Cheese and Cheats

In my current game as Terran, the Dreng fleets with 2-3 speed are chasing my 5 speed spyships while my fleets and transports are conquering thier border worlds. And I am talking 4-5 Dreng fleets following each spyship. It is just too funny. (Tough level game)

Wow...

Hmm...in my current game I am constantly having to watch out for fast Torian transports escorted by 12 speed fighters...(I killed a few unescorted transports and suddenly the aI started to escort them)... it is less than 3.5 years into the game, and most of the aI have WARP or WARP2 engines compared to my Impulse 3 level.

1.31, Tough, large galaxy, 7 opponents, abundent, normal tech speed; advanced aI algorythms enabled, playing as Korx. Hell of a game - I am having a hard time keeping up economically; everytime I start to get up to speed I get slapped down.

And the aI has grabbed most of the resources ... I have always seen this, since v 1.0 not sure what level you are playing at where they don't grab them. BTW, no minors yet - and they are not always so easy...see Frogboys example game in one of his journals - he was waxed by a minor.

I suggest you experiment with the settings combinations to find one that challenges you...the game plays much differently depending on how you set it up. It can be adjusted for most skill levels...or to give a different play experience every time..though as always those few that are great game players will always find a way to beat it...as for the rest of us regular slobs I think it is a great and challenging game.

I think buying and reselling is the biggest cheese tactic in the game. Find an AI that has a tech that most other AIs do not have, and buy that tech from them. Then sell that tech to all the other AIs. The end result is you get the tech and more money than you began with.

You can also use tech trading to skip over techs. You can buy adamantium armor even if you've never researced armor theory. Stealing tech when you conquer planets also lets you skip techs like this.

That is a great point nullspace. I NEVER buy/sell techs. To me this adds to realism. But even if the AI has warp and I have Impulse drive ... I place MULTIPLE engines on my ships and the AI puts xtra weapons rather than Xtra engines, I WILL HAVE a SPEED advantage. This is my FAV CHEESE !!!!!

SO then nullspace has said his fav CHEESE is BUY/SELL techs .... What are other players fav Cheese Tactics ??????

So as for the CHEAT fav, I am saying that the fact that the AI knows where the Resource thingys are located (and the player must scout them out) and the minor AI build them faster, is GOOD for me ... the major AI (like me) is in a colony rush mode first ... this benefits me because I can take the resource from a minor race much easier than from a Major race.

What are other players fav Cheese Tactics

Repair by upgrading ships.
Extra movement via moving into and then launching out of a starport ( love that "gravity assist" but not really sure how it would work with Hyperdrives )

I started using the Economy starbase Spamming of my manufacturing and tech capitols. That 200%+ boost really helps:). Not sure if it's considered cheese or a tactic, but it doesn't look to realistic, all those starbases crowded together.

41 speed transports towards the endgame with 5x Hyperwarp III. Hail Mary conquest. I keep their fleet beaten down, then lob these bad boys into their space and snipe off their border worlds. Usually takes 1-3 turns from launch to assault, depending on the map. I play huge, and its usually only a wait of any measurable time when the war has gone on for a while, and I've moved the border quickly.


Another "cheese" tactic is to shred their PQ16+ worlds with 15-20 billion populations down by throwing 1000 legions at a time at those worlds, invading using mass drivers, knowing that 1) I'm not going to win, so no loss of PQ, and 2) my 1000 units can rip their populations to pieces, even with a major soldiering advantage on their side.

When they're down to about 5 billion or less, I'll invade with 29 speed 4000 capacity Gator Freighters From Hell to mop up. Usually this means not only an easy win against underwhelming odds, but a nice decent group of survivors to populate the planet.

Repair by upgrading ships.

One of my favorites. Actually I thought I discovered it when I first posted (Repairing Ships via Upgrade) about this on Aug 18th. But I did a search and you had pretty much covered the topic in your post from Aug 14th. BTW I tend to look at this as spending a reasonable cost for a reasonable service, but I can see how some folks might consider this cheese.

At lower levels, my favorite is how if you go massivly in debt (for example, if you decide to upgrade ALL of your ships at once), then your treasury will reset to a much lower amount (I think it's -2,000).

At any level, I still enjoy lining up al my fleets around enemy planets, striking at once and utterly crippling a massive empire in a single turn (that I was just at peace with).

