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He113ent

Join Date 03/2006

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How do I get to the bigger ships faster?

Hello...first let me say that I really enjoy this game; great work and kudos to the devs. Second, its been a while since I played a turn based 4x game (aside from civ 4, which I found a bit of a letdown, but I digress...). Thus, I've been playing mostly beginner-difficulty medium-sized maps (I've only played 3 - 4 games so far, so maybe this post is a little ambitious so early in my galciv career).
How does one get to the larger sized ships quickly? I've started to find that by the time I get to medium-sized hulls, the game is starting to wrap up, with either my faction winning easily, or losing pitifully. I try to focus on ship design, and my economy starts to fumble; I focus on economy, and the other factions come after me demanding tribute because I have no military presence. Or I go for broke with influence, and toss my military power out the window.
A little long-winded, but I guess what I'm asking is if anyone has any tips or tricks on how to have a strong, advanced military and a strong economy to boot. I've looked over some of the guides and the tutorials, as well as a number of forum threads, but a little repetition never hurt.

Thanks in advance. Hmm, upon looking at my post, I realize its a little scattered, and all over the place...oh well, any help on any of the above questions would be appreciated.

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Sorry for the double post, I just realized that my question got a little side-tracked with other questions. So, any help or suggestions on any of the above questions would be much appreciated. I should clarify that I'm not usually doing horrible, just that I think I could be doing a hell of a lot better, with a little guidance in the right direction.

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The problem is that you are setting up your scenario to be too short. Games are going to end pretty quickly against beginner AI on medium or smaller-sized maps. If you REALLY wanted to get to building large ships in this scenario, you would want to intentionally prolong the game. My suggestion, however, is to try playing on large and bigger maps. Just playing on large with 3 or more opponents really increases the play time over a medium map.

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This all depends on your strategy. Do you play diplomatic? Do you attempt cultural conquest? Are you more militaristic? You can't really attempt to research all techs and end up with big ships before the game ends.

If you're really looking for big guns, I would recommend researching up about 2 or 3 levels on the Technology branch of the tree, along with planetary improvements, and anything else that is going to increase production values (military/social/research). I'd also hit 1 or 2 levels of economic tech. Then just start blitzing up the Hull Size tech tree and one weapon branch. Then research defensive techs as needed.

Hope this helps get you to bigger battles. I tend to implement Heavy-fighter swarming myself, and tend to win by influence victory. I've only teched up to large ships once, but they're pretty neat.

Also maybe try selecting the Dark Yor, Drengins, and Arceans as your opponents. From my experience, these guys force you to tech up militarily just to keep from being overwhelmed early.

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You could turn the technology progress rate up when you create a new game.

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I know what you mean about not getting to the bigger ships before the game ends. I've never tried it, but I'd guess that setting the Technology Rate to the fastest setting might get you to huge hulls before victory or defeat. I might try that next game.

Of course, the AIs will have the same tech rate and potentially get the bigger ships too. But at least, hopefully, you'll be able to play with the big ships before the end.

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Wonderful replies! Thanks a lot everyone; I appreciate the input. My current saved game is proving a little more challenging, as I've set the research speed to regular, upped the map size to large, and put 7 other races into the fray...still at beginner difficulty, but what can I say? I'm an intergalactic wuss.

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I've gone in games all the way up to the Massive Scale a few times. Here's my best tips to you. Forget starbases and military tech until you have at least 15 planets on a large map. Also, trade like crazy for those techs that you need to help boost your planets. After you build up some planets and develop them decently work on your mil tech. Take over a minor race or a weak major, usually in my case the Korx or Drath or whoever gets in my way. At this point you probably have almost doubled your total planets and now have 30 or more well developed worlds depending on how good your opponenet was. Now is the time to blitz the research tree. This always pays off for me, not sure about ya'll. Appease your neighbors and get up to discovery sphere at least. By now all techs usually take about 3-4 weeks and you'll have your large/massive scale in the next year. Medium maps don't work well with this strategy, it works very well on large maps and on huge maps you should work on more planets early on. Believe me though when I say that the massive Terran ships are definitely worth the time. My favorite ship was called the Republic class and mounted a variety of Rail guns and Missles. I sent 1 Republic against, 7 Altarian Frigates. 0 damage to the Republic. Research the right weapons and shields and the galaxy is yours.

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I am a little annoyed at where the bigger hulls are. There isn't much point to them at all and it makes the game feel too much like it's fighter-only. Why not make the hulls quicker to get? In comparison, it wouldn't change much gameplay, just allow a wider range of ships.

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If you really want to get towards the larger ships, you should play with higher difficulty settings and on larger maps.

Having said that, I have found that you can get a huge boost to your tech research rate if your willing to put the effort into setting up a planet as a research heavy monster.

You either want a planet with a large number of tiles, or a planet with a large number of good tech bonus tiles. My best research planet in any game thus far was a call 18 or 19 with 4 factories, and then loaded with nothing but research labs, one tech capitol, and one omega research facility (once I got discovery spheres). You dont really need to go as far as discovery spheres though. But what you do want to do is plant 4 economy starbases around the planet and maximize their production / research modules. Once you have that set up, you can pretty much scream along the tech tree, easily getting to the larger ship hulls or the later weapons.

Setting up the 4 overlapping economy bases also works out well if you can do this in a system that has multiple planets of at least decent quality, which you can then use to rapidly fabricate those massive ship hulls. By late game, you cannot pound out even fighter quality ships if your using the later weapons techs.

