I killed Endless Shereydin couple of times. Therefore, I can give some advise about how-to kill an AI.



The most important thing is expanding your Empire. In the game, the more systems you get, the faster you grow, the more everything you get. For this purpose I have Masters of Illusion 2/2, as this gives cheap colony ships. But you can still manage Hard&Serious without it. Also, it's good idea to put simple engines in colony ships as this doesn't cost you almost anything and allows to colonize some systems 1-2 turns earlier.



The only disadvantage of fast expanding is overpopulation disapproval. However, it is countered with wealth improvements easily.



After colonizing a system, the second thing you usually build is Isotope factory. AI governors usually don't build this improvement, so you put it in build order manually. After this you can forget about the system for hundred of years, AI will build the rest.



If you expand relatively fast (faster of same speed as AI), this will give you enough science to build good ships. In the early game military ships are quite unnecessary. When you decide you need a small ship, design it 30% weapon, 70%-defence and staff. While designing large (2-4cp) ships, do 40-50% weapon. Without feeble warriors trait you will usually have enough time to build military ships before your outpost will be captured. For simple protection you need 1 fleet, for effective protection - 2 fleets.



Btw, what is the pirate difficulty you are playing with?



Some AI probably have wormhole technology as their trait.

you knows, politics wins.



just keep making deals with computer which doesn't not share a border with you, then break the deal on you pay how much a turn and reselling every technology, Then you will found all the coins have run into your pockets and win the game.



idea: "I promise to pay xxxx gold per turn for your technology xxxx", "Oh, I got the technology, why i keep paying xxxx gold". "Here is the technology you do not have, all you need to do is to pay me xxx per turn".



It doesn't matter how bad the deal is, most time it is profitable if you just break it on round 2.

Forgot the meantion the resources. Check often (every turn) to see if you can cancel resource trades without relationship penalty. If you can, do it and sell the resource again.

I do not see a reason to make custom races just to win on hard.



My advice is to play the map. Do what will give you best return right now.



For research I always start with N-Way Fusion Plants as the +10 production is great. You will soon want to buy it in any new colony. But if you do not have enough money you need to build it.



Next Soil Xenobiology is nice as more food will help your colonies grow. But Xenology is a good alternative since it give access to resources that can make new colonies great. So get Xenology if there is a nice planet with resrouces unlocked by it.



Early the first approval building and the +40 research are important.



As for new colonies. You have two priorities. Get good planets and block off the AIs. It is very hard to get this right. Here you probably need to decide how much space you want to claim and who you will fight against. For example in my Serious game as Amoeba I decided to take good colonies to my left towards the cravers who I knew I would be fighting while allowing the sophon to my right to expand all the way up to my capital. I was originally not planing to let them expand that much but my other priorities were higher and I cultivated good relationship with them so it worked fine. I still ended up with allmost 25% of the galaxy after conquering the cravers.



Cultivate good relations with the AI. Unless you are planing for a war with an AI make sure they like you so you do not get attacked when you do not want to. Early on the AI may demand a random resource from you. I most agree to their demands. I can get the resrouce back later. Give important AIs dust to make them happy. I have given two turns of income and gotten +40 relations which is very nice and kinda cheap. Sell the AI resources. They value resources very much and even more so as the game goes on. This is a great way to get money and techs. Especially when you have more then 4 of something. The AI will loose interest in some strategic resources but luxery resources are always great to sell. At times of peace you may consider selling off your entire stockpile of +damage/speed/defence resources.



For fighting the pilot commander is superior to all others. Geet one relativly early and get the +offence/defence promotions. They will allow you to beat AI fleet twice your strength. You first commander is probably going to get an administrator for prod/food or a corperate for the early +10 dust/research.



As for tax rate. It is good to get your home planet to happy relativly early. Tax rate is pretty tricky early one. Later you just have it as high as possible while still having your empire at fervent.

Well, i might reconsider Masters of Illusion vs Militarists since it synergizes very well with Sophon affinity.

For UE I'd still prefer Militarists.



For the overexpansion disapp, imo the order of research matters most.

Nonbaryonic before Casimir with small empires - where you normally have dust surplus and need research.

Vice versa with bigger empires - where you normally try to get as many dust as possible with ind->dust, exploration events etc. and don't have dust for magnetic field gens.



Also for power-settling maybe consider dust recycler or blockade breaker with merchants 1/2. That could be enough to stay at 0%...



If higher taxes are your plan (UE?), try optimistic and/or naive, and try the +3 influence improvement in the home system if there is an outpost nearby that gets affected by influence and if there are arid planets = jackpot

cyrusol wrote:
I'd actually advise Militarist 3/3 because of their reduced point cost (24 instead of 30).

