The futility of holding the middle

Tax income sucks, but extractor income remains a sweet deal.  I won't go over the math, but suffice to say even at the lowest loyalty levels an extractor is the best economic investment in the game.  As well, those logistical and tactical slots in close proximity to the enemy are quite valuable, enabling you to build frigate factories and culture generators to threaten their empire. 

If the game is that close to conclusion, this is a rather moot point.  If victory is only a matter of time, it really doesn't matter what you're doing.  The more interesting case is where victory is not assured.

If your income is so low you cannot afford to even colonize a new planet, your economy needs to be strengthened anyways. 

Completely false; even at the lowest loyalty levels extractors remain more efficient than trade ports.  Trade ports cost SIX times as much as an extractor (using the generous 1:4 credit to resource conversion rate).  However, one extractor can easily match one trade port for income.

I was actually talking about refineries, not extractors.

This is why i said longer than the game "might" last. A game can drastically change because of one battle that is particularly destructive for one side or the other. If you know the game is over in 2 minutes, it doesn't matter. If it is going to take another 2 hours, it is worth it.

Not my point, i was saying that the neglible extractor income from a planet with very low allegiance is not worth it because colonizing that planet requires:

• A fleet presence to protect it during development
• Time that could be spent attacking the enemy
• Attention, you will be focused on that planet allowing your enemy to posibly outmanuever you

The only real benefit of these planets would be factories and culture, like Darvin said, but it hardly seems worth the time since culture overthrows take forever.

The simple solution is to move your Capital.  Designate another planet in the middle of your empire as the new seat of the government (the 4th green box across the top, in the Develop Planet menu).  Altho, it is an expensive move, it can pay off quickly, by raising overall allegiance.  I have seen some of the 'pros' do it in MultiPlayer. 

The newly designated Capital doesn't have to be Terran.  I believe you get the same tax bonus, no matter what you pick.

You said resource extractors, hence I remarked about extractors <_<

Yes, refineries on low loyalty planets are usually inferior to trade ports.  However, the extractors remain quite lucrative.

For your first point, unless you've got a miracle choke point, an enemy fleet is going to break any static defense.  The only real defense is a good fleet on standby.  If the enemy has the power to retake the world by brute force, you may be more inclined to start building up repair bays there to absorb his eventual counter-attack, and if he doesn't you can always return back to chase off his fleet. 

Secondly: who said you cannot attack the enemy while you hold the new planet?  If he's busy defending himself, he's hardly in a position where he can send a dedicated assault force.  Even in the case of an AI which loves siege frigates, you can leave behind a single carrier or even keep a roaming group of scouts (scouts are really good at killing siege frigates).

I don't see your point with attention.  Unlike games like Supreme Commander where you constantly have to manage workers, queue upgrades, and balance resource incomes vs expenditures, everything in the Sins economy is a one-time purchase.  You buy it and forget about it.  The attention required doesn't even begin to match up to something like a two-front war; if you're getting seriously distracted by half a dozen one-time purchases, you're going to have a lot of very serious issues that dwarf this one.

Culture overthrows aren't the point; in friendly culture your units get a bonus.  Replacing enemy culture with your own is two birds with one stone: you take away the enemy culture bonus, and gain your own!

No, desert and terran planets give the highest bonus, ice and volcanics give a medium bonus, and asteroid homes give a small bonus.  Pick a terran or desert when at all possible.  That said, loyalty impact on resource extractors is going to overshadow this!

This is true, especially of 2 extractor Volcanos.  They probably won't pay for themselves.

Another potential solution: don't colonize them, but build Culture/Media centers nearby, to spread your culture into them to prevent opponents from colonizing them.  Also, the culture will help boost allegiance of your lower income outlying planets.  Altho the typical 10% boost in allegiance is not that much, it is a significant increase for your lower allegiance planets (25%>35% = a +40% increase, 40%>50% = +25% increase). 

Finally, don't forget that extending you trade route/line with an additional planet boosts all of the prior tradeports income by .1 income/second (tradeports aren't affected by allegiance).  So this boost alone might make the planet pay for itself.

SageWon has already posted everything I would have said. Moving your Capital is and exremly lucrative deal if you chose the right planet. With a medium to large empire with a smart capital move you can more or lest double your income.

