Discovery vs expansion as an opening tradition?

[Chuddly]

I don't see anything recent when I search it. Maybe nothing has changed with the traditions, I'm too new (15 hours in) to know but both seem like really good opening traditions. The +1 pop on colonized worlds and 10'% pop growth of expansion seems incredible but the 35% increase in surveying and 20% in anomaly investigation is also incredible plus finishing discovery gives you 10% boost to research. I can't tell which is better early on. I sort of feel like starting with discovery for the survey boost then going to expansion, finishing it, then going back to discovery to finish it is a good strategy.

what do you think?

[Chuddly]

引用自 SkiRich：

引用自 Mr CanEHdian：

So you'd start and finish discovery before even looking at expansion?

Yep, but I do max all my unity using traits and buildings and that election time award (democracy 10 year elections), so discovery is done very quick.

Are there other ways to max unity other than traits and democracy? So Dictatorships lack in this regard?

[Chuddly]

引用自 SkiRich：

引用自 Mr CanEHdian：

Does it make the AI smarter and more efficient or just give them unfair advantages and increase their aggression?

Yes and yes. No unfair advantages. I find that they pose a serious challenge to me. I play a science rush game, and now they do too.
I do not start any games with advanced ai or advanced neighbors either.

So it kind of forces you to match their style of tech rushing?

[SkiRich]

引用自 Mr CanEHdian：

引用自 SkiRich：

Yes and yes. No unfair advantages. I find that they pose a serious challenge to me. I play a science rush game, and now they do too.
I do not start any games with advanced ai or advanced neighbors either.

So it kind of forces you to match their style of tech rushing?

You ignore it at your own peril. You can ignore it until the point where their tech has allowed them to have high yield production and their science has given them a vast advantage in military tech.
Once they outnumber your fleets and defenses they will war you.
One of the changes StarTech ai does is it causes the AI to always want to expand by any means. If they can't war for territory and planets they will build ring worlds and other pop increasing items, all for the sole purpose of having a better production.

Its quite the opposite of vanilla. In vanilla you have to cheat the ai some advantages to have a challenge. With this mod you can put everyone on equal footing and the best strategy wins.

You should try one or two games with it.

I also added Gigastructures, and oh boy does the AI take full advantage of those assets.

I can never go back to vanilla again.

[galadon3]

I start with expansion, main argument isnt the +1pop and +10% growth so, those are really nice but if it was just for those you could take it second, no the main argument is the cheaper influence cost for claiming new systems.
Now it all depends a bit on your game settings, but I usually play small map with many AI-empires so anything giving me an advantage in that first claim-rush is vital, and influence is usually the bottleneck for that.

Now you might think "but discovery has a bonus to survey", well that can easily be done by having more science ships.
That said discovery is always my second tree to get that tech-bonus as soon as possible, after the borders I want are secured.