Well, I am on turn 100 with no victory in sight. I have ground away at Horatio and I am mostly done. I have destroyer spam with backup S2G cruisers. Each ground combat takes 6-10 turns. I agree that #1 and #2 are a problem, and there is no way to prove a player did not use them; but if you "play fair" they do not appear on their own.



I also found the AI information interesting. Please find attached a spreadsheet (Excel 2010) which shows the techs researched by each AI during each 10-turn period. I should have kept a save at turns 10, 20. For the human column, the order is exactly the order I researched; the game seems to save the exact tech order. So this may be interesting anyway.
davea-chall5-techorder.zip

Very true re: destroyers, especially for Hissho (even more firepower thanks to bonuses) + even cheaper production. My 22 ship Hissho destroyer fleet (without weight upgrade) has 62,500 MP, with no admiral / 'revenge' perk. That's just whack, considering 20,000 for a dread fleet is considered good.



I'll pass, sorry, normal is a little too easy for me now. Surprised you aren't finding normal easy given that you are obviously a 'theory-crafter'. What race do you usually play? Colonising crappy systems / planets early game can set you back quite a bit. Never use the stupid automatic system upgrade feature until late game (takes too long micromanaging so many systems, so I usually get lazy with new systems).





If you are interested in my strategy, I am currently playing as Hissho on impossible with a huge galaxy and 4 enemies (5 with me).







Basic strategy: Expand like mad, I don't bother much with colony ships since the patch (population increases slower since Alpha 2), opt to build up, and on round 40 attack whoever I feel like (with around 15-20 fleets), I try to attack at least four different systems simultaneously. I don't even bother with military heroes, seems a little pointless when you are fielding so many fleets (in the screenshot I have about 90 fleets total.



Not sure what race you play, but for offensive races such as Hissho and Cravers I prefer to



- build up my economy, colonise about 5 or so systems, only the best ones, however.

- build warships whenever I have no upgrades available (but I don't create a fleet until needed to reduce upkeep)

- Try to get a peace treaty with either a sophon or haratio. Continue to trade my techs for their techs.

- By around 30 I swap to all out military production

- Attack, swap some systems to prod > dust (upkeep for that many ships is pretty steep).

- Then you pretty much have to take it by ear and adjust to what is happening around you.



+ food to prod is amazing (allowed me to get 5 systems with more than 3000 prod), hence you should try to get it by roughly round 100.

Wormhole hyperspace is essential when your empire becomes large.. takes too long to get from a to b otherwise.

All +Thumb tech is very useful. I usually keep my tax rate around 30-40% and am still able to maintain an ecstatic rating in all of my systems. (making 40,000 dust per turn now).

Buyout is your friend. Use it to get newly colonised planets up and running quickly. If you find you are starting to go broke it is probably a good idea to get more + dust techs.



Leave a few fleets to defend your flank if your are in 'cold war' with your neighbour.



My fleet comp is early game is

- 70% destroyers with nothing but guns

- 30% BS's with nothing by defensive modules.



I try to go half - half between two different weapon types so I don't get countered (or at least am less likely to be completely countered)



Late game I build fleets of "Invaders" (cruisers with planetary assault mods), because it can take a hell of a long time to take a planet (Took me 6 turns to take their capital with 26 fleets of 22 ships [didn'thave'invaders'then]



Also being able to rapidly sieze a planet is IMMENSELY useful, especially in impossible. The amount of fleets they throw at you each turn can be pretty crazy. youll get beaten down by attricion otherwise.

#1 Infinite pop

#2 Infinite resources [industry>dustbug]

I must live under a rock, I haven't encountered any of these bugs???

Thanks for the info. Next time you play, could you save one game at turn 0, then one every ten turns, for the first 50 turns? Then zip and attach all six games to a post. I would love to look into them to get some details. This map is "hard" difficulty, and I have certainly not won by turn 100. I have tried each of the races. I guess Hissho and Cravers are the most offense, cravers due to early game bonus and hisso due to their damage bonus.



You can take a look at the posts in the exploit thread:

http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?2779-exploit-summary-of-known-exploits

samboy, I'd like to see those saved games too. I'm nearly brand new to this game, so the thing I think I'm MOST interested in is your research tree and the timing of it. I'm having a hard time getting used to looking for what techs I need next.

I might give it a go tomorrow, depends how much tim e I have. And sure, of i dont forget.



