Magic of Ecoline

[RoyalRook]

Just a quick thought on Ecoline, you know why sometimes ecoline just absolutely wreck your world? It's because you are not realizing how far you are behind when against a run away ecoline. Ecoline has a jump start on the oxygen track without any early investment, and it just happens plants are just about the most valuable commodity in the game besides a random card(I value a random card in early game at 5MC, most of top players especially in the steam community value one at 4, average players value it at 1~3 MC), it's around 2.875 a pop...face value.

Now Big Daddy Magic Time

Ecoline converts a greenery at 7 plants in stead of 8, oh la la, it's just one less plants right? NAAAAAAAAAAA, we are a galaxy away. You are not skiing in Dubai mall no more, it's now fresh powders of Telluride, Colorado. A plant now worth around 3.286. Oh .410714 doesn't sound so swell? Umm you just got a 14.3% raise...for EACH PLANT. And what? Ecoline start with plant productions you say? For free while no one else has easy access to plant prod?

*priestess chanting* Hail to mother ecoline(x1000).

OH we are not done. We are just talking about present value, the future value of a early stage single plant worth up to three times of a late stage plant(when oxy is maxed and game shifts to VP focused). Do you see the power of compounding interest for ecoline? Ecoline doesn't just get a zero day raise, but also the sign up bonuses in the form of rebates after greenery conversion. So now you just get more money, card, resources or better yet plants off your fast conversion. Say you convert off two oceans for 2 plants, a single plant for ecoline was now in REaLity worthed 4.795918367. An Ecoline player that is converting along the ocean; is pumping out 5 dollar plants every day 24/7. Ecoline is literally a money tree that grow and drop Lincolns.

Why it's Abraham Lincoln(5 US dollar bills) not 4 dollars and some change? Do you know on Tharsis, which we play on for Arena; This Tharsis map for this terraforming marty game has a milestone called Gardener? And a participation trophy called Terraformer? Someone is left behind? Let's just throw this Landlord award in there as well. An effecient ecoline player can easily secure over 35VP by gen5 with rooms to spare and parameter maxing out on gen 6 or 7. The only reason ecoline even play till gen 9 sometimes is b/c she wants terraformer gardner and landlord. If you are so far ahead, you can honestly just skip funding any milestone and awards if you know what you are doing and finish the game on gen 6. I think ecoline, vitor and credicor are the only ones can consistently do this when things line up just right and you gambled on the right line.

The presence of asteroids reduce a plant value by .5 to 1 MC especially seen in draft. But sometimes they are not played for whatever the reason. Even when they are played, should I really be upset as a ecoline player? If the oxy are going to filled first, you just saved me 42 dollars by dropping that deimo. Next time when you are playing or against Ecoline have more appreciation for the number behind the magic, because you could be already dead or won on gen 1.

The End?

[RoyalRook]

It's also not so crazy to think ecoline should never SP greenery, the math just doesn't work out. You hurting your effeciency by SP greenery, since it's worth much less for you, in fact you over paying a standard project greenery by 3.3 dollars: it's worth 8 plants in the open market instead of 7 for you as ecoline. And if you have been playing effeciently, you could be overpaying by 4.5+ MC for a single SP greenery, which is not effecient to begin with.

So that means you are welcome to give up gardener and not fund landlord, if you manage to find heat or Standard Technology rush out the game by gen 6 or 7. Had you been ocean walking with your greeneries and getting proper rebates, there is noway anyone can outscore you at this stage of the game(unless crazy jovs, but you are going to lose those jovian games and the best defense against jov is rushing anyway).

This is highly depend on your skill level, you can't try this ALL IN NO FUND line successfully if you don't know the deck and played over 2500 hours of TM because the margin is pretty thin, and you have to gamble. NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER sp a city. This is how an inexperienced ecoline dies: gen 1 SP city convert, gen 6 or 7 sp city to "protect" your greenery, gen 8 9 10 11 12 13....continuing SP cities.

You guys welcome to comment, I am going think over other things that I need to cover and edit in these two post space.

