Oh..and I forgot to mention...always build 2 factories on every planet before anything else. All other building goes much faster. Perhaps you want a starport after the first factory, but only if you absolutely need it. After those 2 initial tiles, it is your choice to build a Financial or Research structure. Personally I always build at least one of each, especially on potentially high Pop planets. And I usually go for the Financial first as that can help speed builds of ships/tiles later.

Ok!

Well, I went back through the manual and actually read all the formulas and looked at the diagrams, and it has basically solved my economics/growth/production problems(there are a bunch of useful little buttons I had no idea existed!). However, I still have trouble with military matters. I'm not sure what the problem is-it just seems I'm always outclassed. I'm working on building Defenders, and he comes at me with fleets of heavy fighters, etc. I don't get it, it seems like he must be sacrificing his economy to fight me, but he can carry it on for a long while before he gives up. Then, three turns later, he declares war again!

So, really, now I need to learn how to balance military and social issues. Any tps on juggling the two and still keeping my economy intact?

I'll try to answer a few.

Don't pass up small planets. You will be surprised at how many quality ship producing planets are low in planet quality number. At worst they are a set it and forget it economic boost.

For technology. Find the ones that suit your playstyle best obviously. I prefer playing with 70% population bonus for my civilization. This keeps my tax revenue growing rapidly so I can research military and social production technologies.

Early on don't research anything that takes more than 8 or 9 weeks (preferably 6 or less) until you can get its research time lowered. Make exceptions for something thats slightly longer but extremely useful such as large ship hulls. If you wait too long on one technology the AI will run right by you.

The AI turns on you if they sense weakness. Got 100 fighters with only the weakest weapons? They'll attack. You have to keep a respectable defensive force on all your planets (focusing mostly on the outter border planets most) as well as keeping them up to date technologically. You only have to carry a big stick. It doesn't matter if you don't care to use it.

Hiya! heres a few hopefully useful points.

1. I tend to work on military and technology fairly evenly, and on culture only later on in a game if I think I can nab some planets with it. I usually lag a bit behind in tech early to grab more planets, then catch up later.

2. for weapons you are probably best focussing on one - even if the AI has matching defenses, the added damage of being further along one particular branch will cancel most of the advantage you would get reasearching less far up an alternative branch to get a weapon they cant defend. on defenses you could spread a bit if necessary.

3. engine techs are very useful to get early. xeno ethics you will also want to get to quickly. wonders/trade goods, aphrodesiac is good, and eyes of the universe. I quite like the moral ones too. galactic bazaar and diplomatic translators are very useful if you're playing with tech trading on.

4. No. if you keep a reasonable military (design your own ships!), they will probably not attack. sending freighters to them will also help.

5. depends on the number of planets. I tend to colonise (usually skipping 4-7 range) until my initial 5000 is running low, or all planets are gone. then start building up my infrastructure so I can keep spending 100% for all but a very short time.

6. whichever is easiest/possible

7. buy a few factories. what you do after this is personal pref, but in most situations try to be building a colony ship in not more than 4 turns.

8. No way! i rarely research anything taking more than 5-6 weeks, 10 absolute max if I really need it. if everything takes this long, you need to increace tech spending or build more labs.

9. again, personal pref, but you'll certainly want a fair bit of manufacturing power on there.

of course this is just how i prefer to do things, just take all the ideas various people are posting and use the ones you like/fit in your style

-Should I assume my closest neighbor is going to turn on me soon, no matter how nice I am? Is the fact that he always seems to do so my fault? If so, what can I do to make him happy?

It sounds like in general you are not paying attention to the reports section of the diplomacy screens.

There you can see why each civ likes and dislikes you. To avoid war, I try to keep civs at least neutral towards me. Wary is acceptable, but needs to be watched more closely.

This is also where you can tell if you need more military ships. If you see

-our military strength

That means the civ sees you as weak militarily and an easy invasion target. As you grow your military, you will eventually see

+our military strength

which means the civ sees you as strong militarily and an difficult invasion target.

