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David_James_Booth

Join Date 07/2006

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What would you do?

I'm a relatively new player (im only playing on challanging)

anyway, I'm doing ok as the Drath

However the Alterians have just discovered an artifact which gives them +1% race abilities per turn, and have had the increadible fortune of discovering another artifact which gives a sizeable portion of their planets +10 in planet quality... (the planets in question are in a part of space I haven't uncovered but I think its the heart of their empire furthest from my border)

When this happened they were already the second most powerfull faction...

My Empire and the Drengin went to war 3 turns later (as fast as we could) but after several initial victories I'm running out of population to turn into troops, I've got the biggest treasury but that is only capable of upgrading 4 of my capital ships.
(my treasury is breaking even atm because I have quite a large fleet)

They are begining to produce ships with black hole guns... and I have about 50/50 sheilds/armour on my ships (in retrospect a very bad idea)
Their ships if lucky can take out one of my huge (expensive) ships in one shot! and they seem to be producing them more and more frequently but I currently have the military advantage just without the population to convert to a victory.

If I make peace and wait for my population to grow back I think they'll just overun me...

So am I right in thinking that I'm screwed?

I've been toying with the idea of making multiple cheap ships... I lose 1 in every battle but hopefully with big enough fleets I'll be able to take out one of their big cruisers too... but they also have lots of small ships which I've been doing well against them with my big battleships... (its like a game of rock paper scissors and all I have are rocks and they seem to know this little fact)

I'm on a gigantic map with abundant everything I've uncovered about half the map and own a fair portion of that (roughly 25-30%) but I'd wager the alterians have a large empire that I can't see.

I do have max shields, max armour, max beam, guns, miniturisation, engine and hull research so I have the tools but this leads to ships which are very expensive and thus take ages to build.

Sorry for the detail but now you know what I know... has anyone with more experiance got any ideas?

strategies

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If it isn't already get your espionage on the drengins to max. Scroll through their planets looking for their best industrial worlds. Cherry pick the best ones especially if you spot a precursor mine. This will make the most of the few troops you have and will boost your production whilst throwing a spanner in the drengin war machine. I assume you already have some ridiculously fast transports. Send these around a few of your worlds and pick up a small number of soldiers from each. This will leave a higher population on each planet and therefore they will regenerate more quickly.

If you can't resist the powerful new new Drengin ships and realise you're going to lose your hard won planets destroy all the factories the turn before they attack. That'll teach them.

Once you have all of the Drengin territory (or enough to neutralise them as a threat) start to worry about the Alterians. You should have time because that artifact takes a while to build their abilities up to unstoppable levels and they most likely will take ages to build 10 things on their upgraded planets.

Don't upgrade your existing ships. Update your designs to be all guns and zero point armour and build these from now on. You don't mention what weapons the Alterians use. If they use mass drivers you'll be fine. If they use something else trade them a decent mass driver and they won't be able to resist using it. It also really helps if you can take out small groups of ships before they form huge fleets.

If your military advantage is big enough you could decommission your outdated ships or send them on suicide missions. You'll be surprised how often they'll get a lucky roll and do serious damage. This will reduce your upkeep costs and get your economy thriving again. The ecomony is the key to the game as I'm sure you're aware.

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When I'm planning a war with a distant foe, I find it well worthwhile to build 1 or 2 military starbases at the limit of your range (it can be a good idea to design a special long-range contructor to seed the bases, then fast contructors with no range once they're established). Really power these up; you'll be getting a lot of use out of them. If possible have them cover some of the Altarians planets. As soon as they're established use the range it/they grant you to send some scouts out to see what he's got and where it is.

Your forward starbase will provide you with range, a place for your damaged ships to rest up and re-fleet and a safe lurking spot for transports and resource-findn' contructors. If the fortunes of war turn against you they will provide a handy raiding / transport-interecept base.

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OOh sorry, I meant to say that me and the Drengin went to war against the Alterians... (the Drengin are nice to me in this game for no apparent reason I'm nuetral... they can see the threat this +1% per turn is)

I'm begining to use fast transports to pick up packets of troops...

I've noticed that it is only effective to attack with about 4-5 billion troops as it is more efficient because when in an invasion battle you get anywhere near the 500 mark you'll lose the rest for no damage to the enemy...

I've designed a ship with lots or armour and a couple of doom rays... that should be devastating when it arrives but it is expensive and will take about 30 turns for the first to arrive

The alterians use mass drivers (black hole guns) with little defence so I only need 1 or 2 good hits to take them out... however they currently only need 1 shot... and their ships seem to be quicker to produce...

My border worlds are all down to the 3-4 billion mark and my other worlds are begining to go that way too... maybe I could bribe a couple of other races to go to war too?

I might also start using superweapons during the invasions... thats a bit of a waste but desperate times call for desperate measures...

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Recently in the games that I have been playing I only have one ship design capable of attacking. Every so often after I get better weapons/defences I upgrade thier design. I use a small ship, hence small logistics, and make fleets of about 15 of them and with them being cheap it works out. With Phasors IV I have fleets that have about 325 attack and a 175 defence. It also makes managing your fleets alot easier so you don't have to worr about balancing them out.

