tolerant discussion

[bakalov]

Arid and Swamp are the same;
after them come Desert and Tundra;
and then everything else ....

There are 2 paths for terraforming a planet (water based and arid), and Aquatic has a great benefit from the first one. If you get lucky you can have a Terran-like planet with just one cheap transformation. In the worse case you have to transform it three times to get the aquatic bonus to work.

[Brutalisk]

"Arid and Swamp are the same;
after them come Desert and Tundra;
and then everything else ...."

Bakalov, I am not sure what you tried to say there, but,

Arid and Swamp need only one transformation to be turned into Terran. And they are not the same. If you are not Aquatic, swamp offers very little space, if you are, it acts like a terran.

[Whoha]

Well I have to disagree. with the exception of some of the weapons techs they are not insignificant, you can upgrade all units(of a type) from the workshop so thats not so bad. Yea the game does have alot of complexity, but i'm reasonably patient.

Civ III you made the right decision on, now that they have patched it 10 times it may be playable, but I got burnt out on it.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Brutalisk


Bakalov, I am not sure what you tried to say there, but,

Arid and Swamp need only one transformation to be turned into Terran. And they are not the same. If you are not Aquatic, swamp offers very little space, if you are, it acts like a terran.

I think that is what he was saying. One terraform for Aqatic on a swamp.

[Brutalisk]

"Yea the game does have alot of complexity, but i'm reasonably patient. "

As I said, I do love complexity, as long as it adds to the game. I feel Alpha Centauri went over the top... the "changes" are so many that they become insignificant. I upgraded to the latest weapon, woohoo.. not really.

I saw a similar criscism on MOOIII vs MOOII, whereby techs in MOOII have a meaning whereas mooiii's techs are just "faceless". That's probably the word I am looking for.


VMXA: yeah I just felt bakalov's post was a little cryptic He does mention in his post further down the dry vs wet transformations... I guess to everyone else that is reading, when you are tranforming a planet and you forget what comes up next the description of terraforming actually tells you anyhow

[vmxa1]

BTW I sort of felt the same way about the tech in Smac. I played the game solid for a long time, but finally got buned out. I saw Pax and Moo3 as having so many techs that I could not really evaluate their worth.

Moo3 was very guilty of giving me an improvment, but no means to tell how useful it was. I dislike not having values. How can I determine is this is better use than the other thing without numbers?

I liked it in Pax where a tech added 5 to the planet pop, not stuff that was vague.

[Whoha]

The techs aren't meaningless, play a double blind game where you get IA early, and one where you get IA late, and notice the difference Silk steel is another one that you really notice since it has been a long while since you last got an armor. the resource cap lift techs again are critical.

of course I really don't have a problem with moo3 as is,excepting the pd bug, the various number bugs, and the tech "stuck" bug

[P-K]

I like SMAC and CIV too. Both good strategic games, but moo offers much more ! Hmm, I think we lost main subject here : tol topic !

PK

[Croesus]

Ok, I might be guilty of rezzing threads, but it is either that, or starting redundant threads.

I feel that tolerant is good, but too expensive. I prefer to go aquatic because at the begining you get +50% food, +3/4 population (matching the tolerant). With unification, you get 4.5 food per farmer, so you just need 2 at the begining. This means one less farmer, or one more worker.

Compare:
uni tol versus aquatic uni +1 prod (medium HW)
1. 2 scienctist, then you get 3 worker giving 14 industry
versus 4 workers giving (4*(5+1)*(50%) - (pollution) =
36 - (18-3)= 21 (50% more)
2. no scientist, giving you 5 workers or 23 production
versus
6 workers giving (6*(5+1)*1.5 - pollution) = 54 - 27+3 = 30 (30% more).

Suppose later you colonize a few worlds. To help you out, they won't be arid, swampy, terran, or ocean. You have 5 pop on two of them, and they are medium barren rich. Your max pop is 8, mine is 4. Assume you also have hydroponics (otherwise this really gets unfair). To support these world, you need 3 food each (so 6 total), and we will assume you have 10 pop on your HW.
your homeworld needs 5 farmers (to produce 15 food+2 for home hydro) and produces 14 industry from 4 workers, with 2 scientist. Each of your barrens produces 28. Total industry = 70.
I'll have 12 on my HW, and 4 on each barren, and have 3 farmers to produce 15 food + 2 for the Hydroponic, and have an excess 1 food. 7 on mining give 34 for the homeworld, and 22 for the expansion worlds. Total of 78 industry.

If the planets were abundant, then I'd get 15, while you would get 12, but my homeworld would get 34 still, while yours is still at 14.

