Morgan - What now?

[AMD4EVER]

So what do I do now? As Morgan I've got myself in a corner and need to go to war. There are five remaining teams other than me with the Believers dead.

Morgan: The second strongest rated now leading in tech and wealth. Almost no secret projects though.

Spartans: My pact brother, on an island and is the smallest faction
Hive: My pact brother, on an island and is a pretty small faction
University: My pact brother, has one base left that was a gift from me

Peacekeepers: Vendetta, but they were the second largest not long ago but are now on the downfall as the Gaians move in.

Gaia: Vendetta, they are the largest faction and will only get bigger as they take more Peacekeeping bases. They hate my Free Market and I think they will only get stronger and angrier at me over time. They have a lot of the secret projects after starting in the monsoon jungle and expanding quickly.

So what do I do now? This is the type of situation that makes me believe the Morgans are the worst. I had a slow start like Morgan generally has and now that I'm starting to pick up in strength I'm being threatened with war by a superior military. Its going to be a tough war no matter what but how should I go about achieving victory?

[RedFred]

Running green is an excellent fighting stance for Morgan. You still get the plus one nrg per worked tile if you run Wealth. If you want you can even call up Dierdre and have a chance at a cessation of hostilities. She usually likes Greenies.

[Gufnork]

I still see lots of room for expansion. Why would you go to war? How could you have failed to expand more than this in 182 turns? And get some crawlers, you get no production at all in your bases. No wonder you don't like Morgan, without crawlers their support penalty hurts like hell.

Switch back to wealth. Get some crawlers to get atleast some productivity, you have plenty of unworked squares. And right now your working your bases down to no production. Set all your formers (you would be better off if you had more of these) to borehole construction. After that you sould be able to build units. Build penetrators. They will easily kill any advancing units without dying themselves. Head for MMI to get some copters, then Retroviral engineering to get clean reactors.

Btw, you have Plasma and Missile, they have Synthmetal and Impact Laser. How is their military superior? You'll win a war of attrition, so you could just sit back and enjoy the destruction. Oh, and get some probes to speed things up. Buying their army from them as they approach your empire is always fun.

[Kody]

Gaians have the hunter seeker.

[Gufnork]

Lal doesn't. Steal Lals units, use them to kill Dees.

[AMD4EVER]

Originally posted by Gufnork
I still see lots of room for expansion. Why would you go to war? How could you have failed to expand more than this in 182 turns? And get some crawlers, you get no production at all in your bases. No wonder you don't like Morgan, without crawlers their support penalty hurts like hell.

Switch back to wealth. Get some crawlers to get atleast some productivity, you have plenty of unworked squares. And right now your working your bases down to no production. Set all your formers (you would be better off if you had more of these) to borehole construction. After that you sould be able to build units. Build penetrators. They will easily kill any advancing units without dying themselves. Head for MMI to get some copters, then Retroviral engineering to get clean reactors.

Btw, you have Plasma and Missile, they have Synthmetal and Impact Laser. How is their military superior? You'll win a war of attrition, so you could just sit back and enjoy the destruction. Oh, and get some probes to speed things up. Buying their army from them as they approach your empire is always fun.

I was going for expansion as you can see with my colony pods, however war was thrust upon me by the Gaians and they won't even talk to me now.

The reason I'm not expanded very well was caused a lot by losing all the early secret projects and mindworm attacks that severly hampered two of my earliest bases.

I'd also be glad to get some crawlers but I don't have time anymore. I just recently gained the ability to start building them and haven't had much time to get started with them. I was worried more about perimeter defenses and hab complexes and now I have to worry about a war.

Thanks for your tips. I'll switchs to wealth and start putting in some boreholes, but I think my initial few bases that Gaia approaches will fall unless something drastic happens. I don't think she is going to think about signing a treaty with me anytime soon but hopefully Lal will.

This is going to easily be the toughest war I've ever come across. I don't know if it is possible for me to win at this point but I'll see what I can do.

