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The diplomat
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Terre Haute, IN USA
Sep 1999
time: 23:13
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In a game recently, I was playing as Lal. After I conquered Deirdre into submission, I noticed something about her bases. Well, she had built her bases close together and so their city radiuses were seriously overlapping. This meant that the bases would reach that point where extra pop automatically become specialist a lot sooner since there were less tiles to work. This got me thinking: is it a good idea to let the city radiuses overlap a little bit? I know that they should not overlap too much or you will starve your city of ressources, but is there an equilibrium point where it becomes beneficial?
My reasoning is that if a city overlaps a little bit but not too much, then the city will get specialist sooner and although the amount of ressources gathered will be less than a normal city, with the specialist it will overtake the normal city and end up producing more. Is this workable? If so, what is the "right" amount of overlap?
Another question that is related: what is the best strategy regarding specialist? I usually end up using them either to calm riots or only toward the end of the game when a city is working the entire city radius.
So, what is the best way to use them in the middle of the game. Are the middle specialist like the librarian, technician etc useful? In my games, I use the doc or the transcend but never the middle ones.
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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.
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The diplomat
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Terre Haute, IN USA
Sep 1999
time: 23:13
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Thanks to all for posting in my thread! 
I see we have an interesting discussion brewing.
Skanderbeg made an excellent point about planet busters. If your cities are too close then planet busters can destroy several cities at once. bad thing!!
Also, the AI seems very good at attacking non-combatants. In a war, the AI will probably destroy your helpless crawlers, formers and colony pods first.
So, it does seem to me that it is dangerous to rely too much on crawlers. It could end up being a wasteful strategy, if you have to rebuild crawlers every turn!
However, a specialist city can be extremelly beneficial.
It seems to me that it is better to put crawlers outside the city radius or is it better to put crawlers inside a city radius so as to get specialists sooner?
My usual strategy uses crawlers solely to build SP's. I wait for my cities to fill the entire city radius so that additional citizens become specialists, rather than use crawlers to make specialists. Of course, my strategy will only really kick in toward the end of the game since cities have to be pretty big already.
I am eager to learn more about viable and interesting midgame specialist strategies.
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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.
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Skanderbeg
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of the Anti-Alien Forces of the Cult of Planet
Nov 2000
time: 05:13
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quote:
Originally posted by The diplomat on 01-29-2001 08:32 AM
So, it does seem to me that it is dangerous to rely too much on crawlers. It could end up being a wasteful strategy, if you have to rebuild crawlers every turn!
My usual strategy uses crawlers solely to build SP's.
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Crawlers are good for more than building SP's.
Even if You loose one by an attack, this is better then the enemy has attacked Your bases. Strike back in the next turn with a unit built by the minerals harvested by the crawler, and losses are a fashionable needlejet or rover against the cheap crawler.
You make the better deal and in long terms will win the war.
But normally, I build my empire so big that my crawlers are safe at least in the inner core of my empire, and I can use them for harvesting FOPs.
If I get the WP, I like to terraform inland seas with a science sea bases and a lot of trawlers (the swimming form of a crawler) harvesting energy, which gives you a lot of research.
A thing very important for my strategie are armoured rover-crawlers. I use them as a movable savings-bank for rush-building SP's, especially the Ascendance to Transcence. I allways try to build so much of them that I can build the AtT in one turn.
[This message has been edited by Skanderbeg (edited January 29, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Skanderbeg (edited January 29, 2001).]
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cbn
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Newfoundland but soon to be Calgary, Canada
Aug 2000
time: 01:43
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Specialists can be of great advantage long before your city is working all its squares. In my current game as Deidre (double-blind, transcend, random map) I have 5 cities that share these characteristics: (I have 27 other cities much less developed)
1. All are as big as they can get pre-hab dome since I trawled nutrients early
2. Each has enough crawled minerals to build a sea crawler a turn.
3. Once they hit max pop (for now) each of the crawlers that was crawling nuts switched to energy and most workers that weren't already specialists, became specialists (librarians).
4. At most, each of these cities has 2 to 4 workers actually working now and that will get reduced again when the Cloudbase academy comes online and I can get full effect of the food satellites. I do always leave a worker on any borehole inside a city radius.
These 5 cities are kicking butt science-wise as they all have fusion labs, thermocline, biology, energy bank etc. The many-librarian approach leads to an impressive kick in science output. Toy with it sometime, the boost is impressive. These cities will continue to produce crawlers except when a new science facility becomes available and then its a 1 turn rush build and back to the crawlers.
