RBTS9 - Final Frontier

[Olodune]

Pacifism: There is a small margin of free units, like Pacifism in standard civ. It's probably worth it. Let's let Timmy make the call.

It's a small bonus though, and costs a turn of Anarchy. Still, I agree with "probably worth it".

 

[Mojoqmeyvam]

I think we'd get 2 free military units, so it's 2 gpt for 2 hammers, with a loss of 1t of anarchy.

I haven't seen any barbs; we could add one more PDS in 1t of production. I usually play on Quick speed, so I don't know when barbs will show. Usually, I see them first from huts (either popped by me or the AIs).

 

[Olodune]

I haven't seen any barbs; we could add one more PDS in 1t of production. I usually play on Quick speed, so I don't know when barbs will show. Usually, I see them first from huts (either popped by me or the AIs).

The problem with not having one in position is that the usual movement disparity between PDSs and Colony ships. To play it safe I would do the following: put a PDS in front of the Colony Ship on the IT so it can start moving towards Horus Taurus while the Colony Ship finishes. In my test game space pirates ran around with 2-move destroyers fairly early on -- but they might have been wreckage spawns.

 

[timmy827]

Got it, will play Monday evening Pacific time.

I agree that Pacifism is (barely) worth the turn of revolt, so will do that first. Like Olodune's ideas, lan is to build a 1t PDS next before finishing the colship, so they will arrive @ Horus Taurus roughly concurrently. Swap to max research config after that which should get us to Galactic Epistemology or very close in 10 turns. Presumably Orbital Engineering after that though I doubt I will have to make the decision.

Not sure about 1st build on Horus Taurus though - mining facility on Libra Amun (the 1st-ring, 3 pop, 1/2/3 world)? Another PDS for scouting?

Time for some noobish questions as I couldn't find the space in my schedule (har!) to do a full test game - I know the buildings that are +1 food/hammer/commerce and the Hab Facility are planet-specific and escalate in cost as more planets get them. I'm assuming commerce and hammer multipliers like Factory, University, Academy of Knowledge are 1 per system although not explicitly listed that way in the civilopedia?

What are the details of making a Starbase? I know it consumes a Construction Ship, costs gold, and takes turns, but don't know the numbers on the two latter. Not that I will get that far in my turnset but curious.

With 9 civs total, we just get one duplicate right, no weirdness?

 

[Mojoqmeyvam]

Time for some noobish questions as I couldn't find the space in my schedule (har!) to do a full test game - I know the buildings that are +1 food/hammer/commerce and the Hab Facility are planet-specific and escalate in cost as more planets get them. I'm assuming commerce and hammer multipliers like Factory, University, Academy of Knowledge are 1 per system although not explicitly listed that way in the civilopedia?

What are the details of making a Starbase? I know it consumes a Construction Ship, costs gold, and takes turns, but don't know the numbers on the two latter. Not that I will get that far in my turnset but curious.

With 9 civs total, we just get one duplicate right, no weirdness?

Commerce and hammer multipliers can be built on each planet in a system. The hammer multipliers scale in cost at 1x-3x-5x-7x rates; I rarely build the 5x cost version of the factory and manufacturing plant. Only the 3 buildings that unlock Capital Ships, Squadrons, and there's a castle-like building which we won't build, can't be built on multiple planets.

The gold cost of building a Starbase is not constant. I don't know what determines it.
It should be just 1 duplicate, no weirdness. 8 turns to be built, I think T-Hawk said.

1 duplicate civ, no weirdness.

 

[T-hawk]

Not sure about 1st build on Horus Taurus though - mining facility on Libra Amun (the 1st-ring, 3 pop, 1/2/3 world)? Another PDS for scouting?

I think mining facility, it does pay back in decent time. Squadron factory is even another option if we want to let Paradise stay dedicated to colony ships.

mojo is right, most buildings like universities are N per system, even though the effects are not per-planet.

What are the details of making a Starbase? I know it consumes a Construction Ship, costs gold, and takes turns, but don't know the numbers on the two latter. Not that I will get that far in my turnset but curious.

The gold cost escalates over time, I think game turn number is the only variable. In my solo game it was 150 for the first one and had escalated to about 225 at the end of the game (around turn 210.) Construction time is 8 turns on normal speed - and additional construction ships CAN'T team up to speed it up. That was to avoid use of starbases as offense by building within 3 tiles of an enemy star.

