GalCiv2 Forums
heya fellas,
My question pertains to the valididty of colonizing planets under level 5 or 4. When i ususally see systems with lvl 4 or lower planets i tend to just ignore them and keep going untill i find somethign higher.
Is my strategy retarded? should i be colonizing every single planet i come across?
All planets have value, but it's still best in general to ignore lower PQ planets until the first colony rush is over. Of course, if they're all that's available or they're in a good strategic location, snag them.
Are you playing DL? Even then, the lower class planets are good the snag, but perhaps later in the game.
In DA an TA, things are a tad different, but it's still a good idea to ignore the extremely low PQ planets until after the initial colony rush. Even those PQ1 and PQ2 planets turn out to be PQ14 or 16 and sometime higher once you get the terraforming techs.
PQ11 or above gives an extra boost to local morale, so those are the best ones in the beginning. PQ 8-10 are your basic planets and can get you going for pop growth and econ as well.
During your colony phase its best to focus on higher quality planets if possible. If you've got your choice between a 3, a 8 and a 12, then you should certainly go for the best first.
That said, you should pick up the low-quality planets too. Even a PQ4 with a few banks on it can generate well over 100BC per turn, and every little bit counts. Plus as mentioned, those lower PQ planets have more terraform slots open up, so they're usual PQ10+ after you've researched all the terraforming techs.
I pretty much do what the other two have said -- go and grab the better worlds first, and then come back and colonize the low-quality planets later on. I only ever settle a crappy planet early on if it's in a key strategic location.
IMO the ones you have to watch out for are planets of a PQ value of 5-7. They usually do not have my terraforming slots available and, at least in my experience, will never get above a 10 after all terraforming. Where as I've had planets of PQ of 4 or less have grown (generally) into planets of at least PQ 12 after all terraforming techs.
One other thing to remember when colonizing - while its often useful to pick up those low PQ planets, it can be more effective to just culture-flip them if they're near another, decent world. The best example is the low-PQ planet that accompanies the homeworld of many races. Flipping that thing is easy as pie, and you save a colony ship by not colonizing it.
The down side of doing that is ethics events. You can accumulate significant bonuses from those colonization events; my current game has at least 50% soldiering bonus that my tech tree can't account for. Even the planet-only events can be a big boost; getting 50+% ship bonus anywhere is worthwhile.
NIce thanks for the tips guys.
I'ma fan of leaving the lower class planets to the "other guys" and then culturally taking them over with help from an ISB and the higher pq planets i snagged.
cheers
I play on small maps, so whatever planets I see I snag. Sometimes after the colonizing rush I have 3 planets only so it's really important to get it as fast as possible.
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