Basic Statagy

[evader]

What is everyones basic stratagy?

I'll start to give you and idea for answers

I don't destroy my oppents things, I take things of his that I want

[jimbob55]

To start with i make friends with everyone who'll accept a treaty.
I mine the warp points to 'my space' very heavily.
I research either atmospheric converter or stellar manipulation. Once I've got one or the other I go for a population drive either building ringworlds or converting ALL the planets in my space to the right atmosphere. By this stage I've got all the resources I need and a whole bunch of space to build research and intel facilities. I upgrade my fleet every time I get a leap in abilities (cloaking armour, engine extra moves go up, solar panels and solar sails). Until I started playing TDM mod I would get to a point where the AI could not win. With TDM I'm fairly secure but the AI keeps sweeping my minefields (Battleship size minesweepers!!! they can take out 150 mines in one turn and I can only have 100 mines in a square) and glassing my frontier planets.

[This message has been edited by jimbob55 (edited 16 May 2001).]

[Marty Ward]

Depends on who I'm playing.
Against the AI it's no treaties, research until I have shields V, a Beam Weapon V, LC and PD V. Then I try to take them on one at a time.
Against Humans I try to get as many treaties as possible and get the AI at war with my opponents through bribes, threats, begging, whatever. Them I take on the weakened Human.

[Will]

Against AI:
Kill all stray ships, keep WP patrols of fighters to pick off the occaisonal stupid fleet, capture planets with troops, then use the captured planets to build more ships and troops (general rule: save the fortified planets for Last, in homeworld system, take nearest AI homeworld and fortify, split fleet and take another homeworld, protect each before moving on).

Against Human:
Mine warps to home system like crazy, get a big @$$ fleet and destroy as much as possible, and hope the other guy is not the first one to build a WP opener with a big @$$ fleet to go with it.

That basic enough?

[Taqwus]

In my fairly long solo games in huge universes, my empire usually goes through several phases. In the Last game, these included --

1 - Colonization of original system. Limited exploration of nearby systems. Research is mostly basic stuff like better ship hulls.

2 - Once mineral income is assured, rapid expansion. Research may go towards better research. I mostly limited colonization to breathables with the major exception of ruins.

3 - Preparations for large-scale defense. Fighters are stockpiled, mines produced and deployed at warp points and critical planets. Intelligence facilities hopefully start going Online. Research now includes a strong mid-game military emphasis.

4 - Preparations for offensive war. The first warships of significance are launched. These may be range-limited if solar cells haven't been researched yet.

5 - Preemptive strikes on neighbors. Hey, they're going to call me Mega-Evil soon and declare war anyway -- I should remember to raise the 500k threshold sometime. Might as well give them something to talk about. Objective is merely to push them back far enough to establish buffer zones, and in the process to gather information about what assets they have. Unusually weak neighbors may be annihilated during this phase. By now, I'm may be colonizing non-breathables simply because remaining known breathables are too far.

6 - Once buffer zone is established, massive efficiency drive begins. Component one is researching resource manipulation and construction of a Resource Converter III on the homeworld. Component two is researching Stellar Manipulation III for the Monoliths. Component three is researching the entire Computer tech area. Component four is researching the entire Planet Utilization area. Component five is researching Applied Psychology for the Urban Pacs. War is still primarily defensive; anything near my borders must be neutralized, but there's no need for conquest yet.

7 - (a LONG phase) Every system with enough space gets an Urban Pac and all three System Computers. Every colony gets an atmosphere converter if it needs one, pref. also one climate facility and one or two value improvement plants. All m/o/r facilities are replaced with monoliths. A clipboard becomes necessary to track which systems have undergone conVersions/additions.

This phase tends to overlap with the next few due to sheer length.

8 - Once production is going well, research turns to high-tech warfare. Engines, shields, PPBs, sensors, cloaking, quantum reactors, all the fun toys that haven't been researched or stolen yet, are now.

