Starting Game Strat

Well, playing DL changes a lot of the formula's considerably.

First, morale buildings (well VR centers) ARE worthwhile... they let you raise your tax rate by 3%, which is better than a stock market.

Also, higher populations are much more manageable, so you can use more than one basic farm and/or research farms all the way.

As a general rule it is a good idea to go military around the time that the first two or three enemy civs go military. Just keep a look at the military graph and when people start to rate on it, start to mil up.

All starbases except for mining starbases need to be upgraded to be useful. Economy starbases will actually increase your expenditures... although that increased price buys more production, so the tradeoff is generally worth it.

- Wyndstar

Ohhhhhh,

I guess I should have stated that I was playing DL before hand, lol.

So then what's a good build strat for a planet then?

And when it comes to ship upgrades, should I have a planet specialize in just having those?(like extra hp, speed, etc)

to answer how to develop planets, there are a few ways, but this is usually how i do it, and it works very well for me (btw, my standard game is gigantic galaxy, 9 other civs, difficulty tough, stars occasional, planets occasional, habitables common, tech rate normal)

all planets get 1 factory, then for the additional tiles:

PQ is below 5 : research planet, all research centers

PQ 5-10 : economy planet, ratio of 1 farm/1 entertainment/1 bank, use cultural centers or special buildings to fill extra tiles

PQ greater than 10 : ship building planet, build a starport and and 5 more factories, then fill the rest like an economy planet.

other factors to look out for:

there is no need to go beyond 3 farms (or 1 farm on a 300% farm bonus tile, etc) as 3 will provide the max food for all planets, but ONLY build 3 farms on an extremely large planet; this is because the approval equation is curved, where the 1 to 1 ratio is pretty close for 1 or 2 farms, you need like 8-10 entertainment centers to support 3 farms.

tile bonuses: in almost all circumstances these should be taken advantage of, if you find a planet with PQ 4, but it has a 700% manufacturing bonus, build it like a ship building planet. the only tile bonus you need to be careful with is the farming bonuses, because your planet needs to be big enough to have the necessary entertainment centers.

save 4 large worlds (or worlds with several tile bonuses) for your economic, technological, manufacturing, and political capitals. obviously, build your tech capital like a research planet, your econ capital like an economy planet, build your manufacturing capital like a ship building planet, and your political capital will have a lot of cultural centers.

The reason I like to have mostly populated planets is because A/ more population means more revenue, and a strong economy is the heart of any successful empire, B/ my influence will be strong, allowing me to easily flip planets and control the UP with a majority, and C/ I prefer to have little to no military for most of the early game, lots of population mean lots of soldiers and there is no need for a strong military, all I need are a few fast ships with which I can use hit and run tactics to thin out the troop transports they send.

Moderate pop planets with max money improvements and high tax rates produce more cash than those same planets with high pop and lots of tiles given over to farms and morale buildings.

I suggest you limit your farm building so that planet pop never goes above the 13 - 20 range, except possibly on a large PQ planet (11+, for the morale bonus) with 1-2 approval bonus tiles. Then only build morale buildings on the bonus tiles.

Interestingly enough, sometimes your homeworld can become your best banking spot later in the game, especially for the Altarians, Iconians, and Thalans. This is because with the huge morale bonus of the initial civ tile, and the High PQ morale bonus, and at least one happiness tile, you can actually manage to have decent approval AND a very high pop. If you think you will want to go this way in the mid-game, DO NOT permanently lock up tiles on your homeworld with the manu or tech capitals, or anything else permanent. Econ cap is all right though.

drrider

True, and actually I don't develop the third farm on a planet all the time because I am busy stuffing my planets with special improvements.

But also note that population doesn't just have economic value, but also defensive and more importantly influence value. I find that I usually end up with an excessive economy; my treasury shoots through the roof in every game, well over 100,000 bc at some point, so it is more valuable for me to have the extra influence than more money (and I often use planet flipping as my primary conquering strategy anyways).

So, in short, I reject your strategy.

I've only been playing for a couple of months, but I have developed a starting strategy that works pretty well for me. I've gotten through painful, but have not yet won on crippling.

I'm usually the Altarians with additional economic, morale, and research bonuses on top of their racial abilities. Sometimes I'll put a lot of the optional bonus points towards speed. I also prefer larger galaxies and lots of everything.

1st turn: If I can, I'll design a colony ship with a small hull. On my HW, I'll buy a factory and start building a second. I'll start construction of the cheapest colony ship I've got and set focus to military production. I'll set my sliders for 100% production and leave the others at 33/33/34. I'll adjust my tax rate to maximize income while maintaining 100% approval (easy with Altarians). I also try to remember to order my initial colony ship back to my HW to pick up more people.

On my HW, I'll buy factories the first few turns to speed up production of colony ships. After that, I'll build some labs to boost research.

Although I prefer to specialize planets, I start off with a balance. I start with at least two factories on each planet and, depending on financial situation, I'll usually buy the first one. I also build a star port on the first few planets. I take advantage of the high pop on my HW to help my fledgling economy with at least three markets.

I rely on my HW to produce colony ships and my first few additional planets to produce survey ships (I will have researched sensors by this point) and constructors. If I find a juicy PQ16+ early on, I'll make it an economy world after plopping down the standard pair of factories.

In general, I make most PQ16+ worlds focus on economy, and after the two factories, I go crazy with the markets. When the population nears maximum, I'll build a farm and eventually a moral building. With the Altarians, I end up with two farms and one moral building on each econ world. The rest are econ buildings and one will typically become the econ capital.

Once I get a few econ worlds, I'll start specializing the PQ15- worlds. If they have a moon orbiting them, they usually wind up becoming production worlds and get a star port. The other PQ15- become research worlds and get nothing but two factories, lots of labs, and often a farm. Every planet, once they become PQ12+, gets a farm. If I get enough PQ16+ worlds, I'll dedicate some of them to production or research. Bonus tiles also help decide which way a planet will go, and one or two planets may do both production and research if they have the right tiles. I also try to make it so that all research and economy worlds are within a reasonable distance of a production world since they don't have star ports of their own.

I do get the early warfare techs pretty quickly, but I don't research any particular weapons or defenses until other races start militarizing. I concentrate on economics, diplomacy, research, and planetary improvement type techs as much as possible, but I will take the time to research advanced colonization techs if the situation calls for it. If you're in the vicinity of the Korath, make sensors a big priority and keep an eye out for their spore ships.

I'm an expansionist and prefer to live in peace with my neighbors. I like to groom all of my worlds and keep them well manicured. I try to maximize trade and if my financial situation looks good, I'll lavish the more powerful races with gifts. I'll make sure to keep up militarily so the more aggressive races don't get any ideas. And if they do, they usually wind up paying dearly for their mistake.

Don't overlook those little PQ1 worlds. They become monsters after a little terraforming. Also be smart about your planetary improvements. Don't upgrade your factories until your economy can support the increased production and don't upgrade your research facilities until you have the adequate production to produce the better labs in a reasonable amount of time. Unless your economy is very strong, avoid having all three planetary types (econ, production, research) upgrade at the same time.

Always be thinking about your economy, always.

Well I think I may have gotten a little carried away, but there you have it.