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[Criptfeind]

It's true that once you have all the upgraded and extra unity-production buildings (preferably manned by propaganda synths for that sweet, sweet +35% unity bonus) you'll be getting about 30% of the capital's production per additional planet... but you need a lot of research and unity to get there. For most of the early game, additional colonies will be producing significantly less than the 20-25% penalty.

However, all the empire unique things you pointed out are also things that need to be researched or otherwise gotten latter in the game. Certainly in the early game when your source of unity is a monument and the capital building, another planet doubles your unity within months of touch down. Gene clinics, power grids, pleasure domes, all pretty easy to build on new planets as well. Honestly that 30% is probably about the lowest you'll go, not the highest.

On the side of tech, you forget a lovely Stellaris quirk: you often will be getting far, far less research from your planets than from orbital resources. So with research, being optimal isn't producing more than 10% of the capital's research output per new colony (which is easy) - it's producing more than 10% of the capital's output and 10% of the orbital output (which is typically impossible).

I think this is only hard if you're going all in on influence and making very optimal placements of outposts. Thus the one planet strategy. After all, remember that planets also expand your border, which means even more orbital resources from them, which help a lot at first.

Additionally, you're incurring a 1% penalty to research per empire pop over 10, so while a max-pop capital is getting hit for 6-10% or so, each additional colony incurs 10-25% pop penalty on top of the 10% colony penalty. It's nearly impossible to add 10% of total research per new colony early on and with early tech, and while additional tech makes it easier (but not easy) to hit that, increased pop means you're aiming to hit 20-35% of total research per new colony to stay ahead of penalties. You can get ahead of that with enough tech and width, but it takes a lot of research and time to get to that point.

It's worth remembering that unlike with unity, the increases in costs for tech don't multiply each other. That's 20-35% applied directly to only the base cost of the technology. So, it's not total research really (except with the very first colony) since each colony only increases the costs by the same amount as a previous colony.

I mean, of course, the real answer is that orbitals are expensive, colonies are expensive, buildings are expensive. So in the very early game when you're expanding out you'll often let research slip because you'd rather have a new mine, or a new power plant. And maybe you'll build the +2 mineral orbital instead of the +2 engineering orbital. That's what slows down research when you're expanding the most. Is you're taking the penalties without the bonuses (for research. Of course you get a lot of bonuses elsewhere). But if you didn't do that it'd be trivial for a new colony to pay for itself research wise. You're realistically really only looking at probably 2-3 research buildings (so long as they are on top of existing research) and whatever orbitals the planet grabs. And once you enter a more mid game area, and you can start to afford all this stuff, I think a wide empire is going to gain more tech more quickly then a small one. Of course, with the one planet strat, you could already have a massive tech lead since you never had to put minerals into anything but research. And be well on your way to a research station by then. And the research station is like the ultimate orbital which does skew the equation back towards improbable that a planet will match it for quite a while.

[E. Albright]

However, all the empire unique things you pointed out are also things that need to be researched or otherwise gotten latter in the game. Certainly in the early game when your source of unity is a monument and the capital building, another planet doubles your unity within months of touch down. Gene clinics, power grids, pleasure domes, all pretty easy to build on new planets as well. Honestly that 30% is probably about the lowest you'll go, not the highest.

This isn't the case, though. The moment you set down, you get the tradition price hike... but you can earn 0 unity until you become a colony a year later, and then you still need 6mo base build time to make a monument/temple/node. You don't get capital unity from a ship shelter unless you have the bonus tradition, so that means you're waiting until you hit pop 5 to get that (plus 12mo to upgrade)  - and this also is required for Paradise Domes (12mo to build). Energy Grids (6mo to build) require Planetary Admin plus a tradition that's in another category to give unity. Gene Clinics take tech to build, plus 12mo. If you're counting Art Monuments in the doubling/tripling/etc output, that assumes you have 1500 energy per colony, which is a lot early on, especially if you also want to be a patron to get +20% unity and have resources on hand to buy the Ministry of Culture if it shows up.

All of which is just to say you're definitely not going to double output in a few months. You'll be lucky to double in a few years.

Not to mention the faster research synergizes with this to get you the high-end buildings and +35% unity synths to work them. You can have the high-end buildings by year 40 or 50, at which point you're not going to exceed even just the penalty from founding another colony for years after landfall.

This also assumes no tile blockers create issues... which is also more research that you avoid with only the one planet.

I think this is only hard if you're going all in on influence and making very optimal placements of outposts. Thus the one planet strategy. After all, remember that planets also expand your border, which means even more orbital resources from them, which help a lot at first.

