Don't Defend Your Planets. It's Pointless on Larger Maps With Lots of AI.

1. Nope. You only need enough ships to clear a path for your transports. That is the absolute minimum.

2. Nope. You start to build the transports long before the war declaration. By the time the war actually starts, your planets should be either at, or close to, max population again.

3. Granted. However, if you have Spore Ships, you don't need population for the invasion, and the conquest of a planet is 100% guaranteed. They are, therefore, much cheaper than troop transports.

Bribing other races to go to war against each other is still a good idea though. I use it myself pretty often too, but never as the only means to protect myself. Having at least a small fleet of ships is preferable. It not only makes you less of a target, but also increases your relations with most races.

As for using a huge population to protect your planets, that isn't going to always work. First, not everybody uses Super Breeder, so the pop-growth for them is usually not high enough for this to work in the first place. I never use custom races, so the only way for me to do this, is to play as the Torians, and I don't like them. I prefer the Yor, Thalan, and Iconians. Second, by not researching Planetary Invasion techs, you are bound to loose much more population, because your Soldiering-bonus is too low. If the Soldiering-bonus of the enemy is high enough, you could loose half (if not more) of the population of your planets with only one attack. Third, population is money. Constantly loosing population like this is a huge waste of money. However, if your tax base is large enough, it won't be much of an issue. Lastly, but most importantly, Spore Ships don't care about population. If the Korath are attacking you, you will loose those worlds.

If you really want to use a low cost approach for the defense of your worlds, then place cheap, empty hulls in orbit around your planets. The enemy will have to destroy them first, before they can invade, making it easy for you to replace the ships each turn. Just make sure, that you don't build the Orbital Command Center.

1.  To clear a path, you need a comparable fleet.  That's a lot of bcs.  

2.  BCs and money better spent on constructors.  Why stockpile transports or declare war when you can immediately influence flip with starbases and Mind Control Center? 

3.  MCC + Influence Starbase = 100% guaranteed capture.  WITHOUT declaring war.  Also, you need to be Korath to get spore ships if you don't like custom races.  On the other hand, almost EVERYONE can build influence starbases with all of the influence modules.  

1.  To clear a path, you need a comparable fleet.  That's a lot of bcs.  AND a lot of research into the mostly useless military techs.

2.  BCs and money better spent on constructors.  Why stockpile transports or declare war when you can immediately influence flip with starbases and Mind Control Center? 

3.  MCC + Influence Starbase = 100% guaranteed capture.  WITHOUT declaring war.  Also, you need to be Korath to get spore ships if you don't like custom races.  On the other hand, almost EVERYONE can build influence starbases with all of the influence modules.  

With MCC, the moment you hit the magical value of "4" on the Influence Point screen for an AI colony, it will flip automatically on the next turn.  

This is INSANELY powerful.  Two franchise-chain-maxed out influence starbases can flip a border AI world.  

12-18 Constructors can conquer 2-3 worlds WITHOUT having to declare war.  Think about that.  Instead of having to waste time stockpiling transports, you could be steadily conquering your way across the galaxy WITHOUT even having to declare war.  

And what's so lovely about this is that it doesn't even MATTER what military tech the AI has.  You're just bypassing it through influence.  You don't need planetary invasion or anything.

And you can steadily do this to the strongest AI out there, as long as you can keep him occupied with wars elsewhere.  

 

Key techs: Diplomacy techs, Xeno Ethics (evil), Concepts of Malice, the Influence Chain, and good engine techs (so the constructors can get there faster).  

Key building: Mind Control Center.

Once you have this, and you can keep the AI occupied with bribes, you win easily through cultural conquest.  Just build constructors in the mid-game and ONLY constructors.  

In DA, of course, the MCC does not work that way, despite its official description.

As for population as a defense, have you had success with it on Suicidal?  The AIs are much more competitive on that setting, at least in DA.

In my Suicidal DA games, I never have a higher military rating until long after the outcome of a war has been decided.  As Gaunathor posted, one needs only very temporary and very local superiority to achieve invasion success.  I try to pick off choice planets first, but will take any targets of opportunity.

I also stockpile filled transports as my planets fill up.  There are several "tricks" but the one I generally use is to build enough farms to make approval drop below 100% when they reach max population.  Then I keep s;ow;y building transports at lower production planets and dispatch them to draw down planets as soon as they dip under 100%.  If all goes well, I might have 30+ transports at each border, generally at a mining starbase where I have a fleet on "guard."

In some games, I have amused myself by building the great ship "catapult" within a ring of military starbases.  This tactic is most effective on smaller maps, though.

Comparable fleet? Tech-wise maybe, but not size-wise. In fact, if you do it right, you may actually be able to avoid most of the enemy fleets, and only have to deal with the ships in orbit of the target planet. You need a good sensor-range (Eye of the Universe helps a lot) for this, and occasionally a ship as bait for the enemy fleets. With this tactic, I have won against enemies who had 30 to 40 times as many ships as I had.


