Residential Sectors, Colony District Buildings, and ROI (Return on Investment)

Youtube Link

Here is a link to my YT video:

Why are Residential Sectors good?

With the addition of them, what you annex is more important than ever before. Each colony can now hold a lot more land, so you have more options to consider. If you want a simpler explanation about how to choose sectors to annex, I did one a year ago, called “Beginner's Guide to Colonies”, back when some of the mechanics were quite different. A lot of the guiding principles from that video still apply today.

Residential sectors also make it so larger colonies are slightly better, prioritizing playing “tall”, allowing you to protect your economic production with less units.

Residential sectors give you access to the immaculate specialist building bonuses (that is once you have research the specialist building, built it, and it’s 2 upgrades)

Basic tips/ general info/ guiding principles:

You need residential sectors to get the high levels for the specialist building. We should cover how to upgrade the racial building. 1 upgrade per residential sector. Two basic level res sectors can take you to the second level of the racial building. Upgrading the res sectors does not allow you to get higher level specialist building. The tool tip was recently rewritten to be clearer.

You can’t build an extra sector at 20 or 24 pops without a residential sector, but you can always dismantle an older sector in the late game to make room for residential sectors.

NeverZero likes making his first residential districts at 8 or 12 pops. Some players may want to rush out an immaculate racial building for their bonuses.

Forward sectors can save sectors that you may want to expand into/ build residential sectors in

You can only grab a sector that is more than two sectors from your colony center, if the residential sector is adjacent

Using the Builder doctrine will allow you to make sector upgrades, and the racial buildings a lot faster. So will the dvar doctrine which reduces building prod by 20%.

You can’t make residential sectors in sectors with mountains.

If you can put them in a volcanic territory, that is a decent option. (depends on if you got lots of volcanic territory that you need to use)

When you delete a res sector it becomes ruins (e/r) so you can use this feature to terraform! (Assembly can get extra research from ruins, through the neural-interfacing datacore building)

Orbital relays give another job slot for the basic job, which is quite similar yet different then to the bonus that residential sectors give, which is +1 per basic job. So essentially they do the same thing to varying degrees depending on the size of your colony. The orbital relay will be better for smaller colonies, and residential better for bigger ones.

ROI

Ninjew - ROI for most of the racial buildings is fairly easy. If dvar give 6 energy and 6 production, and a normal pop gives 5 energy or 5 production, then you have a net gain of 7 resources per pop. So for the first level you're getting 14 resources a turn. Divide the production cost of making the building by this to get the number of turns it takes to get out what you put in.

The first tier of residential sector is comparable to a level 3 energy exploitation when the colony is at 20 pops. (+20 free energy from the energy exploit ~= +20 energy if all 20 pops are on basic job slots [which they can’t be]) Sure you can get more out of them with upgrades, but it’s just as easy to get a t3 basic exploitation as it is to get a basic residential sector (you do have to spend 225 production to make the racial building, where as the basics get level 3 if the terrains provides the right modifiers.. But you can put residential sectors on any land sector, making them more versatile)

ROI res at 20 pop ~ 150/20 = 7.5 turns (ROI res at 10 pop ~ 150/10 = 15 turns)

(Mr No calculated that it takes about 9.375 turns until it is better to have spend 150 production on this building than converted it into energy with the generate energy option at 4 pops/at the beginning of the game)

ROI lvl 3 ee ~ 150/20 = 7.5 turns

Residential? >> Research, Energy, Production >> Food (food is slightly better now that you have residential sectors to grow towards)

Where do orbital exploitations fit in here? Keep in mind you can now move two stacks per relay per turn instead of just one. (Sometimes before E,R,P; sometimes after; always better than food? In certain situations the orbital relay is better than residential, but it is easier to get valuable out of a residential sector?)

Caveats:

The research required to unlock residential sectors was not included in the cost of investment because you get value out of the residential sector. The research required to get the specialist building was not included.