P.s. the flock speed thing isnt a bug / exploit. It is designed so that the engines provide a bonus to the rest of your fleet.

AdmiralRob wrote:
samboy, I'd like to see those saved games too. I'm nearly brand new to this game, so the thing I think I'm MOST interested in is your research tree and the timing of it. I'm having a hard time getting used to looking for what techs I need next.

You may want to take a look at the previous challenges in the thirty turn challenge group (see link in OP), there is good information there. I learned a ton.

samboy29 wrote:
P.s. the flock speed thing isnt a bug / exploit. It is designed so that the engines provide a bonus to the rest of your fleet.

Just to make sure I understand, do you feel that 15 ships in a fleet, each with this engine, should have +15 to speed?

well considering how much tonnage and so military capacity engine take, it is not that incredible. Moreover, with heros and a little teching, your fleet can travel at 15-20 parsec per turn quite easily which is often more than enough considering that fleets spend 80% of their time in siege or guard mode.



About the game, i just finished a 6 players game on serious with the sophons and i knew it was over by turn 30 as i had twice the score of the second. I was never really threatened by the AI and after i conquered their worlds, i noticed that their worlds where either all with finance improvements or with farms improvements in the same system. Not a single production plant planetary improvement. This is a huge flaw of the AI.

On forums for other games I have been involved in, sometimes players share a game in order to learn. I consider myself an "OK" player but I usually play on normal difficulty and win 50/50 of the time. So obviously I can learn more. I would like to compare results. If you got better than me, I'd like to understand your strategy. If I got better than you, I'll explain what I was trying to do.



The attached zip file has a save game at turn 0 of a medium spiral-2 map, 6 empires, playing United Empire, hard difficulty, no pirates. I have also attached my result after 30 turns. The goal of this game is to win a military victory, no time limit. Please save every 30 turns and include them when you attach your save. This will help the other players to follow what you did.



My results at the end of turn 30: total population=16, food=121, industry=127, science=86. I think I sent my scout and initial transport in exactly the wrong directions.



This is a learning experience, not a competition. Please avoid the various known exploits, and submit your first playthrough.



The attached zip contains a save game "chall5-t0" which is at turn 0, and a save game "chall5-davea-t30" which is at turn 30. Unzip into your save game directory "My Documents\Endless Space\Saves" and then in the game, load chall5-t0.



If you like the challenges, join the group: Thirty turn challenge group and tell me what you would like to see next.



In addition to learning from this challenge, I intend to monitor the AI tech progress. I can extract from the save game, the list of techs for each AI. So, by studying a few different save games at each 30-turn interval, I can graph approximately what the tech order is for each AI. I will be interested to see if they vary by race, and if each player's AI takes the same choices (that is, whether there are random factors in tech selection). I will publish the results that I get.

fixou wrote:
after i conquered their worlds, i noticed that their worlds where either all with finance improvements or with farms improvements in the same system. Not a single production plant planetary improvement. This is a huge flaw of the AI.

It is certainly true that the AI does not build industry improvements. One player who sounds knowledgeable, has said that the AI simply sets its tax rate to 400% and does buyouts for everything. I am sure this will be improved; I would love to be able to mod this.

Hi all,



Not here to join in but thought this might be of use: /#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/7840-research-planet-distribution-by-star-type



AngleWyrm has started some research into how different types of stars have different planet types around them. I thought this might be useful for your early game optimization when scouting and colonising, as suggested by Draknar in the above thread, by picking stars for exploration that are more likely to hold specific planet types.

Thanks for pointing. Personally, I send the transport to whichever system is closest, and the scout to a system which is likely to connect to that system. Then the scout will know if the second planet is a good backup. I think "connectedness" is probably a stronger guide than star type.

For some reason it won't let me download your save, so I'll just start from turn 0 on another huge impossible map.



To be clear, I am not sure that lack of aggressiveness is your problem, as I haven't seen you play and don't know your general strategy, especially towards expansion, planetary upgrade priorities and tech priorities.

samboy, I'd like to see those saved games too. I'm nearly brand new to this game, so the thing I think I'm MOST interested in is your research tree and the timing of it. I'm having a hard time getting used to looking for what techs I need next.

The tech tree can be a bit much at first. As a general rule, I suggest only researching things that take 1 or 2 turns, and that you try to balance fairly evenly between the four trees. The only time I break the 1-2 turn rule is for massive techs such as +40% sci (system upgrade), food > Prod and any other significant tech. I never research anything that is going to take me more than five turns.

