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Post by kaistern on Jan 10, 2015 3:22:15 GMT -5
I bought elite today (BTW good job on offering a free version to lure people in... i never would have looked at the game twice if it hadn't been free). I started a Hard game on Medium Rinze with 1 enemy(the really long map where you start in the middle, I turned it down to 1 enemy because I wasn't sure how hard it would be going to a medium map, up a difficulty and an extra enemy all at the same time). I have been playing for 150 turns and here is my current empire.
Rinze 32x128 (53 worlds); Hard; 1 enemy (Nyktos Xeno); Javat/Thulun/Cadar (I feel these three fit my stategy best)
Colonies 20
Population 76/90
Quality 136/289
Mineral 40/248
Factory 74
Avg Morale 8
Spice 40/76
Defence 21/ 167
Ships 9 (2 defenders, 1 Explorer, 2 Strike fighters, 4 Viper Fighters)<Viper fighter is the cheapest fighter you can make with all points thrown in durability, guns and repair, it seems to be an effective design in mass and is actually cheaper then the strike fighter>
Ship $ 221/232
Treasury 964
Income 613
Economy 2469
Colony $ 1635/1605
Maint Rate 101% (I dont understand this value... any help on what it means?)
Busy/Total C/P 21/53
Trade 29
Research 63
Spy 30
History:
At the start of this game I started in the exact middle of the map. I settled and sent out my explorers to the east and west. I discovered the alien race to the west a ways behind a astroid belt that ran north-south through the entire map except for 3 ways through one to the middle, one to the south, and one to the north. I decided that this was going to be my battle line so I quickly build colony ships and expanded in that direction to where there were 2 planets the seemed to guard this side of the astroids and provided good bases for resupply for my fleet. I moved my defenders there and built 2 strike fighters, assigning the defenders to the center gap and one fighter to each of the other two.
After that I kept expanding my empire, alway building always expanding. Ran into some bad luck at turn 75 when a trade war started and still continues on today. This hurt my enconomy, however my mines have carried me through and I never once dipped into the negitives. Around turn 130 the Xeno finally attacked my defences beginning with a probe at the northern gap, 2 mass driver and 2 torpedo ships. I brought one of the Defenders up to help the fighter fighter them off and together they destroyed the 2 mass driver ships before more xeno attacked the middle gap with another group of 4 ships. I rushed the defender back down the help the other defender while leaving the fighter on his own to deal with the torpedo ships. I also ordered the other fighter to leave the south gap and come north, though he did not reach there in time. The fight at the gap was fierce as the xeno keep throwing ships in it seemed and eventually (a couple turns) I was forced to call a retreat as the damage to the defenders grew to high. As the defenders fell back having destroyed most of the mass driver ships the torpedo ships from the middle gap circle around and attacked my fighter in the north from behind. Suddenly faced with 6 torpedo ships attacking him he also retreated to the resupply planet I had settled so long ago. Luckily the Xeno seemed content with taking the gap and stoped their assault there. Seeing that my fleet was sorely lacking I changed tech directions and unlocked up to fighter 3 and cruisers, and constructed 4 Viper fighters (with more on order).
Plan:
At this point I plan to continue building my fleet and eventually take back the gap. I have colonized every world between the start and the gap, however there are more then 18 worlds east of me that I plan to focus on next. At that point I should have suffecient economy to drive the enemy back to the void.
Anyone seeing any flaws in my empire/stategy? Ways to improve?
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Post by kaistern on Jan 10, 2015 5:12:34 GMT -5
Ok I have made it to turn 200 for the first time... and I almost didn't notice lol kinda got entranced.
On turn 160 the Xeno attacked my fleet while it was completeing repairs. That was a mistake. My new and improved Vipers proved to be the difference and I pushed them back to the gap and burned my way through 12-14 of the xeno ships. Unforchanatly in the process I discovered 2 world to the north of my defences that I had not know existed at all, and one of them had already been infested. I put 2 Vipers guarding it, while the rest took up positions defending the gap.
Around turn 175 I finally managed to get rid of the Trade Ban and then later I successfully negotiated 2 trade alliances though now one has deteriorated back to a trade route.
