TIPS: The Very Early Game

from Stardock Forums
Some tips a few of the frustrated players on the board might find useful since playing the first several turns well is *crucial* to success. These are simply my home-grown ideas. I bet there are even better ones out there from better players, so please share!:

** Rush buy --at the longest lease plan-- colony ships for however many good planets (rating of 15 or higher if at all possible) are nearby. Use the survey ship to scout if needed. If this means 4 rush buys, do it! 4 15+ planets that early will give you a huge advantage later.

** IMPORTANT: During these first crucial turns, set both military and social to ZERO! Why? Well, if you are rush-buying ships, that money on military is wasted! And what techs do you have available to you the first several turns? Soil Enhancement and Entertainment -- well, your planets are already more than good enough, and so will be your morale for a while!

It's also important to realize that buying social stuff you don't need yet comes with an insidious dark side: Maintenance! That's right. That fancy entertainment system you didn't need just then anyway is costing you precious upkeep that needs to go some other direction.

Therefore, 100% tech for the first few turns. After all:

1) It's better tech that will open more pressing social spending options to begin with.

2) It's better tech that will allow you the ability to speak with alien civs and start to trade more tech, which will begin the foundation for being able to pay for your leases.

3) It's better tech that will open up the ability to trade, which will further dig you out of your early money problems. Yes, it's O.K. to go in the negative numbers (up to 500b.c.) in these early turns! Don't worry. You'll recover.

Of course, you'll need a scout in order to get contact with the other civs. This is *hugely* important. So, after your colony ships, you can rush-buy a scout (or up the military spending and make one in 2 turns), switching all other planets to constructor ships.

At this point, you want to put about even money to tech and military because you want a constructor ship claiming resources ASAP. Trust me, the AI is already on its way. If there are no resources nearby, build the starbase near you and focus on econ.

After all, what other ships will you build at this point? If your survey ship is doing it's work properly, you'll likely get a free ship or two, and these should be pulled back to your planets for early defense. Oh, it's not that the AI will attack this early, but a free ship or two raises your military rating high enough that for several turns nobody will want to pick a fight with you.

This is also the place to reiterate the maintenance issue brought up earlier: Buying too many ships before you need it not only hurts your starbase production but incurs deadly upkeep costs.

Thus, keep the constructors coming for as long as possible, building up econ bonuses first, then switch to offensive ships just enough to look scary to other civs. Attack when you feel like, if ever.

When do you start some social spending?

When something is now useful enough for you to buy it! Once morale starts to drop, for example, consider entertainment stuff. Etc. In other words, develop an aggressive JIT (Just In Time) strategy to your spending, putting that first 2000b.c., the ability to go into debt 500b.c., and the ability to setup leases to maximum leverage.

Every turn is crucial in the early game. Use them wisely!!!
983 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I dont rush buy colony ships, i set my Military to 80% and reasarch to 20, and put the spending up to 100%, i can pump out colony ships from all my planets in a few turns.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Interesting. I guess I've just lost too many excellent planets by only a turn or two to the AI otherwise.

Of course, I tend to play small maps! I should have mentioned that. I suppose on larger maps a few extra turns is O.K. since nobody can reach you that fast.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Ahh most of my recent games are on large maps recently, normally i get about 15-20 planets, not really viable to lease them all ;) putting military to 80% works well enough, they are produced every 2 or 3 turns, this also means im geared up to immediately pop out constructors when i see resources on the map.

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
LOL! Yes, my strat is definitely for the small map folks. Maybe you want to write on for larger maps? Please write one up here, if you like so it will be that much easier for me to steal it! ;p
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Maybe when i can win more than 33% of my games on Normal level i will, until then i'll leave it to people having more luck than me!

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I've only played on large or larger maps so far, having restarted several games to get a feel for it. I've not lease bought any ships.. I found the cost later was hurting me. I rather buy my first colony ship outright, colonize 2 systems, and (hopefully) by the time those planets start cranking out colony ships, I'll have uncovered more systems. By the time I had around 15 systems, my opponents had around as many or a bit less than me, so it seems to work.. at least on a larger map. I can see leasing on a smaller map tho.

fleabitfox
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
i leave military at 70-80, research at 20-30, spending at 100% until i have all reachable planets colonized, resources "claimed" and freighters on their way. researchwise, i make a beeline for "impulse drives" and then controlled gravity (for gravity accelerators - CRUCIAL) since this helps a lot with the whole "claiming resources" process.

this is on medium or large maps. intelligent AI.

cheers

h
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't like leasing in the early game... it doesn't seem like you are making enough money.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the minimum lease payment is 5/month? So how many leases can you support before you are in a hole you can't claw out of?

