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Mazz posted:Small empires will lose in the long run based on fleet capacity alone. Only 2-3 planets can barely support a decent fleet in both quantity and maintenance costs before habitats pop up, and by then anyone with 6+ planets likely isn't far behind in tech while having other advantages. i feel like that's one of the things that consumer goods were meant to address, which they could do more of
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May 1, 2017 19:44
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H.P. Hovercraft posted:i feel like that's one of the things that consumer goods were meant to address, which they could do more of Possibly, but a 2-3 planet empire is still extremely resource limited compared to a 10 planet one given time for those planets to develop. They don't really scale linearly since 1 pop produces 5+ power/minerals/science later in the game, up to obscene numbers with synths/gene modding. Habitats would and do address this better than anything else, but they come too late to make a difference when building tall. Especially since a wide empire can build just as many, if not far more. The advantages of building tall need to come earlier for it to be really viable, I guess is the best way to put it. If you can leverage that advantage, like crazy unity generation out of 2 planets, you can make it work. But anyone with equal understanding of the game and 5+ more planets than you is going to have an advantage before long. Mazz fucked around with this message at 19:50 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 19:46
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maybe with more liberal use of frontier outposts to grab territory and space-based resources, which could be mitigated by also rushing the influence buff techs and expansion unity tree but i think you're right the raw numbers just aren't there, especially for fleet cap
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May 1, 2017 19:50
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Thinking about it, I think Unity was wholly designed to be leveraged when building tall, since the colony costs increase it pretty dramatically. If you are building tall you need to focus on unity and ascendancy perks as fast as possible, since you can do things like massively expand your borders and give yourself 200 additional fleet power. Tech isn't reliable because any other materialist is going to keep up and even overtake you as planet labs come up, ignoring PSC even.
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May 1, 2017 19:55
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Sloober posted:Late DS9 had like a million lasers and torpedo launchers I haven't checked them out yet, but the ST: New Horizons mod has a Deep Space Outposts tech whose icon is a Cardassian starbase (like Deep Space Nine). My guess is that this is one of the mod's mid-late game military stations. Also I want to nth what everyone has said, that New Horizons is not only the best Star Trek themed strategy game yet made but that the overhaul for the ship system is fantastic. Once I broke into shield regeneration tech not only did I stop losing ships but my ships basically stopped taking hull damage and Starfleet was able to clear most of the Alpha Quadrant of pirates and other threats within a few years. I am having an issue where in my current Earth start I built the Verteron Array on the Mars terraforming deposit but didn't get any of the events firing or anything, so Mars is still an 8-tile 60% habitability shithole with a tile blocker that can't be cleared 80 years into the game. Which is lovely, because my first start finished terraforming Mars like 30-40 years in, and as the events fire Mars gains tiles as well as having the Daystrom Institute spawn on one of them, which provides five of each research type and possibly some other bonus I've forgotten.
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May 1, 2017 19:56
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Mazz posted:Thinking about it, I think Unity was wholly designed to be leveraged when building tall, since the colony costs increase it pretty dramatically. If you are building tall you need to focus on unity and ascendancy perks as fast as possible, since you can do things like massively expand your borders and give yourself 200 additional fleet power. Tech isn't reliable because any other materialist is going to keep up and even overtake you as planet labs come up, ignoring PSC even. I legit have never had any problems with unity generation with a wide empire, compared to say insane research penalties.
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May 1, 2017 20:03
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Mazz posted:Thinking about it, I think Unity was wholly designed to be leveraged when building tall, since the colony costs increase it pretty dramatically. If you are building tall you need to focus on unity and ascendancy perks as fast as possible, since you can do things like massively expand your borders and give yourself 200 additional fleet power. Tech isn't reliable because any other materialist is going to keep up and even overtake you as planet labs come up, ignoring PSC even. A small empire is going to struggle filling up even half of that extra fleet capacity, and of course they're not going to be able to replace losses like a large empire can -- and if you're forced by unfortunate starting conditions to be a small empire, then you want to leverage your fleet as early as effectively possible, not spend decades building it up to ~250 while your neighbours double or triple or quadruple their mineral production. Border range is nice, but 25% is neither very much nor very effectual with how easy it is to get your first 40%. Tech isn't as reliable, but the +10% research or free tile block clearing are nevertheless still the best initial perks, it would seem. A Tartan Tory posted:I legit have never had any problems with unity generation with a wide empire, compared to say insane research penalties. I think that's more a matter of falling behind in unity being less apparent or impactful than falling behind in tech, and also that AI empires are bad at optimising their unity. Players will almost always rush to the extra unity traditions and build unity buildings quickly and wherever possible, unlike the AI. You also only need two or three ascension perks to get the most important stuff for your empire; this is something manageable by even the widest-playing players, even though wide definitely punishes unity harder than it does tech, considering you can always just make more research labs but only so many unity structures.
