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[Discussion] The 2nd X: Expanding

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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 12:32:07 AM
@Draco18s and lmaoboat: I made a completely different experience

In ES colonies become useful very very quickly: main reason for this are those self upgrading planetary exploits (like geo thermal plants) that dont increase in production cost. Add the Administrator with the +25 production and +50 food abilities to this and you can churn out fully established systems in no time.

In Civ IV for example new cities take a lot longer to become useful first of all u need to build all those buildings and they get more and more expansive and then you need to have workers ready to build the improvements without those the new cities are utterly useless.. and you need to have military units to protect the improvements (and the cities themselves) otherwise barbarian will just pillage and set you back for ages.

In ES you dont need any of these and add to this all those little things i mentioned in the first post .. you will see no other 4X game makes expanding so easy
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 9:04:54 PM
eaTae wrote:
Right now colonizing happens instantly if you use a colony ship.

If the colony ship had to orbit the system for one turn (i.e. have all of its movement points) you'd better send ships to acompany it or hope that no pirates show up.




And doesent become a colony till 30 turns later.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 10:17:01 PM
The colonizing maybe should be a little harder at the beginning of the game, but it should be easier later in the game. Always in a late game I find myself very reluctant to colonize or capture new systems because the over-expansion disapproval just gets too big, especially evil on huge maps. I agree that the whole colonizing needs a little tweaking.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 10:37:18 PM
I get reluctant to colonize, because those new systems take forever to become useful.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 11:11:22 PM
Draco18s wrote:
They made a Civ V?




Hang on there. Big call. They lost me when they simplified the game. Civ IV has to be the pinnacle. CIV V is no doubt shinier and tidy, but less depth.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 11:36:53 PM
Jacrench wrote:
Hang on there. Big call. They lost me when they simplified the game. Civ IV has to be the pinnacle. CIV V is no doubt shinier and tidy, but less depth.




this game is Civ V without hexes. Dont hate.
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12 years ago
May 25, 2012, 12:37:32 AM
@Civ that seems to be a discussion for the offtopic board (^^,) where i will gladly chime in

@KNC: You have a good point there. Yes I also think that the colonization is tweaked the wrong way... it should be harder to expand early and maybe a little less of the mali in late, because on bigger maps that becomes a real pain.. and it doesnt do anything anymore.. because the game will be won at that point no matter what.
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12 years ago
May 25, 2012, 7:49:18 PM
if i recall correctly in most games the one that expands the most wins. If you take Moo2, you want to expand early to get contact with other races and be able to trade. Later because you want to wage war on them. You could play with certain racial points like subterranean which would improve your population base very much, and be acquatic with some food bonus and you could just go on and expand like hell. Choosing Feudal governement and going for fixed tech buildings would give you also the edge because of the -% tech of feudal governement.



So that's one example of how to fast expand and make worth it, and winning by default, because you can outgun, outnumber and outtech anyone.



If you take civ 4 then you wanted to expand as fast as possible too. With restrictions but staying small would bring no benefit at all, especially in a multiplayer game. Civ 5 on the contrary would give you the opportunity to make expansion in a different way, by having the chance to vassalize.



So i do not see the point that all the folks bring about the problem of fast expansion. Even in starcraft 2 expanding is the most important thing to do.



For me the most important thing is that there should be a challenge to make the right expansion decision. But Fast expansion is and should be the best course of action, but also the most risky.
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12 years ago
May 25, 2012, 9:29:29 PM
Usally expanding too fast depleates your econemy and industry (At the time) and leves you vonerable to being attacked by a militaraly and economicly superior opponent until your expantion yealds more reources then you would have if you dident expand.



My suggestion bulds upon the idea that you will always require a military force and any expansion will require you to put down rebelious forces who would arise, as well as giving the player an incentive to develop his military before meeting another race (A pet peeve of mine, where you can have 0 military until you meet another race as if your species is totaly peaceful towards its self).



"I would be more infavor of new outposts being rebellious little gits that will turn coat if they are soo much as 2 jumps from a proper colony, turing the eXpand part of the game into much more of a diplomatic/economic/military challange as the rest of the game. "
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12 years ago
May 25, 2012, 9:49:40 PM
Even as the game is not all races play the same.



