colonizing planets: quality or quantity?

from GalCiv2 Forums

I am unsure of how to proceed in my new game. Do I colonize any planet thats available or do i wait until I find  good quality planets (eg.,PC 8+)? If I do choose quality, what is the minimum planet class I should colonize?

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69,950 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well, it depends how cramped you are for space. If you have AI right near you, grab what you can, since they will take anything and everything. If you have some breathing room, try and find some larger PQ planets. But be ready to grab the ones near you anyway, since you don't want the AI to gain an Influence hold on you.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I'll add that you can pretty much always skip that lousy PQ 3-4 planet in your home system.  Don't waste your first colony ship on that.  In fact, don't waste any colony ship on that unless it's really the last planet you can get.  When your rivals come in and colonize it, it will quickly fall to the influence of your homeworld.

When being choosy over planets, you need to balance PQ, distance, proximity to the AI, and also your need to grow.  Don't let your first colony ships meander through space for months at a time while your opponents are grabbing up planets.  Even with a lower PQ planet, population growth means more taxes means more expansion means more population etc.  Get a few factories running and your new planets will be sending out colony ships of their own.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Tolmekian, reply 2
I'll add that you can pretty much always skip that lousy PQ 3-4 planet in your home system.

Good point, in fact i wouldn't bother with them at all. Let the AI take them, those planets will never yield enough influence to be a bother and you will flip them quite easily.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Neilo, reply 3
Good point, in fact i wouldn't bother with them at all. Let the AI take them, those planets will never yield enough influence to be a bother and you will flip them quite easily.

I wouldn't go that far. If you're lucky, those planets can turn into PQ 16-18 after terraforming. They are quite an investement early on, but going for them after you have the high PQ planets in the area is definitely worthwhile.

PS: Rose tinted glasses? Is there something you want to tell us?

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

There is actually, I'm color blind.
There i said it!!!! Whew..glad to get that off my chest!
:thumbsup:

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Neilo, reply 5
There is actually, I'm color blind.
There i said it!!!! Whew..glad to get that off my chest!

Really?

Must be pretty hard to play this game, because so much is color coded. But then, you play on suicidal, so I'm not quite sure about that.  :S

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Gaunathor, reply 6
Really?

ahh...no. But it seemed like a witty comeback at the time! :thumbsup:

I was looking for a similar avatar to my old one, but something rendered not slapped together in paint. I found that at wallbase (its actually a 1920 x 1080 wall) and with some scaling got it to look decent at 100 x 100. I wanted something that still had eyes as the focal point.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Neilo, reply 7
ahh...no. But it seemed like a witty comeback at the time!

Should have realized that. But then, I always have a hard time telling, if someone is joking or not. :(

Quoting Neilo, reply 7
I was looking for a similar avatar to my old one, but something rendered not slapped together in paint. I found that at wallbase (its actually a 1920 x 1080 wall) and with some scaling got it to look decent at 100 x 100. I wanted something that still had eyes as the focal point.

It certainly has a unique quality. Grim Reaper gone cool. Or is it funky? ;)

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Gaunathor, reply 8
It certainly has a unique quality. Grim Reaper gone cool. Or is it funky?

Or something else :X

The lowest planet quality that is worth colonizing will also depend strongly on the size of the galaxy and number of planets. In a tiny or small galaxy you don't have such great chances of coming across many high PQ planets so anything as of PQ 6 or 7 might be useful to grab, whereas in large/... galaxies you may want to start at PQ8 or even PQ10 for early grabs.

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

There is also the research angle to consider.

One needs a few planets fairly early so that the N+1 research advance limit does not limit advances.  Thus, if playing on a slow research setting or using a slower research strategy, the N+1 won't be a problem.  OTOH, on a faster research setting or with a research-focused race, the N+1 will hurt you earlier.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting LTjim, reply 10
There is also the research angle to consider.

