In 3-4 paragraphs, what's your optimal strategy?

[zarus]

I know of general principles and cheap tricks, but it seems to me like none of those are enough to guarantee victory on Transcend. Still, it seems like there are tons of people out there who can do it easily. I would like to know how.

 

[Petek]

Hi zarus!

There are many ways to take your game to the next level. Here are a few tips:

1. Micromanage. Don't automate units (especially formers) or bases.
2. Play with directed research and learn the tech beelines that support your style of play. Everyone will want to go for Industrial Automation (for crawlers - see below). Warmongers will then want to research advanced weaponry and Air Power. Builders will go for Environmental Economics (to lift various restrictions) and Bioengineering (for clean reactors).
3. Learn how to use crawlers. See the corresponding article in the SMAC Academy.
4. Learn how to pop-boom. See the SMAC Academy referenced above. Other useful articles there.
5. Learn how eco-damage works, if you don't already know.
6. Here's a collection of strategy articles and discussions that you might find useful: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/138071-the-voice-of-planet?postid=3991837#post3991837.
7. I'd also direct you to Vel's SMAC Guide on Weplayciv.com. Very informative. However, Weplayciv currently seems to have picked up some malware. I'll check in a few days to see whether the site has been cleaned.

Let us know if you have any questions about any of this information.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

1. Forest everywhere
2. Build lots of supply crawlers during the period of time after you have finished expanding and before you can build tree farms.
3. Make cities until bureaucracy drones becomes a big problem.
4. Pop boom
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until game won.

 

[History_Buff]

Yeah, the two previous hit it all pretty well.

Then there's also faction specific stuff that Vel covers pretty well. Stuff about how to abuse Yang's Civic, and how Free Market is so, so much better for Morgan than it is for literally everyone else.

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

I just play deirdre

 

[Petek]

WePlayCiv's problems appear to be resolved, so her's a link to Vel's SMAX Guide.

 

[IdaGno]

1. Trees Trees Trees
2. Trees Trees Trees
3. Trees Trees Trees

 

[History_Buff]

4. As soon as you finish Trees Trees Trees, and get your hybrid forests up, build Boreholes on every other square, as dense as you can pack em.


Also, never forget that the resource squares allow you to circumvent the early game resource restrictions. So if you have a moist, Nutrient square, and happened to build The Weather Paradigm, you can drop a farm/condenser on that square for 7 nutrients (or is it 8?), even if the only tech you had was Centauri Ecology.

Similarly, if you drop an early game borehole on a mineral square, that's good for 8 minerals, even if the 2 mineral cap is still in place for you. If the 2 energy cap is also in place, be sure to crawler those minerals in, since your workers have better things to do.

 

[magic9mushroom]

4. As soon as you finish Trees Trees Trees, and get your hybrid forests up, build Boreholes on every other square, as dense as you can pack em.


Also, never forget that the resource squares allow you to circumvent the early game resource restrictions. So if you have a moist, Nutrient square, and happened to build The Weather Paradigm, you can drop a farm/condenser on that square for 7 nutrients (or is it 8?), even if the only tech you had was Centauri Ecology.

Similarly, if you drop an early game borehole on a mineral square, that's good for 8 minerals, even if the 2 mineral cap is still in place for you. If the 2 energy cap is also in place, be sure to crawler those minerals in, since your workers have better things to do.

Actually, condensers break nutrient restrictions even before Gene Splicing, so any square can be used in that manner. Bonus squares are indeed the most efficient, though.


Incidentally, as far as terraforming goes, there are really two "optimal tilings":

1: Boreholes everywhere they'll fit (1/4 of the squares) and forests everywhere else.

This is the simpler one to execute (just build forests initially, and build the boreholes over them when everywhere's got enough). It works well with larger, wider-spaced cities, since it uses less forming time per square and needs an expensive Hybrid Forest to do well. It gives exceptionally high minerals, especially if you combine it with factories (which large cities tend to use).

2: Boreholes everywhere they'll fit and crawled condenser/farms everywhere else.

This requires a lot of former time, since you'll want at least some forests initially, and because farm/condenser/soil-enrichers just plain take a while. Hence, it works well with smaller, closely-spaced cities, which will have a greater density of formers, especially since such cities won't be able to afford Hybrid Forests easily. It produces very large populations, which is another reason for dense cities (you'll hit Hab Dome limits), and thus lots of specialists, but less minerals.

