Are people winning at normal and above difficulty ?

I haven´t played quite as many games as you but I did win the last game where all AI was set to Inteligent.

- Basicly what I do is start researching towards Trade tech to get trading going as early as possible.

- On all planets I buy first factory and then decide how to specialize them.

- Build some military early in game before other AI try to attack you.

- Immidiately if you spot a resource, buy a constructor and claim it.

- Get better research buildings, factories and economy buildings once your first planets run out of room.

- Once I find good production and research planets I often turn my main planet into economy planet.

- Build couple economy star bases early on

- I try to point all my trade routs in the same direction so I can maximise the profit with economy star bases.

Probably not the best tactic there is but works for me

The AI tend to trade a lot of techs between themselves. That saves time. So far I've wen 2 games on normal (slightly above) and got crushed very quicky in two others when I raised the level a little bit.

But I've played small galaxies game till now, and the AI will get over me in a few turns. If the galaxy is bigger, then you have more time to prepare yourself, or at least you will be facing fewer AI at begining, which will give you time to prepare yourself. I tend to find medium maps games easier than small map ones (for the same difficulty level selected).

As for you getting behind, make sure your spending is at 100% and that you don't waste money on social when nothing is being built.
Usually I'm last in early game and by mid game the playing field is at least levelled.
And don't forget to trade with everyone, in order to diminish their propension to go to war with you.

Best advice I can give you is to slow down. Im at the point where im beating normal now.. and the only reason I am is because im taking my time. I consider which tech would be best.. and try not to research any tech that requires more than 8 turns to complete (unless it will give me a nice advantage).

I try to speak to every race I know of every other turn or so..just to see if they have anything im interested in.

From the beggining I pick two races that start off with a good relationship towards me..and work towards forging alliances with them.


So on and so forth. I also spend as much as possible at the beggining to colonize planets.

I am starting to win on challenging constantly now, here is how i start.

1. A must is to make a planet, ether earth or one you find, PURE manufacturing. The reason will be stated later.
2. Get those research techs fast.
3. Make sure you have weapon capabilities.
4. Take adavantage of the minor races while you can.
5. from the start of the game i use 60% social and 40% research. When i see that i'm in last place change those sliders and start pumping out ships as fast as you can with your manufactering planet.
6. i ALWAYS buy at least one additional colony ship at the first turn of the game.
7. I keep my approval rating around 50-60% anything higher i feel as if i'm not taxing my people enough.

hopefully these will get you started

Something that I had forgotten from my Master of Orion days, the first thing you should research is propulsion technology. Get the first two (up to Ion drives) and redesign your colony ships and constructors with two new engines. This will double their speed and help you win the early land rush.

I also build economic starbases to cover my most productive planets. Don't hesitate to throw a half dozen constructors at these starbases within the first twenty turns or so to maximize their benefits.

i was having lots of problems beating the AI at normal when I realized I hadnt used all of the tools provided in the econmy screen. sure i was taxing people and adjusting the allocation to miltiary/social/research but for some reason i completely missed the Spending slider which GREATLY affected my research and building capabilties the first 2 or 3 games I had at normal difficullty. basically i was running at 50% spending the entire time and fell WAY behind in research and was wondering how the hell the AI is researching so much. then i realized i am a moron

my early game goal is to create an economic base that allows me to up the spending slider to 100% or as close to it as I can get while still maintaining a positive cash flow. this is done by reseaching trade almost right at the start and pumping out freighters and a few constructors for economic starbases. once i get to that point i am pretty sure the layout of the galaxy and can then concentrate on my tech progression for the type of victory I want.

