I must be bad at this game:(

metallibilly

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 8:10:23 AM

i posted this at 3 in the morning so mind the horribleness

QcNoodle

Fresh

QcNoodle

Fresh

20 800g2g pts

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:40:53 PM

mmhhh so i'm not that bad after all...

even if i suck... damn AI only building ships and stuff...

Gordon

Newcomer

Gordon

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:48:29 PM

QcNoodle wrote:
mmhhh so i'm not that bad after all...

even if i suck... damn AI only building ships and stuff...

Yes.. damn AI with their ships and.. stuff.

Lewiddyion

Newcomer

Lewiddyion

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:55:29 PM

The game is smooth as silk - although I suspect there are some balancing issues yet to come. The AI is pretty tough and mostly wants to beat you up, and tends to be quite good at that. I think as they tune it and the AI this will get better, but it's still very playable and fun.

illapa

Newcomer

illapa

Newcomer

6 000g2g pts

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:55:30 PM

What I've done is explore straight into the center, find good solar systems that look like choke points, and colonize those first. If you cut the AI off with an early land grab I've found that I've been very successful. I haven't had the AI do an early game rush on me or anything like that so maybe I've just been lucky.

VIPSharidann

Newcomer

VIPSharidann

Newcomer

16 500g2g pts

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 10:07:31 PM

In the early game, if playing with multiple constellations, I try to secure the systems with wormholes ASAP, even if they are not top interesting economically, as they provide a natural buffer.

Besides that, systems with many warplanes are usually my next target, as they help for defense.

Another important thing in the early game... Begin to build a fleet early, it makes the AI consider you with more respect. If you don't have ships, they consider you like a wimp and come early to kick your butt.

illapa wrote:
What I've done is explore straight into the center, find good solar systems that look like choke points, and colonize those first. If you cut the AI off with an early land grab I've found that I've been very successful. I haven't had the AI do an early game rush on me or anything like that so maybe I've just been lucky.

nutranurse

Newcomer

nutranurse

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 10:08:47 PM

Haha, ok, so I take back what I said. I just got my ass handed to me my a combination of Cravers and Sophons. I was 1st for FIDS and my home system had an amazing 150 production capability, but I was hamstrung by technology and could not get the colonization techs fast enough! The Sophons literally stole most of the planets right underneath my nose and then the Cravers kind of ambled into the little spat I was having with the Sophons and proceded to thrown everything and the kitchen sink at me. Since I only really had my one homeworld system pumping stuff out I eventually was whittled down.

Not to say this is a bad thing. After playing tons of the recent 4x's with crap design & AI the challenge in Endless Space is refreshing! Easily my best purchase yet.

duncandun

Newcomer

duncandun

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 7:21:58 AM

So little update, my last game which I started at the beginning of this thread(and using the tips posted early on) I managed to win... by a landslide.

My final score was ~48k at turn 221. I won an economic victory, I had over 80k dust and couldn't really spend it fast enough(was generating ~12k a turn, with 60% tax rate and 100% happyness on all systems). It was pretty silly, the nearest AI had 18k points.

It seems like getting a good start is what really matters in this game. The biggest thing that helped me early on were the +production heroes(though I only had one, it helped alot on my main production/science system which ended up at around 1000/1000/500/500 FIDS).

Thanks for the tips guys

this was a 4 person(me+3ai) game on noobie, Now I want to try easy and maybe up the number of AI and change my race=).

Edraii

Newcomer

Edraii

Newcomer

25 300g2g pts

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 7:59:06 AM

Yup, It's all about your food production in the early game, how fast you can pump out population will make/break your game as it stands...

metallibilly

Newcomer

metallibilly

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 8:07:23 AM

the ai maybe hard to handle but if you pay attention to the battle reports you can usually see a pattern in their ship building usually always will they focus on one or two weapons when they get dreadnaughts so my advice is to pick a race to fight and fit your ships to overpower theirs. currently im fighting the hissno (probably spelt that wrong) and all they use are dreadnaughts with reflector armor and the gun i forget what its called so i put on armor to deflect the bullets and fitted my ships with beam and missile weapondry and now im kicking so much alien hide.

Ramireus

Newcomer

Ramireus

Newcomer

19 200g2g pts

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:21:17 PM

Hmm, I might be lucky, but I don´t have problem.

