I don't see the point of rushing battleships, I do very well currently with just destoyers and cruisers and battleships are not ment to replace all your other ships.
Beginner's Guide to Ethics, Traits and Governments
- Thread starter GAGA Extrem
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Bump for visibility. Agree or disagree with Gaga's analysis the first post is a great reference sheet for a lot of the overlooked effects of your ethics choices.
- 3
- 1
I still think they should edit the collectivist bit, since you can in fact get advanced government types if you're a collectivist.
I'm wondering what going tall actually means in this game, especially early on when resource stations are so important. Does it mean you only have a few planets, and make them really good? Or does it mean you still send out colony ships regularly, just that you don't bother with clearing blockers or encouraging population growth? Unlike most 4X games, food production isn't required to churn out colony ships, and your colonies still do a reasonable job of claiming territory even if they take ages to populate. Also, in terms of the actual pop growth rate, it seems you get a fair amount of growth just for a tiny surplus, and then any food surplus above that is much less efficient.
When starting out is the time when your resources are most limited. Especially minerals which are used for basically everything. During this time you are mostly expanding your resource production. Spend to get more. The two primary ways of doing this are to develop your planet surface and to get your explore on and make orbital harvesters. In the end its better to spend on the orbitals. First because pop requires food which is another resource you need to manage. Second your constructor ship is simply not as tied to waiting for pop to grow. Third you have control over your planet resource gains so you can adjust to balance with the random orbital resource. Fourth you are going to be getting the majority if your tech from pop eventually so the less rebuilding you need to do the better. Finally increasing pop also increases the cost of technologies. Put all the factors together and your best early strategy is to let your home planet grow slowly and get out there and build those orbital miners.
Here are my questions:
-How many pops does it take to start making tech costs rise noticibly?
-Do # of planets increase tech cost or just pops?
-How do vassals contribute to your Empire?
-When is it better to have an ally instead of a vassal?
-When is it better to integrate and form a sector?
-I made a mistake and released too many worlds from an enemy than I could request to vassalize, so I allied them instead. Should I break the alliance and force vassalize them?
-Is it better to have many small vassals or few large vassals?
(Like breaking off individual systems as independent from an enemy and vassalizing each of these?)
-I enlightened a xenophobic primitive who hates my guts, so I decided to integrate them and turn them into a sector. Is this a good move?
I am about 55 years into a hyperdrive only 4-spiral 1000 star galaxy campaign and have 3 planets colonized with a huge number of mining and research stations everywhere with a starting number of 12 lowtech civs and 3 high tech civs.
Any other thoughts and suggestions?
My Empire is a Babylon 5 styled:
Earth Alliance
Indirect Democracy
Militarist/Xenophile/Materialist
Sedentary/QuickLearners/Intelligent
-How many pops does it take to start making tech costs rise noticibly?
-Do # of planets increase tech cost or just pops?
-How do vassals contribute to your Empire?
-When is it better to have an ally instead of a vassal?
-When is it better to integrate and form a sector?
-I made a mistake and released too many worlds from an enemy than I could request to vassalize, so I allied them instead. Should I break the alliance and force vassalize them?
-Is it better to have many small vassals or few large vassals?
(Like breaking off individual systems as independent from an enemy and vassalizing each of these?)
-I enlightened a xenophobic primitive who hates my guts, so I decided to integrate them and turn them into a sector. Is this a good move?
I am about 55 years into a hyperdrive only 4-spiral 1000 star galaxy campaign and have 3 planets colonized with a huge number of mining and research stations everywhere with a starting number of 12 lowtech civs and 3 high tech civs.
Any other thoughts and suggestions?
My Empire is a Babylon 5 styled:
Earth Alliance
Indirect Democracy
Militarist/Xenophile/Materialist
Sedentary/QuickLearners/Intelligent
Of course, but the hard choices start when you run out of orbital resources to mine in your starting territory. Spamming outposts doesn't look very sustainable given the ongoing Influence cost.
- 1
The remark is talking about special (=ethic) government types, not advanced gov types. Guess I could clarify that.
It means limiting your early game colonization to 5-6 planets, using Frontier Outposts to claim resource rich systems (if possible) and then focus on improving your colonies. As a "tall" empire you focus on Science early on (e.g. build a lab or two in your colonies while they are still in the first development stage) and use the extra science yield to unlock efficiency techs like robots, blocker remover and higher tier Power Plants.
Tech cost increase starts after having 10 pops (in your empire) and then is +2% tech cost per pop.
