Well, within reason. I don't mean teir 2 kinetic weapons vs a death laser and Uber shields. I should have been a bit more specific >__<



Edit: Aaaaand the quote broke D:. Ah well

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:
Hey guys,



So I just download Endless Space last night and tried out my first game. I am new to endless space, but I've been playing quite a lot of Civ lately, so I'm not totally inexperienced when it comes to this type of game. First off I have to say the game is visually stunning. I the star systems and planets are all very cool and I love zooming out to look at the galaxy map.



My problem is that I'm feeling somewhat overwhelmed. I really have no idea what constitutes a "good start." I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing to get my empire prospering. In the game I'm playing now I went for rapid expansion simply because it seemed like the easiest part of the tech tree to understand (along with the military tree). Also, I don't know which tech allows me to access the wavy routes to stars (sorry I don't know the actual name. Not the straight star routes you can navigate from the beginning.) I ended up going the whole way to Warp Drive and for some reason I still can't explore empty space. I'm holding on ctrl and clicking where I want to go, but my fleet doesn't move. There are enemy fleets flying through my space and I can't move to engage them.



I've also found I'm having trouble making fleets. For some reason I'm only able to add one or two ships to a fleet, while the AI is attacking with fleets of 6 or more ships. I tried making a bigger fleet, but when I selected them I was able to merge the two groups. I also tried disbanding them all and creating a new fleet from the star system but I still couldn't add more than two ships. Does anyone know why this is happening?



The tech tree is a little confusing too. Scrolling over things in the tech tree tells you what researching that tech unlocks, but a lot of the time it's not very intuitive. It's nice to know I can build a Xenotourism facility, but what does it do? Is there any kind of in-game "civopedia" to check so I know what I'm unlocking?



Finally, I guess I don't really know what I should do. Exploring around me seems obvious, but how soon should I start colonizing other planets? Do I need to be building a military quickly (I'm not planning on playing aggressively this game, but I don't want to get steam rolled)? What's the best way to tackle the massive tech tree? How do I know which resources will be available by researching techs? Should I focus on one or two branches or try to even things out? I'm playing on easy and I'm getting absolutely blown out of the water score wise and I have no idea what I did wrong.



Sorry if it seems like this post was one long complaint, I just really want to be able to enjoy this cool game and I'm looking for some help getting my footing. If anyone has any video tutorials that would be amazing. Thank you.

Like yourself the games learning curve is something to battle with, but it isn't terribly hard, last night things started to click for me, I bought the game on Sunday. As someone told you, the bottom tech tree has the "Casimir effect" research option that allows you to go over those "wavy lines" or "wormholes", the solid lines are cosmic strings (which is really mind boggling all the theoretical physics they have here).



Here are things I did last night that I did not do prior that caused me to get lost. The tutorial system is alright, but as a gamer, who wants to read tutorial screens? No one, that's who. So I probably missed a lot of info there. Fortunately, they're changing that I heard to make it more interactive, so rather then stop playing they'll have popups that show you while your playing without opening a separate window.



1-hire a hero for your starter system right away. You assign the hero to the system by opening a star systems screen and at the top there is the option.



2-exploit, exploit, exploit every new planet you colonize. you exploit by clicking on the planet itself, you'll have 1 of the 4 FIDS options to choose from. Remember, each planet gets its own exploit, and the things you build in the system screen are for the entire system.



3-You can colonize right away with the colony ship, that's what it's for. Colonize close to your opening system (then hire another hero and assign him to it). Think in terms of civilization, building cities within a few tiles of each other. planetary systems will have a boundary that grows (like civ) that will interconnect covering your territories. Planets that you haven't colonized that fall within that will be in your influence and you can then take them at will, and others will not be able to (currently in a game like that).



4- Hero's are really important. do not underestimate them. They seem to gain levels automatically or for you doing things / planets growing. They assign bonuses to a fleet fighting there, and also give you cards to play in combat (you also get cards from research).



