When you first meet a race
 

How do you judge your self.

Are you like me and go. Damn I am in trouble.

Or

'I have her. Release the dogs of war'

Yep it is another topic about first contact.

Does and don'ts

But mostly how you judge your preconseption (they should enable the spell checker for this site )of strenghts and weaknesses of your race vs what your guessing for the alien side.

Try to keep the topic to the first few turns you meet someone.

When I first meet a race I always assume I am behind in ships so I start cranking them out Quanity replaces Quality until I feel safe.

And I am always behind on research. Never matters what happens but I know I am behind.



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Inter arma silent leges

Re: When you first meet a race
 

i usually just try to make a treaty until i find out more about them. Plus when i have the treaty i can see their score and what they got http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif.

Re: When you first meet a race
 

you are always behind, until you have everything. thats my philosophy.

when i meet a race, i evaluate it by what they have, and what I think they want. If i think we would be in competition for things I need, I will find an excuse to go gunning for them.

If it looks like we could get along with a solid border or if cross colinization is feasible, i try to establish relations. likewise, if it looks like our technology paths are complimentary and/or we might have common enimies, i will try to establish relations.

for me, its sort of an all or nothing sort of thing. the longer you wait establishing a treaty and dicking around playing nice with someone you plan to kill later, the longer they have to build up. blitz in there, take them out, dont try to buy time unless it would be extremely advantageous for you, and you know that they wont be able to compete with your growth. on the other hand, when you do that, you have to expect them to realize it and attack you when you are in your expansion phase.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Re: When you first meet a race
 

Depends on who I'm playing.

If I'm doing the Certdsh, who are xenophobic isolationists (mostly) I tell them to stay out, then cut off contact except for warnings. This resulted in a scenerio that was eerily like one of the Bolo books I had read- except I bailed before the war started. Literally- I packed up the Certdsh and left! Neutral happyness is a PAIN, FYI.

If I'm playing the race I'm using in Puke's end of the universe game, I try to be friendly with everyone. They're sorta hippy-like actually. "Hey, you glassed one of my planets. Cool light show, man.." OK, not THAT bad, but still http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

Re: When you first meet a race
 

When I first meet a race, I start to plan the conquest of them. I try for diplomacy, but I know at some point we're going to fight, and I'm going to be ready. And I'm also power hungry and don't like neighbors being to close. If they start colonizing inside my borders, my fleets will be quickly moved to pre-invasion stations.

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'Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?'
Grand Moff Tarkin, just before the Death Star blew.

We are Dyslexia of Borg, futility is resistant, your *** will be laminated.

Re: When you first meet a race
 

When I first meet a new race:

1. Avoid ship contact
2. Send nice message
3. Get insulted
4. War is delcared upon me
5. I Kill the AI

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New Age Ship Yards

"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Captain Picard STNG

Borg Breen Species 8472 Cardassian Dominion STNG Ferengi Klingon Romulan
Trek Movie era TOS Illuminati Starwolf

Re: When you first meet a race
 

Sheesh, I must be the only one here who's willing to live and let live indefinitely if my "opponent" so chooses. Perhaps that explains why I always seem to end up getting attacked by people who have become frustrated at me for not provoking them. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Perhaps I should come up with a more genocidal and agressive race... I might feel bad playing them, though. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: When you first meet a race
 

I still aways go

Man what did I do wrong. I figured I was further ahead than that. Man those scouts could kick my ships of the line back to the stone ages. Hope they don't attack.

Damn. They like the same worlds.

....
And other mass hysteria.

Brave Brave Sir Robin Stuff

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Inter arma silent leges

Re: When you first meet a race
 

First contact?

In the early game: Plop huge piles of sats down on warp points as far out as possible towards your new rival. Colonize nearby planets if you haven't already so you can support ships to stand with the sats. It's all about the 'land rush' in the early game.

In the mid or late game it depends on your situation. If you've got lots of enemies already and your 'new' contact cannot easily send colonizers into your space make friends and get some trade going. It helps both of you get stronger compared to your current enemies. If they are close enough to crowd your territory you might have to stall for time until you can reduce your current enemies to manageable size. Unless you are already MEE, in which case you can just accept their declaration of war gracefully and queue them up for slaughter. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: When you first meet a race
 

It depends a lot on which race I'm playing, and whom I've encountered. I usually send a general message on first contact, then wait for a reply.

When I'm roleplaying a pacifistic race like my serene scientist Tiktsin in solo games, I don't even arm my ships until I discover We Are Not Alone, sometimes not even until we've actually been attacked.

I don't play pacifists against human opponents. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif The honorable warrior Rrurrr try to maintain friendly relations and negotiate borders until they run out of expansion room or are attacked. The psychotic schemer Mi-Go try to maintain friendly relations as long as it serves their purposes, then focus on undermining their weakest opponent. I had a lot of success with the Mi-Go in their Last multiplayer game by picking up the scraps from the losers of other races' wars.

In solo games I normally play with "View All Scores", so I always know roughly how I compare to the AIs. In multiplayer, it's safe to assume I'm behind in tech and ships. I've been amazed at how fast my PBW opponents build up fleets and climb the tech tree.


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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"