I'm still a new player to SMAC I'm going to ask questions here

[JimOfLeisure]

Really old noob here. Well I mean I bought the game back in 1999 and played it a fair bit, but I was never particularly good at it. (And I'm only 50.) Just a day or two ago I installed it and started playing for the first time in 15+ years.

What's the deal with losing nutrients? I have a rolling moist tile that I built farm+mine+road on (very early game), and it only has 1 nutrient now. I saw it had 2 nutrients after building the farm, but when the former finished up its task it was back down to 1.

I vaguely remember something about losing food in certain situations, but I can't find the details in the manual, datalinks, or online. Something about the mine or mine+road?

[Fibonacci]

A mine will decrease the nutrients a tile produces by 1. In the datalinks, click Terraforming, Construct Mine. It describes the behavior as reducing nutrients by 1, but never below 1.

[JimOfLeisure]

Thanks!

So...mind worms are kicking my butt early game, and I'm playing Gaians. I'm guessing 15-20 years ago I wasn't trying to expand quickly, and now I am. I've learned my lesson on unescorted colony pods and undefended bases, but I was just playing a game with 3 bases, a colony pod, and 2 formers in 2134 with 3 sensors around my territory. Then a mindworm just pops up in between a base and a sensor and kills my former with no warning/notice.

So, did this mind worm just spawn there and attack my former? Or did it probably spawn hidden in the fungus to the east and sneak over? I reloaded the previous autosave to make sure I couldn't see one anywhere, and I couldn't.

I guess part of my question is if mind worms can hide from bases if no sensor is nearby, but also can they just spawn right inside your core and destroy formers at any time?

[EmpathCrawler]

Sometimes! I don't think they spawn in fungus directly adjacent to a base or a sensor, but I two squares out is fair game. If it came from the east it would have attacked that base, instead.


Part of the perils of settling on Planet.

[JimOfLeisure]

Thanks. I guess I just got really unlucky. Short of escorting formers, I don't think I could have avoided this one.

And now that I look at it closer, unless mind worms are immune to zone of control, he had to have spawned there, because there are scouts in each base, and I never saw it move. It just appeared and attacked. Good grief.

Maybe this is just a weird game. I've already received notices about two factions being eliminated!

[dino]

Worms spawn randomly in fungus outside of base radius, but also each time you try to enter such fungus square, you have additional chance to spawn a worm on the tile you are trying to enter.

So, you can farm fungus by walking scouts through it in circles, either for money, or for free units with positive planet rating.
Also avoid trying to enter fungus with an unescorted colony pod, unescorted pods are fine in early game, as long as you stay away from fungus.

[JimOfLeisure]

Hi again, new question: When/why do you get an extra colony pod at the start of a game?

I've started several games (SMAC not SMACX), most as Gaians, same settings: standard rules, random Planet, standard size, talent difficulty. Sometimes I have a colony pod and a scout at my planetfall base, and other times just a scout.

And when I don't, the first base founded on Planet by someone else is 2104 or so, so I know AI factions at least sometimes get a colony pod, too.

[EmpathCrawler]

On the lower difficulties, the game will give you a second colony pod if your landing location is "bad" according to some AFAIK unknown logic. It's rare but if you land on a very small island the game will give you a Unity Foil, though it's probably better to just restart in those circumstances.


When you play on higher levels, you'll always start with the colony pod because I guess the game thinks you have enough of a disadvantage.


In general, I recommend playing maps with a lot of land for the challenge once you get the hang of things. The AI isn't great at sea invasions so you probably won't be challenged much.