I normally build the second science ship immediately but I'm curious to see if there is more that I should be doing to give me more of an edge over the AI rivals.
What is the best/most efficient starting strategy?
- Thread starter Malonex
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
3 barrack, 5 marine, 7 factory.
More seriously there isn't a 'best' start because the game lasts so much longer in the grand scheme of things that it really isn't going to make much difference when/whether you build 2/3 science ships. A much greater influence will be your starting location, the number of resources it has and the types of neighbour, the response to which is what will get you ahead.
More seriously there isn't a 'best' start because the game lasts so much longer in the grand scheme of things that it really isn't going to make much difference when/whether you build 2/3 science ships. A much greater influence will be your starting location, the number of resources it has and the types of neighbour, the response to which is what will get you ahead.
I always immediately go to my policies and edicts and enable Free Thought and Society Research grants. It makes the colony ship tech finish a lot sooner and at that early stage of the game Ethics Divergence doesn't do anything and there aren't many things to spend influence on. While colony ship is researching, I prioritise mining stations and networks and corvettes, only building enough power plants to keep my energy income above 0. Once I'm only a few months away from colony tech, I start saving up for that.
Once that's researched, I turn society grants off but leave Free Thought on for as long as I can. I usually only disable that once migration treaties/conquered pops/remote colonies start coming in and divergence becomes a problem.
Alternatively, if you can find any society resources in your space, you could go for early research station instead of research edicts. That would slow down the mineral ramp up a bit tho so while you'd have your colony ship earlier, you might not be able to start building it immediately.
In Banks colonisation will be a starting tech so I'll probably remove society grants from my build order. Not yet sure when I'll go for my first colony ship now that research no longer determines the timing. I'll also have to think what society tech to prioritise instead of it... But probablish won't change my production queue.
Once that's researched, I turn society grants off but leave Free Thought on for as long as I can. I usually only disable that once migration treaties/conquered pops/remote colonies start coming in and divergence becomes a problem.
Alternatively, if you can find any society resources in your space, you could go for early research station instead of research edicts. That would slow down the mineral ramp up a bit tho so while you'd have your colony ship earlier, you might not be able to start building it immediately.
In Banks colonisation will be a starting tech so I'll probably remove society grants from my build order. Not yet sure when I'll go for my first colony ship now that research no longer determines the timing. I'll also have to think what society tech to prioritise instead of it... But probablish won't change my production queue.
Last edited:
I find building a single society research station or lab is more effective that this. Even just a +2 society is already a 40% increase in society research speed.
When should I start military campaigns though, or is it even worth it early game? the AI is seemingly able to pump out corvettes like nobodies business even if I have more resources then they. @Princess Stabbity this method seems logical, I am absolutely going to steal this.
Start game I'd say this is your order of priorities:
1) Get as many minerals as possible.
2) Get enough energy to have a surplus for those minerals.
3) If possible, get some research. If there's no good orbital research in your territory, you'll want to build a research lab on your homeworld for sure. Keep in mind that increasing research from 5 to 7 is a 40% increase, which is huge. The swirling shadows anomaly (+6 society) increases your society output by 120%.
You first actions will vary depending on your start, but in general this is what I find to be true:
1) Immediately use your 3 starting corvettes to scout surrounding territory. This is to meet nearby empires and map out future expansion routes.
2) Build a second research ship within the first 2 years. The priority on this depends on how many systems are within your territory.
3) Build up to 6 corvettes within the first 4-5 years. This is to be able to defeat the early pirate event.
4) Start expanding as early as you can after the previous conditions are met. Start saving up for 350 minerals for a colony ship right after building your corvettes. If you have a pre-spacefaring civ near you, that's even better. That means a new planet can be had for as cheap as 60 minerals, and far earlier.
5) After the first 10 years, you can consider waging Early War™ (meaning war without attacking spaceports). After 20 years you can consider Real War™ (spaceports now included). Whether or not this is profitable depends on your neighbors and your own strength.
After that all that's left is to snowball.
1) Get as many minerals as possible.
2) Get enough energy to have a surplus for those minerals.
3) If possible, get some research. If there's no good orbital research in your territory, you'll want to build a research lab on your homeworld for sure. Keep in mind that increasing research from 5 to 7 is a 40% increase, which is huge. The swirling shadows anomaly (+6 society) increases your society output by 120%.
You first actions will vary depending on your start, but in general this is what I find to be true:
1) Immediately use your 3 starting corvettes to scout surrounding territory. This is to meet nearby empires and map out future expansion routes.
2) Build a second research ship within the first 2 years. The priority on this depends on how many systems are within your territory.
3) Build up to 6 corvettes within the first 4-5 years. This is to be able to defeat the early pirate event.
4) Start expanding as early as you can after the previous conditions are met. Start saving up for 350 minerals for a colony ship right after building your corvettes. If you have a pre-spacefaring civ near you, that's even better. That means a new planet can be had for as cheap as 60 minerals, and far earlier.
5) After the first 10 years, you can consider waging Early War™ (meaning war without attacking spaceports). After 20 years you can consider Real War™ (spaceports now included). Whether or not this is profitable depends on your neighbors and your own strength.