My second game (first ended after 10 turns where I found most controlls and such) I am superpower, crushing horation faction without sweat. I mean that there is many features new player don´t know, especially balancing when and how to expand, while AI knows that already... Also when you get into fight, you need to have specific ships designed to fight their fleets... with well designed ship you can crush enemy fleetpower 3k with ships 800-1k without loosing anything...

general tips was here:

play ofensivelly-you will need some weapon tech, can´t do without them.

use exploitation-for example building colony ship as first thing is bad idea-more food is much better option...

use generals-You can afford them very soon from begining-getting expecially flat bonuses like 25 +prod is extremely usefull in the begining...

and for all sakes-don´t trust your friends

I was in long lasting peace (50+turns) with horatio and the sudenly they became somewhat moody a in 5 turns my their attitude towards me deteriorated and they declared war on me

DannyD

Newcomer

DannyD

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 8:17:08 AM

TNSe wrote:
I must be playing overpowered races, because I'm steamrolling everything...

The Cravers seem to be way too strong, but so did Horatio. Hmm... Let me try United Empire.

the Cravers are killer. In my game I'm on the 100° turns, only 3 planet because they've destroyed all my ship. In the next game I'll try to easy setting..... easy...I'm a noob now...

lol

Antulamatsch

Newcomer

Antulamatsch

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 8:35:47 AM

Hm, "Easy" is ok, but "Normal" is really hard

Wander

Newcomer

Wander

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 9:53:15 AM

Playing as the Hissho.

The first game I played, it was obvious how hard it was going to be. Got wiped at every encounter. Especially by those damned Cravers. But then, I had no idea what I was doing.

I'm on my second playthrough now, around turn 180 and have pretty much destroyed Horatio. Currently warring with the Cravers (I hate those guys!) and making slow headway into their systems.

The key for me has been developing ships that rock-paper-scissors theirs. When I realised that Horatio and the Cravers were both using beam and shields I hurried to build some battleships loaded with just shields and little-to-none deflections and a whole stack of missiles.

Two of these battleships can take on a fleet of 10 Cravers without a scratch.

The challenge now is that Cravers seem to be able to build and build and build....

VIPSharidann

Newcomer

VIPSharidann

Newcomer

16 500g2g pts

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 10:03:54 AM

Well add to that the cravers fleets, all other things being equal are always bigger than yours...

And remember that for each destroyed CP, they win science points....

So.. hit them hard, hit them low, grab their b.... and don't let go.

Cravers, you really have to go at it fast and nasty..

Wander wrote:
Playing as the Hissho.

The first game I played, it was obvious how hard it was going to be. Got wiped at every encounter. Especially by those damned Cravers. But then, I had no idea what I was doing.

I'm on my second playthrough now, around turn 180 and have pretty much destroyed Horatio. Currently warring with the Cravers (I hate those guys!) and making slow headway into their systems.

The key for me has been developing ships that rock-paper-scissors theirs. When I realised that Horatio and the Cravers were both using beam and shields I hurried to build some battleships loaded with just shields and little-to-none deflections and a whole stack of missiles.

Two of these battleships can take on a fleet of 10 Cravers without a scratch.

The challenge now is that Cravers seem to be able to build and build and build....

MikeD

Newcomer

MikeD

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 10:08:52 AM

Hehe, yeah and it cheats too. Moves on your turn and overloads its fleets with more ships then it is suposed to have.

Spritzen

Newcomer

Spritzen

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 10:25:17 AM

MikeD wrote:
Hehe, yeah and it cheats too. Moves on your turn and overloads its fleets with more ships then it is suposed to have.

I put the move on your turn down to simultaneous turn times; which is great for MP.

I had stormed the start of my galaxy, taking out 2 AI's and then owning half the system. Then comes along the remain AIs and they've just steam rolled me lol... was fun to say the least, like many have said it's refreshing, I really hope that this level of difficulty remains in the game, even if it's a few difficulty labels up from what it is now.

One thing that I do find annoying is that 1 scout ship can claim sectors, I find this tactically a micro managing pain. Sure I can have lots of small quick ships to take them out but when you have 30+ systems and your having to defend the claim of the system from 1 small ship that leaves as soon as you move close, its just irritating. Not to mention that the selecting of ships and issuing fly to systems is awkward and sometimes takes many clicks to get it to work...teething alpha stuff I know...

Mtwo

Newcomer

Mtwo

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 10:32:02 AM

Hm,what will happen with the AI is random mostly and depends on spawn points,resources etc.I haven't played a lot of games and the majority were in Newbie,however in almost all of them,I faced other races at 100+turns.However this might be because I play it on Newbie.Anyway,that's just my opinion.