5-Use cards in combat -- in that combat screen in the upper left corner where you see the steps in the fight, you see some boxes, those are cards. you can start assigning cards to them before the fight starts, and change them as long as that phase hasn't started. They will be the difference in fights.



6-Ship construction -- open a planetary screen and in the bottom left you have your production options. Click on ships below that. the more you click on a ship, the more is added to the queue in the middle. when a ship is done, it's added to the hangar. you can click on "create" on the bottom left after selecting the ships you want to add to the fleet. when you "zoom out" to the galaxy view, the fleets will appear on the bottom left, if you click on a fleet in the system you'll see there, that you may have ships in your hangar. you can click on hangar, then select any ships there, and drag them to the fleet you want to add them to. Fleets usually have a max population. 4 or 5 to start. The research tree on the left has something to increase that cap (look for an eagle symbol, the third tier).



Right now I'm trying to make systems happy. I have not built any improvements yet, so that's probably why they're miserable.

Thanks. Took advice on board (still got gangbanged by 2 other races at once... >_<, didn't take enough care to get specifically larger ships and larger fleet sizes), but still did a damn sight better- I was clearly going to go down at turn 60, having already been bigger than what I was at turn 150 the last 2 games, and this error is easily fixable for next game.

Avakael wrote:
I'm in the OP's boat. Brought Emperor edition off steam, find that even though I'm probably not doing too badly, I just can't keep up with the colossal fleets the enemy seems to be building, or their technology, or their rate of expansion. I've read some guides and I can't work out what I'm doing wrong, apart from perhaps not enough focus on food at the start.

Your tech advancement heavily depends on the research point you generate each turn as all tech has a flat amount required. You research point generation base is your population apart from maybe one building which gives you flat 40 in the system all other science improvement is based upon the population. So if you are falling behind tech despite the fact you have all the tech upgrade in your systems that is because the enemy has more systems/planets/pőp on them.

Solutions:

- Get more system even if you will not colonize tiny barrens and gas giants just yet. colonizing a medium terran/arid in a fresh system is better than colonizin a small desert from your other planet in an already occupied system of yours.

- make sure you do food focus on new systems. EVERYTHING depends on food, even your food depends on food the secon tier improvement gives +2 food/pop in the system. Speed is essential.

- after you have at least 10-12 pop in a system you can switch your exploit to science or dust but I stay on food everywhere in the first 50 turns or unless the system is popcapped. (I'm still on debate which one is better. I'll be back on this later)

- Do not focus your tech in one direction. Always research the cheapest one. benefiting from 3 fast tech for the next 12 turns is soo much better than getting that higher tech 2-3 turns sooner.

- Do not be afraid to buyout first tier buildings in a new system. they are 71-110 dust depending on your traits but they give you a nice headstart (you cant have a hero everywhere) you wont be using dust to anything else in early game. If you can buyout even the third tiers which cost around 300-400 dust.



To sum it up: Food food food = pop = sciece points and than Food food food = pop = dust. I'd advise against going heavy on industry anywhere becase with 4000 iPoint in a system you will only pop 2 deards /turn on highend tech and you wont have many such systems. You can ofc go for it and use all your planets to generate industry and build ships but I found it easer to do dust focus and just buyout high tech dreads for 3000 dust/ship anywhere I want in one turn. last time I had 90% tax rate and 30k dust/turn income (with trade) thats 10 dread/turn anywhere.



on normal mode medium galaxy 8 enemies Turn 180 Score: Me: 36k second place United empire: 12k

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:
I wish I could elaborate more, but I'm not actually sure why it happened. A battle notification came up and I wasn't able to click on the 'Manual' option. This happened twice in a row and resulted in the loss of 2 of my best fleets and forced me to reset from earlier in the game. Before that I was able to manually control battles, and I hadn't changed any of my options.

