@ AmpliBurger, currently there is a bug, or a check which is not yet implemented. Nothing prevents you from having tremendously negative dust. This is kind of an "exploit". It is expected to be changed in the next build.



@ InFlames, does your technique rely on infinitely negative dust? If not, I am amazed that you are able to get the first 4 levels on every weapon by turn 50. Could you zip and attach a save game to this post? If you could also attach a save game from earlier, say turn 20 or 30, I can probably learn a lot from your build order. I am sure other players could learn a lot too.

davea wrote:
Thanks for the info. I guess the key thing (which you added in your edit) is that you play in fast. This bumps up tech speeds and so forth by a lot. It's hard to measure this against normal speed. It's interesting to look at your tech tree choices; you have pretty evenly filled out all the trees except for north (weapons). Since you have enough room to expand, that is not surprising.



In the first, say 20 turns at fast, are there particular higher tier techs you beeline? I notice you have the tier 4 right tree tech, rudimentary telepathics. Was this for the global tech park? Are these buffs still important for sophon?



I notice you have gone for all the moon exploration and then careful sweeping. Do you find a lot of neat things there? I haven't bothered very much.

In the first turns I always go for the techs that will increase planet colonisation then increase fids then increase happiness. Generally whatever I need at the time. If I have no need for military I ignore it for as long as I can to make my systems as strong as possible.



I also mainly go for the moon tech because it allows for a higher population and also it allows for a cut to planetary disadvantages.



I also don't know the techs you meantioned off my head because I go by picture rather than name in game

i must admit i also seem to have similar issues, i was around turn 200 or so i had a decent size force with a good portion of territory under my name, however the AI then thought it be funny to invade cause i was expanding (i had not take a new system in about 50 turns) then proceeded to send everything they had at me. i initially did not think this a problem as i have several large fleets most including dreadnoughts with decent weaponry. however this were quickly trashed by fleets that had 10-14 ships. personally i see this as an issue as you said before, once you fall behinid its near impossible to catch up

Lots of planets, valuable planets, and FOOD. If you don't produce enough food, the population won't grow and your screwed. Once I got my food and dust going well my Cravers were easily able to colonize enter systems with a single Colony ship. The big key is to always colonize the planet with the most food first. Food is king. Food, food, glorious food.

InFlamesWeTrust wrote:
OK, I'm at turn 30, and its shaping up pretty well.

I had to restart about 5 times, twice because of a 1 planet home system and 3 times because I got the no freaking hero's glitch!

Thanks for the info. I guess the key thing (which you added in your edit) is that you play in fast. This bumps up tech speeds and so forth by a lot. It's hard to measure this against normal speed. It's interesting to look at your tech tree choices; you have pretty evenly filled out all the trees except for north (weapons). Since you have enough room to expand, that is not surprising.



In the first, say 20 turns at fast, are there particular higher tier techs you beeline? I notice you have the tier 4 right tree tech, rudimentary telepathics. Was this for the global tech park? Are these buffs still important for sophon?



I notice you have gone for all the moon exploration and then careful sweeping. Do you find a lot of neat things there? I haven't bothered very much.

OK, managed it in 46 turns this time.



This is done on the settings, Huge spiral-8, 8 races, of which cba to type out. Normal difficulty, fast speed and default everything else.



Hope this helps people
SOPHONS - Turn 46.zip

OK, I'm at turn 30, and its shaping up pretty well.

I had to restart about 5 times, twice because of a 1 planet home system and 3 times because I got the no freaking hero's glitch!
SOPHONS - Turn 30.zip

@ Ampliburger, I felt the same way, but when I learned more about population and I could see that my new games (on same map) had 2x the population of my earlier games, I started to kick a**. Now I have gone up to hard from normal. You can do the same.



@ InFlames, My Documents\Endless Space\Users\

Thanks for the help davea, I suppose I'll try this for a bit even though it's learning wrong.



I have played several games on newbie, total of 18 hours, most games ~100-250 turns. I have never won yet. I am very frustrated that I cannot win, and I am typically very good at 4x games. Definitely good enough to beat Hard modes.

davea wrote:
@ InFlames, does your technique rely on infinitely negative dust? If not, I am amazed that you are able to get the first 4 levels on every weapon by turn 50. Could you zip and attach a save game to this post? If you could also attach a save game from earlier, say turn 20 or 30, I can probably learn a lot from your build order. I am sure other players could learn a lot too.

