OSG 14b - Cold Blooded Killers

[dathon78]

We've finally managed to get enough new faces to run two succession games at once! This is the thread for team 2 of OSG14 (original thread, including variant rules, can be found here).

Roster:
dathon
Sullla
StuporMan

The only additional rule is that we cannot check in on team A until our game is complete. Let's go out and genocide some people!

dathon

 

[dathon78]

Alright, as usual at the start, I managed to do some scouting, build some factories, and open some tech. Our starting map is attached. Looks pretty good; only things to note is that the red ocean in the W is a size 70 Ultra Poor, and that the Steppe in the NW is a size 65 fertile.

I opened Construction, Planetology, and Propulsion. Construction has IIT9 as the only choice, and hasn't been touched. Planetology holds IT+10 and Improved Eco in the first tier, IT+20, Dead, and Spores in the second. IT+10 has been researched, and both planets terraformed. I chose Eco next. I would recommend Controlled Dead after that to give us the two dead worlds to the south. They are both small, but strategically important. Rng 4 got a shot from Sssla to start. I've set up Quayal to put it in percentages in 5 turns.

There are 6 scouts at Quayal with 2 more on the way. I've got the planet set to build two more along with the research. Sssla has 138 factories and is naturally almost mature population-wise. I've got it set to build a colony ship in 6 turns to (hopefully) coincide with Range 4. We can then grab the desert and arid worlds to the SE to push expansion, though if we are unlucky enough to have a homeworld in the NW corner we'll want the ships to go there first. We'll see scouts before the first col ship is done if that's the case.

We'll do 20-turn sets until things heat up a bit.

Roster:
dathon --> just played
Sullla --> UP NOW
Stup --> On deck

dathon

 

[Sullla]

Looks good so far (without having looked at the save, that is). My one major comment: colony ship in 6 turns? This is a LARGE map. Maxing out the homeworld ASAP becomes a better and better idea as you increase the map's size. I like the idea to get out the initial colony ship faster for a Small map, maybe for a Medium one (depends on the neighborhood), but I very strongly feel that we'd be better off spending 5 turns maxing Sssla NOW, then pumping out colony ships continuously every FOUR turns after that. I see five planets already that we'll want to grab very quickly, plus whatever else we manage to scout beyond that.

I urge you to think long term.

Then again, I'm still a Master of Orion n00b, so I could be totally wrong. Winning more than I'm losing on Impossible though, so maybe I'm not completely crazy...

I'll play tonight, hopefully after someone else stops by and weighs in.

 

[dathon78]

It is a matter of opinion. I would normally agree with your assessment. However, like in chess, I've found control of the center of the map is usually pretty important in MOO. It keeps your avenues of expansion (peaceful and military) open. I would like to see us grab the two worlds to our SE, particularly the Arid. It's size 65, and as there is probably a race in one of the two stars to our east, probably close to being on their scope, especially if the bottom yellow is a homeworld. I agree that the two backline worlds can probably wait, IF there isn't another race back there. If there is, then that is another reason for an early col ship; keep them boxed in that corner!

Then again, I tend to play conservative I've seen too many worlds near my core snapped up by aggressive enemies. Then again, we aren't facing Silicoids, and this is Hard instead of Impossible, so the gamble might pay off. In my mind, delaying the back colonies by another 5-7 turns is worth securing worlds in the center of the map and within range of our homeworld. Being able to pump colony ships at 4 turns isn't going to matter if we don't have any place to send them. But as they say, you're the boss Good luck!

dathon

 

[dathon78]

Oh, and One More Thing (tm) (to use another Sirian quote...)

