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Adam_Smith
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The Raisin Capital of the World
Dec 1999
time: 05:13
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FM is absolutely the best SE choice if war is not a profitable option. You have to prepare for it though. For example, you should have trance and empath units set up to defend against worms first, and of course you need more facilities. Try this: Go Demo/FM and rush science (or energy) to 100%. No go Demo/Green and rush to 100%. In almost every case you will still get more with Demo/FM even though you lose some to ineffiency. That's how powerfull FM is. I do think that Morgan should go with Green sometimes though, and never use FM with Cha Dawn.
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Helium Pond
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Los Anheles, California, Good Ole U S of A
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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Speaking of Morgan and Free Market, I've just played a couple games with Morgan, and I finally kind of got the hang of it, but I never quite got to the stage everybody talks about, where you have "obscene" amounts of money. I mean, sure, near the very end I got up to 6000 or so ec a turn, but from what I hear that's actually pretty poor. I'm under the impression that people can be earning in the thousands before MY 2200. I'm usually earning about 150-300 for most of the game, and then late in the game I get a huge boost, after everything's tree farmed and hybrid forested. I rely heavily on jungles. Any idea what I might be doing wrong? Maybe I'm getting too many minerals and not enough energy with my crawlers?
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UnityScoutChopper
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Brno, Czech Republic
Oct 2000
time: 06:13
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Well, I see FM has no lack of advocates :-)
I still doubt I'll use it anytime soon. I didn't mention perhaps the most important drawback in my original post -- it lacks the +2 growth of Planned. Perhaps SMACX fixed the Golden Age bug, but in SMAC 4.0, 2+2+2 somehow <> 6, so you can't pop boom in FM using Golden Ages, as should be possible.
It seems to me that pop booms have a stronger benefit than the +1 energy from FM: +1 energy is +1 energy, but pop booms mean more of everything, plus a firm grip on the planetary governorship.
Perhaps also Transcend is particularly unkind to FM, as it is easier to cross the threshold into at least minimum Psych effects when the first drone doesn't come at size 2. By the way, on Transcend, putting anything (but Psych -- JOKE) at "100%", as one post here mentioned, after cities reach any considerable size, is unthinkable, as at least 20% has to go to psych (and it's kind of a waste not to use the psych bonuses that the midgame facilities give, anyway).
Though I can theoretically conceive of having reached a diminishing-returns point in my pop boom cycle before getting the Cloning Vats and miraculously not being forced to beat the tar out one of my neighbors (or finding it profitable to force him/her into submission, heh heh), and thus getting some use out of FM before the Vats, I can't see it happening.
Morgan is of course a special case in all of this. I still hold that FM is even more ridiculous for him than for others. Again, this may be connected to the nature of Transcend -- the moment you get ahead, you will have to fight to hold your position, which doesn't mix well with FM. But more importantly, once you get ahead, you generally have to give everything you have to your warlike neighbors, losing whatever advantage you had, or they go to war. Even if they don't rip up your formers and crawlers with needlejets, you won't be getting the oodles of trade income mentioned in this thread.
I CAN imagine using FM after the Cloning Vats come and growth is no longer needed to boom. In fact, in one of the few games I have played all the way to Transcendence (I love huge maps, but I have a P150, so I usually quit when I know I've won), I did play FM with the University after the Vats, IIRC. In the endgame FM gets dropped again, however, as I'm really not convinced that the commerce for +4 economy (fm/eudo) outweighs the lost drone control and added fungal blooms.
Fungal blooms -- I use 2-3 crawlers per core city, generally mining rocky areas, and I get planet chewing up my 'forming (and my formers -- demanding empath scouts or at least recon rovers) in midgame (bases size 7-14) even with a +1 planet rating (I'm experiencing it right now with Deirdre), let alone with -3.
However... obviously, FM has many supporters. I'm still listening...
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Fitz
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& Anarchist
Mar 2000
time: 21:13
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I deride the FM supporters. I never use FM, because when I do, I get the **** kicked right out of me, by planet and by warmongering neighbors. The advantage to FM is supposed to be oodles of money. First of, I never see this. At most, it nets me an extra hundred or so a turn (I test it periodically) in mid game, and much less before energy restrictions. Second, that extra money is used instantly, along with money previously directed to other efforts, in an attempt to subvert incoming enemy units with probes so I don't get my ass kicked. If I'm not using FM, I wipe out those incoming enemy units while I'm on my way to take over the enemies bases. Net effect, less money for upgrades/rushes.
