Difficulties switching to "challenging" in DA

I've switch from normal to challenging, and now I really am challenged.

On a huge galaxy, during the colonization rush I fly out and grab a good 10-15 planets, I could grab more, but I find even this many planets drains my economy so much that I often have to drop my production slider below 100%. At this point I'm sitting and waiting for my population to grow to bring myself back to green. The other civs really get ahead of me at this during this phase, technologically and militarily, they all start to hate me and before long I'm struggling to keep my planets. I had a economic and research treaty with one civ, and even they turned on me. I even had 4-5 fleets of 3 ships at this point, with fire power relatively equal to the Yor who were attacking me also, what gives?

Am I getting too greedy on the colonization grab? Do any of you have some tips for running a strong economy?

How can I maintain the respect of the other civs and still grab a lot of planets from the start? How soon do I need to build a military to not be viewed as a weakingly with many planets to surrender?

Or should I start with less planets and build tech and military to just slowly take planets from other civs?

I love the challenge of this difficulty, I just want to have a little better chance. I don't want it to be easier, I think it's just this begining phase that I need to perfect.

Any advice is appreciated.

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Hi!

On a huge galaxy

My first advice: don't play huge all-abundant galexies. In the mid-game you'll find out there's too much work and too little fun in such a large game to be enjoyable.

For your problem this is also the solution. Play only in games where every player gets only 10-20 planets. A large all-abundant with 9 AIs should be about there.

For managing more than 20 planets you need more cash, or less spending. In the game you can do both:

- don't buy anything, but the first few factories on your HW. Build everything else;
- colonize with more pop, so colonies start supplying cash sooner,
- keep that pop happy (at 100% approval), and they'll grow with double speed, giving you more money sooner,
- research Sensors and build more ships to explore anomalies for some more cash,
- get econ and morale bonuses / resources / techs. They will all give you more money,
- if you're very low on cash, don't build anything on new colonies. Wait until they grow ~1B pop, and then start with some econ buildings (Trade Center's the best early choice)

There's more. Just check forums for early game strategies.

BR, Iztok

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Thanks for the advice.

I like the epicness of the huge galaxy, where range is actually in effect, but maybe I should work on large galaxies like you say until I get the hang of it.

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Actually, range scales with galaxy size. On a tiny map, a ship with no life support and no range bonuses only has a range of about 10 squares. So range probably matters more on small maps.

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Oh, I didn't know that, I just noticed that I can cover a much larger area of the map. But I started started playing again after severl months of not.

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PM, maybe you are referring to the speed of your ships?
Certainly how fast a ship can travel becomes more important in huge galaxy, especially in DA, because it takes so long to travel from one end to the other.

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No I actually mean't the range, on a huge galaxy I think the starting range is about 25% of the map, where on smaller maps it is more. Or at least that's how it was before, I only just start up playing again with the new 1.6 V DA.

I'd still like anyone else's start up suggestions specifically for DA.

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Well, starting range still covers about 25% of the map on tiny, but it covers many fewer star systems. Plus, since you have fewer colonized planets on tiny, building a starbase to extend your range costs relatively more than on a huge map.

Anyway, here are my suggestions for creating a booming economy with lots of planets:
1. Pick abilities in population growth, morale, and economy.
2. Keep morale on all planets at 100% until you use up your starting 5000bc, then increase taxes until morale on all planets is just above 40%. This will maximize your growth when you have surplus money, and maximize your income when you need it.
3. Research sensors 1 early (maybe even before building colony ships) and build more surveyors to pick up money anomalies.
4. Build markets, econ capital, and freighters early. Don't overbuild research and production facilities. Use basic factories because they cost no maintenance.
5. Research the cheap techs that give bonuses to pop growth, morale, econ, and governments. Also get the tech that boost research and production abilities to make your spending more efficient.
6. Sell tech for cash, especially to minor civs.
Each of these tricks can help, but the order in which you should do them will depend on the specific settings of your game. For example, the survey ships are best if anomalies are common, the galaxy is big, there are few major opponents, and you can build fast ships with long range.

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Well I restarted on a large map instead of huge and I'm kicking ass. I've used many of the strategies suggested.

