If you could give 10 tips to new players, what would it be?

[Icemania]

There are many approaches but to help with the very early game the sequence I use on most starts is:

1. Load save file with Standard Ship/Base designs (to avoid repetition and so you can continuously improve your designs). I also keep ship design save files for Size 230/Energy Collector and another for Size 300 (with a little space ready to add Warp). After that I don't mind upgrading the designs manually.

2. Build a Large Energy Research Station. I build this before anything else to get Energy Research going ASAP. Some integrate this with their starports but they take time to build. If you want to optimise build a small one then upgrade. My initial Energy research order is Energy Collection (saves fuel and does not take long), Space Construction, Enhanced Construction, Warp Bubble then Hyperdrive.

3. Build a Small Weapons Research Station. To invade independents and homeworlds as quickly as possible my initial research order is Improved Assault Tactics, Armor Plating then Armoured Ground Assault. After that focus on your favourite weapon e.g. I like Torpedoes so focus until I have Plasma Torpedoes.

4. Build a Small HighTech Research Station. As exploration and invasion should be your primary focus start with Storage Systems and Transport Systems. Medical Systems and Entertainment Systems are also cheap and when built on ports/bases benefit your colonies. After that Colonisation then technologies associated with Wonders.

5. Build a Small Spaceport and upgrade to Medium.

6. Build 2 Super Speedy Explorers. You can custom design Explorers at the start of the game with a speed above 50 which helps get your home system explored fairly quickly.

7. Build 3 Construction Ships to build Bases in your home system, start with nearby locations, and I prefer a Caslon source first if possible.

8. Upgrade to a Large Space Port.

9. Once you start Warp Bubble research build 2 military ships (since Giant Kaltors come when Warp Bubble is finished) and build 10 more Explorers (Size 300 ready for Warp Bubble). Once Warp Bubble is available upgrade and then they are sent for the first round of scouting nearby systems. Retrofit your other ships.

10. Then continue to build more Explorers and Construction ships. Focus on bases for the strategic resources you don't have.

After that, well, there are plenty of tips around the forum and make sure you read the older threads as well.

[Shark7]

My 10 tips:

1. Do not expand too quickly. Pace yourself, every colony requires resources now so its easy to over-tax your economy.

2. Do not build up a massive fleet too early. Maintenance costs can become a problem.

3. When colonizing new worlds, think strategically...do not get the closest colony because it is closest. Check your map, if a potential colony is inside your borders, you can get it later...try to get the ones that will expand your borders and put more potential colonies inside your borders first...you can then colonized the worlds inside your borders at your leisure.

4. Do not recruit too many troops at first...troops cost money.

5. Construction research should be your #1 priority until you can build ships of 500-600 size.

6. Research accelerated construction and build the Bakuras High Speed Shipyard on your capital if possible. Get it before the other races get it as there can be only 1 in the galaxy.

7. Build at least 12 constructors and get the mines built. Resources are the economy.

8. Do not build a star port on every planet, or in every system for that matter. You can get by with a simple station with Medical and Recreation components in orbit for the bonuses (and keep these small and cheap).

9. Research Long Range Scanners and put them on star ports and monitoring stations. It's easier to deal with pirates when you can see the empty space around your colonies.

10. Be nice...at first. During the building phase the last thing you want is to be constantly at war. Build up your empire so it is strong and stable, then go on your galaxy conquering rampage. [;)]

[Cmiller]

Tips if you are in a Prewarp setting:

1.) Always build a large spaceport in the beginning. Large spaceports give 100k research points.

2.) Build one of each research station after building large spaceport. Depending on your research potential, you may want to build a second energy station too, to get the hyperdrives faster.

3.) Build absolutely no ships in the beginning until you research hyperdrives, and I mean the Gerax hyperdrives not the warp bubble. The only ships that you want to build would be 2 exploration ships to reach the temples and explore the rest of your star system, BUT THAT'S IT!

5.) Set low taxes. During the Prewarp age, money is not important. You want you population to be as high as can be when getting out. More population means higher cashflow.

4.) Get the Rusen HighTech Wonder as fast as possible. Despite the 20,000 annual cost, it actually increases your income by almost double! The reason why is the 40% development bonus. And the 50% boost to research is also not bad.

5.) Steal the galaxy maps from pirates you meet. Its good to have the early mapping when you set your explorers out.

