Questions about "all labs" in ToA

As this post would be otherwise prohibitively long I am splitting it into several pieces. Hopefully this isn’t violating protocol on these forums.

Before I go into my questions / observations about "all labs" strategies in ToA let me state that I am by no means an expert of Galciv2, having skipped DA altogether, and only recently started to play ToA (like a month ago).

I enjoy the game immensely and am able to win easily on crippling and with some anxiety / luck on masochistic. I have read multiple AARs by folks like Wyndstar and Maschrinthus (did I spell that right?) and the like. As an aside I spent several hours one night doing test games so that I could figure out the exact mechanisms for the sliders, application of bonuses, etc.

So one strategy that caught my eye was the "all labs" approach followed by the "flip" to "all factory". (a la Wyndstar). Being a scientist in real life the idea of a heavy research strategy in Galciv2 has always appealed to me. Lastly I like to usually play on large or gigantic maps with max number of opponents with research at Slow or Normal. From what I have read on these forums (at least in regards to DL / DA) this is well suited to an all labs / flip style at higher difficulties (i.e. “all factory” is more for Fast or higher research rate).

To set context for this post I have been trying things out at Masochistic with Research at 100% with an Altarian custom race (Altarian base + max econ + max morale + Technologists + max research + Super Diplomacy instead of Organizer). I suppose at some point I'll flip to Super Breeder and max pop growth instead of research but hey I am a scientist irl hence the max research.

Ok so now the questions / comments most of which are concerned with the early game phase (i.e. year one), since as other more skilled players have already voiced on these boards --- year one is where you win or lose the game at higher difficulties.

Btw forgive me if a lot of this was also the way things were in DA. As I said I skipped that

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So my first set of observations:

Money is the big problem. You get less starting money than I remember in DL and all that research is going to cost oodles of cash. Also when doing "all labs" while your pure research is awesome (especially with a bonus research tile or two) you lose some steam when having to focus planets on social or military (I was surprised to see that the "waste" is not inconsequential btw -- is this new?). Also "all labs" is not easy to get new planets going unless you buy / lease labs to get things going. But this again comes back to money.

So some questions about economy:

How to solve the econ meltdown? Diplomacy cash grabs? Sure see the next part of the post for discussion of tech trading / diplomacy. Leasing instead of rush buying? If so how much and what to target (like how many labs on the home world roughly?) Stay at 100% morale and grow out of it? Seems the right thing to do early but unsustainable at some point, but when to move to 75% per planet to slow down the stock market collapse? Ok then what else? Hope for luck with the anomalies? As an aside I always get at least two more survey ships rolling after I get Sensors at (or near) the game start. Hope for awesome planet tiles / bonuses? Is Super Breeder key? Help!!!

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Ok now for the second set of observations.

Diplomacy is not as "unfair" to the AI as in DL. ToA seems to have built in some safeguards. The AI is a lot stingier in terms of doling out money for techs even with high player diplo advantage. Also econ / research treaties can't be obtained for a long time (i.e. two years right?). Also the AI often doesn't want to talk to you for awhile after a completed deal (though Super Diplomat helps in that respect). As an aside I find it much easier in an "all factory" game to trade for techs and still have top tech rating at Crippling / Masochistic than to save myself from economic meltdown via tech trading in an "all labs" approach in ToA. But hey I want "all labs" to work!

So some more questions but about tech trading and research trees:

What is the best balance between getting all the diplo tree filled out ASAP (like in one of Wyndstar's DA guides) and getting some infrastructure techs to avert economic disaster? Moreover, the stingier AIs early in the game often have little to no cash. If I get all the snazzy diplo techs first what the heck do I trade to other civs for money assuming they have money? Getting 60-100 bc for a solid tech when I am -300 bc per turn or worse and can't speak to these guys again for a few weeks (at which point they may have little cash anyways) is a bit nerve wracking. It also seems prohibitive to sell techs to an AI when his reserves are low since it all seems based on some percentage of his treasury. Empirically speaking, I also find that if I don't research and sell some econ techs then the AI civs have insufficient capital to extract early in the game when I need it the most! Btw does this improve at Obscene or Suicidal (meaning the AI have more cash to burn)? Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong here?

