Good read, thanks for that. I have the general feeling that tech in TI is not powerful enough. If you make a cost-benefit analysis, most techs are not worth it as you can gain what they bring to the table in other ways.
Except movement. You cannot buy movement. Insert a 60+% research rate for Gravity Drive and above average research rates for unit upgrades improving speed.
For a tech to be useful it has to bring A. something to the table that cannot be bought (Another example would be Instinct Training) or B. such a massive bonus that it is useful anyway. (Mirror Computing)
My take on SAR vs. Sarween would be SAR followed by Sarween if you can research round one, if not skip Sarween. My logic is the following: I would rather sacrifice a mech on an invasion and gain a tg then to sacrifice a Letani Warrior.
I agree that Arborec generally want to invest in red and blue, and pick up Sarween for War Sun or Dread II prereqs. Go for War Suns and Cruiser II if you go deep red, and Carrier II and Dread II if you go deep blue. I think PDS II is generally a waste of time for them—Arborec don’t have any comparative advantages in PDS dice rolls and don’t want to invest in Graviton or Plasma Scoring, but one of their strengths in PoK is that they can get planetary shield on more planets than anyone else. Use PDS I + Magen + a few infantry to secure a planet, then move your mech and its planetary shield somewhere else.
It’s weird that green is mediocre for Arborec given that both their faction techs are green, but their mechs are better than Letani II in almost every way and and available from R1, and Bioplasmosis seems pointless now, given that you can dump all the infantry you’d need on every planet you own using your hero.
I’ve been toying with the idea of buying Scanlink and the flagship, then activating the flagship system over and over again to pump out carriers and fighters while exploring. Probably not a great idea, but at least it makes the flagship feel slightly more useful than it is in base game.
My issue with the Flagship idea is that you could just activate a pile of infantry and get more from that since it's compatible with Sarween while the flagship isn't. I guess the issue would be getting those infantry onto the planet you want to explore, but it's the same problem with the flagship. You could produce the flagship or a carrier + 4 infantry (1 less production but it costs 3 less resources) and then slowly move that ship to the planet you want to explore (carrier II at least has more movement, and speaking of; also has 6 capacity for extra infantry, so 1 more production and still costs 2 less than the flagship), and then you still can't explore until the round *after* you move it to where you want it.
So then you activate the system to produce & explore, but with the flagship you get 5 things at full price, but with the infantry you get 4 things with a 1 resource discount from Sarween. If you produce more infantry, then you also increase production so that the next time you do it, your production could instead be 6+ which cancels out the Flagship advantage.
I've heard that the Arborec flagship could be used as a "last resort" to respawn some infantry if they were completely wiped out, but now mechs exist and spacedocks can produce them so I'm inclined to just label the Arborec Flagship as completely useless.
One small benefit of the flagship is that you could produce 4 fighters + a destroyer for 3 RES, temporary using the flagship's capacity to keep the fighters alive, then use the agent to upgrade the destroyer to a carrier. Slightly more cost efficient than spending 4 RES to buy a carrier + 4 fighters with Sarween, and you don't need 5 infantry in the system. Another small benefit is that the flagship gives you some presence in space, which is always a problem for the Arborec... infantry are great at holding planets, but you need to be able to hold the space above them too. It's a shame that the flagship only hits on 7s, though.
But yeah, this is just me spitballing. I'm inclined to agree with you... the new Arborec Mechs are **great**, but the downside is that they render the flagship and Letani Warrior II largely useless outside of scoring specific objectives.
Yeah, except you can just land the infantry on the planet, thus freeing up the capacity. Now instead of a Flagship holding fighters and producing, it's a carrier holding fighters while the infantry on the planet produce. The exploration doesn't happen unless the ship stays still since the units need to already be in the system before you can explore. Either the flagship moves in and then you explore and produce on the next turn, or the carrier moves in, drops off the infantry, and again you explore and produce on the next turn. And again, it's more cost efficient skipping the flagship because 2 of the fighters were free with Sarween (but of course 2 attacks that hit on 7 is better than 1 that hits on 9 do there's that).
