I'm playing on Normal/Excessive and I'm getting destroyed in every game I play. I usually go for research on my planets. I usually building something like 2 farms and a hospital, 1 or 2 entertainment buildings to keep 100% happiness, 1 factory and/or 1 solar power plant and the rest is research buildings with a sprinkling of economic buildings. By the time I meet a civ in the 2nd year they are usually ahead in power if not nearly double my power. I usually wait to build ship technologies, but it doesnt seem to matter how many ships I have. I'm always "ripe for conquest" It seems the computer thinks its 50 tiny ships are this force to be reckoned with or something because they always, without fail declare war on me. All of the AI players are always at war with me every game. To me that seems a little dumb. Anyway, not sure where to go from here.
Having some dedicated research planets is a good thing, and it's good that you recognize the importance of having farms on your planets. However, you need to have some planets devoted to manufacturing for the purpose of ship building and infrastructure development.
I personally hold roughly to a 1:1:1 principle when it comes to developing planets. This simple ratio refers to how I primarily focus planet development ie for each planet in my empire I generally have 1 devoted primarily to manufacturing; 1 for science; and 1 for wealth. I shake things up a little -- with each manufacturing planet I have contributing to building fleets, I'll add one or two research buildings in among the balance of farms and factories, as well as a diplomatic/influence building in the mix. Each planet should have a specific focus, but there is room for flexibility, esp on the larger/higher grade planets.
This is a really simple guideline, because once you understand the basic meta of the game, there is a pretty good amount of flexibility in how you can approach playing the game, so I don't want to tell you how you should play the game per se.
A few tips I would give as well:
- Use you homeworld as your first manufacturing hub.
- The diplomacy tree is often vital for staving off early game aggression with buffs to your diplomacy modifier.
- Diplomatic/trade relations with neighbouring empires, especially the more aggresive ones like the Drengin/Snathi. Open borders treaty can be something that buys you time with them.
- Ship graveyard anomalies can be a great source of early game, free warships. Don't neglect scooping them up because having warships lessens the chance or impact of the 'ripe for conquest' modifier. If you have the Mercenary expansion pack, the armed survey ships are excellent for collecting these anomalies.
-Think about how you build your worlds regarding adjacency bonuses. Special buildings can helo maximize your planets outputs beyond what they may initially look like on paper. The durantium refinery is very powerful early - mid game for boosting production.
-Try and find the upper limit of population size without sacrificing approval, although I think you already understand this.
-Examine the ideology tree in relation to how you want to play. Each tree can offer huge boosts, especially when times well.
Yep - usually dedicate homeworld to production first. I also either strive for "Scary" under Awe (Malevolent/Ideology) as my second pick of Ideology, which greatly helps (I think) with ur neighbors.
Also as others suggest in solo game, I use trade (early) to trade with others which builds up relations.
See the thing is, I usually do make my homeworld (I choose the class 16 planet) mostly manufacturing and population. Popping out ships in 1 or 2 turns isnt a problem, its that the whole galaxy declares war on me as soon as they meet me because I have --- in ripe for conquest. Trading does nothing, I get no positive points for trading with anyone. And because on the turn they meet me they are furious with me, they always want a completely lopsided trade. I dont know, the diplomacy doesnt make all that much sense to me, and I'm a very experienced gamer. Granted I havent tried to put research into diplomacy yet.. I'll try that and see what happens.
I have that problem as well, though in recent games it seems to be less of an issue as I seem to be able to quell their anger by making favorable trades (in their favor).
Have you invstigated, how they are ahead in power?
You can switch the minimap to a power graph and then through the sidebar to research manufacturing etc.Through the tradescreen you can investigate what tech they have (if tech trading is enabled), what kind of ships, how many starbases and most importantly: how many worlds.
The total power rating can be deceiving, because it values your treassury and fleet too highly (in my opinion), because strong manufacturing/research can build up a fleet quickly and reduce usage of credits.
