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11A. Dreadlord Battle Manual |
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11K. The Evil Empire |
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11B.
Colonel's Thoughts |
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11L. The
Robotic Imperium |
1. Introduction to VGA Planets |
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7. Minefields
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11C. Early Game Strategy |
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11M. The
Rebel Confederation |
2. Race Information Sub-Menu |
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8. Combat
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11D. The
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11N. The
Missing Colonies of Man |
3. Friendly Codes Sub-Menu |
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9. Ion Storm
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11E. The
Lizard Alliance |
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4. Planet Information Sub-Menu |
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11F. The
Empire of the Birds |
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11. Strategy and Strategy Guides |
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11G. The
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6. Ship Information Sub-Menu |
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12. Add-on
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11H. The
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11I. The
Cyborg |
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11J. The
Crystal Confederation |
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EARLY GAME STRATEGY: |
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Early-game Strategy |
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By Jurjen Niezink |
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When
you take a look at VGA-Planets, one of the most exciting things in a game is
the starting position. Where am I located? |
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Are
there any clusters of planets nearby, what is the range to other empires? Of
course, a lot of things are dependent on the |
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host-settings,
but it is a player's choice whether or not he or she joins a game. |
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In
this article, I would like to focus on the early game strategy, which will
enclose the first 15-20 turns in a game. It is my |
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opinion,
that there are three crucial things in the beginning of a game: economy,
strategy and diplomacy. All of these |
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interesting
fields overlap, so I'll try to include all of them. But let's start with the
beginning, the host-configuration. Imagine |
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you
are joining a game with the following, standard, settings: |
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Mining settings: Default |
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Tax settings: Default |
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Ships visible range
(Starcharts): 300 LY |
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Sensor mission range: 200 LY |
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Overpopulation eats supplies:
No |
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Isotope
rate: 5 |
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Mine detect range: 200 LY |
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Climate Death rate: 10 % |
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Planets have gravity wells: Yes |
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Climate limits population: Yes |
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Ion-Storms:
No |
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Cloaked ships can attack: Yes |
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Bioscanners:
Yes |
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Range to other players: Medium |
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Homeworlds:
Classic, in a circle, starting point random. |
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Add-ons:
Pwrap |
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Explorer |
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As
you can see, these are the default settings of hconfig.exe. So, all other
settings not listed here are by default as well, for |
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those
of you who want to know that.The Add-ons Pwrap and Explorer make the game
more interesting, since you can fly |
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around
the map and end up on the other side. Explorer limits your vision to what you
have scanned with your ships, so you |
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start
at a position where you will only be able to see about 14 planets. |
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First
of all I would like to say that the early-game strategy I'm going to describe
here, is one of the many possibilities. It is |
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written
from the experience I have in playing VGA-Planets and hosting the game as
well. A second thing to mention is the |
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choice
of which host program to use. There are differences between Phost and Host,
both have their pro's, but also some |
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contra's.
This article is based on a Host game, but the strategy given here is also
implementable in a Phost game. |
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In
the beginning.... there was void. You start with two ships, engine tech 7,
and 15000 MC. You see east and south-east from |
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your
homeworld two planets, range about 60 LY. There is a cluster of four planets
north-west, range 180 LY to the nearest |
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planet,
a cluster of four north-east of you, range 150 LY and several planets west
and south of you, with a range > 80 LY. |
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What
should you do? A lot of people who will be asked this question will say:
"That's race dependent", and they are right |
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about
it. Nevertheless it is possible to generalize. Max your factories and don't
max your mines. Build a Bioscanner or a |
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Large
Deep Space Freighter (LDSF) and send out your two ships. |
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And
here I would like to make the first remark about strategy. Stay invisible as
long as possible. What if your opponents, not |
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necessary
enemies but still opponents, are located in that beautiful looking cluster
north-west of your homeworld. Should |
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you
be heading in it's way? I don't think so. Stay out of sight, if you need to
fly at a higher warp than your engines are |
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suitable
for, so be it. Just remember the gravity wells, which enable you to fly 84 LY
with warp 9. As long as you stay out of |
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sight,
you'll stay out of trouble. Don't be too greedy and rush for the
cluster(s). |
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Then
there is the point of filling your ships. A player I know, once said that if
you want to colonize a planet, you'll need at |
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least
100 clans. This would give you 100 factories and 100 mines. Unfortunatly, you
don't have enough cargo-room in your |
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SDSF
for 100 clans and additional supplies. Therefor keep in mind that on a
temperate-warm world 15 clans will reproduce, |
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while
on a tropical or cool world 20 clans are needed. So I'll say fill your SDSF
with 60 clans and 10 supplies, which will be |
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enough
for four warm-worlds or for three tropical-cool worlds. But what if you
encounter a desert or arctic world? Here I |
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would
like to refer to the article written by Timo Kreike, which was published in
Echoes of the Cluster issue #5, September |
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1996,
called 'Push your Economy to the max'. Economy is one of the most critical
parts of VGA-Planets and in this article |
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allmost
everything is explained. I will give two formula's from this article, which
are common knowledge for the experienced |
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players. |
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1.
Max clans on a arctic world = (20100 - CDR% - 200 * (99 - temp)) / CDR% |
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example: |
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You
encounter a world with a temp of 6, but it has a lot of minerals so you want
as many mines as possible on that world. |
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You
would be able to drop, with the settings given at the beginning of this
article: (20100 - 10 - (200 * 93)) / 10 = 149 clans |
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who will stay alive, so
149 mines. |
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2.
