Please Help a n00b

[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.

[Fyron]

Your mines will never hurt your ships. They only interfere with enemy ships (allies do not get hit by minefields). So, deploying mines is not going to restrict your expansion at all. Even just 1 or 2 turns of mines launched over each planet as the first thing they build will help a lot. A few transports loaded with mine layers can ferry mines out to the borders and launch them. They are certainly not a waste of resources.

What bonus are you giving to the AI? If you have them at a bonus, try giving them no bonus.

[Atrocities]

Welcome to the forum CareyB,

We all have been in your position as we learned to play the game.

Have you been using mounts? On ships of 400 KT and larger you gain access to weapons mounts that dramtically improve the range or power of your weapons. (Design window upper right hand side MOUNTS)

Lean that Phased Poloron Beams are your best friends. Physics 2, then start researching Phased weapons. The AI really does not defend against them earily on.

Point defense weapons. These shoot down incoming missles, fighters, and satellites.

Specialize your ships, have one class use nothing but PPB, and PDC. (Phased Poloron Beams, Point Defense Cannons) Then another uses Torpedos max, and say Depleted Urainum Cannons as an example.

Research Military Science and then Advanced Military Science to gain access to both Ship and Fleet training facilities. Then build them and fleet your ships at those worlds and their experiece points will grow. This will give you a tactical advantage against the AI.

Always deploy mines and Weapon Platforms to your planets. The AI will avoid attacking them for a good while. Deploy the mines first, then build WP. The reason for this is mines take up cargo space on a planet, and once you deploy them, your cargo storage is back to zero thus leaving you room to build weapon platforms (WP's)

Mining your Warp Points is useful as well, but the AI, most AI that is, will research Mines early on and will plow through your mine fields with little problems.

There is a strategy article or thread floating about the forum, and I think there is a link to it in both the Frequently asked Questions sticky and the Important info sticky.

[SpaceBadger]

Hi, CareyB. Are you playing your game in turns or simultaneous? If in turns, do you use strategic combat or tactical? Simultaneous games won't let you do tactical, but you can click the replay combat button when you get a combat log report, to see what happened in the combat, and try to figure out what went wrong.

Dropping mines in warp-points as you expand helps slow down any hostiles who might try to follow you home, at least until they start researching mines themselves and using minesweepers.

I hate the Evil Empire thing, but you can easily switch it off in settings.txt - just open it in a text editor, do a Find for evil, then change the value for "AI Uses Mega Evil Empire" from True to False.

Picking strategic systems to defend is important, controlling routes into your most developed systems - even better is to try to keep the fighting in the other guy's real estate.

I'm pretty much of a newbie, too. One thing that has worked well for me (against AI at least) is to research fighters as early as I can, and then base most of my combat ships on the Light Carrier until I have researched my way up to something better. The Light Carrier is big enough to let you use a good mount for your direct fire weapons (to increase range and damage), plus even if you only go with the minimum required number of fighter bays that gives you room for 28 small fighters. The Light Carrier can even be a pretty decent assault ship for planetary invasions, loading up with shields, PD, and a couple of cargo bays to add capacity in addition to what you get from the fighter bays (I usually cram these so full of troops that they don't have room for any fighters, but the bays are still there to give you some flexibility if you don't need a full load of troops).

Hope this helps.

SpaceBadger

PS: Merry Christmas, y'all!

[Slick]

CaryB, welcome to the forums. This is a great place. The people are friendly, knowledgeable and very helpful.

Mele Kalikimaka.

Slick.

[Taera]

An idea, try to avoid creating partnerships with aliens - for the reason that once they see your colonies, they're almost sure to declare a war on you pretty soon. Its a problem with almost every single AI that had only recently been identified.

Also, are you playing with bonuses? If you do, try first playing without the bonuses. Even experienced players often find medium bonuses, with good AI's, a challenge.

What AI's are you using? Any mods?

And, welcome to the forums!