I started to attempt to trade for freighters when I can. A few times I scored freighters right next to trading partners and got the instant trade route, which is very nice. Beside, freighters costs zero to maintain and are great scouts because of range.

What I noticed though is that the trade route of the purchased/traded-for freighter never involves my major financial center, Earth. In the past when I built freighters, I had always built them on Earth and tried to send them to a populous planet to get maximum trade money. Isn't that and distance traveled how to get the most money, other than trade starbases? But, in my last game the target of all my trade was one of my 15 PQ planets.

My question is do others think buying freighters is the best strategy and is there any way to influence the home planet of the purchased freighter? Or, does it matter?

My last map size was gigantic and although the trade routes all went to my worst PQ planet, the trade reached over 3k bc per month (without trade starbases) so I was OK for money. I presume the value of the route had to do with the extra long distances traveled on gigantic because the value started off pretty low and built up. Any thoughts on maso trade, espeically when and how to start on different map sizes, are appreciated.
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I typically have enough money that I don't worry that the trade routes don't pass through my main financial center. The main thing, for me, is that I want those trade routes established as early in the game as possible, and trading for freighters is the best way to do that imo.

The other thing you can use them for is to quickly establish contact with distant civilizations. You figure out where a distant civ is using influence, then trade for a ship which happens to be in that area, using that nice new diplomacy feature which allows you to see where the ship you are trading for is located. (This also has the advantage of preventing the AI from establishing a trade route). So this way, soon after you make contact with one or two civs you've got the means to contact them all.

I think that trading for frieghters is good on a situational basis. It definitely has more value on the really large maps. Otherwise, it will take 6 years to get your trade started and your eco will be severely stunted. Baring that though, I think its too expensive. They simply want to many techs for 1 freighter. I dont have high diplomacy picks so that could have something to do with it. I dont use diplomacy that much. I try to dominate socially and then militarily. Im usually the economic and industrial powerhouse since I pick pop growth +70% plus some morale and research. My worlds reach 20bil before theirs get to 6bil sometimes.

As far as the route not being to your financial center, its because when you buy the frieghter, it sets its "home port" to your planet thats closest to it. All ships are "tied" to a home planet. This especially comes into play with starship planetary improvements. They only apply to ships built from that planet. So when you buy a ship, it has to "tie" it to one of YOUR planets. It does this by picking the one thats closest to it. So this will usually be one of your outlying border worlds and NOT earth. Therefore, since the newly purchased freighter is tied to this bordered world, the route it establishes is between the border world and the AI planet. Clear as mud?

This isnt necessarily a bad thing. Since your buying a freighter just to get trade started quickly, it doesnt really matter where its coming from. You can always just build freighters from your capital and send them on the long journey to the AI world while you get revenue from the "quick" route. When it gets there, just break the old route and start one with this new freighter from earth.

Make sense?
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Wow, I missed something here. Vincible could you explain further? Thanks.



Oh, I get it now. That's why my PQ 14 planet on the border got all those freighters.

Thank you.

Just right-click the ship in the diplomacy screen and it pops up a map showing you where it is.

Wow! Thanks for the tip, vincible!

I usually leave the AI at default, so I can keep them straight. The main thing you have to do is prevent alliances between the good guys and the bad guys. If a lot of them are good, or a lot are bad, it's hard to cause enough wars to prevent any alliances. I find that Maso is all about balancing the other superior players against each other. If one ever gets out in front, things aren't looking too good.

Vincible thanks for the tip. Damon thanks for the advice.

I have played most of my Maso games on Medium and Large maps. I wouldn't say, for my strategies, that these are the hardest. I definitely find the tiny and small maps harder. This, with no diplo picks, no 1 IP, and no sucker punch on undefended colonies. Perhaps with those bits in play, smaller maps would be easier than mediums, but I'm still not sure. The influence bonuses the AI's get on Maso are tough, and the smaller the map, the more they are in your face.

A lot really depends on the lay of the land. Runaway AI's are a problem on any map size, unless you have managed to befriend them first (in which case, you may be able to cruise to an alliance win and actually get a fairly easy ride). Balanced AI's usually mean they have bigger fish to fry than you.

