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Advice for new players
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:27 pm
by Aroddo
Pick the humans and just play the Twelve Races scenario.
Play a while and play a while longer.
[center]You will suck.[/center]
The chances are excellent that you'll tank your economy to the point of no return. Your people will hate you. Your neighbours will hate you. You won't be able to build structures due to constant riots or simply because you're out of money.
That's normal. And you'll learn best how to control your economy by ruining it thouroughly the first (few) time(s). The humans are awesome at fucking up their economy.
And don't come here complaining about it, because it's clearly
your fault.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 10:26 pm
by Flaviusx
The humans are frankly one of the weaker races in this game.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:00 pm
by Janster
Their negative happyness penalty is too big, it becomes impossible to play them, I picked the more warlike dudes, and they are doing hunkey-dorey.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:59 pm
by LarryP
OK, so now we know how to learn about regulating the economy. What would we choose to do the best, or the opposite of the sucky humans?
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 12:46 am
by Flaviusx
Lots of good alternatives. The QaQa, the Linken, that race that likes the icy moons (these guys can become trading monsters and make tons of cash) the Tree people (no bureaucracy allows them to make huge empires.) I've had great success with those. Note the variety of playstyles here, these range from economic, empire building, and warmongering.
Humans are trash. There's another race out there with the discord penalty and they are awful as well. (The 3 eyed bug race, whatever they are called.)
That penalty is a game killer. It needs to be rethought, or the positives need to made much much stronger. And the human +10% research benefit is badly diluted by the hits on psychic and especially hyperdrive research, so they go into the game in a huge hole. They really don't bring anything special to the table at all.
Homo Sapiens is Aramada 2526 on hard mode.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:40 am
by 06 Maestro
Is there a planet of sexy, green dancing women? I feel an urge to get this game to explore that possibility.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:42 am
by Warspite3
I would like to know this too but I guess you can have the green ones, I was hoping to find some tan colored ones in short skirts [:D]
ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
Is there a planet of sexy, green dancing women? I feel an urge to get this game to explore that possibility.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:06 am
by sabre1
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:31 am
by bssybeep
ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
Is there a planet of sexy, green dancing women? I feel an urge to get this game to explore that possibility.
lol, I was also looking for the race of "space babes" to play. Ended up with the warlike urg? (the big purple, multi eyed beasts). Much easier than the humans.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:52 am
by 06 Maestro
ORIGINAL: bssybeep
ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
Is there a planet of sexy, green dancing women? I feel an urge to get this game to explore that possibility.
lol, I was also looking for the race of "space babes" to play. Ended up with the warlike urg? (the big purple, multi eyed beasts). Much easier than the humans.
Oh well; the search continues. Never give up. [:)]
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:17 am
by Terl
ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
Is there a planet of sexy, green dancing women? I feel an urge to get this game to explore that possibility.
I believe Captain Kirk has that one [:'(][:D]
Downloading my copy now, by the way [8D]
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:43 am
by Aroddo
the key to keep unruly races pacified is to make living conditions good by choosing good planets in the first place and building stuff to improve habitability.
also don't let those planets overcrowd.
eventually you'll have to set taxes to low on some planets, so make sure that other planets generate positive revenue to make up for it.
That means that many planets won't be developed fully despite having lots of building slots free.
also, check your fleet composition. humans in particular have access to inexpensive ships with very low upkeep: the corvette iv. very effective in large numbers and it doesn't require expensive oribtal shipyards to build. fleet maintenance will be one of the largest drain to your economy.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 12:20 am
by Tom_Holsinger
I agree with Aroddo that financial management is critical. I'm on Turn 31 of my second try at the tutorial, and came very close to running out of money. My practice in MOO3 was to always have financial reserves equal to one turn's income, and that seems necessary for this game as well.
Bob, I recommend the following in this regard:
1) More detailed control over tax rates, both for the empire as a whole as well as each individual colony, with the empire-wide taxes having an optional override of those of each individual colony. I.e., colonies respond to the most recent tax rate set. If the most recent tax rate was set at the imperial level, the tax rates of all colonies use the imperial level. If the most recent tax rate set is at the colony level, that colony uses the local rate, and will keep it until the player changes either the rate for that colony, or the imperial rate.
2) A scrollable list of all colonies showing the current tax rates of each, with the ability to sort colonies by colony name, star name, population, current tax rate, and happiness.
