Not sure but maybe there is a gap between your priorities (health) and the techs and virtues you are choosing. Are you able to keep healthy?
Are you going for a peaceful victory only? You may have to attack your nabours to prevent them from winning.
how many cities do you like to build?
From what I've been reading "healthy" is a variable term. Meaning the penalties aren't that harsh before -10. I do try to at least keep it from falling below -9.
I am just now coming around to achieving victories other than Domination. Ones that cater to Purity players. I am not squeamish about challenging the AI's that are clearly pulling away from the pack.
3 cities seems comfortable for a long period of time then expand further or start annexing. I don't understand why the AI will have 5-6 during what I consider "early on". That seems like it would be penalized severely.
I wouldn't pay attention to the total score. Looking at the score breakdown can be helpful to see which AI has the most techs, etc. A better estimate than score of how close an AI is to victory is their affinity level. You'll also get a notification if they finish a victory wonder but you better be ready to smash them up quickly with an army or have yours already completed if you get that notification.
Duly noted.
Start
I consider the seeding to be like picking settings, it's not part of a strategy but part of setting up the game. But if you would like to pick some easier options, get artists and the free worker.
For a while I was going Franco/Artist culture rush and just recently switched to science hoarding. I may fall back on the former pending more games. I wouldn't of thought the worker would be a good choice to start seeing as you can get one so quickly.
Early Game
I see you prioritize energy over food. Does that mean you prefer building generators over farms? You need some food improvements in your cities, especially your capitol. The types of improvements you build in your cities remains very relevant throughout the game.
Full disclosure, and I feel as thought saying this will cause me to get spat on, but....
As of right now all my workers run on automatic.
I will prioritize energy buildings over food buildings. I like to stockpile early (which worked even better when I rushed Investment) because I seem to ultimately begin to lose energy when the mid game* starts.
*I'm also sure at the point my early/mid/late game definitions vary wildly from the community's.
I see health is at the top of the list. Since knowledge is your first tree and it is weak in health you certainly need to compensate with buildings, and later biowells. However, if you prioritize health too much you may be building buildings you have no use for. The amount of health a city can produce from buildings, wonders, and biowells is capped at its population. So building/buying all the T1 health buildings for a total of 6 health in a city of population 3 would actually only give 3 health, not 6. Also, while health is good to have, you should not prioritize it enough that it discourages you from putting down several new cities at the beginning.
Health is at the top of my list mainly because it is not a harvestable element. So if a quest decision came up and the choice was between Health and X, I choose health. If the economic adivsor icon is next to a building but a another building capable of health is available to build, I'll build the health first. I figured this would offset going Knowledge first and rushing Sci/Cult.
When should my first outpost be built? Been under the impression it should be around T50?
I think you need to prioritize food higher in the beginning of the game and science a little less. At the beginning you want to expand, put down more cities and get pop in your cities so they can work more tiles.
By saying this are you recommending more farms? Taking Refugee perk? Both? Or something else? But overall, more population early so they can work tiles sounds like the correct course of action.
You list priorities for yields, but you don't mention priorities for other important things. How quickly do you get new cities out? How quickly do you get trade routes up and running. Trade routes have been nerfed, but a trade route still easily yields more than any building. And putting down more cities is the best way to get more of every yield, as long as you can defend them. You also don't put down a priority for military units. This probably isn't as big a deal on Mercury as on higher difficulties but neglecting military is not a habit you want to get into if you ever want to bump the difficulty up.
These are all things I plan on documenting in futures posts in this thread. Extensively.
I will say I probably don't start trading soon enough and often times forget to build the Fence and end up losing a convoy. Derp.
Mid/Late Game
This is the part of the game where you should have a solid empire and you now want to get to a victory condition. To do that, you need science. Science should be much higher on your priority list.
Again our definitions probably differ. I consider it Mid game when I start researching t2 affinity tech, and late game when I start t3 techs. So I wont shift priorities until at least my definition of Late.
You say that when a new outpost becomes a colony, you build all the production buildings first. This isn't a completely bad idea, the trade depot is important to get up and the recycler is a good building. But the higher tier production buildings give a lot less bang for their buck and you should focus instead on getting the other cheap buildings up like the laboratory and old Earth relic.
I'll often flat out purchase the Recycler (and any other available Production buildings below 1000) then build the Depot then yes I start in on the other buildings.
At this point in the game new improvements become available, such as biowells and academies. Do you use these? Since you go down knowledge your academies would give 4 science instead of 3.
Again *dodges spit* workers are on auto. But I do see them. But perhaps not to the degree they should be built?
Tech Tree Priorities
Your priorities here don't seem to be informed by what type of improvements you tend to build. They need to be, non-upgraded farms and mines aren't going to cut it. After T1 techs your priority seems to be increasing your affinity, which is good. Don't forget you need to get the lasercom sat unlocked if you're going purity or supremacy. Since you're playing ARC you might want to get communications quickly for more spies from the building quests.
Duly noted.
Culture Tree Priorities
There is no agriculture tree. There is the prosperity tree, which has some food bonuses, but most of the bonuses are in other areas. You might want to take another look at this tree, it has a lot of health bonuses which you seem to value.
Yeah I couldn't remeber what that tree was called. Just remembered an apple is at the top. Therefore, agriculture.
As stated above, "Health is at the top of my list mainly because it is not a harvestable element. So if a quest decision came up and the choice was between Health and X, I choose health. If the economic adivsor icon is next to a building but a another building capable of health is available to build, I'll build the health first. I figured this would offset going Knowledge first and rushing Sci/Cult."
Some general advice
While most building quests are a bit lackluster, some are very powerful and are worth being aware of. The institute quest gives you a free technology of your choice, you'll want to have an outer ring tech that gives progress towards your victory available to pick when that quest choice pops up. The ultrasonic fence can give your trade routes immunity to aliens. Some buildings can give free covert agents, which you'd like since you're playing ARC.
Anddddd duly noted.
Great stuff so far. My thanks to the both of you. My next opportunity to sit and play is in a few days. I plan to document the game extensively to include many of the things you mention I failed to mention.
