SMAC the early improvements like recycling tanks and childrens crech seem hard to resist. And low food production makes it hard to whip out colony pods. and lack of camels(er, crawlers) at this stage leaves me with "what to build" problem.


Your thoughts on early game strategies at different levels, and differences or similarities wrt Civ2.

[BigRich]

Hi,

Far from an expert and probably teaching you to suck eggs but....

I try and get a decent number of formers going (at least one per base) fairly early on. They only cost minerals (not minerals and nutrients a la Civ2) to maintain and the quicker you can get your terraforming down the more productive you're going to be in the long term. If you have the requisite techs then foil probes are a useful build for your coastal cities - explore the map, infiltrate any factions you find etc.

As for expansion, I found this link to be invaluable:

http://www.angelfire.com/sc2/hartpence/

from there follow the links to: discussion forum, then SMAC, strategy and tactics and take a peek at the 'Tech Beelines' thread. Sorry for the roundabout instructions, I've never had much luck linking directly to the Renaissance portal forums.

hope this isn't revisiting stuff you already know!

Rich.

[Hydro]

A couple of rules-of-thumb I use. These were from the excellent advice given at this forum, and also from Vel's invaluable strat guide (read it - you'll be happy you did).

Number of bases ¡V I expand until I get bureaucracy warnings, or at least 12-14 (personal taste). I will consider more expansion as Phase 2 later.
* Rush build a former at each new base. It costs 25 energy, but it is worth every joule to get terraforming up ASAP. After the former build a defender. This is a risky strategy since you are vulnerable to worms, or an aggressive neighbor, while the garrison is being built.
* After the former and scout, if you can finish a colony pod AFTER you grow to size 2, do it. If you can't build a recycling tank (RT) to boost minerals.
* Consider starting a SP (after necessary improvements, perhaps including a rec commons (RC) and RT) at your first and second bases after they have build one colony pod. Your new bases can build pods from then on.

As BR said, early terraforming is critical. For terraforming, I make sure each base has at least 1 tile with +2 food. Rainy is good, but if not build a farm. Nutrient specials are wonderful. Connect your bases with roads ASAP since this speeds up colony pod placement and gets you interlocking defense. I pepper my land with forest, which grows for 'free' terraforming. Basically, if it isn't moist/rainy with ave minerals I put a forest on it. Much later I invest in mines+road for mineral harvesting on rocky tiles, but that is after roads, farms, maybe solar, and forests are supplying my greedy colonists with resources.

That is my general plan, and I'm sure others will disagree or have significant additions. Also, it will/does change based on starting conditions (like a howitzer-polishing Santiago being 10 tiles away¡K).

[CEO Aaron]

Here's a thread that will give you plenty of food for thought on opening game strategy at higher difficulty levels:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=70902

PS: Here's some related threads:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=74982
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=75614

[Frankychan]

Basic stuff when starting out (simplified version for the casual gamer).

Well, like every one has said, try to terraform your land to get the max benefit for your bases. All the extra goodies scatttered about will help your bases grow A LOT. Try to take advantage of these by placing your bases next to them. Additionally, provided that the "Bonus Tile" isn't rocky, you can build additional improvements on them. So, a nutrient bonus square can have a farm and solar collector on it.

As Hydro has said, linking your bases with roads are a must when you want to make colony pods. They'll get to where you want them to go faster.

Personally, I try to have every tile give me all three resources (Nutrient, Mineral, Energy). With some exception's of course. Minerals will make your production time faster so try to get a lot of minerals coming into your bases (but don't forget the other two!)

For inbase construction....it's basically priorities for me. For me, I tend to have a lot of drone problems so I focus my production on improvements that will help (Children's Creche, Hologram Theater, etc). It all depends on what you want your base to do and basically what kind of player you are.

One improvement I tend to NOT build is the Pressure Dome. I usually save this until later in the game because AFAIK, it only prevents your bases from sinking.

What I'm basically trying to say is that your building style should reflect who you are. It sounds rather lame but its the truth. I tend to be a Build & Conquer person so I focus heavily on creating mines and nutrients to help my population boom. Other people focus on energy credits so they'll make more solar collectors and Energy Banks.

Good luck trying to find your style and hope to see your results.

[Frankychan]

for the CEO.

[Uchuu-kun[SM42]]

Pressure dome also increases nutrients, IIRC. Have to check, I'm at school.

[Chaos Theory]

Pressure dome = recycling tanks + submersion protection, but a pressure dome doesn't stack with rec tanks. Therefore, in every multiplayer game I play the Pirates, I immediately sell the rec tanks in the capital.

[CEO Aaron]

I wasn't aware that the capital typically _got_ recycling tanks, unless you explicitly built them. I don't generally like seabases, however, so my experience with them is limited.

Will a base even _let_ you build tanks in a base that has a pressure dome?

On a more lighthearted note, how does the pressure dome and the hab dome interact?

[Mongoose]

In on-line MP, your starting base gets increased pop and a few facilities.

No, you cannot build tanks in a base with a p-dome...you can, of course, build a p-dome in a base that has tanks.