9 - Late-game ships are launched. They can be hideously expensive because the Monolith IIIs and RCs give me an obscene production base. They may also be trained to +20% with good probability. Minesweepers become extremely important as remaining AIs have probably put up significant defenses, and these ships ARE hideously expensive...

10 - War turns completely offensive. "If they won't join you, beat them." Massacres on the scale of billions ensues time after time. AIs eventually surrender.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[mac5732]

Everyone has a different strategy based on what they like. In beginning against AI, I like to get all the research & trade treaties as possible, This increases yours as well and boosts your income and research capabilities. I build colony ships and colonize as many planets within range as possible and research mines in beginning and use them as defense over my planets and wormholes, later I supplement them with ftrs.
Research up to effective weapons, in beginning - missles, later on good beam weapons, armor & shields. You can use large Groups of ftrs to protect your systems and send out attack fleets to capture or pulverize your neighbors. Remember, in this game you expand or die. Against Human, like prior mentnioned, mine your planets and wormholes & build good ships & ftrs.
Depends on what you want to do in beginning, be defensive or offensive at first.

just some ideas mac

[capnq]

I'm not sure I've played enough yet to have an overall general strategy, but I do try to expand as rapidly as possible, and make treaties up to at least Trade and Research with anyone I can. I'm hesitant to form Military Alliance or higher with races that I'm competing with for colonizable worlds. I tend to research whatever I can get a benefit from in the shortest time unless there's a critical technology I need.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft

[Deathstalker]

My strategy: CAPTURE!!

Seriously though, until the enemy gets self-destruct devices a good ship with a few boarding troop components will rock. Capture colonizers, get all the colony tech without research. Same as the non-racial tech. Just bLast down the shields, don't destroy too much in the inside of the ship and take it over.

Note1: your shields will drop when boarding an enemy.
Note2: Crew quarters will have a base defense vs. boarding troops (don't know the right number)

Strategy 2: Mine everything in sight, esp wormholes/homeworlds/planets. Enemy will use up alot of ships to get to u (watch out for the Rage though, they sweep alot!)




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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

[GruelThePurple]

While I try to use the basic strategy of Explore, Expand & Conquor, Stabilize & Defend, repeat; things normally work a little differently.

I explore as much as possible, while trying to strike up Partnerships with Neutrals (extends your range a heck of a lot, gives you a staging area and resources, as well as a buffer) and keeping others at a distance.

I heavly mine key warp points and build up resource capacity as quickly as possible. Research tends to be spread out depending on my needs at the time, but I will try to keep infrastructure and combat needs in balance.

Once I have a good industrial base, the combatants start being built, as well as I try to espionage the heck out of one target at a time. The more damage I can do with my spies, the less my warships have to do.

Once combat is joined, I try to destroy as much as possible to force them into surrender. Capturing valuable worlds is a must for forward bases and industrial expansion.

Um... I guess that is it.

[raynor]

Basic strategy: You should always be building a colony ship and have a colony ship onits way to colonize a system.

At the beginning of the game, you can easily use colony ships as scouts. Compared to other space games, colony ships are ridiculously cheap. If one gets attacked and killed, it is a small loss. But if it gets through, you have a colony that much more quickly.

Colonize every planet in sight. But don't colonize planets in systems with AI colonies until you have a treaty with them. If you don't have a treaty with them and colonize the system, it will make them mad, and they might not ask for a treaty. Once you have a treaty, it will still make them mad. But who cares, you have a treaty with them.

Don't accept military alliances with races that colonize the same planet types until you have first built colonies on all those planets.

At the beginning of the game, build mostly fighters and/or mines. Since they don't cost any maintenance, they don't slow your expansion. I like to build units--fighters--at every colony that has already finished building its max number of facilities.

Use transports to move fighters across wormholes and assemble a lot of fighters on the three or so wormholes leading into your empire.

Did I mention expand, expand, expand and always have a colony ship on its way to a new colony?