If a construction ship is interrupted while building a starbase, it can later resume the construction with no penalty (you don't pay gold again, and the tile remembers turns worked, as with worker improvements in regular civ.) However, there is a bug: interrupting a starbase build order puts the construction ship into a strange state. For the rest of the game, that conship does not get consumed to build a starbase, and it can build starbases with no gold cost. Suggest we compensate by manually deleting any such rogue conship when it should get consumed.

 

[Olodune]

However, there is a bug: interrupting a starbase build order puts the construction ship into a strange state. For the rest of the game, that conship does not get consumed to build a starbase, and it can build starbases with no gold cost. Suggest we compensate by manually deleting any such rogue conship when it should get consumed.

Now that is a bug -- yeah we don't want to abuse that one!

 

[Olodune]

I think mining facility, it does pay back in decent time. Squadron factory is even another option if we want to let Paradise stay dedicated to colony ships.

I like the squadron factory option, I think Paradise will be on Colony/Worker duty for a good while.

 

[timmy827]

As mentioned, revolted to Pacifism and hit enter, T41 spit out a PDS.
While finishing the colony ship, I did some shifting from Gamma Aten to the "gems" world to speed Epistemology without losing a turn on colship (of course, losing some hammer overflow), then went to max research.
Horus Taurus founded on 2nd to last turn:

In the end I liked the suggestion of squadron factory->bomber for rebaseable defense, but only 1 turn wasted if we decide to switch.

Further out, still no contacts or barbarians but three new systems, first in the far east:

OK, but not too exciting. South was better:

They are SSW and S of the capital, and I think they should be our next settling goals with proximity to our starbase location(s) and great/solid worlds in the first ring.

Knowledge will be ours next turn. By demographics, in our current research config we have 2x GNP of anyone, and still tops in production. Also leading in soldiers, which is distinctly odd compared to normal civ.

For discussion:
Note that the capital can be taken off building Research and still get the tech next turn (but the workers need to stay on the "gems"). Current build is a placeholder.

I presume we want Orbital Engineering next and construction ships soon, however maybe it's worthwhile to grow to 5 first before building them (we will get 1 happy from adopting Knowledge right?). We could pop out another PDS then University while growing. Or do we want to settle those worlds before the construction ships? With still no contacts, I lean towards resource connection/vertical growth to get our Bureaucracy on.

 

[T-hawk]

If we'd known Timmy was going to find the good systems, I would've scheduled him first in the roster. The SSW system is awesome, size 3 2-2-1 and 1-1-6 in the first ring! The other one is great too, size 2 Earthlike to start, and 12 capacity total. In general, you really want big size on the first planet which gets the free nutrient and mining facilities.

If we have double anyone's GNP and top production, must be nobody else in Monarchy. I suspect the AIs tend to the military line (top branch). Knowledge for us is great; yes it's +1 happy as our State Value.

I lean towards horizontal growth now. The 5th pop would work the gems planet (I guess 1-1-6 permanently has the "Gems" designation ) which is pretty much just commerce, but a new system will provide commerce quickly with our pseudo-Financial trait. In general I think you want to settle ASAP, more so than standard civ. New systems take a long time to get off the ground, with higher food growth costs and no granaries and no chopping. Let some new systems get started on bootstrapping to useful sizes then Paradise starts on conships. We don't really need the starbase until multiple systems want to grow past the happy cap and can't usefully build settlers/workers.

T-hawk <--- On Deck
sooooo
Cyneheard (Mojoqmeyvam)
Timmy827
Olodune <--- Up Now

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi,

I am lurking this with interest... and I do have a question
What does excess food become once you have populated all planets? Is it lost if not building settlers/workers?

Good luck for your game

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

edit: Tx T-hawk for the clarification

 

[T-hawk]

Extra food works as normal, it keeps growing population. You end up with unassigned population that can't work any planet, same as in Civ when you run out of tiles to work. In Civ, that pop point is a specialist; in FF, it just produces nothing. That means it's a good time to build a Habitation Facility on a planet in order to put that pop point to work.

 

[Olodune]

Got it.

Nice new systems! Here's a map of where they are:

Presumably Knowledge will be founded in Horus Taurus, right? Do we know if we get an advocate (missionary)? I don't think we want to convert until the religion spreads to Paradise. Should we interrupt the Squadron Factory build for an advocate if we need to?

