Worth buying?

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, they came in the mail yesterday. I started a game on Citizen as Lal, so far so good. About half of the other factions are SMAX.

 

[Kilkakon]

Enjoying it?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Very much. I was planning on staying up last night to finish, but long story short, I discovered Ascent to Transcendence is much more expensive than I thought, so it will take me a bunch more turns to actually finish, especially because I wanna wipe out Morgan while I'm at it.

(When I originally played the game way back when, I never got a Transcend victory.)

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Also, a question: does the bureaucratic base limit apply to captured bases as well? If I already have more bases than I should, will conquering some more add to the problem? Seems reasonable to assume it would but didn't know.

 

[vyeh]

Also, a question: does the bureaucratic base limit apply to captured bases as well? If I already have more bases than I should, will conquering some more add to the problem? Seems reasonable to assume it would but didn't know.

Yes, it does.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Also, other than drones, are there other consequences? Like a massive drop in income or something?

 

[civac]

Drones are the only effect of exceeding the bureaucracy limit.

Of course, if you have lots of bases inefficiency will also be more problematic since your fringe bases will be farther away from HQ than for a smaller faction.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I just saw my income drop a huge amount in a few turns in my huge farflung empire, so I wondered.

 

[Petek]

Those captured bases may have facilities that require maintenance (energy credits [EC]) each turn. As civac pointed out, those bases may not produce sufficient EC due to inefficiency. You could disband certain facilities, such as Energy Banks, that require maintenance but don't produce anything in return.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Do redundant facilities cost upkeep? For example, if I have the Citizens Defense Force, and capture a base with a perimeter defense, does it cost money for the extra one until I scrap it?

 

[chuft]

Why would you not scrap it immediately for the cash value?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Because I wasn't paying enough attention, maybe?

 

[chuft]

A legitimate point. I rarely pay that much attention myself, so I didn't know the answer offhand.

But as it turns out, if you look in the Datalinks you will see Perimeter Defenses have a maintenance cost of 0 anyway.

So the answer to your question for this example at least is no.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Another question!

So I know that you only get the clean mineral limit benefit of tree farms, et al, after the first fungus pop. But does a sea fungus pop count?

 

[Petek]

Another question!

So I know that you only get the clean mineral limit benefit of tree farms, et al, after the first fungus pop. But does a sea fungus pop count?

AFAIK, yes. For example, the clean mineral mechanism works the same for the Pirates, and they typically get their first >pop< from sea fungus.

 

[vyeh]

Also, other than drones, are there other consequences? Like a massive drop in income or something?

Of course, a rioting base doesn't produce energy.

In addition, if you are using doctors to balance the drones, you lose the energy those doctor citizens could have been producing as workers or other specialists.

If you rush build drone control facilities, their maintenance cost will affect your net income.

Similarly, if you adjust the psych scale to counteract the drones that will affect your income.

What was your strategy for drone control?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, my main strategy was playing on Citizen level. I am so cool like that.

I am Yang, decided to build a crapton of bases just for fun. Got the warning but built a few more anyways. I haven't had any rioting, or even any drones appear that I can think of (using lots of police units as garrison) but I noticed all of a sudden I was losing a bunch of money and hadn't recently changed my SE settings. Thought maybe it was connected.

 

[Kilkakon]

I like your strategy.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

To be fair, it is the second game I have actually played (at least past the first few turns) in over a decade.

To be less fair, when I play games I usually prefer dominating the computer or whatever over challenging myself.

 

[vyeh]

I am Yang, decided to build a crapton of bases just for fun. Got the warning but built a few more anyways. I haven't had any rioting, or even any drones appear that I can think of (using lots of police units as garrison) but I noticed all of a sudden I was losing a bunch of money and hadn't recently changed my SE settings. Thought maybe it was connected.

If you were building facilities in your bases, there might be a maintenance cost associated with them. Since small bases don't produce much income (especially if they are far from HQ), this would result in the loss of income.

I assume you are building colony units to create your bases. Each time a colony unit is built, the population of the base drops (unless it is already at 1 at the Citizen level). Since the population drops, there is one fewer worker and there is less energy. In addition, the game will readjust the remaining workers, usually to maximize population growth (taking workers away from high mineral and/or energy tiles). This also has an impact on income.