Best Units?

[Evil Beejeebers]

Does anyone let the AI make their units? I find I have too much variety when I let the AI take control.

What some of your favourites to make?

where do you feel you get good bang for your buck?

 

[Agent Miles]

I make a Rover with best weapon and heavy artillery. A group of these can move 5 tiles on a road and still bombard a threat two tiles away with no counter-attack. (Unless the target is a warship or artillery.)

For base defense, infantry with best shielding, AAA and police powers.

Finally, a rover with best weapon. These 3 work together to defeat ground threats.

A cruiser with probe team is good for infiltrating. I use one against each faction so that I can Know my Foe. I've even made a base and given it to a distant faction so that I could infiltrate it.

I don't like conquering other faction bases, as most of these are crap. I make a gravship with clean reactor so that the design is cheap. I then pump them out and send them to destroy enemy tile improvements. I bomb them back to Mission Year One.

Check out my thread Less is More for an interesting strategy. Good Luck!

Here's a save game of how the above strategy looks with some of the units.

 

[Recon Rover]

Interesting. I don't play these types of small maps. I am curious what patch you are using or mod. I play with Yitzi's or Binary Dawn . I don't believe that Supply Crawler trick works anymore.

 

[Agent Miles]

From the Credits file:
;
; Sid Meier's ALPHA CENTAURI
;
; Credits
;
; Copyright (c) 1997, 1998 by Firaxis Games, Inc.
;

I usually use a Standard map from, I believe, the original. So Supply Crawlers don't work anymore? In the Less is More thread, someone else tried this and said that it was okay.

 

[Recon Rover]

I suppose it depends partially on the amount of resources available in a map but generally in the mods I listed you are only to be supply crawling resources you need to move specifically to a base (or also possible) to gather beyond the zone of control of a base.

 

[Arent11]

Does anyone let the AI make their units? I find I have too much variety when I let the AI take control.

What some of your favourites to make?

where do you feel you get good bang for your buck?

(1) Rovers
(2) trance scout infantry
(3) missile penetrators
(4) mindworms
(5) infantry with best weapon but no armor

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

I pretty much spam the locusts or Chiron now, they are stupidly overpowered for the cost.

 

[Concept]

If you use Free Market economics, then the best units in SMAC are derived from customizing Probe Teams in the Unit Workshop, as a token defensive unit in each city and for sending out to hold on key squares your opponents might choose to attack - but never in a unit stack, due to all the loses that could happen.

*they cost no support to maintain in the long-run - saving industry resources for your cities to produce other units.
*they double up as probe defense because they are considered probe teams afterall.
*their mobility can be minimized in the unit workshop saving on their cheaper cost to produce them. very economical.
*their inability to police a city doesn't matter because there's no bonus to police from using Free Market.
*their defensive capability can be upgraded from key technologies, so that they are effective at defending (except in a stack of units where it can be an all-or-nothing game).
*they can even be placed in your opponent's territory, egging them on, to attack them, and don't count as a military unit, so its ok to send them there even with a Free Market, not contributing to a city's unhappiness.
*they can be over-produced and even "sacrificed" at your opponent's cities for stuff like technology, or even just Hold their position on key resources their city has, so that their city is sieged.

If you don't use Free Market economics, then, I'd recommend Scout Patrols with Non-Lethal methods from Intelluctual Integrity tech (doubling their policing capability in cities) as a best unit for the policing they do effectively. Put 1-3 of these units in each city, depending on your Police rating, and that's the best way to keep order in cities, economically for the cost of the unit.