The "1 turn per ship" colony strat, insane starting strat for DA

from GalCiv2 Forums


Hey guys, I'd just like to share with you a new strat I've been working on.

Basically it's a ridiculously powerful colony rush which gets 3 speed colony ships which take only 1 turn to build within 5 turns of the game (as well as 2 turn constructor ships which you build once your homeworld population starts to get low).

The way I do this is by picking +2 speed and then using SMALL hulls to build my colony ships with NO ENGINES.

The hardest part of this strategy is you need to get 70 military production on your homeworld in order to get these things to build in 1 turn. Seasoned players will know that this is by no means unachievable, any race which starts with Xeno Industrial theory will find it rather easy even without any manufacturing tiles on your homeworld.

Lets try this out and see what happens:

* I set the galaxy size is large, with planets, stars and habitable planets set to abundant.

* Asteroids and Anomolies set to rare because I didn't want any unfair advantage due to luck.

* Minor Civs set to random, tech rate to normal, everything else default.

* Difficulty was set to Masochistic with 5 AIs opponents.

I decided to pick Krynn, obviously because they're one of the races which starts with Xeno Industrial theory but mostly I haven't tried them before. The krynn start with 9 points so after picking +2 speed for 8 I went with +10 morale for my remaining point, chooseing Fedaralists for my party.



Starting out you can see I'm wedged between the Drengings and Drath, but this turns out to be not too much of a problem. I decide to colonise my secondary planet right away and set it building market centres (this rush will be very taxing on economy and nearly every world you colonise at first should be an economic world, make sure you grab colonists from your homeworld so your pop grows)




With a combination of 100% social spending and rush buying, I'm able to fill up my homeworld with factories within 5 turns. As you can see, there is plenty of production to produce colony ships in 1 turn without a problem

Setting military spending to 1% and social to 99% I'm able to build up my colonised worlds while still producing colony ships in 1 turn on my homeworld.

Scouting around I can see there are several colonisable worlds nearby and I decide to rush the worlds near the drengin and hopefully try to steal them before they can.

End part 1, part 2 to follow.

strategies
23,870 views 29 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


A few months later my armada of 1 turn colony ships are on their way. Although the Drengin are able to colonise much of the worlds near them with their rush bought colony ships, my ships are still able to grab a few worlds near the border. My concentration would now turn to colonising elsewhere.



By may 15 I'm well on my way, with 8 colonies and 4 more in transit. It's important to note that I'm tweaking tax to keep approval at 100% this whole time. By building colony ships this fast your homeworld population is getting drained like nobody's business and you NEED to have that 2x growth helping you out as long as you can afford to keep taxes low.

This also helps with your starting colonies as well to build pop fast, since these are economy worlds it's really important they grow fast (I shudder to think how effective this strat would be with super breeder)

One thing I'm having doubts about at this point is whether it's economically viable to do this strat with any race other than Krynn. The massive morale bonus Krynn get enable you to set taxes to around 49% early and still maintain 100% approval.



By the time July comes around, even though I've got 10 planets and lots more colony ships on the way, I've got two problems. My homeworld is almost out of people, and my economy is going broke (at this point I was losing around 150BC per year.

I start building a 2 turn constructor (once agian light hull, no engines) to try and claim the military resource while I grow my pop back on homeworld.

Then I slide taxes up to 69% to hopefully recover economically. I'm still losing money but I can afford to keep going, my colonies are still all over 41% so they're still growing. I reduce my total spending enough so I can still get my constructor in 2 turns but now I'm just breaking even economically.



end of part 2.. part 3 to follow
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
By adjusting the total spending slider, I'm still able to churn out constructors in 2 turns and colony ships in 1 turn, only my economy isn't hurting quite as much.

I make 1 more constructor to claim the research resource to the north and a few more colony ships (I can't fill them up with the full 500 but I try to get 2 or 3 hundred colonists so I can at least claim more worlds).



Now that I have a colony ship for every colonisable world I can see, I start to switch to focusing heavily on research.

