Tips for newbies

That's a great tip for Pearl Harbor day, General!   

"Yesterday, December 7, 2228—a date which will live in infamy—our crappy little empire was suddenly and deliberately attacked by space and ground forces of the human player!"

OK, first off, don't just seek out high-quality planets. Colonise everything you come across. Agreesive colonisation is a good tactic

Hate to disagree so early in this threads life. Agressive colonization is a must but not all planets need to be taken. If you leave a few low PQ planets laying about for the AI you will eventually flip them and they will have been developed and already have a decent population on them. Let the AI do the work for you.

I agree with FC. I usually leave behind most of the class fives and a few of the others. So long as you don't have too big of a concentration behind your lines it's not a big deal.

This is especially true on the higher levels (which doesn't really apply for newbies). The AI will develop them faster than you can with it's bonuses and do so at an economic loss. About the time they become worth something you can take them from the computer.

True, but for newbies who are trying to learn the game, its probably easier to colonize whatever they come across, after a while one starts to develop a sense of what is and sint worthe their effort.

Another, custom build your ships! The generic ones they give you are not worth their weight in scrap metal.

Also, tade routes can do wonders for your economy.

Good luck to all of you future emperors!

I'll definitely second the custom ships. If you win with the pre-built ones you'll need to up the difficulty quite a bit for the AI just to stay even when you build your own.

I still suck. I just moved up to challenging this week from normal, and no game has lasted past medium hulls.

I don't know if it's my crap strategy from playing normal or what, but I need to step it up a notch.

Unfortunately, of the 3 games I've played, I've never had more than 6 planets after the colony rush (gigantic map).

Here's what I do- I set my taxes to 30%. My custom race usually has about an 80% morale with this to start. I set my military and social to 30 and my research to 40%.

I spend my money on the initial industrial sector for each planet and save my funds for new planet factories as I get them. All of my initial research goes towards the trade tech, then I research Defenders. I don't lower production past 50%, that's also while I save the initial funds, so my empire can keep up production until the colonies get up to speed.

The computer seems to be outpacing my research (I've been using custom Iconians with full research bonus), but if I divert more funds to research they outpace my ship production.

Typically for a class 10 planet I use 3 factories and one of everything else. If I get other large planets (yet to happen for me since the upgrade to challenging) I typically make one into a Wal-Mart planet and another into a research planet. My home planet is the industrial producer.

Any tips?

OK, first off, don't just seek out high-quality planets. Colonise everything you come across.

That is very map dependent. I play large galaxies with occasional habital planets (9 AI), and often I am lucky to reach 4 planets before they are all gone. Cherry-picking planets is not an option.

Here's what I do- I set my taxes to 30%. My custom race usually has about an 80% morale with this to start. Any tips?

You can bump up your tax rate a bit. During early game I tend to keep my morale at 51% (for the worst planet), so you could probably bump your tax rate up another 19% or so. Occasionaly, I will nix the tax rate and capacity so I can get great population increases. Selling some techs off can give you enough of a cusion to run that for a little while.

Does the AI trade techs between opponent races?

I'm wondering, maybe that's how they outpace my research. I trade techs, but I am typically stingy and don't do very much of that. It's hard to give a good tech up.

Some more tips:

-At the beginning of the game, increase your spending to 100% so you'll be producing colony ships as fast as possible.
-Send your initial colony ship back to your homeworld and fill it up to max capacity on your first turn.
-Once you've colonised a planet, buy your first factory instead of waiting for it to build.

You don't have to keep up with the AI or even exceed them. Grab a decent amount of planets in the rush and the rest will fall into place. Put taxes to a point where you have 70% approval. Spending to 100%. Research to 75, Social to 25. Research to impulse drive. Design a colony using impule and begin rush buying them. While you are doing this set your flagship to auto survey. The bc anomolies will help keep you going and the colonies you are lifting off homeworld will help keep morale up. Focus on Economy from the begining. Buy an economy build on homeworld to take advantage of the pop. Upon colonizing make your first build a econ. then follow with starport, factory, factory, farm, research, research, morale, economy. get tech that the AI don't, then trade them for what you want. The trade tech is powerful. Once you get it trade it to each race in the same turn and get what they will give (yes they trade in answer to post #8 if you do not turn tech trading off) which means in one turn for one tech you should be able to get 10-15 new techs. (sorry by return dosen't work when posting through SDC)

I'm wondering, maybe that's how they outpace my research. I trade techs, but I am typically stingy and don't do very much of that. It's hard to give a good tech up.