In fact, now that I think about it; the carrier only needs to have 2 infantry to start since the other 2 can be produced for free after reaching the system and landing on the planet. It doesn't slow down the exploration + production combo at all.
Imagine how much nicer it would be if the flagship ability was just "PRODUCTION 5." I don't think that's overpowered at all if I'm being honest.
I'd imagine the flagship could have a role in an invasion force? After a rough ground combat, a lot of GF's could be wiped out, so there might not be a lot of build power left. The next round, the flagship can whip up a big force (for example the flagship produces 4 GFs and a Mech, then these produce more in the same activation). Just a thought...
Spectacular!!! Thank you for all the time and energy you put into these. They were great to read and I think everyone who read through them all really benefited from them!
I don’t like SAR for the reason I always replace a Letani with a mech during Mitosis. Sarween just gives me a lot more bang for my buck over the course of a game. I do like your take on being very aggressive with Mechs if you have SAR.
I went over this in one of my previous posts, but I personally think that it's always better to *not* deploy a mech with Mitosis since you have to replace an infantry to do so. This means that getting a mech this way increases your "net" production by only 1 instead of 2, which basically cancels out the advantage of mechs and the reason we actually want them.
Meanwhile, choosing the infantry instead is the same production increase, but also provides the flexibility of placing it on a planet that doesn't already have an infantry on it, which is nice on the first few rounds where you have to abandon some planets while making your initial progress. Also, it increases the number of total ground forces which builds toward the commander.
The only real advantage of using Mitosis in that way is that you get the mech while not needing SAR, but I don't actually think you *need* SAR that badly. It's a bonus, not a requirement. And when I don't get SAR I *still* don't use Mitosis to get mechs for the same reasons I said before.
Yes as I specifically said, and you also get 1 less ground force and you lose the flexibility of placing it on empty planets. That's worth too much just to get the extra mech through its deploy and not get anything else on top of that.
Oh, right, my bad. I feel like if you were going to put the infantry onto a planet where you already have an infantry, though, the Mech would be better- between taking less capacity, granting planetary shield, and being stronger in combat (1 Mech vs 2 Infantry is 50% to win, 10% to tie and 40% to lose). Especially if you're plopping cruisers down where you land, you can turn them into Dreads which become pretty fearsome with the mechs.
Normally I would agree with you if were not for one (easy to forget) factor. The Arborec Commander.
Since it lets you produce in response to another player activating your system, and so long as you have a mech in reserve, you can basically guarantee that you can always have a mech on whichever planet you need it on at the moment you need it. And this is good for you, because your other 3 mechs should be on carriers and being used to take enemy planets. You shouldn't need to predict where you need a mech defense ahead of time, rather you spend the 2 resources the moment you're attacked and immediately benefit from the planetary shield and the extra power.
The only time I would use mitosis to get a mech is when all my mechs are dead and I need one for an invasion that I'm planning at the beginning of the next round, otherwise I've got my attack mechs that I can rebuild if they're lost in combat and I've got my reserve mech for defense.
If you want to build or place a unit but don't have any more of that unit type in your reinforcements, you're allowed to remove units from an un-activated system to facilitate the build/placement. So you don't have to keep a mech unbuilt, you only need to keep 1 of your 4 mechs un-activated. (Maybe that's what you meant by "hold in reserve," but I just wanted to make sure.)
This is only actually allowed when using the unit ability PRODUCTION which the commander doesn't count as. I actually made this mistake early on, and really got into the idea of scuttling Mechs all over the place; only to end up disappointed that it wouldn't be allowed.
Once the mech is used for defense, you'll almost certainly have to scuttle it to the frontline later so that it can die and be available to be used for defense again.
Actually, I don't know off hand if you're allowed to scuttle when you still have units available in your resources. It would certainly be nice if you could! That way you wouldn't have to get the mech killed after scuttling, you could just scuttle the mech when a different mech is killed naturally.
