The Friendly Middleman Spammer Strategy

[bertipa]

With humans in a normal environment this strategy is ridiculously efficent.
I'm trying it out now in an Ugnari/600K research/Many Monster/Many Pirates 1400 map and for the moment, while a little slowed down, it seems to work.

The Friendly:

Make friends with everybody: pay them at first sight 10000 (if you have it) and repeat every time you speak with them and no other exchange has been made. When they become friendly propose a Free Trade, when they become delighted propose a Mutual Defense.

When/if you got a rare good share it with everybody.

Work hard on your reputation: no spying, keep a few spy for defense purpose.

To keep your military happy unleash them against all the pirates around (good for your reputation also).

IMPORTANT! Just ignore all the unfriendly suggestion from your advisers. Unfortunately not all of them so be really attentive. The wrong click can wreak havoc to your reputation.

Ignore also trade embargos or war queries from your allies.

The Middleman:

Buy all the techs on the market and sell them to everybody. Work your way toward the really expansive ones.

I usually just keep to myself the colonization ones and the maps unless it is really necessary.

When your finance/tech advance is solid buy also any disputed but buyable planet and base.

When you feel in a pinch you can sell them too.

The Spammer:

Colonize everywhere. From 100% to 50% Quality and even less if there are ruins and interesting resources.
No free planet can be left without a colony ship icon.

Extras to pass the time:

Explore any interesting place and fill your navy with early capital ship and a pair of Worls Destroyers. For to do that and for your economy buy a lot of Constructors.
I'm not sure if they are really needed but starports and defence bases can be a good place where to put the overflow money that came with the tech trading.
Place a few bases in the Ancient Guardian system: If the Sakature War starts they will become allies and you will exchange the bases (or the planet if you were lucky) for an enormous amount of advanced techs.
BTW when the game start I immediately go in the ship design panel to double the warp drives for the Colony Ships.

EndGame:

Just hope for the Sakaturi to show up for a nice Great War to end the game with style.
Unfortunately with just 33% of the Galaxy planet needed to win that can very well just not happen.

The future:

I will not be disappointed if a future patch expansion will limit or even better kill this strategy: it is too mechanical and repetitive, but at the same time too efficent.

There should be more drawbacks if you don't help an ally in a war on in a trade dispute.
Also being ally of two sworn enemies shold be more difficult.
If you accept to go to war or trade embargo someone you should somehow be obliged to keep at it for some times.

The AI should be capable to not exchange a strategic technology or at the least it should up the price at crippling levels and should know when it is not strategic anymore.

Maps also shold be more valuable and more difficult to buy (I still think that you should not be able to see behind nebulosae and not in real time if you have not ships or monitoring station in line of sight).

The Galaxy is also too flat: there are not choke points, no real geography, no real need to think about the topology of your expansion.

The techs are too many and not enough relevant, you are becoming stronger but the single techs are more bargaining chips than a real advancement of your civilization.

Planets should be more relevant also. Abitable planets even more so (and rarer). Expecially the first colonies, the core of your empire, or the really special ones (Dune, Trantor, etc.)

Victory condition should be more of a combination of factors: 33% of the galaxy planets (or 50% if you want make it more 'difficult') is too simple and slightly meaningless.
Planets, economy, happiness of your empire, techological prowness should be combined to force a more balanced strategy to win, even pacefully.

[fix_account_please]

all good suggestions. My maps have colonized planets set to 'rare.

[Foraven]

You don't need to bribe other Empires with cash, you can do so with trading at loss (ie selling some worthless tech at a bargain price). In fact, the AI is way too eager to buy everything you want to sell, you can bankrupt them by selling lots of techs, stations or even contested planets, they buy anything so long as you sell at loss. In my current game i have several millions in bank and have a huge fleets nobody want to mess with; i make so much trading techs i can operate at loss, i don't need my Empire's revenu to keep affloat. 

Edit : This is with the expansion though.

[bertipa]

Yeah I know, I'm just lining them the 10000 when they have really nothing to offer and at the start to open the exchange techs dance.
My Empire also work that way, so much that giving avay few crumbles is no problem.

BTW Ugnari with Mercantile League are a blast, I'm never in the red! Newt time I will try them with Resarch at maximum possible cost.

[Data]

Ugnari with Mercantile League ? Sounds like a a long and fulfilling trip [:)]

[bertipa]

Two evening (in bed before midnight) and the usual outcome.
Two third of the game as mercantile league and the last leg in way of the ancient.
Almost never in red, no real difference in diplomacy in respect with the previous games played as human.
Colonizable planet option was 'rare' and the start was slower than a 'normal' game and I closed it at the end with a 30% quality planet colony rush.
I maxed out pirates and monsters but I did not see any difference.
Shakaturi did not show up.

Spent a lot of time running behind three World destroyers and when I won no one of them was operational, should have not lose my time.

I feel that even if it is nice and story wise fitting Way of the Ancient just come to simplify an already decided game.

Something is needed to shuffle the situation, not cristallize it. The endgame feels too much mopping up, milking it.

Where are the Shakaturi and the Great War? I will check again the option but I'm quite sure that I left everything on default.

After the patch they seems to prefer Andromeda instead of the Milky Way.

[cookie monster]

Anybody could win a game colony rushing, it doesnt matter what % quality.

I stay with only colonise +50% colonies because that's the rules the computer plays by.

I might make an exception if the colony has something valuable such as luxuries.

Try Galactic Republic quick game as a minor faction, you cant finish that in two nights the % owned is set up at 95%.