I think part of the problem for many players here on Medium and Large Maso is the belief in using tech trade to make up the gap. I never played a version earlier than 1.1, and I understand that cash used to be in play at Maso. Is that right? And then it was taken off the table for the highest difficulty only (Incredible AI's) to eliminate "tech whoring"? Anyway, the idea of sending ships out to look for minors... The sooner you make contact with your rivals without trade taking place, the sooner relations go into the drink. Perhaps some here have placed too many eggs into the Minors basket. I have won some Maso games now where I didn't see a minor until after I had capital ships rolling out of the shipyards.

Sometimes the best answer on Medium and Large maps is xenophobia. Sit tight, colonize your area, research a few techs to have things to build, build them, and wait for rival trade ships to arrive bringing you contacts. Then you have trade with those races from the git-go, and if they send multiple trade ships, their investment in you is too high for relations to tank and lots of threats to be issued. Apparently, there is more to whether they threaten than JUST military ratings. Your economy matters too. If you can manage to spread out a bit, and research half a dozen techs, and build soil/habitat on all your worlds, plus banks and entertainment on the better ones and your economic capital, then rush through a period of shipbuilding, all before you even meet some of your neighbors... you can survive what some here are describing as unwinnable situations. If you go flying out there with ships looking for contacts, you will only be buying bad relations earlier than you can afford in many cases. Perhaps some have also been relying on "1 IP" more than they realize. Relations go south very fast on Maso unless you have trade and unless the AI's respect you.

That is why I find the smallest maps the hardest. You simply cannot hide on a small map. Their surveyors will waltz into your sector, though perhaps not if you clean up with your surveyor first. Even best case, their freighters will find you fairly quickly, and then what do you do? How do you expand when the only place to expand is into sectors they already own? What use grabbing a planet that will only flip on you anyway? What use starbases or even trade routes if some angry neighbor two sectors away can dance in and wipe them out? Even minors are (relatively) tougher to take over on small maps, though perhaps that will change with the 1.11 patch. I need to try my hand at some more small maps. My first Maso game was a tiny, and I got my butt beat so hard, it's still half-sore.

Anyway, I just got finished winning on a medium map with a bully Drengin next door. My first try, I did the usual "send my trade ships to the nearest neighbor" tactic but they had threatened me past my ability to pay before my ships got to their stars. That is the dilemma LDiCesare has pointed out. If the neighbors are good, that won't happen, so some Medium/Large maps are not plagued by that issue. This one was, though, and hard. I tried again with a "rush to military" strat, hoping that if my military was competitive, they'd pick on someone else. That went worse. The war declaration came even more quickly, and I tried to fight it out, but they had frigates on me faster than my head could spin, and my whole navy of battleaxes went buh-bye in a flash. Two tries at a map has been my limit until now, but this looked like a no-win scenario and I decided to give it one more go. This time I would sit back and send out no ships at all. I built zero military, max economy items. The first I heard from the Drengin was four trade ships they sent my way. Altarians sent three, Yor two, and the other AI's were in the far corner. I didn't even start on my own freighters or battleaxes until my economy was cranking. The AI's who had sent trade ships stayed neutral, and it didn't take me that long with a boosted economy to build defenses. Once my military was competitive and my own trade ships were sent out, relations actually started to rise.

I would have to advise Maso players away from the "seek out minors" move. The low end techs are cheap enough to research. The minors may track you down with trade ships, too, on a medium map. Large, probably not, but you never know. The one thing you don't want to do is introduce yourself early. I'm not sure why yet, but the AI's seem more inclined to send trade ships to you if they don't know you yet. That could be that they like to send trade toward those with whom they have the best relations, and that's with those they don't know yet on Maso, where the diplo penalties stack up fast if no trade is taking place. Or it could be they like to "scout" with their trade ships, using them in lieu of scouts to make contact. Or perhaps they merely spam the freighters out in all directions, and won't send freighters toward those with whom they have bad relations, so that you are killing your chance to receive their trade if you meet them too quickly.

