one planet systems stink....i always get a bunch of them but i dont like to use "many" option, prefer random size/amount.

At the moment I scout and aim for the decent systems (and especially those that help me make a border with as few systems as possible) and then mop up once I have them. I have also found that doing this you arent necessarily expanding where the AI can "see" you and you dont get the diplomacy hits.



Still getting a bit lost mid game with my improvements and fleets though - I think I need stop fiddling every turn and set a target (150 turns, 300 turns etc) for an Empire re-think.



Howver I am doing massively better than when I started this thread. This game (and perhaps most 4x) has a steep learning curve - I hope they bother to make a proper set of interactive tutorials at launch or they are going to put off a lot of new players.

SpinnerMaster wrote:
I like to spread out my colony ships far out and work my way in before the game gets too hot.

Yes. Denial of strategic resources is a big part of my game too. Tho sometimes it finds me to spread out to deal with pirates early on in some games. So have to be careful to not overstretch you reach. Also, string choke points to deny enemies colonization opportunities, hence territorial growth.

I don't know about getting all the planets but you can get more out of the system. Lower production time is a big one, population another planet is easier because you don't have to waste so many turns on producing a popluation ship, instead you can just click on a planet to colonize. They're transferable. Colonizing another system is like starting from scratch.

Zplintz wrote:
Is there any reason why you should colonise all the planets in a system before moving onto new systems?



(Assuming for the point of this question that you can colonise any planet).



It seems to me that there is no penalty for colonising 10 different systems at once compared to fully improving one at a time but I wondered if there was a maximum population increase that might be spread over each system (and therefor be faster doing one or two at a time)?

Some of these points have been mentioned, but here's my take. There are many tradeoffs to consider when looking at building up your systems vs expansion:



Arguments for keeping in system:

1. FIDS. Each population produces a different amount of FIDS (Food/Industry/Dust/Science) based on the planet it is on. So if you go to colonize a less productive planet, that population unit is doing less for your empire there than back on their home planet.



2. Improvements. New systems have no improvements, so their FIDS will likely be less than a well developed system they came from for quite a while. On the flip side, colonizing other planets in the same system will be able to take advantage of all the existing system improvements vs colonizing a brand new system and starting from scratch.



3. Heroes. You have a limited number of heroes, so expanding beyond the number of governors you have available will produce less value per population than those on systems with heroes providing big bonuses.



4. Defense...others have mentioned this. Fewer systems are easier to defend obviously.



Arguments for expansion:

1. Staking your claim on systems. It's easier to colonize than capture, particularly if you want to remain peaceful with your neighbors. You'd best scout out and claim the important systems early on before your competitors take them for themselves. You can also try to take strategically valuable systems that are choke points, regardless of their planetary worth. If you deny access to other races by guarding the choke point, you can colonize the other systems behind your front line at your leisure.



2. Grabbing resources is important, particularly monopolies. You should always rush to colonize systems that will bring your total number of a resource to 4, granting you a huge empire-wide monopoly bonus. Don't forget the hidden resources...mass colonizing can pay off later as you discover new resources in the tech tree that you didn't even know were there.



3. Front line production. It can be very useful to colonize systems on the frontier of your empire, particularly near your enemies. Mass producing ships near the battlefront is much more useful than back on your home world, 5 star lanes away.



4. And my favorite reason for expansion...+40 science buildings! I forget what they are called...but these suckers can help you easily win the tech race in the early game. A flat +40 tech building can often double or triple a system's science output in the early game. Producing 10-15 of these by mass colonizing as fast as you can will give you a huge advantage in tech.



I hope this list gives you something new to think about. I often like to quickly take a few key systems that have valuable resources/FIDS production, then build up for a while to take advantage of higher FIDS per population and make use of my heroes. Once these systems are much more productive, I start a huge wave of mass colonization and start building industry then +40 science buildings everywhere. At this point, those core systems can pump out new colony ships (and new population) every 1-3 turns.

Zplintz wrote:
Is there any reason why you should colonise all the planets in a system before moving onto new systems?



(Assuming for the point of this question that you can colonise any planet).



It seems to me that there is no penalty for colonising 10 different systems at once compared to fully improving one at a time but I wondered if there was a maximum population increase that might be spread over each system (and therefor be faster doing one or two at a time)?

The most obvious reason is you fully improve your one system and then discover your foe is in all those 10 systems. It's more expensive to conquer a system than to colonize it.

You definately have to wait for the population to increase on any planet or system before it produces reasonable FIDS - at the mometn (as far as I can tell) aside from the cost of producing colony ships and the ill ease it generates with the AI there isnt a lot to stop you running rampant across the galaxy.



Agreed that it does make defending your systems harder, but if you ignore less important systems when they are attacked in favour of keeping the important ones you cant really lose. It also keeps the AI busy allowing you to develop your strong holds and borders.



I am of the opinion that there should be more linkage between systems though (surplus goods travelling from one to another). Not only does that mean a massive food producing system would help sustain science, industrial and dust dedicated systems but it would leave you thin on the ground if you spread too far too fast.

I think when colonizing a new planet it should take a few turns to build up an infrastructure before you can benifit from it. Similar to the concept of Sins of a Solar Empire.

At this time no orders can be given and a certain amount of dust has to be spent.



So expanding to fast could be very expensive and slow down the economy.

Zplintz wrote:
Is there any reason why you should colonise all the planets in a system before moving onto new systems?

Each population point in your system contributes to it's output. So having a lot of people in your home system will make it produce faster. The more the better, up until you hit the population cap of the system. And there are some techs to boost that too.



If you wait until you are almost full, then the population will build really fast, and also be growing really fast. Like just 1-4 turns to grow.



