Jumping in at the deep end

[Jtownsend]

Heya,

New to the game and starting a MP game with a mix of cutthroats and new players in the next few days. I've been cramming, and although I haven't played this sort of thing multiplayer since I played (sucked at) VGA Planets and toyed with Stars!, I do have a lot of Moo1 time clocked, at any rate.

A few things:

It's been difficult for me to tell which 1.41 era bits of advice and warning are still relevant, and spaceempires urls don't work, which rules out a lot of "helpful advice" and other links.

I know enough about the nature of online gameplay to decide I want a specialized strategy and a minmaxed race. I appreciate the moral decrepitude of this position, but I want every edge I can get as a newb among the wolves. I've optimized a non-racial minmax with advanced storage (I know someone is shedding a single tear on a hillside for innocence) but I'm unsure if, for example, cultural traits are still broken. Are the production cultural bonuses (and the other ones that didn't work) still broken in 1.91? I see that Berzerker's seem to be popular with min-max crowd - perhaps this is because its -production bonus doesn't work? Or is it because all of the bonuses do work, like the combat one that used to not? All so confusing. I was also considering a scientist, since it doesn't have drawbacks and the cumulative tech bonus would be heading into Moo1 Psilon territory. (Well, not really. Moo1 psilons were absurd)

So, eh, help? I've read the minmax guide, which is in a post on this forum but not at the site where it is most often linked to. But I noticed in the same thread that opinion seemed to go against the Hardy Industrialist part of it, and the arguments convinced me, despite my inexperience at, eh, anything beyond turn 2.

Also, one thing about the "Harmony" that Stony seemed to emphasize so much - it seemed to be about not wasting minerals, by using excess mineral production but not eating into stockpiles. But, what is the disadvantage (apart from having less produced goods) to having a mineral surplus? Is the empire stockpile capped at a low level?

[Suicide Junkie]

The stockpile is limited by the number of storage facilities you build, plus 50k as a starting amount. Everything above that spoils away.

Note:
Storage facilities do not need a spaceport.

Although you do need some storage facilities to handle massive retrofits and other fluctuations in usage rates, each storage facility is taking up a slot which could be producing minerals, research or other valuable things.

PS:
To see your current limits, look on the budget screen at the very bottom.

[Jtownsend]

Ah, well that makes clear the need for harmony! And the cultural traits? Ought my drearily predictable minmax be scientists, or Berzerkers? Or at least, which bonuses/maluses are or aren't working?

[Combat Wombat]

I believe they all work correctly

[douglas]

Minmax guide? You mean this?

For a minmaxed race in the stock game, berzerkers is essential for its combat bonus. Aggressiveness and Defensiveness at at least 120% are also critical (exception: religious races, see below in racial techs section). Without super-high racial combat bonuses, your ships will get creamed.

Next in importance is maintenance aptitude, which should always be at least 110%, preferably higher if you have the points. Maintenance aptitude is unusual in that you actually get more benefit out of each extra point as you raise it higher. You see, the real benefit of maintenance aptitude isn't how much you save on maintenance; it's how many more ships you can afford to maintain. 110% compared to 100%, for a 10% difference you can support 67% more ships. 120% compared to 110%, for a 10% difference you can support THREE TIMES as many ships, or FIVE TIMES as many as with 100%.

Next up, take advanced storage. 20% more facility space is like a 20% bonus to ALL production.

Next up, construction rates. To really take advantage of high maintenance aptitude, you'll have to be able to build all those ships quickly. That means high construction aptitude, usually with hardy industrialists added on. Note that hardy industrialist is worthless if you don't also raise construction aptitude, since you can get the same effect for planets and a greater effect for base/ship space yards for the same cost by raising construction aptitude to 125%. If you do both, however, they stack and you have effectively raised the threshold of increased cost for construction aptitude by 20%.

After that, increase intelligence and mining aptitude as much as you can afford. None of the other characteristics are really important, and you can lower them a lot without much concern. Refining aptitude and, depending on your play style, repair aptitude should be dropped less than the rest, and be careful not to lower the combination of environmental resistance and reproduction so low that you get 0% population growth. Typically, drop environmental resistance to 51% and raise reproduction a few points to compensate.

