Taking advantage of surplus formers when completing a task

[Earthmichael]

As much as I would like to remain blissfully ignorant, I don't that the exploit is, or how to use it, so I can't tell how close my suggestion is to a grey area.

To me, there is nothing exploitive in what I do.  Take a stack of formers that had been working on something.  Click on the bottom former (the one most likely to have done nothing that turn).  If it activates, give it an order.  Repeat with the next former up the line, until you reach a former than does not activate.  Stop here, because none of the formers above will activate either, and you are just wasting your time.

The reason I see no exploit here, is if the former has already done something, clicking on it cannot activate it.  It is only the case where the former actually did not do anything where clicking the former activates it for new orders.

I presume an actual exploit would allow you to activate a former that has already built, to get a second turn out of the former.  I don't know how to do that, and don't want to know.  But there has to be some separation between clicking on formers where the only ones who will activate are the ones that did not work that turn, verses figuring out a way to get double duty out of a former.

I still don't see the problem of clicking on a former, and if it activates, give it an order.  If it does not activate, it has built this turn.

In the IOD case, try to cancel all of the orders before anyone builds anything, and then flee!  But if the former has already built before you got a chance to cancel, you are out of luck.  Because even if you click on it again, it still will not activate if it already built that turn.

BTW, one of my strategies in my roads for terraforming strategy guide is to pre-built roads, then send packs of formers just the right size to build what you want.  Then every turn, advance 1 or 2 squares down the road and build.  A 4 pack of formers building forest can build a forest every turn in this manner as long as the road is being built ahead of them.  This allows the most efficient possible use of your formers, and you never have any "left over" formers because the pack should be sized to whatever terrain feature is being built.  Some people wonder why I build roads everywhere, but it makes the terraforming that comes afterwards much more efficient.

[Kirov]

Yes, that seems valid to me. What raised my doubts was Lord Avalon saying that he activates already inactive formers, which can be only done through this exploit. But I'm sure he does it the same you do.

It is a very interesting thing and I've never thought of even looking at it, assuming the game wants all the formers to grey out for a reason, plus I didn't want to break any rule even involuntarily (the list of bugs is really long and includes many exploit to get additional movement - that air drop thing, upgrade via the upgrade screen, etc.).

However, it still can net you quite a nice turn advantage so we have to decide either way and bring it to attention of all MP players. Let's see what other people think about it. I'm still in two minds, but the most important issue is that we all agree one way or another.

As to terraforming tips - a road network is obviously crucial, it's the first thing I do when entering a new tile (especially since roads are more expensive after you build a forest). But I don't move my formers in hordes until mid-game, before the most essential tiles are terraformed for most bases. I prefer to steadily terraform each base with 1-2 formers for a start. And as I said, I was utterly convinced that there is this terraform inefficiency! Now I may reconsider.

[Lord Avalon]

Yes, that seems valid to me. What raised my doubts was Lord Avalon saying that he activates already inactive formers, which can be only done through this exploit.

I said "falsely inactive formers," meaning formers that showed inactive but hadn't done anything.

[Nexii]

This might or might not be related (and known).  I've used a similar mechanic to convoy resources from a supply crawler that has expended all its moves.  By default the game moves onto the next unit in the cycle.  But you can select it manually (sometimes having to go to the city screen rather than the map).  It makes me curious what was intended.

On topic though should a terraformer even be allowed to cancel its orders?  I had the thought that one easier fix might involve just disallowing this in general.  It's a bit strange to consider that you could build 15/16ths of a borehole, and cancel it on the last turn with nothing built.  Although this might be equally frustrating, causing more formers to get sacked by Mind Worms and enemy units due to being locked in.

Edit: I believe this type of cycling behavior often applies to air units as well.  Where by default putting an air unit in a city, cycles you to the next unit.  But you can go back and select it to move further.  Or to attack from the city and land in the same turn without crashing (thereby attacking on your return flight as well as outgoing).

[Earthmichael]

It has always been OK to move a supply crawler, and then set the resource to crawl.

The reason I advocate pack terraforming with appropriate size packs is that you don't even have worry about underutilized formers.  If I have prebuilt a road network, I can set a pack of 4 formers down the road generating a Forest every single turn.  Then I don't have to bother to check if I have underutilized formers; I get full value from the formers, as long as whatever I build is a multiple of 4.   Three formers is an odd number unless you have Weather Paradigm with respect to Forest.  Unless you do something to deal with the inefficiency, the you are just as well off with a pack of 2 formers.  Your 3rd former is totally wasted for this effort.

Sometimes, particularly when dealing with rising water, you just pile on all of the formers in the vicinity to save your city by raising land.  There it can be particularly useful to figure out who built that turn, and who did not, so you can raise more land faster.