3) The tutorial and manual should be revised to place much more emphasis on financial management.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:43 am
by Star Ranger
What we need is less unrest and more income. Even on Easy mode - Income is so hard to come by. This is obviously a "total war" carry over where money is always desperate. This needs to be changed to make this a playable game.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:49 am
by kafka
well, I'm playing ma first custom game now and I have to say that I really like the game, definetely the best on the strategic layer comparing it with the other 4x games I have played (GC2, SE5, MOO3, SOS). The strategic layer is kept simple but challenging (even on normal difficulty it is challengig to keep your economy running). The key to this is to not overexpand and choose wisely which systems to colonize and what struxctures to build on your colonies. What I really like about the game is the race specific approach as for the victory conditions. In any case, thats not a total war clone, as contrary to the ootb total war games the strategic gameplay does work and is challenging. On the tactical layer however, I think SOS is way better. Well, the game does need some improvement on the tactical layer and, maybe, as a future add-on the ship design feature. All in all I'm really enjoying the game. Thank you Nitronium.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:54 am
by kafka
What we need is less unrest and more income. Even on Easy mode - Income is so hard to come by. This is obviously a "total war" carry over where money is always desperate. This needs to be changed to make this a playable game.
well it is surely challenging to keep your economy running, I had problems too in the beginning, but in my current custom game, on normal difficulty level, I'm doing well now, and have no problems affording structures like asteroid minings. As I said in the post above, key to do economically well is not to overexpand and to wisely choose which planets in which order to colonize combining with what to research and what structures to build. It's definitely not a total war clone in the negative sense.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 4:58 pm
by Flaviusx
Trade like mad and look for systems with oort clouds and asteroids. I establish trade missions on high pop worlds with absolutely anybody who I don't plan on going to war with in the near future. 40-50 trade missions running each turn (completely possible in larger maps) will make ridiculous money. Pick one poor sap at a time to be the guy you go to war with; the empires you trade with on a large scale will never jump you in my experience, so you can concentrate your forces againt one empire at a time.
Even a poor world with comets and asteroids can make some serious cash. Don't be afraid to develop those poor worlds, the initial expense is staggering, yes (16k credits total or so to build both asteroids and comets on poor systems) but they can net 1k+ credits a turn once developed.
Not gonna lie, I'm mostly taking a pass on the tactical space combat portion of the game and autoresolve all my battles. I don't much care for the tactical combat in the game, and it slows down play time anyways on the larger maps I prefer to play with.
The good news is the autoresolve on this game works just fine and gives reasonable results. Better than in other games, in fact. (I've learned to be wary of the autoresolve on Sword of the Stars, for example.)
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:00 pm
by Tom_Holsinger
I agree with Flavius. Combat autoresolve works fine. I'm putting time into learning the rest of the game.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:06 pm
by Flaviusx
I should add that the strength of this game lies on the strategic end. It really scales up well and can handle very big games. The weakness of the tactical space combat engine is somewhat irrelevant to me and, arguably, part of the reason the game succeeds in the larger maps. Other games with a greater emphasis on tactical combat tend to bog down in larger maps. The amount of time spent on micromanaging these space battles (and designing ships as you tech up, for that matter) seriously slows things down at the larger level.
Armada 2526, by eschewing that flavor, allows you to focus on galactic conquest on a, well, galactic scale. I'm completely happy to delegate the space combat to my minions.
RE: Advice for new players
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:07 pm
by LarryP
ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Trade like mad and look for systems with oort clouds and asteroids. I establish trade missions on high pop worlds with absolutely anybody who I don't plan on going to war with in the near future. 40-50 trade missions running each turn (completely possible in larger maps) will make ridiculous money. Pick one poor sap at a time to be the guy you go to war with; the empires you trade with on a large scale will never jump you in my experience, so you can concentrate your forces againt one empire at a time.
Even a poor world with comets and asteroids can make some serious cash. Don't be afraid to develop those poor worlds, the initial expense is staggering, yes (16k credits total or so to build both asteroids and comets on poor systems) but they can net 1k+ credits a turn once developed.
Not gonna lie, I'm mostly taking a pass on the tactical space combat portion of the game and autoresolve all my battles. I don't much care for the tactical combat in the game, and it slows down play time anyways on the larger maps I prefer to play with.
The good news is the autoresolve on this game works just fine and gives reasonable results. Better than in other games, in fact. (I've learned to be wary of the autoresolve on Sword of the Stars, for example.)
Excellent advice! That's exactly how I play battles in all games that have autoresolve. Too time consuming for me too. I will concentrate on the trade routes more. Thanks a lot for this help. [&o]
