You didn't. You just need to keep practicing. No one really gets this game the first time. Your methods are sound. Just need to practice which will speed you up. Before you know it, you will be eating up 9 vicious for breakfast every morning.

You need to learn to colonize planets as fast as possible. In random small, that's one of the keys to winning.

Try this: when you warp to a new planet with militia, priority target the siege frigates, and then colonize. Build a single turret (Gauss Defense Platform if you're TEC) and then warp your entire fleet out to the next planet. This can save you multiple minutes - the turret will take care of light frigates, flak frigates, and a Heavy Cruiser if there's one. (if there's more than one HC you need 2 turrets)

If you want to use this kind of strategy (it's a very good one to use), I recommend using scouts instead if light frigates; scouts are much more effective against siege frigates for their resource and supply cost.

Warning: LRM frigates outrange turrets, so after you warp out the first time, you may want to then warp in 2 or so scouts to kill the LRM attacking your turret from a safe distance.

Also, do you know about the solo-colony-frigate-to-asteroid trick? You can colonize an asteroid and keep it, with only a puny colony frigate and no backup. The trick is to warp in, colonize, build a turret **as close to the asteroid as possible** in between the planet and the enemy siege frigate and then have the colony warp out. The turret will nearly always destroy the siege frigate before it can bomb out the planet.

Given this strategy, if you see that your capital ship is going in one direction off your homeworld and there's an asteroid in the other direction, build a colony frigate as soon as possible (stop building scouts for the moment) to get the asteroid (and the income from the asteroid) as quickly as possible.

A player skilled at this sort of colony cap / scout strategy can take 5 planets by 10 minutes or so, depending on the map. The AI usually takes like 4 or so minutes to take over a new planet: this should give you much more territory.

If you're having severe difficulties you might want to post a replay (located in the folder

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Record-MultiPlayer

and sorted by date)

so we can help you.

Make sure that you're developing your planets out of the red ASAP and building extractors quickly as well.

Many thanks for the tips and advices. As i understand im "too slow" with colonizing planets.I have to colonize quick leaving the colonized planet with light defence and hop on to the next.

looking at yesterday: It took me about 1 hour to setup my homeplanet, a astroid and an Iceplanet. By then i had two capital ships and about 20 light frigates (10 for each capital ship). The enemy attacked my Ice planet with very nasty stuff. Three capital ships and loads of other small nasty  stuff. My capital ship was gone within 1 minute (allthough he had shields en fighters).So i sent in my second squad from my homeplanet. Idem dito. I was frustrated so i went to bed

Okay, im gonna try it again. this time i will multitask. I let you know how it went.

Grtz, PolareX

Out of curiosity, what speed are you on?  This makes a big difference, as some things (mainly turreting and setting up early trade) don't work too well on slow or normal, but work fantastically on faster....

As another note, I'd be wary of statements like "have x number of planets by y number of minutes"...it's not that these people aren't accurate with their claims, they just are probably ICO veterans who are always playing on faster...not only are they extremely good, but you obviously can't compete which such feats on slower game speeds.....

So, if you are on normal game speed, naturally your rate of expansion will be significantly slower....just keep that in mind when you take advice that is optimized for faster speed...it is usually great advice, but it might not work out as well as you'd hope on normal speed...

I just dont like games were i have to rush. This afternoon i gave it another try, following up some advice i got from you all. I just hopped from 1 planet to the other. Within about 20 minutes i had 3 planets and an astroid belt. Excited as i was i went over to the next planet with a capital Colonization ship (which was free) and about 20 light frigates. Apperently the enemy thought differently about me taking their planet. I lost all my frigates and retreated with my capital ship. At that moment i didnt have any resources left (especially money), to build quickly a new army. The enemy came and shouted: "Veni Vidi Vici".I'll keep trying. Its just hard to learn the basics and how to divide the starting resources.

Well if you're in the eco slot then yes I could see you wanting to do that. If I'm trying to play at my best though with an enemy next door I rarely have a surplus of resources to be able to put into trade ports.

You don't have to rush to attack the opposing player, but you do have to rush to take neutral planets ASAP. Your economy, logistics, research... everything is reliant on planets. Think of them like cities in a game like Rise of Nations, except you can't build your own. Once you've gotten all the neutral (and thus easy to colonize) planets, then you can start building up trade, culture, a defenses if you wish.

Also, how large is your fleet? You should max out your starting fleet supply by the time you attack your second planet and by 20 minutes should probably get the first supply upgrade and possibly a second capital ship. The easy AI actually has a resource handicap so you are certainly capable of building just as many ships as it can.

If you are really finding this frustrating, you may want to try a game without any AI players on a medium or so map just so you can practice with expanding and building up your empire without competition. Leave the pirates on for a bit of combat experience too.

You can also try playing a 2 v 2 game where you have a normal AI ally that might be able to take some of the pressure off you.

Even when I'm TEC I often have problems getting trade that early because I'm so focused on researching colonization, building scouts, and most importantly, colonizing new planets (colonization is EXPENSIVE). Planet development alone for a full-size planet costs 1000/300/200 or so, I think... then add 750~ for extractors. Turrets are quite expensive too (mostly in terms of resources), although I've found a way to colonize but avoid building them until much later in the game.

Although planets cost more and pay off less than trade ports in the first 20 minutes or so, I usually try to colonize as fast as possible when I'm eco if my allied flanks are skilled. I do this because there is a serious limit to how fast you can colonize, but if you have the funds you can build up as many trade ports on as many planets as you want, almost immediately.