However, I do see that you can side step this issue by using clean units/Punishment Spheres. But this means that you have more expensive military, and/or you are using up valuable special ability slots. Clean is an ability I almost never use, as support is not an issue.
Which brings me to my last point. The primary reason for not using FM is the -3 Planet. Low planet means either less minerals or more eco-damage. Less minerals means you are forced to rely on the Clean ability, and more eco-damage means that you are using your few military units for double duty, home protection from mindworms (as defenders or -30% attackers), and against your incoming warmongering neighbors.
I find FM useless, along with Fundementalist. The points in the game at which they might become handy, they are already outdated. I much prefer Demo/Planed for Growth, followed by Police/Green for warfare. Knowledge for miltary buildup, followed by Power for attacking. That's all you need, unless you are getting hammered by probes (because of knowledge) and are not yet ready to switch to power (because of the industrial penalty. At that point a switch to Wealth, with golden ages (not hard to induce if you've been pop booming for some time) will give you that same coveted +1 Energy/Square, which renders FM even more useless.
I've actually been contemplating removing the FM SE choice and putting a usefull economic choice in there.
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Misotu
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Leamington Spa, England
Dec 1999
time: 05:13
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I hear you  My personal favourites are PKs/Gaians - serious contenders when you run demo/planned for an early pop boom.
But ... try the Apolyton tournament here. On the tournament map, I have run FM for the first time ever, and found it very hard to pull away. You know, minerals are really not so important unless you're operating a full-scale war - and I mean full-scale. Otherwise, 10 minerals per base will allow you to rush-build everything you need. Focus on energy. Fusion labs? Three or four per turn. Even your quantums and nanos are reachable at two or more per turn. Most unusual, and most excellent
I've played a couple of games in the tourny, one as the Consciousness and one as the Pirates, where FM is just a joy. With an energy-focus, I can rush-build everything I need - and since neither faction can pop boom without GA (and actually, I've never managed to get them to pop boom with GA either I don't think), I've been forced to look at alternatives to the standard demo/planned/xxx. In my tourny game as the Gaians, I am working hard to stay abreast of the Drones and the Data Angels, both running FM ...
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Black Sunrise
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Buffalo, New York, USA
Aug 2000
time: 05:13
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OK, here's what I've been using lately, and it ONLY works on big maps, and I always play trancend SP.
FM, Demo, Wealth.
Captital has Merchant Exchange, next to capital is another city with high mineral output. I also try for Planetary Energy Grid.
Capital builds only things that effect money and research, all are rush builded. Rest of the time, its on stockpile energy.
That other city? It makes Supply Transports. They go to the capital, set as home city, then go gather either energy or nutrients.
Capital grows quickly, which means more specialists.
Capital has ton of incoming energy, zero inefficiency.
Usually it winds up producing %50+ of my labs and %50 of my energy per turn.
I don't give the other factions money or energy, cause I don't bother expanding beyond a typical morgan size, and I just don't try to talk to them much. Don't talk to them, don't give them anything.
This is how I got my first economic victory, and it works. Works best I think for UoP, second best for Morgan. UoP can get to supply crawlers instantly, start cranking them out, jack up energy levels, which means a lot of research and money.
Comments?
btw, usually I get farenough ahead in tech so I can fight of invasions easily enough.
Again, this is all SP, transcend, really big map.
At most I take 1 ally, who likes wealth, demo or FM, and is preferably in a war. They stay loyal due to the war and the matching settings, and I make a ton of cash off them.
Black Sunrise
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Simpson II
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varies
Jul 2000
time: 05:13
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If you don't know how to use FM then it will cause you serious trouble, but used in a timely manner it's excellent. For example, in a typical University game I would switch to planned early on, FM when my TFs are largely up, and green when I get fusion power.
Why? Before I settle my expansion down the growth and industry of panned is fantastic. My bases couldnt cope without police easiy, so I don't use FM. After TFs and a pop-boom to size 7 I would have the happiness facilities and a little psych, good mineral production from forests with low ecodamage, but low energy production under planned. FM nearly doubles my science production! Next stop is planetary economics, and I can often rush my first-round bases' HFs to completion a couple of turns after I discover the tech, so these can be finished by the end of the 80s. You will not get here that fast on a huge map in planned economics, not a chance. And HFs are the key to a boom to size 14/16 and lots of specialists.
