As a big Alpha Centauri fan I think I brought a lot of old habits to a new game. Nonetheless it was a bit disconcerting to realize that I have lost 8 games in a row to the AI on medium difficulty. Between 150 and 200 turns it's either the aliens or the other factions that attack in overwhelming waves. I like to play the Academic faction so it's a bit of a struggle to get beyond three cities but I usually make do with advanced technology.
I've used the advanced settings to work with just one other faction on medium and the rest on easy or very easy but it does not seem to make much difference. I cannot produce units fast enough and even when they are stacked in the city the way combat works it seems they are defeated easily.
Has anyone else found this or has suggestions for better tactics?
Balancing the early game?
Moderator: Pandora Moderators
Re: Balancing the early game?
This has been discussed here and there a bit. Some people find the early game to be difficult and others had no problem with it. I've found myself on both ends of the spectrum as I've experimented with a few different strategies. One thing is clear: the strategy and play style certainly do matter.
I think a very strong Alpha Centauri strategy is to expand quickly to establish a strong foundation. This gets you ready to militarize with strength in the mid-game. I tried doing this a few times with Pandora and had no success with it. I have, however, had some success in this game using a different strategy (it even worked on hard difficulty and very aggressive native life). It has to do with expanding slower... I'll explain below.
Once you understand the game mechanics, it's clear that the growth of your faction (population) is not sped up that much by having more bases... let's ignore the exceptions to that for now. Now, you could rush to get a few colonizers early and have 3 cites each of size 2, OR you could have 1 city of size 6 and the faction growth per turn would be negligibly the same because the growth depends on the current population, not food. It seems like a small thing, but it is a huge difference between the two games. Why? Because it means that you could have 1 enormous city and be just as powerful as a faction with 10 cities! Obviously this is a bad idea because there are other game mechanics like habitation limits and the "3-tile-border-expansion-limit" of a city that make this impossible... but I'll come back to that. What this means is that by expanding slower, you aren't getting left behind like you would be in Alpha Centauri. Some might argue that by expanding slower you miss out on establishing your borders blah blah blah... Just don't worry about it: establish your borders using strategy, not speed. The trick is to wait until your capital is size 7-9 to start your second city. This should give you plenty of time to get a former, a few infantry, and some field training to boost their rank. Your faction will be much easier to defend. I prefer to get my second city's colonizer for free by researching "Colonization Fervor" because it won't subtract a population size from the capital when the colonizer is given to you. Another big difference between the two games is that Pandora has migration. So don't be worried that the second city will be left in the dust forever. It will quickly catch up in size because most of the accumulative growth will go towards it because it will have better morale. Wait to build the third city until the second one is size 6-8ish. The third city will catch up even faster. I find that this style of expansion is much much more defensible because the faction is growing quickly, but with enough time in between to get some military going. If you use all your early time and resources on colonizers, all you're doing is spreading the same amount of population into positions that are harder to defend... not to mention that those resources could be used on military units.
-Get the device that gives you a bonus when defending.
-Build the city enhancements that give you a bonus when defending.
-If a Galeth or Destroyer come along and kill one of your guys, yes it will sting. But remember that the aliens will be left wounded after the battle. So have another guy ready that you can upgrade to a unit with a pheropod device so you can strike back and capture it. Once the alien is healed, you'll have a very powerful early unit. Once it's yours, remember to rename it something cool. Also, you only need the pheropod to capture an alien; if the unit with the device is upgraded to a different device, you get to keep the alien still.
-Specialize your cities so you don't have to build every single enhancement in every single city... Sadly, I name my cities stuff like "Food" "Production" "Research" ... I know, it's boring.
Remember that morale is the main influence on migration. Therefore, limited habitation and pollution will be the main drivers of migration among your cities. Don't worry too much if one of your cities has negative morale. This will have a penalty on production and other things, but it's best to think of it as: "Oh, this city is helping my other cities to grow faster... how nice of them to do that."
