New to the game and Overwhelmed. Any hints?

[Dogberry]

Leo ... I'm an old MOO & MOM gamer myself, & I have just started w/ this game. The AI is a lot less fearsome than it seems at first glance. The most dangerous point for you is early in the game. An Orbital Ship yard in the first 5-10 turns is a must, & to be truthful, I have found WPs a waste of time. Your big advantages should be numbers, & then choke points if you are hard pressed. Get the numbers..load your initial ships to the gills w/ weapons, don't bother with larger mounts, & when you have a battle... go "tactical" & break up your fleet. The AI will go for your big ship or a wounded one & you can use this to benefit your play.

I haven't given the AI any bonuses yet, as I am not sure what this means.. you might want to avoid this also. Usually it doesn't mean that the AI plays better, but it just comes at you with more of everything.

On your home planet, after your have your minerals built up in your "natural" storage, go ahead & scrap a mineral miner & replace it with research. In fact, prioritise research over about everything else.. when building facilities. Aside from getting the frigate class of ship, & bigger, badder DUCs & missiles, your research priorities are your own.

If a race is not threatening & does not share your initial atmosphere or planet type.. go ahead & make peace. If they are not soreheads, they go for trade & better on treaties.. pretty easily. You can always soften them up by gifting them a 1000kt of Organics or even Radioactives.

Don't forget to build a resupply depot in every system that is likely to see heavy traffic, & build a space port, right after it... as you receive NO benefits from that system.. in resources, research & Intel.. until a port is built in that system.

Once you get past the early part & establish yourself..it's a piece of cake.

take care... Dog

P.S. you can scrap fighters & sats if you have them in orbit around a planet with a shipyard.

[ May 26, 2002, 03:07: Message edited by: Dogberry ]