AFAIK It doesn't matter which planet you put your research wonders on, because their effect is global. Where your scientists are located doesn't effect the bonus like it does with a research location.
Hmm, I read up on it and you are right, I thought it worked like location bonuses but it seems like I am wrong. Which is odd because it should work for Pirates, then.
As for stacking other effects, this leads to what I mentioned in my previous post: actual game play decisions. Do you stack Bakuras high speed shipyards with the Advanced Medicomplex for early growth and speedy construction?
It depends. My last game I never expanded beyond one or two planets so all my wonders were clustered on the same planets.
Continuing on, I agree with you about wanting tall to be viable compared to wide. The thing is, in distant worlds a tall empire is FAAAAAAR more powerful than a wide one. Wide empires do not exist in distant worlds. Consider the overwhelming superiority of conquering another capital instead of founding several of your own colonies. Tall empires don't need a leg up at all. At the moment what I feel the game needs is payoff for colonization that doesn't take decades to show you a return. If you think that wide empires are just as good as tall ones, check out Icemania's extreme AAR.
This is just incorrect. Wide empires are always better in the long run because they always eventually surpass tall. Sure, capturing capitals is better, but also more difficult (unless you use exploits), colonization is an easy, pain-free way to spread your empire. The biggest bonus of wide is that it increases your territorial influence which gives you more exclusive systems to set up mining stations and resort bases on, which also boosts your economy.
Taller empires have far fewer planets and thus their influence is small, in the far more extreme cases tall empires will even deal with resource issues due to their limited influence.
Also, even if a tall empire can match the economy of a wide one, IIRC your research capacity is determined entirely by population
Perhaps we have different definitions of tall vs wide..?
Tall = few, well-developed planets. Wide = Many, lesser-developed planets.
