Midgame strategy rut

[Garret OneEye]

I seem to keep finding myself in the same situation in the early-midgame and I'm wondering if someone can shed some light on this for me. This is happening on crippling level diff (all AI=genius) with version 1.03.057. This has been happening on something like 6 or so games so far for me, almost all of which I've lost.

I've been playing as evil for awhile now, although I'm not adverse to changing this. After the initial colonization rush, it seems that I must keep my military strength above the AI's or they will attack me, precipitating my eventual defeat. It's almost always either the evil Drengin, who demand waaay too much to keep them pacified, or the Altarians, who just hate me too much, or the Arceans, who have an incredible economy and therefore can keep up a torrid pace in tech progression and military build-up. The Arceans, especially, will instantly declare war once they think they have a military advantage, even an insignificant one. I must keep them peaceful towards me until I have Dreadnoughts and AMMs, at which point I can either go on an offensive with Dreads/Battle Transports (plus a dash of AMM) or turtle with Battlehammers/AMMs. I don't turtle before this point because I end up with 'Hammers vs. Frigates->Battleships->Dreadnoughts which is just too much firepower to withstand and at this level of difficulty, I can't just outproduce the AI in ships. I don't go on the offensive before this point either because this lets the AI get ahead in tech which results in them fielding vastly superior ships. There is one exception to this rule, which is a very early planet attack via Star Fighters/Transports, which can net me a couple of my neighbor's planets if the situation calls for it.

If I can achieve the Dreadnought tech at about the same time as the AI (or earlier), then I can usually win via any one of the victory paths. I've found that I have to assign the econ and production bonus attributes to the Terrans in order to give me a chance to get this critical tech in the necessary timeframe.

I assume that if I play as a good empire, I would not have as much of a problem with the Altarians, but would still have the Drengin to deal with. I don't know how the good alignment would affect the Arceans relations with me.

I'm wondering if anyone is finding success at this difficulty level without having to follow the above 'rules'. Can you hold off the Drengin/Arceans with massive amounts of trade? Can you achieve that amount of trade early enough? Any other suggestions?

[Garth Vader]

This sounds similar to my problems.

I have been trying to build ships like the AI does but unless I am tops in military whoever is higher than me will DOW regardless of any trade we might be doing.

Once the first guy DOW's me 2 others usually pile on.

This has happened to me as neutral as well, so don't expect being good to solve your problems.

My solution was to play in small or tiny galaxies which usually means I can keep up with ships and keep everybody off my back.

[Stevet]

I play on the same difficulty, largest map size. My usual strategy is to rush for the early TGs & buy them outright. I then trade like crazy, anything for anything. The key for me though is to trade for the AIs ships. Swap tech for Defenders, TGs for Corvettes, it doesn't really matter what you get as you will be reducing the AIs military strength & increasing yours by the same amount. You can stay level with the AIs this way whilst you crank out your own Defenders / Starfighters in the early game. Then head for Battleships & sell the tech to everyone. Dreadnaughts are next: research that & crank them out, buying one or two if necessary with the cash from selling Battleships. If you feel brave sell Dreadnaught Tech as well when you have a few up & running & are on the way to Rangers. You should be ahead on Military strength by now, a few AM Missiles will get you way ahead.

[campfreddie]

Wow! That seems a pretty extreme strategy.

However, the AI always seems to want huge amounts of stuff for his ships and what you suggest seems excessive to me.

Trade goods cost you at least 200 to produce (much more if you rush buy). A corvette costs 50. To trade >200 credits for 50 credits is stupid. Especially since trade goods are hugely valuable throughout the game, while a corvette can't even take out a defender. But hey, I play on 'bright' so what do I know?

My current experimental tactic is to buy techs with cash. The AI will sell most of them for less than they are worth (like 400 cash for a tech worth 600 research points). Of course, that doesn't seem like a good deal when you realise that you are boosting the AI's cash by 400 so the 'relative cost' is 800. However, I buy techs as 50 month deals! In 50 months time, the tribute is insignificant compared to the growth in my economy over that time.

I agree with the original point though about the only viable tactic being 'get your military level up nice and high'. Hopefully the 1.04 patch will make the 'military power' consider defence vessels a bit more.

In my current game, the Altarians are pissing me off by making skirmish attacks with their frigates and battlecruisers. They can't crack my defences but they refuse to make peace. I've had to switch all production to battlehammers to make them realise that they'll never win the war. The problem is that once I have an armada of battlehammers, I might as well wipe out the Altarians and win by conquest, even though I want to win by peaceful means.

[Stevet]

It's not a stupid strategy if you get to survive
On the high difficulty levels the AI will hammer you if it gets a military lead. Often the AI has little cash at this point so I have a choice: don't trade or trade a Defender & a small amount of cash for my TG. I expand aggressively in the beginning, producing colony ships rather than military, so have a lot of future potential, so I need a way to survive until I can pump out my own military. A bad trade to an AI or two doesn't matter as there are plenty more minors in the game who will pay full price later on!
Once I have settled everything I can I switch to producing military ships until I top the chart.

[LDiCesare]

I managed to win a masochistic game with little or no military. I did attack the Yor once, but only because they were at war against the Altarians who were stronger than them and close to me. The key was to trade a lot. It probably works only on biggest maps (this one was gigantic), otherwise you don't have time to do this. I paid all tributes asked out of me. Having 2000bc out of trade each turn helps a bit mollifying the ai.

[russellmz]

any civ looks antsy, try and get its trade partners, enemies, friends, and even minor races to war against that civ. while that's happening put any spare money into destabilizing them at the same time. laugh as you imagine the galaxy dancing to puppet strings coming out of your fingers...

[Egbert]

Re: Midgame strategy rut

Originally posted by Garret OneEye
Can you hold off the Drengin/Arceans with massive amounts of trade? Can you achieve that amount of trade early enough? Any other suggestions?

I had a couple of quick games with the AI set to sub-normal (a lot less than the difficulty level you are playing with) yet trade did not prevent the Drengin threatening me. I tend to be a bit lax about building ships so whenever the Drengin were a bit higher than me on the military strength they would immediately make ridiculous demands. I refused every time but they never actually declared war perhaps because I had a much much stronger economy. We seemed on the verge of war for much of the game despite multiple trade routes.

I have no idea how you might get such a huge economic disparity at genius so perhaps it is impossible to hold the Drengin off with trade at your level.

[The Aerain]

lol u know what i do?? i sell all my battlecruisers to the ai then after they deal with maintenance they go bankrupt then all u have to do is wipe their army with amms and transport.

[tetley]

2000bc trade a turn? Geez. I'm getting 500. What happened to that thread posted earlier about how to set up trade routes with Starbases? I'm still not getting a lot out of Trade starbases, even though my trade routes are short (too short?), straight, everything. They stack linearly, right? i.e. 2 +50% trade starbases = 100%.