New to the game and Overwhelmed. Any hints?

[TerranC]

>note that your best first line of defence are weapon platforms, because they are cheap and cost no resources (?) to maintain.

First and Last line of defense. Of course, platforms can't move so a few missle (Make sure you fit missle) escorts are invaluable.

>and you can fit quite a few even on small planets.

1 on a domed tiny planet to much more.

>Research point defence as a maximum priority; it's good against seekers and fighters. Armor adds considerably to the useful lifespan of everything you build as it takes damage first, and is quick to research.

It will also help you traverse dangerous warp points safely as your armor gets fragged first.

>Ditto shields.

Inadvisable. In order to research shileds, you will need to research physics; which is 50000 RP. And after that, by the time you have decent shileds, people start to get Phased Polaron Beams, which overpower most midlevel Anti-Proton Beams and skip shileds. Try to focus on Armor first then shileds once people start getting decent direct fire weapons.

>Upgrade your units with every tech so that when you scrap old ones you don't scrap 5 of the same when you jettison cargo to make space for improved models.

You CANNOT upgrade units. You CANNOT scrap units.
What you can do is jettison them.

Well, that's enough nitpicking.

[ May 25, 2002, 22:43: Message edited by: TerranC ]

[raynor]

In the MOO games, a colony ship took a long, long time to build. But in Space Empires IV, they are essentially free. When you start the game, you would do well to build a space station with a space yard as the first thing you build. Then, start cranking out tons and tons of colony ships. You should be building colony ships throughout the game. If you don't have at least one being built and another on its way to colonize some planet, then you aren't expanding fast enough.

I am a fighter fanatic. Fighters are great because you don't pay maintenance on them. They are great for both offense and defense. In the early game, they are killer against races that build ships with just missiles. Later in the game, you can have an effective military that is easily twice the power of every other empire combined but NOT trigger MEE because units are not included in the score calculation. This makes fighters an extremely worthwhile investment.

When you consider which enemy to attack first, look at their race properties and figure out what atmosphere they breathe. If your race's homeworld is rock and oxygen, then you can only colonize rock worlds and only get the full number of facilities if the planet has an oxygen atmosphere. This means that if you find a huge world with 150% minerals that has a Carbon Dioxide atmosphere, you are NOT going to be able to build the full 25 mineral miners. Instead, you have a domed colony and only get 5 mineral miners.

But let's say that a nearby enemy AI breathes Carbon Dioxide. Then, you would do well to capture one of his planets with troops and transplant those CO2 breathers to your huge CO2 world. When you take the Last one of your Oxygen breathers off the colony, it is no longer domed. Voila! You now get to use all 25 of those facility slots on the planet.

Oh, another thing about fighters: you can build them on any planet. You can build them on all planets. Hopefully, you will always have a surplus of minerals. Don't build a storage facility. Instead, tell several of your planets close to the front lines to build fighters.

If you expand fast enough to grab enough systems before the other empires colonize them, then I think a good plan is to turnaround when you see a juicy planet in a system that already has colonized planets from another empire. It seems like colonizing a planet in a system already claimed by another empire is a sure way to get them to declare war on you early.

There is a big difference between Space Empires IV and MOO because of the wormholes. In MOO, you pretty much had to establish defences on all your planets. But in SEIV, you can and should try to establish chokepoints where your focus all your forces. Ideally, you want to keep those down to as few as possible.

BTW, have you downloaded the TDM ModPack and TampaGamer's Sounds yet? I wouldn't play the game without them.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by TerranC:
You CANNOT upgrade units. You CANNOT scrap units.
What you can do is jettison them.

Well, that's enough nitpicking.

That's alright-- and it's entirely possible that the Sagella are about to kick my butt with their temporal ships, too. :-)

If you do have a small planet and wish to upgrade it's defenses, as you say, you can't upgrade the WP's so you have to replace them.

Anyway, my point was that you shouldn't build a bunch of the same type of WP on a planet, because you can only jettison them all at once in v1.67. Creating lots of different Versions (even different names with the same components, ie, swp1a & swp1b) lets you work around that.

-Chuck

PS: It looks like some people are using RCS for Version management. CVS...?

[Dogberry]

Leo ... I'm an old MOO & MOM gamer myself, & I have just started w/ this game. The AI is a lot less fearsome than it seems at first glance. The most dangerous point for you is early in the game. An Orbital Ship yard in the first 5-10 turns is a must, & to be truthful, I have found WPs a waste of time. Your big advantages should be numbers, & then choke points if you are hard pressed. Get the numbers..load your initial ships to the gills w/ weapons, don't bother with larger mounts, & when you have a battle... go "tactical" & break up your fleet. The AI will go for your big ship or a wounded one & you can use this to benefit your play.

I haven't given the AI any bonuses yet, as I am not sure what this means.. you might want to avoid this also. Usually it doesn't mean that the AI plays better, but it just comes at you with more of everything.

On your home planet, after your have your minerals built up in your "natural" storage, go ahead & scrap a mineral miner & replace it with research. In fact, prioritise research over about everything else.. when building facilities. Aside from getting the frigate class of ship, & bigger, badder DUCs & missiles, your research priorities are your own.

If a race is not threatening & does not share your initial atmosphere or planet type.. go ahead & make peace. If they are not soreheads, they go for trade & better on treaties.. pretty easily. You can always soften them up by gifting them a 1000kt of Organics or even Radioactives.

Don't forget to build a resupply depot in every system that is likely to see heavy traffic, & build a space port, right after it... as you receive NO benefits from that system.. in resources, research & Intel.. until a port is built in that system.

Once you get past the early part & establish yourself..it's a piece of cake.

take care... Dog

P.S. you can scrap fighters & sats if you have them in orbit around a planet with a shipyard.

[ May 26, 2002, 03:07: Message edited by: Dogberry ]

[capnq]

I haven't given the AI any bonuses yet, as I am not sure what this means

Low AI bonus = 2x production
Medium AI bonus = 3x
High AI bonus = 5x

The net effect is that the AI builds more ships with better tech.

High AI difficulty = AI uses all ministers
Medium AI difficulty = turns off some ministers
Low AI difficulty = turns off more ministers.

[Master Belisarius]

Low AI bonus = 2x production
Medium AI bonus = 3x
High AI bonus = 5x

The net effect is that the AI builds more ships with better tech.

High AI difficulty = AI uses all ministers
Medium AI difficulty = turns off some ministers
Low AI difficulty = turns off more ministers.

Also, from the times when I was testing the random race generator, remember that the random race generator doesn't use all the available racial points, if you don't pick High AI difficulty.

[ May 27, 2002, 01:49: Message edited by: Master Belisarius ]

[Dogberry]

If the AI doesn't use the Ministers.. then what does it use ? I assume the production bonuses are across the board.. resources, research.. intel .. everything . This might explain why the AI demolishes the capacity of a planet so quickly in Finite Resource Games. My guess is that this production multiplier wiould be of marginal use in certain respects unless the productivity of each planet.. orbital yard .. etc. was also increased, as the bonus points, especially minerals.. would be "lost in space" .

If this is true... the "natural" storage capacity of the AI ought to be doubled or tripled, from that of the human player.

Dog