Ok, Let's Help the nub...

DL or DA?

DL.

OK. That happens to me a lot. sometimes I hit the retire button because it's impossible for me to win.

But I think one of the best ideas is to just buy about three colony ships (make sure they're fast) directly at the begining and colonize as many planets as possible as fast as you can and then go ahead and put planetary improvemants on them. (don't do that for your homeworld though).

No offense, but it seems that a civilization will often find a precursor ship when its on the losing end of a war.

I wasn't the only one that got purcursor ships, so I dunno.

But don't do what on my home world?

A few basic things:

One important thing you seem to be neglecting is building a reasonably-sized military force so that the AIs wont think you are an easy target (which, no offense, you apparently are). You are better off building some low-grade military ships early on so the AIs wont continuously harrass, and eventually attack you. You can upgrade them, or build better ones later. Your build strategy seems to be a bit off too. There are many strategies, but if you want a balanced approach, I find it useful to build a few factories first, so that the subsequent buildings will build faster, and your ability to create ships will also be greater in the beginning. Or if you just buy buildings, it doesnt matter so much what order you do it in. As for colonization, I always ignore the secondary planet in my home system, and go off in sarch of something better. Id much rather have a PQ8-20 planet than a PQ4 one. I always let some other empire colonize the secondary planet, and not too long after it will flip over to my side because of cultural influence. So you've let a competing empire colonize and build up the world a bit, and then it becomes yours for free. I build one influence structure on my homeworld to take advantage of the civ-capital influence bonus, and then usually build over it once the secondary planet flips.

Thats my 2-cents...hope it might be of some help.

Mike

Er...Make sure your home world has good stuff on it because you need it to build colony ships when you run out of money to buy them. And don't wait to put planetary improvements on your homeworld like the rest of your planets (that you colinized(if you do it this way)).

hope that explains it...

Definitely turn off the tech victory option unless you plan to go that route yourself. I've accidentally left it on in the past and it turned a really good game into an insane research scramble that I would never have won if I hadn't been spying on the military giant at the other end of the galaxy and noticed they had gotten to the second tech after Deeper Knowledge (forget the name now). Basically, once you get the alert that someone else is one tech away from winning, there is no way to catch up.

What do you mean don't wait?

Hi!

I read you post. You lost even before you started the game. That's because you didn't:
1) take full econ bonus for your race,
2) take enough planets to be competititve and
3) develop enough economy to found your research and ship-building to keep other races at bay.

Some suggestions for future games:
1) Race design
- mandatory take +30% econ and
- take good bonus in morale.
- Get some production bonuses. The rest is by your choice.

2) colony rush
First turn set spending to 100%, full social production.
Send your colony ship to the biggest group of planets you see. With this ship you can go far, so do it while exploring. Colonize only a really good planet (15+) if you find it. Your flagships shall go on hunt for better planets int another direction.
- Build/buy 4-5 factories on your HW, while changins sliders to produce each turn one, remainign points into research whatever techs gives bonus to production.
- create your own colony ship with two engines.
- set sliders so you produce 1 such colony ship each second turn, put on it 500M pop and send them blindly to stars with lots of planets. If you see where your opponents are, send ships to them while exploring star systems. If you find a good planet and your other colonizers are far, get it, else send some other colonizer to it and keep exploring. The goal is to get best planets before AIs get them, the rest you'll backfill easier, as they'll be closer to you as to the AI. If AI gets small planet(s) in your space, there's a fair chance they'll soon flip to you.
- When you start getting planets, decrease yout taxes to have those new colonies at 100% approval in order to grow on them as much pop as possible. With 10 new planets you'll be running -150BC each turn, but that's why you have the starting money: to bridge that gap until new colonies start to pay for themself, and for the empire.

3) Economy
- DON'T buy anything on colonies!
- On them put in queue 2 factories, and fill the rest with whatever buildings you want the planet specialized. Keep in mind that you'll need to cover at least 50% tiles in your empire with econ buildings: markets, farms and morale buildings to make research and production work at 100% ALL THE TIME.
- Research only what you NEED and what will give you best benefit in shortest time. You don't need almost any wartech in this phase, but 2nd/3rd level of buildings, better morale, econ and diplo. With good diplo and trade routes you can "buy" several more months of peace, where you'll develop your infrastructure for future conquests.
- Keep looking what other races do, what ships they're using, how strong they are. Try to find who'll be your enemy, who your first prey, who your long-time ally. Don't be affraid by their "big" military. Until they develop planetary invasion they're pretty harmless. All those big fleets of fighters are usually destroyed without any problem by using proper defenses on just a few medium-hull based ships. Your strong infrastructire should allow you to produce them in no time when they'll be needed.

