Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Base management

In order to give you the edge over either less experienced players or the AI, there are a variety of "tricks" and "tips" that you should remember and apply in order to squeeze every ounce of productivity that's possible to get out of your bases. Remember to regularly scroll through all of your bases using the left/right keys on the base menu, or using the F4 button to bring up a quick rough report of all your bases.

Maximizing base grid output
You should regularly check your bases to make sure that they are working from the squares that will reap the most benefit. For example, initially your base works off normal grids w/o terraform enhancements which at most reaps 1F/1M. If a scout discovers a monolith within vicinity, you should switch production to that monolith as this is not automatically done.

Sometimes, the obvious way towards maximum output might not seem so obvious- should you work a farm grid which gives you alot of food and therefore growth, or should you work the forest grid with average production?

Here are some rules of thumb:


 * Never assign people to work rocky tiles with mines. These typically give 4 minerals and nothing else. If you have Industral Automaton, you have Supply Crawlers, and you should use crawlers to work mine squares instead. If not, then get Industrial Automation! Crawlers are ideal for extracting squares that are particularly good for a particular resource but no good at others.


 * If in doubt, plant forests. Forests will always give you a good overall production, and should you need more food for growth, you can always find a moist square to build farms.


 * Planting forests in advance is especially good in preparation for Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests. Forest squares also have a subtle effect of negating ecological damage and grant defensive bonuses.


 * If you've run out of productive squares, start turning citizens into specialists. Specialists include the doctor/librarian/technician at first, and the options increase with the discovery of more technologies. In general, a square is not productive if there isn't a mix of high mineral and energy output from that particular square. Food is largely irrelevant by the mid-game/late-game as you start getting Tree Farms.


 * After the early game, try having at least one borehole near each base, and more if your planet rating allows it (or you are able to build Centauri Preserves or Temples of Planet). Boreholes give absolutely immense benefits if you have the techs that lift mineral/energy restrictions. They should be kept in base squares and worked by citizens (rather than Supply Crawlers) since they are productive for both mineral and energy.


 * Use the Drill Aquifer command with your Formers to make rivers. This is a little-known but incredibly useful terraforming option: it acts as both a road and gives a +1 energy bonus. Do this on farm, or more usually, forest squares. Overcome the limitation of no adjacent rivers by getting formers to simultaneously drill on adjacent squares.

Base Production
Now that you are getting as much production from your base squares and crawlers as you can manage, you should try to channel this production effectively.

Some basics you should know:


 * When hurrying production, make sure the first row of minerals in the construction box is filled. Otherwise you are charged at double the cost for rushing construction from scratch.


 * The hurrying costs for the 3 types of constructions are:
 * 2 per mineral for base facilities, after the first row
 * 3 per mineral for units, after the first row
 * 4 per mineral for Secret projects, after the first row


 * If you are hurrying construction with credits, make sure that you pay only just enough so that none of your mineral production is wasted.

For micromanagers: whenever a base finishes a construction, some of the minerals produced that turn is carried over to the next item in the queue. However, the maximum amount that can be carried over is 11 minerals (assuming industry rating is 0), which means that had your base been producing 30 minerals a turn and you paid the full cost of hurrying a construction, you would have wasted 19 minerals that didn't get carried over. This is why you should do some arithmetic in your head before hurrying construction so you pay just the right amount such that none of your minerals are wasted.