[Gufnork]

Get crawlers. They pay off in 14 turns, this war will last a lot longer than that. I strongly believe that your current units can hold them back long enough. If you doubt it, get some penetrators first, then build them. Since I don't think they have D:AP they have nothing that can attack your planes.

[AMD4EVER]

Woohoo! I've held off the initial attack! I lost two bases but have faught back and taken both of them and one of the Gaian bases. The penetrators were without a doubt the key factor in all of this! I've never been so happy to see the Morgan airforce striking out against my enemies!

At least for the time being things are back under control as Lal is essentially halting his attacks while the Gaian attack is getting smaller and smaller. I think I've taken out the first line of both of their attacks and now they are playing a defensive war.

Thanks for all the tips everyone!

[Flubber]

AMD4ever

I played this out for 30-40 turns and the key was switching to penetrators IMMEDIATELY. I scrapped all your perimeter defenses and a couple of command centres for cash in the first two turns. I switched from your 6-3-2 units to penetrators and ate the mineral hit ( it was huge) before rushing a prototype plane. The result was deidre never got close to taking the base and a rushed aerocomplex kept the planes regenerating. I also started crawlers to crawl minerals and rushed stuff all over the place.

I forget the year now but I have taken a couple of deidres bases and 3 PK bases and am fighting a long war of attrition on a couple of fronts. I snagged the Cyborg factory, Supercollider and the neural amplifier and stole a fusion unit to make up for the lack of that tech. My science base is pumping out sea crawlers to crawl energy back to my science base. I have MMI and am now going about 80% labs running Demo/Green/wealth with superstring coming in 2 turns. Once I get that I will spend a couple of turns gathering cash and will then move out of wealth and go clobbering with newbuilt and upgraded units. The PKs and gaians are at war with each other as well as Morgan so I just try to stay out of their way in areas they both are active.

The AI is showing no imagination in its attacks and only my lack of tech ( missile only) is keeping me from running them over. 6 level weapons against 3AA is not a happy situation. Once I have attack 8 weapons, the SE changes will bring a higher morale and I should be able to chew through their bases faster.

Amd4ever,
There were several mistakes obvious in this game

1. No crawlers !!!! Huge error unless doing this intentionally
2. Building 6-3-2 rovers . .. These are ridiculously expensive. I know support is an issue but see point 1. Crawl some minerals
3. No boreholes
4. Little exploration and no infiltration on the Gaians-- this lack hurts a lot
5. Uniform development-- EVERY base had all the facilities. Why put a perimeter defense in EVERY base and a command centre too ??? Specialize your bases. Build a command centre in 2-3 and start pumping out a rover a turn from each base. Also --its a huge waste to put all the lab enhancements and a hab complex in a tiny base with minimal energy production. Crawling additional energy to a fully developed base is a better use of resources.
6. Base spacing-- you are morgan, they can be even closer together. It makes no sense to have all those terraformed condensors and mines being unused so either build crawlers to use them or space your bases closer.

If a good human player had the gaian empire, I don't think the morganites would have a chance.


Current setup

My current setup, I have 3 bases with command centres pumping out drop troops and 4 or 5 with aerocomplexes pumping out choppers. 1 Base is building drop probes ( for security on the front), my SSC -- only producing 150 Labs/turn but increasing fast-- is producing trawlers and I have a hodgepodge of bases either recently conquered or recently established that are producing a variety of stuff.

I plan to play this out and hope to win this thing. My only fear is running out of years before I can get to all of the far-flung gaian empire-- getting the Hunter-seeker will be a priority.

[AMD4EVER]

Thanks for all the tips. I guess I'll have to learn to use some different strategies in the future.

I have already learned quite a few new tactics in this game. The first is better utilizing my aircraft. Even if they cannot shoot anyone they can provide good cover for units and block the path of oncoming enemies. Also, once I started conquering bases in the main Gaian group of bases I knew I would have trouble holding them, so I came up with the unique plan of conquering and handing them over to the University which was pacted with me and treatied with Gaia. The bases were completely undefended and the University still holds them today.

