In order to play tall how many planets and systems do you need to have?

[Evoxrus XV]

Question, what is the amount of systems and planets do you need in order to play y’all properly? What is having too much or too little systems and planets in order to properly play tall?

[Hat8]

Playing Tall kinda sucks now since large planets and systems can easily recoup the research costs and being larger is objectively better for unity. Megastructure RNG is also kinda annoying.

[MightyFox]

Playing tall was heavily nerfed with changes to habitats. They now cost twice as much and are roughly half as effective as they used to be. True you can make them larger, but then that's 2 ascension perks as opposed to one. On higher difficulties, the AI will use them too, making it so reaching the planet cap neccessary to win is nearly impossible unless you go out and conquer/destroy.

The only reason to truly play tall now is if your backed into a corner and you need to stay competitive before trying to break out. The way the map generator works in this game (if you could call it working) you will find it happening a lot more often than not.

However, to directly answer your question, it will depend on map size. Smaller maps need smaller amounts of territory than larger maps, and it will depend on RNG in how many useless planets you have in a system, (where you can build habitats). Later on, if you're still using the strategy, ring worlds will help close the gap, but it can be tricky to survive that long and they are very expensive and take a very long time to make. You'll also need a few empty systems to "sacrifice"

Unfortunately, many people will telly you the game is a lot more fun to be aggressive wide than defensive tall, and they are right. The game just isn't yet built to be a true 4x in the traditional sense.

[Evoxrus XV]

Originally posted by Matt66:

Playing Tall kinda sucks now since large planets and systems can easily recoup the research costs and being larger is objectively better for unity. Megastructure RNG is also kinda annoying.

Originally posted by MightyFox:

Playing tall was heavily nerfed with changes to habitats. They now cost twice as much and are roughly half as effective as they used to be. True you can make them larger, but then that's 2 ascension perks as opposed to one. On higher difficulties, the AI will use them too, making it so reaching the planet cap neccessary to win is nearly impossible unless you go out and conquer/destroy.

The only reason to truly play tall now is if your backed into a corner and you need to stay competitive before trying to break out. The way the map generator works in this game (if you could call it working) you will find it happening a lot more often than not.

However, to directly answer your question, it will depend on map size. Smaller maps need smaller amounts of territory than larger maps, and it will depend on RNG in how many useless planets you have in a system, (where you can build habitats). Later on, if you're still using the strategy, ring worlds will help close the gap, but it can be tricky to survive that long and they are very expensive and take a very long time to make. You'll also need a few empty systems to "sacrifice"

Unfortunately, many people will telly you the game is a lot more fun to be aggressive wide than defensive tall, and they are right. The game just isn't yet built to be a true 4x in the traditional sense.

I see, oh well. Playing large is pretty Un already.

[Belhedler]

Trying to figure that actually. I'm pretty sure the only thing you can outsmart the AI is your research rate in the first decades. Given that research penalty is now proportional to the number of systems you own and (space/engineering) research stations appears to be far more frequent than in previous version, but still limited to about 2.5 points per system on average (personal estimate - see more detailed version below), then this means there is a moment when getting too many systems will generate a malus on research rate that cannot be compensated with research stations. I'm ignoring the penalty for planets and the energy sustaining for these stations for now.

[Xobra]

Try to expand at a maximum of 40 systems. If you see juicy system, grab them though. Try to grab Living Metal (mostly LvL7 Anomalie) Try to colonize as much as your core system allows it (normally 4-7 with early Techs) and prefer bigger planets. Techs (and maybe Traits) will quickly stabilize colonies in other climates.
Although Habitats cost double now, it still isn't much of a problem. Even when playing Tall, go for Economy (minerals, energy first) Since you won't be expanding much, the resources will accumulate

[Belhedler]

based on my game, I own from stations only:
- 10 planets (0.12). Btw my habitable planet ratio was 1.25. Looks about right no?
- 274 energy (3.3),
- 386 minerals (4.6),
- 75 engineering research (.9),
- 25 society research (.3),
- 103 voidcraft research (1.2),
- 12 strategical resources, because well I got a spot with 7 of them in only 5 systems (two of them being Living Metal)... they said it was rarer in 2.1 right?

In a total of 84 systems. The figures in parenthesis are the average per system. I checked the entire map and the ratio is about the same for every nation.

This confirms the feeling I had during my playthrough since 1.9:
- energy has became much more mandatory while influence use was greatly reduced to expanding and "strategizing". Also there is not enough energy to operate all the stations, even when considering the size of said stations, without the help of energy plants from planets. I guess this means crippling the energy income of your enemy remains a valid tactics.
- society research used to be scarce but I guess not to this point!

My research penalties are 83% from systems and 45% from planets. 5% penalty per planet after first one is definetely quite a cheap price to pay and the reason why odds work in favor of wide play.

