Where/why/how many bases do you build?

[parjlarsson]

Good first placement base seems to be anywhere in the center of a landmass to minimize early UFOs shot down lost at sea. Middle East works. Africa. South America. Tibet area.

Then what?

1st base is gradually built into a research base (as I don't know if the Research needs aliens in THAT base, but it would stand to reason).
UFO yard outside.

2nd base turns into Production and secondary dual Stiletto base with one Firebird.

Then later on in game I have the globe fairly covered in Radar and SAM sites, with the 1st base gradually becoming pure Research while I shift the interception duties to a nearby flight-only base.

Just seems to be a bit overly tedious to have all these different bases, becomes a jumble of micro-management, but maybe I'm doing something wrong. Doesn't help that each base tends to become completely built-up, leaving huge areas to sweep through in overly lengthy base defense missions.

Thoughts?

[Sarin]

I go for 6 bases, in pairs. One is radar/interceptor/dropship/SAM base, while the other is pure workshop. First base is focused on research instead of SAM.

Placement: First goes to mediterran, around Cyprus. Second goes to USA, somewhere in north Texas or that...third is placed at New Guinea. This way, with radar bases at south Africa, south America and northeast Siberia, I get a good coverage of most of inhabited landmass...

[Edi]

I tend to build hybrid bases mostly, though some are pure workshops that provide radar coverage.

Usually so that one in Europe, on in North America, one in South America, one in Mongolia and one in Australia. Africa and Antarctica later, if necessary.

That provides more or less seamless radar coverage of the whole world (without advanced radar, that is). It also allows for a fair amount of flexibility.

[TallTroll]

I tend to start with hybrid bases (definitely the first one), then construct more specialist ones for research and production later. Early on the game, you don't really have enough people available to staff mulitple bases adequately, so hybrids are the only way to go.

In my current game (veteran level), it was June before I really had enough soldiers to consider a third base, although the June draft was huge, so I can easily manage it now. I've also got about $1m cash, so I can nearly afford it too. I'll probably start base 3 in July to minimise upkeep expenses.

My first base goes over Europe, roughly in Turkey (covers part of Asia and N Africa), the second in Asia proper covering Russia / China / India, and the 3rd will go in the middle of the US. Then fill in S America / Australia / Africa as and when, maybe a couple of radar bases to cover gaps in coverage.

All bases will have a Radar and at least 8 soldiers, but not all will have transport. Purely research / production bases will just be garrisonned with low quality troops (and flamers, natch).

[Tobias2nd]

So far i've been through about 6 months of the game on standard difficulty and so far i haven't really needed more than 3 bases. Mostly i just put up radar towers to detect the UFO's on the outskirts of each continent and in the middle of the smaller continents. This is my first play through of this game specifically but i loved xcom. Played it through most of my childhood. On X-com West asia always seemed like a good place to put your first base, as the most land mass surrounds it, but then again there was always the issue of keeping the US happy because they paid the highest. On UFO: AI in particular, the radar towers were all i needed to monitor more than a third of the planet, most of which your interceptor's can easily get to before they need to turn back for fuel. No matter which country you start in, though, you should always sell your first few UFO's to the countries you cannot yet cover to keep them happy. It'll be a while before you can or should research those anyway.

country happiness = funding = player happiness.

Glad to see that at least someone is out to innovate and create rather than to make money on their video games. It's a great premise and i'm extremely glad to see this new xcom-like game.

I will try to provide useful feedback so that you guys can do what you do best better. Keep up the good work.

[gargy2002]

I always have the maximum allowed (7 or 8 ). The first is in the middle of the USA. 2 workshops, 3 labs and soldiers. The second is in the South America, again in the centre. 2 labs, 3 workshops, soldiers. The others are max 2 of them with up to 5 labs and the rest is just for pure production with max 5 workshops. 2 are in Africa, 1 in Europe and 2 in Asia. I have max 2 Ufo Yards and 1 radar. Three or two SAM sites around each base. With the laser turrets they can take even a harvester down. Fighters and Scouts are a piece of cake for them..

[jerikojerk]

for the see, i always try to loose half of the intercepted ufo in the see, i'm trying to kill every alien that put a foot on the earth so if they crash in the see, there is no hunting down after so my soldier could have some rest.

The second reason is that a crashed ufo is not insteresting: there is no anti matter in it anymore and i need a good supply of antimatter... so i disassemble mostly harvesters. (With ufo hangar against the base so i can process a harvester in less that  5 days (5 workshops). If fact it would be good if the ufo thing could be rendered on geoscape under the base so when you click the base, the computer dont get confused.)

