Colonization Range for 1000 stars, 8x8

[Ricardo]

If I have 1000 stars, 8x8, Independent Colony & Colony prevalence set to VERY RARE, colony influence set to 100%, what should the colonization range limit be?

Currently, I have it at 200M, but I think it's too low, as I can't colonize anything.

[ZumZoom]

If you have Shakturi expansion, then it's not a big deal, you can hop to new colonies by outposts, otherwise yes, probably need 300M or more. I have the same galaxy settings as you, but I play with Rare colonies, very rare indies. I played with very rare colonies once just recently and I hated it - my empire becomes really stretched out right from the start.

[BFHKitteh]

I wouldn't set colonies to very rare on it's own- you need more empires or independents to make up for it. Vanilla isn't designed for having so few colonies, the game just doesn't really function. So as long as you are able to get new races, you'll be okay. Otherwise you're just going to be stuck with your homeworld for 40 or 50 years, and nothing is going to happen in the game.

You're supposed to have at least 3 races in your empire to get new planets. Added to the suitability techs, and you have enough planets to earn enough money to actually play the game.

The problem is that you go from having almost no planets to colonize in the early game, to having a hundred, in the same volume of space- just by getting more races and increasing your tech level. So suddenly the game explodes from a half dozen colonies per empire to a hundred, in just the span of a couple decades. At first it's alright, since all those colonies are growing. But at the end of the century, you have a hundred planets with 10 billion population each, and you have too much going on. Infinite money and tech, and so many ships that the game starts to crawl even at 1x speed.

Very rare colonies isn't really going to help- it's just going to make it so that you go from having no colonies in the early game, to still hardly any colonies in the late game. And over that time, you're not going to have money to really play the game. It's why I suggested to increase independents- because then you have colonies to take at the beginning, while still having a lower overall number during the late game.

[Ricardo]

^^^
All my 300 hours of gameplay recently were mainly on 6x6 and 700. I mostly followed Scott’s Distant Worlds 2 Guide, and as far as I know, Scott (I think he’s a former employee of the game’s developer) has created the most accurate video guides and a very interesting PDF guide.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=380441

Scott says:

Colony Prevalence: So I really don’t like the default game where I have 50+ colonies to manage. So I pick Very Rare. However - all this does is lower the planet qualities which isn’t a perfect solution. Eventually with techs you can still end up a lot of colonies but it’s
much later (because the expense of low quality colonies is prohibitive). I’m not sure how the AI deals with this. I might recommend Normal or Rare your first play through but you can’t go wrong with Very rare. So this one I do strongly recommend Very Rare.


Independent Colonies: These are one colony empires - like city states in CIV VI - except all you do is either absorb them or conquer them. They are very valuable to get as they become profitable much faster than new colonies (especially if you colonize rather than conquer them). Less is more fun IMHO.

And so far (the last 300 hours of gameplay), it worked. Now, for a change, I felt like playing on a larger map. The next colony is 330M away, and theoretically, with a 300M jump range, you’d manage, but 200M seems too little for a 10x10 map.

Scott says also (It seems to me that it constantly refers to 6x6, so in any case, that's why I didn't have any problems with very rare before.):

So this is really important. I play at 200M but that is a bit limiting. You may get frustrated when an independent colony seems not to far away but you can’t colonize it because it’s “too far from your other colonies”. So playing with my other Very Rare settings above, you might not have any good enough quality planets you can colonize between your home and that juicy independent colony you want. So if you go with Very Rare above like I do, you might consider 300M (I do sometimes). Keeping it low is nice because it slows down the other empire expansion (outward). But be aware it doesn’t affect conquering a colony - which has no distance limit.

[Mozzy]

I like largest maps possible, so exclusively play on 2k star 10x10 sector - and use 300M range (with settings noted below dialed down, to offset the longer range)

Regardless of map size, the main levers that dictate colony expansion ease/difficulty are abundance setting for how many and how good/suitable planets are, how rare/frequent independents you can take over are, and the colony max range setting.

Even if you have really low max range setting, if you set abundance to max, then it trivializes colonization b/c almost every small cluster area will have at least few to many planets your race can live well on. Same for if you crank up # of independents to max.

So really, the ultimate answer is going to be a fine tuning of balance between which of the main levers you dial up/down.

