How to Expand your empire.

Well, after having taken a good look on the account I have and a quick look on these forums, it seems that there isn't enough information on what choices you need to make to expand your empire, especially when it comes to the selection of planets.

This game, basically allows for two modes of play, obviously, what I will be mentioning are extremes, and the majority of players lie somewhere in the middle. What follows is based on my experience in Uni13, where we do not have ACS and are allowed only 9 planets.

When it comes to playing styles, you have the miner and the fleeter. In either case, you will need to build your planets so that you can have a stable and solid economy to manage your fleet or finance more builds. As a result of this, the size of the planet is crucial. By taking a look at the account I have been given, it seemed pretty obvious to me that the previous owner did not give much notice to this detail, as a result, I have planets that have just above 200 fields with a high level of terraformer.

Although terraformers do the job when it comes to expansion, they are not recommondable. First of all is because they cost resources, not only metal and deuterium, but your planet needs to be able to produce a certain amount of power to be able to support this structure. The higher you upgrade, the more power you need. You eventually get to a point where you need to produce tons of solar satellites (just like I ended up doing). The problem with solar satellites is that they tend to attract some attention... which is never a good thing.

Thus, to solve this problem, you will need to do the following:
Whenever you colonize a planet, check the amount of fields. If it has less than 250 fields, just dump it and colonize a new one. As far as I know, you can colonize the same slot over and over. Each time that you colonize, a new planet is given (ie. you don't get the same planet as before). You should colonize planets that are in slots 4, 5 and 6, reason being that these tend to be bigger (sometimes you do get small planets in these slots as well). So basically repeat the process until you get a planet which has more than 250 fields. I know that this might seem a tedious process, but you will not regret it in the near future.

So, once you have your planets set up, you can do as you please. Miners tend to have their planets closely together, with one main planet having a moon from where fleet save operations are performed. On the other hand, fleeters tend to have a more spread out empire, with moons equipped with jumpgates, thus allowing them to have a greater amount of targets.

When it comes to fleeters, there are usually two ways to start; the long way and the short way. In the long way, you start colonizing planets that are close by. You do not make so much fuss on the size of the planet, you just need a group of mines close to your main planet so that you can start pumping resources to your main planet. Once that you are satisfied with the main planet, you start dropping one planet at a time, and replace it with bigger planets that can provide better mining support.

In the short way, you basically start immediately by colonizing planets that are in the location you want, and by fleeters standards, they tend to be one in each galaxy. The advantage of this tactic is that no planets need to be dropped, however, the initial progress might be slow due to the distance between the planets.

So this is basically it. Feel free to add, modify or critisize, like I said, I am basing what I am saying on my uni13 experience, so some concepts might not apply on this universe.

Haha nice. its like expanded tutorial of colonization just like mine
Colonization ship > terraformer

Well done. Thank you.

apleee wrote:

Haha nice. its like expanded tutorial of colonization just like mine
Colonization ship > terraformer

Apologies if it is similar to yours, I did not read through your post, it's too much for me considering that I am about to go to sleep lol.

@Lucas, you're welcome

Good tutorial, for the old universes...

In the redesign unis like Electra, the maximum planet size is 240. Biggest planets come from slot 8, then 7 & 9 and they get smaller as you go out in either direction.

The last few colonies I got I really went out of my way to get big planets. I abandoned and colonized for weeks. My biggest planet now is 229 (without terraforming). I got a 240 fielder in Andromeda (retired) and crusy has one here with 234 I think, but forget 250...

Anodazzomal wrote:

Good tutorial, for the old universes...

In the redesign unis like Electra, the maximum planet size is 240. Biggest planets come from slot 8, then 7 & 9 and they get smaller as you go out in either direction.

The last few colonies I got I really went out of my way to get big planets. I abandoned and colonized for weeks. My biggest planet now is 229 (without terraforming). I got a 240 fielder in Andromeda (retired) and crusy has one here with 234 I think, but forget 250...

really there is no more 250 field planets that is so shitty.