AeonOfTime

Newcomer

AeonOfTime

Newcomer

17 100g2g pts

13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 10:58:23 AM

I agree on the fact that the AI is pretty tough to beat for the moment. I did the same, started a game on normal as Sophons and focused on developing my systems. The AI was slightly behind me, but when they started attacking I had a really hard time keeping up, even with all systems builing ships. My mistake was that I had spent too much research on things other than ship support (defense/offense). I slowly lost ground until I gave up, even though the AI had less systems than I had.

I played two more games to the end after that, with success. Here are some pointers that seemed to work pretty well:

- Expand, expand, expand. There are no real limiting factors like in Civ, and the AI does it too.

- Hire heroes as early as you can to make them gain experience

- Assign two heroes to your best systems, make them maximize FIDS

- Focus on food and industry buildings at the beginning

- Assign one hero to your best fleet

- Research offensive and defensive techs, update your ship designs often

- Don't forget the ship speed techs, higher speed gives a big tactical advantage

- When in cold war, don't hesitate to kill scouts in your systems - the AI won't with yours either

- Use several scouts to explore, you will likely lose a few

- Try to conquer the AI closest to you early on: it removes a threat, gives you more space to develop in, and gives you a good solar system early on

- When possible, colonize bottleneck systems to keep the AI from attacking you from several systems at once. If you can control from where they can attack you, you can fight them on your own terms

As the developers said, the game is not balanced yet. So the experience will probably change quite a bit until the release. Looking forward to it!

Gordon

Newcomer

Gordon

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:48:00 PM

Also, 40 turns or so out in the game, the AI may have double the score you have, no matter what you do.

Inquisitioner

Officer

Inquisitioner

Officer

20 000g2g pts

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:24:31 PM

What kind of A.I difficulty have you played with and what sizes on the galaxies?

duncandun

Newcomer

duncandun

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:28:05 PM

Inquisitioner wrote:
What kind of A.I difficulty have you played with and what sizes on the galaxies?

Well, my first game was all default, so medium size, normal difficulty etc.

2-4 were all on easy, still got dominated. For instance my score was ~1200 on my last game, and the other 3 races were all 2500+, Hissho was 4000

.

I assumed increasing the galaxy size would give me more alone time, but i always seem to encounter another race within 15-30 turns.

My last few were all Huge size.

Inquisitioner

Officer

Inquisitioner

Officer

20 000g2g pts

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:32:57 PM

The A.I are very hard now at the moment. You aren't the only one getting your ass kicked, I was lucky cause I managed to get the A.I to fight each other. But my plan to use diplomacy failed due to their mood swings. Since as of now they're all just a bunch of barbarians with one thing on their mind: Kill everything.

Gordon

Newcomer

Gordon

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:39:08 PM

The AI are indeed very difficult to battle at the moment, and are almost impossible to barter with. I try to play on medium, but find myself playing on Easy instead

TNSe

Newcomer

TNSe

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:40:40 PM

I must be playing overpowered races, because I'm steamrolling everything...

The Cravers seem to be way too strong, but so did Horatio. Hmm... Let me try United Empire.

SomeGuy

Newcomer

SomeGuy

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:41:25 PM

I had a very similar problem at first....and then I discovered planet exploitation facilities. You can build facilities that are system wide, but when you zoom in on a planet, you can build a 'planetary exploitation' facilities. When I discovered those, my game became a bit better.

At least, that was my experience.

MT4K

Newcomer

MT4K

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:41:40 PM

The a.i is very aggressive currently so really the best way to stay alive is to play aggressively yourself. The a.i is still being tuned though so should be getting better all the time until the full version of the game.

Remscar

Newcomer

Remscar

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:42:46 PM

Add two difficulty levels on what the game says. Easy is Hard, Noob is Normal.

I once tried to make a deal with the AI, i was by FAR in their favor, i got rejected.

duncandun

Newcomer

duncandun

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:22:48 PM

So I've played 3 or 4 games so far, though none to completion. Mostly to the point where it becomes frustrating(which for me means being blockaded on 3-4 different planets at once

) because I'm so bad.

So I have a bit of experience playing Civ, Civ 4 mostly. However some things just seem odd to me:

Some planets(even when they have high food production, which I assumed was what spurred population growth?) just never seem to grow in population. Am I doing it wrong somehow?