This reminds me of the first time I had 2 battles in the same moment. 2 enemy fleets started an attack but of c only one of them popped up so I played that and after the battle I have not noticed the other one as it wasn't popped up. So I kept doing stuff like building and such and before the end of the turn I wanted to move my other fleet which I couldn't find. It was nowhere. And then I noticed there was an autobattle in which I lost the whole fleet.

The drawback of simultaneous turns. It took time for me to get use to this and carefully pay attention of multiple enemy attacks in the same moment..

If your manual button is greyed out in the popup window that's a different story, I sense some bug there.

I'm in the OP's boat. Brought Emperor edition off steam, find that even though I'm probably not doing too badly, I just can't keep up with the colossal fleets the enemy seems to be building, or their technology, or their rate of expansion. I've read some guides and I can't work out what I'm doing wrong, apart from perhaps not enough focus on food at the start.

bagalas wrote:
Can you elaborate on this? What do you mean by sometimes unable to command your fleets?

Also many have stated the best tactic to use heavy missiles but do not forget that requires massive amounts of small ships and the ability to reproduce them as losses are inevitable.

For a steady battle I'd advise 50% of weight to be defensive modules equally distributed on the 3 types, have defensive power module (I also use engines as well but someone pointed out one does not really need that on all ships) and the rest of the space which should be around 20-30% of total weight goes on weapons. I use equal amount here as well because missiles while pretty strong you ought to meet ships with heavy flak defense and those will hurt you. From what I see I say having both 3 weapon times is the best due to the enemy ships always lacking at least one type of defense. I think even a 1 module of, for example, kinetic weapon does sick dmg to any ship lacking barriers.



If you want to help yourself a bit make a custom race and make sure you have that trait which increase cargo space by 20% maybe. Cant remember the name. That trait is a bit overpowered I think. +20% weight is sick! makes your ships monsters. And if we are here I might add that when you reach the lvl of research where the cargo space upgrade is take that first.

I wish I could elaborate more, but I'm not actually sure why it happened. A battle notification came up and I wasn't able to click on the 'Manual' option. This happened twice in a row and resulted in the loss of 2 of my best fleets and forced me to reset from earlier in the game. Before that I was able to manually control battles, and I hadn't changed any of my options. I just figured out you can see what kind of weapons opposing fleets are using in the battle report, so that should be a big help with ship design.

Well I've only played two games so I'm barely a newbie here (see my earlier tongue-in-cheek AAR of my first game /#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/8904-real-first-impressions-by-a-true-veteran).



On my first game I played the Sophons and did the usual civ-type stuff that I do, where I like to win with a huge tech advantage. So I started food-heavy, then switched further towards tech where most of my production would go towards tech stuff. I totally neglected military, which went to bite me in later, but the real issue I had was that even with my extreme focus I still got technically beaten by the other Sophons. And that was on the difficulty level below normal. So clearly I was doing something wrong, and of course I wasn't anywhere close to being optimal in my choices. Note also that I was generally generic in my tech research, except towards the end where I switched to full science production and rushed towards the last tech on the right (and failed, as it was going to take me 420 turns to get that last one).



The second game I decided that I needed a victory (still on normal - 1) for my ego. So I created a custom race focused on eternal war, with Bushido etc... I started right away with pumping small kinetic ships and attacking anything that moved. At some point I rushed the first beam tech and went exclusively beam weaponry on purely cheap offensive ships. It was a massacre. Nothing could withstand them and I went colonizing through extended warfare. As I kept winning space battles I gained techs, rushed for the invasion ships and ship-to-ground missiles, started building those in combined fleets, and then it was over. By turn 90 I pretty much had overwhelming military power and a strong base to constantly pump ships, by turn 120 I had obliterated the strongest faction (horatio) and then it was mopping time.

For general UI usage and questions about game mechanics, apart from trial and error, it's best to refer to the forums for quick FAQ references in posts.



