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Old October 20, 2001, 00:20   #1
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Bases: Close Together Or Far Apart?
I've been playing for almost two years now. Early I placed my bases far apart but now I notice that I have started packing them in closer together. So much so that I use the base grid thing a lot. Maybe becuase I'm playing Yang more often these days, but I really like having a lot of territory. I also find myself wanting to control vital chock points and such. So what do you think..

What have you guys found is the best way to place your bases. Vel, if you can tear yourself away from the OT for a few minutes, give me your two cents.
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Old October 20, 2001, 01:33   #2
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I've been thinking about this lately, too. I started out with a 3-space layout and I think it works well. I imagine the math FOP people will say that's the only way to go. But I've had good success with a 4-space layout as well, and in some ways I think it's better.

You claim more territory with fewer bases.
It takes longer to start racking up bureaucracy drones.
You have more flexibility in assigning workers and crawlers, since you're not so crowded.
Eco-damage can be spread out more, so two bases don't have to calculate the same borehole, for example.
If you have a high pop base, and you're going for golden age, you have to work at least half your people. If you don't have enough squares in your base radius, you may not be able to. (I know, I know, you'll just have to "settle" for specialists, but still...)
In the event of nuclear attack, or asteroid strike (ouch!), you'll lose less.
It looks cooler!

I know the 3(and 2)-spacers have most of the advantages, especially early on, but I think spreading out more can work as well.

This has been a public service announcement from vitamin j and your friendly neighborhood GREENS!
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Old October 20, 2001, 02:17   #3
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I used to be a rigid 3 spaces no more, no less, kind of guy, but lately I've loosened up a bit. If you intend to pop boom to larger sized bases I would recommend the looser approach, meaning sometimes four squares, but most often 3 on a diagnol if you can work them in.

The rigid three square method works just fine up until you boom past 7. I've found the problem isn't with finding nutrients to support the base, although this has happend, but with there being enough square to take minerals from. Once you've put down a tree farm and a hybrid you can really start pulling in some minerals, but the problem arises that there are no squares left to pull minerals from.

I by no means think that using specialists is any form of "settling" (I can't tell if Vitamin J was joking). I just find that having a healthy amount of minerals coming in really helps put up some of those more expensive projects and facilities -- off hand namely Hybrid Forests and Nanohospitals -- and some of the more expensive unit combinations -- super clean plasma fusion terraformers comes to mind.

Anyhow, not to say minerals are more important than energy. I just find a balance between the two an optimal strategy.
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Old October 20, 2001, 06:04   #4
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I tend to go close together, I don't know 3 squares, but somewhere between 2 and 5. if I think I'm just cruising along by my lonesome. the problem comes when yer next to ppl, and ur not a warmonger, u need some territory to do yer thang w/. sometimes I'll go for huge tracts of land, and eventually backfill, or just race to choke points or valuable resource spots. it don't matter how minorly efficient u r, if ur opponent got the prime resource spots. course u could always go real close together and buildup a quick army to take him out. if u hate the idea of spreading out.
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Old October 20, 2001, 07:47   #5
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I stuff in as many bases as I can, as close as I can.

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Old October 20, 2001, 18:54   #6
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I think it depends on whether your expansion strategy is along ICS or perfectionist lines. 2-5 squares are all justifiable, as long as your long-term strategy is consistent with the method of expansion. 2 is often appropriate for ICS'ers, and 5 for perfectionist-aholilcs. From a practical viewpoint I prefer having at least one base 3 squares away for ease of reinforcement, but I don't like having all bases 3 apart for reasons mentioned in posts above. If 2 bases are 3 squares apart directly on the x-axis the overlap is only two squares, and placing another base 4 squares away on the y-axis (best is 3 directly vertically, one diagonally) with its own base(s) 3 squares away is a nice compromise that can be aimed for.
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Old October 20, 2001, 18:58   #7
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I used to play a perfectionist base approach (no overlapping squares) when I first started, but it took so long to get rid of the hab limits that I realized it just wasn't necessary. Next I tried ICS-ing ala David Byron's Borg strategy, which worked fine. Then I figured out the value of specialists, and worked up my hollow stategy, where you line up bases on a coastline every other or every third square, just enough for them to get 10 workable squares. Then I used the interior land for a crawler park. This worked very well, and I still use it when I am placed on a continent with the right shape and size.

