Planet Confusion

Oof, lotsa questions...

Okay, as far as starbases go, they can't attack. They can only defend. However, if a defending ship (or starbase, in this case) has a higher defense than attack, then half of its defense goes to its attack for the retaliation (they retaliate only if they survive the initial attack). This is also what makes the Defender and Battleaxe useful.

If you are really building *every* social on *every* planet, then the maintenance fee is what's probably costing you bigtime. Only planets cranking out the warships will need +hp bonuses (like shipyards), for instance. Go through each world and see what "improvements" they really don't need (keep the 0 maintenance socials, though).

As far as who's allied/at war/trading with whom, check out the Treaties page on the Foreign Policy screen. It won't list minors, though, so put some money on espionage on every AI you meet... then when majors do deals with minors, you should get a popup message about it (assuming enough money was put into espionage by then).

Can't help with Alliances, since I can't figure that out yet, myself.

The Shazam! ability (+15% Planet Quality) is probably the closest to a Genesis Effect that the game has... or rather, "had". Use the current +5%PQ, and immediately build soil enhancement to get a couple points of class.

One thing I noted about selling tech was that you might be able to get more money if you lower the price and take montly installments instead. I offered a higher-level tech for about 350bc, but could get 440bc if I asked for 110bc for 4 months. Don't forget to get a bunch of "Diplomacy +10" techs (or increase your Diplomacy ability in the startup) before trading/selling/bullying other races.



~SDC~

Can you sell back old ships and over built tech to reduce costs??

should I build bases in a sector without it being near a resource?

Does building ship yards and that line of tech allow you to build constructors faster?

Do the darn bases even repair themselves? Are there "repair" ships that can repair them?

Yea! More questions!

Okay... Bases, and ships, will repair themselves. I believe they'll only do this if you have some points in repair (check your stats screen, under abilities).

Apparantly, the shipyards don't work properly in the current build... they seem to cease working if you load a saved game. Or something like that... I rarely use them anyways.

As far as builing constructors faster, anything that increases a planets' (or your empire's) military production will help to crank them constructors out. Note that the cost of a constructor went up in 1.03, so it'll take longer than it used to.

Before 1.03, I would build 3-4 starbases in any sector I had planets. Each base had production bonuses and influence bonuses. I'd also sneak some bases into enemy sectors and build all influence (plus defense and military modules) to get new worlds... or weaken them for attack. However, now that bases cost 5bc per turn per base, I make sure that any base built without a resource (for the purpose of increasing production on planets) is worth the cost. Once you're able to make a few hundred (or a few thousand)bc's per turn, you can go nuts with the starbases... LOL

You can attempt to sell ships, but I can tell you that "found" scouts aren't worth squat!

Definitely sell (or trade) your tech if you need the cash! I've noticed that you can get more money if you ask for monthly installments rather than a lump sum (sort of like the lottery ). Just make sure you don't give the "good stuff" to a race you intend to conquer... or is able to conquer you ("Sure Mr. Drengin, I'll give you 4D Phasing, Terror Star, and Dreadnaught techs for that nifty Shields tech you got there.").


~SDC~

To get into an Allience you need the Tech and a close relationship- have same moral rating (good for good, evil for evil, ect, lots of trade w/ target, and be slightly more powerful LOL .

Ok, so from what your saying, don't build "everything" (every tech) on every planet. Guess this game gets canned...

So, I guess in starting worlds, mostly go with population improvements and tech like banks, stock market and economy centers to max income. Then on the larger worlds where I want to make attack ships build more power plants, etc??

Are political buildings any good? should I build a few of those seeded thru out my planetary territory?

an example: If I had 1 world of another race and wanted them to "defect" to me, would I build influence bases close to them??

Thanks... (back to work now)

(:(

Don't ditch that game yet, just check your planets and "cancel" completed socials that you don't need. You should earn some extra scratch per month (especially if you did build everything on every planet).

Influence is good for voting in the UP and controlling a sector. Also, crank up the influence in a sector to take over other civs' planets (though it'll be tough at medium to high intelligence).

