Keeping stations around...

[BroOfTheSun]

At first, I hated seeing stations pop up where I wanted to settle. They usually drop in a good spot for a city that I'm looking to settle. However, the more I've played, the more I like getting stations near me. I've adopted a strategy with stations where I settle my cities to surround stations, protect them from other AIs (use borders to prevent AI armies from running over a station), and keep them as my own to trade with throughout the game.

I like keeping the stations around because most provide yields you can't get elsewhere, such as culture. You only use one trade route to the station, and there's no shortage of trade routes in this game. With the Alternative Markets virtue, a trade route to a Tier 3 station gives me more gold than any route to an AI civ. I usually go down Industry tree anyways. So this one trade route is almost always greater than any trade route I'll get else where.

In terms of city placement and resources around the station, you can usually place cities around the station to get any resources around the city. But this is dependent on the map and where a station drops.

So that's my strat. Surround stations with your own cities, keep them in your borders as your own little pet-station, and keep trading with them for some great yields.

 

[Tarukito]

I agree with some culture stations being worth trading with all game, Palatine and New Babylon being strong contenders. Because of wanting to keep Trade routes only going Towards my capital I tend to send station trade routes out from my capital. From my experience in keeping the stations alive is that yes it takes intervention from the player.

I havn't noticed if it is when a station upgrades or if it is time passing but when the station is at full strength they become quite hard for basic units to deal with. I have kept stations up with just this mechanic outpacing the rovers of AI and they can stay around undefended until later into the game turn 180+.

Also to note is that stations are XP farms. I have fully upgraded 3 early game rangers just from spamming attacks on FarBaseOne then finally destroying it. This is using it as an xp farm at about the least abusive level, I imagine if you get a station you dont want captured for xp farming you could easily surround the station with units so no melee can conquer. Then just send all new spawn units over to grind out to the level 3 30/60 cap. Toss a few nodes nearby and you could even quickly grind melee units to the cap limit.

Big things I have learned to do with stations is that their placement can be controlled. If you only scout out an area at least spaced from your capital enough for it to spawn it will go there if you have not scouted out anymore areas for it to go. This at least for the quest decision station you get every game. I use this to block my AI neighbors from forward settling in my area. Then to help them stay alive from attacks I can place my early game units nearby the station to block access for melee to attack with more than 1 unit at a time.

 

[Aldor]

I like to keep stations near AI capitals...another way to block their expansion

 

[Aimeryan]

Hmm, it is interesting if they do indeed only spawn from the quest in areas you have explored... shame they can't make sea landings!

It would explain a lot in some cases - whenever I have played archipelago maps the quest station always takes up that only other viable city area on my small stretch of land - this being because I haven't yet managed to explore other lands!

Would be nice if they spawned a little further away in my opinion - either that or they didn't block city placements on the tiles around them (they haven't claimed them, so they have no right!).

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I once had a station spawn above my capital in the ice and I was so happy that is could use it rather than destroy it and it was out of the way so unlikely someone else would destroy it. But it disappeared before I got a second trade unit up. I guess I should have sent my first one there, but why must they be so erratic? If you want them they leave, if you don't they stay.

 

[Serenya]

I like keeping the stations around to trade with as well, and I've taken to surrounding them when I can, both for the resources and to keep the AI from killing them off. It's odd - if I kill one due to a quest the AI will spend the rest of the game grousing at me every 30 turns or so. But if they are attacking a station I trade with, there's no way to ask them or bribe them to stop.

 

[sprang]

Maybe stations need to be worth more? Like, bump all the resource returns up one Tier and add a higher return for Tier 3? Or at least double the energy to balance the rest of the yields, because energy is worth far less than science or culture. Stations always give 4 yield - but 4 energy is NEVER equivalent to 4 Science.

With the current returns, the only landlocked stations I'll bother with are the culture stations, and maybe the 4 science station if I don't have any more good External TR trading partners in the early game.

I wish stations would make more of an effort to be coastal - better returns, easier to defend from AI, easier to place cities around.

 

[Gamion]

I like to keep stations near AI capitals...another way to block their expansion

Indeed, especially on higher difficulty.

 

[Mercade]

I like keeping the stations around to trade with as well, and I've taken to surrounding them when I can, both for the resources and to keep the AI from killing them off. It's odd - if I kill one due to a quest the AI will spend the rest of the game grousing at me every 30 turns or so. But if they are attacking a station I trade with, there's no way to ask them or bribe them to stop.

Indeed. Most annoying if they continue to heckle you about a station you attacked 150 rounds ago. Is it just that they're intent on picking a fight? I already apologized for it 4 times, you insist on making me apologize a 5th time for something that happened 150 rounds ago?

 

[MechMedic130]

Lalibela and Palatine rock if you can get them early and tier them up quickly for sure. +10 culture is nothing to sneeze at. The other bases I will usually attack though if they are near me at some point. Kill them for science and money then send an explorer into the wreckage, probably more valuable than anything else they'd yield.

 

[liv]

Those two are good stations. I try to trade with them as well and keep them around.
Sometimes the other civs get very focussed on taking out the stations and forgets about the cities I planted around them so keeping some of my exlorers around to prevent their rovers to get to close seems to actually help me expand. At least I have thought so in a couple of games I tried

 

[Aldor]

I have come to like Stet Mining. 10 production is always good, even at late game, while the culture gains become less important. There's some other station which gives 6 production (plus some energy), which is also good.

 

[Snownova]

I have come to like Stet Mining. 10 production is always good, even at late game, while the culture gains become less important. There's some other station which gives 6 production (plus some energy), which is also good.

By mid to late game internal trade routes tend to be better than stet mining, giving 10+ production to two of your cities in addition to food.

 

[sprang]

By mid to late game internal trade routes tend to be better than stet mining, giving 10+ production to two of your cities in addition to food.

All station TR get +1P from Recycler, +1S from Feedsite Hub, +1E from Autoplant.
If you're taking Industry, that's another 18E. So the returns from a station can be greater than all but the best external routes.

And... +50% for all those on water.