Please Help a n00b

[Unknown_Enemy]

Welcome to SE4.

You really need to read the "Frequently Asked Questions for Newbies", it was created by skilled people exactly for these situations.

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=23;t=009760

As for your ships, one 1 on 1, you may loose or not, depending on the situation. You gave very few details, so I can't tell.

However, read that faq, it explains quite a few things about how work the game.

Once you'll have mastered the game, and beating the AI will become boring, go to PBW to fight some of us.

[se5a]

simple solution?
play againsed humans

http://seiv.pbw.cc

[narf poit chez BOOM]

once you reach a certain size, 250% bigger than an ai empire, i think, it always declare's war on you. check settings.txt in the data folder under 'mega evil empire'.

[Asmala]

From Newbie FAQ:

13.1 Mega Evil Empire (MEE)
13.1.1 Settings.txt governs if & how MEE is used. Basically, if used, this system tries to limit an empire from running away quickly and winning the game. If a player is declared MEE, all AI’s will declare war on that player. A human or an AI can be the MEE. It does this by comparing the #1 player’s score with an absolute value and to the #2 player’s score. With default values, a human player becomes MEE when his score is 500k and is 170% of the next highest player. It is a little more forgiving on AI’s since they won’t be MEE until their score is 250% of the #2 player. New players are sometimes unaware of this and can’t understand why a game is going great and then suddenly the whole galaxy appears to turn on him. This is why.

Briefly, the AI sucks in SE4. As you have noticed it can declare a war without a reason.

The key to win is expansion. Expand as much as possible and research mines for early defence. Then research components required for your basic ship, light cruiser. A light cruiser equipped with four large mounted phased polaron beams, one or two point defence cannons, ECM, combat sensors and some armor are effective. Also remember to train your ships! Do not attack without 20% ship and 20% fleet experience and enough mine sweepers.

[CareyB]

Thanks for the help guys, in regard to me not giving many details on 1v1 battles, here it is:

I nearly always loose. My Cruiser would 90% of the time loose to a light cruiser, no matter what the hell I equip it with, I've run tons of simulated tests and I usually win those, but in the crunch, I loose.

BTW, in the simulator I usually try to fight 1 v 2 or 1 v 3 to know that if I can take out at least one ship, I should be able to win against most odds.

I will try Asmala's ship loadout, and haven't trained my ships at all so I will definately do that.

I haven't used mines either but keep hearing it mentioned. The reason for this is I want to expand as much as possible, and laying mines could restrict that, also it would be a waste of resources.
Would a good idea to get to a certain point, not too far out from my home system and just keep those border for a good while?

[CareyB]

Oh, and I copied the entire FAQ into note pad and saved it the other day for reference.

I won't be starting again tonight because I have to get up early tomorrow to go out for a couple of days and if I start a new game I won't get to bed 'til 5am again, not good for Christams morning...

[Slynky]

Originally posted by se5a:
simple solution?
play againsed humans

http://seiv.pbw.cc

I would advise people to get tired of beating the standard AI before letting them get stomped by humans. It's bad enough without having to endure simulatneous play, too.

I would advise the same thing I did in MOO and MOO2: Play the easy levels, then move up as you learn more. Pretty soon, you'll learn the basic tricks and strategies.

THEN come in and play some humans . I thought I was pretty good till I did that. I even played a lot of email games but only with one person. I still remember the first KOTH game I played against the Primitive Hoards ! Talk about a stomping! But I've come a long way since then.

Good luck! It's one of the best strategy games made...don't give up on it.