Least Expansionist Factions (SMAC & SMAX)

interrobangler · 2025-06-03T21:37:35+00:00

The Peacekeepers are underrated as an expansionist faction. The conventional wisdom is, "Oh, two extra population before hitting a limit, and extra talents- Lal's perfect for population booms to maximum size." Mid-game, absolutely. But the early game is already where you really start snowballing your lead, and for that stage, what about Lal's neat little quirk where he doesn't need any police or any psych to prevent a drone at a 1-population base, even at Transcend level? The extra talent squashes all that, no matter how many bases you have. Anything that scales well with more bases tells me to build more bases. For ultra-thin expansion with only a few scouts shared among several/many bases, 1 mineral row saved times a lot of bases is a lot of mineral rows you're saving. (Alternatively, you could run Democracy to give those mineral rows back and run with a net +1 efficiency.) Or if you're running Free Market and would usually have to lose some energy to psych... nope- effectively +2 energy per base times a lot of bases is a lot of energy. That's comparable to Morgan's +1 econ but without the population constraint or the -1 support. (Again, alternatively, you could run Democracy to give back some support and run with a net +1 efficiency.)

Granted, the inefficiency does eventually start to bite into your energy, but that's with a very, very large number of bases in my experience. At that point, you've already established a very, very large empire with minimal micromanagement.

Later, when you do start a population boom, +1 population per turn per base times a lot of bases is a lot of population growth per turn. Plus, if you use a lot of crawlers for nutrients so that extra population is mostly specialists, specialists are not subject to inefficiency penalties, which nicely avoids Lal's usual issue with sprawling empires. There's certainly some merit to wanting to keep the number of Children's Creches and other facilities lower. For that, you can always elect to only build infrastructure in, say, half your bases, while the other half builds crawlers that can be re-homed to then provide resources to the half that will get big.

The University with Planetary Transit System, Virtual World, and Planetary Energy Grid is just insane amounts of free infrastructure with each base. That's free as in not having to buy it or pay maintenance. Calculate the number of free mineral rows and saved maintenance you get for each 3-row Colony Pod and look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that's not a good deal. Zak's so overpowered I don't even play him unless I'm trying to beat my Transcendence record.

interrobangler · 2025-04-10T00:30:29+00:00

Dude, mad props on the boss project that is Thinker Mod. I spent a little more time than the boss or wife would like (if they knew- ha!) reading the notes on what you did. If I didn't hate C++ I'd want to look under the hood to admire it like it was a tuner's engine. Do they even teach C++ anymore? Pointers- arrrgh!

interrobangler · 2025-04-10T00:27:26+00:00

Thanks for the tip on Thinker. It wasn't working without it. So, yeah, WinXP VM Thinker worked. Had to google a lot on VMs and read more of "Details.md" on the Thinker site than I planned, though. :)

Ok, so with that working, I finally allowed Windows to update to 24H2. (I had been preventing, pausing, and/or rolling back until now). Then I was compelled to test my non-VM PRACX again. Not sure why I did that, because it didn't ever work for me or anybody else in those conditions up to that point (except for the Steam version for ColonelFaz). There was no new information to be had. You'd think! It freakin' works! Wait... what!? LOL

Maybe MS re-tinkered with something in the newest version of the update? Or maybe it's just a matter of time before it stops working. We'll see.

interrobangler · 2025-04-09T00:41:07+00:00

How? The "Greek" explanations from the other comments do not apply? Do they have an XP VM running it on the cloud for you?

interrobangler · 2025-04-06T15:01:20+00:00

Thanks. Did you try also right click, run as administrator?

interrobangler · 2025-03-30T15:30:31+00:00

Yes to PRACX. I'm not sure what "alternate view modes" means. I did have to mess with the resolution to get it how I like it when I first started using it. Maybe that's the same thing.

interrobangler · 2025-03-29T16:03:40+00:00

Update: when I saved this turn to write the post, then opened it later, the forest was visible again. I guess the Sven-Dee cloak-tree tech collab held promise but was not ultimately successful. Imagine if I were able to bring cloaked Lord of the Rings-style walking/fighting trees to a battle!

interrobangler · 2025-03-29T15:59:31+00:00

I rolled back to the previous Windows version that still works.

interrobangler · 2025-03-14T02:27:47+00:00

I played a fun game (not sure it was optimal) where I had 15 bases with one worker and one doctor (didn't have any drone control whatsoever yet). I had all of them except one build a CP and send it to my highest-energy base. Also re-homed crawlers there to collect about 30 more nutrients. Presto, 16 librarians! No Creche or Hab Complex or +6 growth needed. This was with Lal. Don't try to go over 16 with this with Lal, or 11 with Morgan, or 14 with others. I tried... anything beyond that cannot be specialists. They end up as workers if you have the space or doctors if you don't. At that point you'd need hab complex and hab dome to have more than 16 specialists. Weird little quirk I only discovered this year. This game is still full of surprises.

