Can i just get all the advice from the tutorial all at once?

[Brutus Aurelius]

Dyslexic people must hate us right now.

[eskimoform]

I would still like an explanation of TP. What it is, how you get it and how the De Valtos bonus works exactly. I cant seem to actually track this. Everyones views on building an economy have been very interesting though.

[Brutus Aurelius]

TP are Trade Points. They generate a variable amount of Credits, depending on conflicts. I THINK the range is almost 0-30 Credits per TP per turn.

[phantombudgie]

Jun 15, 2014 13:36:20 GMT -5 nails said:

I'm with CT.
i don't 8nvest any research into ships until i have hab3, factory2, palace 1, and exchange 3

I try this sort of thing as well but I keep on ending up on the menu at the local Xeno colony when they come enquiring about my non existent defence fleet. More practice needed!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using proboards

[nails]

Jun 15, 2014 19:20:59 GMT -5 phantombudgie said:

Jun 15, 2014 13:36:20 GMT -5 nails said:

I'm with CT.
i don't 8nvest any research into ships until i have hab3, factory2, palace 1, and exchange 3

I try this sort of thing as well but I keep on ending up on the menu at the local Xeno colony when they come enquiring about my non existent defence fleet. More practice needed!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using proboards

Well, are you moving into their territory to colonize?
Small map?

[Cory Trese]

"Trade Points (TP)" are added to your Library after researching "Faction Politics 1"

[abysmal]

Maybe we can have a list of library prerequisites?

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

[thalinor]

Jun 15, 2014 9:31:09 GMT -5 @jr8825 said:

Jun 15, 2014 9:27:22 GMT -5 Officer Genious said:

But then you can upgrade the Hab I units at a reduced cost and demolish extra ones you don't need, giving you more space to build defenses. Still, that DOES come a little too late a lot of the time for me too...

I know, but it just feels like an inefficient use of CP demolishing them afterwards... I've played too much civilization! Is this a solid strategy then, demolishing the extra habs once you can upgrade them?

I totally agree, but its the only way to do it unless you want pissed off people.  Hab II is too far down the tech tree to do it any other way.  Population growth still needs to be gimped in an update.  Another thing that would help is when you build a colony ship it should remove one population [transferring them to the colony ship].  This is how it's done in the PC game Endless Space.  Lastly, population growth could be limited to your max population based on habs, and not available to increase past your max.  You would still want to grow your population to help your economy, but would never be over the max population, thus your people have one less thing to be pissed about.  This is also how it's done in Endless Space.  I don't see why you can't turn people away or send them to another planet.  Put up a "No vacancy" sign and tell them to keep movin' along.  There are times where I will have three planets with plenty of room and one with no room, yet only the population of the one with no room keeps growing.  Hopefully an update will remove the ability to go over your max planetary population, this would solve the problem and yet it would still force a player to upgrade habs or have a totally crummy economy.  Maybe this can be a game option at the start of a new game, or just effect easy/normal difficulty.  Realistically, there has to be a way to say "no room in the inn, GTFO."

Edit, for the others that are saying go straight for Hab III and ignore ship research, I would love to know how far in the game you are and if you have ever won on normal with that strategy?  Just wait until you are about 8 hours into the game and have wave after wave of enemy ships flooding you because they build them way too fast.  If you have those center planets, kiss them good-bye.  The Hab III strategy works in the beginning for many hours, but in the end even if you quickly switch to the ship tree, you are screwed.  I have also tried both trees at once working my way down both sides.  I made it half way down both sides before the waves of enemies started swarming me.  I have yet to find a way to actually have a long running game where you can build up without going completely aggressive from turn one.  The only real long term strategy is researching nothing but the ship tree and going straight for planetary invasion.  Boxing in the AI enemy's never letting them get more than a few planets is the only real option.  You can play other ways, but after a certain number of hours it will eventually catch up to you and when it does, just delete your game and start over.  You will know it when the time comes I don't need to say anything further.  Anyone who has played for just 1/3 of the map and then decided to build up just those planets knows exactly what I am talking about; you can't play that way and expect to win.  Once the resources start flowing, the AI are programmed to make ships far faster than you and the "penalty" they get in higher cost per ship means nothing if the two enemy AI also have 1/3 of the planets. 

