Well, it's simple, really. Espionage lets you see what weapons and defenses they have, so research weapons that they're not defending against and defenses that counter their weapons. It's purely a matter of "They have lots of shields, so I'll research anything but beams. Anything." Or "They have lots of missle tech. Okay then, ramping up my point defense."

Espionage, when built up, lets you actually see their ships and their ship stats--if they're in sensor range--so you can know exactly what you're up against. Espionage is like a production bar, and when it's filled up you don't need to spy on them any more, because all of your contacts are dug into their gov't!

It helps to research a balance of techs on weapons and armor, and focus-researching helps when you're tacking a specific enemy. It never hurts to be prepared, though.

So on a strategic level: Research them all, until you need one specific one. If you can't research them all quickly enough, practice working on your eXpansion phase so you have enough colonies and labs to produce the research you need. The early level weapon techs are all pretty quick grabs, so at least you won't be caught too flat-footed.

ok, thanks

yea, the AI in the demo usually heads for mass drivers, sometimes lasers, and often times all civs go in the same direction. well its a demo anyway and its of the 1.0X version so its just reflecting the AI settings of that version.

They don't always research the defense for their own offense. They will research the defense that matches their opponents offense also.

In my last game the chosen weapons were beam and missle. I developed beam then mass drivers, and I don't build ships until I need to. That way my mass drivers will not taken into account by their defenses.

Their ships had combinations of shield and point defenses, but no armor. And they usually use very little defense as it is, so my Doomray's still did a lot of damage before the Black Hole Gun's let loose.


As far as seeing what they are doing, you don't need espionage. Just click a planet of theirs and you can see the ships in orbit, and get the stats for those ships. So you can always know how much defense and offense you have to counter. Same with their ships and fleets. Just click on them to get the stats, and build accordingly.

I'll usually be very heavy into research for a very long time before I am finally attacked. By then I usually have my resource starbases loaded up, and ships waiting in the wings with only one week build time left. Then when they call to say Time to Die, I hit the turn button and suddenly I have an entire armada at my disposal with weapons they have no defense for. And doing it that way, I have no military spending until that point to suck up my resources.

Always use Beam weapons. Unless they're going fairly far up the shield tree. They're the best bang for the buck (cost and tech). With any hull size.

I guess so, since the demo is a limited time (3 years gametime), I can't explore very far up the weapon trees unless I use cheats to speed things up.

Scout out their planets with the flagship and then see what ships start showing up. This is the cheapest and easiest method, though there is a lag, because the ships don't show up until well after their techs have been researched. Another way is to go to the tech trading screen and see what they have. Espionage is not necessary just to see what they have.