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May 1, 2017 20:14
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Mazz posted:Thinking about it, I think Unity was wholly designed to be leveraged when building tall, since the colony costs increase it pretty dramatically. If you are building tall you need to focus on unity and ascendancy perks as fast as possible, since you can do things like massively expand your borders and give yourself 200 additional fleet power. Tech isn't reliable because any other materialist is going to keep up and even overtake you as planet labs come up, ignoring PSC even. Yeah, I've been trying an opening where I go tall through frontier posts etc. just long enough to get to Master of Nature (through Prosperity, so cheaper mining stations and unity from energy centers) plus PSC and then switch immediately to wide. It works (I also abuse the farm unity civic and then shift out of pacifist, which will work until Wiz has it fixed probably), but as soon as I start going wide it's game over. A Tartan Tory posted:I legit have never had any problems with unity generation with a wide empire, compared to say insane research penalties. I have. I can pretty reliably be fielding 100K worth of fleet power by the time I get my 4th Ascension Perk (i.e., the good one), even using the Ascension Theory tech and with each farm and energy center giving bonus unity. Hiveminded posted:You also only need two or three ascension perks to get the most important stuff for your empire But the endgame Ascension Perks (Genetics, Psychics, Synth conversion) all require being perk 4. I mean, you're right, Master of Nature + one of Psychs / Cyborg is good enough, but it doesn't feel like the point of the Ascension perks.
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May 1, 2017 20:18
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Mazz posted:Thinking about it, I think Unity was wholly designed to be leveraged when building tall, since the colony costs increase it pretty dramatically. If you are building tall you need to focus on unity and ascendancy perks as fast as possible, since you can do things like massively expand your borders and give yourself 200 additional fleet power. Tech isn't reliable because any other materialist is going to keep up and even overtake you as planet labs come up, ignoring PSC even. You can totally do a 2-3 planet empire for ~50 years if you leverage frontier outposts. After that point you'll be super far ahead in tech and unity so can expand a bit to maybe 5-10 planets/habitats, and stay there. You can get some insane mineral production if you dedicate whole planets to strip mining. By about 50 years I transition into about 1 capital planet for all those unique buildings, 3 strip mining planets. One energy planet (which is usually will have created before habitats. and then 3 or so habitats dedicated to science with maybe one more to energy. Early on you plop down your buildings to maximize their starting tile production, it's only around year 50 that you start focusing your planets. Basically a timeline goes like this: Year 1 Capital Planet Year 2-10 1 - 2 Colonies Years 11-50 Unity perks to reduce influence cost for frontier outposts and the research unity tree, try to get the absolute best systems out there for your space based mineral/energy/research. Invest enough in your navy to keep yourself "equivalent" to your neighbors and try to get mutual protection pacts. Otherwise spend your minerals to boost your buildings and try to use one of your starting planets to focus heavily on research. Year 50 2 - 3 more colonies, hopefully to snatch up more territory if there's more left, if not than stuff inside your borders. Specialize on minerals here, maybe one energy planet so you can fund a threatening navy to keep folks off your back. Year ~75 - 100 Depending on if you habitats by now get 2-3 of these, 2 in research, one in energy. That's my typical strat. Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 20:20 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 20:17
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ulmont posted:But the endgame Ascension Perks (Genetics, Psychics, Synth conversion) all require being perk 4. I should have qualified further about getting the fourth perk from the tech, but yeah, the crux of "what's really important" is what is most cost efficient for getting bigger, faster, and doing it in an efficient way -- the first three are the most important in that regard. It's unfortunate that the features of the tall-focused expansion are still best viewed in the lens of what gets you widest in the best way possible, but at least the game has become more enjoyable for it.
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May 1, 2017 20:30
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Nitrousoxide posted:You can totally do a 2-3 planet empire for ~50 years if you leverage frontier outposts. After that point you'll be super far ahead in tech and unity so can expand a bit to maybe 5-10 planets/habitats, and stay there. I've been doing roughly about the same as you up to year 50 or so. Except in my recent game, where I couldn't get Power Plant II to pop for 80 years. That was rough, but really interesting in having plasma cannons before power plants.