There are many details I left out, but for playing up to maso what I wrote is s quite enough to make you competitive.

BR, Iztok

what i do is mostly along the lines of what Iztok said. My standard race has econ, morale, and diplomacy; populist party (morale and diplomacy bonuses); and my starting techs are planetary improvements, stellar cartography, and whatever is beneath those.

a slightly alternative strategy to customizing your race, swap a little morale or econ bonus for some influence bonus, and change your party from populist to pacifist (influence and social production bonuses); your loss in economy will be mostly covered by your tourism and your production benefits, and it will be easier to flip the small worlds you allowed the AI's to have.

begin the colony rush. the default colony ship design has 2 modules (1,000 pop) and 1 engine, design your own that instead has 2 engines and 1 module (500 pop). get only high quality planets, you can return for crappy ones later. dont bother getting scouts like the computers do, with stellar cartography you can see which systems have the most planets and are likely to have habitable worlds. usually i will rush buy the first factory on each new colony, but then let each improvement build on its own. i will try to set max production, and keep morale in the green (70-100) by lowering or decreasing taxes. i research up to impulse drive to boost my transports to 6 spaces/week, which is relatively fast to what the computers will have at this point. afterwards i research the same sort of tech Iztok mentioned, econ, morale, and diplomacy. try to grab the trade goods (and their necessary techs) before other races get them. while it depends on different circumstances, you wont need a military for a long time, just avoid trouble by giving low-end techs as gifts, trading, or paying tributes if necessary. when given an alignment choice event, choose evil or neutral choices, never good. also consider your neighbors, for example, if you are near the drengins, lean more towards evil so they like you more, if you are near the altarians, try to stay neutral. watch the other races, put some money for espionage (just one slider click is all that is necessary), keep track of the weapons they use so you can counter them effectively, also trade for defenses (computers will usually research the defenses for their own weapons) to save time.

Don't teach him that any bonus is "mandatory". I'm rocking face in a game as the Drengin with no econ bonuses whatsoever.

The Drengin do however, require an aggressive playstyle. Their abilities and natural bonuses are all geared towards finding the nearest target and taking thier stuff. And in general the Drengin are pretty weak (I'm playing them for the Loser of Losers tourney, to give you an example). You may want to consider another race.

Specialize your worlds. Your first world will probabaly need to be a nice factory-filled ship producer. Smaller worlds make excellent economy bases (2 economy boosters, a morale booster... and maybe a farm and more morale boosters (need to balance the farms with happiness makers.)) or you can make smaller ones into Research centers. Big ones - make good research capitals or additional starship producers.

Hi!

Yeah, but you're playing at tough, and know how game goes. When he'll advance to your level, he too will be able to play without starting econ bonuses. But for noob a +30% econ is the easiest way to start.

BR, Iztok

OK. I'm very bad at explaining things. I should have never mentioned the don't do that on your homeworld thing.

You'r going to say "DUH..." after you read this.

Put planetary improves on your homeworld first and don't wait to do it.

I feel so stupid...  

Iztok-

Of course it's the easiest way to start I'm just asking you to say that instead of saying it's REQUIRED. No hard feelings intended if I came off harsh, btw.

Another suggestion of mine is probably don't start off play as Drengin if you don't want to be involved in a lot of wars, because that's what they're good at (and even there, Korath do that better),

Hi!

Hard feelings were on my side, but not because of you. At the time I wrote that "mandatory +30% econ" I was still under the bad impression from finding out that planets in new DA 1.6 generate ~20% less tax revenue than in 1.6 betas. That's the second nerf of revenue, compared to DL.

Also, he's new to the game, so he needs some rules to guide him, before he'll understand the game enough to see what's behind them, and say "I can play without +30% econ". Until then, it's mandatory.

