Strategy Articles!

[Stone Mill]

Strategy Articles are an experienced player’s thoughts on how to play a particular aspect of the game. They differ from FAQs or tips, in that they incorporate the big picture and tie in smaller elements in how to play SEIV with a particular type of strategy.

Many players have great ideas that very in complexity from basic to advanced. You may wish to take this opportunity to share your thoughts with the community. If you have been playing the game for a while, and don’t particularly have any coveted secrets to protect, please go ahead and write one.

Some ideas:
____________________
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0.5 Empire Design
1.0 Early Economy and Exploration
2.0 Managing Your Economy
3.0 Get the Most out of Fighters
4.0 Combat Strategies – Early, Mid, and Late Game
5.0 Rock, Paper, Scissors – (Which weapons and strategies counter others)
6.0 The Early Kill
7.0 Partnerships and Trade
8.0 How to Win in SEIV by Machiavelli XLVII
9.0 When To Attack

[ March 13, 2003, 23:15: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Stone Mill]

1.0 Strategy Article I: Early Economy and Growth

1.1 Principles
I. Acquire all possible systems and planets while denying them to your opponent
II. Expand immediately, continue to push forward, and backfill systems after the enemy’s position is estimated
III. Protect your assets with minimal defenses until you are in a position to overwhelm the enemy with superior forces and technology
IV. Maintain an economic harmony by practicing efficiency during your empire’s growth; Keep most of your planets constructing assets while not wasting resources (producing a large mineral excess that is wasted every turn) or slipping into a resource shortage (lacking enough resources to keep most of your planets producing)
V. Build your designs according to a given planet’s production rate

1.2 Land Rush

Build as many colonizers as possible in the first 10 turns. This will require the ability to construct one colony ship per turn, using emergency build. Even better; build one colony ship that includes a supply component (for longer range). Also, you may wish to include a design with cargo (for extra population, or units to accompany the new colony). The advantages to “Land Rush” are that you will have many colonies to give your empire a jump start, claiming systems before other players. The disadvantage is that you will have to cope with your homeworld on slow build for 10 turns afterward.

This strategy involves elements in several areas:

a. Empire construction. You will have to adjust your race’s construction rate until it allows you to build the desired ship in one turn, (IMPORTANT) after your homeworld loses population (the rate will drop after the first colonizer departs, unless you have advanced storage).
b. Sizes of homeworlds. Check the game setting for the size of the homeworld you will begin with. Your rate of production will vary in respect to the population bonus to production. You will (generally) need to begin with a “good” starting planet to use this strat.
c. Cost of ship. Don’t be afraid of building a ship with 4 engines in one turn, if a 5-engine ship will take you 2 turns. I’ve built ships with 2 engines to colonize planets in my home system (usually constructed with a Space Yard Base).

Many players like to start the game building one or more Space Yard Bases. Building these in one turn is also very advantageous.

Regardless, if you can’t produce it in one turn, there is no point in setting your homeworld on emergency build for nothing. Rather, tweak your empire’s construction rate until it offers the desired result.

1.3 Home or Away?

Should I colonize in my home system to get things rolling, or send them through the warp points? I personally like to send them out, because of the fact an economic player wants to dominate all available space in the quadrant, while denying it to the enemy. When doing so, I try to colonize a planet in my home system by turn 3-4 so I can get another space yard on-line to compensate for my homeworld when it is in slow mode.

1.3.1 Your colonizers will not be protected and will be in trouble should they be so unlucky as to run into an armed scout. But if they do, they are far from defenseless:
a. Colonize and launch mines (or build a weapon platform). This will take 3 turns. If you will be reached within 3 turns, go out the way you came.
b. Sit at the back end of the warp point and set your ship’s strategy to “Kamikaze.” You will be greatly surprised at how often this works.
c. Bait the attacking ship over an existing planet’s mines.

1.3.2 Key Point: The primary objective of your first wave of colonizers, is, believe it or not, to meet the enemy. This will reveal their position and allow you to follow up and do your best to box them in. If you go a long way without encountering them, colonize a nice planet when you are eventually low on fuel.

Once a front line is estimated, your next waves of colonizers will be able to back-fill all those beauties you passed along the way. For the purposes of preparing for war, you want to colonize all you can near the front line to have ship production capability in a forward system.

1.4 The Clinton: Deny, Deny, …Deny

The best way to deny territory to your foe is to lay mines or satellites at the warp points. You will need to get out there as early as possible. There is nothing like the crack of mines to deter an opponent from proceeding through a warp point. Many valuable turns are lost while he researches and produces minesweeping capability. In the mean time, you can establish the system, bring up defenses, or reinforce the point (if you have determined it is a logical choke point or “front line.”)

1.4.1 I prefer to research mines ASAP, as they are the best early defense. However, this will take a few turns. And you can’t build minelayers until then. So my secondary choice is to build satellite launching scouts, especially if I’m concerned that my foe is close.

1.4.2 Secret Revealed! My personal favorite design is a transport with 2 minelayers + cargo (if possible, I add a weapon and point defense). Secondary design is a transport with one satellite launcher + cargo + weapon + PD. Movement is 5 and you can get it out the door very early usually (at turn 3 or so). This design offers the following flexibility:
a. Can lay units at forward warp points when front line is drawn
b. Can destroy new enemy colonies
c. Can destroy enemy colonizers and challenge enemy scouts if necessary

1.4.3 Hook and Ladder

Immediately after you build your unit layer(s), don’t let it sit waiting for units from your home planet… Send it out right behind your colonizers. Load units from newly colonized planets along the way. Your new colonies on the front lines can immediately produce units to “hand off” to the layer that is following (a.k.a. Hook and Ladder). If you made a base turn one, build units with your base for it to carry. Otherwise, keep your home planet pumping out colonizers!

1.4.4 The Great Seal

Lay sats at your opponent’s exit side of a warp point, so they will get first shot a point blank range. Enemy scouts will usually suffer bad damage or be destroyed. Sats are very unreliable elsewhere.

Lay mines at your leisure; best position is your opponent’s entry side of the warp point. This is a gamble, however, as you will need to blindly warp first. If you are unlucky, you may lose your ship to the unknown waiting at the other side. Best bet: lay ‘em before and after, if you have enough. It is also sometimes effective to drop mines over planets your opponent will value, if you can’t get to the point to seal off the system.

Your ultimate goal is to drop mines at every point in the front line system so your opponent is contained. At this point reload mines and continue to stack

1.4.5 Stop, Drop, and Roll

If you encounter the enemy and are clearly outclassed, drop your mines and sit. A smart opponent won’t bite more than once. But you will find that you can move from point, as long as you have mines, and your opponent will have to gamble in order to attack you.

If the enemy is a good distance away, your layer will be running low on fuel. To keep momentum, build a resupply depot (on emergency build, if necessary) so that layer does not have to break stride. It can load units, stay active, and cause havoc. And the next wave of colonizers can now refuel for extended range.

The opening turns are probably the most crucial. If played correctly (and with a bit of luck) you will be well positioned for vast empire growth.

1.5 Production and Construction Junction

Depending on the type of empire you like to run, you will start constructing various facilities while building ships. Regardless, the efficient rule of thumb is to maintain an economic harmony by practicing efficiency during your empire’s growth; Keep most of your planets constructing assets while not wasting resources (producing a large mineral excess that is wasted every turn) or slipping into a resource shortage (lacking enough resources to keep most of your planets producing). In summary, spend all of your minerals each turn, while resisting digging into your storage.

You will need stored materials for retrofitting sooner than you think.

1.6 Tweak it!

Build your designs according to a given planet’s production rate. This means that you will have to pay attention to the cost (usually mineral) of your designs. You want to be able to produce ships and units in the lowest amount of turns possible. For example, if your planet’s production rate is 2000, it does not make sense to design a weapons platform that costs 2100. Edit the design with a different or less expensive component, or remove a component so that it may be built in one turn. OR Build it in 2 turns; and edit the design so that it costs 4000.

This also comes into play when using emergency build. If your planet is constructing 3000 on emergency build, by all means get the most bang for your buck, and create designs that cost 3000, 6000, and 9000.

1.7 fini

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif This concludes my article on Early Economy and Growth. I hope you enjoyed it, and, if you are new to the game, I hope you have taken something away. Any questions, clarification, or comments are most welcome.
Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ March 12, 2003, 21:40: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[QuarianRex]

Nice work stone. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Gryphin]

Posted by Stone Mill
Build your designs according to a given planet’s production rate. This means that you will have to pay attention to the cost (usually mineral) of your designs. You want to be able to produce ships and units in the lowest amount of turns possible. For example, if your planet’s production rate is 2000, it does not make sense to design a weapons platform that costs 2100. Edit the design with a different or less expensive component, or remove a component so that it may be built in one turn. OR Build it in 2 turns; and edit the design so that it costs 4000.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Are folks interested in an crude Excel Spread Sheet where you drop the Production rate into a cell and it gives you the a given prodution pts for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 turns at standard, emergancy build and slow build?

Then again, now that I think about it, I'll bet there is someone here who could whip out a "SEIV Production Rate Calculater" program?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif maybe, please?

EDIT: Nice Artical!

[ March 12, 2003, 23:53: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

[Fyron]

8.0 How to Win in SEIV by Machiavelli XLVII<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">ROFLMAO! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif So who here is Machiavelli XLVII?

[Stone Mill]

Thanks, guys. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I'm pleased that you enjoyed it.

Originally posted by Fyron:
ROFLMAO! So who here is Machiavelli XLVII? <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Do you have anyone in mind that would fit that description from multiplayer games? I'm hoping that that one would be a fun one to write! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Ragnarok]

I'm not that great at writting articles so I'll leave that to others. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Slick, if you want, I will convert everything that is gathered together into HTML format for everyone to enjoy. I'm thinking of doing that for the FAQ too if the guys that did it do not mind it being done. But I have to ask them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ March 13, 2003, 17:59: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

[Master Belisarius]

Really liked your work!

But think, it should be the chapter 2!

The first chapter should be somethinkg like "How to create a good *.emp file?", because think that without a decent *.emp to play, is near to impossible try to win.

After see the empire characteristics of an human player at the first contact, I know if will be a balanced game or not...

[3HattedDragon]

Very nice article, Stone Mill! It left me wishing you had written the others as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

As a new player, your article really highlighted how much more aggressive I could be. I have frequently found myself either wasting resources (not enough storage) or waiting around for mining facilities to build. I won't be building any escort scouts in the early turns anymore either.

Thanks!
3hd

[Kamog]

Excellent article, Stone Mill! Thank you, those strategies are very helpful! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Stone Mill]

Cheers, mates! Pleased to hear your comments. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Rags/Slick, I really appreciate your opinions on hosting this, you did such a nice job with the FAQ. As you can see, the format is a bit different. Are you suggesting a hosted HTML page on someone's site?

Originally Posted by MB:
The first chapter should be something like "How to create a good *.emp file?", because think that without a decent *.emp to play, is near to impossible try to win.

After see the empire characteristics of an human player at the first contact, I know if will be a balanced game or not... <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I agree, and good suggestion. There is a need for discussing creating a good empire... would be logical as #1.

Originally posted by 3HattedDragon:
Very nice article, Stone Mill! It left me wishing you had written the others as well <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, I'm going to try and bang one article out every so often... On a few topics I have something in mind already. I should have another one up next week. On the topics for which I am not an expert, I will include strategies / ideas I've read from other players, and cite them as needed.

A Strategy Article is an inside look how a player approaches a certain aspect of the game. It is not necessarily right or wrong, or all-inclusive. I welcome anyone who wishes to try one, you can model my format, if you please. It is a neat opportunity to do a bit of creative writing. If you have an idea, or wish for me to clean it up for you, you can always send me an email or forum message, or post here.

Since this sort of thing is something I don't mind, I will continue to try an put together some decent articles. (As long as you don't get tired of my long-windedness). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[CEO TROLL]

Good Work Stone Mill....

...but give me dirty laundry...

[Atrocities]

Very nice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Very helpful too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Slick]

Rags/Slick, I really appreciate your opinions on hosting this, you did such a nice job with the FAQ. As you can see, the format is a bit different. Are you suggesting a hosted HTML page on someone's site?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">First, you should decide how you want this project to end up. Any of these options would be good. You could maintain control of it in this thread and add to it or modify it in any way as you see fit. Or, with Ruatha’s concurrence of course, I think it would make a great addition to the FAQ. We could crack open one of those “Reserved for future use” paragraphs like #17 and that would make the addition very easy. We just add “17.” to the beginning of all existing paragraphs and there you go. Keep in mind, if added to the FAQ you would give up some control of it since it sorta becomes community property and anyone is free to add to it or add countering strategies. As for adding it, let me know. I am in the middle of another minor revision (being delayed by real life and a terrible cold right now) and would gladly incorporate it.

On the issue of a hosted HTML page. It could be a good thing but I have to say I am a little uncomfortable with this for a few of reasons. First, I am very unskilled at HTML; not that I couldn’t learn or that the necessary formatting would be hard, but a text file is just simpler. Second, having the file here allows us to quickly refer to it to help answer questions as well as cut/paste from other threads for additions; also, linking to other threads here is very easy. Lastly, I think it would be asking a little too much to have someone pay for a hosted site. If it was a free site, those usually come with pop-ups which I hate and access can be revoked on short notice. Maybe I am just a dinosaur when it comes to converting.

Thoughts?

Slick.

[Dralasite]

Nice article! Definitely gave me some new possibilities for my games.

[Buddy Lee]

Very juicy info, soaked up by an eager newb.

More articles! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Slick:
First, you should decide how you want this project to end up. Any of these options would be good. You could maintain control of it in this thread and add to it or modify it in any way as you see fit. Or, with Ruatha’s concurrence of course, I think it would make a great addition to the FAQ. We could crack open one of those “Reserved for future use” paragraphs like #17 and that would make the addition very easy. We just add “17.” to the beginning of all existing paragraphs and there you go. Keep in mind, if added to the FAQ you would give up some control of it since it sorta becomes community property and anyone is free to add to it or add countering strategies. As for adding it, let me know. I am in the middle of another minor revision (being delayed by real life and a terrible cold right now) and would gladly incorporate it.

On the issue of a hosted HTML page. It could be a good thing but I have to say I am a little uncomfortable with this for a few of reasons. First, I am very unskilled at HTML; not that I couldn’t learn or that the necessary formatting would be hard, but a text file is just simpler. Second, having the file here allows us to quickly refer to it to help answer questions as well as cut/paste from other threads for additions; also, linking to other threads here is very easy. Lastly, I think it would be asking a little too much to have someone pay for a hosted site. If it was a free site, those usually come with pop-ups which I hate and access can be revoked on short notice. Maybe I am just a dinosaur when it comes to converting.

Thoughts?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Slick,
Hope you are feeling better these days. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I've pondered this a bit, and have weighed your advice.

I would be honored to have my Strategy Articles included in the FAQ. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif Giving away control is no big deal to me, and I really like the idea of one-stop-shopping.

I hope I don't throw off your numbering system too badly... do you intend all strategy articles to be under #17, or for each article to have a number (i.e., 17, 18, 19)?

FYI: I'm not writing them in any particular order right now; I'm finishing up "Get the Most Out of Fighters" next...

[Slick]

For now I think the easiest way is to keep it all in 1 major paragraph for "strategy articles" or some such heading. I'd like to keep the other paragraphs available for other major areas of expansion. I'll take a shot at incorporating it in the next rev (from what is in this thread) and if it needs to be tweaked from there, that's easy too.

Slick.

[Stone Mill]

Sounds good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

So is the following ok?

17.1 Empire Design
17.2 Early Economy and Exploration
17.3 Managing Your Economy
17.4 Get the Most out of Fighters
17.5 Combat Strategies – Early, Mid, and Late Game
17.6 Rock, Paper, Scissors – (Which weapons and strategies counter others)
17.7 The Early Kill
17.8 Partnerships and Trade
17.9 How to Win in SEIV by Machiavelli XLVII
17.10 When To Attack

So this first article will be 17.2, with the subsections 17.2.1 and so on?

[Slick]

Looks good! I will use those general headings but I am very paranoid about running out of paragraphing room so I'll probably modify or group the lay out slightly so that there is still some open room around the higher 17.X paragraphs for future unknowns or expansion under this general strategy section. I'd like to save the other major paragraph numbers for other major expansion. Maybe Starfury, maybe SE5, the sky is the limit. Who knows how this area will expand later (?), I am sure others will add to this section so we'll keep some room to grow. Of course it is always easy to change later.

I will do my best to get it out by the end of the week.

Slick.

[Stone Mill]

Next article... coming right up...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Stone Mill]

17.4 Strategy Article V: Get the Most out of Fighters

17.4.1 Principles
I. Use Fighters for early system defense
II. Design good Fighters; with or without special tech
III. Gain the battlefield advantage using massive mount on carriers
IV. Use Carrier mounts for all ships until Light Cruisers are reached
V. Surprise can be deadly

17.4.2 Overview
So you think that fighter tech just gives you cool spacecraft with short lives? Think again. There are a number of strategies for using fighter tech that may help you get the edge on your opponent. Fighters are easily countered, and will usually have a limited window of effect, depending on your opponent’s skill. When I know I’m facing a very tough opponent, I usually spend research on more vital techs. But fighters can be very fun and unbalancing when they first show up in a game.

17.4.3 System Scramble!
Fighters are excellent for early defense. They may be constructed and launched from a planet in 2 turns, making them the most ferocious system defense in the early game. A small fighter stack is inexpensive, maintenance-free, has superb range, and will usually burn through any early scout or colony ship (without sufficient point defense). This will give you a strong edge in obtaining control of a system.

Try these strategies early in the game when you are competing for a system with another empire:
a. Launch fighters from your planet to attack enemy colony ships and newly colonized enemy planets
b. Block the warp points quickly. Remember, fighters can’t warp, but they do get first shot on whatever comes through.
c. Add extra engines to your designs for long range interception in a system

Residual Effects
Deploying fighters causes your foe to waste valuable space on point defense. Knowing this, your next wave of ships may have an advantage in component efficiency, using less point defense, (if he is not also using seekers).

Recon
Your fighters have eyes. Launch them in a system to keep an eye on things. Have them sit on some mines. Building a ship with a small amount of fighter bays is nice for this job. Also, two ships with cargo in the same sector allows you to transfer a single fighter for launching for this purpose.

Fighters are awesome for cheap intel; once you engage the enemy in combat, you acquire his ship designs for sacrificing a single fighter. What a Bargain!

17.4.4 Designs
Fighters bring a great degree of variation, depending on your needs. Across the board, the more you can increase the amount of damage resistance (shields, armor) and defense (ECM), the better their survivability. Try some of these variations:
Standard Tech, Small
a. Kamikaze: explosive warhead + engines
b. Rocket Pods III: (requires missile tech III) packs a serious wallop
c. Long range: one weapon + all engines; fast strike but weak
d. Short Range: reduce engines to keep fighters on pace with advancing ships
e. ECM: makes them tougher to hit; remember only one fighter with ECM applies the bonus to all ships in the stack!

Standard Tech, Medium
a. armor, shields, ECM + weapon (Arkcon)

Standard Tech, Large
a. 2 x shields III + weapons (jim)

Special Tech
a. Organics Small Electric Discharge III: OUCH!
b. Temporal: Time Distortion Burst III
c. Psychic: Small Telekinetic Projector III

17.4.5 Mid-Late Game Deployment
warp point
Generally, fighters do best in large quantities, in a trained fleet (alone) in warp point defense, combined with supplementing ships/units (outside of the fighter fleet):
a. In large quantities, they can be quite powerful. A pile of satellites or fighters, stacked full of defenses and weapons, sitting on the right side of a warp point, can do a lot of damage, and can tip the scales of a battle (PVK)
b. IMHO fighters and sats keep their use even in late games. The key point as you said is "large numbers". 50 fighters are completely useless against a fleet of 20 or 30 ships but if you have 1000 large fighters with shields in Groups of 30 or even 50 you have a tremendous firepower and won't loose too many fighters.
Sats are great as quick defense for warp points when you expand. Just move the sats with your sat layers to the new front line (Q)
c. Fighter Base w/ ship yard at key positions can build tons of fighters, and is self-sustaining.