Once you get basic socials (soil, banking, whatever else you like for your strategy), figure out what planets should do what. Research, constructors, warships... and the like. Although when it comes to trade goods and unique socials, give them to the worlds that have the highest social production.

Mind you, I haven't beaten an AI at Sub-Normal (or higher) yet, but this is just advice for keeping your own empire in order... others can give advice about dealing with intellegent AI's.


~SDC~

No need to be defensive, Morpork - your advice is right on the money. (And I win at crippling.)

Oh - and get that first repair tech soon as you can - otherwise SB don't regenerate. And building extra HP onto a SB requires it to "repair" up to the new max HP.

~SDC~

Good thing I usually pick the +10% repair to start... cheap and useful.

I wasn't aware that starbases didn't immediately get their HP's... guess I'm just to busy clicking on stuff to get to the next turn (interesting that in a TURN-based game, I'm still rushing to get stuff done... I guess I just want to see what happens next ).


~SDC~

Ok, didn't mean with the "canned" comment to mean the whole game, just the saved game I was currently playing. Guess I will look into the "archives" (I think) and "undo" those techs/projects on the "smaller worlds. Since it seems that the worlds with more population can handle more projects. (military wise)

Now should I have some planets make corvettes/hammers and send them to other worlds? Since I don't want to leave any planet without defenses. I also have the planetary shield, makes invasions that much harder.

Will try and build more bases, found out in this current play that a base increases my ships range. Course still wonder how the computer can send colony and constructors to locations it cannot scan/see. Grabing the influence sources and highest qual planets before I even see them...


Thanks all for your continued responces.

It's the "Details" button on the planet screen. Only problem, it doesn't give much info about each social project at this screen.

I usually build ships at a "warplanet" (high military,low social) and send ships all over the other systems. Also do that with the "free" ships that Hero finds now and then.

I've noticed that constructors have quite a large range. Never played on a map bigger than medium, so constructors are sent anywhere I need them... which, before the 1.03 patch, was to wherever I intended to build a mess of SB's (culture bombs, anyone?).

As for the AI claiming resources that are WAY out of their range, it's possible that their survey ships found the resource (or one of their scouts), and the AI sent a pre-built constructor to it. Also, more likely, based on other threads, that the fog of war doesn't work for the AI, and they can see the whole map at all times. :notsure:


~SDC~

What do the Govenors do?

I was clicking thru all 4 and just assigning each new tech for them to put on the list, can I use just one?

Do they have like area's they govern and would there be more than 4 ??

Thanks

I've been playing with genious and incredible AIs (too bad I can't seemt o uploaad any of my games to the metaverse) and the advice is good but I'll add a few things in.

Population is important for many things, production/reseach and influence, but also for money. Also higher planet quality and higher morale seem to give more money in the long term, and higher morale definately helps population growth (by a magnitude). My first few games I pumpeed up my taxes early so I could stay out of debt, but this really puts you behind in pop later on. You'll notice that the torin have horribly high growth, I think that is because they keep their taxes so low. Any way, I suggest lowering your taxes enough to have at least 70% morale for most of the game.

When you get to higher level AIs its really important to focus on money and pop growth the whole game regardless fo your strategy. And don't use manfacturing plant. It sucks money without giving back. Build reactors (fusion reactor is a great rather early tech) and starbases for production.

And use transports to move pop around from planets with lower morale to one with higher.

Good luck.

Good luck.

Governors.

If you look at a planet and hit the details button you can pick a particular governor to use for that planet. They all default to ford.

I haven't found a way to have more than 4 but I'm hoping we can sometime in the future, I definately wanted as many as 7 before.

Use them intellegantly to claissfy your planets. For example set one of the governors for the things you want to produce on only relatively bad planets (13s and 14s for those crazy ones of us that like colonizing bad planets). And also for relatively good one. Like putting the shipyards on only class 20 or higher.

You get the idea.

From another thread - the AI don't seem to suffer from the fog of war - they know where everything and everyone is.

~SDC~