END COMMUNICATION

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There is a huge point to the bigger hulls. In fact, in the original version the huge hulls were way overpowered because they took too little in the way of logistics.

In fact, I would venture to say that against an opponent who has comparable tech to you (outside of hulls), you will find yourself quickly defeated fielding only smaller ships. A Small class vessel can barely damage a Large, and will only damage a Huge on a very lucky random outcome. Once again, this is assuming you have comparable technology. Tiny and Small ships simply have no room for any significant defenses, and will always (barring extreme luck or excessively high level) be killed in one volley by Large/Huge ships.

Of course small ships can destroy larger ones, especially if they attack first and get a little luck on their side. However, fielding larger ships is a distinct advantage assuming you have comparable weapons/defenses/miniturization/logistics tech with your opponent. 4 Larges (20 logistics) attacking 7 Smalls (21), will always be victorious even if the smalls have an edge in weaponry. Those same 7 smalls MAY defeat the 4 larges if they attack first, but the outcome is by no means certain as it is in the reverse scenario.

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This is great advice, but there is one thing I'm a little unclear on: how exactly does miniaturization work? I don't think its well explained in the game, but I often see people mentioning it in their posts.

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Hi!

how exactly does miniaturization work?

It gives you more space on the hull. In medium hull I usually get enough space to mount 1.5 more weapons or defenses, so I need to research one-two more levels in two branches to get up to whole 2.
BR, Iztok

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The Small vs Large debate has it's distinct tactical pros and cons.
For instance, in a situation where your opponent is using all offense and no notable defense then swarms of Tiny Ships will win the day every time. The enemy will deal full damage to your tiny ship, overkilling by a signifigant margin, and allowing a fully offensive retaliation. Pound for Pound, Small and Tiny Ships are the most efficient source of offense.

If your opponent is using moderate or greater levels of defense or you chose to go high defense yourself, then you will want to field the larger ships. Smaller ships won't be able to generate the attack numbers against a single high defense behemoth and as stated by another poster above, you won't be able to field a notable defense yourself. Pound for Pound, the biggest hulls are the most efficient source of defense.

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james217 has it right, and as Zardoz mentions, designating one of your better planets as the research capital can pay off (assuming you have the economy to fund the research). Two things worth emphasizing from james217's reply are (1) it's ok, possibly ideal, to go many turns at the beginning without researching weapons technologies, and instead (2) use these resources to heavily invest in social production and planet/resource grabbing. The best way to research advanced techs fast is to spend the beginning of the game establishing strong planets.

I've found that, with strong planets and about 15 turns, I can go from having made no investment of my own in military techs to having competitive or superior ships. That is to say, in the beginning of the game, before any wars have popped off and no one has yet researched Planetary Invasion. So I grab resources, build up, and research planetary improvement technologies until about 15 turns before I think I'll be attacked or (easier to predict) 15 turns before I want to take out a neighbor. When it's time to gear up for war, I pull the social production slider down to a modest level and pump research and, as needed, military. Like james217 said, blitz the research tree. Medium hulls are a big boost over small; large and massive hulls do make a significant difference but may not be necessary--it's perfectly reasonable to fight the major battles in the game before reaching large hulls.

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Military starbases add to the attack and defence of every vessal, so large fleets of tiny ships recieve a bigger bonus than small fleets of huge vessals. For this reason, if you are using military starbases to assist you, you are best off with small hulls. I use tiny hulls with 1 armour 1 attack for defence, to recieve maximum benefit/cost from starbases.

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Be careful when you're blitzing your research. If you ignore other areas of research, you may find yourself falling behind the other races overall and they will eventually out-produce and out-tech you. Remember, finding the right balance is crucial to out-performing the competition.

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He113ent:

Miniaturization benefits are hard to detect initially. Pay attention to your hull capacity pre-miniaturization upgrade, and your hull capacity post-researching the miniaturization tech. There should be a difference in your available hull space. The miniaturization benefit appears as a % gain in hull space. For example: If you have a cargo ship with 50 hull space, then research Basic Miniaturization for a +10 Miniaturization benefit, you will then see that your cargo ships have 55 in hull space. (Revisit some old designs after you have researched Miniaturization, you will see that you suddenly have more space available for components.)

This is a little counter-intuitive, because you would expect that miniaturization would decrease the size of the componenets, not increase the hull space available. Nevertheless, the end result is the same - more components in your hull.

As far as your initial "larger hull" question - I would try increasing the difficulty of your games, first. This won't get you to larger hulls, necessarily, but it may make the game more challenging so that you don't miss larger hulls that much. Then, once you are good at harder levels and smaller maps, move up to bigger maps. Hull sizes will definitely start to increase.

Just going to larger maps at easier difficulty levels will get you larger hulls, but only by virtue of the game taking longer to complete. If the game is sometimes easy for you on smaller maps, a larger map may just add to the "mop-up" factor and may not necessarily be that interesting. With a harder difficulty settling, you will get to larger hulls because you need larger hulls to defeat the big hulls being sent against you...

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Miniturization works two ways. 1) Increase hull size 2) Increase component size.

Yes #2 is true. You may think it's counter productive but it was put in to balance. The increase in component size will eb a lot smaller than increase in hull size. And the increase inc omponent size will apply differently to different types of components. For example, it will increase the size of engines a lot more than size of weapons (Which Im not sure it even increases at all). Reason for this is to prevent people makign ships that are so packed with engines they cross the galaxy in one turn.

As far as the tiny vs Huge debate. Most above posters are correct. Both have their place, and different games I find myself using different strategies.

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