Yes. Assuming you can afford to run all those labs.

It's highly possible you won't need a single lab on any other planet (depends on map settings though). Focus all your other worlds on either production or economy. When/if you want *more* research, just build economic starbases around your mega research planet.

But guard it *very* well if you do this, since you totally can't afford to lose the planet.

I like playing around and taking things like this to whatever extremes I can. Probably stuff it with every research boosting wonder and NLCs. Then pile as many econ bases around it as I can to see how many thousands of TP I can squeeze out of it.

I had no problem getting the research facilities built (was up to maybe 500tp/turn from that planet), and I had done a decent job offsetting the cost with mostly econ worlds.
I was able to keep the other players at war most of the game, but unfortunately the Drath got too many surrenders and were WAY ahead in military, there was no way I could field enough ships to fight the swarms.

I probably should have focused a little more on being able to sustain a decent sized fleet, before worrying about building mass numbers of research buildings. That way I could have participated in some of the early wars and maybe picked up a few planets.

thanks ghostwes I never thought of getting rid of the factories after I have finished building up the planet can save a lot of expenses and free up some space too.

I don't mean to flame you, Zyxpsilon, but that's some pretty horrible advice you're giving out there, IMHO.



It wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of industry going on -- to crank out transports and freighters -- but to focus a size 26 planet on industry alone is kind of nutty.

You don't really need that much industry. Hell, you don't often need that many ships. Or, I don't, anyway. I try to make do with fewer, better quality ships, and only really need a few planets focused on producing them, which does not need massive amounts of real estate . Usually, my home planet suffices until the mid-game; by then I have captured several other civilizations' capitals, one of which will become a second manufacturing capital.



But you'd only be using 3 tiles of 26; with a tech building, tech capital, and research coordinator, you have a great research base. That's a better research output than you'll get from a lot of lower quality planets focusing on research.



You don't need any morale buildings, though you have the approval tile if you really feel it's necessary. Going to 18 billion is too high anyway.



By going to 20b, you are making your people unhappy. If you want them to breed faster, you have the recruiting centre and/or fertility centres (though the latter is mostly obsolete now, IMHO).



"Borders" mean very little in this game, in my experience. Besides, if this is made into an economic world, filled with people and stock markets, your borders are going to expand quite a bit...



That would be a major waste of the space, I think. The best place to put them, in my experience, is smaller planets where there is little point focusing on econ, research, or mil, because it'll be crap regardless. Whereas, with this planet, it makes sense to be as efficient as possible.

Gee, can you say *out slam goes the theories or realizations* that any strategy for a given PQ26 is a choice or not!

I wasn't giving an advice, for that i'd need the saved game - thorough observations of the actual context - evaluation of the overall status of a number of highly variable conditions -- then, and only then - would possibly give some advice (good, bad, neutral or inspired by personal experience only!).

Any your arguments are basicly still valid, btw.

I'd add only a few more thoughts though;

20b warriors traveling in space towards conquering ANOTHER PQ26 from an enemy;
1) Do not pay taxes.
2) Do not consume valuable supporting empire-wide percentages.
3) Can only leave the planet they were on for a reason.

...and, to build whatever is necessary to make that fact as continual as possible, you'd still need the efficient infra-structure no matter what PQ-size or amounts of PQ-sizes it's based on.

I've never seen any PQ-12s or less fast enough to provide conquering power aimed at anything worthy or far in a reasonable amount of expenses by a filled up surface (and with all possibilities thereof) in a time of war.

Thus, a PQ 26 close to an enemy's (declared, targeted, of equal strength, etc) core assets (or borders) _could_ serve as a base of attack and/or by accident or not, as a weak(er-est) outpost ready to be taken over by the above enemy.

Here's the breaking point to me: PQ16's+ = Starport and/or Discovery Spheres ... whichever comes first. You can conquer or outwit, but no matter how much BCs you hold onto - there is a conditional goal to obtain.

I may be totally wrong though.

I'm not really sure what that means, actually... sorry.



Of course, that goes without saying. But now that you have said it, it applies to my own advice as well, which people should feel free to ignore. I only play at Crippling level or below, after all... not sure if this would work at higher levels.



I don't worry too much about taxes paid by warriors en route. They'll be making up for their tax-free status by conquering new planets for me, all of which will soon be paying taxes. And thus are empires formed...

Not sure I follow your meaning in #2 and #3.