Anyway, this last game, I stayed true neutral and for the first time ever, had at least one trade route with every major AI and at one point had four of them friendly and the last warm. I'm still trying to sort it all out, since this is the same map where my first two tries at playing (same worlds for me and for them all three tries) had ended so quickly, so badly.


I think that Abundant setting on any map size is the tough nut. The AI is good at spamming the colony ships. They stumble a bit with fewer worlds to grab, and will often send two or three colony ships after the same world on less habitable maps. Abundant, they just spam and grow. If one is positioned near the middle with no one on their backside, they will run away with the game, and nothing anybody can do about it. I have played four Abundant maps on Maso. I got crushed on two, rode a runaway's coattails on another, and on the fourth, got a lucky terrain layout with more than my share of the planets in range, two good civs as neighbors and one evil neighbor who got shafted with only three stars. I've won 50% of my Abundant games, but when I've lost, I've lost harder at that setting than any other, map size notwithstanding.


Ray says there are some items that should never be built. I'd like to know what he thinks those are, and why. There are only a couple items I don't stick into the queue, a couple that aren't useful to a particular bent, but nothing for which I've found no good uses.

I have been winning chiefly through trade, diplomacy, economics. When I've won on Maso with force, it has come after building up a strong economy, catching up by way of the AI's spending their strengths in wars with one another (the classic Civ3 Deity victory formula) while I conserve my strength (if allowed) and continue to build. Always seems that by the time I have settled all worlds within my grasp and built two improvements, the AI's are already to frigates and... too late to hit them unless they were weak and pitiful anyway. Yet as long as I can keep them at peace, or else make friends with some who are strong enough to help me vs the others, I'm in the game.

This game could get to be A LOT HARDER with the expansion pack if there is such a thing as randomized civs or situations with imbalance in the alignments. One civ as each of the five alignments is perfect game balance now, leaving player with many options for choosing his alignment and diplomatic destiny. I have yet to try the game with lopsided alignments, and I shudder to think what would happen to the game balance with an extra Drengin tossed in for grins and giggles.


- Sirian

The general way to beat more advanced opponents in tiny maps is to wait until they're at war with someone else (or pay them to start the war) and their warships should leave their planets. You can then attack with just transports and maybe a battle cruiser to take out any Defender type ships. It's harder if they have Battleaxes, and conquer them completely before they can respond.



In my last Maso game (Gigantic) I was well behind on technology. I devoted 100% research to getting Interstellar Business, which no-one else had. I then traded that to the Torians (my most advanced rival) for three technologies that he had and that no-one else had. I then traded those to the other empires for all the other techs that they had. That one technology brought me up level with everyone else.

The only major difference in Maso is that you can't sell things for cash. This has been the case for a long time now.




The maintenance costs for certain buildings can really add up. In Maso games, shortage of money is a big problem. Keeping up a 100% spend rate is critical. If you can get all the AI's to trade with you, you'll probably do OK.
Otherwise, you can save money by not building non-vital things like:

Embassy
Medical Center
News Network
Virtual Reality Center
Orbital Hospital
Propaganda Center
Planetary Defense
Info Net
Neural Net
Spin Control
Star System Defense

(With some exceptions - eg if you are threatened with culture-flipping, News Network on the at-risk planets may be a good idea.)
Not building these saves a lot of resources for building ships and researching techs, and the money saved on maintenance costs is always useful for something - maximising spend rate, bribing AIs for peace, buying techs off them, paying them to start wars, buying their best starbases...
In many cases the bonuses provided by buildings aren't actually very effective. +x% morale allows a slightly higher planetary population, but you don't need all the morale boosters if you have morale resource starbases, just a select few. +x% economy is useful for a while, but then the maximum income cap kicks in and the returns are miniscule. Culture bonuses are nice, but for really effective culture war you should use starbases. Research bonuses can be good, but you have to pay for 2/3 of the increase, on top of the maintenance cost. Planetary defence bonuses are rarely useful - it is far better to just avoid getting invaded in the first place.