Wow, I started this "It ain't easy being cheesy" thread and no one has even mentioned the Ctrl-N thing. That is my second fav. OK now for REALLY GOOD CHEESE !!!! I have a save game slot "Invasion". I save before invading a planet and if I don't like how it turns out I can do it again. Let's hear some other GOOD cheese... PLEASE!!!!

Hey, I need the cheese since I am struggling to win at Tough level and need all the help I can get !!!!

41 Speed Transport? What's the fastest anyone's made their transports? In my last game with the Yor in 1.31 I think I had transports with over 90 speed by the end of the game. 2 Advance Troop Modules and grouped into fleets so I could have 18 billion troops in an invasion and fly away with 8 transports still in the fleet afterwards.

In my last game with the Yor in 1.31 I think I had transports with over 90 speed by the end of the game.

Yes in v1.31 in general with the miniaturization fixed you can get far better than you could in v1.2. And the Yor's 20% (I think) miniaturization bonus is huge. The best I get, non Yor, is 79 with two advanced troops modules per ship. This is without the late game Ultradrive event that occurs sometimes, with it you go to 119. This is assuming all techs and Hyperion Shrinker. You can also get another race's Shrinker and go even faster.

So the Cheese list so far is:
FAST ships - oh yeah !!!
Buying then selling techs - yes, this is a GOOD one - mucho thanks to nullspace
Upgrade ship repair and the planet grav assit - I like them both !! (tnx to kblore)
Econ starbases near manufacture planets and lining my trade lanes - VERY good for generating a lota CA$h !!!! kudos to DethAdder

My game position is improving...

Any more good ones out there ??

I have a save game slot "Invasion". I save before invading a planet and if I don't like how it turns out I can do it again.

This is a classic cheese that works for many pc games. To add to that, start a game, save on your first turn. Then scout for quality planets and resources. Once you have the good stuff memorized, reload your game and send your ships exactly where they need to go. Cheese rating=Velveeta.

Cheese rating=Velveeta

That's good. I assume Velveeta is rather high (or should that be low) on the cheese scale. How would this compare to sponge bob square pants mac and cheese for example?

Velveeta is pretty smooth and pretty cheesy, so I'd rank it high. If you were to get any cheesier, you'd probably have to go with nacho.

Spongebob Mac'n'cheese would be lower, but probably higher than a ham and cheese sandwich.

I love all that stuff in this game. It's just so rewarding to trump the AI with some cheesy tactic.

One of my favorites is the Sensors cheese. Just hold off on trading any sensors with the races until you have all the diplomacy stuff. Then hit 'em all with the 4 and rake in the techs. Tech shopping is so fun.

I also enjoy the resources cheese. Park a constructor next to a resource and wait for the race's enemy to destroy it. Or, if you're in a hurry, add a warship and hand it over to the enemy race. They'll kill the starbase for you. I've also paid majors to go to war with minors so they kill their resource starbases. Then my constructors in waiting scoop them up. Fun, fun, fun, get a real kick out of that stuff.

Research into a weapon you won't use. Laser 2, for example. Sell it to all your opponents. Research a different line of weapons and laser defenses. By the time you get to building the war machine, your opponents are screwed into a heavy laser investment.

It's more of a legitimate tactic than cheese. I believe the US does this in Real Life (TM).

Just because a country famous for "ganking noobs" does it, doesn't make it not cheese.

But heh, I do that myself. "OMG LASERS! PEW PEW PEW! YOU WANT THESE!" While having top of the line beam defenses.

Their new fleet comes out, armed to the brim with Pew Pew (TM) goodness.

My new battleship comes out with missiles and laser defences, and destroys their fleets instantly.

That's what you get for being hostile in my region, yarr.

The velveet cheese "Save first turn, scout out galaxy" is the BEST yet!!!!!!!!!!!
I stared a huge map game and saved. Then bought some advanced cargo-hull scouts to check things out...this is VERY effective ... I am going to like this game MUCHO, and I will now do this for any new games I start. I don't do metaverse, so my conscience is clear.
There must be more great cheese some vets of high level games got ?????
Feel free to share with us mortal gamers ...

Oh yeah, this is another one I tried. Save game named - Fleet Battle. I played the same battle over again 5 times. I won each time in a 4 vs 4 frigate fleet contest. Two times I lost 3 of 4 ships, two more I lost 2 ships ...But one time I only lost 1 ship. This will now be standard during fleet operations. Hehehehehe