Comparison of Single Mega-SSC vs Multi-SSCs

[Fal]

To more fully respond to your post, focusing on an SSC is probably not the best approach.  You say that you want to keep up in the tech race with the builders, but that you are also not a builder at heart and prefer to spend your time building up an army and going to war.  These two goals are mutually exclusive, at least in a competitive game (you can of course get away with anything if you're facing an overmatched opponent).  If the game is anywhere close to being balanced, which SMAC/X is, you clearly can't take a militaristic faction and focus on warfare and still keep up in research with a builder faction that focuses all of its resources on building up infrastructure.  The game would be broken if you could.

SMAC/X rewards you for choosing a single goal and focusing all of your resources on achieving it.  You'll only hamper yourself by trying to play as a warmonger while also researching techs on your own.  If you want to play an aggressive, militaristic style without falling behind in tech you essentially have 2 choices: either play only against weak opponents or ignore your own research and make heavy use of probe teams to constantly steal technologies from the builders.  If your goal is to improve your skill at the game my suggestion would be to focus on the second option.  Probe teams are incredibly powerful and can make up for most tech deficiencies you might face.

[551262]

Here's a duplicate of a post I made on 'poly...


One of these days a veteran should make a post describing what tech advances should be *ideally* acquired at a certain time -- i.e. Fusion Power before MY 2200, Synthetic Fossil Fuels before MY 2170, etc. Only problem is that I *think* that tech advances get slower as time goes on with larger maps over smaller ones.

Also -- today we get to play Where's Waldo...



(Shown in reduced resolution. Playing as Deidre on ...I think it's a Small map, but sure feels like a Tiny one, Talent. I have the CN and CF SPs, among many others, because while I was in peril footing very early on, I expanded well and grabbed a huge mass of land, including the MJ. First time playing Deidre in a long time -- Democratic, Green, Knowledge.)

[551262]

CEO Aaron just replied to my postings about SSCs, and now he's started a game (Transcend, Iron Man, Abundant, Unity Survey, Flexible Starting Locations) as a Sparta playing a game if there was nobody around to bully for tech/bases/cash...his post follows:

Yeah, progress is definitely map dependent. I always play on Large maps. Smaller than that, and my 'empire' seems comically small, bigger and you can get spaceflight before you'll wind up near an opponent. Anyway, after much delay, here's my first 100 turns in my Sparta game:



Starting position. No great shakes, decent size continent. As it turned out, no neighbors, lots of fungus (I play with abundant natives and ironman, transcend). Good setup do demonstrate a game where Sparta is somewhat isolated. My first few bases were forced out of grid for fungus. Early tech picks are formers, recycling tanks, then beelining for Intellectual Integrity, as per my recommendation. I may have grabbed Doctrine Flex on the way, I can't quite recall, but it's not that big a deal. I also think I got a pod drop or tech trade for Applied Physics. A free rover, a unity foil, and sent my guys around to pick up some easy pod pops, until a roving worm eats my boat. By turn 50, I've got 11 income, tech every 8 turns, and 7 bases. I grab the Command Nexus, a crucial SP for Sparta which will let me fight above my weight while I'm behind on tech early, and will let me have one turn repair in every base late-game, very nice for creating a artillery powered juggernaut.



Once I've got II under my belt, the scouts all get upgraded to police, and I dip back to Planetary networks. From there, my general tech beeline is to head for Ecological Engineering for the ability to build Condensers. While I'm doing this, I see that nobody has taken the Virtual World, so I decided to build it. A fair number of minerals are wasted disbanding probe teams (still no IA yet), but in the long run it will be worth it, VW. Around this time I've run into Miriam, who evidently has settled on the island to my south. Typically, she plants a few totally non-viable bases off my coast,  but I've got plenty of other places to spread out, and I'm trying to demonstrate the builder aspects of Sparta, so I refrain from cranking out a load of 2/2/4 foils and pinning her ears back.

By this point I'm putting Children's Creches and recreation commons as my interior bases. I'm running planned/demo and therefore every base with a creche will boast single turn growth. Here's the turn 100 sitch:



15 bases and more on the way. Condensers being built in the core areas to support the next stage of growth. My 5 pop bases are currently working 4 with a lone librarian, and I'm building network nodes on these bases for a nice jump in tech rate. Net income 20, tech every 6 turns. Some notes:
I've built a fair number of mirrors, in lieu of forest and forget. This is to keep my nutrient income up early, while still delivering a decent tech rate. Yes, it's more former intensive than going FM/Forest, but affords me the privilege of ignoring the bureaucracy limit when planting new bases. So yeah, with the 10 mirrors I've built, I could have started a load more roads, cleared fungus or planted forests, but you do need /some/ lab income to get this strategy into the midgame. Two, I've kept my two rovers (1 starting, 1 unity from pod pop) busy farming the mushroom dunes. I've gotten a LOT of free money from planet pearls, which has helped fund my expansionist efforts. You can also see my nascent navy is starting to patrol the waters offshore, mostly looking to start harvesting pods and colonize the nearby islands. I'll still avoid the inevitable confrontation with Miriam while I've got room to spread out in other directions.

[551262]

Annnnnnd here's my response...


Did you find Waldo? It could be found somewhere in a certain morale calculation...needless to say, I did notice it...

My thoughts...Yeah, 6 turns/tech isn't too shabby for Sparta at that point in the game. I see that you are somewhat comparable to the University in might, which is good.

As far as starting locations go, I also go with flexible starting locations, though I don't enable Unity Survey. But I can still scan the terrain looking for the Garland Crater (good SP centre) or Mount Planet. I see you've started not far away from MP, which is good because it's a boon to your production, and to energy -- solar collector + river on the flat & rolling squares and crawl it to your HQ for an easy 4 or 5e per square. Minerals is good because you get +6 per square -- good for early fungal pop pre-tree farms.

I don't play SMAC-X on a regular basis but I found that Sparta is really good for tackling the worm problem early on with higher morale units versus everybody else that isn't Gaian/Cha Dawn. I found that attacking fungal towers is best delayed until you can build empath units because of their inherent +50% fungal tower bonus. What say you?

As far as factions go, when I play Sparta, the two biggest threats are 1) the Hive, 2) Miriam and 3) the PKs if they get a good start. Given a choice I always go after the Hive because of his numerous advantages, while Miriam crumbles like the rest when you're heavy on the offensive.

Tell me, why would you build Rec Commons in the interior if you have police units? Two police garrisons and the VW mean I never have drone problems -- the only time I build Rec Commons is when I build Hab Complexes.