Newbie co-op vs. AI... Help!

[clark]

You may want to play in a large quadrant, mid life- bigger galaxies give you a little more room to expand, and get your feet underneath you.

First off, research Consstruction- this will lead to fighters and mines. Research Physics (both construction and physics should be the first things you research) Research Mines after construction.

When you have mines, build one to three turns worth of mines on your planets if you feel the enemy is getting close (usually you can build about 10 mines per turn without a SY).

You and your friend should take different home world types (one gas, one rock) and different breather types. Trade colony techs and race types as soon as possible (this will allow you to maximize your space and planets.

Research Physics II as soon as possible- this leads to the Phased poloron beam, which will be useful through most of the game. research to level 5.

Usually, the LC spaceship hull is what you need to research up to (I have found that I rarely research beyond that). Steal the AI ships that are bigger and deconstruct those ships to get higher level tech.

I have found that Ship training and fleet training is only moderately useful (almost useless if you are Religious). It just takes too much time. Worry about training when you have your borders secure.

Focus on developing armor, shields, pdc first before stellar manipulations. Focus on combat sensors and ECM (ECM for religious only!) when priorities allow (you can often steal this tech if you put the same research into intel II).

Emergency build colonizers for the first ten turns- build a space yard as soon as possible on a small/tiny planet. Have it build colonizers at a normal rate- this way you can still expand at a good clip while your home planet is recovering.

If you can make agreements with the AI- just try for the non-interfence (the first level treaty). This way you can still have combat, but the AI is likely to enter your warp holes if yo have a ship sitting on a WP.

You can cripple an AI planet that you cannot destroy by leaving a ship in orbit- basically, blockade the planet. This will cause unhappiness and prevent resources from being transfered to the AI.