Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Good

Neutral

Evil

Good unless severe penalties

Neutral unless strong evil bonuses

[timferius]

Ok, I should be able to make quick comments during the day on breaks (EST) and more actively in the evening, so I'm going to sign up for this! I'd like to pettition to join the war commitee. With me I bring some experience at losing miserably in Gal Civ II, and many years experince at losing in a multitude of other strategy games! Also, pending my acceptence, I will have a few requests as well.

[Basque]

Alright, awesome Sirus! It seems like a lot happened in the first turn. The presence of alien civilizations so close to our own only emphasizes the need of more, faster colonization. Going to war at this point would be meaningless, especially against the minor civilizations-we could colonize many planets in the time it takes to conquer one.

shadenight123, I appreciate the link to the tech trees. I'm sure the other members of R&D would greatly appreciate it as well. The only problem is it doesn't list what any of those techs does so if it's not on the wiki I'm at a loss. For instance: Sirus, there's no page on the wiki for Innovation Complex, is it just a better version of a Research lab? Also on the wiki they reference progressive techs like Laser I, II, III, etc - has that been changed for this version or does the tech tree collapse them all into a single unit?

Also I laughed at the United Planets vote with only two civilizations. XD Since it seems like every planet we've found so far has had an influence bonus even if a single one wouldn't be important the combination of so many bonuses might be.

Sirus, can we also get a screenshot of how Earth looks now? It might help Colonial Affairs decide on how to proceed. We do not want to deplete Earth's population to quickly so if Mr. Person is satisfied with the ship-building rate we might want to make more research labs (or equivalent) or economic improvements. On that note, Mr. Person the following awaits your approval/disapproval:

Spoiler: Improvements for Year 1 Colonies (click to show/hide)

Iversonia I

• This colony meets the Requirements for Economic Specialization
• The factory is already taking advantage of the Special Tile, a Research Lab (or equivalent) will be built on the Artifacts while population grows
• Economic buildings and a single Farm should be built on non-specialized tiles
• Morale Buildings can be build if Approval looks like it's going low (Below %60), again on non-specialized tiles
• The Ruins will be left alone for now, pending further notation from Colonial Affairs.
  

Harper IV - Sirus, what is the hammer icon in the corner of the unusable tile here?

• Although this planet's class fits for Industrial Specialization, the Approval bonus benefits an Economic Specialization more. Since Earth is producing all our ships at this point I believe the latter is more important.
• A Research Lab (or equivalent) will be built on the Artifacts while population grows
• Economic Improvements and a single Farm will be built on non-specialized tiles
• The Mystic Spring will be used for a Morale Improvement when needed

Ymir I

• This planet fits the requirements for Industrial Specialization
• If it's in an advantageous location to launch ships, we should work up building factories and a Star Port when ships can be built at a steady rate
• A Research Lab (or equivalent) will be built on the Artifacts once production is up to Speed
• The Ruins will be left alone for now, pending further notation from Colonial Affairs

This half of the Council of Colonial Affairs would like to acknowledge the well-spoken comments of our Central Intelligence Agency and has recorded the The Revised Triforce Doctrine with our other documentation to be referenced later.

Sirus, I'm not sure what council it falls under since it involves both trade and Production but I would like to state/request from the Diplomacy Corps an intent to produce the Trade Good Diplomatic Translators as soon as Universal Translation is researched. This will improve our Diplomacy by 25%, which along with our natural bonus will give us the advantage in all diplomatic situations. Furthermore only one civilization in the entire galaxy can produce each trade good; if we don't do it first someone else will. On that note I would also like to put forward that as soon as Habitat Improvement is researched we make the Trade Good Aphrodisiac, which will improve population growth by %50.

Memo to Research and Development

First of all I would like to propose another Inter-Council Agreement. Now that Planetary Improvement has been researched we can research the various colonization techs to allow us to colonize otherwise inhospitable worlds. I propose that when we discover a PQ 9+ world that needs a colonization tech we will being researching that technology in order to colonize that planet. Moreover, we can now research improvements to our Colonies' terrain. When we run out of usable space on a planet if we do not already have the technology to make additional tiles usable that technology will be researched. This agreement is pending the approval of the other half of the Council of Colonial Affairs along with a majority agreement from Research and Development.