~SDC~

Perhaps you missed where I said, "No sucker punch on undefended colonies." That is a gross hole in the AI's tactics. The game may allow it now, but unless this is improved, GalCiv will not hold my interest long term. Even though I can avoid exploiting this by design, by never bribing a war to lure away the AI's entire fleet, as you point out, they will do it anyway if they go to war on their own volition. Then what? Put my invasion on hold until their war ends? I don't think so. This aspect of the game sorely needs improvement. We will see what Stardock manages to do here, as they are working on the problem.

I'm not interested in winning that way. Take that off the table, and where do we stand? How tough is it to win on tiny and small without this AI loophole? Tougher than to do so on Medium or Large, it seems to me.




Was that with +60% diplomacy? Translators? Any other diplomacy boosts? I've managed some great trades, including some good deals picking up ten or twelve techs for one, even without diplomacy bonuses, but those opportunities aren't always available. You mention a gigantic map, but wars on the biggest maps are a whole other story than the medium and large I'm chiefly talking about. If you race out there to make contacts with everyone on a medium map, you may be buying yourself a bunch of early wars. On the biggest maps, the AI's don't tend to go into aggressive mode until they run out of places to expand.

Offering me an example of something that worked for you on a gigantic map missed the point. In fact, you proved my point. Players seeking higher Metaverse scores are largely funnelled into the largest maps where the highest per-game scores are available. They are claiming medium and large maps are harder to beat, and I'm saying that perception may be based on trying to apply gigantic map strategy to smaller maps. By chasing the kind of early tech trade you describe, on a smaller map, players are getting into early wars they cannot win. Another strategy might do better.




I haven't tried to buy an AI starbase yet, or for that matter, an AI freighter or transport or colony ship. The AI would have to be A COMPLETE IDIOT to be willing to sell any of these things to the player. Well, perhaps that is the case. I've read about players buying freighters, buying transports to turn around and use against the planet that just launched them, and other absurdities. Unless these issues are fixed, the game will not live up to its potential. Just because the game allows me to do something does not mean I'm interested in doing it. I came to GalCiv on the hype of the "best" AI. Well, in a lot of ways it is pretty strong, but I must say, the flaws and rules loopholes for the GalCiv AI are at least as bad as those for the Civ3 AI.

Tech whoring was a major problem. That's now been fixed, but only for Maso, and only involving cash.

The AI is worse at defending its planets than Civ3's AI is at defending cities. Much worse. Especially bad is the way that docked transports and colony ships "always remain loaded" so that killing them obliterates billions of people at no cost to the attacker. Tell me that one makes a shred of sense. And the AI when it goes to war sends not just its entire "offensive force" in beeline fashion at the nearest targets, like Civ3, but in fact sends its entire force, defenders and all, with a token ship left behind to defend, if that -- sometimes a colony ship or transport, even! Not good.

Selling strategically vital items like resource starbases and freighters and transports? Come on.

Capitalizing on these design flaws does not represent high strategy. Effective gaming yes, strategy no. With dedication and persistance, Stardock could fix these issues and give us a polished game. They are not there yet.

In the mean time, I'm interested in looking past the design flaws to what the game could be, or even how it can play right now if restraint is used in regard to exploits and loopholes.

A morale resource or two far superior to building embassies and medical centers? You bet. But what if we take the absurdities off the table. No buying up the AI's starbases, no gifting ships to the AI's enemies so they will destroy starbases for you, with your constructors parked next door (would be OK if that came with realistic diplomacy hits, but the game does not recognize what you have done). No tricks, just straight up play, what you can secure for yourself, what you can win in a fight, what you can poach from between warring AI's and try to hold on to. What if you aren't playing a gigantic map and don't have +60 diplomacy, and you don't have morale resources? Then what should you do? You may want to build those embassies, med centers and news networks at all your worlds for the +15% combined morale effect. Not only does that boost population a bit at your best planets, it can boost pop a LOT at your PQ14 and PQ13 planets settled early on. Those planets won't bring in a lot of income, but if you have trade income, they increase your output and may make the difference for you.

Plus not every strategy involves warmongering. Sure, if you are loading up transports one after another, you will never reach high populations and will reach a point at which all your planets sit at 100% morale all the time, even with high taxes, because you never let them grow large, having to produce a steady flow of invaders. But what if you are pursuing a tech or cultural victory and not launching transports?