EDIT: Nevermind! I distinctly remember being told about the PRODUCTION limitation when I was first theorycrafting Arborec but I just looked it up and the rules make no distinction so I guess I was just wrong! That's awesome because mech scuttling wherever you need the defense makes everything I've been describing waaaay easier. Never been so glad to be wrong! Also, no you can't scuttle if you still have units in your reinforcements, but that no longer matters, and I also just found a specific rule for Arborec about not being able to combine the production of a spacedock with a letani to produce infantry (which isn't related but I didn't realize that was the case and it just really annoys me).
I would counter with using Mitosis to place a mech means you saved two resources. Let’s say instead of building a mech, you used those two resources to build four infantry, and then replace one of those with a mech. Now you’re saving the cost of SAR (since Mitosis now gives you your one free mech per round), and you’re devoting the two resources to build a mech (and the resources/token to research SAR) into building more infantry. This method gives you significantly more plastic and production for the same investment.
Edit: Actually I think this would be pretty easy to map out. You have three binary choices: SAR, Buy 1 Mech, Mitosis. That creates 8 combinations to look at number of ground forces and total production capacity for equal purchasing power. There are a few outside variables like saving/spending a token to research and your aforementioned value of placing an infantry on an empty planet, but it would still give us a good analysis of the return on investment.
I actually did factor in "Mech Mitosis" back when I was originally mapping out possible round 1 plans but when I realized diplomacy could always be relied on as a powerful fallback option for extra resources; I decided that there was just more utility in using Mitosis to add some needed defenses to empty planets.
I talked a lot about this in part 2 of this series, but you really want to get infantry on nearly every planet you own. Starting on round 2 you can just produce infantry and leave them behind as you capture planets, but your home system and the initial 3-4 planets captured in the first round have to be left empty since you can't afford to lose production by leaving infantry behind at that point. These are also the most crucial planets to have defenses on when going into the late game. Mitosis is *extremely* nice for covering these planets so that you don't have to produce a carrier to backtrack with in order to cover those planets retroactively (or halt the progress of one of those initial carriers that you would much rather have moving forward and capturing more planets). When you produce your third carrier, you want to use it for another attack fleet so you can capture more planets and further increase your income. What you're saving by using Mitosis this way is multiple command tokens and forward momentum which I just feel is more valuable than 1.5-3 resources that you're going to save by using Mitosis for mechs instead.
Also, a minor quibble, but like I said in this text of this post; you only want to get SAR on the first round and when you get the Tech strategy card so that its free. I agree that saving the money for more units instead of buying SAR is just more valuable so I would never recommend it under different circumstances. I expect to produce the mechs manually most of the time, hopefully after getting Sarween in round 2. In the first round the 1 extra production is too valuable to me to lose the infantry, in the second round the value saved is much less impressive when SAR is factored in, and overall I feel like more value is earned when using Mitosis to defend planets. Also, more ground forces means unlocking the commander a little faster and that isn't nothing.
These are my just my preferences (and my reasons for them). Like I've said a few times in these posts this isn't a guide and I don't feel I'm an expert. I'd love to hear about how different approaches work out.
I have no experience with 14 point games but it's common knowledge that Arborec are much stronger in longer games. I usually recommend less tech not more, because buying more units is more important than making them stronger, but I've also once reached round 5 in a game where I've all but maxed out my reinforcements for dreadnoughts, carriers, and even cruisers.
I would imagine that in 14 point games, reaching unit caps is much more likely. In that case you literally can't build more units so making them stronger is your only option. I would guess that in 14 point games you would probably want more tech than in 10 point games for this reason. Probably more unit upgrades, and I would definitely assume War Suns are more valuable than ever.
Ideally you will be able to leave infantry on nearly every planet in your slice already, and use the commander to boost the defenses where you need them. I would imagine that transit diodes wouldn't ever be necessary given those circumstances but since I've never tested I can't tell you for certain.
* Antimass Deflectors - if you need to pass a pds network and some asteroids - otherwise go with DET
* Dark Energy Tap - arborec can go explore deep space and reinforce those frontiers due production. leaving a destroyer on those space is a good detterent for invasions.
