What do you build?

Enriched Soil, Habitability Improvement, Banking Center, Manufacturing Center, and it tends to vary according to needs after that.

~SDC~

Same as Phaed minus the manufacturing center, plus an economic exchange, and a stock market.

~SDC~

Soil Enhancement, Habitability Improvement, Fusion Power Plant, Manufacturing Center, Banking Center, Entertainment Network

~SDC~

Fusion first, speeds up all the others Then Habitat, Soil, Banking, Embassy, Research Lab, News Netw, Stock Market, Medical, Mfg Ctr.

The reason for leaving Mfg Ctr late in the queue is to allow the economy-enhancing improvements to build up my economy. No point having a Mfg Ctr if you can't afford to utilise the extra build, whereas cash is always king.

Depends on the PQ of the planet. I avoid Fusion on anything I think isn't going to be one of my better planets. 3BC/turn on every planet across an empire isn't small potatoes, especially if it keeps you from funding at 100%. That's what's important. If you're not already funding at 100%, focus on the econ and planet quality improvements before the manufacturing improvements.

Even when I do decide that I can afford the manufacturing boosters, I usually go with econ and planet quality first, because I don't research the manufacturing techs until after I've reached the "Trade" tech. I don't build *ANY* social projects until I've finished diplomacy, and then I start Earth on Diplomatic translators and everyone else on Soil Enrichment or Banking depending on their PQ.

I also don't bother building morale-boosters, prefer handling morale with tech or trade goods.

Alf: Funny that you say Fusion first, and put off the Manufacturing center. The Maufacturing center has a bigger bonus, and unless your planet is bringing in at least 20BC in taxes (unlikely on a planet early in its development cycle), the added maintenenace costs are more than the econ increase provided by the Fusion plant. Am I missing something, or have I miscalculated? I'm seriously interested, I've heard a lot of people that love the Fusion Power Plant, but the numbers don't support it.

Because if you build Fusion first you it will be somethat faster than if you build manufacturing center first. Also, you can switch to another project - so more flexibility. Fusion then habitat is better than manufacturing IMHO and costs same production.

~SDC~

soil, habitat, banking, entertainment, research lab, harmony generator, economic exchange, fusion plant, anti-matter plant, stock market. On especially high income planets i go fusion plant earlier and mix in an embassy.

Think I'm going to play around with it to see how much of a difference it makes. The few times I tried it, the maintenance fees killed me, but I run a better economy now.

Superb analysis, Popup. I've changed my mind on this. Initially, I went Fusion, then Mfg Ctr. But the early game values, especially rounded down, give you no advantage for the extra 2gc maintenance per turn. The Manufacturing Center gives you the exact same production bonus as the Fusion Plant in all cases except those planets > 10pp's per turn. That simply does not occur early game. Thus, I now reverse this order and go Mfg Ctr ---> Fusion Plant.

However, once mid-game is reached (15+ colonies on a large/huge map), the extra % of a Fusion Plant can make a difference. I go with Ellestar's analysis at this point.

Personal opinion...a matter of choice.

~SDC~

See http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GS&id=44283

For my two early top planets, likely earth and the first 17+ class planet that I manage to get early on, I go asap for manufacturing centers and fusion power planets. They are first things I build on those planets when I get the techs for them and if I have trade goods or wonders, I tend to build them first on those two even before banks, soil improv or habit, and entertainment. Another important reason I pick manufacturing centers and fusion planets first for my top two planets is that I want to churn out the colony ships, constructors, trade goods, and wonders fast enough and those two would be the best ones for that. For the other planets, I need them to build up the economy to help me keep the 100% spending rate as long I can for my top two planets to keep churn out stuff. I tend to go soil improv, habit., first. Then entertainment centers to get population grow faster because I think this is the better build than banks. IMHO the peeps are the big tax income generaters than any economy bonus early on and entertainment centers pay for themself on decent planets. Plus I can keep taxes higher too for a while. Then banks, they are quick builds to make my peeps more efficiently at generating tax income. Then fusion plants as i need to get the constructors churning out fast to build starbases with producing bonuses to get me churn out the constructors even faster. I build both on decent planets (class 18+) even through fusion power plants may not pay enough for themselves. I always build both, manufacturing centers and fusion, on decent planets but fusion first because any income I get them is nice and I think fusion pays for itself long-term in productivity anyways. Then research labs if I do not have much trouble with economy otherwise economic exchange first (that is if I don't have stock markets yet). Then harmony generators after all reseach labs, economic exchange, and stock markets (if I have that) are built because those are the best morale enhancing buildings for your maintenance costs after entertainment centers. I was thinking maybe I should build multimedia centers before harmony generators because they are faster to build and they are almost as good as harmony generators and they pay for themselves on decent planets I think. :notsure: They are both 2 bcs maintenence and I tend to build both of them anyways. I generally do not get in trouble economy-wise because I get couple of techs and most of the trade goods before the other races and I sell most of them to all of the races for money and later on, ships when my productivity become pretty good.