Also, the things that carry you to victory are production and research. Don't be afraid to put 3 workers as scientists very very early on. Staying ahead of the research curve early saves you a headache later. Also, if your per-turn research output is good, all other factions will agree to a research pact with you. I love doing this because I can hover the cursor over each faction in the diplomacy window and see how much research they get from me and how much I get from them. I try to always make sure that they have the better end of the deal because it means that I have more research output. This is the best way to ensure that you have the best research. Another thought: it's a lot easier to throw down 3 scientists early like this when you expand slower.
Sorry for writing a book. I hope this helps.
I think a very strong Alpha Centauri strategy is to expand quickly to establish a strong foundation. This gets you ready to militarize with strength in the mid-game. I tried doing this a few times with Pandora and had no success with it. I have, however, had some success in this game using a different strategy (it even worked on hard difficulty and very aggressive native life). It has to do with expanding slower... I'll explain below.
Once you understand the game mechanics, it's clear that the growth of your faction (population) is not sped up that much by having more bases... let's ignore the exceptions to that for now. Now, you could rush to get a few colonizers early and have 3 cites each of size 2, OR you could have 1 city of size 6 and the faction growth per turn would be negligibly the same because the growth depends on the current population, not food. It seems like a small thing, but it is a huge difference between the two games. Why? Because it means that you could have 1 enormous city and be just as powerful as a faction with 10 cities! Obviously this is a bad idea because there are other game mechanics like habitation limits and the "3-tile-border-expansion-limit" of a city that make this impossible... but I'll come back to that. What this means is that by expanding slower, you aren't getting left behind like you would be in Alpha Centauri. Some might argue that by expanding slower you miss out on establishing your borders blah blah blah... Just don't worry about it: establish your borders using strategy, not speed. The trick is to wait until your capital is size 7-9 to start your second city. This should give you plenty of time to get a former, a few infantry, and some field training to boost their rank. Your faction will be much easier to defend. I prefer to get my second city's colonizer for free by researching "Colonization Fervor" because it won't subtract a population size from the capital when the colonizer is given to you. Another big difference between the two games is that Pandora has migration. So don't be worried that the second city will be left in the dust forever. It will quickly catch up in size because most of the accumulative growth will go towards it because it will have better morale. Wait to build the third city until the second one is size 6-8ish. The third city will catch up even faster. I find that this style of expansion is much much more defensible because the faction is growing quickly, but with enough time in between to get some military going. If you use all your early time and resources on colonizers, all you're doing is spreading the same amount of population into positions that are harder to defend... not to mention that those resources could be used on military units.
-Get the device that gives you a bonus when defending.
-Build the city enhancements that give you a bonus when defending.
-If a Galeth or Destroyer come along and kill one of your guys, yes it will sting. But remember that the aliens will be left wounded after the battle. So have another guy ready that you can upgrade to a unit with a pheropod device so you can strike back and capture it. Once the alien is healed, you'll have a very powerful early unit. Once it's yours, remember to rename it something cool. Also, you only need the pheropod to capture an alien; if the unit with the device is upgraded to a different device, you get to keep the alien still.
-Specialize your cities so you don't have to build every single enhancement in every single city... Sadly, I name my cities stuff like "Food" "Production" "Research" ... I know, it's boring.
Remember that morale is the main influence on migration. Therefore, limited habitation and pollution will be the main drivers of migration among your cities. Don't worry too much if one of your cities has negative morale. This will have a penalty on production and other things, but it's best to think of it as: "Oh, this city is helping my other cities to grow faster... how nice of them to do that."
Also, the things that carry you to victory are production and research. Don't be afraid to put 3 workers as scientists very very early on. Staying ahead of the research curve early saves you a headache later. Also, if your per-turn research output is good, all other factions will agree to a research pact with you. I love doing this because I can hover the cursor over each faction in the diplomacy window and see how much research they get from me and how much I get from them. I try to always make sure that they have the better end of the deal because it means that I have more research output. This is the best way to ensure that you have the best research. Another thought: it's a lot easier to throw down 3 scientists early like this when you expand slower.
Sorry for writing a book. I hope this helps.
Re: Balancing the early game?