At normal, you should be able to massively out-colonise the AI. Go on a spending spree buying Colonisers and grabbing planets as you see them. Buy on the first turn, then buy ships every other turn so you save the inital purchase cost. Redesign your ships on the fly if you dont already have stock designs. Dont spend time making them pretty, just whack engines on them and send them out, you can just delete them once you have the next propulsion tech (Or design a series of colony ships for your favourite race - 1 totally focused on speed, 1 with a bit more range). I don't touch the spending slider for a few turns, I want the extra cash coming in and my planets slowly building up. Once you reach a natural boundary (either no planets in range, none left, or you have reached your goal) stop and start building Construction ships to grab resources and put your slider up to 100% spending. By this time, I tend to have a lot more planets than the AI, I generally leave the lower PQ planets to give the AI something to do (they'll flip to me eventually!). Next I focus on planets by quality, purchasing factories first and letting them build further improvements. Start specialising your planets by their native resources. If you have any high PQ worlds without anything special resource-wise, turn it into an economy planet - get a few of these going and your set for the rest of the game.... I tend to use trade more as a diplomacy tool than for income. When you do research trade, redesign your Freighters before you start building them.... get them running fast!

This start, even without any special planets or resources has seen me work my way up from total newbie cakewalker up to intelligent in a week of light play (too much work!!). It's not too hard to out do the AI at the start on these levels and as long as you get your economy running, you're set for the rest of the game!

Do you guys openly trade with the other races to keep up technologically? Since I have been playing the downloaded version only, I lack a tech tree chart and can't tell if I am getting something I won't be able to use for a bit.


Thanks for any help.

"So say we all"

Sam0t has the right idea. Also don't build more than one (or two if you've got massive morale bonusses) farms. They kill your approval rating and thus the amount of taxation you can effectively handle.

Tech trade with the AI. It's nescessary. They do it, so you should too.

Currently I'm able to consistantly beat the AI at normal and sometimes at higher levels. As CorbieKitaal puts it, slow down, think before you act and the AI will quickly bow before you.

I'm currently playing a normal game with a custom race on normal, large galaxy i think. I'm in the driver's seat right now. At first i focusd mostly on researching and building up trade , and grabbing as many planets as possible. I got a nice base galaxy wit that. From there, I was at first intending to be peacful and just trade/research but as things go, that wasnt gonna happen. Well since my military rating was 0 (no combat ships yet at all) the Torians to my east thought it would be a good idea to attack me. Well not.. the were not very powerful militarily. I designed a simple combat ship that was superior to all that they had and started cranking it out. This kept them at bay with ease. At the same time, the Altarians (?) to the south of me had declared war on the Snathi minor race. now the Snathi system has like 4 habitable planets, i own 3 of them and the minor race Snathi had the other one (nice planet). Well i was friendly with the Snathi but the Altarians attack them and win with ease. (altarians had the biggest military). So i decide i cannot let the Altarians have the planet so i must backstab the Snathi to get it myself.

So first i go to the Snathi and give them a great tech trade deal, giving them a ton of cultuural techs (nothing immediately useful in combat) in exchange for pretty much everything they had researched that i didnt (abuot 8 techs or so?) Then two turns later i attack them and take over the planet with the Altarian troopship not far off haha.

So back to the Torians, well, to the north of me the Altarians are fighting with the Korx. Now the Korx only have three or four planets but a vast area of influence. Military wise they aint great, so i decide i must beat the Alterians to the punch and conquer the whole Korx area of influence. So i go to the Torians, give them about 900 bc to get peace (they accepted since i had started pounding their fleets, no planets yet but they were already saying how their attack was a joke etc). I dont like wasting money but it was needed.

So off i go to the north and overcome the Korx pretty quickly since I've built up a couple of useful fleets. By now the relation with Altarians is indicated to become "cool" so i worry that they are going to strike soon. They are still the most powerful military. I design a newer ship that should be adequate to deal with the Altarians and start producing it. Before i am completely finished to the north the Altarians declare war on me because they think i am evil. Altarians are to my south BTW.

I am lucky that i've just been able to build up enough to hold the line before all my troops come from the Korx area which is now completely mine and then i start beating the Altarians everywhere. I took over 4 of their planets leaving only 2 to the south. Additionally, they have some planets farther east but the Torian empire cuts through that, so the Altarians influence is split. Anyway, then the yellow guys (Arceans?) are at war with the Altorian as well (friendly to me) and because i've reduced their fleets to nothing it looks like they may be winning. Well, i gave the Altarians a peace after those 4 planets cause i didnt want to win just quite yet, but now i think i must intervene. I will capture the remaining two planets to the south to eliminate this sphere of the Altarians and leave the seperated part to the east. If i do (and i will when i play again) it means i will own the entire west side of the galaxy, about a third total.

