modder question for players, What's your- favorite race & research pathway?

I figure that I'll start things out:

• I normally play the yor
• Turn zero, I strart building a bunch of manufacturing yor on iconia & rush buy whichever one is going to benefit most (usually next to the colony or a nice tile ). for now, iconia runs at 50/50 manufacturing/research for now
• From there, I send all three ships out to scout for a good planet
• depending on my mood, I'll usually start a colony ship too
• initial research priority is to make a beeline towards supportive population..
• This has a few reasons.  Firstly, it opens econ buildings if I find a nice planet for them too.
• once I get supportive population, it's very easy to keep my yor happy without wasting tiles on xeno entertainment.
• the first good quality planet (10+) I come across I build 2-4 manufacturing yor & the rest research yor.  This planet goes 100% manufacturing with a rush buy on the first mfg yor or two to sped things along
• by the time my first seed ship  pops out, I'm usually done with at least xeno entertainment if not supportive pop too  & have found at least one good research/commerce planet
• commerce planet gets a couple mfg yor & the rest  research or commerce buildings depending on planet role, rush buy on the first mfg yor or two & 100% mfg till complete.
• once complete iconia likely goes full mfg, research world full research, commerce 99 commerce 1% mfg + economic stimulus.
• From there, strategies will vary depending  on what sorts of things are happening.
• if I find two planets of decent quality close together, or  one great and one ok/meh planet, I turn them both into manufacturing planets feeding one starbase
• at some point I build one or two more research/econ planets with mfg planets probably 2/3 of what I find, but by now things are likely to be significantly influenced by neighborly activities

You should take a look at the Thalans.  

uhh?. The point of the thread is to get the sot of information I gave about -my- yor/favorite race's gameplay from others and -their- equivalent with -their- favorite races rather than spending a gigantic time learning /nailing down those sort of racial unique flavors for each and every race before spending a fairly significant amount of time adjusting Ai hehaviors

Human. I go for engineering (faster movement and longer range) first on smaller maps, industrial on larger maps. Then bee-line through some commercial techs to tourism and the industrial boost in political, then more industrial and research until I need military.

I have a custom faction with an Iconian tech tree, an arbitrary choice because I haven't explored tech trees yet.  I insert the standard disclaimer that my gameplay is not a standard to judge by, but it seems to beat the AI at genius, so I must be doing something right.  Otherwise, I will take my usual role in life as very bad example.

I play a heavy expansion plan in a generally abundant galaxy with room between players.

First techs are Planetary Improvement, Accelerated Growth, and Xeno Biology, then beeline to Interstellar Survey.  If I am going to be expanding, I need population to put on those ships.  My one early use of the Iconian Tech Tree becomes a beeline to Healing Hulls, which I find helps a lot with early Pirates.  After that it becomes military and civilian techs as it seems needed.  I do have a fondness for Supportive Population and its ability to help with Approval and getting there gets me Markets, which is important for specialization.  I delay Xeno Industrialization some because I don't want to get caught up in upgrading things until my economy is more developed and ready. From what I can see, the AI is all too eager to get caught up in upgrading, so that might be something to consider.

Colony Building:  I have a basic set of buildings I will queue up, Factory, Hospital, Farm, and Shipyard if needed.  The order depends on the game stage, the earlier the stage, the earlier the shipyard.  Placing one each of these key buildings sets the overall design of the planet and where the space will be for specialist buildings.  I put the planet on 100% production and wait for it to get back to me.  As they become available, I will add Entertainment and Missionary Centers to the basic required list.  (I am fanatic about the benevolent ideology.)  When the planet gets back to me for further orders, I will make the final specialization decisions and start building out the planet.  I am still experimenting with the production settings during that part of a planet's development, but there seems to be some balance of manufacturing that keeps the specialization going and yet is doing all the necessary upgrades.  I do not continually adjust the planet when upgrades are and are not available because I am lazy that way.  I would hope a computer AI would be different on that point.  However the end goal is to have all production on a planet funneled into the assigned specialty of that planet.  It just takes me a while to get there.

For my colonization/expansion, I do have a pre-designed minimum colonizer and constructor ships that I use whenever they can reach where they need to go.  I build more equipped colonizers and constructors for exploration and border expansion.  If I intersperse constructors with the colonizers, it gives my planets a bit of time to repopulate and be ready for the next colony ship.  The need for early military ships is determined by the presence of pirate bases, also, whether Healing Hulls and your first survey ship can get you a few military ships.  Partner that survey ship with the first military ship you get and you can go chase ship graveyards while everybody else is avoiding them.  Any faction can do it, really, but the Iconian tech tree has a nice little advantage there to be taken advantage of.

If you don't nerf Thalan tech, I will play the Thalans every single game because I automatically choose the most obviously overpowered strategy/race.  No other tech tree compares to Thalan Tech.  

seriously, wtf man?   you seem to be jumping into every thread I'm involved in, no matter how unrelated,  & inserting random "play the thalan" "look at the thalan", "lets play yor v thalan multiplayer".  I know there are some races the ai is worse at than others, I know that some races need a wildly different strategy...instead of stalking me through the forum, just reply to the opening post in the thread as requested

It's not just you. He does this all the time. If you do a good job of the mod, he'll start making threads with your name in the title.

