Master of Orion/Tips and Tricks

Getting the most out of Poor planets:

Poor and Ultra-Poor planets are usually low on the colonization priority list. But you'll usually colonize them eventually - often one is a good stepping stone to other planets, and you don't want your enemies using one as a stepping stone to invade the centre of your empire.

We know that Industry, Defense and Ship Building are all impeded on these planets. But Ecology and Research are not, and this is useful. Stop looking at the Poor planets as a place to build factories. Look at them instead as a place to build people!

Consider: initially it takes 10 BC to build a factory, which gives 1 production of which half is taken up cleaning up its own pollution. Initially it takes 20 BC to build a colonist, which gives 0.5BC production and no pollution. Same yield, different cost. But on a poor planet the cost is the same - and the colonists can be exported!

For Klackons, or Ultra-poor planets, this works out even better.

If you've colonised a poor or ultra-poor planet as a stepping stone to other planets, set it to 100% Eco initially. (And ship a few colonists out there - poor planets are often quite large!) By the time you get colonies planted beyond the poor planet, it should have a decent number of colonists already. Send half of them off to the new colonies. This is useful twice over in the early game where your colonists only move at speed 1 - the poor planet can be used both to leap-frog colonists to the outer planets, and when they're moving people of their own breeding, those people don't have to go so far.

If they're full of people and have nowhere to send them, you may as well build factories. If they manage to build all their factories they will do a very nice job generating research for you. But otherwise - mercenaries! These are the planets you want to send soldiers from - or to send replacement colonists to planets where you have already sent off half the population as soldiers.

The biggest weakness of these planets is usually defense; they often won't have missile bases or shields of their own. Even this can have a silver lining, depending whether the enemy sends a small or a large invasion fleet after them. Sometimes it can be better to leave a small invasion fleet hovering over your planet, while you breed people on the ground as fast as you can; let the Silicoids or Meklars tire themselves out sending wave after wave of attackers, while your other planets continue to advance the empire.