economy war

That is quite possibly why i have purposely designed all & each X-Worlds/MOD systems to be very high class/quality wise.
Not only does every race gets to have at least 3 great starting planets, but those are close enough to slightly delay the inevitable outgoing rush for more. It also provides rapid growth, an indirect solid (both for def/att ratios) core empire network and eventually, a highly productive launching base for fleets after fleets (focused and easily grouped towards rally points) during any full-scale conquest steps.

Trick was to balance everyone at THAT much strength without lowering the impact of other aspects such as faster research or even, booming economics.

Indirectly, the centralized elements make an influence victory a little more complex to obtain since the territories are tight, relative stable and not so easy to invade without huge losses; which is why i also want to revise the Invasion/Tactics defaults to a whole new set including a minimal cost of 1000+Bcs for each type. Any wars would become a load bearable almost only by truly efficient races and would require terribly high economy assets added to the Attacking/Invading "infra-structure".

Strategy is a whole bunch of smart choices made in specific conditions. By modifying the usual principles, the endeavor itself is different and must be handled with other means. Thus, maxed out starting conditions provide a very tricky colony rush... and subsequently allows for tactical patterns dependant more on limited resources than a fits/all/bag'o'everything gained mostly or entirely through luck rather than intelligence.

Probably one of the reasons i prefer small & medium maps to anything bigger, btw.

- Zyxpsilon.

Well, part of what makes it a strategy game though is the necessity of using different strategies. If your strategy doesn't work for every starting position, the solution is simple: don't use that strategy in every starting position. Use it in those for which you have plenty of high-class worlds early on. When you don't have lots of high-class worlds early on, you need to come up with a different approach to make up for the deficit. A given strategy (unless it is merely a collection of broad principles) certainly should not work for every situation.

Let me hasten to add that the "all-factories" strategy, at least as it appears, is one the most basic available. And, in my experience, it works a damn sight better than the mixed factories/labs methods -- even though it does not win every game, it does show an improvement in all situations. Even more basic than that is the "strategy" (more like an imperative) to capture as many planets as one can, because everyone knows that planets = money = production and technology. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I strongly believe that having ten class 9 worlds is better than having one.

These are my strategies.

What others are available? I could go back to mixed factories and labs. Or I could deliberately neglect to capture good worlds.

Pardon my lack of insight, but I can't see many other options here.

J.

The all factory strat has nothing really to do with the issue you describe. You basically describe the problem as one of either "bagging" four or more PQ10+ planets or not. The act of describing the problem in such a manner pretty much implies and dictates a fairly small galaxy. Clearly in a gigantic galaxy where you're going to colonize 50~75 planets getting 4 PQ10's more or less really doesn't make that big of a difference.

So what you're really talking about are *small* galaxy strategies versus larger galaxy strategies. In your example failing to colonize those four PQ10+ planets is going to make a similar difference whether you're going "all-factory" or "all-research" or a mixed build of both building types.

Basically all these strategies are simply planet specialization strategies where you optimize your planets for one thing but use focus to get the other.

Generally I've found that the larger the galaxy the more freedom there is to play substanstially differently.

But you still can play differently in small galaxies. If you get short changed in the colony rush then just rush to planetary invasion and conquer an opponent or two before they can put up any kind of defense. In this case the key is to research a key handful of techs before your opponent so it would be necessary to concentrate of research. This clearly would not go so well with all-factory, but in this case you might want to give all-research a try. Also nothing says that you can't rebuild your planets and do one thing at one time and another thing later.

Try building research early to get a jump on planetary invasion. Jump an opponent or two and then switch over to all-factory. The point of a strategy is have a battle plan to achieve victory. Often the first causalty of war is the battle plan, so what? Don't put blinders on just because your plan doesn't work. Simply change your plan.

In a large galaxy it's even less important if you happen to lose the colony rush. I often do so intentionally. I call it the quality over quantity method. The way this works is to let the AI's colonize all the planets they want and be selective about the planets you colonize both in quantity as well as high quality PQ. In this case you're counting on the fact that when you colonize many planets it will take you longer to develop these planets. With only a few high quality planets it's easier to get them productive quicker.

Again you would try to get to planetary invasion and a decent weapons tech fairly quickly but you don't necessarily have to get there that much quicker than your opponent. It's just that while he has a whole lot more planets than you do your's are stronger. You do need to attack and take him down before he can get his planets developed or you're in trouble but it's a legitimate strategy that works quite well and has the advantage of making the colony rush not quite so frantic as it usually is.

