For pilgrims, keep your admin on your home system. Always. Pump out fleet errants as fast as possible. With the hero +50 food, it will repopulate to 3 immediately. Build nway fusion then evacuate. This should result in 3 or 4 pop colony ships every 2 or 3 turns. Keep churning these out all game. Your systems should reach max pop much faster than other races, even endless AIs.



Each new colony will already be established and can immediately build better upgrades like magnetic generators. Or ind to dust i you need it. Or military.



Take advantage of missionary factories. Really good system upgrade.



The default faction is actually pretty decent for this strat. For a custom faction, mineral rich and builders are a must, as these let you build fleet errant faster. However, if you dont get an admin pilgrims will suck very hard.

The best way (I think) to handle military at the start is torpedoes and laser weapons. From the very beginning I create an additional class of ships, pump them with torpedoes (usually researched third after tundra and arid colonization), the improved engine, and search for the opposing faction and stall their advance. I just orbit their systems and prevent them from launching additional colony ships. I don't use any defense on those ships and constantly manage to repair them, usually at phase one or two of the battle and use the accuracy malus during third. While I blockade some enemy systems this way I send colony ships halfway from my worlds and theirs, recruit a corporate hero if I have one, plant it on that system, make him take labor boost first, then food boost as soon as it's available, rinse repeat, stall them off, colonize nearby worlds, move in with small fleets pumped with the first invasion module. This tactic only works on serious and below though, and with races like the hissho, empire, cravers, and eventually amoeba and pilgrims. I have yet to try it out with sophons, but horatios, automatons and sowers don't work when using that tacitic

Tip: consider your dust is there primarily to update fleets, so try not to use it for other things...

Why don't you just trade excess resources. Say, you have 3 hyperium, but you see that you won't get access to a 4th (a monopoly) for some time, and the empire you want to trade with has no hyperium with 0 access, they'll value it extremely high

Haven't done a lot of trading but from the experience I did have, they value their research way higher than it is, for t3 research of theirs I have to pay 2 higher tier ones, and I find that I'm giving them more advantages than they are giving me, a workaround is trading dust for tech which seemed to work well from what trading I did do, but that's not really an option since I'm struggling with dust early on, ind->dust works but most of the systems if not all that I have high industry on are the initial ones which I use for military/colony ships.

Well on your high industry planets you can mix ind -> dust and science to keep up with dust and science... approval doesn't matter as long as you stay alive your people will be happy (lol) fids improvements isn't too important, but you can get them while researching expansion disapproval (same tree) and colonization, so that's a plus. Why don't you trade with races for tech?

I won my first serious game, was pretty difficult although much easier on normal spiral 4 than on a large spiral 4, I find that after some time I can't keep up with approval and dust while still colonizing more planets, I have to research -expansion disapproval but at the same time I have to research fids improvements, weapons and the ability to colonize more environments which unless you're playing sophons you might have a hard time, at least I do. Thanks again for the tips, certainly helped my game a lot, especially my pilgrims.

Well 1 flak I believe defends against 5 or 10 missiles, but unless you send ships one at a time, I dont think you have to worry about 200 missiles . Going for beams is strange, the resource requirement is a pain early on, it'll be more logical if they went kinetics.. but oh well. If you have pirates on, that's a good tip for when you need to start creating military, if not, as soon as you start nearing enemy borders. Usually the AI don't go to war early on, so not sure what problems you have with that . And it's best to have scout fleets, the AI never all go the same build, they have 2-3 spread across the game, mainly beams or missiles, but send the scouts pre battle to see their weapons and defenses, and retrofit accordingly.

I see, I'm still having troubles on the military front, I seem to be pretty stable with regards to fids and approval, I'm not sure at which point I should sacrifice the improvement or colony ship creation of a system/systems, even my home one to start pumping out ships and defend myself at least, I do get torpedoes early on and flak because the general ai usually goes for that on serious difficulty but I found that some factions, specifically the UE or the sheredyn, even the hissho tend to skip torpedoes and go straight into beams/flak which kinda decimates my armies, I'm thinking that I go beam defense but then I get surprised by a torpedo heavy army, either way, having to split my defenses early kinda really hurts me since I can't be well protected from either, 10 flak hardly provides any defense against a 200torpedo, at least from what I experienced so far.

Usually it is best to just build nway fusion. Until you have all your systems colonized this way is better simply because it maximizes your overall population. If you have all the systems, you can even skip nway fusion and buil just pop ships....its a trick any race can do with colony ships, but pilgrims does it better with evacuate because it repopulates more quickly after being reduced to 1 pop.



If there is a really bad system, like asteroids and barrens, then you can consider building extra improvements to send there especially happiness.

Yeah, I can see how an admin would benefit them greatly, my mistake then was that I was making standard colony ships instead of fleet errands, I'll definitely give this a shot too, I just have to work out some military forces early on, I've seen UE with beam at turn 50, with flak defenses so me rushing torpedoes wouldn't help a whole lot, there's a lot of adaptation involved.

