Boost strategies

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Hey there

I'm tired of using Russia or the US to get boost to be the first to colonise the moon. It's boring and quickly repetitive.

I tried China once, but since it takes so long to even control China, you can't make use of it's economic powerhouse to develop boost that quickly.

I am trying India now, which has almost as good of an economy as China, more potential than the US and with Khazakhstan, i develop a decent amount of boost. HOWEVER there are now already 5 moon bases and the ones left over aren't even worth going for. I sent some probes to asteroids, but it's gonna be a year before those arrive.

How do you manage to get good boost early on? Again, if possible without the US or Russia.

[Mistfox]

Go to your councilors, find an org that gives boost and buy/equip it. Fastest way. Long term? Find a country, pump IP into spaceflight if it does not already have it, then either do a slow constant investment or just dump a lot of money into boost once it is available. Dump a lot of money route is when you use Spoils and pillage other countries to feed your main, in this case India.

[martyr]

I like UK / France. Colonies near the equator. I find US to China opener to probably be the most effective. EU / Eurasian Union are the most fun tho, as there is far more to do with your councilors.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originally posted by martyr:

I like UK / France. Colonies near the equator. I find US to China opener to probably be the most effective. EU / Eurasian Union are the most fun tho, as there is far more to do with your councilors.

I didnt like EU/France start. Not enough research quickly. And you have the biggest contention in every single place.

[martyr]

Originally posted by Zlorfik CH/BY:

Originally posted by martyr:

I like UK / France. Colonies near the equator. I find US to China opener to probably be the most effective. EU / Eurasian Union are the most fun tho, as there is far more to do with your councilors.

I didnt like EU/France start. Not enough research quickly. And you have the biggest contention in every single place.

Honestly, that's why it's more fun. With the US / China opener it's pretty simple. Just sit on the US and not much to do. EU opener is way more active and more fun (to me). It's also worth the investment as it does end up more powerful once you can get it rolling.

[Brakiros]

Originally posted by Zlorfik CH/BY:

Originally posted by martyr:

I like UK / France. Colonies near the equator. I find US to China opener to probably be the most effective. EU / Eurasian Union are the most fun tho, as there is far more to do with your councilors.

I didnt like EU/France start. Not enough research quickly. And you have the biggest contention in every single place.

EU isn't as strong for space which is why you start with Kazakh, but it ends up being way better then either US or China way more science production. China is ♥♥♥♥ socially so it takes forever to fix that mess and the US gets punished for having such a big economy since investment points tend to not scale that well

[db48x]

Any moon base is worth the cost at the beginning of the game. In order to build anything you have to boost multiple resources (metals for the building, water and volatiles for the people). The boost cost for these is computed separately and added up, so any income from the Moon reduces the amount of boost you need to save up to get to Mars. You can just sell it to a friend once you are established at Mars, since by then it won’t be MC efficient.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originally posted by martyr:

Originally posted by Zlorfik CH/BY:

I didnt like EU/France start. Not enough research quickly. And you have the biggest contention in every single place.

Honestly, that's why it's more fun. With the US / China opener it's pretty simple. Just sit on the US and not much to do. EU opener is way more active and more fun (to me). It's also worth the investment as it does end up more powerful once you can get it rolling.

If i want something interesting to do, i'll go with the Eurasion Union/Russia. You get to conquer/annex regions with military, blow up the entirety of the US' military with nukes xD, have plenty of land to unify, you start with boost access. The downside is that they have very little further potential when it comes to growth/science.

I need science and boost, dont really care for other stuff. The EU doesn't offer enough boost vs US and Eurasia to be first on the moon and it takes too long to really develop that science there too.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originally posted by db48x:

Any moon base is worth the cost at the beginning of the game. In order to build anything you have to boost multiple resources (metals for the building, water and volatiles for the people). The boost cost for these is computed separately and added up, so any income from the Moon reduces the amount of boost you need to save up to get to Mars. You can just sell it to a friend once you are established at Mars, since by then it won’t be MC efficient.

All the spots that are available now have somewhere between 6 to 11 total resources, randomly split between volatiles and regular metals. It won't be enough to sustain itself even.

[Setzer]

First rule of Boost Strat.
- Don´t be afraid to put 100% of a country investment on its Space Program. 1 Year going 100% Space Program is barely gonna affect GDP, Inequality, etc.
Same rule applies to build armies or even running Spoils for 1-2 turns to get 1-2k money and get that expensive Org.

Now after saying that.
Any country with 5+ Points AFTER you got its unrest below 2 will is a ok boost or mission control country.

Why 5+/month? Because you want to finish space program by mid 2023.
That way they can help you colonize the moon and actually be able to choose what you want.
You might not be the first if the AI takes kazakhstan/russia, but you will be right behind them. You wlll be first to mars and put a mine on the moon.

