SUBTERFUGE Forums

Say you're at or near the top in outposts and/or drillers, and you're not at war. When do you start mining? Do you wait till someone else starts?

Depends on the game. Usually if a lot of fights are going on, I don't have problems with early mining and to start influencing the fights through mining (If there are no active threats for myself) If there might be and you don't think you are strong enough, just trade some bases in your (and your trader's) favor. Otherwise, I will usually wait till I am near cap so I don't waste my drillers.

niverio wrote:Depends on the game. Usually if a lot of fights are going on, I don't have problems with early mining and to start influencing the fights through mining (If there are no active threats for myself) If there might be and you don't think you are strong enough, just trade some bases in your (and your trader's) favor. Otherwise, I will usually wait till I am near cap so I don't waste my drillers.

I have never seen your early mining (no one early mining for that matter) works. It just sucks and will blow up in your face

You usually don't want to mine if you are first. You can mine if you are bottom sometimes if your neighbors are preoccupied and you are situated to turtle where they can easily pass you by mining themselves but the people they are attacking can't mine so you will beat them in nep at least. I think around 20 bases may be a good time to start mining if you have a lead and feel defensive enough to do so.

If I have the largest military/production rate in the map there's no reason for me to mine. I know that I'm a threat and I should be working with my allies to snowball my lead even further by attacking some of their enemies. Once a few mines have popped up, I'll probably drill a mine but having the largest production I generally try to make 2/3/4 mines in the last 48 hours of a game to steal the win because of the insane neptunium production I'll have.

If I'm not wrecking face at the start of the game I generally build defensive specialist options like security chief and sentry and mine as often as I can to put pressure on the larger militaries to prevent them snowballing as much. Because they'll have to turn to attack me and my defense specs should hold me out long enough for someone to skewer them.

What is the downside to early mining or mining when you're ahead? Wouldn't you want to consolidate your lead and start building up Np? Otherwise someone else will pull ahead.

zedmango wrote:What is the downside to early mining or mining when you're ahead? Wouldn't you want to consolidate your lead and start building up Np? Otherwise someone else will pull ahead.

Most people are worried about being the ganged up on. Early in the game, alliances aren't well defined and everyone is looking for someone to attack. By mining you are painting a giant target on your back for everyone else to gang up on you.

This is similar to taking an early lead. Your rate of Neptunium is determined by how many bases you have, so even if you mine after someone you can catch up. The fear is still getting ganged up on. If you have both the largest number of bases and mined early, people see you as too much of a threat and will team up against you.

And that is all just psychological. Don't forget that it also costs you drillers and makes your next mine more expensive (Which isn't good if someone take your 1st mine)