Conquering enemy planets

So after playing for a few weeks im starting to grasp how this game works down to the production, economy, and technology. But i have noticed a trend which makes conquering economically challenging.

    From the start, I'm usually able to start off with and colonize3-5 planets before i go onto my infrastructure phase. I usually upgrade all the planets slowly so i don't lose out on Maintenance costs. I've read and followed advice by ppl who use the balanced planet strategy. Build factory, lab, entertainment, and market usually first unless it is a small <5 quality where i usually just fill it with markets to make it a small but albeit positive income planet. Eventually i get my trade set up and i start to see positive incomes around 500BC. This is probably not that good but im a rookie so to speak. I tend to balance my research and bring it along in all areas by researching the shortest times possible. If this is a good strategy or not I still don't know. By the time see galactic warfare around 3 or 4 turns i research this and then travel along the fastest ship defense routes till they are all about level 3 or 4. Then i switch over to the opffensive side of things and research up the various levels of ship weapons. Again i tend to research all areas with a balance based on the shortest research times.

    By now i've reached the point where i am capable of producing a intermediate level fleet of attack ships and i usually choose my nearest neighbor who is "militaristic" as my first victim. I tend to go into their region and begin taking out all their starbases and freighters within reach to slow down their reaction to my invading fleets. While this is going on i am researching planetary invasion and as soon as i can i begin producing transport ships. This is where things seem strange. I can usually take their planet with my first or second invasion force dependent on whether they have soldiering better than mine and also based upon their planet pop. . Whenever I conquer one of their worlds though I notice that the population has basically been erased and also I am spending more than i am making. Heres where my question lies. Is it better to go into their planets and use a scorched earth policy? demolishing all the existing infrastructures, or perhaps even to destroy the colony utterly and recolonize it from scratch? I always seem to take a hit economically on newly conquered worlds so is it better to keep it or flatten it?

The other question I have is whats the best research tree strategy? Is it best to pursue all channels across the board or just to concentrate on a few. As of now i tend to research the techs which improve my economy, research and manufacturing ablities up a couple levels, till i switch to the warfare policy. Also once into the warfare tree, is it better to research far into one type of weapon or shielding, or is it good to balance them out with perhaps one area a few levels ahead of the others?

Thanks for any help, CrowB@R

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The reason you're taking a hit economically on newly conquered planets is the maintenance costs of existing buildings are more than the revenue generated from the remaining population. As the population grows this improves. In my gameplay, I begin to convert existing buildings to suit my needs: usually X number of factories, labs, farms, morale buildings, and economic bldgs.

As for the question of what happened to the population of the conquered planet, fit your imagination to however you "role-play." Either you slaughtered or enslaved everyone if you're evil, or you can imagine that the economy is so devastated that only that particular population group is paying taxes. It helps explain why the population seems to be growing at such astronomical rates to the billions in just weeks/months.

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What you could do on a newly conquered world, if you're paying too much building maintenance costs, is to decommission some buildings and raise econ / population growth buildings in their place.
What also helps is to ship population from your planets where you've reached the population cap to the newly conquered planets.

In terms of tech: just going down 1 research branch will usually get you into trouble (economy too weak, military too weak, manufacturing too slow, etc. can be deadly). However for weapons it's preferable to focus on 1 type. If you're facing a particularly strong enemy, or many enemies using the same weapon type, it may be worth researching shields/... to counter their weapons.
One problem can be if they start using shields/... that counter your weapons, which could be a reason to switch to a different type. But then again researching to the next level of weapons will usually enable your ships to still blast enough through those defenses.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

One thing that needs to be pointed out - if you destroy the colony, you can't rebuild. Destroying the colony turns the planet into a PQ 0.

As to destroying their buildings, that may be your best option. AIs tend to put way too many factories or labs on planets, so build over these quickly with econ buildings. Don't destroy them outright unless you really need to reduce expenses fast - if you upgrade, you get credit for part of what they spent building in the first place. Upgrading is cheaper and faster than building from scratch (usually).

As Noctilucus said, ferry population from established colonies to new planets. It helps quite a bit to jump-start your economy. If you don't include buildings in the equasion, two planets at 4 billion make more money than one planet at 8 billion and the other effectively empty. Not to mention that the growth from 4 to 8 is much faster than the growth from 0 to 4.

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KzintiPatriarch

Join Date 05/2007

+95

For tech, once you are past the basic technologies, concentrate on a few lines of research that work best with your overall strategy. You'll be less likely to fall behind in the techs that are important to the way that you play. Any gaps you may have will be made up for the techs you steal from conquering planets.

Devote some of your planets to purely economy, and fill them with BC generating structures, and you'll be able to support those newly conquered planets.

One suggestion I would make (even though it wasnt your question!) is your approach to the invasion of an enemy. Instead of the somewhat gradual way of taking out their starbases, freighters, and waiting to get PI rsearched, instead wait to declare war until you have the transports ready to go. Target the planets as your initial actions of the war, and they wont get any time to respond to your attack. Hit them hard & fast. You can always mop up the bases and other random things after you've already taken a number of their worlds.

Sentient species taste better...

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One of the oddest things to me about GC is how you have to genocide a planet to conquer it.

When it comes time to invade it's a good idea to have a strong economy and a little buffer of BC in anticipation of the financial hit of conquering worlds.

I generally get rid of structures I won't need when I take a world.

If the population after invasion is drastically low, I'll sometimes dump a transort full on it and send the transport back to an established (research) world to refill.

I usually have my production and research rolling by the time I'm invading, so newly conquered worlds will generally be specialized for BC generation unless they have significant bonus tiles or a huge investiment in structures I'd eventually want.

Another thing I like to try to do when it's time to invade is have a few constructors ready to pounce on any resources I can liberate. If the race you're invading has any econ or morale resources, these can be a big help to the econ hit from invading.

One suggestion I would make (even though it wasnt your question!) is your approach to the invasion of an enemy. Instead of the somewhat gradual way of taking out their starbases, freighters, and waiting to get PI rsearched, instead wait to declare war until you have the transports ready to go. Target the planets as your initial actions of the war, and they wont get any time to respond to your attack. Hit them hard & fast. You can always mop up the bases and other random things after you've already taken a number of their worlds.

I agree with this too. I generally don't go to war with the AIs just to terrorize them (if they start it then I might do it, while ramping up for invasions). I initiate wars to conquer planets and resources. I like to have transports ready to go and I like to take out (ideally multiple) objectives quickly. This makes it harder for them to react/rally and minimizes the chances of external factors (random events, other races) mucking things up.

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