Outposts expand them faster and cheaper. You need focused influence production, but that's not that hard, and this way you don't have to spend time building and flying expensive colony ships to their destinations, and then eating more costs while they're established and building up. You just keep pushing out your borders and digging for anomalies/natives - and if you keep your factions happy, this is affordable to a vulgar degree. As long as you still have the territory, it doesn't matter if it's from a planet or an outpost - the difference is that the outpost will cost 0.5-1 influence and energy per turn, while the planet will be a mineral and/or energy sink for quite a while (buildings, spaceports, tile blockers, upkeep) and can't man the structures built until there's population - and both building them and growing/building pop takes longer than just building more space junk.

Frankly, there should be some population requirement or something beyond a handful of minerals and a trickle of energy to create, operate, and maintain orbital collectors. It's far too fast and easy to get more from space than planetside, and while I understand why Paradox did it (so "land" has value and it's not all about grabbing "cities"), but it makes Stellaris have some very weird results.

The real advantage of width - even modest width - is resilience. I'm absolutely not convinced it's possible to get reasonable width to match one-wide height for unity or tech, but you pay for that bizarre and slightly nonsensical rapid development by being fragile, and a lot more likely to lose because the RNG didn't like you during galaxy creation.

[Criptfeind]

All of which is just to say you're definitely not going to double output in a few months. You'll be lucky to double in a few years.

Not to mention the faster research synergizes with this to get you the high-end buildings and +35% unity synths to work them. You can have the high-end buildings by year 40 or 50, at which point you're not going to exceed even just the penalty from founding another colony for years after landfall.

Look at the time scales you're talking about here. Okay, a few years until you have everything up. It'll probably be profitable unity wise quite a bit before that because yeah you probably want the +1 from capital buildings right away and the rest of the tree is pretty good too, but that's for the max profitability once you've got a few tradition trees finished. 40-50 years until the amount gets so high you can't get it back in a realistic time frame? In 40-50 years you'll have all your colonies settled (remember, we're talking 3-5 vs 1, not 1 vs infinite) and have been pumping out the unity for decades. You might have to eat a 25% increase in unity price for a year or two, but then you'll be able to make that up in less then a year once you start getting it out of your first colony.


On the research orbital thing. I'll say that I'm not trying to say you can't get a research lead via one planet and focusing on orbitals. I'm just saying that I think the only thing that keeps this strategy viable is the research station megastructure. Otherwise once the wide planets started to actually pay research dividends (IE: Once planets started to actually pay back the cost that was sunk into colonizing and developing them and you could start to put down research) they'd rocket past the single planet guy in research speed, even taking into account how they'd have a pretty large penalty to research speed. Somewhere around the mid game they'd end up with tons more planet research and an equivalent or even greater amount of orbital research. It's just that the one planet group at this point builds their megastructure, which then rockets them forward in a way that's way beyond wide for a lot lot longer. And when not talking about the one planet strat and it's just wide (as in more then a few planets) vs tall (as in only a few planets) the way the tech cost increase works means that going wide is probably at least okay for your tech. Probably even advantageous.

I don't think unity has an equivalent to technology in this way, which is why I think the optimal path for them is somewhere around 3-5 planets. There's no unity orbitals, no unity megastructure, and since you can't pour resources into unity in the early game you don't have the colonization opportunity cost there. You eat the percentage penalty until your colony starts producing, but it starts producing optimally really quickly.

[EnigmaticHat]

Unity generation is just a bad mechanic right now.  The mechanics encourage building specialized unity buildings, but since there’s only 7 paths those buildings become progressively more useless till being literally useless.  On top of that you eventually end up with all 7 paths and 8 out of... can’t be more than 16 perks.  Makes your empire less unique in the very long term.

Next patch they’re totally reworking border mechanics and they’ve been implying some kind unity change as well.  So what we’re discussing here will be rendered irrelevant.

[Criptfeind]

True. I really do dislike how you get all the unity paths right away and eventually fill them all up... It'd be nice if they were a bit more meaningful and/or mutually exclusive. And maybe if they unlocked contextually (like, all of them, not just a few swapped traditions for special empires) Like maybe once I meet the first Xenos I can pick between diplomacy, supremacy, and domination?

[ZeroGravitas]

On the research orbital thing. I'll say that I'm not trying to say you can't get a research lead via one planet and focusing on orbitals. I'm just saying that I think the only thing that keeps this strategy viable is the research station megastructure.

1000 times this. It's really one of two reasons 1PO works at all (along with the +200 fleet limit perk).

People keep misinterpreting the research penalty as some kind of anti-wide mechanic. It's not. It's just a weak rubber band to slow down snowballing. Wide is almost always better, including for research. Unity is a minor exception, but it's so easy to cap out on Unity anyway, it really doesn't matter.

