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Author Topic:   Bureaucracy on Transcend

Smeagol posted 05-11-99 05:05 PM ET
I never noticed just how much of a factor this is. I've seen the formula but I didn't know what the different map sizes were, but here's the results I came up with. For those of you who haven't heard of bureaucracy drones, you get 1 extra drone at 1 base in your empire for each base over your maximum limit of bases. That limit on transcend level with a huge map depends on efficiency:
Efficiency:
0: 9 bases max
1: 12
2: 14
3: 16
4: 19
5: 21
6: 24
7: 26
So to make a point on how important this is, the Hive and their 0 efficiency will have 9 bases before extra drones, while the Gaians and their +7 with Demo/Green/Knowledge will have 26. So if the Hive manage to collect up to 26 bases, they will have 17 more drones to deal with!
Also, on smaller maps the max limits are all lower.
sandworm posted 05-11-99 05:46 PM ET
Wow, and I thought efficiency only affected energy. Are you talking about extra drones -per base- or are they distributed throughout your cities ...so your Hive example would be up to an extra 17 drones per base?!
Bingmann posted 05-11-99 06:28 PM ET
Also, every multiple of the bureaucracy limit means another drone per base. So if the limit is 9 bases, then every base will have an extra drone when you have 18 bases, and every base will have two extra drones when you have 27 bases. In between the exact multiples, a proportional number of bases will get the extra drone - at 13 bases, 7 bases would have 1 extra drone while 6 bases would have 2 extra drones. And don't think you are maxed out when all citizens are unmodified drones - there are super drones (male drones vs. the normal female drones). Super drones must be improved to normal drones before being improved to workers. So rec. commons makes only 1 super drone into a worker. The exception seems to be police which always makes any drone, normal or super, into a worker.
Smeagol posted 05-11-99 09:37 PM ET
Personally I'd rather have a "super" drone, but maybe that's just me.
Sandworm-- I believe Bingmann's post clarifies that. For every single base over the limit you get an extra drone at one base, not all of them.
Bingmann posted 05-11-99 09:48 PM ET
Oops, messed up... That should be:
If you have 13 bases, then 7 bases would have no extra drones while 6 bases would have one extra drone. At 18 bases, they would all have one extra drone.
Smeagol posted 05-11-99 09:58 PM ET
Gotcha. Haven't seen these super drones yet, and I don't plan to ever encounter them. I'm curious how people handle the Hive's drones on transcend... capturing enemy bases gives you even more drones, not even considering the bureaucracy drones. With a max of only 9 bases on huge maps (even less on smaller maps) you should have a ton of drones to deal with-- I guess police with non-lethal methods, get some facilities up early, and if all else fails punishment spheres or nerve stapling.
Al Gore Rythm posted 05-11-99 10:37 PM ET
Smeagol:
Maybe this changed in 3.0, but it is possible to have positive efficency as Hive.
See, the way it is now is that when a faction is immune/impune, to make that immunity not overly powerful, the SE choices which the faction is immune to are placed in a pseudo "debt."
Say I'm Hive with Planned/Police. I would have -4 Efficency if I were any other faction. Now, Hive will play like they had 0 efficency in the game, BUT they will need a positive 5 efficency before they hit a positive efficency flow.
Now say I'm Hive and I switch to Fundy/Green. I should now have +2 Efficency because I'm not "indebted" to Police/Planned.
Now playing Hive without Police/Planned can be difficult, but Fundamentalist Hive is a pretty killer set up.
Smeagol posted 05-11-99 11:09 PM ET
Al-- You are right about that, and it still the same way in 3.0. I just never thought about playing the Hive any other way, but maybe if you get to the later game without killing everyone it might be a good idea to leave the police/planned. I think this balances the game well, because though the hive is amazing early on those advantages go away by late mid-game (to some degree) and they can be beaten then (if you somehow survived the early assault). Don't get me wrong-- I think the Hive is an incredible faction, but I'd rather play a builder that can do well in the mid-late game on transcend and get a tech lead. Note that I play with "spoils of war" turned off, ESPECIALLY when I play a conqueror faction.
David Johnson posted 05-12-99 03:03 AM ET
Well I've had over 300 cities and if the above mentioned formula was correct that would mean an extra 10-15 drones per city on average. But facilities still seem to reduce the correct number of drones.
There's a wall to overcome with the use of psych, or facilities which supposedly give extra transcends. Even so, it isn't nearly that high a number of drones.
I haven't noticed any difference in the two icons. Can't really comment on that.
Smeagol posted 05-12-99 10:57 AM ET
Well, the formula is correct, because I've tested it. I do not know however if there is an upper limit on how many drones you can actually have. But I guarantee you the formula works.
