Posted July 21, 2017
Overall, I've enjoyed it; thanks for the game! :) I did a few galaxies at normal, and then one at hard. Haven't tried brutal yet.
My strategic impressions:
- I like galaxies with sparse stars and rare habitable planets, so that's the context for the below;
- You've got to build as many ships as possible while researching as quickly as possible (Captain Obvious, I suppose), though if you don't meet aliens or pirates at the start, you may have time to focus on research;
- Planetary research doubles when focused on, no matter the pop; for this reason, you'll want at least one lab on every world early-game (except maybe mineral rich worlds);
- Factories are useless unless you have metal to feed them;
- You want as little surplus food as possible;
- You want to make enough money to auto-buy nearly every non-metal building/improvement;
- Late-game, most of your buildings will need to be mines (once you've worked through research), secondarily markets;
- A few bigger ships seem to be better than a lot of small ships (even at max tech, my swarms of destroyers die very quickly);
- Remember to build transports to cover all trade;
- Refitting ships via factories is expensive and time-consuming; I just auto-refit when I can and keep building new ships;
- Planetary defenses don't seem to cost metal (an oversight? or I just didn't notice); auto-buy them on your front line systems;
- Artificial planets and terraforming, once you can auto-buy them, are key to boosting your mining (and money) to the point of sustainably building the biggest ships in parallel, without burning through metal stockpiles;
- You absolutely need to design and construct at least one space station with a Warp Inhibitor per system, accompanied by a Stargate; this means you can easily defend your empire no matter how big it grows (for some reason the AI doesn't do this);
- Due to how pop works, I still haven't figured out the optimal planet improvement configuration. :P
- With Warp Inhibitors and Stargates, late-game war is simple: dump everything you've got to defend what's being attacked, and if you survive, attack the nearest enemy systems with what you have left, destroying all colonies. This scorched earth tactic will end up separating you from the enemy empire (you may even lose contact), and they won't be able to attack you (your systems will be out of range). For some reason, the AI never rebuilds colonies or outposts at that point (in my experience), making it easy to build up your fleet again, build an outpost to put their systems in range, and attack when you're ready. This worked for me on hard (haven't tried brutal).
- I haven't found starbases to be useful; they are so expensive I might as well be building ships that can move.
Random thoughts:
- I like the restriction that metal poses; seems realistic.
- Because of the above, however, one more realistic restriction is glaring in its absence: combat personnel. It feels like you're building a bunch of AI ships that have no need for live crew.
- No future or miniaturization-style techs was a bit disappointing.
- No matter how friendly I am with aliens, they will instantly attack me the moment they want more territory. This seems odd (especially since my overall rating with them is still positive, even after I've bombed their systems into oblivion).
- I don't see any options for peace.
- Instantly winning due to the galaxy vote felt odd, as well (I didn't realize it would mean a diplo victory). Diplo seems a bit all or nothing.
- Battle management is clunky with a few ships; I didn't even try with the huge late-game fleets. Auto-combat all the way. :) For this reason, I'm not entirely clear on what tactics actually work, or if there are tactical exploits.
- Other than battles, the interface works well. The checkmark to save/load was also a bit confusing at first, but I've gotten used to it.
- The mercenary option with the Phidi is a nice touch; saved me in the hard galaxy.
- I like how colonizing other planets can happen with the native races you find.
- I wish other races on planets belonging to the empire you're at war with might surrender to you (especially if you've bombed every previous system into ashes). I don't see why they would always stand to the death, especially if they were previously conquered by the aliens I'm destroying.
- I like the variety of planets, the native races, and their descriptions.
- The quakes random event is just annoying. :P (Doesn't seem to be a positive counterpart, either, so it feels a bit like an odd one-off.)
- Building artificial super-planets with money in order to mine them for metal is a great strategy, but feels like an exploit. :) (Wouldn't it be easier to mine the raw mass with which I'm constructing the planet?)
My strategic impressions:
- I like galaxies with sparse stars and rare habitable planets, so that's the context for the below;
- You've got to build as many ships as possible while researching as quickly as possible (Captain Obvious, I suppose), though if you don't meet aliens or pirates at the start, you may have time to focus on research;
- Planetary research doubles when focused on, no matter the pop; for this reason, you'll want at least one lab on every world early-game (except maybe mineral rich worlds);
- Factories are useless unless you have metal to feed them;
- You want as little surplus food as possible;
- You want to make enough money to auto-buy nearly every non-metal building/improvement;
- Late-game, most of your buildings will need to be mines (once you've worked through research), secondarily markets;
- A few bigger ships seem to be better than a lot of small ships (even at max tech, my swarms of destroyers die very quickly);
- Remember to build transports to cover all trade;
- Refitting ships via factories is expensive and time-consuming; I just auto-refit when I can and keep building new ships;
- Planetary defenses don't seem to cost metal (an oversight? or I just didn't notice); auto-buy them on your front line systems;
- Artificial planets and terraforming, once you can auto-buy them, are key to boosting your mining (and money) to the point of sustainably building the biggest ships in parallel, without burning through metal stockpiles;
- You absolutely need to design and construct at least one space station with a Warp Inhibitor per system, accompanied by a Stargate; this means you can easily defend your empire no matter how big it grows (for some reason the AI doesn't do this);
- Due to how pop works, I still haven't figured out the optimal planet improvement configuration. :P
- With Warp Inhibitors and Stargates, late-game war is simple: dump everything you've got to defend what's being attacked, and if you survive, attack the nearest enemy systems with what you have left, destroying all colonies. This scorched earth tactic will end up separating you from the enemy empire (you may even lose contact), and they won't be able to attack you (your systems will be out of range). For some reason, the AI never rebuilds colonies or outposts at that point (in my experience), making it easy to build up your fleet again, build an outpost to put their systems in range, and attack when you're ready. This worked for me on hard (haven't tried brutal).
- I haven't found starbases to be useful; they are so expensive I might as well be building ships that can move.
Random thoughts:
- I like the restriction that metal poses; seems realistic.
- Because of the above, however, one more realistic restriction is glaring in its absence: combat personnel. It feels like you're building a bunch of AI ships that have no need for live crew.
- No future or miniaturization-style techs was a bit disappointing.
- No matter how friendly I am with aliens, they will instantly attack me the moment they want more territory. This seems odd (especially since my overall rating with them is still positive, even after I've bombed their systems into oblivion).
- I don't see any options for peace.
- Instantly winning due to the galaxy vote felt odd, as well (I didn't realize it would mean a diplo victory). Diplo seems a bit all or nothing.
- Battle management is clunky with a few ships; I didn't even try with the huge late-game fleets. Auto-combat all the way. :) For this reason, I'm not entirely clear on what tactics actually work, or if there are tactical exploits.
- Other than battles, the interface works well. The checkmark to save/load was also a bit confusing at first, but I've gotten used to it.
- The mercenary option with the Phidi is a nice touch; saved me in the hard galaxy.
- I like how colonizing other planets can happen with the native races you find.
- I wish other races on planets belonging to the empire you're at war with might surrender to you (especially if you've bombed every previous system into ashes). I don't see why they would always stand to the death, especially if they were previously conquered by the aliens I'm destroying.
- I like the variety of planets, the native races, and their descriptions.
- The quakes random event is just annoying. :P (Doesn't seem to be a positive counterpart, either, so it feels a bit like an odd one-off.)
- Building artificial super-planets with money in order to mine them for metal is a great strategy, but feels like an exploit. :) (Wouldn't it be easier to mine the raw mass with which I'm constructing the planet?)