posted 04-14-99 09:37 PM ET         

At lower levels, I will argue that.

Now, keep in mind the fact that I usually play large maps, with average low water, and lots of weathering. So I have lots of flat plains, and I go for high native.

Gains, all the way. As soon as I go green, my army of mindworms will crush everything.
The only challenge would be the Hive. Even if you're not on my island, I will have my continent conquered, and have plenty of room to expand, slower maybe, but with lots of room, where you're going to have to fight over land with other factions. Its during this time that I can get to mobility and start dropping my mindworms into fungus around your factions area (which by now there should still be some, not much). then I simply pick off your formers, destroy terrain improvements (especially roads) and let your empire die slow. take out the smaller peripheral cities and harass the inner ones, then I drop off more of my units and capture more mindworms on your own continent.

Yes, a lot of this stretegy is based on the world I choose to build, and starting position, but its very hard to compare to. Yes, you can get to a golden age faster, but then again, you have to get to size four city before you get your bonus happy citizen.

posted 04-15-99 12:33 AM ET         

Plus, how many PK players make mindworms?

I'm not saying mindworms are the ultimate, but considering they are free, cost no support, easy to upgrade their morale, they will make a considerable to anything you can muster up in the same amount of time, plus I can send normal troops in addition.

posted 04-15-99 11:24 AM ET         

I'm not an idiot. I know where a probe comes from regardless if someone is framed for it. For one thing, I'll be sure to infest your datalinks in any way I can. Governership, Empath Guild or the good old fashioned way. So I'll be able to keep track of your movements via the support screen. And even if I can't I have a dense sensor net and bunkers at my borders with two units to a bunker. You'd have a fun time trying to get in.

Trav & General Thread Readers:

Why does everyone always misinterpet what I say?

Let me make my style of play clear:

I am NOT (NOT) one of those war hawk, atrocity happy, itchy-trigger finger Spartan fools. I know quite well they get themselves killed.

I am NOT (NOT) an atrocity happy moron.

What I AM (AM) is an efficient, brutal player. I will do whatever is nessecary to get my goals met. I will be sure that anyone who interferes with these goals will be dealt with in a manner that will not further impede my goals.

Examples:

I am happily spawning my Hive socieity when Dr.Bendova of the UoP probes me. I have well over 40 cities and Dr.Bendova has 5. My army is massive, trained and up to date. His is small, weak and prehistoric.

Immiedete Reaction:
How did he get through? Better step up on the sensors and patrol troops.

Second Reaction:
General, send my troops to kick Dr.Bendova's arse!

Result:
My security systems ante-up, Dr.Bendova is annihlated and all is happy in Hive-Town.

Example #2:

Sparta is big buff and dumb. They've had to war the nations with extra tech to be able to advance their own. How inefficient. I've always found it more effective to just extort tech. But now, my extortion has made me the new tech guy. And Sparta wants a piece. They demand some shiny new technology that obviously has military value.

Immiedete Reaction:
Step up on defense measures, be sure to launch an Orbital Defense Pod if PBs are available as well as make some PBs of my own.

Second Reaction:
Prepare some Probes and infest Spartan territory. Monitor their movements carefully for a few dozen turns. Be sure to steal something from them and frame another faction so that they become preoccupied.

Result:
I delay any Spartan war by getting them to fight someone else. I also quickly get an inifltrator (if one isn't in already) to be sure to monitor the support, garrison and military screens atleast once every two turns for a few dozen turns. During their preoccupation I prepare my own defenses and will possibly strike them while they're preoccupied and weak.

Example #3:

My next door neighbor is the PKs. We are evenly matched on almost all playing fields. The PKs frown on me extorting technology from Dr.Bendova of the UoP. But Lal doesn't have the guts to go one on one. When drone problems arise I will occasionally Nerve Staple when buying a theatre or sending a police unit would jeopordize my primary goal. Lal is annoyed at this and finally orders me to stop or he'll beat me down.

Immiedete Reaction:
"Get off my land you Peacekeeping sonuva..."

Second Reaction:
Ante up defenses, especially along PK perimeter. Infiltrate them and keep a close eye on their movements for a few dozen turns. When they lighten up I strike and shut up Lal and his UN Charter for good. If he does not I will try to rally other factions to do so and strike while he is preoccupied. I wanted my own island/contient anyway.

