On Strategy by Darth Pedro

Here is my nutshell take on initial game strategy.

There are four basic areas in which TL must be developed continuously. All other efforts are ultimately subordinate, though temporarily may be of higher priority at times.

1. Laboratories and Research:

Laboratories are consumers of Fuel/Power and most importantly require MANY Professionals to run them. The first higher TL Labs should be added to the OBC where Solar Power can be used to power them. They consume no other resources so will NOT be a drain on transport once established. Of course you will need a bigger OBC and LFS to accomodate the staffing.

2. Mines and Resources:

Mining TL is a VERY high priority since the home world UNLIMITED deposits will inevitably be the bulwark of the home system economy. Elevating Mine TL will increase maximum limits on resource supplies while remaining stable as far as staffing requirements. The 1,000,000 Mines per Deposit limit sets the pace.

3. Factories and Manufacturing:

Factory TL is next as you must have the resources to use in the manufacturing processes or you will outstrip them. Factories are not limited as to how many can be assembled in each Factory Group. Thus ultimately 23 Factory Groups should suffice for the manufacturing complex in any one colony. Doing Build Change orders to higher TL of 200 will ensure that they always attempt to produce the highest TL Items possible.

4. Propulsion Systems:

Space Drive TL determines how many you need to go how fast during Maneuver Orders which occur in tactical distance units within one orbit. Hyper Engine TL on the other hand determine the lift capacity AND the absolute range of interstellar Jumps that can be executed. The range being formulated for this game is 3 + SQRT(TL). Starting at TL-2 we are limited to distances of 4.414 Light Years per Jump. You must achieve a TL of 49 in order to Jump 10 Light Years (the distance achieved by a maximum system probe for exploration). It will be a long haul achieving TL-49.

_________________________________________________________

Transports (and now Beamers) will be important to Research too. Basically all Items need to be advanced with their own unique advantages and limitations. Thus the priority of LABS!!!

FARMS:

Farms-1 can only be assembled and operated in Open Colonies (on habitable planets of course). Each one produces 25 FOOD per turn and these are your backbone for FOOD supply initially. They are limited to 100,000 Farms-1 per Habitability Factor so your initial home planet with Hab=25 can only operate 2,500,000 Farms-1. This limits FOOD production to 62,500,000 FOOD per turn. Each population consumes .25 FOOD per turn so the capacity is 250,000,000 population (unless you reduce the ration rate - DON'T).

Since the Habitability Factor of the home planet is 25 and each Hab Factor can support (you would need Life Supports in all but Open Colonies) 10,000,000 population...the capacities are the same. This means you had better find a way to put population elsewhere and that will required FEEDING them (as well as Life Support).

You can put Farms-2 through Farms-5 on your COLONIES within orbits 1 through 5 and they will use sunlight and if in the orbiters they will also use SOLAR POWER for their FUEL requirements (orbits 1 through 5 only). Typically they are used on Orbiters (OBC's) and in Enclosed Surface Colonies (ESC's).

Farms-6 are the lowest TL Farms you can operate on a ship so YOU NEED THEM SOON! They use artificial light and require FUEL and/or POWER plus staffing but NO sunlight as the lower TL Farms do.

Since Farms-2 and higher TL produce 5 x TL FOOD, you lose some efficiency until you get to Farms-6 anyway. Go for Farms-6 and put them in your OBC's and Ships ASAP. Farms-6 running in your OBC's in the inner orbits (1-5) are the best deal and with Automation use only a minimum of Professionals for staffing.

LIFE SUPPORTS:

As long as you can continue to build some Life Support in excess capacity to your population growth numbers, you can simply Assemble them on your local OBC. This will help you expand staffing capacity for items operating there. TL for LFS is not initially urgent so don't worry about it too soon.

ORBITING COLONY:

Your home OPC can remain as a Population grower, FOOD producer and MINING center. Remember that the three (3) UNLIMITED deposits on your home planet will be the MAINSTAY or your resource supply for the immediate future and possibly on into the long term.

So what should I do with my OBC? EVERYTHING ELSE!!!!

