first ten turns

[jkk]

Let's imagine someone is playing a fairly easy game as human, decent sized galaxy, fairly standard options. I realize every game is different, and so is every style of play. I assume that those first turns are pretty critical.

What should one be trying to do, specifically?

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

1) Expand Expand Expand

2) Buy your colonization ships as long as you can afford it and target surrounding systems (one per system at first and grab the largest planet in every system

3) set your explorer to auto-explore, your survey ship to auto-survey (with a bit of luck you'll find some credits out there

4) Build Economic structures on your planet followed by industry

 

[jkk]

Sounds good, and raises a few other questions:

Is there generally a need to dink with the starting economic settings? For example, in Civ3 the first thing I would do after founding a city is adjust my tax rate so that I was running a small surplus, putting the rest to research.

Also, is there a reason not to run the economy full throttle in general?

Is there an ideal number of colonists for a colony ship launch?

I haven't yet seen a type of ship called the explorer. By this do you mean build a scout ship?

 

[Nakar]

Sounds good, and raises a few other questions:

Is there generally a need to dink with the starting economic settings? For example, in Civ3 the first thing I would do after founding a city is adjust my tax rate so that I was running a small surplus, putting the rest to research.

I've had some success shunting all Military production to Research. You should only do this if you plan to purchase all your ships, as you obviously won't be building them fast (or at all, if you set it to 0%).

Also, is there a reason not to run the economy full throttle in general?

It is very hard to keep yourself in the black at 100% spending early on. If I do it, it's usually through tech trades to keep myself running at a deficit but still have cash on hand. You just don't have the population early on to pay for all of the spending you're doing. Running at full throttle means possibly having to raise taxes, which could tank your morale and lower growth rates, which is a very bad cycle to get into.

Is there an ideal number of colonists for a colony ship launch?

One pod seems sufficient. The base colony ship has (I think) two. That works as well, but I've yet to see a major difference.

I haven't yet seen a type of ship called the explorer. By this do you mean build a scout ship?

When I make an "explorer" ship it's usually a cargo hull with tons of sensors and engines, yes. The basic "scout" you get is actually a tiny ship, which can't mount as much as a cargo hull. It's an explorer, so it's not going to be fighting, right?

 

[jkk]

One pod seems sufficient. The base colony ship has (I think) two. That works as well, but I've yet to see a major difference.

I was thinking specifically of the number of colonists (so far max 500). My assumption, not really knowing the game mechanics much, is that if you sent too many people to a Mars, it might not be able to support them and that could cause instant starvation. I also wonder if it impacts morale and productivity much at home.

 

[Supreme Shogun]

In regards to "Expand Expand Expand",

I usually let universe size dictate how I go about that. Small/Med ones I straight out buy ships to get there as fast as possible. Large + I usually buy factories to crank out the ships on a designated factory world, either homeworld or one of my first colonized worlds.

Much like Civ, theres a maintenence cost per colony so you can OVERexpand too quickly. It may hurt financially. Still grab those key worlds anyway. Once you get tax base in place you'll be ok.

 

[jkk]

Much like Civ, theres a maintenence cost per colony so you can OVERexpand too quickly. It may hurt financially. Still grab those key worlds anyway. Once you get tax base in place you'll be ok.

Yeah, from what little understanding I have thus far, I see that colonies start out money sinks of sorts. Can one affect that by the amount of people one sends to start them up?

Also, it appears to me that the game really doesn't start out with any military anything going--can't build warships. Not that I'd want to, but I have all this MOO baggage which says that if you don't get some hulls into space early, your neighbours will eat you for breakfast. I favoured a bunch of little missile boats who could chuck off their volleys and run if need be, well able to overwhelm enemy point defenses and at least attrit them.

 

[Nakar]

Yeah, from what little understanding I have thus far, I see that colonies start out money sinks of sorts. Can one affect that by the amount of people one sends to start them up?