IMHO good diplomacy is the most useful thing to have. With good diplomacy you can screw even suicidal AIs in deals.

Remember this for tech trading: even if you can only get one tech from a civ, you can still use that tech to trade with other races for more techs. With those techs you can go back to the first civ and get some more techs etc, etc

I trade techs, but I am typically stingy and don't do very much of that. It's hard to give a good tech up.

Thats why when you do trade techs, cut it loose to all the AIs. That way you get the maximum return for your tech and the AI can't trade it away as (most)everyone has it. And techs you get back in trade, do the same thing. And don't forget to pick up those pre-req techs when you do trade.

Here at Crazy Zippy's Tech Emporium, we are slashing prices on our techs (and those we got from you last week)! No reasonable offers will be refused. Parity is our mission statement (as long as you have something to offer, sorry, no handouts).

Well hot damn, if that works on the difficulty you play on I should maybe give it a shot.

I can't believe I never thought of filling up my initial colony ship. Let's just pretend this conversation never happened.

I'm focusing on the economy already, I just need to not be a conservative miser with my initial resources.

It irks me to get rid of my trade tech like that, but I better get with the program, or at least turn tech trading off.

So, instead of making my homeworld a production center, stick with marketing in hopes of finding an suitable industrial planet later? I'll work with that.

My next game tonight I'll turn off tech trading and utilize these tips. Thanks.

Another tip for you Morty: Be neutral. Neutral civs make the least enemies and have the best bonuses, and you get the Neutral Learning Center, the best research tech in the game (you just need to make sure to manually upgrade all of your old research tiles with the NLC)

It irks me to get rid of my trade tech like that, but I better get with the program, or at least turn tech trading off.

I wouldn't. You can use the tech trading system far better than the AI can. See my earlier post.

Oh, and don't forget this. 100% doubles your reproduction rate. IIRC 75% increases it by 25% and 40% halts it. So, if you want money, keep your moral just above 40. If you want reproduction, get it to either 75 or 100. by no means should you keep it at something like 90 or 60 as you're just wasting money.

Yeah, even I figured out that I had to back off of my evil empire gig when I upgraded to challenging, at least until I know what I'm doing. Not that I've made it to the learning center tech anyway.

I've won on normal many times, but I guess I've picked up some bad habits that I have to quit. The AI on this game is much better than I'm used to from playing Civilization 4, etc.

I'll try some tech trading and see what happens, I'll hold out until I get trade as chief suggested.

Consider joining an empire as well. While all of us here will be open to helping you an empire will help increase the fun even if you don't post your games to the meta.

I wasn't able to actually finish a game until 1.4, and just started Metaverse this week. I'll try to finish a game or two and then see about joining an empire.

All right, I've played for a couple of hours using these tips and SWEET.

I'm ranked first (out of 9, gigantic map) and am just finishing up the colony rush with about a dozen planets, and that's only because I hit other civilization home worlds.

Making your home world into a Wal-Mart really makes a difference. I was just set in my ways with using it as an industrial center, then trying to make trade ships to get my economy up and running. This worked great for normal and became a bad habit.

I've used all of the other tips also and this all contributed.

Thanks, no more tips for me! Too... much... power.

Hiya
Wondering if anyone can recommend the best starting races/political parties & bought techs.
I'm quite new to the game, but from looking at the bonuses, I think the Yor Collective or the Drath legion (their bonuses would cost the most to buy), plus technologists give you about the best start.

