you also said several times that you didn't build morale buildings. if you did then you could have raised your tax rate and had less money problems. and you are also wrong about SO, it is a weaksauce super ability - even you didn't get it to work.

iztok -

I'm not a n00b!!!!! just because I don't play on suicidal doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about. if he is such a master, why are his scores so low compared to the top players?

If you had read more AARs you would know what I'm talking about. no one else plays like this. he did only win because he got lucky, if there had been more planets the other empires would have out colonized him and crushed him. thats what happened to me.

His scores are quite impressive when you consider the smaller maps he plays. And besides, since when is not 12th out of thousands not good? Jealous?

Anyway, what in hell gives you the right to question him? Where are your scores? What score could you get given the same settings in the Metaverse?

Low tax rate = higher approval = higher score.

It seems to me you are plain jealous, put up or shut up. In the same time frame as Wyndstar, you post some Metaverse games with higher scores, if you can, i'll eat my words.

If you can't, SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!!



What! Your intention here is to purely flame. All those same players, and more, are better than you. This is a ironic argument for you, since your score is essentially 0. I was just thinking that you are a immature brat with no idea.

Thanks for making my point for me!

Dammit, where is Evil & Wheel, this is one for them!

its a free country.

pwned.

Everyone - thanks for the feedback and support. Sounds like there is interest in me doing another one, so maybe I'll do that next week.

Kharzul - Man, did I kill your pet kitten accidentally? I don't know what got under your skin but this is the second thread you have tried to steal and turn into a flame war. I'm not going to get dragged into name calling if that is what you want. The players you listed are all very good, feel free to follow the advice they post. As for the size maps I play, I've explained my reasons before - so there is no point in providing my "excuses" again. Thanks for explaining the increased costs associated with lease buying. I was already aware of the tradeoff. I didn't mean to seem like I was "complaining" about money... but I did write what was on my mind at the time as part of my journal, and because it makes up part of my game analysis.

I'm sorry when you tried to use my strategy it didn't work for you. I have to adjust based on the conditions I find myself in. You will have to as well. I warned that it was an advanced strategy, and even gave advice on how to better practice and learn how to use it. At least, in my opinion it is advanced, feel free to disagree.

I am always open to dissenting opinions, a new perspective can often teach me something new. However, you seem to try and turn constructive conversations into a destructive flame war. This is a waste of people's time. If you try and do this again, I will start reporting your posts to Stardock, and let them take whatever action they deem appropriate.

Thanks for everyone's time. Now I need to decide what to play as next time...

Sorry, which country are you talking about thats free? You happen to be on the intertubes, where admins and moderators can freely express their inner draconian despot with impunity.

As long as you lose in an interesting way!

I dunno, the Iconians could get off to a good start if you found enough hostile environments nearby. Granted, the super ability is still kinda weak given that the Korath get the Toxic atmosphere tech as well, and the Yor get Barren colonization, but it still could provide a leg up, even with the crappy race abilities... it's really one of those abilities that gives a kick start to your empire in the beginning instead of throughout the game. You have to hope that the appropriate environments are plentiful!

Hi!

I wrote two. If you'd check, I actually wrote the first one ever here. Where are yours?


And scoring better makes them better players? If you'd have a true understanding of the game, you'd know that scoring good and playing good are two somewhat different things.

Other posters are right about you: you're just trolling. I don't intend to feed the troll. PLONK!

No R, Iztok

Hi!

That's the reason you lost. The type of gameplay you presented is HIGHLY DEPENDANT of the money you collect with selling tech. If you can't get another source, you can't sustain that insane amount of research, and this strategy collapses. But to push it at extreme, you should use Humans as Super Diplomats for it.

BTW I wonder how you managed to collect all that money from AIs. Im my games they rarely have more than a few hundred BCs in a treasury at any given time. Lots of minors?

BR, Iztok

Three minors. A few things.
- Trading very early often the AI still has lots of its starting cash sitting around, and they seem to start with 10k each on suicidal. I went for communications and diplo tech very quickly.
- I made sure to trade all the economy tech I had as soon as I got it to every AI, this helps them make more money.
- I don't necessarily trade to all the AIs in the same turn, and just risk that they might trade one or two techs with each other. If I talk with an AI that has under say 250bc, then I won't get a good price for what I sell anyway, so no trade for them. I just trade with all the AIs that have money. This will become micormanagement intensive, because then every turn I stop and check to see who I can trade with and how much money they have. I've seen the AI go from under 100bc to over 600bc in one turn, so this strategy actually works pretty well.
- I always only sell one tech at a time. Putting multiple techs for sale in one package lowers the money you get.

Hope that helps.



