.com.unity Forums - PBW Planet Colonization And Growth

I frequently build BSY over my homeworld, but it all depends on the circumstances. Generally, I advocate building your shipyards on the frontier rather than massed at the center of your empire.

Primitive had a good suggestion. Use a tiny, red plus world as your first colony in a system because once you build a shipyard there, you will build ships for a long time before you want to waste shipyard queues building facilities.

Send some initial colonizers out a ways because a shipyard 5-8 turns away from your home system can colonize that system quicker than a stack of bases taking 5-8 turns to get there!

One of the big drawbacks of building a stack of bases right from the start is you do not explore the galaxy around you. You want to meet a player quickly who does not have the same coloniztion tech that you do so you can both trade! This is critical.

I have seen players sit in their home system for 10turns and by the time they leave, someone has colonize the system right next door. They also find that every one else has already traded colonization technologies, so they end up having trouble bargining to get it.

Consider this too, in your opening strategy. Rock players have many more worlds to colonize that Ice or Gas. This gives them a good shot at many planets to build shipyards on from the start. However, if 75% of the players take Rock, then the Ice and Gas players have a bartering advantage.

In my opinion, trading colonization tech is a big key to early growth. As soon as you can colonize all three types, you can fully utilize every system.

Beware of the temptation of Ruins. There have been times when one of my early colonizers was sent out to colonize 2 to 3 systems from the home world. However, in the first new system, I spot a tempting ruin to colonize. Sure, if I get a colonization tech, or some other great tech, it will help, but odds are that it will be something unimportant (massive something, neural net, planet utilization, etc).

As for early research, beward the temptation to ignore military science. Fighting a race armed with missles and point defenses when you do not have point defenses is very difficult. You best bet is defending on warp-point where you can get an initial volley off and/or ram. However, again you do not want to research what most players do, because you have nothing to trade. Construction/Mines is a good way to hold territory cheaply when you play Fast Expanding.

Do not share systems if you can help it!

Expand to the next system if empty, before filling the system you currently occupy. You can always backfill once your expansion stops.

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Real game example:

I am in a game right now, where I claimed 4 systems besides my home system early on. To the west of home, I leap froged that first system and went to systems beyond that, north and south. The souther branch was right next to another players home system, but I got there before him! While he was colonizing his home system, I got a foot hold there. Now at turn 40, I am taking away his home system.

I mined the system and kept him out, while I built up there. He also got cut off from exploring past there to meet other players. I wonder if he has any COM channels besides myself and one other player. His slow expansion stagnated his growth.

To the east, I met a player in that first system on about turn 3. I traded Ice for Rock. Both of us are in the top 5 spots of a large number of players game. Early colonization tech trading is big!

In the West/North branch, I got established there real well, with an observation post on the other side of the warp-point west of there. That system was next to another player's home system. That player did colonize half of it by the time I started competing with him. Now I have taken that system away by turn 40.

Even in a game where there are lots of players, the land grab is just as important as when there are only a few with wide open spaces between them.
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A few things to consider with expanding, is you need good trading partner/ally on one side of your empire to give you the security to expand quickly. You can have less research, but great tech, if you have the channels to trade with. If you are isolated by an agressive race, you will be starved for Tech.

One other priority thing to consider: Trade breather types with someone. Doubling the number of green plus planets is huge for the economy. One ship of foreign breathers, can be quickly spread throughout your empire and greatly increase your economy because planets grow at least 1 Mil a turn, providing you do not do something stupid with race design.

Finally, in designing Fast Expanding Races I suggest the following:

115-120% Minerals (you will need them)
120% Construction (however, bare minimum you must be able to build a colonizer in 1 turn at EB at home system).
Hardy Industrialists - Faster construction
Advanced Storage Tech - More facilites on homeworld = more minerals. Consider this to be equivalent to 120% on Minerals, Organics, Radioactives, Research, Intelligence because you have more facility slots.
Propulsion Experts - one extra movement is big in a land grab when moving several systems away.
50% or 80% on Ground Combat, Organics, Repair.
80% Environment Resistence. You get a lot of points for this, with minimal impact on population growth.
110%+ Maintenance. at 100% Maintenance, you will pay for a colonizer twice in resource by the time it gets there if you are leap-frogging.
80% Trade if you must to get the key stuff above. 80% of 20% of an empires resources is 16% net!. 120% of 20% is 24% - you pay dearly to get that extra 4% of someones production. Since trade maxes out at 20%, you need lots of trading partners to get more for the points than improving your own economy. Once you get a bunch of channels, the better trade is good. But during the early land rush, 100% trade is of little advantage over 80% trade since you have no one to trade with.
80% on Cunning and Radioactives is possible too, if you have low starting points to work with. With 80% Cunning, you can play intelligence defensively because Counter Intelligence is so cost effective verses offensive actions.

One other tidbit. When backfilling systems, use colonizers with fewer engines to save resources. A planet 7 squares from a shipyard, should be colonized with 4 engines (7 moves + colonize = 8 movement points).
Try building one or two one turn build scout ships before going to emergency building colonizers and BSYs. Those scout ships can get you early tech trades and com channels for trade.