What are the biggest economic priorities early game?

[Number 7]

hey guys,

just been having a bit of trouble in my early 2.2 games. I'm using the test branch and Glavius AI mod for the test branch. What keeps happening in my games is that i expand around for the first few decades and start encountering AI empires. i focus on food as a priority and don't build many buildings. i use my surplus food for both the empire wide decision that increases food upkeep, pop growth and happiness and the planet decision for extra growth.

It's normal to see my energy in the negatives (but i sell food and minerals on the internal market to make up for it), minerals and food both extremely healthy, low consumer goods income, and alloy income around ~+20

Usually between 25 to 50 years in game all neighbours around me are "Overwhelming" or "Superior" and manage to destroy my fleet and bastion starbase leading to me getting crushed. EDIT: Last game i played i could hold off the enemy stacks with my heavily fortified bastion station, but once my ships went down the enemy just started going around it and i lost the war horribly

Am i making any mistakes with this approach? Should i be building more buildings than i am? would love some help or tips.

Thanks

 

[Surimi]

Generally, the AI is quite aggressive about its military buildup. It will use its early building slots to load up on alloy production. That's why it has a strong fleet so quickly.

You basically have two choices. You can compete with the AI by focusing on alloys and building up your fleet (some empires can actually outbuild the AI fast enough to rush-conquer one or two of their neighbours) or you can ignore military and focus on securing your borders with starbases. You need to use bastion starbases with extra guns (missiles are currently quite bad, as the AI loves point defence weapons) to repel the AI. Bear in mind, the AI could hypothetically still overwhelm starbases, but I've never seen it happen provided you keep them fully upgraded, and you can add in some defence platforms if you really want to be secure.

The advantage of not building up militarily is that you don't have to maintain a big fleet or produce loads of alloys, so your economy will generally wind up stronger in the long run than the AI.

 

[ComradeKroo]

Biggest priority early game is growth and expand.
Try not to use planet edicts, only use them when you have no choice to spend your food.
Specialize planets, sectors. The proportion are 1-2 tech worlds, 1 goods world, 1 alloys world, 4 rural worlds. More tech if you are tall or stall in expansion, if have room, focus on goods and alloys.
Each world need 1 autocthon, 1 entertainment, 1 growth building, then spam the rest are labs, goods factory, alloys forge, only build city district in those forge world. At 40 pops, you can make specialize building in that planet.
For rural world, build districts are enough for housing, build resouces improvement buildings like energy grid, food and mineral plants. If you have plenty housing, build market for fast jobs. Try build some refineries in rural world or make a planet of full refineries.
Learn how to resettle pops if you are authoritarian.
Build dual starbases of hangar + trade port starbase to secure your trade, only use fleets to destroy pirate spawn.

 

[tobias.mb]

Everything depends on if the AI is superior to you in fleet power, economy or research? It sounds like your problem is fleet power, so the answer is: get more alloys and build more ships!

20 alloys seems very low. That is barely enough to keep up expansion (outposts + colony ships). You should probably start by getting enough alloys. Filling up the starting 20 naval cap with corvettes should be a priority goal in the early game (you never know if you'll have a hostile neighbour). It also helps to have a bastion, if there is a good choke point.

Too much food is also not really a good idea. It's fine to have some surplus for the +25% growth planetary decision, but generally for food and consumer goods the goal should be to produce just as much as you need with little surplus.
Too many minerals might also be a problem, if you are constantly selling them on the market. You need some surplus for buildings, districts and mining stations; but everything beyond that should be converted to alloys. You'll have to find your own 'mineral sweet spot' though, as it depends on your expansion rate and number of colonies.

So, try to shift excess capability to alloys. Or build more labs to use those excess consumer goods.

Running negative on energy might also be bad. But this depends on the market. Keep an eye out on market prices. If you are selling minerals and food at anything lower than a 1:1 rate for minerals or a 3:2 rate for food (farmers produce 6 food compared to 4 energy for a technician) you are making a loss and would be better off, switching out mines / farms for power plants.

For buildings: don't worry. It's normal to leave building slots empty in the early game. Especially on new colonies.