the "best" start strategy

[B'tai Hazra]

Hi,

 

I've been pondering how to start the game and what strategy is the best. Both regarding builds and research.

 

Building up the homeworld or starting new colonies? I'm not fully sure (and will probably not be even when I know my starting position) what is best here. Should i keep the HW "as is" and focus on quickly expanding to another world in order to make a second production base (perhaps in another system) or should I focus on the HW and try to maximise it's production before I start building new colonies?

 

Weaponry or Horizon technologies? My first thought was to focus early on exploration techs (like survey sensors and then colonisation techs) but after reading some about the more aggressive empires I'm more inclined to focus on getting some weapon technologies in order to help defend myself when the time comes. Otherwise the first warships that I build will be obsolete before I meet my first neighbour.

 

I've heard that the tech tree is huge and I guess there is plenty of opportunities to research on techs that is less important.

 

Tips and hints would be helpful!

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[cestvel]

It depends o your playstyle, race design and cirumstances.

 

 

If you got a good Homesystem and you are a colonizer, start colonizing a bit, but the HW won't be surpassed by a colony in quite some time (well, I know of no core player, who has done such a feat).

 

 

So building up your HW should be one of your goals.

 

 

If you find exceptional good worlds, that you can colonize, by all means, do it.

 

 

If you start exploring, then you should also be prepared for conflict (aka weaponary).

 

 

If you turtle up, you might get your industry in good shape which can withstand superior weponary due to

massproduction of lower grade items.

 

 

But either way, it will take month until you will meet your first neighbour.

[Breoghan]

More like a few months to meet up with others, unless they're already active and heading in your direction. At least based on my experience, that is.

[ShadowKitsune]

I can't really give you specific advice without specific knowledge of your racial profile and homesystem. Please don't post it here, nor e-mail it to me (unless you really want to).

 

I can give you general advice, though.

 

Early on, stick to colonizing Ideal and Nearly Ideal worlds that have large quantities of a strategically valuable resource; if you're going to colonize at all. Colonies require a lot more infrastructure than does your Homeworld, especially when you start looking into the cost of building colony ships and cargo ships to get your colonists from here to there and the colonial output from there to here.

 

For example, if your Homeworld is Iron poor, as in a yield of less than 100, and you have an in-system world that is Ideal for purposes of colonization that is Iron rich (>300 Iron), then set up a colony there. Why? Because Iron is a strategically valuable resource. The colony is Ideal, which means that the population will grow. The colony is in system, so an AP 2 ship (the minimum in the game) can make a round trip in a single turn.

 

Research is a tougher question. It depends on what kind of player you want to be and what your race is design to do. Is your race "good" at Research (e.g. Brain-in-a-Jar)? Is it built for Exploration? Colonization? Ground Warfare? Is it average at just about everything?

 

You generally have a few turns before you meet any of your neighbors, more if they are isolationist by nature. You'll need better Jump Survey Sensors, if you're going to map anything beyond your Homesystem and immediately back again. If you want to find nifty things on the worlds of your home system, you'll need Survey Landers, Science Labs and Cargo Bays. If you want to spread far and wide, you'll need better Engines. There is never anything wrong with studying the Horizon Techs like Space Science, Medical Science and Computer Systems.

 

Remember you have 25 Research Centers, which are most efficient when researching one Item each, so early on you can spread the research around a bit.

 

NOTE: If you had any racial points left after your build, they will be used by the 1st Research Center to "assist" in researching the assigned Item. In general, put the research Item that you deem the most important first and the least important 25th.

 

There is all kinds of additional advice scattered about this Board. So just look around, you may find some really neat things like Jump Drives that don't reset after their first Jump.

 

FWIW,

-SK

[ali-t-akua]

Early on, stick to colonizing Ideal and Nearly Ideal worlds that have large quantities of a strategically valuable resource; if you're going to colonize at all. Colonies require a lot more infrastructure than does your Homeworld, especially when you start looking into the cost of building colony ships and cargo ships to get your colonists from here to there and the colonial output from there to here.