After that i'm not sure what to do. Relations are warm and friendly with everyone but the torians and alterians (neutral and cool respectively). My plan is to trade and research for a while and not interfere in anything. We'll see if it's possible

I just finished a game on Normal last night. Custom race, +20% Planet Quality, +20% Research, Ion Engine technology to start.

First, design a faster colony ship. One or two ion engines, a colony module, and a bunch of support modules. Also design a fast, long range, long sensor range scout ship. Base it on the cargo hull, not one of the small hulls.

Buy your first factory outright. Also buy at least one of your new scouts. Have your flagship go hunt anomalies. When you get the scout(s), have it start investigating nearby star systems.

Max your Industry spending, but keep your division of labor (military/social/research) even. If you're careful with how you manage your purchasing of stuff, your tax rate, etc., money anomalies found by your flagship should keep you from going in the hole. If you need to, sell minor technologies to other races.

Start building your faster colony ships as soon as you buy the scout or scouts. After they've been building for one or more turns, buy them out and send them to the best planet you've found. I usually do a mixture of buying outright and buying on long-term credit. Once your home planet is producing the ships in 3 or 4 turns on it's own, don't bother buying them unless you need a colony ship *right* *now*. It may be worthwhile to buy the first factory on some of your worlds.

Research should've mostly been cheap techs up to this point.

Once you've colonized most of the reachable worlds, or it looks like you're not going to be getting much more money from anomalies, it's time to kick-start the economy. Kill your social and economic sliders so all your income is going to research. Rush to get Stellar Republic or, even better, Stellar Democracy as quickly as humanly possible. Switch to the new government as soon as you can, then go back to your normal spending pattern (33%/33%/34% for me).

At this point, you may have to kill your Industrial spending to keep from going deep into the red. That's ok as long as it's not so low nothing is being produced. As your population increases your income will increase. As your income increases, you can increase your Industry spending again.

When I've done this, I end up with a far, far larger economy than any of the computer players, and far better industrial and research output too. The best part is that nobody will actually want to go to war with you. You're far more useful as a trading partner, and if you do go to war, you have a gigantic advantage in economic and industrial power. Research too, in all likelyhood. Just watch out for one of the other civs going for a cultural victory. I had to give the Korx a beat-down when they got within 10 turns of winning that way in this last game.

This works well on large maps, and probably smaller ones too. Haven't tried it yet on huge or gigantic. Also haven't tried it above Normal difficulty yet.

I have been able to win at the level above normal, but it takes some time. I would say more, but everyone has already covered anything that I could add.

I always play at level Tough (which has the AI at level Intelligent which means is uses all it's algorithms but does not get any cheat bonuses). I played the sandbox game extensively in the Beta5 but I'm still playing the campaign in the released game.

I won the first campaign mission fairly easily. I waited until I had Plasma beam weapons and Titanium armor before building my attack ships. The Drengin ships greatly out numbered mine but they were old and my advanced few fleets easily destroyed fleet after fleet of theirs. Then I researched advanced troop modules, built troop transports that could hold 3000M troops, and invaded the undefended Drengin planets.

The second mission has proved to be more challenging. In my first attempt the Drengin and I both colonized two planets but despite my best efforts I fell behind. In my second attempt I replaced my race's trade bonuses with hit point and attack bonuses (since I would not be trading in this Terran vs. Drengin showdown). Also, I was more aggressive in colonizing, taking 3 and leaving them 1 planet. So now it is my 4 planets to their 2. This time I have my tax rate higher (and my approval is 35-40 but that does not matter since is this game I am a despot) as I develop 4 planets. I also claimed most of the resources with mining starbases which I have built up with mining modules. I could not add weapons/defenses to my starbases (BUG: I did not have this problem in the Beta5 but it did not have a campaign) so I have had to defend them with my fast ships which I also used to take out his undefended starbases. I have taken out all the Drengin ships with a single fleet of 2 Star Hawks (Heavy Fighter) and an older Star Falcon (Light Fighter) which has racked up high XP bonuses. My fleet is now picking off new ships as they appear on the 2 Drengin planets. Next I will research the planetary invasion techs and send in my shock troops to win the mission.

