Endless Space 4x-All

jam3 wrote:

excess food is worthless until very very late game

More food == faster growth. So, until late in the game when you have full colonies, you want as much food as you can get.

tboon wrote:
jam3 wrote:

excess food is worthless until very very late game

More food == faster growth. So, until late in the game when you have full colonies, you want as much food as you can get.

Highly debated and very situational. If your first planet on a system gives 3 food but -1 industry you could wait a while before anything is built or until you can afford to buy out what your building. Of course a lava with negative food and huge industry will be able to work quickly on building a colony on another planet but would take forever to gain population. Luckily planet exploitation comes in. While farms are not as effective on lava as terrans, doing that for a while can give you both a good industry and a good growth. You want a balance of both early, and then in late replace exploitations. For instance, replacing the farm on homeworld mid to late game for a small boost in industry.

I don't find excess food to be a problem that is likely to happen in the game. There are some improvements later in the game to increase your max pop, which makes food useful again, and in the very late game techs can transform extra food to other purposes. When you do find yourself with extra then that can generally be managed by changing the exploitation of some of your planets to other purposes, or dismantling your food improvements so you don't have to pay the upkeep anymore.

Can you have negative industry on planet? I've never seen it.

I suppose I should have said "more food == faster population growth" - sorry, I thought it was clear what I was talking about from the context.

Continuing from my last report, I built a few more scouts and rapidly covered the center of the galaxy. I found some really great industrial systems, as well as a couple of nice resources. I decided to stop colonizing stuff that was within my arm of the galaxy and focus on securing the center before the other races started nabbing the choice spots. There were a few good industrial systems, most notably this beast:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/08-BR1.jpg)

Those are some mighty fine anomalies on three of the planets, and the other two had no downsides. I knew I had to jump on this quickly and decided to research Lava colonization the moment I finished researching the +1 size upgrade for Tiny/Small planets. While I didn't yet have a low enough tax rate or enough expansion disapproval techs to go crazy with colonization, I wanted to be ready when the time came so I shifted a couple of systems over to mass colony ship production. Meanwhile I finished exploring the center of the galaxy:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/09-BR1.jpg)

I encountered the other races during my exploration, and eventually made peace with each of them. I grabbed the moon exploration tech to soak up a few more build turns on my mature systems and remove some negative anomalies here and there. Then one of my scouts made an incredible find:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/10-BR1.jpg)

Note the Bluemold on the circled system. This featured three high quality planets, including one with triple Bluemold, which when combined with my existing resources would put me over the monopoly line, granting me +20% approval across my entire empire. This would be completely game changing and allow me to expand with reckless abandon, so I immediately sent a colony ship on a painfully circuitous route to snag it. Around this time a new hero appeared, but sadly it was another fleet commanding type and of no use to me.

Now that I had peaceful contact with the other races, I grabbed the two economic techs to add trade routes, as well as the flat FIDS rainbow tech. This is a key technology for rapid expansion, as it allows you to more quickly get your new systems to a self-reliant state so you can move your hero to another place. Whenever you're expanding quickly, the goal is to get a hero to the new system, and then get them off the tit as soon as possible. Flat +6 food and +6 industry goes a long ways to making up for otherwise lackluster starting planets. My general pattern is to go Food exploit, Factories, and then the flat 6, and then ship the hero off somewhere else as soon as reassignment is possible. If I can't spare a hero for a place, I purchase those first two upgrades with dust to give them a head start.

I continued to explore the other arms, and found that the green guy hadn't been diligent about colonizing a decent little pocket which was actually quite close to me via my now-unlocked warp drive:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/11-BR1.jpg)

The planets weren't as good as those in the middle, but I warped a couple colony ships over there to await the time when I'd be able to colonize them without them being Unhappy for long. In particular, I wanted to get my hands on this system, which has the potential to be a real industry powerhouse:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/12-BR1.jpg)

Finally we come to the moment of despair. My colony ship arrived at the coveted Bluemold system, and in the same turn green's influence ring popped. God. Damn. It.
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/13-BR1.jpg)

This made me pretty angry, knowing that if I had just sent the ship one turn earlier, or jumped the gap once I discovered warp drives with a second colony ship, I could have had it. Thoughts of a lifetime of peace vanished. As soon as I solidify my hold on the middle, green is going to f*cking die.

My trade route system improvements were coming online, so I had enough cash to cut my tax rate and continue with rapid expansion and hero hopping. I mass colonized the center with my fleets of pre-built colony ships, as well as backfilling all the useful systems in my arm of the galaxy. I grabbed the flat science upgrades and 3rd level Industry exploitation from the right hand tree, and then set to work on my favorite tech:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/15-BR1.jpg)

Soon as that finished, I started building that everywhere that had a stable happiness level, and my FIDS values shot through the roof. At this point I've finished my rapid expansion phase, and the middle looks like this:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/14-BR1.jpg)

I still have some systems to claim, but nothing critical. I plan to grab the second +population tech (+1 on planets, additional +1 for explored moons), the second factory tech on the right tree, then pursue a couple of command point techs and dive into the weapons tree. I'll beeline for beam weapons and some basic invasion techs, and then manufacture an armada and go demolish green for having the audacity to spread his influence over a system rich with Bluemold.

