What would you do with a class 26 planet?

2 factories (which can be paved over later with Stock Markets... they're only to speed up building the other buildings)
Economic Capital
Technological Capital
Research building (on precursor library tile)
Research Coordinator
Farm (maybe two)
Special Terran research/econ project, whatever it is called
Recruiting Centre
Starport
Morale building on bonus tile (though I often don't bother)
~15 Stock Markets

Then guard it with your life because it will win the game for you.

Yes. Assuming you can afford to run all those labs.

It's highly possible you won't need a single lab on any other planet (depends on map settings though). Focus all your other worlds on either production or economy. When/if you want *more* research, just build economic starbases around your mega research planet.

But guard it *very* well if you do this, since you totally can't afford to lose the planet.

Won't let me edit, so I'll continue here...

I would build the recruiting centre first, then the factories, then the starport (so you can use the planet to crank out freighters or constructors while you wait).



Having a lot of real estate helps you to focus on either tech, industry or economy, but the bigger the planet is, the more economic focus starts to make sense.

I always focus my planets on what they are best at, though, in a case like this, you can easily focus on both econ and research. Keep in mind that one advantage of focusing on econ/tech is that you can set the focus slider to research without it affecting your economy, which is not affected by the planet's focus sliders.

Filling this planet with just research would cause several problems for you. First, you have to PAY for all of that research you'll be doing, as well as the maintenance, and it will cost you a LOT.

Second, the planet will be forever stuck on social focus in order to build the endless numbers of tech buildings. As a result, you wouldn't be benefiting from the research as much as you would like.



Well, you still get the extra taxes for population above 8b, and you have a slight advantage when you're invaded.

I like playing around and taking things like this to whatever extremes I can. Probably stuff it with every research boosting wonder and NLCs. Then pile as many econ bases around it as I can to see how many thousands of TP I can squeeze out of it.

Very good points. I was showing my extreme bias for big maps with lots of planets in my post, where you can afford a mega research planet and have the time to build one up. They do build up fairly quickly, though, especially if you put down several factories first (you'll convert them to labs when the rest of the tiles are filled)

I had no problem getting the research facilities built (was up to maybe 500tp/turn from that planet), and I had done a decent job offsetting the cost with mostly econ worlds.
I was able to keep the other players at war most of the game, but unfortunately the Drath got too many surrenders and were WAY ahead in military, there was no way I could field enough ships to fight the swarms.

I probably should have focused a little more on being able to sustain a decent sized fleet, before worrying about building mass numbers of research buildings. That way I could have participated in some of the early wars and maybe picked up a few planets.

Usually to me (and depending on many other factors or situations) this 26PQ sounds like the perfect steady supplier of attack Fleets; focused on Factories, and cranking out the numbers!
The Precusor Library is just that - a bonus, unless you can afford locking half the tiles along with the technology capital there too. You'd otherwise need two Morale and possibly Markets too to lift it above feasible 'values' if pop grows beyond the 18b mark.
Otherwise, boost it above the 20b and use it as a launch point for Transports every 5 to 10 turns or so.

It mostly depends also on the exact location. Nearby an emeny's borders or nicely tucked way inside your own territory. Any resources proximity can also tilt it towards a steady Constructors output.

It could also serve as the 'Trade-Goods' or 'Super & Galactics' quickie builder IF the overall manufacturing potential is already there.

High PQs, always mean faster results at anything.

thanks ghostwes I never thought of getting rid of the factories after I have finished building up the planet can save a lot of expenses and free up some space too.

PQ26 planet? Money world. It has enough squares to support 2 farms (13B pop) and the necessary happiness buildings to keep it content. Fill every other square with tax buildings.

Money is the foundation of everything in GC2. This one world can fund 4-7 manufacturing or research planets.

I don't mean to flame you, Zyxpsilon, but that's some pretty horrible advice you're giving out there, IMHO.



It wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of industry going on -- to crank out transports and freighters -- but to focus a size 26 planet on industry alone is kind of nutty.

