The mighty turtle strategy

[EternusIV]

The Mighty Turtle Strategy

==================

 

We all know what it is right?

 

My definition: stay within your home system and/or immediate surrounding systems and develop an improved industrial base until your tech is high enough to expand more effectively.

 

This strategy also presumes you would pursue Improved industries and save some valuable SRPs for research.

 

What would you build for 30-40 turns? GOBS of Improved Construction Materials and other basic items like Iron, Crystals, Lumber etc.

 

This is a completely viable strategy in my opinion (and opposite of my current one) for several reasons:

 

Pros

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1) You won't have 30-40 turns worth of obsolete industries and slow, whimpy Mk I-Mk II fleets.

 

2) You stock up on items that will help the transition into the amazing Improved Industrial base. These items also provide the foundation for the more advanced equipment for your ships.

 

3) You are incredibly difficult to find because you aren't spread out over 20-30 systems (until you, of course, do the searching with high-tech sensors and engines)

 

4) No messy convoy routes (hopefully you get lucky and have a comfortable world in your own system or next door)

 

5) By the time you are ready to build a fleet with awesome tech, other players will have figured out some key aspects of space combat for you

 

6) "Holy order reduction!" you can run an empire for $12 a month without breaking a sweat once you tool your production

 

 

 

Cons

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1) You won't have 30-40 turns worth of obsolete industries and slow, whimpy Mk I-Mk II fleets. Those fleets at least provide a way to search your neighborhood and do some exploration/colonization.

 

2) You are behind in the expansion game....in a way....you won't know what your neighborhood will look like and your neighbors may have landed a colony beacon or two in some nice yield systems.

 

3) You fail to take advantage of colonizing high yield worlds early on. this is a tricky issue -- the benefits of actually settling on that high yield world might not be worth those initial costs in the long run after all. It depends on the situation and how quickly you can capitalize on an Improved Industrial base.

 

4) Exploration efforts are limited to those in your little nucleous of systems. You might miss out on finding a few exploration items and breakthroughs.

 

5) No troops. No defenses. Basically - you would be the equivalent a nice, plump and juicy neutral for the pickin' if some aggressively expansive race stumbles by.

 

Questions

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I'm beginning to question my own long-term strategy of expanding like crazy. I have lots of little ships doing exploration and mapping my neighborhood. On the positive side, I've made contact and have received a BUNCH of little random exploration finds and bonuses. However, how beneficial are these exploration finds in the long run?

 

Are they really worth the price of building little exploration fleets and issuing tons of orders to streamline the exploration operations?

 

How quickly will an Improved Industrial base outproduce the basic one?

 

How quickly will Mk I-Mk II defense technology become obsolete in light of photon torpedos and other nasty advances in weapon technology?

 

In essence: What is more a more beneficial investment than Improved Construction Materials in the early going?

 

My current thought? Build a single 1,000 CB ship and colonize ideal worlds quickly with Iron Mines using existing CMs. Put the rest into Improved Construction Materials.

 

I suppose if you can't find that "Mars" world, then its time to expand/explore a little.

 

My regret? I've found two dozen "Mars" worlds and don't have the industrial base to colonize them all at this time. I have a ton of little fleets prepared to find even more "Mars" worlds but whats the use if I can't effectively colonize them to take advantage of their juicy yields?

 

Now that I've made contact......what can I do besides stage little fights and trade soon-to-be obsolete items?

 

Conclusion

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The turtle strategy can be highly effective if you can:

1) avoid elimination for the first 30-40 turns

2) have some SRPs to spend; and

3) have a colonizeable world or two within your home/neighboring system.

 

 

Sorry for the somewhat unstructured length....comments?

[Laserwolf]

I find that it works quite well...

[Kurassier]

Before one of our carnivorous aliens say it, "Beware of Turtle Soup Recipes!!!"

although I hear they use Beer in turtle soup!!

 

[Sakarissa]

We of the Skaarl don't eat Turtle Soup. It's too much like eating a distant cousin. Besides, it gives us gas.

 

Sakarissa

[ShadowKitsune]

Considering the nature of Trade, Surveying Warp Points and the Fact that you can EXPL your own Homeworld to *find* things, I see "Turtling Up" as a viable strategy. You might miss out on some super colony, assuming your race is even designed to go colonizing, but for the most part you can stay in your home system and make what you need.

 

-SK

[EternusIV]

True, true.

 

I forgot another con of sorts ------

 

40 turns = 18 months = 1.54 years of real time

 

Thats a long road for just hanging out in one system But imagine the look on the other players face once they find you

[MadMartinB]

Your strategy works somewhat...

 

here is a list of the techs in order (to maximize efficiency):

 

1G Psych

1G Civil Admin

2G Computer Science

2G INdustrial Science

2G Psych

2G Social Science

3G Computer Science

2G Civil Admin

3G Industrial Science

MK II Nuke

MK I FUsion

MK II Fusion (12 TURNS STANDARD RESEARCH ITEMS COME IN)

MK III JSS (MK II and 2G Space Science came in as well as improved)

Advanced Bionics

1G Cybernetics (Improved ICs)

Advanced Fuel (Then slot NTWD for 3 turns)

 

 

15 turns you have Improved ICs + 3G Industrial Science so your ICs make 750*1.3 in efficiency.

