Note to wade:
do not build a factory on it in the beginning of the game unless you want to see your economy ruined by the excess bc allocated to spending in the beginning. |
Complete noob advice, to be certain.
Manufacturing all of your initial colony ships (at around 100 BC each) instead of purchasing them directly (for 900+ BC each) saves you a fortune. Or try turning your social spending all the way up and then focusing on research. Your 80 manufacturing turns into a great big pile of research right at the start, giving you those crucial early engine techs, as well as giving a headstart on whatever strategy you choose.
| If you get a precursor mine on your homeworld, you should rush-buy a factory on it and rush-buy nothing else in the opening game phase. |
This person knows what they're talking about.
Having a 700% manufacturing bonus gives you such a huge headstart that it overcomes almost anything else. Not only do you start with eight times as much industrial output as anyone else, but you can expand as fast as races that are rush-buying their ships without bankrupting yourself. And did I mention that you can turn your social spending way up and then focus on research to get your research production around five times as high as anyone else?
On the matter of efficiency, you want to develop just fast enough that you start breaking even right before you run out of money, spending your money on the greatest advantages for the cost. That means building your ships instead of rush buying them.
| kind of a usless waste of money to me. |
That's because you don't know what you're doing. Wade, if you're worried about social spending costs, turn down your social and military spending rates, adjust your research spending up, and then turn your capacity down. That can exactly duplicate the output and expenses that you
would have had without the bonus tile, but as I mentioned before it's a stupid move. You're far better off using that capacity to build your colony ships for about 1/8 the cost of buying them. Regardless of your initial colony strategy (manufacturing vs purchasing), you're going to have to switch over to economic development at some point. The advantage of manufacturing your ships with a precursor mine is that because you get your ships for so much cheaper by building them instead of buying them, you can expand further before you need to kick your economy into high gear. When it comes time to do that, you can build an economic building every turn on your home world thanks to your huge social spending capacity. I usually focus research for a few turns to get some more advanced economic buildings and economics bonuses from researching the tech. Don't worry about the increased cost of the more advanced buildings; your social production covers it very easily, and more advanced economics buildings are far, far more effective than the early ones.