Furthermore our Council appreciates the consideration given in improving the speed of our ships, the importance of which should be all the more obvious now that we are racing another civilization for colonization. I would like to make a Formal Request to research Ion Drive and Impulse Drive in short order. This is far more important than things like Life Support because what is the point of increasing the range of our ships if we haven't even hit the edge of our previous range yet? Even if a greater range is researched it will be completely wasted because we will still colonize the closest planets.

Also I don't know if Sirus wanted to keep the following a surprise so I put it in spoilers if anyone unfamiliar with the game doesn't want to look:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In this Galaxy there are certain achievements that can never be equaled. The civilization that succeeds in these great feats will forever be placed one step above all others in the Galaxy. Although we are still new to space, I believe with the proper planning we can make our own unique and glorious imprint in our Galaxy.

Along with Trade Goods, Galactic Achievements can only be made once in the Galaxy. In order to beat other civilizations to them I think we should pursue the important ones. Eyes of the Universe reveals all our enemies ships on the mini-map along with greatly expanding the range of our sensors with no greater weight or cost. We would need to research the Sensors technology to achieve this, but since that also unlocks the Trade Good Nano Recorders (which improve Research) I believe it's a worthwhile pursuit.

Memo to Shem
Please remove the basic support from our colony ships and add more engines to make them faster.

Spoiler: Active Council Decisions (click to show/hide)

Colonial Affairs

The Colonial Affairs Constitution - Revised
Article 1-Colony Ships:
1.1: Colony Ships are to be produced at such a rate that at least one is always available and ready to start a colony, barring extraneous events such as warfare or constructors being necessary to grab resource spots.
1.2: Colony Ship design is to focus on reaching planets as quickly as possible.
1.3: Colony Ships will try to explore an entire system before colonizing.
1.4: Colony ships will avoid going into another race's controlled space under the assumption all the good worlds in there will suck and/or defect away anyways.
Article 2-Colony Placement
2.1: Colonies are to be placed on every planet with a PQ of 9+, barring uninhabitable conditions.
2.2: Planets of PQ 8- will not be colonized unless otherwise directed or until all possible PQ 9+ Planets have been colonized.
Article 3-Colony Improvement
3.1: Colonies are to build a basic Factory as quickly as possible
3.2: The Council of Colonial Affairs will provide guidelines on how to proceed with each colony's improvement based on the specific conditions of that colony.
3.3: The Council of Colonial Affairs will decide whether to use special tiles that do not support a colony's specialization based on the specific conditions of that colony.
3.4: Once we have settled to the ends of our Colony Ships' range the Council of Colonial Affairs will look for a new planet to launch Colony Ships from at the end of that range.
Addendum: Article 3b-Colony Specialization
3b.1: Class 13+ Planets or planets with sufficient economic/morale/population bonuses will focus on Economy-after the initial Factory economic improvements, morale improvements and a single farm will be built unless otherwise noted
3b.2: Class 9-12 Planets or planets with sufficient industrial bonuses will focus on Industry-after the initial factory more factories will be built and a Starport once production can quickly produce ships unless otherwise noted
3b.3: Class 8- Planets or planets with sufficient Research bonuses will focus on Research-after the initial factory Research Labs will be built unless otherwise noted
3b.4: If a planet needs to serve another purpose (such as being militarily or diplomatically valuable, etc) it may be specialized differently or generalized depending on the situation
3b.5: Special tiles that support a colony's specialization will be utilized unless otherwise noted.
Article 4-Anomalies
4.1: Our Flagship will always pursue the closest possible anomaly with the exception of cases outlined in 4.2
4.2: If our Flagship can out-speed a foreign ship heading to investigate an anomaly it will do so.