So post-fusion, each base has a population of about 1/2 engineers, and dem-green with 100% labs gives virtually as much labs output as FM can (the labs output maxes at ~ 80% labs), while allowing my nice shiny new fusion-equiped troops to say Hi to anyone less prepared.
IMHO, this is a very solid strategy for a builder in Smac. If you don't like to play a builder game, don't run free market; but it has it's place. Just like Fundie 
Golden ages don't give you the labs boost FM does; I've tried it extensively, and the expenditure is too much. I've even tried having lots of size 3 bases and the HG so that it's very easy to acheive GA, then putting out energy crawlers. It just doesn't work.
Oh yes, I should mention for those who haven't tried FM with Morgan, +3 econ acts as +4 and +4 acts as +5, that is +4 energy from the base square and huge commerce. It's definitely worth doing, though IMHO the morganites will still fade in Smac in the long run, as a couple of the tourney games have shown. Pop-booming is too important. I'd love to try him when I get SmaX, though!
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Fitz
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& Anarchist
Mar 2000
time: 21:13
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Let me describe a typical setup for me, and the potential gain/penalty for FM.
Huge planet, bases=to beaucracy. In other words, about 16. Each base has every facility, lots of crawlers, and masses of military. I usually can build a facility in 1/2 turns by the time I get to size 14, and that is typically with 0 eco-damage after tree farms and hybrid forests. My total military units is usually = to 1/3 of a bases mineral output (typically 20 or s0 with 60 output). Crawlers on every mine within base radii, and on boreholes (alternate minerals/energy to maintain 0 eco, means they're usually on energy) or condensors. Each base is typically half specialists, which means a golden age is garunteed in every base if I want it, with 10% or 0% on psych.
With this set up, I find the typical gain from swith to free market is about 20%. In other words, with about 1000 ec, I ge tto aroun 1200 ec. Not much gain. Balancing that is the drones, which usually cause the loss of a golden age, but not drone riots (not a big deal), unless I start sending out those military units. All of a sudden, there is the potential for up to 40 new drones to be counteracted. Next is the ecology. If I'm supporting 20 units, and carefully balancing mineral intake by crawlers on boreholes, I could find myself with two choices. Drop from 60 to 40 minerals (ie halve my mineral intake), or have eco-damage well into the double digits, in spite of TF/HF. In additions, you can expect your enemies to capitalize on you lack of ability to attack native units, and use psi military a lot.
Now, once I hit Police State/Power, the support goes away, and the mineral reduction is counteracted by those gained. Or I could go clean, but then I lose powerful military abilities (such a empath to hit those mind worms your opponents start defending with). But if I keep the Green, I can crank out typically 80 mins, which allows fun things like an army of max armor/weapon rovers with special abilities in 1-3 turns each, in addition to giving me a good native life form attacking force, which cannot go clean anyway.
Minerals are key to me, whereas energy is not. If I get enough minerals to build any facility or unit in 1-3 turns, I can use all my energy for research and upgrades. And rushing good units can be very expensive, although I agree facilities can be fairly cheap.
The only use I can see for free market might be if you were going insane builder style, and producing/using less than 1/3 of your minerals as the military units per base. Then it might be helpful.
EDIT: After re-reading all this, I just realized why I am not seeing any benefit and others are. The key point is the number of bases. I never break the beaucracy unless I have captured bases, which I give back if an AI surrenders, or disband to colony pods if a human to crank up my bases. Even with 30 or so bases (Demo/Green/Power), there is little benefit to +1 energy/square. If you ICS to close to 100 bases or more, it would be a very different matter.
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited October 10, 2000).]
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mark13
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Northampton, England
Sep 2000
time: 05:13
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The way I see it, Free Market can be like taking a big risk. Although the increased energy output and the research bonuses are undeniable, there are certain factors you must consider before adopting the setting:
1) Is there a potential enemy in the vicinity? If there is, it may be a good idea to wait until you are certain you can defend yourself adequately.
2) How much fungus is there on this world? If there is a lot, you should really think twice before undertaking FM, that -3 Planet can be a bummer.
If, and only if, these factors comply, I will turn to FM. Otherwise, you don't have a chance of making it work. It is much better, in my view, to maintain your bases/units sufficiently than to leave them exposed and vulnerable.
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Fitz
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& Anarchist
Mar 2000
time: 21:13
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To answer various comments:
Yes, I was thinking of FM in the later game. I find it even more pointless at any point before the raising of energy restrictions, when you don't even gain the benefit on half you worked squares, because they are already getting 2 energy anyway.
