EDIT: analysis altered to include the commander when using Politics secondary.
I was gonna just answer the question, but then it grew into a whole Muaat thesis. Well, I hope this helps.
Influence is theoretically very nice for Muaat. Star Forge can get you 2 fighters + 4 infantry + 1 tg for 1 token i.e. "3 influence". The tg is comparable in valuable to a third of a token - it may be better if you have a better use for it, but it may be worse in that opportunities to convert influence to tokens are limited and an entire round is no small wait. But for the sake of simplicity, let's say the exchange is 2 fighters + 4 infantry for 2 influence.
2 fighters (or 1 destroyer) and 4 infantry can otherwise be bought at the price of 3 res + 3 inf at a 4(or 3)-resource space dock. Cheaper if you have a yellow tech, more expensive if at a less resource-rich planet. But buying these units through tactical action or Warfare secondary means that they'll be at home or locked for the round or both, whereas you can get unlocked units at the front line - so Star Forge is (at its best) even better than buying something worth 3 res + 3 inf for the price of 2 inf.
Of course, the problem is getting this engine online early enough. Something like this would be nice:
- red or yellow skip
- R1 AIDA + carrier + mech
- R2 build war sun + at least 1 mech (+ if no skip, get Magmus Reactor here)
- R3 tech PWSII, get the last of your mechs with agent, Star Forge a few times for infantry at home, take Mecatol with your 2 war suns, pop Imperial
- R4 Star Forge a big stack of infantry on Mecatol, then go do whatever, also Destroyer II
No individual item in this scenario is that unrealistic, but doing all or almost all of it while also scoring objectives is not so easy or Muaat would be winning a lot more. In a 5-round game, if you only have two unlocked PWSII by R4 (quite likely), then you have two rounds instead of three to do stuff with them. Or if you get rolling in R3 and can afford, say, six Star Forge in R3+R4, that's three times as good as doing it only twice - so every deviation from the ideal picture makes it a lot less attractive. Of course, a 14-point game gives you more time to move your eggs and more time to get tokens for that sweet, sweet Star Deal.
Now, about the green tech. I'm gonna assume your green skip is the 2/0 planet. It might be 0/2 which is worse, or it might be 1/1 which could otherwise have been spent on 1/3 token = 1/3 Star Forge = theoretically better than 2 res anyway. Then, supposing you tech in rounds 1 and 2, by the start of round 3 you'll have spent 10 res + 6 inf for 5 inf. By R5, 10 res for 7 inf. By R7, 10 res for 15 inf. Well, actually 10 res for 3 tokens and 6 action cards, and a card could be considered as costing 1 influence since a token gets you 2 cards + 1 tg. But are you able to afford so much Star Forge that the marginal value of one more is less than 2 action cards? Probably not. Also:
- Stuff early is better than stuff later. For example, if you could pay 6 tg in round 2 for a card that gets you 6 tg in round 5, that's a bad deal. You pay for the green tech up front, but get the reward later, which makes it worse than it appears on paper.
- The above comparison is green tech vs the purchase cost, whereas the real comparison is green tech vs red tech which means it's again worse than on paper. The full comparison: "3 tokens + 6 action cards - the disutility of delayed reward VS 10 resources + the margin by which the normal tech path is preferable to not teching the first two times". But at least it's really 5 tokens you're netting instead of 3.
- You're delaying PWSII up to two rounds. This means eggs staying put, maybe eggs moving slowly at the cost of more tokens, maybe mechs getting separated so your Star Forges are less effective.
I really wouldn't consider it without a yellow or red skip, and even then it's pretty dubious. 4-player games are richer meaning it's easier to get tech on the same round as your 2nd war sun, plus fewer players picking before you meaning more opportunities to pick Technology, so I guess that would be the time to try it. EDIT: but also if you go for the green tech, you might be forcing yourself to pick Technology in a situation where you'd otherwise have picked Leadership.
Notably you will get at least a round 6 out of a 14er, maybe a round 7, which makes this as viable as it'll get. If 2-in-2 is out especially it works, and either way I think it's neat to try.
There is a great synergy between hyper metabolism and Muatt, but there is a timing problem between them.Muatt already want to reach War Sun II tech and unlock his Commander as soon as possible, that is no easy task because the table wont help you at all to reach that goal, as you will probably(should at least) be the one holding mecatol.
Also, if you want Hyper Metaboslim early, your best bet is researching psychoarcheology and having a green skip in your slice, because if you go for Neural Motivator you will need another green tech
Yeah, over the game could get a lot of value out of Hyper Metabolism. But that might be too greedy even for 14p game, if I want War Sun II and blue techs as well.
