I have the exact opposite experience, I rarely have a lack of Alloys, but Influence is always low. Then again I don't expand my fleet early on, that might make a huge difference.
Beginning the Game...How soon to Colonize or build starbases?(2.2.3)
- Thread starter Hootieleece
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I have the exact opposite experience, I rarely have a lack of Alloys, but Influence is always low. Then again I don't expand my fleet early on, that might make a huge difference.
Ignore Administrative Capacity. The benefit from more well-developed planets way, way outpowers the Empire Sprawl penalties.
Since pop growth time is the main thing stopping you from having the aforementioned well-developed planets, you should colonize early and often. Well, mostly early. As a regular empire, get two colonies set up ASAP, that basically stops pop growth on your homeworld. Get them to 10 pops, build the upgraded government center, then start colonizing other planets, as you'll then have 3 planets to share the emigration burden with.
If you're a hive-mind, ignore that, and just colonize all the (green and yellow) things.
Some people like to game the system a bit by colonizing low-habitability planets, and use them to grow pops to move to other planets. It's a bit to gamey for me, but it could be pretty good, if you're allowed to manually resettle pops, and don't mind the micro.
Since pop growth time is the main thing stopping you from having the aforementioned well-developed planets, you should colonize early and often. Well, mostly early. As a regular empire, get two colonies set up ASAP, that basically stops pop growth on your homeworld. Get them to 10 pops, build the upgraded government center, then start colonizing other planets, as you'll then have 3 planets to share the emigration burden with.
If you're a hive-mind, ignore that, and just colonize all the (green and yellow) things.
Some people like to game the system a bit by colonizing low-habitability planets, and use them to grow pops to move to other planets. It's a bit to gamey for me, but it could be pretty good, if you're allowed to manually resettle pops, and don't mind the micro.
I am in 2240. with 17 systems and 3 planets. Population of 40. My Fleet is 20/24. I have positive balances in every stockpile and at least 3k each.
I can colonize a Gaia world, should I?
I can colonize a Gaia world, should I?
Make sure to check if the Gaia in question has the "Holy world" modifier. If it has it, DO NOT COLONIZE. If it doesn't have it, colonize away, you won't regret it.
On the subject of early colonization. If you happen to get the "First League" precursor chain quest, do it ASAP. The reward for finishing this quest is a ton of unity (usually enough for a couple traditions), a system with high resource deposits, and a max size ecumenopolis, just waiting for a colony ship.
As a few others have mentioned, getting your first colony up ASAP is ideal and then using resettlement to get it to 10 pop. This is so you can essentially double your pop growth which along with influence are the 2 main limiting factors for pretty much everything. In order to do that, you want to explore out a few rings of systems to see what planets are available, select one, build a chain of outposts from your starting system to it, and build a colony ship to colonize it. Once you've done that then you want to find choke points and systems with lots of resources and chain outposts to those to claim them.
The current map generation seems pretty random in terms of starting locations which can be frustrating. Sometimes you get a bunch of planets that you can colonize within a few hops and other times you have to go 5+ hops to find one. This can slow a human player down a bit early game but the even bigger issue is AI players. Often the strength of AI players is directly proportional to how many 60%+ habitability planets are within say 5-10 hops of their starting system. I've seen AI players at 2250 with 1 planet and others with 10 planets where neither has fought any wars. While you want some randomness, that is just way too much and I think there has to be some serious bugs in the map generation scripts.
The current map generation seems pretty random in terms of starting locations which can be frustrating. Sometimes you get a bunch of planets that you can colonize within a few hops and other times you have to go 5+ hops to find one. This can slow a human player down a bit early game but the even bigger issue is AI players. Often the strength of AI players is directly proportional to how many 60%+ habitability planets are within say 5-10 hops of their starting system. I've seen AI players at 2250 with 1 planet and others with 10 planets where neither has fought any wars. While you want some randomness, that is just way too much and I think there has to be some serious bugs in the map generation scripts.
Exactly ... and that's probably a bad way to implement "guaranteed habitable planets" considering we're hyperlane-only.
When [I assume??] most people used Warp or Wormhole drives raw distance was a good-enough metric. Still not good but it was good-enough at the time. I contend that time passed with 2.0.
Yeah, but that only works against a placid AI. Humans or harder Glavius AI settings will often punish you for that.I have the exact opposite experience, I rarely have a lack of Alloys, but Influence is always low. Then again I don't expand my fleet early on, that might make a huge difference.
I build my first colony ship before I claim my first system, and my second colony ship before I've claimed my second. Starbases come soon at choke point systems I've leap-frogged over to claim.
My typical starting build order are :
Build science ship with first 100 alloys > build colony ship as soon as alloy hit 200 > build one or two outposts to claim system with planets
By this time, my second alloy building is online so typically my balance is +10 foods, +10 consumer goods, +17 alloys. This is whenever I have 200 foods, 200 cgs, 200 alloys for colony ship, I have extra 140 alloys to claim 1 or 2 system in order to reach empty planets.
