A. Hosting, General Tips

1) DON’T!! I.e. don’t be a newbie and try to host a game at the same time. Play in at least one game to the end before you decide to host a game.

2) KEEP BACKUPS AT LEAST 3 DEEP. Keeping backups that are more than 7 turns old isn’t very helpful because most people aren’t going to want to back up that far if something goes wrong with the game. However backing up and redoing 1 or 2 turns will be ok. (And things do go wrong.)

3) Convince everybody to do their UUENCODE/DECODE on the PC using the same version of the program (recommendation: Richard Marks’ v5.21, available on SIMTEL {if you don’t know what that means you are crazy to even consider hosting a game.}) Having some people doing UU on the PC and others on various mainframes is a recipe for trouble.

4) DON’T PLAY IN YOUR OWN GAME. This has several advantages:

a) I play to win. I don’t want some less skillful player saying that the only reason I won was because I used my special advantages as host. I assume that you feel the same way.

b) If necessary it allows you to look at players’ files without feeling guilty.

c) If someone drops out, you can play their empire for a couple of turns while you arrange a replacement.

d) There are plenty of games on the net for you to play in. I would recommend that all hosts give other hosts special consideration when it comes to getting into a game (but not necessarily first choice of race.)

B. RTFM (Read The F*%$ing Manual)

READ THE DOCUMENTATION! "When I first started to play, I thought the only way to colonize planets was by building ships and setting them to ‘colonize’. Naturally enough, I fell pretty far behind in those first few games."

C. Conglomeration of Thoughts, Playing/Hosting

There are two secrets to success. The first one is really no secret. Fighters! "But I play the Feds", you might say. Fear not. Rescue is here. Mines. (not the ones you build on planets, stupid). As noted earlier I will not say anything of tactics with space mines, but just dropping some in enemy territory is NOT the best idea.

Teams. Try teaming up with someone. Exchange ships. Think of it. Privateers & the Cyborgs. Unstoppable.

Even though you cannot cloak, you can semi-cloak. Orbit planets as often as possible. Always defend planets so they can’t be surveyed.

Watch the scores. They often tell you more than the deep space scan.

Don’t just watch you neighbors, watch your neighbor’s neighbors. What’s going on on the other side of their empire can impact your side.

Your number one goal in the opening phases (assuming your neighbors leave you a little bit of breathing room) is MAXIMIZE PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY. This means (1) exploring new planets quickly, and (2) develop enough shipping capacity to get reasonable numbers of colonists onto the planets and regular shipments of minerals and cash back to your starbase. IMHO this calls for the highest engine tech you can afford and hull tech sufficient to build the larger freighters. Obviously, if your neighbors are hostile, local defense becomes a top priority and economic development takes a back seat.

[Re: Should you be building a ship per turn?] This is not a bad idea in the beginning, provided the ships are useful in accomplishing the goals described above. Later in the game you are much better off building the highest quality ships you possibly can (though small, cheap gunships also have their uses, especially against fighter-based races). I like to think of the overall goal of the game as converting as many minerals and resources as you can obtain into the most powerful battle fleet possible. It’s a simple idea, but it helps you to keep your strategic focus.

Cash is probably most scarce at the beginning of the game when you are trying to get your tech levels cranked up and keep your manufacturing going. The next thing to go, in my experience, is neutronium. After that, if you haven’t paid attention to your mining and supply networks, everything starts to get scarce and you can find yourself in real trouble.

Combat only takes place if both ships end their turn in the same location. In practice, this generally means you only have combat when at least one of the players wants a battle to take place. But don’t worry—this will happen soon enough!

A. Planetary defense

Defense posts have critical values, where you get more fighters/beams/tech, and increases are only valuable at these points. So buying D from (say) 7-12 is worth nothing, but 12-13 gets you an extra fighter (4, now) and tech 2 beams. So, build factories and save until you go 7-13 in one hit.

Planetary Defense has wildly varying effectiveness. 1 DP can keep a planet from being taken over by starting ships with only 1 or 2 lasers or x-ray. (1 DP means the planet has shields, at 0 DP it has no shields).

But the value of planet defense above one is highly questionable. Unless the defense is VERY high, any half-decent ship with 4 or more beams and either some decent torpedo tubes or a goodly number of fighters, will be able to take it with little trouble.

Adding a starbase (with 60 fighters) makes a planet MUCH more difficult to kill. For testing purposes I used an Empire SSD with 8 x-ray lasers and 68 fighters, not until I cranked the planet defense up to 271 did the planet win consistently. Adding a starbase and 60 fighters, the planet won consistently with only 20 DPs.

Keeping this in mind, below are the ‘breakpoints’ for planetary DPs. Raising DPs to a number not on this list increases shield strength, which is of fairly minor significance; it also increases the Ground Combat Defense multiplier, which can often be more useful.

Formulas:
# of planet fighter: SQR(DP) + .5
# of beams: SQR((DP + base defense) / 3) + .5
Beam Type (not TL): SQR(DP / 2) + .5
Shield strength (untested): (DP + base defense + 100) gives ship KT equiv.

