Something must be wrong with your strategy. I'm playing Maso and getting only mildly challenged. I'd be interested to know your build order--are you starting the game out by lowering your taxes and getting the 100% approval to grow your pop? Are you rush-buying factories, or colony ships, or neither?

How about this one: can you build a military starbase to back you up? Then your pop guns can stand toe-to-toe with their more powerful ships, and yours are much cheaper. Put at least 1 defense and 1 weapon on your pop guns (you NEED that 1 defense for the military SB to work), build 4 constructors, and send both the constructors and your little guys in to do battle with their fleets. Add the ship assist modules, particularly the one that gives +1/all defense. You should be able to rip them to shreds, unless you're just totally outmatched. Then you just keep luring their ships toward your starbase and repeat. And if they tech up, you tech up--add more assist modules.

I've never had a problem with the Altarians, but I beat the Drengin over and over this way.

Thanks for the replies. I have no doubts that my strategy is fatally flawed (or I wouldn't be getting my butt handed to me on a plate!) My usual strategy until now's always been to rush my colony ships every turn at the start and send them every which way in the hope of finding a planet. I usually play on a medium map and find that if I don't do this, the AI grabs all the planets before I can. At this point I usually zero the military slider as I haven't got the production capacity to build things quickly enough without rush buying.

What I'm finding in DA is that I at some point need to divert all research towards one of the colonization techs to be able to get a nice world, which has the effect of making me lag behind in military. Once I've colonized all I can, I'll usually go after a few economic techs, mixed in with the manufacturing techs to build up my industry. By this point I'll have one or two military planets (spammed with factories), a science planet and the rest are general purpose, mostly economic buildings with some farms and entertainment centres thrown in for good measure.

At this point, I'll also be starting to slowly build up my military, trying to get a defender or two (upgraded to whatever weapon level I have) onto each planet. I'll generall have the econ sliders set to make only a few credits profit, with a the production being divvied up between some military, more social and lots of research. All the while the original mining ship is busy flying around on auto pilot all the time doing it's thing and the survey vessle is on auto-survey too.

Now I have medium ship capability and I start pumping a few of these out to build a standing fleet.

As I said, on normal this strategy works fantastically and the AI can't keep up. But on challenging the AI seems to have terribly better logistics and production capabilities and will at this point start sending fleets with 100+ attack against me. Also, by this point AI player will already be invading each other, and I'll be playing catchup in planetary invasion techs (because I'll be pumping everything into weapon techs because I'm so far behing in the civ graphs).

Thanks for the help again!

I'm in the same skill range, Challenging to Tough. What makes all the difference for me is the race I play - and so far have only played - the Terrans. The other civilizations always have enough military might and advanced weaponry techs to turn me into ash throughout the game until the later stages when I finally come up to speed.

It's all about Diplomacy + Military might. Early on, I monitor attitudes and when one starts to slip I either get that diplomacy tech or send that trade ship their way. The real "turning point" in my games isn't when I can challenge them militarily - by that time its game over and just a matter of me rolling them up. The turning point is when I get their attitudes to Neutral or Friendly and can develop my worlds in peace until its time to be not so peaceful.

I do wonder if the Super Diplomat ability is too powerful. Its even easier for me to use diplomacy now and survive. In my current game - Tough level - my immediate neighbor was the Yor. Most of the game it was very difficult to stay on their good side, and they had weaponry that could have crushed me like a bug.

My solution? Becoming allies with their neighbors, the Korx and the Iconians. When I could finally no longer placate the Yor and they declared war, it was a big "Sucks to be you" when all three of us (mostly my allies) mashed them into a grease spot.

Dude it's called econamy, make a trader that goes really fast. My top design is the Mercury that goes at 30 par/secs a turn and easy builds a strong econamy to support research and support a strong military.

Also you may want to build a "containment barrier" were you build military starbases were the area of affect covers at least 6 planets, get your seconed most military productive planet in that area of effect to pump out constructers and your most military productive planet to pump out fleets of fighters to defend the starbase on ALL sides. That way even if you have a fleet of cap-guns you will swamp them with fire if all types.    

What is so incredibly difficult about building 4 constructors?

Hmm... well you are most likely falling into the same base trap everyone does as they move up the difficulty levels. You are not micromanaging your empire in the first 25 turns as you should be. This game can't always be won in the first 50 turns but it sure as heck can be lost.

In the early go your economy is the absolute most important thing in the universe. Do not get any advances that force you to build planetary improvements that cost bc to maintain. This single mistake can doom your early economy and make it much much harder to keep up with the Jones. As others have said don't be afraid to crank your MP/SP/RP sliders between 0% and 100% depending on the needs of your empire for that several set of turns. I don't personally lend a lot of importance to keeping your overall spending at 100% until you can afford to do so. For me it is more important to get that economy stable first then worry about ramping up your spending.

On that note don't rush build colony ships unless you uncover a really nice planet that you must have before the AI does. Use that initial 5000bc to deficit spend and keep yourself able to build your worlds up. If your home world is set up nicely you can have a new colony ship every 5-8 turns after just a few turns in depending on your MP spending. Remember it is much cheaper to buy a few factories and build the ship then it is to build the factories and buy the ship.

