Gameplay tips & tricks

[Riesig_Bar]

douglas said:
To prevent any other ancient race from learning exactly where your borders are on first contact, claim the entire galaxy on the first turn.

How do you do that?
If it sounds dumb its because I am still new.

[Suicide Junkie]

douglas said:
To prevent any other ancient race from learning exactly where your borders are on first contact, claim the entire galaxy on the first turn.

Or, and this works for everybody...
UNclaim your homesystem(s)

Better yet, if you're an ancient race, claim somebody else's homesystem to throw the other ancient race off

[Alneyan]

Alternatively, claim only some systems, resulting in bogus borders. To alter your borders, go to the Score screen => Borders. If you want to claim the whole galaxy, click on every systems you are not already claiming (you will miss some if you are not an Ancient player, unless you are very patient).

The Ancient race can also see how many colonies the enemy has in total, by looking at the appropriate figure in the Planets screen. This does not always work, however, and is mostly useful if there are only a couple of Empires in the game. Regular Empires can usually get the same information, but only about the enemy colonies present in systems they have seen. I am not sure what may prevent that figure from working though.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Riesig_Bar said:

How do you do that?
If it sounds dumb its because I am still new.

It's not dumb. It's just that you can claim any system you can see, at a guess. With ancient race, you can see all systems. Never messed much with the claim system myself, so I don't know.

[Makinus]

claiming a system does have any diplomatic (AI) impact?
As if you contest with another race a system the diplomatic instance with that race degrades?

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, once you meet a race you'd be wise to UNclaim all systems that appear on your map of their territory if you use this method of concealing your own territory. Hopefully the diplomacy system of SE V won't be so simplistic and we won't have to resort to 'tricks' to avoid revealing too much information.

[Fyron]

If you want to use such gamey exploits, just unclaim your home system(s) and disable the "automatically claim all colonized systems" option in the Empire Options screen (under Empire Status - crown). Now no systems will ever be claimed on the map.

[Slick]

Hey, I just realized this tonight:

You can protect your colonizers by fleeting them with warships. Simple, yes, I know, but I never did that before tonight. Then you can give the (C)olonize order to your fleet. Here's the neat part: if you have multiple colonizers in your fleet, even for different colony types, the fleet will move to the right place and one of the correct colonizers will unfleet itself to colonize the planet while the fleet guards in orbit. Leave the fleet there until it's safe or protected with units, then move on. I bet everyone knew this one except me, but just in case, I posted it here.

edit: Additionally, you can use your colonizing fleet with attack ships to attack and colonize an enemy planet in a single turn. The colonizers will stay out of combat with "don't get hurt" orders while your attack ships glass the planet then a colonizer in the fleet will colonize the planet on the next "movement day" during that turn, assuming it still has movement points left.


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That also reminds me of a little trick I use to colonize moons/planets in the same sector. A colonizer needs to have at least one movement point in order to colonize so you can build a bare-bones colonizer with just the cheapest engine (ion engine III) and use it to colonize moons/planets in the same sector as the spaceyard. Once this is done, you can move any number of population between planets in the same sector using the Transfer Cargo order.

[Randallw]

A colonizer needs to have at least one movement point in order to colonize so you can build a bare-bones colonizer with just the cheapest engine (ion engine III) and use it to colonize moons/planets in the same sector as the spaceyard.

I had that idea, but failed to realise it needed not only engines but enough engines for 1 movement. Took me a few turns to get it working.

[Slick]

Randallw said:

I had that idea, but failed to realise it needed not only engines but enough engines for 1 movement. Took me a few turns to get it working.

Sounds like you are using a QNP mod. I was speaking of unmodded propulsion. But yes, it requires at least 1 movement point to colonize, not necessarily 1 engine. Just to be precise.