I have a general question about the game from around turn 50 onwards, and a specific situation which I like to hear some thoughts on. I'm playing Sophons, medium difficulty, first in FIDS, second in score (to Cravers, who declared war on me). At peace with Sheredyn, neutral to Horatio.



I'm pretty comfortable managing the first 50 or so turns, but as the number of decisions becomes more complex what are the general tasks an empire should be involved in around turn 50-100? Just more of the same? I tend to find that I can get an early lead in FIDS and score but around turn 50 the AI starts to erode my lead and potentially overtake me.



Second question relates to war with the cravers. Typically my early game research is not in military tech, and I don't build much of a fleet (if any). Around turn 25 I found an amazing system on the other side of the wormhole from my home system, something like 3 terran/jungle, a couple of lavas and a tundra. I decided to risk grabbing it straight away as it was the best potential system I had seen. Not only that but it gave me 3 hydromiel as well.. anyway, it is far and away my best system at turn 50, >300 food, >200 industry... and a 7500 Craver fleet just invaded it :-D



So the second question is... how to deal with that! I'm guessing it's a lot of short range kinetic in that fleet, but I don't know for sure. I have basically three destroyers with 300 points between them in storage, about 600 dust and a pilot/commander hero who can be assigned to a fleet.

I, too, don't do military techs or build much of a fleet early. (Note: I usually play with no pirates. With pirates on, I need to build more early ships.) However, at some point you have to research the first ship-expansion tech and up to level 2 of kinetics. That will let you build some great "glass cannon" ships. With the Sophons, use the destroyer hull, which let's you really pack on the weapons. Put on one deflector and the rest long-range kinetics. You will also need to build fleets larger than 5, especially against the Cravers. In fact, against the Cravers, you will quickly need a fleet size of 12 or better. Later on, I build destroyers with 1 of each kind of defense, but your early glass cannons will let you control the skies in the early stages of the game and let you take and hold that great planet just outside your sector.



One thing that makes the game so fun is balancing your tech advances (guns versus butter). Initially, I'm all butter, then I scramble to get my military caught up, and then it's a balancing act the rest of the way.



Good luck and have fun!

Thanks a lot for the helpful response. Is it worth to attack their fleet with a lone scout just to find out what kind of armament they have (before building a counter fleet), is there a better way to determine it, or does it even matter? I'm also curious about my hero... if their fleet does not have a hero how much combat value should I be aiming for overall if I plan to augment it with a hero and have a chance to defeat their 7.5k? I'm not sure how to calculate the benefit of the hero, basically, and I'm not keen to send them on a suicide mission first wave if they will just get wiped out.

I wouldn't send in a scout, especially if the fleet has a hero. You don't want to give the AI free experience.



If you are using long-range kinetic glass cannons, then it really doesn't matter. Eventually, you can worry about creating counter ships, but early in the game, these ships will kill any fleet. Also, the MP of a fleet will be adjusted upward when it has a hero, although sometimes it won't show this until the next turn (but its MP does go up right away). You can defeat a fleet that has a bit more MP than you if you have long-range weapons and it does not.



Incidentally, the best hero for a fleet is a pilot (not a commander). My first picks are Defense 1, Tactical* 1 (-6 accuracy), Tactical 2 (-7 accuracy), and Dust Barrier. Sometimes I'll take Dust Barrier second if I can afford the dust and I expect some difficult battles. Dust Barrier is awesome!



*can't remember exactly what it's called, but it reduces enemy weapons accuracy.



I hope you get more responses because although my suggestions work very well for me, one of the cool things about this game is more than one approach can work.

I can never figure out how best to build my ships, either in disharmony or vanilla, and usually end up being outdated.



Im really quite bad at this.

I'm not sure how I'd counter 7500 strength Craver fleets at turn 50. I generally put my military on lower priority in the early game like many others do. My fleets at turn 50 are usually in the 2000 to 3000 range at that time.



I'm not sure if it's a glass cannon design, but I like to put long range kinetics with one beam and one missile on my ships. I use one deflector, no shields and no flak in the beginning. The beam and missile keep the enemy guessing, so they don't counter my kinetic ships too quickly. Usually, I can have level two kinetics with a level one deflector on board before I see combat. I put one armor on the ship when I can.



You'll only be able to fit a few long range kinetics on board in the beginning, but they're incredibly powerful. Since they fire 4 times in the long range phase, the enemy is usually gone or very weak by the time their medium range weapons fire. A 3000 strength fleet can normally kill a 5000 strength fleet with no more than 1 ship lost. I'm not sure about a 7000 strength fleet, but I'd bet a long range kinetic fleet at 3000 would whittle them down significantly if it doesn't kill them. I'd expect multiple losses during the fight, though.

Thanks for the responses. I didn't need to deal with the 7500 fleet in the end. Before I could finish construction of my c.3000 point glass cannon fleet based on long range kinetics they moved on, leaving behind an invasion fleet and a much more manageable 2500 combat fleet. With a hero on board I was able to see them off with minimal losses, since when I've been popping across the boarder every time I see a fleet begin to mass in order to break up their new production. Doing this has taken my pilot hero to level 18 by turn c.80... This harrassment has most likely been the primary cause of the Cravers falling back into 3rd place overall. The situation seems to have worked reasonably well (for me), so I haven't offered a cease fire despite the fact that they would accept one without additional encouragement.