How I play SMAC, aka Commie Forrest Paradise

[methodermis]

I play Yang, and I play the best way he can, Planned Police State. I rule with an iron fist and dissodents will find the receiving end of a nerve stapler, though I prefer to quell riots with facilities. Once I secure my place on Planet, I begin my Grand Dream of foresting the entire planet and removing every inch of xenofungus! A grand dream indeed..

It's 2365 and Diedre is only alive because I'm keeping her that way. Tech is cranked down to 0% to keep the endgame from kicking in. My largest base's are size 46 and growing. I have changed from Planned to Green, and have adopted Cybernetic, bringing my Planet bonus to +5.

As soon as I take over a base I hurry a tree farm, hybrid forrest, and network node (with virtualworld), and then set the city on Build and rockets into Utopia. My armada of terraformers (at 2355 I have 96 terraformers active) roll in and forest EVERYTHING, tearing up farms and collectors. I'm even going around and leveling rocky terrain now to forest over that! I'm working on replacing my former force with gravship superformers.

Why? Because forests in the game are pretty, because with treefarm+hybridforest every square in the game is 3f2m2e at the least, and because the thought of an entire planet forested and living in perfect harmony with nature is a beautiful thought.

Didn't think a Yang player would have this as his Grand Dream?

Beautifully untouched prime realestate!


My army of terraformers attacking newly captured territory

 

[Perfection]

Forrests are pretty, but for raw building fun you gotta build thermal boreholes everywhere, interspersed with echelon mirrors and solar collectors (all built on soil enrichers) and aquafers everywhere!

Then for my one huge ultrabase, I truck in massive quantities from a offsite super cendensor farm.

I like to play as Morgan because he's cooler than anyone else. (I will admit, that Yang is pretty cool, though)



Of course, it's always great to mix up styles. It's always good fun to play as the pirates and drown everyone else out. Of course, that usually requires settling the continents to create wanton ecological destruction expediting Chiron's destruction.

Sometime it would be fun to play as Gaians with the goal of turning everything into forrest. The funnest part would be destroying every bit of Ocean on the planet.

 

[Yuri2356]

... and because the thought of an entire planet forested and living in perfect harmony with nature is a beautiful thought.

Yes, living in perfect harmony with nature, by exterminating all native life and replacing it with your own. Someone has to put that stuck-up planet mind in its place.

Incidentaly, what happens if you kill every sqare of fungus? (Land and sea) Would you still be able to transcend? (Would make no sense without planet to upload into) Would there be some plot popup where planet telepathicly begs for mercy as you torch that last fungal spore?

 

[The Person]

Incidentaly, what happens if you kill every sqare of fungus? (Land and sea) Would you still be able to transcend? (Would make no sense without planet to upload into) Would there be some plot popup where planet telepathicly begs for mercy as you torch that last fungal spore?

Oh, there will always be a dormant fungal spore which nobody finds. This is sci-fi, isn't it?

 

[Cuivienen]

Well, if you're playing SMAX, it's better to Fungus-ify everything. Why? The Manifold Harmonics running Green as the Gaians (or Cult, but they're terrible) gives +2N, +1M, +1E. (Alternatively, Green-Cybernetic as anyone else gives the same bonus.) Combined with the complete base of 3, 1, 2 (after Secrets of Alpha Centauri is discovered and with the Gaian Nutrients-in-Fungus bonus), that's 5, 2, 3 in every tile. Plus, if you have the Xenoempathy Dome every tile acts as a road. And, with +4 Planet, you'll never have serious Mindworm problems.

 

[Yuri2356]

Unfortunately, that strategy doesn't fit well with those players who don't like having planetary hiveminds made of worms and fungus go arround 'trimming' your citizens, and want to create a future for planet where your children can go outside and breathe the air without fear of having their skulls ripped open by predators! We set forth from Earth to build a new home for humanity, and by god no damn fungus will stand in our way! This world is ours, and will adapt to suit our needs.

*Snaps out of Character*

... Well, ya, that's my long-running SMAC philosiphy. Death to Planet, Vive Humanité!

 

[methodermis]

Yes, living in perfect harmony with nature, by exterminating all native life and replacing it with your own. Someone has to put that stuck-up planet mind in its place.

Good point

I managed to remove the last scraps of fungus, and learned a few things:
1) Native lifeforms will still pop out of nowhere, just not as frequently.
2) Transcending is unaffected, and the fungus still splooges all over the place as soon as you build the ascent to transcendance
3) Nothing pops up when you get the last bit of fungus off, and I'm sure I got it all! Mostly sure.. It would have been nice to have an Interlude come up about it and then it would making transcendence impossible.

I've never tried doing a fungus only game, maybe with the goal of fungusing every square of land AND ocean

Gravship formers are a powerful force, and I had 30 of them in operation when I was foresting

Unfortunately the game ended in transcendance anyway, while I got most of the way up in the tech tree at about 20 turns per breakthrough, suddenly the game decided it was time to end and I started getting 4 or 5 breakthroughs per turn! I was at least able to complete my goals though. And every single supply crawler was disbanded and all the rocky spaces there were sitting on were leveled and forested. My largest city was size 82 from a population surge, but it starved down to I the max of I think 72, without any nutrient convoys or bonuses and with some sky hydroponic farms.

Next time I'll shoot for a size 100 base!