We should probably research Spores after Improved Eco given the nature of our variant. It might not be optimal, but it is in character. Opinions?

dathon

 

[Sullla]

(0) 2320 First MOO succession game turn! Let's see how things turn out. I have a major strategic choice to make right at the start: do we go for colony ships now, building the first one in six turns, or opt to max Sssla first, which will take 6 turns - and after which colony ships should follow every four turns. I'm a major fan of maxing the home planet ASAP (you can see I've learned from the Sirian school here), so it probably doesn't give anything away to say that this is the plan I chose to follow. I read Dathon's post, and his reasoning is sound, but ultimately I disagree for the following reasons:

- Dathon mentioned in his post above that it was worthwhile to get that first colony out faster at the cost of "delaying the back colonies by another 5-7 turns". This, however, is an incorrect way of looking at the situation! We are not delaying the back colonies by 5-7 turns, we're delaying EVERY future colony by at least that long, if not longer. Now it may well be worth that in some cases, but I just don't see it in this situation, with no AIs bearing down on us. Every turn you wait on maxing the home planet represents a MAJOR loss in production, so it REALLY needs to be worth it!

- Equally important, Dathon didn't mention any AIs pressing up against our scout blockades. With no Silicoids or Psilons in this galaxy, I'd rather play the long-term strategy, because I don't see any of these AIs (especially on Hard) poaching planets from us in the near future.

- Finally, it's a Large map. The AIs start further apart, and we have need for a greater number of total colony ships. With that in mind, I will "build a granary" before producing any settlers (Civ3 terminology) and max Sssla first.

Dathon's done a great job of building scouts, but I think we have enough for now (with 17). I'm going to plow that production from Quayal back into research for now, to make sure we get Range 4 ASAP. Shuffle some scouts around.

One other difference I have to point out between the way I play and what Dathon has done here: Quayal has 76 population (yay Sakkra!) but only 8 factories. That's because we've been using it to produce our early research thus far. I probably would have had the planet work on factories until Sssla was maxed, then have Sssla run research to get increased range, after that switching research over to the second colony. In other words, trading short-term advantage for a better overall growth curve longterm. Dathon's strategy may well get us planets we could have lost otherwise, so this is merely a difference of opinion, not a bad play. It's EXTREMELY rare for me to do anything but max factories at new planets ASAP; what can I say, I hate having immature planets! Since Dathon's largely set our path here, I leave things alone at Quayal and don't change anything.

(1) 2321 Sssla: 150 factories (colony ship ETA drops to 5 turns - at the very least, we should have built factories for ONE turn!)

(2) 2322 Sssla: 162 factories

(3) 2323 Sssla: 176 factories (colony ship ETA drops to 4 turns; note that we would still be only halfway done the FIRST colony ship if we had gone with Dathon's plan. Just sayin' )

(4) 2324 Sssla: 190 factories

(5) 2325 Sssla: 205 factories. I'll put 50BC into polishing off factory construction, and the rest (110BC) into our first colony ship. With those extra BC, I should be able to build the first colony ship in just 3 more turns. That means I'll be only 3 turns behind Dathon's projected pace for the first ship, and EVERY FOLLOWING COLONY SHIP will come out faster. Oh, and Range 4 tech hasn't come in yet either, although that was just chance. With the percentage up to 21%, I'm having Quayal plow 10BC into research to preserve our tech investment and plowing the rest into factory construction. Past due to get that started there!

(6) 2326 Just realized I had Sssla optimzed for 210 factories and not 220. Whoops! Well, I'm going to go ahead with the first colony ship now and get the last 10 factories done after that. (Going against my own logic above, heh.) It is indeed due in 3 more turns, as expected. Still seen absolutely no sign of any AI presence at our scout blockades, so we don't appear to be in a rush. Range 4 at 23%.

(7) 2327 Range 4 at 25%.

(8) 2328 Range 4 comes due, yay! Our only choice is Range 6, which is a bit of a drag (Nuclear Engines would have been a better deal, especially on this Large map). Since we have ZERO BC invested in any field, I opt to turn off research completely to concentrate on factory construction at Quayal. Normally I would never do this, but it costs us nothing to do so, and we'll be MUCH better off in the long run by building up the second colony now. Once Quayal gets to roughly half factories (90ish), we can turn research back on, sending the excess population to stand up our new colonies. Dathon did a good job getting us started here, but now I have to go back to fixing some of the economic minutiae.

