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does anyone have any good tips on how to get the best econ at the start of a map for teh advent
Advent really doesn't have any special economic tricks, and more or less play as an inferior version of TEC in terms of early-game eco build-up. The Progenitor Mothership offers you a wonderful colonization discount while doubling as one of your best combat capital ships, which is pretty much your only advantage over the Akkan (which offers a better colonization bonus but isn't so hot in battle). The Advent do have an easier time clearing militia due to their stronger starter units, but suffer from having to plot down 2 hostility labs to access repair platforms. You can put up culture a little earlier, which can be nice if your start location is good for it, but otherwise you'll be moving to 3-labs pretty quickly anyways for trade ports if you're doing a economic opener.
Really, Advent's economic game is by far the most one-dimension of the three factions. Colonize quickly in the early-game to acquire many planets, which will provide you tax/extractor income in the short term and plentiful logistics space in the long-term. Build up a chain of trade ports to gain a large trade route bonus, then spam trade ports across your empire to take advantage of this bonus. That's really all there is to Advent economic booming. The only decent economic tech Advent gets is Allure of the Unity, which comes so late you'll almost never get it anyways, so for the most part you can stop at three harmony labs and never look back once you've done the necessary researches.
Advent is a militant faction, through and through. Don't look for much in the way of economic gameplay from them aside from the bare basics.
Yeah, usually if it is safe to do so, I'll start with a Progenitor and utilize the discount to make room for a culture building. The allegiance shift at your homeworld will provide an extra 1.0 credit/second income (or more, depending on game settings), along with extra metal and crystal, making it comparable to an initial trade port. That should help you fund regular trade ports once you get to tier 3 in the civilian tree. Speaking of the Progenitor, it can function as a portable repair building of sorts in the early game. Though you don't want to lean on that ability too much, as it saps antimatter very quickly. It is better to pull ships out of combat and maybe heal them all together in one go, if needed. Militia are fairly stupid, and you can spin them around like a top with a lone Disciple. Meanwhile the rest of your units can hammer away at them.
well ive been doing farily well in the start of the game then for econ i just build up enough trade ports and stop shipment production to do focus on mining (i guess its the advents version of the refineries for teh tec.) im not sure why but i rarly use the progenitor as my first cap. I normaly use it as my 2nd a few times i use my radience as my first wich plows through any militia easly.
Never ever do this
I've run the math, this ability is absolutely horrible. You'll earn way more money by keeping them in trade port mode and using the credits to buy from the black market, and that's with the high-level upgrades that improve efficiency. This ability is an outright joke.
Radiance is a poor choice for first capital ship. If you want to plough through militia, Halcyon specced with adept drone anima will do the job better.
The way to use the Progenitor is to pair it up with seekers. Use the Progenitor to draw enemy fire, then have the seekers take out the Krosovs. Once the Krosovs are dead, colonize the planet and begin building turrets. Have the seekers kill any Javelis in the militia. Once this is done, you can move on to the next planet. Very efficient colonization, and it can actually be much faster than using combat-oriented capital ships because you get the job done without even having to kill all the militia first.
I tried to do this tactic and the militia instantly tarted all my seekers (i was in daplomacy not sure if that matters) and ended up building illums. I am starting to see why the progenitor is a good choice for the first cap. thanks for the advice.
Also if someone else has a ship in the system when your progen jumps in and its leaves or is destroyed the militia may target your seekers.
You can also jump in 1 seeker and make it on circular path around planet then jump in rest of scouts to kill siege and lrms. Once this is done jump in colonizer colonize and place turrets.....
well id like to use the progenitor to colonize due to the bouns it gets (cheaper planet upgrades)
If you colonize in multiple direction sometimes savings that you achieve because of cheaper upgrades can be offset by faster expansion and longer trade chains sooner.
And sometimes progen is not best option for first capital ship.
i know the hycolne (i know i spelled that wrong) is also a great starter ship me and my roommate play on maps that we have our own star to get established then we go for other systems. before i jump to the next star i get my next capital ship so ive been normaly picking the progen.
Generally speaking, the smaller the map, the more you want to lean towards a combat-proficient capital ship. But don't fall for the trap of neglecting frigates because of that. Low level capital ships are, with few exceptions, easy prey for a fleet. But if they're backed with a fleet, a capital ship can gain lots of free experience against an opponent and utilize its skills to turn the tide even more. And yeah, currently carrier capital ships are strong choices for combat ships on small maps. More so than a number of so-called battleship capitals. In terms of the Halcyon specifically, it can be surprisingly fragile early on(the same for the Vasari Skirantra). But let your extra squadrons do the fighting for you, e.g. pick Adept Drone Anima, and go for some early levels.