Fleet Combat
d. Big Wing: Basically, you need the largest fighters you can build with the best shields and strongest weapons. Build them and launch them in massive Groups. 100 is optimal if you can do pull it off. Since each group acts as one vehicle for combat purposes you will have in effect a vessel that can deliver a respectable amount of firepower with each shot. And the large size of the group and heavy shielding will allow them to withstand more than a few shots form the advanced PDC cannons and other weaponry you are likely to face (Geo)
e. Draw Fire! Fighters perform much better with shields. Also, try matching their speed to your fleet so they do not outrun your warships. Otherwise your enemy will pick them off with beam weapons while waiting for the big targets. If they arrive with the warships, they will either be ignored and hit or targeted first, drawing fire (LGM) They also pull ships/ fleets set on maximum range into closer range. This confounds some long range strategies set to sit back and pick you apart.

warnings
There is a small unknown feature for mixed fleets with fighters and ships, the ship supplies decrease quickly, so avoid mixing fighters with ship fleets ! (PsychoTechFreak) the game is splitting the supply pool of the fleet evenly between the ship and the fighter, even though the fighter can't hold half the pool. (Ed Kolis)

17.4.6 Legendary Defense: Let me be “Crystal” Clear
The Crystalline Shield Facility definitely does help fighters. The Crystalline Restructuring facility does add to "shield kT", either to each individual fighter or to a stack of fighters. And it gives those points to every fighter in the stack. I think they still work out as hitpoints, rather than shield points (S.J.)
Just about the toughest configuration I can think of is a Legendary fleet (+50%) of a massive stack of large fighters (ECM, Shields III, and one of the nastier weapons) as warp point defense in a system with the Crystalline Shield Facility. Even Scarier: use combined with Temporal Event Predictor III (+30% to combat in system). This should be a legendary buzz saw.

17.4.7 Defending Against Fighters
Unfortunately, once you show your hand and use fighters, your opponent will research and implement point defense (PD)on his ship designs. There will be a short window where your fighters continue to do some damage, but they will be eventually be no match for point defense, even in great numbers (against a seasoned opponent).

a. Ships. Many players will evenly distribute point defense, including one, two, or three PD on each ship. This is a safe practice which spares a fleet from complete embarrassment when encountering seekers. I personally like to deploy point defense ships, especially if my foes are using lots of seekers. IMPORTANT Remember to give your PD ships at least one direct fire weapon, so they engage the enemy, and not run away.
b. Units. Mines launched from an enemy planet will “kill fighters, dead!” Also, weapons platforms with point defense can ruin your fighters’ day. Satellites are… unreliable.

But the edge goes to fighters early, and throughout the game as long as you maintain numerical superiority.
c. Weapons. Direct fire weapons can hit fighters, but have an abysmal hit percentage due to the fighter’s small size and defensive bonus. You will need training (ship, fleet) as well as combat sensors (I, II, III) to hack down fighter stacks.

17.4.8 Carriers
Use Carrier mounts for all ships until Light Cruisers are reached. With the 800 ton hull, you will get (nearly) the same amount of space for components that a light cruiser offers. The benefit of this is that you will essentially get the jump on an opponent that is using escorts, frigates and destroyers. The bad part is that the early advantage is usually lost when Light Cruisers are prevalent. LCs designs offer more cost/space efficiency. Unless you have struck early, you will eventually have to catch up with the ship construction research tree.

Cargo Space
The fighter bays on carriers are cargo spaces. This means you can use them for:
-- moving population
-- transferring units such as mines, sats, and troops
-- Tip! Troop Transport for invasions; remember to assign it to “Troop Transport” class during design, and ship and fleet strategy, of course, must be “Capture Planet”

General Use
Don’t forget to use them for sweepers, repair, and supply ships.

Breachers
Early Game Strategy Tip: A nice design for bashing through light minefields with a threatening presence is using Breachers. It has mostly minesweeping components (10); it’s attack power comes from the fighters it carries. In the early game, the Breacher can tear through light minefields and terrorize systems. Even a seasoned player will have to adjust their research and strategy to deal with them. With Mines II, 5 Breachers will give you the sweepers you need, plus fighter attack power!

Massive Mounts: Hunter-Killers
Hot Tip! Use those massive weapon mounts to rule the battlefield early. That’s right; you will get the leverage of battleship mounts (increased range and strength) with Fighters I. Use Carriers as your main attack force and watch them whittle away escorts, frigates and destroyers… while deploying fighters to boot! Even if your opponent has sufficient defense against fighters, you will find that the fighters tie up a few ships while you move in for the kill.

17.4.9 Shanghai Surprise
If you have the patience, a vicious tactic is to not reveal that you are using fighters at all. Defend yourself with anything else, but don’t tip your hand and allow your opponent to compensate. When you feel you are ready for a substantial attack run, unleash your Breachers and Hunter-Killers. Chances are, your foe won’t know what hit them. Press the attack and go for the end game while you have the advantage. It is very tempting to use the fighters and carriers as discussed above, but if you are in a position to hold off the enemy without them, do so and you shock the average defense fleet!

17.4.10 fini
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif This concludes my article on Fighters and Carriers. I hope you enjoyed it, and, if you are new to the game, I hope you have taken something away. Any questions, clarification, or comments are most welcome.
Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Stoney

[ April 09, 2003, 16:14: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Mephisto]

Very nice article!

[primitive]

Aaaarrghhh,
You are spilling all the goodies. I took a fall from high on the hill (KOTH) to learn some of what you are giving away for free here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Seriously: Nice article, keep them coming http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Stone Mill]

Thank you, Gentelmen.

And Primitive, don't fret-
reading about strategy is only a small part. Actually implementing these tips and working them into a game is much tougher... you almost have to be the kind of player (such as yourself) who is open minded, and has learned from his mistakes in order for this to make sense.

...the same kind of person whom I think gets the most enjoyment out of reading this stuff.

I'll restrain from giving away the Super Double-Whammy Top Secret Tips... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif So classified even I don't know them! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

[Slick]

I have to say that I find using a Carrier as a carrier/troop transport is exceptionally devious and creative. I like it! I would have never thought of doing that. This opens up some other ship designs to explore.

Slick.

[Claymore Righ]

First off, I have enjoyed reading your articles and have learned a number of new things.

Second, could I suggest a few topics?

17.2.X Research strategies
17.2.x.1 How to spend your inital points.
17.2.x.2 How to tailor your research to your goals.
e.g. If you wanted to empahsives fighters as in your article, what would your research plan be?

and

as part of 17.10

How to identify the transitions and/or how to influence the transitions from early game to mid-game to end game. Being able to guage this accurately would seem to be critical to picking the best time to attack (in some cases).

[Ed Kolis]

Might want to note that the "put static defenses on your side of the warp point for first strike ability" will NOT work if it is a one-way warp point coming from the enemy's system to yours... I learned that quickly in Furball IV - all my base were clustered up in the corner since the game didn't "see" any warp point in the sector (it was only an exit point)!

Oh, and you HAVE to include the "sneaky drone launcher hiding in a nebula or cloaked", not to mention its even more devious cousing, the "sneaky drone launcher hiding in a nebula or cloaked and firing CLOAKED DRONES!!!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif (You CAN cloak drones, right???)

[Aloofi]

All these articles are awesome, the problem for me is that I never play multiplayer, and using the fighter tactics against the AI might be kind of unfair.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

Don't forget to add a spaceyard to that cloaked drone launcher, so it can build an infinite supply of cloaked drones http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Stone Mill]

Glad you enjoyed them, folks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Claymore Righ, I like your suggestions. I'll keep them in the queue.

What S_J and Ed Kolis are suggesting sounds like a new article to be called "Dirty Tricks." I was actually thinking of this earlier. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Nice idea.

And Aloofi, don't be afraid to use this against the AI... in certain instances (playing on high difficulty with high AI bonus), you will find some of this will simply keep you alive!!

[ April 10, 2003, 22:06: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Atrocities]

BUMP

[Stone Mill]

Ok folks... Comin' right up...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Stone Mill]

17.11 Intel Operations
Principles
I. Defense: Maintain an active Counter Intelligence (CI) project, but never let it complete
II. Offense: Commit as many points (completed offensive Projects) as possible in order to consume the enemy CI points storage
III. Use the most unbalancing intel projects, and forget about the rest

Overview
Most SEIV players agree that the intelligence model could be better. Nevertheless, should you play in a game that includes intel, it certainly adds another powerful variable. There are many nuances to the system that you should be aware of. Further there are serveral powerful
operations that you should use... or be ready to defend!

17.11.1 Don't Get Caught Without It
When creating your Empire, choosing to sacrifice your Intelligence Characteristic may come back to haunt you. This stat will relate to a bonus/penalty to the available intel points your
empire produces each turn. This will hurt, as the intel system boils down to who has more points accumulated.
Most players make the mistake of completely handicapping their Intel scores in their race design. That doesn't help! (1FSTCAT)

Research Priority
I recommend that Intel is researched in the latter part of the early game, usually for defensive purposes so that your empire is not exploited for lacking defense. Intel attacks can be defended with relative ease due to inherent defense bonuses. Intel rarely makes or breaks a game of seasoned players, except when noted later in this article.

17.11.2 Point Accumulation and Bucket Management
The available points generated by all intel facilities +/- racial modifier, +/- partnership
treaty each turn may be assigned to any project, of which one or more may be counter intel buckets, different projects, or repeat projects of the same type. When one or more offensive project(s) are completed, the projects are "live" and then measured against the defender's Counter Intelligence Points to determine success.
Tip To control point allocation, turn "Distribute Points Evenly" off, as you may do in research. The project on the far left receives 100% point allocation. You may rearrange projects to keep them from completing so that you may "cook" them all off in the same turn at a later time. This will increase the efficacy of your offensive projects, and stop your CI projects from completing.
And just to clarify, if you turn divide points evenly off, any points not used by the current(first in queue) project when that project is completed, will spill over to the next project in line (to the right), so you can thereby execute many projects one turn and not spend anything on the item on the far right in the queue (end). (Ruatha)

Start with Defense
To protect against intelligence attacks, it is best to maintain a counter intelligence project (i.e. "bucket") with the progressive meter growing but never completing. Generally, I start by ensuring I am protected by investing in a CI project so I can concentrate on other areas of the game. This is a solid investment because CI projects receive a bonus which helps growth more quickly.

17.11.3 Early Intel Offense?
If you go on intel offense early, be aware that the Level 1 projects are not particulary useful. By the time you pay for a sufficient number of Level 1 projects, chances are you have foregone many other critical facilities (i.e. research, minerals), and may be behind the curve because of it. Although it is true that your attacks will succeed 100% when a player has no CI points, the empire you are attacking with intel will become annoyed with you, may now decide to fight with you conventionally, and will most likely decide to catch up with intel points. Other players in the quadrant may catch on as well. The rare situation where Early Intel is appropriate is when you have an especially good start and empire balance, and you can use Intel projects to support conventional military operations (masses of ship bombs or engine damage, for instance). Ask yourself if you will reasonably be able to keep and exploit the advantage of this particular enemy first.

17.11.4 The Scoop on Counter Intel
A CI project is like a bank account. Available points are invested in projects (with interest).
Attacks subtract points from CI projects. This exchange happens each turn and new points go into
the CI project before your attacks come in. (Slick) Points added to CI in a turn are indeed used for defense in that turn if necessary. CI has no limit to the number of projects it can theoretically stop. (Imperator Fyron) For any given attack, if the defender has (greater
than or equal to) stored CI points, the attack will be blocked, and the corresponding amount of
points are deducted from your stored CI projects, starting from the rightmost one and moving left. When you have no CI projects or no points stored in any of your CI projects, any subsequent completed attack project against your empire succeeds at 100% (Puppet Political Parties is 50%).

17.11.4.1 Project Levels
Accumulate CI points in the highest level available project. Don't complete or delete an old project, especially if you have new access to a higher level inter project; the points stored are cumulative across all active intel projects. All stored CI points work together as it were no matter if they are spread out amongst multiple CI projects. (Slick) Simply begin a new CI project and shuffle the old project to the right.

-CI I You do not have Intel technology? but your partner does. 1.2 bonus to applied points
-CI II is readily available with Applied Intel 1; use it. 2.4 bonus to applied points
-CI III is available with Applied Intel 2. 3.6 bonus to applied points

17.11.5 Recovering from an Intel Barrage
There may be an unfortunate time in the game when you are getting pounded with intel attacks from one or more parties, and your defense is depleted each round. This situation ranges in
severity to annoying to unrecoverable (attaker may toy with you until game is ended). In general, it's usually a pretty bad place to be. Try the following:

a. prioritize a CI project (highest level possible) to rebuild a defense; replace deleted CI projects as necessary
b. build as many intel facilities as possible
c. of course, destroying an opponent's intel facilities diminishes his attack points

17.11.6 Offensive Projects
In general, there are guidelines for applying intel power.

a. As mentioned earlier, ask yourself if you will reasonably be able to keep and exploit the
advantage of this particular enemy before unleashing your attacks, while defending yourself
against an estimated backlash.
b. Because of the bonuses applied to CI defensive projects, you must whittle down your target's accumulated CI points. Go big or stay home. Attacking with a few weak projects here and there only alerts them to your intel ambitions and encourages them to increase CI points.
c. HOT When you have unleashed your attacks and broken his initial CI defense, you can estimate how many and which of your attacks will get through. For example, one can breach the intel defences by timing several attacks to complete at the same time. Your opponent seems to be blocking about 20,000 points, and you have two crew insurrections attacks near completion. Add 2 ship bombs in front of them (to the left). All 4 complete together this turn. The 2 ship bombs were stopped... but the 2 crew insurrections succed. Time them based on the enemy's points.
d. Applying Intel pressure is best with a buddy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Or two. Heck, invite all your friends to join in. Nothing like the "Dogpile on the Rabbit" on the 1st place Talisman weilding empire.

17.11.7 Covert Ops Briefing
Here are the most popular and useful Intel projects:

Honorable mention

Engine Damage: 10k, Multiple projects against a single ship in a fleet tends to stop the entire fleet in it's tracks. Also nice as a pre-attack warm-up.

Ship Bomb: 10k, Running 10 ship bomb intels a turn has saved my butt on several occassions. Knock out key ships from invading fleets when your own fleets aren't quite upto the task. A few
rounds of ship bombs can be nasty. (Cyrien)

Order Snafu: 10k, Used against early raiders to buy your colonies some time.

Ship Blueprints: 15k, I figured out, after much hmming and haahing, that stolen ship blueprints
can then be plugged into the simulator to give you a much better idea how your ships will
compete with available enemy designs. (Pooka)
Tip: Write down the results of stuff like Ship Blueprints and Tech Reports because this will not be updated where you might expect (known technology for an empire, known enemy designs) - though this might have been fixed for Ship Blueprints. (Ed Kolis)

Anarchy Groups: 15k, If you know or suspect your enemy's planets are close to riots (especially those filled with foreign population), this can nudge that planet toward unproductivity. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Not bad for the price.

Communications Interceptors: especially fun in multi-player (PBW) games... prevents players
trades and gifts from getting through.

Puppet Political Parties: 100k, has a 50% of stealing that planet from your enemy... also a
chance of causing a planetary rebellion (which also removes it from his control). Use against
the best worlds... better if you can defend the newly acquired planet(s) too. This one is fun
but not very reliable for the 100 K price tag.

Technological Espionage (steals a tech level, 150k cost.) Expensive, but in the late game, if you went heavy intel, you can have enough points to do a few of these per round. Which will help since you likely don't have as much research points as the intel-lite races. Also great for sluffing points into when in order to make sure you are putting less than 5k points into your CI project (so it does not complete). (Spoon)

Tech Reports: Helps with the above project (Technological Espionage) by listing a handful of your enemy's tech levels. (Spoon)

Nastiest Attacks

- Crew Insurrection (steals a ship for 50k)
- Resource Procurement (steals 10k of each resource for 15k)
- Food Contamination (kills 100M population for 15k)
- Comm Mimic (makes one empire declare war on another for 20k

--Crew Insurrection: 50k, Or, you can think more subtly... Capture an enemy Colony Ship... He's probably got dozens of them hanging around, so he won't miss one or two... What can I do with a Colony Ship, you ask? Well... now you have a sample of another race's population, which if you're lucky breathes a different atmosphere - and if you're even luckier he even has a different planet type so you can analyze the colony ship and steal his colony tech! Consider targeting transports- if you get lucky, you can get some breathers from another environment. If it is a minelayer/sweeper, heck, that is a good chunk of change you may save on research when you deconstruct & analyze.

Use Crew Insurrection as a poor man's Technological Espionage - it's only 1/3 the cost, and you can get multiple technologies from a single ship! There are only two drawbacks: 1. The enemy has to have the technology you want actually deployed on a ship, not just researched. And 2. You have to manage to get the ship back to one of your spaceyards safely to get the technology! (EdKolis)

--Food Contamination: 15k, Only use Food Contamination on smaller colonies - don't even bother with a homeworld! The population will regenerate in a turn or two and you'll have wasted 20K intel points. But if you use it on a smaller colony (such as 50M), you can wipe out the entire colony and force the enemy to send a transport to repopulate it before it can produce or build anything!

--Resource Procurement: 15k, Resource Procurement steals 10000 resource points (lowers enemy total storage and raises your own stored resources by 10000), and only costs 15000... as opposed to Economic Disruption, which lowers enemy resource storage by 10000 points and cost 20000 intel. (Imperator Fyron) Never use the one that destroys resources, if you feel the urge to, use the resource stealing project instead - it's cheaper, has the same effect on the enemy, and you get resources as a bonus! (Note: some mods fix this oversight, check the mod before you try this!) (Ed Kolis) Bombard an enemy with many of these, and their economy eventually dries up. Unfortunately, only one successful subtraction will be made per turn.

-- Communication Mimic: 20k, Forces an empire of your choice to declare war on another empire of
your choice. Key impact: It wipes out treaties, removing up to 20% incoming and outgoing
bonuses. This is huge, and well worth the project cost. It also just causes plain confusion.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

What about the other projects?
Well... ughh.. they are pretty darn crappy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

17.11.8 Intel and the AI bonus
And don't forget the AI bonus factored into the intel modifiers (#2):
1. Level of counter intel project: Level 2 will double, Level 3 will increase the effect three
times of the counter intel points.
2. AI bonus: low 2x, medium 3x, high 5x the intel points you see on the score list.
3. Counter-Intel modifier in the seetings.txt file. IIRC this is set to 120% in standard game.
4. Consideration of intel points acquired by any partnership treaty (Q)

17.11.9 fini
Well, that wraps up intel. I'm not the expert, so please add any other tips or strategies I
have not included. Cheers and Beers!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Stoney

[ May 06, 2003, 13:38: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Soulfisher]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:

17.11 Intel Operations
....
- and if you're even luckier he even has a
different planet type so you can analyze the colony ship and steal his colony tech!
....
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I've always found it easier to gain colony tech by trading with an AI opponent. Of the 4 times I've attempted trading my Gas Colony tech for his Colony tech, the AI has always accepted, even when the game is set to team battle.

Of course, this gives him your tech as well ...

Soulfisher

[Gwaihir]

wow, thanks. I've been looking all over for good advice on Intel!

[Stone Mill]

Soulfisher- you are correct... that trade is often how I acquire colony tech from the AI. Remember, a human you are playing against may not be so friendly.
...Actually, now that I think of it, I have a friend who loves to target transports- if he gets lucky, he can get himself some breathers from another environment. If it is a minelayer/sweeper, heck, that is a good chunk of change you save when you deconstruct & analyze.

Gwaihir- glad you found this helpful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Stone Mill]

Any other feedback on Intel? Things I should add? Just wondering if this helpful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Maxx]

I found it very helpful !!!

[ May 04, 2003, 15:28: Message edited by: Maxx ]

[civ2buf]

Is this just strategies for simultaneous games or do you want things such as tactical mode tips (my favorite part of the game).

Plus if you play hotseat with friends they can help a lot. (Or enjoy facing the AI in battle while grossly outmatched in ships)

[spoon]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
Any other feedback on Intel? Things I should add? Just wondering if this helpful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I would add these two to the Honorable Mention list:
Technological Espionage (steals a tech level, 150k cost.) Expensive, but in the late game, if you went heavy intel, you can have enough points to do a few of these per round. Which will help since you likely don't have as much research points as the intel-lite races. Also great for sluffing points into when in order to make sure you are putting less than 5k points into your CI project.

Tech Reports: Helps with the above project by listing a handful of your enemy's tech levels.

