what are the basics of the colony rush?

Well, I would also say it depends on what tiles get and what race you are, but lets say you get a manufacture tile and are the Thalans.

Sliders 100% production 50 military 50 research 0 social.

Rush buy factory for 2 turns, start a manufacturing capital.

Taxes at 100% approval for as long as possible.

Usually I'll rush buy the first colony ship, upgrade the space miner to a colony ship, giving you 3 colony ships in the first 2 turns.

After that it always changes depending on the star systems I find etc. etc.

On my first turn: I set the sliders to 1/3 each. Set taxes so that i'm at 42% approval and set procution so that im only a little bit in the red. Fast build my first colony ship and fast build a factory on my home world. I set my homw world to alternate between markets and factories for a while.

After the first colony ship i fast build them after about 3 or 4 turns. Depending on how fast i'm losing money and how much they will be costing. I'll send my ships past some close habitables in hopes of finding better ones closer to an opponents area, gambling that the ones in my space will still be there when I'm done branching out. If i see a corner of the galaxy that isnt too near anyone else i'll even send a ship out thata way. All of my colony ships will be built from my home world since its the only one that can fill the colony ships and its a few turns before any planet has enough markets and factories to get a spaceport.

As you can see my approach is very different than Piznit's. I sometimes get very close to bankrupcy since i have very low-population worlds and i ofter have to rely on some tech tadring and praying fot a 100 BC anomoly. But its been working for me on masochistic, so it cant be that bad.

As for techs... what ever will be done in less than 4 or 5 weeks. Banks, factories, trade and some diplomacy get some priority. (I can never afford a war at the beginning)

Thank you for your responces but neither of you answered my first and main question.
What "type" of colony ship do you build. Do you load it up with engines, do you strip it bare, do you put two colony things on it to double its capasity?

Another key question you skiped is what size map do you typicaly use this strat on.
Strats that work well on smaller maps might ruin there economy on the bigger one. Thus causing you to slow down. Typicaly I find that on the bigger maps it pays off to pace your self since the colinization phase is more of a marathon and not a sprint.

I thank you again for your insight but I ask again can you at least tell me what type of colony ship you use and what size map you typicaly use this strat on?

I play on large and medium galaxies.

I generally use just the default colony ship. By the time I'm colonizing the extreme worlds I'll usually have some sort of engine on it for the furthr away planets. A second colony module is a good idea too.

Default colony Ship.

If Im the Yor I might make a custom small colony ship, but then it moves 1 parsec slower, so normally I dont do that

I'm still only playing DL. I tend to design a fast colony ship after I get a couple of engine techs, so that I can beat the AI to the good planets. I usually play larger maps. I also rush build 1 factory and rush build colony ships every 3 or 4 turns. Another strategy I use is to expand toward the nearest AI and then turn towards the open space once our territories meet. I use a balanced slider strategy mostly, but have tryed the all factory with research focus, as well.

If I plan to do a colony rush, I go with max engines. That's usually only two in the beginning, though. I research engine techs until Impulse Drive to get the bonus there and then switch to whatever else my strategy calls for on that particular game.

I value being able to get there, even if it means I have just a token colonist to claim the world. Quantity, rather than quality. The quality will come through terraforming and subsequent invasions.

I don't always do a colony rush though. If there's a combination of 700%+ research bonus on my homeworld I won't even colonise my secondary planet. I just go straight for diplomatic, ethics, beam and invasion techs. In that case, my initial colony ship usually gets upgraded to a constructor.

Would you mind explaining why you would do this? Were I in such a scenario, I would still think it worthwhile it to colonize the second planet, even if I don't build anything on it for a while.

I do the same thing, and while I don't know MottiKhan's reasons, I know my own.

First, the colony ship is a cheap invader. When looking to quickly create a fleet of transports, the cheaper the better, especially if playing all labs. The space miner and initial colony ship (which I land and then re-launch with just 1 colonist on it) are both cheap early game survey ships/transports.

Second, the secondary world in your system, if colonized by someone else, is very likely to culture flip to you in short order anyway, and the AI will pay to build improvements on the world and supply you with a population.