I've essentially worked around fighting the Peacekeepers at all. I never took one of their bases and just let the Gaians finish them off with their Eastern bases. I cut a straight beeline from my bases to the main group of Gaian bases and then quickly captured Empathy Guild and Hunter Seeker. Now I'm world leader and have a military right in Gaias back yard. Unfortunantly the Hive decided to PB Gaias Landing so my trophy is now gone

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Flubber
AMD4ever

5. Uniform development-- EVERY base had all the facilities. Why put a perimeter defense in EVERY base and a command centre too ??? Specialize your bases. Build a command centre in 2-3 and start pumping out a rover a turn from each base.

This is exactly why I'll never be an expert player. It just hurts me not to build everything in each and every base. I'm getting the hang of the crawler stuff, but not to build stuff? For an empire-builder like me, that is an atrocity.

Asmodean

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Asmodean


This is exactly why I'll never be an expert player. It just hurts me not to build everything in each and every base. I'm getting the hang of the crawler stuff, but not to build stuff? For an empire-builder like me, that is an atrocity.

Asmodean

But build a smarter empire. Have a base that only crawls minerals and and give it all the morale enhancing stuff. Build a couple of energy centres that have minimal military installations. Spend the cash/minerals you would spend on the less useful facility for the type of base on more and more crawlers to increase the energy flowing in

[Flubber]

amd4ever
I played your game for 60 years but now its boring as its all over but the crying. i would win within another 10 years I figure. . . I actually estimate 5 years before I reduce Lal enough that I have the votes for supreme leader.

While I didn't like the way you set things up, you did have well developed bases. I pretty much ignored their further development and went military. Its not the prettiest game I played but it was a bit of fun-- It felt odd to be so late in the game though . . I don't remember the last time I went past 2250

My save is attached

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Flubber


But build a smarter empire. Have a base that only crawls minerals and and give it all the morale enhancing stuff. Build a couple of energy centres that have minimal military installations. Spend the cash/minerals you would spend on the less useful facility for the type of base on more and more crawlers to increase the energy flowing in

So what you're saying is that I should focus development on different areas in different bases. Okay...I can live with that. But the numbers don't add up. You say a couple of energy bases, and a copuple of mineral bases. How many bases do you normally have, Flubber? I kinda like to go ICS. Are you saying that is not the way?

Asmodean

[HeymlicH]

Originally posted by Asmodean

This is exactly why I'll never be an expert player. It just hurts me not to build everything in each and every base. I'm getting the hang of the crawler stuff, but not to build stuff? For an empire-builder like me, that is an atrocity.

Asmodean

It's nothing wrong with building everything everywhere. I do this, too. Just delay building the not needed improvements to a later stage (usually I let the Gov. do this work when it's clear that I will win)

[AMD4EVER]

Originally posted by Flubber
amd4ever
I played your game for 60 years but now its boring as its all over but the crying. i would win within another 10 years I figure. . . I actually estimate 5 years before I reduce Lal enough that I have the votes for supreme leader.

While I didn't like the way you set things up, you did have well developed bases. I pretty much ignored their further development and went military. Its not the prettiest game I played but it was a bit of fun-- It felt odd to be so late in the game though . . I don't remember the last time I went past 2250

My save is attached

Holy cow! How did you do that so fast? I'm in the same year as your save was and I was not even close to taking out the main cluster of Gaian bases, much less the Peacekeepers or the water bases scattered around. Thats just incredible!!

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Asmodean


So what you're saying is that I should focus development on different areas in different bases. Okay...I can live with that. But the numbers don't add up. You say a couple of energy bases, and a copuple of mineral bases. How many bases do you normally have, Flubber? I kinda like to go ICS. Are you saying that is not the way?

