15-04-2005 22:57									#1
	Strategies for the Consciousness and Pirates? Suffering from ads?

As far as I know there are two basic strategies you can follow in SMAC to build a large economy. Popbooming, or ICSing and founding lots of small-sized bases. What strategy is best depends on circumstances, such as your technology level and which faction you’re playing. Of course there are other side-strategies that can help you get through the early game, such as conquest, worm hunting, pod popping, or explore to meet other factions early for trading. But in the long run I think you need to do one of the above two (popboom, or ICS) to survive.

Our favourite capitalist and communist, Morgan and Yang, are best suited for ICS. Morgan under FM/Wealth gives lots of energy on all base squares. And while Yang has an energy less than standard on base squares, under PS/Planned his Police and Support boni, together with his general boni in Industry & Growth, make up for his difficulty to popboom, and make ICS profitable.

Many other factions are well able for popbooming. The Believers, Gaians, Spartans, Peacekeepers, Cult, Drones and Angels.

And let’s not forget the University and the Aliens, who can profit both from popbooming and ICS (network node for the UoP, even further strengthened by the Virtual World, and rec tanks for the aliens).

The Consciousness and Pirates can’t do either. They can’t popboom (easily), nor do they have a special bonus which makes ICS extra good for them. Of course the Consciousness could run FM/Wealth to get some extra energy out of their base squares, but unlike the Peacekeepers, Drones or University (with Virtual World), they don’t get free drone control that makes it easy to run Free Market early in the game. So I’m wondering, when you can’t get the HGP or PTS, what strategy can you follow to get a large economy with the Consciousness or Pirates? Can they be competitive with the other factions??

	15-04-2005 23:09									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar I'm only now experimenting with the pirates, but I find that building a lot of bases, popbooming (it isnt so difficult - demo/planned, golden age, and creche )

Are you playing on Transcend? (From another thread I assume you're not.)

Problem is that under Transcend once you cross the bureaucracy limit, you can't get golden ages anymore in bases with b-drones.

	16-04-2005 02:43									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

My problems with Pirates have to do with their chronic mineral shortages. Sure, cash is nice to jumpstart the production of base facilities, but at some point you need to transition to land to grab the more profitable mineral-production facilities. To be honest, I don't think there's any strategy that's well suited to their 'strengths', simply because they don't really have any. Free Naval Yards are bordering on irrelevant, since Air Power will trump sea power long at about the time you're getting them. Free Pressure Domes merely stem the chronic mineral shortages brought on by sea-limits and higher unit costs.

That being said, I don't think the Pirates' problems will be of the 'I can't raise my population' variety, rather, they will be ill-equipped to get anything useful from the population they have, again due ot the energy or minerals nature of sea terraforming.

The Consciousness, on the other hand, is a very effective faction with compelling bonuses. They're one of the better builder factions out there, hampered only by their growth penalty. How to get around it? Be Aggressive! That extra efficiency is just begging to counteract the drawbacks of Police state, whereupon you can field a large terraforming force and still have a large army.

With an early tech lead and an expeditionary force, you're well-situated to steal bases from your hapless neighbors, giving you the momentum weight to outgrow your more remote rivals. Alternatively, you can also go a more traditional builder-game, angling for Industrial Automation, crawlers, and most importantly, the Planetary Transit Network. With a strategic thin expansion, you can double, almost triple your population, and get a leg-up on futher expansion to boot.

Really, there's no reason you can' achieve both aims, going for early IA, then shifting gears toward police, missiles and air power for the win. Since POP booming isn't easy to pull off, there's no reason to rush for Tree Farms. Instead, infiltrate your neighbors, and conquer/steal those techs when they're discovered.

	16-04-2005 03:09									#4
	Re: Strategies for the Consciousness and Pirates? Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by Maniac So I’m wondering, when you can’t get the HGP or PTS, what strategy can you follow to get a large economy with the Consciousness or Pirates? Can they be competitive with the other factions??

What are preventing you from getting HGP and PTS being Aki ? I ususally only have problems getting Supercollider before Roze due to different beelining - after that I'm controlling all SP's.