Actually, you want to look for Ideal, Extremely Low or Very Low worlds. For the latter two if Atmosphere is the major item contributing to attrition, you can easily colonize them with Domed Cities, a research item which should eliminate all attrition allowing your colony to grow. You may also be able to do this with Moderate worlds as well where Atmosphere is the major attrition issue. It really depends on your race, the sources of attrition and the amount of exploitable resources as to whether it makes sense to colonize a particular world.

 

Resources that you need:

 

You cannot have enough Iron, Lumber and Crystals so get as much of these as you can. (Lumber tends to be rare). Gaseous Elements, Industrial Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Radioactive Elements, Rare Elements, Light Metals, Gemstones and Water are also very useful resources that you can use lots of.

 

For certain weapons, you may need Caldaran Crystals, Shenn Stones, and Ghuran Demonblood so if you decide to follow the weapons paths that use one of those resources, that will be important as well.

 

The same goes for the items used by Mental Powers like Jinn Crystals, Tritantalum and Garoxx Jewels.

 

After the first few turns, you may find you need to build some ground units. Then you will find Fruits and Vegetables, Grains and Meat become useful along with Iron, Water and Light Metals.

 

Coal is only necessary if you use Coal Fired Power Plants as far as I can tell. (Sometimes used when starting a new colony although these power plants are not very efficient.)

 

Fibers are used for Textiles that along with the Improved and Advanced versions have a couple of uses, adding to the growth rate of the colony along with the NBC ground unit.

 

Rare Herbs and Plants are used for Pharmaceuticals as well as the Improved and Advanced versions. These are used for some installations and a couple of ground units.

 

Precious Metals has some minor uses as far as I know but I don't know of any use for Mineral Fertilizer. (Thank god Pete left Animal Fertilizer off the list of resources because we all know what a pile fo crap that would be. )

[B'tai Hazra]

Hi,

 

I understand that your answers can only be general in nature. Especially since I won't tell you any specifics about my race or my starting position...

 

I'm not the guy that turtle up since I believe that so much more can be gained by spreading and exploiting a larger territory. My race is not a "brain-in-a-jar" and should fare well in regards to living on other planets and a history of internal conflict have made them fairly good in ground combat. I will probably, if a suitable planet is found, try to build a second colony pretty quick (I am a builder and that's what I like to do most) but I guess I'll have to see if I will focus on the new colony or just keep it as a funny project while I concentrate on the HW. I get the impression that building a new "production" colony is a rather time consuming and resource consuming project.

 

Thank you for the tips on minerals. Very good to know what is needed in large quantities and not, and what is considered a good yield... I did save some racial points and they should keep me going for a couple of turns.

 

I believe I will enjoy this game very much.

 

Peter

[tigeriith]

I am a comparative new player also and have one piece of advice for you -- it was given to me and I did not understand it and now I wish I had.

 

"Don't build any Construction Materials" on your Homeworld -- at least, not for a long time. You start off with a huge excess of Industrial Capacity and can recover millions (even tens of millions) of Construction Materials just by DISMantling Industrial Complexes -- it costs you nothing in game resources (you can always build them back if needed) and only 15 cents in real world money (or is this the real world?) for the order.

 

This will cut your initial need for Timber to a very low amount and give you more Steel for other projects.

[cestvel]

I am a comparative new player also and have one piece of advice for you -- it was given to me and I did not understand it and now I wish I had.

 

"Don't build any Construction Materials" on your Homeworld -- at least, not for a long time. You start off with a huge excess of Industrial Capacity and can recover millions (even tens of millions) of Construction Materials just by DISMantling Industrial Complexes -- it costs you nothing in game resources (you can always build them back if needed) and only 15 cents in real world money (or is this the real world?) for the order.

 

This will cut your initial need for Timber to a very low amount and give you more Steel for other projects.

 

One Clarification for this:

This advise is feasible, because you will discover better Industries and Stripmines eventually.

These will replace your initial Industries and Stripmines, but are not build from Construction Materials.

So you will end up later on with a great many CMs from these then obsolete installations, which can be

used then for other things (most likely mines and powerstations).