Asmodean

First-- I have never seen your development so your style might be fabulous. My comments were based on amd4ever's game where he developed each base exactly the same without seeming to consider the terrain,growth opportunities or military risk to that base.He no crawlers, few formers, a bunch of unused good terraforming and no boreholes. If instead of about 15 of these facilities ( avoided building 7 or 8 of each of command centres and preimeters,) he would have had 15 crawlers, he would have been in much better shape

A "couple" was inaccurate wording by me. Its a couple of super bases early but when doing things right you may end up with 8 or 10 or 20 bases with all the enhancing facilities. It would be nice to develop every base but I'm talking about prioritizing. If I can get 5 crawlers (bringing 20 energy say) into an existing developed base with a NN,res hosp. and energy bank . . . that strikes me as a better use of resources than spending triple the resources to build those 3 facilities in a base now producing say 12 energy ( not even factoring in maintenance costs. 5 crawlers is what ? 150 minerals or so--

I don't have a normal amount of bases . . . I tend to expand until geography or opponents stop me .

.

ICS is an excellent strategy. I do it myself with some factions and if you are going thin expansion, you might not be developing much. But when the time comes to develop, I do recommend focusing development to get a few really good bases first.

If you look at my morgan save from amd4evers game I could only partially implement this due to military considerations, but I had one base pumping out something like 300 labs at 50% allocation. I had 3 other bases build the sea formers to terraform the tidal harnesses while the energy base just built crawlers.

In my normal setup I would have selected a science base or two VERY early on and given them every energy enhancement as quickly as possible and consistent with a safe empire. The crawler/trawler field would be much larger.

The safe empire part comes from a few military bases. I usually pick places in a rocky area and crawl a bunch of mines. The base may never grow and I don't care. Some of my pure military bases may be size ones where the only citizen becomes a doctor because I want to send my troops to war while in FM. ( poor man's punishment sphere)

I am very flexible in my development and don't follow a set development pattern but I do usually put bases 2-3 tiles apart and then select roles for them once the situation becomes more apparent. Once I have a sense of the map I pick 2-3 to be my "good" bases and a couple to be military/probes. As I expand more and more bases get each type of development.

By the time I get a 30 base empire, I may have 2-6 what I would call "super bases" with every energy enhancement and a bunch of crawled resources . There might be 2-6 dedicated support bases whose only real role is to pump out crawlers/trawlers. There would be 4-8 bases with military enhancements and any remaining bases might be " normal" . By normal, I mean they are not supported by other bases and get developed but in lesser priority. If I manage to get cash rich, these bases will look a lot like my "super-bases" ( facility wise) just with less of a crawler field. Once distances get longer or available good crawlable resources get less, well then my focus turns to developing infrastructure in other bases . . . .

Bottom line is that there are many good ways to develop. The foregoing is only one option. BUT IMHO

1. building a command centre and perimeter in every base is a mistake-- consider the military situation and the mineral production of the base

2. It is often a mistake to build research facilities in a low energy base when crawlers could easily bring energy to a nearby base with all the facilities-- The cost of say a research hospital could create about 4 crawlers. If the small base is producing less energy than those crawlers can easily crawl . . . .

Just my views-- like I said, you might have a perfectly valid and totally different way to develop.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by AMD4EVER


Holy cow! How did you do that so fast? I'm in the same year as your save was and I was not even close to taking out the main cluster of Gaian bases, much less the Peacekeepers or the water bases scattered around. Thats just incredible!!

Thanks for the compliment . . . I do hope I have learned something about this game

I went airpower, airpower, airpower. I used drop colony podes due south of morgans island to make a route toward the gaians and hit them there while still fighting a war of attrition in the east of the morganite empire. I only finally went east after the gaian homeland was mine

The water bases were easy to pick up --Going Green and wealth got me the benefits of +2 ECON plus I started capturing IODs all over the place. At one point I had 5 of them in a little fleet with a missile skimship

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Flubber


Just my views-- like I said, you might have a perfectly valid and totally different way to develop.

Oh no, Flubber. I am nowhere near as good at this game as you are. Just trying to learn from the master

Asmodean

[Flubber]

Originally posted by HeymlicH



It's nothing wrong with building everything everywhere. I do this, too. Just delay building the not needed improvements to a later stage (usually I let the Gov. do this work when it's clear that I will win)

Actually there is a lot wrong with it if you do it without thought or consideration. If you have a great science base in the middle of your empire why on earth would you build a command centre or perimeter, or bioenhancement facility there Instead pump out a crawler a turn and watch the magic of that flowing through all the science enhancement.