The Hard AI is much quicker to respond to ship weaknesses.

No doubt! This'll be my last game on Normal I think. Not even going to bother writing up the rest as I'm snowballing too hard to make it even remotely interesting.

tboon wrote:
jam3 wrote:

excess food is worthless until very very late game

More food == faster growth. So, until late in the game when you have full colonies, you want as much food as you can get.

Only in systems that can support the growth and figuring out how to grow a system with approval, dust cost/benefit on improvements (which is a whole other subject), extreme planet types, and terraforming is complicated.

Determing if the couple of turns of fids benefit outweighs the initial cost and time to build food improvements is tricky and currently favors forgoing them to focus on other things, a system with a few huge type planets of arid/tundra or better can easily turn the favor back to food improvements. On the average your systems will naturally fill at a fast enough pace that you don't need them past the first 2-3, and building the mid-tier food improvements just to scrap them for the long gap in between the mid game and getting the food to ind conversion tech in the late game makes them even more worthless. They need a partial food -> ind conversion tech in the mid tiers to fix it, its a problem what you said should generally be true but its not.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/8...
I am glad to see that they are going to continue patching and working on the game, though I doubt it, it is my hope that they add a retreat button for the auto/manual. Or at least make the auto for anything with 20% or lower of a win chance auto retreat. Hopefully that memory optimization means less multiplayer crashes late game.

Despite the awesome help here, I am still getting regularly trounced in Normal difficulty. Did 3 games, in one I again saw no jungle/ocean/terran in my constellation, had to push to the middle for good planets, which put me behind the curve. In another there was none of the strategic resource required for lasers (and other stuff) in the entire galaxy. In another I started with three heroes that were only good for leading fleets.

The game needs some sort of minimum setup conditions or something. I wonder if I can come up with a custom race that gives me some sort of guarantee of early success.

So... turn 30-ish and I've made contact with one other race. My scout ship has no where to go... I keep circling her around the same cluster of systems and haven't noticed any new travel lanes. I don't even see where the Sophons(?) are located and they initiated contact with me first. Do i need to unlock some specific tech in the Explore/Expand branch of the research tree?

BadKen wrote:

Despite the awesome help here, I am still getting regularly trounced in Normal difficulty. Did 3 games, in one I again saw no jungle/ocean/terran in my constellation, had to push to the middle for good planets, which put me behind the curve. In another there was none of the strategic resource required for lasers (and other stuff) in the entire galaxy. In another I started with three heroes that were only good for leading fleets.

The game needs some sort of minimum setup conditions or something. I wonder if I can come up with a custom race that gives me some sort of guarantee of early success.

From what I've found, the opening strategy for your first 30 turns could be something along the lines of:

a) Alien grafting (+food to get fast expansion). All starting planets should improve food. Get your 3 early heroes as soon as Dust permits (preferably administrator or whatever has highest labour) - spec them to get the +25 production ability ASAP.
b) Arid / Tundra colonisation (quick research gives access to far more worlds)
c) Research to find Hyperium (for beam weapons), I think you also research the heavy isotopes tech along the way (+10 production)
d) Research to first beam weapon tech
e) Research to the first wormhole travel tech

Manufacture should be a few colony ships, then switch to making a fleet to tackle pirates.

By the time you hit around turn 30, you'll be having a look at the centre of the galaxy. Prioritise your scout ship searching the star systems most likely to have hospitable planets (blue, white, yellow, binary) and selectively colonise terran/ocean/jungle/arid planets (and preferably with positive anomalies) for fast population growth - you need population to fuel more colony ships. Also helps to target systems which will give you huge monopoly bonuses or strategic benefit through star lanes.

Also, you'll find that the AI in the galaxy arm right next to you will probably be the first to turn hostile as you compete for territory - try to gain peace / favour with the ones furthest away, which buys you time to wipe out aggressive neighbours.

BadKen wrote:

Despite the awesome help here, I am still getting regularly trounced in Normal difficulty. Did 3 games, in one I again saw no jungle/ocean/terran in my constellation, had to push to the middle for good planets, which put me behind the curve. In another there was none of the strategic resource required for lasers (and other stuff) in the entire galaxy. In another I started with three heroes that were only good for leading fleets.

The game needs some sort of minimum setup conditions or something. I wonder if I can come up with a custom race that gives me some sort of guarantee of early success.

I don't play without "planets in system" set to many, even on a huge map.

The Steam group is now private. If you want to join, ask.

jam3 wrote:
BadKen wrote:

Despite the awesome help here, I am still getting regularly trounced in Normal difficulty. Did 3 games, in one I again saw no jungle/ocean/terran in my constellation, had to push to the middle for good planets, which put me behind the curve. In another there was none of the strategic resource required for lasers (and other stuff) in the entire galaxy. In another I started with three heroes that were only good for leading fleets.

The game needs some sort of minimum setup conditions or something. I wonder if I can come up with a custom race that gives me some sort of guarantee of early success.

I don't play without "planets in system" set to many, even on a huge map.

