Speed of Colonization Early Game

[tenbsmith]

I think this is a bit situational depending upon game specifics. Up until now, I've taken my time colonizing. Making sure that one batch of new colonies were productive prior to starting another batch. (Batches have one colony of each faction.)

Playing my first game on Hard in The Rim 100x100 (62 worlds) I'm feeling a lot of pressure to colonize quickly as Xeno Colony ships are flowing at me fairly regularly and I'd hate to loose one of the few higher quality systems to them early. This is forcing me to colonize with Colony Module 1. This is leading to a very low bank account. I'm at 2.28 with a total of 7 colonies. Think I'm going to do another batch to claim the best near-by worlds then try to build up my bank balance.

Comments?

[hlo]

I cannot remember the exact layout of the map so I cannot advise on that. Here is what I usually do in early game: (I usually play Thulun, Cadar, Javat)

- Look for the most suitable planet for each faction. eg. Javat wants the red star with lots of minerals)
- Send out the other 3 ships (templar cruisers and scout) to recon the area around.
- Establish how far you want to go. That depends on the type of stars in the area.
- Avoid colonizing white star early if you can since they are low in statistics usually.
- Don't go too far out to colonize unless you know what lies behind.
- Don't go too far out to recon. You don't want early xeno contacts.
- Consider the next set of systems be a bit out from the initials to establish some boundaries.

[johndramey]

Hey there tenbsmith, I can feel your pain.

I usually am conservative with my colonies, trying to get each colony established to a baseline before sending out the next wave. Early on in a new game this can take a seemingly horrible amount of time, but once you get the first wave done the proceeding waves come early. I'll just lay out my basic plan which, so far, has worked well on difficulties up to crazy.

The main focus for me in the early game is to get an economy set up and going, so I generally neglect all but the most basic of military techs. I research planetary construction 1, for factories, and starship construction 1, for colonizers. After that I basically make a beeline for Exchanges and Colony module 2. That means my course of research pretty much always goes:

1. Planetary construction 1
2. Starship construction 1
3. Planetary construction 2
4. Faction politics 1
5. Faction politics 2
6. Planetary construction 2
7. Planetary construction 3
8. Space colonization 1
9. Space colonization 2

After that my research varies depending on how much contact I've had with the xenos and how much pressure I'm under.

I'll be sure to always have some trade treaties in the works since having an early trade treaty or two can make the difference between rolling in cash and being flat broke.

My breakline for when a colony is self-sufficient is when it has at least one hab unit, factory, exchange and mine. After building those three things (and depending on if the colony got an unlucky population spike) I'll usually build a spice hall and focus on pumping out a couple mines on each of those fledgeling colonies while my 3 primes sit idle in order to contribute their idle CP to the treasury. Once I hit a decent amount of cash (usually around 500-1000) I'll pop out another couple colonizers and go again.

The thing to keep in mind is that you want to exploit all resources your have to make money, so don't let anything lay fallow. I always make sure I have extra hab space but am more than willing to sacrifice a little CP for mines. Especially if your colony isn't on the front lines, it doesn't really need to be able to produce a lot of CP to survive.

Usually I'll draw a (rather generous) line on the map of what I want my front line to be and colonize behind that with my first wave of colonizers. Those colonies get a mine and trade focus. The second wave usually shoots out to where I want my front lines to be and will get some basic mining (around 3-5 mines) and an exchange but will focus on factories. After that, I back fill my territory with a focus on $$$.

In my current crazy game I'm on year 6.18 on The Rim and have 16 colonies with a profit of $1.4k a turn. I've engaged the xeno in a border skirmish and have a fleet of 16 active ships engaging in the takeover of a quality 19 xeno planet.