Unlike troop transports, constructors have a 5bc maintenance cost. So, until you use those constructors they will cost you money each turn. Same goes for your influencer starbases. However, the starbases not only have a 5bc maintenance cost, but also an ever increasing buildcost. The size of the buildcost depends on how many starbases you have active at any one time (resource and ascension starbases don't count), the map size, and your Logistics ability. So, unless you have only a small number of starbases active, you pay for them, each time you build one. However, such a small amount of starbases will invariably slow down your conquest.

Troop transports, on the other hand, costs you almost nothing in comparison. You have to pay for the construction (same as the constructors), and your income from those worlds is reduced for a while, until the population has grown back, but that's it. Sure, there is also the cost of the invasion tactics, but you are already going Evil (because of the MCC), so the No Mercy Invasion Center is a no-brainer.


Evil + influence threat + no army = increased likelihood of getting war declared upon. Unlike most of us, you need to bribe the other races, because you are unable to defend yourself, should they attack.


True in my case, but not everybody has an aversion to playing custom races. Also, have you played against the Korath yet?


Not everybody, and especially not with tech trading disabled.

For example, the Drengin, Korath, Thalan, and Yor are extremely limited. The Drengin, Korath, and Yor only have access to the first three diplomacy-related culture modules, while the Thalan have access to all diplomacy related culture modules. None of them, however, have access to the Xeno Business techs.

Granted, those races got bonuses to offset this deficiency, but the effect of those are extremely limited:
1. The Drengin and Korath have two techs that grant a combined bonus of 25% to their Influence ability, but that bonus is already needed to offset the influence-penalty from their Slave Pits. They've also got the Propaganda Machine GA, which increases the effect of influencer starbases by 50%. However, the base effect of their influencer starbases is only 22% (from the three diplo culture modules). So it isn't helping much, if they don't get access to more culture modules.
2. The Korath additionally get access to the Dark Influence improvement, which increases planetary influence by 200%. However, that is not going to help to flip anyone, if the enemy planets are far away from yours.
3. The Thalan have two techs that grant a combined bonus of 40% (three techs for 50% if you are Good). However, that just offsets the loss of the Influence bonuses from the Xeno Business techs (35%). To offset the loss of the franchise culture modules, the Thalan have access to two unique ones: Utopian Society (+50%) and Xeno Influence Module (+100%). The Xeno Influence Module, however, is Good-only and bugged in the vanilla game. It requires the Insurrection Coordinator, which the Thalan don't have. So, unless you've somehow got access to the Xeno Business techs up to Cultural Insurrection, you won't be able to use it. Lastly, if you go Evil with the Thalan, you'll get the Brain Washing Center improvement, which increases planetary influence by 50% (and economy by 20%), but that has the same problem as the Dark Influence improvement from the Korath.
4. The Yor are, probably, the worst off among those four races. They only got one tech that increases their Influence ability by 10%. That's it.

I'd really like to know, if you would win using your strategy, playing one of those four races. In fact, I'm wondering how many games you've won with this strategy, playing a race without Super Breeder and/or the Torian tech tree on a difficulty of at least Tough.

Super-Breeder is the best trait in the game, with the possible exception of super-annihilator on smaller maps.  I haven't played any races w/o that trait.  Why would I want to nerf myself with inferior races? Besides, super-breeder is pretty useful for the "troop transport" method of conquest as well, so it evens itself out when it comes to discussing the merits of culture conquest vs military conquest.  Finally, we're talking about the newest ToA so talk of DL/DA is moot.  

About Dark Influence: I suspect it's extremely powerful at flipping AI worlds.  The reason is because if you flip an AI world, the Dark Influence works on those world too, which helps to flip the next set of AI worlds.  

Obviously you don't do this to the Yor or with the Yor.  But that's self-explanatory.  And the Korath are incredibly easy to deal with.  They're always behind in tech, and the Altarians are always weak militarily, so just bribe them to war on the Altarians. 

 

And for some reason you're not mentioning the Krynn.  

Simple math: 12-18 constructors cost about 2000-3000 bcs on gigantic maps depending on what engines you use.  We'll add in another 500-600 for maintenance costs for constructors/star-base (on average it takes a max time of ten turns for constructors to travel to site).  That's 2500-3500 BCs.  

A transport with 2000-3000 troops with a decent engine costs 400-500 bcs.  You need about 5 of them to take 4 colonies.  That's already 2000-2500 bcs.  Add in "maintenance costs" due to lowered population and lowered tax rates and that's another 500-600 bcs at minimum.  The transports themselves cost almost as much as the constructors.  Add in the fact that you need some sort of military ALONG with the necessary techs like Planetary Invasion and Medium Scale Building and Lasers (or something equivalent) means the military method of conquest is significantly more BC intensive than the cultural method.  You have to research 4 separate tech paths (Planetary Invasion, Engines, Weapons, and Building) in contrast to culture, which requires only 2 tech paths (engine and cultural domination).  The Culture Domination path is also significantly cheaper than any of the military tech paths.  You're also not mentioning that MILITARY units cost a shi-load to maintain as well, significantly more than constructors especially as you go higher up in the tech tree. 