BR, Iztok

I'll contribute my own little nuggets… I play obscene or suicidal, huge or gigantic maps (6-8 opponents -- all evil… I play as 'good'). I do customize my maps (custom home system with my cap planet a PQ 26, rest of system habitable with varying PQs… however -- I also play against only custom opponents -- so they get a just as good home system). I don't mess with Tech, Cultural, etc victories -- conquest only. I also set all planets, asteroids, and anomalies to abundant. Doubtless -- these tactics work to varying degrees depending on setup and style of play, but I can beat AI regularly at the highest levels.

1. Race setup.
I agree with morale and econ bonuses. I also like SOCIAL production and research. I play as Universalist - and bonuses small to mid so I can spread my bonuses out. I skip ALL military techs in initial techs -- only social/infrastructure techs. Can you tell I'm more of a "nester/builder"?

2. Early game
I buy my first colony ship on turn 1 -- plus my initial, this gives me 3 planets to start with. I also heavily recommend designing your own colony ships (I have two designs -- a fast colonizer with no range and a slower, more rangy colonizer… once you have a starbase or colony in a system -- range is henceforth pointless in that area). Remember to redesign regularly as you gain engine and miniaturization techs. I like to keep one colonizer close to home, giving me a second initial planet. The other -- I send further out. Colonize strategically -- focus on high PQs, systems with asteroids, and systems necessary to increase your range… However -- also be aware it's usually better to have 2 planets in a grid square than single planets in 2 grid squares.

Max out your production (100%) and set your taxes to a point where you have 55-60% morale… Another little trick -- on turn 1, set military allocation to 0 (since you 'bought' colonizer 1, no point in spending any turn 1 income on shipbuilding!).

BUILD, BUILD, BUILD -- I NEVER have a planet building nothing. For my cap planet -- it's usually 4-7 factories (depending on the existence of bonuses), followed by 2 morale buildings, followed by research buildings. On non-cap planets, I flip research and morale (since those planets start with such small populations, usually don't need morale). I also build on tile bonuses first, of course. Ideally -- I try for a solid 2-3-4 "mega industrial" planets (whether via tile bonus or asteroid bonus). These are going to be building my trade goods and wonders. Markets are pretty worthless early on (we're going to be falling into debt quite quickly). You're going to be losing money -- possibly quite a lot -- until you get better forms of government. That's OK -- just try to keep 4-5-6 turns of 'treasury' in reserve (i.e., enough so that you can research forms of government without needing to cut spending).


Tech-wise -- I skip the offensive and defensive trees almost entirely. The AI will research 'em for me, so why bother? I first path to Diplo translators, then RepairBots (Enhanced Miniaturization), then Restaurant of Eternity (Trade), then Advanced Hulls, then Aphrodisiac (Habitat Improvement)… Depending on my map - I MIGHT deviate into Extreme colonization and the specialized colonization techs but only if there's a clear choice (i.e., I have multiple high PQ Barren Worlds in my vicinity, etc. If it's a mixed bag, forget it. I'll let the AI colonize and culturally flip 'em later). Immediately begin building trade goods and galactic wonders as soon as they are available.
DO research sensors early and get some survey ships up and running. I normally have 6-8 survey ships scouring the galaxy, FAR outpacing the AI. I've even built my custom opponents to START with sensors 1 -- and they still refuse to build survey ships. The bonuses are small -- but find 5 +1 soldiering, 3 or 4 +1 econ, eventually -- they add up. You also DESPERATELY need the $$$ anomalies.

Once I've built Diplomatic Translators -- I go on my first trading splurge. ALWAYS start with the minors -- especially early, you can get all the baseline offensive techs from them. DO ask for cash -- and get them to sign research treaties (econ treaties are usually a little overly expensive). DON'T trade them any techs that lead to galactic wonders or trade goods (super achievements -- the "one per race" are OK however. In fact, since you'll inevitably be conquering them, you WANT them to build econ capitals, tech capitals, etc). There is virtually no downside to teching up minors.... the better their planets (more advanced buildings), the better they are when you conquer them. Minors are also an EXCELLENT source of cash in the early to mid game in order to keep your treasury full. I'll glady trade them almost my entire tech advantage to get all their cash. They'll just waste it on AI extortion anyway

Then, run through the majors. DON'T expect to get "even up" trades and DO be uniform in your offers across all races (i.e., if I trade Basic Miniaturization to one race, I'll usually trade it to all). By even up - I mean that you may find yourself dealing 2-3-4-5 techs for 1. Don’t' worry about it. Don't think of it as 1 vs. 1 -- it's you vs. everyone else. This means if it takes 4 techs to get 1, but you trade the same 4 techs to 7 different races, acquiring 1 new tech from each -- you actually come out AHEAD (7 new techs for 4). There are times (later in the game... not so much early) where I will trade 10-12 techs just to get 1 in return.

