Playing the Silicoids

[MaxPower]

Everyone rate the Silicoids as one of the strongest races but I always get stuck playing them because of the very slow growth pace of their populations. I usually play on impossible, medium map, 5 opponents.
I tried two different opening strategies:
1) Grow people using eco slider:
Every colony spend 100% on industry until factories catch up with pop. This happens very fast because 1. slow pop growth 2. Silicoids factories are very productive (other races must spend 0.5BC per factory on cleanup for a net production 0.5BC per factory while the rocks get a full 1BC net production per factory). Then I split production between ecology and industry, checking every turn the 2:1 ratio and adjusting the bars accordingly, until the colony max out. I use that sequence for every planet including Cryslon. Of course every new planet receives a transfer of people of 1/4 or 1/5 planet capacity to get started.
What usually happens is that I get to max my colonies faster than just waiting to the rocky people reproduce themselves but at that point I am awfully behind in the tech race, and Silicoid diplomacy doesn´t help much as they are only friends with Meklars and Humans and hated or neutral with everyone else. When the "you are too big " penalty starts to hit I usually find myself in big trouble because of my updated tech, and small planets with no capacity of producing a standing defense in time.
2) Not using eco slider:
Every colony spend 100% on industry until factories catch up with pop. Then start producing something else (research, bases, ships), and start sending excess of population to other colonies. With this strategy I don`t fall that much behind in tech, but I usually end up with almost all my colonies at half size and very unproductive for a very very long time. Being rated poor at every research field (except computers) means that my research get almost stagnated after 1 or 2 breakthroughs in most fields as the costs of techs escalate more quickly when you are poor at the field. So in the not so long run I am usually overwhelmed by any AI who decide to attack me.

I would appreciate some advise from veteran players of how to play with this race. I consider myself a MOO veteran (I played this game for more than 15 years now, and I come back to it almost every year), I won on impossible with every other race several times, but somehow I get frustrated every time I play with the rocks.

Thanks.

[Sullla]

The Silicoids have by far the highest skill cap to play in Master of Orion. I will try to do a video series on YouTube with them at some point to demonstrate their unique gameplay, but here's some tips for the moment.

I tend to follow a mixture of the two strategies mentioned in the initial post. Early in the game, it's too expensive to grow every planet to max pop with the Econ slider. I play a Silicoid opening similarly to a Meklar opening, factories on the homeworld to 2x population and then swap over to colony ship construction. Just as you can't afford to build 400 factories with the Meklar before beginning to expand, you can't grow to 100 pop with the Silicoids in the first few dozen turns.

Now later on, once you're entering the midgame, you absolutely do want to go back and maximize population on your planets, even if that means running several turns of Eco slider spending, since it's too wasteful to have your planets sitting there with factories unused. When to do that? It's hard to say. There's no one right time, you have to make a judgment call. I will say that I typically have unmaxed planets with the Silicoids far later than any other race in this game, due to their population growth penalties.

One thing that's critically important with the rocks is to move population around between planets a lot. And I do mean a lot; planets that are just getting started out absolutely must get a shipment of colonists from somewhere else. It takes an egregiously long time to stand up a new Silicoid planet without a leg up from other worlds. Planets that are at the other end of the growth curve, at 75-100% population, typically can grow the remaining colonists with Eco spending, or get them in a shipment from a halfway full planet. You want to try to have a number of colonies sitting in the middle of the growth curve, the only place where the Silicoids get decent pop growth, seeding other worlds with immigrants constantly. This is very micro intensive, but it's necessary to playing them well.

It's also essential to scout the map aggressively, and grab as many of those Hostile worlds as possible. You can claim worlds in some bizarre out of the way places with their racial ability, but only if you scout them ahead of time. Here's an example from one of Sirian's games:



Two worlds deep in enemy space in the southwest corner. If you can claim Rich worlds this way, even better. The AI certainly knows how to do it when playing the rocks, one reason why they are a top AI-controlled race in terms of threat level.

I honestly have not had much of a tech problem with the Silicoids, as their Poor rating in all fields generally gets canceled out by getting to ignore waste cleanup techs for most of the game. It's also really nice getting the guaranteed Terraforming +10 and +20 at the first two Planetology levels, making all of your planets larger in the early game. The player is always weakest in the early game in Master of Orion, so the lategame Silicoid weakness has never been much of an issue for me. If the game lasts until the lategame tech toys, it's usually pretty easy to outmaneuver the AI and take a victory. Wish I could speak more on this issue, it hasn't been something I've encountered.

That's the best I can do for the moment. The Silicoids are extremely unique, and definitely not easy to play at all. Good luck!

[haphazard1]

I am not an Impossible level player (still lose most games at the top difficulty), but I have gotten pretty good at Hard and win most games there. I have won with Silicoids on Hard, so I will throw in a couple thoughts.

As Sullla noted, you have to nurture pop growth as much as you can and this means more micro. When you get a good-sized world in the fat part of the growth curve, keep it there for a while by sending each turn's new pop to worlds that need it. (And almost all your worlds will need it!) When playing the rocks I try to focus on empire-wide total pop growth, not individual planet maxing. You will need to max out at least a couple worlds to serve as your main cooony ship/fleet building centers. Usually this means Cryslon early, and then any rich, ultra-rich, or artifacts worlds. Funnel the growth from other less useful planets into these key centers.

Grab, grab, grab planets! You want the hostiles, especially the very hostiles, as the AI's tendency to leave planets alone if it can not land there will give you a window of safety to stand them up. But don't leave the non-hostile worlds for the AI -- they tend to be bigger and you desperately need larger planets to get max pop growth. Anyway, grab grab grab and keep grabbing even though you feel like every planet but Cryslon is 3/4 empty.

You have to adjust your instincts for when a planet should start building bases or start contributing to research. It feels odd to have planets with so much pop/factory headroom remaining pumping bases or tech, but trying to grow through the eco slider is just painfully expensive. (Although if you ever reach Cloning tech...look out galaxy! )

Even though the human tends to do much better with late game toys, the Silicoids are very much an early game race. Their penalties (poor tech and pop growth) remain forever while their advantages (ignore waste, hostile planets) can be replicated by the AIs as technology advances. So it is crucial to grab as big an early edge as you can, and then hold on as best you can while slowly growing your total population to fill all those empty worlds. This tends to mean very difficult diplo, as the AIs will hate you for land grabbing but you won't have the votes another race would have with the same number of worlds. Such is life as leader of the rocks. If you can secure one solid friend, it can make a huge difference in surviving council votes until your power and pop can mature.

I generally do not have too much trouble keeping up in tech as the rocks -- all those max pop growth planets that are not suitable for fleet building, and aren't building more factories, can chip in towards research. Getting stuck with very unpleasant gaps in the tech trees tends to be a problem, and the usual remedy of ground invasions is especially tough as the rocks. Spying can help, but as always carries risks....

That the Silicoids play so differently from the other races, and yet remain in overall balance, is one of my favorite things about MoO.

[MaxPower]

Thanks Sulla and haphazard for your tips.

I usually try to keep most of my planets in the fast pop growth zone. Thing is, that once I start building colony ships until I ran out of worlds to expand I usually found new colonies at a pace of 1 every three turns and most of the newest worlds don't have any to planets to be fed with people. The scenarios you describe are pretty much what I get when playing the rocks but I still find hard to put myself in a winning position. Maybe the maps I rolled in my recent games where more difficult than average (I almost didn't find any rich or artifacts worlds and most planets where 40- size).

I will try again and maybe get some pictures for discussion.

Sulla, I'm certainly looking forward for the rocks video.

[haphazard1]

A Sullla video on playing the Silicoids would be excellent.

MaxPower, I know exactly how you feel once the colonization process really starts rolling. New world, new world, another new world, and I am looking around frantically for some planet somewhere that can spare a bit of pop. In one game as the rocks I found a Jungle 110 and ended up being able to send only 7 pop to seed it. Took forever for that planet to really start developing, but what was I to do? Ignore it and leave it for some AI to claim? Preventing the AI from scouting your planets is even more important than normal, since even a couple transports slipping past your defenses can overwhelm your tiny populations. Starting near the Bulrathi can be a nightmare.

In my most recent game as the Silicoids, I found myself in 2375 with 3 times as many planets as the AI races I was in contact with...but slightly less total pop. The positive aspect is that if you can just hold on somehow you keep getting stronger and stronger with time, while the AI races max out and then only improve when they claim more planets or reach new tech.

Some map luck can certainly be helpful as the rocks, since you can grab an inferno or radiated rich or ultra rich early -- if they are there. Being guaranteed to get Terraforming +10 and +20 helps with the small worlds, but it is often helpful to hold off on terraforming until you get a planet's population to the halfway mark for max growth. With most races terraforming is one of the first things I want to do, so I have to keep reminding myself to wait.

[RefSteel]

Add me to the list of folks excited about a Sullla 'Coid play-through!

One or two thoughts of my own on the Silis:

In one game as the rocks I found a Jungle 110 and ended up being able to send only 7 pop to seed it. Took forever for that planet to really start developing, but what was I to do? Ignore it and leave it for some AI to claim?

Of course it depends on the game situation, but I might argue for finding more pop to send it by hook or by crook, even if it means shrinking your existing hostile worlds to almost no population at all. As you point out, the AI mostly (mostly!) ignores worlds it can't land on - but securing a big jungle world ASAP is critical. What's more, though 'Coids get the same pop growth penalty whether a planet is hostile or not, they do grow faster on a large world than a small one, so seeding a big world can speed up the growth rate of the entire empire ... so long as your transports aren't spending so long in hyperspace stasis as to counteract the effect. By a similar token...

Being guaranteed to get Terraforming +10 and +20 helps with the small worlds, but it is often helpful to hold off on terraforming until you get a planet's population to the halfway mark for max growth. With most races terraforming is one of the first things I want to do, so I have to keep reminding myself to wait.

My understanding is that it always pays to terraform as soon as a planet can afford it (in terms of production; trying to terraform with too little production can result in major losses due to rounding). While the middle of the growth curve is best for static planet sizes, a planet at 10/20 pop will still grow more slowly than a planet at 10/30 or 10/40. It's not an enormous difference, but with the 'Coids, every little bit counts!

