10-05-2005 02:21									#1
	Free Market...is it a neccessity? Full PM-box? Change here!

Until recently, I always played with free market...University, Morgan, or sometimes Angels, but always with the free market...

And until recently, I looked down on planned and green economy...they seemed so..unpractical...

However, I have just played a game as the Gaians doing green, and have found it much different from free market, but not like I thought I would...I thought I would fall so far behind in tech it would even be funny...and I was just waiting for somebody to beat my industry and wipe my coast...and it never happened...

So I'm just wondering...does everyone do free market, is it a neccessity to be competitive, or is it simply another strategy?

	10-05-2005 02:37									#2
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I have just recently tried FM as the drones where it worked fine, but CyCon with Demo, Plan and Wealth (well leave thias as soon as possible, those darn "very green" units is a pestilence) beats all other.

	10-05-2005 02:54									#3
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Running green or planned let's you make good use of the police ability, which in turn saves on or psych allocation, or on happiness facilities.

	10-05-2005 03:16									#4
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Free Market is a very nice setting, but has some nasty drawbacks. Planned is very attractive if you can tolerate the low efficiency (Gaians, CyCon, Hive, Democracy, early game). As the Drones, I run Planned/Wealth much of the time for the ridiculous +4 Industry, and FM/Wealth the rest of the time for a still nice +3 Industry and almost more energy than I can use. Unfortunately, if you want to mix Planned with FM, you can't become dependent on police.

I'm not a big fan of Green, since Planned and FM offer so much more. Having high efficiency (as opposed to not having low efficiency) isn't a big deal until later in the game, and I'm not big on hunting for worms with factions that don't already have positive Planet.

Wealth is a wonderful SE setting! Low morale is a nuisance, and nothing more. +1 Industry means more units to more than make up for any losses incurred by low morale. Wealth makes both FM and Planned more powerful, the former because +3 economy adds +2 energy/base compared to +2 economy, and the latter because going from +1 Industry to +2 Industry is more of an improvement than going from +0 to +1.

	10-05-2005 03:27									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Chaos Theory Low morale is a nuisance, and nothing more.

Low morale sucks a little when Marr is your neighbour and he has a grudge against you

	10-05-2005 05:00									#6
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Not really. When you attack, you should win most of the time, whether your morale is green or very green. When you defend, you should lose most of the time, unless you're in a base, where low morale is an advantage when combined with a Children's Creche.

	10-05-2005 11:14									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Chaos Theory ... where low morale is an advantage when combined with a Children's Creche.

Poppycock! Low morale is never an advantage.

It is fair to say that the disadvantage is largely offset when defending in a base that has a creche. No more than that.

	10-05-2005 11:51									#8
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That just means you should try winning with some SE combos you have never used before

	10-05-2005 12:18									#9
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has anyone ever beat this game without changing SE settings at all? Using frontier etc. I suppose you could do it on the easy level...

	10-05-2005 12:46									#10
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Bizarrely, low morale is a bona fide advantage when combined with a Children's Creche. You can have defenders (and, under the right circumstances, attackers) with morale levels higher than normally allowed. I've had as high as Elite (++++) for +100% from morale! Even if the +s from a Children's Creche only cancel the lowered morale on your units, they will gain morale levels faster, still yielding an advantage.

	10-05-2005 12:48									#11
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quote: has anyone ever beat this game without changing SE settings at all? Using frontier etc. I suppose you could do it on the easy level...

I know a player whom I tought how to use SE after he was not at the best performance at a PBEM.

But his performance was enough to win a SP Transcend game and MP newbies.

	10-05-2005 13:11									#12
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FM is largely an early game advantage, though it can be maintained if you use a lot of moderate energy terraforming like forests. The early game advantage is largely from the base square energy that you get from having a high economy rating and to a lesser extent from the additional energy you earn from worked tiles. Later in the game it can still be a big factor if you have a lot of worked tiles that produce moderate to low amounts of energy natively (0-2), which a +2 economy will cause to have a large percentage increase. Someone who is only working boreholes or enhanced solar energy won't see much of an improvement in their energy production, and in some cases will see a net loss vs Green due to inefficiency.

	10-05-2005 23:53									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident has anyone ever beat this game without changing SE settings at all? Using frontier etc. I suppose you could do it on the easy level...

Certainly. It took me a couple of years before I bothered to figure out what to do with SE unless, of course, you also count in how energy is spend (econ/soc/res sliders), those I quickly learned to use .

