Questions From a New Player

I just bought this game yesterday and played one full three hour game against as TEC with normal AI (and got my ass handed to me). I imagine this will come naturally over time, but I'm not exactly sure how to spend my resources properly. More specifically how aggresively should I build units and what is considered a good fleet size? 10, 15, 20, 25 ships? Should I always have a surplus of money/metal/crystals on hand in case I need to build up an army rapidly, and if so, how much? I'm asking these questions because I honestly have no idea if there is a unit upkeep cost, or a cost for owning more colonies. I had a nasty habit of going broke playing Civ4 by expanding too much. On the topic of expansion, should I bother colonizing asteroids or should I just move on to planets? One more question, should I just build as many capitol ships as possible or work on leveling up 1-3?

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Look into all the ways of increasing your economy and mining. This way you will easily beat the AI.

For example you should upgrade your populations on your planets and asteroids as soon as you can as this quickly pays off in increased income.

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Also keep in your first capital ship is free, and the one you take, can effect your fleet. Just as a note, it the type of ships in your fleet, that effect the outcome of any battle. So when you do spend on your militay, make sure you understand how to spend.

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Welcome to the game. Hope you enjoy it.

Size of savings...very much dependant on play style. I generally run as close to 0 as I can, due to the fact that I don't see a reason to hang onto stuff. It doesn't build interest or anything. Yes, I get into positions where I don't have the chance to build up an emergency fleet, but there are ways around that (cough, Vasari RA, cough).

There is no unit upkeep cost. Upkeep is built in on how large your fleet COULD be...not is, but could be. The larger you grow your pool of support, the more of a percentage is taken from your resources. This system is different than other RTSs and is the subject of MUCH debate around here. As to Colonies, there is a cost...if you don't upgrade them. If you hover your mouse over your credits, you'll get an info card detailing your sources of money. If any of the colonies have a red number, they are draining your credits and slowing your economy. Upgrade them ASAP (the upper left upgrade) to get your loss rate to 0 and then to grow your population (increasing the amount of tax you get from that planet).

Colonize too fast, and you'll be slowed down. That being stated...some people suggest working out until you find a good choke point, take that system, then work your way back as you upgrade the chokepoint. Really depends on your style. I don't bypass asteroids, but that's only because I use my Colonizing Cap Ship as my first, free Cap ship and thus sieze all I can as I explore with it.

Capital Ships are good, but as large targets, they can attract so much attention. While learning the game, it's a good idea to make your Caps the centerpieces of your fleets with 1 per "fleet". Large fleets, perhaps 2 or 3 Caps.

I tend to view my needs for Caps on how many fleets I need. Spread them out, have support ships (repair and status upgrade ships) along with a few other warships. This, of course, was developed under 1.02...so the fact that the AI doesn't retreat as much might require some adjustment.

That being stated, I think I'm going to try only building Caps and attempting that. I'm doing it now, but against 3 other AIs in a 20 planet galaxy...it's getting a little tricky and I might abandon it if I can't knock off at least one of the AIs soon.

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I only have about a week under my belt with this game, and largely with ver 1.02, but I'll give my .02 as see it currently.

1) My simple answer on units is that you can only buid what you can afford. Early in the game, when you are trying desperately to expand, and build enough defenses to keep what you have currently colonized, and research, it's a bit of a tug of war for me. I usually end up having a small fleet right away with a cap ship and 10-15 light cruisers for clearing out the systems for colonization, then as soon as I can, I ramp up another fleet for defense purposes and continue to add to those fleets as I expand outwards. For me, it's not till mid to end game do I have enough resources and enough access to the better units to really have a third fleet. Usually by that time, I am on the offensive and I use that third fleet to box in my oppopnent (since he tends to rabbit every time I show up with my main fleet). That way, he jumps right to my other waiting fleet.

Playing with pirates enabled tends to be more problematic in that I have to "Fleet up" a bit faster just to defend my early gains, but then my research tends to suffer as a result.

That's a bit of a broad answer, but it's what Iv'e been running into.

2) With regard to surplus, for me that tends to shift depending on what part of the game I am in. Early game I always have a shortage of crystal, and more credits. Occassionaly I have run out of metal too, but that depends on your planet makeup. If I run across a volcanic planet or two, then that may not happen, as they give me 3 metal resources. Same for an ice planet, as they give tree crystal mines. If I end up with all asteriods, then I'm almost always short on crystal and metal early game.

Mid game tends to be a surplus of cash, and just barely keeping up on crystal and metal.

End game tends to be LOTS of cash, a fair bit of metal surplus and again, just keeping up with crystal.

3) On expanding and colonizing asteriods? Always. Bottom line, you need as much crystal and metal as you can get. The more/faster you get crystal/metal, the faster you advance tech and your ability to maintain and build fleets, let alone research.

4) I don't think Iv'e ever had more than three fleets at one time. Keep in mind that to date, Iv'e only played random small maps to get a good feel for the game mechanics. That strategy may not hold water when I move up to medium size maps and have more enemies to deal with and/or more territory to cover.

Hope that helps.

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