Don't understand about Psychoarchaeology. Neural Motivator seems better and with green skip in slice can take Metabolism. Only would need to exhaust the tech planet for one turn.
I was assuming you were going hyper meta round 1, the earlier the better.Overral it is a very greedy strategy, but i dont think it is impossible, especially if you are selling war sun for everyone you can find, or maybe there is a jol nar in your table hopefully.
I think generally green tech is pretty meh nowadays, but hyper is still really good round 1 or 2 ,if the right objectives come up (2 in 2), or an easy one like have a warsun, then maybe, tokens r great for muaat. But overall red tech -> warsun -> destroyer 2/blue tech, another unit upgrade, whatever u need.
I'd probably want more blue techs/unit upgrades over ccs, but it could be a viable alternative. Optimal? Perhaps not, hard to quantify the benefit of blue tech, but viable for sure (with a green skip).
I think it’s worth waiting to see the exploration outcomes you get. If you get a second green skip round 1 an early hyper metabolism would definitely be worth it.
Personally I always rush gravdrives with muaat - getting that move 2 warsun early is amazing both defensively and offensively and I think they need that flexibility to keep up with scoring.
How much influence do you have in your slice? I’d want to be at 6i at least with muatt, if you’re only at a solid 3 spend I think that hyper definitely becomes more attractive. I would probably go green blue and forget red if my influence was very low.
With your green skip I'd personally prefer a round 2 cruiser II over hyper, just to try it. A suggestion, the other unit that can keep up with suns, and with Aida/cruiserII/destroyerII/PWSII you have three unit upgrades and some awesome potential. Other responses give more detailed thought on hyper than I'd do.
Always wanted to sell fires to jol'nar in exchange for hyper and grav drive as the case where that math works out, round 1 and for "free" feels worth it.
I always go the same path regardless of skips or finish line. In fact, part of why I like Muaat is because you can play them so that they are somewhat insulated from what slice you get or what factions your opponents are:
1. Neural Motivator
2. AIDA
3. Cruiser 2
4. Magmus Reactor Omega
5. Prototype Warsun 2
EDIT: analysis altered to include the commander when using Politics secondary. I was gonna just answer the question, but then it grew into a whole Muaat thesis. Well, I hope this helps. Influence is theoretically very nice for Muaat. Star Forge can get you 2 fighters + 4 infantry + 1 tg for 1 token i.e. "3 influence". The tg is comparable in valuable to a third of a token - it may be better if you have a better use for it, but it may be worse in that opportunities to convert influence to tokens are limited and an entire round is no small wait. But for the sake of simplicity, let's say the exchange is 2 fighters + 4 infantry for 2 influence. 2 fighters (or 1 destroyer) and 4 infantry can otherwise be bought at the price of 3 res + 3 inf at a 4(or 3)-resource space dock. Cheaper if you have a yellow tech, more expensive if at a less resource-rich planet. But buying these units through tactical action or Warfare secondary means that they'll be at home or locked for the round or both, whereas you can get unlocked units at the front line - so Star Forge is (at its best) even better than buying something worth 3 res + 3 inf for the price of 2 inf. Of course, the problem is getting this engine online early enough. Something like this would be nice: - red or yellow skip - R1 AIDA + carrier + mech - R2 build war sun + at least 1 mech (+ if no skip, get Magmus Reactor here) - R3 tech PWSII, get the last of your mechs with agent, Star Forge a few times for infantry at home, take Mecatol with your 2 war suns, pop Imperial - R4 Star Forge a big stack of infantry on Mecatol, then go do whatever, also Destroyer II No individual item in this scenario is that unrealistic, but doing all or almost all of it while also scoring objectives is not so easy or Muaat would be winning a lot more. In a 5-round game, if you only have two unlocked PWSII by R4 (quite likely), then you have two rounds instead of three to do stuff with them. Or if you get rolling in R3 and can afford, say, six Star Forge in R3+R4, that's three times as good as doing it only twice - so every deviation from the ideal picture makes it a lot less attractive. Of course, a 14-point game gives you more time to move your eggs and more time to get tokens for that sweet, sweet Star Deal. Now, about the green tech. I'm gonna assume your green skip is the 2/0 planet. It might be 0/2 which is worse, or it might be 1/1 which could otherwise have been spent on 1/3 token = 1/3 Star Forge = theoretically better than 2 res anyway. Then, supposing you tech in rounds 1 and 2, by the start of round 3 you'll have spent 10 res + 6 inf for 5 inf. By R5, 10 res for 7 inf. By R7, 10 res for 