So now do ya'll understand? I am not a war-hawk. I am a manipulative mean guy. That is why I play Hive and not Sparta. I only do the real evil, war-hawk type stuff when (remember this line) IT IS TO MY ADVANTAGE.

posted 04-15-99 01:00 PM ET         

Plus I assume Atombomb is pretty tired of me defending Hive, and I pretty much offered to stop doing so on the condition that he stop slamming it, and now you come along and he has to suppress another Hive using bastard.
So thats another possible reason...

Finally, this post series thus far is simply involved in a very aggressive style of debate. You're getting the same as everyone gets around here, with a little extra for the above reasons. If you read back through the posts sometime, you'll see what I mean.

Travathian -- I'll admit that mindworms are a wonderful addition to the game... free fast troops which hit really heavy on the offense, regardless of the tech level of your opponent. However I find that they don't tend to make very good slash and burn maruaders for just the reason that Atombomb mentioned -- if you stick them outside someones base, within their production radius, then you are within the attack radius of rovers, to say nothing of more advanced troops (speed wise... I realize that big guns avail you nothing), and mindworms are awful on the defensive, especially if being attacked by a dedicated anti-psi troop... I find that one of the best defenders is a 1-2t-2 rover, which has the speed to cruise out and hit mindworms before they can hit my formers (after you clear the fungus, of course) or city, and is mighty cheap to produce (as cheap as 1-1t-2 via Trance's calculation). Unless for some reason you have a really pathetic morale, or you are dealing with a really gigantic worm, worms just tend to melt away on the defensive against a psi - ready attacker (either trance or song do the trick, and both together are nearly insurmountable to even the toughest worms).
I don't mean to crap on Mindworms at all... they are one of the main reasons I love to play as Gaians more than any other faction, because against the computer they often allow you to sidestep the conquer techs for quite some time, and by the time the computer begins to marshall anti-psi usits against you you will have grabbed a lot of conquer techs through Spoils of War and can integrate your forces while relying on the Build / Explore tech advantage you have procured to make your bases energy and mineral powerhouses (and you can also grab the Twister and Amplifier to counteract the psi defenses, but thats a little later and a whole lot of mineral expenditure down the road. Some people say they aren't vital projects... I couldn't disagree more. Not only do they really help against dedicated psi units, but they keep those projects out of enemy hands... a priority for someone intending to use mass psi conquer tactics). But there are ways to use worms effectively, and I have found that as maruaders they are best served by slamming straight into cities, do or die style. (And I didn't think that base defenses helped against psi... or am I wrong?)

posted 04-15-99 01:18 PM ET         

Well I guess I'm a Hive Bastard but that's just too bad

posted 04-15-99 03:37 PM ET         

I'm trying a total build strategy after I hopefully crush the Spartans, since then I will have half the map to myself (due to odd placement of the factions, nobody is on the right half but me and NRA's bitchqueen).

posted 04-15-99 06:02 PM ET         

And of course, while you're wasting money on nothing, I am spending money convincing the rest of the planet you are the great evil and need to be exterminated, while strengthening my infrastructure.

Also, you assume that you're going to infiltrate me, or become planetary governor and you can watch my every move? Is this because in every game you get these against the computer? Do you really think human players would vote for you? Or that we'd just let you walk right up to our cities and infiltrate?

posted 04-15-99 10:41 PM ET            

The hive is my favorite faction, actually. I wouldn't consider them the best faction (in fact, I personally can do better with Morgan), but I find I enjoy the game more when I play them. The ability to easily switch to a power value and have support up to base population along with +2 morale makes them a war machine, and between wars you get a huge growth and industry bonus. So for warlike people like myself, the hive is an excellent choice.

I agree that other factions can do this as well, but I think it suits them best, since they aren't hampered by the -3 industry of the spartans. And once I get the cloning vats, the negative effects of power are eliminated.

posted 04-16-99 03:01 AM ET            

Morgan is absolutely the most-scalable and can win Econ AND Transcendance fastest. Morgan is weak in the early game but untouchable in mid- and late-game.

Gaians romp in the early game (possible conquest victory) and in the very late game (Eudaimonia makes them as scalable as Morgan, but way too late to have a big impact. Still, a possible Transcendance victory).