Furthermore, in order to conquer someone militarily, you need to declare war on them.   With culture flipping you can avoid this. What this means primarily is that you don't need to stockpile a giant navy of transports and warships. Instead you can take colonies continuously meaning that those colonies becomes yours earlier without risking someone else declaring war on you because you declared war on another party.

And no, you don't need a lot of logistics.  You disband the influence starbases once they've done their job.  

Argh.  I keep on hitting the "reply button" instead of the "edit button."  

All of the traits are useful if you know how to leverage them.

Super Adapter can get to worlds that other races can't yet claim.  Sure, they suffer a loss of military and social production until they get the second stage of the colonisation techs, but if you have money to burn on buying improvements you can easily turn them into productive research colonies.

Super Warrior gets the first strike when initiating combat.  If they destroy the opposing fleet in the first round, they never get a shot fired at them.  This is a huge advantage if you have superior weapons and logistics, allowing you to mop up enemy fleets effortlessly.  Even if you don't destroy the enemy fleet first turn of combat, you can still destroy some of their firepower.

Super Diplomacy means that you can contact and make deals with other leaders every week.  With a strong economy backing them, they can get ahead by buying what they need.  They can start lots of wars with a few bribes.

Super Trader starts off knowing all the trade techs.  Considering that money is quite tight in the early game, being the first to have trade routes is a big deal.  Maybe not so much later on, unless mega events or UP decisions boost trade revenue.  Still, the early cash from trade means it is possible to keep colonising and doing some serious teching when other races are having to cut back their spending.  It also helps to keep you from being whacked.  However it is a double-edged sword, since you're also helping the economy of the race your trade with.

And yes, while Super Breeder is very useful for rapidly increasing population, the growth is contingent on morale being high, which usually means low taxes during growth phases, or a healthy supply of morale improvements.

I agree!

Also, some traits have what is essentially an "expiration date."

For example, Super Adapter gets a head start on colonizing some world types that others cannot, but all races will eventually get that same ability through research.  

Analogously, the Super Breeder can be approached by being the first one to research Aphrodisiac, etc.

Nonetheless, the Super Adapter can end up with more population than a Super Breeder simply by having more worlds and by spreading around the population can keep morale 100% longer allowing faster population growth.  The key is to maximize the use that head start.  Thus, a Super Adapter might max the colony rush, building starports fringe planets to colonize out the rest of systems and also grab and mine anomalies.  Having a higher chance to colonize a planet essentially next to a green anomaly is no small advantage.  Even a yellow anomaly may allow better tax rates throughout the Empire.  Similarly, an extra red one so gained will effectively offset any Warrior trait later (+39% offense and defense).

Your OP made it sound like this is a universal strategy. Something you can use with every race. However, if it is entirely dependent on Super Breeder and the Xeno Business techs, then it is not universal.

If someone posts a strategy like this, I expect them to have tested it with every official race. If they haven't, how can they know, if it really is as good as they think?


It is useful for military conquest, certainly, but not mandatory.


Yes, Dark Influence is extremely powerful. However, you won't be able to flip any enemy worlds, if the closest one is two or three sectors away from you.


You can flip Yor planets. It may take longer (unless you have the MCC), but it is possible. I'm not quite certain, if you meant that the Yor can't use the Dark Influence with that sentence, but it is correct. You can neither buy, nor steal, the Dark Influence tech.


Now I'd really like to know what difficulty you're playing on. It's definitely not Suicidal. Also, have you activated "Force AI to use max CPU" in the Game options?


Because the Krynn are actually able to use their influencer starbases to flip enemy planets, without having to acquire foreign culture techs, whereas the four previously mentioned races can't.

First, the Krynn have three unique planetary improvements: Consulate (+20% influence and economy), Temple of Krynn (+20% influence and morale), and Order of Krynn (+30% influence and morale). That means a combined bonus to planetary influence of 70%. The only downside is, that you have to give up three tiles for those buildings, and their high maintenance cost (5bc, 5bc, and 10bc).

Secondly, they get three unique culture modules: Missionary Support (25%), Kryniac Conversion Temple (50%), and Kryniac Disciple Chamber (100%). While this doesn't offset the lack of the Xeno Business modules entirely (175% compared to 275%), it is still much better than what the other four races got.

Lastly, they get the Oracle of Krynn GA, which provides +200% to planetary influence (and +100% to morale). Sure, it's not as great as the Propaganda Machine would be, or the Dark Influence (being limited to only one per galaxy), but it's still pretty good. (The combined Influence bonus of 10% from two techs, however, isn't really worth mentioning.)


First off, I need to correct a mistake I make. The maintenance cost of the standard Constructor is 10bc not 5bc. I somehow confused it with the starbase maintenance cost. Sorry about that.

Now, let's assume no Miniaturisation, and a standard tech tree (Terrans). The standard size of a Cargo Hull is 60, so a good design for a fast Constructor would be: 1 Constructor module, 2 Ultra Life Support, and 2 Hyper Warp Drive Mk. III. The buildcost would be 417bc and the maintenance 19bc (Yes, the maintenance increases, you can verify this in-game). I'm not using the Stellar Folder for this, because it is Terrans-only. Except for the Krynn, Torians, and Yor, however, all of the other races have access to Hyper Warp (The Arceans don't count!). Still, if you want to stay with the Torian tech tree, replace the Hyper Warp Drives with 2 Warp Drives Mk. IV, reduce the buildcost to 297bc, and the maintenance to 15bc.

