Noctilucus

Join Date 04/2007

+17

Could use some pointers for a better colony rush

Hi all,

I've recently returned to TA after months of inactivity. I find it hard to compete with the AI during the colony rush if I don't use all-abundant settings in tiny or small galaxies.

I know that first of all I should focus more on production in the first turns to build more colony ships faster, but still a few concrete examples from how you manage your colony rush would be very much appreciated.

E.g.
1) Do you research any sensor or speed improvement techs during the colony rush, do you research any manufacturing techs?
2) Or do you put 50% in social production (to build and rush-build factories) and 50% in military production?
3) When would you consider you have enough factories on your homeworld for the colony rush in a tiny / small or in a medium galaxy?
4) Do you churn out plenty of colony ships, sending them to any nearby stars and just hope that some of them find a decent planet, then send the rest to the planets you found?
5) I doubt it's worth trying to get another planet besides my homeworld to build colony ships in tiny / small galaxies, or would you have a different opinion?

P.S. I'd rather not first explore the galaxy then reload with foresight, even if the AI knows perfectly well from the start where to find habitable planets. And I tend to play on tough or painful difficulty with 2 or 3 opponents if this makes much of a difference for the colony rush.

Thanks!

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I think my strategy for the colony rush is different that most people's from what I've read in these forums. Many people have fine tuned it, I haven't, so they may have a better way of doing it. But I'll let those people post themselves.

What I do, and its worked for me upto suicidal so it can't be that bad, is:

research planetary improvements pretty early to get the +10 in research and production; also space militarization I think has the +10 for military production. Other techs I get early don't really have much of a bearing on the colony rush. I find the speed techs take to long to get another +1 movement (2 techs you'll have to get). I think the first sensor tech gives a + so I'd get that. Basically i look for techs that will take only like 3-4 weeks. However, fertility acceleratioon, or what ever one comes first there, is nice at the beginiing. The AI gets this early.

I set spending to 100%, and the sliders to 33% each, with maybe some adjustment to get a tech on an exact week. Taxes to keep 100% approval for a while until I'm about to go broke.

I land my initial colony ship first to relaunch with a full load. I rush buy my second colony ship on the spot. Rush build a factory and queue up a second the alternate between markets and factories, with a lab thrown in. Then I'll buy my colony ships after they are partially built, depending on my cash situation. My home planet tends to be my only colony ship maker. When the launch I send them blindly to a cluster and hope for something nice. I choose a direction towards my oppents first to help keep the border away from my home planet. It will depend a lot on what the galaxy looks like and where I am in it.

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

A while ago, I got converted to the Upgrade Your Free Space Miner to a Colony Ship camp.

But I've only played a bare handful of games on smaller maps, so that is part of my overall practice of using my starting BC almost entirely to fund a long stretch of deficit spending. I suspect that rush-building colony ships might be a good idea for smaller maps, but I have no direct experience to back up that impresion.

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Hi!

colony rush in tiny / small galaxies
...
first of all I should focus more on production in the first turns to build more colony ships faster

Actually no. In tiny galaxy there's only a very limited number of planets you can settle. With 3-4 opponents you can realistically count on only a few in your share of star systems. So building lots of factories to pump out lots of colony ships doesn't make sense. The low number of colonizable planets also makes smaller money drain from your treasury, so it should last much longer than it usually does with bigger number of planets.

For tiny games I'd actually start quite differently. Like:

(part)buying one or two colony ships (you can afford that, because you'll have more money than usuall), and competition is also very close, doing the same.
converting the free miner into the third (fourth) colony ship.
going all-labs planet build to quickly "crunch" critical tech levels:
- if blodthirsty then trade, weapons and planetary invasion,
- if peacefull then trade, diplomacy and weapons,
while selling non-critical techs for cash.
bulding/buying lots of trade ships, because with so low number of planets the trade will be your main source of income. Send them to the civ you want to conquer the last, and who you expect will remain friendly until then.

This way you should get in one or two game-years so big tech lead, that winning just about any type of victory should be a child's play.