With autofactories, you gain a slight advantage, until I get pollution processors. With 7 worker on my homeworld, I would get 62, and 34 on the expansions (this assumes an autofact and a pollution processor), while you would get 29, and your expansions would get 50. Totals are 130 (me) versus 129.

Addtionally, it might be more fair to give me an extra population because I was ahead 50% to 30% at the begining. (I could have spent the extra few turns building housing, or doing research into pollution processors).

So it seems that tolerant means that you can expand on rich (or richer) worlds better. Whereas aquatic + industry and rich means you are have a better start, and you are more flexible if you have to colonize a abundant world, or a swampy, arid, or ocean world.

[vmxa1]

Croesus don't hesitate to start a new thread, it does not cost anything.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Whoha
The techs aren't meaningless, play a double blind game where you get IA early, and one where you get IA late, and notice the difference Silk steel is another one that you really notice since it has been a long while since you last got an armor. the resource cap lift techs again are critical.

They are meaningless if you have no easy way to determine their value. If one is better than the other, but I don't know why or how much, it loses it value.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Croesus
I feel that tolerant is good, but too expensive. I prefer to go aquatic because at the begining you get +50% food, +3/4 population (matching the tolerant). With unification, you get 4.5 food per farmer, so you just need 2 at the begining. This means one less farmer, or one more worker.

Compare:
uni tol versus aquatic uni +1 prod (medium HW)
1. 2 scienctist, then you get 3 worker giving 14 industry
versus 4 workers giving (4*(5+1)*(50%) - (pollution) =
36 - (18-3)= 21 (50% more)
2. no scientist, giving you 5 workers or 23 production
versus
6 workers giving (6*(5+1)*1.5 - pollution) = 54 - 27+3 = 30 (30% more).

I am to lazy right now to go through this, but the UniTol with be +P and LHW most likely. It will be in a mineral rich world.

This yields 3 on food for +1 and if 5 on production it yields 30 industry and 9BC. You will not have any pollution you are tolerant.

You will be hard pressed to out produce this race and it will love all of those UR worlds. I would note that your race is a very strong race, but I just don't see any stronger than this one.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by vmxa1


They are meaningless if you have no easy way to determine their value. If one is better than the other, but I don't know why or how much, it loses it value.

I'll start a new thread about this.

[Whoha]

try out a hotseat game, uni-tol-prod vs aqua-uni-prod.

[vmxa1]

Whoa not sure who this was addressed to, but to what end?

[Whoha]

I addressed it to Croesus if he brought up the question about the two, try it out.

You should do the test until you see a major divergence between the two's capabilities, the point at which, with views of both empires, it should be obvious where each one is in a 1 on 1 matchup. This tends to happen fairly quickly(in # of turns, alot longer in normal time since you have to constantly switch between the two)

However, such a matchup is ultimately pointless since most of the time you are looking at an 8 player cluster**** ffa :P

[Iasius]

The only time I will use tolerant is when I'm also lithovore. Just makes for awesome expansion early and combined with research labs on so many worlds you can even be good techwise.

For the comparison of the production you should probably make that uni/tol/+1prod vs. aqua/uni/+2prod/RHW as one should take the race picks difference into account.

[Croesus]

Unification: 6
Tolerant: 10
Production +1: 3
Large Home World: 1
Total 20 points

aquatic: 5
Production +1: 3
Unification: 6
Warlord: 4
Rich Home World : 2

Strategy: Forget larger ships and lots of starbases, or taxing your economy. Use destroyers, and research B-scanners instead of tachyon communications.

I will have to say that Auto factories are easy to get, and they will boost a tolerant much better than what I was proposing, more noticably on a more heavily industrial world.

With +1 prod, tolerant homeworld would match mine at the no scientist level (which I doubt you would do). Also, because I would need pollution processors to keep up, a tolerant would have merculite missiles, and I would need to maybe put one of the extra population on science, especially at the begining to get research facility.

However, I have found that warlord gives me about 150% more command points over what I get from starbases and stuff. This is in my games against a computer and being creative, which means I get tachyon, and other things to increase CP. It also makes invading planets more valuable, because they grant 2 CP.

Therfore warlord save you production in that you won't have to build as many starbases (for CP, and you can use more destroyers), and you won't have to tax as heavy, if at all to support your fleet.