Remember that Logistics slots are incredibly valuable, no matter what the planets allegiance is. Every 4 slots is worth 1 trade port which can boost your income significantly. A desert planet is an economists best friend no matter where it is!

This is what i do, It isn't worth it to colonize them. In a game about building an empire, it seems like more would be better, but this is not the case on large maps or in multi-star games.

It is worth saying that i am not a noob, i understand that capitals can be moved. But there are only so many viable places to put a capital before you run in to the same problem only at the rear of your empire. A central location doesn't always exist, neutrals, few phase lanes from the middle planets, it is highly situational as to if a good center exists.

Advent with all the allegiance bonuses has a better time dealing with this (although it is expensive for a sb at every planet)

Multi star games also suffer from this, maybe a capital planet in each star system would help?

This isn't a problem, i just feel that it prolongs games

this could be something that will be overhauled in the diplomacy expansion. the idea of one capital per star is a very good idea

Darvin, Sagewon, and Deceiver have pretty much covered it from an economics standpoint.

Bottom line, you ALWAYS take the world as soon as you are able.  Control of worlds has strategic and tactical value beyond their economic value.

You take worlds to:

- move your front line forward so you have repair and factories closer to the enemy
- deny your opponent potential worlds to colonize
- create buffer zones for built up economic planets

Take that planet!  When advancing, your offensive fleet should have the enemy pinned down farther up the chain, keeping the new planet relatively secure behind it, so take it.  If it is a cross-roads gravwell, you want it for a chokepoint, so take it and slap some defenses up.  If a counter attack is coming and you need to retreat, take it anyhow just to piss off the enemy and force him to siege it before he has a usable world on your border...and use the time to reinforce at a more defensible spot.

The problem is that colonizing planets that add very little to your economy seems superfluos, like an extra step.

If i am playing as TEC i just nova-nuke them so that the enemy can't re-colonize them.

And cykur, you have a point that your fleet should continue to attack the enemy as the planet is being colonized, but if you have pushed them back that far then you are sure to win very soon and the planet doesn't matter. This is the problem, it either doesn't matter or is an annoyance having to bring a world from nothing to a fully functional late game planet, while at the same time trying to deal a death blow to your opponent.

This is the catch 22.  If you are winning, you should have the econ to take the planet and just throw 2 planet infra. upgrades on it so it isn't a drain.  That is all it needs, don't bother fully developing it.  If you are NOT winning, then you NEED the planet to bolster your empire.  So take the planet.

If you have the luxury to Novalith your enemy at will and he can't respond in kind, then you are winning and it doesn't matter what you do.  But if you can afford Novalith's, no harm in just grabbing the planet and throwing 2 infra upgrades on it.

You don't have to fully develop it.  2 Infra upgrades and maybe throw up a repair bay for your fleet to fall back to if it runs into problems at the next planet.  If there is a question that you can't deal the death blow, you should take it out of caution.  If there is no question you can deal the death blow, no harm in taking it anyhow. 

It's not that the 2 infra upgrades are too expensive or anything, but with nothing other than those upgrades, the planet is producing less than 1 cred/sec because of its low allegiance. So culture is necessary, and why not trade ports? And now the planet is a culture producing trade-route planet, so it needs repair bays and some hangars.

This is why it seems better to just not colonize them.

If you are winning, it's not worth it. If you are losing, a planet very far from your hw is not where you want to put your money, unless you can trap your enemy there. If it is not a clear-cut advantage for either, then just make sure they can't get it (culture, novalith shots..) and keep hitting other worlds.

From an economic standpoint, the planets are near worthless since in the late game economy is already booming.

From a tactical standpoint, it is much closer to your enemy than it is to you. So it needs heavy defenses, and possibly a SB. And that is true for every fringe-planet that you want to hold. It's situational for sure, but the long and slow planet-creep seems terribly inefficient for a fleet that can destroy planets...