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by civ2buff:
Is this just strategies for simultaneous games or do you want things such as tactical mode tips (my favorite part of the game).
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Good question. For the most part, I address tips for strategic mode, since it is used for PBW and multiplayer (the most challenging). There may be tactical tips out there in other sources.

Originally posted by spoon:
I would add these two to the Honorable Mention list:
Technological Espionage (steals a tech level, 150k cost.) Expensive, but in the late game, if you went heavy intel, you can have enough points to do a few of these per round. Which will help since you likely don't have as much research points as the intel-lite races. Also great for sluffing points into when in order to make sure you are putting less than 5k points into your CI project.

Tech Reports: Helps with the above project by listing a handful of your enemy's tech levels.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Excellent suggestions, spoon. I will add them. Thank you.

[ May 06, 2003, 13:35: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Stone Mill]

Next up... Rock, Paper, Scissors – (Which weapons and strategies counter others)

I'm doing the best I can with this one. I'll need help from the resident experts to help ensure it's accurate.

With luck, I'll post it tomorrow... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[Pablo]

Stoney, very good articles! Thanx http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
If you don't mind (I think you don't 'cause you are a teacher in this field and every teacher wants to be usefull for as many as posible) I have copied these articles into Lithuanian forum (which was only recently started) to spread the word and help our players. I bet not all of them even know about the Shrapnel forum. Anyway, I would appreciate your feedback on letting us keep them or take them out and come here for reading. Thanx.

*I remember my http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif in our koth game when loosing colony ships on empty planets yet mined. I even lost the count of how many... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Fyron]

That's easy SM. Use DUCs, then PPBs (and maybe shield depleters if opponents get phased shields and you don't have APBs), then APBs + SDepleters. And always use IDs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Most other weapons are useless for general ship design (except computer viruses and a few racial weapons that are comparable to the DUC/PPB/APB line). MBs are nice, but are overpowerd by PPBs, and way overpowered by later APBs.

[teal]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
That's easy SM. Use DUCs, then PPBs (and maybe shield depleters if opponents get phased shields and you don't have APBs), then APBs + SDepleters. And always use IDs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Most other weapons are useless for general ship design (except computer viruses and a few racial weapons that are comparable to the DUC/PPB/APB line). MBs are nice, but are overpowerd by PPBs, and way overpowered by later APBs.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So what's rock/paper/scissors about that?!

[Stone Mill]

Originally Posted by Pablo
Stoney, very good articles! Thanx
If you don't mind (I think you don't 'cause you are a teacher in this field and every teacher wants to be usefull for as many as posible) I have copied these articles into Lithuanian forum (which was only recently started) to spread the word and help our players. I bet not all of them even know about the Shrapnel forum. Anyway, I would appreciate your feedback on letting us keep them or take them out and come here for reading. Thanx.

*I remember my in our koth game when loosing colony ships on empty planets yet mined. I even lost the count of how many... <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No problem at all, sir. I would recommend the entire Newbie FAQ, which will be the home for these articles after development in this thread.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Who mined those planets? Little ‘ol me? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Funny, it seems like my current opponents do a better job of doing this than me. I keep changing my tactics so as not to be predictable. Lately, in the early game, I have been dropping satellites everywhere… just to mix it up.

Originally Posted by Imperator Fyron
That's easy SM. Use DUCs, then PPBs (and maybe shield depleters if opponents get phased shields and you don't have APBs), then APBs + SDepleters. And always use IDs. Most other weapons are useless for general ship design (except computer viruses and a few racial weapons that are comparable to the DUC/PPB/APB line). MBs are nice, but are overpowerd by PPBs, and way overpowered by later APBs. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This is a good “nutshell.” Thanks. I hope to have most of this indexed in the article. You’ll see I’m trying to come up with a decent format for reference.

[Stone Mill]

***PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK! This is a DRAFT. Please excuse the format. This info would be best in a table, but hopefully this is usable.***

17.6 Strategy Article: Rock, Paper, Scissors – (Which weapons and strategies counter others) DRAFT

17.6.1 Principles
I. Be on guard as to the ship designs, units, and tactics of competitors
II. Address their strategies by employing effective counter-strategies

17.6.2 Overview
There is no “Uber” weapon in SEIV; although, some weapons and strategies are more effective than others. SEIV offers players versatility to counter another player’s strategies… by allowing you to design a force that addresses the forces thrown at you. This article addresses units/ships/fleets. Note that economic, political, intelligence factors are generally not included (which are critical factors in defeating an opponent). This is a basic list. Please add anything I have missed.

17.6.3 Unit Strategies / Counter-Strategies

17.6.3.1 IF your opponent uses Seekers or Drones, small or medium amount or in size:
Fighters, Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo, Drones.

THEN:
a. Use Point Defense (PD) on your ship designs, Design PD ships. Continue to research PD to increase damage output.
b. If you have a lot of PDCs compared to the number of enemy seekers/fighters, get in close because you can overwhelm their seekers/fighters and take no damage (Imperator Fyron).
c. If you do not have a lot of PDCs compared to the number of enemy seekers/fighters, you can survive by moving out of range of the seekers after firing your weapons. This is also known as "missile dancing". The idea is to make the seekers move up to their maximum range. At that point, they disappear and can do no damage. Use optimal or max range (difficult in simultaneous games) (Imperator Fyron).
d. Use satellites or fighters (esp at warp points). Missiles can’t hit ‘em, but be warned… fighters can.

17.6.3.2 IF your opponent uses Seekers or Drones , large amount, or large size:
Fighters, Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo, Drones; missile boat fleets, carrier fleets

THEN:
a. Increase Point Defense (PD) on your ship designs, Increase the number of PD ships. Research PD V as a priority.
b. Strongly consider using fighters.
c. (Versus fighters) increase sensors and training so that your direct fire weapons can hit.
d. Attack with an equal or bigger fleet, direct fire + PD, short or point blank strategy.

17.6.3.3 IF your opponent uses Mines :

THEN:
a. If sparsely distributed, early game, include a minesweeper escort.
b. Add armor to help absorb damage. Shields don’t help here.
c. Mid to Late game, always travel with 100+ minesweeping capability.

17.6.3.4 IF your opponent uses Satellites :

THEN:
a. Use Point Defense (PD) on your ship designs, Design PD ships. Continue to research PD to increase damage output.
b. Use armor to increase survivability.
c. Fighters will clean them up, provided your carrier survives the initial attack and is able to launch.

17.6.3.5 IF your opponent uses Weapons Platforms or Bases:

THEN:
a. Counter whatever weapon type is used.
b. Use short or point blank range.
c. Ensure you have enough ships to absorb the attacks, if early game. Medium game fleets should typically overcome WPs easily with small losses.
d. ECM and training will make your fleet much harder to hit; esp. medium to late game.

17.6.4 Ship Strategies / Counter-Strategies

17.6.4.1 IF your opponent uses Kamikaze ships :
Including Ramming

THEN:
a. Target that ship type first in the firing strategy if feasible (i.e., “smallest, nearest”).
b. Use max or long range.
c. Ensure you have enough ships to absorb the attacks, if early game. Medium game fleets should typically overcome suicide ships easily with small losses.
d. Use fighters. They cannot be rammed in simultaneous games. (Geo, Geckomolis)
e. Ramming ships are frequently vulnerable to engine destroyers. Ramming ships that don't move don't ram much. They tend to focus on armor for hitpoints, since the attacker's shields are not counted when ramming. Of course, they could still slip a single shield generator on there, but many forget to do this (Krsqk). IIRC, ramming drops the attacker's shields to 0 (Imperator Fyron).

17.6.4.2 IF your opponent uses Ship Capture :
Boarding Parties

THEN:
a. Use shields. Boarding parties hate ‘em.
b. Use shield regenerators... even 1 point of shields is enough to stop boarding parties.
c. Use self destruct devices. Note: your ship will still be destroyed, but not captured.
d. Use security stations (not particularly efficient). Also consider adding additional crew quarters. (see FAQ 6.4).
e. Target that ship type first in the firing strategy if feasible (i.e., “smallest, nearest”).
f. Use max or long range.
g. Consider using engine destroyers to impede the enemy's movement.

17.6.4.3 IF your opponent uses Shields :

THEN:
a. Use Phased Polaron Beam (PPBs).
b. Use Null Space weapons.
c. Use Shield Depleting weapons, designed so they fire first.
d. Lure the fleet into a shield-disabling storm.

17.6.4.4 IF your opponent uses Armor :

THEN:
a. Use Null Space weapons.
b. Use Engine Destroying weapons.

17.6.4.5 IF your opponent uses Master Computers :

THEN:
a. Use Computer Viruses.

17.6.4.6 IF your opponent uses Phased Polaron Beam (PPBs) :

THEN:
a. Use Phased Shields. Forego using any normal shield components. Any normal shield components must be removed, or they will nullify the phased shield protection.
b. Use Armor. Get to Armor VI as a priority. Armor III is the best for hitpoints, and armor VI is needed for the full 15% defensive bonus from both stealth and scattering armor
c. Engage with a longer range weapon (i.e., APB at advanced levels) or with longer range mount (i.e., WPs or base mounts)

17.6.4.7 IF your opponent uses Armor and Shield Skipping Weapons:
Null Space, Weapon Destroyers, Engine Destroyers

THEN:
a. Engage with a longer range weapon (i.e., APB) or with longer range mount (i.e., WPs or base mounts)
b. Forego using many armor and shield components.

17.6.4.8 IF your opponent is not using Point Defense:

THEN:
a. In general, deploy Fighters, Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo, Drones, satellites; missile boat fleets, carrier fleets.
b. Fighter stacks will decimate missile boat fleets, since missiles can’t target them.
c. Note: You always want to have 1 or 2 PDCs on your ships no matter what the enemy is currently using, even if they are not using missiles, seekers, and such. Because not doing so would leave you very vulnerable to a sudden change of tactics (I have seen many players in PBW fall into such traps). (Imperator Fyron )

17.6.5 Ship Strategies / Counter-Strategies: Special

17.6.5.1 IF your opponent uses Allegiance Subverters:

THEN:
a. Increase ship defense bonus through training, ECM, and Stealth & Scattering Armor. Shields, Armor, Self Destruct Devices, boarding parties and security stations do not prevent subVersion.
b. Use Master Computers. Even if your master computer is taken down (i.e., virus), it still is immune to subVersion.
c. Tip: If the enemy is using Allegiance Subverters, use a MC and one of each (Bridge, LS and CQ) on your ships. This will make them immune to the AS, and they will not be disabled by a Computer Virus. Get the best of both worlds. (Imperator Fyron)

17.6.5.2 IF your opponent uses the Talisman:

THEN:
a. Attempt to wage war with a Religious foe before Talismans are available. They are expensive. You should be able to compose a better fleet with the amount of research he has foregone to do special research. If the talisman is already on the field, you have cause for concern.
b. Avoid engaging his fleets and attack his resource base. Frag his planets with lots of small fleets, each well trained with 100+ minesweep. He will have to choose to either call off his attack to protect himself.
c. Beat him with intel. Break his treaties, steal his resources, and steal his ships with Crew insurrections. Allegiance Subverters (psychic) used correctly (at a warp ambush) can be nice.
d. Fight the battle on your terms, at the exit side of the warp point. Get first shot. Use fighter stacks and sats with a variety of deadly combos. Engine destroyers are nice.
e. Use a longer range weapon, and engage from a distance. If you need a direct-fire weapon, consider the Wave Motion Gun. +30% to hit. Try to use a weapon that packs more punch.
f. Use better shields and armor to increase your survivability.
g. Or forego using shields and armor at all, and use the space for more weapons. If you do this, ensure your ships are fast and engage at point blank range. Ripper beams are a nice choice for this.
h. Design heavy armored (preferably organic armor) ships that fight at close range and soak up damage, while your main force engages from a comfortable distance. You may consider making giant organic Kamikazes.
i. If you can't engage with superior range, (i.e., Your APB vs. his PPBs) use point blank range to get the best chance to hit and cause the most damage since he'll always hit you anyway. (Imperator Fyron). I have found that point blank / ram with target nearest / nearest / nearest / nearest works the best. And Send in your best Direct Fire ships. Tested in Games against Talisman fleets. Because if you hang back and cannot hit him, his fleets sit back and destroy your fleet and gain experience at the same time. A lose-lose situation. (tesco samoa).
j. Skip adding ECM. You won’t need it.
k. If he is light on PDC, lure him into a fighter/seeker trap. Preferably at a warp point. Good players won’t give you the chance, however.

17.6.6 General Strategies / Counter-Strategies:

17.6.6.1 IF your opponent uses Point Blank or Short Range:
Including Tractor Beams

THEN:
a. Use longer ranged weapons and consider repulsors. Increase your attack % and use a longer range strategy.

17.6.6.2 IF your opponent uses Optimal or Longer Range:
Including Repulsor Beams

THEN:
a. If you aren’t doing well at longer range, use more powerful weapons and consider tractor beams. Use a short or point range strategy.
b. Increase ship movement to engage faster.

17.6.6.3 IF your opponent is difficult to hit:

THEN:
a. Increase ship and fleet training, combat sensors, and move to short or point blank range.
b. Increasing ship speed may be helpful.
c. Next time, design your empire with berserker or warrior, and soup up aggressiveness/defensiveness. Or try the Talisman.

17.6.6.4 IF your opponent is hitting you often:

THEN:
a. Increase ship and fleet training, ECM, and move to longer range (as long as you are hitting him more).
b. Increasing ship speed may be helpful.
c. Next time, design your empire with berserker or warrior, and soup up aggressiveness/defensiveness

17.6.6.5 IF your opponent is doing more damage than you:

THEN:
a. Research more powerful and more advanced weapons.
b. Use ship/unit classes with bigger mounts.
c. Consider adding armor or more powerful shields.
d. Overwhelm with numbers.

17.6.6.6 IF your opponent is attacking or capturing your planets:

THEN:
a. Early game against small fleets; Try the usual; mines, fighters. WPs, bases. Give you better range. Add sensors and multiplex tracking.
b. WPs can pack a nasty punch if you stack quite a few on a select planet. Usually, you can bring an attacking fleet to a halt if you significantly damage on of its ships movement capability. This may stop prevent “chain attacks” where he wipes out several planets in a turn. Eventually, weapons platforms will be overwhelmed by enemy fleets, so your best defense against fleets will be fleets of your own.
c. Scorch earth. Destroy all facilities the turn before it appears you will lose the planet(s).
d. Garrison troops to kill his troops, if he is not packing many.

17.6.6.7 IF your opponent defending the warp point entrance:

THEN:
a. Play in the simulator to see if you can devise a strategy/movement so you can get first shot.
b. Defending the entrance is not necessarily a tactical advantage, however, the defender on average gets into firing position first.

17.6.6.8 IF your opponent defending the warp point exit:

THEN:
a. He will get first shot at close range with most or all or his units and ships.. This is a serious tactical advantage. You must devise a way to ensure the survivability of your ships after his opening volley.
b. Increase ship and fleet training, ECM, so that they are harder to hit
c. Increase your ship size, add armor and shields (if appropriate). Design some “damage absorbers” with only a few weapons.
d. Increase the number of ships in your attacking force (2:1 or 3:1 or better ship ratio, for example)
e. Open another warp point, if possible. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

17.6.6.9 This concludes my article on Strategies and counter-strategies. Enjoy! Feedback is welcome as always. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ May 28, 2003, 17:16: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Slick]

Feedback:

- Superb as always. These articles are really turing into a grand project and I thank you for the effort. Glad to see you found time in between making babies to do some writing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

- Typo: PPB = Phased Poloron Beam, not that funky name you made up http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

- Don't worry about formatting. Once you are satisfied with the "draft" and ready for incorporation to the FAQ, let me know and I will format it. I expect to get the next FAQ update done by the end of the next weekend. If this is not ready by then, no problem, it will go in the following revision.

Slick.

[Stone Mill]

LOL! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Thanks, Buddy.

Particle Projection Beams http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif ... I'm getting my Sci-Fi universes mixed up... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

edited.

[Ed Kolis]

Polaron, not Poloron http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

If your opponent is using the Talisman, don't you want to attack at CLOSE range to get the best chance to hit since he'll always hit you anyway???

[Stone Mill]

Originally Posted by Ed Kolis
If your opponent is using the Talisman, don't you want to attack at CLOSE range to get the best chance to hit since he'll always hit you anyway??? <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This is true if you are not trying to outrange him (i.e., Your APB XII vs. his PPB V). I alluded to it in g) and h) but your point deserves its own line. Thanks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Edited.

[Suicide Junkie]

b. Use Master Computers. If your master computer is taken down (i.e., virus), it may be subverted.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">IIRC, in the latest patch, a destroyed MC is still immune to subVersion.

IF your opponent uses Ship Capture:<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Use shield regenerators... even 1 point of shields is enough to stop boarding parties.

a. Use Phased Shields. Forego using many normal shield components.
b. Use Armor. Get to Armor V as a priority.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A: Use phased shields. Any normal shield components must be removed, or they will nullify the phased shield protection.

B:
Armor 5? Armor 3 is the best for hitpoints, and armor 6 is needed for the full 15% ECM from stealth and scattering armor, IIRC.

[Stone Mill]

All good stuff, Suicide Junkie. Thanks much!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Edited.

[Fyron]

17.6.3.1 IF your opponent uses Seekers or Drones, small or medium amount or in size:
Fighters, Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo, Drones.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You should have the articles say that you _always_ want to have 1 or 2 PDCs on your ships no matter what the enemy is currently using. This section implies that it is ok not to use PDCs if your enemy isn't using missiles and such. But, doing so would leave you very vulnerable to a sudden change of tactics (I have seen many players in PBW fall into such traps).

Originally posted by teal:
So what's rock/paper/scissors about that?!<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Nothing, really. Stock SE4's weapons are not very well balanced. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif The only RPS that comes in is whether you research PPBs before or after ECM and Combat Sensor IIs. Someone with more advanced ECM and CS using DUCs can slaughter your fleet armed with PPBs because their ships will be hit much less often than yours will be.

[ May 22, 2003, 20:30: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Nothing, really. Stock SE4's weapons are not very well balanced. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif The only RPS that comes in is whether you research PPBs before or after ECM and Combat Sensor IIs. Someone with more advanced ECM and CS using DUCs can slaughter your fleet armed with PPBs because their ships will be hit much less often than yours will be.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The way I see that RPS comes into play is that no one weapon is uber, unstoppable. Just like in RPS, the Rock can knock out the Scissors, in turn the Scissors can cut up the Paper, in turn the Paper and cover up the Rock. Just like in SEIV, no one weapon will destroy them all, you have to hope that whatever your hand shows (RPS) will be the one that can take out the person you are fighting against.

At least that's how I see it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Stone Mill]

Thank you, Fyron.

Added:
17.6.4.8 IF your opponent is not using Point Defense:

THEN:
a. In general, deploy Fighters, Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo, Drones, satellites; missile boat fleets, carrier fleets.
b. Fighter stacks will decimate missile boat fleets, since missiles can’t target them.
c. Note: You always want to have 1 or 2 PDCs on your ships no matter what the enemy is currently using, even if they are not using missiles, seekers, and such. But, doing so would leave you very vulnerable to a sudden change of tactics (I have seen many players in PBW fall into such traps). (Imperator Fyron )

[capnq]

17.6.3.1 IF your opponent uses Seekers or Drones, small or medium amount or in size:
Fighters, Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo, Drones.

THEN:
a. Use Point Defense (PD) on your ship designs, Design PD ships. Continue to research PD to increase damage output.
b. Use Point blank direct fire weapons. Get in close.
c. To stay alive, move out of range of the seekers. Also known as “missile dance.” Use optimal range or max range. (Difficult in simultaneous games.)<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">b. & c. seem to contradict each other. Can somebody reword and clarify this?

[cybersol]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
Note: You always want to have 1 or 2 PDCs on your ships no matter what the enemy is currently using, even if they are not using missiles, seekers, and such. But, doing so would leave you very vulnerable to a sudden change of tactics (I have seen many players in PBW fall into such traps). (Imperator Fyron )<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't you mean to say:
Note: You always want to have 1 or 2 PDCs on your ships no matter what the enemy is currently using, even if they are not using missiles, seekers, and such. Because not doing so would leave you very vulnerable to a sudden change of tactics (I have seen many players in PBW fall into such traps). (Imperator Fyron)

[Fyron]

SM:
Yeah, you kinda butchered my post and made it make no sense. The middle sentence of that paragraph was important. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Rags:
No weapon is "uber", but most of the weapons are much much weaker than the main line and cost more research points. It is possible to win with them, but you need superiority in numbers or some other are to do so. All else being equal (racial stats, training, number of ships, size of ships, etc.), the person using Torpedos will lose much more often than win to the one using PPBs, for example. This is because in the long run, PPBs are a lot more powerful than Torpedos (much higher damage ratio). I wish it wasn't this way, but it is. Some racial weapons can be used in place of some parts of the main line, but many others them are rather weak.

