Playing defensively?
 

Can any of you gents provide me with some hints as to how play a defensive game well?

I understand expansion is very important, almost vital to survival but I'd like to see if I can develop a game where I in effect "turtle" myself up delving into the technology of Applied Intelligence and playing a very passive role in a game.

Any suggestions? I have started a game like this and am curious as to whether anyone plays like this?

Re: Playing defensively?
 

Against the AIs, I've done that.

The key, I suppose, is to develop your planets well.
Grab stellar manip 1 for monoliths, pick up resource converters, and run down the planet utilization tree.

Make all your planets breathable 255% value worlds with monoliths pumping out 20 systems worth of resources, and you'll be ok.

Dump mines on your warppoints, and stack your ships up behind them.
Get your maintenance reduction up as high as possible.
Take religious tech for the combat shrines, and the nature shrine. The talisman can help too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Playing defensively?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You can have some fun by playing as a neutral. After a new game is set up, use the players menu to switch a neutral to human control and your old player to computer control(turn on all ministers first).

Then try to survive. Bases at warp points, stellar mamipulation to the max, etc.

You can use intell to steal other planets, and be a neutral spread out across the quadrant.

Pick your allies carefully, I selected the TDM Modpack Xiati. Bad choice, they're too suspicious to ever make a treaty higher than military alliance, so I never got partnership sight to other systems.

Then they conquered the whole map except for my two systems. With a ringworld and a sphereworld full of intelligence facilities, I could counter any intel attack from their entire galaxy of facilities -- but I couldn't win intel against them.

[ January 07, 2003, 22:19: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: Playing defensively?
 

I played one game like this and only out of circumstance. I was boxed in early in the game, but had the advantage of having only two ways into my empire, and one of those was next to a black hole. I was allied with the most powerful race, built up a ton of mines and other defenses, and really maxed out my research. I researched all the planet types pretty early, so I had a lot of territory to work with even though I was in only five systems for most of the game. I eventually took several systems from my next-dor neighbor. In my other games, I'm always the hyper-expansionist, and everyone hates me.

Re: Playing defensively?
 

If one can get Stellar manip and shields high enough before one is exterminated one will live forever.
Close all warppoints and build a system Gravity shield, no one can open any new warp points to the system!

Re: Playing defensively?
 

a good defencive plan is to expand as much as possible.

Get as many planets as you can. And as quick as you can.

Then you can define your boarders upon contact.

And determine where u need to build your shell.

SEIV is about size of economy and the ability to max out your spending and maintence.

Failure to do so will cause your empire to be killed.

I suggest you play that way.

Against the computer it is easy to box yourself in.

But against human players you will be beaten if you base your defences on static and intel.

Edit -- post 1700

[ January 08, 2003, 22:49: Message edited by: tesco samoa ]

Re: Playing defensively?
 

i prefer playing defensively. populate as much as you can in your home system. create ships and leave them on your side of the warp points this way any incoming ship is in close range and you as the defender get to atk first. i build bases at the warp points also. then expand system by system. following that same pattern. this works against the ai but i dont think it would work as well against a human. i noticed the ai doesnt use the create wormhole devices so i have not had to keep fleets in systems i controlled.

Re: Playing defensively?
 

SEIV game design follows standard 4X concept: more resource producing sites you have - more stronger you are. There is almost no intrinsic brakes to make the overexpansion a disadvantage (mega evil empire is one). This is the same problem as in Civ, Moo, etc. Some game disigners, tried to fix it by putting production penalties, like in Civ3.
In this respect I especially like Proportions mod that make you more focused on developing few key colonies rather than grabbing as much free estate as possible.