Believers, Hive, & UoP are "fast starters" and fit most easily with a conquest strategy. Hive and UoP have the weakest mid- and endgames, so they are racing the clock. UoP gets to the mid- and late-game faster, which is a huge advantage.

The Spartans are, in my view, the most consistent faction in the game. In the early game the industry is a killer but the police and morale are also killers. In the mid- and late-games the industry penalty & morale advantages become less important while the police advantage improves scalability, making them an excellent mid- to late-game faction.

The answer to the question, "which is the best faction?", then, depends on what your victory conditions are. Technically the people who say PK's are the best are right, because they have the fastest victory, but if I were setting out to Transcend on a huge map I would go Morgan.

Now, my favorite MoO strategy: Meklar Expansionist! The Psilons were amusing, sure, because you could almost design your ships by selecting from the smorgasbord of components to research, but the awesome early jump-start, the mid- to late-game flexibility, and the "Excellent" computer rating of the Meklars got me hooked. "You don't need as many planets as the others," the rulebook said. Bah! I hunger for planets, good ones, bad ones, big ones, whatever, all with maxxed terraforming, to build a truly obscene industrial empire! Expanding before you need to means growing your POPULATION, which is key to Meklar supremacy -- each of your citizens can control more factories, so the more consistently you maintain their exponential growth the higher your potential when your industry catches up.

The early advantage is 4 factories per citizen while everyone else is stuck with 2. That's almost a 100% advantage in research AND industry during those first critical years of expansion and research of terribly important things like pollution controls and fuel cells.

posted 04-17-99 01:58 AM ET            

Low efficiency, drone problems, and bad economies penalize scale, while high efficiency, more talents, better police, and better economy are multipliers.

Lal takes a hit on efficiency, which increases the bureaucracy penalty, which offsets the talent bonus. Energy loss from remote bases hurts, too, and the larger you scale the farther away your bases get from HQ.

Morgan, on the other hand, can gain an extra point of efficiency AND use police by going Green / Wealth instead of Free Market / Knowledge, while still maintaining +2 Economy.

When I won by transcendance in 2313 playing Morgan on Transcend level I had bases all over the place; Mount Planet, Geothermal Shallows, Pholus Ridge, Freshwater Sea; I was EVERYWHERE, because my efficiency made it lucrative to do so. Meanwhile the combination of +2 economy + police + 10% psych + high efficiency is pretty good for Golden Ages.

posted 04-18-99 03:48 PM ET            

It is also an unwritten rule that fast starters usually win in multiplayer -- I agree with you that Lal is the best faction, he just wouldn't be my first choice for a Transcend victory.

posted 04-18-99 06:07 PM ET         

1) Lal gets +1 efficiency pretty easy with Democracy, and will alternate between all of the economic systems at one time or another, sometimes going as low as -1 with Demo-Planned, being popped up back to +1 with a Creche. However, the creche bonus only applies at that particular base, and so it doesn't alter the bureaucract drone number. However, even with -1 effic the PKs are still less vulnerable to bureaucratic drones than the Morganites at +4 effic, because...

2) Bureaucratic drone numbers are calculated from the number of BASES you have, with every base over an effic determined number adding a random drone to one of your bases, while Lal gets an extra talent for every 4 POPULATION or fraction thereof in a base. Therefore, even with all bases less than size 4, Lal will be way ahead in terms of drone control... free talents in every base up to his bureacratically determined base limit, and then at every base over that the talent will cancel out the drone (granted, the drone is randomly allocated, so it isn't always in said new base). However, late game bases tend to be much larger than size four, and so Lal's extra Talents really kick in here, adding in talents all out of proportion with any sort of bureaucratic penalty Lal is assessed. Therefore, Lal will be able to have more workers in the field at a time, thus simulating MOO's factory control per unit pop.

In addition, the extra talents provided help A LOT towards bringing on a Golden Age, which provides a +1 econ and a +2 growth, reproducing and beating Morgans inherent +1 econ. Now, granted, Morgan can get golden ages too, but he'll have to expend a lot more energy to get them, and econ bonuses over +2 are not quite so overpowering (although +4 is great with lots of pacts... and planetary govenor... wait... Lal can get +4 with Free Market + Wealth + Golden Ages, and he is easily the champ at becoming Plantary Govenor... hmmm). Depending on what you need and what you compromise, it may still be worth it, but Lal is without a doubt many times better at providing them.

