When I bought this game, I was coming off of Civ 4, not wanting to buy Civ 5 because I was quite skeptical of what it changed and how it's turned into the DLC-land model of gaming.



That said, I was VERY pleasantly surprised about this game. It had so much potential, such amazing graphics, complex and time-consuming tech trees, and an interesting battle system. It has bugs, every game does (such as the inability to move a ship sometimes).The tutorial was fine as tutorials go, however I was disappointed. The tutorial covered very bare and simple basics of the game. If Civ 4 is frowned upon by huge 4X gamers, I'm sorry, but I wanted something like a Civilopedia. After browsing through these forums, I realized there are so many different mechanics the tutorial didn't even mention.



The difficulty gap I realized, is huge from the mindset of a Civ player. Every mechanic is different, right down to the basics of a 4X. I've played a couple games now, and each time I was last the whole game in score. I switched races from Sophons (my love for speeding through a tech tree quickly) to United Empire (my second love of expanding and ruling economies). Each had a strength and weakness that made choosing incredibly hard, which is a lovely finding. Anyways, I was dumbfounded by my AI opponents on EASY difficulty, and I'm wondering what I did wrong.



My Noob Questions:



How do you guys go through your tech trees, and do you think there is any inbalance from one over another?



How do you advance through the Military tech tree?



What race do you play and why?



How do you pick star/planetary improvements most beneficial to the system/planet, while maintaining all FIDS?



EDIT: How does food affect the star system?

I can answer your easier questions. Food is what allows your population to grow: more food equals more population growth equals more people giving you IDS. I play Sophon because I love going tech crazy (I'm a University and Liir player). I want to give United Empire another try because they have some nice stats but my start with them was slow thanks to their Mineral Poor homeworld. Personally I tailor my military research to my enemies: get the defense against his weapon and a weapon he doesn't have a defense against—the AI is amazingly dense and won't retrofit or redesign to save its life.

I play Sophans. The warfar techs are mostly Laser and then Missles also a lot of defence.

The other techs are for my fids mostly for more since. Then to the shipdesigns and cp points.

Also the resources at the beginning. At the end movent speed and the rest.

Neuronic wrote:


My Noob Questions:



How do you guys go through your tech trees, and do you think there is any inbalance from one over another?

This is situational at the start of the game for me, I get the simple techs first starting with food increase then tech labs, then the unlocks resources that are near by. I then head towards unlocking tundra and arid colonisations and head towards unlocking DD's. Once I have these I then switch focus on unlocking CP's and the back to colonisation techs.



If I run into CPU or a flood of Pirates I switch focus to unlock the 2nd tier beam weapons and shielding.

Neuronic wrote:


How do you advance through the Military tech tree?

As mentioned I only focus on military tech when I run into CPU's or heavy Pirate presence. And only initially up to 2 tier of beam weapons and shielding. I also get DD's and then go for BB's.

In each fleet I have it filled with the largest ships I can build upto BB's and have a screen of Vettes, which are cheap and expendable that will take the hits that would otherwise be taken by the big ships. I find I loose more battles fielding just BB's than I do having a mix.

Neuronic wrote:


What race do you play and why?

I have played UE, Sophons and Carvers. Each bring there own game play.



Carvers I play when I want to just go and maul everything. It is purely is a massive land grab for the first 30 turns or so, and then build up the infrastructure and then focus on the military tech, the aim is to dominate by turn 100 on a small map with 4 cpu's. I have however not managed it, but I come close.



UE I play as a jack of all trades, the first system if it has another planet I can colonise I do so straight away and move the population to that planet [ifitsaTerrantypethenhappydays]. I tend to be balanced with UE, capping systems as I go along and building up a steady military. The UE are a race I play on large maps and with more CPU's as they are more suited to the long haul imo. I can go for every victory type np with them.



Sophons I play to research win primarily but have occasionally used them for other victory conditions but not as mush as research.

Neuronic wrote:


How do you pick star/planetary improvements most beneficial to the system/planet, while maintaining all FIDS?

I have always played these types of games with a simple mindset when it comes to building infrastructure. First off I start with the very basics building you get, food, production then research. after that I comes down to what is available to build. I build what is the less time to build with the most immediate benefit to what is need the most/focus on that planet.



I have a habit of building everything [eventually] in these types of games but each planet naturally has a focus whether that be, research or production with the occasional trade focus to keep me in the pink. This is deternimed by the base stats of the planet that is colonised. If it already has a high research output and a low trade output I don't make the focus trade if you know what I mean.

Neuronic wrote:


EDIT: How does food affect the star system?

As a system as a whole, the excess goes towards the population increase.

After getting off to a rought start and restarting a game as UE on normal difficulty, small map with 3 AI players, the best tip I can give is to be very careful about which improvements you build in each system. Unlike the civ series, it is not a good idea to just build everything you can, some improvements are simply not worth the maintenance cost.

Yorkie wrote:
If I run into CPU or a flood of Pirates I switch focus to unlock the 2nd tier beam weapons and shielding.







As mentioned I only focus on military tech when I run into CPU's or heavy Pirate presence. And only initially up to 2 tier of beam weapons and shielding. I also get DD's and then go for BB's.

I have always hated that in these kinds of games, If you turn of pirates and have few enemys on a large map, you can forgo any sort of major military activity or research until the early 200 turns. :l