posted 07-03-99 04:05 PM ET        

But statements in this forum have gone too far.

There are definitely situations where low overlap is almost as advantageous as in Civ. Just to name a few:

-- Low overlap fits in naturally with landgrabbing, which is an important part of early expansion. Yes, you could go back and fill in the squares later, but I got the feeling from reading some of the "overlap 'til they bleed" posts that the whole point of these strategies is to found cities early and fast. This is in conflict with landgrabbing -- though I will admit this is only a problem when landgrabbing is necessary.

-- High-efficiency factions. Why should a faction like the Gaians with a high efficiency (and low chance of gaining territory through war) and planet bonus (less of a problem for terraformers to keep up, mindworms generally less problematic) worry about a high city spread?

-- Factions with bad support ratings. "Build Morgan cities close because they can't grow anyway?" Well, Hab Complex is not so far up the tree (even on Blind Research!) that I would design my whole strategy around the lack of it. Once the tech comes, I think no intelligent Morgan player can complain that there's not enough money to build them. :-)

-- Factions which can build big cities early. This means any faction with a demo/planned option (Gaians, PK, Spartans, UoP, right?) and some method of drone control (PK bonus, UoP with Virtual World, any faction with HGP, any faction which can afford Psych)... Remember, 14 squares is only enough to "support" 4 squares of overlap, one per side.

-- Specialists are great, if you can get the food. Armies of apple-picking crawlers are great, if you can defend them. And if you can pay for them. If you're not the Hive, is this really the best way to spend your minerals?

And remember, they can needlejet your crawlers 'til you're blue in the face, but watch them try to needlejet your cities... they tend to be less successful.

posted 07-04-99 09:30 AM ET            

A city grid pattern, eh? I've only seen patterns (the AI made them; I clung to a coastline) when I played on that grassland & water map of the mediterranean that came with Civ II. Does this mean that your style of play entails large continents where the terrain (mountains in Civ, fungus in SMAC) doesn't encourage you to go with the flow rather than with a pattern? Personally I like to have each base stand out in some way; have an identity if you will. I guess patterns just aren't for me...

"-- Low overlap fits in naturally with landgrabbing, which is an important part of early expansion. Yes, you could go back and fill in the squares later, but I got the feeling from reading some of the "overlap 'til they bleed" posts that the whole point of these strategies is to found cities early and fast. This is in conflict with landgrabbing -- though I will admit this is only a problem when landgrabbing is necessary."

I haven't gotten that feeling. I interpret the overlapping recommendation as "overlap as much as you want" rather than "overlapping is better than having a lot of space". Usually I overlap due to a lack of space, incurred by other factions or by a huge amount of fungus in just about any direction. And both enemy factions and fungus can take some time to remove, which means that building overlapping bases is better than waiting for the space to become availible.

One good reason to overlap is probably that you can spread your mineral production on more bases, which will lessen eco damage, which I guess most people keep at 0 for most of the time. Removing fungus and battling mindworms with -3 planet isn't all that fun...

"-- Specialists are great, if you can get the food. Armies of apple-picking crawlers are great, if you can defend them. And if you can pay for them. If you're not the Hive, is this really the best way to spend your minerals?"

With stagnant tech (no facilities left to build) I can think of no better way to spend my minerals and cash But then again, if the bases overlap, where is the space for the crawlers? If overlapping bases use crawlers, they must not be overlapping enough, eh?

"And remember, they can needlejet your crawlers 'til you're blue in the face, but watch them try to needlejet your cities... they tend to be less successful."

I suppose it could be a problem if you play on a tiny planet where your enemy puts a huge priority on air power, but I don't have that problem. Yang had 5 needlejets, and I've only lost one Supply Skimship, which during its lifetime well made up for the minerals it cost to build. If you can't defend your crawlers you can't defend your formers or improvements (though I've only seen artillery fire against improvements; never seen the AI do bomb runs on them). If you can't defend any of the above, do you really think it makes a difference how close your bases are to each other?

"I could (and will continue, but I'm writing on-line in the land of Alena Kanka (50 crowns to the first person to guess what that's a reference to) so I'll wait for responses and continue the discussion with hit-and-run."

I take it you have a too large phonebill...I've learned to download threads and read and compose replies while offline. Composing these long messages takes time, not to mention loading the actual game to check things out

posted 07-06-99 06:35 AM ET            

I don't understand the "if you can pay for [supply crawlers]" remark. They don't cost maintenance (maybe Eris is thinking of the support that formers cost?), and are quick to build. They're just the ticket when your bases are still small and squares go untended.

As UoP, I often find the Hive nearby. So I go for Airpower ASAP, and I'm the one building a big airforce and doing the bombing. Yang loses most of his bases, and soon submits. Then he becomes helpful.

The other factions are either remote and rarely bother me, or are under my thumb. This is only at Thinker level, so it may not be so easy to achiever this equanimity at Transcend.

The Believers always seem to be on another continent, which has its pluses and minuses. On the good side, they can't infantry rush me. However (on a Huge map) they're usually beyond bombing range, so I have to harass them with missiles and wait to prepare my own big (high-tech) army to take across via terraforming.

In Civ2 most of my Transports were typically sunk, so I'm shy of army-duck invasions.

posted 07-06-99 05:00 PM ET            

Some replies:

Re: the discussion of "the basic idea is to increase the number of squares worked as quickly as possible" -- this is basically sound, but it seems the cities would be somewhat crippled after the opening game. Of course you can move your capital, but that's also wasted minerals/energy, and avoiding these is the point of this maneuver. I suppose with a supply crawler on a good mine spot, some cities could reduce themselves below size 1 (changing control of the crawler at the last minute), but micromanaging the transition and avoiding "holes" in the city grid (except for a few single-resource spaces for crawlers) would be a headache.

Re: "Do you mean you were a pattern builder?" I absolutely was. I tried to maintain a pattern at all costs, because winning the game and reducing micromanagement (see "winning the game") was more important to me than the individuality of my cities. Both this fact and the pattern play itself were, I suppose, linked to my love of Huge worlds, though.

Re: "What do you mean supply crawlers are too expensive?" I mean that SC's cost 30 (more or less) minerals to build, forget about zero upkeep, building the things cost 30 minerals that could have gone somewhere else. Population, on the other hand, can be built with food, which can be spent only on population growth, so why waste it? So I repeat, my point here was not an ignorant reference to nonexistent SC upkeep (though that would be an interesting rules change...)

posted 07-07-99 06:49 AM ET            

With the orbital improvements available later in the game - the overlap becomes almost irrelevant.

That said, I agree that too much is made about the HabComplex thing with Morgan. If you slow burn with forestation then it is rarely a serious problem.

posted 07-07-99 10:57 AM ET         

I will also race to the narrow points on the land mass that I land on. These have a strategic value.

I build them close or build them dozens of squares apart depending on what planet I land on.