And yes, I play transcend, but admitted, on gigantic (added Gigantic, 96, 192 under #WORLDSIZE) and 70-90 % sea.

	16-04-2005 03:31									#5
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by CEO Aaron My problems with Pirates have to do with their chronic mineral shortages. Sure, cash is nice to jumpstart the production of base facilities, but at some point you need to transition to land to grab the more profitable mineral-production facilities. To be honest, I don't think there's any strategy that's well suited to their 'strengths', simply because they don't really have any. Free Naval Yards are bordering on irrelevant, since Air Power will trump sea power long at about the time you're getting them. Free Pressure Domes merely stem the chronic mineral shortages brought on by sea-limits and higher unit costs. That being said, I don't think the Pirates' problems will be of the 'I can't raise my population' variety, rather, they will be ill-equipped to get anything useful from the population they have, again due ot the energy or minerals nature of sea terraforming.

Being Pirates, I usually only terraform Mining platforms for base 1 and 2. That gives WP and HGP pretty quickly and when IA is reached, 3-4 bases are pumping SC units into prime base. It's then the responsibility of bases 3 and later to make energy.

quote: The Consciousness, on the other hand, is a very effective faction with compelling bonuses. They're one of the better builder factions out there, hampered only by their growth penalty. How to get around it? Be Aggressive! That extra efficiency is just begging to counteract the drawbacks of Police state, whereupon you can field a large terraforming force and still have a large army. With an early tech lead and an expeditionary force, you're well-situated to steal bases from your hapless neighbors, giving you the momentum weight to outgrow your more remote rivals. Alternatively, you can also go a more traditional builder-game, angling for Industrial Automation, crawlers, and most importantly, the Planetary Transit Network. With a strategic thin expansion, you can double, almost triple your population, and get a leg-up on futher expansion to boot. Really, there's no reason you can' achieve both aims, going for early IA, then shifting gears toward police, missiles and air power for the win. Since POP booming isn't easy to pull off, there's no reason to rush for Tree Farms. Instead, infiltrate your neighbors, and conquer/steal those techs when they're discovered.

I prefer to go Plan-Wealth-Demo (and switching to Knowl as fast as I can to get rid of the morale penalty of Wealth) with Aki - admitted - I go for Command Nexus before Knowl to get rid of those damn "very green" units.

	16-04-2005 05:07									#6
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Something I forgot to tell. I'm wondering about strategies for the Consciousness and Pirates that could work in transcend multiplayer.

In Single Player you can of course win with every faction hands down, and get the HGP and PTS as Aki or Ulrik. In multiplayer, this becomes harder.

So in multiplayer you could indeed go warmonger and take over another human faction, giving you momentum weight (for, indeed, a moment). But then you'll still be stuck with lots of little bases which don't give a special advantage and which can't popboom. While you'll have spent your time taking over one faction, the remaining rival factions will have prepared to popboom (or be ICSing), and they'll start leaving you behind on the powergraph.

That's why I've called conquest a "side-strategy" in my first post. It's useful to get some advantages in the early game, but if you want to win, I think you have to count on other strategies than just warmongering. You need the economy to support and build your military.

Of course one could point out that (AFAIK) most PBEMs end with a conquest victory, but those final conquests usually start after DAP or MMI is discovered, and economies have already been built up by other means to face the final struggle.

	16-04-2005 06:45									#7
	Put an end to popups!

If you are playing Cyborgs, you can still try and pop-boom with the cloning vats...true, may be too late in game, but still possible...

	16-04-2005 16:10									#8
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

As the Pirates go to ground immediately, ie your first colony pods should be land colony pods (unless you stumble across the best possible base site for a sea base immediately). Plant your bases on the coasts of whatever land masses you can find and ICS like crazy. These land bases can be hybrids in that they can still work those profitable sea tiles for nuts and energy as well as forest or boreholes on the land. As the Pirates I tend to run mixed populations of specialists and workers.

Assuming that you can't Pop Boom due to a lack of the HGP you have a couple other choices. Firstly, you can simply grow naturally, which with the nuts the Pirates can produce isn't so bad. You can also pod boom, which works especially well for your land bases that have a good road net. For bases on the interior of larger land masses you may find heavy specialist bases worth while, especially those that are far from your HQ. Condensor farms and pod booming can build a decent population fairly quickly, though of course it pales in comparison to a real pop boom.

