CityMan

[quote]You simply have to trade wisely, it doesn't matter that you give 5 techs for that one tech, because when you get it, you sell it to everyone else, for money and techs.[/quote] Hmm...I suppose if I think about it that way, then the lopsided trades don't seem so bad. Of course, if I'm behind in tech as I usually would be at masochistic, most of the AI probably have the tech already. I'm pretty sure I cover all the basics fairly well. I take advantage of minor and weaker

Wyndstar, Thanks for your advice here and in other threads. I even spent a good amount of time reading through your past posts and there is too much great information for me to absorb. :) As I mentioned, I did try a game using your 'all' and flip methods. I did everything you mentioned (i.e. sell tech for money/items, bribe enemies to go to war, extort, etc.) While I obviously need a lot more practice at it before I'm any good, honestly, it's not how I want to play a 4X gam

The colony rush is just about done and it's still very early in the game. I do have the weakest military, but only by a few rating points. I tried trading with all the AI, including the most powerful. I actually got the worst deals from the weakest AI who has a military similar to mine. Based on the message in the trading window, the weakest AI has the highest diplomatic skill, although it's still worse than mine. So I'm not sure how much bullying is going on. I'd really pr

I recently started playing masochistic and the trading system is annoying me to no end. What annoys me is the fact that trading is completely and utterly lopsided. The AI will buy tech for 100bc, but sell me the equivalent for thousands or not at all. Even when the trade window tells me I have a vastly superior diplomatic skill, I can't get crap for tech. In my current game, one AI will sell me Xeno Biology for 4200bc. I can research the stupid thing in 1 turn, so

[quote]Re spying on farms, it reduces pop to the planet's max capacity without that farm on the next turn. If the planet was below max, it might have no effect. I hate the exploit, personally, and never use it. I imagine the spy is nullified as soon as a unit is availble to do the job.[/quote] I just loaded up an old save and tried it out. Yes, the very next turn, the population drops to the new maximum cap. It's the same as if you decommissioned a farm on one of your own plan

The problem with the crazy increasing costs for spies is that the AI has a significant economic advantage at higher levels. Even in games where I'm feeling very comfortable with my money flow, the AI still seems to be able to afford to place more than I can nullify. I'm sure that the better players can finagle their economy to have more agents at their disposal, but for me, spies are practically useless. If I'm so far ahead economically that I have a bunch of free agents to spend as I

The developers of the Civilization series made a similar change in significantly increasing maintenance costs to reduce the mad rush at the start of every game. While I do dislike having to constantly manage the money flow so tightly, it did make a positive change in the Civilization series and I think it should be the same with this game. Instead of mindlessly colony rushing and expanding until all the free space is gone, it becomes a matter of quality over quantity. You can only gra

Thanks for telling me about the 'all' and flip strategies. I'm using it right now. :) Just started a new game (Thalan, obscene and large/common, very slow research) and I had a bad starting location squeezed between two aggressive races. I did a decent colony rush, but my military and tech were lagging far behind the AI. A bunch of the AI started blackmailing me for money. I was so weak that I was forced to pay off some, but they kept asking for more and more. I soon real

Alfonse describes well the reasons for why I don't player smaller maps. Some people say the game is won or lost in the first year. On smaller maps, it can feel like you lost before you even start playing. Of course, that's a challenge itself in trying to survive as long as possible or win a seemingly impossible match. I like empire building and the feeling of a clash of huge powers. The smaller the map, the more it feels tactical rather than strategic. My personal preferenc

I love these types of games, but I rarely ever finish them. The buildup, tactical/strategic planning and eventual conflict is far more fun than the inevitable cleanup phase of the game. The only victories I have for this game is when I was curious to see the movies for the various victory conditions. There comes a point in every game when it's obvious that I won. That can happen fairly quickly in many games. At that point, it's more a test of my patience or curiosi