Central Intelligence Agency

The Revised Triforce Doctrine

Article 1: Definitions
A) "Minor" civilizations are to be defined as those that only inhabit one world, never expand, and can not be selected as playable at game start (same as ingame definition).
B) Both "minor" and "major" civilizations exist in the cosmos.  However, it has come to our attention that "minor" civilizations can not be swapped by our diplomats, and they tend to far badly in the tech race.
C) Therefore, the term "Opposing Factions" shall be reserved for the "major" civilizations.  Our agent shall not interfer with "minor" civilizations, leaving them instead for The Diplomatic Corps to parley.

Article 2: The Triforce Doctrine regarding "Major" civilizations aka "Opposing Factions"
A) For every "Opposing Faction", there shall be three spies only, so as to reduce costs.  Others can be called in for emergencies, but the idea number of spies shall be computed as three times the number of currently known Opposing Factions.
B) The first spy shall be The Defender.  This spy is charged with counter-intelligence.  Defenders are the reservour from which other spies can be drawn, if necessary.  If enemy spies invade our buildings, they clear them out.
C) The second spy shall be The Saboteur.  This spy is charged with hindering the Opposing Faction.  This spy shall be situated in the most powerful research or industrial building of the Opposing Faction.  If war is imminent, then the Saboteur shall be reserved until immediately before the war declaration, then placed to ensure maximum hinderance of the Opposing Faction's shipbuilding efforts.  If the Opposing Faction is out-teching us and war is not imminent, then the Saboteur shall be placed in the Opposing Faction's greatest laboratory.
D) The third spy shall be know as The Thief.  This spy is charged with gathering intelligence on the Opposing Faction's culture compared to our own, along with other duties.  The Thief shall work closely with The Diplomatic Corps and Colonial Affairs to infiltrate a planet of significant value, close to our borders, that can be convinced to join our faction via influence.  The building infiltrated shall be one that is unlikely to trigger Counter-Intelligence activity from the Opposing Faction.  The Thief shall be reused if possible.

Spoiler: Inter-Council Agreements (click to show/hide)

Unnamed Intelligence Agency/Diplomatic Corps/Colonial Affairs Pact - Incorporated into the Intelligence Agency's official position with the The Revised Triforce Doctrine.

Unnamed War Council/Colonial Affairs Pact - (Agreed):
With approval of the rest of the Council of Colonial Affairs pending, I propose the following agreement between the War Council and the Council of Colonial Affairs: the Council of Colonial Affairs will specifically design industrial planets with optimized production so as to produce a mighty armada for times of war and economic planets to support the maintenance cost for such as space fleet. In return, the War Council will agree to not use war tactics that will decrease a Planet's PQ so that upon capture those planets can be put to their fullest use. Furthermore, if the Central Intelligence Agency discovers a planet has a capturable Super Project or similar structure that we could get the benefit from, we will attempt to capture it rather than destroy it.

Unnamed Research and Development/Colonial Affairs Pact - (Pending)
Now that Planetary Improvement has been researched we can research the various colonization techs to allow us to colonize otherwise inhospitable worlds. I propose that when we discover a PQ 9+ world that needs a colonization tech we will being researching that technology in order to colonize that planet. Moreover, we can now research improvements to our Colonies' terrain. When we run out of usable space on a planet if we do not already have the technology to make additional tiles usable that technology will be researched. This agreement is pending the approval of the other half of the Council of Colonial Affairs along with a majority agreement from Research and Development.

[Comp112]

Holy poo, well I really want to stay with this, but it just grows to fast for me to keep up.

I must drop out, but I shall lurk!

[Sheb]

Department of Ships, Harbours and Ethereal Bases (S.H.E.B.)

With the discoveries of the Drath Legion, we now have a rival if not an ennemy. Outgrowing them should be a priority. As such I propose a new ship, the Basque class colony ship to be design. The Basque has little or no life support and is basically a colonization pod sitting on an engine. The idea being to have a fast, short-ranged ship for faster colonization. Our current ship design will still be used if godd quality planets are found outside the Basque range.