P-dome and H-dome have no effect on each other.

[Chaos Theory]

Also, many PBEM games are accelerated some by the game creator, and rec tanks is a prime candidate to add to bases to speed up the early game.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Hydro
I pepper my land with forest, which grows for 'free' terraforming. Basically, if it isn't moist/rainy with ave minerals I put a forest on it. Much later I invest in mines+road for mineral harvesting on rocky tiles, but that is after roads, farms, maybe solar, and forests are supplying my greedy colonists with resources.

Interesting. Ive been starting with solar and farms, and then mines in the best mine locations. Following essentially my standard Civ2 pattern.

Ive started to use forests, but not as aggressively as you suggest.

It also takes a while to get full utilization of high resource squares - in Civ i just needed monarchy - here i need 3 special tech - gene splicing, env econ? and ?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Frankychan
. All the extra goodies scatttered about will help your bases grow A LOT. Try to take advantage of these by placing your bases next to them. Additionally, provided that the "Bonus Tile" isn't rocky, you can build additional improvements on them. So, a nutrient bonus square can have a farm and solar collector on it.

from what i can gather the resource specials are not places as regularly as in Civ2 - is this correct?

Also additional challenge to city placement - some locations have some good terrain - specials, or high elev good moisture squares - but also lots of fungus. Theoretically these will be good till i grow much more later in the game, and by then i can have cleared the fungus - but i still tend to avoid these areas. Should I?

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

from what i can gather the resource specials are not places as regularly as in Civ2 - is this correct?

Also additional challenge to city placement - some locations have some good terrain - specials, or high elev good moisture squares - but also lots of fungus. Theoretically these will be good till i grow much more later in the game, and by then i can have cleared the fungus - but i still tend to avoid these areas. Should I?

Yes and no. Resource specials can be found under Unity pods, which are much more common than villages in Civ2. Also, resource specials can appear at random if you have random events turned on. However, there's no time I've seen a map that started with resource specials that I didn't uncover by investigating a pod above it, or that appeared due to a random event.

As to your second question, with good terraforming management, large amounts of fungus can disappear under a tide of forestation, so by all means, jump on any base site that offers good early specials, they'll help your development enough to counteract the time investment involed in clearing the fungus later, especially if you use forests to aid you in your anti-fungal efforts.

Xenofungus only spawns worms when units attempt to move through it, or when there's a fungal tower (assuming you're playing the expansion) nearby, so a base that has fungus nearby is no more likely to be visited by a wandering mindworm than one that has not fungus in sight. However, the road effect that xenofungus has to native life will complicate your defenses, so if you do plant bases near (and especially next to) fungus, increase the priority of making a garrison to react to any unwanted guests.

[Mongoose]

LOM - correct. Special resources are NOT placed in a regular pattern as they were in Civ2. Indeed, as CEO notes, their eventual placement can be random, as sometimes they result from unity pod pops, sometimes not. If you 'pop' a resource, sometimes, if you reload the turn asnd proceed in your actions in a different manner, the eventual result of 'repopping' that pod will not be a resource at all. Additionally, if playing with the random events flag set, from time to time new resource tiles may appear, or old ones be depleted...another thing not in Civ2.

[Adalbertus]

I'm usually playing transcend single player. In the early game I found it most useful to expand to just one base before the first bureaucracy warning - 9 for a huge map if you got 0 efficiency (playing Deirdre or Aki, I gladly sacrifice the initial efficiency to running planned; with Domai, I think it might be better to directly go for 18 bases). I crank out one former (with Yang two) asap. Then I switch the first five bases to build an SP, the last four to probe teams to support building of the SP (usually, IA is not at hand by that time). Sometimes, especially with Deirde, I'm able to snag all five "initial" SPs, namely WP, HGP, ME, VW, and Command Nexus.
I try to not wander a lot to find the next spot to build a base; I prefer a two-in-diagonal spacing. With the WP (which ranks very high on my preference) I build farms and condensors, before that mostly forests and a few farms (remember that specials and condensors lift the production limits in the early game). The only special I really go for, is the Monsoon Jungle. Simply awesome.
I guess you can do more efficiently (visiting each base each round for potential drone riots should be my next step ) but that's what I do.

[Frankychan]

Dang.

Well L.O.M.-People have basically covered the question. The goodies are NOT grouped in any specific fashion. And like Mongoose said, if you have randome events on, you can lose that nice nutrient bonus you've been depending on for your capital...OR you can get a nice mineral bonus tile next to a mineral starved base.

What I have found out is that if you plan on moving a colony pod through some fungus, it's good to accompany it with a military unit. I've lost a smackload of colony pods due to mindworm attacks...but you should experience it firsthand.

One thing to remember is that rain falls on the WEST side of mountain ranges and hills. These area's are going to be great for nutrients until you can change the rainfall around your bases. Rocky tiles will give you extra minerals and elevated tiles will give you a nice Energy bonus.

And watch your a** cause Miriam likes to chew on it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Frankychan
Dang.

