I had not noticed the initial tier of techs is visible before you select research. I suspect it is because it is the initial tier; that does not happen with later tiers. It is good to have choices in Computers and Construction; Weapons is not so great with just Hyper-Vs. Oh well, more good news than bad news.
Sounds good; looking forward to seeing what we discover (and can colonize!) in the upcoming turns!
[EDIT: I don't think the techs are visible from game start - it's just that Fenn opened all six fields to see what we had early on - from the report, it looks like that was T11. Not a bad call once we know what we want so we know what we have available and can plan accordingly.]
(April 29th, 2024, 05:05)RefSteel Wrote: [EDIT: I don't think the techs are visible from game start - it's just that Fenn opened all six fields to see what we had early on - from the report, it looks like that was T11. Not a bad call once we know what we want so we know what we have available and can plan accordingly.]
(April 28th, 2024, 17:26)haphazard1 Wrote: I had not noticed the initial tier of techs is visible before you select research. I suspect it is because it is the initial tier; that does not happen with later tiers. It is good to have choices in Computers and Construction; Weapons is not so great with just Hyper-Vs. Oh well, more good news than bad news.
You can always switch techs during the turn after a discovery (I think it's really "before any BCs are spent in the tech"), if you decide you made a mistake.
OK, played to turn 34. Some decisions to make, so I am handing over here. The next player can play an extra turn to get us back on schedule.
First item I noticed is that no transports had been sent to our new third colony, so I sent some from Sssla. Second item is that we are badly under-industrialized. I generally do not commit to serious research spending without getting the home world maxed or closer to max, but we were already committed to the research projectsso I stuck with them. We also need colony ships as soon as possible to grab the worlds to our NW that are under threat from the machines. It is painful to build multiple col ships at 8-9 turns each, but since we are already committed I went with it. We need to get more factories built, though.
Range 4 tech popped at about 10%, and we have a nice selection for the next tier: warp 2 engines, range 6, and inertial stabilizer. I chose the engines to give us more speed (I hate trying to manage colonization and scouting at warp 1) and because they are by far the cheapest option to open the following tier. No BCs have been invested yet, though, so I believe this can still be changed if desired.
Valstrath is now in range, and as of turn 34 a newly built col ship is on the way. I currently have 2 more col ships under construction at Heralth and Sssla for the two planets that should become reachable once Valstrath is colonized. Note that Sssla is also carrying some research spending to complete Improved Eco; once that pops I think we should shut off research until more factories have been built. But that will be up to the next player.
The other big (and unwelcome) news is that after turn 33 we became aware of the bugs. The Kholdan Hive has a Bumblebee class ship at that nice jungle world to our NE. Hopefully they do not have non-fuel-tanks range to it yet, but getting there before them is likely to be difficult. We do not have actual contact yet; this "aware but not speaking" state is an interesting thing in RotP.
Good luck to the next player! Feel free to change the ship spending at Heralth and Sssla; I was just trying to get the col ships to grab the NW worlds as quickly as possible. I wish we had more factories rather than slowly building the ships, but taking the time now would delay them even more.
If I can provide a little constructive feedback, this was where things went off the rails a bit:
Fenn Wrote:On Turn 11 Sssla starts building an 8-turn colony ship for Rinnenth and I put a tick of spending into tech. Computing and Construction had the full selection; Planetology offered up Improved Terraforming +10 and Improved Eco Restoration, but not Controlled Barren which could have been handy for colonizing Parath. Weapons has just Hyper-Vs, and the all-important Propulsion offers...Hydrogen Fuel Cells for Range 4. Well, it'll have to do. For the time being I put all tech spending into Planetology and Propulsion, not that there's much to spend while Sssla works on the Colony Ship.