I've now won ten of my thirteen Maso games (having redeemed one of my losses with my replay of that latest medium map) without using exploits you advise to use, and doing things you advise against. I believe that speaks to the versatility and quality of this game, that its balance allows for more than one approach to succeed.


For me, I seek challenge through variety. I want to be able to beat the game on any map size, without choosing to abuse the AI's various inanities, without having to have perfect terrain conditions. Any alignment, any victory condition, any habitability range, any political party, any combination of bonus picks.

What would you do if Stardock fixed the AI to stop selling you stuff it has no business trading away in the first place? Gigantic maps have half a dozen or so of each resource type, easier to get hold of one you want. What about a medium map with the morale resources in hostile territory or across the galaxy? You might want to build those embassies. Better not to get invaded in the first place? Sure. Useless advice, though, if you have lost your space navy and are being invaded. Planetary defenses could mean the difference between winning and losing, as they did for me in this game:

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=237344&messageid=1066152493

I agree that players should consider not building some things. The propaganda center is costly and should not be built except where the resistance help is needed. Now sure, you can overcome the need for resistance by plopping down a load of cultural starbases, but that too is somewhat nonsensical, and each base costs 10bc per month to maintain. Then again, an AI with several fully mined influence bonuses is not exactly based in reality or hard science either, and they can start flipping your planets just by obtaining a foothold anywhere near you. Hyperion shipyards are a waste of time if you are chasing the Final Frontier win. Me, I like building those news networks. Since I'm not playing gigantic maps every game, I have to be more concerned about flips and culture, make do without culture starbases more often, etc. Starbases can be taken out in a war, and wars on medium or large maps are much more in your face, bases much more at risk. Influence boosts on your planets are much more secure.

Ray said there are some things that should NEVER be built. I disagree with that. I've found a use, at some point, for every buildable item in the game. If nothing else, some of the less useful items are "better than nothing" to be building while weaker planets are catching up on the vital items. I would stipulate that some items should not be built unless there is specific purpose, though.


- Sirian

Sirian, I'm quite sure you're wrong here. I played a whole lot of Medium and Large before I ever played a Gigantic (comp limitations, recently overcome). I thought my first Gigantic was quite easy by comparison. They're much more forgiving--if someone goes to war with you you have up to a couple years before the enemy fleet arrives. The AI's diplomacy is pretty bad on gigantic maps, too, since it doesn't seem to change the way it values things based on the number of stars out there.

I'm not sure you understand the economics of Galciv, which is why some social improvements aren't good to have. Production are capped--so that a planet produce more money than a certain value (4 x PQ IIRC) has its economy penalized. Similar soft caps apply to production. So once you have several economy boosters (for example) one more doesn't do you any good. Pop beyond a certain level doesn't do any good so there's generally no need for all the morale boosters. And so on. This makes a lot of improvements worse than they would be otherwise.

I'm not sure I would go so far as to say there are improvements you should NEVER build but I would say that there are plenty of improvements that I have never found useful. I would also say that I had more success when I shifted to a more minimalist building approach--my first several games were ones where I built most of the improvements. Try it and see what you think.

I think that gigantic is the easiest map size for the very reason Sirian thinks small is harder: You can be at war with all the civs that are far away without a problem. Actually, even on medium, I've just played a game where I've been at war early with everyone that was out of range and never suffered from it.

About defending planets: I suggest modding a ship that would have a speed of -9 or less. This turtle wouldn't move, so it would have to stay where it's built and defend its planet. Problem is: Would the ai build these, and how many? Would it still build other ships? Considering its inaptitude with modded range, I am not sure.
I don't know how the ai manages it. I know in the game I program, I resorted to giving several high level plans to the ai, typically one offense and one defense, and segregating every unit between these plans, so the ai would always keep units in defense, but newly built units would go on offense if the ratio offense units/defense units allows it.