That sucks :/

Here are some tips on colonization I found on a forum from the alliance Dark Empire, posted by Kaos.

Colonization

You can build up to 8 colonies, besides your main planets. Each
colony gives more mines, and that way a lot more resources. So it's
important to get them and develop them as fast as possible.

Colony Ships/how and where to get a colony

First, you build a colony ship, which will cost you 10k metal, 20k
crystal and 10k deut. Moving the ship will also be very expensive.
So you need to invest a bit of resources to get your colonies. No
worry however; you'll earn everything back soon enough.

There are a few aspects that differ from colony to colony. Most
important are the amount of fields, and the distance to the sun.

Amount of fields

The best place to get a colony is on a 4-6 (In Electra universe the sizes are different there's a link down more that has the new sizes) spot in a solar system.
There you have the biggest chance for many fields. No guarantee,
but you can get up to 325 field on a 4 position (1). So, you have
to scan the galaxy for a decent spot to send your colony ship to.
The number of fields is very important; as it determines the amount
of buildings you can have on that colony. Usually, you build 150
fields full after 6 months of dedicated playing (2), so you want
all your permanent colonies to have more then that amount. 200
fields is a nice minimum.

Position from the sun

There are two things that depend on the position from the sun: the
effectiveness of your solar satellites and the amount of deuterium
you produce. The closer to the sun you are, the more effective your
solar satellites. That goes between a maximum of 50 energy per sat
for some colonies on a 1 spot to a minimum of 8 per sat for a 15
spot, which basically renders your solar satellites useless. The
further away from the sun, the more effective your deuterium
synthesizer is. But that effect is quite marginal, between a 4 and
a 15 spot colony is approx. 1 level of deuterium synthesizer
difference (3). All in all, 4-6 spots give the best chance for a
big colony with reasonably good solar satellites, so that's the way
to go.

What solar system / galaxy?

Well, this part is basically my own opinion, and people might not
agree. But it's generally a bad idea to get all your colonies in
the same solar system. Although that has the advantage of short
transit times between your colonies, the main drawback is that an
enemy can damage not just one, but all of your colonies. And
they'll spy on all of them, which is generally annoying in your
message box... Also, if you want to trade with people, it's not
handy to have all your stuff concentrated in one galaxy. And when
you want to raid, you only have the surroundings of one solar
system. So it's best to spread out. To my experience, 1 to 3
colonies in a system works best. And as long as all colonies have
big mines, it's not that bad to occasionally travel 4 galaxies with
some excess resources, that just takes a long time, but isn't too
expensive. There are 9 galaxies, and they get filled from number 1
up to number 9. So most main planets will be in the first 5
galaxies of the universe, especially in the first months of the
universe. That means those galaxies 6-9 are the quiet neighborhood
of the universe. Most big players are in galaxy 1 and 2. So if you
want a colony where no one bothers you, while you build fleet, go
to galaxy 6 or 7. If you want to hide stuff where no one finds it,
get to galaxy 8 and 9. If you want to have plenty of raiding
targets, and don't mind some heat, occupy a nice spot in galaxy 3
or 4. And if you want to battle the top players, galaxy 1 and 2 is
the place to be... I would advise to get some colonies at all those
locations.

Help my colony has just 38 fields

Ok, you're unlucky, it happens. As I said before, anything under
200 fields is too small in the long run. So your colony is
basically worthless. The best course of action is to take your
losses (i.e. the cost of that colony ship) and get rid of it as
soon as possible. Go to "overview", click on the planets name,
click "surrender colony", type your password, and click the "delete
planet" button (yes you have to actually click that button, merely
pressing enter doesn't work ). Now your colony changes into an
asteroid field, which will remain there for the next 24-48 hours.
After the asteroid field is cleared, the spot is ready to be
colonized again, and no it doesn't have the same amount of fields
again. If one of your first colonies happens to be small, you may
actually keep it for a while, until you fill your other colony
spots. In that case, build some mines, and then use the resources
to push your other (bigger) colonies.