This is, I think we will all agree, a case where the numbers prove the point. If you are thinking of arguing that efficiency is still necessary for energy conservation, I will give you that, but energy con. effic. is easily come by for each particular base via a Children's Creche... thus helping to cancel out that particular scalability penalty for Lal.

I'm sorry... you can tout Morgan as an easy path to +2 econ, and I won't argue; that is his strength, and even Lal has to go a bit out of his way to get a Golden Age. But to try to have the Morganites challenge Lal on the PK's strength is just silly, and the PK's strength is precisely scaleability (as well as diplomacy... an added perk).

posted 04-19-99 01:36 AM ET            

Base for base Morgan scores more dough -- once a certain threshold is crossed.

posted 04-19-99 01:13 PM ET         

Anyway... One thing that makes me laugh on these posts is that everyone always says "Whats the point of more bases if you aren't getting more energy?" Well, minerals. Perhaps they don't help out with research per sey, but they are necessary for building a) more colony pods and formers, hence expansion/perfection of surrounding lands b) oh... what are those things called that you can use to win the game with... armies! Right! More bases equals more support and more minerals to build more probes and military units c) more special projects. So thats one oversight that always makes me laugh.

Also... Lal is the diplomatic character in the game, and as you noted, more pop equals more votes. If he has many more people than anyone else, and a 50% bonus (probablt 100% with Empath Guild), he will win via diplomacy. I know you said "if you are going for an economic or transcend win"... but what is wrong with a diplomatic victory? Winning is winning. If you are limiting things randomly like that then there is no point in talking about the power of a faction. Why not ask how well the Spartans can do without a military victory?

On another note, we weren't previously talking about energy, now were we? We were talking about how scaleability, which is slightly different. Energy would be more like research in MOO. The point was that the Meklons could expand extremely well and thus
outdo others at their strengths by virtue of sheer numbers ("What is the point of more bases if you aren't getting more energy?"... more energy in aggregate). Have we forgotten our earlier arguments? Morgans energy production is not that much better that he can outdo someone who is much larger than he is. He just can't. Almost anyone can use Free Market to get +2. It is a peacetime option, but it's easy.

Now, it is also untrue to dismiss Lals ability with Talents as a way of saying you don't have to build pysc facilities. It is true that this is part of what it means, but with the inherent Talents, a rec commons/tree farm/hydrid forest, it takes very little energy to put a such cities into Golden Ages.

More workers is, granted, more of an issue in the early game, hence expansion, hence what you call fast start, which I argee with except that I don't agree that Lal falls below anyone else in the late game. Try playing on Transcend with Lal or Morgan. Lal gets to have 2 workers in the field, while Morgan needs to put one of them to work as a doctor or else all hell breaks loose. Psych allocation in the early game is not an option with such small amounts of energy coming in, and you cannot afford to take any energy off the quest for centauri ecology anyway... getting to formers late is extremely bad. So Lal's worker advantage is most potent there... but what can you do if he is producing more energy, minerals, and nutrients (particularly because you will have to feed your doctor, thus slowing growth further) than you? Keeping bases at size two is a valid option for the early game, with an occaisional bounce up to three/doctor... keeping bases at size one is difficult, wastes rescources on delayed colony pod construction, and just produces nowhere near as much.

Lals start makes him the king of the tough games, his easy Golden Ages make him quite potent in the easier games. He is a powerhouse all the way through the game, and he has the ability to win the game first. His special abilities are the hardest of all the factions for other factions to imitate.

If this is not convincing, that is fine. But I will from hereon not simply keep repeating the above statements. If you do not think they make him the best, I can only believe that you do not understand the proper way to play Lal.

posted 06-25-99 02:29 PM ET            

About 50 DemonBoils heading towards the enemy capital can change the minds off your enemies soon...

A few days ago, I was playing on "Trancend", but I wasn't paying attention...

I had pacts with Morgan, the Peacekeepers and the Spartans. I annihilated the University (by accident...). I enslaved Yang (captured two of his bases, and he surrendered...).