Sirian's Master of Orion Page

Sirian's Master of Orion Page

Sirian's Master of Orion Page

Sirian's Tutorial

Colonizing

As our ships depart with new orders, we're still on Turn 3. Click Next Turn and watch the ships move. We'll continue building factories at Sol for now, so click Next Turn again. A scout arrives at Bootis.

We're three for three on finding habitable planets. This one is on the smaller side, but still good. Click Next Turn again to move to Turn 6. A scout arrives at Spica.

Wow, a 75 planet. Our fortunes are riding high. We've barely left the driveway and already we've got almost enough good land within range to be competitive.

After acknowledging the scout report from Spica, action at Misha will occur with our colony ship.

You may only create a colony during the action phase. That is, if you choose No and opt not to settle, you will have to wait another turn to get another opportunity. You can't settle during the Orders phase. Click Yes instead and create our second colony.

At this point you can change the name of the star, if you like. I often do when playing single player, giving my stars thematic names tied to the race I'm playing (kitty-type names for the feline Mrrshans, for example). However, for the purposes of comparison, names should be left at default if playing in a tournament game, to allow easy comparisons. Single player games, do whatever you please. For this tutorial, leave the names at default so you can follow along more easily.

New colonies begin with two million colonists. This is enough to have 1 BC worth of production. (You get 0.5 BC from each unit of colonists).

Now that we have a new colony, it is time to transport more colonists there, to speed its growth. How many should we send from Earth? To understand my recommendation, you need to learn how population growth works.

Population growth in Master of Orion works on a bell curve. When a planet is half full, the population grows at the maximum rate. When a planet is almost empty or almost full, growth proceeds at the minimum rate. Population has the same production (0.5 per pop unit) regardless of its location, so moving people to the new colony will not hurt our production. What it will do is slow Sol's production a bit but speed Misha's production by the same amount. You don't have to move colonists. For some strategies, this may not be the right move. However, if you want to maximize your total growth curve, this is my recommendation.

Since pop growth is fastest when a planet is half full, I recommend sending enough colonists to reduce Sol to half its maximum. Let's take a look.

Sol's pop max is 100. Half that is 50. Current pop is 66. If we send 16 to Misha, there will be 50 left, and Earth will grow new colonists at the best rate. The colonists moving to Misha will take three turns to arrive. Once they do, Misha will be closer to half its potential, and it too will grow population at a faster rate.

We can send 16 this turn, then continue to send more each turn if we like. My rule of thumb is to stop sending colonists when the new colony reaches one third of its maximum. That leaves the meatiest part of the bell curve for it to work with in growing its colonists. The middle third is the fastest growth rate, while the first and last third are both markedly slower.

Normally, I will do this with my second colony, then max out my home planet. The home planet will build colony ships, while the second planet gets up to speed. Then I will use population from the second planet to help seed all the others, while the home planet stays full. This won't work if the second planet is too small, though. Say, anything below size 40. (I've had my second planet be as small as the minimum, which is size 10. Not much you can do with a size 10).