Now, that's not to say that other investments (like factories or defensive ships or tech or scouts or colonies) can't be better in different circumstances; it's just that terraforming is never a bad thing on its own!

[Cyneheard]

My understanding is that it always pays to terraform as soon as a planet can afford it (in terms of production; trying to terraform with too little production can result in major losses due to rounding).

Agreed in most cases; I like to do the +10 and +20 terraforms when I can do about 25BC worth a turn - +5 to popsize, nice and easy to micromanage. Silicoids might want to terraform sooner than that.

Population growth = CivFactor*CurrentPop*(MaxPop-CurrentPop)/1000 + DecimalFactor, and is stored in tenths (Decimal Factor: if the world's true pop was 40.8, then the decimal factor is 0.8; that's a much larger percentage of Silicoid pop growth, and means that you can get a world where natural growth is, say, 1.1, but if it's at 40.9 pop then it grows to 42.9, you transport those 2 pop away, rinse and repeat until the end of time, when in a random universe you'd expect to average about 1.5-1.6 pop a turn out of that planet. It's a significant boost) CivFactor is 0.5 for the Silicoids, and it doesn't affect the Decimal Factor bit.

Note from a normal (non-Sili or Sakkra game): if you settle a colony on the 3rd turn, then your capital is at 47 pop (40 --> 42 --> 45 --> 47). If you send 7 pop away, then next turn you'll grow 4 pop. So on T1 of the game, 40 grows 2 points, but on T4 of the game, 40 grows 4 points. This is also why a world at 59/60 might grow to 60 pop every single turn, but one at 99/100 won't.

So natural growth at a 10/20 world is proportional to 10*10, but 10/30 is proportional to 10*20, or twice as fast; total population growth isn't quite twice as fast because of the DecimalFactor (an incredibly inelegant mechanic to include in an otherwise elegant system).

[Nad]

A nice discussion, guys! Maximising growth by specialising planets from the beginning (ideally a couple of big non-hostile planets as breeding factories kept at half pop) and smart expansion (settling strategicly important planets and searching for rich/ur jewels) are the keys to win with the 'coids.

I am not very fond of the Rocks, but we could have an Imperium next starring the Silis. Perhaps with the restriction of only settling hostile worlds as extreme variant?

[MaxPower]

Population growth = CivFactor*CurrentPop*(MaxPop-CurrentPop)/1000 + DecimalFactor, and is stored in tenths (Decimal Factor: if the world's true pop was 40.8, then the decimal factor is 0.8; that's a much larger percentage of Silicoid pop growth, and means that you can get a world where natural growth is, say, 1.1, but if it's at 40.9 pop then it grows to 42.9, you transport those 2 pop away, rinse and repeat until the end of time, when in a random universe you'd expect to average about 1.5-1.6 pop a turn out of that planet. It's a significant boost) CivFactor is 0.5 for the Silicoids, and it doesn't affect the Decimal Factor bit.

If you have a planet with 40.9 and growth of 1.1, it will grow to 42.0. If you send 2 pop away it will be 40.0. You actually "lost" 0.9. if you repeat you will be emptying you colony. Maybe I didn't understand correctly the DecimalFactor mechanism. I would prefer further explanation on it.

Thank you guys for your replies, and an Imperium on the rocks would be real awesome.

[Cyneheard]

If you have a planet with 40.9 and growth of 1.1, it will grow to 42.0. If you send 2 pop away it will be 40.0. You actually "lost" 0.9. if you repeat you will be emptying you colony. Maybe I didn't understand correctly the DecimalFactor mechanism. I would prefer further explanation on it.

Thank you guys for your replies, and an Imperium on the rocks would be real awesome.

I wish I knew the reference for where I found that bit out; it was some years ago. The DecimalFactor is the tenths place of your current population, which is essentially getting doubled for free every turn.

However, if it didn't exist, then the pop growth at the start of the game would be wrong:
40 --> 42 --> 45 --> 47 (send 7 pop away, so at 40) --> 44
is in reality:
2300: 40.0 --> 42.4 (40*60 = 2400, so 2400/1000 = 2.4, and since our starting pop was at 40.0, we get +0.0 in the DecimalFactor)
2301: 42.4 means a decimal factor of 0.4, and we get natural growrth of 42*58/1000 = 2436/1000 = 2.4 (game's truncating).
So it's 42.4 + 2.4 + 0.4 = 45.2
2302: 45.2 gets natural growth of 2.4 again (45*55 = 2475, still truncated to 2.4, and decimal = 0.2, so growth is to 47.8)
2303: We founded a colony, and put 7 pop on boats. So we're at 40.8 after transportation. Natural growth: 2.4. Decimal factor: 0.8. Ending pop: 40.8 + 2.4 + 0.8 = 44.0.

If we didn't have this boost, then the pop patter would be:
40.0
42.4
44.8
47.2 (send 7 pop away, so down to 40.2)
42.6

So it's 2 extra pop in 2304, and boosts you from there.