[bustead]

i usually build the first base in SE china since there are a lot of big cities in eastern china and building the base in SE China can let some of the ufos you intercepted falls to sea and this is useful if you are playing in very hard.(at least you dont have to do a tac mission afterwrods)The i build 1 bse in US and 1 base in europe.I putted 7-8 incepters in EU base and their range is enough to intercept ufos in greenland and NE US.The US base is radar and production base while the first home base is research and elite base.I also build tons of SAMs and radar tower in africa and south america to fill the gaps.

[ptbptb]

Definitely build them in pairs.

Each base can have support 3 installations, so I have two bases that have missile ranges that just overlap, and spread the SAM around them.  Fighters, scouts and (sometimes) harvesters just get shot down as they wander through the area.

[YVN]

The number of base is limited.
So be careful.
Base invasion is not detected from the radar.
So always keep a base defence squad on each of them.

[Crashdown]

Headquarters I build in eastern Europe. Next I build a base really near as a pure workshop base. My Headquarters base has all my labs and workshops churn out goods (I leave the workshop at head quater to churn out ammo). After that I build five more in order, China, USA, Africa (South), South America and then Australia. I never use air defence (I even sell the first interceptor at the start) I have a squad at each base and when attacked, kill them and sell their ship. Better than a somali pirate operation.

[homunculus]

mostly on islands, so that most ufo-s drop into the sea.

now i am thinking there might be another benefit for building on an island.
i have seen some base attacks without ufo, but i don't think i have ever had a base attack without an ufo on an island base.

[bluereaper75]

I put one on every continent. Every one of them is surrounded by 3-4 SAM's with overlapping rings of fire.

HQ and UFO yard in America
Research and Development in Antarctica
Stiletto, Firebird, and Saracen bases everywhere else.

[kamor]

I think three base could suffice. Building a fourth gets you more installation slots though.

I like to build my first base near Istanbul, the second one on the UA/RC border and the third one in Indonesia. Should you need a fourth base, Congo is a suitable location.

With three bases and radar towers, you should able to monitor most of the land on the planet, save for Antarctica.
With four bases and radar towers, you WILL be able to monitor EVERY single square inch of the planet - save for Antarctica, again. Who cares for those penguins anyway

First one is a mixed base, second or third one a research base.

Base defending is actually rather easy. Just make sure every single base you own has eight healthy soldier wearing combat armors.
You will need them, because - unlike in UFO:EU - aliens ARE going to find out where your bases are, even if you don't launch a single interception mission (that's what happens to me, at least).

(edited, typo)

[Battlescared]

My plan is to build bases so that I have complete radar coverage over the entire world, which is possible.  Leave extra room between them because eventually you'll research better radar that will increase each ones range.

Base 1: One of three places, Middle of the good'ol USA , middle or Europe, or the middle of Asia, closer to the Pacific than Europe.  This base holds my A team and usually ends up being a hybrid that specializes in research.  Usually put two interceptors here.

Base 2: One of two places I didn't put my first base, usually on the other side of the Atlantic.  This one holds my B team and will be a hybrid base of production and research.  Two interceptors here too.

Base 3: The last of the three places mentioned.  Now I go with a full production center and maybe in the mid game start working on a C team.

Base 4/5: Middle of Africa, Middle of South America.  These bases will also be production oriented for later on building aircraft, with room for large hangers.  They will also have a little research (because you can never have enough research) and a lot of storage for materials to build the aircraft with.

Rest of bases are mostly radar and storage facilities that cover the rest of the world, like in Australia, North Pole.  I may or may not man them.  The game is usually over before I feel like building the last base.

I build UFO storage facilities at each of them.  I like to build SAM traps around one or two bases, with SAMs everywhere.  They will miss a lot of UFO's, but when one flies through one it's  fun to watch it get beat up continuously.  It's even sweater when a harvester changes direction as it's just about ready to fly out of the trap only to fly back through it.   Another reason I don't try to build SAM's around every base is because one SAM site can't usually bring down a UFO, so when a UFO attacks a base, it's almost always going to get through.  If you consider that if you tried to protect each base, you'd only have 2/3 per site, and that's not enough to shoot down a UFO before it reaches the base, unless you build a lot of defenses along with it too, but that takes up valuable real estate.  I'd rather just kill the aliens once they land in a base defense mission.

To be honest, it doesn't matter too much where you place your bases.  You'll be intercepting plenty of UFO's if you want to and fighting them on the ground.  The more you spread out your bases though, the more chance you'll have to detect them.  Sometimes, having complete coverage is a pain because you're always tracking a UFO somewhere and sometimes you just want time to pass for research to finish.