You don't really need that much industry. Hell, you don't often need that many ships. Or, I don't, anyway. I try to make do with fewer, better quality ships, and only really need a few planets focused on producing them, which does not need massive amounts of real estate . Usually, my home planet suffices until the mid-game; by then I have captured several other civilizations' capitals, one of which will become a second manufacturing capital.



But you'd only be using 3 tiles of 26; with a tech building, tech capital, and research coordinator, you have a great research base. That's a better research output than you'll get from a lot of lower quality planets focusing on research.



You don't need any morale buildings, though you have the approval tile if you really feel it's necessary. Going to 18 billion is too high anyway.



By going to 20b, you are making your people unhappy. If you want them to breed faster, you have the recruiting centre and/or fertility centres (though the latter is mostly obsolete now, IMHO).



"Borders" mean very little in this game, in my experience. Besides, if this is made into an economic world, filled with people and stock markets, your borders are going to expand quite a bit...



That would be a major waste of the space, I think. The best place to put them, in my experience, is smaller planets where there is little point focusing on econ, research, or mil, because it'll be crap regardless. Whereas, with this planet, it makes sense to be as efficient as possible.

You're welcome, of course, but I should add a caveat: I almost always leave at least one factory on my economic planets, sometimes two. Even after the rest of the planet is developed as much as it can be, I still need it to serve a purpose other than as a money-maker: to generate transports. In the end-game, I never seem to have enough of them available. Typically, a single factory is enough to make sure the population regenerates fast enough to be at the planet's capacity in time for when the next transport will be produced. That said, I don't micromanage it that much; I just know from experience what my ideal planetary setup looks like... much like the outline in the first response to this post.

Gee, can you say *out slam goes the theories or realizations* that any strategy for a given PQ26 is a choice or not!

I wasn't giving an advice, for that i'd need the saved game - thorough observations of the actual context - evaluation of the overall status of a number of highly variable conditions -- then, and only then - would possibly give some advice (good, bad, neutral or inspired by personal experience only!).

Any your arguments are basicly still valid, btw.

I'd add only a few more thoughts though;

20b warriors traveling in space towards conquering ANOTHER PQ26 from an enemy;
1) Do not pay taxes.
2) Do not consume valuable supporting empire-wide percentages.
3) Can only leave the planet they were on for a reason.

...and, to build whatever is necessary to make that fact as continual as possible, you'd still need the efficient infra-structure no matter what PQ-size or amounts of PQ-sizes it's based on.

I've never seen any PQ-12s or less fast enough to provide conquering power aimed at anything worthy or far in a reasonable amount of expenses by a filled up surface (and with all possibilities thereof) in a time of war.

Thus, a PQ 26 close to an enemy's (declared, targeted, of equal strength, etc) core assets (or borders) _could_ serve as a base of attack and/or by accident or not, as a weak(er-est) outpost ready to be taken over by the above enemy.

Here's the breaking point to me: PQ16's+ = Starport and/or Discovery Spheres ... whichever comes first. You can conquer or outwit, but no matter how much BCs you hold onto - there is a conditional goal to obtain.

I may be totally wrong though.

Hi!

Just droll for next game year or so. Havent's seen that beast in ages.

On more serious matter, it would become a capital. But WHAT capital, that would fully depend on the current state of the game. Nowadays I mostly play all-facs or all-labs, so it would depend on the number of already specialized planets. I don't really want to "flip" 30 planets for just one planet, be class-26 or not, but with 5-10 I may consider moving to all-labs.

However there's a question of feasibility: can I afford to feed the insane (research) output of such a beast? Here I'm talking about costs in range of several thousands BCs, for 10k+ output in single category. Maybe a mix of labs and markets would alleviate such a drain, but then the planet wouldn't really excell in any category - would be more like two class-13 planets. Also, game might even be over before I'd finish building and upgrading it.