Manufacture, Assemble and operate ALL:

Laboratories
Factories

Manufacture, Assemble and operate MOST:

Life Supports
Automation

Manufacture, Assemble and operate SOME:

Light Structure
Sensors
Transports

Manufacture EVERYTHING ELSE to be used elsewhere as needed.

PROPER UTILIZATION OF YOUR OBC IS KEY TO WINNING THE GAME!

MINES:

Before you have anything else in large quantities you MUST HAVE HIGH TL MINES!

Higher TL means more resources mined out of those UNLIMITED deposits BECAUSE you can ONLY assemble 1,000,000 MINES maximum on a deposit. Therefor Higher TL means higher output with NO increase in staffing.

With 3,000,000 MINES running on your three (3) unlimited deposits...

TL-1 produces:

12,500,000 FUEL at 50% Yield
10,000,000 METS at 40% Yield
10,000,000 NMTS at 40% Yield

TL-10 produces ten (10) times as much while TL-200 produces:

2,500,000,000 FUEL at 50% Yield
2,000,000,000,METS at 40% Yield
2,000,000,000 NMTS at 40% Yield

Now it will take some doing to get to TL-200 but if any item is worth that effort it is MINES!

FACTORIES:

Once you have the Mine TL you must be able to build them. Higher TL Factories will be needed for the same reason...economy of scale. Put those newer high TL facory groups on the OBC and let them rip. You should only need 23 Factory Groups since there are only that many Items to manufacture. An exception is if you intentionally want to build lower TL Items for some reason (paranoid that the enemy will capture those items and use them for prototypes).

Issue orders to Build Change all of your factory Groups to whatever item at TL-200. This will automatically cause the factories to start building the highest TL for each respective Item Type as you continue to do research improvements.

Build more factories and Mines first then add to the menu as capacities increase. When new higher TL stuff comes out in large quantities then Disassemble and SCRAP the lower TL stuff and Assemble the newer high TL stuff. This goes especially for Laboratories, Mines and Factories.

TRANSPORTS AND BEAMERS:

These will be needed to haul resources to your OBC.

Transports are need specifically where ships are concerned or where establishment of new colonies and surveys are performed. Beamers can be used to transfer GOODS (no population) between any Colonies in the same system. Transports may also be used to haul Soldiers and Military Robots to and from Combat.

Based on this I have done at least one thing right. GAH!

They way I see it, higher tech goods just means you get more productivity out of your people. And since we are all rapidly automating, we are really talking about our Professionals. So there's not much difference between high tech mines or factories. Labs, on the other hand, use 3x the pros, so if pros are the ultimate limiting factor in EC/CW, then I suspect the long-term best investment is in labs. That's where your investment in research will pay off with the biggest improvements in pro productivity.

Having said that, there will be a time when one has to switch gears. High tech labs are great, but they don't blast aliens. And given the lead time in building up military tech, setting up factories and supply chains, and deploying stuff, you can't ignore the military side too long.

We're probably going to need a mix of tech investments. Keep researching higher tech labs with some significant effort, but once you get a decent pipeline of research coming off the line, buy up lower techs in military and ship stuff. I heard in the last game people were getting up to Energy Weapon level 60 or 70! You obviously need a massive lab base to get there, but you also need a massive production base to push out those super weapons (and a massive fuel-mining supply chain to let you fire them!)

[quote='ixnay' pid='2315' dateline='1374247867']
They way I see it, higher tech goods just means you get more productivity out of your people. And since we are all rapidly automating, we are really talking about our Professionals. So there's not much difference between high tech mines or factories. Labs, on the other hand, use 3x the pros, so if pros are the ultimate limiting factor in EC/CW, then I suspect the long-term best investment is in labs. That's where your investment in research will pay off with the biggest improvements in pro productivity.

Having said that, there will be a time when one has to switch gears. High tech labs are great, but they don't blast aliens. And given the lead time in building up military tech, setting up factories and supply chains, and deploying stuff, you can't ignore the military side too long.