Production:-Basque should be our priority. The production should be 3 Basque, 1 Constructor and then 3 Basque again... Except if a good planet is found outside the Basque range, then produce a standard colony ship.

Ethereal Bases:-The Constructors should be used to build economic starbases, with a focus on improving economy and production.


We'd also like to ask R&D when can they furnish us with some basics ship weapons? Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum and all that. We have neighbours now, and I don't think we'll have time to research weapons if they attack us.

P.S. Constructor are used up after building a starbase, right?

[Sirus]

@ Basque: The Innovation Center is a Galactic Wonder (much like the Restaurant of Eternity or Tir-Quan Training) that is unique to the Terran tech tree. It is essentially a research center mixed with an embassy (for improving influence). Since they are a cheap as either of the buildings above but have no maintenance costs, there's no real downside to getting it built ASAP.

Laser I, II, etc are grouped together in the tech tree in TotA, but only to save space. Each is still researched sequentially before moving on to the next level.

I will get a screenshot posted when I can.

@ Sheb: Correct.

[Mr.Person]

@ Basque: That hammer means that the building in the tile (a factory) is under construction. Yes, there's a slightly transparent factory on that square.

Colonial Affairs official business

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Iversonia I:

I agree, this is an economic planet all the ways. This one needs to become self-sufficient ASAP, and that's why I think an approval building would actually be best to build first. If we can possibly hit 100% approval, that would give us MASSIVE pop growth bonuses. A farm only matter if we're close to or actually hitting the pop cap, so wait until then to build it. Economic buildings should be built in the other spaces. I propose this list of orders:

• Approval boosting buildings be built in an attempt to maintain 100% approval. After the first farm is built, only maintain approval over 70%.
• Farms be built if the population cap is being approached. Do not build more than three in total.
• Go ahead and dump a research building on that research square
• If none of these apply, build economic buildings on unoccupied squares, then squares with approval boosters if approval over 60% can be maintained without them.
• If nothing is being built (somehow), put focus on research and walk away. Make sure to move focus off research if building renews.

Harper IV:

I agree, the approval square makes this one economic. This one will probably be our most profitable colony for a long, long time simply because we won't be spending so much on non-economic buildings. I think the previous orders for Iversonia I apply here, as well.

Ymir I:

I agree also. Build a starport after the second factory. Then a research lab. Then more factories.

This should keep everyone happy. A few good labs for good research until we make a few research planets, another production planet for military might one day, and two economic ones so we can stay afloat and fund factory buys on all new planets after a certain point.

Hey Sirus, how much money are we gaining/losing each turn? Also, if you're looking for something cool, click that "Summary" button on the colony screen. The "Details" button is good too. I'm not saying I want to see them or anything, I'm just making sure you know they exist.

[Sirus]

Hey Sirus, how much money are we gaining/losing each turn? Also, if you're looking for something cool, click that "Summary" button on the colony screen. The "Details" button is good too. I'm not saying I want to see them or anything, I'm just making sure you know they exist.

Last I checked, we are losing about 25bc (billion credits) per turn, though it was worse before I raised taxes to 39%. Thankfully, all worlds have an economic building to increase tax returns, and the flagship occasionally finds money while exploring. All we really need is more population on our colonies. No more rush building for now, especially for ships; a single colony ship costs around 1090bc, which is a tremendous hit to our treasury.

[Sheb]

And how much money do we have?

[Basque]

Thanks for the responses Sirus! I'm glad you're being active in this thread and handling it so well. It must be a lot of work for you do do all the screenshots and such but we really appreciate it. For what it's worth I think you're doing a good just doing the updates as a pseudo-character as well. I hate to keep pestering you with requests, but you mentioned getting cash from finding anomalies; have we found anything specifically interesting?

Also thanks for pointing out the Innovation Center was a Galactic Achievement; I'm interested in hearing what the R&D Committee has to say about pursuing Eyes of the Universe as the next one. Also what the Diplomacy Corps has to say about Trade Goods, since like Galactic Achievements they can only be built by the first civilization to make them.

