If the AI doesn't cheat, how does it get so many techs in the first few months?

Trade, trade, trade.

Jeez...now why didnt I think of that? [/Sarcasm off] I would have traded if there was anyone around to trade with. There aren't. And by the time I do find someone I am already at least four techs behind. And this isn't an isolated game, this happens a lot. The first race I meet has already four techs more than me. Maybe it has traded, but by then I am too far behind. It doesn't want any of my crummy techs. Besides, if that were true, you would just pump 100% into research, and not worry about expanding your colonies. Then just open your solar system for business with the first guy that comes along.

~SDC~

Did you see the lease option in the planet screen? It makes a big difference in building ships fast. The AI will trade techs in the early game more easily, especially with the "minor" races.
Also keep in mind that the AI's each have a little difference in how they play the early game. For example the Altarians do lease more in the begining then the Torians and the Drengin are eager to trade social or trade tech for any weapons tech you got, but will never give a weapons tech away (compared to barely ever from each other race )
The starting location plays a big role too, keep the restart galaxy key combo in mind ( cmd-E ) and maybe the next game will see you with more tech than the AI.

I don't like to restart a game just because I didn't get an optimal starting position. The game should be designed so that even if you are somehow isolated from every other society, you still have a chance to come out on top. If victory is dependant upon starting positions then something's wrong.

Like I said, in this game I am in I did not have the chance to meet any races to trade with until too late. As for leasing, it seems that if you lease even once you're too far in the hole for the rest of the game.

I would really like to know what the AI does to get those techs and stay ahead in population. They are also ahead in influence, tech, military, and economy. Interesting that they have all this equipment and technology but there is not one thing they have sacraficed to get it.


~SDC~

It is kinda scary...it happened to me too...well, something like this, anyway...

I was allied with altarians and while I was their buddy they allways complained and begged me for help...whining bastards...So I started to wander :
the dregins are at beginner level and doing better than the altarians at normal level ?...well, anyway, the blue-bastards were as puny as one ma get...until something fishy happened and they declared war on me...the next month they had tons'o dreads and rangers up my a**...no more "please help us, we're small and our earrings are too heavy for our ears !"

the bloody tatooed sob's whiped my a** off the map in just 15 turns...go fig...

You must lease, especially in the higher difficulty settings!
The first thing to do when starting a game is to purchase a colony ship from mitrosoft (Unless you have a small or tiny map with the rare setting for planets)
it is ok to lease up to three colony ships in my expirience, as long as you actually can use them instantly.
What AI setting are you playing on? The top two get a bonus, so that might also be what you expirienced (only the top two get a bonus (really!))
The starting location can make your game hard, if you are inexpirienced, it CAN break or make the game, but winning is not the only fun to have here, especially
if you just started to play
You complain about the AI playing too good, so I suggest that a less inteligent level is probably the right thing for you to choose.

First, as far as starting position. It's been a horror of 4x games as far as time goes back. A bad starting position in MOO2 could leave you dead to rights - a space monster in one system, nothing but gas giants; or worse, a white star with NO planets in the other).. same with civ, same with Empire for those who remember it. This game *IS* a bit worse as your colonization is very limited.. but it's not unrealistic when you look at real life - the nations that have become great have done so at least partially because of geography. Ctrl N is my friend and one of the best innovations I've seen in a (single player) 4x game.

I've finally started to match the AI's pop growth without having to resort to racial pop growth bonuses and PQ bonuses. I set spending to 100%, taxes to whatever gives me 100 approval and 80% military, 20% research, zero social at the start. I build a scout - partially to have it, partially to give Sol an extra turn or two to grow pop, then switch to colony ships - I churn out one every 3 turns.

I check my taxes every turn and keep my approval at 100 to maximize growth. My colony ships normally hold 100million and that means SOL's pop still grows as I launch them... by the time my 3rd or 4th ship is done I can throw 200+ million in it and still have over a billion people on earth. That one gets sent to either a distant sector with 4 or 5 stars or to the best world I've found with my scout and survey ship (note about the survey ship, I'll detour it quite a distance if my scout has seen a big rock - it's another ship to scout with). That 200+ pop colony will churn out a colony ship too, odds are by the time it's done I can put 100mil on it and still have 200 mil people.