The best way to pod boom is to have every base in the area build colony pods at pop 2. Shove all of those pods into one base until it reaches the desired population level, then choose another base while the first one keeps working on facilities. Your growth rate will taper off fairly slowly this way while your production grows pretty quickly.

	16-04-2005 21:08									#9
	Get a bigger avatar today!

I don't know whether this will succeed in multiplayer, but the first time I chose the Pirates was at Transcend on a Huge map and I built 100 sea bases in the first 100 turns. The duty of every base was to build terraformers and sea colony pods until all squares in its vicinity were within Pirate territory.

As stated by other players, plenty of food and energy rolled in. With so many bases, building a large military was easy, and with so much energy (despite the Pirates' -1 efficiency) research was good.

The entire ocean was Pirate territory before any AI faction ventured to sea, and my air force had them all under constant surveillance. Continually bombing the Progenitors from all directions was a pleasure.

	17-04-2005 08:34									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

A general strategy I use is to surround all my continents with seabases...while compared to most factions, I have a small combat navy, because I have rush to build sea bases, I control the sea, and can set up both sea and air perimeters around my core bases...one game I had, the hive sent in about 15 bombers on the same turn...only 1 of those 15 came back to the Hive, and it was all because of my air force and sea base network...

	18-04-2005 02:31									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Interesting theories abound.

Yeah, I've just started a game where I'm the Spartans and thank the powers that be, I landed on a river. From my experiences with them, it's really hard to popboom. Actually, I've never had much luck popbooming with any faction (maybe I'm doing it wrong). So I decided to ICS instead (something I KNOW). Anyway...

For Pirates, I play them every now and then, and I haven't quite figured out how to play them. What I usually do is podpop. The extra creds and those very helpful instant base facility bonuses really help in my growth. I don't usually hit land, with maybe one base on The Ruins and one on Mount Planet. I usually group my pirate bases around the sea bonuses and try to ICS there.

-Geothermal Shallows really help early ingame for myself. Maybe this'll help you out.

Pirates: Demo, Planned, Wealth. (For pop growth and EC's). I'll usually use this setup until I'm in a big war, then I'll switch things around and probably go Power for the Morale boost. And just pray that the neg. Efficiency doesn't hurt too much.

As for the CyCon, I haven't really experienced their lack of population. I'll usually upgrade the tiles for maximum nutrients to help 'em out. Ally with friendly faction leaders to give me tech in exchange for creds (I don't like sharing tech). Podpop for those bonuses, and basically follow my normal plan. It's slower than the Hive at first, but if you're really lucky, you'll land in the Jungles and that will REALLY help your bases grow.


Any faction, I tend to go for the nearest landmass bonus and use it to its fullest potential. If its the Mesa, I'll try and get as much EC's as possible and just buy tech from others, if its the Jungle, I'll farm the heck out of it to help my pop. Nothing really big...

Nothing very technical, but then again I don't really think too hard.

	18-04-2005 04:03									#12
	Suffering from ads?

quote: Originally posted by Frankychan Interesting theories abound.

There always are.
One thing I've noticed in PBEM play is that Pirate Factions typically haven't done well against their land based opponents.
With that in mind I looked to the past as far as how were Pirates succesful in the past. For the most part, what I found was that most succesful Pirate empires were based out of archapeligos: archapeligos, to a certain extent, can be seen as a land/ water maze, favoring the defender who is familiar with the layout of the terrain. This holds true in a SMAC(X) PBEM map as well, where land/ sea mazes, equivalent in size to the starting landmasses of their land counterparts, can be built by a CMN for an aquatic based faction. This also then gives the Pirate faction the ability to forest-and-forget, as well as the ability to build boreholes at selected locations. Finally, as noted above, the bonus of knowing the home terrain (as opposed to the typical pirate starting position where the pirates start out in the open sea, where they are vulnerable to attack from every direction!).