That doesnt make any sense. You're saying its not worth colonizing these planets because.. you HAVE to build on them? You don't. Just get the infrastructure upgrades and leave it. If its not taking money from you then there isnt any reason for you not to, because the benefits of just owning it outweigh the detriments of not. So what if it only earns 1 cred a second after the infra upgrades. Its still benefitting your economy, and preventing your opponent from coming along and taking it. And if you don't want to build on it when you get it, you still have it if you want to do so later, and you still have a safe haven if your assault stalls and you have to retreat.

There just isnt a good reason not to take these planets. If you don't then your opponent will. You dont have to protect them, you don't have to do anything to them (except the infra upgrades of course), but as long as YOU control it, your opponent doesn't, and thats reason enough to grab it.

Lets say you decide not to grab those planets after you've taken them from an enemy. You work your way to his HW and you think youve destroyed all his planets, but secretly he sent a colony frigate behind you and took a bunch of them back. Now you have to turn around and go destroy them again.

Taking the planet means your opponent has to destroy your colony first. Which requires expensive ships, and more time than if the planet wasnt colonized. At the very least if he does manage to destroy the planet you took, you at least KNOW he did.

I'll REPEAT: you do not HAVE to build anything there. Just take them to have them.

Once again: the extractors are where the money's at!

If you're extending your trade port chain, this is a very good idea.  Adding 0.1 credits per second to all your existing trade ports could easily add up.  If you're not expanding your network, you're better off placing these expensive investments in safer places where they'll be just as efficient.

Not necessarily; the defensive position of each planet is unique to its situation.  It may well be protected by other planets or it may be protecting other planets.  In the former case it needs no defenses of its own, in the latter case its defenses have more value than just protecting itself.

Untrue; because it's close to the enemy your fleet is nearby, therefor it needs less defense.

Again I'll side with deciver here. Strategicaly speaking and even if yoru winnign not taking the planet over is the worst possible thing you can do. It's the worst tactic to us. I know that if you fighting me and your not colonizing those worlds you will regret it depeedly as I will see in these redeay to take worlds my chnace at victory, my chance at delayign you long enought so that my allies can coem to my rescue, my chance to recover and come bite you in the ass.

Oh and just so we are clear I did beat someone not taking worlds when he had the advantage on me. IT coested him the game. He was sure to win but he didn't colonize and I bited him in the ass for it. My ally dealth with his opponent and came to my rescue and he couldn't do nothing to stop us. If he would have taken my worlds he probably would ahve defeated me to soon and the tables would have been turned.

Just to say if you don't take those worlds your asking for it.

This thread should be renamed to "The futility of trying to give people advice."

You called this "the middle ground" which makes someone assume you have not won the game yet....you never said these hypothetical worlds were much closer to the enemy than to you.  If you have an overwhelming force, there is no reason to take the last few worlds if they are dropping like dominos and you have culture or space supremacy.  It is stupid to use these arguments in response to ours.  When you are mopping up, you can do whatever you please because you have won the game.......you originally were talking about the middle planets on the map, not the worlds in the heart of the enemy after you have destroyed their ability to win.

If on the other hand it really is the "no man's land" between empires, you want to control it and use it to project power into the enemy's heart.  Why waste your Novalith shots on worthless worlds when you could be hitting the core of the enemy?  Likewise, you want as many worlds as possible if the enemy has a Novalith so he has to choose what to shoot at.  If you do not have a clear victory yet, you absolutely want that no man's land to build more culture to push against the enemy culture.  You certainly shouldn't fully develop a world that is at risk.

If I were to break and scatter an attacking force, I will push them back to their next defensive strongpoint.  If they had left 2 or 3 worlds uncolonized and I could push them back to their side of the map, I would be pretty happy.  The other guy would have to fight me for that ground all over again.

When several experienced players are all telling you the same thing, it might make you wonder.  Darvin and Deciever are seasoned, knowledgeable players at the least, and EadTaes is a pretty fierce opponent.

Was wonderign if you would bring that up. You still owe me soem comments aswell Deceiver

You mean about your Mod? Well as I've only played it once, I havent got too much to say, but from what I was able to determine from playing against you that time, it seems balanced. Really got to put it to the grindstone and play it a lot and with a lot more people to be able to give really definitive notes. So

I apologize, i was not trying to be difficult...

Thank you all

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Well Deceiver I'm gonna try and start some more games this weekend if you cna help recuit more poeple.