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May 1, 2017 20:34
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I think we need to define "small empire". Small Empire as in 3 or so planets is completely not feasible. You can compete on most levels, even fleet power up to a certain extent, but you just can't get the mid-late game minerals output to keep up. Especially if you take any sort of military losses but even without that you'll slowly lose ground. Small Empire as in not needing to use sectors to say under your system cap. Perfectly feasible, but keep in mind you could get lucky with some systems have 2-3 planets and even without pacifism or repeat techs you can still get up to a 10-15 system cap. Small Empire as in say 3-5 planets that you go super aggressive with and use vassals/tributaries to make up resource and fleet power deficiencies, especially with the Domination ascension tree, also doable but requires a specific playstyle and you can fail hard depending on your immediate neighbors.
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May 1, 2017 21:06
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Empire size is also pretty relative to the galaxy size too. I only play on the smallest map size with 25% planets and at that size 3-4 planets actually is a medium sized empire.
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May 1, 2017 21:09
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Ringworlds are a bit dumb in how they're inplemented. The game treats them as if they're a huge deal but the amount of time and resources required to make them is obscene. You can only build 1 part of it at a time. You can't build any other big tech as it's building. The amount of time even with build speed is crazy. By the time you're done with it you've sunk about 75000 minerals and at least 30 years. If you're able to pull that off you've already won. Basically for 4 gaia planets. Big woop. Same withe gross amount needed for the science structure. Its hilariously lategame. I guess it's good for all those 5 percent increases. It's more dressing than an actual goal or tactic. Much like how terraforming only really works on open planets and if you already control said system and leave OK planets open instead of just bum rushing everything you actually want to win. They need to implement other ways to play instead like civ. Expanding as much and as soon as possible is by far the best thing you can do as there aren't any good alternatives early to mid game.
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May 1, 2017 21:52
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Mazz posted:Thinking about it, I think Unity was wholly designed to be leveraged when building tall, since the colony costs increase it pretty dramatically. If you are building tall you need to focus on unity and ascendancy perks as fast as possible, since you can do things like massively expand your borders and give yourself 200 additional fleet power. Tech isn't reliable because any other materialist is going to keep up and even overtake you as planet labs come up, ignoring PSC even. Designed, sure, but I don't think I've played a single game where I haven't filled out 4-6 of 7 trees by crisis year even while colonizing the hell out of everything. So long as you plant a unity tree on every colony and research the upgrades whenever they come up, expansion doesn't really limit the end product of inevitably getting the most powerful perks.
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May 1, 2017 22:14
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If you actually go in focusing on unity it's quite possible to be maxed out by the mid game and then you're going back and demolishing all your unity poo poo you don't need anymore 
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May 1, 2017 22:16
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Buckwheat Sings posted:Ringworlds are a bit dumb in how they're inplemented. The game treats them as if they're a huge deal but the amount of time and resources required to make them is obscene. I would characterize the mega structure implementation as "cautious". Overly so. None of them are worth building because they cost too much, take too long and show up too late. Mods can help with this though. Hopefully they revisit them and make them something you build up to over time instead of something you start when you already won the game and then spend the next hour watching build after you've already double won.
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May 1, 2017 22:19
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Baronjutter posted:If you actually go in focusing on unity it's quite possible to be maxed out by the mid game and then you're going back and demolishing all your unity poo poo you don't need anymore I highly recommend the expanded traditions mod, gives you 14 trees to unlock and makes unity much better. Also, I think it says a lot about my style of gameplay that I consider 20 planets a medium sized empire.
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May 1, 2017 22:29
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Having more tradition trees would be really nice. It felt really strange in my Purifier game when I eventually had no option but to start down the Diplomacy tree.Michaellaneous posted:How viable is having a really small empire? And how much colonized planets should you aim for? A Tartan Tory posted:I legit have never had any problems with unity generation with a wide empire, compared to say insane research penalties. Weird, I find it much harder to generate a lot of unity as a large empire, while science has never been a real problem. I might be relying on PSC a bit much this patch mind you, and being behind on science never really feels that tough, since only small slices of the tech tree are truly necessary to be competitive, and you can just steal tech from anyone who happens to be more advanced than you. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 22:35 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 22:33
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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I had a fun start as a Pacifist/Xenophobe with Agrarian Idyll and Inward Perfection for huge Unity gain. Then 15 years in I ran into the Fanatic Xenophobe FE and they immediately war dec'd me
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May 1, 2017 22:38
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If people are really struggling with it, I'd be happy to make a detailed post about how I open and still remain competitive unity wise (e.g. 40 months per pick max), despite making GBS threads out 20 planets by 2230.