[bertipa]

Maybe I will when I'll be back from Easter vacations but for the moment the FMS strategy seems to work even in a quite harsh environment.
I'm playing whithin the rules the computer play by, I'm no hacker.
I'm sure that in an extreme environment choosed for the precise effect my strategy will not work so depressigly well, but that are not usual games.

Hey, In the whole game I opened fire (again) just 1 (one) time against a non pirate ship, again for to free a World destryer from a competing constructor and as it turned out I should have not cared.

The few moment of 'reflection' are in the first third of the game. I can imagine that yoour scenario will make for a really difficult start. But when you attain the critical mass of techs, planets etc. the rest is mopping up.

The Shakaturi were a nice way to shake it up the end game but after the patch they seems to be missing in action.

When all the chips are down I flatly refuse to play warmonger just to complicate the way to victory. I'm not interested to play the bad guy.

[Foraven]

I think the trader/diplomat gameplay should be toned down; it's just too easy to make peace with everyone while making a fortune trading (especially if trading techs as well as making everyone free trade with us). Aggressive race don't seem to go to war much, and nobody is a genocidal maniac that use scorch earth tactics (like bombing planets). Also, by midgame the pirates are a joke, they no longer pose a serious threat and are easy to dispose of (and make our reputation go up without much efforts).

[Data]

Well, the "it's just too easy to make peace with everyone while making a fortune trading" is the crux of every 4x game since MOO2 (maybe even before it but that one is my personal starting point) no matter how mature they were / are.
What the game doesn't balance we pretty much have to RP ourselves.

[Foraven]

ORIGINAL: Data

Well, the "it's just too easy to make peace with everyone while making a fortune trading" is the crux of every 4x game since MOO2 (maybe even before it but that one is my personal starting point) no matter how mature they were / are.
What the game doesn't balance we pretty much have to RP ourselves.

Not all those games punish you as much for being at war while rewarding you as much for keeping peace. DW is biased toward playing the diplomatic/trading game, playing a war mongering Empire is much more difficult.

[Lrfss]

ORIGINAL: Foraven

I think the trader/diplomat gameplay should be toned down; it's just too easy to make peace with everyone while making a fortune trading (especially if trading techs as well as making everyone free trade with us). Aggressive race don't seem to go to war much, and nobody is a genocidal maniac that use scorch earth tactics (like bombing planets). Also, by midgame the pirates are a joke, they no longer pose a serious threat and are easy to dispose of (and make our reputation go up without much efforts).

Very true, it's way too easy to take advantage of the AI in trade and diplomacy in the extreme! After you figure it out you have to RP the rest of the way and deal accordingly otherwise your in for a short game killing the AI. This is one issue I think everyone has expressed the need for change more or less...

[Foraven]

ORIGINAL: Lrfss
Very true, it's way too easy to take advantage of the AI in trade and diplomacy in the extreme! After you figure it out you have to RP the rest of the way and deal accordingly otherwise your in for a short game killing the AI. This is one issue I think everyone has expressed the need for change more or less...

DW is just too peaceful, some rules should be changed so it's possible to play a war mongering empire that doesn't rely on Diplomacy and Trade tricks to win. However there is another issue; we can also out design the AI. By midgame, even if we are behind in tech and planet count, we can make ships and stations that can outperform anything the AI is using. One of the fault is there is no size limits to each design class, the other is the AI don't use tech combos or special designs like we can do. The AI only makes generic designs, no dedicated carriers, well armed escorts, cheap trade stations or missile barge, nor armed mining stations or battle resupply ships. And the AI still need improvement on fleet management, i seen my own fleets left on auto go on very long journey that made them run out of fuel, as well as retrofits at small spaceports when bigger ones were available a bit farther away.

[Data]

Yes, there are many unbalanced aspects to it and it may take some time to see them all fixed as they are second place to resolving bugs in a regular patch.

[bertipa]

The Friendly Middleman Spammer Strategy still works like a charm in Legend.
I had a few minor wars prompted by maybe too much mutual defence pacts and when the Shakys showed up I was just fresh from my only revolution from democracy to way of the ancient and I proceeded to cream them without a sweat.
Won the game while I was chasing thair last ships.

BTW, aside a few excruciantly minor graphical glitch everything worked without problems; after the SatSII debacle this was refreshing.

[Data]

Is that SotS2 or another one? If it is SotS I'm surprised how many people are dissapointed with it, I have not played it but it's indeed not good to fail so many people
From what I saw about it the game still has a gigantic potential.

[Nedrear]

All cry "too easy"... put the game on hard and to make it spicy roleplay the game. You will never have such a fricking problem! An incompetent warmongering leader will not ask for mutual defense unless it promises an easier conquest... etc.

[Gelatinous Cube]

Indeed. DW is not a difficult game if you pick the perfect race, the perfect, government, the perfect starting conditions, ect.

Real men play on Hard or Very Hard, with race and government set to Random, and Racial Victory Conditions set to on with a very high threshold. If you still find it too easy, the problem is simply that you are too proficient.

[Nedrear]

ORIGINAL: Gelatinous Cube

Real men ...

I see. Seems I got the gender of the players wrong. I would say even women enjoy a challenge once upon a time... don't you?

Apart of that:

You don't need to randomize. You can simply put out roleplay goals. Try to maintain a military goverment while playing out the attributes of your current leader. Will give you hell enough. Especially if he is corrupt. Rolling a dice if the necessary research is replaced by a wished one of the private sector sucks enough.

[Gelatinous Cube]

I was being facetious Nedrear. [:'(]

But everyone knows that Women don't play Video Games. It's all a lie.