As of turn 200, I have 26 Colonies, income of 1031/turn. Avg Morale has fallen to 7 due to some trouble cases who were growing faster then I could build habs for them. My Maint Rate is Up to 107% which I doubt is a good thing but I still don't know what it means lol. My fleet has 10 ships, still lead by the 2 defenders, and comprising of 2 strike fighters, 5 Viper fighters (guess that was all I ordered lol) and one explorer out there somewhere exploring wormholes or something.
All in all I think I have a better then fighting chance against the Xeno this time though I still dont know how many worlds they have or what they strengths are. And I still have yet to face one of these dreaded "Planet Killers"
P.S. What do the Xeno's names have to do with things? I do like the different looking ships they are using this time, and they seem to be much faster then before. Is there anymore to it?
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Post by kaistern on Jan 10, 2015 5:54:55 GMT -5
Turn 224 I had a trade embargo replace a military alliance, and I watch my income drop from 1.2k/turn to -100/turn. And at the same time I was told that Xeno activity was on the rise. Luckily I was able to get rid of the embargo 3 turns later and my income is up to 1.4, right as another Xeno invasion begins... Really makes me appreaciate my Mines lol, and helps me realise how much my empire depends on trade  |
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Post by kaistern on Jan 10, 2015 7:45:09 GMT -5
Turn 242: Solar war... just what I need on top of the unreleanting xeno hoard is a solar war. And I am at least 20 turns from the tech to kill it. My income once again went from 1.3 to -600, and this time I don't have any mines that I started building 4 turns ago to bring me out of debt while i work on a solution.
On the plus side my fleet is actually doing a good job of keeping the aliens at bay, but to be fair I now have 15 Vipers, 2 Strikes, and the 2 Defenders. On the down side the Xenos seem to not care how many they lose (maybe it has something to do with the fact that the more they lose the more powerful they become? idk) I am currently facing Rating 3 and occasionally a Rating 4 world killer. I had to evacutate a planet a couple of times when a world killer ran past all of my ships but so far it hasn't been to bad.
I also have 12 colony ships in route to settle the last of the planets that are behind me. 12 at once seems a little extreme especially with the solar war, however I started them off a while back before it, so I guess I'll just deal with it. If nothing else it will help my income a tiny bit.
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Post by thehowler on Jan 10, 2015 9:46:57 GMT -5
Turn 242: Solar war... just what I need on top of the unreleanting xeno hoard is a solar war. And I am at least 20 turns from the tech to kill it. My income once again went from 1.3 to -600, and this time I don't have any mines that I started building 4 turns ago to bring me out of debt while i work on a solution. On the plus side my fleet is actually doing a good job of keeping the aliens at bay, but to be fair I now have 15 Vipers, 2 Strikes, and the 2 Defenders. On the down side the Xenos seem to not care how many they lose (maybe it has something to do with the fact that the more they lose the more powerful they become? idk) I am currently facing Rating 3 and occasionally a Rating 4 world killer. I had to evacutate a planet a couple of times when a world killer ran past all of my ships but so far it hasn't been to bad. I also have 12 colony ships in route to settle the last of the planets that are behind me. 12 at once seems a little extreme especially with the solar war, however I started them off a while back before it, so I guess I'll just deal with it. If nothing else it will help my income a tiny bit. It sounds to me like your income is just too small for the amount of planets you are settling. If there was one or two more xenos I feel you would be hard pressed to survive. Do you specialize your planets? Like cadar planets go heavy factory to pump out ships and such at low turn rates? Javat going all mining as much as it can? And thulun just doing whatever depending on the situation? These are the same 3 factions I use. And like in my previous post, turn 700. Your maintenence is over 100% which means your paying a higher rate to keep your empire moving. My maintenence is 85% (hasn't been over 90% once this game) or so with an average morale of 10, which means I'm paying a much lower rate to keep the empire rolling. You say mines are saving you, but I feel with the amount of planets you have your income should be much much higher. Morale average is low as well, a big factor in the amount of money coming in. Also 15 viper fighters? They aren't getting outdated yet? I am never able to keep that many of one class around before theY are outmatched by the comp. This game, from a military viewpoint, is about constantly upgrading. Don't get me wrong, you seem to be doing just fine, but my point is, if there were one or 2 more xenos coming at you, (in my opinion) your resources would be spread too thin. your income (less than 1000 in the treasury after turn 100 is just low) just doesn't seem to be high enough to match what would be constant xenos attacks. But maybe I just play way too conservativly because I've been destroyed so much in this game. Oh btw, welcome to the addiction that is Trese Brothers games lol. I own 5/6 of the elite versions they currently offer! |