[ali-t-akua]

Hi,

 

I understand that your answers can only be general in nature. Especially since I won't tell you any specifics about my race or my starting position...

 

I'm not the guy that turtle up since I believe that so much more can be gained by spreading and exploiting a larger territory. My race is not a "brain-in-a-jar" and should fare well in regards to living on other planets and a history of internal conflict have made them fairly good in ground combat. I will probably, if a suitable planet is found, try to build a second colony pretty quick (I am a builder and that's what I like to do most) but I guess I'll have to see if I will focus on the new colony or just keep it as a funny project while I concentrate on the HW. I get the impression that building a new "production" colony is a rather time consuming and resource consuming project.

 

Thank you for the tips on minerals. Very good to know what is needed in large quantities and not, and what is considered a good yield... I did save some racial points and they should keep me going for a couple of turns.

 

I believe I will enjoy this game very much.

 

Peter

 

If you find a planet with good yield in at least one major resource such as Iron or Crystals, build a colony there. The investment you have to make in time and resources will be well worth it.

[Krelnett_of_Kraan]

 

...

You cannot have enough Iron, Lumber and Crystals so get as much of these as you can. (Lumber tends to be rare). Gaseous Elements, Industrial Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Radioactive Elements, Rare Elements, Light Metals, Gemstones and Water are also very useful resources that you can use lots of.

...

WATER??? You're kidding, right? We have billions of gallons of the stuff purified and lying in gigantic tanks all over our home system. The trivial amount that gets mixed with baby food and fermented for our mead exports doesn't even dent our supply. We did use a little tiny bit during the year Fusion plants were better than Hydro power, but now that we're on Antimatter it's just sitting there.

Let us know where your HW is and we'll gladly ship you a bunch of it.

[cestvel]

 

...

You cannot have enough Iron, Lumber and Crystals so get as much of these as you can. (Lumber tends to be rare). Gaseous Elements, Industrial Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Radioactive Elements, Rare Elements, Light Metals, Gemstones and Water are also very useful resources that you can use lots of.

...

WATER??? You're kidding, right? We have billions of gallons of the stuff purified and lying in gigantic tanks all over our home system. The trivial amount that gets mixed with baby food and fermented for our mead exports doesn't even dent our supply. We did use a little tiny bit during the year Fusion plants were better than Hydro power, but now that we're on Antimatter it's just sitting there.

Let us know where your HW is and we'll gladly ship you a bunch of it.

 

Most likely converted to troops

[Sakarissa]

One of the best things to do when you start a new empire is too check out your homesystem. This means a lot of NM/GEO/PMAP/CSV orders for fleets. This will let you know which orbits are worth making the effort of colonizing. I'll give you this freebie. Don't worry about Gas Giants. You won't be able to make a dent against the attrition on them. Some players play the rounding game with attrition on gas giants but chances are you are better off ignoring them. The only good thing about gas giants is that they give 100% fuel for each SKIM order.

 

If you are lucky enough to have one or more gas giants, then seriously consider making SKIM ships and put them on a convoy to get the fuel from the giant and drop the fuel off at your HW.

 

Another good tactic is to put giant (and I mean giant as in 1,000,000 or more fuel tanks) tankers at each of your warp points. Put those fleets on XFUEL orders and they will refuel any ship that colocates with them. You can even setup the convoy at the gas giant to drop off at the warp point tankers instead of the HW. Or do both.

 

A good SKIM ship will have the following:

 

1) at least one engine. In the beginning you won't be able to make ships with more than 2 APs. With better engines that will change....a lot.

2) a lot of fuel tankage. You determine how much.

3) a lot of fuel shuttles. These are necessary for the SKIM order to work.

 

That's pretty much all they will need. Hope this helps.

 

Sakarissa

The Circle

[hobknob]

One of my starting positions was a colonizer and I was blessed with a large system allowing for 20+ colonies. by colonizing every world that had a decent return on investment I was able to effectively double my HW production long before advances in industries arrived.

