Help a Newb

[luke_slovakian]

I have a couple questions to players that know more about sp4 than me:-d. I just ordered the game so you get the picture. But if you win a game it says you get points what is that all about? what do the points do?
Is there such thing as a dedicated server?

I blanked on the rest and will add later. Anyone who answers i will greatly appriciate a little help. I will catch up to you good players out here:-d

[Will]

There are "experience points" that an empire gets for colonizing planets, constructing ships, winning battles, etc. Probably for winning a game as well. Supposedly there is a small bonus for getting higher empire point levels, but so far, nobody has been able to figure out what that bonus is. Mostly it is used for roleplay value of an empire.

The closest we have to a dedicated server is PBW. It facilitates Play by EMail for multiplayer games. AFAIK, there isn't a server that helps out with TCP/IP play, someone who knows more about multiplayer can correct me on this, though.

Welcome to the Forums and SEIV.

[douglas]

I believe racial experience points were originally intended to give minor extra bonuses to a race as they accumulated, but any bonuses they might ever have given were removed to prevent players from getting unfair advantages in multiplayer.

[Arkcon]

luke_slovakian said:
"But if you win a game it says you get points what is that all about? what do the points do?"

The game does allow a race to save it's experience, and keep building. The consensus is that any benefit of having a race with lots of experience was removed from the game -- probably to keep people from playing repeatedly against the A.I. then selling the empire on eBay so some lamer with cash can rule on PBW.

[luke_slovakian]

Thank you guys, you helped me alot. I had a few more questions but all i can think about is this guirl i met at a new year's party:-d. In love hahahaha

[luke_slovakian]

Hey is there a max resource amount like for research points. I know in the demo that i have right now because i have to wait for the gold to come maxes out my research points a 20k or so. I do not know if that is a glitch or bug. Any help would be helpful

[Caduceus]

I don't believe there is such a low cap on research. Usually if you get a galaxy-spanning empire you have 100K+ of points/resources coming in and going out every turn.

[Arkcon]

There's no max to resource gathering ability. There is a max you can store for the next turn, if you haven't built any storage facilities.

But if you need the more resources than you can store to cover maintenance, and you produce them, you won't lose ships. There's no storage for research and intel, and there's no cap either.

And, uh, while your waiting for the game to arrive. Spend some quality time with that pretty lady. Before SE4 arrives and eats up all your free time.

[Grandpa Kim]

Welcome to the Boards.. and the game, Luke

The game is very open-ended. Even the things that aren't open-ended are very deep. For instance, I have never researched all there is to research in any one game. Er... actually, there are several items I have never, ever researched!

PBW- http://seiv.pbw.cc/text/ -our dedicated PBEM server is really quite good. Have a look at it. Joining a game is painless, creating a game almost as easy. But before you try playing against real people, become proficient at waxing the AI's hindquarters, then go to PBW and get humiliated.

Also check out the thread "Frequently Asked Questions for Newbies" stickied to the top of the board. It's more of a manual than a FAQ.

Good luck and happy gaming.

[brianeyci]

Here's what I said awhile back to another newbie,

brianeyci said:
I'm "relatively new"... but I think I'm rather good, so I
don't know if you want me

All the stuff I know can be summarized in the following sentences. Avoid missiles like the plague, get point defense and military science II early, get mines II early, light carriers are awesome warships early on, get DUC V early, use PPB's mid-game, don't fall behind in research, expand like mad early on, make sure your race can build a colonizer on emergency build on your homeworld in one turn, and Last but most important make sure you max-min your race like Asmala does lol (see links below). Okay, so the above was a run-on sentence, so sue me lol.

I'll give you the links that I've read about so far...
http://www.spaceempires.net/home/mod...showpage&pid=1

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/mod...op=getit&lid=1

http://newbiefaq.spaceempires.net/

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/ubbup...ategyGuide.zip

And of course the mother
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

Brian

If you really want to play PBW, forget the AI. The AI plays nothing like realy PBW players. The only reason why you would want to play the AI is to familiarize yourself with the tech tree IMO. I learned the basic gist of the tech tree in a few demo games, so I never even started playing the AI.

Make sure you start on the right foot. Learn what is good and what is not in Empire creation. This is covered in the first link. 120-125% attack and defense and bezerker racial trait is good, 150% ground combat is not. There is a certain type of empire called "The Clone". The Clone is basically what everybody uses to play competitive PBW. There are slight variations of The Clone involving certain racial traits and depending on the setup of the game The Clone might be more or less powerful, but the basic concept is the same -- spend points where you will use them and take points away from where you will not aka max/min. If you're not into competitive PBW, then fine, but might as well know what the best will bring and settle for losing except in roleplaying games.

Next most important thing is the early game. Figure out how to build a colony ship in one turn on a homeworld with emergency build on (should be easy if you max/min your empire). After that, figure out an expansion paradigm. After ten turns, your homeworld will be out of emergency build and will be useless for ten more turns. The idea is to get another planet, and to begin ferrying population to that planet at around turn 5 or even turn 1. Then you can set the second planet on emergency build as well, and with the new population have enough to build a colony ship in one turn on the new planet. That means by turn 20 you will have 16-18 colonizers. Of course this is tricky to work out, and you have to manage your resources properly or they may run out, and if you get in an early war you might be vulnerable, but if it works you get a good advantage that should Last you the rest of the game.

Hope the above helps,

Brian