Reply: Gaia Project:: Strategy:: Re: Gleens - Are they really that bad?

by Gaertner3031

davypi wrote:

Redking wrote:

Woudn't the Gleens allow a rush to an advanced tech using their free federation token from PI to access it? EDIT: Typo

Kind of..?

I've only done an advanced tech rush in a couple of games so I have to admit that my experience here is a bit limited. Usually if you want to tech rush you're going to put your two starting mines somewhat close to each other and then either think about a four building combo of 2-2-2-1 or 2-3-2. One of those buildings will have to be research station so you have a place to put the advanced tech and then subsequently build another RS or University afterwards to claim it. If you are going to rush tech with Gleens, you have to build your PI and two RS which is analogous to the 2-3-2 situation above. And if you're doing this, you're not really leveraging Gleen's "use ore as quick" ability. So I only see a few advantages here.

1) Gleens might be able to shave a few turns off of the process because they don't have to take a federation action and other races have to build another RS/Univ after federating. However, this still isn't hard for other races to pull off, so unless Gleens and somebody else are racing for the same tech, I don't see how this is really an advantage. The flip side to this is that other races can use the 4 QIC for tech action, but Gleen's cannot, so even this advantage can be taken away from the Gleen if another race is able to find QIC income.

2) Because Gleen's don't have to federate, they don't have to put their start buildings near each other. This could give them a positional advantage on the map in later rounds of the game which, I have to admit, if you are playing tall in the opening rounds could be important

3) Gleens could actually get an advanced tech by going PI and RS/Univ, so they could get an advanced tech with only six power on the board. However, this seems awfully expensive and leaves the player in a situation where they would be income strapped unless they either took the tech on the top of the income track or the advanced tech itself provides income.

My personal thoughts on this are that if I were going to use Gleens to rush up a track like this, I would be more inclined to rush Terraforming or Nav track to take the top spot rather than worry about advanced tech. Taking an advanced tech means covering a standard tech tile. In many cases, I would rather have the 4 power tile and another income tile than what most advanced tech tiles offer (but there are exceptions). In particular, since Gleens don't have access to QIC, having a 4 Nav and extending their range with the lost colony is going to allow the player to leverage Gleen's other ability and get into some Gaia planets before my opponents are able to reach them. If I'm going to rush for advanced tech, I usually want to take 4 power and 7 points and then make the advanced tech my third pickup, covering the 7 pointer. But is doing all this work for an advanced tech tile worth not being able to use QIC? I can certainly imagine situations where this might actually be a viable option, but I would think they are extreme edge cases. As somebody else said further up in this thread, if you want early fed tokens, you should be asking yourself why you are taking Gleens instead of Ambas (or maybe even Ivits).

But there’s a easy way to get advanced tech tile PLUS QIC using from the first round an with Gleens:

The advanced tech of your choice must be in navigation.
Build QIC academy in round one. Take tech 1o1q plus other standard tech (best 4C when aiming for advanced tech 3 ore). The standard tech tiles you want should be in the lower row or under terraforming (needed for building academy) or navigating.
Round two build PI + mine. You need booster with knowledge in R1, 2 or three.
In round three you climb level 4 on Navigation and can take the advanced tech tile with 4QIC action.

From now on you have a strong economy with advanced tech 3 ore, standard tech 4C plus navigating 3 PLUS QIC every round PLUS you can build feds at the end of the game. Total of 16 ore (PI plus advanced tech) and 20 Credits.

This is absolutely competitive to all other races. With the fitting round scoring tiles you can beat every other race in this setup.