I use this strategy with almost all factions. I maintain the 1/3 minerals = army size throughout growth, and facility costs increase through out the game (for the most part), so the time to build them as they become available remains fairly constant. I would say my bases reach size 14 within 10 turns of tree farms, if not before that point. This is the first point (in the past) at which I would even consider switching to FM.
I will play a few games looking at the potential of using FM very early, and see if that makes a difference. I can see that it may make a huge difference in the early stages if you are setting yourself up right to capitalize on the extra energy (even small gains). You may gain yourself a convert.
Boreholes: I only place these outside of base radii, on any available square. If it can't borehole, I put farm/condensor for nuts. The reason I prefer boreholes to trying to create an energy park is I can switch between mins and energy at will, compensating for eco-damage. I have tried energy parks in the past, but found them not worth the time, if you take into account raising the land. In addition, they require large amounts of contiguos (sp?) land in strips, and my colonizing strategy rarely allows for this.
# of military units: If I have as many as 20, the mix might be:
defense: 3 garrisons (trance, AAA, & Other as needed), 1 Interceptor, 1 artilery (native or not).
offense: bomber, helicopter, 5 rovers, artillery, infantry, native. (substitute naval for rovers in coastal sea bases)
non-military: 5 formers of various types.
non-support (wasn't counting them before): 10-20 crawlers minimum, 1 probe defender minimum (probe on infantry), 2-3 probe teams (naval or speeder).
That means about half are defensive or non-combat. The combat units are either roving my empire or more commonly harrassing my enemies. If I was going hybrid (or military), I probably wouldn't build as many facilities and would build three times as many combat units (for a total of 40 supported units, or about 2/3 at that stage).
Obviously, I build this up as I go along. I usually try to maintain about equal offensive and defensive units (unless something comes along to change that), maybe a bit heavier on the formers.
Lack of units: You may have units, but they are attacking at -30%. That has made the difference 'tween life and death for my units more than once.
On the ec, when I said 1000 and 1200, I was talking about net gain, not before maintainance. You have to realize that it is an approximation based on hazy memories of games though. 
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited October 10, 2000).]
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Simpson II
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varies
Jul 2000
time: 05:13
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quote:
Originally posted by Fitz on 10-10-2000 07:49 PM
# of military units: If I have as many as 20, the mix might be:
defense: 3 garrisons (trance, AAA, & Other as needed), 1 Interceptor, 1 artilery (native or not).
offense: bomber, helicopter, 5 rovers, artillery, infantry, native. (substitute naval for rovers in coastal sea bases)
non-military: 5 formers of various types.
non-support (wasn't counting them before): 10-20 crawlers minimum, 1 probe defender minimum (probe on infantry), 2-3 probe teams (naval or speeder).
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To chime in with WE: HUH?? Are you saying you build this in one base? That sounds like the army of my entire empire, lol! I mean, I've taken out largish factions with lesser forces. I just can't imagine needing that, even as a hybrid rather than builder. Those units surely aren't doing anything for you, I would guess perhaps 10% ever see action unless you go out and conquer. Even in MP I've never seen someone build a standing army like that.. in fact I've seen someone defend successfully with only scout infantry for the first 80 years (OK, he had some luck too!) Seriously, what do you build when you want to go to war?
Certainly you don't need to worry about MW attacks... you chould be able to throw masses of units at them until they go away. If you prefer not to, you should be able to defend perfectly well.
I'd really like to hear how you do without so many units. I suspect it will improve your game a heck of a lot.
Also, you say you use the same strategy with each of the factions. That's probably not a good thing. The factions really are very different; play my university strategy with the PKs and you will have severe trouble. FM before TFs is important for most factions in builder mode, it's just that the Uni can get there so fast that there's no real time. With PKs a really early FM is quite productive.
What do you mean when you say it's easy to get a GA with half your people as specialists? Do you mean you use only thinkers? If so, when changing to look at what FM does, change virtually all of your thinkers to engineers and adjust your energy balance. You're giving up 2 enegy per specialist right away trying to get to a GA, and then getting 1 energy a square for the other half of your population in return. Or are you putting most of those crawlers on boreholes extracting energy and then putting it into psych? I think it's still a net loss, unless Smax has some amazing psych-enhancing facility that I don't know about.
Like WE, I'd very much like to know when you get to some landmark techs. Winning the game is largely about temo. Research a little quicker, attack a little sooner, and your opponent will be forced out of the game. I know, I've been there when someone did it to me! Your strategy sounds like a slow, slow process.