~SDC~

Popup, my most recent game was Federalists (+20 Econ) with ability picks to increase Trade. Even when the "War to end all Wars" broke out and I lost all my trade routes I could fund at 100% for a *long* time afterwards

Once I shifted to Social build (set to 0 in the colonial phase) the focus was on improving the economy. Fusion does this directly and helps other projects along by increasing mfg capacity.

This is what I usually do

1. Entertainment Center
2. Soil Enrichment
3. Medical Center
4. News Network
5. Banking Center
6. Embassy
7. Fusion Power Plant
8. Research Lab
9. Habitat Improvement
10.Manufacturing Center


Let me knwo what you think and what I should change

bump

Brian,

I think that's a good starting lineup.

One change I have implemented is, to research and produce manufacturing-type improvements first (see my and Galactic NoNo's threads on early strategy, the latter of which is linked in #10 above). Generally, I go:

1. Fusion Power Plant (50pp's vs. 100pp's for the Mfg Ctr)
2. Manufacturing Center
3. Soil Enrichment (+PQ)
4. Banking Center (+20 Econ)
5. Research Lab (+25 Research)
6. Habitat Improvement (+PQ; will slot in right after Soil Enrichment, if I've already researched it)
7. Entertainment Center

The general idea is to get your production points (PP's) up so your spending results are multiplied and everything else gets built faster (or you lower the cost of buying something - like Civ3, the more pp's ["shields"] you have left, the more each costs). I am a believer in using my initial 1000gc treasury to establish a manufacturing base in my early Empire...When it's spent, I want a number of planets (3-5) built up to around item 4 or 5 above. This gives me a good base upon which to either (a) start my second wave of colonization, researching the Engine techs, or (b) going for BattleHammers and building my first warfleet.

Usually I leave the other improvements unbuilt unless I have a specific reason or need for the structure (e.g., someone is destabilizing me and I need the resistance bonus of News Networks).

I leave Entertainment Centers 'till 7th because you are generally still in Imperial early game, and there is no need to worry about morale. Population growth is usually kept in check because you are in the expansion stage and off-lifting citizens to colonize. Effectively, +Morale = +Growth/+ Pop Limits, so it is not an immediate concern; with 2x+PQ improvements, you usually can't exceed Earth's limits anyway in the early game.

Hope that helps. Have fun developing your own style!



~SDC~

~SDC~

I'd like to note that it depends a lot on map size. Def Zep remarks on morale growth may be true on bigger maps, but are wrong on tiny maps.
I tend to play smaller maps, and use:
Soil Enrichment,
Habitat Improvement or Entertainment Network,
Banking Center or Manufacturing Center or Fusion Plant (one of the production boosters - usually Bank first, unless I need production fast - manuf - or very fast - fusion),
Gravity Accelerators,
Diplomatic Translators.
I usually won't start building social before I can try the Grav accelerators, so they are really worth mentionning in the list, as everything else is built solely to allow me to build them fast (or purchase them).
Then it varies a lot, depending on whether and how I want to specialize the planet.

I've not finished a game so don't listen to me as an expert or anything but I have restartd a few times after dominating on easier levels to get the feel of the game.

This is in a gigantic galaxy on AI normal for everyone tight clusters uncommon haibitation. I did uncommon becuase I figured that would cut down on micromanagement later in the game on the big map. So far so good.

soil
habitat improvement

from here I build stuff depending on what the planet needs. I only have 10 planets so its not a big pain to do this.

Also: I try to keep tax rates at 20%. It seems to give you a huge population growth, especially at the beginning and more people means more tax income. It may take me a while to get wound up but the difference between a 40% tax rate and a 20% tax rate on a few planets is next to nothing.