Those are some great suggestions, thank you. The thing I note for the developers is that I learned a few new things about the game that are not documented or possible to discover....
- you can rename your cities?!?!? how?
- there is a 3-tile-border-expansion-limit? I'm sure it's true but where does it say that? If you have to "know" that's a problem.
- you can reassign workers? I saw the table showing how many workers but it is not apparent you can change it.
Suggestions/comments
I was thinking about the towers/ruins which provide a bonus if explored. It would be better if on the higher difficulty levels there was also the chance of losing the unit or picking up a plague.
Random events like sunspots or cyclical native activity should happen
More work needs to be done on the manual/compendium or users should be encouraged to create a how-to wiki. The latter is probably more possible.
I love the idea of one time research like the colonization effect or field training.
Is there room later for great projects? Something that takes years but confers a great benefit?
off to play another round..
- you can rename your cities?!?!? how?
- there is a 3-tile-border-expansion-limit? I'm sure it's true but where does it say that? If you have to "know" that's a problem.
- you can reassign workers? I saw the table showing how many workers but it is not apparent you can change it.
Suggestions/comments
I was thinking about the towers/ruins which provide a bonus if explored. It would be better if on the higher difficulty levels there was also the chance of losing the unit or picking up a plague.
Random events like sunspots or cyclical native activity should happen
More work needs to be done on the manual/compendium or users should be encouraged to create a how-to wiki. The latter is probably more possible.
I love the idea of one time research like the colonization effect or field training.
Is there room later for great projects? Something that takes years but confers a great benefit?
off to play another round..
Re: Balancing the early game?
The 3-tile-limit is a distance limit of 3 tiles not a number limit. The best way to explain it is hop scotch. 1-2-3. This means that if you had a very large city, you could potentially harvest minerals and food from 37 different tiles. But that is maxed out and would take a very long time to get that big. So I don't recommend spacing all your cities 7 hexes apart in the beginning, trying to anticipate enormous borders. I've never even come close to a size 37 city.
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Starbuck11
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- Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 7:07 pm
Re: Balancing the early game?
yep same analysis.
the early game (say the 50 first turns) can be very tricky. Not so much because of the aliens (they never do much damages if you equip your soldiers with flamers), but because the AI for the other factions love to do rush attack with soldiers + buggies.
I found the Zealots to be extremely annoying in that regard : they will leave 1 or 2 units in their base and send 3-5 units to each of your cities.
even if you repulse them, they'll make sure to kill off your troops, setting back your development.
They are also the most likely to overrun the other factions (after you) if they are all on the same continent. And they never shy away from doing massive bombardments of any spot with concentrations of 4+ units (I remember a setting where a city-fortress guarding a strait would receive 10+ attacks every 3 turns ... depressing situation when you try to hold the line). On the other hand the AI seems rarely to use drop pods for attacks (at the border or deep strike), except to reinforce its own cities in defense.
an easy source of income is to destroy the alien nests : use 2 soldiers with armor, flamers and a +25% attack bonus device. and another one with +25% defense device.
the 2 assault marines will make short thrift of the xenomorphs, while the 3rd will stay put and ensure they survive the counter-attack. the 3rd can also be used for flanking bonus if the terrain allows it (like with plains) : you move it to an adjacent tile but still in contact with the target + your assault squad, attack with the assault, then move it back into the stack for defense.
let your damaged units rest after each battle, preferably in a city. XP earned will make them more resistant and provide an additional combat bonus starting lv 5.
don't attack unless you have 95% chance of victory (and less than 80% expected damage).
IMHO, I found the best starting locations to involve an Observatory (+50% bonus science) nearby and mountains (+3 mineral with mine). I also try to time my colonisers to finish after a city had reached a new level of population (usually lv 7-8).
Once you reach lv 6, you can start to expand your city limit by "grabbing" terrain that better suit your economic needs.
More than food, minerals can be in really short supply for your workers. And since you'll try to raise your first city to lv 7-8 before colonising other sites, having enough minerals for 2x the number of workers is vital or else everything will be too slow to produce.