I tried that last night on a whim, and I think it made all the difference. I also set resources to "high". I'm doing quite well in that game, since I had some actual planets to colonize.

So I want in that steam group.

Not sure if I should ask since I'm notoriously a single player kind of gamer.

boogle wrote:

So I want in that steam group.

Done.

Just curious about multiplayer in ES, does everyone have to be there in real-time or is it more of slower turn passing around thing?

zircher wrote:

Just curious about multiplayer in ES, does everyone have to be there in real-time or is it more of slower turn passing around thing?

It's turn based with everyone connected. There is no pit-boss mode (or play by email).

It will show you who still has yet to complete their turn. You can also set timers at the game's outset.

Alot of the game is actually real time. Like that combat is real time and movement seems to happen semi real time.

Game commencing at 8pm EST. Come one come all.

How did the Great Goodjer Bastille Day Conquest-a-thon go? I wish I could have joined but I was doing some work when the game started spinning up.

tboon wrote:

How did the Great Goodjer Bastille Day Conquest-a-thon go? I wish I could have joined but I was doing some work when the game started spinning up.

Complex put himself in a precarious position in the game because of his crazy over reaching custom race. Although he hadn't taken every system in the middle he had control over the entire center of the map because of his crazy expansion and influence bonus. Apart from a few systems that Jam and I already controlled no one else could colonize any of the remaining open systems in the center, and I only had two systems in the center because I attacked Complex and took over one he already owned. I was trying to take a 3rd when Complex started to beat me back but then he got flanked by the crazy aggressive AI Cravers so Complex and I came to a tentative agreement.

The others were just starting to try and come out of their systems, and Jam also had to contend with the Cravers. I should also mention there were 2 other AI's that hadn't really done much of anything, but they tend to hate people who control to much of the map. We had to save the game and quit for the night before finishing. Who knows what will happen next.

We actually may start over. Complex has realized his strategy has pretty much set himself up to be enemy no.1 to everyone else in the game. His influence controls all of the unoccupied systems in the middle, and if we let him have them all he will runaway with the victory. The way influence works in the game there is also no way Complex can let people colonize unoccupied systems within his influence borders. So he has to either give up strategic systems and lose control of large portions of the map or have them taken by force.

Gaald wrote:
tboon wrote:

How did the Great Goodjer Bastille Day Conquest-a-thon go? I wish I could have joined but I was doing some work when the game started spinning up.

Complex put himself in a precarious position in the game because of his crazy over reaching custom race. Although he hadn't taken every system in the middle he had control over the entire center of the map because of his crazy expansion and influence bonus. Apart from a few systems that Jam and I already controlled no one else could colonize any of the remaining open systems in the center, and I only had two systems in the center because I attacked Complex and took over one he already owned. I was trying to take a 3rd when Complex started to beat me back but then he got flanked by the crazy aggressive AI Cravers so Complex and I came to a tentative agreement.

The others were just starting to try and come out of their systems, and Jam also had to contend with the Cravers. I should also mention there were 2 other AI's that hadn't really done much of anything, but they tend to hate people who control to much of the map. We had to save the game and quit for the night before finishing. Who knows what will happen next.

We actually may start over. Complex has realized his strategy has pretty much set himself up to be enemy no.1 to everyone else in the game. His influence controls all of the unoccupied systems in the middle, and if we let him have them all he will runaway with the victory. The way influence works in the game there is also no way Complex can let people colonize unoccupied systems within his influence borders. So he has to either give up strategic systems and lose control of large portions of the map or have them taken by force.

I admit nothing!

its not my fault gaald hates me cause I am beautiful.

Gaald: I was planning on attacking anyone who had colonized the middle

Wrong place wrong time? I hope jam takes it next time and see how you fair against him. My priority is peace and treaties, his is large cannons.

OK have added this title to the pile, can't wait to try it out! Have been craving a true successor to MOO2. So can I get an invite into the Steam group?

You got that quote a little wrong complex or maybe you just didn't understand me. Because it took me so long to get through those wormholes my plan was to make sure I colonized the first systems in the middle on the other side of the wormholes, even if I had to attack someone else who had already taken them. You just happened to be on your way to taking over the entire middle.

Is there a way to check the difficulty of an in-progress game? I remember choosing between Normal and Hard when I first started, but not which one I settled on.

This is directed towards jam mostly cause he is the only person I know that reads the dev forums for this game. Does the game purposefully give bad systems and disadvantages to the amoeba because they can see everything? I have played the race affinity for about 10 games and I have only gotten good planet starts maybe twice and those two times I had plenty of negatives to go with it and both were single player. Last night in a multi my start had 0 titanium in home system and 0 in the expanded system. I had only 2 non research needed planets in the home system. I was literally the only player who didn't start with titanium and I was the only amoeba. This makes me wonder if the two had something to do with each other. The lack of administrator hero was just vindictive of the game. As playing amoeba this is the 3rd of 10 times I have started without an administrator.

I have to admit, if I don't get at least one administrator at the start, I'll trash the game and re-do it.

Also, if it's not obvious, the tech Casimir Effect unlocks the worm holes. I missed that connection in my first two games and got trounced because of it.
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TAZ