Intended first game, early game strategy?

[Blummenfaust]

You would also need the invasion army tech. So probably not super early game stuff but bee lining(as well as random tech lets you) might still let you swallow up a similar sized but more peacefully inclined neighbor which would be a huge boost early in the game.

Perhaps im going about this the wrong way. Stealing newly established colonies might be way more efficient. Its also a nice counter to people using the standard expansionist start in MP.

 

[Panpiper]

Thank you Jorgen, wow that is actually quite an increase, given that you will be putting lots of pops on food,minerals and energy for growth and maintenance, this should lead to rather quickly increasing science costs.

What I am thinking of doing is meant to counter this to a large degree. I want lots of colonies as much as to claim space in which I will build stations. Growing lots of population on those planets however is not necessarily the optimum thing to do if you are wanting to push tech research. I intend to grow population on early colonies only to the point where they can inhabit high quality tiles and then move population off of food producing tiles sufficient to effectively (though perhaps temporarily) stop their population growth.

We cannot control space using frontier outposts, they are too expensive and limited. However a gazillion large pop colonies will slow down research in a big way. However many smaller colonies only using the best tiles may facilitate a relatively high rate of research while still controlling a large volume of space.

Of course, my strategy may prove to be completely wrong.

 

[Turin the Mad]

Theoretically, 5 pop colonies should do the trick. Juggling food production to exactly = 5 is the fuzzy part...

 

[Number 7]

Personally i'm going to be looking for slaves. Although a lot of people are probably doing similiar, a game based around slavery sounds fun. I also want to strictly ban genetic enhancements and robots for my primary race, but actively genetically engineer slaves to better serve my empire. Slave armies with political commissars attached that were engineered to be extra strong for example.

it should generate a lot of !!FUN!! if the slaves ever rebel en masse as large amount of my offensive armies will be slave armies.

 

[Lavode]

The let's plays uniformly do not appear to be building nearly enough survey ships. This is my game plan for first play:


Restless Ents. Fungoid, Slow Breeder/venerable/sedentary(restless for Ents, still not that fond of moving.). Xenophile/materialist/pacifist. Moral democracy. wormholes, nuclear missiles. Plan of battle: Build more science ships. Not just one more science ship. *lots* of science ships. it is time to aim for the leadercap (minus one slot to permit hiring an admiral, I guess) If possible, I'm going to strip the science bureau naked of staff. You thought you were going to manage a research program? HAH! you are a starship captain now! Into the black you go! If possible, rotate one back to the capital before drawing new cards, I guess. Not entirely sure how this works because none of the streams so much as bothered to promote level five surveyors into the top job >,<


Split the starting war fleet, bounce them into systems ahead of the science ships to check for local hostiles. Survey the heck out of everything. When out of planets in wormhole range.. plop down more wormhole gates, survey on! The idea is to snipe as many anomalies as I possibly can while running from everything that might shoot at me. While doing this.. because while this is a lot of micro, it shouldn't be that much of a resource commitment, peaceful expansion strategy. Only with one caveat - not going to do any "contact alien" projects for aliens that are obviously other civilizations, because given the maximally aggressive survey strategy outlined, if I did that, I'll never get any society research done at all. They can work out how to speak ent if they want to talk.


Other commitments : No wars of aggression. Build a federation Asap. Uplift and enlighten *everything* I come across that can be uplifted or enlightened. Possibly integrate the vassals gotten from enlightening. Not sure about that yet. No settling anything that isn't a continental world with ents. Pay zero attention to continuity of borders as long as it's in wormhole range.


Gamy things I am totally going to do: Once the observation projects for the various wildlife is done, go and kill clouds, amoebae, drones and crystal entities until the related research auto-complete. Given the survey corps insanity, I should have a sufficiency of targets. Don't research any other weapon projects *at all* in the early game.

 

[Turin the Mad]

I noticed the few streams that maxx'd out scientists' skill level - only saw one running a Science Directorate - didn't even pay attention to their scientists' fields of expertise.

Was about pulling hairs from head going " dude, you JUST recruited a New Worlds scientist for a ship, then a moment later began a New Worlds project with a computer guy! "

So, keep your scientists' traits in mind too. That 10% bump is another specialized 5 levels' worth atop the scientists' present skill level. Have your best scientists researching the fields they're best at. Free tech research speed!