Lately I have been experimenting with maximizing my land production (as has Blake who has posted a lot of worthwhile material here). My latest game I have used a base every two squares on the diagonal spacing. On the corners (NSEW) of each base go boreholes, and on the other sides of the base condensor / farms. Each interior base ends up with 2 boreholes (total 14 mins w/recycling tanks), and 5 condensor / farms for a total 23 nuts, enough for 12 population. I crawl the nut squares, so that I end up with 10 specialists. Energy production isn't bad, with each base producing 14 raw energy, and 30 energy from Librarian era specialists. The above settings assume no specials and 0 economy rating, which allows me to run a perpetual pop boom if I like. With only two workers per base I can build a lot of bases without having to worry about drones or drone control facilities. With the HGP and VW I don't have to do anything at all about drones in fact.

By the mid to late game these small bases really kick out the production. With soil enrichers my nut production climbs to 33, which is enough to support a size of 16, or 5 more specialists. that makes a total of 15 specialists (w/engineers a total of 30 labs and 45 econ each base not including the 14 raw energy). With satellites the production is huge. Max base size doubles to 33, and another 33 raw energy and 33 raw minerals come into play.

The main advantage of close spacing is Vel's turn advantage paradigm. It is so much quicker to get bases into production if they are close together. Packing bases and maximizing production also allows you to stay competitive even if you don't have much terrain to call your own, and of course you are in a much better position to defend yourself if you are attacked, as you will have a lot more build queues and units defending a smaller area. Finally you can terraform your area more quickly as each former needs to build fewer roads, remove less fungus etc., which means that your bases get into production more quickly, and formers from finished bases move out to the frontier and keep the expansion momentum rolling.
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Old October 20, 2001, 22:01   #8
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in reference to the guy putting bases 2 apart. wut do u about early territory? do u play on maps where ur usually the solo guy on a continent? don't ppl encrooach on all your valuable resources. u can surely build lotsa bses early, but its not endless.

I think if I wnted to do that, I might backfill, cuz in lotsa games I'm fighting to gain as much territory, and therefore access to good resources as possible. but again, if u play solo on ur own continent in 80% of ur games, of if at most ther'es one other faction, then this isn't as big of a deal.

also how high do u go? do u go higher than most ppl cuz of ur packing? how bad are b. drones up there? I don't know formula, but over 30 I think it might get a lil wicked.
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Old October 21, 2001, 00:16   #9
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AS the hive i place bases far, FAR apart when im playing on large maps, and around middle-late game i "fill in the gaps"

small maps are a big problem for my style of play
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Old October 21, 2001, 03:20   #10
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Quote:
Originally posted by yavoon
in reference to the guy putting bases 2 apart. wut do u about early territory? do u play on maps where ur usually the solo guy on a continent? don't ppl encrooach on all your valuable resources. u can surely build lotsa bses early, but its not endless.

I think if I wnted to do that, I might backfill, cuz in lotsa games I'm fighting to gain as much territory, and therefore access to good resources as possible. but again, if u play solo on ur own continent in 80% of ur games, of if at most ther'es one other faction, then this isn't as big of a deal.

also how high do u go? do u go higher than most ppl cuz of ur packing? how bad are b. drones up there? I don't know formula, but over 30 I think it might get a lil wicked.
The only time it feels crowded is in the early game where I am crawling forests for minerals. Even so there is usually plenty of room on the periphery to plant forests for my crawlers, and once I have the WP and the HGP I can use those roads to build new bases. I usually wait until restrictions are lifted to really push my expansion beyond the bureacracy limit, when my base areas have sufficient productivity to relinquish their sprawled crawlers, which frees that area for expansion.