(Defense Posts, Fighters, Beams, Beam Type)

DP	F	B	TYPE	DP	F	B	TYPE
1	1	1	laser	85	9	5	heavy blaster
3	2	1		91	10	6
5	2	1	x-ray laser	111	11	6
7	3	1		113	11	6	phaser
13	4	2	plasma bolt	127	11	7
19	4	3		133	12	7
21	4	3		145	12	7	heavy disruptor
25	5	3	blaster	157	13	7
31	6	3		169	13	8
37	6	4		181	13	8	heavy phaser
41	6	4	positron beam	183	14	8
43	7	4		211	15	8
57	8	4		217	15	9
61	8	8	disrupter	241	16	9
73	9	5		271	16	10

In short, if you REALLY want to defend a planet, put a stocked starbase in orbit above it! If that’s too expensive you can always post a picket ship or two at the planet. Of course, picket ships can be robbed, or towed away, while starbases can’t...

There are a variety of utilities that also give you your planet(s)’s current defensive strength (such as, Crystal Ball, Informer, VPUTIL...etc...)

B. Starbases
[Re: choosing suitable planets for starbase construction...Ed.]

IMHO, mineral content is more important than a large population; you can always ship the cash there from a cash-cow, cheaply with a scout ship, as long as it’s not too far away. You will want lots of colonists at the base though, in case those sneaky cloaked types try to capture the base by beaming down colonists for a ground attack (esp. lizards!).

The one tech worth building at a base even if you don’t need it for ships is beams; they may boost the starbases beams used in its own defense, if the SQR (.5 * (starbase defense + planetary defense posts)) is less then the starbase beam tech.

A good justification for the strategy of building as many starbases as you can [is the 500 ship limit...see FAQ]. It’ll pay off in spades if you survive long enough to reach the 500 ship limit.

C. Conglomeration of Thoughts, Planet-Side/Starbase

Planetary defense can be a bitch. A Strong Planet is worth the investment.

Build factories first and always. Try to have maximum factories on all planets all the time. Exception is Bovinoids, where one aims for maximum defense and spends the change on mines.

Put about 10-20 mines on a poor-mineral planet. Up to 100 mines/factories is a good max, as over that amount is usually detrimental, as your taxing rate will be compromised.

Unregistered players better hunt out (1) Ghipsoldals for tech ten engines, and then (2) humans for tech 10 hulls. Engines are vital, and give you a big advantage over slower people. The FAQ on alchemy ships is useful, but note that you need 625kT Deut. to make one, so don’t get too excited until you have the minerals to make the ship. And, unless you are really rich, only put tech 4 or 5 engines in it. Tow it if it has to be moved. And, it’s cheaper to move minerals than supplies, so put it over a Bovinoid planet not a starbase (unless you have both...), and then build a starbase there if you feel like it (or someone attacks you).

A. Alchemy ships

One alchemy ship should be constructed early in the game. No need to use extra cash/minerals on engines/weapons. Have it as a stationary builder. If anyone can grab something at your home world they can surely beat the shit out of you anyway. (Best placed at a good Bovinoid planet—supplies...)

B. Dealing with Cloakers

The Situation is fairly common. You are less experienced in planets, and you get attacked by one of the cloaking races. How to react now?

In most cases you first have to define your general strategy. It is a fairly good assumption that the your first step is re-gaining control about your territory and ensure your expansion. If you can sufficiently ensure those conditions, then you can start attacking the enemy actively.

Your main strategy against cloaking intruders is therefore mining. By that I don’t mean one huge minefield covering your whole territory, but several small to medium minefields placed strategically. Your territory is not simply a place but is defined by supply points and transport ways. Therefore mine important planets and waypoints.

Your second strategy is to secure transports. You effectively have to make it that expensive for your enemy to conquer or destroy your transports that you win more than he does. The usual way of doing this is Freighter Escorts. The necessary strength of escorting ships there depends on your enemy - Birdmen cloakers are slightly more dangerous than those of other races are. Good escorts are light and very offensive. They should at least have Mark 4 (TL5) Torps, later I would use Mark 7 or 8.

An alternative can, in rare cases, be heavy armed freighters. Examples are the Nebula, Tranquility, Firecloud, Emerald, Cat’s Paw and, perhaps, the Gemini.

Your third strategy is selective territory protection. Find out the important stars in your empire and place ships and mines there. Never try to protect everything you own. Said empire for example tried to hunt a tiny Serpent escort, which broke into his domain by a Super Star Destroyer. He burnt enormous amounts of fuel and bound a major ship he needed elsewhere urgently in order to hunt down a ship that couldn’t cause much real damage.

A rule of thumb I made with respect to intruders is: They won’t be allowed to cause more damage than they are worth, and they may get in but they won’t get out. And they are never, Never, NEVER allowed to keep planets they conquer. Their lack of fuel supply points inside your territory is one of your best weapons.

C. Conglomeration of Thoughts, Ships

Be extremely careful what ships you construct. Be even more careful to only use your ships to what they were meant to do. Hurling small escorts with many beams against large carriers, is the absolutely WORST tactic I’ve ever heard of!

You only need lasers to shoot down fighters. (Even on battleships). Small mass ships don’t stand a chance against torpedoes. Flee to fight another day.

If two good ships won’t do, five intermediate and one good will. Ships with less than Transwarp Drive aren’t worth diddley.

If you want to overload a ships engines for part of a trip, do it at the very end. This way the engines are running inefficiently when the ship is lighter so less fuel is wasted. It also gives you the opportunity to change your mind.