So, no real advice. If I cold have a look at your game, I probably could give you a better one. But in "crippling" game you simply can't miss. Whatever you'll do will work out good. Just enjoy that rare class-26 jevel. :CONGRAT:

BR, Iztok

I'm not really sure what that means, actually... sorry.



Of course, that goes without saying. But now that you have said it, it applies to my own advice as well, which people should feel free to ignore. I only play at Crippling level or below, after all... not sure if this would work at higher levels.



I don't worry too much about taxes paid by warriors en route. They'll be making up for their tax-free status by conquering new planets for me, all of which will soon be paying taxes. And thus are empires formed...

Not sure I follow your meaning in #2 and #3.



Well, it's true that we are talking about one planet instead of an entire empire, but I think we can still make some observations on this planet alone. By virtue of its size and bonuses, it becomes a lot easier to discuss it without knowing any context regarding the rest of the game.



I'm not sure I'm parsing that sentence completely, but if you mean they don't produce transports fast enough to help conquer, that's true. Fortunately, with enough planets, they don't need to. Since most of my planets are econ worlds, slowly producing transports, together they contribute enough to get the job done (though I might fiddle with the focus sliders to get the job done faster).



Well, the planet is not only a great asset to have for yourself; it's a huge liability if someone else owns it. Its very existence demands some kind of strategy.



Not sure I understand that either... mind rephrasing?

Since it's got the precursor library I'd go with an all labs tactic, and maybe stick a morale building and a farm on it (to help both slightly with income and also from attacks). With that one planet devoted solely to research you probably won't need any more labs and can just dedicate most of your other planets to economy to fund it (depending on how many you have). With all your research focused in one area though you're able to make the most of one-planet only research bonuses (e.g. tech capital), maximise the efficiency of the tiles you do use for research with other one-per-planet buildings (research co-ordinators), and of course get economy starbases which will be increasing your total research by the relevant % rather than just a few planets research.

The main problems will be funding (hence make sure most of your remaining planets are economy focused), and a lack of factories. With the factories you could either just use the military focus from your research planet, or get another world to become a manufacturing centre to crank out a few ships. However with ship maintenance etc. you're better off going for a few high tech ships than a load of low tech ones IMO.

At the very least throw a lab on the precursor tile. Thats like 7 free labs, really. Add a research coordinator and you'd get the output of 10 labs total. If your economy can afford it I'd go all-out research on that planet, otherwise I'd just fill it up with econ buildings.

I've read quite a few of Zyxpsilon's posts, and my conclusion is that he is exceptionally bright, and probably a bit loony too. (Thats a compliment by the way) Sometimes it makes it a little difficult for us more average people to understand. Cheers Zyxpsilon!

Sentient species taste better...

Hey, thanks Kzinti.. you've just quoted the exact stuff i needed to "express" myself about -- less clip&paste to do as a result.

*Slam: simply my strange weird way of saying that i might very well have been wrong with some early arguments - indeed!

*2&3; On surfaces, populations affect local morale negatively if the 20B mark has been reached -- in space, they don't. BUT, if you regularly load up in such a pattern that the planet actually has the capacity to maintain that much people for even just a turn - it would, then, make sense that a filled up transport (or more, btw) CAN periodically lower this handicap as often or when absolutely necessary. While including the key use of a Fertility Clinic to keep pace with invasion resources, etc.

*PQ12; The psychological barrier upon which the maximum potential is limited to whatever "productivity_research" focus is CURRENTLY available if no alterations are made to the infra-structure present. Sort of.

*PQ16; Same as above... + 4 precious tiles which are appropriately selected and built for any good reasons. Markets balance the economy (BCs are either piling up & in idle mode or they get used to rush a thing or two - production wise), Starports create a conquering possibility, Labs provide a fast(er-est) Tech-Victory... etc.

And...
I'm from Quebec, English is a distant second language to me (which i do claim NOT to control much if anything, barely enough vocabulary for online chi-chatting purposes). Given a looooooong period of thinking and reasoning (with a Roget's dictionary right beside to consult) though, i may sometimes hit enter too fast!
Plus, typos. And, French is waaaaaaayyyyy more complex than general web-driven communications in 100,000 or less English words.