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Ok now for the third and final set of observations.

Third given that economy is now a big threat in ToA and with stingier cash-strapped AIs in the early part of the game how many planets should I grab? Building colony ships on "all labs" is painful. You probably have to build them on your home world but lo and behold that is where your max research will be for many turns. So at the start it takes like 11 turns per colony skip (pre tech capital) and that is compounded by the roughly 5% waste when social focusing! You also can’t do both social and military simultaneously which is more annoying than bad but all the meanwhile the economy is falling. Also each new planet needs to have at least one lab bought for it to do anything. But labs early on in ToA are expensive to maintain (and I am not even talking about the Thalans whose labs are REALLY expensive). In DL (and I am guessing DA) labs were better than factories per point produced.

So my final questions -- now about planets and construction:

Again how many planets to shoot for in my "rush phase" even in large or gigantic maps? It must be less than in an all-factory or even (*shudder*) "balanced" game. (The shudder is because the sliders in galciv2 really eviscerate the player for playing balanced and at higher difficulties that just cannot work.) Should I leave the secondary planets mostly empty except for bonus tiles? Should I skip morale structures altogether and use tech / trades to get civ wide bonuses and otherwise man the tax rate with pop growth in mind? Once I get econ techs should I focus on econ structures for the secondary planets? What else should I build? I assume max pops of 12 or 14 per non-home world planet. I assume the less morale structures the better. I assume factory bonus tiles still get labs (pre-flip). I assume most wonders are useless early except of course god-like tech capital and trade goods like Nano Recorders or Harmony Crystals. Should I get Xeno Ethics early and forget planet bonuses since my colony rush will be small? Are asteroids helpful in an "all labs" early phase or just upgrade the miner to a colony ship? Should I try transporting pop from the home world to the secondary planets?

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No thoughts?

Oh well. I guess I frightened people away with the wall of text.

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Well, I guess in a week or so I can tell you more.
I played all-labs once quite a while ago in a relatively easy game...but found it not to be made for me.

Well, I am just playing Torians (Obscene, ToA, Huge Galaxy, slow research) for the first time and while I had not planned on this (well, due to the galaxy layout the only "Plan" I had did quite soon evaporate) I decided to switch to all-labs after 1 year.

The first year I used to gain lots of techs with Tradegoods/GAs associated.
And so I built/started to build: Harmony Crystals, Eyes of the Universe (finished), Diplo TRans (almost finished), Restaurant & Nano Recorders (in work).

due to the relatively healthy econ of the Torians I just crammed all my 8 planets with Schools and jumped well ahead of all AIs in research output....and still am able to muster a small profit every week. (Great ratio of Torian schools certainly helps there)

As I'm located in a small Star cluster in a corner of a galaxy where no Minor race is (duh) and also no other major civ and the way to the next stars is sickly far....I expect me to try to stay alone and somehow hopefully being able to pump out more research than the AIs despite their bonusses.
Which was also the only reason why I went with All-labs. Usually I do all-Factories and try to cover the slow research by intelligent tech trading.

So in short: I'm not a "fan" of all-labs, but I decided that for this game it would be the best way to go...I hope.

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All facts was my favourite strat in DA (I play on suicidal btw). In ToA I think it will not work because of huge penalties. Diplomacy whoring on the other hand is much more effective.

I just won first game on obscene and completely dominating 2nd one on suicidal playing as yor and doing old school 33% split but relying on diplomacy.you can trade for other races techs which give you a lot more boosts.

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I have found that Super Breeder + Pop Growth bonuses are huge in an all labs strategy in ToA (maybe this is old news if so I apologize). The ability to grow to a high pop so fast stabilizes your economy quickly. This is key since early on the biggest obstacle to all labs is not the other AIs but your own economy.

I also try now to hold leasing down to a minimum (i.e. direct buy starter labs on first few worlds but lease say tech capital and maybe econ capital). It also helps to hold off on tech trading until as long as your economy can't survive without it since in the very early turns the AIs don't have much cash to spend and the diplomacy trade values are all relative to the cash at hand (check it out for yourself if you don't believe me).

