Tips, faqs, help, and questions for people new to the game. Plz help

if economy hurts you, you canminimize this by spending some points in the startup on more trade routes and econ. also, build starbases on trade routes: no maintenance! make as many starbases in any sector you want.

try the unoffical faq i made:
http://geocities.com/russellmz/FAQ.html

Well, even though you can take any path you'd like, I'd recommend to research Basic Environement Control first, then Trade. After that, you're free to boldly go wherever you want to go. (Alternatively you could pick a 10% boost to your planet quality, but this costs a lot.)

In a more general way:
Don't buy too much in the beginning.
Never let your Economy slip.
Trade is great.
Tech sells!
If people cry, put them in colony ships.
Sell those colony ships.
The moral buildings REALLY help.
Build or buy Trade goods.

and most important: Learn to play with the sliders. (especially in the beginning)

I'm a beginner myself, so there are better strategies out there for sure.

Get Stelar Carthography fast, then take every 15+ planet you can get (AIs wont take 14's and below so you can take your time for those, if you want them at all). After theres nothing more to colonize, start building your planets up and, well, see how it goes from there

Just remember, each planet you colonize in the first few turns is a planet you won't have to take by force later.

I like to set military and governement spending to 100% each. That way u get a colony ship every 2 turns and u dont have to buy it on credit. I do this until I run our of planets, maby start building a few construction ships, I go for resources fairly early.. Then I put it all in tech I go for U tanslater and Diplomacy first and buy/trade for as many techs as I can. Just remeber to lowerer your gov spending before you get to -500 There are prolly better strats out there but it works for me.

Building the Empire.
If you see a minor race sitting on a really nice system, go immediately for propulsion theory/cold fision/impulse drives. Thay way you will get transports. Now, while researching Corvette (through military theory) build 2-3 transports. Then accuse them of keeping WMD or whatnot and invade.

Making ends meet.
Dont build every social project. That way you keep your maintainance down to managable levels. I usually avoid medical center, embassy, infonet and news network unless I need the latter three for culture resistence.

Dont tirade trade.
Trade can net you a steady income and better relations with those that you do. Choose your trading partners carefully. If you are bordering the Drengin or the Yor, it is usually a better idea to trade with Altarians or the Torians, as this will ensure good relations and steady income once your hungry neighbors start biting. (War between trading partners automatically stops all trade agreements.)

Keep your axes shiny.
It pays off to build battleaxes quickly. Higher your military rating, more reluctant will the AI be in attacking you, opting for easier targets instead.

Learn to be humble.
Tributes can be very cheap when compared to a messy war with stronger opponents. Pay them if you think you are not ready to face whoever's asking it off. Remember, they will keep asking for more, and will eventually move into crush you even if you pay, so dont count on it to save your arse forever.

Keep an eye out on the universe.
Galatic resources are claimed by the AI players very quickly. It is usually not worth it to shell out for an early constructor. But do scout them out and make sure to identify the locations of military bonus resources, as these will bestow a huge advantage to their owners. If they declare war on you, make that starbase your first target. Remeber to keep at least 2-3 constructors in reserve for recently vacated resources and claim them as fast as they become available.

Ground yourself.
Starbases are your friends. If a sector you own contains more than one productive star system, or even one with three planets, construct a starbase and upgrade it with every production bonus your tech level allows. You will see a huge increase in productivity. (It is usually a good idea to hold off starbase construction until you have sufficent economic and technological muscle to build, sustain and upgrade them effectively. Which usually means early-mid game on, depending on circumstances, such as wars.)

Dont let friendship cloud you.
If you see a 'friendly' civilization getting too strong, it is a very good idea to strike them when and where it hurts. Follow your nose and gut instinct, keep in touch with what makes us human:

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Lie, cheat, swindle, decieve your way to victory, until only unity remains in the galaxy.

That's whats great about this game. Twisti says "Get Stellar Cartography Fast". I'm on my 8th game and I've never had Stellar Cartography at all. Scouts can find the good planets as fast as you can crank out colony ships so I've never really found the need. Many different ways to the same end.