What I research depends a lot on my strategy and map size. On a huge map, I'll go for Impulse drives and then Trade, then back to speed to get the Grav Accelerator trade good (trade goods and wonders are the only things I'll lease). On smaller galaxies I'll try and get aphrodisiacs asap (+30% pop growth helps a lot).

I'll keep this up until I get close to broke, then lower my spending, raise my taxes to about 50% and even out my military/social/research spending.

Using this strategy early on, I've matched the AI's pop growth and economy and come 'close' to it's tech ability. I'm betting I could totally stop military production for a few turns to grab a couple quick techs at some point... right now I think my biggest problem is staying in the expansion phase TOO long.. not changing over to the next stage early enough.

For my first few games, especially when I started on intelligent, I was *sure* the computer cheated too, but now I'm realizing it's just a masterpiece of programming for the expansion phase... still needs some work on it's combat tactics though (which is a good thing IMO.. I still need some games to prepare for an AI that fights me effectively as well as expands effectively).

I'm playing Normal...which to me means the AI should be, uh, normal. And I am not accusing the AI of cheating nor did I say it was playing intelligently. It just seems that we are not starting on an even playing field. Maybe they start off with more money or something. But right now, the AI expands so fast and there does not appear to be any defecit when I look at the graphs. The lines just go up and up and up, while mine dip here and there then level off, go up a bit, dip, level off.

What does 4x mean? (Turn based? But I don't get the 4x part.)

BTW: Thanks Baerd, and BvG for your input. I still don't think leasing is the way to go, but I'm going to try it!

~SDC~

It's very simple. Set your spending rate up to maximum and place a very high percentage in tech research. You will operate at a loss early on, but this is equivalent to "rush-buying" your techs.

You can raise your tax rate to offset those losses, but keep in mind that your population growth will start slowing. However, once your morale reaches 100 on planets, there's little point in having it lower.

All of the basic techs can be acquired in 2 turns each, and Diplomatic Translators can be had in a single turn. Having 5-6 techs at the end of the first year is not that hard.

If you really want to get picky about saving every possible BC, make sure that adjust your science rate down to the minimum possible when your tech says "Next Month". The early techs cost 34 BC of research each, and the Translators cost 17 BC.

Also, if you plan to buy colony ships on a lease, do them all on same turn and set your military spending to 0%. That way you won't waste military spending on any projects you've already paid for.

yes, and since in the firs months you actually BUY ships and stuff, I usually set the military slider to zero...this seems a good ideea on AI's normal and sub normal...however, I dunnot know what would be the impact on nor building any attack vessels early, on higher AI's

haven't tried yet...for me, a normal AI and two sub-normals are some scary sht !

I lease all the time. First thing I do in a new game:

1) Turn military and social spending to zero each, research at 100%. I do this for at least a year.
2) I immediately buy/lease 2 colony ships to go with the free one I get. I *might* get a 4th, depends what's going on.
3) This gets me at least 4-5 star systems going and a decent tech lead. May a beeline to impulse drive to move those colony ships out faster.
4) After about a year I typically even out to 30-40% military and rest in research. Zero in social. Don't need it yet.
5) I'll then build/buy a couple scouts. If I quickly find some more juicy yellow starts, I'll pump out a couple more colony ships. Sacrifice all for the good of expanding I always say.
6) After I've gotten most of my colony ships away I'll even out all spending to one third each and adjust as needed.
7) Now I've colonized a tons of systems, have a good tech lead to trade like crazy to pay for all my deficit spending and make a tech beeline to my chosen strategy (trade, military, speed, etc.)

Worked pretty well so far. But you gotta rush by at least 2-3 colony ships early or else you will be behind.

