Obscure, unintuitive and unforgiving

[Alneyan]

*Points at the NGC5 game, and glowers at Ruatha* Do not expect to deceive me. You have been building Monoliths at your Ringworlds and Sphereworlds there! As such, your query can only be a ploy to trick me into revealing important intelligence about how I use the products of my imperial ego.

I would only build the basic resource facilities at any planet, including Ringworlds and Sphereworlds. Once the planet is filled up, I start scrapping one facility to replace it with a Monolith; it takes a lot micromanaging, but gives a decent resource production while waiting for Monoliths. At least, I ideally do that; more often than not I lack the patience to make such changes, and tend to leave my basic resource facilities.

Since Ringworlds take 120 turns to be filled (assuming Advanced Storage and one facility per turn), plus quite a few turns to build them, I will seldom come anywhere making the switch to Monoliths. But then, I mostly use Ringworlds to show off and to make myself secure from Star Destroyers, so.

[Renegade 13]

I always build Monoliths on all my planets, as soon as I have the tech for them...even on sphere/ringworlds.

*Pointing at NCG5* Ruatha, I'm offended! You closed the warp point I opened into your system! And here I was just trying to be friendly

[Alneyan]

Renegade 13 said:
*Pointing at NCG5* Ruatha, I'm offended! You closed the warp point I opened into your system! And here I was just trying to be friendly

Ruatha is such a mean player, and so reluctant to accept contacts with the younger Empires. Feel free to blame Ruatha for any wrong caused by the First Ones; however, the praises about the First Ones should be sent to myself.

I have taken over the First Ones Renegade, and so I am the one guilty for that warp closing. Ruatha had nothing to do with it, unless you want to make him a scapegoat.

[Renegade 13]

Alneyan said:

Ruatha is such a mean player, and so reluctant to accept contacts with the younger Empires. Feel free to blame Ruatha for any wrong caused by the First Ones; however, the praises about the First Ones should be sent to myself.

I have taken over the First Ones Renegade, and so I am the one guilty for that warp closing. Ruatha had nothing to do with it, unless you want to make him a scapegoat.

I knew that! I just forgot it for a while there... So you're the guilty one....grrrrrrrr.......

[Karibu]

Ruatha said:
Is it really econimical to build Monoliths on ring/sphereworlds?

Think it like this. 1 normal resource facility generates 1000 units/turn. Monolith generates 2700 units/turn. Therefore, if you build monolith in 2 turns, you create more resource generating capacity per turn than building normal facilities. It would be different if planets could build more than 1 facility/turn, but they can't. It might be different in SEV. I am interested to see what it is like.

[Karibu]

Bbq. The Space Empires IV has a lot of things like you have just encountered. Many of them is not mentioned in any manual, but on this board and patch release notes. First thing is, that you should read This thread . After that you are quite a lot more equipped to play SEIV and you face a lot less unpleasant surprises. Remember, that even when user interface is not complex, the game itself is.

[Arkcon]

Yeah, the fact that the sphereworld needs many starbases, built on the star was in the FAQ on Malfador's site long before it ever came up on these forums. You raise a fair point, the info should have been worked into the text descriptions by now.

This next statement may tick you off, but here it is anyway ... Everyone 'round here knows those rules already. It really isn't worth MM's time to redo it. You got a suprise -- that's all. An expensive one, to be sure. But that is part of the fun.

Someone somewhere loaded up his ships with Shields V, then met the Sergetti with the polaron beam battleships. Too bad for them, start a new game.

I suggest that for you as well. Start another game, you now know the tech tree, so it should be easier. Build a sphereworld around your home star, you'll see -- the game can be fun again.

P.S.
Don't try to board ships with a self destruct device that happens to have destroyed engines -- the description is a deliberate lie by alien engineers, your ship will blow up anyway.

P.P.S.
Play SuicideJunkies P&N mod: That way, when you lose all ships, and can't pay maintenance, and the game scraps some satelites in space as punishment, you won't get a silly message explaning it -- you'll get a well thought out message instead.

P.P.P.S.
Ignore everything I've said if you play against humans, it will all profit you nothing.

[Atrocities]

Tip for success in an early game is Research and deploy MINES.

That goes for SP and PBW. Enjoy.

[Ed Kolis]

But don't hang onto mines too long... if your opponent brings out mine sweeper III's (they sweep 3 mines per turn... EACH ), it's time to abandon mines as a viable strategy

edit: or is it really per "use" like in the description? what happens if you have a ship with a single MS III and you run into 2 minefields with 2 mines apiece in different sectors or belonging to different races? Does it sweep all of them or do you take damage from one of the mines in the second field?

[Alneyan]

It is per sector and per component. However, if you are at war with ten Empires, and they have 100 mines each in the same sector, you will trigger the whole stack of mines at once. Unless you have the means to sweep 1,000 mines, you will suffer from *some* damage. *Chuckles*