Australia is pretty much as far away from Canada as you can get. Although I loved my vacation there, other than the 27+ hours of travel it took...

Of course she'd be welcome to join of course, I'm sure she'd be welcome everywhere. Although I think she got in a little trouble for empire jumping awhile back.

I think you may not be growing your planets quickly enough. You might want to just up the difficulty one at a time, that way you learn to speed your growth a little at a time. You've been playing a lot of low level games where the AI is pretty slow. In the higher games I can not keep up with them either, but it sounds like you are way too far behind them to even challenge them.

When you say you had 10 starbases, what was on them? 10 basic starbases don't do much. 10 starbases with party palaces would turn every planet in adjacent sectors, and then maybe even flipping planets in the sectors adjacent to the ones you just flip. That would be a massive amount of cultural influence.

I have played all my games with the default settings for habitable systems and star density or whatever those settings are.

I think that is the ticket play Painfull for a few games.

Sounds good. I just won a Masochistic Huge game. Actually that one went really well for me, I was fairly strong all the way through.

One more gigantic Painfull.

You mean the people who brought you the airplane, telephone, computer, and internet? Those evil bastards! Let's all gang up and throw monkey feces at them.


- Sirian

All that stuff does not matter.

Hockey and good beer was invented by Canadians

Interesting game I played yesterday.

I played Gigantic Rare Planets.

This gave me room to expand before I had to deal with the Aliens and I was not as far behind as I would of been if I played with habitable planets common.

Busy place over that last few days. That's good.



Oh my God... LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

Kill me now before I die of laughter.

For those CFS overlords lurking and just because I can here’s my summary of the basic strategy you need to win

Paguma said


and Technician said



The key at any difficulty level is stay out of wars until your manufacturing base has grown large enough to

1) pump out constructors at 1 every 2 or 3 turns per planet (Party Time) or
2) generate enough cash/tech to buy your way into alliance or
3) supply support (money, guns, toys) to the AI until you've reach the end of the tech tree or
4) build enough military strength to crush them all.

These are the four victory conditions. After you have reached this point in the game, where your economy outstrips the AI, the game is won. You have to go through the tedious end game while planets flip, or it takes 25,000 months to finish the tech tree, or whichever victory condition you wish to choose.

As you move up the difficulty scale the point at which your economy outstrips the AI occurs later and later in the game. Micro management of your taxes, spending, mil, social and research production are key to growing your economy. An excellent example of this is the succession game being run by Sirian. And check out the strats forum as well.

So have fun. It matters not how you play or if you submit to the ‘Verse or… It’s all about fun. That’s why we play after all.

Oh… for all those lurkers… please jump right in and say something, anything. We’re a very friendly bunch. After all we’re Canadian. LOL
[Message Edited]

Just some general thoughts related to comments by Paguma and Sirian...

The two biggest problems with the AI are: it does not invade well at all (and hence take away your manufacturing base) and it has no clue about starbases, either on resources or off.

The biggest problem with the ‘Verse is that Maso mil victories overwhelm all the other difficulty levels and victory conditions. There are many, many threads on the Masoverse, so I will not go into rant mode here.

Finally, this is the best game of its type I have ever played. The developers provide excellent support and are responsive to suggestions for game play changes as well as bug fixes and what not.

And I just had a look at our 'Verse standings... For those overlords submitting games of the last couple of weeks. Damn fine job I say. Damn fine!

By the way... Anyone seen my lunch? I brought a snack to Halls this vist and it seems to have run away. That doesn't mean any of you others can have it either by the way, it's my LUNCH!

Oh, some more hints maybe. Lately I've been having a really easy time in Masochistic games. I think I just figured out why. Since it sounds like some of you also like to play a non military game like me, it might help you too.

I chose the Pacifist factor, and chose a +50 in Diplomacy as well. That gives me a +70 on Diplomacy right off the start. This makes it a lot easier to deal with the aggressive Masochistic races.

I also of course research all the diplomacy, trade techs early. The key to keeping them happy is to have a high diplomacy and good trading with them.

Then the occasional gift helps. You have to get those trade routes out quick though, or else their early demands may bankrupt you. Of course, the other benefit to this strategy is you will also have a booming economy.

P.S. That last Huge game only took me about 3 hours. Not bad for a "military" victory at Masochistic.

Yup. Diplo, diplo, diplo. Makes the going alot easier.



3 hrs??? How the heck did you manage that. More like 3 days for me. :notsure:
[Message Edited]

My secret is to increase the frequency of pressing "Turn".

I only check on how things are doing every 5-10 turns. I don't manage everything on a per turn basis, until battle breaks out, which for me is pretty late in the game, and after I control most of the planets.

Ah... The 'dippy bird' strategy. I like it.
[Message Edited]

Yesterday I cranked out my win a gigantic map in about 5 hours. Most Gigantic games I play require two days.

And your secret would be???

Here is what I done rare planets.

One of the Alien races decided it was a good idea to enslave humanity. After I correct that error on their part by wiping them out, I was get bored.

2 hours in ...

All the way through the game I was trading like crazy with the minors but when the first Alien race wanted to be my Ally they wanted to wipe them out. So I had to give in a enslave the minors.

3 hours in....

I had lots of trade routes and could build the Party Place. A cultural attack on the Torians took care of them.

4 hours in..

So I owned a couple minor race systems, systems of the Drengin Empire and Torians , was getting really strong.

I had lots of trade routes with the other majors and basically I said great I win and have to try and force a win condition. The invisible ship bug was the last straw. I finally went to the remainding Majors and with a good bribe they said sure we love to be your ally.

5 hours in...

Ah... I understand. Cool!

I've done gigantic in 2.5-4 hours. Not at Masochistic though. Turn, turn, turn. Hey, that's a song!

Let the Governor manage and for the most part keep pressing the turn button.

Still in the Game you always get to a point where you know you won but have to play on and on until you get a victory condition.

Here is an Example...

The game I am playing now.

I am not the strongest Race yet but I am Allied with them.

Taxes are at 40%, spending at 100% still getting 400BC per turn. I can crank out Rangers every 10 turns or so,
I am beating everybody at this point to the trade goods and wonders.

There is no way at this point I can lose but I have to play on and on.

Greetings to our northern neighbors!

A line by Paguma caught my eye...



That is IMO, the most powerful of the picks. Just had my first try at a "massive diplo pick" maso game. Thought I had to try it at least once. To top it off, all three of the initial minors were my first contacts.

Bottom line: Game was too easy. I could get trade goods for two mid-tier techs from the MAJORS. I naver had to worry about major demands (other than the couple hundred of BC once in a while), because I could just gift the tech I either researched or traded at bottom barrel prices. As has been stated elsewhere--the diplo picks are a bit too strong. Definately helps to crank out a quick win, though.

Do not interpret this as criticism--just an observation if you are looking for more and varied challenge.

Cheers,
Bam-Bam

Challenge and metaverse points are two completely different beasts. We were talking about how to crank out some high point victories quickly.