Well I never have negative dust. But I'm pretty sure its the first 4, may be the first 3 but I'm not sure. Anyway I don't have a save to hand but I'm about to play a game after I have eaten and I will try to remember to attach a save. Just need to find where they are stored

I may be enumerating how well I do but I won a game in turn 70 the other day on normal difficulty so I don't think I am, but just to make sure, I may be telling porkies to myself lol



EDIT: Also I do run in fast, so that may have some preference.

Hi all,



I have enjoyed this game quite a bit after hearing about it and installing it but my games never seem to last over 200 turns before I am completely overwhelmed by the enemies. My usual initial focus is on expansion but I can't keep up with expanding so rapidly without sacrificing industrial and dust production. Inevitably the enemy factions have a much higher rating and military might and just sweep me whenever they have the desire to do so.



Could anyone help me with some tips on how to balance FIDS output while still expanding quickly? Most of my science has been spent on the bottom tree and oftentimes I go well into the negatives for Dust.



Thanks,I appreciate it.



~Anumidium

You can let your dust go negative? Not the system dust, but your overall treasury? The tutorial told me that if it did, my systems on my stars would get scrapped. Every time I see the dust dip to -20 or something, I immediately boost taxes for the next turn and flip out until it gets high again.



I would never have considered operating at a negative for more than a turn or two until I can get my ass out of the red. Doesn't your whole system scrap itself during negative overall dust?

How you get to 200 turns without losing/winning is beyond me, my games never get past 150 turns without either me losing or winning. But I play on harder difficulties so maybe that's it.



Try going as the Sophon's, you can get a huge amount of research from them and once you've got enough upgrades on the military tree you can just start expanding rapidly then. I get the first 4 military upgrades on each row by the 40-50th turn in my games, sometimes quicker, then I just destroy the AI while building my other systems up and focusing on non-military tech. I then usually go for the wonder victory as it is the fastest way of winning and the Sophon's aren't all that good later in game because of their ship downgrades due to a race trait.

It seems to me that there isn't really a need to expand too quickly. If you have a lot of systems but low populations and productivity you're actually crippling yourself.



The best method I've noticed is to choose hero's with productivity (build) bonuses. At level 3 you will be able to pick the +25 production which significantly boost your early game development. That, along with research will allow you to quickly build up 2-3 very productive systems. Then as you expand you can re-assign your hero's on new systems and continue to build very much in a domino effect until you have enough FIDS to really have an expansion explosion to the point where it really isn't even fair. If you focus on military you'll probably be able to take out another empire Early on and take their developed systems and then the game is essentially over. I haven't tried a difficulty above normal though yet so that might make it more balanced.

i like all the comments, I would add that you can't wait till you see your first enemy to start building a fleet. If you do, by the time you have a good fleet you lost a good portion of your planets.

I have collected some good threads about improving good play at the bottom of my known bugs thread. In particular the "30 turn challenge" may be an excellent way to learn. I have gotten measurably 2x better from this thread. The key is the number of population points you have: if you do not get ahead on this in the first 30 turns, you will never catch up.

Whenever possible focus your expansion to systems that contain strategic or luxury resources and multiple colonizable worlds trying to avoid systems with many tiny plants with negative anomalies.

Don't build exploitations that don't give additional bonuses for the planet you are building them on. Try to get resource monopolies (4 of the same resource) as they provide MASSIVE bonuses to your overall performance. Put some research into the left tree to increase the productivity of planetary exploitations and unlock solar improvements which can do a lot for your FIDS.

Anumidium wrote:
Hi all,



I have enjoyed this game quite a bit after hearing about it and installing it but my games never seem to last over 200 turns before I am completely overwhelmed by the enemies. My usual initial focus is on expansion but I can't keep up with expanding so rapidly without sacrificing industrial and dust production. Inevitably the enemy factions have a much higher rating and military might and just sweep me whenever they have the desire to do so.



Could anyone help me with some tips on how to balance FIDS output while still expanding quickly? Most of my science has been spent on the bottom tree and oftentimes I go well into the negatives for Dust.



Thanks,I appreciate it.



~Anumidium

Note that there are a number of bugs due to the alpha state of the game and balance hasn't really been touched. So a lot of the intended gameplay probably isn't in right now.