tetleytea

Join Date 05/2003

+54

Korx Military Starbases

I'm working on an AAR for the Korx, but since it's Thanksgiving and several of you might be playing, I thought I would point this little tip out beforehand.

Check out the Korx Military Starbases. I'm playing ToA 2.00. Here's the deal: you research one tech--Starbase Victory Strategy. It's early game, just after Space Weapons, not expensive. Once you do that, here's what you've got available to you:

Warp Module. -2 to enemy ship speed. Available right away.

Beam Assist. +1 to beam. Available right away (as usual).

Attack assist. +2 attack/all categories. Available right after the Beam Assist.

That means after just 3 constructors (beam assist, attack assist, and one to start the starbase), you get +7 attack to all your ships. A Tiny hull can run as cheap as 50bc at that point--lower, if you can get Scatter Gun. This is in addition to Protective Fields (+1 defense/all categories, which everybody gets), which requires another cheap tech and another constructor.

For a fourth constructor, you can throw in -2/enemy ship speed. Which in all likelihood, will knock him down to 1 speed. Throw up these babies to protect your other starbases, and never get blindsided by a rogue enemy ship again. You can even use your constructors you would otherwise have used to add those sucky starbase defenses.

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Are you sure that the +2 all categories if for ships and not the starbase itself? Either way thats pretty cool. I should get into building them more.

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Heck yeah. It's a +2/all categories attack assist. Oh, and the attack assist is further multiplied by your civ's weapons bonuses. It's a Korx-only bonus.

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yay another korx player

hey, do you have to cull your population when their morale turns to shit?

i mean it makes sense in a way, they're ruthless greedy cutthroat mercenaries, Korx society probably isn't very pretty. but I'm wondering if I should do more to manage their morale, or if i should even bother -- it is one of their weaknesses, I just kinda roll with it, they get their capitalist festivals and that's it, beyond that I load them into dropships and sell them to the weakest empire for rock bottom prices, every dissident must go.

it seems like a waste, and i'm wondering if I'm really missing out on the higher tax bracket.

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How about buying morale tech from another civilization?

Or of course maximizing your trade income so you can lower taxes which in turn improves morale. Though this is risky: when the vote is cast to limit evil races to only 1 trade route that takes a huge bite out of your income so be prepared that this may happen.

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Quoting Noctilucus,

reply 4

How about buying morale tech from another civilization?
Or of course maximizing your trade income so you can lower taxes which in turn improves morale. Though this is risky: when the vote is cast to limit evil races to only 1 trade route that takes a huge bite out of your income so be prepared that this may happen.

To go along with what Noctilucus said - if you are playing as the Korx, it is almost too risky to align Evil. You pretty much have to align Neutral so that you ensure the UP won't mess up your trade income. Also, if you go Neutral, I know you get some good trade bonuses as well. Best Regards.

~ Cypher ~

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thx for the reply

yeah, been calling that the fuckorx law.

I play with techtrade/broker off

its not too bad a problem really, the festival of capitalism is great early-to-mid game but the odd low morale planets really kick the average down. and i'm not too worried about late game, harmony crystals and morale resources are a priority way before then.

might not be a bad idea to use some of them as trade fodder -- if they're important (production/tech) i'll just cull those ones.

the idea is to let my high morale planets bring my taxes up, but the low morale planets completely cancel them out, and since morale doesn't get better over time (gets worse) eventually just letting them cancel eachother out wouldn't be an option.

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Am I the only player who doesn't do much with trade as the Korx? I've just never gotten enough income out of it to justify the effort compared with internal development (or with putting an equivilant level of production into either getting an attack force together or starting a military star base array). I think the Korx work well with any alignment, but are probably best suited to Neutral since it increases their intended largest strengths (neutral trade gives +3 trade routes and +10% trade and the Neutral rush buy bonus stacks with cuthrouat competition for a cumulative 50% rush buy discount) and helps their largest weakness (they don't get morale boosting technology, so the Neutral morale bonus is quite handy). As far as Evil goes, the free starbase upgrades can be very nice, given how starbase-centric Korx play can be. The ASC is also quite valuable for getting a military starbase array up with a smallish empire.