I was surprised to see that unlike in Civ/Alpha Centauri, the vegetation would not develop like with expansion of fungi and forests.
fungi are the best ressources, but their exploitation is so late that the game is already edging towards its conclusion.
My first unit is almost always a former followed by soldiers only once I discovered the flamer. building roads and mines are essential in the beginning.
I usually divide my terrains as follow :
all mountains/hills ... mines built
desert/fungi ... untouched
artic ... transformed into forest
savannah ... transformed into forest
grassland ... farms built
special terrains ... farms built, except Observatory if on a hill
I find having 1 or 2 forests (max 4) very useful as a cheap way to reduce pollution in a passive way (no need to exploit the terrains). And if you play Ecologist, forests produce an additional +1 mineral (like mines)
the easiest way to defend is to combine a soldier with flamer + a tank with anti-vehicle ammo (shell or missile, then laser).
always try to upgrade the armor of your units to the latest discovery, as soon as possible.
I use jets for reco (6 moves)
I always make sure to keep at least 1 unit at full health on the stack in defense after an attack, never having stacks more than 3 or 4 units big else the AI do devastating bombardments.
for attacking hard targets like capitals, position your tanks in plains as they are best to roll over the enemy infantry, while you move jets on the city tiles opposite (you get boni for flanking and there are no ZoC movement for flying units).
if the map is an archipelago-like, then get control of your island as soon as possible through colonisation and conquest.
The AI will come with transports 90% of the time, and with jets/light navy the remaining 10%. Transports are easy pickings for your jets or coastal garrisons.
the sea tiles of your cities can also be used for advanced reco : the strategic map shows you everything that is under your control + 1 tile away.
if the map is a continent, then be careful when creating choke-points.
the strategic bombardments can be utterly devastating if you concentrate too many units on the same location (and there are no defense to avoid it).
cities are great for recovering and building defensive walls. the AI never tried to destroy terrain improvements to tease me outside, and they very often attack you in a kamikaze way (if they have at least 2 units or expect to deal you 70%+ damage).
I like the way the tech tree is randomized, with a simple research accumulation.
however, it easily becomes too accessible once your empire has reached enough military units for defense (say 1 soldier with flamer + 1 tank + 1 jet per city). By then most of my cities are 80%-90% producing only research points in Wealth mode (little pollution, max income), with only a few with workers/miners (say 2 or 3) replacing lost units or producing wealth (preferably with a gold mine nearby).
Researches that took 5-8 turns now needs only 1 or 2 turns max. I even finish the game with enough stored points for several transcendental in advance.
Best regards,
the early game (say the 50 first turns) can be very tricky. Not so much because of the aliens (they never do much damages if you equip your soldiers with flamers), but because the AI for the other factions love to do rush attack with soldiers + buggies.
I found the Zealots to be extremely annoying in that regard : they will leave 1 or 2 units in their base and send 3-5 units to each of your cities.
even if you repulse them, they'll make sure to kill off your troops, setting back your development.
They are also the most likely to overrun the other factions (after you) if they are all on the same continent. And they never shy away from doing massive bombardments of any spot with concentrations of 4+ units (I remember a setting where a city-fortress guarding a strait would receive 10+ attacks every 3 turns ... depressing situation when you try to hold the line). On the other hand the AI seems rarely to use drop pods for attacks (at the border or deep strike), except to reinforce its own cities in defense.
an easy source of income is to destroy the alien nests : use 2 soldiers with armor, flamers and a +25% attack bonus device. and another one with +25% defense device.
the 2 assault marines will make short thrift of the xenomorphs, while the 3rd will stay put and ensure they survive the counter-attack. the 3rd can also be used for flanking bonus if the terrain allows it (like with plains) : you move it to an adjacent tile but still in contact with the target + your assault squad, attack with the assault, then move it back into the stack for defense.
let your damaged units rest after each battle, preferably in a city. XP earned will make them more resistant and provide an additional combat bonus starting lv 5.
don't attack unless you have 95% chance of victory (and less than 80% expected damage).
