How is that possible?

Well, I suppose if you bought each colony ship as cheap as possible, using one of the per month options you could build that many, but you'd be in debt in no time. Not sure how otherwise, unless he bought and built all factories and was just pumping them out.

I let my Col ships scout and never build actual "scouts".

I just checked his stats again, and he was running into the red, but he was still bringing in 4x my amount in taxes and had twice the research spending I did. And this with a morale of 67%. I have my tax slider up to just where my morale goes into the red, at 45%, yet there's no way I could possibly build ships that fast. Even buying my ship on credit would be impossible at that rate of expansion. There has to something wrong here, I just can't see how it can be done.

I've posted about this on another forum. I can build 5 scouts to 1 colony ship and collectively they're going to uncover alot more of the map than a single colony ship ever could. I'll use the mini-map and send them to where a star is and in no time I'll have a got pretty good "lay of the land". Using colony ships to explore is just wasteful IMO.

Please, you´re doing it all wrong.

Colony ships FIRST. I rush at least 3 to 4 colony ships, with enhanced engines and sometimes life suport systems.

5 explorers? That is just plain dumb. Not even if they had survey systems in them, something that takes time to discover.

Build 4 to 5 colony ships first, then you may consider building one explorer with the survey ability. An explorer without survey is just plain useless.

Yea, hey,you get to see all the nice planets the AI is going to have!

The number of colony ships and scouts they build does seem to defy logic, but it is mainly based on difficulty level.

First off it is possible. Most expert players would say the Krynn are actually a bit behind the colony rush but that's something different . Just because you cannot at this stage replicate the AIs performance simply means you've got more to learn about the game .

If you finance colony ships you can get 2 or 3 straight away. The AI tends at times to not fill them all the way so you may want to check the population of those planets. Also the AI rush builds a star port on new colonies. Meaning once it has 4 or 5 colonies it can quickly double that to 8 - 10 simply by building colony ships again.

I'm sure the AI has cropped spending somewhere else to make up for its research budget. Unlike a novice human player the AI adjusts its economy on a turn by turn basis. (Conjecture of course and dependent on the difficulty setting). Just 1 5000 bc anomaly and you can easily afford to crank out another set of colony ships. Heck even a few 500 or 1000 ones can do the trick.

Remember the AI has no fancy tricks up its sleeves. It plays with the exact same rules and constraints as you do. Certain AIs are written to be aggressive and other more passive.

For the record scouting with a colony ship in general is better then a normal scout for one simple reason: When you find a good planet you don't have to then wait for the colony ship to arrive .

That's starting to appear obvious. I just tried it again, and ran into the Terrans. Although it was somewhat better, by the time I quit he still had 11 colonies to my 7, plus beat me to the only visible resource. It looked he was about to have me trapped in a corner of the map with no place to expand to.



I hate financing though, it's really easy to screw yourself. I understand that from real life experience.   



I do the same. Though I used to start out having them build scouts before I switched them to colony ships. I've now skipping that part though, and going straight for colony ships.



None of which I ever seem to get. I didn't even realize there was a 5000 one, I don't think I've ever got one. My guy just seems to find every wormhole in the galaxy and gets whisked away to the other side of it. A 5000 anomaly could certainly explain the Krynn's performance.



OK, I'll give it a try. It defies my own common sense though. Scouts explore, colony ships colonize.

Krynn get a massive moral bonus, so when they tax people they can tax them to death while they are still semi happy, there is one source of income in that.

I've noticed the Krynn seem to expand super fast. I've never figured it out since they seem to out expand even the other AIs...so that leaves my poor playing out of the equation.

However, this thread gave me some ideas on how I can do better in the early game I tend not to worry about how many planets I get at first simply because I always seem to end up mired in early wars, many of which I can fare well in as long as I have a decent manufacturing base.

Does anyone know how much of a bonus the Krynn get to thier morale?

Well I discovered part of my problem. I've been setting up 5% towards Espionage right from the start. This last attempt I decided not to. Not only am I able to produce more colony ships, but my research is way ahead of where it used to be. I was having problems before keeping up in that area, but now I'm ahead. I should even be able to put more into Military spending to speed up my expansion. Espionage certainly eats up your revenue quickly. Obviously it's not a good idea to invest in it until your empire is more or less established.

Yeah, its possible. Remember, the Krynn get additional points in addition to their already high base stats. That they had a higher morale than you with higher taxes is to be expected. Of course, your difficulty level will change this as well.

Don't forget, you don't need to do everything at once. For instance, you could just rush buy factories and put your production to 100% military and worry about research once the colony rush is over. Check the AIs stats, you will see they often don't have ANY research listed in the first few turns.

Good luck!

That's not what I'm seeing, they usually have a higher research expense than I do. I'm usually falling behind them fairly early. I can usually keep up only by trading, and then only with the minor races, thanks to the new changes. I quite often have to give up three of my techs for one of theirs.

This being the case, go for Diplomatic Translators. If you have to tech trade your way out of trouble these are a must...

