Question to hard core players » Forum Post by Stanley Tarrant

Hi!

When you guys play on obscene and suicidal how do you set up your planets in terms of factories and research labs?

Depending on the amount of planets all-labs or all-factories. In older maso games I've built mixed planets with an emphasize on research. But after trying the all-x approach I'll never get back, because suicidal now feels like maso felt at that time.

BR, Iztok

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I also used to be mixed with a one-third research and two-third factory split for productivity buildings. I would mostly have productivity buildings early and mostly economic buildings by end game, with all the research buildings overwritten with econ buildings once I had secured all of the pieces of the tech tree that I wanted.

However, I'm now with Iztok and go the all X approach. Factories in my case, because I prefer the bigger maps.

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With Twilight of the Arnor I am noticing that most of this game is all about money.

Not only that but how much money you can save by buying factories, starports and building ships during the initial colony phase instead of buying them. I outlast the AI in the initial phase by doing this and still get high planet quality. Meaning I am still cranking out ships while the AI is trying to get their funds back to normal levels. Either way if you do

Just ask yourself what good is an industrial sector/factory or invention center if you can't afford to run it at full production. On the flipside what good is it to research or build trade centers when your pulling in 100 bc a turn at 100% production copacity. Ideally, you want to maximize your production with your economy making 0 bc a turn at %100 capacity. If you start making money you need to build or research faster. If you are losing too much money you need to only build econ buildings and research money techs.

Make sure you have defenders on your planets to keep the AI from declaring war on you.

I would disable tech trading the AI will probably benefit from this more than you on suicidal.

Keep your influence up but don't put a influence starbase in enemy territory until you are confident if they declare war on you it won't be a big deal because they probably will.

If you can get the last technology weapons tech if its not too far away in comparison with other research. The last weapons tech is more than double the 2nd to last weapons tech. I.E. nightmare torpedo is 25 damage and photon torp II is like 12 damage. If you are the first race to get there you can anihlate the enemy with ease.

Anamolies pop up often as well. Build a survey ship out of a cargo hull with the survey module and tons of engines once you hit like warp drive. You will find getting those anamolies that pop up all the time even if its rare will help a great deal. Not only that but your keeping the other races from getting them.

Good luck sir.

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Er so ya I split, Factories on big planets except maybe one big one with my tech capt, and research on small ones. The research is too slow if you go all factories and try to focus with TA. Sorry for the long winded post above.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

I start out with a mixed strategy building both factories and labs and often make my home planet both my manufacturing capital and tech capital. I then do a variety of different things based the way I'm trying to play.

If I'm going for a max colony rush I build enough factories so that I can produce a cargo hull per turn. Note this is a cargo hull for 55bc with no engines, no life support or colony module. I then spend the 350bc per turn to upgrade this into a full colony ship. I also research sensors quickly to get the survey module and get a couple of extra survey ships out there to find money anomalies.

I can keep producing a colony ship per turn for a year like this by finding only a few money anomalies. Also the 55 MP's of production does not require the full use of my home planet and so I'll also build labs and my tech cap on my home planet. I then set the sliders to just enough military to produce a cargo hull per turn and the rest to research. On all colonies I build nothing and I simply set my focus to research. I do this for at least the first year. I also set my taxes to usually about 59% (sometimes 54%). Just enough to keep my home planet above 40%.

I want to repeat what I said above. I build no social projects and have no social spending on any colony for at least the first year. I buy most of my factories and labs on my home planet but will use a brief amount of concentrated social spending on my home planet to build my manu and tech caps but that's it for the first year.

Once I'm done with the colony rush my military spending and research spending goes to zero and I set my slider to 100% social and then start building factories on all my colonies. I set my home planet focus to research and I overbuild my labs with factories.

I build out my colonies with factory only and as they complete I set their focus to research and move onto the next few planets to develop. By the time I've developed my colonized planets I'm converted over to all-factory and I use that as a base to start conquering AI's. However, every AI planet that I conquer gets converted directly into a cash planet consisting only of stock markets. Every planet I conquer gets treated this way. Soon my income soars and I can buy ships directly instead of producing them and I convert my initial colonies from all-factory to all-income and from there that's it to the end of the game.

However another way to go is to only colonize a handful of planets, literally 5 or 6 and develop them early concetrating on research. In this case I go not quite all-lab but close to it. I only have one or two factories per planet. Enough just to build out the labs I need. I then sit there researching planetary invasion and xeno ethics up to concept of malice to go evil, build the MCC and ASC and up the laser branch get to psionic beam and perhaps speed up to Warp Drive.

Then I convert back over to all-factory and start spitting out small fighters with 3 or 4 warp drives and a pair of psionic beams. With a few fleets of these I can conquer a nearby AI. However since my own manufacturing is rather limited I will keep my first victims planets factories and convert them to all-factory. Once I have a good core of 40~50 planets like this I switch back to converting captured planets into all-income as described above.