Others are much better at stating the theory and practice of specialist cities but I must confess that I am hooked. As for city radius, the simple fact is that when using crawlers or satellites the city radius becomes unimportant.
How does this impact on city spacing? I generally spread my cities out early to try to grab up territory, choke points , special resources etc. Overlap does not generally bother me much and my cities generally overlap a little. But I likewise do not worry about the strip of "unused" land. Any area outside a city radius is equally good for crawlering as land inside.
I admit that I had an early phobia about crawling inside the radii. If you crawl one resource aren't you wasting the others?? While some resources go "unused" you end up better off in the long run by utilizing the best resource only from a larger number of tiles and them adding the research effects of specialists. This affects terraforming since you are less likely to want multi-purpose things like forest.
I found it interesting how different these 5 bases are from the rest of my bases. All the rest are getting carpetted by forest while these guys are mainly farms and mines with a solar on the energy specials.
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:13
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Anyone surprised that I'm posting to a specialist city thread?
Specialist cities can be extremely powerful, especially for the right faction. I've been tinkering with them for almost a year now, and playing the University I've had some really excellent games. In fact, if I start alone on a medium continent there is nothing that seems capable of keeping me from running away with the game.
I build my bases 2 or 3 squares apart along the coastline. I strive to have every base with at least 10 workable squares (not including those used by other bases). Terraforming is simple. Rocky squares get roads and mines, coastal squares get boreholes, and everything else gets condensor / farms / soil enrichers when available. I develop the areas within the production radius of the base first, and when I get crawlers I replace workers. This way if I lose a crawler, it can be quickly replaced by a worker.
The only squares I work are boreholes and shelf / kelp / tidal harnesses. Everything else gets a crawler. Most bases end up with 5 or less workers, and 11 or more specialists. The empty interior of the continent is used to crawl in additional minerals and food as necessary. These bases are enormously productive, and I can get a lot of them on a given piece of territory.
To those who are afraid that they are wasting something by not working a square within their production radius, let's have a look at that calculation.
For mines and farm / condensors, each of these squares produces 4 Factors of Production (FOP) of the same type, and are ideal candidates for crawlers. For an investment of 1 to 2 turns of mineral production from the home base, you get a specialist which returns 3 to 6 energy FOP every turn. That's a damn good investment, especially considering that those energy FOPs are multiplied +100% to +250% by facilities. Let's take a look at some other terrain which is less crawler friendly.
Farm / Solar: Produces 3 (assuming rainy) food and lets be generous and say that it also produces 4 other FOP (minerals and energy). That's 7 FOP, and you can't effectively harvest more than half with a crawler. True enough, but if you consider that you are using one of your precious population points (pre-had domes and pre-cloning vats anyway), why not just build another crawler and and have your cake and eat it too? Produce 4 FOP on the square, crawl it, and add the 3 to X production of the specialist to the total. Your profit appears in the lack of energy lost to inefficiency, and the fact that you needn't deal with another drone. By the midgame there is no non-special square which produces more than a farm / condensor / soil enricher, and by the late game there is no square which even approaches it's productivity.
Yes you could send that crawler off into the wilderness to bring in other resources, and you might even be able to show a slight profit over specializing the worker back home. Since Engineers provide 5 FOP without any loss to inefficiency, only an energy park or a borehole stands a chance of equaling or surpassing their productivity, and both come with a significant terraforming cost, as well as sometimes being more difficult to defend, and it takes more time to terraform and place the crawler in the first place, which loses you turn advantage.
Placing the crawlers within your base's production radius gives you the following advantages:
1) Crawlers take advantage of your pre-crawler terraforming, getting them into action sooner, and effectively allowng you to pop-boom through the production of crawlers until your base has replaced every replacable worker.
2) A symbiotic defense relationship develops between your bases and their military forces, and your crawlers. I road every square I can to facilitate former, crawler and military movement through my productive areas. With almost every square covered with a crawler (and most of the rest with an armored probe team) this means that I have roads, and the enemy must slog through an interminable nest of interlocking ZOCs. Even his probes will often face a solid wall.
3) Keeping your early crawlers close to home gives you some flexibility, as you can divert some to rush an SP and temporarily replace the crawlers with workers if necessary. You can also shift crawlers three squares on roads, in effect moving a crawler from the production line to the frontier in one turn without giving up any production.
The most advantageous thing about this technique is most definitely the turn advantage. I can in effect (ie production) more than double the population of my bases by replacing the workers with crawlers, and even taking advantage of squares which are not worked yet due to a low population.