D

	18-04-2005 05:22									#13
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I gotta agree with big D. In my games as the Pirates, on land I tend to get my ass handed to me. With every faction I go against. Best thing is to have your Pirate bases on Archapeligos (Near Mount Planet). A handy chokepoint on land usually helps. But an exception I found is the Ruins...but just keep that fungus around you to slow down the AI.

Other than that, I put my Pirate bases on little islands. Isle of Dexamus or something like that is one of my favs.

	18-04-2005 05:50									#14
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Frankychan I gotta agree with big D.

Oh yeah, and I forgot with an archapeligos approach why the pirates can also then build land sensors to give their bases (sea or land) that added +25% defense bonus - something that was lacking before.

quote: Originally posted by Frankychan But an exception I found is the Ruins...but just keep that fungus around you to slow down the AI.

I also like to half-sink the Ruins, having some of them submerged, some on land tiles. On the sea tile based monolith squares, you can then give a morale upgrade to your sea units. Another interesting side effect is if you park a sea transport on a sea monolith tile and then load a land unit, you then get the option to give the land unit a morale upgrade via the sea monolith!

D

	19-04-2005 02:12									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I guess a lazy person would just like the Pirates do all the expansion, then take them over and control the seas without having sea colony pods...heck, if you have the energy, you could mind control a whole navy...

I remember just recently I played as the University and mind controlled three coastal bases on the same term, then came in with bombers and missiles....long proccess, because I had to rack up the energy first with free market, then switch to planned and build the missiles and bombers to prevent pacifism...took about 50 turns I would guess from thinking of the idea and actually making the attack...

	19-04-2005 03:35									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Why do it in such a complicated way ? Half a dusin of choppers and a couple of ships is usually enough to take over an AI pirate. Best part of it is that it pays itself scrapping naval yards

	20-04-2005 14:15									#17
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Originally posted by Darsnan There always are. One thing I've noticed in PBEM play is that Pirate Factions typically haven't done well against their land based opponents. With that in mind I looked to the past as far as how were Pirates succesful in the past. For the most part, what I found was that most succesful Pirate empires were based out of archapeligos: archapeligos, to a certain extent, can be seen as a land/ water maze, favoring the defender who is familiar with the layout of the terrain. This holds true in a SMAC(X) PBEM map as well, where land/ sea mazes, equivalent in size to the starting landmasses of their land counterparts, can be built by a CMN for an aquatic based faction. This also then gives the Pirate faction the ability to forest-and-forget, as well as the ability to build boreholes at selected locations. Finally, as noted above, the bonus of knowing the home terrain (as opposed to the typical pirate starting position where the pirates start out in the open sea, where they are vulnerable to attack from every direction!). D

That sort of terrain also plays to the Pirates advantage by providing a lot of very productive tiles. With a little forming and a couple of facilities those shallow tiles produce 4-1-4, which is really outstanding.

	20-04-2005 18:13									#18
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by Darsnan There always are. One thing I've noticed in PBEM play is that Pirate Factions typically haven't done well against their land based opponents. With that in mind I looked to the past as far as how were Pirates succesful in the past. For the most part, what I found was that most succesful Pirate empires were based out of archapeligos: archapeligos, to a certain extent, can be seen as a land/ water maze, favoring the defender who is familiar with the layout of the terrain. This holds true in a SMAC(X) PBEM map as well, where land/ sea mazes, equivalent in size to the starting landmasses of their land counterparts, can be built by a CMN for an aquatic based faction. This also then gives the Pirate faction the ability to forest-and-forget, as well as the ability to build boreholes at selected locations. Finally, as noted above, the bonus of knowing the home terrain (as opposed to the typical pirate starting position where the pirates start out in the open sea, where they are vulnerable to attack from every direction!). D

Thats my problem with the piratesas well. Its tough to get any secure interior bases in a large sea. If itsd a large sea its usually too deep to be really productive

	21-04-2005 04:24									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I am in a number of Pbem games as the Pirates, as are probably a number of you. I don't think there is a sufficent volume of evidence as to a best (Pbem) Strategy. In my view a lot depends on the number of human players and AI players or no AI player, in the game. Contact is the key and I suppose size of map.