Gameplay tips & tricks

[Fyron]

If you want to use such gamey exploits, just unclaim your home system(s) and disable the "automatically claim all colonized systems" option in the Empire Options screen (under Empire Status - crown). Now no systems will ever be claimed on the map.

[Slick]

Hey, I just realized this tonight:

You can protect your colonizers by fleeting them with warships. Simple, yes, I know, but I never did that before tonight. Then you can give the (C)olonize order to your fleet. Here's the neat part: if you have multiple colonizers in your fleet, even for different colony types, the fleet will move to the right place and one of the correct colonizers will unfleet itself to colonize the planet while the fleet guards in orbit. Leave the fleet there until it's safe or protected with units, then move on. I bet everyone knew this one except me, but just in case, I posted it here.

edit: Additionally, you can use your colonizing fleet with attack ships to attack and colonize an enemy planet in a single turn. The colonizers will stay out of combat with "don't get hurt" orders while your attack ships glass the planet then a colonizer in the fleet will colonize the planet on the next "movement day" during that turn, assuming it still has movement points left.


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That also reminds me of a little trick I use to colonize moons/planets in the same sector. A colonizer needs to have at least one movement point in order to colonize so you can build a bare-bones colonizer with just the cheapest engine (ion engine III) and use it to colonize moons/planets in the same sector as the spaceyard. Once this is done, you can move any number of population between planets in the same sector using the Transfer Cargo order.

[Randallw]

A colonizer needs to have at least one movement point in order to colonize so you can build a bare-bones colonizer with just the cheapest engine (ion engine III) and use it to colonize moons/planets in the same sector as the spaceyard.

I had that idea, but failed to realise it needed not only engines but enough engines for 1 movement. Took me a few turns to get it working.

[Slick]

Randallw said:

I had that idea, but failed to realise it needed not only engines but enough engines for 1 movement. Took me a few turns to get it working.

Sounds like you are using a QNP mod. I was speaking of unmodded propulsion. But yes, it requires at least 1 movement point to colonize, not necessarily 1 engine. Just to be precise.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

It can pay to keep a small number of ships with WMGs in your fleets. If the enemy uses mainly, say, APBs, you can get a rather large advantage over the enemy if you can get off a WMG volley from a few of your ships before the enemy ships are in range of their weapons. You might deal critical damage to them, perhaps even destroy a ship (or perhaps two, if they are weakly armored) before they're in conventional weapon range. I don't know how the AI handles it if a fleet/combatgroup leader loses all of his movement, but I think the fleet would just hang motionless in space. This would be ideal for you (especially fighting AI enemies in a classic turn tactical combat) if you kill the engines on the lead enemy ship and then stay out of weapons range and patiently pummel them with WMGs until their weapons are mostly gone, then close in for the kill with the rest of your warships.

(The following tip is especially true for mods with very fast ships, speed 10-20 or above on strategic map) It can really pay to have a few very fast strike ships armed with Ripper Beams. They can wait patiently until the enemy ships are nearer, dart into enemy range, fire a powerful volley and then retreat out of enemy range again. This is also handy in massive fleet actions, if a large fleet of yours and a large fleet of the enemy duke it out over a planet with these strike ships as defenders. While the fleets pound away at each other, the strike ships can pick away at the enemy and wither them down. This can be especially handy if the enemy utilizes long-range seeker-armed ships that stay out of your fleet's weapons range, the strike ships can destroy these fire-support ships to give your fleet an edge over the enemy, then pick away at medium/long-range warships that pour (heavy) fire into your fleet from a good distance.

If the above makes no sense at all, please let me know and I'll try to explain.

[El_Phil]

I'm not sure of the exact point but AI fleets definetly break when the leader is too heavily damaged. I think its percentage based as it seems fairly random, on the other hand it could be just no weapons and/or low movement and I just haven't been paying enough attention.