Any tips on how to set up for a war?

[malkuth74]

Seems if you face anything other then a race that is well below you, you have no chance using the AI as the controller of your fleets. It just does stupid things.

For instance it decided to use all fleets to attack the enemy planets. Which is fine. But then did nothing when the enemy decided to attack my homeworld within minutes of the declaration of war.

None of the fleets returned to defend the home planet and it was lost. Which to me means end game so I quit.

Now every time I have gone to war this happens. The whole war thing in this game is so confusing and you have no idea whats going on that its almost impossible it seems to set up for your defense and attack.

Must be some tips on what you should do, how you should set up etc. Just seems that trying to beat an AI that can do everything instantly while you are lost with where your ships are, what they are doing etc is a guaranteed lose lose situation for you.

[ASHBERY76]

My first tip would be to control fleets yourself and slow the game down so you can see what enemy fleets are up to.

[hadberz]

Create another fleet and have it patrol your homeworld. May sure your ships don't run out of fuel.

Build Defensive bases, these can be built around the colony. Select the colony and then right click the space by the colony. Select build then Defensive base.

Create a reserve fleet, keep them fueled and within range of your important colonies. They can reinforce your defenses if things start to go wrong.

Make sure you have enough troops on your colonies, don't forget to recruit troops if your manually controlling troop recruitment.

Design ships with extra shields, armor, and weapons. Watch your maintenance costs they can get expensive.

[malkuth74]

I don't know. Its just dam hard to figure this stuff out. Now I have a new war going on and I am so outclassed I just basically lost a 50 ship fleet to a attack on a enemy world that maybe had 12 ships in space.

I think the AI passed me bye when I suffered the Econ bug. And now they just outclass me. I am the largest empire though in the galaxy with the most ships. But at this rate I won't have any left.

Are you suppose to keep building those research stations or what? I don't seem to gain much tech at all.

[hadberz]

If you did the auto generate starting empires, their tech could be very high. If you want to setup a game were your all pretty much equal. Manually setup the empires like in the pic below. You don't have to name the empires, leaving it blank auto gen a name when the game starts up.

[malkuth74]

Wow I did not know that was the case. thanks. Next time I try a new game I will make the AI empires myself. DOH>

[Fishman]

Arm all your merchantmen. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I saw an attacking armada of dozens get toasted simply because they attempted to assault a major trading port. Since there is SO much traffic there, merchantmen would warp in, see their spaceport under attack, join the fray and start launching torpedoes at the attacking force, and since they were being held up from doing their business, more merchantmen would join the fray. Some of them may have perished, but honestly, I wasn't paying attention, and besides, they are self-regenerating. So long as you don't allow too many of them to die, they will just buy some more ships. What's more, you actually EARN money when more ships are purchased, so if they get killed....eh, so what? Give 'em a new merchantman design with bigger guns, and they'll buy 'em up and shoot up your attackers with them.

Note: The AI races do not like this behavior. They will see armed merchantmen as part of your "military" and not the reckless independent space cowboys they actually are. But I have brought large empires to their knees with a fleet consisting of only a handful of actual warships, and the security of knowing that my empire is defended by my fearsome Space Cowboy Militia.

[Gertjan]

Indeed do the fleet management yourself, but return the ships in the fleets on automation if you are ready with their mission, this way they will repair/refuel themselves. I use the fleet management screen a lot. This really helps in knowing where your fleets are (very handy if you have developed galaxy with tons of ships moving on your map and you cant find your fleets easily). Also use the ship management screen. This is very easy to locate specific ships and turn automation on and off.
I like that the AI proposes when and where to attack from time to time. This is really innovative! However, sometimes I like to be in control of my major attack myself. Good luck and keeps u informed!