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Suggestions for Tiny/Small Maps
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I have found that while I can win reliably now on the larger maps, I have a significant problem with Tiny/Small maps. I use about an 80/0/20 split while building colony ships, or 100/0/0 if there are abundant planets to colonize, and only colonize 15+ to start, switching off to 14+ after the big rush. Then have tried various different strategies following the colonization rush.
On larger maps, I haven't had many problems. But on Tiny/Small maps, I almost always either A) Don't get enough planets early enough, and the AI outpaces me, or B) Get enough planets, but the AI has built military already and starts demanding tribute before I can use the planets I've got.
I see lots of threads here, but they all seem to focus on "Get planets quickly" and "rush to certain techs on research"... On these smaller maps, I haven't the time to get the techs and military before the tribute demands start rolling in!
Any suggestions?
        
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#2
by Citizen 1_3G10N - 9/13/2003 3:54:35 AM
All I've played are tiny, small, and medium, so I should be able to help you out. I don't have time for larger maps. And I can take down crip no prob. I still can't get a handle on maso, though, so you're on your own there. Okay, here goes...
My current fovorite civ-stats right now are Populist party (morale +20, dip +20), along with trade +30 and dip +60 bonuses. Any level of habitable planets is fine, but I'd avoid abundant, cause then AI pops get too stinkin big and it's very difficult to take systems. You only need three or four starting planets. Any more than that and your hurting yourself. Let the AI waste its time colonizing planets and just take them from it.
turn 1:
~33/33/34 split (just leave the default)
~crank the gov spending 100% (of course)
~earth builds colony ship/soil imp
~get your begining colony ship to nearest best system
~get your survey ship out making contact with civs
~research comm theory
research order:
comm theory
univ trans
diplo
trade
weap theory
phasers
early build order (tech dependant, of course):
soil imp
hab imp
bank
manf cent
shipyard
As soon as your third or fourth (however many are around you) planet is colonized, go 0/50/50 on the spending. Make sure you have a constructor building on earth while colony #2 is building a colony ship for colony #4. You want progress as a prebuild to a freighter
You want to get univ trans so you can get trading with as many civs as possible as soon as possible. They will trade rather willingly with the above civ stats. You will need to check every civ at least every two turns to see if they have techs to trade yet.
As soon as you get trade (the tech) switch to 50/0/50 and kick out two freightors. These are critical, both for relations and for money. I usually make sure one of them gets to the dregs right away, cause they almost always grow in power very rapidly. You're also going to want to build a few star fighters (or defenders, if you can, but that tech is hard to trade for), just to keep your mil-power looking high, to keep people from messin with you.
Once you've got two freightors and four or so star fighters, make sure you have a manf center on earth (from during the previous 0/50/50 split) and start kickin out diplo translators. This is one nice trade good, and will help you, along with these civ stats, to keep everyone happy with you and trade for a good half of your techs throughout the game.
After I get diplo trans I'll usually keep a 0/50/50 split building improvements and trade goods (just about all of them), keeping an eye on my military power all the while. If it starts to drop, I'll switch to 100/0/0 for a few turns and kick out enough ships to put me back on top. I'll usually make sure during these times to get some extra freightors ready for when more trade routes open up.
Now from here, it depends on dificulty level as to when you hit. For normal I can usually start hitting the nearest civ or two with corvettes. Every level up from there you seem to need to wait an extra generation of ships: frigates on challenging, and so on and so forth. I sometimes won't hit crips until I've got drednaughts or rangers even, but even then you can usually get by hitting the nearest civ with only battleships. Just make sure you go all out when you hit. On tiny/small maps you can always take out each civ in one turn, cause they only have a few systems. Bide your time, cause everyone loves you if you play this way. Get everything set up. Position your troops just outside thier sectors (so they don't yell at you for it), and wait till you've got everything you need to hit. If someone's getting to powerful, they're you next target. It's best if they're at war, cause then they'll have very few ships in orbit. They're all out fighting. If they're not at war, you can bride them to go to war, then hit them as soon as they pull thier ships out to go after the "enemy." Just make sure you always take them out in one turn and you'll never have to worry about retaliation. Pick them off one at a time like this, and make sure you have cultural victory turned off, or you'll accidentally win like that, and that's worth less points. You will need to keep incrimenting the power of the ships you attack with every successive civ you take out, but even on crip I've never had to go past rangers. once you've got half the galaxy you don't have to worry about things too much. You will obviously kick out tech and ships much faster than anyone else. Just make sure you trade for tech practically every turn. That is the most important thing. I spend a lot of time at 0/100/0. You can keep up tech trading for a long time like that, and as soon as you start to fall behind just go back to 0/50/50 for a little while. (I usually go 0/0/100 to get battleship, dread, and ranger techs, cause no one's gonna trade those to you, even with all these diplo bonuses). Make sure you keep all the civs balanced as far as tech goes. You don't want one civ getting too powerful. One time I wasn't paying attention, just clicking through turns, testing some things out, when all of a sudden the only two civs left were the two goodie-two-shoes civs, and they had an alliance. Made the game a bit more challenging that way, but even then you can still pick them off one at a time. If you take one of them out in one turn, the other won't even notice and won't go to war with you (found that out the hard way).
Anyway, hope this made sense. Key points: Trade tech like no tomorrow, set up trade routes with all civs, build every improvement and trade good you can get your hands on (at 0/100/0 a lot of the time, trading tech to keep up) and keep your military power at the top with 100/0/0 bursts. This will keep everyone happy with you while you pick them off one at a time, always in one turn each.
  
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