When should you take a planet now?

[Terrarius]

In AIW1 i would only take planets with advanced research centers or the likes or if the stuff i wanted was too deep into enemy territory to be taken without a planet inbetween
I can,t find advanced research stations or the likes...everything valueable i found can be taken without actually conquering the planet.
This is the result
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/957471226133808200/C1556FB38ED0C5C41AA67FA90EB964D643BC6DEC/

When would you suggest to take a planet?I don,t think im doing it right when im still at 1 planet 4 hours in

[GipsyDanger]

If you are literally 4 hours of game play with only 1 planet, I'm surprised no instigators popped up for you to take out. Make sure in the Galaxy screen you are zooming in to make sure you aren't missing any blueprints/important structures. (They would pop up on bottom of the planet)
If you aren't having any luck exploring with your scout 1s, upgrade to 2s to explore further to give you an idea where to expand.

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

Whew, you've hardly scouted! Who knows what is lurking out there. ;)

A few quick thoughts:

1. What used to be Advanced Research Stations are now Schematic Servers. There are now more of them than there used to be. You still have to take the planets to capture them.

2. There are other places where there's something good to capture that requires taking the planet, too, but you have to explore for those. Zenith Power Generators, golems if those are enabled, and so on.

3. Overall I'm surprised you're able to do much with that little amount of Energy. Just getting a solid bloc of planets up around yourself will let you put up many more generators, aside from giving you more metal. With your economy really running full blast, you can fleet and refleet much faster, thus allowing you a lot more flexibility.

4. You also need to take planets to get the Science out of them. Ideally there's another benefit on top of that, but frankly if you don't take enough planets in order to get science, then you can't unlock many high-level ships at all. So you'll forever be very weak and poor, in terms of your empire.

5. I wouldn't be too afraid of increasing the AIP a lot. Some folks do play with a very no-AIP sort of fashion and take almost no planets, but that's an atypical approach and usually only on the very highest difficulties. For most people, the game's a lot more fun if you take 8-12 planets over the course of the game.

6. Yes taking planets will make the AI more powerful, but so long as you're choosing the planets well you will get more powerful than they do from it. They'll be much more likely to destroy you than they are at the start of the game, but victory actually becomes possible for you, too. So basically the stakes raise a lot as this happens, but they wind up being more of a sledgehammer while you are more of a knife.

[Terrarius]

Originally posted by x-4000 (Chris Park):

Whew, you've hardly scouted! Who knows what is lurking out there. ;)

A few quick thoughts:

1. What used to be Advanced Research Stations are now Schematic Servers. There are now more of them than there used to be. You still have to take the planets to capture them.

2. There are other places where there's something good to capture that requires taking the planet, too, but you have to explore for those. Zenith Power Generators, golems if those are enabled, and so on.

3. Overall I'm surprised you're able to do much with that little amount of Energy. Just getting a solid bloc of planets up around yourself will let you put up many more generators, aside from giving you more metal. With your economy really running full blast, you can fleet and refleet much faster, thus allowing you a lot more flexibility.

4. You also need to take planets to get the Science out of them. Ideally there's another benefit on top of that, but frankly if you don't take enough planets in order to get science, then you can't unlock many high-level ships at all. So you'll forever be very weak and poor, in terms of your empire.

5. I wouldn't be too afraid of increasing the AIP a lot. Some folks do play with a very no-AIP sort of fashion and take almost no planets, but that's an atypical approach and usually only on the very highest difficulties. For most people, the game's a lot more fun if you take 8-12 planets over the course of the game.

6. Yes taking planets will make the AI more powerful, but so long as you're choosing the planets well you will get more powerful than they do from it. They'll be much more likely to destroy you than they are at the start of the game, but victory actually becomes possible for you, too. So basically the stakes raise a lot as this happens, but they wind up being more of a sledgehammer while you are more of a knife.

Thanks for the answers.
Do spaceports still have the 3-engineer cap?

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

3 engineers boosting at a time? Was that a cap we added in the first game? It may have been after my time, or just my bad memory not remember. At any rate, there are no caps on the number of assistants to a dock now. :)

[Terrarius]

Originally posted by x-4000 (Chris Park):

3 engineers boosting at a time? Was that a cap we added in the first game? It may have been after my time, or just my bad memory not remember. At any rate, there are no caps on the number of assistants to a dock now. :)

The wiki in AIW1 mentioned that more than 3 engineers on 1 spaceport will have reduced efficiency

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

Ahh... okay, right. I don't recall exactly why we did that, but it rings a bell now. It's not in this game, though, and I don't plan on adding that at the moment. We're overall using fewer docks here, to make it easier to deal with, so limiting the output from one dock goes against that new philosophy.

[Terrarius]

Originally posted by x-4000 (Chris Park):

Ahh... okay, right. I don't recall exactly why we did that, but it rings a bell now. It's not in this game, though, and I don't plan on adding that at the moment. We're overall using fewer docks here, to make it easier to deal with, so limiting the output from one dock goes against that new philosophy.

What exactly does the AI do to force you to be more aggresive insted of just sitting on your corner of the galaxy for 10 hours to do something with your abyssal metal income?SInce you had basicly infinite time in AIW1 there was little reason to go for better economy there

[Tchue]

Originally posted by Terrarius:

Originally posted by x-4000 (Chris Park):

Ahh... okay, right. I don't recall exactly why we did that, but it rings a bell now. It's not in this game, though, and I don't plan on adding that at the moment. We're overall using fewer docks here, to make it easier to deal with, so limiting the output from one dock goes against that new philosophy.

What exactly does the AI do to force you to be more aggresive insted of just sitting on your corner of the galaxy for 10 hours to do something with your abyssal metal income?SInce you had basicly infinite time in AIW1 there was little reason to go for better economy there

In AI War 1 it HIGHLY depended on the difficulty and AI types you were against.

[Terrarius]

Originally posted by Tchue:

Originally posted by Terrarius:

What exactly does the AI do to force you to be more aggresive insted of just sitting on your corner of the galaxy for 10 hours to do something with your abyssal metal income?SInce you had basicly infinite time in AIW1 there was little reason to go for better economy there

In AI War 1 it HIGHLY depended on the difficulty and AI types you were against.

The worst it could do if my memory serves right is walling itself with unbeatable defense if you wasted too much time...never would it do any dangerous offense because waves will stay pitifull aslong you don,t take much and threat won,t build up if you keep cleaning the planets you cross and the neighbours who get reinforcements

Im hoping for galaxywide projects the Ai starts that could kill me if i don,t expand aggresively enough to stop them in time