Starting Strategies/ The First Secret Project you get.

[JarlWolf]

I fore-mention this: I do not consider myself anywhere close to an expert or skilled player of this game. I know how it works and I can play it on Librarian, but anything beyond that pushes my skills to the point that I often do not survive for as long as I want to.


That aside, here is the question for you comrades.

What is your methods when you start up the game, you make planet-fall. What is the first things you do? Presume we are playing on Blind research, no victory conditions, tech stagnation and do or die as our settings. You can state what faction you prefer to use or strategies for each faction, but overall, what is your approaches for starting your faction up? Whats the first things you look for, make and who do you usually try to kill, befriend or incur treaties with as fast as you can?


The second question, is what is the outright first secret project you initiate? What project do you go for, or attempt to, and why?

Looking forward to everyone's strategies, I honestly haven't played with other people on this game, so my knowledge of how others do things is limited.

[t_ras]

Well, I'm far from being expert either (though I had bit the AI in tracend). But Ill try.
I usually play Hive, and here is the play:
I Set first base and start command nexus immidiatly - the reason for that is the combinationj between having perimter defence and comman nexus, wich makes very good defence combinations against atacks + it means on one else gets command nexus.
In the offencive it means that in the early stages of the game command nexus will make me more powerfull then other in combat (after many offensive technologies have been discovered it is no longer true).
The second base begins immidiatly building more colony pods to make me able to build many units later.
I may, if possible, delay some colony pod to build a former to impruve the Hive base resources balance (since it is building command nexus).
My 2 cents...

[Buster's Uncle]

Gaians - I lead with a forest -because it maximizes time for it to spread to squares I then don't have to form- then make a road through it - I hate to devote the time to a road in the time-sensitive first turns, but it saves so much time later to just do it while I'm on the square that it's worth it.

I am a builder in my play-style.  The very first priority is settleing that second base.  My build queue for every. single. new. base. for as long as there's room -and I avoid overlapping base territory at all, striving to fit their ranges together exactly- begins:
Scout
Colony Pod

Then I'll build facilities at each base, sometimes starting a second colonizing wave from Gaia's Landing first. I prefer to take the time to send a scout with the CP, not build it at the new base and send the CP naked.  This requires me to switch base support for the scout at each new settlement, and costs enough time to probably get me killed against a human, but I play single player.

Because I'm a builder, I go for the Weather Paradigm first, then the Human Genome Project.  I apportion one SE to each base, except my headquarters, which I make a superbase becuase of the no inefficiency, so it gets all the economic bonus and research SEs, and falls behind the other early bases in facilities as a result, but pays off big.

For beginners, if you right-click on your build queue, you can save your current one and later paste the same into other bases, and when I say standard build queue, I mean standard. 

Playing the way I like to play WILL make you lose in MP against people - then you need to be more flexible, and shave every turn possible off your time, and every EC you can, so building all facilites in every base isn't competitve enough against humans.

[NewAgeOfPower]

Other than my core base or two, I have every base in a BxxBxxB type semi-ICS block, where every base has 9 squares of so. They have some minimal infrastructure, which I increase as the terraforming level increases, but otherwise these bases mass-produce crawlers then military units.

This is the general ideal:


Legend:
Blue = Base
Red = Borehole

Scale is 1 Square = 1 SMAC/X Square

Obviously, unless I lucked out with some Flat Land, I won't get this EXACT configuration, but this is very fast to build- I have some Rover Formers laying out road, and the Colony Pod immediately builds Base, Former, then Recycling (Or Recycling-Former, if there is more than one local former), and it has quite a bit of room for industrial growth, and is fairly flexible defensively- an infantry garrison can run to the next town easily, and some rover based Prototype-Products (upgraded afterwards, of course) should have a best/best mix in your Core Reserve of units to reinforce.

[JarlWolf]

As for how I start usually, I play a variety of factions. I play either Morgan, Zhakarov, Yang or Domai.

I find that Morgan and Domai, surprisingly, can become very adept at researching. And here is why.

I typically do something akin to our friend BUncle, but a little different. I make 3-4 formers as soon as I can, and spread forest's around like the plague, building sensor arrays like a madman as well as roads. After which, with my colony pods, I place them on top of a nice spot with a sensor pre built. Why do I do this? The colony square itself incorporates the added defence the sensor gives.

While im improving things, I typically go after the Merchant Exchange. And then I find a spot that can boast energy credits and I maximize it. The more energy intake you have, the better your research, as you fund it better. This is how I find the way to overcome Domai's horrible research penalties, and how to exploit Morgan's great economic prowess.

