Hi Wyndstar. I have a few questions in general about the all research centers and all manufacturing centers strategy. I kind of had this idea also about just building one type of building and specializing in different cities, kind of like in Civilization 4, but would never have gotten around to testing it. Didn't realize you kind of had to specialize all research on all planets till I tried it.

So I was glad to see someone already have done it successfully.

Anyways I've tried doing all research centers on masochistic (default stuff on game type, normal research, large map. 9 opponents)

However, when I went to trade with the different AI's, they all were very broke and couldn't really pay for the techs when I needed money from them for the 100 percent production cost. So I figured the AI's economy skills were too bad and tried this on suicidal.

I was Terrans with max points into research and economy, along with 1 point in luck and rest in morale. Also was technologist party. I even tried to keep production 100 percent whole time along with 100 percent approval. But eventually my taxes went all the way down to 0 percent and approval was dropping to mid 90's. Maybe this had to do with not having the +morale researches, can't remember. It was just weird.

I got a good game going but somehow I think the AI was ahead of me in research even though I was just building research buildings. I even had a chance to colonize 2 other planets 10-13 in quality(didn't get mars). Each of the 3 planets had an asteroid field outside them and I got them all. I usually only purchased the first research building on my 3 planets to get the extra social production. After I'd say about a year I started running into researches that I couldn't get very quickly and I was having money problems. Something along -600bc a week. I tried putting economic starbases outside of each planet with just modules in +economy (not sure if this helps a lot?). I even got an economic resource maxed out. I also maxed the trade routes I could have. I went neutral btw. Didn't make it to the neutral research buildings though. I did try to lower production and raising taxes and other stuff, but with all research buildings and no production you still have like a negative 150-200 in bc. Didn't expect that.

The AI was only paying like 60 to 120 for most techs I was getting early game. Even at the end of the game I was playing, they weren't paying more than 200-400 for a tech even if they had like 10k in BC.

So I switched to manufacturing factories cause I thought it would be cheaper after about a year(maybe a bit longer), however that just made the research thing worse and I eventually lost cause i didn't have strong enough military techs to compete. Even though I had huge and large ships early, the different AI fleets would eventually wear them down or overpower them. (I captured 3 AI cities after 3 AI's declared war on me, but was overwhelmed later.) The game lasted like 4 years before I retired.

You were talking about getting research treaties early and I even met a computer player like 4 turns into the game. One wormholed to my planet. I tried giving this guy all my techs and money and the trade was still in the red for the research treaty. I tried a little later but same problem. I couldn't believe it was this hard when you made it sound like it was pretty easy early. Do you by any chance know why?

I also researched xeno research at beginning along with sensors. the early +economics, social and stuff, techs that are pretty obvious to get. Then I went to all the +plus diplomacy techs to help out with the foreign trade and to get the one or two of the different governments. I then did some of the speed techs for newer ships, and then I just did some of the 1 turn cheap techs (where I could get 2 or 3 in one turn) for trade for money. I'd kind of go off and on for the diplomacy techs and these cheap techs every other turns. I'm guessing this was a mistake. Maybe diplomacy skill doesn't affect the money you get for techs and stuff. Maybe I should have went deeper into the better research building techs early and then researched other stuff, not sure. Any insight into your research style for this strat would be interesting.

Just to be specific about my planets. I would build (on Earth) all research buildings, put tech capital here, except for the starport and 1 farm.
On the other 2 planets I built half research and half trade buildings, besides the 1 starport and 1 farm.

Anyways I know this is long but if you could get around to responding to it since its an example of a bad game. I hope its specific enough. I tried my best since there are so many variables with the game. There are probably a few things I can learn but I know if I could have lasted maybe another year with the research buildings I could have won that game I believe.

That sucks.

Well anyways I just wanted to see how his strat worked on large maps and stuff. See if he did anything differently.

I'm sorry if I made this seem easy. It is easier with practice. I almost lost this game several times, and just barely skated through the early game. This could have easily been a loss.
Money is your biggest problem with this, but you need to think of your empire like a giant cruise ship. You need to know where it is going long before it gets there, and it turns slowly.

Amen.

It is.

Good luck out there.

Hey it is a very nice strategy, I decided to go through another game the same way pretty much, just do things more efficiently. I noticed when I started the game I didn't set my abilities the way I thought I had, and actually had a +50 percent to military instead of research or economy. Anyways I was able to secure research treaties and also I'm pretty much close to the end of the tech tree. Only 5 players left including me (even wiped out one on my own) and I'm at war with 2 comps (korath and yor) and 1 (yor) has dreadnaughts like twice as powerful as anything I can create even though we have same techs maxed out. Going to ask about that since its suicidal in another thread.

Yeah I forgot that the comp got miniature bonuses or forgot how big they were when posting.

I just kind of didn't know how to deal with fighting superior ships at the time, but someone else explained it to me in another thread. I just have to try it out in a game.

I tried to print a screenshot to load to show you what the map and game looked like but couldn't find them in a folder after hitting the print screen button.

Yor are by far the strongest in the game I was playing and I wasn't really making any headway. I took about 5 or 6 total planets from yor and korath, but it was taking too long, and it was getting to the point where yor had a dreadnaught defending each planet along with fighters. I realized in this game how much of a pain in the ass the 3 move points in Yor influence per turn was.

After reading this AAR I decided to give the strategy a try. It's going pretty well, and I thought I'd share some thoughts and observations.

