How rapid should you expand?

[SuperfluousNinja]

I see that research costs go up 10% for every planet you colonize. Since that happens...

- Is it still smart to try and colonize as many planets as soon as you can, just to make sure you start the growth process as soon as you can? Does the eventual growth make up for the penalties to research?
- Is it better to expand with frontier outposts as soon as you can? I notice the nice thing about colonizing planets is that you don't incur a monthly influence loss like you would with every frontier outpost.
- Are there certain things you should just wait for before trying to expand? Say the borders you worried about most were already secure, that you already grabbed up the areas you were worried about losing and have plenty of time to get the rest. Is it best to just work on infrastructure when that's true? Or is it always generally a good idea to get to your 5 planet max as soon as you can?

 

[Voidlord]

You should grab colonies as quickly as you can, more colonies equals more resources.
Frontier Outposts aren't really worth it imo.
Each colony should have 5 buildings BASIC buildings (including the ship shelter) before you go for next colony, don't bother with building them up too much, just get the basics, enough food for 5 pops and whatever else you need

 

[Jastebro]

I tend to check my neighbours, esp. in early game, to see if there's colonizable planets where I can cut them off.
Reaching the 5 planet cap isn't as highly prioritized as having a wide coverage of local space for my taste.

 

[PaulMClem]

Reaching the 5 planet cap isn't as highly prioritized as having a wide coverage of local space for my taste.

I was thinking about this sort of issue earlier today. There were a couple of decent prospects to colonise: one inside my current borders and one about an extra 100 inf away. I went for the latter because it expanded my borders more i.e. denied the space to anyone else.

 

[SuperfluousNinja]

Frontier Outposts aren't really worth it imo.

Are you sure? What if you have a cluster of 5, 6, or even 7 stars you could grab with a single frontier outpost and there were no planets there? Or the habitability of those planets suck? It still seems like a smart use of resources.

 

[PaulMClem]

Are you sure? What if you have a cluster of 5, 6, or even 7 stars you could grab with a single frontier outpost and there were no planets there? Or the habitability of those planets suck? It still seems like a smart use of resources.

Have to agree. Not sure how you expand effectively without using Frontier Outposts. They seem a very good way to expand your borders to get at valuable resources and pave the way for colonisation. Once you've colonised the area you then remove the Frontier Outposts as soon as you can.

 

[Stadhouder]

Are you sure? What if you have a cluster of 5, 6, or even 7 stars you could grab with a single frontier outpost and there were no planets there? Or the habitability of those planets suck? It still seems like a smart use of resources.

It is. In the right circumstances of course.

 

[PaulMClem]

It is. In the right circumstances of course.

Indeed. In general new players (me included) need to be wary of posters who say "never use x" or "never use y". That is very much their opinion based on play-style, experience etc. I'd personally keep it simple and use Frontier Posts when they help. Main thing is to get rid of them as soon as you can i.e. without it shrinking your borders.

 

[Pchang]

Someone worked out the math in a thread long ago, but it is always worth it to colonize planets of size 16+. Also, always worth it to colonize to expand borders as quickly as possible. Use warfare early to conquer planets with inhabitants of different climate types (especially including invading primitives if you find them before establishing contact with anyone else). This allows quick expansion like you wouldn't believe. Frontier outposts are necessary depending upon the inhabitable density you choose. At 100%, you definitely need them. At 150%+, you can probably colonize enough planets to not need them very much.

 

[Digrus]

The real question should be: Will I need to colonize as fast as I currently do when "Banks" and "Utopia" will be available?
Right now, you need to colonize fast just for 1 reason: ceding planet cost. Resources could be good, but the player micro-management will always beat the AI's (even if you just spam corvettes, you will definitely win), so the only reason to colonize fast is to avoid dozen of big scale wars just to grab 10 planets in the middle-late game. You don't even need to colonize, you only need to stop others from expanding. For the first 50 years ALL your influence should be used to create a room for late safer expansion.
The addictional technology cost is laughable, it just prevents big empires to be science powerhouse (and you can still achieve that).

 

[The_Human_Oddity]

Personally, I don't do it very quickly. I tend to just use frontier outpost in order to claim a lot of space and, in the process, planets. After that I wait for my home planet to be maxed out, so to say, and for all of the systems to be filled with observation post, mining stations and research stations. The pro from this is that, due to only having one planet, I tend to be ahead of everyone in research.

