PBW Strategy Guide (Help Please)

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Hardy Industrialist:
I only object to the “Must Have” label. As Geo says, it’s all a matter of playingstyle. Personally, putting those 1000 points in resource production or research, I can outproduce, outresearch and outbuild what I could have done with using those points for HI.

I do not suggest taking no construction bonuses at all, I usually take somewhere between 10 and 20 %, but I never take Hardy Industrialist (expect in full tech games). Paying attention to detail there is no problem having enough SY capacity in all stages of the game to handle any available resource production.

Fast construction vastly improves the performance of your empire, as you can get more ships built in less time. This allows overwhelming of enemies (or keeping up if they have the same construction rates), replacing lost forces quickly, etc. Why do you think the Space Yard technology is so expensive?

Actually: Fast construction will let you have less ships built in less time.
Late game example: Empire 1 is Hardy Industrial and have 500 K Minerals/turn available for building new ships. Average SY constructs with 5 K, Empire 1 can start 100 ships and have them ready in 8 turns. Empire 2 has spent more points on mining/research and have 550 K Minerals/turn (usually it will be more of a difference as computers and stuff will be ready earlier) available. SY is only 4000 on average. Empire 2 can have 137 ships ready in 10 turns.

Also, if you go with Monoliths (for a vastly superior economy in the long run), you can get them built in 3 turns at planets with a Space Yard II and 1 M population with just a 34 percent bonus to SY rates, whereas you can never get them built in less than 4 turns with no bonus in SY rates without lots of population (2 billion in fact) on the planet. A 12 percent bonus will let you build them in 3 turns with Space Yard III, but those are much more expensive to research. Please tell me how that does not improve the performance of your empire?

It’s again a matter of playing style, but personally I always jump directly from SYI to SYIII. If focusing the extra punch of the fast producing/researching empire on SY’s, It can have SYIII ready by the time the HI empire have SYII. And i do suggest taking enough bonus to be able to build Monoliths (with SYIII) in 3 turns.

Furthermore, higher SY rates help you get stellar manipulation ships built a lot faster, which is definitely a big plus. Say the ship costs 100k minerals. You are building at a planet with 1 M pop and a SY III (for simplicity of calculations). That will take you 34 turns with no SY bonus (100k/3k). But with that 45% bonus to SY rates, you can build it in 23 turns (100k/4350).

True, Building those hugely expensive things you only need a few of, is an example where the HI empire has an advantage. But again, the “better” empire can start construction of those first ships a few turns earlier, and will also have more valuables to waste on retrobuilding.

So, IMHO:
Hardy Industrialist: Definitely not a game winner, but not a total waste either.