Third, for any advantage of colonization, invasion is better. Transports are cheaper than colonizers... have a chance to give you free tech for every world you get, often supply you with worlds with improvements already built, invasions don't ever require any "advanced" colonization tech - so the universe is your oyster, etc. etc.
If I have a choice to colonize a world, or sit next to it with a transport waiting for an enemy colony ship to land, I'll wait with a transport next to the world every time, and almost always pick up the world with at least a starport already built for me.

The only real disadvantage I can see to invasion over colonization is that the AI builds up the worlds for you. In theory, they could build it in a way you don't like. BUT, you can always destroy improvements, the AI is getting better all the time at building their worlds, and the really stupid super projects are almost never built by the computer during the initial colony rush anyway.

Planetary Invasion (or spore weapons) therefore becomes the most powerful tech in the game, just about always.

Hope that helps,
~ Wyndstar

Edit - ALSO, with how upkeep costs have increased in TA, even with nothing built that second world is an income liability while you wait for a population to grow on it. Better to grab it with a population already started for you through (inevitable) culture flipping.

Hi!

Almost inevitably my first design is a cargo hull with 2 Ion engines, 1 colony module and 2 life supports. I also research Impulse engine quickly, to get the extra boost to speed. With good range and speed I can usually grab best planets in my my share of space and a bit over it, and that's at maso+ difficulty level.

BR, Iztok

I'm playing my first masochistic game and I'm nicely surprised that my rush is working quite well. I'll list a number of key points to my strategy (many are mentioned in this thread already). I'm playing Thalan on a huge map with abundant habitable and common planets/stars. Home planet has one 100% production square.

- 100% approval rate for as long as possible. Constantly evaluate your progress and cash flow and adjust your planets as necessary.

This is key. Double population growth means the colonies stop bleeding money and become usable much faster.

- Build your home planet enough to create a colony ship every 2 turns.

Buy factories and make it your manufacturing capital. For many games, just having a this one colony factory is enough to win the rush.

- Place a high priority on getting Ion drive.

Having a faster colony ship is important. 2 ion, 1 colony (filled), 2 life support. Impulse drive is more expensive, but get it sooner than later.

- Focus on grabbing the higher PQ planets first. Think marking territory, instead of just randomly grabbing high PQ planets. Grab ones nearby to get them growing quickly. Then grab planets at the further reach of your space. For planets you skip, make sure you will eventually have enough influence in the area to culture flip them.

- Many low PQ planets can become good PQ planets with enough terraforming.

- Don't build anything on many of the new colonies until it stops bleeding money. It depends on the tax rate, but it's probably 3 to 5 billion population.

- Make many of the new colonies into economic planets. One or 2 factories and the rest is money. If the PQ is below 10, I put 1 farm. If it's above 10, I'll put 2 farms. I try to build the farm when the population nears the cap.

- Make researching higher tech economic buildings a priority. The faster your money planets start making money, the faster you can finish the rush.

- Prioritize morale and economic resources. It might be necessary to use your home planet to build a fast constructor to insure you get the resource.

- As the rush progresses, start converting more and more colonies into additional production planets. All factory + starport + farms. Build the power plant when available and you can afford it. Make research planets as necessary.

- Use new colonies to first build additional survey ships. As their production grows, turn them into additional colony factories or constructors.

- Make sure you always keep track of the military progress of the AI. Start building defenders early.

- Tech trade as much as possible, especially for the expensive extreme colonization techs. Try to limit trading away weapon techs to one branch, if possible. Hopefully the enemy races will all focus on just one damage type, making it easier for you.

- For planetary focus, it's straightforward. For money planets, it's constant social focus. For production and research planets, start with social focus until it has a reasonable output. Then switch to no focus and eventually military or research focus.

For my current game, I was usually able to keep my tax rate low enough to maintain 100% approval on my colonies until about 9 billion population. I grabbed a morale resource fairly early and built it up. I'm currently about 10 to 15 planets away from the end of the rush. My tax rate is 50%, approval is 95%, income is 4700bc. I'm already nearing the a point where I feel like the win is inevitable.

I'm sure that some of these bullet points only apply to this particular strategy. I specialize every planet, so it does require more micromanagement than some people can bear.

