Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: ete on October 23, 2013, 01:40:20 PM

Title: Sea Forming guide/discussion
Post by: ete on October 23, 2013, 01:40:20 PM

After reviewing the current state of the waterworld game and seeing people often trying very different tactics with terraforming, I decided to put down what I've found to be the most useful strategy at sea, and get other people's thoughts.

Base placement
Placing bases directly on Nutrient or Energy special squares is a waste of potential. Those squares allow you to bypass restrictions and use Kelp and Tidals to their full potential before unlocking restrictions. Placing on Min bonuses is fine (though not better than harvesting them), but try to keep bases in range of harvesting as many other bonuses as possible. Bonuses are king at sea.

Also, due to plentiful Nuts at sea, packing bases relatively close is not an issue until very late. Except that you'll miss out on bonuses which are further away.

Pre-restriction lifting

Priority 1 former tasks:
1. Kelp on Nutrient bonuses - 5 Nuts allows a base right at the start to grow extremely quickly, and kelp plants fast.
2. Kelp on Energy/Mineral bonuses - Again, kelp is fast to create and these squares are better than empty squares for planting.

Priority 2 former tasks:
1. Tidal Harness on Eng/Min/Nut Bonus - A bonus square should almost always be in use, and even if tidal is only +2 eng at the start it's worthwhile. Mining Platform+Kelp may seem appealing, but on bonus squares there's always an issue.
Energy bonus: Tidal: 2/1/5 (8) Mine: 2/2/2 (6)
Nutrient bonus: Tidal: 5/1/2 (8) Mine: 4/2/0 (6)
Mineral bonus: Tidal: 2/3/2 (7) Mine: 2/4/0 (6)
As you see, Tidal/Kelp gives better pre-restriction lifting production on bonus squares in all usual cases (Fossil Ridge or Geothermal Shallows may give a different result, having restrictions lifted or any of the resource boosting facilities also changes things but those come later and you can re-terraform). Swapping 2 Eng for 1 Min in the last case is the only somewhat appealing option, and even that's iffy. If you want to crawl mins, especially want a base with very high mineral production (e.g. for a Secret Project focused base), or suffer from high inefficiency at a base, then maybe go for the last one.
2. If using Armored Sea Crawlers - Terraform any far away special squares with whatever boosts their bonus.

Priority 3 former tasks:
1. Kelp on blank squares - Quick and useful, unless hitting pop cap.
2. Mining Platforms and Tidal Harnesses on Kelp squares - Pre-restriction lifting, Mine=2/2/0, Tidal=2/1/2, so this depends on how much you want minerals and how much you want energy, at a simple 2 for 1 exchange rate. For distant/high inefficiency bases or those you want to build SPs in, mining platforms may be better.

Priority 4 former tasks:
1. Removing Sea Fungus
2. Raising land to make more of it terraformable

Post-restriction lifting changes
Unfinished!

Main changes: Kelp is +3 Nuts and Solar is +3 Energy on all squares, not just bonus ones. Solar vs Mine becomes 3/1/3 vs 2/2/0. Various resource boosting facilities become available/useful: Aquafarm (not always worthwhile, plenty of Nuts already), Thermocline Transducer (excellent investment), Subsea Trunkline (useful, but a bit expensive. get at some bases.). Nutrients are massively abundant, and so almost worthless except for growing new bases or at those supporting huge numbers of specialists when good specialists become available.