-I kept my tax rate with morale at 100% until first 5000bc were gone.
-I put sliders at 100% production (of course) but kept the rest at the normal 33/33/34% ratios. I bought the first colony ship after about 2 turns of work on it, then after building the first couple buildings on my homeworld, I switched to 50% military and 50% research to crank out colony ships. After the colony rush I switched back to 50/50 social/research but with the focus button for military production on a few shipping planets. By this time most of my colonized planets were from 1-3 billion people, and ripe for building on. I built factories on these established worlds, along with at least one of everything else.(usually 2 econ buildings.) With the planets still under 1 billion people I just began working on econ buildings, farms, etc just so they were still doing something productive.
-I never bought anything with out putting a turn or 2 into working on it to reduce cost.
-I started building war ships right after the colony rush, and after grabbing up a military resource, the only resource in my area. But later I took an influence resource from one of the minor races I conquored.
-I never reasearched any extreme colonization techs, there was only one planet worth while (class 11) that was radioactive. Instead I really focused on influence, and let the other civs colonize those planets for me. (though now I have several planets I can't build on yet.) I've truely realized the importance of influence in this game, it gives your respect even with a mediocere military. Respect of the other civs has always been a problem for me in this higher difficulty, so they all kept declaring war with me even if our militaries were evenly matched. They often have more ships, but mine are usually tougher, until later when all the warring slows down my growth and some other civs get better techs and then they have more ships that are better armed, then it's all downhill.
-My economy is very strong like 1000bc per turn, so I'm using it to just upgrade my ships and buy social stuff. That way I can continue to build up my planets and build up starbases.
-I'm just approaching midgame, the Yor are the largest (as always it seems.) they have the top left 25% of the map, they've gobbled up the Korx and are now consuming the Drengin Clan guys (forget their name.) weird how all the evil races were adjacent to eachother. I'm allied with the Terrans and Altarians, we make up the bottom 3rd of the map, the Drath in the center are fading away, the Arcean, Torian and Iconian form a triangle power in the top right.

some other factors on the map:

negative - very few of my planets have any bonus'

positive - I'm in the corner of the map, which usually has few planets and sucks, but in this case there are a decent amount of planets, so the protection factor of being in a corner is in effect.(I noticed 80% of my game starts I end up in the corner.)
-3 of the 5 minor races I put in the game are in my territory, I left them alone until just after the recovery from the colony rush. But then I conquored them and they influence boost has pushed my boundaries way past my planets.

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Hi!

My economy is very strong like 1000bc per turn, so I'm using it to just upgrade my ships and buy social stuff. That way I can continue to build up my planets and build up starbases.

The early 1000BC surpluss is a sign you can get another tech level in research and factories, as you have the cash to afford that.

Don't upgrade warships, it's waaay to costly. For the same price you can build another (and better) one. Invest that money in infrastructure: buy that fac or lab or market that's 1-2 turns away from being finished, so a new one will be partially built in the next turn. This way you'll be for quite a long time without much of cash, but when your planets end their development, all of a sudden you'll be flowing in money while still researching and buuilding ships like mad. Then you start some serious ass kicking. Just monitor constantly your income: when it starts decreasing seriously, start building econ buildings instead of labs or fac's. And before you get Industriall Sectors, turn autoupgrade governor off, or else they'll kill your economy more severely than drengin invasion.

BR, Iztok

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Yes that's exactly what happend, I went up to industrial sector and my 1000bc per turn was gone. But then I just starting going over my planets and eliminating unnessessary factories, and tweaking my planets in general.

The Yor have now become the total powerhouse in the game. They just started spreading, and all the other races kept surrendering to them, even good races! They are a huge monster now, the Korath have a small bubble that is being absorbed by the Yor, yet they loyally fight for the Yor like dogs. The Your has the upper 2/3 of the map, agains me, Altarians and Terrans. Although I've began taking a few key planets, like former homeworlds of Korx and Drath that were controled by the Yor and Korath. This has given me awesome influence boosts.

The Yor have awesome offensive ships but virtually no defense. With me having the super warrior ability and using large fleets, I can kill off his ships in the first round and take no damage.

The Yor are always powerful in this game, I've never seen them beaten by anyone but me. I've seen them fought back to a small area, often by Thalans, but they've always made a come back.

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