how to start a good game

[blazefire]

k i've started a game but i lost because 4 empires made a treaty and made war with me. what is the best way to start a game. what should i research. what should i build. etc etc...

[dmm]

There's a strategy guide that several people have been working on. Take a look.

My 2 cents:
1) Learn the game on turn-based, with low tech and low research cost and no AI bonus, and use tactical combat. It's easier.
1a)Also, make your race friendly and peaceful. The AI will be more accomodating, and it turns out that peaceful races don't mind battles much, as long as you win.
2) Don't make treaties with anyone stronger than you. They'll abuse you -- colonize planets in your home system, etc.
3) Unless they're a LOT stronger than you, in which case you should grovel to play for time.
4) When learning the game, use emergency build to your advantage. Once you get good, you can eschew this sleazy tactic.
5) As in all wars (game, real, economic, political, social, or otherwise): Concentrate your fire power. Try to fight battles with the odds highly in your favor. Let the enemy destroy himself against your fixed defenses before engaging him in open battle.
6) Colonize larger worlds and breathable worlds preferentially, but don't spread yourself too thin in doing so. Don't go more than one system away at first. In the early game, junky worlds in your home system are more useful than paradises 5 turns away. (The 5 turns you spent moving a colony ship to Eden would have been enough time to build a shipyard on nearby Inferno Moon.)

[Suicide Junkie]

Grab a second tech levels in missiles, then get point defence (under military science).

Now you can go for beam weapons. I suggest DepletedUraniumCannons (cheap & effective), and later, Phased Polaron Beams (under physics 2)(expensive, but very powerful, & penetrates normal shields)


Point defence is very important, since missiles are so popular early on. PPBs are probably the #2 most efficient weapon in the game.

For race design, I suggest taking +20 or +25 defensiveness. If the enemy can't hit you, you don't get hurt With Point defence, they can't hit you with missiles OR beams .
If you do take god-like defenciveness, use Shield regenerators when you get to S.R. 3 or 4. Beware the SR5, since it is NOT as good as the SR4 in the standard datafiles .

With shield regenerators, & the elite racial dodging ability, any shield hits you do take will heal up before they enemy can hurt you again .

[Trachmyr]

As far as Tech goes, I would suggest spend your initial "bounus" (which you should set to high) points on chemistry and military science (as well as level 1 in planetary weapons), immediatly research armor and point-defense weapons. Try to get lvl. 3 in point-defese, planetary weapons, armor and level 2 in missiles... also level 2 or 3 in ship construction. The first empire you meet, I would suggest going to war with as soon as you have signifigant forces in their system(s) (especially if they live on a diff. type of planet or breathe a diffrent atmosphere)... BLast all of their small planets to ashes with missiles/planetary napalm (use point-defense guns to shoot incoming missiles and satelittes). Attack their homeworld in tactical but DON'T engage unless your sure you'll win! (just hit next turn over and over). You're now blockading them, demand their surrender (if they don't surrender you might have to hunt down some of their ships or take out sats in orbit of their homeworld).... Once they surrender you;ll have a huge pop. to play with (hopfully one that breathes a diff. atmosphere), and a bunch of tech. (maybe colonization tech!).

Try to do this in the first 50-100 turns.

[raynor]

Start a game on a large map so you'll have some expansion room before you encounter the first AI. Then try these:

1. Expand as quickly as possible. Because colony ships are so cheap, I use them instead of warships as scouts. You want to colonize everything in sight. You should always have at least one colony ship under construction and another one in space headed someplace.
2. If you encounter a system with an AI colony in it, don't put a colony there, and don't send your ships through this system. Pretend the warp point leading into that system is a brick wall.
3. Make treaties with everyone you meet but don't let them have a Military Alliance unless you don't mind them colonizing planets inside your system.
4. Research Construction, Mines, Warhead I-III.
5. Put a mine field at every warp point leading into your system.

At any level of difficulty, mines are absolutely deadly to the AI. After encountering a mine field for the first time, the human player hopefully would be smart enough to sweep it before sending any ships through. But the AI isn't coded to do that.

For the ultimate in protection, you can research Astro Physics and then Stellar Manipulation until you can build the component on your ships that closes wormholes. Unless the game Lasts really, really long, the AI isn't going to open a wormhole into system where you've closed off the wormhole.

[Str8_Gain]

With regards to colonization techs, one thing neutrals are good for is trading colonization techs with. If I start with gas, and the neutral I find has rock or ice, I'll offer a trade of colonization techs plus a treaty like Trade Alliance to sweeten the deal. You get a new trade partner, new colonization tech, and you don't have to worry about neutrals becoming expansionist using the tech you just gave them.