#3 Ahhhhh farms!!!! Thanks a ton! Do the farms just help that world or all worlds?
Also, how do I get more squares on a planet activated. I managed to get some new ones on some planets from time to time, I assume through my tech leaps, but others seem rather static. |
Farms only provide food for the planet they're on and your total food supply for a planet limits it's population growth. For example, a planet that's producing 10mt of food per week can support 10 billion people (think I got the units right). Adding more farms or beefing up your farm tech can increase the number. There are other population factors - like as your population increase your unhappiness increases (morale/approval declines). It's up to you to balance. You can't just throw down 20 farms and expect 200 billion happy people to spawn.
The number of tiles on a planet IS limited, as is the number of good planets. You have to balance what you build to maximize/specialize each planet. Most planets will eventually get some more tiles via terraforming types of techs but in my experience planets aren't equal in this regard. There may be some rare random events, or minor races can appear later in the game, to make a size 0 planet into something else, but it's not something you can count on. If you want more planets you have to "acquire" them via conquest or influence flipping. A typical good world starts with 8-12 tiles. Anything more than that is a higher quality world (like the 15's the minor races start on, making them prime expansion targets).
Note that your starbases have a radius. I'm very fond of generic economic bases because they can jack up your planets' production and research while also boosting trade income if freighters pass thru their radius. These effects stack so having multiple economic starbases with lots of overlap can radically jack up your planets.
If you plan/orchestrate your trade routes in tandem with economic starbases you can seriously bump your trade income - but trade routes can easily be disrupted so I don't like to totally count on trade (target planet(s) change hands, wars cause freighter loss, etc).
If you build economic starbases such that they include as many planets as possible in their radius, and build a few next to each other with overlap, you can get some NICE bonuses on your major production planets.
Military starbases can be handy, as can influence bases, but I think you get the most bang for your buck out of economic starbases (purely opinion). Your borders and empire can easily shift rendering military or influence bases largely useless, while an economic starbase, even if it's just jacking producion and research, is always effective. But, of course, you can easily crank out waves of constructors if you build on every planet, so destroying and rebuilding starbases isn't THAT big a deal (once you get rolling).