With research and energy facilities, I can agree that MOST bases will get these but only after they have grown a bit. Building a research hospital to turn 6 labs into 9 ( minus some maintenance) in a size 3 base makes less sense to me than building 3 crawlers and crawling 9-12 energy into a really good base. If a base is bigger ( or about to pop-boom), or has really good terraforming , the analysis might go the other way.


As an aside, I almost NEVER build perimeters against the AI (some exceptions). My defensive strategy ( pre airpower) is based on agressive patrolling, probe teams and the use of roads to hit the enemy on the way in. Using sensors , you should never be suprised and one tile roads out from your base means a rover can rush out, attack and return to base. Command centres are usually only placed in frontier bases ( for regeneration at the front) or a mineral rich base that I plan to use to generate much of my army.

[Mongoose]

Flubber,

Keep in mind that the approach you describe here can be catastrophically short sighted in a game with random events turned on. In such a game, a single missing network node can cost you thousands of labs due to random event. Eschewing Biology labs in such a game can lead to devastating lost of forestation by Planetblight. You get the picture, I'm sure.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Mongoose
Flubber,

Keep in mind that the approach you describe here can be catastrophically short sighted in a game with random events turned on. In such a game, a single missing network node can cost you thousands of labs due to random event. Eschewing Biology labs in such a game can lead to devastating lost of forestation by Planetblight. You get the picture, I'm sure.

True very true --- I had not considered that factor due to the fact that PBEMs don't have random events on ( due to likely unfairness) so my my recent game experience has all been with this feature OFF-- If playing with it on, I would have to revisit the information on which facility prevents each disaster.


But your example makes my point. If a biology lab prevents deforestation, I would not bother with that in my Poor man's punsishment sphere where a size one base is crawling 4 or 5 mines. However, I might need a network node everywhere if the lack of one could cause the loss of ALL my research accumulation ( would put a crimp in many ICS styles if this event were at all common).

I recall random events to be uncommon enough, that if you protect yourself against the truly devastating ones, you should be ok.

[Gufnork]

I never bother protecting myself against random events. They're just not bad or common enough to warrant building useless facilities.

[CEO Aaron]

Try eating a meteor that reduces your capital and a couple of adjoining bases to a crater-lake. You might change your mind about that. Or maybe not...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Try eating a meteor that reduces your capital and a couple of adjoining bases to a crater-lake. You might change your mind about that. Or maybe not...

THat is a horrible event but what facility can stop it??

I had solar flares take out my satellite a couple of times and again was not sure what could stop it.

[AMD4EVER]

Originally posted by Gufnork
I never bother protecting myself against random events. They're just not bad or common enough to warrant building useless facilities.

Generally they are not that bad. However, losing a tech that is close to done early on really hurts. Losing 5000 or so energy during the mid game really hurts. Losing forests around a main military base really hurts at any point in the game. Having plagues in your largest base and having it spread to all the bases around it really hurts at any point in the game. All these things can be prevented. They can play a role in the game especially if your at war against a larger faction at the time it happens.

[RedFred]

I tend to go Gufnork's route. The opportunity cost of building every last 'disaster insurance' base improvement is much higher than a few negative random events.

Nothing can stop a meteor except lousy play. It is an extremely rare event which I have only seen twice while playing against the computer, both when I was way ahead on the might chart. And nothing stops the random events that knock out sats.

Obviously I'll build a lot of net nodes if I've gotten the VW. Otherwise science bases and some other well-developed bases will get them. I have never experienced more than two negative net node events in any one game. You should easily be able to outresearch the AI regardless.

Bio labs are a bad investment for most bases. Planet blight so what? Temporarily crawl a few nuts to the base in question, or if you are in a pop boom situation, just let some of the population die and move a couple more formers into the area.

The two events that drains your energy are even less of a problem. I keep my cash production high but my cash holdings down to almost nothing at the end of each turn. Energy Banks everywhere will actually hurt you (unless you nab the SP). For a small base your turn by turn maintanence costs could be greater than the EB benefit.

