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Post by kaistern on Jan 7, 2015 5:09:48 GMT -5
Not sure if I have a really good start/ starting strategy or if I just made a suicidal mistake.
Brown-nosing:
I just recently started playing star traders 4x, and I must say I love it. I am a veteran 4x player and the faction/politics aspect is very fresh for this genre.
History:
I played through the tutorial map twice (didn't realise the map it's self was a tutorial so when I went to make my first "real" game I choose it... and won too eaily, obviously, even on averege diff). Anyhow so next I choose Rinze and started playing it. Started in the bottom left corner and immediatly dropped colony ships and sent my scout and cruisers off to scout. One of my cruisers headed straight east and a couple turns later ran smack into a Xeno fleet (1 mass/2 torpedo) which it destroyed and then found the alien home worlds in the very south east corner of the map. At this point I redirected my other cruiser (which had orignally headed north) back to my home area to resupply/repair (the damage it starts the game with) while my other cruiser started playing pop the alien colony ships. 2 Colony ships got past my blockade and settled the 2 nearest worlds to their home world but then I managed to settle the next 5 closest planets in a semi cirlce arount the xeno worlds and my 2 cruisers and scout are maintainning a effective blockade.
Current empire: (Cadar/Rychart/De Valtos)
Turn:47
Colonies: 8
Population: 15/23
Quality: 30/131
Mineral: 13/97
Factory: 25
Avg Morale: 10
Spice: 15/15
Defence: 0/36
Ships: 3
Ship $: 36/33
Money: 4k
Income: 365
Economy: 613
Colony $: 212/265
Maint Rate: 83%
Busy/Total CP: 13/12
Trade: 4
Research: 20
Spy: 12 (One trade route currently, Rychart-De Valtos... attempting to get more)
At this point my goal is to spread further north and northeast (Rinze has 30 worlds, I own 8 they own 4, 18 left to nab) as I prefer early expansion. Also my blockade seems like it could use more ship, in my last game I used a fleet of high durability fighters with a carrier as my main fleet but I am WAY to early game for that, however a few strike fighters would definatly be welcome. My building priority is mines, with habs, factories and spice as needed. I am 4 turns from unlocking hab 2 and after that I will go after exchange so that I can drop them in every colony. I am also trying to restrict my colonizing effort to keep balance between the factions (I read somewhere that that was important, though that is hard since the Cadar homeworld can pump them out every 4 turns, much faster then any other faction can).
So am I being suicidal, forming a blockage around the aliens? Is the Rest of my empire/strategy sound? |
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Post by khamya9 on Jan 7, 2015 12:27:47 GMT -5
If there's only one enemy on your map you're not suicidal you're winning. I say build a few strike fighters and wolf cruisers if you get them.
If you can park 3 warships with barrage at each of their worlds you've won. Barrage is the only attack that needs zero fuel, and 3:1 ypou can kill anything they launch. Then take your time building world killers to wipe them out.
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Post by fallen on Jan 7, 2015 21:51:46 GMT -5
kaistern - great post and welcome to the forum! You've got a good start and a good headstart on the alien. Keep us posted if you can hold it 
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Post by thehowler on Jan 7, 2015 22:07:13 GMT -5
Man not sure what difficulty you are playing but 8 worlds by turn 47? Man that's crazy fast, how does your fledgling economy make that work? For me personally I don't usually even expand until my prime world's are pumping out as much income as possible. I lIke to have a large reserve of cash too (50k+). But I usually play on at the very least hard, most of the time even higher difficulty. Politics and alien activity also make my strategy flucuate, so it's not always the same but if I have 6 worlds by turn 100 it's usually fast paced game for me. I also always build in 3s, one for each faction everytime I build.
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Post by fallen on Jan 7, 2015 22:23:01 GMT -5
thehowler - wow, interesting strategy. I build 3 Colony Ships as soon as I possibly can. I like to have at least 6 worlds going, and then wait a bit to double to 12.
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AA
Templar
Torps away!
Posts: 1,382 
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Post by AA on Jan 7, 2015 22:59:16 GMT -5
I do a much slower version of what thehowler does. 6 colonies by turn 150 is fast |
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Post by Cory Trese on Jan 7, 2015 23:07:23 GMT -5
Sounds like a very good start.
I expand rapidly on higher difficulties -- I probably don't start to run a surplus of credits until turn 500 or so.