Well, it's true that we are talking about one planet instead of an entire empire, but I think we can still make some observations on this planet alone. By virtue of its size and bonuses, it becomes a lot easier to discuss it without knowing any context regarding the rest of the game.



I'm not sure I'm parsing that sentence completely, but if you mean they don't produce transports fast enough to help conquer, that's true. Fortunately, with enough planets, they don't need to. Since most of my planets are econ worlds, slowly producing transports, together they contribute enough to get the job done (though I might fiddle with the focus sliders to get the job done faster).



Well, the planet is not only a great asset to have for yourself; it's a huge liability if someone else owns it. Its very existence demands some kind of strategy.



Not sure I understand that either... mind rephrasing?

At the very least throw a lab on the precursor tile. Thats like 7 free labs, really. Add a research coordinator and you'd get the output of 10 labs total. If your economy can afford it I'd go all-out research on that planet, otherwise I'd just fill it up with econ buildings.

Hey, thanks Kzinti.. you've just quoted the exact stuff i needed to "express" myself about -- less clip&paste to do as a result.

*Slam: simply my strange weird way of saying that i might very well have been wrong with some early arguments - indeed!

*2&3; On surfaces, populations affect local morale negatively if the 20B mark has been reached -- in space, they don't. BUT, if you regularly load up in such a pattern that the planet actually has the capacity to maintain that much people for even just a turn - it would, then, make sense that a filled up transport (or more, btw) CAN periodically lower this handicap as often or when absolutely necessary. While including the key use of a Fertility Clinic to keep pace with invasion resources, etc.

*PQ12; The psychological barrier upon which the maximum potential is limited to whatever "productivity_research" focus is CURRENTLY available if no alterations are made to the infra-structure present. Sort of.

*PQ16; Same as above... + 4 precious tiles which are appropriately selected and built for any good reasons. Markets balance the economy (BCs are either piling up & in idle mode or they get used to rush a thing or two - production wise), Starports create a conquering possibility, Labs provide a fast(er-est) Tech-Victory... etc.

And...
I'm from Quebec, English is a distant second language to me (which i do claim NOT to control much if anything, barely enough vocabulary for online chi-chatting purposes). Given a looooooong period of thinking and reasoning (with a Roget's dictionary right beside to consult) though, i may sometimes hit enter too fast!
Plus, typos. And, French is waaaaaaayyyyy more complex than general web-driven communications in 100,000 or less English words.

But don't ever show me an obvious error on your part of grammatical proportions again, or i'll comment right back on it - too. Since i can detect these, even in my own posts!

Well, you may want to try 'accentuation characters' for a start;

** Il n'est pas spécialement difficile de communiquer adéquatement dans un français relativement compréhensible à moins d'avoir un sérieux problême avec les accents courants. Vocabulaire aidant, l'essentiel est de préciser nos pensées dans un langage effectif. Sans avoir pour autant, la prétention d'être parfait dans tous les sens du mot. **

See, i could type it! Just the U missing in language is a detail, though.

Anyway, about the PQ12 or PQ16; IIRC, there is a population cap above which taxes and morale start to negatively impact the overall values beyond the planet itself. If you were to focus on a specific area (ex-Research) for such smaller planets, the 'penalties' to the other idled productivity are more of a consequence than if you had built some buildings that would compensate for the artificially variable Focusing choices. Thus, a sort of psychological barrier which generalizes any approach i have towards all fully developped 12s or more so with 16s. Precision helping, i always instinctively figure that every time i see RED numbers in the spreadsheet, something may be wrong with how i manage **some** or all my planets.
That's exactly what i meant.

And the principle (or basic reasoning) still applies to PQ26+, more so i'd insist.

>> 2 factories (which can be paved over later with Stock Markets... they're only to speed up building the other buildings)<<

I feel like an idiot. I didn't know this - I thought factory output was only used to create ships - I had no idea that it had an impact on the rate of creation of buildings! At last I understand why some of my planets are inexplicably slooo-o-oow at producing buildings.

Cheers

Yeah, welcome to the confusing world of Gal Civ 2. The economy actually works really well, but it does not work in an intuitive manner. For instance, research, social, and military production are all listed together all the time and share a single 100% production capacity between them, so you would assume they work the same basic way. However, in reality all three work in entirely different manners.

The best way to learn this game is to play it for a couple days, then read the wiki on it, then play a couple more days, and then come here and read a ton of strategy posts, then play while also looking here regularly for more ideas and information.