I think having reduced all ships by 30% for 24 points is way more efficient than only having reduced either ships w/o weaponry or weapon mods only for each 15 points (or 10?).

Well, at this point Masters of Illusion are 5points/-20%_cost and 10points/-40%cost. Just for colony ships with engines.

cyrusol wrote:
You meant expansion disapp?

And you meant approval buildings? (lower approval -> lower taxes -> lower dust income -> dust/wealth buildings are of lesser use)

By the time overpop disapp makes trouble one usually should have researched Inter Species High Route (or whatever it is called, -40% overpop disapp) already.

Or just build more colo ships in that systems...

Yeah, expansion disapproval (sorry for mismatching). Once I was rapidly expanding in Huge galaxy and got expansion disapproval something like -90, all except 2 systems rebellion and spend 200 years researching last -20% disapproval tech and inter-species HR. Was fun of having 200 year civil war . . .

cyrusol wrote:


UE also has a very price efficient armor to be researched in the missile tech path. Combine with Optimal Structure, a Titanium monopoly and build 20+ of this armor parts on cruisers. Build the +initial ship hp improvement. You could use offense first and just not use any defense mod. Use Barrier at long range and Nano Repair cards at medium and melee or 3 times nano repair if already damaged.

I think, Barrier and nano repair were imba since game launch. Now they became even more imba after update that increases ship default HP three(?) times.

Dr__Soul wrote:
I have Masters of Illusion 2/2

I'd actually advise Militarist 3/3 because of their reduced point cost (24 instead of 30).

I think having reduced all ships by 30% for 24 points is way more efficient than only having reduced either ships w/o weaponry or weapon mods only for each 15 points (or 10?).

Dr__Soul wrote:
Also, it's good idea to put simple engines in colony ships as this doesn't cost you almost anything and allows to colonize some systems 1-2 turns earlier.

Some very good advice

Dr__Soul wrote:
The only disadvantage of fast expanding is overpopulation disapproval. However, it is countered with wealth improvements easily.

You meant expansion disapp?

And you meant approval buildings? (lower approval -> lower taxes -> lower dust income -> dust/wealth buildings are of lesser use)

By the time overpop disapp makes trouble one usually should have researched Inter Species High Route (or whatever it is called, -40% overpop disapp) already.

Or just build more colo ships in that systems...



@all



On new colonies i'd buyout the isotope factory actually and planetary institute, then queue build farming exploitation and magnetic field generators - to make new colonies of actual use asap.

From then it depends what you intend to do with that system, some planets are better for dust, some are better for ind for fleet buildup...

Don't build dust upgrades on outposts, as their dust income is reduced by 50% (and by 75% if they are covered by enemy influence).

Build dust upgrade only in colonies and only if they produce an actual benefit.

There are a few exceptions ofc...



You should find synergies, some examples:



UE thrives with high tax settings. Throw in +approval (Optimistic and/or Naive), rush for +approval improvements, for -disapproval techs.



UE also has a very price efficient armor to be researched in the missile tech path. Combine with Optimal Structure, a Titanium monopoly and build 20+ of this armor parts on cruisers. Build the +initial ship hp improvement. You could use offense first and just not use any defense mod. Use Barrier at long range and Nano Repair cards at medium and melee or 3 times nano repair if already damaged.



Sower thrives with ind. Do not spend 30 points on Tolerant, lol. Just try Legendary Heroes 2/2 and +20 dust at start, buy an administrator and go straight for Civil Engineer.

(However I think Sower are still relatively weak)



Horatio is able to clone heroes. Maybe just don't buy an admin first as usually, but a pilot/adventurer or something with high offense and defense. With your first destroyers level him on pirates. Go for +off/+def and maybe Veteran for some special hero upgrades.

Clone him on higher Level, have fun with 2 (and later on even more) very strong fleets.

Or clone a civil engineer hero for better buildup for your outposts/colonies.



For Sophon in order to make use of their affinity keep taxes low. Make dust by trade as it isn't affected by tax, but (I believe!) science generated by trade is affected by approval. Consider Blockade Breaker. For early game dust consider conversions from industry (also: civil engineer etc. is extremely useful here)



There are plenty more.



Usually on huge maps, hard/insane AI, before the first combat even happens i already am very first in points, have nice fitted destroyers (hissho, cravers) or even cruisers (especially on ue) and sometimes battleships, but i dont like them, i don't like defense mods at all...