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Blake
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Brainfallocatione
Oct 2000
time: 17:13
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Two tricks using specialists, one dubious and another a cheat.
In the early game (before crawlers, but generally assuming WP or nutrient restrictions lifted) if you have a base at size 6 or 7 (working kelp or other high food stuff) then turn it's entire population into libarians. It's food plummets and will probably completely deplete the supplies. Next turn back to workers, so your base produces atleast 1 excess food. Next turn back to libarians, once again it depletes it's food supplies, but as long as there was atleast one food in the nutrient box the previous turn your city doesn't starve. You can repeat this as long as you like. OR if you need a really big wad of cash turn your entire population into technicians for a turn, next turn restore them to workers. This can create obscene amounts of labs and cash every second turn.
The second thing I've found would be a really lowlife thing to do in a multiplayer game, infiltrate the datalinks of an AI, then hit F4 for base screen, select the faction you infiltrated find one of there nice big cities in the base screen then right click on the workers... despite the fact they are not yours they get turned into doctors! (empaths or transcends later) turn entire population into doctors, repeat next turn, city starves, loses all production and all energy production except base square. Repeat, repeat repeat until every city in there empire is size one, or more likely, you get bored.
Because it is so obviously cheating I've never used it even against AI's, except for amusement value (which I assure you, was very shortlived). This bug is in both SMAC and SMAX, incidentely I found it when I was studying the progy citizens for the first time, I was amusing myself with the way they change color slighty as I scrolled, I clicked on them to see if it would shuffle all the colors then I noticed the bug. Damn lousy programmers.
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Ogie Oglethorpe
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Marietta, GA
Dec 1999
time: 05:13
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Damn,
Your away for a couple of days and next thing you know you've missed everything.
My thoughts on specialists and mid game. Much depends on the pace of the game firstly. The longer you have the ability to effect some significant t-forming the more effective you will be at growing population centers whilst still removing citizens for specialization. Your growth rate is most important as each citizen represents energy. Growth rate normally becomes limitted via ability to prepare crawlers/trawlers as well as t-forming improvements.
Regarding pace of game,consider if you are running a blind research game wherein restrictions aren't lifted for some period of time. Then all of a sudden case 2 with WP can break your game wide open with respect to tech advancement etc. as condensor farms allow 4 nutrients pre gene splice.
Some simple calculations (all assume no +2 econ, no trade energy, and assume no efficiency loss)
Case 1
8 square calcs.
Forest Treefarm/hybrid configured.
Nutrients = 24 Minus 16 to support workers = 8 available or 4 specialists
Mins = 16
Energy = 16 + 4 specialists at 3,5, or 6 equivalent energy = 28, 36, 40 base energy respectively
Former time required = 8 forest times 4(3) per square = 32(24 turns w/ WP) (assumes no forest growth)
Case 2
Contrast Condensor farm
Condensor farm 8 squares all crawlered
Nutrients = 32 or 16 specialists
Mins = 0
Energy = 16 specialists at 3,5, or 6 equivalent energy or 48, 80, or 96 energy respectively.
Former time required = {8(6) + 4(3)}* 8 squares or 96 former turns (72 if WP)
Mins required = 8 times 30 or 240 mins for crawlers.
Case 3
Kelp farms and Tidals plus Aquafarm & Thermocline
Nutrients = 32 minus 16 for workers = 16 for a total of 8 specialists
Mins = 0
Energy = 32 base + 8 specialists at 3,5, or 6 or
56, 72, 80
Former time required = {4(3) + 6(4)} * 8 or 80 (56 if WP)
Option 4 Advanced Mid game
Condensor/farm/soil enricher 6 squares
Borehole 2 squares
Nutrients 32 - 14 specialists with 4 nutrient surplus
Mins - 12
Energy - 12 = 14 @3,5,6 = 54, 82, 96
Mins required = 6 crawlers at 30 or 180 mins
Former time = 72(54) + 6 soil enrichers @8?(6) + 2 Boreholes @24(16) or 144(122 w/WP)
Any amount of subsitution/scenarios may be considered but the anlysis remains the same.
Realistically one needs to look at the pros and cons of each faction. Contrasting Case 1 to Case 2 and 3 the benefits in the mid game pre fusion (pre engineers at 5 energy i.e. librarians and technicians at 3 energy) is at best a break even proposition with a lot of t-forming required and a lot of mineral expense in those cases:
Case 1 is 16 mins and 28 energy
Case 2 is 0 mins and 48 energy but expended quite a bit of mins and former time
Case 3 is 0 mins and 56 energy expended less mins and less former time than case 2 but significantly more than case 1
The case becomes much more strongly made tho' once Engineers become available. In these cases then comparison becomes
Case 1 16m/36e
Case 2 0m/80e
Case 3 om/72e
All of a sudden case 2 and 3 become much more palletable and need to be seriously considered despite the investment in terms of former time and/or crawler mins.