We're probably going to need a mix of tech investments. Keep researching higher tech labs with some significant effort, but once you get a decent pipeline of research coming off the line, buy up lower techs in military and ship stuff. I heard in the last game people were getting up to Energy Weapon level 60 or 70! You obviously need a massive lab base to get there, but you also need a massive production base to push out those super weapons (and a massive fuel-mining supply chain to let you fire them!)
[/quote]

I believe you should dump all Research into better LABS every 4 Turns. Then do Mines, Factories, Everything else on the other 3 Turns between. Do it on a 4 Turn cycle. Spare change can be used to bring up less important items.

The 4 Turn Manufacturing Cycle.

When you Assemble Factories on a new Factory Group, they will immediately (providing they are staffed, powered and supplied with resources) start to produce in a BATCH.

Example:

I Assemble 1,000,000 Factories (whatever same TL) and they start producing Items which will not be available in Inventory for another 4 Turns. If I Assemble 250,000 factories each Turn (on the same Factory Group) for 4 Turns, I will end up getting 1/4 or the overall output in inventory, starting after 4 Turns, and also EVERY Turn thereafter BECAUSE effectively there are 250,000 factories starting a new smaller BATCH of output in each quarter.

If I increase the TL of said Item then the immediate effect will be the next Quarter production will become available after 4 Turns while the remaining 3 Quarters or the older TL Item continue to process through to inventory. Remember to set those Factory Group TL's to 200 so you don't forget to do it incrementally later. If you set the Factory Group TL to Item Type TL-200 when you BUILD the factory Group, they will automatically start building the higher TL item ASAP. Otherwise you will find yourself analyzing the situation repeatedly and possibly forgetting to upgrade the factory Group TL incrementally as needed. The ONLY reason you would want lower TL Items than the maximum TL is in cases like Farms 2 through 5 OR as stated previously, IF YOU ARE PARANOID about an enemy capturing said higher TL Items and using them as prototypes...there are ways to minimize that probability too.

Therefore, look carefully at the Item Type and Research goals you have in Mind.

For manufacturing Mines, especially, I would want the WAD or batch method described above where the whole complement of Factories is established on the same Turn. This way the whole output becomes available at once and the larger quantity will be more useful as you can replace existing Mines on Mine Groups in chunks of 1,000,000 Mines at a time. Remember that Mines are limited to 1,000,000 on each deposit. So the Turn that the newer TL Mines show up in inventory you do the following.

Disassemble 1,000,000 Mines from the desired Mine Group.

Assemble 1,000,000 Mines (newer/higher TL) on said Mine Group.

Scrap the disassembled lower TL Mines for resources and reduced space requirements (raw resources except FUEL are stored OUTSIDE of the SURFACE colonies).

Now think about this when you establish the Factory Group that will be manufacturing those Mines: Put enough factories in the Group to manufacture exactly 1,000,000 of the TL Mines they are producing. This means that as the Mine TL goes UP, the desired output capacity of the specific Factory Group will increase with it since Mines TL mass is directly proportional to TL of said Mines. Therefore you should plan to either beef up the Factory Group with enough more same TL Factories to produce the 1,000,000 Mines (or multiple thereof) OR you should replace said Factories with the required number of higher TL Factories to accommodate the new needs. This requires some calculations and planning in order to optimize the end results.

Note: you want your Mines to be manufactured in BATCHES.

Now we have opened the "can of worms" regarding Factories. You now see the reason we need to keep increasing Factory TL ASAP in order to keep up with the Mines TL and their INCREASED output of resources from those eternal UNLIMITED deposits as well as the increased manufacturing output to create those higher TL Mines.

Forget the long term impact of anything BUT the Unlimited deposits as they will be gone sooner than later. The extra higher yield limited deposits do help kick-start the development of your home orbit but will soon be gone.

I find this RSCH expenditure plan slightly intimidating - I should plan out anticipated RSCH available to figure this out. Every 4 turns on labs seems too little. But ixnay is also right - too many other tech items to balance, too.

[quote='Pool Boy' pid='2337' dateline='1374331686']
I find this RSCH expenditure plan slightly intimidating - I should plan out anticipated RSCH available to figure this out. Every 4 turns on labs seems too little. But ixnay is also right - too many other tech items to balance, too.
[/quote]

You definitely need to plan ahead and the complexity of such planning is what makes the game so unforgiving...the difference between a failed empire and a robust empire.

