AI War:Rate Of Expansion
How Fast Should I Be Taking Planets?
Q: I was reading that you take a planet on average every 45 minutes. Does this apply early game too? Do you really focus on taking one planet and shoring it up to where you don't have to watch it every few seconds? Maybe I'm trying a little too much, I usually send a smash force of capped fighter 2s/3s and wipe all command centers adjacent to me and try to build up 2 bases at the same time. I was thinking like fast expanding really helps the economy, but maybe it's just not feasible on all types of maps.
A: Well, that was really an average, and that doesn't apply to every play style or every map. If the AI is really defensive, you might take fewer planets overall and take them more slowly, for example. And you're right, generally speaking at the start of the game it's best to take out all the planets you can as fast as possible. I think I typically take my first planet at around 10 to 15 minutes in, and a second at 30 minutes maybe, and a third by the end of the first hour. Of course, that also varies, but that is true.
By the middle game, things slow down a bit because I'm having to consolidate my borders and I'm putting resources and time into scouting, knowledge raiding, gate raiding, and other such pursuits. But even then, it's probably a planet every two hours at absolute worst, and often that longer period only comes when a real tough nut that we have to take comes up.
Then once that is done, there's typically a spree of taking easier planets because in order to take that big one the strength of my empire has had to increase to match it, making me then over-matched for a few things on the other side, which is a nice change. Then the next hardened target or deep-raid target comes up, and so on and so forth.
So it tends to be really uneven for me, but if I play an 80 planet game and it lasts for about 13 hours, I'll be taking a planet every 30-45 minutes or so on unweighted average throughout the life of that game (as in, 20-30 planets divided by 13 hours).
