TA - A Dummies Guide

What I have to offer is not so much a strategy but a little simple idea to help new ToA players adjust to the more difficult economics. As a "crutch" I play with tech trading and 8 minor civs. This allows for a little more income by trading techs to these civs. I have found this greatly reduces my "red" income situations.

If you can elaborate on this a bit more i could probably use it in the guide!

1. For those not paying attention, the Colony ship that you start with has only 100 colonists on board. The max capacity is 250. Starting your first colony with only 100 colonists makes for a much slower development than with 250. Therefore, it is a good idea to land the Colony ship and increase the cargo to 250 colonists before heading out to populate the galaxy.

2. That first Colony ship has a substantially greater range than anything that you will be able to build for awhile. Instead of running off and expending it on the first more or less acceptable planet that happens to be fairly close to your homeworld, it's a good idea to push it out to the extreme limits of its range so that you have a base of operations "out there" to serve as a springboard to deep space. Also, the further from home, the greater the probability of locating a 15+ quality planet to colonize. (The higher the quality, the more tiles that are available, the greater probability of getting bonus tiles.)

3. IF you allow tech trading: A.) Never, ever trade away a yellow tech (Trade, Diplomacy). How much you get in a trade for whatever you offer, and the price you pay for anything is heavily influenced by the differential in Trade and Diplomacy between you and whoever you trade with. Trading away a yellow tech lessens any advantage you have or increases whatever advantage they may have over you. B.) If you sell off _anything_ to any given opponent or Minor race, go through ALL of them and sell it to everyone **immediately**. If you don't, whoever you sell it to probably will -- and it's better for you to get the profit than someone else.

Captain - great input!

First new full sized Tech Tree is now on the site ready for download - Thanks to Dethadder for this.

Drengin tech tree now in place too!

Yor Tech tree uploaded to site

Have you ventured into DivineWrath's stickied "TA 101" post?
https://forums.galciv2.com/310907

Simply put: set game to allow tech trading and chose the option with 8 minor civs. Don't make enemies with the minors early on, instead trade each tech you learn to them, one at a time, for as much money as they'll pay. As your economy improves you can reduce your trading with the minors, who will fall behind in tech; and then you can start back up if tough times return.

This seems to create games with shorter economically tough time than games without minors.
Not much more to it than that.

About those minors civs, I advice to get research treaty with all off them ASAP (one way treaty, keep your for major civs). I advice to do the same with all major civs, if possible. A good way to get this treaty is to trade for a bunch of low tech/unique tech you may have, adding some obsolete ships you may have if needed.

And when you get techs (and r&d trade good) who improves the global r&d effiency, trade it (for cash, ships, or whatever) to all AI's (minor and major) that have their r&d treaty with you. It will helps improve your own R&D on the long run, plus giving the AI the oppportunity to discover faster those techs you couldn't discover yourself (ie tradable racial techs).

Do the same with econ treaties with minors (it is harder to get one way econ treaty with majors, especially those who are ahead economically, but not impossible if you are willing to share almost all your current knowledge) when it is possible to get them (usually after one year-one year and a half on larger maps). As for r&d treaties, don't be affraid to trade to them techs with an econ bonus (ie xeno economy), since it will affect you on the long run too. But don't trade them new forms of governements for their econ bonus (republic, democracy and federation), since it will also give them the diplo and influence bonus sticked to those techs.

Getting those "one-sided" R&D and econ treaties with minors is pretty easy, even on harder levels (I play on masoschistic), could be a bit expensive with majors (then go for some diplo techs if you lack diplo skill, it eases a lot), but always worth it, since you litterally "hold'em by the balls" because any current treaty can't be broken without any war declaration, and since it isn't you who signed the treaty, you don't get any penality if you war dec' them, but they will if they war dec' you (see below, next §). I like this strategy since it can help you having only a small military since even if they hate you, they won't attack you too early, keeping your hard earned cash for your own econ growth, not diverting it on early warship maintenance.

Keep your own R&D and econ treaty for majors you want to be friend with or to help getting an econ treaty with some powerful major, and don't give your treaty to a civ you're gonna attack, you'll get a instant and permanent negative diplo modifier with ALL civs once you war dec the civ you gave your treaty: "They don't trust you" wich is pretty painful in example if you're heading toward diplomatic victory...

Do you want to do it more generally or is it supposed to be TA specific? I mean do you plan to explain basic strategies for the game or only TA-specific?