Turn 5

Are you feeling the thrill of deep space exploration? Have you realized yet that you can't chew what you are finding?

Now is the time for a reality check and the realization that it is time to continue building your infrastructure.

I'll tell you, this food-shortage thing has paralyzed my early turns. And the one star in range of my home system has an alien colony, so I will need to hit it with guns before butter.

My first priority is to populate that in-system hab-10 world. That will be the dress rehearsal for colonizations to come.

I am glad I split my first-turn research investments into FCT-4 / LAB-4 instead of FCT-5. I get to play with new Labs AND set up some big new production runs. I liked the idea of LAB-5 that the other player mentioned via email, but while he's presumably got a load of LAB-5s to set up that's double what I've got, he will be limited by FCT-1 tech for further turns (depending on when he started investing in them.) We'll see how it goes.

Finally, while I am glad I doubled my Consumer Good production (heading off THAT crisis), I am nervous about not having enough Structural Units to make big enough freighters. During the next 4 turns, while I fix my food shortage, I will be fleshing out the orbiter as large as possible, and set up some production runs for Farm-2, Life Support, and Space Drives. Sensors can wait -- my fleet is still grounded.

I have LABS, FCT & MIN 4's. I am also going to LFS-3 and SLSU-3 this turn. I need to expand my orbiter and the structure will allow me to put more factories up there as well as more people with the life supports. Then the new labs will go there, etc. Once I get a fixed population of about 30,000,000 Pro's running 10,000,000 Labs, I will continue to upgrade Labs every 4 turns as I have stated.

It will be interesting to see where we are on about Turn 25 or so when I expect real warfare to begin. I believe these NPC colonies will prove to be more of a burden if captured too soon.

I must be missing something. You have LAB-4, FCT-4, and MIN-4 -- that's 18M research right there. LFS-3 (from starting at 2) is 2M more, and SLSU-3 is 3M, which totals 23M. We started with 12M, and have made 2M/turn for 4 turns, which is 20M.

Ahhh, you installed more LABS from the starting stockpile, right? I don't have my turn in front of me, so I can't see how many LABS we started with, but for you to make 3M extra research using LAB-1s it would have taken 12M LAB-1/turns. Spread over 4 turns would mean 3M extra LAB-1s from the beginning along with 12M professionals to run them. Do I have all that right?

So you deviated from the tutorial as well, you naughty boy. Are your MIN-4 already in production?

I'll break down your analysis:

I must be missing something. You have LAB-4, FCT-4, and MIN-4 -- that's 18M research right there. LFS-3 (from starting at 2) is 2M more, and SLSU-3 is 3M (wrong 2M started at 2), which totals 23M (wrong 22M). We started with 12M, and have made 2M/turn for 4 turns (I assembled 2,000,000 LAB-1's which were in inventory on Turn 1 which brings the total operating LAB's to 10,000,000 at 0.25 RSCH per LAB = 2,500,000 RSCH per Turn, that's an extra 0.5M per Turn for Turns 2,3,4 & now 5)), which is 20M.(Which is 22M)

Ahhh, you installed more LABS from the starting stockpile, right? I don't have my turn in front of me, so I can't see how many LABS we started with, but for you to make 3M extra research using LAB-1s it would have taken 12M LAB-1/turns. Spread over 4 turns would mean 3M extra LAB-1s from the beginning along with 12M professionals to run them. Do I have all that right? (Getting closer... :) )

So you deviated from the tutorial as well, you naughty boy. Are your MIN-4 already in production?

Answer:
Because I also assembled 4M FCT's each on FCT"S and MIN's, I will have 1,842,243 new MIN-4 arriving next turn. I just received 1,452,944 FCT-4's this turn and have put them on the OBC for the most part building more SLSU and LAB-4's )which started last turn using some FCT-1's. I am disassembling all FCT's in the orbiter and replacing them with larger quantities of FCT-4's this turn.

I have NOT colonized my extra Hab 10 planet yet though I did capture the alien artifact colony and have disassemble enough AUT-10's to bring home for PROTOTYPES which will reduce my RSCH costs for that by 80% (42M x 0.2 = 8.4M RSCH)

BTW: Jay wrote the tutorial and he no doubt knows how to play the game very well. There is always another way to skin a cat though as my grandmother always said.