One needs a few planets fairly early so that the N+1 research advance limit does not limit advances.  Thus, if playing on a slow research setting or using a slower research strategy, the N+1 won't be a problem.  OTOH, on a faster research setting or with a research-focused race, the N+1 will hurt you earlier.

I'm new to the game and I don't recall reading about that in the manual (but then I wasn't too thorough). What's this about a N+1 research limit?

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Falconne, reply 11
I'm new to the game and I don't recall reading about that in the manual (but then I wasn't too thorough). What's this about a N+1 research limit?

You can't find it in the manual, as it isn't mentioned there. It is a limit on the amount of techs you can research in one turn due to high research output. The formula is N+1, where N is the number of planets you have. I.e., if you have only your homeworld you can research 2 (1+1) techs in one turn.

Keep in mind, however, that you can only research several techs in one turn, if they are in line after your current research project. If you have already reached the last tech in a line, any research point you don't need to finish the research will be wasted.

Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Gaunathor, reply 12
You can't find it in the manual, as it isn't mentioned there. It is a limit on the amount of techs you can research in one turn due to high research output. The formula is N+1, where N is the number of planets you have. I.e., if you have only your homeworld you can research 2 (1+1) techs in one turn.

Keep in mind, however, that you can only research several techs in one turn, if they are in line after your current research project. If you have already reached the last tech in a line, any research point you don't need to finish the research will be wasted.

Also, it's just plain N in DL, at least last time I checked.

That second part is not quite true.  While you can't use EOL overflow in the same turn (without an anomaly, anyway), EOL (end-of-line) techs do provide overflow beyond what they cost.  The formula is strange at best, though-at a minimum, you'll lose 25% of your research output for that turn, but there seems to be some other factor at some point that I haven't nailed down yet.

Let's say I'm researching Terraforming, (xml cost 3000, Very Fast/Gigantic modifier roughly 0.6, total cost before inflation 1800), and for simplicity's sake pretend I don't have any tp invested in it yet.  If I have a research output (note: this is different from research cost, because half of bonus production is free) of 2400, then I will get no overflow from this tech's turn on my next turn.  If however I have say 2800 output, then I'll get 2800*0.75=2100-1800=300 overflow on the tech I choose on the next turn.

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Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Sole, reply 13
Also, it's just plain N in DL, at least last time I checked.

I haven't played Dl in quite some time, but I was under the impression that it was the same there, too. Wouldn't be the first time, however, that I was remembering something wrongly (or not at all). My memory isn't what it used to be.

Quoting Sole, reply 13
That second part is not quite true. While you can't use EOL overflow in the same turn (without an anomaly, anyway), EOL (end-of-line) techs do provide overflow beyond what they cost. The formula is strange at best, though-at a minimum, you'll lose 25% of your research output for that turn, but there seems to be some other factor at some point that I haven't nailed down yet.

Let's say I'm researching Terraforming, (xml cost 3000, Very Fast/Gigantic modifier roughly 0.6, total cost before inflation 1800), and for simplicity's sake pretend I don't have any tp invested in it yet. If I have a research output (note: this is different from research cost, because half of bonus production is free) of 2400, then I will get no overflow from this tech's turn on my next turn. If however I have say 2800 output, then I'll get 2800*0.75=2100-1800=300 overflow on the tech I choose on the next turn.

Interesting. I didn't knew that.

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hey Gunathor can U answer my post on the Yor about research about N+1 that requires a lot of tech points only workable later in the game as far a colonizing planets in the early game u get 4 tp per planet u colonize there is no such thing as a pq 3 or 4 through terraforming 16 pq my question is which is better what u got now or a average of a pq 16 on your planets again we r talking about the early game but because of terrafotming this should be considered even if u couldn't build structures u could still collect taxes the more population u have the more money from taxes the more influence you have the more influence u have the more tourism u have the more money u have money at least directly affect your research military and social production also later on it can help u buy things instead of building them the sooner u have a colonized planet the more per turn u get so this at least affects u on a small scale plus why would u give the ai a bunch of pq 16 planets by not colonizing pq 3-4 planets l