What is the optimal build at the start of a game ?

[Gragouzy]

How do you start the game in order to have the most optimal development for a long game ?

I personally favor demographic development by building 3 luxury houses in two territories at the same time. But I would like to know what you consider if it is ioptimal to start with luxury homes.

Here my build order for Human :

Note : This build only works with humans due to their bonus on trade and taxes.

[Start on a grassland]

[Turn 1] :

- The starting colonizer settled on a other grassland.

Landing field :
- 1 luxury house on the landing field : 4 starting settlers build the luxury house.
- Full trade in the city-center.
- Increase the territorial taxes of the landing field to “Increased taxes”.

[Turn 2]

Landing field :
- Second luxury house on landing field with the 4 settlers.

Second territory :
- The settler start to build a luxury house.

[Turn 3]

Landing field :
- Third luxury house on landing field with 4 settlers.

[Turn 4]

Landing field :
- 3 settlers build a farm.
- 2 settlers on city center.

[Turn 5]

Landing field :
- 2 settlers on farm. Farm make only food.
- 4 settlers on city center.
- Decrease the territorial taxes of the landing field to “stardard taxes”.

[Turn 6]

Second territory :
- The settler start to build a second luxury house.

[Turn 7]

Landing field :
- 1 settler migrate to the second territory to help the building of the second luxury house.
- The 4 settlers on city center start to build a university
- Keep 2 settles on the farm.

[Turn 8]

Landing field :
- 4 settlers on university : start researching technology.
- 3 settlers on farm.

[Turn 9]

Second territory :
- 2 settlers start to build the third luxury house.
- 1 settler stay on the basic house.

[Adapt your gameplay]

[Firetron]

I tend to keep at the housing and food a bit longer before starting research.

[sdu754]

I think you might be overly focusing on population early on. I always play of fast production because it speeds up the game, which I like.

Turn 1:
Land in a plain or forest if no plains in available or if I am playing as the Cyth. Tarth and Uva Mosk do well in forest too.
Build a university in one turn with two workers and build two Apartment complexes in one turn with one worker each.
I move my colonizer to whichever neighboring Territory I deem to be best and start a new settlement.
I set down a power plant and a farm on turn one, they will get some labor towards building this way.

Turn 2:
Use two workers on research, have two build a power plant.
Set one worker in new settlement to build an apartment in one turn and have him build another apartment on turn three,

I like to research Nuclear Fusion first, because the first power plant is awful, then I go for the other level one tech. Getting to level two buildings is too important to put off research for seven or so turns. Having better buildings will limit the need for more workers. For example, it would take three nuclear plants with a total of 15 workers to produce the same power that two fusion plants would with a total of six workers, and that is assuming that the third power plant is on a square that is as good as the first two plants. You also need to feed those nine extra workers too.

You also don't need to start out on two plains, they are only good for population and food production and a forest isn't much worse in these respects.

[MaugTheInfirm]

I personally favor demographic development by building 3 luxury houses in two territories at the same time.

Luxury housing requires 150 credits and 4 colonists working 1 turn to build it. I prefer 3 (plain) housing costing 50 credits each, requiring no colonists at all to build them. That gives me a population limit of 20. When I have idle colonists, I'll have them work on the housing that is closest to being upgraded (which also happens automatically over time).


--( Incorrect comment on which I would like to use strike out text follows - ignore this )--
Your colonists do not grow faster if they have more room - they grow at a fixed rate of roughly +5% of your existing population (on plains), with a minimum of +1/turn if you have enough food. A lack of food is more critical, so my first building is a farm.

[StingMaster]

Your colonists do not grow faster if they have more room - they grow at a fixed rate of roughly +5% of your existing population (on plains), with a minimum of +1/turn if you have enough food. A lack of food is more critical, so my first building is a farm.

On Deadlock 1? Start a new game, save and end turn without doing anything. Look at your population. Now load the game, build 10 basic housing and end the turn. Note the increase in population.