Going 1-1-1 manufacturing/research/wealth worlds at 100% approval is one way. But there are others.
100% approval is good for population and influence growth, but if you are out for the production bonus from the approval, more population does the job better in some situation.
Economy worlds are good, but can also be replaced with trade+tourism to some degree or my preferred method at the moment: high population and lots of economic starbases around worlds with lots of population.
There are multiple ways.
As pointed out above, I think you should investigate how this more power of the AI is constituted. If I had to guess, I would guess you didn't take enough colonies early enough and overrated planetary development.
So I havent looked exactly how they are ahead in power. But after they declare war on me I have about 20 turns until they come with a lot of ships. I usually play the same way each game, colonize like mad and concentrate on research and bettering my planets. The second I meet someone I start researching weapons, defenses and bigger ships. But it doesnt seems to help as they are way ahead of me in power and hate me anyway. Also anyone new I meet hates me too. By the time I meet the first AI I usually have anywhere from 20-35 worlds and 2 shipyards. The starbase economy is new to me. I usually just used them to mine resources. I dunno, I'm gonna try some of the stuff in this thread and see how it goes. I've just never gotten my butt kicked on any game in Normal in 37 years lol
Check out my How to Win or at least Stay Ahead post here if you need some basic tips:
https://forums.stardock.com/479136/page/1/#3647219
Another thing I do is rather than create a large fleet to fend off war is I just make planets 'Un-invadable". Research the one which makes your planets almost invulnerable (looks like bubble gum ball machine - forget name).
This way they just spend their time trying to invade till I'm ready to retaliate. If it goes on long enough they actually realize they are not getting anywhere and offer peace (this this takes a while). Worst is you lose Starbases which are not protected enough, but early games even a slightly protected starbase will be enough to ward off many fleets.
https://forums.galciv3.com/479073/page/1/#3646868https://forums.galciv3.com/478493/page/4/#3645116
If you are in desperate need, and I mean -desperate- need to fend them off, just overpower them. Just build a ship with nothing but missiles. No shields, no stardrive, no life support, just bulk it up to 40, 80, 300 or whatever you can build cheap and fast make fleets of them if you can.
them running up against 5 ships with 300 missiles apeace they wont last long. Don't worry about building a "super ship" just build a glass cannon fleet that will decimate them before they even get to your ships in the battle sim. This is how I win against the drengin (who usually come at me with shields and kinetics) the first part of the game.
My missiles own their kenetic ships hard, even though their ships are bigger and more powerful technically.
One game I hadn't researched any of the bigger hulls, so I built "Glass cannons" out of cargo ships! Lots of weapon weight, no armor/hp.
One other tactic i use to stay ahead on the power rating is to set minor races to 'abundant' and no tech brokering on.
and then whenever i trade with them, i often include a couple of their ships in the exchange - especially when they have less money. Yes their ships are insanely expensive, but i figure because it is a minor race, and they cannot sell my tech to anyone else, i got nothing to lose really!
I also often buy ships off Any weak major races too.
These traded ships are not much good for combat, but it is amazing how the numbers of them build up over time, and this is enough to scare AI even on 'gifted' difficulty level.
I actually do the opposite. Mid-game I often have about 50-80 crappy ships from anomolies and a bunch of crappy ships I built early on. Then what I do is park them all near enemy territory (or a scary AI territory). Then I find a race to do my bidding, and trade them ALL my crappy ships for a huge chunk of money/tech and a declare war policy against that scary AI.
They will usually attack with all their ships I just gave them, whittle down the fleets of the scary AI, and I get a bunch of cool stuff in return.
ANOTHER fun thing to do, is get your home planet involved once you have the Hyperion Logistics. Then you create a bunch of tiny/small ships REALLY fast. Make sure they have decent engines and just a crapload of missiles/lasers.