One aside for case 3 one nice aspect is that half your citizens are still on the ocean as workers and if enough psych energy is applied can turn to all workers to talents. If running wealth then the resulting golden age will allow +1 energy per square worked and harvested for the future. This can be a very important point. In order to acomplish the same effect for Case 2 normally one normally needs to run FM.
Beyond the advanced mid game approach specialists become ultra important. I define this stage where sky farm orbitals, transcendi, and Hab domes are in play. No single square delivers energy as a high nutrient crawlered square. Each square yields 6 nuts matched with orbitals allowing 6 transcendi at 6 energy each. Thats 36 energy per square. On the ocean with kelp and Aquafarms its 24 per square.
So in summary, My game revolves around a traditional approach via forest and tree farms but keeps an eye to keeping coastal bases. Clean allows build of massive farmer (sic) forces which in turn reclaim the interior of the continent to allow Stage 2/4 implementation as fusion power approaches. Base spacing normally follows the base every three squares approach.
Worrying about PB's is and should be a non issue. PB's are a fact of life and no real defense exists other than making sure you get there first and then upwards to ODP's for real defense. I say this knowing full well that any competant player as soon as PBs are discovered can cash in their crawlers at 10 or so bases and have an instant nuclear force for launch of all 10 the next turn. No amount of base spacing etc. is going to realistically allow you a realistic opportunityt o survive that kind of onslought. Moreover, the more likely scenario of x-choppers raining death on you is the more likely approach as MMI normally comes much sooner in the game. The key to both of these is getting to the techs before the other player.
[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited January 30, 2001).]
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Blake
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Brainfallocatione
Oct 2000
time: 17:13
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Diplomat, I said it was "dubious", and it definetly gives the player an unfair advantage against AI's, ofcourse human players always have an unfair advantage against AI's, because they can think. AI's also get an unfair advantage against Humans, in the form of +2 growth +2 industry -2 drones per base, a big bonus to research, ability to see hidden units without sensors and so on. Sometimes it becomes nessecary to use every unfair advantage at your disposal in order to beat the AI's unfair advantages (especially when fighting the aliens). And the strategy of turning your entire population into specialists every 2nd turn is a big MM pain to perform, because every doctor has to be manually turned into a usful specialist (about 4 clicks per population point), it's such a pain that I have only done it a couple of times (once when playing the Ultimate Builder Challenge, I missed the WP and got desperate). But the AI can also do it's own MM which would be an almost impossible pain for humans to perform (for example re-arranging every bases workers every turn). As for the AI not being able to compete, that's the idea I hate losing to AI's.
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Skanderbeg
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of the Anti-Alien Forces of the Cult of Planet
Nov 2000
time: 05:13
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Base spacing has not only implications for the use of PB's, but as well for conventional combat.
I give an example: Faction A with two unarmored chaos-rovers is attacking a base of faction B, garrison one chaos-rover, one handweapon-plasma stell garrison one probe team, no defense perimeter. Bases connected with a road.
1. Bases two squares away (the AI does this often, especilly in jungle and garland crater)
First rover attacks, kills the garrison. Second rover attacks, kills the rover and probe team. Both or at least one rover rolls into base with their remaining 1/3 move points.
2. Bases three squares away.
First rover attacks, kills the garrison. Second rover attacks, kills the rover and the probe team, and rolls into the base.
3. Bases four squares away.
First rover attacks, kills the garrison. Second rover attacks, kills the rover and the probe team. But no move points left to take the base.
4. Bases five squares away.
Rovers have to do a hasty attack, or they have to stay in the open for one turn. With hasty attack, at least one rover would be lost, and the base couldn't be taken. The probe team would buy out the second. Staying in the open would invite a counter attack. The rover of base B would kill one rover, the probe team would buy the other.
This is, of course only an example (but one which I think as a typical situation), but it shows clearly that narrow spaced bases support the attacker, and wide spaced bases support the defender.