A lot of good info in this thread and I'll add my own $.02

I play mostly huge and gigantic maps (want to love, but having issues with Immense.)

This is mostly based off my DL and DA experience playing on Crippling difficulty. I'm testing TA now and it's made me rethink a lot of previous strategies based on what race I'm playing.

-Sliders 0% mil, 50% soc, 50% research. I develop my home world to the point I can put out a colony ship every 2-3 turns. I don't rush buy anything because of the map size I play on it doesn't make sense. If I play smaller maps, I usually rush buy the first factory (or two.) The rest of my home world is econ buildings because it will be your major money maker until you get other colonies established.

-Research to at least Ion Drive is first research priority. Then sensors to get the survey module. After that, TA has really turned this part of my game on it's head.

-Custom colony ship with two Ion Drives. I start "building" colony ships before I actually have the tech, as long as the tech finishes researching and you design a newer ship before construction completes, it will use the new design. Think of it as "pre-building" on that first colonizer.

-Always send your early colonizers toward your nearest opponent. If you use blind exploration, send them in the direction you'd guess an AI opponent to be. You want to grab worlds that are "up for grabs" as early as possible. Any worlds "in your backyard," ie- worlds where the AI would have to fly through your territory to get to them, are safe to leave until last usually.

-Taxes set to max that leaves me at 42% approval until my first worlds are colonized. Your home world starts with more then enough people to populate early colony ships, this minimizes early debt until you have colonies established.

-New colonies do nothing until the population grows to the point they are self sufficient. Then I build a factory, a starport, and econ buildings. One of your first colonies needs to be setup to build scout ships with a survey module. The more anomalies you scout that net you cash, the longer you can run in the red. Plus those scouts usually find you more worlds to colonize.

-Your economy is the life blood of your civ. It powers everything you do. Understand how it works, how it grows, what hurts it.

This is an informative thread -- thanks!

A few more thoughts, mostly specific to Thalan.

Their cheap factories are a big advantage for the colony rush. That means it's fast to build and very cheap to buy. That gets the home planet and subsequent colonies up and running much faster.

For money colonies, Thalan can first buy/build multiple factories. That makes the money buildings go up faster. Then convert the excess factories into more money buildings.

The basic factory is 3 times cheaper than for other races. Considering the importance of the colony rush, Thalan can build an insurmountable lead.

Everyone should also post the dificulty that they play on. Almost any stratagy will work on the lower dificulties. Not doing a colony rush and just planning on invading worlds is dumb and will get you killed on the higher dificulties.

I respectfully, and strongly, disagree sir. I play the vast majority of my games on suicidal, and it does work. I have several AARs throughout this site that I did over the last year and a half where I illustrate how to play this way.

It works for map sizes up to large. For larger map sizes I have done it, but it is just easier to build a few colonizers for close worlds rather than waiting for an AI to finally get a colony ship over to you.

~ Wyndstar

This advice only applies to DA. In DL the Thalans pay the same price as everyone for their factories, and in TA they don't get ANY starting factories of any kind.

~ Wyndstar

As you wish.

I play on suicidal. (This would be a good time to thank Wyndstar once again for teaching me the basics of winning on the suicidal level.    )

My reasons for not doing a colony rush are similar to Wyndstar, but not identical. Everyone comes up with their own playing style and strategies, so copying someone else won't get you to the upper levels.

Anyway, like Wyndstar, I prefer to have the AI build planets for me up to a point. I use my military for diplomacy as well as expansion.

My first colony ship gets upgraded to a constructor because constructors are expensive in the early game and I value the resource mines highly. Especially the economy, morale and military resources in that order. By foregoing a colony rush, I can have two or three resources when I would otherwise only have had one.

Having a few extra resources can give me an edge in so many ways early on. It's a snowball effect that might look insignificant early on, but can mean the difference between a <10k point game and a >50k point one on a small map.

My current game is a gigantic map. I used a no colony rush, all labs, switching to all factories, switching to all econ and finally back to all labs on my current game. It worked great and the game is perking along nicely.

Of course resources are valuable, but I don't see why doing a colony rush means giving up the resources.