However, by turn 1500 I usually have 1m+ credits banked.
The key to early expansion is controlling maintenance costs.
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Post by thehowler on Jan 8, 2015 0:15:30 GMT -5
fallen yea well i usually run thulun, cadar and javat, and just sit on the primes. Make a smalol defense fleet, and sit back. I don't really explore much early, and just play the isolation tactic. It's only backfired once to where I was overwhelmed by aliens and didn't have enough production to to defend. But otherwise I focus on trade points and research points with cedar and thulun prime,and javat goes research and mad mines. The research is mainly politics and construction. Don't usually do anything defense or offense wise till after turn 100 and I begin my next planets. But after turn 100 I pump out 3 colonies every 20-40 turns depending on availability and the map.
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Post by khamya9 on Jan 8, 2015 12:17:44 GMT -5
Heh, I just wing it. Sometimes I expand fast sometimes really slow. Sometimes I'm cautious and grab the nearest worlds, so etimes I leap to max range then max range from that and fill in the gaps later. Depends on my luck with early politics and population.
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Post by khamya9 on Jan 8, 2015 12:19:49 GMT -5
Sounds like a very good start. I expand rapidly on higher difficulties -- I probably don't start to run a surplus of credits until turn 500 or so. However, by turn 1500 I usually have 1m+ credits banked. The key to early expansion is controlling maintenance costs. Short of hacking, how is that possible? If you aren't at positive credits you can't build ships (or upgrades)? You have to have surplus credits or all you can do is click "end turn" and move your starter ships around, and pray for a lucky random political event. |
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Post by fallen on Jan 8, 2015 12:24:02 GMT -5
khamya9 - "surplus of credits" simply means "piles of money in the bank." We're talking about running "close to the line" where you are spending most of the credits you made every turn.
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Post by khamya9 on Jan 8, 2015 15:57:04 GMT -5
khamya9 - "surplus of credits" simply means "piles of money in the bank." We're talking about running "close to the line" where you are spending most of the credits you made every turn. Aaah, gotcha. I thought you might be testing deficit spending. |
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Post by Brutus Aurelius on Jan 8, 2015 20:08:46 GMT -5
I believe the Laws of Shalun prevent deficit spending by the Imperial government.
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Post by kaistern on Jan 9, 2015 5:54:38 GMT -5
Well by turn 100 i had 20 colonies and the aliens never managed to break the blockade.... I decided to call it at that point as it was obvious that i could wipe them out at any point and probably could have done so for a long time. As soon as my pay check hit i am buying elite and i will be starting a hard game at that point.
I understand that a lot if yall dont believe in early expansion an frankly i dont understand why. No offence intended i really justdont know why you say that. As far as i can tell the more colonies you have the better your chances are as every colony adds more money, cp, ep, and tp to your empire. Even a crappy 2 quality world helps a little.
Mind you my entire empire is founded on mines. I do want as much trade as possible mind you, however if all trade ceased my empire would still be in the clear. I like mines :-D
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Post by thehowler on Jan 9, 2015 8:57:50 GMT -5
Well by turn 100 i had 20 colonies and the aliens never managed to break the blockade.... I decided to call it at that point as it was obvious that i could wipe them out at any point and probably could have done so for a long time. As soon as my pay check hit i am buying elite and i will be starting a hard game at that point. I understand that a lot if yall dont believe in early expansion an frankly i dont understand why. No offence intended i really justdont know why you say that. As far as i can tell the more colonies you have the better your chances are as every colony adds more money, cp, ep, and tp to your empire. Even a crappy 2 quality world helps a little. Mind you my entire empire is founded on mines. I do want as much trade as possible mind you, however if all trade ceased my empire would still be in the clear. I like mines :-D There are many viable strategies to play 4x, just like all the TB games, that's what draws me to them. But the reason I always try to save money and just go slow is because early on one trade embargo/war or a solar war could bankrupt you. I've had one too many empires collapse because I expanded to fast and had a bad string of bad politics. My current game on crazy, I'm nearly turn 700 with 15 colonies. A fleet of 20 ships (with 4 cadar factory worlds ready to pump more out quickly as needed), and a treasury of just under 500k. I only have the bottom right of the map explored and just have the fringe alien planets on my map. On a bad day my empire brings in 300+ a turn. Average morale is 10. |
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