Higher damage per shot is overwhelmed by higher damage ratio in most combat situations.

Originally posted by capnq:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">17.6.3.1 IF your opponent uses Seekers or Drones, small or medium amount or in size:
Fighters, Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo, Drones.

THEN:
a. Use Point Defense (PD) on your ship designs, Design PD ships. Continue to research PD to increase damage output.
b. Use Point blank direct fire weapons. Get in close.
c. To stay alive, move out of range of the seekers. Also known as “missile dance.” Use optimal range or max range. (Difficult in simultaneous games.)<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">b. & c. seem to contradict each other. Can somebody reword and clarify this?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">b. If you have a lot of PDCs compared to the number of enemy seekers/fighters, get in close because you can overwhelm their seekers/fighters and take no damage.
c. If you do not have a lot of PDCs compared to the number of enemy seekers/fighters, you can survive by moving out of range of the seekers after firing your weapons. This is also known as "missile dancing". The idea is to make the seekers move up to their maximum range. At that point, they disappear and can do no damage. Use optimal or max range (difficult in simultaneous games).

[ May 22, 2003, 23:48: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Krsqk]

You might also add that ramming ships are frequently vulnerable to engine destroyers. Ramming ships that don't move don't ram much. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif They tend to focus on armor for hitpoints, since the attacker's shields are not counted when ramming. Of course, they could still slip a single shield generator on there, but many forget to.

[Fyron]

You need a shield regenerator too. IIRC, ramming drops the attacker's shields to 0.

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by cybersol:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Stone Mill:
Note: You always want to have 1 or 2 PDCs on your ships no matter what the enemy is currently using, even if they are not using missiles, seekers, and such. But, doing so would leave you very vulnerable to a sudden change of tactics (I have seen many players in PBW fall into such traps). (Imperator Fyron )<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't you mean to say:
Note: You always want to have 1 or 2 PDCs on your ships no matter what the enemy is currently using, even if they are not using missiles, seekers, and such. Because not doing so would leave you very vulnerable to a sudden change of tactics (I have seen many players in PBW fall into such traps). (Imperator Fyron)</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ahhh... yes I do mean to say that. Sorry about the butchery. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Edited.

Imperator Fyron, thanks for doing a wonderful job of clarifying capnq's question. That is to what I was referring. Added:

b. If you have a lot of PDCs compared to the number of enemy seekers/fighters, get in close because you can overwhelm their seekers/fighters and take no damage.
c. If you do not have a lot of PDCs compared to the number of enemy seekers/fighters, you can survive by moving out of range of the seekers after firing your weapons. This is also known as "missile dancing". The idea is to make the seekers move up to their maximum range. At that point, they disappear and can do no damage. Use optimal or max range (difficult in simultaneous games). <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Krsqk, very nice. I believe Engine destroters may also apply to ship capture. Added:
You might also add that ramming ships are frequently vulnerable to engine destroyers. Ramming ships that don't move don't ram much. They tend to focus on armor for hitpoints, since the attacker's shields are not counted when ramming. Of course, they could still slip a single shield generator on there, but many forget to do this. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Fyron, Good point. Added to Krsqk's submission:

IIRC, ramming drops the attacker's shields to 0. (Imperator Fyron) <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

[ May 23, 2003, 15:07: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Ruatha]

17.6.4.2 IF your opponent uses Ship Capture :

THEN:
a. Use shields. Boarding parties hate ‘em.
b. Use shield regenerators... even 1 point of shields is enough to stop boarding parties.
c. Use self destruct devices. Note: your ship will still be destroyed, but not captured.
d. Use Master Computers.
e. Use security stations (not particularly efficient).
f. Target that ship type first in the firing strategy if feasible (i.e., “smallest, nearest”).
g. Use max or long range.
h. Consider using engine destroyers to impede the enemy's movement.

Why, MC's don't stop boarding parties does it?

[Fyron]

You can fill the saved space with Security Stations, but that's all MCs will help againt boarding parties. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I think he was refering to Boarding Parties and/or Allegience Subverters. It should say "use MCs if the enemy is using Allegience subverters" and not just "use MCs".

[Stone Mill]

No... That section is just for boarding parties. If MCs don't stop boarding parties, Ruatha is right, it should be deleted.

I didn't think that they do, but at the time was writing this, I seemed to remember in an older thread that they may... but I guess I was tired.

I will delete it.

[Slick]

Actually, having a MC is worse than without, since Crew Quarters count toward defense against boarding parties while MC's do not.

Slick.

[tesco samoa]

Hi Stone Mill...

For the Religous Types...

I have found that point blank / ram with target nearest / nearest / nearest / nearest works the best. And Send in your best DF ships.

Tested in Games against Talisman fleets.

Cause if you hang back and cannot hit him. His fleets sit back and destroy your fleet and gain experience at the same time. A lose lose situation.

Ed had mentioned it earlier. I wished to follow it up.

[Fyron]

The boarding defense of CQ is not very much. 2 boarding party Is can take over all but the largest of ships. 3 BPs can take over any ship unless the ship has extra CQs on it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Or maybe it is 4, I don't remember exactly.

[Slick]

The numbers are already in the FAQ:

6.4.5 Each crew quarter’s component counts as 16 defense against Boarding Parties.
6.4.6 Each boarding party is worth 25% guys if used as a defender.

...

6.4.9 Boarding Party 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 guys respectively. Security Station 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 60, 100, 140, 180, 220 turrets respectively. Any BP or SS takes up 20kt space. Boarding is successful if the boarding parties are greater than the effective number of defenders (Security Stations turrets + 25% of boarding parties on the defending ship used as defenders + 16 for every undestroyed Crew Quarters)

================================

The MC counts as zero defense against boarding.

Slick.

[Krsqk]

Remember, also, that the actual ability value numbers are 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 for BP I-V. They just multiply them by 4 in the description. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif So, a single CQ has a built-in boarding defense value of 4. IIRC, explicitly assigning a Boarding Defense ability to it stacks with the built-in ability.

[Fyron]

The FAQ is wrong. All boarding attack points are used for defense, not just 25% of them.

IIRC, explicitly assigning a Boarding Defense ability to it stacks with the built-in ability. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You recall correctly.

I don't know if the strategy articles cover this, but...

If the enemy is using Allegience Subverters, use a MC and one of each Bridge, LS and CQ on your ships. This will make them immune to the AS, and they will not be disabled by a Computer Virus. Get the best of both worlds.

[ May 24, 2003, 02:19: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[sparhawk]

Very good, I like those ideas.
I'm now in my seventh KOTH game and learning a lot...very good.
But One questions remains?: where can I find all the articles eq 1.1 till 17.x.

Sparhawk

[ May 27, 2003, 14:48: Message edited by: sparhawk ]

[capnq]

where can I find all the articles eq 1.1 till 17.x <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In the "Frequently Asked Questions for Newbies" sticky thread {link} (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=005518).

As I type this, the FAQ has dropped back to page 2 of the thread, but it should be reposted to the first page soon. I've never seen it drop further back than page three.

[Stone Mill]

OK folks. I’m wrapping this one up so Slick can add it to the FAQ. This was the most challenging article yet, and I wish to express my sincere thanks for the contributors who kept me honest. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Added:

17.6.4.2 d. Use security stations (not particularly efficient). Also consider adding additional crew quarters. (FAQ 6.4)
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
17.6.5.1 c. Tip: If the enemy is using Allegiance Subverters, use a MC and one of each (Bridge, LS and CQ) on your ships. This will make them immune to the AS, and they will not be disabled by a Computer Virus. Get the best of both worlds. (Imperator Fyron)
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
17.6.5.2 i. If you can't engage with superior range, (i.e., Your APB vs. his PPBs) use point blank range to get the best chance to hit and cause the most damage since he'll always hit you anyway. (Imperator Fyron). I have found that point blank / ram with target nearest / nearest / nearest / nearest works the best. And Send in your best Direct Fire ships. Tested in Games against Talisman fleets. Because if you hang back and cannot hit him, his fleets sit back and destroy your fleet and gain experience at the same time. A lose-lose situation. (tesco samoa)
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

[Fyron]

IIRC, ramming drops the attacker's shields to 0 <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I recalled incorrectly, you know. Ramming does not affect the attacker's shields at all (unless a shield generator component gets destroyed, of course). A ship that rams (attacker, source) has it's shields remain at whatever level they were before the ram. All damage is done to it's hull, none to shielding. Its shields are not dropped to 0. The target ship, on the other hand, will have damage done to it's shields first before it takes any structural damage.

[Stone Mill]

Hey Dudes...

Any requests in particular for the next Article?

I've been kind of thinking about...
-Managing Your Economy,
-Partnerships and Trade,
and How to Win (including dirty tricks)... but I think I want to hold off on this one for a bit until I lose my title. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

*********************
17 Strategy Articles (By Stone Mill, contributing writer)
17.1 Empire Design **
17.2 Early Economy and Exploration
17.3 Managing Your Economy **
17.4 Get the Most out of Fighters
17.5 Combat Strategies – Early, Mid, and Late Game **
17.6 Rock, Paper, Scissors – (Which weapons and strategies counter others)
17.7 The Early Kill **
17.8 Partnerships and Trade **
17.9 How to Win in SEIV by Machiavelli XLVII **
17.10 When To Attack **
17.11 Intel Operations
** under development

[Slick]

Strange that nobody has responded to this yet. I for one can't wait! Personally I would like to see "17.3 Managing Your Economy" next; although I eagerly await all of them and would be happy with any of them.

If you do 17.3 next, here are some of the things I would like to see your methods of doing:

- Could you include your methods of keeping track of things? Like how do you do it? paper? memory? notpad.exe? Specifically, I like to keep track using the system notes on the galactic map of such things as which system-wide facilities are built, if the system has cloak detection sats, and other system type info.

- The things I get bogged down with in the mid game are upgrading facilities once level III's come out. i.e. can't be built in 1 turn so I build level II's and upgrade later - but sometimes forget to upgrade when the Last one is built.

- Also, your methods for efficiently moving units & population around.

- Also, how many planets per system do you build spaceyards on?

- Do you use spaceyard bases to supplement spaceyard facilities?

- How do you tweak your production & construction so that you have no large defecits or surplusses?

- How many storage facilities do you build?

Sorry for rambling. I don't really think I do a terrible job at these things, but I would like to see your methods, which have been developed far longer than mine and are thus probably much better. Thanks.

Slick.

[Stone Mill]

Thanks Slick, 17.3, Managing your Economy will be next.

Your questions, ideas and suggestions are actually very good, and not necessarily different from mine. This game is wide open when it comes to play styles, and what I present will be what logically suits my style.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[deccan]

Does anyone use the Emergency Propulsion Pod, and if so, for what reason?

[Slick]

I use them on a few designs:

My planet maker Battleship, because I need repair capability any way, it has a huge maintenance cost due to its Matter Gravity Sphere component so I don't want to spend excess turns in transit to asteroid fields. Each turn I use the pod and the on board spaceyard repairs it making it ready for the next turn. Note that you don't need a spaceyard to repair the Matter Gravity Sphere (only a repair bay), but you do need a spaceyard to repair the EPP.

My Ambulance Destroyer (which has a Medical Bay, speedy engines, solar sail and lots of supplies) because I want to get any plagues cured as fast as possible. I don't have a spaceyard on the DD obviously. I build, then mothball usually 3 or 4 of these Ambulances strategically placed in the empire so that I can get it to any plagued planet in a few turns.

Slick.

[teal]

Last time I tried to use a Matter Gravity Sphere nothing would repair it after it was used. A repair bay wouldn't repair it and taking the ship back to a shipyard wouldn't repair it. I was quite confused and decided to give up on the whole making planet idea entirely. Any rampant speculation as to what I was doing wrong... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ?

[Slick]

Originally posted by teal:
Last time I tried to use a Matter Gravity Sphere nothing would repair it after it was used. A repair bay wouldn't repair it and taking the ship back to a shipyard wouldn't repair it. I was quite confused and decided to give up on the whole making planet idea entirely. Any rampant speculation as to what I was doing wrong... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I sure can't think of what it might be. I have never had such a problem. Try it again and if you can replicate the problem, we can help troubleshoot. If we can't figure it out, you can email the saved game to MM.

Slick.

[teal]

Tested it again by starting up a high tech game and making a planet maker very quickly. No problems. My repair bay III repaired the ship the next turn. No idea what happened that first time... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[teal]

After doing some further testing (and reloading the original saved game). I think that the problem was that I just won the game on the turn that I made the planet (or else well before making the planet I was playing vs. the AI and wanted to mess around some more). Once one player declares victory certain things seem to stop happening...

[Fyron]

Actually, repairs do not stop happening after victory is met. I often start games with no AI to test some things, and building planets is sometimes used in such tests (esp. testing what can be built http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

[Pablo]

teal,
maybe you captured a planet maker ship with a Matter Gravity Sphere component being higher level than you have researched. In this case you cannot (IIRC) repair the component until you research the appropriate tech. level.
This is the only idea I can think of...

[teal]

Eeek! Didn't mean for a simple (that's strange) question to be so prominently displayed in a popular thread for all to see!

Quick Stone Mill, post another strategy article so my silliness can be buried in the sands of wisdom.

For those of you who like trying to figure out strange bugs here is the complete situation:

1) I was playing a game using the TDM modpack (Version 3.00). I won the game (400% of second place) a few turns before getting Matter Gravity Sphere II. Since I had never made a planet before I wanted to keep playing and see how making planets worked. I built my planet maker and used it and ever since then the Matter Gravity Sphere II has not been repaired either by the repair bay I on the ship or by taking it back to a shipyard. I have reloaded this saved game and the situation is still the same. That particular component never gets repaired.

2) Started a normal 1.84 game with high tech and built a planet maker quickly and tested it. The component gets repaired fine by the onboard repair bay.

3) Started a TDM (Version 3.00) game with high tech and simultaneus movement and repeated experiment. Component gets repaired by on board repair bay.

4) concluded that it must have been my "Victor" status which prevented the repair bay from functioning in 1). But Fyron is right, this doesn't seem to match with other experiments I have done where I started a game with just one empire to test something out.

So I'm completely puzzled by this bug. But its not important!!!! Back to the wonderful strategy articles... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Stone Mill]

teal,

Don't sweat it, sir. While it is true that your findings probably deserve their own thread, any comments are welcome... and your original question was strategy-based. Hope we find out more about it.

As for the next article, The 'ol Stone Mill has somethin' brewing... hope to make some progress today. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Atrocities]

Regarding the issue of the first 10 turns of a PBW game, I recall reading somewhere where the TOP players deny building half BSY and half Colony ships in the first 10 turns of the game.

What strategy works best, half and half, or all or one?

[Fyron]

It all depends on HW size. Large HWs should get 5 BSYs, medium 3-5 depending on racial setup and the map, small 2-3.

[primitive]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Regarding the issue of the first 10 turns of a PBW game, I recall reading somewhere where the TOP players deny building half BSY and half Colony ships in the first 10 turns of the game.

What strategy works best, half and half, or all or one?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't remember the thread, but with a "normal" starting system, you get the fastest growth with 1 turn colonizers and using moons/small planets (with wrong atmosphere) for shipyards.

If your system don't have any moons/small planets, then BSY's might be faster.

And there are always the question of defence. If your enemy start next door (KOTH), those small planets are hard to defend. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Stone Mill]

It does depend... I've done both; but I usually don't build many SY bases. With a 1 homeworld start I like at least one SY Base to help out building units for my ships to carry off.

With a 3 homeworld start I usually don't do it, 3 worlds constructing is plenty good for construction output.

Always tend to rely on your forward colonies for yards; as I'll explain a bit in the next article... but I'll give a tidbit now... it is in your interest to apply your constructing capability to the front line. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ June 09, 2003, 01:24: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Stone Mill]

The next Installment is almost done... "Managing Your Economy" should be up tomorrow...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Ragnarok]

Oh goodie, I can't wait! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Fyron]

BSYs are for using that extra resource production that your planets can't make use of in the first few years. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Rigelian]

BSYs are for using that extra resource production that your planets can't make use of in the first few years. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Echo that one.. bigtime. I've out-produced a number of early neighbours using this approach. I would generally build 5 or 6 BSYs in my first 10 turns of e-build, colonisers in the other turns of course. Put 'em on e-build for a 3-turn coloniser or 2-turn FG/DD, especially if you're Organic. Put a couple of weapons on the first few to defend against the 'early rush' escort.

[Stone Mill]

***FINAL DRAFT.***

17.3 Managing Your Economy

17.3.1 Principles
I. A Strong Economy is the Backbone of your Game
II. Expand and Develop your Planets With Efficiency
III. Strive for Economic Harmony
IV. Adjust your Production to Meet the Needs of your Construction
V. Predict and Prepare for Crippling Resource Swings

17.3.2 Overview
Of all factors involved in SEIV, economy is perhaps the most critical, yet widely underestimated factor. It will take many games before you have an understanding of how to run an empire efficiently. Economy has a direct relationship with the number and quality of machines in your military.

-- Production refers to your empire’s resource output; the amount of minerals, organics, rads, intel, and research points generated.
-- Construction refers to your empire’s ability to build in respect to how many resource points may be used in a turn by a component’s rate %.

17.3.3 Ramifications of a Troubled Economy

Economic woes are usually tied to a lack of resources (produced or in storage), or swings in happiness.

Issues involved with lack of resources:
a. ships will not be built
b. refits will not occur
c. ships will be abandoned at random due to shortages; as opposed to scrapped. The main difference is that wheh you intentionally scrap a ship, you get a percentage (in settings.txt) of the resources back. Abandoned ships return no resources, any cargo being carried is lost, and the the game certainly won't choose wisely when deciding which ships to abandon.

Issues involved with happiness:
A planet’s resource production % will decline in respect to the planet’s declining happiness (FAQ 4.4.8.1). Also, a planet will construct at 100% rate as long as it is not rioting. When rioting occurs, a planet will not produce resources or construct anything (FAQ 4.4.7). This is a very bad state. So it is in your interest to:

a. Keep your people happy (strive for Jubilant)
b. Prevent Riots

Widespread rioting is the worst pain your empire can feel; bringing your empire’s economy crashing. It is very difficult to recover, and potentially game-ending.

17.3.4 Economics at Empire Creation
When developing your race, they are many selections which may enhance (or limit) your economic capability:

Culture Selection
Pay attention to the modifiers; most are small and somewhat fairly balanced. That small bonus is nice boost when compounded with bonuses in other areas.

Characteristics
The most economically important selections are:
a. Maintenance: Although costly, this has a drastic effect on the size of your military. Boost it. Always.
b. Construction: Significantly increased to help your rate. It’s nice to build stuff faster.
c. Mining Aptitude: Help your mineral %
d. Organic Aptitude: Usually reduced, unless you are playing an organic race
e. Radioactive Aptitude: May be reduced, but avoid if possible
f. Repair: Avoid reducing this. Retrofitting requires lots of repair
g. Political Savvy: Very nice to boost trade %, as long as you have lots of friends. But don’t rely on it much… things go bad.
h. Happiness: Don’t reduce it. It’s hard enough to keep them happy. An inexpensive increase can go a long way.
i. Reproduction: Nice to raise if compounding and/or organic. Usually kept even. Otherwise, reducing a bit does not hurt.
j. Environmental Resistance: Usually reduced without much impact

Advanced Traits
The most economically important selections are:
a. Advanced Storage Techniques: It’s like getting 20% more facilities. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
b. Hardy Industrialists: Again, It’s nice to build more faster.
c. Natural Merchants: Not needing spaceports = instant application of resources. Nice; but I spend the 1000 elsewhere
d. Special Racial traits: provide their own unique components and facilities, detailed later in the article

17.3.5 Manage your Maps
Part of being a strong economic player is keeping track of things in your empire. The stronger you lean toward micromanagement, the healthier your economy will be.
Do it Yourself
I don’t use ministers. I don’t like them messing up my master plan. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif They will never be as efficient as you can be.
Game settings that may Help
a. Empire Status  Empire Options  General Options. I select all of these. Select Display note when similar system-wide abilities exist, which will warn you if you attempt to build a duplicate special facility.
b. Empire Status  Empire Options  System Display. I select all of these. It helps to see as much as you can on the map.