BR, Iztok

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Another way to rush buy and save a few BCs is to buy a blank cargo hull(492bc) and upgrade it to a colonizer. Depending on what you have on the colony ship the cost can vary, but usually you can figure on saving about 300bc over rush buying the colony ship itself. You just have to be able to weather the turn delay for the upgrade.

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2) Or do you put 50% in social production (to build and rush-build factories) and 50% in military production?

I always choose 50% military. And I always rush-buy factories--not colony ships. Also, I have chosen Industrialist to get another 20% social/military before, but at Obscene and Suicidal it seems to make more sense to choose Technologist and get the +1 Sensor.

What else I discovered, the Drengin and Iconians have a kick-butt colony rush (and Thalans...). The Drengin and Iconians get 25bc factories, which means you can rush-buy them for 192bc. Or, it's 2 turns+4bc to build straight up. That'll really kick-start your planets. Just spam those everywhere.

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Thank you, all of you for the great advise! It's interesting to see that there are so many well-working methods of colony rush, I hope I'll have time next weekend to try out your recommendations.

This should give me a lot more fun in tiny and small galaxies! Until now those games were often hit-or-miss depending on how lucky I was in colonizing a few more planets or not.

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i play on large maps, so this may not work on smaller.

I rush build my first factory, set taxes to 100% approval, production to 100%, and my military slider for best colony ship production. im constantly fiddling with the sliders to not waste production. The astro miners extra production ends up letting me bust out a ship every 4-5 turns, with the balance coming from my new colonies. This allows me around 11 planets before....war.

After i send out my first few far ranging ships, i start building what i term poorman ships...they have no engines so theyre built a few turns earlier. I send those to backfill in the planets my far rangers dont get to.

I tech much like...the other chap earlier . then i beeline for planetary invasion and start effing everyone up. Im so warlike because I just cannot keepup with the AI colony rush, so I have to take over at leats one AI so we have around the same number of planets. then i spend a few terms lower than 100% prod as i wait for my economy to speed up so im in the green. On my new worlds I dont build any building that requires maintenance, though I do start building econ bldgs if i can. Once i can hit 100 prod i start a normal build order. I find this particular facet to be crucial to my rush (it was provided by my fine colleagues here).

ok, off to get some fat chick lovin.

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MottiKhan

Join Date 04/2007

+152

A method I've used to a fairly good deal of success is to build/buy blank cargo ships and move them the first turn as far as they'll go in the direction they'll be taking for the rush. Once out of movement points, I upgrade them with two life supports and as many engines as I can. Depending on my starting techs and such, that can be as few as two engines. I like to research up to impulse drive for the engine itself, plus the free +1 speed bonus along the way.

I send the blank engine ships out to explore and when they find a suitable planet, I move them toward it and upgrade them to colony ships with life support and no engines. It takes a couple or few turns to upgrade, but the extra engine(s) make up for that. When they upgrade, they'll automatically have 1 million colonists on board. I colonize the planet and if need be, send a fully loaded colony ship out to boost the population. From there, my fast blank ships can explore further and consolidate a territory quickly.

The downside of this is that you can get too many planets too quickly and run into economy problems. Diplomatic relations can also suffer from the close borders. As is the norm, a good balance is needed to sustain the territory.

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A method I've used to a fairly good deal of success is to build/buy blank cargo ships and move them the first turn as far as they'll go in the direction they'll be taking for the rush.

Hey, that's a good idea! Especially if you're playing on abundant planets/rare habitable. I bet you could put out Tiny/Small hulls as well and research the required Miniaturization techs later.

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Extant Faora

Join Date 08/2008

You honestly save money when building blank hulls then upgrading?!?!?!?!
OHMIGOSHOHMIGOSHOHMIGOSH!!!!!!!!!
THAT IS SO TOTALLY COOL!!!

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MottiKhan

Join Date 04/2007

+152

Quoting tetleytea,

reply 9

I bet you could put out Tiny/Small hulls as well and research the required Miniaturization techs later.

