Richrf

Nothing just that I feel silly playing on the 2d map, and makes all the eye candy pointless.

By higher levels you mean above tough?

Yes, if there is any plantery improvement line that i would consider 'rushing up', it would be to stock market, but even then, it depends on whether your economy is strong enough to exploit it.

I wasn't surprised at the results of the poll. Remember the early debates about the lack of MP? Back then the developers (plus the fanboys) gave a rousing defense on why MP sucked, and they succueeded by and large in converting the neturals (those who disagreed were driven off). The irony is they oversold the idea, such that currently people are dead AGAINST MP heh.

That wasn't even the original problem. The original difficulty is that once you've reasearched an upgraded form of the building, that is the *only* form you can produce! It takes either massive amounts of cash, or several years to get a freshly-colonized (Or conquored) planet up and running once you're in the MC to IS stage. If you r

I've read hundreds of posts here since getting the game a few weeks ago. The number of comments relating to the AI actually winning a game? NONE. You must be blind . While rare they are not unheard of. I admitted I lost the first couple of games on this board a few times. I have also read notes where people admitted they lost at tou

If so, it's logical economically but as a game model it doesn't seem intuitive compared to say, civ . Probably has it's own advantages other ways. Yes like making it easier on the AI....

Yes, because of what AILst has said it is seldom a good idea to research 2 of the same improvement upgrades in quick sucession. Say you have a factory that is already built, and now you finish researching enhanced factories. The governer starts adding the upgrading of factory to enhanced factory into the queue, but before you can finish upgrading you finish researching manufacturing centers! What happens is that the governer will now change the factory so it is upgrading to

Hmm I thought the free upgrades refer only to the "starbase battlestations upgrades" that normally cost 200 bc when you add it. These add +1 attack to all 3 categories. Nice to have but not critical. All other modules don't cost anything normally, beyond the cost of the constructor that is. The Good's ability to forgo inital colony maintance cost for 5 most populated colonies, saves you at best 5*12 = 60 bc per turn. As far as I can tell, the inital colony maintance is always 12 bc re

It should be noted that often just researching the life support tech is enough because it automatically adds to your range, even without strapping on the module.

Now, why I'm doing this all in the first place, that remains a good question. The answer, basically, is that the game is too easy for me right now. I've tried a variety of galaxy configurations and victory types on Suicidal and there isn't a challenge; the AI is too weak, too predictable, too exploitable. So instead, while waiting for the next patch that will hopefully mak

Well except for the first few times i played, now i zoom up all the way until it shows 2d icons instead of the 3d graphics and spend 90% of my time on that level. That's the easiest way i find to manage the empire to see where the anolomies are , which enemy ships are approaching, whether they can hit me first with their speed , which enemy colonies have the pirate flag etc... TOnce I get eyes of the universe, it's almost like playing chess. he other 10% of the time I use the colony

The reason to design and deploy ONE scout is because the first colony ship is slower than molasses in winter. Faster scout (with more sensors)= more areas uncovered= less time WASTED trying to locate good planets. It makes no sense to construct and send out colony ships 'blind', when you can build ONE ship that will do it faster and cheaper IMH

Early game until you're done with your colony rush and infra build you will find better performance setting the sliders to 100% and 0%. . I have a sneaking suspicion you are right about maxing levers to 100% or 0% early game for micromanegment reasons, but I seldom do it, because (1) I'm lazy and (2) I still win easily anyway without doing

I have to agree about the need to rush buy colony and factories to stay competitive at tough and above. Most of you guys are playing at large and above maps, I play a lot on medium sized maps and the crunch is a lot more than what you guys are talking about. Practically speaking with 9 opponents, medium map, even with abundant settings, the best colony rusher can grab only a couple more than the average empire. You have to be somewhat lucky, plus a master at making use of steller car

Speed is more important than most people understand. Being able to choose the time and place of an engagement or whether there will even be an engagement is more important than any shield or missile Have you read this board? 'most people' are fully aware of the power of speed and sensors and how the AI doesn't have a clue about that.

Calculate the following ratios for tiny,small,medium.large, huge hull sizes 1) Hull space/ Cost - Useful for cost efficency 2) Hull space/ logistics - Useful for fleet efficiency - The maximum firepower I can squeeze into a fleet given X logistics 3) Hit point/Cost 4) Hit point/Logistics. 1) Space/cost ratios from tiny to huge are 0.46,0.47,0.48,0.50,0.50. You get slightly more bang for buck when using bigger hulls. However, given that

Always use Beam weapons. Unless they're going fairly far up the shield tree. They're the best bang for the buck (cost and tech). With any hull size. Nonsense.

Chess AI also has the distinct advantage of being studied for decades... When they started the best AI were at best club level players or worse. They are now having similar growing pains with Go.... And btw at tough, i have no problems out colonising the AI....

Another tactic, you decide if its cheesy. 1.1 added this new 'tendency to conquer neighbours' tag, which makes AI suspicious of players who go around conquering other races. if you aren't careful it can lead to everyone ganging up on you. This is simple enough to circumvent, just conquer all of the high PQ planets of the target then leave 3 or so (more if you are on large maps) low PQ planets around. Then offer peace. They will accept because they are losing, you can even

Remember, I'm on the side which says defense is worthless. I maintain that defenses will be more useful after simultaneous, but I still won't use it. Lastly, weapons are larger in size but also noticeably cheaper. To be honest, I seldom use

However, I'm confident it'll be changed in 1.3 when people realise from 1.2 just how bad a random distribution is. I predict much wailing and gnashing of teeth once the reality of removing attacker fires first hits home Gnashing of teeth will come about because the AI becomes harder to beat not because defense becomes less important (if it does

Think of it as a "Skill tester". There are quite few useless techs even if you exclude clearly worse weapons.

In theory I agree, but in practise the line can be very thin. Is it cheesy that I constantly build ships with superior speed to the computer and win by 'first strike' because the computer either can't do it, or doesn't know how to value speed and sensors? Is it cheesy that the AI sometimes accept bad deals? Is it cheesy that the AI doesn't know enough to value invasion techs while I do? Is it chessy that sometimes i win using the neutrla learning cent

The basic idea of a parting shot is to allow ships that have been destroyed to return fire one time before being destroyed. Now, I agree this will reduce the effect of the first strike but it will worsen the balance on off/def. The reason I believe this will happen is based on the MAD-principle. MAD stands for Mutually Assured Destruction. So, what happens