I thought I'd post some things that I've noticed about the game that gives a pretty good start, and see what other folks have found as well. First thing first, population is key. More population equates to more money, production, and science. Growing population is top priority.



* It's preferable to save your civilian starting ship for a different system even if you have a secondary inhabitable planet in your home system.



* First thing to build is a food exploit. Growing your populace is top priority. No matter what planet type, always start with food. On secondary planets, do the same. Only until your system is full should you start converting your exploits to different types of exploits.



* Try and keep your tax rate low so that all your systems are happy. This gives great production boosts and helps grow your population faster.



* Prefer planets that give a happiness boost over any other when deciding which planet to colonize.



* Always use civilian ships to start new systems only! It's much cheaper production wise to select a secondary planet in an already inhabited system and colonize it through the planet's interface without a civilian ship. Colonize new planets in a system when your existing planet(s) are full this way.



* Buy a hero as soon as you can with the administrator attribute, and put him in your home world. Level him with the Director 1, and Engineer promotions. With a two planet system almost filled and this hero, you can pump out a civilian ship in 2 turns or so.



* Soil Xenobiology is the first tech you need. Build the sustainable farms after you build your food exploit. Again, population is important. grow! I like to go N-way fusion next, and build the refinery for the production boost. N-way also shows you where the hyperium is on the map which you want and is used for beam weapons. If you have hyperium close by or in one of your two systems, you can forget core mining for a while.



* While my two systems are growing and after the food and production systems are built, I build 2 or preferably 3 slug ships. During this time, I'll colonize the second planet on the home system. When I get to the second planet on the home system, that's when I start pumping out civilian ships.. one after the other. The 3 slug ships will sit on the system that I'm about to colonize to ward off pirates.



* The second planet will build another 3 slugs to make a second fleet. By the time the second fleet is done, hopefully you have hyperium linked up, and can start making beam ships to fill out your fleet.



* Exploration branch is important, and I try not to let a system's growth stagnate. That along with Isolation Shields, Efficient Shield, Improved Fleet Management, Unstable Isotope Manipulation, and He Batteries are my top priorities.

Agree with everything you said apart from the tips about the combat ships. The beginning of the game is all about growth. Spending time producing warships which will become obsolete in a matter of turns is not your priority. Instead, look to expand/develop as much as you can- the AI are not overly aggressive and like you, do not have many combat ships at the beginning of the game, so use this to your advantage. Your colony ships can only be attacked when docked against a system. If systems you own are attacked, you have ample time to react, because of the natural resilience newly colonized systems have and because of the small distance reinforcements will needto travel from your home system- so only build war ships when you need them and not in trepidation of when you need them.

Likewise, your aim should be to invest in the military techs as late as possible. If you've invested a lot in the scientific tree, then say at turn 30, a missile tech that would have taken you 16 turns to complete, now takes only 1 turn.

The beginning is all about preparing for war, and trying your best not to wage it.



Edit: all this talk about colonizing the home system or not with the starting colony ship is silly- if there's a good viable planet on the home system, colonize it, otherwise look elsewhere. Simple.

I dont concur about the colony ship. Only if I can find a good system in maximum 3 turns I would consider not settling my colonyship immediatly and when I have a good bonus on a planet i can settle in my homesystem like garden eden or sth. i wouldnt even bother looking for something else (if my scout doesnt find something similar very near but that would be really lucky)

bluegoop wrote:
* Always use civilian ships to start new systems only! It's much cheaper production wise to select a secondary planet in an already inhabited system and colonize it through the planet's interface without a civilian ship. Colonize new planets in a system when your existing planet(s) are full this way.

I dont agree with this, If you want to expand fast, you will end up having to wait for the planet on that system to gain 1 pop so you can populate another planet which takes up precious turns. If you have other more developed systems, such as your home system with full populations on the planets why not take 2 turns to create a colony ship there and send it to colonize..

Sebbers wrote:
The beginning of the game is all about growth. Spending time producing warships which will become obsolete in a matter of turns is not your priority.

I agree that growth is very important. However, this approach focuses on production as well. Much like your criticism of my research, if I have more production, I can build colony ships faster. Colony ships deter growth, and I want a substantial base. Before I build any colony ships, I usually have a second planet in the home system colonized, both food exploits built, the sustainable farm, and an isotope refinery. With the hero leveled twice, I can then build 3 colony ships in 6 turns rather than 1 in 9 turns.



Your experience seems to differ from mine as far as how aggressive the AI is. Pirates alone are pretty aggressive, and blockades along with them stealing a colony ship is a huge production loss. I understand your concerns, and you're right. Population is a lot more important than military early game, but I'm really only talking 2 or 3 slug ships.