I like to trade back all the optional starting techs and spend my 10 as follows:

Good overall bonuses:
Economics +30% 4 pts
Morale +10% 1 pt
Social Production +10% 1 pt
Improved sensors +1 parsec 1 pt
Influence +15% 2 pts
Frisky (+10% pop growth) 1 point

or for a quick start:
Speed Bonus + 2 Parsecs/turn cost: 8 points
+10% morale cost: 1 point
Sensors Bonus: +1 parsec cost: 1 point

Anyone have any tips on these choices? I'm trying to get a better feel for which techs are most effective for their cost, and if any combine well with each other.

Also, what's the best way to build a cheap military early on to deter aggression?

Th Drath do seem to have the best starting abilities, but the one they get aren't the best for everyone's playstyle. Best thing to do is hit the reset and go back a tab and you will only see their inherent bonuses. Also if you try to stack an inherent bonus with your alloted points, you will lose the inherent bonus. So spend your points in other categories.

I like the Yors miniturization bonus as one of my favorites and they get ion drive, but it can be a hard choice depending on play style and such. Morale and economy are my most sought after bonuses, but there are a lot of different prefered choices, even among top players.

I use Torian with + to pop growth, economics, morale. Some of the bonuses come are inherant to the race you are playing so trading back may cost you a point or two you could use elsewhere.

Also, what's the best way to build a cheap military early on to deter aggression?

Don't. Use diplomacy to keep them off your back, trade tech, give bc, etc. Once your economy is estabilished then begin building military. I find it best to build exactly what the are building (same atk and def) until preparing to take there planets. Upgrade your existing ships to an attack they are not defending against and a defense to match their attack.

@DethAdder. You type to quick.

i've been having good luck with the following method, up to (and including) painful difficulty:

set taxes to 49% and spending to 100%; pop growth is managable, econ is healthy

set military/social/tech spending to 26/25/49

research the techs that give empire-wide production/morale/econ bonuses first; large+ galaxies, get sensors and build 1 or 2 more (custom) survey ships to find those big planets, resources, and 2500bc anomolies.

design a new colony ship with speed 3 ASAP; every time you get a new engine or miniturization tech, see if you can build a faster ship

start all new colonies factory > factory > starport, and buy the first factory; when your starport comes online, you'll be automatically taken to the planet to plan out production again. also, two factories are a healthy base for upgrading tiles in the future.

i never research weapons or defenses until war has been declared upon me. the only exception is the branch with +soldiering; i get all of those as soon as they are 4-5 week time investments.

i hope i didn't give too much away building well-balanced, profitable planets is a viable strategy at the lower difficulty levels.

figuring all that out and developing my own strategy was most of the fun. i'm now working the kinks out of bumbleputz's planet specialization theory. it's pretty crazy... 4 mfg starbases pumping up 4 production/tech planets and i can't get the other 12 or so $$$ planets to turn a profit at 69% taxes and 75% spending >.< time to demolish some factories i think...

Does the AI trade techs between opponent races? I'm wondering, maybe that's how they outpace my research. I trade techs, but I am typically stingy and don't do very much of that. It's hard to give a good tech up.

Thats why when you do trade techs, cut it loose to all the AIs. That way you get the maximum return for your tech and the AI can't trade it away as (most)everyone has it. And techs you get back in trade, do the same thing. And don't forget to pick up those pre-req techs when you do trade.

I have not found this to be as true in GC2 as in other 4x games. In my games so far I have not seen where the aI's trade immediately among themselves. In fact, they seem not to trade much at all compared to say the Civ series of games.

If you gain an innate sense of the value of a trade item for the AI's use it can be smart to trade only some technologies all the way around, but not others. For instance, if the AI already has a better weapons tech, trade it a worse tech. But if you have a better weapons tech, withhold it. It might be a while before it develops or trades for a better one on it's own. You can also use this to cripple the AI. If you are planning on launching an assault on the AI in 5 to 10 turns, trade it planet improvement tech. The AI will likely focus on developing the soon to be yours planets instead of building warships. Of course, getting the timing right on this is the tricky part...