Once you get your econ rolling you can continue to jump to a huge tech rating and as your pop grows your econ becomes powerful enough to direct buy the things you can't fabricate with low production in any reasonable sense of time otherwise.

To prevent ticking off the AIs you can still play one of them against the other and pack cheap weapon-filled ships onto a planet with Spin Control (thanks for that tip Wyndstar).

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For example in my latest game in a gigantic galaxy on Obscene with Normal tech speed and lots of planets (yes I know it isn't suicidal) I had planned to flip to all factory sooner (like 1 year in) but then a strange thing happened.

With Super Breeder and enough stock markets my econ got so powerful that I had a strange hybrid of all labs and all econ (yeah I know that isn't strictly all anything but basically I was having the best of both worlds). I then waited till year 2 got all the research and econ treaties I wanted while still maintaining a substantial tech lead and voila I could now fight a war by just buying whatever capital ships and transports I wanted.

Super Breeder again pays dividends as I conquer a world, buy a couple morale structures and within like 4 turns I can start buying a full transport (say 2k soldiers) every turn from the frontier worlds. This means I could roll whichever AI I was fighting very quickly along their entire border all at once (i.e. every planet taken meant even more capital ships and transports rolling out).

So now it is like 2.5 years in ... I have almost all techs (that I want) researched, I have a crazy profit each turn (well crazy for me but about +20K per turn to burn in direct buys of ships), every world I conquer is more forward bases to launch from, I have an ironclad alliance with the Yor who are equal in strength to the other top two civs (beside myself of course), my military rating at least appears to be ultra-high (yay spin control), and I am finally about to go all factory (well replace the labs and keep the econ structures of course) and have my industry and military go berserk. Not bad for only having 4 planets like 1 year in.

I am sure this is nothing new to many of the other experienced players out there but I thought it cool to go from all labs -> all labs (+ econ) -> all factories (+ econ).

Though I must say it is a chore sometimes to buy up 20-25K of stuff every turn to remain below the "corruption" limit.

Anyways sorry for the wall of text again.

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Currently playing Yor, Suicidal, Gigantic, Abundant everything (except Anomalies = Rare), Slowest tech. I'm Year 3 or so. Having stumbled and failed at All Labs in ToA with similar setup, I actually went with the balanced approach. Those +300% research tiles are just too tempting with the 12rp/3maint building the Yor get. I haven't researched any other lab type--much less built them. Interestingly, while technically my maintenance is not optimized, it's not killing me. Some decent tech trading with the Thalans, and a few successful invasions of the Torian left me with some good +morale technologies. So, my tax rate is currently 49%, my approval is 100% on all worlds but my homeworld (helps with creating troops to continue invading the Torians), and I'm pulling around 500bc/turn in profit while running 100% productivity.

I'm actually using the Research and Social sliders to control empire-wide focus, though of course individual worlds are focused on what I want them doing individually, rather than what I want the empire doing. Frogboy would be proud.

Any any rate, I'm still near last in the galaxy, and the Torians are far-and-away #1, so it should be interesting. A balanced approach, while sub-optimal, may be practical at least.

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Well just to bring some closure on my sample Obscene game mentioned in my previous reply.

I got all the techs I wanted and flipped to all factory. As my economy was already "obscene" the transition was rather quick. Note I had already toasted two neighboring AIs (both average in strength) pre-flip. I also had a strong alliance with the Yor (one of the top 2 AIs throughout most of the game).

Once I flipped it was pretty insane. I put out so many ships that I preceded to decimate the Thalans and Drengin (the other top AI civs) and ended up with a diplomacy victory (didn't have the heart to betray the Yor who had been good to me + super isolationist officially stinks when trying to conquer them).

So in conclusion I'd like to thank Wyndstar for some of his excellent and unique posts on these forums (very helpful). While all labs may not be as easily overpowering as in DA (which I didn't play but that is again from reading forum posts) when coupled with a strong econ and right use of diplomacy / treaties it can lead to an awesome all factory flip that if done at the right time can simply devastate the AIs (assuming of course you graphics card can handle the crazy stream of capital ships and transports you can roll out).

Now onto suicidal...

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