6.) Once you've research hypdrives, collect as many temple rewards as you can. The goodies they give can really help in getting you a decent boost.

7.) Depending on what race you are and your spying ability, try and steal some research from other empires. This early tech is good. And if possible form good relations early on (this may not work out depending on what aggression levels you set up), so you can trade and buy techs from other empires.

8.) Build one strong fleet of 10-20 destroyer ships. (maybe 2 depending on your economy) Use these to destroy pirate bases and to secure your empire.

9.) Do not colonize too many planets early on until you've destroyed the surrounding pirates. Or at least until you can defend yourself. Not being able to defend these colonies against pirates can be pita since they will get raided 100% of the time.

10.) This may not be for everybody, but it works fine for me. Don't research colonization technology yourself. Instead either steal it from someone through spying, or trade it through diplomacy. It can take a long time to get it, and usually the AI always go for colonization too early in the game (at least what I've noticed).

~Cmiller

[Icemania]

Lots of good tips here but to spice it up a little I would invite constructive comments on the above tips (including my tips of course).

ORIGINAL: mstWeal
10) Build a space port at EVERY colony. It helps colony development, acts as a hub for your mining ships and freighers and provides construction yards to the private sector. But in the beginning, only use small space ports (minimalistic I should say) only.

For new colonies I would advise bases at least in the early game when resources are limited. Refer Spaceport Spammers Anonymous.

ORIGINAL: Cmiller
Tips if you are in a Prewarp setting:
1.) Always build a large spaceport in the beginning. Large spaceports give 100k research points.
2.) Build one of each research station after building large spaceport. Depending on your research potential, you may want to build a second energy station too, to get the hyperdrives faster.

I would advise building an Energy Research Station first. Large Spaceports take a while to build and the delta is time when your research could already be moving. It's also prudent to build a small spaceport and upgrade so that other ships can be built in parallel. Also redesign Weapons and HighTech Research Stations to be smaller, so they don't take away from Energy Research, then upgrade them later to balance research speeds as you prefer.

ORIGINAL: Cmiller
3.) Build absolutely no ships in the beginning until you research hyperdrives, and I mean the Gerax hyperdrives not the warp bubble. The only ships that you want to build would be 2 exploration ships to reach the temples and explore the rest of your star system, BUT THAT'S IT!
4.) Set low taxes. During the Prewarp age, money is not important. You want your population to be as high as can be when getting out. More population means higher cashflow.

In my current game (Quameno on Expensive Research) in that 5 years of waiting you are missing out on having 17 mining bases (including sources for all Strategic resources and plenty of additional stock to use for building) and 20 exploration ships that have already fully explored the 16 closest systems, ready for very quick retrofits for longer distances using Gerax. I also have 8 Construction ships ready to build more.

I fully agree set low taxes. You can buy empire contacts from Pirates, and sell technology which often can be enough to fund your entire Empire early game i.e. both to fund population growth from low taxes and all those ships and bases.

That said the build no ships approach can be useful with a Harsh homeworld start. If you really want some fun ... do nothing well after Gerax on Extreme Difficulty e.g. until you hit the 15 year mark. Not recommended for new players though.

[necaradan666]

Cancel your future plans, weddings, birthdays, other social engagements. Stock up on Mountain Dew and Oreos *before* you install...

There's no reason for a noob to start redesigning ships, there's alot of other gameplay to learn before you need to even think about things like that, and even if you do how are you going to know the best way without a bit of experience in regards to different abilities and components.

my first tip would be watch the tutorials until you know the interface by heart, then just play for a while.

Personally I think the automation makes the game harder to control but I only turned it off after I had watched the AI play a few games.

[starmonkey]

Thanks to Arcatus, w1p, kheben, mstWeal, thebigpieman, Icemania, Shark7 and Cmiller for a wealth of advice for a new player!

[elfman01]

As a newbie, this thread is awesome. I do have a couple of questions if people are still keeping tabs on this thread:

I have played many 4x games since Civilization (I), and MOO (I), and some of my favorites include: Civ 5, MoO 2, Pax Imperium, HoMM 2, & Eve Online (ok, not a 4x, but it's still epic). I have no idea how I missed Distant Worlds, but I am diving into the details and have started a couple learning games to get a grasp on mechanics.