I play huge maps, so there is almost always plenty of room. I prefer a medium sized continent, as there is less chance of running into anyone else based there, and I can always raise land if I run out of room. I do backfill sometimes when I space 3 on the diagonal, then use those empty squares that that pattern leaves to place new bases. I use that one often when playing Lal.

As for drones, they really aren't too much of a problem. With only two workers I only need so much drone control in every base, and the HGP and VW seem to take care of most of my troubles fairly easily. Since I have 10+ specialists with which to snuff out the red guys it really isn't much of an issue, and by taking care of business on the local level I never have to waste a joule on psych. I don't like captured bases, and in most cases will turn the population into specialists, sell off the improvements and starve / build colony pods until the base is gone.

For defense this placement is really good. It is so jam-packed with bases and crawlers that even if I have neglected my defenses an AI attacker is really unlikely to make much headway. Plus every base is in reach of three others w/ infantry in one turn, and a lot more bases with probes and speeders. I use probes in the early game for defense, and just buy enemy attackers, which allows me to build the same stuff without deviating from my builder tech focus. By the time I get fusion and aircraft of course, no one can approach my area, as my copters patrol the approaches and my fighters take care of any intruders from the sky.

In my current game I have about 30 bases, and I'm adding about two a turn. I'm busy blowing away a massive Santiago who is on my continent (Huge Map of the Planet btw), so one of those is usually a captured base, and another I am building. I am pre-terraforming the new bases that I am building, which shows you how many superformers I have.
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Old October 21, 2001, 03:44   #11
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oh u play on huge maps. thats all u needed to say holmes. not much fighting over territory on those things. but since u did write all that, u stay at 6, oh wait huge map so...12? bases until u get the tree farm tech? holy nutcrap. thats a longass time, I play on standard map, and I blow right by 12 before I even get gene splicing. well maybe thats not fair, I atleast goto 12, which is past standard beaurocracy limit.
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Old October 21, 2001, 04:44   #12
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I tried some new ideas in my most recent game - I haven't quite finished playing the game, but I expect to win by transcendance.

I ICSed [averaging 4 tiles from base to base] over my landmass. This is my usual expansion technique. Then after I had finished ICSing, I abandoned my interior bases by setting them on infinite rushed CP production with all workers converted to specialists. The resulting CPs went to pop-boom the smallest bases along the coastline [I didn't violate base size restrictions]. The end result was a tranposition from a straight ICS strategy into Sikander's 'hollow' strategy. As soon as the interior bases were cleared out, the formers went to work raising land for the interior energy park. If I had it to do over I would put less effort into building up those interior bases, but I did not come up with the idea to abandon them until many years into the game.

I also used the Great Wall defense, but this time instead of trying to wall off the entire landmass, I just put a wall of mindworms around the minimal land area of the energy park. Isn't it amazing how needljests, choppers, missiles and locusts can't get enough altitude to fly over those mindworm boils? I defended the exterior portions of the island with tactical aircraft, SAM rovers and marines.

I also made use of airbases for the first time. I put in an airbase every 3rd tile around the perimeter of the energy park and parked a shard tactical chooper in each airbase on sentry duty.

The energy park has never been touched in this game. Wasted my time putting res-3 armor on the crawlers.

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Old October 21, 2001, 05:49   #13
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I use a spacing wherby bases are 2 or 3 tiles apart, but never within the production radius of another base, often I use a base placment pattern as to maximise the density of boreholes, the simplist is thinking of the map as a chess board, only founding bases on the 'black' tiles. Then you have two choices of orientation for the boreholes on the 'white' tiles. With base grid on it is very easy to see where new bases should be founded to continue the black/white pattern.

Altough if territory is extremely limited I dont hesitate to pack in bases really close, because close packing is by far the best for military.
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Old October 22, 2001, 00:51   #14
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I tend to pack them in as much as possible. I used to stay with a 4 square between rule, but found a good many squares going unused, forcing me to divert crawlers from a "Crawler Wall" defense just to be able to farm them.