Watch the mineral content of ships when you build them - low tech ones are heavy and expensive, with low cargo capacity. For scouts you want light, cheap, lots of cargo. They don’t fight except against planets. Leave that to ships with torps and fighters who follow once you have a few good planets.

Find planets by sending a light, fast ship full of colonists out to put 1-10 colonist clans on each planet, without stopping. This tells you what’s there, and you can follow it up with a bigger ship to fix the colony. The idea is to make 4 or 5 good colony planets with minerals or natives, rather than 20, half of which are arctic or mineral-poor. Aim for 1000 clans and a strong defense on good planets. Probably a ship with disrupters, to capture enemies, backed by a planetary defense around 60-100 to trash anything big enough to kill the defender ship. I usually have my colonizer tow this out as I only put low tech engines in it. Little Pests and Little Joe’s are great for this-cheap, lots of beams, but one hit and they’re history. Usually they capture two or three other ships before they go though, so are worth the extra cost.

A. The Solar Federation

Build Neutronic refinery ship(s) early. You have no fuel carriers, so your supply will be limited.

Build an alchemy ship early - preferably before the N. refinery. Keep it at your home world until you can build a Nebula or Missouri to escort it to a Bovine (supply-producing) planet.

You are going to have to trade to get fuel carriers, fighter ships, and respect. Form a stable alliance with a stronger race. Offer them use of your Super Refit capabilities.

Despite the lack of fuel carriers, you have a good balance of ships, mostly leaning toward torpedo-based weapons. Crank up your torpedo tech level, and concentrate on tech 7 and higher torpedos.

Nebula - carries 350 torpedo's. Good for torpedo transport, or can use on long treks through enemy space dropping 50 mines 7 times to form a wall. Sweet ship to offer in trades but be careful whom you give it to.

Missouri - good torp & beam ship, high mass, can take some hits.

Kitty Hawk - holds 65 fighters, reasonably priced. You can build a couple of these, and send them out with other ships in a fleet.

Nova - Not bad for a tech 10 ship. I haven’t had the chance to battle test mine yet, so I can’t give good advice on Nova Vs T.Rex, etc.

Nocturne - Don’t overlook these! They hold 50 torpedo's - not much in a battle, but can be loaded with torps and distributed across your territory. In times of emergency, they can cover your planets with small minefield's (beware cloakers!), and be used to trigger planet defenses if/when attacked.

A previous hint said that Feds lose in the long run. Without fuel carriers, you will lose quickly.

You are the poor guy who probably will not win by the course of time and simple surviving. Use your money advantages to outrun your enemy early - they will loose much of their value later. You can use your Refit mission to overcome temporary supply shortages - simply build the ship and refit it later when money or minerals are plentiful available.

Your Escort of Choice is the Loki. You can equip it with slow drives and tow it by the freighter, if money is rare. The Vendetta does it as well but it is a little short on Crew and tends to get conquered by the Enemy.

They can Super Refit ships, for profit.

That’s why the Solar Federation is sooo powerful! ;-)
(Another "ally" tip)
(Meaning? --- Ally w/ the Feds, send them your old ship , have them "REFIT" it with upgraded stuff. They return it to you. Work out the $$ yourselves a great alliance tool)

B. The Lizard Alliance

Go out, find enemy planets you want, and land 1000’s of clans to take them over and defend them. You’ll probably want 2 or 3 warm planets to grow lizards on, and remember not to build more mines than you need. Use that defense bonus on ships by using small, cloaking ships to steal ships off other people.

Normally the Lizards are lousy (or so-so) cloakers. The Reptile isn’t heavily enough armed, and the Lizard Cruiser is too massive - it needs too much fuel. But they have their Lizard Ground attack, which can cause horrific damage to your planets. Additionally this can be used while cloaking.

Two countermeasures: Develop Planet defenses to max, and place well armed ships around endangered planets. If the Lizard conquers the planet, you will take it back immediately. And that Planet Defense reduces his ground combat ratio. Once one of these Lizard Cruisers loses its Colonist load, it has lost most of its destructive potential.

Your Escort is the Vendetta. Since you have the 150% advantage, it is more impressive in your hands than with the Fed.

If you had a Lizard ship orbiting a planet and you upped the tax rate to 100% and the Lizard ship had the HISSSS Mission set would that mean that you’d get major $$$ without any risks at all or would the population riot? I know the HISSSS mission will stop civil wars, but will it stop people from rioting?

Nononononononononono.

Don’t raise taxes to 100%. Dumb. Civil war for turns & turns, even with 3 or 4 ships on HISSSS orbiting the planet. HISSSS only decreases unhappiness a little bit. You’d need multiple ships Hisssing! To manage 100% taxes I have one planet with 15 mil Ghipsoldals at a 40% tax rate and 7 ships Hissing! and they’re stable at ‘Unhappy.’ (host 3.11)

The number of ships needed to keep your planets not rioting is not directly proportional to your tax rate. Unhappiness is more like geometrically related to tax rate (I dunno what the exact deal is). HISSSS! does not stop riots immediately. You can have a planet rioting while ships HISS! at it. Such planets will just stop rioting quicker. You can also HISS! at planets you don’t own and it’ll work. HISS! at your allies in exchange for better ships... ...