"Steelborn, Starborn"
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Travathian
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Chandler, AZ, USA
May 1999
time: 21:13
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No one has mentioned artillery. Please keep this in mind. I can bombard your sensor from two squares away, before moving the rest of my forces in. Thus you can't see how much I am bringing. Better yet, I can blow up one on one side, and feint a different direction. Once I get close enough to another city, I bombard the roads connecting it to city I feinted from. Likewise, once a crawler is destroyed, I can use artillery to destroy terrain enhancements, thus saving my other units for killing your units. The net result being I can detroy more in less time.
This, of course, assumes I'm slashing and burning as I go. Assuming I cause a decent amount of damage (formers/crawlers/terrain) and you repel my attack, you are forced to decide whether or not to concentrate on defense of a potential invasion or rebuilding your infrastructure.
Previous posts (Ogie) shows various terraform times, add to that former and crawler creation times, and you're looking at quite an investment to rebuild. and every turn that goes by is huge losses of energy for you.
Ogie, you should also add into your figures the former time to create sensors. Given the close proximity, you shouldn't need that many. Then again, that also means taking out one, means taking out one for potentially 4 bases. That 25% is huge in the early game.
Just playing Devil's Advocate, I actually use this strategy in some games to great effectiveness.
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cbn
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Newfoundland but soon to be Calgary, Canada
Aug 2000
time: 01:43
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Good points Og and Trav
I think Og explained better most of what I was trying to say and I agree with his points on the difficulty of the artillery getting to the interior lines without sacrificing the artillery unit.
As for sensors, I probably build way too many of them. Almost all base sites get one and I put them out as far as I can as well as early warning detectors (and to get the +25% wherever the battle is joined). It may be a waste of former time in one sense but I look at it as an investment to protect my other terraforming and formers by almost always knowing whats coming.
Trav, you make great points on feint moves and the use of artillery. Both of these methods, used intelligently in the manner you suggest, can mess up any defensive scheme and I think your points are relevant regardless of the defenders base spacing. To try to combat such tactics my general playstyle is to have a very active outreaching defense. The usual process would be that the defender should know that "something" is coming even when the attackers are 6-7 squares out. The idea is to meet the attack at the edge of or even outside the base radius (pre air power). Outlying areas almost always have formers about to prepare base sites or crawler squares so there should be ample notice of any landward invasion.
I vary widely in the use of roads on the frontier but usually don't want any that could be potentially useful to an attacker unless I have a lot of military in the area to assure control of the road. But I have fiddled with building 1 tile roads in 4 directions radiating from the city. This ensures that my rover can get 2 smacks at units 2 squares from the base in that direction (second attack at -33%) or can hit once and run back into the city. With a non-elite rover attack there always MUST be a turn where the attacker sits either next to the base or two squares out.
I have also toyed with a rocky road strategy where there is a road into frontier but it is ZOC blocked by crawlers sitting on and working rocky squares. Depending on the weapon-armour ratio these crawlers can put quite a bit of damage on an attacker. I have only really considered this is situations with rovers available to patrol the road as well.
I have always thought that pre air power the active defender has many advantages. Apart from shorter supply lines and the sensor advantage, the prepared defender can sit and wait for the approach at a prepared site . Sometimes, if enough defensive attackers are marshalled, it is best for the attacker to back off. I have seen many situations where large numbers of ground forces were 3+ squares apart in a fairly open battlefield. the weapon to armour situation was disproportionate so that the reality is that the first side to advance ( into range) would take horrendous losses. Regrettably, given my hope for a smarter AI, the AI always advances into the slaughter. It reminds me of CIV 2 when the AI would bash itself senseless against a stacked mountain fortress.
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Skanderbeg
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of the Anti-Alien Forces of the Cult of Planet
Nov 2000
time: 05:13
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cbn and Ogie!
Good points.
I think now that I have estimated a narrow base spacing to much dangerous.
This perhaps depends on my current game, where I (Drones) am beating two factions (Spartans and custom-made warmonger because of their narrow base spacing.
In one extreme case, bases were only two square apart, which allowed me to beat their garrison down with my artillery from the first base and easily capture the second.
I normally don't place my bases in strict pattern, but select places after ressources and strategic positions, normally 4 or 5 squares apart. But when I have no room to expand (starting on small island etc), I space them closer together.
One thing at last to the defense rover. Don't forget that this is a very valuable unit for attacks! It can give your best weapon/nor armor attack rovers and your artillery shelter from counterattacks, and it is the ideal unit to finally take and hold the captured base.
If I have broken the border defense line of an enemy, I often need only one single of this defense rovers and a bunch of needlejets/copters for attack to take out the AI's empire, because on the roads, they can take a base six squares away.
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29-01-2001 01:12
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