Winning against Suicidal AI?

Try rush buying only the cargo hull itself and then upgrade the cargo hull to a colony ship. This combination is definitely cheaper than rush buying the colony ship directly.

I assume this is TA from the 2227 date but even so only 10 planets for you and only 13+ planets for the AI by Oct doesn't sound very good, but then most of my experience is from DL.

In general in a gigantic galaxy it's not how quickly you produce colony ships but the *rate* at which you produce colony ships. In DL it was possible to produce one colony ship every other turn without rush buying and without going into debt. A reasonable expectation of the number of planets by Oct would be closer to 20. How this relates to TA I'm not sure, perhaps others can chime in here but I suspect that you should be able to colonize a lot better than 10 planets in 10 months without going into debt and even more so if you are willing to go into debt.

I also do not play TA.  Almost all my experience is with DA.

In DA, if you waste resources to research any extreme colonization techs at Suicidal, you get drowned by the AIs.  If you chose to be one of the AIs that begin with one or more extreme colonization techs as a mega-ability, the AIs will likely crush you with their own mega-abilities.

There are a couple Suicidal AARs that may give you some ideas, but i do not know if any of them are TA.

I have my first win at Suicidal almost in reach, but may have forgotten to disable the Research Victory, and so may have succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  I have all the other AIs in wars with each other as I crush the one that declared war on me, and have Alliances with 4 of the other 7 surviving AIs, including the very strongest one.  But that same ally is about to win a Research Victory!  Damn!

So, basically it's impossible to win against suicidal AI by your own strength? you need to incite war between AIs and get their spoils of war?

No, no!  Not at all!

Many posters here have stated that they have won games at Suicidal.  IIRC, many are posted on the Metaverse pages, and some AARs are posted in the forums.

It is just very, very tough to win straight.  One must seize certain potential advantages, and more.  At Suicidal, the AIs have truly huge bonuses.  Manu of the Metaverse clans have "secret" tricks and such that are cited as helping top win at Suicidal.  I do not know those tricks, but there are many tactical elements that have been mentioned in the forums.  They are generally not needed for victories until one gets a few levels above Tough, but one needs something extra at Suicidal.  The most common "trick" is to iterate galaxy setups until one has a Homeworld that has at least one really good bonus tile.  A 3X research and/or a 3X production, a 7X tile, etc.  A Morale tile is also a good one to have with the 3 ot 7X tiles, but there ate tactical things, as well.

For example, one common tactic one can read about on the forums, is to keep constructors loitering within one turn of AI mining starbases.  Then, if that AI gets that base shot out of space, seize the resource.  One might even pre-position the constructors there on station and then get the AI into a war with other AI(s).  Another might be to grab all the diplomacy techs quick, whore your techs to the minor AIs with the Diplo bonuses, then build the Spin Control Center and fill the orbit of that planet with defenseless cargo hulls filled with weapons to keep other AIs from declaring war on you.

Another might be to choose the race with the meaga-ability to get others into wars, and keep them all fighting amongst themselves for as long as possible.  It seems that AIs generally do not get into serious wars on their own until their coding concludes the Colony Rush phase is over.  Thus, the longer they can be kept from that conclusion, the longer the human has to get infrastructure done.  Keeping the AIs in premature conflicts with each other prolongs the Colony Rush.

Suicidal isn't all that hard once you get your strats down, as well a some small things.
*Pratice your colony rush til you can execute it how you want.
*Make an 'Order of Opperations' to do each turn so you don't forget anything.
*Save before hitting the End Turn button incase you do forget something.
*If a planet isn't actively building a ship, set it's queue to 'None' so you can see from the main map which planets are actually building stuff.
*Decide on an 'Order of Research' to get the techs you need/want and stick with it.

Lots of tips in the Index of Tips post that can help too.

I'm playing Dark Avatar, but not the campaign. I have a question;

assume that I have 3 planets:

A --> 10 shields, 15 hammers and 30 flasks

B --> 5 shields, 3 hammers and 7 flasks

C --> 2 shields, 1 hammers and 3 flasks

If I set my research slider, the number of flasks on every planet will change accordingly. Even when I set research slider at 0, the planet will still produce some research. I'm confused.