Also fwiw - with the Shakturi DLC feature of Outpost functionality, if used correctly it really makes colony expansion lot easier. I almost say close to trivial, because you can land on some totally junk planet full of toxic sewage, just to use as spring board to good planet in range of it.

[Dray Prescot]

200 M is the size (horizontally or vertically) of one Sector, although the Game Map does not show them , like DW Universe (the last Version of Distant Worlds (1)) did. But diagonally a Sector is the Square Root of 2 = 1.414 times 200 M or about 280 M.

A 10 by 10 Sector Map is 2000 M in both horizontal and vertical directions. For a 2000 Star 1O by 10 Map, I usually push my Colonization Range up to 400 M. That should give enough range for your Explorers to find at least a few Worlds suitable for your Race, with starting Tech levels. Research in Colony Techs will improve this but they are expensive to research very early in a new Game.

However, if you start close to the edge of the Galaxy, you can lose close to 50% of the potential Star Systems to explore.

For smaller Maps, a shorter Colonization Range is probably better. Remember that the Colonization Range also affects the AI Empires that you are competing against to find and Colonize Worlds.

If you start near the edge of a 10 by 10 Galaxy, you are close to 5 Sectors away from the Center of the Galaxy, or about 1000 M,

added: on a 8 by 8 Galaxy, the radius is 4 Sectors or 800 M from the Center of the Galaxy to the rim of a Spiral Galaxy.

The availability of Worlds that you can Colonize depends somewhat on what Race you are playing. Humans find it harder to find good Worlds since they want Continental types, and those are somewhat rare.

Your real problem is setting things to Very Rare for IND Worlds and Habitable/Colonizable Worlds. Try increasing to uncommon for both, and try to get at least a few IND Worlds as your Colonies. They will give you a greater variety of worlds to colonize, if their Race(s) is(are) different than your own starting Race. That will help you a lot.

In the long run, i.e. after you increase your research capacity enough, you need to research the Colonization Techs for the Worlds that you have any Populations for. But first you need a few new Colonies and Research Labs.

With the new DLC and changes to game mechanics, you can also use Outposts to extend the areas you can reach to colonize in. But you need to do a lot of exploring, which means building a lot of Explorers, so you know where you need to build the Outposts in order to reach more Worlds to Colonize.

[Wilhelm]

Originally posted by Ricardo:

^^^
All my 300 hours of gameplay recently were mainly on 6x6 and 700. I mostly followed Scott’s Distant Worlds 2 Guide, and as far as I know, Scott (I think he’s a former employee of the game’s developer) has created the most accurate video guides and a very interesting PDF guide.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=380441

Scott says:

Colony Prevalence: So I really don’t like the default game where I have 50+ colonies to manage. So I pick Very Rare. However - all this does is lower the planet qualities which isn’t a perfect solution. Eventually with techs you can still end up a lot of colonies but it’s
much later (because the expense of low quality colonies is prohibitive). I’m not sure how the AI deals with this. I might recommend Normal or Rare your first play through but you can’t go wrong with Very rare. So this one I do strongly recommend Very Rare.


Independent Colonies: These are one colony empires - like city states in CIV VI - except all you do is either absorb them or conquer them. They are very valuable to get as they become profitable much faster than new colonies (especially if you colonize rather than conquer them). Less is more fun IMHO.

And so far (the last 300 hours of gameplay), it worked. Now, for a change, I felt like playing on a larger map. The next colony is 330M away, and theoretically, with a 300M jump range, you’d manage, but 200M seems too little for a 10x10 map.

Scott says also (It seems to me that it constantly refers to 6x6, so in any case, that's why I didn't have any problems with very rare before.):

So this is really important. I play at 200M but that is a bit limiting. You may get frustrated when an independent colony seems not to far away but you can’t colonize it because it’s “too far from your other colonies”. So playing with my other Very Rare settings above, you might not have any good enough quality planets you can colonize between your home and that juicy independent colony you want. So if you go with Very Rare above like I do, you might consider 300M (I do sometimes). Keeping it low is nice because it slows down the other empire expansion (outward). But be aware it doesn’t affect conquering a colony - which has no distance limit.

this is out of date though. colony distribution / prevalence changed a lot.
i´d never play with very rare (always did before) now, since it heavily handicaps the AI.