Yeah, I usually do. So far though my games haven't lasted long enough for me to get them. I'm either quiting in disgust or figuring I can do better. With this new patch it's like having to learn the game all over again.   

Over all though I like the new tech trading. A bit on the extreme side, but definetly an improvement from vanilla. Negotiations seem like a bit of a challenge now. It was way too easy before to gain a wide tech lead strictly through trading, the AI was practically bending over backwards to give me their techs. I really have to work at it now.

Wow, it definitely sounds like a different game when you play larger maps. Playing small and tiny maps with rare H. planets, you're lucky to get 3 to start. I usually make one a ship builder, and one a tech. builder, because you have to research, so you can get soil enrichment, habitat improvement, and good offenses/defenses. Granted, I'm on Beginner too, but I'll probably move up again here soon. I like the small and tiny maps because it almost forces you to attack sooner than later, becase you have to get planets, and the only planets there are already occupied. I also disable tech trading, because it seems the AI trade things back and forth, but are usually unwilling to give me anything.

Belanos, why not come join us in the High Command Hegemony. (shameless plug!)

Always plenty of people to help you out here on these forums and our own,

WWW Link

You'll fit right in, and of course we are the largest and fastest growing empire in the Metaverse, and we will be number 1 very soon!

I was checking it out, what exactly does it do? A gathering place for online players? I'm not really into playing online myself, it's just me against the computer.

Against the computer is all it is. The difference between Meta games and normal is that with the Metaverse the rules are the same for every one. No mods are allowed, and your scores are uploaded to the Metaverse. You don't have to join an empire, but if you do all your scores along with others of your empire are tallied and that gives you the rankings.

Long story short....
1) you play against the computer just the same as normal,
2) your game score is uploaded to the Metaverse,
3) no mods, just the standard game, a level playing field for all,
4) you are given medals based on your achievements to show off your progress.

Have a look around, most empires have an empire thread on here, and some their own forum site for empire members as well. It's a community in it's self with alot of competition between the empire's, especially the top 3.

Check it out and if you decide to play in the Metaverse we'd love to have you...

If the Krynn had some juicy production bonuses on their planet, they could have been cranking out 1 colony ship per week at very little cost. Any game where I start out with a +700% manufacturing tile is practically in the bag. Once, I started out with a +700% and a +300%.

I'm using mods so I guess that counts me out. Nothing major, basically just some things from the example mod that came with DL patch 1.2, and a few tweaks of my own. I'm not much into competition anyway, unless it's against the Thalen. Man those guys bug me!   

Yeah, I just started a game awhile back just like that. Problem was I had a really bad location overall and it wasn't to long before I had no place to send my colony ships to. So I hit Ctrl-N hoping for something better. What a waste!   

This reminded me of something totally off topic: I once started with 2x +300% and 1x +100% to... FOOD production Somehow my fingers slipped to CTRL-N right after that.

Belanos:

Well I'm glad to see you've figured out most of what you were doing wrong. And yeah most of the time financing ships can ruin you but if done right and with strategic goals in mind you can put yourself further ahead then without it. A lot of times I use it late in the game when I'm probably going to win in the next 50 turns or so anyway. Once you become supreme ruler of the universe no one cares that you are 1000BC in debt.

Planetary bonuses are given out in an attempt by the game engine to *balance* out the map. There have been several posts about the *whys* of the random generator from Frogboy. Normally if you start out with a 300% or 700% on your home world you can bet there are no other really good planets within your starting range or you are completely surrounded by AI empires. A difficult position to be in but by no means impossible.

I misspoke about the 5000BC anomaly. The highest is 1000BC. Still 2 of those and you are set. Wonder why no one corrected that . Course if you really want you can mod the XML file to give yourself a 5000 one as a possibility . Not that I did that or anything .

when i start i slide my spending to 100% right away. i try not to rush ANYTHING if i can help it... maybe a factory if i really need it but for the price of a factory i could play several extra turns at 100%. doing this i can pump out colony ships about ever 3 turns once i get my factories built, wich doesnt take long at 100%. AND YES i do build 1 or maybe 2 scouts first. basically i can build a scout in 6-7 turns while its still like 20 for a colonyship. so while im waiting for my factories to finish up ill build a few scouts and get them looking around first. this realllly helps once i start pumping out colonyships. since using this stratagy, ive been playing on tough and painful, and ive had no problems with the colony rush. infact normally i out colonize the AI! I like playing on either Large maps with sparse spread out stars, so theres alot of space in between, or medium maps with abundent stars/planets/habitables... both ways i seem to out colonize the AI. Since i always play with max population growth points at the begining, my economy seems to come up into the green nicely right around the the time my account dips below 1000. only once have i had to go into the red, thus lowering my slider below 100%. It really helps being able to keep that 100% spending through out the game. i remember befor i read this tactic in the forum. i used to rush alot of colonyships and would scew over my economy early in the game. i was ALWAYS out colonized and even if i made it to mid game, it was always a rough uphill battle trying to get any respect from other civs...

just a thought. hope this stratagy helps.