Regarding fleets... you *will* get the bonus if you leave your ships separate, move them into the Shatapult Sector, wait for next turn, (see their move jump up 20 points or whatever), then merge them and move out. Works perfectly well, just remember to not form the fleet until it's time to move out.
So far I've found early wars (ie Starfighters, Corvettes, Transports) useful with three distinct types of campaigns: - Elimination. A minor civ or major in a bad start spot is cornered but has good worlds. Because of size disparity I just muster an overwhelming force, destroy their fleet and invade. Note that this is only against OpFor which is much smaller than my own empire. - Resource denial. If another race has a string of constructors on the way to a critical resource you
Came across this rather target-rich environment just now... 83 constructors and one nicely specified terror star, no escort ships at all. http://www.melachea.demon.co.uk/Constructor.jpg I wonder if they will try to run... LOL
In diplomatic trade screen, Anti Matter Missiles is such a long name that it is not possible to see the missile number. The only way to determine the number is to add it to the deal, very tedious if you have large numbers (I had 25+ and wanted to give 3). Solution: rename to A-M Missile or something along those lines.
Has anybody faced stealthed enemy ships? I've not come across the AI using anything beyond Dreadnought / AMM / Terror Star (well, partially built TS really). Also, I don't think the manual mentions Stealth at all, same thing for the unofficial FAQ. What's the actuals here, if the enemy did use a stealth ship what's the effect?
There's no peace treaty in chess though ;) and also no fog of war. I think I see where Kevin is coming from, it's a bit cheesy to sign a peace and then build up huge armadas of ships that are moved into position for when war will begin again. A peace treaty in the game is more like a cease-fire with no restrictions beyond actual attacks. Going back to Kevin's original suggestion, allowing peace-time attacks on ships from another race that are found within a controlled sector would open
So what you are looking for isn't "zones of control" in the wargame sense (movement blocked/slowed by adjacent units) but rather political boundaries in space? For example that sectors owned by a certain race would be off-limits to all other races? That would severely limit certain cultural strategies, cause issues with sectors where different star systems are owned by different races, potentially create issues with path-finding and probably also create some opportunity for abuse (ring-
Give away all your ships, then the AI will demand tribute and attack you if refused - problem solved ;) LOL ;)
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In current game I'm running fat and happy with 61 colonies, most of which were grabbed in early expansion by running M:80/S:0/R:20. This ensured a very steady stream of colony ships. By the time the early expansion was over, I had researched/traded techs to enable building all the important early game social improvements. Enabled a governor, increased social spend and the rest was clock-work, often with 10-15 planets getting a certain improvement simultaneously LOL So in other words, di
No need to nerf the anomaly effects, only change should be to the AI to make it build survey ships and explore anomalies. That way there will be fewer anomalies for the player to pick up *and* the AI will have some improved survey ships, problem solved. BTW, the point about the anti-matter missiles was well made. Lost a survey ship to one last night, don't know if I had defence 20, 30 or 40 but it doesn't matter...
Nope, you can't specify... and it seems it may be based on ATT+DEF (ie highest sum defends). I had an "unfortunate" outcome where 12 battleships and a major starbase was completely ignored, the AI ships instead attacked the anti-matter missiles in the stack. Made me rather unhappy as the missiles are rather expensive and should have been held in reserve for use against enemy dreadnoughts.
Nope, you can't specify... and it seems it may be based on ATT+DEF (ie highest sum defends). I had an "unfortunate" outcome where 12 battleships and a major starbase was completely ignored, the AI ships instead attacked the anti-matter missiles in the stack. Made me rather unhappy as the missiles are rather expensive and should have been held in reserve for use against enemy dreadnoughts.
The AI is highly focused on colonial expansion. You can turn this against the AI by leaving a few spots open for them to colonize in areas where you have (or will have) very strong culture. Let them carry the cost of building up the planet then gratefully accept a few billion people joining your ranks some years later. The AI does not seem to build constructors until the colonial race is more or less over. Use this to seize resources in their home areas. Then use some scouts to watch th
Wouldn't worry too much about the manual, things change... AFAIK 2 is the default and you can raise this with ability picks or with techs.
Quite an interesting variation. I would think a defending dreadnought (in orbit) would hold, of course there's also better ships out there (and missiles...). Depends on your starbases, perhaps.
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Scaling down random events would make them so much random noise, like finding a scoutship in an anomaly in the mid/late game - you click disband and forget about it. Nerf every factor in the game and pretty soon you'll have a "press Enter for next turn until Victory occurs" kind of game. I've never seen any race get battle cruisers, but I've many times seen somebody get a large number of corvettes - good for skirmishing but not taking planets. Even though the numbers were great, in one
My impression was that it's based on base Attack plus base Defence summed for all ships. I don't think it takes into account modifiers for being in orbit, having starbases etc and maybe it also fails to account for abilities and hit points.
Not AFAIK. You can set up a sucker trap though, with an unguarded system somewhere... the AI proceeds to build transports and ship 1-5 billion people at a time to invade you. That reduces their population level ;)
Steal the cover off a Cthorr book, purple worms rule LOL Maybe increase the cost a bit, expensive stuff trying to seed an entire planetary system with new life-forms. Planetary invasion costs really should scale based on number of planets...
Planet quality boost is really, really good... makes it a bit too easy IMHO. Improving trade is also amazing, you can bring in huge amounts of cash very quickly just trading with a minor race. Don't think too much of anything that boosts production, research etc since it takes extra cash to keep that production ticking and generally I've been cash-constrained rather than constrained by available industry. Speed is ok for early game but later on tech and trade goods give good e
Paul, AFAIK it's no 17.6*1.1 but rather 16*1.2... ie the system knows the start value and adds all multipliers before applying them.
It does seem to balance itself rather too well right now. With the moderate population drain for invasions I just never seem to see any morale issues after the patch. Historically population growth has been a driving cause for colonisation, wars, government change etc and attempts to have population "control itself" has generally failed. I quite liked the way it was a real issue in the game as well...
Twin Peaks, Bladerunner and LOTR music are all good for background, I usually just run WinAmp and task-switch to change music.
I tried it on a gigantic map and found it useful. I didn't enable it until I had made a fair bit of research (early expansion was over). I only used one governor and added 10 improvements to the list, basically fusion plant, then soil/habitat improvement, then various econ/mfg/research improvements... Main thing was nothing which costs a lot of maintenance was added. I always used governor for PQ 13-16 planets but for better planets I sometimes micro-managed it.
I just had the Drengin demand "Starbase 1288" as it was "obviously intended to make their planets defect". They were right LOL but I rejected their demands. They went to war over it but it didn't stop their planets defecting. Game over for them pretty soon after. Makes me think that maybe there should be a bonus to resisting cultural take-over from people you are at war with... basically nobody will buy Altair-Cola while they are blowing up your trade ships and dropping billions of troo