Buildings and Armys

from Stardock Forums
I have been playin for a few months now, but i can never seem to keep my economy strong for very long. I build it up nicley, but it slowly deteriorates through recession. Alos, i try and hold out without a military for as long as possible, but eventually i need one. when i build my ships is ussually when my economy tumbles out of control. i build only money generating, or otherwise things that dont cost much maitenece, but i still cant seem to supporte my army. any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!
oh, and what is the best over all defensive ship? (obviously overloard, but i mean like for a struggling economy)
-Barron Vlademir
2,370 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't have a big problem with economy but being a less than great player, The difficulty levels are not that high. Obviously at all levels you need trade routes and deals that pay you extra cash.

I usually go with the Battle Ax for planet defense. Those big ships are too expensive to use for defense.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Barron:
I've been going for the theory of a smaller slice of a bigger pie gets you more moola (cash).

An interesting sub-strategy that I've worked into my play-style is dropping my taxation rate to 20% from the first turn in the game and never increasing it beyond that point. For a long time the population will sky-rocket (as long as you don't botch something that makes them peeved at you... think social improvements) giving you more income within a handful of turns than if you taxed them at a higher rate a few turns before. The bonus is that in the near-short-term, you get as much money as in the short-term, and in the medium to long term you're raking in a lot of cash.

Other strategies are useful too but as an overall strategy, the above tends to work for me.

Franco:
A point to remember about defense against the AI's is that they treat everyone as a hard or soft target depending upon their combined attack points. The implications of this is that if you don't want to be attacked, get on at least equal footing with regards to your attackpoints of your fleet compared to your rivals. If you're not intending to attack them (alternate paths to victory: think non-aggression), getting as many low-maintenance high-attack craft is the way to go.

In regards to using the big ships for defense, in the midgame/lategame (medium maps), I've been ending up using dreadnoughts and avatars for planet defense along with enough AM missiles to keep my hit-points high enough to keep the AI's sweet-talking me. Mind you, this is dependant upon having the income able to support the ships which my first point above tends to get me most times. It's just in the very early game that money is tight after the initial surplus is exhausted (since I spend at max. until I'm in lower double digits).


~SDC~
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
So the AI cringes at 100-attack AMM's more than Dreadnaughts? Sweet. Thx for the info. I guess that also means crank out Star Fighters as an early deterrent.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
That's going to change with the next release, so don't get too used to it.


~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Barron - I've been giving advice for this problem for awhile now, and I haven't actually seen it for months. Would ya zip up a save (in the save game directory, one file there, and the matching subdirectory in its entirety) and email it to me at [email protected]. Then I'll give ya some focussed comments.