If all your doing is colonizing as Cravers you won't do near as well as creating some early fleets to go out and conqueror/kill, 50 sciences per CP killed is a ridiculous boost early on, not to mention capturing systems early on helps a ton.
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12 years ago
May 25, 2012, 10:56:18 PM
i would like to see where is the difference between challenge and micromanagement.



I recall from other posts that some find that the intercept function should be automatic, as micromanaging it is not really fun.



The same could be argued for your proposal, if on every colony i have to put a ship or a fleet patrolling there is not much else of a challenge than mere micromanagement. At that point i would prefer a different approach where the colony ship simply costs more. And you get all the micromanagement hell in that cost.



A game should allow actions in detail for strategic purpose not for everyday duty.
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 12:17:01 AM
@Francech: Thats not the point.. First of all yes.. you want to expand.. to be able to have an empire later.

But with your examples I cant concur at all.

To be able to expand in MoO2 you need to research the techs that give you more range for your ships because otherwise you just wont be able to reach enough stars to Rapid Expand and then you will lack in crucial aspects like research or production.. just because its a different research branch.

In Civ IV when you overexpand you will be vulnerable for a very long time and you will be in a lot of trouble concerning your research .. because the upkeep is harsh not to mention that you will get swarmed by barbarians(if your enemy lets you recover from that .. well its his fault)

But in ES on the other hand expanding in the early game is easy, cheap and nearly free of risk... and that needs to change otherwise it will just become a race of who can grab the most systems as quickly as possible. (just look at the examples I gave i the first post .. you will plainly see that expanding in ES is easier then anywhere else)



Edit: also there is a huge difference between expanding and REX
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 12:17:29 AM
Draco18s wrote:
I get reluctant to colonize, because those new systems take forever to become useful.


I'm just like this. In this game, and in Civ 5, I usually only settle in "perfect" areas, because of how slow things are compared to established colonies.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 9:04:45 PM
eaTae wrote:
Right now colonizing happens instantly if you use a colony ship.

If the colony ship had to orbit the system for one turn (i.e. have all of its movement points) you'd better send ships to acompany it or hope that no pirates show up.




I'm already doing that with the pirate's propensity for having ships in the system I'm trying to colonize and losing the colony that way.
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 1:10:56 AM
I think that the heroes are more the problem than the expansion in itself. Probably the tech to colonize planets should be a bit more difficult, but still i think it's ok to get a planet running (without heroes) in the ES fashion.



As for now i noticed that with hero cloning ability the Horatio have probably the strongest expansion possibile because they in no time can get population capped and production up and running.



For MOO2 you seem to forget that:

You could build ships that would found a military colony that would extend your range reducing the priority very much of range tech.
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 3:08:51 AM
Expanding is a bit too easy in the current set-up. I'd say the best solution would be to require a fleet to orbit the colony for, oh, 10 turns at a base, reduced by one turn every 100 invasion power the ship has. Basically, you have to keep the peace for some time, before everything gets set up. Otherwise, they default to striking, and while food does get produced, no population gain and nothing else is.
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 11:11:56 AM
I think there are quite a lot possibilities to tweak colonizing. There could be technologies that make colonizing easier in the later game (as one researches them). Like Cryostasis modules that allow you to bring 2 instead of one population unit to a planet. Or a technology that includes a factory/farm in the ship when you build it such that after colonizing the planet you instantly have the planet upgrade.

This also allows for colonization limits in the early game, like StK suggested
StK wrote:
To be able to expand in MoO2 you need to research the techs that give you more range for your ships
. A colony ship should have a lot of trouble self-sustaining the population on board (if it's not in cryostasis) thus effectively limiting the range a colony ship can travel without restocking supplies.



However, I'm starting to think (by reading some comments) that not everyone agrees on whether or not colonizing should be harder. Maybe make a poll?
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 3:58:56 PM
Igncom1 wrote:
And doesent become a colony till 30 turns later.




Right, that's a point that I think is being missed here. It's easy to start the process of colonization, but it takes time, effort, and risk (because outposts are easier to invade) to actually establish a colony within your empire.



Personally, I don't mind a game that prioritizes rapid expansion in the early phase, but maybe that's because the most years I've spent playing a game like this was with GalCiv2. You were dead in that game, if you didn't pursue a colony rush. At least on the smaller maps. And that was a successful and well-regarded game, so I don't think it can be argued that rapid expansion is intrinsically bad.