	11-05-2005 00:07									#14
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*Raises hand* I'm not a great player..... I'm rather unique in my playstyle. As in for my first three years or so of SMAC, I never used crawlers!!! That being said, I still don't use FM much. I've played through once as Morgan with FM, but my.... standard factions are Uni, Gaia, and Cyborgs. I run with simple, etc. for much of the game, until my primary expansion is done, when I kick Demo in. Knowledge is a must, but on the rare cases I use economy, its almost always Green, unless I can get away with Planned without compromising my research - not likely. So not everyone uses FM, no.

	11-05-2005 04:50									#15
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My easiest game is when I played all green and on the gaia's side. It is so easy to win when the planet is on your side, it is almost ridiculous.

	11-05-2005 05:18									#16
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Not ridiculous, only o sooooo right!

	11-05-2005 06:29									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Julinoleum My easiest game is when I played all green and on the gaia's side. It is so easy to win when the planet is on your side, it is almost ridiculous.

Against the AI, you can out tech them no matter what SE choices you run. While I generally see using FM as stronger, it is a more complicated and in many ways more difficult game to play. Going green takes PLanet (mostly ) out of play as a hinderence and the added efficiency really assists with the B drones

	11-05-2005 10:18									#18
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Planned all the way!!!


But lately I've been experiencing something weird. I'm running Police State/Planned and when I go wormhunting, it says that I have +1 Planet.

What's up with that?

	11-05-2005 11:26									#19
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frankychan: Manifold nexus?

	11-05-2005 14:37									#20
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You're a closet Gaians player and don't want to admit it.

	11-05-2005 14:57									#21
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quote: You're a closet Gaians player and don't want to admit it.

HOW THE F^CK CAN YOU TELL THAT I'M 13 BY LOOKING AT WHAT I'M WRITEING?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

	11-05-2005 16:59									#22
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Because the Chairmans powerful mind is guarding us Franky

	11-05-2005 18:57									#23
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I've never had a real use for FM econ. I prefer the Green system (BTW I typically play Gianans or Pirates) and find that it works very well. It helps when every worm you encounter becomes a ally.

	12-05-2005 00:31									#24
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I have considered staying with the free market and with the University...especially with the AI, my economic and technological power allows me to progress almost twice as fast, even on transcend...

Anyway, I plan on making a poll for this, but I need to know what options to put...

I could just put the three economic choices (plus bananas) but I think to many here at Apolyton use a combination of two, or perhaps all three, so give some options to put...

	12-05-2005 03:24									#25
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I am relatively new, but I NEVER use Free Market. I know that there is a big change between a +1 Econ and a +2 Econ level. Despite this, the negatives for FM are just too (a -5 Police and -3 Planet) are just too expensive. I usually use a Green economy (the growth penalty doesn't hurt that much and it is nice to have a + Planet rating

	12-05-2005 03:32									#26
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Husky: perhaps you are not using the correct factions. Try using the Peacekeepers/drones and going straight for Industrial economics and going into freemarket. It will increase your research rate by 50%, guarenteed. If you go wealth on top of that, depending on your number of bases you might even double your research rate.

I build many small bases so none of them ever produce enough minerals to cause pollution. Additionally, the trance ability can be given free to scouts so all my bases are full of Trance Scouts when I'm free Marketeering protecting me against worm combat. A few sensors about and its an easy defense. If you're really worried you can even get the Neural Amplifer (Don't worry, noone else wants it).

Anyway, spawning more worms is a bonus as you get money for killing them.

	12-05-2005 03:37									#27
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I usually go Morgan and get FM in the first 4-5 turns. And stay that way all game.

	12-05-2005 03:38									#28
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It's not an easy task to decide witch SE settings that are a "choice". Some factions are just good af FM, others it's a waste of time. When will you implement Planned ? Well, it certainly depend on faction and current situation. Wealth are good, but in the middle of a war ? Who wants very green plasma sentinels when Marr is knocking on the door. Demo ? well, yes that helps on some topics, but if you are in an expanding phase, is that loss of 10 mins worth it ?

The above is of course in the start of the game where the gains of different chioces really matters.

I think that you have a big project if you want to make a realistic poll, but of course, if that can keep you out of trouble ....

	12-05-2005 03:49									#29
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I often find it too dangerous to go pod-popping under FM. If the pod is infested with mind worms, your unit will almost certainly die.

	12-05-2005 04:05									#30
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Try choose the no pod scattering or what it 's called - then you don't have to worry about pod popping