While all my planets so far are economy worlds, the sheer number of planets I have at this point (around 20) means that my research is ridiculously high. When in full research mode I'm not spending as much and I'm able to set total spending back to 100% and only lose 50BC per turn.

At 100% research spending I'm able to get Xeno communications and the two techs after it within a single turn. One turn later I have Xeno Entertainment (15% morale bonus) and I'm able to finally set taxes to 79%, for the first time I'm actually making money rather than losing it.

I continue in research mode, grabbing the techs I need. All of the techs I want only take 1 turn, and I'm able to tweak the sliders each turn so that I've still got some social production happening while stuff is only taking 1 turn to research. This enables me to get a few more colony ships too.



Captains log, Oct 22: I scout out an economic resource and divert the constructor that was going to grab the research one to claim this instead. The number of planets under my command is now about 24.

I notice that the Drengin and Yor have started producing ships. I start researching up the military & beam weapons tree.

End of part 3... part 4 to come.











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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top



It's now January 1, exactly 1 year after starting. My total worlds are now 25. My population has grown to the point where I'm now making money at about 178 BC per turn while in full research mode just about breaking even while in full social, and this is increasing exponentially each turn.

The number of worlds I've got now far outnumbers all of the Masochistic AIs quite considerably.

Me: 25 +1 more colony on the way.
Drengin: 12
Torians: 11
Yor: 13
Arcean: 12
Drath: 19

Only the Drath have even come close.

I've researched all the way up to Laser V, I've also got Impulse drive, planetary improvements, Xeno entertainment, Xeno medicine, xeno research.

I've got two resources claimed, one economic and 1 military.

About 20 of my worlds are economy worlds, or economy worlds in progress (either all markets, or markets + a farm or markets +2 farms, + 2 entertainment buildings)

I have about 3 production worlds building in strategic locations, and a couple of the economy worlds have a factory with manufacturing tile + starport building.

I'm just about ready to start my Military Phase, and start producing light fighters, with some lasers and no engines they will still be speed 4.

So far this strategy has given me the best start I've ever had. I'm keen to try it with other races, I'm thinking it will work wonders with the Thalans seeing as it will be cheap to get the initial factories up and won't cost most of your budget, the extra production bonuses they get will help too. I think it might also be good with the Torians due to super breeder. With Yor's miniturisation it might even be possible to get Tiny hulled colony ships which will be even cheaper.

I'll let you guys know my final thoughts when I've finished this game.




Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sorry just realised the first colony ship starts building after 6 turns not 5, not that it's really that important but for those who like to nitpick I'll correct myself heh...

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is pretty cool, thanks for sharing your strat. I'd really like to hear how this game ends up turning out. How do you stats (especially research since it was on hold for so long) compare to the people around you?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

This is pretty cool, thanks for sharing your strat. I'd really like to hear how this game ends up turning out. How do you stats (especially research since it was on hold for so long) compare to the people around you?



ye ask and ye shall receive. Here are the stats after the first year.



The big trough in industry was from 1 turn where I miscalculated my spending and ended up below -500BC so my entire production was cut. The big cut in economy at the same point was when I turned taxes back down to 49% for that turn, I figured if I wasn't producing anything I could at least grow my pop for one turn.

The research is obviously at maximum at the end when I was researching the laser tree, and I ended up finishing laser V just on 1 year. Also I forgot to mention in my list that I got Xeno Economics as well. I actually got planetary improvements and xeno economics both in one turn.

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Bravo Wargazmo! Good job on cracking this. It is very similar to the strategy I use with the Krynn, although I was doing 2 turn speed five cargo hull colonizers. This might work better, I hadn't ever tried using smalls. I've said before and I'll say again, games are won or lost in the first year... at least on higher difficulties.

You are doing great, I would like to offer just one piece of advice for the next time you play the Krynn, which should help you out more. As you noticed, they do really well with money. Switch from using federalists to universalists, keep everything else the same. Compare the two:
Federalist +20 econ, Universalist +5 econ, +10 pop growth, +10 defense, +25 luck.