Next question: Does it make sense to settle Phi Anubis before the juicy southern systems? I guess we should backfill.

Some obvious choices: Research Orbital Engineering next. Working maximum hammers, Orbital Engineering will be 7-turns, so the likely end of my turnset. I think we also need a few more PDSs as escorts for the south so I'll build those next.

I won't play until the evening (EST).

Edit: We're getting to the point where a fighter/bomber would be incredible useful as a tile-revealer. Building both would require 5-turns of Paradise's production -- something else to keep in mind.

 

[T-hawk]

Good point, yes, Knowledge will go in Horus Taurus. And it can't auto-spread to Paradise until a trade route (which will take some time). So I think we do want an advocate (missionary) first, there's no free one IIRC. Which in turn means that Paradise may want to do the factory/squadron while that happens. Your call.

I think Pi Anubis before the southern systems. Pi Anubis is pretty good short term, 2-2-1 size 2 to start, and our creative influence will reach the 1-2-3 size 3 just before it grows to 3 pop. Low pop cap but productive worlds means a worker/settler factory. Also Pi Anubis is a good base for a squadron to scout and protect the route to the southern goodies (stars and resources both.)

 

[Mojoqmeyvam]

A fighter has 1 more range than a bomber. Against stacks of ships, bombers are much better, since they have collateral. Against a single ship, it's not that big of a deal. I know we can build bombers thanks to Light Craft; have we unlocked fighters yet? I can't recall which tech they come in.

Second on Pi Anubis. With the resource clusters that we've got nearby, we need it eventually. It's close, and will be productive for a long time in Construction Ships and Colonies.

 

[Olodune]

Good point, yes, Knowledge will go in Horus Taurus. And it can't auto-spread to Paradise until a trade route (which will take some time). So I think we do want an advocate (missionary) first, there's no free one IIRC. Which in turn means that Paradise may want to do the factory/squadron while that happens. Your call.

I think Pi Anubis before the southern systems. Pi Anubis is pretty good short term, 2-2-1 size 2 to start, and our creative influence will reach the 1-2-3 size 3 just before it grows to 3 pop. Low pop cap but productive worlds means a worker/settler factory. Also Pi Anubis is a good base for a squadron to scout and protect the route to the southern goodies (stars and resources both.)

I like this plan, unless something unusual happens I will follow it.

 

[Olodune]

As expected we did found Knowledge in Horus Taurus:

I switched production to an Advocate (13t) for Paradise. It will take a while to get there and I wanted to prevent Paradise from growing. The only real option is to build stuff that eats food, so Paradise went PDS -> Colony Ship -> Construction Ship (2t remaining).

Our scouts found more worlds to the far NE and W. They actually both look decent:

Orbital Engineering finished, which will give us the ability to build warp lanes. I think these are going to be important since it looks like we have a large map, with no AI in sight!

We have a choice to make on the research front:

I selected Synthetic Composites as a placeholder since Nutrition Facilities are unlocked by that tech.

I have a Colony Ship and PDS heading towards the "worker pump" system of Pi Anubis. I suppose these could still be routed further south if desired, but I think colonizing is the better option.

Bombers have a longer range than Fighters (6/5) so when we get around to building our first squadron I think it should be a Bomber.

 

[Olodune]

Also, while we are still dominating the Demographics screen we've fallen to 3rd in crop yield and 6th in population. In fact there are three 6-pop AI capitals out in the dark.

 

[T-hawk]

I'm up now, got it. May as well play tonight since we don't need any deep discussion. More decent systems is good news. 60 turns with no contacts, even on a Large map? Well, if AI capitals are at size 6, then we aren't the only intelligent life out here. Synthetic Composites sounds good enough to me. I agree on Pi Anubis before reaching out farther.

Only side note - do we want to keep naming systems after the planets, or use the Paradise city names with Horus Taurus as the exception?

 

[Mojoqmeyvam]

Looks good.

City names. Hm. The next star names are "Xanadoo", "Elysion", and "Valhalla". I say we keep the Paradise names (although Horus Taurus over Eden is perfectly fine).

TBH, I'm glad that we're not 1st in everything anymore. The AI needs to be ahead of us in some way, shape or form. It will just make the victory in the end even more sweet.