Am I growing too soon?

[Veqqie-Veq]

After watching some instructional opening videos, I'm pushing fairly hard to stretch myself thin?

And while we're on the subject, at the point where I feel it's time to get a sector going, is that way too soon since I haven't already set included planets on a specialized course? Feels like I'm giving up too much control over critical areas just to gain colonization ability, furthering the thinning out?

[Jimmy McGill]

There is no such thing as too much expansion. Sectors are ♥♥♥♥, so set them to science and queue up stuff before sectoring planets(especially robots, sectors never build them), and set your sectors to science so the planets and pops there dont dilude your research too much(they will still produce energy and minerals anyway).

[Veqqie-Veq]

Nice, quick and encouraging reply. Ideally yes, but I feel there's a timing to it. In the early game pushing hard to expand is costly and I don't see how defensible that early territory gain is - could sacrifice a few edge constructions by the time defenses arrive, but that's turfwar and I wouldn't say very deep. I'm wondering if I'm missing out and falling behind in some areas midgame due to corralling colony ships as soon as I get the tech?

[Sir Godson]

I like to take over primitive worlds before I colonize anything, then focus my efforts on knocking out the nearest neighbor who would be in between said primitive worlds and my capital. At that point I can colonize every type of world since I have a variety of species available to me, then use all that territory to fund my mid game. You fall behind in research, but being able to host a giant fleet makes up for it.

[Xcorps]

Grabbing planets that you can't afford to upgrade with your pop growth has a negative impact on your research. Each planet gives you a 10% penalty as soon as you colonize it plus the pop hit, so a colony that makes your pop go from 10 to 11 gives you an 11% hit. The unconfirmed formula is basecost*(1+(planets*.1+(pop-10)*.01)

So unless you account for that in your expansion plan you will fall behind in tech.

[Veqqie-Veq]

Originally posted by The Ryan Godson Effect:

I like to take over primitive worlds before I colonize anything, then focus my efforts on knocking out the nearest neighbor who would be in between said primitive worlds and my capital. At that point I can colonize every type of world since I have a variety of species available to me, then use all that territory to fund my mid game. You fall behind in research, but being able to host a giant fleet makes up for it.

Solid and fun. I'll have to try that. I've been trying to incorporate robots early game as cut to building mining stations. Specialization, I'm still learning. A lot goes into planning each new colonization. Some of the videos out there are just buzzing through the process. Leaves the thinker, or perhaps less experienced players with lots of questions.

[Veqqie-Veq]

Originally posted by Xcorps:

Grabbing planets that you can't afford to upgrade with your pop growth has a negative impact on your research. Each planet gives you a 10% penalty as soon as you colonize it plus the pop hit, so a colony that makes your pop go from 10 to 11 gives you an 11% hit. The unconfirmed formula is basecost*(1+(planets*.1+(pop-10)*.01)

So unless you account for that in your expansion plan you will fall behind in tech.

Yes, the drop off is pretty nasty when I float back-to-back, to back colony ships. Which is why I've been trying my darndest to make effecient my researchers.

Thanks for the thoughts here. Maybe that first colony push would be more effective if I have enough for an immediate spaceport builds with orbital Hydroponics to increase growth?

[Xcorps]

Personally I like to scout far and wide looking for 20+ favorable systems. I don't colonize until I find some. That usually covers a lot of space leaving big gaps in my borders so I'll try to block off hyperlanes chokepoints with frontier outposts. I don't play with a lot of AI opponents and I use a mod for non-clustered starts giving me lots of room to look around. In my current game I've got about 11 low habitability, 4 medium habitability and 4 high habitability worlds in the zone I want to colonize. I've got right now 4 20+ colonies growing and I've only made contact with 2 empires, one of which is boxed in on a dead end and friendly. The other I have blocked out with a FO and a colony with closed borders. The other side of my zone has a FO on chokepoints. As I grow these first few colonies, I'm building for balance. My next expansion phase I'll make research heavy because I just hit the point in the tech tree where new techs are taking 2 years to research.

