I thought space stations on energy resources didn't cost energy. Only those on research or minerals cost 1 energy per station.
Colony rush or not?
- Thread starter Drakonn
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I also always play as a xenophobe, I tried every combination and my favorite ethos is xenophobe+collectivist. And it will be great With New update when collectivist will be changed to the more appropriate hierarchical ethos instead.
I think the problem is Your map size make colony rush a obligation. I only play With 12-16 empires on large 1000 star systems. If not you only get chance to get around 4-6 planets, and every other after that need to be conquered which severly limits you and takes away all the mid game colonization so you have to wait for terraforming late game for colonization to be a part of the game again.
Only reason you need to rush 5 planets is fleet capacity. But it also Depends on the planet type, the 10% Tech increase in the beginning is brutal.
My strategy is to scout out all the nearby systems and build 2-3 frontier outposts to secure them, focus on Research and saving Money, once you got tier 2-3 weps then colony rush all planets almost simultaneously, save up for Space ports and max out Your fleet. Once you do that the only way they are going to attack is if they are several empires joining together in a war against you. But on normal you should be good. But also if you play on larger maps With 12-14 species the game becomes much better. Not only will the different empires be more memorable instead of a drop in the Ocean, you will also have more Exploration and interesting midgame and late game. Usually the AI empires become bigger as well for more late game Challenge.
Imho colony spam is superhigh priority early game. Sure you need to be able to defend your space while your investment starts to pay off and this usually mean have some defensive pacts in place. But the way the game works there is no way you can win without a big fleet and big fleet requires many worlds. Even when you cannot expand by colonization, your priority is expand by war. And that too requires smart diplomacy. All in all what matters the most is diplomacy imho. Whatever route you take you will have some weaknesses and diplomacy allows you to edge the inevitable risks.
I ran the "time for amortisation" myself. And I noticed that anything past Network I is highly ineffective.
A Basic Network costs 30 and produces 1. So 30 months to "pay themself off".
A Network 1 costs 60 and produce 2. So 30 months to "pay for themself".
If you upgrade from a Basic, it still costs 60 and only produces 1 more. So 60 months to pay for itself.
A Network 2 costs 90 to upgrade from a T1 and only brings +1 more then said T1. So it takes 90(!) months to pay for itself.
Interstingly Tile and Ajacency bonsues do not mater. You get them as well for a basic (T0) item, as from a T5. And in case of tile bonsues even if you do not have any building on it.
The only thing possibly worth upgrading high are the Capitol (it has to be there) and the Food production (after all a colony with 1 pop is still a 11% reserach penalty).
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Your logic is simplified and flawed.
- All buildings require a pop to operate them. That pop requires food. Building basic farms with no tile bonus means you only feed the pop on the tile and nothing more.
- Food != energy != minerals.
- Stellaris is all about playing the long game
More importantly you can build T1 buildings without having the T0 buildings in place, so for those, you have to consider if you are expecting to keep that T0 building for a full 30 months, and also if there is anything else that might be worthwhile to invest in
I agree. I'll have to try my next game with fewer AI. One of recent games is far enough I think I've got everyone found out and the map is an enormous mess of AI flags and colors. Though someone got lucky and snagged a pretty much the entire Southwest of the Galaxy. Thankfully he's friendly. Watching the AI carve each others empires up (literally) is entertaining but there are a ton of defensive pacts/federations cropping up so expansion is limited.
Thanks for the info. Definitely helps there. Didn't realize paying themselves off actually took so long.
1. Yes but if you're just settling a colony that doesn't have enough food tiles to get you to the 5 pops (no resettling) then a farm on an empty tile is your best bet. Not to mention that the maintenance cost of those Basic ones is 0.5 energy so that's not enough to really impact anything.
3. Long game requires actually surviving that long
Doesn't really seem to make sense to not build Basics when there's a pop on it because saving/getting to the administration center can take a while if you let it develop naturally. So, having those pops earning even that little it extra in the years doesn't seem to be a bad idea.
Colony rushing isn't quite the way to go, at least from a long-term perspective. Like a few others have said, it's more important to build up a sizeable cache of resources before focusing on colonization. Unless you're next to a few neighbors who most likely would be eyeing a large planet (like 18+ in size), save aggressive colonization for the mid game.
What you should focus on most is your navy and building stations for minerals and energy. when you get to a point where you consistently have 500 or more of each, that's a good sign that you can start more aggressive colonization.
What you should focus on most is your navy and building stations for minerals and energy. when you get to a point where you consistently have 500 or more of each, that's a good sign that you can start more aggressive colonization.
Food is the most integral part of the "long game".
A colony costs 350 Minerals base + Influence. You can propably add the T1 Capitol building to that cost. You will always build it (if nothing else, for the better T1 buildings and adjacency bonus).
As you said, only a existing pop works tiles and adds to the Borders extrusion. So having pops on that planet is integral part of the payoff for colonising that planet. You want that planet to be as popolous as quickly as possible. The pops on that planet are they payoff for colonising.
While the production and useage for Farms, Power Planets and Mines are somewhat different, we have to asume some parity: That a T1 mine is about as usefull as a T1 Power Plant and a T1 Farm. Otherwise we will not get anywhere with our calculations.
You want the pops to grow to max very quickly. And then reduce farms to the fewest amount of tiles possible to sustain the population (however migration will affect that).
I was surprised myself, actually. Turned out I had been doing stuff rather wrong in the early game, going past T1 buildings so quickly.
Note that the amortiasation times do varry with the costs, however:
Architect Ruler and Materialist greatly affect that.
Something interesting to consider regarding Mining Stations:
A lot of people consider them a income besides the planets. But I think they are integral part of the planetary income. Only planets with Pops add Border extrusion on longterm acceptable cost.
Without those pops on those planets, your border would not include all those space mineable resources.
People are prone to underesitamte the value of pop growth because they do not consider how much of the income comes from pops directly or indirectly.