Opening Strategies

[Gozra]

quote:

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Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Make sure to build storage facilities to store any and all excess resources produced in the early game. It's much better to have, say, 210000 minerals stored than it is to have only 50000 when you start to build more than you can support. Store a lot more minerals than rads or organics. If you're and organic race, store about 1/3 to 1/2 as many organics as you do minerals. You don't need to store very many rads, because they aren't used very much
Get Solar Panel IIIs quickly and place a few supply ships outfitted with them in each fleet. This extends their range significantly.

And about the 3 spaceyards per homeworld, make sure to get them built ASAP. Unless there are huge (or maybe large) planets of your atmosphere in your home system, get these space yards built in the first 6 turns. If their are huge worlds, build a colony ship or two and get them colonized ASAP. They are the first priority. And don't limit yourself to 3 space yards at each homeworld. When you reach a point where you consistently have a large surplus in your income, build more space yards. Try to minimize the budget surplus.

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I must point out that warp point ships openers and closers cost a lot to make and run in rad points. So if you have a game in which these type of ships are important then radioactives become important. "gozguy"

[Gozra]

I have come across some truisms in SEIV that fit any type of game. Keep in mind the 2 basic type of games you can have In SEIV 1)Stars all connected 2) Stars not connected by warp points.
1st Truism. If it has an orbit Colonize it.
2nd T. Fill the colony worlds fast with population.
3rd T. Research applied research as the first big project.
4th T. Fighters + Mines = AI's Can't get you.

Industry -> Computers + Robotics = Greater production and research capablities
Population+ happiness= Greater production of everything.
I am not sure slow big Colony ships are THE answer. But it might be.

[Fyron]

quote:

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I must point out that warp point ships openers and closers cost a lot to make and run in rad points. So if you have a game in which these type of ships are important then radioactives become important. "gozguy"

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True, stellar manipulation is very Rad expensive, but so what? By the time you get around to using it, you should be making enough Rads to cover the costs, or you should be able to convert Organics or Minerals to Rads to cover the costs. And games where not all warp points are connected are the exception, not the rule.

quote:

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4th T. Fighters + Mines = AI's Can't get you.

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True, unless you play against good modded AIs, like the TDM ones. If you play against humans, then they won't help you much past the early game.

quote:

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I am not sure slow big Colony ships are THE answer. But it might be.

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IMO, the answer is Light Cruiser hull colony ships. They are large enough to have stealth armor, a colony module, 6 engines, and leave you with 80 spaces for cargo bays and/or supply storage/solar panels. When you get solar sails, you lose out on one of those cargo bays, but that's not a problem. Med./Large Transports are nice if you want a high starting population, but they get to be expensive.

[Bman]

Everyone is talking about building cargo storage early on. I say fooey on that. If you have surplus minerals after about 10 turns in a 1-planet start then you are doing something wrong and not expanding fast enough. And during the first 10 turns your planet should be busy building space station yards and colony ships. If you waste 3 slots on cargo storage, that's 1500 research points per turn or 1800+ resources per turn you could be getting instead. That pays the mineral cost required by a working space-yard each turn! With those extra points you can expand that much faster.

In a recent MP game I conquered another empire that only had about 6 planets to my 30 when we met and I was his only neighbor. I didn't understand it, but as I landed troops on all of his planets I kept finding resource storage units.

My strategy in the early game is to operate in the red and constantly increase my resource PRODUCTION so I can produce more faster. Send out colony ships like crazy and research some combat technologies early (either ship size or weapons or shields or armor or sensors or something) so that when you make first contact you will be able to build a ship capable of holding its own.

[geoschmo]

Bman,

I agree totally. I have played entire 100+ turn multi-player turn games never building a single resource storage facility. The only time it's ever been an issue is while retrofitting ships, and if you plan it right it's not a huge problem. It's really not a good idea to retrofit tons of ships at the same time anyway because the enemy could pick that moment to attack.

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

*winces* yup. Trust me on that one. DON'T refit a lot of ships at once.

On resource storage- it's saved my butt more than once, especially when a loose a resource-producing world or two. Human oppponents like hitting those first. At the moment in Dimension X, I'd be broke in 2 turns without my storage facilites.

And therein lies another bit of advice: watch your flanks!

Phoenix-D

[baetis]

Thanks for the tips guys. I did build a few Mineral storage facilities and I'm glad I did. There are times when I'm building very few ships and I get massive surpluses in Minerals. Storing them makes me feel a little better

Baetis