Through all my reading, I have an initial 'plan' on my first 'real' game, and a couple questions based upon my first learning games... (Note: I have only played into mid-game.)


Questions:
1. How do I see how my EMPIRE is on the resource utilization scale. I can view Cargo being hauled for A space station, but it there a screen to show what is needed / being used for my Empire?
2. What is the significance / difference between shields and armor? Is there a reason NOT to go full shields (they regenerate....)
3. Is there a way to increase my Empire's research total capacity? My understanding currently is that the research stations only change the mix of my research.
4. What does "Crash Research" actually DO?
5. It appears that an intermediate step to turn off automation would indicate that I may want to explicitly control: Tech research, Ship Design, exploration targets (initially), constructors, Colony ships, Fleets & tax rates. Am I leaving off anything important?
6. My second trial game had no Chromium (and another element for "plasma torpedoes")... (30-40% of the galaxy explored) is this normal?
7. Can I design a 'smaller + weaker' colony ship to accelerate early growth?

Couple of observations, so far:
1. The AI is a welcome addition... although it does tend to make learning details more challenging. I learned a lot by turning everything off, and accepting my defeat in the interest of learning more.
2. Wonders are still a mystery.
3. Answering basic resource supply questions is non-intuitive. (how much XXX do I have is not an easy answer, where is XXX is easier.)


My general style of play is to: quick expand, turtle & tech, march on to victory. Of course, things always get in the way of 'the plan'.

It appears that a good source of plan would be to:
-Not initially build small starports on every colony.
-Upgrade my homeworld starport to large ASAP.
-Build more explorers than I think I need... especially when I get ready to automate.
-Focus on only one 'primary' branch of weaponry.

any other advice?

[Bingeling]

I can try

1: There is no really good overview. Fuel is used of course. Strategic resources are only used on ship/base builds and retrofits, but the civilians books things too so you do no have total control. You can keep an eye on stores in the expansion planner, usually there are only a few that you won't have "a lot of" after a while.

2: Armor regenerate too once you get repair modules, but that takes a while. Space monsters ignore shields, as do rail guns and some other stuff. Armor also adds a buffer once the shield runs out, which may allow the shield to escape.

3: You increase the potential by having research bases at bonus locations, and by having scientists with bonuses. The best location (location+scientist) for each research area counts.

4: Crash research allows you to burn cash to research a tech quicker. I have never paid too much attention to it

5: Any automation setting can work, your set seems nice.

6: Are you sure there were "no" chromium? Not just "no source you can build on"? To get the best view of where a specific research is, use the galaxy map and the known resources choice. That highlights all sources you know of. This may lead to objectives in war...

7: I doubt there is much to gain on colony ship. You can drop an engine or something silly, but the basic answer is "no".

As for the observations:

"How much XXX do I have" is seen in the expansion planner. This also shows you how many sources you got, and through a choice the lower list can show the exact sources (mines). It would be nice with a brilliant tool to view your resource stores, but there is none. Shadows has added some help, though.

[CyclopsSlayer]

1&6. The Resources section of the Expansion Planner will show you your Number of Sources, Demand, Stockpile, Shipping. Both local and galaxy wide. Looking at sources by galaxy demand will show you all available mineral sites, use the drop down on the right side to specify the mineral(s) you may be short on.
Really need a tool to see WHERE the resource sources, stocks, demands are at without having to manually look at everything.

7. I concur with Bingeling. If you have active Pirates you might even want to beef up the Colony a little with added Hab Modules to resist boarding, CounterMeasures and/or Damage Control/Repair to reduce damages while landing, a few extra engines to be exposed to damage for less time. Not too much beefing up needed or you'll end up with a Colonization Dreadnought instead of a cheap ship. [:)]
Regardless, if you see a 'failed to colonize' message pause go look and see why. You can often force the landing despite there there being a ship or monster on the screen but too far away to actually interfere, yet still forcing the AI to flee.

[elfman01]

I did indeed have chromium in my trial run game Empire territory... others grabbed it before I could mine the resource. I also had the other resource I thought I didn't posses... apparently I didn't click on the correct system.

[btd64]

One thing I do,(due to the Resource shortages) develop new colonies slowly. Only what you can defend. 1 or 2 at a time. The resource shortages will not be as severe and you will still develope quite nicely.
Cheers