Opening Strategies

[Gozra]

I have come across some truisms in SEIV that fit any type of game. Keep in mind the 2 basic type of games you can have In SEIV 1)Stars all connected 2) Stars not connected by warp points.
1st Truism. If it has an orbit Colonize it.
2nd T. Fill the colony worlds fast with population.
3rd T. Research applied research as the first big project.
4th T. Fighters + Mines = AI's Can't get you.

Industry -> Computers + Robotics = Greater production and research capablities
Population+ happiness= Greater production of everything.
I am not sure slow big Colony ships are THE answer. But it might be.

[Fyron]

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I must point out that warp point ships openers and closers cost a lot to make and run in rad points. So if you have a game in which these type of ships are important then radioactives become important. "gozguy"

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True, stellar manipulation is very Rad expensive, but so what? By the time you get around to using it, you should be making enough Rads to cover the costs, or you should be able to convert Organics or Minerals to Rads to cover the costs. And games where not all warp points are connected are the exception, not the rule.

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4th T. Fighters + Mines = AI's Can't get you.

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True, unless you play against good modded AIs, like the TDM ones. If you play against humans, then they won't help you much past the early game.

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I am not sure slow big Colony ships are THE answer. But it might be.

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IMO, the answer is Light Cruiser hull colony ships. They are large enough to have stealth armor, a colony module, 6 engines, and leave you with 80 spaces for cargo bays and/or supply storage/solar panels. When you get solar sails, you lose out on one of those cargo bays, but that's not a problem. Med./Large Transports are nice if you want a high starting population, but they get to be expensive.

[Bman]

Everyone is talking about building cargo storage early on. I say fooey on that. If you have surplus minerals after about 10 turns in a 1-planet start then you are doing something wrong and not expanding fast enough. And during the first 10 turns your planet should be busy building space station yards and colony ships. If you waste 3 slots on cargo storage, that's 1500 research points per turn or 1800+ resources per turn you could be getting instead. That pays the mineral cost required by a working space-yard each turn! With those extra points you can expand that much faster.

In a recent MP game I conquered another empire that only had about 6 planets to my 30 when we met and I was his only neighbor. I didn't understand it, but as I landed troops on all of his planets I kept finding resource storage units.

My strategy in the early game is to operate in the red and constantly increase my resource PRODUCTION so I can produce more faster. Send out colony ships like crazy and research some combat technologies early (either ship size or weapons or shields or armor or sensors or something) so that when you make first contact you will be able to build a ship capable of holding its own.

[geoschmo]

Bman,

I agree totally. I have played entire 100+ turn multi-player turn games never building a single resource storage facility. The only time it's ever been an issue is while retrofitting ships, and if you plan it right it's not a huge problem. It's really not a good idea to retrofit tons of ships at the same time anyway because the enemy could pick that moment to attack.

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

*winces* yup. Trust me on that one. DON'T refit a lot of ships at once.

On resource storage- it's saved my butt more than once, especially when a loose a resource-producing world or two. Human oppponents like hitting those first. At the moment in Dimension X, I'd be broke in 2 turns without my storage facilites.

And therein lies another bit of advice: watch your flanks!

Phoenix-D

[baetis]

Thanks for the tips guys. I did build a few Mineral storage facilities and I'm glad I did. There are times when I'm building very few ships and I get massive surpluses in Minerals. Storing them makes me feel a little better

Baetis

[Bman]

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Originally posted by geoschmo:
Bman,

I agree totally. I have played entire 100+ turn multi-player turn games never building a single resource storage facility. The only time it's ever been an issue is while retrofitting ships, and if you plan it right it's not a huge problem. It's really not a good idea to retrofit tons of ships at the same time anyway because the enemy could pick that moment to attack.

Geoschmo

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Speaking of refitting in simultaneous games, has anyone else besides me noticed some bugs in the process? I've found that it is luck of the draw if you are refitting to a prototype design on whether it works successfully or not.
Sometimes the game comes back next turn and tells you the refit failed because you can only refit to the same size hull. Well duh. Given that the GUI only lets you pick the same-size hull in the refit list I could not possibly have gotten that wrong. Sometimes it comes back and says the designs are not similar enough in cost when I *know* they are. One time (in v1.41 game) it successfully refitted my ship. The catch was the new ship I had was not one of my designs! It was an organic ram-ship design by another empire and I was not even organic! That made for a useless ship since I could not repair it!

I have never had problems refitting ships to a design that was not a prototype (ie I had already constructed one beforehand). And in the first turn or two I tend not to have problems refitting ships to prototypes.

My current theory is that when you design a prototype it does not get put on the "main list of designs that exist in the game". Then when you choose to refit to a new design, the game stores the "design number" of the design in the orders. Since this prototype design is not in the main list of designs, the refit command gets a bogus design number. When the game is processed all the new designs are added to the "main list". The the refit order is processed and the bogus design number is used to lookup the design. More often than not, the design it finds is *not* the design you specified.

I have not tested this theory, but I suspect that if I design a prototype but do not try to refit to it until the next turn, that might allow time for the design to be put in the "main list" and thus might allow my refits to succeed.

Has any one else any experince with this?