Terraforming approaches: Temperature vs oxygen first

[YertyL]

After having this discussion in another thread, I have slightly come around in my opinion and would like to discuss this further.

Temperature first: My go-to so far. Advantages:

• Temperature increase benefits all cities, while oxygen increase only benefits those with oxygen >=0
  
• Methanogenium + plants + later plankton is a very powerful combination for increasing all terraforming parameters

Oxygen first. Advantages:

• For milestone support, +1 oxygen +1 atmosphere is worth more than +1 temperature, effective 5 support versus 3.33 support. Atmosphere too contributes to comfort of life in all cities, just half as quickly as temeperature, and you can consciously go for zones starting with 0 oxygen to benefit from oxygen increase.
  
• Oxygen factories are cheaper than CO2 factories, 17 water versus 12 power 9 titanium, and you probably want to rush one goal first to avoid "dying" before you reach your first terraforming milestone.
  
• A mars with 1 oxygen and 1 water increase can still host tundra forests, kelp forests, herrings, and hares (in the equatorial 0 temperature zones). A Mars with 1 temperature 1 water increase can only host plants.
  
• While animals do not directly contribute to terraforming, they generally have much shorter spread times than plants (5 and 8 for hares and herrings vs 12 for tundra/kelp forest), contribute support, and can greatly reduce spread times for plants. In particular, you can combine herrings and tundra/kelp with only 1 oxygen 1 water, while other plants and animals will need at least 3 steps because hares/tundra needs 0/1/1 and no zone starts at -1/0/0.

So it seems that if you only want to spread each life form once, the path is methagenium -> plants and plankton -> animals. But if you draw oxygen bacteria and hares or herrings early, it seems you can benefit from early cyanophyta/hares in equatorial zones and/or herring/tundra/kelp in arctic zones.

EDIT: So I actually just tried oxygen first for a green planet scenario. Went pretty much as expected, extremely solid support despite utopian++++, and got oxygen 3/atmosphere 3 very quickly, but could not get heat bacteria despite several "import lifeform" actions and thus had an exceedingly slow heat increase. Actually ended the game 1 turn before getting heat 2, turn 57, with just temp 0-1 animals (sharks, wales, polar bears, hares, herrings, deer with genetic cold resistance) and a single temperate rainforest that I got via a controlled nuclear meltdown building. This was good for green planet but would have been suboptimal for blue.

[Neil_MH]

I find heat, the priority, then the bacteria and Oxygen producing organics can propagate.
Nice write-up :)

[Rooks]

Yup, I generally go for heat first, and then the rest. That said, there are times were I'm unlucky and I don't get methagenium until much later. In those runs, yeah I typically end up spanning rabbits and tundra and fish. They can generate enough support to keep you going. The addition of water-based plants and animals has really opened up the options for spreading life.

[kieranjer]

Originally posted by YertyL:

Temperature first: My go-to so far. Advantages:

• Temperature increase benefits all cities, while oxygen increase only benefits those with oxygen >=0 ]

I agree Temperature has a better earlier ratio to comfort of living on the global scale. And can also be increased in a climate zone via several ways.
Where as Oxygen is limited to a global scale. Once a climate zone has reached it's maxed oxygen limit That's it.

[AnExiledOne]

I almost always go heat. Mainly because by the time I'm trying to get plants or animals, I'll have access to plankton which give a +1 to oxygen and atmosphere plus an extra +1 per regions heat over 0

[坑坑KengKeng]

ONLY FOR SPEED RUN(hardest):
green: every thing is for elephant. so oxygen first, because heat level could be added by other ways.

blue: oxygen first still. no event or space project for it. waiting for plants would slow the speed time...

others: oxygen first... the one-off 100 support point (twice) is more than 1 comfort. since I got an 36T red road on hardest, I think the one-off is somehow enough.

[Markus]

I think as 坑坑 mentioned. If you try for speed then oxygen is better to focus on. Because heat can always be increased trough space projects. But I feel like it is a much riskier strategy.

[坑坑KengKeng]

Originally posted by Markus:

I think as 坑坑 mentioned. If you try for speed then oxygen is better to focus on. Because heat can always be increased trough space projects. But I feel like it is a much riskier strategy.

in my blue speedruns I always found that oxygen is the slowest, even in no-volcano mapseed. Besides, who cares the risks in speedruns?

[YertyL]

Originally posted by Markus:

I think as 坑坑 mentioned. If you try for speed then oxygen is better to focus on. Because heat can always be increased trough space projects. But I feel like it is a much riskier strategy.

Funnily enough I am starting to think the opposite. If I "die", it's pretty much always around turn 30. And oxygen is a bigger support income for that time, both directly (+1 +1 vs +1) and indirectly through life forms that have similar prestige with lower spread times. You can terraform faster if you get heat first, and you might "waste" oxygen from plants in the late game, but I feel it's more critical to get over the 30 turn support hump.