Might Strategy?

[Oddible]

Is going down a combat path feasible at all in the early game, picking Might virtues on my way to supremacy? My challenge is that as soon as I start attacking the locals, they get more and more hostile to me and while I get a small veteran army all the other civs have expanded to 3+ outposts by the time I have my area cleared enough to plant my first outpost.

Should I skip Might until later and play nice with the locals for the first 100 turns until I get my area settled out?

 

[Ryika]

I'm certainly not a combat expert, but here are my 2 cents:

Might and Knowledge lack empire-enhancing policies and will therefore cause serious problems over time if you focus on them alone. Unless you plan on doing a really quick "conquer all"-rush, I would never go Full-Might.

However, I found some hybrid-strategies work quite nicely. Opening with Prosperity for the free settler and then switching to might for the affinity-bonuses while getting ready to conquer a neighbor and then, while taking cities, adding more prosperity-virtues to get the health needed to sustain the cities is pretty neat. Nowhere near as fast as peaceful strategies, but it's certainly fun. You can then focus on either Prosperity, switch to Industry (which will cause a rather harsh health-shortage at first) and continue mixing prosperity+might.

I don't think it's really worth "farming experience" on aliens though. Unit Promotions have very little impact in BE and in the mid game the AI will often one-turn-kill units with air units anyway. I find keeping the aliens as quiet as possible and using the promotions to heal units in the field to be the much better choice, especially for melee units.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

I don't think it's really worth "farming experience" on aliens though. Unit Promotions have very little impact in BE and in the mid game the AI will often one-turn-kill units with air units anyway. I find keeping the aliens as quiet as possible and using the promotions to heal units in the field to be the much better choice, especially for melee units.

Well, I'm not a BE expert at all; I play countless CIV5 @ immortal lvl, I had a bit more difficulties @ Deity, but won a few.
For BE, I just won my first Apollo win on the first try with a lot of mistakes/non optimal choices: difficulty is way easier in BE for me.

But long story short, I think there "might" be a very competitive way with rushing the "farming experience" in the might tree. It's "only" 3 virtues down, quite quick.
And with the right affinities (purity iirc), you farm zergs aliens very easily: the smaller alien is 8 beaker, which is 100% to 50% of 1 turn of science for at least 70turns. And the nest is a freaking 60!

With rushed affinity, I can see a strategy around hardcore aliens farming for the first 100t, then rushing the closest neighbour with overwhelming units to compete with the lack of mid/late game impact this strategy has. After rushing the 3 points in might, I would still go the prosperity settler way, just to overcome midgame the health penalty with fast city conquests latter on.

This strategy is heavily terrain dependant, obviously needed quite some aliens & a few nest to smash on early game

 

[Ryika]

I think the main issue I have with the "Farm Aliens!"-Strategy is that it doesn't really get you into a stable midgame. Yes, you get a lot of extra science, but what do you really do with that, when it basically forces you into either Prosperity (which is inferior to Industry), to give up the free settler in Prosperity (which only really works with strategies that use the +Settler Production loadout - but that one is by default already weaker than the Artists Loadout) - or into serious health-issues if you decide to still pick up the Settler and then go for Industry.

In the end, the investment costs always lead to a situation where you have to give up some sort of Empire Development that the bonus science can't equalize. Well, at least these were the results when I tried to make that strategy work - I'm relatively certain that I'm not too far off, but maybe I just missed a solution to these problems.

 

[MechMedic130]

I like to combine Might & Industry together, usually I'll lead in my first couple virtues with Industry to get my capitol up and running quickly then shift into Might. I haven't successfully beaten the game on Apollo yet, but combining those two have gotten me closer than any other combination. The AI is just too aggressive on Apollo to not be able to field a large military. Might gets you the units, Industry helps you get the defensive buildings up and running quickly. Of course this has only helped me get so far before getting stomped on anyways, but its a work in progress.

 

[kipwheeler]

In my limited experience, if you are going to go heavily into Might Virtues (rather than Prosperity), it can work okay, but only if you meet all these initial conditions:

(1) You are playing Brazilia for combat bonuses.
(2) Your starting location is in a relatively miasma-free area (that doesn't slow down your workers and troops with timeouts to heal)
(3) You have a close NPC neighbor who *is* in a miasma-thick area and not handling the environment well.

If that's the case, you can either go full Harmony or Full Purity while pumping up Might virtues and steam-roll the closest neighbor who is already weakened by cramped expansion, surrounded by aliens and miasma, and it gets you off to a decent start.

However, if you don't meet all three of those initial conditions, you are usually better off getting the first five Prosperity Virtues rather than Might Virtues, in my humble opinion.

 

[NukeAJS]

On its own, might isn't very good. As a secondary tree, it's VERY good when combined with Prosperity. For me, it easily rivals industry as a secondary tree. Try this --

Open and go down might to scavenging. Build a small military and slap the aliens around. Get at least marines (level 2 any affinity) ASAP.