This was a mistake; pausing factory construction to start building colony ships when they still need 8 turns to completion (in other words when net production on the homeworld is only about 70 BC/turn) is not a good decision. Doing research when the homeworld is far short of maxing factories is also typically a bad idea. Doing ANYTHING other than maxing factories as soon as possible tends to be wasteful because building factories allows you to do everything else faster and better. Rather than spend 8 turns building a single colony ship, the homeworld could build factories for those 8 turns and then start cranking out future colony ships at 4 or 5 turns apiece. There are times when you don't want to max factories first, but there has to be some kind of a major strategic priority taking predecence: a key world to grab, a key tech that's needed for expansion, etc. Building the early colony ship to settle Rinnenth, a size 45 planet in the backlines under no threat at all, doesn't many any strategic sense. I know it can be boring sitting there hitting "Next Turn" and doing nothing for a dozen turns in the early game but it really is the best opening most of the time!
This actually make the succession game more interesting to follow so... good luck!
(April 28th, 2024, 17:26)haphazard1 Wrote: I had not noticed the initial tier of techs is visible before you select research. I suspect it is because it is the initial tier; that does not happen with later tiers. It is good to have choices in Computers and Construction; Weapons is not so great with just Hyper-Vs. Oh well, more good news than bad news.
You can always switch techs during the turn after a discovery (I think it's really "before any BCs are spent in the tech"), if you decide you made a mistake.
The option to switch techs goes away when you hit Next Turn. The point is to not force an important decision (which new tech to research?) on a player without giving them an opportunity to think about it before they advance to the next turn.
(April 29th, 2024, 08:09)Sullla Wrote: If I can provide a little constructive feedback, this was where things went off the rails a bit:
Fenn Wrote:On Turn 11 Sssla starts building an 8-turn colony ship for Rinnenth and I put a tick of spending into tech. Computing and Construction had the full selection; Planetology offered up Improved Terraforming +10 and Improved Eco Restoration, but not Controlled Barren which could have been handy for colonizing Parath. Weapons has just Hyper-Vs, and the all-important Propulsion offers...Hydrogen Fuel Cells for Range 4. Well, it'll have to do. For the time being I put all tech spending into Planetology and Propulsion, not that there's much to spend while Sssla works on the Colony Ship.
This was a mistake; pausing factory construction to start building colony ships when they still need 8 turns to completion (in other words when net production on the homeworld is only about 70 BC/turn) is not a good decision. Doing research when the homeworld is far short of maxing factories is also typically a bad idea. Doing ANYTHING other than maxing factories as soon as possible tends to be wasteful because building factories allows you to do everything else faster and better.
I would like to add that the AI is better at recognizing turtling. Basically if you try to play psilondefensively with little ship construction while the AI is spending resources to build ships and explore the map, then the AI will be more likely to declare war upon you.
These are called "wars of opportunity". Unlike MOO1, this declaration of war is independent of diplomatic relations, treaty violations or erratic leadership. If you appear weak, then you will be targeted and forced to build ships anyway. The only races that will not declare wars of opportunity are ones with pacifist leaders. So if your only contact has been with a pacifist race, feel free to turtle away! Otherwise, make sure you give the appearance of being able to fight back.
I generally agree with Sullla about maxing the home world as early as possible. If I do need/want an early col ship, I will still build factories until it is down to maybe 6 turns.
I could have eaten the delay here while building more factories. But with research projects already started and nearing percentages, it seemed worth it to continue them and pop those two techs. But we are behind where we should be on factories, which means less total production over the next couple of turn sets. Well, things will be interesting with two relatively close neighbors. But if we can secure all the mid-size planets (the white flags -- I really like this feature of RotP ) we will have a solid core for our empire. The barren 50 is also not a bad world, and we should be able to get it with some colonization tech in the next couple tiers (or even go back for barren, it is pretty cheap).
Anyway, different play styles make SGs interesting.
Fenn -- resting and watching
haphazard1 - just played
Next up - could be you! Post a got it and grab the save.
, this is a "GOT IT!"
I generally do not commit to serious research spending without getting the home world maxed or closer to max, but we were already committed to the research projectsso I stuck with them. We also need colony ships as soon as possible to grab the worlds to our NW that are under threat from the machines. It is painful to build multiple col ships at 8-9 turns each, but since we are already committed I went with it. 
) we will have a solid core for our empire. The barren 50 is also not a bad world, and we should be able to get it with some colonization tech in the next couple tiers (or even go back for barren, it is pretty cheap).
Post a got it and grab the save.