System Notes
I like to keep track using the system notes on the galactic map of such things as which system-wide facilities are built, if the system has cloak detection sats, and other system type info (FAQ 11.1) (Slick).

It is helpful to place new tech in queue immediately when you get it, so you don’t forget to add it later. Go from system to system in one sweeping motion.

Find your own method of keeping track of things. A good ‘ol notepad does the job, too. Personally, I try and do most of it in my head.

17.3.6 Expansion
Expand, expand, expand. SEIV game design follows standard 4X concept: the more resource producing sites you have - the stronger you are. There is almost no intrinsic brakes to make overexpansion a disadvantage (mega evil empire is one). (Oleg)

Whether against the AI or against humans, there are some best practices for expansion:

17.3.6.1 Colony Theory
Get as many planets as you can, as quick as you can. Opinions differ on whether to colonize away or home:

Away : As discussed in FAQ 4.2.13 and 17.2, it is advised to send colony ships away. Note that doing so can be risky if you are unlucky. Sending your colonizers away means you will generally fall behind early on research and minerals and new space yards. However the benefits of outward colonization will be far superior, as you will have annexed a greater portion of the quadrant (if you can defend it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ). The main value is investing . The returns from your colonization will be slower, but eventually they will bring large returns when your systems come on-line in mid game. In general, this is because your are seeking out better planets rather than simply grabbing available ones; and claiming a bigger chunk of the quadrant (Slick)

Home : Players who colonize the home system first receive immediate application of resources to their empire and will have space yards Online quicker, and have better home defense. They sacrifice getting a bigger slice of the galaxy and risk being boxed-in.

Tips : Usually I choose something of a mix. If there are large favorable planets at home, I usually prioritize them after I have sent a colonizer out in every direction from home. The danger in traveling too far with your first wave is that you will be caught without construction capability (especially if you have used the Land Rush technique). You need to make sure you put some colonies to work early and make space yards to continue the colonization process.

17.3.6.2 Planet Prioritization
Generally, colonize breathable (green asterisk) planets first; the larger the better, and especially high percentage resource planets. Use planets with poor resource values at your research centers. Get them right to work with a space port and build facilities. It is key to get at least one of each early, if possible. Early on, avoid using these planets as space yard planets.

Secondly, colonize domed (red asterisk) planets first; the larger the better. Choose domed planet(s) in a given system and designate it as a space yard planet. This planet may be used for building more colonizers, and early defense. You want your yard planets to be close to the front lines, but not too close as to risk losing them before they are on-line. Tip: Keep your Construction capability to the front lines to that it may be leveraged against the enemy! Depending on the map, you may find that systems in the rear will need little or no yards at all.

Thirdly, use the rest of the available planets to achieve economic harmony. By the latter stages of the game, all worlds should be put to use.

Note : Prioritize ruin planets, if they are available. Personally, I prioritize them just after breathables unless there is danger of another empire taking it, in which case ruins are highest priority. If you don't have the colonizing tech for the ruin planet yet, try to defend it to deny it to the enemy. (Slick)

17.3.6.3 Get all Colonization Techs and Breathers Possible

When you encounter other races, trade for the other 2 colonization techs. This will exponentially increase your economic potential. Colony tech for colony tech is never refused by the AI, any your treaty type (even war) does not matter. The AI may even accept system maps for a colony tech. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Also acquire all available breathers, through trade or capture. Placing the breather population in the applicable atmosphere type gives you a whopping return in the number of facilities available! (FAQ 4.2.5-6, 10.2.1)

17.3.6.4 The Population Shuffle
The goal of moving population is to develop as many planets with a (production / construction ) bonus as possible (FAQ 4.4.8.1). Moving population around for the sake of increasing you overall population stat isn’t necessarily efficient. Choose large breathable worlds and routinely ship them new citizens by “skimming your homeworld.” Usually, I choose to develop worlds with a minimum of 500 population.

Homeworlds start out the game jam-packed. They are churning out bonus population, but have no place to put them. It is in your interest to skim off population and drop it on your nicer new worlds. On your new colonies, population grows slowly (FAQ 4.7), and will be more noticeable when it is increased to a substantial amount.
Note; Production & construction rates can drop after you remove population from your homeworld. Advanced Storage Techniques will add more space for population so that you can remove some population without losing your bonuses (Slick).

Any ship with cargo can be used for this. I commonly use minelayers, carriers, troop transports, etc., to move population when they aren’t occupied. Many players build population transports for this sole purpose. The process is gradual, and will take a while before you realize benefits on the target planet.

What a wonderful thing it is to capture enemy planets in-tact filled with population. Commonly, the population may not match the appropriate atmosphere. This is where you must shuffle the population at the front for large returns. Use the extra room on your troop transport to assist (if you have time).

Hot Tip : Troop transports should have a small batch of breathers of every type (as you collect them), so you may immediately drop the appropriate type on the conquered planet, and extract the current citizens. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

17.3.7 Economic Harmony (also referenced in 17.2.1)

Economic Harmony is practicing efficiency during your empire’s growth; Keep most of your planets constructing assets while not wasting resources (producing a large mineral excess that is wasted every turn) or slipping into a resource shortage (lacking enough resources to keep most of your planets constructing). In summary, spend all of your produced minerals each turn, while resisting digging into your storage.
You will need stored materials for retrofitting sooner than you think.

This is very difficult to achieve; but you can become efficient with practice. Monitor the empire (crown) window early in the turn, and constantly check back after construction choices. Assess the resource type you need, and allocate new or existing colonies toward that goal. Don’t be afraid to switch a planet you were using for research to radioactives production, should your empire need them.

Also, you should be constantly building research facilities somewhere. This is a staple to the game. Early game, this is a huge priority, as long as your resources are stable. Mid-game, when you have a stable research base, this may become less of a priority, and you can focus more on resource production to support military activities.

17.3.7.1 How many Space Yards do I need?
Common pitfalls experienced:
a. Building too many spaceyards that you never leverage. Commonly, this is because you don’t have enough resources to support construction, or the yard is too far away from the front lines. Use the slot for an extra production facility instead of wasting 5 turns of SY construction depleting your economy.
b. Building too little spaceyards. Commonly, this is not having enough yards ready to construct with the full amount of your resource production. Usually, you can estimate how many yards you will need by how many colony types and breathers you may leverage. In a KOTH game, you can usually expect to have only one of each, lending to a moderate economic potential at best. So, you may have something like 50% of your planets with yards, mostly toward the front lines. In a perfect arrangement, you may be able to have a spaceyard on every planet constructing. This generally will require your having access to all colony types and breathers, lending to a soaring economy. You may get close to this in large PBW games.

17.3.7.2 Planet Values %
Pay attention to the mineral, organic, and radioactive value % on a planet’s details. When determining where to build a facility, use a planet close to or exceeding 100% for a given resource type. That percentage is part of the formula used in producing your empire’s total resources:

(Extraction Facility value) x (planet’s resource type %) x (empire’s racial %) x (Planet Computer Facility %) x (System Computer Facility %) x (planet’s happiness %) x (population %) x = total mineral resources committed to your empire for that facility.

For example, a Mineral Miner I extracts (700) x Planet mineral 120% (1.2) x empire racial bonus 110% (1.1) x Planet Robotoid factory I 110%(1.1) x System Robotoid factory 110% (1.1) x Jubilant happiness 120% (1.2) x 500 population 110% (1.1) = (x) mineral resources committed to your empire for that facility.

Use planets that have mediocre or low resource values as research or intel centers. The same basic formula applies for total points available for projects.

In the example above, you can see the value of important factors in boosting your economic output.

Note: Don't force an absolute minimum value for building miners. I've built mineral miners on planets with a minerals value of 40 before. It all depends on the game and what you need. If you have plenty of planets with high values, use low value planets for research and such. If not, you may need more resources (Imperator Fyron).

17.3.7.3 Develop Your Planets

The key to economic growth is maximizing your planet development. Special facilities can help, but they take a while to build. Therefore, in a small universe or one-on-one game, I rarely use any advanced facilities, unless I’m really comfortable and secure.

Medium scope game facilities :
a. Planet Robotoid Factory (Computers). I usually build these Last on a planet. Second to Last, I build a space yard to expedite the build time and facility upgrade time (quite often, I set the yard on emergency build for these.)
b. System Robotoid Factory (Computers). I usually build these Last on a planet. Second to Last, I build a space yard to expedite the build time and facility upgrade time (quite often, I set the yard on emergency build for these.)
Note: System Robotoid Facilities do not increase the benefits of remote mining. (Imperator Fyron)
c. Monolith Facilities: only if the planet has good values across all categories, and I feel I can wait 5 turns.( see 17.3.7.4 for discussion)
d. Scanners: I don’t generally use them because the bonus is applied to only one resource area, rather than all three. And you cannot use both Robotoids and Scanners at the same location; only one takes effect.
e. Urban Pacification Centers: Populations will grow happier in this system; Not too expensive, and worth it in the long run. Will nudge your planets to jubilant, and especially help pacify foreign citizens. Subtle and slowly effective.

Large scope game facilities : (see FAQ 4.3)
a. Resource Converter: Converts between resource types with a 30% (at best) loss of material; comes in real handy when you have an unexpected surplus of one type
b. Ultra Recycler: Items scrapped in this sector will reclaim 80% of their original resource value (I don’t use them)
c. Atmosphere converters: Changes the atmosphere of the planet to one that is breathable by its colony over 2 (at best) years… that’s 20 game turns… I’m too impatient. I won’t use them unless the breathers aren’t available
d. Climate Control Facilities: Improves the conditions of the planet up to 3% each year. I never think to use them.
e. Value Improvement Plants: Improves the mineral, organic, and rad value of the planet up to 3% each year. Requires patience; but a slow payoff.

Special facilities and economics : (see FAQ 4.3)

-Religious
a. Time Shrine: Increase mineral production in a system up to 15%
b. Nature Shrine: Improves the conditions of all planets in the system up to 3% each year
c. Fate Shrine: Improves the happiness of the populations who live in this system

-Crystalline
a. Solar Generator: Generates up to 300 minerals, organics, and radioactives per star each turn. May be interesting in a multiple star system
b. Crystaline Restructuring Plant: Reduces all vehicle maintenance costs in the system by up to 30%. This can really help defensive buildup. Remember, the bonus is lost when you leave. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

-Organic
a. Gestation Vats: Populations in this system will reproduce up to 3% faster (may be combined with Replicant Centers)
b. Replicant Centers: Populations in this system will increase by 40M per turn (may be combined with Gestation Vats)
c. Medical labs: Prevents plagues, populations in this system will reproduce 1% faster, and Populations will grow happier in this system

-Temporal
a. Temporal Vacation Service: Improves the happiness of the populations who live in this system
b. Temporal Shipyards: Temporal Shipyards (I, II, and III) have higher construction rates than a spaceyard III, but a planet with a spaceyard facility has to scrap it before building a TSY.

Upgrading Facilities
As soon as you get new tech, don’t forget the Upgrade button. Generally build a space yard first to expedite the facility upgrade time on larger worlds. With smaller planets, just upgrade direct.

17.3.7.4 The Monolith Economy

Some players rely more heavily on monoliths than others. The Monolith Economy includes them as a key component (used with a resource converter). Included herein are the arguments for and against:

Factors For:

a. It is generally accepted monoliths aren’t efficient in small games or in the early game. If you only care about short term gains (such as early game, small maps, early wars), go with normal miners. If you care about long term gains (large maps, mid-game, no early wars that are not resulting in you steamrolling over a minor empire), go with Monoliths. But in large epic games, going with Monoliths is pretty much always a better idea. Such games often have long periods of peace, and those periods are good for getting Monoliths going. Compare Monolith III with Miner III, 2700 (or 1800 of one resource with converter Is) to 1000 resources. In the long term, Monoliths really pay off. (Imperator Fyron)

b. Build time: Also, SY III + HI + 120 const. apt. gets Monoliths in 3 turns on low pop worlds, and in 2 turns on high pop worlds. Take Organic, and you can make all planets high pop worlds (well, large and huge ones, at any rate) in no time. Temporal is not the only way to get fast construction rates. (Imperator Fyron)

c. Gradual introduction: If you really wanted to build the monolith economy, but still gain maximum resources as soon as possible. Would you not build the normal economy first, say resource II's. But for the final two facility slots build a space yard for improved build and start the first monolith. As each monolith completes, scrap a normal facility and build another monolith. It is a lot a micromanagement, but it will get you the most resources along the way. (cybersol)

d. Building a Robotoid Factory III after the 4th Monolith often takes just one more turn than a Monolith, and gives many more resources than a Robotoid on a planet with normal miners does (as there is much more base production).

Factors Against:

a. I never build monoliths in the early game, and find that Monoliths aren't really comparatively desirable until Monolith III is available. The early build cost (up to 5 turns) with a regular space yard is too prohibitive. Usually, your empire needs immediate application of resources. They also set your economy back because of the high build cost. If I have better construction % (can build them in 2-3 turns), I will be somewhat more likely to use them. Generally, I can only pump out Monoliths this fast with Temporal yards, or when a planet has been eventually groomed to SY III, jubilant, high population. (Stone Mill)

b. I still look at Monoliths like a luxury item. In a competitive game against humans, I stick with:
-- I usually build monoliths only when I have a planet with good values in all 3 resource types (and there aren't that many of 'em). I may sometimes select a planet with 2 out of 3, if I need those 2 types.
-- If for some reason I am comfortable and don't need the resources immediately, and I don't feel threatened (which is rare). If I'm playing the AI, I may toy around a bit more, because I certainly don't feel as threatened. (Stone Mill)

c. If anyone wants to prove it to themselves, just do a few case studies and add up the net resources over time:
- make sure you subtract the resources you spend on the facilities you build and add in the resources the facility makes on the turn after it is built. Do this for every turn and you will find that building monoliths will create a large resource deficit for many turns - is your other income able to absorb this and still be competitive?
- make sure you account for the time it takes to build the facilities,
- you can include a resource converter in the end if you wish, but this really benefits both sides of the argument,
- if you build a spaceyard before building facilities to speed up build time, include the resources and time to build it as well as the increased facility construction rate,
- if you build value improvement plants, include the resources and time to build and the time to increase resource percentages,
- use real game probabilities for planet resource percentages. It is much easier to find a planet which is > 100% in one resource than to find one that is > 100% in all 3 resources.
- consider planet size. no matter what your build rate, it takes far longer to fill a large or huge planet with monoliths than individual resource facilities.
- since monoliths I, II, III all cost the same, they all take the same time to build, but the lower level ones produce less. on a standard planet with standard construction rate (2000, 2000, 2000) a single resource facility level II can be built in 1 turn with no spaceyard. When the Last one is built, they all can be upgraded to level III's. This method will fill a planet the quickest and the extra cost for upgrading is made up by having the level II facilities built in 1 turn instead of 2 turns for a level III so you have the income sooner.
- finally compare both schemes and see how low your resource deficits get while building (this will surprise the monolith builders) and how many turns out it takes before a monolith planet exceeds a single resource planet. There is no doubt that a monolith system will eventually outproduce single resource facilities. The real question is at what point and what happens in the meantime? You will find that this time is very long (too many variables to put a discrete number here), but try some case studies yourself and you can see that it will be many many turns. And in the meantime, your enemies are coming... (Slick)

17.3.8 Setting up the Front
Expansionism and military support go hand in hand, I can't seem to operate one without the other. So much boils down to an effective balance between managing your economy and having a long enough arm (militarily) to protect your fledgling colonies. (Echo Mirage)

17.3.8.1 Co-occupation?
Personally, I resist co-occupation at all costs, and try to enforce sole possession of any system I occupy. I usually do this by military action (denial via units and attack ships) or through politics (offering a player something in return for their planet(s)), especially if I have the basis of “claiming a system” first. Why?
a. Keep all the resources for your own empire. When you later achieve system-wide facilities, the bonus will be applied to all planets in a given system.
Note: They benefit only the empire that owns them; planets owned by other empires in that system do not recevie a bonus.
b. It is easier to defend warp points. It takes far less effort to build defenses at a choke point on the front line than to build defenses on each planet, or risk leaving planets vulnerable. A co-occupying planet in your system is a thorn in your side that will attract your constant attention for monitoring hostile activity.

So… what to do if a frontier system is co-occupied? The answer may surprise you: Create a sole outpost.

17.3.8.2 The Outpost
While an outpost has more to do with military strategy, it deserves attention in economics because of the potential damage that is done by over-colonizing the front line:

-- Losing planets to an enemy - Decreases happiness, causes rioting  Negatively impacts both production and construction

So, do not rush into a system and “grab as many planets as you can” in the area you determine to be the front line. Create a single strongpoint in that system and defend it well. Do not panic if your opponent grabs these planets… if you play correctly, this will be a mistake for which you will make him pay. Concentrate on denying further penetration, and build up you outpost with mines, weapon’s platforms, etc.

17.3.8.3 Staging System and Forward Bases

The Staging System is the system directly behind the front-line system with your outpost. It will contain your Forward Base for this front. All planets will be colonized; and yards will be your priority. Good Forward Bases have your training centers, resupply, repair capability (ships / bases). They are best over colonizable moons, which can be used to build an additional training facility, increasing the % of training per round. Ships are retrofit and repaired here with the latest tech while they are repaired and staged. Your fleet can be used for defense, or applied to the front line for an assault.

17.3.9 Resources and Construction

Resources are required because of the component cost for:
- constructing new items
- maintaining existing items

a. Take a look at your designs. The display will advise you how many resources of each specific type will be deducted during construction. When you add or remove components, the resource amounts adjust. Tip : as you acquire new technology, pay attention to the resource cost of the new components. You will have to adjust your empire’s resource inflow before you build them so you can sufficiently construct and maintain them.

b. Keep an eye on your construction queues; when adding items to construction, your empire resources (crown) are immediately adjusted. This goes for units, ships and facilities.

c. Monitor the units and ships you have in service. The totality of these items impact the amount of empire resources spent on maintenance. Scrapping / gifting / destroying items lessens the total maintenance cost; building / acquiring new items increases the total maintenance cost for your empire.

Resource Rules of Thumb
How many (Minerals / Organics / Radioactives) does my empire need?
Early game: you will need 10 : 1 : 2-3
Mid-Late game: you will need 10: 1 : 4

This will vary according to your tech usage, especially special tech. For example, an organic empire using many organic components may require a resource ratio of:
10 : 5 :4
This is because the components and facilities generally tax organic resources.

Understanding where the demand on your resources is coming from is critical to managing your economy.

17.3.10 Predict Resource Swings
How did this Happen?
All new players learn a hard economic lesson when they start using advanced tech and their economic needs change. Players can experiences economic droughts of 10, 20 or more turns trying to compensate for current resource needs. For instance, you start using Phased Polaron Beams on your designs, and find your radioactive reserves drained while you halt all production to build radioactive mining facilities. The best bet is to plan ahead.

Most commonly, economic swings are caused by:

a. (Mid game) Building and maintaining components with a heavy radioactive cost, such as shields, armor, certain weapons types such as PPBs, and stellar manipulation components (huge!). Rads are most often underestimated.
b. (Early game) maintaining too many colony ships en route; building too many non-resource producing facilities at the same time
c. Mass building or upgrading of facilities, especially special facilities.
d. Losing (or acquiring) fleets and planets.
e. Retrofits to your current designs, using new components with a different resource cost. Retrofits are subtracted from your stored resources. When you give the retrofit order, the specific resource cost is displayed. HOT! you must take a mental tally of all retrofits you order in a turn and ensure the total cost does not exceed your storage!
f. Broken treaties and the loss of resource bonus (up to 20% of the other empire's income multiplied by your political savvy %)
g. Mothballing / unmothballing. I generally don’t use it, because I strive to employ and leverage any ship available in the staging and forward area. Many good players use mothballing, depending on their strategies.

Tip : Upgrade directly to the latest tech; there is no need to step. If you have a facility upgrade in queue, that has not started yet, delete the old upgrade project and enter a new order to the latest tech. (i.e. 10 Minerals I facilities do not have to upgrade to Minerals II before upgrading to Minerals III; upgrade direct from I to III).