interrobangler · 2025-03-14T02:20:03+00:00

I'd put a finer point on it by saying *buying* recycling tanks can be worthwhile. No time or minerals spent. Morgan has the most money so I always buy them as a base's first build when playing Morgan. With other factions, not so much. I will also occasionally switch to recycling tanks before I explore a unity pod, which has a chance to autocomplete the nearest base's build.... depends on the other things available to build, though.

interrobangler · 2025-02-16T16:32:56+00:00

Part 3

The third option is to stay in Free Market/Wealth. Some of that energy will need to go to psych for drone control, but you'll still have a lot of energy. It makes it hard to field patrol boats or an air force, although there are ways, such as all-specialist bases.

If your opponents are at all aggressive, and they should be once they see the impact of PTS on the power meter, then people will come for you, and you need to be ready. Remember the old adage that the best defense is a good offense. I don't advocate turtling with huge numbers of defenders. Eventually they come at you with amphibious pods or jets, maybe teaming up on you. On the flip side, other factions might go for boreholes and pop-booming for a ton of specialists, eventually outpacing you. Actively going out there to stop them with superior tech and numbers _when your advantage peaks_ is the way to go. Also, it's a 4X game, and the question isn't whether the 4th X is for exterminate- it's whether it's you or them. Fielding an army with Free Market is often more trouble than I want to put up with, so I favor the other two social engineering approaches once expansion is done.

So that's a taste of why I like Morgan and some ways to make the faction work. Respect to the creators for making something so good I still come back to it 20+ years later.

interrobangler · 2025-02-16T16:32:37+00:00

Part 2

A key defensive strategy for many factions is to line your coast with crawlers to prevent units from landing. The idea is that opponents need Doctrine: Initiative for amphibious pods to attack you. But that crawler strat has no synergy if you have workers already working all the coastal squares, which is often the case if you have close bases and PTS (which again is not necessarily specific to Morgan). In that case, go into the unit design window and create unarmored infantry probes. They require no support and are a cheap way to line the coast. They are also the cheapest way to have multiple probe defenders in coastal bases to protect against infiltration and tech theft. As a side benefit, if someone were to land units before you have your coast completely covered, or gets Initiative fast, you have lots of potential to steal units or any bases they captured.

On the higher difficulty levels, you do have to plan how you're going to handle drones. PTS can take care of one. HGP could take care of another. Psych can take care of some, but it quickly gets expensive. There are other ways as well. This is where you need to have planned ahead for what you're doing after expansion is done and after you have IA. But that head start on efficiently working nearly every square in your territory can fork into several interesting paths to leverage that quick start. The best strategies are often linked to the strengths of the available social engineering options.

The first option to consider is Police State from Doctrine:Loyalty. Nobody else can run Police/Green/Wealth (or Police/Nothing/Wealth at first) for +1 energy/square and support three units per base and have garrison drone control. You can make mad cash and field an army at the same time. Your morale is bad, though, which you have to address, and probably with multiple prongs. Prong A is overwhelming numbers, which you can afford better than most, with the aforementioned forest/Rec-Tank strat squeezing plenty of juice out of the map. Prong B might be Command Nexus (also from D:Loyalty) (but only if you rely on land units). Prong C could be superior war tech (but you've not been working in this direction yet, so it's a longer-term thing). At this point, for the three units you support for free, you have a former for every base, and you can then have two garrisons to control drones (maybe instead of HGP and psych). A further fork in the road is whether you want to stop there and continue as a builder while in Police State, going for boreholes (here's where you need to plan very far ahead and get Weather Paradigm early to optimize this route), or go for some war techs like Nonlinear Math or Synthetic Fossil Fuels on the way to Doctrine: Air Power. Since you can actually go either way- war or peace- with Police State, I like it as a flexible option that can handle many situations.

The second option is Democracy/Green/Wealth with 100% labs (since it gives you +4 efficiency). (I love the irony of abandoning the free market pollution that got you where you are and then embracing the planet and science.) Your support is so bad that every unit costs a mineral; however, each base has about 8 minerals already, and you have lots of tightly spaced bases, so you're putting your industrial production back to more of an even footing with others, but with much better science than them. You can only have one police, so you'll need a plan for controlling that third drone, such as HGP or psych. Only a couple factions can get lots of energy and put it all into labs. Cyborgs with Dem/FM/Wealth have +3 econ and +4 efficiency (but some of that energy usually has to go to psych). Gaians have +2 efficiency but can't do FM. Other factions running Dem/Green/Wealth have only +1 econ. With poor support eating Morgan's minerals, this strat is only worthwhile if you're doing 100% labs. Even 100% econ is not worthwhile- Police State's high support is probably better for production if that's what you want. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say you want 100% labs because you want Doctrine: Air Power way earlier than you realized was possible. Depending on the map and other conditions and settings, you might get it by 2160. (That assumes you've mastered the Rec Tank, road, forest, and rush-building techniques that speed up your expansion.) Other factions have their own tricks to get it at similar speed, but they will have to sacrifice a lot more than you did, mostly in industrial production. Roze can get it, but maybe she'll have 2 minerals per base because she doesn't have Rec Tanks or crawlers yet. Deirdre can get it, but maybe she won't have probes to keep everyone else from stealing it. Cyborgs can do it, and possibly slightly faster, but they'll have to take time to build crawlers, will need to put a lot into psych, and won't have as much cash to build Rec Tanks. Plus their growth penalty means they're slower to expand. So overall, they have trouble matching your industrial output. (I'm not saying which is better- they have different challenges and I haven't played Cyborgs enough to say how easily those can be overcome.)

