my tips to you

Hey yall. Just won my first post masochistic game (dont remember what its called, crippling maybe). The one right before suicidal. Anyways, after having all my questions answered here, Ill give back to the community and write up whats worked for me and what hasnt. Thanks to everyone who wrote these tips in the first place. You rock.

First things first, I stopped playing humans and went with the drath. Lots of economy and diplomacy just make the game so much easier.

The beginning of the game is critical, the "colony rush". Make your home planet a production planet and rush your factories while building a fast colony ship. Mess with the sliders so that youre busting out a colony ship every other turn. Your social production simply isnt important right now. Unless you have a very good reason, make like the next six planets you make economy planets. Thats 3-4 factories, a starbase, maybe a happiness building, and the rest economy buildings. Later on, when morale isnt a problem you will make a tile a farm.

Id like to add here that I specialize my planets. Ive found a starport on almost every planet works well. Slapping 4 factories on your econ planets makes every planet a transport factory.

The techs you want to go for is maybe an engine, the tech that boosts military production,, the one that gives plus ten to all your outputs, and then DIPLOMACY. Particularly the branch that lets you switch your governments. They rock your economy.

Once you feel the colony rush starting to end, speed up the tree to planetary invasion. If youre playing on masochistic or lower you should be able to get it before the computer does. On my current level they actually have ships up before I can get the transports but oh well. Convert the ships youve been making into transports and then transport rush your neighbor, preferrably a minor race or any other race who doesnt have ships yet. Home planets are always a plus. Once they start pumping out defenders, use your diplomacy youve been hording away to get some ship techs. I NEVER research ship techs. Once you have high diplomacy the AI just throws it at you. Anyways, I ride this as long as I can. Once everyone starts getting a military you chill out for awhile ; yours consists of just transports. This is when I start working on my social productoin hardcore to jumpstart my economy, all the while hammering at the diplomacy tree. Once I get a sizeaable diplo lead, I trade and get the best starship techs. tada, instant mega military. Start pumping out those shiny, metallic dealers of death.

Time for your first real war. Go ahead and pick whomever your judgment tells you to. I like to kill whomevers hostile to me. Dont attack till you have the forces to actually take a few star systems in one turn. Then its all momentum.

Id like to add here that everytime a race becomes friendly to you, ally with him. This just keeps him off your back the rest of the game as well as I believe giving you better deals in future trades. Also, if you simply must trade away miilitary techs, trade them away to your furthest neighbor.

Ah, its crucial that you dont get the production techs too soon, they can really slow down your new planets. It takes sooooo long to make a manufacturing or industrial center from scratch.

Lets see what else. Ah, mining. Any kind of mine is gold, grab them when you can. Instead of using modules to defend them, just stick a fleet there. Trust me, its much better. Also I hate to put this in here but maybe some dont know. Use fleets to defend your planets, dont just park them on your planets like the computer does. Its suicide.

Dont waste your time with freighters.

Save yourself the headache, use rally points and governors. Make sure your transport farms actually have enough pop to fill the ships. Before starting the war with the next race, see what weaps/defenses you are using and build your next generation of ships accordingly.

Anyways this is whats worked for me. This will get you a mlitary, diplo, or tech victory, whichever youd like. Ive never went for cultural. Im wondering if that will significantly raise my metaverse score though.

So this is one way to kick ass at the high levels. Im just wondering how the chaps beat suicidal without tech trading on. I cant even conceive of doing that. Anyone here have any insights?

Thanks for readin,

Steve
4,962 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top
Nice post.
Reply #2 Top
I agree, nice post, however there are one or two things that don't make sense so if you could clarify. My main problem with your strategy is if you only build transports, as you say that is really your only fleet in the beginning, then how do you defend a mining starbase? You say to park a fleet on it, but how would troop ships or colony ships or whatever defend a starbase? Maybe make it harder to destroy, but eventually, you will lose it. Furthermore, you say that you don't research any ship techs,,, can you consistently rely on allies or trades to get your tech? How many times did this happen? And unless you are spending loot for espionage, even giving tech to races who are far away from your territory doesn't guarantee that a closer civ wouldn't trade for it themselves. Or maybe the civ you gave the tech to would trade it to your enemies. Overall I do believe you have a good strategy going but it has some flaws. If you could answer the one about the starbase defense, I'd appreciate it.
Reply #3 Top
Furthermore, you say that you don't research any ship techs,,, can you consistently rely on allies or trades to get your tech?

In my current game (my first masochistic metaverse game) under v1.2, I was able to trade with with the Drengin up to "HD Strike Drive II". The weapons being traded got stronger it became more difficult to work out a deal. The deals increasingly favored the Drengin but I could then trade/sell that weapon to 8 other AI players (only trading advanced weapons when the AI was about to get it anyway though its own research).

Clearly the fleets defending his mining starbases and planets have weapons and probably 15 sensor range thanks to "Eyes of the Universe". If I can evade the AI player's killer fleets and capture all its planets in 1 or 2 turns then I don't need to engage his fleets. I need only take out its planetary defenders; when I capture all its planets or it surrenders, then those fleets disappear!
Reply #4 Top
You can reliably get all your weapons and defense techs through trade until you are at least halfway through the ship tech trees. At some point the trades start to become prohibitive, but by then you have usually absorbed a neighbor or two and can match the computer on research. Alternatively, you can pick your next blitzkrieg target based upon who has weapons tech that is only a couple of research levels above you.
Reply #5 Top
Im just wondering how the chaps beat suicidal without tech trading on


I won a 1.3beat3X suicidal with tech trading off. I was sure I was going to lose it but for some reason the AIs took a long time to attack. Actually They never did start a war with me.

They also did a very poor job getting resources so I was able to get almost all the resources: 2 military resources, 4 research resources, 2 or 3 economic resources and the only morale resource.

From what I'm reading about the AIs with the update 1.3; I never would have had enough time to socially develop my planets early on and get a military established.

So I just got lucky -- and I did not mean to play with tech trading off -- it just carried over from my previous game settings and I forgot to change it. I didn't notice it till I started looking to trade techs around the end of the colonizing rush.
Reply #6 Top
Evil Stormbringer,

Just won another game on obscene (the one before suicidal).

Ok, for one thing my transportation rush only worked on a minor race this time. Everyone got ships up and running so damn fast on this level. But anyways, on the more normal levels you dont really need to defend your starbases. Remember. the transport rush relies on the fact that no one has military ships in the sky yet. One they do, you park your transports, use your diplomacy to get ship techs, and then start building a military. THEN once you get a military you park a fleet on your starbase (dont ever use constructors to build att/def on them).

About the tech trading. Once you research the super majesty and the better government, you will be able to trade for the ships techs. THis hasnt failed me, even on obscene. Havent played 1.3 though yet. Your diplo will give you a huge advantage since all youve been doing is going for diplo techs. Before you actually trade though you have to remember to actually research something like stock exchanges so you have something to trade them. Ive actually played a game where I was playing cat and mouse with the civ that declared war on me while I was researching techs to trade for military.

you have a very valid point. If I tried something to a far away enemy then the closer guys could get it, but you have to get that tech somehow. Just never trade away diplo techs.

To what Purge brought up, you can keep trading for military techs the whole game. Just keep that diplo up. Sometimes you will have to give something good away but thats the nature of the beast.