You can pop those suckers out 1 turn each, and they can be like 1 or 2 logistics. Then you have a fleet of 30 tiny ships with INSANE firepower and they will just rip though anything. Its like a carrier fleet, on crack.
I actually do the opposite. Mid-game I often have about 50-80 crappy ships from anomolies and a bunch of crappy ships I built early on. Then what I do is park them all near enemy territory (or a scary AI territory). Then I find a race to do my bidding, and trade them ALL my crappy ships for a huge chunk of money/tech and a declare war policy against that scary AI.They will usually attack with all their ships I just gave them, whittle down the fleets of the scary AI, and I get a bunch of cool stuff in return. ANOTHER fun thing to do, is get your home planet involved once you have the Hyperion Logistics. Then you create a bunch of tiny/small ships REALLY fast. Make sure they have decent engines and just a crapload of missiles/lasers.You can pop those suckers out 1 turn each, and they can be like 1 or 2 logistics. Then you have a fleet of 30 tiny ships with INSANE firepower and they will just rip though anything. Its like a carrier fleet, on crack.
Mid game?
Is there a mid game?
are there any scary AI races by mid game? you know, other than the scary AI races that try to wipe you out early game then if you survive, they give up like a spoiled child and sulk in their own corner and wait for you to win?
I have scary AI, very scary, like S*** your pants scary. When I meet them I HIDE in the corner quivering.
BORG.
I have scary AI, very scary, like S*** your pants scary. When I meet them I HIDE in the corner quivering. BORG.
The way i do it is a bit different.... i play the game, going along thinking i am doing really well. First AI declares war i kinda think "mahhh, so what" keep playing....
Next step further along is to observe their fleets approaching, hover mouse over the fleet, observe the stats, jaw falls down almost to the floor, then immediately press the 'esc' key and that's it.
The only other option available is to actually 'be' powerful, then the AI will not attack at all and my yawn is so big it almost hits the floor and i reach for the esc key once again.
Those are the only mid game options available i have found so far.
The only time I hit esc mid game is to fix bugs
Thats actually a lie . 2+ way wars usaly end with me getting crushed which will make me use esc key
I did once instigate the Ferengi, Klingons and Romulans to declare war on the Borg to help in my war vs them (which I stopped after 10 turns or so by paying the Borg off), that ended real bad, borg wiped all 3 off the face of the map and eneded up with 1/2 the map in territory.
I give up at 4 warring enemies if I can't buy one or two of them off. Lately, they have been much more actively implementing and following up on war declarations. Nasty. If I see multiple fleets with transports incoming, and I am still working on my ship techs, then I am usually ready to give up with whatever dignity I have left.
If they have left me alone past turn 100 then it becomes different. I am likely to surge past in tech massively. I had one game where a faction on the other side of the galaxy had done a good job of expanding in a large isolated area. They had a lot of good military, but there was no way they were going to get it across the void before I teched out. They wanted to, but it just wasn't going to happen.
When that happens to me, usually they appear with 'magic' range extension. But not large fleets, usually an individual ship.
I have sensor ships patrolling for any starbases - none. Somehow the ship wanders over to my area and starts killing any undefended assets. I am looking at the ship approaching and i think it must be at the limit of its range surly? But no - because 'magic' range.
I cannot send a similar ship to their side, not in a million years, oh well, possibly with a ship full of range extension, but then i cannot have the weapons and speed their 'magic' ships have
The AI gets Bonis to Shiprange starting with Gifted (20%) up to 100% on Godlike
I got a drengin on gifted, gigantic galaxy.... he is up at the wall on one side, i am against the wall on the other side, another major race in between.
He had these lone ships that would occasionally kill one of my auto scouts, no big deal. I keep thinking they don't have range to come down further, then after a few turns they have come down further and kill something else. Then i think they wont have range to reach my starbases, then they reach my starbases, they just keep coming without limitation and it seriously looks like range magic to me. (no hidden starbases by the way, i checked VERY thoroughly because i was so fascinated how they can do it)
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