Shame on me (or help me!!!)

[Taera]

I call myself SE4 fan, but look! I cant truly play!
OK, i play an organic race. The unexpected payoff is that i am already familiar with my Ice/Carbon-Dioxide race. You know, the rare thing that though is the only actually fitting for my race - fragile, highly intilligent insects.

I used to play SE3 quite a lot. Day and night. you know, the "One more turn" syndrome.
SE4 did a bad initial impression on me and i put it aside playing Quake, Civilization, Starcraft and such. Shame on me!

Now i return to SE4 and find my skills behind an average player here!
Yes, i can take a weak AI. Below the Medium Bonus the AI possesses no threat to me. And its aint no fun. I play on large galaxy, medium # of AIs, High Difficulty, Medium bonus. Neutrals and Normals. Mid-Galaxy (its the only place i know so far when i can find at least some ice/co2 planets).

I cannot win! Just cannot! Perharps i am doing something wrong?
Could someone share his expirience with me?
How you start the game, i mean. What to build, what to research.

Would be best if it was an e-mail, its easier to keep by.

Perharps my problem is that i NEVER use the AI cheating options, such as trading for their colonizing technology (human player would never accept, i hate to exploit the AI weaknesses) etc.?

Any, any help is appreciated. Post here, or better send it by e-mail to trouble11@hotpop.com

Thanks.

[Suicide Junkie]

Can you provide any details? A quick once-over of a typical game?

You've described the game setup, but nothing about how you are currently going about your game.

One thing I try is:
0) Build Construction bases in orbit of your home planet(s). A very quick & easy way to double your spaceyard production in the first 2-4 turns.
1) Build basic missile ships
2) research ship capture
3) spread lots of capture escorts among the basic missile ships
4) research into racial techs or a higher-level weapons tech.
5) steal everthing I can get my hands on: LC's Engines, colonization tech, some cheapo weapons, and some racial techs if lucky.

The boarding parties can keep your military research pumping, while you concentrate on getting infrastructure.
(Using boarding parties to steal Allegiance Subverter tech is fun )
IMO the best infrastructure tech to get is monoliths. Dosen't take too long, and gives you a very nice +100% to resource production.

Since you're an SE3'er, you should be well aware of the critical nature of chokepoints.
What you may not be clued into is the fact that storms and/or asteroid systems are a very effective barrier to ship travel.
Since supplies are based on movement used, not time, traveling through two empty systems can deplete the supplies of a warfleet, forcing them to turn back or turn into a suicide mission.

Also, simulate lots of combats, and do your math to find out which components are better.

[Taera]

A little of details ok.
In a typical game:
If i get a breathable planet in the system, i build a colonizer first. If not i build SYB.
I colonize all colonizable planets in the system, and at that time scout the surrounding space with a scout. I build a small transport to transfer the population.
The things i research ASAP are the frigate, ion engine lvl.3 (to keep the maintance smaller, and the construction a bit faster), organic manipulation, organic weapons lvl.1 and military science.
Then i go to destroyers, advance my knowledge in organic weapons, and point defense.
I do not respect the seeker weapons too much, so i use direct fire in the beginning, but given that i research PDC asap this doesnt cause me too much of a trouble.
Also i am a science guy in the game. I tend to have most of my worlds as research centers, and each mining colony beyong the 5 spaces will most likely have at least one or two research centers.
By that time i usualy encounter an enemy and keep my borders safe.

If the game goes longer, i research PDC to lvl.5 as soon as possible and get my organic weapons and armor as high tech as possible. I dont use shields much in the early game.

Thats as much as i can tell. If i meet an enemy race i can usualy hold them back, but rarely can support a full scale attack to wipe them out.
Hm, know what, i might post my latest save game..
Should i?


Now talking about SE3 stuff. Im not that bad out of SE4. I dont know th tech tree completely, but i know enough to keep up in the early game. My major problem is that i cannot go beyond average player.

Thanks for the help though. havent realy tried out the capture stuff. It requies military lvl.2 right?

[Suicide Junkie]

"Thanks for the help though. havent realy tried out the capture stuff. It requies military lvl.2 right?"
Yeah. Once you've opened the tech area, its only 5000 points for the boarding parties 1.

quote:

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The things i research ASAP are the frigate, ion engine lvl.3 (to keep the maintance smaller, and the construction a bit faster), organic manipulation, organic weapons lvl.1 and military science.

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I think that this is where your problem lies.
You're combining Organic Armor with small hulls, and that just dosen't work well. As you may or may not know, OA only heals hitpoints once one of the components has been destroyed. If you have only one OA, then you get nothing out of its regen abilities.

Also, by referring to the Damage Factor List (3rd post from the bottom) that I posted long ago, you can see that the Seeking Parasites (SP) are quite powerful at long range. (1.0 vs 0.5 for other organic weapons)
The fact that they always hit is very helpful as well
Once your opponents start loading up on PDCs, then you could switch to the PC/HPB guns.

By using Seeker spores early on, you can ditch armor, combat sensors, and even ECM, while using a max-range strategy.

Once you've stolen Cruiser scale vessels, then start heavily using the Organic armor. 1/3rd of your mass is a good starting point, since the more you have, the better it works.

[Grandpa Kim]

A few more things.

Notice how the AI's just love shields and armor, but are pretty random about the weapons they pick?
To counter this use longer range weapons and get those Phased Polaron Beams asap. Even with Organic Manipulation, get those Polaron Beams!
Get the Contra-Terren Engine. Costs more, but not only do you travel faster, you move at speed 4 in combat while the AI's are probably still at speed 3. This alone can be decisive, especially in tactical combat.

I find it hard to lose playing solo and give the computer every possible advantage. The only way he can beat me is to attack me in the first year! If I meet an AI in the second year, I wipe him out. To make it more difficult, I make NO alliances. With the suggestions on this thread, you should have no problems.

Good luck!

[Taera]

Thanks for the tips.
I do not realy like the PPC, but guess its the only mean to survive early on. I think that this gun is overpowered.

Now about the OA, its a new thing. I always had thought that it regenerates the damae points every turn, doesnt matter was it destroyed or not.

About the weapon pick, actually i prefer to play 3:1 when 3 are direct fire and 1 is the missiles.
I am also trying now how effective is to have several such small fleets - three organic-based direct fire ships (destroyers) and one missile (parasite) which is a frigate. Early on it should be the defense i need.

As for ship capturing, i remember i used that thing alot in SE3, and guess should do so here too.


I'll try the tips from here in my next game, thanks.
But any future comments are welcome.
Take to note that my problem is not survival, no.
I can dig that way that no AI could possibly ever breach my defenses, but thats not the way it works.
I always keep about 3-4 place in 10 players game (6-10 are neutrals), but i hear people complaining MEE comes to early, so i see how poor my gameplay is. Though a side note, for 14 planets today i managed to get ~30k research points, thats not too bad.
I might post my latest savegame tomorrow... its a lucky game, straight from the start i got huge breathable and in two closest sectors two more large.
Another thing that i play combined strategies, once im on high tech im unstoppable. full-tech games against the AI are worthless because i simply have better designs.

Thats my strong point - designing and countering enemy ships. Hell, i realy need a PBEM game..