Bibor
Doomsday Machine
HI there. I started playing SMACX again heavily (with Thinker mod). I haven't played SMAC basically since uni, so 20 years or so. Learned to be more patient and detailed, so I'll keep this thread open for my observations regarding better strategies that I discover over time.
Topic 1: Population is *not* king. Yields are.
In most guides I read online, there are two dominant strategies: 1. crawlers and 2. carpeting everything with forests. These two are not exclusive, mind you.
From my recent observations, Thermal Boreholes + Condensers are the way to go, with population never really needing to exceed 7. This saves you a ton of minerals you'd otherwise need to dump into psyche buildings and hab complexes. Condenser + farm grants you 4 food on base terrain, and with 3 from base tile that's 7. Get one more and you have 8 food (that can support up to 4 pop).
For example, four population, one working the food tile, plus 3 thermal boreholes is 18 minerals & 18 energy per turn. If we disregard food, which has no benefit but population maintenance/growth, that's an equivalent of 9 hybrid forests in mineral production and 6 hybrid forests in energy production. This is with very expensive Tree farm and Hybrid forest buildings, mind you. Basically, you get the same effect for half the population. Without these buildings, math is even more in favor of boreholes: 3 thermal boreholes are equal to 9 forests in mineral production and 18 forests in energy production.
Since a single supply crawler (36 minerals) is actually more expensive than a new colony pod (27 minerals), it actually pays more (and is way less micro intensive) to simply make more cities, closely packed together (gap of 2-3 squares between cities). You will still want forests as a filler tile improvement and for the ecology bonus.
Topic 1: Population is *not* king. Yields are.
In most guides I read online, there are two dominant strategies: 1. crawlers and 2. carpeting everything with forests. These two are not exclusive, mind you.
From my recent observations, Thermal Boreholes + Condensers are the way to go, with population never really needing to exceed 7. This saves you a ton of minerals you'd otherwise need to dump into psyche buildings and hab complexes. Condenser + farm grants you 4 food on base terrain, and with 3 from base tile that's 7. Get one more and you have 8 food (that can support up to 4 pop).
For example, four population, one working the food tile, plus 3 thermal boreholes is 18 minerals & 18 energy per turn. If we disregard food, which has no benefit but population maintenance/growth, that's an equivalent of 9 hybrid forests in mineral production and 6 hybrid forests in energy production. This is with very expensive Tree farm and Hybrid forest buildings, mind you. Basically, you get the same effect for half the population. Without these buildings, math is even more in favor of boreholes: 3 thermal boreholes are equal to 9 forests in mineral production and 18 forests in energy production.
Since a single supply crawler (36 minerals) is actually more expensive than a new colony pod (27 minerals), it actually pays more (and is way less micro intensive) to simply make more cities, closely packed together (gap of 2-3 squares between cities). You will still want forests as a filler tile improvement and for the ecology bonus.
