Strategies & Tips

research diplomacy techs like crazy b/c they make all the following trading MUCH easier. also, my numbers are for a galaxy size, abundance, difficulty maxed-out game i am currently winning. just trying out stuff.

Tips:
1) Early = expansion & Economy. funds everything. try federalist and max race points on economy/morale. remember to overlap/stack economic starbases so you can build flagships at 1/turn, aka 'instant military'
military is NOT IMPORTANT, unlike civ 4, because you can stack small ships with all weapons. they decimate all.

2) Military resource. whatever it takes to get them. highest upgrade is +59%. think about what 5 or 6 of them does for you.

3) USE TINY SHIPS. NO DEFENSE
small ships cheaper. more ships = more shots fired. more weapons = more damage/shot
#ships & weapons cumulative, but defenses are not.
cost to upgrade each ship, you can build 10 more
EXCEPTION: I keep 1 elite fleet. 10 or so tiny ships each with 200+HP. THOSE I upgrade.

4) Military rating: is an aggregate ratio. if you have a 200 attack 30/30/30def ship, but enemy has 500, 2 attack 0 def ships. their military is "stronger" and you suffer all the diplomacy penalties.

5) endgame military = speed. now try huge ships, LOTS of engines. attacking only costs 1movement. since my fleet has 85 movement, I can go anywhere within 2 turns and destroy 85 fleets/turn.
by this point you should have VAST tech superiority & military resource, now try DEFENSE. an invincible fleet w/ 85mp = fun.

strategies:
1) Trading resources & Stacking unique structures: sending 20 constructors/starbase & defending = annoying. also, limited to ONE hyperion shrinker/logistics.
Solution: research economics/miniaturization/logistics, trade/give them away. ~20 turns later, trade for their upgraded resource starbases. look for planet they built shinker/logistics on, take it over.

1) Surrendering: I've noticed enemy civs surrender when they've lost a lot of fleet and AT war with you. But during peacetime, I've only seen civs surrender when they have only 1-2 planets left.
Solution: immediately after decimating a fleet, offer a peace treaty.

3) Transports: when auto-rallying, ships only leave planets with 1,000 troops, regardless of modules. annoying for large maps.
Solution: use small (1k troop) transports, and use a lot of them. take over planet(s), offer peace treaty in exchange for tech, influence, gold, etc. take the planets back. rinse/repeat. redeclare war about 6-7 times until enemy catches on and refuses to peace. if they're surrendering anyway, might as well leech all their tech/IP/cash. best done within the same turn.

Balance: (for highest difficulty AI)
1) AI does not counter use of small ships or an all-offensive strategy
AI will build varying ship sizes with countering defenses.
Against fleets of all-weapon tiny ships, with "more ships = more shots fired bonus" my fleets are 10-20x more durable, all techs equal.

2) When using rally points, AI does NOT auto-fleet, unless they are in war or your ships are close. mid-game when my ships have 10+ movement, i can run a few fleets up to AI rally points, declare war, and within same turn destroy a few hundred single ships because they are all stacked & not in fleets.

3) AI WAR strategy. AI has no concept of fronts. Will continue to maintain planet and core defenses, and rally points, sending only surplus towards you. makes taking border planets very easy.



9,926 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top
I've notcie dthe smaller ships issue. With the increased logistics in the beta, you can amass large fleets of throw away ships quickly. On a normal intelligence level I got a military victory with out ever equiping my ships with any defense, nor building anything larger then tiny. I just mass produced, built fleets of 9 or more ships, and swarmed anything I came across.
Reply #2 Top
Diplomacy loses it's edge with no tech trading, and oddly enough so does research. The altarians, for example, have bouses that are good, yet offer nothing financially. You do need the economy bonuses. And as for fronts, no. They just have death-patrols. Looks crappy, but annoyingly effective if you realise you don't *have* a military to speak of, like switzerland. Sure, got the gadgets, got the cash, got happy people, got a standing army, I'm at war with the Drengin? crap.
Reply #3 Top
transports not always true, ive only seen 2 accounts of this, the auto rallying of transports for me they are always full of troops.
Reply #4 Top
def agree w/ feud, also in campaigns when i used military starbases, small ship swarm with "stellar wave +1 movement" upgrade was AWESOME for decimating dread lord ships.

marathononas, since computer almost always has a larger "military str" , high diplomacy keeps relations on the positive side and from having everyone declare war on you. also better for the trading stuff before you take them over. and for negging peace when you take their border planets. useful early/midgame to have others war while all in happy peace with you, while you peacefully build a huge tech/production advantage

josh thanks for the comment, i've been hearing that too, gonna try some larger transports after my reinstall n see how they go

best strat EVER for larger maps is definitely the trading resource starbases.

when i finally realized that i was like wow...i totally should have done that sooner. i mean u can trade the same 4 or 5 techs away, and get resources of the ENTIRE map, all upgraded and reasonably defended. without having to rally/build/click/autopilot hundreds of constuctors or to scout the things. since they're traded, no worries about # starbases exceeding logistics. also, if you beeline to starbase fortifications III, they are relatively invincible until much later in the game.

Reply #5 Top
I only played the first beta once, but I was forced to upgrade to larger ships when the computer got large hulls w/ defense, I just did not have enough room for firepower or speed so he could both outrun me and take my opening volley, then decimate what I had....

Did I wait too long? How do you guys counter high def ships (>20 or so, tiny hulls cant get high enough offense to do dmg consistently)
Reply #6 Top
i've never had that problem because i always have more tech.

tip1) stick with small ships b/c they are cheap, and vary them. try 1 class all beams, another all mass drivers.
u should have logistics at 12-16 by then, so u can do 3 or 4 of each ship type per fleet. with the # of shots fired, those big def ships will be gone in no time.
unless the enemy can make ships with 20 shields AND 20 armor, in which case restart, sorry. otherwise if defense is only against 1 type of weapon, 20 shields = only 4 everything else
i recommend beams & mass drivers b/c missiles are HUGE space hogs until you get to black hole generator.

tip2): get diplomacy up n trade for those military resource starbases.

they are lifesavers. 20 def ships are kind of mid/late game, by then you have decent starbase techs, say +35% resource or so,then 3 military resources would give you double your offense, for every ship in your fleet, for FREE=). stardock was not kidding in that loadingscreen gametip on military starbases. just ONE = 6 race points (for the +off and +defense modifiers) which is why race points i throw into economy & morale. 100% approval with 80% tax rate, yeeuh (but that's with +400 morale and some virt reality ctr's, realistically u can have about 60-70% tax rate, with like 60-70% approval)