There are various shades of grey between these two extremes and there are also other paths involving a more dimplomatic approach but these are essentially the two main ways that I proceed. Generally for the smaller galaxy metaverse league games I use a max colony rush combined with a rush to planetary invasion.

Note in this case my military spending is rather brief and quickly changes to social spending to build out a few (3~4) labs per planet and then everything switches to research until I reach evil and switch to 100% social to build MCC, ASC and overbuild my labs to factories and then 100% military to build fleets of fighters.

The key point is to not be so tied up with some kind of fixed strategy. Let the game dictate to you the best way to proceed. Take what the game gives you and work with it and not against it. If an AI beats you in the colony rush don't worry about it. Simply shut down your own rush early and quickly get your planets developed and then jump your opponent before his planets are developed. If the planets are there for the taking then by all means do so and then try to weather the storm to not get taken over yourself before you get your planets developed. In the latter case is where diplomacy and paying one AI to fight another can really come in handy. Also the SCC can really protect you in this case as well.

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

The key point is to not be so tied up with some kind of fixed strategy.

I'll second that, and take exception to the notion that you have to give the computer players bonuses to be "hard core."

I'm way, way too fond of this game, but to me playing over Tough sometimes still seems cheesy even though I'm beginning to understand that crowd a bit better. Between my not being hyper-methodical and having a role-playing streak plus the steady stream of patches, updates, and expansion packs...I've not yet needed to add that spice to the stew.

p.s. I never do the all-this-or-that and tend to specialize worlds by bonus tile and make smaller worlds cash farms.

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i'm not completely understanding 'all-X'.

%100 nothing but factories on all planets? if so where does you research come from?

do you mean 1 or 2 factories and the reset research buildings on research planets? or literally all research.

I'm not grasping how you maintain your economy with all factory planets *and* a fleet of ships.

I'm not grasping how you're not completely out-teched by going 'all factory' and setting a factory planet on research focus.

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i'm not completely understanding 'all-X'.

%100 nothing but factories on all planets? if so where does you research come from?

do you mean 1 or 2 factories and the reset research buildings on research planets? or literally all research.

I'm not grasping how you maintain your economy with all factory planets *and* a fleet of ships.

I'm not grasping how you're not completely out-teched by going 'all factory' and setting a factory planet on research focus.

There are long, detailed posts buried somewhere in the galciv2 forum pits talking all about the economy and its problems, but when you go 100% factories, you focus each planet on research which takes 25% of the total production and converts it to research. Basically, on the planet screen where you can view improvements, you will notice at the top where you can focus planets on different things (social, military, or research). Its a way to somewhat control the economy on a single planet without having to change economic settings for all of your planets.

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Mumblefratz, just to confirm, are you still playing DL-only games?

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i'm not completely understanding 'all-X'.

%100 nothing but factories on all planets? if so where does you research come from?

do you mean 1 or 2 factories and the reset research buildings on research planets? or literally all research.

I'm not grasping how you maintain your economy with all factory planets *and* a fleet of ships.

I'm not grasping how you're not completely out-teched by going 'all factory' and setting a factory planet on research focus.

There are long, detailed posts buried somewhere in the galciv2 forum pits talking all about the economy and its problems, but when you go 100% factories, you focus each planet on research which takes 25% of the total production and converts it to research. Basically, on the planet screen where you can view improvements, you will notice at the top where you can focus planets on different things (social, military, or research). Its a way to somewhat control the economy on a single planet without having to change economic settings for all of your planets.

That's the basis of it. I wrote an AAR with saved game files of the all factory strategy:

Suicidal all factory strat

Wyndstar has an all research AAR around as well if you browse through the AAR section. These two should give you a better idea how to work it. I should warn though that it's generally considered an "advanced" strategy because it requires the player to have a very firm grasp of how to manipulate the economy to maximum advantage...Otherwise the increase economic demands of these two strategies can drag you under fast.

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I'm also an all X fan, but IF I for some reason mix labs and factory type buildings across all of my planets, each planet will be dedicated to one or the other. Especially if I am splitting I try and find a large quality planet (lots of tiles) to make into my research capital, because the tech capital adds such a large bonus. One such world and a proper array of starbases can give you all the research you will ever need.

In either case, I'll have a fair amount of dedication to cash planets as well.

Hope that helps,
~ Wyndstar

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i'm not completely understanding 'all-X'.

%100 nothing but factories on all planets? if so where does you research come from?

do you mean 1 or 2 factories and the reset research buildings on research planets? or literally all research.

I'm not grasping how you maintain your economy with all factory planets *and* a fleet of ships.

I'm not grasping how you're not completely out-teched by going 'all factory' and setting a factory planet on research focus.

It’s a weird one, but makes sense when you see whats really happening with the economy.