I guess I have been leaving my 2M extra LAB-1 unassembled and idle. Dang. I remember thinking about this on turn 1, and calculating that I didn't have enough professionals to run them. I think I do now, but maybe not after I get my LAB-4s assembled.

My one other big research investment has been into LAB-5. I can bump my MIN-1 to MIN-4 with 6M research next turn -- it would be the first blush of my new LAB power. This turn I have just 2M research to spend, which I could accumulate or could buy FARM-3 or something. Probably better to accumulate it.

Do everything you can to get those LAB's and FCT's in the orbiter. Solar Power. Don't forget to SCRAP anything you disassemble and don't have a real urgent need for. Remember that Resources (except FUEL) sit in piles outside your surface colonies. The only FUEL you might need on your orbiter is for TPT's and EWP's. The home OPC should eventually be nothing but an Incubator/Mining/Farming colony. Everything else should be in the OBC above. Make it huge and fill it with extra FOOD for defensive MASS.

BTW: the only NEW mass in the game is that of FOOD, even more so that produced by Solar Powered Farms in ORBIT. Get FRM-6's when you upgrade your FRM-TL.

Ah, food as armor.

For readers not fully up on CW rules, there is a technique for buffering your ships/colonies from combat damage. Such damage is doled out against everything in your colony in proportion to how much there is of it. So if your colony is 5% factories (by mass) then 5% of incoming damage will hit your factories. So clever designers started "ballasting" their ships with extra structural units to add mass. They even avoided using the precious hi-tech "super-light structural units" and built ships with heavy ordinary structure for this purpose. Hence, in my own thinking, I have put a low priority on researching Light Structure. There is no provision in the game for "armor", but in effect that's what we're talking about here.

But now we have this concept of using food as ballast. Interesting.

Personally, I think Farms in orbiters, enclosed colonies, and ships ought to consume Life Support capacity (in addition to fuel). So to run a large orbital farm, you'd need a large investment in biological infrastructure, water systems, etc. Maybe something for the suggestion box.

Most life support concepts in development now involve various forms of botanical farming.

Ahoy there Darth,

First, I must comment on your avatar. Achmed the Dead Terrorist in a Darth Vader helmet. Clever! And a good laugh!

Now, on strategy, I agree that production comes first, but I didn't put the same emphasis on LABs. First, you have to make the infrastructure to support the LABs, ships to begin mining colonies, tons (literally) of life support, mines to support the factories (I think quite a few more than you are planning on), plus create a warship to deal with the neighboring M8 artifact. 25 million more population contributing to the infrastructure will make a nice addition. Not to mention the TL goodies that might be hiding there.

I also wouldn't run directly into putting everything on the OBC. Yes, that is an excellent strategy mid-game, but at first, factories, factories, and more factories - and a few mines :-). WW II was won by superior numbers, not superior technology. If it was all about technology, würden wir dieses Gespräch als Deutsch. (btw, my German is lousy!)

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

Yes it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Of course you need to build infrastructure. It's how you build it that makes the difference.

Taking the Mass 8.0 colony you find will be quite a burden and so what if you do find some high TL goodies. You can research them yourself on YOUR schedule WITHOUT the reactionary need to comply with what is presented to you in game.

I am already producing twice as much resources as I am consuming with room to grow in WIP. My OBC is doing fine as the stream of SLSU is now flowing out of WIP at an ever increasing rate.

On or about Turn 20 I will be prowling and ransacking the "conquests" of others.

:)

Darth on Turn 10:

Currently with 1,000,000 Mine-4's on my deposits, the extracted resources are running at 110,000,000 METS & NMTS per turn. Once the limited deposits run out this will drop to 40,000,000 METS & NMTS per turn. Currently I am consuming about 85,000,000 METS & NMTS per turn and my stockpile of each is over 1,000,000,000.

With Labs-4 being installed on the OBC as they are completed, I am behind some players in Research at this point but ahead of probably most if not all in infrastructure. All of my Unskilled are now Trainees and my OBC will have 20,000,000 surplus LFS capacity this turn even though I am adding more Pro's to the OBC, etc.