Switch to prosperity and do the normal thing -- free settler, mind over matter, joy through variety etc. You'll probably get a free 2nd or 3rd colonist via the free colonist virtue, not your first. HOWEVER ...

Before getting any tier 2 affinity tech (not the inner-ring), snatch "Adaptive Sciences" in might. It's only four into might, connected to scavenging (you have that already!), and gives a +20% boost to any tech that gives you affinity. This will get you your last affinity level for victory (usually 12!!! in this strat [read below]) about 20-40 turns sooner, possibly more. It will also allow you to enable certain units WAY before you'd normally be able to get them. For example, getting tier 1 purity, completing two beginner quests in purity, and getting a tier 2 purity tech will enable you to get purity affinity level 5.

The hidden synergy here is that scavenging should catapult you in science, provided you have lots of aliens to beat up. This means getting tier 1 and tier 2 affinity techs significantly quicker (scavenging makes almost no difference in tier 3), so you can push pretty much any early game strategy sooner rather than later. It is also nice to go purity with this strat since level 3 purity gives you another large combat bonus against aliens.

And here's the kicker -- Martial meditations (right below adaptive sciences) will give you a free boost to any affinity. Meaning you only need to get to level 12 in your chosen affinity.

Other things to note --

Memetwork -- This let's you build your victory building at level 12, not 13. If properly combined with Martial mediations, you can start building your victory building when you hit level 11 affinity (jumping from 9 -> 11 with a single tier three affinity tech is easy with Adaptive Sciences). Memetwork requires orbital networks, which is required for the purity and supremacy victory. Also lowers the affinity level for all units and buildings by 1, meaning bigger, better units sooner.

Ansible gives an additional +25% affinity from techs, possibly giving you +45% affinity from techs. Downside -- it's WAY out on the tree, so by the time you get it, you probably haven't many affinity levels left to get. I hope I can swipe this from the steal tech espionage mission.

And, if you choose, once you get to Eudomonia (whatever, the -15% unhealth virtue at the bottom of prosperity) you can start filling in the bells and whistles in Might like -50% unit upkeep, + and + from stratetgic resources, +50% all strategic resources, +% to per unit tier. And then go stomp people.

Opportunity costs --

First, it only works well when you A) have plenty of nests nearby for alien spawns and B) don't care about eliminating the aliens. Therefore, it's not a very good harmony strat.

Second, and this seems obvious, you will get your second and third cities up later; however, this opportunity cost is more than covered by killing a single alien every turn as far as science goes.

Third, and again this seems obvious, the aliens will probably despise you. A good way to mitigate this is to NOT sack their nests. Nests give a nice +60 beakers, but so do six wolf-beatles. No nests = no wolf beatles. Clearing nests gives a massive penalty to alien reputation.

Fourth, money could become a problem. You'll probably need a large army to clear all the aliens. Recommend getting thorium reactors and choosing +2 energy quest bonus ASAP.

Fifth, by going into might first, you'll delay the awesome health benefits in prosperity. This means staying "tall" longer and not changing to "wide" sooner. This is only a problem if someone settles those cities spots you were looking at. If people don't settle them (this strategy is only good IF you have a lot of aliens afterall), then you don't really need to worry. However, if people do settle your prime 4th, 5th, etc. spots, this problem is easily corrected by you being at level 5 affinity MUCH sooner than the other players. This means you have level 2 of all the basic units (including boats and missile rovers). And you can also have the affinity-attached infantry unit (battlesuits and whatnot). Hopefully, you can just raze and resettle the spots without much difficulty.

In conclusion, this is my go-to strat if I see a lot of aliens/nests close to my landing spot. Basically, it's my go-to strat when going straight prosperity doesn't make much sense (early settler means nothing if there's nowhere to settle). As I mentioned above, it can do quite well with purity. I think this is appropriate because purity has the worst affinity-victory but benefits from Might the most (you can just spam units that move super-fast and aren't affect by terrain). That being said, I think this is THE purity domination strategy.

 

[nimling]

Knowledge into Might is pretty decent. Your production is crap and money is tight, but your second and fourth virtue picks offset some of the culture cost. After that you can take the Scavenging route for sci if you have farmable aliens, or down the middle to compensate for your military production. Soldiers Rangers Rovers are all cheap to build. You should have about 4-6 units per city you own once you have your basic economy set up, and the health policy in Knowledge, doing that will offset 2 unhealth in your cities. You might also want the virtue to reduce leaf tech cost. It helps to trade with a cultural station to get policies faster, and helps to pick something other than Artists so you have a tech edge w/o virtue reliance. I would go with Refugees so you get taller cities sooner, food is going to be useful for any strategy you'd want to run and your population and knowledge trait offsets not picking Artists.

Full Might isn't really viable, just because the Might policies lack health and you will need enough health policies to offset the 4 unhealth just from a city existing. There are few other sources of global health available, so even if you Biowell it up you're going to go red, and have little in the way of economy to open another tree.