Close to 6-8 points is recommended so you can spend at least 3 points on boost (40-50% of its economy) without killing the country as you want to fix its cohesion and later gdp. Most of them have room to improve their points and become a reasonable ok country to keep.

most of those countries happens to be close to the equator too. So they get a better investment per point compared to a lot of other countries.

Countries that work for this.
SOUTH AMERICA + CENTRAL AMERICA
Chile, Argentina, BRazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and ecuador. Venezuela need some unrest work ^^.
Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Caribbean States, Cuba.
Only mexico have 6 unrest. Others 1-4. But at least mexico have a big economy and opens the US later on so its worth keeping it.

All of them will have space program by mid 2023. Some like Brazil can have it as early as january as it already starts with 20 points on it while others will get it only in May-July.

A few like argentina and Chile might be better for mission control later on.

AFRICA->
S. Africa, Angola, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, Middle guinea, Algeria, Morroco, Ivory coast.

A few might have high unrest, but most of them are already close to 2 unrest. So easy to start working.

Middle East, Asia, etc all of them also have states useful for that.


We all need to remember Boost do not care if the country is Rich, poor, etc.
It only cares it have X investment points to spend on it.
If you're going for boost you don´t care about the country Research, (But some are good for research too, either because they cost low to keep or because they have a ton of room to improve its high population allowing for a lot of research on mid-late game per control point).


in fact, they way this game is done. You don´t even need EU, US, China, etc to beat the game.
You can totally keep up with a mass of 2-3 sized countrys. Everyone doing a focus on something you need. While not optimal it is not that far behind and it is a fun challenge.

[Vyktor]

I hope you're using a coup to get Kazakhstan or you'll lose a lot of boost to Russia through the federation.

9 pips on boost there and nothing else and you'll be golden. As others said, the commercial rocket companies project will normally spit out 1.25 /month boost orgs for 1k research too but you'll probably want to also be careful to drop your boost income (abandon Kaz for 6 months or purge it back quicker) to get your space org when the right time comes (researching Alien methods I think)... That org has more boost and a good chunk of MC too.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Vyktor:

I hope you're using a coup to get Kazakhstan or you'll lose a lot of boost to Russia through the federation.

9 pips on boost there and nothing else and you'll be golden. As others said, the commercial rocket companies project will normally spit out 1.25 /month boost orgs for 1k research too but you'll probably want to also be careful to drop your boost income (abandon Kaz for 6 months or purge it back quicker) to get your space org when the right time comes (researching Alien methods I think)... That org has more boost and a good chunk of MC too.

I always preferred to go boost light on countries because once you get your space industry going, boost becomes kind of low usage other than some extra money and research (and barely at that), so IMO there really is no point going heavy on something that is going to be obsolete.

OP remember that as well. Hence why I prefer to use the Councilor route.

[Vyktor]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Originally posted by Vyktor:

...

I always preferred to go boost light on countries because once you get your space industry going, boost becomes kind of low usage other than some extra money and research (and barely at that), so IMO there really is no point going heavy on something that is going to be obsolete.

OP remember that as well. Hence why I prefer to use the Councilor route.

I was specifically talking about Kazakhstan, which is already specialised for boost - you're simply maxing it there for the time when it matters.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Vyktor:

Originally posted by Mistfox:

I always preferred to go boost light on countries because once you get your space industry going, boost becomes kind of low usage other than some extra money and research (and barely at that), so IMO there really is no point going heavy on something that is going to be obsolete.

OP remember that as well. Hence why I prefer to use the Councilor route.

I was specifically talking about Kazakhstan, which is already specialised for boost - you're simply maxing it there for the time when it matters.

I meant Zlorfik. He's the OP in the thread.

[IronSides]

Current game I went India/Kazakhstan. Removed them from Russia federation. Then preceded to get Russia lol. So now I have to reunite them. After a bit, I got 5 out of 6 china. So we got india,russia,china,Kazakhstan. Plenty if boost and 14 mission control in Early 2028. I have 2 moon bases and 3 Mars bases.

[db48x]

Originally posted by Zlorfik CH/BY:

Originally posted by db48x:

Any moon base is worth the cost at the beginning of the game. In order to build anything you have to boost multiple resources (metals for the building, water and volatiles for the people). The boost cost for these is computed separately and added up, so any income from the Moon reduces the amount of boost you need to save up to get to Mars. You can just sell it to a friend once you are established at Mars, since by then it won’t be MC efficient.

All the spots that are available now have somewhere between 6 to 11 total resources, randomly split between volatiles and regular metals. It won't be enough to sustain itself even.

The boost cost to maintain it will be less than the boost cost for your first Mars base. You’re going to need at least 25 boost to land a mine on Mars, and that could be as much as 60 boost if you don’t have the right projects researched beforehand (Nuclear Freighters, that one from Advanced Chemical Rockets, etc). The boost cost to maintain a mine on the moon that has no water will be trivial; something like 0.01 per month.