I'll need 22,000,000 research to increase my Mines to TL-8...the 17,000,000 more research to increase my Labs to TL-8 (at 5 currently). Then I will do the Factories again, meanwhile scrapping out everything I upgrade which will help extend my resource consumption curve.

Next I will increase Farm TL to 6 and then start building them for the OBC and ships. On Turn 10 I am still producing more FOOD than actually consumed but that will change soon.

Striving to take "advantage" of the AUT-10 prototypes is a moot point as I have already exceeded my requirements for AUT going forward. Eventually I will expend them but it is a low priority.

Sometime during the next 10 Turns I will colonize the Hab-10 planet and the others having unlimited deposits in my home system. I don't expect to be developing out-system planets for some time but when I do I will be prepared with large assets having latest weaponry and MRB's to acquire those fledgling colonies from others.

I agree on the AUT-10 prototypes being a moot point. Kind of a red-herring this early in the game.

I do have a question for you. Earlier, you have mentioned that "Taking the Mass 8.0 colony you find will be quite a burden...". I'm not sure I understand how adding 30,000,000 workers to your MIN, FCT, and LAB efforts would be a burden. Yes, there will be some logistical issues to overcome, but I think the benefits in population alone would outweigh the short-term inconvenience over the long run.

I understand that you were in the previous test game. How many colonies did you take over in that game? And what issues did you run into?

Dear Dread,

I don't need 30,000,000 workers at this point or any point in the near future. I'll have 30,000,000 more population of my own quicker than I can effectively harness the out-system Mass 8 colony in a nearby system.

The last test game I entered on Turn 26. I had a really LARGE position but it was wrecked thoroughly by several previous owners. It took another 20 Turns to reorganize and rescue the colonies that existed and some that could not even be setup by colonization ships with huge inventories. I recall one huge colony ship which arrived at a 40 HAB planet and was getting low on fuel. It turned out that it had NO transports or constructors to establish the colony disassembled in inventory. I had to build a large tanker transport and send it there to refuel so the colony could be established. This was the worst case of several out-systems which some which previous impetuous owners had striven (too early) to gobble up.

The winning player in that game had already established superiority and I spent a lot of effort organizing a coalition and managing a technology exchange pool which was helping all of the members catch up and surpass the encroaching "BORG". During that time I felt constant pressure from allies to build large warships and send help to others closer to the enemy frontier. As it was, I did gift a lot of hardware to others and the technology exchange got us to a level that the Borg could have been halted and eventually pushed back.

The discussion between our allies seemed to center on mass versus technology. The Borg already had MASS but we collectively had TL and were on an exponential ramp up the TL trail.

Please see the attached graph. This is derived from the TL spreadsheet tool I used to coordinate research efforts and exchange of prototypes. We eventually evolved to having guest OBC's in reciprocating home systems actually building masses of high TL items for each other in order to save individual research costs for expending just the prototypes and to save the additional 4 turns of production time.

The graph tracks the Sum of the Game Maximum TL's in RED for comparison. It was actually Turn 48 before MI and MA joined the coalition TL exchange. About that same time two (2) of our member home systems fell to the Borg assault. There were several other known players who abstained from joining the coalition and ultimately succumbed to the Borg on their own.

This graph stops at Turn 58 where I turned the responsibility over to another player (it became too burdensome and a thankless task). The game was ended by consensus on Turn 61, according to my records, due to player perception that the Borg were either destined to win or the game would at best continue forever. We all learned a lot from the experience and many changes to the game have been forthcoming during the year it took to start the current CWT2 test game.

Also see the attached spreadsheet file (IT WOULD NOT ATTACH BEING TOO LARGE) from which this graph is derived. You can see that we took a vote on Turn 52 in order to prioritize the Items to be collectively researched. there is also a tab with my own notes for tracking prototypes in my possession and exchanges with the several guest OBC's building and receiving prototypes in my system. Each member had a similar arrangement but my system was the only one that had representation of all members and so became a clearing house of sorts.

Thus my perception, accounting for changes in the rules since then and the fact that I am starting from scratch. I have made a few minor errors in this game so far but nothing unrecoverable or critical in the long run. Time will tell.