Nope, sorry. I tried that, ONCE. It took two turns with taxes at 0% and two ships in orbit with the HISSSS Mission going, to recover from bumping taxes up to 100%. Thank God I did that early in the game so it didn’t hurt me. (FYI: This was on version 3.0d) So for all you Newbie Lizard players out there, Do NOT set your taxes up to 100% and think the HISSS mission will make everything o.k. the following turn.

For all you Lizard People out there that have played for quite a awhile, How are we supposed to beat anyone?? This is my first game, my ships suck, I’m over extended in planets, because my lizards mine too fast then get angry, I have to build all freighters to send them back to my two starbases which are already sucked dry. This means I have a few escorts, and my biggest ship is the size of the Robots tech 6. Not only that they are about to attack me, and they can at any given time, because I don’t have any mines, all my Mo are in my freighter’s hulls, and the freighters just ship Supplies back and forth. Meanwhile I have to let the ULS Patrick (Merlin) to rune seven or eight times just so I can build another one, and build torpedoes. How am I supposed to beat a swarm of fighters from the Robots anyway??

As a successful Lizard player, there is one thing you have going for you: Money, Lots and Lots and Lots and LOTS of it! If you’ve got it, and Alchemy ships, build starbases to defend your planets. If you haven’t had time to set up a strong intimidation based economy (Love that hiss mission), I cant help you much..

For all you Lizard People out there that have played for quite a awhile, How are we supposed to beat anyone?? This is my first game, my ships suck, I’m over extended in planets, because my lizards mine too fast then get angry,

Mining faster then everyone else is GOOD. The reason your natives or colonists are angry is because you are taxing them to high. The lizard HISSS mission will help solve this problem.

I have to build all freighters to send them back to my two starbases which are already sucked dry. This means I have a few escorts, and my biggest ship is the size of the Robots tech 6. Not only that they are about to attack me, and they can at any given time, because I don’t have any mines, all my Mo are in my freighter’s hulls, and the freighters just ship Supplies back and forth. Meanwhile I have to let the ULS Patrick (Merlin) to rune seven or eight times |just so I can build another one, and build torpedoes. How am I supposed to beat a swarm of fighters from the Robots anyway??

From your description you probably going to die if the Robots want to kill you. You have to be careful with your minerals from the start of the game all I can say is think ahead several turns. Your ultimate goal is to find Bovinod planets and put Merlin alchemy ships in orbit around them for an unlimited supply of minerals.

How do you kill someone with the lizards?

Build lots of lizard class cruisers with high tech torpedo tubes. Put lots of torpedo's and clans on board, go into enemy territory cloaked, drop clans off on his worlds. It takes over 900 clans to get planetary defense up to 80 so most worlds will have 60 or less defense which will make the lizards ground attack ratio 30:4 instead of 30:1. So 200 clans can kill 1500 enemy clans. That's 2 or 3 well developed worlds or as many lightly populated worlds as you can reach. Since the lizard cruiser cloaks the only way to stop this attack is with mines. That's why the cruisers have high tech torps to lay mines to destroy enemy mine fields. Its a bitch for the enemy to take back the planets because lizards can take 150% damage (yes even the planets) and if they don’t build up the planetary defense then it makes it that much easier for the lizards to take.

Unfortunately the Robots are the lizards worst nightmare only the lizard battleship (and alchemy ships) have more than 4 beam thus fighter races have an advantage. And the robots mine 4 times better than everyone. The only thing the lizards can do to stop a direct attack is build lots of battleships with x-ray lasers and high tech torps.

What kinds of ships are best at Hissing? And how much over amounts can I get per turn, safely?

Build Escorts. Lots of them. With 6 or 7 in the air you can get taxes up to about 75%!!! The T-Rex is small but only requires 2 engines. It is therefor cheap to build. Build a fleet.

Use the LCCs as planetary attack ships. Cloak and drop colonists. Even captured freighters can be used as assault ships by Lizards. Capture the freighters and then drop the colonists (if that is what they are carrying on a planet. If you have enough you get the planet. If not you dropped his population by a big margin.

Do the Lizards have to be offensive early on?

I’ve never played the Lizards, but they are oriented reasonably well for defense: with your 30:1 ground combat ratio when attacked, it’s darn hard to take your planets away from you. For offense, I think you’d do well to slowly advance your borders outwards, crushing enemy frontier worlds by dumping massive numbers of colonists onto them.

The 150% is only really important in the battle where you get to that figure; but it’s quite impressive there. I have taken on many Rushes with T-Rexes and it generally requires 2 T-Rexes lost and the third damaged; that’s 1 less than the usual number of Victorious/Diamond flame b-ships usually lost. This carries over into the other Liz. ships as well. The Lizards real problem is the lack of ships with many beams, which makes them vulnerable to carriers; they fare well against torpedo races like the Feds and Fascists. But that’s symptomatic of the greater strength carriers have against all torpedo ships. A 1-1 kill ratio is nothing to sneer at! The Lizard cloakers are generally light in combat potential, but cheap in minerals, tech levels for the hull, and credits. Thus, you can crank T-Rexes at old established starbases, while making cloaking ships at the new frontier bases. They do have good cruising range, and excellent cargo capacity for assault troops, supplies for repairs (important when penetrating minefields) and torpedoes (for extended raiding campaigns and mine laying). 2 of the cloakers can survive a mine hit (the Liz cruiser 2 hits). When loaded with supplies, they can be in pretty good shape after that hit. They are not intended to be heavy combat ships, but are quite adequate at planet-busting and convoy raiding, as well as planet-taking ground assault. The Reptile is strictly a scout; but it’s fine against freighters, and can take a small frontier world with 50 colonists in the cargo hold. They have cloaking and that is nice. The ground attack is also nice.

