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Quote from: Earthmichael on January 30, 2013, 02:50:25 AMOn the way to the MMI beeline, I usually go for Neural Grafting and Gne Splicing first, before D:AP, unless I feel hard pressed to defend myself right away. And I then go for Bio-Engineering next, even though it is a sidetrack from MMI. Because the support minerals that I save by upgrading all of my formers and other units to clean is a much faster and higher payoff than I could get from lifting the mineral restrictions. This allows me to now be able to produce clean terraforms in mass quantities, without worrying about crippling my production with support costs.Whoa, you must produce a lot of clean formers if that's a bigger boost than being able to use boreholes.QuoteSince I typically starting with 90% roads and forests, these techs don't have such an early payoff unless the map starts with enough terrain features that can be exploited without my terraforming.How do you use those forests? Crawl them or work them? Because pre-Environmental Economics, they only produce 1 nutrient.
On the way to the MMI beeline, I usually go for Neural Grafting and Gne Splicing first, before D:AP, unless I feel hard pressed to defend myself right away. And I then go for Bio-Engineering next, even though it is a sidetrack from MMI. Because the support minerals that I save by upgrading all of my formers and other units to clean is a much faster and higher payoff than I could get from lifting the mineral restrictions. This allows me to now be able to produce clean terraforms in mass quantities, without worrying about crippling my production with support costs.
Since I typically starting with 90% roads and forests, these techs don't have such an early payoff unless the map starts with enough terrain features that can be exploited without my terraforming.
Whoa, you must produce a lot of clean formers if that's a bigger boost than being able to use boreholes.
How do you use those forests? Crawl them or work them? Because pre-Environmental Economics, they only produce 1 nutrient.
Quote from: Earthmichael on January 30, 2013, 05:11:33 AMI do make a lot of clean formers! It is really a chicken and the egg problem. If I don't have a lot of formers, it takes forever to terraform things, especially boreholes. So rather than prioritize mineral limits to take advantage of boreholes, I prioritize clean to be able to build more formers. By the time the I have enough formers and other terraforming done to consider making boreholes, I usually have gotten MMI and am ready for the EE and EE.Forest are much more of a priority, because I can make 5 forests for the time formers take for 1 borehole. And I get the benefit of self-growth of forests, which can save a lot of terraforming time if you get your forests started early, particularly since spreading forest squashes fungus.But if you can only use 3 forests per base (less if you want the base to grow more), that does limit it quite a bit. Once you have as many forests as you can use (which needs maybe 1 former per several bases max before tree farms), you might as well get started on boreholes.QuotePlus, forests don't trigger ecodamage like a borehole does. I generally try for a very close to zero ecodamage game.Borehole ecodamage really isn't that bad; it's about as much as 1 extra mineral. And of course without mods ecodamage is easy to control anyway, via the magic facilities.
I do make a lot of clean formers! It is really a chicken and the egg problem. If I don't have a lot of formers, it takes forever to terraform things, especially boreholes. So rather than prioritize mineral limits to take advantage of boreholes, I prioritize clean to be able to build more formers. By the time the I have enough formers and other terraforming done to consider making boreholes, I usually have gotten MMI and am ready for the EE and EE.Forest are much more of a priority, because I can make 5 forests for the time formers take for 1 borehole. And I get the benefit of self-growth of forests, which can save a lot of terraforming time if you get your forests started early, particularly since spreading forest squashes fungus.
Plus, forests don't trigger ecodamage like a borehole does. I generally try for a very close to zero ecodamage game.
I've thought about it more, and I realized that the real issue is the "doubling time". With a low doubling time, you need a huge number of formers to keep up with it even when using fairly easy terraforming like forests, and stuff like boreholes and condensers is generally not going to happen. With a larger "doubling time" (or even more, when you've reached maximum size), formers become less important, and more advanced terraforming becomes used more; crawlers are therefore more powerful with a larger "doubling time" since advanced terraforming (except for boreholes) is more likely to favor single-resource stuff, whereas forests are very crawler-unfriendly. (In between is the standard farm/solar, which actually usually comes out weaker than just a farm, crawling it, and having the citizen be a specialist instead.)Thus, my questions for you are:-What's your doubling time in your games?-Do you ever use farm/solar?Because I'd like to see a game with fairly large "doubling time" after the very beginning (30-40 turns seems good for once you have several bases), and where farm/solar does see substantial use for much of the game.