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First thing I would do is reduce my Social spending slider to near 0% and my Research slider to as low as I could tolerate. Sounds like you don't need much research right now, you have sufficient weapon/defense techs. Then I would increase taxes until it hurts to funnel cash into the military building programs. I'd design a new "Altarian Killer" ship, smaller in size, nothing but weapons and engines, since they can rip thru your defenses anyway. Then I would find all my planets that are producing my new "AK's" and set their planetary focus on military to get as many as possible into space.

If you have the starbase projection techs, the ones that give you ship assist att/def modes, then build lots of constructors too. Build some for defensive purposes to secure strategically valuable planets, and save up a bunch for extending your range and fire power into Altarian space (as mentioned in previous posts). Try to be judicious in your deployment of troop transports, don't waste valuable troops and cripple your economy. Use your new AKs to take out as many warships as you can to hold them off and cherry pick their choice planets.

If you have a deep enough treasury, buying somethings outright may be a good idea, and this may be a good case for financing your building, mortgaging your future to keep on buying in order to survive. Consider selling some of your older ships (to the Drengin or another race, maybe they will join in the fight) to bolster your treasury and reduce your Military maintenance costs.

Cheers,
Reaver

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You can try to buy transports although expensive they are full of troops and the ai has lots of em

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I would go for getting a fully equipped fleet of ships (like the AK's mentioned, with offense as their purpose) and send them against some of their ships to see how they fair. If they get stomped, time for a new idea. If they win, keep them alive and raiding so that you don't get invaded.

Also, you CAN take some time off of active invading to kill off much of their fleet. When they have no ships, or few enough scattered around their territory to be little\no threat, then you can start invading. While you are picking off the fleet, you can be building the transports, and sending them to your worlds as they get to\near max population.

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I never thought of buying transports, that is quite a brilliant idea... I'd never even heard of forerunner mines till you mentioned them so I went looking and captured a couple of planets with them on which might slow them a little and boost some of my production.

I just made a couple of aliances... but they arn't joining the war because I made them during... if I make peace then go back to war will they join in?

Counting planets on the diplomacy screen they have 100... I have 100 (exhausted worlds) I no longer have planets I can really take troops from without crippling them.

I can see about 30 of theirs... so their empire isn't as big as I thought... but their +10 quality planets are to the rear. I can reach all of their empire by ship, its just I don't want to spread my fleet too thin because soon they could pick them off at will.

Four of my killer ships have arrived with 140 armour and 88 beam... compared to their 120 mass driver no defense ships I should kick them for a while. Hopefully that should be difficult to scratch...

I'm going to stop research and social sliders thats a good idea... its obvious but I didn't really think about it... I think I currently have 10% research and 30% social which I don't really need.I think it'll be close, its just the idea of an empire getting gradually stronger turn by turn which spells doom...

Thanx for the help, its good to know there are good forums out there

cheers

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If you need people for invading planets then make sure your planets all have 100% morale and get the trade goods to boost morale and population growth. Also make sure you research all the techs to boost you soldiering and build/capture the Tri...Training center.

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I used to drop everything to take out whoever got that artifact then one game I ignored it without any appreciable difference in that race performance.

This was in version 1.0 & 1.1 I haven't seen it in 1.2 yet.

As for running out of population I will take several planets with farm bonus tiles (the higher the better) and use them as transport production. Once you have 20+ billion its hard to drain them down.

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but after several initial victories I'm running out of population to turn into troops

Where is the Aphrodisiac? The 50% pop. growth it gives u would solve yr pop/soldier problems. If another race has got it, that u r not allied to, u may want to target the planet its on. If your more powerful then that race, u can invade, capture the planet and then go straight to diplomacy screen to make peace, sometimes they even pay u

. Also as its a trade good u can trade for it on the diplomacy screen if an ally (or anyone else) as it.

Also the Tir-Quan and using information warfare, mini soldiers or at a push, tidal displacement (may have got name wrong there) will help reduce yr soldier/pop losses.

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Well why not just make peace with the Altarians and try to ally with them? It's obvious that if you keep fighting they're eventually destroy you.

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Not've gotten into that in the first place. Ally with the strongest (current) player, then pick off the other weaker factions around them. Eventually take the Ally win, or have a big knock-down drag-out with your former "friend".

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I've found it a lot more useful to use multiple smaller transports than one huge one.

Some people call it an exploit, but I think its pretty reasonable... send in the first transport or two using mass drivers to kill as many people as possible (but if you lose, the planet doesn't take a hit) then attack using a more lenient strategy for the last wave once they're down to 1000 or 2000 soldiers. I took out a 30k pop Yor world with 3x 1500 troop transports that way while being really behind in soldiering.

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I've found it a lot more useful to use multiple smaller transports than one huge one.

Some people call it an exploit, but I think its pretty reasonable... send in the first transport or two using mass drivers to kill as many people as possible (but if you lose, the planet doesn't take a hit) then attack using a more lenient strategy for the last wave once they're down to 1000 or 2000 soldiers. I took out a 30k pop Yor world with 3x 1500 troop transports that way while being really behind in soldiering.

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