Starting tactics

[Suicide Junkie]

Minerals would be the real bottleneck, yeah.
If you don't use E-build, and target your colonizers at the mineral-heavy worlds, the 50k starting resources should tide you over.

Those 9 non-slow BSY queues during the second year will only be burning about 13k minerals per turn even on E-build.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Planet builds one BSY each 2 turns for a year. That's 2,4,6,8,10.
First BSY E-builds one each 3 turns. 5,8,11
2nd does the same: 7,10,13

Say 5/3 turns for a colonizer.
Planet builds 5 by turn 20
3rd planet yard builds 4 by turn 20 (1 normal 3-E)

So you don't have your first colony ship until turn 9 or 10? Oof! Seems too slow!

[Karibu]

In late game called Return to Hell I build 10 BSY's before making any colonuships. Though, that was full tech game and I got enough minerals at the beginning (and we had separate territories, ie. galaxy was formed of clusters which were not mutually connected). That was quite effective, until I had to mothball half of my BSY's because lack of minerals after making 20 or so colonyships. Consider that all buildings in planets were max. level.

[primitive]

Originally posted by spoon:

quote:

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Originally posted by primitive:
SJ
It was Spoons model, not mine. HW EB's 1 BSY then start with colonizers.

Just for the record, it was EB 2 BSYs, then switch to colony ships.

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I apologize then.

It even made me think that maybe I was wrong about this, and that your way might be better, so I started a test-game.
My result (tested it thrice on different maps): ---- Out of minerals at turn 8 -----
There is no way I can make this work even using every available colony slot for mineral production. And even taking some of the BSYs of EB, there is no way I have resources left over to build SY's on the planets.

Building one (or maybe two) Base shipyards might be a good idea in certain situations.
However; with a startingsystem with a normal planet distribution (and default start), I advise against it.

I will be happy to calculate/test any models and racials setup people would have, both counting actual colonizers built and resources made.

[primitive]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Minerals would be the real bottleneck, yeah.
If you don't use E-build, and target your colonizers at the mineral-heavy worlds, the 50k starting resources should tide you over.

Those 9 non-slow BSY queues during the second year will only be burning about 13k minerals per turn even on E-build.

+ About 4 K maintanance

Without EB you will run out of minerals turn 12 or 13 depending on mineral value on your closest planets.

You will also still be stuck in your home system, while players doing more conventional start already have explored / colonized 3-4 additional systems.

[spoon]

Originally posted by primitive:
My result (tested it thrice on different maps): ---- Out of minerals at turn 8

I usually play on Good start, so I think that might make the difference - usually gives me enough time to stabalize and establish other mining colonies. My tests on Average Start (just ran 2) had me out of minerals by turn 10-11, but with 2-3 mining colonies just kicking in. In both those tests, there were no decent mineral planets in my home system.

[DavidG]

Originally posted by primitive:

My result (tested it thrice on different maps): ---- Out of minerals at turn 8 -----

It's funny how often this crucial little problem gets overlooked in all the theoretical models.