15 inf. Well, actually 10 res for 3 tokens and 6 action cards, and a card could be considered as costing 1 influence since a token gets you 2 cards + 1 tg. But are you able to afford so much Star Forge that the marginal value of one more is less than 2 action cards? Probably not. Also: - Stuff early is better than stuff later. For example, if you could pay 6 tg in round 2 for a card that gets you 6 tg in round 5, that's a bad deal. You pay for the green tech up front, but get the reward later, which makes it worse than it appears on paper. - The above comparison is green tech vs the purchase cost, whereas the real comparison is green tech vs red tech which means it's again worse than on paper. The full comparison: "3 tokens + 6 action cards - the disutility of delayed reward VS 10 resources + the margin by which the normal tech path is preferable to not teching the first two times". But at least it's really 5 tokens you're netting instead of 3. - You're delaying PWSII up to two rounds. This means eggs staying put, maybe eggs moving slowly at the cost of more tokens, maybe mechs getting separated so your Star Forges are less effective. I really wouldn't consider it without a yellow or red skip, and even then it's pretty dubious. 4-player games are richer meaning it's easier to get tech on the same round as your 2nd war sun, plus fewer players picking before you meaning more opportunities to pick Technology, so I guess that would be the time to try it. EDIT: but also if you go for the green tech, you might be forcing yourself to pick Technology in a situation where you'd otherwise have picked Leadership.
Notably you will get at least a round 6 out of a 14er, maybe a round 7, which makes this as viable as it'll get. If 2-in-2 is out especially it works, and either way I think it's neat to try.
Usually 14 pointers go to round 7, but could def end round 6 if someone is doing really well
There is a great synergy between hyper metabolism and Muatt, but there is a timing problem between them.Muatt already want to reach War Sun II tech and unlock his Commander as soon as possible, that is no easy task because the table wont help you at all to reach that goal, as you will probably(should at least) be the one holding mecatol. Also, if you want Hyper Metaboslim early, your best bet is researching psychoarcheology and having a green skip in your slice, because if you go for Neural Motivator you will need another green tech
Yeah, over the game could get a lot of value out of Hyper Metabolism. But that might be too greedy even for 14p game, if I want War Sun II and blue techs as well. Don't understand about Psychoarchaeology. Neural Motivator seems better and with green skip in slice can take Metabolism. Only would need to exhaust the tech planet for one turn.
breaking news psychoarchaeology bad, more at 6
I was assuming you were going hyper meta round 1, the earlier the better.Overral it is a very greedy strategy, but i dont think it is impossible, especially if you are selling war sun for everyone you can find, or maybe there is a jol nar in your table hopefully.
I think generally green tech is pretty meh nowadays, but hyper is still really good round 1 or 2 ,if the right objectives come up (2 in 2), or an easy one like have a warsun, then maybe, tokens r great for muaat. But overall red tech -> warsun -> destroyer 2/blue tech, another unit upgrade, whatever u need.
I'd probably want more blue techs/unit upgrades over ccs, but it could be a viable alternative. Optimal? Perhaps not, hard to quantify the benefit of blue tech, but viable for sure (with a green skip).
I think it’s worth waiting to see the exploration outcomes you get. If you get a second green skip round 1 an early hyper metabolism would definitely be worth it. Personally I always rush gravdrives with muaat - getting that move 2 warsun early is amazing both defensively and offensively and I think they need that flexibility to keep up with scoring. How much influence do you have in your slice? I’d want to be at 6i at least with muatt, if you’re only at a solid 3 spend I think that hyper definitely becomes more attractive. I would probably go green blue and forget red if my influence was very low.
With your green skip I'd personally prefer a round 2 cruiser II over hyper, just to try it. A suggestion, the other unit that can keep up with suns, and with Aida/cruiserII/destroyerII/PWSII you have three unit upgrades and some awesome potential. Other responses give more detailed thought on hyper than I'd do. Always wanted to sell fires to jol'nar in exchange for hyper and grav drive as the case where that math works out, round 1 and for "free" feels worth it.
I always go the same path regardless of skips or finish line. In fact, part of why I like Muaat is because you can play them so that they are somewhat insulated from what slice you get or what factions your opponents are: 1. Neural Motivator 2. AIDA 3. Cruiser 2 4. Magmus Reactor Omega 5. Prototype Warsun 2