Without the tech for actually colonizing those planets you only gain half of the FIDSI from population on those planets. If you only want access to the planet then I suppose going Eco is worth it? Generally, I tend to weave colonization tech into my research so it's not an issue and keep trucking along in Militarist government. Barring Gas you should not need access to your full system at the drop of a hat anyway so waiting out the tech to use planets does not tend to be a problem, at least for me.

Other factions (Cravers) have the problem of approval loss due to craver population not liking the party, but is not an issue with Hissho.

The key thing is, occupying systems before having the colonization tech can be valuable to deny those systems to the neighbors. If the mechanics are similar to vanilla, throwing outposts early let you convert them later into colonies at a lower keii cost, as it goes down with the outpost food growth.

Other than that, well, not the best option.

Ah, I didn't realize I could make more outposts too...

But loosing the laws for cheaper fleets and more loot from destroying ships for a full "election" cycle is kinda painful.

I think it might have been worth it my current run considering the number of resources on ice/arctic planets, but probably very situational.

Originally posted by Fulano:

Ah, I didn't realize I could make more outposts too...

But loosing the laws for cheaper fleets and more loot from destroying ships for a full "election" cycle is kinda painful.

I think it might have been worth it my current run considering the number of resources on ice/arctic planets, but probably very situational.

Be aware that each outpost still requires it's own sources of food. If all you have is your home system you will rapidly starve them out while trying to spread quickly.

Yes it's a terrible idea IMO. Even if I could freely colonise those worlds without requiring techs or a government change, I still wouldn't do it early on, because the hammer cost of settling a T3 biome is crippling at that stage. Assuming the 4th planet can be colonised with a T1/T2 tech (not sure whether the map generator guarantees at least 1 reasonably easily colonisable planet on the home system or not), 2 planets should be sufficient for a while.

You can leave the other 2 uncolonised until you've almost run out of space on the first 2. Remember you can use the basic starting behemoth to keep dropping probes on them while they remain uncolonised - if you colonise them you will have to move the behemoth somewhere else to deploy its probes, and then you lose the flat +10 FIDSI that it gives, which is a significant chunk of your economy in the early game.

Better to stay militarist and use the T1 law to help with rushing out a 5 CP fleet instead, after the basic infrastructure (xeno industries etc) is up, and use that fleet plus the hero to start bullying nearby city states minor factions (sorry, been playing mostly Civ 5 lately, just come back to ES2).

Settling the 3rd and 4th planets is not as important as getting your Keii up to 85 asap, and being able to keep it there whilst having the super strong hatched at home law up indefinitely. Best way to do that is by subjugating the nearby minor factions which gives you big whacks of 10 Keii each time you do it, and by killing pirate bases which gives smaller amounts of Keii but twice the normal pirate loot. Colonising T3 biomes won't help with those things, getting an early attack fleet launched will.

Edit: didn't notice your last line originally, I play unmodded, not familiar with the mod you're using but if it significantly alters the above mechanics then I guess everything I wrote is invalid.

Originally posted by Sharkman:

Edit: didn't notice your last line originally, I play unmodded, not familiar with the mod you're using but if it significantly alters the above mechanics then I guess everything I wrote is invalid.

It still seems pretty valid. I didn't think of the colonizing cost, which is a good point, and getting a good army ASAP is one of the more important things to do as Hisso.

Using ESG mod vs AI is a terrible idea in that the AI is not particularly adept in this game; hence, any Mod that makes ES2 easier is just making the AI even worst.

That aside, it depends on what speed you are playing the game at. For a Fast speed match with the planets that you have access to colonization filling up fast, going Ecologist is not a bad idea at all. The FIDS penalty of not having the planet colonization tech doesn't include the FIDS you get from the probes, which is where most of your FIDS should come from and the reason why you have to fill up the Home System ASAP.

Maybe if you've also got a huge pile of anomalies on your planets, but ecologists is better for going wide than tall.