Concentrate on getting one research world, two or three factory worlds, and the rest economy worlds in the early go. Even a PQ 4 world can be an effective factory world in the early go. Anything PQ8+ should be an early econ world for you unless the tile bonuses on it lend it more towards research or production. I personally don't concentrate too hard on getting every single world in my initial sphere of influence. Normally I shoot for maybe 85% coverage of the available worlds and then let the AI have the rest. Normally in another 20-30 turns those worlds flip to me anyway and I've been concentrating on something else for those turns while the AI wastes a couple of colony ships. Even if a world is a special environment that you can't colonize yet and it flips you still get the taxes from it. You just can't build anything on it until you get the required tech.

Keep in mind that the Altarians and the Dregin tend to try to out build each other fleet wise. So it is no wonder if you are in a game with both that they are trying to keep the strongest military possible. If you look at what they are doing generally they sacrifice a lot of other things to get it. While the extreme does work you need to keep in mind that it is a short term solution. As the game goes on if you survive that initial build up you'll find that you are way out in front of them in terms of population and economy.

Trade, trade, trade and trade some more. With the new 10 turn restriction in talking to the AI empires you need to try to maximize every transaction you have with them. The AI will pay through the nose for some technologies and others it will not let go of no matter what. You've got to trade techs (if the option is on) if you want to have any hope of keeping up in the tech race in the early go.

Try to establish trade routes early and don't forget about the new economic and research treaties. Getting those early can prevent another empire from going to war with you. Buys a good bit of time for you to get your economy set.

Also if you have the new super abilities on try to keep them in mind. A few of them are middle of the road in terms of usefulness but a couple (super warrior) can be downright game breaking if you don't prepare for them.

Military starbases will not help, i am suprised people seem to think they will! Sure they will help skilled players who know how to make a productive economy that can produce '4' constructors then create the starbase and manage to defend it with some ships all befor the enemy fleets are wiping you out, but no good for less skilled players. I was there once, i remember trying to use military starbases... it is simply too slow to be a useful strategy. Well that's what i learnt anyway.



Been there, done that. I would call this a defacto dificulty level increase!

Skewed prioritied of course! hehehe, thats what less skilled players do.

I think in the OP's case, moving to challenging i think i know what would be putting him behind the eight ball... The colony rush.

I used to find it very difficult to get myself organised after the colony rush, and certainly could not manage to build 4 constructors and cheap fighters in time as a direct result. Constructors are extremely expensive ships to try to build at the start of a game when your busy trying to wrestle your finances back from the brink. Starbase startegy truely is no way near realistic under these circumstances.

It's great when other players outline their strategies; I always pick up new tips and ideas that way.

That said, here's what I do that lets me easily ramp into challenging/tough games:

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-- Play human with attribute points spent on research, as well as some mixture of morale, population growth, range, and/or speed; politics of Technocrats.

-- Build 3 factories on Earth; if I don't have Morale+, then build an entertainment center as well (Earth gets cranky fast).

-- Do a fast research climb (via sliders) to: Ion Drive (for ships; replace all existing designs with Ion-based designs); then Diplomatic Relations (start building Diplomatic Translators on Earth; that's why you built the three factories); then Sensors (to build a few Ion Survey ships to help you continue deficit spending).

-- Now put Social/Military/Research sliders equal (and tweak as desired) and start your colony rush; research Trade in the meantime. My standard start for each colony (size > 8) is factory / starport / factory / factory / market (then entertainment, if I don't have Morale+). As long as I have a nice balance in my account, I fast-build the first factory on each new world, which helps everything else along the way. Each new colony typically builds first a colony ship and then a constructor. A few of the higher-build-rate worlds will build survey ships as well.

-- Once you build Diplomatic Translators, make nice with everyone you meet; trade techs heavily with minor races (esp. for weapons tech) and more judiciously with major races (though, with DA, try to get at least one terraform tech if you can). When you get Trade, _give it away to all the major races_. This makes them happy with you _and_ it boosts your own economy once they start sending freighters to you. Try to avoid trading away any Diplomacy or Influence techs.

-- Once you research Trade, build Economic Capital on Earth and start alternating among colony ships, constructor ships, and freighters (all Ion drive) from Earth.

Your overall goal at this point is to get yourself on sound financial footing before your initial stockpile of cash (replenished some by survey ships) runs out. After the first 20-40 turns, I try to scale back my deficit spending so that it's never more than 1-2% of my current balance (e.g., if I have 3500 credits, then I limit my negative spending to 35-70 credits per turn). It's always hard to see that initial rush of building slow down, but that's why you're building markets and sending trade ships out. (Before Dark Avatar, I used to send _lots_ of survey ships out, which would keep my cash balance up and let me spend heavily. DA has made this a bit tougher; there just doesn't seem to be as much cash out there.)

-- At some point, some other race is going to threaten me, demand money and research, etc. Unless they are a close and immediate threat, I refuse them -- but I then design a simple defender (Small ship size, one engine, and as many points of damage I can fit on it) and immediately convert _all_ shipbuilding over to that defender. I build two (2) per world, and then continue with my interrupted program of colony and constructor ships.

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I've used variants of this approach since GalCiv 1, and I've never been wiped out early since using it. Hope this helps. ..bruce..

not in a million years! Especially when you consider the immense financial benefits alone from tech trading.... in the early game stages after the colony rush especially, tech trading allows me to keep that gov spending on 99%...

I carn't believe it possible anyone would think tech trading being off would be easier???????????????????????????

You can multiply the benefits of techs you traded or researched by selling them on several times according to how many races there are. A tech worth 300bc could end up bringing in 2400bc, i mean the benefit is enourmous