Mr. Person, I agree on pretty much all counts. I'm going to use your strategy as our general strategy for Economic/Industry planets, with variation based on special tiles and the like. I read it's not good to have population go over about 20 billion, so I'm going to use that as a limit instead of 3 farms, but I don't know what the effective difference is (If we get farm bonus squares I want the limit to be independent of number so we can just drop 1 farm on the bonus square and be done with it)

Colonial Affairs Specialized Planet Development Plans

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Note: All planets no matter what their specialization should start with a Factory on a Factory improvement square if available unless otherwise noted.
Economic:

• Build Approval improvements to reach 100% Approval. Use Approval Tiles if available.
• Build a Farm when Population reaches its cap. If population has not reached a cap build Economic buildings on unoccupied squares. Do not build if population is over 20 billion/do not build more than 3 farms.
• Build Economic buildings on unoccupied squares.
• Maintain Approval over %60. Build additional Approval improvements if necessary
• If nothing is being built, default to Research Focus unless otherwise noted.

Industrial

• Build another Factory on an Industrial Tile if available
• Build a Starport after the second Factory
• Continue to build Factories on unoccupied squares
• If nothing is being built, default to Research Focus unless otherwise noted.

Research

• Build a Research lab on a Research Tile if available
• Continue to build Research Labs on unoccupied squares
• If nothing is being built, default to Research Focus unless otherwise noted.

Using these Development Plans we have the following for our colonies:

Colonial Affairs Year 1 Colony Improvements

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Iversonia I:
Follow the Economic Plan except:

• Build a Research Lab on the Research Tile after 100% approval is achieved. Farm takes precedence if the population cap needs to be increased

Harper IV:
Follow the Economic Plan except:

• Build a Research Lab on the Research Tile after 100% approval is achieved. Farm takes precedence if the population cap needs to be increased

Ymir I
Follow the Industrial Plan except:

• Build a Research Lab on the Research Tile after the Starport

I think doing things this way will save us a lot of typing and Sirus a lot of reading in the future. Mr. Person, if you have the time I think we also still have some minor outstanding issues to address, but it seems to me like they might be really obvious solutions I'm just not familiar enough with things like how production works to understand.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Once Ymir I gets it's Star Port and factories going does it build more colony ships? (or does that interfere with building more factories?)
• If our Colony Ship finds multiple PQ +9 planets in a star system, should we settle all of them before moving on to another star system? I think the answer would be yes but I want to make sure since I'll add it to the constitution if we should.
• Since Earth is more generalized we need to decide how it will develop, but I think after the screenshot that will be easier
• The Innovation Center gives a bonus to influence and we have 2 or 3 Influence bonus tiles. Do all these bonuses stack? Again I think this should be our lowest priority but once everything else gets running right I don't see the harm in exploiting them.
  

This half of the Council of Colonial Affairs would like to thank Sheb for providing us with a better colony ship. We look forward to future improved versions when we research better engines.

[Sirus]

If your plan is to go for 100% approval, might I suggest entertainment centers? They boost morale, though I'm not sure how much the effect of two or more stacks. Also, 100% morale in this game is very difficult, which is why substantial bonuses are applied to planets which reach that rating.

[Basque]

Sirus, I saw you post in the Civ IV thread too. I guess you must have a lot of experience with these kinds of games. I was reading the official website for this, which unfortunately is woefully lacking any kind of online manual or anything, and even the development team talked a lot about the similarities to Civ IV. Apparently they came out at around the same time.

Anyways as per the Economic Plan the idea is to reach 100% approval via Planetary Improvements which include the following: Entertainment Network, Multimedia Center, Extreme Stadium, Zero G Sports Arena, Virtual Reality Center. If/When we get up to Extreme Stadium we can make Ultra Spices, a Trade Good that increases Morale by 15%, and if/when we get to Zero G Sports Arenas we can also build Gravity Accelerators, a Trade Good which will increase our ships' speed. The wiki isn't very specific but seems to imply that upgrading a building replaces the old building but building something on a different tile stacks with the bonus. Hence multiple Factories mean more production and multiple Approval improvements mean more Approval.