My one and only piece of advice I can give to any game you want to learn the finer details regarding strategic and tactics (and therefore winning easier) is to keep trying. Play games and observe at which turn (turn 50, 100, 200, etc) you notice you significantly fall behind in the economic rush. Does it come to a stage where enemy AI form powerful alliances? Do you notice that almost everyone becomes superior in technology to you (especially weapons tech). Does it get to a point where it seems the AI starts churning out fleets endlessly to no avail?



It may take a while, but you need to think afterwards why you messed up (reflect upon your pending or inevitable defeats). Should I have colonized more systems faster, or particular chokepoints in the early game? Should I not have neglected approval ratings, did I overcolonize too many systems and overexpansion disapproval is hitting me hard? These are common questions many new players ask. Observe your enemy incursions to determine when it is best to invest in tech that increases fleet size (CP cap) and weapons tech itself. Once you lay day some basic guidelines for starting off (first 30 turn strategy), then you can start playing with other or even custom races, and using their affinities and traits to your advantage.



GL in you Endless Space experience! ^_^

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:


Sometimes I'm not able to manually command my fleets, and when I don't they lose. Always. With ship layouts I've started to go for more missiles and lasers and less on kinetic in hopes of ending the battle quickly. Again though, I focus on either offense or defense when it looks like I need to take a more middle of the line approach.

Can you elaborate on this? What do you mean by sometimes unable to command your fleets?

Also many have stated the best tactic to use heavy missiles but do not forget that requires massive amounts of small ships and the ability to reproduce them as losses are inevitable.

For a steady battle I'd advise 50% of weight to be defensive modules equally distributed on the 3 types, have defensive power module (I also use engines as well but someone pointed out one does not really need that on all ships) and the rest of the space which should be around 20-30% of total weight goes on weapons. I use equal amount here as well because missiles while pretty strong you ought to meet ships with heavy flak defense and those will hurt you. From what I see I say having both 3 weapon times is the best due to the enemy ships always lacking at least one type of defense. I think even a 1 module of, for example, kinetic weapon does sick dmg to any ship lacking barriers.



If you want to help yourself a bit make a custom race and make sure you have that trait which increase cargo space by 20% maybe. Cant remember the name. That trait is a bit overpowered I think. +20% weight is sick! makes your ships monsters. And if we are here I might add that when you reach the lvl of research where the cargo space upgrade is take that first.

Really great info. Thanks guys.



I'm starting to get the hang of things. Keeping the tech tree even was really counter intuitive to me coming from Civ where you tend to need a little more focus. I've started to recognize which planets are worth colonizing and which aren't which has made a massive difference.



The main struggle I'm having now is combat. Sometimes I'm not able to manually command my fleets, and when I don't they lose. Always. With ship layouts I've started to go for more missiles and lasers and less on kinetic in hopes of ending the battle quickly. Again though, I focus on either offense or defense when it looks like I need to take a more middle of the line approach.

Hey guys,



So I just download Endless Space last night and tried out my first game. I am new to endless space, but I've been playing quite a lot of Civ lately, so I'm not totally inexperienced when it comes to this type of game. First off I have to say the game is visually stunning. I the star systems and planets are all very cool and I love zooming out to look at the galaxy map.



My problem is that I'm feeling somewhat overwhelmed. I really have no idea what constitutes a "good start." I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing to get my empire prospering. In the game I'm playing now I went for rapid expansion simply because it seemed like the easiest part of the tech tree to understand (along with the military tree). Also, I don't know which tech allows me to access the wavy routes to stars (sorry I don't know the actual name. Not the straight star routes you can navigate from the beginning.) I ended up going the whole way to Warp Drive and for some reason I still can't explore empty space. I'm holding on ctrl and clicking where I want to go, but my fleet doesn't move. There are enemy fleets flying through my space and I can't move to engage them.



I've also found I'm having trouble making fleets. For some reason I'm only able to add one or two ships to a fleet, while the AI is attacking with fleets of 6 or more ships. I tried making a bigger fleet, but when I selected them I was able to merge the two groups. I also tried disbanding them all and creating a new fleet from the star system but I still couldn't add more than two ships. Does anyone know why this is happening?



