Social, Military, Research slider strategies

from Stardock Forums
I tried something a little bit different in my latest game and it seemed to work pretty well. I found that maxing, or nearly maxing, the sliders at key points in the early game can really help. For instance, with the new leasing system, I couldn't really afford to lease Diplo Trans outright, so I set my social slider to 90%, research to 10% for a few turns. This took a lot of the cost out of my eventual lease, but it had the beneficial effect of giving me Habitat improvement, Soil enrichment, and the 3-or-4 other good early social improvements very quickly on my other planets. This had the long-term benefit of really supercharging my economy.

Then, with everything built, I put the social slider to zero.

A while later, I set my research slider to 90%, military to 10%, and quickly researched 3 techs that gave either a wonder or a TG. Then I switched to 90% social and built those three really quickly on my 3 planets - no leases necessary, then set the slider back to zero.

In my previous games I would neglect the social queue to concentrate on building constructors, warships and researching. I'm wondering if you get more bang for your buck by alternately maxing each of the sliders as opposed to keeping them all about 33%. I think this might work especially well for the social slider as there are only a select few improvements I will build, and once built, I can set the slider to zero until the next improvement I want comes along.

Anyone have thoghts on this?
320 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
This is called the "osciallation" strategy, which has been described in detail elsewhere.

Benefits:

- Eliminate loss due to rounding.
- Eliminate production in excess of what completes the project.
- Getting a ship in 3 turns and then a tech in 3 turns is better than getting both in 6 turns.

Cons:
- The research screen does not accurately portray "turns left". It is rumored to have a small random factor.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I do what you describe a lot, but I think the downside is that you don't often get maximum utility for your money.

For example, you can set tech really high and get something in say, 10 turns. But sometimes, you can bump up soc or military to 30 or 40 and still get it in 10-12 turns, as well as a bunch of units and soc upgrades.

It all depends on how large your production/research/economic levels are in respect to each other, as well as, of course, the cost of the thing you're going for.
[Message Edited]
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I can see your point. I mainly used it to build TG's fast, or quickly research an important TG or wonder tech before the AI got it. For that purpose, it seemed to work pretty well.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Couldn't agree with you more. I spend at least half the game doing exactly the same thing.