Approval can also be increased with trade goods, Galactic Achievements and anomalies.

Mr. Person is more experienced than me, if you don't mind me asking how many improvements/much approval is needed for 100% on a PQ 14 and PQ 12 planet?

(I did these calculations in the edit spoiler. Sirus, do we have any kind of bonus to Approval? Assuming I did the calculations right we need about a 40% Improvement Bonus for 100% Approval and Entertainment Centers only add 5%. The Approval tile will double it to 10%, which is thankfully about what we need for the smaller bonus to population growth at 76%. If we Researched and Developed better entertainment once we get to Zero G Sports Arenas they give 20% bonuses each, and we can acquire Ultra Spices for another 15% along the way.

The above applies only once the planets reach 8 billion population, though. Right now with less than 1 billion population those numbers are about 10% smaller (9% for 75% Approval and 35% for 100% Approval) which doesn't help too much. The biggest impact is the Tax Rate-with a 19% Tax rate we'd only need about a 10% bonus for 100% and then we could turn up the taxes afterward.

Edit:

Spoiler: Population and Approval Statistics (click to show/hide)

Saw on the wiki the calculation for finding a planet's income:

Code: [Select]

constant * sqrt(population_in_billions) * tax_rate * (1 + (sum from buildings on planet)) * (1 + (sum from racial bonuses/maluses) )
This supports only having 1 farm a planet unless we have a very large Approval increase (like around 300%) at least accounting to the wiki, anyway. A basic farm can support about 4 billion more people and upgraded goes up to about 10 billion, so with the default max of 8 billion that 12 billion and 18 billion respectively. Also the approval drop for high taxes starts increasing at 70% and jumps enormously at 81%, so once we get populations up and only need a ~%60 approval we can set taxes higher but should not go that high.

Also for getting population up here's the following from the wiki - Approval from 76% to 99%: 25% bonus growth, Approval 100%: double population growth. More populations equals more taxes so even if we can't get up to 100% somehow it is still beneficial for our Economy to make our Economic Planets have high approval.

Sirus from the wiki: "Population growth is currently capped at 200k per turn, so that higher levels of approval DO NOT have the population growth documented in the manual." However, on different pages in the wiki they talk about ways to get 2 Billion population a turn. Is there any way to tell what applies to your version of the game? (Found it: "For game versions below 1.1 the maximum growth rate in a turn is 200 million inhabitants per turn per planet." - what version do you have?) The wiki seems sorely lacking any information from Twilight of Arnor. If the population growth does have a cap, don't try to increase it after it's hit that cap-that would be pointless.

Population Growth Calculations:
Base growth is 3% or 75 million pop, whichever is smaller. This base is multiplied by bonus percentage growth from abilities (sum of Aphrodisiacs, starting growth, bonus from anomalies, bonus from planet colonization events (I do not know if we have any bonuses like this). Finally, this sum is multiplied by the planet's approval modifier.

Iversonia I
.1b*.3 < 75 million * (Unknown Ability Bonus) * 1/1.25/2 = 75 Million/93.75 Million/150 Million
Harper IV
.26b = 78 million * (Unknown Ability Bonus) * 1/1.25/2 = 78 Million/97.5 Million/156 Million
Ymir I
.25b = 75 million * (Unknown Ability Bonus) * 1/1.25/2 = 75 Million/93.75 Million/150 Million

That's the population growth for our colonies calculated for basic growth and with the 2 approval modifiers. As you can see getting 100% approval is very beneficial, although even above 76% adds about 20 Million.