So an empire with 60 pops has +100% tech cost, an empire with 110 pops has +200% tech cost.
Vassals assist you by sending their biggest fleet (and troops) to your biggest fleet during war time. They also assist with invasions when they have troops present.
Vassals cannot act independendly and are tied closer to you than Alliance Members. They also allow you to circumvent the -2 monthly influence cost from alliances.
Sectors are under even closer control (since you can set their prioritity, you can give them E and M). They also provide you with up to 75% of their E and M production and 100% of their science. Integrating a vassal is very costly and time consuming in terms of influence, though.
As a peaceful play, I don't see why you have to. As long as they are friendly, there is really no reason to attack them.
Good question. I guess smaller vessels are more efficient in terms of science, larger ones in terms of E/M production.
Doesn't really matter. Unhappy pops will join an independence faction either way. If you have direct control you can at least work on getting them happiness buildings.
You should have 5 decently developed colonies around that time. The more important thing is the pop numbers and the yields (+surplus after maintenance) numbers to get an idea. Example from one of my last games:
Year 40 - 5 planets, 68 pops, 125 (+25) E, 106 (+99) M, 61/53/42 SCI
Last edited:
- 1
How about going the synthetic route with pacifist? That gives you access to Irenic Democracy, a +20% happiness boost (after you no longer need the +1 research alternative early game), which since synthetics get happiness bonuses would increase their across the board base bonus to +40%. +50% for science if they're fanatic materialists. Guess it depends on if you have an incredibly strong economy and can afford to go pure science focus or ont.
That makes a lot more sense. What are the special government types?
Well, the ones that are unlocked by ethics. You can check the Government post for details.
Thanks. I was missing an overview of the secondary government effects. In my first game I picked individualist and then noticed that it means I can't relocate people :/
There are some additional things though. For example I think Xenophiles can't use the all the options when dealing with primitive aliens.
I find some of the politics a bit simplistic.Collectivism is really totalitarianism. Just because that's how it turns out of Earth, doesn't mean is has to in a sci-fi setting. Science fiction has quite a few works about societies where people work for a common goal, but still respect individual rights.
There are some additional things though. For example I think Xenophiles can't use the all the options when dealing with primitive aliens.
I find some of the politics a bit simplistic.Collectivism is really totalitarianism. Just because that's how it turns out of Earth, doesn't mean is has to in a sci-fi setting. Science fiction has quite a few works about societies where people work for a common goal, but still respect individual rights.
Last edited:
- 3
It is a small thing, but you might want to add a note that Spiritualist gets another permanent +5% global happiness on top of what the ethic grants natively from the Grand Design static modifier. (Observing the cloud monsters.)
Yeah, I have a grand total of two developed worlds now.
Earth and my enlightened xenophobe buddies. By the way, when I said they hated my guts, I meant literally. I enlightened them and they became fanatical purifiers!
I stuck them in a sector and am watching them lose their xenophobia.
But I have 5 colonized worlds now, also, that are all less than 5 pops so I can't force my pops to migrate to the new worlds since you need 5 pops to build colonial administration.
This is all at the 80 year mark.
I think I seriously misplayed my early game. But, Amazingly, my tech is really good and I am rivaling the military of larger empires including the advanced start empires. The early low pop-tall play gave me a huge tech advantage.
I think the 5 pops requirement is for the planetary admin building, which starts giving you a boost in material extraction in the 4 compass directions. Hope you're having fun (not that I'm not, haha). I also had a late start in grabbing worlds through colonization. (Note to self: you need to research ability to colonize other worlds.)
I actually intentionally put off colonization tech for a good 3-4 techs in order to grab key techs long term and spam mining and research sattelites.
The influence maintenance for frontier posts strikes me as rather overkill, though, especially in larger 1000 star galaxies.
My corvette/destroyer fleet of about 2k rivals most other fleets on my side of the galaxy including the advanced start empire who now only have 'superior' military forces.
I even put off cruiser tech repeatedly in favour of defensive stations, which I intend to make heavy use of in the future.
This is, again, a hyperdrive-only game.
Only problem with this is that if the other fellows put a colony near the borders, your stations stop working.
Yeah, I tried to prevent this with influence sattelites.
I just locked down the system closest to the alien border that would create a hyperspace chokepoint.
Fortunately, I was between a huge non-hostile Fallen Empire and a dangerous enemy comparable to me in strength, with pleanty of room to expand and few other empires anywhere close.