 

[MadDjinn]

Might into Knowledge is just fine.

farmed aliens are a great source of early game tech (and possibly culture if you go for that trait early) and you can grab the +20% affinity XP from techs.

At which point, you slaughter your way into hybrid mode win via pushing up 2 affinities to 8/8 -- which gives you most units fully upgraded. If on water that means patrol boats/gunboat spam with some subs (that don't have a hybrid).

on land, that's soldiers/rangers/combat rovers full upgraded (missile rovers don't hybrid).

Kill anything near you and even if someone catches up, just out produce them. There are no more surprise combat strength jumps when you're at the top.

After that, do whatever.

though, I do suggest affinity 5-5-5 to manage health - all 3 hybrid level 5 options are health related.

 

[SahintheFalcon]

Might probably has some of the most useless virtues, but it probably has the two single most powerful virtues: +20% affinity for your research and -50% unit cost. If you do wish to incorporate the Might tree into your culture path, be sure to go down Might first, not second. +20% affinity for each tech is HUGE. It was huge in vanilla BE, and it's even more important in Rising Tide now that affinity techs are more spread out.

-50% unit cost is also amazing. It is important to get this before you plan on going to war. The reason is that it is highly advantageous to build your army in the early game, when production costs are low, rather than in the late game, when your upgraded units also cost more to make. It is faster to make a Marine with a basic city that just has a recycler and trading post than to make a Sentinel with a recycler, trading post, alloy foundry, and autoplant. By mitigating unit maintenance, you can build your army and afford to maintain it very early on.

 

[ansa]

I dunno about pushing 2-3 affinities, for me the easiest games were won by rushing single affinity to 6/7 - then I carve my way through the map to top of the list player with that army, meanwhile spamming affinity 4 units, and then to affinity 10 for evolved/true CNDR/whatever to rip the top player
After you have dealt with the most dangerous guy it's just mopping up the rest

 

[MadDjinn]

I dunno about pushing 2-3 affinities, for me the easiest games were won by rushing single affinity to 6/7 - then I carve my way through the map to top of the list player with that army, meanwhile spamming affinity 4 units, and then to affinity 10 for evolved/true CNDR/whatever to rip the top player
After you have dealt with the most dangerous guy it's just mopping up the rest

It's perfectly viable to have two affinities up at top tier hybrid mode within 100 turns or so (depending on choices, such as killing mass aliens for science).

But then again, I play on Apollo where even the AI knows how to do that.

 

[stebobibo]

I just finished a game focusing almost entirely on the Might tree. It was my second game played. It was on Gemini difficulty with Rejinaldo de Alencar (South America). It pairs well with their 10% melee combat buff. The map was Eta Vulpeculae b. It spawns a lot of aliens in a central location. It was an easy win. I won with Emancipation but could have won with Domination a lot earlier (wanted to get the achievement)

I finished with having all the might virtues, 1 prosperity, and 7 industry. Might has some really amazing virtues. These are the best ones in my opinion:
-Scavenging is incredible, you get so much science from that, even into the mid game.
-Adaptive sciences is also amazing. It let's you reach top affinity level so much faster
-Brutal efficiency is great, especially for making tons of orbital units to buff your tiles.
-Special Service is great if you want to do a lot of intrigue. It's really hard to get a city to high intrigue without it.
-Democratized Quartering will save you so much money.
-Public Security will be one of your main ways of staying healthy. Always keep your military unity supply maxed for the most benefit. Combing with Democratized Quartering is the way to go.
Getting affinity levels is a lot easier with might. You get one with the Martial Meditations virtue and with the last synergy bonus.

Hope that helped!

 

[CaptMikeP]

might on apollo is extremely necessary and here's why: you need that free affinity point. a modern military is a requirement or you will die. also you need to be able to kill aliens quickly with your early units, and gaining science for kills is a great early boost. also your units need to be strong in the inevitable wars with the AI. Later on you'll get double resources and half the unit maintenance. also very necessary later on.

 

[sugerdady87]

might on apollo is extremely necessary and here's why: you need that free affinity point. a modern military is a requirement or you will die. also you need to be able to kill aliens quickly with your early units, and gaining science for kills is a great early boost. also your units need to be strong in the inevitable wars with the AI. Later on you'll get double resources and half the unit maintenance. also very necessary later on.

Although might may be good to have in some circumstances, I definitely don't think it's necessary. Even when going for a domination win, I don't think it's necessary. You don't need to kill aliens early. Using the explorer strategy (+3 expeditions pods and +50 science from finishing expeditions, while spamming explorers) works just fine on land maps.

 

[CaptMikeP]

Although might may be good to have in some circumstances, I definitely don't think it's necessary. Even when going for a domination win, I don't think it's necessary. You don't need to kill aliens early. Using the explorer strategy (+3 expeditions pods and +50 science from finishing expeditions, while spamming explorers) works just fine on land maps.

well that works too