Take them on the offensive and conquer new worlds by hand-to-hand combat! But, do it early in the game.

Agreed, be quick out the gate. But not only the ground assault - the double mining and HISS mission give them the cash and minerals to build starbases and reach high tech levels early.

On the defensive Lizards suck.

Why? Lot’s of other races won’t have their cash to lay minefields, or a ship to match the T-rex, and they never have to worry about ground assault. They can afford starbases to toughen their planets better than most, as well. Sure they don’t have huge ships, but can’t you think of something to offer a neighbor (or a neighbor’s enemy) from their stock of goodies, to get a ship in trade?

To do well you probably need a good starting position and build lots of starbases quick so you can get massive numbers of the pathetic ships.

The ships are not pathetic-they’re as good as most Fed except the high-end, which with 70% mining the Feds have trouble building; are comparable with Birds (except their B-ship doesn’t cloak); better than Fascist, Privateer (except the speed), Cyborg (except the cubes), Crystal (except the expensive Crystal Thunder), and not too shabby against the Rebels and colonies, except the Pat, Rush and Virgo - and as I said, you just have to sacrifice some T-Rexes. The 500 ship limit is their biggest enemy; fight it by building lots of bases, and destroying the bases of your enemies (or capturing them!). That demands either treachery, or a little homework. They aren’t any good at simply walking over the enemy, like the Cyborg in the end-game, but what fun is that?

If you concentrate overrun type missions on key enemy planets, it can be very successful. Imagine being able to take the enemy’s starbase just with an overrun (possible in games where all sides start with very low populations)! Being able to do it from a cloaked ship means you’ve got deep penetration on your side, except against the Privateers (who can anticipate where you will try to strike, and Rob you blind) and people who build minefields.

The FAQ suggests finding warm planets to breed lots of Lizard colonists. Sounds like a good idea.

On the defensive Lizards suck.#2 

One thing in your favor is that your planetary defense is boosted by that 150% bonus. A "depth" defense where you build up a lot of well-defended planets and wait for the enemy to attack works best for you than for any of the other race.

Lizards - Have pretty good ships. The 150% damage ratio can help, but only if you can get a few more torpedo's off in those last few seconds of life. The Lizards need LOTS of cruisers and LOTS of colonists, as that is they’re only defense against the big fighter races. They just don’t have the Fascist plethora of beams. All-in-all, a good race if played properly. They’re mining ability and HISS mission make finding natives and good planets essential. In a bad position, the Lizards will find it tougher than most to be strong. In a good position, they can be dominant.

Yes- the Lizards can arrive cloaked, drop colonists, and leave, without ever uncloaking. The only defense against this type of attack is to lay mines and hope he hits one. Web mines are especially good. The Privateers have the option of leaving ships in orbit set to "rob", although this won’t catch the lizard ship until after it’s dropped its marines.

The best defense, of course, is not to let the lizard get close enough to do this to many planets at once. Don’t keep much fuel on the ground at any border planets.

In my game as the Lizard (in turn 130 something, with 103 ships ‘ruling’ the space lanes), I can confirm this, more or less. Lizard ships will survive battles if they are damaged 100%. If they are involved in multiple battles, they will go on to fight the next battle even if damaged 100%. However, they will have negative shields for this battle. e.g. a 130% damaged ship will have shields of -30%. A neat bug. I’ve never had a ship with negative shields survive a battle, though, so I don’t know what happens. However, after all battles are done, the ships 100% damaged do indeed seem to disappear. This stuff is more than likely host-version dependent.

Lizard ships who hit mines to be damaged 100% do not disappear, though. So this would be the way to test the capture scenario. Since the scenario mentioned involved the Crystals, this is probably what happened. This is one of the things I love about the Lizards- the Lizard Cruiser can survive two mine hits (damage of %124) and still move off at about warp 6. One hit (62%) and it can still do warp 9. [If a Lizard ship, at 99% damage, if captured by another race, WILL blow up., Ed.]

What is the best way for the Lizards to counter a Gorbie? What about a Super Star Carrier (or whatever the name was). I have plenty of resources and was going to through T-Rexes at them, but the thought just hit me to use Escorts to take out fighters, since they are dirt cheap. I will also be mining quite a bit shortly. What are the best Lizard ships overall? Someone had suggested the Madonzilla carrier, but I always thought they had too few bays for a carrier. The Lizard Class Cruiser also looks very good for mine laying. I believe it held something like 290 mines.

Generally given equal strength empires, The Empire will cream the Lizards, so your best options would either to surrender or try and placate the Empire player. If you have plenty of Credits, offer 10-30 thou to him, maybe he will attack someone else instead.
Note: If the Empire has purchased bulk Meteors from the Privateers, and is towing his Gorbies from deep within his Empire into battle using them, then he will have substantially lower fuel costs than normal and can also counterattack with rapid and deep thrusts at your starbases. If he also owns half a dozen bovine planets with starbases then he can turnout a couple of Gorbies each turn, which could make life considerably more difficult and a prolonged war futile.