wait 'till you meet the dread lords in the next mission.
took me four full game tries on tough before i finally beat that one.
rush tactics don't work because all players start out with 30k credits.
most engrossing strategic challenge i've had in a long time, interesting too, since handling (avoiding) the dread lords throws such an interesting wrench in the mix.
lot of fun, well balanced, don't get frustrated!

I have played two medium games at Tough and won both pretty handidly. Trying my hand on a huge map now, also on Tough, and things are looking good. I am easily out ahead in social production, economy, population and research.

For the early game, especially when you have just one planet with a starbase, I always buy colonizers as fast as I can (usually playing w/ Abundant habitables, so lots of early expansion to be done), often every turn until nearly broke. I often also buy that first factory on the home world to help jump start things. Be sure to scout out anomalies. It is quite frequent that they will give money (750-2500 bc range it seems, with 1000 being the most common) allowing you to buy additional colonizers.

Keep in mind also that if you are buying ships in an early turn with just one starbase, you can set your social and research to 50/50 (or similar) and leave military at 0% for that turn. Since you bought, any military production would just be wasted.

In general, little tweaks of the allocation sliders can often help early in getting a few techs a few rounds earlier. Also, make sure to work towards 100% spending as soon as possible (preferably right in that first round) by raising your taxes. I agree with above posters that you only need 50% or so approval especially early on, so tax 'em!

Oh - last thing, if I am colonizing a lot of planets, and there are many potential planets out there, I often skip the little class 4 - 6 planets near my initial starting area, trying to expand out towards they AI instead. The AI will invevitable send in their own colonizers deep in your territory for those planets. It may take a little while, but eventually my culture wins those planets over, with no costs on my end for colonizing it or upgrading it. It seems much better to expand your borders early vs. colonize every little small planet around where you start.

Against normal AI races I can win at tough difficulty pretty easily but not against the Dread Lords.

I was playing the campaign and winning on tough until I got to the first scenario with the Dread Lords in it. I'm not sure what to do in that scenario because they start sending out battleships with 30+ attack before I have medium hulls or anything remotely close to that sort of attack power. I'm way ahead of everyone in research and have maxed out (for my tech level) military starbases in range of all of my planets but the Dread Lords easily take them out with their battleships and I have no ships that can come close to opposing them even with the military starbase bonus.

I've been playing mostly at normal. It's interesting because in the game I have on my desktop, the Torians are really giving me a run for my money. It's going to be a long, slow, bloody war, but my economy far outmatches theirs, my influence is catching up, and I just captured the jewel of their empire, as well as their homeworld. The other 3 races might pose a challenge to me unless I can convince them to ally with me, which is proving difficult as I grabbed a few evil bonuses when I colonized planets....+50% planet quality was too good to pass up...as was +25% to social production.

On my laptop, however, I'm playing on normal against 9 opponents and hardly any of them have barely any research done. I go in to trade with them and I have a list 20 techs deep that they don't have, and they dont' have a single tech that I don't. Not sure what's going on there. Also the AI seems to be slow to militarize.

I'm going to step up to challenging after this game, probably on a human-drengin war scenario.