That said, trade ports ASAP (or no ports at all) are a better idea when someone on the flank or suicide spot is facing a significantly more skilled player, or if someone on the flank is within distance of wiping out an enemy homeworld if they get a bit more feed.

You say to wait a while before building turrets... but every (unnecessary) second you spend fighting off the somewhat weak Cobalt militia or the practically harmless flak means more damage taken by your cap (more time it has to stay out of action once it becomes heavily damaged).

If you're eco you probably shouldn't fleet up to even the first researchable fleet supply unless a nearby ally on the flank is utterly incapable of defending himself, even with feed.

If you're playing a 1v1 on the standard random small, trade (especially early trade) is nearly ESSENTIAL unless one of the players is extremely skilled at rushing. This is because player spawn points are relatively far apart (usually).

In a 5v5 trade is pretty uncommon except in the eco slot simply because a player on the flank has to invest a ton into their fleet or risk being overwhelmed. If you have the spare funds though and if you're in a stalemate (or simply spawn far away from your adjacent enemy), trade ports on the flank can be a help.

I usually take the asteroid with my colony frigate alone (necessitating a turret) - and if I stay in the Ice/Volc gravity well for longer than absolutely necessary that slows my expansion and makes my cap take more damage. Light frigates and flak frigates are simply too durable and relatively weak for them to be worth waiting for my cap to kill, especially when my cap can simply move on at the cost of only leaving a single scout behind, kiting indefinitely to draw off the militia.

The cost for delaying your capital for ship for 3? minutes is significantly more than the cost of a turret (or a single scout, if you do what I do). IMO.

Like I said, I similarly don't get trade until a while into the game, but mainly because I don't have the funds and am playing Vasari (4-lab trade).

Extra expansion fleets can be useful... against the AI, at least, but the investment into something like that instead of into trade or into military can be fatal against humans.

When I'm in eco or 1v1 I always use a colony cap which means AM is rarely an issue. (I should have clarified that at the start)

If you fon't like rush, play on bigger map or make your custom map... by example, i have my own huge random multistar map... 10 star with a single player, no wormhole and 2 pirate base ( training ground )... + 10 star with no player, wormhole and 1 pirate base... until player have research the jump between star, your only problem is pirates and build a strong economy/defense...  but once the jump between star is researched, huge space battle begin...

Myself, i first build a few scout for explore... knowing where are the more interesting planet is great for plan colonize... knowing where are chook point is usefull for build a empire that you can easily protect... knowing where is your ennemy if the best way for no fall in a trap... knowing the shape of your star system is the only way for build the longuest trade post chain possible...

Once scouting begin, i build the first free capital, the colony one and begin jump only to planet that i can already colonize... once i colonize, i always upgrade the planet until the income move from red ( loose money ) to green ( generate money )... very early colony phase is made only with a single capital who can handle militie...

I begin some research to, i like very much the Hosiko... once i have research them, i build 2 of them who join the capital ship. if you have already colonize some planet, pretty sure that militia have somehow already damaged your capitalship... Hosiko will repair it allowing faster jump from one planet to a other ( don't need to wait for long repair before jump )... why min 2 Hosiko... well, it is the only way for repair each other since Hosiko cannot repair itself...

Beware, the capital+Hosiko work very good against AI because AI focus his attack on the capital ship... a online player will try to flank your capital and destroy the Hosiko first... Strategie for single player or online player are very different... 
 

 

I'm just going to throw this out there cause I like the idea, but have you considered a much bigger map? I mean, if there's just one other enemy, his focus is on you alone and a small system leaves you two toe to toe. So to buy you some time (after all, you're trying to learn the mechanics, not become an instant pro), maybe go with one or two players (no teams and locked) in a medium system. This gives you more time to get a feel for civ building and you can test the affect of certain upgrades on pirates. Not to mention the AIs spend some time on each other.

If thing are really too much hard, start the game with "Sins of a Solar Empire Diplomacy Dev.exe"... mainly used by mod devs for testing purpose... but can be used for easy your learning process... more info at http://soase.weebly.com/developer-exes.html

Uh, what?  The carriers are fairly potent stand-alone forces with superb firepower from their strike craft.  Certainly you must be cautious around an enemy fleet with an unsupported carrier, but they're rip through militia.  The Kol is a joke against militia; it has durability but its damage output is a fraction of a Sova equipped with missile platforms (seriously, three bomber squadrons alone does as much damage as level 1 Kol).  The carriers may look like they have poor defenses, but their defense is a good offense; kill anything that moves before it can deal serious damage.  Against anything but the largest militia forces, a level 1 Sova with all bombers and missile platforms will prevail.  Not only that, but it wins its battles considerably faster, while the Kol is still chugging it out by attrition.

Dunov makes no sense as an opener.  Its damage output is abysmal and its abilities don't even begin to shine until you're level 5 with one of them maxed out and with higher antimatter regeneration.  The opener choices for TEC are Akkan, Sova, and Marza, and if we're talking competitive multiplayer you can forget about Marza.

Strongly disagree with this.  If you want more damage, you should build combat frigates.  Capital ships offer cool special abilities, and abilities that offer only damage either need to be very powerful (like the Sova's missile platforms) or they just aren't worth getting at all.  I find the carriers are the only capital ships with respectable combat abilities (with the possible except of Kortul).  Incendiary Shells in particular is horrible and you should never invest points in it, and my opinion is that all Marza's should specialize in raze planet and radiation bomb.

Lots of great advice in this thread. Why do not the devs or someone on this forum make an instructional video that teaches the same things? I myself would but I do not have the horsepower to run fraps.