DJ's Birdmen Guide - What they don't tell you!
Last update on 22/01/98

Let's get it straight from the start - the Birdmen are a good race to play. For the beginner they are easy to play while the more experienced can take the Birdies on to win the game.

I've ready many FAQ's on the Bird's (the best is the Birdmen Guide to the Galaxy) and they all say the same stuff...build swifties .. sneak and sneak.

Yes, Swifties are good scouts at the start of the game but quite soon you will be wondering why you built them. There lack of fuel, ability to hold almost nothing and worst of all they can take only one mine hit. By about turn 20 you should have a few Resolutes skulking about spying on the enemy.. Why?? In HOST 3.2 the Resolutes and DarkWings don't need fuel to cloak so they can sit in enemy territory for as long as you want, the Swifties cannot. The Resolute can tow things out of orbit ( if there is a ship protecting a LDSF in orbit then just tow out the LDSF and attack it ) and if used makes them deadly.

Good things to do with Resolutes

1. Find an enemy planet you really want to kill, e.g. his homeworld ( do superspys till you find a largely populated planet with temp at 50 and usually no natives + ships in orbit ), and then get a couple of Resolutes and some DarkWings in there. Tow out the ships with the Resolutes and kill with the DarkWings....don't put the Resolutes on kill unless you know that you can kill the ship - chance is that he doesn't have kill set ( maybe).
2. Advanced scouts - send them out to hunt and find starbases - once there just wait for new ships to get built and tow them out and simply take on easy LDSF prey to kill supply lines.

Dark Wing is no Duck!
These nice little ships can take on anything! 10 Beams and 8 torps are matches for all medium ships and 2-3 will take out any ship. If you manage to get your hands on a big tech10 fighter ship from another race then a good mix is to send in a DarkWing first then let the tech 10 ship mop up, it will suffer little damage and can fight another day. The biggest problem with DW's is fuel - okay you've heard this before but it is very important. Sending them down to kill the enemy but not sending at least 1 resolute per 2-3 DW's is just madness - I've done it so trust me.

Things to do if you're the Birdies :-)

1. If you start in a high tech game and are fortunate to see an enemy in the first couple of turn then go for them right from the start, build a resolute with X-rays + gamma's and send it over to investigate - you should be able to work out via the score and his position where his homeworld is. Build a couple of more Resolutes and 3-4 DW's and send them over. One of your Resolutes should have MkIV's on them, about 40-50 will do. Send all ships into orbit, except the one with MkIV's. Lay the torps the same turn you attack ( try to use a low ID ship ) and you should frag his homeworld. Next decide whether you can hold onto it - if not then raise it to the ground and steal what you can, find his other ships and pick them off. This may all sound too easy but most players and too scared to do the above and will do the usual, couple of freighters, small capital ships at the start so kill the bastards first.
2. Don't build Swifties after turn 10, unless they are for carrying cash.
3. Do get any ally and get a nice big ship off them as soon as possible, pay for it if you have to. Once you have it you can then clone it - then stab them in the back.
4. Send messages to players saying "I can see you".
5. Use cloaked intercept
6. Using towing to your advantage, I have one a nice ship on the odd occasion including an Instrumentality and an MBR that had just been built.
7. Start a campaign to make the Birds the rulers of the echo cluster.
8. Build lots of DW's & Resolutes, if the 500 limit is reached and you are doing reasonably well then you should have at least 40 DW's and 20 Resolutes - at least!!!!! - BTW - MKVII or VIII's or all DW's please.

.....and other thing's that I'll add at some point.