Contact - early or late

[Elowan]

Which is more advantageous or doesn't it matter?

[Kevin Arisa]

I assume you are referring to when you start meeting the other species in the game. It mostly depends on how your race is set up. A peaceful race or one that is not very good at combat might want to avoid contact until better developed. Often times the AI will declare war for no apparent reason. A warrior race however would want to find someone to fight early on to keep their population happy. There are many factors that play into the dicision to meet or not to meet. Sometimes though, the AI doesnt give you the luxury of a choice. Hope this helps answer your question.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Is your strategy early game, mid game or late game? That is, do you go for the weapons, or the industry? When is your empire the strongest?

[NullAshton]

I'd much rather meet someone early, than late. Do you know how annoying it is to go years without meeting someone? Especially when you're ready to vaporize someone.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

/me backs away from Ashton...

[Atrocities]

I like to meet neutrals early, other AI empires later. makes for a much more enjoyable game this way.

[Kamog]

I like to meet the other empires later. I usually play on high technology cost, 255 system galaxy. I like to have time to research and build up my civilization somewhat so that I'm ready for confrontation when it happens.

[boran_blok]

I'm a boomer, I tend to expand soo quickly that all the other stuff is vastly underdeveloped (such as weapons and ship hull sizes) but after about 30 turns it pays off then all those quickly gathered planets begin to pay off, so I'll have to say I prefer my meetings rather late in the game.

[Starhawk]

Depends on my mood with games like the one I am basing my From the Beginning story off of I like meeting folks early as it gave me a war that lasted over 20 years game time and that kept me on my toes and helped me build up a war plan for other races I may encounter later on.

Late game encounters can be fun because you both have sprawling empires (or you do and they don't and it's just a matter of steam rolling them) which can come in quite handy at times when it comes to sheer entertainment quality.

[Atrocities]

What I did for the STM was set it up so that there were more neutral empires per game. The way the technology is set up the AI on low AI Bonus stays pretty evenly matched with me throughout the game.

The thing that kills the AI is when we start making resource mining bases and monolith facilities. Once those start coming on line, even in stock, the game is pretty much over. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif