What is this pioneer spam people keep on whining about?

Sssssshhhhhhhhh!

I'm doing a playthrough right now, and on turn 35 I have 3 cities, 6 outposts, and 4 active pioneers.  Some people may call that spam.

I am not saying that the way I played that game is the best one.  There are buildings that I wish my cities had.  But I would not mind to read what you think about the opening.

I personally don't think pioneer spam is an issue either, although I would like to see more incentives for building tall empires.

Tying resource improvements and outpost upgrades to build queues also also makes outpost spam less important too.

Oh I see

Custom race, custom sov, got lucky and was able to find a river AND woods for capital site withing walking distance of starting location (settled on turn 2).

And it sounds like the lack of cognizable spots is properly limiting your expansion to a reasonable rate.

not even close. while there are wastelands without soil, i'm always finding some spots to build a city.

a pioneer is one of the cheapest things you can build in a town, 3 turns. a new town means new basic buildings mean more everything. not to mention you can cast some enchantments if there's essence to boost, say, your research.

founding a city means your opponent can't do it.

settler spam is simply wrong. training such a unit should have vast repercussions on the town it's being built. but with population having no weight, it's kinda hard to implement.

More cities do = more research.  It's easier to build many studies than go up the tech tree to higher lvl buildings.

I wish min turn times could be adjustable by unit.

While the first study and merchant are very important buildings, I might as well spam pioneers and build one in my new cities instead of in my capital.

I usually only spam pioneers to the extend of important resources and new cities, but sometimes I am flooded with locations for new cities, which leads into a very trivial pioneer spamming game, also a game where I am most sure to win.

The point is not that I was lucky enough to gain a lot of viable city locations nearby, the point is more, I get to grab all the city locations before the enemy does, this is a huge deal because as you said, the structures means a lot, and with twice as many cities, I will build structures twice as fast, and be able to hold twice the number of structures to boost economy and research.

Now  I didn't even touch essence, yet, since essence is a sole reason to spam pioneers all by itself.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Why is Pioneer spam bad?

Because the world is suppose to be a bad place to live.  Your supposes to be taming a world gone disaster.  Sending out unprotected pioneers is not suppose to be possible (it a lore thing).  But at the current level of monster aggression pioneer span is the best game move right now.

Ground-up, seasoned, jellied, and tinned pioneer meat is deeeeeeee-liscious!

Summerized perfectly here.

I'm not going to do the math, but it looks like pioneers were pretty much the only thing you had queued. Nothing else is even close to important if there is a pioneer to be made. That's spamming.

I do it too though. You have to. If you don't, you lose the realastate to the AI.

In addtion, points were made about the vulnrability of pioneers. This should be emphasized. Defend them or lose them should be the reality of it.

I think Frog is already addressing one issue of the pioneer spam which is how ineffecient the AI is at placing outposts.  The game I just finished the AI placed 3 outposts in a 2x2 square.  That is just silly and a waste of resources.

The game feels like the Oklahoma Sooner rush during the first phases of the game.  It is just a land grab.  Outposts are to easy to place.  Make them have a build time and resource cost (time and material).  Perhaps 5 or 6 turns to build.

Alot of people are missing the heart of the issue with expansion. You should not be paying heavy sums for the pioneer itself, but for the army it takes to make the land safe to settle on. The monsters need to kill lone pioneers and weak pioneer armies. Then teach the AI to require stronger expansion armies. Problem is then solved without an unnatural gamey solution.

yes monsters are the key of many problems

i also tried your way of changing monster aggression and it works quite well

another problem is that it seems monster aggression depends on defenses, or at least its my impression, thats why imo many ppl complain about ai being immune to monsters

ai always keep a few random defenses when he can

players usually leave cities empty and move army at will, maybe thats why monster prefer moving towards player cities dunno

This is because of your terrain setting when generating the world and pretty much always happens when you choose to generate desert worlds, and often when you choose ravaged, swamp, and balanced worlds. In balanced worlds some areas are usually good for pioneer spam while others are decidedly not.

Temperate and Mountainous worlds, however, are practically always pioneer-paradises, and anybody not pioneer spamming is at a significant disadvantage. (Not a crippling disadvantage when playing against the AI at the moment, mind you, but a significant one)

As you correctly guess, pioneer spam with just a few carefully chosen buildings until cities are established is the name of the game. And the more essence sites you find to build cities on early, the less buildings are required.

As a human player, however, you are not as incompetent as the AI. This means that you'll both spam pioneers and be more than ready to defend your own cities or attack enemy cities, though how you do this depends a lot on starting magic and sovereign.

Again, this is a significant limitation only with some world settings, namely those in which the world starts severely inhospitable and even in those, well, pioneer spam is the way to claim resources and flip the terrain in the early game, something that helps you more than building buildings in general.

So long, that is, as you keep your capital and perhaps one other city building up as conclaves after you've started the pioneer program. Personally, I switch my capital from Pioneer spamming to building up as a conclave as soon as I've founded my third city. YMMV.

That makes a whole lot of sense...

I do agree this would help.  But for me it makes no sense for an outpost to cost nothing.  Outposts do not even have a construction time, its just plop and there it is.  If it actually took some resources to build outposts it would also control expansion.  Expansion should be difficult both taming the wilds and the use of capital and time.

I like the idea of ramping up monster aggression while I wait for the next build.  Can someone tell me how I go about doing that?

I am going to try out something in 0.980...

I am starting a new game with many wildlands and dense monster frequency. The opening video gave me the idea. It shows how we have to fight the elemental lords for every scrap of land. I WANT TO TRY THAT!

Where you can't get a single settlement without fighting to conquer the land from the elemental lords. We might have to try a mod for that (where literally EVERY INCH of the map is elemental lord territory)

The cost of the outpost is the cost it takes to build the pioneer and move the pioneer to the spot. There doesn't need to be an extra cost to use the pioneer for an outpost.

I wanted this as a gamemode myself. You vs. Wildlands.

I am playing a similar game now and having a great time

Ok, what size maps are you guys playing on? Because I literally cannot find a second fertile patch of ground to establish a second city.

Well, that me vs wilderness thing was a bust. The world is lush and ready for colonizing. I build up an empire, I conquered enemies, and i have yet to encounter my first elemental lord or his domain...

And I am playing a faction whose ability gives all their units scouting an makes monsters never attack them so...

First, how are you getting lush, colonizing, empires???? Every game I've started in 0.98 has given me 0-2 city locations with 0-2 essence at only the first location. It's badlands stretched as far as the eye can see from then on out. Toss in the increased early game build queue times, and the game is now BORING.

Second, Tarth's ability is stupid. Fighting monsters is 80% of the early game, and at least 30% of the mid and late games. By playing Tarth, one eliminates the that part of the game. I've tried playing them. BORING. Tarth needs a new, different ability imo.

Sorry if I sound mean....0.98 has been frustrating me. I had high hopes...and they've been shattered.

You don't sound mean to me, just sounds like you ain't getting what you want.
I have had different hopes for the game too, but apparently it seems Derek, or Stardock can't read my mind over this distance and create that game I want...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej