24-11-2004 01:25									#1
	Which is better... Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

+2 Efficiency or +2 Support? Which would you rather have?

Also, what's better: +1 Planet, +1 Economy, or +2 Morale?

	24-11-2004 03:54									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

The answer depends on what point in the game you're worrying about, so I gave my answer for the midgame. Efficiency and economy together work wonders! Support is much less useful to a faction that doesn't build that many units in the first place, or after Bioengineering. Planet is handy, but not as good as economy. Morale is garbage - low Morale ratings are superior in the presence of a Children's Creche and aren't strongly disadvantaged the rest of the time.

	24-11-2004 04:53									#3
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Because I'm a crazy city builder and terraformer, I significantly prefer to be on good terms with Planet and have 100 support-free Skybase Terraformers at some bases

	24-11-2004 05:14									#4
	Increase Your PM Length

+2 Support is very useful when your still building up at the start, being able to support 3 formers for free per base (+1 garrison) is very, very nice, because mass terraforming and expansion doesn't slow down the rest of your infrastructure growth. For Morgan in the very early game, if you have the choice of Democracy or Police State, then PS is almost a no-brainer.

Later in the game energy becomes more significant due to large bases and multipliers from facilities and thus effeciency more important, if the +2 effic reclaims an average of 4 energy per base, then thats pretty much pays for 2 extra supported units.

In some cases +2 effic is useful in the early game if you are having drone control problems because you can make more bases before running into b-drones, this is likely only to be useful on huge maps because on smaller maps you need to blow through the b-drone limit to get a comfortable number of bases.

I'd say that on average, +2 support is more useful until about L3 techs, then +2 Effic will give greater benefit... but in practise it is more complicated...

+1 Planet: Planet is only really useful in the early game to allow you to capture worms, then, it is very useful. It can be a bad thing if your actually causing pops and killing the worms for cash. (Positive Planet is basically the only sometimes-bad trait - excluding bugs like +4 probe and natives benefiting from creche)
+1 Economy: Only useful to the extent that it brings you to +2 economy or higher - in other words, if your Morgan and/or already running FM. However more energy is always a good thing.

+2 Morale: Useful when fighting to reduce unit losses, but mostly only useful to the extent that it allows you to train Elites, occasionally it makes sense to get positive morale in order to get Elite Formers.
Post-Creche -1 Morale is "Good Enough" to get elite military in combo with Monoliths. "Investing" in morale early in the game makes sense if it allows you to get surprisingly early elites - generally only the Spartans can do this without excessive sacrifice.

It's also worth noting that for all factions which start with even morale (ie: not Gaians and I think Ursupers) then +1 Morale (from Fundie) is very nearly as good as +2 Morale (from Power). For the Gaians Fundie is very nearly worthless because post-creche it gives no tangible morale benefit, in principle Power is useful for the Gaians, it's the only way for them to get Elite formers... in reality no-one should ever run power, unless they have the CV.

Last edited by Blake on 24-11-2004 at 06:21

	24-11-2004 05:43									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I voted for the all powerful Econ/Eff of course.

But the Planet/Eff is nearly as good. It gives you the best element of the Gaians.


oh...and thanks....you inspired a new faction idea.

	24-11-2004 08:59									#6
	Suffering from ads?

+2 Banana allows your faction to pop boom in abject poverty, especially if you have discovered the Republic tech. Switch a to a Banana Republic government, and you will have Communism-level military policing (+3 Police or better) and barbarians every turn to train your pre-teen soldiers with!

	24-11-2004 10:28									#7
	Tired of ads?

+2Efficiency +2Morale for me.
I'm usually producing enough minerals that I don't necessarily need a higher Support rating, so I'll take the higher Efficiency. Those EC's are handy for Hurrying and Bribes, so I don't want them melting away on me.
My economy is generally quite lively and I don't often have a big ecodamage problem, but I always want "well-trained, well-equipped troops" because for some reason they are frequently called upon to "stand up to many more times their lesser brethren"
M'Lady tells me +2Banana automatically results in +2Efficiency +2Morale

	24-11-2004 13:48									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

+2 support
+1 economy

IF you're going ICS specialist approach, you don't need efficiency (at the extent you need support for rapid terraform).
And economy will boost you at the start..