Raiding colonies

If you're the raiding type, it's handy to keep at least one colony
slot free (so to build just 7 or even 6 permanent mines). This will
be your mobile base(s). Use it to get to a lush section of the
universe, station your fleet there, pillage the area until there's
nothing to gain anymore, and then disband the colony again to start
over somewhere else. Also, if you have a conflict with someone,
such a temporary base is perfect to stick in their solar system,
and to build some missiles on to harass them...

Graviton

Slightly unrelated, but some extra info. You need solar satellites
for graviton, and they work best on slot 1. But it's very hard to
get a decent colony on slot one with average: 64, 60% between 48
and 80 fields. I once spent 60 colony ships on position 1-3, and
still didn't have a colony over 100. Graviton costs a big
investment (a huge defense, or a huge Nanite) so in my opinion it's
better to go for graviton on one of your permanently occupied
position 4 planets, and build 2000 extra sats, since then your
investments are worth something after you're finished.

I hope this was useful,

Hanc.

(1) planet size:
· pos1: average: 64, 60% between 48 and 80 fields
· pos2: average: 68, 60% between 53 and 83 fields
· pos3: average: 73, 60% between 54 and 82 fields
· pos4: average: 173, 60% between 108 and 238 fields
· pos5: average: 167, 60% between 95 and 239 fields
· pos6: average: 155, 60% between 82 and 228 fields
· pos7: average: 144, 60% between 116 and 173 fields
· pos8: average: 150, 60% between 123 and 177 fields
· pos9: average: 159, 60% between 129 and 188 fields
· pos10: average: 101, 60% between 79 and 122 fields
· pos11: average: 98, 60% between 81 and 116 fields
· pos12: average: 105, 60% between 85 and 129 fields
· pos13: average: 110, 60% between 60 and 160 fields
· pos14: average: 84, 60% between 42 and 126 fields
· pos15: average: 101, 60% between 54 and 149 fields

(I realize that for the new universes that have astrophysics the planet sizes are different so I found these graphs for those universes)

http://ogame.wikia.com/wiki/Colonizing_in_Redesign_Universes


(2) What you'll build on your colonies

Just to make the 200 fields minimum a bit clearer, here is a list
of what you will eventually want on any permanent base:
· Metal mine: 29
· Crystal mine: 27
· Deuterium synthesizer: 25
· Solar plant: 25
· Fusion plant: 10 (as backup if your satellites are destroyed)
· Robotic factory: 10
· Nanite factory: 3 (hey, I said "eventually" and "want", didn't I
)
· Shipyard: 10
· Metal storage: 5
· Crystal storage: 5
· Deut tank: 5
· Research lab: 10 (since there's that nice new research network)
· Rocket silo: 4

Add that all up and you get 168 fields...

(3) To explain a bit more, you DO get significantly more deuterium
at position 15. It makes up for around 1 level of deuterium
synthesizer, or around 20%.
· On one of my 4 planets (level deuterium /hr)
o 20 - 1547
o 21 - 1787
o 22 - 2059
o 23 - 2368
o 24 - 2718
· On one of my 15 planets (level deuterium /hr)
o 20 - 1837
o 21 - 2122
o 22 - 2446
o 23 - 2813
o 24 - 3229

I'd rather have 100 fields extra and good solar satellites. Ok you
get a bit less deuterium, but you don't have an energy (fusion
plants cost deuterium too) or a space problem.

EDITORS NOTE: Here are several links that may help you understand
some of the terms or techniques outlined above:

Building Colonies
- http://www.ogametips.com/23/building-colonies

Using Fields Wisely
- http://www.ogametips.com/21/using-fields-wisely

Solar Satellites
- http://www.ogametips.com/26/solar-satellites

Want even more OGame Tips and Strategies?

Check out our exclusive OGame Tips Strategy Guide
- http://www.ogametips.com/strategy-guide/