Author Topic: What is the largest empire you've had?  (Read 2631 times)

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Offline scoopdjm (OP)

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What is the largest empire you've had?
« on: November 03, 2011, 08:06:18 PM »
The name says it all: what is the largest empire you've had? I'll start off by saying that my largest is only sol and a few measly colonies. Although I plan on creating some highly industrialized worlds (like wh40k).
 

Offline HaliRyan

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Re: What is the largest empire you've had?
« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2011, 09:15:55 PM »
Hmm... depends how you define largest; most colonized systems, most colonies regardless of system, or highest population.

When I first got the hang of the game I tried to expand to as many systems as possible, but the biggest empire I got in terms of colonized systems was around 15-20. The problem I ran into with that approach was I wound up with lots of systems which weren't self-sufficient, and managing them drove me nuts even at that fairly small level.

Now my strategy tends to be to expand only to systems which can be made self-sufficient, so I wind up with what are essentially a few single-system empires working together rather than a single larger interstellar polity. My current game is about 70 years in and I only have a half dozen colonized systems, but they all have multiple habitable planets and aren't reliant on the rest of the empire for support.
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: What is the largest empire you've had?
« Reply #2 on: November 03, 2011, 10:18:39 PM »
Its a little too hard to do large scale logistics, beyond 15 systems, in any meaningful way.  You can have colonies everywhere, but the mineral distribution takes a LOT of micromanagement.

Ive begged steve for a freighter command enabling "unload minerals to reserve level."  This command would enable you to set up a distribution network-- the ships would fly to all colonies, unload to reserve level, then pick up any extra.  You would then command them to drop off at a central hub world, then reload a set amount of minerals, and redistribute.  In such a way, some big duranium mine would continuously have duranium picked up, while worlds consuming mercassium or some such element would be topped off, and the chain should never clog.

Such a network obviates the need for civilian-based mineral logistics, and im not going to push for more than 10-15 colonized systems again until something *like* that comes along.
 

Offline Erik L

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Re: What is the largest empire you've had?
« Reply #3 on: November 03, 2011, 11:10:29 PM »
Empire was around 12-15 colonized systems, with a good 90-100 surveyed. Included two NPRs who were forcibly added to the fold.

Offline HaliRyan

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Re: What is the largest empire you've had?
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2011, 01:33:24 AM »
Ive begged steve for a freighter command enabling "unload minerals to reserve level."  This command would enable you to set up a distribution network-- the ships would fly to all colonies, unload to reserve level, then pick up any extra.  You would then command them to drop off at a central hub world, then reload a set amount of minerals, and redistribute.  In such a way, some big duranium mine would continuously have duranium picked up, while worlds consuming mercassium or some such element would be topped off, and the chain should never clog.

Couldn't you just order your freighter to load a bit of each mineral at your central hub, then unload all minerals at one of your fringe worlds, then load all minerals, and have it go on its way?
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: What is the largest empire you've had?
« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2011, 12:50:13 PM »
i've tried setting up.  The commands look like: pick up 100,000 everything from earth, next planet, unload all load all, next planet unload all, load all, next planet unload all load all > earth, unload all. 

inevitably, the command chain gets borked-- theres no minerals to load, or the ships fill up, and the commands have to be entirely redone.   Rather than just syaing "sorry, the 350 new mines at alpha gemeni filled us up, we'll get you on the next pass" the command simply terminates and you have to manually go in and reset how many of each mineral to load and unload again.  Same thing happens if your ship arrives and tries to unload and has nothing to unload-- lets say you increased demand at a new industrial world and it empty'd the fleet-- chain borked, and the whole command sequence needs to be reset.  For the logistics to work, the commands have to be noninterrupting.  However, thats spooky and introduces its own problems, because we can crash our games if we set a noninterrupting commands on cycle orders  (see refuel ship ad infinitum).

It sort of works if your circuit is very short, but short supply chains suck too, because theres such a short period of time between visits that the absolute mineral concentration isn't different enough to justify the visit.  What I really want is for my freighter fleets to allow me to shift minerals throughout the colonies without changing the orders of the ships, but by changing the orders on the planets.  So if a small forward maintenance world that stores only 1000 units of everything needs more duranium, just set the duranium higher and it fills up by my distro network, rather than by finding an idle ship and commanding it to do something once.   The reserve levels are already coded, so we need is the freighter network commands.

Incidentally, it would also love fuel transfer commands to have reserve levels set, so that tankers could make similar circuits, picking up fuel from refinery worlds and distributing it, but not allowing it to pool at low-demand colonies (while keeping them topped up automagically in case you dip in). 
« Last Edit: November 04, 2011, 01:06:55 PM by Thiosk »
 

Offline blue emu

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Re: What is the largest empire you've had?
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2011, 03:23:04 PM »
Empire was around 12-15 colonized systems, with a good 90-100 surveyed. Included two NPRs who were forcibly added to the fold.

Sounds like my current game... the largest I've ever played.

Fourteen colonies, seven automated-mining worlds. It's still pretty early in the game: year twenty-seven. None of my colonies is really self-supporting yet, but as soon as the current cash-crunch has been solved, I'm planning to start shipping out mines, factories, shipyards, etc.

I've found a truly amazing number of class-0 to class-1.99 worlds: fourteen within five or six jumps of Sol, only a handful of which have been colonized so far.
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: What is the largest empire you've had?
« Reply #7 on: November 11, 2011, 03:39:04 PM »
I wouldn't explore out too far, to avoid spawning too many aliens.  Also, ramp up the size of your civ freighters to ridiculous levels sooner than later.  Because the civ industry will mushroom in size and the game cycles will start taking longer and longer.

My game this size slowed to a crawl.