These guys are Right Badbones. Its VERY easy to colonise more, and faster than the AI once you get a hang of things. Follow what they are saying and soon you will wish the AI was faster in coloniseing and teching up

~SDC~

My start consists of this:-

Set spending to 100
Set military to 80
Set research to 20

you will then pump out a colony ship every 2 or 3 turns.

By the time you are low on money you should have 15+ planets already, now level up spending, and increase research and look for civs to trade with

~SDC~

15+ planets? I guess you aren't using Loose Clusters and yellow suns=Rare. But I will try these ideas out. I think I read somewhere that the AI knows the starting location of all the planets. I think that helps too because it always beats me to the yellow stars.

Thanks everyone!

~SDC~

Actually it's been clarified that the AI at start only knows the *color* of each star, not the quality of each planet. This is a slight advantage as you only know the location of each star (mini map).

And if I recall correctly (to further humble us) "bright" is the only level with parity (no "cheating"). Above that level the AI gets bonuses to it's economy, and below it's economy is penalized (and thus we are "cheating").


~SDC~

Badbonez, it knows where the yellow stars are, not the planets.

I don't lease (except wonders/trade goods), I buy one scout outright at the begining, and use the rest of the money to keep my spending at 100%, hopefully until I start trading with other races so I can keep it there. Then again, I like larger maps, so having more colony ships in the first X years is a better strategy than having more colony ships right away. Leasing gets you more right away, using the money to max your spending instead gets you more down the road.

The race definately works differently depending on galaxy size and planet distribution. I normally play on "giant" with "common" habitable worlds in "loose" clusters. In these cases I've found leasing is rarely necessary and that I don't even need to have military over 50 in order to carve out a good enough chunk of the galaxy. In very large galaxies the time before first contact tends to be very long, and so you have time to churn out your colony ships legitimately rather than selling your soul to Mitrosoft.
It all depends on your settings. *shrugs*

The way I typically do it (I've finished games up to Sub-normal intelligence, and am doing quite nicely on a Normal game; I'm working my way up the scale has a few aspects:

1) Crank tax rate up to 50-55%. Morale goes down a bit, but it recovers, and this gives you more income later in the game!
2) Crank overall production to 100%. You will go into debt, but I scale back once I hit about the -500bc mark.
3) As long as I haven't run out of easily accessable worlds to colonize, I turn social production down to 0% and put military and research both on 50%. (Once I start running out of worlds to colonize, I go to 33/33/34%.)
4) Most planets produce colony ships and nothing else until I start running out of colonization targets, though I do build a couple scouts for exploration. Nothing gets leased/purchased outright unless I'm in more of a hurry than normal.
5) I don't start colonizing multiple planets in the same system until after I run out of new systems, unless there is a particularly nice planet that will really aid me immediately. Remember: You only need to claim one planet in a system to control the entire system and prevent other races from colonizing it.
6) My inital research paths aim to get Universal Translators, Diplomacy, and Trade early on, followed by Cold Fusion, Impulse Drives (that +1 move is awfully useful), Artifical Gravity, and Controlled Gravity (ditto for that +1 range).

This seems to work fairly well on large sized maps and larger. It will probably work on medium. Smaller than that and this may be a bit slow on expansion for the first 3-6 turns.

At first I thought that the idea of being able to build both a military and a civilian improvement at the same time was a major improvement to Civ type games. Then I realized that the global slider system actually makes you *less* flexible and gives you *fewer* options. This is because you usually either want one or the other (at least in the early game) and the way it works now you need to apply your choice to all of your planets rather than being able to mix and match. Remember this and adjust your sliders accordingly. Because you get the fruits of your labor quicker it is almost always better to run your military at 100% for "two" turns (until your project is done) and then your research at 100% for two turns then it is to run them at 50/50 for 4 turns (for example).