Anyway, I don't know what the exploit actually is, but I would like to get general agreement that activating a former that has not done anything that turn by clicking directly on it is an acceptable strategy and not a cheat, and for people to optimize their games if they like by thinking about this.  And for maximum optimization, read my article Road to Terraforming.  I am a super strong believer in road networks, and I am certain I get full value for my roads for terraforming, crawler movement, worm defense, active defense, etc.  I generally only build magtubes directly between cities unless I have a feature I need a magtube to reach (like an energy farm), because too many magtubes create defensive vulnerabilities.  Having heavily defended cities as choke points helps keep your tubes from being used against you.

[Kirov]

Can you guys submit an example of such a situation? Both when you start to group-former some tile and when you're about to click that former?

I'm paying close attention to this issue now and I must say I can't copy this behaviour. Simply put, my game seems to work exactly as EM would like it to, i.e. any non-working formers are ready to go immediately.

I can describe 2 situations from my most recent SP game:

1) Former1 is foresting in turn 1 and says it has 3t more to go (not greyed out yet). F2 joins and helps, now both say "2t to go" (and both get greyed out). On the next turn, after the round of terraforming, the forest is ready, F2 is greyed out and F1 is ready. So I'm counting that and get the result of 4 former-turns.

2) Three formers arrive at a tile in the same turn. They all start to forest and say "2t to go". However, on the next turn, after the round of terraforming, the forest is ready, one former is greyed out and 2 are ready to work more. Again, 4 former-turns poured into the forest and no waste.

Am I missing something here?

[Yitzi]

In my experience also, the formers that weren't needed don't use up their turns...

[Earthmichael]

Can you guys submit an example of such a situation? Both when you start to group-former some tile and when you're about to click that former?

I'm paying close attention to this issue now and I must say I can't copy this behaviour. Simply put, my game seems to work exactly as EM would like it to, i.e. any non-working formers are ready to go immediately.

I can describe 2 situations from my most recent SP game:

1) Former1 is foresting in turn 1 and says it has 3t more to go (not greyed out yet). F2 joins and helps, now both say "2t to go" (and both get greyed out). On the next turn, after the round of terraforming, the forest is ready, F2 is greyed out and F1 is ready. So I'm counting that and get the result of 4 former-turns.

2) Three formers arrive at a tile in the same turn. They all start to forest and say "2t to go". However, on the next turn, after the round of terraforming, the forest is ready, one former is greyed out and 2 are ready to work more. Again, 4 former-turns poured into the forest and no waste.

Am I missing something here?

What version/patch are you using?  I have 3 different installations, all now based on GOG, with different patches.  But all 3 of mine behave just like I described.

In my games in all 3 test directories, all of the 3 formers that were allocated to the forest grey out when the forest in completed the second turn.  I find that to be true of any building project where I have allocated the resources in prior turns, any excess just grey out after the build is complete.  It sounds like your version is behaving like I think it should, with the unneeded formers requesting new orders.  This is exactly what I want!  This is much more convenient than trying to remember to click on a former and see if it will activate.  How can I replicate your installation?

[Kirov]

I checked 7 GOG copies and 2 pirates on three machines, both SMAC and SMAX, and everywhere the formers behave as I described (and Yitzi confirmed). So at first I thought this may be a patch issue and you either forgot to apply the XP update or use the old GOG version, which was not patched at the beginning. To test this, I downloaded a pirate copy of SMAC only, version 1.0.i of January 1998. Yet again, there is no waste of former turns, so it seems like an element of the design from the very beginning. You may want to triple-check and reinstall your copies, and if the problem persists - report it here.

Can anyone else confirm this behaviour? It's just a matter of a few clicks, so please help. Hit 'Quick start', then 'Ctrl+K" (open the editor), then 'Shift+F1' three times (make 3 formers), then 'Ctr+K' (close the editor) and tell the formers to make a forest. On the next turn, toggle through your active units and check how many formers are still active after the forest is done. My copies say 2 of them, EM's - 0.

[Earthmichael]

I did Kirov's experiment, and it worked just as he said.  The 2 Formers we automatically ready for orders the next turn.

So now I am going to look for and post a save from a non-current game, that shows the greying out of excess formers.  I am not sure what accounts for the difference.

[Earthmichael]

I looked at a couple of multiplayer saves.  It seems to only happen in multiplayer games, and since I am not playing much of anything of that multiplayer games, I did not realize it was a multiplayer game behavior.

Does anyone experience this in their multiplayer games?  Otherwise, I will try to create an experiment like what Kirov did, but with a multiplayer game, and see what happens.

[Earthmichael]

I just did a multiplayer experiment, creating my own hotseat test game, and sure enough, after creating the forest, two formers were ready for new orders.  I posted the hotseat game, but it does just what Kirov described for the single player; it simply illustrates the problem does not normally exist, even in multiplayer.

Unless other people are experiencing this, I guess we should just drop it. 

Does anyone else experience Formers beyond what are needed to finish a project greying out?

[Kirov]

Yep, I created a test MP scenario and no surprises there, either.