Strategies

from Stardock Forums
Seen a few comments on the board that suggest certain things
that are not true. Im not saying that using hordes
of starfighters to beat masochistic doesnt work(though I
think someone is abusing a fleet stacking bug?) But it
certaintly isnt the only way to win.

I will state upfront what lame things I do do.

I use ctrl-n alot.
I will on occasion go back to a saved game, though not often.

Tiny abundant map:
+2 speed +20 soldiering populist.

Colonize 2-3 nearby systems while teching straight to
diplo and then impulse while hero searches for +weapons.

I purchase the cships to claim systems so I can tech nonstop.
I do not colonize the 2nd+ planets in a system until later.

Once I have impulse, I switch to 100% military production
and build 2-3 transports and colonize the rest of my planets

I take my transports and hero and take out the nearest
major. If a 2nd major is small or my hero got lucky with
+weapons I can sometimes take a 2nd major. Otherwise
I switch to 30% social 70% tech and build some soil,
habitat(I of course do a lot of tech trading) and
entertainment.

With the 70% tech I research towards frigates. Once I get
frigates I spend 100% on military and build a ton of em.

I then take out the biggest AI first followed by the 2nd
and 3rd etc, until only the Yor are left :)

My general strategy is to move enough frigates/transports
near the enemy to take all their systems in a single turn.
With all their systems gone in a single turn, their generally
larger fleet disappears instantly without firing a shot.
They will easily also have frigates by this time as well.

Once my fleet is pretty much unstoppable, I switch the
production to constructors and capture all the resource
sectors and build up my best sector with a lot of production
increasing starbases.

This, btw, is where the game switches from being fun and
enjoyable to being a metaverse mastarbating boring toil
that involves no skill whatsoever and is just a formulalic
process.

Anyway, I am at 30/30/40 or so building morale/pq
improvements, constructors and researching techs that have
wonders/tradegoods. The sector I am building up with
production starbases will then start building these wonders.
Incrediable Yor are still quite good at building wonders,
so this is a bit of a challange.

Anyway, I will then culturally flip the Yor systems until
they have none left. I will have prepared a 13 pq system
with 5 million pop off in some corner somewhere and then
donate this system to the Yor(their pq bonus will make it a
15 or 16 system). They will no longer build anymore
wonders :) I will also have prepared about 9 freighters at
this system to set up some traderoutes.

Anyway, once all the techs that result in wonders are
researched I flip the tech chart to show the lowest cost
first and balance the spending to barely get the cheapest
tech the next month with the rest going to social. Some
planets that have half built constructors I switch to colony
ships and colonize all the 13+ planets. I might also
purchase some to get a remaining few.

As the techs get more expensive, I keep upping the spending
to maintain the next month to new techs idealogy.

At some point I lower my spending so I can buy social
improvements at the slower planets.

Around galatic creation, most planets are done building
morale/pq improvements and I pump my tech spending to 100%
and go for final frontier/beyond human(tech victory off)
Even with 100% tech these techs take some 40+ turns each.

So I just hit turn 80 some times, buy an excalibur and
some combat transports and end the Yors existence, game over.



1,278 views 34 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
5 incrediable AI's, 3 evil 2 good.

I look for a start with a 20pq Earth and a couple
of systems with a decent pq planets near by that is
near the center of the map(less travel time for my
transports)

I sometimes do a 70 military/30 tech instead of buying
the colony ships, both seem to work fine.

After I get the start I want, I win about 50%, this
being the easiest maso game.

I lose when a major power manages to BUILD battleships.
Merely researching them isnt that bad and often
happens, but if they can get some in a defensive
posture things can get kinda bad.

If I dont find any +weapons or corvettes with my hero
I can often trade techs for corvettes from some
major that is doing bad(the Yor). If this fails the
game will tend to be lost.






Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I was going to make a post regarding your most recent game, congrats WoW! (asking offcourse how in the world you got a 21k plus score?). There's some really great tips above thanks! I bet you can't wait for 'Nightmare' difficulty to come out? :)
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Just something I can think of now which I'm sure you also do but didn't say. Get the majors and minors into wars. It's especially effective on Tiny because it allows you to conquer all their planets in one Alpha Strike (TM) as most races will deploy all their warshsips leaving colony ships to guard their systems.

