Birth of the Empires

It's turn #270 and the Klingons having encountered the Cardassians to their north, realize that battle is inevitable unless a diplomatic solution is reached that is favorable such that they can continue building unhindered.

Playing BotE as an English speaker in 2020 on an Android is a far different experience than say a German playing a Windows version in 2007. The English speakers have little understanding of the German community discussing the game in lieu of proper documentation of game functions. And it can't just be modded on the Android as by now I would have done if using the Windows version to make it easier.

Easier is not my goal but canonically correctness in the Star Trek milieu.

Playing BotE is like crash landing on an extraterrestrial world. The hapless explorer finds technology that does useful things but everything learned is by trial and error as he/she has no guide as a Rosetta stone.

Obviously in a 4X game you build infrastructure through buildings upon learning better technology. But always you have Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Human development and motivations and prioritization for survival versus reward is largely based on Maslow's paradigm of hierachy of needs.

Thus you need food first. Then you need the capacity to build things so foundaries in the game. Otherwise it's inefficient and takes too long. Then you need knowledge to accelerate what buildings get unlocked. And these require basic titanium as raw materials so mining structures at many levels of development.

Often there is insufficient titanium so you set up a resource route to send critical raw materials from elsewhere. See the trade topic where I discussed trade routes versus resource routes at length.

Then security buildings have to built all along especially due to sabotage becoming crucial to the mechanics of the game about turn #230 onward.

These buildings all require energy to power them. But at first this concept is abstract as you don't know how much power will be required, so haphazardly build utilities.

Then you look at the structures and guesstimate what seems logical based on how many structures. And then in later turns say post turn #150, then some colonized planets just have existing structures on them, but likely have insufficient energy utilities.

You then click on the the empire menu on the left,then click on system on the bottom menu, then I sort based upon industrial number, so those will likely have the highest energy demands.

So you then click on empire on the left menu, then click on structures on the bottom menu. This shows how many have been built so far. I like a balanced approach as I don't want famines so have a healthy robust growth rate, modulated by constantly planned terraforming. Then ensure that of the required buildings in the first post are built in a logical order. That likely means selling ore. See the trade topic on how to do that wisely.

Then click on the energy tab on the bottom menu. Aha! Some buildings exist but have not come online as there are energy reserves but have not been managed. I presumed the manager was doing that. Nope. So you allocate energy so whatever structures have been created or discovered have power.

Now, with some buildings like shield generators or orbital batteries or bunket networks or minefields, then those also require energy. Obviously most would be significant amounts to defend an entire system in a sector of space-time. That is not just a solar system, but many solar systems so a HUGE amount of energy.

So when doing so, while you made these shield generators for example, there ain't no power to them. They just cost a lot and are doing nothing. This means advanced furnaces are needed and those get unlocked by progressively learning more technology.

You likely have to wait huge numbers of turns to power them up, or you manipulate the metal price for titanium as I have been doing (see the trade and intelligence /counterintelligence topic), so you can rush them.

Ideally BotE would have various editors like a map editor so a campaign designer plans every planet in every system and allocates these to empires and builds all the base infrastructure, all the energy furnaces are made, hopefully all the tech required, the starting treasure, and some ships, so that you skip 300+ turns.

It doesn't mean that everything is done and you can just declare war. It means all of this micromanaging is bypassed as that's at least 3 days of game play (maybe 18 hours times 3 days or 54 hours of work x 6 empires so 324 total hours of meticulous work.

Otherwise it's a lot of hurtles and trade routes and resource routes and precious metal sales and diplomatic negotiations, and so forth. Many may wish to build their own empires, but most would like a STTNG beginning that is accurate and not cripplied by the game mechanic of intelligence agencies. Maybe this way it takes to turn#425 that this espionage starts taking place.

The homesector in this example at Khayrin naturally was designed and engineered to have extensive energy requirements due to massive infrastructure needs as the imperial capital. It has energy that needs to be toggled on structures to bring them online and will always require more as the game progresses to defend it agaist eventual invasions.

It looks like there is an energy surplus...until you see there is an icon to look on the right for the rest of the structures.

I didn't do a screencap, but every one of the structures used up every last bit of the generated power. That means the Klingons have to immediately start building better energy utilities or at least more of them.

Often in a 4X strategy game, there are limited building slots to force the player to make wise decisions as not everything can be built at one settlement. It's a constraint just like rate of expansion in BotE.

That implies specialization for many systems/sectors. That nearly always happens in a space game. It's a research system, or a cash generating mine system. Some with many planets translates to high population, thus can operate many buildings and processes to allow ship creation and troops and powerful defensive capabilities in outposts above the system sector.

Every grid map cordinate is a sector of space time. Some even most have planets so those are named systems within a sector within the map array.

Every single topic is meant to be tied together to create better documentation for BotE. They are connected and comprehensively illustrate game mechanics and features and maybe bugs.

It's highly likely that there is a useful research strategy of accelerating some technology, then accelerating some buildings, and have a faster outcome to outpace the AI and defeat it earlier.

I am interested in efficiency. I am not interested in defeating the AI before 400+ turns. I want a strong AI opponent with withering attacks by fleets of armadas invading my sectors. The former bores me; the latter thrills me.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nNTVzwjEyb4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go8Kkpt3BYc&app=desktop
Shock and awe.

See the latest modding post as it explains why such colonization on the periphery creates stability through neutral zones. Then colonize inward.

If you colonize outward, that creates conflict as it seems to be a probe into another empire's domain. That just creates hostility.