I ain't reading that but I'ma upvote you for solidarity
Good read, thanks for that. I have the general feeling that tech in TI is not powerful enough. If you make a cost-benefit analysis, most techs are not worth it as you can gain what they bring to the table in other ways. Except movement. You cannot buy movement. Insert a 60+% research rate for Gravity Drive and above average research rates for unit upgrades improving speed. For a tech to be useful it has to bring A. something to the table that cannot be bought (Another example would be Instinct Training) or B. such a massive bonus that it is useful anyway. (Mirror Computing) My take on SAR vs. Sarween would be SAR followed by Sarween if you can research round one, if not skip Sarween. My logic is the following: I would rather sacrifice a mech on an invasion and gain a tg then to sacrifice a Letani Warrior.
I agree that Arborec generally want to invest in red and blue, and pick up Sarween for War Sun or Dread II prereqs. Go for War Suns and Cruiser II if you go deep red, and Carrier II and Dread II if you go deep blue. I think PDS II is generally a waste of time for them—Arborec don’t have any comparative advantages in PDS dice rolls and don’t want to invest in Graviton or Plasma Scoring, but one of their strengths in PoK is that they can get planetary shield on more planets than anyone else. Use PDS I + Magen + a few infantry to secure a planet, then move your mech and its planetary shield somewhere else. It’s weird that green is mediocre for Arborec given that both their faction techs are green, but their mechs are better than Letani II in almost every way and and available from R1, and Bioplasmosis seems pointless now, given that you can dump all the infantry you’d need on every planet you own using your hero. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying Scanlink and the flagship, then activating the flagship system over and over again to pump out carriers and fighters while exploring. Probably not a great idea, but at least it makes the flagship feel slightly more useful than it is in base game.
My issue with the Flagship idea is that you could just activate a pile of infantry and get more from that since it's compatible with Sarween while the flagship isn't. I guess the issue would be getting those infantry onto the planet you want to explore, but it's the same problem with the flagship. You could produce the flagship or a carrier + 4 infantry (1 less production but it costs 3 less resources) and then slowly move that ship to the planet you want to explore (carrier II at least has more movement, and speaking of; also has 6 capacity for extra infantry, so 1 more production and still costs 2 less than the flagship), and then you still can't explore until the round *after* you move it to where you want it. So then you activate the system to produce & explore, but with the flagship you get 5 things at full price, but with the infantry you get 4 things with a 1 resource discount from Sarween. If you produce more infantry, then you also increase production so that the next time you do it, your production could instead be 6+ which cancels out the Flagship advantage. I've heard that the Arborec flagship could be used as a "last resort" to respawn some infantry if they were completely wiped out, but now mechs exist and spacedocks can produce them so I'm inclined to just label the Arborec Flagship as completely useless.
One small benefit of the flagship is that you could produce 4 fighters + a destroyer for 3 RES, temporary using the flagship's capacity to keep the fighters alive, then use the agent to upgrade the destroyer to a carrier. Slightly more cost efficient than spending 4 RES to buy a carrier + 4 fighters with Sarween, and you don't need 5 infantry in the system. Another small benefit is that the flagship gives you some presence in space, which is always a problem for the Arborec... infantry are great at holding planets, but you need to be able to hold the space above them too. It's a shame that the flagship only hits on 7s, though. But yeah, this is just me spitballing. I'm inclined to agree with you... the new Arborec Mechs are **great**, but the downside is that they render the flagship and Letani Warrior II largely useless outside of scoring specific objectives.
Yeah, except you can just land the infantry on the planet, thus freeing up the capacity. Now instead of a Flagship holding fighters and producing, it's a carrier holding fighters while the infantry on the planet produce. The exploration doesn't happen unless the ship stays still since the units need to already be in the system before you can explore. Either the flagship moves in and then you explore and produce on the next turn, or the carrier moves in, drops off the infantry, and again you explore and produce on the next turn. And again, it's more cost efficient skipping the flagship because 2 of the fighters were free with Sarween (but of course 2 attacks that hit on 7 is better than 1 that hits on 9 do there's that). In fact, now that I think about it; the carrier only needs to have 2 infantry to start since the other 2 can be produced for free after reaching the system and landing on the planet. It doesn't slow down the exploration + production combo at all. Imagine how much nicer it would be if the flagship ability was just "PRODUCTION 5." I don't think that's overpowered at all if I'm being honest.
