DG Strategy Discussions

[Harry Seldon]

Let's hash out some starting values and decisions here. I'm looking for advice from Ministers bakalov and Pave but chime in with your thoughts as well.

Bakalov had some questions:

1. Do we sell the starbase or hold onto it? I think we should keep it for now because we don't know where any of our opponents are now and I'd rather not leave us open in case we don't want to build ships right away. Bakalov, you're on defense so you can have final say on that.

2. Research order. I don't know enough about the tree to say which will come up when so any suggestions are welcome.

3. When to colonize? I generally wait to build colony ships until my home planet starts to reach max pop, so looking at the map I'd want to build housing until we hit around 15 pop before building any ships.

I don't generally adjust tax levels unless I'm in dire need so I'd like to leave them at initial levels. I also generally leave the pop distribution so that we have just enough food and put excess in either research or production depending on what my short term goal is at the moment. Pave is Minister of Affairs so it's up to him as to how people are distributed.

Since we got such a crappy star spread around us, I'm also leaning towards building a scout before a colony ship because we're going to need to expand or we're going to find ourselves boxed in later.

What does everyone think?

[vmxa1]

It seems to me that you have to choose between regular style or a blitz style. Then you can talk about how to proceed.
If this was a Uni, instead of +R and AHW, then I would prefer to
do nothing except to make a CB for all planets in the system.
Since it is not a Uni, I am not sure if that is the best way to go.
The colonies will not grow worth a crap with this race unless you get a cloner on them. This suggest that a CB to start may not be so useful for this race.

The research is straight forward in the early going.

[vmxa1]

Star Base selling for this race is a bit less desirable, as it has low production values and will not replace it quickly for some time.
I do not know if we have that much time or not, probably we do.
We will not be very productive until we have AF and Robos in place and a full planet.
The idea of selling the SB is to get the cash to buy RL and AF on the colonies and save the cost of the maint. This is probably a good plan for most maps. If the planets are all going to be poor, we will need all the help we can get. Raising taxes is just free money, if you do it for short periods of time. This race will bebefit from jumping to 50% some where in the game. I would think when you have 14 or so pop, until you have bought a few of the structures for the colonies.

I would not worry too much about being attack real early, if this race is jumped before turn 100, it is likely to be toast anyway.

[Whoha]

1. Do we sell the starbase or hold onto it? I think we should keep it for now because we don't know where any of our opponents are now and I'd rather not leave us open in case we don't want to build ships right away. Bakalov, you're on defense so you can have final say on that:

Keep the starbase, we don't know where everyone is, and the ai will attack us early if we get caught with our pants down without it.

2. Research order. I don't know enough about the tree to say which will come up when so any suggestions are welcome.

Electronic computers -> research labs ->reinforced hull ->autofactories -> nuclear engines/freighters

I think everyone can agree on this pathway.

3. When to colonize? I generally wait to build colony ships until my home planet starts to reach max pop, so looking at the map I'd want to build housing until we hit around 15 pop before building any ships.

once we have the auto factory and a freighter built we should build a colony base.

I think that we should decide on general orders and you should play for 20 turns or until you finish those orders.

[Whoha]

Scout -> colony ship,

and don't raise taxes until far later when you have to. If you get a leader go ahead and post it and let everyone decide on whether or not to hire the person.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Whoha
Keep the starbase, we don't know where everyone is, and the ai will attack us early if we get caught with our pants down without it.

Electronic computers -> research labs ->reinforced hull ->autofactories -> nuclear engines/freighters

I think everyone can agree on this pathway.

once we have the auto factory and a freighter built we should build a colony base.

I think that we should decide on general orders and you should play for 20 turns or until you finish those orders.

I am not opposed to keeping the SB, but really if we are going to be attack before we have MB we are probably toast. This is not a race that will match the monster production races in the earliest part of the game.