 

I used a standard rule of thumb for colonizing. Only colonize in your home system for yields under 250. Only build colonies big enough for 3.5 times yield in mines. The rest is too little return for the cost IMHO, unless you have a yield in excess of 700.

 

Realize that sooner or later you will be able to build up your HW to far surpass most colonial efforts.

 

Going the colony route is pretty order intensive until you get all the convoy routes set up, but then it is like money in the bank.

 

Early on, 5 years ago, it really looked like being able to colonize was the only way to go. Pete assured us that was not the case, but it was only several years later that his advise became apparent. You don't need to colonize at all if you don't want to.

 

My recommendation would be to explore as fast as you can in every direction until you bump into somebody. Just be prepared to need to defend yourself when you do.

 

Research wise, I don't think you can go wrong with engines, armor, NTWD's (on the board somewhere) and at least one weapon system. Horizon techs are also a must, but not all of them get you stuff that will be useful to you. Ground techs can also wait for a while, IMHO, and should only occupy a small % of research, maybe 15% max for quite a while.

 

Good Luck and most of all have a lot of FUN

 

 

One more thing. I would NEVER build a ship with a jump drive that did not also have at least one fuel shuttle. Others will disagree of course. I try and design each ship with the ability to completely refuel at a GG in a minimum of 3 turns sitting over the planet skimming.

 

[B'tai Hazra]

I am a comparative new player also and have one piece of advice for you -- it was given to me and I did not understand it and now I wish I had.

 

"Don't build any Construction Materials" on your Homeworld -- at least, not for a long time. You start off with a huge excess of Industrial Capacity and can recover millions (even tens of millions) of Construction Materials just by DISMantling Industrial Complexes -- it costs you nothing in game resources (you can always build them back if needed) and only 15 cents in real world money (or is this the real world?) for the order.

 

Thank you! This seems like a very good advice. I'm not used to the fact that dismantling return your whole investment. If I after my first turn notice that I have to many factories in regard to resource production I can actually dismantle some factories and use the construction materials to build more strip mines. End result actually having a bigger factory output (as more factories can be used even if the total amount is less). I can also dismantle strip mines to build iron mines giving me a more effective resource exploition.

 

Another good tactic is to put giant (and I mean giant as in 1,000,000 or more fuel tanks) tankers at each of your warp points. Put those fleets on XFUEL orders and they will refuel any ship that colocates with them. You can even setup the convoy at the gas giant to drop off at the warp point tankers instead of the HW. Or do both.

 

This is certainly an idea I will try to follow! One thing that I don't grasp is how the XFUEL order work. Does it mean that every fleet that enter the sector holding the tanker automatically is refuelled, even if it moves on (for example enter the warp gate) the same turn:

 

AP 1: move to warp gate, automatically getting fuel from the tanker (no orders or APs needed)

AP 2: using the fuel to enter the warp gate

 

Is this how it works?

 

One of my starting positions was a colonizer and I was blessed with a large system allowing for 20+ colonies. by colonizing every world that had a decent return on investment I was able to effectively double my HW production long before advances in industries arrived.

 

I used a standard rule of thumb for colonizing. Only colonize in your home system for yields under 250. Only build colonies big enough for 3.5 times yield in mines. The rest is too little return for the cost IMHO, unless you have a yield in excess of 700.

 

.....

 

Good Luck and most of all have a lot of FUN

 

 

I hope for a good starting system (lots of planets) as I realise that colonising your start system is far easier than colonising nearby system. Just 1 warp gate makes each trip several cycles longer with 2 AP. Is there ever a yield large enough to motivate building colonies in other systems? In theory its generally good to spread your production capacity to several locations as it will be harder for a potential enemy to take you out (lose 1 centre and you can still continue the fight).

 

Thank you! I fully intend to have fun!

 

Peter

[Drasn]

There's not an XFUEL command I'm aware of. There is a SUPP order though. As long as you keep the tanker full of fuel, and you have set the SUPP order on it, it will transfer fuel to any ship that comes into its same orbit or WP.

 

The discussion that helped me early on is in this thread