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