General Strategies

[BeeJay]

Ok so here's a thought exercise: what's your favorite strategy in 4x games?
Conquerer? Diplomat or Explorer?

Me, I'm definitely the Explorer type. I just want to see what's out there and make as much cash as possible.

[zarkwizard]

Explore... I love uncovering new ground.

Exploit... I love to grow my Empire.

I'm not much for making friends ask Lee about parking my Planet Killer in his systems. :) While I didn't exterminate, it's all about the intimidation factor.

We are curious to see what people actually do. Right now with only 30 people in a game we can't get a good idea of what random people will do. I had someone ask me "Do we have to kill people? My comment was... In a normal game it's designed based on a 300x300 grid, that's 90,000 sectors. The big bang populates the universe based on the size of the grid and in this case generates around 13,000 planets. It also allows for 1500 players.

So if everyone played nice (which you and I know is impossible) that would allow for a around 9 planets each. I might be an explorer, but someones going to get exterminated. :)

Extermination isn't the only win though. There is an economic win, as well as an explorer win (explorer needs to find 13/25 somethings.. then hold them...).

Anyhow I digress..

Personal strategy.... Explore, diplomat, revenge seeker :). Personally I'll probably be found going for the explorer win, with a side of trade.

[Skeith27]

I love exploring, and I also love exploiting land to its fullest. However, nothing brings me more joy that using a few well chosen words to diffuse (or perhaps incite) a potentially devastating situation.

I need to play through a full game before I can say for certain, but as far as how I win is concerned, I generally feel the pull towards whatever way is least popular. Hehe. So I think I'm going to start devising strategies to go for the Exploration Win. When that becomes so popular because of my winning plans, I'll make trading a viable option.

[WhiteLion]

Since I've now won with the Scientist solar tap condition I'm now curious if a Trader or a Warlord can win with their settings.

Unfortunately I selected a Scientist again for the current server I'm in... (this was done before I won). So I'd like to try and help someone else win. Just biding my time until the next patch that should change things up.

As far as player style go. I like to play overly protective of my home system and other players inside there. I try to expand to other systems, but find it becomes a tedious chore to keep track of all the planets and trading. Especially since it's easy for someone to fly to multiple systems and harass with small forces.

I'm unsure how traders can track and ship goods from all the systems and galaxies.... way too much clicking... Perhaps it's easier on the ipad?? Sure as hell isn't fun on the iphone.

[VanderLegion]

Since I've now won with the Scientist solar tap condition I'm now curious if a Trader or a Warlord can win with their settings.

Unfortunately I selected a Scientist again for the current server I'm in... (this was done before I won). So I'd like to try and help someone else win. Just biding my time until the next patch that should change things up.

As far as player style go. I like to play overly protective of my home system and other players inside there. I try to expand to other systems, but find it becomes a tedious chore to keep track of all the planets and trading. Especially since it's easy for someone to fly to multiple systems and harass with small forces.

I'm unsure how traders can track and ship goods from all the systems and galaxies.... way too much clicking... Perhaps it's easier on the ipad?? Sure as hell isn't fun on the iphone.

It's just not fun at all. It's part of the reason on Ninhursag that I stopped trying to trade and went with conquest instead. That and the inconceivability of actually GETTING all of the trading done required to win.

[ChickenHawk07]

I'm not sure what my answer would have been before playing this game, but I definitely now prefer both the Exterminate and the Exploitation avenues. I also am very open to the Diplomatic side of the game and have successfully worked a few alliances. Unfortunately, the Exterminate function of the game as it stands right now doesn't win games, nor does the Tradeing. However, if played right, I'm beginning to think the PK Warlord win condition IS possible, though it will be close. It also depends greatly on people ignoring their outposts and harvesting duties.

[ChickenHawk07]

Oh, and the PK win also greatly depends on securing your supply routes.

