Pushing Our Limits
There Be Gold In Them There Hills ... I Mean Asteroids
I sent our new "Colony Ship" to settle the star system just south of "New Tokyo", which has a gold resource west of it's location (Currently, I have a destroyer unit guarding it's wealth). After a few border pops, we should be able to build an extraction facility on that resource, which will bring a much needed boost to our economy. We may even find ourselves in the green for the first time since the game began. Yay! However, we will need to concentrate on "Influence growth" buildings in the new star system, so that we can reap the benefits of this resource as soon as possible.
You'll also notice in the image to the left, that we have a large lead on both competitors, which will continue to widen as our empire explodes, bringing it's great power and influence to bear on the galaxy.
Look, No Title
We finished researching "Shock and Awe", which will allow us to build the mighty battleship military unit. Also, as you can see in the image to the left, the "Titanium" resource provides a production boost, when constructing carriers and battleships. Luckily, there are two "Titanium" resources just south of our capitol that we will be able to use later on.
Just Window Shopping
I chose not to adopt the "Police State Civic" at this time, because of the high upkeep inherit with it's bonus to military production, decrease in war weariness, and bonus to espionage efforts. As you can see in the image to the left, we only have 4 credits in holding and we are losing 4 credits per turn, so we really can't afford to adopt an expensive civic at this time, no matter the bonus.
Let's Develop A Theory Of Knowledge, Shall We
With "Shock and Awe" completed, I decided that our next research project should be "Galactic Epistemology", because the research path will lead to "Domestic Development", which allows us to build Banking Systems. Banking Systems provide an increase to commerce for each system it is built on by +25%, so it was an obvious choice.
Meanwhile, "New Earth" completed it's construction of an "Advocate of Survival", so I immediately sent the unit toward the future location of our gold resource colony, because the value will provide +1 growth to the system if it is present. As a reminder, our Cultural Borders have to encompass the resource, before we can build an extraction facility on it and benefit from it's wealth.
Double Ouch
"New Dubai" was founded on the next turn and our economy took another huge hit, as a result. I immediately chose "Interplanetary Beacon" as it's first build order, so that we can harvest the gold resource as soon as possible and I sent our nearby destroyer over, to act as a garrison for the new colony.
Since, our coffers are empty and at the current research rate we are losing 7 credits per turn, it is necessary to slow down our study of new technologies to prevent our empire from disintegrating. We don't want that to happen, now do we?
The Limits Of Our Expansion
Dropping the research rate down to 60% had both positive and negative affects, which was to be expected. On the one hand, we are no longer losing money, which is a good thing. Consequently, however, the decision also increased the time it will take to research "Galactic Epistemology" (from 4 to 5 turns), which is urgently needed to stabilize our economy. Of course, the other hand always demands a price to pay and we knew that.
I believe it is at this time, we have reached the limit of expansion that our empire can support, without crumbling. In other words, we need to build up our infrastructure and economy before colonizing any further or our competition will catch up and surpass us, while we choke on their dust.
You'll notice in the image to the left, that "New Earth" is still holding the huge financial burden of supporting our growing empire on it's shoulders, without much help from the other colonies. Regrettably, our capitol is suffering from a health crisis on top of that, but there isn't anything we can do about it now. Nonetheless, our home star system still provides the greatest production and research output with no other colony even close to it's contribution. While the other colonies ARE providing a respectable production rate, considering they have not had as much time to grow, they desperately need to have infrastructure and banking systems installed, if we hope to keep our early lead.
.