I just did some quick math, but maybe
Tolerant
Unification
Cybernetic
Might be better. It is better on worlds that are abundant or better, because you don't have to worry about food as much, so it puts less strain on your homeworld's food production, and you repair your ships during combat, and after battles. So you don't get the +1 production(which traslates into +1.5 per worker), but since your people cost half as much food, you need about half the farmers(maybe less), which could be put on production, and you don't worry about the extra pollution. Once Auto Factories are researched, the +1 prod is less important. Borg anyone?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Croesus


However, I have found that warlord gives me about 150% more command points over what I get from starbases and stuff. This is in my games against a computer and being creative, which means I get tachyon, and other things to increase CP. It also makes invading planets more valuable, because they grant 2 CP.

I could not follow this point. How are you creative? Did you stick in another race here? NOt a challenge, just trying to understand what I missed.

[P-K]

I just saw ur replay Croesus. Somehow i didnt notice it earlier. So i respond now. I am happy u wrote so much !

Croesus :
"I feel that tolerant is good, but too expensive. I prefer to go aquatic because at the begining you get +50% food, +3/4 population (matching the tolerant). With unification, you get 4.5 food per farmer, so you just need 2 at the begining. This means one less farmer, or one more worker."

"+3/4 population (matching the tolerant). " I dont really understand this. Aqa cannot match tol in pop sizes of planets in most of games. U must be really lucky to get many aqa planets to match tol. This happens rare.

Yes u get +50% more food till soils are developed by tol. Ofcourse i remember aqa will get cloners. In about 5% games tol will also have cloners due to gaia/natives planets.

Of course u got less man on food at start, which can be set for produce. Aqa has 6 man on prod on a rich planet (with +1 or +2 prod) to tol : 5 man on prod on abnt planet. Aqa : 6 or 7 turns per cbase to 7 turns for tol.

It seems to be worse for tol. Less research with same or worse prod doesnt look good. But it is just begging ...

Croesus :
" Suppose later you colonize a few worlds. To help you out, they won't be arid, swampy, terran, or ocean. You have 5 pop on two of them, and they are medium barren rich. Your max pop is 8, mine is 4. Assume you also have hydroponics (otherwise this really gets unfair). To support these world, you need 3 food each (so 6 total), and we will assume you have 10 pop on your HW. "

Assume tol will go for hydro ? Why ? Hydro are a waste of prod and time. Most guys develop bios, which is a right thing to do ! So it is 6 to 10 max pop on medium barren/toxic/desert/radiated.

Croesus :
"With autofactories, you gain a slight advantage, until I get pollution processors. With 7 worker on my homeworld, I would get 62, and 34 on the expansions (this assumes an autofact and a pollution processor), while you would get 29, and your expansions would get 50. Totals are 130 (me) versus 129. "

Pollution proc are sweet but what abou merc missle ? Not having this superb weapon causes problems to kill a cre race and problems in fights.

Croesus :
"So it seems that tolerant means that you can expand on rich (or richer) worlds better. Whereas aquatic + industry and rich means you are have a better start, and you are more flexible if you have to colonize a abundant world, or a swampy, arid, or ocean world."

Yes u have a better start. But starts doesnt win the game. While time goes other planets are more important then your hw.

I saw that ur calculations are for uni tol vs rich prod aqa. What about uni tol prod vs aqa lr 2 prod ?

[P-K]

Originally posted by Croesus
Tolerant
Unification
Cybernetic
Might be better. It is better on worlds that are abundant or better, because you don't have to worry about food as much, so it puts less strain on your homeworld's food production, and you repair your ships during combat, and after battles. So you don't get the +1 production(which traslates into +1.5 per worker), but since your people cost half as much food, you need about half the farmers(maybe less), which could be put on production, and you don't worry about the extra pollution. Once Auto Factories are researched, the +1 prod is less important. Borg anyone?

Cybernetic race gives u 25 % pop on food compared to 33 % of normal rate. Also cybernetic acts like -1 prod (1.5 for uni) and without 1 prod bonus (no free points left for tol race) it is really slow and low productive. Only ships are awesome.

+1 prod is awesome for tol and other races. It is very important for all game time. Gives faster start and more pop.

PK

[Croesus]

vmxa1-

Yes I stuck in another race for reference, because I usually have a problem with Command Points. I am using a Creative race as a comparison, since I believe that creative races have more command points as any other non-warlord race, if they have the same amount of starbases and battlestations. Creative races will get the Tachyon Communications, and stuff. Non-creative have a choice. What I was trying to say was picking warlord can help you out because you can get tons of Command Points by your colonies instead of Starbases, thereby either chosing battle scanners or tachyon scanners (not likely this one) instead of tachyon communications, and that warlord is useful even if you have all the CP increasing tech.