With 12 Constructors, this would mean a total buildcost of 5004bc (3564bc for the Torians). Using your average of 10 turns travel time, the maintenance would be 2280bc (1800bc for the Torians). With two starbases, and a minimum of two turns until the planets flip, you add another 20bc to maintenance. This means a total cost of 7304bc (or 5384bc for the Torians).


Two questions: 1. How did you get those numbers? 2. Why would I lower my tax rate for this?

Okay, let's use the Terran tech tree again for this, plus the following: No ability picks have been used at the start of the game. The government form is Star Federation. Econ techs have been researched up to at least Xeno Bank, but no econ improvements (except for the Recruiting Center) have been built on those planets. There are 2 Fertility Centers, 1 Intensive Farm, and 1 Virtual Reality Center on those worlds. The tax rate is 59% (I could go higher than this, but let's stay there).
At the max population of 14b, those worlds will provide me a gross income of 81bc. Once the Transports have been built, the population will drop to 13b, and the gross income to 78bc. It will take 7 turns for the population to grow back. This means, that I will lose 210bc (10 planets x 3bc x 7 turns) income during this time. Actually, it will be less than this, because the gross income will grow with the population, but I'm not going to test when the income will go from 78bc to 79bc and so on. If I also have the Aphrodisiac TG, the time to regrow the population will be only 6 turns, so the lost income will be even lower. Ditto, if I increase the number of Fertility Clinics.

In total, the Transports will cost me 4380bc (or 3180bc for the Torians).


No, they don't. 7304bc (5384bc) are much more than 4380bc (3180bc).


Granted, the military way has a higher tech dependency (you're also forgetting Logistics and Life Support). However, if your enemy is close by, then you don't need to research that far into those tech paths to get started. Medium Scale (1900 total), Ion Drive (150 total), Laser I (850 total), Deflectors I (420 total), Planetary Invasion (1200). Overall: 4520. Depending on what weapons your enemy uses, if any at all, this number might by a little higher or lower. Still, compare it to the 8900 for all of the Xeno Business techs. There is also a chance of stealing techs when invading enemy planets, so you can quickly get a nice return to your investment.


Depending on map size and a few other factors, you don't even need to research all the way to the ultimate weapons.


As long as they don't get destroyed in combat, military ships can be used from the start of the game until the end, with the help of an occasional upgrade. Unlike Constructors and Transports, which need to be perpetually replaced. Their maintenance cost is also lower than that of Constructors early on. Overall, I'd guess the total buildcost of your Constructors will be at least equal, if not more, than the total cost my warships.


Or you goad them into declaring war on you.


Unless you are constantly bribing the other races to go to war against each other, you risk being attacked yourself, because you have no army. The bribes are a absolute necessity for you, so they should also count as part of the cost of your strategy.


So, you only ever use a handful of starbases at once, to avoid the ever-increasing buildcost? In other words, you're conquering the enemy much slower than you could.

Don't know where you're getting your numbers from, but each transport costs 400-500 bcs.  You need about 3000 (2500 sometimes) troops to reliably capture colonies.  This means:

Cargo Hull (55 bcs)

3 Advanced Troop Modules (210 BCs)

1 Warp Engine (140 BCs) 

That adds up to 405 BCs.  And this is bare bones.  If you want anything else, it adds to it, hence the estimate of 400-500 bcs.  Furthermore, even with 3000 troops, there's a 10-20% chance you won't capture the colony due to a bad roll or a population over 8000, which is why you need 5 transports to capture 4 colonies.  

Also, 12 Constructors does NOT cost 5000 BCs.  With a single engine, each construct costs about 225 bcs for something that can move at 5-6 bcs/turn.  I don't build constructors that cost 400 bcs each.  12 constructs cost about 2500 bcs, or half the cost of your estimate.  The ten turn estimate to arrive at location is based on constructs that use one engine.

You're also forgetting that if you go with bare bones, you don't have access to advanced troop modules, and you're lacking in soldering, which greatly increases the chance you need more than 1 transport to capture 1 colony.  What you're not taking into consideration is military losses due to failed invasions.  

Furthermore, your research numbers are off.  Using the Iconian tech tree:

At the slowest tech speed, it takes about 17000 bcs to get all of the Cultural techs. 

In contrast, the military techs take:

6000 for Advanced Hulls and Medium Scale Building

3000 for Space Militarization and Weapons

5000-6000 for even the basic weapon techs.

13000 for Planetary Invasion.  

Or 27000 for a BARE BONES invasion and military force.  And we're ignoring things like life support.  Also, your weapons will quickly become obsolete, and more advanced weapons tech are exponentially more expensive than the previous level.  In contrast, with the Culture method, you already have everything you need.  An arms race with the AI is expensive.  It's best just to circumvent the whole rat race and conquer them "peacefully."  