I use the minor civs to trade techs with the most, that way the other major races dont gain tech from me. try to get tech that increases diplomacy. if your trading partner lacks diplomacy you can get better deals. if the minors cant keep up anymore with research I trade tech with the weakest major powers and/or those races that are not arround me (so I wont have to deal with them soon). you should check for techs to trade as soon as you got a new tech. focus your research on the techs the AI doesnt have yet.

also as soon as you got small hulls go build 2-3 small ships per planet with as many weapons on them as you can fit onto them. pick the smallest engine too (they are just for planetary defense and to increase your military rating. if you are low on that other races will declare war on you often. this can result in like everyone ganging up on you).

my first turns I pump out colony ships with 1 self designed scout (with 4-5 PC sensor range) in between. as soon as every world is colonized I start to produce constructors to build economy and influence starbases (depends on the map). I upgrade those with every modul available over time. a fully equiped starbase destroys whole fleets without much if any damage. if my opponens outgun me I will hide my fleets and transports on a starbase. the enemies come to kill my inferiour ships but will get destroyed by my starbase. if an enemy troop transport closes in my ships swarm out to kill it, then return to the starbase.

oh, but if you got some nice resources arround you (economy, morale, military etc) you should get a constructor out quickly and claim them before the AI takes them away (tho then you can still trade for it or destroy it and reclaim the resource later on, however if the AI has a chance to upgrade and prosper from it they got a huge advantage over everyone). 2 starbases with military or influence or research for your enemy and you are in for some hurt if you cant destroy them. ^^

currently playing another huge game with all major races enabled (each at intelligent). runs well already.
I never managed to research all tech yet before I won, wonder if I can do it this time. ^^

I've beaten a galactic map with 9 civs on painful. Working on the same set up on Masochistic at the moment. The most important thing you can do is use your 5k intro money to purchase factories and colony ships. If you got anomalies on, just let your survey ship pick all of them up and don't use it to scout. Make sure to balance your military and social building focuses to the needs of the planet and the colony ships. If you have a minor or major race nearby trade as many techs as you can. use a little credits if you have to. It's ok to spend 800 credits to purchase a colony ship, if you can expedite the process and get more planets you'll have a great chance of survival. If your economy picks up after you colonize all the nearby planets, start focusing on purchasing techs and ships from the other races. Ignore defenders and go for the heavy fighters. 5 or so tech can generally purchase 3 heavy fighters depending on your diplomacy. In games from tough on up, your military is invaluable to maintaining good relations with other nations. If one of the "evil" races sees you have a crappy military they will come after you and pay others to help them. Depending on the size of the planet, throw down atleast 2 factories. If you don't get any factory bonuses at Painful or greater, you'll have a hard time building up a fleet much less building trade goods and general social goods. War with minor races and keep it going, if you wear them down enough by going after their trade routes and their military they will give you all of their research in order to sign a peace treaty. Make friends with your closer major races and use them as buffers. If you have a strong economy and a race request money, pay them. Otherwise you'll end up with all enemies and no friends if even for a little while. 20 turns with an ally providing a buffer could mean victory or defeat. Hope this helps.

P.S. In the beginning, in the economy screen, move the research slider up to 45 or higher. This will help your economy and give you a better shot at researching techs.

Oh my GOSH thats alot of advice.

I am currently winning pretty handily in a game with normal map, normal difficulty and I used the following methods:

1) Tech ruch propulsion and the re-design colony ships and constructors.
2) Purchase lots of colony ships and send them out with their new better engines
3) Sell or trade any non-diplomatic non-weapons technology to all races the minute you get it.
4) Buy trade tech immediately from the first race who has it. (usually torians)
5) Build at least 3 factories on every planet first. U can replace them later
6) Spending slider up to 100%
7) Soon as you get trade tech send freighters to every capital you want to remain peaceful with from your capital (decide right away which major is going to get war first, Drengin, Yor, Aceans, in that order.) trade with everyone else's capital.
8) Build an econ starbase taht will touch as many as your planets as possible. Got lucky on this game with 5 planets in range.
9) Don't be afraid to shift sliders EVERY TURN to get your priorities.
10) After trade, research a level 2 weapon tech (sliders up to research max), then bump down to 40/40/20 military/research/social produce 4-8 of your newly designed ship with max engines and l2 weapons (forget sensors).
11) After your lvl2 weapon tech, while building ships research logistics, then start fleeting up your ships.
12) Then switch to planetary invasion, increasing research slider
13) Then send your fleets and transports to take the planet of the nearest minor race. Then even everything out, and start preparing for war with your first major. Keep trading techs with everyone, saving military techs and diplomacy techs for yoursefl. Don't be afriad to trade techs for cash.
14) Let your pop grow and start building econ improvements.
15) Once you build TT's the major on your border who you are not trading with will drop it's relations very fast and probably declare war on u, just have your fleets ready to counter what they throw at you. Skimp on sensors on your fighters and make fast sensor-rich scouts to monitor all activity in the enemy territory.

