In large part...yeah, I think so.

In any 4X game (which GC2 is), the early game is going to be about putting yourself in the strongest possible position going into the midgame. In that sense, the early game is always going to be more or less a pursuit of the same goals: expansion, teching up, growing your economy, and building up a war machine. However, the best way to go about doing that changes from game to game, and sometimes even from turn to turn, so the "variety" comes in adapting to the situation as best you can.


So, as for advice...first off, what difficulty are you playing on? On Beginner, the AI is a drooling moron with three fourths of its economy stripped away from it. If you increase the difficulty, the AI will be increasingly able to assert itself throughout the game (including early on), forcing you to pay attention and adapt lest you risk becoming Lord Kona's next meal.

Second, try changing the galaxy settings. Different size maps are a start, but you can also vary the number of planets and habitable planets to give a drastically different feel to the game. Running out of empty planets after colony number four is one hell of a shock when you're used to a Huge map with 3-5 colonies per star.

Third, try different races. This goes double for if you're playing Dark Avatar, but even in Dread Lords, the Drengin will be interacting with the other races very, very differently than the Terrans will.

I find the "expand" part really, realy, really repetitive. It's the same stuff over and over again. The beginning just isn't fun anymore. I usually play as a super race and spectate the enemy fighting...so that means I want to be in the corner. But you can't because there aren't any choices to where you can start.

I've always found the game start very interesting. You really do have several options and what you do here dramatically affects your ability to act in the mid game. If done right, you can get out of the shoot before the AI is ready, and effectively win the game before the first troop transport is built. The key is focus on different starting options to find the most efficient one for your race and game size...

The first hundred turns, and your decisions therein, really make or break your game. It decides how you must play for the rest of the game.

In my games (mostly default settings, challenging difficulty, small maps with 4 opponents), the first decision I have to make is if I should colonize that small planet that starts next door to me... or if I should send the colonizer to a distant star in a gamble that it (a) isn't an enemy controlled star already, or (b) won't be colonized first by a similarly enterprising AI. I can say 50% of the time the AI beats me to a primo planet by 1 turn, so the gamble is usually worth taking.

The next decision you have to make is if you want to rush attack any nearby opponents. Many will start declaring war right away and launching ships to the nearest planets, mopping up stray fighters and keeping the board "clean" while waiting for your researchers to get to planetary invasion.

Or perhaps you will instead want to focus on starbase construction! Defensive/offensive starbase techs can make your puny little fighters able to fend of the largest fleets for a loooong time, giving you time to expand in other areas. My favorite is the suprise-popup attack where I suddenly spring a huge fleet using techs I've researched for hundreds of turns, vaulting my military strength from lowest to double- or triple- the competition.

Then there's always the influence play! You can dedicate a lot of resources to influence (usually paired with trade and diplomacy), and not even piss off the competition along the way (if you use influence starbases near your planets instead of the enemy's). Honestly, I start most of my games assuming an influence ability but in most cases it doesn't turn out that way and I have to change course halfway through.

Then there's espionage! I played a game with a spy-heavy race, where I kept two civilizations completely locked down. One spy on each tile of their two planets, small fighters shooting down the occasional colony ship or asteroid miner they could produce. I kept this pressure on for hundreds of turns until I had an invasion fleet researched and built, then I took over fairly easily. My spies were then returned to my control and I could re-deploy them to the next poor suckers!

And, as always, there's the all-out good-planet strategy. Build up your planets into superstructures of amazing technology while maintaining a so-so military (just big enough to discourage war). Don't focus on expansion whatsoever, just play to be a good neighbor!

After my hundreds of games using the above strategies only recently did I load up a truly evil race and begin playing by researching exclusively offensive technologies. And once again, I've changed up my whole starting position.

There are so many ways to play out the first hundred turns you can really change how the game plays out. I think your path up the research tree mainly defines it. Are you going for space weapons? starbase offense/defense? influence techs? politics? trade/economics?

Are you bored with your routine? Try banning yourself from something. For example, ban researching offensive weapons and see how you do. Try banning all research up the planetary-improvements tree (no fancy factories, no fancy banks, etc.) You'll be suprised how you can adapt!

I was getting a bit bored with the start too...I had played exclusivly in the Sandbox until December...

Then I discovered the Campaign...each scenario is different and has opened up a new way of looking at the early game. It forced me to explore different early game strategies.

Now I am hooked on the DL Campaign...so much so that I won't start DA until I get through it.

I agree. And every beginning is always different from the others. I normally play on huge, 6 random races, suicidal, rare habitable planets etc. And everytime i find myself doing different choices depending on the starting planet, the neighborhood, number of anomalies etc. For example i'm playing a very interesting match with a great starting planet with 700% in science and 700% in production. As you know such a planet is normally isolated from the rest of the universe so i rushed a factory and then three colony ship for a blind exploration. In a standard match, i would firstly produce some cargo-scouts to explore the vicinitiy and then rush the sensors technology to upgrade the scouts and look for money, bonuses etc from anomalies. This time there were almost no anomalies around so i decided to look for bonus resources and i sent some scouts in the deep space. In the meanwhile i focused my research on the "planet improvement" technologies, knowing that my only hope was in developing my homeworld. Anyway i was lucky and found a 19 class planet far from home with one of my colony ships. I started build market places there cause my economy was sinking. Fortunately all the neighbors around were peaceful and, drengin and yor were far from me: i could concentrate on improving my few worlds and researching technologies. I had almost no contact with minor races (though they're 8 in my game) so i sent a scout in a wormhole and found myself on the other side of the galaxy for a long journey back. This move saved my day because i was able to collect some money from my new friends. I forget that i also decided to go for spies from the very beginning so, at the end of the colony rush i found myself with three planets, some starbases on bonus resources, 7 spies, three very advanced planets and i'm producing a lot of research. Now i'm going to start my military escalation to attack, i believe, the thalans. I fear very soon drengins or yor will start their expansion and i don't want to find myself on my knee when they will look for me. The thalans have three nice planets that, when my army is ready, i will cover with spies for a blitzkrieg... I'll see...

Anyway, i'm sorry for the long description but i enjoy very much playing DA and i think one of the major virtues of the game is indeed the great variety of strategies you need to apply in the beginning.

richard

I,m ready to buy DA actually but i'm just waiting for them to fix the conquored planet, tiles dissapearing bug.