simple teraforming question

Snowflake · May 21, 2003, 13:37

Terrain rainy, rocky, river
is that 0 2 1? Why the computer gives me 0 1 1? what improvement can you do? Mine? Which will give you 0 2 1 pre tech?

Flare · May 21, 2003, 15:17

Road & mine it to get 0-4-1. If you do not have the required tech, the mineral limit will only be 2. also Free Market will add 1 energy. So will the Merchant Exchange.

Snowflake · May 21, 2003, 16:07

Can you find a table or something similar anywhere that lists the effect of all improvements on all kinds of terrain? I'm still puzzled why rainy, rocky and river only gives you 1 mineral pre terraforming. I'm really new (only finished a couple of games each on the citizen and specialist level) so I'm still testing out different things in the first 20 or 30 years.

BustaMike · May 21, 2003, 17:07

Flatten the square and make it rainy, rolling, river. Now you have a nice square for a farm + solar. Takes a little more time, but it's great for growth and energy.

BustaMike · May 21, 2003, 17:08

Oh, and it's only 1 mineral because all rocky and rolling squares give 1 mineral w/o any terraforming.

Lazerus · May 21, 2003, 17:21

yep 0-1-1 says so in the manual

wouldn't recommend flattening it, rocky terrain is useful for sticking a mine on it and then crawling the 4 minerals, im sure theres some other flat part of the river that can be used for nutrients if you need them.

Snowflake · May 21, 2003, 17:36

Ok. Now if I'm going to build a mine I guess I should build a road first to get the full benefit. However the river makes it slower to build the road. Plus the road doesn't give you any more benefit in movement because you already have a river. So does that mean this square is not a first choice for teraforming in the earlies game?

Flubber · May 21, 2003, 17:45

Rivers are generally choice squares for early terraforming. I will forest all my (non-rocky)moist and arid squares on rivers to get 1-2-2 early on and then move to mines and farms and condensors later. To me, mines and farm/condensor combinations are designed for using crawlers.

Oh and a comment on roading a river square- While you can move 3 squares along the river without a road, this is little help if trying to cross the river ( unless the river tile leads to another river tile in all directions). So many river squares do gain some mobility benefit from having a road on them. generally I try to plan my roads to cross my mined rocky squares to gain both mobility and resource benefits

BustaMike · May 21, 2003, 17:46

Lazerus, I would recommend flattening it because you can potentially get waaaaay more out of the square. A mine and road will get you 0-4-1 (or 0-2-1 with restrictions), whereas just flattening it will get you 2-1-1 and probably more like 4-1-5 or better with farms/solar etc. depending on restrictions.

It's also really easy to just crawler minerals out of mine squares elsewhere. I prefer to build mines on arid or moist rocky squares and use the rainy ones for better things.

Flubber · May 21, 2003, 18:00

While I can agree with what Bustamike is saying, I find I rarely flatten squares. Perhaps I like crawled resources too much but my terraforming generally has some worked boreholes, forests with an occasional farmed/solar. Mines and farmed/condensors are crawled and the idea is that a lot of the citizens are specialists for the benefits and easy drone control

Early game, I find I don't want to waste my formers doing anything other than improvements from which I benefit quickly. Later, I would be putting boreholes anywhere they fit.

Generally, I find that I value a rainy square less once I get out of the early game. With the ease of pop-booming and the hab limits, it seems that I very quickly have more nutrients than bases can use.

CEO Aaron · May 21, 2003, 19:36

Flubber is utterly correct. Using advanced terraforming techniques, you'll be using crawlers to ferry in nutrients from condenser farms, and building boreholes as tightly as you can pack them, with forests everywhere in between. This scheme makes (frequently unpredictable) rainfall a non-factor in the growth of your empire.

In my early days of playing, I would constantly get irritated when the AI factions would alter rainfall patterns, turning my verdant valleys into arid wastelands, now I just systematically extort planet for the resources I need.

gwillybj · May 21, 2003, 20:52

Remember the number of turns required for road-building is variable, depending on underlying terrain and previous improvement. So, whatever else you intend to do in a square, if you want a road in it, do that first. Otherwise, your Former will require one extra turn to cut the road through the other improvement(s).
I stopped using the hotkeys for Farm+Solar+Road {Ctrl+Shift+S} and Farm+Mine+Road {Ctrl+Shift+M} a long time ago when I noticed the difference. Using those hotkeys makes the Former perform the actions in the order shown: Farm first, Mine or Solar next, Road last.
Road last = extra turn.

Adalbertus · May 21, 2003, 21:03

I tend to stick to a very rigid terraforming pattern (resulting in a dense borehole packing), and then it seems most useful to me to flatten rocky terrain of any sort, except where I build boreholes. I'll build condensors and farms to get +4 nutrients (eventually +6) and crawl them. The freed workforce becomes specialists. And also in the mid-late game when I have time to create an energy/nuts/mine park, I've enough former time to make boreholes when I need mins. Anyway, usually I get two boreholes/base which seems to be enough minerals for most purposes. Most things per square you get with boreholes, and for crawled squares I need to max out one resource.

Snowflake · May 21, 2003, 23:30

Thanks for all the replies! Looks like the options are: Flatten, farm and solar; Road and Mine; Forest. Hmmm... Sounds to me these are all the options there are for the early game.

But thanks for all the valuable insights!

Again anybody knows a chart or something that lists the outcome of terrain plus improvements?

Adalbertus · May 22, 2003, 03:15

I've compiled (=tested) a list for nutrients only, but including nutrient specials, the Monsoon Jungle and their combination. You can find this in the FAQ thread.
In the game manual, you can find how to calculate the productivity, but in the case of Soil Enricher and Condensors it's not correct.