The Promethus Virus just reduces population in one city, iirc. Another good reason to have lots of bases. And to nab the HGP.

The hail is laughable as most land energy production from solars typically occurs in energy parks largely outside the base radius. As are the -1 nrg, -1 nuts, or -1 mins for 10 years unless it is a key base. But I don't think there is any way of defending against them.

Have I missed any negative random events? Honestly, they are not that bad.

[Flubber]

Hey redfred

Glad to see you around here, and on my side of an issue.

I think that the practical reality is that any of your better bases will have appropriate facilities to stop most negative consequences anyway.

[gwillybj]

Originally posted by RedFred
Have I missed any negative random events? Honestly, they are not that bad.

And they can be fun to watch Random Events: Facilities and Secret Projects

Originally posted by RedFred
The Promethus Virus just reduces population in one city, iirc. Another good reason to have lots of bases. And to nab the HGP.

The Prometheus Virus can be nasty. (In that Random Events thread.)

[Mead]

Originally posted by Mongoose
Flubber,

Keep in mind that the approach you describe here can be catastrophically short sighted in a game with random events turned on. In such a game, a single missing network node can cost you thousands of labs due to random event. Eschewing Biology labs in such a game can lead to devastating lost of forestation by Planetblight. You get the picture, I'm sure.

Specialization of bases is a risk that is worth taking.

With specialization you stack facilities that build upon the local geography and the facilities that already exist in the base.

See below three examples of specialization in SMAC
Assuming an early/mid game 15 base (and growing) empire:


1. SUPER SCIENCE CENTER

Why build an energy bank in every base when you can concentrate most of your energy/lab construction on one or two relatively safe bases, with good energy sources (make it the recipient of your energy park). Put in those bases an energy bank (increases energy allocated to energy reserves by 50%), research hospital (in addition to other things increases energy allocated to labs by 50%), tree farm (in addition to other things increases economy by 50%), fusion lab (increases economy by 50% and labs by 50%), children's crèche (in addition to other things increases efficiency by +2 enhancing energy retention). Give it some good mineral production so it can help build all these goodies quickly.

What you get is a money and tech making monster that, because of the cumulative effects of the facilities, produces far more cash and tech, quicker than if you tried to spread your facilities evenly throughout your empire.

When it comes to mid/late game and you start adding hybrid forests, and nanohospitals (Quantum Lab usually come available only as the game is ending) the effects intensify.

These effects are cumulative; I think it is like compound interest. If one of these bases has the ME and builds the Supercollider, ToE, Network Backbone, or space elevator (preferable all of them in the same base) that base is producing more tech per turn than the total of every other base (both yours and everyone else's) on planet combined.

NOTE
Make sure you protect the SSC well - from everything including PB's (make a ring of crawlers around it; even if you do have ODPs you could lose them due to a random event and someone could turn ugly).


MILITARY PRODUCTION LINES

Usually for me at least 2 bases- one for land, one for air. Usually a lot of bases for air since I like airpower so much. I usually have none for sea since I usually ignore the sea as much as I can until I have to deal with it.

Instead of placing morale enhancing facilities in every base pick the ones with a good mineral production, then:

Do what you have to enhance the production of minerals - make mines/boreholes/crawl minerals; genejack factory if available and other mineral enhancing facilities at this base before others.

2. FOR THE LAND MILITARY UNIT PRODUCER
Give it a command center plus a bioenhancement center (at least until when and if you get the cyborg factory). Give it lower priority for an aerospace center.

3. FOR THE AIR MILITARY UNIT PRODUCER
Give it the aerospace center and bioenhancement center (at least until when and if you get the cyborg factory). Do not waste your time or cash on the command center. It should be relatively far from the front lines and it is a better use of its early production time to pump out those high morale air units.


For the other bases
Let them develop, but at a slower rate than the key bases you are focusing on. Tend to use these other bases to build crawlers and formers to support your SSC and military production bases


That is a general plan of specialization. It will vary with the unique characteristics of whatever game you are playing.


Mead