Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

I would like to get as much clear and concise in put upon this subject as possible. So please don't pass this thread up. If you have something that you feel is inportant to a beginner, any tips, basic first 50 to 100 turn strategies, or favorate settings, please for the love of God, post about them. Thanks.

And if your a beginner and have questions, please post em too. Thanks.

What it would take to write a beginners guide.

Time. Without a doubt, time.
Patience. Can’t get much done without it.
Knowledge. A real must have.
A Plan. Without this, nothing will work.
Interest. Dedicated to seeing it through to completion.

There is a difference between a Beginners Guide, and a Strategy Guide. A Beginners Guide is just that, a guide for beginners. It would have to demonstrate how to set the game up from the start, explaining all the features in detail, in addition to stressing that a player understand the game features prior to playing.

The scope of a beginner’s guide would have to be limited. There is no way to describe each and every thing that a beginner would need to know, so the best course of action would be to focus on what a beginner should know.

Basically, how to set up the game.
A clear understanding of what setting up a game entails.
The basic does and don’ts of the first 100 turns.

First and foremost, the guide would have to be standard. IE, the settings would have to be pre-determined before writing the guide. IE, what size galaxy, how many racial points, resources, technologies, etc.

A mind-boggling exercise to say the least.

What would be ideal would be a basic Up and Going guide that quickly introduces the a new player to the game set up features, and walks them through the 50 turns of the game. We all know that there are an endless amount of “strategies” to be played out in the first 50 turns, but what would be best for a beginner?

Let’s say that we set up the guide to give the beginner all the advantages. Small Galaxy, all Warp Points Connected, 3 planets, 2k racial traits, (Temporal & Lucky), low Bonus, and low AI empires and Neutrals.

From this, what would you recommend a player do for the first 50 turns. Keeping it short.

Another aspect of a Beginners Guide would have to be a walk through of most of the in game features. Oh what a task that would be. What would be the most important features a new player would have the most need for?

What about Ministers? On, Off, or Half-and-Half?

EDIT*
God what a complex and overwhelming thing to be considering doing. Writing a basic Beginners Guide. What am I thinking? I think I need professional help.

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New Age Ship Yards

"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Captain Picard STNG

Borg Breen Species 8472 Cardassian Dominion STNG Ferengi Klingon Romulan
Trek Movie era TOS Illuminati Starwolf Rogue Fleet


[This message has been edited by Atrocities (edited 28 October 2001).]

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

Basic Empire Operation:
- A red scrunchy popcan icon means You need to build a spaceport!
- Send ships back home before they fall below half supplies. Once the yellow fuel barrel icon appears, its too late.
- Recovering crippled or out-of-fuel ships. (use of tenders, repair bays and solar collectors)
HowTo: Decide what type of colony to make.
- Are you running out of some resource?
- Are you falling behind in research/Intel?
- Special-effect facilities.
- And how these apply to the value/size/conditions of the planet and your empire.
HowTo: Build some basic, legal ship designs
- Test them in the simulator!
- Test ships against common enemy designs, not just against each other.
HowTo: Coarser points of politics.
- What each treaty type actually means.
- Trade resources to keep the ecomomy running.
- Tips on how to not unduly upset an AI.

Generic tips:
- Build weapon platforms/sats when your planet finishes facility constrution.
- Emergency build colonizers, take breathables first, then explore.
- Never bother with funny-shaped wormholes unless its your only choice.
- Defend chokepoints, not planets.

EDIT: formatting

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 28 October 2001).]

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

you know, this sounds a lot like the tutorial scenario that is included w/the game. Maybe it would just be easier to flesh this out some?

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

I've probably spent more time reading this forum than playing the game. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I think the most overwhelming thing to a beginning player is deciding what to research(since it is so critical to successful play), and in what specific order.

Is there a visual representation of the tech tree anywhere Online? Like a line chart?

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

What would be useful is a list of newbie FAQ and put easy to find links somewhere so we don't have to answer the same questions over and over.

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

Some random stuff.

- Exploration is vital. Sending a single unarmed ship w/ extra supplies (especially solar collectors, once available) works well. Multiple ships don't reveal more information, and single armed ships are both a) still rather vulnerable, and b) expensive. Find your neighbors before they find you.

- Don't build too many ships early -- watch the mineral count. It's easy to build too many pop transports and strangle your economy; if you do, mothball or scrap.

- Ditto for the build-n-construction-bases-at-start method for cranking out ships. It's fast, but gets pricey -- once you've got some colonies and need to build facs on them, consider mothballing until you can afford to keep 'em building.

- Missiles are nice early, with the longer range, slow ships, and relative rarity of large amounts of point-defense. Beams tend to work well later.

- Defend in depth. One needs recon layers (say, spy satellites in neighboring systems), some front-line defense forces, and reserves to handle breaches. Well, at least until the age of Warp Warfare...

Mining warp points is often a good idea. Thankfully, the mine minister does this decently well if you build the minelayers and keep them fed with mines.

- Track what your opponents have for tech. If you need it, maybe you can trade for it, demand it, steal it, or steal a ship with it.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

Right away, get a cheap unarmed escort and send it on a one-way exploration mission to the far reaches of the galaxy. Use it to find as many alien empires as possible. Run it almost out of fuel, then either gift it to an AI ally or put it into a storm (either as a spy or to destroy it). It will quickly pay for itself in trade revenue.

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

If you send a ship out too far, don't despair. Bring it back as far as you can, and send another ship (or a fleet) to meet it. They can share supplies and all get home. This is a nice trick in the early game, before solar collectors and space yard ships.

Another good range-extending tactic is to get a military alliance with someone far enough away that you're not competing for the same systems. Then you can use their resupply bases. In a huge galaxy, you might use this to leapfrog across the whole galaxy, then trade colonization techs with those distant neighbors. (The heirs to your throne might regret that decision 100 years from now, but, hey, that'll be their problem.)

You often want a competing empire's planet mostly for its population (for instance, because they breathe a different atmosphere). So, after obtaining the planet (and presumably angering the other empire), take a bunch of the pop and then give the planet back. You may be able to avoid a protracted war, and still get what you really wanted. (BTW, I find it annoying that you can trade all sorts of stuff, but not population. With human players, though, you can sometimes make this kind of deal in advance. Related side note: Players with different colonization techs and different atmospheres who ally faithfully from early on will be very hard for outsiders to beat. Just watch out for mimic intel ops!)

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

If you can trade for the colonizing techs. If possible trade for them with a neutral race that will never leave it's home system anyways. Failing that trade with the weakest alien out there that has what you want. Trade it with a race you know you are about to kill but are currently still peacefull with. Failing all of the above trade with someone far far away AND with their neighbor, for other techs you need or their colonizing tech if different. This will prevent the AI from expanding rampantly over it's neighbors far from your own borders and becoming a major threat later on. Thus preventing your descendants from regreting your hasty trades in later decades and bad mouthing your policies in history texts.

[This message has been edited by Cyrien (edited 29 October 2001).]

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

Good point.