I also shuffle our scouts around to scout some of the new systems in range. Much to my disgust, I realize we still need some more scouts. Darn it, Dathon! Making me look bad with my veto action on the first turn! I'll squeeze some more out from Sssla next turn.

(9) 2329 First colony ship finishes. Obvious destination is Proteus, the size 65 Arid system to the east. No AI interaction in the northwest so far means we're almost certainly safe back there, so we should push east and south with all speed. I finish maxing those last 10 factories at Sssla this turn, using the excess BC to pump out some more scouts (12 of them, as it turns out; should be enough to last the rest of the game).

Quayal has ALREADY maxed population (geeze, Sakkra!) and is building 6 factories/turn (the rate of course is continuing to go up rapidly). In about 8 more turns we should be up to roughly 90 factories and ready to start researching there again. Sssla, of course, will be cockroaching the colony ships for some time to come.

(10) 2330 Sssla maxes factories, now producing 154BC after waste cleanup costs. That's enough for a colony ship every 4 turns, and once every 3 turns after we get Improved Eco. In other words, looking like a pretty good situation.

Between turns, a scout runs into MEKLON!



Meklon is directly southwest of the two Dead planets. Given our Excellence in Planetology and their Poor-ness, we can probably get those worlds. Another scout also finds a Darlok colony (Terran 100, but Ultra Poor) just to the east of Seila, the desert planet in the south. The shapeshifters only JUST founded it (population 2), so we were one turn too late to deny them settling it. Argh. Should be able to get to Seila first, barring some early disaster (crosses fingers).

(13) 2333 We settle our first new colony, yay!



(Cursor hand is pointing to Meklon above, by the way.) Another scout also finds the Meklar second colony, Xengara, a Steppe 45 world. I retreat it to avoid irritating them. Quayal sends 20 lizards to Proteus, which should be more than enough to get it started. I do the scout shuffle to reflect our newly extended range to the east.

(14) 2334 Scouting reports inform us of a Tundra 20 in the north, and a much more interesting Ocean 65 in the west. We'll probably need Range 6 or LR Colony ships to reach it though. Sssla produces colony ship #2 and sends it to Seita, the threatened Desert world.

I have to point out, our maxed homeworld is able to produce the next colony ship in THREE turns, thanks to overrun from the previous ones. Beats building them at one every SIX turns, no?



(15) 2335 We retreat a Mrrshan scout from Bootis, a Toxic world in the east. Did they scout it? Probably; too much of a coincidence otherwise. Cats look like they're at one of the yellows in the east; good to know.

We also find Hyades, an Arid 60 to the southeast, in the heart of the galaxy. This current colony ship isn't going there (since we still have to wait 4 more turns for the one in transit to reach Seita), but the next one can possible go there (?) That would be a sweet location to claim!

(17) 2337 We meet the Darloks, who are Xenophobic Industrialists (wow, weird personality for them). They must have discovered Range 5 tech. They have only 4 systems?! (been a while since I played on Hard, heh):



Cursor is pointing to Nazin. So we have Meklar to the south, Darloks to the southeast, Mrrshans almost certainly dead east at one of those yellows over there. All in all, a pretty friendly draw on the terrain. Darloks rebuffed my efforts at a trade agreement, but I'll come back again and see if they change their minds.

Sssla also produced another colony ship this turn (#3 of my turnset) which heads west to Rigel, a Desert 60. Expansion continuing to proceed nicely.

(18) 2338 Turn away another Mrrshan scout in the east at an Arid 55. Too bad we have no realistic chance to get this system (Range 7 and no planets nearby to drop that), but at least we can delay the cats in staking their claim there!

Quayal has hit 86 factories, enough to keep half the population employed, so I now turn research back on again. We can now send half the lizards off Quayal without suffering much of a loss in research capacity.