[danielvictor]

Ecoline itself isn't that powerful,it just directs people along a lucrative path. Other corporations have abilities that counterbalance being able to make a greenery for seven plants,it's just that sometimes they avoid green strategies when they shouldn't.

[MasterMystery]

tharsis map is where ecoline is best, good to settle around water with lots of plants placement bonus, landlord, gardener, terraformer...
prelude even enhances this with fewer gens, making the engine cards harder to catch up with ecos early pts.

[RoyalRook]

Ecoline itself isn't that powerful,it just directs people along a lucrative path. Other corporations have abilities that counterbalance being able to make a greenery for seven plants,it's just that sometimes they avoid green strategies when they shouldn't.

The point of my post is that Ecoline is far more powerful than people realized. They think ecoline is strong or very very strong, but in fact ecoline is very very very very very very strong. Even if others invest in plant prods, ecoline is just simply more effecient, so effecient that she doesn't need no gardener nor landlord. In fact, in higher level I would avoid fund landlord since you don't need to defend it nor you want 2. Just rush it out, ecoline is a trust fund baby, that inherited a high return trust fund in the form of plant production and fast conversions, so she doesn't need to work at all, she already won in life. Just rush it out and get herself to the end of the game and relax, my princess just need to make it to the spa with her cute slippers, stay hot and gain more heat. Don't worry about the plants, let the gardeners take care of that. If anything, just focus on pool parties (oceans) if you are so hot.

[Sunalot]

I like your posts RoyalRook. I do agree that Ecoline is really powerful, however, I still think the lower starting capital really hurts the options. Playing aginst two experienced players likely you will be targeted by plant removing events, as I have a feeling there is always slightly more hate towards anyone playing it. Perhaps because its really stronk corp to begin with. Again, I look at it as any other corp and if the starting cards making me to choose other corp then I will gladly do it. Don't get me wrong, Ecoline must be stopped early and its very good corp at pretty much any players hands just because of its linear path to efficient greenaries.

[RoyalRook]

I like your posts RoyalRook. I do agree that Ecoline is really powerful, however, I still think the lower starting capital really hurts the options. Playing aginst two experienced players likely you will be targeted by plant removing events, as I have a feeling there is always slightly more hate towards anyone playing it. Perhaps because its really stronk corp to begin with. Again, I look at it as any other corp and if the starting cards making me to choose other corp then I will gladly do it. Don't get me wrong, Ecoline must be stopped early and its very good corp at pretty much any players hands just because of its linear path to efficient greenaries.

Fantastic, I am writing stuffs like this for players like you, glad you like it. Thank you for bring up the starting resources, I need to write about that. So yeah, off my head, just like credicor which I need to write about in the future, b/c that's a far more complexed corp to write about, you don't buy more than 3~4 cards in the beginning. You have to be super disciplined. I am never going to be scared of a credicor or ecoline with 7 cards in hand, b/c I can exploit that ineffeciency easily especially in 3p. You know what IS terrifying? A credicor or ecoline top ranked player starts with 2 cards, if you know the game like I do, you know you are in trouble b/c your opponent is not playing a sloppy game with you, he is serious. Do you see a theme here that I am trying to drill in over and over? Terraforming Mars in my view is all about effeciency, it's not about points, my play style is manipulating the tempo and control. So if something doesn't gave me tempo or control like early funds or even milestones, theoratically I don't need it. The crazy part is that I often fund something b/c my opponents are weak, so it doesn't matter anyway, if I just fund a MS I can save couple of my brain cells and play naturally instead of engine, or I need an action so I fund a MS or Award to gain some tempo.

You know how you can get good real fast? Just play crazy, not crazy random. But crazy in a way that you are single minded in your concept of winning. If you want to win in certain way, just go all out. That means if you are rushing, then don't worry about playing any animals, doesn't matter how good they are because you don't need no points. If you think you can end on gen 6, then don't worry about super competing on a milestone or stealing an award. If you are going engine, then don't play deimo or giant iced asteroids even though they are super good, because you want to drag it out. Don't even waste that 3MC to speculate on it, knowing that you are not playing them anyway.

