Strategy Articles!

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
***PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK! This is a DRAFT.***
c. ships will be abandoned at random due to shortages; as opposed to scrapped. The main difference is that wheh you intentionally scrap a ship, you get a percentage (in settings.txt) of the resources back. Abandoned ships return no resources, any cargo being carried is lost, and the AI certainly won't choose wisely when deciding which ships to abandon.

Better say "The game certainly won't choose .. " then the "AI certainly..." as you otherwise might get the impression that it only applies to AI run empires and not YOUR empire.


17.3.7.2 Planet Values %
Pay attention to the mineral, organic, and radioactive value % on a planet’s details. When determining where to build a facility, use a planet close to or exceeding 100% for a given resource type. That percentage is part of the formula used in producing your empire’s total resources:

(Extraction Facility value) x (planet’s resource type %) x (empire’s racial %) x (Planet Computer Facility %) x (System Computer Facility %) x (planet’s happiness %) x (population %) x = total mineral resources committed to your empire for that facility.

For example, a Mineral Miner I extracts (700) x Planet mineral 120% (1.2) x empire racial bonus 110% (1.1) x Planet Robotoid factory I 110%(1.1) x System Robotoid factory 110% (1.1) x Jubilant happiness 120% (1.2) x 500 population 110% (1.1) x treaty +20% (1.2) = (x) mineral resources committed to your empire for that facility.

x treaty +20% ??? What do you mean?

17.3.7.3 Develop Your Planets

The key to economic growth is maximizing your planet development. Special facilities can help, but they take a while to build. Therefore, in a small universe or one-on-one game, I rarely use any advanced facilities, unless I’m really comfortable and secure.

Medium scope game facilities :
a. Planet Robotoid Factory (Computers). I usually build these Last on a planet. Second to Last, I build a space yard to expedite the build time and facility upgrade time (quite often, I set the yard on emergency build for these.)
b. System Robotoid Factory (Computers). I usually build these Last on a planet. Second to Last, I build a space yard to expedite the build time and facility upgrade time (quite often, I set the yard on emergency build for these.)
Note: System Robotoid Facilities do not increase the benefits of remote mining. (Imperator Fyron)
c. Monolith Facilities: only if the planet has good values across all categories, and I feel I can wait 5 turns.
d. Scanners: I don’t generally use them because the bonus is applied to only one resource area, rather than all three. And you have to cannot use both Robotoids and Scanners at the same location; only one takes effect.

Grammar.

17.3.10 Predict Resource Swings
How did this Happen?
All new players learn a hard economic lesson when they start using advanced tech and their economic needs change. Players can experiences economic droughts of 10, 20 or more turns trying to compensate for current resource needs. For instance, you start using Phased Polaron Beams on your designs, and find your radioactive reserves drained while you halt all production to build radioactive mining facilities. The best bet is to plan ahead.

Most commonly, economic swings are caused by:

a. (Mid game) Building and maintaining components with a heavy radioactive cost, such as shields, armor, certain weapons types such as PPBs, and stellar manipulation components (huge!). Rads are most often underestimated.
b. (Early game) maintaining too many colony ships en route; building too many non-resource producing facilities at the same time
c. Mass building or upgrading of facilities, especially special facilities.
d. Losing (or acquiring) fleets and planets.
e. Retrofits to your current designs, using new components with a different resource cost. Retrofits are subtracted from your stored resources. When you give the retrofit order, the specific resource cost is displayed. HOT! you must take a mental tally of all retrofits you order in a turn and ensure the total cost does not exceed your storage!

If you have a surplus in your resource income/expense, the total cost of the retrofits must be compared to the storage AND predicted income the next turn.
You can retrofit with a storage of 0 if you have a turn result of enough positive resources next turn.

[ June 14, 2003, 09:44: Message edited by: Ruatha ]