Surviving Early Game Attacks?

blowing the empires budget on a high end merc works, especially one that can kill large hulls all day long. Had one game I was attacked by drengin and another race. One wanted me dead while the other just harassed me for awhile. If it was for my merc I would have lost the few planets I had at the time. In most new games I start, if I have more than 3 civs within 2 star systems distance I restart. It might make for an interesting game, but I don't want to spend the first 150 fighting for survival with few if any planets while my neighbors gobble up everything in sight.

What's early game imply for you in say game turns? or in number of planets colonized?  Can you give us some more info on the galaxy configuration (size, planet abundance, etc.) as well?

Pretty sure that it might be more effective to do something else with your citizens than just create generals...

@pheonixstorm - I like the idea of a mercenary to help fend them off, but money is usually in tight supply at that point due to losing the trade routes. Maybe I can buy one and plant him early in the game.

@dlapine1 - I'd guess it usually happens around 50-100 turns into the game, just after everyone can "see" each other. Galaxy is Large. I generally have 5 or 6 colonies by that point. Generals are not the only citizens I create - I usually create scientists and entrepreneurs and put them on my home world until I'm forced to switch to generals because someone has declared war on me.

So I do this in my games as I had the same thing happen. You NEED to build offensive/defensive ships. 

On turn one you can build the defender or whatever its called. It is a tiny missile boat that has 1 attack and no defense. You need to 'rotate' in one of these every other ship from your yards. They add up and will keep your military power level high enough to delay the ai from DoW'ing you. I play on Insane/Ludicrous maps with 'rare' planet habitability so I tend to get a good 40 turns in before I bump into someone. This is with about 15-20 factions on the map. 

I will also get medium quick and beams or missiles. Make those boats and you will be fine. 

You just can't completely turtle in the early game if you have close neighbours. To be fair, the AI is fairly on-point here: the civs closest to me usually get gobbled up soon after I meet them. I mean, it only makes sense to pick on low-hanging fruit, right?

Hmmm, seems that my approach is unusual. Don't make any military ships at first, build constructors to mine and trade techs with the civs to earn enough $$ to hire a merc or two with the resources I mined.

I don't normally start to build military ships in general until I have some capacity and speed boosts. if a civ does declare war on me, I'd like to be able to build a response fleet with good tech and send it out to meet them.

It does help that I build and position awacs type ships that can detect incoming strikers where my minig starbases don't have radar.

I think it comes down to focusing on invasion vs colonization in the early game. I find that gaining another homeworld quality planet, with intact factories, labs and so on is well worth the tradeoff in reduced mining and trading (can't trade much with someone you're planning to conquer).

There's a small window in the beginning of the game when even gifted and genius AIs are vulnerable to early invasion. If you get transports ASAP, you can cobble together a few military techs while your fleets are in transit to beat a relatively weak homeworld fleet (in 2.71 at least, the AI's fleet doesn't just sit around and can be caught out away from home). Once they start spamming ships, you're back to a more conventional military encounter.

Hm, I never build up a sizeable military before the first AI declares war on me, the possibly buildable ships are just too crappy. Playing ludicrous/all gifted, around 15-20 AIs, it takes about until turn 70 or so before I normally encounter somebody else. I put all citizens to work as scientists or administrators (if needed), I buy one survey mercenary at the start, I not exactly concentrate, but see that I don't fall too far behind with economy (and try to get Tourism quite early). Since Crusade I also go for Treasury Missions quite often to fund my empire until I have to go to war.

Also I trade with every AI I encounter as long as I can to get technologies. Especially early on special resources that I have a few and the trade partner has none are worth a lot, so you do not have to give away too many of your own technologies. Like the AI I don't like to give away military techs and especially speed enhancing techs which I concentrate on from the start.

I tend to build none or very few military ships (only enough to deal with pirates) until I get the first war declaration, prefering to spend resources on recon (awacs cargo ships are a must here), colonization, starbases and planet buildup first. But I always research/trade for relevant techs (engines, sensors, hulls, capacity, weapons) and build a few dedicated shipyard worlds so that when the time comes, I can switch focus and churn out warships ASAP. Couple this with buying mercs and I can generally match any fleet that arrives later to attack me, then slowly prevail and take the fight to the enemy.

If you get attacked very soon, perhaps the galaxy is too small for the number of players?

Hmm. I actually like waiting to pick up enemy planets until after they have had a chance to add the civ-unique items (financial capitols, galactic cores, etc) and any random precursor improvements. I don't find the AI's build strategies good enough to want their planets in general. It's much better at building usable planets, but not better than a human just yet.

That being said, should they grab something I do want, say a precursor planet, I find that the influence starbase works well to bring that planet into my sphere readily enough without having to go to all out war.

First thing you need to do when starting the game is go to the designer and create light versions of your colony and constructor ships. No need for extended range or increased speed for close planets and resources, just wastes build time. Also design a light defense type craft, revisit as you research and pay attention to construction cost. You dont have much manufacturing at the moment so dont add anything else. One weapon, thats it, no engine, no range, no sensors, no defense. Dock all military ships on your planets and starbases to lessen maintenance costs. No need for them to be sitting in space draining your economy. While you are in the designer put as many sensors as you can on a cargo design to act as your sensor probes to place in a 360 around your colonies and/or on each colony as needed, use them to clear the fog of war and explore.

As you gain more tech and manufacturing update your ship designs or create knew ones to give you the most weapons for the least build time. Make sure you have light designs for shipyards that have less manufacturing ability in your empire. If you are building a ship with 27 turn build time, that is the wrong answer and a waste of time. Make a lighter design or build something else.

After you have queued a shipyard in a newly colonized planet add that planet to an existing shipyard until it is built. Even if it is far away, you will get one point minimum which is big early game.

Build a couple of over lapping military starbases and keep most of your fleet within their overlapping coverage to increase your military power. Preferably near your homeworld or strategic area you have determined.

If you play on a big map it may be in your interest not to explore too far past where you intend to colonize and keep. If an alien race hasn't been discovered yet, they are not going to declare war on you.

Trade your early tech for money with other civs or for tech you need for your strategy.

Tip. If you hold the control button down while a ship is selected the number of moves and turns to a hex will display as a tooltip. Great for knowing how much range to add to a ship.

Well the advice is fine. I would say building colony ships are fine. Remember put down your manufacturing hubs before anything. Question do you asteroid mine. Do whenever possible. If you use a bigger map you will have more time. 2 things to do right off the bat when you meet someone, talk to them declare friendship then I back to diplomacy some civilizations will let you get open borders when you first meet them others make you wait a turn. This will help you make friends. Do you have trade routes. First when deciding who to send freighters to send them to who is the most pissed off who you haven't sent a freighter to. This will at least help you with the AI free you don't have to do anything. If Ai are talking to you it is probably time to try to talk to everyone. research diplomacy. placing diplomats on opponents help. Don't put generals on planets unless someone is coming to invade. Why waste the citizens. Engineers, and scientists are more constructive. 

Now going back to freighters remember only after the previous rule the more lucrative the planet the better. Going back to citizens if you don't have at least 10 planets settling citizens are better. Even then it you needed an early advantage settling citizens would give you one. If you weren't going to compare stats then your homeworld usually have the best stats for settling citizens. Research diplomacy. Remember if you don't hook a planet to a shipyard the manufacturing gets wasted in crusade. Settings I would say click most things to abundant. Speed up game pacing.