Here is what I found to work extremely well:
Turn 1: Set research at 100%, taxes around 50 or so (consider being from the populist party, then you can raise it even higher)spending at 100% and research either propulsion (large map I don't think I have near neighbors, or communications) and lease a colony ship.
Turn 2: Set military at 100% and set Earth to making another colony ship.
Turn before colony ship arrives: Adjust military slider down until Earth will pop out a colony ship on the next turn and put the rest of the money into research.
Possibly build a scout now (using the same technique, don't waste that extra money, put it into research).
Repeat building colony ships (not wasting any money by putting it all the extra into research on the turn of completion) also remembering that colony ships should move outwards and try to define the borders of your empire (i.e. it is often better to pass by the first planet you find and keep going outwards filling it in later after you have met the enemy and established a border, this is where the scout ship is very useful in try to ascertain whether the enemy has a colony ship in route or not...) If all else fails remember that should the AI slip by you and colonize one of those interior planets that you failed to colinize then you will probably get it back eventually because it will be heavily under your sphere of influence...)
Keep going like this until you hit -499bc and then adjust your spending so you are making a small profit each turn. Also consider leasing some more Colinizers and using all that extra spending in 100% resarch for a while until you get propulsion (+1 move will help exponentially in the early game). This is the real power of the early lease in that it allows you to not spend any resources on military production that turn and spend it in research instead.
After I get nervous doing this for too long I adjust to 50/50 military/resarch and get the Universal translator.
After the land grab is over we then have the resource grab (which usually occurs on 50/50 military/research) but since I have all my new colony ships making a constructor (unless a colonizer would Obviously be better) I can usually claim several of these during the expansion phase as well.

Which brings us to why I think that the AI is actually penalized at most difficulty levels. I hate doing this level of micromanagement (especially since there isn't something on the slider screen that tells you number of turns until your research project is completed so if you are trying not to waste money there you have to adjust the slider a bit, go back to the research screen come back and adjust the slider some more... etc.) The AI doesn't mind clicking so much so it can do this and not waste any resources, but all but the most fastidious human will give up after a bit and start using more general policies. So we penalize the normal AI to reflect what a normal person is like.

~SDC~

Starting position determines everything in this game.

If you start with another yellow star right next to you with a really good planet in orbit, it's almost like starting with DOUBLE.

With five other civs in the game, there's only a 1/6 chance that you have the best starting position. So it's likely that some other alien civ is going to start off with a strong economy, not even accounting for the fact that they know where the good planets are and you don't.

A cheap way to get tech is to buy it from the civ that's the tech leader, and then sell it to everyone else. If you have a good diplomacy value, then you can actually turn a profit doing this.

I seemed to have good luck with using my 1000 starting money to turn my spending up to 100% and turning my military to 100%, which helps to turn out some colony ships and constructors really fast.

When you have to buy stuff from Mitrosoft, they really screw you on the price. But sometimes, by trying to be cheap, I miss out on building a trade good or wonder cause some other civ beat me to it. Then I think "darn, should have bought it from Mitrosoft."

quote: When you have to buy stuff from Mitrosoft, they really screw you on the price. But sometimes, by trying to be cheap, I miss out on building a trade good or wonder cause some other civ beat me to it. Then I think "darn, should have bought it from Mitrosoft."

Exactly. Mitrosoft is only good when a monopoly is involved...

~SDC~

My opinion with early expansion is that leasing colony ships is simply not a practical nor mathematically sound strategy, especially on larger maps. By not spending your original 1000 BC of cash, you can sustain 100% spending level for your entire expansion campaign and deploy far more colony ships in total. A Mitrosoft purchase of a colony ships will cost you 5 BC/month practically for eternity, yet the ship itself only takes 50 BC to produce. If your early expansion phase last 50 turns, you have just squandered 5 colony ships to obtain a planet 5 turns earlier than you would have anyway. It just doesn't make sense to do this! Even in a small map it is much wiser to rush for Impulse Drives and shadow the enemy colony ships with your transports instead of making a mad dash for open planets. The AI's propensity to lease colony ships for expansion is in fact a critical flaw in its strategy more often than not.