Anybody know the formula to calculate the number of flasks, hammers and shields on each planets?

A planet will produce research points ("flask") despite the empire's Research slider set to zero if the focus for the planet is set on research.

What has always confused me is this talk about hammers, shields and flasks...well not flasks, that I get.

Each DA planet has a base 16 POINTS of production and 10 points of research.  Industrial points produce research, albeit to a lessor degree.

The formula is a straightforward # of structures X their worth X bonuses.  Some bonuses are worth more (multiplicative) than others.

I dont't mean to be trite, this is something I struggled with too.  If you don't understand what I'm saying, I'll go into more detail.

Edit:  As LTjim said focus is another matter.  First understand the numbers assuming 100% on each.  Focus takes IIRC 50% of other areas.  Focus is useful in transition and certain strategies.

 

LTJim:

You said that there's a Manu guy that know the strat against suicidal. You have the link? thanks.

Btw, I just played this scenario again, but by building all trade centres in all of my world. The result : I'm WIPED OUT. This technique did prevent my econ from being halted. But even after purchasing only the hull and later upgrading it into colony ship (I sprout 1 colony ship every 2 weeks --> 1 week for empty hull, 1 week for upgrading to colony ship), the AIs have taken all the planets nearby. My head and heart really hurts.

The person I meant was Mumblefratz - the first one to post a reply in this very thread.  Many have won at Suicidal, and many post that it is not that difficult once you get down certain things/tricks.  You are likely to learn those insider things, exploits, whatever, if you join a clan in the metaverse and ask for help.  I have not done that, trying instead to view re-inventing such a challenge of sorts.  For example, it may be that the name you choose for your Homeworld can affect the Class #.  I had not expected any such thing, but see now why that could be the case.

I do NOT claim to be expert at this game, but here's one approach I'm trying now:

1) Choose Technologist - which i hate because I actually prefer Federalist or Universalist

2) Iterate using Control-N until I get a Homeworld with decent bonus tiles.  The best might be a 7X research tile plus a Morale bonus tile.  The very best might be 7X Research + 7XProduction+Morale, but I have never seen that on any of my Homeworlds.  However, a 3XResearch+3XProduction+Morale tiled Homeworld is quite good, and I more-or-less happily settle for it.

3) Rush build a Research building on Turn 1 or 2 on the bonus tile and pour most/all resources into Research for the first few turns.  Note that one cannot gain more than N+1 techs in a turn where N is the number of planets you occupy.  Thus, you want to colonize at least one or two more planets fairly soon.  Keep track of the "Time to Research" thing.

4) Run the Research trees for the Economic Capital and put it on your Homeworld.  Same for the Manufacturing Capital (and maybe the Tech Capital), but these latter Capitals might be ones you want on a colony planet if you snag a particularly juicy one.  I do not generally build a Tech Capital, but others swear by it.  The Political Capital building is also a good one for your Homeworld, as it does not get the big bonus for being a high Class planet yet will have your highest population for a long time.  Remember that revenue is the product of (taxes)x(population), so having Morale bonuses on the Homeworld is the key to tax revenue in the early game.

5) Run for Sensors and get some Survey ships out.  I generally build them on non-Homeworld planets while I tap the Homeworld for colonists/colonizers.  If you spot a Green or Red resource, consider "upgrading" the survey ship right there to a constructor and grab the resource.  I do not do that for a Blue.  Sometimes I do it for a Yellow.

6) Somewhere in the first 10 - 15 turns, the paths diverge, and others who have won often on Suicidal will have better ideas tha I do.  However, what I am currently trying is to shut down all Research production around Turn 8 - 18 and even build over my one Research building to a factory or something, and shift to an All Factories strategy using focus for Research.  This is why I do not build the Tech Capital.  I'm pretty sure I would have won my current Suicidal game (I might still) using this approach but i forgot to disable the research victory.  Unless you intend to go that route yourself, you might consider disabling that.  With the huge AI bonuses out there at Suicidal, that seems prudent.