17.3.10.1 Storage

Storage is generally used for:

a. Retrofits
b. Compensating for moderate overages in expense

If you are close to Economic Harmony, you probably won’t need much more storage than what you expect to spend on retrofits. In mid game, this will commonly be a few mineral storage facilities, one or two rads storage , and maybe an organic storage facility. However, most of us need some padding until we get good at understanding the game.

17.3.11 Treaties (see FAQ 10.6.10)

Treaties are good for your (and the other empire’s) economy. A treaty provides you with (up to) a 20% share of the other empire’s economy, modified by your empire’s trade modifier %. Therefore, a small empire benefits hugely from a treaty with a big empire; and likewise, a big empire does not gain much. Depending on type, the treaty bonus may be realized in resources, research, and intel.

If you are benefiting largely from treaties, be sure to maintain an additional buffer in your resource expenditures and/or maintain increased storage to compensate for when they are broken. This will hurt. Even if your relationship is solid, remember, an enemy can run Communications Mimic against you.

17.3.12 The Happiness factor
Keep your people happy (see FAQ 1.2.1). The happier they are, they less of a hit they take when things go bad. Your goal is to prevent rioting. Use Riot control measures (FAQ 12.1) in advance before you become handcuffed.

Foreign citizens are more difficult to keep happy, and will be strained by unhappy events. Pay special attention to them.

17.3.13 The Organic Edge

While touched on before, the Organic race deserves special consideration economically because of it’s advantages:

a. The organic resource thing is a huge advantage (not just for reduced build time, although that is a big advantage), as are the multiple weapons in one tech area. The acid weapons have the advantage of being able to nail units (which most torpedoes can't), and the parasite reload rate of 2 can keep them effective even in late-game, particularly when used in combined arms deployments with fighters and drones and direct-fire warships.(Pvk)

b. Organic races can outbuild standard races by 60%, then. Maintenance advantage varied from 38 to 56%. With 3 standard ships to 5 organic ships, the outcome will be a toss-up. With 30 standard ships to 50 organic ships, it's no contest. If the organic race makes first kill, it's even worse. My results frequently had over 35 functional ships remaining for the organic race. Superior numbers seem to be almost as conclusive an advantage as superior accuracy, at least at max tech (Krsqk)
c. Organic races can make some of the best fighters in the game using the Small Electric Discharge weapons. This, combined with the organic tendency to be able to significantly outproduce others, makes fighters very formidable for organic races. There is also no limit for the number of fighters in a sector. For more on fighters (see FAQ section 8.2) (Slick).

17.3.14 Construction

You should be intimately familiar with (FAQ 17.2.6 Tweak it!) modifying your designs so that they may be constructed efficiently.

Question: The things I get bogged down with in the mid game are upgrading facilities once level III's come out. i.e. can't be built in 1 turn so I build level II's and upgrade later - but sometimes forget to upgrade when the Last one is built (Slick).

Answer : I handle this situation according to the planet size, and how quickly I need the resources. I generally frown on building anything but the latest tech. On a small world I will build the level IIIs taking 2 turns each. On a larger world I will stop and build a spaceyard first. Then I will construct the level III facilities in one turn, and perform the upgrades much quicker.

Generally, you should have a space yard in place on your larger resource planets, as mentioned in 17.3.3.4. This yard will expedite upgrades and build special facilities.
Don’t forget that upgrades divert your empire’s resources and your goal is to keep this to a minimum so you can reap the upgrade benefit as quickly as possible.

17.3.14.1 Queue on Hold:
If you are at a point where your construction expenses exceed your production income (and you will be http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ), use the Queue on Hold button rather than canceling the item currently being built. I like to use the construction window to find items that can wait and place them on hold.

17.3.14.2 Emergency Build Tips:
a. Build a base space yard, have it build something on emergency build, then mothball or scrap it, or have it build units.
b When you have many planetary yards, which you don't have enough resources to build with all of them at the same time. Construct toward the front. (Pvk)
c. When there is an emergency in one area of the map (i.e., enemy invasion) and you want as much built as fast as possible, to maximize the response. (Gee, am I the first one to mention using emergency build for emergencies?) For the emergency scenario, if you are in a pretty large galaxy and have control of many systems, you can't defend them all, so you would use EB on frontier systems to produce reinforcements a bit quicker ( and pray the threat is squashed within 10 turns!) (Pvk)
d When something is down to 0.2 years to complete, and emergency mode will reduce it to 0.1. By canceling emergency mode the next turn, you get 25% more production than you would have otherwise, which is also a good time to buy something cheap that you wouldn't have wanted to spend a whole turn on. (Pvk)
e. When trying to build expensive facilities, such as important system-wide ones, which take over a year to build. The fact that one of the planetary yards will be at low production for a year thereafter is often insignificant compared to getting that important facility working 5 or 6 turns earlier.(Pvk)
f. Don't write off a construction queue when it is in "Slow" mode. Slow mode is a great time to build units (Slick).

Emergency Build first 10 turns? Why not wait?
(section by spoon)
1) you'll have more resources at the end of 20 turns
2) you'll have more spaceyards at the end of 20 turns
3) you'll have been able to establish border colonies up to 10 turns earlier (this is what is most important to me... getting those huge greens before your neighbor puts a domed colony there, or getting to a choke point system before anyone else)

1) few people rush (hopefully)
2) you should have at least 2-3 other spaceyards up and going in your homesystem.
3) if you spent at least one of those ten turns building a base spaceyard, you can emergency build defenses anyway
4) even on slow build, homeworlds can build enough sats or wps to protect from a small attack force
I almost always emergency build at the start, and have never regretted it.(spoon)

17.3.15 Notes on Remote Mining (See also FAQ 4.6)

Remote Miners can be used successfully to generate resources for your empire, but they require maintenance and administration. I don’t use them, but the factors are included for your consideration:

17.3.15.1 Factors For:
a. There is apparently a restriction against having more than one ship with mining components working in the same sector, even if they have different kinds of comps.
To sum up: Three large sats (sats have 0% maintenance) each with different comps can mine the same sector. Additional sats of any type get nothing.
One ship (and I am assuming base here too, it would take too long to test that) only can mine per sector, regardless of types of mining components onboard. But you can put as many mining comps as will fit on that one ship and get all the resources from them. (Geoschmo)

b. If you made the ships with all one type of miner, you would save a lot more resources. If the ship is mining only minerals, then only the mineral value goes down by 1%, instead of all resource types. Remote Mining is very cost effective if you have a construction ship with one satellite launcher. Build a Large Sat with the desired mining component. You can make good use of Asteroid systems.

Remote Mining is very important in games where you can only colonize the right gas type (e.g. O2) or only the right Planet type (e.g. Gas giant). It allows you to get something out of all the other planet types. In these games you can make user of Base Miners where there are moons and planets in the same square. You colonists build a base to mine the uninhabitable moons or planet.
If you have very low maintenance, mining ships are more cost effective. Bases even more so.(LGM)

c. I know for a fact that a little investment can turn into a huge gain. If you build a ship with a Construction Yard, move it to an asteroid with %200+% in minerals, build a Space Yard Construction base, then a Battle Station with 14 mineral miners, that a 25k a turn mineral surplus. Do that in an asteroid field you can easily produce more than your planets. Granted this will take a 20+ turns to deploy but if you start small the gains will outweigh the investment. Not to mention other tricks that could enhance the mining field.(Cyclop)

d. When I play I put Baseships on the asteroids with 4 min miners, 3 farm miners, and 4 rad miners. The result is I make at least 8K in min per turn, at least 6K in farm per turn and at least 5K in rad per turn. The maintenance on a Baseship is 2592 min - 140 Farm - 451 rad. So for me it's very profitable. Now only time it don't become profitable is when one of the %'s drop down to around 40% or lower. I've got on that's producing 218% min - 218% farm - and only 33% rad. I'm making a lot off the min and farm but the rad I'm only making 500 per turn now. So pretty soon I might have to scrap that one and put a miner on it with only farm and min miners on it. Oh BTW, the % drops by 1 for every turn taken. So if you have an asteroid that is say 250% in all 3 areas. Then I'm guessing you have about 20 years before you start losing money on it. (Rags)

17.3.15.2 Factors Against:
a. IMO, the costs of setting up remote mining, usually outweigh the benefits. I think the RM components are a bit large, and/or a bit costly, for the gains.
Basically -- for every remote mining ship, base, or satellite I could build ... I've always a more-pressing need for OTHER satellites, bases, or ships. If the "profit margin" were larger, I might place remote mining higher in priority than other ships ... but IMO, it's always better to colonize a world, than remote mine it ... even if I can only build one facility, a single Monolith 3 is going to be superior to a similar cost base in terms of production, ESPECIALLY over time (the monolith doesn't degrade the planet's value) ....(Pax)

b. The biggest problem with that is that to build a construction ship requires a cruiser hull or larger. And by the time I have researched cruiser tech, not to mention battle station tech, my empire has expanded to the point where it's much easier to just pump out a half dozen colony ships and plant some more colonies.
Unfortunately, when you really need remote mining to work, early in the game, there is no practical method of employing it. By the time you have the tech to make it worthwhile, it's no longer needed. (Geo)

c. Also. In later tech, it’s much more profitable to turn the asteroid field into a planet; value doesn’t diminish.

17.3.15.3 Remote Mining with Crystalline Tech
(Section by Taera)
I have developed a neat system for remote mining. Here it is:

a. It requires a single (probably dedicated) planet in the system on which you will build Resupply Depot and, if available, the Crystalline Restructurer. It can be a way to use those systems where you only have 2 tiny unbreathable planets and no chance of colonizing anything else.
Now the way it works: I build a ship (preferably LC as they have the best output for cost) with ion3 engines and self-destruct device (useful).

Now I order them to go to the (mining field), sentry and go to resupply planet. Repeat orders. Now until an enemy invades the system i would absolutely forget about their existence as with -30% maintenance it would take a while for their cost to overcome the income.
Example:
Spade class LC mining a 144%-121%-61% asteroid field with 2 robo-miners and 1 farmer.
Income: 2016,672,0
Upkeep: 915,28,121

And that’s with crystalline restructurer 2 only.
Useful. And I never have to worry about the ships again. They also occasionally appear up in the Next Ship list so I can monitor their income vs. upkeep.

Same system orders: To actually remove the ship from your eyes you have to bring it to the mining field, press sentry. Then order go to-nearest resupply and then tell it to go back. Check in orders list to ensure its correct. And then press 'K' (Repeat Orders) It works with asteroid fields too, given you can place the resupply planet about three turns from the mining field. (Taera)

17.3.16 Fini
That concludes my article on SEIV economics. Whooooo. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[ June 25, 2003, 23:11: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Geckomlis]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
***PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK! This is a DRAFT.***<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Stone Mill

Well written and organized. Hits all the highlights an experienced SEIV player already knows. Instructional Designer, huh? I should have guessed… as a former technical writer. You have been doing such a good job with the strategy articles, I can almost forgive you for living on the wrong side of the Delaware River. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Keep up the good work.

Gecko

[ June 10, 2003, 23:04: Message edited by: geckomlis ]

[Fyron]

I hardly see any mention of the overpowering Monolith economy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Sure it takes time to get set up, but once you get going, nobody can compete (esp. combined with good colonization strategy). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[sachmo]

Great stuff. It really is helpful info for inexperienced players (like myself).

[narf poit chez BOOM]

By the ladder(latter) stages of the game, all worlds should be put to use.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

[ June 10, 2003, 20:48: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Ragnarok]

Very nice work Stone Mill. Alot of good information is contained in that section that will help not only new ones to the game but also ones that have been around a bit longer. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[BBegemott]

Do System Robotoid Facilities increase the benefits of remote mining?

[Atrocities]

This is great stuff. Looks like you well on your way to writing the Un-Offical Strategy guide. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Please more.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by BBegemott:
Do System Robotoid Facilities increase the benefits of remote mining?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No.

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by geckomlis:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Stone Mill:
***PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK! This is a DRAFT.***<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Stone Mill

Well written and organized. Hits all the highlights an experienced SEIV player already knows. Instructional Designer, huh? I should have guessed… as a former technical writer. You have been doing such a good job with the strategy articles, I can almost forgive you for living on the wrong side of the Delaware River.

Keep up the good work.

Gecko</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's a nice compliment coming from a follow tech writer. But now I feel on-guard, as you may notice many more sloppy mistakes and inconsistencies than anyone else! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Unfortunately, I work just as much on troubleshooting technical issues and project management... I don't write as much at work anymore. Maybe that's why I occupy myself with these articles...

As for the Delaware river, remember... Washington launched a sneak attack across it once... be careful, it can happen again! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif I love PA; some of my very best friends live in/near Philly and Brandywine valley. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Now, if we are going to bash NJ, I suggest you open another thread!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ June 10, 2003, 22:06: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
By the ladder(latter) stages of the game, all worlds should be put to use.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">edited.

[Geckomlis]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
But now I feel on-guard, as you may notice many more sloppy mistakes and inconsistencies than anyone else!<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Of course I notice! I simply restrain myself - call it a self-check sanity test: Can I turn it on and off at will, or not? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
Unfortunately, I work just as much on troubleshooting technical issues and project management... I don't write as much at work anymore. Maybe that's why I occupy myself with these articles...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I followed the same progression until I did a complete career change. I also still have the itch to document things. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif
Now, if we are going to bash NJ, I suggest you open another thread!!!<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">NJ is a fine place with lots of great people. No bashing required. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Slick]

***PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK! This is a DRAFT.***
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Feedback:

Great to see another article. Superb as always. (I hope this does not seem too presumptious) Here are a few things I noted...

[edit] 17.3.3.c ships are not "scrapped" they are "abandonded". The main difference is that wheh you intentionally scrap a ship, you get a percentage (in settings.txt) of the resources back. Abandoned ships return no resources, any cargo being carried is lost, and the AI certainly won't choose wisely when deciding which ships to abandon.

17.3.6.2 Add prioritizing ruin planets. Personally I prioritize them just after breathables unless there is danger of another empire taking it, in which case ruins are highest priority. If you don't have the colonizing tech for the ruin planet yet, try to defend it to deny it to the enemy.

17.3.6.4 2nd paragraph: note that production & construction rate can drop after you remove population from your homeworld. Advanced Storage Techniques will add more space for population so that you can remove some population without losing your bonuses.

17.3.7.2 treaty % is incorrectly used here. See FAQ 10.6.10

17.3.7.3 solar generators produce minerals, organics and radioactives, not just radioactives. Also under Temporal, the Temporal Shipyard has a higher construction rate than a spaceyard III, but a planet with a spaceyard facility has to scrap it before building a TSY.

17.3.8.1.a Do system-wide facilities benefit planets owned by other empires in that system???

17.3.10.f 20% of the other empire's income multiplied by your political savvy %.

17.3.13.c Organic races can make some of the best fighters in the game using the Small Electric Discharge weapons. [edit] This, combined with the organic tendency to be able to significantly outproduce others, makes fighters very formidable for organic races. There is also no limit for the number of fighters in a sector. For more on fighters see FAQ section 8.2.

17.3.14.2.f Don't write off a construction queue when it is in "Slow" mode. Slow mode is a great time to build units.

17.3.15 (See also FAQ 4.6)

Once again, great work and thanks for covering the areas that I mentioned before. It is great to see another player's perspective and methods. It sure showed me a few good tips, but overall it made me feel that I don't do such a bad job managing my games after all.

Slick.

[ June 11, 2003, 09:52: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Fyron]

17.3.8.1.a Do system-wide facilities benefit planets owned by other empires in that system???
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, they only benefit the empire that owns them.

[Stone Mill]

Thanks to you all, especially Atrocities, sachmo, slick, Rags, gecko. You have made me happy with your high compliments. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Nice feedback...I'll get to some of the edits a bit later. Aslo, I've been thinking a bit about Monoliths and my opinion on their usability...

[ June 11, 2003, 18:08: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by BBegemott:
Do System Robotoid Facilities increase the benefits of remote mining?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Added to 7.3.7.3.b:

Note: System Robotoid Facilities do not increase the benefits of remote mining. (Imperator Fyron)

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
17.3.8.1.a Do system-wide facilities benefit planets owned by other empires in that system???
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, they only benefit the empire that owns them.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Added.

[ June 11, 2003, 20:09: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

your faq is indeed an impressive accomplishment.

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Slick:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> ***PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK! This is a DRAFT.***
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Feedback:

Great to see another article. Superb as always. (I hope this does not seem too presumptious) Here are a few things I noted...

[edit] 17.3.3.c ships are not "scrapped" they are "abandonded". The main difference is that wheh you intentionally scrap a ship, you get a percentage (in settings.txt) of the resources back. Abandoned ships return no resources, any cargo being carried is lost, and the AI certainly won't choose wisely when deciding which ships to abandon.

17.3.6.2 Add prioritizing ruin planets. Personally I prioritize them just after breathables unless there is danger of another empire taking it, in which case ruins are highest priority. If you don't have the colonizing tech for the ruin planet yet, try to defend it to deny it to the enemy.

17.3.6.4 2nd paragraph: note that production & construction rate can drop after you remove population from your homeworld. Advanced Storage Techniques will add more space for population so that you can remove some population without losing your bonuses.

17.3.7.2 treaty % is incorrectly used here. See FAQ 10.6.10

17.3.7.3 solar generators produce minerals, organics and radioactives, not just radioactives. Also under Temporal, the Temporal Shipyard has a higher construction rate than a spaceyard III, but a planet with a spaceyard facility has to scrap it before building a TSY.

17.3.8.1.a Do system-wide facilities benefit planets owned by other empires in that system???

17.3.10.f 20% of the other empire's income multiplied by your political savvy %.

17.3.13.c Organic races can make some of the best fighters in the game using the Small Electric Discharge weapons. [edit] This, combined with the organic tendency to be able to significantly outproduce others, makes fighters very formidable for organic races. There is also no limit for the number of fighters in a sector. For more on fighters see FAQ section 8.2.

17.3.14.2.f Don't write off a construction queue when it is in "Slow" mode. Slow mode is a great time to build units.

17.3.15 (See also FAQ 4.6)

Once again, great work and thanks for covering the areas that I mentioned before. It is great to see another player's perspective and methods. It sure showed me a few good tips, but overall it made me feel that I don't do such a bad job managing my games after all.

Slick.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Muchas Gracias! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Edited my original post.

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I hardly see any mention of the overpowering Monolith economy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Sure it takes time to get set up, but once you get going, nobody can compete (esp. combined with good colonization strategy). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Again, this is just what makes sense to me...

I don't blindly build monoliths because there a few factors which makes that process inefficient:

a. I never build monoliths in the early game, and find that Monoliths aren't really comparatively desirable until Monolith III is available. The build cost (up to 5 turns) with a regular space yard is too prohibitive. Usually, your empire needs immediate application of resources. If I have better construction % (can build them in 2-3 turns), I will be somewhat more likely to use them. Generally, I can only pump out Monoliths this fast with Temporal yards.

Compare:
5 turns to build one Monolith facility(I,II,III; 500,700,900 of each resource, respectively)

5 turns x 5 resource extraction facilities(I,II,III; 800,900,1000 of each resource, respectively)

The resources gained by 5 Mineral Miner IIIs (5000) easily surpasses a Monolith III (900 minerals). If you project how many minerals actually applied to your economy in those 5 turns, it's not even close: (5000 + 4000 + 3000 + 2000 + 1000 = 15,000 for the mineral miners)

Not to mention that monoliths are quite expensive and tie up your yards for more turns.

Monolith growth strategies can be enhanced if a resource converter and lots of extra storage is available, because you are building tons of extra organics and rads.

If you don't have a converter, why extract so many organics and rads that won't be used?

Because of the resource "rules of thumb," you will generally need 10 : 1 : 3
So, why not just extract what you need, and put it to use quicker? Organic races make Monoliths more desirable because their resources may be something like 10 : 5 : 5

I still look at Monoliths like a luxury item. In a competetive game against humans, I stick with:

1. I usually build monoliths only when I have a planet with good values in all 3 resource types (and there aren't that many of 'em). I may sometimes select a planet with 2 out of 3, if I need those 2 types.
2. If for some reason I am comforatble and don't need the resources immediately, and I don't feel threatened.