Bingmann posted 05-12-99 11:57 AM ET
There is a drone limit - once they are all unmodified super drones, that's it. Then the modifiers (structures, psych, police, etc.) kick in.
When playing as a conqueror, I use police to control drones, exclusively. If the conquered base still has a Holo Theater, etc., then I leave it, but I use Doctors/Empaths/Transcends and police to stop the drones. If they starve a bit, too bad.
Smeagol posted 05-12-99 12:01 PM ET
Bingmann-- Thanks for the clarification. I'll have to do some tests to see this for myself... I can't believe this stuff isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual or datalinks.
Aviagion posted 05-12-99 01:14 PM ET
Just a quick note on efficancy. Smeagols formula only goes to seven and I had only ever seen up to seven myself... until I was playing the Gaians last night and got it as high as 9! Anyone know what the ultimate highest level is?
Smeagol posted 05-12-99 01:21 PM ET
Ok, last post for a while for me-- you can get you efficiency up to +9 with the Gaians if you use cybernetic also. Creches will boost this to +11, but that only affects energy loss due to distance from home base. So +9 is the max, and with this you can have even more bases before bureaucracy drones.
David Johnson posted 05-12-99 01:31 PM ET
Yes, it seems to work, although a facility which eliminates a drone will eliminate a super drone as easily, but only if there are no normal drones. I suspect they are treated alike for some other purposes too.
Seems another advantage to UoP when building large empires -- or rather it makes their disadvantage moot. All drones or all super drones? Not all that much difference. I would imagine the PKs would have almost as much difficulty as the UoP with 300 cities.
Bingmann posted 05-12-99 06:30 PM ET
DJ - You're right. (I didn't pay close enough attention to what I was looking at.) If it says "converts x drones to workers", then that's what it does, whether they're normal or super. What gets you is that PSYCH upgrades from super drone to normal drone to worker to talent have a cost of 2 PSYCH for each upgrade.
I think the PK talent advantage is identical to +2 PSYCH per 4 citizens (but it appears on the "Unmodified" line). This would explain why people perceive it as 1 talent per 8 citizens on Transcend - first citizen (worker) becomes talent, second citizen (normal drone) becomes worker then talent, etc. Similarly, the UoP drone disadvantage might be the same as -2 PSYCH per 4 citizens.
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Author	Topic: Bureaucracy on Transcend
Smeagol	posted 05-11-99 05:05 PM ET I never noticed just how much of a factor this is. I've seen the formula but I didn't know what the different map sizes were, but here's the results I came up with. For those of you who haven't heard of bureaucracy drones, you get 1 extra drone at 1 base in your empire for each base over your maximum limit of bases. That limit on transcend level with a huge map depends on efficiency: Efficiency: 0: 9 bases max 1: 12 2: 14 3: 16 4: 19 5: 21 6: 24 7: 26 So to make a point on how important this is, the Hive and their 0 efficiency will have 9 bases before extra drones, while the Gaians and their +7 with Demo/Green/Knowledge will have 26. So if the Hive manage to collect up to 26 bases, they will have 17 more drones to deal with! Also, on smaller maps the max limits are all lower.
sandworm	posted 05-11-99 05:46 PM ET Wow, and I thought efficiency only affected energy. Are you talking about extra drones -per base- or are they distributed throughout your cities ...so your Hive example would be up to an extra 17 drones per base?!
Bingmann	posted 05-11-99 06:28 PM ET Also, every multiple of the bureaucracy limit means another drone per base. So if the limit is 9 bases, then every base will have an extra drone when you have 18 bases, and every base will have two extra drones when you have 27 bases. In between the exact multiples, a proportional number of bases will get the extra drone - at 13 bases, 7 bases would have 1 extra drone while 6 bases would have 2 extra drones. And don't think you are maxed out when all citizens are unmodified drones - there are super drones (male drones vs. the normal female drones). Super drones must be improved to normal drones before being improved to workers. So rec. commons makes only 1 super drone into a worker. The exception seems to be police which always makes any drone, normal or super, into a worker.
Smeagol	posted 05-11-99 09:37 PM ET Personally I'd rather have a "super" drone, but maybe that's just me. Sandworm-- I believe Bingmann's post clarifies that. For every single base over the limit you get an extra drone at one base, not all of them.
Bingmann	posted 05-11-99 09:48 PM ET Oops, messed up... That should be: If you have 13 bases, then 7 bases would have no extra drones while 6 bases would have one extra drone. At 18 bases, they would all have one extra drone.