You do lose 15% econ, but the +10 pop growth will both help your homeworld replenish and help all those econ worlds to get tax paying people faster. The 25% luck will help you later with higher end weapons.
The 10% defense can help a lot in early wars, especially if you can get one military resource. This is because Krynn get a 50% defense, but if they get 60% to start then they go to 70% with starship defenses, and then to 109% with the first military resource. Normally Krynn go to 99% on the first military resource (50+10+39), but because of rounding 100% is a lot better than 99% - and you don't need to research industrial sectors to get to 100%.

Not that you need advice, just something to think about. Again, I can't wait to test this out myself. Will hurt to have such slow colony ships (I'm used to speed 5/6)... but the sheer number of them might make up for the speed loss.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, this is exactly why I give people who insist you can only play with Ctrl-N a hard time. You simply do not. A very few starting positions are not playable because you start out on an island with nothing for a few sectors, but that is very rare. People who think they need a +700% tile to play on suicidal should try getting better at obscene first. At least my opinion.

The Thalans are also excellent at this type of start because of super hive, and the +10% morale boost for the homeworld. In fact, in DA I like the Krynn, Korath and Thalans all better than the Yor, who seem to be the popular pick for most overpowered race by many on these boards.

Good luck with your game. Nice to see you got results. I also didn't see any morale buildings in your screenshots Again I say, Bravo!

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Will hurt to have such slow colony ships (I'm used to speed 5/6)... but the sheer number of them might make up for the speed loss.


Yeah I can see that ironically on a smaller map the fast colony ships would be more useful than on a gigantic one simply because you're competing for planets and need to get to the best ones in the smallest amount of time.

Good luck with your game. Nice to see you got results. I also didn't see any morale buildings in your screenshots Again I say, Bravo!


Absolutely, I've been reading your's and mumblefratz's posts with a keen eye


In fact, in DA I like the Krynn, Korath and Thalans all better than the Yor, who seem to be the popular pick for most overpowered race by many on these boards.


Yep, add the Torians in there with super breeder and I think you've got your four "top tier" races of DA. The Krynn are really amazingly powerful, being able to jack up taxes to 79% in the first year is just obscene. It's good to play one of the top races after playing with the Korx and then trying out the Arceans, I've got to say the Arcean super ability is pathetic, I can't wait to try out the +50 defence Just wish I had picked universalists now for +60.



Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In fact, in DA I like the Krynn, Korath and Thalans all better than the Yor, who seem to be the popular pick for most overpowered race by many on these boards.


Using this same strategy, the Yor are good because they have the mini bonus, which actually makes TINY colony ships possible. Maybe not right out of the starting blocks, but....
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
So far this strategy has given me the best start I've ever had. I'm keen to try it with other races, I'm thinking it will work wonders with the Thalans seeing as it will be cheap to get the initial factories up and won't cost most of your budget, the extra production bonuses they get will help too. I think it might also be good with the Torians due to super breeder.

IMO the only two races that you might pull off with this strategy are Krynn (VERY hig natural morale) and Torians (Super Breedeer). With both you can get enough money to support your new colonies and not go broke for a long time. All other races will have serious financiall problems when they settle too many planets.

To improve your strategy a bit you might also consider researching xeno biology and the first pop-growth improvement at the bottom of the tech tree. Also you don't need so high specialization in weapons so early. Better spend TPs in fields that improve your economy, because until AIs don't have planetary invasion you can pretty safely ignore their threats. The only thing that needs protection at that time are your starbases, but with two constructors you can make them pretty tough for the early game. You don't need cargo-hull based constructors for reinforcing close starbases. Use small hull for that too.

BTW
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top




To improve your strategy a bit you might also consider researching xeno biology and the first pop-growth improvement at the bottom of the tech tree.



yeah xeno medicine, those were actually the techs I grabbed after xeno entertainment.




Also you don't need so high specialization in weapons so early. Better spend TPs in fields that improve your economy, because until AIs don't have planetary invasion you can pretty safely ignore their threats.