As far as starbases - you usually have a bit of time before anyone attacks you. So DON'T focus on building up starbases. DO focus on capturing as many resources as possible. In other words - better to have that contructor on its way to an unclaimed resource than it is building onto an existing resource starbase.

3. MID-game.
By this point - I'm usually getting close to being debt or needing to radically lower my production. Make a beeline for the governmental techs (Republic, Democracy, Federation). Republic usually isn't enough -- Democracy should keep you financially viable. Depending on how lucky you got with anomalies and meeting minors (to trade techs for cash) - you might need to do this earlier.
Hit the next level of trade goods and Galactic wonders… Master Trade, Terraforming, Ultra Spices, Grav accelerators, etc.
Keep trading like mad. Start with the minors -- once you get the Galactic Showcase, you should be able to now start getting econ treaties from the minors, and possibly start acquiring research treaties from the majors. Again… let yourself get 'taken' in trades if necessary.
Start trade routes with possible enemies (close AI races, AI races that start to slide past wary into hostile). Preemptive diplomatic wars aren't a bad idea either --- even when an AI race has nothing to trade, I'll give him a few techs to DoW on another AI who appears to be sizing me up for invasion. Play powerful enemies against each other… keep enemies busy with someone besides yourself. I also don't hesitate to give up cash (if I can afford it) in order to buy peace… Sure - I'm simpering coward now… Just wait!
If someone DoWs on you -- DON'T panic. Immediately get ALL other AIs to turn on him. Sacrifice as many techs as necessary. By this point, I usually have not built even my first offensive ship -- I stay alive through diplomacy. The Go'Auld, Ori, or Wraith (some of my custom evil races) might be able to mop the floor and easily seize my undefended planets… but they find it awfully hard to do when there's a whole gauntlet of enemies between me and them! It's not unusual for every other race in my game to be at war with everyone else (but not me) -- while I'm happily building my planets, starbases, and slowly becoming an unstoppable economic, research, and industrial powerhouse.

4. End Game
I don't build ANY ships until I've all but tech'ed out. There are exceptions - if I can't use diplomatic tricks to keep enemies at bay, I'll go early. This keeps my treasury in good shape and let's me focus on planet enhancements, anomaly research, and starbases. By this point -- I'm usually at 80% taxes, but still maintaining a morale in the 70-80% range. I'm also hauling in 2-3K in income and no tech is taking longer than 6 turns to research. Add my other bonuses (from anomalies and trade goods) -- and conquering everyone is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

I'VE BEEN WRACKING MY BRAINS OVER THIS FOR THE LAST THREE HOURS.

Trying to figure out why both my attempts at playing Drengi and my custom race have resulted in me going bottom up in revenue for the first time.
Stardock... that's not cool! Stop making me build so many boring tax planets. D:

An easy way around this -- because I got annoyed with the 'extremes' too (easily indebted early, WAAAYY too rich late game... only the mid-game seems about right):

Modifiy your anomalies XML file to boost the value of the $$$ anomalies (factor of 5X seems about right)... This way, you get the nice little bonuses that make you pay SOME attention to econ (you can't just go on colonizer buying sprees and colonize every planet in the galaxy, trade oodles of cash for techs, and buy trade goods and wonders left and right) but at the same time, allows more balanced builds on your planets.... so you're not forced into creating legions of "tax planets".

It doesn't really solve the endgame problem of too much income -- but I think it makes teh early going more fun. You can sort of 'count' on getting meaningful cash infusions on occasion, but still have to colonize and purchase in a measured way that keeps you out of debt.

I love your idea, Zonk...

cept I play in the metaverse.