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AMD4EVER
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I probably play this game very different from those who are pro's at it but I really don't use supply crawlers that much although I am generally a builder and play the game with tech stag on. For my style of play I will usually get 4 or 5 bases started and then build a former at each one then make a couple more colony pods before adding recycling centers at each base and trying to grab as many secret projects as possible. My formers are usually busily planting forests, putting up sensors, and building roads to connect all of my bases. After I have about 15 bases and the WP I start focusing more on defense and head straight for plasma steel armor and nonlinear mathematics for powerful weapons. I garrison all my bases with 1-3-1 infantry at about that time I usually end up in a war and begin pumping out as many 4-1-2 rovers as I can while building perimeter defenses at my bases and trying to grab the Command Nexus secret project. Beyond this point the game is usually a cake walk. The initial war ends with a resounding victory and leaves me with by far the highest population in the game along with at least one submissive ally which I use to get me elected as planetary govenor.
If your style of play is a simple laid back builder at first and then an attacker late then perhaps this will help you.
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CEO Aaron
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Everything has its price. Even you.
Aug 2002
time: 05:30
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Some basics of play regardless of your play style:
1) Expand early.
The very early turns of the game are critical, and getting a jump on base placement and terraforming over your rivals here can issue huge dividends later on. Therefore, your early turns should be exclusively devoted to getting bases founded as quickly as possible. This means you'll build nothing but formers, colony pods, and 1/1/1 garrisons until you've hit the first bureaucracy limit. Certain highly specialized facitions can deviate from this formula, but you can't go far wrong building 1 former in each base, a colony pod, and a 1/1/1 garrison, and continue building bases until you reach the first, if not the second bureaucracy limit.
2) Build Forests.
Forests are the super terrain improvement. The early game is all about maximising your limited former time, and forests give large dividends for limited former time. For a mere 4 former turns, you create a square that produces 4 FOPs, 2 shy of the pre-cap limit. In addition, they spread by themselves into adjacent squares, automatically clearing fungus as they go, saving you even more former time. Finally, when you're ready to clear them to place more productive improvements, you get 5 quick minerals when they're cleared.
3) Scout and Infiltrate
Don't become fixated with all your economic developement at home. Building a few probe teams on a foil chassis will enable you to troll the oceans looking for your neighbors, and infiltrate them, finding out what technologies they've discovered, what improvements and units their bases contain, and their current production is working on.
With these contstants of good play in mind, my games tend to follow a certain pattern. My first two pods will be planted as quickly as possible, and my initial scout begins wandering out in a spiral, searching out new base sites. Unless I've started play with it, my first research goal will be centauri ecology. My initial bases will either immediately produce formers, or if I'm waiting for discover CE, I'll push out a pair of scouts. If I'm playing Domai, Yang or Miriam, odds are I'll also build a colony pod while waiting for CE. Once I've built formers, they will immediately commence work roading out to new base sites, and seeding the occaisional forest. I continue building formers, bases and garrisons, expanding well after I've triggered the first bureaucracy warning. I play Transcend/Large, so that puts me somewhere between 6 and 12 bases. My research goals at this time depend primarily on my early game strategy. If I'm playing a builder, I beeline toward industrial automation, to get wealth, crawlers and hab complexes. Once I've got them, I start crash building SPs. If I'm playing a momentum faction, the requisite techs are planetary networks, doctrine flexibility and synthetic fossil feuls. I use probe foils to tech-rape my neighbors, and when I've stolen everything down to their world map, I start building an invasion force.
By 2200, I expect to either be building tree farms and preparing a large population boom, or prosecuting an all-out invasion of a neighboring faction, trying to force them to capitulate, giving me a valuable ally, guaranteed commerce income and hopefully a juicy project or two.
The last piece of advice I have is to be flexible. Even the most pacifistic faction can make itself a truculent warmonger, and even the most braindead bunch of pillaging vandals can build towards and enlightened and advanced society. You might not do so as easily as those geared towards each respective goal, but if you hang in there and don't throw in the towel, you'd be suprised what you can do to turn your fortunes around.
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The diplomat
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Terre Haute, IN USA
Sep 1999
time: 23:30
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In the first 50 or so turns, my build queue is usually,
1.scout (fortify)
2.former
3.colony pod
I try to build as many bases as early as possible. If my faction has bad efficiency, I'll stop at the first efficiency warning.
If I am lucky and I find a great production site for a base, like 1 or more monoliths and/or a mineral bonus tile, I set that base to build the Weather Paradigm or the Human Project ASAP.