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May 1, 2017 22:39
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Baronjutter posted:If you actually go in focusing on unity it's quite possible to be maxed out by the mid game and then you're going back and demolishing all your unity poo poo you don't need anymore Unity reminds me of Civ V's Faith. It's this amazing thing for the early-mid game but naturally tapers off once everyone starts going commie or capitalist. The difference is that even after its hayday, faith still gave a few late game benefits that rewarded keeping your faithbuxs producers instead of demolishing them for yet another mineral source. MadJackal fucked around with this message at 23:55 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 22:39
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Keep in mind that the unity cost penalty per planet is only 25% (or 17% with the expansion tradition), so once the planet you add is producing more than a quarter of the per-planet average, it's a net gain to tradition acquisition. There's no real trick to it. It's just the way it works, if you bother to erect unity buildings.
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May 1, 2017 22:40
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Strudel Man posted:Keep in mind that the unity cost penalty per planet is only 25% (or 17% with the expansion tradition), so once the planet you add is producing more than a quarter of the per-planet average, it's a net gain to tradition acquisition. Pretty much, for vanilla I can't recommend spiritualist enough for wide play because of the temples, they are an order of magnitude better than any other unity building except the monument chain.
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May 1, 2017 22:44
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Strudel Man posted:Keep in mind that the unity cost penalty per planet is only 25% (or 17% with the expansion tradition), so once the planet you add is producing more than a quarter of the per-planet average, it's a net gain to tradition acquisition.
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May 1, 2017 23:10
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Yeah I'm playing a Fanatic Spiritualist right now and it's the bees knees, I love the Temple line. I'm secondary Militarist right now, but I think a more fun approach might actually be Xenophobic, and be just a comically evil race of psychic slavers. Maybe run Spiritualist/Authoritarian/Xenophobe with the underclass start civic, just crank the evil up to 11. Slaves are such a hassle to manage though, perhaps just purge the lot of them. That'll at least slow my expansion long enough to let the AI be competitive I guess. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 23:17 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 23:14
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So apparently there's text that can pop up if you vassalize a fallen or awaken empire. I learned of this thanks to a new mod that was released that enables the feature. They bitch incessantly about how they're older than you and you should do what they want due to them being around longer and knowing how things work. Edit: Also, spiritualist, pacifist, xenophile is insane. I learned of that combo thanks to that elves mod that's gotten so popular in the last few weeks (Which itself was because it was featured in the pictures of another mod.) and holy poo poo i'm everyone's best friend forever. Even the slaving militaristic empire is just so utterly apathetic about attacking me that they're willing to dole out a treaty every now and then. Best part is that thanks to spiritualist I can enter the Shroud and get psionic avatars for naval and ground combat so even when I do have to go to war I just crush everything and immediately turn them into a protectorate to absorb into my empire down the road. MadJackal posted:Unity reminds me of Civ V's Faith. It's this amazing thing for the early-mid game but naturally tapers off once everyone starts going commie or capitalist. The difference is that even after it's hayday, faith still gave a few late game benefits that rewarded keeping your faithbuxs producers instead of demolishing them for yet another mineral source. There's two mods that help fix unity tapering off in usefulness later on. The first is that expanded traditions mod, which was already mentioned. Couple it with the transcendent ascendance mod that adds like ten new perk slots and you can pick a bunch more perks and have a reason to keep building for unity in the end game. If you get both then you have some great features too. Like forcing the population of everyone in your empire to shift to robot bodies via a modified purge mechanic. Or being able to create a psionic hive mind. People are starting to put all the crazy fluff features behind an ascension perk too. Like the Ur-Quan Shield World mod that lets you imprison species underneath a shield. So it's even more reason to pick them up if you're into playing a modded game. Archonex fucked around with this message at 23:27 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 23:17
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Did this happen before the patch and did I just not notice? I frequently see enemy planets full of population but with almost no buildings. This seems to be a major problem for them. Have any mods been able to fix this issue?