Sirian, I just played a medium game without diplo picks (though I forgot to change the political party so I had +20). I built a single starbase that was not on resources, didn't buy starbases or use IP tricks. Trading with the Altarians and Torians is usually enough to get good relations with them. If the other civs are far away, you don't have to worry about them.
I used the minors to trade techs, but only quite late (took me 10 techs to buy the Dreadnought tech, but I couldn't help). Of course, I could research the techs myself, but the minors are here to be used, by design. If you don't do it, the ai will (as soon as the fundies had taken out 2 of the 3 Yor stars, a message appeared saying the Drengins had extorted all their money - I checked the fundies and they had 0 BC right after they had appeared: The Drengins had taken everything - therefore exploiting minors is something the ai does, so you should do it too once you have met them).

That's obvious. I'm not suggesting otherwise, only that racking up the diplo picks enables a lot more return out of trades with them, increasing the urgency of seeking them out. My point is not that one should avoid dealing with minors, but that the urgency of sending ships out immediately in search of minors to begin using them as soon as possible has consequences. Holing up and waiting for contact to come when AI trade ships arrive can see you through a situation where earlier contact may cause you to lose. I can now point to at least one example where that proved true. That does not apply to all maps, of course, but it impacts the sense of how difficult are the medium and large maps.


By the by, I did go and play a small map. Easiest game I've yet played on Maso! So a lot depends on the terrain. I chose War Party and mostly military picks. I chose "occasional" habitability, which is middle of the road, yet four of the five AI's had only their home star. Two had two planets, two had only one, and the one AI who got a second star was closest to me. I got a second star myself, so I had two planets, yet I settled a PQ13 and a PQ14, and on settling the 13, I got a PQ bonus that bumped it up to an 18. Thus I had 3.5 planets, and a battle hammer strategy backed by my bonus abilities tore through my neighbor. He then had a pair of PQ14's available, so I went from three good planets to five, and one half planet to three. The rest was mop up. Scored 27k off a small map. No ambushes against undefended colonies with the enemy fleet off to war, either. I went through them all, but given the terrain, that was no big deal.

That the AI does not touch anything below a PQ15 is its biggest strategic flaw, IMHO. Especially since at Maso, the AI gets free PQ bonuses anyway. You settle a 12 and hand it over to an AI, it becomes an instant 15. THEN soil and habitat take that to 18. 13's turn into 19's, and 14's turn into 21's. The AI passing up the 14's is like player passing up an 18. This is a lot of wasted potential for them, especially on lower habitability where they don't have many worlds, while I will grab anything that can get to PQ15 or better WITH improvements, gives me an edge in every game. Of course, if the AI did grab all those 12-14 range planets, the game would be A LOT HARDER and I'd be losing a lot more. So maybe I should be careful what I ask for.

Perhaps my sense of difficulty on small maps was skewed by my natural tendency to play higher habitability settings on smaller maps and lower settings on larger ones. I was almost shocked when the AI's didn't roll me up on the small map, despite getting right into a war. On tiny abundant, they gave me a whoopin I won't soon forget.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/galciv/pix/game8.jpg


- Sirian

The ai largely benefits from higher hability since you have less PQ13/14 that you can benefit from, they expand faster as they can hop everywhere. A scattered map will also hinder a turtling strategy more.
I think everyone agrees that the total bypassing of PQ14 and lower by the ai is a big weakness, almost an exploit, particularly if the ai has PQ bonuses, but even when it doesn't.

Hmmm... I always take +5% PQ as a pick, just so I can grab a couple of PQ 13/14s. I can definitely live without the 1 IP bug on Maso, but I couldn't live without being able to get a planet advantage.

The majors not settling PQ 14s bother me at level below crippling, but particularly at maso - I don't see how I could compete if the majors all start with a major edge in planets.

I tend to need to Alpha Strike to take out the minors and a major fairly early in the maso game so I can get close on economy / production / etc. I don't view the alpha strike as cheese since it's been used successfully since the time of the Romans / Ancient Chinese. Very few generals through history have willing fought wars of attrition as an offensive strategy. If the AI weren't as aggressive it wouldn't leave itself open as much, but that aggression often works against the player - so I don't think it's too much of an exploit. I think it's cheese to bribe the AIs to go to war and won't do that... (This should be more expensive an option or the AI that got attacked should know it's you that started the war.)