However, even so, crawlers become overpowered as the game progresses. Consider, for example, someone who's reached the following tech level:-He has engineers available.-He has hybrid forests.-He can get 4 nutrients from a square, whether by farm/enricher (and condensers don't further increase it for whatever reason), or farm/condenser (and he hasn't learned AEE yet.)-He either has hab domes, or has raised his city density to the point where it doesn't matter.-He has expanded all he can; any more would run into either efficiency-related problems or the territory of other factions.-He does not have satellites; either he lacks the tech, or just never got around to it, or is afraid they'll be shot down.Now, consider two ways he can use his territory:1. Forests. These are worth 3/2/2 each, so for each 2 forests he has enough surplus nutrients to use a specialist, say an engineer. Thus, each square is worth 2 minerals, 2 energy, 1.5 economy, and 1 labs.2. Crawl nutrients. He can then support 2 specialists per square, so each square is worth 6 economy and 4 labs. He doesn't get any minerals, but at 4.5 economy per square more than option 1 (which is then multiplied by facilities into 13.5 more economy, or 16.75 more if he has a quantum lab), he can easily afford to make up the difference by rush buying.Thus, option 2 is vastly superior to option 1.With satellites, it's even worse:1. With forests, he can support 3 citizens per square, so each square is worth 5 minerals, 5 energy, and 2 specialists, for a total of 5 minerals, 5 energy, 6 economy, and 4 labs.2. With crawling nutrients, he can support 4 citizens per square, worth 4 minerals, 4 energy, 12 economy, and 8 labs.Again, option 2 is vastly superior.If anything other than "crawl nutrients" is to be effective into the late game, crawlers would have to be depowered. (Not "made cheaper", but actually "made less effective".)Conversely, consider an early-game (recently got tree farms) base with 1 farm/solar square (let's say it's rainy and rolling but less than 1000 elevation) and 1 citizen. It can use the citizen to work the square, producing 3 nutrients, 1 minerals, and 1 energy, or build a crawler to crawl one square for 3 nutrients and turn the citizen into a specialist for 3 energy. So a crawler lets you give up 1 mineral for 2 energy, which seems to me it'll usually be a very good deal.But let's say that crawlers have been made less effective, at the crawler will only produce 2 nutrients. Then you're giving up 1 mineral and 1 nutrient for 2 energy, which seems a lot more balanced. Even so, that means that a crawler is worth as much as a worker.But in that case, let's say you have a rainy/rolling square and are trying to decide how to terraform it for your worker.If you terraform it with farm/solar, then you get 3/1/1, which feeds the worker and keeps him happy, produces 1 mineral for building facilities, and will get you another worker in 50 turns (for, say, a size 4 base. At this stage, size 9 is probably more realistic for your core bases). Or you can terraform it with a forest for 2/2/1, which feeds the worker and keeps him happy, and produces 2 minerals; if we devote 1 mineral to facilities as before, then the other one can be used to produce a crawler in 30 turns, giving you the same value for cheaper.Thus, we get the result that unless crawlers are made more expensive and depowered, it's still not worth working farm/solar unless you really don't care about energy (or are running Market, but in a balanced game that'll only be roughly 1/3 of the time.) I call that a problem.
But if you can only use 3 forests per base (less if you want the base to grow more), that does limit it quite a bit. Once you have as many forests as you can use (which needs maybe 1 former per several bases max before tree farms), you might as well get started on boreholes.
-What's your doubling time in your games?-Do you ever use farm/solar?
Now, consider two ways he can use his territory:1. Forests. These are worth 3/2/2 each, so for each 2 forests he has enough surplus nutrients to use a specialist, say an engineer. Thus, each square is worth 2 minerals, 2 energy, 1.5 economy, and 1 labs.2. Crawl nutrients. He can then support 2 specialists per square, so each square is worth 6 economy and 4 labs. He doesn't get any minerals, but at 4.5 economy per square more than option 1 (which is then multiplied by facilities into 13.5 more economy, or 16.75 more if he has a quantum lab), he can easily afford to make up the difference by rush buying.
I don't know how to answer the doubling time question. Once I reach a certain maximum expansion, doubling can occur with respect to population, but even more, doubling can occur with respect to econ/labs and production. If I take a wild guess, I suppose at midgame, doubling slows down to 20 turns or so.
I do sometimes use farm/solar, particularly if there is an energy special on the square so I can take full advantage of altitude.
For example, on the Vets map
You might argue, but why have a worker when I can crawl the square to get another specialist? If the square is something like a 4/x/5 square (max altitude, solar collector, mirror, food enhancements), I get more value working the square than crawling it, since I also pick up x minerals.
Finally, if the Econ SE setting is high enough (and the vast majority of the games I play it is), then each worked square gets an extra energy, putting it way out front of the crawled squares, with 20% more energy and some bonus minerals.
With respect to solar collectors, there is one other really good use for collecters and crawlers: energy farms. If you have some SPs at your HQ that provided special single city boosts, such as ME, Supercollider, Theory of Everything, Network Backbone, Longevity Vaccine, etc., then dedicating some squares to energy farms can be a very smart use of land.You raise 9 squares to maximum altitude, put an Echeolon Mirror in the middle, surrounded by 8 solar collectors, with 9 crawlers homed to your HQ gathering energy, you can feed a lot of energy into those single city multiplying enhancements! On a few occasions, I have had a single city producing a breakthrough every turn.
So yes, solar collectors can be quite useful, without or without a farm!
In lategame (soil enhancers and stuff) I'm totally fine with Crawlers+Specialists beating out forest, in fact they should in my opinion (though not necessarily by a huge margin).
And quite fitting, as you get more advanced the citizens are turned over from manual collecting jobs (which are mechanized) to more service/research/entertainment type jobs.
I totally agree, ete, and I would just add that you do not have to use crawlers to achieve this benefit; in fact, as long as you raise elevation and add solar collectors to your farm/condensor/soil enhancer, direct collection is better than crawlers.
In lategame (soil enhancers and stuff) I'm totally fine with Crawlers+Specialists beating out forest, in fact they should in my opinion (though not necessarily by a huge margin). Forests are pretty cheap and easy, and they're great for most of the game. Rewarding a player who in lategame is willing to reterraform with much more time consuming enhancements (farm/condensor/soil enhancer, some boreholes) and produce a load of crawlers, more than you reward a player who just sits on mass forest forever and builds Tree Farms/Hybrid Forests seems entirely fair. And quite fitting, as you get more advanced the citizens are turned over from manual collecting jobs (which are mechanized) to more service/research/entertainment type jobs.