I was just playing a game with a unif-cyb-tol race and I was 10 points over the CP. I had about 5 colonies, and 5 starbases. It was about turn 50. I had 2 battleships,and 2 cruiser, 2 destroyers. In order to support a fleet, I had to put the tax rate to 20-30. If I had warlord, I wouldn't have need a tax rate to support a fleet. I think that the race I proposed (aqua, +p, unif, war) could nearly produce as the tolerant one on most planets, except that it could support a larger fleet. From what I have been able to see, a race with warlord would need to produce only 70% of the production of a tolerant race, until the fleets get really big, such as to the point of the tol-unif race using 50% of its industry to support a fleet. About how many colonies would the race have at this point?

Therfore I think that warlord might be a better pick at the begining. However, I'd rather test it. Picking warlord does mean you chose techs differently.

Speaking of chosing techs, which early techs do you chose for the unif, tol, +p, LHW? Do you take autofactories or heavy armor? Tachyon communications or battle scanner? Research lab(I would take this, then use missiles for a while) or computers? Soil enrichment, or Cloning center?

P-K
First, explaining what wasn't clear in my post. I apologize for that. What I meant was +3/4 max pop on your homeworld. For ocean worlds (we can assume there are about 4-5 per galaxy) aquatic gets double what a tolerant would.

In general, a tolerant race will have more max population.

Playing the Cybernetic Tol, I decided to get hydroponics instead of biospheres. What this meant was any planet that could only support 5 pop (like a small ultrarich toxic) would need just a hydroponic farm, which meant less demand for planets that can grow food, meaning I could colonize all the rich worlds, and still have people on my homeworld working or researching.

The first thing I researched was hydroponic farms. Seeing that my homeworld had a demand of only 4 food, after getting farms I only had one farmer instead of 3 (which is what a unif with 8 pop on a terran would need without a hydroponic farm). Those two 'extra ' were put on production, and generated 9 industry, which fed my mineral munching borg, and gave me 5 more. Doing some quick math I see that that if both had one scientist, then the cybers are 1 production behind. If there are no scientist, then they are 3 behind.

On other worlds the cyber race is still behind, except if you take into account the food that other worlds will eat. A cyber race would have a more consistent production, as the difference in production of the farming worlds and the industrial worlds will be smaller.

Before we go farther I have a few questions. What is the general strategy of the unif-tol-+p race? From what I can tell when playing such a race, is that you quickly move your people off the homeworld onto rich or ultrarich places and industrialize, using the homeworld to provide food. After a few planets you start to build ships with nukes.

My question is: What techs are you planning on getting (we can't assume that all races would want the same techs)? How many ships before you attack, and about what turn? How many colonies will you have when you start to attack, and how many Starbases or command points? If you are over, how much do you plan on taxing?

After we get these answered, or atleast approximated, I can better understand what is happening with this race.

[vmxa1]

Croesus just for the record, I consider Cyber to be a total waste in nearly all circumstances. Warlord is also not worth having unless you intend to have a special race to blitz such as a Tele.

IOW I dislike either trait, except for special cases. I do not like eating production. Command Points are best increased by having more planets and offset with better production and or taxes.

[bakalov]

Cyb is good for creating one of the worst races possible :-)

BTW, vmxa, what about your new avatar pic? Are you playing Might and Magic? I started a thread about it in the other games forum ...

[Whoha]

have you guys tried out Cybernetic? You always produce more industry then food so shifting half your farmers to industry tends to be profitable to you.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Whoha
have you guys tried out Cybernetic? You always produce more industry then food so shifting half your farmers to industry tends to be profitable to you.

Cyber cost what, 4 picks and +P cost 3 picks. I could get +P and LHW for the cost of Cyber.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by bakalov

BTW, vmxa, what about your new avatar pic? Are you playing Might and Magic? I started a thread about it in the other games forum ...

I try to get in some MM6/7/8 about once every year. So about about 4 months or so I play one of these. It some times works out that I may play say MM6 back to back when I want to try out some thing.

Like I played a game and someone posted a specail game such as a peasant game and I played that. Or some other special team that was created.

Although with the loss of the old 3DO site, that is not going to happen now.

BTW that peasant game was the hardest one I can remember playing.

[bakalov]

Originally posted by Whoha
have you guys tried out Cybernetic? You always produce more industry then food so shifting half your farmers to industry tends to be profitable to you.

Unless if you use - prod and poor homeworld :-)

[Whoha]

even then late game you still do, ever get the junk race going? its not actually so bad later on.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by vmxa1


Cyber cost what, 4 picks and +P cost 3 picks. I could get +P and LHW for the cost of Cyber.

but not also the ship repair, which is very spiffy. Also you don't get the less need for food for colonization.