 Difficulty is masochistic/obscene.  And no, I have not forced AI to max CPU.  Does that make a difference? I'm looking at the forum about this option and the only difference is that the AI re-designs ships more often... which doesn't really matter to me because I don't care what ships the AI has since I'm just building constructors and bribing them against one another.  I don't care if one AI gets more powerful as long as he's at war with another AI just as powerful as him.  

Finally, you only need a handful of starbases at a time because you're making progress continuously.  Once you flip a set of planets, the next group of constructors will arrive to build the starbases to flip the next set of planets.  At which point you disband your old starbases.  The newly flipped planets will add their IP to the next group of planets, leading to a chain effect.

The bribery costs are minimal since people you want to bribe the most (Korath and Drengin) are the ones least likely to get advanced econ/morale techs and are the easiest to bribe. They also have the lowest diplomacy modifiers. Just give them techs that you're going to need anyways, like Xeno Ethics or Xeno Banking.  Sure they get more powerful, but I've noticed they're NEVER the most powerful in the game, tech or colony-wise.  And if you can make them stronger and bribe them to war on the Torians or the Krynn (who tend to be the most powerful in my games), it's totally worth it especially since you're evil as well.

I've noticed in my games the Altarians are always really pitiful, which means that it's easy to start a giant inter-galactic war by bribing the Drengin, Thalans (who also have major research issues early-mid-game), and Korath to attack the Altarians. It sucks everyone in, at which point you can ignore military.  

Also, if you get the non-military techs early on, you also have more TECHS TO TRADE.  The reason is the AI prioritizes military techs, so if you don't get them you have more viable tech trade/bribery opportunities.  

Master trade, if you can get it first, is one of the best techs in the game.  It's excellent trade bait and if you can build the Galactic Bazaar, it's amazing.  

The only reason to choose Super Trader is because of the Galactic Bazaar, which is arguably one of the best Wonders in the game if tech trading is allowed.  

The numbers are right out of the game. As I mentioned in my post, I was using a Cargo Hull, and no Miniaturization (therefore max size is 60), because that would unnecessarily complicate matters. The bigger the size, the more design options are available. Also, the cost of my design was 417bc, which fits right into your 400-500 ballpark. Not sure why you are complaining.


First off, this design isn't possible with a size of 60. The Troop Modules alone would fill that up, leaving no room for anything else. Also, it has no Life Support Modules, which means, that the range is pretty small. Unless you are playing on a small map, where range isn't an issue, it wouldn't work. There is no point in trying to invade, if I can't reach my target. Also, as I said before, I prefer speed to troop size. Several fast Transports are preferable to a few slow ones. At least in my opinion. The slow speed only increases the chances that the enemy will catch up and destroy them.

One last thing, the most expensive Warp Drive (Mk. V) costs 100bc. I guess you meant the Hyper Warp Drive Mk. III.


If a planet has a population of more than 8b, then send in one Transport with 1k troops, and use Mass Drivers. They won't win, but they're not supposed to. It's just to soften up the enemy. After that, you can send in the rest of the troops, and win with no to minimal losses. There are other ways to minimise the loss ratio too.


You didn't say anything about engines, so I assumed you'd want to reach your target as quickly as possible. That would require at least two engines. Also, your cost seems a little strange. Assuming one Construction Module and one Warp Drive Mk. V, you'd have no Life Support Modules onboard. Otherwise, the cost would be higher. If you are using the Mk. IV drive instead, the base speed would be lower (4 pcs), but you'd have enough leeway in your cost to add several Life Support Modules. If it is the former, then your range will be pretty small. Unless you're playing on small maps, you need to build starbases to reach your enemy.

Also, nice double standard. Your Constructor design fits perfectly on a size 60 Cargo Hull, but for my Troop Transport, you expect Miniaturization research first.

Oh, and your 12 Constructors cost 2700bc, not 2500. It is also very different to what you said earlier (12-18 Constructors costing 2000-3000bc). That implied a cost of roughly 167bc per Constructor, not 225.


I already use more than one Transport per colony, so I'm not seeing your point there. My favourite race, the Yor, also start out with a big bonus to Soldiering, so the lack of more advanced Invasion techs doesn't hurt as much.


You only loose Transports for failing an invasion, so I'm not quite sure what you mean.


How are they off? I was using the Terran tech tree (like in the rest of my post), and have taken the numbers straight out of the game files. On Normal research rates, the numbers are only slightly lower than what I stated, but that also depends on map size.


So, instead of using the Torians for your rebuttal, you use the Iconians, the worst race at military conquest (because they are missing some of the Invasion techs). Plus, you use Very Slow research rates for some reason. But okay. Let's take a look at your numbers. For the record, I'm using the values for a medium sized map. If you used a bigger or smaller map, then please say so.