Let's say that the system will grow a population point every 3 turns. That means the fastest way to grow your empire is to ship them off-world every 3 turns.

depends on availible planets for me rather then anything else. if i have a good in system planet at my home il hit it, otherwise il grab up all the terran/oceananic before considering anything else.

One other point to add about expansion versus colonizing within the system is defense. Spread out too much and you may start loosing systems before you manage to get your fleet there to defend it. This happened to me where the enemy somehow gets beyond my choke points and spreads out. So I have 2-3 systems attacked at once in diffrent sides of the map. I have to divide my fleets more and move to the planets. I usually have one reserve "defense fleet" that I use for cleanup duties so I don't pull from the choke points increasing the number of defense fleets based on map size. If the AI starts getting aggressive and attacks farily new colonies I can start loosing them fairly quickly. I then spend a little time taking them back while the AI may have moved on to another planet. I imagine once this goes live (Production) with actually human opponents that this becomes even more of a factor. A couple of fast fleets can really cause havoc. So I recommend trying to find a balance of what you can cover defensively and what you need for growth.



Other factors to consider are your income, planet growth, and your ability to produce fleets. The latter will likely be more of an issue against the less predictable human players. If you are unlucky and you don't get any planets (outside the home planet) that allow food production exploit you could see your pop growth crawl and further be depleted by the colonization ships. Fewer people equals fewer resources and lower income. It really just depends on the map how fast you want to expand (IMHO).

Zplintz wrote:
Is there any reason why you should colonise all the planets in a system before moving onto new systems?



(Assuming for the point of this question that you can colonise any planet).



It seems to me that there is no penalty for colonising 10 different systems at once compared to fully improving one at a time but I wondered if there was a maximum population increase that might be spread over each system (and therefor be faster doing one or two at a time)?

Like all things, your best growth / expansion lies on a curve. This curve is altered by:

• Planet suitability / types / sizes
• Ecstatic or not (i.e. if colonising an extra planet will take you out of ecstatic while the system can still grow on already settled planets)
• System wide enhancements [notablythe+foodtechline]
• Governor availability / level
• Planet bonuses: both passive (e.g. 'hollow planet', 'garden of eden') and active (e.g. titanium-70, void stones), both in settlement terms & next 10 turns research
• Global monopoly bonuses
  
  

For example: Redsang gives +20% dust as a monopoly ~ with the new tax rate problems, this isn't a big deal, and so isn't worth sacrificing a colony ship. However, I will always rush hydromiel and dustwater, as their monopoly bonuses [+20%food&+30%xp] are unbeatable.



In short ~ there is a penalty for having 10 colonies vrs say 4 well developed, but this penalty starts off at it's weakest the less technologies you have researched. i.e. If you can only build a maximum of 3 system projects / system (say sustainable farms, heavy isotope refineries, public-private partnerships) you're better off building these three on the most planets you can. However, if you have the next two tiers of researches, it's better to develop the systems before moving on (esp. with colonial rights that gives +10% bonuses).



This is why the 30 / 60 turn practise threads are your friends ~ just loading up a save, looking at the researches & the order of builds [systemimprovementsarelistedinorderofbuild] and wondering how the hell someone got 40+ pop when you can barely scrape 15 is worthwhile.

if you have meet another nation there there are expansion penalty as you get - relations. also haveing lots of them at once makes them harder to protect as well.

I use the one planet systems (behind my borders) as places for fleets to gather and be organised.



Most of the time they end up being dust makers after being fully populated.

Is there any reason why you should colonise all the planets in a system before moving onto new systems?



(Assuming for the point of this question that you can colonise any planet).



It seems to me that there is no penalty for colonising 10 different systems at once compared to fully improving one at a time but I wondered if there was a maximum population increase that might be spread over each system (and therefor be faster doing one or two at a time)?

Developping already existing systems will give bonuses to several planets at once (for system improvements)

Colonizing several systems won't get you the most of your improvements at first.

Moreover it's easier to defend a system with 6 planets than 6 system swith 1 planet.

Well back to the drawing board with a new game (huge and easy so plenty of time to play about and plenty of room to be inefficient/make mistakes).



This time I didnt worry about how many systems or planets I was colonising at once, but I did pay far more attention to population (starting any system with food + food on every planet if there were lots of population slots to fill - then changing that improvement more relevant to what I wanted to use the system for once the population slots were full).



Not only did I find my influence, incoming Dust, production of ships and adding improvements far far more efficient but I quite quickly realised I was breezing the map without really trying. But the time one of the factions (that I had trapped inside 6 systems by blockading the two choke points) decided he would have to go through me - he didnt stand a chance - my ships were more numerous, more powerful, better tanked than his at the start - but there was no way he could produce more to push me back from his systems as I invaded them 2 by 2.



I set my tax to zero at one point to see if it sped up pop increase by much and forgot I had done it - when I remembered about it many dozens of turns later not only were my subjects very happy but I had 10k dust anyway.



So thanks for all your help. I now have enough of a handle on the basic game mechanics to stay alive long enough at the start and to be set up well enough to at least have a chance in mid game.



Unfortunately I now have to move up a level of difficulty or two because it suddenly felt very easy.



The better I get to know this game the more I am liking it and saving the game, trying out various extreme ship fits to see the affect it has during combat and the retrying if its too goofy to work properly.

4x = explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Many systems = better growth/production/research in the long term.

Colonization is less of an issue now provided you can get your ships to guard choke points before the tidal wave of AI settlers appears. Then you've got until they get warp drives to settle at your own pace, and by that point you (hopefully) at least have infinite supermarkets and colonial rights to keep your people at least moderately happy.

Other than the challenge of pirates and opposing empires raiding outputs, no real penalty to speak of. The reduction/spreading of population though means you're probably best served shooting for high food planets in a system first to ensure quicker initial growth and allow a continuation of expansion.