Just to make sure I understand, do you feel that 15 ships in a fleet, each with this engine, should have +15 to speed?

I think that is fine given that you have to sacrifice quite a lot of weight.

after i conquered their worlds, i noticed that their worlds where either all with finance improvements or with farms improvements in the same system. Not a single production plant planetary improvement. This is a huge flaw of the AI.

Yea, I am under the impression that the only reason the AI is tough is because of handicaps rather than their economy. Their choice of planetary upgrades and even system upgrades is pretty weird.

Okay, up to round forty now. Playing 5 players, huge galaxy on impossible again. Have a pretty massive lead now (almost 3 times ahead of the AI).



I am first in tech even though I am Hissho which is laughable (have -20% to Sci), making ~600 dust per turn, producing about 30 ships per turn. At 1912 +sci per turn at round 40. Don't have any treaties with any of the AI.



Impossible is currently way too easy for me now Just takes hours to eventually beat them down.





I was doing up a spreadsheet listing my progress and choice of tech and upgrades but the alt tabbing kept crashing my game so I gave up there.



<<< I have not used any of the exploits >>>





Score @20 No contact: 450 Me (3rd) 307

Score @30 No contact: 803 Me (3rd) 648

Score @40 Me (1st)5845 No Contact: 1709

Score @50 Me (1st) 21,130 Horatio(2nd): 2751



By round 40 I have 93 ships preparing to attack and 24 ships defending (total 117 ships) Each warship has a MP rating of 485 (all guns), have some scout ships as well.



Edit: Round 50



Okay, finished round 50. Included save files. Essentially wonthe game already I am so far in front (have almost 10 ten times the next players score). Need a harder difficulty setting...



Progress:







Military:

- Invading: 324 ships

- Defending: 71 ships



Economy:

Dust: 1850 p/t(40% tax)

Science: 2773 p/t

Population: 236 p/t

Production: 3646 p/t

Thanks for pointing. Personally, I send the transport to whichever system is closest, and the scout to a system which is likely to connect to that system. Then the scout will know if the second planet is a good backup. I think "connectedness" is probably a stronger guide than star type.

Disagree with you personally. I will only colonise if there is a good planet. Colonising dodgy planets sets you back a long way. For me, a great planet is one that has decent +food and +prod (eg, jungle), when starting a new system I will only colonise if there is one with high +food so I can get it up and running quickly.

In turn 34 I did my first ground attack with 7 destroyers. In turn 50 (16 turns later) the fleet was up to 42 destroyers and I will take the first planet.

Your better of building up more than sending of little fleets like that. Shock and awe tends to work better in this game.

Turn 10, score 49 (8th place), total pop 8

Turn 20, score 172 (3rd place), total pop 21

Turn 30, score 257 (5th), pop 36

Turn 40, score 634 (2nd), pop 49

Turn 50, score 1390 (2nd), pop 61

Hmm, at round 10 I had a pop of 21 and by turn 40 I was at 5845 with a pop of 182. Hopefully my saves will help you, when I figure out where the saves are located anyway.

samboy29 wrote:
Okay, up to round forty now. Playing 5 players, huge galaxy on impossible again. Have a pretty massive lead now (almost 3 times ahead of the AI). ... Where are the saves located now? Not in the same directory as Alpha 1.

Please, can you zip and upload these. You are doing massively better than me by turn 40. So I must be doing something very wrong (well, suboptimal)



Saves are in My Documents\Endless Space\Save. Please zip whichever saves you have (hopefully several from the same game, turn 0,10,20 etc) and attach to a post.



I have played my game up through 70. I have conquered one AI and started on the second, but so far it's a draw. He hasn't taken any systems back but I have only taken a couple of his minor ones. My score is 2475 which puts me second. I will so appreciate it if you can help me by putting up your saves.



If you can also indicate any special map settings you used, that would be great.

I have planets per system set to many and age set to young. Resources left at normal.



My saves.



Saves.zip



Edit: Going to do another 10 rounds, will probably edit my earlier post with the results.



Interested in what you can ascertain from my saves. Hopefully it helps. Re: Tech order I tend to swap around a lot, prioritising things that I feel that I need at the time. I try to get 3 or 4 systems devoted to production, the rest just contribute FIDS. When I start building a military, I gear all my major production systems to shipbuilding (those 127 ships I had by T40 took 4 turns to build.)