A civ vet explores Alpha Centauri (SMAC)

[Fluffball]

I have been using a lot of forests, since so much of my territory is arid. Now that I can build condensers I can do something too change that, but with so many forests planted and spreading on their own, it is tempting to build tree farms for more nutrients from forests and increase food that way. I do have some farms, and a couple of mines at UN Headquarters (but those rocky tiles will likely become bore holes soon).

From the discussion on social engineering, I could probably haave grown my pop a lot faster than I have. But it would have cost in terms of production, which I am already short of with unit support eating up production. Finding the right balance on growth, production, and energy is something I am still working on.

There's no anarchy other than a small credit fee, so you can (and should) change civics to meet the current needs. Don't get too hung up on the negatives until you're looking at camping in a particular set of civics. But it's a pretty standard play to go high growth early on and then go more econ or military later.

The deeper you go into the civic categories, the better the benefits. At a certain high level of pluses, each one does something pretty game changing. T-Hawk has mentioned the "pop boom" mechanic I'm sure you remember from Civ 1 and 2, and high level of econ make you "financial++" from Civ 4, etc.

[T-hawk]

Tree farms are good, although slightly overrated, because 120 minerals is fairly expensive.  +1 food for every forest sounds like a lot, but a typical base works 3-4 forest tiles so the tree farm food really only adds up to about the same as one condenser.  Perfect play can get more out of 120 minerals into formers instead.  But tree farms are easy to do and never go wrong and feel ecological and good so they're fine for a newcomer.

The most usual track of expansion goes horizontally to bases of small size (building colony pods is most efficient at size 2, and that spreads the unit support), then eventually you build Children's Creches and adopt Democracy + Planned to population-boom, while using the psych slider to manage drones.  Tree farms make that easy with the food and also the +50% psych.  Then go back to Free Market for income, still using the psych slider.  If you get big enough, the +Efficiency of Green economics eventually outweighs Free Market's economy (particularly for the Peacekeepers with the -Efficiency penalty), and you don't care about Green's -Growth because you've already boomed.

As for the missing Morgan - Try to call the Planetary Council using the button on the comm menu on the right side.  If you can't, then he's still out there.  Also the data readouts on the bottom-center panel of the main screen include reports on faction power which will show if he's at zero.  Yes, it's quite possible for the AI to get stuck with one inland base and hammered by worms and never manage to expand.  Morgan is particularly bad about that because he goes Free Market and cripples himself with drones and -Planet.

[v8mark]

Just in case it's not clear what the condition is to pop-boom -- you need to be at +6 growth which, in practice, means Democracy + Planned + Children's Creche, as T-Hawk explains above. A base that's booming will grow every turn, as long as it has a surplus of at least 2 nutrients.

If a city is in a golden age, which gives +2 growth as well, you can dispense with one of those conditions -- liberal use of the psych slider to enable this can allow some of the more unconventional factions to pop-boom. (from memory, Morgan? I don't think he can run Planned... and Yang, who can't run Democracy IIRC, although it's much more difficult for him with his energy problems)

[Commodore]

Morgan does horribly, almost always. I generally agree about the original being better than the expansion but I really appreciate the free drones and the Pirates to replace Morgan and Santiago in my games. They do so much better.

[T-hawk]

Yes, Yang and Morgan are the two factions that can't boom by SE settings, banned from Democratic and Planned respectively.  Same goes for the Pirates and Cyborgs in the expansion with the -1 growth faction penalty.  All of these can boom with a Golden Age to overcome the missing or penalized component.  (A Golden Age is when a base is at least size 3, has no drones, and at least half talents; the base gets +2 growth and +1 economy while that state lasts.)  It's fairly doable even with Yang; you'll need the HGP and nearly 100% psych, but it's worth it for the few turns that it will need, and he's best at building the formers and forests and tree farms to make it all work.  Also the Eudaimonic future society gives +2 growth.  Finally and obviously, anyone can boom with the Cloning Vats.

[v8mark]

Hah, I'd forgotten the Cloning Vats even existed. Shows how many of my games got that far...

[LKendter]

I am getting temped to see if I can find my SMAC CD and start a game up. ;-)

[Dark Savant]

Yes, Yang and Morgan are the two factions that can't boom by SE settings, banned from Democratic and Planned respectively.  Same goes for the Pirates and Cyborgs in the expansion with the -1 growth faction penalty.  All of these can boom with a Golden Age to overcome the missing or penalized component.  (A Golden Age is when a base is at least size 3, has no drones, and at least half talents; the base gets +2 growth and +1 economy while that state lasts.)  It's fairly doable even with Yang; you'll need the HGP and nearly 100% psych, but it's worth it for the few turns that it will need, and he's best at building the formers and forests and tree farms to make it all work.  Also the Eudaimonic future society gives +2 growth.  Finally and obviously, anyone can boom with the Cloning Vats.

Being locked out of this SE setting or that is one of the more significant effects of choosing a faction, really.

The University is somewhat better than any of the other six standard factions partly just because their lockout is Fundamentalism, which is a minor loss.  The other eight standard SE choices are all good to have.

Well, okay, Power is most useful for supply crawler exploits.  (Build supply crawlers under Planned/Wealth; swap to non-Planned/Power when cashing them in for a Secret Project; swap back to Planned/Wealth right after cashing them in.)

[shallow_thought]

I am getting temped to see if I can find my SMAC CD and start a game up.  ;-)

Cheap on GoG and I find it works better than the CD on modern computers...

[haphazard1]

I have several bases working lots of trees; thus the tree farms. One base is working 7 tree tiles. So the nutrient boost will be very helpful. I guess I could convert over to farms + solar collectors, add a condenser and an echelon mirror, and maybe throw in a bore hole or two and come out ahead. but that is a lot of former turns that I could spend elsewhere if I keep the forests and add tree farms. Maybe I will experiment with different set ups at newer bases, or in another game.

Had not thought about trying to call the full council. But Morgan is showing up on the comparative graphs, so I guess he exists somewhere. He is pretty elusive -- I have explored probably 75% of the world by now, and none of the  other factions have met him either. So he must be pretty small.

Sorry for the lack of updates -- my turnset has come up in the Toku SG, and I will have family in town for the holiday weekend. So it may be a couple days before I can post anything.