You need 'high' knowledge of a race to be able to know ship destinations; it takes four spies some time, maybe a couple months, to get that, but once you have it you can repurpose the agents.
If you go evil, the good civs tend to declare war in short order; likewise (but I think less so) the other way 'round. So there can be strategic shortcomings to picking one or the other. And I'd never really thought of the develop-all-evil then pay-the-piper option; that's nasty . I'm so using it in my current game.
More diplo definitely helps. 'Good deals' are rather relative. I rarely get a deal that's even vaguely fair until I've got a giant diplomatic advantage; what makes it work is that you can turn around with the tech you just payed a swingeing price for and flog it to the rest of the galaxy. Human players are typically much more aggressive traders than the AI, and you can get back several times your investment by aggressively reselli
The usually-quoted disadvantage of the Drath is their slow population growth-rate. I haven't played them in awhile, maybe i'll get back to them, but I don't remember being able to run the whole empire off of war-profiteering.
And?!!!!!?????
Gotta put those Merchant Trade Complexes at the top of the queue.
If I were to do this, I'd use small or tiny hulls for the support ships; optimized, you can get more bang per logistics point. The other, nastier option, is to put your support modules on a combat hull with one of the smallest available weapon and a pile of defenses. Then the silly AI concentrates on that well-defended hull while the rest of your fleets turns the AI fleet to expensive wreckage. Kind of exploit-y; but nastily effective.
To make sure the AI ships can attack the intended starbase, you sometimes have to build an econ starbase and gift it to them at the same time as you gift the ships; the times I've had the AI not attack the starbase were when it was distant from their territory and therefore probably the ships were out of range. I use econ starbases because any starbase will do and I'm trying not to tick off the target race.
At this level, defenses are pretty fast to research, and the AI is stupid about this. Develop antimissile defenses, equip your medium hulls with enough defense to stop the Dreng attacks, and just enough offense to beat 'em down while your defenses hold 'em off; properly designed mediums ought to be able to pound the cookies out of badly designed smalls. Also, miniaturization is your friend. More stuff=tougher ships.
looking forward to it.
And I do appreciate the offhand Dorothy Parker reference.
This, oddly enough, happened to my in my first sandbox game as well; and I haven't seen it since. Which is a shame, 'cause it'd be FUN now.
Upgrading the design from the Shipyard will automatically change what the planets are building, but won't auto-upgrade ships already built. You need to do that yourself; though you can have a whole class upgrade by checking the 'upgrade all ships of this class' box on the upgrade screen. Do that in stages for ships you've built large numbers of though -- it can get really spendy.
The game-designed ships get to cheat in space-usage, it seems by about 20%; probably to compensate for the human players' strategic design skills. I often use the focus button in the shipyard as I build early small ships; if you focus appropriately for your research and needs, you can get better simple warships than you can design yourself. Once things become more complex; if you need drives, or use modules, then you need to design 'em yourself.
Highly enjoyable.
Wonderful! In my current game,as the Drath, I've got the galaxy under my cold, reptilian claw. Put down the Torian and Thalan empires in one turn each. Got my battlefleets in position outside all the remaining Korx and Altarian planets, ready to declare and invade; one turn from victory. And, the Jagged Knife just turned 62 of my planets; including the entire far, safe corner where all my Galactic Achievements and Trade Goods are. Bugger. </
When you bring down a civ, do its agents go away?
Superb work.
On a related topic, do you get to steal tech if you spore a planet?
I've always found on-type defenses to be more economical in the long run than more hit points. Never gotten to have to face real end-game weapons, but in the frigate-phase of the game, defense rules. Frigates vs battlecruisers; what's your strategic problem? Are you having trouble penetrating heavy enemy defenses to get to critical battlezones due to attrition of the attack force? Then battlecruisers. Are you having trouble getting enough ships i
Heh. Love it!
Two more things i do to keep my economy from imploding as I colonize like mad: Get two levels of miniaturization and one of sensors, build (or better, convert from bought enemy scouts -- I like my opponents blind and stupid) tiny survey vessels, and put 'em on autosurvey. If you work up to about a dozen you just own the anomalies, and those 250 and 100 bc boosts seem to come just when needed. Don't build factories first; start every colony building
That's a drag -- this was a great AAR. I can understand your frustration, though. More, shorter posts?
-Consider another race. Arceans speed disadvantage hurts a lot in a huge galaxy. -You should be expanding as relentlessly as you possibly can. Every planet chips into your research and production efforts. High PQ planets are best, but you should pick up the sixes and sevens too. Five or ten planets isn't much on these settings; I haven't played enough games at all sizes and frequencies to be sure what you want but you should be colonizing li
You can actually use Focus to get a teensy bit of social/military production on a 0% world, for whatever good it goes.