Just my 2 cents,
Cypher

~SDC~

I agree with Cypher that Alpha Strikes aren't cheese. It's militarily a sound idea, just ask the Nazis. Blitzkreig pretty much wiped out Europe and I would consider that an Alpha Strike.

I've seen the AI colonize PQ14s when they are really desparate. I think they don't colonize them at first because they are following a simple rule, get the good stuff quick and concentrate on a military. What that does is leave us the crumbs to try to scrape a victory out of. I certainly don't think of the AIs reluctance to colonize

I'm trying to play an entirely cheeseless maso game. For a change, I took +70% productivity instead of diplomatic boost. Not a technique I recommend, since none of the bonus production is free. In the early stages, you can't afford to make use of it, and in the later stages, you could achieve the same thing by building productivity starbases.
I also refused to:
Bribe AIs to attack each other
Give starships to warring AIs
Bribe with 1 IP
Buy starbases or transports
Map the galaxy in advance
Reload earlier saved games if things went wrong
Build multiple culture starbases in the same sector
Do a terror star alpha strike

I got a good set of stars in my starting area, but I nearly lost it in the early stages when the Drengin decided to pick on me and I couldn't afford to bribe them and had been too busy defending myself against cultural conquest by the Torians to build (or even research) any military technologies. They even conquered one of my planets - it's been a while since that happened to me. I nearly gave up, but went back and bought Space Militarization from an AI (spreading the payments as far as possible) and used that as a basis to research Intersteller Tactics.
Fortunately, the Drengin weren't very militarily competent (as usual), and other races started to declared war on them. Then I got another stroke of luck; the UP voted to share 10 techs to each race. This caught me up with everyone else, and I was able to research Battleships and start conquering Drengin worlds. I also noticed that the AIs still hadn't bothered to build Diplomatic Translators or Gravity Accelerators, and built them myself - I hadn't had the chance before.
Now, finally, I'm left with the tricky endgame. Without my usual cultural conquest tactics, it would be a lot quicker and easier. Catching up with the Altarian/Torian alliance militarily is much harder. I've built some Excaliburs now, so it shouldn't be long before I can start the final war.

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I just read the maso scoring went up about 60% according to some score resubmissions on 1.11 vs 1.10.

OK, my question is have folks figured out whether it is better to buy freighters from the AI or make your own at your economic capital? For me, it seemed in the large size or smaller maso maps, I reached the AI relatively early and traded tech for freighters. But, in gigantic, I have to spend time waiting for the income to pick up and it blunts my ability to use 100% spending. I sometimes don't run into majors for a while (sometimes they are out of range) while my bank account drops closer to -500 bc. So I started building freighters as soon as I get trade tech and send them out to explore and establish trade routes and make the bully AI happy.

Any tips, on how to get trade going as soon as possible - especially on gigantic maps - is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Don't know if there's a "better" way. I know I prefer to trade for them but I wouldn't dream of saying my opinion here was definitive.

Hey ricbayer,
I don't have much experience with giantic maps but what I do is that I use either a survey ship or scout and send it toward the nearest unoccupated systems and if there is a alien civ there I build about five or six freighters; so I can have some for emergencies (wars, culture flip, other little suprises.
So there you go ricbayer I hope that helps.
Your fellow player,
Jaxel

~SDC~

Thanks to the answers about the freighters. I played another gigantic maso. My thoughts so far are that playing gigantic maso creates a money problem where I hover around -500 bc too long early in the game before trade picks up.

If the majors are closest to me, I "buy" freighters from them (with tech) but if the minors are closest to me, I build freighters as soon as I get "trade tech" from a minor. Either way, one has to get trade cranking ASAP especially on a bigger map or risk being broke a long time.

