Can I build?

[Mattnum]

I'm sure this has been asked, however I didn't see it. I never know when, what and if I can build something. The material summary on the left is helpful, but for some reason (actually like everything in this game) it doesn't seem to give a full picture. Simple game made overly complicated by nestin of info in many places. Anyone have a good "go-to" routine for figuring our what they should build and if they can?

[Cowlick035]

It depends on the planet you're playing really, but pretty much everything needs metal so start with a mine. There should always be a metal deposit next to your city. After that you'll definitely need industry to build infrastructure, units and your logistical network.

These things require machines though. You can buy them from traders or build them in the workshop if you have rare metals. You can sometimes get them randomly between turns as well.

With a good supply of metal and industrial points you can then develop your beaurocracy and logistical assets. It's a good idea to nationalise the private truck station too.

The economic council will unlock new stuff for you to build. In order to unlock the next level of most assets you'll need to increase your civilisation score, which is done by raising the quality of life in your city. You can do this with hospitals and schools and the like. Sometimes you'll get stratagem cards which will give these as private assets.

You might also need food and water, and there's assets for these too, but if you play on a Siwa planet they shouldn't be a huge concern. Eventually you'll need more power than what you immediately have available too. You can often find relict power stations in the world, otherwise you can build them if you've unlocked the technology for it.

[Tomash]

You can also consider building scavenging station if You have hex with ruins near to Your city. It gives a small amount of metal, oil and machines every turn, but sometimes even some rare metals, machines and high-tech electronics!

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Originally posted by Tomash:

You can also consider building scavenging station if You have hex with ruins near to Your city. It gives a small amount of metal, oil and machines every turn, but sometimes even some rare metals, machines and electronics!

All scavenging gives rare metals, regular metals and oil, if there is an archaeology site there you can get machine parts, high tech machines and relics such as the ancient cloning facility.

[Tomash]

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

All scavenging gives rare metals, regular metals and oil, if there is an archaeology site there you can get machine parts, high tech machines and relics such as the ancient cloning facility.

Thats pretty the same as I said, though I'm not sure that archeological site is a MUST to receive high tech and machines from time to time. I'll check it.

[Mattnum]

All very helpful thanks!

In terms of knowing if I can build in a zone:

• The general inventory tab on left helps - do I have enough material
  
• How do I know if I have enough workers in that zone for the building and to do the construction
  
• Logistics...sometimes The SHQ needs to get push out the materials to the asset for it to be built. I only ever learn after I started that I am struggling to push material out. Is there a better way?

[Princey]

Originally posted by Mattnum:

All very helpful thanks!

In terms of knowing if I can build in a zone:

• The general inventory tab on left helps - do I have enough material
  
• How do I know if I have enough workers in that zone for the building and to do the construction
  
• Logistics...sometimes The SHQ needs to get push out the materials to the asset for it to be built. I only ever learn after I started that I am struggling to push material out. Is there a better way?

- when you build something generally it say ! turn left or 2 turns left and then it say how much of that you done in 1 turn like 0.80 of a turn or something if you highlight over the turn number when building it.

also it tell you if you go into the building info how much resources is needed per turn.

- well it like if you have lots of generally available happy population then they be recruited. on default your govs will only hire what they need. You may need to increase worker wages in some cases if private is paying more. You can find all this info out in the city interface.

I would recommend getting familiar with the interface.

you can also send colonists.

- no you need to improve your logistics network. Resources have to go from A to B . A being your SHQ.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Mattnum:

• The general inventory tab on left helps - do I have enough material

There is an elephant trap waiting for the unsuspecting noob here - the resource requirement numbers given on the construction menus are on a per turn basis, not totals. So for example building Industry I says it costs 500 metal. It lies. It means 500 metal per turn for three turns = 1500 metal all told.

Originally posted by Mattnum:

• How do I know if I have enough workers in that zone for the building and to do the construction

Generally speaking in the early game anyway this is not a problem I've found. Town pops are far greater than the number of state workers so some them get hired to build stuff with no issues.

Originally posted by Mattnum:

All very helpful thanks!

• Logistics...sometimes The SHQ needs to get push out the materials to the asset for it to be built. I only ever learn after I started that I am struggling to push material out. Is there a better way?

I think materials for builds are in fact always dispatched from SHQ. I may be wrong about that and if so I hope someone corrects me.

Logistics is a number one concern when building stuff. There are a number of logistics report buttons accessible right of screen. One of them is marked "bottlenecks". Another one is marked "Current Pts" IIRC. Between these two buttons you can see a) whether you have enough logistics assets in place (i.e. trucks) to get supplies to a build site and b) even if in theory you have enough points whether there is a bottleneck along the route. There often is.

