Sergeytov

Join Date 02/2009

Starting without hyperdrive?

Brand new here, so quick hello to everyone. Now on to the post.

Just got finished with a Huge/abundant everything game with nine majors and eight minors on Tough (my first win on that difficulty, I've been playing for a couple weeks now).

I've tried a couple basic strategies in the past, most recently working all the way up to Ion Drive at race creation and speed +20 with the aim of getting Impulse early. It just didn't seem to work out for me.

So I went in a slightly different direction. I nixed all the drive techs and started over.

Here's what I came up with for this last game:

Super Breeder

Populists

Speed +20

Morale +10

Sensors +4

Planet Quality +10

Logistics +6 (started with the custom race template)

Techs:

Universal Translator

Xeno Communications

Galactic Warfare

Xeno Engineering

Stellar Cartography

Xeno Research

Xeno Biology

The major reasoning I used for trying this was that no hyperdrive and Speed +20 allowed me to make small hull colonizers/freighters/constructors that moved 3pc/turn cheaply (I noticed without miniturization at least new propulsion technologies was required to acquire 3pc/turn on a cargo hull right away). Since I wasn't using hyperdrives to make early ships anyway, starting with the tech seemed to be a waste. I noticed the first colonizer/miner/flagship still start with their drives intact, as well, which meant I had some way to travel distances with a reasonable time.

Sensors +4 seemed to mitigate some of the guesswork in colonizing the nearby star systems, being able to see the entire system at once felt essential since it took much of the guesswork out of knowing which planets to colonize first (and gained me a couple turns of population growth/production which could otherwise have been spent looking around for an ideal spot).

As for the rest, that was mostly for Breeder/Morale bonuses to try and make that work (first time I got Breeder up and humming, too, a drastic change from Hive).

Anyone else try this, or am I just plain crazy?

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Anyone else try this, or am I just plain crazy?

Oh, yes and it is some of the basic principles behind designing the X-Worlds ship styles... every colony must have at least two IonDrives on to be built (i have yet to resolve some AI templates conflicting code functions though) and since Cargo sizes were raised at 76 from 60, there's plenty of room for additional Range & Sensor components too. Plus, a lot more changes!

But, that's all from a modded gameplay perspective - since i believe players can always provide their own Abilities variations as you just did through opponents/races customization.

In a sense, i'm altering the context soooo much - the default situations no longer happen as they should (or previously did) at the risk of introducing complex chaotic conditions and even huge unbalancing factors to games.

So far my tests are going quite well actually since most AIs algorithms took the bait and went along just fine with the features boost.

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MottiKhan

Join Date 04/2007

+152

If the strategy works for you, I certainly wouldn't call you crazy. Personally, I'd go with Federalist for government to get the 20% econ boost, but I'm not sure if that would affect your speed boost or some other part of your strategy. Any ideas on that?

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The party wasn't a huge issue. I went with Populists mostly for the morale since I have been having trouble getting Breeder up and going up until that point.

Federalist would help with the money crunch that I dealt with, now that you mention it. Other options I considered were Technologists (for +20 research and the +1 sensor, which with Eyes of the Universe would give me an innate 15 range on all ships without scanners at all) and Industrialists (for the faster production, especially on the social front).

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MottiKhan

Join Date 04/2007

+152

Yes, Technologist is a nice one too, but I only use them for specific game types like ZYWs. It's pretty easy to go bankrupt with that for a gov.

Good idea about the morale boost. Personally, my biggest issue in the early game (or the early to mid game) has been economy, so I take Federalist on most games. I'm not sure if that would be the same for you, since everyone has their own strat that works for their type of game.

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