I would agree with that tech plan, IF we are not going to blitz. If we are, then you need to do no research until you get CB's up.
You then need to get freighters first, then the RL/AF.
This race does not need to be in a rush to learn to fly, unless you have hopes of some miracle systems close at hand.
So if we do not want to blitz, then I agree get the RL/AF then freighters and CB. Slap an OP on any good planets, until you can get CS.

To start the game, 20 turns is just too small of a block. You need to go to around turn 40. After that you can have smaller blocks. Lots of dead time in those first couple of dozen turns and all the choices will have been made.

To tell you the truh, I do not know if this is a good blitz race, without being Uni.

[Pave]

1. Do we sell the starbase or hold onto it? I think we should keep it for now because we don't know where any of our opponents are now and I'd rather not leave us open in case we don't want to build ships right away. Bakalov, you're on defense so you can have final say on that.

I say we should keep the starbase, unless were in really big problem. If (and when) we need money, tax the people. I´d like to put the tax rate to 10%, if you dont mind.

2. Research order. I don't know enough about the tree to say which will come up when so any suggestions are welcome.

Electronic computers -> research labs ->reinforced hull ->autofactories -> nuclear engines/freighters

Goes for me.

3. When to colonize? I generally wait to build colony ships until my home planet starts to reach max pop, so looking at the map I'd want to build housing until we hit around 15 pop before building any ships.

No comments yet.

[Pave]

As for the population distributing, leave them as now, its good now.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Pave
As for the population distributing, leave them as now, its good now.

You need to pop shufle in the first 100 turns to get the most from them. When and how to shuffle will depend on how you want to play the race.
Blitz style means going 3/5/0 start CB
Reg style means going 3/1/4

Then you may want to go with some form of research shuffle. This is where you move some pop off of research when you get to some percentage of completetion. I use greater than 60%. You ofen can get the break through with either 0 or 1 scientist and gain the accumulation of industry for whatever you are working on or even just trade. This method often lets me get my CB up in half the time, while still get maximum research.
Once I get past having a few colonies I stop doing it as I have enough to do and I don't really care about the small edge.

[Harry Seldon]

I've never played impossible before but I usually play more along the lines of your regular style. Pave advises to leave them so leave them I will. I'll run through the first five tonight and post an AAR and save.

[bakalov]

Star base selling is good if we want to colonize some planets early ... unfortunately there are no good planets to colonize. In huge galaxy aliens never attack before turn ~90. Usually if you sell the star base this is the proper time to rebuild it. It takes ~4 turns to do so at that time and you can save many turns needed for early colonization if you sell it.

Creatives have a much better (imo) and cheaper structure for defence - Missile base. We can build it in emergency very fast.

The Star base still needs to be rebuilt because of the command points.

[vmxa1]

That is about the size of it. Even if you had a SB and a MB, this race will not have any ships that could be effective by turn 100.
What that means is that if a race shows up to attack it wil be with several ships and they will just blockade you, if they can not defeat the defense. This race will then have to put many workers on food and all progress will go into the toilet.
So I say again, if they come for us before turn 100, we will have big problems. Sell the SB or not. We must have more time to be sucessful. In a huge map, we should be able to get more time.
Chances are good, no one will be able to reach us before T130.
We may have contact before that, but still be out of their range.
If it turns out that a wormhole is nearby, then it will be painful.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Harry Seldon
I'll run through the first five tonight and post an AAR and save.

What do you mean the first five? Not turns? I mean you will need to play much farther than that. You should play to arount 3504.0.
which is turn 40.

[Harry Seldon]

I thought our constitution stated five turns then discussion. I'd rather do more myself but I also don't want to ruin this by heading down a path no one agrees with.

[vmxa1]

You may be right about that, but I predict that 5 turns will kill the game. All that will happen in the first 20 to 40 turns will be standard moves.
At a 5 turns per block pace this game will last forever. I don;t remember voting on any turns, but that could be my problem.
I surely would have opposed it loudly.