@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

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.

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.

I get reluctant to colonize, because those new systems take forever to become useful.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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. "

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.

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.

@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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

@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.

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.



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.