That, and I play it defencively. I am a infrastructural builder type, but I do fight in many wars. Just not as the aggressor. I purposely anger the factions I don't have good cohesion with without risking my honour, then I just make defencive trench like lines and bombard them, wearing them down. A war of attrition.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes.  I never start a war.  And I do do that sensor/base trick, just not in the first 25 or so turns of the game - no time, if I want a max territory foothold. 

Also. I mis-stated something; I forgot the former leading my build queues - the scout could find work, but isn't really needed until there's a colony pod to ecort, and unless the base is in the Monsoon Jungle, the CP needs the extra time, so the base can grow to 2 about the time it's finishing.

[JarlWolf]

In the game I always find I have problems expanding fast, even if I mass produce colony pods early on. I find that I always border some belligerent faction, or im constantly dealing with hostile local life. Or both at the same time. So I developed a sort of block and check style of expansion, securing an area before I even settle it. It makes expansion more slow but it also ensures successful colonization attempts and security for those new colonies.

[Green1]

I play a hybrid style where I can switch from bulding to war if needed.

Top project is the Weather Paradigm which will allow you to get a lot off of boreholes and condensors before anyone else can. Others if I have time to slide them in. For Zak, Virtual World is a MUST along with Hunter-Seeker.

Expanding is a key to the early game. Not too much expansion or you can be spread thin and crushed if you are near any momentum AIs like Miriam or Yang.

Do not forget to prototype early. Nothing stinks worse than having a meglomaniac armed with impact rovers on your doorstep when you have scout patrols.

[Pickly]

Would normally play a hybrid/builder type style, generally with the less military factions (although I have tried them some.)  Virtual World or Genome Project were usually the first projects, although weather paradigm followed closely.

Playstyle was generally expansion oriented, grab as much territory as quickly as possible, until running into other factions (and even than, try to push into/compete for territory as military allows.)

[JarlWolf]

I wouldn't say I play in a pacifist style, I do jump into wars, but I act more of as the industrial strongman. I don't start wars and I just jump onto the train to flex my industrial muscle, jump off and have a good laugh while the moldies try to assault my fortified positions.

[ariete]

i play thinker but finally i rest in a middle position (i don't like play easly).
first my priority is build colonies, terraforming and produce just few units which defend settlement and starting activities against the natives. My strategy during the game can be summarized as try to maintain, especially the neighboring factions, weaker than me. So if there's a war agaist the most powerfull i join with other or if i can't i try to convince the powerfull to make peace with the weakest factions and meanwhile i upgrade my military forces for future attack. I deploy myself to help the weakest and make their my friends or better pact brothers. If a faction came to eliminated is a player loss agaist the strongest so i try to mantain a sort of status quo initially until i'm able to deal the factions wich create a serious menace to planet balance.

[ariete]

principally secrets project i aim are those which reduce drone

[Alfapiomega]

I always try to get the Human Genome Project as the first thing as that one seems to be immensly useful in the long run. The Weather Paradigm is really good as well as it speeds up the growth.

I almost never (unless I have no other choice) go for The Merchant Exchange.

[Menelaus]

Weather Paradigm, followed closely by Citizens Defense Force, and Command Center. I would love to have every early SP but the Weather Paradigm and its enhanced former speeds is hard to pass up. I like the Citizens Defense Force because if you capture my base you have no Perimeter Defense to help you keep your bridgehead into my territory. If I capture your base then I have one instantly to help me defend my new territory!

[Yitzi]

I'd rarely play with tech stagnation; if I did in SP, I'd probably go for a momentum faction and go for a quick conquest win.

Assuming no tech stagnation, or the rare exception, I tend to prefer variety in which faction I play, and what I do depends heavily on which faction I end up with.  However, I absolutely detest full ICS (i.e. alternating bases and boreholes), and even for close packing or non-borehole ICS I feel it should be limited to one of two situations:
1. A momentum faction using close-packed bases to avoid having to build infrastructure, to support a lot of units, and to get moving and killing quickly in the early game.
2. Morgan, simply because nearly everything about him (from his ability to get +4 energy/base without a golden age to his small population caps to his low support/base) suggests that small bases might actually be the way to go.  Only problem is that you lose out on a substantial amount of commerce that way, so for him I feel it should really a matter of playstyle.  For any other builder faction, it should be a clear no-go.