Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

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Larsenex
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Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

Post by Larsenex »

I am not talking wonders here. I am talking the unlocks you get through tech. Ok so here I go..

Armored Factory, (I build this on almost all worlds as Ill pull troops from them.)

Special forces Academy (same as Armored,almost all core worlds have them.)

Science building, meh sometimes I put them on all worlds, how many do you actually need in game?

Naval academy, 5 or 6 worlds.

Fortified bunker, EVERY LAST WORLD!!

World shields? Every last world or least the first 20 core worlds.

Ion cannons? EVERY LAST WORLD

Defensive troop building, usually all worlds.

Troop General buildings, 6 or 7.

Spy academy? All or at least 20, I love spies.


My biggest question is really. What is the difference between having ONE building or 50 when it comes to Character generation?

Defensive buildings which give bonuses to defense or such are good on the core worlds or ones with Wonders or Capital. What do you do?






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Nanaki
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RE: Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

Post by Nanaki »

Remember that each building costs maintenance, so its generally unwise to build more than you need.
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Larsenex
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RE: Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

Post by Larsenex »

I get that. My question is really, how many do you need?
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Lucian
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RE: Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

Post by Lucian »

Beats me. Questions like this, plus a hundred other "under the hood" facts are simply not documented anywhere.
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Icemania
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RE: Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

Post by Icemania »

The best explanation I'm aware of is from the Science Academies Thread linked in the Guide to Guides Mk II.
ORIGINAL: elliotg
Each additional academy (of all types) adds a greater chance for the appearance of a new character of the relevant type.

However each empire has a limit to the number of characters (based on empire size) and each character role (scientist, intelligence agent, etc) also has a limit. This character limit is roughly 6-7 for an empire with a single colony of 10 billion population at development level of 100. This scales up as your empire grows, although not in a straight line - as your empire grows the maximum character increase slows. When you have 20 or more characters, you will not get any random character appearance, instead only through events (e.g. new admiral from successful battle).

The limits for each character role are modified by your empire's dominant race (e.g. Quamenos can have more scientists). In the race files see specifically the settings CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceXXXXX for each character role.

On Extreme, cash is always at a premium. If you play on Normal Difficulty and in particular if you allow Technology Selling, difficult choices aren't really needed.

I only build Science Academies since:

1. A personal preference to play with a Science focus. Science Academies are built on important worlds, typically the Regional Capitals, because beyond that there appears to be diminishing returns in generation and on Extreme the maintenance costs add up fast.
2. Fleet Admirals spawn all the time anyway since my fleets are always aggressive and only the very best are retained.
3. Ship Captains are a waste of space and are automatically dismissed, a Fleet Bonus is preferable (or a Scientist).
4. I avoid using Spies to keep the game interesting as the AI doesn't use them well to steal research.

Armoured Factories I only build on important worlds, typically the Regional Capitals, which provides plenty of capacity to build up offensive armies.

For defence troops, Troop Cloning is a great value for money investment, they are normally built everywhere once available.

Fortified bunkers and Planetary Shields are always built on important worlds, beyond that it depends on cashflow, so generally late game only.

Ion Cannons do nothing against a serious invasion so I don't bother with them.

Now if you watch the Vanilla AI they spam colony facilities leading to massive maintenance costs with limited incremental benefit.

• At 500M: Cloning Facility, Fortified Bunker, Robotic Troop Foundry, Armored Factory, Troop Training Center
• At 2B: Spy Academy, Planetary Shield, Military Academy
• At 5B: Regional Capital, Ian Cannons, Science Academy, Naval Academy

To avoid this in the AI Improvement Mod:

• Each race can only build one or two Academy types as appropriate to the race.
• 500M: Cloning Facility, Fortified Bunker, Terraforming Facility
• 5B: Ion Cannon, Planetary Shield, Armored Factory
• 10B: Regional Capital, Selected Academies
• Robotic Troops and Troop Training Centre disabled i.e. in favour of Cloning Facility.
NephilimNexus
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RE: Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

Post by NephilimNexus »

Armored Factory, (I build this on almost all worlds as Ill pull troops from them.

Or you could just build one armored factory on your homeworld, build all your tanks there, and just use troop transports to shuffle them to wherever you want. Save yourself lots of money that way.
Special forces Academy (same as Armored,almost all core worlds have them.)

See above.
Science building, meh sometimes I put them on all worlds, how many do you actually need in game?

Not a dang one, actually. Just build yourself one single research base with 150+ labs of each type and Science Academy (along with all the science wonders) becomes moot, as you'll be pushing tech 7 in under ten years.
Naval academy, 5 or 6 worlds.

Too many admirals causes military coups. Counter-productive after about 3.
Fortified bunker, EVERY LAST WORLD!!

A planetary shield would cost less and serve you better.
World shields? Every last world or least the first 20 core worlds.

Absolutely.
Ion cannons? EVERY LAST WORLD

If your space port lacks the firepower to hold of enemies then a planet battery isn't going to make much difference.
Defensive troop building, usually all worlds.

See first item.
Troop General buildings, 6 or 7.

You actually use more than one general? Odd.
Spy academy? All or at least 20, I love spies.

Agreed. A horde of spies can do more damage than a fleet, and individual spies cost nothing to maintain.

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Larsenex
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RE: Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

Post by Larsenex »

Nephalim, sometimes I may have more than one war/area of combat and having a general in each troop transport is a good idea, same with Admirals.
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CyclopsSlayer
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RE: Special buildings, how many do you build and where?

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

First off the worlds I build on are in part determined by the controlling race.
Armored Factories and SpecFor Academies I only build on worlds where the controlling race has good basic combat stats. Sure the first one(s) are going to be on your homeworld most likely, but I would rather pay for and maintain a unit of higher base strength than a weaker unit of the same costs.

Generals and Admirals are good, but maybe I concentrate my forces too much, but I seldom need more than 3 of each. If you're landing on that many worlds or fighting that many wars at the same time IMO you are begging for trouble.

My scientists I cluster in a single mega-Lab base in my home system, so I have no needs for very many once a 3 role ultra genius spawns.

Ion cannons and defensive shields ONLY on key and core worlds, and often not even there. On the off chance that they might someday be used, they just sit there sucking up resources. I prefer every world have a small orbital base with Recc/Med/Commerce facilities to handle the defenses, rather than a static Maginot Line of Ion cannons.
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