The approach that I found most helpful for an early start that gives you a very good eco and a very decent fleet to defend with and continue expanding with is the following:
- Build mining stations, produce 2 or 3 Seeker Vessels (depending on map size) on auto-explore, and 1 Missionary Vessel;
- Build a Capital Ship factory and produce a Halcyon Carrier. Upgrade the Adept Drone Anima. Produce 4 fighter squadrons;
- Drain your population count by building as many Disciple Vessels as possible;
- Begin colonizing in all directions 2 jumps away from your home planet. Colonize using your entire fleet and do only one jump at a time with the entire fleet. Don't divide your fleet;
- Once colonized, upgrade infrastructure to max;
- In the meantime when the above colonization process is under way, whenever your resources permit, build 2 Temples of Harmony, upgrade fleet capacity and number of capital ships. Research planet types as necessary and research eco improvement rates for mining;
- As soon as you can afford it, build a second Halcyon Carrier, this time upgrading it with only bomber squadrons, and attach it to your main fleet;
- Upgrade Capital Ships again and build a Radiance Battleship and attach it to your main fleet;
- Build frigate factories and defenses on the periphery colonies and trade ports on the inner colonies.
- Continue expanding slowly, but also heavily fortifying your periphery.
For the Halcyon Carriers, when you have the chance, just upgrade the Adept Drone Anima. This is more important for early game. At this point you'll want to start building cruisers instead of upgrading to better frigates.
If no enemies are forthcoming, then it's at this point that I slow the pace significantly down and focus heavily on research and fortifying while slowly continuing to expand. My first upgrades tend to be towards improving mining and tradeports.
You don't want to stress just eco because then you'll get wiped out if anyone invades. In early game, it is much more powerful to defend your colonies with a well-armed fleet than with purely static defenses, even if you have to jump your fleet around. Initially, static defenses are just a drain on your economy. If you're playing against harder AI, if they invade early game, it will usually be with at least 2 Capital Ships and a sizeable fleet, hence the second Halcyon Carrier with bombers (supplemented with Aeria Drone Hosts).
Think of it this way: if you set an aggressive AI, then they will concentrate more on building fleets than defences. There is no way that you can outmatch an aggressive AI fleet with purely defensive upgrades this early on in the game. You just don't have the eco to support this. So your best bet is to outmatch them offensively. Even though the AI may have a better fleet than you, it will suffer a lot of damage. You'll definitely be able to take out their capital ships, in which case the remaining fleet will most likely retreat. On the other hand, if you have a defensive AI, then they wont be attacking you early on. Therefore, you don't have to worry about building defences early on. The better the offensive fleet, the quicker you can colonize and getting a good eco start.
Bombers are better at taking out militia
If done right scouts are better at helping you expand fast (jump one scout in shift queue it to go in a big circle jump 5-10 more scouts in take out plant bombers and lrm colonize planet build 1-3 turrets in a clump depending on remaining militia move scouts to next planet move colony ship to a safe planet to regen antimatter)
the best planets to colonize first depend on planet type, militia strength and map layout
On ice, terran and dessert only get the first 2 upgrades right away get the others when your population is near max (you aren’t going to see a return till then so it just locks your money in a wastes it if you lose the planet
@master1a
You can't just expand quickly for the sake of expanding quickly. What you are proposing leaves you completely vulnerable. By your strategy you will get slaughtered by a tougher AI. You have no army, and any stationary defences you build can be taken out easily.
About upgrading planets to max, I was unclear and actually mixed two things together inadvertently. Upgrade your planet's health (Emergency Facilities) to max to withstand any early bombardment and, as you rightly suggest, infrastructure should only be upgraded such as to remove the negative taxation rate. By upgrading the planets health to max, you have enough time to reach it within a couple of jumps to protect with your fleet.
Also, when you have a strong army from the outset as I propose, it doesn't really matter which direction you colonize. You jump in, and with a fleet of 16 Disciple Vessels and a Halcyon Carrier with 4 fighter squadrons, you take out defences very quickly and just jump on to the next target while your Missionary Vessel comes in behind you and colonizes.
As far fighters/bombers. Most of the ships you're attacking are frigates, so fighters are much better suited for this. Also, if you get ambushed by the AI, then it will be with a fleet of frigates. But this is a moot point.
Using my approach, by the end of colonizing 2 jumps away (all containing tradeports), you have: an eco rate of ~25 / sec and growing, 3 capital ships (1 Halcyon decked out with 6 fleets of fighters, 1 Halcyon with 4 fleets of bombers, and a Radiance Battleship), and about 30-40 disciple vessels. You can practically fight off any incoming threat. NOW you spend time to fortify your periphery bases and start building cruisers (and perhaps some higher-end frigates) and doing more research, while slowly starting to expand again.