As far as obsolete, I tend to not rush anything which usually means I have plenty of money for upgrading my ships. I didn't mention this because I'm not sure it's the best way to play. Most of the time, I just forget about having the ability to rush.



Also, if you have a close neighbor, you can take one of their systems without even declaring war on them. Of course, after you do this, they'll get mad at you and declare war, but you got the first hit.



Another thing, if you hover over their feelings towards you rating, you'll notice that they hate weakness. A small military helps offset this.

StK wrote:
I dont concur about the colony ship. Only if I can find a good system in maximum 3 turns I would consider not settling my colonyship immediatly and when I have a good bonus on a planet i can settle in my homesystem like garden eden or sth. i wouldnt even bother looking for something else (if my scout doesnt find something similar very near but that would be really lucky)

I agree with the sentiment, but for me personally, I'd increase the 3 maybe up to a 7. There is a point where you give up and just settle with what you got at the time.

Scopeh wrote:
I dont agree with this, If you want to expand fast, you will end up having to wait for the planet on that system to gain 1 pop so you can populate another planet which takes up precious turns. If you have other more developed systems, such as your home system with full populations on the planets why not take 2 turns to create a colony ship there and send it to colonize..

I was really talking about the two ways that are available to colonize a planet. The first with a colony ship. You build the ship, send it to an uninhabited system, and settle on a planet. That's fine. However, with systems that already have at least one inhabited planet, it is much more productive (quicker) to select that planet in the system viewing screen and pick colonize planet from the planet viewing screen. The same screen you pick the planet's exploit or to explore its moon. This is always faster, and you don't need a colony ship.

bluegoop wrote:
* It's preferable to save your civilian starting ship for a different system even if you have a secondary inhabitable planet in your home system.

I don't agree. Colonizing another home world planet is just as effective, since you'll be doubling that planets output immediately, without any travel time. That's even more effective if you have an administrator for that planet asap. A very strong home system start can let you starburst expand the entire constellation at lightning speed.



It's also faster to have a really strong production-focused home system pump out colony ships so the newly established colonies can get their exploits and boosters up instead of spending their own time colonizing mid-system.

@bluegoop: thats why i usually settle immediatly at the homesystem if possible (and the planet i have is not horribly bad)

because if you just travel around for 7 turns with the colonyship.. thats 7 turns you miss out on production, research and dust (not so much on food because i have a harder way growing if i only have one system).. and while growing is the most important thing early having a stronger homesystem lets me crank out stuff in general and colonyships a little later faster.



for exactly that reason i think traveling with the colonyship is just to risky because i might endup just circle for 6 turns and then settle for a inferior planet or a similar plant.. or worst of all having to turn back home because there wasn't anything (and that happens to me more often then i like to admit... i think game mechanics hate me... not just this game.. all of them. .(^^,) )

I'm agree but not for all,



In a system, i rush people like you, but when i'm full of my people, I destroy all food supply and i switch into research or dust, because production is not really effective when you don't need to build an army, and I always make army with money, always (except at begin obviously :O).



With dust you can have technos (with trades) and production so...

bluegoop wrote:
Exploration branch is important, and I try not to let a system's growth stagnate. That along with Isolation Shields, Efficient Shield, Improved Fleet Management, Unstable Isotope Manipulation, and He Batteries are my top priorities.

One of the things that I like about the game is that all four tech branches are important, and what you need next often depends upon how the game is unfolding. I tend to queue 3-4 techs at a time, usually ones with relatively short time requirements, based on what I need or can use right now.



By the way, I will often build custom colony ships (after discovering a day or so ago that there's a scroll-bar on the Custom Modules panel in the Ship Design view). For example, early on I'll build armed Colony ships that can actually survive (and sometimes win) pirate encounters in the early game. Or I'll build 'fast' colony ships that use one of the engine support modules to move faster. ..fritz..

@Frithworth yes I found the "Fast Colony" ships really helpful too ... they don't cost a lot more but you can save several turns by getting there quicker.

Fritzworth wrote:
By the way, I will often build custom colony ships (after discovering a day or so ago that there's a scroll-bar on the Custom Modules panel in the Ship Design view).

Tell me about it, I also missed that there where a scrollbar in that panel.



And indeed, I also built the faster colony ship just like you. I felt it worked well when colonizing further away systems, of course still using home planet as source.

I'm in the "use the system interface to colonize the remainder of the system" camp. What I've found in the few games that I've played is that getting research up to the point where I can start building the shopping carts and colonial rights and keeping my happiness high is the quickest way to victory. The farther down the happiness trail I can go, the faster I can crank out the dust enhancements for an economy victory. By about turn 200, economic victory is possible with even moderate expansion and a full defensive and diplomatic posture.