So I made the figures talk and got this. The first column is the number of systems you own. Penalty for these is easy: 1% for each except the first one. The requirements in months for a 500 worth research item are shown in the next three columns (before applying modifiers). Next is the amount of research produced per category from stations alone based on the average ratio given earlier.

nb	eng r.	void r.	soc r.	eng p.	void p.	soc p.
1	84	84	56	6	6	9
5	47,9	41,3	58,8	11	12	11
10	33,5	27,4	61,6	15	18	12
15	25,8	20,5	64,4	20	25	14
20	20,9	16,4	67,2	24	31	15
25	17,6	13,6	70	29	37	17
30	15,2	11,7	72,8	33	43	18
35	13,4	10,2	75,6	38	49	20
40	12,0	9,1	78,4	42	56	21
45	10,8	8,1	81,2	47	62	23
50	9,8	7,4	84	51	68	24
55	9,0	6,8	86,8	56	74	26
60	8,4	6,3	89,6	60	80	27
65	7,8	5,8	92,4	65	87	29
70	7,3	5,4	95,2	69	93	30
75	6,8	5,1	98	74	99	32
80	6,4	4,8	100,8	78	105	33
85	6,1	4,5	103,6	83	111	35
90	5,8	4,3	106,4	87	118	36
95	5,5	4,1	109,2	92	124	38
100	5,2	3,9	112	96	130	39
105	5,0	3,7	114,8	101	136	41
110	4,8	3,5	117,6	105	143	42
115	4,6	3,4	120,4	110	149	44

It says something troublesome: you will cripple your society research effort for as many systems you own to the point of utter destruction. I actually felt that in the game and turned most of my research plants into bio labs early and was still barely able to cope with the pacing of my two other categories! The problem is the difference is such that even with a +15% society research trait and specialize leader you'll still be far from the target! The good news is the problem is the same for your opponents (society research contract becomes a must then)

Another point of interest: although far from being as worse as society is, you won't be able to keep the pace on high tier researches in engineering and voidcraft without the help of labs. Guess you won't be able to roll these 6000 points worth researches in 10 months anymore without superstructures. The best you can go seems to be 5 years?

That means one thing for me: biolab is a mandatory research asap if you want to keep up in the society department. Otherwise forget it completely and focus on the two other ones. Problem is fleet cap increase is in the society tree.

I hope the game is RNG to the point of showing these large differences, which actually means my playthrough is crippled in a few areas.

[Evoxrus XV]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

based on my game, I own from stations only:
- 10 planets (0.12). Btw my habitable planet ratio was 1.25. Looks about right no?
- 274 energy (3.3),
- 386 minerals (4.6),
- 75 engineering research (.9),
- 25 society research (.3),
- 103 voidcraft research (1.2),
- 12 strategical resources, because well I got a spot with 7 of them in only 5 systems (two of them being Living Metal)... they said it was rarer in 2.1 right?

In a total of 84 systems. The figures in parenthesis are the average per system. I checked the entire map and the ratio is about the same for every nation.

This confirms the feeling I had during my playthrough since 1.9:
- energy has became much more mandatory while influence use was greatly reduced to expanding and "strategizing". Also there is not enough energy to operate all the stations, even when considering the size of said stations, without the help of energy plants from planets. I guess this means crippling the energy income of your enemy remains a valid tactics.
- society research used to be scarce but I guess not to this point!

My research penalties are 83% from systems and 45% from planets. 5% penalty per planet after first one is definetely quite a cheap price to pay and the reason why odds work in favor of wide play.

So I made the figures talk and got this. The first column is the number of systems you own. Penalty for these is easy: 1% for each except the first one. The requirements in months for a 500 worth research item are shown in the next three columns (before applying modifiers). Next is the amount of research produced per category from stations alone based on the average ratio given earlier.

nb	eng r.	void r.	soc r.	eng p.	void p.	soc p.
1	84	84	56	6	6	9
5	47,9	41,3	58,8	11	12	11
10	33,5	27,4	61,6	15	18	12
15	25,8	20,5	64,4	20	25	14
20	20,9	16,4	67,2	24	31	15
25	17,6	13,6	70	29	37	17
30	15,2	11,7	72,8	33	43	18
35	13,4	10,2	75,6	38	49	20
40	12,0	9,1	78,4	42	56	21
45	10,8	8,1	81,2	47	62	23
50	9,8	7,4	84	51	68	24
55	9,0	6,8	86,8	56	74	26
60	8,4	6,3	89,6	60	80	27
65	7,8	5,8	92,4	65	87	29
70	7,3	5,4	95,2	69	93	30
75	6,8	5,1	98	74	99	32
80	6,4	4,8	100,8	78	105	33
85	6,1	4,5	103,6	83	111	35
90	5,8	4,3	106,4	87	118	36
95	5,5	4,1	109,2	92	124	38
100	5,2	3,9	112	96	130	39
105	5,0	3,7	114,8	101	136	41
110	4,8	3,5	117,6	105	143	42
115	4,6	3,4	120,4	110	149	44

It says something troublesome: you will cripple your society research effort for as many systems you own to the point of utter destruction. I actually felt that in the game and turned most of my research plants into bio labs early and was still barely able to cope with the pacing of my two other categories! The problem is the difference is such that even with a +15% society research trait and specialize leader you'll still be far from the target! The good news is the problem is the same for your opponents (society research contract becomes a must then)

Another point of interest: although far from being as worse as society is, you won't be able to keep the pace on high tier researches in engineering and voidcraft without the help of labs. Guess you won't be able to roll these 6000 points worth researches in 10 months anymore without superstructures. The best you can go seems to be 5 years?

That means one thing for me: biolab is a mandatory research asap if you want to keep up in the society department. Otherwise forget it completely and focus on the two other ones. Problem is fleet cap increase is in the society tree.

I hope the game is RNG to the point of showing these large differences, which actually means my playthrough is crippled in a few areas.

Wow. That is really, really detailed. Thanks for the response, it has helped me immensely on how I will be playing tall! :D

[Belhedler]

If you have Utopia DLC then it will be possible. Otherwise don't bother unless by tall you mean having 10 planets max. In tall play, look for min-max.