It helps if you try to think of him as kind of like a vain puppy with ADHD. He's basically harmless, and actually raises some good points. Don't listen to his solutions, but do listen when he finds a problem.

oh no, I don''t doubt that there is probably a problem with the ai handling for thalans, they are always terribad whenever I open a trade window with them in games I play... so bad in fact, that I often just gift them things to keep them from falling over.  This thread was started explicitly because the information I expect to glean from it is relevant to improving the stuff I'm working on  now (I'm working on iconian's this very minute thanks to erischild's excellent post... well a soak of them is running at least).

You explicitly asked the favorite races other people like to play.  My answer is the Thalans.  I believe I have stated the reasons why (in another thread that you made).  

Why so salty? I'm just giving you what you asked for.  

everything but... the important part of the initial question was the more involved part about early tech tree choices/goals.  the importance of the race they are used with is only because it allows me to find the tech tree being referenced without guess work.  Look at reply 1, 5, & 4 for examples.  It is that sort of informaion that I need to help guide the ai to stop drooling on itself in a way that destroys their foundational keystone right off the bat.  With the informatoion I got from erischild & directory, those two races were operating better by turn 30-50ish than they were by turn 150ish with only a couple minutes of totally finesse free tweaking.... in fact, simply loading the galciv3.exe, or starting an insane map game takes longer than I spent tweaking each race... possibly longer than both races combined even.

Tech priority is very simple:

1.  Two engine techs first on larger maps.  On smaller maps you can skip the second one (but you still want the first engine tech).

2.  Hives and Hyperion Matrix if you're the Thalan.

3.  Interstellar Government line for raw production boosts.  

4.  Whatever it is that you lack.  

In other words, to make a rule set for the AI YOU NEED TO BALANCE THE GAME MECHANICS FIRST.  

For example, if I'm playing with the old LEP system of -0.2 morale/planet, I'd focus on getting Supportize Population early for +4 morale.  With Nassie's -0.2 Money/Planet, getting things that boost income and population (such as Planetary Adaptation) becomes a lot more important.  

Also, Naselus changed colonial hospitals to provide +0.1 growth instead of +10% growth (which most of the time does nothing), thereby making planetary adaptation an important priority in the early game. In the base game itself, Planetary Adaptation is much less important.  

Which LEP system are you planning to use?  What changes to the game mechanics are you planning to make? Because the moment you make a change, I automatically know what the best strategy will be to take advantage of it. 

In the base game, Thalan tech is the best.  Hands down.  Don't even bother talking to me about the other cruddy tech trees.  

To make a "good" AI in the base game you should just give every AI Thalan Tech, get them to expand in the early game, and teach them to build Hives as the first building on every colony, and get Gaia Vortex and Hyperion Matrix ASAP.  

For economic expansion, you want a mix between expanding raw production through things like the Interstellar Government tech line, and expanding %manufacturing or %research (money is worthless in the base game).  Consider:

+50% raw production, with +50% manufacturing = +225% production. ((1+0.5) * .5 = 2.25)

+100% raw production with +0% manufacturing = +100% production.

+100% manufacturing with +0% raw production = +100% production.

Things that increase raw production are economic rings and interstellar government techs. Things that increase %manufacturing are things like factories and Starbase Factories.

 IT'S MUCH EASIER TO INCREASE %MANUFACTURING THAN IT IS TO INCREASE RAW PRODUCTION.  CONSEQUENTLY I PLACE AN EMPHASIS ON INCREASING RAW PRODUCTION SO THAT I CAN TAKE FURTHER ADVANTAGE OF THE MANUFACTURING MULTIPLIERS ON MY PLANETS.  THIS IS ALSO WHY HIVES IS SO AMAZING BECAUSE IT DRAMATICALLY INCREASE RAW PRODUCTION.  IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS YOU ARE NOT SMART AT MATH.  

As a math tutor, I have a question for you: under this scenario, what is the OPTIMAL balance if you're limited to the constraint of Raw Production + manufacturing = 100? PROVE IT WITH CALCULUS.  

DOING ANYTHING ELSE IS LITERALLY INCOMPETENT COMPARED TO THE STRATEGY OUTLINED ABOVE.  IF YOU DO NOT BALANCE THE GAME MECHANICS, I WILL CRUSH YOUR AI LIKE A HAMMER ON TOFU.  MAKING TOUGHER TOFU (WHICH IS WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO DO) ISN'T GOING TO HELP AGAINST A MEAN, ANGRY PERSON WITH A VERY LARGE HAMMER.  

In other words, you might want to consider changing the game mechanics to the fit the AI than the other way around.   Much easier that way. 

@erischild, thank you greatly.  That was enough to make the iconians wildly more effective at building colonies & quicklylaunching into a stable gallop right out of the gate

Thanks directory, I know that terrans are kind of 'generic', but can you expand on that a little?  maybe something similar to the thought process/early goal type format  erischild used?

Teach the AI to build economic rings around its planets (for the increase in raw production) BUT THEN TO SPEND THE REST OF ITS RESOURCES BY BUILDING FACTORIES OR RESEARCH LABS ON THEM DEPENDING ON WHAT TYPE OF PLANET IT IS.  

To get the AI to become economically competent, you need to teach the AI how to specialize.  

go away!  The ai has fundamental problems in the tech trees that need addressing first because they cause the Ais even larger self inflicted wounds

Sure.  But then you'll end up wasting a lot of time building an inferior product that any strategically intelligent person can drive a truck through.  

If you are incapable of listening to good advice, well, I guess I'll just rip into shreds whatever AI you decide to come up with and post it over the forums.