FAQ...First 50 turns

[Tomgs]

Well for me exploration ships are a must to find the best colonizable worlds. The colony ships are slow and have a much shorter range so they can't find good planets as easily expecially if you are worried that they will run out of supplies after the first 2 or 3 moves. I also build many colonizer ships but by the time they are built they can go directly to a colonizable world because I already know where they are. I usually build the colonizer ships at my homeworld and build exploration ships after the first couple of ships on those first few non-breathable worlds that you need to colonize at the begining of the game. In the early game there are not many turns that I am not building colonization ships on my homeworlds but I usually end up with many exploration ships anyway. Especially if I meet another race early.

[Psitticine]

I also rely heavily on exploration ships in the early game. If there is a plum world in my starting system, then I'll build a colony ship for it, but otherwise, my first building project is usually an explorer. Then I'll start cranking out colony ships to fill the homesystem and to be ready to take advantage of any breathable or special-tech worlds my explorers find.

[Nyx]

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Well for me exploration ships are a must to find the best colonizable worlds. The colony ships are slow and have a much shorter range so they can't find good planets as easily expecially if you are worried that they will run out of supplies after the first 2 or 3 moves.

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That's not even remotely true. Colony ships move only one square per turn slower than a warship: 5 instead of 6. That's barely noticeable. And since they don't need to turn around and refuel (they're on a 1-way trip) they can go just under twice as far as a warship on an exploration mission (That extra engine holds 500 more supplies). Escorts/frigates can go through two warp points before they need to turn around (three if you give them extra supply pods instead of weapons or your refueling station is very close to a warp point). Colony ships get three or four before they are reduced to moving one space per turn. Except in an ancient galaxy, I'd always rather explore with colonies over escorts.

[Tomgs]

My exploration ships always have supply storage thats why they are exploration ships. There is no room for that in Colonizers unless you drop the cargo unit which isn't a good idea. My frigates have 2 supply storages and my destroyers have 2 to 6. The first technology I research is cargo so by the time I build my first ship I have supply storage II at least. That gives them a much bigger range, almost as far as a colonizer can go one way 4500 supplies for 2 storage level II vs 2500 on a colonizer. I can go many systems away with my destroyers usually by the 2nd year at least (in my current game I got destroyers with supply storage III designed in 1.2 years low resources 3 planets to start) they have 9000 supplies with supply storage III. Yes the colonizers only have to go one way but they can be a waste of resources if they are going at 1 movement so I make sure they have a destination before they start on that one way trip.

[Kagetora]

I do ship construction first and get frigates for exploration. With extra supplies they have 5500. They are also on a one way trip as one of 3 things happen to them. They run into another race and get destroyed. Which is also a very good reason not to use colony ships. Secondly they stop at a good planet and wait for a colony ship to show up making sure the planet stays empty. The planet then builds a supply and the scout continues on. Lastly the ship goes as far as it can go until it runs out of fuel. The colony ships themselves don't mean alot but the population does. It matters little to increase your colonization and to kill the production on your home planet by sucking off too much population. Colonies that you can't defend aren't much use either just gets you into early wars.

[Arc.Smiloid]

The race I play is: Scientist Culture, +20% research, +20% mining, +20% construction, -10% maintenence costs.

No atmosphere, Rock/Ice

Myself, I immediately build 4 base space yards.

I research: Ship construction, stream weapons, armor, and propulsion. Set to repeat, no division of RP.

Each space yard builds a scout frigate, then goes into repeat colonyship construction. My main colony builds the four space yards, then builds 2-3 transports, then repeat colonyship production.

My colonyships only have 5 engines, no cargo for additional population. Adding the cargo would increase the number of turns nessecary to build a colonyship from one of my base space yards, so I left it out.

After this point, things adapt to my situation. I play like a high-tech warmonger.

