posted 06-20-99 02:01 PM ET        

Not to automate :-
Things happen when and where you want them to.
Thats what the game is about.
No stupid AI interfering with other factions when you dont need that.
Your bases can build good stuff and not useless stuff.

posted 06-20-99 02:21 PM ET            

My formers rules: Early on, Flat and Rolling non-arid get farms and solar panels, later (when you build Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests) only rainy rolling stays as farms, plus moist rolling above 1000 meters - everything else originally farmed gets turned into forest. Early in the game, you don't have techs to make forest productive, and the extra food from the farms encourages population growth. Arid squares get turned into forest.

Rocky squares - I try to leave room for one borehole per city, the rest get levelized to rolling, for forests or farms. Drill to aquifer to make rivers wherever you can, to get the energy bonus. Clear fungus away from your cities. I use condensors sparingly, and never use echelon mirrors, since they contribute to getting planet pissed off, and help to cause climate changes. I also end up never building the borehole at many of my cities, or later change it when I don't need the production, to something less ecologically offensive.

Sea squares for land bases - all kelp farms, and energy collector to mining platform ratio is 2 or 3 to one, depending on the resource value of the land squares.

Sea bases with no land squares - kelp farms everywhere, and even one to one ratio on energy collector to mining platform.

Roads and mag tubes - I only build enough to connect my cities, since if they are built everywhere, they just increase the penetrability of my defenses by enemy units and probe teams. I build road strictly on interior lines, meaning that two coastal cities close to each other are NOT connected by a coastal road - that way any enemy which gets past my naval patrols has to move and fight its way into my road net, rather than just landing on a road square and taking off.

I build sensors in forest squares, at least one per city and in the city radius, such that every square in my city radii has sensor coverage.

posted 06-20-99 09:22 PM ET         

Mike I like the other side. Hows this instead.

AJR B.S.C. S.S.C.
The low cal enema
or
The other lav disinfectent

posted 06-20-99 10:06 PM ET            

I really don't care what side you like it on, and this isn't the forum for it. I doubt that anybody here cares either, although you and k_shane might like to go off someplace and have your private little forum where the two of you can get to know each other.

There are a lot of potential forum users who are just going to not bother when they read the little immature offensive crap you post, and there are kids, including my 12 year old daughter, who play SMAC as well. Between someone posting a BJ pic in non-SMAC and your little pedantic display, and Hardlyman, and whatever immature crap comes up next, Firaxis or EA is going to decide that they don't need the turn-off reaction casued by assinine posts, and just pull the plug on the whole forum.

posted 06-21-99 05:00 AM ET            

Oh, yes, and later on, I automate the Gravships, its really funny to conquer world without recognizing.

posted 06-21-99 01:59 PM ET            

Large to HUGE land mass. I'll automate some rovers and mind worms to let them run around and "patrol". They'll head for any invasion zones, IF they can beat the invaders, patrol what the A-non-I thinks is where its going to invade you, harvest mind worms, and go in circles. If you shift a transport capable sea unit to automate (something I do with IoD when there are no Sea Bases to attack and I am just building up the next wave or expeditionary force) the A-non-I will steal those automated patrols to explore or invade. Quite amusing but generally inefficent.

Lately, I've been foresting everything except rainy (those get farms) and rocky (boreholes or mines). Special resource squares get whatever lets me use them best/to the max. Sea squares within landed city radius get kelp and tidal (3 out 4) to kelp and mine (1 out of 4) or so. Sea base ocean tiles I tend to split about 1/1 for tidal versus mine...

I only build condensors for areas that would improve the land to something better than forest. I often Drill to Aquifier, as its a nice energy bonus and worth the time. (It will also mositen the land somewhat.) Aside from a few odd experiments, I never build Echelon mirrors. I have yet to play a game long enough to build a proper energy field.

I will automate a few formers to remove fungus once their home cities have a lot of developed tiles. I'll use "road to" on occasion as well.

Aside from that, I tend to micromanage everything.

posted 06-22-99 03:21 PM ET         

I don't use Auto Guv, I don't use autoformers and I don't even trust the computer to correctly allocate a freshly-minted worker to a new square.

Yes, my games are long and slow.

Most everyone's algorithim for formers is a bit different. My idea is to plant a couple forests right away. That and kelp will gradually spread to other squares on its own, sometimes saving your formers a bit of work.

Early on, you may need a couple of farms in wet areas or high nutrient areas to grow quickly. You might as well put them in high up areas as well, if you are thinking of installing a solar collector.

I might level or mine rocky areas. I definitely mine rocky areas with a mineral bonus.

Other than that, I pretty much plant forest everywhere including: arid, moist & sometimes wet areas and non-rocky jungle. I'll often forest over the nutrient, mineral or energy bonus sites.

In the endgame (if you are a builder who likes to transcend) the fungus is great stuff. I'll even plant it, prioritizing cities that don't have the all the forest enhancing facilities.

I don't use boreholes at all - it is a style thing though. I seldom build echelon mirrors or condensers or bunkers - again, a style thing.

Drill to lots of aquifers, make lots of sensors and keep your cities connected with roads/tubes. Be cautious with the Up/Down on land. It seems to affect a much larger area than Up/Down on the sea squares.

As far as base facilities go, some people have a set formula for developing a city, others like me, specialize many cities. For example, after two hundred years 2 of my 30-60 cities will be putting out over half of the research.

The only very basic thing I could suggest there is remember to balance units with base improvements, stay flexible & don't tie up too many cities with SPs all at once.

posted 06-22-99 04:47 PM ET            

Likewise, Base Governors... hilarious if you want your 2-mineral-producing bases to spend the next 200 years completing some useless SP that you don't want, or start building Aerospace Complexes in brand new bases before you even have Rec. Commons in place, but hopeless if you want to build sensible facilities at sensible moments.

My terraforming strategy varies according to needs, but a few constants are:
Rolling & rainy or rolling & moist gets Farm and Solar. Flat usually gets Forest, unless Farm desperately needed to avoid nutrient shortage. Arid always gets Forest. Special resource squares get Forest, unless it be a minerals bonus in a rocky square, which gets a Mine (can't resist 7 minerals!). Forests and Kelp get planted early to give them a chance to expand (it's great to see Forest expanding into those pesky fungus squares). Each base gets at least one sensor, if not more, usually placed in Forest squares. Drill to aquifer whenever I can afford the time spent - usually stack formers to do this, as it's worth it for the energy bonus, and rivers also act as free roads. Hardly ever use boreholes (hate the time spent in construction and the eco-damage, and don't seem to need them, usually). Don't usually seem to have time to raise/lower land, but will sometimes do this to connect two landmasses. Don't usually get to the point where it's worth building a magtube network (enemies often largely destroyed by then), but always build roads as soon as possible (keep two or three Rover Formers dedicated to this task) - invaluable for getting troops to the front lines. Never built a Bunker and only one (IIRC) Airbase - usually find captured front-line enemy bases make better air attack platforms!

Actually, it looks like RedFred and I have pretty similar strategies - and I agree with Koshko in that one Former per base (plus the few Rover Formers as mentioned) seems to be enough.

Enough from me, already!

posted 06-23-99 01:04 PM ET            

If you have autodesign units on, then you will have to keep doing that if you ever get rid of that 'better' foil design.