For the early game, you should keep in mind that a special resource lifts the specific limitation for the given resource in that tile. In the early game, you don't get a benefit of Road-Mine on rocky terrain, it's 0-2-0 (unless you've got a mineral special which gives 0-6-0 or 0-7-0), as opposed to Flatten-Forest, which gives 1-2-1. Before flattening, you should consider if you really want it because flattening is irreversible. And you can plant forest on any tile. I'd rather remove fungus first.

Snowflake · May 22, 2003, 09:47

Thanks Adalbertus! In fact I've already found your chart and it helped a lot! And that's what makes me wonder if somebody else has done similar things for mineral and energy.

Could you tell me what is incorrect about Soil Enricher and Condensors in the manual?

lord of the mark · May 22, 2003, 10:31

Quote:

Originally posted by gwillybj
Remember the number of turns required for road-building is variable, depending on underlying terrain and previous improvement. So, whatever else you intend to do in a square, if you want a road in it, do that first. Otherwise, your Former will require one extra turn to cut the road through the other improvement(s).
i]

thanks for the tip - id didnt realize that.

Adalbertus · May 22, 2003, 11:10

Quote:

Originally posted by HongHu
Thanks Adalbertus! In fact I've already found your chart and it helped a lot! And that's what makes me wonder if somebody else has done similar things for mineral and energy.

Could be you if you've got the energy

. It is easiest to do in the scenario editor.

Quote:

Could you tell me what is incorrect about Soil Enricher and Condensors in the manual?

IIRC, the manual states +1 nutrient for Soil Enricher and nothing or +1 for Condensor (in addition to the humidity effect on the surroundings). In fact, you gain 50% (rounded down) from both. Restriction lifting by condensor also isn't mentioned, which is a huge benefit for the owner of WP.

Snowflake · May 22, 2003, 11:36

Quote:

Originally posted by gwillybj

Road last = extra turn.

Is the effect of different improvement and/or river cumulative? In other words, if you have a rocky river square, it will take you one extra turn for road even without anything built. The question is if it will take you two extra turns if you build a mine first?

Snowflake · May 22, 2003, 11:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Adalbertus

Could be you if you've got the energy

. It is easiest to do in the scenario editor.

Got to learn the scenario editor first.

Quote:

IIRC, the manual states +1 nutrient for Soil Enricher and nothing or +1 for Condensor (in addition to the humidity effect on the surroundings). In fact, you gain 50% (rounded down) from both. Restriction lifting by condensor also isn't mentioned, which is a huge benefit for the owner of WP.

What does IIRC mean? (Sorry, you can see that I'm new)
So that means after you build a farm, you get 50% more nut for a S or a C (and S is cheaper right?). eg. If rainy/nut (5) you get +2 nut for a S not +1 as said in manual. And then if you add another you get another 50% more nut. In the example it will be 5+2+3=10 not 5+1+1=7. Unbelievable! I will have to definitely test it myself.

Snowflake · May 22, 2003, 12:02

Woohoo! I'm a chieftain! How long do you have to wait before you become a king?

Flubber · May 22, 2003, 12:11

IIRC

If I Recall Correctly-- people use it when stating something from memory

Adalbertus · May 22, 2003, 13:09

Quote:

Woohoo! I'm a chieftain! How long do you have to wait before you become a king?

Years, if AC-General/Help/Strategy is the only on-topic forum you post to. I think its 1000 on-topic posts, those in the off-topic forum don't count. You can find more information in the site's FAQ. There is a link at the very top of the page in a line containing links like

control panel | search | faq | new posts | my threads | upload | members | get password

Hope that helps

Flubber · May 22, 2003, 13:11

yup

IIRC its 1000 posts to make King but you have the prince level ( 300 posts) to hit first

Snowflake · May 22, 2003, 13:34

Believe it or not I've read the faq very carefully but nowhere can be found the info about post count and status. I also see some emporers running around guess they are really reall old humm? Are there others?

Adalbertus · May 22, 2003, 13:38

It is there. Under the Rules section.

Quote:

XVIII) What's these titles under each poster's login? And why some posters have special status?
(added with v.1.05, 26/June/99, totally changed with v.2.0, 21/December/99)
Each poster has a status shown under his username. That is depended by his post count, like this:
-Settler 1-30
-Chieftain 31-100
-Warlord 101-300
-Prince 301-1000
-King 1001-3000
-Emperor 3001-10000
-Deity 10001+
Note: this system is not intended to rank people in any way. It is only meant to give a "civish" modd on the forums. A few, specific, special posters have their own status so that they are easily recognized. For example Brian Reynolds has a "Big Huge Games President" status.

Snowflake · May 22, 2003, 13:50

lord of the mark · May 22, 2003, 16:19

and hong hu - adelbertus is now two posts closer to king level thanks to your inquiry about that - and im now one post closer -

ahhh - run away!!!!!!!!

Snowflake · May 22, 2003, 16:56

I love this place.

Flubber · May 22, 2003, 23:23

Many of the emporers and dieties on here attained that status when posts in the off-topic forum counted. They would often have dozens of posts a day that were merely a smiley or a single line.

Heck-- I am more than halfway to emporer and I had another 900 posts or so when I went by my "cbn" name-- for me it was posting turn notifications in Pbem games that really jacked up the post count

back to terraforming-- I really think that people should try out the benefits of maximizing a single resource on a tile and then using a crawler. the benefits from the specialists created can be remarkable