the_spyder

Great. Good to know I am not the only one who sees this problem. Maybe with GS3.

I am curious if anyone else has this issue and if there is a suggested solution. Early on in the game, I grind out half a dozen or more scout ships to explore my local area. Mainly, i send them to the four corners of the map and then let them "Auto Explore". However, invariably, 20 turns or so along, I find clumps of them all searching the same area of space. Is there a way to make the scout ships actually search different areas without micro-managing them?

If I might, I think that what the OP is looking for are techs like Fleet Warp Bubbles. Things that, above and beyond drives, increase the speed of ships. Not every race gets them, but like the Humans do.

As Kryo indicated, you may find the most enjoyment from starting out merely with TA. Least wise, you don't miss much if you do that. Also keep in mind that a lot of people (like me) mostly just play the sand box mode. I personally consider this a perfectly valid way of enjoying the game and has provided me hours and hours of enjoyment. This certainly doesn't detract from the really good campaign stuff that the good folks at Stardock put together, so if

Yeah, I was hoping that you could delete individual races. I have a couple that I don't want gone and one or two that I WOULD. Shame too because I like playing the random selection races and the ones I want to delete ALWAYS end up in the mix.

So it would seem to me that a PQ26 planet screams of specialization. I mean with all of the +24% tiles that are out there, you could crank out some HEFTY something. But as to what, that is entirely based on what race/tech's you have researched, where the planet is, what your econ is like, what your strategy is at that stage of the game, etc... There are far to many variables to say "This is the best Strategy" (one of the things i love about 4X games and Gal Civ2). I

Early on in the game, when the number of ships is small, it provides a good boost for that early rush. You all of the sudden get 5-6 ships out of no-where that are just about as good as you would make normally. Later on, they make good "Decoy" ships in that the enemy will try and destroy them while you do other stuff. Spread them out so that they spend a good long time tracking them down. After they are done "kicking the corpses" you have had weeks and weeks building u

On a tangential question, is the spore ship capability of the Korath supposed to change the normally extreme (other than toxic) atmosphere away and change it to toxic only? This seems counter-intuitive to me. If it is an aquatic world and you "spore" it, it seems to me that it would still be aquatic??

[quote]...snip... Your choice of tactics won't include information warfare because let's face it, you just dropped a whole bunch of rocks on the planet, nobody is going to read your propaganda. ...snip...[/quote] Well, Um. It actually might be a lot more useful if the information was "Join our side or we will do it some more." [quote]Tidal disruption might not work so well because the planetary surface is now so uneven that the rising water might miss some bits.[/quote] <b

So if you are Evil, splitting your invasion force just makes sense. Because you get No Mercy Invasion centers and invasion tactics are FREE. I do like the one suggestion wherein you can "repair" invasion damage. Make it a tech with a construction cost. I can see that being perfectly viable. IMHO.

[quote] Thanks Given the logistics/cost issue with starbases, once your "front line" with other civs has advanced, is it better to decommision some star bases further back (along the old front line), especially influence ones that are no longer needed??[/quote] Absolutely decomission influence star bases that aren't around enemy planets unless they are in danger of being invaded. There is nothing more satisfying than an enemy invading your planet (which sucks) and having i

I find that, generally I am able to create ships far superior to the AI ships. Some things to consider are. 1) Mineaturization - this will allow you to put more weapons on the same size ship. 2) Be aware of what weapons work best. Sometimes you have to fully research down a particular chain to get the "Best". Early on, Psionic Blast (??) is a tech that Evil can research and will give you a BIG boost to your weapons early on. Still Black Hole projectors will allow you to d

[quote]The latter will seem high, but bare in mind no AI ever made on the Planet, let alone likely to be made in the future, can or is ever likely to be able to compete with the human brain. Without those artificial bonuses the game would be a Walk in the Park to any experienced Player, lack any kind of long term challenge, therefore commercially defunct.RegardsZy[/quote] Depends on the "Human Mind". Some of the minds I work with couldn't out think a toaster.

I see a fair number of posts stating that Military star bases are not worth the time/effort/money except as a way to increase your military rating. I find this strange and wonder if the problem isn't between (my) keyboard and (my) chair. Basically, after I am finished with the colony rush, I start setting up a perimiter around the main bulk of my worlds. I usually put the warp field disruptors (-2 warp) module into Military star bases in an overlapping line. T

Certainly what you suggest has merit. I just caution that you don't want to wipe out your econ doing that. If you come across a couple of Anomalies that give +500 or +1000, use them to buy some upgrades or ships quick.

So I am not sure about what the AI might actually do, but I can say that, after playing these races you can get a better sense what each rase is strong at. It is a safe bet that you will see trends in the AI based on this. For instance, if you are playing Korath or Drengins, expect evil alignment. Early attack (i.e. Planetary invasion early) and basic bully tactics. They have very similar tech trees so they do a lot of mainly the same thing. Drath will attempt to manipulate

So, lots of good advise above. Here is what I do. Turn one: I purchase a factory on HW and set to build (1) Lab, (2) Economy building, (3) Moral boost. I then set the Production slider to 100%. I set Military/Social/Research slider to 20/20/60. I set Taxes so that moral is 100%. I create a separate Colony ship that is a freighter hull with TWO colony modules plus life support. I convert the miner into the new colony ship you just created. I set the Star Base on HW to producing c

They are more of a Fun factor than anything else. You definitely have to build at least one, just to blow the snot out of an entire star system. I Nuked the Altarian Refuge Home world with mine. But they are DEAD slow and the other AI's will attack them if they are being built in their space. Oh, and expect, if you use more than one, that the AI will probably surrender.

Yeah, I have done some of my own "research" in game as it were. I have gotten pretty good at including Espionage into my economy. It isn't really very hard provided you start out (round one) with putting money aside. More or less you don't miss what you never see. And you can usually bang out 5 or so spies before you know it. Then, you simply tailor your espionage expense based on what you have available. If you can only afford a small amount of BC every week, you still get spies that grow

[quote]One thing that makes no difference whatsoever is any history between you and an AI. It doesn't matter whether you've just taken 10, 100 or none of their planets in a row. Also we've all seen the issue of quality over quantity. This occurs when your ships are so overpowered with respect to the opponent that you walk through them like butter and they can't scratch your paint. But that doesn't matter. For better or worse the AI determines your relative military ranking as shown in your Stats

Thanks again. This definitely opens my eyes about a couple of things. Gonna try this over the weekend.

Some things about farming. I usually never research further than the initial tech on this. What it does is raise the maximum population amount for the given planet. And, as you are noticing, the higher the population, the more your moral takes a hit. Pretty much, any population above 16 is going to cause your moral (on that planet) to plummet. So, the more efficient your farm, the higher your population can go, and the more your moral will tank. Also, your over-all popularity is ba

You guys are all EVIL. It is so SICK! I [B]love all of these ideas.[/B] :CONGRAT:

Thanks. I was imagining that the "Non-Ship" ones it wouldn't matter, but I see your point about building them on Manu-Cap worlds so they get done quick. I am just curious. First, thanks for the info and feedback. Second, what value is the Resturaunt? It isn't at the end of the universe or anything. I know it gives influence or something...? But other than that, why build it, or care if someone else does? I don't play "Meta" simply because there are far too many better p

Actually, I find the Mega event where all empires are all of the sudden infested with Spies to be at least as negative as the Jagged Knife. Generally I don't have much use for Espionage and so I only keep a very few spies around (just for safety). So when my empire gets swamped with 30+ it takes me a LONG time to recover. And I have seen myself lose position just because of that fact. But then these are mega events, meant to change the course of the galaxy. So what do we e