Beginner strategy guide and questions?

Because guide infer to guidelines to follow to success. Int hsi game their is no real mother guide lien to win. Only guide lines of what not to to do to lose. The number of tactic that can be used is very large  and thus making a guide is quite imposible. Not to mention that all 3 races play very differently at times. It's not becaus eoen tactic works for one race that it will work with all races or will be available for all races. So tactics are general, some are patialy general otehrs are race specific. Writting a guide is just not possible.

I can only tell you this as a general all races start tactic.

1) get the colonie cap and colonise like a maniac.

2) use yoru scouts to quickly scout teh area around you. the sonner you know were your enemies or neutrals are located teh better

3) if neutrals are present in yoru area don't waste any time in taking them over.

4) By your 3rd-4th planet you should be clsoe to your enemy building a fleet and turnign hostile is recomended.

5) After this it gets prety sticky and the varriety grows and spreads liek crazy, from here on out it's all up to you, your tactic, your strategies, your understanding of the game mecahnics, and other things such as feed. This part gets to vast to cover a whole game. That is why you keep gettign refered tot he strategy forums since they will talk about lots of different situations that cna occure and how to dela with them. It is up to you to read about thos situations and recognize them ingame in order to understand what tactic your enemy is using againts you. That is what teh Strategy forums are for to be read and remembered for when it will be come usefull and it will.

Someone really does have to make a beginners guide.  Maybe I'll do that some time this week.  Unfortunately, it's not going to be "short", because there are a lot of subtleties in the game. 

On the military front, near the start of the game you should try to access higher level military units.  You shouldn't build large forces of light frigates (or really any unit for that matter) because it will leave you vulnerable to being countered.  Your fleet should consist of at least two unit types built in bulk, preferably three.  The favourite combo is usually long range frigates and flak frigates, but you can get away with light frigates and scouts.  Remember that scouts are very weak and cheap so you need to build them in great numbers to get effective combat performance out of them.

On the economic front: colonize colonize colonize.  With the exception of some of the low-lying fruit, economic technologies are a really poor investment.  Logistical structures (with the exception of extractors, those are literally gold mines) are similarly too expensive in the early game.  Expand voraciously and capture new planets to increase your income.  Introduce trade later on when your empire is already large and somewhat mature, because it will take around 20 minutes for your trade port to actually pay off its initial investment.

On the defensive front, you should try to lean as much as possible on your fleet.  The best defense is a good offense; it keeps your enemy fleet wary of a counter-attack and you can move reposition your fleet regardless of where the enemy strikes.  You should use repair bays as part of any static defense lineup, and build them in bulk.  They are cheap, they are efficient, and they are versatile.  Whenever I go on the offensive, first thing I try to do is take out the repair bays.  If they're not out of commission before the enemy fleet shows up, I probably have to make a hasty retreat.

The strategies one can employ in this game is heavily dependent on their current situation. Someone that is positioned between two allies is expected (in multiplayer circles, at least) to grab as many planets as possible and go purely economy in order to "feed" their allies (giving credits/resources), for example.

It is widely known that long range frigates provide the best damage for cost in the early stages of a game, and as a consequence, light frigates should not be built until the appearance of carriers, support cruisers, and anti-strikecraft frigates necessitates their presence in battles (in tandem with the appropriate fleet support). Then again, building a fleet of purely long range frigates just invites other players to attack you with massed fighters or heavy cruisers (and the odd scout rush).

There is, of course, no existing strategy that will constantly lead to victory (well, the closest was the Repulse+Illuminatiors combination, but now that combination's effectiveness has been reduced somewhat with the nerfs to Repulse), but conversely, there isn't a procedure X that you can use when situation Y occurs for any of the three races as each will have differing technologies, each providing its own method of approaching the problem.

This is a VERY old post, but a lot of the points in there aren't completely wrong. If someone could make a copy of it and edit it to fit the current balance of the game, we'd be set.

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