What is the lowest quality planet you would colonize?

is this in DA and what was the enemy that just stomped you? I'm asking because there are differences in DA and DL.

I usually grab anything class 9 or above on the first pass. Then I backfill down to a class 7, depending on if I need them to keep the AI from having to large a presence in an area. With DA things have changed a little. Now those low class planets can be pretty decent later on, so I'll try to go ahead and grab anything I can before cutting of the rush. Still my main goal is area control. Once you get that then let the AI have low class planets, they'll be yours due to influence sooner or later.

In my last game I colonized a Class 1 planet, by end game it had been upgraded to Class 19. Now I colonize everything.

This was DA, and the enemy was my own creation (ahhh ... the delicous Irony), he was an evil super diplomat.


How the heck did you get a class 1 planet to class 19?????

Dano

There are techs that improve a planets PQ. The class 1s ussually have 5 (sometimes 6) improveable tiles per tech level.

The techs are:
-Soil enhancement
-Habitat improvement
-Terraforming

In DA I colonize everything, period, since those low class planets can be turned into veritable gardens of Eden with the terraforming techs. Anything below about class 5 will tend to have around 5-6 tiles at each of the three terraforming tiers..

In DA, theres a bit of cheese concerning the PQ1 planets. While Pq 3 to 5 planets will usually improve somewhat (3-5 points) with terraforming, the PQ 1 planets ALWAYS shoot up to a tile-laden class 11-14 planet...and the kicker is, the AI *never* settles them.


So a little further into every game when youve picked up a couple levels of terraforming, you can shoot around and pick a bunch of free PQ11-14 planets. (If youve aligned neutral or built an orbital terraformer, all the tiles will be ready to go as soon as you settle them).


I would think this would be made a little less silly in an upcoming pacth, but what do i know...maybe its intentional. But if every PQ1 planet is going to be known to always (no gambling involved) be a sleeping jewel, the AI should settle them too.

Bing, are you saying if you settle every PQ1 planet it will end up being an monster planet? That might be a bug...

Dano13 - what was the basis for your customized enemy? Sounds like it might be fun to play against. You should upload it to the library!

Yes, with terraforming. Each tier of terraforming seems to get you 4-6 tiles on the PQ1s. Like I said, i wouldnt pick them up untill you have soil enhancement and habitat improvement (and theres no rush, since the AI ignores them), but once you do theyll pop immediately into a very decent world. With all three tiers of terraforming, they can easily pop into a class 16 - 19 world.

I have no idea if its a bug or by design...but its a bit cheesy as theres no competition for them.

IMO, the whole terraforming is yet another one of the oddities of GalCiv2. Planets that have a high base PQ don't benefit that much from it, while crappy little low base PQ worlds morph into uberworlds. The kicker is that population caps are based on initial PQ - I think - max population is another odditiy. Which just means you have to either use a lot of transports to jack up your populations (another oddity) or use the worlds for something other than stock market econoboostage.

The first patch notes should be an interesting read!

I think of it this way. Yes, low end planets become huge, but it comes after significant investment (both time and money). Nicer planets are instant, but don't upgrade much. The differance is like that of buying your food or planeting a garden. One takes more time, but has a better return.

Ahhhhhhhhh .... Interesting. You see I always assumed that each terraforming tech only created a single tile, I had no idea of the variability.

jp - My custom race was pretty easy to make - I gave him Super Diplomacy, and +130% diplomacy for all his 15 ability points (I modded the Abilities.xml), then I gave him a Populists government, gave him the Terran AI gave him an a aggressiveness of 50 and made him evil. I also called them The Evon (I used an old MOO3 graphic of that race - hey at least the art was pretty cool in the game ...)

I have made a ton of custom races - its my favourite feature of the game.

Dano

The AI doesn't ignore them in my experience. Might depend on circumstances. I play all random, so this time I'm in a super barren medium galaxy. There are only habitable planets besides the homeworld systems, one of those being radioactive class 2, one being habitable class 1. The Altarians took both before anyone else could.

AI might be smart not to take class 1 when there are more options out there. But I've NEVER seen the AI just indefinitely ignore a planet it could take. Could it depend upon difficulty level?

Class 1.
Nvm the terraforming improvements, even a class 1 planet has a pop cap of 6.00b, which means in time it'll pay for itself and eventually create a profit.

Exactly why that AI was doing so good was because he had a strong money base when they are happy

I take them ALL! There's no such thing as wasted real estate in my games and besides that, they make the perfect little stocking stuffers if you're feeling 'generous'.