You have more squares than you do workers until hab domes, anyhow... not to mention, you don't get the benefits those wonderful specialists bring. I had problems winning MP games because I didn't use the 2 square rule. After I adopted that, I tend to win more than I lose.

The blasted Hab Domes don't come until too late. By then, Hydro Labs take care of the problem when you use them in connection with Tree Farms and Hybrid TF's. Between those and condensors, there really isn't any reason to have more than 2 squares between bases, imho.

More cities, more drones, so what? If you play your game right, you get the VW or HGP and use specialists you get from all those worked spaces being used up... what drone problem? Even if you do have problems... there is more than one way to take care of that.

Test it for yourself in some MP's and compare it with other Mp's. You will find Vel's strat of Doctrineefense works better than most strats will.

Just my three cents (inflation. )
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Old October 22, 2001, 15:06   #15
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One key factor no one has mentioned is distance from HQ. I want my HQ to be as big as possible (especially The Hive) so it gets a little breathing room. It is also the first base to get recycling tanks, tree and hybrid forests and gets the most intensive terraforming for nutrients. The first ring of bases will be tightly packed, because they are founded early when I am pushing for turn advantage and because of ICS advantages. By the second or third ring of bases, they are spaced futher apart because I am being more perfectionistic about choosing base sites and less interested in base sites that need lots of fungus clearing, and I probably have the PTS and need to have a +2 nutrient square right off the bat. I am fussier about the location of my 20th base than my 2nd because each new base brings B-drones and loses much of its early energy production to inefficiency. Remember that energy falls off with distance from HQ, so a base in Uranium Flats 30 tiles from your HQ nets you less energy than a base in the Great Dunes 10 tiles from your HQ.

Other key factors are faction (non-pop-booming factions mandate closer spacing, whereas PK bases need elbow room), and map size (you can spread out more easily on a Huge map).
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Old October 23, 2001, 13:03   #16
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I like to follow the three hex rule, but I will violate this flagrantly if I can place a colony near one or two Unity pods. In the early game getting an all-good pod pop is huge, especially if it finishes an expensive facility like a RT, NN, crèche, or research hospital, or you get a terrain special out of the deal. The only bad pop pops that I can recall getting is earthquake (which is horrible if you are in a special terrain like jungle or uranium flats, since that terrain is destroyed) or teleport unit (my terraformer is now 20 tiles away - ack!). I've also noticed that early pop Unity rovers tend independent, which is also great.

As usual, DD has a great point on non-pop booming factions needing bases closer together. I'll add that little gem to my Morgan strategy book!

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Old October 25, 2001, 21:47   #17
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I must be one of the only players around who follow no preconceived plan whatsoever.

I simply look over the territory for a good place to put a base and put it there. Preferably near some monolith or resource square.
Especially in early game it is important that the base have access to some high nutrient squares or it will stall very early.

Additionally strategic considerations - such as blocking off some access points count and I often leave gaps on places that will later be suited for crawler use.

Another factor is map size - on small ,aps lands are a precious commodity on large ones there is usually plenty. Likewise buildup will often be based on having very strongly defended bases at key access routes into my territory and so will often go a long way to get started on it and then fill in gaps later.

On small maps it is often vital to get there before your opponent so I will try to manuever to grab the land I want.

While I do see the point in the various schemes - I find the most workable being to fit ones planning to the territory rather than trying to make the territory fit into ones plan.

Maybe not great for writing a guideline but absolutely workable. After all there are no extra points for artistic value - it is just a matter of get big, strong and rich quick.
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Old October 25, 2001, 22:53   #18
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Unfortunately, I like my bases spread about 4 or 5 squares apart.

This is really kind of a nasty habit, since in the early game, close bases can have an advantage.