(19) 2339 Research fields open up, and I have a tough initial choice in Computers with all three options available. While I debate between the uber-cheap ECM I and Mark II, I ultimately go with the Battle Computer. It's the most expensive of the three, but also by far the most useful (sucks having a level 1 computer for your bases if you get into early war). Hopefully we'll be able to get a better scanner in two more generations of tech. I do take the uber-cheap Hand Lasers over Hyper-Vs, however, and the default (no options) Class II shields. I'll leave research balanced for now, letting StuporMan adjust the sliders as he sees fit.

We scout one of the Darlok systems, a Minimal 30. (Too bad these scouting reports don't mean a lot with invasions outlawed in our variant! But at least we can keep an eye on bases.) I retreat him to avoid irritating the Xenophobic Darloks.

(20) 2340 We colonize Selia, thus getting both of the "at risk" planets Dathon was worried about. (I also get to avoid looking like an idiot, whew!) It's only size 30, so usually I would send 10, but since 1) Selia is in a border region and we need to stand it up fast, and 2) we're the Sakkra with crazy population growth, I'm sending 15 from Quayal. Initiate the scout dance to take advantage of our new range.

Summary: We have four worlds, and will settle another one next turn. Sssla will produce yet another colony ship next turn. Unfortunately Hyades, the Arid 60 in the southeast, is 5 parsecs away. It looked like 4 to me, but I was wrong. Bummer. We're going to have to send the next couple colony ships west, at least until we get additional range. We're all but guaranteed 7 systems at this point, plus whatever else we find in the west (and that's not even counting the Dead worlds and Tundra planet in our backlines which are extremely likely to be ours). In short, I like our chances here.

One last comment: we may want to build some LR ships to defend the Ocean planet indicated below. If we can hold that one, we can probably seal off that whole western corner.

Map:



Dathon <<< on deck
Sullla
StuporMan <<< UP NOW

 

[Sullla]

Yeah, it might help StuporMan to have the save file.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/12069/OSG14b-2340.zip

 

[StuporMan]

Yeah, it might help StuporMan to have the save file.

Unfortunately, it probably will not help me to have the save file today. I will try to get to it tomorrow.

Stup

 

[vmxa]

Lurker comment:

Sulla I am in complete agreement with you. I normally try to get my homeworld all the way up before doing anything. I do not start pumping pop to the second planet right away.

If I need to stand it up that soon, I am probably a dead man anyway. Even in a small map you have time to get 1 or 2 planets up with out an early jump start.

 

[dathon78]

Nice set of turns Sullla

Your analysis of the situation was accurate. By "backline worlds," I was actually meaning most of our future colonies, since that's probably where they'll be As you correctly pointed out, maxing factories over colony ships does give a better growth curve, and because of it we're off to a fast start.

Mostly, I'm paranoid If Bootis was not Toxic, and the Kitties at the bottom yellow over to the East, we might have had more pressure at Proteus. Or if there was a race in the NW. Lack of scouts doesn't always mean nobody's around; I've seen races scout with col ship, some armed and escorted. Well, ok, here on hard, maybe not I've played a couple private Impossible games recently, and once I'm in that must-expand-early-or-be-stomped mindset, it's hard to get out of it.

As for using the second colony for research, I've found that some early techs are worth the benefit of slowing down the second planet. IT+10 gives us 25 BC/turn more production at our homeworld, and gives us a larger second world from which to seed the others. Early range techs mean faster and more successful scout blockades. Improved Eco would save us 36.7 BC/turn alone at the homeworld. In fact, I would have trickle-researched that at Quayal using the best-research-return rate method (do you know what I'm talking about there? We had a thread on that at RB a long time ago, but I don't know if you were watching this game then) alongside factory production. Generally, I'll do that with early range and terraforming techs too, but since IT+10 was only 80BC for us, I just went ahead and grabbed it.