The reason for researching weapons was that I wanted to invade the drengins and take over their worlds ASAP, which I ended up doing and have currently almost wiped them out. The great thing about this strategy was the Drengins researched all the colonisation techs which I ended up stealing from them as well as some really great missile techs. I ended up making peace with them while they still had a few worlds left because the Yor attacked and I had to focus on them, but all the techs and planets I got from them I think made it worth my while attacking. I did probably attack them probably a year too early, I should have really waited until I had stock markets and there were no more planets on the map to colonise.


The only thing that needs protection at that time are your starbases, but with two constructors you can make them pretty tough for the early game. You don't need cargo-hull based constructors for reinforcing close starbases. Use small hull for that too. BTW


Yeah I was using small constructors and still am for some reason they take longer to build than the small hulled colony ships, but they're still quicker than cargo constrcuts.

Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Anyway I'll update you guys....

The game has turned out really nicely actually, as I mentioned in my last post after almost wiping out the Drengin the Yor attacked so I made peace with the Drengins and am now focusing on the Yor.



My armored cruisers have dominated the first wave of Yor attack ships, thanks to my good alignment I'm warm with my neighbours the torians and the Drath, who along with the Arceans are busy occupying themselves in the conflict I orchestrated for them.

Yep, thats right, you heard correct I actually picked GOOD for ethics.... and it's been amazing. researching up to the telepathic defence gave me an easy way to deal with the Drengins missiles without having to invest too much in the missile defence tree, with the +50 defence bonus from the Krynn I ended up only losing one or two medium hulled ships to the drengins the whole time. When the Yor attacked with their mass drivers I was able to research up to the Arnorian battle armor in 3 turns and had single ships which could deal with entire fleets of their frigates. Plus the good diplomacy bonus helped me convince the torians to attack the drath and the drath to attack the Arceans.

In hindsight, I probably should have waited a bit longer before attacking. Taking out the Drengins did slow me down a fair bit and the other races were able to catch up - I'm still second in most categories only behind the Drath, who aren't a threat at the moment and are busy with the wars I've set up for them.

I saved the game at the 1 year mark so I might go back and re-do the game with a different strategy, but I'd say it would be pretty hard for me to lose the game from here. My economy is about a 4000 BC per week surplus and with the worlds I've taken from the Drengin still building up and populations not yet maxed out I expect this to increase pretty steadily while I deal with the Yor, my reasesarch is a lot better too now, I have a lab on every research bonus tile and I've got 2 tech capitals, one of mine and one I took from the Drengin.



Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
I did probably attack them probably a year too early,

"too early attack": non-existing term in the "rush" strategy

IMO it was not. They'd just go higher with warfare techs and you'd need much large tech investment to beat them. But having the Drengin for the first target is really inconviniet.   

BR, Iztok
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Excellent, excellent write-up. Great story, with the all the screenshots it's almost like being there. I've actually used a 1 turn per colony ship strategy although I did it using the cargo hull with full speed. It took much longer than yours to get going though because it depended on developing my first colony into essentially a 2nd home planet before getting going with a colony ship every other turn from two planets instead of every turn from one planet.

Also, on a gigantic galaxy you need to maintain the colony phase for so much longer. In the end I found it more effective to slow my colonization rate down and build stronger production only planets. I can see that this is a very effective strategy in the large galaxy. The number of planets that your colonizing and the length of the colony rush is much shorter so you can maintain this pace for long enough. It's clear that getting more planets ASAP is extremely important in the smaller galaxy. It's also clear that with a larger galaxy you probably would have problems producing sufficient colonists to continue this for very much longer. All in all a very clever use of no engines small hull colony ship.

One question is why didn't you put your manufacturing capital on your home planet? I know that it's probably too expensive to rush buy but you could have gotten a little less production with 4 factories and your manu cap or a little more production with 5 factories and manu cap. Then when you got Trade you'd have the space to put your econ cap on your home planet as well and it could have been a net profit instead of a loss. This could make the difference in being able to have a couple fewer econ only planets and a few more early production planets. Regardless, great strat!
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So far this strategy has given me the best start I've ever had.