Smeagol	posted 05-11-99 09:58 PM ET Gotcha. Haven't seen these super drones yet, and I don't plan to ever encounter them. I'm curious how people handle the Hive's drones on transcend... capturing enemy bases gives you even more drones, not even considering the bureaucracy drones. With a max of only 9 bases on huge maps (even less on smaller maps) you should have a ton of drones to deal with-- I guess police with non-lethal methods, get some facilities up early, and if all else fails punishment spheres or nerve stapling.
Al Gore Rythm	posted 05-11-99 10:37 PM ET Smeagol: Maybe this changed in 3.0, but it is possible to have positive efficency as Hive. See, the way it is now is that when a faction is immune/impune, to make that immunity not overly powerful, the SE choices which the faction is immune to are placed in a pseudo "debt." Say I'm Hive with Planned/Police. I would have -4 Efficency if I were any other faction. Now, Hive will play like they had 0 efficency in the game, BUT they will need a positive 5 efficency before they hit a positive efficency flow. Now say I'm Hive and I switch to Fundy/Green. I should now have +2 Efficency because I'm not "indebted" to Police/Planned. Now playing Hive without Police/Planned can be difficult, but Fundamentalist Hive is a pretty killer set up.
Smeagol	posted 05-11-99 11:09 PM ET Al-- You are right about that, and it still the same way in 3.0. I just never thought about playing the Hive any other way, but maybe if you get to the later game without killing everyone it might be a good idea to leave the police/planned. I think this balances the game well, because though the hive is amazing early on those advantages go away by late mid-game (to some degree) and they can be beaten then (if you somehow survived the early assault). Don't get me wrong-- I think the Hive is an incredible faction, but I'd rather play a builder that can do well in the mid-late game on transcend and get a tech lead. Note that I play with "spoils of war" turned off, ESPECIALLY when I play a conqueror faction.
David Johnson	posted 05-12-99 03:03 AM ET Well I've had over 300 cities and if the above mentioned formula was correct that would mean an extra 10-15 drones per city on average. But facilities still seem to reduce the correct number of drones. There's a wall to overcome with the use of psych, or facilities which supposedly give extra transcends. Even so, it isn't nearly that high a number of drones. I haven't noticed any difference in the two icons. Can't really comment on that.
Smeagol	posted 05-12-99 10:57 AM ET Well, the formula is correct, because I've tested it. I do not know however if there is an upper limit on how many drones you can actually have. But I guarantee you the formula works.
Bingmann	posted 05-12-99 11:57 AM ET There is a drone limit - once they are all unmodified super drones, that's it. Then the modifiers (structures, psych, police, etc.) kick in. When playing as a conqueror, I use police to control drones, exclusively. If the conquered base still has a Holo Theater, etc., then I leave it, but I use Doctors/Empaths/Transcends and police to stop the drones. If they starve a bit, too bad.
Smeagol	posted 05-12-99 12:01 PM ET Bingmann-- Thanks for the clarification. I'll have to do some tests to see this for myself... I can't believe this stuff isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual or datalinks.
Aviagion	posted 05-12-99 01:14 PM ET Just a quick note on efficancy. Smeagols formula only goes to seven and I had only ever seen up to seven myself... until I was playing the Gaians last night and got it as high as 9! Anyone know what the ultimate highest level is?
Smeagol	posted 05-12-99 01:21 PM ET Ok, last post for a while for me-- you can get you efficiency up to +9 with the Gaians if you use cybernetic also. Creches will boost this to +11, but that only affects energy loss due to distance from home base. So +9 is the max, and with this you can have even more bases before bureaucracy drones.
David Johnson	posted 05-12-99 01:31 PM ET Yes, it seems to work, although a facility which eliminates a drone will eliminate a super drone as easily, but only if there are no normal drones. I suspect they are treated alike for some other purposes too. Seems another advantage to UoP when building large empires -- or rather it makes their disadvantage moot. All drones or all super drones? Not all that much difference. I would imagine the PKs would have almost as much difficulty as the UoP with 300 cities.
Bingmann	posted 05-12-99 06:30 PM ET DJ - You're right. (I didn't pay close enough attention to what I was looking at.) If it says "converts x drones to workers", then that's what it does, whether they're normal or super. What gets you is that PSYCH upgrades from super drone to normal drone to worker to talent have a cost of 2 PSYCH for each upgrade. I think the PK talent advantage is identical to +2 PSYCH per 4 citizens (but it appears on the "Unmodified" line). This would explain why people perceive it as 1 talent per 8 citizens on Transcend - first citizen (worker) becomes talent, second citizen (normal drone) becomes worker then talent, etc. Similarly, the UoP drone disadvantage might be the same as -2 PSYCH per 4 citizens.