Help me quit my annoying habit.

Taking turns too fast.

As the subtitle says, I take my turns too fast. I'm doing something, and I have the urge, and often do end turn, end turn, end turn, end turn. Mostly i'm sure there's nothing I want to do, but I dunno... there's something that compels me to just end turn often and alot. Anybody else do this? When you get to a stretch that you have a technology coming up or something, and just want to constantly end turn until you get there? In times of war, I dont do this... but in times of peace, I seem to do it sooo often.

This is contributed by the fact that there's no real stimulus to when you end a turn. I wish there was a popup or something telling me my profit gain, profit loss, and some other important things, so I could click and close the window, feeling satisfied with the last turn I finished... instead of just 'click'... new turn.


I have another problem. How am I supposed to expand fast, like the computer does, if every colony I snag drastically lowers my income? I put manufacturing centers... even lower!
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Reply #1 Top
If there was such popup, you would soon get annoyed by it and want to turn it off so you could end your &*($*(@&$ turn already

It's ok, we all do that. Only heavy-micromanagers, perfectionists and paranoids take a look at their entire empire every turn, don't worry. Zip through until something interesting comes along or you notice something that might turn into a problem unless taken-care of.

About the second question, that's the main problem with expanding. You'll soon learn to balance your income after your inital colony rush. It takes some practice with taxes and social buildings. And remember - you don't have to keep your colonies 100% happy all the time, especially in the initial rush. About 55% is enough.
Reply #2 Top
Well, if you're taking them too fast, you gotta exert some self control. I know it can be exciting to just get in there and pump turns like nobody else, but the game's gotta like it, too, y'know. Try thinking of other things to help you make your turns last longer. Use the extra time to explore your own empire and try new things. You never know - there may be something that you've never experienced in a turn before simply because you were just rifling through it like a workhorse. Stay focused and pace yourself. That way, when you're ready to finish, everyone else is, too.

Wait... what are we talking about?
Reply #3 Top
Heavy micromanager? Check
Perfectionist? Check
Paranoid? hmm... Check

... and even I spam the turn button occasionally, don't feel bad:)

Yep, as far as the initial rush... what I do is set industrial capacity to 100%, military to 0% social to 50% and research to 50%. I set my tax rate as high as I can without going into red morale.

From there I pump out a colony ship every single turn and send them to the furthest destinations I think I can reach first. If someone colonizes them before I get there, I can always snag a closer one. I rush build ONE factory in my first colony for 600 and change, which, with the 50% social production, provides a tremendous boost to initial production.

As soon as you're bankrupt, stop rush building colony ships. I will trade techs for cash at this point as long as I can to avoid having to stop my colony ship rush building, but once I can't anymore, I set my tax rate to almost 0%. The purpose: 100% morale, with which your population growth doubles. Sure you will be dirt poor for 10-20 turns while your population booms, but after you have a decent sized population, you can set your tax rate to near-red levels and not worry about going bankrupt due to lack of tax payers.

Usually, by the time I stop pumping colony ships, i set my industrial rates as follows: research-50%, social-30%, military 20%. It keeps everything at about how I like it. I've found this strategy to work very well every difficulty level I've used it on--which has been up to maso.

My strategy is usually to build mostly factory based colonies with one research, one or two farms, one morale place, and a handful of banks. I usually don't have the largest military at the start, but I usually end up buying up a small fraction of defenders from all the other civs to lower their military rating and bolster mine. Because I set my military at 20%, I keep a very slim army. I sell obsolete ships to my enemies enemies or anyone weak in particular, because I know they wont do any good:P If (and I always turn out to be the biggest war monger once my economy is solid) war is necessary, I drop social production to about 10%, slide military to 40%, and go into each colony and for everyone which would recieve a tremendous military production boost through focusing, I focus them. I can easily turn the tide of a losing war in almost no time. And once I've built up this huge army, I use it conquer the galaxy:)

The AI at higher levels WILL dogpile you if you use the strategy I do because your military rating will be so low. But thankfully, early on, their army is slow is dirt, so you have time to prepare/make alliances/buy ships:)
Reply #4 Top
I forgot to mention debt really is not a big deal. To me, it is entirely worth it to be in the red the first segment of the game, because once your banks/population are in place, you will have a powerful economy capable of fielding massive armies and doing insane research

You have to weigh the pros and cons.
Pros of keeping lower tax rate/higher IC:
-Faster population growth: more tax payers in time
-Faster research: you can sell techs/trade techs for cash. I generally go for all the diplomacy and morale techs at the start, which allows me to trade for more and tax my people even higher:)
-Faster production: you can build economy building buildings faster