So pay attention to this screen is my suggestion. If you want to avoid wars (at least those you don't start), just study this screen to learn what causes the various pluses and minuses.

-If my neighbor has a planet I really want(say, a level 22 just outside my area of influence) should I wage cultural warfare to get it, and risk him attacking me during the wait, or should I be more overt and send some troop transports and declare war?

You don't need to risk the attack. See above to see how to avoid war.

-Is it better to choose between military/cultural/technological focus immediately? Or should I work on all of them evenly?

I tend to mix them up depending on what I'm doing. If I'm find ship wise, I might run 20/40/40 to focus on social and technology. If I'm preparing for war, I might do something like 80/10/10.

Another thing I do is when my technology goes down 1 week, and I don't plan to research the next techology in that branch for a while, I move my technology slider down so I "just get" that technology. Though you have to watch when you set it so close, I've had it not give me that technology before (rounding error?) even though it said one week. I will generally put it at the minimum, then bump it up 1-2% to be sure I get it.

-Should I rush for any particular technology? Paricularly, trade goods and any galactic wonders, but other things I should shoot for are welcome. Usually I shoot up the engine tree, but clearly that isn't working for me.

I've played this different ways and I doubt there's a single good strategy. Remember you can also trade for technologies, which is a very powerful strategy. Although, now I usually disable it for that very reason.

I generally research the entertainment branch first. And also try to get some of the +approval special buildings. I also try to have all my capitals (except political) built as soon as my manufacturing capability can handle it.

-If I go military, should I decide on a weapon type(gun/beam/missile) and stick with it, or try to even it out? What about defense?

When I'm ready to start my military, I look at what the AI's are using (particular the ones that don't care for me). Then I choose the one weapon and one defense type that will give most advantage.

There are some people that use all three defenses, though I like to stick with one because the lower level defenses take up a lot more space than the higher level ones.

Remember you can probably capture or trade for high level techs late in the game which can give you an oppertunity to diversify without having to research the entire brances.

-How long should I work on the colony rush? Should I pass up closer, low quality planets for more distant, high quality ones? How far should I be willing to go? (funny story, last game I tried going for only high qualities, and my neighbor grabbed the lvl. 4 inside my home system) -During colonization, what should I build first? I'm still not clear on how this works. What factors determine building speed? Is it just # of factories? Is there anything I can do so that first building doesn't take almost a year to complete?

As for what planets to grab, I tend to pass up the low level planets unless I'm playing on a really sparse map. Letting the AI grab the low planets in your systems is generally not a problem unless you are at playing on a really high difficultly level. Although if you are playing more of a pacifist, then maybe try not to let that happen too much.

There are two strategies I like for colony rush depending on the map size/density. This all assumes you have ion drives, rush research this.

1. If there are very few planets to colonize, just buy colony ships every turn at your home world. Don't go broke though.

2. Otherwise, build 4 factories on your homeword. (sometimes if you have bonus tiles, you can get away with less.) Start building a colony ship. Each turn buy one of the factories (but not the first one, let it build. This generally lets you get 4 factories in three turns). Now you should be cranking out a colony ship every two turns.

I generally don't need to build colony ships at new colonies unless it's a large/sparse map. Instead, just send your ships to the farest points of your range first (to beat the AI), and hit the close stars with your 2nd wave of ships since it will take the AI some time to get there.

-What's a reasonable wait for research? Forty weeks? Thirty? How long should it have to be before it is too long of a wait?

On "normal" research rate, jeez 30-40 weeks. I almost (if ever) see it that long. Are you building labs? You could also be going too high up the tree too earily on. After the colony rush, remember to prioritize getting spending up to 100%.

Okay, time for a technical question.

This game is not compatible with dual-core CPUs, apparently(well, it runs, but some of the animations are messed up) and I can solve this pretty easily by just resetting the affinity to one core, but I have to do this every time I start the game. Is there any way to make the system do this automatically? This is also true for R:TW and NWN, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Out_of_Ideas: I run a dual-core CPU and have no problem running the game and getting the right animations. I'm afraid I can't give any advise on what to look for though. I would say to update video drivers, but if the game works on one core, I suspect video drivers are not the culprit (but try anyway, you never know!)