I think the ideal situation would be if it varied by galaxy map size. Rapid expansion should be important on a small map, like the 30 turn challenge. On a huge map where you're not using the maximum number of factions, there could be less emphasis on it; more room to pursue reasonable growth while trying for a tech win, for example. Playing on small maps just emphasizes the importance of quick expansion. Faction borders will lock up sooner, so naturally there is a rush to grab territory and resources.



That said, I wouldn't mind if there was some reasonable brake on early expansion, but I don't think it should be pirates attacking colony ships or outposts. That's too random. Especially for multiplayer, where it should be the player's skill that matters, and not a bad throw of the random pirate generator dice to determine the outcome.
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 7:04:08 PM
@Francech: No I don't. I played that game long enough.

But a Military outpost didnt help you one bit if you just couldnt reach more then 2 stars because the distance between them was to big.. and that was easily possible in MoO.. also you could meet a space dragon, an amoeba or something like that and if you were unlucky and you needed that star to reach the rest of the galaxy, it was possible that you were confined to your tiny bit of space until you were able to deal with those things.



@Zenicetus how is "easier to invade" more of a problem then an instant wipe as soon as a barb touches your city? (or the threat of barbarians to your farm, mine, cottage,... improvements?) (Civ IV) (and don't tell me now its different in Civ V.. I very well know it is.. but Civ V has a very harsh happyness restriction on how many cities you can found in early game.. so there is a big restriction on REX.. (among other things that might get troublesome if you expand to early)

Also.. no just because its a small map it shouldn't mean that you have to REX no matter what. There should be more things to think about. F.e if you would try to REX me in Civ IV or even Civ V .. I would pick an early rush race and overwhelm your little settlements so quickly it would make your head spin. Or in FFH 2 .. if you picked the Kuriotate (a race that was severly limited in the number of cities it could build but those cities were hugely powerful) .. you couldn't even REX but you were still one of the strongest races on small maps. Strategy should not be limited by the map.. it should always be at the hands of the player (by picking the race he wants to play and ofc by his overall gameplan).

There needs to be a form of punishment for REX because otherwise we will be were we are now.. that REXing is the only valid strategy on every map with every faction.
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 9:34:06 PM
StK wrote:
Strategy should not be limited by the map.. it should always be at the hands of the player (by picking the race he wants to play and ofc by his overall gameplan).




We'll have to agree to disagree on that point. smiley: smile



Given the fact that every faction starts with just one star system, it makes sense to me that the strategy should be different on small vs. large galaxy maps. A player who enjoys a fast-paced game can choose the smaller size, while a player who likes to turtle can choose a larger one with more space between factions.



If nothing else, the number of turns before you're likely to encounter another faction, should make a big difference in your initial strategy for expansion (i.e. how far you prioritize military techs, etc.).



There needs to be a form of punishment for REX because otherwise we will be were we are now.. that REXing is the only valid strategy on every map with every faction.




I think there's a difference between rapid expansion in the early phases of a game, where you're establishing a foothold, and rapid expansion that has to be continued as the only winning strategy. Many games feature the former type of colony rush. I mentioned GalCiv2, there are plenty of other examples.



The problem right now is that ES Alpha encourages a continuation of that early rush, instead of taking a breather. There probably isn't enough of an economic penalty for rapid expansion, but the other missing element is more developed diplomacy. Right now, people continue rapid expansion because relations go downhill way too quickly. Before you know it, you're in a war and wiping out neighboring factions, which is a de-facto expansionist move. Better diplomacy could help with this.
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 9:39:33 PM
The game does need some sort of REX inhibitor. The best ones (at least to me) are the ones that make new colonies run at a significant loss until they grow enough and a significant penalty at the imperial level based on the size of the empire. The current penalties based on empire size are just woefully inadequate.



Beefing up pirates so they can invade a weak system, can spawn anywhere (affected by approval?) and can destroy system improvements if left alone could also help but puts more micro on the player.
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12 years ago
May 26, 2012, 9:49:07 PM
@Zeneticus: I'm sorry but you are completely besides the point.

REX is broken in ES as it is now. The map size doesn't matter, the race doesn't matter you will always end up getting the best results when you expand as fast as possible. Look at the reasons I give in my first post. In other 4X games you have to sacrifice something when you REX (because it will put you in a very very strong position later in the game because of all the cities/planets you have). In ES you don't sacrifice anything its the other way round you get more rewards the more land you grab. Having more diplomacy wont change that.



