Re: Tips for initial research points.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The only advantage of straliners is they come earlier than medium/large transports. Otherwise, tarnsports are cheaper in maintanence and faster.

You really must have a whole fleet of population transports ! I usually have move transports than military ships http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Repeat orders (load, drop polulation, repeat) reduce micromanagement dramaticaly.

[ April 02, 2003, 10:06: Message edited by: oleg ]

Re: Tips for initial research points.
 

A breathable world near to your homeworld is a huge bonus in proportions- pop transposrts are slow in proportions and reducing the distance they have to travel on each trip makes a huge difference to population growth. Therfore it might well be worth researching that extra tech if there is such a planet nearby.

That said I think it might be worth increasing the tech cost of the extra colonisation types if it can be done in just 5 turns.

Another slightly cheesy trading tactic against the AI is to send out loads of scouts and make first contact with as many races as possible, then sell your comm channels for ships (which may contain valuable tech, or just be useful for defence).

The AI seems to value comm channels highly and as long as they haven't made the contact themselves you can sell (for example) Phong comms to the Xi while selling Xi contact to the Phong at the same time. I find that even your worst enemies will usually accept a comm channel trade.

[ April 02, 2003, 10:34: Message edited by: dogscoff ]