Choice of third building in capital depends on situation. If I have more rooms and planets to expand, I build cg building to keep 2:3 cg to alloy ratio. If there is no rooms for expansion, choice is either alloy for war or research for developement.
Edit : PS don't use NP policy in the first 10 years, you will buy foods or wait for 200 foods to build colony ships.
Build science ship with first 100 alloys > build colony ship as soon as alloy hit 200 > build one or two outposts to claim system with planets
By this time, my second alloy building is online so typically my balance is +10 foods, +10 consumer goods, +17 alloys. This is whenever I have 200 foods, 200 cgs, 200 alloys for colony ship, I have extra 140 alloys to claim 1 or 2 system in order to reach empty planets.
Choice of third building in capital depends on situation. If I have more rooms and planets to expand, I build cg building to keep 2:3 cg to alloy ratio. If there is no rooms for expansion, choice is either alloy for war or research for developement.
Edit : PS don't use NP policy in the first 10 years, you will buy foods or wait for 200 foods to build colony ships.
I think the trick is to balance REX with fleets, strategic placement of starbases, etc. If a human can make it to around 2280 they'll often be fine. On Admiral difficulty [no scaling/high agression] and early in the game you should be able to hold out. You likely won't have a single alloy to spare but it's doable.
I'm not sure REX works as well with Grand Admiral though. I've fought off two empires simultaneously in Admiral but doubt I could have done that under Grand Admiral.
The most basic truth of 2.2 is population is most important resource, so you should colonize early and prioritize getting planets over anything else.
That said, empire sprawl is annoying. Do your best to avoid star systems that have few resources or don´t lead to more planets. Make sure you dont break empire cohesion though. If you see empire cohesion affecting your empire sprawl, you will need to fill in a few holes. All planets must have a path leading back to capital for trade purposes, so make sure your trade routes aren´t flowing through unclaimed space.
As to what to do at start of game? Science ships. Should get like 5 of them surveying asap. The abnormality bonuses are so vital early game, you will want to take map the stars edict first thing.
As to what do to with your planets, well you should turn on resettlement if not already allowed, and try to grow your colonies to 10 pops asap to upgrade colony to planetary admin and get 1 buildings on them, this building is temple for spiritualists, or robot factory otherwise. This is mostly to remove the -50% growth modifier. To that end, you should probably only build a second alloy factory and temple/robot plant on homeworld, then you will be able to use more homeworld pop on colonies without having to lose full building slots.
Once you have a few pop 10 colonies, you can use their population to feed other colonies to size 10. Fun fact, planetary admins dont degrade if pop goes under 10, but don´t go under 5, or you will lose that 1 building.
(edit) Yes, it is possible to have breeder planets, that do nothing but produce robots (or unity) and population, and have nothing but 1 city district, a robot factory (or temple), and a plantary admin. As soon as an unemployment icon shows up next to a breeder planet, resettle that pop elsewhere. Many players will create breeder planets with yellow or even red habitability worlds. This strategy works... but you will need to really produce a lot of consumer goods to sustain it.
Always try to keep the Encourage Planetary Growth decision on all worlds, so you will need more farms than any other resource type, if your average population is under 20 per planet and you have tons of food, you should go ahead and use nutricional plentitude policies too. Since that only happens in early game, you should probably turn it on at about time you have 2 colonies with planetary admins, and turn it off later when you get to 20+ pop per planet or start running low on food production. Be careful you will be locked into it for 10 years.
You should also probably turn on consumer benefits trade policy, as it will reduce the number of civilian factories you need, which is helpful since the defualt setting ¨militarized economy¨ gives you +15% alloy production and -25% consumer goods production, but that doesn´t apply to your consumer goods produced by trade.
If you take the thrifty race perk and 1 point into authoritarian ethics, you should consider moving excess population back to homeworld and building commerce centers as a way to produce consumer goods instead of civilian factories. Also prosperity tree perk that gives 1 extra clerk job per city disrict is a must have for this type of clerk build.
Otherwise watch your alloy factories to civilian factories ratio and remember to switch to mixed economy policy if that ratio falls under 2 to 1.
That said, empire sprawl is annoying. Do your best to avoid star systems that have few resources or don´t lead to more planets. Make sure you dont break empire cohesion though. If you see empire cohesion affecting your empire sprawl, you will need to fill in a few holes. All planets must have a path leading back to capital for trade purposes, so make sure your trade routes aren´t flowing through unclaimed space.
As to what to do at start of game? Science ships. Should get like 5 of them surveying asap. The abnormality bonuses are so vital early game, you will want to take map the stars edict first thing.
As to what do to with your planets, well you should turn on resettlement if not already allowed, and try to grow your colonies to 10 pops asap to upgrade colony to planetary admin and get 1 buildings on them, this building is temple for spiritualists, or robot factory otherwise. This is mostly to remove the -50% growth modifier. To that end, you should probably only build a second alloy factory and temple/robot plant on homeworld, then you will be able to use more homeworld pop on colonies without having to lose full building slots.