[Cruxador]

On the research orbital thing. I'll say that I'm not trying to say you can't get a research lead via one planet and focusing on orbitals. I'm just saying that I think the only thing that keeps this strategy viable is the research station megastructure.

1000 times this. It's really one of two reasons 1PO works at all (along with the +200 fleet limit perk).

People keep misinterpreting the research penalty as some kind of anti-wide mechanic. It's not. It's just a weak rubber band to slow down snowballing. Wide is almost always better, including for research. Unity is a minor exception, but it's so easy to cap out on Unity anyway, it really doesn't matter.

It takes a long time to cap out unity of you go wide first. Starting small, finishing unity quick, and only then expanding is a solid strategy. If you really want to do it fast, you can start as an inward perfection nation, and possibly create a forced-spawn empire of your own species with the ethics you'll eventually want, since that exerts pressure on your pops too. Of course, that has a cost in influence, which reduces your prestige outposts, so it's arguable if it's worth it.

[ZeroGravitas]

It takes a long time to cap out unity of you go wide first.

Yes, but let's quantify the exact benefits. Like what perks are you getting, how many years sooner is each coming? How many years of X benefit is that? How does it compare to just going (sensibly) wide from the start?

(And certain picks don't really matter, right? Like Defender of the Galaxy literally does nothing for 200 years. Galactic Contender can't do anything until you're wide enough to fight a FE/AFE anyway. You're not going to use Voidborne right away if you're tall.)

[Shadowgandor]

Galactic Force Projection is a perk that's really useful for a tall empire as it gives +200 to Naval capacity.
Galactic Wonders could also fit a tall empire pretty well.

[EnigmaticHat]

Decided to practice some early game strategies, first go was a race ultra-focused on border range.  And... well, do you ever meet someone so cute

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

that you could just

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

eat them right up?

[Greiger]

[Adorable high pitched voice]The galaxy awaits the reign of Executor Odnal, and you want negotiations?[/adorable high pitched voice]

Soon you will have your very own pet adorable fluffy murderous enclave.

[Mephansteras]

One of these days I'm going to get around to doing a Devouring Swarm run with that species. Cutest apocalypse ever.

[Sirus]

I started up a game last night. Discovered a ruined Research Nexus just one hop away from my home system, well within my borders.

If I get lucky with resource spawns in the other nearby systems, this might just be the time to go single-planet tall. Rush Mega Engineering as quickly as possible, save up minerals, and then proceed to steamroll the galaxy research-wise.

[andrea]

I started a one planet game... I must say, it is turning out quite well. It is 2100 and I am keeping up with everyone else even in terms of fleet, to the point that I am doubting if I set the game on hard.

Sadly, I ran out of room to expand and upkeep is killing me. With almost the entire rst of the galaxy in a single federation ( and me with inward perfection and no diplomacy), I think I will need to start settling. I am terraforming all the planets in my arm of the galaxy.

[EnigmaticHat]

[Adorable high pitched voice]The galaxy awaits the reign of Executor Odnal, and you want negotiations?[/adorable high pitched voice]

Soon you will have your very own pet adorable fluffy murderous enclave.

Yeah, so the adorable starfish aliens?  The tiny, tiny piece of space that I didn't cut them off from contained the Sol system.  Where humans were engaged in what was heavily implied to be WW2... while meanwhile, they shared Earth with a race of pre-sentient humanoid birds called the Jaazijan.  Don't remember that from the history books, but sure.

The cost-benefit ratio of taking Earth had me somewhat uncertain, but the fact that it would achieve control of every single hyperlane out of Karabnar space settled it.  Unfortunately, I found the Karabnar fleet, The Anchor, in orbit around Earth bombing the shit out of it.  I assumed that it was a lost cause and decided to turn my efforts to other issues.

Flash forward 5 years.  The Karabnar spent half that time bombing Earth, then went home.  They never invaded.  I clicked on Earth to see all of the humans' primitive farms and factories were bombed out husks.  These cute aliens just attacked all sides of WW2, reducing the entirety of Earth into ruins, for shits and giggles.  Literally just broke everything and merrily sailed away.  When I sent my invasion fleet to plant my flag on what remained, and my fleet hung in orbit bombing Earth, they sent their fleet back and joined me (their enemy, with transports in the system) in bombing Earth.  Presumably just for fun.

Quickedit: The millisecond I unpaused they declared war.  Guess they don't take kindly to being completely encircled, heh.  Sucks to be them because my fleet is already significantly larger than theirs, I'm not at my capacity yet, and I'm starting up some fairly early cruisers.