In my opinion, rushing for colony count will box you in to a struggle to maintain energy/mineral income at the expense of research. You can't really play tall throughout the game, but I find it more manageable to start tall and then get wide with the "bubble" approach I described.

[Jimmy McGill]

Originally posted by Xcorps:

Personally I like to scout far and wide looking for 20+ favorable systems. I don't colonize until I find some. That usually covers a lot of space leaving big gaps in my borders so I'll try to block off hyperlanes chokepoints with frontier outposts. I don't play with a lot of AI opponents and I use a mod for non-clustered starts giving me lots of room to look around. In my current game I've got about 11 low habitability, 4 medium habitability and 4 high habitability worlds in the zone I want to colonize. I've got right now 4 20+ colonies growing and I've only made contact with 2 empires, one of which is boxed in on a dead end and friendly. The other I have blocked out with a FO and a colony with closed borders. The other side of my zone has a FO on chokepoints. As I grow these first few colonies, I'm building for balance. My next expansion phase I'll make research heavy because I just hit the point in the tech tree where new techs are taking 2 years to research.

In my opinion, rushing for colony count will box you in to a struggle to maintain energy/mineral income at the expense of research. You can't really play tall throughout the game, but I find it more manageable to start tall and then get wide with the "bubble" approach I described.

But thats in a scenario where you have room to expand no matter what and therefore less pressure to secure space, and hyperlanes which are not used most of the time.

[SERIAL BASSIST]

There is no such thing as growing too fast - more pops = more resources more planets = more naval capacity. General rule of thumb i follow is for the first stage of the game only spend minerals to do 3 things 1) Make more minerals 2) Make more colony Ships 3)Build more military ships.

Honestly you can almost ignore science for the first stage of the game, if you end up fighting someone who is slightly ahead in technology in the first stages of the game your higher naval capacity is 99% of the time going to be a larger advantage than their superior tech.

Dont try to get more energy, only ever build more energy buildings when you start to hit deficite, there is no reward for having a surplus in energy so at the beginning it is a waste of minerals.

Once you have 5-6 planets, and you have built your economy to be strong and maxed your naval capacity you will have tons of room to grow science and you will very very quickly catch up because you have more pops working plots to make up for the penalty you initially recieved for your rapid expansion.

This strategy wins games, if you don't want to have effectively won the game by the mid game dont do this basically. In MP for me this has been the most competitive strategy if your planning to conquest everything.

That all said, its all about flavor and like i said this will make you the dominant force in the game very very quickly so if you can make your start more organic if you want, but if you want the best start to win the game quickly and be competitive, always prioritize growth.

[LAG]

Originally posted by Yee:

There is no such thing as too much expansion. Sectors are ♥♥♥♥, so set them to science and queue up stuff before sectoring planets(especially robots, sectors never build them), and set your sectors to science so the planets and pops there dont dilude your research too much(they will still produce energy and minerals anyway).

Originally posted by Xcorps:

Grabbing planets that you can't afford to upgrade with your pop growth has a negative impact on your research. Each planet gives you a 10% penalty as soon as you colonize it plus the pop hit, so a colony that makes your pop go from 10 to 11 gives you an 11% hit. The unconfirmed formula is basecost*(1+(planets*.1+(pop-10)*.01)

So unless you account for that in your expansion plan you will fall behind in tech.

ignore theese too

minerals & energy > research

every planet you take is a planet your enemy cannot take.

Every research you finnish is a research other people also can finnish, to add further insult they can scan your debris to jump to your technology point for free.

Without cheesing it's impossible to defeat an AI early on (with cheesing it can be done though).

out-teching an AI is also not going to happen, given that they have a 50% boost to evreything including tech.

You can out-expand them however, then simply research the debris after you've fought them to catch up.

So my advise would be for you to ditch research and colonize all the planets you reliably can. Take over primitve worlds and get mirgates to fill out the other two planet types.

For defence, get in good with an AI so that they have a "protective" attitude towards you. This will make them guarantee your independence. Sign non-agression pacts everywhere and try to make someone else a common enemy.