The con is that you will be wiped out pretty easily and should seek a defensive alliance until you can bolster up your military with more planets.

 

[PaulMClem]

For the first 50 years ALL your influence should be used to create a room for late safer expansion

Sounds like you're saying you use a lot of Frontier Posts to expand borders without colonisation....but I've probably misunderstood.

 

[Digrus]

Sounds like you're saying you use a lot of Frontier Posts to expand borders without colonisation....but I've probably misunderstood.

I usually start colonizing from the furthest habitable world that allows me to stop an AI empire from colonizing, if you're lucky enough you can even manage to stop a nearby empire from colonizing their first planet if you are fast enough (and you are climate-alike). Yes, I use a lot of frontier outpost to stop other empires from colonizing (I usually stop them from getting planets that are uninhabitable for my pops, but could also be use to "reserve" a planet that you like).
Good case scenario: you nerf your closer neighbour, stealing his planet (for an easy aerly game)
Best case scenario: you don't have a close neighbour, and manga to grab a portion of ht egalaxy for later peacefull expansion.
Bad case scenario: after you close a section of the galaxy, all the primitives in that section decide to explore the stars (at the same time, of course)
Worst case scenario: you close a section of the galaxy for you personal and in the middle of it you discover a lovable Xenophobe Fallen Empire.

 

[Stadhouder]

Indeed. In general new players (me included) need to be wary of posters who say "never use x" or "never use y". That is very much their opinion based on play-style, experience etc. I'd personally keep it simple and use Frontier Posts when they help. Main thing is to get rid of them as soon as you can i.e. without it shrinking your borders.

Exactly. Never use x or y is rarely if ever correct for all circumstances. Frontier outposts can drain your influence quickly if go wild with them, but they definitely serve a purpose. I've used them to bring broken ringworlds and ancient mining bases into my sphere of influence, which I couldn't have with colonising due to no available systems nearby. Even if I wouldn't have captured any other system with them 25 engineering and access to living metal or 30 minerals in a single system is a great boon early game. I've alo used them to deny my neighbour a 25 tile world that he could colonise I couldn't and I couldn't risk a war yet due to two other neighbours with opposing ethics who would like strike as soon as my fleet power would diminish some what. I've also used them to pay less influence for colonising a few worlds quit far from my border, so I saved influence colonising them and captured the systems in between instead of creating separate islands.

I see that research costs go up 10% for every planet you colonize. Since that happens...

- Is it still smart to try and colonize as many planets as soon as you can, just to make sure you start the growth process as soon as you can? Does the eventual growth make up for the penalties to research?
- Is it better to expand with frontier outposts as soon as you can? I notice the nice thing about colonizing planets is that you don't incur a monthly influence loss like you would with every frontier outpost.
- Are there certain things you should just wait for before trying to expand? Say the borders you worried about most were already secure, that you already grabbed up the areas you were worried about losing and have plenty of time to get the rest. Is it best to just work on infrastructure when that's true? Or is it always generally a good idea to get to your 5 planet max as soon as you can?

- You should could colonise quite aggressively early game. Not necessarily every planet in sight, but you don't want to look like easy prey to your neighbours. I usually go to core planet cap, build these up, start 1 or 2 sectors, and then fill them up again. It will take some time to make up for the penalties in research, but if you can outgrow your neighbours you speed up this process by conquering them with sheer number and reverse engineer their shipwrecks.
- Not necessarily. You should survey your surrounds ASAP, build one or two extra science ships to aid in this. The results should make it quite clear where an outpost is a good idea and what you can grab with colonising.
- Not really. Obviously you want build some stations in between, so you might pace a bit at times, but there are no mechanics that really punish snowballing, so the faster you get the ball rolling the better.

 

[Kvinfojoj]

- Get to 5 planets ASAP. I use the society research boost edict to get the colony ship tech faster. It's okay to go negative energy trend for a while, just don't hit 0.
- Plan ahead and make sure you have enough minerals for every colony ship as soon as the previous one is done building.
- Splits your corvettes into 3 fleets and scout all planets you can for grabbing the prime real estate early.
- IMO the only reason not to take a certain planet is if it will create a lot of border friction with an advanced AI and you have alternative planets. If I have to take it to reach 5 planets, I will usually do it.
- I only use frontier outposts very rarely in order to secure planets before the enemy, influence is too valuable to use it for pure resource systems in the early game.
- IMO it's not worth building the basic buildings before you get 5 POPs and upgrade your ship shelter (unless you need food). You pay full price for upgrading from basic buildings, as if the tile were empty.