Not all resources are created equal, 5 energy is better than 5 production, so there's also relative values mucking up the practical roi So the basic calculation is more of a starting point than a definitive number when it comes to "is it worth it" It is the part that you can assign a cold hard number to, the rest is much more subjective

Not all of the racial buildings are equally powerful. They fit the optimal playstyle of each racial faction

Colony District Buildings

1 cosemite is worth about 7.5 production
1 influence is worth about 7.5 production
1 happiness is worth about 1 production, maybe slightly more

We could take this a step further, but this is a simplified ROI calculation.

Mr No figured out that, on average, if you're buying npc units, each point of influence is about 7.5 prod compared to how much prod + energy you'd spend to get that unit, but that's not factoring in stuff like getting the unit instantly or the relative value of npc units or how spending influence unlocks higher relationship tiers with better mods and also gives you more influence income.


Amazon

Basic: +6 food, +6 res -> 12 - 5= +7 extra resources per pop * 2 pops = 14 extra resources
ROI = 225/14 = 16.07 (Smaller means less turns until it payoff the cost of production)

Fine:+8 e, +8 p = +11 per pop (16-5) *4 pops
ROI = (225+300+150)/44 = 15.34

Immaculate: +10 e, +10 p + ? = (20-5) 15 * 6 pops = 90 extra resources from pops
ROI = (225+300+450+150+150)/ (90 + animals [est value is 170?]) = 4.9 when a society res is completed every turn(which you can save lower techs for), or 14.1 if you don’t complete a soc tech for 14 turns.

Eval: (3/8). Getting extra animal units is really good for the amazon, due to primal primal controller, which gives all animal units extra damage, and shields. Extra food -> more pops -> leans into what the residential sectors do well. Lots a variability on what you animals you get for free.



Assembly

Basic: +1 cos, -3 hap -> 7.5 - 3 - 5= -.5 extra resources per pop * 2 pops = -1 extra resources
ROI = 225/-1 = -225 (First level is bad? But build towards the best immac bonus in the game)

Fine: +2 cos, -3 hap -> 15 - 3 - 5= 7 extra resources per pop * 4 pops = 28 extra resources
ROI = (225+300+150)/28 = 24.1

Immaculate: +2 cos, -3 hap -> 15 - 3 - 5= 7 extra resources per pop * 6 pops = 42 extra resources
ROI = (225+300+450+150+150)/ (42 + a hero mod/weapon [est value is 250?]) = 4.36 when a military tech is completed every turn and you can use the hero mod(which is easy to do once you get access to the tech tree for multiple races), or 30.4 when you don’t (which will start to happen once you hit the part of the game where all of your hero's get strong weapons, and mods)

Eval: (1/8) getting extra cosmite is quite valuable, as it will allow you to mod your units more often, which helps out the assembly quite a bit as they are all about modding their units (they can do without putting a cooldown on the mods)

- Mr no said 27 cosmite before turn 20
- Assembly have a lot of ways to hurt their own pops. Rush food, then “burn the colony to the ground”? Could be ok for a turn 20 rush. Mr No is still playing around with the idea.


Dvar

Basic: +6 energy, +6 prod = -> 12 - 5= +7 extra resources per pop * 2 pops = 14 extra resources
ROI = 225/14 = 16.07

Fine:+8 e, +8 p = +11 per pop (16-5) *4
ROI = (225+300+150)/44 = 15.34

Immaculate: +10 e, +10 p + ? = (20-5) 15 * 6
ROI = (225+300+450+150+150)/ (90 + 100ish extra resources) = 6.7 if you can make a colony upgrade per turn or 14 if you can’t

Eval: (5/8) does what dvar are good at. Rushing out buildings and units. Reduced cost on rushing building, results in a high level of return. Buildings that cost 150, can be reduced by 40% with two doctrines = profitable.


Syndicate

Basic: +1 in, -10 e -> 7.5 - 10 - 5= -7.5 extra resources per pop * 2 pops = -15 extra resources
ROI = 225/-15 = -15 (First level is really bad. Generates less “value” than a pop in a basic job.)

