Hippie

[Zardnaar]

I'm have recently returned to SMAC after a 9 years and it is still fun. PLaying Alien Crossfire as the Gaians. I kinda know how to focus my cities but I had visions of pet boils etc helping me out but planet is starting to attack me. The problem is probably the early game where I don't have the eco technology to make much use of forests and fungus- ergo I clear the fungus and plant farms. To be a good little hippie do you just slow down your growth and city size and production? Build one uber city and build all the projects in that one city. Not to sure how to focus research and what building to build in what order.

Please help. Balencing the budget would be nice as well. Early on my cities seem to grow slowly except for the ones with bonus food etc.

 

[civac]

It's not worth it to grow you bases early, ie. before certain key technologies have been discovered. Better build more bases. Growth is much faster for small bases (size 1 ideally) than for bigger ones.

If you want early growth anyway, use the Planned SE setting. This will reduce the required food for growth considerably. Democracy and Children's Chreches have a similar effect.

Usually, it's best to keep your bases at size one or two until you have either condensors (Ecological Engineering or Weather Paradigm) or Tree Farms (Environmental Economics).

 

[Zardnaar]

I have often built large empires but then I run out of money. Tree farms take a longtime to build with small unproductive cities. I could just plant over the improvements or is that to late?

How do you research specific techs. I just use the popup that askes you to prioritise your research in knowledge/growth/wealth/military.

 

[Petek]

I used to find myself running low on cash as I entered the midgame. This can be caused by building facilities when your base isn't large enough. Then the maintenance costs will negate whatever benefit is provided by the facility. Here are some quick tips on when to build certain facilities. These tips have lots of exceptions, depending on which faction you're playing, whether you're a builder or a warlord, and so on:

* Recycling Tanks - Can be built in any size base since they require no maintenance.
* Network Node - Base should be at least size three.
* Children's Creche - Base should be at least size three.
* Energy Bank - Base should be producing at least three ECs/turn (after taking inefficiency, if any, into account).
* Research Hospital - Base should be at least size 5.
* Tree Farm - Base size not that important, but you should have several forest tiles to work.

Once you can build Hybrid Forests, you should have plenty of cash. You also can increase your cash flow by crawling nutrients and then turn citizens into specialists (but base must be at least size five). Crawling energy isn't as effective, except perhaps in your HQ, due to inefficiency loss.

As I said, these are just rules of thumb. You should experiment and find what works best for you.

HTH

Petek

 

[Zardnaar]

I built the planetary energy wonder and I'm playing my 1st game in 9 years on Talent difficulty. games still fun. Building forest reserves everywhere now and planting alot of forest as sea levels are rising. I assume you have thermal borehole specialist cities to construct military units? I have starting building clean ones and are at war with everyone and are green/democratic.

Thanx for the help. Might give the morganites a go next. Basically I'm a builder type who only goes to war once I have overwhelming resources.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

It sounds like you are not using the "directed research" option, which is more challenging. It keeps you from beelining to critical economic techs, which makes the game much more difficult for a builder.

Definitely expand to the first bureaucracy warning (it's 9 bases on a huge map), and perhaps the second if you are Lal, Yang, or feel comfortable handling an additional drone in each base.

I disagree that you want to have forests to work in order to justify a tree farm. Aside from the bonus nutrient from forests, they also provide a 50% EC bonus, reduce your terraforming eco-damage by 50%, and add 1 to your clean mineral limit if built after the first "pop". So there are a lot of reasons to build them, and they should go into most bases.

 

[Petek]

@Jolly Rogerer -- I agree with your analysis about the reasons to build TFs. I was only addressing their use to increase ECs.

 

[Zardnaar]

When is the right time to terriform stuff and plant forests. Early on they only have +1 food/+2minerals. How do you tech up if all your cities are size 3-4?

 

[civac]

By building more cities.

There are several reasons small bases with forests are better than larger ones with farms, early. Forests are cheaper to build than farm/solar collector (4 former turns vs. 10), while being equal on number of ressources produced. Small Bases grow much faster than bigger ones. For a each new base, you get a 'free extra citizen' (the base tile). Lastly, drones are easier to manage if your bases are small.

Since your are playing Talent difficulty, there may be way to get big bases early. However, I'd only recommend this if you have very fertile land.
Build some bases and switch to Planned (you need Planetary Networks for this, Planned helps alot early game, in particular for Deirdre). Beeline to Ethical calculus and Gene splicing. Build children's chreches in your bases and switch to Democracy to initiate a population boom in your cities. Run them up to the size you want. Size 5 would be optimal I think, as you dont need drone control beyond a garrison unit and can use specialists. Nutrients are provided by farms (with solar, ideally) or sea kelp. You can substitute fungus iniatially if your terraforming is lagging behind. Your excess population can then work forests or be switched to Librarians.

If you are playing with blind research, or tech stag or if you lack rainy, rolling terrain, it's better to stick with many small bases until you get better tech. If your are dissatified with the productivity of your small bases you can use crawlers to augment it.

Also note, that most of the advice you are getting refers to higher difficulty levels, Thinker and Transcend.

 

[Zardnaar]

I just put it on Talent as its been a looong time since I played SMAC or SMA AX. Think 2001. I got the sold out software cheapo version.

 

[civac]

Play whatever difficulty you feel is appropriate.

The reason I put emphasis on difficulty level ist that it shifts the balance of the game considerably.

 

[Zardnaar]

I used to play on Deity on Civ but SMAC is a bit different.

Dumb uestion what do recycling tanks do?

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

I used to play on Deity on Civ but SMAC is a bit different.

Dumb uestion what do recycling tanks do?

+1 Nutrient, Mineral and Energy to the base at no maintenance cost.

 

[Zardnaar]

Thanx I kept building them and didn't notice the squares being improved but then I noticed the midde one. The 2 Alien races in AC seem overpowered, and if you pop a battle ogre early in the game you can easily wipe a faction out.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

Yea, most players didn't care for the alien factions. In fact most players felt that the SMAX factions weren't as good in general. I typically play with the original 7, or 6 of the 7 as I find they balance one another better than a random selection.

 

[Zardnaar]

The rones seem powerful at cranking out stuff. The others not so much. In multiplayer you can be any faction- IE you could pick an Alien one and the Morganites or whatever.

 

[civac]

You won't usually see the aliens in MP except for special scenarios.

In SP the two alien factions are supposed to balance each other out. This doesnt really work all that well, though, since they can be far away from each other.

Battle ogres are ridiculous. Fortunately, they cant heal. You may be able to kill one by throwing laser units at it. Once, I even managed to kill a battle ogre by charging it with scouts (took only 3 or 4).

 

[Zardnaar]

I normally disband a battle ogre once its almost dead. Alot of minerals in a base. Psi works on them as well or a wave of laser units. Do te Aliens always start with a base and 2 colony pods?