Military and Warp Lanes
Research Choices
On the next turn we finished researching "Light Craft Manufacturing" and were given the option to implement the Monarchy Civic, which I immediately accepted, because we need the economy boost fast!
So, now we need to decide what to research next. Our options are "Galactic Epistemology", which enables the Democracy Civic, allows you to build habitation systems and universities, enables technology trading, and the first to discover it founds the value, "Knowledge". At this early stage, we do not need a habitation system which increases the population cap of the planet it is built on, we have other things to worry about than universities, and we have already founded a value. The other research option, namely "Synthetic Composites", allows you to trade credits, build nutrition facilities and star fortresses, and enables the Technocracy Civic. Currently, we do not have enough credits to trade for anything and most likely the other civs do not have anything we need, we do not have a health problem in our star systems, we cannot afford to take on a huge project like a star fortress, and the Technocracy Civic only gives more research. We need money and production, so I decided to stay with a Monarchy government, instead. At this point, I believe the direction of our next research project should be one of a militarily theme, since we just met our first civ and he is already annoyed with us. If we appear weak he will most certainly attack very soon. "Gravity Training" will allow us to build invasions ships and training compounds that will give our military promotions. Also, this technology leads down the path toward building military academies, so this is the one I chose to research.
On the next turn, one of our scout ships discovered a Colony Ship amongst the wreckage of space debris! We certainly need a lot of those, so that is very good news! I decided to send it to colonize the star system southeast of "New Earth", because it has four planets and is very close to the ships discovery location. An oil resource was discovered to our west, crystals to our east, and Uranium and Hydrogen to our south and southeast, respectively. Resources either help you build things faster, provide a happiness or health bonus, or increase your economy, just like in the regular civ game.
One more turn and "New Earth" completed it's "Mag-Lev Network" and I decided to build a PDS for our new colony to the southeast, because it will be left undefended against pirates for a few turns before it can build it's own. "Gravity Training" was completed on the same turn and I chose "Military Academies" to research next, because it will allow us to build destroyers which are anti-squadron units, and leads to the technology "Ship Manufacturing", which allows us to build Capitol Shipyards (can build cruisers, carriers, and battleships with proper techs) and Intelligence Centers (+100 Espionage and -10% war weariness). Our military could sure use some strength and without any money to spend on Espionage, we do not know anything about our rivals. Of course, 100% of nothing is still nothing, but we will fix that soon.
"New Earth" finished the PDS, so I put her to work on a "Colony Ship" and "New Tokyo" finished her PDS, so she will work on our first "Construction Ship" to build warp lanes that will connect our growing empire.
Third Colony From The ...Wait, That's Not Right
"New London" was founded and I put her to work on a "Mag-Lev Network", because our economy is still in the red and needs a boost, badly. I had to drop our research down to 90%, so that we could stay afloat for more than two turns. We were losing 6 credits a turn and only had 12 credits in holding. At 90% research, spending was only half that amount and allowed us 4 turns. If we have to, we can drop it down further, but there is no need to do that now. A turn later, one of our scouts found 44 credits in the debris and we sure needed it! I immediately bumped our research back up to 100% and shaved a turn off of "Ship Manufacturing" research time (from 5 to 4 turns). Another turn goes by and one of our scouts found a "Construction Ship" amongst some space debris and I sent it to our closest star system, namely "New London" and put him to work laying down warp lanes.
Warp Lanes
We finished researching "Military Academies" and were one turn away from finishing "Ship Manufacturing", when "New Tokyo" completed her "Construction Ship"so I put it to work on warp lanes from the other end of our empire. You can see that the warp lane from "New Tokyo" to "New Earth" won't take very long to build. The two "Construction Ships" should meet at our capitol.