@ Kefra
First of all I wanted to post something similar to master1a post. I completely agree with him.
2nd
You need to get balance when to stop expanding and building trade ports which you didn't mention at all and start building fleet. But for the sake of pure expansion and developing economy what master1a suggests its fastest way to expand. Also your direction of expansion needs to be in direction that gives you longest trade route. If that means leaving some planets behind its wiser to come back to colonize them later than to waste time.....
3rd
Master1a is one of the best players on ICO and I'm sure he have no problems in 1v1 with vicious AI.
I would listen to his advice. And in MP games as in eco position (role in which you develop economy and don't fleet at all - means you are feeding your money and resources to your ally) I regularly see him getting over 150 cred ps in 30-35 min. Even when he needs to fight he gets economy of 60 cred ps going in about same time.
4th
Upgrade health of planet only on border worlds.
Again good scouting will give you information which planets will be planets on which fight will go on. And usually 1 planet health upgrade is enough to slow enemy until you bring fleet that can either focus fire and kill siege or caps or drive him away. Rather tank money in fleet than static defenses.
5th
When playing against AI skip planets and colonize choke points and fortify them with SB. AI doesn't know how to bypass colonized planet so it will attack and die on SB that you build. You might want to keep 1 cap ship near SB to get cheap experience and LVL it up....
There's nothing wrong with master1a's advice or yours if pitted against the AI. Yours is a passive aggressive approach which I only play when up against multiple AI's locked against me.
Bombers are best for taking out Heavies. Fighters are good for LRM's and siege militia. Neither are good against flak or light militia, but bombers will work better against these.
A small scout army is great for taking out militia, especially when heavies aren't present. Use the scouts to clear the LRF and siege, colonize and send in light frigates to clear the flak and light frigate militia.
Expanding towards the enemy is the best course of action with a smaller expansion force moving to other areas of the map. A small force using master1a's technique can colonize most planets.
If you are scouting ahead and directing your scout along your expansion path you should know when you need to fleet up and which planet will need defenses. Early defenses are usually just a couple of overlapping repair bays.
This is probably the worst capital ship in Advent's arsenal (even with the patch). I wish it weren't so but it's survivability and weak abilities make it rather lackluster.
You'll have a better economy if you wait until you have a chain of 4-5 worlds before you invest in tradeports. This will also give you time to better scout if you will need to fleet before setting up a trade line.
I mostly play 10-player multiplayer free-for-all or 2vs2vs2vs2vs2 and usually get harassed by pirates and enemy ambushes and gang ups. So, I've taken a heavily fleet oriented approach that has served me well. Otherwise I kept getting massacred. If I did what master1a outlined, then I would get creamed. There's no way I can expand without having a fleet.
Also, the comment about Star Bases. I do play S+E+D, and agree with you on that point, but you also have to consider people who play only S.
I usually expand in 3 to 4 directions without upgrading fleet supply. But thats just me
One of the reasons to use scouts to expand is so that your fleet can be fighting your enemies instead of clearing militia.
The primary reason bombers are better then fighters at clearing militia is because flak will kill the fighters.
Furthermore, scouts are better for taking down LRM's and Krosovs, which are really the only militia units standing in the way of colonization. They're fast, ridiculously inexpensive, and pretty tough for their low cost.
Not to mention that scouts make an excellent stand-in for taking out the LRF and Krosovs anyways.
Also most people in multiplayer never last long enough to get this far with advent economy..but I'll discuss this anyways.
The secret to an amazing advent economy in the late game is:
1. Have culture at every world.
2. Have a starbase at every world.
3. Upgrade that starbase with two upgrades increasing your planetary happiness at this location, and upgrade the trade ports.
4. Get the two upgrades at tech level 8 in the diplomacy screen that increases planetary allegiance by 5% each.
5. Don't get resource focus.
6. Move your HW to a location that maximizes resource gain. For longer games you would want to move it closer to the star since most of the good planets are there.
The reason why this works is:
Your income increases proportionally to the happiness of your planet. if your planet it at 25% loyalty, you will only get 25% of the income in taxes, metal, and crystal (It doesn't affect trade income to my knowledge).
If your planet is at 140% allegiance you will likewise get incredible resources from this planet.
This strategy also makes your empire incredibly strong, and takes a long long time.
Recommended seriously for only single player, or a really epically long game of multiplayer.
In this way advent do have a very strong economy in the late game.
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