2nd: REX (Rapid Expansion) always happens in the early phases.. if its not in the early phases its just Expansion
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12 years ago
May 27, 2012, 9:47:16 PM
I think one angle that I hope will be taken to deal with this is tweaking the different planet types so they're more distinct from each other. Right now the morale penalties and lower FIDS/Pop values for arid/tundra and onwards are pretty marginal compared to what you'll be extracting from them in about 10 or so turns. So marginal that it's almost a no brainer to just colonize everything as soon as you possibly can since you're very likely to be making more than enough dust/turn to make up for the -6 from the system wide food and industry improvements. If at the start of the game you could only really colonize terran/ocean/jungle worlds without sacrificing a significant amount of dust to support the colony that would help tone down the early game rush a bit. Increasing the negative morale penalties for planets would help too since right now it's pretty easy to offset the -5 or -10 from most planets just by keeping taxes below 50% until you've built morale improvements.



i'd also like to advocate for a shuffling around of colonization techs because i'm a giant nerd and can't deal with the idea that building houses on an exploding lava hellworld is easier than building a space station that orbits a gas giant (i know we're ostensibly landing guys on the core but that's crazy when you could just do not that) or is inside an asteroid :V
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12 years ago
May 28, 2012, 12:19:51 AM
Or building houses on an exploding lava hell world being on the same level of difficulty as a barren world.



Make the thing air tight and with it's own gravity and you're pretty much done.



This is just nitpicking, though.
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12 years ago
May 28, 2012, 12:54:37 AM
I don't know if it would stop rapid expansion, but having fuel limits (and tankers) like Sword of the Stars would help by virtue of requiring you to establish forward outposts to refuel your fleets at.



What I'd like to see more of is what I've seen mentioned a few times: needing to use your military to secure your empire from threats other than other empires. Pirates are awfully capable right now... Maybe drop their hull size down (rename the current Corvette the Frigate, and keep the pirate hull size named the Corvette) but keep their numbers the same so your military forces can crush them, but also make them do meaner things to systems they're blockading.



There should be some incentive to keeping military forces stationed towards the rear of the empire. Rebellious colonies (outposts are far more dependent on support, so maybe allow pirates to sack them rather than having them rebel) and home-grown piracy (an abstracted concept that costs you Dust production, increases exponentially with the amount of Dust produced and decreases exponentially with the nearby military force—faster ships allow you to project force farther and more effectively) are my two ideas. This help reduce rapid expansion by making there be more strategic purposes for military ships even without a nearby enemy.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 6:30:20 PM
First time poster here.



As a Sophon player, I found that Expansion combined with periods of developing planet infrastructure (along with a bit of luck with starting resources) to be essential in being able to stay in the game past turn 100. Teccing up to an appropriate point of expansion, basically.



I agree it can be too fast, at least the first few times I played where Cravers are usually knocking on my door by turn 40-50. In an ideal world, I'd have expansion dependent on the players' system development e.g When empire borders cover a planet.

Though, when the game speed is fast, I certainly expect the gameplay to be. Would it be more of a question of scale and there being that much more of it?
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 4:53:17 PM
I've noticed that if I set the game speed to "Fast" it becomes possible to generate population "fast".



I usually choose "Low" resources, so that there is some strategic importance, and getting them is an issue. That makes it a bit more interesting for me to send colony ships to important systems, and backfill less valuable systems later.



Galactic Civilizations 2 was a major Rapid Expansion race. Nothing else mattered early game. Also, I think that was the case with Space Empires V. An early lead in worlds meant winning. Everything else was secondary.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 5:07:42 PM
@AngleWyrm: Yes but that doesn't really matter. Resources are only the icing on the cake that is a new colony. Getting new colonies is to easy and the benefit they give you is to big (especially in early game) compared to nearly every other 4X game I played.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 5:08:19 PM
StK wrote:
- There is no real danger in expanding: Pirates can not really harm your colonies (Compare: Civ Barbarian will wipe a city if unprotected)




This is technically untrue, as I have on occasion had system I colonized invaded and then taken over by pirates when I slacked in building my military. And of course the system they took had the Titanium-70 I needed...



