winning strategies and tips

[pheldens]

I've found i can not lose on maniacal default games (unless you spawn very unluckily)

- invest in research enhancers first, then industry, population and defense

- build gas giant generators in every system its possible and 1 solar generator in a white star system, you also only need 1 factory per empire

- use conquered races specialties, some have 200-400% industry bonus

- invest in raw industry, colonize all planets put exobots in asteroid belts, max out planet yields with terraforming (multiple per planet if needed) then top it off with a gaia transformation

- military: initially play a defensive game, play safe when initially attacking, keep reserve firepower in a big knockout hammer fleet, offensive: work towards giant ship hulls + milkcow support ships , you can beat any AI with it, it also helps to have reinforced troopships with light firepower and armor to mop up weak planets, and prevent being sniped off en route
to see what enemy you need to attack look at the empire overview, the empires with the biggest research and production or planets should be your primary focus, the rest often is retarded

the games are usually decided quite early on after that its a few 100 turns of mopping them up




Question about space elevator: is it ever needed if you already have long supply lines around the system? if you're hoocked to core thick supply, are there still internal supply optimizations possible? or is core supply always 100% when you're connected to it?

[MatGB]

Question about space elevator: is it ever needed if you already have long supply lines around the system? if you're hoocked to core thick supply, are there still internal supply optimizations possible? or is core supply always 100% when you're connected to it?

If you're linked, you're linked, there are no bonuses for being better linked. Like all buildings in FO the idea is that you don't always need them and don't need them often if you do, I sometimes use them for dead zones and sometimes simply for capture natives stuck the 'other way' from where I'm heading, but I doubt I build more than one in 3 or 4 games.

As for the rest, one disagreement: research boosts and population boosts first, as a population boost on your homeworld is an industry boost even if you're set to research, the cultural archives is population based.

I also sometimes go for population first, depending on whether my research output will be maxed out before I get a bonus, if you start Gysache they default to industry and have good research, so they don't need Algorithmic Elegence first, Subterranean Habitation is a better first pick.

[pheldens]

I agree on the population, they are also needed to make lesser planets suitable for colonization

[defaultuser]

I guess it kind of depends on how things go. Last night, I started a game with spiral, fairly low density, 5 AIs with "typical" aggression. The "north" part of my territory was very sparse, but on independent world I conquered quickly. There was a significant dead zone beyond that, which I quit exploring because there were many more worlds to the "south". I was doing more or less what the OP here said, although at the early stage I was doing some colonizing of good worlds and hadn't gotten to the outpost stage. Possible that was a mistake.

After a bit, I get contact up north from an AI, one whose style is listed as "cautious". A few turns after, it shows up near my world with a number of colony and troop ships. I send my garrison ships up there to knock that out, figuring the large dead space and the loss of ships might deter it. However, a few turns after that it brings in war ships at twice the level I have there.

Well, now what? I haven't been making all that many warships and most of the ones that I have are way to the other side of the territory where I have also made contact with an AI. My research has been concentrated on things other than ship upgrades. If I try to challenge I'm just going to lose the ships that I have. Otherwise I'm probably conceding that planet (with shipyard and drydock) along with the additional one in that system that had been colonized.

I guess fall back to the homeworld and switch to military production and try to take it back fairly soon.

How would others have approached the problem, or not gotten into it in the first place?

[biza]

hi, research 'normal' upgrades as pheldens and MatGB suggested and when you find first AI planet start research mass driver4, robotic hull and some planetary defence upgrades, later when you get mines and stronger planetary defence you can build colonies/outposts on every planet to increase damage to enemy fleet, also wait with fleet for them to attack in your system as colonies and outposts in battle acts like ships and make damage to enemy ships and take some damage from your ships. AI is making small and cheap decoy ships to take some damage from theirs fighters and planets, and i guess that strategy is also good, but i never bother with them....
If you do what pheldens suggested, you will win on maniacal every time

- build gas giant generators in every system its possible and 1 solar generator in a white star system, you also only need 1 factory per empire

Just to add that you should put on industry focus all colonies in system with gas giant generator as it gives 10 industry bonus to any size colony only if focus is set to industry!

Cheers

Edit: For some extra defence you can put border colonies and defence focus, but at industry/research expense.

[MatGB]

How would others have approached the problem, or not gotten into it in the first place?

The latter, normally, I try to avoid ever being surprised, leaving scouts and/or scanning facilities to ensure I've got time to react to any potential threat.

But if you can't hold somewhere a strategic withdrawal makes sense, however the AI can be bad at playing cat & mouse, if you decide to try to take out the troop ships while avoiding the main fleet it'll slow down the conquest. Set the worlds there to research to maximise what you get in the meantime, and get better ships up there ASAP.

[UrshMost]

A while back I read something from one of the developers that said to ensure that you get some maniacal level opponents you should start with at least 10 AI's. I gather that the AI aggression levels are randomly assigned and with 6 AIs you may not face any?

Anyway, since then I basically double the number of AI's to 12 and double the systems to 300. This almost always means that there are at least one or two maniacal AI's out there gobbling up the weaker ones and that they have time and space to develop into worthy opponents before I stumble upon them. The hardest games are when you are being attacked by more that one maniacal AI from different sides at the same time. Hang in there Humans!

If around turn 150 or so I am still having an easy time of it I start checking the Research Output and Production Output graphs to see how I am comparing to the AIs. If I am higher then everyone else then I call it a game at that point.

[MatGB]

That's not the way it works, not sure who said that, if you set the AI level to Maniacal most of the AIs will be at that level, but a small proportion will be at a lower level and a smaller proportion again will be at the next lower level. In order to get some non-maniacal AIs you need a fair number of them that's for sure.

The game is balanced for having enemies fairly close and for you to be in combat fairly early and stay in combat throughout the game. There's definitely an appeal to having fewer AIs and letting yourself spread out, and I do that fairly regularly, but when I'm testing for balance I try to have the settings well within the recommended parameters so you dhould, normally, be in combat fairly early and have enemies at your borders most of the time.

There's nothing wrong with wanting a peaceful game, but the AIs won't be as good (as they're set to want to fight and/or defend) and you'll find some effects/parts/buildings will be unbalanced or useless in a way that's harder to test for. Plus, y'know, game of galactic conquest, not game of galactic colonisation

[Nexus]

however the AI can be bad at playing cat & mouse

I'll say. Just today I had my major rival AI park its biggest fleet on an unguarded system of mine for 10+ turns but made no move to actually invade with ground troops. I was quite content to let it sit there because it was primarily non self healing ships, had no death spores, and I had regeneration and advanced mine technology, so that fleet suffered damage turn after turn without doing anything really dangerous. That AI had actually been winning the war against me until that blunder.