IMHO, I found the best starting locations to involve an Observatory (+50% bonus science) nearby and mountains (+3 mineral with mine). I also try to time my colonisers to finish after a city had reached a new level of population (usually lv 7-8).
Once you reach lv 6, you can start to expand your city limit by "grabbing" terrain that better suit your economic needs.
More than food, minerals can be in really short supply for your workers. And since you'll try to raise your first city to lv 7-8 before colonising other sites, having enough minerals for 2x the number of workers is vital or else everything will be too slow to produce.
I was surprised to see that unlike in Civ/Alpha Centauri, the vegetation would not develop like with expansion of fungi and forests.
fungi are the best ressources, but their exploitation is so late that the game is already edging towards its conclusion.
My first unit is almost always a former followed by soldiers only once I discovered the flamer. building roads and mines are essential in the beginning.
I usually divide my terrains as follow :
all mountains/hills ... mines built
desert/fungi ... untouched
artic ... transformed into forest
savannah ... transformed into forest
grassland ... farms built
special terrains ... farms built, except Observatory if on a hill
I find having 1 or 2 forests (max 4) very useful as a cheap way to reduce pollution in a passive way (no need to exploit the terrains). And if you play Ecologist, forests produce an additional +1 mineral (like mines)
the easiest way to defend is to combine a soldier with flamer + a tank with anti-vehicle ammo (shell or missile, then laser).
always try to upgrade the armor of your units to the latest discovery, as soon as possible.
I use jets for reco (6 moves)
I always make sure to keep at least 1 unit at full health on the stack in defense after an attack, never having stacks more than 3 or 4 units big else the AI do devastating bombardments.
for attacking hard targets like capitals, position your tanks in plains as they are best to roll over the enemy infantry, while you move jets on the city tiles opposite (you get boni for flanking and there are no ZoC movement for flying units).
if the map is an archipelago-like, then get control of your island as soon as possible through colonisation and conquest.
The AI will come with transports 90% of the time, and with jets/light navy the remaining 10%. Transports are easy pickings for your jets or coastal garrisons.
the sea tiles of your cities can also be used for advanced reco : the strategic map shows you everything that is under your control + 1 tile away.
if the map is a continent, then be careful when creating choke-points.
the strategic bombardments can be utterly devastating if you concentrate too many units on the same location (and there are no defense to avoid it).
cities are great for recovering and building defensive walls. the AI never tried to destroy terrain improvements to tease me outside, and they very often attack you in a kamikaze way (if they have at least 2 units or expect to deal you 70%+ damage).
I like the way the tech tree is randomized, with a simple research accumulation.
however, it easily becomes too accessible once your empire has reached enough military units for defense (say 1 soldier with flamer + 1 tank + 1 jet per city). By then most of my cities are 80%-90% producing only research points in Wealth mode (little pollution, max income), with only a few with workers/miners (say 2 or 3) replacing lost units or producing wealth (preferably with a gold mine nearby).
Researches that took 5-8 turns now needs only 1 or 2 turns max. I even finish the game with enough stored points for several transcendental in advance.
Best regards,
Re: Balancing the early game?
I agree with everything Starbuck said.
I find that I can usually avoid conflict early on (even on hard difficulty) by offering them pacts they can't refuse. If I've done a lot of exploration, I offer to trade maps. If I have good research output, I'll offer research pact... Don't be afraid to give them a gift. Since the number of credits for gifts is a pre-set percentage of your balance, just spend your credits on upgrades and production before giving them gifts. The right order of diplomatic actions can make a big difference and I think it's worth it in the beginning. It won't work 100% of the time, but it's worth a try.
I find that I can usually avoid conflict early on (even on hard difficulty) by offering them pacts they can't refuse. If I've done a lot of exploration, I offer to trade maps. If I have good research output, I'll offer research pact... Don't be afraid to give them a gift. Since the number of credits for gifts is a pre-set percentage of your balance, just spend your credits on upgrades and production before giving them gifts. The right order of diplomatic actions can make a big difference and I think it's worth it in the beginning. It won't work 100% of the time, but it's worth a try.