Gameplay tips & tricks

[Emperor's Child]

Even if this change were made, you would need to go back to modify the AI constructino files to ensure they are actually built. I believe most AI facility construction files don't call for building any fleet or ship training facilities.

[El_Phil]

I've seen them turn up from time to time, but I couldn't swear in which mod. But probably not in stock, although don't hold me to it.

[Wolfman77]

Strategia_In_Ultima said:

Here's something I always do:
Create bases with ONLY cargo storage (as soon as you've met the requirements for B/CQ/LS by placing those or MC) and build one/a few in orbit around your Homeworld. Then, whenever your population gets above a certain level, place a set number of pop on those stations. That way, you can have billions of people in orbital stations, even if you start on a Tiny world. The reson for this is that this way, when you colonize a new planet, you can immediately fill it up to max pop to speed up its growth tremendously while not emptying your HW this way. Also, when an important colony has suffered severe population losses, you can replenish the pop. Or, when an important colony has been depopulated with - what are those things called again? Neutron Bombs? you can immediately repopulate it completely so you get the full income again after just a few turns, instead of suffering perhaps crippling losses to your economy over the course of perhaps several years.

I take it one step farther. I build a cargo base around the sun and use escorts and frigates with very specific movement and cargo capacity to ferry population from all plamets in the system automaticly.

Example: Huge planet holds 8B population with a growth of 5% per turn you can take 380M off each turn and it will fill back up fully. If, say, it's 2 spaces from the sun, build a cargo ship with 4 movement and can store exactly 380M Then just use 'load cargo' 'drop cargo' 'repeat'. Of course this can be a problem if you have low ship limits in the game, and it can also decrease your production. you can use one ship to do multiple planets if they are close enough to the storage base and are the same size and repro. rate, and you can use the 20% storage racial trait to ofset the production loss.

I've also found that creating planets is not random, but thats more of an exploit than a tip so it may be more apropriate under a different topic

[Wolfman77]

I've also noticed the AI has a problem determing when not to build production facilities on planets. eg. They colonize a planet with 10% mineral 1% organic and 0% rads and because the minerals are so much higher in relation to the others (120% is the stock percentage in the AI files IIRC) they fill it with mineral miners. I raised the lower limit for value, so when they do this at least it isn't a compleat waste. Of course they still use a planet that is 140%,120%,120% as a reserch or intlegence planet, as 140% is not more than 120% ofeither of the other two. you will get a few more planets that fall into this area though unlessyou change the AI files the a lower prcentage difference to build. So if you make the resource range 50%-150% the AI to about 113%. I have stronger AI's now but then I changed alot of other stuff and haven't yet tried it on the stock game. If someone else wants to try it out and see what you think, I'd like to hear your thoughts (or point out anything I forgot).

[Alienboy]

I was wondering if someone could tell me,..

Do fleets of fighters help the happiness of a systems population get better?
Also, I have been told of a bug that affects messages you send to other players. If you reply to messages first and then spend the next few days playing and saving your turn, your messages don't get sent,.. or something like that. I now do my messages last but I have started to wonder why my intel projects fail against a races with next to no intel points?? Is there a similar bug which affects Intel projects? [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon27.gif[/img]

[Ed Kolis]

I don't think fighters help with happiness... only ships and bases.
Dunno about the bug...

[Renegade 13]

The messages problem occurs in multiplayer games for sure. Can create a lot of havoc.

[douglas]

Alienboy said:
I now do my messages last but I have started to wonder why my intel projects fail against a races with next to no intel points?? Is there a similar bug which affects Intel projects?

There are three possible reasons for intel projects to fail:

1) It was blocked by counterintel. Keep in mind that counterintel can be built up during an empire's height and saved indefinitely as long as it isn't being depleted faster than it's being generated. In a worst case scenario, you could have to wade through 12 nearly full Counter Intelligence 3 projects before seeing any success, which would take near 21.6 MILLION intelligence points of offense, not counting further intel defense produced while you're trying to wear it all down.

2) You tried a Puppet Political Parties project and didn't get lucky. This project, and this project only, has a 50% (I think) chance to fail even if counterintel fails to block it.

3) There are no valid targets. If, for example, an empire has been so badly beaten that it has no ships at all, Crew Insurrection projects used against that empire will all fail. This will usually produce a log message that simply states that the project failed, rather than saying that it was blocked.

[Alienboy]

douglas said:

There are three possible reasons for intel projects to fail:

1) It was blocked by counterintel. Keep in mind that counterintel can be built up during an empire's height and saved indefinitely as long as it isn't being depleted faster than it's being generated. In a worst case scenario, you could have to wade through 12 nearly full Counter Intelligence 3 projects before seeing any success, which would take near 21.6 MILLION intelligence points of offense, not counting further intel defense produced while you're trying to wear it all down.

2) You tried a Puppet Political Parties project and didn't get lucky. This project, and this project only, has a 50% (I think) chance to fail even if counterintel fails to block it.

3) There are no valid targets. If, for example, an empire has been so badly beaten that it has no ships at all, Crew Insurrection projects used against that empire will all fail. This will usually produce a log message that simply states that the project failed, rather than saying that it was blocked.

I think it is the Puppet Political Parties that I have the most trouble with. Sometimes it has worked but instead of the target planet joining my race, it goes off and makes its own race. I would like to know more about how Intel works,... seems to be a strange beast! [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

[douglas]

Alienboy said:
I think it is the Puppet Political Parties that I have the most trouble with. Sometimes it has worked but instead of the target planet joining my race, it goes off and makes its own race. I would like to know more about how Intel works,... seems to be a strange beast! [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Read section "10.1 Intelligence" in the FAQ for the rundown on how intelligence works in general.

PPP is a special exception to the all-or-nothing rule of counterintel. It has a chance to do nothing, a chance to make the target planet form its own empire, and a chance to make the target planet switch sides to join you. If there are already 20 empires in the game, including any that may have alread been wiped out, the possibility of forming a new empire disappears. I don't know what effect this has on the probability of success. A new empire formed by a rebelling planet inherits all aspects of the empire design of its parent empire except name, population picture, and planet and atmosphere types. Somehow, all the population on the planet will spontaneously mutate to breathe the atmosphere of that planet, which can be quite useful for undoming planets without waiting for atmospheric modification plants. The new empire will also inherit all of the parent empire's technology, which may make it an attractive target for technological espionage, since it will only have the resources of that one planet and will not have any counterintel built up.