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JustinSane
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Disclaimer: I'm not as good as you guys  I've never played multiplayer and my skill level at economic management is rather pitiable. I am however a longtime lurker here and at CGN and am marginally decent at single player
Ever since I got the Planetary Pack a few years ago, the Planet Cult has been by far my favorite faction. I loved the ability to quickly mass a green army and go maruading. Slight problem: Objectively, they aren't very good. In fact, they seem to be the consensus weakest faction in the game, and rightly so.
Still, I tried many different times to come up with an opening strategy to overcome the significant difficulties in getting these guys to parity with the other factions. Fast momentum, quick to centauri empathy, quick naval, going for the progenitor resonance weapons fast - none of it worked satisfactorily.
Basically, I was always left, sometimes after conquering one or two other factions, with weak industry and a crippling, pathetic tech rate. I couldn't get crawlers fast enough, couldn't get restrictions off fast enough and was slower to all the important mid game SP's. Eventually, I gave up and switched to Morgan and the Drones, with much better success. Still, I wanted a way to make the Cult work.
About a week ago I came up with an idea that seems to give them an equal footing to most other factions 50 years in. Basically, an extremely rapid pop boom. The cult simply can not get to Ind Auto as quickly as other factions, or use it as effectively once they do (no wealth). They can't use FM to boost their tech rate, since it only gives them +1, missing out on the critical +1 energy a square. What they can do is pop boom. In classical SMAX builder strategy, it's Ind Auto first, then restrictions off and a pop boom. People don't pop boom first because their aren't enough nutrients, it requires 4 techs (only one fewer than Ind Auto), and drone control tends to be difficult.
The cult, for all their weaknesses, is uniquely well suited to dealing with these problems however. Firstly, as was previously mentioned, Ind Auto is both harder to get to and less rewarding once you are there, so the incentive for the counter strategy is not as great. Second, though it's often dismissed as a rather useless bonus, the worm police can be very handy for early drone control, almost as much as the PK and Drone bonuses. Third, no one pops pods as effectively as the Planet Cult. Pods give worms, energy credits, and most critically AA's. Fourth, their starting tech leans toward the pop boom while not helping the Ind Auto beeline at all. So using the AA's (almost always one, usually two, often three, sometimes four in my experience) and having dedicated a base rather early to starting it (preferably with a mineral bonus, with monoliths a decent second choice) build the WP very early. It's a nice project in any case, but here the critical idea is to quickly get condensor farm squares down, which bypass nutrient restrictions.
As far as tech goes, info nets, plan nets, then eth cal is all that is needed, though biogenetics can also be somewhat handy as a fill in if you aren't allowed to get everything directly. Switch to planned as soon as you hit plan nets. Get creches and rec commons up ASAP, rushing when possible with credits from pods and worms that won't joing your cause. Then boom. With a rec commons and a worm or spore launcher, you can hit pop 5 without drone problems. While booming, continue building condensors and borehole any energy or mineral specials. Use librarians extensively and engineers when there is urgent need of energy credits.
As to where you go from the boom, I see three main options. My personal favorite is to go for centauri empathy and build the EG. No one will be able to stop you from getting the governership then, and the commerce income can be very nice, as is the possibility of playing tech broker. The other two options are to go for Ind Auto or go for Eco Eng while building a bunch of boreholes. In any case, you will have a much higher population that normal, and thanks to the effectiveness of specialists, better research than I have been able to achieve using any other strategy as the cult. In the trials I've run, I've been able to attain turn 50 results comparable to or better than I have with any faction other than Morgan, the Drones or the University. The WP is a serious long term chip to play with, and the strong population means you will have a comparably powerful, if less flexible economy to a faction with crawlers but half the pop. The other really nice thing about this is how easy you can trasnistion to the attack if you run into a hostile faction. Worms, Spore launchers and probe teams can be a devestating combination early on, and are certainly enough to keep you from being a soft target for some beligerent such as Yang or Miriam in the early going. (Morgan's Achilles heel) If you happen to run into one of the factions less equipped for early combat, you can easily turn the conqueror yourself without sacrificing the beeline.
Anyway, I doubt this will make the Cult the strongest faction, and I'm not a good enough playe to make any strong conclusions, but it is my belief that this is the strongest way to play them in the early game and that when used such, they compare favorably with other momentum oriented factions trying to build, such as the Spartans, Hive and Believers, while not lagging too far behind any but the most hard core builder factions (Morgan, University) Thoughts, comments and quite likely corrections are gratefully welcomed
Last edited by JustinSane on 10-11-2003 at 08:17
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Mead
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It was hard to read through the entire post.
Use more paragraphs and break it up into to separate parts to make it easier to read, analyze, and respond to. Perhaps, use bullets and label the distinct points you are making.
Although I am far more experienced at SMAC than SMAX (having just got SMAX a week or so ago I am weak on SMAX, many would say the same on SMAC), some of your suggestions seem to be stuff that would be successful.
Getting WP is a definite plus.
Using specialists (a strategy which I myself have not used much myself) seems to be favored by many.
Using the Cults, similar to the Gaians, ability to pop pods efficiently is well thought of.
I think you have some developed some good insights to the game, work to make it easier for others see these insights and consider them.
Mead
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CEO Aaron
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Everything has its price. Even you.