[Jimmy McGill]

Originally posted by SERIAL BASSIST:

There is no such thing as growing too fast - more pops = more resources more planets = more naval capacity. General rule of thumb i follow is for the first stage of the game only spend minerals to do 3 things 1) Make more minerals 2) Make more colony Ships 3)Build more military ships.

Honestly you can almost ignore science for the first stage of the game, if you end up fighting someone who is slightly ahead in technology in the first stages of the game your higher naval capacity is 99% of the time going to be a larger advantage than their superior tech.

Dont try to get more energy, only ever build more energy buildings when you start to hit deficite, there is no reward for having a surplus in energy so at the beginning it is a waste of minerals.

Once you have 5-6 planets, and you have built your economy to be strong and maxed your naval capacity you will have tons of room to grow science and you will very very quickly catch up because you have more pops working plots to make up for the penalty you initially recieved for your rapid expansion.

This strategy wins games, if you don't want to have effectively won the game by the mid game dont do this basically. In MP for me this has been the most competitive strategy if your planning to conquest everything.

That all said, its all about flavor and like i said this will make you the dominant force in the game very very quickly so if you can make your start more organic if you want, but if you want the best start to win the game quickly and be competitive, always prioritize growth.

If you have Levithans you need energy for enclave stuff, and if you are materialist for robots, and otherwise to clear tiles. And only getting more energy when you are getting red there is a really good idea if you want to experience Imperial Power Outages.

[Veqqie-Veq]

Originally posted by LAG:

You can out-expand them however, then simply research the debris after you've fought them to catch up.

So my advise would be for you to ditch research and colonize all the planets you reliably can. Take over primitve worlds and get mirgates to fill out the other two planet types.

LAG I hear ya, it just seems kinda maggoty to send a colonizing group to a planet filled with noxious plants and huge flesh eating beasts, etc. before knowing how to fix it. I know they don't have an immediate bearing, but in principle, I can't say this is effective strategy?

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by srqsteven:

Originally posted by LAG:

You can out-expand them however, then simply research the debris after you've fought them to catch up.

So my advise would be for you to ditch research and colonize all the planets you reliably can. Take over primitve worlds and get mirgates to fill out the other two planet types.

LAG I hear ya, it just seems kinda maggoty to send a colonizing group to a planet filled with noxious plants and huge flesh eating beasts, etc. before knowing how to fix it. I know they don't have an immediate bearing, but in principle, I can't say this is effective strategy?

All you need to know is that you magically get increased naval cap and territory for every colonist you leave at the mercy of native hentai monsters. As long as you don't think too much on how it works, everything is fine =)

[Veqqie-Veq]

Originally posted by Xcorps:

In my opinion, rushing for colony count will box you in to a struggle to maintain energy/mineral income at the expense of research. You can't really play tall throughout the game, but I find it more manageable to start tall and then get wide with the "bubble" approach I described.

How I see things usually myself. I've been setting up:

Hard
Medium Size
Max AI
No Fallen
Aggressive
Clusters

AI doesn't expand much before I start laying out colonies, then quickly catches up. And I need to be more careful with colonizing 12-16 class planets only for them to border Enemy 22-25's. I haven't been taking advantage of cooperating with other races for colonizing less appealing planets. I agree with you, searching for good ones is better than taking less productive garbage to give me a sense of safety.

I'm not vastly experienced yet, but I keep thinking tall with more focus on ship advances, strategy to get in and out of fairly early wars is the key. Otherwise it seems like I'm rushing, for somewhat senseless calls, in fear of being squeezed, when I'm going to feel squeezed eventually anyway. Difference is, hopefully, I won't be rolling out a herd of Winnebagos and calling that system defense.

[Veqqie-Veq]

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

Originally posted by srqsteven:

All you need to know is that you magically get increased naval cap and territory for every colonist you leave at the mercy of native hentai monsters. As long as you don't think too much on how it works, everything is fine =)

Love it!