In Deadlock 1, growth is affected by territory type, current population and max population. Food (whether stockpile or production) and Morale do not have any influence. Annoyingly the in-game help gives you a lot of misinformation on this but I get the sense that it was written before the finer points of the game's mechanics were worked out. Food only impacts Morale and only when you drop below 0 Food (-2(or 1?) to -20 Morale over 7 turns). Morale only affects available Labor and chance to riot.

Now the way the pop growth formula works, there's a limit to the maximum growth you can have in a particular territory type. On Plains, this cap works out to 11%, Forests = 9% and Swamps = 6%. Building just enough housing to hit the cap allows you to save a lot on labor and credits early game and don't have to waste turns trying to build 3 luxury housing.

On Forests, you need just 500 housing at 100-199 pop to hit the growth cap, 1000 housing @ 200+ pop, 1500 @ 300+ and so on, adding +500 housing for every 100 pop until you reach 1000 population / 5000 housing. If you land in a Forest (400 population) and hit the growth cap every turn, you will hit 5000 pop at turn 37.

On Plains, however, you need 1000 housing for 100+ pop to hit the cap, 1500 for 200+ and so on until you hit 800 pop / 5000 housing. If you land in plains and can meet the higher housing demands, you can hit 5000 pop at turn 31 at the earliest.

This is why I prefer to land in Forests over Plains - Plains give you a little better food and growth but in Forests, even if you need to build an additional Farm, you will get enough energy and Endurium to more than make up for that 6 turn difference in pop growth.

[sdu754]

I personally favor demographic development by building 3 luxury houses in two territories at the same time.

Your colonists do not grow faster if they have more room - they grow at a fixed rate of roughly +5% of your existing population (on plains), with a minimum of +1/turn if you have enough food. A lack of food is more critical, so my first building is a farm.

Luxury housing requires 150 credits and 4 colonists working 1 turn to build it. I prefer 3 (plain) housing costing 50 credits each, requiring no colonists at all to build them. That gives me a population limit of 20. When I have idle colonists, I'll have them work on the housing that is closest to being upgraded (which also happens automatically over time).

I actually went over this in a post a few years ago: viewtopic.php?t=368

Population grows according to the following formula: (2 - population/max population)*(territorial rate)
If Chch't multiply by 1.5, all rates are rounded down

[StingMaster]

I actually went over this in a post a few years ago: viewtopic.php?t=368

Aye, you and FatRatKnight on gamefaqs are the source of all my game mechanics knowledge. Simplifying your population growth formula into +500 housing every +100 colonists gives players something to aim for in terms of efficiency.

[MaugTheInfirm]

Your colonists do not grow faster if they have more room - they grow at a fixed rate of roughly +5% of your existing population (on plains), with a minimum of +1/turn if you have enough food. A lack of food is more critical, so my first building is a farm.

In Deadlock 1, growth is affected by territory type, current population and max population.

I personally favor demographic development by building 3 luxury houses in two territories at the same time.

Your colonists do not grow faster if they have more room - they grow at a fixed rate of roughly +5% of your existing population (on plains), with a minimum of +1/turn if you have enough food.

I actually went over this in a post a few years ago: viewtopic.php?t=368

Population grows according to the following formula: (2 - population/max population)*(territorial rate)
If Chch't multiply by 1.5, all rates are rounded down

Sounds like I didn't do my research, which is surprising for a Maug. I'll try some experiments and expect I will verify what you've posted in the other thread.

Thanks for the correction, and my bad.


I circled back to this experiment:

On Deadlock 1? Start a new game, save and end turn without doing anything. Look at your population. Now load the game, build 10 basic housing and end the turn. Note the increase in population.

Humans with 400 starting and 500 limit, with nothing built grow to 428 in one turn. When I build 4 basic housing, raising the max pop to 2500, humans grow from 400 to 444 in one turn. Further evidence I was wrong earlier in this thread.

[StingMaster]

Humans with 400 starting and 500 limit, with nothing built grow to 428 in one turn. When I build 4 basic housing, raising the max pop to 2500, humans grow from 400 to 444 in one turn. Further evidence I was wrong earlier in this thread.

I don't blame you since it only took me a decade before I figured it out (well @sdu754 figured it out). I also tested morale, food stockpile and food production values and none of it matters for growth.