A higher population will pay more taxes, but keep in mind you're just shunting initial population around; whoever you take away from one planet will just be paying the same taxes on the new one when they land, but with an extra colony to upkeep. The thing is, around 1 billion is the cutoff for population growth penalties; any less than that and the colony takes a little while to get up and running, but any more than that and it behaves normally. So it might be to your advantage to send around a billion folks to a new planet, just to make sure they gain enough traction to start paying taxes sooner rather than later. Regardless, there's no substitute for econ buildings.

Also, it appears to me that the game really doesn't start out with any military anything going--can't build warships. Not that I'd want to, but I have all this MOO baggage which says that if you don't get some hulls into space early, your neighbours will eat you for breakfast. I favoured a bunch of little missile boats who could chuck off their volleys and run if need be, well able to overwhelm enemy point defenses and at least attrit them.

Well, nobody has sufficient combat ships at first, and Planetary Invasion is a costly tech. You can afford to be light on combat vessels because everybody else will be at first as well. Assuming they have the range/speed to even reach anyone else that early, which they generally won't.

 

[DiskoPascal]

I my case, playing at normal or one step above, I found that buying 2 factories on my home world while putting 100% on military gets me 1 colony ship every 2 turns.

At this rate, I can colonize like crazy and my pop goes down very slowly (since it has one turn to grow back). Unless I get cornered at the start, which is a bummer, I can colonize more than the actual % that my race represent. Like over 1/5 the pop when playing at 5, more than 1/4 the pop when playing against 4, etc.

If I get cornered, then I need to buy colony ships, which changes my dynamic compeletely. I use 3 worlds and ship as many colony ships as I can... I don't like that, it slows me down severely in the long run.

I always order 2 factories first, then one research, a entertainement center and then a marketplace. After that I let it slide to whatever I feel like.
I never have a shortage of money and I go at 80% tax almost all the game. Just check those big costly ships.

Anyways, I'm thinking maybe using the home world to populate the other 2 worlds with starports... I could keep the three worlds with over 1B pop while shipping as many colony ships as I can... Would take some agility I think.
Naahhh... It'll take way too long like that, even if it is a good way to keep your pop in check during the early turns!

Do you guys go for the far worlds first or any 10+ planet you encounter?

 

[nihilistic]

Well, this is what I do on turn 1:
a. set research to universal translator or its pre-req
b. design custom colony ship with max number of engines with at most 1 life support
c. buy factory, buy custom ship, start building another factory
d. set tax rate to whatever rate that maintains >70% approval, set spending to 100%, set military rate so chat you'll be producing exactly 1 military shield, put the rest in social for that second factory
e. if you had a 300% or higher production bonus square on your starting planet you might have some $$ availble for research
f. land the starting colony ship you have an relaunch with whatever amount of troops you want (this does nto waste movement points)
g. send colony ship out one way, send flagship out the other

On turn 2, I might buy another colony ship and whatnot. Anyway, the general strategy is to leverage the 5000bc as far as you can. Do not research beyond universal translator (except maybe propulsion stuff if you can afford to tech to impulse cheaply). Do not build any research or influence related buildings. Your build order on your main base should both be very much alike:

factory, factory, morale, econ, econ, econ, econ, ......

There should be no specialization, no research, and no money spent for any purpose other than the main objective: to increase your per turn income. You can specialize and research later, but not now. Trade techs profusely, but never under any circumstance trade away universal translators. Try not to acquire techs that give you improvements that you'll rather not build or rush in the beginning. Try to make make every colony (except the capital) have an coordinated number of factories. Every colony should either have 2x factory capability or 4x (or 8x if you happen to find a precursor mine). That way you can synchronize your production levels to produce exactly one trade center every turn or one trade center every two turns with no waste. If done well, your income per turn should overtake your expensese per turn before your treasury runs dry.

I play at 3 levels above normal on large with everything else normal and 9 opponents. I usually play Yor.