Hi guys, thought I'd share some reflections on the game after my first game was completed.
a)A balanced fleet is a necessity. Against one opponent I absolutely had to invest in a lot flac frigates to overcome their bombers. Against another I needed the support crusier liberally in my fleet to help recover against damages. I'd read somewhere on these forums that a basic frigate zerg was all you needed, I found that not so.
Culture rules. If I didn't have cultural influence lines reaching a planet then it was futile to colonize it because it would quickly defect. It became manditory to build a culture emitter thing at each place I colonized eventually.
c) Trade! Trade and the refinery structure really helped my economy to grow. As with everything money rules. Got to be able to afford the planetary advances to grow your fleet larger and to be able to build more structures. The economic aspect of the game was nice and the tutorials did a good job at giving an overview of their significance.
d) The battleships. In the main battle fleet I created I found that each battleship type had a niche and I really needed some of each. Getting them however was hard due to each of them taking up 40 resources. My main fleet had a large group of flak frigates, missile frigates and the main type of frigates, about 5 carrier crusiers, 5 repair cruisers, 2 command and control crusiers, 4 of the battle cruisers and then one of each type of battleship.
e) For Security. I found that if in a system I controled that I'd make about 4-5 hangers, one or two gun emplacements and a anti drive device that'd be all I needed to hold off the pirates and tie down the computer opponents enough for me to deal with. About every other planet I kept a force of frigates and cruisers (about 10 or so vessels) that I could dispatch to the system in trouble. Eventually you get enough planets where you can see the choke points and then stock them up for security.
f) Pirates. In my game pirates seemed to show up at the star first and then travel to where they wanted to go. The fleets were very difficult to resist intially on, but eventually using bombers to focus on one at a time I started getting the upper hand. I had four planets that had tram lines to my star so I made blocking forces at each of them and they stopped being an issue. They were great however to give experience to my new battleships that I made. Putting a battleship into a blocking group raised them in levels fast.
g)Problems. Getting the balance between the culture game/the economic game and the strategic game was difficult. I hung in there and eventually won but it was rugged.
Watch the hardness.
Another problem was crystals.
There simply were not enough crystal asteroids to keep up with my demand, I lived on the black market getting them. Plus, as you take over systems, their asteroids are all depleted, so again kinda stuck for resources in the late game.
Another problem was with the interface.
I would suggest a "Two Colume" interface, one for the planets we control and a second one for our fleet groups. Having to scroll up and down to get my fleet groups when I needed them became a irksome chore. It'd be nice to be able to see my Control # groups on the screen all the time.
Overall satisfaction is an A, haven't had so much fun in a space game since MOO.