If you have a planet with 1 factory and 1 lab and your sliders are set to 33%/33%/33%. Then that means that your taxes are getting channelled 33% to use in labs, 33% to use in social projects through factories, and 33% to use in factories to make ships.

*imagination bit*
Your Lab is only being used to one third of its capacity. Think about that, if it employs 9 scientists, 3 of them are hard at work on researching ion drives, the other 6 are surfing the net, making paper aeroplanes, having long lunches and reading a book with their feet up on their desks, they are doing nothing what so ever.

So think about this. You raise X credits to spend on output. For your X credits you are employing 3 scientists, and 6 workers who are busy in your factory making buildings and ships, they still have 3 workers doing nothing. So in total you have 9 people hard at work, 9 people doing nothing.

Now imagine this. You decide to micro manage and focus your efforts where you need them. You also tell all your clever students that in your new empire you will not be building any labs, so they should get jobs in the factories R&D departments instead.

You start off by building two factories and set sliders to 50% 50% 0%. You now have 18 people hard at work on social projects and ships. Further you can focus that planet on research, which takes 30% of these people and gets them doing ion drives in the factories R&D department.

So you did have:
3 people building social
3 people building a ship
3 people working on ion drives
9 people doing nothing

You know have roughly:
6 people building social
6 people building a ship
6 people working on ion drives

My way of playing is to build on every planet 2/3 factories, 1 Starbase, 2 farms, rest economy. Mostly every planet have focus set to research.

(Note to more experienced players, is the above correct? I believe it is)

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I would just like to add as an ex scientist I do not like the fact that factorys can produce research!

This also does not seem to be a necessary game mechanic. I would like research only to occur with labs.

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Thats interesting mumblefratz I never though of that. You could crank out at least 10 colony ships that way 1 per turn with 3k which is pretty good. And the anamolies giving you that extra bc does the rest for that year. Which tells us again how important snagging those anamolies are. I always play rare anamolies because its so gimp but they pop up so often in TA its still worth it to find them first.

The all money approach is interesting as well. It seems like buying ships at 10k per late in the game would be too much though. I see the concept though you don't have to build and move your ships to the front lines which is pretty nice if playing in a large galaxy. Not only that you could have small maintenance costs and build up your treasury because buying them is so fast.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

Mumblefratz, just to confirm, are you still playing DL-only games?

Yep. However once I get my TA disk I'll finally have the latest DA version without being forced to use SDC which I refuse to do.

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Hi!

%100 nothing but factories on all planets?

It's not just factories, there are econ buildings (markets, farm(s), morale building(s)) too. But there aren't ANY labs, and that makes all the difference.

BR, Iztok

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

without being forced to use SDC which I refuse to do

Here's hoping 2.0 will be avaialable as a normal download. I appreciate Mumble's ideals re SDC, even though I long ago gave up similar objections as part of a larger effort to accept that "the industry" has more control over my PC than I can hope to without getting another advanced degree or two and winning the lottery so I have time to apply that knowledge.

p.s. Mumblefratz really is a Gerontocrat, even if he won't leave that scoremonster gang of his and join us formally

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I would just like to add as an ex scientist I do not like the fact that factorys can produce research!

This also does not seem to be a necessary game mechanic. I would like research only to occur with labs.

R&D departments?

Seems perfectly logical to me. After all these days top graduates go to big firms to do Research, not dedicated universities like thye might have 40 years ago.

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it sounds interesting to go no labs and set the focus. does that not, however, leave you with a decreased amount of research points? Or is this all in the vein of maximizing every little bit of potential, damn the loss in research points.

if you have a fixed number of planets all doing this no-lab strategy, and I have a mix of factory, econ, lab planets...Will I not out tech you? I can see how you could overwhelm me with ships. I also see how much harder that gets the bigger the galaxy gets.

The only time I manipulate the sliders is when I need a tech, or when i need a starbase. I have been paying more attention to the social spending slider to see if setting it to 0 when I don't need it will save me some cash, but in my current game its irrelevant and I can't test it.

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if you have a fixed number of planets all doing this no-lab strategy, and I have a mix of factory, econ, lab planets...Will I not out tech you? I can see how you could overwhelm me with ships. I also see how much harder that gets the bigger the galaxy gets.

Your have a edge on research but not a huge one. I will have a massive edge on production. Plus I will need less tiles to get my output than yourself. Leaving more room for econ buildings.

If you have a lab and 33/33/33 sliders remember that each lab is running at only 33% of its potential, although granted they will be much more effective at that role if used fully.

I will grab every research bonus I can think of, I will trade for techs and I will have the military to invade planets, each one yielding me an additional tech. On a large map after a while my techs from invasions will be so fast and so many I will not be worried about research.

All factories suggests a quicker paced action game, not one for the turtles. If you want to turtle go all labs and do it the other way around.