The first key until you master the game, is not to start unless you have a strong starting position. Keep using Cntl-N to regen the map until you get a home planet with at least a 19 (preferably 20) PQ and at least 1 (pref 2 or 3 if lucky) other 15+ planets in the same sector. Otherwise, you're starting in a hole...which can be fun to climb out of...but not till you've mastered the game.

The next key is snag colonies, period. Its a race. Set your Social programs to 0 and your research to between 0 and 20 (I like 15 myself). Max the military spending and you should be able to crank out a colony ship every 4-5 turns. Colonize one of the nearby planets with the ship you start with. I start producing scouts at this planet...usually 2 or 3 turns to build. Meanwhile start sending the survey ship towards the nearest planets you can't see (focus on areas where planets are clustered for maximum effect).

By the time you get your first colony ship, the surveyer and / or scouts (which you should send in different directions) should have uncovered additional planets to colonize. Important: There is no shareing of star systems. If you get lucky and find a system with multiple good planets, only take 1. That will secure the system as yours and you can go back for the rest after the land grab is over.

Advice on what to research varies (which as you note is a good thing), I recommend: Propulsion Theory-->Cold Fusion--->Impulse Drive. It takes a bit to get there but the speed boost you get gives you an edge during the final stages of the land grab when you've started finding other races who are after the same planets.

Once you have most of the key planets you can reasonably get to, cut military spending down to 10-15% and max out Social. Start cranking out social projects. I start with Soil, Habitat, Banking, Fusion Power, Manufacturing Center. But strategies here vary. PQ improvment is most important. Anything that boosts Economy is VERY important or you'll either go broke or be completely dependent on tech sales or trade for income. Anything that boosts Research is either slightly more or slightly less important than Economy (depending on how strapped for cash you are). Anything else is a distant second or third.

I highly recommend going for trade goods...ESPECIALLY Diplomatic Translators, which are the most important trade good in the game IMO. I'm also a big fan of Aphrodisiac to get your populations growing.

At this point the possible strategies increase exponentially.

One final Key...Starbases are IMPORTANT. Loaded up with production and trade enhancers, they can really boost your economy to the next level. After you've cranked down your military spending, keep producing colonizers (not at a lower rate) until you fill in all of the planets you passed up earlier. Put all other planets on Constructor building (you only need 2-3 scouts tops). First priority should be snagging resources. I think the order of importance for resources is Econ, Morale, and Military in that order. In the later game, the tax boost from Econ is Huge, as is the Morale boost. Military might wind up being higher importance, if you or your neighbors are particularly warlike. Research and Influence are good...but there are plenty of social projects that will boost those levels so I think the first three are better.

I add a very nice tactic on trade

check your oponents frequently and when they have a freighter BUY IT!!

This will give you a freighter in their system - you dont need time to invest in building freighters, and most important - you will have a freighter in THEIR system!!

Interesting tactic Meip...which one of your planets does the frieghter link to for the other end of the route...always Sol?, or always closest?

Not always sol, looks almost like a random planet in your empire. Anyway - it gave me much more money then developing freighters and lose a zilion turns to get the ships to the destination i want

How much do trade ships cost you miep?

Not sure i like the idea of it linking to one of my random planets, epecially if it happens to be a class 14 i only colonised toextend my range

~SDC~

Alright thnx very much have some more questions.

1.By trade do u guys mean sending a freighter to antoher planet? Cause ive done this and all it does is increase my ecnomy by like 7bc.

2.Also is it a good idea to have all the solar systems u own near or next to each or doesnt it not matter and they can be spread out.

3. I thought buildings social projects and military units wtihout actually purchasing them, takes no money away but i see people saying not to build all the social projects? Why is this? Im not sure i grasp the concept because when i dont actually manually click the purchase button my treasury never goes down. When i let things build gradually it seems as though im getting them for free.

