Fine-touching the Advent (Please help!)

People keep on asking questions like this. There's no one good answer--where you go depends almost entirely on the situation.

My strategy, for what it's worth, is usually balanced with a slight weight on the military tree.

Well the thing is that each race's Tech Tree is different as far as economy/military go. Some races get better ships right off the bat while others economize easier and more efficiently (like TECs getting their refineries and what have you).

I'm sure that in each race, each player finds a common point to get into their own rut of how they like to do things and what makes more sense to them. Going either way makes sense to me, sure, but either way it's quite hard. It's not a question of depending on the situation, it's about starting off early on the right foot and not screwing up your strategy through Tech Trees or the inability to colonize other planets. Sometimes you just get that stupid dead asteroid right in front and you screw yourself when you venture into a Desert/Arctic/Molten planet that has 27 ships from a neutral faction. Plowing into those 27 ships with just your 1 cap and 4 Disciple Vessels is usually not a good idea, because starting off in the name of economy limits you, but tsarting off in the name of Military Prowess will kill your funds and make you a "late-bloomer".

So, in conclusion, if there is any sort of balance, I've yet to find it, but there's still a majority who find a balance I'm sure. So thanks fo ryour waste of a response in saying that "others keep asking this", no, they haven't. They ask for opinions. Simply that, their own. They've asked how people start and so forth, but Ive yet to see a post where someone goes step by step into what is a most effective strategy for Advent players based on their tech trees. Thanks.

Go with the econ 90% of the time. You will need the colonial upgrades, and the mining techs outweigh most else. Only in very small games is there a significant reason to build a military lab first.

Now after 2 civ labs and 1 military, thats entirely up to you.

That's pretty much what I do, only I throw the military lab on my first colony, so I have room left over for a trade port on my homeworld. It's cheaper to upgrade your first asteroid's logistics to fit one, than your homeworld's

That seems a bit harsh.

I'd start with harmony, for expansion reasons. It's much easier to colonize a planet when nobody is occupying it. At the very least you need to get ice and volcanic colonization researched as quickly as possible, and I usually try and research trade centers as well before I start looking at the hostility tree. And don't forget to keep plenty of resources in reserve to upgrade infrastructure as you start colonizing those planets.

If you start moving up the hostility and fleet trees before building up a decent economic base you're just digging yourself a hole as ships and structures will eat up more and more resources the higher up you go.

Militarily, you're not going to see much threat in the early game when opponents are still spaced pretty far apart and bids on pirate raids are low, so you can afford to hold off on hostility while you build yourself a solid foundation for your empire.

Vasari get refineries, its tradeports your thinking of (probably).

I usually grab 2 civics buildings before I go military, so I can get ice/volcanic colonization abilities. No upgrade you can get with one lab is worth it that early, anyway.

Im pretty sure during my first playthrough I saw TECs having the option in their economy tree having the refineries in their 3rd or 4th tier I think. I oculd be wrong. But not trade ports Im pretty sure every race has though for increased money. There's supposed to be a specific structure they can build one per planet/asteroid that increases what you take in from crystal/metal.

Again, could be wrong. But thanks for the rpelies guys, seems economy does overule military starting out, which I think had worked better prior to my military play. Reinforcement is always welcome and happy sinning!

TEC get both trade ports and refineries with trade ports being pretty low on the tech scale and refineries being several levels up. Advent trade ports do double duty as both refineries and trade ports with the appropriate tech, although only one at a time. Not sure what the Vasari get. Trade ports increase credit income, refineries increase ore/crystal income depending on the planet it's built at.

In a small map go for military right off the bat for defense frigates / drone hosts / purge vessels (probably not) since the chances of you having a prolonged fight is fairly small - in other words you're probably better off rushing.

In a larger map, I would rather go econ thus triple harmonies and then triple hostilities, you'll want the econ as soon as possible so you can afford the things in the larger picture (as well as jumping to other systems) , the tier one units will carry you quite far.

Everything you do in this game is map dependent and also if you have teammates what you're overarching strategy is. On a map of 16 planets in a 2v2, don't even bother with econ because you won't have time. Multi system you will want to go econ and failing that, if you're paranoid, send scouts to make sure that your neighbors aren't in the same system so you can safely tech up. Really, it's basic RTS strategy.



Irrelevant, you're either rushing or teching. Never doing both at the same time.



Thank you for contradicting yourself: It is completely dependent on the situation. So what lesson do we have here? Learn2Scout.

Also, military prowess doesn't take you out of the picture very easily in the econ game. It takes at least one colony that isn't an asteroid and a few that are with population upgrades and trade ports at each one. You will be earning an average of 14 versus 10.1, less of a gap if the opponent is hitting the embargo button while rushing you. YEAH SUPER BIG ECON RIGHT THERE ! LOLOLOLOLOLOL. That is not to say the military player can't expand too while rushing you. The gap begins after the 25(?) minute mark in which case why were you going military to begin with? If you were rushing, you really need to learn how to execute a rush or micro better or analyze the map better.

That being said, due to random map generators you really have no idea what your surroundings are and the best way to do things is to commit one or the other: tech or rush and both require extensive knowledge of the map or scouting.