I'm here to thank the experts for helping me win my first maso game (posted today). Yes, it was a tiny map, and it was "easy" maso, with two AI as mere Geniuses, but the advice here is so powerful that I was able to use a hybrid of Ray's "frigate rush" with the "culture bomb" route. I took out the Torians with a frigate rush, then built up a clump of culture palaces. As I waited for the Altarians to flip, a problem arose. First the Yor surrendered to the Drengin, and then the Drengin got the Draginol. That seemed like a poor time to wait for culture, so I launched a force of AMMs, dreadnoughts, and combat transports to take care of the Drengin. The Arceans and the Altarians sent large ranger-led forces, but no transports, so I hit the Drengin dreadnoughts with AMMs and then sent in my capital ships. Drengin KIA. Then the two Altarian worlds flipped, and the culture timer started. So I had my choice of victory types, and since my plan had been to win by culture, I didn't pick a fight with the Arceans.

What surprised me was being able to change horses in mid-stream, twice, and still have a strong advantage. This thread is Big Mojo. Thanks again! -- HtL

Tiny allows for alpha strikes and blitzkriegs. On larger maps, it's a bit harder, but, as Sirian said, if you can turtle a bit, the ai start sending their freighters to you, which means they will become nasty much later.
Anti Matter Missiles are my favourite ships. They cost very little and take out almost any capital ship. You only need a small fast ship to clear colony ships and transports remaining in orbit to let your transports take the planets.

Hermann - Congrats on the first maso win!

Hmmm.. I'm becoming acustomed to Maso now. I thought I'd post my stategy since it is a bit different from what has been discussed. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but now I'm past needing the 1 IP bug to win at all. Trade and the occassional tech gift seems to enable me to keep relations in the Neutral to Warm range until it is too late to matter. I'm going to try a Large game next so hopefully I'm not getting too cocky. (My Medium was with 'Common' planets - so I started with a pretty big planet disadvantage.)

My latest strategy has been to control all the resources. Once I have 80% of the resources, I seem to have 'won' (even before they are built up). Once they are built up, I have typically have the same or more bonuses than the AI and I can toy with them in the same manner I liked to do on 'Tough' or 'Painful.' (With the exception of extoring money...)

At the lower difficulties, I just tended to grab whatever resources were close rather than actively searching the map and parking constructors in anticipation of a war. The more aggresive AI in 1.11 seems to make the strategy more effective, since I don't actively have to encourage wars anymore -- it seems like the AI doesn't like ANYONE anymore. (I now seem to see Altarian / Torian wars frequently and don't often see a AI alliance.)

I've changed stategies a little to account for the more aggresive AI. Rather than trying to keep the AIs balanced. I actively work to weaken a bordering AI. The other AIs seem to sense blood in the water... and sent their navies, sans transports (which I've already built). Only rarely do I have to bother bribing the AIs to go to war, since they are more than happy to pick on a weakling without encouragement.

This generally gets me into wars (with the dying major), but they are over quickly. For some reason, I can keep close militarily whenever I choose. (Typically, there is a period between Frigates (sometimes Death knight) and Avatars where I choose to lag, because my economy, trade, and influence make me an unattactive enough target that I don't worry about it. I don't know if I've changed something about my play, or the more aggresive AIs mean less ships for each major.

So far, the minors expanding has been a non-issue. They are a little more apt to grab a second system. In my opinion, this is to my advantage as I will take them out before the AI will get around to it.

I do trade for ships rather than building many of them, but that's because I always seem to have a huge tech lead (almost from the beginning) since early on I trade aggressively and later in the game I control the tech resources and have taken over a good number of systems. I don't bother with tech picks though. (BTW - trading for transports of an undefended system seems to have been stopped in 1.11, the AI actually tells you that it doesn't think the trade is a good idea for that reason - kudos to Stardock.)

For a while, I really like PQ +5% as a starting pick, but I'm back to Speed +1 as more useful. Without the PQ pick, I still settle PQ 14s and the occassional PQ 13. After the Terraformer (which is one of the ones I'll buy), I'll settle the PQ 12s and up to help with culture bombing.

I've read a lot about Terror Stars, but I haven't really needed them. By the time I'm ready to culture bomb, I could build multiple cultural starbases in a AI's sector without them complaining (in fact, I can generally park warships next to their capital without a noise at that point).

Hope this is interesting,
Cypher




~SDC~