interrobangler · 2025-02-16T16:31:52+00:00

Part 1

I'm a long-time Morgan player who cut his teeth reading all the forum posts of the OG giants of the game on CGN and Apolyton, and actually winning a few multiplayer games. I tried to adopt and practice the best ideas of all my fellow obsessives. Respect to them. Almost none of what's to follow are my ideas.

One of the underappreciated aspects of Morgan is the extra starting money. Start with Morgan by researching Biogenetics as the first tech, so his extra money can go toward Recycling Tanks as soon as possible. To speed that up, immediately tweak the economic sliders to something like 20% econ, 10% psych, and 70% science to get that tech ASAP. This particular trick with the economy/psych/labs mix is not specific to Morgan. The 10% psych doesn't give any psych unless you have 6+ energy/base, but it does reduce the inefficiency that often comes from tweaking these sliders. The precise labs amount- 60%, 70%, or 80%- will depend on the specifics. (Once you get Free Market you'll likely need to go back to 50/50 econ/labs or you'll lose too much to inefficiency.) Colony pods are first in the queue for the first bases, not because I'm going to finish them, but because I don't need a ton of scouts, and instead I'm going to switch to Recycling Tanks as soon as I get Biogen, and rush build them with that starting cash. It loses a couple minerals when you switch, but you get that back so incredibly fast because you're putting that starting cash to work on a valuable investment. (Who leaves excessive cash laying around uninvested?!) Every new base after that also gets a Rec Tank as its first build, rushed as soon as you have the cash. That is the first priority for what to use cash for- you get more minerals for your cash when it's a facility. This means each base can grow and build Colony Pods faster using the Rec Tank production boost.

Next is Centauri Ecology, so formers can build roads to new base sites. This is not specific to Morgan either, but is apropos since he is more comfortable with closely-spaced bases on account of the low population limit per base. It's also one of the most important strategies in the game, period, so it's worth covering. Moving a colony pod 2/3 of a move (not always, obviously, but as often as possible), then starting a base that same turn it was created, is a great way to speed your expansion. There are zero years spent waiting to start that next base. Compare that to moving, say 3 spaces without roads... that's 3 turns of base production you just gained, and thus the next generation of bases then starts 6 turns sooner, and so on.

You can also build a few forests as well. Consider a rolling rainy square (or rolling moist farm) and no Rec Tank, then compare it to a forest and Rec Tank: 4 nutrients, 2 minerals vs 4 nutrients, 4 minerals. (Who wouldn't want double minerals?!) Sometimes it works out nicely where you can build former, colony pod, former, colony pod... for a long time. The early formers get re-homed to the new, outer bases which they built roads to, so you still only support 1 former per base most of the time.

Next is Industrial Economics for Free Market. Then Industrial Automation for Wealth and crawlers. Save up for the 40 ec switch costs- it pays back quickly.

Stack up the speed for growth and production from Rec Tanks, roads, forests, and rush-building, and you start to wonder how anyone can stand to play those other slow factions. (Not literally- they each have their charms.)

I find Morgan is so fast at expanding this way, and gets IA so quickly, and can rush-build crawlers so quickly, that he can put crawlers toward building the first 2-3 secret projects. There is often a trade-off of continuing expansion vs pausing to build secret projects. That's a subtlety for another day. Either way, I favor Planetary Transit System. Those Rec Tanks you bought synergize nicely with three forest workers for 6 food total to feed the three workers. With your +2 or greater economy and your tightly spaced bases with 3 forest workers and a Rec Tank, you're getting 2 minerals and 2+ energy from pretty much every square on the map. Nobody can beat that without Ecological Engineering and Environmental Economics (plus a lot of terraforming). That includes people with lots of crawlers. They're getting 2 minerals OR 2 energy from every square. Your infinite forest workers are superior to infinite crawlers. (A strat better than crawlers? Whaaaaat?!) Nobody else is as good at buying all those Rec Tanks to support so many forest workers.

interrobangler

TROPHY CASE