 

[Khy]

I use Frontier Outposts to reserve 20+ size planets early game. I have found that if I can stick to 5 different 20+ size systems at the start, it will be an easy tech up start. My current game I have 2 planets (a 25 with 50% bonus minerals and a 23) inside my first neighbors territory, but they went overwhelming early. Huge territory and a large fleet. I made them my friend with bribes and luck. I'm at year like 2300ish, I federated the neighbor, maintain 4 research trade deals and all my discovered empires are now equal or inferior to my research. I have 2 Outposts now for strategic resources and use my influence for the Troubadours. By 2400 I will eclipse everyone's research and probably have a ton of vassals. Which is kinda how Wiz is playing on the livestream on Thursdays. My federation ships are mirror images of my own, except sensors. There are plenty of ways to play, but the stay small method is fun. All planets in have are fully specialized 2 mineral, 2 energy, 1 research. When I get another core system it will be research, then energy. At that point I should be able to field a 500 fleet size and 100 offensive armies with no issue, then start integration of vassals into their own sectors for energy/minerals/naval capacity at late game. Then it's all % researches from there. I don't like sectors until late game due to 25% loss of energy/minerals and large planet counts will gimp research. Sorry if my phone annihilated any words.

 

[Khy]

Also, every planet in my territory will be terraformed by the time I expand. And hopefully 100% habitable for 100% happiness by then too. Unless I finally get my synthetics...if treated right they can make your empire amazing. I don't allow resettlement...so it kinda gimps my synthetic empire...

 

[TempusxX]

shouldn't listen to posters who say don't use x, and besides outposts are very much useful and should use them

 

[AndragonLea]

That really depends on what you want to go for - there are two ways that function relatively well for me:

1. Expanding like a crazy mofo. This one depends on having a large fleet of relatively badly teched ships, mass over class, and just killing a small empire with better tech so you can steal their sweet, sweet technology. You expand until you can't and develope your tech later by making the last 10 to 20 planets research planets. You should be big enough to make up the tech advantage with numbers, slowly catch up and eventually end up at the same technology stage as the others but with vastly more territory to show for it.

2. Tech up like a fiend. You survey your surrounding space and take the 4 systems that best serve your long term goals. Criteria: enough space between your borders and the new system to allow for plenty of land grabbing, multiple planets, good planet to take immediately. You settle all your cores and go for 1 mineral planet, 1 energy planet and the rest is pure research with just enough power plants so the planet pays for itself. At this point you hire a scientist for every planet that has science on it (if you can ), throw on free thoughts and crank up the crazy inventor charm.

Claim the best clusters of stars near your borders with outposts - this lets you mine them and prevents the AI from border creeping (settling near you, pushing to the next habitable planet in your huge mostly unsettled borders with outposts and settling that, repeat until they strangle you).

Your goal is to outtech all surrounding empires. You only colonise when you have a new core system available and always look out to take only the juiciest ones, with an eye towards claiming more space with them. Your high technology should allow you to rival even much bigger empires (in my last playthrough, an empire with 15 planets asked to become a protectorate - I didn't have a single planet in a sector and wasn't over my core cap at that point).

Once you have all but the repeatable tech, you go nuts: colonise EVERY PLANET in your border with a mix of science, energy plants and mineral mines. You want to KEEP your science speed, but otherwise slightly ramp up your minerals (to account for higher ship hull costs) and massively expand both your energy credit income (to pay upkeep for ships) and your star port count (to have space for more ships before they become expensive).

You should shortly have both one of the best technology bases in the game and a very strong navy.

 

[Almond_Brown]

I use Frontier Outposts to allow me to capture territory that contains colonizeable territory early, and then leapfrog from there outwards, colonizing and removing the Frontier Outposts as I go.

Unless you are willing to take on an equal amount of "rivalry" Influence, and that would be more than most Etho's are allowed, leaving Frontier Outposts running is a BIG drain on Influence until other means are implemented.

So place Frontier Outpost in colonizable area to secure.
Quickly send out colony ship. Colonize.
Remove Frontier Outpost.
Rinse and repeat and prosper.