Culture techs:
Xeno Persuasion 1040
Cultural Domination 2083
Historical Assimilation 2083
Xeno Cultural Trends 3123
Cultural Insurrection 4166
Cultural Conquest 6250
Total: 18745


Hull techs:
Interstellar Construction 206
Expert Engineering 623
Advanced Hulls 1666
Medium Scale Building 2083
Total: 4578


Militarization techs:
Interstellar Warfare 206
Space Militarization 419
Space Weapons: 315
Beam Weapon Theory: 102
or MD/Missile Weapon Theory: 632
Total: 1042 (Beam) or 1572 (MD/Missile)

I'm not certain how far up the tech tree this is supposed to go. Considering that the next point is basic weapon techs, however, I guess this is far enough.


Beam Weapons:
Kinetic Streams I 632
Kinetic Streams II 1265
Kinetic Streams III 2532
Total: 4429

MD Weapons:
Scatter Blaster I 315
Scatter Blaster II 419
Scatter Blaster III 1053
Total: 1787

Missile Weapons:
Seeker I 315
Seeker II 632
Seeker III 1686
Total: 2633


Invasion techs:
Planetary Invasion 2532
Orbital Bombarbment 1686
Stellar Marines 1686
Total: 5904

I guess you counted all of the Invasion techs. However, like I said above, the Iconians don't have access to some of them.


Beam Weapons: (4578+1042+4429+5904) 15953
MD: (4578+1572+1787+5904) 13841
Missiles: (4578+1572+2633+5904) 14687

Still lower than the cost for the Culture techs (18745).


To say that weapons become quickly obsolete is quite a statement, considering that this depends on several factors, like research rate, map size (influences cost and possible research power), weapon type (influences cost), difficulty (bonuses for the AI, if higher than Tough), and the size of the AI's empire (research and econ power). It may sometimes take weeks, but it can also take months, if not years, for your weapons to become outdated. I've seen all of that happening since I began to play.


Some weapon tiers have a not quite linear cost increase, some have a static cost, but none have an exponential cost increase. The only thing, that makes Weapons research harder, is the Tech Inflation. Every time you research something (or buy/steal a tech from someone else), the cost for all your techs increases. Weapon techs, however, are hit the hardest by this increase.


It does. The increased speed, at which the AI is replacing designs, is only part of it. During your turn, the AI is calculating it's own moves. With more processing power, it can do this much better.

Still, if the game is as easy for you, as you make it sound, then turn up the difficulty to Suicidal. I'm curios, if you still manage to win with your strategy.


Still, placing influencer starbases in all of the enemy star systems at the same time would greatly speed up the process. However, you could only do this with small empires. Otherwise, the cost to place those starbases would get prohibitive.


Even if the costs are minimal, they should still be counted for your strategy, because they are a necessity. As for the lowest diplomacy modifiers, that's is only the case for the Drengin (and Thalan).


It's a known AI issue of the Drengin, Korath, and Yor. They don't colonise planets within range of foreign influence. This makes them often loose the colony rush. There are some map settings that alleviate the problem somewhat. Abundant All and Tight Clusters are the best settings for them. Some others work too, as long as you make sure, that they start with a good amount of planets close to their homeworlds. Never use Scattered Star Density! That just cripples them.


Another known issue. The Category for Space Weapons is set to Point Defense in the Altarian tech tree. They will only research it, if somebody is using Missile weapons. In other words, it's unlikely for the Altarians to field a military. There are more bugs like this in the tech trees and other files. MarvinKosh, Tolmekian, MabusAltarn, and I, have released mods to fix those bugs. However, it's your own choice, if you want to use them or not.

All in all, I have nothing against cultural conquest. I even use it myself, sometimes, to supplement my military conquest. What rubs me the wrong way, however, is how you portray your strategy as the ultimate strategy. Even though, by your own admission, you haven't even tried it with the other races.

Very interesting discussion.  

In general, I agree with Gaunathor.

I would add a few points.  Minor ones first:

- I use only ion engines for transports and constructors (with few exceptions) so that reduces costs,

- miniaturization techs are pretty much a military strategy req requirement, making several ion engines possible,

- I never add life support to invasion transports; one constructor in the fleet is far cheaper for range extension

The major point is that at higher difficulties, one cannot keep any mining starbases w/o fleets.  This is an important distinction because the game's starbase defenses cannot defeat any but the early game fleets.  Thus:

- any non-military strategy cannot include any economy, morale, etc bonuses one can get from mining bases

- any yes-military strategy should assume at least one +39% boost to economy, morale, and research and maybe more

EDIT: Ok, I got why the numbers are off.   Gigantic map, very slow research speed.  Iconian:

All of the influence techs: about 65000 beakers.  In contrast:

Planetary Invasion: 26000 (base Planetary Invasion).  

Planetary Bombardment for Mass Drivers: 17000

Stellar Marines: 17000

Space Weapons, Interstellar Construction, Strategic Analysis: 10000

Miniaturization up to and including Level 3 (I'm assuming you'd want miniaturization for war): 15000 total.  

Missile Weapons: +Initial Series of Missile Weapons: 10000-20000 depending on how far you want to go.

Future Missile Weapons: Twice as expensive.  The pre-reqs for Psionic Missiles cost in the tens of thousands of bcs.   Psionic Missiles itself is 6608.  

Various hull techs (up to Medium-Scale Building, Advanced Hulls): Tens of thousands of bcs.  