I usually don't attack the Yor Zoo to end the game. I will send my constructors to flip it.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
You have obviously not been introduced to Staffa's "How I scored 23k step by step" or otherwise referred to as "23k for dummies", Cotal.

Do a search of the forum, and you should be able to find it. Enjoy!
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
The 21k game was a gigantic, the above wouldnt actually
work on a gigantic :)

The gigantic was basicily massive early expansion
followed by paying bribes and more massive expansion.
followed by more paying bribes and more expansion.
After the expansion phase I owned about 35% of the
galaxy and managed to cut via range most of my area
off from the Ai's so I could build on all the resources
in my area. I was pretty methodical about exploring
with scouts and as the AI's constructors neared a
resource in my area I would rush build a constructor
and beat it.

I played towards a GOOD alignment and made 3 ai's good
and 2 evil(to keep the good ones busy)
One evil AI declared war on me during the constructor
phase, but it was so busy with the other wars
I only lost a constructor 2 freighters a scout
and my hero before they offered peace(I never built
a warship)

Bear in mind, this was a gigantic game and I had about
100 systems, so this was a pitifully small loss.

Anyway, with trade routes set up with the 3 good ai's
and the evils dying(they both eventually surrendered
to the other AI's

Around dreads I started purchasing all the wonders
and got pretty much the rest from this point on, my
economy could handle the massive cost by this time.

This allowed me to get all the influence wonders and
after scouting out all the resources in the AI's area
and noting their type and number on paper(this should
be kept on map, really)

The evil yor were stuck in a corner with only about 10
systems and I sent a couple cships and seeded their
sectors with influence bombs(just 13-14 pq worlds)

About the time I was starting to get enough influence
to start flipping, they surrended and their influence
went way up.

I then went about generating 15-25k in cash and started
buying influence resources up. After buying 2 from
the AI they had surrendered too, the Yor sectors
started flipping. About this time my colony ships
started arriving at more distant sectors and
with further purchases of influence resources all
the AI's were flipped 100% by 2196.

I had a little 5 million pop planet prepared and
donated it to the last civ(Drengin) and with their
MASSIVE military they had a very negative economy.

At this point, I basicily did what I did in the tiny
research everything, build everything and prop up my
pop as much as possible.

This game actually ended much earlier then the
tiny and was acomplished without killing a single
ship(the drengin system was still flipping rather
often but of course I just redonated it) I did
purchase quite a few resistence buildings on it to
slow the conversion down.

Anyway, once final frontier was researched I waited
for it to flip again and didnt return it.

I had total domination in 2196 and ended the game
in 2206. This was actually alot faster then the tiny
game that took to about 2216 to get final frontier.

I tested this and in 2196 my score/pop/tech would
have resulted in a score of 10500, less then code
monkeys cakewalk game of the same size/game version.

And increasing pop always help, I could have gotten
a higher score simply by growing my pop more, but as
a rule I ended games as soon as I research final
frontier and I research to it very nearly as fast
as I can.

I did test it several times towards the end to see
what the difference was, and 4-5 turns more was only
amounting to about 400 points, so it was diminished,
but the score never went down, from a scoring perspective
it always pays to hit turn.






Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Ray, I set the AI's to opposite aligns, but I
dont actually do anything to encourage them to fight,
they seem to do that on their own :) Though
perhaps those games where they get battleships are the
ones where they didnt happen to fight and I could
have won if I had nudged them some :)

And that previous 23k game strategy is abit outdated
and to be fair I only went to final frontier, in my
older game I stopped researching and went to 2225 or
so growing my pop long past the time I could tech
anymore.

I know its still milking, but i like to think their
is a difference between ending the game after
quickly researching final frontier and ending the game
after another 240 turns past the time you could
have researched final frontier.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, now that I think about it, I dont
actually lose when the Ai builds battleships(on a
tiny)
I give up. This is another artifact of the metaverse
scoring system and my addiction to such things.

With battleships, I will no longer be able to quickly
dominate all the AI's, and as a consquence they will
get to build more then 4-5 wonders. Huh, I mean really
with 60% or more of the systems in my control I could
have probably still won eventually.

I guess even my solution of a pure speed based scoring
system wouldnt solve this problem though, cause I
would still be much slower.

Whatever, not like it matters, I might be posting
but Im not actually playing.


Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Ah, my mystic powers sense the emergence of another scoring discussion thread, but what the heck!

Milking is still effective albeit less so than earlier versions. I was rereading Brad's final scoring system post and noted that trade goods/wonders should only be contributing about 5% of the score so may not be worth it to be anal about getting them all. Tech is still very milkable it is often the exception rather than the rule to finish up your tech tree before you are in a dominant position to win.

But difficulty weightage definitely needs a much bigger assist.

Remember this?

Brad's Dream Scoring End State
Win: Gigantic / Masochistic: ~15,000
Win: Tiny / Masochistic: ~4,000
Win: Gigantic / Normal AI: ~3,000
WIn: Tiny / Normal: ~800

Going by this, Gigantic / Calkwalk should score about ~500 points instead of 10,000 points as demonstrated by CM.

But with Stardock's Metaverse budget being totally exhausted, I'm not hoping for any more change to the scoring system. You can tell they are really serious about budget as they did not even have funds to fix the Huge Map Metaverse sort bug. ;)
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I just loved reading the 'blow by blow' description of that gigantic 21k game win. I personally thought I'd never have time to play a map so big . . . but well having read your post, I think I'll take another look.

Your little corner planet retirment village for old clapped out races is a most cunning idea, I like it!

For the first time ever yesterday an AI (Trojians (?sp)) fully "schitzed-out" about a Base Station I had been building in my own sector of origin from the beguining of the game (it had all the Palace type cultural refinements and all). We were on good terms but a mystery race colonized a white dwarf system just near me (The Trojes fully did them over befor they had a chance to say 'Hi'). So the Trojes colonize thier newly conquered (improved) sytem on my back porch and get all hormonal about my sector influence . . . It was so funny! Something along the lines of:

"We know what your up too! What do you think we are some stupid AI in some retarded simulation!" LOL.

Unfortunately this game (as is) has very limited response option (3 or more kinds of responses would be better . . . and funnier). Especialy that one (you know) where another race says:

"Hey buddy, you know those buggers over there etc etc "

But I digress . . . :notsure: Mmmm RayChua I must find that to which you reffer . . . "looking, looking"
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Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Just type a keyword into the search field above.
Anyways, I've got it for you http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=60466#61231
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I've never been able to dominate tiny maso that early. Most likely beucause I have never been able to rush a major. I always do 100% military at first to get the colony ships I need to put one in each system I can get. With the new leasing, it seems like it would break you to lease those first couple that early. Anyway, I'm going to try some of these things out. My wins on tiny maso have been because I was able to luck into a good starting spot, get enough events to push me to good alignment relatively early, and get the Torians and Altarians at war with the evil races. Once the Torians and Altarians take out the Drengins, its pretty much over. I can keep good relations with them and although they are miles ahead of me tech wise, I'm focusing on the research and influence techs techs building those wonders and TGs. I then buy up the influence resources and party palace my SBs and then they start flipping. None of it works if the goods don't go to war with the evils before the evils start pounding me with frigates and above.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Thats true don, it would break you to lease them,
thats why when I do buy, I buy them outright :)

Actually, thats not true, the 2nd lease option is pretty
good and is often cheaper overall then buying outright.

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Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Has anybody ever tried building a few +military starbases and hiding in a single sector? It sounds cheesy and boring, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. It would have to be on a larger map, so you'd get enough constructors in time to get the strategy working. You'd also need starbase culture upgrades so you wouldn't get flipped. If you had several good planets in the sector, you could pay the upkeep for the starbases, a few ships for defense, and slowly get a tech victory.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
well the ultimate victor would get a cultural victory

and the comp would throw immense number of ships your way

at maso difficulty, it's pretty much impossible to stop
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Staffa, tried your strategy at lunch and it worked like a charm to start. You are very right, lease option #2 is cheaper than the outright buy for the colony ships. Was able to rush the Arcaens with Hero and a transport but the Altarians had 5 systems and a bunch of battleships by the time I got to frigates and only had 3 systems. After some exploring, I see they got a 4 system home sector. Guess you can't have those and pull this off. The Torians and Yor only have one system and the Drengins are takeable with 2 systems. But I imagine by the time I took them out with the frigate rush, the Altarians would be building all the trade goods and wonders and probably hammer me culturally.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
ok, this strategy is harder than it appears at first glance. I have the starting rush down. But I can't seem to get frigates in time to take down another. In my last game, I managed to knock the Arcaens and Torians out in the open. But by the time I got frigates, the Altarians and Drengins had battleships. Also, my population seems too low to pull this off with the frigates even if they didn't have battleships. Only Earth is over 1000 by this time. I'm intrigued by the strategy so will keep at it.