Aug 2002
time: 05:31
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So, if I'm not mistaken, the essence of your plan is to grab WP early, through use of captured AA's, and build/work condensers _without_ the benefit of crawlers/IA to crank your population early, using mindworms for the police effect to control your drone woes.
It seems to be a fairly sound plan, especially if you can make use of your early worm to supplement your income with planetpearls and free garrisons. Once your population is in place, the next step, to my mind, is a wholesale rampage of tech-steal, switching to Fundy/Green/Knowledge as these choices become available. You'll get solid efficiency for a large number of bases, a nice morale hike, and all the psi-attack bonuses money can buy.
I'm intrigued by this strategy, and will probably start a Cultist game to try it on for size. I'll let you know how it comes along.
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Nakar Gabab
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of Pedantic Nitpicking
May 2001
time: 00:31
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Good idea, actually!
I've always been in favor of an early boom, but trying out the "standard" (and admittedly usually more effective) strategies has tended to shy me away from that, to the point that I can only REALLY boom early anymore as Lal. Yeah, I know, I need to work on this, but like JustinSane I don't claim to be an expert at this.
Anyway, you've correctly played to the weakness of the Cult, and I think generally if you play to mitigate a faction's weaknesses you can then consider the positives. There are good reasons to do it the other way around, but in this case...
Basically, what makes up for the industry hit and economy woes? Well, that's simple: MORE PEOPLE! More workers faster means more minerals and more energy despite the penalties, and an early boom gives the Cult a slight competitive edge that it needs to keep up early on. The bonus to your strategy is that you're going to accumulate a huge green army ANYWAY.
I would submit one thing to you though: Would the strategy work almost as well with the Gaians? I ask this because the Gaians already start with Cent Ecology and can grab worms (though they don't get to start with one, regrettably) quick. So while their worm gain is slower, their race to the WP is faster and they have less of a research problem than the Cult (no econ penalty, +2 Efficiency). Finally, Dee can eat fungus, which supplements the boom just in case nuts are a bit scarce or you lose something to an errant spore launcher. Might work just as well or better, but I'll need to give it a try on my own.
What I'm saying is your strategy could probably work for any "native" strategy, and indeed it might be a better way to do it than just sending the worms out on the prowl. I like it.
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JustinSane
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Thank you all very much for the replies! CEO Aaron, I look forward to hearing how this strategy goes when handled by a player of you skill level. Your idea as to what to do after the boom seems dead on if there is a suitable target close. I might, in some circumstances, run police state/green/knowledge rather than fundy though. The cultists have rather fragile industry, and over the course of a war a couple minerals per base in support can really hurt. Most of the time Fundy probably is the way to go though.
Jamski, I'm glad you found the strat interesting. Please let me know how it goes for you as well. As to whether the Gaians would be better equipped for this, my best guess is they would be slightly less effective. The efficiency, fungus nuts and lack of industry penalty are nice, but they do start out behind the Cult in a few, rather minor, ways. Cumulatively I think they place the Cult ahead. First, the Cult starts with both terraforming technology and social psych, so they are one tech closer to completing the bee-line.
The Cult also starts with a worm rather than having to find one trolling scouts through the fungus. This is a very big advantage. The starting worm is the best early game scout, and because of a movement rate of 3 rather than 1 through fungus, it is far more likely to kick up worms. When it does, with +2 planet as opposed to only +1, it is twice as likely to successfully capture. It is at least twice as valuable for pod popping/worm farming as a scout. Combined with the starting scout, that means the Planet Cult is roughly 3 times as effective at early exploration/pod popping/worm farming. And more worms beget even more worms as they go flowing through the fungus. So basically, I don't think Dee could get as many worms or pop as many pods within the needed time frame.
Last but not least, she lacks the worm police ability, so drone control will be a bigger problem once the boom starts. Without a holo theatre, she will have to start using doctors at pop 4 rather than pop 5. The fungus nutrient is nice, but if you have the weather paradigm it isn't that hard to get 2 nutrient squares. In some circumstances the terraform time could slow you down a little, but I wouldn't think enough to have a significant impact. Overall, Dee can execute this strategy, but I doubt she would have quite the same success at it as the gender unknown Cha Dawn.
Nakar, thank you for your comments! I'm glad you like the strategy, and I agree that masking a faction's weaknesses is often a good idea. This strategy very much tries to play to what the Cult can do and mostly ignores what it can't. As to whether the Gaians would be better, please see above I initially tried the early pop boom strategy about a year and a half ago as the Peacekeepers, and gave up on it because it didn't work as well for me as the industrial auto beeline. It seems to go much smoother and faster as the Cult however.
Thanks again, and if I've overlooked anything, or am just wrong in my conclusions, please let me know
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Bingo
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The cult is my favorite faction, and I'm currently playing the Cult in a PBEM game, so this interests me alot. Thanks for the new ideas, i'll have to try them out!
What do you think of The Virtual World? I generally find it's a great tech to get because with a network node and some worms your drone problems are taken care of. Plus I generally have to build alot of network nodes anyways to cash in the AA's I get from IoD pod popping.
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SynthetGod8
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I think Cha Dawn is supposed to be gender neutral, being some kind of messiah with no mother except Planet.
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10-11-2003 05:25
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