The LCC is a good ship to lay mines and dump colonists on enemy planets, but your main battleship is the T-Rex. Since you have to play against a fighter race you should fix them with X-Rays and Mk7 or Mk8.

The fighter production is slow for the Empire and the Gorbies are expensive. Assume a T-Rex takes out 35 fighters on a Gorbie, so if you have an average of one battle per turn he needs 7 bases to reproduce the fighters. If you add some Escorts he will need even more bases. (Of course never, ever attack a Gorbie with just one T-Rex).

Use wolfpacks of T-Rex, 3 T-Rex should kill a Gorbie. One T-Rex should also beat a SS Carrier/Cruiser. Go for his planets with LCC’s full of colonists so he will need 2000+ clans on every planet to hold them (esp. his bases). Go for his bases with T-Rex if he has many colonists on his bases. He will have a tough time to move his Gorbies to defend the bases (and he will need lots of fuel). He will need also 60 fighters at every front base to defend the base. Capture his freighters (stay cloaked at planets and wait for his freighters, tow them away and capture them). The Empire needs lots of minerals (for the expensive ships and all those bases), so capturing or destroying freighters is an effective way to weaken him. The Empire is strong if it has 10+ bases and lots of ships, otherwise the torpedo ship is too light and fighters are rare (so it would be a good idea to use some Escorts to take out fighters).

If they have comparable starting positions the Lizard is clearly superior to the Empire. (This of course changes quite a bit if the Empire produces more free fighters per base, say 10+.)

C. The Bird Men

Birdmen are monstrous cloakers. They can cloak nearly all, one occasionally wonders that one can still see their planets.

Also they can, via the super spy mission, find out your friendly code in order to steal fuel and other stuff from your planets.

Two strategy hints: change your friendly codes on endangered planets each round, and mine, mine, mine to keep the Birds off your territory!

Your Escort is the Bright Heart. Want more power? Use the Deth Specula.

Now that planets can have friendly codes of ATT and NUK, what good is the Bird Men Super Spy Mission? Is there still anyway to steal from planets?

Well, since when a Bird Man is on a Super Spy mission, cloaking is part of the mission, it is kind of hard for a planet to NUK or ATTack something that for all planetary sensors that is not there...

Birdmen - The strongest race in the game by far. The new hosts have brought the Robots off of the throne with the limits on minefields (a welcome change). People talk about the cheap Fascist battleship, but the Birdman battleship costs a few dollars and a few moly more for two more tubes and CLOAKING. This ship can decimate any race’s defenses if used properly. In addition, all the little ships have good cargo space, torps, and cloaking which makes them great explorers/colonizers. They don’t have a carrier worth crap, but who needs carriers when you have fleets of Darkwings? The greatest weakness of the Birds is finding that big money planet so they can boost their technology. Once the economy is strong, this bunch will take over, Golems and Gorbies aside...

One thing about this is that if you Super Spy, then aren’t you open to being attacked by the other player’s warships? Surely you lose any element of surprise? If you attempt it on a planet with a...

No, you are still cloaked while you Super Spy, which makes it one of the more useful race capabilities in the game.

How many DarkWings can a task force of two Biocides, with about 110 fighters each, expect to beat? Best case? Worst case?

For my 2c, I reckon the two Biocides will take out 5 DarkWings. I know a Virgo can take out two and still be only about 50% damaged, so a Biocide might take out three, hence a second Bio will take out numbers four and five (assuming number three is badly wounded by the first Bio, even if it isn’t destroyed). Sorry about that .....

D. The Fascist Empire

Your Escort of Choice is the Thorn, or the Deth Specula.

kill the ships, then take over the planet with your sabotage mission still set, you will lose the planet because of sabotaging your one token clan. I’ve (as the Fascists) pillaged to death a single clan before. And purely because I didn’t bother to simulate the situation first. Simulation is the best answer to these sorts of questions.

Actually Rebel sabotage is somewhat more predictable than Fascist Pillage. In a recent game of [3.11d] I have found that Pillaging an Amorphous planet is highly unpredictable. In one case I had 20 clans and after pillaging had 7. In another case I had 50 clans, but they were all wiped out and I had to re-colonize. This has continued and I have found repeatedly that the number of clans you need to start with in order to survive pillaging varies all over the map.

It isn’t explained by the disposition of the natives, they have remained "calm" for 15 turns. I know Amorphous natives tend to eat 5 clans per turn, but on some turns it seems they have a smorgasbord.

pillaging had 7. In another case I had 50 clans, but they were all wiped out and I had to re-colonize. This has continued and I have...

Are you dropping the clans in the same turn you pillage? The only other factor I can think of might be climate. I have been using pillage more of ten recently, and was hoping to do something like "drop 10 clans, pillage (and lose 6 clans), drop 6 clans, pillage, etc" to wipe out unsavory native populations. The pillaging I’ve done so far seems to have been fairly consistent, but I haven’t tried an intense pillaging cycle yet.

Sell D7 Coldpains to the Privateers for their Meteor class Gravatonic ships. You get good ships while they get something with a 425+ fuel tank to rob other people with.