Never!! I want blood (well, not literally). I wll never accept tech or influence or other pathetic victory (no offense to non conquest lovers). I want to make those aliens beg and cry under my feet (eventhough now it's me that's crying. So sad.)

Sooooo, disable the other victory conditions!

I suspect, though, that the easiest victory at Suicidal may be the Alliance one. 

The second easiest may be the Research Victory.  For that one, you might iterate until you get 7XResearch + Morale tiles, limit the Colony Rush to maybe a 10 planet circle, then turtle up and go at it like crazy.  I've not tried that one yet, but the limiting aspect might be paying for all the Research w/o a wide Empire full of tax payers.  Instead of tax revenue, you would be selling your Research fruits almost as fast as you got them, but researching the Diplo tree to get better value in the deals takes you away from the Research victory sequence.

I think wins in DA are harder than they should be because of the bug with the Mind Control Center.  It still gives the 100% economic bonus but, instead of making planets flip instantaneously, they almost never flip at all.  This is a known problem, but it really guts a lot of strategies.  For example, one strategy is to colonize only the biggest planets, let the AI have the little ones in the same system, and them flip them to you on Influence.  That will not happen if you have built the MCC due to this bug.

Aren't these production icons from Civilization? I do recall shields as the units of production but I only ever played the original Civilization and that was a long time ago.

Not impossible but you can't just take them on right from the beginning and expect to win in a straightforward battle. You do need to do things like play AI's against each other in order to get to the point where you've built yourself up where you can actually take them on in an equal footing.

Sure. Who doesen't? But the point is that you generally need to develop a research advantage of some kind and then you can use that advantage to do what you want which is to wipe them out militarily.

The thing is with most 4X games that you simply can't compete with the level of bonus that the AI gets. The only thing in your favor is that the AI tends to research all areas of tech evenly. If instead you concetrate on one only area then it's possible for you to outresearch the AI's in that area but the price you pay is to be behind in everything else. The thing is that even if you try you're going to behind in pretty much everything anyway. Why not be a little more behind in those areas of research that you deem non critical allowing you to gain an advantage however small in an area that you deem critical.

The options are literally endless and it's also impossible to simply give you some kind of cookbook answer. I could write a thesis on the subject and it still wouldn't be enough detail for you to simply copy.

If I recall correctly LTjim had asked pretty much these very same questions a few months ago. The suggestion that I gave him was to research quickly up the Diplomacy branch, get to Total majesty and build the Spin Control Center and put up ten cargo hulls full of the best weapons you can get. This makes your military might seem so high that the AI's won't attack you even though in reality they could easily wipe you out. This can give you the time to build yourself up and gradually develop where you can compete from a position of real strength.

Yes, my Qs were indeed somewhat similar.  I have been tinkering ever since with variations.  I would have one Suicidal won except that I forgot to disable the Research victory.  I may win it yet, but it does not look good.

On a separate but related thing, I had forgotten that the races start with different Class Homeworlds.  Many start with Class 10, some with Class 12, and the Thalians with Class 15.  Some interesting potential there, but it seems that the Thalians get fewer setup points.  Worlds get a Morale bonus at some size.  IIRC, worlds >10 Class get some morale bonus, but is it the same for Class 11 as for, say, Class 20?

Does this bonus apply to Homeworlds?  That is, do the Thalians at Class 15 start with a morale bonus that races with a Class 10 Homeworld do not get?  What about races with Class 12 Homeworlds?

 I attempted the original Civ, but it was so long ago I can't recall.  I defer.

LTjim......Racial bonuses and starting techs are more important than Homeword bonuses.  There are ways to chose your HW and secondary.  A good HW must have bonus tiles, the type depending on your strategy.  The most important bonuses are resources and ethical alignment.

Judging from your posts, you will soon have a Suicidal victory.

The bonus is for planets above class 10, so anything 11 or higher gets it. There is only one level of bonus, so an 11 gets the same as a 45.

Yes, it applies to homeworlds. Also, if terraforming gets the PQ to 11+, the bonus applies.

