Terraforming

"The first order of business after Planetfall was to secure a food supply. Few native life forms were edible without extensive processing, so wide tracts of land were turned over to Earth-style agriculture."

- GURPS

Terraforming refers to the actions your formers can carry out to improve the terrain around your bases and their productivity. Formers can also be used offensively, in a way, to bridge landmasses using the raise terrain command, isolate enemies by lowering it, or creating mountains to reduce rainfall: Mountains 2000m above sea level and higher significantly affect cloud formation and rainfall by trapping the moisture being carried by the prevailing wind. Basically this means that areas "downwind" (in this game, "east", or "right") of a mountain will be dryer, and areas "upwind" of a mountain ("west", or "left") will be wetter as moisture is trapped to their benefit. You can take advantage of this phenomenon by having your Formers raise mountains to "dry out" your downwind opponents or to increase rainfall for your upwind bases.