Finally, losing is the best way to learn. I don't learn much from winning, I want to lose, because that means I tried a bad but new line.

[HappyMeaI]

I feel in my experience Mining Guild to be the best corp. Ecoline can be very powerful, but she is a fickle B. An Ecoline will thrive when they draw a game breaker like PH but generally it’s easy to shut them down. You also counter their only strategy with an oxy booster. I once hit an Ecoline back2back in 3p (2 weeks ago actually) with Deimos / GIA for max, that they raged out n started SPing greeneries next to player 3’s cities.

[RoyalRook]

I feel in my experience Mining Guild to be the best corp. Ecoline can be very powerful, but she is a fickle B. An Ecoline will thrive when they draw a game breaker like PH but generally it’s easy to shut them down. You also counter their only strategy with an oxy booster. I once hit an Ecoline back2back in 3p (2 weeks ago actually) with Deimos / GIA for max, that they raged out n started SPing greeneries next to player 3’s cities.

Mining Guild is a "fun" casual corp, that is mid to low tiered at the higher level. Especially after prelude, MG's ranking is way lower. Ecoline is top 4 or 5. The problem with MG and to the extend of Phobolog, is the corp is extremely card dependent, while top corps like credicor and ecoline doesn't really need any cards. You can high roll with MG and hit all your steel targets, but you often find far better success with other corps with the exact same hand. And with MG, there is no magic, there is no skips you have to hit your main lines, the skill ceiling is very very low, so by playing it as a highly ranked player, you are taking a handicap.

With ecoline you just have to understand the math, so there is no need to freak out after getting hit by Deimo and GIA if against lower ranked opponents, you are fine since they just saved huge amount of money for you by pushing the parameters. Against top ranked opponents knowing how to counter you, you could be taking on a tougher game, but you are still fine.

[BEANS115]

Ecoline is one of the most fun corps to play as long as your opponent lets you play greeneries. In order to have a successful game you need 3 things: Ways to raise heat, plant production, and ideally early oceans. If you haven't experienced the feeling of an ocean walk with ecoline early on you're missing out. Gen 1 imported hydrogen, towing, or ice astroid into conversion is the dream.

Much like every corp you still need production and card draw, but because of the amount of TR that ecoline tends to gain throughout the game makes up for their mc prod. Because oxygen tends to raise quickly, animals can be played early but let's hope they don't get played on you. While cities are good for ecoline I don't recommend placing them too early. Unless you don't have much do do or see a good conversion spot, ecoline is better off ending the game as they tend to be more of a rush corp.

As for the matchups, pray you don't get put up against tharsis. Ecoline is very happy to see helion as both corps want to raise heat as much as possible but helion will almost always lose that matchup. MG also tends to be good for ecoline because they want to play their tiles on metals which don't interfere with ecolines ocean walk. Other corps are about the same although be slightly careful about gardener vs credicore.

As for milestones/awards, gardener is almost always a lock. Don't go for planner please. If you somehow get mayor thats great but most of the time it's going to be terraformer or builder. 95% of the time landlord is yours and don't be afraid to fund it early if you lack cards and are going for a rush. If your opponent is going hardcore engine then the rest can be difficult, especially if they get quantum and mass down.

Going back to what I said earlier, ecoline really needs early plant prod and heat. Trust me when I say you don't want to neglect heat against an engine setup. If you haven't experienced it before just know that you can be up by 50 points and still lose because you can't end the game fast enough, and an engine player will catch up real quick. You don't want to overkill it but if you have molehole in your starting hand please play it asap. Now, this DOES NOT mean you should play underground dets because you never should play that card but you need to find some ways to raise heat, whether it be heat prod or heat bumps. If you ignore heat be warned.

I think ecoline is a great corp, maybe A tier but it does need some help from your hand. I still put credicore, luna, valley trust, csm, and mining guild with restricted area above it but never complain if you get ecoline (you could've got unmi and thorgate as your options so be grateful). Please note, in 3 player ecoline is probably a little bit worse because you are an early plant target but it can get balanced by the fact that the game will end sooner. DON'T FORGET ABOUT HEAT PROD!!!