 

[History_Buff]

Yeah, I love me some minerals, so I tend to go the former route. Or the less former-intensive route if you will

 

[magic9mushroom]

Yeah, I love me some minerals, so I tend to go the former route. Or the less former-intensive route if you will

Less crawler-intensive and less pod-intensive, too. The problems start cropping up when you run out of places to colonise and projects to build, though of course that's a rather nice "problem" to have.

 

[green1]

I like trees, too. But I sometimes run into energy problems if I do not have at least a few farm/solar squares.

I usually play with Morgan, Zak, or Domai. Occasionally I will dabble with Aki Zeta, Lal, or Miriam. Miriam is really fun on smaller maps

Just one strategy is kind of hard. Each game is different and I while set out to do one thing, the randomness may totally change my plans. For instance, one time in an xfire game, I was going to tech up as Zak. Unfortunately, the caretakers landed not far from me and I got involved in a war that was unwinnable. Then, got eliminated and respawned... right next to that evil Miriam! Forget teching.. now it is all about survival!

 

[Perfection]

Keep playing the same daft strategy over and over until by pure luck it works

 

[IdaGno]

Just one strategy is kind of hard. Each game is different and I while set out to do one thing, the randomness may totally change my plans.

My most memorable SMAC game: playing as the Gaians on a Huge map, when suddenly Yang begins making devestating Chopper visits, followed shortly thereafter getting repeatedly Nuked by Lal.

Did not lost for long thereafter.

Wish I could remember how it came to that.

 

[magic9mushroom]

My most memorable SMAC game: playing as the Gaians on a Huge map, when suddenly Yang begins making devestating Chopper visits, followed shortly thereafter getting repeatedly Nuked by Lal.

Did not lost for long thereafter.

Wish I could remember how it came to that.

I've been on the other end of that in a game on Thinker. Playing Yang, didn't know how to leverage specialists yet. As soon as I (finally) get Industrial Automation, Svensgaard (who's got me near-surrounded) declares war on me. He had Impact and I didn't, and he had tons of morale on me since I was running Wealth. I took something like 6:1 losses every time I fought his forces (which were raiding my many sea-bases).

...And then I chucked all my coastal bases into pure production, and swarmed him under despite those odds. Yang does love his Zerg Rush.

 

[MilesBeyond]

How do you guys borehole the crap out of everything? Every time I try that Planet goes nuts and starts berserking all my bases with Demon Boils

 

[civac]

There are ways to get rid of Eco-damage. Eco-damage has two sources: terraforming and high mineral output.

Terraforming eco-damgae can be eliminated by building Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests in the relevant base. This part is less problematic however.

Eco-damage caused by mineral production is usually higher. After the first fungus pop (you get a message) you can increase your clean mineral limit by one by building any of Centauri Preserve, Temple of Planet, Tree Farm and Hybrid Forest in any of your bases. What counts is building them not having them. You can sell them and rebuild them and get another increase of the clean mineral limit. Once your clean minerals exceed the mineral production of your bases eco damage will vanish completely.

 

[magic9mushroom]

How do you guys borehole the crap out of everything? Every time I try that Planet goes nuts and starts berserking all my bases with Demon Boils

1) Relatively small bases. A base per 12 squares (three boreholes) is probably as big as you want to go.

2) Lots of bases, each with a Tree Farm and Hybrid Forest (built after the first pop). If you have, say, 15 bases, with those two, you'll have a clean mineral limit of 47, which should be enough (since 12 squares of forest/borehole gives only 36 minerals) until you build factories later on.

 

[Senethro]

Four paragraphs? Four phrases.

Hive.
1x1 base spacing
Advanced terraforming
Supply crawlers

After getting good at this game I'd always burnout on actually playing it due to having 500 non-military units at turn 100.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Four paragraphs? Four phrases.

Hive.
1x1 base spacing
Advanced terraforming
Supply crawlers

After getting good at this game I'd always burnout on actually playing it due to having 500 non-military units at turn 100.

...But you can't put bases next to each other. The tightest you can get is therefore 2x2.