But I usually try for maximum coverage of the best tiles per each base.
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Old October 27, 2001, 21:41   #19
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I space them four tiles apart. I allow some overlap, some empty space. Typically, I try to position major cities near resource clusters. (This varies from region to region; if I'm in the jungle, I tend to pack them closer together, and vice versa in drier areas.)
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Old October 29, 2001, 12:19   #20
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In regards to both terraforming and base placement, I look at each game as a unique tapestry to be woven, and circumstances can greatly differ. Work with the landscape, anticipating and flowing with needs.

Most often I'll build one condensor and one borehole per base, on the appropriate specials if available, and forest the rest. Before Tree Farms, usually I'll farm/solar rainy/rolling squares around the condensor. After Tree Farm and Sky Hydroponics construction, I'll put in a second borehole per base. I just about never mine rocky; it either gets bored or leveled.

In general, though, I'm a devoted Weather Paradigm fan. Note that WP can give you a real early game boost, as condensors in a square ignore the 2-nutrient restriction, and you can put off Gene Splicing for a good while if there are more pressing needs.

I space bases usually four squares with a little bit of overlap, and often three squares on the N-S or E-W diamond axis. I aim for every base to have twelve to fourteen available squares to work, to level them off at the Hab Complex limit. (and I adjust for Morgan and Lal.)

And I build HORDES of formers. I like to use Police State until my available land is filled, and with the support I have each base crank out three or four formers. I re-home formers as new bases are built. By the time I switch to Democracy, most of my bases are at size 3-6 and can absorb the support costs for 2-3 formers.

(I don't use crawlers or pop-booming unless playing something like speed transcend or OCC. I also don't play multiplayer - can't find the hours for a live game, and am often away from my computer for days at a time -- bad for PBEM.)
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Old October 30, 2001, 04:10   #21
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Aesthetics and Ying-Yang
Before I would pack my bases together but when my capitol was hit w/a PB, I said screw that. Wiped out 5 bases, each having 2 SP in them. Now, I plop my bases where ever I see valuable resources. I also establish bases to stop other factions from horning into my territory.

Nothing fancy, just plop 'em where I think they'll be the most effective.
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Old October 30, 2001, 19:19   #22
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I put bases where I have the most use of them. Near bonus resources, strategically important or just need another base close by the last.

If I plan to use all squares for each base (for example less than 14-17 bases in a Huge Map) then I put them far away from eachother. If I don't care then 1-2 square apart.

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Old November 6, 2001, 20:42   #23
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AI helps with base locations, but...
...do they do a good job? When you get a new pod, sometimes it points somewhere and says, to quote Brigham Young, "this is the place!" As a non-expert player I must ask...are those usually good places to plop your city?
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Old November 7, 2001, 10:04   #24
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:: Sorry guy....I *just* saw this thread! Now, it's a question of tearing myself away from Civ3 long enough to log on and post!

Bases: Generally 3 apart, but I'm not a diehard stickler about it. If there's a juicy resource I just gotta get to, and (esp. early game, before I can terraform land up/down), sometimes the overall SHAPE of the continent simply dictates closer or further apart spacing.

One thing though, it DOES alter your defense scheme a bit, so if I've got my bases 3-apart, 'cept for these few over here, I'll station my rover prototypes in that "corner" of the empire to facilitate easier defense.

(thus, when I think of it, it would be entirely possible for someone to survey the map and get a general sense of where my units are....rovers are probably here, cos the bases are a bit further apart....that sorta thing)....hmmm...might have to switch things up a bit, just to keep folks guessing....

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Old November 7, 2001, 22:57   #25
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I'm little bit confused about the "square-apart" thing. Does 3-square-apart means that there are 3 squares between bases or 2 squares between bases?
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Old November 8, 2001, 01:29   #26
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knowhow: 2 squares between bases, so an infantry unit on a road can move from base to base each turn. I call it a 3-space layout 'cause of that: unit in base goes 1,2,3 it's in the next base. There's a cool thread that Vel started called Doctrine: Defense, I think, that goes into that stuff a little more.
I personally like a 4-space layout better myself (3 squares between bases), but in the MP games I'm in, I'm sticking mostly to the 3-space!
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Old November 8, 2001, 07:43   #27
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Welll...
some of you know my answer...: it depends!