All that just by exploiting economical synergies and power colonizing.

AI governors can be useful when you have tons of systems and micromanaging each one is difficult. But they will sometimes build silly or frivolous upgrades, and you won't get notifications or anything to fix it.



Certain map types can be harder depending on your playstyle. If you are a warmonger, a galaxy with more wormholes, or more empty space, will make attacking more difficult. If you are an exansionist, proximity to neighbors might not be to your advantage.

How good is the AI Governor?

I occasionally use the Governor near the end of games, but not sure if they're any good



I usually play with no pirates, occasionally normal pirates



I played 4 hard spiral maps & got wasted, but I've since played 2 hard Ovoid maps with a couple less AI's & I've won, Is spiral a bit harder?

I play Huge maps with 4-8 players as a custom Horatio faction (Mainly Sloppy Sawbones, Feeble Warriors with Optimal structures & a few others)

on normal I kick ass, On hard however I can't seem hold the other empires off, It's a combination of not enough fleets/power & to many outposts (tried having more, same & less outposts as AI's)



My fleets are Coms with 40% kinetic def, repair, 1 kinetic wep & rest missile wep, My fleet can kill 2 or maybe 3 of their fleets, but my outposts are generally getting pummelled by 2 or more factions

If I try to take less outposts then I will be on a downward spiral (& often can't hold them anyway), & I can't hold their outpost long enough to capture theres





Any tips, hints or tricks would be appreciate



Also when playing spiral, Is there anyway to get past the wormhole without researching wormhole tech? Even if I focus on getting wormholes first, I always get visited by 2 or 3 ai's visiting through the wormhole, How are they able to research it & get to my empire quicker then I can research it?

Kinetics are pretty god awful in this game, which is a bummer. It's like trying to shoot a shotgun where one would use a sniper. I had tried going full kinetic one game, but ended switching to lasers which I had intended to ignore completely. The cheating AI in Starcraft 2 is still extremely easy to beat, at least for me haha, but yea, it's usually required for them to have any challenge. Not really sure who uses SC2 bots though :P But yea, try changing your feeble warriors out or something, you have too many negatives for fleet combat (16 defense? Youch)

http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Game_settings



Look at the 2nd table for a full list of how they cheat. On endless difficulty, they get everything for 40% the cost and their ships do 100% more damage O.o not to mention +50 approval rating which hurts my head to think about. Unfortunately they still can't figure out how to make a proper counter ship

you have a point, I more so ment such an obvious one

It wouldn't be as bad if the AI's got the tech around the same time as me

If you're having trouble with early science, you might try adding the huygen rings anomoly for+2 science per pop.



Also, as for AI cheating, even game like starcraft2 do this. Doing this is often necessary to make up for AI inefficiencies and are often necessary to give a decent challenge. As you get better at the game, you will quickly outstrip any cheating by just more efficient use of resources.

I thought I needed Casimir effect, but I thought it was odd that the AI was so far advanced

Really, it's a major bummer that the devs have resorted to cheating AI's



It's more I can't stop their fleets, I spit out coms (Kinetic wep & armor) and get 2 or 3 5cp fleets, by the time I get to missiles & beams I've already lost the hub of a spiral galaxy.

Possibly I'm focusing on down & right to much & should focus more on more cp & better weapons at the expense of science & productivity.



I will try a gave without feeble warriors

having 2 level in feeble warriors can make defending outposts difficult. outposts currently get 30 system defense per population, with feeble warriors -8 this goes down to 22 def, and the -25% brings the total down to 16 defense per pop. so a low population colony can easily be taken over in 4 turns by a fleet of only 1000 mp.



Having feeble warriors bascially makes your colonies twice as easy to invade, in anygame where fighting occurs, feeble warriors can be a bigger detriment than you might think. Also, the 2nd tier in the military tech tree gives you a system improvement that increases system defense, making invasions take significantly longer.



If you are having trouble with the enemy fleets, try looking at what they equip to there ships (mouse over them in the combat window). If they are using large amounts of flak, perhaps you should switch from missles to beams. Also, kinetic is quite harder to use effectively, so I would suggest sticking to missles and beams until you have a better grasp as to how they work



Don't forget flak! flak is easily the most important defense, because enemy missiles shoot first.



As for wormholes, no, you must research the casimir effect to traverse them (wormholes connect constellations to each other). Later down the tech path you gain warp drive, (a completely different movement type) which allows you to ignore the cosmic strings and travel directly to any system across open space.

Daniel.Drache wrote:
How are they able to research it & get to my empire quicker then I can research it?

Cheating.

Basically.