And as for the scouts, I'm one of my decisions turned out to be acceptable I usually lean towards overbuilding there. Better to have a few scouts too many than leave a world unexplored.

BTW, what do you guys think about researching Spores? I really think it is within character to do those next (after Eco).

dathon

 

[Sullla]

Interesting logic; if anything, I think on Impossible I'd be MORE likely to max the homeworld, because by not doing so I fall even FURTHER behind my boosted opponents. Just because the competition is better in no way changes the strategic tradeoff. But again, it's more of a personal preference than anything else.

I have looked at the thread you mentioned, but I didn't really understand the math involved, and applying a "formula" to maximize bonus research is not the sort of thing you'll see me doing. Seems way too gamey to me, like binary science in Civ4 or ring city placement in Civ3. I like MOO because I don't have to micromanage much of anything, so I'm willing to let this one go, even if the benefit is non-trivial.

Personally, I'd research Controlled Dead next and then come back for Spores when we actually plan to begin fighting. Of course I have no problem if we want to play more "in character", but otherwise I'd hold off on Spores until we're ready to begin attacking - which I don't think is anytime soon.

 

[dathon78]

I've had several experiences on Impossible where I waited to max the homeworld before building the second colony ship, and ended up losing out on worlds I could have had otherwise. I do think you made the right call here to override my decision. And I probably build col ships too early too often as well. Part of the reason I'm playing SG's; to convince myself to take more risks and leave those planets alone until my economy is more mature

As for the research, basically it comes down to any BC's that you put into research, up to 7.5&#37; of your TOTAL investment to that point, get tripled. So, if you have invested 100 RP in a given tech, and put in 20 BC, you will effectively end up with a gain of 34 RP (3*7 + 21). Next turn, if you again put in 20, you will see a gain of 40 RP (3*10 + 10, 10 being Floor(134 * .075)). There IS a significant trade-off to using this method, though. While player ends up paying less for the tech, it takes much longer to come in.

Let's say we're researching Range 5 on Impossible with a normal race. The tech costs 1000BC. With an 80BC initial investment, and then best-cost research, we'll reach percentages in 13 turns after the investment, having spent only 398BC. Now if we spend 40 BC/turn after the initial 80BC investment, we will reach percentages in only 10 turns, but it will cost 480BC. 80BC/turn gives us the tech in only 7 turns, but at a cost of 640BC. So basically, we're trading time for money.

I usually only use this technique for the first couple techs. It allows me to build some factories at my second world while still getting the first two techs early, which is often worth it if they are range, IT+10, etc. I don't feel that it is too gamey as there is the trade-off of time, which to me, brings it within the realm of a strategic decision. If anybody would like, I wrote a little calculator in Excel to make the calculations automatically.

dathon

 

[StuporMan]

Ok I found some time and was able to complete my turnset early. Here is my turn summary.

Hand lasers come in, I choose Ion cannon over Hyper V and Fusion Bomb . I decide beams are more important that a small boost to missile bases at the moment. We can always get V's cheaply later on.

I also put all weapons research into propulsion, since we have several planets (most of them contested) in the 5-6 parsec range. This also came around the time the last colony ship in our first round of colonization was being sent off, so Sssla was on full research.

Humans poach a world a range 5 (Argus in the centermost green planet) and we gain contact. They have 4 worlds, almost no fleet (less than ours) and the typical Honorable Diplomat trait. I set up the minimal trade agreement. A warning, they are allied to darloks, and I still have not gottent a trade agreement with them.

IIT9 > Durraloy over IIT8. Research sent from construction to propulsion to try to get at least one of the contested worlds.

FF2 > FF3 no choice. FF research goes to prop. And the last world we can currently colonize is filled in, bringing us to the magic number 8 (first growth point). I am using Simius (Ultra Poor in our NW) as a transit station for ferrying population to our fringe worlds.

Improved Eco FINALLY hits (at 35%) and I choose spores over Dead (due to it being consistent with the variant, and those darn pink skins taking the last contested range 5 world ). Dead would have served us better, but we will want a planetary weapon sooner rather than later anyway. Propulsion hits percentages and I set things back to even.