4. Yesterday i was doing ok but the un council thing forced me to turn imperial, my ecnomy collapsed, i got delcared war, and one of my planets rebelled. Then i lost . DOH

3. In each building's description look for 'maintenance', you pay that every turn for that building for all of eternity. Obviously if you build every single building, yer gonna be paying a lot of it!

Thus, you should really concentrate on the free maintenance buildings, and those buildings which further your victory type goal.

Yup, dont build culture increase buildings on your worlds are from the AI. Dont make too many production buildings on tiny class 14 buildings, it really wont make much of a difference. Dont bother with the Plantary shield buildings unless you are convinced you may be attacked on that planet.

In the mid to late game, being selective can help you save 200-400bc/turn in maintenance costs.

~SDC~

Also Adressing trade, it starts as 7bb/turn, but can dramatically increase over time and distance! check out the Trade Screen a few tabs along from your Economy sliders.

In my current game i have 7 Trade routes, all ranging from 60 to 145Bc/turn, in total i have 691bc/Turn from trade alone.

~SDC~

Totally forgot one importnat question.

How is it that income is generated in this game other than trade? thnx and i also still really want to know about the planet spacing question .

thnx for all ur great answers thus so far.

Income is generated through taxation of your planets, but more importantly to me via selling your lies and cra- -er- valuable merchandise and promises to the AI.

~SDC~

grr i still cant figure out how to take over a planet in a war. I destory the shield symbol on the planet and i try to move my transport on it but it still doenst work!

You move a transport on to an enemy system and nothing happens? That is very odd.

~SDC~

>>By trade do u guys mean sending a freighter to antoher planet? Cause ive done this and all it does is increase my ecnomy by like 7bc.<<

Yes...this is how trading is done. And by the way, "only" 7bc turns out to be a lot in the long run. (Even the longest trade routes often turn out to be "only" 9bc, so 7 isn't bad.) With trade increases and whatever wacky way the computer figures the economy, a couple of 7bc routes take you quickly from the red to the black. (Or the yellow to the orange in this case.)

The opposite is also true. I almost NEVER buy anything on credit. Losing 3-5bc a month adds up (in that wacky computer way) to a lot. And the "low down payment" deals often have you paying that for 100+ months. Do that 2-3 times and you're in debt for good. Some of the options have you paying 15+ bc a month! Follow the typical grandma's advice: If you can purchase it outright, go ahead and buy. If you can't, you don't really need it...

Just finished my 4th game (all genius/large). Some of the strats I used wre:

1) 100% military/expenditure to churn out few scouts and 2-turn colony ships, ending when my treasury is near depleted and I’ve gotten a good number of systems. So far I’ve never felt the need to buy anything except in a real emergency.
2) Research to get impulse drive and universal translator
3) Continue to churn out colony ships to colonise every single 15+ planet within range
4) Focus research on pop growth (the mad expansion meant that each colony had very few pop) and free maintenance buildings
5) Build all free buildings especially PQ ones
6) Focus next on trade goods research
7) Did without any military for half the game. Bought lots of techs and military ships from all races using trade goods and bought techs
8) Turned militarily strong races against one another by using trade goods again. (Worked like a charm - the Torian and Arcean frigates/battlecrusiers blew each away)
9) Bought peace immediately after Drengin declared war by using trade good (too easy, may need fixing). They were friendly but I got the diplomatic blunder event which caused them to declare war. After the peace, I got the fundamentalist event which caused Drengin to lose all their worlds except one which also soon defected over to me (morale 1% ?!?), causing the massive Drengin fleet to vanish overnight.
10) Overran fundamentalists (9 systems)using battlecruisers / frigates and waited out for cultural victory (no culture bombs) as I didn’t have the patience to beat up everyone
11) End of the day – location played a huge role in that I had a lucky start where I got ½ the galaxy with 3 minor races while the other 4 majors shared ½. (maybe the majors should be spread out more evenly).

Had lots of fun though with the higher level AI. Great game.