Well L.O.M.-People have basically covered the question. The goodies are NOT grouped in any specific fashion. And like Mongoose said, if you have randome events on, you can lose that nice nutrient bonus you've been depending on for your capital...OR you can get a nice mineral bonus tile next to a mineral starved base.

What I have found out is that if you plan on moving a colony pod through some fungus, it's good to accompany it with a military unit. I've lost a smackload of colony pods due to mindworm attacks...but you should experience it firsthand.

One thing to remember is that rain falls on the WEST side of mountain ranges and hills. These area's are going to be great for nutrients until you can change the rainfall around your bases. Rocky tiles will give you extra minerals and elevated tiles will give you a nice Energy bonus.

And watch your a** cause Miriam likes to chew on it.

Thanks to all for info on specials.

Yes, Ive found how vulnerable pods can be to mindworms OTOH, if they dont have go too far through fungus, i sometimes play the odds.

The rainfall on the west is interesting (earth sciene correct) but i havent figured out how to work it into a strategy.


Im now at war with everyone except Lal(seems like the civ2 1750 moment) Im focusing on striking at Deirdre, basically cause shes the closest. Im working on figuring out best balance of artillery and conventional units, and how best to use artillery. Also best mix of naval units.

[CEO Aaron]

Generally I've found it best to develop a terraforming plan that isn't dependent on rainfall, since it's not really under your control. Forestation, boreholes and condensers will give you much more than your fair share of what mother nature intended.

As for military deployment, I find that artillery isn't worth fielding in large amounts, unless you're embarking on a prolonged assault against enemies with permeter defenses, and you're strapped with a bad probe rating. The problem is that most offensive forces are primarily composed of rovers, and rover artillery has a rather pricey surcharge. Infantry artillery, while economical, will swiftly be left behind by any successful assault (and who plans for an unsuccessful assault?)

Typically an invasion force I field will be 60% best attack rovers, 20% best defense ECM garrisons (to be homed in newly conquered bases) and 20% probe teams. If my offensive stalls due to a heavily fortified base with tons of units in it, I'll build a couple of infantry artillery (or divert some I have at home on worm defense) and send them to the front. The composition of my forces tends to change drastically with the discovery of air power, choppers and drop pods.

[Hydro]

lord of the mark – rainfall on the west sides of mountains/rises is a fudge. Rainfall is highest wherever a moist airmass hits a mountain. It drops it’s load as it ascends and cools, leaving the lee side of the mountain rather dry. SMAC accounted for this by saying that the moist wind is always from the west (ala the jet stream). I give the BR team credit for doing their research, and then finding a code-able middle ground!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Generally I've found it best to develop a terraforming plan that isn't dependent on rainfall, since it's not really under your control. Forestation, boreholes and condensers will give you much more than your fair share of what mother nature intended.

Without a doubt these are the best terraforming improvements in the game.

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
As for military deployment, I find that artillery isn't worth fielding in large amounts, unless you're embarking on a prolonged assault against enemies with permeter defenses, and you're strapped with a bad probe rating. The problem is that most offensive forces are primarily composed of rovers, and rover artillery has a rather pricey surcharge. Infantry artillery, while economical, will swiftly be left behind by any successful assault (and who plans for an unsuccessful assault?)

Typically an invasion force I field will be 60% best attack rovers, 20% best defense ECM garrisons (to be homed in newly conquered bases) and 20% probe teams. If my offensive stalls due to a heavily fortified base with tons of units in it, I'll build a couple of infantry artillery (or divert some I have at home on worm defense) and send them to the front. The composition of my forces tends to change drastically with the discovery of air power, choppers and drop pods.

I find artillery to be useful sometimes, especially for defending my continent from sniping by Native or Enemy sea forces. With a sensor and the height bonus they don't do too badly. I only build infantry based artillery, though most of the time they will be elites with those two movement points. If there are outbreaks of native life, these batteries really come into their own. Artillery blows the crap out of native life, and those stacks of worms make juicy targets (as you well know). A great substitute for artillery in the earliest stages of an amphibious invasion is your own foils and cruisers.

[MahoTsukai]

Hi,

I'm an avid SMAC:AC player, and I'm still sucked into this game, 4 years after I bought it.

I won't get into details, but here is the BEST SMAC:AC source I know of

http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/dosw...rossfire_a.txt

Keep your thanks for the author.

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by Sikander

I find artillery to be useful sometimes, especially for defending my continent from sniping by Native or Enemy sea forces. With a sensor and the height bonus they don't do too badly. I only build infantry based artillery, though most of the time they will be elites with those two movement points. If there are outbreaks of native life, these batteries really come into their own. Artillery blows the crap out of native life, and those stacks of worms make juicy targets (as you well know). A great substitute for artillery in the earliest stages of an amphibious invasion is your own foils and cruisers.

You bring up an oversight in my post which I'd like to amend. While I say that I don't think artillery is worth fielding in large amounts, there are _absolutely_ good reasons to have some. For worm defense, counterbattery of offshore bombardment and softening up any attackers who dare sully my shores, artillery is well worth the cost, I just prefer not to place it on a rover chassis, since on a infantry platform it's a free upgrade.