Cons of keeping lower tax rate/higher IC:
-Constant debt:: Yes, you will constantly be losing money, but the only penalty for having no money is losing production for a turn or two, which actually is not a big deal--you gain quite a bit of cash when that happens:)
-Turns with no production: Ok, these suck, but you need to remember you aren't losing any money or anything. Instead of paying for production, you are simply reciving a lump sum instead, which will pay for the next few turns of full production. To me, having to stop full time production once every 10 turns versus having constant gimped production/income is a no brainer. Clearly having full time production, even if it is not every turn, is superior--as you can complete things in a shorter amount of time (say banks), which provide a quicker turn around in your profit margin
Reply #5 Top
that sounds pretty stupid because you arent running 100% spending on average at all
i manage my economy so that i earn money at 100% (30/50/20) or (50/20/30), allowing me to trade money for diplomatic advantages (getting wars declared, peaces made and starbases). i do make a lot of economy starbases to make up for the lesser production, but in dire times i can go research or production frenzy by quickly cranking out factorys everywhere.
Reply #6 Top
I tend to have the same problem of zipping through my turns too fast. So, I set myself a goal of checking over my empire at the end of every month. I don't dig through every corner unless I've got some special reason to, such as a new improvement. I do, however, look for major signs of waste through the colony listing, check I'm researching the proper tech, and so forth.

Even if I don't do it thoroughly, this is often just enough to prevent me from going half a year without building any improvements on certain planets that I overlooked in my haste to get a technology and whose event message I skipped.

That said, I might not mind a monthly report (out of x planets, only z are building something) or such.
Reply #7 Top
You should divide two columns

(1) Things I have to do before I end my turn

(2) Things I want to do before I end my turn

Let's face it. Unless you're in a touchy diplomatic situation (i.e., you suspect an AI player of plotting against you), there's no good reason to check the Diplomacy screen and Foreign Stats and Reports every turn. There are a lot of screens that are just general "good to know" things that you don't have to check every time. The kicker there is, "the more you know, the more you grow." By taking a little time to just sit down and examine the galactic situation, you're going to learn some things about how the AI works and interacts and how the game is responding to your style of play. Eventually what you learn will become streamlined in your head, and you won't have to think about it so much anymore. Mastering the game like this can give you more time to do what you want during a turn as opposed to worrying about what you have to do.

My examples:

(1) Things I need to do before I end a turn
(a) Check the Planets/Ships screen to see if I have any new ships. I name them and then decide where they will work best strategically and send them there.
(b) Check the Colonies screen and sort them by what they are building. !!!!!The usefulness of the Colonies screen cannot be overstated!!! You can instantly sort your colonies by any stat (Military, Social, Research, what they're building, what the shipyard is building, etc). By using this screen and sorting say.. what they're building, you can instantly see what colonies are building Nothing and give them a task. Let's say you want to build a Manufacturing, Research, or Financial Capital and want to know what colony is capable of producing the most. Just click the top of the proper column and you will instantly have every colony sorted with the one you want sitting nice and pretty at the top.
(c) Check Diplomacy screen every few turns to see how you're getting along with others.

Really, it's that simple in terms of "needs." Ships need to be sent places to serve their function. Colonies need to be set to build appropriate ships and buildings for support.

As far as things I "want" to do.. let's just say, it's a fun day when you can make every single AI go to war with each other on a 10 player gigantic map and still be Friendly and Warm with all of them.
Reply #8 Top
Nah,

It works the other way for me. "Am I really SURE I'm done? Oh, wait! I didn't check planet So-and-So. Oh, yes I did. Is my research right? Yes. Taxes? Yes. Oh, doo. I wanted to design a new ship. Ah, that can wait. YES I"LL MAKE DINNER IN A MINUTE! Oh, hell where was I? I'd better check all my planets again. What happened to that border patrol? Oh there it is. Was that Drengin fighter there before? Hmm....

Quite sure I don't have the "Press End Turn Too Soon" Disease.
Reply #9 Top
Im an "End Turn Button" psycho. I just press turn every time i see it turning green. It's quite fun, but i do realize that if i want to win a game someday i have to change. I played on a large galaxy yesterday, pressing "turn" like a mad as always, it was quite fun to see the other civilizations growing and growing all over the place while i was stuck in my little corner of galaxy. I lost that game, they had starbases, fleet and so on everywhere, i had a few crappy worlds...
Must... control... hand...
Reply #10 Top
A lot of the time, there's simply nothing to do on a turn. Most of the time unless you're in a war, you're going to be sitting around waiting for build orders to be completed on social and military production. You don't really need to accomplish much on each turn and at times, sometimes it's prudent to simply jam on the turn button to speed up some important research or something.

I find the best thing to do if you're waiting around and ending turns with nary an action, is to periodically speak to other civs and see what techs they have. Use the no-action turns to explore diplomacy or check on trade routes that may not be very profitable. There's a lot to pay attention to that most people normally miss when they're busy moving ships or planning tiles for a planet.

I normally check my planets from time to time as well to see if any improvements are queued up after getting a tech. I re-arrange build queues from time to time if i need to get something important up and running. Otherwise, you shouldn't really be afraid to end a turn without doing anything. Again, sometimes there's nothing to do.

Just don't end too many turns without a little status or you can make a severe error that may cost you the game.