posted 03-15-99 04:19 PM ET        

PREREQUISITES:

* This is best played out on a huge map with abundant native life forms. Usually I play huge maps for added depth, and leave everything else to random. Exploring the unknown planet is part of the fun.

* Gaians is the best faction to try this out. Other factions can be adapted as well.

STARTING:

* Send your scout out to explore. Pay special attention to the fungus squares. When you see a mindworm, attack it. If you are playing Gaian, you have a good chance to capture the first few.

* Once you've captured your first mindworms, send them out to comb through fungus squares, preferrable in remote regions far away from any of your bases, so that newly captured worms would be marked "Independent", requiring no support.

* As soon as you gain the seafaring ability, build a cheap Gun Foil to explore the sea. Don't build transports since they can't attack. Again, when you see an Isle of the Deep, attack it. Until you get your first IofD, then use it to explore and capture new IofD's.

MINDWORM ECONOMY:

* Yes, you can make mindworms work for you. Send them to a huge patch of fungus, then just walk them back and forth. If you've already gained a sizeable mindworm army, chances are any new attempt to capture would fail. No matter, because killing a worm give you at least 20-30 energy credits in early games, and higher later on. This may seem nothing, but consider the net income of your WHOLE FACTION. How much is it? 2? 5? 15? Killing a worm would give you several turns of net income. If you have half dozen of worms working for you, you energy reserve would soon pile up.

* Not to mention the occasional 200 energy credits or build bonus you get from Unity Pods. Since your mindworms and Isles of Deep are fast moving units (mindworms 3 on fungus vs. rovers 2 on clear fields), you have a better chance to pop more unity pods.

MINDWORM RESEARCH:

* Mindworms are top notch research scientists too. Two words: alien artifacts. No matter how those transcend ironmen tell you , using alien artifacts to hurry your rovers is a total waste. If you've followed the mindworm economy well, you can just outright buy that rover you craving so much about (and still have money left to buy network nodes to cash in your artifacts). New technologies, on the other hand, can't be easily bought (unless you want to pay 200 energy credits to Morgan for the occasional new tech you haven't got).

MINDWORM ARMY:

* By the time you are ready for an invasion, the worms probably have all turned to Demon Boils by "working" for you. If not, send them to a monolith for an easy upgrade. Always upgrade later since gaining life cycle through fighting is much easier at low levels.

* While your transport foils have no attack/defense at all and move 1-2 units 2 squares per turn, Isles of Deep are excellent attack transports. They have no problem picking out the lone wolf lurking in the sea, but if you see a sworm of enemy ships, be sure to guard your IofD well.

* Land worms are excellent city attackers. Fear not the Perimeter Defense, armored-to-the-teeth garrisons, for they will crumble under your Demon Boils. The best way to take a city is to take it swiftly in one turn. Say your intelligence reports tell you the enemy base has 5 garrisons, send in 5-6 worms and a couple defending units. In one turn your worms can pick out all the garrions and take the city, meanwhile let your defending units defend your worms against counter-attacks. Another thing, unlike your infantries that walking up the base takes all their strengthes, a worm can walk through two fungus squares (or roads) and still attack with full strength, all in one turn.

* Locusts of Chiron can fly over the vast ocean, attack an enemy base (land or sea), AND take it. Pretty cool, huh?

TIPS & TRICKS:

* If your native unit is wounded, put it in a fungus square and type "L". It'll repair back to 100% health in no time (unlike your mechnical counterpart which can only repair to 80% outside a base).

* Even if your captured worms end up being support by your bases, putting them in the fungus squares eliminate the support minerals for that turn.

* Locusts of Chiron ARE air units. Building AAA garrisons helps a lot to defend them later in the game when you have lots of eco-damage.

posted 03-16-99 10:57 AM ET            

LOCUSTS OF CHIRON MISSILE DEFENSE

* If you ever fall the victim of endless missile bombardment, move out all your garrisons, build an army of Locusts of Chiron and deploy them around your cities. They act as defense force against enemy invasions, can also pillage enemy land. The best part is, since they are air units, those darn missiles, without Air Superiority, cannot target them.

posted 03-16-99 12:07 PM ET            

I finally cranked out some of my worm-crushing units and tore into the next boil that came along.

And captured it.

I was flabbergasted. I mean, Planet was doing its best every turn to prune my branch of the evolutionary tree ("vastly more powerful controlling force" blah blah blah), and I actually managed to capture a stack. A dozen free Demon Boil mindworms. I'd buy that for a dollar.

That's the first and only time that's happened. But that Dirty Dozen, distributed to all of my top production cities, insured that I was able to get that extra few hundred energy credits per turn that I needed to corner the Global Energy Market.

posted 03-24-99 09:40 AM ET         

Hey ! I had a perfectly adequate defence a few moves ago. Could cope with any fraction funny business (within reason), or around 5 to 6 Demon Boils ; but not the multitude uncountable piles from nowhere. (And the missiles I'm trying to rush out like there's no tomorrow doesn't seem to damage the rest of the pile when it takes one out !!!)

posted 03-25-99 07:37 AM ET         

I'll read the manual again as I was under the impression that air units had advantages (my choppers survived longer than my tanks did) but maybe not.

As you might have guessed I'm fairly new to the game, but I'm getting there (honest).