Grrn_bean, what kind of game are you considering? Map settings offer pretty serious variation, so "two planets" could be two of thee or two of several hundred.

I'm interested in how some of the pros around here might answer your question, but I suspect you need to add a few more details to get the kind of answers you want.

As GW would say, this setup smells funny. How can you only have two planets in a gigantic setup? Of course, I'm always going for abundant everything, but I usually get 500 planets in a gigantic galaxy. Never tried rare everything, still can't imagine that wouldn't result in at least a hundred planets.

But I'll give your question a shot anyway. With only two planets you really don't have much opportunity to specialize. You also don't mention the size of the planets. Are these your starting PQ10 and PQ4?

If so, I would use the PQ4 for research and the PQ10 for manufacturing and income. If you had two reasonable planets of at least PQ10, I'd probably keep them pretty balanced with mostly manufacturing and income but with a research building or two on each.

I'd also be frantically building an array of economic starbases to cover these planets to boost manufacturing and research. 16 of these ought to put you back into contention with the AI, though with so little manufacturing these would probably take forever to complete.

I'm interested in how some of the pros around here might answer your question

GW by this time, you're as much of a pro as anyone else.

This would really depend on bonuses, but at this point i think research buildings would be a complete waste .

It would be more productive to have a manufacturing capitol on your civ capitol, and make as many factories as possible. Then I would place build focus on research. This way you would maximize the number of total points you could extract, while giving yourself the capability to quickly upgrade a planet or pump out ships. I would never have more than zero percent put towards research. It also saves basically wasted research time on a building type.

The second planet I would try to max out the population and income. Maybe put a factory or two on there with a starport for some extra ship support, but I'd probably need the money. This one would get the econ and eventually the political capitol. This planet wouldn't get the array of econ starbases, I wouldn't see a point.

Noting this, I think for once the military starbases might actually be of great use in a galaxy like this, as planet protection is a must.

I would also rush research the terraforming techs and factory building techs.
Trade would be important too, since you're going to need the income. I'd send the freighters from the manufacturing planet because they can build faster, and you can reuse those stacked econ bases as the freighter revenue boosters.

Researching influence boosters would be a waste of time. You can't culturally conquer a planet in this galaxy.

Researching hull sizes above medium is probably a waste too. You can't afford to pump out large or huge ships. Too much galaxy to cover.

Speed is obviously a must.

Galactic resources of all kinds except for influence will be the key to survival. With this strategy you won't need to upgrade research miners, but it's nice to have the resource so no one else gets it.

Weapons wise I'd do some scouting so I knew what defenses to focus on. You're going to want to keep your ships around for as long as possible.

Also, unless you've massively outsoldiered a civilization tech wise, you will have to prep your invasion forces by sitting your transports out in space for a bit and letting populations regrow.

And now that i've done all this thinking... I'm going to have to try this game. This sounds like a completely different approach.

If you build all factories and focus on research, you lose a lot of flexibility. I love the ability to switch from 100% research to 100% production on any given turn too much to give it up. But it could be interesting if you trade for most of your techs.

With only two planets, I would make one the manufacturing capital with all factories, and make the other one the tech capital with lots of labs. The tech capital will also need a few factories and a starport so it can actually build the labs. You don't need any farms, markets, or morale buildings because you can make enough money from trade to run your factories and labs at 100%. Each trade route will bring in a lot of money because the map is big, and trade routes don't take up any of the limited space on your planets. It might be too late now, but building additional survey ships can be very profitable regardless of how many planets you have.

I don't think starbases of any kind are more vital on these settings, because starbases create a percentage boost to planetary income or output. I think the cheapest way to improve your civ is to conquer some more planets. It will take a while to get to your target, but once you get there, the war should be short. Just make sure you send enough fighters and transports to finish off the enemy in one go. One nice trick is to send your ships towards the target, then research the logistics and soldiering tech you need while they are in transit.

I just checked. When at 100% spending on military, with focus on research, 25% of the base military production is diverted to research. The research gets full research bonuses, but no production bonuses. There's no overall loss at all, but a maximum of 25% research isn't much, you might be stuck researching much slower than you desire.

So, like I said before, it would be efficient, but not flexible.

I've played this type of game, too. Check my profile, the Yor game was played on suicidal, on a gigantic map with rare stars, planets, and habitables, so everyone only had their home system. I won in two years, and I didn't build a single economic starbase.

I don't really like economic bases in general. They don't get good until you've researched most of the industrial tech branch. They cost a lot to set up: you have to build he constructors, pay the logistics cost when founding the starbase, and pay 10 bc per turn on maintenance for each one. And they don't even do that much. A maxed out starbase is only about a 25% bonus. Bottom line, they take a long time to make a positive return on the investment, especially on these settings, when each base will only affect one or two planets. The trade boosters are no big deal either. On a big map like this, you'll make more money off of long trade routes. A mini-freighter on a long route will spend a very small percentage of its time in a starbase's radius, so those trade boosters aren't worth a constructor.

I think the better way to increase the income and output of your civilization is to "acquire" more planets. More planets means more planetary tiles, more taxes, and faster population growth. Taking two planets would double your civilization's overall power, and it can be done with less investment in tech and ships than building a bunch of economic bases.

2 years? way to rush em with speed cheese

Yeah, using fast ships on a gigantic map is totally against the rules. And rushing is cheating too.

The point is, if I had spent time and resources building all those economy starbases, I wouldn't have been able to win as early. You don't have to build an ultimate economy before you attack someone, that just gives them the chance to build a big economy and military too. Instead, get a small early advantage, attack, and then use their planets to help boost your economy. If you do it well, it's a lot more efficient than spamming starbases.