Fine: +2 in, -10 e-> 15 - 10 - 5= 0 extra resources per pop * 4 pops = 0 extra resources
ROI = (225+300+150)/28 = 0 - never will pay itself off. Converts energy into influence. (Sinsling says can be worth sitting on the second level because the reward is pretty negligible, and requires you getting investing an extra 600 production for essentially two more job slots)

Immaculate: +2 in, -10 e-> 15 - 10 - 5= 0 extra resources per pop * 6 pops = 0 extra resources
ROI = (225+300+450+150+150)/ (0 + 20) = 63 - looking at these values i may have overvalued this specialist building. Having extra influence is super nice though… You should be able to get the happiness event as often as you would like (once you reach the immac level), as you will likely have loads of extra influence to spend if you focused on this specialist building. I guess you can rush influence and then not use these slots as much after you need the energy income for unit upkeep and/or operations later in the game.

Eval: (4/8) they have a weak immac bonus due to the strong nature of generating extra influ. With noble diplomats and indentured servitude as their t1 doctrines, syndicate players typically have energy to spare.


Kirko

Basic: +6 f, +3 hap -> 6 + 3 - 5= 4 extra resources per pop * 2 pops = 8 extra resources
ROI = 225/8 = 28.1

Fine: +8 f, +4 hap -> 8 + 4 - 5 = 7 extra resources per pop * 4 pops = 28 extra resources
ROI = (225+300+150)/28 = 24.1

Immaculate: +10 f, +5 hap -> 10 + 5 - 5= 10 extra resources per pop * 6 pops = 60 extra resources
ROI = (225+300+450+150+150)/ (60 + an emergent [30.. It costs 50 energy to summon one in]) = 14.2 when you either grow a pop or have a happiness event every turn (which could reasonably happen in smaller cities) 21.3 if neither happen for 21 turns (which is unlikely)

Eval: (8/8) Weakest option, happiness is overvalued in these buildings? And having extra emergent is not that good due to them being an awful unit. Having more food production will allow you to get a bigger colony faster.. Kirko are good at food production, so having more of it is good for them (brood cluster) .. Still not good enough to redeem the other aspects of this building. At least this building allows you to get bigger colonies faster aka what the kirko do well. Happiness events are better for bigger cities, so happiness becomes more valuable in bigger cities. With enough investment, you can get a happiness event every turn.

I could have included brood cluster prod cost in the ROI numbers, but I did not.

This bonus is so bad that some people just disband the emergent in multiplayer.


Vanguard

- Gives between 30-50 research per unit on turn 1 with console commands. Not sure where the variability is coming from. Not clear in the text how much you are supposed to get. After a certain point more research only has diminishing returns. [food and production have compounding returns, so more = better for those two]

Basic: +6 food, +6 prod = +7 extra resources per pop (12-5 = 7; each pops generates at least +5 of a resource) * 2 = +14 from this building
ROI = 225/14 = 16.07

Fine: +8 f, +8 p = (16-5) +11 per pop * 4 = 44
ROI = (300+150 [res sec] +225)/44 = 15.34

Immaculate: +10 f, +10 p, + 35 flat res = (20-5) +15 per pop * 6 + 35 = 90 + 35 = 125 from this building if you build 1 unit per turn, which can reasonably be done
ROI best case = (225+300+450+150+150)/125 = 10.2

Eval: (7/8) relatively ok in the mid game, but quite weak in the late game. Food and production are valued slightly lower than all of the other resources.. Having more food production will allow you to get a bigger colony faster.


Shakarn

Basic: +6r, +6 p = +7 extra resources per pop (12-5 = 7) * 2 = +14 from this building
ROI = 225/14 = 16.07

Fine: +8 r, +8 p = (16-5) +11 per pop * 4 = 44
ROI = (300+150 [res sec] +225)/44 = 15.34

Immaculate: +10 f, +10 p, + 60 flat res = (20-5) +15 per pop * 6 + 60 = 90 + 60 = 150 from this building if you use a covert operation every turn.. Is that reasonable?
ROI = (225+300+450+150+150)/ (150?) = 8.5 when you use a covert operation every turn, or 14.2 if you can't get a covert op to be successful for 15 turns

Eval: (6/8) The immac bonus is very situational. If a human opponents see you are playing shakarn and that you are getting res sectors, they will likely anticipate you going for covert ops and get the techs tha