I'm not sure if I'm just being unlucky, but I'm having trouble making the push into the next difficulty bracket. I'm pretty sure I'm going wrong in the first 20-30 turns, what I am doing clearly works for Serious but leaves me defeated on Impossible.



I generally push growth early on and later tax up and down by turn to try to time pop growth with construction/research and ensure I can still buy a hero on the 3rd turn.



Current game is 4 player, 3 random ai (all amoeba), all settings are default other than difficulty and galaxy type is spiral 4. wonder victories disabled. I'm playing sowers.



Home system only had 1 decent planet, so I put my hero there, built it up fast, made it happy and churned out colony ships. Decent systems were all 2-3 turns travel (colony ships have engine added to them, for 12 production it's worth the +2 distance/turn imo, when colony ship are 150 prod on their own). I ignored weapons research early on and didn't built combat ships until after the research was done later, wormhole blocking me in meant I had no immediate need to defend or opportunity to attack.



It's now turn 31, I've got 6 system (grabbed the first system on the other side of the wormhole) yet I'm 4th in everything and nearest AI started invading my nearest system to them and wiped my fleet out. Unfortunately they have 50/50 missile kinetic (they started off 100% kinetic with flack defence only and I had hoped luck was going my way as I quickly went kinetic/deflect and churned out a decent fleet. they adapted fast and wiped my fleet out with superior numbers.



I find fleet combat pre turn 50 pretty hard to reliably strategize for, not enough tonnage to defend against all attacks and if you don't match up you lose. After turn 50 you have bigger ships, miniaturisation and better quality armaments to use (1 more tonnage on defensive modules and ~75% more effective).





Ideally I want some generic tips or build orders, nothing racial specific or relying on custom races. I enjoy playing the different races to add a bit more variety between games.



I just can't expand/research adequately while also coming out on top of the arms race with the AI. Nearest AI, is the one attacking me and they are also the one with the highest score. It could all be bad luck, but I want to be able to minimise lucks part in the equation and get off to a better, more solid start.

I think score is misleading on many occasions.



My expirience with playing on impossible(custom sophones, no fleet/ship bonuses, just the economy&science) is that while early combat is challenging, you can get pretty far ahead by turn 100 or so(or maybe because of all the science boosts i got).



I was ranked 4th in total fleet ranking, and then went and rolled over the top-1 fleet loosing a few old cruisers that i didn`t bother to upgrade, so ranking doesn`t really tells much.



You may want to go almost entirely glass-cannon, with a few deflectors(1-2 deflectors is sufficent ) and flacks, use beams, since early opponents do not usually have chields, and even if they have it is really tough to protect from beams entirely, while you can use combat cards to significantly weaken the missles and kinetics. Personally i skip the kinetics entirely and stick to beam on some ships, missles on others.



Try to get camoflage car ASAP, it helps a huge lot against missles.



Do not rely on destroyers, get cruisers as soon as you possible can, use the "armoured cruiser" cruiser with ~15+ armour plates and repair modules, they tend to have a hell of a survivability if coupled with repair cards.



Also, use heroes for combat, even if they are all corporate or andministrators. the leveling of the heroes in combat is huge, and fleet with any heroes is stronger than with no at all.



Especially usefull to level up corporate heroes, you can get 10+ lvl corporate in a single war, and the science boost from trade routes with skilled corporate is huge.

Thanks. I noticed a few of those things in my game yesterday evening (one I described the setup for in my original post). I ended up loosing but only because the AI got a scientific victory. I was 50% to a military victory (had 2 home worlds and 50% of systems), and over 80% towards a diplomatic victory.



I'll have to try that heavy armoured ship + repair module approach. I normally load up on defence for at least 50% of hull tonnage, weapons for 40% then a repair module that's not HP based and maybe a power module depending on the ship. During the game yesterday one of my fleets with half the MP of the AI's fleet survived and gained 15 levels on the hero locked at the same system. eventually I capped the system, upgraded my ships and annihilated them due to all the levels gained. I did go beams ofc, as I find it's an easier route through the tech tree and as you say harder to defend against in the early game. I've always lived by the camouflage card (no proper counter either as it counters what counters it, so it's a safe play every time during phase 1).



One thing I didn't consider is putting a none combat hero on a fleet to level it up. I guess you need to be careful there to not just get them killed and pick your battles.



I had real trouble early on in that game though, at one point even 0% tax still had half my empire unhappy. I was expanding rapidly but had to in order to match the AIs growth and to ensure I had the resources to hold my own. Part of my early trouble was poor use of sower affinity, too many farms and AI controlled planets not really helping rectify the problem.