I'll use one or two scouts to patrol, trying to nab as many artifacts as possible.
Once I have a dozen or so bases, and I have bumped into other factions and/or reached my first efficiency limit, I stop building pods and consolidate my position. I'll usually build recycling tanks, energy banks, children's creche, command centers...
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AMD4EVER
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Also with building the former first, it costs only 25 credits to complete it in one turn given the 10 free minerals when you place a base. That is a very good deal early in the game!
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igtenos
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quote:
Originally posted by AMD4EVER
Also with building the former first, it costs only 25 credits to complete it in one turn given the 10 free minerals when you place a base. That is a very good deal early in the game! |
But dangerous if the bases is right by some fungus. Nothing is more annoying than building a base & then lose it on the next round to a surprise mind worm strike. Not such a problem if you have an extra military unit to defend the base (a spare rover, a mindworm if you're using one of the native-friend factions, or (later on) an aircraft).
quote:
Is there something to be said for having two or even three formers per base. My SE choices usually leave me with a poor support rating, so only the first unit comes free. Should I disregard that, and have more formers anyway? |
Depends on how many bases you have and if you need to do a bunch of elaborate terraforming - fungus removal early on, raising/lowering terrain, Condensers, or Boreholes. Doubling up formers for such tasks will cut the time required down by half. Usually I'll build a second former for my early bases once they have some excessive minerals once they hit 3-4 population. That way I have enough formers to double-duty some Boreholes & get the fungus out of the way to plant forests, mines, and the occassional Farm/Solar array if the square gives a +1 mineral.
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Kody
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If life's standing still and your soul's confused
Jun 2003
time: 14:30
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I believe the idea is to forest arid or moist nutrients bonus. I think the reasoning is the 2 minerals make the colony pods build faster and the production of colony pods closely matches the growth with +3 forested nutrients from the bonus.
However I think a rainy nutrient bonus is farmed. Or if there is no nutrient nutrient, and no rainy squares a moist square is farmed. After the first worker has some good nutrients to grow the city I think people aim for minerals from forests to make those colony pods and formers,
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AMD4EVER
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My strategy for forming each base goes like this. I pick an arid, flat square or one with a river running through it if possible and plant a forest there. Then I find another arid, flat square and plant another forest on that. At that point my base is usually close to 2 population or already is and it is collecting a lot of minerals to build with but not much nutrients. So I plant two farms on the best rolling squares I can find. That way I can get 2 nutrient and 1 mineral out of both of those and I have my base collecting from those two squares so it can get up to 3 population. By about this time I've usually got the WP and can start building condensors on the two farms and start making a borehole on one of the rocky squares. After that I usually just build all forest.
I don't know how commonly most people build roads but I also build roads in every single square that I terriform. I also build 2 sensors on my original forest only after I have finished building my condensors and assuming the base is in no immediate danger. The borehole is usually my last priority since early in the game it isn't that useful but by the middle of the game I usually like to see about half my bases with 2 or more boreholes and the rest having at least 1. They help a lot in improving production and lab output once your able to get 6 minerals/6 energy out of each. Just gotta watch out for eco damage and run high planet! These things are especially useful for Gaia surprisingly.
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Curiosity
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Asmo,
Early on, one two-nutrient-tile is sufficient to boost your population to size 2 before you build a colony pod. If you don't have that, then you need a farm.
Beyond that, though, you don't want to be growing vertically until you're ready to handle the drones. When you are, you boom.
Looking at your build order;
1) Defensive unit
2) Colony Pod
3) Former
4) Recycling Tanks
5) Colony Pod
The problem is that you're slowing your expansion a lot.
For a free-market faction I normally do something like
Former, colony pod, (repeat until I hit the baselimit), former or crawler, colony pod...
Optionally, you can build a scout after a former, especially if you're not in free-market.
Once you have your two nutrient square, use the formers to build roads to the next base site. This saves you several turns on founding your next base. Then, begin planting forests.
SE choices; I favour FM/Wealth early on, others use planned/wealth. Don't use Demo at least until you get to the first bureaucracy limit.
Once you're getting to the point where you can't expand any more, you need to boom ASAP. Don't build anything which doesn't help you to boom faster! This is the phase of the game which really tests a player's skill... the faster you boom, the better off you're going to be in the mid-game. Practise until you can have all of your bases boomed up to the first hab limit by 2180... then do it faster. 
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25-08-2003 17:57
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