Now back to Badbonez and the original topic. The first 2-4 years of the game on a medium or larger sized map should be dedicated to expansion with research as a second priority. You will end out ahead on research as long as you expand fast enough. Social spending should be suspended entirely as they are simplpy not worth the investment early on. Set your military spending to 100% and just start churning out colony ships as fast as you can. You might want to micromanage your spending to reduce waste as others have suggested above too. Tax rates should be increased as far as possible. You can probably push it past the 70% mark if you expand fast enough to surpress the population.

Try to save a good planet for your first colony ship from Earth and make sure it is loaded with people so you have a second population center to produce more colony ships from. The first planet you take with your original colony ship should be producing scouts instead until it has enough population itself. The extra scouts you have will allow your survey ships to hunt down anomalies instead. Send it towards the general direction where you think your nearest neighbor will be, and have it pick up the space junk or asteroids along the way as they grant ship upgrades or free ships entirely. Ignore the other anomalies unless they are in your direct path of travel.

Once you have produced 5-10 colony ships, go ahead and rush your research for Diplomacy so you can switch to the Republic government. At this point, my preference is to grab Basic Environment Control as well so I can build both Diplomatic Translators and Aphrodisiacs immediately. Depending on your situation however, you may need Impulse Drives (transports for early invasion) or Controlled Gravity (for range) instead. Redirect your spending periodically for more colony ships as needed.

If you come across any other major races, make a decision on the spot whether you should declare war to grab more planets or let the borders settle in. I will generally pursue the quick war route and rush them with transports unless the contended area is too close to alien homeworlds. Having an upgraded survey ship or a free corvette here can make a huge difference naturally. If you spot an enemy survey ship, hunt it down as soon as possible so you can save the anomalies and prevent them from contacting other races too early.

Although many people have recommended tech trading with major races early on, I would advist against any tech trading with them unless it was for Deflectors, Corvettes, or Phasers. Build ships and sell them to the aliens instead. Not only can you make a profit at doing this, you can also cripple their economy with maintenance. As for minor races, you must be careful what techs you trade to them too since they may very well beat you to the important trade goods and wonders.

The next task in line is to build yourself an Eye of the Universe and Gravity Accelerators, then start producing constructors to grab all the resources on the map. If you have any ongoing wars from the expansion phase and the aliens have no more easy planets to conquer, just sue for peace as your constructors approach the front lines so they can travel safely. The constructor rush is crucial for success on larger maps. I was able to grab all but 4 of the resources on a gigantic map at crippling difficulty for my current game, and it has made life a lot easier. The outlying starbases may be hard to defend, but a couple of ships roaming the country side with sensor drones that can see 18 squares into deep space solves that problem easily.

Well, those are my two hundred cents. Good luck.

The real question about purchasing a colony ship from Mitrosoft is whether the added benefit you get from increasing your total production that turn is worth it. Mainly because for that turn you can also invest 100% in research. If you can rush to Impulse Drive this way then the extra move may very well be worth the extra cost (let me put it this way, would you pay 5bc per turn to have an extra move... yes, how about 10... yes, how about 15...?) So depending on your settings leasing may be worth it. But I agree with you that it decreases in value the larger the map. Just be aware that what you are weighing is the opportunity to spend even more money than usual that turn and not really the value of getting a colony ship one or two turns earlier.

~SDC~

renaissanceroam:

The question you phrase is misleading. You are not paying 5 BC per turn for a permanent extra move, you are paying 5 BC per turn for 5 turns with an extra move. This is NOT a good investment anyway you slice it. The same thing applies to colonies. Selling your soul to Mitrosoft for a 5 turn advantage does not make sense. 5 BC per turn adds up real fast when a colony ship only costs 50 BC.

I found that early leasing is bad. Very bad. Money pit bad.

I mean, you can do it and still get ahead, but I get ahead faster just by building fast without leases. I usually get more of *everything* if I don't lease except when *absolutely necessary*.

~SDC~