Once you have a few pop 10 colonies, you can use their population to feed other colonies to size 10. Fun fact, planetary admins dont degrade if pop goes under 10, but don´t go under 5, or you will lose that 1 building.
(edit) Yes, it is possible to have breeder planets, that do nothing but produce robots (or unity) and population, and have nothing but 1 city district, a robot factory (or temple), and a plantary admin. As soon as an unemployment icon shows up next to a breeder planet, resettle that pop elsewhere. Many players will create breeder planets with yellow or even red habitability worlds. This strategy works... but you will need to really produce a lot of consumer goods to sustain it.
Always try to keep the Encourage Planetary Growth decision on all worlds, so you will need more farms than any other resource type, if your average population is under 20 per planet and you have tons of food, you should go ahead and use nutricional plentitude policies too. Since that only happens in early game, you should probably turn it on at about time you have 2 colonies with planetary admins, and turn it off later when you get to 20+ pop per planet or start running low on food production. Be careful you will be locked into it for 10 years.
You should also probably turn on consumer benefits trade policy, as it will reduce the number of civilian factories you need, which is helpful since the defualt setting ¨militarized economy¨ gives you +15% alloy production and -25% consumer goods production, but that doesn´t apply to your consumer goods produced by trade.
If you take the thrifty race perk and 1 point into authoritarian ethics, you should consider moving excess population back to homeworld and building commerce centers as a way to produce consumer goods instead of civilian factories. Also prosperity tree perk that gives 1 extra clerk job per city disrict is a must have for this type of clerk build.
Otherwise watch your alloy factories to civilian factories ratio and remember to switch to mixed economy policy if that ratio falls under 2 to 1.
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If you play with a low number of planets you can use NP straight off ... mainly because there's not nearly the same number of colony ships to build.
This brings up a good point. This thread is full of LOTS of good advice BUT that advice is colored by game settings. Max habitability & max guaranteed planets plays way differently than min habitability, 0 guaranteed planets. Aggression settings, difficulty, mods, all can make an otherwise great set of advice meaningless unless you apply it in the proper context.
Moral of the story: Adapt to your map and the conditions at hand. It takes a while but you'll get it
Note: If you go w/ limited planets you will likely want to crank up the difficulty level. This is because you'll likely WAY WAY out-planet the AI and they won't have the resources to keep up even in the early game. This is even true with Glavius AI mod as they don't tend to REX and I don't believe that building weights / tech weights / expansion weights / perk & tradition weights / etc. take game settings into account.
I could be wrong but that's what I've seen so far. YMMV.
If you play with a low number of planets you can use NP straight off ... mainly because there's not nearly the same number of colony ships to build.
This brings up a good point. This thread is full of LOTS of good advice BUT that advice is colored by game settings. Max habitability & max guaranteed planets plays way differently than min habitability, 0 guaranteed planets. Aggression settings, difficulty, mods, all can make an otherwise great set of advice meaningless unless you apply it in the proper context.
Moral of the story: Adapt to your map and the conditions at hand. It takes a while but you'll get it
Note: If you go w/ limited planets you will likely want to crank up the difficulty level. This is because you'll likely WAY WAY out-planet the AI and they won't have the resources to keep up even in the early game. This is even true with Glavius AI mod as they don't tend to REX and I don't believe that building weights / tech weights / expansion weights / perk & tradition weights / etc. take game settings into account.
I could be wrong but that's what I've seen so far. YMMV.
I never thought different galaxy setup. I agree you may use NP in less planet setup.
I am one of those guy who click default then change difficulty and map size only. And I colonize every single planets regardless of habitability. In this starts (default + colonizing all), taking NP breaks food-cg-alloy balance to pump up colony ships out of capital (initial 10 years).
I can confirm Expansion works well in GA. I've played three grand admiral games on ironman, it works fine. Just remember - throwing early food per month for 30 years is the best way to get +100 relation then sign def pact asap.
It works. Sort of. You need more intelligent REX than on lower levels and you really *need* REX because you need to outgrow AI rather quickly.
Basically, you don't want to have an early border with aggressive AI personalities, because if AI attacks you in 2210 you will likely lose. That means avoiding expanding towards this type of AI until you're ready. "Ready" might mean different things depending on your empire though. Either you are ready to fight them or you've "pacified" them. If that leaves little room to expand (but it really number of planets that matter), it's possible to risk a border with "normals". At first they would declare humiliation war on you which you can wait a bit until their invasion force arrives and then concede. -10% happiness is not ideal, but in 10 years you can be ready to fight them. Bordering ones that want to vassalize you can be an option if nothing better is available. After all becoming a vassal when you have no room to expand isn't that bad.
i always pick critical traditions in expansion and discovery tree before finishing either one
you don t need ascension perks so early in game anyway and finishing 2 traditions is still pretty early in game
just gotta get that extra pop and adm cap in expansion and in discovery faster survey and more research selection
you don t need ascension perks so early in game anyway and finishing 2 traditions is still pretty early in game
just gotta get that extra pop and adm cap in expansion and in discovery faster survey and more research selection