First 30-40 turns of research still feels off to me, obviously there are some variables based on what's in your system, what you want to colonise, nearby resources etc. But the balancing act of carefully getting what you need when you need it and keeping systems happy and fleets upgraded is something I really feel I'm making mistakes with, as I regularly have money trouble early on or can't keep systems happy and growing while also avoiding bankruptcy.



Also for early constellation colonising, I'm not certain when to start shipping people off in colony ships. Only my homeworld ever felt comfortable enough to spare the resources to do so and that left me with 2-3 systems (spiral 4 gave me about 9 systems to area before the wormhole) that I had trouble colonising.



Lastly, when pushing into a new difficulty, would it be best to go 1 on 1 on a small map? So far I've been keeping games larger so I can abuse diplomatic relations to gain an advantage that I can abuse later. I'm wondering if this is holding back my progress, like a crutch.

Xanoth wrote:


I had real trouble early on in that game though, at one point even 0% tax still had half my empire unhappy. I was expanding rapidly but had to in order to match the AIs growth and to ensure I had the resources to hold my own. Part of my early trouble was poor use of sower affinity, too many farms and AI controlled planets not really helping rectify the problem.



First 30-40 turns of research still feels off to me, obviously there are some variables based on what's in your system, what you want to colonise, nearby resources etc. But the balancing act of carefully getting what you need when you need it and keeping systems happy and fleets upgraded is something I really feel I'm making mistakes with, as I regularly have money trouble early on or can't keep systems happy and growing while also avoiding bankruptcy.



Also for early constellation colonising, I'm not certain when to start shipping people off in colony ships. Only my homeworld ever felt comfortable enough to spare the resources to do so and that left me with 2-3 systems (spiral 4 gave me about 9 systems to area before the wormhole) that I had trouble colonising.

I believe you just described the main difficulty or critcal point of this game. Doing well here gives you victory, but doing bad makes you lose. I don't know how you colonize but here are my rules which eventually help:



- Home system is only a breeding system and needs an administrator hero, get it to 5/6, build your colonist in the same turn when it gets to 6/6 and ship him again and again. It's nice to have some production left to develop it further but not necessary. Never colonize a second planet in the home system in the early game.



- Think twice about colonizing a new system if it puts your approval rate below 80%.



- Search for the best system as your production system and ship colonists from your home world to this system for faster growing.



- If possible use a second system with a tier 1 or tundra planet for breeding and put them on your production system.



- fill a second production system if the first one is full



- only colonize new planets in a system if all others are full (exeption: you need the planets resource badly), sometimes it's better to ship the colonist than to colonize a new planet which makes people unhappy.

That is something that i found interesting about the tech tree on higher levels; the fact where it actually becomes a hard decision that has particular variables influencing the decision like initial setup, other human players, race etc. Rather than lets say on normal, where you just about research anything you wish. I think the biggest choice you have to make early game is where you put that Scout ship first turn and the colonizer... does it stay or do you risk it?



Of course i got trashed on the harder difficulties and i found normal a bit too... steamrolley, so I'm casually mid-game on hard with Automatons, i just have to wait till Christmas for obvious reasons (buy Endless Space).

Still having real trouble keeping up with the AI during the first 30-40 turns. After that things get easier to deal with for the most part, but reliably matching the AIs tech and resources during the early game seems more luck than anything, relying on getting a good home system or good nearby systems, maybe getting some early dust events or a free colony ship during the first 10 turns. Any of those things almost trivialise the challenge that the early game against impossible/endless AI offers.



To try and focus my efforts on improvement and not spend a whole day per game, I'm playing 1 vs 1, tiny galaxy against endless difficulty. Only wins are from luck during the early game.



It's starting to be more of a drag than anything, as it seems more and more like choice and options are just an illusion or there to adapt for random events. There doesn't feel like multiple ways to thrive in these conditions, more like a perfect build or hope for lucky events/starting conditions.



Current game is turn 29, I only have 2 systems, AI is ontop of me (we both started same side of wormholes) and 9 systems to fight over (4 behind him in a line going away from me, inaccessible to me, 3 between us all t2+ planets with negative anomalies). I've got about 15+ ships spread over 5 fleets blockading and invading systems while trying to stay alive. AI just started churning out beam ships and I can't defend against that, also as he's defending and has resource advantage he can upgrade his orating fleets. I don't see this game going in my favour, which means back to a new game and hope for better luck. Game before this on turn 2 my scout ship was destroyed by a fleet of 210mp pirates.



The luck based elements and the way the AI is "balanced" is really making me lose the motivation to set up new games. Sure I can tweak the settings to my favour or make a custom race to counter the AIs advantages, but that's not making me better at playing the game, it's just stacking the odds in my favour.