[apache]

Well, I only recently got the game, so I am not hard and fast on my early game strategies. Obviously, colonizer production is a major part of it. One strategy is to just flat out make colonizers with my homeworld and then set up shipyards and start building scouts with my new colonies. Sometimes I like to start off by building a few base spaceyards first, then put the homeworld into full colonizer production, while the bases make scouts, transports, and more colonizers. But because those bases are so expensive and slow, sometimes I just set the homeworld to produce a couple scouts, then put it into rush production for colonizers.
Either way, I always have to use scouts. For the very early game, if there are just no decent planets in my home system, I will use a colonizer or two to find decent planets. But they do not do long range scouting, that belongs to my dedicated scouts. Usually, I use an escort or frigate hull with the basics, 4 engines, and everything else filled up with supplies and a single DUC if its a frigate (its amazing how useful a level 2 or 3 DUC is against a neutral race, even in the middle of the game). Though they are not as fast as they could be, the fewer engines gives them 33% more range before they run out of supplies. My colony ships are pretty standard, though. The basics, 5 engines, and a cargo container. Of course, once I develop light cruisers, I immediately make a new colony ship design for longer range and higher cargo capacity.
I know it probably would not work well on smaller maps, but I play with 254 system maps and don't even bother making a military for quite a long time. When I see an alien race, then I start up limited military production, but I usually don't bother with a military at all until I have a significant number of colonies and systems.
The one thing I always do is to make nearly all of my early colonies research colonies. But, this has its problems because without resource colonies early enough, I tend to start running out of resources pretty quick.

[evan42]

The very first thing I build will always be a bare-bone ship yard base. It's take 2 turns to complete.

Then I will build 1 colonizer on HW, and it takes 2 turns. And on the space yard, 1 scout ARMED with missles. That will take 4 turns. Sure, It'll have shorter range, but I can use it to get rid of some AI start-up colonies. (not as useful if played in a large map with fewer AIs)

Also, before the completion of the scout, I would concentrate research in missles and ship hulls. Since the scout can be "upgraded" during the production, so I will try to put at least 2 L2 missles on a frigate, maybe L3 depends on the game setting.

Then 2 turns later, the colony ship built on HW will go colonize any colonizable planets in the home system. (if none, I would use it as a scout) And the HW will then build a transport. The scout will take another 2 turns to be built on the space yard. The idea for the transport is to move some population off the HW ASAP, so more can be grown. Ideally, if another breathable planet is found in the home system, I will move 1000M pop to the new planet, that will give the new planet a 20% production bonus.

Anyway, 2 turns later, both the armed scout and transport will be built. The scout will ofc go do some "scouting". And the transport will go do some "transporting".

Then if there are more than one colonizable planets found in the home system, I would build more colony ships, but usually I would use the HW to build another scout (2 turns) to head for the other warp point. And the space yard will repeat building colony ships.

Depends on the number of warp points present in the home and nearby systems, a third scout might be built. Otherwise, I will repeat build colony ships also on the HW.

When running out of planets to colonize or bumping into hostile aliens, I would start building a couple larger armed ships. But, since the scouts themselves are armed, they might be enough early on.

Because of the shorter range for the armed scouts, they can only explore 2-3 systems before turning back. So when colonizing other systems, the 1st structure to be built will always be a resupply depot. I don't consider having a shorter range as a serious disadvantage, because you normally don't want to colonize planets too far away from you anyway. Those armed scouts will also ensure you have more empty systems to colonize later by taking out AI's start-ups.

Just my way of playing it...

Evan

[WhiteHojo]

Just a little something extra I have found to be useful. Use the same general ideas from Evan, build a couple of scouts and then go w/colony ships. But the twist I add is, I start as a Gas Giant race. This gives you access to the bigger planets (usually 1 to 3 per system) so even those planets w/o your atmosphere will give 5 facility slots for Huge. Also, most AI races I encounter tend to be rock or ice types. 1st thing you do upon encountering them is to 1) ask for a trade treaty & 2) if the treaty is accepted on the next turn ask for a gift of their rock/ice colonization tech. I have never been turned down once the trade treaty has been given. I have however, had em cancel the treaty 1 turn after giving it - very weird. Do this and you soon open up all planet types to colonization MUCH earlier than you would if you tried to research the 2 other colony techs. Gives you a solid lead early in the game.

[Sessile]

I've delved into some more game modes and have decided on an alternate early strategy as a game-winner. Applied research is cool, but cooler still is to bomb another civ back to the stone age, who uses a different planet type (picking Gas for your race almost ensures this) and thus being able to colonize twice as many planets for free, after they surrender. Repeat for the third type of planet, and you're almost a lock to win the game, since the AI just doesn't have a game plan, really. Frigates with 1 CSM and supply maxed allow you to do this within the first twenty turns, if a civ is within 2 systems. I'm turning into a hella bloodthirsty player, it just works better.