[Enforc3r]

Day 1
* Research Remote Harvesting followed by Advanced Shipyard
* Build a Shipyard, Outpost Ship, 1 - 4 Small Harvesters depending on how much micro managing you want to do then use the remaining object slots for Probes.
* Use the probes to explore the area close to your Homeworld. What your scouting for is the closest set of planets to your HW Sector that gives out alot of CO P/O. So that means Big Rock/Lava/Desert planets are your ideal choice. I prefer to not take Ice planets till much later in the game once income is steady. Hopefully you find a place no more than 2 - 4 sectors away. Since thats the ideal distance for Small Harvesters. And Remote Harvesters should only go up to 6. But you won't be getting any of those for 12 hours.

Once you find a spot for your new Outpost send asll your small harvesters to gather there. Leave one in your sector to collect from the outpost there. But you might be unlucky and get crappy starter planets aka 4 Ice Planets lol. Once you have enough for another OutPost ship buy it straight away and find another good planet for it and repeat.

Make sure you keep planets pretty connected so that your remote harvesters stay in range of the ideal distance. I personally prefer to keep a chain of remote harvesters going from planet to planet. Making sure that Ore is brought it from another planet at the same time that It moves the current Ore to the previous outpost. Some people like to use small harvesters per sector and then use the remote harvester for the sector travels, but I don't
like that method. This one seems to work good for me.

I use this startup moves every server and It semes to do me ok.

Day 2
* You should have your sector fully mapped out by now, and most of your neighbour sectors too.
* I usually have around 30 objects by now, most consist of remote harvesters and about 4 - 5 drones.
* Might be a good idea to mail your neighbours and work out a trade agreemeant because warring too early will just hold you back,

By the end of day 2 on Ninhursag, I was on 200K Points atleast. And I started 24 hours late. From here its pretty
much depending on the sitation. But exploring with your probes early is very important IMO. Having info on where a person's homeworld is pretty handy. Not to mention being able to spot out undefended early colony settlements.
I usually write down notes on where people are lol.

One last trick I can tell you is this. Since notifications are currently not functioning, what I do is write down how many
planets in the sectors are taken etc. If the number of enemy planets go up, go and see if it was a water or terran colony that was taken. Chances are its going to be a colony. I stole atleast 10 colony's in Belitlli this way using 10 cruisers or less.

Most important thing to remember is...


TO HAVE FUN!





Oh and all this will most likely be useless once they patch it. :)

[ChickenHawk07]

Great starting stradgey write-up Enforcer.

A personal difference on Harvester collections though. I generally use small harvesters on all planets in any sector except for one "Hub" planet. I use the small harvesters to take ore from the planets in each sector and deposit it on the designated Hub planet of my choosing. I then use a Resource Harvester or greater to take all the collected ore
From the Hub and move it to a colony. From there, depending on which specialty I've
Chosen, I will either leave the Ore at the colony, or move the ore from all colonies to a single "Main Hub" Colony. If I'm playing as a Warrior, I do not build anything larger than a Resource Harvester, as the RO requirements and Research time are better spent elsewhere.

[Enforc3r]

I use to do that too. But I find waiting for planets to produce more ore is just downtime period when I could use the Small harvester object count as
a remote Harvester and collect from another planet that has ore ready for collection.

I will do some testing next world to see what is the best way though. I think it all depends on how much time you spend managing anyway.

[ChickenHawk07]

Agreed. I think just keeping it my way allows for a little less micromanaging. I know one thing for sure, if your Planets keep getting taken, it is a little easier to remember which single planet was the "Hub" and resume harvesting operations.

[Enforc3r]

Just did calculations, you don't lose out on all that much if you send your harvester for more than the recommended travel distance.
So now I'll just send them straight for home till I do more calculations on the small harvester method. The method I first use brings me
back ore faster at the start of a server IMO.

[WhiteLion]

I didn't notice any difference in speed or warp time between harvesters and small harvesters so I create small harvesters until I skill up to regular ones, and then i slowly replace the small ones I've made.

If the only difference is cargo space, it's clear you should only make harvesters. Also the amount of cargo they hold is so much more than a small harvester that I think it's a moot point to even bother with small harvesters after a while.