***COMBAT TIPS*****

1) Small ships rock. Use this size whenever possible
2) Leave enemy starbases alone
3) When you attack a maor race, the best thing to do is set up a staging area within striking distance of the enemy. Ideally it should be close to the enemy. Build a batlte starbase there.
4) Get your small ships swarming around that starbase. Swarm anyting that comes near it.
5) Pull injured ships out of your fleets and replace them with new ones from the rear lines.
6) Try to use faster weaker ships to draw the enemy to your battle starbase and ambush him. Also break off one fighter from the fleet to do this, then form up once they get closer.
7) Keep forming and disbanding fleets and keep pulling the enemy toward your battle starbase.
8) Once their roving fleets are dead, then start hitting ships in orbit with your fleets. See if you can destroy all defenders (worry about capturing later).
9) Every time a defender pops up kill it.
10) Troop transports can come at their leisure and slowly mop up th enemy.

wait 'till you meet the dread lords in the next mission.

I have a plan to deal with the Dread Lords. Since their ships will chase after any ship they see (especially ones with weapons), I'll create fast ships with a basic weapons to lure them. Initially I can lure them to Drengin and Yor territory, to keep them in check. Meanwhile, I will setup a kill zone with overlapping military starbases (their bonuses can be combined) and place large fleets of tiny fighters loaded with an optimal attack type. The Dread Lord's ship may have mega firepower but it will only be able to take out one fighter per attack. If the first fleet does not succeed it taking it out then I'll immediately attack it with another, until it is destroyed!

Paul D.

I am currently very well positioned in my 1st game with 4 opponents at Normal.
I think I could even be in a much better shape if I didn't "try" some things that I would never again, like NOT specializing my planets, building a couple ships just to see how they look like, etc.

I started with Normal because I was so impressed by of the comments on how tough the AI would be.

Anyhow, I still need to finish the game.
I am cirrently owning 45% of it... but my opponents just started now sending around their first transport troops. so I'd better wait until an actual win is made.

By the way I chose Mascrinthus, the last of the good MithrilarsLink, to balance Brad/Frogboy choice Draginol.

My games are all HUGE maps,9 AIs,rare anomolies,abundant planets,etc..

The difficulty on the ones im losing are normal to challenging.

Things that seal my doom:
I ALWAYS end up with the highest ranking AI on my border. ALWAYS. I dont know if the game does this on purpuse or what.
I never have any real space to expand beyond like 8 colonies.
I am always attacked by my neighbors fairly early.
If i dont research the culture techs ,im on the ropes by culture alone early on.

Things im going to improve on in my own play:
I never use trade routes- i will start now.
I am going to start putting more than one embassy on a planet- til now ive only put one on each.
I dont build very much industry,as i dont undertsand how it all adds up yet.I buy almost all my ships outright never allowing the build time to build the ship.- I am going to build more industry in hopes that i can get my ships at a decent rate thru build time.
I dont declare war on anyone- i will start to pick the fights myself IF given time to.

Things mentioned i am already doing:
I already trade research heavily with the minor AIs.
I already use the econ sliders
I already colonize as fast as i can
I already use the flagship to get anomolies (but often get messed up with worm holes-just bad luck i quess)
I already up the production slider to 100%- when i can.
etc...

Things i do that might be bad, but i dont know yet:
I turn off military funding early on to help economy and research- set military slider to 0%
I only use the largest hull types available at the time- i shy away from using swarms of small hull ships when possible.
I tend to close to nuetral I think in my actions(dont knwo where i can find my actual alignment,but i try to limit evil choices.

Thanks all for your replys.i hope to improve my game from them and future ones.