I admit I have never been a die-hard ICSer. It's not that I disagree with the strategy, it's that I hardly find the "time" (in the chess sense, how do you say it in english, "tempo"?) to strictly put it in practice.
I will definitely build the most bases I see fit, but often I let me limit by constraints others tend to ignore or overcome more easily.

For instance, in the early game, if I have a flatmoist and a rollingmoist tiles available in an eligible spot, I have to really make violence to myself to found the base on the rolling tile, laeving only the flat to be worked... I have to repeat myself "be confident, in 5-8 turns you'll have a forest there", but that doesn't come to me by "instinct".

For sure, I will not leave gaps if not unavoidable.
Bases every 4th tile (3 in-between) are more of a rarity to me.
And I have no problems to put bases 2 tiles apart (i.e. minimum distance), *especially* in the early game, and then again if I can have a surge of colonists produced while booming (= constant population - before I bother to spend buying habcomplexes) which will be used to pack the zones initially left less crowded (and to forceboom bases beyond hablimits).


But the main comment I wanted to add here, is that in the early game *fungus* and *rock* will heavily shape the disposition of your bases.
They would require 6-8 "formerturns" to be cleared, and that often is NOT justified/affordable considering the actual timing/opportunity of your first expansion.
So, strictly sticking to a given pattern is very "theoretical" and hard to go for in the first expansion.
Barring that you accept to delay it to stick to the pattern, which negates the founding concept of it (in terms of resources advantage, not in terms of territory and mobiled defense, I mean)

Aside:
indeed, there are many ICSers who are much more ICSers than me, so I might be wrong... but in the end,
once in a given continent *every single tile* is exploited either by a worker or by a crawler, having tight-packed grid bases, or "just" covering the territory, would NOT make all that difference, you'd be squeezing more or less the same, because after all the pool of resources you draw from to support your citizens/specialists would be the same, and if you can afford to support 12 citizens in two bases you can have them in a single base too getting the same number of workers and specialists, so...
The benefit of ICS, is during the transition to the stable situation. In the beginning (*transition* to a distant-to-come mature development and end of expansion) you are not constrained by space and a single base even willing can't use more than a few tiles around it, and thus the more bases you get the more resources you net, and the closer you pack them the sooner they begin producing and the shorter you support the colonists.

If you have to impose delays on your ICS expansion because you must wait for a fungal or rocky tile to be cleared to respect your rigid positioning pattern, you are contraddicting the purpose that is moving you.... IMHO
___
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Old November 9, 2001, 10:25   #28
Arnie1066
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I'm a bit of a war monger in mid game but in the early stages i try to get a trade aliance with everyone, so i place my bases quite far apart (nr resource or key points). that way by the time mid game gomes round and i'm asked to asist in the eradication of someone i can attack from multipule sides. Especially if i play an Aqautic faction.
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Old November 9, 2001, 10:49   #29
T-hawk
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Quote:
Originally posted by MariOne
if you can afford to support 12 citizens in two bases you can have them in a single base too getting the same number of workers and specialists, so...
That's not always true, because of factors that operate on a per-base basis. Most notably Orbital resource providers, the happiness SPs (Human Genome, Longevity Vaccine), and also +Energy per base from high Economy ratings and being Planetary Governor. In those cases, 12 citizens in two bases will receive more benefit than those 12 citizens in a single base -- plus the latter had to build a Hab Complex and maintain it at 3 credits per turn.

Quote:
The benefit of ICS, is during the transition to the stable situation. In the beginning (*transition* to a distant-to-come mature development and end of expansion) you are not constrained by space and a single base even willing can't use more than a few tiles around it, and thus the more bases you get the more resources you net, and the closer you pack them the sooner they begin producing and the shorter you support the colonists.
ICS is not just a more effective transition; it's also a superior stable state. ICS gives you amazing bang for the buck on Orbital improvements.
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Old November 9, 2001, 18:39   #30
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Hmmm... T-Hawk, I said I was no expert in ICS "Practice", but I can still pretty much grab the concepts...