Not true. Homeworld bonuses make it easier, but they aren't absolutely necessary. I'm happy if I can get a morale bonus, anything else is gravy.

Thanx!

I have not figured out yet how to manipulate the system w/o cheats to get the homeworld and secondary the way I'd want.  That is, I can Control-N for Homeworld placement and tiles, but the size and secondary world thing remains some sort of "secret clan knowledge".  I'm good with that! 

Actually I don't really think there is much that is any secret about this or anything else for that matter. All of these things get discussed in the forums sooner or later. Much of it is simply being around long enough.

As far as homeplanet selection there's a lot you can do at least in DA (and I believe TA but not DL). Check out the How do you make custom races Metaverse compatible? thread where most of this is discussed. This is referred to as ARC (Advanced Race Configuration).

One thing that may not be mentioned in that thread is the 3rd homeplanet trick. For example if you take the Korx homestar (Oxor) but instead of choosing the normal Korx homeworld (I forget which one it normally is) you choose what would normally be a PQ0 planet you actually end up with 3 habitable planets in your home system. You get your normal PQ10 primary but you end up getting 2 PQ8 secondaries. If you do this with the Thalan system you end up with a PQ10 primary and a PQ15 secondary. Basically by doing this you get the normal system plus start out on a PQ10 that would otherwise have been a PQ0. I usually use the Korx system and choose Oxor as the homestar and Korx II as my homeplanet and then I get Korx II as a PQ10 and two other PQ8's in system. I then upgrade my miner to a colony ship and essentially have 3 starting planets from turn 2.

I can see how to change the name of the Homeworld, but I cannot see how to change the name of the Home system star.  Must one go into the xml files to do that? 

Yes. Silverbeacher's reply #3 in the above referenced thread explains it best although I don't think it was mentioned at the time that you could get an extra planet by picking a normally PQ0 planet as your homeworld.

You can also do this same trick for the AI giving the galaxy an extra 9 planets that it would not otherwise have. Note that for some reason this doesn't work with the Krynn and Korath but that still leaves 10 combinations that will work. I actually at one point configured multiple AI's with the same homestar and homeplanet and it *seemed* to work even though that meant there were two stars both named Oxor in the galaxy, but given how long it takes to play a game I don't want to get to the end and discover some kind of problem and so I just take Korx and give the others out to my opponents. I usually leave out the Drath and the Terrans as opponents because they seem to have the best diplomacy and my strategy involves gaining an early diplomaic advantage so I give the Drath and Terran homestars to the Korath and Krynn.

Anyway the following are the useful possibilities for yourself and/or the AI.

<Homeworld>Korx II</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Oxor</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ8, PQ8

<Homeworld>Iconia II</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Icos</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ10, PQ4

<Homeworld>Toria II</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Torus</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ9, PQ6

<Homeworld>Thalia II</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Thalis</Homestar>
PQ10 (primary), PQ15 (secondary)

<Homeworld>Mercury</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Sol</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ10, PQ4

<Homeworld>Dratha V</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Drathis</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ10, PQ5

<Homeworld>Rathor</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Drengia</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ10, PQ5

<Homeworld>Epas</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Altaris</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ12, PQ3

<Homeworld>Arcea V</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Athol</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ10, PQ5

<Homeworld>New Iconia II</Homeworld>
<Homestar>Iconis</Homestar>
PQ10, PQ15, PQ3

Thank you!  I will copy and save your post above and that in that other thread for future use.

For the moment, I am reluctant to mess with the xml files.

If you are reluctant on ethical grounds, ARC has been known and used for quite some time.  SD was aware of it early on and chose not to close what may be seen as a exploitive loophole.  If you are uncomfortable with changing gameXML, copy the original, save a copy as text, then test.  It makes playing simpler....come  over to the dark side. 

 

As for empire secrets, Mumble stated all that needs to be said.

I am reluctant to play with fire and files, and for similar reasons.

When it comes to editing code, I seem to have the Sadim touch.

Glad to see you have a sense of humor.  Many here can walk you through the XML.  Few through the fire.