 Planetary Invasion + Bombardment + Stellar Marines already cost as much as the Influence techs.  Add in the other things like actual weapons and miniaturization and hulls and you're paying a crap-ton more.  

Finally, you're missing the point.  With culture-flipping, you ONLY need the cultural techs to conquer planets.  If you choose the military path, you have to get Planetary Invasion, Weapon systems, miniaturization, and hulls.  The COMBINED costs of all of your military techs (even if you stop at basic weapon systems and medium hull design) is 3x more expensive than the culture techs.   

In other words, I can begin conquering with my culture flipping a lot earlier than you can.  I DON'T have to stockpile transports.  I DON'T need all those other tech paths that a military person needs.  I just need the culture techs, and that's it.  Unlike a war-monger, who needs numerous techs from 4 separate tech paths.  

 

EDIT 2: But yes, I agree. With the Yor it's kind of pointless.  But it works well with anyone who can get the influence tech path, which means almost  everyone else.  

And no you can't make influence starbases on all of their systems because you can't construct constructors fast enough.  The goal is not to do one major strike.  The goal is slowly expand your borders by flipping their border colonies.  Since you're not at war, you don't have to worry about retaliation.   Also, since you're constantly destroying old influence starbases, starbase construction costs are kept cheap.

Two, you don't have to focus on one AI at a time.  Since you're not at war with them, you can culture-flip on multiple border fronts.  

Three, a constructor with an ion engine costs 175 bcs.  One with a warp drive costs 245 or something like that.  It doesn't matter strategically if they get there quickly or slowly.  But for the sake of the players' sanity, you should use warp drives even though they're probably less efficient on a cost-benefit basis.  However, NEVER put two warp drives on a constructor.  It's a total waste of bcs.  400 bc constructors is silly, unless it's for a mining base.  

Four , if you use mass drives you destroy the planet's quality.  What's the point of capturing planets if they suck afterwards? With culture flipping, you get the entire planet and ALL of its improvements intact, along with a pretty hefty population.  Furthermore, that planet with its IP will help flip the next series of planets in that area, leading to a chain effect.  

Transports are lost even after a successful attack.  It takes a minimum of 1 transport per capture.   

 

@ LTJim

If you aren't at war with any AI, your starbases don't get attacked.  And even if you are attacked, if you can bribe them to attack someone else, you're fine.  You're MORE likely to get your starbases attacked if you choose a military strategy because you're at war with someone.  

Which raises an interesting point: on the diplomacy screen, you can talk to an AI you're at war with and BRIBE them to attack someone else, while remaining at war with them.  

Culture-flipping IS the ultimate strategy on larger map sizes (as long as it DOESN'T involve the Yor).  Note the title of the post.  

Something to bear in mind is that there are some races which get a 'Lite' constructor module which is cheaper (takes up the same space oddly enough) so you could shave 40bc from those constructors.

As far as actual planetary defence goes, I find that if the AI is going to attack a particular planet, then I may as well rotate my good ships in there and let the enemy burn their ships trying to take the planet.  Or alternatively, if there are lots of enemy fleets, have a few fleets hanging about on standby to keep the planetary defence fleet from taking too much fire in one round.

Knowing where an attack is going to occur (by having good sensor coverage and spy level) means that you can concentrate your forces where they're needed most.  Most planets don't need more than a single fighter to deter transports, and only when you're sure that there are transports inbound.

Once again, I'm not getting those numbers (for example: 23488 for the Culture techs, 4362 for Planetary Invasion, 2907 for Planetary Bombardment). I guess you're looking them up late in a game, while I look them up at the very beginning of the game. Tech Inflation severely changes those values over time. Especially for Weapons techs, as I said before.


No, I didn't miss it. I never said, that those strategies are equal. Everything has its drawbacks. For military conquest, it's a big tech investment to get started (and sometimes even going). However, you're missing all of the benefits it has. Every time I invade a planet, there is a chance for me to steal a tech. Once the enemy is willing to make peace, I can get money, techs, and even planets, in return. I don't even get a diplo penalty with the other races, if the last planet of my enemy gets culture flipped. Which happens easily, because it is now in the middle of my territory. My military also protects me from getting attacked by other warmongers, which means, that I don't need to bribe them. As long as I'm not the aggressor in a war (goading others into declaring war on me), I'm also relatively save from others attacking me because of it. Not always, but usually.


Yet again, I disagree. Yes, using influencer starbases is pointless with the Yor. As long as you don't get access to foreign Culture techs, at least. However, they can still become a cultural power house. It just takes more time and effort.

In my last game on an Immense map (Abundant All, Tight Clusters, Crippling difficulty), my influence was unbeatable. Once I had a population of about 4 trillion(!) and a few maxed out Influence mining bases, no enemy planet could withstand me. If the enemy planets where too far away, I just needed to conquer a few of them, and the rest would revolt soon after. I never built a single influencer starbase. Everything was done with a combination of Troop Transports and high influence from population (finished the game with a population of a little under 7 trillion).