Approval Calculations

Code: [Select]

fMorale = fCivABilityFactor + fBaseMorale * (1 + fImprovementFactor) + fPlanetMoraleBonusFactor - fNegativeTreasuryFactor + fPlanetQualityBonus - fTaxModifier
Assuming a population of the standard max (8 billion), a tax rate 30% or greater but less than 40%, and discounting all unknowns:

76 = Unknown + ~90 * (1 + x) + 0 - Unknown + 10 -33 | x= .1
100 = Unknown + ~90 * (1 + x) + 0 - Unknown + 10 -33 | x = .367

x is the Improvement Modifier necessary for the Approval. Hence discounting all the unknowns we need about a 10% bonus for 76% Approval and a 37% bonus for 100% Approval. The Entertainment Network only increases Morale by 5%, but the Multimedia Center increase it by 10% (about what we need for 76%) and once we get up to Zero G it's 20%. The Approval Tile on Harper will double that amount. Also if we have base bonuses that would help us, but being in debt too long will hurt us.

This is only for the base Max of 8 billion though. As population increases it become exponentially harder to make them happy. At 25+ billion population, instead of having a base of around 90 our base is only 20, meaning if everything else stayed the same we'd need about 5 times as much improvement bonus.

[Ehndras]

Sweet! I've got the whole GalCiv series, haha, I got tired of it though after having a month-long GalCiv 2 competition with my roommate on who could blow up the galaxy first >_> Damn Yor always piss me off, them and the Dregin.

[IronyOwl]

R&D


Colonial:

First of all I would like to propose another Inter-Council Agreement. Now that Planetary Improvement has been researched we can research the various colonization techs to allow us to colonize otherwise inhospitable worlds. I propose that when we discover a PQ 9+ world that needs a colonization tech we will being researching that technology in order to colonize that planet. Moreover, we can now research improvements to our Colonies' terrain. When we run out of usable space on a planet if we do not already have the technology to make additional tiles usable that technology will be researched. This agreement is pending the approval of the other half of the Council of Colonial Affairs along with a majority agreement from Research and Development.

Completely rejected. The secrets of colonizing otherwise-hostile worlds are extremely difficult and time-consuming to develop, as are methods of terraforming existing land, to a much lesser extent. Going with an as-soon-as-we-can-use-it approach to such efforts would leave us extremely little attention for anything else.

I will consider superior engines in light of our new rivals, but would again remind you that speed is not everything, at least with regards to ship speed.

However, I will fully approve of your secret project suggestion. We will acquire sensors technology soon.


SHEB:

We'd also like to ask R&D when can they furnish us with some basics ship weapons? Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum and all that. We have neighbours now, and I don't think we'll have time to research weapons if they attack us.

"When they're ready." We will attempt to keep the need for defensive measures in mind, but there are a staggering number of things necessary for a proper base- and thus proper military to use such weapons anyway- that are currently in need of attention.


R&D:

interstellar construction.
logistic and life support 1
xeno research
xeno biology
planetary invasion.

I'm afraid I'm not sure what Interstellar Construction does. Other than lead to Sensors which I've agreed we need for a special project, so I guess that's in.

Logistics is currently unneeded by most of the other councils' own words.
Xeno research and biology I approve of. However, I'd advocate more advanced factories as well.
I don't feel we're nearly well-developed enough to worry about full-scale planetary invasions yet.

Finally, I agree with the Colonial Affairs Dept.'s suggestion to acquire better sensors in order to develop special projects with wideranging benefits.

I'd advocate Xeno Research, Xeno Biology, Interstellar Construction, Sensors, Xeno Factories, and then maybe more engines.

[Basque]

As a completely out of character side note, there's no entry in the wiki for things like Xeno Biology or any of the techs specific to the Twilight of Arnor expansion. If you guys don't mind me asking, where did you find out what this stuff does?

Edit after Sirus' post: Ha! Of course! XD I was hoping someone would have found a guide online for it or something. Well other than unique improvements and such there's not much extra to know on my end, so I'll just rely on Mr. Person's experience.

[Sirus]

Well, the in-game tech tree tells you what each tech unlocks, what they lead to, and even new ship designs that can be unlocked. The game also explains the exact effect that each building type has.