Shwates

Join Date 08/2006

Questions for Veteran players

I just got this game and am playing through for the 1st time and have some questions for all you veterans out there:

Trade
1. I killed a route and it appears that the freighter on that route was disbanded – true?
2. I know that having a trade route with a more distant planet is better, but how much better is distance over a route with a populous planet? Is there any formula to figure out if it is better to go distance over a closer high population planet?
3. Is there any reason to make your freighters move quicker than the standard 2 or 3 per turn? Does the trade value depend on how fast the freighter moves back and forth between planets?

Any other tips/hints about trade would be appreciated as well.

Ships
4. How do you upgrade all ships of a certain type at once? I figured out how to do one ship at a time, but there must be a faster way.
5. Is the 2.5% maintenance cost per ship apply to freighters? Is the manual correct when it states that only ships with weapons, troop modules, and survery modules are subject to the maintenance cost?

Starbases
6. Is it true that mining a resource does indeed give that bonus to your whole civilization regardless of distance to any planets? Does this remain true if the starbase is in an opponents sphere of influence?
7. It seems that on starbases other than military I can build a module that helps ship weapons – The manual seems to indicate this is only possible on a military starbase. What do I not understand here?

Any other tips/hints about starbases would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance to all who respond, it is much appreciated!

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1. As far as I know, when you kill the a route, you lose the freighter as well as the trade route. So you need to build another freighter.

2. Don't know the numbers, but it's usually best to send a freighter far away to a populous planet. Choosing opposing player's capital is usually a strong choice.

3. The main reason to speed them up is to allow them to establish the routes faster. Esepeically useful when playing on larger maps. I recently built one with four warp engines on it.

4. If you double-click on the ship (or bring up the details via the button), there is a check-box that says "upgrade all ships of this type" after you click the Upgrade option. Be careful, this can get quite expensive.

5. I have no idea here. It would stand to reason that they would incur the normal costs.

6. Starbases when set up on natural resources are a civilization wide improvement.

7. As far as I know, the miliary base is the one that allows you add stack on bonuses to ships with the starbase's effective range. Other starbases can add a huge array of weapons and defenses.

If you arne't playing the latest version of the game, I suggest you upgrade.

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Questions for Veteran players

I qualify...

Trade
1) True, u can lose the trade route if too many freighters get destroyed.
2) Distance most important then population. Diagonal from 1 corner to another for best results.
3) Only to establish the route quicker.
Additional - U can have all yr trade routes go from the same planet to the same planet.

Ships
4) Yes u can, click upgrade, select all, if u have enough money.
5) Manual is correct, not sure about the survey module, can't remember off hand.

Starbases
6) Yes & yes.
7) Manual is correct. Those weapons/defenses r just attack/defense for that specific starbase. Military starbases r the only starbase which can have ship assist weapons/defenses on.
Additional - a fleet located on the same square as a starbase will defend that starbase.

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With regards question 7, the ship assist weapons/defenses that add bonuses to your ships (and can only be built on military bases) are the ones that have a picture of a ship beside them when selecting which one to build. The other weapons/defenses that can be built on starbases have a picture of a missile, or laser, or shield, etc. and those are specific weapons equipped on the starbase (they do not help other ships near the starbase).

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Any other tips/hints about trade would be appreciated as well

For my style of play, trade is only good to pacify neighbors -- the income is not significant enough and I have plenty of extra income without trade routes and I lose it when I attack them.

. How do you upgrade all ships of a certain type at once? I figured out how to do one ship at a time, but there must be a faster way.

The check box for all units of this type is towards the upper left of the upgrade window and the upgrade cost estimates will change to reflect the cost of upgrading all of em.

5: Ship maintenance costs are pretty insignificant and not really a factor worth considering usually.

6. Is it true that mining a resource does indeed give that bonus to your whole civilization regardless of distance to any planets? Does this remain true if the starbase is in an opponents sphere of influence?

Yes and Yes -- you can view your Civ wide bonus's on the "stats and graphs" page of the civilization manager window; there is a series of buttons towards the center of the page; the abilities button gives all those bonus's( it is the default ).

Any other tips/hints about starbases would be appreciated as well

Resource starbases are HUGE -- especially military, then morale, then economic, then research, then influence. Of course if you like to flip planets with influence, influence resources are much more important.

Mining Starbases on an economic 'resource' add a civ wide economic bonus ( tax income bonus )

whereas

Economic 'starbases' only add a stacked bonus to a planets base military production, social production, and research production. Inside there sphere of influence ( 8 tiles ).

Some players also like to have all their trade routes from one of their planets to just one other planets and place lots of economic 'starbases' with trade enhancing modules along that route.

Starbase weapons and defenses can protect the starbase effectively thru the mid game but a late game fleet will take it out pretty easy -- lots of players prefer to place a fleet on the starbase for defense.

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I mainly use trade routes for diplomatic purposes. The money they make is only significant early in the game. Later in the game, when I've had a need to improve relations with a race fast, I've built trading ships packed with engines. I've built ones that can zip all the way across a gigantic map in a few turns. After a route is established, the construction of a ship has no bearing on anything.

Maintenance costs are an important consideration. Big war ships can drain your income quickly. Your economy is usually the limiting factor for how big of a military you can build.

Mining starbases are key. You can live without the other ones, but they can be helpful. Personally, I don't go out of my way to build any except the mining starbases. Those are critical. It's also imporant to add all 7 mining modules to them. You get those when you perfect all of the industrial techs. You can use influence starbases to "flip" planets your way. That's a tactic that can be very helpful in expanding your empire (and weakening your enemies) without going to war. Those need the 11 influence increasing modules you get through the yellow cultural conquest techs.

Have fun! I'm sure you will.

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Maintenance costs are an important consideration. Big war ships can drain your income quickly. Your economy is usually the limiting factor for how big of a military you can build.

How long are your games? I've never had a problem with maintenance costs. Even when I held off cleaning up a game where I had 379 planets and was building ships with extra income -- the extra income only fell from +120K/turn to 100K/turn over like 3 years. And the game bombed out about 8 years in and became unloadable/unplayable because of array lenghts I believe. ( so ended my attempt to set high metaverse score, boo-hoo ).

I realize that maintenance could be an issue if a player has very little extra income but I'm always able to get a significant income pretty easy.

If a player is maxing out production and or research capacity to where they have no positive cash flow, I think they are putting too much into developing that capacity.

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Thank you to all who replied, most helpful!

Economic 'starbases' only add a stacked bonus to a planets base military production, social production, and research production. Inside there sphere of influence ( 8 tiles ).

Some players also like to have all their trade routes from one of their planets to just one other planets and place lots of economic 'starbases' with trade enhancing modules along that route.

So does that mean that multiple starbases can affect one planet, even if their spheres of influence (8 tiles) overlap? Further, that multiple starbases with trade enhancements can affect the same route if they overlap? More information on this would be appreciated.

Thanks....love this game!

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Oh yes, the effects are cumulative. If you build 4 starbases in each of the corners where 4 sectors meet, you can get 16 starbases affecting a planet.

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Oh yes, the effects are cumulative. If you build 4 starbases in each of the corners where 4 sectors meet, you can get 16 starbases affecting a planet.

I assume this means there is a limit on # of starbases per sector then? What is the limit and does it depend on difficulty or any other factor?

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assume this means there is a limit on # of starbases per sector then? What is the limit and does it depend on difficulty or any other factor?

4 starbases per sector, any type.

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You can view the economic starbase effects on the "Details" page of your Planetary Management Screen.

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