If I'm playing the AI, I may toy around a bit more, because I certainly don't feel threatened.

[ June 14, 2003, 05:16: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
***PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK! This is a DRAFT.***
c. ships will be abandoned at random due to shortages; as opposed to scrapped. The main difference is that wheh you intentionally scrap a ship, you get a percentage (in settings.txt) of the resources back. Abandoned ships return no resources, any cargo being carried is lost, and the <font color=red> AI certainly <font color=black> won't choose wisely when deciding which ships to abandon.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color=black> Better say "The game certainly won't choose .. " then the "AI certainly..." as you otherwise might get the impression that it only applies to AI run empires and not YOUR empire.


17.3.7.2 Planet Values %
Pay attention to the mineral, organic, and radioactive value % on a planet’s details. When determining where to build a facility, use a planet close to or exceeding 100% for a given resource type. That percentage is part of the formula used in producing your empire’s total resources:

(Extraction Facility value) x (planet’s resource type %) x (empire’s racial %) x (Planet Computer Facility %) x (System Computer Facility %) x (planet’s happiness %) x (population %) x = total mineral resources committed to your empire for that facility.

For example, a Mineral Miner I extracts (700) x Planet mineral 120% (1.2) x empire racial bonus 110% (1.1) x Planet Robotoid factory I 110%(1.1) x System Robotoid factory 110% (1.1) x Jubilant happiness 120% (1.2) x 500 population 110% (1.1)<font color=red> x treaty +20% (1.2)<font color=black> = (x) mineral resources committed to your empire for that facility.

x treaty +20% ??? What do you mean?

17.3.7.3 Develop Your Planets

The key to economic growth is maximizing your planet development. Special facilities can help, but they take a while to build. Therefore, in a small universe or one-on-one game, I rarely use any advanced facilities, unless I’m really comfortable and secure.

Medium scope game facilities :
a. Planet Robotoid Factory (Computers). I usually build these Last on a planet. Second to Last, I build a space yard to expedite the build time and facility upgrade time (quite often, I set the yard on emergency build for these.)
b. System Robotoid Factory (Computers). I usually build these Last on a planet. Second to Last, I build a space yard to expedite the build time and facility upgrade time (quite often, I set the yard on emergency build for these.)
Note: System Robotoid Facilities do not increase the benefits of remote mining. (Imperator Fyron)
c. Monolith Facilities: only if the planet has good values across all categories, and I feel I can wait 5 turns.
d. Scanners: I don’t generally use them because the bonus is applied to only one resource area, rather than all three. <font color=red> And you have to cannot use both <font color=black> Robotoids and Scanners at the same location; only one takes effect.

<font color=black> Grammar.

17.3.10 Predict Resource Swings
How did this Happen?
All new players learn a hard economic lesson when they start using advanced tech and their economic needs change. Players can experiences economic droughts of 10, 20 or more turns trying to compensate for current resource needs. For instance, you start using Phased Polaron Beams on your designs, and find your radioactive reserves drained while you halt all production to build radioactive mining facilities. The best bet is to plan ahead.

Most commonly, economic swings are caused by:

a. (Mid game) Building and maintaining components with a heavy radioactive cost, such as shields, armor, certain weapons types such as PPBs, and stellar manipulation components (huge!). Rads are most often underestimated.
b. (Early game) maintaining too many colony ships en route; building too many non-resource producing facilities at the same time
c. Mass building or upgrading of facilities, especially special facilities.
d. Losing (or acquiring) fleets and planets.
e. Retrofits to your current designs, using new components with a different resource cost. <font color=red> Retrofits are subtracted from your stored resources. When you give the retrofit order, the specific resource cost is displayed. HOT! you must take a mental tally of all retrofits you order in a turn and ensure the total cost does not exceed your storage!<font color=black>

If you have a surplus in your resource income/expense, the total cost of the retrofits must be compared to the storage AND predicted income the next turn.
You can retrofit with a storage of 0 if you have a turn result of enough positive resources next turn.

[ June 14, 2003, 09:44: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Fyron]

Stone Mill, you think too much in the short term. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Of course they are less efficent immediately. That is where the balancing comes in. But in large epic games, going with Monoliths is pretty much always a better idea. Such games often have long periods of peace, and those periods are good for getting Monoliths going. Compare Monolith III with Miner III, 2700 (or 1800 of one resource with converter Is) to 1000 resources. In the long term, Monoliths really pay off.

I never advocated Monoliths in small games or in the early game, btw.

And naturally, Monoliths go hand in hand with Resource Converters. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

And yes, Monolith I and II are not very useful, which is why I never build them.

Also, SY III + HI + 120 const. apt. gets Monoliths in 3 turns on low pop worlds, and in 2 turns on high pop worlds. Take Organic, and you can make all planets high pop worlds (well, large and huge ones, at any rate) in no time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Temporal is not the only way to get fast construction rates.

[Stone Mill]

Ruatha, good catches, my friend. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Edited, save for:

If you have a surplus in your resource income/expense, the total cost of the retrofits must be compared to the storage AND predicted income the next turn.
You can retrofit with a storage of 0 if you have a turn result of enough positive resources next turn. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't believe this is true. In my experience, it does not matter how big your income is, retrofits do come from only stored resources.

Am I incorrect? Can anyone assist to verify this?

[Ruatha]

Ok, I was quite certain but I'll await confirmation.. I have been wrong several times in the past http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[Slick]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
Ruatha, good catches, my friend. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Edited, save for:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> If you have a surplus in your resource income/expense, the total cost of the retrofits must be compared to the storage AND predicted income the next turn.
You can retrofit with a storage of 0 if you have a turn result of enough positive resources next turn. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't believe this is true. In my experience, it does not matter how big your income is, retrofits do come from only stored resources.

Am I incorrect? Can anyone assist to verify this?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Stone Mill: You are correct (sorry, Ruatha http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif ). You need resources for retrofits in the bank and can't rely on income because the cost of retrofits comes out of your storage before income goes in. If there is not enough in storage, the retrofit fails.

Also, I agree with you 100% on the monolith issue. Anyone who has run the numbers can see that monoliths pay back waaaay too far in the future in most cases. I also do use monoliths when it is a good idea, especially when you have a planet with high resources in all 3 areas it does make sense - if this planet is large or huge, it may not be.

If anyone wants to prove it to themselves, just do a few case studies and add up the net resources over time:

- make sure you subtract the resources you spend on the facilities you build and add in the resources the facility makes on the turn after it is built. Do this for every turn and you will find that building monoliths will create a large resource deficit for many turns - is your other income able to absorb this and still be competetive?,
- make sure you account for the time it takes to build the facilities,
- you can include a resource converter in the end if you wish, but this really benefits both sides of the argument,
- if you build a spaceyard before building facilities to speed up build time, include the resources and time to build it as well as the increased facility construction rate,
- if you build value improvement plants, include the resources and time to build and the time to increase resource percentages,
- use real game probabilities for planet rescource percentages. It is much easier to find a planet which is > 100% in one resource than to find one that is > 100% in all 3 resources.
- consider planet size. no matter what your build rate, it takes far longer to fill a large or huge planet with monoliths than individual resource facilities.
- since monoliths I, II, III all cost the same, they all take the same time to build, but the lower level ones produce less. on a standard planet with standard construction rate (2000, 2000, 2000) a single resource facility level II can be built in 1 turn with no spaceyard. When the Last one is built, they all can be upgraded to level III's. This method will fill a planet the quickest and the extra cost for upgrading is made up by having the level II facilites built in 1 turn instead of 2 turns for a level III so you have the income sooner.
- finally compare both schemes and see how low your rescource deficits get while building (this will surprise the monolith builders) and how many turns out it takes before a monolith planet exceeds a single resource planet. There is no doubt that a monolith system will eventually outproduce single resource facilities. The real question is at what point and what happens in the meantime? You will find that this time is very long (too many variables to put a discrete number here), but try some case studies yourself and you can see that it will be many many turns. And in the meantime, your enemies are coming...

[edit: p.s. let me know when you are done tweaking 17.3 for incorporation into the FAQ.]

Slick.

[ June 14, 2003, 19:02: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Ruatha]

Live and learn!

Slick, I guess you'll be hearing from Fyron about this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
The monolith economy is very close to his heart I belive!

I just like to see those shiny high tech facilities, not spewing enviromental waste as those mineral mines are doing!

[cybersol]

It might be obvious, but no one has explicity mentioned it. If you really wanted to build the monolith economy, but still gain maximum resources as soon as possible. Would you not build the normal economy first, say resource II's. But for the final two facility slots build a space yard for improved build and start the first monolith. As each monolith completes, scrap a normal facility and build another monolith. It is a lot a micromanagement, but it will get you the most resources along the way.

[Slick]

Originally posted by cybersol:
It might be obvious, but no one has explicity mentioned it. If you really wanted to build the monolith economy, but still gain maximum resources as soon as possible. Would you not build the normal economy first, say resource II's. But for the final two facility slots build a space yard for improved build and start the first monolith. As each monolith completes, scrap a normal facility and build another monolith. It is a lot a micromanagement, but it will get you the most resources along the way.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, I didn't mention this but it does work. Once again, do a few case studies because for every system there are disadvantages.

Ruatha, of course, I expect it; I am not the kind of person who needs to have the Last word on everything. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything; I am trying to show people how to come up with the answers that are right for themselves and their play style. The people here are smart enough to make up their own minds. If anyone has a play style they like or prefer, then that is the one that is right for them - the game mechanics will always be the same but different play styles can certainly be used effectively.

Slick.

[ June 14, 2003, 19:59: Message edited by: Slick ]

[cybersol]

Originally posted by Slick:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by cybersol:
It might be obvious, but no one has explicity mentioned it. If you really wanted to build the monolith economy, but still gain maximum resources as soon as possible. Would you not build the normal economy first, say resource II's. But for the final two facility slots build a space yard for improved build and start the first monolith. As each monolith completes, scrap a normal facility and build another monolith. It is a lot a micromanagement, but it will get you the most resources along the way.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, I didn't mention this but it does work. Once again, do a few case studies because for every system there are disadvantages.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, early on it has all the advantages of the normal economy system expect the one facility per planet you have to leave empty to build the monolith. And later, only 30 turns later on a huge AST world, you start to gain the advantages of the monolith economy. Except for the hassle of micromanagement I would say that is the way to go in the long run. At steady state, you sacrifice 1k of production for 3-5 turns to get 2.7k of production. Thus each monolith III becomes net positive (even with just converter I) 4-6 turns after it is completed.

[Slick]

Originally posted by cybersol:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Slick:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by cybersol:
It might be obvious, but no one has explicity mentioned it. If you really wanted to build the monolith economy, but still gain maximum resources as soon as possible. Would you not build the normal economy first, say resource II's. But for the final two facility slots build a space yard for improved build and start the first monolith. As each monolith completes, scrap a normal facility and build another monolith. It is a lot a micromanagement, but it will get you the most resources along the way.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, I didn't mention this but it does work. Once again, do a few case studies because for every system there are disadvantages.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, early on it has all the advantages of the normal economy system expect the one facility per planet you have to leave empty to build the monolith. And later, only 30 turns later on a huge AST world, you start to gain the advantages of the monolith economy. Except for the hassle of micromanagement I would say that is the way to go in the long run. At steady state, you sacrifice 1k of production for 3-5 turns to get 2.7k of production. Thus each monolith III becomes net positive (even with just converter I) 4-6 turns after it is completed.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Agreed in principle that it is better than the either/or approach. However don't forget the cost of the Monolith: 10,000 Min; 5000 Org; 5000 Rad. In those 4-6 turns that the previous one starts to turn a small profit, you have started constructing the next monolith which puts your economy as a whole for that planet back into a deficit situation again.

Again, I recommend laying out turn by turn a few cases. In each case consider resources spent, made and the time it takes till the next facility is built. Most of the time in this game (as in real life), income now is much more valuable than income later even if it is more because you can put it to work now instead of later.

Remember, your enemies might not be courteous enough to wait until you have a huge planet filled with monoliths established long enough to be superior over single facilities before they attack.

Slick.

[ June 14, 2003, 20:49: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Slick:
Remember, your enemies might not be courteous enough to wait until you have a huge planet filled with monoliths established long enough to be superior over single facilities before they attack.

Slick.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But, but, but..
Are they allowed to be so nasty?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif Whatever happened to Peace, loving and understanding?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[ June 14, 2003, 23:38: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Fyron]

I never once advocated building solely monoliths right off the bat... I only start building them after my economy is well off and can support the deficits incured with Monolith construction without problems (and I start off slowly; I don't just suddenly have 50 worlds start on Monoliths all at once). Also, absorbing a few minor empires early on helps cover those deficits too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

It is a good idea to build a SY as the first facility on new worlds in general because if you need to use them, you now have a bunch of SYs available to build colony ships, warships, and whatever else you want.

The cost to build monoliths is immaterial (esp. when you wait until you get a strong economy going before building them). What else are you going to do with those resources, build more ships than you need?

Also, keep in mind that once my Monolith economy is going, I build them on all resource worlds. A 100/30/30 planet produces more with Monoliths than just Mineral Miners, after all. Will it take longer to even out? Sure, a few more turns. Big deal.

Furthermore, Monoliths are not for small empires. They are for large empires (100s of planets). Starting to build Monoliths when you only have a few dozen planets (and esp. when there is still a lot left to colonize) will only get you killed.

Building a Robotoid Factory III after the 4th Monolith often takes just one more turn than a Monolith, and gives many more resources than a Robotoid on a planet with normal miners does (as there is much more base production).

The fact that monoliths take longer to build can work to your advantage. Normal economies max out a lot sooner than a Monolith economy (and a proper Monolith economy will not be too far behind the normal one when this happens), while the Monolith economy still has a lot of growth left. I would have to disagree with the statement that some resources now are better than more resources later. In most situations, waiting a dozen turns or so is well worth the investment. If you are being destroyed, then of course building Monoliths is not going to help much. Emergency situations call for normal miners.

Keep in mind that it is rather easy to get Monoliths built in 3 turns a piece on all worlds with more than a few facility slots (HI, 120 const, SY III, Jubilant pop). Again, the resources to build them are only an issue if you are engaged in a losing war. If you are in no wars or in a winning war, then the high cost to build Monoliths is a null issue.

And by the way, I know how to do algebra. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Here are some numbers for a PBW game I am in:
Huge (255 system) map, 17 players, turn 142

1st: 8.7 M points, 299 planets, 4.2 M resources
2nd: 4.5 M points, 142 planets, 1.1 M resources
3rd: 4.1 M points, 117 planets, 387.5 K resources
4th: 3.7 M points, 158 planets, 507.5 K resources

Guess what the 1st place player did? You guessed it, Monoliths. 2nd place has been building Monoliths recently, but is very far behind. 1st place can not get enough ships built to use up resources, so many 100k of them get wasted each turn (he lost something like 140 ships in an ongoing war thanks to those damned Talismans). And, 1st place doesn't even have HI in this game (he was a PBW newbie when it began, afterall).

There was another empire that was in 2nd for the whole game, and using normal miners. He managed to destroy several empires too. He surpassed 1st place player for about 20 turns, but his unrelenting aggression forced the peace loving races of the galaxy to go to war to stop him. He is in 8th now. When (current) 1st place entered the war, each of them was producing about 1.0 M resources, and he had more planets than (current) 1st place did. This was some 50 turns ago.

So in summation:

Short term: Monoliths = bad
Medium term: Monoliths = roughly equivalent (with only low net loss)
Long term: Monoliths = super good

If you only care about short term gains (such as early game, small maps, early wars), go with normal miners. If you care about long term gains (large maps, mid-game, no early wars that are not resulting in you steamrolling over a minor empire), go with Monoliths.

-===-

About Remote Miners:
Again, using them is only good in the short term. In the long term, it is much better to build planets out of asteroids and build normal miners or Monoliths on them (as the situation dictates).

[Ruatha]

I'll have to side with Fyron on this one. In PBW games with 20 players I try to get monoliths early.
I do build M1 and M2 though, mainly to stake in those slots and to get fast upgrades to M3 later.
In late games I really use alot of Rads and organics too as I put atmosphere converters on 100+ planets in NGC2 and also built some Null-space weapons. PPB's are the base weapon in my fleet.
In networks I've converted alot (not 100 though) planets, those atm converters cost alot!
Mineral shortage is something I seldom experiance but early in the game I can get a lack of orgs and rads.
Even though they take time to build, I do them on my ringworlds aswell, the ringworlds will never be completed before the game finishes but my income will continue to rise along with my fleet size.

[ June 14, 2003, 12:08: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Mark the Merciful]

Stone Mill,

Excellent piece, lots of interesting stuff.

The only thing I was surprised by was your (and others) negative view of Remote Mining.

While I'd never remote mine a planet - unless future colonisation was completely impossible - I find asteroids very useful, especially because of their very high resource percentages.

One can build, relatively early in the game, a Light Cruiser with three mineral RM components that will cost around 1500 minerals in maintenance, and mine around 6000 minerals on a 200%+ asteroid. Something that takes 4-5 turns to build and returns an income of 4500 a turn is as good an investment as a mineral mine (unless you're thinking very long term when the degradation of the asteroid mineral percentage becomes an issue).

And a key benefit, which no one has yet mentioned, is that asteroid mining is (obviously) not prone to rioting. So it's a guarranteed source of income even during a major war when you're suffering damage.

This saved my neck in a very recent game, when a large number of my planets had been glassed, and two thirds or more of the rest were rioting. My asteroid mining income kept my fleet alive and the empire operating.

[Stone Mill]

Great Posts on both sides, which both deserve mention... I will do my best to try and summarize some of the points made and expand the monolith section.

Oh sure, there may be some butchery as always. But I'll try to get it right. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Mark- on remote mining, it is something I tried at first and never really found a handle on how to do it efficiently. After reading your Posts and those of others, I see how it can make sense. I may try it out again, and re-draw my initial impression of remote mining...

[ June 15, 2003, 03:17: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Mark the Merciful]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:

Mark- on remote mining, it is something I tried at first and never really found a handle on how to do it efficiently. After reading your Posts and those of others, I see how it can make sense. I may try it out again, and re-draw my initial impression of remote mining...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think the thing about remote mining ships that puts people off is the fact that they run out of supply so quickly, and they wonder what they're going to do about the management hassle of dealing with all these stranded spaceships.

Emergency Resupply solves this problem of course, but that's not really "early game" tech.

Actually, my solution has been to ignore the problem. They may be out of fuel, but they go on happily mining. And if eventually you want to replace them, just move them off their asteroids, send in a warship, and blow them up! It's not a completely optimum use of resources, but they paid for their investment cost a long time ago.

[Fyron]

Supplies have nothing to do with it. Remote Mining is an inneficient waste of resources in the long run (esp. in larger games). Just a few resource facilities on a planet built form the asteroids produce more than your ships will.

[DavidG]

I think remote mining can be very usefull given the right circumstances. ie: You've pretty much colonized all the planets, the game is not likely to Last long enough to use planet making tech. Given this, why would you not remote mine that asteroid that has 300% minerals?

[minipol]

i do not like to use remote mining because of 2 things:

1. the ai doesn't use it so i consider it to be an unfair advantage.

2. it's too much micromanagement.

[ June 18, 2003, 23:55: Message edited by: minipol ]

[LGM]

Remote mining is more desirable when you play a game where you have restricted colonization and cannot colonize every type of planet. Although in the long haul, you may still be better off destroying the planet and recreating it until you get the right type, but that is a very expensive process.

[Slick]

How are the updates coming along?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Slick.

[Stone Mill]

Slick, It's all yours to add anything else you deem useful...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Added:

17.3.7.4 The Monolith Economy

Some players rely more heavily on monoliths than others. The Monolith Economy includes them as a key component (used with a resource converter). Included herein are the arguments for and against:

Factors For:

a. It is generally accepted monoliths aren’t efficient in small games or in the early game. If you only care about short term gains (such as early game, small maps, early wars), go with normal miners. If you care about long term gains (large maps, mid-game, no early wars that are not resulting in you steamrolling over a minor empire), go with Monoliths. But in large epic games, going with Monoliths is pretty much always a better idea. Such games often have long periods of peace, and those periods are good for getting Monoliths going. Compare Monolith III with Miner III, 2700 (or 1800 of one resource with converter Is) to 1000 resources. In the long term, Monoliths really pay off. (Imperator Fyron)

b. Build time: Also, SY III + HI + 120 const. apt. gets Monoliths in 3 turns on low pop worlds, and in 2 turns on high pop worlds. Take Organic, and you can make all planets high pop worlds (well, large and huge ones, at any rate) in no time. Temporal is not the only way to get fast construction rates. (Imperator Fyron)

c. Gradual introduction: If you really wanted to build the monolith economy, but still gain maximum resources as soon as possible. Would you not build the normal economy first, say resource II's. But for the final two facility slots build a space yard for improved build and start the first monolith. As each monolith completes, scrap a normal facility and build another monolith. It is a lot a micromanagement, but it will get you the most resources along the way. (cybersol)

d. Building a Robotoid Factory III after the 4th Monolith often takes just one more turn than a Monolith, and gives many more resources than a Robotoid on a planet with normal miners does (as there is much more base production).