The tech tree is a little confusing too. Scrolling over things in the tech tree tells you what researching that tech unlocks, but a lot of the time it's not very intuitive. It's nice to know I can build a Xenotourism facility, but what does it do? Is there any kind of in-game "civopedia" to check so I know what I'm unlocking?



Finally, I guess I don't really know what I should do. Exploring around me seems obvious, but how soon should I start colonizing other planets? Do I need to be building a military quickly (I'm not planning on playing aggressively this game, but I don't want to get steam rolled)? What's the best way to tackle the massive tech tree? How do I know which resources will be available by researching techs? Should I focus on one or two branches or try to even things out? I'm playing on easy and I'm getting absolutely blown out of the water score wise and I have no idea what I did wrong.



Sorry if it seems like this post was one long complaint, I just really want to be able to enjoy this cool game and I'm looking for some help getting my footing. If anyone has any video tutorials that would be amazing. Thank you.

Dysenious wrote:


Oh, and do not ever underestimate numbers. You may have poor tech and inferior weapons, but a huge fleet of frigates can overwhelm 3-4 well armed dreadnoughts if you layout the mods right.

It would work if you have the frigates but it will never work vice versa. 22 firgates with lower tech will never ever scratch my high tech dreds. Ever They will blow up in the first phase

Heh, sounds like my first game .-.



Um, Many of your problems have already been answered it seems, but I can still offer my two cents.



Saying 'you have to find your own strategy' is kind of relevant I think, but I can relate to the overwhelming feeling you're having when you're stepping into this huge game with all sorts of things being thrown at you at the same time.



Point one, list one, first thing I think anyone should ever do in this game is put the exploitation to get extra food on your starting planet. The added food income is very useful early game when you don't have anything draining your economy. Don't worry about money too much at the start either, unless you're in the red it isn't a big deal.



Next thing is get to work studying the technology that lets you build 'N-Fusion plants'. (I think its the name. My memory is a bit hazy at the moment.) They're one of the first upgrades you can get on the right-hand tree. Once that upgrade is done, you can build an industry boosting structure in your star system which is sort of critical for early development.



If the gods of space are smiling upon you, you may have another terran/ocean/jungle world in your starting system. If so, use your starting colony ship up on that world. Added income/science will be very much goods.



So thats how my first turn is usually laid out... Yeah.

In terms of balancing military, things have changed since launch on the military side I have noticed. Fleets that once would make me snigger as the float boldly up to my bastions of might seemed to do a pretty good job at ripping my defences to shreds. So yeah.

Tech is very important in the military side of the game, and so is the layout of the mods on your ships. My advice is to put an even spread of Kinetic, lasers and missiles on your ships at first, then when you get better tech start swapping out mods that aren't being used to their full extent. (For example, your enemy is using missiles, but no lasers. Shrink your laser mods down to one, and put the rest of the points into flak)



Oh, and do not ever underestimate numbers. You may have poor tech and inferior weapons, but a huge fleet of frigates can overwhelm 3-4 well armed dreadnoughts if you layout the mods right.

The card system... Eh. Don't worry about it too much. The bonus's the cards offer only can do so much.



Score... Yeah, I don't understand how it fully works yet either. Sometimes im way in the lead with a tiny empire, othertimes I have more systems then any other player with enough weapons to make the death star look like a flashlight and still im sitting at half the lead players score.



And tech... I say try and keep it even for most of the game unless you come across a crisis, like being invaded or your people becoming super unhappy. In my opinion, thats the only time you should focus on one tech tree.



Well, yeah. Thats my wall of text. I hope its somewhat helpful

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:


The tech tree is a little confusing too. Scrolling over things in the tech tree tells you what researching that tech unlocks, but a lot of the time it's not very intuitive. It's nice to know I can build a Xenotourism facility, but what does it do? Is there any kind of in-game "civopedia" to check so I know what I'm unlocking?

