PBW Strategy Guide (Help Please)

[primitive]

Much good advise here, but I got to challenge this:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Hardy Industrialists: This is another must-have trait. It gives you a 25% bonus to all planetary Space Yards. It stacks with Construction Aptitude. So, with Hardy Industrialists and 120 Construction Aptitude, you can get a 45% bonus to all planetary Space Yards! As mentioned early, fast construction is the key to victory. Without it, you will very easily fall behind. It is of course possible to win without this trait, but it is much harder, especially if everyone else has it.

Fast construction is handy, but not a must. What you need is for the HW to be able to build a colonizer with 2 engines on EB (if you keep repair high enough for 3 units/turn) to get the 1 turn colonizer start. Using available moons and small planets for shipyards, it is no problem to get construction capacity large enough to use all your available resources.

Faster construction does not improve the performance of your empire a bit, the best result you can get is having that new design ready a few turns earlier. Put the points where they can make a differense insted; research, mining, combat bonuses or maintanance.

[Fyron]

Fast construction vastly improves the performance of your empire, as you can get more ships built in less time. This allows overwhelming of enemies (or keeping up if they have the same construction rates), replacing lost forces quickly, etc. Why do you think the Space Yard technology is so expensive?

Also, if you go with Monoliths (for a vastly superior economy in the long run), you can get them built in 3 turns at planets with a Space Yard II and 1 M population with just a 34 percent bonus to SY rates, whereas you can never get them built in less than 4 turns with no bonus in SY rates without lots of population (2 billion in fact) on the planet. A 12 percent bonus will let you build them in 3 turns with Space Yard III, but those are much more expensive to research. Please tell me how that does not improve the performance of your empire?

Furthermore, higher SY rates help you get stellar manipulation ships built a lot faster, which is definitely a big plus. Say the ship costs 100k minerals. You are building at a planet with 1 M pop and a SY III (for simplicity of calculations). That will take you 34 turns with no SY bonus (100k/3k). But with that 45% bonus to SY rates, you can build it in 23 turns (100k/4350).

[Joachim]

PBW Musts:

1. Create and upload your empire correctly and select a ship set that is not a double.

2. Emergency build colony ships straight away.

3. Always train your ships and fleets.

4. Always research cloak detection tech (usually hyper optics) and launch a sat in every system with it.

5. Always trade for colony techs if you can.

6. Allies are good - your own systems are better!

7. Storms hide enemy ships: destroy storms in your systems, but hide in the enemies'.

8. Never invade Russia in Winter

Just some of the things I live by in PBW.

Lv'e seen some checklists floating around the forum before. It would be good for for your guide Atrocities, if we had these sort of lists for each stage that you identified.

[geoschmo]

Fyron and Primitive both state compelling arguments, although they both are a little too absolute in their statments. Too many "never" and "always" statements for my taste. But their discussion does point out that although there are many ways to the same objective, the key is fast expansion by whichever means best suits the rest of your overall play style. The fast expansion part is not optional, unless winning is also optional for you.

[primitive]

Hardy Industrialist:
I only object to the “Must Have” label. As Geo says, it’s all a matter of playingstyle. Personally, putting those 1000 points in resource production or research, I can outproduce, outresearch and outbuild what I could have done with using those points for HI.

I do not suggest taking no construction bonuses at all, I usually take somewhere between 10 and 20 %, but I never take Hardy Industrialist (expect in full tech games). Paying attention to detail there is no problem having enough SY capacity in all stages of the game to handle any available resource production.

Fast construction vastly improves the performance of your empire, as you can get more ships built in less time. This allows overwhelming of enemies (or keeping up if they have the same construction rates), replacing lost forces quickly, etc. Why do you think the Space Yard technology is so expensive?

Actually: Fast construction will let you have less ships built in less time.
Late game example: Empire 1 is Hardy Industrial and have 500 K Minerals/turn available for building new ships. Average SY constructs with 5 K, Empire 1 can start 100 ships and have them ready in 8 turns. Empire 2 has spent more points on mining/research and have 550 K Minerals/turn (usually it will be more of a difference as computers and stuff will be ready earlier) available. SY is only 4000 on average. Empire 2 can have 137 ships ready in 10 turns.

Also, if you go with Monoliths (for a vastly superior economy in the long run), you can get them built in 3 turns at planets with a Space Yard II and 1 M population with just a 34 percent bonus to SY rates, whereas you can never get them built in less than 4 turns with no bonus in SY rates without lots of population (2 billion in fact) on the planet. A 12 percent bonus will let you build them in 3 turns with Space Yard III, but those are much more expensive to research. Please tell me how that does not improve the performance of your empire?

It’s again a matter of playing style, but personally I always jump directly from SYI to SYIII. If focusing the extra punch of the fast producing/researching empire on SY’s, It can have SYIII ready by the time the HI empire have SYII. And i do suggest taking enough bonus to be able to build Monoliths (with SYIII) in 3 turns.

Furthermore, higher SY rates help you get stellar manipulation ships built a lot faster, which is definitely a big plus. Say the ship costs 100k minerals. You are building at a planet with 1 M pop and a SY III (for simplicity of calculations). That will take you 34 turns with no SY bonus (100k/3k). But with that 45% bonus to SY rates, you can build it in 23 turns (100k/4350).

True, Building those hugely expensive things you only need a few of, is an example where the HI empire has an advantage. But again, the “better” empire can start construction of those first ships a few turns earlier, and will also have more valuables to waste on retrobuilding.

So, IMHO:
Hardy Industrialist: Definitely not a game winner, but not a total waste either.

[tesco samoa]

Happiness can be dropped to 50 or 51 ( Asmala style ) and this will not affect anything if you build troops on every planet.

Which frees up another 800 points for otherstuff.

This has been tested. I would like the min max to be updated with this info.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
Happiness can be dropped to 50 or 51 ( Asmala style ) and this will not affect anything if you build troops on every planet.

Which frees up another 800 points for otherstuff.

This has been tested. I would like the min max to be updated with this info.

Interesting. A tiny domed planet only has room for 20 troops. Are you quite sure that is sufficent to prevent rioting on those worlds?

EDIT: Also it occurs to me that this strategy could be devastating if you happened to start close to anoter empire. A few relativly minor battle losses early on before you manage to research troops and you are chipped beef on toast. It may be the risk here is not worth the 800 racial points you get in return.

[ October 20, 2003, 16:30: Message edited by: geoschmo ]