A couple of questions
 

OK, I am about to embark on my first PBW game of SEIV. I expect I will be ruthlessly crushed, but as long as I learn a few things first, that will be fine.

I played Stars! for quite a while and got pretty good at it, able to hold my own in Advanced games, so I am not new to the genre.

Anyway:

1. I read a decent number of the strategy guides, such as they are. Are there any that deal specifically with race design? In Stars! race design was crucial to success, is that the case in SE? Does it usually make sense to play with the numbers?

2. Is there a combined and organized newbie FAQ anywhere? I have seen a few attempts, but many of them seem very dated, or not well organized. Lots of stuff about what to do in the first 50 turns, but very little about #1 above, economic management, etc.

3. What are teh keys to econ development? In Stars!, if you didn't manage your population properly, you were screwed compared to those who understood the 25/33% pop breakpoints and how to use them. Is there anything similar to that in SE?

4. Is there some good reason I don't understand that the developers thought it would be a good idea to release a "gold" Version that would be incompatable with the SE IV vanilla Version, but not label it as a true successor; i.e. SE V? I am very annoyed that I bought and payed for SE IV only to find out that I didn't actually purchase the latest Version of the game, and there is no upgrade path.

Berkut

Re: A couple of questions
 

Welcome to the ranks! Here are my general thoughts (all of which are debatable!)

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What you do with your racial characteristics can make a huge difference. The most important are: Intelligence(research), Aggressiveness, Defensiveness, Mining, Construction, and Maint Reduction. Those should all be raised to around 120% (except Maint Reduction (only go to 110%)). To get the points to do that, drop Strength, Tolerence, Farming, and Repair to 50%. I usually drop Political Savvy and Refining to 80%, but still not sure if that is a good idea...)

Of the Non-racial advanced traits, I like Advanced Storage, Hardy Industrialist, Propulsion, and Ancient Race - though don't try to take all four in a 2000 pt game.

All the racial techniques are good, with religious being the strongest (though in MultiPlayer games, religious players get teamed up against to counteract that...)

Don't forget to choose a cultural type. I like Bezerker, warrior, engineer, and merchant.

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I don't think so, but there is one in the works, I see... See the sticky threads in this forum, if you haven't already.

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Big Key #1: get all the colonization types as soon as feasible. Trade for them if possible. Research them early if not.
Big Key #2: Get as many different breathers (alien population with different atmosphere types) as you can - through trade or Planet Capture (research Construction --> Troops)
Little keys: researching infrastructure helps too -- improved mining, computers, monoliths + resource conVersion. Population is slightly important, but I usually ignore it (it's the extra bit of micromanagement I can't handle...)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sounds frustrating - though you might be able to email Shrapnel, and exchange it. If you are going to want to play multiplayer on PBW(which you should!), you will want SE4 Gold.

Good luck! Have fun!

Re: A couple of questions
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There are a series of breakpoints listed in Data\Settings.txt ("Pop Modifier" entries). In the unmodded game, the breakpoints are at 100M, 500M, 1000M, 2000M, 3000M, etc. Some mods add much finer graduation to the bonuses. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm surprised that you found a non-Gold copy available for sale; SE IV Gold came out nearly a year ago. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">PBW also supports the final non-Gold patch (v1.49) as well as Gold. It's a bit harder to find opponents for "classic" games, but not impossible.

Re: A couple of questions
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Welcome to the Boards, Berkut! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Spoon covered your questions pretty well; just a couple more notes:

1. Race design can hurt you or help you, but I wouldn't say its "crucial". IMO, you should increase the following:
maintenance
research
defensiveness
aggressiveness
construction
mineral mining
Decrease the following:
repair
tolerance
farming (except for organic race)
strength
All the rest are debatable, so have fun.

As for advanced traits, my choices are Advanced Storage, Natural Merchants and Hardy Industrialist.

3. You can give a small boost to your economy by managing your population to optimal numbers. A various population thresholds, you get bonuses. These occur at 100 million, 500 million, 1 billion and each billion thereafter. Domed colonies often cannot hold even the 500 million! So there is no point letting their populations grow much beyond 100 million. It can be worthwhile to bleed off population from these planets and move it to colonies that can grow to high numbers. This is super micro management, but it can pay off.

If you have colonized a planet and its moon(s), you can transfer population between them directly-- no need for a transport ship! I often keep the moons at a population of 1 (million) letting the planet grow at a much faster rate.

These are little things but over the course of a game they will give you a significant boost in both pop. and economy.

In general, SEIV is very well balanced; no one decision is the ultimate. Have fun experimenting. Eventually you will find a balance that suits your style.

Enjoy!