The rest I do agree with. I didn't realize it until I read this, but expanding does seem easier than it should probably be.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 5:12:19 PM
@FinalStrigon: Yes but: compared to other 4X games the danger for your colonies in early game is negligible. It will take the pirates (in the early game) several turns (I'm not sure.. I have to test that but I think about 7) to take over a colony. In Civ for example it takes 1 turn and the city is gone... (also that they would raze a city that has only one inhabitant so there is no hope of getting it back.. so all of the investment is lost forever)
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 5:19:49 PM
For all the people that don't want to click the first link:

I think this is also a reason why the races seem so similar, because for every race the best strategy is to REX. So every game you play no matter the race will feel similar, because you will go for rapid expand.

(edit: sry for the doublepost.)
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 5:20:18 PM
StK wrote:
@FinalStrigon: Yes but: compared to other 4X games the danger for your colonies in early game is negligible. It will take the pirates (in the early game) several turns (I'm not sure.. I have to test that but I think about 7) to take over a colony. In Civ for example it takes 1 turn and the city is gone... (also that they would raze a city that has only one inhabitant so there is no hope of getting it back.. so all of the investment is lost forever)




Heh, I must be dealing with super pirates, I lost my colony in three turns. But I get your point. I've never played any other 4X game, so I don't know what else to compare it to. I still agree, though, expansion is a bit too fast. I'm not sure what to suggest to do about it, though. If you slow it down too much, you might not be able to get resources that you need quickly, possibly hurting you in the long run.



I'd be hesitant to make Colony ships more expensive, as in the beginning (for me at least) they already take around 8-10 turns to put one out. Now, a new colony every 8-10 turns (plus time to travel) I don't think is so bad, but if you get lucky with your starting planets and can get a high production pretty quickly, you can just start to crank them out (your population permitting, of course). So...It's tricky, I think.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 5:54:47 PM
To be fair, in Civ V i think it is, the taking of cities is far more similar to this, you attack the city and it has a "defence bar" thing, that when it is reduced enough the city falls, you don't need units on the city to defen it, though it helps.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 6:25:07 PM
uhh.. xkcd-reference.. I love it.. (^^,)



@Hero: First of all: I think that is one of the many flaws of Civ V, but also Civ V has its methods to discourage too fast expansion (you need to connect your cities but you pay for the roads, you need workers, settlers are more expansive, the cost for the civics go up with every city and you have a really limited happyness pool when you start).

Again .. there is no other 4X game where expansion is so save and easy as it is in ES.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 6:26:35 PM
Draco18s wrote:
They made a Civ V?




Yep, and its better then Civ 4
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 4:44:31 PM
I stated it >here<, but I think it should be its own thread and it should be in design:



I think eXpanding in ES is too quick and too easy.

Reasons:

- Colonyships are cheap and have no real downside (Compare: Civ cities don't grow when building a settler and start out with 1 pop instead of 3) (Yes it costs one but if you manage your starting colonies correctly this is no problem)

- The upkeep cost is negligible compared to the benefits

- There is no real danger in expanding: Pirates can not really harm your colonies (Compare: Civ Barbarian will wipe a city if unprotected)

- There is no limit for the distance your ships can travel (Compare: MoO 2)

- Colonyships are kinda save while traveling: They can't be engaged while en-route between stars only ships camping a star en-route can intercept them.

I only gave one example of games that have such mechanisms in place, but there are many more.



It seems REX (Rapid EXpansion) is the only way to play, no matter which race you play no matter any other setting.

I think we need a few more of these mechanisms so that there would be different playstyles then only REX.



Edit: Compare >the 30 turn challenges<.



Edit2: - In Civ there is also the need for a worker unit for your cities with slows Expansion even more (because again cities don't grow when you build one and (up to Civ IV) you should have as many workers as you have cities)



Edit3: Another point are these self upgrading planet exploits of ES. When you research a better production center for a planet every planet you have upgrades immediately and also the new planets do not have to build the old one before they can have the new one.. they can have the new one immediately at the same cost.

Colonial Industry base: Cost 40

Geo-Industrial plants: Cost 40

This makes new colonies a lot stronger then in other 4X games because there you would have to build both of them.



edit 4: all of these will make expansion more difficult and slower in the early game. But in the late game (especially on big maps) there comes a different problem: the Mali for having a big empire are getting to big those should be lowered.