The only bad thing is, that I could have won that game years ago via Tech victory. I had already researched Beyond Mortality, because I was afraid the Altarians might go for it. They had the biggest empire at that point, with about 192 planets, while I was only at third place with 80. Still, it was one of the best games I had in years. It was also pretty funny, considering some of the events. Two highlights were, getting a war declaration from the Akilians (they had stolen some Iconian techs, and now believed themselves masters of the universe), and the Terrans declaring war on the Torians (who were allied with the Altarians and Drath, the direct neighbours of the Terrans), because they had only one planet left.


A low production speed doesn't make it impossible. It just takes longer to get there.


So? You can also wage multi-front wars. It's not ideal, but it is possible. In the game I mentioned above, I was also forced to do that (bloody The War Has Expanded event).


You're still using the Torian tech tree, and no Life Support modules, right? In that case, your numbers are off again. One Ion Drive costs 20bc. Plus the 55bc for the Cargo Hull, and the 70bc for the Constructor Module makes it 145bc. Unless you meant the Impulse Drive (50bc), then it'd be correct. Your Warp Drive, however, is still wrong. As I said before, the most expensive Warp Drive costs 100bc, which would make the total cost of the design 225bc. Unless you suddenly added Life Support to those designs, which didn't seem to be the case before, those values make no sense at all.


Only if you win the battle. As I said in my post, those troops are not supposed to win. Their only purpose is to weaken the enemy, so the rest of troops can capture the planet, using a different tactic.

Also, if the base PQ is pretty low (like 5 or 6) to begin with, Mass Drivers has actually a chance to increase the PQ. Planets with a PQ of 4 and lower have more tiles to terraform. It's cheesy, and I consider it an exploit (so I'm not using it), but it is possible.


Only if you use the same techs as the other race. If your Torians flip a Drengin planet, you will only get the Starport, the Recruiting Center, and the farms.


So? That's also the case, if you conquer the planet. The influence of the planet might be lower, because the population isn't as high, but that doesn't change anything.


I'm not seeing your point here. Constructors get lost once you build a starbase or add a module to an existing one. Colony ships get lost once you colonise a planet. Spore ships get lost once you conquer a planet. That's their job! They are one-off ships. Once they've done their purpose, their gone.


I still disagree. Your strategy works well for you, and the way you play. However, it may not work for others (like me), and the way they play.

marigoldran -

Even if you bribe other AIs to declare war with AIs who declare war on you, those same AIs remain at war with you.

That is, if you depend on your planets pop growth to defeat invasions, that same AI that is mounting those unsuccessful invasions will preferentially attack every starbase of yours, including the mining ones.  Without strong defensive fleets, your strategy must assume no mining bases in your math, while ones like Gauanathor can assume multiple bonuses that improve morale, economy, and research.

Also, any AI that defends its blue mining bases gain those influence bonuses while your empire will have none.

Additionally, your strategy seems to depend on fairly dense maps where you can rely on your planets being the major influence projectors, since influence bases will get destroyed by any AI you are at war with.  On more open galaxy types with lower planet density, it may not work as well.

Have you tried your strategy on Suicidal?  On lower habitable planet densities? 

The mining bases only get attacked if the AI is within striking reach of it.  This is why it's essential to keep your neighbors busy with someone else.  On gigantic or immense maps, you can be at war with 2 other civs and still have all of your mining bases intact because they're too far away.  The AI will attack other AI targets they're at war with. 

It probably will not work as well on lower planet densities.  But on obscene I've expanded from around 50 colonies to 167 without having to build a single military unit.  I've conquered Thala with culture-flipping despite the fact that the Thalans have the strongest military and the most colonies in the galaxy.  At some point it stops working because the people who did declare war on you from the other side of the map has become your neighbors.  But that's when you start building military units.  

My point is that taking AI colonies initially should be done with culture-flipping.  It costs a lot less in BCs, and as a result you can start the process of conquest much earlier.  You don't need to stockpile an army of transports, and you don't need to research 4 different tech paths.  Constructors and the influence tech line ARE cheap compared to the military alternatives and are just as effective at conquest so long as the AI is kept busy.  

 

It is certainly correct that there are many diverse paths to victory, especially at lower difficulty levels.

Also, map choice can be tailored to fit a strategy, as well.

In some of the old threads where folk were trying for zero year wins or max scores, they would specify exactly which AIs were in the game to make their results possible.

On suicidal (DA) I have had AIs send multiple fleets at several of my mining bases well within my borders even while they were at war with not one but two other AIs.  You might give Suicidal a try and report back how your strategy worked.  I am quite curious, actually, though I do not own TA.  In DA, one cannot flip planets with the MCC.

I'm also quite curios about that, but I already said so before.

As for Suicidal in TotA, I only tried it once myself. The game lasted for about two years before I got crushed. Not really surprising to me. I'm more at home at Tough (most races) and, since recently, Crippling (Yor).

What is definitely true for Suicidal in both DA and TotA is, that, if you don't know what you're doing, you're going to loose.

What makes Suicidal easier in TotA, however, are all the bugs in the tech trees. I'm pretty sure, that there are also some minor ones in DA, but nowhere near the same extent as in TotA.