4 is more than you are generally making in the begining of the game (15-17 right?) plus your treasury will be depleted by the bulk payments.

Seems pretty dangerous... especially if your not building social improvements to increase your economy.

Though, you didn't state what you raise your taxes to... maybe that's whay it works for you and not for me... I keep mine at the default level... which may be silly given your high morale at the starting gun.

I would however rush buy Economic Capitol as soon as it is visible. Even if it gives me "Out of Resources"...

I'm currently trying to decide which Wonders/Trade Goods are worth rush buying... maybe all? But most definately all the ones that increase your economy... that seems like a no-brainer...

But hopefully somebody will correct me if I'm wrong...
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I've played 6 games now, 4 on small maps and the last 2 on medium (next up from small). Yes, the medium ones have been risky...I bottomed out at -500 b.c. for a few turns.

But as soon as you start the tech and frieghter trades, you skyrocket.

The point here is that you've already laid the sound underlying work for a much stronger mid and end game. Starting slow and cautious is a recipe for disaster in my opinion! ;)
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Rush buying planet quality improvements (on newly colonized 13's and 14's) is also extremely important, especially if the I-League exists in the game.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I have only played 2 games yet on small maps. I also bottomed out at -500 b.c. in my first game (a nasty hole to climb out of). I like to improve the tax rate with the banks (which take no matinence). I also like to get a scout to find alien's to trade techs for money.
I have yet to play 101a. (SC wants to download the whole 85MB for some reason?) Any way I agree that at least on a small map you need to crank out the colonyships to have any chance.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
(I play on large maps, tight clusters, common by the way)

In my case I go with 100% military spending for colony ships and constructors to claim as much land as I can. Then it's 100% research (unless the tech is easy to research), universal translators (for tech trades and banking centers), followed by basic environment control (for habitat improvement), followed by the techs that lead up to the Galactic Stock Exchange wonder (which also includes Economic Exchange Centers). Once that happens, I go 100% social production and build my GSE while terraforming my other planets, and improving their econ.

No leases to cripple my econ in the long run, and my empire becomes a decent economic super-power :) With races like the Drengin and Yor as neighbors, I'll typically establish trade routes with them to make them dependent on trade with me. Makes them less likely to eat my skin LOL

I personally don't think rush buying Trade Goods is worth it because they're fairly easy to purchase from minor races anyway at about 1000 credits over 0 months.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
I use the same strategy you do Horatio. Then once I get all the nearby planets I swing military down to 20 and boost social and research up to 40 each. Trading tech for cash allows me to keep the spending maxed which really starts to crank out the social programs. Once I get Trade I usually will bump the military up to 30-35 and begin pushing out frieghters and constructors.

I've also seen alot of advice about colonizing only 15+ planets. Thats a HUGE mistake I think. In the early game it is more important to get influence in a key sector and until you upgrade your government, morale is meaningless anyway. Go ahead and grab the 13 or 14 if its in a spot that will increase your range and let you go after better stuff.

Also in the middle game, 13s and 14s are pure gold. The AI will generally not take them. Your main planets are starting to experience overcrowding...load up a transport with about 5 billion people and send it into enemy space.

Find a 14 planet (or a 13 if necessary) and plunk down a colony. Then purchase: Soil, Habitat, Entertainment, and a Colony Ship in that order...they're about 700bc a pop, so you need to be selling tech for beau coup cash. Use the Colony ship to lift off all but 3-400 of the original colonists and you'll be left with a 16 planet with a morale about 50 needing only 7 turns to complete a Fusion Power Plant.

Rinse and repeat. You can infiltrate alot of enemy space with this technique (I just picked up about 5 planets this way). The planets will all be profitable...if not stellar, but more importantly they serve 5 key purposes.

1)They give you something to do with excess population.
2)They increase your range so you can explore, survey, or attack farther afield.
3)They give you influence generators in the middle of enemy territory that can result in culturally annexing some enemy planets.
4)They are targets. If the AI goes to war with you, they almost certainly will stop and invade these small piddling colonies first. This gives you plenty of time to prepare to defend your core planets.
5)They're a great trade item. You'd be surprised how much stuff a race is willing to give if you hand over a pop 500 PQ16 planet.