Every AI i've encountered so far is able to grow, research, build etc at a much faster rate than I can possibly sustain. For instance in my last game the Hissho AI had 20x the ships I had, 7 more systems colonized, and about 14 more things researched than I had. I was focusing mostly on trying to build up my few colonized systems and researching(as Sophon). Throwing everything I had into research I was still behind by so much... whilst of course being utterly dominated in every other portion of gameplay.

How do influence spheres work exactly...? enemies always seem to have huge spheres around their colonies yet I only have tiny rings.

I just can't seem to not get owned!

any tips would be great, also I read that you can purchase ships though I haven't seen how to do this yet. Can you also purchase improvements?

thanks in advance for any tips=)

BlazerMortis

Newcomer

BlazerMortis

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:53:10 PM

My experience with the AI has gone something like this:

They always find me pathetic and I somehow inspire them to attack me. what the heck. lol. There is a lot of potential for the AI to be awesome, but with all the tech you need just to be able to use diplomacy on them..gah. talk about cramping my style. lol.

Gordon

Newcomer

Gordon

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:54:45 PM

For the AI not to attack you, you want to go left on the tech tree. But then you may fall victim to pirates or the Cravers, so then you must also balance between weapon on top of the tree and ships on the bottom of the tree. :rolleyes:

BlazerMortis

Newcomer

BlazerMortis

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:57:45 PM

Oh AI..grumble grumble. haha. yea, I have yet to start a playthrough where I seriously invest in tech on the left side. mostly it's been on the bottom, right, and some on top.

Nickolaeris

Newcomer

Nickolaeris

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 8:58:32 PM

Do you use heroes in your game? There is always at least 1 available from very beginning, that increases food/production (he has gear&corn icon). Hire him ASAP, and in few turns (all right, maybe not few but a dozen) he'll get 2 levels - for first take Director 1 (labor +3), then Civil Engineer (+25 production on system). 25 production bonus is VERY big for beginning, as your main planet can give only about 5-7 production per turn. Furhter this hero can also give you up to 50 food, so almost any your colony will increase population by 1 each turn. If you'll be lucky, you can hire up to 2 such heroes in first 10 turns, so you'll be developing much faster.

Also, when finished gathering money for heroes, reduce taxes to increase approval in your systems (up to 70%, or, if possible, - 85% in most of systems)- you'll be receiving less money, but you'll get bonuses for food and production.

If you won't forget to build fleets, then you'll easily survive on Easy level. If enemies easily defeat your fleets even with higher power than their, check their weapons and armor and create according spaceship design (if enemy prefers kinetic weapons - use defliective armor, if beam - then shields, if missiles - then flak, same rules with weapons). Never seen AI player changing their weapons preferences, so this action will help you greatly.

Gordon

Newcomer

Gordon

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:00:43 PM

I consider heroes a must, but right now I am experiencing a bug (i think, must be) where I am not presented with heroes on the beginning of the game, or after the 50 turns. So, no heroes for me.

nutranurse

Newcomer

nutranurse

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:05:35 PM

I am not entirely sure where you all are getting these problems! I started my first game today as the empire of man (or whatever it's called), and simply took off. By turn 40 I had a score of over 1.5k and of the 4 AI opponents none had yet to breach 1k! Moreover, when I got into my first war (with the Hissions, I think that's what they are called, I apologize if I fudged the name) I stomped them pretty rapidly with a death fleet.

Not sure what I am doing that is different from you guys. I am big on purchasing stuff whenever possible, perhaps giving me an edge over my opponents? Just voicing my own opinion/adding my 2 cents.

darkchaosguy

Eyeless Tempest

darkchaosguy

Eyeless Tempest

11 800g2g pts

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:14:40 PM

The issue I keep running into is that all the AIs want to attack me. Regardless of my tech, planets, or ships, everyone seems to find me so weak that they just have to attack me. I guess this might be avoided if I researched diplomacy options, but that would make me fall behind on military...then I'd actually be weaker than them.

DoctorBeard

Newcomer

DoctorBeard

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 9:14:43 PM

nutranurse wrote:
I am big on purchasing stuff whenever possible, perhaps giving me an edge over my opponents? Just voicing my own opinion/adding my 2 cents.

I'm in a boat with the others currently, but that's a pretty good point. Where I'm at right now with Horatio I'm JUST ABOUT equal with the Hissho who just went to war with me but I'm pretty much sitting on thousands of Dust and never bought anything, except Heroes and ship retrofits.

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