Say Thalans, go for social and military bonus, industrials party, NLC's and adjust focus depending on if you want to produce social or military that week.

Also, spend most of your game in the colonies screen.

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Mumblefratz, just to confirm, are you still playing DL-only games?

Yep. However once I get my TA disk I'll finally have the latest DA version without being forced to use SDC which I refuse to do.

I certainly don't want to get into an off-topic debate over this, but let me just say that I consider SDC to be the greatest game distribution system ever. I can understand other points of view, but I personally love it. For instance, I was recently on a business trip and I had unexpected time available to play a game, but didn't have any game disks with me. I just went out to stardock.com, downloaded SDC, logged in to my account, and downloaded Gciv2. The convenience is well worth the minimially invasive nature of SDC.

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When you guys play on obscene and suicidal how do you set up your planets in terms of factories and research labs? Do you go half and half or do you have some planets that are all labs and some that are all factories? Or do some of you avoid the quartering production drawback of the economy by going all labs and using the focus mechanic on production?

I'm not as skilled as some of the other Suicidal players since I've only been able to squeak out a few DA games at that difficulty with one strategy and one game setup, but here's what I've been doing. This is for gig/abun which makes a big difference. Gig/abun is an easier game to win, but tedious to play because of the huge numbers of everything. My focus shifts as the game progresses, but in the latter half of the game, I'm hitting the social production hard, building toward a split about half military production and half economy. I'm pretty much done with research at that point (I run very fast tech in the game setup) so the relatively small number of labs I've built are decomissioned and replaced with stock markets. I do focus on research heavily in the early game, but I never build all that many labs. I shift the sliders to 100% research for periods to get things quick. For me, it's all about big military production and big economy That's why I'm hooked on playing Thalan, they can build like crazy.

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I certainly don't want to get into an off-topic debate over this, but let me just say that I consider SDC to be the greatest game distribution system ever. I can understand other points of view, but I personally love it. For instance, I was recently on a business trip and I had unexpected time available to play a game, but didn't have any game disks with me. I just went out to stardock.com, downloaded SDC, logged in to my account, and downloaded Gciv2. The convenience is well worth the minimially invasive nature of SDC.

I also love SDC and it is one of the reasons I continue to play these games. I will play for a few weeks/months, get tired of them, uninstall, and know that I can come back a year later and reinstall everything including all patches oh whatever computer I happen to be using at the time. I am amazed that anyone actually would want to use a physical cd these days.

Compare SDC to Steam (which I also use) and I just do not see anything at all intrusive or invasive about it. Once I download and install the game, exactly how does it differ from a CD install?

Anyhow back on topic..

I am a terrible player mostly because I hate to micro manage anything and will almost never finish a game. I am the typical "love to win by out teching the enemy" kind of guy. Having been away from the game for a while I am getting back in because of TA. So I read up on the theory of the all-X strategy and it made a lot of sense.

If you do not really know what you are doing though (like me) both the all factory and the all lab versions are really easy to dig a deep hole for yourself with. I have found that the production/research output of both is so much higher than I am used to I overbuild/expand and without really noticing it I am running a huge deficit.

If you do not use tech trading or anomalies to finance the shortfall in your output it is very easy to get to a point where you are in big trouble with the all lab strategy. The all factory set up is easier to "turn off" on most of your worlds until you get your economy going, but this pause can still really hurt you with respect to the AI.

I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of the experienced players pick up TA though because I think some of the tech trees really change things up. Some of the races really play differently and using just a plain one size fits all-x strat really does not work.

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I wouldn't go so far as to say I love SDC, but I've found it to be fairly innocuous and rather convenient. Although, I wouldn't have a problem with a stand-alone install either. I'd probably still prefer it.

I haven't played TA yet, but I imagine it will be a while before I can win any of those games at high difficulty, which is good.

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Your have a edge on research but not a huge one. I will have a massive edge on production. Plus I will need less tiles to get my output than yourself. Leaving more room for econ buildings.

If you have a lab and 33/33/33 sliders remember that each lab is running at only 33% of its potential, although granted they will be much more effective at that role if used fully.

I've tried what has been described here and its a little dissapointing. Meaning that it operate the way it does. My home planet in the game i'm playing now is about ~90/~25/~20 with the 33 format. When reducing the research slider to zero it goes to ~140/~30(i think)/0. then when putting research as a focus the military score drops to ~100 and the research goes to ~50. Leaving the planet in its '33' state and putting a focus on research drops the military to ~70 and the research to ~50.

So in effect by using the strategy as describe, i've magically created an amount of extra military and social spending. I'm using the same amount of people as I was in the '33' system, but yield a bit more in the numbers. I assume the resarch points come from the mandatory colony building. The wife is looking over the shoulder now though and i'm running out of time to investigate it.

i suppose i'll be implementing this my next game to see how it goes.

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