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I didn't do much with trade when I was Korx. I chose Evil instead. My playing style was, I chose Korx just for the Military Starbases and not researching weapons at all. Only defense. Military SB's were my offense to hold me over till I stole some weapons tech.

After playing the Korath and Iconians, I later discovered that the Korx "bonus" in mining SB's is overrated. Drengin, Korath, and Iconians get weird techs for mining and economy SB's, which means they can trade for all the regular ones (i.e. Xeno Factory, Manufacturing Centers, et al.) too. In the end, Drengin/Korath/Iconians match the Korx in mining, and they actually beat everyone else (including the Korx) quite handily on Economy SB's.

Not having to research weapons (and that AWESOME -2 speed bonus) is still a really cool attribute of Korx, though.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

The Thalans get a -2 speed module as well. I thought it was general.

I still haven't played many races; I fell in love with the Thalan tech tree with a custom race. How high can the Korx get on a mining base? If I trade for factory tech, the Thalans can hit 60%. Influence gets out of hand when you have 6 mines at 60%, but the Thalans are missing basically all of the cultural techs, which limits influence bases to 132%, instead of the usual 337%. I still haven't gotten a civ to research the tech so I can steal them.

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playing a vslowtech/notrading/nobroker game with SB focus, it was pretty solid early but later on its too much of an investment, starts feeling like a novelty.

the early SBs have been a solid investment 4 years into the game though (slowtech), but I haven't been able to carry it on exclusively by itself. they've pretty much allowed me to be at war nonstop fighting 2 civs that outclass me in every way.

I'm cutting into the Torian empire and can beat them fleetVfleet, the Arceans have frigates with solid defense tech, I can't beat their fleets yet, so i'm pretty much turtled behind my SBs on that front. Its slowtech, so I don't have to worry about them teching up too quickly. the SBs mixed with my 1beam tinyship fleets that i can't use anywhere else have been mowing them down at the border.

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The Thalans get a -2 speed module as well. I thought it was general.

I still haven't played many races; I fell in love with the Thalan tech tree with a custom race. How high can the Korx get on a mining base? If I trade for factory tech, the Thalans can hit 60%.

I'll have to look into Thalans, but with Korx you get the -2 speed almost right from the start. You have to research a 300rp tech with no prerequisites to get it (and it gives you +2 attack/all categories anyway).

Korx get 44% mining by themselves, no trading. 60% sounds about right for the other races' theoretical limit (notwithstanding really weird trades, like Drengin trading for Iconians' replicators). Realistically, the Drengin/Korath/Iconians are about on par with the Korx, though. In a real game, the game may already be decided by the time you are able to trade for Industrial Sector, for example. It's the economy SB's where the Korx start to really lag behind the players with the weird factory techs--I'm getting north of 40% production per econ SB now. That's some mighty powerful stuff.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

I don't know about that, I can usually get IS by the first part of year 1. The standard techs (up through IS) get the base to 39%. I'm fairly sure the Thalans get the first 14% that everyone gets, and then 21% from their 3 manufacturing techs. That's 35% on their own, the other 25% is traded. I've never seen anyone else's manufacturing techs available for trade; certainly the Thalan techs cannot be traded.

The -2 module occurs pretty early with the Thalans, as well. I just don't know exactly when. That +2 for all categories is a definite plus, though. I can't say how well the Thalans do with econ bases; I gave up on them in DA and never got back in. I'll have to check tonight.

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I should have said 49% for the Korx, not 44%. They get +10% over and above the standard techs (I usually blow off Industrial Sector). So basically, when it comes to mining starbases, the Terrans/Altarians/Torians are bottom-of-the-barrel. The Korx are one step up, and the Drengin/Korath/Iconians/Thalans are at the top. And then fill in the Yor, Arcaens, etc., however.... You'd think the Korx are supposed to be at the top, but they're not. Not unless tech trading is turned off.

I could have sworn I was able to trade away Industrial Replicators as the Iconians earlier, but I didn't want to. You most certainly can and should trade the Drengin techs. I think the tradeability of the Thalan factory techs is unique to them, since they have that weird factory thing going on.

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