HtH Ladder Earthmichael vs. Kirov - TTT

[Earthmichael]

Kirov, I believe Yitzi is right, that the bureaucracy is 7.

Titzi, this is early game, there is no way that Kirov could have gotten to Democracy yet.

[Earthmichael]

 

[Yitzi]

Kirov, I believe Yitzi is right, that the bureaucracy is 7.

Titzi, this is early game, there is no way that Kirov could have gotten to Democracy yet.

Well, barring a pod giving Ethical Calculus.
But even by turn 12 he's already got enough bases to be concerned about bureaucracy?  That seems barely enough time to build his first colony pod if he starts out with his first base building one (rather than another scout to explore and collect pods).

[Kirov]

Turned to T-1000. Thanks for the tip.

Yitzi, we play the Vets map, no pods here. The starting units were 2 CPs, 2 formers and 4 scout patrols and I believe we both have 4 bases right now. In a normal single player situation I stop at the first limit and try to get some drone-related SP, I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do this time.

[Yitzi]

and I believe we both have 4 bases right now. In a normal single player situation I stop at the first limit and try to get some drone-related SP, I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do this time.

Ah, and you were just figuring out how many it is so that you have some idea of how to pace yourself?

[Earthmichael]

 

[Earthmichael]

Every base after the bureaucracy limit costs two drones somewhere, so it is not worth building bases past this limit until you have some drone suppression technology available.  A SP is ideal, but I would consider expansion with Rec Commons also.

So normally one only builds enough colony pods to get to this limit (7 in our case), and switches to something else at that point (typically terraformers, supply crawlers, and whatever buildings you have the tech to make, since we have no military worries for now other than mindworms).

So one needs to plan ahead.  With 4 bases each, we probably only want to dedicate 3 of those bases to colony pods; otherwise, we will be building more colony pods than we are willing to put in service, and would likely be better off building something else that would provide immediate benefits.  One might think that I could expand more with Aki because of the +2 EFF, but this is nullified by PLANNED.  Morgan is undoubtably using FM, so the net result is we both have EFF 0, for maximum of 7 bases before the negatives.

[Yitzi]

Every base after the bureaucracy limit costs two drones somewhere

It's not quite that simple:  IIRC, the curve is smoother and the formula is more complicated; so as it turns out, if the bureaucracy limit is L, the N'th base costs, on average, 2N/L-1 drones.  So right after the first limit it costs only a bit more than one drone (i.e. probably only one drone, with a small chance of 2), whereas near the second limit it's as high as three extra drones per base.

so it is not worth building bases past this limit until you have some drone suppression technology available.  A SP is ideal, but I would consider expansion with Rec Commons also.

So normally one only builds enough colony pods to get to this limit (7 in our case), and switches to something else at that point (typically terraformers, supply crawlers, and whatever buildings you have the tech to make, since we have no military worries for now other than mindworms).

Ah, that makes sense...having the first burst of pods be up to the limit.  (Well, it makes sense when the limit isn't that large; if it is larger, such as a larger map, more efficient faction, or easier difficulty, then before you reach that point the core bases might grow to the point where it makes more sense to boost them with facilities and have the peripheral bases continue the expansion.)

[Kirov]

 

[Earthmichael]

 

[Kirov]

CyCon 2117

[Earthmichael]

 

[Kirov]

18.

[Kirov]

Let me also add that yours is an interesting opening. Only now I saw your SP under construction and checked that you started already in 2112! Is it your standard or experiment? If one may ask.

[Earthmichael]

Standard practice on the SP.