I have only played single player so far but i will try multiplayer soon.



I wonder how you defend against a military oriented race (like Hissho or cravers) if you happen to be a more "peaceful" race like sophons and amoeba (peaceful, as in teching and then kill your enemy with superior fleets mind you)



Building defenses just seem to slow down the inevitiable in single player. You can of course build a defensive fleet, but wouldnt that fleet always be inferior in the beginning to the militant race with all his militant beginner perks?



How do you do it?

With a Race like Sophons, your advantage is, that you explore the science trees faster. Usually, if you set your whole economy-system to concentrate on science, you get so much science poinst, that you lower the waiting time for new technologies. This way, you can make up for your bad military. Military races will have a hard time, invading your systems quick enough in the beginning, so you don't need to worry about that very much. But if you know, that you soon will have to fight a militant race like the Hisso, you should start doing two things:

1. Set your Reasearch to military science (including new shiptypes from the colonytree).

2. After that, build one, to two fleets, fully equipped and with a variation of weapons you could need against the enemy. It would be good to know what you are up against, so perhaps you sacrifce a scout to the enemy fleet, to see what weapons they use - but more important what defenses they NOT use!



With this strategie, you can usually hold long enough against the enemy to upgrade your military high enough to trump your foes. Usually, you don't need that much fleets when defending. Try to move your fleet to critical systems where your enemy has to pass, if he wants to invade you. If you equip your ships propperly and use the enemy weeknesses against him, you should have no hard time to destroy several full fleets, before he finally rethinks his strategie. - And by than you will have a new and more fearsome technologie and tactic against him. You can also use the time, to build more fleets to start a counterinvasion. You invade untill the enemy finally begs you for peace. An than you start your reasearch for scienece again...

You can find some very good starting tipps here:



http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/blog.php?27109-Kesat



Kesat summerises severay strategies to play the game, which most people use. Very helpfull.

Races like the Hissho and the Cravers may have the advantage in a 1-1 fight but their main bonuses come for victory.



Following the advice above the only thing I can add is this: "The best defense is a good offense" If you can outlast the cravers, and prevent the Hissho form ever winning an invasion, then they can never beat you once your tech/economic advantage starts to kick in.



And if you can make alliances against the Craver, possibly even with the Hissho, then you can easily make then dependent on hand-me-down strategic resources. (AI are entirely blind to this type of strategic move, and a player that does not gain the strategic resources they needs may find it hard to warmonger without your permission.)

Yeah, I forgott. Best thing except offence, is diplomatic supremacy. If you do not intend to go to war with anyone, or you just want to have a good trade to reasearch, you build alliances, with you as the head. The one problem can be, that when one of your allies is attacked by an enemy, the whole alliance is going to war with that enemy. But one enemy, against 2-4 allied forces...seems like someone wants to be exterminated really quick....

It has been my experience that in MP most players are in a constant state of war. You would be hard pressed to find someone willing to make peace unless they are starting to lose the game. Other players tend to join with friends and ally with each other. You could try that if you want to practice an MP tech rush. The big challenge is getting Magnetic Field Generators while also building a military. Once you have a decent defense, go for it. Not before!

You can create the same fleets they can early on, for mutual destruction usually. This normally ends up in them gaining tech from knowledge gathering though so its not the best thing, but it beats doing nothing. Ultimately you are trying to buy time to get to the mid game where you can start to take control of the game better. Those defensive structures do buy you time for your other systems, but its often not enough time. In multiplayer you can buy time by resisting enough that they find other targets, and those hyper aggressive players are usually attacking 2 people at a time if they are having an easy time with you, so reach out to the other player(s) being attacked, I am sure they want to live and will be happy to help out. A third party may also be inclined to help you as that gets them excellent standing with those being targeted as a sort of savior, and a good opportunity to remove a major threat in the game. Diplomacy is always the best option for those that are not capable of standing on their own (yet).