(no spoilers) Can I just turn equatorial africa into a bunch of launchpads?

[Miguelinileugim]

Investments in boost are most efficient if the country is near equator, while the amount of investment you get per control point is highest in tiny countries. Hence, equatorial africa, after a year or two of space program investment, should easily outproduce the US/Russia/China in the boost department right? Am I getting this right?

[wei270]

yes but they are poor, so it takes longer to get the investment going, if you want to turn Africa in to an efficient launch pat, what you need to do is 1, find a source of cash, 2, unite Africa, 3, now you have the cash for direct investment, and the control points do have a cash farm and a single African entity, ( if you don't unite them you are never gonna have the cp for it),now you can start pumping money in to space program in Africa.

[MP]

Long term, perhaps? The equatorial africa is too poor and unstable to be any use, unless you cram in direct investments, but I haven't tried that. Still, they're unstable so I'd constantly worry about getting couped.

[Miguelinileugim]

Originally posted by wei270:

yes but they are poor, so it takes longer to get the investment going, if you want to turn Africa in to an efficient launch pat, what you need to do is 1, find a source of cash, 2, unite Africa, 3, now you have the cash for direct investment, and the control points do have a cash farm and a single African entity, ( if you don't unite them you are never gonna have the cp for it),now you can start pumping money in to space program in Africa.

Wait so uniting countries just adds their investment points together? I thought you'd get some sort of middle ground. So like two 5 investment countries would become a 7 investment country not a 10 investment one! But if so it sounds really OP, am I getting this right?

[Miguelinileugim]

Originally posted by MP:

Long term, perhaps? The equatorial africa is too poor and unstable to be any use, unless you cram in direct investments, but I haven't tried that. Still, they're unstable so I'd constantly worry about getting couped.

I mean I'm trying to be friends with everyone except the nutjobs so I could just counter-coup if that's such a big deal.

[wei270]

no uniting countries doesn't add their investment point together, but since you do not want to wait until the Africans have enough investment points, you are doing it though direction investment, where you buy investment points with your Fund resource. that is why you want every African country in one place so you don't have to do multiple direct investment to do the same thing

[Miguelinileugim]

Originally posted by wei270:

no uniting countries doesn't add their investment point together, but since you do not want to wait until the Africans have enough investment points, you are doing it though direction investment, where you buy investment points with your Fund resource. that is why you want every African country in one place so you don't have to do multiple direct investment to do the same thing

Wait then why do I need so many african countries then? Why not get a random one and just throw money at it forever?

[wei270]

it gdp will suck, its population will such, which mean ai can take it very easily from you.

its military will suck, which means alien will have a easy time invading, and they will invade you.

[CondorDrake]

Best chance is to do it like France with Kourou, just invade some smaller country in Africa with a powerful nation, annex it, then invest in Space Program.

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Equinox:

Best chance is to do it like France with Kourou, just invade some smaller country in Africa with a powerful nation, annex it, then invest in Space Program.

Not an option really. France doesnt get claims in Africa.

[gimmethegepgun]

Yes, but it's more of a long-term investment. What I typically do is grab a bunch of equatorial Africa and just Abandon the points, and tell them all to make a space program. It'll take years, but since they're all cracked down it doesn't cost you anything to maintain them other than occasionally heading over to recapture them. It's more effective than you might think, since each nation has a minimum of 2 investment points before consideration of Unrest, so they collectively add up to quite a bit more than their tiny economies ought to.
If you want to take advantage of equatorial boosting more quickly, Indonesia and Brazil have much stronger economies than African nations, as do India and Australia (not equatorial, but close). France and Benelux also have territories near the equator that will be used as their launch pads, though be aware that the EU will steal most of it.

[Miguelinileugim]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Yes, but it's more of a long-term investment. What I typically do is grab a bunch of equatorial Africa and just Abandon the points, and tell them all to make a space program. It'll take years, but since they're all cracked down it doesn't cost you anything to maintain them other than occasionally heading over to recapture them. It's more effective than you might think, since each nation has a minimum of 2 investment points before consideration of Unrest, so they collectively add up to quite a bit more than their tiny economies ought to.
If you want to take advantage of equatorial boosting more quickly, Indonesia and Brazil have much stronger economies than African nations, as do India and Australia (not equatorial, but close). France and Benelux also have territories near the equator that will be used as their launch pads, though be aware that the EU will steal most of it.

Terrific advice! But wait doesn't that mean that i won't be getting any boost out of them until I recapture them way later on when I got more control points?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Miguelinileugim:

Terrific advice! But wait doesn't that mean that i won't be getting any boost out of them until I recapture them way later on when I got more control points?

Like I said, it's a long-term investment. Even if their unrest is low enough to not get penalized it'll still take 4 years to even start the space program, assuming no direct investment.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

It doesn't really work out because the african countries have really intractable unrest issues which harshly penalizes their IP.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by TheDeadlyShoe:

It doesn't really work out because the african countries have really intractable unrest issues which harshly penalizes their IP.

It's not much of an investment of your resources. You'll need to reestablish control every now and then but most of them only have one CP, so you can just Control or Purge once. Or just launch a coup, it's not like they need their economy anyway. And it lowers unrest!