 

You produce 30 berthings a turn for 15 turns (maybe use them in the interim) and then with 400+ MK II Fusions you turn them into 8 AP ships. You can wait until turn 19 and turn out 8 AP explorer ships.

 

This is a more conservative approach which allows colonizing within system and exploration. If you cannot colonize then make Iron and Lumber/Timber for 15 turns (you should be able to make 2-4k IICs worth of materials to make 30-50k IICs on turn 15).

 

 

The real issue is what you have in system. One of my empires was going to do this when I set up but I have a 805, a 779 and 2x 490+ iron worlds/belts in system. That changed my plans on turn 2 (after GEOs)

[ShadowKitsune]

The real issue is what you have in system. One of my empires was going to do this when I set up but I have a 805, a 779 and 2x 490+ iron worlds/belts in system. That changed my plans on turn 2 (after GEOs)

I'm only a little jealous.

[MadMartinB]

That's just the iron in System. next system over has a 600 lumber, 585 Iron and 495 iron. I have tons of iron!

[Takeda]

Iron doesn't taste good in turtle soup. While my honorable colleague may say beer is good in turtle soup I recommend sake.

 

Takeda

[PhaseDragon]

I agree with Martin on the tech strategy. Those 8 action point ships are a huge advantage when you find a system with lots of planets to explore. One thing that I would add is that you can use standing orders with your fleets to keep the cost of running your empire down. If you are creative enough in your fleet designs you could spread out and still save most of your resources for the eventual re-tool when you get improved industries and stripmines.

 

Those that chose the expansion strategy shouldn't worry. The fact the there is no penalty for dismantling your installations means that your old construction materials would never go to waste. There have been hints that more of the installation's affects are being finally coded into the program (as well as the detriment for not having them), so there will be an advantage for those empires that built lots of standard CM's for 1st generation stripmines and industries. You could build happiness and administration type installations. We haven't yet seen the true effects on your world if you just ignore these types of installations since I don't think the coding was there. I suspect we soon see that coding being implemented though....beware.

 

Just my opinion of course.

[crossroads]

You produce 30 berthings a turn for 15 turns (maybe use them in the interim) and then with 400+ MK II Fusions you turn them into 8 AP ships. You can wait until turn 19 and turn out 8 AP explorer ships.

How does the math go for actionpoints:

1 ap = ?

2 ap = ?

etc

[PhaseDragon]

(Thrust Output per engine X # Engines) / Tonnage (2 minimum)

 

Therefore For example:

 

For a 100,000 ton ship:

 

Mk I Nuclear (100 thrust) (100 tons each)

2 AP: 1 Engine (100 tons)....why waste the extra engines if you don't need to

3 AP: 3000 Engines (300,000 tons)...not possible

 

MK II Nuclear (500 thrust) (100 tons each)

3 AP: 600 Engines (60,000 tons)...not too efficient (60% engines)

 

MK III Nuclear (1000 thrust) (100 tons each)

3 AP: 300 Engines (30,000 tons)....30% engines still not too efficient

 

An easy calculation to do is this. Determine what the total tonnage of the ship will be, including the engines, then multiply this tonnage by action points desired, then divide by thrust output of the engines you are using then multiply by the tonnage of each engine. That will give you the number of engines required and their tonnage amount of the ship. Example:

 

I want to build a 1,000,000 ton ship with MK III Nuclear Jump Drives with 4 action points:

 

Engines = (TotTons x AP) / EngineThrust

Engines = (1,000,000 x 4) / 1000.......4000 (Weighing 400,000 tons)

 

Hope this helps.

[ShadowKitsune]

You produce 30 berthings a turn for 15 turns (maybe use them in the interim) and then with 400+ MK II Fusions you turn them into 8 AP ships. You can wait until turn 19 and turn out 8 AP explorer ships.

How does the math go for actionpoints:

1 ap = ?

2 ap = ?

etc

APs = Total Engine Thrust / Total Ship Tonnage (Min. of 2)

 

If you have a 10kTon-ship, you need 40k in Engine Thrust for 4 APs, which would be 80 Mk II Nuclear Engines. Since eack Mk II Nuclear Engine takes up 100 tons of component space, you have 2000 tons of space for other things in your 4 AP ship.

 

Of course, Mk I Fusion Engines have a Thrust Rating of 1000, so you would only need 40 of those, which would give you 6000 tons of component space on a 10kTon-ship.

 

Somebody mentioned that the formula might round up (e.g. you only need 35k Thrust for 4 AP on a 10kTon-ship), I haven't tried this out yet.

 

However, regardless of how many Engines you put on a ship, the slowest it will be is 2 AP. So if you don't want 3 APs or more, just put one Mk I Nuclear Engine on board and you'll get 2 AP. (NOTE: Combat uses fractional movement so a rating of 2.1 APs in more manueverable than a flat 2.0 APs rating.)

 

-SK

[crossroads]

Thanks all for the explenation!