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Post by fallen on Jan 10, 2015 12:22:50 GMT -5
Turn 242: Solar war... just what I need on top of the unreleanting xeno hoard is a solar war. And I am at least 20 turns from the tech to kill it. My income once again went from 1.3 to -600, and this time I don't have any mines that I started building 4 turns ago to bring me out of debt while i work on a solution. On the plus side my fleet is actually doing a good job of keeping the aliens at bay, but to be fair I now have 15 Vipers, 2 Strikes, and the 2 Defenders. On the down side the Xenos seem to not care how many they lose (maybe it has something to do with the fact that the more they lose the more powerful they become? idk) I am currently facing Rating 3 and occasionally a Rating 4 world killer. I had to evacutate a planet a couple of times when a world killer ran past all of my ships but so far it hasn't been to bad. I also have 12 colony ships in route to settle the last of the planets that are behind me. 12 at once seems a little extreme especially with the solar war, however I started them off a while back before it, so I guess I'll just deal with it. If nothing else it will help my income a tiny bit. Great report of an empire hardset on desperate times. It sounds like if you can survive the Faction squabbling (20 turns ... that's a long wait!) and the assault of the alien relying on the experienced fleet you have in the field, you'll have grown your empire and probably come out the far side kicking even harder. Have Faith Templar. Fight with Fury. Death before dishonor! Those are going to be a painful 30 turns, but play them well! |
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Post by Brutus Aurelius on Jan 10, 2015 23:12:33 GMT -5
Death to the Xeno!
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Post by kaistern on Jan 11, 2015 0:09:00 GMT -5
Turn 247: Managed to negotiate a trade route established last turn and now I am in the green again. It's only 250/turn but I can work with that. I still have a bit of cash stockpiled from before the trade embargo so I was able to purchase a trade treaty and hopefully in 4 turns that will be successfully and upgrade it to a trade alliance. In the mean time I am still working on researching faction 3 and then faction 4 which will allow me to dissolve the trade war. On the war front the enemy is still trickling through however the Viper Squadron has been holding them back with no difficulty. The first of the colony ships has sent down and the rest will soon, I am not looking forward to baby sitting them with no cash but I will manage. @the howler: I agree that my income is too small to be dropping new colonies however since colony ships cost 50/turn and the entire colony fleet costs me 600/turn I can not afford not to drop them. I also agree that if I was facing more enemies my strategy would have to change. I have been trying to specialize my planets, for example all of the worlds I settled near the front lines are Cadar/Thulun and focus production. Javat has been my problem child though. Every world of their's has been a pain in my ass lol. They are slow to build anything which makes it had to do anything but try and play catch up with their population. How ever when I can I am dropping mines there to take advantage of their increase income from mines. My understand I need to bring down my maintenence cost are too high but why? Is it because of my happiness? I am working on increasing my income I am only using 87/335 mineral and expanding on that would help a lot, I think. As to the fighters, they remain really effective. 4 of them can take out a rating 3 mass driver ship a turn. And with numbers I can safely rotate them in and out of combat to keep the damage to any ship low. As to having 15 of them, just my front line planets can put out 6 every 2-3 turns and that's just using 6 of my now 26+ planets. I bought them in groups of 5 though because I am OCD about numbers like that  I can never leave the TV at volume 14 I have to bump it up that one more to a 15 or it drives me crazy. idk why. You do make a point though about me not being experienced, so far this is only my 4th game and It is only against 1 enemy. But honestly I can only see the Viper design as being more effective the more enemies you face. With it's high durability and cheap costs I can make a lot of them, where as with a more advanced ship I would not be able to make very many. All that being said I have never faced xeno above rating 3 before so for all I know at some soon rating their weapons may become totally useless. Hopefully at that point I will once again be flush with money and can use said money to finance the war machine I have from my front-line planets THANKS FOR THE POINTERS AND THE WELCOME!!! (I greatly look forward to more criticizing/helpful hints!) fallen: Thanks! Now that I am in the green again and have a plan to keep building my income despite the war I hope it won't be to painful. Death before dishonor! Death to the Xeno! |
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Post by fallen on Jan 11, 2015 0:25:47 GMT -5
kaistern - great reports all around, thanks for sharing your status. I really hope you'll leave us a review!
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Post by kaistern on Jan 11, 2015 6:53:39 GMT -5
fallen: I already gave yall a five :-D Turn 270: well a lot has happened in the last 45 turns. Managed to turn that trade route into a second trade alliance, finished dropping the twelve colonies. I now have 40 colonies all told. Managed to fight my income up to 1k/turn despite the trade war. Finally got the tech to end the trade war and last turn ended it. My income is now 2.5k/turn. Javat is still a pain, every new colony i dropped of their's (4 of them) are growing faster then they can build hans to house them selves, and one of my older javat colonies has a back log of build orders for houses/spice halls/factories and it jut isnt keeping up lol. The vipers are still holding the enemy back and soon i will start to plan MY invasion of xenon space.
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Post by thehowler on Jan 11, 2015 10:31:18 GMT -5
fallen: I already gave yall a five :-D Turn 270: well a lot has happened in the last 45 turns. Managed to turn that trade route into a second trade alliance, finished dropping the twelve colonies. I now have 40 colonies all told. Managed to fight my income up to 1k/turn despite the trade war. Finally got the tech to end the trade war and last turn ended it. My income is now 2.5k/turn. Javat is still a pain, every new colony i dropped of their's (4 of them) are growing faster then they can build hans to house them selves, and one of my older javat colonies has a back log of build orders for houses/spice halls/factories and it jut isnt keeping up lol. The vipers are still holding the enemy back and soon i will start to plan MY invasion of xenon space. If you have the cashflow, subsidizing a hab unit then factory when your first colonize a javat world will really help them get off the ground quicker. Having that low ratio of minerals exploited to minerals available is gonna hurt. The more mines you have the less a trade war can affect you. |
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Post by khamya9 on Jan 12, 2015 12:08:11 GMT -5
Sounds like you have this one. Just wanted to point out your spies can tell you how many worlds the xeno has. In the politics page on the top is an icon the looks like three horizontal bars.
Click that and you see the name of all xenos on your map (currently one). Click a xeno to get their number of worlds, a numeric rating of their power and a level. The higher the level then stronger my he ships they build.
Also, yes there are differences between the different names xenos. Their bio on this page gives you some background, but it comes down to different levels of aggression, different ratios of mass driver to missile ship, different fleet size, planet defenses, and what type of radiation they use and are vulnerable to.
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Post by johndramey on Jan 12, 2015 18:47:44 GMT -5
Just wanted to pop in and say this thread is a ton of fun. I can't offer you other pointers now, but will try to pitch in as the game develops. You definitely seem to have a good handle on this game, though!
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Post by kaistern on Jan 13, 2015 0:17:26 GMT -5
thehowler:I have improved my mines to 160/504 now and that has helped out a lot khamya9: Thanks for that! I had not seen that before @johndramry: Thanks! Turn 340: The last 70 turns have been an exersize in build an empire and preparing for war. Several Trade wars have come and gone however the empire has withstood. Not to long ago the invasion of the xeno started first with a wing of vipers escorting several marine landers to conquer a world that I had always considered mine anyway. Afer that was done flawlessly, I rushed the 15 vipers, 2 stikers, 2 defenders, and the explorer through the gap. At first we meet with no resistance, though we did see several xeno ships running in the other direction. The marine core started the invasion of the first of the xeno planets while the vipers fanned out. It was not long before the xenos decided to fight back. For the last ten turns or so mass ships and torpedo ships have been coming at us from multiple angles, all rating 3 and 4. However the Viper pilots have been doing their country proud and have brought down each and every last alien ship they have encountered without a single loss. I was half convinced we I started this assault that I was sending the Vipers to die, however, it seems they still remain vastly supperior to the alien ships. This has really supprised me seeing as they are actually slightly worse then the stike fighters you start with :-)
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Post by fallen on Jan 13, 2015 0:32:24 GMT -5
kaistern - are they all packing heavily Experienced crews, as that makes a huge difference!
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I can never leave the TV at volume 14 I have to bump it up that one more to a 15 or it drives me crazy. idk why. You do make a point though about me not being experienced, so far this is only my 4th game and It is only against 1 enemy. But honestly I can only see the Viper design as being more effective the more enemies you face. With it's high durability and cheap costs I can make a lot of them, where as with a more advanced ship I would not be able to make very many.