Other than a few annoyances, like the "upgrades" [under new ship] showing everything you have made on the planet including things you don't have the research completed yet to "upgrade", balance is the only thing that really needs work.  You can win, but just don't expect to do it the same way you do other strategy games.  Until things get sorted out [and they will, this dev has a long history of supporting their games] you are forced to play certain ways, and not outside those boxes.  My guess is it's how the alpha/beta testers & dev played, which there is nothing wrong with it, but obviously can't account for many different play-styles until after release and further balancing. 

Then again, maybe it's just plot.  The Enemy AI ARE a bunch of bugs trying to take over the galaxy.  If that's the case however, don't ever expect a game with anything smaller than 64x64 getting to the point where your tech tree is maxed out and a fleet of custom badass ships in an epic final space battle; at least not one you set up by boxing in the enemy first.  At that point however, its more about ego and overkill than it actually being necessary as by that point you could have finioshed them off long before you will ever have that kind of setup.  I think unlike Star Traders, as of now at least, X4 seems to be more of a race to the finish than a long drawn out build up.  This is different than most X4 games, which is why I think a lot of people are getting steamrolled; myself included.

[nails]

thalinor

After playing this game for over a month, I can confidently say that winning is very achievable by going the colonies first route on multiple difficulty levels.

My impression from your post is that you are agressive on your map and seek out the xeno purposfully, expand your colonies toward their space early, or send out ships too explore and make contact with them by accident. Early contact with the xeno is pretty much death.

Find your corner of the map, do research, build up your planets, be patient and do not seek the xeno. I can play on normal or hard and not build a new shiip until about turn 150. sometimes later.

The Brothers have actually given you a tool to help with this that is unintentional. the layout of the map is always the same. you start in the same part of a map, the xeno start in theirs. The variation in star type, quality, and the politics is what ultimately make "winning" hard.

[fallen]

Jun 16, 2014 5:31:30 GMT -5 nails said:

thalinor

After playing this game for over a month, I can confidently say that winning is very achievable by going the colonies first route on multiple difficulty levels.

My impression from your post is that you are agressive on your map and seek out the xeno purposfully, expand your colonies toward their space early, or send out ships too explore and make contact with them by accident. Early contact with the xeno is pretty much death.

Find your corner of the map, do research, build up your planets, be patient and do not seek the xeno. I can play on normal or hard and not build a new shiip until about turn 150. sometimes later.

This is a very good strategy. Win a game with this strategy, and then up the difficulty or try another strategy, such as your aggressive one. Don't start on Impossible, or with the zerg-rush strategy. You really have to have the game down to be successful.

[Brutus Aurelius]

I usually "turtle up" so to speak, building defensive patrols and having them at my border systems, and then colonize inward for the most part. The, once I am around 6 AE, i can really ramp up offensive ship production, preparing to invade Xeno worlds.

[lixxx235]

nails: do you have a recommended map for me to try your strategy on in easy? Thanks.

[nails]

Jun 16, 2014 22:52:47 GMT -5 lixxx235 said:

nails: do you have a recommended map for me to try your strategy on in easy? Thanks.

I prefer the big maps, so 100x50 is usually my smallest.

[algesan]

Well, I still think some copy of the Library stuff should be available offline.

Yes, there is more than one way to win, but there is probably also an optimal path to follow, if not like in the Civ series (where you wanted to hit certain techs first), then at least in a personal playstyle mode.

Hmmm, so when I end up with planets who get a bad quality roll and end up with 7 habs & 1 mine because they grew like breeding rabbits or main worlds with 10 habs and only a couple of mines & factories because habs are eating up everything? You know the planets that suk so hard they take forever to get up convert a Hob to 2 and are a negative drain the entire time with low morale. Not fun. We are getting to personal playstyle becoming objective optimal path...get to Hab2 ASAP and ignore everything else. In the meantime, I've got 1/3 pop colonies who have been around forever with an arseload of mines and one factory sitting forever on their thumbs waiting for someone to decide to visit or even breed.

[eskimoform]

I ended up just wanting to play endless space again for a while until more things are worked out and stable.