You would be well advised to check this before ordering builds. You need to learn, or rather start learning, how to get the logistics sorted out which is not easy as it's heavily abstracted and somewhat opaque. There is no one click "sort out bottleneck" button for example.

I've learned over my 75 odd hours play time that you need to stay well on top of both resource generation, stockpiles and logistics. The game will let you order whatever build wherever whenever. If you haven't got the resources in place to actually build them their requirements hang over for turn after turn which means a) you completely lose track of where you are with resource availability and b) your economy grinds to a halt and you find you can't build anything at all as all your resource are getting spread out in dribs and drabs over many builds that never get finished. Then someone declares war on you.....

So for example a big early milestone is getting industry I up. 1500 metal required for that. If you don't have 1500 metal already saved up or you don't produce substantially more than 500 metal per turn then there is no way you will be able to build any more troops (or anything else) until the industry build is finally finished. Secondly if the metal needs to be transported it might suck your logistics network dry, troops and pops might starve. In other words your whole operation can literally grind to a halt. So it can be anything from inconvenient to disastrous if you fail to get your ducks in a row.

If you do fall into this trap you have the option to suspend builds, you can also downgrade build priorities to 75%, 50% or 25%. So ordering Industry I requires 500 metal per turn for three turns, if you set it to 25% it will now require 125 per turn for 12 turns. Personally I don't bugger about with that, I save up the 1500 metal first.

[Mattnum]

"Generally speaking in the early game anyway this is not a problem I've found. Town pops are far greater than the number of state workers so some them get hired to build stuff with no issues."

I've had situations where I had a new zone and tried to build there and it was workers highlighted as the lack when I tried to build something...So it was probably too early to start building but that is all kind of hidden in various UI? In a game like Civ the listed turns to build increases, but this I need to figure out if the zone has the material and manpower?

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

I wouldn't create a new zone without about 3k colonists as that allows it to actually support itself.

If you made a new SHQ you will have bigger issues unless you create it on a town that has everything it would need.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Mattnum:

I've had situations where I had a new zone and tried to build there and it was workers highlighted as the lack when I tried to build something...So it was probably too early to start building but that is all kind of hidden in various UI?

If you conquer or assimilate a Minor the town you get will usually be either about 15k pop or about 75k pop depending on Minor type. In either case there are enough people to provide workers in my experience. That's what I was referring to in my comment.

However if you create your own zone (for example by building a truck station and turning it into a zone) then there may not be enough workers to build anything. You may need to send a lot of colonists there to get things started.

On the town/zone details tab you can see details of both total pop and current workers.

[Mattnum]

Ok thanks guys. I am not sure how to quote you guys. However, it was zones I made from truck stations. So I should have tried to ship minimum 3k colonists by the sound of things.

[Spaceman_Spiff]

If you're playing on a planet that requires dome farming, you will need to bring approximately 11,000 colonists. The new zone will want to build a farming asset as its very first build choice, and there's nothing you can do to change that* except for playing some cards that auto-build something. You'll also want to invest a few thousand credits to kickstart the development. The longer it takes for private assets to get built the unhappier your citzenry gets (especially your state workers).

*-Unless this particular mechanic has changed over the last year or so. I don't risk it, and always bring 12k+ colonists.

[Tomash]

Originally posted by Spaceman_Spiff:

If you're playing on a planet that requires dome farming, you will need to bring approximately 11,000 colonists. The new zone will want to build a farming asset as its very first build choice, and there's nothing you can do to change that* except for playing some cards that auto-build something. You'll also want to invest a few thousand credits to kickstart the development. The longer it takes for private assets to get built the unhappier your citzenry gets (especially your state workers).

*-Unless this particular mechanic has changed over the last year or so. I don't risk it, and always bring 12k+ colonists.

I cannot agree with that.
- You can import food from Your SHQ, You are not obliged to produce it locally;
- You can allow the governor of new town to buy emergency food;
- If You want to build lvl I public asset one of 3 agricultural facilities, it will need 5500 workers.
- If You want to build lvl I public asset hydroponics food factory, it will need 1000 workers.

Remember, even if You grow food on-site, it is still transported to Your SHQ and then distributed where needed.

Soo... where does Your need of 12000 colonists come from?

[Hasefrexx]

You need 12 000 colonists so that the private economy accepts to *build* a private farm, assuming it has enough credits. Only once a level 1 private farm is built, the private economy will consider building qol assets. If you don't have private qol assets, you will probably want to have some public qol buildings to mitigate the happiness malus from low qol score.

I don't think you always really need the 12k colonists, small zones for logistics or a handful level 1 mines can stay as small as possible to keep population in more important places. If the plan is to develop it you definately want the colonists.

[Mattnum]

Is this in the manual? Admittedly I haven't really played enough but I didn't realize there was requirements for private economy.