In my current masochistic game, I owned 13 out of the 20 resources by the end of the rush (huge map, 5 AI). If I had scouted better, I could have captured more. My home planet was even located in the corner sector of a huge map. By the time my home planet was churning out colony ships every 2 turns, spitting out constructors was no problem. I easily grabbed the ones near me and I was just waiting on my scouts to unearth others.

I haven't tried suicidal, so maybe that's the difference. Hmm...on second thought, on smaller maps, it would be harder.



From the posts in this thread, I thought I had an understanding of your general strategy. But this quote confused me. Switching from all labs to factories to econ to labs... What does that mean? You literally took all your planets and re-specialized them? I'm having trouble understanding the benefit.

In my current game, I have 119 planets. There are 108 more to capture. I don't see how re-specing all 119 planets over and over again would even work. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the terminology you are using to describe your strategy.

@ CityMan - I'll try to briefly explain. As far as the reasoning, it's difficult to convey since it can be quite complicated. I hope it becomes self-evident.

My current game is a gigantic map, all abundant, fast tech, suicidal against 9 enemies.

I started by upgrading my colony ship to a constructor and sending my flagship off on Auto Survey. After upgrading one other ship to a constructor, I had two resources. That was my basis for a start. I built three cargo hull scouts that I later upgraded to survey ships.

I rush bought a lab on my homeworld (a 700% research bonus tile, ergo this strategy) and set my sliders to maintain 50% morale and 100% research. I researched Sensors, followed by labs, engines, diplomacy, trade, beam weapons and ethics in that order. I chose an evil alignment and traded with the AIs that I came into contact with. I pressed on with research and building my home planet and economy until the enemy was up to Plasma Weapons.

(As I always do, I ignored the AI's demands for tribute. I find it more lucrative to let them attack me than to give even 1bc away.)

I then started building my military. I went to the diplomacy screen and traded for war against as many AIs as I could. I bought four war ships to start my military. I researched planetary invasion while this was going on.

By the time the first war was over, I had amassed a nice section of the map, including the all important center map area and traded peace for money, techs and planets. I switched to an "all factory" strategy and also built up some economy structures. I switched production to heavy military and went back to war.

When the enemy was no longer a viable threat, I traded peace for more goodies and switched to a mostly economy stance. Later, I went to full economy with no factories or labs. I later bought some labs on my inner most planets and switched to an all labs approach (100% research on the slider) to automate building ships. That's where I am now. No threats and the last AI is on friendly terms.

So, in a nutshell, an "all factory" strategy isn't building nothing but factories. Economy buildings play a big role. It's just that no labs exist. The sliders go to no research, somewhere around 90% to 99% social and 1% to 10% military. I personally like 92% Social and 8% military.

The "all labs" strategy is similar. No factories exist. The sliders go to 100% research, 0% social and 0% military.

The "all economy" strategy means the neither labs, nor factories exist. The sliders usually go to 100% research for this, but can be a mixture of anything. All structures and ships are bought with this method.

There are times during a game that one or a mixture of these strategies are best suited to the task at hand. This usually changes as the game progresses.

Thanks for trying to explain, but honestly, I'm still lost. I think the problem is that the answer must be so obvious to you, that perhaps you aren't explaining it at a basic enough level for me to understand.



That's the last sentence I understood. After gobbling up a bunch of planets, you took a breather from war to integrate the new planets and rebuild infrastructure.

Then you started switching from one 'all' to another and I don't understand why.





When you say 'no factories or labs', does that literally mean NONE of your planets have any factories or labs? When you say 'No factories exist,' that literally means NONE of your planets have any factories?

I'm fine with playing with sliders. I go to 100% research all the time when I play, but I don't rebuild my primary infrastructure to match.

I do understand that economy buildings play a big role. Money is the foundation of the entire gameplay. So your money infrastructure stays constant while you are switching between 'all factory','all labs', and 'all economy'?

When you in 'all factory' mode, your planets only have factories, economic buildings and farms? The sliders are no research, 92% social, 8% military.

When you switch to 'all labs', you destroy all the factories and replace them with research buildings? The sliders are 100% research.