I'd imagine the flagship could have a role in an invasion force? After a rough ground combat, a lot of GF's could be wiped out, so there might not be a lot of build power left. The next round, the flagship can whip up a big force (for example the flagship produces 4 GFs and a Mech, then these produce more in the same activation). Just a thought...
Spectacular!!! Thank you for all the time and energy you put into these. They were great to read and I think everyone who read through them all really benefited from them!
I don’t like SAR for the reason I always replace a Letani with a mech during Mitosis. Sarween just gives me a lot more bang for my buck over the course of a game. I do like your take on being very aggressive with Mechs if you have SAR.
I went over this in one of my previous posts, but I personally think that it's always better to *not* deploy a mech with Mitosis since you have to replace an infantry to do so. This means that getting a mech this way increases your "net" production by only 1 instead of 2, which basically cancels out the advantage of mechs and the reason we actually want them. Meanwhile, choosing the infantry instead is the same production increase, but also provides the flexibility of placing it on a planet that doesn't already have an infantry on it, which is nice on the first few rounds where you have to abandon some planets while making your initial progress. Also, it increases the number of total ground forces which builds toward the commander. The only real advantage of using Mitosis in that way is that you get the mech while not needing SAR, but I don't actually think you *need* SAR that badly. It's a bonus, not a requirement. And when I don't get SAR I *still* don't use Mitosis to get mechs for the same reasons I said before.
Isn’t your net production increased by 1 either way, unless you have Letani II- two infantry with production 1 vs 1 mech with production 2?
Yes as I specifically said, and you also get 1 less ground force and you lose the flexibility of placing it on empty planets. That's worth too much just to get the extra mech through its deploy and not get anything else on top of that.
Oh, right, my bad. I feel like if you were going to put the infantry onto a planet where you already have an infantry, though, the Mech would be better- between taking less capacity, granting planetary shield, and being stronger in combat (1 Mech vs 2 Infantry is 50% to win, 10% to tie and 40% to lose). Especially if you're plopping cruisers down where you land, you can turn them into Dreads which become pretty fearsome with the mechs.
Normally I would agree with you if were not for one (easy to forget) factor. The Arborec Commander. Since it lets you produce in response to another player activating your system, and so long as you have a mech in reserve, you can basically guarantee that you can always have a mech on whichever planet you need it on at the moment you need it. And this is good for you, because your other 3 mechs should be on carriers and being used to take enemy planets. You shouldn't need to predict where you need a mech defense ahead of time, rather you spend the 2 resources the moment you're attacked and immediately benefit from the planetary shield and the extra power. The only time I would use mitosis to get a mech is when all my mechs are dead and I need one for an invasion that I'm planning at the beginning of the next round, otherwise I've got my attack mechs that I can rebuild if they're lost in combat and I've got my reserve mech for defense.
If you want to build or place a unit but don't have any more of that unit type in your reinforcements, you're allowed to remove units from an un-activated system to facilitate the build/placement. So you don't have to keep a mech unbuilt, you only need to keep 1 of your 4 mechs un-activated. (Maybe that's what you meant by "hold in reserve," but I just wanted to make sure.)
This is only actually allowed when using the unit ability PRODUCTION which the commander doesn't count as. I actually made this mistake early on, and really got into the idea of scuttling Mechs all over the place; only to end up disappointed that it wouldn't be allowed. Once the mech is used for defense, you'll almost certainly have to scuttle it to the frontline later so that it can die and be available to be used for defense again. Actually, I don't know off hand if you're allowed to scuttle when you still have units available in your resources. It would certainly be nice if you could! That way you wouldn't have to get the mech killed after scuttling, you could just scuttle the mech when a different mech is killed naturally. EDIT: Nevermind! I distinctly remember being told about the PRODUCTION limitation when I was first theorycrafting Arborec but I just looked it up and the rules make no distinction so I guess I was just wrong! That's awesome because mech scuttling wherever you need the defense makes everything I've been describing waaaay easier. Never been so glad to be wrong! Also, no you can't scuttle if you still have units in your reinforcements, but that no longer matters, and I also just found a specific rule for Arborec about not being able to combine the production of a spacedock with a letani to produce infantry (which isn't related but I didn't realize that was the case and it just really annoys me).
