M3Shadow's Development Plans Guide

As we all know the documentation for DEA's and Development plans sucks in a major way (as in non to nearly non-existance).

Here is my take on how Development plans work and using this "Theory" I get terrific results from my Dev Plans and hardly have to manage my planets at all because they do exactly what I want (95% of the time) with little or no input from me to the planetary viseroy.

First understand that each level of the plan is weighted in importance: Primary -1.0 Secondary -0.7 Tertiary -0. 3 Now I'm not going to give advice on specific plans for each catagory (like All planets, Core etc), but I will give examples so you can see how this weight factor seems to work.

I'll use two examples so you can see how it seems to work in the game (so far my observation hasn't changed my theory). Be aware the the examples I give here are for a specific race type with specific race settings etc. You don't need to follow my plans, you just need to understand the process to enable YOU to develope your own plans that WILL work for you, and following this should work well!

Initially you have a Core World, in my example I'll make it also Rich. Also we know it's a Sweet Spot. First we have a general catagory called ALL Planets, this Dev plan effects ALL planets (if you create one that is), that's right every single planet you own or will ever own.

In my example I've giving it this weighted development plan:

All Planets

• Primary - Infrastructure
• Secondary - Moral
• Tertiary - Research

Now I create my Core World dev plan (this will work for my starting system but also all planets that eventually turn INTO Core worlds in future. That's important to make note of, a planet will go through several stages in its development, rarely will it stay a single type. It may go in stages like: NEW, then SECONDARY, then CORE for example (there are many combo's of this evolution, just understand that planets evolve in category type (and each planet has two type categories assigned to it, you as the player/ emperor can even assign your own player defined category if you like to help shape worlds to your desire.

Core World

• Primary - Mine
• Secondary - Manufacture
• Tertiary - Military

Now as I said my home world is also Rich, so I create this Rich World Plan:

Rich World

• Primary - Mine
• Secondary - Mine
• Tertiary - Manufacture

Also remember I said that this world was also a Sweet Spot? Well it still is, so I'll create a Sweet Spot plan too, like this:

Sweet Spot

• Primary - Research
• Secondary - Farm
• Tertiary - Government

Now, if we take all these plans and look at the weight factors we've created for our Viceroy, we get this in order (I won't combine them yet):

• Infrastructure - 1.0
• Moral - 0.7
• Research - 0.3
• Mine - 1.0
• Manufacture - 0.7
• Military - 0.3
• Mine - 1.0
• Mine - 0.7
• Manufacture - 0.3
• Research - 1.0
• Farm - 0.7
• Government - 0.3

Now we add these weighted factors up and we get a general idea of how the Viceroy will be managing our planets. In order of importance:

• Mine - 2.7
• Research - 1.3
• Infrastructure - 1.0 AND Manufacture - 1.0
• Moral - 0.7 AND Farm - 0.7
• Military - 0.3 AND Government - 0.3

Now what this means (at least according to my observation) is that on a Core world that is rich (and is a sweet spot world) my Viceroy is going to look at its programming (that's what you're doing here, doing a crude form of programming), and see that I want Mines first (perhaps I am in desperate need of mines with this setup), if there are plenty of mines (or at least one mine already on the planet) then it will look and see that I next would like research, as soon as at least one is built then it looks at the list again and understands that I next would like either an Infrastructure AND/ OR a Manufacture building. it may look and see that I've got lots of mines, so it builds the Manufacture first, or if mines are low or in the red, it builds the Infrastructure etc. Now once it does that, it says next the emperor wants either Moral centers built or some Farms and decides which is best (perhaps the world is good for Fertility so it builds a farm or the unrest of the planet is high, so it builds a recreation center etc, then it sees I want either Military or a Government center and decides which to build etc. Do you see how this works? As time goes you're going to want to modify your plans to tweak it to give you more or less of something for those types of planets etc. Be aware that some of these choices are also maintenance choices and not strict DEA builders (like Infrastructure, Moral and Planetary Defenses etc) They can be used to manage a planet AFTER it's maxed out for structures.

Now let me show you an evolution in progress, lets say I have a new planet and I'll show you how the Dev plan adjusts over it's development. First I'll define a couple of more plans, one for NEW planets and one for SECONDARY planets and we'll assume it's a Rich Sweet Spot world again (only to save me typing, lol)

New World

• Primary - Farm
• Secondary - Manufacture
• Tertiary - Moral

Secondary World

• Primary - Manufacture
• Secondary - Military
• Tertiary - Research

Now when it's a new world it will use this weighted plan (remember I'm reusing my above plans as well):

All Planets Plan

New Planet Plan

Rich World Plan

Sweet Spot Plan

Which comes out to this:

• Infrastructure - 1.0
• Moral - 0.7
• Research - 0.3
• Mine - 1.0
• Mine - 0.7
• Manufacture - 0.3
• Research - 1.0
• Farm - 0.7
• Government - 0.3
• Farm - 1.0
• Manufacture - 0.7
• Moral - 0.3

Totaling up like this: (in order of importance)

• Mine - 1.7 AND Farm - 1.7
• Research - 1.3
• Infrastructure - 1.0 AND Moral - 1.0 AND Manufacture - 1.0
• Government - 0.3

See how this is changed from just your standard Core world (giving the settings I've already outlined?)

Now once its been in development for a while, if all goes well it will graduate to a Secondary World and will have this weighted plan (I'm just going to summarize here okay?)

All Planets Plan

Secondary World Plan

Rich World Plan

Sweet Spot Plan

Mine - 1.7
Research - 1.6
Manufacture - 1.3
Infrastructure - 1. 0
Moral - 0.7 AND Farm - 0.7 AND Military - 0.7
Government - 0. 3

Once it graduates from Secondary to Core then it will use the above plan. I hope this has illustrated for you how you can manipulate your plans to have your planets develop in a manner you want. If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will gladly point it out to me, but so far this has worked for me like a charm and has GREATLY increased my understanding and enjoyment of the game. Happy Gaming folks!

__________________

Dennis J. Greene
aka
Shadow