On my last turn, BC2 falls and I choose RC3 over Scanner and ECM1&2. Propulsion is at 4% and the rest are dark bulbs. Once Range comes in we should gain contact with the Meklars.

The next leader should consider switching to 10 turn increments as we are nearing that point. We also need some kind of relations boost with the Darloks, as they have continually rejected trade offers. Other things to consider is to get some defense going on our front line, and to tech towards a LR Colony ship to get the Range 7 world above the Darloks. If we can grab it we have a good shot at owning the upper almost 1/3 of the galaxy. As things stand we have grabbed almost the whole NW corner, so we should be in pretty good shape.

StuporMan

 

[dathon78]

Got it, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I think the wife would be a little peeved if I blew off our 6 month wedding anniversary dinner

dathon

 

[Zed-F]

Re: maxing homeworld first vs building a couple colony ships first.

1) More colonies means more range extensions for your scouts. This can let you scout blockade more worlds sooner. It also lets you plant the flag at more worlds sooner. More important in smaller maps where you get contact quickly.

2) More colonies quickly means more pop growth quickly. Getting a couple quick colonies in before maxing can leave you sitting pretty for expansion pop for a later growth burst, where you otherwise might be hurting. Not as much an issue with the Sakkra, can be a big deal for other races or when you have nothing but smallish worlds around.

3) There are a limited number of useful planets to snag within range at any given time. Being able to produce tons of colony ships at a time is no use if you don't have enough destinations you can send them to without complex logistical gyrations. Having more worlds under your flag before making a serious colony ship push usually means you have access to more new worlds within range of your existing worlds, and fewer logistical gyrations as you can more easily expand in more than one direction at a time.

As a consequence, I usually like to get one or two colony ships built once I get to 1 colship per 5 turns, to colonize the one or two other planets that are most vital for my ability to colonize further later on. Once I have those one or two colships done, I will pause to max the homeworld before continuing the colship push.

 

[Sullla]

Hey, good turns StuporMan. I was afraid from your post that we might have lost one of our important planets:

Humans poach a world a range 5 (Argus in the centermost green planet) and we gain contact.

But that would have been an extreme reach for us, so no sweat. We will have to keep an eye on diplomacy to make sure we don't lose an early vote, of course.

I did have a couple of things to bring up with the way our planets are being managed though...

- Selia is maxed out on population, yet we still haven't terraformed it with +10 yet? Huh? With a max of only 30 right now, we REALLY should do that immediately. Going to a max of 40 will increase our lizards there by 1/3!

- Sssla is maxed and researching right now, which looks good. So why is Quayal (maxed on population) splitting half its production on factories and half on research? I just don't understand that. Sssla is producing 4x the research of Quayal (210RP to 57). Why aren't we maxing factories at Quayal ASAP, which will give us the freedom to either research or build ships at a MUCH improved rate.

At the current pace, Quayal will max factories in about 12 more turns. During those turns, we will produce roughly 750RP, by my estimate (57RP/turn over 12 turns = 684RP, plus some allowance for extra factories added). If we have it work on factory construction, on the other hand, it will max in SIX turns, at which point in time Quayal will be able to produce about 185RP each turn. So if we just have it build factories for six turns, then use the other six turns for research, my rough math says we'll end up producing 185RP * 6 = 1110RP over the same span! And we'd still have to go back and max the planet later, if we stick with the current route. (Quayal is contributing less than 1/6 of our current research, so it's hardly a pressing need right now.)

This may sound like a broken record, but Go Go Factory Construction! Unless there is a DIRE need, like defense or an absolutely critical tech, you're shooting yourself in the foot to do anything else. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

- Proteus I want to screenshot to illustrate a similar point:



Why are we putting anything into growing population? We're the SAKKRA! By the same token, what's with the 25RP? That's less than 1/15 of our current research - all but meaningless! If we just dumped those two aspects of production into factory construction, we can build ELEVEN factories per turn - almost double our current rate. And when you take the exponential growth effect of factories into effect, we'll end up maxing Proteus more than twice as fast.