Thanks. I'll take a look at the AAR. The strategy is so different from how I've played this game for so long that it just seemed foreign. I think it's great that such a different strategy from the 'norm' works well. It's a sign of a good game that there are many ways to play. [quote]IF you really want to go for colony ships, the best strategy I ever saw was perfected almost a year ago. By taking +speed bonuses with your ability points, and then building tiny hull colony ships with

Thanks for trying to explain, but honestly, I'm still lost. I think the problem is that the answer must be so obvious to you, that perhaps you aren't explaining it at a basic enough level for me to understand. [quote]When the enemy was no longer a viable threat, I traded peace for more goodies and switched to a mostly economy stance.[/quote] That's the last sentence I understood. After gobbling up a bunch of planets, you took a breather from war to integrate the new planets a

[quote]My first colony ship gets upgraded to a constructor because constructors are expensive in the early game and I value the resource mines highly. Especially the economy, morale and military resources in that order. By foregoing a colony rush, I can have two or three resources when I would otherwise only have had one.[/quote] Of course resources are valuable, but I don't see why doing a colony rush means giving up the resources. In my current masochistic game, I owned 13

A few more thoughts, mostly specific to Thalan. Their cheap factories are a big advantage for the colony rush. That means it's fast to build and very cheap to buy. That gets the home planet and subsequent colonies up and running much faster. For money colonies, Thalan can first buy/build multiple factories. That makes the money buildings go up faster. Then convert the excess factories into more money buildings. The basic factory is 3 times cheaper than for other

I'm playing my first masochistic game and I'm nicely surprised that my rush is working quite well. I'll list a number of key points to my strategy (many are mentioned in this thread already). I'm playing Thalan on a huge map with abundant habitable and common planets/stars. Home planet has one 100% production square. - 100% approval rate for as long as possible. Constantly evaluate your progress and cash flow and adjust your planets as necessary. This is key. Double popula

Oh great! Thanks for the advice that I can zoom into some empty area to speed up the auto-movement time. I always play fully zoomed out in tactical view. With my 1920x1080 resolution, that means a huge portion of the galaxy is onscreen for me at all times. If I zoom way in or use the quickmap to move most of the ships out of view, I think it goes much faster.

1. Oh well. I hope this is something that is fixed in a future patch. It would be great if we had options to change movement speeds for various ship types. 2. Multiple contructor modules on one ship would make the constructor spam less annoying (see #1). That's the primary reason. Production planets can spit out a good speed constructor every turn. In my current game (huge, I think), I have 35 constructors on screen. If a single ship could upgrade multiple times, that would cut do

I've gone through the manual, wiki's and forums as well as possible, but couldn't find answers to these questions that would make my gaming experience a lot smoother. 1. Is there a way to speed up the auto-moving ships? During long empire building sessions/periods, it's not fun watching dozens of constructors/ships slowly moving around every turn. For example, if all the constructors moved at the same time, that would be great. 2. Is there a mod or option to add more th

GGtheMad, I agree with your assessment of the generalized vs specialized breakdown. Being specialized doesn't mean 100% specialization. That's so extreme that it's no longer optimal. For planets with bonuses, the bonuses usually dictate how it's going to be specialized. It's uncommon for a planet to have so many bonuses that it's unclear what I should do. I do stick a farm on many planets, but it's a judgment call. Especially for planets deep in my territory, protec

From the sound of a lot of the posts here, people don't specialize their planets? You stick stock markets, morale and research buildings on every planet? I specialize every single planet. Every planet is either production, money/population/happiness or research. Of course, the capitals are specialized as much as possible. Am I playing incorrectly? From what I can tell, population only impacts taxes. Higher population means a lower morale, which leads to a lower population

I usually spend most of the game zoomed out in tactical view mode. Unfortunately, this means that it's difficult to immediately figure out what ship/fleet is currently selected. The selection circle is barely visible, especially for some of the bigger ships. When zoomed in, if you click the find button, the next ship with moves is autocentered. When zoomed out, if the ship is already visible, it doesn't autocenter. When there are dozens of ships, I have to zoom w