Edit: Sorry for being so grumpy about this, the wasted time on cinematic combat which I am then forced to spend surfing the net while it plays out and briefly looking back to see if I need to change my card selection is really getting to me, as almost every round = combat, at least once. So 80% of my game time is waiting for these cinematics to end...

I've been playing with various strategies, and I think that beelining for Magnetic Field Generators and an unreasonably-high weapons tech is the only way to ensure growth in the early game, even before common-sense tech like Food improvements and colonizing planet tech.



I basically build for the war to come and try to XP up a Pilot or Adventurer or Pilot/Adventurer with the ability to get Dust from battles(Pilot has a 50 Dust per CP ability, Adventurer has the 20 per CP, and the two stack), then use that dust to build up a war machine and infrastructure from killing everything from pirates to enemy colony ships and scouts.



Early game invasion is basically non-functional, but blockading systems well before you can colonize them seems to be the only way to ensure that you can get enough early systems. I often set taxes very high for a bit in order to get the Dust to upgrade my Scout with real guns in order to kill off enemy scouts and colony ships.



But yes, not getting nearby good systems is basically an unrecoverable position since early-game invasion doesn't work at the higher difficulties.

I've won the past 2 games on Endless difficulty, but I'll put that down to luck. 2 player against impossible or endless feels near impossible without getting very lucky on starting systems/events/anomalies etc. The advantage that the AI has just leaves them too strong in those early turns and with no 3rd or 4th parties to try and use for shelter or to ally with.



Still the games I've set up recently have proved really fun thanks to a comment I read on the forums. Endless difficulty, 8 player, tiny galaxy, insane pirates.



I think my error was trying to improve my ability by putting myself 1vs1 on a small map against an AI. Some players can probably win, but I just can't not without the lucky events/conditions (or AI suffering bad luck).



I didn't know there were two dust per CP traits, I've only ever found the one. I can't see it on the diagram link I have either: http://s48.radikal.ru/i121/1207/f0/c54a60facc09.png



I don't think early invasion is all that none-functional, I prefer it to the late game 5 turns to cap anything. As you can blockade resources and customise your fleets ready to face what your opponent can create. So planets without titanium early on won't be producing ships with missiles, a bit later the same is true for hyperium and early beam weapons. I find the longer duration needed to make the capture makes the process more interesting.



I actually often do the opposite with taxes, once I have my first hero I'll usually drop taxes as low as possible to fuel growth and production, then once refineries are built for that 10+ I'll return taxes back down to minimum levels of contentment so that I can buy out something or get another hero. At this point it can sometimes be worth maxing out the taxes like you say, depending on research/planets etc and what if anything you're needing to build so that you can get that second hero sooner. I'll often put my second hero on my scout ship as he's then able to kill off enemy scouts with plenty of card play and often 2-3 turns per ship while the hero levels, if I get some spare cash I'll upgrade the scout ship, but I'd rather have that hero there first to start levelling him early.



I'll try taking your advice on pushing for military tech earlier, as I almost always researched farms first (normally play UE so nway is free), I still feel my initial 10-20 turns and the research/build choices I make could be a lot more efficient, but it's really hard to judge how well you're doing sometimes.

Xanoth wrote:


I didn't know there were two dust per CP traits, I've only ever found the one. I can't see it on the diagram link I have either: http://s48.radikal.ru/i121/1207/f0/c54a60facc09.png

That's the old tree. The trees changed in the last update. Check here for the new trees.



The Pilot Dust ability is off of Dust Wielder II and is called "Harvester."

I know you want general good ideas, but playing on the higher difficulties (particularly for the sowers, who have a horrible negative trait if they don't actively abuse their faction bonus) is going to be really complicated if you don't play to your faction's specific strengths. And the sowers biggest strength is the ability to grab lava / desert planets and turn them into something useful.



Your first problem (I think) is that you had 6 systems by turn 30. That seems crazy low for sowers. The sowers have 2/3rds of their points invested in Tolerance for a reason. Putting your first colony ship on a nice planet is a good idea, but you should be grabbing more systems then anyone else IMO.



Useless planets for any other faction are actually fairly nice for them. Sure, you don't really need a ton of industry in the beginning of the game, but it gives them growth, and with NFusion/Transit you can get big suprisingly fast.. and then convert that stuff to science. Once you have that +40 science improvement on 10 different colonies, things get very scary.



Sure, you get painful morale penalties, but I usually try to tie my morale to just a scootch over 20% with them anyway. Over 20% morale gives a -20% (by system) and a -0% (empire wide) rate. That's really not a big deal if it lets you get three or four times as many colonies as anyone else. By the time your outposts are ready to go colony, you should have enough tech and approval bonuses to muscle through the dissaproval.