But don't ever show me an obvious error on your part of grammatical proportions again, or i'll comment right back on it - too. Since i can detect these, even in my own posts!

Ce n'est pas de probleme. Vous ecrivez en Anglaise mieux que j'ecrit Francaise.



Do people still use Fertility Clinics? They're made obsolete by the Recruiting Centre, IMO, which is not only a better use of a tile, but also comes much earlier in the game (for the races I've played so far anyway). I suppose you could use both, but I'm not sure I'd want to use two tiles just to increase population growth. Though, for the kind of planet I think you're proposing here, I guess it might be worthwhile. I'll have to give that a try.



Nope... don't get what you are saying here. Sorry.

Well, you may want to try 'accentuation characters' for a start;

** Il n'est pas spécialement difficile de communiquer adéquatement dans un français relativement compréhensible à moins d'avoir un sérieux problême avec les accents courants. Vocabulaire aidant, l'essentiel est de préciser nos pensées dans un langage effectif. Sans avoir pour autant, la prétention d'être parfait dans tous les sens du mot. **

See, i could type it! Just the U missing in language is a detail, though.

Anyway, about the PQ12 or PQ16; IIRC, there is a population cap above which taxes and morale start to negatively impact the overall values beyond the planet itself. If you were to focus on a specific area (ex-Research) for such smaller planets, the 'penalties' to the other idled productivity are more of a consequence than if you had built some buildings that would compensate for the artificially variable Focusing choices. Thus, a sort of psychological barrier which generalizes any approach i have towards all fully developped 12s or more so with 16s. Precision helping, i always instinctively figure that every time i see RED numbers in the spreadsheet, something may be wrong with how i manage **some** or all my planets.
That's exactly what i meant.

And the principle (or basic reasoning) still applies to PQ26+, more so i'd insist.

I generally play Yor, so building an "economic" planet is basically impossible, especially early in the game. I also don't build research planets because I do 1/99/0. So if I found a PQ 26 early in a game I would build it up with around 16 collectives and 4 misc bonus type tiles. I would leave 6 for later galactic achievement and trade item buildings. Basically it would replace about three of my normal industry planets and would probably be the only military a/o construction ship producing planet I would need until I started making transports.

I wouldn't worry about cash with this setup because the Yor have very cheap industry buildings and a robust, if not overwhelming, economy even if almost every planet is half or more industry.

Terran Alliance though.... Yeah, I would do an economic planet for sure.

>> 2 factories (which can be paved over later with Stock Markets... they're only to speed up building the other buildings)<<

I feel like an idiot. I didn't know this - I thought factory output was only used to create ships - I had no idea that it had an impact on the rate of creation of buildings! At last I understand why some of my planets are inexplicably slooo-o-oow at producing buildings.

Cheers

Yeah, Newbyl. Factories generate both social output and military output. The budget sliders for mil and soc affect what portion of your factory's production goes to each. The upside is that any unused social production goes directly to military spending.

I often rush-buy a factory or two on new colonies to get things moving.

Yeah, welcome to the confusing world of Gal Civ 2. The economy actually works really well, but it does not work in an intuitive manner. For instance, research, social, and military production are all listed together all the time and share a single 100% production capacity between them, so you would assume they work the same basic way. However, in reality all three work in entirely different manners.

The best way to learn this game is to play it for a couple days, then read the wiki on it, then play a couple more days, and then come here and read a ton of strategy posts, then play while also looking here regularly for more ideas and information.

This has always (since before computers were invented) been a curiosity to me. So I, as a happy little dictator, tax my poor citizens (read Slaves) at 60 or 70 % to sustain my empire. On top of that, I have Financial institutions on my planets. So I am drawing an accumulative 12% per institution income above and beyond that tax rate. If I do my math (12*15) or 180% on top of the already crippling 70 %?? are my poor people excreating money just to make the tax rate?