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May 1, 2017 23:30
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Splicer posted:It's a little more complicated than that since population factors in too, but yeah it approaches "Just add 25% of the planet average" the higher your existing pops and the more perks you've already unlocked. So yeah, slap down a monument and pop a pop on it and you're golden. Cthon monuments break the "unity is for tall empires" concept.
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May 1, 2017 23:57
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Diogines posted:Did this happen before the patch and did I just not notice? I frequently see enemy planets full of population but with almost no buildings. This seems to be a major problem for them. Have any mods been able to fix this issue? Yeah, it's really bad. I get that optimal building placement and development is probably hard to code, but fully-populated planets being completely empty but for their capital is kind of bafflingly inexcusable.
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May 2, 2017 00:00
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Diogines posted:Did this happen before the patch and did I just not notice? I frequently see enemy planets full of population but with almost no buildings. This seems to be a major problem for them. Have any mods been able to fix this issue? I'm pretty certain sectors don't understand consumer goods costs. They routinely wind up with negative mineral incomes and then get stuck sitting around forever.
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May 2, 2017 01:15
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Strudel Man posted:Yeah, it's really bad. I get that optimal building placement and development is probably hard to code, but fully-populated planets being completely empty but for their capital is kind of bafflingly inexcusable. I don't know what you're talking about.   I'm using the 'enhanced AI' mod now and it seems to help a bit.
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May 2, 2017 01:37
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Has anyone had any experience rushing for the Supremacy tree? This is my first game going for it and i gotta say its a blast. Fight a quick early war for a tributary to boost your economy and go from there. With vassals giving you naval cap and the +200 cap Ascension perk you're not really hurting for ships and not paying maintenance for extra starports means you have the energy to reach that expanded cap. Turning the diplo map-mode yellow isn't as viscerally exciting as spreading your empire's name across the whole galaxy but it's still a fun way to play that's different from the usual domination or federation route.
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May 2, 2017 02:15
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Yadoppsi posted:Has anyone had any experience rushing for the Supremacy tree? This is my first game going for it and i gotta say its a blast. Fight a quick early war for a tributary to boost your economy and go from there. With vassals giving you naval cap and the +200 cap Ascension perk you're not really hurting for ships and not paying maintenance for extra starports means you have the energy to reach that expanded cap. Turning the diplo map-mode yellow isn't as viscerally exciting as spreading your empire's name across the whole galaxy but it's still a fun way to play that's different from the usual domination or federation route. Yeah I have done this before, usually as a fanatical purifier where you are kinda forced to do this kinda stuff early. Talking about early, I heard you guys like explosive and incredibly lucky starts. 
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May 2, 2017 02:24
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Huh, well I've encountered a bizarre bug in my game. I'm playing a Psionic ascension path civ, and one of my client races psionically awoke later on. All jolly good, more psychics the better but...now the game has legitimately confused itself and thinks they're my founder species. Is there a way I can monkey around in the save files to fix this?
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May 2, 2017 03:08
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Captain Oblivious posted:Huh, well I've encountered a bizarre bug in my game. No idea about a fix, but this is not random happenstance, but rather the default outcome after allowing filthy xenos a teaspoon of psionic power.
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May 2, 2017 03:30
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MadJackal posted:No idea about a fix, but this is not random happenstance, but rather the default outcome after allowing filthy xenos a teaspoon of psionic power. Right, but it's still a bug either way you slice it. Nothing in the flavor text indicates that you're ceding the reigns of power to your empire, it's just a plain old coding goof 
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May 2, 2017 03:31
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I remember when the game came out that Xenophile was fun a 'RP' based ethic that was not that viable otherwise. Has that changed at all with Banks/Utopia?
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May 2, 2017 03:34
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Oh poo poo I just sent a colony ship to an Ocean world with both Titanic Life and Titanic Predators and hit auto name and it came up with loving R'lyeh.  e; Oh poo poo we hosed up studying them and they went hostile 
Ms Adequate fucked around with this message at 04:54 on May 2, 2017 |
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May 2, 2017 04:42
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Captain Oblivious posted:Huh, well I've encountered a bizarre bug in my game. Same thing with mine, had to revert with a save file since i had the default species setting to food processing, which it turned my entire population into. Mister Adequate posted:Oh poo poo I just sent a colony ship to an Ocean world with both Titanic Life and Titanic Predators and hit auto name and it came up with loving R'lyeh. What... what were you expecting?
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