After that all that's left is to snowball.
I personally recommend not starting any wars at least until your have destroyers, if for no other reason than to have the firepower to take on space stations. In comparison to other empires, spending a little time early on not building military ships (thus saving you minerals from the construction and minerals/energy from the maintenance) allows to to colonize and expand economically much faster. By the time neighbors decide to declare war, you can so far outproduce them that you can stall for time to build up a winning doomstack.
I usually build a science ship and a hydroponic farm on 1+ food tile. When the farm is completed, I move a pop from a power plant into the farm.
Population growth is very important at the beginning. More pops mean more tiles to exploit and more resources.
The additional science ship is also important to scan the surrounding systems and habitable planets as fast as possible. For your first colony, you want the best bang for your buck (preferably 80% habitability, 20+ tiles, lot of resources, not too far away from capital).
From what I've seen, the game will provide you with at least two 80% habitable planets right next to your capital. However, they are not necessarily the best for your first colony.
Population growth is very important at the beginning. More pops mean more tiles to exploit and more resources.
The additional science ship is also important to scan the surrounding systems and habitable planets as fast as possible. For your first colony, you want the best bang for your buck (preferably 80% habitability, 20+ tiles, lot of resources, not too far away from capital).
From what I've seen, the game will provide you with at least two 80% habitable planets right next to your capital. However, they are not necessarily the best for your first colony.
Yes, that's a good alternative assuming that you can find some research or a pre-FTL civ within your starting space. I do still prefer the edicts when RNG can't be relied on because there's practically no downside to them for the first couple of years. I also do like to have a strong mineral income as early as possible. But I do agree with building a planetary lab at some point early on, assuming I have enough pops to work it without taking anyone off minerals or food.
But that may be my SC2 mentality talking. Admittedly Spaceport gives a lot of baseline rush protection so being hyperoptimised from the get go isn't as important n_n
I have spawned next to unpleasant Advanced Start empires before tho so it's not always safe to focus on science before firepower.
All in all, my philosophy is to always go for a paranoid opening, and only after scouting the space around me decide what to do next. If there's no immediate threat, development and science, if there is, military and industry.
Last edited:
for the Banks update, what do you think would be a better build for an arachnid slaver species focusing on genetics (biological path + syncretic evolution)? It's still a bit early, I know.
Option A
Conformist
Natural Sociologists
Resilient
Repugnant
Decadent
Option B
Thrifty
Intelligent
Repugnant
Decadent
Option C
Thrifty
Natural Sociologists
Resilient
Repugnant
Decadent
Option D
Intelligent
Natural Sociologists
Resilient
Repugnant
Decadent
Option A
Conformist
Natural Sociologists
Resilient
Repugnant
Decadent
Option B
Thrifty
Intelligent
Repugnant
Decadent
Option C
Thrifty
Natural Sociologists
Resilient
Repugnant
Decadent
Option D
Intelligent
Natural Sociologists
Resilient
Repugnant
Decadent
Personally i just annihilate first two or three neighbors i encounter asap by going 3-4 planets(only to be able to build spaceports to decrease maintenance cost of my corvette-rush since port provide additional limit) and then going 200%++ ship-overlimit (saving minerals and then spending them at once at several spaceports saves mush mineral since you dont have to have overlimit maintenance penatly for too long) to be able to deal with both enemy fleet and spaceport at once.
Well, all writed above work nice with Hard & Agressive AI in SP while also being valid tactic in MP. There is no roleplay here, though, but since you asked for effective strategy, i think that's fine.
As for science, i believe it's not vital in start. Just for example: Lv5 weapons cost five times more while providing only 50-60% more DPS(forget accurate numbers, sorry) than Lv1 ones. So you want to go science-heavy for placing high-tech parts on ships only if:
- You have large ships as all ships have "base" cost(cost of ship without parts) and on large ones its the biggest ; Paying extra 10m or so for nice Lv5 gun w when your battleships cost 1K is good, but not when its corvette and 10m is 20% of the ship cost
- Or when you want to get maximum DPS and HP on your current fleet-limit at any cost; But note that using such ship builds to recover fleet mid-war can be not effective as your enemy will probably recover faster than you.
Did you ever played multiplayer on rather small galaxies against players that do not role-play and only min-max?
You will be dead long before you can profit from non-agression, because all your neighbors is F.Xenophobe\Militarists with Military Dictatorship(btw, the bonus to ship cost that this gov receive applied twice to colony ships, so your enemies will probably also have 260m or so priced colony-ships; this is probably a bug though) and want to kill you asap. Also cultist event ships have torpedoes which also helps smashing other players early if you research the their wreck.
Also, destroyers are not cost-efficient compared to basic corvettes , i'd suggest not building them, ever. (I dont care if devs said otherwise in previous DD's, because game-testing is all that matters here, check the link if you want details http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-to-corvettespam.1000892/page-2#post-22456311 )
Last edited:
It seems like what I have seen so far, Energy seems to be a bottleneck. So building as many power plants as possible, keep food +1 at all times for a planet. Let the populations of a planet increase to maximum.