posted 06-24-99 05:48 AM ET     

My settings (very important, because settings determine strategy!):
Standard random planet. Everything on standard (middle, average) with this exceptions:
- Transc. Iron Man (TI)
- no blind research (you like to play chess with dices? Me not)
- only 30-50% ocean (gives AI some more chance)

Personally, I like to change the AI-faction textfiles to create a level higher than TI (+industry, ++research, talent 4), but this doesn�t effect the strategies much.

Build 4 types of bases:

- Megabases: they will have full base-enhancements, SP�s, max Pop (20 workers + specialists in endgame) and only few units to support. Here are also the bonus-fields (covered with forest, at least in the beginning).
Production line (first base): scout, former, recycling, pod, recreation, SP ...
Production line (other Mega-Bases): (scout), (former), recycling (hurried), childrens creche, recreation, (research-hospital if ready), SP, biolab, netw.nodes, energy-store, another SP or treefarm / research hospital, if ready.
In case of war, dedicate one or two Mega-Bases (close to a monolyt) to command center and continue with attack and defence units, while a third base is building the unit-prototypes (+1 moral).

- Breeding Bases: They produce scout, former, pod, pod, ... pod ... (never ending ...)
Make sure, they throw out the pod, when pop is two, and 2 of the 3 nutrion-rows are (nearly) full. Pop will go down to 1 and will raise to 2 immediately again. Best for most Breeding-Basis is to have 2 farms (gives you 2 food and 3 minerals. After 10 turns, a pod is finished. Try to have a 2 to 3 ratio (=20 to 30). With green economics, you need little modification (24 to 30)). Pop 2 with 2 farms is most effective, unless you have pop-explosion. Then, every base should produce kol.pods. The bigger, the better. Without pop-explosion, I try to avoid any pod-production in bases other than Breeding-Basis. It�s waste of pop and nutrition! Enough forests stop growth, if you need this.

- Support Bases: scout, former, recycling, and now any unit which doesn�t need command center (like formers, foils, crawlers, 111-police-units, defending ?11-probe-teams with cost 20), unless you have the command nexus SP. Units from Mega-Bases, you also can have supported at Support-Bases. Best is pop 3 with 3 forests. This gives you a nutrition surplus of 0 and 8 minerals (with recycling as only enhancement). Quite good for a �close to cost nothing�-base.

The placing of bases is very important. With Mega-Bases, I build a not-overlapping net (triangle, if possible). Breeding- and Support-Bases will be in between. So they need no extra space. This doubles your number of bases on your given part of the continent (place is valuable on a standard-sized map!) You don�t waste production- and support-capacity of your Mega-Bases. Your Breeding-Bases need only 20 nutrition to produce a Kol.pod without loosing pop. And in endgame, when you need every field for your pop 20+ Mega-Bases, you just leave your little bases in between with some Kol.pods and give the place free. Thats high-efficiency with little space.

- Sea-Kolonies: Dont forget them. They are weak in minerals, but strong in engergy. Build enhancements only (hurried). Units better bring there. Dont forget crawlers, collecting minerals from forests. - Sea-Kolonies need all defence against air and water-attacks as well as SAM, artillery and marine-counter-attack-units.

Research line (not complete) for this strategie as a builder (for me) is:
democracy (with high efficency you can put your science at 100% or close to it without much losses),
green economics (go for the alien artifacts and wild life forms),
planned (when ready for pop-explosion. Drones are under control until pop 7),
tree-farm / hybrid f. (time for next pop-explosion! With habs).

After that, have democr./green econ. most of the time (change green to planned for a pop-expl now and then). With at least 2 pact-brothers/ sisters with lot of bases, free market is worth to try. Trade can get into huge dimensions. Thats one of the reasons, I feed my surrendered neigbours like a mother her children and really care for them (even terraforming ...).

Trade is one of the important keys to trascendence. Your production capacity is limeted by ecodamage, so research in middle/end-game is quicker than production of enhancements. Just buy them.