First off, the game details. I'm not up to the upper difficulty levels yet, so this game is being played at Challenging. Medium-sized map, 6 opponents. I'm playing the industry variant of the strategy and didn't want to mess with spies, so I took the Yor (+20 social/military, +100 loyalty). My discretionary points went into economy, morale, and population growth, most map settings were set at random. A year in I can tell that I got abundant stars and planets, and I'm guessing common habitability (there seems to be one habitable planet around most stars). Resources are definitely rare, and anomalies seem to be uncommon. Stars are clustered, but not tightly so.

My starting planet was great... if I were going the research route. 300% and 100% research bonus tiles made me cry to build factories on them, but I stuck with it and rolled into the colony rush. A couple decent asteroid fields helped my 2nd home-system colony and my first out-system colony off to a good start. My home system was positioned in a bit of dead space on the edge of two clusters, making me have to travel a bit to reach anything (luckily the Yor start out with some engine tech). I set the sliders to 1/99/0 (m/s/r), focused my planets on research, and started ploughing through the diplomacy techs. Taxes started at 9% for 100% approval and spending locked in at 100%. So far, so good. The amount of production I was cranking out was astounding, the budget defecit equally so.

The first real problem I ran into was finding someone to trade with. When I finally did find other races, it was the Krynn and the Terrans. Ugh. Still, I was able to sell enough to them to keep me out of the red for several turns, but with ~20% of the map explored and no other races visible I was forced to lower my spending and raise my taxes. At its worst my spending got down to 75% and I was tweaking the tax slider by the turn to keep all my planets at 41% or greater approval. Then in the span of three turns I met the Korath, Korx, Torians, and a minor. I played the middle man in a lot of tech sales and set spending back to 100%; taxes got lowered so that most worlds have 100% approval.

This is the point where things really started rolling along. By this point I was researching Magesty, after covering most of the other diplo/government techs. I largely followed the order suggested by Wyndstar in his "Conquering Suicidal" thread, with occasional 1 or 2 turn diversions to research something to sell to the AI players. On their own they just weren't coming up with new tech fast enough to keep me solvent and I didn't want to sell them a diplo bonus.

First war was the Korath, after I goaded the Terrans into attacking them. It was messy but brief; the only weapons tech I had was the stuff they had traded me so we were on a pretty even keel. My production was absolutely ridiculous though, and sheer number of ships flowing to the front lines bore the enemy down.

So that's where I sit now; the Korath are neatly assimilated, bringing me up to a neat dozen worlds spread across a quarter of the map. The 6th AI turned out to be the Altarian Resistance. I'm eyeballing the terrans or the korx as my next target, even though the krynn are right in my back yard bottled up by me on three sides. The krynn are the only people I have warm relations with right now, and I'm hesitant to give that up, especially when they have to slog through my territory to reach any of the remaining uncolonized worlds. I have yet to see a barren world to make use of that side of my super ability, but the slowdown is lovely.

Based on my game so far I'm guessing this strat would be really dicey on lower difficulty levels where the AI have economic penalties or with any fewer than 6 AI in the game. As it was I had to weather a 10 turn economic crash before I had enough races to trade with, and they don't always have the cash to buy. Moreover, they aren't keeping up with the tech very well, making it hard for me to get and sell new tech from them. I think this strat actually benefits from stronger AI at higher difficulties. Still, its been a very enjoyable game so far, and I certainly have the game in hand at this point.

I tend to like "rare everything" gigantic games. 100% research, Super-lab homeworld + maybe one other, backed up by whatever economic planets & trading are necessary to balance the finances works just fine in that environment.

I never trade away techs; just seems like it defeats the major strategic advantage of the strategic approach. Also, maintaining as huge as possible a tech advantage helps make you an undesirable war target.

drrider

Sorry for dredging up an old topic, but Wyndstar, I was hoping you could elaborate a little more on this flipping thing.

I've tried on several settings, playing as several different races; all with no luck.

I find that small maps are easier to stay ahead of the economic hole and easier to build a few decoys (cargo ships loaded with cheap guns) but more often than not that triggers an assignation event that forces me to go to war earlier than I'm ready. Conversely, on a larger map, I've got a huge tech lead but a gaping financial hole that I can't dig myself out of. And then along comes the inevitable war that I can't afford and am ill-prepared for. I've tried getting bribing the other AI's to fight each other but they seem a little incompetent and then they all turn on me.

You make this sound so easy (the mark of a true master, I suppose ); how do you do this before going broke or ending up dead?

Please, how are you building hundreds or thousands of ships per turn? I can't ever get more than 1 per colony per turn. I'm lucky if i can get a ship out in 2 turns per colony. Please explain.

Brian

Wyndstar,

Sorry, my spacing didn't come out in the posting. It looked so good in the post window.

Brian

I looked at that kill-ratio post-victory screen and... what the?

The Terrans' Most Powerful Ship is a Space Miner. The Korx's is a Freighter. The Torians' is a Colony Ship. And the Korath's most powerful ship is a... Constructor?

Didn't these races militarize? Or did they bolt weapons on to utility ships and call them a military? And the Drengin actually scored a kill with a Freighter! This is really weird AI behavior.

The Rebel Eclipse looks awesome. I'll be using that shape in my future games.

That's a lousy way to calculate how powerful a ship is. I think they should add up attack, defense, and HP and then divide the total by how many logistics points that ship takes up.

The Eclipse design looks sleek and fast, which is what I want my medium hulls to look like. The Eclipse appears to use the same hull as the Altarian Resistance Flagship, but the Altarian Flagship's hull has different colored cockpit glass and lights.

However, I hate the Altarians' cargo hull designs. Apparently, with Kryo's Hull System Mod, I'll be able to use this medium hull with the Terrans, while still being able to use the normal Terran hulls for utility ships.

Also, why is it dangerous to attack armed cargo hulls with fleets?