~SDC~
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
After reading some of the posts here, especially the Huge Masochistic win of Staffa, where he did not fire a single shot, I get more and more the impression that more than 1 Increadible AI is easier to be beat than 1 alone... What do you think, Staffa or anyone else of those with a 1.05 Masochistic-Victory: Can you win a game with Increadible Drengin and the others set to normal on an at least medium-sized map?
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, I've not tried that setting AIL.ST but it all then boils down to whether the Incredible or the Human could swallow the Normals first. Knowing how the invasion AI still requires a bit of an assist, I get a sneaky feeling that I would be able to vulture the planets once the Dregs clear the defenders. The other key difference is that the overall difficulty level would probably be at Tough or Challenging and thus the Maso nerfs will not be in effect. That would make it significantly easier for a Maso-level player.

It is a good suggestion for a GOTM though. Michael Casey, how about it?
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
The Normals will not nearly expand as fast as you or the Increadible-AI and are hardly any factor... So there's no real threat for the Increadible guy, they have to think about when they declare war on you!

But tell me what Maso nerfs you are speaking about, I don't know anything that is not determined by the Level of a single AI but by the overall difficulty... I'd also like to see it as a GOTM...

Sadly I don't have a 1st turns save of my game where it was like this and the Drengins had 2/3 of the overall spending of the Galaxy by turn 10. (Of course my Spending was at 100% and I had colonized some 3 or 4 planets that time aswell!)
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
On Maso, you can't sell TGs and Techs for anything more than a few bcs. On Crippling and below, you can get lots of dough. TGs are also worth less for trade.

Can't remember if there is anything else at the moment.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the hardest game would against one incredible pure evil AI on a medium map with scattered stars, with the other four AIs turned off. If anyone made that a GOTM I'd bet a fair amount of money that no one would win.
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Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
@RayChua: And what does that have to do with Maso? You can't trade with the Increadible AIs but of course with the others. I am quite certain that on Maso you can trade with the minors but if I shall be wrong with that I am sorry...

Yes, I agree with what vincible says: With only one Demonic Increadible AI and the others set off it would be even harder but I did get that 1 Incr, others Normal or Sub-Normal with all on random and did not bother playing with only 1 race but for that one Cakewalk testgame you can see, when you click my Name...
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
I am pretty sure the maso nerf is associated with
the overall difficulty level and not the level of the
individual AI's.

As you only need 3 incrediable AI to play at maso, id
think someone would have tried trading techs for cash
with 2 genusius in a maso game by now. I havnt cause
all my games have been 5 incrediable, but id think
someone would have tried by now :)

Anyway, the way frogboy stated those nerfs, it seemed
to suggest it was across the board at maso level.

Also, I know for a fact that the nerf applies to minor
civs at maso, I would have noticed that.

Ray is right, 4 easier AI's and 1 incrediable evil
drengin wouldnt be much of a challange, the drengin
get most of their early power from extorting anyway
and the easier AI's have less to be extorted and
can just as easily be dominated by the human.

As for the drengins alone, with nothing to extort and
no one to trade techs with, it would actually be
a very easy game imo.

Most of the power of the Ai's comes from their capacity
to trade extensively and the dregnins domination
is not through conquest but through extortion.

You take those away, and it doesnt become harder, it
becomes easier.

The hardest game would be much like the maso challange
elledgin(sp?) set up, 5 pure evil incrediable AI's on
a medium or larger map.

Even harder would be 5 pure good AI's when the
human player took all the evil choices, but that
requires the human player to take the evil choices
so techinically not the same :)
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
It is a good suggestion for a GOTM though. Michael Casey, how about it?
End of quote


Well, it's the only suggestion I've yet heard, and it sounds good to me. Only thing is, how hard do you think it would be, compared to say a game where ALL AIs were on bright or intelligent or something? I have a hard time getting players as it is, and I'd hate to lock some out by setting up a game too hard for lesser players, such as myself. ;)
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
Whats control-n do?