What good is the Fascist Pillage mission? What do other people use the pillage mission for? On which planets does pillage work? I tried it on an Amorphous world, where I had no colonists, and nothing happened on the first turn, so I left. Is pillage any good, or should I ask the Rebels to use their ground attack

You can’t pillage unless the planet has colonists on it (yours or someone else's). What I use it for is to help the Fascists expand faster. When I find a planet with a native population I beam down 15-20 clans and pillage the planet. You get 100 supplies and 100 MC for every 1 million natives, you also kill off 20% of your clans and 20% of the natives. Next turn beam down more clans their should be plenty of money and supplies to build factories and mines. Beam up excess money and supplies to use on planets that don’t have native races. Plus you can offer your pillage skills to the Cyborgs since they often have an over population problem.

on which planets does pillage work? I tried it on an Amorphous world, where I had no colonists, and nothing happened on the first turn, so I left.

There must be colonists on the planet. For example, you could unload 6 colonists onto the planet and Pillage in the same turn (all the colonists will be killed), and then repeat the procedure the next turn, systematically exterminating the Amorphous natives. Unless there were very few natives to start with, you can’t really hope to clear the planet entirely. But since you don’t usually build on Amorphous planets you don’t care whether the natives hate you, so you can happily build up several thousand units of supplies and money with repeated Pillages.

For offense, the Rebel Ground attack is superior, but Pillaging is by NO MEANS useless for offense—it just can’t be used as well on a hit and run basis. On a planet that has no starbase, plundering will give the enemy money and supplies, but since the population is dying, the defenses, factories, and mines will SLOWLY dwindle (dependent on the structural decay factor), and there will be nothing to spend the money on (unless he has enough minerals to make a starbase). You can detail a little ship to do this that couldn’t hope to beat a planet with D10! Strategically, this forces the enemy to come to the rescue, and to claim all that cash. This can make minefields put in his way a very useful strategic option.

It can also be used for besieging a starbase with heavy defenses but few minerals. You put your fleet on pillage, with a couple of troop-laden freighters. (This works unless starbases are allowed to ATT/NUK fascists in orbit). The enemy can now attack only with his ships, which you can hopefully handle. He will have quite a few turns to reinforce, so you have to plan this well. If he has enough minerals, you may be forced to fight some of his heavies—he’ll have plenty of money. If his struggles fail, once his population is below a thousand clans or so, you should be able to land your troops, and capture a starbase loaded with cash and supplies, although the population will take a while to calm down. Easier said than done, but it is one of the few ways a home planet starbase can actually be captured.

In a game in which population is more important than cash, hit-and-run pillaging on a home planet may also have some limited success.

Recently people have been referring to incidents where mondo carno warships have been destroyed by smaller ships like the Victorious. Does anyone have VCR files that show this happening?

It depends on what you mean with taking out big ships. It’s quite easy for Fascists (for example) to destroy an Instrumentality. I did it yesterday: two Deth Specula's with light beams and Mark 8 Photons. The Instrumentality has about 20 per cent damage. The last attacking ship was a Victorious. No more baseship.

I was initially depressed, but after the recent discussion about strategy vs. powerful ships I’m hopeful that there is a way to kill such heavy enemy ships. Using a carrier myself (like the Valiant Wind) seems to be the most useful approach, but how long would a small carrier last against 10 torpedo tubes?

Do not use Valiant Wind. Victorious is much better. No baseship with only three bays is no good in battle.

3) Fascists - Good in a bad position and excellent against fighter races with all those cheap beam platforms. Pillage can get a lot of goodies out of those worthless amorphous, and the Deth Specula is one of the best first-strike planet busters available, especially with good torpsedo's. The Fascists will win by numbers and not with quality. Not the best race, but not the worst race. Robots hate these guys cause they kill fighters so fast and the Robots best fighter maker is the Golem.

I had a ship in orbit with PILLAGE PLANET mission plus movement. Since special missions come before movement, the foreign planet must have been plundered. But I didn’t receive a message. What happened?

Pillage planet definitely does not happen before movement. Sad thing for the Fascists and what a relief to the other races.

I thought I once heard someone mention pillage un-owned planets, but I tried pillaging an amorphous planet, and I didn’t get any pillaging message. Is it only possible to pillage a planet that is owned by another player?

You cannot pillage a planet which is has not been colonized. However, you can pillage an amorphous planet if you drop a clan every month.

PILLAGE comes after movement, so does the Rebel GROUND ATTACK (sabotage).

You can PILLAGE planets owned by anyone, but there must be at least 1 clan of colonists. You can’t PILLAGE an un-owned planet.

Also (here’s one for free) you will get unpredictable results pillaging Amorphous planets. Nominally you should kill 20% of the colonists and 5 clans should get eaten. However, more colonists die in this situation than you anticipate. Sometimes. For example, if you PILLAGE an Amorphous planet with 45 clans you would expect about 30 clans to remain. Psych. They are ALL killed. Sometimes. Sometimes about 20 clans survive.

D7a Painmaker Class Cruiser - DOES NOT CLOAK
D7 Coldpain Class Cruiser - CLOAKS

F. The Cyborg Collective

Well, as far as the Cyborgs go, their ships are garbage. The best solution I have found is to build one or two good ships, and lots of B41s. They cost almost nothing to make, and even if they are outarmed by anything with torpedoes, you can literally saturate an area with them. They make good cannon fodder to soften up large ships or planets too.