Edit: one thing about lacking continuity that showed up in the London MP stream was a substantial penalty to a bunch of stuff (resources, science, etc) when a system didn't connect on the map to your primary blob.

 

[Migthy]

Well I don't know about you, but I'm going to roleplay the empires I pick. Per exemple, the Prothean Empire from Mass Effect.
I'm gonna try to play militaristic and individualists also expanding a lot, as they pretty much ruled the Galaxy before the Reapers came. What I know is that the Protheans were not that interventionists regarding the primitives. They observed them and when they thought they were ready for space-faring, they brought them as a vassal within the Empire....should they refuse, they would be exterminated. But they also kinda played "Gods" for Asari and Hanar, maybe I'll try to infilitrate the primitive governaments?
And I will also create some other species which according to ME wiki they were present in the Galaxy at that time. Also only Hyperspace lines, simulating some kind of Mass Relays (it is as close as it gets).

 

[Panpiper]

So far virtually every playthrough I've watched (I have no life, I've watched many), I have seen nothing but abysmally bad strategic decision making. Like SERIOUSLY bad decisions.

Oh! Great habitable planet, I want that big time. Oh no! I just found another empire really close to that planet I want. Quickly, I must hurry to stop my colonization research to establish communication with those aliens so I can have a border with them that will exclude me from colonizing that planet I want!

 

[Sir-Rogers]

So far virtually every playthrough I've watched (I have no life, I've watched many), I have seen nothing but abysmally bad strategic decision making. Like SERIOUSLY bad decisions.

Oh! Great habitable planet, I want that big time. Oh no! I just found another empire really close to that planet I want. Quickly, I must hurry to stop my colonization research to establish communication with those aliens so I can have a border with them that will exclude me from colonizing that planet I want!

I chuckled

Well let´s see how you will perform playing yourself then, keep in mind a lot of those reviewers will have played for the first time and maybe not followed all the dev diaries and blorg stream like the rest of us. All paradox games have a steep learning curve.

Especially since going tall is a serious consideration in this title compared to the others due to the tech disadvantage large empires face, this was not true in EU4/CK2 for example, where a larger empire would mean better tech due to you being able to afford the best advisors. I´m really looking forward to this, and I fear that my expansionist empire may seriously suffer on the tech level, but we shall see

 

[Turin the Mad]

Given the preciousness of influence, what has been boggling to me is a frequent early usage of frontier outposts. @ 200 influence to plant that flag plus 1 influence maintenance cost, that location better be of major strategic value. Say, a precious neutron star that chokes off the local hyperlanes or is ideally located for another wormhole station or has a radroach colony. (Granted, getting access to neutronium ore is delicious in its own right.) Other empires generally consider frontier outpost construction aggressive and not in their best interest, mmkay?

Other facepalm inducing decisions:
Knowing they want (celestial body x) for (reason), the slow-moving construction ship is left back at (original location) instead of being moved to (celestial body x) during the time leading up to (day 1 month next) when they know they'll have enough minerals to construct (desired item).

Knowing they face a significant energy deficit, they send construction ship to (star b) when they have significant celestial bodies adjacent to right where they had just erected mining outposts that will immediately address said energy deficit better than where they're being sent. As in, construction would begin in seconds after telling the ship to start adjacent. It is a pretty gas giant...

 

[Lavode]

Seen people plop outposts in systems they intend to colonize. Then colonize it. And *not remove the outpost*. Every step of that decision chain hurts. I mean, outpost building in systems you can't colonize because they have no actual planets? Okay. That's what outposts are for. But I still say that the biggest source of pain is people not building more science ships. Here is an algorithm: Do you have leader cap left? BUILD ANOTHER SCIENCE SHIP:

 

[Sir-Rogers]

BUILD MORE SCIENCE SHIPS

...

not

 

[Knotz]

I actually am going to build an extra science ship. Scan ALL of the systems! Also, does anyone know if there's a range limit on where you put your outposts?

EDIT:

Also, I'm switching to full orbital bombardment and unrestricted access to primitive aliens right off the bat.

 

[Taelyn]

I'm hoping to go with fanatic spiritualists, haven't seen too many of those. Not sure about other part, probably xenophile - space evangelists. Maybe intelligent, since that seems like a nice bonus. Possibly adaptable, sedentary and weak too. I think the priority is two science ships then build a fleet large enough to deal with pirates/other minor hostile space aliens. Then build up minerals/energy resources in space and on planet. I don't want a sprawling border. I demand nice looking maps.