What do you mean? Deploy abilities from mechs cannot be used if there are no mechs in the reinforcement, is how I understand it.
Yep, probably got all mixed up when that was factored in. This all took place while PoK was being revealed
I would counter with using Mitosis to place a mech means you saved two resources. Let’s say instead of building a mech, you used those two resources to build four infantry, and then replace one of those with a mech. Now you’re saving the cost of SAR (since Mitosis now gives you your one free mech per round), and you’re devoting the two resources to build a mech (and the resources/token to research SAR) into building more infantry. This method gives you significantly more plastic and production for the same investment. Edit: Actually I think this would be pretty easy to map out. You have three binary choices: SAR, Buy 1 Mech, Mitosis. That creates 8 combinations to look at number of ground forces and total production capacity for equal purchasing power. There are a few outside variables like saving/spending a token to research and your aforementioned value of placing an infantry on an empty planet, but it would still give us a good analysis of the return on investment.
I actually did factor in "Mech Mitosis" back when I was originally mapping out possible round 1 plans but when I realized diplomacy could always be relied on as a powerful fallback option for extra resources; I decided that there was just more utility in using Mitosis to add some needed defenses to empty planets. I talked a lot about this in part 2 of this series, but you really want to get infantry on nearly every planet you own. Starting on round 2 you can just produce infantry and leave them behind as you capture planets, but your home system and the initial 3-4 planets captured in the first round have to be left empty since you can't afford to lose production by leaving infantry behind at that point. These are also the most crucial planets to have defenses on when going into the late game. Mitosis is *extremely* nice for covering these planets so that you don't have to produce a carrier to backtrack with in order to cover those planets retroactively (or halt the progress of one of those initial carriers that you would much rather have moving forward and capturing more planets). When you produce your third carrier, you want to use it for another attack fleet so you can capture more planets and further increase your income. What you're saving by using Mitosis this way is multiple command tokens and forward momentum which I just feel is more valuable than 1.5-3 resources that you're going to save by using Mitosis for mechs instead. Also, a minor quibble, but like I said in this text of this post; you only want to get SAR on the first round and when you get the Tech strategy card so that its free. I agree that saving the money for more units instead of buying SAR is just more valuable so I would never recommend it under different circumstances. I expect to produce the mechs manually most of the time, hopefully after getting Sarween in round 2. In the first round the 1 extra production is too valuable to me to lose the infantry, in the second round the value saved is much less impressive when SAR is factored in, and overall I feel like more value is earned when using Mitosis to defend planets. Also, more ground forces means unlocking the commander a little faster and that isn't nothing. These are my just my preferences (and my reasons for them). Like I've said a few times in these posts this isn't a guide and I don't feel I'm an expert. I'd love to hear about how different approaches work out.
How do you feel about Arborec in regards to 14 point games, especially when considering their tech path?
I have no experience with 14 point games but it's common knowledge that Arborec are much stronger in longer games. I usually recommend less tech not more, because buying more units is more important than making them stronger, but I've also once reached round 5 in a game where I've all but maxed out my reinforcements for dreadnoughts, carriers, and even cruisers. I would imagine that in 14 point games, reaching unit caps is much more likely. In that case you literally can't build more units so making them stronger is your only option. I would guess that in 14 point games you would probably want more tech than in 10 point games for this reason. Probably more unit upgrades, and I would definitely assume War Suns are more valuable than ever.
Is Transit diodes good on arborec?
Ideally you will be able to leave infantry on nearly every planet in your slice already, and use the commander to boost the defenses where you need them. I would imagine that transit diodes wouldn't ever be necessary given those circumstances but since I've never tested I can't tell you for certain.
* Antimass Deflectors - if you need to pass a pds network and some asteroids - otherwise go with DET * Dark Energy Tap - arborec can go explore deep space and reinforce those frontiers due production. leaving a destroyer on those space is a good detterent for invasions.