Anyone tried to start a game at full research?

[Larsenex]

Just wondering if anyone has played a game where there really was not too much research and how that game played out. For example was wondering if you set slider for the entire galaxy at tier 7 but everyone started out only with on planet and scarce habitable worlds available.

Hmm sounds like a game I gotta try...

[Jeeves]

Better play as a Wekkarus or Teekan if you do that. You'll be needing the money for bribes and warships.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Larsenex]

Oooo, So you have an the result is lots of war eh?

[Jeeves]

What I mean is that if you can't make money by technology trading, the only way to get it is by mining in other empires territory and selling the mines. That just isn't practical before the fifth year or later. So to defend your empire you need either tons of cash or super troops. Cash will get you troops but it is difficult to get and pay for maintaining troops without cash. By playing as a high income bonus empire you get the money, and can lower taxes increasing your troop recruitment rate.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Plant]

It's just the same gameplay, only with the factor of having to research technology taken out, and hence relatively less power differences between ships of different races. There's still different ai ship designs, and you can stil go ahead and research 1500 size ships and use them, but the personal impulse to do so is lessened in general, since you start off being able to design completely overpowered ships in fleets.

[paShadoWn]

Technology trading is an exploit. Same as trading planet info and scrapping freighters.
And the very point of distant worlds is a constant manual redesign so by taking it out you dilute the game.

Early game income comes from capping nearby indies and homeworlds.

[Larsenex]

What does Scrapping Freighters do? I have never thought I would need to do so.
What is the exploit such as it is for doing this?

[Canute0]

You don't pay to build private ships, but you are geting the scrap cash, when you scrap private ships.

[Plant]

Yeah, starting at tech 7 research takes a lot from the basic gameplay, but adds an interesting spin to certain strands, such as the race for wonders.

[Erik Rutins]

I've done this many times for testing, but I enjoy research too much to have this as a preferred setup. Starting one or a few empires out at max or near-max research and having others, including your own that need to catch up can be quite interesting though. One of the quick start options can give a similar experience, with the large galactic empire in the center of the galaxy while you play one of the outer rim factions.

[Plant]

I played that quick start too. I found out that the Galactic Empire has so much military and economic power that it could easily destroy all the other empires banded together.

[Erik Rutins]

Oh, it's winnable as an outer rim empire, it's just hard. [8D]

[scotten_usa]

I played the Galactic Empire game once. It was real fun, but.... when it was only me and the Galactic Bugs left, it became hard to fight the huge war.

I should probably automate more, eh?

[Canute0]

I just start a round to test it.
I made the Galaxy Expansion to Old, and give my empire Tech 7 (max).
But the problem i saw, the other AI empire still don't got latest tech, i still could sell techs to them. Pirates don't got latest tech either.

The only interesting thing was i could test out the Gravition High tech AE weapon i never research before.

[Starke]

On the empire generation setup screen you may have to manually set up the other empires and specify maximum tech for each of them. I'm not sure if that's the only way, I haven't tried doing this sort of thing before.