L.E.: What's better? Pouring population alone in the errands or having a couple of basic improvements rebuilt and mounted on the errands so the new colonies will have an easier time developing, I'm delaying myself say 8 turns on my home planet but probably saving myself double the turns it would take to make these improvements on the new systems

I seem to have some trouble when playing on serious or obviously above, I'm always the last on fids, I research core mining first, then xenobotany and arid epigenetics so I can colonize, I always set my first colonized planet with an industry exploitation, second one with food I then rush nonbaryonic particles then improved fleet management, all while cranking out colony ships and trying to maintain a positive dust balance but it's not working, I don't build combat ships early so I barely research into warfare but the AI seems to have ships, fids and a crapton of planets, I'm also building every improvement on planets as I research them, I'm thinking maybe that's where I'm slightly losing the dust with all the maintenance fees, I use admin heroes on systems but it's not helping a whole lot.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Yeah, to be honest it would help more if it was just the basic faction, it makes little sense to me overpowering yourself early when the purpose is to make the game harder. Still taking advice on any faction, particularly maybe the pilgrims, I feel like they're sort of not getting a lot of light.

Euphorion wrote:
I may have not the excessive knowledge of others, but just started my first game on Serious and am pretty content already (turn 54) that I'm going to win (/sigh). Playing a custom race with Sophon trait and here's what I'm focusing on so far in terms of playstyle/military:



1. Excessive Hero usage

I had 1 Admin and 1 Corporate hero at the start and the Admin (Legendary, so I had those +15 industry right away) one got basically switched every 6 turns from one system to another which is enough to give those new systems quite a headstart (then he got those extra Food ability asap).

2. Research

I only research what I need - and don't hesitate to get some expensive stuff as soon as possible (mainly the Game Theory for the extra heroes and Planetary Institute) while leaving some cheap stuff out

3. Military

I focus on Beams + Rocket + Rocket-defense military wise. Building some Rocket Destroyers (which also hold a little rocket defense) plus later some Beam/Rocket Cruisers with Rocket+some Kinetic defense. I have yet to encounter an AI that actually uses Beams - it's either Rockets or Kinetics. So I basically want to be done with any battles before we get to Point blank range (and even then it's fine with the Beam-Cruisers as the enemy fleets are pretty decimated by then)



Combined with Sophon's great research it means that I'm #1 in research and #1 in Military strength (even though just barely I suppose) + I was the first to get into the center region (it's one of my early priorities) so I could get all the anomalies there + grab 2 systems near "my" wormhole.



I tend to get some peace offers from the AIs with no extra conditions (when I offer it they want some 250-300 Dust, when they offer they usually do it without) which I gladly accept. And one of of the AIs that are closest to me gets attacked asap. So usually they declare war on me - which is all fine for me (even though I have no clue if I'd get a diplomatic penalty with the other AIs if I declare- I just suppose I would ;-) )





One thing I do differently from what I read about those custom races: I picked "Unlucky colonists" (not sure if thats the right translation, still playing the german version) which gives a negative anomaly on your home planet - which I accept for the 10 points it gave me for other things.



All in all, serious looks still not all that tough.

Well, how about not using overpowered traits and affinities i.e. Sophon affinity and legendary heroes??

I may have not the excessive knowledge of others, but just started my first game on Serious and am pretty content already (turn 54) that I'm going to win (/sigh). Playing a custom race with Sophon trait and here's what I'm focusing on so far in terms of playstyle/military:



1. Excessive Hero usage

I had 1 Admin and 1 Corporate hero at the start and the Admin (Legendary, so I had those +15 industry right away) one got basically switched every 6 turns from one system to another which is enough to give those new systems quite a headstart (then he got those extra Food ability asap).

2. Research

I only research what I need - and don't hesitate to get some expensive stuff as soon as possible (mainly the Game Theory for the extra heroes and Planetary Institute) while leaving some cheap stuff out

3. Military

I focus on Beams + Rocket + Rocket-defense military wise. Building some Rocket Destroyers (which also hold a little rocket defense) plus later some Beam/Rocket Cruisers with Rocket+some Kinetic defense. I have yet to encounter an AI that actually uses Beams - it's either Rockets or Kinetics. So I basically want to be done with any battles before we get to Point blank range (and even then it's fine with the Beam-Cruisers as the enemy fleets are pretty decimated by then)



Combined with Sophon's great research it means that I'm #1 in research and #1 in Military strength (even though just barely I suppose) + I was the first to get into the center region (it's one of my early priorities) so I could get all the anomalies there + grab 2 systems near "my" wormhole.



I tend to get some peace offers from the AIs with no extra conditions (when I offer it they want some 250-300 Dust, when they offer they usually do it without) which I gladly accept. And one of of the AIs that are closest to me gets attacked asap. So usually they declare war on me - which is all fine for me (even though I have no clue if I'd get a diplomatic penalty with the other AIs if I declare- I just suppose I would ;-) )





One thing I do differently from what I read about those custom races: I picked "Unlucky colonists" (not sure if thats the right translation, still playing the german version) which gives a negative anomaly on your home planet - which I accept for the 10 points it gave me for other things.