I see your points, and I don't see them yet as making all that difference *once in a stable state*.

At that stage, drones should not be a big issue for you. So I don't figure that having an extra talent fromg HGP in an half-sized base is %lly significant. Maybe I'm wrong... of course having to allocate an extra 10% in psych is a sizeable effect.... Or having to use an empath instead of an engineer... But having almost all specialists in each base this would not happen.

+energy x Base? Is that 1 or 2 more RAW energy you'd get for your second base, compared to the potential output there? That should be really negligible, or you're not doing very well ;^)

About the Hab Complex
- I was just givig those numbers as pretext, as example.
More likely also an ICS Base will have to use a Hab Complex to develop its full potential
- I always lived under the impression that a Habcomplex costed 2 to maintain and not 3...?
- you don't need to build Hab facilites to get pas hab limits (I was indeed objecting it when I first discovered it, but a thread here in Apolyton with very experienced and authoritative players like Misotu and JAM convinced me that I was wrong and that it's legal!)
- more, you don't need to KEEP Hab facilities once you reached your stable state population
___
Last but not least, Orbital bang for the bucks.
With tight ICS each base gets 3 tiles to live on (be it with workers or crawlers is not relevant to the purpose of this discussion, but let's make'em crawlers), plus the basetile itself.
You get 3 food from the basetile. You must use one of the 3 tiles for a BoreHole. You are left with 2 tiles for Farm-Condensers (4 food) to be crawled. With those 11 food and 11 Hydroponics you can maintain 11 citizens, 10 of them will be specialists (imagining to use crawlers).
Imagine to renounce to the second base, and use its 4 tiles for the first one.
You cannot have more boreholes, you'll work two with one base instead of one per base with two bases.
You'll have a food tile in place of the second basetile: 5 x 4 = 20 food, +3 in the basetile. This makes 23 foods = 23 citizens (with 23 Hydroponics), 21 of them specialists.

So, with an 8-tile room you can maintain 2 11-sized bases equal to 22 citizens/20 specialists, or one 23-sized base equal to 23citizens/21 specialists.
You are getting MORE thanks to orbitals with 1 base than with two bases, living off the same number of land tiles.

I left off Enrichers, if you factor them in, a Farm-Enricher-Condenser tile yelds 6 foods instead of 4.

This makes 2x15=30citizens/28 specialists, compared with 33citizens/31specialists, and the convenience of the single base over the two half-bases becomes bigger.
This mainly comes from the fact that you can get more food from an improved tile than from a basetile, and with satellites 1 food from land means 1 citizen.

You also will have to spend the HALF for facilities *building* AND *maintenance* while reaping the same benefits anyway.
Not considering the much lower bureaucracy, which is tho irrelevant with 1-2 workers per base (on the BHs).

The ONLY downside of having 1 base in place of 2 *at stable state* is evident: you need to build much more Hydroponics!
12 more not using Enrichers, 18 more if using them!!!
And the same with Miing and Energy satellites.

So, even when you BEGIN to build your Orbitals, I admit that you have again an impressive advantage with many small bases, as more citizens would activate each satellite at the beginning. But this is once more a TRANSITIONAL advantage surge due to the deployment of the new orbital tech.
At *Orbital Stable State* tho, the above analysis holds.

____

Of course this is all just theory, but this theory tells me that ICS is even a slightly *inferior* _stable_state_ with regard to resources and economy, the only interrogative being if this advantage and the big spare on facilities may justify the bigger investment on satellites.
The huge advantage of ICS still seems to me lying in the transitional nature of it.
The point is not the packing, but getting the most bases the fastest possible, the packing is just the consequence of it.
But in that light, getting a base down in an avaiable spot has the absolute precedence over geometry: you can't wait for fungus or rocky tiles to be cleared, you must use your colonists asap where possible.

____

The advantage of ICS as a stable state is totally *logistics*, and this is a completely different issue...
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