Moving the mouse over the icon of the tech it unlocks should give a tooltip. For example the tech which unlocks Adaptive Factories have an icon showing the factory and if you move over it ti should tell you what does that factory do.

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:
Is there any kind of in-game "civopedia"

I wish: it was the first thing I checked for when I started playing.

Read the other posts on here there is loads of advice in those.

This thread has turned into a discussion so I'm moving it to Endless Space section. Please start threads in FAQ only if you have precise questions, strategy advice questions are better posted in the general section.

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:
Hey guys,

Whaat'ss up

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:


My problem is that I'm feeling somewhat overwhelmed.

Yes clearly. The game can be really overwhelming, took me awhile to kick normal's AI ass.

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:
I really have no idea what constitutes a "good start." I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing to get my empire prospering. In the game I'm playing now I went for rapid expansion simply because it seemed like the easiest part of the tech tree to understand (along with the military tree). Also, I don't know which tech allows me to access the wavy routes to stars (sorry I don't know the actual name. Not the straight star routes you can navigate from the beginning.) I ended up going the whole way to Warp Drive

I had multiple playthroughs where I was very selective about techs I chose, tried to ignore some and go for the others quicker, my tech tree had a lot of holes and I was being behind on score. Then I tried researching everything at the same time. Best guide - research techs that costs the same price from all trees before moving up higher up... Only rarely when you absolutely certain about getting more expensive techs u should skip researching all techs with the same price.



Example: It would be beneficial to research all 130 science cost techs before going for 300 science tech, but warp is really important so research it asap.



Practise and eventually you will know what techs are mandatory. I like cravers so I am usually heavy in the military tree.

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:


and for some reason I still can't explore empty space. I'm holding on ctrl and clicking where I want to go, but my fleet doesn't move. There are enemy fleets flying through my space and I can't move to engage them.

u sure its empty?... I noticed I can't move into ai sphere of influence until i either have open borders or declare war on them.

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:
I've also found I'm having trouble making fleets. For some reason I'm only able to add one or two ships to a fleet, while the AI is attacking with fleets of 6 or more ships. I tried making a bigger fleet, but when I selected them I was able to merge the two groups. I also tried disbanding them all and creating a new fleet from the star system but I still couldn't add more than two ships. Does anyone know why this is happening?

Have you tried turning your computer off and on again??? But seriously ... No idea...

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:


The tech tree is a little confusing too. Scrolling over things in the tech tree tells you what researching that tech unlocks, but a lot of the time it's not very intuitive. It's nice to know I can build a Xenotourism facility, but what does it do? Is there any kind of in-game "civopedia" to check so I know what I'm unlocking?

Not that I know of. Just practice.

NinjaDeathStrike wrote:
Finally, I guess I don't really know what I should do. Exploring around me seems obvious, but how soon should I start colonizing other planets? Do I need to be building a military quickly (I'm not planning on playing aggressively this game, but I don't want to get steam rolled)? What's the best way to tackle the massive tech tree? How do I know which resources will be available by researching techs? Should I focus on one or two branches or try to even things out? I'm playing on easy and I'm getting absolutely blown out of the water score wise and I have no idea what I did wrong.

Best strategy is to find out on your own.. I tried following other people's advice but I learned that most of it was unhelpful because it was designed to work for them and not for me. You need to figure out your own way of playing. If you want my advice: get food and money planets as soon as possible and build improvements only on system that have 10+ potential population.





Good luck!

The amobea race sees all systems from the start. with this race you can see the good planets and dont have to scout.



when i play amobea i focus on the first food building on my homeplanet and then pump out colonizeships. meanwhile i reasearch on every 4 science directions the first ones



if you see that the valuable planets are behind a wormhole i rush for the wormhole tech (south) to colonize good planets.



every planet i colonize i build the food building and then build colonize ships. if you have a good amount of cash, get a hero who boosts your food and or production.



i expand this way to have a good base of planet systems. then you can focus on science, or fleets, terraforming, production it depends on the situation.