When you switch to 'all economy,' you destroy all the factories and labs?

That's what it sounds like you are saying to me. I'm having an extremely hard time understanding how that could possibly work.

The amount of money/time/micromanagement spent transitioning from one 'all' to another must be ridiculous.

In my current game, 35 of the 119 planets are pure production. 20 of 119 are pure research. The rest is pure money. So let's add up 35+20 and say that 55 of my planets do the work. Transforming 55 planets from all factory into all labs would take a ridiculous number of turns to accomplish. In that time, I could have won the game if I played normally.

How do you transform all labs into all economy anyways? Since you have no factories, you have to first rebuild the factories in order to build more economic buildings??

I must be missing something really obvious, but it just doesn't make sense to me!

As far as I can tell, the only thing you aren't grasping is focus. If you have every planet in your empire with nothing but labs, and a 100% in your research slider, you can still build things by using "focus" on each planet to transfer some of your research production to social or military.

You do, in fact, want EVERY planet in your empire to be one or the other (or neither) for maximum efficiency. Remember, all of those factories you have built on "production planets" are essentially wasted tiles and you still spend the upkeep costs even while you have your sliders focused to all research. Once you get good at using one or the other, you would be surprised how quickly you can actually flip your entire empire from one kind of production to another. Like any strategy, it takes practice to get down.

This has come to be known as the "all-x" strategies, and Iztok I believe wrote a good article on this on the wiki. While some people disagree who came up with the idea first (and I really don't think it matters) - I think it is fair to say that many people learned how to use the tactic by reading my Altarian Rebellion AAR. Find it here:
Altarian Rebellion AAR.

But this thread isn't really about "all-x", but about the colony rush. Rest assured that you CAN play a game with several hundred planets without ever building a colony ship... just go for transports early.

IF you really want to go for colony ships, the best strategy I ever saw was perfected almost a year ago. By taking +speed bonuses with your ability points, and then building tiny hull colony ships with no engines, it is possible to make faster colony ships and kick out one every turn by about the third to eighth turn of the game (depending on your starting bonus tiles).

Hope that helps,
~ Wyndstar

Thanks. I'll take a look at the AAR. The strategy is so different from how I've played this game for so long that it just seemed foreign. I think it's great that such a different strategy from the 'norm' works well. It's a sign of a good game that there are many ways to play.



I can see this strategy being excellent for smaller maps where the colony rush is a sprint. In larger maps, it's a marathon. I'm not sure the population grows fast enough to churn out a colony ship every turn for too long. With a colony ship every 2 turns at 100% approval, the population will eventually become depleted. Hmm...maybe with Super Breeder...

I used to be a heavily aggressive colonizer. Trying to outcolonize the AI at all costs(and was pretty good at it too). I recently learned the quality over quantity approach and letting the AIs build your initial infrastructure for you.

My current big game(Gigantic, all abundant, 9 suicidal AIs) I only colonized 7 planets and used an all lab approach to get my priority techs. As I dealt with removing AIs I switched to an all factory approach to develop all the planets I was getting to ny vision of order. Finally switching to all econ once planetary development was through. Now nearing the end of reported year two I have 464 out of 465 planets(DL 1.5). I do have to thank Mumblefratz for my success on this my first gig. suicidal game. I now believe in the almost no-colony rush approach, something I wouldn't have a few months ago.

I'm one of those people and encourage both old and new players to read it. There are many key points in Wyndstar's AAR that can be integrated into almost any strategy.





I also learned a lot from Mumblefratz. His AAR that started at the core was quite enlightening to say the least. Others from whom I've gleaned valuable tips from include DethAdder, neilo, Firebender and Purge. I'm sure I forgot someone, but the idea here is that a group of people working together can come up with some fairly decent 'out of the box' ideas.

(Caution - Shameless plug follows. Parents might want to take their children out of the room now...) It's interesting that all but one of the above are in the Tyranny of Evil Empire (but hopefully, all of them will be members before too long). We freely share any info we come across to help each other out and will go to great lengths to test new theories. If someone wants to learn some decent tips in a friendly and sharing environment, I can't think of a better way than to join and then visit the team forums.