----------------
S2, insane builder.
[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited October 11, 2000).]
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Misotu
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Leamington Spa, England
Dec 1999
time: 05:13
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quote:
Originally posted by Fitz on 10-10-2000 01:13 PM
The key point is the number of bases ... even with 30 or so bases (Demo/Green/Power), there is little benefit to +1 energy/square. If you ICS to close to 100 bases or more, it would be a very different matter.
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You really don't need 100 bases or more for FM to make a difference I'm not very good at abstract theory, so I thought I'd take a look at a few real games to see why I'm convinced about FM (even though I hate running it). Two tiny games, one massive one.
Sample mid-game: Pirates, MY2164, 13 bases
Dem/FM/Wealth: Econ 249, Labs 354
Dem/Plan/Wealth: 153, 254
Dem/Green/Wealth: 164, 269
So in this game, running FM hikes economy by 60%, labs by 40% (roughly). Makes a huge difference in terms of tech and rush-buying power. Of course, the +1 industry of planned means that my money will buy more, but I'm still much better off economically running FM, even before I look at the tech.
Sample late-game: Consciousness, MY2192, 14 bases
Dem/FM/Wealth: Econ 702, Labs 1365
Dem/Plan/Wealth: 622, 1238
Dem/Green/Wealth: 644, 1258
Now here, the difference is not so marked and in fact I was not running FM by this point because it was not the best choice (given four possible SE line settings). The game was much further advanced - in fact, this was the year I built the Ascent so it's about as advanced as you can get The main factors here are:
Fungus - with all my tech, fungus was producing 2,2,3. Run FM, and it produces nothing at all. Bad decision, I was making good use of the fungus.
Specialists - with my sky hydroponics, around half of my citizens were transcendi so FM just doesn't have the impact, since not many city squares were actually being worked.
In this game, I had actually been running Dem/Planned/Wealth/Eud for a very late pop-boom and ultra-cheap builds.
One final example: Travathian's Challenge, a tech stag, blind, minimum land game for masochists
Sample late-game, huge map, many cities: Believers, MY2475 (aargh!), 112 bases (aargh!).
Dem/FM/Wealth: 12,867 econ, 17,705 labs
Dem/Plan/Wealth: 12,797, 17,778
Dem/Green/Wealth: 16,064, 21,154
And here, of course, the factors are fungus and specialists again, but with the added complication of the Manifold Harmonics project. Green SE boosts fungus production massively, and in this case Green is a must.
So by the late builder game, the benefits of FM are much reduced and there are so many other excellent SE combos from which to choose. But earlier in the game the benefits are substantial, as my Pirates example demonstrates.
I think what I'm trying to say is that particular SE settings produce massively different results from game to game. It's important to be flexible and understand how to play them all (she says, freely admitting that she hates FM ) if you're going to be able to get the best out of every situation. So don't rule out FM - it's an extraordinarily powerful early/mid-game SE setting.
[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited October 11, 2000).]
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Black Sunrise
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Buffalo, New York, USA
Aug 2000
time: 05:13
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quote:
Originally posted by RedFred on 10-11-2000 05:25 PM
Black Sunrise, I've just reread this thread, scratching my head at Fitz's unusual gameplay style, and something you said earlier kind of leapt out at me:
I'd suggest that you go the other way around. PEG is almost always better than ME unless you are a One City Challenge fan. I'd even argue that ME is the least valuable of all the very early SPs.
All you ever get out of ME is a max of one energy per worker in one city. Assuming you aren't Morgan or PK and you don't get the +2 pop SP (Ascetic Virtues) you will be stuck at +7 energy or +14 energy tops for most of the game. That equals one or two crawlers to your energy park.
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Oh, you aren't using it properly then! It is also +1 energy to every energy crawler who considers that base home! Since every single one of my crawlers considers my main base home, that is an extra +30 - +100 enerrgy per turn, and that city thends to be on stockpile energy with PEG, so its more like +38 - +125 energy, run through labs and energy grids and everything else.
Plus, no ineffeciency, and possibly more trade(? not sure about that).
Your second base makes the crawlers, a couple produce minerals so that city makes a crawler per turn, then every crawler after that goes to the capital, set as home, then go out and gather energy for their new home, the capital.
Moral of the story, get both ME and PEG. Especially when playing FM, builder-style. Will give you the energy to fuel your edge in technology and cash-flow.
Black Sunrise
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07-10-2000 13:44
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