Another factor about the 100% approval / tax base is that later on you will be researching Interstellar Republic & Star Democracy. Grow your tax base early, before you research those techs. Then you get the 25% bonuses on your grown population. Lowering your taxes early will only cost you ~20bc/turn, but later on it will cost more than that just to lower tax by one point.
It's kinda a bummer, in a way. It's like the long-awaited official release is finally here, on February 14th, and your girlfriend is pissed because you want to spend Valentine's Day playing on the computer. At least I don't observe Valentine's Day the way the Thalans do. They eat each other.
I didn't see a hint of anything like this but I really like the idea. "I'll trade you these sweet techs and this fat pile of BC if you just break your alliance with those stinking, flathead Torians." I would chalk that up as yet another benefit of being good. A good guy would never do that. An evil guy would. So would Korx.
I hear ya about the good diplomacy allowing you to get weaker civs to declare war on stronger civs. What I did in DL was I got the stronger civ (almost always the Drengin) to declare war on the weaker. That was much cheaper. The hard part was getting the second and third civ to team up on them. It cost much more to bribe the Drengin to open a second front. Frequently I wound up just attacking him myself; but that carried the pitfall in that the other civ would make peace before too long,
1) Not sure if this is a bug or desired behavior: I had a toxic planet influence-flip to me and I didn't have toxic researched. I got the planet, it produced 0 production and the population grew & made money as always. 2) NASTY bug: When I research a Factory tech, all my Factories auto-grade, as usual. But--several planets auto-upgrade a factory THAT TURN, and I wind up paying for it. That puts a nasty shock on the treasury. In other words, you will see "Xeno Factory Cons
I tried Economic Starbases in the DA Beta over the last two days, and they're actually pretty nice, because of the new Power Plants. What's more, they combine well with Super Hive. The AI is not very good, though, in the beta, so it's still hard to tell how they'll do when you've truly got aliens breathing down your neck. I was reasonably able to get Econ Starbases to encompass 5 planets, doing comfortably over 100 ip apiece (that's a conservative estimate), and I could reasonably ge
What are the key indicators your playing above your skill level anyway? If you can't win without frequent save and reloads.
At least in DA, my testing of the Secret Police Center suggests that it doesn't work. It's not boosting the base morale.
If you can build 12 upgraded starbases in peace, I would say you're playing way BELOW your skill level.
Looks like both your upgrade strategy and my decommissioning strategy wouldn't work anymore. I may not care much, though. If they don't nerf Spore ship I may be switching races on February 15th. I would say February 14th, but...on that day, I think I'll be, uh...a Super Breeder. In real life. Muahahahahahahahhaa.
> Since military spending on a no-ship-production planet is 100% returned to the treasury, planets in mode 7 only cost maintenace (which is usually quite low due to level 1 factories). That's the difference. You're using Basic Factories. Factories cost 1 maintenance for 6 ip, which is 50% more than a Basic's 4 ip; and then you can go all the way up to Industrial Sectors which cost a whopping 5 maintenance. You can build Industrial Sectors, do your business, then Decommission.
12 maxed out starbases?!? That sounds fine and wonderful if you're making your empire all pretty, but are you really winning games with that? So you're playing on high difficulty, aliens are knocking at your door, all hope seems lost, and...you pulled it out in the end by surrounding your capital with 12 maxed out starbases? I have a hard time believing that. In no small part because you can't max out starbases until you get industrial sector. That's end game. Besides that, for 12 maxe
Do you postpone your Econ/Research treaties till after you get the Bazaar? Also, how do you keep the more powerful alien races in check? In DL, I had a problem with the Drengin getting too powerful (obviously not so in DA beta) because I could never get a decent deal in place to get multiple alien races to agree to attack the Drengin. How do you manipulate aliens to team up on the most powerful guy?
What are you doing that's making you so much money? Are you not getting enough industrial capacity up & running, or have you discovered a magic trick like with the trade ships & starbases in GC1?
Credit (i.e. Mitrosoft) is nice in the end game, when the game is about to end anyway. For example, to finish a conquest victory, you can Mitrosoft a few transports on the front lines, and grab those last few planets. Or Mitrosoft a Neutrality Learning Center on your tech capital, to speed up your tech victory (especially if you're in a tech race). Can't honestly say I've ever used Mitrosoft to help change the game outcome though, except in the Dread Lords campaign.
I can check into the Suicidal vs. Obscene thing. Maybe it's my bad. I'm doing the same thing as you with the Basic Factories & zero maintenance. We probably should start a dedicated Super Hive strategy thread. I did try the Super Hive + PQ combo, and I don't think it's a good one. The first reason I don't like it is because I think 8 ability points for +20% PQ is far too expensive for DA. All those class 1-5 planets are actually special in their own way now, since they have
I really like Robert's idea of spying on the Entertainment Centers.
I would be inclined to agree about just not allowing spies on farms, except that I've lost billions in population from stupid mistakes involving loaded transports as well. e.g. My AdvTroopx3 transport docks on a planet already maxed out in population and I forget to fix it before hitting the Turn button, and 3 billion instantly die. I think the real answer is to give you more of a chance to fix overpopulated planets before killing them off. Like put the Skull & Crossbones symbol on
I almost always put the Political Capital on my homeworld, partly for that very reason.
I agree, being able to see everybody's planet tiles for free is an exploit, but I don't know what else Stardock could do? It seems to me you should permanently commit an agent to a planet before you get to see it.
I almost never trade away Logistics. That's a war tech.
Are you playing with abundant anomalies? That's what keeps my economy afloat in the early game. I even try to pump a couple extra survey ships out as early as I can, to get the anomalies before the other players do. Also, as Mystikmind said: you don't always have to develop your new colonies right away.
Yeah, the fleet combat with the randomly-floating-around ships is kinda lame, but is it really worth that much work to improve on? What I think would be kinda cool is if there was a special music track that played during fleet combat.
I think the farm thing is an exploit. I don't think counter espionage centers are the answer because, as you said, it takes up valuable real estate, and all you're doing is forcing the other guy to place spies on your other planets. The nice thing about pre-emptive spying is that it costs the same amount either way: either you pay to pre-emptive spy, or you pay to nullify his spies. You might as well put the battleground on his turf.
Oooh I *love* your idea for starbase modules that let you dock your ships for repair. Call them stardocks. That could be Stardock's (the company's) trademark. (I don't know about Starbases BUILDING ships, though--that'd be a bit hard to code & it's not consistent with the game)
