Research order for DA

It's a balancing act to be sure. Obviously, some may be more important than others depending on what is nearby. On larger maps with more available planets you will probably want them all before the colony rush is completely over. The catch is that if you speend a lot of time on them, you may end up at the bottom of the heap in all categories but number of planets. This probably isn't a big problem unless you get into an early war that you are totally unequipped to fight.

I'm in a game like that now on crippling. The Drengin won the colony rush in spite of me pulling out all the stops to grab planets. They declared war some time in the second year when my empire was very low tech. I really didn't think the game was winnable, but I'm winning now and taking Drengin planets every other turn.

So there isn't a set formula? But usually it's a good idea to colonize all of them and trade your colonizing techs with others for their other non-colonizing techs once you have colonized the planets in your range right?

I try to research some of them early, remember they are worth quite a bit in tech trading so once you've claimed all the planets of that type you can trade it for other techs while essentially giving the AI nothing.

They USED to be worth quite a bit in tech trading, they aren't anymore.

Because galaxy creation is random, it is hard to say for sure, you will need to adjust depending on the number and quality of col. tech requiring worlds on your given map.

However, I never research the colonization techs anymore. They take to long to be able to compete with the AI. If I start with one from a SA I will use it. Otherwise, if there are damaged worlds near me I just invest a few turns in picking up the first several techs in the influence (xeno business, etc.) branch. I can get larger and happier populations on my interior undamaged worlds quickly, so if an enemy conquers planets in my territory I know I can culture flip them early. This can hurt relations, but in my experience gives you a much more competitive advantage, allowing you to focus on industry, economy, and weapons techs.

Hi!

IMO immediately after you get all level-1 buildings (xeno lab, factory, advanced market) and other early and cheap techs that give bonuses to whole empire (planetary improvements, xeno medicine(?) for 10% bonus in growth...).

In my current maso game I've waited too long with these planetary techs, and neighboring AIs have beaten me to ALL of close planets, as each one researched tech for a different environment. Fortunantelly I had a quite old savegame from previous night, so I'm now a happy owner of 2 big radiated planets and 3 nice toxic ones , and with double the amount of usable tiles. Still Altarians beated me to one medium toxic.

In future sandbox DA games I'll not be waiting so long anymore.

BR, Iztok

The worse part about planetary environments is that if you don't research them, and it so happens the AI colonizes one such planet within your area of influence, and it flips.... then you are stuck with a planet that can't develop till you research the tech.

I would have thought that if the planet flips, you would at least obtain some knowledge of the planetary tech that it needs or that the AI has.

Oh well...

But you still get a taxable population... and you can always research the appropriate techs after you have your empire churning at a nice pace.

Hi!

Do you? I remember reading Draginol discussing this issue, and he stated the population on such a planet will not produce ANY money.

Speaking of those limitations: do they really work? One of those two radiated planets I mentioned got a 55% research bonus, and had a 700% bonus research tile on it. OFC I turned it into my main reseach planet, which produced ~400SP with a research slider at 50%. When I finaly could afford researching the second part of rad colonizing tech, I expected to get it to 800 SP, but it is still producing the same ~400 SP. I need to check that thoroughly this evening.

BR, Iztok

In my current game on masochistic, I didn't research them at all. I simply colonized until there were no planets without requirement in my vicinity left (at which point several AI's were having quite a bit more planets than me). Then I researched Planetary Invasion and "colonized" some more. These early invasions are really easy, even on higher difficulty levels, because the AI continues to research colonization techs even if you attack them and doesn't respond in time. I hope they get that fixed in a patch.

Reaserch ability is a key factor.

The faster you can research, the more ahead you will be,

So, it pays in the long run to research the research techs. Because, if it takes you 10 turns to gain an overall increase of 15, you will win out.

Something like that, anyway.


If you would spend 20 weeks researching a specific tech - but can do it in much less time if you had better research ability,..

And once your research is up to snuff, it applies to every tech researched.

Faster weapons... Faster defenses...

Go for the Gold! Research Research tecks first.

You can get them by trading. The Altarian resistance usually research a lot in the first months, and they usually get them. Maybe you will have to trade your pants for them, but its possible to do it.

I recomend getting the tech anyway, because after you´ve colonized the important planets, you can exchange the tech with the other civs, and they wont be able to use it because you´ve colonized all the planets already.

It's not true. Red planets produce money. They're actually quite good at it, quite frankly.

I usually research one colonization tech. Usually in my games there's one particular kind of planet which sticks out--e.g. there will be 5 nice radioactive planets, 2 barrens, 1 aquatic. I can let the barren go. If I'm Korath, it's a no-brainer: wait to research advanced toxic. My survey ships tend to do a good job of researching that for me.

So colonizing the uninhabitable planets early isn't that important right? I had several of these in my area of influence and no one came to colonize them, I finally grabbed the aquatic world but the other ones are still left alone by the AI even though that they had the technology to colonize them. Is the AI not colonizing them on purpose because that it's in my sphere of influence and will flip to me anyways? (I had influence SBs and planets around it)

If the above is true then it seems that there isn't a need to rush for the colonization techs just because you don't want to lose them to the AI.

Generally speaking, I'm going to say no, they're not that urgent to take. You can always flip or invade them later, and that doesn't require any tech. However, there are most definitely exceptions--like if you want to extend your life support range.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. In my current game I had 2 class 18 radiation planets and another class 15 one. It obviously paid to grab those 3 planets but I didn't bother with any other colonization techs and just flipped them later. Those 3 radiation planets are among my top 5 planets so they were worth every bit of research I spent to get them. Other games there aren't any really special planets around me that I need a tech for and I get them as I manage to trade for the tech or flip them if they get taken by an AI.