	24-11-2004 14:58									#9
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia +2 Banana allows your faction to pop boom in abject poverty, especially if you have discovered the Republic tech. Switch a to a Banana Republic government, and you will have Communism-level military policing (+3 Police or better) and barbarians every turn to train your pre-teen soldiers with!

	24-11-2004 18:18									#10
	Increase Your PM Length

I chose +1 econ +2 support. This is great in the early game and I have more ways to adjust to circumstances in the middle and late game.

	25-11-2004 00:31									#11
	Put an end to popups!

I chose +2 support and +1 economy.
In that case you can support more formers early on (as mentioned before). Later on, you can switch to democracy without the support hit.

+1 economy so I can choose Wealth as SE setting. This allows me to get +1 energy per square (happens at +2 economy) without the -5 Police and -3 Planet of Free market. In this case I just have to live with the morale hit and also get +1 industry. This is a real boon to me. (I also follow this choice when playing Morgan)

	25-11-2004 01:16									#12
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

+2 Support, +1 Econ

More formers earlier on, able to switch to Demo early without losing the 10 free mins, nice adaptability in the late game, and a nice boost to commerce on top of the +3 from FM and Wealth.

	25-11-2004 03:43									#13
	Inflate your Upload Space

+2 Efficiency, +1 Economy

I prefer the research way and keeps my income as close to +/-0 as sensible. Admitted, the +2 eff. first do good later.

Support isn't much worth - one defender and a former can easily keep up with pop growth and expansion, especially after WP. One or two bases doing proto and army support covers until clean.

Morale could be nice from start, but since thats not possible i prefer Nexus, Cyborg, MCC and CB to morale boost (and if i dont get them for free, i spend the mins at my warfactory bases).

	25-11-2004 09:09									#14
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I go for Support and Moral since I like BIG LONG games.

If I could I would make it 14 factions on a 256X208 planet.

	25-11-2004 20:05									#15
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by ForesterSOF I go for Support and Moral since I like BIG LONG games. If I could I would make it 14 factions on a 256X208 planet.

If you play a big long game, you should be able to get all of the SPs that give extra moral... so then you don't need +moral

And if I could, I would make it a limit of something like 4096 bases instead of the current 512 bases (I could some damn large maps )

	26-11-2004 09:55									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Unless, like you would do with your economic power, he took advantage of thos bonuses and cleans up you commerce-loving pukes so quickly you won't be able to say "supply-crawler go boom!"

Share the love!

For me tho, +2 Support and +1 Economy is best. Why? 1 extra energy at every base, and +2 minerals at every base. It's better than free recycling tanks (which you can build and research quickly)

+2 Efficiency is a little to easy to make up for in SE, imo (but I appreciate it dearly, being a gaian freak :P )

	27-11-2004 02:40									#17
	Increase Your PM Length

+2 effic and +1 econ. Demo, FM + wealth on top of that nets +4 effic and +4 econ. Amazing! Paradigm economy with +4 energy from every base square.

The +2 min from +2 support is nice, and it cancels out the demo penalty. But to say it's +2 min at every base isn't quite true. It takes time and minerals to build the units to take advantage of those mins. One crawler on a forest does the same thing.

*shrugs* Each to their own though.

	27-11-2004 04:15									#18
	Suffering from ads?

Support and Econ for me

	01-12-2004 04:25									#19
	Put an end to popups!

I voted Economy and Efficiency, unshockingly. Support is very convenient early on, but becomes less and less relevant as you climb the technology tree. Clean reactors, mineral crawlers, the Living refinery, various SE choices. On the other hand, efficiency becomes more and more useful the larger and more advanced your faction becomes.

	03-12-2004 09:35									#20
	Remove this text

I'm used to playing PK, so just not having an efficiency penalty is a bonus.