Depends on the number of factories you have, but yes, you can often get more research by never building labs later in the game. Funding your factories to 100% and then diverting 25% of that to research can often produce more than haveing a few specialized labs funded 50% for instance. And the reverse holds true, having many 100% funded labs diverting 25% of their (higher) production to social or military can be much better than a mix of labs and factories.

The biggest difference is money. You are probably used to only needing an economy than can afford most of your empire running at half capacity. When you first start playing with one of these strategies, the money hit will be shocking. That is why I think it is an advanced strategy.

The problem with either strategy is what you do early game. If you go all labs, you can lease or rush buy to make up for lost production. If you go all factories, you probably want to invade lots of worlds early to make up for the tech hole you fall into, or have many many colonies. By midgame, though, these strategies are unstoppable.



Yeah, I go with the bottom option for leases. Generally, I only lease when I can't afford a straight rush buy. It depends on the cash. In this game, I probably full rush bought about 25%, and leased the other 75% of what I rush bought. If you notice, the first lab I bought on altaria for instance was a straight rush buy. So were most of the rest of the labs and research centers I started with.

In this game I was desperate. I had no resources. I really over leased, hoping I could blitz and make up the economy later by having more worlds. It worked, but it was touch and go at times. Between December 22, 2226 and March 2227 was when I really won this, because I played aggressive with my temporary military advantage and ended up with 10 worlds - which I was able to do because I had my Super Ability shield up, and because I had jumped to a slight lead by using leasing.



Depends on the situation. Sorry, I'm not trying to dodge the question. In this game, my straight economy worlds had no factories, but they did have a starport. Funding the home colony 100% does build low level farms and banks/stock markets at a decent speed. I also rush bought a few key things to keep it up. But, my economy didn't really turn around till turn 100. A few factories early might have helped. My mix 50% facotry 50% bank worlds were up and running much quicker, but they also needed to sustain my empire. The starports did mean that my economy worlds lost out on one stockmarket, but then I was able to actually use the production created by the home colony (mostly on constructors) once the upgrades were finished.



Trying to. Thanks for the advice.

Good write up Wyndstar and an impressive score for such a small map.

I think the advice you are giving here is very solid. Not everything will apply on a gig map, but most of the ideas cross all map/size boundaries. I use the all factories approach on gig maps, and you are right that adjusting for the increased spending is the single most difficult thing with it. I'm not sure the all research approach would work on the really large maps...Simply because you need all the industrial might you can harness for a mega colony rush. Also I think they adjust the RPs necessary for a tech to be researched, so you wouldn't be able to plow the tech tree from a single planet, but you were far more effective with it on a small map than I would have thought possible. There is one more advantage to never going down the all research path and always being all industrial. You have no need to research any research tech at all, and can simply cut them from your goals list.

I am really curious about one thing though...I have had almost no success getting the AI to agree to research treaties no matter what I offer. What were you offering the AI for these treaties? I'm hoping it's something that will work on large maps.

Yeah I've never thought trade was really worth it in short games either, other than the first level for the econ capital and diplomacy bonus. On bigger maps I'll usually have one planet that I nominate as the trade planet, I'll usually put it next to my research world so it benefits from the econ starbases I have around there anyway and make it produce nothing but traders. Trade though, is actually more useful as a diplomacy tool than the money you get from it. You can often get ++ in the relations screen just from trading alone.

I'm curious as to why you got all the research treaties from the AIs but didn't get any of the economic ones. Surely economic treaties would have solved a lot of the economy problems you were having...

Also another random thing I've found with trading tech is that you can often get the AI to give up a massive amount of their stuff if you trade them a planet, one really good tactic is to select a planet in the middle of your empire and then remove all the population from it, then trade it for one of the civilizations on the other side of the map and it will flip back to you within a few turns anyway.

I like the idea of giving away a planet like that. I wonder, though, whether it would be possible to use the tactic more offensively. Load the planet up with extremely high-maintenance buildings and then offer it as a trojan horse to your opponent. When it comes back to you, just give it away again to someone else. Granted, the opponent would benefit from the output of those buildings, but if it destroys their economy at the same time, that might be a reasonable tradeoff.

Hi Wyndstar, thanks for your great post, it's always a pleasure to get insight into the strategies of the pros, gives me pointers how to improve my own game.
I have two questions concerning the giving-planet-flipping-back:
1) Doesn't it flip of the AI when you do that (alarming influence and such)?

2) Why do you remove the population before giving away the planet? Is it easier to flip an almost uninhabited planet or just to not give the AI additional tax payers?

I use this tactic every now and then, when I have a suitable planet for it. I used to do it with my second planet in my home system, but since DA they have just to much terraformable tiles and are just too good to give away...