You could. I like the cargo hull better because it's as cheap as the small hull and can be upgraded to almost anything. If you find a nice planet, a colonizer. If it's a morale, econ or mil resource or if you simply need to expand your territory, a constructor. It can even become a fairly decent fighter once you have a few techs under your belt. It's pretty flexible.

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I thought the small hull was 15bc cheaper than a cargo hull.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

Quoting MottiKhan,

reply 11

Quoting tetleytea,
reply 9

I bet you could put out Tiny/Small hulls as well and research the required Miniaturization techs later.

You could. I like the cargo hull better because it's as cheap as the small hull and can be upgraded to almost anything. If you find a nice planet, a colonizer. If it's a morale, econ or mil resource or if you simply need to expand your territory, a constructor. It can even become a fairly decent fighter once you have a few techs under your belt. It's pretty flexible.

With two levels of miniaturization, tiny hulls are excellent at this. The only issue you might have is there isn't room for engines or much life support at that level. (Hull space = 24, constructor/colony/mining modules take 20)

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Speed is your friend... put at least Ion+Warp Drive Engines on these asap... Range helps but is dependant on map size... R_E_P_U_B_L_I_C (clear enough?). Btw, it might be better if you develop your own Territory from the inside out progressively along with the occasional biggy PQs (purple Star, grab these away if you can -- sensors baby) even if too far. The flipping aspect isn't negligeable either since these surface tiles are yours to keep or not within InFluence edges *and* for the time you DO have 'hem.

Most of everyone's tricks above (BlankHull, yup.. but the Turn(s) and cost to upgrade IN space might not be fast enough if some kinky_closer_than you_already AIs has gained access to the far-away system(s) with few rush-bought stock Colonies) are certainly valid -- but, what is nearly essential stands more at the rate of techno inputs for much faster ships than what any AIs can use.

Having a stable Economy to actually buy what is necessary to beat them to the wire(s) IF you rushed to Republic, will probably counter their Leasing Tactic for these early but important Colony Ships and would allow you to take over between 50-95% of the entire planets found within 3 to 5 sectors of your Homeworld (which must be the main source of Colonies for a long while, btw).

Extremes is a different issue as it involves actual location of the most reasonable targets for acquisition - including if some AIs have Super-Adapter when you don't. Look around as there might be a good Flipper driven planet right into their Toxic_Barren_etc systems.

Btw, 5 mp from a single Asteroid (or more) field DOES help in the faster output of the HW ships.

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I do tiny hulls all the time. It just never occurred to me that you can build a blank hull and research miniaturization after it's well on its way.

I have, however, launched loaded colony ships, researched Advanced Miniaturization along the way, and upgraded with some life support. It's just better to do the upgrade sooner rather than later, because it takes more turns to do the upgrade the further out you go.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

If you want a minor exploit, build a colony ship with as much life support as necessary, target it on a planet, then upgrade it to get engines instead of life support without cancelling the autopilot. It will continue on its way regardless of range considerations. This is a minor upside of having a survey ship have a wormhole accident

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Extant Faora

Join Date 08/2008

What a CHEEEEEEEEEEEESE hack Willy

Honestly.

If you want to cheat, do it using actual cheats.

However it's really good cheese.

I'll give you that.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

Honestly, I discovered that with freighters, and quite unintentionally. Built some long range freighters, sent them to planets as far out as they could go, then designed a newer version that was faster. Upgraded all without even thinking about it - but the faster ones lacked life support. So when they got to the target, I got the out-of-range message, but the trade route formed normally.

It's actually not all that efficient, either. Usually it's better (cheaper, too) to build a bare constructor after the colony ship, launch it the same direction, then build a base when they hit max range. This gives a much better range boost, as well. Once you colonize, feel free to scuttle the useless base - usually the colonized planet will give you the life support range you need.

I say usually, as there was once an imbarassing incident with a AI taking a resource because I did this, scuttled the base, then discovered the resource in the space where the two range rings didn't quite meet.

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