Fireclouds can’t fight enemy ships. Sure they can take out an all beam ship, but they will fail against much lighter ships. So what do you do when that Cygnus is following you? Lay mines and stop at the far edge. Most of the lightweight ships that can beat a Firecloud are in the 100 KT range. If your opponent has his ship set to intercept he will be traveling through the full diameter of the minefield. Even if he makes it, it isn’t like you could have survived. You can scoop the mines and move again next turn.

What if his ship is 100 KTs? Well, either hope he hits two mines or is damaged enough to be taken out. Usually these ships don’t beat the Firecloud though, they totally annihilate it. So unless you can beat the ship fair and square, your better off facing it with just beams and (hopefully) damaged than with lots of torps you never get to fire.

You are quite lost (without altlist3). Use your money advantages from assimilated Natives, and maximize your planet defenses. Secure your space with mining, and if you absolutely must, use Fireclouds with good torps as Transports.

I’m playing a game where I’m the Cyborg. The birdmen are sending their ships and mining the area around my starbase and planets. They are also tracking down my freighters. Now I've played with the sim program, and basically I don’t think I have a chance. Except perhaps for the Firecloud ship. Any suggestions?

Lay your own mine fields, register its only 15 bucks, build some cube ships, and start looking for another game because your probably toast.

Well, if you can build any cubes, you might want to try a frontal assault. Otherwise, it sounds like you’re hosed. You may want to see if you can become friendly with whoever is on your other border and see if they will lend assistance. (Once you’re fallen to the Birdmen, they may be next).

Why don’t you mine your own space, to discourage free movement of cloakers. And use Fireclouds as freighters, at least temporarily, or organize your freighters into escorted convoys? One advantage the Cyborg have is that planets where natives were assimilated, with lots of defense posts, are hard to take, so you needn’t waste ships defending those worlds...

Well, as far as the Cyborgs go, their ships are garbage. The best solution I have found is to build one or two good ships, and lots of B41s. They cost almost nothing to make, and even if they are outarmed by anything with torpedoes, you can literally saturate an area with them. They make good cannon fodder to soften up large ships or planets too.

Hello... I’m currently playing my first game as the Cyborgs. It’s very early in the game (<10 turns), and I’ve found a humanoid world. I frantically shipped minerals to it (poor minerals on the planet), and it is now constructing a starbase. I’ve already seen empire and reel ships flying around, mostly freighters though. My question is, where should I go from here? (btw, I also have another planet, no natives though) I think I should go find some mineral-rich worlds, and start some heavy duty shipping of minerals to that humanoid starbase, so I can make some tech 10 hull ships. (cubes this early in the game should be nice to have). What do you more experienced players think? If you are unregistered or the game is unregistered then you are doing well.

If you are registered then you wasted your minerals building a starbase because you only need 3000MC to get from tech 6 hulls to tech 10 hulls. You’ll waste that much building the new starbase and getting some decent torpedo and beam weapon tech on the new base. The problem with the Cyborg is it takes huge amounts of minerals to build the cube ships. The solution is to build an alchemy ship or two to make supplies. Once you have assimilated several planets with large populations you should be able to make lots of factories to keep the alchemy ships well supplied.

I have two worlds that have reached the eating supplies point (Cyborgs assimilating 8-9M natives). Two questions: Exactly what happens, do they eat all supplies produced on the planets? (That seems to be what is happening) or is there some formula for how much gets eaten?

They will eventually eat all of your supplies. There is no way to stop this unless you can have someone kill off your population. A downfall of the Cyborg race .. one of the few :-) They won’t riot or anything .. unless you tax them too much. BTW you can tax them all you want ... they still grow. Even at 20-30%

What's the best way to get the pop. back under control? I have already asked my friendly Fascist neighbor to help but I haven’t gotten a response as of yet.

Ask your friendly neighborhood lizard to crush your planet for you if the defenses are low enough.

If there are not enough supplies will the pop go down?

NO

I really don’t want to cause a riot since I’ll lose all my factories and mines...

Your mines will still operate, unless you throw them into a riot. Basically, on high native planets get the max mining you want out of it and don’t worry about the factories since they will eventually become useless.

I have already set taxes to "Hate You" in hopes of stopping growth...

Forget it. Let them be happy or at least accept you as their leader.

This is a problem that I frequently run into with the Cyborg- seems that I can pretty count on half my planets not producing any supplies after I’ve owned them for any length of time. The only solution seems to be to make friends with the Fascists and get them to pillage your planets.

Look, when the population hits 7 mil set taxes at 25-40% (depending on their original mood and the climate) and wait ‘till they get "Very Angry". Then set taxes to max green value. Sometimes they still grow, but it’s pretty slow. If the planetary temp is 50 you can get up to about 10 mil. If you stop a little over the limit you can pull off some colonists and dump them on amorphous. The real problem is when you assimilate 10 mil natives on a desert world (or similar situations). The only cure I know is to start a riot.

Now, if the Cyborg only had an even half-decent warship other than the cube, I’d be happy. The Fire Cloud makes a nice armed transport, but hardly counts as a warship. Even something like a Cygnus-class destroyer would be highly useful to them.

Yep, the Fireclouds aren’t that good. But, they do make descent escorts and the quietus makes a good minelayer. It has good range, and withstand a meteor impact with ~50% damage, and carries plenty of torps. Plus it is rather cheap.

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