Max clans on a desert world = (20100 - CDR% - 200 * temp) / CDR % |
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example: |
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A world with a temp of
98 could have: (20090 - 19600) / 10 = 49 clans |
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Now
the game continues, it is turn two, you have found the two planets mentioned
above and your LDSF is ready for |
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takeoff.
Where should it be heading too? There was this cluster northwest and one
northeast, but to fly there would make |
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you
visible to other players. As mentioned before, avoid that as long as
possible, so send it out planet hopping to the onces |
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west
and south. I usually fill my LDSF's with 1080 clans and 120 supplies and 100
MC. This enables me to drop 90 clans and |
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10
supplies on every planet I find, assuming that the climate is good enough to
support 90 clans. The 100 MC is for the planet |
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which
has a lot of natives, so I'll be able to build up an economy fast. However,
if this is such a great planet, I would like to |
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defend
it against enemy sensor-sweeps or Bioscans. 15 defense posts will block a
sensor-sweep while 20 block a Bioscan. A side |
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effect
of this is that my opponents might think that there is no habitation if they
scan the planet. If they'll visit the planet, I'll |
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be
able to destroy the freighter, of even a light ship when I build more defense
posts. In general: stay out of sight as long as |
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possible,
build 14 factories on your new planets, then build 15 or 20 defense posts and
then max your factories and build as |
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many mines as you like. |
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Imagine
that this colonizing continues for a few more turns and it is now turn 6. You
have build two transwarp LDSF's and |
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some
destroyers. Should you be heading towards the clusters by now and probably
show yourself to other players? If you |
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have
planets within hopping range, no, but if you can't expand further without
traveling in open space you'll have to, since it |
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is
necessary to enlarge your empire as soon as possible. A good tactic is to fly
to one of the planets next to your homeworld |
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and
depart from there to the cluster. If you are spotted, most players will
assume that that's your homeworld. |
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A
whole different thing is diplomacy at this moment. Mostly, in this stage of
the game, diplomacy is just writing universal |
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messages
that you will assimilate others, or wish them good luck (in that order :-). I
enjoy this part of the early-game as much |
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as
the other parts in the game. It gives you an impression of what your
opponents are alike. But when you have set course |
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towards
that cluster, 2 months away, diplomacy gains potential. What if you
sensor-sweep other worlds and find colonist on |
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them?
Or even better, what if you see a Romulan LDSF pass by? Should you build an
attack-force and head towards his |
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empire?
Should you drop minefields and waste precious money and minerals? Or should
you try to negotiate a border and |
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perhaps
cooperate? The latter would be my choice, since you can both benifit from
cooperation. In the long run you could |
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exchange
ships, minerals, money, colonist or whatever. I would try to get a
non-aggresion agreement between myself and the |
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spotted
opponent. Later in the game this could evolve to a alliance, but I think it's
too early to form one now. |
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In
the meantime, your colonists grow and you are starting to get real low on
minerals on your homeworld. I would set up |
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transporter-routes,
to supply my starbase. A transporter-route is nothing more then a fixed
schedule of waypoints for one or |
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more
of your freighters. It is also wise to determine where the best suitable
place is for a second starbase. Often the best |
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choice
is the planet which will give you the most money and which has a reasonable
amount of minerals, but the choice could |
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also
be a strategic point in your empire. Just make sure that you can support it
with enough minerals and money. A bovinoid |
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world
is also a good choice, since this world will be able to supply itself if a
Merlin is stationed above it. The problem is that |
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a
Merlin costs a lot of minerals, and one shouldn't build a Merlin this early
in the game. |
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The
game continues and you are transporting more and more clans to your rich
worlds and bringing back the minerals to |
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your
starbase and now the time has come to build up your forces. You have probably
build some medium-ships, but now, |
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about
turn 12-15, your first heavy baseship should be rolling out of your base.
Depending on the situation with your |
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neighbours,
its task should be defensive or, if you are being attacked, even offensive.
It will have major influence in the |
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balance
of power in your region of the starmap. If you are forced in a defensive
frame of mind, try to build up battlegroups |
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and
start attacking yourself, since it is true that the best defense is offense.
For a good description of a battlegroup for a |
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certain race, read
the 'Dreadlord Battle Manual'. |
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Then
there is the issue of minefields. Mostly players cannot afford minefields
early in the games, but if you are being |
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harrased
by a cloaking race, you will need to drop them. A good tactic for dropping
minefields is to create lots of |
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overlapping,
medium, minefields. A medium minefield has a range of about 50 lightyears,
which is about 70 mark 4's (910 |
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mc).
Remember that the mark 4 is the best torp for the buck (read the h-files or
the infolist for more info). If you drop three |
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of
these fields around your crucial worlds, you'll have a decent defense. Andrew
Sterian wrote an excellent article about |
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mine-hit
probabilities in Echoes of the Cluster issue 2 and 3. |
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I
would like to end with the remark that there is no one right way to play
VGA-Planets, and that is what makes it such an |
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exciting
game. All of the above is written from my experience as a player and as a
host. Mostly it worked out well, at least I |
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never got beaten
in the first 20 turns of a game. |
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