Putting a little production into one thing, a little into something else, and a little into a third thing doesn't make sense to me. I tend to put all production (aside from eco cleanup) into one area, and push whatever I want at that planet at max rate. Splitting up production just means it takes longer to get everything finished - max those factories!

- Simius, our Ultra Poor, is making no attempt to build factories and is simply producing research. Now I know it takes forever to max factories at an Ultra Poor, but we're still in the early game here. If we just give up and never even make the attempt to add factories, this planet will be all but useless to us forever (even with full population, it will contribute less than 50RP per turn. That's peanuts.) It costs us nothing to build factories, nothing other than losing out on that small trickle of research. I'd rather spend 50-60 turns working on factories, then have a planet able to contribute ~200RP each turn (and maybe even be able to defend itself!) than give up without even trying. That may be a personal preference, but in the words of Sirian:

I urge you to think long term.

Why not play for the long haul? In my last full game of MOO, I had a corner Ultra Poor that had over 800 factories when the game ended, pumping nearly 1000RP/turn into my treasury. It took it a heck of a long time to get there, but the payoff was more than worth it!

* * * * *

I'm sorry to nitpick, but I'm trying to get a sense for how others play by taking part in this SG. StuporMan, I'd be happy to hear your reasoning for the decisions you made; I'm merely trying to point out what I would have done differently to see what we all can learn from the discussions. Never played any of these games before, so I may be talking out of my behind here!

 

[Zed-F]

Why are we putting anything into growing population? We're the SAKKRA!

Generally speaking I'd agree with factory production over research and pop growth at new colonies that are not Poor or UP. Still, it's worth noting that Sakkra get more pop per unit BC spent toward eco (beyond cleanup costs) so it does still make sense to build some pop when you get to the top part of the growth curve, where it starts to flatten out and takes forever to top up. However, this assumes you're getting close to maxing out factories as well, which doesn't seem to be the case here.

Simius, our Ultra Poor, is making no attempt to build factories and is simply producing research.

Over the course of the SGs we've done the math and in-game experiments on this and as long as you are researching early techs needed to expand your growth elsewhere or improve the productivity of your planets overall, you are better off sacrificing factory construction at Poor and UP worlds in favour of research to get other places under your flag or otherwise improved. The research you get from Poor and UP planets in this fashion may not seem like much but it does add up to a significant amount, especially when you have few other sources of research because all your other worlds are maxing themselves out. Once you start branching out and exploring portions of the tech tree not crucial for expansion, like computers/weapons/shields, then it's a good time to start the UPs on factory construction. By then you're likely to have several other (better) sources of research as well.

The other consideration is Poor and UP worlds can be difficult to defend in the early stages when you have a very limited fleet. If they are way in your backlines this is not such a big deal, but if they are near the front you might want to delay factory construction, and the risk that another race will invade and steal tech or destroy your factory investment, until you feel ready to build a fleet capable of defending the world from a significant attack.

 

[StuporMan]

Edit: Well Zed beat me to it, but you can read my logic if you want to.

Ok Sulla, to answer your questions as to my reasoning.

First off, the Ultra Poor. At our Current IIT level, it costs 9 bc to build a factory, which will only produce at 1/3 the rate of a regular one. A few more levels of IIT and factories become much cheaper and the Ultra poor can factory build much more effectively. All the while the Ultra Poor can give us useful research (bringing in IIT earlier) AND its population serves to help start up the other worlds in the area where they will be 3X more productive. (Is that thinking long term enough )

Why are we doing + pop on worlds. This is due to one of two occurrences, the first is worlds coming out of terraforming, completed terraforming does not change the production allocation sliders. Sometimes I do not catch this for a turn or two. The second is that often (Especially with the Sakkra since their pop is cheaper) the choice is +1 pop or waste. Besides, each pop is +.5 production and at this point with the Sakkra Pop is cheaper than factories so we are not losing out too much on production.