Racial techs:

Deeply Religious:
If it isn't banned and you expect the game to be fairly long with some time to develop before first contact, ALWAYS take this. If you do, you may want to drop aggressiveness to 80%, or even 75%, as it will become irrelevant as soon as you research Religious Technology 4. Doing this is a bit of a risk in games with smaller galaxies and earlier encounters, though, as it will really hurt before you get the Talisman, and give an extra incentive to take you out early.

Crystalline:
Take it if you feel like it. If you do, ignore the weapons and just get the crystalline armor. It's almost as powerful as shields for protection in the late game, and is a lot cheaper. It's also highly vulnerable to shield generator destroying weapons, so watch out for anyone using those.

Organic:
Can be good. Weapons aren't powerful, but they're cheap and cost mostly or all organics, which speeds up build times. The armor is very good until you get decent phased shields, then it becomes obsolete. I take it mainly for the replicant centers.

Psychic:
The system-wide training facilities can be good, not much use otherwise.

Temporal:
Weapons rip through shields astoundingly fast, but they cost much more radioactives than standard weapons. Temporal space yards are great in the late game for really fast construction.


About stockpiles, don't worry about them in the early game, but once you get resource converters or start doing a lot of retrofitting, remember that both of those can only use what's in storage.

[Fyron]

So, eh, help? I've read the minmax guide, which is in a post on this forum but not at the site where it is most often linked to.

Eh? Are you refering to the following article?

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/mod...showpage&pid=1

I am not aware of it being on the forums anywhere...

I can not possibly stress the importance of Berzerker culture enough... those 10% combat bonuses are crucial. Combat bonuses are of utmost importance in SE4. You must get as many as possible from traits and culture, then from training, CS, ECM, stealth armor, etc. Do not forget training! 40% penalty to offense and defense is going to make you lose.

The only other culture that can really try to compete is Merchants, and only then if you take 115 maintenance aptitude (to get the minimum 5% maintenance rates for your ships) and hefty construction bonuses. The idea is to spam the Berzerker enemy with as many ships as you can... Scientists is a rather weak culture.

[Jtownsend]

(removed 10 foot url) "Re: PBW Strategy Guide (Help Please)" is the thread. It may be as old as the hills, but Spacebadger did repost the substance of the article.

For the record, I went with Berz and minimums on Physical Strength, Cunning, Farming, and Repair, with 81 on ER and Savvy (likely to be trade in this game.) 120 intelligence, attack, defend, construction and maintenance, and 105 on reproduction. Advanced Storage techniques.

I was shooting for generic. I appreciate that the 80s are probably not optimal choices with good gameplay, but there was nothing else I quite wanted enough to sack them, given that most of my boosted abilities were at 120.

Anyway, many of the players will be new which is a wild-card factor anyway, so I hope it will suffice. Thanks for the help, all. Any other suggestions happily accepted.

[Fyron]

Ah. The copy on SpaceEmpires.net that I linked to is slightly updated from the one in that old thread.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Good luck on PBW. And remember, there's no such thing as being surrounded. It's just a target-rich environment.

[Jtownsend]

Ok, a few more questions if folks are bored enough to answer -

1. An emergency build 11 colony ships - wise? These will have to be 3 engines only with my 120 construction, afaik.

2. Early research - I understand I want minelayers for the near sides of warp points? And there is a tech bonus on turn 1? What might I want to spend that on? My ideal fleet "shape" from what I've read, is destroyers/light cruisers with direct fire weapons and some PDC. How do I get there? I'm sorry to be a bit RTFF, but I'm not getting that great a grasp of the tech tree even with future techs made visible with the game mechanics.

3. Early facility builds - is there sort of a basic rote for the 1-5 facility colonies and then another basic rote for larger, wealthier colonies?

I likely have to start today, and I've been working too much to do any reading or playing I'm sure I'll pick it all up, but I'd rather get clobbered as little as possible in the interim. Thanks for the help thus far.