Eratosthenes

I was running 100% spending, and 40% on research pretty much the entire game. In raw points, I had the Drengin positively outmatched. According to the graphs, and spy reports, the Drengin were somewhere around 7th or 8th in total Research generated. Yet they managed to be ahead of everyone in technology. By a lot. I was running Discovery Spheres (and many captured NRC's), where they had Invention Matrixes. I had prolly three times as many planets. Yet I was still being outresearched. If

In a game I just finished playing, the Drengin were leaps and bounds ahead of everyone technologically. But I'm not sure how. Game (1.4) was a huge galazy, abundant everything. I ended up with over 50% of the galaxy due to people surrendering to me. The Drengin were fairly small, maybe 30 systems? They were constantly at war with someone. They managed to have me beat, technologically, despite my spy reports telling me that they had only a 28% boost to research (I had something

Late in the game, the UFP had a proposal to set the minimum speed for Constructors higher than whatever the base is. My constructors I had designed had a speed of around 33, so I wasn't too worried about it. I forget which option passed, but the minimum speed was indeed raised. Well, the law passes, and what do I find? My constructors can move 33 spaces on their first turn. Then they are limited to 6 moves a turn. Their speed, when first built, is set to 33/6. Th

I've never had it pass - every Empire voted against it the times it's come up in the UP. I find the UP meets way too infrequently, myself.

In every game I've played, one race (I think always an evil race) has gotten the event that they're sacrificing citizens to an artifact that will one day make them super-powerful. But in every case, that race ends up just sort of fading away. What exactly does this event do? It makes it sound like you should go out of your way and wipe them out sooner than later, but in each game, left to their own devices, they've never been a po

Upgrading ships are sitting ducks, too. And if you try doing it while in enemy territory, it can take multiple weeks. Regarding debt from upgrading, at first I thought it was a bug. I'd upgrade some ships and go into debt - like -3k. Next turn I'd be back up to 9k, with F4 saying I was making +3k a turn. I thought, hrm, that is odd. So I tried upgrading all my ships at once - putting me into 80k in the hole. That's when I realized

Bug. Been noticed before. You'll sometimes see copies of other 'single' buildings, too. And sometimes those starports are built on unuseable squares (yellow or orange squares).

The OP's strategy works for them, but there are other strategies. I prefer to get a factory on a planet first, then build the research. That way subsequent research structures build more quickly. It depends on how many you're looking to build, the PQ of the planet, etc. I tend to build at least 2 factories per planet. Pure research planets (i.e. no Starport) end up converting one of the initial two factories to a lab when all the building is done.

I've found that if I reach advanced, then stop spending...after several turns I go back down to nothing, and have to start over...?

He was talking about between races. A human's fully developed econ starbase looks the same as a fully developed econ starbase from the Yor. More levels of development would be nice, too - when you have several in a sector, it can be hard to remember which one needs more improvements.

Population is a big decider on influence. Build farms as well on influence producing planets. I've found that if you just grab the biggest planet (best PQ rating) in a sector, you can let the AI colonize the rest, as you'll flip the others eventually. Were most of your Drengin planets 5B people?

I've actually had a very different experience. My laptop runs very hot while playing other games (DDO, Fear, etc.), but pretty cool with this one, even running max resolution and graphics.

I had a similar thing - I was in a dominant position, and declared war on the Drath Legion. Their allies declared war as well. I immediately sued for peace with his allies, and they gave me a ton of BC for the priviledge. Made declaring war rather profitable, and allowed me to pick off the one Empire as opposed to three.

I had Mars gain the prison in my first game, at the first UP meeting. The very next month the prisoners broke out - 2 fighters and a hvy fighter, all very powerful for how early they spawned. Never saw them again. I've seen two pirate ships in one other game - they killed my scout, to which I sent a fleet to deal with them. I was confused, because I thought it was another race, but couldn't figure out who I was at war with!

I prefer a lower tax rate, with a higher population. You have more people to defend against invasions, and to fill up your own transports. 5k planets are easy to take with one transport, I find. Influence is partly a function of population as well. So get money and influence. Also, if you really need cash fast, you can crank up your tax rate for a short term boost. If you had gone high tax low pop, you can't do that. So

Since influence is based in large part on population, make sure your planets have a high pop. Sometimes a farm can do more good than an Embassy. Influence starbases add their influence to any planets in their radius, for purposes of borders, and inducing/preventing rebellions. You can see the ratio of an opponents influence on your planets (it's the number in ()'s next to the planets IP), and on their planets if you have enough espionage on

I tend to play gigantic maps. I like the larger universes. I try to find a large world to be my main manufacturing planet - PQ 18+. Lots of factories, and of course the manufacturing capital. Combined with 3 or more Econ starbases, it can still crank out Large or Huge ships in 1-3 turns apiece. I usually stick the Hyperion Shipyard here to, since i

Cheat, bug, whatever. I'm not worried with the semantics, just pointing out an error. Xeno Ethics was not in play when I noticed this (good theory though). There are also other weird things - captured two planets that had 2 capitals on them - one had 2 manufacturing capitals (and was a very large world, so quickly became a manufacturing powerhouse), and the other had 2 economic capitals... So the AI has some weird buil

I've noticed, thru conquering or flipping planets, that the AI will build Starports on yellow, orange, or red squares, then upgrade them to other things (like factories, banks, etc.). Bit of a cheat, no? The AI didn't have the requisite terraforming tech, nor was the square terraformed. Anyone else notice this?