What is most effective for a race is effective for everyone -> Econ boom if you have the time, rush if you don't. In that case, as an advent player you need access to flak frigates and that's it which takes one military station.

Also mass neutrals are the easiest thing for Advent to deal with, it's called get a battleship first and is worth it in the long run to get to level six, the other ships can wait.

Anyways, don't invest so quickly in a lab unless you know what your opponent is going for on a small map, on a larger map you only have the choice of doing econ provided you aren't close to the enemy : say at least five jumps away.



The tech tree doesn't matter, you will do whatever you can to get either your econ up or access to military units. That being said, what the tech tree says is highly irrelevant because you will leap through as many hoops as you can to get that tech.

Also the 2:1 advocates: It doesn't give you anything in regards to working with the econ save barebones - if you're going long game you might as well do 3 then 3 at least you get long jump + all the colony types + trade centers.

The 2:1 only works for TEC which gets the trade center at two civies.



Are you ....... ........ considering that 30% upgrade of 2.1 is just a mere .63 and you're at least investing a lot of time + resources to even get to 30% . Yeah, REALLY HELPFUL ! You could spend that money and BUY the resources on the black market for cheaper early on. That being said, mining bonuses are never worth it unless you have nothing better to spend it on or the map you're on is just that starved that it is somehow worth SIX upgrades to pull through. Yeah and the first two upgrades eat crystal metal.. you get .2 on average. Gr8.

That being said, either go triple harmonies and spread them out through the colonies you conquer hopefully planets rather than asteroids since you will have to upgrade logistics or rush your opponent without one military until you see the need to begin counter LRMs thus requiring flak.

Yeah this guy tops me for being the asshat here. SO I'll be very short.



No one said anything about doing both at the same time? The whole point was seeing if it's better to do one or the other. Thanks for paying attention! Appreciated! Oh, your post added nothing on that part...Wait there's another section.



Contradicting wasn't the point, so once again you miss. And it was by scouting that I saw these 27 ships kthnx. The point of this section was for debating whether to just wait on those areas until your economy is much larger, and then fleet onwards, or to simply rush from previous tactical vantage points of building early military. The problem being that given the rush, you can take on 27 ships easily, especially with the Advent Cap ships imo paired with the right vessels. Or you can play nonchalantly, build around them (if possible) and then go in later. It's "I want 5 dollars now or 6 dollars spread over an hour" type deal. And yes, that's a very exagerrated quote.



Um, yes it does matter and...DUH. Otherwise I guess you're not playing the game? Or something? Seriously, pay some freaking attention. Again, nothing gained from your post besides idiocy. If you "jump through hoops" you can easily miss out on some more important research that might help you in the long run. Um, such as economy, opposed to military if you decide not to rush. Now how you didn't see this point is beyond me. Anyways, thanks for wasting space and contributing nothing.

Anywho, I have decided to go Economy on my starts guys. So thanks for the input save for the above poster, and again happy Sinning!

I make 2-3 civ, 1 military. Then I see for there.

With advent you'll need a 2nd military soon for repair fi someone is being aggresive on you. If not, there is more crystal to be had with another civ.

Early carriers as advent.. At 50 crystal each, how many are you really going to have? Not enough to go against 30 light frigs, that's for sure.

The way i see it, i try and nab as many asteroids as possible before i begin colonizing my planets.

They're cheap, bring in income, and dont require building two Temples of Harmony to operate them. This can lead to a larger starting fleet (which the Advent desperately need to live early game) making clearing planets a breeze. By that time you should have already been able to build the two Harmonies needed to colonize the planet, along witht he fact that the increase in revenue will allow you to actually build an infrastructure without hurting the wallet.

Also, if you ever have the chance to "planetjack" somebody, having a bigger fleet will usualyl scare them off and you can take the planet for yourself. No one likes seeing 10 Advent Disciples warp in with a backup Battlecruiser (class matters not) when theyre being attacked by native pirates.

Seriously, what's with the amount of rude dickheads on theese forums? Did every SC player with EGO's in the size range of planets, to compensate for something, join?

I usually max out my starting fleet size (advent) with disciples + colonizer mothership for her colonize ability (-20% to -60%:ish lower building costs on planets) and her ability to shield regen the large disciple fleet near her. Makes taking heavily defended neutral desert worlds early doable.

The diffrence between military and economy is that military might upgrade your units to be slightly more effective, while having an economy allows you to actually buy the ships.
However it's worth noting that once you reach say.. 6th tier in economy... you realize how utterly cheap the weapons upgrades are.
My approach is always balanced, slightly more to economy in the start, and slightly more to military in the end. For example, I get trade stations before I start upgrading ships.


I also only play the game on SLOW with SLOW RESEARCH. Having something like FAST research, I think, would nullify the Advents research research making it effectively useless.

The mothership can solo all but the most heavily defended by NPC's planets solo. Disciples make ti faster though.

Frankly I do not like making disciples early on. They die too easy. They seem to last half as long as all the other races ships.
With a cap ship.. it doesn't die to the npcs, just takes damage which it regens.


/edit lols oh wow. Someone has the name Space Cowgirl. Space Cowboy is what I use on ICO. D: Well, sometimes I use PrinceOfTheUniverse every time I feel like spamming chat with the Queen song whenever I attack people.