Didn't say what kind of processor you're running, but there's a sticky thread on AMD dual core CPU's here.

I like to keep peace with the other races until the end of the game when I'm ready to conquer the board. There are some tricks to keeping other races from attacking too early.

Keep an eye on your relations through the diplomatic screen. Check relations every few turns. Relations will move to hostile before a race declares war.

If you play "good", you don't get as may bonuses, but it improves relationships with other good races right out of the gate. That's half the universe you'll have an easier time with.

Although it's better to colonize higher PQ planets first, aliens get touchy when you share star systems with them. Try to claim all habitable planets in a star system before the other races get to them. One trick in doing that is to buy a starport on a newly inhabited planet, then buy a colonizer with nothing but a colony module on it. Load a few colonists and send it over to that neighboring planet.

Go for those yellow diplomacy techs. Diplomatic bonuses make it easier to maintain good relations.

Trade with the other races. Trading improves relations. Set up trade routes with the ones that are harder to please. Buy techs off them. If you see your relations falling off with a particular race, pay homage to them with cash or other gifts.

Some galactic wonders and special projects are "must have" Watch for those. They become available when you research various techs. The detail view of the research screen tells you what techs provide what bonuses and projects. Galactic Bazaar and Spin Control Center are two I can think of off hand. Restaurant of Eternity is a good one. Diplomatic Translators are a big help.

Military strength improves relations. It's sometimes the only way to keep the Yor and Drengin at bay. If they are afraid of you, they will suck-up. Start building military ships when you see other races doing it. (look at the graphs in the cockpit of the main view). I take a medium hull and stick nothing but missiles on it. Then I build them and leave them in orbit. They're cheap to build and they give the illusion of military strength when actually, you have little.

Don't put military ships in alien space until you are ready to fight. A few troop transports too close to alien space can cause them to declare war. I keep them parked next to my planets, then line them up along the borders of my space just prior to invasion.

Take advantage of war you are not involved in. You can form an alliance with a losing race providing a high change they will surrender to you when they give up. Wait until you see their military strength getting close to zero. Then form an alliance and supply them with ships and cash to improve relations. You'll inherit their remaining planets. If your alignment is very good, you get the Concepts of Righteousness tech. That tech provides a project called Hall of Empathy which further improves chances of alien surrender to you.

Ok, have fun!

One way to keep aggressive AI's at bay is this. Every planet that I colonize during the rush, gets a Starport put in the queue, when I see that colony rush is nearing completion, I immediately cease construction of colony ships and start to build little defender ships. Usually small hull and filled up with weapons (no engines are needed as these boats won't be going anywhere), if you know what your enemies are using for weapons, you can put 1 type of defense on the hull, but weapons are the key. once you get bunch of these built (one or two to a planet only), the AI's will be less likely to see you as easy pickings.

When I start a new game, the first place I go is to the economy screen, and raise my spending and taxes as high as they'll go and still keep my populations morale and the economy out of the red (well yellow for the econ). Then I jack my research to 60% or higher and military to 10%, something like 10/30/60 for Mil/Soc/Rea. whatever you are comfortable with will work, but GET RESEARCHING! I never spend more than 4-6 weeks on any tech, ever (never went for Tech victory so that may be an exception), and I try not to spend more than 2 weeks on any tech.

Use that starting 5000bc, and don't be afraid to spend it, so long as you don't go negative. Buy factories, colony ships and starports early on, to build up your production levels. When I get down under 1000bc's I start slowing down my buying. Always keep an eye on your tax rate and its effect on your morale. Early on you will spend alot of time tweaking this to keep your citizens happy. I schedule 2-3 factories on every world, more on bigger ones and then I build research and financial buildings in a mix after that, then plan for specializing on big worlds, you can always go back later and replace a research facility with a bank if you need to later.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Cheers,
Reaver

http://www.mindistortion.net/iwantyoursoul/?i_am=xardas45

stop collecticg souls for the love of god!