Factors Against:

a. I never build monoliths in the early game, and find that Monoliths aren't really comparatively desirable until Monolith III is available. The early build cost (up to 5 turns) with a regular space yard is too prohibitive. Usually, your empire needs immediate application of resources. They also set your economy back because of the high build cost. If I have better construction % (can build them in 2-3 turns), I will be somewhat more likely to use them. Generally, I can only pump out Monoliths this fast with Temporal yards, or when a planet has been eventually groomed to SY III, jubilant, high population. (Stone Mill)

b. I still look at Monoliths like a luxury item. In a competitive game against humans, I stick with:
-- I usually build monoliths only when I have a planet with good values in all 3 resource types (and there aren't that many of 'em). I may sometimes select a planet with 2 out of 3, if I need those 2 types.
-- If for some reason I am comfortable and don't need the resources immediately, and I don't feel threatened (which is rare). If I'm playing the AI, I may toy around a bit more, because I certainly don't feel as threatened. (Stone Mill)

c. If anyone wants to prove it to themselves, just do a few case studies and add up the net resources over time:
- make sure you subtract the resources you spend on the facilities you build and add in the resources the facility makes on the turn after it is built. Do this for every turn and you will find that building monoliths will create a large resource deficit for many turns - is your other income able to absorb this and still be competitive?
- make sure you account for the time it takes to build the facilities,
- you can include a resource converter in the end if you wish, but this really benefits both sides of the argument,
- if you build a spaceyard before building facilities to speed up build time, include the resources and time to build it as well as the increased facility construction rate,
- if you build value improvement plants, include the resources and time to build and the time to increase resource percentages,
- use real game probabilities for planet resource percentages. It is much easier to find a planet which is > 100% in one resource than to find one that is > 100% in all 3 resources.
- consider planet size. no matter what your build rate, it takes far longer to fill a large or huge planet with monoliths than individual resource facilities.
- since monoliths I, II, III all cost the same, they all take the same time to build, but the lower level ones produce less. on a standard planet with standard construction rate (2000, 2000, 2000) a single resource facility level II can be built in 1 turn with no spaceyard. When the Last one is built, they all can be upgraded to level III's. This method will fill a planet the quickest and the extra cost for upgrading is made up by having the level II facilities built in 1 turn instead of 2 turns for a level III so you have the income sooner.
- finally compare both schemes and see how low your resource deficits get while building (this will surprise the monolith builders) and how many turns out it takes before a monolith planet exceeds a single resource planet. There is no doubt that a monolith system will eventually outproduce single resource facilities. The real question is at what point and what happens in the meantime? You will find that this time is very long (too many variables to put a discrete number here), but try some case studies yourself and you can see that it will be many many turns. And in the meantime, your enemies are coming... (Slick)

[ June 25, 2003, 23:08: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Slick]

I have the football. Thanks!

Slick.

[Ares]

I saw this mentioned several times earlier in this thread, but don't understand how it works. How does building a space yard help with constructing facilities that take 2+ turns? I haven't seen it increase the construction rate of planets.

[Fyron]

SY II and III have higher build rates (2500 and 3000). Also, building a SY allows you to get racial SY bonuses to production, such as from Hardy Industrialists and Construction Aptitude. You do not get these bonuses without a SY on the planet.

[Ares]

Thanks IF. So SY I's don't really help (other than receiving those racial characteristics)?

[ July 01, 2003, 06:39: Message edited by: Ares ]

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Ares:
Thanks IF. So SY I's don't really help (other than receiving those racial characteristics)?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you get no racial construction bonus (or penalty), then SY I does not alter your construction rate. All it does is allow you to build ships at that planet.

[Slick]

Paging Professor Stone Mill. Please report to your word processor. Your fans are getting restless. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Slick.

[Pablo]

Yeah, Stoney, BUMP! I can't wait for one more of your 'Extasy' pills to swallow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Loser]

Originally posted by Pablo:
Yeah, Stoney, BUMP! I can't wait for one more of your 'Extasy' pills to swallow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Errr... ah.. well, at least he's still eating them.

[ July 17, 2003, 19:43: Message edited by: Loser ]

[Ruatha]

Perhaps this page is something for you Stone Mill;
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/academy/

[ July 23, 2003, 21:42: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Ruatha:
Perhaps this page is something for you Stone Mill;
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/academy/<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hey now... thanks Ruatha! That was really nice of you to think of me. I'll have to check it out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Slick]

From another thread:

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
You may enjoy some of your questions explored in the Newbie FAQ:

17.3 Managing Your Economy<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I seem to be doing this cross-thread quoting a lot lately.

Anyway, Stoney, you are absolutely killing me with anticipation of your next article. Do we have to wait till your daughter gets married off or what??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Slick.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Slick:
I seem to be doing this cross-thread quoting a lot lately.

Anyway, Stoney, you are absolutely killing me with anticipation of your next article. Do we have to wait till your daughter gets married off or what??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Slick.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Whats the topic going to be for the next article anyway?

[Slick]

I don't care if it is "How to make toast using only a Meson BLaster",

I need my fix!!!

Slick.

[Stone Mill]

LOL! Slick and Rags- you guys are too much. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Hee hee hee...

Well, I was contemplating starting a topic for the next article that parallels some of the discussions in the "Gamey" threads-

17.12 Expert Moves and Dirty Tricks

Mostly, I'd like to capture some really neat strategies that are allowable in the game, yet not considered gamey. As always, some of them may be debatable... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[ July 31, 2003, 18:43: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Stone Mill]

***PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK and SUBMISSIONS! This is a WORK IN PROGRESS.***

17.12 Expert Moves and Dirty Tricks

17.12.1 Overview
Is there a strategy you have used or tactic used against you consider to be creative? List it here. The Expert moves and dirty tricks listed here will be allowable by the game interface and generally not considered “gamey.”

I’ve had many of these done to me… I applauded my opponent for craftiness… and tried to remember them… to use if I could, and protect myself in the future.

17.12.2 Covert Satellite Layer
Need covert recon on your opponent(s)? Build a satellite layer with stealth armor. Lay sats with stealth armor. Deploy your layer in a team with a stealth supply ship with cargo so that you may lay one satellite at a time. You don’t have to decloak your ships to launch sats, but you will have to remember to activate the cloak on the sats. Eventually, you may cover the quadrant… until you hit a minefield.

Another great tactic is to build a sat with stealth armor and a scanner, and drop it on or near a warp point. You will obtain ship designs that way. Even better if you are able to hide it in a storm.

17.12.3 Stealth Bases

This can be a very annoying tactic. The gist of this strategy is to hide a shipyard capable ship or base in a forward area… preferably in a red storm in one of your enemy’s systems. This can be "sneaky drone launcher hiding in a nebula or cloaked", not to mention its even more devious cousins, the "sneaky drone launcher hiding in a nebula or cloaked and firing cloaked drones!" (Drones need to be de-cloaked to attack, such as anything else.) Or you can use fighters to snipe colony ships and transports… you get the point.

This tactic is not game winning, but the amount of havoc you cause may rattle your enemy for a while.

17.12.4 Scorch
Lure your opponents’ massive fleet into your frontier system. Destroy the star. (It’s important to try and limit what you will lose as well, so do some housekeeping in that system beforehand, such as scrap facilities, abandoning planets). Keep your fleet in a neighboring system and follow up with an attack from whence he came.

Star-Exploding on Demand
This can backfire on you, so be careful using it. Park a star destroyer over the local star. Order it to sentry, then to destroy the star. When an enemy ship enters the system, the sentry order clears and..boom. (Phoenix-D)

17.12.5 Combat Colonists
How’s this for a change of pace? Use the colony ship hull for your early attack ships, minelayers and satlayers. When your opponent figures out your naming conventions, switch them around. Later in the game, design colony ships using different hulls just to keep things lively.

Also, Use transport hulls for your early colony ships (Joachim).

The Name Game
You can play the name game by using one name for a ship design, and switching the name for another class just when your opponent thinks he has you figured out.
There are many variations of the Ship Naming Game. Increase the number so the enemy thinks you have lots of that model. Name your attack ship as a "Minesweeper". The possibilities are endless (Slick).

Instant Colony Defense
Load mines into colonisers for a quick defence. They will be immediately ready to launch- and shock any plotting attackers. (Joachim)

17.12.6 Combat Engineers
Bring a minelayer with your main attack fleet, especially if you notice that your opponent is not counterattacking with minesweeper escorts. When most players throw together defenses in the interior against an invasion, they don’t think to include minesweepers. Take advantage of this by attacking a target, dropping mines, and sitting to bait them into a counterattack. You can attack other targets within the system, but end your turn on the mined sector. Count the number of spaces the enemy needs to travel in order to ensure you get back in time.

This move can really frustrate an opponent, and make them question every attack against your fleet. Are they willing to gamble? They will need to waste valuable production on sweepers, which, of course, means less defenders.

Also, When raiding randomly drop mines around the enemy system - that way they will just never know!(Joachim).

Early in the game, if the opponent's scout is sitting on a warp point you were trying to mine, mine around him! Lay mines in adjacent sectors and return to the same point every turn to conceal your movement (unless he checks the movement log).

17.12.6. Black Hole Woes
Create this trap by opening a warp point in a black hole system only a few sectors away from the center. Damaging warp points are the key… ships that take damage may be rendered helpless and sucked into the hole. You can help this process by building damaging storms on the entrance and exit of the warp point.

17.12.7 Trojan Gifts

Ever get that sinking feeling when you get the message “the star (or planet) in x system will explode in x years”? No problem… Give it away in a huge trade. This is especially hilarious if you barter it into a deal against a seedy foe… faking concessions to their mighty empire. Because the event message only appears once, they will never know what hit them.

If the opponent won’t accept the gift (because you are already at war, for instance), fall back and let them colonize it as soon as possible.

17.12.8 Third Party Scouting
When the game setting allows you to view only empires with treaties, you can get empire information through an ally who is partnered with an opponent. You can determine data such as the amount of ships involved in defense, the amount of systems and planets, the factor of units in their defense, and whether they are using intel or not.

If you are partnered with an ally, you can also see the activity of an opponent’s empire eyes without “meeting” their empire.

17.12.9 Storm Staging
This because one of the most critical factors in blitzkrieg attacks against dangerous opponents, especially late in large games when all heck is about to break loose. Certain storms (usually red) offer the highest cloaking capability. Stage attacks by hiding in them. Leapfrog from storm to storm with your attack forces until you get behind the lines. Most players don’t do the movement replay in every system (too time consuming), so your chances of surprise are quite good.

17.12.10 The Intel Dogpile

Hit with intel en masse. Plan your intel attacks against a strong empire years in advance. Start running offensive projects, not allowing them to complete, until your queue is filled. If the opponent’s defense is substantial, place large projects (such as PPP) first, so they hammer down the defense first. Get all allied empires in your coalition on-board with this tactic and set an attack date, when you will unleash intel fury.

17.12.11 Hey… It Wasn’t me!
Break a treaty with an empire who is a growing threat, or whom you would like to cease donating 20%, but you don’t want to become hostile. Use the tried and true excuse: “Darnit! Someone ran a communications mimic against me and broke our treaty!!!”

17.12.12 DiVersion
Since a lot of people attack your fleet by attacking the first ship on the top of the list, if you want to avoid a battle that you think is imminent, break away your top ship on the list and run in a different direction to draw off the enemy fleet. Make sure you (M)ove the rest of your fleet in the other direction a couple of sectors before sending it on its original path. You can avoid this trick by randomly attacking a ship in the middle of the fleet listing. (Slick)

17.12.13 Warp Attacks
If you know your enemy is heavily guarding a warp point, you can open another WP and go thru on same turn. You can do this by having your WP opener a sector or two ahead of your fleet, give the WP opener the order to open the WP to the enemy system, and (here's the trick), send your fleet to attack or move to a place in the target system (you cannot use the "warp" order because the new WP doesn't exist at the time you give the order). When the new WP opens, the pathing routine will choose the shortest path for your fleet and go through the new WP. For this to work, you have to make sure that your fleet starts off far enough away from the heavily guarded WP so that it will choose the new one. Hope that's not too confusing. (Slick)

17.12.14 Mobile unit restock
Any time a fleet needs to stop for a turn or more, have any spaceyard ships in the fleet emergency build more units. The "slow" build time can be spent during fleet movement. (Slick)

17.12.15 You Captured my planet with what?
Make your carriers (or any cargo capable vessel) into Troop Ships. Carry fighters and troops and you can use it to capture planets.
This works with any ship type as long as it has cargo space. Make sure the design type is "Troop Ship" and the strategy is "Capture Planet."

17.12.16 Fini
That concludes my article on SEIV Expert Moves and Dirty Tricks. Please add yours!

[ August 12, 2003, 19:40: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Phoenix-D]

Here's another:

Star-Exploding on demand:
This can backfire on you, so be careful using it. Park a star destroyer over the local star. Order it to sentry, then to destroy the star. When an enemy ship enters the system, the sentry order clears and..boom.

[Joachim]

Here are some other cute ideas I have gleaned from the forums, some are similar to what you have already mentioned. None are original:

Use transport hulls for your early colony ships.
Load mies into colonisers for a quick defence.
When raiding randomly drop mines around the enemy system - that way they will just never know!
Change fleet target priorities to kill minesweeping/stellar/supply ships first.

J.

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Here's another:

Star-Exploding on demand:
This can backfire on you, so be careful using it. Park a star destroyer over the local star. Order it to sentry, then to destroy the star. When an enemy ship enters the system, the sentry order clears and..boom.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks Phoenix... added. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I have not verified that this works... but it sounds feasible... and deadly...

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Joachim:
Here are some other cute ideas I have gleaned from the forums, some are similar to what you have already mentioned. None are original:

Use transport hulls for your early colony ships.
Load mies into colonisers for a quick defence.
When raiding randomly drop mines around the enemy system - that way they will just never know!
Change fleet target priorities to kill minesweeping/stellar/supply ships first.

J.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks Joachim! Added.

Only, I'm not sure about the strategy behind
"Change fleet target priorities to kill minesweeping/stellar/supply ships first."
Does this actually work, and what is the value?

[Slick]

Stoney, great article! I have a few neat ideas, none of which I came up with myself. These all apply to simultaneous games.

Since a lot of people attack your fleet by attacking the first ship on the top of the list, if you want to avoid a battle that you think is imminent, break away your top ship on the list and run in a different direction to draw off the enemy fleet. Make sure you (M)ove the rest of your fleet in the other direction a couple of sectors before sending it on its original path. You can avoid this trick by randomly attacking a ship in the middle of the fleet listing.

There are many variations of the Ship Naming Game. Increase the number so the enemy thinks you have lots of that model. Name your attack ship as a "Minesweeper". The possibilities are endless.

Any time a fleet needs to stop for a turn or more, have any spaceyard ships in the fleet emergency build more units. The "slow" build time can be spent during fleet movement.

I think Stoney may have been the original poster of this one in another thread. I think this is a particularly devious one. Make your carriers into Troop Ships. Carry fighters and troops and you can use it to capture planets. Make sure the design type is "Troop Ship" and the strategy is "Capture Planet".

If you know your enemy is heavily guarding a warp point, you can open another WP and go thru on same turn. You can do this by having your WP opener a sector or two ahead of your fleet, give the WP opener the order to open the WP to the enemy system, and (here's the trick), send your fleet to attack or move to a place in the target system (you cannot use the "warp" order because the new WP doesn't exist at the time you give the order). When the new WP opens, the pathing routine will choose the shortest path for your fleet and go through the new WP. For this to work, you have to make sure that your fleet starts off far enough away from the heavily guarded WP so that it will choose the new one. Hope that's not too confusing.

Slick.

[ August 08, 2003, 16:28: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Phoenix-D]

Just confirmed the star thing: it works. It also works with warp openers and closers, and I presume most other commands. NOT the self-destruct command though.

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Slick:
Stoney, great article! I have a few neat ideas, none of which I came up with myself. These all apply to simultaneous games.

Since a lot of people attack your fleet by attacking the first ship on the top of the list, if you want to avoid a battle that you think is imminent, break away your top ship on the list and run in a different direction to draw off the enemy fleet. Make sure you (M)ove the rest of your fleet in the other direction a couple of sectors before sending it on its original path. You can avoid this trick by randomly attacking a ship in the middle of the fleet listing.

There are many variations of the Ship Naming Game. Increase the number so the enemy thinks you have lots of that model. Name your attack ship as a "Minesweeper". The possibilities are endless.

Any time a fleet needs to stop for a turn or more, have any spaceyard ships in the fleet emergency build more units. The "slow" build time can be spent during fleet movement.

I think Stoney may have been the original poster of this one in another thread. I think this is a particularly devious one. Make your carriers into Troop Ships. Carry fighters and troops and you can use it to capture planets. Make sure the design type is "Troop Ship" and the strategy is "Capture Planet".

If you know your enemy is heavily guarding a warp point, you can open another WP and go thru on same turn. You can do this by having your WP opener a sector or two ahead of your fleet, give the WP opener the order to open the WP to the enemy system, and (here's the trick), send your fleet to attack or move to a place in the target system (you cannot use the "warp" order because the new WP doesn't exist at the time you give the order). When the new WP opens, the pathing routine will choose the shortest path for your fleet and go through the new WP. For this to work, you have to make sure that your fleet starts off far enough away from the heavily guarded WP so that it will choose the new one. Hope that's not too confusing.

Slick.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks Slick- those are excellent additions!

Added...

[Pablo]

About the point of heavily defended warp point - are you sure guys that it is possible to have 2 warp points between 2 systems? IIRC the message says 'there already is a warp point to that system' and you are not allowed to open another one. What you can do is close the defended warp point and open the new one. This is also clumsy as when I tried this the warp point opened in the exactly same position as the closed one so it became heavily guarded again. My resolution was to open a warp point from another system and get inside http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I hope I made my point that you can understand what I mean http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Iansidious]

Just to throw my two cents in I personaly like to take physical strenght,intelligence[i never really use it],cunning,and political savvy down to -50% then bump up construction aptitude to 150% the hightest it can go.Then I like to add my ship atk. and def. as high as I get it.Under advance traits I select temporal knowledge[for the temp.spaceyard]and hardy industrialists in the game this allows me to build with 11kt in construction! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Some thing I do slowly during my game I start to convert my min. org. rad. facilities with monoliths then my homeworld can make about 34kt on each resource.This is one thang I have had nice results with.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
Only, I'm not sure about the strategy behind
"Change fleet target priorities to kill minesweeping/stellar/supply ships first."
Does this actually work, and what is the value?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you set your fleets to target non-combatant ships, you can knock out the support ships of large fleets. This has great value if you can not destroy the fleet directly. Knock out their sweepers, and they might just die on your next minefield.

You missed the "launch mines in empty sectors" trick. Launch mines in sectors that are along the ship paths between warp points. People often do not suspect that someone will have launched mines in empty space, only over planets and warp points.

[rextorres]

All these help increase your mobility in a game - they may be "gamey" but they are allowed:

You can order your ship to retrofit and THEN move on the same turn. Move it to a forward repair facility or repair ship and it will get retrofitted, moved, AND repaired - all in the same turn - if you are a retroseries builder this helps a lot.

String training facilities to your front lines - a ship gets training at the end of a movement turn. That way your ship doesn't have to sit in one spot to get trained - it can train as it moves.

You can order a ship to warp and THEN move into and unexplored system. It will then move it's full movement and you won't get stuck at a warp point.

[Slick]

bump. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Atrocities]

Slick said:
bump. &lt;img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /&gt;

[Slick]

El Bumpo. Stoney where are you???