(thx to KNC for pointing that out)
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 6:52:34 PM
@Quirkimaru: I'm not really sure what you want to say, but I invite you to take a look at the 30 turn challenges ... and then try a proper REX strategy in your next game. It is so strong there is no real alternative to it.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 6:55:51 PM
I agree that there is a problem with how easy expansion is. I think simply allowing fights to be initiated while in transit between colonies would sort it out. If you had to build a few corvettes to accompany every colony ship you made, and even then having the chance that a pirate fleet could get lucky and blow your coloniser out of the air in battle, you'd be a lot less eager to do the REX strategy that works at the moment.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 6:59:05 PM
@Abbysall: It would definitely be a step in the right direction but I think all those other 4X games use more methods to discourage REX for a reason.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 7:08:56 PM
maybe you're right, I've only dabbled in 4X games before, so most of what I'm basing this on is coming from Civ experience. Maybe a system based on the colonies happiness levels, either being unable to produce a colony ship until reaching a certain happiness level, or a reduction in happiness every time a colony ship is produced? It makes sense in immersion terms, you'd need to make a system happy before going 'hey! fancy getting on this ship and flying off to a recently discovered ball of lava a few million light years away?'
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 7:32:48 PM
Ok some solutions I came up with:

-> Make pirates wipe small colonies (1-2 inhabitants) and in one turn... colonies need protection (could encourage building larger colony ships later, although later in the game pirates aren't really a problem)

-> An upkeep for colonies depending on how many you have and how far away they are (a way to offset this by research would be nice (^^,) colonial rights comes to mind)

-> Maybe scale up the cost for the colonization module for some researched techs (not a lot.. just a little) (to offset the benefit of being able to immediately produce geo thermal plants and all the other exploits without having to build the old ones)



all of these will make expansion more difficult and slower in the early game.

but in the late game (especially on big maps) there comes a different problem: the Mali for having a big empire are getting to big those should be lowered. That might be an intentional rubber-band effect but .. well i never was a fan of punishing a player for doing well (but if you say thats a design decision I can live with it.. if there comes a possibility to just destroy colonies)
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 7:39:11 PM
Im not really a fan of the extra upkeep or the cost of the colonisation mods, Colonising should be easy to do and afford.



I would be more infavor of new outposts being rebellious little gits that will turn coat if they are soo much as 2 jumps from a proper colony, turing the eXpand part of the game into much more of a diplomatic/economic/military challange as the rest of the game.
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 7:48:04 PM
@Igncom1: I like your idea but I don't know why colonizing should be easy.

I don't think its easy to convince people to trade their living on a well developed system for a tiny spec of sand or worse lava, ice, barren rock several lightyears away.

Not to mention all the stuff you would have to bring to a new colony or the logistic effort of coordinating it with the rest of the empire (research efforts for example, or including it in the economy) especially when there is no method of instant communication between them. And even if there were such a method I think it would be difficult to coordinate everything. Nowadays there are enough troubles coordinating people that are in the same building
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 7:56:16 PM
Well for the first few years your gunna be living off the colonyship its self, but in most sifi its assumed that you don't just colonise with the single ship, corporations and freelance groups would be moving there on their own to sicure all the good resource deposits and industry sites, setting up all the propper logistics and communication lines for you, untill your empire could build proper official ones you would just pay to use the civilian ones (Probobly why they start as outposts), and with mass immigration (New worlds arn't for every one but given the freedoms of living in an outer colony with little to no imperial or government presence, alot of people will go for it.



You make the whole operation official, businesses build everthing to make their profit and you get free colonys as is your right, by law or your biggest gun! smiley: wink
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 8:01:26 PM
Even if companies do it there would be losses due to the sheer distance (especially in research and economy). And the bigger something gets the more difficult it is to coordinate it (Ask anybody who had to take care of a project in his life). Going there in a ship.. and maybe even getting people to do it.. is the easy part.. integrating it in your empire (so that you can really benefit from it).. not so easy.



Edit: We are talking years of transport here (every turn your ship needs to reach a colony is a year.. that also would apply to freighters that bring goods.. and research data.. well I don't know how to even implement that correctly)
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 8:02:59 PM
Thats the capatlists problem to deal with, we are emporors! smiley: wink
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12 years ago
May 24, 2012, 8:57:57 PM
Right now colonizing happens instantly if you use a colony ship.

If the colony ship had to orbit the system for one turn (i.e. have all of its movement points) you'd better send ships to acompany it or hope that no pirates show up.
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