I've gotten starts where I got an influence victory just from the colonization phase before. Needless to say, I um...needed to make a few changes.


To improve your strategy a bit you might also consider researching xeno biology and (xeno medicine)


This is true in almost any game regardless of strategy, unless you're Super Breeder. Actually, I would go one step further and argue you should get an early Habitat Improvement and get the Aphrodisiac as early as you can. I'll do a colony rush (on credit, of course), use all the planets to speed up research to Habitat, buy the Aphrodisiac on credit. By that time I am seriously struggling with the -500bc treasury mark, but I come out ahead in the end.


Anyway, that's quite a discovery we made in that other thread to use small hulls, isn't it?
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One question is why didn't you put your manufacturing capital on your home planet? I know that it's probably too expensive to rush buy but you could have gotten a little less production with 4 factories and your manu cap or a little more production with 5 factories and manu cap. Then when you got Trade you'd have the space to put your econ cap on your home planet as well and it could have been a net profit instead of a loss. This could make the difference in being able to have a couple fewer econ only planets and a few more early production planets. Regardless, great strat!


Yeah I thought about it, but 25% extra production for over 3000 BC just isn't worth it, and if you wait for it to build it delays your rush by about 4-5 turns. Besides there really isn't much point to getting economic capital on your homeworld when you've got 1000 people left, better to get it on another world that has more population and you're not taking colonists from. Later on you can convert some of the factories to whatever you want anyway. My homeworld in this game became an economic world after the drengin threat was gone.

Regarding the gigantic versus large - one thing that really hurt my economy was rush buying a bunch of factories on my homeworld early so I could start producing colony ships right away, this meant I only had 1400 in reserve once I started producing ships. On a gigantic galaxy you could probably get away with only rush buying a couple and you'd have a bigger bankroll to fund a much longer rush.

I'm thinking if I did this again I'd also tweak the sliders so that I'm researching as well at the start, my military production was well over 80 when I focused on military on my homeworld (with a 99% social setup) which meant I could put some into research and still be building ships in 1 turn. This would enable me to get xeno medicine and xeno entertainment a little earlier.

Another thing I didn't do was trade tech at all so if I started researching earlier and got universal translator I could have made some money this way.


Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
but 25% extra production for over 3000 BC just isn't worth it

In DA the manu cap only gives 25% ?    That inhales deeply. Yes, I agree the 25% isn't worth the 3000 bc, particularly early.

I don't know about letting your home planet pop go down to 1B. I typically won't let mine go below 5B, but I could see letting it get down to 2.5B. But below 2.5B aren't you cutting into your growth rate and therefore your ability to produce continued colonists?
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yeah I mean by the time you get down that low you'd probably be wanting to unload colony ships with 1 pop and pick up colonists from another planet. 1B is a bit of an exaggeration. I think mine went down to about 1.7 in this game. It does't matter much anyway since you're not making much money off of your homeworld, most of your income is coming from your colonies which are full of market centres.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sometimes I put my Econ Capital on my homeworld simply because it has the extra farming and morale bonuses from the Civilization Capital. It just has a natural propensity to grow bigger. Now I usually find some world with a 300% farming tile and a 100% approval tile and put it there. I tend to put the Political Capital on the same world; those two capitals just go together so well.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
what do you mean by cnrt-n? i it a cheat or something

Ctrl-n is restart. If you don't like the starting position you can use it to generate a new starting position. It's not a cheat in that it's allowed even in metaverse games, however it can certainly be used as a crutch. Also, it can be a very short-sighted view of what a good starting position might be. I will use it if I get a ridiculus position in the middle of a bunch of AI's but you never know, you might be giving up a PQ32 right off the edge of the fog of war. I think it's very easy to over-use this but your free to use it as you wish.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

In case you guys were wondering, after I wiped out the Yor in this game I got lazy and did a tech victory.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Incredible write up! Since I am new to this game I did not even realise this stuff was possible. My mouth was WIDE open reading this. Thanks for the tips. I am still at normal difficulty and large universe but I cannot wait to try using small colony ships and faster starting speed. Bravo my hats off.