Lastly, the question as to why Quayal is half and half research vs factories. This is due to my desire to pump out Range 6 (and all the other techs acquired during my turnset) quickly to get one or more of the contested worlds. Quayal had started the turnset entirely on research while Sssla was pumping colony ships. I had bumped it up to half and half to get its production up to speed when Sssla came out of ship building mode. I also like to try and put a little into research from each colony producing 5 or 6 factories per turn, just to try and keep us from getting into situations where we have all of these greatly productive worlds, with no tech to defend them with. 25 BC into research is not much, but 25 bc over 3-4 worlds is a significant amount, especially with most techs being nearly completed. It may not be as efficient numerically, but sometimes getting a tech one turn earlier can make a tremendous difference. Now that the bulbs are all dim (less propulsion) these planets should probably be reverted back to all factories to get them up to speed.

StuporMan

 

[dathon78]

Zed and Stup did a good job addressing the questions, but I wanted to throw in one more thing about Ultra Poor's...

Most MOO games last about 200 or so turns. Or at least, that's been the case for the succession games. We've had end dates of 2540, 2480, 2450, and 2530 the last 4 games. Two of those could have been won sooner, but we were under conquest-only variant rules. That means that "long term" is actually a lot closer than it may appear. Getting techs a turn or two sooner (especially early range techs!) often makes much more of a difference here than in a game with more turns.

So consider what it takes to build a factory on an Ultra Poor right now. At our current tech levels, 3 factories cost 81BC (they effectively cost 27BC apiece because of the penalty when comparing factory cost to research, as each 9BC you get in industry could have been 27RP in reserach). After waste cleanup, those factories will produce 2 BC/turn (Improved Eco cleans up 3 units/BC), as long as that goes to research or population. That means that it will take a whopping 40 turns, or 1/5 the game, to just break even on that investment in only 3 factories! That will get slightly better as better waste management tech comes in, but at best it will shave off a couple turns. Early factory construction on these worlds is just not worth it. That 81 BC will be much more useful as research towards early tech, or two more citizens to seed another production world.

My SOP for Ultra Poor's is to use them for pop centers and research. Often upon founding, I will just set all of the planet's production to ecology. Yes buying people is expensive, but at least you're getting full use out of the money. That also lets me use those worlds to primarily seed new colonies, allowing the normal older colonies to mature faster. I usually only switch over to factories when I'm in research mode, and most of my worlds are researching. When I go into ship production, the UP's/Poor's go right back to research to keep that going, and once I go on the offensive, that's primarily where my troops come from. It's kind of like setting up the specialized cities in CIV. One would not use a city surrounded by grasslands and coast for a production center.

dathon

 

[dathon78]

Alright, I played 10 turns this set, and we'll go with that from now on. Adjusted some sliders for production and tech, and we're off!

Range 6 came in my turn, and I took our only option, sub-lights. Scouts fanned out, though as I'm writing this, I realize I only sent them to range 8 worlds; please rectify Found a size 40 desert in the far W, and there is a colony ship on the way, but I doubt we'll get it as the Meklars showed up to poach Vox We now have Xenophobic Militarists on our doorstep. Fun times! I was at least able to get minimal trade with them and the Darlok's going.

All our worlds are terraformed, and spores are more than half done. As I mentioned, there's a col ship en route to the desert world, but it's 10 turns away, so we aren't likely to get it. If you want it, we need to have some fighters moving that direction pretty soon, as the Militarist Meklar's are escorting their armed col ships with large cruisers. There's a second col ship heading for the poor in the W as well. I found a size 45 desert in the NE, but that will require an LR col ship, which in turn will require the next construction tech (spores won't push us over the edge there). I would suggest heavily emphasizing Controlled Dead after the spores roll in.

dathon