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Slonor

Join Date 03/2006

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Why are my enemies so good at research?

Why are my enemies so good at research?

I keep noticing that even though I have second-best bonus in research, my enemies still get ahead. Drengin usually get 6 attack on their ships while I'm trying to hang on with medium-sized 2 attack and 1 defense (against their weapon of choice). Why is that?

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What level of difficulty? The AI usually enjoy trading among themselves, moreso on higher difficulty levels.

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Medium ships with 2 attack?? That sorta sounds wrong already.... maybe you've got some balance issues in your research: ie researching expensive techs instead of lots of cheap ones? Personally, I usually see my small ships get 4-10 attack before I switch to medium, which i usually get with an invasion or trading. (I play on normal or challenging).

I usually fall behind the AI in the beginning for research, but I like to develop my planets a lot, and I dont see that kind of a discrepancy in ship powers--trade with the minor civs for like dozens of weapon+armor techs for cheap if you can to rebalance that.

Also, maybe try re-balancing your finance bar. If you allocate more money to research your bonus will really come into play.

Hope that helps

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You could also trade with the A.I for sometechs and then trade the same tech you traded them to the other civs thats what i do to keep ahead

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Basically the AI is moderately good at trading for the techs it wants every (just a number out of my @$$) six turns or so, and rather willing to share everything with everyone to get it. Especially the minor civs of course, who end up getting the most techs out of the trading and become a kind of storehouse of technology.

My advice would be to trade with all the minor races you know same technology for different things, you might need high Diplomacy skill to pull this off. And while you're at it be sure to trade with all the other alien empires that same turn for that same tech of yours, because pretty soon any technology you give out will be given to everyone with no additional benefit to you.

Still I think their willingness to trade everything should be fixed. It results in just about everybody using the same weapon technologies, making it easy to counterstrategy by going with a weapon technology nobody else is doing and just keeping it to yourself. I notice though, later on in the game (perhaps due to all the Minors getting wiped out), the AI tech trading calms down and they start having disimiliar techs as they should.

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I could easily have been in the same situation, but I usually Speak To the races and trade techs. E.g. I'm lagging behind on military I find someone with:

Shield
Shield II
Shield III
Laser V
Plasma
Plasma II

I usually just go for the Shield III and the Plasma II. And then straight to the shipyard to implement the new and riciculously powerful techs. And I just saved myself the trouble of researching all the earlier techs

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Well, the reason for my weak medium ships is that I never bother building small ships. They are just too weak/small to carry weapons. I only build medium, large and massive. Once I get massive, I see no reason in building large ships or smaller, since massive is superior in every way. But yes, I try to go for the massive ship type before really researching defenses and weapons. I recently built a nice massive ship with anti-missile and laser defenses (since enemies tend to steer clear of railgun-type). They are practically indestructible (1 ship was slightly damaged after tough firefight). I also found that playing on a huge/gigantic map is easier since enemies wait longer before attacking you and they also have trouble attacking period because of the large range. I'm doing well now with 400 income and 100 percent industry. Working on researching weaps. I think I have enough massive battleships to defend myself for a while. I also have 96 soldiering, which is nice.

Btw, I was playing on Normal. I think my problem was that I played on small maps too much and it was very difficult. On large maps I can just waste time researching and delay the other factions by paying them off. I'm currently allied with Drengin, Torian and those green guys against the Altarians, who aren't packing that much firepower (even my medium-sized obsolete ships can stand up to them). Just conquered a minor faction btw. They had full starport of large-scale/med-scale, but my 3 massives ripped through them (had fully upgraded battle space station nearby to help).

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Yeah I never build small ships either..I go for med or large first, and then trade for the necessary weapons/defense techs. After I build up a good fleet to hold off any nearby enemies (like u said, on huge maps, u dont have to worry about distant empires), I focus on social/research almost entirely. By the time I am ready to build Huge ships, all my planets are developed and the univerise is ripe for conquest

Gotta great game going now, where I conquered the whole left side of a huge map, and the Drengin's got the other. We're about to duke it out... problem is, they have about TWICE as much of a military rating as me. Eek.

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Well, the reason for my weak medium ships is that I never bother building small ships. They are just too weak/small to carry weapons.

You must not have heard of miniturization or increased weapon tech

I can get tinies with much more firepower than that by the mid-game and if you get them blooded more hit points than a medium starts with. (My current game has the tinies with a 4 firepower plus a 3 armor)

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Aside from insider trading among the AI, it really does come down to that slider bar. You can be taxing 49% and spending 100%, but if that research bar is low, the money isn't going to research.

I generally keep my military, social, and research sliders about even (33%) until the colonization rush is completed. Then while the planets develop, I start dropping military and putting the funding into research. Once the planets are up and going, I dump social almost entirely and pump research up to 60%+.

By mid-game, I'm usually ahead of everyone else and just about ready to dump research in favor of military and start that war I've always been dreaming about.

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problem is, they have about TWICE as much of a military rating as me

Yeah, but if you've got twice the production that they have, then that's just a temporary issue.

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Get the Neutrality Learning Centers. They will give you some awsome research abilities.

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