All in all, serious looks still not all that tough.

What would you suggest regarding armies, say I'm playing the pilgrims or the sophons, what should I "abuse" and where should I compensate? Also I've never actually played the Hissho, like I said I wasn't too focused on killing stuff, but I know basics, I know how combat works, what I would need extra info would be on the Hissho and how they're such a force when it comes to military strength.

The Amoebas have a fantastic advantage in the early game, because they can see the entire galaxy, and what other factions are doing immediately. This gives them, imho, at least a 10-20 turn start on everyone else, because they know where the threats are long before you know they even exist. So it's usually wise either to take them out early (the Hissho way), if you can, or wait until you have, at least, reached parity with them.



On the higher levels you will find yourself forced to take Supermarkets and other approval improvements much earlier than you would otherwise... this is normal, and necessary to keep fervent.



Starting a planet on food means you'll build that planet up faster, which means more all round fids, and quicker extra population to colonise a 2nd planet. The quicker you build up the system with population, the quicker you'll build all the fids, then you can go with other things, but going with anything else before the planet/system is built up will stunt it's growth, and you'll end up with less fids from it.

somewhere I thought I saw a list of techs that are really useless to build until your new system is not in outpost stage anymore...

Thanks for the input, I'll try rushing the +40 sci and +6 fids, I'm being selective on colonization but then I fall behind because I lack systems and I lack the possibility to build ships and maintain good progress, weirdly enough I'm getting dominated by amoebas when it comes to sheer brute military force, I try to select my enemies and avoid aggressive enemies but I was surprised when I saw Amoebas always, and I mean always pulling ahead very fast in terms of systems, fids and military. I don't understand how, a replay system would help me personally after a game, to just observe the AI and see what, when, how they do stuff that works so well for them but fails so often for me, I always build the food, gold and sci improvements, at least the early ones, in that order, on all planets. I'll try to switch up my initial approach to colonizing new systems and go with food initially then industry but I fear that before I'll be able to do anything with that system it'll be too late, having an industry advantage will allow me to get some food improvements fast to boost my planets then colonize a second one with a food exploit. From turn one I try my best to stay on fervent, I manage well until turn 25-30 then I start losing gold constantly and I'm forced to keep my gold positive so I won't go bankrupt. What I can't wrap my head around is how I'm supposed to be able to sustain my army, while also having a positive gold income, constant fervent and a reasonable expansive dominance. Past turn 100 I'm falling back hard and I'm starting to seriously think about forming armies but by then it's already too late as I'm behind on fids and I'm also obviously behind on firepower. The fleet cap, I see my fault there, I'm also forced to research into approval improvements like the supermarkets just to keep my fervent and gold income positive.

As The_Quasar already spotted, there's some flaws in your logic.



Researching higher fleet-cap when you don't build military makes little sense. The tech is cheap enough to be thrown it in anytime, whenever you have made more ships than fit into a fleet.

Also be very selective about what you build and when.



Try to do the maths for your buildings. Find which ones really boost your economy and which ones can be delayed or skipped completely.



Important early-tech-goals are the +40-Science-Building, the +6 all-Fids-Building and the first 2 Approval-Buildings, as well as the techs that improve the exploits.

Stickman08 wrote:
I seem to have some trouble when playing on serious or obviously above, I'm always the last on fids, I research core mining first, then xenobotany and arid epigenetics so I can colonize

mostly I go through the first tier of research before I move to the next

, I always set my first colonized planet with an industry exploitation

without growth, the industry exploitation will have little to work with, this is possibly the main reason your fids are low... I use food initially, to get growth on all planets, then change when the population is higher

, second one with food I then rush nonbaryonic particles then improved fleet management

I leave improved fleet management until a bit later, usually, it depends on who you're facing, and how aggressive they are, the exception to this is Cravers, unless, of course, you get an unwelcome visit by a strong Pirates fleet

, all while cranking out colony ships and trying to maintain a positive dust balance but it's not working

the higher you go up, the slower you'll need to go with the colony ships, as the expansion disapproval will hit you harder, be more selective in the systems you colonise initially, you can go after the others when you have approval under control

, I don't build combat ships early so I barely research into warfare but the AI seems to have ships, fids and a crapton of planets, I'm also building every improvement on planets as I research them, I'm thinking maybe that's where I'm slightly losing the dust with all the maintenance fees

don't build every improvement, it's not possible on the higher levels... think before you build, do I really need this, or is there something else that will give me more benefit...

, I use admin heroes on systems but it's not helping a whole lot.

Any tips would be appreciated.

You're welcome... above all, try to keep as many systems as possible into the fervent category, and overall, you should be fervent virtually all the time, the bonuses you get for staying there are almost impossible to make up in other ways... so, don't take a planet or system that will take you well out of it unless you have anomaly reduction, and can correct it almost immediately.