If you stop and think about there is a wide gradiation of things you can do in line with this from greater or lesser dependent on they result of the colony rush. While I do think you are correct in saying that your choices are more limited in a small galaxy, I think it's not correct to say that you should simply start over if you fail to win the colony rush. There's always something you can do.

Pay someone to start a war with someone else and pick off a planet or two in the confusion. It's surprising how cheap it can be to start a war.

In my experience the lower PQ planets tend to have more than their fair share of bonus tiles and the lowest PQ planets, 1-2, develop into at least PQ 10-12 with terraforming techs. It's nice to have at least one high quality planet for your econ capital but you can get by without it - just needs a different strategy!

I'd like to add that you dont' always have to rush to invasion if your colonized planets envelope the little ones you skipped. A couple constructors and perhaps an embassy here or there for a few turns can get you that world as well.

I'm talking about the broadest possible economic strategies here. I've had moderate success with that gung-ho, oh-this-looks-nice-to-do kind of modus operandi where one only does what seems necessary at any one point in the game; I'm hoping, however, that a wider perspective can pay large dividends. Thus, in the quest for perfect economy, I refer to the all-factories strategy as one of the best steps toward reliable, large-scale economic success I've yet attempted; the bagging-planets issue I include as the greatest apparent limitation.



I play on Huge galaxies.



That's my tactic exactly.

Allow me to include that I'm talking the first fifteen turns or so when I say that those PQ10+ planets seem to be essential to huge economic success. Logically the earlier pop growth, social production commencement and morale bonuses of these planets will play a role, and in such a long game as GC2 one might underestimate the importance of one's beginnings.

As for paying others to fight, starting a war for colonies or opting for influence conquering: in my experience, once you realise that you got a raw deal with colonies and you need to start considering these options, you're already so far into the red that it's pretty much over. But perhaps preempting the necessity will render those options less dismal.

Let's all agree that getting high class planets very early on gives one an unsurpassed boost in many areas. Then, also, that planets in one's proximity depends on chance, and that one has no way of stacking the odds in one's favour.

Thus - and this is the point of the whole thing - what does one do when one doesn't get lucky? Can one focus on industrial, farming and economic research to beef up one's low-class planets, or does one race for Extreme Colonisation to try and get better ones? On the other hand, is an early, expensive and protracted war (fought with Defenders and Soldering 1) the only viable alternative to final economic ruin in such cases?

J.

I'm not understanding your description of an "all-factory" game strategy. You say no research buildings in colonies, slider set to zero research, but then "planets focused on research." What do you mean by "planets focused on research"? If you play this strategy how do you move up the tech tree?

Starports build ships. You use the techs you already have, but no moving up the tech tree there.

If colonies build all factories, then no research flasks are produced, hence no moving up the tech tree there.

If the slider is set with research at zero, then it doesn't matter how many flasks you have there's no moving up the tech tree because whatever tech you are researching at the time, the time to gain the tech is "never." So no moving up the tech tree there.

That leaves "planets focused on research." What is this and how does it move you up the tech tree? Your colonies are on planets, but the planets themselves don't have any production or research capacities outside of the colonies, do they?

I'm relatively new to DA but I've ve been playing and winning games at the Normal level...am I missing something here?

Thanks for your reply.

Look at the top of the colony screen, where it shows how many flasks/shields/hammers you are making. Each box has a little icon in it that, when selected, will focus that planet (and that planet ONLY) on the catergory you select. Focussing on research will move 25% of your social and military spending into research production. Thus each colony can produce research points entirely without labs, and with research spending set to 0.

Since I don't care about the metaverse, let me say that that's both ridiculous, stupid, and absurd, at the same time.

Actually it works fairly well more often than not. Especially with a good social production bonus, setting sliders to 1% military, 99% social, 0% research in the first round and never having to touch them again is kinda nice. Not to mention it simplifies planet design, saves researching research techs, etc. The super hive ability works *really* well for this also.

Is that in the right thread? Whatever the case may be, it is rather bizarre that one can still research reasonably well with no research spending and no labs. I'm sure it's not something the devs would have wanted to happen (it just makes no sense) but that loophole has been found and thoroughly exploited.

J.